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Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant by Indran Amirthanayagam

February 23, 2022 by

Source: GBF
Paperback, 90 pgs.
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Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant by Indran Amirthanayagam opens with the “Migrant Song,” part plea, part love song to those who have fled homes to make new ones. “We write/poems for our tribes, making one tribe of/every beating heart sending blood through/the veins of one earth.” (pg. 3) This poem sets the tone for the collection. While many of these poems tackle tough issues of racism, institutional racism, a presidential election that threw a country into crisis, and so much more, Amirthanayagam bears witness to it all, but unlike the journalist observing, he’s participating in change. He’s calling voters in conservative locations, speaking to them one-on-one, writing letters, trying to express a different view but always with an open hand and heart.

One of the most beautiful lines in this collection comes in “Soul Rising”: (pg. 25)

I miss you something fierce;
I have to tell my bones to
stop shaking, to calm
down, that there is something
called work, poetry, cleaning
the room, getting food
together, attending to mother,
reading fine print in polling,
picking up the phone, cold-
calling a Texan in the name of
participatory democracy, the
nation's and the earth's soul...

In this poem, about a third of the way through, it is clear that democracy matters and it should matter to all of us. We should be taking the time to speak to one another — face-to-face, phone-to-phone, video-to-video — anything to keep the democratic dialogue going. Like I said, more than poems of witness. These are poems of action.

From "Artist's Role" (pg. 47)

...Can we continue
to make light and gladden hearts while the virus kills
and one gang leader tries to steal the democracy, unmasked?

Despite the darkness we face in America — the something “too rotten in the fridge” and the “blackening hole” and the “spilling of blood” — Amirthanayagam is still hopeful. There is light in the ship that carries democracy in the hold and the crossing of John Lewis bridge, and the dermatologist who is able to freeze the blackening hole and removing it before cancer takes over. “Writing a poem is/the easiest option, the only one I can/imagine and control. Although war is/everywhere, and it is time to raise/our hands and say no, not past this line.//” (“Not Beyond This Line, pg. 58)

It may take 10,000 steps, but freedom and peace are worth every stone stuck in your shoe, every bead of sweat that falls, and every emotional emptying it takes. Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant by Indran Amirthanayagam explores the freedom of an open heart that allows us to “embrace the darkness and accept each other’s/absolute freedom to fly to the other end of the earth.” (“The Candle (Migratory Bird), pg. 87)

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Indran Amirthanayagam writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole. He has published over twenty books of poetry, including Blue Window (translated by Jennifer Rathbun), The Migrant States, Coconuts on Mars, The Elephants of Reckoning (winner 1994 Paterson Poetry Prize), Uncivil War, and The Splintered Face: Tsunami Poems. In music, he recorded Rankont Dout. He edits the Beltway Poetry Quarterly (www.beltwaypoetry.com); curates www.ablucionistas.com; writes https://indranamirthanayagam.blogspot.com; co-directs Poets & Writers Studio International; writes a weekly poem for Haiti en Marche and El Acento; and hosts The Poetry Channel (https://youtube.com/user/indranam). He has received fellowships from the Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, The US/Mexico Fund for Culture, and the Macdowell Colony. He is a 2021 Emergent Seed grant winner. Forthcoming new books include Powèt nan po la (Poet of the Port) and Isleño.

Filed Under: challenges, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Water Shedding by Beth Konkoski

February 22, 2022 by

Source: GBF
Paperback, 26 pgs.
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Water Shedding by Beth Konkoski is a chapbook of stunning images that illustrate the shedding of an old self to make way for the emergence of another. In the opening poem, “Linger,” the narrator recalls how they needed to fit into a mold of another. “Burning any fringe/or edge you don’t like,/I beg to fit in your chosen/mold, to slide like a wedge/of orange between your teeth./” But the poem unravels this past to show readers that even as it hurts to break this mold, the narrator must relearn to use muscles that haven’t done much lifting.

From "Fragile, Do Not Drop" (pg. 2)

On a good day, I sense I'm breathing through glass
not shards cutting deep, just a dome of fine glass

I can almost press my hand to the edges,
but then fall, an insect captured beneath glass.

