October New Releases

OCTOBER NEW RELEASES

Here are the upcoming October releases I’m excited about and have added to my TBR list.

201510-see-meTITLE: 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)

cover66625-mediumTITLE: 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)

cover71688-mediumTITLE: 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)

cover64802-mediumTITLE: 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?

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My Life Update #9 | Founded The Lisa Michelle Memorial Fund

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Hello Everyone!

I have some exciting news for you. I’ve finally started The Lisa Michelle Memorial Fund in honor of my mom who passed away on September 20, 2008.

The LMM Fund has been a dream of mine for a long time and I’m in a place where I can finally make my dream a reality. The primary purpose of the fund is to provide scholarships to students who have lost a parent to drug, alcohol, or prescription drug addiction, but I also plan on working with organizations who help families cope with this type of loss and provide ways to prevent it.

Many of you might know that my mom was a prescription drug addict. For as long as I can remember she had this problem and it’s the reason she passed away at such a young age. I’ve written about her and my experiences with this for some time and none of that has helped me cope as much as starting this fund has. Just in the last few weeks I feel like I’m able to channel my grief and anger into something worth while.

My hope is that, in some way, we can help students cope with their loss. So, I need your help to spread the word so that I can offer at least one scholarship next year. Please share on FB, Twitter, Instagram and anywhere else to help me make an impact in the lives of students who lost a parent to substance abuse.

Our website is www.theLMMFund.org and all donations are tax deductible.

Check out some of my past posts about my mom and my family:

Thank you in advance for you support.

Sincerely,

Danielle

September New Releases

SEPTEMBER NEW RELEASES

Here are the upcoming September releases I’m excited about and have added to my TBR list.

cover64144-mediumTITLE: The Sea Keeper’s Daughter

AUTHOR: Lisa Wingate

PUBLISHER: Tyndale House Publishers

RELEASE DATE: September 8, 2015

GENRE: Women’s Fiction

BUY LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | BAM!

From modern-day Roanoke Island to the sweeping backdrop of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains and Roosevelt’s WPA folklore writers, past and present intertwine to create an unexpected destiny.

Restaurant owner Whitney Monroe is desperate to save her business from a hostile takeover. The inheritance of a decaying Gilded Age hotel on North Carolina’s Outer Banks may provide just the ray of hope she needs. But things at the Excelsior are more complicated than they seem. Whitney’s estranged stepfather is entrenched on the third floor, and the downstairs tenants are determined to save the historic building. Searching through years of stored family heirlooms may be Whitney’s only hope of quick cash, but will the discovery of an old necklace and a Depression-era love story change everything. (Description from NetGalley.com)

cover64319-mediumTITLE:  Reading the Sweet Oak

AUTHOR: Jan Stites

PUBLISHER: Lake Union Publishing

RELEASE DATE: September 29, 2015

GENRE: Women’s Fiction

PRE-ORDER LINKS: AMAZON

Along the banks of the Sweet Oak River, deep in the heart of the Ozarks, a romance novel book club takes five women on stunning journeys of self-discovery.

After losing first her husband, then her daughter, seventy-eight-year-old grandmother Ruby wants to teach her risk-averse granddaughter, Tulsa, that some leaps are worth taking, no matter how high the potential fall. Tulsa loves her grandmother dearly, but she has a business to run and no time for romance—not even the paperback version. But when Ruby ropes her into a book club, Tulsa can’t bring herself to disappoint the woman who raised her.

Together with Ruby’s best friend, Pearl, as well as family friends BJ and Jen, the women embark on an exploration of modern-day love guided by written tales of romance. What they discover is a beautiful story that examines the bonds of friendship and the highs and lows of love in all its forms. (Description and photo from Netgalley.com)

cover65935-mediumTITLE: Last Night in the OR

AUTHOR: Bud Shaw, MD

PUBLISHER: Penguin Group Blue Rider Press

RELEASE DATE: September 29, 2015

GENRE: Memoir

PRE-ORDER LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | BAM! | HUDSON | INDIEBOUND | POWELL’S | WALMART

The 1980s marked a revolution in the field of organ transplants, and Bud Shaw, M.D., who studied under Tom Starzl in Pittsburgh, was on the front lines. Now retired from active practice, Dr. Shaw relays gripping moments of anguish and elation, frustration and reward, despair and hope in his struggle to save patients. He reveals harshly intimate moments of his medical career: telling a patient’s husband that his wife has died during surgery; struggling to complete a twenty-hour operation as mental and physical exhaustion inch closer and closer; and flying to retrieve a donor organ while the patient waits in the operating room. Within these more emotionally charged vignettes are quieter ones, too, like growing up in rural Ohio, and being awakened late at night by footsteps in the hall as his father, also a surgeon, slipped out of the house to attend to a patient in the ER.

