HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 2012/4/23-”I publish earth friendly books and books that are great to people who live on our planet,” says publisher Brooke Guthrie.

Watch the interview with Gosh! TV Host, Gabrielle Pantera…

Book of Lost Fragrances

Exclusive interview with author M.J. Rose and a review of her new book in a series about reincarnation *** 3 Stars

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 2012/4/13 – “I  was reading about Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of ancient Egypt, who lived from 69 BCE to 30BCE,” says The Book of Lost Fragrances author M.J. Rose. “She was fascinated with, and some say obsessed by, scent. Marc Anthony built her a fragrance factory where he planted now extinct flora and fauna including groves of balsam trees, important in the creation of perfume at the time, confiscated from Herod.”

In the 1980s a team of Italian and Israeli archaeologists unearthed what they believe is that factory at the south end of the Dead Sea, 30 km from Ein Gedi. Residues of ancient perfumes and the seats where customers received beauty treatments were found there.

Cleopatra kept a recipe book for her perfumes, entitled Cleopatra gynaeciarum libri. “The book has been described in writings by historians Dioscorides, Homer and Pliny the Elder,” says Rose. “No known copy of the book exists today.  When I read about that book, I knew I truly had the idea for a new novel.”

The Book of Lost Fragrances contains descriptions that are vivid and suspenseful. There are religious elements and the reader travels with the characters to New York to China, London and Paris. Many facts about fragrances and the role it’s played throughout history are revealed.  However, the head-hoping and can be confusing and the flashbacks can throw you out of the story.

In The Book of Lost Fragrances, a child Jac L’Etoile is haunted by visions so real that she thought she may go crazy. Doctors help Jac overcome the visions and she finds her calling: to study children who have exhibited past-life experiences. Jac is fascinated by them, but doesn’t think her visions as a child were memories of a previous life. She’s turned her back on her families business. For centuries her family has been perfumers. Her brother Robbie uncovers shards of an ancient Egyptian scent pot. Robbie believes the family legend that the E’Toile’s family at one time possessed a scent that could help soul mates find each other and trigger past life memories.

When Robbie disappears, Jac discovers that others want this scent. Jac turns to her ex-lover Griffin, her brother’s best friend. As Jac and Griffin search for clues, Jac’s emotions and visions reemerge.

Rose says her ideas for the book first came together in 2009.  “While I was doing the research I thought it would be wonderful to commission a fragrance for the book. I looked into it but to do it well with a really quality perfumer was astronomically expensive., at least six figures. So I gave up on that idea and focused on writing.”

To keep in the world of scent while writing, Rose burned a lot of scented candles while working. “When I was finished writing, I searched out the perfumer who’d created the candles that had inspired me the most, Frederick Bouchardy of Joya Studios. I asked if he’d like a copy of the manuscript. He said he’d be delighted. After he read the novel he contacted me and we met for tea in the Peninsula Hotel in NYC. He told me he loved the book and wanted to create his version of the fragrance at the heart of the novel. I was so astonished and honored, I actually started to cry.”

Bouchardy named the fragrance after a scent in the book: Âmes Sœurs, the scent of soulmates. It has hints of frankincense, myrrh, orange blossom and jasmine. “It has a smoky, uncommon finish that suggests the past and the future…and lost souls reunited,” says Rose.

Rose, whose background is in advertising, had the perfume account Opium. “Through that experience I learned a lot about the current perfume industry,” says Rose.  During two years of research she read dozens of books, met perfumers, and experimenting a bit with formulating perfume herself. She took two trips to Paris to immerse herself in the settings for the book as well as meet perfumers there.

A TV show was based on one of Rose’s novels., The Reincarnationist . The show, called Past Lives, aired on Fox the winter of 2010. “Sadly, the show didn’t follow the book at all, and it failed,” says Rose. “It was the worst reviewed show of that year, but the process was amazing and taught me a lot.”

Rose’s editor is Sarah Durand. “I didn’t meet M.J. until after I’d acquired The Book of Lost Fragrances,” says Durand. “I definitely knew who she was through her work with AuthorBuzz and through her previous books.  When I read Lost Fragrances I was blown away. I knew this was her breakout book.”

Durand says that as people in-house began to read it, they fell in love with the manuscript and began to spread the word to their friends, customers, and others in-house. This love and the interest in the book’s back story, made the publisher want to do more and more for the book production-wise. “We added gorgeous colored endpapers,” says Durand. “We asked M.J. to do a glossary of her research, which we put in the back of the book.

“The book is the loveliest one I’ve ever had,” says Rose. “Not just the cover, but the four-color end papers and the glossary in the back of the book that includes photos.”

Rose’s agent is Dan Conaway at Writers House. She met her agent through blogging. In 2004, a blogger who went by the name Mad Max Perkins started a blog called BookAngst 101
(http://bookangst.blogspot.com/). He only identified himself as an editor at a NYC publishing company,.

“He  was funny and irreverent and brilliant and clearly dedicated to writers and writing,” says Rose.  “I read it religiously. At the time I ran my own blog, Buzz, Balls & Hype, which Mad Max Perkins read. We struck up a friendship and mutual admiration society through comments on each others blogs and in email.”

