The blog tour for The Paradise Guest House by Ellen Sussman is visiting The Little Reader Library today!
I read and enjoyed Ellen's previous novel, French Lessons - you can read my review here.
Giveaway - 5 copies to be won!
The Paradise Guest House is the new novel by author Ellen Sussman - find out more about the storyline and the author below - and to celebrate publication I have 5 copies of this book to giveaway courtesy of the publisher Canvas Books.
To enter, please leave a comment below. Within the comment, I'd love to know where is most like paradise to you? A far flung destination, or just being at home?
For an extra entry, follow @linshealy on twitter and leave your twitter @ name in the comments below.
For another extra entry, follow this blog by Google Friend Connect by clicking on the 'Join this Site' button in the right-hand column of this blog.
Please include in your comment a way of contacting you if you are not a follower here/on twitter/another blogger/a friend/ someone I can find by clicking on your name.
Giveaway closes Tuesday 2nd April 2013. 5 winners will be chosen at random and contacted straight away, and will need to reply within 48 hours, or new winner(s) will be chosen. UK based entrants only for this one please as specified by the publisher.
Good luck!
The Paradise Guest House is published by Canvas Books, an imprint of Constable & Robinson
About the novel:
It starts as a trip to paradise. Sent on assignment to Bali, Jamie, an American adventure guide, imagines spending weeks exploring the island’s lush jungles and pristine white sand beaches. Yet three days after her arrival, she is caught in Bali’s infamous nightclub bombings, which irreparably change her life and leave her with many unanswered questions.
One year later, haunted by memories, Jamie returns to Bali seeking a sense of closure. Most of all, she hopes to find Gabe, the man who saved her from the attacks. She hasn’t been able to forget his kindness—or the spark between them as he helped her heal. Checking into a cozy guest house for her stay, Jamie meets the kindly owner, who is coping with a painful past of his own, and a young boy who improbably becomes crucial to her search. Jamie has never shied away from a challenge, but a second chance with Gabe presents her with the biggest dilemma of all: whether she’s ready to open her heart.
One year later, haunted by memories, Jamie returns to Bali seeking a sense of closure. Most of all, she hopes to find Gabe, the man who saved her from the attacks. She hasn’t been able to forget his kindness—or the spark between them as he helped her heal. Checking into a cozy guest house for her stay, Jamie meets the kindly owner, who is coping with a painful past of his own, and a young boy who improbably becomes crucial to her search. Jamie has never shied away from a challenge, but a second chance with Gabe presents her with the biggest dilemma of all: whether she’s ready to open her heart.
About the author:
Ellen Sussman is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel, French Lessons, published by Ballantine in 2011. Her first novel,On a Night Like This, was a San Francisco Chronicle Best-Seller. It has been translated into six languages. Her newest novel, The Paradise Guest House, will be published in March, 2013. She is also the editor of two anthologies, Dirty Words: A Literary Encyclopedia Of Sex and Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave, which was a New York Times Editors Choice and a San Francisco Chronicle Best-Seller. She has published numerous essays in anthologies, including The Other Woman, and a dozen of her short stories have appeared in literary and commercial magazines. Ellen was named a San Francisco Library Laureate in 2004 and 2009. She has been awarded fellowships from The Napoule Art Foundation, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Ledig House, Ucross, Ragdale Foundation, Writers at Work, Wesleyan Writers Conference and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has taught at Pepperdine, UCLA and Rutgers University. She now teaches through Stanford Continuing Studies and in private classes out of her home. She has two daughters and lives with her husband in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Ellen was born in Trenton, NJ and has lived in Boston, Philly, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Paris and Northern California. She has worked lots of jobs including tennis instructor, restaurant manager, and college teacher but through all the transmutations of her life she has been writing, since the age of six, stubbornly, persistently, with great cockiness and wild insecurity, through praise and piles of rejection letters. She has given up her writing career many times, but only for a day or two, and her family has now learned to ignore her new career choices. She is a writer, an almost daily writer, a writer who actually loves to write.
You can visit the author's website here
Do visit the other tour hosts listed on the image below for guest posts and some great reviews of this book!
