Lark's Labyrinth: A book review

The Good, The Bad and the Personal Context

Every experience is tainted by personal context, no matter how un-biased a person might think they are.  These reviews touch on the good, the bad and the personal context.

Lark’s Labyrinth by Cathy Cash Spellman

The Good: Wicked suspense story, mixed with magic, history, video games, Nazis and the Church. The book holds a few very cool characters that the reader gets attached to. There are excellent twists and turns.

The Bad: This book is really long, and I don’t think it needed to be.  The best characters were hardly touched on and I had a hard time investing myself in the main characters.

The Personal Context: I’ve loved Cathy Cash Spellman since I first read “Bless the Child” almost 20 years ago.  I read this novel every few years and learn something new about myself every time. Since “Bless the Child”, I’ve read three other novels by this author, Lark’s Labyrinth  being the third, and I’ve never quite gotten the thrill I received from the first book.  My standards, nonetheless, remain high when it comes to Cathy Cash Spellman’s books and I thought this novel fell short.

All in all, I grant 7 out of 10 Golden Bookmarks for this book.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman: a book review

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

What’s there to say about this novel, except that it is absolutely amazing and if you haven’t yet read it, you should!

Okay, well maybe it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, it is really out there, and I simply couldn’t decide on a genre to put it in. It is beyond categorizing. But it is one hell of an adventure.

Our main character, Shadow, is a regular guy who is a dealt an incredibly irregular hand and handles the situation far better than I know I would. I can’t reveal more without giving away all the amazing little secrets and treasures that reveal themselves in a perfect delivery throughout the story. I refuse to cheat any possible reader of that experience.

American Gods is going right next to Pillars of the Earth on my suggested MUST READ list. If you’ve read it, let me know what you thought of the book (without giving anything away to those who haven’t read it) and if you haven’t read it yet, what are you waiting for?!?!?

Book Review: Stepping Forward by Paul Carroll

Stepping Forward by Paul Carroll

Stepping Forward by Paul Carroll

This novel was beyond anything I’ve ever read before. The closest story I could compare it to is, “The Stepford Wives” – except it was much more fast-paced. The author has a sturdy voice that takes the reader to the brink of curiosity in waves upon waves of suspense.

I downloaded this book for free from Smashwords. It was the 3rd book I read on my Kobo (teehee, I love my Kobo). Yes there was some spelling and grammar errors, and words missing from sentences which was, of course, distracting, but I’ve read novels that I’ve downloaded, that do cost money, that were far worse off than this. And at least Stepping Forward had meat!

When I got to the end of the book I was a little disappointed. The potential is there, this book could be amazing, Paul Carroll has already got the goods in the palm of his hands, but the execution needs some tweaking.

To make this book everything it could be, it first needs all of the storylines explored and explained. There didn’t seem to be a real conclusion anywhere and all of the questions the reader is left asking aren’t answered. After tying up the storylines, a good editing eye to fix up the little issues that distract from the story – and voila, we’d have a real kickass novel.

I hope Paul Carroll keeps up with his writing and turns this so-close-but-not-quite-there suspense sci-fi story into the amazing oh-my-god-I-can’t-put-this-masterpiece-down novel that it almost is.







You can get your free copy of Stepping Forward here.

Book Review: Between - A Novel by Cyndi Tefft

Between by Cyndi Tefft

What a fun little read! Quirky and fast-paced – that’s the good part. When I read the overview of the book I was immediately drawn in. It was a cheap buy, and I love anything to do with Heaven and Hell and well… whatever lies in “Between”.

I also thought the title was a clever play on words, my perception was that it was about a ‘Tween. A ‘Tween stuck in the between. I was wrong, there was no clever suggestion in the title. My bad.

When I read the intro to the book, the second book (I’ve read on my new Kobo Vox which I love love love,) the author mentions Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. My brow furrowed at the reference, because I am a HUGE fan of that series and I was a little confused by the reference. Regardless, I trudged on and was soon enveloped in the MC’s world.

Until the leading man showed up. And the similarities between this character and Diana Gabaldon’s whole world were unforgivably obvious. Right down to the surnames. If I hadn’t been such a fan of Gabaldon’s work, or, the author of Between hadn’t made the connection ahead of time for me, I may have been able to look past it. But, even the pet-names that the leading man Aiden calls his beloved MC Lindsey, are the same that Gabaldon’s leading main Jamie, calls his beloved Claire. Influence is lovely and imperative, but I’m afraid this novel may need to border on Fan Fiction as oppose to original content.

