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Piano Rats is a collection of delectable prose poetry by a young Chicago writer that calls herself Franki Elliot. What’s it about? It’s about you. Something you said to me five years ago, five days ago, five minutes ago. It’s about sex, honesty, sadness, falling in and out of love, firsts and lasts, awkward moments. It’s my secrets and yours.

Editorial Reviews

The 44 pieces in Franki Elliott’s Piano Rats are like the best kind of chance meetings—weird and unsettling, specific and transformative. They are Frank O’Hara meets Ellen Kennedy, “first kiss” meets “fuck off,” “hell” meets “rainstorm,” poetry meets prose, narrative meets lyric, trailer park meets city street. But they are also entirely themselves, places where you “remember who you wanted to be.”” ~Kathleen Rooney, author of Oneiromance (an epithalamion), managing editor of Rose Metal Press.

The book is a collection of deeply personal pieces, arranged as free verse poems, though Elliot calls them “stories.” And they do read as stories, the kind told around a kitchen table—or even, in the case of “Nothing,” a recounting of a story that happened while a story was being told around a kitchen table. Most of them detail a down-and-out cast with unbroken spirits, people who predict early deaths but live as if they don’t believe it. And at the book’s core is a sense of loss, if not of a specific person—as the dedication would indicate—then certainly of a sense of comfort. [...] Clocking in at a brief 70 pages, the poems, stories or prose poems—pick your term—fluctuate from sandpapery interactions between family members or lovers to dreamlike sequences in which linear narrative disappears. And there’s a good deal of humor in there, too. ~Jonathan Messinger, books editor of Timeout Chicago.

“Piano Rats is an homage to being stuck between where you’ve been and where you still might go. It’s just that you haven’t quite figured out how to escape where you’ve been and frankly you have know no idea what comes next. And it is this tension of stuckness in all its messy, druggy, sometimes hopeful, youthful confusion that lives here in these poems and explodes across these pages, all oozy and terribly electric.” ~Ben Tanzer, author of Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine, 99 Problems, My Father’s House, and You Can Make Him Like You, among others.

‘Piano Rats’ by Franki Elliot

The Chicago Tribune Book Review – October 9, 2011 (Excerpt)

I used to enjoy poetry. I’d go to spoken word events nonstop, attend theater performances such as HBO’s “Def Poetry” tour and read poetry books. Then there came a time when I was bored out of my mind with poems about drugs, suicide, bad relationships and self-pity.

I stopped liking poetry so much.

But, sometimes I run across a poem that makes me second guess my opinion on poetry. It could be a line in the poem that impresses me. Or a person in the poem that makes me wonder what he’d be like in another situation. Or a relationship that makes me want to know if it worked out. Or a memory I have while reading the poem. For me, “Piano Rats” by Franki Elliot had all of the above.

In the poem “With an Obsessive Compulsive,” a woman wonders how long it will take for the guy she’s just had sex with to throw away the sheets because of “skin cells and bacteria.” Judging from the way he reacted to a blanket falling on the floor and his specific instructions on not using soap when washing hands, it won’t take long. I was just as uncomfortable with his blunt talk about filth as the woman in the story was. [Read the full article...]

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THE BLEEDING HILLS
A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

Click on image to buy from Amazon.Com

In March of 1994, Simon Lewis was a Hollywood man on the rise. He had started in the film industry as a lawyer and worked his way up to become a big-budget studio producer. He’d helped shepherd one of the most successful comedies in film history. He’d married the love of his life. And then one night, in a few seconds, everything changed.

In Blindsight, author Chris Colin unspools the remarkable true story of a horrific accident and the life that followed it. A killer at large. Unlikely twists of fate. Miraculous medical oddities. Otherworldly perceptions. Lewis’s is a tale of one man’s love and loss, and of the strange turns awaiting a life remade.

Editorial Reviews

Man is en route to a restaurant with his new bride. Man’s car gets T-boned by a hit and run driver. Wife dies but man survives, though he suffers extensive brain trauma. Man, after ten-plus years of grueling therapy and multiple surgeries, miraculously regains the same IQ he had prior to the accident. This reads like a storyboard treatment for a film that Simon Lewis might have produced. The story is Lewis’s own, however. Prior to the wreck that left him without a third of the right hemisphere of his brain, Lewis was a respected member of the Hollywood establishment, even though his roster mainly included B-movies (C.H.U.D. 2 anyone?), and a film that was originally slated to go straight to video, but Lewis wisely championed, Look Who’s Talking. Handily beating Field of Dreams and Born of the 4th of July at the box office, it made then has-been John Travolta a household name again, ensuring that his Scientology dues would be paid on time. Despite its cinematic qualities, which author Chris Colin dutifully points out in this captivating Kindle Single about Lewis’s recovery, this really is an anti-Hollywood story. Life is messy; it doesn’t always have an ending you can tie up with a neat little bow. And, as much as you’ll marvel at the enduring (and endearing) spirit of Simon Lewis, Blindsight will have you equally marveling at the extraordinariness–the almost “science fiction-like” capabilities–of the human brain. –Erin Kodicek, Amazon.Com Review

“The extraordinary perceptions and insights experienced by Simon Lewis after his life-altering brain injury are fascinating to read about. This piece should remind those of us who plod through our days with healthy brains that a similar beauty and grace exists inside us waiting to be uncovered.” —Ethan Watters, author of Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche

“Only Chris Colin could make me care about the man responsible for the cheese-horror movie C.H.U.D II. Mixing a potent blend of reportage with vivid storytelling, Blindsight tells the tragic story of movie producer Simon Lewis, and his almost twenty year struggle with a strange neurological condition. Lewis’s story, we know in our heart of hearts, could befall any of us.” —Novella Carpenter, best-selling author of Farm City

Reader Review

Blindsight is a rarity, a most often trauma-induced medical condition in which a person without sight can “see” through the blindness without consciously registering images. A person with blindsight will navigate around a garbage can without ever visualizing the obstacle. Blindsight is seeing without seeing, the brain doing a workaround.

Simon Lewis developed blindsight after being crushed body and soul in a horrible 1994 car wreck that killed his wife of five months, left Lewis in a four-month coma and became the start of a decade-long crawl back toward daylight.

Storyboard, Panel 1 of 5: Lewis is a Hollywood kid who loves the movies and starts by shooting a high schooler, backyard version of “Macbeth.” Some time later a string of progressively more main-stream B-movies follow. At the top of that heap is “C.H.U.D.2.” Then the young producer latches onto a hokey script and hustles to sign 70s has-been John Travolta. The movie is about a tough talking baby who telegraphs his thoughts to the audience and bam, “Look Who’s Talking” is the smash hit of 1989, beating every other hit of the year including “When Harry Met Sally” and “The Little Mermaid.” At about the same time, he meets Marcy and records another triumph when she, “talkative and vivacious,” agrees to marry him, “pale and bookish.”

Storyboard, Panel 2: March 2, 1994. If he would have paused outside the fancy Italian restaurant they both loved to tie his shoelace before getting into their brand new Infiniti he would have driven through the intersection of Beverly Boulevard and McCadden Place a couple seconds later and missed being T-boned by that white 1978 van running the stop sign full-throttle at 75 miles per hour. In a home nearby a couple eating dinner thought a bomb had gone off. They ducked under their dinner table.

Storyboard, Panel 3: The paramedics first on the scene report no survivors in the Infiniti. Witnesses say they saw a young man climb out of the van and sprint up McCadden, never to be identified. It takes over an hour to splay the Infinity open. Rescuers are shocked to discover Lewis has a pulse. Every second that passes, more blood leaks internally filling every available space under his skin. More brain cells die. By the time Lewis is admitted to Cedars-Sinai his body has swollen to twice its normal size. Four months later, one day in April, Lewis’ eyes open.

Storyboard, Panel 4: The road back is a long one. More than ten years. Lewis had lost everything. Then with struggle, gained much back. His legs are fitted with a NESS L300, a neuroprosthesis that sends impulses to nerves to help him walk. He’s now a middle-aged man in his 50s. “A little advice,” someone says to Lewis, “Find love again.” In 2010 he writes a book “Rise and Shine” an extremely detailed chronicle of his ordeal. Life moves on.

Storyboard, Panel 5: Lewis’ story doesn’t have an ending, happy or sad, that packs everything up in a little square box with a cover. The ending is ambiguous and undetermined, the way life works. Lewis makes contact again with the film community. He works on a script from long ago and like the rest of us Lewis continues on, “living the non-movie version of his own life.”

The Pitch: The summary doesn’t begin to size up the story which is almost science fiction in its treatment of how the brain functions in reaction to terrible trauma and works to heal itself. The story is inspirational. How do you go about remaking a life? There’s an otherworldly quality to Lewis’s rehabilitation that blurs reality and perception and reshapes what we mean by consciousness and cognition. To me, “Blindsight” is a hero’s story of endurance and resilience. – Rett01, Amazon.Com Customer Review

Book review: ‘Blindsight’

The Chicago Tribune Book Review – September 13, 2011 (Excerpt)

Film producer Simon Lewis was driving down Beverly Boulevard with his wife in 1994 when their car was broadsided by a van traveling at about 75 mph.

Lewis, then 35, had seen his biggest success with “Look Who’s Talking,” a comedy about a chatty baby starring John Travolta, Kirstie Alley and the voice of Bruce Willis. But after this accident his life would never be the same.

An hour after emergency workers reached the scene of the accident — the car had spun through the air and smashed into a tree — they found the bloodied Lewis and were surprised to discover he had a pulse. His wife was dead.

Pulled from the wreckage, he lay in a deep coma and had severe injuries: All but two ribs were broken, as were his pelvis, collarbone, both arms and jaw. His skull had been crushed. He’d undergone an emergency craniotomy to relieve the devastating swelling on his brain.

When, against the odds, he awoke, he and his parents came to realize how much damage had been done. He had lost a third of the right hemisphere of his brain, and his cognitive skills were impaired. It took a decade and a half of intensive therapy to recover, to the point that now he’s ready to make movies again — an incredible story in itself. [Read the full article...]

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THE BLEEDING HILLS
A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss

I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7

The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]

The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Nobel, and any other good bookstore.

Click on image to buy from Amazon.Com

Stuart Martin Berry has only three months left to find a publisher for his first novel. In a desperate attempt to achieve his goal, he leaves his home to live in New York. His wife has given him free rein to do whatever it takes to get a book deal. Her only request was not to give her any details on how he got there. If he fails, he will be forced to give up his dream of being a famous writer and accept a regular forty-hour a week job. For Stuart, this is sufficient motivation to start a three-month adventure full of sex, lies, and deceit, without losing focus of the ultimate goal. When he finally reaches the finish line, he has evolved and become a leading expert in the fantasy world of writers, literary agents, and publishers.

To put it in a nutshell, today’s publishing world is divided into two principle sections. First, there is the exclusive pool of traditional publishers, and, second, the help-yourself shark tank represented by the so-called vanity publishers.

Vanity publishers have a significant edge over traditional publishers in regards to brutality, business sense, and profitability. They ruthlessly pursue the infinite supply of aspiring writers who, in turn, are rejected by traditional publishers or literary agents. Ironically, in the world of traditional publishing, authors are rejected not necessarily due to lack of talent. Vanity publishers accept everybody and everything. No questions asked. Just pay your bill, but don’t come crying to them when you can’t sell a copy of your book.

The question remains, what does it take these days to get a book deal with a traditional publisher? What do you do when, hypothetically, you are running out of time and mere talent is not the be-all and end-all?

Stuart Martin Berry has found the answer: If you can’t impress them with your talent, baffle them with your bull-shit.

About the Author

Wilfried F. Voss is a different sort of author. He is also the president and owner of a small publishing business, Copperhill Media. Copperhill Media was initially established to publish technical literature. After several years in business (Copperhill was established in 1993) Mr. Voss wrote his first novel The Bleeding Hills with the mere intention of getting a look & feel of publishing fiction literature. Within two years after publishing The Bleeding Hills, Mr. Voss has now published several fiction titles by authors from all over the world including the United States, the United Kingdom, and India. Ironically, Mr. Voss’ second novel American Male Prostitute – How I (Almost) Got A Book Deal Through Sex, Lies, And Deceit reflects the experience gained during the promotion of his first novel.

