Book Reviews & Stories by Danielle
For today’s Friday Finds, I’m sharing another Lia Riley book that’s set to release in December. I’m very excited to read her new book and LOVE the cover! Look out for my book review and spotlight in December during release week.
TITLE: With Every Breath
AUTHOR: Lia Riley
PUBLISHER: Forever (Grand Central Publishing)
RELEASE DATE: December 29, 2015
GENRE: New Adult
PRE-ORDER LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | iBOOKS | KOBO
BREATHE DEEP . . . AND JUMP IN
At the ends of the earth, Patagonia is a land where ambition trumps reason and the savage summit of La Aguja lures the most determined climbers. It’s also the last spot a “play-it-safe girl” like Auden Woods expects to find herself. But she’ll lace up her brand-new hiking boots and do whatever it takes to secure a dream job at an adventure magazine . . . even if it kills her. And it just might. When disaster strikes, her only chance at survival comes in the form of the surliest, sexiest mountaineer ever to come out of Scotland.
After a climbing accident cost him his brother, professional mountaineer Rhys MacAskill is at the end of his rope. Redemption is not in his future. That is, until a terrifying storm blows a budding journalist into his tent and it’s up to him to make sure they both survive until morning. Despite the demons weighing on him, Rhys can’t resist the temptation of the charming American and one wild night just isn’t enough.
Auden and Rhys soon learn there are no shortcuts as they navigate their way between life, death, and atonement, and discover something they never expected-love. (Description found on NetGalley.com)
The Longest Ride is one of my favorite Nicholas Sparks books. The combination of two different love stories, in two different time periods, is what puts it in my top 5 books he’s written.
There are many people who believe books are always better than the movie (I usually agree), but I thought the book and the movie of The Longest Ride we equally great.
So I wanted to share the three major differences between The Longest Ride book and movie.
IRA’S RESCUE
Ira’s rescue is what causes a chain reaction of differences between the book and the movie. In the book, Ira crashes down an embankment during a snowy night and is wounded and stuck in his truck. While inside he imagines that his late wife is talking to him, telling him to think back to certain moments in their life together. This was Ira’s way of holding on until someone found him. Sophia and Luke don’t find Ira until close to the end of the book.
The movie, on the other hand, has a much more dramatic rescue. Sophia and Luke rescue Ira when they were heading back from their first date. They pulled Ira out of his truck right before it burst into flames and rushed him to the hospital. The rescue was much more dramatic than the book portrayed it.
This difference worked though because the movie made it much more believable than if we had to watch Ira talking to his deceased wife. It also worked because it led to a different storyline between Ira and Sophia. Which leads me to the next difference.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IRA & SOPHIA
In the book, Sophia and Ira didn’t really know each other. Sophia only read his letter to him once when he was in the hospital. This was the only interaction she had with Ira in the book. With that being said, I really enjoyed that the movie gave Ira and Sophia a chance to get to know each other.
She visited him often in the movie and was able to hear the story between him and his wife first hand; both by reading Ira’s letters and listening to him talk about the life he had with Ruth. This added so much more to the movie and I actually preferred this storyline than what was written in the book.
SOPHIA’S EX BOYFRIEND
Sophia has an ex boyfriend in the book named Brian. You can tell he’s a total tool and is extremely jealous of Luke. Both Luke and Brian get into a few fights in the book. However, the movie completely removed this character and honestly, I was fine with that. Brian was a total jerk and it would have taken away from the Ira/Sophia relationship in the movie.
Well, those are the major differences I noticed between The Longest Ride book and movie. Even though there were some big differences, both the book and movie were amazing! Nicholas Sparks really knows how to create a story and he has a great team that makes his stories come alive on screen.
Photo Links: Book vs Movie Photo, Ira’s Rescue, Relationship Between Ira & Sophie
Hello Everyone!
I know that many of you might not live in the Los Angeles County area, but for those of you that do there’s a great event happening on October 22nd.
The Women’s National Book Association Los Angeles Chapter is hosting an eclectic author panel at Diesel, A Bookstore, to celebrate National Reading Group Month. If you can make it I would love to meet you there as I’m assisting in coordinating it.