In each of these poems there is an energy that is contained, and while the narrator laments the lack of freedom to just be who they are, they also are afraid of what’s outside the safety of their carefully crafted world. But in “When I Was Eleven,” we see a brief moment of that freedom as the children head out into the night to catch fireflies or ride off on their bikes in summer. Later in “Sleep-Away Camp,” Konkoski explores the tight grip of fear with the story of Hansel and Gretel. She illustrates how fear is limiting, leaving the children without knowledge of the truffles in the forest or the beauty of the creek because the fear of the witch is ever prominent in their lives. “…we cage them with safety/and wonder when they do not flourish.” (pg. 6)

Water Shedding by Beth Konkoski takes readers on a journey through motherhood, being a daughter and a wife. She discovers the beauty in the cages, while slowly breaking free from the fear that creates those confinements. Her poems evoke nature in a way that calls readers to take a breath in their own lives and really consider the beauty in it. We do not need to completely shed ourselves to be free, but we can bend like the river and flow like the water beneath the obstacles and around them.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

Beth Konkoski is a writer and high school English teacher who lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and two children. She has published poetry, fiction, and non-fiction in more than fifty literary journals. Her first chapbook of poems, “Noticing the Splash,” was published in 2010 by BoneWorld Press.

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Dear Diaspora by Susan Nguyen

February 17, 2022 by

Source: GBF
Paperback, 78 pgs.
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Dear Diaspora by Susan Nguyen, winner of The Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, is almost a letter to those who have left their homeland in Vietnam. We begin with a flight in “The Body as a Series of Questions:” (pg. 1)

I was running fast because of what was behind me
the bridge existed a few steps before me then disappeared
through wooden slats rose the sound of rainwater
I absorbed the sound until there was nothing else

Suzi is a young teen of immigrant parents who is living an American dream, but she observes the hardships of her parents. A mother who comes home from working, “hair limp, deflated like a paper bag” in “Suzi’s Mother Does Nails” (pg. 7) Suzi sees the hardships, but she also sees the disappearances. Her father is a man who still seems to be running in the jungles to the waterways searching for fish, for something, on little to no sleep.

In “Letter to the Diaspora” (pg. 14), the poet asks, “Does memory eat the body?” Memory can be an all consuming beast sometimes, as we recall those we’ve lost, the past that is marred by danger and fleeing. Sometimes memory can consume you so much that you “exist at the edges.”

Dear Diaspora by Susan Nguyen is a stunning debut that looks trauma in the eyes and dares it to consume us. It’s a navigation of one generation through the grief of another. “Grief says little: yes, no. Does not say where her father has gone, does not say how to speak the language of her mother.” (“Sitting Down With Grief,” pg. 49)

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Susan Nguyen‘s debut poetry collection, Dear Diaspora, won the 2020 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry and was published by the University of Nebraska Press in Sept 2021.

Nguyen’s poetry is often interested in the body: how geography, history, and trauma leave markers, both visible and invisible. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart Prize and have appeared or are forthcoming in The Rumpus, Tin House, Diagram, and elsewhere. She is an alum of Tin House Winter & Summer Workshops and Idyllwild Writers Week. Her hobbies, beyond reading and writing, include photography, zinemaking, hiking, and otherwise being outdoors.

Nguyen recieved her BA, English from Virginia Tech and her MFA, poetry from Arizona State University where she was the poetry editor for Hayden’s Ferry Review. She has taught creative writing at ASU and the National University of Singapore and she received a fellowship from the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing to conduct an oral history project centered on the Vietnamese diaspora. She was named one of “three women poets to watch in 2018” by PBS NewsHour.

Follow her on Instagram.

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Will by Will Smith (audio)

February 16, 2022 by

Source: Purchased
Audiobook, 16+ hrs.
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Will by Will Smith, narrated by the author, is a phenomenal memoir about his family, his rise to fame, his will to be the best rapper and movie star, and his struggles with emotions. Narrated by Smith himself is like a trip and Audible has me at go when the music of these icons is included for listening. Smith still has those rapping chops — don’t think he doesn’t. But even with his struggles, it is clear that he’s in a place where he is still projecting a little bit of that personal, rather than actual self that he seems to be still searching for. After all, this is a memoir that he hopes will entertain and sell a lot of books.

There were things I already knew in this book from the Fresh Prince Reunion and from conversations during Jada Pinkett’s Red Table Talks. But I will say this, it is clear from Will’s point of view that he does what he does because he loves his family and he wants to give them the life that he didn’t feel like he had, but what he failed to see is that they are not him — they have different needs and desires. Even with Jada, he clearly wanted to create memories as he believed they should be — much of what he does is to create cinematic movies of his memories. He wants to will things into being to reach some sort of ideal. Jada, for her part, clearly loves him and all his faults, but she failed (at least from what I could tell) to express her wants/needs/desires in a way that he heard her and acknowledged them.

