97. Shimmer by Eric Barnes...

Shimmer tells the story of Robbie Case, and his company, Core Communications. Built on a flawed technology, he nonetheless has managed to build Core into a multi-billion-dollar company in just three years. But the amount of hands-on manipulation that's required to keep Core going is starting to wear Robbie out. And if that isn't enough to stress about, Robbie also worries about what'll happen to his friends--the ones who were there in the beginning, the ones who're doing their darnedest to keep building Core, so that when grace gets here, they're all filthy rich.

Except that they won't. Because Core's success is a fraud. One that Robbie perpetuates because he doesn't know what else to do. And because he's actually a good guy, he's built a whole framework behind the scenes to keep things afloat. As long as money's rolling in, and his own Internal Audit team doesn't figure it out, Core can keep going.

Shimmer is a kinda-sorta technology read. Being a geek--yes, I was a mainframe programmer in a kinda-sorta previous life--I chuckled at the references, and commisserated with Core's programmers. (geeks unite!) However, you do not require anointing into geekdom to enjoy the story, and I did. There was enough of a plot going (Is he going to make it? Is he not?), and the characters were interesting, if sometimes a little stereotypical, and I liked the ending.

Want more? Check out my giveaway (hurry, it ends on Wed!), along with a guest post from Eric himself!

Title: Shimmer
Author: Eric Barnes
ISBN-10: 1932961674
ISBN-13: 978-1932961676
Paperback: 281 pages (ARC)
Publisher: Unbridled Books, 2009

Birthday bash - day 8! Eric Barnes shares guilty pleasures...

Today's guest is Eric Barnes, author of the soon-to-be-published novel, Shimmer! Read on to see what he has to say about guilty pleasures (not his! psych!)...

When I was writing Shimmer, I wanted to find a way for Robbie Case, the main character who has led his company into a Ponzi scheme, to be almost entirely without vices. Self-indulgence, I thought, would distract from the fraud, from the moral and ethical quandary of the choices Robbie makes. I wanted the novel to stay focused on the rational, methodical decisions Robbie has made. It wasn’t interesting, to me, to write about someone who not only lied his way into the situation, but a person who enjoyed it, who wildly spent the money he made, who lived a life of pleasure and decadence, who didn’t care about the risks he was taking or the risks he’d imposed on everyone around him..

Yet that made Robbie just a little bit unreal. Because everyone has their vices.

And so Robbie has two secret, guilty desires. Prostitutes. And gin.

I did not do drugs. I did not gamble, did not even spend the money I was paid. This was my vice, dark music and gin, a woman escorted to me by my bodyguard.

Robbie’s vices couldn’t compete or distract from the choices he makes by day, running the company. They couldn’t be an excuse. A crutch or reason for what he does. And so I knew that the prostitutes in Shimmer had to be fundamentally unreal, willing and faceless and nonpersons completely. At least they are at first, at the start of the novel. By the end they are real. They are people. And they begin to represent something very bad to and about Robbie.

But what would Robbie drink? It had to be gin. Clear, cold gin. Not a martini, not a gin and tonic. Just a glass of gin.

I’m drinking it now, while writing this post in honor of Drey’s birthday. I don’t drink gin often. There’s a certain danger in it for me. I’ll drink a bit too much of it. Drink it a bit too fast. Strange things will happen then. Not always bad, and not always good. But strange.

The kids are playing downstairs. Elizabeth’s making dinner. I can see the neighbors tending to their yard. But there’s gin in a glass near me and Portishead on the stereo. Strange things could happen. Half a glass and, really, I can’t help but think it’s possible.

For Robbie, it was the same. His late at night wanderings through the upper floors of the company are very often accompanied by a glass of gin. An outlet. An elixir. A simple pleasure in the fray of all that he’s caused to happen. And strange things did happen for him. Not every night. But most.

Happy Birthday, Drey.

Awwwww! Thanks, Eric!!  & doesn't his post just make you want to pick up Shimmer, like, NOW??  *grin*  You can find Eric online at his website, ericbarnes.net.

Giveaway!
Thanks to Unbridled Books, I have one ARC copy of Shimmer on the block, so step on up! This goes only to mailing addresses in the U.S. (sorry!), and ends 6:00 p.m. CST June 24th--so hurry on up!  

To enter, comment and share a guilty pleasure...  Mine? Dark chocolate.  If it comes wrapped around a really really good cheesecake? Even better. Relatively harmless, except to my arteries, lol!

