Book Review: "The Replacement Wife" by Eileen Goudge

I almost gave up on this book* at first because I thought it was going to be too tragic, and I didn't feel strong enough for it right now. I'm glad I stuck with it.

The story involves a woman whose cancer has returned after being in remission.  Her doctor holds out little hope, but offers to try an experimental treatment. At the insistence of her family, the woman submits to the treatment, without much hope. She is a matchmaker by profession, and she decides that before she dies she will to choose the woman who will replace her as wife and mother.

I'm not going to go into any details about the twists and turns that ensue because I hate "spoilers" in reviews.

I will say that I highly recommend the book for its tight plotting and interesting, if not always likable, characters. I found myself most intrigued, however, by the study of a person who tries to control something she shouldn't. It's totally understandable that a dying woman would want to try to ease her family's suffering, and even more understandable that she should want to try to controls something while cancer controls her very life itself. However, trying to control other people's futures is potentially dangerous, to both the person exerting the control and to her family. It is also disrespectful to think that you know better what other people need than they do. I know too many mothers and wives who are tyrants within their families for that very reason, which is one reason the story rang so true.

The woman's efforts to fix her husband up with her choice for his next wife end up having unintended consequences for everyone.  Whether or not there is a happy ending is debatable.

It wasn't a particularly enjoyable read because of the dark subject matter, but it was one of those books that, after I put it down, I thought, "How did she get to there from where she started?"  It was a reading adventure.

Buy it here*.

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Book Review: "Finding Florida" by T. D. Allman

I started reading this book* on a rainy Friday evening. I finished it about 4:30 PM on Sunday. As much as I love reading fiction, I think I love history more. This book had the advantage of being history well-written, with passion -- about a place I love. I couldn't put it down.

Anybody who thinks they might want to move to Florida should read this; hopefully it will dissuade you from making the move. People who already live here should read it, too, but I think a lot of them would be very offended by it. Oh, well. Even I was put off by some of the author's opinions, but I think the man deserves credit for his historical research, even if I occasionally disagreed with his conclusions.

I have always wondered why it annoys me (to the point of pissing me off!) when people refer to Florida as "Paradise." Florida is most definitely NOT Paradise. It is a weird place surrounded by water and filled with a gators, bugs, and an endless array of strange, bizarre and even some really scary people. I like living here because it is warm most of the time and it has a magnificent variety of beaches. I've learned to tolerate the bad stuff in exchange for living at the beach. The fact that I like living here doesn't make it Paradise. I delighted in how thoroughly Allman burst [er, annihilated] the Paradise Myth.

I was captivated by so many stories I'd never read about my adopted home -- and I've probably read more Florida history than most people who were born here. I was entertained by the writing. (It isn't often that I laugh out loud reading a history book, but this one made me do that several times.) Allman is a great writer. The bizarre-ness of Florida that novelists like Carl Hiaasen and Tim Dorsey have immortalized in fiction, is here in well-researched, non-fiction format. It is still funny as hell.

Much of it is also infuriating. Throughout most of the book Allman's own fury is barely contained, and a few times he totally cuts loose. (At times, he reminded me of a male Molly Ivins. That is the highest possible praise I can offer to a writer.)

It didn't take long for the European explorers to discover what an inhospitable wilderness Florida is. Neither Spain nor Britain really wanted it. Ultimately, after the European superpowers played ping pong with it for a couple of centuries, Spain unloaded it on the US because Florida was just more trouble than it was worth. I think an argument could be made that it's been more trouble than it is worth to the US, too, but it's here, like a pimple on Uncle Sam's butt, and we can't get rid of it ... unless, of course, we wanted to annex it to Cuba. That might not be such a bad idea, but if we did that where would all the New Yorkers retire?

When people from up North tell me they'd like to move to Florida, I tell them to bring plenty of money with them because they're not going to make any here. Basically Florida is designed to be a place where people from other places come for short periods of time, spend a lot of money and then leave (preferably, broke enough not to come back anytime soon). Allman spends several hundred pages explaining why that is the case.

The class system in Florida (which truly borders on a caste system where multiple layers of society exist, barely interacting with the other layers at all) is very rigid. There's not a lot of upward social mobility, but the down elevator works just fine.

At the end of the book, I hear Allman whispering in my ear that Florida is an example of what could happen to the rest of America as the haves and have-nots fly further apart and the moderating middle class erodes. Florida has never had a real "middle class" because it disallowed homesteading and there was no industry to employ middle class workers. Florida is an "Upstairs, Downstairs" kind of a place, where there is the "aristocracy" of retired old people and rich developers,  and then there is the (growing) "poor" --  with not much in between. 

History tells us that is a dangerous social environment, which leads to insurrection or social collapse (or both). I think Allman makes a good case that Florida holds up a warning to the rest of the US, and maybe the world. Florida is a very good example of how NOT to run a state.

