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September 2021 Virtual Tour for Bestselling Author Trisha Thomas’ New Historical Fiction, WHAT PASSES AS LOVE

We’re excited to announce this terrific lineup of bloggers who will join us in celebrating the release of Trisha Thomas’ new historical novel, WHAT PASSES AS LOVE! This heartrending and breathtaking novel is about a young woman who pays a devastating price for freedom. We hope you will follow along as we share reviews, features, Q&A, excerpts, and book giveaways.

“Thomas’ well-researched and compelling novel charts Dahlia’s complex journey of escape, reinvention and self-acceptance. Fans of Alena Dillon and Lucinda Riley will be moved by this historical glimpse into a brutal time period. Not shying away from the cruelties of slavery, Thomas gives a voice to the enslaved by exploring the power of shared humanity and newfound courage.” – Booklist

“The author really gets inside Dahlia’s head, creating a protagonist who knows how to make the best of a bad situation and who constantly puzzles over the enigma of being neither Black nor white, a girl caught in the middle. She’s resourceful, a chance-taker who dreams and schemes until opportunities present themselves. It’s impossible not to root for her, however risky her actions.” – Historical Novel Society

Wednesday, September 1: OYNIDA LOVES BOOKS, IT’S A BOOKISH WORLD, HEY THAT’S JAZ

Thursday, September 2: BOOK GIRL MAGIC 

Friday, September 3: NURSE BOOKIE  

Tuesday, September 7: BLACK, BIRACIAL AND BOOKISH, ALWAYS WITH A BOOK/K2 READER 

Wednesday, September 8: DAI 2 DAI READER, THIS BROWN GIRL READS

Thursday, September 9: ARMED WITH A BOOK, READING WITH GLAMOUR

Friday, September 10: TRAVEL WITH A BOOK

Sunday, September 12: COCO CHASING ADVENTURES

Monday, September 13: MOMMA LEIGH ELLEN’S BOOK NOOK

Tuesday, September 14: LITERARY QUICKSAND, SUZY APPROVED BOOK REVIEWS

Wednesday, September 15: BLISS AND BOOKS

Thursday, September 16: BOOKS, LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING

Friday, September 17: WHAT’S BETTER THAN BOOKS

Monday, September 20: READER THEN BLOGGER. KIM READS AND READS

Tuesday, September 21: TARHEEL READER

Wednesday, September 22: JYPSY LYNN, SECRET READING LIFE

Thursday, September 23: BOOKAPOTAMUS

Friday, September 24: SOME KIND OF A LIBRARY

Monday, September 27: SHE JUST LOVES BOOKS 

Tuesday, September 28: WE LOVE BIG BOOKS AND WE CANNOT LIE

Wednesday, September 29: READING MAMA REVIEWS

Thursday, September 30: TORI LOVING WORDS

Friday, October 1: BOOKS EN VOGUE

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: African American history, Black History, blog tour, fiction, historical fiction, Lake Union Publishing, Literary fiction, September blog tour, September book, Trisha Thomas, women's fiction

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Fall Blog Tour for Jerusalem As A Second Language by Rochelle Distelheim

Release date: September 29, 2020

JERUSALEM AS A SECOND LANGUAGE (Aubade Publishing) is the last book written by Rochelle Distelheim, who passed away in June 2020 at the age of 92. Foreword Reviews calls the novel “absorbing” and describes the author as “incisive, funny, and poetic in approaching questions of religious practice and resistance.”

Synopsis: It is 1998. The old Soviet Union is dead, and the new Russia is awash in corruption and despair. Manya and Yuri Zalinikov, secular Jews — he, a gifted mathematician recently dismissed from the Academy; she, a talented concert pianist — sell black market electronics in a market stall, until threatened with a gun by a mafioso in search of protection money. Yuri sinks into a Chekhovian melancholy, emerging to announce that he wants to “live as a Jew” in Israel. Manya and their daughter, Galina, are desolate, asking, “How does one do that, and why?”

And thus begins their odyssey — part tragedy, part comedy, always surprising. Struggling against loneliness, language, and danger, in a place Manya calls “more cousin’s club than country,” Yuri finds a Talmudic teacher equally addicted to religion and luxury; Manya finds a job playing the piano at The White Nights supper club, owned by a wealthy, flamboyant Russian with a murky history, who offers lust disguised as love. Galina, enrolled at Hebrew University, finds dance clubs and pizza emporiums and a string of young men, one of whom Manya hopes will save her from the Israeli Army by marrying her.

