WHAT ARE YOU READING ON MONDAYS?

This is a weekly bookish meme hosted by J. Kayes' Book Blog.  It gives us a chance to chat about what we are currently reading this week, what we have read and what we are planning to read. 

WELL.....

I have been KNITTING lately and NOT reading. 

Sigh.

I have been pretty stressed out due to, you know, life in general and Christmas and my husband being out of town working for a month, and I am finding it hard to concentrate when I read.  The best thing for me to do when I am like this is to knit while watching a fav DVD.  The combo is usually knitting and Frasier.  Today it was knitting and Everybody Loves Raymond.  I do this during my usual reading time for a couple of hours in the afternoon when my youngest child naps.  So, I have gotten diddly done in the reading department, but I HAVE gotten 6 lovely little squares for the baby blanket I am knitting for my nephews son that will be arriving in March! 

I do have every intention of reading every day, and I did manage to read a bit of Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (which  I FRICKEN LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)  It is FANTASTIC!!  I mean, SO SO unique and awesome, and Steampunk-y!  I think Steampunk may be my next big thing.  I ordered Nick Valentino's book from the guest blog he did a little while ago, "Thomas Riley" and I am just waiting for it to come in the mail. 

Today I started The 13 Hour by Richard Doetsch, and after hearing much bally-hoo about it I have to say I am not overly impressed thus far.  I mean the premise is very cool (the book STARTS with the 12th Chapter), and the first few pages were great, and then he gets into the overdone describing of every character down to the last shred of clothing and hair on their head.  This just makes the book wreak of "oooohh... look at me I am writing" to me, but I am hoping it gets better.  People seem to LOVE it.  So, I will give it an honest go and try to overlook this tendancy. 

Hopefully I'll have more to chat about next week!

TEASER TUESDAY

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading , and it happens to be my favourite meme of all time.  Anyone can play!  If you don't have a blog you can just leave your teaser in the comments!

• Grab your current read
• flip to a random page
• select two sentences as "teasers"
• try not to include SPOILERS
• include the name of the book and the author so we can all add it to our TBR list

My teaser is from "The 13th Hour" by Richard Doetsch

"And all at once, she felt fear wash over her.


    She had entered the house and had come down here instantly to confirm the robbery, her anger blinding her to the danger as she ran about in the darkness, foolishly tempting fate."


I haven't officially started this book yet, but will be cracking it open this afternoon during my youngest's nap.

For more teasers click here .

MAILBOX MONDAY

For the last two weeks I have been extremely busy with work and my daughter's 10th birthday shinanigans.  Now that things are back to normal, I can concentrate on book blogging... which I have MISSED! 

First I want to send a HUGE THANK YOU to Michelle at Simon and Schuster Canada for sending me these ARC's!!!!  You are awesome!

So, in my mailbox today from a week or so ago

The 13th Hour by Richard Doetsch

This is an ARC, and I was pretty pumped when I read the premise, it sounds very cool!  It comes out December 29th.

Here's the blurb from Amazon.ca:

A mesmerizing thriller -- told in reverse! The 13th Hour is the story of a man given the chance to go back in time in one-hour increments to prevent a vicious crime from destroying his life.

Nick Quinn is being held in jail, accused of the murder of his beloved wife, Julia. He knows she's dead; he saw her bloody corpse, shot in the head at point-blank range. The police tell him they found the murder weapon with his fingerprints on it in the trunk of his car. Nick is confused, grief-stricken -- and completely innocent.

At 9 p.m. on July 28, a gray-haired gentleman visits Nick in the police interrogation room and asks him a simple question: "If you could get out of here, if you could save her, would you?" He hands Nick a golden talisman that allows Nick to go back in time, one hour at a time, for a total of twelve hours. With each hour that Nick travels back, he finds more clues to the identity of Julia's real killer, but he also discovers that his actions in the past may have unexpected repercussions in the future.

In his race against time to save the woman he loves most in the world, Nick will find that friends become enemies, old loyalties are tested, and Julia's murder is part of a larger scheme that has its roots in greed and vengeance. Nick has the ability to save Julia, the chance to put his own world in balance, but he is venturing down a precarious route. If he hasn't set things right by the thirteenth hour, his desperate attempts to save Julia's life may lead to a far greater catastrophe than he could have ever imagined.

A surprising and utterly original thriller, The 13th Hour is pure page-turning suspense -- full of double crosses, cliffhangers, and shocking revelations.
 

And an ARC of "Gone" by Lisa McMann, which will be released  Feb 9, 2010.  This is YA and looks pretty interesting.  It is the third book that follows the main character Janie, but it is not a trilogy.  I think it's more of a series.Here's the blurb from the authors website:

Janie thought she knew what her future held. And she thought she'd made her peace with it. But she can't handle dragging Cabel down with her.


She knows he will stay with her, despite what she sees in his dreams. He's amazing. And she's a train wreck. Janie sees only one way to give him the life he deserves--she has to disappear. And it's going to kill them both.

Then a stranger enters her life--and everything unravels. The future Janie once faced now has an ominous twist, and her choices are more dire than she'd ever thought possible. She alone must decide between the lesser of two evils. And time is running out...

And the third one is an ARC called "falling apart in one piece - one optimist's journey through the hell of divorce"  by Stacy Morrison.  (Release date:  March 2010) (no cover image available)  Here's the blurb on the back cover:

Just when Stacy Morrison thought she had it all, her husband of ten years announced that he wanted a divorce.  She was left alone with a new house that needed lots of work, a new baby who needed lots of attention, and a new job in the high pressured world of New York publishing.  Told with humor and heart, her honest and intimate account of the stress of being a working mother while trying to make sense of her unraveling marriange offers unexpected lessons of love, forgiveness, and dignity that will resonate with women everywhere.