Friday56: Cloaked in Red

Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of Storytime with Tonya and Friends' blog.
* Post a link along with your post back to Tonya and Friends.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.


Closest Book: Cloaked in Red
Author: Vivian Vande Velde
Page 56, sentence 5:
"Oh, that's so kind," Granny said. "It is difficult to peel vegetables when one has four feet and no hands."

Book Whisperer: Ivy Devlin's Low Red Moon Interview and Giveaway

Book Whisperer is hosting a giveaway of Ivy Devlin's Low Red Moon.

Enter HERE and include your email address and what is your favorite werewolf story for your entry.



Rules: Must be US resident to participate, and must leave email with your favorite selection.
Contest ends 10/20/10

A-Z Wednesday - I

Welcome to A-Z Wednesday!!
To join, here's all you have to do:
Go to your stack of books and find an author whose first or last name starts with the letter of the week.
Post:
1~ a photo of the book
2~ title and synopsis
3~ link (Amazon, Barnes and Noble etc.)
4~ Go to Reading At The Beach and leave your link in the comments.
If you've already reviewed the book, add it or the link to your post.

This week's letter is: "I"

Atonement by Ian McEwan


Summary from Amazon:
This haunting novel is in effect two, or even three, books in one, all masterfully crafted. The first part ushers us into a domestic crisis that becomes a crime story centered around an event that changes the lives of half a dozen people in an upper-middle-class country home on a hot English summer's day in 1935. Young Briony Tallis, a hyperimaginative 13-year-old who sees her older sister, Cecilia, mysteriously involved with their neighbor Robbie Turner, a fellow Cambridge student subsidized by the Tallis family, points a finger at Robbie when her young cousin is assaulted in the grounds that night; on her testimony alone, Robbie is jailed.
The second part of the book moves forward five years to focus on Robbie, now freed and part of the British Army that was cornered and eventually evacuated by a fleet of small boats at Dunkirk during the early days of WWII. This is an astonishingly imagined fresco that bares the full anguish of what Britain in later years came to see as a kind of victory.
In the third part, Briony becomes a nurse amid wonderfully observed scenes of London as the nation mobilizes. No, she doesn't have Robbie as a patient, but she begins to come to terms with what she has done and offers to make amends to him and Cecilia, now together as lovers.
In an ironic epilogue that is yet another coup de the tre, McEwan offers Briony as an elderly novelist today, revisiting her past in fact and fancy and contributing a moving windup to the sustained flight of a deeply novelistic imagination.

Maybe it's just me but I never felt Briony found atonement - she keep up her fantasy and wrote the conclusion she wanted because she'd never be able to make amends. So even at the end, she continue her delude herself.

WWW Wednesdays (October 6)

Hosted by Should Be Reading
To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…
* What are you currently reading?
* What did you recently finish reading?
* What do you think you’ll read next?

What are you currently reading?

A Crack in the Sky (Greenhouse Chronicles) by Mark Peter Hughes

What did you recently finish reading?

The Tomorrow Code by Brian Falkner

What do you think you’ll read next?

13 to Life (13 to Life #1) by Shannon Delany

"Waiting On" Wednesday: The Thirteenth Chime

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

My pick is: The Thirteenth Chime (Sense of Truth #1) by Emma Michaels

To purchase: http://amzn.com/1453715061

Summary from Amazon:

HATRED NEVER DIES... Destiny has finally found the life that she has always wanted. She is about to finish college, has a fiancé that loves her, and a great summer on the West Coast planned with her friend, Stephanie. But her world is turned upside down when an antique clock mysteriously chimes thirteen times and someone attacks them, sending Stephanie and her mother to the hospital. Alone, and without any help from the police, Destiny has no choice but to turn to the one man she had left behind a year ago - her ex-boyfriend, David. Together, they must solve the riddle of the thirteenth chime before the clock strikes thirteen again. Yet as they face their own past and hearts, a trap over half a century old is waiting for them to become its prey. For revenge, fifty years is never too long...

"The Thirteenth Chime" A spine-tingling debut novel from the hottest new author to the scene.

Teaser Tuesdays: The Tomorrow Code

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!

The Tomorrow Code by Brian Falkner


There were stars above and stars below, rippling slowly in the light breeze, and it was like being out in the center of the universe, floating through space on your back.

~* page 5

The Blending Time by Michael Kinch

The Dystopian Reading Challenge is hosted by Bart's Bookshelf
October 1, 2010 through December 19th 2010.

This is book 3/5 in the reading Dystopian challenge:
The Blending Time by Michael Kinch



Summary from Goodreads:
Congratulations on turning age seventeen. You are now ready for placement by the Council government.
For kids in the year 2054, turning seventeen means they’re ripe for Global Alliance work assignments that range from backbreaking drudgery to deadly canal labor. Trying to survive in a desiccated world that’s been ravaged by plagues, AIDS III, and environmental disasters, three “s’teeners” from very different backgrounds think they’ve gotten lucky. Jaym, Reya, and D’Shay are chosen to be among thousands of blenders whose task is to help repopulate Africa after a solar flare left its people sterile.
But the continent itself—roiling with civil war and mercenaries intent on crushing the blending program at any cost—poses the gravest danger of all. Separated, the three friends struggle to escape horrific situations, somehow reunite, and reach a camp in the mountains that promises salvation from the harsh and threatening world.

We are introduced to the three main characters; Jaym, Reya, and D’Shay and their diverse backgrounds. At the age of seventeen, known as s’teeners, they are issued mandatory work assignments. They meet and become friends as they travel by cargo boat to Africa to blend (breed) with the population that were left sterile from a chromosomal difficulty due to a solar flare. Naturally, this does not go over well with many of the local people. They are separated and left to fend for themselves until they escape and can get back together.

Although the premise sounds promising I found it a little flat but interesting.

The Blending Time is Michael Kinch's debut novel and it ended so abruptly that I checked to see if there would be a sequel at his website and yes, he is currently working on the next book, with a possibly for a trilogy.

His website also has photos from the time the author lived in Africa and where the idea for The Blending Time originated, including a photo of people making watering cans like the ones D'Shay works on.