It is time once again for my book review meme – Radiant Reviews!

It is so easy to take part and hopefully anybody who does take part will get more comments on their reviews, find lots of great books to read and find new blogs to follow!  The only downside to participating in this meme is that your TBR pile may grow seriously out of control!!!

Radiant Reviews was inspired by Cym Lowell’s Book Review Party Wednesday.

OK, so here is how you can take part:

1. Place a link to your review of a book you have loved into Mister Linky below.  It must be a book that you have really enjoyed and that you would like to recommend to other bloggers.  In the section for your name, please put the name of your blog, the title of the book and its genre (all genres are welcome in Radiant Reviews).  In the URL section, please leave a direct link to your review – not just your blog URL.

2. Place my Radiant Reviews button, or some other kind of link to Chrissie’s Corner, on the review that you have linked to.  This is to promote the meme in the hope that more and more people will take part every week.

3. Visit other people’s reviews and leave comments if you can. I know that on my blog (and it might be the same for some of you other bloggers out there) it is the reviews that receive the least amount of comments and I think this is a real shame as they are the posts which take the most time and effort. So do please try to leave comments and show other bloggers some love!

And that’s all there is to it, so here goes…

As you may have seen so far this week, I am participating in a blog tour to promote the novel Buying Time by Pamela Samuels Young.  On Monday I reviewed Buying Time and you can read that review here.  Then on Tuesday, Pamela took part in a guest post, giving advice to authors who are in a bit of a writing slump, and you can see this amazing advice here.

Today, I am doing an author spotlight on Pamela, so that we can all learn a little bit more about her and her book (Information taken from Pamela’s website).

About Pamela Samuels Young

Corporate attorney Pamela Samuels Young has always abided by the philosophy that you create the change you want to see.  Fed up with never seeing women or people of color depicted as savvy, hot shot attorneys in the legal thrillers she read, the Compton Native decided to create her own characters.  Despite the demands of a busy legal career, Pamela accomplished her ambitious goal by rising at four in the morning to write before work, dedicating her weekends to writing and even spending her vacation time glued to her laptop for ten or more hours a day.  The Essence magazine bestselling author now has four fast-paced legal thrillers to show for her efforts.

Pamela’s debut novel, Every Reasonable Doubt (February 2006), won the Black Expressions Book Club’s Fiction Writing Contest, received an honorable mention in the SEAK Legal Fiction Writing Competition and was a finalist for USA Book News’ Best Books of 2006 awards in the mystery, suspense and thriller category.  Her second novel, In Firm Pursuit (January 2007) was honored by Romantic Times magazine as a finalist for Best African-American Novel of 2007.  Murder on the Down Low (September 2008), Pamela’s third release, was an “Editor’s Pick” by Black Expressions magazine and a finalist for the 2009 African-American Literary Awards in the mystery category.  Pamela then published her first stand-alone novel, Buying Time (November 2009).  The Black Caucus of the American Library Association honored Buying Time with its 2010 Fiction Award, calling the book “a captivating, suspenseful thriller.”  Her short story, Setup, was selected for the 2006 Sisters in Crime anthology, LAndmarked for Murder.

Pamela has achieved a successful writing career while working as Managing Counsel for Labor and Employment Law for a major corporation in Southern California.  Prior to that, she served as Employment Law Counsel for Raytheon Company and spent several years with the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers, LLP in Los Angeles.  A former journalist, Pamela began her broadcasting career as a production assistant at WXYZ-TV in Detroit, where she was quickly promoted to news writer.  To escape the brutal Detroit winters, she returned home to Los Angeles and worked at KCBS-TV as a news writer and associate producer..  

A former Coro Foundation Fellow, Pamela has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from USC and a master’s degree in broadcasting from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.  She received her law degree from UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law and was formerly an adjunct professor at the University of Redlands’ School of Business.  Pamela currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Southern California Chapter of Mystery Writers of America and is the Fiction Expert for BizyMoms.com.

Pamela is a frequent speaker on the topics of discrimination law, writing and pursuing your passion.  She is married and lives in the Los Angeles area.  You can find out more about Pamela by visiting her at her website / Twitter / MySpace.

About ‘Buying Time’

Waverly Sloan is a down-on-his-luck lawyer.  But just when he’s about to hit rock bottom, he stumbles upon a business with the potential to solve all of his problems.
In Waverly’s new line of work, he comes to the aid of people in desperate need of cash.  But there’s a catch.  His clients must be terminally ill and willing to sign over their life insurance policies before they can collect a dime.  Waverly then finds investors eager to advance them thousands of dollars – including a hefty broker’s fee for himself – in exchange for a significant return on their investment once the clients take their last breath.
The stakes get higher when Waverly brokers the policy of the cancer-stricken wife of Lawrence Erickson, a high-powered lawyer who’s bucking to become the next U.S. Attorney General.  When Waverly’s clients start dying sooner than they should, both Waverly and Erickson – who has some skeletons of his own to hide – are unwittingly drawn into a perilous web of greed, blackmail and murder.

