Evening Edition: Free Kindle Book!

First off --- you might notice there is a new widget in my side bar --- right there, on the right side, below where it says “Never Miss A Post”. This is where you can subscribe to this blog via email and – as it says – Never Miss A Post!

I had been getting requests from those who have me in google reader, but they keep forgetting to check it, or, they aren’t on facebook so they don’t get my links there. They wanted to know if there was a way to subscribe and thanks to another fellow blogger, I discovered that yes, I can offer you this as well!

Click where it says "Subscribe."

When you put your email address in the form, you’ll get a word verification ((Hate those)) asking you to confirm that you do want to be notified of new blog posts. As I post at least once a day, many times more if I have something to say and can’t wait to get it out --- you will get a “digest” each evening with links and summaries of the posts from that day. At the bottom of each digest is a link where you can unsubscribe if you ever want to. This is all to make it easier for you, so I hope you will try it out!

Second off –I bit the bullet and treated myself to a newly refurbished Kindle Fire today --- I found where they were on sale for $169.00, and I was tired of waiting. My old kindle is over 2 years old now. It isn’t backlit like the new kindle fire is, so I have to be in good lighting to read it. I don’t use the keyboard thing that the old kindle 2 has so it actually makes my screen smaller. I suppose I can list many many reasons, but let’s just say it’s a great cure for bunion pain!

Third off --- this book sounded really interesting when I found it on a search today:

The Silence of Trees by Valya Dudycz Lupescu is free today from the Amazon Kindle store, and has received an average user rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars based on 116 customer reviews.

Category: Historical Fiction

Book Description:

In Chicago’s Ukrainian Village, Nadya Lysenko has built her life on a foundation of secrets. When she was sixteen, Nadya snuck out of her house in Western Ukraine to meet a fortuneteller in the woods. She never expected it to be the last time she would see her family.

Decades later, Nadya continues to be haunted by the death of her parents and sisters. The myths and magic of her childhood are still a part of her reality: dreams unite friends across time and space, house spirits misplace keys and glasses, and a fortuneteller’s cards predict the future.

Nadya’s beloved dead insist on being heard through dreams and whispers in the night. They want the truth to come out. Nadya needs to face her past and confront the secrets she buried–in The Silence of Trees.

It sounded kind of like a fantasy type of story, and I usually don’t do those, and it didn’t seem to jive with the category of the book so I went looking further. This was one of the reviews:

Nearly three years ago, I read the first 5000 words of this story for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards. Ms. Lupescu left me in a Ukranian forest full of German soldiers bent on rape with sixteen year old Nadya seeking her fortune from a clan of gypsies.

I've wondered what happened ever since.

I bought "The Silence of Trees" as soon as the book was available via Amazon and even paid extra for second day delivery. I sat down with the book and a cup of tea expecting to finish in one sitting.

Normally, I'm a serial devourer of books, but "The Silence of Trees" was entirely too rich for that. I paused at 75 pages and dreamed that night of the gypsy camp. Music, counterpointed by the jangle of tambourines rang in my ears. I even saw the raven-haired dancer clad in red and gold.

I followed Nadya through fifty years of her life, learning what it was like to lose family during World War II, to live in a German work camp, and to finally immigrate to a new land where you do not speak the language and begin anew. Each step is full of the same vivid detail as the initial scenes. Nadya and her family grow and become as real as next-door neighbors.

Ms. Lupescu's prose truly is the stuff that dreams are made of. The narrative voice of her protagonist Nadya remains strong throughout nearly fifty years of her life. You can almost taste the kolachi and feel the willow switches on your backside on Palm Sunday. The best of literature transports you to places you have never been. While some of the locales of "Silence" are places you may not have wished to be, there's heart and hope in every page.

Rebecca Kyle, October 2010

It was the book review that made me want to read the book more than the book description itself. But you decide! The book is free now as I type this, it might not be come morning, so check to be sure it’s still free for you before clicking to purchase.

Have a great Monday evening, everyone!