January 2009
About Kirk
Kirk Curnutt is the author of eleven books of fiction and criticism, including the forthcoming thriller Dixie Noir (Fall 2009); Coffee with Hemingway (2007), an entry in Duncan Baird’s series of imaginary conversations with great historical figures: and the story collection, Baby, Let’s Make a Baby (2003). Breathing Out the Ghost was named Best Fiction in the Indiana Center for the Book’s 2008 Best Books of Indiana Competition. It also won a bronze IPPY from the Independent Publishers Association and was a finalist for ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Awards. Curnutt’s other awards include three consecutive Hackney Awards for short-story writing (2004-2006) and the gold medal in nonfiction in the 2008 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition sponsored by the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society. A passionate devotee of all things F. Scott Fitzgerald, he is vice-president of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society and a board member of the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. Visit Kirk’s website HERE.
About Breathing Out the Ghost
Colin St. Claire is on a dangerous mission. His young son is missing, and he is on a self-appointed quest to find the boy, or at least find the man he believes is responsible. Fueled by uppers and a profound lack of sleep, Colin’s road soon becomes an uncontrollable spiral of blurry white lines, of fleeting forms in the night, ghosts of memory as intangible as vapor . . . Assisting him is Robert Heim, a former private investigator who lost his license in the line of duty—and it is a sense of warped duty that still ties him to Colin, though his own family, a loving wife and children, beckons him back home . . . The answers for both men may lie not with the man they believe is the perpetrator, but with a long-suffering farmer’s wife, Beverly “Sis” Pruitt, whose own daughter was claimed by violence, years prior.
In the shape of a noir thriller, Curnutt fashions a gripping tale of the consequences of unchecked grief, of painful truths hidden as though they were dark secrets, and what salvation remains possible for good men who enter the darkness and become the ghosts they are chasing.
“The writing is unobtrusively brilliant… See for yourself.”
—George Garrett, Poet Laureate of Virginia
Kirk Curnutt’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Monday, January 5th: Diary of an Eccentric
Tuesday, January 6th: Ramya’s Bookshelf
Wednesday, January 7th: The Sleepy Reader
Thursday, January 8th: Crime Ne.ws, formerly Trenchcoat Chronicles
Monday, January 12th: Savvy Verse and Wit
Tuesday, January 13th: Educating Petunia
Wednesday, January 14th: Michele- Only One ‘L’
Thursday, January 15th: Book Nut
Friday, January 16th: Anniegirl1138
Monday, January 19th: Caribou’s Mom
Tuesday, January 20th: Lost in Lima, Ohio
Wednesday, January 21st: A Novel Menagerie
Monday, January 26th: Catootes
Wednesday, January 28th: Bloody Hell, it’s a Book Barrage!
Thursday, February 12th: She is Too Fond of Books
Mid- January to Mid- February, 2009
The Vigorous Mind by Ingrid Cummings
About Ingrid
Ingrid Cummings is a journalist, essayist, independent scholar, communications expert, and international speaker. A Contributing Editor at Indianapolis Monthly magazine and an award-winning newspaper columnist, she also teaches college courses at Indiana University, produces a radio show called Rubicon Salon, and runs a PR/Media business called Rubicon Communications LLC. She calls upon all 20 years of her teaching and coaching experience to animate the Creative process through a variety of original workshops. Named one of “Eight to Watch in ’08” by The Indianapolis Star, her first book, “The Vigorous Mind,” is due out in Jan. 2009.
About The Vigorous Mind: Cross-Train Your Brain to Break Through Mental, Emotional, and Professional Boundaries
The Vigorous Mind proposes that the way to health and happiness is to “cross-train your brain” by intentionally diversifying the portfolio of your activities. Using historical as well as contemporary “Renaissance people” as inspiration, the book argues for a return to a generalist gestalt during the hours of the day when we’re not pursuing ever-narrower career specialties. With a distinctive approach to time management, The Vigorous Mind puts a contemporary spin on what it meant to be “well rounded,” a notion that sounds delightfully quaint today.
The book taps into one of today’s hottest trends: The application of neuroscience to everyday brain health. Scientists are proving that strategically pursuing a broad spectrum of sometimes-counterintuitive activities can actually strengthen your brain and make you better at everything you undertake.
The secret is consistent, incremental “baby steps,” in the spirit of the newly popular Japanese belief system called Kaizen. Kaizen is an ancient Japanese Zen philosophy that advocates taking small, even trivial steps to accomplish large goals. The intention is for the reader to make accelerative progress toward their cross-training goals by committing just 20 minutes of concentrated attention per day (what the author calls “Triumph in Twenty”) applied to any topic of their choice.
Ingrid Cummings makes the case that through knowledge of seemingly unrelated fields and interests, readers can fortify themselves against burn-out, become more fulfilled, better at their jobs, and more creative — in short, develop a truly vigorous mind.
The Memorist by MJ Rose
About M.J. Rose
M.J. Rose is the international bestselling author of 10 novels; Lip Service, In Fidelity,Flesh Tones, Sheet Music, Lying in Bed,The Halo Effect, The Delilah Complex, The Venus Fixand The Reincarnationist. She is also the co-author with Angela Adair Hoy of How to Publish and Promote Online, and with Doug Clegg of Buzz Your Book. Her latest novel, The Memorist, will be released November 1st.
She is a founding member and board member of International Thriller Writers and the founder of the first marketing company for authors: AuthorBuzz.com. She runs two popular blogs; Buzz, Balls & Hype and Backstory.
Rose has been profiled in Time magazine, Forbes, The New York Times, Business 2.0, Working Woman, Newsweek and New York Magazine. She has appeared on The Today Show, Fox News, The Jim Lehrer NewsHour, and features on her have appeared in dozens of magazines and newspapers in the U.S. and abroad, including USAToday, Stern, L’Official, Poets and Writers and Publishers Weekly.
Rose graduated from Syracuse University and spent the ’80s in advertising. She was the Creative Director of Rosenfeld Sirowitz and Lawson and she has a commercial in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. She lives in Connecticut with Doug Scofield, a composer, and their very spoiled dog, Winka.