From the Author

“I note that you are putting together another masterwork, entitled American Male Prostitute. Might I suggest that you direct a little of that “research” towards yourself, and your own fantasy life?” – From an angry reader of my website FrogenYozurt.Com

The idea for American Male Prostitute came after reading my favorite, most useless writers’ magazine whose title shall not be uttered here. But thinking about it, it was not totally useless, since it enlightened me with enough information to learn about the bizarre world of book publishing.

To put it in a nutshell, today’s publishing world is divided into two principle sections. First, there is the exclusive pool of traditional publishers, and, second, the help-yourself shark tank represented by the so-called vanity publishers.

Vanity publishers have a significant edge over traditional publishers in regards to brutality, business sense, and profitability. They ruthlessly pursue the vast pool of aspiring writers who, in turn, are rejected by traditional publishers or literary agents. Ironically, in the world of traditional publishing, authors are rejected not necessarily due to lack of talent, but the use of the wrong font in a manuscript, an insufficient query letter, or other minor shortcomings. Vanity publishers will publish everybody and everything. No questions asked. Just pay your bill, but don’t come crying to them when you can’t sell a copy of your book.

Now, take a wild guess which of the two can afford to put serious money into full-page advertisement in writers’ magazines. These magazines, like all other publications, sit between a rock and a hard place. They are not only obligated to please their readers but also their advertisers. And here we go again; the sharks keep the upper hand. Aspiring writers are on the losing side, one way or the other, whether they consider the traditional or vanity publishing method.

On top of all that, the majority of writers’ magazines are – excuse my French – full of crap. They are full of motivational nonsense to keep their readers happy enough to continue their quest for stardom. At the same time, they keep feeding the sharks.

Just the other day, I found yet another grossly misleading advertisement that made my blood boil, and I was ready to get my hands on that computer keyboard and add a flaming entry to my blog. Maybe, I thought, I’ll make this a series and share my experiences with every new, aspiring author.

Then I remembered the saying “Don’t anger me or I will write a novel about you”, and that is exactly what I did. There is no better weapon than writing a novel about the industry. They deserve it.

And just for the record, no, I never submitted any manuscript to a literary agent or publisher. I didn’t have the time for that nonsense. Consequently, I was never rejected. My point is, my motivation to write this novel does not stem from frustration but mere perverse curiosity.

And, no, I did not get a book deal through sex, lies, and deceit. I don’t have the mandatory luscious looks, and I am very happily married, and, after all, I run my own publishing business.

Yet, I wondered, what does it take these days to get a book deal with a traditional publisher? What do you do when, hypothetically, you’re running out of time and mere talent is not the be-all and end-all?

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AMERICAN MALE PROSTITUTE

How I (Almost) Got A Book Deal Through Sex, Lies, And Deceit

Today’s publishing world is divided into two principle sections. First, there is the exclusive pool of traditional publishers, and, second, the help-yourself shark tank represented by the so-called vanity publishers.

Vanity publishers have a significant edge over traditional publishers in regards to brutality, business sense, and profitability. They ruthlessly pursue the infinite supply of aspiring writers who, in turn, are rejected by traditional publishers or literary agents. Ironically, in the world of traditional publishing, authors are rejected not necessarily due to lack of talent. Vanity publishers accept everybody and everything. No questions asked. Just pay your bill, but don’t come crying to them when you can’t sell a copy of your book.

The question remains, what does it take these days to get a book deal with a traditional publisher? What do you do when, hypothetically, you are running out of time and mere talent is not the be-all and end-all?

Stuart Martin Berry has found the answer: If you can’t impress them with your talent, baffle them with your bull-shit. [Read more, including an excerpt]

Click on image to buy from Amazon.Com

From Western civilization’s greatest empire came history’s most gifted and accomplished man. Emerging from a society populated by powerful men with great ambitions, against a backdrop of social change and political upheaval, one man stood as a giant among men. Almost more than a man, he was an irresistible force of nature. “Imperator – The Life of Gaius Julius Caesar” by Philip Katz is a fictional recreation of the life of the greatest of all Romans, Gaius Julius Caesar. It is a personal memoir, the inside story of his world as viewed through his eyes, written in the first person, suppressed by Caesar’s successors, only to be rediscovered in modern times. Born to one of Rome’s most prestigious families, Caesar went on to conquer all of Western Europe in the name of Rome. He then conquered Rome to liberate his countrymen from a corrupt Senate.

Caesar’s energy, intellect, and desire for achievement brought him the jealousy and animosity of his peers along with enormous political opposition. Ultimately, his fight against the corrupt, political establishment and his quest for a more sustainable society brought him into direct conflict with the ruling class of Rome. Gaius Julius Caesar begins writing his life story on the heels of the Alexandrian war while spending some time on the Nile in the company of Cleopatra, Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt, reflecting on the halcyon days of his childhood that quickly gave way to smoldering hostilities between the great men of the state, followed by the burst into the conflagration of civil war.

The lack of information about Caesar’s early life makes these formative years of particular importanceto the narrative as his character and motivations are placed in the context of recorded history. The reader is invited to step back two thousand years to witness the collapse of the Republic that subjugated the entire Mediterranean world but could not govern itself.

With “Imperator – The Life of Gaius Julius Caesar” author Philip Katz creates an atmosphere in which ancient Rome comes back to life, seen through the eyes of the man who was the principle instrument of fortune and change, Gaius Julius Caesar.

Reviews

Author Philip Katz set out to write “Imperator” because he felt he could bring a unique layman’s point of view to the subject of Gaius Julius Caesar and the fall of the Roman Republic, free from the traditional dogmatic approach taken by the academic community. In addition, he believes the tale of the fall of the Roman Republic is a timely and relevant, cautionary tale for the 21st century America.

In his own words, “It is far too simplistic to attribute Caesar’s vast accomplishments to ambition and lust for absolute power alone. While Caesar was referred to commonly as tyrant and was allegedly assassinated for the same reason, Caesar never altered the Republican form of government, which he is accused of destroying. Closer examination of the facts presented in the extant sources only make sense when seen in context of an extremely complex personality capable of great compassion for individuals and what was seemingly cold disregard for the lives of millions. In the pages of Imperator a character comes into focus from the extant documents of the period taking into account just how subjective these accounts were. In fact, most of the sources for the period, with the notable exception of Caesar’s own writings and those of the orator Cicero, were written many years after the time of Caesar and were written by those opposed to the factions to whom Caesar belonged. The story of Caesar must be viewed within the context of the unique time in which he lived and the unique situation into which he was born.”

“Imperator – The Life of Gaius Julius Caesar” is a fictional recreation of the life of the greatest of all Romans.

In present days’ Rome, namely at the Bibliotheca Casanatense, the senior curator, accompanied by a team of scientists and students, receives the first of ten volumes representing the personal memoir of Julius Caesar, which were suppressed by Caesar’s successors. The volumes were kept and protected by Ethiopa’s Jewish community, the Beta Israel, for over two thousand years until a time when a publication was deemed safe.

“Imperator” by Philip Katz represents this first volume, and it covers Caesar’s early years, reflecting on the golden days of his childhood that quickly gave way to hostilities between the great men of the state, followed by blaze of civil war. Reading “Imperator” made me feel and live the atmosphere of ancient Rome, and understanding the Gaius Julius Caesar as Katz envisions him.

Katz has invested some substantial research and passion into the subject of the otherwise sparsely recorded history of Caesar’s childhood, and it reflects in the details of his writing. “Imperator” is a must-read for everybody interested in Roman history.

- Wilfried F. Voss, Author of  The Bleeding Hills

For more than a year I have caught glimpses of Philip Katz’s book: Imperator, The Life of Gaius Julius Caesar, as he launched chapter after chapter onto Scribd. I devoured each in absolute awe of anyone who could absorb history in such fine detail and then turn it around and personalize it in such a way, that you could actually believe Caesar himself to be the author. Now, the book is out in hardcover and I am no less impressed by Mr. Katz’s ability to reveal his strengths as an author. The book begins just so: I Gaius Julius Caesar, Imperator, Pontifex, Maximus, Dictator, Perpetvo, Conqueror of Gaul, Descendent of the Goddess Venus, and Anchises of Troy, do now commence to relay to posterity the events of my life as I recollect them. And so he does. Katz starts in Caesar’s childhood, introduces us to life in the suburba, gives us a taste of his family and culture. He then captures the brutality of war, the conundrums of politics and the sense of history this man was making. (But not before indulging us in a brief chapter set in modern day when this memoir is revealed to scholars for the first time.) To do this by rewriting other works is one thing. To personalize it as if writing a real diary is an amazing feat all together. The bibliography, Appendix and Glossary are filled to the brim. It is simply so impressive how Philip Katz not only took on this topic, but made it his own through an enormous amount of hard work and hard writing. He is to be applauded for creating “A Fictional Recreation of the Life of the Greatest of All Romans.”

- Laura Novak, Amazon.Com Customer Review

Philip Katz has brought the most famous of all Romans alive again with his fictional novel Imperator..Gaius Julius Caesar travels the streets of Rome as a young man..You will feel drawn into Caesar’s early life as you read the pages of this well written book..

Extensive writer research is evident and makes young Caesar’s early life believable..Readers feel they are reliving actual history and can hear the chariots rumble in the streets of Rome..You are quickly brought into the realm of Rome both from a political and historical standpoint.

Imperator is a very well written book and is both intriguing and captivating to the reader. From start to finish Katz keeps the reader wanting to know more and more about the thoughts and actions of this famous Roman.

- Creative, Amazon.Com Customer Review

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Queen of Misfortune

A Lady Jane Grey Novel by Peter Carroll

Now Available As Paperback And Kindle Edition!

Queen Of Misfortune is the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer. At the time of her execution a stranger is recorded to have assisted her when, blind folded, she lost her way upon the scaffold. Was it the same ‘stranger’ who was also recorded to have visited her when she was imprisoned in the Tower? Little is known of this unfortunate girl who was beheaded for treason in the 16^th Century. She was only 16. She is omitted from the list of monarchs but was actually queen for nine days. Author Peter Carroll, in his novel, follows John Aylmer’s close relationship with Jane as her tutor and later, as she grows up, her lover. [More...]

Available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.

Hey everyone.  UnSpoken: A Val and Irulan Short, has gotten it’s first review, from the wonderful Ms. Sally Sapphire.  Ms. Sapphire is the wonderful woman behind the Bibrary Bookslut blog; a blog that focuses on LGBT themed literature.  She was also the first person to review Never Again: An Irulan Short. Well, once again she has given my little short an amazing review.  On top of that, there have been over 200 downloads in 2 days time!  I feel like Sally Fields the night that she accepted her Oscar for Places In The Heart; I‘m sitting at my laptop thinking, ‘You like me, you really like me’.

Here is a small bit of what she had to say about UnSpoken…this is a more intimate tale than the first, focused more on exploring the relationship between Val and Irulan. Ronnie has to walk a fine line between satisfying the reader’s hunger for the full-length Crimson Dawn, and potentially alienating readers who come to the novel without having read the shorts. I think she’s done an admirable job of it, introducing us to the characters, and providing just enough background to whet our hunger, without duplicating the experience of the novel itself. Val and Irulan are fantastic characters, and it’s clear that they (and the world in which they’ve been established) are well equipped to carry an exciting new addition to the urban fantasy genre.

Check out the full review by using the link below.  And although the title of the page say’s the review is for Never Again, it’s actually the review for UnSpoken.  http://bibrary.blogspot.com/2011/03/review-never-again-irulan-short-by.html

Although Unspoken: A Val and Irulan Short, is listed on Amazon as a Kindle e-book for .99, I am giving it away as a free download on my website, up until the release of Crimson Dawn, in April.

