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Leaves by Michael Baron

February 1, 2013 by

Leaves by Michael Baron has the makings of a family saga, with its large Gold family in Oldham, Ct.  Tyler, a budding nature photographer; Corrina, a controlling older sibling; Deborah, the resident foodie; Maxwell, who seems to have it all and leads the town’s Chamber of Commerce; and Maria, a young emptynester, must close a chapter in their lives and begin anew after deciding to sell the family business, the Sugar Maple Inn — a popular destination for “leaf-peepers.”  Baron alternates between characters throughout the novel, but the characters are dynamic enough and varied so they are easy to keep track of, even when the spouses and their individual family units are introduced.  Each of them is struggling with the close together loss of their parents, as well as the decision to sell the inn that is as much a part of the family as they are.  Each chapter signifies a day in their lives as they count down to the last Halloween bash they’ll ever throw for the residents of Oldham.

“The leaves were the reason that people came, whether it was for an overnight diversion or to settle for decades, rising generations of others who would remain nearby.”  (page 15)

Oldham is a place with many faces and facets from the ancestral families to the newcomers looking for a change or new adventure — particularly those that become small business owners.  Tyler and Maria were easy to connect with as their artistic sides have stagnated and need rejuvenation; Maxwell’s ambivalence about his place in town is easy to understand given the young age of his son and the adjustments he and his wife have made.  Meanwhile, Deborah is like many of us, comfortable in her current place and not quite ready to move on, and unsure of what direction to head in when change is inevitable.  Corrina is a tough nut to crack and hard to like with her domineering nature, but it’s easy to see why she wants to be in control — at least of her siblings and the last party at the inn — because her home life is not as picture perfect as it looks.

There are so many layers to Leaves, as the members navigate their new lives without the inn and their parents to anchor them, and the impact those changes have on their own relationships with one another.  Their moods and reactions change quickly, though the distance between them has been as gradual as the changing seasons.  However, while there are many depths to this novel, there also are moments where readers will want more, but the narrative suddenly changes to another sibling or situation.  Baron has established a foundation for a series of novels that are sure to come about the Gold family, and he’s crafted a family with strong bonds.  Even though each member is on the verge of breaking their family bonds for good, there are memories that creep in to pull them back to their roots and each other.  Baron’s novel is one that readers won’t want to end.  There is so much more in store for these characters and their relationships.

About the Author:

Michael Baron grew up in the New York area, has worked in retail and taught high school English.  Although he started writing nonfiction, he’s always loved fiction and love stories.  He has a deep passion for writing about relationships – family relationships, working relationships, friendships, and, of course, romantic relationships.  His wife and kids are the center of his life and his wife is the inspiration for all of his love stories.

Filed Under: ARC, fiction, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2013, reviews, Story Plant Tagged With: ,

All That I Am by Anna Funder

January 29, 2013 by

All That I Am by Anna Funder is an unusual pre-WWII novel that takes into account not only the after effects of WWI, but also the politics that flooded Germany before the war.  Funder has crafted a psychological novel in some ways, but the characters who are most interesting and mysterious — Hans and Dora — also are the most distant.  Perhaps they are more interesting and mysterious because they are seen through the eyes of those who knew and loved them best — Ruth and Ernst Toller — which begs the question of whether we — ourselves — would be more interesting to others if seen through our closest connections.  Ruth, Ernst, Hans, and Dora, along with others, are forced to flee Germany for London after Hitler comes to power.  Funder admits that many of the elements of her novel are taken from history and from her friend Ruth’s actual life, but this novel is not just about the history and intrigue of German ex-pats seeking information from inside the regime about their friends and to warn other countries about Hitler’s expectations for war.

“Last week they loaded me into the MRI machine, horizontal in one of those verdammten gowns that do not close at the back: designed to remind one of the fragility of human dignity, to ensure obedience to instruction, and as a guarantee against last-minute flight.”  (page 7)

Ruth and Dora are cousins, and Ruth is easily swept up into the passion of the Socialist party Dora belongs to because she’s already fallen in love with the words of a young man, Hans.  Even at the beginning, there is a tension between Hans and Dora, and while Ruth first mistakes it for a lover’s intimacy, it is clear to the reader that the tension is born of jealousy and competition.  The beginnings of the movement hold close to their ideals for peace and workers’ rights — even equal rights for women — but those ideals are tested time and again.  These ideals are burdened and even broken, as seen through the eyes of the individuals tested.  Funder’s unraveling of the story in two perspectives — Toller and Ruth — can be frustrating, as Toller and Ruth tell their stories from different points in time, which calls into question whose memory is more reliable.  Both are looking to the past before WWII and their early days in exile, and Funder leaves enough clues along the way for readers to pick up on the essence of the outcome.

