Review {+ Giveaway}

Today we get to get all undercover and talk about this brand new debut thriller from a girl who totally gets what’s inside my head.  Which is scary, considering she knows how to kill in like seven different ways.

About Monarch:

Nick’s life as a CIA spy should be fulfilling, but it has only given him unhappiness—a wife who committed suicide, and two daughters who resent everything he has become. Now, stuck in the Amazon on the last mission of his career, he must track down Matheus Ferreira, a drug lord and terrorist the U.S. has tried to bring down for years. If he succeeds, he’ll have the chance to start his life over again.

Just when Nick is on the brink of catching Ferreira, he’s framed for a murder that turns his world upside down. His only chance of survival lies in West Virginia where Lilian Love, a woman from his past, owns the secluded Monarch Inn. He’s safe, but not for long…

The Review:

I probably only read a couple of thrillers a year.  There’s this caged up person inside of me that knew as soon as she watched the first season of Alias that she was meant to be a CIA agent.  The rest of me realizes that this career would end quickly in some bizarre comi-tragic accident and is pretty content to let others do the heavy lifting.  It’s still a fun world to visit now and again and the only reason I don’t read more books in the genre is that I’ve found they are very rarely anything like Alias.  Still, I’m glad that Monarch made this year’s cut.

One of my favorite things about this book was the monarch butterfly theme threaded so carefully throughout.  If you haven’t met me, you probably don’t know that I have a large monarch tattoo on my inner forearm.  Everyone just assumes that I’m a girl and I like butterflies, but if they ask they will find out that along with some nifty symbolic reasons, I got that tattoo when I was writing my first screenplay, Broken Butterflies.  Monarchs and their migration also played a heavy part in my story, so I was really excited and curious to see what she had done with the theme.

And… I tip my hat to Michelle because I was a little blown away.  She used the monarchs in ways that would never have occurred to me and that just slid so nicely into this particular story.  It was so fun to see how she incorporated the images in the most unexpected places in the book.  It was extra cool to see an ass-kicking CIA agent like Nick think a pool of blood looked like a butterfly.

The Writing
Argyle’s writing style was really spot on for the genre.  Her pacing was taut.  The only time I really slowed down in the book was when I was thrown off guard by some completely breath-taking piece of description.   Description that made me taste and smell and know what it was like to be in the middle of a jungle in Brazil or hiking through deserted trails in West Virginia.

The Plot

This thing was obviously carefully plotted as well.  It’s told through the eyes of three different viewpoint characters, so tying together that many scenes and making it all tell the story with such great urgency, without getting us lost along the way is a testament to pure skill.  There were a few gems of extra twisty goodness in this book too, especially throughout the middle of the story, a place where some thrillers kind of start to drag and fall flat for me.  I would have loved to see a little more of that surprise carried through to the end of the story, but by that time we are so invested in these characters and how it will end that it didn’t really matter all that much.

The Characters
I really adored most of the characters in this work.  The three viewpoint characters Nick, Lillian and Devan each brought a different dimension to the story, with their vastly different life experiences.  Nick (who just happened to look remarkably like George Clooney in my head) was sexy and smart, but he was also really complex.  He was James Bond with a conscience and a past and that made for some really interesting moments.

The characters throughout were generally complex and surprising and unique.  I especially loved Nick’s daughters Clara and Violet and the mysterious Catarina.  These women had such personality and life to them, even though none of them are the three main characters. Little details like this really make a book for me.  It was also refreshing for a thriller to see such clear character growth from almost the entire cast.  Honestly the only character I had much trouble with was Lillian. I liked her, I just kept wanting her to do a little more.  It seemed she was always the one waiting and worrying and not much else.  Still, the story’s events brought about a profound change in her and that didn’t feel forced in any real way by the end of the book.

The Wrap Up

Monarch is a taut thriller, with big splashes of charm, that’s heavier than most on character. Recommended for those in search of feel-like-you-are-there action with a heaping spoonful of heady romance.

My Rating:

Cover Story: B+

I love the concept of this cover (fragile, fragile things), it’s one of the things that drew me to the book in the first place.  I just kept trying to figure out who the dead person was in the book, and although the bodies pile up, I think it’s more of a generic nod to the genre.