DATE: OCTOBER 22, 2015
TIME: 6:30PM-8:00PM
LOCATION: DIESEL, A BOOKSTORE, 225 26TH ST, SANTA MONICA, CA
AUTHOR PANEL
Aline Ohanesian is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Orhan’s Inheritance, which was long listed for the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, a Summer 2015 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, a April 2014 Indie Next pick. The novel was also a finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Award for Socially Engaged Fiction.
Aline was born in Kuwait and immigrated to Southern California at the age of three. After getting her MA in History, she abandoned her PhD studies when she realized her heart belonged to the novel. She is an alumna of the Bread Loaf and Squaw Valley writers conferences. She lives and writes in San Juan Capistrano, California, with her husband and two young sons.
Her website: http://www.AlineOhanesian.com
Meg Waite Clayton is the New York Times bestselling author of five novels, most recently The Race for Paris—the story of two journalists vying to make history by reporting the liberation of Paris in the summer of 1944. The Wednesday Sisters was one of Entertainment Weekly’s 25 Essential Best Friend Novels of all time, and The Language of Light was a finalist for the Bellwether Prize (now the PEN/Bellwether). Meg has also written for the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, Runner’s World and public radio.
Her website: http://www.megwaiteclayton.com
Rachel Howzell Hall is a writer/assistant development director at City of Hope, a national leader in cancer research and treatment. Her first novel, A Quiet Storm, was a featured selection of Borders’ Original Voices program, as well as an alternate selection of the Black Expressions book club. Her lastest book, Skies of Ash, is the second book in the Detective Elouise Norton series. She lives in Los Angeles.
MODERATOR
Rachelle Yousuf is the Membership Assistant at PEN Center USA. She is the current president of the Women’s National Book Association, Los Angeles Chapter and recently graduated with a master’s in English Literature at California State University, Northridge. In her role as president, she is the co-chair of the L.A. Writers Conference. She is also the Event Coordinator for National Reading Group Month.
TITLE: The Choice
AUTHOR: Nicholas Sparks
PUBLISHER: Grand Central Publishing
RELEASE DATE: September 24, 2007
GENRE: Romance, Women’s Fiction
BUY LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | INDIEBOUND | AUDIBLE | ABEBOOKS | BOOK DEPOSITORY | ALIBRIS
Travis Parker has everything a man could want: a good job, loyal friends, even a waterfront home in small-town North Carolina. In full pursuit of the good life — boating, swimming, and regular barbecues with his good-natured buddies — he holds the vague conviction that a serious relationship with a woman would only cramp his style. That is, until Gabby Holland moves in next door. Despite his attempts to be neighborly, the appealing redhead seems to have a chip on her shoulder about him…and the presence of her longtime boyfriend doesn’t help. Despite himself, Travis can’t stop trying to ingratiate himself with his new neighbor, and his persistent efforts lead them both to the doorstep of a journey that neither could have foreseen. Spanning the eventful years of young love, marriage and family, The Choice ultimately confronts us with the most heartwrenching question of all: how far would you go to keep the hope of love alive? (Description found on Goodreads)
Here are the upcoming October releases I’m excited about and have added to my TBR list.
TITLE: See Me
AUTHOR: Nicholas Sparks
PUBLISHER: Grand Central Publishing
RELEASE DATE: October 13, 2015
GENRE: Romance, Women’s Fiction, Fiction
PRE-ORDER LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | BAM! | INDIEBOUND | iBOOKS | WALMART
Colin Hancock is giving his second chance his best shot. With a history of violence and bad decisions behind him and the threat of prison dogging his every step, he’s determined to walk a straight line. To Colin, that means applying himself single-mindedly toward his teaching degree and avoiding everything that proved destructive in his earlier life. Reminding himself daily of his hard-earned lessons, the last thing he is looking for is a serious relationship.
Maria Sanchez, the hardworking daughter of Mexican immigrants, is the picture of conventional success: with a degree from Duke Law School and a job at a prestigious firm in Wilmington, she is a dark-haired beauty with a seemingly flawless professional track record. And yet Maria has a traumatic history of her own, one that compelled her to return to her home town and left her questioning so much of what she once believed.