As always, +1 for following, +2 for sharing! Good luck!

Birthday bash - day 6! Timothy Schaffert shares a drink recipe...

Today's lovely guest is Timothy Schaffert... Welcome!

About the author:
Timothy Schaffert grew up on a farm in Hamilton County, Nebraska, and attended the University of Nebraska at Lincoln as an undergraduate. He holds the MFA in creative writing from the University of Arizona. His short stories have appeared in Prairie Schooner, The Greensboro Review, Press, Natural Bridge, and other literary journals. His novel, The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters, was published by Blue Hen, a division of Penguin Putnam, and won the Nebraska Book Award for Fiction in 2003. His second novel, The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God, was published by Unbridled Books, as was his third, Devils in the Sugar Shop (2007). He has served as Editor of The Reader and Omaha Pulp, two arts and culture newsweeklies in Omaha. He is also the Director of the Omaha Lit Fest. Find Timothy online at his website, timothyschaffert.com.

From Timothy:

Dry, Dry Summer Martini

Keep a jug of Gilbey's gin in the freezer (it's cheaper than the higher-end gins, but just as tasty for those of us with gin-ruined taste buds). Put some ice in a martini glass. (Some bartenders recommend ice and water in the glass to chill it more completely; I'm no scientist, but the ice alone seems to do a quicker, more efficient job of it.) While the glass is chilling, spear some olives and/or onions. (Fancy glass swizzle sticks can maul the olive or onion, so stick with the decidedly unflashy and grandfatherly toothpick.) (I tend to prefer onions, which renders your martini into its slightly less glamorous sister, a gibson, but most people won't know, so choose your condiment wantonly.) Pour out the ice (or not... martinis on the rocks are technically served in a highball glass, but be a libertine and buck tradition), then pour in the gin. Add literally the teensiest drop of dry vermouth, for the sake of ceremony. (The foul vermouth was introduced to the martini back in the days when gin was even more foul. But now gins are of a finer blend, and require no flavor enhancer/disguiser.) (Some bartenders insist that a classic martini calls for half gin, half vermouth, an act of civil disobedience, as I see it.) Turn on some Blossom Dearie or Maude Maggart on the hi-fi, unknot your necktie, and sip.

Giveaway!
Thanks to Unbridled Books, here's a 3-pack of Timothy's books for one lucky winner! Enter if you live in the US (no PO Boxes, please). To enter, comment--martinis: shaken or stirred? Yup, Bond fan here. Alternately, if you don't drink, share your favorite Bond. I'm very partial to Daniel Craig. Then again, I liked him before he did the Bond movies... Yummm... As usual, +1 for following, +2 for sharing. Giveaway ends 6:00pm CST June 22nd.

88. Devils in the Sugar Shop by Timothy Schaffert...

Devils in the Sugar Shop had me confused at the beginning, with its plethora of characters, all woven into each other's lives. I had to work at remembering who was who, who was sleeping with whom, who was married (or not anymore) to whom, etc... Whew. But, I think I got it all... =)

Ashley is a novelist who's happily married to Troy. She teaches erotic-writing workshops, unaware that her twenty-something student, Peach, is having an affair with Troy. Deedee is divorced, still attached to her ex (or rather, to the thought of her ex), and making money selling toys to the suburban wives in the area. Viv is an artist, still single, being stalked, and meeting with Deedee's ex.

And if one generation in complicated trysts isn't enough, Deedee's daughter Naomi has a crush on Ashley's son Lee, who is gay.

Devils in the Sugar Shop walks a fine line in telling the stories of its characters' relationships. It is a sarcastically witty commentary on the people who believe what they want to believe, and who then act accordingly.

Title: Devils in the Sugar Shop
Author: Timothy Schaffert
ISBN-10: 193296133X
ISBN-13: 978-1932961331
Paperback: 246 pages
Publisher: Unbridled Books, 2006

Birthday bash - day 3! Emily Mandel has a new book (87! Last Night in Montreal) and shares a post...

It's blog tour time for Emily St. John Mandel's Last Night in Montreal!!

