Category Archives: Non-Book Review Posts

Blog Tour | Greek Millionaire, Unruly Wife, Sun Chara

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I’m happy to present a stop on the blog tour for Greek Millionaire, Unruly Wife by Sun Chara. See information about the book and author below, and enter an international giveaway for a Greek bracelet!

About the Book

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A tempestuous fling…a marriage…a betrayal?

When Michalis Leonadis’ bride jumps ship at the first sign of rough waters, he’s annoyed. When she costs him a marriage and a billion-dollar deal, he’s furious; but when he discovers she ditched him whilst harboring a secret…he’s out for revenge.

Ex-model, Julia Armstrong gave up everything for Michalis but when she catches him with another woman, crushed, she jets out of his life. The proud Greek blasts back into her world seeking retribution—in exchange for a divorce, he demands she relinquish the one thing she cannot. Her daughter. Only one other bargaining chip remains…Julia herself.

Purchase the book online.

About the Author

Sun photo-1Sun Chara, an Amazon top 100 bestseller, writes sexy, hip ‘n fun contemporary romance for HarperImpulse. JABBIC winner, Manhattan Millionaire’s Cinderella launched her writing career, spinning the ‘global millionaires’ series’. She makes her home in southern California, and has appeared on stage/film to rave reviews in How the Other Half Loves, General Hospital, and McGee and Me. With a Masters Degree in Education, and membership in SAG/AFTRA and Romance Writers of America, she enjoys sipping Frappuccinos topped with whipped cream/sprinkles, and dancing on the beach…making everyday a celebration!

Follow her on Facebook (Sun Chara Author Page) or Twitter (@sunchara3).

Giveaway

Win an e-copy of Greek Millionaire, Unruly Wife and a Greek style bracelet (Open Internationally)

The design of bracelet will vary depending on where in the world you live.

This giveaway is run by Rachel’s Random Resources.

Enter here: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/33c69494100/?

*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome.  Please enter using the Rafflecopter link above.  The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then I reserve the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time I will delete the data.  I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.

Author Encounter | Karma Brown, Tish Cohen and Uzma Jalaluddin

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When I saw the descriptions for the books at Harper Collins Canada’s June 21st Summer Reading event, I knew I had to be there. It was a wonderful opportunity to check out Harper Collins Canada’s beautiful new office (which has huge windows and an incredible view of downtown Toronto), and learn about some of the hottest books this summer.

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Karma Brown, Tish Cohen and Uzma Jalaluddin were all very warm and friendly. They spoke about their books, their writing process, and the importance of having friends who are also writers to support you in your work.

Writing Advice

The authors had a lot of great advice for aspiring writers. Some highlights below:

 

1. Write at your own pace.

Uzma said Ayesha at Last took 8 years to write. She’s a teacher and a mother as well as a writer, and there were times when she’d put the work down intending to get back to it soon, then not get back to it until a year later.

2. Don’t be afraid to start over.

Karma said she had written about 20,000 words of her manuscript when she realized it wasn’t working. So she took two shots of bourbon and decided to start from scratch. (Mini-tip: bourbon helps!) Luckily, that was about the time she heard about a case of someone with false memory syndrome, and she realized she had the hook she needed for her novel.

3. Develop your voice.

Language is a huge part of being a writer, and Tish said that developing your distinct voice as a writer is essential. “It’s what sets you apart from other writers,” she said, and it’s true. It’s hard to come up with a story that hasn’t been told before, but if you can tell it in a way that’s uniquely your own, the story can still feel fresh.

4. The first draft will never be perfect.

The writers agreed that before they started writing, they thought what you read on the page is how the author conceived of the story from the beginning. But the reality is, the final product has already gone through countless revisions, and often bears very little resemblance to the very first draft. Karma and Tish talked about the importance of listening to your editor, as they’ll often have almost as deep an understanding of your book as you do.

Uzma, as a debut author, talked about how it was like to revise her work even before she found an agent and editor. She said she wrote the very first draft of Ayesha at Last in three months, and was very proud of herself, until she showed it to some friends and learned that “it sucked.”

All three authors also talked about books they’ve written that they know are bad and will never submit for publication. They said every author likely has at least one similar manuscript at home, and it just reinforces how much work is done before a book is ready for publication.

