It’s time for our annual Fall Cleaning—because once a year just isn’t enough! Lucinda and I have once again bravely faced up to the piles of ARCs invading our offices and homes, and we’ve ruthlessly decided to part with the bulk of them. The good news for you? We’ve got dozens of ARCs up for grabs, just waiting for you to claim
them!
Rules of entry are at the end of the post. Please note that all prizes must be picked up at a BCPL location. Contest ends on Friday, October 12, 2012.
Here are the titles we have up for grabs!
Adult Fiction
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| Live By Night by Dennis Lehane (October 2012) In 1926, during Prohibition, Joe Coughlin defies his strict law-and-order upbringing by climbing a ladder of organized crime that takes him from Boston to Cuba, where he encounters a dangerous cast of characters who are all fighting for their piece of the American dream. –NoveList |
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| The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton (October 2012) Classic Morton: 16-year-old Laurel Nicolson sits dreaming away in her childhood tree house when she spies her mother speaking to an unknown man. Later, Laurel witnesses a terrible crime. But it’s not until 50 years have passed that she can ask her mother the pertinent questions—which leads to a story involving three strangers in wartime London. Morton’s best-selling work is always classy and nuanced; great for reading groups. –Library Journal |
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| The Ruins of Lace by Iris Anthony (October 2012) In this stunning debut from the pseudonymous Anthony, King Louis XIII’s ban on lace gives rise to a black market that weaves together the lives of four women in 17th-century France and Flanders. Katharina Martens is a Flemish lace maker who considers it her God-given duty to craft the “exquisite, beautiful” fabric, never mind that her work—often conducted without firelight or lanterns, in order to keep the lace clean of soot and ash—has left her hunched and nearly blind. As the end of her lace-making career draws nigh, to be followed by the sordid existence of former craftswomen relegated to a life of “doing… vile things,” her sister, Heilwich, struggles to save enough money to buy Katharina’s freedom from the abbey where she works. Meanwhile in France, Lissette Lefort and her cousin Alexandre must procure a length of forbidden lace to pay off the conniving count of Montreau, who threatens to reveal Lissette’s father’s role in an attempted assassination of the king. As beautifully fashioned as the sought-after lace, this story is sure to impress. –Publishers Weekly |
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| The Woman Who Died a Lot by Jasper Fforde (October 2012) Thursday Next #7 Forced into semi-retirement after an assassination attempt, Thursday Next finds her recuperation challenged by the personal and professional struggles of her children and Goliath’s constant attempts to replace her with synthetic duplicates. –NoveList |
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| The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers (September 2012) In the midst of a bloody battle in the Iraq War, two soldiers, bound together since basic training, do everything to protect each other from both outside enemies and the internal struggles that come from constant danger. –NoveList |
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| Thy Neighbor by Norah Vincent (August 2012) Losing himself in drugs and alcohol for years after the violent deaths of his parents, Nick Walsh pursues a relationship with an enigmatic woman while conducting a spying campaign on his neighbors as part of his obsessive drive to come to terms with what happened. –NoveList |
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| The Pleasures of Men by Kate Williams (August 2012) When a murderer strikes the city, ripping open the chests of young girls and stuffing hair into their mouths to resemble a beak, the press christen him the Man of Crows. Catherine becomes obsessed with the grim crimes, and as she devours the news, she discovers she can channel the voices of the dead, and comes to believe she will eventually channel the Man of Crows himself. –NoveList |
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| The 500 by Matthew Quirk (June 2012) Former con artist and Harvard Law student Mike Ford accepts a position with the DC-based Davies Group, a consulting firm whose specialty is pulling strings for the five hundred most powerful people inside the Beltway. –NoveList |
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| A Once Crowded Sky by Tom King (July 2012) Tom King’s debut novel opens in an imaginative world of comic book superheroes struggling to take on normal lives after sacrificing their powers to save the world. –From the Publisher |
