Watch my video review of Seven Perfect Things, a contempory fiction novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde to see what I thought of it and what makes it work as a story. The video has subtitles so you can read it if you prefer. About Seven Perfect Things Thirteen-year-old Abby Hubble lives in an unhappy home in the Sierra Nevada foothills where her father makes life miserable for her and her mother, Mary. One day Abby witnesses a man dump a litter of puppies into the nearby river. Diving in to rescue all seven, she knows she won’t be able to bring them home. Afraid for their fate at the pound, she takes them to an abandoned cabin, where all she can offer is a promise that she’ll be back the next day. To grieving widower Elliot Colvin, life has lost meaning. Looking for solace, he retreats to the hunting cabin he last visited years ago, before his wife’s illness. What he discovers is not at all what he expected: seven puppies and one determined girl with an indomitable heart. As Abby … [Read more...]
Book Review: ‘These Tangled Vines’ by Julianne MacLean
Julianne Maclean is known as a romance writer, but this book could just as well be called literary fiction with a love story included or perhaps literary romance. Watch the video to get the full picture. And don't forget to like the video on YouTube - it helps get it seen. https://youtu.be/Eb1XJAWMUm0 Click for more info & purchase … [Read more...]
YA Fantasy Review: The Book Knights by J.G. McKenney
My YA fantasy reviews are rarer than they used to be because some young adult fantasy I find a little too young for my taste or they dwell rather a lot on schools, so I don't read a lot of YA fantasy these days. This book, however, was, as all good YA fiction is, enjoyable by someone old enough to be a grandmother. The Book Knights by J.G McKenney is a YA fantasy with a unique premise, that of a world where words have magical power, reading is banned, books are burned and readers imprisoned and executed. The Book Knights are a secret ancient order whose role it is to protect books. The story revolves around Arti a teenage girl whose parents taught her to read. They have a hidden library and at the beginning of the book it gets found and burned. Her parents are taken into custody but Arti escapes. Subsequently she learns that she is the one who can wield the magic pen with the power to remove the evil witch from the head of the corporation. One aspect of the book that gave it a … [Read more...]
Literary Fiction Review – A Window Opens by Elisabeth Egan
Literary Fiction Review - A Window Opens by Elisabeth Egan When Nicholas discovers that he hasn’t made partner in his law firm, he quits, leaving the family facing an uncertain financial future. His wife Alice decides it’s time to get a full time job and give up the part time job that she loves and that allows her to spend plenty of time with her children. She gets a job with an innovative new company and feels that she is, at last, back on career track. The window of opportunity has opened and she plans to make the most of it. The excitement soon wanes, however, when the company takes a new direction, one Alice doesn’t feel comfortable with. That, along with her father’s waning health, puts a lot of stress on Alice and she discovers that there are more important things in life than a high powered job and the status and money it brings. Early in this book I wondered how long it would hold my interest because I seemed to be reading about the uninspiring day to day details of a … [Read more...]
Powerful and moving. ‘Checkpoint Kalandia’ – a book everyone should read.
Checkpoint Kalandia is a powerful and absorbing read, a book for our times, and one that everyone should read. It takes you into the heart and minds of a family living under Israeli occupation, and brings home the reality of the terrible constraints placed on their lives. This could be a totally miserable book, but the strength and support shown by family members gives it hope and honours the great spirit of a people who have suffered for so long because of a poorly considered decision by politicians with no understanding of or relationship to the region. If you think the Palestinians are an angry people, this book challenges you to consider how you would feel if placed in the same situation. How would you handle it? Can we really blame them when their frustration boils over? These are ordinary people, like you and me, placed in an extremely difficult situation, and Ms Hallaj handles the subject matter with skill and sensitivity. A must read for anyone interested in powerful and … [Read more...]
