Posts in the Fiction Category at Savvy Verse & Wit, Page 55

Plum Lucky by Janet Evanovich

January 23, 2009 by Serena

Audio books make the commute fly by on most occasions and Janet Evanovich‘s Plum Lucky, a Between-the-Numbers novel, is no exception. My husband and I seem to be hooked on these Between-the Numbers novels because they are humorous, ridiculous in some instances, and fast-paced.

Stephanie Plum and Diesel are back on the hunt, but not for Sandy Claws this time–Snuggy O’Connor who thinks he’s a leprechaun. This little person not only thinks he’s a leprechaun, but that he can disappear from sight on a whim to steal from mobsters and others. Oh, he also thinks he can talk to animals, like horses.

This reader would have snorted coffee through her nose if she were drinking any when Snuggy talks to a doberman at a mobster’s home and the dog convinces him to merely take his clothes off to disappear in front of everyone’s eyes. Can you say the emperor’s new clothes?

Grandma Mazur returns and finds a bag of money on the sidewalk, which happens to be stolen from a mobster by Snuggy. Grandma doesn’t know, heads off to Atlantic City, and is in gambler’s paradise before disaster strikes and she’s kidnapped by a mobster, Delvina. Snuggy wants to pay off Delvina to get his horse, Doug, back from the mobster and Stephanie and Diesel must team up with Snuggy to recoup the gambled money and pay off Delvina to get Grandma back.

From the snarky comments between Stephanie, Snuggy, Diesel, Grandma Mazur, Lula, and Connie to the details of Atlantic City and Daffy’s casino, Evanovich paints a vivid scene with an eclectic cast of characters. Ranger even makes an appearance in this one, along with Morelli.

This made the commute fly by, and I am looking forward to the next Between-the Numbers novel on audio.

Also Reviewed By:
The Movieholic & Bibliophile

Filed Under: audiobooks, borrowed copy, fiction, Read in 2009, reviews Tagged With: janet evanovich, plum lucky

Breathing Out the Ghost by Kirk Curnutt

January 12, 2009 by Serena

I received Kirk Curnutt‘s Breathing Out the Ghost for a TLC Book Tour. Kirk also graciously agreed to answer a few questions and giveaway 3 copies of his book to 3 lucky winners anywhere in the world! Stay tuned for the interview and giveaway details.

How would you react if you lost a child? What is the appropriate reaction for a parent who has lost a child? These are the questions tackled in Breathing Out the Ghost. Moving on after a child has disappeared or has been murdered is unimaginable, but life does move on; but how it moves on is up to the family impacted by these tragedies.

“From inside the cab of the combine, Pete watched the reels of the header bat down row after row of soybeans. As the stalks fell backwards, their stems snipped clean by a line of saw teeth on the header’s bottom cutter bar, the bean pods scratched against the metal of the machinery, making the sound of a whisking broom on carpet.” (page 244)

This passage signifies how both Sis and Pete Pruitt and Colin and Kimm St. Claire tackle their grief and pick up the remnants of their lives. The process of rebuilding is a series of fits and starts and restarts; it’s not pretty and it’s never complete. Like the stalks cut down in this passage, lives are halted and lives are skinned raw. While Sis and Pete continue with their lives as best as possible and become a source of selfless comfort for others hit by tragedy in their town, Kimm is left to her own devices when her husband Colin, who calls himself a modern Ahab of the highway, sets out on a journey to find their lost son, A.J. Both stories are separate and connected, but only begin to intersect when St. Claire finds Sis Pruitt at a local fair where she and her group, Parents of Murdered Children, share their photo quilt.

Curnutt doesn’t bob and weave around the anguish these families feel, but he does ensure that each member of these families expresses sorrow and loss in their own way. He’s masterful at creating believable characters, even complex players like Robert Heim, who chose to leave behind his family to save St. Claire from himself.

However, this novel is more than a look at loss, it gauges the inability of control over life and what we as individuals do with that realization. The inability to control life is most evident in St. Claire’s actions, but it peeks out from behind Sis’ veil of normalcy as well. When Sis works with her community members to provide food for volunteers searching for a lost boy, she loses herself in the kitchen conversation, almost fooling herself into believing she’s normal. It’s only when she expresses herself and her memories of her dead daughter, Patty, that she realizes normalcy is not hers.

Through masterful language and description, Curnutt paints a vivid Midwest landscape in which these characters languish in grief and yet flourish in it. From Michigan to Indiana, readers will picture the asphalt highway that becomes St. Claire’s home, office, and escape and the Pruitt’s farm that provides them with order in a town where they feel they have been branded by the murder of their daughter.

One of the best passages in this book is found on page 219, where St. Claire is recording his thoughts on cassette tape for his lost son:

“When I see myself I don’t see anything organic, anything original. I steal my aphorisms from outside sources. My actions pantomime the exploits of others. I’m all imitation, a gloss of a citation. Somewhere along the line I began compiling myself from the excerpts of better men.”

Many of these characters are looking for ways to fill the holes inside them left by loss. And this novel is not just about the loss of loved ones; it is a novel about losing oneself in that loss, allowing it to swallow you whole. The introduction of Sis’ grandmother, Ethel, who has dementia, is a nice addition to the cast. Not only has she experienced the loss of loved ones, but also her own memories and sense of self. However, she is less tortured by that loss, as she is not bound by time lines or turning points that she would like to have a chance to do over. Regret and a lack of control over life can sometimes be more powerful than actual loss. While there are some graphic details involving sexual predator Dickie-Bird, St. Claire’s mythical white whale, this novel is an insightful look at grief, family, and perseverance.

Here’s my short interview with Kirk regarding his writing and advice for amateur writers. Click on his photo to check out his Website.

1. Writers tend to be drawn to a particular genre and style. What would you consider your style? What genre are you most drawn to when writing and when reading? How do the genres you are drawn to when reading and writing differ or are they the same?

I like to think of myself as a lyrical writer. I’m very much influenced by F. Scott Fitzgerald in terms of colors and textures. I also like the way he described emotions. A lot of his stuff is romantic in that it stops just short of sentimentality, and I find myself drawn to that border too. So I like writing with a density to it: Toni Morrison, for example. And Moby-Dick is a biggie for me. I love to get lost in “The Whiteness of the Whale” chapter. I’m not a big fan of stripped-down prose and simple sentences, despite the fact that in my other life I’m a Hemingway scholar. Hemingway is great for aspiring writer because you can learn a lot about how to write landscape.

Because I teach, I read a wide range of books, though mostly 19^th and 20^th century American novels. I suppose I’m drawn to sadder books these days, but only because I find the characters a bit more complex than in comedy. A lot of humor anymore is satirical, meaning the dramatis personae tend to be stereotypes of predictable behavior. This gets particularly irksome in gender comedies. One of my favorite contemporary writers is Thomas Sanchez, who did a great book about Key West called Mile Zero about twenty years ago. His writing tends to be over the top. I also like Andre DuBois II―you can tell he cares about his characters. I try to balance out the more literary stuff with crime books, too. I’m a huge noir fan, and I read all the Hard Case Crime paperbacks when they come out, though I enjoy some more than others. Noir is tricky to do because it’s so stylized―it can come off a little too jokey if the characters aren’t compelling.