Now for the announcement.  I am having a giveaway to celebrate the April release of Crimson Dawn.  The contest will run from now until May 1st.  Winner will be announced at my DarkWorld Forums on May 6th, during my official online launch.  To find out the details, please head over to the DarkWorld Forums at my website, http://www.ronniemassey.com/.

Click on image to buy from Amazon.Com

Queen Of Misfortune is the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer. At the time of her execution a stranger is recorded to have assisted her when, blind folded, she lost her way upon the scaffold. Was it the same ‘stranger’ who was also recorded to have visited her when she was imprisoned in the Tower? Little is known of this unfortunate girl who was beheaded for treason in the 16th Century. She was only 16. She is omitted from the list of monarchs but was actually queen for nine days. Following extensive research Peter Carroll attempted to put this to rights in this story filled with love and passion.

It follows John Aylmer’s close relationship with Jane as her tutor and later, as she grows up, her lover. It shows how the Duke of Northumberland uses her as a pawn in a devious plan to dupe her into reluctantly accepting the throne against her better judgment, and the torment she suffers in consequence culminating in her early death and that of Guildford Dudley, the husband she was forced to marry. Her strict upbringing and the abuse given by her parents at her home in Bradgate is also cause for concern for John Aylmer and her nurse, Mary Ellen. Starting and ending with the execution in the Tower and the belief she was buried at Bradgate, John Aylmer revives his cherished memories…

About the Author

Peter Carroll has written several short stories, poems and many articles on variable subjects for newspapers and Magazines, his favorite subject being history. Queen of Misfortune is his first novel, a fiction piece which involved intensive research and took three years to complete. Born in Barnet, England in July 1933 and with a standard education, he was called up into the RAF in 1951 and served five years as a medic. Since then, until his retirement, he has mainly been involved in accounting and running his own business with his son. Like a cat with nine lives he has survived an air crash, a lift fall and a serious aortic aneurysm and thanks his Karma faith for that. He now lives in beautiful Torbay in South Devon, has been married to Daphne for over fifty years, and they have two children and four grandchildren.

Review

by Wilfried F. Voss, Author of The Bleeding Hills

I had the distinct privilege, besides the author and his editor, to be the first to read “Queen of Misfortune,” and I have to admit I was not prepared for the deep emotions that came with reading Peter Carroll’s novel. Not only is Carroll’s excellent writing style absolutely captivating, but he also manages to convey with ease the intense feelings of love, joy, pain, and grief.

As the sub-title (“Life is but a rehearsal for our everlasting love, my dear Lady Jane Grey”) indicates, “Queen of Misfortune” is not merely a Lady Jane Grey Novel; it is a story of true and unconditional love with almost Shakespearean dimensions. “Romeo and Juliet” comes to mind.

There is little recorded history of Lady Jane Grey who, against her will, was declared Queen of England for a short nine days. After all, she was executed at the very young age of sixteen as ordered by Queen Mary I, also known as “Bloody Mary.” It also seems that any records of her life such as pictures and letters were methodically destroyed shortly after her death. All portraits of her, available these days, were painted decades and centuries after her demise.

More is known about her beloved tutor, John Aylmer, who studied at Queen’s College in Cambridge and in 1549 became tutor to the 12-year old Lady Jane Grey. She found in him the opposite to her strict and abusive parents. He, some say, fell in love with her. In 1576, long after Jane’s death, he was consecrated Bishop of London, and while in that position he made himself notorious through his harsh treatment of Roman Catholics. The question comes to mind whether or not his actions were meant as a revenge for Jane’s death. Queen Mary I was Catholic and she offered to spare Jane’s life if Jane had converted to Catholicism, which, ultimately, she denied.

Author Peter Carroll, during a visit at Bradgate House, Lady Jane Grey’s birthplace and childhood home, believed to have sensed Jane’s presence in the tower named after her, and he engaged in an imaginary, brief dialog with her.

He felt himself conveying to her that he so much wanted to tell the world of her, to make it more aware of her place in history. But she would have none of it, even though he suggested she may be visiting her former home on earth in spirit form.

“But I have no reason to return. Generally, my childhood was painful there and I do not believe it is a good idea to write about me more than has already been said.”

“But I must, Jane, and I will and I think you know that.”

What followed were three years of research and writing, and the result is the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer, starting and ending with her execution in the Tower of London.

“What shall I do? Where is it?”

They were almost the last words to be uttered by his sweet, sweet Jane and he could not bear to watch that which was imminent. His mind flashed back to the time when he first met Jane and how they fell in love. Only on his deathbed, in 1594, does he reveal his story to his eldest son, Samuel.

The Amazon system allows only five stars, and “Queen of Misfortune” deserves them well, but I wished I could give more. Reading it was experience I will not forget for a long time to come. And ladies, when you decide to read “Queen of Misfortune”, keep your handkerchiefs ready…

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Nigerian immigrant Julius, a young graduate student studying psychiatry in New York City, has recently broken up with his girlfriend and spends most of his time dreamily walking around Manhattan. The majority of Open City centers on Julius’ inner thoughts as he rambles throughout the city, painting scenes of both what occurs around him and past events that he can’t help but dwell on. For reasons not altogether clear, Julius’ walks turn into worldwide travel, and he flies first to Europe, where he has an unplanned one-night stand and makes some interesting friends, then to Nigeria, and finally back to New York City.

Along the way, he meets many people and often has long discussions with them about philosophy and politics. Brought up in a military school, he seems to welcome these conversations. Upon returning to New York, he meets a young Nigerian woman who profoundly changes the way he sees himself. Readers who enjoy stream-of-consciousness narratives and fiction infused with politics will find this unique and pensive book a charming read. –Julie Hunt, Booklist

Review

Its intense, detailed and specific narrative, unravelling inside the mind of one man, Julius – a young Nigerian-German doctor completing his residency in psychiatry in a New York hospital – brings the city of new York hauntingly to life in a different, slower, deeper way from anything I’ve ever read. From this detail and specificity, it reaches out widely to the global flows of our fluxing, ungraspable world, personified by the various immigrants and asylum seekers he encounters. It reaches in, too, to touch the reader’s mind and senses and emotions. For this restrained, intellectual voice, you realise, is piercingly sensitive – it gets to you!

This is not one for the fan of plot-heavy pageturners, perhaps. Julius spends much time alone, walks a lot and thinks a lot, about art and memory and history. He sees a lot, as loners sometimes do, and has strange, surprising, significant encounters, often with other immigrants, as loners sometimes do.

His story, perhaps, goes nowhere much. And yet, in his actual journey to Brussels, his journeys of memory back to Nigeria, and in the mouths and memories of those he meets from far-flung places, it goes to Africa, to Europe… and to places in the heart.

It travels too, through his observations and reflections, in time, political and cultural history. Full of seeming digressions, it digresses in fact not at all, but is a seamless deepening through detail of the whole picture and atmosphere of today’s global city.

And it goes to a sharp inner twist that you will not forget.

It’s a book to love, and to reread many times. – Jean Morris, Amazon.Com Customer Review

An Immigrant’s Quest For Identity In The ‘Open City’

NPR Book Review – February 13, 2011 (Excerpt)

Ever since he moved to New York a little over 10 years ago, author Teju Cole knew that he wanted to write about the city, with the general structure of a character walking and walking around the metropolis and making discoveries. After the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, he says, he suddenly found the freedom to write this story. The result is Open City, a debut novel that has met with high praise and is being called a new landmark in post-Sept. 11 fiction.

“My view of writing about those things [like Sept. 11] is that you can best write about it by writing about other things,” Cole tells NPR’s Audie Cornish. “And by understanding that catastrophic trauma is not new in this city.” [Read the full article...]

Queen of Misfortune

A Lady Jane Grey Novel by Peter Carroll

Queen Of Misfortune is the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer. At the time of her execution a stranger is recorded to have assisted her when, blind folded, she lost her way upon the scaffold. Was it the same ‘stranger’ who was also recorded to have visited her when she was imprisoned in the Tower? Little is known of this unfortunate girl who was beheaded for treason in the 16^th Century. She was only 16. She is omitted from the list of monarchs but was actually queen for nine days. Author Peter Carroll, in his novel, follows John Aylmer’s close relationship with Jane as her tutor and later, as she grows up, her lover. [More...]

Available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.

As it turned out, I already had a short that was perfect for a mini-prequel.  And so, Never Again: An Irulan Short, was released on Amazon on January the 11th.  Now that it’s available, how do I let people know?  Well getting it reviewed was the obvious first step and so I began googling book blogs and ran across the Bibray Bookslut blog.  After emailing one Ms. Sally Sapphire to inquire about her review policies, I sent her a copy.

Now, I’m a worrier by nature.  I’m not sure if it’s because I’m the oldest of six kids, or the mother of two daughters, or what; but I sent it out and just waited for my short to get ripped apart.  Guess what guys, it didn’t get ripped apart!  As a matter of fact, the review was glowing.  When I finished reading it, I jumped up and started dancing around the room screaming.

Here is just a small bit of what the review said, “Never Again is a deliciously crafted little tale that works well as both a self-contained short, and as a prequel tease to Ronnie’s upcoming novel, Crimson Dawn:  Darklife Saga(coming this April). Full of passion and intrigue, it subtly plays with our expectations, and quite successfully manages to inject some originality into the urban fantasy genre.”

To read the entire review, please use this link. http://bibrary.blogspot.com/2011/01/review-never-again-irulan-short-by.html#comments

Never Again: An Irulan Short

To read about Never Again: An Irulan Short, Crimson Dawn, and my other work, please visit my website.  http://ronniemassey.weebly.com/

After you’ve read it, be sure to skip on over to Amazon and get your own copy; and FYI, you don’t need a Kindle to download Kindle content.  If you’ve got an Android smartphone, and iphone or ipad, or even a PC, you can download a Kindle app that will let you read any content that is available for the Kindle.

http://www.amazon.com/Never-Again-Irulan-Short-ebook/dp/B004ISLRA2/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1

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Sabrina Strong is a Touch Clairvoyant who knows a secret. She knows her mother was turned into a vampire when Sabrina was ten. Now that she is grown up, a powerful magnate in the Chicago business world hires her to reveal the identity of who relentlessly murders vampires in his ultra-modern stronghold of a hotel. Sabrina is not thrilled about the aspect of working for vampires, but she needs the money, and she wants to find the gorgeous and mysterious vampire who has been turning up in her dreams. Is he the one who bit her when she was ten, marked her for his own, and turned her mother so long ago? Little does Sabrina know that her whole life is about to change when her best friend becomes a victim, too, and Sabrina is the only one who can find her. Her friend’s fate intensifies the desperate need to find the murderer and, consequently, brings her into contact with a rogue vampire. Sabrina is quickly immersed in romantic trysts and dangerous situations involving scheming vampires, shift changers, and werewolves.

With “Vampire Ascending”, Lorelei Bell has created a unique and mesmerizing mystery blending intricately detailed fantasy and romance within a contemporary setting. Her story features strong character development and provides new insights on a vampire’s life including love, passion, heartache, hope, devastation, lust, and longing. Moreover, “Vampire Ascending” is an action-packed plot full of surprises. Bell delivers a well-written and satisfying story that will leave the reader wanting more.

Reviews

Sabrina Strong is a typical young woman with a decidedly atypical talent; Sabrina is a Touch Clairvoyant. Still grieving over the recent death of her father, and still seeking the reason her mother was “turned” eleven years before, Sabrina answers a job advertisement “Clairvoyant needed – only serious applicants need apply”, and begins her adventure working for one of the Magnates of the North American Vampire Association.

Hired to discover who killed the Vampire Magnate’s wife, our engaging adventurer finds herself working with vampires, werewolves, elves, demons and shape-shifters. While Sabrina’s focus is on discovering the killer, she seeks the vampire responsible for “turning” her mother and leaving his mark on her own arm.