About the book:

Lilia Albert has been leaving people behind for her entire life. She spends her childhood and adolescence traveling constantly and changing identities. In adulthood, she finds it impossible to stop. Haunted by an inability to remember her early childhood, she moves restlessly from city to city, abandoning lovers along with way, possibly still followed by a private detective who has pursued her for years. Then her latest lover follows her from New York to Montreal, determined to learn her secrets and make sure she’s safe. Last Night in Montreal is a story of love, amnesia, compulsive travel, the depths and the limits of family bonds, and the nature of obsession. In this extraordinary debut, Emily St. John Mandel casts a powerful spell that captures the reader in a gritty, youthful world—charged with an atmosphere of mystery, promise and foreboding—where small revelations continuously change our understanding of the truth and lead to desperate consequences. Mandel’s characters will resonate with you long after the final page is turned.

About the author:
Emily St. John Mandel was born on the west coast of British Columbia, Canada, in 1979. She studied dance at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre and lived briefly in Montreal before relocating to New York. She lives in Brooklyn, and can be found online at her website, emilymandel.com.

drey's thoughts:
Where do I start? My initial impression was "hmm, ok..."--as I read the first chapter... By the end of the book, I was at "whoa," and not just for the ending. It was the entire journey--Lilia's story, her searching, her wandering, her disconnected-ness (Is that even a real word? I'm too lazy to Google it...) from the world around her. She's living in it, but not living in it. And it's not just about Lilia, but those caught in her orbit--Eli, who travels to Montreal to find her; Christopher, the private detective who's sent to find her when she's taken, only to lose himself too; Michaela, his daughter, trying to fathom why her father would leave her to track someone else's daughter; Simon, Lilia's brother, whose part in this play doesn't unwind until the end...

The characters are deceptively simply--you think you know them, what drives them... And then find out that you're just at the tip of the iceberg. And the thing is, you're kinda drawn in surreptitiously. By phrases like "I want to remain vanishing. I don't want to go home." And "Lilia was aware at times of a presence half glimpsed alongside her, evanescent, only indirectly apparent, like the stars you can see only when you look away." This is beautiful, spare, writing. You won't be able to put this engrossing debut novel down.

A little something from Emily:

Beach Reads and Cupdogs

If I'm on a beach, chances are I'm reading. I've never been a wholehearted fan of direct sunlight, largely because my ability to acquire a sunburn while wearing SPF 30 borders on the surreal. My beach afternoons are more often than not spent in the blissful shade of an umbrella, ideally with a book or three beside me.

There are very few books that don’t make good book reads, in my experience. There are a few, however, that strike me as being uniquely suited to being read on the beach, and one of these is Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar. The book has a hypnotic quality, well-suited to an auditory backdrop of ocean waves.

Hopscotch can be read in one of two ways: you can be old-fashioned about it and start with chapter one, and in your march from the front to the back of the book you’ll be swept into a brilliant narrative about the adventures of Horacio Oliveira, an Argentinean writer in Paris, who returns to Buenos Aires after his self-consciously intellectual life among the Parisian intelligentsia comes to an abrupt end with the death of an infant and the disappearance of his mistress.

Or alternatively, if you’re feeling a little sun struck and/or perhaps a little tired of reading books from front to back, you can start with chapter 73. The author provides detailed instructions: from chapter 73 you jump back to chapter one, then two, then 116, then three, etc. Reading it in this fashion yields a subtly different narrative and a far more delirious book, a swooping and ultimately breathtaking affair that pushes the outer edges of the form. There’s a strange joy in jumping between chapters; reading it this way feels a little bit like, well, hopscotch. But since this is, after all, a birthday post, we shouldn’t dwell too long on oddly-structured dark literary fiction: let’s move on to the cupdogs. This term may not be familiar to you. I was in fact only introduced to it myself very recently, by a five-year-old at a birthday party.

“They’re really called cupcakes,” he told me helpfully. “But I like calling them cupdogs.”

I saw his point. Once you start thinking of them as cupdogs, it’s almost impossible to go back. And so, without further ado, here is a recipe for Red Velvet Cupdogs, executed with great success by a friend of mine recently.

Happy Birthday, Drey.

Awww, thank you, Emily!

Giveaway!
One gently-used ARC of Last Night in Montreal is up for grabs!

To enter, comment and share a favorite dessert... I don't think I've ever mentioned this here before, but I heart chocolate. The darker the better. And Lindt makes this bar that's dark chocolate with a hint of chili--yum!! =) +1 entry for followers, +2 for sharing this with everyone you know (and beyond!)... I will draw the winner after 6:00 pm on June 17th, & this can go wherever USPS will ship to. What're you waiting for? =)

Birthday bash - day 2! C.M. Mayo's summery favorites...

