Dead Until Dark Review

Posted on by Cindy

PUB DATE: Originally came out in hard cover January 2008. This version of the book came out September 2008. This is the movie tie in version.

As many of you know Beth Fish Reads is hosting the Sookie Stackhouse Reading Challenge. The challenge is to read all nine books in this series by June 30, 2010.

I saw this on twitter in June and decided that I wanted to take part in this knowing that I probably could finish this challenge without a problem. I have managed to convince my partner in crime Donna and hoping to have convinced Michael to take part in this challenge too. Its easy 9 books to read in the next year. How hard could that be right? I have bought all 8 books for now and I am hoping that by the time I get to the 9th one it will be in paperback. I am one down and 8 to go.

The books in this series are:
Dead Until Dark *COMPLETED*

Living Dead in Dallas
Club Dead
Dead to the World
Dead as a Doornail
Definitely Dead
All Together Dead
From Dead to Worse
Dead and Gone
Charlaine Harris is the author of 28 books. This is a new to me author. Dead Until Dark is the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse series. True Blood is an original series that is based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels that airs on Sunday nights on HBO.
When I first picked up Dead Until Dark to read I wasn’t sure at first and kept thinking to myself what did I just get myself into? I am not into the gory, scary stuff and I can’t watch horror movies etc because they creep me out. So I am probably sure that I couldn’t watch this on HBO.
Surprisingly enough once I started to read the book, I realized that it wasn’t going to be gory with details and ended up devouring the book in a weekend. I am so excited to read Living Dead in Dallas and I keep picking it up and wanting to read it but I am trying to limit them to a monthly read if possible.
I loved Sookie. She is a waitress in the towns only bar called Merlotte’s in a small town in Louisiana. I felt I could relate to Sookie very well as we both are fairly quiet, don’t get out a whole lot (personally I find that come 10:00 PM I want to be home in bed reading), keep to ourselves and back in the day I didn’t find or think of myself as dateable. Look at the tv version of Sookie who wouldn’t want to date her?
I have to admit that I never read the back of the books when I bought them and I wanted there it be an element of surprise when I read them, so when I came upon people calling her Crazy Sookie and her disability I was curious to find out what it was. I was surprised to find out that it wasn’t what I thought it was.
Shortly after the book begins Sookie is working one night and a tall, dark and handsome guy comes in and she discovers his name is Bill Compton. For once Sookie can’t read this guy but she does know what he is. She manages to save his life one night and from that point they are together all the time. She likes him and he likes her.
With the arrival of Bill there is suddenly quite a few murders. More then this little town has ever seen. Everyone believes he is behind them and is the prime suspect. When they realize that he isn’t behind them the finger is quickly pointed to Sookie’s brother Jason as he has been with quite of few of these murdered women. Sookie is on a mission to prove that Jason can’t be behind these murders. Is Jason really behind these murders or is he being set up to take the rap for someone else?

I want to say more things about the book but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. All I have to say is that I really enjoyed it and looking forward to starting Living Dead in Dallas in August. If you are looking for a quick and exciting read that is fast paced then let me suggest this to you.
Here are other covers of this book. Which one do you like?
For me I happen to live the above cover with the cartoon like cover mainly because all the over books I bought are done in this format.
Have you read the book? If so let me know and I can add your link to my review.
For more info on Charlaine Harris you can check out her site here.
I am applying this book to my Buy a Book Read a Book Challenge for July. Buy a Book, Read a Book is a yearly challenge that is being hosted by My Friend Amy and you can check out her blog here. For this challenge you basically are required to buy a book a month and read it that month. You are required to read 12 books in the year.

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

Blue Like Play Dough Tour for WaterBrook Multnomah

Posted on by Cindy


Summary:
In the everyday stretch and squeeze of motherhood, Tricia Goyer often feels smooshed by the demands of life. In Blue Like Play Dough, she shares her unlikely journey from rebellious, pregnant teen to busy wife and mom with big dreams of her own. As her story unfolds, Tricia realizes that God has more in store for her than she has ever imagined possible.

Sure, life is messy and beset by doubts. But God keeps showing up in the most unlikely places–in a bowl of carrot soup, the umpteenth reading of Goodnight Moon, a woe-is me teen drama, or play dough in the hands of a child.