Against a potpourri of marriage wigs, matchmaking television shows, disastrous investment schemes, and a suicide bombing, the Zalinikovs confront the thin line between religious faith and skepticism, as they try to answer: What does it mean to be fully human, what does it mean to be Jewish? And what role in all of this does the mazel gene play?

About the Author: Rochelle Distelheim, a Chicago native, earned numerous short story literary awards, including The Katherine Anne Porter Prize; Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards and Fellowships; The Ragdale Foundation Fellowships; The Faulkner Society Gold Medal in Novel-in-Progress; The Faulkner Society Gold Medal in Novel; The Gival Press 2017 Short Story Competition; Finalist, Glimmer Train’s Emerging Writers; and The Salamander Second Prize in Short Story. In addition, Rochelle’s short stories earned nominations for The Best American Short Stories and The Pushcart Prize.  Her stories have appeared in national magazines such as Glamour, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, Woman’s Day, Woman’s World, Working Woman, Working Mother, and more.  Her first novel, Sadie in Love, was published in 2018 when she was 90 years old.  She lived in Highland Park, IL.

Praise for the Novel:

“Jerusalem as a Second Language tells a necessary story that I’m surprised hasn’t been told for American readers before. With wit and complexity, Rochelle Distelheim takes on two cultures whose differences are daunting and she manages to represent both with convincing detail and, most importantly, with sympathy. Her book builds a bridge over a deep chasm that her characters walk across with dignity and just enough mordant humor to convince us they’re real.” –Rosellen Brown, author of The Lake on Fire, Before and After, Tender Mercies, and Civil Wars

“Meet Manya, who grudgingly trades Russia for Israel. Shimmering with wit and bittersweet insights, Rochelle Distelheim’s Jerusalem as a Second Language is an emotional travelogue that begs the question, how does a secular Jew find her place in the world?” –Sally Koslow, author of Another Side of Paradise and the international bestseller, The Late, Lamented Molly Marx

“Quick on the heels of her smart, charming, and deeply humane novel Sadie in Love (2018), Rochelle Distelheim’s Jerusalem as a Second Language introduces her devoted readers to a whole new cast of displaced characters. As secular Jews who have fled to Jerusalem from an increasingly corrupt and dangerous Russia, the Zalinikov family struggles against displacement, loneliness, and danger in a country that is as strange to them as it is compelling. Simultaneously tender and steely-eyed, often funny, and occasionally sorrowful, Distelheim’s elegant prose plucks at the heart of what it means to be a family at odds with their new country, and with each other.” –Elizabeth Wetmore, author of Valentine

Blog Tour Schedule:

September 29th – Read with Me 702

September 30th – Grace J Reviewer Lady

October 1st – The Book Decoder

October 2nd – Jessica Belmont

October 5th – Suzy Approved Book Reviews

October 6th – Long and Short Reviews

October 7th – Storeybook Reviews

October 8th – Jennifer Tar Heel Reader

October 9th – Celtic Lady’s Reviews

October 12th – Collector of Book Boyfriends

October 13th – Beth’s Book Nook Blog

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: blog tour, fiction, Jerusalem As A Second Language, Jewish author, Jewish fiction, OTRPR, Over the River Public Relations, Religion, Rochelle Distelheim, women's fiction, women's interest

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Get to know Jamaican American author, Donna Hemans

We’ve been working with Donna Hemans, a wonderful Jamaican American writer who is gaining visibility in the literary world. Her new novel, TEA BY THE SEA is a story of a family uniting and unraveling told seamlessly and with smart, clear prose.  From Brooklyn to the island of Jamaica, TEA BY THE SEA traces Plum Valentine’s circuitous route to find her daughter and the child’s father, who walked out of a hospital with the day-old baby girl without explanation. Seventeen years later, weary of her unfruitful search, Plum sees an article in a community newspaper with a photo of the man for whom she has spent half her life searching. He has become an Episcopal priest. Her plan: confront him and walk away with the daughter he took from her. Instead, Plum finds herself locked in his church with her daughter and by the time it’s all over, Plum is the one in the back seat of a police car facing charges. TEA BY THE SEA is a poignant, multilayer story, that is beautifully written and touches on so many important and relevant issues including immigration, family secrets, mother-daughter relationships, parental kidnapping , betrayal and motherhood.

