Freebie Friday:March Madness Book Hop

It’s Friday and time for some Freebies y’all!

This weekend I’m participating in the March Madness Book Hop hosted by Diva’s Bookcase.
Do you have the luck of the Irish?  Well let’s see…

I have three books that I’m giving away today so there will be three winners.  {Happy Feet dance here}

It’s easy to win and many chances ( Leave a separate comment for each entry):

Mandatory

• Tell me what’s the best book you’ve read this year and specify which book you want to win.  My choice is Skipping A Beat by Sarah Pekkanen (review).

Extra Entries

• Follow my blog via GFC +1
• Subscibe via RSS +1
• Like me on Facebook +2
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You have  15 chances to win.  Make sure you come back tomorrow for more chances to win more books.

Silver Borne by Patricia Briggs. I got this book at a library sale. However, it looks brand new like no one checked it out.

Coyote-shifting garage mechanic Mercedes Thompson, now mated to Adam, the Alpha of the local werewolf pack, embarks on her exciting fifth dark fantasy adventure (after 2009′s bestselling Bone Crossed). Three subplots—Mercy’s attempt to return a magical book to a fae friend-of-a-friend, her difficulties integrating into Adam’s pack, and her roommate Samuel’s misery over being a lone Alpha—come together seamlessly, and excitement builds as Mercy and her loved ones go through ever more intense experiences, including a house fire, a suicide attempt, a death sentence, and a reunion between long-ago loves. Briggs creates both well-rounded characters and a complex mythology, resulting in a rich read that’s far more than a series of action adventures strung together. Fans of the series will be thrilled; new readers should start at the beginning or risk drowning in the immersive world-building.

ARC of House Divided by Raul Ramos Y Sanchez.

American Libre author Ramos y Sanchez offers myriad perspectives on a civil war in his slushy latest. War has ravaged a Los Angeles where people who are designated “class H”–Hispanic, married to someone Hispanic, or having at least one grandparent of Hispanic origin–are carted off to quarantine zones. As a violent uprising stirs, Manolo Suarez, who has already lost a son to the war, fears for his other son, 13-year-old Pedro, who falls under the spell of a charismatic gang leader. As Manolo fights to keep his family safe, a slew of story lines sprout: two U.N. delegates of Hispanic origin with opposing views on how best to support their people, an ambitious C.I.A. operative, a young officer hell-bent on proving himself to his superiors. Unfortunately, Ramos y Sanchez neglects his characters’ psychological and emotional development and instead leans heavily on potboiler plot twists and dialogue that too often slumps into action-movie banter. The novel is unfailingly earnest and moves confidently enough, but the treatment of conflict and its aftereffects is too shallow to resonate.

Plum Lucky by Janet Evanovich.

In bestseller Evanovich’s breezy third holiday novella (after Plum Lovin’), Stephanie Plum’s kooky Grandma Mazur finds a duffle full of money on the street and hightails it to Atlantic City. When Stephanie learns that the money was stolen from Delvina, a notorious Trenton mobster, she and her friend Lula head off in pursuit. In Atlantic City, the Jersey bounty hunter discovers she’s not the only one after Grandma after meeting Snuggy, an ex-jockey who originally stole the money and is convinced he’s a leprechaun. With her on-again off-again boyfriend Morelli tied up with a murder case and the sexy Ranger otherwise occupied, Stephanie turns to the mysterious Diesel for help. As she tries to keep Grandma safe and fend off the advances of Diesel amid the slot machines and craps tables, Stephanie realizes she may be in over her head. With her trademark wit, cast of eccentric side characters and hilariously absurd plot twists, Evanovich treats her fans to a delightful mini adventure sure to whet their appetites for the next full-length Plum escapade.

The Last Universe by William Sleator

Teenagers Susan and Gary live in the house that has belonged to the family for generations. Now Gary has contracted a disease that has him confined to a wheelchair and traveling to the hospital regularly for transfusions. Susan is unwillingly spending her summer vacation pushing her brother through the garden and woods of their peculiar estate. Gary has been reading about quantum physics, a subject in which Great-Uncle Arthur won an international prize many years earlier. He is also the one largely responsible for the creation of the garden and just possibly the maze that no one has ever seen except from one window in the house. Gary is convinced that his illness has somehow triggered a quantum event that is responsible for the bizarre changes he and his sister are finding each day. He also seems to be getting better after each visit to the garden and so Susan finds herself torn between her fear of it and her fear for her brother’s life. Sleator is a master of suspenseful science fiction and that mastery is evident here. The action is slow at first, but as the garden begins to change, the pace picks up correspondingly. Ultimately Susan must brave the maze on her own when Gary is rushed to the hospital. The twist at the end is entirely logical (if anything about quantum can be) and entirely shocking. Well-drawn characters and a believable story will catch and hold Sleator’s fans and make new ones. Another solid entry from a deservedly popular author.-Elaine Fort Weischedel, Milton Public Library, MA

1973 Nervous Breakdown: Watergate, Warhol, and the Birth of Post-Sixties America by Andreas Killen

According to CCNY assistant history professor Killen, 1973 was “a cultural watershed, a moment of major realignments and shifts in American politics, culture, and society,” and he examines these transformations in a series of essays. Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine chronicled America’s obsession with celebrity culture, from its homage to screen icons like Marilyn Monroe to its sympathetic portrayal of gender-bending trash-rock band the New York Dolls. The year 1973 also saw the rise of Ted Patrick, who claimed to have deprogrammed over 100 young people who had fallen into the clutches of religious cults, and the transformation of Vietnam War POWs into heroes as a Watergate-embroiled Nixon sought to bask in their reflected glory. The best pieces focus on PBS’s trailblazing reality TV show An American Family, and the media’s progressive invasion of American lives. Disasters and hijackings made air travel a flash point for extreme fear. Although his prose is frequently opaque and stilted, and his selection of 1973 seems arbitrary (why not 1974, the year of Patty Hearst’s kidnapping and Nixon’s resignation?), the perceptive Killen sheds welcome light on our collective experience.

Long Shot: My Bipolar Life and the Horses Who Saved Me by Sylvia Harris

Harris struggled for decades with bipolar disorder, which surfaced shortly after she left high school. Her love of horses became her salvation. She first owned a horse at age 12 when her family “was living the American dream on a cul-de-sac in Santa Rosa,” but hard times followed for Harris, along with wild manic episodes. Her illness led to bizarre behavior; at a party she hurled handfuls of chocolate pudding at the walls “as if I were Jackson Pollock (another manic-depressive) throwing paint onto a huge canvas.” Buddhism and medications helped, but her personal life was in disarray until she transitioned from homelessness to horse grooming in Ocala, Fla. Working with horses, riding, and training, she got a jockey’s license, overcoming the problems of being a woman in a male-dominated sport. “Against all odds,” she writes, “at forty years old, I became the first African American woman in Chicago racing history to win a race and only the second in U.S. history.” As the book goes into the homestretch, Harris details how she discovered the healing power of horses and got her life back on track.

For a chance to win more books make sure you visit all the other blogs participating in the March Madness Book Hop!

Tagged as: Book Hop, Giveaway