Book Giveaway Carnival!
November 6, 2008 by Tracy
Filed under Book Contests
BOOK GIVEAWAY CARNIVAL
NOV 3rd-9th!
YEAH, THE BOOK GIVEAWAY CARNIVAL STARTS TODAY!
CLICK HERE TO ENTER! or SCROLL DOWN AND CLICK ON THE MR. LINKY! DON’T FORGET TO CHECK BACK ALL WEEK AS NEW GIVEAWAYS WILL BE ADDED!
For those of you posting to Mr. Linky, Please read all the directions carefully for how to post your links for the carnival. *Quick Note: Wordpress only allows Mr. Linky to open in another window, don’t be alarmed, it works the same but will be in a different window is all. Make sure you link to THIS post and not the other window please!
The Mr. Linky below will be updated all this week as you post the permalinks to your giveaways. You must link directly to your giveaway post using a permalink. Any links not going directly to the giveaway post will be deleted. If you are doing more than one giveaway, you can enter each permalink separately in the Mr. Linky below.
I don’t ask much, but I do ask you would please link back here so readers can easily move from the master list (the Mr. Linky below) to each blog hosting a giveaway. Many of you have posted the button–that’s great! However, please make sure that you also provide a a LINK BACK to http://www.bookroomreviews.wordpress.com as well. This is very important so participants can move easily from the carnival to your blog and back to the carnival. Thanks!
I’m going to leave the Mr. Linky post at the top of my blog until Friday so you can keep coming back every day to pick up where you left off and see what’s new. On Saturday I will post a new Mr. Linky where you can come back and link to your post of the winners.
Please enter your information into Mr. Linky as follows:
Your Name: 3-word example of what you’re giving away
Your URL: type in the permalink for your giveaway
Example:
Your Name: Bookroomreviews(Testimony 3 winners)
URL: http://www.bookroomreviews.wordpress.com/testimonygiveaway
A few reminders:
- Please make sure you read each blog’s requirement before you sign up for their giveaway. Bloggers, please make sure your requirements are easily noted (e.g., shipping requirements).
- The number of your giveaway may change as I delete links (due to spam etc.). Please do not panic if you can’t find your giveaway because the number changed. Do a quick search (PC users use ctrl+f; Mac users use command+f and type in your keyword) for your giveaway before you contact me about it being lost.
- I cannot edit your entry once it’s on Mr. Linky. I can delete it if it’s inappropriate, but I cannot edit it. Please be careful when typing your description and permalink!
- Have fun! Thanks for participating!
Cold Rock River Book Giveaway!
November 3, 2008 by Tracy
Filed under Book Contests
J.L Miles has generously sent me two copies of her wonderful book to give away! I will be posting my review on Friday with a guest post by her. Here is a synopsis of the book. I really enjoyed it and I think you will too! Especially if you like stories about strong women. J.L Miles also wrote Divorcing Dwayne, which was hilariously good! You can read my review of that book here and visit her website here.
In 1963 rural Georgia, with the Vietnam War cranking up, pregnant seventeen-year-old Adie Jenkins discovers the diary of pregnant seventeen-year-old Tempe Jordan, a slave girl, begun as the Civil War wound down. Adie is haunted by the memory of her dead sister; Tempe is overcome with grief over the sale of her three children sired by her master. Adie—married to Buck, her baby’s skirt-chasing father—is unprepared for marriage and motherhood. She spends her days with new baby Grace. Buck spends his with the conniving Imelda Jane.
Adie welcomes the friendship of midwife Willa Mae Satterfield. Having grown close to her after Grace’s birth, she confides that her baby sister, Annie, survived choking on a jelly bean only to drown in Cold Rock River a few month later. Willa Mae says, “My two little chillins Georgia and Calvin drowns in that river too.” What she won’t say is how and why.
Adie takes refuge in Tempe’s journal. It tells an amazing tale:
When “the freedom” comes, Tempe sets out to find her children but never finds them, and she settles in Macon, Georgia, where she meets Tom Barber, a former slave from a Savannah plantation. They marry and have a daughter nicknamed Heart, and though she’s a “bit slow in the head,” they adore her. Tom is good to Tempe, and she remains by his side, ever faithful, until she discovers something she can’t live with—a truth so devastating she vows never to speak of it again.