C.M. Mayo stops by to share a summery drink and top 5 beach reads! Read on...

Tepache* Colada
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tepache

-Splash tepache into the blender (how much? depends on you)
-And a few handfuls of ice
-A couple of palm-sized chunks of coconut (fresh is best)
-Honey to taste (multiflor organic from Chiapas is best, but if you use a lot of tepache you probably won't taste the difference in flavor from common super market honey, in which case, use whatever)
-sprinkle with chile powder (if you're feeling brave) or cinnamon (if you're not)

Blend.

C.M. Mayo's Top 5 Shiverrrrry Beach Reads

Seal Woman by Solveigg Eggherz
The Far-Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman by Nancy Marie Brown
Summer at Little Lava: A Season at the Edge of the World by Charles Fergus
This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland by Gretel Ehrlich
Kabloona by Gontran de Poncins

P.S. If you prefer tropical beaches, I say, the hotter the weather, the colder should be the subject; it works like your own personal aura of air-conditioning.

Don't these just sound absolutely delish? =)

She was also kind enough to answer a few questions pour moi!

1. What is your idea of earthly happiness? Simultaneously: books, coffee, a quiet corner with a comfortable chair, and nice chunk of time.
2. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Nothing to read. (I SO get this!!)
3. Who is/are your favorite heroine(s) in fiction? The wife of Martin Guerre.
4. Who is/are your favorite heroine(s) in real life? Animal communicators.
5. What sound do you love? Windchimes.
6. What sound do you hate? I don't dwell on those. (Seems like this would make for a more peaceful world...)
7. The quality you admire most in a man? Integrity combined with a sense of humor.
8. The quality you admire most in a woman? A sense of humor combined with integrity.
9. If not a writer, you would be a painter (but a frustrated pundit).
10. What is your favorite swear word? I swear only in French, or so I claim in the most hackneyed way which is maybe funny but probably just sort, excuse my French, effing silly.

Thank you for the time & effort put into this lovely post!!

Giveaway time!
I have up for grabs, one gently-used copy of the ARC for C.M. Mayo's The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire...(click on the link for my review)

To enter, comment and share your favorite summer drink... It doesn't have to have alcohol in it! =) +1 entry for followers, +2 for sharing this with everyone you know (and beyond!)... I will draw winners after 6:00 pm on June 16th (yes, these are short giveaways!), so don't delay!

Tour: 73. The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire by C.M. Mayo...

Welcome, everyone, to this Unbridled Books tour stop for C.M. Mayo's THE LAST PRINCE OF THE MEXICAN EMPIRE!

From the book:

The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire is a sweeping historical novel of Mexico during the short, tragic, at times surreal, reign of Emperor Maximilian and his court. Even as the American Civil War raged north of the border, a clique of Mexican conservative exiles and clergy convinced Louis Napoleon to invade Mexico and install the Archduke of Austria, Maximilian von Habsburg, as Emperor.

A year later, the childless Maximilian took custody of the two year old, half-American, Prince Agustín de Iturbide y Green, making the toddler the Heir Presumptive. Maximilian’s reluctance to return the child to his distraught parents, even as his empire began to fall, and the Empress Carlota descended into madness, ignited an international scandal.

This lush, grand read is based on the true story and illuminates both the cultural roots of Mexico and the political development of the Americas. But it is made all the more captivating by the depth of Mayo’s writing and her understanding of the pressures and influences on these all too human players. Her prose makes the reader taste the foods, smell the spices and flowers and feel the heat of Mexico. Mayo writes for the senses. And for the ages.

The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire is a story both sweeping and intimate, of geopolitics, the glamour of royalty, and the grit of military command, of the arrogance of power, the dark labyrinths of ambition, and, above all, of a child who was not, in the end, a prince, but a little boy who belonged to his parents.

drey's review:
I picked out The Last Prince because of the cover - it's beautiful. The story made me so sad for the poor little boy, looking for the familiar faces of his parents, his nurse; wondering where they were. I had a hard time imagining how they could give him up - I could never give up my little man. At least not till he's a sullen, rebellious teenager, lol!

