Found at bookcloseouts.com. Looks like a good story.

RELEASE NOTES:

Going out in the mail tomorrow for the Charleston Convention. Organizers, please feel free to use these books however you see fit.

Happy Convention!

Sent from Texas for release at the coming convention. Thanks very much!

I saw this at the book buffet table and the BCer next to me said it's really good. Thanks!

"I had a cousin, Randall, killed on Iwo Jima. Have I told you?" So begins this ethereal debut novel, a romantic, bittersweet tale set in the aftermath of World War II and the Korean War, by short-story writer Walbert (Where She Went), a Pushcart and O. Henry Prize-winner. Walbert's protagonist is Ellen, a shy, sensitive and somewhat lost young woman who is completely enraptured by her cousin Randall, a bookish boy with red hair just like Ellen's.

As a child, Ellen sees Randall only once a year, at Easter, but she is so in love with him that her infatuation affects every relationship she has in the years following his early death. After Randall is killed, his father sends Ellen a package containing Randall's diary and a book called The Gardens of Kyoto. In elegant, restrained prose, Walbert recounts how Ellen slowly pieces together Randall's life and unknowingly links it to her own, her fixation infiltrating every aspect of her existence. Walbert writes delicately on weighty themes, making a lyrical examination of the war's effect on men and women and on unrequited love. This is a haunting, thoughtful work that, without lapsing into clich‚ depicts the sad realities of love and war.

This book first caught my eyes because I like Japanese culture and Asian literature. Turns out this story isn't set in Japan, but rather about a young woman growing up near Philadelphia. Somehow the mood of the book feels a bit Japanese though, in the way that the tale is so poetic, framing one picture after the other, and dreamy, blurring reality with imagination.

Randall is Ellen's first love, and his premature death at war never relieves his strong influence over her life. While Ellen often doesn't say much in a conversation and rather disclose her feelings openly, her emotions fill the pages, reaching out to grasp the reader.

Mailing off to Ri who won it in the Mt TBR book swap on BookObsessed. Thanks for helping me take it off Mt TBR!

Woo hoo! Thanks for sending this one on to me, Azuki! I look forward to it!

In an effort to pare down the massive TBR pile and be realistic about what I am going to read in the near future, this little book needs to get back on its traveling way!

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