Win Exit: The Endings That Set Us Free by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

From a renowned sociologist, the wisdom of saying goodbye

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot is enthralled by exits: long farewells, quick goodbyes, sudden endings, the ordinary and the extraordinary. There’s a relationship, she attests, between small goodbyes and our ability “to master and mark the larger farewells.”

In Exit, her tenth book, she explores the ways we leave one thing and move on to the next; how we anticipate, define, and reflect on our departures; our epiphanies that something is over and done with. The result is an enthusiastic, uplifting lesson about ourselves and the role of transition in our lives.

Lawrence-Lightfoot, a sociologist and a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has interviewed more than a dozen women and men in states of major change, and she paints their portraits with sympathy and insight: a gay man who finds home and wholeness after coming out; a sixteen-year-old boy forced to leave Iran in the midst of the violent civil war; a Catholic priest who leaves the church he has always been devoted to, he life he has loved, and the work that has been deeply fulfilling; an anthropologist who carefully stages her departure from he “field” after four years of research; and many more.

Too often, Lawrence-Lightfoot believes, we exalt new beginnings t the expense of learning from our goodbyes. Exit finds isdom and perspective in the possibility of moving on and marks the start of a new conversation, to help us discover how we might make our exits with purpose and dignity.

To win a copy of Exit: The Endings That Set Us Free by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, send an email to contest@gmail.com, with "EXIT" as the subject. Make sure to include your name  and mailing address in the US only. This contest is open to all adults over 18 years of age. One entry per email address, please. Your email address will not be shared or sold to anyone. All entries, including names, email addresses and mailing addresses, will be purged after winner is notified. This contest ends June 18, 2012. Good luck!

Win WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND by Rochelle Weinstein

For any woman who has loved and lost and wondered what could have been....What We Leave Behind by Rochelle B. Weinstein chronicles the life and emotional growth of Jessica Parker as she frees herself from the past and moves forward with her future. 

At sixteen, Jessica is managing the emotional trauma of her father’s death while surrendering to the profound pain of a failed first love. Jonas Levy, a twenty-two-year-old medical student, has abruptly walked out of Jessica’s life after an intense summer romance, and the wounds are still raw. Is it possible to ever forget the boy you first gave your heart to?

Jessica eventually moves on, and in her twenties, becomes a successful music supervisor in Los Angeles. She marries film producer, Marty Tauber, starts a family, and appears to have it all, until things slowly begin to unravel. The marriage struggles through a miscarriage and becomes harder and harder to sustain.

With an unexpected phone call from New York, a secret from Jessica’s past comes to light. As the rippling effects of her betrayal emerge, Jessica finds herself caught in the firestorm of long-hidden emotional trauma. 

Thrust into a modern day moral and ethical dilemma, Jessica must face the pain of her past or lose everything she holds dear. Will she be able to reconcile old feelings in time to salvage her marriage? An honest, tender, and poignant portrayal of love in its many forms, this heart wrenching novel will resonate with any woman who has questioned her past and wondered what could have been.

To win a copy of WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND by Rochelle Weinstein, send an email to contest@gmail.com, with "WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND" as the subject. Make sure to include your name  and mailing address in the US only. This contest is open to all adults over 18 years of age. One entry per email address, please. Your email address will not be shared or sold to anyone. All entries, including names, email addresses and mailing addresses, will be purged after winner is notified. This contest ends June 17, 2012. Good luck!

Win SHADOW OF NIGHT by Deborah Harkness!

I am delighted to offer a copy of SHADOW OF NIGHT by Deborah Harkness to one lucky reader!

"Together we lifted our feet and stepped into the unknown"—the thrilling sequel to the New York Times bestseller A Discovery of Witches

Deborah Harkness exploded onto the literary scene with her debut novel, A Discovery of Witches, Book One of the magical All Souls Trilogy and an international publishing phenomenon. The novel introduced Diana Bishop, Oxford scholar and reluctant witch, and the handsome geneticist and vampire Matthew Clairmont; together they found themselves at the center of a supernatural battle over an enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782.

Now, picking up from A Discovery of Witches’ cliffhanger ending, Shadow of Night plunges Diana and Matthew into Elizabethan London, a world of spies, subterfuge, and a coterie of Matthew’s old friends, the mysterious School of Night that includes Christopher Marlowe and Walter Raleigh. Here, Diana must locate a witch to tutor her in magic, Matthew is forced to confront a past he thought he had put to rest, and the mystery of Ashmole 782 deepens.

Deborah Harkness has crafted a gripping journey through a world of alchemy, time travel, and magical discoveries, delivering one of the most hotly anticipated novels of the season.

If you haven’t gotten around to A Discovery of Witches, Amazon is offering the e-book as their “Deal of the Day” on June 10^th - readers will be able to buy it for just $2.99 on that day only.

Plus, whoever wins the new book, SHADOW OF NIGHT, will also receive a specially designed “Ashmole 782” temporary tattoo and a set of 6 buttons!  The buttons each display a different alchemical symbol; readers will discover their meaning as they read the new novel. 

Finally, on Deborah’s Facebook page, there is a contest leading up to the book’s publication.  Every Friday from June 1st to July 6th, four winners will be selected to receive an advance copy of SHADOW OF NIGHT signed by Deborah and sample bottles of two perfumes specially selected to represent the scents of Matthew and Diana. To enter, readers can click on this link to the contest page starting today

To win a copy of SHADOW OF NIGHT by Deborah Harkness, send an email to contest@gmail.com, with "SHADOW OF NIGHT" as the subject. Make sure to include your name and mailing address in the US only. This contest is open to all adults over 18 years of age. One entry per email address, please. Your email address will not be shared or sold to anyone. All entries, including names, email addresses and mailing addresses, will be purged after winner is notified. This contest ends June 15, 2012. Good luck!