Winner of the Wednesday Blog Book Review Party and Blog Spotlight!

*all winners are selected by Random Number Generator *

And the winner of the Amazon Gift Card ($15 value) from Wednesday's Review Party is...

(**Drums Rolling in the Background**)

Congratulations to Paranormal & Romantic Suspense Reviews!



Be sure to check out Paranormal & Romantic Suspense Reviews and leave a comment!


Send me your email address for the Amazon eGC.

Warms-
CYM

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Friday's Musings

Can you believe how quickly the summer weeks are passing? Shesh! I feel like I need to hold on....

Here are this weeks internet ramblings. Enjoy!

1.  A branding project created by STITCH for Library, a collection of vintage clothing, inspired by library ephemera and fashion drawings. I just love the look of these tags & papers.

2. I found these cute little craft tags that I thought would make great bookmarks. You could add you blog information and they could also be business cards.

3. Making the Case for Fee-based Reviews of Self-published Books. Very interesting article. I wonder if this will impact bloggers? What's your opinion on paid reviews?

4. 20 Cool Home Library Designs via Shelterness.

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Have a great weekend! 

XOXO- 

Beachbrights 

(guest blogger)

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Book Review Party Wednesday - LIVE!

<a href="http://cymlowell.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="CymLowell" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2442/3960797566_f11cfb2f41_o.jpg" /></a>

Welcome to Book Review Party Wednesday.

It is real simple. Link up any (old or new, any genre) book review that you have
written to the below MckLinky.

A couple of things to remember while you're linking.

1. Add a permalink to your specific post, not the main page of your blog (only one review per blog).
2. Add my Book Review Wednesday Badge or a link-back to the party at the end of your review post.
3. List the name of your blog, Title of Book or Genre. Be sure to use spaces and limit characters to 50. For example: The Lost Symbol, thriller

4. Become a follower of my blog, pretty please (not mandatory).
5. Visit the other linked up reviews and leave comments....it's a party, have fun!
6. I will announce the winner in a weekend post. The winner is chosen from the linked up reviewers using Random Number Generator. All included.

I am so excited to be reading all the reviews! This is always so much fun and gives me the opportunity to add new books to my list (& now check out book covers).

Sneak Peak of Upcoming Book Review Giveaways thanks to Thrillerfest:

-CYM

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Highway to Vengeance by Brian Springer **Book Review**

Highway to Vengeance
by Brian Springer
Ann Egan Publishers 2011

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to go through the training to be a Navy Seal? With the world just having witnessed the Seals completing a perfect mission to rid the world of Osama bin Laden, we have probably all thought about the training required to prepare brave young men and women for such a mission.

Highway to Vengeance is the story of a former Seal, Thomas Highway. He has been adjusting to civilian life. Having just completed a romantic lunch with his new wife, he helplessly watches here being intentionally run-over in a pedestrian cross-walk by a hit-and-run driver. Thought he San Diego police declare the death to be an accident, Highway knows better.

In moments, he enlists the help of a friend to commence an operation to find the killer and wreak vengeance. We are immediately drawn into the clandestine operations of a mercenary band formed just after 9/11 to do work that Government bureaucracies cannot accomplish. The murder is attributed by the operatives to a compromised Mexican drug lord, who is said to be seeking a new gang by bringing weapons of mass destruction under the border via tunnel.

Highway completes the mission only to discover that he is hunted. Is it by the mercenaries, Homeland Security, his friend working with one or the other, or someone else. There is no place to turn, other than to face the music straight up. His story is told in first person, so we can feel his emotions in each step of the story.

As a respite from the constant action of the story, we are treated us to a detailed explanation of the steps in Seal training. It becomes obvious why so few of the recruits are able to complete the training, male or female.

Brian Springer brings a clear new voice to the thriller genre. He is destined to become a new superstar. Highway to Vengeance hits the bookstores of the world just as the fascination with the Seals reaches a high decibel level. Fortunately, here is a riveting book that spells out how the bin Laden operation could have been conducted so flawlessly.

Thomas Highway is a new thriller hero! His devotion and love for his victimized wife is touching. He has a heart and soul, unlike many other standard characters of the genre. Will he be able to love again? Where will his broken heart find solace? These and other plot twists will be in the sequels sure to come.