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB over at Should Be Reading.

Here’s what you have to do:

1. Grab your current read.

2. Open to a random page.

3. Share two (2) teaser sentences from somewhere on that page.

4. Be careful not to include spoilers.

5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the books to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser this week is from By Midnight by Mia James:

Suddenly she felt a huge rush of deja vu.  I’ve been here before, she thought, a split second before the penny dropped: it was the cemetery.  Why’s he brought me back here? she thought with alarm.
Page 136

What is your Tuesday Teaser?

Today I have the pleasure of welcoming Pamela Samuels Young, author of Buying Time, for a guest post.  She is giving some great advice for writers who are feeling discouraged and are thinking of giving up.

You’ve been working on your novel for months, maybe even years, and lately you feel more discouraged than ever.  Perhaps it’s the disappointment of not having finished the book yet.  Maybe you don’t know where to go next with your story.  Or it’s possible that you’re just physically and emotional drained from all the time and effort you’ve poured into this dream.  I’ve been there!

Each time I fall into the writing dumps, I wonder if I’ll ever dig myself out.  Fortunately, I always do.  You’ve put too much time into this venture.  Now is not the time to give up.

Here are my top five tips for re-energizing yourself when you feel like giving up.

Read Inspirational Stories About Writing and Writers

Take a writing break and read about other successful writers who weathered the storm.  Here are two excellent books to get you started:
Knit Together: Discover God’s Pattern for Your Life by Debbie Macomber.
This book was such an inspiration to me.  Macomber, a best selling writer with more than 100 million books in print, openly shares her story of writing rejection.  Once you read about her writing journey, you’ll close the book anxious to get back to your own novel.
Rotten Reviews & Rejections, edited by Bill Henderson and Andre Bernard.
This book shares the rejection letters and stinging reviews received by many successful and prolific writers, from Stephen King to Upton Sinclair to James Joyce and more.  You’ll scratch your head at the discouraging rejection letters these wonderful writers received.  They didn’t give up, and you shouldn’t either.

Don’t Strive for Perfect Prose

Many new writers think that everything that flows from their computer must be golden.  Hence, if they write a few pages which doesn’t sound worthy of a Pulitzer, they’re disappointed.  Forget about writing a perfect first draft.  The most important part of writing is rewriting.  Just concentrate on finishing a first draft.  Then revise until you’re pleased with the final product.

Set a Writing Goal

Make a commitment to write a set number of pages per week.  Can you commit to writing 10 or 15 pages per week?  Or maybe committing to write three hours a day or three days a week works better for you.  Whatever goal you set, make sure it’s realistic.  Start out small and once you get into the flow of things, increase the goal.  And if you fall short one week, don’t beat yourself up.  There’s always next week.

Start a Writer’s Group

Put the word out that you’re looking to start a writer’s group.  Tell friends, family members and colleagues that you’re looking for three or four serious writers who would like to build a supportive writing environment for themselves and other writers.  You’ll probably have a lot of interest in the beginning, but only the serious writers will be around for the long haul.  Establish a regular meeting time (at least once a month) and require at least two members to produce work for the group to critique each month.

Think About Your Story

Most people assume that if you’re not putting words on paper, then you’re not “writing.”  I don’t feel that way.  The next time you’re taking a long walk, standing in a grocery store line, or stuck in traffic, use the time to mull over your story.  Think about your characters or your plot.  Imagine your protagonist having a conversation.  Think about how you might describe a room.  Challenge yourself to invent a predicament that creates conflict for your character.  If you come up with some great ideas, don’t forget to write them down.

Hang in there!

Thank you Pamela for taking the time to pass on this amazing advice!

You can find out more about Pamela by visiting her at her website / Twitter / MySpace and you can read my review of her brilliant novel Buying Time, here.

