Alison Kent

One of my 2009 resolutions (and I *am* calling it a resolution because it’s something I’ve resolved) is to read more. As in WAY more. More being as many books as I can scarf down. Since network TV is turning into a crapfest of reality programming, forgoing all things story and canceling the shows with true character and heart (yes, I’m still ticked off about losing Firefly AND then Journeyman AND now Eli Stone), I’ll be going back to books to unwind. (I’ve chosen TV for a long time because at the end of a long writing day, I didn’t have to keep my eyes open to enjoy the dialogue!)

The last two weeks of ‘08 were wonderfully relaxing, though I was glad to see ‘09 arrive as it meant structure would return to my life, or at least as much structure as I ever have. While lazing about and clicking through to links posted at Twitter, I saw bunches of blogs around the web about reading challenges (this post at Maw Books Blog links to a LOT of the challenges readers can join). I’m participating this year in eHarlequin’s 2009 Book Challenge; I’m on a team (for now) with Lori Borrill, Elle Kennedy, Juliet Burns, Tracy Wolff, Loreth Anne White, and Laurie Gold. I like eHQ’s challenge because of their commitment to donating books to the National Center for Family Literacy. (You don’t have to be a member of a team to participate. Just set up an account, sign in, and post reviews!)

eHarlequin’s challenge does require at least 50% of the books read and reviewed be published by Harlequin or Silhouette or any of the single title imprints like Mira, HQN, Spice, Red Dress, etc. With the number of books I’ve downloaded from the site, and the number I’ve ordered this last year, that’s not going to be a problem. And it also lets me participate in the Read Your Own Books Challenge since, well, I have all these books! Another one I’ve decided to tackle is the 999 Challenge, reading 9 books each in 9 categories in ‘09, and for extra credit, doing so by 09/09/09! (Yes, that’s 81 books, but I’ll give myself the full year!) Another challenge I’m going to do is the New Author Challenge. For this one I’m going to read 25 new to me authors.

What I love about finding these challenges across the web is meeting new readers, making those friends, and discovering recommended books outside of my usual comfort zone. The romance community is awesome, but also insular, so stepping into the bigger reading world has been fun. If I stick with the plan (and how often do I NOT stick with plans), I will read at least 81 books this year. That’s only a book and a half (or so) a week, and really. With nothing on TV worth watching, how hard can it be?

I’ve made a page where I’ll post all the books as I read them and apply each to its challenge. I’ve also put an Amazon widget in the sidebar with books I’ve pulled off the TBR pile to read for the month. I might change my mind on those because I’m fickle that way, but for now, the books in that widget are my January choices to read. Some I’ll give away as I finish them. Others I’ll put into a box and give that away later on.

What about you? Are you participating in any Reading Challenges or have you set any personal reading goals? Is your TBR as overwhelming as mine? What are you reading right now? (I’m in the middle of two books, and enjoying both of them!)

In a garden surrounded by a tall fence, tucked away behind a small, quiet house in an even smaller town, is an apple tree that is rumored to bear a very special sort of fruit. In this luminous debut novel, Sarah Addison Allen tells the story of that enchanted tree, and the extraordinary people who tend it.…

The Waverleys have always been a curious family, endowed with peculiar gifts that make them outsiders even in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina. Even their garden has a reputation, famous for its feisty apple tree that bears prophetic fruit, and its edible flowers, imbued with special powers. Generations of Waverleys tended this garden. Their history was in the soil. But so were their futures.

A successful caterer, Claire Waverley prepares dishes made with her mystical plants—from the nasturtiums that aid in keeping secrets and the pansies that make children thoughtful, to the snapdragons intended to discourage the attentions of her amorous neighbor. Meanwhile, her elderly cousin, Evanelle, is known for distributing unexpected gifts whose uses become uncannily clear. They are the last of the Waverleys—except for Claire’s rebellious sister, Sydney, who fled Bascom the moment she could, abandoning Claire, as their own mother had years before.

When Sydney suddenly returns home with a young daughter of her own, Claire’s quiet life is turned upside down—along with the protective boundary she has so carefully constructed around her heart. Together again in the house they grew up in, Sydney takes stock of all she left behind, as Claire struggles to heal the wounds of the past. And soon the sisters realize they must deal with their common legacy—if they are ever to feel at home in Bascom—or with each other.

Enchanting and heartfelt, this captivating novel is sure to cast a spell with a style all its own….

Five Things I Loved About This Book:

1) The writing is delicious, lush, even while being lean. A contradiction, I know, but the word choices make the perfect impact and paint a gorgeous picture - like the cover (I LOVE the cover). The story is beautifully atmospheric, yet the author never indulges in lengthy description or dumps information to set her scenes. Instead, she seamlessly weaves her story elements.

2) The relationship between the Waverly sisters. Their conflict was real and true, the reasons for their feelings believable, their journeys to healing the breach between them lovely, as was the use of their “gifts.”

3) The men. All the men. Not just the romantic interests, but the extras, too., Fred and Lester and Hunter John. I’m going to pick Henry as a favorite (I love besotted men), though Tyler left me breathless several times.

