Virtual Tour for Tilia Klebenov Jacobs’ Wrong Place, Wrong Time

When Tsara Adelman leaves her husband and two young children for a weekend to visit her estranged uncle, she little dreams he is holding several local children captive on his lavish estate. Mike Westbrook, father of one of the boys, kidnaps her to trade her life for the children’s. Soon Tsara and Mike are fleeing through New Hampshire’s mountain wilderness pursued by two rogue cops with murder on their minds.

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Tilia Klebenov Jacobs holds a BA from Oberlin College, where she double-majored in Religion and English with a concentration in Creative Writing. Following an interregnum as an outdoor educator with the Fairfax County Park Authority in Virginia, she earned a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and a Secondary School Teaching Certification from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Despite lacking the ability to breathe fire except in the strictly metaphorical sense, Tilia has taught middle school, high school, and college. She has also won numerous awards for her fiction and nonfiction writing. She is a judge in the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition, and she teaches writing in two prisons in Massachusetts. Tilia lives near Boston with her husband, two children, and two standard poodles. 

Link up:

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Highlight: Don't Pass Me by by Julie McGowan

1940: London is about to be ravaged by the Blitz. For Lydia the last beating is the final straw. She has to escape from her husband, and when a gas explosion rips their house apart she flees, taking baby Grace with her. Rejected by her father, and not knowing where to go next, she joins a crowd of evacuee children at the railway station, and her destiny is changed forever as they find themselves in rural Wales. "Don't Pass Me By" is the story not only of Lydia and Grace's salvation, but of the lives of a handful of evacuee children transplanted from the city to a tiny village filled with strangers who speak a different language. Torn away from their parents, each child learns to cope - one with a farm full of fearsome animals and a warm, caring family; others not so lucky. From the love and compassion of many, to sinister abuse from a few, the children find different ways to survive their own catastrophes, while Lydia finds what she has always been seeking - but when her masquerade of widowhood is shattered, will she lose everything? "Don't Pass Me By" is author Julie McGowan's third book, and the second based in her much-loved homeland of Wales. Her first, "The Mountains Between," became a regional best-seller. Her second book, "Just One More Summer," is a wonderfully intricate read based in Cornwall.

Julie McGowan was born in Blaenavon, South Wales. She left in her teens, and lived in various parts of the UK before returning, with her family, to South Wales and the rural town of Usk. Julie has been writing for over two decades; Don’t Pass Me By is her third novel and she also writes short stories, features, pantomimes, sketches and children’s plays. Her work features in regional magazines and newspapers, as well as in national magazines and newspapers such as The Lady, Woman’s Weekly and The Times Educational Supplement. When not writing Julie runs a local pantomime and a drama company for young people. She also runs a theatre company which tours secondary schools in Wales with productions that she also performs in, covering health and social issues. Julie’s first novel The Mountains Between became a regional bestseller and her second won first place in a literary competition chaired by novelist Katie Fforde. Julie is currently working on her fourth novel.

Highlight: While Beauty Slept by Elizabeth Blackwell

A beautiful princess lies in a sleep so deep it is close to death. Was Sleeping Beauty revived by a prince's kiss? What really happened in that tower so long ago? 

While Beauty Slept re-imagines the legend through the lens of historical fiction, telling the story as if it really happened. A Gothic tale of suspense and ambition, love and loss, it interweaves the story of a royal family and the servants who see behind the glamorous facade, following the journey of a young woman as she lives out a destiny that leads her to the brink of death.

As the daughter of a U.S. Foreign Service officer, Elizabeth Blackwell grew up in Washington, D.C., interspersed with stints in Africa, the Middle East and Europe--pretty much always with a book in hand. She majored in history at Northwestern University (hooray! more reading!) and received her master's in journalism from Columbia University, which led to a career as an editor and writer for a number of publications that have since gone out of business (surely just a coincidence?). She now writes fiction from her home office in the Chicago suburbs, in between wrangling her three children and fighting for a parking spot at the local Target.

Highlight: Leaving Green Island by Em Barrett

** "If you enjoy Emily Giffin or Jennifer Weiner, then add Em Barrett to your list!" ~The Indie Bookshelf **

** 2013 Beach Book Festival Honorable Mention **

More than simply a modern love story, Leaving Green Island is a poignant yet lighthearted tale of friendship, family and the search for a place to belong in the complex world of today's twenty-something women. 

With a new job at a prestigious Chicago law firm and an engagement ring on her finger, everything seems to be falling into place for Brecken Pereira these days. However, all this perfection quickly unravels when Reed Whalen, Brecken’s first love, unexpectedly resurfaces. The complicated history of the enigmatic Reed unfolds as the two summers that Brecken spent as a teenager on posh, exclusive Green Island in northern Michigan are interspersed with her relatable and humorous modern day trials and tribulations.