I don't see any signs that the folks in Tallahassee have got that memo.  That isn't for lack of trying on Mr. Allman's part.  He pulls no punches and his anger burns hot from time to time, but his point of view never waivers from that of a native son who loves his home state, despite its manifold flaws and abysmal [cough, cough] "leadership."

[Aside: You have to read the book all the way to the end to understand this: I used to like getting caught at the drawbridge on my way to work. It gave me the opportunity to enjoy a few minutes of quiet time, watching the boats on the river and doing nothing. Mr. Allman's final salvo totally ruined that forever.  Damn!]

Buy it here*.

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Weighing in on "Lean In" by Sheryl Sandberg

This is not a book review. This is a reaction to the book and a response to Sandberg's critics, especially the ones who imply that she somehow doesn't have the cred to write this book because of her privileged background.  Excuse me?  Who better to challenge women to aspire to leadership than an extremely well educated woman who has achieved amazing success in both government and business, and who has at the same time managed to be a good mother and wife.

It seems to me that her primary target audience is other privileged women. She is challenging women who already work outside the home to be ambitious and to strive to become leaders. She challenges well-educated and privileged women who work at home to do the same, either by getting jobs or becoming leaders in their communities or political acitivists.  Call me old fashioned, but I believe in noblesse oblige.  Those who have been most richly blessed should be expected to work to improve our world -- for everybody.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those Housewife-bashers. On the contrary, the happiest years of my life were the four years I spent doing what Sandberg calls "working at home."  I loved cooking for my family, putting up food from our garden, being with my baby and doing volunteer work.  During the same period, I wrote my first full-length novels. (They were dreadful.) I studied theology. Best of all I participated in a Sisterhood of smart women with small children who banded together to talk about big ideas instead of just sharing recipes and crabbing about our husbands. (We did the latter, too, of course, but it was incidental to our real conversations.)

I didn't agree with everything Sandberg said, but I haven't had a book hit me so hard since I read Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes back in the early 90's. And for much the same reason.  Estes wrote that women have the innate capacity to heal ourselves.

Sandberg has a loftier goal: she challenges women (and men) to heal our world.  I think Sandberg's platform, as a woman of privilege addressing other women of privilege, is important. Sandberg invites women, especially young, well-educated women to allow themselves to be ambitious, to seek positions of leadership in both business and government. Leadership doesn't come naturally to a lot of women.  Sandberg goes into some detail about how deeply ingrained traditional gender roles are in our culture.  It is not easy for women or men to cross them. You'd think that in the forty years since the publication of The Feminine Mystique we'd have made more progress in raising our children to be more egalitarian.

The book affirms my own observations that for too long women have taken the position that equality has been achieved and that feminism is no longer necessary. Sandberg calls feminism "the new F-word."  She's right.  Frankly, I think women's position in American society has regressed in the last couple of decades. Sometimes it seems that, politically speaking, it's open season on women in America.  Reading the news from places like Afghanistan, India and Somalia as well as California and Canada, it's literally open season on women in the streets and in their homes.  It is both selfish and dangerous to pretend that women's rights have been somehow secured, and we don't need to bother our pretty little heads about it any more.

What is more, there are too many woman who drag other women down and too many women in our corporations who play the roll of what Sandberg calls "queen bee" -- using their  positions in leadership to block the paths of other women who would follow.  We all knew "mean girls" in school, and I bet most of us know "mean girls" in business and in our social world as well. We can be better than that. And we should -- at every age.

If we're lucky, we also know the wonder of what Sandberg calls "communality" and what I call "the Sisterhood."  We should aspire to that in our relationships with other women, and let that kind and encouraging behavior spill over into our relationships with men.

Do I agree with everything Sandberg advocates? No.  But I celebrate her invitation to open a much needed conversation  among women of all ages, that will include our partners, fathers, sons, bosses and co-workers. We need to find a way forward that allows us to work together with respect and a willingness to make compromises.  We need to rise above the petty meanness of too much public and political discourse today and have authentic and respectful conversations.

I think Ms. Sanberg is inviting us to engage in a some good old-fashioned consciousness-raising all around.

Let's do it!

Buy the book here*.

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Book Review: "Painted Girls" by Cathy Marie Buchanan

I used to read a lot of historical fiction, but I quit for a long time because I get too caught up in trying to sift out the fact from the fiction, and I get annoyed if the author fictionalizes in ways I don't like. So it was lucky that I read this book* not knowing that the van Goethem sisters really existed. I read the book thinking that they were fictional characters that represented the kinds of dancers Degas painted, which allowed me to fall completely under the spell of the story. When I found out at the end how Buchanan reworked history to serve her story, I was willing to forgive her because clearly her version does make for a much better story..

