Lisa from SparkPoint Studio contacted me regarding today’s guest and asked if I would read and review his book.  But since I am behind AGAIN, I disappointingly had to pass at this time.   Oh how I wish I was a speed reader.  There are just too many books I want to read and today’s guest has written one of those books.  It is definitely on my TBR list.  Welcome David Klein!!

DAVID KLEIN

David Klein is the author of the novel Stash, also published by Broadway Books, and his short fiction has appeared in a variety of literary magazines. He currently lives in upstate New York.
Visit David at his website,  on Facebook and Twitter.

GUEST POST

For Better or Worse

There really are no gray areas when it comes to traditional wedding vows. ‘For better or worse’, ‘Richer or poorer’, ‘In sickness or in health’, ‘Until death do us part.’

There’s no mistaking the intent of those vows, or the range of blissful and brutal conditions, emotions, and situations under which you promise to stay married.

In writing my most recent novel, Clean Break, I spent a long time thinking about the language of traditional marriage vows, and how those vows applied to my main character, Celeste. When the novel opens, she’s been struggling for several years with the level of commitment she “owes” her husband. The problem for Celeste is that the first years of marriage were all on the better, richer, and healthy side of the scale. But then her husband, Adam, fell under the spell of gambling. He lost all of their assets, poisoned their marriage, and emotionally damaged their young son, Spencer. And he lost his temper.

Their marriage had gone from better to worse, from health to sickness, from richer to poorer. Does Celeste really need to stick around because she’d made that promise to her husband ten years ago? The difficult question for her is whether Adam is truly ill, or has developed a nasty, addictive habit and a mean streak. You wouldn’t leave your spouse who is suffering from a disease. But you might leave that same spouse if he won’t stop a destructive behavior.

When talking to his son, Adam tries to tell Spencer he has a disease, “like grandma’s cancer,” and that the doctors are treating him so he gets better. But Celeste tells Spencer that no one chooses to get cancer, no makes a decision to get sick, yet Adam chose to gamble. He placed his bets.

Behavioral problems among adults get a lot of attention these days. In many cases, they’re positioned as addictions: gambling addiction, sex addiction, Internet addiction—you name it. Health professionals often prescribe prescription drugs to help sufferers, which some people argue serves to “medicalize” human distress or a person’s lack of accountability.

Even the mental health profession struggles in this gray area. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is used by health professionals, researchers and policy makers to identify, classify and plan treatment for mental disorders. Proposed revisions would add “gambling disorder” to alcohol and drug problems as a “substance use and addictive disorder” that insurers and others would use to make decisions about treatment and coverage.

Better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health—yes. But the gray areas that life presents? Hard to say. For Celeste, like many spouses who may be stuck in an awful situation, it’s hard to know where commitment ends and survival begins. What are your thoughts on this topic?

ABOUT THE BOOK

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Synopsis (from IndieBound):
Recently orphaned, eleven-year-old Cathy Benson feels she has been dropped into a cultural and intellectual wasteland when she is forced to move from her academically privileged life in California to the small town of Kersey in the Texas Panhandle where the sport of football reigns supreme. She is quickly taken under the unlikely wings of up-and-coming gridiron stars and classmates John Caldwell and Trey Don Hall, orphans like herself, with whom she forms a friendship and eventual love triangle that will determine the course of the rest of their lives. Taking the three friends through their growing up years until their high school graduations when several tragic events uproot and break them apart, the novel expands to follow their careers and futures until they reunite in Kersey at forty years of age. Told with all of Meacham’s signature drama, unforgettable characters, and plot twists, readers will be turning the pages, desperate to learn how it all plays out.

My Thoughts and Opinion:
This was the first time that I read the work of this author and it will not be the last. Matter of fact, I now have Roses on my TBR list. As far as Tumbleweeds, three words, I loved it!!! I have to be honest that when I received it, and saw that it was a 480 page novel, I had feelings of ambivalence about picking it up to read, as I am in the group of readers who tend to shy away from large novels.