Vampire Ascending is a captivating blend of action, intrigue, romance and the supernatural. Lorelei Bell has incorporated humor with a fast-pace that makes for exciting reading, and has developed a heroine that is engaging, quirky and appealing. If you are a fan of Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse Series, I believe you are in for a treat. I didn’t want to put this book down, and I look forward to more from Lorelei Bell! – Y. Campbell, Amazon Review

Let me say upfront that I do NOT read vampire novels… My wife has read and enjoyed Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” series and even “forced” me to watch the movies with her. Still, I do not read vampire novels…

However… I (reluctantly) agreed to review to Lorelei Bell’s “Vampire Ascending,” and now you can call me “converted.” Maybe it was Bell’s captivating writing style that drew me more and more into the story, which made it difficult for me to put the book aside. Bell’s greatest talent is writing like she speaks while still maintaining a high level style, which contributes to an enjoyable and fluent reading.

Add to this a captivating story line with unique and believable characters, scenes, events, locations, and more things that I did not expect, and I believe, that separates Bell from the majority of writers in the vampire genre.

The story is based on a friendly coexistence of regular human beings and vampires. Well, the friendliness ends as someone starts murdering vampires, calling the VIU (Vampire Investigative Unit) into action. The VIU monitors vampires’ activities to assure they follow the established laws.

In addition, Bjorn Tremayne, master vampire, whose wife has been killed, hires the main character, Sabrina Strong, a woman with very special skills, to identify the serial killer.

The book starts with the job interview and from there on the reader is entangled in a mixture of mystery, suspense, romance, action, and adventure. Without spoiling the experience, Sabrina succeeds in her task, but the ending indicates that Bell has more adventures in mind for Sabrina. I am certainly looking forward to her next book! – Sandpiper, Amazon Review

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Set in the intriguing atmosphere of India in the early 20th century, full of mysticism, love, compassion, and political drama, The Ayurvedic Healer tells the story of Madhavan Namboodiri, a physician practicing an ancient medical science, and his enduring love for Rosilie. By healing the underprivileged, regardless of their civilian and religious status, touching the untouchables, he follows his beliefs and disobeys the rules of his society. His life story is set in the background of India’s struggle for freedom, the communist revolt in the Southern State of Kerala, social advancement, and the emergence of new societies. The Ayurvedic Healer sweeps the reader into an exotic place and time, rendering an intimate experience through sharing Madhavan Namboodiri’s life and love.

The Ayurvedic Healer is Joy J. Kaimaparamban’s second novel written in English. He has written 18 novels in his native Malayalam language, four of them are children’s literature. His first novel in Malayalam received the Tagore award, named after Rabindranath Tagore, a famous poet, novelist, musician, playwright, and Nobel Price winner. Joy J. Kaimaparamban was born on October 1939 to a middle class family in the Southern state of Kerala in India. After finishing his education he became a schoolmaster and worked in several Kerala government schools teaching English. He retired in 1995. Currently he lives in Vayalar, a beautiful lakeside village in the Alappuzha (Alleppey) district with his wife and two children. His first novel written in English, The Azure of Solicitude, was published in 2009. Joy J. Kaimaparamban is not only a passionate story teller. He envisions people and events, past or present, in his native India as material for unwritten works. These visions and the ability to transform them into fascinating stories about his country is a trademark of his novels.

Review

The product description doesn’t lie. The “Ayurvedic Healer” by Indian author Joy J. Kaimaparamban takes you for a ride into a different dimension and time. This is the fascinating life story of an Indian physician and his never-ending love for Rosalie. The main character Madhavan Namboodiri ignores all boundaries by healing the underprivileged, the outcasts, and, as a result, he clashes with the established political and social system of India during the early 1900′s. Rosalie is his dedicated, Christian wife and mother of his children. Despite his devotion to his family, however, Madhavan satisfies his sexual urges by maintaining an extramarital relationship.

If you are into romance, history fiction, and if you are interested in Ayurvedic medicine, you should read this book. Ayurvedic medicine is a system of traditional medicine native to the Indian subcontinent, and it is practiced in other parts of the world as a form of alternative medicine. Adding to the experience is Joy J. Kaimaparamban’s unique storytelling that draws the reader even deeper into a world of fantasy. – Sandpiper, Amazon Review

Editorial Review

“Life in Miniature is a stunning double portrait, subtly capturing a daughter’s misconceptions of her mother’s delusions – while simultaneously revealing the consequences for both – in a compulsively readable and deeply insightful first novel.” – Jonathon Keats, author of The Book of the Unknown”

Review

There are books out there on library shelves that make you laugh, make you cry, take you on the adventure of a lifetime, scare you to death, and educate you on all aspects of history. There are only a small few, however, that make you truly stop and think; think about the issues that face people in their hectic, anxiety-ridden lives, and how all the pain and angst that’s building every day in this world affects the children who have to watch things – including their own family – fall apart around them. This is one of those stories.

Adie was born three months premature, and what she hears mostly in her life is how lucky she is to be alive. Her mother had her on the last day of the 1960′s and calls Adie a miracle birth. Her sister, Miriam was already four years old when Adie came into the world, and, unfortunately, their dad left before Adie was even born.

Adie gets teased constantly in school, always the shortest and smallest; but Miriam, her big sister, is her idol. Miriam has the perfect posture and even teases her hair so that she can be taller. She loves Adie and tries to save her from their mother’s ridiculous actions that seem to be getting even more ridiculous with each passing day.

Mom is slightly odd. She’s a good mom who loves her daughters, but she seems to worry a great deal about things that Miriam and Adie can’t even see. Mom talks all the time about how horrific the world is, and begs her daughters never to hang out with teens who even look like they could be up to something. She’s constantly scared about the neighborhoods that she and the girls’ live in…even going so far as to pick them up and move them from apartment to apartment in order to,”stay one step ahead of the bad guys” that Mom knows are following her wherever she goes.

Miriam tries with all her might to calm their mother down, and is always there for Adie so that she can have a somewhat normal life. Even when Mom goes away for a “rest,” Miriam makes sure to take care of her younger sister and try to protect her from the strange things their Mom is saying and doing. Until one day, after Mom has decided to once again pack up and move because men are following her in a white car around town, Miriam just can’t take it anymore. She’s so tired of having to pack up her life, leave her friends, and deal with a mother who is just too far out there…and she leaves.

Unfortunately, poor Adie is still stuck with Mom – racing down dark streets at night, holing up in old hotels, and hiding from mysterious men while watching her mother break apart at the seams. The story that follows – the adventures that Adie has to live through while struggling to get her older sister back and her family back together – is a true piece of classic literature that no reader will soon forget.

We all put barriers and limitations on ourselves – physical, financial, mental – that we have to overcome in order to dream and persevere through this world of reality television shows, and a constant barrage of news stations offering the worst pictures and stories that mankind has to offer. This author has certainly done a fantastic job of showing what can happen if our brains finally decided that they’ve simply had enough. This book should be on all library shelves!

Until Next Time,
Amy – Amazon Customer Review

‘Life in Miniature’: A slice of a familiar flat and round world

The Washington Post Book World – December 31, 2010 (Excerpt)

Here is a first novel that will interest anyone attempting to write one. “Life in Miniature” offers, by its example, a compendium of lessons about making fiction. (E.M. Forster wrote a book about it long ago called “Aspects of the Novel.” He talks about round characters and flat characters, which is just another way of saying some characters are more important than others.)

Linda Schlossberg sets out her characters like this: The “round” ones are Adie, who’s 11 as the narrative begins; her teenage sister Miriam; and their mother, Mindy, who’s just come home from a short stay at a mental hospital. It’s nothing to worry about: She seems just about as crazy as everybody else’s mother. [Read the full article...]

Vasquez’s first novel, In the Heat (2009), set in Belize, fit comfortably within the hard-boiled-detective tradition, but he followed it with a classic noir, Lonesome Point (2009), set in Florida. This time he’s wearing black again, but he returns to Belize. Riley James was “an ordinary guy with a little street in him . . . who got himself into a scrape.” If that sounds like an archetypal description of the noir hero, it is; Riley is yet another likable, fairly smart guy who thinks he can outsmart the inevitable.

If he was living in a caper novel, that might be true, but in noir, escape either comes at exorbitant cost or doesn’t come at all. Riley is trying to go straight as a Belize bar owner, but a freak car accident draws him back into the drug-running world and leads to him speaking the words you never want to hear from someone you like: “If I can just do one last job.” Vasquez sticks closely to noir formula, but he plays all the notes with feeling, and the Belize backdrop provides one of the best noir landscapes since Vicki Hendricks turned up the steam at a laundromat (Miami Purity, 1995). –Bill Ott

Review

If you have never read a book by Ian Vasquez, I would ask that you spend the closing days of 2010 doing just that. In only three novels, Vasquez has demonstrated that he has that rare, raw and beautiful ability to suck the air out of the room in the space of a sentence. Would that be enough of a recommendation?

MR. HOOLIGAN, Vasquez’s third novel, returns to the familiar and dangerous environs of Belize, so starkly and darkly described in the pages of IN THE HEAT. This award-winning debut introduced an enigmatic and memorable character named Miles Young, who makes an appearance or two in the new book that could be described as something more than a cameo but less than a featured role. Instead, the focus is a middle-aged, semi-legitimate operator named Riley James. The part-owner of a popular Belize City bar, James supplements his income by picking up drug drops for the Monsanto Brothers, a pair of gangsters who are the true power in the city.

As a young man, James committed an error in judgment that would have had life-threatening consequences but for the intervention of the Monsantos. They saved his life, but since that time he has been in their debt, navigating boats through the reefs and channels that he knows so well and functioning as an integral part of their illicit business. James feels that he has reached the end of his rope with the Monsantos. He wants to be out of the business and clear of them so he can start a new life with the woman with whom he has fallen in love.

To cancel his obligation, James wants to do one last run, a major transaction that is fraught with danger. His route to the legitimate life is hardly an easy one, though. A crooked government official is trying to shake the bar down; the Monsantos are not exactly thrilled with James’s new attitude; and the very people who he trusts the most are the ones most likely to betray him. And it is the latter element that provides the crux of MR. HOOLIGAN. James is clever but not always smart. It doesn’t take long before he finds that by keeping his word to one friend, he may automatically betray another, or worse. And it isn’t long before things get quite bad indeed. By the end, there are very few people left who can walk away intact, if at all.

Ian Vasquez is a chillingly, frighteningly good writer, capable of creating characters who can creep you out and break your heart while constructing complex plots that will take you to places you will never anticipate. His ability to drop a swerve into the middle of a scene is matched by few, though he is careful to share his gift sparingly, all to greater effect. While comparisons with Elmore Leonard are inevitable, Vasquez is more than capable of charting his own course and acquiring a readership all his own along the way.

— Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is forever haunted by the unexplained disappearance of his wife, Sandy, nearly ten years ago. Ever since she went missing, he’s been consumed with finding out what happened to her. Finally, he may be moving on. He has fallen in love and is going to marry his girlfriend, Cleo, who is pregnant with their child.

But his life is put on hold when, after a wild New Year’s Eve ball, a woman is brutally raped as she returns to her hotel room. A week later, another woman is attacked. Both victims’ shoes are taken by their attacker. Grace soon realizes that these new cases bear remarkable similarities to an unsolved series of crimes in the city back in 1997. The perpetrator had been dubbed “Shoe Man” and was believed to have raped four women before murdering his fifth victim and vanishing. Could this be a copycat, or has Shoe Man resurfaced?

When more women are assaulted, Grace becomes increasingly certain that they are dealing with the same man. By delving back into the past—a time when Sandy was still in his life—he may find the key to unlocking the current mystery. Soon Grace and his team find themselves in a desperate race against the clock to identify and save the life of the new sixth victim, as he struggles with a chapter in his life he thought he had put behind him at last.

Review

In an ever expanding global market, American readers are discovering the exciting works of authors from abroad. And this is never more so true as it is with British authors of the suspense thriller fiction genre.

Let me make this proclamation now, one of the best British writers I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading has to be Peter James.

Recently I was introduced to James with his newest release Dead Like You.

In his sixth novel featuring Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, a serial rapist known as The Shoe Man – called so because of his penchant for ladies’ designer shoes and the horrendous things he forces his victims to do with them – is on the prowl again among Brighton’s upper class after being dormant for 12 years.