Adie continues to pore over Tempe’s diary, which seems to raise more questions than it answers. After Tom is killed in a drunken brawl, Tempe takes Heart to north Georgia, settling on a small patch of land and taking up midwifery to support them both. Eventually she marries an elderly neighbor and gives birth to two more children, Georgia and Calvin. Adie is filled with questions. Could Willa Mae be heart? Could the children in the diary have been hers? How—and why—did they drown? And is it possible that the man who owns the house in which she lives is Willa Mae’s grandson?
As Cold Rock River comes to its surprising, shocking ending, questions of family, race, love, loss, and longing are loosed from the mysterious secrets that have been kept for too long—and the depth of the mysterious connection between two women united by place and separated by race and a hundred years is revealed.
1. For first entry leave a comment telling me you will come back for my Holiday Giveaways Nov 15-Dec 15th.
and/or add my button to your blog:)
2. Come back on Friday and leave a comment on J.L. Miles guest post relevant to her post and you will get a second entry to win.
This contest will close on Saturday Nov 8th at midnight and I will announce the winners Sunday Nov 9th. And click HERE to enter the rest of the book giveaways for the carnival!
The Gifted Gabaldon Sisters Book Review and Giveaway!
October 16, 2008 by Tracy
Filed under Book Contests, Book Reviews
SYNOPSIS
When the four young Gabaldón sisters lost their mother, it was Fermina, the old Pueblo caretaker living in their house, who held them together with her love and protection. Upon her death, she promised the girls they would each receive a special gift, selected just for them. And as time passed, what she bestowed—hands that can heal, a skill for spinning stories, the ability to incite laughter, and the power to curse others—emerged bringing both blessings and tragedy. Now, twenty years later, unsure of whether the woman who had loved them so was a fairy godmother or a witch, the sisters delve into the patched and woven history of their family. Here shadowed secrets wait patiently to be released into the light…to show the gifted Gabaldón sisters not only who their guardian really was, but the truth about themselves.
THEMES IN THE BOOK
CLICK ON THE BOOK COVER OF THE GIFTED GABALDON SISTERS TO READ MY REVIEW AND SEE WHAT GRADE I GAVE IT! I JUST HAPPEN TO HAVE TWO COPIES TO GIVE AWAY AND YOU CAN GO TO MY CONTEST PAGE TO ENTER. I THINK THIS IS ONE YOU WILL LOVE! THANKS AND GOOD LUCK!
Book Review and Giveaway: The Dangerous Joy of Dr. Sex
October 8, 2008 by Tracy
Filed under Book Contests, Book Reviews
WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT
Nonfiction is the new black comedy in this hilarious collection of award-winning literary essays written by the infamous Pagan Kennedy. In the title piece, Alex Comfort, author of The Joy of Sex, reinvents himself as a sex guru in California and hatches a plan to destroy monogamy forever. In the stories that follow, a retired chemist finds a way to turn a wasteland into paradise, an aspiring tyrant tries to become the emperor of America, and an artist rigs himself up to a “brain machine” made from parts he bought at Radio Shack. All of the essays—most of which have appeared in The New York Times Magazine and The Boston Globe Magazine—document the stories of visionaries bent on remaking the world, for better or for worse.
CLICK ON THE BOOK COVER TO READ MY REVIEW. IF THIS SOUNDS LIKE A BOOK YOU WOULD LIKE, I HAVE AN EXTRA COPY FROM THE SANTA FE WRITER’S PROJECT TO SHARE! ALL YOU NEED TO DO TO ENTER IS LEAVE ME A COMMENT AND I WILL DRAW A WINNER ON OCTOBER 14TH. US AND CANADA ONLY PLEASE.
Sarah’s Key Ten Books Giveaway!
October 2, 2008 by Tracy
Filed under Book Contests
The generous folks over at St. Martins are so excited about Sarah’s Key that they are offering TEN giveaway copies! I haven’t received my copy yet, but you can read some glowing reviews over at She Is Too Fond of Books(She is also giving away five copies!), Booking Mama(Another giveaway) and Devourer of Books. To enter just go to my contest page and Good Luck!
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family’s apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.
Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France’s past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl’s ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d’Hiv’, to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah’s past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.
Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.
Historical Fiction Two Book Giveaway!
September 26, 2008 by Tracy
Filed under Book Contests
CLICK ON THE BOOK COVERS TO READ MY REVIEWS AND SOURCEBOOKS HAS OFFERED TO SEND TWO READERS A COPY OF EACH BOOK! YEAH! GO TO MY CONTEST PAGE TO ENTER AND GOOD LUCK!