Little Details

ARC Courtesy of Rhemalda Publishing

Title: Monarch by Michelle Davidson Argyle
Genre: Adult, Contemporary, Thriller
Format: Paperback, 341 pages
Publisher: Rhemalda Publishing; (September 15th, 2011)
ISBN:  978-1936850198
{ Goodreads | Amazon }

The Author

Michelle has been writing since a very young age. She completed her first novel at sixteen and graduated from Utah Valley University with a BA in English/Creative Writing in 2002. Rhemalda Publishing released her debut novel, Monarch, in 2011. Additionally, she independently published Cinders, a fairy-tale themed novella about Cinderella after she marries her prince. The Breakaway will be published by Rhemalda in 2012, and Bonded (which includes Cinders) will be published in 2013 by Rhemalda.  Find out more about Michelle and her other books at her website:  www.michelledavidsonargyle.com

The Monarch Giveaway:

Congrats to our Winner:

Shay

(Winner has been notified via email)

Thanks to those who entered, I wish I had a copy for everyone.  Please follow Michelle’s tour by clicking on the button below for more chances.

{Contest Now Closed}

I’ve got a fresh copy of Monarch to giveaway! (Yay.)

Just leave a comment on this post telling me who your favorite spy is and you are entered to win.  Easy peasy.

Entries close @11pm Mountain Time on Sunday, Sept. 25th.

Open to U.S. & International.  Book will be shipped from publisher.

(Thank you to Rhemalda Publishing for sponsoring this contest.)

The Tour:

Look for more chances to win as you read more reviews and learn more about Michelle on the Monarch Blog Tour.

Related articles

• Monarch, by Michelle Davidson Argyle (plus giveaway news!) (lizakane.wordpress.com)

Anyway, if the blog has been a little sparse of late, that’s because I’ve been uh…er…sailing around the world to raise money for starving elephants. Wait. Okay, having a passionate jet-set affair with a tall, dark, Italian named Marco. No? Lying on the beach sipping drinks with little umbrella thingies in them? Fine. Fine. Fine. Maybe that’s just what my brain was doing all summer.

First things first, I’ve not completely abandoned this project. It’s been weighing heavily on my mind and in my heart through much of the time I was away. I did, however reach a point where this was starting to take over my life and I needed to step back and re-assess why I was doing this thing in the first place and what I wanted it to be.

A Few Little Lessons I’ve Learned About Book Blogging:

• It’s easy when you are speaking with publishers and authors and have books arriving daily in your mailbox to feel (no matter what your review policy states) an obligation to get to everything they send.

• It’s easy when you have subscribers and more than three people actually taking time out of their day to read what you put out there for the world to feel an obligation to give them the best experience you possibly can.

• It’s easy to look around at other bloggers and reviewers and think you need to keep upping the ante. Or see things you love and need to be a part of.

• It’s difficult to say no to books. It’s heartbreaking to say no to authors. It’s sometimes harder to judge what you are going to have the time, energy or inclination to read and review three to six months in advance.

• It’s easy to sit down to write a simple review and find yourself still trying to get thoughts and formatting right five hours later.

• It’s easy between reading, and writing, interviewing, correspondence and making everything look pretty, to spend 60+ hours a week on this thing that was once a simple blog. And remains an unpaid hobby.

• It’s possible to forget to go to the post office for 12 days in a row or respond to an email for a month.

• It’s impossible to keep up a social networking dialogue with all the amazing people you meet on this journey.

• It’s difficult to write an honest review for a book you don’t like when you are part of a blog-tour or you know the author personally. Some days they all feel like someone you know personally.

• It’s probable that no matter how much work you put in, it will never feel good enough.

And that just covers the being overwhelmed portion of why I stepped away. I do have a strict policy though that when something I’m doing for fun, stops feeling like fun, I need to stop and give some serious consideration to the word why.

Hold up, hold up. Life’s never that simple. Right? There were maybe a few other reasons I took this little sabbatical:

A) Negative Reviews.

I don’t enjoying writing them generally. I don’t care if they get more hits than all of the glowing reviews combined. I can generally find some positive things to say to balance them out, but that means at best I found the book ok. I don’t want to waste time bringing your attention to books I find ok. If I love a book, I want to tell you about it. In rare cases if a book annoys me so much that I can’t stop talking about the specific problems, I’ll probably say something, but that means I cared about the book enough to feel the need to comment. This is a rare occurrence in my world. More often of late I find books that I know on page three are going to be mediocre for me, and I suffer through the mind-numbing experience of reading them in order to produce a balanced review. I didn’t have to do that this summer, and it was really nice.

B) Other blogs.