2. Most writers will read inspirational/how-to manuals, take workshops, or belong to writing groups. Did you subscribe to any of these aids and if so which did you find most helpful? Please feel free to name any “writing” books you enjoyed most (i.e. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott)

I think you can learn practical steps from manuals and workshops, but really, a lot of development depends upon being an honest observer of your own strengths and weaknesses. I took several writing workshops when I was in my twenties, but I didn’t particularly find them helpful because people were too competitive and there was a lot of posturing instead of work.

I have a small circle of fellow writers who share their work in progress, and it’s the best thing in the world because we’re mutually supportive. We can call each other on deficiencies without hurting each other’s feelings. I also tend to read a lot of literary criticism and narrative theory for ideas and techniques. I loved James Wood’s How Fiction Works, even though I disagree with a lot of his orthodoxies.

3. There is a great deal of poetic prose in your novel, Breathing Out the Ghost. Have you written poetry or have you considered it? Why or Why not?

No, I’ve never tried poetry, in part, I think, because I’m too attached to plot. I do love poetic prose, however, and I think a writer should test the limits of language. That’s part of the reason that I love folks like Melville, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Morrison, as different as they all are. I read and teach modernist poetry regularly―I love Hilda Doolittle, for example―and it’s taught me a lot about imagery and symbolism. What a dash of poetry can bring to the prose is simply greater sensuousness. So much of the world feels flat and simplified today; we’ve gotten a bit of a tin ear when it comes to metaphor. So the poetic part is just there to challenge myself to appreciate the richness we tend to overlook.

4. A great deal of writing advice suggests that amateur writers focus on what they know or read the genre you plan to write. Does this advice hold true for you? How so (i.e. what authors do you read)?

I think the “write what you know” dictum is the worst thing that ever happened to writing. It’s been bad for two reasons: it’s encouraged people to believe that personal experience is the only font of knowledge that’s worth exploring, and, as a result, it has discouraged people from learning new things. To me a far better philosophy would be, “If you want to write about something you don’t know, go out and learn it.” And the reality is that professional writers do this on a daily basis.

In my own case, I knew zilch about farming except for some embarrassing memories about how useless I was when I was a child and I would try to help my grandparents milk and harvest. I wanted to know the language of combines and hogs, however, so I went out and educated myself, both by visiting farms and reading books. I’m fortunate that I have a very tolerant uncle who entertains a lot of my stupid questions.

The other downside of only writing what you know is that writers tend to create characters that are only variations of themselves. As much as I love Hemingway and Fitzgerald, they and their generation are to blame for this tendency. At its most reductive, the idea gets boiled down to the notion that men can’t create convincing female characters and that women have the same problem with men. I think what actually happens is that sometimes we as writers don’t extend our characters the courtesy of empathy: we create them as foils whose behavior is the axe we want to grind.

Take the two spouses in Ghost, for example. It was very important to me that readers be able to identify with the dilemmas of both Pete Pruitt and Kim St. Claire as much as the narrative sympathies encourage them to care about Sis and Colin respectively. In essence, I wanted the audience to see the lack of generosity in my main characters’ resentments toward their families, because otherwise all I would have is an unemotional husband and an unfaithful wife. Motives are more complex. I guess the key word is empathy: I think challenging yourself to write about people who aren’t you is both artistically and ethically beneficial. It teaches you a bit of humility about your own opinions, and it allows you to feel for the things other people have suffered without pity or condescension.

5. If you were to create a playlist for your novel, what are the top five songs on that list?

This is a great question! I actually had a group of songs I would play as I was writing. Music is great inspiration because it’s such a different medium and it’s a productive challenge to try to translate its effect into words. The top songs would include:

a) “Yer Blues” by the Beatles. From The White Album, of course. I actually imagined Colin St. Claire listening to this song in the opening chapter, if only because I have memories of listening to it when I was in my very early teens. The Beatles may have been my first earphone album―you know, the kind of record that you end up spending heaps of time listening to in your own little world. Years later I read a quote from Eric Clapton talking about how hard it was for him to take this song seriously because it was so intense it seemed like a parody of the blues. I mean, the lyrics are way over the top: Yes I’m lonely / Wanna die.… etc. etc. Whatever John Lennon’s feelings for it were― and I don’t think he really cared for it―”Yer Blues” has always struck me as that kind of primal scream that’s as much about showing off one’s desperation as it is actually experiencing it. In that way, it seemed to capture for me the solipsism of Colin St. Claire’s quest for his lost son. Here is a version from the Rolling Stones’ Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAjdRHzH4M8

I just love the Beatles! I have to go out and find this song…perhaps the next time I’m at my parents. My dad has the White Album on LP!

b) “You R Loved” by Victoria Williams. This is a great bit of horn-tinged gospel that’s always embodied for me generosity and redemption. Victoria is often depicted as a sort of hippie kook, but there’s a deeply caring side to her music that makes me think of the word healing. I love the chorus: Jesus walked on the water / He turned the water into wine / He went down to the drunkards / To tell them everything is fine / You R loved, You R loved, You R loved. This is the song St. Claire’s daughter would sing to her father. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go4D_sht00Y

c) “Little Bird” by the Beach Boys. Yes, the Beach Boys. I’m the world’s biggest BB nerd. There’s a real dark side to their late-60s music that only folks who can see past “Surfin’ U.S.A.” are aware of. This song, which appears on their extremely weird 1968 LP Friends, was the first song Dennis Wilson wrote. He later went on to make one of the best albums of the seventies, Pacific Ocean Blue. It would probably upset his fans to know this was the song I had in mind for the villain of Ghost, Dickie-Bird Johnson. “Little Bird” is often described as a gentle, child-like song, but to me it was always creepy. I mean, it was written while Dennis was hanging out with Charles Manson. It doesn’t get creepier than that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BLyXRPl1aE

I have to interject here that I would think that writing a song while hanging out with Charles Manson would indeed be very creepy!

d) “Every Grain of Sand” by Bob Dylan. Not really well-known, but a beautiful song about humility that appeared in the early eighties at the end of his Christian phrase. I snipped a couple of lines for dialogue here and there in the book. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lueCTMdAfrw

e) “If I Should Fall Behind” by Bruce Springsteen. To my thinking, a great love song for people who’ve been together long enough to be disappointed and yet forgiving. I played this over and over while I was writing the scenes between Sis and Pete. There are several versions of this song; it’s been recorded by everybody from Dion (doo-wop) to Linda Ronstadt (jazz). My favorite is the version Springsteen did with the E Street Band c. 2000. Each member of the group takes turns singing a verse, even Clarence Clemmons. It’s a really effective arrangement―way better than the 1992 original. Now everyone dreams of a love lasting and true / But you and I know what this world can do―that’s my favorite line. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSAevK9__3k&feature=related

6. In terms of friendships, have your friendships changed since you began focusing on writing? Are there more writers among your friends or have your relationships remained the same?

I’m pretty good at compartmentalizing, so my friendships really haven’t changed in the years I’ve been trying to write seriously. I do have four or five really close friends who are in this game, but the majority of my friends have their own interests. Some are painters, some mechanics, some farmers, some Air Force lieutenants, some bartenders. I think it’s healthy to have a wide circle of folks who aren’t writers. You learn more by hanging out with people who aren’t like you because they know things you don’t. Friends are great sources of knowledge.

I also agree that having friends who aren’t writers is a benefit!