DS Grace hasn’t forgotten The Shoe Man’s last victim: Rachel Ray. Unlike other victims who lived to tell about their nightmarish experience, Ray just simply disappeared. Did The Shoe Man escalate from rapist to murderer?

Working at a feverish pace, DS Grace searches for the identity of The Shoe Man before he goes underground again.

This isn’t the only problem that plagues DS Grace, however. At home he is juggling a pregnant fiance as he seeks to have his wife, Sandy, declared legally dead after she simply disappeared one day over a decade ago.

Could Sandy have been a victim of The Shoe Man too?

Dead Like You is a fast pace, very engrossing read that’s difficult to put down.

Using real life police procedures of the UK coupled with frighteningly too real crime scenarios, James weaves a novel that will leave you never looking at your shoes the same again.

I so enjoyed this book that I’ll definitely be seeking out more in the Roy Grace crime series. – Kim Cantrell, Amazon Review

‘Dead Like You,’ alive with suspense

The Washington Post Book Review – December 20, 2010 (Excerpt)

Peter James’s novels about Detective Superintendent Roy Grace have been bestsellers in England but have had little impact in this country. That could change with the publication here of the sixth in the series, “Dead Like You.” It’s a remarkably inventive story of sexual obsession, possibly the most engrossing thriller since Thomas Harris’s “The Silence of the Lambs.”

At its most obvious level, the novel is a realistic police procedural in which Grace heads the investigation of a series of attacks on women in and around Brighton, England. The narrative alternates between past and present, as the younger Grace investigates a series of rapes – and a murder – from a dozen years ago, and also similar attacks in the present that may be the work of the same criminal. As we move between past and present, we also move between Grace and his fellow officers, the rapists (for there prove to be two or more at large) and the victims of the attacks. We see the police frustrated by a lack of clues, even as the criminals methodically stalk their victims. [Read the full article...]

Suddenly we’re into a 30-page World War I flashback. Then we visit Vienna for tea with Doctor Freud. We learn of Marie Curie’s work with radium. The sidekick has a rocky time with his love life, and we learn all about it. This fat book is heir to Caleb Carr’s The Alienist, using the detective format as a chance to wander in the past. Rubenfeld ends with an explanation of the 1920 attack that finds parallels to 9/11. The leads are witty, and the prose is elegant. But readers should prepare to wallow in the book and take it slowly. –Don Crinklaw

Review

Although it makes use of a little-known real-life incident of terrorism on American soil – an explosion on Wall Street on Sept 16th 1920 – and follows through on all the political implications with meticulous consideration for the historical period, at heart Jed Rubenfeld’s follow-up to The Interpretation of Murder is a huge, engaging, ripping yarn. It’s well-written, carefully researched and intelligently put across, but the emphasis is definitely on the adventure and the romance of the period.

And what a highly interesting period in American history. Post-First World War, where many Americans have lost their lives in the trenches during the final stages of the Great War, with Prohibition in force and the Depression on the horizon, to say nothing of the conditions being set for the next World War, The Death Instinct convincingly depicts the state of the world of anarchists and nascent terrorism being used as an effective and sometimes legitimate means of causing serious political upheaval.

Technology too has advanced, as has the understanding of human psychology, and both are integrated into the fabric of the times, particularly in consideration of notions of extreme violence, death and killing, all of which have new implications in the post-war generation, as well as being having implications (and an obvious parallel in 9/11) for the present day and the current place of America in the new world order. All of this is superbly brought into the story, without unnecessary lecturing or over-emphasis, blending wonderfully and imaginatively into the events surrounding the bombing of Wall Street.

And what a cracking adventure that turns out to be, again involving NYPD detective James Littleman, with war veteran Stratham Younger and a French woman he has met on the front, Collette Rousseau – a woman with her own mysterious motivations that take her and her silent younger brother Luc on a relentless journey from America to the Vienna of Sigmund Freud. The novel takes its historical setting seriously, but crucially, it doesn’t take itself seriously, allowing all kinds of thrilling adventures and heroics in a fast-moving tale involving the FBI, European anarchists and many other secret agencies and interested parties. There’s never a dull moment in The Death Instinct, but there’s also plenty here to consider from a historical as well as a modern perspective. – Keris Nine, Amazon Review

Married musicians Guy and Judy live an apparently idyllic life in East Anglia with their four-year-old daughter, Freya. But within two months of Freya’s death in an accident, the marriage dissolves. Guy moves aboard a drafty old boat, and for five years, he obsessively creates a diary in which Freya is still alive and the family intact. In Guy’s words, he’s trying to “write a future for her” and cope with the loss of everything he holds precious. On a voyage into the North Sea, he meets a woman and her daughter, who are also grieving, and he realizes that he might be able to build a new life. Page’s first novel, Salt (2007), was described as “both evocative and exhausting,” and those words also characterize Sea Change. The author’s minutely observed characters and his evocation of almost every subject he treats are masterful. But aside from his obsessional diary, Guy is a cipher, and it is difficult to accept that someone who lives a reclusive life isn’t more self-referential. –Thomas Gaughan

Review

In one moment of tragedy, a man’s life is forever altered, the perfect future with wife and child vanishing into the realm of memory. Five years later, Guy is adrift in the world and on the North Sea in a ninety-foot Dutch coastal barge, hoping to find in this new wilderness that which has eluded him on land. In fragments of past, present, and the imagining of a future undamaged by the randomness of fate, Page strips to the marrow a man yearning for continuity between past and present, from the fens of East Anglia to the landscape of America’s rural south to the drift of the North Sea and the uncharted depths of an emotional abyss. From the morning of the freak accident that shatters his life with wife, Judy, and daughter, Freya, Guy finds temporary solace in his barge’s isolated cabin, each night diligently melding past and what might have been.

Hope arrives unexpectedly, as it usually does, in the form of another vessel and its occupants, an opportunity for Guy to reach beyond the stasis of his emotions and embrace another reality than his current fractured existence. Between the three elements of the novel, the accident, the drifting present and the nightly diaries, Page creates a seamless narrative where truth changes shape and intention, where Guy discovers a link between his most cherished child and the world around him. Anything is possible in the netherworld Guy inhabits, even the lessening of pain and the joy of reunion. That Page plumbs such emotional depth without a touch of the maudlin makes this story a moving and thought-provoking experience. – Luan Gaines/2010.

Unmoored by a child’s death

The Boston Globe Book Review – December 19, 2010 (Excerpt)

In the wake of his successful first novel, “Salt,’’ scriptwriter Jeremy Page returns to the South English coast to fiddle with the boundaries of time. Once again, in “Sea Change,’’ he teases readers’ distinctions between fantasy and reality.

After a dramatic flashback, the new novel opens with Guy, a sometime piano teacher and full-time romantic, marking his fifth year on a barge, bobbing between sea and shore, past and present, despair and hopefulness. “The Flood is a ninety-foot Dutch coastal barge, built in Voorhaven yard in Scheveningen in 1926, and till the seventies it freighted cod-liver oil between the three H’s of the North Sea: Hamburg, Harwich and Hoek van Holland. . . . . It’s moored to a stretch of quay on an empty part of the Backwater Estuary, in Essex.”

It’s been five years since Guy’s adored daughter, Freya, was killed in an accident. Five years since he and his wife, Judy, made a suicide pact, then broke it and went their separate ways. Five years of living in the past by recalling the days with Freya and living in an imaginary present by writing a fictional journal about Freya growing up under the loving watch of her parents. “I wanted to see how it might have turned out, you know, if things had been different.” [Read the full article...]

The legendary Hollywood Hills are home to wealth, fame, and power–passing through the neighborhood, it’s hard not to get a little greedy.

LAPD veteran “Hollywood Nate” Weiss could take or leave the opulence, but he wouldn’t say no to onscreen fame. He may get his shot when he catches the appreciative eye of B-list director Rudy Ressler, and his troublemaking fiancée, Leona Brueger, the older-but-still-foxy widow of a processed-meat tycoon. Nate tries to elude her crafty seductions, but consents to keep an eye on their estate in the Hollywood Hills while they’re away.

Also minding the mansion is Raleigh Dibble, a hapless ex-con trying to put the past behind him. Raleigh is all too happy to be set up for the job–as butler-cum-watchdog–by Nigel Wickland, Leona’s impeccably dressed art dealer. What Raleigh doesn’t realize is that under the natty clothes and posh accent, Nigel has a nefarious plan: two paintings hanging on the mansion’s walls will guarantee them more money than they’ve ever seen.

Everyone’s dreams are just within reach–the only problem is, this is Hollywood. A circle of teenage burglars that the media has dubbed The Bling Ring has taken to pillaging the homes of Hollywood celebutants like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, and when a pair of drug-addled young copycats stumbles upon Nigel’s heist, that’s just the beginning of the disaster to come. Soon Hollywood Nate, surfer cops Flotsam and Jetsam, and the rest of the team at Hollywood Station have a deadly situation on their hands.

Hollywood Hills is a raucous and dangerous roller coaster ride that showcases Joseph Wambaugh in vintage form.

Editorial Reviews

“The LAPD’s Hollywood Station deals with some of the strangest lawbreakers anywhere, as shown in MWA Grand Master Wambaugh’s amusing fourth novel to feature Hollywood Nate Weiss, surfer cops Flotsam and Jetsam, and the rest of the series’ colorful police crew…. [a] deliciously convoluted caper.” (Publishers Weekly )

“good news for fans of the Hollywood Station trilogy that was supposed to have ended with Hollywood Moon. Now here comes Hollywood Hills, extending another golden opportunity to ride with the uniformed crew at what must be the most colorful cop-shop under the sun…. Wambaugh salts the narrative with variously funny, sad and thoughtful anecdotes featuring a cast of characters we’ve come to treasure: handsome Hollywood Nate, the surfer cops Flotsam and Jetsam, and veterans like Viv Daley and Della Ravelle, burned by experience, but conscientiously training the next generation to face the fire.” (New York Times Book Review Marilyn Stasio )

“If Los Angeles police detective-sergeant-turned-author Joseph Wambaugh didn’t invent the modern cop novel, he’s been one of its most prolific and successful practitioners…. Dark slapstick–with rimshot dialogue worthy of Jay Leno–often ensues when these police officers cross paths with eccentric Hollywood-dwellers. But there’s nothing comical about the murder and mayhem lurking behind the palm trees…. Yet one way or another these enforcers of the law–like their author–continue to get the job done.” (Wall Street Journal Tom Nolan )

“Joseph Wambaugh’s Hollywood series was supposed to be a trilogy. Good news for readers that he changed his mind. His take on the Hollywood cop shop is colorful…these characters fighting crime are not to be missed. Neither are the criminals they pursue…. And in addition to stupid criminals, there are some gut-wrenching, psychologically difficult criminal interludes that remind the reader that for all the stupid wrongdoers who find their reward, there are also innocent victims, and these victims take their own kind of toll. Wambaugh mixes the light and the dark in a unique way. Hollywood Hills is a keeper…. The book should be satisfying to those familiar with the series, and a tantalizing starting point for those who are not.” (The Denver Post Robin Vidimos )

Review

There are sparks of vintage Wambaugh in Hollywood Hills, the wry, sometimes poignant observations that gave his early work its authentic cache. Wambaugh made his bones in The New Centurions and The Onion Field, his later years inspiring a blend of humor, absurdity and real cop lore. I haven’t been fond of the Hollywood series, often too stereotypical, but in this novel the particular camaraderie of law enforcement is a strong element in the plot. Familiar characters return, “Hollywood Nate” Weiss, Flotsam and Jetsam, the surfer cops, but with less absurdity and more of the in-your-face drama of the streets, the split-second decisions and bizarre threats arising from even the most innocent request for help from authorities.