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| Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon (May 2012) Baring her soul in an anonymous survey for a marital happiness study, Alice catalogues her stale marriage, unsatisfying job and unfavorable prospects and begins to question virtually every aspect of her life. –NoveList |
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| A Partial History of Lost Causes by Jennifer DuBois (May 2012) Abandoning her life when her father succumbs to Huntington’s disease, Massachusetts native Irina discovers an unanswered letter from her father to an internationally renowned chess champion and political dissident, whom she decides to visit in Russia. –NoveList |
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| Arcadia by Lauren Groff (May 2012) In a haunting story of the American dream, Bit, born in a back-to-nature commune in 1970s New York State, must come to grips with the outside world when the commune eventually fails. –NoveList |
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| Carry the One by Carol Anshaw (March 2012) When a car of inebriated guests from Carmen’s wedding hits and kills a girl on a country road, Carmen and the people involved in the accident connect, disconnect and reconnect throughout 25 subsequent years of marriage, parenthood, holidays and tragedies. –NoveList |
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| Wayward Saints by Suzzy Roche (2011) Mary Saint, the rule-breaking, troubled former lead singer of the almost-famous band Sliced Ham, has pretty much given up on music after the trauma of her band member and lover Garbagio’s death seven years earlier. Instead, with the help of her best friend, Thaddeus, she is trying to piece her life together while making mochaccinos in San Francisco. Meanwhile, back in her hometown of Swallow, New York, her mother Jean struggles with her own ghosts. When Mary is invited to give a concert at her old high school, Jean is thrilled, though she’s worried about what Father Benedict and her neighbors will think of songs such as “Sewer Flower” and “You’re a Pig.” But she soon realizes that there are going to be bigger problems when the whole town–including a discouraged teacher and a baker who’s anything but sweet–gets in on the act. –NoveList |
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| A Walk Across the Sun by Corban Addison (2011) Orphaned and homeless after a tsunami decimates their coastal India town, 17-year-old Ahalya Ghai and her 15-year-old sister, Sita, are abducted and sold to a Mumbai brothel owner, where they endure a torturous existence before they are helped by a Washington, D.C. attorney who is able to combat human trafficking. –NoveList |
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| The Rafters by A.C. Montgomery (2011) Sonambulist Saga #1 The Rafters visits an arcane world, where at crucial intervals, Callings of varying power and purpose are brought into being. Unaware, each is connected to a Messenger who alone can lead them to their true identity. Follow a Calling, who due to memory loss, runs ever further from his Messenger, into an underworld hungry to claim his power for its own villainous purposes. The scenery and elaborate personalities construct a complex web of plotting and intrigue. –NoveList |
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| The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh (2011) The story of a woman whose gift for flowers helps her change the lives of others even as she struggles to overcome her own past. –From the Publisher |
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| Dreams of Joy by Lisa See (2011) A continuation of “Shanghai Girls” finds a devastated Joy fleeing to China to search for her real father while her mother, Pearl, desperately pursues her, a dual quest marked by their encounters with the nation’s intolerant Communist culture. –NoveList |
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| Land of Marvels by Barry Unsworth (2009) In 1914, as the nations of the West are making a play for political power and oil in the Middle East, Somerville, a British archaeologist, finds his excavation of a long-buried Assyrian palace threatened by construction of a new railroad to Baghdad. –NoveList |
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| So Long at the Fair by Christina Schwartz (2008) Thirty years after a vengeful plot destroys a family, the implications of that act continue to reverberate as Jon must decide whether to end his affair or his marriage, and his wife becomes involved with an older man linked to their families’ past. –NoveList |
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| The Mayor’s Tongue by Nathaniel Rich (2008) Follows the dual stories of two men–young Eugene, a passionate reader who devotes himself to an adventurer writer, and elderly Mr. Schmitz, who in a series of ominous letters to a missing friend describes his growing desperation about his wife’s deteriorating health. –NoveList |
Adult Nonfiction