7. Please describe your writing space and how it would differ from your ideal writing space.

I have what’s called a “hidden room” in my house. It’s basically a half-attic that’s been converted into a spare bedroom. I use it for an office. I keep it pretty stark: a little computer table, bookshelves, and a table to hold my coffee cup. I’m usually up in it by five so I can write before work. For years I had a laptop and worked anywhere I could: sometimes at Panera’s or Barnes and Noble, sometimes in my room, sometimes in the car. What’s most important is that you keep up your schedule by being able to write wherever you’re at. Life is going to conspire to mess with your schedule, so you have to adapt.

Thanks so much for these questions! Thank you, Kirk, for graciously taking the time to answer my questions.

About the Author:

Kirk Curnutt is the author of eleven books of fiction and criticism, including the forthcoming thriller Dixie Noir (Fall 2009); Coffee with Hemingway (2007), an entry in Duncan Baird’s series of imaginary conversations with great historical figures: and the story collection, Baby, Let’s Make a Baby (2003).

Breathing Out the Ghost was named Best Fiction in the Indiana Center for the Book’s 2008 Best Books of Indiana Competition. It also won a bronze IPPY from the Independent Publishers Association and was a finalist for ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Awards. Curnutt’s other awards include three consecutive Hackney Awards for short-story writing (2004-2006) and the gold medal in nonfiction in the 2008 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition sponsored by the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society.

A passionate devotee of all things F. Scott Fitzgerald, he is vice-president of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society and a board member of the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum in Montgomery, Alabama.

Now for the giveaway information: (Don’t forget to leave me an email or working blog profile)

1. One entry for a comment left on this post regarding why you want to read Breathing out the Ghost.

2. A second entry if you blog about or mention this contest in your sidebar, don’t forget to come back here and leave me a link.

3. A third entry if you comment on a previous or subsequent tour stop and leave me a link to the post you commented on.

Deadline for entries is Jan. 17 at Midnight EST

Here are the other TLC Book Tour Stops:

Monday, January 5th: Diary of an Eccentric

Tuesday, January 6th: Ramya’s Bookshelf Review and Guest Post

Wednesday, January 7th: The Sleepy Reader and Guest Post

Thursday, January 8th: Crime Ne.ws, formerly Trenchcoat Chronicles

Monday, January 12th: Savvy Verse and Wit

Tuesday, January 13th: Educating Petunia

Wednesday, January 14th: Michele- Only One ‘L’

Thursday, January 15th: Book Nut

Friday, January 16th: Anniegirl1138

Monday, January 19th: Caribou’s Mom

Tuesday, January 20th: Lost in Lima, Ohio

Wednesday, January 21st: A Novel Menagerie

Monday, January 26th: Catootes

Wednesday, January 28th: Bloody Hell, it’s a Book Barrage!

Thursday, February 12th: She is Too Fond of Books

Filed Under: fiction, giveaway, Interviews, Read in 2009, review copy, reviews, tlc book tours Tagged With: breathing out the ghost, kirk curnutt

Conscience Point by Erica Abeel

January 6, 2009 by Serena

Erica Abeel’s Conscience Point, published by Unbridled Books, started off rough for me, with shifts in tone and language for one of the main characters, Nick Ashcroft. After about 60 pages or so, I became absorbed in the dark secrets and the Gothic mystery surrounding the once lavish estate of Conscience Point. Madeleine Shaye is a concert pianist, an arts journalist, a mother, and a lover who allows passion to derail her career and lead her down a path that is wrought with disappointment and heartache. Nick Ashcroft and his sister Violet lead Shaye onto this path and become the center of her world, despite Maddie’s obliviousness. The deep secret that tears her relationship with Nick apart is predictable at best, but Abeel weaves a setting that captivates the reader and lulls them into the fantasy.

Shaye is a young pianist befriended by an eccentric artist from a wealthy New York family, Violet Ashcroft. She’s easily dazzled by Conscience Point’s ambiance, and the stormy eyes of Violet’s brother Nick. She is equally captivated by Violet as an outcast and tormented girl. Despite the separation between Nick, Violet, and Maddie that lasts several years and through one marriage each, they connect as most artists will with exploding passion in a paradise far from their “real” worlds. Maddie and Nick revive their lust, which sweeps up Maddie and leaves her blind to the reality of her self-constructed family. “Love cannot dwell with suspicion” is an apt theme running through the first portion of this novel, which stems from an ancient Roman myth featuring Cupid and Psyche. However, amidst the turmoil that her life becomes, Maddie is once again swept up by her true passion–music.

Through the initial pages of the novel, Nick uses terms like “thistle-y” and “joint,” which seem incongruous, and the narrator interrupts herself to stop digressions. These sections can be disruptive to the reader, but as they become less frequent and the pace of the drama picks up, the reader is absorbed.

“She’d never imagined you could love this hard yet keep yourself for your work. They swung through the hours, grooved as trapeze artists. Nick understood the musician’s life, its ardor and implacable demands. . . . She in turn marveled at how he teased out the shapely book hiding in some winding manuscript;” (page 46)

While the plot of this novel is cliche in many ways, the real gem is the poetic language and intricate weave of music and art throughout the novel. Maddie’s magic fingers hit the keys and the reader is drawn into the world of an artist. Conversations with her friend Anton about music and its composers easily draws readers into their highly dramatic world. Maddie has a great many regrets in this novel, but she has no one to blame but herself for her own misfortunes. This is a novel about finding yourself, learning to live with what you discover about yourself and your family, and staying true to your dreams and promises.

I would like to thank the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program for sending me this book back in October/November 2008.

Also Reviewed by:
Booking Mama

The first person to comment on this post about why they’d like to read this novel will receive my “gently used” advanced readers copy of Conscience Point.

Filed Under: ARC, fiction, Library Thing Early Reviewers, Read in 2009, reviews, unbridled books Tagged With: conscience point, erica abeel

Visions of Sugar Plums by Janet Evanovich

January 4, 2009 by Serena

Janet Evanovich’s Visions of Sugar Plums is a fun holiday listen. The hubby and I listened to this book on our morning commutes and it was a short one at only 3 discs. Visions of Sugar Plums is a “Between the numbers novel.”

I haven’t read any of the number novels yet, but I do have them–thanks to my mom. We started with this audio book and found it amusing. It’s not as funny as A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore, but it is mildly funny.

The main character, Stephanie Plum, is a bounty hunter working through the holidays to catch a defendant, Sandy Claws, who jumped bond. She hasn’t had time to get a tree or presents for her New Jersey-based family. One morning she wakes up to a strange, yet hunky man, in her kitchen. He introduces himself as Diesel, but she wonders if he’s a killer, burglar, or alien. Turns out he’s in town bothering her for a whole other reason–the spirit of Christmas. Will she get the presents she needs for her family, will Diesel help her find the spirit of Christmas, and will she apprehend Mr. Claws?

My favorite parts of this novel involve the “elves” and Plum’s Grandma Mazur. They make this novel fun and festive. One of my favorite scenes is when Mazur is searching for her dentures, which are missing, before her “stud muffin” arrives for their date. They eventually find the dentures in a stuffed dinosaur and they are painted with pretty rainbows thanks to a little girl named Mary Alice, Plum niece. I couldn’t stop laughing as I imagined my grandmother’s dentures in her mouth with rainbows and other brightly colored images on them. Talk about a winning smile.