In Tricia’s transparent account, you’ll find understanding, laughter, and strength for your own story. And in the daily push and pull, you’ll learn to recognizes the loving hands of God at work in your life… and know He has something beautiful in mind.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Tricia Goyer is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including Generation NeXt Parenting and the Gold Medallion finalist Life Interrupted. Goyer writes for publications such as Today’s Christian Woman and Focus on the Family, speaks to women’s groups nationwide and has been a presenter at the Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) national convention. She and her husband, John, live with their family in Montana.

If you are interested you can buy the book here: http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781601421524

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

Books Bought #14

Posted on by Cindy


Books Bought is a weekly meme that I host here on my blog. If you want to take part please leave a comment with your link and I will be sure to check out your books you bought. I love hearing about new and old books. So please share what you got.

Here is the books I bought this week (July 19th to 25th)

  • Ballads of Suburbia by Stephanie Kuehnert (I bought this because Shelly at WriteForReader is having a Big Ballads Blitz. I wanted to be a part of this so I bought the book to support this first time author.)

  • Blue Moon by Alyson Noel. This is book 2 in The Immortals series

  • Devilish by Maureen Johnson (This was a bargain book I bought)

For my anniversary present I got:

  • Hollywood Is Like High School with Money by Zoey Dean

  • I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak (Michael from A Few Minutes With Michael recommended this book so I went ahead and bought it.)

This was all the books I bought what did you buy this week?

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

“Honey, It’s All in the Shoes TLC tour

Posted on by Cindy



PUB DATE: July 2009

I have to say thank you to Lisa at TLC tours for allowing me to be a part of the tour for this book and to HCI Books for sending me the book.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
Finding your footing has never been so much fun!
Can you remember the magic you felt when you slipped on your mother’s high heels; your very own first pair of pumps; your excursion for the perfect professional pair; the glory of finding the most comfortable shoes, and your first ballet slippers, Mary Janes, or running shoes? In these pairs of shoes reside distinct journeys, phases of life, triumphs and tragedies, precious memories, and lessons learned.
In ‘Honey, It’s All in the Shoes’ Phyllis Norton Hoffman takes you on a journey examining these defining moments, sharing what she has learned when she was required to wear different shoes-from a mother and wife to entrepreneur and businesswoman to publishing powerhouse to doting grandmother- and provides advice for women on putting their best foot forward, no matter their role, circumstance, or stage of life. Hoffman’s fun, nostalgic, and intriguing exploration of the phases of her own life and the virtues that she’s lived by gives you hope, confidences, and pride in the life you are already living and the life you are planning ahead. Everything you need is all in the shoes! Through your own recollections and understanding of what your own shoe closet holds and represents, you will discover your true worth as a woman.

MY THOUGHTS:
I have to admit that for me I don’t have a closet full of shoes but I do love looking at shoes. I basically I have a couple pairs of flip flops, sandles, dress books and two pairs of high heel shoes. Nothing to big or anything that compares to Phyllis’s collection or I am sure other women’s collections.

I wish that when I looked at these shoes special memories came to mind but sadly nothing does for me I think of them just as shoes.

It was nice to read Phyllis’s book because it was like walking in her shoes. In her book she talks about the history of shoes, her life and a recipe or two. She talks about growing up in the South and the protocol that Southern women seem to follow even to this day it seems. From the impression I got it seems like money is never an issue but looking good is. Which is so true it doesn’t matter if you got money just as long as you look good.

I loved this quote “Just as no two women share the same shoe closet, no two women share the same exact life experiences,” and I think we would all agree with this statement. I am sure I have shoes in my closet that no one else has just as no one else has them same life experiences that I have.

Another nice thing about the book was that she included some quotes from celebrities, proverbs, music, movies etc (“I’m not waiting forever to get those shoes!” Wicked Witch of the West -Wizard of Oz). She also has illustrated pictures of shoes, along with illustrations of The Queen, Princess Diana, Dorothy and her ruby red shoes along with many more.

Did you know that the first pair of high heels ever worn in recorded history belongs to a bride and one of the most celebrated women in history? It was Catherine de Medici and it happened in 1533 when she married Henry the second of France.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
A leading figure in the publishing industry, Phyllis Norton Hoffman is majority owner and president of Hoffman Media, LLC.
A native of Hoover, Alabama and a graduate of the University of Alabama in Birmingham, she began her career as a Certified Public Accountant with a nationally known firm before founding a special-interest publication company in 1983 that is now known as Hoffman Media, LLC.