The underlying theme of the novel is that redemption is a choice that is offered to everyone. The biblical God says: "I set before you Life or Death. Choose Life."  And that same God gives his Creatures the free will and the spiritual power to actually choose to live. Unfortunately, the meanness of human culture (in this case the particularly nasty 19th Century Parisian version of it) encourages most people to choose the way of perdition.  Most of the characters in this story are deeply flawed individuals, who give themselves over to their vices and propagate the culture of abuse.  Mother van Goethem is a drunk who has no interest in her children. The men who act as "protectors" for the dancers are pedophiles. The dance teachers pimp for the pedophiles to keep the money coming in. Thieves and whores prey on each other in the streets.

Somehow, despite it all, three basically motherless girls manage to choose the path of redemption, although it is never an absolute certainty that they will succeed. Charlotte, the youngest, starts out as a selfish and self-absorbed spoiled brat, her sisters' struggles teach her the way of kindness. Antoinette, the oldest, falls in love with a man who is not worthy of her, and follows her love into of lies and degradation in the bordellos of Paris and, later, the prison/workhouse of St. Lazare. When she is released from jail she commits to rebuilding her life based on speaking nothing but the Truth and doing hard, honest work.

Marie, the middle child, is the model for Degas' sculpture Little Dancer Age Fourteen.  She has potential as a dancer, but dance lessons are expensive. She tries honest work as a baker, but the work cuts into her practice time and doesn't pay enough to both feed her family and pay for dance lessons. She ultimately acquiesces to an arrangement with a "protector" who pays for her lessons in exchange for her "modeling" for him. In addition to that, she actually does model for Degas, whose sculpture of her almost pushes her over the edge.

While Antoinette is in prison, Marie breaks a promise to her sister that she believes results in an innocent man being condemned to the guillotine. Her remorse causes her to begin sneaking drinks from her mother's absinthe bottles. She quits dancing and decides to become a prostitute. When Antoinette gets out of prison, she tells one last lie to rescue Marie. It's pretty clear Marie doesn't really believe the lie, but with Antoinette out of prison and on the way to an honorable life as seamstress and Charlotte having been promoted to the corps de ballet, it gives Marie the opportunity crawl out of the gutter and to prove that her ugliness is not a sign of wickedness.

Only two adult females in the story exhibit any integrity at all: a nun and a madame.  One kind and faithful male character is sort of the van Goethem sisters' guardian angel. The tension in the story is unrelenting. Just when you think the kids can't take one more hurdle, they manage to go over or around all obstacles. Then when you relax and start to believe they'll be okay, something horrible happens. It is fast paced but at the same time richly detailed and well researched.

I highly recommend this one!  Buy it here*.

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Book Review (sort of): "Song of the Fairy Queen" by Valerie Douglas

This book proves that it really is all about the story.  The writer can do absolutely everything wrong, but if the story is compelling enough, the reader may forgive and stick around for the ride.

If  I'm reading a book with a story that I don't love, but it's well written, most often I read the whole book just for the writing (and in the hope that the story will get better).  Typically, if I don't like the writing, I give up on the book -- often after only a few pages.  This book was a total exception. This book was a reminder for me that a good story trumps everything else.

The story is exciting. The characters are heroic and yet sympathetic. I cared about them, and wanted them to succeed. The villain is totally evil, with no redeeming qualities. The story world is truly remarkable. The beauty of the Fairy glens stand in stark contrast to the wasteland that civil war has made of the rest of the country. The alliance between the Fairy Queen and the deposed human king who is trying to regain his throne is not only a perfect political alliance, but an enduring (if unlikely) friendship. It has everything you would want in a swashbuckling fantasy: a life-and-death struggle for the very survival of entire populations; suspense; violence; romance; sex.

The writing however, breaks all the rules: adverbs galore; the same adjectives repeated over and over (yes, we know Kyri has beautiful eyes and Morgan's looks are unique); there's a lot of telling and showing (to the point that it's repetitive, and annoying). There are a couple of places where the continuity seems "off" to me. I looked at some reviews on Barnes & Noble to make sure I wasn't just being cantankerous that day. Several reviewers' comments were along these same lines. [A few reviewers complained about poor formatting for the Nook. The formatting for the Kindle appeared fine to me.]

I'd love for this story to end up in the hands of a really good editor, who would help take out the repetitive parts and let the story soar with its full power and beauty.

All that being said, I enjoyed the book very much ...which may go to show: screw the "rules," just tell me a good story!

Book Review: "Crones Don't Whine: Concentrated Wisdom for Juicy Women" and "Goddesses in Older Women" by Jean Shinoda Bolen

"Crones Don't Whine: Concentrated Wisdom for Juicy Women"* and "Goddesses in Older Women"* by  Jean Shinoda Bolen

Crones Don't Whine is a short book that succinctly describes the qualities of the Crone in today's world. In Bolen's works, a Crone is the Jungian archetype of the Wise Woman (i.e. Grandmother Willow).  Goddesses somewhat longer, with more mythological detail about the Goddesses who may make up the psychology of the Crone. The beauty of Jungian archetypes is that the reader can pick and choose from a number of personality types from which to draw the strength to face the challenges of life's various phases. Crones Don't Whine sets forth the qualities of the Crone in today's world. Goddesses describes the archetypes we can draw on in embracing the Crone.