My husband loves the part where Plum and Diesel enter the toy factory looking for Sandy Claws and find a bunch of “midgets” dressed as elves. Let’s just say you shouldn’t call elves midgets. . .they get feisty and start a riot. Imagine elves screaming, “Get her!” And jumping up onto a female bounty hunter to regain their respect.

For a light holiday read, this book will fit the bill. I wouldn’t have paid full price for the audio book, but it’s worth a check out at the library.

***Don’t forget about the Gods Behaving Badly Contest, which runs through January 5 at Midnight EST.***

Filed Under: audiobooks, borrowed copy, fiction, Read in 2009, reviews Tagged With: janet evanovich, visions of sugar plums

Cross Country by James Patterson

December 30, 2008 by Serena

Miriam at Hatchette Group sent Cross Country by James Patterson for my review. However, while I’ve been an avid James Patterson reader for some time, I decided to have the biggest James Patterson fan I know review it. My mom, Pat, offered to review the book for me. I’m sure my review will follow sometime in 2009.

About the book (from Amazon.com):

In this 14th Alex Cross thriller, Cross, a Washington, D.C., police detective, takes on a very different quarry—a human monster known as the Tiger with ties to the African underworld. When the Tiger and his teenage thugs butcher writer Ellie Cox, her husband and children in their Georgetown home, Cross is devastated because Ellie had been his girlfriend in college. The Cox family massacre proves to be just the first in a series. Cross pursues the Tiger to Nigeria, where the profiler finds himself at the mercy of corrupt government officials who may be working with the Tiger.

Here’s what Pat had to say about the latest in the Alex Cross Series:

James Patterson’s Cross Country is a page turner from beginning to end.

Alex Cross and Brianna Stone are called to a horrific crime scene, one of the worst murder scenes Cross has encountered in his entire D.C. police career. Families are brutally murdered in their homes. One scene involves Cross’ ex-girlfriend Ellie Randall Cox and her family, and the death of the entire family. Ellie was a reporter who uncovered a series of brutal murders happening both in the United States and Nigeria, Africa.

Cross ends up in Africa on the trail of a notorious killer, Tiger, and his boy killers. From the moment Cross sets foot in Nigeria, he is kidnapped, beaten, and shot at. The fast-paced style that Patterson has cornered the market on continues in this latest Alex Cross story. Everyone Cross comes in contact with is dying or in danger, and eventually, Tiger follows Cross back to Washington, D.C.

This book is fantastic, and I would rate it with 5 stars. It will keep readers glued to the page until they are finished. This is one of the better books in the Cross series, and setting a portion of the tale in Africa was unique and believable.

***Don’t forget about the Gods Behaving Badly Contest, which runs through January 5 at Midnight EST.***

Filed Under: fiction, Hachette Books, Pat review, Read in 2008, review copy Tagged With: cross country, James Patterson

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips

December 29, 2008 by Serena

Marie Phillips‘ Gods Behaving Badly is one of the funniest books I’ve read in a long time. What would the ancient gods of Greece and Rome do in today’s 21st Century world? Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, a phone sex operator; Apollo, the God of the Sun, a television psychic; Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt and Chastity, a dog walker.

The gods have weakened since their days on high at Mt. Olympus, and they are all crammed into a dilapidated home in London, getting on one another’s nerves. The conflict truly begins one night during a taping of Apollo’s psychic show where Eros shoots a love arrow into Apollo’s heart, leaving him powerless against his love for the next person entering his view. Unfortunately, that person happens to be a mortal named, Alice, who cleans the theater where the show is taped. Alice and her friend Neil, who both love one another but are too afraid to make a move, become the center of conflict in the gods’ world.

What has been fascinating about the Greek and Roman gods for many centuries has been their human-like qualities. While they are powerful beings ruling over the human world, they are much like the average mortal in their desires, weaknesses, and arrogance. Phillips easily highlights the human-like failings of these gods and accentuates those failings with “unlikely” professions for them in the modern world.

Watching these gods cope with the 21st Century is a hilarious delight, but even more delightful is Phillips’ use of language. From Aphrodite’s bottom “bouncing like two hard-boiled eggs dancing a tango” (page 89) to Phillips’ description of Neil as a teenager, “an ugly, spotty, skinny-arsed spoddy minger” (page 88). The dialogue is witty as well: “‘. . .you’d better come quick. I’ve got a god passed out on my kitchen floor and I think the world’s about to end.’ (page 213).”

One of the best scenes in this book comes when Apollo finds Zeus in the upper floors of the house staring at the television much like a zombie would. He’s lifeless, but still a god able to stand on his own and still strike down mortals with lightning. Reading this section brought to life the dilemma that often faces many of us, do we unwind too often in front of the television rather than through more challenging activities, like games, competition, reading, and exercise? Is this section a commentary on the lives we continue to lead now, watching television, zoning out, and withdrawing into ourselves away from society. But, I digress.

With an interesting cast of characters from a Christian Eros to a drunk, DJ in Dionysus, Phillips uses her cast of characters to dramatically set the stage for a modern day Greek comedy of errors and missed chances. Even readers who do not have a firm background in mythology will enjoy this book.

If you think this book sounds interesting, you should check out Hachette Group’s discussion with the author, Marie Phillips, on Blog Talk Radio.

***Contest***

Hatchette Group offered to give away 5 copies of the book to my readers with U.S. and Canadian addresses only.

For those international readers, I am offering my gently used copy, so please inform me that you are an international entrant.

For one entry, leave a comment here telling me who your favorite Greek/Roman god/goddess is and why.

For a second entry, blog about the contest or place it in your sidebar and leave a comment here telling me where I can find it.

Deadline is January 5, Midnight EST.

Check out these other Reviews:
Booking Mama
Books Books and more Books!
Diary of an Eccentric
Book-a-Rama
A Reader’s Respite
Booklorn
The 3R’s: Reading, ‘Riting, and Randomness
Sophisticated Dorkiness
A Life in Books
Becky’s Book Reviews
Fizzy Thoughts
The Boston Bibliophile
A Novel Menagerie
As Usual, I Need More Bookshelves

Filed Under: fiction, giveaway, Hachette Books, Read in 2008, review copy, reviews Tagged With: gods behaving badly, marie phillips

Matrimony by Joshua Henkin

December 15, 2008 by Serena

Joshua Henkin‘s Matrimony is more than just about how marriage and love can withstand the test of time and the struggles each spouse faces. Julian Wainwright’s struggle as a writer to finish his novel and to juggle his marriage, life, a job, and his friends amidst his creative endeavors is central to this novel. In a way, Julian’s dedication to his art is like a marriage and it is not surprising that some of his friends and even to an extent his wife, Mia, believe that he should settle down with a “real” job.

Matrimony opens as Julian begins his tenure at Graymont College in Massachusetts and meets his first friend, Carter Heinz. Eventually through their travels they both meet, fall in love, and marry their college sweethearts, Mia and Pilar, respectively. Upon graduation, each couple makes decisions that change their lives and their relationships.

Julian moves to Ann Arbor, Mich., with his wife, Mia, who has become a graduate student in psychology. He wants to write his novel, but he finds agreeing to teach composition at the university is disheartening as it is challenge, especially in terms of the progress he makes on the novel. Carter and Pilar apply to law school in California, but eventually the pressure they place on one another and themselves crushes their marriage.