The story's characters & motivations are complex, as I hope it should be for those who've contemplated giving up a toddler (sniffle). Can you tell I'm hung up on that? In any case, Last Prince is the story of Alice Green and her husband, Angel(o) Iturbide, his family, and family history. It is also the story of Maximilian von Habsburg and his wife Charlotte, and his own insecurities in dealing with his family. (Just goes to show ya - being royal isn't all it's cut out to be... =P) And more importantly, it is the story of the interconnecting spaces between these two groups of characters, and ultimately, the sacrifice of a child for both families' ambitions.

This is not a quick read, for me. I found myself having to pay close attention to the detail woven by Ms. Mayo. It also took me a little while to "remember" the history behind the motivations of each camp. It is lush, as described above, and I found it a worth-while read. Want it? Click on the cover to purchase from Amazon!

About the author:
C.M. Mayo has been living in and writing about Mexico for many years. Her books include the widely-lauded travel memoir, Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico, and Sky Over El Nido, which won the Flannery O’Connor Award. An avid translator of contemporary Mexican literature, Mayo is founding editor of Tameme Chapbooks ~ Cuadernos, and has also edited the anthology Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion, a portrait of Mexico in the fiction and literary prose of 24 Mexican writers. She conducted extensive original research to write this novel, her debut. Mayo divides her time between Washington D.C. and Mexico City.

Tour stops:
we be reading
Devourer of Books
Kylee's 2009 Blog
Booksie's Blog
Medieval Bookworm
caribousmom
The Tome Traveler's Weblog
Darby's Closet

Tour & Giveaway: 72. The Wonder Singer by George Rabasa...

Welcome, everyone, to this Unbridled Books tour stop for George Rabasa's THE WONDER SINGER!

From the book:

Mark Lockwood's life is a small one. He's made his living writing a series of little books for hire called How to Talk to Your Teen about.... But for the past few months he's had a ghostwriting assignment beyond his dreams. To prepare her "autobiography," Mark has been interviewing the internationally renowned Spanish diva, Mercè Casals. When the Senora dies suddenly - afloat in her scented bath - her life story becomes a hot property and a celebrity biographer arrives to take over the project.

But Lockwood realizes this is his one chance at greatness, and so he runs off with the interview tapes. Abetted by the beautiful and scrupulous Perla, the Senora's nurse, and by a female impersonator who is the diva's greatest fan, Lockwood locks himself into his study, endlessly plays the tapes, and begins to craft his greatest book. Once the three conspirators rescue Mercè's husband from the retirement home, Lockwood's sense of his own heart begins to expand beyond his considerable imagination.

Moving between the diva's lyrical account of her life on three continents and the frantic pace of Lockwood's notes from underground, The Wonder Singer portrays for us just what it can mean to live a beautiful life to its fullest.

drey's review:
The Wonder Singer was a fun romp through the consequences of Mark's decision to abscond with his interview tapes. Yes, there's a "before," including the diva's childhood and discovery. But I thought the fun really started with her death (am I bad or what?). And Mark, who up to that point was just another interviewer, really, seems to finally open his eyes and run with the realization that he can be the author that he's always wanted to be. So what if he has to run off with the tapes like a common thief? You only get a chance like this once, and by golly, he's ready to take it! =) An entertaining read that alternates between Mark's adventure, and The Wonder Singer chapters (like, the "real" book, not the one you're reading...).


About the author:
George Rabasa’s collection of short stories, Glass Houses, received The Writer’s Voice Capricorn Award for Excellence in Fiction and the Minnesota Book Award for Short Stories. His novel, Floating Kingdom received the Minnesota Book Award for Fiction. And his most recent novel, The Cleansing, was named a Book Sense Notable. His short fiction has appeared in various literary magazines, such as Story Quarterly, Glimmer Train, The MacGuffin, South Carolina Quarterly, Hayden’s Ferry, American Literary Review, and in several anthologies. Rabasa was born in Maine, raised in Mexico, and now lives in Minnesota.

George Rabasa has kindly agreed to answer some of my babbling questions, read on!

drey: Just curious, do you like opera? If yes, do you have any favorites?
George: When I started The Wonder Singer some ten years ago, I did not particularly like what little opera I had listened to. Rock and roll, roots, symphonic, choral, chamber – all of these I loved. Then, when I decided to write about an opera diva, I though I’d better figure out what these people did. So thanks to the Minneapolis Public Library, I checked out “Tosca.” I played it over and over one weekend, and by Monday morning, I was a convert. Once opera’s sublime melodies get a hook into your brain, there’s not much, musically, that can match the experience. Add to that the great emotional and intellectual challenge of almost mythical theater and you’ve got the stuff of ecstasy and catharsis. No small achievement for people in big wigs and fancy dress singing really loud.