In addition to trying and mostly failing at keeping up with my friends and family via facebook and twitter, I had two other blogs that were pretty active before this monster came along. I liked what I had to offer on them. I enjoyed that process which felt less pressurized than this one ultimately became. They were utterly abandoned when all my time was sucked into this. And we aren’t even talking about things that suffered in the real world yet folks.

C) My own fiction.

Probably the single biggest (and most important) reason you have not seen me around here is because it was taking all of my time and energy away from my own writing projects. It hasn’t been something I’ve talked about on here a lot. I was trying to keep the two worlds separate for reasons that are becoming a bit murkier now. The simple truth is this; as much as I love reading and talking about books, I’d much rather be writing them. And writing a book, almost necessarily, takes over your life in completely different ways. I was beginning to lose sight of my goals for myself and forget why I started this little side project: to grow as a writer. At the end of the day, I’m not a blogger, a reviewer, a publicist or a web-site manager. I am a writer. And that’s where my energies needed to be refocused.

So Where Do We Go From Here?

I’m so glad you asked. We go forward.  Absolutely. I wouldn’t have started  this project in the first place if I didn’t enjoy it.  I still do.

So, we are back, but expect to see some changes as this site finds its feet again and I am able to strike the right balance between blogging and my real life. For the next little while, it will probably be a weekends only project. So expect a post or two a week, but probably not a lot more.

You will probably see me being more picky about both genre and the number of books I accept for review. I just don’t have the time to read everything, and so you’ll probably see more YA, SF, Dystopian, Urban Fantasy and less pretty much everything else. There are no hard and fast rules here, and this simply reflects where I am in my life right now.  Don’t expect the obliteration of  Classics though because I refuse to give them up.

You will probably see more positive reviews than negative or mediocre ones as I just feel the need to go with my heart on this one.

You will probably see the rating system drastically altered or disappear completely. I noticed looking back at some of my past reviews I don’t always continue to agree with the ratings I’ve given. It’s something that really bothers me, so I’m looking for a better way.

As posts pick up again, you will probably see some entries about writing and other wordy things I find particularly inspirational, instructional or just want to talk about as I start to incorporate a few items from my other blogs over here. This is an experiment, so please feel free to let me know your thoughts on that subject. I can’t promise it will change my mind, but it’s always good to know.

Other than that… we’ll just have to see.

I’m glad to be back and look forward to getting all booky with you down the road.

So, ahem… Anyone else do anything fun for summer vacation?

Related articles

• Reading, writing, and a mild case of insanity (rhculp.com)
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Review & Blog Tour {+ Cruise Giveaway}

About The Mountains Bow Down:

Everything’s going to work out. Time away always makes things better . . .That’s what FBI Special Agent Raleigh Harmon believes as she boards a cruise to Alaska. A land of mountains and gems and minerals, The Last Frontier is a dream destination for this forensic geologist who’s hoping to leave behind a hectic work schedule and an engagement drained of romance.But when a passenger goes missing and winds up dead, Raleigh’s vacation suddenly gets lost at sea. The ship’s security chief tries to rule the death a suicide, but Raleigh’s forensics background points to a much darker conclusion: Somewhere onboard, a ruthless murderer walks free.Engulfed by one of her toughest cases yet, Raleigh requests assistance from the FBI and receives her nemesis-perpetual ladies man Special Agent Jack Stephanson. As the cruise ship sails through the Inside Passage, Raleigh has five days to solve a high-profile murder, provide consultation for a movie filming onboard, and figure out her increasingly complicated feelings for Jack-who might not be such a jerk after all.And that’s only her work life. Family offers even more challenges. Joined on the cruise by her mother and aunt, Raleigh watches helplessly as disturbing rifts splinter her family.Like the scenery that surrounds the cruise ship, Raleigh discovers a situation so steep and so complex that even the mountains might bow down.

The Review:

I sort of put off reading this book.  I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s just my natural tendency towards procrastination, but I think it was more than that.  I’m always a little nervous when first picking up a title from an author whose work is new to me, as this was.  I’m kind of a sucker for female FBI agents in suspense, but I’ve seen it done enchantingly and well… not so well.  I was holding my breath, and tensed a bit as I started this book, not sure which category it would fall into, and literally felt my body relax with relief as I read the first few pages and realized almost instantly this was a book I was going to enjoy reading.

