As part of the quarterly Bloggy Giveaways Carnival, we at The Friendly Book Nook are giving away a fantastic book!

Wiser Than Serpents by Susan May Warren is a romantic suspense book about people working to rescue those caught in International Sex Slave Trade.

Here’s a brief description: Her sister had vanished, trapped in a human slavery ring. To find her, FSB agent Yanna Andrevka arranged her own kidnapping into Taiwan’s sex-trafficking trade. And found herself with no way out.
Until Yanna discovered an ally deep undercover: Delta Force captain David Curtiss. He was after the kingpin of the Twin Serpents, the organized crime syndicate that had Yanna—and hundreds of others— in their clutches.
With opposite agendas, David and Yanna had to rely on each other to outwit their cold-blooded enemy.

To enter, simply leave a comment with a valid email address.

To triple your chances of winning, visit the International Justice Mission’s website and come back here and tell us something you learned.

Remember, for every comment you leave between now and the end of August you will receive an entry into the pot for a 15 dollar Amazon gift card! We hope you stick around and join in our love for books!

Product Description
Beamer, age 13, who speaks only Californian, is an alien in the world of Middle America, exiled to a bizarre, ancient house on a mysterious street that may or may not exist on any map. With the help of a nerdy African-American kid named Ghoulie, a gangly tomboy named Scilla, and a miraculous, broken-down tree house shaped like a spaceship, he battles the indigenous life forms in his new home, from bullying creatures to the strange inhabitants of dark castles, subterranean caverns, and a spider web the size of a house, to discover how God gives a distinctive purpose to each uniquely designed human being.

From the Back Cover
Know Your Star-Fighters
Beamer: California transplant to a weird Midwestern town. Feels like he’s living on another planet. Scilla: the gangly tomboy next door. Ghoulie: the class nerd.
Add one spaceship-shaped tree house capable of taking them most anywhere in the universe. Hop in and blast off for fantastic outer space adventures in Star-Fighters of Murphy Street-the quirky, funny, fast-paced new trilogy by Robert West.

Newly arrived from California, thirteen-year-old Beamer MacIntyre feels like an alien in this bizarre Midwestern town. Strangest of all is the spaceship-shaped tree house in his yard. Surprises await Beamer and his two new friends, Ghoulie and Scilla, when they climb inside and blast off to a universe full of adventure-including a surefire way to make the school bully stop harassing Ghoulie (provided it doesn’t backfire!).

Sally’s Review: This book seems perfect for boys and girls in grades 3-5. I found it interesting because the family moved from California to the midwest and five years ago I moved from the midwest to California! The book is full of adventure and imagination! There are three books in the series (The Star-Fighters of Murphy Street). The book deals with making friends in a new place and getting along with different types of people. A good imagination can make things bearable in difficult and new circumstances.

Published by: Zondervan

From the back cover: I seem to be gathering quite a collection of murder victims: first my husband, then my contractor. And now my ex-husband’s fiancée has turned up dead. But I, Gracie Lee Harris, am on the job - much to the dismay of my boyfriend, homicide detective Ray Fernandez. I’ve enlisted the ladies of the Christian Friends to help me figure out who killed my ex’s sweetie not long before their wedding. My ex is the prime suspect, but his fiancée kept secrets that might have been deadly. I just pray that her secrets don’t get me killed!

No Love Lost by Lynn Bulock was one of my beach reads and it fit the bill perfectly! It is described on the front cover as a cozy mystery. I’m not sure how a book earns that title, especially when the plot of the book involves a dead person! But it was a fun book to read and as far as mysteries go, not too graphic or morbid.

Overall I enjoyed the book. The characters are likeable, the plot kept me hooked, and there was a touch of humor that I appreciated. I had not read one of Lynn Bulock’s books previously, but apparently she has written a few other Gracie Lee mysteries that would be fun to check out.

This book was published by Steeple Hill Books in 2007.

The Rabbit and the Snowman is a very sweet book about friendship and how friendship changes over time. Friends come and friends go - many times nobody is to blame for this.

Sally O. Lee is both the author and illustrator of this book. The illustrations are simple watercolor, ink and pen and add to the overall feel of the story.

This book is about a group of children who build a snowman in the woods and then leave and go back to their homes. The snowman becomes lonely and makes friends with a rabbit. They spend time together and discuss all the things important to them during the winter months. When it becomes warm, the snowman disappears and the rabbit becomes lonely and wonders why the snowman left. He wonders what he did wrong. Then the rabbit becomes busy and life happens. When winter comes again the rabbit goes into the woods and guess what he finds?

I can’t wait to read this to my class. The story can bring up good discussions about the changing weather, friendships, self-esteem, and how our lives change over time. A very sweet and thoughtful book.

The winner of Live a Little by Kim Green is Cindi (no blog)!

The winner of Questory of Root Karbunkulus is Shannon!

Please send me your addresses and I’ll be sure these get to you!

Thanks for your participation everyone!