“From what Bev has told me, an addict can lose ten years of their life in a quest for exactly this:  the constant present tense.  Afterwards, those who do not die wake to a world that has moved on without them:  it is as if nothing happened to the fiend in those years, they did not age or grow and they must now pick up –”  (Page 201)

Whether the drug is an opiate, morphine, or memory, these activists, these friends, these compatriots become blind to the realities of their exile.  Rather than remember their past glories with fondness, Hans, in particular, and Toller become absorbed in the images of themselves — those they created or were created of them.  Funder is calling into question the image we have of ourselves and those that others have of us — are those perceptions mirrors of themselves or are they a bit distorted when compared.

All That I Am by Anna Funder sheds light on the lives of German ex-pats before WWII, and the secretive life some of them led as they tried to help those they left behind in Germany.  But at it’s heart, the novel is about how politics and ambitions can distort friendships or not matter at all.  It’s also about the enduring love for those we know and love, even those that are unworthy of that devotion and those who also offer more of themselves to the world and others than they do to themselves.  A novel of memory, love, devotion, and self-sacrifice worth reading.

About the Author:

Anna Funder’s international bestseller, Stasiland, won the Samuel Johnson Prize for nonfiction. Her debut novel, All That I Am, has won many prizes, including the prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award. Anna Funder lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and children.

Visit Anna at her Website and connect with her on Facebook.

This is my 5th book for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, fiction, Harper Collins, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2013, review copy, reviews, tlc book tours Tagged With: ,

The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen by Syrie James

January 24, 2013 by

Syrie James’ The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen is a novel within a novel when librarian Samantha McDonough finds a letter in an old poetry book while on a trip to England with her boyfriend, Stephen.  Through this mystery letter, Sam begins an adventure through the countryside of England and enters the novel world of Jane Austen.  Through her travels she meets Anthony Whitaker, the heir of the former owner of Greenbrier, a small country estate in England.  He’s breathtakingly handsome and intelligent, but at times his dream of owning his own company can take over and make him arrogant and stubborn.

“Anthony and I had been taking turns reading aloud.  He was a quick study and had a marvelous gift for bringing characters to life.  Hearing Jane Austen’s words in his delectable British accent was divine.”  (page 127 ARC)

Like Austen’s characters, Sam and Anthony are flawed, but optimistic — and they lose their way, but eventually stumble onto the right path.  James has a way of capturing Austen’s style that belies the modernity of the story she’s telling, and in many ways, readers will get lost in the manuscript, just as Sam and Anthony do.  The missing manuscript not only captures everyone’s rapt attention, but highlights the enduring truth of Austen’s words in her own novels.  Mirroring the quirky characters Austen created and the hilarious proposals she used in her own novels, James’ missing manuscript echoes the great classics while continuing in the tradition of Austen’s fans by making them fresh and fun.

While the events in the manuscript regarding Miss Stanhope’s family and her love life are predictable, it is the journey that she takes to get to happiness that is worthy of Austen’s approval.  James’ character blossoms from a naive, country girl into a women who continues to have a strong mind, loyalty to her family, and dedication to those deserving of her compassion.  However, Sam and Anthony are more like tools to move the story along when — in this case — a frame story would have been sufficient.

Sam and Anthony’s relationship seems to blossom away from the reader’s vision, and this could hamper the reader’s ability to connect with them.  There are brief moments where they interact while reading the manuscript, but what goes on between them while they are reading — looks or brief touches — are not shown.  It’s also hard to interpret Sam’s feelings for Stephen when all we have is her comments about their relationship and rarely see them interact.  Additionally, the hunt for the manuscript seemed rushed, and should have had a bit more depth and twists and turns to make it more suspenseful and believable.

Overall, The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen by Syrie James is an enjoyable work about Jane Austen, historian’s thoughts about her work, and the mysteries that remain.  But at the same time, it is about the interpretations of her novels in how the hero always must prove himself to the heroine to win her love and how change can sometimes be a blessing in disguise.