It was an odd relationship as Mad Max knew who Rose was, a mid list novelist with five novels to her credit, but she only knew him as Mad Max. About a year and a half later, Rose discovered his identity: Dan Conaway. They met for coffee. Not very long after that, Conaway left his job as executive editor at Penguin/Putnam to become an agent at Writers House. “ We stayed friends. In 2008 I found myself in need of a new agent and there was no question who I wanted. The  Book of Lost Fragrances wouldn’t exists if not for Dan. With his support I’ve become braver as a writer.”

Conaway says he became aware of M.J. Rose as a fan of her writers blog, Buzz, Balls & Hype.  It inspired him to launch his own blog, BookAngst 101, that explored the challenges of publishing from the inside. “I was then an Executive Editor at Harper Collins; and I was so terrified about getting fired that I wrote under the pseudonym Mad Max Perkins,” says Conaway. “There was so much overlap in terms of the things we were grappling with that we immediately started corresponding. It was inevitable we’d become fast friends.”

“The Book of Lost Fragrances has been an especially satisfying process, all the way through,” says Conaway. “From visualizing how we might move to a new publisher to making sure the book itself was as good as it could be.  One day we were sitting in this little bistro on 26th street, The Antique Cafe, and she was updating me about the book, walking me through the story. In clarifying a detail, she said something about a book of lost fragrances. I said, ‘Well, there’s your title.’  And we just started to laugh. It was so obvious. Hardly a week goes by that she doesn’t give me credit for the title, but it’s hers.”

Rose has written twelve novels and two books on marketing, plus hundreds of articles. Her novels are all listed at her website. My first novel, Lip Service, was published in 1999. She’s  currently writing a novel that features the same main character who is in The Book of Lost Fragrances, Jac L’Etoile.

M.J. Rose is based in Greenwich , Connecticut. She was born in New York City.

http://mjrose.com/fragrances/

Twitter : @MJRose

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/AuthorMJRose
<< book details here>>

House on Becket Lane

Exclusive interview with author Elizabeth Chanter and a review of her fiction novel about secrets and how love triumphs  *** 3 Stars

By Gabrielle  Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 2012/4/10 -“When trying to find a publisher I went to my local library to look at the list of publishers in the Writers’ Digest to see if I could find one,” says The House on Becket Lane author Elizabeth Chanter. “Time and again I read, ‘No new authors will be taken’ or, ‘Will only work through an agent’, or words to that effect. Rather than waste time trying to find a publisher or an agent, I thought of self-publishing and approached iUniverse.”

The House on Beckett Lane has romance, mystery, strong characters and a strong plot.  It’s the story of Caroline Wardlock, whose mother and sister died mysteriously while under the control of her stepfather. You will be transported into the story, but at times there’s so much detail it throws you out of the story. The writing is reminiscent of a Charlotte Bronte novel.

In The House on Beckett Lane, Caroline meets Lord Lonsdale by chance when she saves a child in the streets of London. Lonsdale takes her home and can tell there is something not right with her stepfather. Lord Dashell Lonsdale is considered one of the most eligible bachelors in London. Despite appearances, his family fortune is not as secure as he believes. His family is on the brink of financial ruin due to the gambling debts of his brother. Can Lonsdale save his families fortune and honor? Caroline also has a secret. If she tells him, will it end their love before it’s hardly begin?

“The idea for my book just came on its own, even if that does sound rather vague,” says Wardlock. “I was care-giver to a friend and began writing during the evenings. It was surprising how the characters seemed to write themselves as the story developed.  In fact, they got ahead of me. I had to write to catch up.”

There wasn’t a great deal of research in writing the book, says Wardlock. “I did check on the Internet the dates of the beginning of the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race and also that of Scotland Yard. I did not have to check any documents.”

Wardlock says it was no real challenge to complete the book and hired her own editor.  “I found the staff of iUniverse to be very helpful and events just progressed. I engaged a local person to do copying-editing.” iUniverse created Wardlock’s web site, Twitter and Facebook pages. She describes herself as not at all computer savvy.

The House on Beckett Lane is Wardlock’s first book. It has yet to be optioned for film or TV. She’s currently writing the sequel.

Elizabeth Chanter was born in London, England. She lives in Mill Bay on Vancouver Island, Canada.

http://elizabethchanter.authorsxpress.com/

The House On Becket Lane by Elizabeth Chanter
Trade Paperback: 308 pages, Publisher: iUniverse (August 22, 2011)
Language: English ISBN-13: 978-1462036028 $18.95

Dying in the Wool

Exclusive interview with author Frances Brody and a review of her female detective novel  – 3 Stars

By Gabrielle Pantera

Hollywood CA (Gosh!TV) 2012/3 / 1 -“It delighted me to discover how many readers love the 1920s, as I do,” says Dying in the Wool author Frances Brody. “The art deco style, the fashions and the dances. This is the book that turned me into a crime writer. In a flash, I saw a man, behind a high wall and a locked gate. Someone had to find out what was going on. Sleuth Kate Shackleton sprang to life, smart, tenacious and intrepid. ”

Dying in the Wool is first in a new series by Frances Brody. This female sleuth novel is set in Yorkshire post-WWI. If you enjoy female detective novels by authors like Hannah Dennison, Rhys Bowen, Catriona McPherson and Carola Dunn you’ll want to read Frances Brody too.

In Dying in the Wool, Kate Shackleton is an amateur sleuth turning professional with her first paying case. Accustomed to helping women find missing fathers, sons and husbands, Kate needs a paying case because her husband was lost fighting in WWI. The mystery of her missing husband is lightly interwoven in the story and will likely be a theme through out the series. You’ll want to read closely to keep up with the unexpected plot twists in this story.