Matrimony by Joshua Henkin Book Review and Giveaway
September 23, 2008 by Tracy
Filed under Book Reviews
WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT
From the moment he was born, Julian Wainwright has lived a life of Waspy privilege. The son of a Yale-educated investment banker, he grew up in a huge apartment on Sutton Place, high above the East River, and attended a tony Manhattan private school. Yet, more than anything, he wants to get out–out from under his parents’ influence, off to Graymont College, in western Massachusetts, where he hopes to become a writer.
When he arrives, in the fall of 1986, Julian meets Carter Heinz, a scholarship student from California with whom he develops a strong but ambivalent friendship. Carter’s mother, desperate to save money for his college education, used to buy him reversible clothing, figuring she was getting two items for the price of one. Now, spending time with Julian, Carter seethes with resentment. He swears he will grow up to be wealthy–wealthier, even, than Julian himself.
Then, one day, flipping through the college facebook, Julian and Carter see a photo of Mia Mendelsohn. Mia from Montreal, they call her. Beautiful, Jewish, the daughter of a physics professor at McGill, Mia is–Julian and Carter agree–dreamy, urbane, stylish, refined.
But Julian gets to Mia first, meeting her by chance in the college laundry room. Soon they begin a love affair that–spurred on by family tragedy–will carry them to graduation and beyond, taking them through several college towns, over the next ten years. Then Carter reappears, working for an Internet company in California, and he throws everyone’s life into turmoil: Julian’s, Mia’s, his own.
Starting at the height of the Reagan era andending in the new millennium, Matrimony is about love and friendship, about money and ambition, desire and tensions of faith. It asks what happens to a marriage when it is confronted by betrayal and the specter of mortality. What happens when people marry younger than they’d expected? Can love endure the passing of time?
THEMES IN THIS BOOK
CLICK ON THE BOOK COVER OF MATRIMONY TO READ MY REVIEW! JOSHUA HAS GENEROUSLY OFFERED TO SEND ONE COPY OF HIS BOOK THAT IS NOW OUT IN PAPERBACK. YOU CAN GO TO MY CONTEST PAGE TO ENTER. THANK YOU SO MUCH JOSH FOR ALL OF YOUR AMAZING SUPPORT TO BOOK BLOGGERS! Check out the author’s website here. Discussion questions can be found here or downloaded here: matrimony_reading_group_guide. You can also download this essay (henkin-book-group-essay) that Joshua Henkin wrote that originally appeared here. Joshua talks about his book here.
BBAW Giveaway!
September 10, 2008 by Tracy
Filed under Book Contests
Amy has given me permission to host a contest for Book Bloggers Appreciation Week! Also I wanted to celebrate my nomination for Most Extravagent Giveaway with what else but a Giveaway! I must live under a rock because I had No idea there were so many great Book Blogs! Below is the list of Book Bloggers who have registered for BBAW. I made it a goal to visit some of these blogs that are new to me and if you would like to join me I am providing incentive! All you have to do is go and visit some of the book blogs below that are new to you and leave them a comment. I will draw three winners and each winner will get a brand new book! Here are the books you can win.
Visit and comment on FIVE Book Blogs that you have Never Visited Before for ONE Entry
Visit and comment on TEN Book Blogs that you have Never Visited before for TWO Entries
Visit and comment on TWENTY Book Blogs that you have Never Visited before for THREE Entries
After you have done so come back here and leave me a comment to be entered. You can tell me which book you would like to win and I will TRY to match them up. I will give you a week to do so and draw THREE winners on Wednesday September 17. You don’t have to have a blog or be on the list of blogs to join in the fun. If you are not on the list and are a book blogger please let me know and I will add you to the list! Have fun!
2 Kids and Tired
Book Reviews
The 3 R’s: Reading, ‘Riting, and
Randomness
4 the Love of Books
49writers
A Book Lover
A Bookworm’s World
A Guy’s Moleskine Notebook
A Hoyden’s Look at
Literature
A Peek At My Bookshelf
A Platypus with a
book walks into a bar…
A Reader’s Journal
A World in the Pages
A Writer’s Dream
Adventures in Reading
Age 30 – A Year of Books
Alabama Book Worm
All I Have To Say
All the Saints
Allison’s Attic of Books
Alpha Heroes
Amateur de Livre
The Amazing
Adulthood of Alexis
Amber Miller -
Author, Writer, & Web Site Designer
Amber Stults – Book Reviewer and
Author
Amy’s Corner of
the World
Antique Books
Apooo Bookclub
Apprentice Writer
Arch Thinking
As Usual, I Need
More Bookshelves
At Home With Books
Aunt Rowena sez:
Babbling Books Review
Bart’s Bookshelf
Becky’s Book Reviews
Bermudaonion’s Weblog
Better World Blog
Between Sundays
BiblioHistoria
Bibliolatry
Bibliophile
Support Group
Blacklin’s Reading Room
Reviews & More
Blog Book Tours
Blog Business World
Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books
Bloody Hell, It’s a Book Barrage!