About the Author:

Syrie James is the bestselling author of eight critically acclaimed novels, including The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen, The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen, The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte, Nocturne, Dracula My Love, Forbidden, and The Harrison Duet: Songbird and Propositions. Her books have been translated into eighteen foreign languages.

Filed Under: ARC, fiction, Penguin, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2013, reviews Tagged With: ,

The Tell by Hester Kaplan

January 15, 2013 by

The Tell by Hester Kaplan unfolds like a stop-motion movie, one frame at a time, and in that movie there are flashes of the past.  Owen Brewer’s attention is easily swayed from one subject and one moment to another, breathing in both the past and present of his life, while at the same time observing the behaviors and ticks of others.  His marriage to Mira Thrasher is modern and telling, especially in how they introduce themselves to the new neighbor and former actor Wilton Deere.  Their marriage does not seem to be on solid ground, just from the way Owen watches the interaction of his wife and Wilton and thinks about reclaiming her in the most instinctual way.  Owen is tough to take and analyzes a great many things much more than other people would, while Mira is more a take-it-as-is girl and enjoys the moments, while not watching for the sky to fall.  Meanwhile, Wilton is trying to reconnect with his daughter, but in the process clings to this married couple next door because he longs to be loved and hated.

“Owen leaned into the sink and gulped water, leady and lethal, from the tap. Then some movement of white, gone before he could fully detect or confirm it, drew his eye past the unfurling pleasure of the lilacs to the empty house next door. Its windows were violet mirrors. In the year since the place had been on the market, Owen had sometimes used the house to animate wisps of his imagination they way people used empty battlefields. Where they saw the fuming charge across the hard-packed earth, the clash, the fallen in the grass, the victorious mob shaded by incoming clouds, he pictured his future children on the oak stairs, bodies passing in front of doorways, and the motion of family life he hoped to have here in this house, someday, with Mira.” (page 3 ARC)

Kaplan’s novel is psychologically complex.  Mira is an artist, struggling to keep her studio open and helping give direction to the elderly, young, and even homeless.  At the same time, she is hardly home when she is with Owen, and most nights, she’s off at the casino with Wilton, though she claims she does not have a gambling problem.  Kaplan explores the breakdown of trust between a husband and wife, the rebuilding of faith between an estranged daughter and father, and the power of addiction and obsession.  Each person has a “tell” — which in gambling is a change in a player’s behavior or demeanor that can give clues to other players about the truth of their hand — and in this case, Owen is trying to discern Mira’s tell, while navigating a new and untested friendship with a man he presumes is trying to get a little closer to his wife.  With Wilton, the task of determining the tell is more difficult as Owen cannot determine if he is telling the truth, acting, or a combination of both, though Owen in many cases errs on the side of Wilton telling lies.

“It was like standing still while a very fast train blew by you and lifted your hair.  What remained was what had been forgotten or abandoned:  a towel in the bushes, a single sneaker, a cat, a brightly colored plastic ring still drifting on the pond.”  (Page 100 ARC)

Kaplan’s novel unfolds with careful precision as she delves deeper into the spiraling vortex of Owen’s marriage with Mira, and his obsession with her family’s hording and her secret trips to the casino.  Each is scared to be alone, but not scared enough to stop their behavior from ruining everything.  Kaplan’s The Tell is dark and woeful, her characters are swimming in a dark pool and clinging to any hope they see, no matter how fleeting or false it may be.

About the Author:

Hester Kaplan is the author of The Edge of Marriage, which won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and Kinship Theory, a novel. Her short stories have been included in The Best American Short Stories series. She teaches in Lesley University’s MFA Program in Creative Writing and lives in Rhode Island.

Find out more about Hester at her website. You can also follow her on Facebook and Pinterest.

tlc tour host This is my 2nd book for the 2013 New Authors Challenge.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, fiction, Harper Collins, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2013, reviews, tlc book tours Tagged With: ,

After the Rain by Karen White

January 7, 2013 by

After the Rain by Karen White is a republished and remastered novel that is full of twists and turns, touches lightly on the desolation of a broken family life and the darkness people can fall into as a result, and the hope that just might be around the corner.  Suzanne Paris is on a bus to Atlanta when she decides on a whim to get off in Walton, Ga., where she meets a large family and finds the home she’s been looking for all of her life.  But with the sun comes rain.  And there is a deluge of it in this book.

