Daily Archives: August 3, 2010

ROAST MORTEM by Cleo Coyle Publication Party Mega Giveaway!

Posted on August 3, 2010

It’s time for a party to celebrate the release of Roast Mortem (Coffee House Mystery) by Cleo Coyle

Lori at Lori’s Reading Corner has posted a fantastic contest surrounding the release of Roast Mortem by Cleo Coyle – the best part is… you can enter here AND there and at the other blogs participating!

Clare Cosi, manager and head barista of the landmark Village Blend coffeehouse, has perfected the pulling of steaming hot espressos. But can she keep New York’s Bravest from getting burned?

After the firefighters of Ladder Company 189 pull Clare’s friends out of a blazing café, she happily comes to their rescue. As a favor to the men, Clare visits their firehouse kitchen to teach them the finer points of operating their newly donated espresso machine. But as she gets to know these fearless few, more than their coffee turns out to be hot. Somebody’s torching cafés around the city, and firefighters are beginning to die in suspicious ways.

Believing the two events are related, Clare investigates, staking out a five-borough bake sale and sniffing out clues in the pizza joints of Brooklyn. Then her detective boyfriend, Mike Quinn, is pulled into the fire of a false accusation and Clare is desperate to put out the flames. But will she be able to come to Mike’s rescue before someone tries to extinguish her?

WIN FREE COFFEE!

Sign up for Cleo’s FREE E-newsletter and you will be entered in all of her weekly coffee drawings. Just send an email to VillageBlend@aol.com that says “Sign me up”

To find out more about Cleo or download her free bonus recipes, visit her virtual coffeehouse at: Coffee House Mystery.

“Clare and company are some of the most vibrant characters I’ve ever read. Coyle is also a master of misdirection and red herrings. I challenge any reader to figure out whodunit before Coyle reveals all”
—Mystery Scene

This Contest is open to USA only – No PO Boxes

Please fill out the form to enter. Contest ends August 16, 2010

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Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

Posted on August 3, 2010

by Lydia

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

Buy on Amazon

Summary:

When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn squalor, she quickly begins a secret double life: exceptional schoolgirl during the day, Chinatown sweatshop worker in the evenings. Disguising the more difficult truths of her life–like the staggering degree of her poverty, the weight of her family’s future resting on her shoulders, or her secret love for a factory boy who shares none of her talent or ambition-Kimberly learns to constantly translate not just her language but herself back and forth between the worlds she straddles.

My Review:

I’ve read quite a bit of fiction and non-fiction this year that has been centered around China. Girl in Translation tops the list as being the most moving and easy-to-relate-to story of the mix.

Kimberly begins her narrative of this story at the age of 11, newly arrived from Hong Kong. She’s an incredibly smart girl facing an impossibly hard life in the United States – in New York. In spite of having an Aunt, Uncle-by-marriage, and cousins in New York, she and her mother are forced to live in squalor (due to jealousies between the sisters), to attend a sub-par school and to work the after-school hours in a factory where she and her mother earn less than $2/hr … combined.

In spite of all of this, all of the struggles and heartaches, Kimberly pushes herself to continue and to, eventually, make a better life for her mother and herself.

It was the little things that really made this book for me – the constant insertion of English words that seemed at first gibberish to me before I began to understand that she was narrating what she was hearing. For example: achiff such spectacles was in fact achieve such spectacular . I also snorted and giggled as I was exposed to translated insults passed from Kimberly to her cousin. I was interested in learning how different the Chinese are when it comes to “sayings”. In the US we might say we might say that is is dangerous to be too honest, but the Cantonese have a saying for it.. “If you are straight as an arrow, you’ll have to beg for a living.”. These are scattered throughout the book and do a fantastic job of setting the perfect tone, that of a girl who learns to live in the US and manages to translate her story for us in a way we’d understand.

View all my reviews >>

Girl in Translation Book Trailer

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