A chance encounter on a rainswept road will alter the course of both Colin and Maria’s lives, challenging deeply held assumptions about each other and ultimately, themselves. As love unexpectedly takes hold between them, they dare to envision what a future together could possibly look like . . . until menacing reminders of events in Maria’s past begin to surface.
As a series of threatening incidents wreaks chaos in Maria’s life, Maria and Colin will be tested in increasingly terrifying ways. Will demons from their past destroy the tenuous relationship they’ve begun to build, or will their love protect them, even in the darkest hour?
Rich in emotion and fueled with suspense, See Me reminds us that love is sometimes forged in the crises that threaten to shatter us . . . and that those who see us for who we truly are may not always be the ones easiest to recognize. (Description and photo from NicholasSparks.com)
TITLE: Chasing Ghosts
AUTHOR: Louise DeSalvo
PUBLISHER: Fordham University Press
RELEASE DATE: October 12, 2015
GENRE: Biographies & Memoirs
PRE-ORDER LINKS: FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS
When literary biographer and memoirist Louise DeSalvo embarked upon a journey to learn why her father came home from World War II a changed man, she didn’t realize her quest would take ten years or that it would yield more revelations about the man–and herself–and the effect of his military service upon their family than she’d ever imagined. During his last years, as he told her about his life, DeSalvo began to understand that her obsession with war novels and military history wasn’t merely academic but rooted in her desire to understand this complex father whom she both adored and reviled because of his mistreatment of her. Although she at first believes she wants to uncover his story, the story of a man who was no hero and who was adversely affected by his military service, she learns that what she really wants is to recover the man he was before he went away.
As DeSalvo and her father uncover his past piece by piece, bit by bit, she learns about the dreams of a working-class man who entered the military in the late 1930s during peacetime to better himself, a man who wanted to become a pilot. She learns about what it was like for him to participate in war games in the Pacific prior to the war, and the war’s devastating toll. She learns about what it was like for her parents to fall in love, set up house, marry, and have children during this cataclysmic time. And as the pieces of her father’s life fall into place as DeSalvo works to piece together the puzzle of everything she’s learned about this time, she finds herself finally able to understand him. (Description and photo from NetGalley.com)
TITLE: Things Unsaid
AUTHOR: Diana Y. Paul
PUBLISHER: She Writes Press
RELEASE DATE: October 13, 2015
GENRE: Fiction
PRE-ORDER LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | INDIEBOUND
Jules, her sister Joanne, and her brother Andrew all grew up in the same household—but their varying views of and reactions to their experiences growing up have made them all very different people. Now, as adults with children of their own, they are all faced with the question of what to do to help their parents, who insist on maintaining the upscale lifestyle they’re accustomed to despite their mounting debts. A deft exploration of the ever-shifting covenants between parents and children, Things Unsaid is a ferocious tale of family love, dysfunction, and sense of duty over forty years. (Description and photo from NetGalley.com)
TITLE: We Were Brothers
AUTHOR: Barry Moser
PUBLISHER: Algonquin Books
RELEASE DATE: October 20, 2015
GENRE: Memoir
PRE-ORDER LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | INDIEBOUND | POWELL’S
Preeminent illustrator Barry Moser and his brother, Tommy, were born of the same parents, were raised in the same small Tennessee community, and were poisoned by their family’s deep racism and anti-Semitism. But as they grew older, their perspectives and their paths grew further and further apart. From attitudes about race, to food, politics, and money, the brothers began to think so differently that they could no longer find common ground, no longer knew how to talk to each other, and for years there was more strife between them than affection.
When Barry was in his late fifties and Tommy in his early sixties, their fragile brotherhood reached a tipping point and blew apart. From that day forward they did not speak. But fortunately, their story does not end there. With the raw emotions that so often surface when we talk of our siblings, Barry recalls why and how they were finally able to traverse that great divide and reconcile their kinship before it was too late.
Including fifteen of Moser’s stunning drawings, this powerful true story captures the essence of sibling relationships–their complexities, contradictions, and mixed blessings. (Description and photo from NetGalley.com)
What new releases are you excited about this month?
Stories Unfolded 