Suzanne has a past that is not far behind her, even as her freelance photography job takes her to many places.  She’s running from a life and for her life, and White has created a character who is both likeable and unlikeable.  She keeps secrets even from those know care for her, and her ability to trust others is very tenuous and easily broken by the wrong word or action, which White captures easily in her imagery.  From how she’s described by the muscular, hot mayor Joe Warner — who also teaches at the high school and coaches football — to how Suzanne pauses before answering questions about her past, readers will find a character who is taken in slowly by the small town and its residents but frightened of how her own past could harm them.

“Tides change.  So does the moon.  With the unfailing constancy of brittle autumn closing in on bright summer, things always changed.  If Suzanne had ever had faith in anything, it was in knowing that all things were fleeting.  And for good reason.  The highway of life was littered with the roadkill of those who didn’t know when to change lanes.”  (Page 1)

While things can be fleeting in life, there are things that are ever-lasting, and in this case, White talks about the support systems that we can have within our own families.  Whether those families are the ones we are born into or the ones we fall into or create out of friends and husbands and our own children, they are there to love and support us unconditionally.  Suzanne has a lot of lessons to learn, but the slow unraveling of her fears and her heart is endearing.  In many ways, though she’s an adult, she’s like a child being led into the life she’s always wanted.

“‘Amanda! You quit right now or I’m gonna jar your preserves!'”  (Page 5)

Photography plays a large role in the novel, and Suzanne not only takes photos of the people in Walton but also finds that she’s become a part of the town’s tapestry as she weaves parts of herself into the photos she takes.  Even more poignant, she connects with teenage Maddie when she shares with her the techniques a budding photographer needs to learn that are not necessarily taught in art classes.  After the Rain also offers readers that down-home southern feel that all of White’s novels have — from the caring strangers to the idioms that make the place its own.  There are moments when readers will want to strangle Suzanne for her decisions, and some events are easy to see coming, but the way White writes these characters and their story endears them to readers and ensures their love and struggles will never be forgotten.

Filed Under: fiction, Penguin, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2013, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Hokey Pokey by Jerry Spinelli

December 26, 2012 by

Hokey Pokey by Jerry Spinelli (published in January 2013) is a modern day fable in which the maxim “Kids live in their own little worlds” comes to life.  Bicycles become wild mustangs or horses in the plains to be captured by boys who are not just boys but cowboys with rope.  Girls hate boys and boys hate girls — taunting each other with harmless names and petty pranks.  In many ways, they relate to the opposite sex no differently than they relate to their own, though rather than offer advice or imparting skills and knowledge to their gender enemies, they stand apart from them and deride them as inferior.  Spinelli’s tale takes a few chapters to develop into a full blown world, but once it does, look out.  Readers will be wandering around and playing games.

There are four basic rules in this world of Hokey Pokey:  never leave a puddle unstomped; never go to sleep until the last possible minute; never kiss a girl; and never go near the Forbidden Hut.  With a male protagonist, Jack, Spinelli obviously is gearing the book more toward male readers, but female readers who can remember their childhoods and the games they played, may still find something to hold their attention here.  Jack is flanked by his amigos, Dusty and LaJo, and his enemy, Jubilee, has just stolen his mustang — Scramjet — the most famous bike in all of the land.  Jack is pissed, he’s vengeful, he’s sad, but more than anything, he’s noticed that something has changed since he woke up in the morning.

“The world looked exactly the same as always — the places, the kids — but this time there was a slippery sense, like an uncatchable moth, that he himself was no longer part of the picture, was on the outside looking in, that the world he was seeing was no longer his.  For a scary instant he thought his end of the seesaw was going to keep on rising and catapult him clear out of Hokey Pokey.”  (page 76 ARC)

Spinelli weaves a tale of growing up and leaving childhood behind and that sense of things being the same as they always were, but different somehow.  Highly inventive and at times surreal, Spinelli’s world can be a bit topsy turvy at first, but readers will soon wonder what is wrong with Jack and where he’s going if he is leaving Hokey Pokey when there is no train.  In a world absent of adults, kids run amok, taunt each other and take out their traumatic frustrations on one another in the form of games and the dangerous click, click, click of the exploder, which renders other kids “dead.”  In a land of make-believe and where anything is possible, Jack and his friends are free to think and feel how they wish without consequence.  But even in this world, there are boundaries to how others are treated.

Hokey Pokey by Jerry Spinelli, which is my first experience with this author, is an adventure for young and old.  However, the age range is 10 and up, and readers on the younger end of that range may find the themes and some language challenging, especially as Spinelli often mashes words together or creates his own as part of Hokey Pokey’s world.