Kate’s friend Tabitha Braithwaite asks Kate to find Joshua Braithwaite, her father who’s been missing for over six years. Tabitha  doesn’t believe he’s dead and wants Kate to find him so he can walk her down the aisle. Kate learns Tabitha’s father is not the shinning example of a family man that Tabitha thinks he is. Tabitha’s mother Evelyn doesn’t seem to miss having him around. Hector, Tabitha’s fiancé, seems to know more about Tabitha’s missing father than he should. Where is Tabitha’s father is he dead or hiding?

To make the imaginary village of Bridgestead seem authentic, Brody based her setting on the English town of Cottingley. In 1917, young Elsie Griffiths and Frances Wright created photographs of fairies near the stream Cottingley beck. “They fooled all sorts of people, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who makes a fleeting appearance in Dying in the Wool,” says Brody.

Before the First World War, Germans had all the expertise in dyeing. “When they left Britain in 1914, we had a lot of catching up to do,” says Brody. “I tried my hand at weaving, and talked to experts in textiles and dyeing. A district of Bradford is called Little Germany.”

Brody says she loved visiting Cottingley and doing research. “The Industrial Museum in Bradford has a collection of documents that give a flavour of life in the mills. We have family albums with a hundred years of photographs, and an old family friend is a dead ringer for Kate. For more detailed stuff on photography, I went to the archive at the National Media Museum. The local library was my source for contemporary newspaper accounts.”

Brody created a timeline for the story as part of her research. “One day, when I was stuck, I plucked a date from the air and thought that I would just see what was happening on that day in 1916. There was a newspaper account of an explosion at a munitions factory in Low Moor, Bradford, just a few miles from where I once lived. Stumbling on the precise date felt uncanny.”

“There is a character in the book who feels cheated by the master of the mill out of returns on his invention,” says Brody. “One elderly reader told me that exactly the same thing happened to her uncle. She was glad I had written about it.”

Brody’s New York editor is Anne Bensson of Thomas Dunne Books at Minotaur. In London, Brody’s editor is Lucy Icke at Piatkus, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group. “Working with Lucy and Anne is an absolute pleasure,” says Brody. “I think the secret is in knowing what schedule you are working to, and keeping in touch about it.”

Brody started with writing short stories that were broadcast on BBC Radio and published in magazines. “My first major piece of work was a 90-minute BBC Radio play based on the story of the Pendle witches. Its producer said to me, ‘Don’t write novels, it takes too long. You’re good at dialogue. Write scripts.’ At that point, I had two unpublished novels in a drawer, so his advice seemed sound. I wrote for radio, television and theatre. But, I am very glad that I returned to novel writing.”

One of Brody’s sagas, Somewhere Behind the Morning, written as Frances McNeil, won the HarperCollins Elizabeth Elgin Award for the most regionally evocative saga of the millennium. Brody’s one-woman stage play, Jehad, was nominated for a Time Out Award. Brody says it’s been a great pleasure to join the Crime Writers’ Association, to attend crime festivals and make new friends with other writers and readers. She recently joined Sisters in Crime.

Brody lives in Leeds, in Yorkshire, the largest county in England and home of the Brontes. “If you have seen Calendar Girls, Heartbeat or Last of the Summer Wine, you will know what a beautiful place Yorkshire is,” says Brody.

In May, Brody will be at the Bristol CrimeFest. In August she’ll be at the Annual Mystery & Crime Weekend at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford.

Brody’s website is www.frances-brody.com. She also has an author page on Facebook and a Twitter account.

Dying in the Wool by Frances Brody
Hardcover, 368 pages, Publisher: Minotaur Books (February 14, 2012)
Language: English, ISBN: 9780312622398 $24.99

At The King's Pleasure

Exclusive interview with author Kate Emerson and a review of her new novel of love and intrigue at the Tudor court *** Three Stars

By Gabrielle Pantera

Hollywood CA (Gosh!TV) 2012.2.18 – “I’ve wanted to use Will Compton and Lady Anne Stafford in a novel since 1978, when I was first learning how to write fiction,” says At the King’s Pleasure author Kate Emerson. “That time around, they were secondary characters in a picaresque novel whose protagonist was a serving maid at the court of Henry VIII. It wasn’t very good and it never sold, but the characters of Will and Lady Anne stayed with me all these years until the opportunity arose to tell their story.”

That Emerson is writing about aristocrats who played a part in history, yet weren’t central to the action grants an intriguing insight into the Tudors. At the King’s Pleasure is Emerson’s forty-fifth book to be published in print and her fourth historical novel for her current publisher Gallery Books. Emerson’s series can be read in any order.

In At the King’s Pleasure, Lady Anne Stafford is a lady in waiting to Queen Catherine of Aragon. Anne is married to George, Lord Hastings, who she claims to love, but she’s physically attracted to William Compton. With court intrigue all around her, can Anne keep from doing something very foolish?

Emerson says that one character in the story, Madge Geddings, demanded more of a voice. “The Duke of Buckingham’s mistress, who started out as a very minor character, became more and more important to the story as it developed and even ended up with a couple of scenes written in her point of view.”

Emerson says she uses a similar approach to research all her historical novels. “I read as many biographies as I can find of people who were around at the time the novel is set, along with general histories and social histories of the period. Since At the King’s Pleasure includes a number of hunting scenes, I also did considerable research on hunting and hawking in the sixteenth century.”