Underneath the daily role calls, the crazy antics of a “Hollywood Moon” and the unpredictable residents of the city, the cops of Hollywood Division go on their nightly rounds prepared for any outrageous situation that comes over the radio. Hollywood Nate is temporarily paired with Lorenzo “Snuffy” Salcedo, Nate yet to realize his dreams of stardom in spite of the SAG card he carries in his wallet. A meeting with a B-list director, Rudy Ressler, offers an intimate encounter with the surgically-enhanced widow, Leona Brueger (shades of “Sunset Boulevard”), but the usual petty criminals and tweakers are busy ruining their lives and endangering citizens, including Jonas Claymore, who is obsessed with the Bling Ring and Nigel Wickland, an art dealer with a scheme to profit from the wealthy Widow Brueger’s upcoming tour of Tuscany.

Various partners patrol the streets as their radios squawk, including a veteran female officer instructing a younger trainee on the hazards of being a woman in law enforcement and the surfer cops affectionately dubbed Flotsam and Jetsam, their tours accompanied by a language honed on the beaches of Southern California. Everything that can go wrong does, in a mad collision of coincidence and mendacity that leaves two men dead, fruit of the greedy impulses of those who yearn for a place in a city touched with magic, but only for a few. The gold of Hollywood’s younger days is tarnished by broken dreams and no-talent clones, but fools continue to flock to the Mecca of celebrity, where Wambaugh’s boys in blue acquit themselves with panache and humor in an ugly, often sad landscape. Luan Gaines/2010.

Joseph Wambaugh’s latest: Loopy theatrics and lyrical language

The Washington Post Book Review – December 13, 2010 (Excerpt)

What fun it is to read Joseph Wambaugh! His Hollywood Station police procedurals – peppered with the requisite gunshots and groin kicks, sleaze and sunshine – are word-drunk wonders. If James Joyce had imagined “Finnegans Wake” as a crime story (hmmm, not a bad idea since plot was never Joyce’s strong suit), it might have turned out something like Wambaugh’s latest suspense story, “Hollywood Hills.”

Take this bit of nonsense verse lobbed between two of Wambaugh’s cops, a duo nicknamed Flotsam and Jetsam, who are standing on Malibu Beach, where a photo shoot is taking place. The shoot features a thonged female model flanked by two male models ineptly posing as surfers. The hipster cops are sneering at the two faux surfers:

” ‘I’m all dialed in to see what happens if the pair of rainbow donks actually hit the briny on their unwaxed legs.’ … [Read the full article...]

Paramedic Pete Webster is worried sick about his daughter, Rowan, a high-school senior whom he has raised single-handedly ever since she was two. Rowan has adopted very untypical behavior, ignoring her studies and drinking heavily. It brings back bad memories of his ex-wife, Sheila. He pulled her from a car wreck while on the job and soon fell madly in love with her both for her beauty and her irreverent sense of humor. When she became pregnant, he married her though he was only 21. They were very happy until Sheila began drinking all day, every day. Now Pete is worried that their daughter believes she is doomed to repeat her mother’s mistakes; he decides to contact Sheila, whom he has not seen or heard from for 16 years. The prolific Shreve brings her customary care to this thoroughly absorbing, perfectly paced domestic drama. Alternating between the life-and-death scenarios Pete encounters on the job and the fraught family tension between father and daughter, Shreve pulls readers right into her story. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Since 2001, Shreve’s books have spent more than 100 weeks on the New York Times best-seller lists; her sixteenth novel will no doubt follow suit. –Joanne Wilkinson

Review

Peter Webster was 21 when he literally saved Sheila Arsenault’s life. His EMT team was responding to the call for medical assistance and they met. While these were less than ideal circumstances a relationship was formed and Sheila grabbed on with both hands to Webster’s lifeline. Webster had the one and only thing Sheila craved – normalcy.

Sheila comes with excessive baggage to the relationship but Webster ignores it all and falls in love despite the huge problems. They have a daughter, Rowan and Webster prays that this will bring Sheila to her senses and have her stop the spiral of destruction she keeps putting herself into. But with all hopes and dreams this one for Webster is short-lived and he takes the matter of caring for his daughter in his own hands. Sheila cannot be a mother and a drunk and when he made her choose it left Webster alone to raise Rowan.

Life seemed ideal until Rowan hit 17 and beyond the regular adolescent angst Rowan turns angry toward him and Webster is powerless to figure out why. He reaches out to Sheila who has been gone for 15 years and the timing could not have been better as Rowan has found herself in a situation even an EMT can’t save her from. Will Sheila being back help or hurt the life Webster has made he doesn’t know but for Rowan any risk is worth taking.

This book is one that forces the reader to do self-examination in that it makes you think “what am I willing to risk for the sake of my child”. More than likely it is everything and we are of course accepting of what the casualties this decision might bring. Anita Shreve always writes thought provoking books but this one hits home because we all at some time have to decide whether we are a help to another. – Mary J. Gramlich, Amazon Review

From its opening car crash, Anita Shreve’s character-driven ‘Rescue’ is worth the ride

The Washington Post Book Review – December 10, 2010 (Excerpt)

With more than a dozen highly readable novels to her credit, including an Oprah’s Book Club pick for “The Pilot’s Wife,” Anita Shreve is a reliable presence on the bestseller list. “The Pilot’s Wife” opened with a mysterious plane crash, and another novel, “A Change in Altitude,” began with a spur-of-the-moment decision by unprepared amateurs to climb the treacherous Mount Kenya. From such opening crises, her novels spread quietly and inexorably, drawing readers into the hearts of her characters.

No one can create the beginning of a complex relationship like Shreve. Her latest book, “Rescue,” opens with a car accident that changes both lives involved. Peter Webster, a rookie emergency medical technician, is roused at 1:10 a.m. to race to the scene of a one-car wreck involving a drunk driver who has “wrapped herself around a tree.” The injured driver is a young woman named Sheila Arsenault. After she is rushed off in an ambulance, Webster, overcome by an unexpected desire, talks his way into the hospital to see her and then returns to the crash site, finds her keys and takes them to her. He feels a puzzling link to this patient he knows nothing about. [Read the full article...]

Emma Caldridge, ultramarathon runner, chemist, and survivor of the events described in Running from the Devil (2009), is nearing the end of an endurance race in Africa when a roadside bomb blows up the course. In the aftermath of the explosion, Emma is given a mysterious shot, returns to the course fully refreshed, and completes the race in her best-ever time. Meanwhile, Banner and Summer, agents with a private security company (and friends of Emma), are hot on the case of Somali pirates about to attack a cruise ship. When a chemical weapon is suspected, Emma is the only chemist close enough to help out; but she still must endure a harrowing journey to reach the besieged cruise ship. This fast-paced thriller makes good use of a timely topic (this is one of the first times Somali pirates have appeared in crime fiction), and the “ripped from the headlines” angle adds further frisson to the story. Many of the characters here were first introduced in Running from the Devil, but it is not essential to have read it before tackling this one. –Jessica Moyer

Review

have not read Jamie Freveletti’s first novel, but she’s so good at developing character and weaving her plotlines that I didn’t feel like I was in the dark (no pun intended!) while reading Running Dark. In fact, I completely forgot this was a sequel once I started reading.

Freveletti’s writing is crisp and focused…not one scene or character is extraneous. Everything and everyone is relevant and pertinent to moving the story along and allowing the mystery to unfold. She keeps you guessing throughout while filling in gaps here and there. I found it very hard to put down, even when I needed to. Rarely did a chapter end where I felt I could take a break without feeling anxious about what was about to happen. The danger is at every turn, and it keeps mounting. And, like the characters, you’re never sure who you can really trust, save a few key characters.

Without divulging too much, and keeping in mind that numerous other reviews will lay out the plot as well, the storyline is such: chemist and ultra-runner Emma Caldridge, still fresh from her recent involvement in a rescue mission in Colombia, is injected with a mysterious substance after a car bomb explodes along her race route in Africa. While she seeks to learn what she was injected with, she also learns that a luxury cruise ship has been targeted by Somali pirates, and that the ship isn’t just carrying wealthy Europeans, it has a potential chemical weapon on board, along with the agent she helped save in Colombia, Sumner. She is determined to get to the ship, test the suspected medicine vials (which are supposed to be vaccines), and once again get Sumner to safety.

Meanwhile, Sumner himself is trying to keep the passengers safe and the pirates at bay, to the extreme frustration of Mungabe, the warlord who is ordering the attacks. He enlists a few of the braver passengers but also has to deal with a belligerent drunk of a security chief. The persistent threat of another pirate attack keeps the reader on edge.

And Darkview, the security company hired by the Department of Defense and UN to patrol and protect the waters outside of the Somali economic zone, is trying to save its own reputation from an investigation into the Colombia mission. Darkview VP Carol Stromeyer and president/CEO Eric Banner are also being followed and threatened by the henchmen of a man known as the Vulture, who hired Mungabe to attack the cruise ship.

It’s all as complex as it sounds, but it’s easy to follow and the action is fast-paced. Emma is a great heroine and single-minded in her focus (she is going to get on that ship no matter what). While she’s not fearless, she’s not stopped by her fear. She’s incredibly intelligent and clever and makes a great mercenary even though she’s not trained as one.

My one complaint: a few loose ends that should have been tied up in the end aren’t, but perhaps they’ll be addressed in the next installment (I am assuming there will be one).

Freveletti’s prose reads cleanly and quickly, and her writing is so tight, that when a movie is inevitably made of this series (as it should be), the screenwriter won’t have to do much work to prepare the script (but if they cast Angelina Jolie as Emma, I am going to scream. Just sayin’.). The descriptions of each scene and situation clearly evoked a mental image for me throughout the book. She is one writer whose next book I already eagerly await. I wish other thriller/mystery writers wrote this well. It’s one thing to have a great, imaginative and complex story that keeps the reader involved, but it’s another entirely to pull it off with such strong, clean writing. Freveletti is a writer to watch! – Calamity Jane, Amazon Review

“Running Dark” by Jamie Freveletti

The Chicago Tribune Book Review (Excerpt)

Darkview, an American security company with an ominous name and hefty Department of Defense contracts in some of the world’s most dangerous places, plays a somewhat unexpected role in Chicago attorney Jamie Freveletti’s second thriller, Running Dark: They’re the good guys. Darkview is also a target in a larger criminal conspiracy that could further destabilize a teetering world. The resulting mayhem–temporarily under-weaponized good versus armed-to-the-teeth evil, warlords and criminal masterminds against desperate ingenuity, pluck and a homemade chemical weapon or two–pulls out all the stops, including Somali pirates in cigarette boats, a sitting-duck cruise ship, and a brooding hero who is never far from a sniper rifle or a black t-shirt. The resulting action stretches credulity at times: good loses out to evil less frequently than the New York Yankees blow a save. But Freveletti so obviously enjoys her havoc-wreaking that going along for the ride is easy enough. [Read the full article...]

Seventeen-year-old Olivia is a writer so good she is chosen by popular priest and best-selling author Father Mark to be the recipient of the Emerging Writers High School Fiction prize. In addition to $10,000 and being published, the accolade means she will also have a spot in his university summer fiction seminar. Olivia is elated, and when Father Mark shows real interest in her writing, she feels chosen in all sorts of ways. But having Father Mark’s attention is a mixed blessing. Meetings, calls, and text messages begin to take over her life. Olivia doesn’t know how to extricate herself or even if she should. Perhaps because there are relatively few scenes between the two, Father Mark sometimes seems more like a caricature than a character. However, Freitas, author of the successful debut The Possibilities of Sainthood (2009), deftly catches the claustrophobia, uncertainty, and self-doubt that come with an obsessive relationship. The interwoven comparisons to Thomas Merton’s affair with a young woman add heft to this fast, chilling read. Grades 9-12. –Ilene Cooper

Review

Wow. Seriously, this story was just…wow. Once I started reading this book, I could not put it down. I was reading this book while eating at a restaurant by myself and I ate my food slowly because I didn’t want to get up and interrupt my reading. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book like this before. It’s an uncomfortable read. You are not going to walk away from this book feeling happy go lucky. But you will be moved.