About the Author:

Jerry Spinelli is an American author of children’s novels on adolescence and early adulthood. He is best known for the novels Maniac Magee, for which he won the Newbury Medal, and Wringer.  After graduating from Gettysburg College with an English degree, Spinelli worked full time as a magazine editor.  Spinelli was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania and currently resides in Phoenixville, PA.

This is my 88th book for the New Authors Reading Challenge in 2012.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, children's fiction, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, random house, Read in 2012, reviews Tagged With: ,

Cascade by Maryanne O’Hara

December 5, 2012 by

Cascade by Maryanne O’Hara is set in 1930s Massachusetts as the rest of the world is on the cusp of war with the Nazis and Boston is hoping to alleviate its water shortage by creating a new reservoir along the Cascade River.  Painter Desdemona Hart Spaulding lives in the sleepy little town of Cascade, which has been a target of lawmakers looking for water over the last decade.  Her life is nothing like she expected as her family falls on hard times, and she makes a life-altering decision to marry Asa to save her father and her home.  What she fails to realize is that some decisions are made for you by circumstance and fate in a cascade of changes that you can either fight or ride.

From the moment readers meet Dez, they know that she is conflicted about her new role as wife.  She makes her husband’s breakfast and tries to care for her father, but her mind wanders to her studio, her paints, and her canvases, making her lose track of time as she dives into the colors and scenes she creates.  Asa is hard to grasp as he seems to want to be oblivious to his wife’s struggles, but is forced to see reality when his wife makes decisions that place them both in the spotlight as the town looks for ways to save itself from drowning.

“Their once-fashionable resort town with its pleasant waters was looking more and more like the ghost valley that was invading dreams and even the pages of her sketchpad.”  (page 3)

O’Hara’s novel is not just about the cascade of decisions and twists in one’s life, but also the unexpected changes that face a country in a depression on the verge of a possible world war — at a time when sentiment against Jews is turning negative as many people lose their jobs and are thrust into poverty.  Things spiral out of control for the Spauldings and the town, but Dez is determined to follow her innate desire to pursue her art in spite of her duty to her husband and her father’s legacy as she hopes to turn public sentiment in favor of saving Cascade from the water department.  The parallels between the river and how it can shape a town and how events can shape people are deftly made in O’Hara’s lyrical prose.  She intertwines Shakespeare’s plays and famous quotations easily, tying Dez to her father’s legacy throughout the novel even when she has all but abandoned it in favor of an affair of art.

While Dez can seem immature in her clinging to Jacob, a traveling salesman, it is clear from her relationship with Asa that she’s never been in love with anything other than Shakespeare as seen through her father’s theater in Cascade and her own painting.  She is an artist that needs to feel substantial loss and pain before she can fully come into her art.  O’Hara has created a novel about the tensions between duty and desire and following one’s dream.  She has captured the struggle of artists, who unfortunately are too often misunderstood by non-artists, to achieve the time necessary to create without the guilt of failing to meet the obligations of family life and other relationships.

Through gorgeous descriptions and painting techniques, O’Hara plunges readers into the light-filled studios and landscapes of Dez, as well as into her nightmares, her guilt, and her nostalgia for things past.  Through quick brushstrokes and scraped canvases, the novel transports readers into muddied waters and into the bold color of an artist’s life.  Cascade by Maryanne O’Hara is a debut that shimmers like the rushing river over the rocks of the waterfall with its quiet power shaping Dez and what was once Cascade, Massachusetts.

***On a completely different note, I was totally in LOVE with this cover.   It was so utterly distracting with its water shapes in the profile image and how the boulders blended in as the woman’s hair.  I was enamored.***

About the Author:

Maryanne O’Hara was the longtime associate fiction editor of Ploughshares, Boston’s award-winning literary journal. Her short fiction has been published in magazines like The North American Review, Five Points, Redbook, and many anthologies. She has received grants from the St. Botolph Foundation and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and her story collection was a finalist for 2010′s Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. She lives on a river near Boston.

Find out more about Maryanne at her Website, her blog, and connect with her on Facebook.

This is my 83rd book for the New Authors Reading Challenge in 2012.

