A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore...

Another weekend come and gone! I was away for most of the week for a conference in San Diego, but I got back late on Friday night/the wee hours of Saturday morning. While I was on the plane, I finished reading a review copy of Michelle Moran’s Madame Tussaud, which the author generously sent me to review; read all of Every Eye, by Isobel English (review to be posted during Persephone Reading Weekend next weekend), and then most of The Du Mauriers, Daphne Du Maurier’s biography of her ancestors. All three are great reads. My current read is a short one: Sisters by a River, by Barbara Comyns, a novel told from a child’s point of view (complete with erratic spellings), based on the author’s life. Speaking of Persephone Reading Weekend ( Claire at Paperback Reader is hosting and has more on it), I received several books in the mail this past week that I might read: Alas, Poor Lady, by Rachel Ferguson; A Very Great Profession, by Nicola Beauman; Few Eggs and No Oranges, by Vere Hodgso...

Yup, I have a hardcover edition of this book to give away! Rules are the same: US entrants only, and you have a week to enter (until midnight on the 30th). Below is a description of the book from the inside cover (which is beautiful, by the way. The book will be released in the US on October 6th. Good luck! Olive Wellwood is a famous writer, interviewed with her children gathered at her knee. For each of them she writes a separate private book, bound in different colours and placed on a shelf. In their rambling house near Romney Marsh they play in a story-book world - but their lives, and those of their rich cousins, children of a city stockbroker, and their friends, the son and daughter of a curator at the new Victoria and Albert Museum, are already inscribed with mystery. Each family carries their own secrets. Into their world comes a young stranger, a working-class boy from the potteries, drawn by the beauty of the Museum's treasures. And in midsummer a German puppeteer arrives,...

Somehow, I ended up with multiple copies of Cleopatra's Daughter (basically, I put my fingers in every part of the pie to see if I could score a copy!). So I'm having a giveaway for three copies of this excellent book (in case you didn't enter or didn't win one in one of the other contests floating around the book blogosphere). Two are finished copies and the last is an ARC. You have a week to enter (so basically midnight on the 12th); US only. Good luck! (If you've been living under a rock recently, here's the book's description): Moran's latest foray into the world of classical history (after The Heretic Queen ) centers upon the children of Marc Antony and Cleopatra . After the death of their parents, twins Alexander and Selene and younger brother Ptolemy are in a dangerous position, left to the mercy of their father's greatest rival, Octavian Caesar. However, Caesar does not kill them as expected, but takes the trio to Rome to be paraded as part ...

I have some winners for my blog giveaway for The White Queen , by Philippa Gregory! They are... Serena at Savvy Verse and Wit and Gwendolyn B. at A Sea of Books . Please send me your mailing address so that the publisher can get the books out to you! Please contact me sometime this weekend. so that I can e-mail the publicist tomorrow night. Enjoy.

I've been given the fantastic opportunity of giving away two copies of this book! Here's the description from Amazon: Brother turns on brother to win the ultimate prize, the throne of England, in this dazzling account of the wars of the Plantagenets. They are the claimants and kings who ruled England before the Tudors, and now Philippa Gregory brings them to life through the dramatic and intimate stories of the secret players: the indomitable women, starting with Elizabeth Woodville, the White Queen. The White Queen tells the story of a woman of extraordinary beauty and ambition who, catching the eye of the newly crowned boy king, marries him in secret and ascends to royalty. While Elizabeth rises to the demands of her exalted position and fights for the success of her family, her two sons become central figures in a mystery that has confounded historians for centuries: the missing princes in the Tower of London whose fate is still unknown. From her uniquely qualified perspecti...

I haven't picked a winner yet for the giveaway for Mistress of Mellyn, but I'll do so in a moment. In the meantime... I'm giving away an ARC of Mistress Shakespeare , by Karen Harper (author of The Last Boleyn ), which will be published in February. Here's the blurb from the back of the book: "In Mistress Shakespeare , Elizabethan beauty Anne Whateley reveals intimate details of her dangerous, daring life and her great love, William Shakespeare. As historical records show, Anne Whateley of Temple Grafton is betrothed to Will just days before he is forced to wed the pregnant Anne Hathaway of Shottery. The clandestine Whateley/Shakespeare match is a meeting of hearts and heads that no one—not even Queen Elizabeth or her spymasters—can destroy. From rural Stratford-upon- Avon to teeming London, the passionate pair struggles to stay solvent and remain safe from Elizabeth I’s campaign to hunt down secret Catholics, of whom Shakespeare is rumored to be a part. Often at o...

I received a second ARC of Mistress of Mellyn in the mail today, so I'm having a giveaway for it! Here are the rules for entry: 1) Deadline to enter is December 11th, or a week from today 2) US entries only 3) Please be sure to leave an e-mail or some way for me to reach you in case you win. Good luck! Watch out for a couple more giveaways here in the next few weeks.

Brenda Janowitz (author of Scot on the Rocks and Jack With a Twist ) is giving away signed copies of her books, plus copies of Magic and the Modern Girl , by Mindy Klasky; Wife Goes On , by Leslie Lehr; City Dog , by Allison Pace; and The Memoirist , by MJ Rose. To find out more, click here .

Shana of Literarily is hosting a giveaway of Michelle Moran's new book, The Heretic Queen! More importantly, there's an interview with the author herself about the writing process and her experiences with her agent and the publishing process.

The winner of my contest for The Glass of Time is Luanne, of A Bookworm's World ! I got an overwhelming response to this giveaway, so congratulations! I jut finished reading it, and it's wonderful, so enjoy. As a reminder, my contest for The Shape of Mercy is still going on! Don't forget to leave an e-mail if you decide to enter.

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars...

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.

The thinly-disguised story of Catherine Dickens, wife of the famous author, is at the heart of this unpretentious, unassuming novel. The celebrated author Alfred Gibson has died, leaving England in mourning. His estranged wife, Dorothy (or “Dodo”) sits at home as the funeral and reading of the will take place. As she sits, she looks back on her twenty-year-plus marriage to “the One and Only,” and “The Great Original.” An invitation to visit Queen Victoria, as well to her sister Sissy and the actress Wilhelmina Rickets, leads to another series of reflections on her marriage. It’s a quiet novel, simple yet complicated in many ways. There’s not much action, certainly not in the present day, but there’s a certain gentleness of language that makes this book compellingly readable. Dodo, despite her shy, retiring ways, is a likeable heroine, strong in the ways a “typical” Victorian woman wasn’t supposed to be. In addition, I enjoyed the way the characters interacted with one another: Dodo’s d...

Over at the Boston Bibliophile , there's a book giveaway going on, for The Lace Reader, by Brunonia Barry . From Publishers Weekly : In Barry's captivating debut, Towner Whitney, a dazed young woman descended from a long line of mind readers and fortune tellers, has survived numerous traumas and returned to her hometown of Salem, Mass., to recover. Any tranquility in her life is short-lived when her beloved great-aunt Eva drowns under circumstances suggesting foul play. Towner's suspicions are taken with a grain of salt given her history of hallucinatory visions and self-harm. The mystery enmeshes local cop John Rafferty, who had left the pressures of big city police work for a quieter life in Salem and now finds himself falling for the enigmatic Towner as he mourns Eva and delves into the history of the eccentric Whitney clan. Barry excels at capturing the feel of smalltown life, and balances action with close looks at the characters' inner worlds. Her pacing and use ...