I'm a little late to the party this week, but that's okay!  The Book Blogger Hop is in full swing and I'm joining in the fun.  You can, too—just go to Crazy For Books to get all the details.  It's a good ole time, a great opportunity to find awesome new blogs and spread the word about yours.

This week's question is:

What is your favorite thing about blogging?

- Easy.  For me, it's all about mingling with other book lovers.  I love talking about what I'm reading, my favorite authors, what's new in the book world, etc. with other people who get it ('cause, you know, not everyone does).  It's just a whole lot of fun for me.  Because of this blog, I've gotten to "meet" tons of readers, authors, bloggers, publicists, booksellers—both in the virtual world and the real one.  I learn something from each and everyone one of you.  What's not to love about that?

What about you?  What's your favorite part of blogging?

If this is your first visit to BBB, welcome!  I'm so glad you're here.  Take a look around, leave me a comment (or two or three or ten) and I'll definitely return the favor.  If you've been lurking around this joint for awhile now, thank you!  Your support means so much to me.  

Have a wonderful weekend, everybody!  I'm going to be spending the next few hours watching my daughter get her hair braided, then I'll be back to do some hopping.  See y'all soon.     

Like most bloggers, I get my fair share of requests to review different products and services.  I turn down the majority of them since evaluating sunglasses or diapers or whatever isn't really consistent with what I'm trying to do here at BBB.  However, when I get an offer to try something cool and bookish, well, I'm all over it.

Naturally, then, I was thrilled to hear from Livrada, a new company that sells e-book gift cards.  These are physical cards sold at brick and mortar stores, each of which is good for the redemption of one e-book.  Like a traditional book, each card features beautiful cover art and a plot summary for the novel it represents.  The e-books are easily downloaded to all Kindle and Nook devices.  Currently, the cards are being sold at Target and are available for the following titles:  State of Wonder by Ann Patchett; Fifty Shades of Gray by E.L. James; Odd Thomas by Dean R. Koontz; Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn; The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson; and 44 Charles Street by Danielle Steele.  They're fun, personal gifts that are perfect for the booklovers in your life.

The generous folks at Livrada gave me a choice of titles.  I selected Odd Thomas.  Redeeming the gift card and downloading the e-book to my Kindle Fire was just as quick and easy as promised.  I haven't had a chance to read the novel yet, but I will soon.

So, as much as I enjoyed using my gift card, I'm not sure I would actually buy one.  Why?  Well, unless I knew a person's reading tastes really, really well and knew exactly which books they did/did not have, I would be hesitant to give them a title-specific gift card.  A generic e-card to say, Amazon, wouldn't be as personal, but it would be more practical, you know?  I would be much more likely to go that route.  I'm also not sure about how the pricing works.  I went to my local Target the other night to do a little research and couldn't find the gift cards anywhere, not in the book section, not in the gift card section, nowhere, so there also appears to be an availability problem.  At any rate, I think Livrada's come up with a fun concept.  I'm just not sure it's going to catch on all that well.  What do you think?      

I've tried about a dozen times to write an adequate plot summary for The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield, but I just can't get it right.  I'm thinking the simpler the better for this book, so here's the short-and-sweet description that appears on Barnes & Noble and Amazon:

Every first Sunday in June, members of the Moses clan gather for an annual reunion at a sprawling hundred-acre farm in Arkansas. And every year, Samuel Lake, a vibrant and committed young preacher, brings his beloved wife, Willadee Moses, and their three children back for the festivities. In the midst of it all, Samuel and Willadee’s outspoken eleven-year-old daughter, Swan, is a bright light. Her high spirits and fearlessness have alternately seduced and bedeviled three generations of the family. But just as the reunion is getting under way, tragedy strikes, jolting the family to their core and setting the stage for a summer of crisis and profound change. 

The plot of the novel is difficult to describe, probably because there isn't much of one, especially not at the beginning of the book.  In fact, yesterday, I was reading it while waiting for the dentist to examine my teeth.  I was about 100 pages into the story when he asked me what The Homecoming of Samuel Lake was about.  My response?  "Um, hm, now that you mention it, I have no idea."  Which isn't to say the tale isn't interesting.  It is.  It's just that the author takes her time setting the stage for the main conflict of the story (which doesn't present itself until around Page 150).  With a less skilled writer, this could have been a problem.  But, Wingfield's lush, tantalizing prose charmed me so much that I almost forgot about plot altogether (until my dentist reminded me, that is).  Also, because the author gives the reader time to really get to know her characters before abusing them with savage plot twists, the reader cares and cares deeply about what happens to them.  The book's finale is an excellent case in point—I sobbed through the majority of the last 100 pages, because by then, the Moses Family felt like my own kin, their tragedies seemed like my own.  The Homecoming of Samuel Lake isn't a perfect book, mind you, but it's one of those you'll-laugh-you'll-cry-you'll-jeer-you'll-cheer kind of stories, the kind that touches your heart and makes you believe that no matter how much ugliness exists in this world, it will always be trumped by the beauty that lives here, too.