Emerson also uses online sources. “A wonderful source of original documents is British History Online, which has Henry VIII’s Privy Purse Expenses, the Letters and Papers from his reign, and the accounts of the Revels Office, which put on masques, tournaments and other entertainments. These are broken down by year and contain all kinds of day-to-day details of life at court.”

Emerson says one of her hobbies is compiling information on real sixteenth-century women, some of whom appear as characters in her novels. “I’ve been doing this for over forty years. Everything I discover goes into the A Who’s Who of Tudor

Women section of my website. Every time I start research for a new novel I find more interesting individuals to add and more details to add to existing entries.” At present there are close to 1500 entries at www.KateEmersonHistoricals.com.

Sometimes Emerson’s research finds it’s way into others’ projects. “A teacher in a high school about an hour’s drive from where I live read the first Secrets of the Tudor Court novel, The Pleasure Palace,” says Emerson. “When four of her students entered a national history contest with a presentation about the wives of Henry VIII, she contacted me to ask if I could come and talk to them. They ended up coming here, making a field trip to visit my at-home library and ask me their questions in person. They went on to win the state championship and travel to Washington D.C. for the national competition.”

Emerson’s editor at Gallery Books is Kathy Sagan. Emerson says the most challenging part for you working with a publisher is writing a synopsis for a new project. “I don’t usually know how a plot will develop until I’m actually writing the book, so it is difficult for me to describe what I’m going to do in advance.”

“My proposal for what became the first Secrets of the Tudor Court novel was submitted to Kathy Sagan by my agent,” says Emerson. “Once a proposal is accepted, I write the book and turn in the manuscript as a .doc file. Revisions, editing and copy editing are all done electronically, although I still receive printed page proofs to check one last time for typos and the like.”

Emerson’s agents are Margaret Ruley and Christina Hogrebe at Jane Rotrosen Agency. “I was introduced to Meg by one of her other clients,” says Emerson.

Emerson has written two historical mystery series, several children’s books, and many historical and contemporary romance novels.  She’s written three works of nonfiction under the name Kathy Lynn Emerson. She’s currently writing a contemporary humorous mystery series under the pseudonym Kaitlyn Dunnett. Emerson won the Agatha award for nonfiction for 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries: The Art and Adventure of Sleuthing Through the Past.

At the King’s Pleasure has yet to be optioned to be adapted into TV or film.

Emerson says her next historical, The King’s Damsel, is in production for publication in August. She’s deciding who to write about in an as yet untitled novel that will be published in 2013.

Emerson lives in western Maine, “nowhere near the ocean”, and was born in Liberty, New York. Her website is www.KateEmersonHistoricals.com.

At the King’s Pleasure (Secrets of the Tudor Court) by Kate Emerson

Paperback: 384 pages, Publisher: Gallery Books, January 3, 2012, English, ISBN 978-1439177822

Bali Conspiracy Most Foul

Exclusive interview with author Shamini Flint and a review of his latest Inspector Singh novel **** 4 Stars

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 2012/1/20 –“My dream is that my crime novels will raise awareness of and engage people in a discussion of the social, cultural and religious issues that plague Asian society,” says A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul author Shamini Flint. “The general idea behind the Inspector Singh novels is to write traditional whodunits with an Asian twist. I usually highlight at least one issue of contemporary importance, whether racial or religious issues in Malaysia, draconian laws on drugs or homosexuality in Singapore or the spectre of terrorism in Bali.”

Bali  is a wonderfully exotic locale for Flint’s second mystery with Inspector Singh. The characters and the plot drive the story equally. The overweight Singh is comparable to the detective Hercule Poirot. The differences in culture and history move the story along. The suspense kicks up a level and the ending will surprise you.

In A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul, Inspector Singh is sent to Bali after a terrorist’s bomb goes off.  Singh doesn’t quite know why he’s sent as he deals with homicides, not terrorism. The police, however, find a skull fragment at the scene that was there before the bomb went off. Joining Singh is Australian cop Bronwyn Taylor. The investigation leads them to the wealthy expat wife of the murdered man and her friends. Who killed him and how is it tied to the bomb?

“The Bali bombings of 2002 were a seminal event in Asia,” says Flint. “The island of Bali captures many of the contradictions of Asian society…economic, religious and cultural. I was determined to send Inspector Singh to Bali to investigate a murder in the aftermath of the bombings, but also to trip over all the fault lines within that society. There is no doubt that writing books that are not always complimentary about Asian society, or its political classes, does make me nervous sometimes.”

Flint is Malaysian. “Whenever I return to Malaysia and my passport gets stuck in the Autogate at the airport, I assume I’m in trouble. Fortunately, not many people in authority in Southeast Asia are big readers. Inspector Singh has received very good reviews in the international press and a few angry ones in the regional Asian papers.”

Flint says he did a lot of online research into terrorism in Southeast Asia. He was studying the roots of fanaticism, the social and cultural backdrop to suicide bombers and the ideology and methodology of terrorists. “One day, as I was trawling through the Internet, I was suddenly blocked from various sites by the Singapore authorities with a message suggesting that I was attempting to access banned material,” says Flint. “I printed out a copy of the manuscript and waited for someone to arrive to arrest me, rehearsing my excuses that I was just doing research for a book and wondering whether that’s what the terrorists usually said too.”