 

Filed Under: challenges, fiction, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2012, review copy, reviews, tlc book tours Tagged With: , ,

Misguided Angel by Melissa de la Cruz (Book 5)

November 30, 2012 by

Misguided Angel by Melissa de la Cruz (book 5 in Blue Bloods series) is divided between Jack and Schuyler on the run from the coven and Mimi and Oliver back in New York seeking to uncover the perpetrators of vampire kidnappings.  The New York coven is crumbling beneath the weight of the Silver Blood attacks and the absence of its celestial leader Michael, known as Charles Force in this century.  The deaths of Blue Bloods are scaring the elders and the younger generations, and some are talking about retreating underground.  Meanwhile, Schuyler and Jack have sought refuge in the European Coven only to find that the protection is more like being held prisoner, preventing them from being able to fulfill the Van Alen Legacy of protecting the paths to the underworld from Lucifer.

“Deming wondered how much of that fit in with the Vampire Code to enlighten the human race.  It seemed in the present, many of the vampires were not interested in helping humanity as much as they were interested in helping themselves to as much as possible.”  (page 197)

Cruz’s characters are stretching their wings and coming into their full powers.  Even the confident Mimi Force is flailing in her new position as Regent, and her vulnerability makes her seem a little less abrasive than her celestial “Angel of Death” persona.  Forced to rely on Oliver, Schuyler’s former familiar and conduit, Mimi must learn that she is not infallible and that she can misjudge the scope of her powers, particularly in the modern world.  She also becomes more resourceful in that she calls on the Chinese coven for a skilled Venator to uncover the kidnappers of vampires.

In the Mediterranean, Jack and Schuyler are learning to be comforted in their shared space and experiences, even under the protection of the European Coven.  But in an attempt to kick their mission to find the hidden paths and ensure their protection into high gear, a fiery escape from a yacht leads them deep into the mountains to uncover a 15th Century mystery.  Cruz is easing readers further into the devotion between these two characters and showing how well they work together, in spite of their doubts about how long they will have together given that they are basically outlaws of two covens.

Misguided Angel by Melissa de la Cruz is about how the past can trick us into thinking that the future path is set and that there are few choices, but really the future is wide open and can change easily once a new decision and path is chosen.  The series is kicking into high gear and there are newer mysteries to solve and mazes to run through for these characters, and they’ll have your rooting for each of them to look beyond “destiny” to find the future they want most and can make them happiest.

About the Author:

Melissa de la Cruz is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of many critically acclaimed and award-winning novels for teens including The Au Pairs series, the Blue Bloods series, the Ashleys series, the Angels on Sunset Boulevard series and the semi-autobiographical novel Fresh off the Boat.

Photo © Denise Bovee

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The Ghost Runner by Blair Richmond

November 27, 2012 by

The Ghost Runner by Blair Richmond (book 2 in the Lithia Series, published by small publisher Ashland Creek Press) finds Katherine Healy unable to outrun her past and her father.  Ghosts begin appearing in her life, just as she has settled into her new home in Lithia, a home her family abandoned long ago for Houston.  Roman, an immortal carnivore, has been cast aside in favor of Alex, an immortal vegan and environmentalist, by Kat, but even her perfect relationship is showing signs of cracking under the new pressures Kat faces.

In the wooded town, most of the residents are happy knowing everyone in town and supporting causes that keep the forests protected, but developers are still in the shadows waiting to swoop in and change their way of life.  While Kat is hung up on two men, she’s also trying to get her life back to normal, enrolling in college again (at least part time) and holding down her job at the sports show store in town.  After running for her life in the last book, Richmond has Kat tackling more mundane obstacles, like keeping good grades and juggling her responsibilities at the store and school.

“I don’t care that it’s 8:15 on a Monday morning and that most of the other fifteen students are straining to keep their eyes open.  I don’t care that the room is as drab as a prison, with cinderblock walls painted an uninspiring off-white.”  (page 20)

“A ghost runner is someone who is always right behind you, pushing you, always about to pass you.  Or so you think.  Sometimes there is no runner.  Sometimes it’s just a ghost of a runner, the idea of a runner right behind you, that keeps you at your pace.”  (page 68)

The return of Kat’s father throws a monkey wrench into the situation, stirring up trouble not only between her and Alex, but also throughout the town.  Richmond maintains her engaging sparse prose and her first person narration to capture her reader’s attention and engendering a connection between Kat and the reader.  Kat is a 20-year-old woman who is finding that being a grown up is a bit more responsibility than she expected, even if she has been on her own for more than a year working to make ends meet and outrun her past.  What’s nice about the second book is that the theme of running is continued, but not in a cliched way — it is part of Kat, it is who she is, how she clears her head, how she thinks.