5. Find a writing community.

All three women talked about how important it was to find other writers to support them as they wrote. Your non-writer friends and family can be supportive, but they won’t understand your frustration and insecurities as much as a fellow writer can.

Uzma highly recommends signing up for a writing class and making friends on Twitter.

Karma said she found writer friends by entering writing contests online. She said she writes at 5 am every morning, and that there’s a Twitter hashtag for authors who write at the same time, for them to support each other and cheer each other on. She also adds that if 5 am is too early for you, you can also try writing at midnight.

Tish added that everyone is at different points in their writing journey, and that writers are often very supportive regardless of where you are in your own journey. “We’re not scary,” she said. Karma agreed, adding that they’ve received so much support themselves from other writers that they’re often happy to pay it forward.

 

About the Books

All the books sound fascinating, and immediately made it to the top of my To-Be-Read list!

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1. The Life Lucy Knew by Karma Brown

After a head injury, Lucy wakes up to find she’s developed a condition called ‘false memory’ or ‘honest lying.’ Apparently, it’s a true, but rare condition, where your mind cobbles together real bits of memory to create false ones, and it’s impossible to tell which memories are real and which aren’t. Unlike amnesia (a common literary device where another head injury brings the memories back), this condition is permanent. How do you live with that? How does it impact your loved ones? And how can you find someone you trust to tell you whether something you remember actually did or didn’t happen? In Lucy’s case, she wakes up convinced she’s married to a man (who’s actually an ex-boyfriend), but learns she’s actually not married, and her current boyfriend is someone she knows only as a co-worker.

2. Little Green by Tish Cohen

Olympic athlete Elise Sorensen confronts long-simmering marital tensions when she and her husband Matt go to Lake Placid to sell off Matt’s family’s cabin. Matt is a lawyer who has made huge sacrifices in his career to be the primary caregiver for their daughter Gracie.

3. Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin

A modern day Pride and Prejudice in a Toronto Muslim community. Enough said.

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Thank you to Harper Collins Canada for a fun event, and copies of the featured books.

Event Recap | Penguin Random House Canada Fall Preview

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Last Thursday, Penguin Random House Canada invited booksellers and book bloggers to get a sneak preview of some of their must-read titles this season. It was an evening of pure bookworm nerding out, and a chance to meet some of their authors.

#CanLit Author Encounters

Lynn Crawford, Michael Redhill, Linda Spalding, Anthony Lacavera and Sam Turnbull all came to talk to us about their books.

  • Farm to Chef: Cooking through the Seasons by Lynn Crawford (Sept 12) – an absolutely gorgeous cookbook with recipes that, at first glance at least, sound delicious and seem simply enough to make. Recipes are arranged by season and featuring key ingredients (e.g. apples and mushrooms in Fall, cabbage and squash in Winter, asparagus and strawberries in Spring, and berries and tomatoes in Summer).
  • Bellevue Square by Michael Redhill (Sept 19) – a literary thriller set in Toronto about a young woman who investigates the mystery of her doppelganger being seen in Kensington Market. This book was already on my TBR list even before this event, so I’m very excited to have met the author and dig right in!
  • Fuss-Free Vegan by Sam Turnbull (Oct 17) – comfort food vegan recipes with no kale, no quinoa, no smoothies and no energy balls! We got a recipe card for 15-minute Peanut Noodles. I love peanut butter and noodles, and I especially love making meals in 15 minutes or fewer, so consider me sold on this vegan dish.
  • How We Can Win by Anthony Lacavera (Oct 3) – did you know the lightbulb was invented by Canadians? This book, by the founder of Wind Mobile, is about the need for Canadians to step up, own our successes and go for the gold rather than settling for bronze.
  • A Reckoning by Linda Spalding (Sept 26) – a novel inspired in part by Spalding’s own family history of her Quaker ancestors moving to Canada and taking with them their pet bear.

 

Already Read, Highly Recommend

  • The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne – one of the best books I’ve read this year, a Dickensian coming of age story of a gay man in 20th century Ireland. Carve out a staycation to immerse yourself in this.
  • Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin – a Congressional intern has an affair with her boss and reinvents her whole identity to move on from the fall out. Told from the perspectives of the intern herself, her mother, her daughter and the Congressman’s wife.