Next week we are starting a brand new feature on Saturdays called Saturdays in the Nook. We have a really impressive line-up of authors and book bloggers who will be sharing some of the early reading memories with you. It’s Saturday morning books instead of cartoons!

We love reading and want The Friendly Book Nook to be a big celebration of books! There are just a few spots open for the rest of this year so if you are an author who would enjoy sharing an early memory of reading with us, please email Amy at thefriendlybooknook AT gmail DOT com

Tomorrow we’ll announce the winners of Live a Little and the Questory of Root Karbunkulus!

About the Book: Sometimes you have to leave your life to find yourself again…

A lonely corporate wife who runs away from home. An elderly woman facing a devastating loss. A top executive adrift in the world after he’s fired. Set on beautiful Pawleys Island, South Carolina, here is a novel about second chances occurring at the most inopportune times in life. In three parallel journeys Joanna, Paul and Grace walk away from lives they thought they wanted, only to rediscover a part of themselves they’d all but forgotten.

My Review: I generally love novels about self discovery and I really enjoyed The Richest Season. It was at times heart wrenching, frustrating, and hopeful. The pages slipped quickly through my fingers as I eagerly turned each page to discover what each character was going to do next. It is in many ways a quiet book, one to curl up with and enjoy. The characters feel very real and at times make surprising and disappointing choices. But they are each on a journey to uncovering their hearts and selves.

The dynamics of the relationships are also very interesting and at times unexpected. I loved reading about Joanna and Grace’s evolving friendship and the healing that they eventually brought each other. It was simple and direct, yet touchingly portrayed. I enjoyed learning to like Paul throughout the course of the book, just as Paul also learned to like his true self. There were a few stories I wouldn’t have minded receiving more background or development in, but they weren’t the focus of the book, so it wasn’t entirely necessary.

If you are looking for quick and enjoyable read then I recommend The Richest Season.
You can visit Maryann McFadden’s website. You can also read a sample chapter there.

The Richest Season was published by Hyperion in June of 2008.

Today’s review is brought to you by Leah’s seven year old daughter Emily! I hope you will give her a warm welcome as she shares our love of books!

What I like: I like how Despereaux is brave enough to go in to the dungeon to save the princess Pea. What I don’t like: I don’t like how Despereaux gets his tale cut off. This story is about a little mouse and his giant bravery. It is also about Miggery Sow who wants to be a princess.

Mr. Duey’s Class Dis-Missed CD (or download on Amazon.com) contains 17 rap type songs on different aspects of education. Mr. Duey created this CD while teaching sixth grade and observing where his students were struggling. Included on the CD are five Math songs (integers, GCF/LCM, Point plotting, fractions and measurement); four Language Arts songs (nouns, verbs, essays, and adjectives); four science songs (state of matter, rocks, cells, and atoms) and four social studies songs (lattitude/longitude, core democratic values, branches of government, and things changed).

This CD is excellent for grades 5-8, however, I will be using six songs with my second graders: nouns, verbs, adjectives, measurement, things changed (speaks of Martin Luther King, Jr.) and core democratic values because I think my students would understand these and they go with our standards. The songs have a great beat, and I’m pretty sure my students will love them. Words are included, so they can be easily taught to students. Students remember words to songs they like and enjoy singing. I think they will especially enjoy rap. Thank you Mr. Duey for providing another way to reach students with valuable information that they need to know!

For more information on this CD, visit www.MrDuey.com.

About the Book: As a child in 1920s West Texas, Annarose sees life and intelligence in everything, but after she is exiled to Los Angeles at 13, she loses her connection to spirit, and finds herself searching for what she has lost through intellectual pursuits.

As she matures, her philosophical studies and supportive friendship with a gifted musician lead to an awakening and she travels to Mexico to become a writer. Her relationships with Artist Frida Kahlo and Crisanto, the man who becomes her lover, connect her to the beautiful, wild, free, and happy. She embraces all that they and their country represent and thus begins her transformation to writer-but before her transformation is complete, Annarose must return to the life she left as a child.

Haunting and evocative, this sweeping literary fiction will stay with readers long after the last page.

My Review: I was interested in reading this book because I knew little about this time period in Texas and California, let alone Mexico. I grew up in the mid-west but currently live in Southern California and have greater interest in that sort of history now. So I found that part of this book to be very interesting as well as the racism and struggles the Mexican immigrants faced. Additionally, the true to life character of Frida, which you may know from the Selma Heyack film, plays a role in this book. Strangely enough, having seen that film enabled me to have some prior context in my brain to imagine that part of this story.

The prose is very pretty in this book, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I also enjoyed Annarose’s journey, as she grew. I think I could identify with some of her feelings at various stages in her life as she sought to come to terms with her own identity. The characters are all very vivid and well drawn.My favorite part was when Annarose was in Mexico and this seems to be the central most important part of the book as well. This is a novel about finding oneself or finding wholeness and is also labeled as new age fiction. I do think that while I may not agree completely with the author’s philosophy, there is much inspiration to be found in this book.
You can learn more about Candis C. Coffee at her website. You can also check Mariposa out on Amazon.