Partial to the Past Historical Fiction Giveaway Hop

Welcome to the Partial to the Past Historical Fiction Giveaway Hop, hosted by Bippity Boppity Book. This giveaway hop runs from August 24th through August 30th. Please check out the other participants in the hop for great historical fiction giveaways.

I will have two Giveaways. Make sure you read the instructions and only enter where appropriate, and fully follow instructions. One is US Only, the other is open Internationally.

Giveaway #1: US Only

A Signed First Edition of Jacqueline Winspear's The Mapping of Love and Death.
I came across this on sale at my local Barnes and Noble, so I will only send it to addresses in the US.



a Rafflecopter giveaway Giveaway #2: International

For this giveaway you have your choice of your choice historical fiction valued at $15 or less US. This is open Internationally so long as The Book Depository ships to your country. If the winner has an e-reader and prefers it, I'll gift them the ebook format (only for Kindle, Nook or Kobo ebook users). Not sure on which historical fiction title you'd like? Check out my Historical Fiction shelf on Goodreads.

Sarah's historical-fiction book montage

Sarah's favorite books »

The book chosen must be in the historical fiction genre (adult or young adult). By historical fiction, it needs to be set in the 1960s or earlier, and the time period featured noticeably (I would not consider books like The Night Circus historical fiction since while the author might state a year it starts in, there is no other evidence of a historical setting).
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to check out the other giveaways in the hop!

Review: The Rook by Daniel O'Malley

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley
Audiobook narrated by Susan Duerden
Publisher: Hatchette Audio
Science Fiction
Purchased from Audible

Synopsis

Myfanwy Thomas awakes in a London park surrounded by dead bodies. With her memory gone, her only hope of survival is to trust the instructions left in her pocket by her former self. She quickly learns that she is a Rook, a high-level operative in a secret agency that protects the world from supernatural threats. But there is a mole inside the organization and this person wants her dead.

As Myfanwy battles to save herself, she encounters a person with four bodies, a woman who can enter her dreams, children transformed into deadly fighters, and an unimaginably vast conspiracy. Suspenseful and hilarious, THE ROOK is an outrageously inventive debut for readers who like their espionage with a dollop of purple slime.

Have you ever wondered what you would get if you took Men In Black, The X-Men and MI-5/Spooks and mashed them all together? Then Daniel O'Malley's The Rook is the book for you. O'Malley created a world where occasionally people are born with special skills, such as one person's consciousness sharing four bodies, or the ability to don a protective skin. These people are trained to use or control their abilities, and a secret agency (The Chequy) helps to control and end any hazardous threats that may be caused by people with unique abilities. The world is a blend of your favorite espionage stories with your favorite science fiction tales.

Myfanwy is one of these people with special abilities, but we learn things at the same time as Myfanwy, who recovers her past through a series of notes and letters left by herself, before she lost her memory. The result is being dropped into the middle of the action, however I found some of the letter chapters a little slower than the present. By the middle of the novel, the use of the letters drops of dramatically and the pace really picks up.

I really enjoyed entering this world O'Malley created in The Rook and would love to read or see more set in this world.

Review: Naked Heat by Richard Castle

Naked Heat by Richard Castle
Nikki Heat #2
Publisher: Hyperion
Crime Fiction, Media Tie-in
Purchased for my collection
4 stars

Synopsis

Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook are together again in Richard Castle's thrilling follow-up to his "New York Times" bestseller, "Heat Wave." When New York's most vicious gossip columnist, Cassidy Towne, is found dead, Heat uncovers a gallery of high profile suspects, all with compelling motives for killing the most feared muckraker in Manhattan. Heat's murder investigation is complicated by her surprise reunion with superstar magazine journalist Jameson Rook. In the wake of their recent breakup, Nikki would rather not deal with their raw emotional baggage. But the handsome, wise-cracking Pulitzer Prize-winning writer's personal involvement in the case forces her to team up with Rook anyway. The residue of their unresolved romantic conflict and crackling sexual tension fills the air as Heat and Rook embark on a search for a killer among celebrities and mobsters, singers and hookers, pro athletes and shamed politicians. This new, explosive case brings on the heat in the glittery world of secrets, cover-ups, and scandals.

The Nikki Heat series are tie-ins with the Castle television series on ABC. If you have not seen the series, it follows Richard Castle, a very popular writer of crime fiction, who begins observing a team of NYPD detectives in order to gain inspiration for a new book series following a female NYPD detective, Nikki Heat. In the series, Castle's first Nikki Heat book, Heat Wave, is released at the beginning of Season 2. Around the same time, the book was available for sale to us. And so it's continued; when a book is published in the show, its available in our stores. If you pick up a hardcover copy of any book in the series, you are greeted with a picture of Nathan Fillion, as Richard Castle, on the back cover with the author blurb (its inside the back cover on the paperbacks).

If you like the tv show, you are probably going to like the book series. They really read a great deal like an episode of the show (please forgive the continued use of 'they', I read the first book last year, hence they). Events from the series become part of the novels, and the "real" detectives that Castle works with inspire most of the characters in the books. This wasn't a deep, or difficult read. It's light, fun, and has the snarky humor. And of course, Firefly references

Summer Wrap Up Readathon Update

I hadn't had a chance to update yet, so here it goes.

Day 1
67 pages

Day 2
70 pages

Day 3
67 pages

Day 4
12 pages - finished Naked Heat by Richard Castle
Started Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake and Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel


Seems 60-70 pages is my average reading rate for read athons.

Summer Wrap Up Readathon - Starting post

Remember this picture?


I will be working from that stack again, minus The Lost Hero. It will start with Naked Heat by Richard Castle, which is in process. I will also be starting Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel for the readalong on it, and continue The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde for that readalong. I also have Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn going on my Nook. I will need to be starting Wards of Faerie by Terry Brooks soon as well. I will not worry about tracking my audiobooks for this. But almost sounds like I won't be getting much off that pile