The Book Bag: All the Difference

Showing posts with label All the Difference. Show all posts

Monday, September 28, 2015

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? September 28, 2015

Hello! Welcome to It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? This weekly meme, hosted by Book Journey, is where we share what we have read this past week and what our plans are for the upcoming week. It’s a great way to see what others are reading and to discover books to add to your own To Be Read list. You never know where that next great read may come from!

Click on the book image to read more on Goodreads.

What I'm currently reading/listening to

The Sparrow Sisters: A Novel
by Ellen Herrick
Started this one when we were traveling in the evening cause I could read it on my Kindle. My thoughts will be posted on October 7th.

Pretty Girls

by Karin Slaughter

Love her books! My thoughts will be posted October 6th.

The Seacrest
by Aaron Paul Lazar (audio-book)
Had some great listening time in the car on our vacation so I was able to really get into this book. Love it.

What I recently finished reading

All the Difference
by Leah Ferguson
What an interesting way to tell a story. My thoughts will be posted soon.

Smoke

by Catherine McKenzie

Another great story by Catherine! My thoughts will be posted soon.

What I am going to read next

Beach Wedding

by Bella Cruise

I love my reading life!

What's going on in your reading world this week?

Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!

Monday, September 21, 2015

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? September 21, 2015

Click on the book image to read more on Goodreads.

What I'm currently reading/listening to

Smoke

by Catherine McKenzie

I have read all of Catherine's books and I am loving this one too.

The Seacrest
by Aaron Paul Lazar (audio-book)

What I recently finished reading

Moonlight on Butternut Lake: A Novel (The Butternut Lake Trilogy #3)
by Mary McNear
What a great story. You can read my thoughts here.

What I am going to read next

All the Difference
by Leah Ferguson

I love my reading life!

What's going on in your reading world this week?

Be sure to check the sidebar for my current giveaways!

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

WWW Wednesdays April 18

WWW Wednesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading

To play along, just answer the following three questions…
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

What are you currently reading?

The Warble by Victoria Simcox

Still working on The Big Rock Candy Mountain
by Wallace Stegner

What did you recently finish reading?

Fat is the New 30 by Jill Conner Browne

Hilarious! My thoughts will be posted later today

Banana Split by Josi S. Kilpack
My thoughts are here

All the Difference by Kaira Rouda
My thoughts are here

What do you think you will read next?

Little Bee by Chris Cleave
I am reading this one again for my book group

What are you reading this week?

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Guest Post and Giveaway: Kaira Rouda

I am so happy to have Kaira Rouda, author of All the Difference here at The Book Bag today. She also wrote Here, Home, Hope, which I previously read and loved so when I saw that her newest book was going to be part of the CLP Blog Tours, I jumped at the chance to be a part of it!

My thoughts on All the Difference were posted yesterday
and can be found here.

Kaira, I have a question that I like to ask authors ~ so here goes!

I have heard other authors say that they 'hear voices in their head' and that is how they write their books: the characters are telling their stories. Not being a writer myself, that concept has always intrigued me.

When some people hear voices, we get them medical attention, others end up becoming writers. Does this happen to you? How do you come up with your stories?

Love this question, Susan!

It does sound really strange when an author talks about the characters taking over and running wild through the manuscript, taking plot twists the author never imagined. How can that be?

How odd that it happens to me.

I wasn’t in school as a novelist. I was an English lit major. I read other people’s famous works, savored them, treasured them – but didn’t have a lot of courses on craft or process. Well, in college, none at all.

As a newspaper reporter and columnist and as a magazine editor, I learned and practiced structure and refinement, ledes and non-thudding endings.

But in nonfiction, the writer is firmly in charge. It begins and ends with you, your notes, your interviews, your research.

Once I began immersing myself in the world of novel writing, I was shocked. It’s true – and weird – and exciting – and well, weird. These characters who are only alive because of you begin to take over. They each have a point of view, a distinct diction, a wonderful will to live. I can’t explain it, but yes, it happens to me every novel. And I love it.

My stories happen in my mind long before they arrive at the keyboard as characters, literally. So far – imagine a woman knocking on the closest table – it hasn’t been a problem coming up with stories. It has only been a problem coming up with time to tell them.

Thank you for asking me here and including All the Difference on your blog.

Other stops on the tour

**Everyone who leaves a comment on the CLP tour page will be entered to win a $10 Amazon gift card! If you purchase your copy of All the Difference before April 23 and send your receipt to Samantha (at) ChickLitPlus (dot) com, you will get five bonus entries!**

Author Bio:

Kaira Rouda is an award-winning entrepreneur and author. She lives in Southern California with her husband and four kids and is at work on her next novel. She’s a social media addict and would love to connect with you on:

Twitter

Facebook

And on her website: www.KairaRouda.com

To purchase All the Difference,

please visit your favorite online bookseller:

Amazon

Barnes&Noble

Saturday, April 14, 2012

On Tour and Giveaway: All the Difference by Kaira Rouda

From the acclaimed author of Here, Home, Hope comes a novel of suspense and choices, with a nod to the best of Susan Isaacs's tales of suburban murder.

Once again, everything isn't what it seems in the wonderful suburb of Grandville. All the Difference is the story of three women whose lives become entangled by the choices they make and how, ultimately, one of them turns to murder to achieve her goals.

Roommates Laura and Angie couldn't be more different. Laura is a local celebrity, the television anchor who is motivated to move out of small-time media markets and on to the big time, no matter the cost. Meanwhile, Angie, a luckless waitress, spends her time waiting for Mr. Right to save her from temporary jobs and a life spent making bad choices.

On the other side of town, Ellen abandons her life as a successful fundraiser for that of an isolated housewife in the country estate she shares with her husband, whose affairs become increasingly hard to ignore. When the city’s gossip columnist, Maddie, and restaurant reviewer, Dixon, become involved in the mystery, the unlikely duo stir up more than they intended. But will anyone be able to stop the next murder?

With her signature compassion and wit, Kaira Rouda once again takes readers on an entertaining journey into the heart of women’s lives in suburbia - this time with adultery and murder in the mix. ~~ synopsis from Goodreads

My thoughts on All the Difference ~~

I had previously read Ms. Rouda's book Here, Home, Hope when it first came out (and yes, the cover of that one did it to me again) so when her newest book, All the Difference was offered on tour, I jumped at the chance to read it.

This story was not what I expected, but not in a bad way. All the Difference is chick-lit for sure but with a good dose of mystery and murder wrapped up in it also. And the mystery part of it was done very well, it had me guessing until the end.

The story has a lot of characters, which sometimes can be challenging but the author does a great job of doing what she does best and it was not hard to keep them straight. Throughout the story, their lives are continuously intertwined with everyone being a part of the others lives.

With all this intermingling, the suspect pool is rather large which makes it difficult to figure out who is responsible for murder. Or are they accidents? Hmmmm.

This is a great story that I am so glad I had the chance to read. Ms. Rouda is an author that is on my list of authors to watch. I definitely will be reading more of her books.

Come back tomorrow and see what Kaira has to say when I ask her about the 'voices' in her head.

Other stops on the tour

**Everyone who leaves a comment on the CLP tour page will be entered to win a $10 Amazon gift card! If you purchase your copy of All the Difference before April 23 and send your receipt to Samantha (at) ChickLitPlus (dot) com, you will get five bonus entries!**