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Today on the blog, you're in for a WHOLE LOT OF BOOKISH FUN! That's right! It's another super posting day filled with bookish content of all kinds, so stay for this post, and be sure to come back later for more! First up, Rachel's Random Resources with a spotlight and excerpt from a murder filled mystery thriller that's ready and waiting for you to discover. So, let's discover it together...RIGHT NOW! Ready or not, here comes today's title in the spotlight...
Style and the Solitary
by
Miriam Drori
About the book...
An unexpected murder. A suspect with a reason. The power of unwavering belief.
A murder has been committed in an office in Jerusalem. That’s for sure. The rest is not as clear-cut as it might seem.
Asaf languishes in his cell, unable to tell his story even to himself. How can he tell it to someone who elicits such fear within him?
His colleague, Nathalie, has studied Beauty and the Beast. She understands its moral. Maybe that’s why she’s the only one who believes in Asaf, the suspect. But she’s new in the company – and in the country. Would anyone take her opinion seriously?
She coerces her flatmates, Yarden and Tehila, into helping her investigate. As they uncover new trails, will they be able to reverse popular opinion?
In the end, will Beauty’s belief be strong enough to waken the Beast? Or, in this case, can Style waken the Solitary?
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~~~ EXCERPT ~~~
Nathalie, the main character, recently moved from Strasbourg to Jerusalem, and still hasn’t quite acclimatised. The extract also includes some of her impressions of Asaf, who, she is about to learn, has just been arrested for murder. (An ulpan is an intensive course in the Hebrew language, or a centre providing such courses.)
Nathalie stamped her feet as she waited for the bus on the noisy Hebron Road. She was glad she’d wrapped up warmly, decked out in coat, boots, gloves and hat. She’d never expected Jerusalem to get so cold. Wasn’t the Middle East supposed to be hot? In the office, there had even been talk of snow. Apparently, that could close the whole city down for a day, sometimes more.
Waiting with her was a group of schoolchildren, babbling away in excited tones. Kids were the hardest to follow. She was glad she hadn’t gone into teaching. She’d considered it, before discovering PCB layout design, because there didn’t seem many options with a French degree, although she wasn’t looking forward to controlling large classes of bored kids. These children at the bus stop would be hell to teach. She imagined them mocking her accent with words she didn’t even understand. No, hi-tech beat school hands down. Even the pay compared favourably.
The 71 bus arrived. Nathalie boarded, used her card, and found a seat at the back. The bus stop names flashed up on the screen and boomed out from the loudspeaker, but Nathalie no longer needed them.
She’d been lucky to be taken on by Gidel Electronics when fresh from ulpan with very flawed Hebrew. Gidel was a great place to work. The people were really friendly. They messed her around, sometimes, over her Hebrew bloopers and ignorance of Israeli culture, but they did it in a friendly way and also helped her to become acclimatised. The ulpan had been good for learning Hebrew, too, but it didn’t give her a lot of practice with Israelis. In the three months she’d been working at Gidel, she’d become much more confident at talking.
As far as the work went, the person she had to interact with the most was Asaf. He was the one who designed the boards before she could do the layout. Asaf stuck out by not sticking out. He kept to himself, and she usually saw him alone in his cubicle, bent over his desk, either staring at intricate diagrams on a screen or using tweezers to move tiny components on a board, a magnifying glass attached to his head like an earphone headset. She’d see various instruments around him, like an oscilloscope, a voltmeter and a soldering iron, and he always seemed completely immersed in what he was doing. Even on Thursday, he didn’t attend Ido’s little party to celebrate his promotion.
Nathalie remembered her shock at the large piece of cream cake that Ido dumped on her plate. She remembered using her plastic fork to cut it into two, transferring the larger piece back to the central dish. She remembered taking tiny bites to make her piece last, and chatting with the others, still marvelling at the ease at which she did so. And all the while, she wondered about Asaf’s absence. Did he mind that Ido had been promoted, or did he simply prefer to be alone? It was hard to know what went on behind his generally bland façade.
But she was working on it.
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About the author...
When Miriam Drori says she loves to perform, people don’t believe her. When she says she’s not shy, they think she’s delusional. The fact is, things ain’t what they seem. A witch called social anxiety took away her ability to be spontaneous, but it didn’t change her exhibitionist nature. You need to watch her dancing or speaking before an audience to understand that.
Fortunately, she has found an outlet for her thoughts in writing, a solitary activity with multiple recipients. She never doubted her ability to write, but only in recent years has she managed to gather her views and observations together into papier-mâché balls worth throwing far and wide.
If you ignore the witch, life has been good to Miriam, especially since she made the decision to move from the UK to Israel. She has a wonderful husband, three lovely children and a delightful house. She loves to read, travel, hike and dance. She has worked in computer programming and technical writing, and now enjoys the freedom and versatility of creative writing. And she believes passionately in raising awareness of social anxiety.
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YOUR CHANCE TO WIN...
(1) of 5 paperback copies of Cultivating a Fuji by Miriam Drori
(Open INT)
*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome. Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below. The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over. Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data. I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.
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Special thanks to Rachel at Rachel's Random Resources for the chance to bring this tour to you. (THANKS!) For more information on this title, the author, this promotion, or those on the horizon, feel free to click through the links provided above. This title is available now, so click on over to your favorite online retailer to snag your copy today and be sure to check out the rest of the tour for more bookish fun!
Until next time, remember...if it looks good, READ IT!
Thank you so much for posting this.
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