The Writing
Much of my instant connection with the book, had nothing to do with the plot.  It was the writing.  Sibella Giorello is quite simply a fabulous writer.  She is the kind of writer who loves words. She writes tight and smart and imbues her narrative character with the kind of voice that I could have mistaken for my own. There is zero clunkiness to this novel.  Nothing to trip you up or take you out of the story, it simply flows. And her writing is original. The book is peppered with authentic descriptions and dialogue that give color to a picture so flawless you feel a part of the action. She never resorts to tired cliche’s or sloppy portraiture and I loved her for that.  It’s not that her style is poetic, as much as disarmingly fresh.

“The nubile Mrs. Sparks climbed the four steps to the edge of ht hot tub, then made a slow descent into the water.  Perhaps it was the pile of vanilla hair on her sticklike body, but she reminded me of an ice-cream cone dipping itself in melted chocolate” – {Ch. 6}

She also won bonus point in my geeky book for including words that I actually had to look up.  Yes in a suspense novel. Unapologetically, one of the surest ways to my nerdy little heart is to surprise me by letting me learn something!  And Giorello did not disappoint on many fronts here.  She not only taught me a few words, she taught me about the beauty of Alaska and the working class underbelly of the cruise industry, and she somehow even managed to hold me fascinated by mini lessons in geology.

I was not at all surprised to finish the book and realize that her writing has been nominated for two Pulitzers.

The Concept
FBI Agent Raleigh Harmon from Giorello’s earlier novels steps back up for a suspense thriller set aboard an Alaskan cruise.  I’m wouldn’t call the murder on the high seas concept entirely unique, but it was a story I hadn’t read before.  In fact, it was one of the things that made me fall in love with the story. I suppose wanted to experience the world of a luxury cruiseliner for a while, and in this the The Mountains Bow Down is a breathtaking getaway, even if the trip turns out to be anything but a vacation for our heroine.

The Plot
When the wife of a famous Hollywood action-star filming his latest sequel on the cruise turns up dead, Raleigh’s vacation dissolves into a race to find the killer and recover evidence before the cruise ends and all her suspects walk off free.  She is reunited with Jack Stephanson, another agent who she thought she couldn’t stand.  The plot threw quite a few twisty surprises at me.  Everything that could possibly go wrong for poor Raleigh including many things I couldn’t have anticipated going wrong, did. Again, this was a tight mystery plot that surprised me in its ability to keep one step ahead of me in my quest for whodunnit.

The Characters
This book is worth a read for the characters alone.  Especially Raleigh and Jack, but also her wacky extended family and many of the cruise line employees.  There is a lot of originality here. The characters are well-developed and unique for the most part.  A few of the Hollywood types came off a little clichéd to me, especially compared to the excellent complex characterization of almost every other character in the book.  They had a few quirks, yes, but it still felt a bit like typecasting to me.  That said, her mother and the story line there was well done and compelling, and I felt like the ships employees including Geert, head of security were well done.  I have to say also, in my mind I kept reverting to characters from Bones as I was reading this.  Jack was Agent Booth in my mind and while Raleigh wasn’t quite a Temperance, she was more feisty and innocent, I saw her as Hannah.  A few other characters slipped in as well, and in fact it kind of felt like I was reading one long episode of the show.  Let me make it clear this is not a bad thing in my mind, folks.  Bones is one of the best shows on television in my not so humble opinion and has by far the most interesting characters you are likely to come across in prime time.  Giorello’s characters gave me that super cool, quirky and fascinating vibe I love from the show.

Christian Suspense
I did just want to mention that this is considered a Christian suspense work. It’s not something I am usually drawn to, but Giorello is not at all blatant in making this a Christian work. It is a clean read, certainly, with a character in possession of a strong moral compass, and a set of beliefs through which she views the world. But, it is first and foremost an excellent mystery.  Second, perhaps a character drama.  As we get closer to the end she drops in a few narratives from Raleigh that make her beliefs more overt, but you also get the sense that while our heroine is unwavering in her faith, she is struggling, human. It struck a nice balance for me.

I know that some have come to this book looking for it to be an affirmation of faith and find it sparse on the “God is Great” front.  It was the right choice for this story.  Even the times that she does subtly push the character’s spiritual thoughts to the forefront feel a little out-of-place against all the action here. I felt a touch uncomfortable with it, as I did with the ever so slight characterization of those who had other belief systems, or were more human in their frailties as either crackpots or morally bankrupt, while her beliefs were certainly never challenged.  It was true faith, less rational than most FBI agents portrayed in fiction, but I’m decidedly not the target Christian demographic and I could easily accept it as part of Raleigh’s character. I was certainly nowhere close to feeling pushed away from finishing the book, which is another testament to the writing. Ultimately this is not a story about faith.  It is a mystery, and adding too much of the character’s opinions on the subject might have made her come across as self-righteous and preachy. I appreciated the subtlety.