Tumbleweeds inserts the reader into the lives of the three (3) main characters from their young age when their friendship blossomed in a small town of Kersey, Texas and continues to follow the paths they took until they were in their forties. The writing style of the author brought everything to life including all of the characters in the book, the small town where High School football reigned, the settings, the emotions palpable and perceptible as if I was sitting on the sidelines and part of this close knit community. Every page read, I became more invested into their very believable lives. In my opinion, there was absolutely no “fluff” within the 480 pages. Every word written injected me deeper into the story line and had me turning the pages. Not only did the author pen a fantastic and enjoyable saga but also included suspense that had twists and turns and an ending I didn’t see coming. This book is engrossing and “transports” the reader right into the middle of the plot, that it is a “hard to put down” read. I highly recommend this captivating novel!!

DISCLAIMER
I received a copy of this book, at no charge to me,
in exchange for my honest review.
No items that I receive
are ever sold…they are kept by me,
or given to family and/or friends.

(2012 Challenges: FreeReads, 52 in 52, Outdo Yourself, 100+)

Hosted by An Island Life

From An Island Life:
In Hawaii, Aloha Friday is the day that we take it easy and look forward to the weekend. So I thought that on Fridays I would take it easy on posting, too. Therefore, I’ll ask a simple question for you to answer. Nothing that requires a lengthy response.
If you’d like to participate, visit An Island Life answer the question and then post your own question on your blog and leave your link below. Don’t forget to visit the other participants! It’s a great way to make new bloggy friends!

Summer is here!!!
My Question:
What do you enjoy doing most during summer?

My Answer:
Reading either by the pool and/or in the pool on my float..

Hosted by Jennifer from CRAZY FOR BOOKS 

In the spirit of the Twitter Friday Follow, the Book Blogger Hop is a place just for book bloggers and readers to connect and find new book-related blogs that we may be missing out on! This weekly BOOK PARTY is an awesome opportunity for book bloggers to connect with other book lovers, make new friends, support each other, and generally just share our love of books! It will also give blog readers a chance to find other book blogs that they may not know existed! So, grab the logo, post about the Hop on your blog, and start HOPPING through the list of blogs that are posted in the Linky list below!!
Your blog should have content related to books, including, but not limited to book reviews.

……of RagDoll Redeemed:  Growing Up In The
Shadow Of Marilyn Monroe by Dawn Novotny

23 Susan Varney Leave a Blog Post Comment

41 Derek Timm Follow @CherylMash on Twitter

An email has been  sent to the winners and they have 48 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen.  Thank you to all that entered.

ADDENDUM  06/23/12:
Due to the non response of a winner within the allotted time, another winner has been chosen:

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An email has been

Today I have the honor to introduce you to an award winning author.  Lisa, from Sparkpoint Studio LLC, contacted me and asked if I would read and review Game Of Secrets.  Whenever I get a request, I always ask if the author would stop by and visit, and she agreed.  Please help me welcome Ms. Dawn Tripp!!

DAWN TRIPP

Winner of the Massachusetts Book Award, Dawn Tripp’s fiction has earned praise from critics for her “thrilling” storytelling (People Magazine), her “haunting, ethereal” prose (Booklist), and her “marvelous characters” (Orlando Sentinel). She is the author of the novels, Moon Tide, The Season of Open Water, and Game of Secrets, a Boston Globe bestseller. Her essays have appeared on NPR and online at Psychology Today. She teaches workshops on structuring the arc of a novel out of fragments of fact and fiction. She graduated from Harvard College and lives in Massachusetts with her husband, sons, and 80-pound German Shepherd.
You can visit Dawn at her website and on Twitter.

GUEST POST

ON NOT KNOWING

As writers in the midst of a novel, we are often working to pin down what we know so far about our story: about a turn of events; about what’s going to happen next; about where it’s all heading and how it will end; we are working to figure out our characters—who they are, what makes them tick, what they have done, and why.