The Ghost Runner by Blair Richmond is a solid second book in a trilogy.  The novelist mixes environmental concerns with themes of finding your ground amidst a turbulent sea and the ghosts of the past.  It’s about dealing with your responsibilities as a part of nature and as a part of a wider society, and more than that it’s about changing your own actions and behaviors to make the changes in the wider society and world you seek.

About the Author:

Blair Richmond is the pen name of a writer from the Pacific Northwest. Out of Breath and The Ghost Runner are books one and two of the Lithia Trilogy. Visit Blair’s blog for the latest on The Lithia Trilogy.

Also Reviewed:

Out of Breath

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Keys to the Repository by Melissa de la Cruz (Book 4.5)

November 26, 2012 by

Keys to the Repository by Melissa de la Cruz is really a companion book to the series, rather than a continuation of the action. In the introductory letter from the author, Cruz says, “The Repository Files, which include character profiles, were written by rather crotchety historians who work for the humorless Committee, so you might find their estimation of the characters a little astringent.”  (page 5)

The book chronicles the series up to the fourth book, provides some additional short stories/chapters that may have been cut from those books or that provide additional background to the story.  In many ways, these short stories are the missing pieces or scenes that some readers may have wanted to see, like the big breakup scene between Jack and Schuyler or what happened to Dylan Ward when he disappeared.  One of the most endearing elements of Jack and Schuyler’s relationship is the books that they share with one another, and upon their first meeting, he gives her The Plague by Albert Camus and Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen, two seemingly unrelated books, though both are about love and longing.

“Feeling reckless and giddy, and just a tad plucky — like the kind of girl who tramped around the marshes in the dark — she scribbled a note and slipped it under Jack’s door.

Mr. Darcy, I will be there as requested. — Elizabeth.”  (page 57)

“This was a boy who spoke through books:  longing and exile — The Plague — banter and obstacles — Pride and Prejudice.  He spoke her language.”  (page 59)

Cruz also creates an appendix of characters in the books and their role in the books, definitions of the secret language words and other events in the books.  In one chapter, she even more fully explains the hierarchy of the vampire world from the Order of the Seven to the Committee and the Conclave.  Finally, there is an additional chapter on Bliss Llewellyn and her adventures to find the Hounds of Hell, which Cruz apparently spun off into a series of its own (as if I need yet another series to read, though I’ll likely pick it up someday).

Keys to the Repository by Melissa de la Cruz is an companion book to the Blue Bloods series that can help remind readers what has happened in the past, shed additional light on the characters and relationships in the series, and offers a refresher course on the terms, history, and customs of the Blue Bloods.  It reads like the notebooks of a writer would, giving readers an inside peak into the characters as Cruz sees them and their story, though there are elements that are “redacted” by the recordkeepers, most likely because they are elements revealed in future books.

About the Author:

Melissa de la Cruz is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of many critically acclaimed and award-winning novels for teens including The Au Pairs series, the Blue Bloods series, the Ashleys series, the Angels on Sunset Boulevard series and the semi-autobiographical novel Fresh off the Boat.

Photo © Denise Bovee

Filed Under: fiction, purchased, Read in 2012, reviews Tagged With: , ,

The Van Alen Legacy by Melissa de la Cruz (Book 4)

November 21, 2012 by

The Van Alen Legacy by Melissa de la Cruz is the fourth book in the Blue Bloods series.  The pacing of this story is much better as each chapter is told from a different setting and set of characters, increasing the tension for readers looking to uncover the grand plan of the Silver Bloods.  Schuyler and Oliver, her human conduit, have been on the run since the end of the last book, and after more than a year of running from the Venators, they have done little to uncover the truth of her family’s legacy or the plans of the Silver Bloods.  In many ways, Schuyler has taken a backseat in these books to allow Mimi to come into her full powers and true destiny as she and her fellow Venators search the globe for the Watcher, who was taken from Bliss Llewellyn family.

Bliss, on the other hand, has her own set of problems as she fights to regain control over her life and uncover what her father, the senator Forsyth, has been up to behind closed doors.  Meanwhile, she realizes that even the people she has lost are carried with her always and are available to help her regain control and take appropriate action to prevent further devastation.