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| A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor (January 2012) Chronicles the life of a former slave to James and Dolley Madison, tracing his early years on their plantation, his service in the White House household staff and post-emancipation achievements as a memoirist. –NoveList |
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| Death in the City of Light by David King (2011) Documents the World War II effort to catch a physician serial killer in Paris, describing the covert information network that the chief French detective built with such groups as mobsters, nightclub owners, and Resistance fighters. –NoveList |
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| Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever who Saved Him by Luis Carlos Montalvan (2011) “Tuesday has a personality that shines. I am not kidding when I say it is common for people to pull out their cell phones and take pictures of and with him. Tuesday is that kind of dog. And then, in passing, they notice me, the big man with the tight haircut. There is nothing about me–even the straight, stiff way I carry myself–that signals disabled. Until people notice the cane in my left hand, that is, and the way I lean on it every few steps. Then they realize my stiff walk and straight posture aren’t just pride, and that Tuesday isn’t just an ordinary dog. He walks directly beside me, for instance, so that my right leg always bisects his body. He nuzzles me when my breathing changes, and he moves immediately between me and the object–a cat, an overeager child, a suspiciously closed door–any time I feel apprehensive. Because beautiful, happy-go-lucky, favorite-of-the-neighborhood Tuesday isn’t my pet; he’s my service dog.” Captain Luis Montalvan returned home from his second tour of duty in Iraq, having survived stab wounds, a traumatic brain injury, and three broken vertebrae. But the pressures of civilian life and his injuries proved too much to bear. Physical disabilities, agoraphobia, and crippling PTSD drove him to the edge of suicide. That’s when he met Tuesday – his best friend forever. Tuesday came with his own history of challenges: from the Puppies Behind Bars program, to a home for troubled boys, to the streets of Manhattan, Tuesday blessed many lives on his way to Luis. Until Tuesday unforgettably twines the story of man and dog.” – Provided by publisher. |
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| This Is Not the Story You Think It Is by Laura Munson (2011) The author details what happened when her husband of over twenty years told her he wasn’t sure he loved her anymore and wanted to move out. And while you might think you know where this story is going, this isn’t the story you think it is. Laura’s response to her husband: I don’t buy it. |
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| Love Is a Four-letter Word edited by Michael Taekens (2009) Presents true stories of heartbreak and bad relationships, reflecting on the contributors’ breakups with humor, regret, insightfulness, and nostalgia. –NoveList |
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| The Mighty Queens of Freeville by Amy Dickinson (2009) The humorist and advice columnist for “Ask Amy” describes her inspirational, haphazard experiences with divorce, traveling throughout the country, and resettling in her hometown, where her extended family helped her to raise her daughter. –NoveList |
Fiction for Kids & Teens
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| What Happens Next by Colleen Clayton (October 2012) *2 Copies Available* Before the ski trip, sixteen-year-old Cassidy “Sid” Murphy was a cheerleader, a straight-A student, and a member of a solid trio of best friends. When she ends up on a ski lift next to handsome local college boy Dax Windsor, she’s thrilled, but Dax takes everything from Sid—including a lock of her perfect red curls—and she can’t remember any of it. Back home and alienated by her friends, Sid drops her college prep classes and takes up residence in the AV room with only Corey “the Living Stoner” Livingston for company. But as she gets to know Corey (slacker, baker, total dreamboat), Sid finds someone who truly makes her happy. Now, if she can just shake the nightmares and those few extra pounds, everything will be perfect…or so she thinks. –Book Jacket |
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| Ask the Passengers by A.S. King (October 2012) Astrid Jones copes with her small town’s gossip and narrow-mindedness by staring at the sky and imagining that she’s sending love to the passengers in the airplanes flying high over her backyard. Maybe they’ll know what to do with it. Maybe it’ll make them happy. Maybe they’ll need it. Her mother doesn’t want it, her father’s always stoned, her perfect sister’s too busy trying to fit in, and the people in her small town would never allow her to love the person she really wants to: another girl named Dee. There’s no one Astrid feels she can talk to about this deep secret or the profound questions that she’s trying to answer. But little does she know just how much sending her love–and asking the right questions–will affect the passengers’ lives, and her own, for the better. –From the Publisher |