 

My Top 5

  • The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman (Oct 19) – I remember being absolutely blown away by The Golden Compass. La Belle Sauvage is the first in a new trilogy set in Lyra’s world, and I can’t wait to revisit that world.
  • Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (Sept 12) – a family story that begins with the main character’s daughter setting fire to their house on purpose. I love Ng’s earlier book Everything I Never Told You, and @ReederReads describes this book as being “like a really good episode of The Good Wife.“
  • Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks (Oct 17) – Tom Hanks wrote a book! Hanks’ love for typewriters is well-known, and each of the 17 short stories features a typewriter.
  • We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Oct 3) – Coates’ essays about the Obama White House years. I need this book.
  • God by Reza Aslan (Nov 7) – I loved Aslan’s take on Jesus in Zealot and can’t wait to dive into this.

Fiction Highlights

  • The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce (Nov 7) – how beautiful is this cover? Described as AJ Fikry meets High Fidelity, this story is about a record store owner with a knack for finding people the music they need, rather than the music they think they want.
  • Dunbar by Edward St. Aubyn (Oct 3) – the newest instalment in the Hogarth Shakespeare series, a contemporary re-telling of King Lear, with Lear re-imagined as the head of a global corporation.
  • Bonfire by Kristen Ritter (Nov 7) – grip lit by the star of Jessica Jones!
  • A Column of Fire by Ken Follett (Sept 12) – book 3 in the series started by The Pillars of the Earth, which I loved. Follett does a great job creating an immersive world for his historical epics.
  • Artemis by Andy Weir (Nov 14) – a heist story on the moon by the author of The Martian. Recommended for fans of The Expanse.
  • The Rooster Bar by John Grisham (Oct 24) – this is a nostalgia pick, as I was a huge fan of Grisham’s early work but haven’t really loved his more recent titles. But this story sounds like the kind of book I would have devoured as a teen — law school students learn their school is a scam and look for a way to escape their student debts and defeat the system.
  • Smile by Roddy Doyle (Sept 12) – a whodunnit psychological thriller, this intrigued me because of its comparison to Herman Koch’s The Dinner, which I loved.
  • Christmas at the Vinyl Cafe by Stuart McLean (Oct 31) – this is another nostalgia pick for me, as the Vinyl Cafe stories were among my earliest introductions to Canadian culture. Stuart McLean passed away earlier this year, and this volume collects his Christmas stories.
  • The Boat People by Sharon Bala (Jan 9) – a group of Sri Lankan refugees come to Canada only to face the threat of deportation of accusations of terrorism in their new land.

Non-Fiction Highlights

  • The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin (Sept 12) – I remember taking the online quiz to find out if I’m an Upholder, Questioner, Rebel or Obliger, and being disappointed by my result. This book is about how you can make the most of your personality type and influence others.
  • The Wolf by Nate Blakeslee (Oct 17) – about a powerful wolf in Yellowstone. Someone at the event said it’s like Dynasty or Game of Thrones, but with a wolf.
  • Endurance by Scott Kelly (Oct 17) – remember the twin astronauts who participated in a NASA study on the effect of space on the human body, where one lived on the space station for a year and the other stayed on Earth? Scott Kelly is the twin who lived in space, and this is his story.
  • I Can’t Breathe by Matt Taibbi (Oct 24) – a timely book about the roots and aftermath of Eric Garner’s killing by police.
  • The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve by Stephen Greenblatt (Sept 12) – beautiful cover! Greenblatt’s a great go-to if you want to geek out about Shakespeare or anything historical, and I’m curious to see his exploration of the Adam and Eve story.

Movie and TV Highlights

  • Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood (Aug 29) – I haven’t read the book, but I love this TV tie-in cover and am so excited for the CBC series (Netflix in the US)! (Trailer)
  • The Snowman by Jo Nesbo (Sept 26) – I love Nesbo’s thrillers and this one stars Michael Fassbender! (Trailer)
  • Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (Jan 30, movie tie-in cover still to be revealed) – I absolutely loved this geeky tribute to 80s video games, and can’t wait to see it on-screen! (Trailer)
  • Fifty Shades Darker by E.L. James – the movie tie-in edition includes James’ photos and caption commentary from the making of the film. The Fifty Shades Freed movie comes to theatres next February!
  • Voyager by Diana Gabaldon – Outlander Season 3 launches on W network this Fall! (Trailer)

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Thanks to Penguin Random House Canada for a great evening!