A Powerful Tale of a Troubled Teen Is Debut Novel

Title: Another Life Altogether
Author: Elaine Beale
Website link: www.elainebeale.com
ISBN:978-0385530040
Category: Fiction

Reviewed by Sharon Ullman for The Boston Globe





When authors have won the prestigious Poets & Writers’ California Writers Exchange prize for emerging writers, as Elaine Beale did in 2007, one anticipates that their subsequent published novel will flow with exceptional craftsmanship. Surely, “Another Life Altogether,’’ Beale’s sparkling debut, does that.

In her rich characterization of the troubled teen Jesse Bennett, caught in the misery of her disastrous, if painfully funny, dysfunctional family; stuck in the most boring town in 1970s East Yorkshire, England (with, as Jesse pointedly notes, “one of the fastest eroding coastlines in the world’’), Beale has engagingly captured that tender moment when a young would-be author discovers the power of the written word to rescue herself.

“The day after my mother was admitted to the mental hospital, I told everyone at school that she had entered a competition on the back of a Corn Flakes box and won a cruise around the world.’’

So begins Jesse’s tale and her own extended journey. To persuade her classmates of this fanciful lie, she writes elaborate letters to herself supposedly from her traveling mother and reads them aloud to everyone. Of course, she is ultimately discovered and humiliated, but with this episode, the novel sets its own course. Writing produces a healing salve, and Jesse repeatedly returns to the page to escape her fate - both that forced on her from without and the one she makes for herself.

The crazy-parent genre of novel and memoir has filled the shelves in recent years. What sets Beale’s novel apart, however, is its careful depiction of the ordinary life with a seriously disturbed family member. If memoirs like “Running With Scissors’’ or “The Glass Castle’’ entertain through their outrageous events, many hilarious in their retelling (if not in living through them), Beale’s fiction, in turn, focuses on the mundane lunacy that fills Jesse’s daily world after her mother’s release from the hospital.

Her mother’s manic decorating projects start and are left hanging when weeks pass and she cannot get out of bed. It is Jesse who has to figure out what they’ll eat, when to appease her mother’s despair with beloved “Mr. Kipling’s’’ cream cakes, and how to mediate her father’s benign neglect as he escapes into his nightly rants against the British crown. Equally witty, Beale tempers the laughter with a constant balancing act that reveals precisely how trapped Jesse is by the fractured world engulfing her.

The novel plays out two major stories - Jesse’s family collapse and her own coming to terms with her sexuality. Horrified by both her attraction to an older girl and her private admiration for an openly gay classmate tormented by their peers, Jesse tries desperately to find her footing. Beale does a wonderful job describing all of her characters with richness and economy, but as she moves Jesse through this agonizing transformation, Beale is particularly powerful.

Jesse pours out her heart into letters she never sends to the girl she secretly desires, and the fate of those letters propels the book to its climax. Yet Beale is clearly after bigger game than a simple coming-of-age story, and the return of Jesse’s epistolary skills is no narrative coincidence. As a result, the book’s conclusion, like Jesse’s story overall, is both surprising and moving.

In her debut novel, Beale has revealed a mature talent with a sharp eye for both the intricacies of the surface detail and the complexities of the inner life. In “Another Life Altogether,’’ Beale reminds us that writing, always potentially dangerous, also confers grace, and that with the power of the word, we all have the potential to become the heroines of our own lives.

About the Reviewer:
Sharon Ullman is a professor of history at Bryn Mawr College and author of “Sex Seen: The Emergence of Modern Sexuality In America.’’


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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.
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New Mainstream Novel Also a Bit of a Mystery

Title: Marta's Place
Author: C. M. Albrecht
Publisher: Lyrical Press
Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Reviewed by Anne K. Edwards for Mystery Fiction


If you've ever been out of work and send on interviews for menial jobs, you will both sympathize with Hal and understand his letting life happen when it points to a way out of his present situation. He is sent to a small restaurant called Marta's Place and his luck seems to turn.

Marta is a older woman making a small success of her restaurant located in a changing neighborhood with a limited customer base. Luckily, she is a good cook and willing to give unskilled help a chance. As time passes, Hal becomes more than a helper.

But even as things are looking up for him, Hal takes chances that could ruin everything. Then he is accused of murdering a woman he knew. This is a blow that threatens his new security at a time when Marta is making big plans. His only hope is that he can keep her from finding out.