But this book is not about just his relationship with Jada. Like many creatives, there are visions we want to achieve and sometimes they work as we see them and sometimes we need to adjust to how those visions can actually be achieved. Gigi, his grandmother, was a wise woman. She believed in being kind and helping others no matter what, and this is something Will took to heart. You can see that in how he helps his friends, family, and even strangers get a leg up and achieve their own dreams, but one piece of advice from his mother that he forgot to embody was only speaking when it improved on silence.

Will clearly loves to talk and joke, but there is something that scares him about silence. This can be traced to those memories of domestic violence by his father against his mother. He stood in silence as his mother was hurt by his father – that inaction shaped him into the boisterous, charismatic clown he is.

Will by Will Smith is vulnerable, reflective, and harsh as Smith examines his past, present, and future. Like many of us who seek to be better and learn from mistakes, he is still on that journey. Is there stuff for the gossip rags? Yes. Will it be exploited? Probably. But was this journey cathartic for Smith and the reader? Definitely. We’re all deeply flawed, and Smith shows us that even our flaws can be channeled to make ourselves successful at least financially, but is that enough? Or should we be learning to adjust our lives and lead richer experiences with those we love?

RATING: Cinquain

Filed Under: audiobooks, challenges, memoir, New Authors Challenge, Penguin, Publishers/Publicists, purchased, random house, Read in 2022, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Your Words, Your World by Louise Bélanger

February 15, 2022 by

Source: the Poet
Paperback, 99 pgs.
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Your Words, Your World by Louise Bélanger, which toured with Poetic Book Tours, is a collection of nature photography and poetry. To me, however, the poems read more like a daily devotional, something many of us may need as the pandemic continues into its 3rd year. It’s a collection that reminds us of the beauty around us and how we tend to be too busy with our lives to notice the miracles in our gardens or parks.

from "The contest" (pg.19-20)

....
"And the fragrance of each flower
When mixed together was exquisite."

Then they understood
No flower is the best
Separately they don't win the contest
The winning comes when they are together
....

Many of these poems are reliant on a faith in God and have a motherly quality to them. Some of the tone is like a mother speaking to a child, expressing ways to better navigate the world. Learning to get along with others, become part of a team, and work toward a common goal, rather than compete with one another in a contest we cannot win.

Many of the photos in the collection are flowers or nature related, but I absolutely loved the clouds paired with the poem “A handful of cloud”. A mother and child are outside together and he reaches for a blue cloud, but it is the wispy nature of the cotton candy that reminds us of pure joy. It is the sweetness of an innocent child, it is the ephemeral nature of life’s moments. Enjoy each one while you have it.

Your Words, Your World by Louise Bélanger can be turned to again and again in times of worry or stress. The photos alone will cause readers to take a breath and smile. The poems will remind them that life doesn’t have to be a frenzy.

Rating: Tercet

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2021, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Jane and the Year Without a Summer by Stephanie Barron

February 10, 2022 by

Source: Publisher
Hardcover, 336 pgs.
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Jane and the Year Without a Summer by Stephanie Barron is like Nancy Drew set during the time of Jane Austen’s life. Part of the title is inspired by the historic eruption of Mount Tambora, which caused some series climate effects, including crop failures, and led to the “Year Without a Summer” in 1816. I loved that Barron stayed true to the whereabouts (based on historic record) of Austen and her sister, Cassandra, when they took a trip to Cheltenham Spa in Gloucestershire.

Things in the Austen household are not all roses, but even as uncertainty lays claim to the family’s fortunes and to the reputation of Austen’s brother Charles, Jane and her sister take the time to travel to the waters, hoping to improve Jane’s health. Once there, the ladies encounter some very dull and dark characters who many of the other guests seem to be avoiding. The spas themselves are not at all what either lady expects, and in fact, they begin to wonder if the waters are bad for people’s health.

When a young lady in a basket chair turns up at Mrs. Potter’s where they are staying, Austen and her sister are even more intrigued. A captain, a devoted friend who protects her friend in the chair, and a mysterious theater dialect coach all add to the mystery when a Viscount shows up claiming the woman in the basket chair is his wife! When a pug ends up dead at Mrs. Potter’s and later a murder occurs at the local masquerade, Austen and the smitten Mr. West work together to uncover the truth of the murder.