In our youth, we had the opportunity to take a Hero's Journey (see Joseph Campell's works or Bolen's earlier work Gods in Everyman: Archetypes that Shape Mens Lives*  or Goddesses in Everywoman: Powerful Archetypes in Womens Lives*).  In the middle of our lives, we nurture our children and do our work. As we move toward old age, our children are grown and our work may be less important to our identity (although perhaps no less time consuming). The focus of our psychic energy shifts. In too many people, the shift is inward; they often become bitter and mean. In others, the shift is outward; they look for ways to help people and/or to make the world a better place. Jungian archetypes tell us that we all have the power in us to make the positive choice, no matter what bad things life has thrown at us in the past. Drawing on ancient and powerful archetypes, our souls can heal from nearly any injury and become strong, happy and to make a positive impact on our little corner of the world.

I have never read a book about women making the passage into old age that did not mention the Female Holocaust (aka the Witch Burnings). It is a cautionary specter that hangs over old women everywhere. Old Women are (often secretly) sought out by the people in their villages for their healing powers and wise advice. They are also feared by male power because the content of women's wisdom is secret and the male power structure feels threatened by it, perhaps with reason. If older women in large numbers would embrace and exercise their power for healing and speaking truth, interesting things could happen in our world.

(One thing is for sure: my current WIP is going to undergo a total metamorphosis in coming months!  It is about three women transitioning to retirement, one is recently divorced and the other two are widows. I can already tell, it's going to take on a whole bunch of new layers.)

See Jean Shinoda Bolen's Amazon Author Page, with all her books, here*.

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Book Review: "Empire of the Summer Moon" by S. C. Gwynne

For the past couple of years, I've read almost exclusively fiction, while working on my craft as a novelist. Nevertheless, my love for history -- particularly American history -- remains strong.  Recently a new biography of Quanah Parker* fell into my hands. Quanah Parker is the kind of character that would be unbelievable in fiction. He is the embodiment of the saying "truth is stranger than fiction."

Quanah Parker was the son of a white woman, who had been captured by the Comanches when she was nine years old, and the Comanche warrior who married her.  Cynthia Ann Parker was eventually returned to white society, but she never readjusted to living in the white culture. Quanah grew up with the Comanches and became an important warrior, leading many battles against American civilians and the Army as well. Many years later, he surrendered to the Army and moved onto the reservation where he became an advocate for Indian rights with the American government (traveling many times to Washington and even entertaining President Theodore Roosevelt in his home), an important leader among the Comanches living on the reservation, not to mention a savvy businessman and entrepreneur, who managed to navigate the leap from being a leader in a stone age migratory culture to being a leader in a  so-called civilized culture like the American frontier.  The author says that people who knew him believed that Quanah would have been a leader in any culture where he might have happened to live -- and he makes a good case.

Somehow, Quanah was able to navigate the journey from Comanche culture to American frontier culture without falling into the despair that plagued so many of the other Indians who were forced to live on reservations. He played politics and did business with the whites and the Indians. I was left wanting to know more about that. Did his involvement with what became the Native American Church assist in that process? Did he really become a Christian? Did he always deal fairly with the Indians in business, or was he as willing to play hardball with them as he was with the whites?

In any case, Quanah Parker stands as one of the iconic figures of the American West: Warrior; Politician; Businessman; Self-promotional genius; and, Caretaker for a huge family as well as anyone who came to him for help.

In addition to telling Quanah's story, the author tells the shadow stories of the Parker clan of Texas, who spent years searching for the stolen Cynthia Ann and who welcomed her back into their midst (despite the fact that she didn't want to be there), and General Ranald ("Bad Hand") Mackenzie, the Army officer whose brilliant successes in both the Civil War and the Indian Wars on the Plains were eclipsed by the fame of his almost polar opposite and West Point classmate, G. A. Custer. Mackenzie, the American Indian fighter,  ultimately befriended Quanah and helped Quanah find his family. Unfortunately, he sank into madness and died very young, a military hero almost totally forgotten by his country.

This is history at its best, rivaling fiction at its best: fascinating characters engaged in a struggle for survival not just of their own lives but their very cultural heritage, set against the backdrop of a beautiful and terrifying wilderness threatened by invading hoards that would destroy it in order to tame it.

This was one of the few history books I have read that left me wanting more. In that, it resembled fiction more than history. Whatever the genre, it was a great read!  

Buy it here*. Now!