Henkin’s writing style will relax the reader and carry them along through these characters’ lives with ease, but this ease also can distance the reader from the characters. Check out this passage from page 45:

Mia’s hair was matted to her forehead; it stuck in clumps against her neck. A drop of rain rolled down her chin, and Julian brushed it off with the sleeve of his windbreaker.

They drove home soaked, as if someone had thrown them fully clothed into Boston Harbor. When they stopped at the turnpike to get their ticket, Mia twisted the water from her hair. As she drove on, Julian fell asleep to the rhythm of the car, his nose, his whole face, pressed against the window.

Although the novel’s cadence is calming, the characters are well-developed and intriguing enough to keep reading and discovering where they plan to go next. One of my favorite minor characters from the novel is center stage in Julian’s world early on–Professor Chesterfield. Julian’s professor has established his own workshop rules, including Thou Shalt Never Use Pass-the-Salt Dialogue and Thou Shalt Not Utter the Phrase “Show Don’t Tell” When Discussing One Another’s Short Stories. At one point in the class Chesterfield asks the students when it is appropriate to have characters pass the salt in a story (page 10). The answer from Julian is expected, but Carter’s answer is fantastic and sets up the tension between these two characters early on; this one scene is the foundation for their tension, competition, and friendship.

Although Julian is a writer and other writers can identify with his daily word/page count struggles, he seems dispassionate about his work, about his teaching position, and his marriage. It is only until one event shatters his image of his marriage does he become passionate enough to take bold action.

Throughout all of these struggles each character hits a wall, stumbles, revises their outlook, and moves past the initial obstacles in their way. Although this book is not fast-paced, it presents a great cast and sheds light on how love and marriage can last through a number of trials so long as the parties involved want their relationship to thrive. Julian’s evolution throughout the novel moves at a glacial pace like the progress on his novel, but the culmination of these changes is the light at the end of the tunnel. This is one book you can curl up by the fireplace with and relax.

Stay tuned for the giveaway details. . .

About the Author: (According to his Website)

Joshua Henkin’s grew up in New York City, his mother the daughter of a hat manufacturer, his father the son of a famous Orthodox rabbi who lived in the United States for fifty years and never learned any English. His mother: a secular Jew who went to Bryn Mawr College and Yale Law School. His father: a law professor at Columbia who attended Yeshiva University and fought in World War II and who has remained religiously observant. Joshua Henkin is a product of these varied backgrounds, and of this happy marriage.

Matrimony is a New York Times Notable Book, and Joshua Henkin is available for book group discussions; here’s the reading group guide. If you’re interested in checking out some updates of his recent book discussions go here and here.

Joshua Henkin has offered to giveaway an inscribed copy of Matrimony, a great holiday gift, to one winner anywhere in the world. Yes, this is an international contest.

Enter by leaving a comment here about this post to qualify for one entry. Please include an email or active blog so I can contact you for an address.

Deadline is December 21, Midnight EST

Also Reviewed By:
The Literate Housewife
The 3 R’s: Reading, ‘Riting, and Randomness
She is Too Fond of Books
Age 30 – A Year of Books
Books and Cooks
Reading Room
Bookfoolery and Babble
A Reader’s Journal
B&B Ex Libris
Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’?
Shelf Life
The Boston Bibliophile
Trish’s Reading Nook
Musings of a Bookish Kitty
Confessions of a Real Librarian

Filed Under: fiction, giveaway, Read in 2008, review copy, reviews Tagged With: joshua henkin, matrimony

Karen Harrington Interview

December 12, 2008 by Serena

Earlier this month, I was checking out Scobberlotch, Karen Harrington’s blog, and she offered to guest blog for anyone interested. Karen is the author of Janeology.

I took the opportunity to ask her a few questions; questions I’ve always wanted to ask a writer and questions that are just quirky enough to get her attention and yours. Without further ado, I’d like to welcome Karen to Savvy Verse & Wit and to thank her for taking time out of her busy schedule to answer my questions.

1. How do writers work out to stay in shape and healthy?

As for me, I try to get up and stretch several times while I’m writing. My husband is a PA for a spine surgeon and I asked him what the best, ergonomic position for writing was, he said “The best position is the NEXT position.” This has been great advice. I also plan my housework around my writing. Vacuuming is my warm-up, believe it or not. And of course keeping up with my toddlers is like having a health-club membership. I also try and drink a lot of water during the day. I admit, I am not a super healthy eater because sometimes, when my kids are in preschool, I forget to eat altogether. When they are here, I find myself eating whatever they have left on their plates (a lot of half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.)

2. Do you find there are particular foods that make you more creative or that keep you inspired?

I don’t know if coffee is what inspires me, but I cannot imagine my day without it, so it must have some bearing on my writing. Interestingly enough, when I read a scene in a novel about a big feast and what all the characters are eating, I feel hungry and want to make a big dinner. That’s one of the reasons reading/writing is so powerful. It can influence all your senses.

3. If you were to pick a playlist for your latest writing project, what are the top five songs on that list?

Right now, I am writing a piece called Prodigal Son, which centers on a very disillusioned son of a mega-preacher. I created an ITunes playlist specifically for this book (something I do for every project.) Here’s a sample of what’s on it:

Wake Up Call – Maroon 5
Human Wheels – John Mellencamp
Viva La Vida – Coldplay
If Everyone Cared – Nickelback
Over You – Daughtry

What’s funny is that if my husband hears me rockin’ any of these songs, he now knows that I’m working on Prodigal Son.

4. What rituals or steps do you use to remain confident in your writing?

Reading a lot is the best reinforcement. You read some stuff and you think, “I can do better than this.” And you read other stuff and you think, “I want to write like THIS!” As far as general confidence, that wavers a great deal. When I first completed JANEOLOGY, I had the overwhelming sense of “Hey, I’ve got something very interesting here. Something I would personally love to read.” And then, I remember the fear I had the day before my book was released. I had a moment or two where I didn’t want it to go out into the world, but then I got a few positive reviews and it eased the process. I can see a day, perhaps when I get to book 5 in my writing career where I will trust my instincts more.

5. In terms of friendships, have your friends shifted since you began focusing on writing? Are there more writers among your friends or have they stayed the same?

I’ve never thought about this until now, but the answer is yes, I do now have more writer-ly friends just since the publication. I’ve networked with many of them through my publisher and we have built a very supportive network of sharing information and encouraging each other. Also, I’ve met several local writers as a result of MySpace. I’m thankful for this because writing can be very solitary and it’s good to meet others who know what you’re going through.

6. (Because I love this question) Can you describe your ideal writing space and how it differs from your current writing space?

In terms of aesthetics, I have a pretty ideal space right now. My office has a huge window that looks out on our pool. There are three fountains running in the morning. I’m able to listen to the sounds and rest my eyes on the blue water. The desk and the computer could be anywhere or any kind, just so long as I have my dictionary and synonym finder nearby. I used to be a corporate speechwriter and had to write under all kinds of, um, interesting conditions in interesting situations. This experience taught me how to write anywhere, with any level of noise or distraction or screaming (which is why I can write with toddlers nearby.) One day, I would love to have this kind of space near an ocean or lake. Anything with a view of water.

