ReadingGrrls Paper Safari

Two life-changing words Several people who have read my book, “Memories of a Mad Man,” have given me what I consider a supreme compliment—they said that while they were reading it they felt like I was sitting in the room talking to them.That comment/compliment had its genesis over forty years ago when I was a junior copywriter in a Madison Avenue ad agency. To break into advertising any way I could I had taken a job in the mailroom, my bachelor’s and master’s degrees be damned.(Neither of them had anything to do with advertising.)The agency’s creative director was on my mail delivery route and one day I got very brave.Along with his ordinary mail, I dropped in his inbox a piece I had written for the night school copywriting course I had just taken. When he called me up to his office I was terrified. But he surprised me by saying he thought I might just have the makings of a copywriter.And a few days later I was sitting in an office overlooking Madison Avenue as a brand...

Title:   Black-Eyed Susans: A Novel of Suspense by Julia Heaberlin Publisher: Ballantine Books Format: Advanced e-copy from the publisher through  netgalley.com  in exchange for an honest review Pages: 368 pages Genre: Thriller This title is due to be released August 11, 2015  Synopsis:   A girl's memory lost in a field of wildflowers. A killer still spreading seeds. At seventeen, Tessa became famous for being the only surviving victim of a vicious serial killer. Her testimony put him on death row. Decades later, a mother herself, she receives a message from a monster who should be in prison. Now, as the execution date rapidly approaches, Tessa is forced to confront a chilling possibility:  Did she help convict the wrong man? (55)Review: This is a tough book to review without giving too much away.  I loved it, disturbing with a good flow.  Each chapter goes either back in time to when Tessa was first found and current time while ...

Title: A   Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill 291 pages Summary: Set in 1907 Wisconsin, Goolrick's fiction debut gets off to a slow, stylized start, but eventually generates some real suspense. When Catherine Land, who's survived a traumatic early life by using her wits and sexuality as weapons, happens on a newspaper ad from a well-to-do businessman in need of a "reliable wife," she invents a plan to benefit from his riches and his need. Her new husband, Ralph Truitt, discovers she's deceived him the moment she arrives in his remote hometown. Driven by a complex mix of emotions and simple animal attraction, he marries her anyway. After the wedding, Catherine helps Ralph search for his estranged son and, despite growing misgivings, begins to poison him with small doses of arsenic. Ralph sickens but doesn't die, and their story unfolds in ways neither they nor the reader expect. Review: I found the beginning unnec...