Visit M.J. Rose’s website HERE
About The Memorist:
The Dreads are back.
As a child, Meer Logan was haunted by memories of another time and place always accompanied by the faint strains of elusive music. Now the dreads are back. The past has reached out again in the form of a strange letter that sets her on a search to unlock the mystery of who she once was.
“THE MEMORIST is a riveting and suspenseful page-turner that throws open a magical door to the past, revealing how history may influence not just our individual destinies, but the future of us all.”
– NYT Bestselling Author, Steve Berry
The Memorist was released Nov. 1st, 2008. You can read an excerpt of The Memorist HERE
MJ Rose’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Monday, January 19th: The Bluestocking Society
Tuesday, January 20th: She is Too Fond of Books
Wednesday, January 21st: Chain Reading
Thursday, January 22nd: A Striped Armchair
Monday, January 26th: Savvy Verse and Wit
Tuesday, January 27th: Paranormality (guest post and giveaway)
Monday, February 2nd: Dolce Bellezza
Tuesday, February 3rd: Lit Chick Cafe – The Read Feed
Monday, February 9th: A Reader’s Respite
March 2009
Zig-Zagging by Tom Wilson
About Tom Wilson
Tom Wilson is the author of the phenomenally popular cartoon Ziggy, which is syndicated internationally in more than 600 newspapers. As President of Ziggy and Friends, Inc., and founder of Character Matters (www.charactermatters.net), Wilson has worked extensively with national organizations, non-profits, and corporations. A frequent speaker, branding consultant, artist, and father of two, Tom continues to write.
About Zig-Zagging: Loving Madly, Losing Badly- How Ziggy Saved My Life
An Intersection of Lives, Love, and Loss Throughout a Cartoonist’s Artful Life Journey
For decades Ziggy has fostered a strong, personal connection with millions of readers, and now the man who has been the driving force behind Ziggy for more than two decades shares the dramatic and multidimensional story behind the enigmatic and complex world of cartooning. In this compelling narrative filled with humor, heartache, hope, original artwork, and family photos, Wilson shares his personal recollections as a boy who witnessed the whimsical creation of a future American icon, until adulthood thrusts him into the position of clandestine creative caretaker for Ziggy after his brilliant father, Tom Wilson Sr., becomes chronically ill. When his wife is taken by cancer and leaves him alone to raise two young sons, Wilson must reconcile his anger and paralyzing depression over his devastating loss, while continuing to bring smiles to others around the world in his daily comics.
It is through the process of grieving, reaching the depths of raw despair, that Wilson realizes the meaning of life’s journey. The role Ziggy plays in Wilson’s transformative experience brings clarity and comfort to his creator as together they navigate the tragedies and triumphs of life.
Wilson’s message is that every detour is a destination unto itself, and regardless of our plans, it is what we don’t see coming that often affects us most. Our journeys are a zig-zagging series of unexpected events and it’s up to us to turn them into meaningful destinations with a purpose. Through this book, readers will find humor, and heartache turned to hope, with a familiar and trusted friend, and discover a new one in Tom Wilson.
Tom Wilson’s TLC BOOK TOURS Tour Stops:
Thursday, March 5th: Anniegirl1138
Monday, March 9th: Bookfoolery and Babble
Tuesday, March 10th: Widows Quest
Wednesday, March 11th: Not Quite What I Had Planned
Monday, March 16th: Learning to Live
April 2009
The Mechanics of Falling by Catherine Brady
About Catherine Brady
Catherine Brady’s second short story collection, Curled in the Bed of Love, was the co-winner of the 2002 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and a finalist for the 2003 Binghamton John Gardner Fiction Book Award. Brady’s first collection of short stories, The End of the Class War, was a finalist for the 2000 Western States Book Award in Fiction. Her short story “Written in Stone” was selected by Lorrie Moore for inclusion in Best American Short Stories 2004. Other stories have appeared in numerous journals, including Missouri Review, Ontario Review, Cimarron Review, Kenyon Review, and Redbook, and in anthologies, including Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Loving a Child with Special Needs (forthcoming), I Know Some Things: Stories about Childhood by Contemporary Writers, and The Next Parish Over: A Collection of Irish American Writing. A past winner of the Redbook Young Writers Award, Brady is the recipient of the 2001 Zoetrope: All Story Short Fiction Prize and the Brenda Ueland Prose Prize.
Brady is also the author of a biography of a molecular biologist, Elizabeth Blackburn and the Story of Telomeres: Deciphering the Ends of DNA. Her critical essays on the craft of fiction have appeared in the Writer’s Chronicle.
Brady received an MA in English Literature and Creative Writing from Hollins College and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Massachusetts. She was elected to the board of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs in 2005 and served as Vice-President (2006) and President (2007). She teaches in the MFA in Writing Program at the University of San Francisco.
About The Mechanics of Falling and Other Stories
This book presents eleven new stories that are set in and around San Francisco by an award-winning author. The stories in this collection explore those moments when the seemingly fixed coordinates of our lives abruptly give way – when mother love fractures, a faithful husband abandons his family, a conscientious middle-class life implodes, or loyalty demands an excruciating sacrifice. The characters share a fundamental predicament, the struggle to name and embrace some faith that can break their fall. In equal measure, they hunger for and resist this elusive possibility and what it demands of them. “The Mechanics of Falling and Other Stories” deals with a range of circumstances and relationships, and with characters who must decide what they are willing to risk for the sake of transformation, or for the right to refuse it. The stories trace the effort to traverse the boundaries between one state and another – between conviction and self-doubt, recklessness and despair, resignation and rebellion. And each story propels the reader to imagine what will happen next, to register the unfinished and always precarious quality of every life.
Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales by Eleanor Bluestein
About Eleanor Bluestein
Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales won the G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction in 2007. “In the tradition of Robert Olen Butler and Bob Shacochis,” writes Marly Swick, O. Henry Award winner who selected this book for the prize, “Bluestein is a writer who illuminates our cultural differences, while exploring the intricacies of the human condition.”
