Vlog #16: ArmchairBEA 2012

Welcome to ArmchairBEA 2012 week here at Girl Who Reads. While I had hoped to be in New York for the big even this year, I'm happy to be participating in the at home version for the second year. For those of you who weren't around last year, each day there is a topic provided for the bloggers participating in the event. There are also giveaways and twitter parties throughout the week. You can learn more at Armchairbea.com.

Today's topic is MEET THE BLOGGER. Watch the video below to learn more about me. If you are here for Mailbox Monday, which is hosted by Alternative Read this month or It's Monday! What are you reading? I've included it in the video, plus my list is below the video. Please come back tomorrow for my BIG giveaway. I have hardcovers, paperbacks, and ebooks, and yes, most are open internationally.

Mailbox Find

The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D. by Nichole Bernier
Goodreads, IndieBound, Powell's Books, Amazon

Before there were blogs, there were journals. And in them we’d write as we really were, not as we wanted to appear. But there comes a day when journals outlive us. And with them, our secrets.

   Summer vacation on Great Rock Island was supposed to be a restorative time for Kate, who’d lost her close friend Elizabeth in a sudden accident. But when she inherits a trunk of Elizabeth's journals, they reveal a woman far different than the cheerful wife and mother Kate thought she knew.
   The complicated portrait of Elizabeth—her troubled upbringing, and her route to marriage and motherhood—makes Kate question not just their friendship, but her own deepest beliefs about loyalty and honesty at a period of uncertainty in her own marriage.
   The more Kate reads, the more she learns the complicated truth of who Elizabeth really was, and rethinks her own choices as a wife, mother, and professional, and the legacy she herself would want to leave behind. When an unfamiliar man’s name appears in the pages, Kate realizes the extent of what she didn’t know about her friend, including where she was really going on the day she died.
   Set in the anxious summer after the September 11th attacks, this story of two women—their friendship, their marriages, private ambitions and fears—considers the aspects of ourselves we show and those we conceal, and the repercussions of our choices. From Goodreads.com

Reading List:

In paperback

Farsighted by Emlyn Chand
Goodreads, IndieBound, Powell's Books, Amazon

Alex Kosmitoras's life has never been easy. The only other student who will talk to him is the school bully, his parents are dead broke and insanely overprotective, and to complicate matters even more, he's blind. Just when he thinks he'll never have a shot at a normal life, an enticing new girl comes to their small Midwest town all the way from India. Simmi is smart, nice, and actually wants to be friends with Alex. Plus she smells like an Almond Joy bar. Sophomore year might not be so bad after all.

Unfortunately, Alex is in store for another new arrival—an unexpected and often embarrassing ability to "see" the future. Try as he may, Alex is unable to ignore his visions, especially when they suggest Simmi is in mortal danger. With the help of the mysterious psychic next door and friends who come bearing gifts of their own, Alex embarks on his journey to change the future. From Goodreads.com

On my Nook:

Gabriel's Inferno by Sylvain Reynard
Goodreads, IndieBound, Powell's Books, Amazon

Professor Gabriel Emerson, a specialist in Dante and the art of seduction, believes he has already earned his exile to the lower circles of hell. Since redemption is impossible, there is no reason to refrain from indulging in a life of pleasurable sin, using his notorious good looks and sophisticated charm as a means to gratify his every whim. But when he meets Julia Mitchell, a brilliant, lovely, and innocent grad student with the achingly familiar eyes of an angel, all of his cynical convictions are challenged. Her mysterious allure and the havoc she wreaks on his self-satisfied existence cause him to lash out at her, while her quiet beauty and innate goodness consistently undermine his control, tempting him beyond measure.

Despite surviving a traumatic childhood, nothing has shaken Julia’s faith that redemption is possible for everyone—everyone but her. Her unworthiness torments her, since the only man she will ever love has managed to forget her very existence, failing to even recognize her when they reconnect. Too naive to see that Gabriel’s hostility is a mask for his increasing obsession with her, Julia forces him to come to grips with his past while she continues to unwittingly torment his senses. His fascination grows into a dangerous preoccupation, for Julia is forbidden fruit . . .

Will Gabriel survive the inferno, or will he succumb to the flames? From Goodreads.com

Audio Book:

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Goodreads, IndieBound, Powell's Books, Amazon

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.
Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love. From Goodreads.com

Day 2 - Giveaway!
Day 3 - Networking... in Real Life 
Day 4 - Beyond the Blog
Day 5 - Future of Blogging

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