Check out what else she had to say about her current writing space.

Thanks to Karen for joining us today and for taking time out of her busy schedule to answer my questions.

Filed Under: fiction, Interviews Tagged With: Karen Harrington

Owen Fiddler by Marvin D. Wilson

December 10, 2008 by Serena

Marvin Wilson’s morality tale Owen Fiddler chronicles the bad behavior of one man–Owen–from his early years as a boy through adulthood and how his life spirals out of control. He meets his wife Jewel and they have a daughter Frenda, who becomes the light of Owen’s life. Frenda is Owen’s foil in this tale.

Owen is a womanizer, a drunkard, a liar, and behaves horribly toward his mother, stepfather, and brother. When the reader thinks nothing can get worse for Owen, it does. Not once throughout the novel does Owen take responsibility for his actions or the consequences. There is always someone else to blame–his brother Paize, his stepfather, his friends, and others.

Not only is Owen an unlikeable character, but the author introduces us to a cast of unique characters, including Lou Seiffer (Lucifer) who is a truck driver that lends Owen money and Kris (Jesus Christ). The reader will have a hard time rooting for Owen to get a brain and evolve, but his daughter Frenda makes the reader want Owen to improve at least for his daughter’s sake, if not his own. The novel is fast-paced weaving in and out of the past to tell Owen’s story and that of his family, but in some sections the author’s thoughts on the subject are interjected rather than allowing the characters’ thoughts and feelings take center stage (see page 143)

Flat-footed just a couple of inches taller than Frenda. With her heels on, she stood a little taller than he did. His male ego was being spanked a wee tad. She could sense this, also sensed he was too proud to say anything about it. . . . Men. . .so tough on the outside and yet so easily bruised on the inside.

Although Frenda would care about how her date, Robert, felt while she was wearing heels, the earlier character buildup for Frenda does not support the sort of sarcastic statement about males being tough on the outside and easily bruised on the inside.

On page 119:

Cigarette tasted nasty. He snuffed it out amongst the dozens of other butts in the ashtray. Dim lights, cheap plastic checkerboard table coverings, the sights and sounds surrounding him: the working class indebted proletariat, his colleagues in misery. . .it all cast a gloom over him.

The above passage does have some great description to place the reader in the scene with Owen, and the reader can smell and taste what surrounds him, but in the same moment, it seems the author enters the scene. Uneducated Owen is not likely to know the term “proletariat” unless he’s been educating himself in between his romps in the hay and nights on the barstool. There are a number of these passages that can distract the reader, but there also are some great descriptive passages that capture the reader’s attention. Check out page 24:

An officer, a sullen five foot ten stocky bad omen, called out to her from the front lawn, “Mrs. Fiddler?”

Marvin Wilson tells a story of one man, an everyman, and his descent into oblivion and the perilous journey that leads to his salvation. Readers looking at today’s society and how it has deteriorated can take away a lesson from this book. It is not only an evolution of Owen Fiddler, but can become an evolution of readers and others in today’s me-first society. I applaud Wilson’s efforts to espouse change. Christians could find fault with some of the scenes near the end of the book, though readers should cast aside their indoctrination and take from this book its overall message–forgiveness, change, and selflessness are important to reforming ourselves and society.

I’d like to welcome Marvin D. Wilson, author of Owen Fiddler, to Savvy Verse & Wit to share his transformation from a “free spirit” hippie to a disciplined individual and writer. Here’s his thoughts on his own transformation:

Freedom through Discipline

I was able to go to college on a music scholarship. My father was a poor Christian minister, and had I not been born with the gift of music, the advantage of higher education would have been denied me. Thanks to my God-given talents, I was able to go. I was a music major with a thespian minor at Central Michigan University. At age eighteen, I thought I knew everything. I had talent, intelligence, youthful bold confidence and a brash attitude, and a social/political/religious view of our world (this was the late 1960’s, mind you) that was one of “I know everything.” And anyone who disagreed with me (especially my parents and any authority figures in the older generation, those despicable leaders of the hypocritical oppressive “Orwellian – big brother” government of the times), were dead wrong. I was a “Free Spirit,” venturing forth into a brave new world that me and my Hippie friends were forging with our new lifestyle, our drugs, sex and rock and roll religion of freedom.

In my freshman year at college, I met Professor Stephen Hobson. He was my choir director and my private lesson voice coach. He looked to me to be in his late sixties. He was (well, he seemed to me at the time) stodgy and stiff, and a strict disciplinarian. He demanded of me a level of self-discipline and rigorous diurnal practice regimen that I was completely without the ability to understand, let alone adhere to. One little flutter in-between voice registers, any tiny slippage in tonal and/or pitch control when singing my assigned lessons in his torture chambers he called a “practice room” every Wednesday, he would stop playing his piano accompaniment, look at me with this “you know as well as I that that was not good enough” expression and demand that I try it again. Over and over … until I got it perfect. Perfect according to his obnoxious elitist opinion.

I couldn’t stand that man. He was asking way too much of me, and for no good reason. I did not see the need for such a tyrannical imposition of discipline on me and my life, my singing, my anything. I was writing songs about freedom and liberty, gigging at night in my rock and roll band, getting over to thunderous applause at the hands of my Hippie peers, why did I need discipline? I was a one-of-a-kind talent; my uninhibited, serendipitous, wild and natural style was destined to become the standard for future generations. Professors in decades to come would teach their students how to emulate ME!

Ah, but those of you with any substantial life experience can guess the rest of the story. I never “made it” as a big impact famous rock and roller. I eventually wound up playing for modest money in little disco bars, playing live juke-box cover tunes for young people to get drunk to and screw each other. But I had learned something along the way.

I learned that in order to become “free” with anything, any pursuit, any hobby, any career, any craft, any aspiration of great accomplishment, you had to go through the discipline first. I never made it as a big name musician, but I did learn how to play my instrument. To this day, I am free when I pick up a guitar. I can express emotions, elevate my consciousness, get all heaven-bound and glorified, and anyone around me will experience the same thing I am feeling. It’s a miracle I can produce, at any time, in any place, on any guitar of reasonable quality. But it took years and years of discipline to reach that plateau. Years and years of overcoming sore fingertips and blistered split open calluses, learning the scales, studying the modes, practicing the positions, emulating the recordings artists, getting so familiar with the neck I owned it as an extensions of my hand.

Towards the end of my bar-playing nightclub career, Professor Stephen Hobson came out to see my band. I had called him, letting him know we were playing in his town that week. Even so, I was surprised to see him in the audience – remember, this is a classical musician, a prim and proper professor, a patron of the fine arts, someone who goes to operas and symphony performances. For him to go to a dance club and listen to a top forty band was rather impressive.

And you know what? He was impressed with our performance. I went and sat at the table with him and his wife after the second set and he was beaming. He had wonderful accolades to bestow upon me and my ensemble, complimenting the vocals, the arrangements, our use of dynamics, our overall command of our instruments. And it was then that I told him what I had wanted to say for several years. I told him that I finally understood what discipline meant, what its value was. I knew, I told him, that undertaking the arduous discipline of any given art or craft was the necessary and ONLY way to get free within that art or craft. I told him that I finally appreciated what he had been trying to get through to my thick headstrong skull all those years ago. I knew I had been a special student to him, he had a great amount of belief in my talent, and I also knew I had been a disappointment to him, because he never “got through to me” when I was under his tutelage. I apologized to him for that shortcoming and assured him that his teaching had stuck with me all these years and had now been realized in my life and practice.