Publisher –  Goldman House Publishing
Publication Date – November 2009
Genre – Crime/Thriller

Source – Received from Pump Up Your Book! for a blog tour

Book Information – Waverly Sloan is a down-on-his-luck lawyer.  But just when he’s about to hit rock bottom, he stumbles upon a business with the potential to solve all of his problems.
In Waverly’s new line of work, he comes to the aid of people in desperate need of cash.  But there’s a catch.  His clients must be terminally ill and willing to sign over their life insurance policies before they can collect a dime.  Waverly then finds investors eager to advance them thousands of dollars – including a hefty broker’s fee for himself – in exchange for a significant return on their investment once the clients take their last breath.
The stakes get higher when Waverly brokers the policy of the cancer-stricken wife of Lawrence Erickson, a high-powered lawyer who’s bucking to become the next U.S. Attorney General.  When Waverly’s clients start dying sooner than they should, both Waverly and Erickson – who has some skeletons of his own to hide – are unwittingly drawn into a perilous web of greed, blackmail and murder.

Review – This is the type of book that is pretty difficult to put down.  It is written in an easy-to-read style with short chapters – which, for me, always makes for a quick, page-turning read.  The mystery element of the story is intriguing and with many twists and turns, which meant that I was not able to guess where the story was heading.  However, at times there were so many plots and counter-plots that it was sometimes a little bit confusing.  But even so, this is still one of the most original novels I have read in a long time.
The characters are all well fleshed-out and believable, with some being likeable and others being the type of character that you love to hate.  But what I love most about the characters is that they are complex, and so much more than just ‘The Good Guy’ or ‘The Bad Guy’ (of course with the exception of Lawrence Erickson, who has no redeeming features and who is currently holding the award for my ‘Most Hated Character in Fiction’!).  This just made the characters so much more realistic and I found it really easy to relate to them.
Waverly Sloan is a lawyer who is about to be disbarred as well as being near bankruptcy – due to the elaborate spending habits of his wife.  He is a slightly frustrating character at times – he is very sweet and always seems to have the best of intentions but whenever things get tough he has the tendency to bury his head in the sand in the hope that it will all go away.  But he does manage to pull himself together when things start to go really wrong and he is definitely a likeable, if slightly flawed, hero.
Angela Evans is the Assistant U.S Attorney and she is heading the investigation into Live Now (the company that Waverly works for) when some of their clients seem to be dying sooner than expected.  I really liked Angela.  She is very strong and intelligent and she works hard to achieve what she wants out of life.  She overcomes a lot of hardship during the course of this story and instead of crumbling under the burden, she comes out a better and stronger person.
As well as having a very strong storyline, Buying Time also tackles a lot of controversial subjects, such as sexual and domestic abuse, drug dealing and viatical settlements (the selling of life insurance policies), but the author does not shy away from these subjects and she treats them with sensitivity and respect.  I found the subject of viatical settlements to be an incredibly interesting one.  The author works well to point out both the advantages and disadvantages of this type of investment.  The money received by someone with a terminal illness can give them peace of mind during their last months, whilst also allowing them the financial freedom to do the things that they have always wanted to do.  But at the same time, it does mean that incredibly vulnerable people can be taken advantage of.  Waverly really believes that he is helping each and every one of his clients and this gives him a purpose in life that he never felt before.  However, he is too naive to realise that he, and his clients, are being used for financial gain by other people.
Overall, I really enjoyed this novel and I will be looking out for other works from this author.

What are you reading this week? is a weekly event to list the books completed last week, the books currently being read, and the books to be finished this week. This meme is hosted by One Persons Journey Through a World of Books.  I didn’t have time to do a monday post last week, so I will be covering the last two weeks in this post.

Books completed last week:

The Dead Girls’ Dance – Rachel Caine
Wicked Appetite – Janet Evanovich

Books reviewed last week:

Trash – Andy Mulligan
Hex Hall – Rachel Hawkins

Books I am currently reading:

By Midnight – Mia James

Up next:

Single in the City – Michele Gorman
Midnight Alley – Rachel Caine

Last week, I also found out about some great contests running over at some Facebook pages hosted by Orion Publishing Group.  You can find more details about these AMAZING giveaways here.  These pages are well worth a visit :)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren.  Every week I’ll post about what books I have received that week – either through the mail for review, borrowed from the library or bought.

For Review:

Michele Gorman – Single in the City

It’s official.  Hannah has left her friends and family in the US behind and is following her dream.  To live in London.  Unfortunately she’s completely unprepared for what’s in store.
She’s going to find:
1. Her dream guy.  A prince or Hugh Grant would be nice.  Or does she have to settle for her half-naked Australian housemate or an “English gentleman” with terrible hygiene habits?
2. Her dream job.  Something fantastic in fashion.  So how has she ended up being the mini-me for an evil party planner who doesn’t even trust her to arrange the paperclips?
3. Her dream friends.  But everyone in London seems to have known each other for years and Hannah’s having trouble getting to know nice people.  Who’s she going to have fun with?
Dream life?  Should Hannah just dream on?  Maybe it would have been simpler and cheaper to just get a new haircut.  Was she mad to move 3,000 miles away from everyone she knows?  Will she ever find love and her perfect life in England?