The Wrap Up
Overall, this is an engaging read and a satisfying mystery. It’s not groundbreaking, but it’s a world I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend suspense lovers lose themselves in for a little while.  It’s also worth a read for the strongly developed quirky characters, and the simply fabulous, smart writing style. I’ll definitely be looking for Giorello’s next book in the series, The Stars Shine On due early next year.

My Rating:

Cover Story: B-

This cover is not my favorite of the series.  It’s missing that mysterious vibe, and looks a little more like a travel memoir.  That said, it’s a perfect depiction of one of the first scenes in the book and it brings to life the author’s stunning descriptions of Alaska.

Little Details

Finished Copy Courtesy of LitFuse Publicity

Title: The Mountains Bow Down by Sibella Giorello
Series: A Raleigh Harmon Novel
Genre: Adult, Christian, Suspense
Format: Paperback, 384 pages
Publisher: Thomas Nelson; 1 edition (March 1, 2011)
ISBN:  978-1595545350
{ Goodreads | Amazon }

The Author

Sibella Giorello grew up in Alaska and majored in geology at Mount Holyoke College. After riding a motorcycle across the country, she worked as a features writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Her stories have won state and national awards, including two nominations for the Pulitzer Prize. She now lives in Washington state with her husband and sons. Find out more about Sibella and her other books at her website. www.sibellagiorello.com

Want more Raleigh Harmon?

Sibella is offering a chance to start the series fresh with this great deal! Pick up a copy of Book 1 for your Kindle or Nook for only $2.99! The Stones Roll Away is the critically acclaimed award winner that kicked off the Raleigh Harmon series. Find it Here!

The Mountains Bow Down CRUISE Giveaway

Sibella’s celebrating the release of The Mountains Bow Down by giving away a Cruise prize pack worth over $500.00!

One Grand Prize winner will receive:

• A $500 gift certificate toward the cruise of their choice from Vacations To Go.
• The entire set of the Raleigh Harmon series.

To Enter Click Below:

Then tell your friends. And enter soon – the giveaway ends on 4/1! The winner will be announced at Sibella’s Raleigh Harmon Book Club Party on FB April 5th, 2011! Don’t miss the fun – prizes, books and gab!

The Facebook Party

Blog Tour Schedule

Be sure and stop by the other sites on the tour for more great reviews, interviews, guest posts and more.

You can get the full schedule for Sibella’s Tour here.

The winners are:

Mommy_to_7

&

MonaG

The winners have been notified and the books are on the way from the publisher.

(Thanks again to Hachette and Grand Central Publishing for sponsoring this contest.)

But, wait… that’s not all…we also had a 3rd winner!

Marjorie

What? How? Why, you ask? Marjorie was one of the two original winners, but she had already won the books elsewhere SO she generously asked that we “give someone else the chance to do the happy dance“, which of course we did…but not without sending Marjorie out an ARC of Radio Shangri-La instead. Everyone happy.  Yes?

Just want to mention kids that this is something we may do from time to time, I’ve usually got a hefty stack of alternate prizes on hand and not only will we use them to make sure winners don’t go away empty-handed – we may just, I don’t know — give them away, randomly and unannounced to our readers.  Why?  Just because we love you guys!  And not everything has to be a formal contest or a part of something bigger.  Keep an eye on our twitter feed as well.  We just might be holding flash giveaways & mini-contests there when the mood strikes.

Also, if you are the kind of person who loves prizes… be sure to drop by Thursday for our stop on Sibella Giorello’s The Mountains Bow Down tour for your chance to win….wait for it….wait for it…. a cruise!   Yes, you are reading that correctly Sibella’s camp is giving away a cruise for the release of this book and you by way of being cool enough to be one of our readers get to be in on it!   I’m reading this book right now, and guys, it’s good.  She makes me so want to be on a cruise about now.  Heck, I’ll even take a cruise with a possible murderer on board.  I’ll take it I tell ya.

Ahem, antsy pants readers will probably notice the sneaky little button on the sidebar.  Yes, the cruise giveaway is open NOW!  Just, be sure and come back on Thursday for our review, contest details and lots of other cool tour tidbits!

For now, congrats to all three Ladies above! Do enjoy the books.