Blue Archipelago
The
Bluestocking Guide: Reviews by a Partial, Prejudiced, and Ignorant
Reader
Bobbi’s Book Nook
Boats Against the Current
Book-a-holic
Book Binge
The Book Blog
Book by Book
Book Chatter
and Other Stuff
Book Chic
Book Club Girl
Book Crazy
Book Critiques
Book Dweeb
Book Escape
The Book Girl
Book Junkie Melissa
Book Hangover
The Book Lady’s Blog
The Book Mine Set
Book Minx
The Book Muncher
Book Nook Club
Books Love Me
Books and Movies
Books for Kids
Books on the Nightstand
The Book Reader
Book Review Maniac
Book Reviews
Book Reviews 4 Teens
Book Reviews Today
The Book Smugglers
Book Tsunami
Book Zombie
Booked Books
Booking Mama
Bookish Ruth
Booklorn
Bookroomreview’s Weblog
Books ‘N Border Collies
Books and Authors
Books I Done Read
Books, Movies,
and Chinese Food
Bookshelf
Bookshipper
Booksweet
The Bookworm
Breaking the Spine
Breeni Books
BTripp’s Books
But If You Look At Me Closely…
Café of Dreams
Caite’s Day at
the Beach
Candid Canine
Caribousmom
Canadian Book Worm
Cheryl’s Book Nook
Cheryl Rainfield
Chick Lit Teens
Christian Bookworm Reviews
Christian Children’s Book
Review
Christian Novels
A Christian Writer’s World
Civil War History
Clear Shining After Rain
Confessions of a Bibliophile
Confuzzled Books
Critty Joy
Croak
Cubie’s Confections
Cupid’s Chokehold
Damn Heart…
The Dark Phantom Reviews
Deborah Vogts
Devourer of Books
Diary of an Eccentric
Dog Ear Diary
Dolce Bellezza
Everyday I Write
the Book Blog
Experiments in Reading
Fashionista Piranha
Fnord Incorporated
The Forgetful Faerie Queen
The Fox Reads
Free Spirit
Frequency of Silence
The Friendly Book Nook
Fyrefly’s Book Blog
God-Writing
Good Reads
The GRITS
Online Reading Club
Heather’s Books
Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’?
The Hidden Side of a Leaf
Hope’s Bookshelf
I Read What??
I Smell Books
Iced Tea – Books, TV, Etc.
In Laurie’s Mind
In Spring it is the Dawn
The Indextrious Reader
Into the Fire
It’s All About Books…
Jace Scribbles…
Jama Rattigan’s Alphabet Soup
Janicu’s Book Blog
Japanese
Literature Challenge
Jen’s Book Thoughts
Jenn’s Bookshelf
Journey to the End of
the TBR Pile
Joy’s Blog
Julie’s Jewels
Just A (Reading) Fool
Just
Your Average Carpool Queen
Katrina’s Reads
Kawzmik World
Kittling: Books
Leafing Through Life
LadyVampire’s Lair
The Lair of
the Undead Rat
Lesa’s Book Critiques
Lesley’s Book Nook
LesleyW’s Book Nook
Letters On Pages
Library Hospital
Life According to B
Life and
Times of a “New” New Yorker
Lighthouse-Academy
Linus’s Blanket
Literanista
Literarily
Literary Escapism
Literary License
The Literate
Housewife Review
Liv’s Book Reviews
Lori’s Reading Corner
Lost In Books
Loud Latin Laughing
Love To Read
Lucky Ladybug
Lurve a la Mode
The Luscious
Literary Muse
Madeleine’s Book Blog
The Magic Lasso
Mama Bear Reads
Marireads
Marjolein’s Book Blog
MarysLibrary
Maw Books Blog
Mayra’s Secret
Bookcase
Me, My Book, and
the Couch
Medieval Bookworm
Melanie Anderson
Melody’s Reading Corner
Mervi’s Book Reviews
Michele – only one ‘L’
Midnight
Twilight’s Book Blog
Minds Alive on the Shelves
Mog’s Blog and More…
Mrs. Magoo Reads
Muse Books Reviews
Musings
Musings of a Bookish Kitty
My Christian Fiction Blog
My Fifty Book Challenge
My Friend Amy
My Life in Books
Mysteries in Paradise
Necromancy Never Pays
Never A Dull Moment
Nose in a Book
The Novel World
The
Nursery @ The Literate Housewife
OCD,
Vampires, and Amusing Rants, Oh My!