-CYM

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Winner of the Wednesday Blog Book Review Party and Blog Spotlight!

*all winners are selected by Random Number Generator *

And the winner of the Amazon Gift Card ($15 value) from Wednesday's Review Party is...

(**Drums Rolling in the Background**)

Congratulations to My Favorite Things Obsessions with Art and the Written Word!



Be sure to check out My Favorite Things and leave a comment!


Send me your email address for the Amazon eGC.

Warms-
CYM

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This Week's Roundup of Book Stuff **Guest Post**

I was fortunate enough to have some time this week to browse the web. This is a collection of my book related musings for the week. Enjoy!

1. The Kitchn's 12 Favorite Cookbooks for Summer. Cookbooks often feel unnecessary in the summertime. After all, who needs another recipe for grilled zucchini or corn on the cob? And yet with summer's easy living and easy cooking sometimes I get lazy and forget to try new things. A few cookbooks are breaking me out of my routines this summer, pulling me away from popsicles and grilled eggplant, encouraging me to enjoy the generosity of summer in new ways.

2.  The Morning News, How to Write a Thank-You Note. There is a six-point formula to the proper thank-you: Learn it, know it, memorize it—and it will never fail you.

3.  The Los Angeles Times, Whom to follow on Twitter? Start with 25 of Culture Monster's favorites. Friday, July 15, is the fifth anniversary of the first public tweet, a milestone that may warm your heart or boil your blood. In that time around 260 million people, including 13% of online Americans, have told the world about their dinner, their dog and their duodenum. (I wish that last one was a joke. Sadly, no.) Haters describe Twitter as a cesspool of narcissism. They are not entirely wrong, but Culture Monster is willing to look beyond the spam and oversharing to find much to delight in.

4.  Publishers Weekly, The 5 Most Stolen Books. Yesterday, historian and author Barry H. Landau was arrested on charges of stealing historical documents, including ones signed by Abraham Lincoln, from the Maryland Historical Society. The arrest eventually led to Landau’s locker, where police found upwards of 60 documents worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Laudau’s heist and the tremendous value of the stolen documents got us thinking about the other end of the literature theft spectrum: what are the most frequently stolen books from bookstores?

Have a great week/weekend!
Beachbrights
(guest blogger)

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ThrillerFest 2011

This was my third time to attend the annual meeting of the thriller writers’ trade association – The International Thriller Writers’ Ass’n. It was a fascinating learning and cultural experience. As I see it, there are four elements of ThrillerFest:

1. CraftFest: experienced writers teach novices about the elements of the craft;

2. AgentFest: agents looking for new talent conduct speed interviewing, apparently akin to speed dating with 3 minute pitches;

3. ThrillerBusiness: interviews of famous authors, more advanced craft sessions, and focus on the business of ITW (which is largely financed by thriller writers combining for ITW book projects); and

4. Celebration: of the joy of being practicing or aspiring professional writers, as well as presenting awards to the most successful of our craft, over career or shorter spans.

This was my best ThrillerFest by far.


By the time of my first year in attendance, I had been writing international thriller manuscripts for at least 10 years. I had secured an agent who I thought to be knowledgeable and was ready to move along in the business.

What I did not know or appreciate was the depth and breadth of what I needed to learn! It has taken awhile for me to appreciate where I stand. Fortunately, I am a patient and persistent fellow. I may learn slowly, but I do learn.

By my second visit to ITW, I had learned that having an agent is nice. The critical element is whether the agent believes in the projects at hand. My agent had gone in-house without having made a serious evaluation of the work. In the craft sessions, I tended to have other things on my lap. I don’t think I had any illusions about where I stood in the thriller world, I just did not appreciate how far above the seabed I was (wet sand still filling my pants).

This year, I participated in every element of ThrillerFest. At each of the craft sessions, I simply listened, absorbed the wisdom of the best thriller writers in the world, and made notes of the guidance being dispatched. I have 20 pages of notes! I will distill all of that down into my lessons for me and get it into blog format. Maybe it will be of interest to others..

Five things became crystal clear to me this week in a hot New York City: (i) I want to learn how to write a compelling, page-turning story; (ii) I have a treasure chest full of ideas and experience; (iii) I have a lot to learn; (iv) there is room for another respected thriller writer; and (v) I will do my best to fill that space.

Warms, Cym

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