Yan at Books By Their Cover

And no one entered The Duty of Love giveaway. I will leave it up there for another week. If no one enters, I’ll give it away at my church book sale. 

Keep your eyes peeled for more giveaways. I have a couple on my shelf that I am ready to clear out.

Hello All! I received an extra copy of The Duty of Love! I received my copy of this book from the Kelley and Hall Publishing Company last month and REALLY liked it. Click here for the review.

Here’s what the back of the book says:

“What Would You Do If…

You were a lovelorn wizard with a rat that lived in your hair (your trademark in the very competitive business of wizardry)? Would you turn it into a human to spy on the damsels for you? What if you were a little Princess, and no one would listen to you when you tried to warn them about the murderess who was trying to take over the kingdom? Would you go looking for the wizard of Fandonwhom no one had ever seen, but had the best fireworks of all, and so, was surely the greatest of all the wizards? And if you were her brother, the Prince, would you try to rescue her from certain death?

What if you were a real life little girl, dying of a mysterious illness, and had an equally mysterious and deadly creature living in your closet? And what if you were her little brother? What would you promise the creature in return for saving the life of your sister?

The story starts with Father, a gifted storyteller, telling a fairy tale to his son, Charles, a troubled loner, and his daughter, Tanya, who is very, very ill. Each night Father tells more of the fairy tale, but later at night and during the day Charles and Tanya have real life problems of their own. Charles must fight his own descent into hellish darkness and Tanya must confront her coming death and the mysterious noises, scratches and bumps that echo every night from her closet.

The Duty of Love is about a girl who is dying physically and a boy who is dying spiritually. It’s about rats that become humans and humans that become lizards. It’s about a wizard who becomes wise and a wizard who tells lies. It’s about well-meant little compromises that turn deadly, and heroic stands against all odds. It is also the story of a mysterious maiden, who is sure she knows the deepest and greatest secret of all. But most of all, it’s about what it means to love and what it means to be human.”

This is really great story within a story. You learn about the Wizard through a story being told to a little boy and girl. If you are interested, all you have to do is two things:
1. Leave me your email.
2. Promise me you will do a review of this book. All you have to do when you are done reading it is send me the link to your blog and I will forward it on to the company. If you do not have a blog, just email me what you thought about the book. I promised the company that I would make sure whoever read this book would do a review.

Easy right? You have until January 20th to get your names in!

Released: November 14, 2007

I got this book from the Kelley and Hall book company for review. I was told this book was Stephen King meets J.R.R Tolkein and it was magical. I haven’t read either of these authors, but the book was magical.

There are two stories in this book. One is of Charles and his sister Tanya. Tanya is sick and one of the things to make her feel better is story telling. Every night her father tells them the story of Prince Cha Cha and Princess Ta Ta. This is the second story.

The Prince and Princess are in a bit of a bind. Evil has twisted its way into their kingdom in the form of a traitor. After the Princess is left in the woods, she has to find her way to the greatest wizard in the land. She doesn’t quite find him, but does find herself in an adventure. All the while, the Prince has changed. He’s not bratty and demanding as he used to be, but no one is really sure why. The two have to come together somehow and put their kingdom back in order.

Between story times, Charles and Tanya learn a lot about each other and Tanya’s sickness. Their relationship grows as Charles takes it upon himself to save his sister.

I do like wizard stories, so I was very optimistic when starting this. I thought it was written very well and I really liked how it went back and forth between the two stories. It wasn’t confusing at all, like some stories are when they go between fantasy and reality. You always knew where you were.

I also liked the characters in this story too. There were some that I didn’t like when the story started, but grew to love once I really got to know them. And vice versa of course.

There were many twists in this story that I didn’t expect. Some of them I guessed, but most caught me by surprise.

I didn’t have many complaints about this story, other than the bed time story part may have been a little adult for the kids. The story itself was kid friendly, but there were parts when I had to read and re-read and consult my dictionary. I guess this may actually be genius because it’s on a kid level and adult level at the same time. Kind of like Finding Nemo. If you’re a kid, you love it because it’s fun. If you’re an adult, you get the humor, it’s a win-win.

This is a little darker than I normally read, but I enjoyed it. I give the book 4 bookmarks and will look forward to Ronald Neal Green books in the future.

Pg7: “There were recipes for turning all manner of animals into humans and humans into animals and back again. For example, fish into humans, and vice versa, and also snakes and lizards, turtles, birds, wolves (there were many of these), newts, salamanders, frogs, toads, peacocks, oysters, camels, elephants, horses, pigs, flies, mosquitoes, dragonflies, gnats, cats, and even bats, but nothing, absolutely nothing, about rats.”