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Book Review: "Illuminations A novel of Hildegard Von Bingen" by Mary Sharratt

Hildegard Von Bingen has always been for me a mysterious figure whose name comes up in sections of theology texts dealing with mystics. Feminist theologians tout her as something of a Renaissance Woman, who who lived a couple of centuries before the Renaissance. She was an anchorite, but also a composer, a doctor, an herbalist, and a prolific writer.

This is a fictional account of her story*. It sets the context of the period: half the men from Europe were far away fighting in a Crusade to free the Holy Land from the Infidel. The women of Europe were for the most part ill-equipped to run estates in the absence of their husbands. Hildegard was one of the younger children in a large family of lesser nobility (low on the totem pole and lower still on cash for daughters' dowries). Hildegard was young and plain, and she had older and more beautiful sisters who needed dowries. Worse, from an early age she had Visions that were not exactly in keeping with traditional Catholic orthodoxy. She was more than a potential embarrassment to her family. She was a potential threat. In her father's absence, her mother took the opportunity to essentially sell Hildegard to a family higher up in the aristocratic pecking order, in exchange for dowries for Hildegard's older sisters.

She was packed off to a monastery as the lady-in-waiting to an anchorite (a beautiful but damaged woman who made the next thirty years a living hell for Hildegard). Hildegard did her duty, and in the process she learned the arts of medicine, botany, and musical composition. After the death of her Mistress, Hildegard did not hesitate to stand up to the males who held all the power in the Catholic Church. She suffered the consequences of her refusal to stay in her place, but for Hildegard being true to her vision of the Feminine Divine was more important than staying on the good side of the Church.

Stories set in the medieval period never fail to hook me, while at the same time they freak me out at the barbarity of the newly (and barely) civilized Europe and the appalling ignorance of most of the people in charge of the Church that dominated the entire West. This story was no exception. But, like stories about St. Catherine of Sienna and St. Theresa of Avila, it showed a glimmer of a Light that can shine in the Darkness.

It was a beautiful book, respectfully written. I highly recommend it. Buy it here*.

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Book Review: "The Casual Vacancy" by J. K. Rowling

It's hard to explain why I liked this book. For one thing, the only truly sympathetic character in the entire story appears to be the guy whose sudden death  in Chapter 1 opens the casual vacancy on the town council, and kicks off the story. Virtually all of the other characters range from the merely petty to the truly soul-twisted. In many ways, it is an almost scientific study of all the dysfunctional ways people act out their existential angst: self-abuse; substance abuse; emotional and/or physical abuse of others. The context is the ancient British class system's attempt to preserve itself despite the influx of immigrants and the rise of technology that can be used for good or for ill.

Rowling so successfully crawls inside the heads of her characters, I could understand their pain and see the sort of convoluted logic behind their bad behavior.  It was a lot like watching an automobile accident. You know it's going to be awful, but you can't tear your eyes away.

The real reason the book worked for me was Rowling's virtuosity with the English language. The words pile up one on top of another, painting word pictures and/or poking emotional buttons with precision. Long parenthetical insertions provide such juicy backstory that they are too compelling to be annoying (although the writer in me noticed them, and wondered how she slid them past an editor). The characters are so real they pop off the page and come to life, sordid as their lives may be.

There is a sense of hopelessness about the story that made me sad. Misdirected energy. Wasted lives. People who are unnecessarily miserable and unhappy, and who seem to want everyone around them to be miserable and unhappy as well.

It is not surprising that the residents of Rowling's home town are mad at her. She so perfectly nailed small town life, the locals probably know exactly who each character is based on. However, I had the sense in reading the story that Rowling sees the characters like one would see the black sheep in the family: they may be damaged and even despicable, but they're kith and kin, and we love 'em anyway.  Only an author who loves the characters could go deep enough to show the humanity inside each of them, even the worst of them.

This is definitely not beach reading, but it was worth the money. (Which is way more than an e-book should cost!)

Buy it here*.

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E-Book Review "Sugarland" by Joni Rodgers

I want to get this out of the way before I go any further: Joni Rodgers writes like I wish I could. Rich detail that makes the characters come alive. They spend their days mostly going through the motions of life, trying not to get beaten down too far. Occasionally, their existence is pierced by moments of clarity -- some of which are excruciating and some of which are those transcendent glimmers of glory that some(God knows)how make all that drudgery and pain worthwhile.

It's a story of duos: two sisters; two husbands; two mothers (plus one mother-in-law with a small but very significant role); two families. Kit and Kiki spent their childhood as a local Country duo, opening for national acts performing in the area around Sugar Land, Texas. They both married young and had kids right away.  Kit has a job painting decorations on furniture and souvenirs in a local store; she tells herself that it gives her at least some creative outlet. Her husband works the night shift as an airplane mechanic and pours all his passion into restoring a car, basically ignoring his wife. Kiki is married to a taxidermist who is an abusive drunk, but he has eroded her self-worth to the point that she goes back to him every time she manages to escape, especially when he threatens to take her children from her.

