Author: Christina Baker Kline

+Blog Book Tour+ Desire Lines by Christina Baker Kline

Posted Monday, 15 September, 2014 by jorielov , , , , 6 Comments

Parajunkee Designs

Desire Lines by Christina Baker Kline

Published By: William Morrow (@WmMorrowBks),
an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers (@HarperCollins)
Official Author Websites: Site@bakerkline | Facebook
Available Formats: Paperback, Ebook

Converse via: #ChristinaBakerKline

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Acquired Book By:

I was selected to be a tour stop on the “Desire Lines” virtual book tour through TLC Book Tours. I received a complimentary copy of the book direct from the publisher William Morrow, in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

The reason I wanted to be on the tour : as revealed on my review of Sweet Water

There are moments in our lives where our paths cross with a novel that we have a near-sixth sense about how we will enjoy reading it. This is exactly what happened to me whilst I won a copy of Orphan Train from a contest from Shelf Awareness and received the novel from the author herself. The bits and pieces of my life from that moment in April 2013 to a full score year later were one of the most consuming experiences thus far along on my lifepath. I always had the intention of reading Orphan Train close to when I had received it. Yet. Life ebbed away and took my focus off the novel that I felt I was meant to read. It was one of those books I knew I would acquire even if I had not been able to receive one from the author. I never had the proper chance to follow-up with Ms. Kline; nor explain my absence but to attempt to explain why I had not yet read the story that captured my attention front line and center.

When I learnt of two novels by Kline going on tour with TLC, I knew I had found my way of redeeming myself and of a way back to Orphan Train! Part of the reason I had ended up holding off reading the novel is because I knew it was going to be an emotional read for me as I’m a Prospective Adoptive Mum. The fate of orphans is very near and dear to my maternal heart, and the plight of those children who were sent out on orphan trains always tugs at the core of my soul.

I had felt a connection to not only the story within the sleeper bestseller but I had felt one with the writer who penned the story, which is why I had written her a heartfelt personal note at the time. This entire year I’ve been a book blogger I have learnt how to yield to stress and how to read stories which are emotionally gutting yet intellectually satisfying whilst going through incredible circumstances that otherwise might only lend themselves to beach reads and uplifting romances. I found that I have the ability to write with a clarity that I had not had in previous years whilst juggling through intense personal stress and I found that the best grace in the world as a writer and reader is the direct focus of stories and the writers who create them.

Christina Baker Kline is one writer who crossed my path at a time I could not devout my heart to read her stories, nor approach them with a mindfulness they deserved. It is only one full year later, but this is my way of not only thanking her for the work she has put forward and into the hands of all of us, but a small gesture of acknowledgement from a reader who was captivated by her sincerity, creativity, and immersive research she conducts to breathe life into her characters and stories. I am the blessed one this year, as this is my second chance at discovering what is inside Kline’s body of work.

Note: There are a total of four novels by Christina Baker Kline on tour with TLC Book Tours, however, Orphan Train is not amongst them. I am going to read Orphan Train in September for my own edification and pleasure. I want to take my time to absorb into it and soak through the emotions I know I shall greet when I open the pages of a story I have not stopped thinking about since it arrived.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

+Blog Book Tour+ Desire Lines by Christina Baker KlineDesire Lines
by Christina Baker Kline
Source: Publisher via TLC Book Tours

Genres: Literary Fiction



Places to find the book:

Also by this author: Sweet Water

Published by William Morrow

on 12th August, 2014

Format: Paperback

Pages: 384

Book Synopsis:

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train comes a novel about buried secrets and the redemptive power of forgiveness

On the night of her high school graduation, Kathryn Campbell sits around a bonfire with her four closest friends, including the beautiful but erratic Jennifer. “I’ll be fine,” Jennifer says, as she walks away from the dying embers and towards the darkness of the woods. She never comes back.