Flint says he doesn’t know if his novels make a difference, but that he does enjoy the process of trying to influence people. “I have an Aunt in Malaysia who recently confessed to voting for an opposition figure in a general election after fifty years of being too afraid to step out of line. Who says people can’t change?”

In his research, Flint visits the sites described in his books. “In Bali, this involved going to the bomb sites in Kuta, the hospitals and the police station in Denpasar and a bed and breakfast in the artist colony of Ubud. I knew Bali quite well before writing the book as I have family there. When writing a Singh novel, I usually read an enormous amount about the place…history, politics, geography…anything I can get my hands on really. Once I feel I have the destination in some sort of mental context, I spend a few weeks on location. I wander fairly aimlessly around the place, exploring back alleys and the quality of the beer. Inspector Singh is very fussy about that.”

Flint says there’s a lot of interest in optioning A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul. “I am really keen to see Inspector Singh in the flesh although I can’t think who might play the role.”

Flint says some of his children’s books have been short-listed for awards including the Red Dot Award and the Hedwig-Anuar Prize.

Flint’s agent is Elinor Cooper at AP Watt. “After I had found a UK publisher for the Inspector Singh novels a number of agents approached me about any further writing. Elinor was enthusiastic about my work. She is also a perfectionist so I am currently editing a stand-alone novel for the third time at her behest.”

A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul: Inspector Singh Investigates by Shamini Flint
Hardcover, 304 pages, Publisher: Minotaur Books; Reprint edition (July 19, 2011) Language: English, ISBN: 9780312596989 $ 25.99

By Gabrielle Pantera

Can't get enough Pride & Prejudice? Read the new Annotated Edition

LONDON, ENGLAND (Gosh!TV) 2012/12/24 – It’s not too late to pop into a bookstore to get a gift for a special someone or for yourself. Let’s look at a dozen great books perfect for the Anglophile or for any reader.

Historical Fiction

1. Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition

Pride and Prejudice, first published in 1813,was Austen’s most popular novel during her lifetime. It was also her favorite. This version of Pride and Prejudice has gorgeous illustrations and is annotated by scholar Patricia Meyer Spacks who explains the literary and historical contexts, allusions, and outdated language that can be a bit confusing. Spacks helps the reader delve deeper into the story and characters.

Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition . Author Jane Austen, Editor Patricia Meyer Spacks. Hardcover, 464 pages, Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Annotated edition (October 1, 2010), Language: English, ISBN: 9780674049161 $35.00

2. Persuasion: An Annotated Edition

Persuasion was originally published in 1817, after Austen’s death. Persuasion is quite introspective and more passionate that other Austen novels. The introduction for Persuasion is by scholar Robert Morrison. His notes are about the relationship between Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth. He also covers Austen contemporaries such as Lord Byron, Walter Scott, and Maria Edgeworth.

Persuasion: An Annotated Edition. Author Jane Austen, Editor Robert Morrison. Hardcover: 360 pages, Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Annotated edition (November 7, 2011), Language: English, ISBN: 9780674049741 $35.00

3. Madam Tussaud

This story of Madame Marie Tussaud starts just before the French revolution. Tussaud and her family consider themselves survivalists. They work both sides of the revolution to survive the war. Will Marie survive or will her wax figures be her only legacy?

Madam Tussaud by Michelle Moran. Hardback, 464 pages, Publisher: Crown (February 15, 2011), Language: English. ISBN: 9780307588654 $25.00 Paperback comes out Dec 7^th, 2011 $15.00

Modern Fiction

4. The Little Women Letters

Donnelly’s novel evokes the love and nurturing nature of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. The trials and tribulations that are inherent with families and sisters in particular are woven beautifully through out the novel. The bond between the sisters in the novel will make even those who don’t have sisters want one or two.

In The Little Women Letters, Lulu Atwater is the middle sister. She’s close to her sisters and parents, but her life isn’t going as planned…if she had a plan. Older sister Emma loves her career and is planning her wedding. Younger sister Sophie is an actress whose career is starting to take off. Fed up with dead-end jobs, Lulu realizes that she needs to get her life together. Lulu finds some old letters written by her great-great-grandmother Josephine March. Lulu gets caught up Jo’s life lesson. Can the words of her great-great-grandmother help Lulu figure out who she wants to be?

The Little Women Letters by Gabrielle Donnelly. Hardcover, 368 pages, Publisher: Touchstone (June 7, 2011), Language: English, ISBN: 9781451617184. $10.20

5. Mermaid Garden

In Mermaid Garden, ten-year-old Floriana loves the Tuscan villa that overlooks the sea just outside her small village. Sitting on the crumbling wall she looks over the garden imagining she’ll one day live there. Dante, the son of villa owner Beppe Bonfanti, invites Floriana in to look at the mermaid garden. As Floriana and Dante grow up they fall in love, but his powerful and ruthless father has the poor girl from the local village disappear. Dante is devastated. Decades later on the coast in Devon, a beautiful old country house has been turned into a hotel. Marina Turner hires Argentinean artist Rafa Santoro for the summer to teach the guests how to paint. What’s the secret to how Floriana, Dante, Marina and Rafa all connect?

Mermaid Garden, by Santa Montefiore. Hardcover, 432 pages, Publisher: Touchstone; Original edition (May 3, 2011). Language: English, ISBN: 9781451624304 $24.99

Mysteries

6. Naughty in Nice (A Royal Spyness Mystery)

Set in the 1930s, Naughty in Nice presents Lady Georgiana Rannoch, 34th in line to the throne of England. Unfortunately, her branch of the family is flat broke. It’s the Great Depression. She struggles to make her own way in a difficult world. Unwilling to marry or settle for less then love, she is determined to be an independent woman.