Publisher’s Weekly calls Bluestein’s voice “captivating,” and Al Christman, author of Target Hiroshima writes, “These Ayama Na tales are sly, sensuous and sagacious-profoundly funny and profoundly serious.”
Eleanor Bluestein has worked as a science teacher, editor of science textbooks, and designer of multimedia educational materials for Internet delivery. For a decade she co-edited Crawl Out Your Window, a San Diego based literary journal featuring the work of local writers and artists. She wrote fiction and studied French language in Paris, France, in 1989-90. Currently, she lives with her husband in La Jolla, California, where she writes, tends a vegetable garden, and volunteers as a court appointed special advocate for foster children. She has a son and a daughter.
About Tea and other Ayama Na Tales
The ten stories in Tea and other Ayama Na Tales take place in the fictional country of Ayama Na, a small Southeast Asian nation recovering from a devastating internal coup and a long drought, both of which have left the population reeling.
During the coup and its aftermath, roughly a quarter of the population died, including (because they were targeted for extinction) almost all of the country’s artists, intellectuals, musicians, writers, poets and teachers. Land mines pock the countryside, amputees beg on the streets, and in this fledgling democracy, graft and corruption infect every level of government.
Against this backdrop of sorrow and loss, as the ordinary citizens of Ayama Na struggle to rebuild their nation and their personal lives, westernization and pop culture are rushing in, threatening whatever cultural traditions have survived. The characters pulsate with the tension between the modern and the traditional, between personal desire and the impulse to sacrifice for family or country.
Yet, with open hearts and minds, and a huge will to thrive, the gritty characters in these stories go about their daily lives. They cook burgers in McDonald’s, work the streets as prostitutes, run car dealerships, or compete for the Miss Universe title-just some of the circumstances in which the reader encounters them-and they yearn for, strive for, and ache for meaningful lives. Whether kind or cruel, resilient or crushed by their problems, the people of Ayama Na exhibit the tragic and comic elements of people everywhere.
The fictional country of Ayama Na is inspired by the sights and sounds of Southeast Asia. A street of fortune tellers in Ayama Na borrows details from one in Singapore; royal palaces, Buddha shrines, and hill tribes echo their counterparts in Thailand; sidewalk cafes in Ayama Na’s capital roll up corrugated metal exteriors and blare music to the street as they do in Viet Nam. But in emotional content and historical detail, Ayama Na most closely resembles Cambodia, where a brave young population, still rebuilding both country and culture in the wake of the Khmer Rouge genocide, operates with a seriousness of purpose and good humor that fills the author of this collection with awe and admiration.
She could only imagine these people’s lives….
Past Tours that have been completed:
SEPTEMBER 2008
Kathryn Maughan – Did I Expect Angels?
About Kathryn
Kathryn Maughan grew up in Roy, Utah and moved to New York City in 1993. She graduated from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, and then moved to Costa Rica for 18 months. Upon her return to New York, she enrolled in Columbia University, where she majored in literature and fiction writing. Later she enrolled in New York University/Tisch School of the Arts Dramatic Writing program, from which she got her Masters of Fine Arts in 2005.
Kathryn’s novel, Did I Expect Angels? was loosely inspired by a September 11 story. Kathryn lived in New York when it happened and was deeply affected, like everybody, by the tragedy and it’s aftermath.
Here is a summary of Did I Expect Angels?: Jennifer Huffaker knows that grief is normal, but she thought she’d get over it—that’s what people do. But it’s been eighteen months since her husband Jack died, and she still can’t focus on her young daughter Kaitlin, can’t accept support from her family, and can’t allow herself to live without the love of her life. Jennifer is angry at everything and everyone—including herself for being so unprepared. But what did she expect? Angels?
On the day after Christmas her anguish finally becomes too much, and Jennifer’s pain culminates in a shattering decision. But this is also the night she runs into Henry, an elderly friend from Costa Rica who has seen more of life’s trials than anyone could know. Henry realizes the devastating depths to which Jennifer has sunk, and he decides that tonight is the night to tell her his story. Touching and incisive, poignant, and sometimes bitingly funny, both Jennifer’s and Henry’s stories intermingle into a tale of love, despair, faith and, ultimately, hope, as Jennifer realizes she has been blessed with the most unexpected angel of all …
Visit Kathryn Maughan’s website HERE and read an excerpt of Did I Expect Angels? HERE
Kathryn Maughan’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Tuesday, September 2rd: Booking Mama
Friday, September 5th: The Friendly Book Nook
Tuesday, September 9th: Book Club Classics!
Friday, September 12th: A Patchwork of Books
Tuesday, September 16th: Bookfoolery and Babble
Friday, September 19th: dontcallmebecky
Friday, September 26th: MollyCoddle
Saturday, September 27th: Catholic Bibliophagist
Monday, September 29th: Blue Yonder
Tuesday, September 30th: Boston Bibliophile
SEPTEMBER 2008
Kathleen McCleary – House and Home
About Kathleen
Kathleen McCleary is a reporter and writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Good Housekeeping, More, and Health, and on HGTV.com. She lives in northern Virginia.
Kathleen’s novel, House and Home, is the story of a woman who loves her house so much, she’ll do just about anything to keep it.
Here’s a summary of House and Home: Ellen Flanagan has two precious girls to raise, a cozy neighborhood coffee shop to run, terrific friends, and a sexy husband. She adores her house, a yellow Cape Cod filled with quirky antiques, beloved nooks and dents, and a million memories. But now, at forty-four, she’s about to lose it all.
After eighteen roller-coaster years of marriage, Ellen’s husband, Sam–who’s charismatic, spontaneous, and utterly irresponsible–has disappointed her in more ways than she can live with, and they’re getting divorced. Her daughters are miserable about losing their daddy. Worst of all, the house that Ellen loves with all her heart must now be sold.
Ellen’s life is further complicated by a lovely and unexpected relationship with the husband of the shrewish, social-climbing woman who has purchased the house. Add to that the confusion over how she really feels about her almost-ex-husband, and you have the makings of a delicious novel about what matters most in the end . . .