Jane and the Year Without a Summer by Stephanie Barron is a delightful who-done-it mystery whose main protagonist is one of the great observers of human nature, Jane Austen. I loved that Austen used her keen observation skills to unearth the truth of the mysteries within these pages. All of the characters have their own secrets, and there is even a bit of romance for Jane herself. Highly recommend for Jane Austen readers and those who love a good mystery!

RATING: Cinquain

About the Author:

Francine Mathews was born in Binghamton, New York, the last of six girls. She attended Princeton and Stanford Universities, where she studied history, before going on to work as an intelligence analyst at the CIA. She wrote her first book in 1992 and left the Agency a year later. Since then, she has written twenty-five books, including five novels in the Merry Folger series (Death in the Off-Season, Death in Rough Water, Death in a Mood Indigo, Death in a Cold Hard Light, and Death on Nantucket) as well as the nationally bestselling Being a Jane Austen mystery series, which she writes under the pen name, Stephanie Barron. She lives and works in Denver, Colorado. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Pinterest, and GoodReads.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, fiction, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, random house, Read in 2021, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and Other Baseball Stories by E. Ethelbert Miller

February 8, 2022 by

Source: GBF
Paperback, 96 pgs.
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When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and Other Baseball Stories by E. Ethelbert Miller is a collection that spans not only the love of baseball, but also wider themes of racism, gender issues, and loss. The collection opens with “Hit This” in which a ball curves after falling off a table. What a metaphor for life and baseball! Isn’t that just the way of things, we assume life is headed in one direction and then it takes a turn.

From "Roberto" (pg. 6)

We had gloves. Cheap gloves. Gloves
with no pockets no matter how much
we kept punching into the center of them.

The gloves had missing pockets
like our missing fathers who punched
our mothers and swung bats at our heads.

Our fathers were gone and we outgrew their
absence. Our hands became too large
for small gloves. Many were lost or stolen.

Miller’s plain language and emphasis on the childhood games of baseball in the streets and parks become larger metaphors for the violence and low-income struggles of these children’s lives. His lines pack a serious punch, particularly in “Roberto.” Many of the poems in this collection are like this. Remember that opening poem — the ball curves, and this is how each poem reads in Miller’s collection.

From "Kind of Blue" (pg. 15)

....A player swung
and sent a fly ball toward the outfield
fence. It went foul at the last moment
like love or a marriage striking an
empty wooden seat and bouncing
back to the field.

I had to look up Tommy John surgery, which I found out is the reconstruction of ligaments in the elbow and it’s a surgery most often done on pitchers. I like baseball and have written my own baseball poems, but mine are nothing like Miller’s poems. From a World Series played by survivors of earthquakes and climate change in “The World Series” to the hope that you’ll be remembered after the spring time of your youth in “Free Agent,” Miller’s baseball metaphors are larger than life, much like Whitey Ford and others who have played America’s favorite pastime.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

E. (Eugene) Ethelbert Miller was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1950. He attended Howard University and received a BA in African American studies in 1972. A self-described “literary activist,” Miller is on the board of the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive multi-issue think tank, and has served as director of the African American Studies Resource Center at Howard University since 1974. His collections of poetry include Andromeda (1974), The Land of Smiles and the Land of No Smiles (1974), Season of Hunger / Cry of Rain (1982), Where Are the Love Poems for Dictators? (1986), Whispers, Secrets and Promises (1998), and How We Sleep on the Nights We Don’t Make Love (2004).

Miller is the editor of the anthologies Women Surviving Massacres and Men (1977); In Search of Color Everywhere (1994), which won the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award and was a Book of the Month Club selection; and Beyond the Frontier (2002). He is the author of the memoir Fathering Words: The Making of an African American Writer (2000).

The mayor of Baltimore made Miller an honorary citizen of the city in 1994. He received a Columbia Merit Award in 1993 and was honored by First Lady Laura Bush at the White House in 2003. Miller has held positions as scholar-in-residence at George Mason University and as the Jessie Ball DuPont Scholar at Emory & Henry College. He has conducted writing workshops for soldiers and the families of soldiers through Operation Homecoming.

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews, Simon & Schuster Tagged With: , ,

Black Under by Ashanti Anderson

February 2, 2022 by

Source: Coriolis Publicity
Paperback, 30 pgs.
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Black Under by Ashanti Anderson is a poetry collection that will knock you back. In the opening ode, Anderson illuminates what it means to be Black and how beautiful it is. She equates it with the dark comfort of the womb, she alludes to the segregation of blacks and whites by evoking images of piano keys, but ultimately, her ode praises blackness. There are no monsters under this bed.