I go back and forth with favorites. Right now, I would travel anywhere to hear “Aida” by Verdi. Next week, it might be Puccini’s “Turandot” or Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutte.” All of these have good stories, beautiful melodies, and amazing singing.

d: There are so many other divas out there, why an opera singer?
GR: My intention was to write a sort of picaresque novel about a ghostwriter. In my checkered professional life I’ve written in practically every medium, besides fiction, with varying degrees of success. But I was never a ghostwriter. The idea of a journeyman writer serving as the voice for a famous personality has a kind of elegance to it. I needed a bigger-than-life foil for the humble scribbler. There are no bigger personalities than old-school opera divas. And the irony of serving as the conduit for a voice that cannot sing her own song captivated me.

d: Is Mark based on anyone you know in real life? His mannerisms, quirkiness...
GR: Having written a great variety of words for money – from advertising and junk mail to jokes and obituaries, I know Lockwood as I know myself. In a way, he is me, but with better manners. In the wider sense, I am all my characters – from divas to sleazy agents to transvestite opera queens. When Flaubert was asked where Emma Bovary came from, he answered, “Madame Bovary c’est moi.”

d: I liked the flow of the book, alternating between Mark's quest to put the story in writing, and the actual "book". Did you flesh out the book first, then interspersed it with Mark's story? Or did you work on both in parallel, & in which case, was that difficult to do?
GR: Oh God, yes! I will never write a novel this way again. I had the basic structure – Lockwood’s attempts to write his big book, the story of La Señora in her own words, the relationship between the writer and the diva. So for about two years I just wrote random scenes, fragments, snatches of dialogue as the mood hit me, with the idea of putting it all together eventually. After about 130,000 words I had a mess to cut and paste into some coherent arc. A wonderful mess to be sure. But it took years of grief, and thousands of words cut, to come up with the novel that is the object of our attention today.

And, of course, the Proust-lite:

1. What is your idea of earthly happiness? A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, a good day’s work behind me, my love before me.
2. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? The years 2000-2008.
3. Who is/are your favorite heroine(s) in fiction? Susan Burling, from Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose.
4. Who is/are your favorite heroine(s) in real life? My wife, Juanita. I know no other woman who displays in synergistic combination, such love, humor, courage, intelligence and spiritual depth.
5. What sound do you love? Tweet, tweet, tweet! (The first bird of spring after six months of Minnesota winter.)
6. What sound do you hate? Car horns.
7. The quality you admire most in a man? A small head and a large heart.
8. The quality you admire most in a woman? Intuition. (Yes, there is such a thing as female intuition.)
9. If not a writer, you would be a mathematician. To understand God you have to speak his language: mathematics.
10. What is your favorite swear word? I use America’s most popular percussive expletive with enough abandon as to get me a guest role in the next remake of “The Sopranos.” But I reserve the Mexican chingar for special occasions. It is marvelously versatile, whether as a verb, an adjective or a noun. It can be violently aggressive: Chinga tu madre. Or complimentary: Rabasa es un autor muy chingón. Or describing the depths of existential despair: Me lleva la chingada. Everyone should try it for its cathartic benefits.
    

Have some fun...
To pay your respects to Ms. Casals, we invite you to check out the Diva’s fan page on Facebook.
To hear opera selections that inspired this story, please visit http://tinyurl.com/TWSplaylist.
To learn more about Mark Lockwood, his series for teens, and his work with the Diva, please visit Unbridled Books or Facebook.

GIVEAWAY time!
Thanks to Unbridled Books, I have one copy of The Wonder Singer for you, but only if you live in the U.S... To enter the giveaway, comment and tell me - do you like/love/hate/not care about opera? If you like it, which one(s)? Is it the music that draws you? The story? The singer(s)? As usual +1 for followers (here, Twitter, anywhere else you can find me!), +2 for spreading the word. Come back & let me know what/where/what color my eyes are. Hah! Gotcha! =D

Do it all by 6:00 p.m. CST MAY 15th! Come back after to see if you're a lucky duck. Can't wait that long? Click on the book cover to purchase from Amazon. Have fun!!

Tour stops:
Write For A Reader
Cheryl's Book Nook
The Epic Rat
Booksie's Blog
Medieval Bookworm
Morbid Romantic