Regardless, I liked the story. It was, as I said before, quirky and fast-paced. The religious aspect got a little heavy for me at times, and the love blossomed a little too fast, but it was a short book. Without giving away any of the good stuff, I will say that the author takes the reader on one crazy roller-coaster ride in a VERY good way.

Now, I rounded the end of the book, I became furious, knowing there was no way this story could be completely wrapped up in the pages that were left. The questions left unanswered were too many and too crucial to the lives of the characters to be left unaddressed. Luckily, as I finished the novel, the overview for the next book became available which basically described that those incomplete storylines would soon be taken of. WHEW!

Key evidence to me that this was a good read, and well-told, is that when I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it. It got under my skin that way, which is a good thing.

Help a fellow Indie-writer out! Purchase Between for only $0.99 cents! It’s a hell of a ride.

The Great Lenore, by JM Tohline

The Great Lenore by JM Tohline

I don’t do typical book reviews. There is always a story attached to them, because honestly, it’s been my experience that internal and external factors weigh into any appreciation of art.

With that said, I read JM Tohline’s The Great Lenore as my first e-book ever on my Kobo. I downloaded it months ago on my home computer, but found reading a book on my home computer just wasn’t for me. For Christmas I got the Kobo Vox (that’s the Canadian version of the Kindle Fire). I was anxious to finally be able to get into The Great Lenore , and I started over from the beginning.

What a ride! First, I will admit I had a hard time following some of the story and had to flip back a few pages to figure out where I was. Whether this is because A) It was in a new format for me, B) I was going through some health issues or C) it really just wasn’t written as easy-to-follow, I’m really not sure. But at this point, I’m giving Tohline’s skills the benefit of the doubt and blaming the lack of focus on a mixture of the two first points I mentioned.

The writing is beautiful. The tempo is beautiful. I don’t want to call it poetic because poetry often needs to be dissected to be understood. The Great Lenore is beautifully written and in its own way poetic without being ostentatious. I think that’s the best way to describe it.

The opening line traps you in.. Without knowing what the book was about, (and for a while, had me thinking it was a ghost story) it gave me the sense of excitement and a secret. It lied to me without lying, as do a lot of the suggestions throughout the book which keeps the flow of suspense constant without being in-your-face.

This novel is beauty. Beauty in writing. Beauty in the world. Beauty in the beautiful and in the ugly parts of the human experience.

On a different note, as I closed the book last night and was about to drift off to sleep, I thought about Lenore. There’s just something about Lenore. Which made me think of the movie “There’s something about Mary”. Then I compared the two and came to the conclusion that JM Tohline’s Lenore, is the equivalent of a much more sophisticated and elegant version of the cult film’s Mary. There’s just something about her that makes you want to keep on tracking her story.

I recommend you give it read, especially as a winter novel.

Movies vs Books – Part 3

Movies vs Books – Part 3

This post started out as a Book Review, but instead, turned into a philosophical rant… yet again.

In case you haven’t noticed this about me by now, and if you have, you’ve either found it endearing or annoying, I often take a situation, flip it inside out, back to front and look at it from a million angles until I drive myself batty with an internal battle between inner voices. Think Fight Club, for intellectuals, the arena being the mind.

The subject of conflict these days? Movies vs Novels. Here’s the story, I read the book The Help. It was an amazing read. I know there was a lot of controversy about the book, jabs thrown at the author that I won’t even dignify with discussing here, but I really loved the story.

When I was done reading the book, I watched the movie. I enjoyed it. It missed some few key points when I looked back on it, points that I cheered for in the novel, but I still enjoyed the movie.

Here’s the clincher, at the same time I was reading The Help, I was also reading The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. The Ya-Yas is one of my favorite movies, so I figured reading the book would be fun. It was not. I did not like the book.

Is what we are exposed to first, whether it be the film or the novel, the key to our perception and subsequently, the end result of our enjoyment? Please let me know what you think.

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett - A Book Review

Pillars of the Earth

It took me… oh a few months to read it, and I believe I wrote one or two blogs about it while I was reading it, but last month during NaNoWriMo, I finally finished Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. What a ride!

An epic tale to say the very least. This novel is brilliant and spans over a lifetime. Some parts made me cringe, some made me cry and some made me WHOOP and cheer. From the very first line “The small boys came early to the hanging.” You know you’re in for a ride. (I actually used that first line as a prompt in the Thursday version of the Prompt-and-Share, and the results were unforgettable.)

The characters in this novel are so fleshed out that you think about them on a regular basis. I had a personal connection with the building aspects of the storyline because my honey is a stonemason, so it did add that extra touch.

If you haven’t read it yet, this is a great novel to get you through the cold winter.