Olivia is a high school student who’s just won a prestigious writing award and will get to study with a famous author mentor. She’s very excited about this and is the envy of everyone else. However after a few meetings with Father Mark, her attitude begins to change. Unfortunately she can’t confide in anyone else. That was the scary part for me. To think that she felt so helpless and no one could understand or believe what she was going through. It’s scary to think that an adult in a position like Father Mark uses his power to act this way. While this book does make one uncomfortable, there are never any graphic scenes in the book. Sometimes, just power and mind tricks can be more scarier than physical acts. The story is written extremely well and is from Olivia’s point of view so the reader experiences everything, every emotion, every feeling directly from her.

The only qualm I had was that we’re never really clear as to what happens to out Father Mark. The reader is never told exactly what Olivia did in revealing the truth to the authorities. Of course we can speculate and it is obvious that she did tell. I personally would have liked him to have died a horrible, painful death for all the trauma that he has inflicted on Olivia. The scary part is that she was probably not the first one who had to go through this and will probably not be the last one.

This book does not blame the church or even religion at all. Faith is actually a huge part of the story as it is pretty much what gets Olivia through all this. As I said earlier, there is nothing graphic or even sexual in the relationship. Just obsessive behavior that is unwanted and inappropriate for someone in Father Mark’s position. You cannot walk away from this story without feeling something from it (unless you have no emotions at all). It’s an extremely powerful read and one that teens AND adults should read. I will have to go back and read more from Freitas because she really got a hold of me through this book. HIGHLY recommended. – Deborah, Amazon Review

“This Gorgeous Game” by Donna Freitas

The Chicago Tribune Book Review (Excerpt)

Olivia is thrilled when her literary hero, novelist and local priest Mark Brendan plucks her out of her high school for intense writing sessions at the college level. Father Mark is the mentor of her dreams: he is attentive, treats her like an adult and clearly seems to relish working with her on her stories. Yet, as time goes on, Father Mark’s endless phone calls, texts and showing up wherever Olivia may be start to get a little claustrophobic. But he’s a priest and a famous novelist, so 17-year-old Olivia tries to ignore these quirks. After all, as everyone says, she should be basking in his glorious attentions, right? [Read the full article...]

Sudden widowhood compels Irene Shen to try to reconnect with her three daughters: Nora, who has a successful Wall Street career; Kay, who is in Beijing studying Chinese; and Sophie, who is on her way to college. She signs them up for a two-week package tour of China that will take in all the must sees. Joining them are Irene’s sister Susan, a poet living in Hong Kong, and their 80-year-old mother, Lin Yulan. For Irene’s thoroughly Americanized daughters, the trip turns out to be less a chance to discover their Chinese roots than to come to terms with complications in their own lives. For Lin Yulan, who was a fervent revolutionary and feminist, it is a not necessarily welcome journey into her own past. Although the women don’t really experience much of China as they are hustled from one tourist site and related shopping venue to the next, they all achieve a deeper understanding of themselves and one another. Fei stakes a claim in Amy Tan territory with this satisfying tale. –Mary Ellen Quinn

Review

With her debut novel, A THREAD OF SKY, Deanna Fei serves notice that she is one of the powerful, unique voices emerging on the literary scene. This is literary fiction at its best, the engaging story of three generations of Chinese-American women who take a trip to China, along the way confronting issues of cultural identity, the gnawing presence of history, and the complexities of family. The characters are textured, nuanced, sympathetic and vividly developed. Fei’s prose is lyrical, surprising, full of poetic images, sharp, sometimes funny, and always sincere. This is a moving, wonderful book that should be of interest to all who appreciate fine fiction. It is a book about mothers and daughters, identity, war and dislocation, modern Chinese history, and the secrets that every family carries and confronts in the present day. A first-rate book that will surely endure. – R. Wolfe, Amazon Review

“A Thread of Sky” by Deanna Fei

Chicago Tribune Book Review (Excerpt)

On the outskirts of Hangzhou, China, built against the cliffs, is the largest sitting Buddha in the world, so large that over a dozen people can be held in the palm of one hand. Midway through Deanna Fei’s charming debut novel, “A Thread of Sky,” in which Irene Shen of Queens, New York, her three daughters, her aloof poet sister and her formidable 80-year-old mother embark on a two-week march through mainland China’s must sees, Irene has a catharsis beside the Buddha. A happy reunion blending cultural reawakening with bonding between generations was what she had hoped for when she planned the trip, but by the time they reach the Buddha, her spirit of adventure has flown.

When the local guide starts herding his charges into a nearby cave to view yet another “famous sight,” Irene chooses to skip it. All but certain that “the only true guarantee any tour could offer was disillusionment,” she plunks herself down on a bench in the rain to await the herd’s return. But as luck would have it, a bolt of lightning soon sends her scurrying to the cave in search of “a thread of sky…an undulating line, alive and fine against the dark.” [Read the full article...]

Editorial Reviews

“Milton Burton writes about East Texas with wit, spice, and insight.  His Caddo County sheriff, Bo Handel, has a shrewd mind to go along with his fancy pistol.  He’s the kind of man Sheriff Dan Rhodes would share a Dr Pepper with any day.” –Bill Crider, author of Murder in Four Parts

“Burton sets Sheriff Handel in motion against the local forces of greed, hypocrisy, lust and everyday human folly. It’s a warm, wise and witty book, and when I set it down I felt the characters of Caddo County nestling into my memory, creating a hunger for return.” –David Corbett, Edgar-nominated author of Do They Know I’m Running?

“Whoever reads this book will find a treasure trove of experience in small County Law enforcement, told by a writer who knows East Texas, its people and history. It will be hard for any reader to put down. Milton produces a great read with his knowlege of crime,corruption and law ennforcement both past and present.” –Captain Jack Dean, Texas Rangers Co.D

The seamier side of small-town ‘Nights’

The Washington Post Book Review – December 6, 2010 (Excerpt)

Milton T. Burton’s third novel, “Nights of the Red Moon,” is set in fictional Caddo County, in East Texas, a corner of the universe not entirely unknown to me. In my college years I used to drive from my home town, Fort Worth, through the dusty towns and piney woods of East Texas on my way to New Orleans, Nashville and points beyond. In those days, even by Texas standards, that 150-or-so-mile stretch from Dallas east to the Louisiana line was considered an unenlightened region. As you entered some towns, you were met by ”Impeach Earl Warren” billboards and other signs that warned certain citizens not to let the sun set on them there. Sundown Towns, they were called. That, it seemed to me then, was all I needed to know about East Texas: It was an excellent place to get the hell out of.

Now, however, I am indebted to Burton’s novel for showing me that there is more to be said about the area. Real people live real lives there. It’s still dangerous territory, but Burton’s hero, Caddo County Sheriff Bo Handel, is doing his best to bring law and order, if not outright enlightenment, to East Texas – the latter, one fears, may await the Second Coming. [Read the full article...]

Montanans June and RL are linked by their affection for Taylor, who died several years ago just shy of his fiftieth birthday. Taylor was June’s husband, her one and only true love; he was also RL’s best friend. The survivors must now go on with their lives. For June, it means abandoning the grief she’s been clinging to for too long. For RL, it’s enjoying time with his daughter, Layla, who will soon head back to the University of Washington for the fall term. As the novel progresses, RL finds himself entangled in a complicated relationship with Betsy, a onetime flame who is battling cancer. June, too, finds herself in the throes of romance with the real-estate agent who appraised her house. (She has mixed feelings about selling the multimillion dollar property, though having that kind of money certainly wouldn’t hurt.) The plot of Canty’s latest work (after Where the Money Went, 2009) tends to ramble, but the novel deftly renders the stark beauty of Montana and the free-spirited souls who inhabit it. –Allison Block

Review

Kevin Canty writes with a spare beauty. The book is designed so that there is a lot of white space on the pages and this space carries meaning. ‘Everything’ is about people who are lost, looking for love, recovering from poor choices and yet have a resiliency that carries them through their damaged lives with strength and a certain dignity. Canty’s characters are able to tell us as much about themselves in their silences as when they speak.

The characters that comprise this novel overlap, and each chapter is primarily about one or two of the characters. There is RL, owner of a bait, tackle and guiding shop who has not had a loving relationship in years. He is a big man – in girth, spirit and appetites. He likes his booze and he wishes desperately for a woman. He was married for a while to a Dead Head who followed the Grateful Dead for years, leaving him to raise their daughter, Layla, on his own. Layla gives meaning to his life. She is nineteen years old and a college student. When not at school, she spends her summers in the Montana wilderness with RL where most of this novel takes place. Layla is recovering from a love affair gone amiss. RL realizes that Layla is not likely to be with him for much longer. He is trying to learn how to let her go.

RL decides to take in an old lover of his who is having chemotherapy for melanoma. In the back of his mind he hopes to resurrect some sort of relationship with her despite the fact that she is married. Betsy helps give some meaning to RL’s life because, with Layla in college, he faces the empty nest syndrome. With his big heart, he needs to give. However, with his huge appetites, he also expects a lot from others.

June is a close friend of RL’s. She was married to RL’s best friend who died eleven years ago. As the book begins, June decides to give up her widowhood. Her husband, Taylor, was her great love but now she wants another love. Eleven years of grieving is a long time. On top of that, she is a hospice worker, spending her days with the nearly dead.

Edgar is RL’s employee, an artist and lover of fishing. He ‘knows’ fish and feels at one with the trout that inhabit the rivers of Montana. He is married with one child and another on the way. He is trying to make some difficult decisions in his life.

Canty has an inimitable sense of place. The reader feels like the Montana mountains are looming. I felt the lushness of the land, along with the hard life the inhabitants face. This is not a land for the weak but it can be a land for the lost – an end of the road place where people depend on one another. There is a lot of alcohol consumption in the book but there is rarely a mention of television or movies. Despite the loneliness of all the characters, they depend on one another for sustenance.

The characters speak to us in what they don’t say as much as what they tell us. This is a book about everything that makes us human – love, work, life, money, pain, joy, loneliness and connection. Canty gets it. His characters run the gamut of the soul. They are not sweet, nor are they urbanized. I pictured them in Carrhartts and jeans, rubber boots and down parkas. I felt their hands get cold and traveled with them on the dirt roads that were slick with mud or snow. I felt their pain and I soared with them in those rare moments of joy. It takes a fine author to take me to the depths of despair and soar the height of joy with his characters. – Bonnie Brody, Amazon Review

“Everything” by Kevin Canty

Chicago Tribune Book Review (Excerpt)

The title suggests Kevin Canty wants to embrace not just Montana, where he lives and where he has set his sixth novel, but the entire world. He dispels that illusion pretty quickly. As it turns out his characters, normal folks, distressed by loneliness and lack of love, just want a little peace and happiness in their otherwise turned upside down lives.

Middle-aged RL, the main male character, runs a Missoula river guide business. He reignites an ancient love affair with Betsy, an old college friend who’s in town for cancer treatments. RL’s daughter Layla (who knows how to drink and fish) longs for a graduate student who lives over in Seattle but falls into a dangerous romance for Edgar, one of her father’s employees. That river guide, Edgar, has to deal with Layla, and his pregnant wife. Meanwhile June, the widow of RL’s best friend, finds her way into a small fortune and an annoying affair with a local entrepreneur. [Read the full article...]

Boyle has created another successful collection of stories, with its unapologetic exaggeration, vivid settings, and gloomy but likable protagonists. Although Boyle operates under a singular theme–ordinary people succumbing to their baser instincts–critics were greatly impressed with his ability to craft 14 distinct story lines. The Los Angeles Times reviewer likened Boyle to his feral character Victor, calling him “that literary wild child whose flights of narrative fancy refuse to be domesticated.” And while the New York Times critic felt the shorter stories were contrived and incomplete, the majority agreed that Wild Child is a refreshing, bold, and marvelous new collection.

Review

Although T.C Boyle’s novels have really run the gamut of subject matter, the one thing they all have in common is their author’s captivating storytelling approach, which merges the conventional with the unexpected in style and substance. Among the strongest of Boyle’s works have been those that take an unusual perspective on historical figures — Frank Lloyd Wright, Harvey Kellogg, Alfred Kinsey, etc. — using fiction to offer fresh, contemporary insights on real-life characters from the past.