I have many forms of 'paradise' - from my everyday delights of being with my family and friends to being lost in a really good story and escaping the humdrum of life's little annoyances.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I love to see new sights and to seize the opportunity to experience different cultures, foods and traditions and my favourite so far has been visiting the paradise islands of the Maldives. Better still is that I can take my family and Kindle with me, lie in the warm embracing sunshine, revel in the abundant underwater coral habitats, swim in clear turquoise seas and gaze at birdlife and scenery that is truly clean and unspoilt.....pure natural beauty, peacefully cleansing to my inner self. This has to be my very favourite of many 'paradise' experiences.
Thanks for this lovely comment Joan. I agree about the bliss of getting deep into a really good book and forgetting everything else for a moment. And the joy of travel and discovery. Good luck!
DeleteParadise can be a hug with someone special but give me a sandy beach, warm sea, unlimited sunshine and a pile of books to read and I'm in heaven! Feels a bit like hell at the moment with all the unseasonably cold weather.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds particularly appealing given the current weather Anne. Just the idea of some sunshine...! Thanks very much for taking the time to comment.
DeleteMy idea of paradise is anywhere with a tropical beach, a palm tree to lay under with a cocktail and a good book, with lots of swimming. Preferably a beach read. A far flung destination such as Jamaica or Cancun. They are both on my bucket list.
ReplyDeleteSounds perfect Sam! All these comments about sunshine are making me feel at least a bit warmer whilst looking at the snow out of the window...! Thanks for commenting and good luck!
DeleteMy idea of paradise is anywhere with a tropical beach, a palm tree to lay under with a cocktail and a good book, with lots of swimming. Preferably a beach read. A far flung destination such as Jamaica or Cancun. They are both on my bucket list.
ReplyDeleteParadise means different things to different people, and can even mean a variety of things to the same person at different points in their lives. Sometimes it's a place; more often it's the people you are with. Occasionally it's solitude.
ReplyDeleteOne paradise moment for me was the peace of a Welsh hillside, where I lay sprawled in the late-summer sunshine watching small birds flitting between the reedbeds below me. There was a slight breeze, carrying the sounds of distant sheep and the smell of fresh-cut grass. As always I had a camera and notebook, but the most vivid words and pictures are memories.
Angi
Thanks for this lovely comment Angi. The moment you have described sounds perfect, the sights sounds and aroma, a great memory.
DeleteI've had moments in Paradise.... one of them was on an early morning car ferry (6 cars, tops!) from the mainland of New Brunswick, Canada, over to Deer Island. It was early morning, September, steam rising from the water, the ferry wending it's way between small uninhabited islands with sandy beaches and pine trees going down to the water. At Deer Island we got off the ferry and drove, just a little way, to a beach - parked the car and started walking. No sound except the water lapping the sand, the wind in the trees, and birdsong. No footprints on the sand except ours. So wonderful; a real paradise moment.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds absolutely perfect Susan, and the way you have described it we can almost imagine we are there. Good luck!
DeleteCan't believe I was remiss enough not to be following your blog - now remedied. Now you know I follow you on Twitter don't you?! (@Williams13Anne).
ReplyDeleteAs for paradise...I think it's personal, don't you? Mine is Goa - I work all hours God sends in a pressurised job, and that's the only place I've ever found where I can totally switch off from the moment I step off the plane. Home,and all the petty day to day nonsense, immediately disappears amid decisions on which pool to lie by, is it worth a few hours on the beach, or where do we eat tonight.
Thanks very much for following Anne. That sounds like a lovely, relaxing physical and mental escape.
DeleteParadise to me is a day walking in the High Pennines with the sun shining down and a lark singing above me - I'm easily pleased, but sadly a sunny day in this North East location is all too rare!
ReplyDeleteThat sounds lovely Jan. Hope the sunshine arrives a bit more frequently this year.
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ReplyDeleteparadise for me would be an exotic beach with my partner, no children and a lovely cocktail in my hand and total peace!
ReplyDelete@twitter id is @tamalyn1 x
Sounds very nice! Good luck!
DeleteParadise is spending time at home reading a good book or being with my boyfriend.
ReplyDeleteTwitter Id: @destinylover09
Thanks for entering the giveaway Sonya. Good luck! x
DeleteThis giveaway is now closed, thank you to everyone who has entered. Winners will be contacted and announced on the giveaways page.
ReplyDelete