Book Tour and Spotlight: Dancing With Gravity by Anene Tressler


Title: Dancing With Gravity
Author: Anene Tressler
Publisher: Blank Slate Press
Publication Date: March 8, 2011
Hardcover: 298 pages
ISBN: 978-0982880647
Genre: Fiction

From the Tour Site:

Father Whiting is asleep in his own life. As a St. Louis priest and the head of Pastoral Care at a local teaching hospital, he’s already on edge wondering if he’s up to the job and wondering how far his predecessor’s–and now his–secretary will go to sabotage him. He is fatigued by his mother’s increasingly erratic behavior, fears he is incapable of ministering to an old friend and fellow priest stricken with cancer, and secretly longs to share everything about his confused, mixed-up life with the very attractive Sarah James, the hospital’s head of public relations. When he overhears a heated argument between the Chairman of the Board and the Abbess who runs the hospital, he fears his job will soon be history. Instead, he finds himself tapped to minister to a small Central American circus bequeathed to an order of aging nuns in St. Louis. Through his deepening relationship with Nikolai, the enigmatic trapeze artist, Whiting wakes to his loneliness, realizes he has been living a half-life, and finally finds the courage to be the man he was meant to be.

In Dancing with Gravity, Anene Tressler, an Emmy Award-winning writer, paints an unforgettable portrait of the grand and petty motivations of the human heart. Her poignant exploration of lost, unrecognized and courageous love will prompt you to consider your own journey toward purpose and fulfillment.

My Review:

I do not have one, as this was not the book for me. However I have noticed Dancing With Gravity has received some wonderful reviews so do check them out.

About the Author:

Anene is an award-winning fiction and poetry writer whose work has appeared in Best of Writers at Work anthology, The Distillery, Treasure House, Currents, River Blossoms Lit Mag and Word Wright’s. While at UMSL, she won the English Department’s annual prizes for fiction and for poetry and she has studied with Richard Bausch at Johns Hopkins, Nicholas Delbanco at Breadloaf, Claire Messud at Sewanee, Lorrie Moore at Vermont Studio Center, and Robert Olmstead at Rappahannnock. She also attended two workshops at the University of Iowa’s summer program and spent a month at Wellspring House in Massachusetts. Most recently, she has taken two semester-long poetry classes with David Clewell, poet laureate of Missouri. She holds undergraduate degrees in Communications and Nursing from Saint Louis University, Masters Degrees from Washington University and the University of Missouri, St. Louis, and she teaches scriptwriting and media writing as an adjunct professor in the School of Communications at Webster University. After making a change in focus from fiction and poetry to running a successful company specializing in corporate communications, print and film/video production and meetings, she is back hard at work in the world of literature.

For more reviews of the book, please follow the book tour.

I received an ARC copy of Dancing With Gravity by Anene Tressler from TLC Book Tours to be a part of this tour and offer my honest review of the book. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned book.


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Book Review: Field Gray by Philip Kerr


Title: Field Gray
Author: Philip Kerr
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Publication Date: April 14, 2011
Hardcover: 448 pages
ISBN: 9978-0399157417
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Thriller

From the Publisher:

Striding across Europe through the killing fields of three decades-from riot-torn Berlin in 1931 to Adenauer’s Germany in 1954, awash in duplicitous “allies” busily undermining one another-Field Gray reveals a world based on expediency, where the ends justify the means and no one can be trusted. It brings us a hero who is sardonic, tough- talking, and cynical, but who does have a rough sense of humor and a rougher sense of right and wrong. He’s Bernie Gunther. He drinks too much and smokes excessively and is somewhat overweight (but a Russian prisoner-of-war camp will take care of those bad habits). He’s Bernie Gunther-a brave man, because when there is nothing left to lose, honor rules.

My Review:

Field Gray by Philip Kerr is the seventh book in Kerr’s Bernie Gunther thriller series and the first that I have read. Based on how much I enjoyed reading Field Gray, it is evident I shall be reading the previous six books to catch up. Kerr’s protagonist, Bernie Gunther, is deep, dark, mysterious and slightly disturbed, just how I prefer my protagonists in mysteries. While I thoroughly enjoyed Field Gray, it was quite evident I had missed several books as much of Gunther’s past is alluded to in the seventh installment. Kerr has not only created an extremely complex character that the reader is certain to enjoy, but also has created an elaborate backdrop to WWII Germany and its aftermath, and to the Russian gulag system and the innate instinct to survive. Kerr sets up the atmosphere so well the reader will not struggle to feel as though they are there, sixty years ago, along side Gunther as he does what he must, as repulsive as he many find it, to survive the Nazi Regime, the Communists and the French. Kerr will take the reader through several decades, each intricately woven, highly detailed, and action packed. Field Gray is a fast paced thriller that keeps the reader fully engaged from the first word until the very end. Until the release of Kerr’s next book, I shall be reading backwards to get fully caught up in Bernie Gunther’s life. I highly recommend Field Gray to all readers who enjoy historical fiction, blended into a suspenseful thriller.

About the Author:

Philip Kerr is the author of many novels, but perhaps most important are the five featuring Bernie Gunther—A Quiet Flame, The One from the Other, and the Berlin Noir trilogy (March Violets, The Pale Criminal, and A German Requiem). He lives in London and Cornwall, England, with his family.

I received a complimentary ARC of Field Gray by Philip Kerr from Putnam to offer my honest review of the book. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of aforementioned book.


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