After Reed's reappearance, Brecken is torn between her longing for the past and the life she has carefully built for herself since Reed vanished years before. Her true-to-life and complex relationships with her two best friends provide the backbone that supports Brecken, both as the life she knows quickly dissolves around her and as she struggles to pick up the pieces. 

This unputdownable novel is certain to pull on the heartstrings of anyone who ever had a first love.

{As a heads up, this book contains underage drinking and a bit of explicit language and sexual content.}

About Em:  Bios are so tough...! Let's see, I grew up outside Detroit and then went to college and grad school at the University of Michigan. After almost six years in Chicago (which I loved), I just relocated back to the Detroit-area. I'm very excited about the move back home, especially when this is such an innovative and unique time period for Detroit! 

I just finished my second book, The Almosts, which is the companion novel to Leaving Green Island. I'm very excited about the January 2014 release of this book and look forward to hearing everyone's thoughts on the story.

Big fan of fountain Cokes and hoodies.

If there's anything else you want to know about me - send me a message :) And, be sure to add me as a friend on Goodreads and check me out on Facebook: www.facebook.com/EmBarrettBooks

Amy's Review: Relative Love by Amanda Brookfield

The Harrison family gathers as usual for Christmas in their big Sussex house - a tight safe world of festivity and family ritual. This year, however, outside realities are pressing hard: Pamela and John, married for four decades, know that time is catching up with them. And trouble is brewing in the lives of their four children. Cassie, the cossetted youngest, is in the throes of an affair with a married man; Elizabeth, her awkward older sister, is struggling with a faltering second marriage; Peter, the eldest and designated inheritor of Ashley House, is beginning to meet resistance to such a prospect from his career-orientated wife. Only Charlie, the charming and carefree younger son, and his wife Serena, seem truly content, with nothing to worry about except their adolescent twin girls and the simpler teething troubles of their toddler. 

Everywhere the scent of change is in the air. Yet, change, when it comes, strikes in the form of a tragedy of the most unforeseeable and devastating kind. The family, so apparently secure, begins to unravel.And secrets, past and present, are exposed, laying bare the fragility of human happiness and the myriad faces of love in an imperfect world.

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About the author:  (website): I have two elder sisters and a twin brother who is much quieter than me and with much longer legs. Our Dad was in the Foreign Office so we spent our childhood living in far-flung places like Shanghai and Stockholm. In fact, until the age of 32 I had never spent more than 3 years under the same roof...it's left me with the opposite of 'itchy feet'.

I fell in love with writing aged 11 when my class was asked to write a ghost story - that thrill of being able to make it all up! Studying English at Oxford was a dream come true, but then real life got in the way and I started a career in advertising, climbing the greasy pole for four years, helping sell washing powder and cold remedies.

Aged 25, I got the chance to go and live in Argentina. I left advertising, set myself up as a freelance journalist and wrote my first novel,'Alice Alone' which was published (to critical acclaim!) in 1989. I haven't stopped,or looked back, since. 

I am now published by Penguin. At the last count I had produced fifteen novels and two sons. There will be no more offspring, but lots of books I hope.

This book is about The Harris family and one year out of their lives.  Everyone in the family struggles with problems or secrets.  When the problems and the secrets are revealed their lives start to unravel and lives are disrrupted.  I thought this book started a bitvlittle slow, but soon I felt like I was part of the Harris family.  I liked how the author dedicated a chapter to every month of the year.  And I loved how the author centered the book around the house that has been in the family for many generations.  I also loved the cover.  I give this a 4 star review.

Highlight: Lost in Los Angeles by Jenny Lynne

After eighteen-year-old Erin Winters is betrayed by her high school crush, she travels to Los Angeles hoping to find a reason to live. Shortly after she arrives, she befriends a mysterious young man who captures her curiosity and her heart. Together they explore Los Angeles, sharing adventures and forming a powerful bond based on their pain-filled pasts. But this man has a devastating secret, one that will tear their friendship apart.

In LOST IN LOS ANGELES, Jenny Lynne gives us an insider's Los Angeles travel guide wrapped in an intriguing story of healing and hope, with an ending that you won't see coming.

I'm Jenny Lynne, a fairly ordinary person who has lived a somewhat extraordinary life. I've survived real-life encounters with tigers, lions, leopards, grizzly bears, monkeys, elephants, sea lions, and killer whales. I've also survived medical school and residency. These adventures inspired me to write my young-adult novels, WILD ANIMAL SCHOOL (about a sixteen-year-old who spends a summer learning to work with exotic animals) and KID DOCS (about a ten-year-old doctor who is part of an experimental program that trains young children to be doctors). I currently live in Los Angeles, California, the setting for my new-adult novel, LOST IN LOS ANGELES (sort-of a Los Angeles travel guide/love story).

You can find me...

On the LOST IN LOS ANGELES Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lost-i...

On the KID DOCS Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/KidDocs

On the WILD ANIMAL SCHOOL Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wild-A...