Naughty in Nice the fifth book in Bowen’s wonderful the Royal Spyness series. Lady Georgiana takes a trip to Nice to unobtrusively recover a snuffbox missing from Queen Mary’s collection. What more could an unmarried woman want but to escape to a warm climate during the coldest time of year in London? Jean-Paul is a sexy Frenchman who hits on Georgiana. She’s glad for the distraction when she sees her man Darcy O’Mara with another woman and child who looks like him. There are a few surprises for Georgiana in this novel. With each new novel Bowen makes the characters more enchanting. Read this novel alone or read the series in order.

Naughty in Nice (A Royal Spyness Mystery) by Rhys Bowen. Publisher: Berkley Hardcover; 1 edition (September 6, 2011), Language: English. ISBN: 9780425243497 $ 24.96

7. Where Shadows Dance: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

Where Shadows Dance is set in 1812 London.  Sebastian St. Cyr, the only surviving son and heir of the Earl of Hendon, is asked by his friend, surgeon Paul Gibson, to solve a mystery. A body Gibson illegally bought from body snatchers for study has a stab wound at the base of the skull. The man was murdered. The dead man was Alexander Ross, who worked for the Foreign Office. St. Cyr and his wife to be, Hero Jarvis, work together to solve this mystery. With Napoleon invading Russia and the Americans going to war, will they find the answer without creating an international scandal?

The historical facts add to the story, such as deaths compiled by the elderly women in each parish for more than 200 years prior to 1812 called the Bills of Mortality. Harris’ descriptions draw you into 1812. The characters and characteristics of the protagonists, St Cyr and Hero Jarvis, feel a bit modern at times.

Where Shadows Dance: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery by C.S. Harris. Hardcover, 352 pages, Publisher: NAL Hardcover; First Edition (March 1, 2011). Language: English, ISBN: 9780451232236 $24.95

Factual

8. Scandalous Women

Scandalous Women provides succinct biographies of some of the most fascinating women in history. Their lives are revealed showing the high and low points in their lives. The chapter titles include Warrior Queens, Scintillating Seductresses, Wild Women of the West and Amazing Adventuresses. A total of 35 different women are in this book. Mohan is entertaining and even humorous at times. Whether it’s less familiar biographies like Vita Sackville-West and Emilie du Chatelet, or the ones everyone knows like Cleopatra and Eleanor of Aquitaine, the women’s lives are fascinating.

Scandalous Women, Trade Paperback, 320 pages, Publisher: Perigee Trade (March 1, 2011), Language: EnglishISBN13: 9780399536458 $15.00

9. George II: King and Elector (Part of the English Monarchs Series)

Raised in Northern Germany, George II was the last British monarch born outside Great Britain. He was also the last British monarch to lead an army in battle, participating at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743. While still the Prince of Wales he quarreled with his father, King George I, and was banned from the palace and from seeing his children. George II became king in 1727 on his father’s death. In 1745, supporters of James Stuart failed to depose the George II in the last of the Jacobite rebellions. The attempt to install a Catholic king was over.

This is not a social book describing parties, clothing or food. It describes family jealousies and gives a deeper understanding of the relationship between George II and his children. For anyone who wants to know more about George II, this is a definite must-read.

George II: King and Elector (Part of the English Monarchs Series) By Andrew Thompson Hardcover, 315 pages, Publisher: Yale University Press (June 28, 2011),Language: English, ISBN: 9780300118926 $40.00

10. The Second World War: A Military History

The Second World War is not controversial, but is thoroughly explored in nearly 700 pages. Despite the length, Corrigan’s writing is easy to read. This book is for anyone who wants to know about the conflict. It is straightforward due to the author’s dry wit and clear writing style. A historian, Corrigan compares WWII with previous wars. He’s not timid about voicing his opinion of actions during the war. Corrigan explores the different ways each country went about dealing with their part of the war. Even though there were alliances, rarely did they work together in accord. Corrigan discusses the different contributions the Americans, British and Russians made. The book presents in chronological order and moves back and forth between countries. A large portion of the book covers fighting in Asia.

The Second World War: A Military History by Gordon Corrigan . Hardcover, 672 pages, Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books (November 8, 2011), Language: English, ISBN: 9780312577094 $35.00.

11. A Thousand Times More Fair: What Shakespeare’s Plays Teach Us About Justice

Kenji Yoshino is a constitutional law professor at NYU. He compares Shakespeare’s justice against law in today’s society. Starting with Titus Andronicus, a very violent play that is all about revenge, he compares the play to America’s wars against terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is America waging a war for safety or is it an act of revenge? Yoshino examines Hamlet, Lear, The Tempest and more. If Yoshino classes are half as good as this book no wonder he’s got students vying to get in his class.

A Thousand Times More Fair: What Shakespeare’s Plays Teach Us About Justice Kenji Yoshino. Hardcover, 320 pages, Publisher: Ecco (April 12, 2011), Language: English. ISBN: 9780061769108 $26.99

12. The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England

The Time Travelers Guide to Medieval England drops you in the year 1300 to learn all about how people lived, dressed, worked, the difference between the classes and anything else you wanted to know about Medieval times but were afraid to ask.

