Teaser Tuesdays (7)

Happy Tuesday everyone! This week's teasers come from Robin McKinley's Rose Daughter, a re-telling of Beauty and the Beast.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teasers:

"It was foolish to talk of hating him--foolish and wasteful. What had happened had happened, like anything else might happen, like a bit of paper giving you a new home when you had none finding its way into your hand, like a company of the ugliest, worst-tempered plants you'd ever seen opening their flowers and becoming rose-bushes, the most beautiful, lovable plants you've ever seen." (84)

--Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley

Book Blogger Hop (11) + Follow Friday

It's finally the weekend, which means time for another hop! Hosted by the lovely Crazy-For-Books.

In the spirit of the Twitter Friday Follow, the Book Blogger Hop is a place just for book bloggers and readers to connect and share our love of the written word! This weekly BOOK PARTY is an awesome opportunity for book bloggers to connect with other book lovers, make new friends, support each other, and generally just share our love of books! It will also give blog readers a chance to find other book blogs to read!

This week's question:

What is the ONE GENRE you wish you could get into, but just can't?

The one genre that I really have never been able to get into (but really wish I could) is non-fiction. I love history and historical fiction to death. But I find that when reading biographies of certain historical figures, I just can't finish the darn book. I think it's because I'm such a hopeless romantic. That, and the art-less prose is just really hard for me to get through.

Q: Name 3 authors that you would love to sit down and spend an hour or a meal with just talking about either their books or get advice on writing from?

If I could sit down with Lisa Ann Sandell, Hellen Hollick, and L.A. Meyer, my life would pretty much be complete. If I didn't have to stop at three, I'd also invite Libba Bray and Lisa Klein along.

-To join the fun and make new book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:
-(Required) Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Host { Parajunkee.com } and any one else you want to follow on the list
-(Required) Follow our Featured Bloggers - We Fancy Books & Unrequited Desire
-Put your Blog name & URL in the Linky thing.
-Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments
-Follow Follow Follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "HI"
-If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the Love...and the followers
-If you're new to the follow friday hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

Happy Friday!

Teaser Tuesdays (6)

Happy Tuesday everyone! This weeks teasers come from Robin Oliveira's Civil War epic, My Name is Mary Sutter.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teasers:

"By the thousands, the wounded lay on the ground and thought, This thirst is not thirst. This pain is not pain. This world is not being rent in two.

That howling is only a whisper. That screech is just a murmur. That explosion is nothing but a sigh. That musket fire is but a rustle.

I am not here. We are not here. Armies are not here. The country is not depending on this moment.

Battles are conversations. An exchange. A dialogue.

None of this is true." (332)

--My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira.

Teaser Tuesdays (5)

Happy Tuesday everyone! This weeks teasers come from Robin Oliveira's Civil War epic, My Name is Mary Sutter.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teasers:

"The music raced and the men took turns twirling Mary in circles until her heart raced and she held her gloved hand to her chest, her beautiful neck rising from her white, square collared dress." (107)

"Lincoln's head swam with still more ideas, so many that he longed for a pen and paper, but he had no real idea what he was doing. He had relied, he thought now, too heavily on the men who were supposed to know how to conduct wars." (160)

--My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira

On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers

GENRE

Historical Fiction / Fantasy / Sci-Fi (322 pgs.)


SYNOPSIS

Aboard the Vociferous Carmichael pupeteer John Chandagnac is sailing towards Jamaica to claim his stolen birthright from an unscrupulous uncle when the vessel is captured... by pirates! Offered a choice by Captain Phil Davies to join their seafaring band or die, Chandagnac assumes the name John Shandy and a new life as a brigand. But more than swash-buckling sea battles and fabulous plunder await the novice buccanneer on the roiling Caribbean waters--for treachery and powerful vodun sorcery are coins of the realm in this dark new world. And for the love of the beautiful, magically imperiled Beth Hurwood, Shandy will set sail on even stranger tides, following the savage, ghost-infested pirate king Blackbeard and a motley crew of the living and the dead to the cursed nightmare banks on the fabled Fountain of Youth.


MY REVIEW

When I found out that the newest installment of Pirates of the Caribbean had been inspired by a book, let's just say I was down at my local Border's before you could say "Bring me that horizon." It is easy to see why Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio (screenwriters for Pirates) used this book as "inspiration." The story is filled with high seas adventure and paranormal magic, two ingredients that made the Pirates series so incredibly popular.

This book, to put it frankly, was brilliant fun. The story was original and fast-paced, the characters well-written, and the detail flawless. I even found that Powers' detail when describing the pirate ships had me reaching for my laptop, frantically Google searching words like "mizzen mast" and "gunwale." A little over-educated in the maritime department for me, but I got along just as well.

Onto the characters. Our protagonist, Jack Shandy, aptly fits the characteristics of a slightly more-piraty William Turner. Handsome, simple, and someone who eventually succumbs to the life of a pirate. His love for the damsel in distress, Beth Hurwood, literally drives him across oceans. I was rooting for him the entire novel. SO many things got in the way of his rescuing Beth, I was ready to pull my hair out. But finally, they find each other. I absolutely loved that part of the story.

Powers did a good job writing the character of our main villain, Mr. Hurwood, Beth's father. After the loss of his wife, Hurwood will not stop until he had evicted his own daughter's soul from her body and replaced it with the soul of his dead wife. Pure evil, right? I sure thought so.

It was brilliant how Powers used the concept of vodun magic to explain famous events in piratical history, such as the death of Blackbeard. Blackbeard only "allowed" the Navy to kill him so he could be reincarnated, as he had spilled blood at the Fountain of Youth. I found Power's abstract concept of this strange magic instilled a sense of "foreverness" among the Golden Age pirate stories... that they truly will never die, and that their spirit will live on forever.

The action going on in this story blew me away. The sea battles were uber intense! A little gory, but hey, what do you think happens when you shoot someone with a pistol? The sense of adventure was strong and true throughout the entire novel.

All in all, if you are a fan of anything pirate, you must read this book! Tim Powers did an excellent job of bringing archaic pirates to life. This novel is action-packed, full of romance and strange magic, which ended up being a recipe for success! This is the ultimate pirate novel. A perfect summer read!


MY REVIEW

4.5****/*

Book #3 in Historical Fiction Reading Challenge