Ten years later, Kathryn has tried to build a life for herself, with a marriage and a career as a journalist, but she still feels the conspicuous void of Jennifer’s disappearance. When her divorce sends her reeling back to the Maine town where she grew up, she finds herself plunged into a sea of memories. With nothing left to lose, she is determined to answer one simple question: What happened to Jennifer Pelletier?

 

Author Biography:Christina Baker Kline

Christina Baker Kline was born in England and raised in Maine. The author of five novels, including the runaway bestseller Orphan Train, Kline has taught literature and creative writing at Yale, New York University, and Fordham. She lives outside of New York City.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Small Towne Maine:

The undertone of the novel is a unique one, as it is not necessarily underlit with a positiveness about small towne Maine life nor is it especially neutral or negative; Kline has a way of fusing her character’s (Kathryn) emotional state into the underbelly of the narrative itself, giving a unique perspective to the locale. Small townes are always notorious for having the ability to find caring neighbours and close-knitted communities where strangers are infrequent and the care of being in the know about each person’s life is simply a matter of towne pride and goodwill. There is an unsettling harbouring though of the unknown and the unresolved of what can haunt a towne like Bangor on the aftermath of a disappeared teen. The ripples of how one girl can dearly affect a towne and how the people she left behind were stumbling to find any sense of how to proceed forward after she was gone.

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Divider

Posted Monday, 15 September, 2014 by jorielov in Adulterous Affair, Blog Tour Host, Book | Novel Extract, Bookish Discussions, Brothers and Sisters, Death, Sorrow, and Loss, Disillusionment in Marriage, Divorce & Martial Strife, Drugs & Alcohol, Family Drama, Family Life, Flashbacks & Recollective Memories, Grief & Anguish of Guilt, Kidnapping or Unexplained Disappearances, LGBTTQPlus Fiction | Non-Fiction, Life Shift, Literary Fiction, Mother-Daughter Relationships, Psychological Suspense, Scribd, Small Towne USA, TLC Book Tours, Vulgarity in Literature

+Blog Book Tour+ Sweet Water by Christina Baker Kline

Posted Tuesday, 5 August, 2014 by jorielov , , , , 7 Comments

Parajunkee Designs

Sweet Water by Christina Baker Kline

Sweet Water

Published By: William Morrow (@WmMorrowBks),
7 July 2014 (reprint – paperback edition)
an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers (@HarperCollins)
Official Author Websites: Site@bakerkline | Facebook
Available Formats: Paperback, Ebook Page Count: 320

Converse via: #ChristinaBakerKline

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Acquired Book By:

I was selected to be a tour stop on the “Sweet Water” virtual book tour through TLC Book Tours. I received a complimentary copy of the book direct from the publisher William Morrow, in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

The reason I wanted to be on the tour:

There are moments in our lives where our paths cross with a novel that we have a near-sixth sense about how we will enjoy reading it. This is exactly what happened to me whilst I won a copy of Orphan Train from a contest from Shelf Awareness and received the novel from the author herself. The bits and pieces of my life from that moment in April 2013 to a full score year later were one of the most consuming experiences thus far along on my lifepath. I always had the intention of reading Orphan Train close to when I had received it. Yet. Life ebbed away and took my focus off the novel that I felt I was meant to read. It was one of those books I knew I would acquire even if I had not been able to receive one from the author. I never had the proper chance to follow-up with Ms. Kline; nor explain my absence but to attempt to explain why I had not yet read the story that captured my attention front line and center.

When I learnt of two novels by Kline going on tour with TLC, I knew I had found my way of redeeming myself and of a way back to Orphan Train! Part of the reason I had ended up holding off reading the novel is because I knew it was going to be an emotional read for me as I’m a Prospective Adoptive Mum. The fate of orphans is very near and dear to my maternal heart, and the plight of those children who were sent out on orphan trains always tugs at the core of my soul.

I had felt a connection to not only the story within the sleeper bestseller but I had felt one with the writer who penned the story, which is why I had written her a heartfelt personal note at the time. This entire year I’ve been a book blogger I have learnt how to yield to stress and how to read stories which are emotionally gutting yet intellectually satisfying whilst going through incredible circumstances that otherwise might only lend themselves to beach reads and uplifting romances. I found that I have the ability to write with a clarity that I had not had in previous years whilst juggling through intense personal stress and I found that the best grace in the world as a writer and reader is the direct focus of stories and the writers who create them.