Everybody in the story loves and is loved passionately. Most of that lovin' is served up in such horribly dysfunctional ways it appears to be almost worse than no love at all.

Everybody in the story has secrets, which corrode their very souls. 

The characters are so real that I can name at least one person who has been in my life at one point or another who resembles each one of them. It's the first time I've read a story about a woman married to an abusive spouse that made me understand why she would stay with him. 

I read it all in one sitting. I laughed some, and cried a lot (funny, sad as well as happy tears). Woke up in the morning with a "crying headache" and really puffy eyes. I love a book that makes me suffer along with the characters!

While I was writing this, I checked out Rodgers' blog here and discovered that she has a new book out here. So I bought it. I hope I like it half as much as Sugarland which you can buy here.

Not exactly a book review: "The Hunger Games" Trilogy

 I recently read The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay one right after the other.  I would never have bought these books for myself. I don't read YA. I thought it would be like the Twilight novels, and I'm definitely not into vampires.   

But, my daughter and I share a Kindle account that's tied to my credit card. She asked if she could buy them, and I said okay. She started The Hunger Games a while back, and decided to finish the latter two during her spring break. She told me they were very good. I decided to give the first one a try.  I figured (a) I paid for it, and (b), as a writer, I suppose I should keep up with what is selling. I started reading The Hunger Games without expecting much. I was hooked from the beginning, and I raced through all three books, not paying attention to any details, just clicking through pages as fast as I could to see what would happen next. I plan to go back and re-read  the whole trilogy. I want to enjoy the details, and also analyze what exactly it is in the stories that mesmerized me so. Collins is a good writer! Maybe I can learn something that will improve my writing.

This is not so much a review as a "reaction" -- or, more accurately, bullet points for myself to consider when I go back to look more closely at how Collins pulled off such a tour de force.

Katniss Everdeen reminds me a little of a slightly more personable, but just as deadly Lisbeth Salander. She's a killer without (much) of a conscience, because she has been groomed for that by the world she lives in. Katniss is a game piece for adults to play with. Literally.  She is smart, creative and resourceful, however, and she often departs from the script her handlers set for her. Her handlers never completely manage to conquer her spirit.

Katniss' two male potential love interests, Peeta and Gale, are fascinating. Collins dribbles out information about them in such tiny doses that it is not clear until almost the very end of the last book which one is Katniss' true soul-mate. (I wonder how many other readers backed the wrong horse, like I did up until almost the very end.) Both boys are deeply flawed characters who genuinely love Katniss, each in his own way.  The difference is that one of them still (somehow and despite almost overwhelming obstacles) believes in love's power to heal emotional and spiritual wounds, and the other has been poisoned from the inside by hate. On the outside they look much alike, but neither boy is entirely what he appears to be. Collins did amazing things with these two characters. 

At first the story-line seemed to resemble the Star Wars theme of the battle between good and evil, until it becomes apparent that, in this story, the battle is between two Evils with the dwindling remnant of Good caught (and, too often, massacred) in the cross-fire.

It's a coming-of-age story set in a totalitarian state where human life has no value other than as entertainment for the masses. It's bread and circuses. These kids are gladiators in the arenas of some post-apocalyptic Evil Empire.  The message: humans never learn.

It's a love story, in a world that contains very little love. The tiny flicker of love's flame that still manages to burn in a few strong hearts prevails against the enormous power the state unleashes to try to destroy it.

It's an anti-war story that acknowledges that the human species is a bloodthirsty animal, so there will always be wars.

It's also a story about how the human spirit (black-hearted though it may be) can also be capable of soaring to amazing heights of self-sacrifice. It is a spirit that can (given enough time and love) heal from almost any wound inflicted on it, whether the blow comes from foe or friend or family.

It's ultimately a story about the power of story -- to educate,  to warn, to heal and to bless (both the writer and the reader).

I am blown away.

E-Book Review: "Race Traitor" by Elisa Hategan

This is a disturbing but engrossing story. 

Lara Aslan is a 16-year old runaway whose desperation for love and belonging allow her to be caught in the clutches of a neo-Nazi, white supremacist organization, which trains her to be a commando in a campaign that the "Patriot Front" intends to explode into an all-out race war. Lara turns the tables when, with the help of a French journalist, a lesbian police officer and her own courage, she agrees to testify in a criminal trial against the mastermind behind the organization. 


The story is dark and frightening. The bad guys are monsters. The good guys are from interesting sources and they are surprisingly effective.Lara is a unique heroine who is both a love-starved adolescent and a highly trained military commando, both of which are at the threshold of giving birth to a woman of courage and passion . It was so brutal, I wanted to give up on it most of the way through. I kept reading, however, because it the writer's voice is strong enough to hold my attention and the main character is so sympathetic, I had to keep reading to find out what would happen to her.  I'm glad I finished it.

The author's website is here.   Buy it here.