At my website: http://www.mydreamcametrue.com/jennyl...

You might also find me hiking in Southern California, taking my adorable and brilliant cat for a walk, or at Disneyland.

Review Roundup

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Forgiving Maximo Rothman

by A.J. Sidransky

On a chilly autumn night in New York, the lives of two men born decades and continents apart collide when Max Redmond is found bludgeoned in his Washington Heights apartment. While investigating the crime, Detective Tolya Kurchenko comes across the dead man's diaries, written by Redmond over four decades. He hopes the diaries will lead him to the killer. In fact, they help him sort out the complexities of his own identity. Spanning 65 years and three continents — from Hitler's Europe to the decaying Soviet Empire of the 1970s, and revealing the little-known history of Sosua, a Jewish settlement in the jungles of the Dominican Republic — A. J. Sidransky's debut novel leads us into worlds long gone, and the lives of people still touched by those memories.

MRS MOMMY BOOKNERD'S REVIEW:
This is a great read, that blends the past and present beautifully!  There is attention the details of the historical portion of the story, but there are also compelling characters weaved into the plot.   It is an engaging and original read.  4 stars.

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The Girl with a Clock for a Heart

by Peter Swanson

George Foss never thought he'd see her again, but on a late-August night in Boston, there she is, in his local bar, Jack's Tavern. 

When George first met her, she was an eighteen-year-old college freshman from Sweetgum, Florida. She and George became inseparable in their first fall semester, so George was devastated when he got the news that she had committed suicide over Christmas break. But, as he stood in the living room of the girl's grieving parents, he realized the girl in the photo on their mantelpiece - the one who had committed suicide - was not his girlfriend. Later, he discovered the true identity of the girl he had loved - and of the things she may have done to escape her past.

Now, twenty years later, she's back, and she's telling George that he's the only one who can help her...

MRS MOMMY BOOKNERD'S REVIEW:  
This was an interesting book with some great elements.  The book ended in a way that I was not expecting and I feel that may have caused it to become a 3 star read.  I am actually not really sure what else to say.  I think that you will find yourself engaged enough to finish, but the ending may fall flat.  3 stars

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The Ecstasy of Surrender: 12 Surprising Ways Letting Go Can Empower Your Life

by Judith Orloff

Are you longing for your life to be easier and more fun? Would you like to stop pushing, micromanaging, and forcing things so you can relax? What if you could enjoy what you have instead of always lusting for “more”? What if you could live in “the zone,” propelled by powerful currents toward the right people and opportunities? What if you could stop worrying about money and live with more emotional ease in the moment? If you answer “yes” to all these questions and desire lasting positive change, then prepare to experience the ecstasy of surrender. 

The art of letting go, Dr. Judith Orloff explains, is the secret key to manifesting power and success in all areas of life, including work, relationships, sexuality, radiant aging, and health and healing. In our superconnected world where emails and text messages constantly interrupt us, it’s easier to let go than you think. Once embraced, surrendering removes roadblocks and the exhaustion that comes from “trying too hard”—and it helps you achieve goals more effortlessly and brings ongoing happiness. 

With her stunning gift for storytelling coupled with her unique, results-oriented approach to physical, emotional, and spiritual health—marrying neuroscience, psychiatry, intuitive medicine, energy techniques, and more—Judith provides a powerful, practical, and accessible map for anyone who is longing to be happier but who feels stuck, burned-out, tense, worried, or afraid to let go.

MRS MOMMY BOOKNERD'S REVIEW:
I feel that I am always trying to become a better person and live a more satisfying life...not by acquiring more possessions, but by being a happier person.  I never pass up a chance to read a book that will help me accomplish that goal.  This book is jam packed with so much great information to help you let go and empower yourself to be a better and happier person.  It is not only about how to help make yourself better, but to learn to deal with others in a more productive way.  This is a book I will continue to read and refer to on a regular basis.  It is an AMAZING book and I give it 4.5 stars.

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The Execution (Jeremy Fisk #2)

by Dick Wolf

NYPD Detective Jeremy Fisk must make an uneasy ally - the disturbingly beautiful and assertive Mexican Intelligence Agency Detective Cecilia Garza. She recognizes the signature of assassin Chuparosa - a hummingbird carved on a corpse. After years of pursuit, she knows only that he is heading to Manhattan - with the rest of the world for UN Week. 

Ten days after the Mexican presidential election, 23 bodies were found beheaded on the US border, each carved by Chuparosa. Near New York, Rockaway has a mass murder. There is more to this threat than meets the eye — and justice is not always blind.

MRS MOMMY BOOKNERD'S REVIEW:
Dang, I really loved this book.  I was pulled into the mystery and intrigue immediately.  It was a wild ride and the writing was so clean and flowed great. I would be reading and then realize that I was blasting through the book.   That, to me, is a sign of a great book...when time and pages fly by.  There were so many elements that I did not see coming.  It really was great! 4.5 stars!

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