The novel has received some great attention.  Donna was interviewed on Zibby Owens’ popular, Mom’s Don’t Have Time To Read Books podcast, the book was included in The New York Post’s “Best Books of the Week,” and The Rumpus ran an engaging interview with Donna called “An Exploration of Belonging.”  Donna’s original essays have also recently appeared in Electric Literature: I Can Only Save My Grandparents’ Home by Preserving It in Fiction and in Ms. Magazine: Picking Meat From Tiny Bones: Coping with Coronavirus, Isolation and Aging Parents.

The bloggers also love TEA BY THE SEA. Check out the blog tour’s full schedule of reviews, interviews and more:

The Livre Café | 6/1

Jessica Belmont | 6/2

Fiction Matters | 6/3

Everyday I Write The Book | 6/4

Never Without A Book | 6/6

The Book Decoder | 6/7

Book of Cinz | 6/8

Nurse Bookie | 6/9

This Brown Girl Reads | 6/10

Jennifer Tarheel Reader | 6/11

Book Reviews and More by Kathy | 6/12

Girl Who Reads | 6/13

Suzy Approved Book Reviews | 6/14

Blunt Scissors Book Review | 6/15

Syllables of Swathi | 6/16

Collector of Book Boyfriends | 6/17

Gimme The Scoop Reviews | 6/18

Reading Between the Wines Book Club | 6/18

Miss Bibliofancy | 6/20

Audio Killed the Bookmark | 6/21

Gail Renatta | 6/21

Chocolate Covered Pages | 6/22

Storybook Reviews | 6/23

Long and Short Reviews | 6/24

BNJ Reads | 6/25

What Is That Book About | 6/26

Eno Books | 6/27

Beth’s Book Nook Blog | 6/28

Amy’s Booket List | 6/30

Book and Pen In Hand | 7/1

Bree McIvor | 7/2

Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus More | 7/3

Karukerament | 7/4

Suzanne Bhagan | 7/6

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Caribbean Fiction, Donna Hemans, fiction, Jamaican American Writer, Literary fiction, OTRPR, Over the River Public Relations, Red Hen Press, Tea by the Sea, women's fiction

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Lovable Jen Dixon is back in the hilarious follow-up to Class Mom! YOU’VE BEEN VOLUNTEERED by bestselling author, Laurie Gelman, launches today!

Laurie Gelman (yes, her husband is that Gelman of Live with Kelly and Ryan fame) has written another funny AND relatable tale that takes place three years after Class Mom.  Somehow Jen Dixon has ended up as the class mom once again—this time for her son Max’s third grade at one of Kansas City’s great bastions of primary education, William H. Taft Elementary. While juggling hearth, homework, and hubby Ron, she’s been saddled with even more school responsibilities plus a micromanaging PTA president. Add that to dealing with her grown daughters’ sudden displays of independence (must all millennials get piercings?) plus her aging parents’ need for some parenting of their own, and she finds herself pulled in too many directions for one middle-aged, minivan-driving temptress to handle.  

Gelman is a New York City-based writer and mother of two who spent 25 years as a broadcaster in both Canada and the US – including stints on Good Morning America, The Early Show on CBS, and The Mom Show – before trying her hand at writing novels.  Her first book, Class Mom garnered rave reviews from several places including The New York Times, People magazine, and Good Housekeeping, and it was recently included in Parade’s list of books Mom will love .  Gelman’s writing has been compared to Lauren Weisberger’s, Maria Semple’s and Sophie Kinsella’s.

This is a fun book – a perfect summer read or comical book to ease you into the stressful Back to School season.

To celebrate the release of YOU’VE BEEN VOLUNTEERED, Laurie is participating in a month-long book blog tour that features reviews, author Q&As, and features. We hope you will follow along and enter to win the daily prizes. You’ll find all the details here:
http://lauriegelman.com/blogtour.html

Happy Publication Day, Laurie! It’s been a pleasure working with you!

Filed Under: Books, Fiction, News & Announcements Tagged With: beach read, blog tour, Chick Lit, Class Mom, fiction, Henry Holt Books, Laurie Gelman, summer reading, women's fiction

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