Hoffman is recognized industry-wide as a savvy businesswoman and talented entrepreneur. She serves as the creative engine of the company, producing an ever-widening range of beautiful magazines including TeaTime, Southern Lady, Just CrossStitch, Sew Beautiful, and Taste of the South magazines. She is also a sought-after speaker across the country, a devoted wife and mother and a church and community leader.

OTHER BLOG STOPS:
July 24 at Shhh I’m Reading
July 27 at Talent to Play and Book Nook Club

PURCHASING THE BOOK:

If you are interested in purchasing this book you can do so by going to this site:
HCI BOOKS or Amazon

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

Getting To Know a New Blogger…

Posted on by Cindy

Welcome to a new monthly feature, Getting to Know A New Blogger, that I will be running on Cindy’s Love of Books. Each month I will highlight a blogger that I know that perhaps you have never heard of before today. I figured this would be great in case we all meet up in NYC/BEA next year. This way it wouldn’t feel like we were complete strangers.

I am really honored that my very first Getting To Know a New Blogger is
Michael from http://www.afewminuteswithmichael.com/
When I found out that Michael was going to start blogging, I knew he had to be the first because he is truly the only one person in blogging that I have known the longest.

He is new to book blogging but not new to me. I have known Michael since 1988. (Okay I am probably dating myself by saying this LOL) I met him when we started high school in grade 10. Michael was a friend of my cousin and he introduced us. We have been friends ever since then. He is one of a few friends from high school that I keep in touch with and truly love to hear from. Although I am not sure why as I did some pretty crazy things back in the day. LOL But I have to say that I am extremely happy that we did remain friends.

I got to meet up with Michael last summer when I went back home for a visit. He graciously invited us over for supper. This is a picture take last summer from that evening. You can even see Dakota got into the action too with the picture. Dakota is Michael’s dog.

Alot has happened in the past year since I last saw Michael. He is now a new dad to a sweet and adorable baby boy. I haven’t gotten the chance to meet him yet but thankfully for the little pictures Michael sends via email to me.

Michael graciously agreed to take part in Getting To Know a New Blogger and has answered a few questions for me.

CINDY: I have to ask you what is your favorite book and why?

MICHAEL: There are a few books that I return to again and again, for different reasons. One that comes to mind right now is “It” by Stephen King. It’s a story that pulls me in every time I pull open my copy’s tattered cover and read the first few paragraphs. Do I consider it to be an example of great literature? No – but I do consider it to be a hell of an example of storytelling.

CINDY: Perhaps I need to try and read Stephen King. I have never read any of his books. I know this question is always asked but I wanted to know If you could spend time with any author, dead or alive who would it be and why?

MICHAEL: I’d go with Horton Foote, one of the best screenwriters and playwrights there was. He’s best known for his adaptation of Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird”, for which he won the Oscar, and he also won another Oscar for his “Tender Mercies” screenplay. I would consider it to be an incredible opportunity to discuss with him how he approached adapting works, whether from novel or stage to film or television, and adapting his own works versus adapting another writer’s works.

CINDY: I remember watching “To Kill A Mockingbird” in high school and reading the book. I actually ended up buying the book as I really enjoyed reading it. I am curious as to why did you decide to book blog? Please don’t say I was the bad influence on you. LOL

MICHAEL:It was your blog – Cindy’s Love of Books – that brought book blogs to my attention. It was great to see how you and others were sharing your interest of good books, the whole sense of community. And while I was browsing through the blogs, I also got the sense that people were reading more than they would have otherwise, books that they found out about only through this connectivity. And that element particularly resonated with me, as I had recognized that my book reading over the past few years was sporadic at best. Outside of the screenplays I had read as part my side work as a story analyst or for my screenwriting group, the majority of reading was related to work. So, I decided to rediscover the joy of reading books, and at the same time think about why and how these stories worked (or not) and then share those thoughts through my reviews.

CINDY: Okay so I am a bad influence on you but hopefully in a good way? I have always been a reader but only started to keep track of books I read in 2007. Looking back into my note book I have noticed that my interest in books have changed and I am sure they will continue to change. Do you find your interest in books has changed over the years?