Don’t we all look for spells like this?? What is your tease?

This week’s On My Bookshelf post is very exciting for me for two reasons.
1. It contains the first book I’ve won in a contest!
2. It contains the first book I’ve received for review as well as two other books I got for review this week. 3 in one week? I’m pumped!

CONTEST:

I won this book from Vicki over at Reading At The Beach.

I have read one Patterson book and fell in love. Plus, the cover of this is very cute! Can’t wait to read it!

“A calculating killer who calls himself The Teacher is taking on New York City, killing the powerful and the arrogant. Discovering a secret pattern to The Teacher’s lessons, Detective Mike Bennett realizes he has just hours to save New York from the greatest disaster in history.”

REVIEW: This is the first week I’ve received books to review and I got three! WOWZA!

The first book I got is an ARC from the Kelley and Hall Company. It comes out next month.

The company says Wilson’s debut novel “creates a bridge between adult horror and teen adventure.”

They also say he “picks up where R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps left off.” I don’t know about you, but I loved me some Goosebumps. 

 I got the E-Book copy of Dirty Little Angels. Since I have to look at a computer for 9 hours at work, I decided to print off the book so I’ll have a hard copy of it! I hope to start it this weekend. Here’s a summary of the book:

“Set in the slums of New Orleans, among clusters of crack houses and abandoned buildings, Dirty Little Angelsis the story of sixteen year old Hailey Trosclair. When the Trosclair family suffers a string of financial hardships and a miscarriage, Hailey finds herself looking to God to save her family. When her prayers go unanswered, Hailey puts her faith in Moses Watkins, a failed preacher and ex-con. Fascinated by Moses’s lopsided view of religion, Hailey, and her brother Cyrus, begin spending time down at an abandoned bank that Moses plans to convert into a drive-through church. Gradually, though, Moses’s twisted religious beliefs become increasingly more violent, and Hailey and Cyrus soon find themselves trapped in a world of danger and fear from which there may be no escape.”

This is also a book I received from the Kelley and Hall Company. Here’s what the back of the book says:

“What Would You Do If…

You were a lovelorn wizard with a rat that lived in your hair (your trademark in the very competitive business of wizardry)? Would you turn it into a human to spy on the damsels for you? What if you were a little Princess, and no one would listen to you when you tried to warn them about the murderess who was trying to take over the kingdom? Would you go looking for the wizard of Fandon whom no one had ever seen, but had the best fireworks of all, and so, was surely the greatest of all the wizards? And if you were her brother, the Prince, would you try to rescue her from certain death?

What if you were a real life little girl, dying of a mysterious illness, and had an equally mysterious and deadly creature living in your closet? And what if you were her little brother? What would you promise the creature in return for saving the life of your sister?

The story starts with Father, a gifted storyteller, telling a fairy tale to his son, Charles, a troubled loner, and his daughter, Tanya, who is very, very ill. Each night Father tells more of the fairy tale, but later at night and during the day Charles and Tanya have real life problems of their own. Charles must fight his own descent into hellish darkness and Tanya must confront her coming death and the mysterious noises, scratches and bumps that echo every night from her closet.

The Duty of Love is about a girl who is dying physically and a boy who is dying spiritually. It’s about rats that become humans and humans that become lizards. It’s about a wizard who becomes wise and a wizard who tells lies. It’s about well-meant little compromises that turn deadly, and heroic stands against all odds. It is also the story of a mysterious maiden, who is sure she knows the deepest and greatest secret of all. But most of all, it’s about what it means to love and what it means to be human.”

BORROWED:

This is the front and back cover of Stephen King’s Duma Key. A co-worker brought this one to me after I told him how excited I was for Under the Dome to be released. I’d never heard of this book, but the last one he brought me was The Historian and I absolutely LOVED it, so I’m expecting the same from this. Here’s the summary from Fantastic Fiction:

“Six months after a crane crushes his pickup truck and his body self-made millionaire Edgar Freemantle launches into a new life. His wife asked for a divorce after he stabbed her with a plastic knife and tried to strangle her one-handed (he lost his arm and for a time his rational brain in the accident). He divides his wealth into four equal parts for his wife, his two daughters, himself and leaves Minnesota for Duma Key, a stunningly beautiful, eerily remote stretch of the Florida coast where he has rented a house. All of the land on Duma Key, and the few houses, are owned by Elizabeth Eastlake, an octogenarian whose tragic and mysterious past unfolds perilously. When Edgar begins to paint, his formidable talent seems to come from someplace outside him, and the paintings, many of them, have a power that cannot be controlled.

Soon the ghosts of Elizabeth s childhood return, and the damage of which they are capable is truly terrifying.”