Mia James – By Midnight (Thanks to UK Book Tours)

April Dunne is not impressed.  She’s had to move from Edinburgh to Highgate, London, with her parents.  She’s left her friends – and her entire life – behind.  She has to start at a new school and, worst of all, now she’s stuck in a creepy old dump of a house which doesn’t even have proper mobile phone reception.  Ravenwood, her new school, is a prestigious academy for gifted (financially or academically) students – and the only place her parents could find her a place, in the middle of term, in the middle of London, on incredibly short notice.  So she’s stuck with the super-rich, and the super-smart… and trying to fit in when the rest of the students seem to be more glamorous, smarter, or more talented than she is, is more than tough.  It’s intimidating and isolating, even when she finds a friend in the conspiracy-theorist Caro Jackson – and perhaps finds something more than friendship in the gorgeous, mysterious Gabriel Swift.  But there’s more going on at Ravenwood than meets the eye.  Practical jokes on new students are normal, but when Gabriel saves her from… something… in Highgate Cemetery, and then she discovers that a murder took place just yards away from where she had been standing, April has to wonder if something more sinister is going on… and whether or not she’s going to live through it…

Purchased:

Robert Masello – Blood and Ice

Troubled journalist Michael Wilde takes on a commission to write a feature about a remote research station deep in the frozen beauty of Antarctica.  On a diving expedition in the polar sea he discovers two bodies encased in ice.  The pair, a man and a woman chained together, their dress from the nineteenth century, are brought to the surface – along with a trunk containing a strange, but sinister, cargo.  As the ice around them begins to thaw, the mystery of these time-bound lovers begins to unravel.  Michael is gradually drawn into a horrific story that starts in the London barracks in the 1850s and leads to the bloody battlefields of the Crimea and the tragic Charge of the Light Brigade.  Now, in the Antarctic wastes, the Cavalry officer and his lover are reawakened into a world where the midnight sun lasts for months, where there’s nowhere to hide and no place left for the living to run… In this chilling supernatural thriller, spanning five continents and several centuries, Robert Masello weaves together an extraordinary tale of eternal life and undying love.  Gripping and intensely moving, “Blood and Ice” will take its readers on an enthralling and unforgettable journey.

Lesley Pearse – Stolen

Sussex, 2003.  When a beautiful blonde girl is found half-drowned on a beach, she has no memory of who she is or what horrors have left her there.  But an article about her in a Brighton newspaper rings alarm bells for beautician, Dale, who shows the police photographs of Lotte Wainright.  The girls met working on a cruise ship and their friendship blossomed as they sailed the seas of South America, until Lotte fell under the sinister influence of an older American couple.  To her regret, Dale hasn’t seen Lotte since leaving the ship months earlier… but the girl on the beach – although badly bruised – is indeed her much missed friend.  Their reunion only marks the beginning of a dangerous tidal wave of secrets, lies and nightmares.  Where has Lotte been?  Who is the man who seems to want to kill her?  And what has become of the baby she’s recently given birth to?  Dale and Lotte must dig deep and find the strength to hold on against the odds if they are to rebuild their friendship and survive Lotte’s stolen – and deadly – past.

Library:

Maggie Stiefvater – Linger

In SHIVER, Grace and Sam found each other.  Now, in LINGER, they must fight to be together.  For Grace, this means defying her parents and keeping dangerous secrets.  For Sam, it means grappling with his werewolf past… and figuring out a way to survive the future.  But just when they manage to find happiness, Grace finds herself changing in ways she could never have expected…

What was in your mailbox this week?

Publisher – Simon and Schuster Children’s
Publication Date – 1st April 2010
Paperback – 336 pages
Genre – Young Adult/Urban Fantasy
Series – Book 1 in the Hex Hall Series

Source – Library

Book Information -In the wake of a love spell gone horribly wrong, Sophie Mercer, a sixteen-year-old witch, is shipped off to Hecate Hall, a boarding school for witches, shapeshifters and faeries.  The traumas of mortal high school are nothing compared to the goings on at “Freak High.”  It’s bad enough that she has to deal with a trio of mean girls led by the glamorous Elodie, but it’s even worse when she begins to fall for Elodie’s gorgeous boyfriend, Archer Cross, and frankly terrifying that the trio are an extremely powerful coven of dark witches.  But when Sophie begins to learn the disturbing truth about her father, she is forced to face demons both metaphorical and real, and come to terms with her own growing power as a witch.