The Octogon
Off to Turn Another Page
On My Bookshelf…
One For The Books
Out of the Blue
The Page Flipper
Pages Turned
Paper Bridges
Patricia’s
Vampire Notes
Peeking Between
the Pages
Presenting Lenore
Popin’s Lair
The Printed Page
Quiverfull Family
Ramblings on Romance
Read, Read, Read
Readerbuzz
Reading and Ruminations
Reading Keeps You Sane
Reading Romance Books
Reading, Writing, and Retirement
Reading Room
The Reading Spot
Reading with Monie
ReadingAdventures
Reading Circle Books
Readingjunky’s Reading Roost
Real Life is Overrated
Rebecca Reads
Red Lady’s
Reading Room
Relz Reviewz
Reviews by Jesse Wave
Reviewer X
Rhapsodyinbooks’s Weblog
Rhonda McKnight on Urban
Christian Ficton
Rip My Bodice
Romance Book Wyrm
Romance Rookie
Ron’s Baseball
Bookshelf
Rose City Reader
S. Krishna’s Books
Sassymonkey Reads
Savvy Verse & Wit
Seaside Book Worm Blogger
See Ya On The Net
She is Too Fond of Books
She Reads and Reads
She Reads Books
She Treads Softly
Shelf Life
Shhh I’m Reading
Shooting Stars Mag
Should Be Reading
Simply Books
Simply Romance
Reviews
The Sleepy Reader
SmallWorld Reads
Smiling Sally
So Many Books… So
Little Time
So Many Precious Books, So
Little Time
Socrates’ Book Reviews
SORMAG’s Blog
Southern Sunshine
Stacy’s Place On Earth
Stamped With Grace
Stephanie’s Written Word
The Story Siren
Straight from Hel
Strategist’s Personal Library
Stuff as Dreams are Made on
Survival of the Book
Talk About
My Favorite Authors
Teen Book Reviews
Teen Troves
Tempatt
Terra’s Book Blog
That Book Addiction
Things Mean A Lot
This Book For Free
Thoughts from an Evil Overlord
Thoughts of Joy
The Thrillionth Page
Through the Looking
Glass Book Review
TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog
The Tome Traveller’s Weblog
Too Many Books
Tower of Books
Traci’s Book Bag
Tree
Swing Reading
Trish Perry – Reading,
Writing, and the Stuff In-Between
Trish’s Reading Nook
Under the Cover
Velda Brotherton Writing
Vixen’s Daily Reads
Well-Mannered
Frivolity
Walking on Sunshine
Welcome to Married Life
Wendi’s Reading Corner
Wendy’s Minding Spot
What Came Down Today
What Cheesy Reads
What Vanessa Reads
Window To My World
With Intent To Commit Horror
WORD up!
Worducopia
World According
to Books
Writer’s Block Reviews
Writing By Faith
Writing On The Edge
Yankee Romance Reviews
Young Readers
Zensanity
Immortal by Traci L. Slatton Giveaway
August 27, 2008 by Tracy
Filed under Book Contests
I have Two copies of Immortal by Traci L. Slatton to give away! This is the book pick for The Literate Housewife’s Online Book Club. I’m sure she would love for you to join in if you win! Please click here to my new contest page to enter and Just follow the directions to enter! Sorry U.S. and Canada only. Below is a Q and A with the Author of Immortal, Traci L. Slatton
- Tell us about your book, Immortal.
Immortal is a rags-to-riches-to-burnt-at-the-stake story. It’s a journey of spirit and an education of the heart. That said, it’s the story of a mysteriously gifted street urchin who undergoes the darkest moments possible and still goes on to find true love, deep friendship, hope, faith, and ultimately the deepest secrets of his origins.
- Why did you write this book?
I love to tell stories! I was working on a non-fiction book about science and spirituality. ( Piercing Time & Space, ARE Press, Virginia Beach, VA: 2005.) It was fascinating research, but I found myself longing to write fiction, to create characters and wrap myself around adventure, conflict, and obstacle. Story lust drove me.
- The book takes place in Florence during the Renaissance: What inspired you to choose this setting?