Set in the gorgeous surroundings of Portland, Oregon, Kathleen McCleary’s funny, poignant, curl-up-and-read debut strikes a deep emotional chord and explores the very notion of what makes a house a home.
You can read more about House and Home HERE and you can visit Kathleen McCleary’s website HERE.
Kathleen McCleary’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Wednesday, September 3rd: Hooked on Houses
Friday, September 5th: It’s All About Books
Monday, September 8th: The Literate Housewife
Wednesday, September 10th: Books and Cooks
Friday, September 12th: Breaking the Spine
Monday, September 15th: She Is Too Fond Of Books
Wednesday, September 17th: Caribou’s Mom
Thursday, September 18th: Age 30 – A Year of Books
Monday, September 22nd: Booking Mama
Tuesday, September 23rd: The Cottage Nest
Wednesday, September 24th: The Inside Cover
Friday, September 26th: In the Shadow of Mt. TBR
Monday, September 29th: Displaced Beach Bums
OCTOBER 2008
The Best Place to Be by Lesley Dormen
About Lesley
LESLEY DORMEN was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio and lives in New York City, where she is the Associate Director of The Writers Studio and teaches fiction writing. Her short stories have been published in The Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, Five Points, Open City, Glimmer Train and Ladies’ Home Journal. Two have been included in “100 Other Distinguished Stories” of the year in Best American Short Stories. Her articles, essays, and humor have appeared in magazines that include O, The Oprah Magazine, Elle, Ladies’ Home Journal, Glamour, Redbook, Mademoiselle, Mirabella, Seventeen, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Psychology Today and Playboy.
Lesley’s book The Best Place to Be is a novel in stories, and all of the stories are told by the same narrator, Grace, at pivotal moments in her life, between the ages of 18 and 50ish. This is literary fiction with terrific mass appeal–a first person narrator who is page-turningly appealing. Most of the stories are set in Greenwich Village. The book has depth, the stories do not proceed chronologically, they circle around in time, so we see Grace in the round.
Elle magazine, “Virginia Woolf meets Candace Bushnell in these funny, beautifully written linked stories of one woman’s struggle to get through the business of ordinary life.” O the Oprah magazine said hers is “…a journey that is smack-your-forehead familiar, and so crazily funny you could cry.”
You can read more about The Best Place to Be HERE and visit Lesley’s website HERE.
Lesley Dormen’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Wednesday, October 1st: Wormbook
(reprinted with permission at Books on the Brain)
Friday, October 3rd: Maw Books
Monday, October 6th: Diary of an Eccentric
Wednesday, October 8th: Devourer of Books
Friday, October 10th: Life and Times of a “New” New Yorker
Monday, October 13th: Books I Done Read
Wednesday, October 15th: From the Mixed-Up Files
Friday, October 17th: Bloody Hell! It’s a Book Barrage!
Monday, October 20th: A Girl Walks Into a Book Store…
Wednesday, October 22nd: The Book Lady
Monday, October 27th: Bookgirl’s Nightstand
OCTOBER 2008
Capote in Kansas by Kim Powers
About Kim
KIM POWERS is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir The History of Swimming, which was both a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” Selection as well as a Lambda Literary Award finalist for Best Memoir of the Year. Entertainment Weekly calls Powers’ latest novel,Capote in Kansas: A Ghost Story, “welcome,” “offbeat,” and “intriguing.” Because of the accomplishment of the two books, Powers was selected as one of the “Out 100” – Out Magazine’s top 100 most influential gays or lesbians in the country.
Powers is currently a Writer/Producer at ABC’s Primetime Live, and won both Emmy and Peabody Awards for his 9/11 coverage for Good Morning America. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, he also wrote the screenplay for the festival-favorite indie film “Finding North,” which plays frequently on the Sundance Channel and is available on DVD. He was also a staff writer for the AMC series“The Lot,” and a producer anddevelopment executive for the multi-Emmy winning PBS program “Great Performances.” A native Texan, he currently lives in New York City with his partner, Tony Award winning costume designer Jess Goldstein.
Visit Kim’s website HERE
About Capote in Kansas:
While based on many real and little-known events in the lives of Truman Capote and Harper Lee, it’s an imagined story – a “fantasia” — of their great friendship, and even greater falling out, as Harper retreated from fame, and Truman gulped it down as greedily as he did his beloved “orange drink” (three parts vodka, one part juice.) If you ever loved To Kill a Mockingbird, or any of the fantastic writing of Truman Capote, you’ll want to read this, for which a reading group guide has been prepared as well. Look for Capote in Kansas in paperback October 4th.
You can find reading group discussion questions for Capote in Kansas HERE
Kim Powers’ TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Wednesday, Oct. 1st: Bookgirl’s Nightstand
Friday, Oct. 3rd: Book Room Reviews
Monday, Oct. 6th: A Guy’s Moleskin Notebook
Wednesday, Oct. 8th: Tripping Toward Lucidity
Friday, Oct. 10th: book-a-rama
Monday, Oct. 13th: Ready When You Are, C.B.
Friday, Oct. 17th: Books and Movies
Wednesday, Oct. 15th: Bibliolatry
Monday, Oct. 20th: Booking Mama
Wednesday, Oct 22nd: Diary of an Eccentric
Thursday, Oct. 23rd: Maw Books
Friday, Oct. 24th: Book Club Classics
Monday, Oct. 27th: Books and Cooks
Tuesday, Oct. 28th: Devourer of Books
Wednesday, Oct. 29th: Literate Housewife
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2008
The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
About David
David Ebershoff is the author of three novels, the 19th Wife, Pasadena, and The Danish Girl, and a short story collection, The Rose City. His fiction has won a number of awards, including the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Lambda Literary Award, and has been translated into ten languages to critical acclaim.