Review – I have read a lot of great reviews about Hex Hall so I was a bit nervous about starting it in case it didn’t live up to the hype.  But I am so glad that I did pick it up as this is one of my favourite books I’ve read so far this year!  In Sophie, Rachel Hawkins has created an incredibly likeable and realistic main character.  Sophie has been sent to Hecate ‘Hex’ Hall because of a love spell that she performed that went very, very wrong (with hilarious consequences!).  One of the things that I liked most about Sophie was the trouble that she had with her magic.  At the beginning of the book she was pretty inept at performing spells, and this helped me to really get a feel for her character.  Sophie is also pretty clueless about the Prodigium (the name for supernatural beings, such as witches, warlocks, werewolves, fey and vampires) and this does lead to some ridicule from her fellow students at Hex Hall.  She has been raised by her human mother and has never met her powerful warlock father, and whilst her mother has tried to give her as normal an upbringing as possible, the result of this is that Sophie now knows nothing about her heritage or how powerful she could really be.  She is also one of the funniest characters I have come across for a while, and there were many times I found myself laughing out loud to this book.
When Sophie first arrives at Hex Hall she meets Archer Cross – a gorgeous warlock who manages to save her from a werewolf and then tells her that she is not a very good witch.  Archer is a typical bad boy who everybody at the school fancies - including Sophie.  But he already has a girlfriend - a witch called Elody.  Elody belongs to a coven of dark witches who are trying to enlist Sophie as their fourth member.  When Sophie refuses their invitation to join the coven, they then start making her life miserable (think Mean Girls but with supernatural powers!).  Sophie then becomes even more of an outcast when she finds out that her roommate is Jenna, the only vampire at the school who also seems to be the main suspect in the murder of her last roommate and previous fourth member of Elody’s coven.   However, Sophie doesn’t believe that Jenna was involved with the murder and when other members of the coven start being hurt in a similar way, she starts to investigate who else could be behind these incidents.
The mystery element of the story was well-written and fast-paced, with some twists and turns that I didn’t see coming.  The style of writing was easy to read with some good descriptions of the characters and their surroundings.  I found it very difficult to put this book down once I had started it.  There is also an amazing cliff hanger at the end that has helped to ensure that I will be reading the next book in the series as soon as it is released.  Overall, it was a highly enjoyable read with realistic characters, a great storyline and an brilliant ending.  I highly recommend this book to any fans of Urban Fantasy books.

The first Facebook page I would like to draw your attention to is Cherry Picks.  This is a page dedicated to all fans of Women’s Fiction.  Their current giveaway is for Katie Agnew’s books – Saints V Sinners and Wives V Girlfriends.  I love the cover of these books – very eye catching!  All you have to do to win these books is become a member of the page and then send an email to Orion (details on Facebook).

The second Facebook page is called Fierce Fiction, which is dedicated to fans of YA fiction (something I have been reading quite a lot of lately).  They are hosting a giveaway for The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas.  Again, all you have to do is become a member of the page and send in an email to Orion.




Now, the last page (and my personal favourite) is the Gollancz Dark Fantasy page and they are hosting a very, very exciting giveaway! You could win the ENTIRE SET of Kitty Norville books by Carrie Vaughn!!!  All you have to do is imagine that you are a supernatural creature with a problem that needs Kitty’s help.  Email your problem to Orion and the most inventive entry wins the whole series!

It is time once again for my new meme – Radiant Reviews!

It is so easy to take part and hopefully anybody who does take part will get more comments on their reviews, find lots of great books to read and find new blogs to follow!  The only downside to participating in this meme is that your TBR pile may grow seriously out of control!!!

Radiant Reviews was inspired by Cym Lowell’s Book Review Party Wednesday.

OK, so here is how you can take part:

1. Place a link to your review of a book you have loved into Mister Linky below.  It must be a book that you have really enjoyed and that you would like to recommend to other bloggers.  In the section for your name, please put the name of your blog, the title of the book and its genre (all genres are welcome in Radiant Reviews).  In the URL section, please leave a direct link to your review – not just your blog URL.

2. Place my Radiant Reviews button, or some other kind of link to Chrissie’s Corner, on the review that you have linked to.  This is to promote the meme in the hope that more and more people will take part every week.

3. Visit other people’s reviews and leave comments if you can. I know that on my blog (and it might be the same for some of you other bloggers out there) it is the reviews that receive the least amount of comments and I think this is a real shame as they are the posts which take the most time and effort. So do please try to leave comments and show other bloggers some love!

And that is all there is to it, so here goes…