Christina Baker Kline is one writer who crossed my path at a time I could not devout my heart to read her stories, nor approach them with a mindfulness they deserved. It is only one full year later, but this is my way of not only thanking her for the work she has put forward and into the hands of all of us, but a small gesture of acknowledgement from a reader who was captivated by her sincerity, creativity, and immersive research she conducts to breathe life into her characters and stories. I am the blessed one this year, as this is my second chance at discovering what is inside Kline’s body of work.

Note: There are a total of four novels by Christina Baker Kline on tour with TLC Book Tours, however, Orphan Train is not amongst them. I am going to read Orphan Train in September for my own edification and pleasure. I want to take my time to absorb into it and soak through the emotions I know I shall greet when I open the pages of a story I have not stopped thinking about since it arrived.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Book Synopsis:

Christina Baker KlineFrom the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train comes a novel about buried secrets and the redemptive power of forgiveness

Cassie Simon is a struggling artist living in New York City. When she receives a call from a magistrate telling her she has inherited sixty acres of land in Sweetwater, Tennessee, from her grandfather, whom she never knew, she takes it as a sign: it’s time for a change. She moves to the small Southern town where her mother, Ellen, grew up—and where she died tragically when Cassie was three.

From the moment she arrives in Sweetwater, Cassie is overwhelmed by the indelible mark her mother’s memory left behind. As she delves into the thicket of mystery that surrounds her mother’s death, Cassie begins to discover the desperate measures of which the human heart is capable.

Author Biography:

Christina Baker Kline was born in England and raised in Maine. The author of five novels, including the runaway bestseller Orphan Train, Kline has taught literature and creative writing at Yale, New York University, and Fordham. She lives outside of New York City.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

A novel which shifts both forward & backward through time:

Quite cleverly ahead of each new chapter featuring Cassie’s current life and affairs, there is a flashback sequence to a darker moment in the past; of a time where a woman lived inside of a marriage that was not quite as loving and centered in joy as Cassie’s own life was lived. A woman whose voice is not entirely quiet nor passive, but illuminating a darker truth about herself, her situation, and where her path led her. Her life spills out in small passages of emotional angst and an intuitive glimmer of introspection. This ‘other woman’ who is living a radically different existence to Cassie is connected to Cassie’s world and time-line, even if we are not entirely certain how this could be, as we first begin to delve between the chapters and the context.

Further in, we realise that we are reading a sequence of memories being shared with us by Cassie’s grandmother, Constance (later known as Clyde) who raised her mother Ellen. Ellen was one of three children Constance had with her husband Amory, and it is within their story that part of Cassie’s past I felt would intervene on her future; as families tend to have threads of time stretching between generations, as much as they have secrets that have a tendency of bubbling back to the surface. Constance has her own way of speaking and expressing her grief whilst dealing with her in-affectionate husband and the oddities of having to deal with life when you felt you were living within a love centered romance.

Read More

Divider

Posted Tuesday, 5 August, 2014 by jorielov in A Father's Heart, Adoption, Adulterous Affair, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, Book | Novel Extract, Bookish Discussions, Brothers and Sisters, Death of a Sibling, Death, Sorrow, and Loss, Debut Novel, Disillusionment in Marriage, Domestic Violence, Family Drama, Family Life, Father-Daughter Relationships, Flashbacks & Recollective Memories, Grief & Anguish of Guilt, LGBTTQPlus Fiction | Non-Fiction, Life Shift, Literary Fiction, Mother-Daughter Relationships, New York City, Pottery, Psychological Suspense, Scribd, Sculpture, Single Fathers, Small Towne USA, Taboo Relationships & Romance, Throwing Pots, TLC Book Tours, Unexpected Inheritance, Vulgarity in Literature, Widows & Widowers, Working with Clay