Random House published his third novel, The 19th Wife, on August 5, 2008, to much acclaim. It immediately hit a number of bestseller lists including that of The New York Times. The novel is about one of Brigham Young’s plural wives, Ann Eliza young, as well as polygamy in the United States today. Publisher’s Weekly called it “an exquisite tour-de-force” and Kirkus Reviews said it was “reminiscent of Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose in scope and ambition”, while the Los Angeles Times praised it by saying “it does that thing all good novels do: it entertains us.”
Ebershoff has taught creative writing at New York University and Princeton and currently teaches in the graduate writing program at Columbia University. For many years he was the publishing director of the Modern Library and now is an editor-at-large at Random House. He lives in New York City.
For more information, visit David’s website HERE.
About The 19th Wife
Faith, I tell them, is a mystery, elusive to many, and never easy to explain.
Sweeping and lyrical, spellbinding and unforgettable, David Ebershoff’s The 19th Wife combines epic historical fiction with a modern murder mystery to create a brilliant novel of literary suspense.
It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of a family’s polygamous history is revealed, including how a young woman became a plural wife.
Soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds–a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father’s death.
And as Ann Eliza’s narrative intertwines with that of Jordan’s search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love and faith.
Read an excerpt HERE
David Ebershoff’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Wednesday, Oct. 15th: Maw Books (notes from a book signing with David Ebershoff)
Thursday, Oct. 16th: Maw Books (review)
Friday, Oct. 17th: Reading, ‘Riting, and Retirement
Tuesday, Oct. 21st: Age 30 – A Year in Books
Thursday, Oct. 23rd: A High and Hidden Place
Monday, Oct. 27th: It’s All About Books (guest post) and review
Tuesday, Oct. 28th: Musings of a Bookish Kitty(review and author interview)
Thursday, Oct. 30th: Books on the Brain (review and giveaway)
Monday, Nov. 3rd: The Cottage Nest
Tuesday, Nov. 4th: B&B ex libris
Wednesday, Nov. 5th: Anniegirl1138
Thursday, Nov. 6th: The Tome Traveller
Friday, Nov. 7th: Educating Petunia
Monday, Nov. 10th: The Literate Housewife
Wednesday, Nov. 12th: Diary of an Eccentric
Friday, Nov. 14th: Book Chase
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2008
Red Sea by EA Benedek
About E.A. Benedek
E.A. Benedek is a journalist and author whose articles and essays have appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, and on NPR, among others. Benedek spent a year following an FBI special agent working counterterrorism and wrote about an F-15C fighter pilot who flew in Operation Shock and Awe. The author has reported extensively on terrorism and developed relationships with high-level informants in the U.S. and abroad. Red Sea is Benedek’s first novel.
About Red Sea
After four commercial airliners are blown out of the sky in international airspace, retired Israeli Special Forces commander Julian Granot is called in to investigate. With the help of an intrepid American journalist, Marie Peterssen, and Morgan Ensley, a maverick FBI agent, Granot makes the horrifying discovery that the crashes were meant to conceal a more diabolical attack. Through an investigation that leads from Jordan to Iraq, through London and Cyprus to New York, Granot and his unorthodox team uncover plans for a scenario that has frightened American security experts for years: a nuclear bomb slipped onto a container and rigged to explode in a major US seaport. Meanwhile, Marie discovers a startling personal connection to the Islamist terrorist behind the plot, a secret that jeopardizes her life and the entire mission.
Based on a real-life elite commando leader and counter-terror expert, Julian Granot is a mysterious, ruthless, but ultimately human and sympathetic spymaster extraordinaire. Marie is a fully-drawn female hero who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty-or fall in love.
E.A. Benedek’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Tuesday, October 21st: Jenn’s Bookshelf
Wednesday, October 22nd: Rough Edges
Monday, October 27th: Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books
Wednesday, October 29th: Michele – Only One ‘L’ (author interview) andreview
Monday, November 3rd: Right Truth
Wednesday, November 5th: Dark Party Review
Monday, November 10th: The Sleepy Reader
Wednesday, November 12th: The Tome Traveler
Thursday, November 13th: Should Be Reading
Monday, November 17th: Musings of a Bookish Kitty
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2008
The Memorist by MJ Rose
About M.J. Rose M.J. Rose is the international bestselling author of 10 novels; Lip Service, In Fidelity,Flesh Tones, Sheet Music, Lying in Bed,The Halo Effect, The Delilah Complex, The Venus Fixand The Reincarnationist. She is also the co-author with Angela Adair Hoy of How to Publish and Promote Online, and with Doug Clegg of Buzz Your Book. Her latest novel, The Memorist, will be released November 1st.
She is a founding member and board member of International Thriller Writers and the founder of the first marketing company for authors: AuthorBuzz.com. She runs two popular blogs; Buzz, Balls & Hype and Backstory.
Rose has been profiled in Time magazine, Forbes, The New York Times, Business 2.0, Working Woman, Newsweek and New York Magazine. She has appeared on The Today Show, Fox News, The Jim Lehrer NewsHour, and features on her have appeared in dozens of magazines and newspapers in the U.S. and abroad, including USAToday, Stern, L’Official, Poets and Writers and Publishers Weekly.
Rose graduated from Syracuse University and spent the ’80s in advertising. She was the Creative Director of Rosenfeld Sirowitz and Lawson and she has a commercial in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. She lives in Connecticut with Doug Scofield, a composer, and their very spoiled dog, Winka.
Visit M.J. Rose’s website HERE
About The Memorist:
The Dreads are back.
As a child, Meer Logan was haunted by memories of another time and place always accompanied by the faint strains of elusive music. Now the dreads are back. The past has reached out again in the form of a strange letter that sets her on a search to unlock the mystery of who she once was.
“THE MEMORIST is a riveting and suspenseful page-turner that throws open a magical door to the past, revealing how history may influence not just our individual destinies, but the future of us all.”
– NYT Bestselling Author, Steve Berry
The Memorist will be released Oct. 2008. You can read an excerpt of The MemoristHERE
MJ Rose’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Monday, October 27th: Fantasy Book Critic (giveaway) and review
Tuesday, October 28th: The Compulsive Reader
Wednesday, October 29th: The Book Bitch (guest post and review)
Tuesday, November 4th: Bloody Hell! (review and giveaway!)