Talented author Carl M. Albrecht has crafted an interesting study of life and how one can go from rags to riches with just a little luck and lots of hard work. Mr. Albrecht has a thorough understanding of human desires and what motivates a young man who has been drifting through life on the bottom of society. You'll want to know if he can attain a better position in life and keep it.

I'm pleased to recommend Marta's Place as well worth the time. A well told tale with lots of emotions and interesting characters. You may recognize them as people you know or have met. I did.

Enjoy. I did.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.
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Author: Zane Smith
Title: Retreads
Publisher: Real Time Publishers
ISBN: 978-1-84961-034-6
Genre: Business novel

Reviewed by Terrence Ward for Allbooks Review


Retreads is a business novel about an up-and-coming predatory industry in the wake of the Great Recession: career marketing companies. Author Zane Smith introduces us to a cast of mostly unlikeable characters – unlikeable not because they aren't realistic, but because they are. The amoral attitudes and soulless closing techniques will be chillingly familiar to anyone who's had a brush with a professional scammer.

Set in the offices of fictional Executive Careers International in bustling Atlanta, Retreads takes the reader into the lives of some of the slickest operators and “bunko artists” in the career marketing industry and shows how they take advantage of people down on their luck and desperate enough to fork over what little money they have left to get back on their feet. Written as an illustration of how these operations are different than legitimate career counseling firms, the vibrant characters and very real conflicts left this reviewer feeling tense and genuinely interested about what would come next – pretty impressive for business fiction. A great read for someone looking for gripping slice-of-life fiction, and required reading for anyone who's been pounding the pavement looking for an executive position.

Terence Ward, Allbooks Review. www.allbookreviews.com
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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.
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Reading Rule: Don't Judge A Book by Its Cover

The Red Album of Asbury Park Remixed
By Alex Austin
http://www.willcall.org
Mainstream Fiction
ISBN 978-1-60264-450-2
Publisher: Virtual Boookworm
Reviewer: Allison Vaughn
Review first published on Amazon.com
Reviewer's Rating: 5 Stars

Reviewed by Allison Vaughn



The Red Album of Asbury Park Remixed is, by far, one of the best books
I have read recently.

On the surface, The Red Album of Asbury Park
Remixed doesn’t appear to be anything exciting – I wasn’t a fan of the
cover (although “Never judge a book by the cover” rings very true here)
and the synopsis did not pull me in. The cover just does not do this
magical and engaging story justice. I gave it a try, though, and – wow.
I am speechless. It’s going to be hard writing a review – because how
do you explain something so wonderful?

Sam has just returned from his stint in the military and on the way to
his mother’s new home, he meets a free (although heavily damaged) soul
named Jillian. Instantly drawn to her, and their mutual respect for
music -he finds himself torn between two women, one representing the
past and one who represents everything that could be. Meanwhile- Sam
wants nothing more than to make it big in the music industry, although
the town is small and the stakes are high. Sam is full of soul and
passion, qualities that are very admirable in a character. Sam is a
likable and truly realistic character that will you cheering for him
from start to finish.

Austin does a wonderful, amazing, absolutely phenomenal job at painting
a picture. Words are carefully chosen and sentences carefully
structured but flow easily as if writing is the most natural thing in
the world. Because I was born in the 80’s, I was not fortunate enough
to belong to the lifestyle of bell bottoms, hippies, and musicians
following the Beatles. After reading Austin’s novel, I feel like I
truly lived there. Like maybe – just maybe – I can now picture what
life was like back in the 60s. With real life situations (JFK’s &
Martin Luther King’s assassinations) mentioned in the time line of the
plot, the book felt real to me. It gave me that sense of wonder, as if
the book may possibly be based on true events. (I admit it, I looked up
the band name “Pan” without much luck.)

While I read The Red Album of Asbury Park Remixed, I kept thinking what
a fabulous movie this would make and am hoping that someday Alex Austin receives such recognition that this would become an easy possibility.
For anyone who loves music and would love to read something new, I
definitely recommend The Red Album of Asbury Park Remixed. Place it on
your “To-Read” list as it’s a worthy read.