E-Book Review: "Sophie and the Rising Sun" by Augusta Trobaugh

This story, set in a tiny town in coastal Georgia, opens a couple of years before the outbreak of WWII. Most of the characters are the usual small town Southerners: beautiful Sophie wasting her life mourning a lost love; Miss Anne, the ultimate Southern heroine, abiding by the rigid rules of Southern culture until circumstances warrant a departure, at which point she reveals her inner Steel Magnolia; Miss Ruth, the bigoted town troublemaker. And then there is Mr. Oto. He is an American of Japanese descent who takes up residence in a gardener's cottage behind Miss Anne's home and devotes himself to beautifying her garden (although if left to do it his own way instead of hers, it would be a lot more beautiful). He falls in love with Sophie the first time he meets her and pines for her secretly.  She is strangely drawn to him as well, despite all the cultural taboos.

When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor and anti-Japanese rage engulfs the country, Miss Anne decides to hide Mr. Oto in a cabin in the woods and tell the town that he has moved to Canada. Shortly thereafter, Miss Anne breaks her ankle, and shares her secret with Sophie who takes over the duties of providing Mr. Oto with food and water. Sophie and Mr. Oto are both blown away by the beauty of their love. Miss Ruth finds out about the situation and is determined to raise as much Cain as possible.

With the help of Queen Sally, a black friend from her childhood, Sophie decides to go away with Mr. Oto. The problem is, a late-season hurricane is bearing down on the town and Mr. Oto's hiding place is near the coast.  After the storm, all the houses in area where Mr. Oto was hiding are washed away and both Mr. Oto and Sophie are gone. Queen Sally may or may not know what happened to them, but she isn't telling.

(My favorite part was when Miss Anne and Queen Sally integrate Miss Ruth's church a couple of decades before the Civil Rights Movement.)

Like a lot of Southern fiction, this book is written with a lyrical voice that is almost musical. The addition of the artistic, quiet and dignified oriental character who meditates in a hut behind his cottage, only adds to the mystical aura of the story. You can smell the Spanish moss and feel the humidity on your skin just reading the book. 

I downloaded a kindle version of this book on a freebie promo special. I do not see it offered in e-book format any more, but you can buy the book here.

Book Review: Breaking TWIG by Deborah Epperson

This was a Grand Slam "blow me away" book!  The subject matter could have been too painful to read except that the writer's voice was so compelling, I had to keep reading. I believed from the beginning that somehow Becky would triumph over the many obstacles the author threw at her. (Cruel, mean author!)

I know several people who have had abusive parents like Helen. And I know a couple of women who were victims of horrible rapes. This novel nails both, at least based on the stories I have heard from people who have experienced one or both of those experiences.

Becky is a fascinating protagonist, maybe not quite as fabulous as Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird -- but close.

The novel totally nails the Southern small town world where everybody knows everybody else's  secrets, but pretends not to, even when intervening would be the kind thing to do.

Please, buy it here on Amazon. The author's blog is here.

E-Book Review: "The Sex Club: A Detective Jackson Mystery" by L. J. Sellers

This was a disturbing book.  It was well written and gripping. The "good" characters were sympathetic and engaging. I cared about them. The "bad" characters were despicable. I like that in a thriller.

The disturbing part was the story-line about a teen-aged Bible study group in an ultra-conservative Christian church engaging in exceedingly risky sexual behavior that leads to murder. The tension ratchets way up when the detective/dad investigating the bombing of a birth control clinic realizes that his own daughter could be a target of the bomber.

The novel explores the rigidity of the fundamentalist Christian culture and its disconnectedness from traditional morality and ethics -- and even traditional Christianity. That is disturbing enough. Add clinic bombings and murder, and the tension gets almost unbearable.

Plan on reading this one more or less in one sitting.

The Author's website is here.  Buy it at Amazon.

E-book Review: "The Misanthrope's Guide to Life" by Megan Rowland and Chris Turner -Neal

This book made me laugh out loud on almost every page. It also made me want to put a bag over my head because I think parts of it were written with me in mind.

If you're a misanthrope, you must read this. If you don't know whether or not you're a misanthrope take the quiz at the beginning of the book to find out. Even if it turns out you're not a misanthrope, you probably know someone who is, and this will help you to understand them. (Not that they give a damn about being understood, of course.)

This is totally first rate, rolling-on-the-floor humor.

Buy it here.  Authors' website is here.

E-Book Review: "The Trouble with Green" by Liv James

Josie's business running a consortium of eco-friendly inns is about to take off after she receives a very favorable write-up in a national publication. Her marriage, however, is on the rocks and her husband plans to take a job across the country. Then the owners of one of her inns disappear and Josie receives a frantic call from one of their employees asking for her help.

Josie travels to California to take over the running the inn until the owners can be located. The inn is in chaos in part because no one knows the passwords to the reservations database. The hotel is unprepared for its guests.  An unwelcome guest from Josie's past shows up at the inn and refuses to leave and an heiress is murdered in her room.