The now retired Professor Stephen Hobson’s eighty-year-old eyes filled up. He said, and I quote, “Then my life, my career, has been worth it!”

We hugged. Long and sincere. That was the last time I ever saw him. He died a couple years later. I will never forget Professor Stephen Hobson and what he taught me about applying discipline to my life in order to get beyond boundaries and break free. It applies to relationships and marriage, to any career, to any sport, to any hobby, to any life pursuit whatsoever. If you want to eventually be free, you must initially go through the discipline. It may sound like an oxymoron, “Freedom through Discipline,” it did to me as a young Hippie, but it makes perfect sense to me now.

God bless and keep you, Professor Stephen Hobson. Your legacy, your teaching, lives on.

***

The above was a post on Free Spirit Blog last summer, 2008. It was very well received, one of the most popular posts of the summer. And I thought it would be appropriate to re-post it here in keeping with your suggested topic for today, Serena. The message, the teaching it contains, is one that benefited me greatly when, as a man with no professional resume of a writer whatsoever in his mid-fifties, took up the sudden path of desiring to be a published author.

I have a natural ability to write, much like my innate musical talents. No problem going pretty far with it with relatively little effort. But in order to really break loose, to have the freedom of being able to write so well that I could be considered as one worthy of not only publication but a following, an actual readership, well … that took work. Lots of work. Major discipline. But I just applied what Professor Stephen Hobson had taught me all those many years ago to this new endeavor. Read the best. Read, read, and read, with the eyes of a student. Study the tutorials. Read the “How-to’s.” Surround yourself with professionals. Learn from them. Practice. Write everyday for hours even when there is no inspiration. Write. Work. Practice. Write. Work. Practice. Get critiques. Take the hard criticism and get over it, learn from it and improve because of it. Over and over and over and over until you get it right. Strive for the best, for perfection. Never settle for just good enough.

Even when I thought I had it down pretty good, I ran into an editor that jacked me up so tough I almost threw my hands in the air like, wow – I don’t know if I can really do this. But she believed in my basic talent enough to tough love me through three months of mentoring that taught me how to take my writing to an entire different and higher level. The next tour stop at Helen Ginger’s blog, Straight From Hel, is all about that, so I don’t want to steal any of her thunder, but for the whole story just bop over there tomorrow. Any novice author dealing for the first time with a first rate but “don’t give a wit about your feelings” editor will be heartened by reading about my struggles. If I can make it through such an experience, so can you.

Here’s the thing. Bottom line time. God given talents are great. Use them. Use them to make your living and to help others. Maybe even just for fun. A little entertainment amongst friends. But it is incumbent upon us as professionals, in any field or industry, to strive to be the best that we can be. That is if you want to. Don’t have to. Go ahead and be mediocre and limited if that’s what you want. But if you like the idea of freedom, then undertake the discipline. Do the work. Do it to be free. There is a vast limitless freedom available to those who truly seek it. The freedom to fly, to soar and break through boundaries you never imagined, never thought possible when were still languishing on – the lazy shore of the undisciplined.

About the Author:

Marvin D Wilson is a family man, married for thirty two years with three grown children and five grandchildren. He is a self-described “Maverick non-religious dogma-free spiritualist Zen Christian.” He resides in central Michigan and is a full time writer as well as a young adult mentor at his church, Shiloh’s Lighthouse Ministries, where he also is the CFO for the ministry and runs a free food pantry and free clothing distribution center.

Marvin likes to write fiction novels. He enjoys delivering spiritual messages in books that are humorous, oftentimes irreverent, always engaging and thought-provoking, sometimes sexy and even ribald, through the spinning of an entertaining tale.

Prize and Giveaway information

Marvin likes to hear from his readers! Feel free to email him at: [email protected]

His very popular blog, Free Spirit, is at http://inspiritandtruths.blogspot.com/

Marvin’s Myspace is at: http://www.myspace.com/Paize_Fiddler

Owen Fiddler’s Myspace is at: http://www.myspace.com/owenfiddler

The official Owen Fiddler book website is http://www.owenfiddler.com

***Don’t forget to check out the next stop on Owen Fiddler’s Virtual Tour–Straight from Hel ***

***Don’t forget my Pemberley by the Sea contest. It ends on Dec. 10 at Midnight EST. Sorry open only to U.S. and Canadian addressed residents.**

***And The Green Beauty Guide contest, which ends Dec. 16 at Midnight EST.***

Filed Under: fiction, guest post, Read in 2008, reviews Tagged With: Marvin D. WIlson, owen fiddler

Safelight by Shannon Burke

December 2, 2008 by Serena

Shannon Burke’s Safelight is an ambitious undertaking that examines the decline of New York City and the decline of a paramedic, Frank Verbeckas. Through sparse and compelling language, dialogue, and plot points, Burke expertly immerses the reader into a series of dramatic scenes in which Verbeckas struggles to find himself amidst crime, disease, and the tragic death of his father.

Verbeckas is a paramedic and photographer, but his gift is capturing the reality that surrounds him, which in his eyes is the illness, death, and disease of the patients in crumbling New York City. His brother, Norman, is a top surgeon at a local hospital, and despite his arrogant manner and self-confidence, Norman struggles to break through his bully-like exterior to help his brother.

On page 138 of Safelight, the description used easily sums up the tumultuous relationship between Norman and Frank:

His eyes went wild. He swung with his right and hit me on the side of the mouth. I stumbled against the sink and he came in towards me. He was about four inches taller and sixty pounds heavier. I jabbed with my left but he twisted, dodged, and had me in his grip. He threw me against the wall. I went at him. He had me in his grip again. He threw me. I went at him, then stopped. We stood there, huffing and puffing in that tiny room.

The short, clipped descriptions of this fight between brothers quickly provides the reader with an inside perspective of how Frank compares himself to his brother and how they relate to one another.

Through a series of disjointed, but related paramedic scenes, the reader gains a sense of Verbeckas’ struggles and his downfall seems almost inevitable. However, meeting Emily, a professional fencer and HIV positive woman, becomes the catalyst that spurs Verbeckas’ transformation. Burke utilizes his sparse narrative to describe the stillness Frank feels in the presence of Emily (see page 134)

Her small, dark figure against the ruin, in that green pine stillness. Along an old mill there was a slow-moving stream, the water clear in the shallows but a deep, translucent copper color in the middle.

Being Burke’s first novel, the reader probably would not have noticed the recurrence of black flies, but given my recent review of Black Flies and my recent interview of Shannon Burke, I noticed the black flies made it into this first novel as well.

I also enjoyed the Burke’s descriptions of Frank’s photography and how he frames scenes in the camera’s viewfinder. As an avid photographer, these scenes were well described. Readers will appreciate the stark images and heart that permeates the narrative of Safelight. The evolution of Frank Verbeckas is swift and satisfying.

About the Author:

Shannon Burke was born in Wilmette, Illinois and went to college at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He has published two novels, Safelight and Black Flies, and has been involved in various films, including work on the screenplay for the film Syriana. From the mid to late nineties he worked as a paramedic in Harlem for the New York City Fire Department. He now lives in Knoxville, Tennessee with his wife Amy Billone and their two sons.