The Time Travelers Guide to Medieval England is a surprisingly engrossing read even if you don’t care about history. There are facts that will make you think about all you were taught about history and make you re-think it all. Now out in Trade paperbck.

The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century by Ian Mortimer. Hardcover, 352 pages, Publisher: Touchstone (December 29, 2009), Language: English. ISBN-13: 978-1439112892 $26.00

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 2011/12/20 – This article series offers holiday gift ideas to surprise and delight someone special. Watch for more gift ideas in future stories.

Persuasion an Annotated version

Jane Austen’s novels are timeless. Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice novels are great as gifts.

Pride and Prejudice, first published in 1813,was Austen’s most popular novel during her lifetime. It was also her favorite. This version of Pride and Prejudice has gorgeous illustrations and is annotated by scholar Patricia Meyer Spacks who explains the literary and historical contexts, allusions, and outdated language that can be a bit confusing. Spacks helps the reader delve deeper into the story and characters.

Jane Austen’s novels are the most beloved books of Western literature. Available wherever books are sold.

Persuasion: An Annotated Edition
Author Jane Austen, Editor Robert Morrison
Hardcover: 360 pages, Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Annotated edition (November 7, 2011), Language: English, ISBN: 9780674049741 $35.00

Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition
Author Jane Austen, Editor Patricia Meyer
Hardcover, 464 pages, Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Annotated edition (October 1, 2010), Language: English, ISBN: 9780674049161 $35.00

Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition

Persuasion an Annotated version

Jane Austen’s novels are timeless. Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice novels great as gifts **** 4 Stars

By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 2011/12/18 – “I am, and have been since I first encountered Martin Gardner’s wonderful The Annotated Alice many years ago, a great fan of the genre of annotated editions,” says Harvard University Press is executive editor John Kulka. “Few people would dispute the claim that Austen is among the world’s most beloved authors. I’ve long thought that her novels deserved the full Martin Gardner treatment, replete with running commentary, essays, and lots of color illustrations.”

Pride and Prejudice, first published in 1813,was Austen’s most popular novel during her lifetime. It was also her favorite. This version of Pride and Prejudice has gorgeous illustrations and is annotated by scholar Patricia Meyer Spacks who explains the literary and historical contexts, allusions, and outdated language that can be a bit confusing. Spacks helps the reader delve deeper into the story and characters.

Persuasion was originally published in 1817, after Austen’s death. Persuasion is quite introspective and more passionate that other Austen novels. The introduction for Persuasion is by scholar Robert Morrison. His notes are about the relationship between Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth. He also covers Austen contemporaries such as Lord Byron, Walter Scott, and Maria Edgeworth.

Both books would make fantastic gifts for anyone who loves Jane Austen. The books are designed to be read, reread and cherished to be passed on to the next generation of Austen lovers.

“Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion are so extravagantly beautiful that one reviewer has seen fit to call them anti-Kindles, anti-Nooks, and anti-tablets,” says Kulka. “We’ve spared no expenses with production. I knew the volumes had to be physically beautiful objects…books that readers, especially those readers who think of themselves as Friends of Jane, would want to own and treasure as part of their permanent libraries.”

Kulka says that when he pitched the idea of an annotated Austen series to his colleagues at Harvard University Press, they all were enthusiastic about the idea. “I soon assembled an international group of scholars to annotate Austen’s six major novels. Last year we published Patricia Meyer Spacks’s Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition and just this month we released Persuasion: An Annotated Edition, which Robert Morrison, a Canadian scholar, has edited and annotated.  We’ve had a tremendous response to these first two volumes.”

“The running commentary is all there in the margins of the book, to be consulted or ignored, depending on your mood,” says Kulka. “There’s something very appealing about the idea of an expert…someone smarter, more educated, and wiser than yourself acting as a guide to a work of literature.  And of course, there are all of those gorgeous illustrations, drawings, and maps.”

“When I approached Patricia Meyer Spacks, an eminent scholar, about annotating Pride and Prejudice, she was doubtful at first about the enterprise,” says Kulka. “She has since written and spoken about the challenge of ‘writing 2,000 notes for a novel that seems to demand no annotation at all.’  Pride and Prejudice is, in many ways, such a brilliantly limpid and accessible novel.  But Pat surprised herself. The process of writing notes taught her much about what she didn’t know about the book and the importance of what she didn’t know. Austen and her first readers understood much about their contemporary world that seems quite foreign to us now.”

Kulka did research for the color illustrations in Pride and Prejudice. That research took him to the Yale British Art Museum, the Beinecke Library at Yale, and the Houghton Library at Harvard.  “At the Houghton, I got to handle and page through a copy of the first edition of Pride and Prejudice, originally published in a three volume format, as all novels were then, to accommodate the circulating libraries, which functioned somewhat like Blockbuster or Netflix, except of course the circulating libraries rented out books not movies.  The copy of the first edition at the Houghton was owned by the poet and avid book collector Amy Lowell. The first of the three volumes contains her book plate.”

“I viewed first editions of Austen’s work and many Regency era publications,” says Kulka. “But, no, I didn’t get to handle any of Jane Austen’s manuscripts.  Sadly, very little of Austen’s work survives in manuscript form.  There are two canceled chapters from Persuasion that survive, but nothing more from that late novel, nor indeed anything else from her major novels.  You may remember that earlier this year manuscript pages from Austen’s The Watsons, an early, unfinished novel, sold at auction to the Bodleian library at Oxford for the equivalent of something like 1.6 million U.S. dollars.  The fact that so little Austen material survives in manuscript form accounts, in part, for that impressive figure.”