Anderson uses several different poetic forms to celebrate blackness, including a resume format that highlights the horrifying violence perpetrated against people because of skin color and the monetizing of those deaths for the sake of art and media. It’s that double-edge sword of calling attention to the unfair and unjust violence against Blacks, while at the same time feeling exploited. American capitalism at the forefront.

 from "Slave Ship Haibun" (pg. 11)

But she thinks not of how we watched the birds circle overhead,
bomb beak-first into the ocean. Each in our own way, we 
began to imitate. A few of us induced feathers. 
I plucked a plume, made a quill.

One of the most powerful poems in this collection, “The Body Recalls,” crescendos on the 3/5ths compromise where slaves were considered 3/5ths of a person for population counts related to taxation and representation in the House. Anderson makes readers aware of how each violent death of a Black person compounds the historic wrongs of America.

"Acrostic for My Last Breaths" (pg. 15)

If I’m ever out of oxygen

Cut the comms. Switch the radio, play
A song by Whitney or Aretha, something
No sense can pause my throat from parting for.
’Gon throw my sorrows into this vast, black void
That don’t even have space to hold tune, or blues,

But I don’t sing to be heard. I do it to keep on.
Ring diaphragm and rattle lung like sickness, each
Eighth-note a reason to stay living. Can’t take
A rest, might hear the sensor’s whining,
That worried, heaving falsetto of siren.
How I hate the sound of dying. Rather riff
Even if everything in me stops screaming.

Black Under by Ashanti Anderson explores what it means to be Black in America and the world, but it also looks to acknowledge and tackle the inter-generational trauma of Blacks in a way that is a searing commentary on our society as well as a celebration of resilience.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Ashanti Anderson (she/her) is a Black Queer Disabled poet, screenwriter, and playwright. Her debut short poetry collection, Black Under, is the winner of the Spring 2020 Black River Chapbook Competition at Black Lawrence Press. Her poems have appeared in World Literature Today, POETRY magazine, and elsewhere in print and on the web. Learn more about Ashanti’s previous & latest shenanigans at ashanticreates.com

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

National Geographic Readers: Kamala Harris (Level 2) by Tonya K. Grant

February 1, 2022 by

Source: Media Masters Publicity
Paperback, 32 pgs.
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National Geographic Readers: Kamala Harris (Level 2) by Tonya K. Grant provides early readers with some background on our current vice president and her background. My daughter read this one on her own, but she was interested in how Kamala and her sister protested the rules at their apartment building as children and successfully helped change the rules, allowing kids to play soccer on the law.

We talked about how individuals can come together to make change when things seem unfair. She learned about the different jobs that lawyers can hold from district attorney to attorney general and senator, as well as vice president of the United States. She found it amusing that Harris used a portable ironing board as a desk.

The book includes some firsts for Harris, as well as some fun facts, and kids will learn new words dealing with government and democracy. There’s also a short quiz at the end to help kids see how much they learned while reading this short book. The photos are high quality, as expected and really round out the story.

National Geographic Readers: Kamala Harris (Level 2) by Tonya K. Grant is another short, early reader book that can help kids learn more about our modern heroes and activists, among others who are making history today.

RATING: Quatrain

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

National Geographic Readers: Stacey Abrams (Level 2) by Melissa H. Mwai

January 27, 2022 by

Source: Media Masters Publicity
Paperback, 32 pgs.
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National Geographic Readers: Stacey Abrams (Level 2) by Melissa H. Mwai is a wonderful introduction to a modern activist that provides information on her formative years, her college years, and her ambitions. We loved that this was easy to read for my daughter and the glossary in the back for terms like “district” and “election.” These will help kids who struggle with large, unfamiliar terms and those who want to learn more than the context clues provide. This book also has a short quiz to help kids and teachers review what readers have learned.

Readers will “meet” Stacey Abrams in the first pages, and learn how to phonetically say “election.” This introductory page sets the stage for why Abrams actively fought to improve voting in Georgia and allows children to see how elections are integral to democracy and how voices can be quieted through discrimination. There also are a set of “firsts” for Abrams and a fun story about how she selected the college she eventually attended.

National Geographic Readers: Stacey Abrams (Level 2) by Melissa H. Mwai is a great introduction to the election process, Stacey Abrams’ advocacy to improve voting access, and the role we all can play in ensuring democracy continues throughout the country. My daughter was not that interested when she started reading, but as she read more, she realized that things are not equal for everyone and she said that is unfair.