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| The Golden Door by Emily Rodda (October 2012) Three Doors #1 At night the skimmers fly over the Wall looking for human prey and the people of Weld huddle in their houses, but after his two brothers set out through the magic doors in an attempt to find the Enemy and don’t come back, young Rye knows that he must follow and find them. –NoveList |
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| Every Day by David Levithan (August 2012) Every morning A wakes in a different person’s body, in a different person’s life, learning over the years to never get too attached, until he wakes up in the body of Justin and falls in love with Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. –NoveList |
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| Soulbound by Heather Brewer (June 2012) Legacy of Tril #1 Seventeen-year-old Kaya, a Healer who wants to learn to fight, must attend Shadow Academy where fighting by Healers is outlawed, and so she asks two young men to train her in secret, leading to a choice that will change their lives forever. –NoveList |
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| Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage (May 2012) Washed ashore as a baby in tiny Tupelo Landing, North Carolina, Mo LoBeau, now eleven, and her best friend Dale turn detective when the amnesiac Colonel, owner of a cafe and co-parent of Mo with his cook, Miss Lana, seems implicated in a murder. –NoveList |
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| Cinder by Marissa Meyer (January 2012) Lunar Chronicles #1 As plague ravages the overcrowded Earth, observed by a ruthless lunar people, Cinder, a gifted mechanic and cyborg, becomes involved with handsome Prince Kai and must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect the world in this futuristic take on the Cinderella story. –NoveList Lucinda’s Review |
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| The Midnight Palace by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (2011) When a mysterious threat reenters the lives of twins Ben and Sheere, separated as babies and reunited as teenagers in 1930s Calcutta, the siblings must confront an unspeakable terror, with the help of their secret society of fellow orphans. –NoveList |
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| Noah Barleywater Runs Away by John Boyne (2011) When life at home becomes too difficult, eight-year-old Noah sets out to see the world and have an adventure, and in the forest he meets a toymaker who has a story and some advice to share. –NoveList |
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| Bitter End by Jennifer Brown (2011) When seventeen-year-old Alex starts dating Cole, a new boy at her high school, her two closest friends increasingly mistrust him as the relationship grows more serious. |
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| Sisters Red by Jackson Pierce (2010) Fairy Tale Retellings #1 After a Fenris, or werewolf, killed their grandmother and almost killed them, sisters Scarlett and Rosie March devote themselves to hunting and killing the beasts that prey on teenaged girls, learning how to lure them with red cloaks and occasionally using the help of their old friend, Silas, the woodsman’s son. –NoveList |
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| The Maze Runner by James Dashner (2009) Sixteen-year-old Thomas wakes up with no memory in the middle of a maze and realizes he must work with the community in which he finds himself if he is to escape. –NoveList |
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| Spellbinder by Helen Stringer (2009) Spellbinder #1 Twelve-year-old Belladonna Johnson, who lives with the ghosts of her parents in the north of England, teams up with an always-in-trouble classmate to investigate why all of the ghosts in the world have suddenly disappeared. –NoveList |
Rules of Entry
1. To enter, use the Rafflecopter widget below. To be eligible for the drawing, you are required to log in to the widget with your e-mail address or Facebook account AND leave a comment at the bottom of this post
stating which ARCs you would like to receive. (Choose up to ten. You are not guaranteed to win your top choices, but we do our best). Click “+1 Do It!” and
“Enter” on the widget after you have posted your comment below. After
completing the first task, you can also earn bonus entries by following
the directions in the widget.
2. All ARCs must be picked up at a Bullitt County Public Library location. Winners will be notified via e-mail and will be posted on this blog. Contest ends Friday, October 12, 2012.