Friday, November 7th: Fizzy Thoughts (review, interview, and giveaway!)
Monday, November 10th: Devourer of Books
Wednesday, November 12th: Bookstack
Thursday, November 13th: The Inside Cover
Monday, November 17th: Booking Mama
Tuesday, November 18th: Books I Done Read
Wednesday, November 19th: Diary of an Eccentric
Thursday, November 20th: MommyPie
Monday, November 24th: Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books
Friday, November 31st: Frequency of Silence
NOVEMBER 2008
Jennie Shortridge – Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe
About Jennie
Bestselling author Jennie Shortridge has three published novels:Riding with the Queen, (NAL 2003), Eating Heaven(2005), andLove and Biology at the Center of the Universe (2008). Prior to writing novels, her nonfiction work appeared regularly in magazines and newspapers, including Glamour, Mademoiselle, Natural Home, and others. The Seattle writer has been called “an accomplished and superior novelist” by theStatesmen Journal and “a writer to watch out for,” by the Rocky Mountain News. She tries not to let it go to her head.
About Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe:
Written with keen insight and wit, Jennie Shortridge’s fiction is “rich, funny, sad, sensual, and hopeful.” Now comes a bittersweet novel that asks: how does a good girl know when to finally let herself be bad?
Mira Serafino can see the headlines now: Girl-Scout-Leading, Homeless-Feeding Science Teacher of the Year Goes on Wild Rampage of Sex, Drinking, and Drugs. Well, let her small town of Pacifica, Oregon, think what it will. Forty-five-year-old Mira, the obedient daughter, the supermom, the loyal wife, has left the building…
When she learns that her college-sweetheart husband has been seeing another woman, Mira’s perfect world is shattered and she wants no one, least of all her big Italian family, to know. She heads north—with no destination and little money—stopping only when her car breaks down in Seattle. She takes a job at the offbeat Coffee Shop at the Center of the Universe, where she’ll experience a scary but invigorating freedom, and meet someone she’ll come to love: the new Mira…
Jennie Shortridge’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Saturday, November 1st: Estella’s Revenge e-zine (author interview)
Monday, November 3rd: Booking Mama (review)
Tuesday, November 4th: Booking Mama– (author guest post)
Wednesday, November 5th: She is Too Fond of Books
Friday, November 7th: Curly Wurly Gurly (contest for a $15 Starbucks or other coffeshop gift card!)
Friday, November 7th: Curly Wurly Gurly (review)
Monday, November 10th: Fizzy Thoughts
Wednesday, November 12th: Tripping Toward Lucidity
Friday, November 14th: Literarily
Monday, November 17th: Shelf Life
Wednesday, November 19th: Musings of a Bookish Kitty
Friday, November 21st: Bookshipper
Monday, November 24th: Minds Alive on the Shelves
Wednesday, November 26th: Book Addiction
Sunday, November 30th: B & b ex libris
November 2008
Off the Menu by Christine Son:
About Christine
Christine Son graduated from the University of Texas and Duke University School of Law. She works as Corporate Counsel for a Fortune 500 company in Dallas, Texas where she lives with with her husband. For more fun facts about Christine, and answers to questions such as “What are you?” and “What do you do in your free time?”, click HERE.
About Off the Menu
Off the Menu is being called an extraordinary debut about second-generation Asian-American women trying to live up to society’s high standards, as well as their own.
Even though it’s been ten years since their Houston high school days, co-valedictorians and best friends Whitney Lee, Hercules Huang, and Audrey Henley still delight in their once-a-month get-togethers where they talk, laugh, and confide in each other— although not about everything. Because each young woman has a deep, dark secret they think they could never share. Not even with their best friends. Then, during a girls’ weekend getaway, these three friends wind up revealing their most intimate truths—and realize that to get straight As in the real world, all you have to do is let go of the need to be perfect…
Christine Son’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Saturday, November 1st: Estella’s Revenge e-zine (author interview)
Monday, November 3rd: Literarily (author guest post and giveaway!)
Wednesday, November 5th: Beastmomma (author interview)
Thursday, November 6th: Book Nut
Friday, November 7th: Ramya’s Bookshelf
Friday, November 7th: Ramya’s Bookshelf (author interview)
Monday, November 10th: Pop Culture Junkie
Tuesday, November 11th: 8Asians
Wednesday, November 12th: Savvy Verse and Wit
Thursday, November 13th: In The Pages
Friday, November 14th: She is Too Fond of Books
Monday, November 17th: Planet Books
Tuesday, November 18th: B & B ex Libris
Wednesday, November 19th: DISGRASIAN
Thursday, November 20th: Booking Mama
Monday, November 24th: The Literate Housewife Review
Tuesday, November 25th: Feminist Review
Wednesday, November 26th: Diary of an Eccentric
November/December 2008
The Green Beauty Guide by Julie Gabriel
About Julie
Julie Gabriel is a registered nutrition specialist (RHN) educated at the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition. She launched a series of workshops titled ‘New Mom’s Diet’ in Toronto. She is in the process of launching her own organic skincare line called Petite Marie Organics. Julie has been writing and editing fashion and beauty for about 15 years. In 1992 she worked in production at CNN’s Style with Elsa Klensch. She was the associate beauty editor in Harper’s Bazaar (Eastern European editions, 1998-2000), beauty editor in Atmospheres (2001-2001) and has written over five hundred articles and features on fashion, beauty and lifestyle.
She writes on her blog that thanks to her pregnancy, she reconsidered her passion for caviar-based face creams, obnoxious perfumes, and intricate hair highlights. Her conversion to a green goddess was instant and painless. She lost her acne for good, and hasn’t developed a single new wrinkle, she smells good and her hair looks better than ten years ago. Thus being said, don’t expect her to insist that readers abandon manicures or stop shaving their underarms. She is living proof that you can live green and feel good about your looks.
A Canadian living in the UK, she is in a unique position of being able to offer the best the New and Old Worlds came up with when it comes to natural beauty.