4) The resolution between two of Sydney Waverly’s high school friends who married not long after she left Bascom. The subplot of Emma and Hunter John almost seemed a separate story, one not organic to the whole, but the outcome was very satisfying, Hunter John a true hero, and Emma earning the reader’s heart in the end

5) The apple tree. The garden and the flowers and everything Claire used in her cooking, but especially the tree. I’m not a fan of magic, but the execution here was so subtle, I didn’t have a lot of trouble suspending my disbelief, or at least when it came to the tree, having fun.

I finished this last night and will give away my hardcover copy to someone who comments here by 8:00 p.m.ish CST, Monday, January 5, 2008. You must have a US shipping address.

I could swear I’ve posted before about Kelly Howell’s Brain Sync series, but I’ve searched my archives for fifteen minutes, using every combination of keywords I can think of, and have found nothing. Ergo, if this is repetitive, I apologize, but really I don’t because it’s one of those things worth repeating. I know a lot of writers write to music, certain soundtracks. Barb Ferrer for one. I love reading the playlists she puts together for her stories. I remember hearing (or reading) something Elizabeth Lowell said about playing one sort of music during the morning while writing her historical romances, and another sort of music during the afternoon while writing her thrillers (or vice versa on the morning / afternoon thing). Other authors need complete silence. I know from conversations we’ve had that Lori Wilde uses noise canceling headphones and Leslie Kelly (now aka Leslie Parrish) uses industrial strength earplugs.

When I’m in the zone, the noise doesn’t bother me. The dogs barking. The cars running up and down the street. The chatter of people in the mall food court. The cooing of the doves in the tree who love to drop their business on my backyard writing chair. Over the years, I’ve written while working a reception desk, written while riding a commuter bus to work, written on lunch hours in city parks or Starbucks. I’ve never written at a desk, and always written in noise. I have three albums I play repeatedly on my Creative MP3 player, Coil, Adore, and Whatever. But more than anything I love listening to Brain Power, one of the Brain Sync brain wave recordings.

Unlike guided meditation with voices instructing you to visualize a babbling brook, or to breathe deep and relax, and unlike sounds of nature, wind in the trees, the ocean, etc., the Brain Sync series of mind expansion therapies are nothing but sound waves. Like . . . a deep thrumming, I guess. Or a thrumming that then has a higher pitched tone on top of that. I’ve never found anything else that will help me focus the way these do (and having just visited the site, I see they have new ones on self-confidence and stress relief . . . oh, and a PILLOW! With speakers! I WANT!). The thrumming focuses my thoughts on the words I’m typing onto the page, and I don’t hear anything but my characters talking. I’m not a Brain Sync affiliate and am doing this product review solely as a satisfied user - one who would have NO focus if not for headphones and these brain wave therapies.

It’s the second day of 2009. Many people rang in the new year with a list of resolutions. Others made lists while watching bowl games or taking down Christmas decorations (yes, ours are STILL up), a first day of the year self-audit, as it were, of things that need to be done . . . differently. Some didn’t - and won’t - make resolutions at all, but will instead take life a day at a time, tackling goals only as the need arises.

Me? I always wind up one year thinking of things I’d like to accomplish in the next, but I don’t make a list - which is weird since I make lists for everything else I need to get done. This uber “to do” list that’s not a list covers the usual. And as happens every year, improving my physical health so my mental health follows suit is number one.

Like many writing pros, I do too much sitting and struggling for words when I know from experience if I get up and move, and even better, break a sweat, the words will flow. (That BICHOK thing? When I’ve got my butt in the chair and my hands on the keyboard, nothing happens if I’m running on the wrong fuel.) I also know the healthier I eat, the more sharp snap I have. I do better not eating anything at all than giving in to the bread, pasta, potatoes, and baked goods that taste like heaven but suck away my physical energy and turn my brain to sludge. I need my brain. I need my body. I need to be able to focus on my writing, from the big picture of the story to the individual words that bring it to life.

For me, 2009 is going to be about focus, about discipline, about priorities. Before I can even begin to *think* about focus, I need to be *able* to focus, which means ridding the house of the rest of the Christmas goodies still uneaten. Last night, the husband and I finished off the Kentucky Bourbon Pecan Pie (a dessert donation from #2) while watching The Dark Knight. We’ve got a couple of Ziplocs full of yummies that are going into the freezer. Some things will see the trash as we’ve eaten our fill. Then it’s back to the lean meats and tons of veggies we do love but get lazy about cooking!

So that’s my first step toward focus, putting brain food into my body and then *moving* my body so that it fuels my brain. It’s not about dieting or losing weight, though when I eat healtheir that always magically happens, but it’s about making sure I’m mentally and physically able to do this thing that I so love to do.

What about you guys? Do you see a difference in your physical energy and mental acuity depending on what you eat, sort of a garbage in, garbage out conundrum? (And why can’t the stuff that tastes the best be what fuels us?) My personal chef goes back to work next week, meaning *I* have to be responsible for my own eating! Oh noes!