Faced with uncertainty, I admit, the impulse is often to nail it all down, map out that arc, make that outline. But I have found that the longer I resist that impulse to pin everything into place, the longer I kick around in what I do not yet know, the better the writing becomes. That doesn’t mean the arc of a story isn’t there. It doesn’t mean some dark underside of my mind hasn’t already figured it out. I put my faith in the fact that there is such an order. And then I write to discover it.

My novels start in pieces, on the page for months, bits of character, story, scene. Those pieces might feel intuitively linked; I might have glimpses of the overall structure. But I don’t have it all figured out. In the early stages of a book, I feel like I am writing into a story that already exists. I write what moves me, what I am impelled by. Sometimes I draft a sequence toward the opening, more often I will draft what I sense to be the ending first. There’s a certain opening of mind, a willingness to dwell in possibility. I don’t polish my drafts up too soon. I leave notes in the margins. I leave some passages entirely without punctuation. I leave things untidy, open to change. That openness, I feel, is critical. I find that when I can let myself stay open to what I may not yet have uncovered, when I can let myself be driven by what I do not yet know, the story often turns, deepens, in unexpected, revelatory ways.

As I was writing GAME OF SECRETS, I felt like I was continually being overturned. And I knew in my gut that I had to stay open to that. Again and again, I would discover some new twist that was not in my original vision for the novel, and often in consequence, the story would change, and I would have to let it change. I wrote what I thought was the ending of the story early on. I fell in love with it. It became that kind of horizon a strong ending can be that drives you, day in, day out, to create the 300 pages leading up to that moment. What I did not expect, and could not have foreseen, was that in fact that ending was not the climax. The most powerful revelation was something I was writing toward without even realizing it, until all at once, I did.

ABOUT THE BOOK

In 1957, Jane Weld was eleven years old when her father Luce, a petty thief, disappeared. His skiff was found drifting near the marsh, empty except for his hunting coat and a box of shot-gun shells. No one in his small New England town knew for sure what happened until, three years later, his skull rolled out of a gravel bank by the river, a bullet hole in the temple. There were rumors he had been murdered by the jealous husband of his mistress, Ada Varick. Now, half a century later, Jane is still searching for the truth of her father’s death, a mystery made more urgent by the unexpected romance that her willful daughter, Marne, has struck up with one of Ada’s sons. As their love affair intensifies, Jane and Ada meet for a casual Friday board game that soon transforms into a cat-and-mouse game of words long left unspoken, dark secrets best left untold.

PRAISE FOR GAMES OF SECRETS

“A combination of thriller, mystery, and literary fiction; the secrets of a murder are revealed through an intense Scrabble game…..An intelligent beach-read.” —The Boston Phoenix

“A gracefully told character study of three intelligent, forbidding women and the men who love them, wrapped up in a taut, suspenseful mystery, Tripp’s third novel builds to a surprising finish” —Booklist

“A page-turning thriller–a game of Scrabble helps two families spell out the history of a small-town murder.” —Better Homes and Gardens

“A brilliant metaphor is at play in the center of Game of Secrets, Dawn Tripp’s extraordinary new novel. In the ongoing play of a board game, in a surprising, hauntingly resonant plot, and in complex, compelling characters, she illuminates deep truths about the way we try to piece the world together into meaning, working with what we are given, struggling with family and fate and desire….This is a truly important work by one of our finest writers.” – Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain

“Lush, perfectly calibrated language that opens doors on every page through which the enchanted reader falls.” —Jenny White, author of The Winter Thief

“Fair warning: Don’t start Game of Secrets unless you’re prepared to finish it in one sitting….because once these characters get into your head they don’t let go.” —Kim Wright, author of Love in Mid-Air

THANKS TO LISA AT SPARKPOINT STUDIO, LLC,
I HAVE ONE (1) COPY OF THIS BOOK TO GIVE AWAY.

CLICK HERE TO BRING YOU TO
THE GIVEAWAY ENTRY PAGE.

DISCLAIMER
I received a copy of this book, at no charge to me,
in exchange for my honest review.
No items that I receive
are ever sold…they are kept by me,
or given to family and/or friends.

