Book Spotlight: Gonzo Girl by Cheryl Della Pietra

HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY to Cheryl Della Pietra and her debut book Gonzo Girl! Gonzo Girl, a story that is mixed with both fact and fiction, is sure to grab readers attention. It is a fast paced adventurous story that takes the reader on one ride after the next. Take a look at more info about the book and the author below. Happy reading! :)

Publication: July 28, 2015

Publisher: Touchstone

Long after the last drink is poured and the final gunshot fired, Cheryl Della Pietra's novel inspired by her time as Hunter S. Thompson's assistant will linger in your mind. Alley Russo is a recent college grad desperately trying to make it in the grueling world of New York publishing, but like so many who have come before her, she has no connections and has settled for an unpaid magazine internship while slinging drinks on Bleecker Street just to make ends meet. That's when she hears the infamous Walker Reade is looking for an assistant to replace the eight others who have recently quit. Hungry for a chance to get her manuscript onto the desk of an experienced editor, Alley jumps at the opportunity to help Reade finish his latest novel. After surviving an absurd three-day trial period involving a .44 magnum, purple-pyramid acid, violent verbal outbursts, brushes with fame and the law, a bevy of peacocks, and a whole lot of cocaine, Alley is invited to stay at the compound where Reade works. For months Alley attempts to coax the novel out of Walker page-by-page, all while battling his endless procrastination, vampiric schedule, Herculean substance abuse, mounting debt, and casual gunplay. But as the job begins to take a toll on her psyche, Alley realizes she's alone in the Colorado Rockies at the mercy of a drug-addicted literary icon who may never produce another novel and her fate may already be sealed. A smart, rollicking ride told with heart, Gonzo Girl is a loving fictional portrait of a larger-than-life literary icon. This debut novel is raucous, page-turning, head-spinning, and side-splitting as it depicts a boss and mentor who is both devil and angel, and a young heroine who finds herself tested in the chaos that surrounds him. An intense story, Della Pietra's tale about writing, firearms, psychotropics, and the pros and cons of hot tubs will suck you in and take you on ride. "Gonzo Girl is a ticket you want to buy."-Piper Kerman, author of Orange Is the New Black

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About the Author

Photo credit: Helen Barnard.

Cheryl Della Pietra is a longtime New York City magazine editor, writer, and copy editor. She has published numerous stories in such magazines as Marie Claire, Redbook, and POV Magazine. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, she lived with Hunter S. Thompson in Woody Creek, Colorado, for several months in 1992. She currently lives in Branford, Connecticut, with her husband and son.

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The Turnip Princess by Franz Xaver Von Schönwerth

Publication: February 24, 2015

Publisher: Penguin Classics

Source: Publisher

A rare discovery in the world of fairy tales - now for the first time in English. With this volume, the holy trinity of fairy tales - the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, and Hans Christian Andersen - becomes a quartet. In the 1850s, Franz Xaver von Schönwerth traversed the forests, lowlands, and mountains of northern Bavaria to record fairy tales, gaining the admiration of even the Brothers Grimm. Most of Schönwerth's work was lost - until a few years ago, when thirty boxes of manu­scripts were uncovered in a German municipal archive. Now, for the first time, Schönwerth's lost fairy tales are available in English. Violent, dark, and full of action, and upending the relationship between damsels in distress and their dragon-slaying heroes, these more than seventy stories bring us closer than ever to the unadorned oral tradition in which fairy tales are rooted, revolutionizing our understanding of a hallowed genre. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

I have to admit, that I have pretty much always enjoyed a good fairy tale or two. And when I had the opportunity to read The Turnip Princess I was intrigued.

Franz Von Schonwerth stories are local stories...passed down or given to him orally. There is no ‘Once upon a time’ in this book. The stories are unique, dark, and entertaining. Morals in them could be debatable, but there are definitely surprises and twists that pop up in the various plots. The book is broken into five parts or categories; ranging from magic and romance, to otherworldly creatures, legends, and everything in between. No matter what you poison(preference) is, there is pretty much something for everyone.

One of the things I liked was in some of the stories I read, the women were not weak and helpless damsels in distress. They could be strong and fierce. Not something I would see much of in other fairy tales.

These are German stories originally and then translated, so the language/way it was written was a little different than I had anticipated, but overall The Turnip Princess was a very interesting read. There wasn’t much censorship in the stories I read, so if you are looking for light fairy tales without roughness and gore then this is not for you. But if you like fairy tales with a bit of an edge to them, then you would want to check this out.