Delightfully unusual metaphysical fiction: Review
‘The Commons: The Journeyman’ is a delightfully unusual book that spans multiple genres. It takes place in the Commons, a place between life and death, something like purgatory for Christians and the Bardo of Becoming for Buddhists. On the surface it’s fantasy, but, like my own work, it’s also metaphysical fiction and, because of the psychological symbolism, magical realism. “We are the stories we tell ourselves,” is one of the metaphysical gems. This is an example of the best of indie fiction; it’s a bold, brilliant work at the forefront of an exciting new direction in contemporary fiction that is so far out of the box that mainstream publishers would likely see it only as a risk. Books with this mix of metaphysics, fantasy and magical realism are becoming more prevalent—the indies are way ahead of the mainstream here—but few of these books are as well executed as this one. The story follows Paul, a teen, Zach, an autistic five year old and his mother, Annie, after their deaths in a … [Read more...]
Excellent YA urban fantasy: ‘Sacrifice’ by Jennifer Quintenz
'Sacrifice’ by Jennifer Quintenz is the third in the young adult Daughters of Lilith Series and it is every bit as good as the previous books. Quintenz knows how to hold a reader and keep them turning the pages to find out what will happen next. It’s a hard book to put down. The story revolves around a girl who though a succubus herself (a daughter of Lilith) she stands on the side of the sons of Adam in an age-old battle that, unknown by most humans, has been raging since the beginning of human history. She loves a boy that she cannot have without risk of draining his life-force, and this adds a bittersweet touch to a powerful story. This series has the vitality that makes the characters and the world they inhabit as real as our own. There’s plenty of action, but there’s also plenty of character development and growth that together deliver a very satisfying whole. The plot is gripping and often surprising, and the characters face moral dilemmas and terrible challenges that … [Read more...]
Thought-provoking and entertaining: Review of ‘Thump’ by Avraham Azrieli
'Thump' by Avraham Azrieli is a thought-provoking and entertaining novel about gender and racial stereotyping and prejudice. Thump, an Afro-American working in a predominately white business, thumps his female boss and any female client his boss sends his way. In return, she supports his career. When Thump asks his girlfriend to marry him, she asks him for a vow of exclusivity and he agrees, but when he says ‘no’ and ‘not any more’ to his boss, things start to unravel. The more I reflect on it, the more wonderful the book seems. The author boldly raises a number of questions. At what point does exchanging sex for steps up the corporate ladder become sexual abuse? Can sex ever be truly consensual when one member holds power over the other? Can a woman rape a man? Does stereotyping encourage the negative behaviours they describe? Does the fact that someone is unaware that they're being abused make it any the less abuse. These are just some of the issues we encounter in this story. It’s … [Read more...]
An Awesome Historical Fantasy: ‘Cliff of the Ruin’ by Bonnie McKernan
Cliff of the Ruin by Bonnie McKernan is an awesome historical fantasy with complex undercurrents, spiritual depth and many surprises. It takes us from post revolution America, across the ocean to Ireland and into the lair of the Shee (the Sidhe). The story begins like a straight historical novel. Mae lives with her aunt and uncle, and their children, Aaron, a young man, and Charlotte, still a child. All of them are keen to find a husband for twenty six year old Mae, but after a broken engagement, she isn't particularly interested in taking the risk of opening up again. Until she meets the man on the riverbank. Kieran the fisherman was so beautiful, that I suspected some other worldly intervention, but the full truth of what was to become a mystery around this man only became clear at the end. The influence of the Shee grew as the story progressed, and I found myself gradually drawn deeper and deeper into a world where spaces dwelled within spaces and time had a different … [Read more...]
Fascinating Dystioian fiction: ‘Future Prometheus: Emergence & Evolution’ by J.M Erickson
Future Prometheus: Emergence & Evolution by J.M Erickson is a fascinating dystopian story about a world after a virus has sent all sexually active men on a violent rampage that ends up with most of them, and a large proportion of the female and child population, dead. The events in the book occur 140 years after this event and follow Melendez, a soldier, who, along with some APs (androids) wishes to re-establish a society based on the values of the old USA. He's been in stasis in a cyrogenic tank since the disaster, though he was supposed to be under for only four months. A group of androids find him and bring him back. They become his friends, and he develops a program to bring them to sentience and eventually to sapience. He finds himself in a matriarchal, lesbian society. The women keep their boy children only long enough to harvest their sperm when they reach maturity, after which the women take them outside their megastate and kill them. Some girls are also discarded - the … [Read more...]
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