“Stepping into someone’s subconscious is like discovering a new planet.  Everyone’s internal world is different and unique.  Some are cluttered, stuffed with dark and kinky secrets pushed to the edge of their minds, like racy underwear and handcuffs shoved in the back of a closet.  Some are pristine and clear as a spring meadow:  all hopping bunnies and falling snowflakes.  Those are rare.”  (page 26)

“Memories were moving pictures in which meaning was constantly in flux.  They were stories people told themselves.  Using the glom — the netherworld of memory and shadow, a space the vampires could access at will in order to read and control minds — was like stepping into a darkroom, into a lab where photographers developed their prints, submerging them in shallow pans of chemicals, drying them on nylon racks.”  (page 70-1)

Meanwhile, the Forces begin to realize that the bond that they share may not be as unbreakable as they have been told it is.  But beyond that, they must don their previous lives and knowledge to battle the forces of evil and save not only their Blue Bloods society, but also humanity.  De la Cruz has stepped up the detail in this novel, carefully unfolding the layers of her vampire society’s past and the political machinations that continue even amidst the ominous threat of the Silver Bloods who may have infiltrated their community.

The Van Alen Legacy by Melissa de la Cruz renewed my faith in the series, even though little time is spent on the actual Van Alen legacy.  Cruz has further developed her characters, though the love triangles can be a little tiresome.  It is an action-packed guilty pleasure, looking for a novel to spend a few entertaining hours away from the television and the turkey.

About the Author:

Melissa de la Cruz is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of many critically acclaimed and award-winning novels for teens including The Au Pairs series, the Blue Bloods series, the Ashleys series, the Angels on Sunset Boulevard series and the semi-autobiographical novel Fresh off the Boat.

Photo © Denise Bovee

Filed Under: fiction, purchased, Read in 2012, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Revelations by Melissa De La Cruz (Book 3)

November 20, 2012 by

Revelations by Melissa De La Cruz is the third book in the Blue Bloods series in which an upper crust society of vampires, mostly teens in a private New York City school is on the verge of battle with dark forces.  As this is the third book in the series, readers should read the first two novels before tackling this one as without the background of those novels readers could find themselves adrift.  Secondly, even those who have read the previous two novels, should consider rereading them and even with that could find themselves a bit lost in this one.  De La Cruz has a lot going on with her Blue Blood vampires and there is quite a bit of cloak and dagger going on that keeps the readers in the dark up until the end chapters.

The novel opens shortly after a major even in the second book in which an attack on one of the elder vampires by a Silver Blood is successful, and the beginning of this one is set up as though it will be a solvable mystery.  In some ways it is, but not to a satisfying conclusion as more questions about the feud between Blue Bloods and Silver Bloods are raised than answered.  Schulyer, who is referred to as a half-blood (think Harry Potter and the similar connotations apply here, though in a vampire world), is still wandering around, not doing her “lessons” to learn about vampire history, and pining for Jack Force, the twin of Mimi (think soul mate, not sibling).

These vampire characters are supposed to be the earthbound representations of the archangels, and while it creates a unique line of lore for vampires, not much of this history is revealed to the reader as Schuyler refuses to take part in the lessons.  The high-school struggles of vampires among mortals is completely forgotten in favor of a secret conclave-directed set of lessons to help these teen vampires, who have been reincarnated again, to come into their full power.  But even so, the author fails to demonstrate these powers outside of the classroom without explanation.  For example, Mimi suspects her soul mate Jack is seeing someone else, and rather than turn into fog or mist to follow him, she trails him in a Bentley.  Readers will find this disconnect disappointing since half the point of reading vampire novels is for the lore and world building.

Although the novel is full of name drops in the fashion world and in terms of locales in Rio rather than actual descriptions to transport readers to these locations, De La Cruz has created a novel that is a quick read when you want to just turn your brain off for a while — it’s candy for the mind.  Revelations by Melissa De La Cruz was a bit cliched in places and disappointing when vampire powers were not used, but overall, its a quick read that doesn’t require too much thinking and provides a source of entertainment.

About the Author:

Melissa de la Cruz is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of many critically acclaimed and award-winning novels for teens including The Au Pairs series, the Blue Bloods series, the Ashleys series, the Angels on Sunset Boulevard series and the semi-autobiographical novel Fresh off the Boat.

Photo © Denise Bovee

Filed Under: fiction, purchased, Read in 2012, reviews Tagged With: , ,