RATING: 3 out of 5.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

FRANZ XAVER VON SCHÖNWERTH (1810-1886) was born in Amberg, Bavaria. He had a successful career in law and the Bavarian royal court, rising to the post of personal secretary to the Crown Prince Maximilian. In the 1850s he began to explore the culture of the Upper Palatinate region of Bavaria, recording his observations and the stories of the people he interviewed. Eventually he devoted himself full-time to his research and, between 1857 and 1859, published From the Upper Palatinate: Customs and Legends, cataloging the customs and folktales of his homeland in unprecedented detail. This work contained only a fraction of his total research, the rest of which was eventually discovered in an archive, forming an important addition to the canon of classic fairy tales.

ABOUT THE EDITORS:

ERIKA EICHENSEER discovered 500 previously unknown fairy tales of Franz Xaver von Schönwerth in the municipal archive of Regensburg, Bavaria, in 2009. In 2010 she published a selection entitled Prinz Rosszwifl [Prince Dung Beetle]. She began her career as a teacher, then worked in the theater for the cultural department of the regional government of East Bavaria. An expert on fairy tales and on puppet theater, she has written numerous books on folk art and customs and has appeared on television, produced radio programs, and performed all over Bavaria as a storyteller. She is co-founder and director of the Schönwerth Society and initiator of the Schönwerth Fairytale Path in Sinzing, near Regensburg, and she wrote the libretto for a musical based on Schönwerth’s “The Flying Chest.” She has been awarded many honors for her services to Bavarian culture.

MARIA TATAR chairs the program in folklore and mythology at Harvard. She is the author of many acclaimed books on folklore and fairytales, as well as the editor and translator of The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen,The Annotated Brothers Grimm, The Classic Fairy Tales: A Norton Critical Edition, and The Grimm Reader. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR:

ENGELBERT SÜSS is a sculptor, glass-artist, and illustrator who was born in 1949 in eastern Bavaria. He created the bronze statue “King of Dwarfs” for the Schönwerth Fairytale Path in Sinzing, Bavaria.

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Hunted (The Profiler #1) by Elizabeth Heiter

Publication: January 1, 2014

Publisher: Harlequin MIRA

Terror stalks a small Virginia town. FBI rising star, criminal profiler Evelyn Baine, knows how to think like a serial killer. But she's never chased anyone like the Bakersville Burier, who hunts young women and displays them, half-buried, deep in the woods. As the body count climbs, Evelyn's relentless pursuit of the killer puts her career - and her life - at risk. And the evil lurking in the Burier's mind may be more than even she can unravel. Terror is closer than she thinks. The Bakersville Burier knows he's got an FBI profiler on his trail. He knows who she is and where to find her. And he's biding his time, because he's planned a special punishment for Evelyn. She may have tracked other killers, but he vows to make this her last chase. This time it's her turn to be hunted!

“Bakersville was never going to be the same. She'd been to other small towns where the residents all thought serial killers looked like monsters, that no member of their community could hide such dark desires. Once upon a time, she'd lived in one.

And the monster there had ripped her life apart.”

Evelyn Baine is a tough and skilled profiler. But past trauma from her childhood has affected her, so she has a tendency to throw herself completely into her work.

When the bodies of two females are found brutally murdered, Evelyn steps in to assist the local Bakersville Police with their investigation. Even though she is good at what she does, she definitely doesn’t get the respect and acknowledgment that she deserves.

Once more bodies start popping up, the FBI come into town to try and catch him.

This killer is not an amateur. He is smart, skilled, and determined to catch his next prey, which just so happens to become Evelyn.

Hunted, the first book by author Elizabeth Heiter was a decent beginning to a series.

I love a good thriller story, especially when one involves a serial killer. Some parts seemed to drag a bit, but I did find it to be an enjoyable and interesting story. I have become more and more fond of police procedurals type stories, so this was a plus for me. There were also a couple of moments when I got to see inside the head of the killer, which is something that I’ve always liked and found fascinating.  

Fan of FBI/Police Procedurals? Like Mystery and Suspense? Then you might be interested in taking a look at Hunted. Book two in this series, Vanished is expected to release on December 30, 2014.

RATING: 3 – 3½ out of 5.

**I received this book on behalf of the publisher in exchange for nothing but my honest opinion. Thank you.**

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