MICHAEL:Definitely. There were plenty of Hardy Boys books passed down from my brothers, and it wasn’t long before I was into my father’s collection of Robert Ludlum, Frederick Forsyth, Clive Cussler, Alistair MacLean and John LeCarre. Into that I gradually mixed some of the classics of fantasy like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser adventures, and sci-fi like Asimov’s Foundation series. It was university where my reading broadened as a counterbalance to my science degree. English, history and philsophy courses pushed me into the Iliad and Aeneid, Abelard & Heloise, The Divine Comedy, Aristotle and Avicenna, and so on. And that hooked me enough to make me come back after my degree was completed to do a degree in philosophy, which lead to studying Greek and Latin, and quite a bit more reading and analysis. After my graduate work, there was a long stretch of technical and business reading for my job, and it was only after I started the screenwriting courses through UCLA that I realized how little reading I was doing for myself. So I dove into screenplays almost exclusively, while working on my own screenplay drafts. And now, thanks to the book blogging community, I am getting back into a wide variety of books, many of which I would not have been aware of if not for this community.

CINDY: Even though I have known you for 20 years and figured you would read Sci Fi I never knew about the other books you have read. I agree with you, since blogging I have read alot of books that I normally wouldn’t have read other wise. I am so much aware now of new authors and stepping outside my comfort zone. Since getting into book blogging I am more aware of when books are coming out and having the chance now to see some of the titles that are coming out in the fall 2009 I have to ask you what book are you looking forward to reading and why?

MICHAEL:The screenplay for Slumdog Millionaire, to find out whether I would have voted for it to get the Oscar. In addition to reading books, I’m about to launch into a new round of screenplay reading. There’s a stack of about 150 screenplays, like American Beauty, The Shawshank Redemption, and Double Indemnity – that I ordered through eBay which I will soon have my hands on, and they will become part of a new weekly meme that I’ll be doing in the near future on my blog as well. So you have the world exclusive on announcing this upcoming meme – Screenplay Saturdays over at A Few Minutes with Michael.

Michael you will have to keep us posted on how “Screenplay Saturdays” is going and when it will make its official debut. Thank You again Michael for taking the time out of your busy day to answer these questions. If you haven’t already checked out Michael’s blog http://www.afewminuteswithmichael.com/ then you really should. He is an awesome blogger and I am not just saying that because he is my friend.

Would you like to be a part of “Getting To Know A New Blogger”?

If you happen to follow me and I am unaware then please let me know and I will add you to the list of Getting to Know a New Blogger or even if you are a blogger and want to take part leave me a message in this post and email at cindysloveofbooksarc AT gmail DOT com.

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

Books Bought Meme #13

Posted on by Cindy

Books Bought is a weekly meme that I am hosting. If you would like to take part in this meme all you have to do is post on your blog Books Bought and you can use this image and come back here and let me know and I will be sure to stop by your blog and check out the books you book.
Books Bought can be any book you phsyically buy it doesn’t matter where you buy then just as long as you bought them.

Here is what I bought this week:


All the ones with stickers on them is what I got for $3.59.

What did you buy this week?

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

Library Loot #4 July 17th

Posted on by Cindy

Library Loot is a weekly meme where you list all the books you have borrowed from your local library.

Library Loot is hosted by Eva and Marg. To take part all you have to do is post on your blog your library loot and go back to Eva’s and Marg’s blog and let them know.

I ended up making a unexpected trip to the library on Tuesday to get a book that had come in for me so that meant my son and walked around a bit. Here is what we picked up:

  • I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak (This was posted on Michael’s blog and it sounded really good.)
  • Blogging for Dummies

These following books are the ones Michael wanted to borrow:

  • Trains by Scholastic a first discovery book
  • A True Book: Trains by Darlene Stille
  • Model Railroading by Gil Paust
  • Going on a journey to the sea by Jane Barclay (She is a local author)
  • How cold was it? by Jane Barclay
  • How hot was it? by Jane Barclay
  • ABC of Canada by Kim Bellefontaine
  • Canada 1 2 3 by Kim Bellefontaine
  • Machines at work: Airplane
  • Wheels At Work: In the City by Don Kilby

As of right now we still have the previous sets of books we borrowed from the library hoping that some will go back on Friday.

Today (Friday) we had story time at the library and of course more books managed to find there way home with us. Here is what followed us:

  • Art Geeks and prom Queens by Alyson Noel
  • All We Know and Love by Nora Raleigh Baskin
  • Girl, Hero by Carrie Jones
  • Clay by David Almond
  • Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
  • Mucky Moose by Jonathan Allen
  • Moose Music by Sue Porter
  • Four Famished Foxes & Fosadyke by Pamela Duncan Edwards
  • Storytime for Little Porcupine by Joseph Slate

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.