**Update: the winners of this giveaway are: Jenny Zimmer, Alana, Cheryl Hart, Rhonda, Billie Brinkley, Leah, Susan Coster, Carol, Tamara, and Myrna Ashby. They have all been notified by email. Thanks to everyone who entered! We hope you’ll all join us this month for our online book club discussion.
*Update: comments are now closed on this post. Thanks to everyone who entered! We will be selecting and notifying all ten winners by email today. Names will also be posted here. Stay tuned!
This month we’re doing something we have NEVER done before. We’ve chosen a book that won’t release to the general public for eight more days. Why? Because it’s that good. We just can’t wait. And we want to make sure you hear about it here first.
CALLING ME HOME, by Julie Kibler, is a soaring debut novel interweaving the story of a heartbreaking, forbidden love in 1930s Kentucky with an unlikely modern-day friendship. It’s about family and love and loss. It’s about things we remember for a lifetime. And we guarantee it’s one of those novels that will find a permanent spot on your “keeper shelf.”
Why tease you like this when you can’t run down to your local bookstore and pick up a copy today? Even though CALLING ME HOME won’t release until February 12th (just in time for Valentines!) you aren’t completely out of luck. If you’re DYING to read it this very moment–and we know you are–you have three options:
- Pre-order it today and have it in your hot little hands by February 12th. You’ll have plenty of time to read it before our book club discussion at the end of this month.
- Enter to win one of the TEN copies we’re giving away, courtesy of St. Martin’s Press (just leave a comment on this post–winners will be chosen on Friday)
- Don’t take any chances and do BOTH.
About the novel:
Eighty-nine-year-old Isabelle McAllister has a favor to ask her hairdresser Dorrie Curtis. It’s a big one. Isabelle wants Dorrie, a black single mom in her thirties, to drop everything to drive her from her home in Arlington, Texas, to a funeral in Cincinnati. With no clear explanation why. Tomorrow.
Dorrie, fleeing problems of her own and curious whether she can unlock the secrets of Isabelle’s guarded past, scarcely hesitates before agreeing, not knowing it will be a journey that changes both their lives.
Over the years, Dorrie and Isabelle have developed more than just a business relationship. They are friends. But Dorrie, fretting over the new man in her life and her teenage son’s irresponsible choices, still wonders why Isabelle chose her.
Isabelle confesses that, as a willful teen in 1930s Kentucky, she fell deeply in love with Robert Prewitt, a would-be doctor and the black son of her family’s housekeeper–in a town where blacks weren’t allowed after dark. The tale of their forbidden relationship and its tragic consequences makes it clear Dorrie and Isabelle are headed for a gathering of the utmost importance and that the history of Isabelle’s first and greatest love just might help Dorrie find her own way.
{Mark your calendars for Monday, February 25th. Our new Online Book Club Leader, Tamara Welch, will begin our discussion of CALLING ME HOME that day and continue it for the entire week. So you’ll have plenty of time to jump in and join the conversation.}
Julie Kibler began writing Calling Me Home after learning a bit of family lore: as a young woman, her grandmother fell in love with a young black man in an era and locale that made the relationship impossible. When not writing, she enjoys travel, independent films, music, photography, and corralling her teenagers and rescue dogs. This is her first novel.
About Ariel Lawhon
Ariel Lawhon is the co-founder of She Reads, novelist, blogger, storyteller, and life-long reader. She lives in Texas with her husband and four young sons (aka The Wild Rumpus). Ariel believes that Story is the shortest distance to the human heart.
I am eagerly awaiting February 12th. I’ll be at the book signing!
This book sounds remarkable. Thank you for writing about race from a different perspective.
After just celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, I feel like my mind is ripe for reading a book on this topic. Thanks you for making all of us aware of this book with so much potential.
Looks like a great read!
I would love to read this book.
Thanks
I would love to win!!!
Oh, the first chapter hooked me!!! I already emailed the library here and it is on the order list but they won’t let me reserve it yet! oh well, patience is a virtue!
Can’t wait to read this book! I loved reading about Julie and her late-night writing schedule… like her I am a night owl – not writing books, but reading them.
Thanks for the opportunity to win this book!
Susan G.
This books sounds good. I look forward to reading it
This seems like a very interesting book. I’m definitely adding it to my “must read” list.
I would love to win
I would love to win
Looking forward to this read!
I hope I win. : ) I’d really would like to read this book. Thank you for the opportunity. Keep writing so we can enjoy your gift.
I read the first chapter (thanks for posting it!) and Julie is a good writer. I was even hooked when I read the synopsis of the novel above. I had a very special love in my past history, too. He was Jewish — I was a Baptist minister’s daughter. We didn’t marry as we had hoped we could because he had not accepted Christ. Neither of our parents were for the relationship, let alone the marriage. Because of that relationship(I love him to this day, 37 years after we broke up!), I am drawn to novels or true stories that are similar. I hope to write my own book about it some day. Keep writing, Julie!
Sounds great! Would love to read it!
Can’t wait to read this! Thanks for the opportunity.
I would love to win this book!
I love the thought behind this book. I would like to win it…
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Would love to read this! Hope I win.
Would love to read this book. Hope I win!
Thanks got the opportunity to win
enjoyed the first chapter and am looking forward to the rest of the story…..just the thing to lift me from these ‘February Blues’.
Sound like it would make a great book club read.
I would love to win!
Thank you for the opportunity to win this book…I am so excited!
I would love a chance to read Julie’s boook.
I remember when my daughter wanted to date a black boy it saddens me to think that she thought it might be against the Bible this story sounds so interesting to me I’m all for teaching our children not to see color
Excited to hear that I’ve won a copy. Can’t wait to get it and dig in!!! Thanks!