About The Green Beauty Guide
Go green and get gorgeous
The promise of beauty is as close as the drugstore aisle—shampoo that gives your hair more body, lotions that smooth away wrinkles, makeup that makes your skin look flawless, and potions that take it all off again. But while conventional products say they’ll make you more beautiful, they contain toxins and preservatives that are both bad for the environment and bad for your body—including synthetic fragrances, petrochemicals, and even formaldehyde. In the end, they damage your natural vitality and good looks.
Fortunately, fashion writer, nutritionist, and beauty maven Julie Gabriel helps you find the true path to natural, healthy, green beauty. She helps you decipher labels on every cosmetic product you pick up and avoid toxic and damaging chemicals with her detailed Toxic Ingredients List. You’ll learn valuable tips on what your skin really needs to be healthy, glowing, and youthful.
Julie goes one-step further—and shows you how to make your own beauty products that feed your skin, save your bank account, and are healthy for your body and the environment.
With her friendly, thorough, and helpful advice; fabulous beauty recipes; product recommendations and ratings; Toxic Ingredients List; and a complete appendix of online resources, Julie Gabriel gives you all the information you need to go green without going broke and become a more natural, healthy, and beautiful you.
Julie Gabriel’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Julie Gabriel’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Monday, November 17th: Allie’s Answers
Tuesday, November 18th: Life and Times of a “New” New Yorker
Wednesday, November 19th: Nature Moms Blog
Thursday, November 20th: Books and Cooks
Monday, November 24th: Green Phone Booth and Going Green
Tuesday, November 25th: The Good Human
Wednesday, November 26th: OrganicBeautySource.com
Friday, November 28th: Crunchy Chicken
Monday, December 1st: Surely You Nest
Tuesday, December 2nd: Greenstylemom
Wednesday, December 3rd: Rawdorable
Thursday, December 4th: She is Too Fond of Books
Monday, December 8th: Red Lady’s Reading Room
Tuesday, December 9th: Savvy Verse and Wit
Wednesday, December 10th: Bookopolis (will also be posted as
a Guest Review at Books on the Brain)
Thursday, December 11th: B & B ex libris
November/December 2008
Keeping Kids Out of the Middle: Child-Centered Parenting in the Midst of Conflict, Separation, and Divorce by Benjamin Garber, Ph.D.
About Benjamin
Benjamin D. Garber, Ph.D., is a New Hampshire licensed child psychologist, a state certified Guardian ad litem and a practicing Parenting Coordinator. Dr. Garber has a Bachelor of Arts degree in developmental psychology and psycholinguistics from the University of Michigan, a Master of Science and a Doctorate in child clinical and developmental psychology from the Pennsylvania State University. Visitwww.healthyparent.com to learn more about Dr. Garber and learn more about how to keep kids out of the middle.
About Keeping Kids Out of the Middle: Child-Centered Parenting in the Midst of Conflict, Separation, and Divorce
Are your kids growing up in a war zone? Here’s Your Peace Treaty
When co-parents conflict, their kids get caught in the middle. They become ‘adultified,’ infantilized, and alienated. They’re made into messengers and spies, implicitly forced to grow up too fast or to remain needy for much too long. The antidote: practicing child-centered parenting–consistently creating parenting plans and conflict resolution strategies that genuinely meet children’s emotional and psychological needs–first and foremost and for the rest of their lives.
Keeping Kids out of the Middle is not about divorce, and it’s not about you. It is about your kids. This eye-opening and highly pragmatic book is a here-and-now guide toward better understanding and meeting the needs of your children. You will learn what child-centered parenting is, how to implement it productively, and how to communicate effectively with your parenting partners, no matter the legal status of your relationship, the distance between your homes, or the quality of your intimate relationship.
In Keeping Kids out of the Middle, child psychologist and state certified Guardian ad litem Benjamin Garber offers parents a radically new perspective on co-parenting in the midst of relationship conflict and teaches co-parents how to build a consistent, healthy environment for their children through the art of ’scripting,’ establish better means of communicating and communication styles, and create parenting plans that help keep children protected. Thisis your guide to putting your children’s needs first and giving them the safety net they must have in order to become healthy adults who are able themselves, to some day, keep their own kids out of the middle.
Benjamin Garber’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Monday, November 17th: Single Mom Finding Herself
Wednesday, November 19th: I think I can, I think I can
Thursday, November 20th: The Psycho Ex Wife
Monday, November 24th: Mommy Vents
Wednesday, November 26th: Stepmama Metamorphoses
Monday, December 1st: No One’s The Bitch
Wednesday, December 3rd: A Stepmom’s Say
Thursday, December 4th: Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman
Monday, December 8th: The 3R’s: Reading, Riting, and Randomness
Tuesday, December 9th: Their Wicked Stepmother
November/December 2008
Somebody Else’s Daughter by Elizabeth Brundage
About Elizabeth:
Elizabeth Brundage holds an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she received a James Michener Award. Before attending Iowa, she was a screenwriting fellow at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. Her short fiction has been published in theGreensboro Review, Witness magazine, and New Letters. She is currently at work on her third novel and lives with her family in upstate New York.
About Somebody Else’s Daughter:
In the Berkshire mountains of Massachusetts a group of families is connected through the prestigious Pioneer prep school. Into this community enters Nate Gallagher, a teacher and struggling writer haunted by the daughter he gave up for adoption years ago. The girl, Willa—now a teenager and one of Nate’s students—lives with her adoptive parents, Joe and Candace, who have nurtured her with their affection and prosperity. When Willa wins a community service internship and begins working at a local women’s shelter, her friendship with a troubled prostitute raises questions about her own biological past. Despite her parent’s love and care, Willa can’t shake her feelings of confusion and abandonment, and Joe and Candace are too preoccupied with their crumbling marriage to realize her unhappiness.Read more.
Visit Elizabeth’s website here, read an excerpt of the book here, and check out the Somebody Else’s Daughter’s website here.
Elizabeth Brundage’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Monday, November 3rd: It’s All Fun & Games
Wednesday, November 5th: S. Krishna’s Books (this review will also appear as a guest post onHey Lady! Whatcha Readin’?)