The Girls - A Story of Sisters

The Girls

Please excuse the repetitiveness of this statement, I know I’ve said it before, but it’s my opinion that a novel, or movie, or song for that matter, has a different impact on a person depending on the moment in their lives when they are exposed to those art forms.

That said, I just finished reading the novel The Girls by Lori Lansens. I was reading it at the same time as I was reading The Gargoyle, (which you can read about approximately 10 posts back). Two very different books with curious similarities (that I will get into a little later), but first, I want to discuss the impact that The Girls had on me.

My sister leant me this book, and I groaned. Why would I want to read about conjoined twins? What interest could I possibly have in such a story? How could I relate to this extreme? Well, I should have known better than to question my sister’s judgment on this one, because it was far closer to home than I could ever have imagined.

Rose and Ruby Darlen, the stars of the novel, are as unique and quirky as any one individual could be. Rose is a writer, the thinker, the main author of this mock-biography. (I’m not the first to say that it’s hard to remember this novel is not a true story.) Ruby, always childlike, chimes in her two cents as the secondary author of the novel. Together they weave a tale that’s entertaining, funny, sad, heartwarming and heartbreaking, but most of all, a story about sisters. Sisters. What a word. I suppose trying to explain to an only child what it’s like to have a sister, is like trying to explain to someone without children what it’s like to be a parent. But if you ever wanted to know what having a sister means, this novel is the closest thing to a decent explanation I’ve encountered. To steal a saying from my sister, “through think and thin, through sick and sin” sisters we will always be. I’m not a mother, but I have no doubt it’s the most rewarding, heart wrenching, scary, selfish, selfless, character building and character breaking role in the world. A close second would be being a sister.

Enough with the heavy, on to the lighter stuff. The Girls wasn’t all deep and meaningful, it was fun too. Rose is similar to all of us aspiring authors. She goes through the same pains and sorrows, highs and lows and self-doubt that we all do. There is one quote in the book that I would like to share with you all:

“If Heaven is tolerant and writers are allowed (bunch of liars though we are) I wonder if they gather for coffee to ponder the prose they should have written instead.” Thank you Rose Darlen, that one made me laugh out loud.

Now for the critical part of our journey… I am aware that I’m almost always praising the books I’ve read (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo being the exception). As a writer, we tend to read books a little differently, n’est pas? So I’m gonna be a little harsh on the two books I’ve recently read. Don’t get me wrong, I loved them both immensely, but there is one thing they have in common that kind of seems like… hmm… a cop out? They are both written in the first person, and both are written with the clear understanding that this is the antagonist’s first attempt at a novel. They both ask forgiveness of the reader if they aren’t doing a good job, because hey, it’s their first time. Is this the lazy way out or a genius way to get in? How many novels have YOU read that take this path?

If you made it to the end of this VERY long-winded post, thank you for sticking around.

Nina

Personal Story/Review of The Gargoyle By Andrew Davidson

I can say straight up, this is going to be an odd post. Anyone who has read my bio, or who has followed me for a while, knows my sister was murdered. But what I have not shared up until now, is that she was murdered by her son, my nephew. From here on in I’ll refer to him as CB. Yes you could easily Google my name and find out his, he was a minor who was sentenced as an adult, so his name has been released, but for some reason, I feel weird using his name here. I’m constantly squashing the urge to go into explicit detail about everything that’s happened regarding this event over the last 3 years so that the full extent of pain and suffering and surrealism can be understood – and I will be squashing that urge today as I get to my point.

Because I was a witness for the Crown Attorney (District Attorney) I was not able to speak to my nephew for the 2.5 years from the day of his arrest to the day of his sentencing. We started exchanging letters in the past few months. We discussed books, and he recommended I read his favorite fiction novel The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson. I rushed to the library and got it right away. Let me tell you, it was so worth it.

The writing is superb, the characters are fleshed out so very beautifully and the storyline is spell-binding, horrific and beautiful all at the same time. I don’t want to give away any of the plot because simply, I couldn’t do it justice anyhow. That’s pretty much the same way CB described it to me. He said “it’s about a burn victim who meets a crazy chick in the hospital and she tells him stories. I’m not doing it justice, but I can’t explain more without giving anything away”. I agree with his statement 100%.

This book is a must-read folks, especially if you read and enjoyed Dante’s Divine Comedy (though it’s not a requirement.)

Have you read The Gargoyle? What did you think?

Stephen King's book: On Writing

For all of you wonderful fiction writer's out there, if you haven't picked up Stephen King's On Writing yet, you don't know what you are missing!

Who better to learn the art of successful fiction writing from than the King himself? It's definitely #1 on my list. I'll never be able to look at a dandelion the same again!

Nina