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Along Elena’s smooth white back is an ancient scar that cuts downward in grotesque beauty like a long, graceful snake. It begins at the joint of her right shoulder and sails south across her shoulder blade, then her spine, swoops around the lower edge of her left ribs and across the unguarded softness where vital organs once lived, and finally ends deep in her left buttock. In places, it looks like a rope dark pink and angry; in others, it submerges beneath the flesh, showing only a slight white scratch above the skin.

Men love it, thinking themselves so original, so generous in their tracings of it, so accepting. In fact, it is the lover’s version of slowing to look at an accident on the freeway, equal parts horror, fascination, and, if there is any wisdom, gratitude. Some ask her what happened. Some do not. All of them wonder.

But only Elena’s ghosts know her story. The ghosts who travel with her. The ghosts she protects. The ghosts who will never leave her.

I’ve been a fan of Barbara Samuel since reading my first Ruth Wind authored Silhouette Special Edition. I followed her into her historicals, then stayed with her as she moved into big women’s fiction. For me to want to put my life on hold and read an author’s work, she has to own her voice, to be a confident master of her prose, and Barbara does it every time. She is a brilliant storyteller, one who wields the tools of a wordsmith with such skill that getting lost for hours in her world is pure pleasure.

Her latest book, THE LOST RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS written as Barbara O’Neal (Bantam Discovery, trade $13, mmpb $6.99, 464 pages, December 30) continues her exploration of troubled, damaged women who find their place in life, make peace with their past, and allow themselves the love of a good man. Elena Alvarez is hired as executive chef to take over a failing Aspen restaurant owned by restauranteur and movie mogul Julian Liswood. Julian also owned the Vancouver restaurant from which she was fired as sous chef the very day he asked her to resurrect what becomes The Orange Bear. Elena has her work cut out for her, dealing with a kitchen staff of illegal immigrants, a previous executive chef whom she dubs Rasputin, the pressure of being a female chef running her own kitchen (and with a boss to whom she is attracted), and working on her feet for long grueling hours with her physical body betraying her.

As a teenager, Elena was the sole survivor of a horrible car accident that killed two siblings, a cousin, and her boyfriend. Her sister, Isobel, and Edwin, whom she was to marry, still appear to her all these years later, as Elena’s survivor’s guilt keeps her rooted to her past — and unable to put down roots in any of the cities where she’s worked. Aspen is different, however. Whether it’s being in charge of her own kitchen and bringing her New Mexican culture, customs, and cuisine with her, or whether it’s the comfort of including old friends in the venture while growing close to new ones, Elena finds herself shedding the old skin of the life she’s lived and trying the fit of this new one — one in which Julian Liswood and his daughter Portia play a huge part.

Barbara O’Neal tells the story of Elena Alvarez’s spiritual and emotional recovery with unmistakable authenticity. The colorful details of the Colorado and New Mexico Southwest flavor the book as fully as the recipes she’s included, and the food is as much a character as is Elena’s dog Alvin - and anyone who regularly reads Barbara’s blog knows of her enjoyment of cooking, her passion for her heritage, and her love for her animals. I found myself hungry for tamales and churros and pork pie, and dying to try the pomegranate baklava. (I did try Juan’s Carne En Su Jugo, and loved it!) My only quibble with the book was never feeling as if I knew Elena’s old friend Patrick (who has a substantial role) as fully as I knew her new friends Juan and Ivan and Julian and Portia, or even as fully as her long dead sister Isobel. But that doesn’t keep me from recommending this book highly. It’s big and lusty and delicious, and well worth taking a day away from real life to spend in the world Barbara has created.

I’m giving away one copy of the book (my last giveaway of 2008) to a commenter who tells me something about food. Something you ate for Christmas dinner, or a favorite holiday recipe, or a restaurant you can’t get enough of. I’ll pick a winner Monday night, December 29, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.ish CST whezn I pick the 12 Days of Alison Kent’s Christmas winners. THE LOST RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS releases on December 30, so if you got a book store gift card in your stocking, this should be the first thing you buy!

Did everyone have a wonderful Christmas Day? I had hoped to have more pictures, but when we changed out the batteries in my digital camera, it refused to boot up, so I was stuck using my Blackberry’s camera and really, it’s just crap. I did get the back of Sam’s head in the middle of everything. He had the best time. And since the husband’s son Mike never makes it onto my blog, I figured he was due. That’s Takumi in the foreground refusing to be still long enough for me to get the shot. There were eight of us (the daughters’ boyfriends were at their families’ homes) and four dogs, though the dogs had to stay outside until the gifting was done and the food consumed.

Tomorrow I’ll have a surprise, related to the previous cooking post, so be sure and stop back then. And the winners of the 12 Days of Alison Kent’s Christmas giveaways will be announced next Monday, December 29, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.ish CST. PLEASE READ THE RULES because if you don’t know how to claim your prize, you might lose out (which is why I posted the rules link at the end of each giveaway post). Here’s one more picture of Sam and his daddy playing not long before they went home.

The crisped bacon

The strips of round steak and the chopped onions

The jalapeno wheels cooking with the beef

The shredded cabbage, cilantro, and lemon juice

Juan’s Carne En Su Jugo

The recipe book on top of my refrigerator

More to come . . .