Friday, November 7th: Mabel’s House
Wednesday, November 12th: Devourer of Books
Thursday, November 13th: All Thumbs Reviews
Friday, November 14th: Welcome to My Brain
Monday, November 17th: 1 More Chapter
Wednesday, November 19th: My New Reality
Friday, November 21st: Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books
Tuesday, November 25th: The Friendly Book Nook (Author Interview)
Monday, December 1st: The 3 R’s: Reading, ‘Riting, and Randomness (this review will also appear as a guest post on Books on the Brain)
Tuesday, December 2nd: Bookroom Reviews
Thursday, December 4th: Pieces of Me
DECEMBER 2008
The Alchemy of Loss by Abigail Carter
About Abby
Abigail Carter was born in Philadelphia and raised in Toronto, Canada. With her husband Arron Dack, she lived in London, Brussels and Boston before settling in Montclair, NJ. Abigail began writing at the age of 38 as a form of catharsis after her husband’s death in the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. Her work has been published in SELF magazine, and online at MSN.com. Before she began writing, Abigail worked as a Web Project Manager for Audible.com, a company that sells downloadable audio books. In July, 2005, Abigail moved to Seattle, WA where she now lives with her two children, Carter, 9 and Olivia, 13.
About The Alchemy of Loss
Abigail Carter is smart, funny, perceptive, and bereft. In the eyes of most, herself included, she had it all- a full life with a loving successful husband and two beautiful children. But in a horrifying instant watched by theworld, it was gone, and her life and her children’s were changed irreparably. How does one learn to live again after tragedy?
The Alchemy of Loss is Abby’s moving story of answering that unimaginable question. Veering away from the trite and pat grief books, which offer one-size-fits-all solutions to this most deeply personal and unique experience, she realizes that each person must forge her own path through grief, and that there are no right answers.
Abby’s journey took her six years, in which she turned everything she knew about herself upside down in order to live again. She charts this journey in the year’s most remarkable memoir. The Alchemy of Loss is her gift to us all- reminding us that life throws up roadblocks we can’t anticipate, and that we cannot live well if we live with regrets.
For more about The Alchemy of Loss, which comes out in paperback in January 2009, read an excerpt HERE , visit Abby’s website HERE, and read her blog HERE.
Wednesday, December 3rd: Solomother
Thursday, December 4th: The Tome Traveller
Monday, December 8th: Widows Quest
Tuesday, December 9th: A Novel Menagerie
Wednesday, December 10th: Anniegirl1138
Thursday, December 11th: Learning To Live
Monday, December 15th: Wormbook
Tuesday, December 16th: My Friend Amy
Wednesday, December 17th: Lesley’s Book Nook
Thursday, December 18th: Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books
Monday, December 22nd: Single Mom Finding Herself
December 2008
You Lost Him at Hello by Jess McCann
About Jess
Jess McCann is unlike any dating coach out there. Instead of the usual therapy-based date coaching, Jess takes a unique approach to finding and keeping the right person for you. Through her education and experience in business, she has made the remarkable discovery that dating is really a simple series of techniques that anyone can learn and succeed with.
At thirty years old, Jess was on top of the world. After graduating college, she had started her own sales company, where she single-handedly recruited, trained and managed a thirty-person sales team. She was chosen as one of America’s top entrepreneurs by Sir Richard Branson and traveled the world on his Fox reality show, The Rebel Billionaire. Having discovered first-hand that the art of sales directly translated into her dating life, Jess began counseling women, teaching them logical and proven sales techniques that they could use on their own dates. She continues to teach the fundamentals of sales and dating to women across the country. Visit Jess at www.jessmccann.com.
About You Lost Him At Hello: A Saleswoman’s Secrets to Closing the Deal with Any Guy You Want
Sales tricks that will make men desperate to date you
Whether you’ve found yourself waiting for him to call or given up everything for a relationship that went nowhere, getting a guy to commit can be like getting him to walk over a bed of hot coals.
Jess McCann has been there. She used to make the same mistakes we’ve all made with men–until she realized that the winning formula to attracting the right guy lay in skills she already had. As a successful saleswoman, Jess has practiced over and over the techniques in promoting a product, finding the right approach, making the pitch, and closing deal after deal. Once she started to apply these same techniques to the dating scene, her love life made a complete one-eighty, and she found herself with more interested men than she knew what to do with.
Now you can learn these same methods that that will help you to:
• Know and love your product before you sell it (that’s you!)
• Prospect for new ‘clients’–where to find them and how to catch their eye.
• Read his ‘buying signs’ and gauge his interest.
• Use the KISS principle (Keep It Short and Simple) and keep him engaged in conversation.
• End your date at the Height of Impulse so he always makes plans to see you again.
And so much more!
Jess McCann’s tactics work because they make you strong, confident, and irresistible to every man you meet. Whether you’re looking for Mr. Right or Mr. Right Now, You Lost Him at Hello will help you find him and keep him–while having more fun and fulfilled relationships than ever before.
Jess McCann’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Monday, December 1st: Average 20 Something
Wednesday, December 3rd: A Novel Menagerie
Thursday, December 4th: Tripping Toward Lucidity
Monday, December 8th: As Life Flutters By
Wednesday, December 10th: The Girl From the Ghetto
Thursday, December 11th: Random Ramblings About My Crazy Life
Friday, December 12th: Starting Over at 24
Monday, December 15th: Stefanie Says
Tuesday, December 16th: Adventures of a Wanderlust Gyrl
Wednesday, December 17th: Savvy Verse and Wit
Thursday, December 18th: Life in Pink
Monday, December 21st: It’s like, I’m…mmmagic!
TLC Book Tours 
August 11, 2008 at 12:50 pm
[…] out the TLC site to see what other authors will be “touring” blogs this […]
September 2, 2008 at 2:28 pm
[…] McLeary and her book House and Home beginning September 3rd. To get the schedule, visit the Authors On Tour page of TLC Book Tours. Caribousmom will be the site of this tour on September 17th and will […]