Teaser Tuesday, new books, etc.

Whenever I can, (or remember) I try to put a link to an excerpt of a book under the book cover picture. So if you click on the cover of Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cover, it will take you to an excerpt. In the case of Church Folk, there is no excerpt, so the link will take you to the book page at Ms Bowen's website. I try to do this on all my posts. When I remember....or when there is an excerpt available.

My Teaser Tuesday is from a book called....

Church Folk

by Michele Andrea Bowen

first published in 2001 in h/c

then trade ppb and finally mmppb in 2005

and reissued recently

This teaser is two sentences - though they are long sentences, and it's not random, but rather kind of what decided me to buy this novel.

"At the age of twenty-nine, the Reverend Theophilus Henry Simmons had developed on unshakable conviction about God-that He loved women. If He didn't love women, how could He have created such a magnificent creature as a fine, deep, dark chocolate woman who looked real good in pinks and oranges, had big, sexy legs, and a stardust twinkle in her smile-the kind of exquisite Negro woman who compelled the Universe to praise every swing of her large, shapely hips?"

How can you not love this concept. This man is talking about a woman /women who are not skinny-minnies! Praise the Lord! This book also makes me hungry for candy. A lot of the descriptions of the characters are all food related - caramel colored, light chocolate, dark chocolate, dark coffee with no cream (that's Theophilus) etc. Man, makes you hungry!

Side-Note**this is a book with POC on the cover, and displayed prominently on a rack of new releases at Barnes & Nobles. This is rare, but I'm glad to see that not only was this novel displayed, but another book by the same author was also displayed (Second Sunday). Somebody is finally thinking in these stores. Hope this kind of thing lasts. I didn't buy the other novel, because I wanted to see if I liked this one first. This is what I usually do when coming across a new writer, and since this isn't even an urban fantasy (my first love for reading), I didn't want to buy two books I might not like the style of.

This also goes along with a "It's Monday, What are You Reading" post that I didn't post.

So I'll just talk about what I'm reading currently, and some books that I recently bought (even though I'm broke, broke, broke)

As you could probably tell from the teaser, I am reading Church Folk by Michele Andrea Bowen. At the moment I am almost halfway through the book and enjoying it quite a bit. It's not written in a style that I'm used to, but there are plenty of chuckles and omg moments.

Michele Andrea Bowen has two other books published, Second Sunday and Holy Ghost Corner.

Church Folk and a few other books were impulse buys during a couple of days when I was feeling sorry for myself. I was planning on buying a washer, had saved up some money for it, when I had to shelve those plans and by medicine instead. So of course, since I already had to use some of the money for the washer on other things, why not spend some on books? Of course! I dropped by Barnes and Noble after work one night, where I found Church Folk nicely displayed, and bought it as well as a book by Georgia Evans called Bloody Good, the first of a trilogy of books set in World War II England.

The other two books in the trilogy are titled Bloody Awful and Bloody Right. The author, Georgia Evans is in England, born and raised. This novel, Bloody Good will work for my Typically British Reading Challenge. As with Church Folk, I only bought the first novel, because I'm not sure if I'm going to like it enough to buy all three. I've done that before, bought a trio of books thinking they're going to be great ('cause there's three of them, right?) and found that I couldn't even finish the first book. This was from my first "feeling sorry" for myself shopping trip. I don't usually go to Barnes & Nobles. Normally I go to Borders which is where I found myself just a couple of days later.

Christopher Moore is one of those writers who you can depend on writing a funny, at times facetious book. I've read a few of this books and enjoyed all of them.

Diane Whiteside - I've never ever read a book by her. This is totally an impulse buy that I hope I won't regret. I think this is part of a series, and probably not the first one either (regrets already), but it was $3.99 and I kind of wanted to see what kind of story she tells. Clicking on the book cover will take you to an excerpt of the prologue, but she has many chapters up for free read. (should have just done that!) Well, here's hoping it'll be a good read.

Jude Devereaux - One of the few romance writers that I will read. I can't find a website specifically for her, although Simon and Schuster has a page up for her at their website. There is usually a touch of mystery and suspense in Jude Devereaux's romance novels. I see by the website that there are quite of few of her books that I haven't read yet. Back when I used to read nothing but historical romances ( there was a time when I wouldn't even read a contemporary setting novel- I can be so tunnel-visioned with books) I used to buy her books when ever they came out. I had (at one time) ALL of her romances. I'm usually satisfied when I read a book by Jude Devereaux.

I have been a little strange in my reading life. When I was 11 I started reading some heavy duty fiction like James Michener's Hawaii, Centennial, and a couple others that I can't remember right now. I also read quite a few of Harold Robbin's novels that belonged to one of my stepmothers. Before the age of 11 I read almost every Nancy Drew book I could find, but missed out on a lot of the other children's classics, like Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little. I did read the Littles.

During my most rebellious teenage years (15 to 17) I didn't read very much, but after the newness of moving out and living with my boyfriend (now my husband) wore off I was crazy for historical romances. Read nothing but them. Would not read any contemporary novels-not interested.

Then I became interested in a couple of fantasy books such as Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I read all but the last one that he wrote, and the other last one, the one that someone else finished. Forgot the names and don't feel like looking them up right now....oh what the hell......okay I read all of them through Winter's Heart. Have not read Crossroads of Twilight or Knife of Dreams, apparently the last two books he wrote on his own. Nor have I read the next four books that are "co-authored" with Brian Sanderson - they all came out after the death of Robert Jordan.

Anyway from fantasy, I picked up Kim Harrison's Dead Witch Walking and thereafter looked for books along this line. At the time, there were very few books like that one - but I persevered and found a few good what are now called urban fantasy books until the explosion and now almost always stick to urban fantasy. I've read a few other types here and there in the last few years - The Stephanie Plum series, a chick lit here and there, but my favorite type is the urban fantasy - tropes and all.