*USE THE RAFFLECOPTER FORM BELOW
IN ORDER TO BE INCLUDED IN THE GIVEAWAY*
BE SURE TO INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL

ADDRESS IN THE RAFFLECOPTER FORM
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*LEAVE COMMENT: DO YOU PLAY SCRABBLE
AND/OR WORDS WITH FRIENDS ON FB?*

*U.S. RESIDENTS ONLY*
*NO P.O. BOXES*

**HONOR SYSTEM**
ONE WINNING BOOK PER HOUSEHOLD
PLEASE NOTIFY ME IF YOU HAVE
WON THIS BOOK FROM ANOTHER
SITE, SO THAT SOMEONE ELSE MAY
HAVE THE CHANCE TO WIN
AND READ THIS BOOK.
THANK YOU.

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IF YOU AR EXPERIENCING DIFFICULTY
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Game Of Secrets by Dawn Tripp
 Published by: Random House
Publication Date: July 5, 2011
ISBN-10: 1400061881
ISBN-13: 978-1400061884
Pages: 272
Review Copy from:  Sparkpoint Studio LLC
Edition:  Kindle
My Rating: 2

Synopsis: In 1957, Jane Weld was eleven years old when her father Luce, a petty thief, disappeared. His skiff was found drifting near the marsh, empty except for his hunting coat and a box of shot-gun shells. No one in his small New England town knew for sure what happened until, three years later, his skull rolled out of a gravel bank by the river, a bullet hole in the temple. There were rumors he had been murdered by the jealous husband of his mistress, Ada Varick. Now, half a century later, Jane is still searching for the truth of her father’s death, a mystery made more urgent by the unexpected romance that her willful daughter, Marne, has struck up with one of Ada’s sons. As their love affair intensifies, Jane and Ada meet for a casual Friday board game that soon transforms into a cat-and-mouse game of words long left unspoken, dark secrets best left untold.

My Thoughts and Opinion: A murder in a small town in 1957 that was never solved until 2004. Two families connected and affected, due to this murder, and the effects of infidelity that was always thought was the reason behind the murder. But who did it? Two damaged families, for generations, connected through friendship and romantic interests, and bound together by lies, betrayal, mistrust, protection and the search of the truth.

For me, this is one of the hardest reviews I have had to write because of the following. After reading the synopsis, I started reading this book with a preconceived notion, expectation and presumption of what the premise was. I was wrong and because of my assumption, I was disappointed with the outcome. After I finished reading this book, I did read others’ reviews, which the majority were 4 and 5 star ratings, to see if I was in the majority or minority of my rating. I was in the minority. I feel that it is not fair to the author and/or the book, because of my inference, that you make a decision to read and/or not read this book because of my opinion/review. However, since I do post a review of every book I read, I will share my thoughts.

It was very hard for me to relate to the characters. I thought that one character, Marne, granddaughter of the murder victim was not developed. It was conveyed that she had “come home” but I was unsure as to why. Plus she had a “chip on her shoulder” attitude and a very troubling relationship with her mother, Jane, daughter of the murder victim, Luce, but the reason for this was not explained. Another issue I had trouble believing was the friendship between Jane and her Scrabble opponent, Ada, who was her father’s mistress and the person who broke up Jane’s parents’ marriage, which Jane had never truly accepted. One of my assumptions was that the words formed during these weekly Scrabble games produced would be hints as to who the murderer was. The author did describe each game, the words created and how many points the player achieved. However, I didn’t feel that the words played had anything to do with the long ago murder of Jane’s father but it was the conversations the 2 woman had during their weekly scheduled games. The book held my attention and was a fast read but I think it was due to the fact of trying to figure out who the killer was. I didn’t feel that is was a page turning suspense but a page turner to just find out the truth. I want to stress that this is my opinion, and my opinion only. Not every book is for every reader. And according to the reviews, a lot of people disagree with me. Nonetheless, this is my personal viewpoint of this book.

(Challenges 2012: EBooks, Off The Shelf, In a Name, FreeReads, Where Are You, A-z, 52 in 52, Outdo Yourself, 100+)