RATING: Quatrain

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Model Home by Jay Hall Carpenter

January 25, 2022 by

Source: GBF
Paperback, 61 pgs.
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Model Home by Jay Hall Carpenter is a collection reflecting on the homes we build, beginning with the landscape of “Common Ground,” in which the inside of a home may not be tenable but the land around it may be familiar and a place to start when building connections.

One of my favorite poems in this collection also speaks to connection, but in a way that kids and the kids within us will understand — the moments of our days. “Like Kids” explores the spontaneity and the curiosity of childhood, allowing us to shrug off adulthood and its responsibilities to run with the kids after the ice cream headache. These moments are fleeting, and as the string of our kites breaks and the kite drifts off into the air, we are made aware of the past and the present all at once. It is hopeful yet saddening.

“Model Home” speaks to the surface seen by others, but opens the doors wide to expose the fissures of family and the imperfections that we house. Carpenter has a deft hand in these poems, and even as many of them rhyme (something I don’t prefer as a reader), I was captivated. His ability to rhyme without distracting me as a reader was a welcomed surprise (though I have read a children’s manuscript he wrote and that rhymed, so I’m not sure why I should be surprised).

You’ll want to take your time touring Jay Hall Carpenter’s Model Home, scrutinizing the decor, exploring the dark corners, sledding down the snowy hills, examining the model home we, as America, pretend to be for the rest of the world. Our home may not be as perfect as we market it to be.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Jay Hall Carpenter is an author and artist living in Maryland. His written works include plays, musicals, children’s books, and poetry. For several years he published The ACE Occasionally, a small literary humor magazine. “Dark and Light” is his first collection of poetry.

Carpenter’s career in the visual arts spans forty years and began at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., where he designed 520 of the Cathedral’s sculptural embellishments, including gargoyles and angels. His public sculptures, monuments, smaller bronzes, and drawings can be found throughout the United States and at JayHallCarpenter.com.

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

The Last Night in London by Karen White

January 18, 2022 by

Source: the publisher
Hardcover, 480 pgs.
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The Last Night in London by Karen White is an epic WWII novel with dual narratives set in during the Blitz and in 2019. Young, Yorkshire girl Eva Harlow, whose run from her life of poverty where her mother is a laundress and her father is a drunk, meets Precious Dubose, a young Tennessean, by happenstance at the train station and become like sisters as they navigate early 1940s London as models. Meanwhile, Madison Warner in 2019 is tasked with writing an article for British Vogue about Precious Dubose and the fashions in war time. She’s struggling to live life even as she assumes she’ll have a short life.

“Pushing herself against a wall, as if she could hide from the noise and the terror, she closed her eyes. Moonlight Sonata. Someone — she couldn’t remember who, in an underground club perhaps — had whispered that that was what he called the music of the nightly bombings.” (pg. 2)

Eva Harlow is a woman eager to reinvent herself. Her mother has lived her life under the hands of a drunk husband, but when he’s sent to jail, her other moves away from their home and hopes for a new life. This pushes Eva to seek out her own way and become someone more than an uneducated Yorkshire girl. She drops her real name and morphs into an elegant model, learning new languages from fellow models and reading books and newspapers to become more educated. Precious becomes like a sister to her and they work so well together and are often mistaken for one another because they are both slim, blond, and elegant.

Madison Warner travels to London to write an article on Precious, who is now nearly 100 years old, and the man she’s pushed out of her mind will be sharing a flat with her and Precious. Colin is a dreamy Brit who still holds a candle for her, even as she’s pushed him away when she left Oxford.

This book is epic. Karen White has outdone herself with these characters and the story. I was along for the entire ride. I couldn’t put this book down. What happened to Eva and her RAF pilot Graham St. John? Why does Precious have all of Eva’s things? What is she hiding? And what is Alex Grof’s role in this?

As for Madison and Colin, there is the navigation of past hurts, as well as the mystery they are both so eager to solve. Colin’s nana Precious, though not by blood, loves him like her own and vice versa, while Madison is a distant relation, according to a genealogy project. As they unravel the mystery, will they be closer than before? Will Maddie get a grip and take life by the horns and just live life to the fullest? Will Precious help them both move forward?

There is so much beauty in this novel. There are family bonds, friendships that become like family bonds, romance, and intrigue. The Last Night in London by Karen White will capture your imagination and hold you hostage as you whisk yourself around London’s streets during the Blitz and immerse yourself in Precious’ memories of fashion and so much more.

RATING: Cinquain

Filed Under: challenges, fiction, Penguin, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews, WWII Reading Challenge Tagged With: ,