Kulka got help, counsel, and encouragement, in one form or another, from all quarters of the Austen community…the societies, the museums, and the blogs. The staff at Chawton House provided lots of help in tracking down images. Members of JASNA, the Jane Austen Society North America, were very helpful.

Next year Harvard University Press will publish Emma:  An Annotated Edition, the next installment in the Austen series. “I just finished reading the final manuscript,” says Kulka.  “A very good British scholar named Bharat Tandon has put that volume together for me.”

Anyone who read and enjoyed Patricia Meyer Spacks’ Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition will want to get Robert Morrison’s Persuasion: An Annotated Edition. “Rob is very good on the larger social and political events that shape the novel’s action,” says Kulka.  “In his Introduction and notes he reminds us that the Napoleonic Wars form an important backdrop to Persuasion.” The Napoleonic Wars are coming to a close during the action of the novel. Captain Wentworth, Admiral Croft, and some of the other male characters in the novel served in the Royal Navy.  Who these men are, what naval life was like, what their different ranks mean, and how England are haunted by the war are among the topics explored by Morrison in his notes.

Jane Austen’s novels are the most beloved books of Western literature.

Persuasion: An Annotated Edition
Author Jane Austen, Editor Robert Morrison
Hardcover: 360 pages, Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Annotated edition (November 7, 2011), Language: English, ISBN: 9780674049741 $35.00

Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition
Author Jane Austen, Editor Patricia Meyer Spacks
Hardcover, 464 pages, Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; Annotated edition (October 1, 2010), Language: English, ISBN: 9780674049161 $35.00

Kevin Sorbo

The tragedy that almost was turns into a triumph as Kevin Sorbo recounts his brush with death. **** 4 Stars

By  Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 2011/11/10 “I wanted people out there who are struggling with illness like I did to know there is hope, that they can find strength inside themselves and not be slaves to prognostications by others,” says author of True Strength Kevin Sorbo.  “The docs told me 3-8 months of recovery - that’s it. After that, it was what it was. Well, after 8 months, I was still down for the count, lying on the couch, head buzzing and pounding, feeling dizzy and nauseated 22 hours a day. That was no way to live a life. So i said, “well, they must be wrong,” and my wife was right there telling me that, too, thank goodness.”

Andromeda and Hercules, that’s what most people know Kevin Sorbo for. Like most of us when things are going great we don’t think about any possible health problems that might happen.  A sudden health crisis affected his life dramatically. He was partially blind and incapacitated at just thirty-eight years old. Yet he was able to keep working because he managed to hide what was really going on. This is Sorbo’s memoir. He shares how he dealt with his physical health issues and came out the other side a stronger man than Hercules was.

This transformation for Sorbo was filled with many obstacles, but he had the love of Sam Jenkins who Sorbo married while recovering from the aneurysm and strokes that had threatened his life. Sorbo recounts the fears and anger that most will be able to relate to.  Sorbo wrote this himself with a few chapters done by Sam and a few friends also contributing. Sorbo’s writing style is engaging and I would love to see a fiction book by him.

The most challenging part of writing True Strength for Kevin was writing about God. “I know people all have their own opinions about whether he exists or whatever, but that voice I heard, and the journey I was on – I talked a lot to god, yelled at him a lot, and finally made my peace with him,” says Sorbo. “Writing that most intimate conversation was the hardest thing to come clean about, after having made the decision to tell my story.”

“Writing it would wake me up,” says Sorbo. “Once I got started, it wanted to be written.”

What was the cause for the aneurysm and blood clots? “The doctors don’t know, but I do,” says Sorbo. “God tapped me on the shoulder, literally, in a very rude way, but he needed to get his point across!”

“I still have to consciously slow down,” says Sorbo. “I want to do everything and I love to work, so I have (still) a tendency to overbook myself.”

“Well, after staring death in the face, it was a long uphill battle,” says Sorbo. “Every little ache and pain (and there were a plethora of them) went straight into my head like another warning shot. I’d say, for my psyche, I was literally about to die every day for about a year. The panic attacks took over several times a day for the first part of that. Eventually I both learned to control my response to them, and they also lessened as my brain ‘re-calibrated.’”

“I’ve joined forces with the American Stroke association to help them out where I can,” says Sorbo.

Sorbo has a charity called a World Fit for Kids, that once a year has a charity Golf Tournament. “We teach mentoring to teens to help the younger children in their communities, and we work with 12,000 kids in LAUSD, with a 98% graduation rate for our kids in a 52% drop out area,” says Sorbo. “Kids today start dropping out of school as young as 5th grade! Talk about giving up…” Find out more at www.worldfitforkids.org

Sorbo was born in Minneapolis and raised in Mound, Minn. He currently lives in the Los  Angeles, Calif., area. Sorbo has been busy with six movies in the can.  “ I just wrapped a faith based movie for Sony called Abel’s Field,” says Sorbo. “Two more movies to be shot in the next three months.”

True Strength

Sorbo is on a book tour across the country. You can keep up with him via Twitter at @Ksorbs,  at Facebook: Kevin Sorbo official or  Kevinsorbo.net for all info on movie releases and everything else .

True Strength: My Journey from Hercules to Mere Mortal–and How Nearly Dying Saved My Life Hardcover, 296 pages, Publisher, Da Capo Press (October 11, 2011), Language: English, ISBN: 9780306820366 $ 26.00