Carol's Notebook – Page 663

Wondrous Words Wednesday

July 22, 2009 by Carol7 Comments

Thanks to Bermudaonion's Weblog for hosting this weekly event. Head over there to play along. I only ran across one new-to-me word this week. It's from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. manky- inferior and worthless "to attend a demonstration of a new carriage that boasted of being impervious to attacks by the manky dreadfuls." Any new words for you this week?...

Midnight Bayou by Nora Roberts

July 22, 2009July 21, 2009 by Carol3 Comments

Midnight Bayou by Nora Roberts Declan Fitzgerald had always been the family maverick, but even he couldn't understand his impulse to buy a dilapidated mansion on the outskirts of New Orleans. All he knew was that ever since he first saw Manet Hall, he'd been enchanted-and obsessed-with it. So when the opportunity to buy the house comes up, Declan jumps at the chance to live out a dream. Determined to restore Manet Hall to its former splendor, Declan begins the daunting renovation room by room, relying on his own labor and skills. But the days spent in total isolation in the empty house take a toll. He is seeing visions of days from a century past, and experiencing sensations of terror and nearly unbearable grief-sensations not his own, but those of a stranger. Local legend has it that the house is haunted, and with every passing day Declan's belief in the ghostly presence grows. Only the companionship of alluring Angelina Simone can distract him...

Teaser Tuesday

July 21, 2009 by Carol6 Comments

Grab your current read. Let the book fall open to a random page. Share with us two (2) "teaser" sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12. You also need to share the title of the book that you're getting your "teaser" from...that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given. Please avoid spoilers! My teaser: If there had not been a Netherfield ball to prepare for, the younger Miss Bennets would have been in a very pitiable state, for from the day of the invitation, to the day of the ball, there was such a succession of rain as prevented their walking to Meryton once. The earth was again soft, and the dead numerous. -pg. 71, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Graham-Smith Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Play along....

David Liss, author of The Devil’s Company

July 21, 2009July 21, 2009 by Carol6 Comments

I want to thank David Liss for taking a page in my notebook today to share some of his thoughts. Based on the Disgruntled Writer's Book There was a time when Hollywood film options were a nice – sometimes very nice – supplemental income for novelists. I still recall with both amusement and delight the late-into-the-night duel between two studios for the rights to my first novel. I recall with less amusement and less delight how, after throwing money at the wrong (not bad, just wrong) screenwriter and wrong director, the studio ended up with an unworkable project and walked away. Now that novel has been revived as a potential film, thanks to the free options, an increasingly common arrangement in economic-downturn Hollywood. In the past few weeks I’ve agreed to a free option and a free option renewal for two books. The bad side is that no one is paying me money up front. The good news is that, absent the power-brokering...

Winners! And more winners!

July 20, 2009 by Carol3 Comments

I've got a couple of sets of winners to announce, but first I have a new winner for The Juror by George Dawes Green. One of the orginal winners already got her hands on a copy. Renee G Congratulations to the winners of How to Score by Robin Wells. Laura chey Freda Mans Geraldine Carlene And congratulations to the winners of Off Season by Anne Rivers Siddons. I'm sorry I didn't post this on Saturday like I was supposed to, but I was exhausted. Cindy V Belinda McNabb Marie scottsgal Amanda I'll be sending you all e-mails today or tomorrow. I'll just need your mailing address to pass on to Hachette Book Group. Thanks so much....

Don’t Call Me a Crook! by Bob Moore

July 20, 2009 by Carol5 Comments

Don't Call Me a Crook!: A Scotsman's Tale of World Travel, Whisky and Crime by Bob Moore It is a pity there are getting to be so many places that I can never go back to, but all the same, I do not think it is much fun a man being respectable all his life. Thus begins Don't Call Me a Crook!, a memoir of a 1920s youth thoroughly, noisily and lawlessly lived. Bob Moore, a Glaswegian, was a marine engine, occasional building superintendent and ramblin' man. "I have been round the world seven times, and I have been shipwrecked three times, and I have spent £100,000," Moore boasts. In Don't Call Me a Crook he recounts pitched battles with Chinese bandits, life in gangster-infested Chicago, and decadent orgies aboard a millionaire's yacht. It's a hardboiled-noir memoir. It's picaresque, perverse, and darkly funny. A tribute to one man's triumph over the law, morals and sobriety, it's a lost confession that will be crowned...