FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2012
Thanks to Linda Rodriguez for recommending this book to me.
I’ve read some excellent books about writing but this is the one
only one I can remember when I laughed out loud. Many times I recognized
my feelings and actions in what Ms. See has felt and done. The author describes
not only writing, but also the writing life. She doesn’t shy away
from the experience of getting form rejection notes or from the experience of
reading what you have written before and finding it to be utter bilge. She also
discusses the amazing feeling of seeing your name in print and selling your
work using her experiences as a referent.
I was impressed that she addressed so much of what being a writer
entails. I found her advice to be really helpful for those committed to this
crazy business. To be a writer means to produce one thousand words a day or two
hours of revision five days a week for the rest of your life.
The chapter titled Geography Time and Space should be required
reading for authors. Not long ago I read in a passage of a book by a
major publisher in which the hero threw a grenade through a closed door and
afterward kicked the door open.
I would recommend Making a Literary Life to
anyone who is serious about writing.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 2013
Aaron Philip Clark
From the opening paragraph to the unexpected ending, Aaron
Philip Clark presents a gripping portrayal of Paul Little, an ex-con struggling
to escape his past and the survive the dangers of a hot summer in
Philadelphia. Mr. Clark’s description of the city and the various
subcultures within Philadelphia left me experiencing, almost smelling, the very
disparate environments within the city. In this noir novel the cops
are racist when they aren’t corrupt. Paul would make a convenient
scapegoat for any or all of the murders that happen around him. Guilt about his
past will not allow him to accept the love of a good woman. Everyone
he meets has a hidden agenda, which does not include looking out for
Paul. His attempts at helping others get him into ever deeper
trouble and even more closely involved with a stone cold killer. The
prose is powerful and poetic. I highly recommend this book.
Kane by Steve Gannon
This
novel introduces an interesting and compelling character, Dan Kane, a homicide
detective in the Los Angeles Police Department. The author created a
likeable but flawed character and gave him a family, which rounds out the main
character. Dealing with a possible serial killer at work is balanced
with having to handle problems at home. When we meet Kane he is
mourning the death of one of his children. He realizes he has
neglected his wife and children just as demands at work escalate. He
feels pulled in several directions at once and there are no simple solutions to
his problems. This is an author and a character well worth
following. ----Warren Bull
A
Lesson in Secrets
Jacqueline
Winspear’s Maisie Dobb series is set in England at the outset during WWI and focuses on the
following decades’ events leading up to WWII. Although told from the English
perspective, as allies, much of the loss and effect of WWI that Winspear brings
to her fiction is equally true for Americans.
There are many reasons why this series is special. Winspear combines the horrors and chaos of war and its effects on relationships, investigation and romance, comingling historical fact with fiction. Yes, I am one who likes mixing genres. To me, the mix brings authenticity to books, as if I were living their lives, not focusing on one aspect of their life as an investigator.
The
series starts before WWI and then follows Maisie after the war as she relives
her experiences and starts her investigative practice. Winspear doesn’t spare the
reader, showing the effects of WWI’s brutal fighting tactics and the equally
brutal surgical techniques, which keep soldiers alive when death may be more
merciful. Soldiers survive catastrophic injuries only to die from secondary
causes, such as bacterial infection since antibiotics had not been discovered
or from drug addiction. Horrific injuries are no match for the time’s
anesthetics. When Maisie employs an assistant, she learns about the black
market for cocaine, which brings temporary relief from the pain of acute
injuries, but she also learns of the cost and addiction that destroys those
battlefield survivors’ lives.
The
reader, through Maisie’s memories as a nurse in France, experiences the effects
of chemical-gas warfare and trench warfare exacerbated by a lack of military
and government social services, which are eventually remedied through reform
laws, providing social security and veteran benefits. The medical community is
incapable of coping neither with chemical-warfare exposure or from shell shock,
results of trench warfare. Diagnosed initially as nerve damage, shell shock is
re-diagnosed as psychiatric injury. In its infancy, psychiatry provides little
healing.
In A Lesson in Secrets, the eighth novel in this series, Maisie’s investigation helps police and government intelligence organizations safe-guard national security by her enmeshment in the peace movement, at one end of the spectrum, and Nazi proponents, on the other. In doing so, the Winspear reminds the reader of the forces culminating in WWII were rooted from WWI. Such lessons must not be forgotten in today’s global conflicts.
Look
for other books from the series at: http://www.jacquelinewinspear.com/novels.php.
E.
B. Davis
Curiosity
Thrilled The Cat
When the body of a visiting musician is found by town librarian Kathleen Paulson, she becomes the first suspect in his murder. The victim was in the library hours before his death, and a suspicious note implicates Kathleen. The investigating detective, is no dummy. He is also a cat lover. But due to the evidence and, perhaps due to his good taste in women, he keeps Kathleen on his radar. Of course, Kathleen solves the murder with the help of her extraordinary cats, but not before stumbling into small-town relationships fraught with old grievances and secrets.
Kathleen Paulson is a likeable main character. She is polite to a fault and a recent transplant to the small town set in the lake region of Wisconsin. Her two new pets, former strays, have special abilities. When not baking for the detective interrogating her, she makes sardine flavored treats for her kitties. Who wouldn’t like Kathleen?
Charm
is to cozies as stickiness is to marshmallows—without it, neither is fresh.
Kelly’s conversational first person is as charming as the lake setting, phone
calls from her mother, an intuitive actress, and the not-so-sweet cats. Her
secondary characters are easily identifiable during their sporadic appearances.
Sleight of Paw, the next book in the series, is due for release the end of August and will be in my beach bag.
E.
B. Davis
Séance in Sepia
"The past is a foreign
country; they do things differently there.”– L. P. HartleyIn Séance in Sepia, the sixth novel of historical suspense by author Michelle Black, the author skillfully guides the reader through a world both like and unlike our own. Most of us are not well acquainted with spiritualism, séances and spirit photography but we are all only too well acquainted with loss, love, jealousy and trust that drive the vivid characters in this novel just as surely as they drive us today.
In addition to giving the reader an engaging mystery, knife-edged suspense and a telling glimpse into post-Civil War American society, Ms. Black presents a fascinating portrait of spiritualist, radical feminist and free love advocate Victoria Woodhull, one of the most admired and despised woman of her generation. This is an exceptional book.
Published by Five Star Books scheduled to be released in October, 2011
Warren Bull
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