This goes back to the previous question. Renaissance Florence is a character in this novel–it’s inextricably interwoven into the story. It’s why I wrote THIS book. More explicitly, I am married to Sabin Howard, who is one of the foremost classical figurative sculptors working today. (www.sabinhoward.com) Think Michelangelo’s work: that’s what my husband’s work resembles. Moreover, Sabin is half-Italian; his mother is from Torino and he is completely fluent in the language. So, for him, Renaissance Italy is alive and well. It’s a part of our everyday discourse. I was always interested in Renaissance art but it’s become a passion because of living with Sabin.
Also, Florence between 1300 and 1500 was an intense and extraordinary place, almost unequalled in history. Art, philosophy, learning, commerce, banking, and government were all burgeoning and concentrated into this small city, making it the center of Europe. Out of Florence radiated invention and innovation. One of the popes called it “The fifth element of the universe.” Only Paris between the two world wars comes close to the fervor of creativity that was taking place in Florence during the Renaissance. It’s a powerful time to write about.
- How did you come up with a protagonist like Luca?
I wanted a character who would meet and make an impression on my two great Renaissance heroes: Giotto and Leonardo. This character had to be the kind of man who could inspire love, lust, envy, admiration, and riveting hatred in other people. And he was going to face terrible challenges, so he had to have personal resources to help him through. And his suffering would make him humble and give him a hunger to love and be loved.
- Lucas plays many different roles – orphan, companion, healer – throughout the story, which do you personally relate best to?
Perhaps to the healer and the companion. I was a hands-on or spiritual healer for many years, and Luca gets to do what I always longed to do: lay hands on and cure someone completely, even bring a dying man back to life.
I have four daughters, and in the best moments of parenting, there is a companionable aspect to it. There are moments when all the little stuff falls away, all the blah-blah-blah about messy bedrooms and parties and grades and allowances and health concerns, and my children and I are friends, laughing together. Even my little one, who is 3, sometimes sits and chats with me as if we were two good buddies. I treasure those moments.
- Luca meets da Vinci, Botticelli…“immortals” whose impact on society is still apparent. Can you talk to us about some of those figures, and the way they still shape modern society?
They have left a legacy of art and ideas which is the foundation of western civilization. Petrarch, who is a friend of Luca’s in Immortal, articulated the notion of the individual self (see Ascent of Mount Ventoux) on which we built the United States: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” This is a radical change from the earlier systems of society, and it came out of the Renaissance. The great Cosimo de Medici who led Florence from 1434 to 1464 established the Platonic Academy, which formulated the ideals of humanism which are now axiomatic in our worldview. Even our pop philosophy, eg The Secret, has its roots in Pico della Mirandella’s Oration on the Dignity of Man: “O highest and most admirable felicity of man to whom it is granted to have whatever he chooses, to be whatever he wills!”
The great artists like Leonardo and Botticelli left us ideals of beauty that are still unparalleled. Leonardo left behind a prototype of a polymath genius as the highest aspiration.
- Part of what makes Luca’s story so beautiful is the time period it is set in and the people he encounters. Do you think it would have had the same significance had it been placed at another time, such as the present?
Renaissance Florence is such an integral part of the story that it’s hard to say. I am, however, considering bringing Luca back in a future book that is set in Paris between the two world wars. Readers who love Luca can stay tuned…..
- Luca witnesses many important historical events throughout his life. What kind of research did you conduct for these?
I read a million books (okay, maybe a hundred), searched on-line, spoke with friends and relatives with extensive historical knowledge (my husband is a Renaissance sculptor and my father-in-law is a history teacher with a PhD), and I corresponded with, or spoke to, a couple of professors. I also like the History channel for shows on history! And we visited Italy several times, spending much time in the Medici chapel in Florence and the Pinacoteca Vaticano in Rome.
No one but me is to blame for inaccuracies, distortions, and out right fallacies.
- What are your future writing plans in writing?
I am working on the sequel to Immortal right now.
- Any advice you could give to beginning novelists out there?
Persist! And know who to trust with your work.
The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson Book Giveaway
August 15, 2008 by Tracy
Filed under Book Contests
I know I seem a bit giveaway crazy lately but I had to share my extra ARC of The Gargoyle because I loved it so much and I know you will too! You can read my review of The Gargoyle here Just leave me a comment to enter. Sorry U.S. and Canada only. I will draw a winner in two weeks on August 26th. Make sure you check out my other giveaways. Also you can watch this fantastic book trailer below with the author Andrew Davidson telling you a story from the book.