In the tradition of Mary Roach, Jerome Groopman, Eric Topol, and Atul Gawande, Last Night in the OR is an exhilarating, fast-paced, and beautifully written memoir, one that will captivate readers with its courage, intimacy, and honesty. (Description and photo from NetGalley.com)

What new releases are you excited about this month?

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WWW Wednesday | September 9

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It’s that time of the week again when I participate in WWW Wednesdays hosted by Sam from Taking on a World of Words. Feel free to leave a link to your WWW Wednesday post in the comments.

To participate in WWW Wednesday, you need to answer three questions.

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

CURRENTLY READING

200709-the-choiceTITLE: The Choice

AUTHOR: Nicholas Sparks

PUBLISHER: Grand Central Publishing

PUBLICATION DATE: September 24, 2007

GENRE: Romance, Fiction, Women’s Fiction

BUY LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | BAM! | TARGETINDIEBOUND | iBOOKS

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 and photo from NicholasSparks.com

RECENTLY FINISHED READING

cover58262-mediumTITLE: Eight Hundred Grapes

AUTHOR: Laura Dave

PUBLISHER: Simon & Schuster

PUBLICATION DATE: June 2, 2015

GENRE: Women’s Fiction

BUY LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | BAM! | INDIEBOUND

A breakout novel from an author who “positively shines with wisdom and intelligence” (Jonathan Tropper, This Is Where I leave You). “Laura Dave writes with humor and insight about relationships in all their complexity, whether she’s describing siblings or fiancés or a couple long-married. Eight Hundred Grapes is a captivating story about the power of family, the limitations of love, and what becomes of a life’s work” (J. Courtney Sullivan, Maine).

There are secrets you share, and secrets you hide…

Growing up on her family’s Sonoma vineyard, Georgia Ford learned some important secrets. The secret number of grapes it takes to make a bottle of wine: eight hundred. The secret ingredient in her mother’s lasagna: chocolate. The secret behind ending a fight: hold hands.

But just a week before her wedding, thirty-year-old Georgia discovers her beloved fiancé has been keeping a secret so explosive, it will change their lives forever.

Georgia does what she’s always done: she returns to the family vineyard, expecting the comfort of her long-married parents, and her brothers, and everything familiar. But it turns out her fiancé is not the only one who’s been keeping secrets…

Bestselling author Laura Dave has been dubbed “a wry observer of modern love” (USA TODAY), a “decadent storyteller” (Marie Claire), and “compulsively readable” (Woman’s Day). Set in the lush backdrop of Sonoma’s wine country, Eight Hundred Grapes is a heartbreaking, funny, and deeply evocative novel about love, marriage, family, wine, and the treacherous terrain in which they all intersect. (Description and photo found on NetGalley.com)

Check out my review of the book here: Book Review | Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave

WHAT I MIGHT READ NEXT

201312-a-bend-in-the-roadTITLE: A Bend in the Road

AUTHOR: Nicholas Sparks

PUBLISHER: Grand Central Publishing

PUBLICATION DATE: April 1, 2005

GENRE: Romance, Fiction, Women’s Fiction

BUY LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | BAM! | INDIEBOUND | TARGET | iBOOKS

Miles Ryan’s life seemed to end the day his wife was killed in a hit-and-run accident two years ago. Missy had been his first love, and Miles fervently believes she will be his last. As a deputy in the North Carolina town of New Bern, Miles Ryan not only grieves for Missy, but also longs to bring the unknown driver to justice. Then Miles meets Sarah Andrews. The second grade teacher of his son, Jonah, Sarah had left Baltimore after a difficult divorce to start over in the gentler surroundings of New Bern. Perhaps it’s her own emotional wounds that make her sensitive to the hurt she first sees in Jonah’s eyes, and then his father’s.

Tentatively, Sarah and Miles reach out to each other. Soon they are both laughing for the first time in years . . . and falling in love. Neither will be able to guess how closely linked they are to a shocking secret—one that will force them to question everything they ever believed in . . . and make a heartbreaking choice that will change their lives forever.

In A Bend in the Road, Nicholas Sparks writes with a luminous intensity about life’s bitter turns and incomparable sweetness. His affirming message carries a powerful lesson about the imperfections of being human, the mistakes we all make, and the joy that comes when we give ourselves to love. (Description and photo found on NicholasSparks.com)

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