After that, the action really takes off. 

This book was full of surprises. It was advertised as a romance. The first chapter made it sound like an adventure. Then it switched to kind of straight up chick lit for a couple of chapters to allow the reader to get to know and care about Josie, her family and her business. After that it turned into a mystery, before switching back to a suspense/adventure with nail-biting, sitting-on-the-edge-of-your-seat-flipping-pages-really-fast climax. In short, it was a thrill ride. 


The author's website is here. Buy it at Smashwords here.

Book Review: "An Echo in the Bone" by Diana Gabaldon

I started reading Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series years ago in p-book format. Because of all the things that were going on in my life, I had not purchased this latest installment when it was first published. I recently bought the Kindle version.

Outlander is a series of historical fiction books, with a time travel element. In the first story, Claire Randall, a physician from Boston, is accidentally transported back to the eighteenth century when she visits Stonehenge on a trip to England.  She ends up in Scotland, where she meets Jamie MacKenzie, perhaps one of the sexiest romantic heroes of all time. Jamie is married at the time they meet, but they fall in love and Claire ends up pregnant. Complications cause her to decide to go back to the twentieth century to birth her child. She subsequently returns because she loves Jamie too much to live without him.

In several books between Outlander and Echo in the Bone Jamie and Claire travel to France where they get caught up in the run-up to the French Revolution. They travel to the Caribbean and finally end up in North Carolina during the Colonial period. They raise a family and try to hide from the coming revolutionary storm.

In Echo in the Bone the revolutionary maelstrom overtakes them and they participate in the war as partisans: Claire as a medic and Jamie as an officer in the Continental Army.  While that is happening, their daughter and her husband, with their two children, travel back to twentieth century Scotland to seek medical treatment for the little girl. While Jamie and Claire are trying to stay alive in the middle of a war, Brianna and Roger are trying to cope with the complexities of life in the twenty-first century. It's an interesting contrast.

This is about the only series that I have stuck with through so many volumes (this is the eighth). That is because the characters are complex, "real" and I care about them, and because the historical period against which part of the story is set is dramatic and interesting. What is more the time-travel element adds a second dimension of things to wrap your brain and heart around. What would it be like to travel back in time? What would a person from the eighteenth century think of our world today?  How would people cope with such contrast?

Gabaldon is a good writer. The story is complex enough and described in sufficient detail that I am able to totally immerse myself in the story world in every one of her books. The stories are a little melodramatic, but it's historical romance, so that's not necessarily a bad thing. The secondary and even minor characters are so fascinating that Gabaldon has spun off entire novels and one other series about some of them. The Quaker doctor and his sister that appear in this novel could hold up to a novel of their own, I think. Also in this novel Jamie's nephew, Ian, matures into a man who I think (if Gabaldon lets him live) will clearly be the clan leader after Jamie.

If you're going to tackle the series, start at the beginning with Outlander. Here's the entire list of all of Gabaldon's books.

Letters of Note - A book is like a man

I recently subscribed to the newsletter from Letters of Note, a blog dedicated to the preservation and circulation of private correspondence that the author believes merits wider circulation. Some of the letters are hilarious, some are tragic. Almost every one I have read has made me stop and think. This one hit very close to home.

While he was writing East of Eden, John Steinbeck wrote this letter to his editor: Steinbeck: A Book is Like a Man

This letter first blew me away and then made me think -- a lot. For one thing, Steinbeck, as a traditionally published novelist had an entire team working for him:

As you know better than most, Pat, the book does not go from writer to reader. It goes first to the lions—editors, publishers, critics, copy readers, sales department. It is kicked and slashed and gouged. And its bloodied father stands attorney.

As an indie author, I'd love to have that kind of team working for me, to hone and polish my stories before turning them loose. That makes me a little sad, but I know that the world in which I am writing is different than Steinbeck's world in 1952, and I have to deal with the realities of now.

One thing remains the same: ultimately the reader is the one who gives meaning to the story.

Well, by God, Pat, [the reader's] just like me, no stranger at all. He'll take from my book what he can bring to it. The dull witted will get dullness and the brilliant may find things in my book I didn't know were there.

And just as he is like me, I hope my book is enough like him so that he may find in it interest and recognition and some beauty as one finds in a friend.

 Yes!

E-book Review: "Irvinectomy" by Karen S. Mendoza

This book was hilarious.  In some ways it reminded me of the old TV show "Family Ties" in that the main character is a capitalistic child of a couple of hippies, which makes for some funny and touching conflict. But it ultimately cut deeper than the TV show ever did, delving into the clash of difficult family dynamics, ambition, cross-cultural sexual attraction and a whole bunch of other conflicts, in a breezy, funny and yet sweet way.

It's not great literature, but it made for a very entertaining evening of reading. Kudos!!!

Buy the book here on Smashwords.