Similarly, the title story of Boyle’s newest story collection, WILD CHILD, is probably the strongest of these pieces. It relates the story of the “Wild Boy of Aveyron,” the feral child discovered in the French woods and slowly “civilized” over a number of years. I confess that I knew the tale mostly because of a couple of excellent children’s book accounts published several years ago. However, Boyle’s story of Victor is simultaneously more graphic and more tender as readers are left to reflect on what is gained — and lost — through Victor’s “taming.” Similarly, in “Sin Dolor,” a doctor becomes obsessed with a young patient who apparently has no sensitivity to pain — but becomes horrified when the boy’s own father exploits his child’s freakishness to turn a buck.

As in his previous collection, TOOTH AND CLAW, WILD CHILD often focuses — as in the title story — on the places where the so-called natural world intersects with the human one. In the disturbing “Thirteen Hundred Rats,” a grieving man distorts the advice of well-meaning acquaintances who advise him to get a pet. He buys a snake, but finds that he has a more visceral connection to the rats he purchases to feed his python. In “Admiral,” a couple who is too rich for their own good clone their beloved deceased Afghan hound and spend all their time trying to ensure that their new dog’s life will replicate their old one’s exactly — and the dog-sitter they hire takes their advice to heart. In “Question 62,” two sisters on opposite coasts contend with their own questions about the proper place for “wild” animals.

Other stories explore — often in gut-wrenching terms — the moral quandaries of contemporary life. In “The Lie,” a young father, desperate to avoid work and exhausted by the drudgery of new parenthood, tells his co-workers that the reason he hasn’t come into the office recently is that his infant daughter has died. In “Hands On,” a woman embarking on her first plastic surgery procedure develops an unhealthy fixation on the man she thinks can “fix” her.

Throughout, Boyle offers readers keen observations and robust storytelling. Frequently, his stories seem infused with the landscapes of California and South America. Just as often, though, they take place in a geographically generic suburban environment that could be anywhere. Contrasting the extreme, often violent realms of the natural world with the sterile, controlling, lifeless human environment results in powerful commentaries and indelible images — exactly what the short story is best designed for. — Reviewed by Norah Piehl

“Wild Child and Other Stories” by T.C. Boyle

Chicago Tribune Book Review (Excerpt)

T.C. Boyle’s volume of his collected stories first appeared in 1998, a book that included nearly seven hundred pages of his short fiction. Today, more than ten years and four volumes and dozens and dozens and dozens of stories later, his output of stories has to be reckoned with as one of the most enormous and successful in contemporary literature, as formidable in its breadth and fluency as that of Joyce Carol Oates’. In terms of recent literary history this really puts the lie to the conventional wisdom that there is no place in contemporary commercial publishing for the short story form. There is lots of space. Ironically, Boyle, along with Joyce Carol Oates and Alice Munro, seem to be filling most of it.

But, you know, the serious reader can only say deservedly so. This latest collection from Boyle, with more than a dozen stories and the title novella, show off the brilliance of his talent and his imaginative approach to the varied layers and levels of the contemporary American experience, in all of its ups and downs, etched in a style that sentence by sentence captures the often ridiculous, sometimes poignant, always fascinating fragments of the way we live now. [Read the full article...]

Editorial Review

“…the very process of studying this book led me to look carefully at myself with an awareness of how the challenges of my life can be the fuel that will enable me to swim against the stream, against cultural currents, against all forms of adversity inherent in my most important goals.”

– From the Foreword by Stephen R. Covey, Ph.D., author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Review

Why is it that books that you love the most are the hardest to describe? I sat in front of my laptop for more than a hour , after I had finished reading the book and yet was unable to formulate a word other than “WOW!”.

Kate Morton is one of my top 5 favorite authors. I loved her other 2 books and I devoured the 600 plus pages of this book in less than one day.I was incapable of sleeping – the story and the characters pulled me in so deep that sleep was really the last thought I had.

I had been awaiting this book more than any other book this year. The wait has been more than worth it.

There is such a haunting quality to this book which makes it one that you cannot forget easily.There were sentences and whole paragraphs that still resonate in my ears.Kate Morton’s beautiful writing is one of the major reasons why I am such a big fan of hers.Her lyrical prose will stay with you. I can actually quote lines from this book (something I thought I was not capable of)- such was the writing.

The setting , a gothic castle, is a character in itself. Such is the author’s writing that the castle seems as alive as its occupants.In its veins, runs the secrets from long ago.Kate Morton’s breathtaking description of the castle will make you feel as if you are there.Her descriptions are so evocative, so beautiful that it leaves you wanting for more.

Entwined with the suspense element is a heart-wrenching story of three sisters that won’t fail to move you.The sisters and their story will break your heart. I felt their pain, their fears . Imagine being a prisoner in your own home with no dreams or hope for a future. I could feel the castle walls binding them, suffocating them.

Throughout the book, I tried to prepare myself for the final shocking conclusion -as the secrets are revealed.Yet I was completely taken aback by the ending which was a disquieting one.

The story’s movement between the past and the present is smooth and beautifully done.As each chapter unfolds, we get to know more about the past. Slowly, we are able to piece together the parts to form a complete picture. As secret after secret unravels, years of secrets,betrayal, heartbreaks, tragedies, will shock you. This dark and haunting story will unnerve you and yet won’t fail to touch you.

There are certain chilling moments, I shuddered at some points. Its not something very in your face..its something lying just beneath the surface..something not visible.. that creeps you out.

Even after an astounding ending ,I still felt as if there were still things left to the reader to decipher and interpret – the castle had still not revealed all its secrets.

The castle, the sisters, their tragic story – they will linger with you , long after you have read the last page.

The Distant Hours is a perfect read for a rainy night. It has all the makings of a prefect gothic novel- family secrets, an old castle, mysterious deaths, a letter from long ago and madness running through a family .

Even though this is a huge book , I wanted more pages to miraculously appear. Its one of those books which made me want to read on and on.

I think I am a Kate Morton fanatic for life now. This masterpiece of a book has made me very sure that no matter how much I have to wait for her next book, it will be definitely worth it.Its beacause of books like these that I love reading.

Favorite Quote: There were so many , but if I have to choose one, it would be-
“The ancient walls sing the distant hours..”
Somehow this one sentence affected me a lot. It made me think of the past memories. It was so suited for this story. Every old house has its memories-painful and happy.Maybe when you are quiet, you can hear the voices of the people from the past-people who have lived and loved and died. This quote also made me think of something menacing lurking beneath the memories – I guess this was what the author wanted.When the author described the castle, I almost felt all the grief, the happiness, hidden in the castle walls and yet found it so hard to completely penetrate the secrets of the hours gone by.

Overall: Haunting, engrossing and shocking! I wish there was a stronger word to describe how much I love this book. After almost a year, this is a new addition to my list of favorite books.

Recommended? YES ! A thousand times yes! No matter what genre you read, do give Kate Morton’s books a try. Though there are many talented young authors today, Kate Morton is still my favorite.

Similar Books:
The House at Riverton-Kate Morton
The Forgotten Garden-Kate Morton
Arcadia Falls – Carol Goodman

- Misha, Amazon Review

Weird sisters haunt a crumbling castle

The Washington Post Book Review – December 1, 2010 (Excerpt)

Kate Morton writes gothic-inspired novels about grand British houses of yesteryear: “The House at Riverton” chronicled a servant’s-eye view of the Edwardian era, while “The Forgotten Garden” carried a colonial orphan’s dreams backward and forward over a century. Now, in “The Distant Hours,” Morton turns to her largest house yet, an actual castle – and it’s crumbling. Can the symbolism get any more obvious?

Actually, in Morton’s hands, it’s not obvious at all. “The Distant Hours” demonstrates a new leap in Morton’s authorial choreography. Although the novel would have benefited from some judicious cuts, its multiple story lines intersect in a satisfying conclusion that will leave no reader feeling cheated. [Read the full article...]

Bell’s magnificent Haitian trilogy, focusing on the rebel leader Toussaint Louverture and concluding with The Stone That the Builder Refused (2004), established his bona fides as a superb historical novelist. In his most masterfully choreographed fact-based tale yet, Bell returns to his native ground, Tennessee, to tell the tale of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a feared Confederate general of profound contradictions, strategic brilliance, and outrageous valor. Bell conceives of Bedford as a sharp-tongued, virile, dangerously charismatic, and seemingly invincible slave trader who treats the people he “owns” with respect and compassion, and an equestrian who loves horses yet rides many to death in audacious cavalry maneuvers. Irascible rebel Bedford loves his white wife, black mistress, and all his children, legitimate and otherwise.

Bell subtly contrasts America’s Civil War with Haiti’s slave revolt via his narrator Henri, a Haitian with “the sight” who gets drawn into Bedford’s orbit. Exciting and authentic, Bell’s novel of a world in violent transition is flush with action and ravishing evocations of forests and fields, heat and rain, the muddy churn of hungry troops, and fleeting moments of respite as tragedy is leavened with sensuality and mystery. Will Bell’s Bedford, who so perfectly embodies the cruel paradoxes of race and war, ride again? –Donna Seaman

Review

“Devil’s Dream” by Madison Smartt Bell is many things — a book one can’t put down; a fascinating story of American history and valiant warriors; and, finally, a book one wants never to end. This writer feels privileged to have discovered a perfect example of the novelist’s craft. That is not to say it’s an easy book — it is, after all, a story of America’s bloodiest war, and the protagonist, Nathan Bedford Forrest, is nothing if not a warior.

Forrest, a Confederate cavalry officer during the Civil War, his family, friends, and cavalry cohorts form the nucleus of this story of a man who may well be the most fearless and single-minded person who ever lived. Author Bell’s character development in “Devil’s Dream” is breathtaking for the scope and depth of his presentation. In the course of the book, we meet his wife, children, slaves, friends, and, yes, his mistress, each one of whom is well-developed and who further informs us about Forrest’s persona. Best of all, we come to see Black and White people, slave and free, in many roles during what must have been the most tense time of race relations in American history. Of particular interest, too, are the attitudes of southerners on the ground, many of whom cohabit with family members who are Union sympathizers.

Author Bell’s macrocosmic knowledge of American history and microcosmic details of Civil War battles is awesome. And, most important, none of this information is “told” to us lecture-like — it’s all “shown” — and you feel yourself seated behind Forrest on his horse as he plunges into the thick of a half-dozen battles. One is astounded by the number of knife cuts and bullets the man survived as well as the number he administered to others. You’ll lose count of the number of horses shot out from under him, but you’ll never forget the two horses whose wounds he plugged with a finger in order to keep the nag galloping on in the battle to kill more Yankees.

Bell’s deft use of language is at once descriptive but also breathtaking for its creativity — a single word, a touch that arrests your attention, holds it captive, e.g., “Somewhere behind them the second cannon coughed,” “and the pair of them were silhouetted in silver by the mist,” “Day should have broken, but fog smothered the sun.” And you’ll find moments of surprising beauty in small details, e.g, following a battle where blood colored the Mississippi River and in the following morning when the fog lifts and there is the smell of death and gunpowder — a white owl settles in a tree now leafless and “it preened its yellowish feathers and shrugged.”

“Devil’s Dream” by Madison Smartt Bell is more than a book to recommend, it’s a MUST READ to add to your collection. – Jim Duggins Ph.D., Amazon Review

“Devil’s Dream” by Madison Smartt Bell

Chicago Tribune Book Review (Excerpt)

Fiddlers strike up the old tune “Devil’s Dream” more than once in the new Madison Smartt Bell novel that bears its name. It is a sprightly jig, but it turns poignant here, since the blood of the Civil War is pooling around everyone’s feet.

Bell has exhumed his protagonist from the pages of history: Nathan Bedford Forrest, the self-made slave trader and plantation owner who raised and outfitted his own cavalry to serve the Confederacy and went on to win a generalship and renown or ignominy, depending on which side of the Mason-Dixon Line one happened to sit. As one of Bell’s characters spots him in “Devil’s Dream,” true to form, “Forrest was riding out ahead of him still, ahead of them all, standing up straight in the saddle, slashing and screaming defiance and rage.” [Read the full article...]