Filed Under: borrowed copy, fiction, Read in 2008, reviews Tagged With: safelight, shannon burke

Pemberley by the Sea by Abigail Reynolds

November 26, 2008 by Serena

Abigail Reynolds’ Pemberley by the Sea is a retelling of Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen, but in modern times and with modern sensibilities. Who would have Elizabeth Bennet been in today’s world, and who would have been Fitzwilliam Darcy?

In Reynolds’ modern day romance, which is set on Cape Cod and in Pennsylvania, Dr. Cassie Boulton is a marine biologist who loves a good book so long as the ending is a happy one–because there are just too much unpleasantness in real life. In many ways Cassie and Elizabeth are both strong women with a sharp wit, but Cassie also is an accomplished career woman with serious ambitions and a dangerous past. One of my favorite scenes is when she and Calder are in a charming bookstore and he has merely followed her around and not said much (from pg. 29).

She paid for her purchase, and said good-bye to Ed, and then turned back to Calder. He held a book in his hand now but was still looking at her with disturbing intensity. She smiled with apparent sweetness at him and said cheekily, “Lovely chatting with you, Calder. We’ll have to do this again some time.” She made a quick exit, leaving the bells on the door jingling behind her.

The tension here is palatable, and it remains so throughout the novel, and Reynolds does a great job showing and creating sexual tension, charisma, and release between these characters.

Calder Westing III is the son of a rich, Republican, and southern political family. Like Mr. Darcy, Calder Westing is the consummate blue blood with his chiseled features, highbrow manners, and cool temperament, but passion runs deep beneath the veneer as does his loyalty and vulnerability.

Their summer romance hits them hard and fast, but it quickly fades into the background as each deals with the unpleasantness of their every day lives and the qualms they have about fitting into one another’s world. Calder fights for his love through an adaptation of Cassie’s favorite novel, while Cassie has to fight her basic instinct to flee when harsh times approach. She manages to overcome her innate, biological responses and confides in Calder, trusting that they can work through anything together.

Not only are we thrust into their romance, but the reader is introduced to Erin (i.e. Jane Bennet) and Scott (i.e. Mr. Bingley), whose romance falls off track and only rights itself on its own, not as cleanly as it happens in Austen’s novel. Caro, Calder’s mother, is another fascinating character, along with the Jim, Cassie’s mentor, and Dave Crowley, attorney and long-time friend of Calder’s family and Cassie. Joe, Calder’s father, is a force to be reckoned with, and the tension in the novel becomes almost stifling when he enters a scene. There is a wide range of supporting characters in this novel, and each has a significant role to play, which makes this more than just an Austen do-over.

Not only has Reynolds eloquently captured the tension between the characters and developed their relationships believably throughout the 400+ page novel, she has taken the time to put the reader in Woods Hole with her descriptions. It was like taking a vacation and getting lost on the seaside or in the marsh. Check out this description from pg. 422.

Cassie stood on the beach in front of the house, her arms wrapped around herself. Finally some peace and quiet. A cool breeze blew in over Buzzard’s Bay, whipping up whitecaps that broke on the shore, coming closer and closer to her feet as the tide came in. Around her lay the flotsam of the last high tide, strands of seaweed, broken shells, and here and there an empty shark egg case. Mermaids’ purses–that was what children called the egg cases when they discovered them on the beach. A used-up dead shell that once protected a baby dogfish or skate, and now it would be a child’s treasure.

Not only do the descriptions do justice to the setting and put the reader in the midst of the scene with the characters, they serve to put the reader in the characters’ minds. What is Cassie thinking? How is Cassie reacting? In some cases, the scenes serve to foreshadow upcoming events, feelings, and trials, but in others the scenes symbolize overarching themes in the text.

From the beginning to the end, this is an engrossing novel that takes the reader on a deep ride into the romance and struggles of these two characters. They are memorable, and I was sad to see them go. I hope we hear more from these characters. In terms of Jane Austen spin offs and redos, this is one of the best and could even stand on its own without the references to Pride & Prejudice, which is a clear testament to Reynolds’ talent as a writer.

I want to thank Danielle Jackson at Sourcebooks for sending me this novel to review.

Also Reviewed By:
Jackets & Covers

***Reminder***

Don’t forget my contest for the writing guide Grit for the Oyster. You have two chances to enter: the review and the guest post

Deadline is December 1, Midnight EST.

Filed Under: fiction, Read in 2008, reviews, sourcebooks Tagged With: abigail reynolds, pemberley by the sea

Scattered Leaves by Richard Roach

November 17, 2008 by Serena

Richard Roach’s Scattered Leaves follows the quest of Ben McCord, an oilman, to find the man who killed his young wife. McCord is a man on a mission, and his negative view of the world permeates the novel. The one light in his life, his wife June, is gone.

Like many of the James Patterson crime fiction novels I’ve read in the past, there is a vast conspiracy behind the death of McCord’s wife. However, some of the police procedure and gun purchasing details were unrealistic and could distract seasoned mystery readers.

On the other hand, the fast-paced plot will carry the reader quickly through the twists and turns. In some cases the reader may wonder how McCord ends up where he does, which is expected given that the novel is told from McCord’s point of view. Some of these plot twists seem outlandish and not well constructed, and the logic McCord uses to deduce his next course of action is shaky at best. However, McCord’s shaky logic is one of his character flaws, and it is this flaw that unwittingly propels him into unlikely situations and that fuels the fire propelling him to find his wife’s killer. The novel takes the reader on a journey from the Oklahoma oil fields to Texas and through Kansas, Colorado, and near the Mexican border.

One of my favorite characters in the novel is an older, hired assassin who gets the drop on McCord as he makes his way home, shooting into his moving car from the woods. This assassin is brash and had me giggling during the exchange he had with McCord in the woods after the attack. Richard Roach has a way with dry humor, which is used to ease the tension in some cases.

According to Richard Roach, “Knock ’em down and drag ’em out is more McCord’s style. But, he’s honest, forthright, and oh so tender with the ladies.” Reading this book, you can tell that McCord is rough around the edges, but he’s looking to keep his tender side on the surface more often. About midway through the novel, the action gets more intense and Dr. Pettijohn is thrust into the action in a harsh way and plays an integral role in its ultimate resolution. At times this novel seemed to tell McCord’s emotions rather than show them, and some of the plot points were not necessary to propel the action, both of which could distract readers. However, in spite of these problems with narration and plot, Richard Roach’s first novel is fast-paced and has an imaginative style that will keep you reading.

About the Author:

Born in Galveston, Texas, Richard Roach served four years in USAF as drill sergeant. He attended the University of Texas. Short stories have been published in Man’s Story 2, Happy 2007 volume 20, page 58, Iconoclast 2006 volume 91, page 73, and Bibliophilos 2006 volume 42, page 54. His first novel, Scattered Leaves, hit the book stores n September 2008. His second novel, Scattered Money, will be published by Multi-Media in 2009.

I want to thank Dorothy Thompson at Pump Up Your Book Promotion for sending along Scattered Leaves by Richard Roach.

If you’re interested in Scattered Leaves, feel free to leave a comment.

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Peeking Between the Pages

Filed Under: fiction, giveaway, pump up your book promotion, Read in 2008, review copy, reviews Tagged With: richard roach, scattered leaves

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