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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Pistonhead More Than Hot Rock 'n' Roll

Pistonheadby Thomas A. Hauck
Fiction
Published by something.hot communications
Publication date: February 1, 2009
Paperback: $12.95, 174 pages
ISBN: 978-1-60145-744-8


Sometimes you cannot judge a book by its cover. At first glance, Pistonhead appears to be yet another entry into the tedious and predictable genre of rock ‘n roll debauchery tell-all category, where the protagonist struggles to become a star, takes too many drugs, divorces his wife, and ends up older and wiser and very rich.

This concise novel, which you can read in one afternoon, chronicles two weeks in the life of Charlie Sinclair, an aspiring Boston rock musician who would not know a limousine if it ran him down in the street. He is one of the hundreds of thousands of struggling artists in America, the ones who still work day jobs and live in mice-infested apartments and eat cold cereal for breakfast before going off to a factory job at eight in the morning.

Pistonhead covers a lot of ground in its refreshingly slender format. The characters are front and center. We meet Charlie’s drug-addled lead singer, Rip; the band’s hapless manager Louie; the cynical concert promoter; the lusty ex-girlfriend; the lustier art student who is making an artsy sex video; the nun who tries to recruit Charlie to sing for her Sunday school class; and Lisa, his enigmatic love interest. The scenes with the Mass Rehab clients in the factory are poignant and occasionally horrifying, as when Roger confides to Charlie that Satan has taken over the body of one of his co-workers.

What ties the novel together is theme of success, and how we define it. When the book opens we assume that Charlie defines success by the usual criteria of the number of patrons crammed into the Big Ditch Club or the number of radio stations playing Pistonhead songs. But a tragedy forces Charlie to take stock of his life and he comes to understand what is most important to him—and it’s not necessarily how many CDs the band can sell.

Pistonhead is an American journey that encompasses, in a concise package, themes that resonate with the flow of our culture as we enter the twenty-first century. Because in the end Charlie makes do with much less, but in many ways his life has become richer, with greater possibilities than before.


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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Leslie Lehr Explores Life After Divorce

Wife Goes Onby Leslie Lehr
http://www.wife-goes-on.com
Fiction
ISBN: 0758222416
Publisher: Kensington

Wife Goes On is the story of four women who become friends unintentionally and help one another during their divorces. It is the story of true friendship. Leslie Lehr shows that there is life after divorce and you do get a second chance at starting over. Wife Goes On will make you laugh and cry. It is funny and sexy. It is a lighthearted look at a serious subject. I think anyone who has ever been a in relationship will walk away with something positive from of this book.

Reviewed by Debby Block



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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Rita Schiano's New Fiction Based on Real Life

Painting The Invisible Man
by Rita Schiano
Http://www.paintingtheinvisibleman.com
Fiction
ISBN: 0979534704

Reviewed by: BookFinds.com


What is often talked about in fiction writing is that every novel has pieces of the author’s life hidden in the details. In Rita Schiano’s emotionally riveting novel, Painting the Invisible Man, there is no hiding the parallels between Rita’s life and that of her main character, Anna Matteo.

Schiano explores what happens when Anna begins to learn the truth about her father through his brutal dealth. Rita Schiano learned the truth about her own father through his brutal death. And yet it is with this honesty and quiet depiction of reality that Schiano creates memorable characters and beautiful prose. Schiano explores the emotional ties that bind us to our family and our history. She shows that it is our past that gives birth to our dreams and it is our future that gives us hope.

Rita Schiano’s Painting the Invisible Man explores truth through the veil of fiction and highlights these truths with honesty and emotional intensity. A beautiful poetic read!


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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

The Smoking Poet Reviews Linda Merlino's New Novel

Belly of the Whale
Linda Merlino, author


"A riveting story, both powerful
and poignant in its telling." H.Roughan,
NYTimes Bestselling Author


Reviewed by Zinta Aistars for The Smoking Poet, Summer 2008 issue



If you are a lover of fine literature, you know that sweet moment of discovery. This is why you read. This is why you open book cover after book cover, anticipating that golden moment. It happens when a newly opened book reaches from the printed page and into your mind, into your heart, and captures cleanly both imagination and resonant emotion. Opening Belly of the Whale, by first-time author, Linda Merlino, is such a golden moment.

I may never have picked this book up in any of my bookstore wanderings and treasure hunts. The dark cover with flashes of neon light, a tiny gunman, and a teary bald woman may have had me turn away. Don't judge. Not like that. For this book, arriving instead in my mailbox awaiting review in The Smoking Poet literary e-zine, may have begun as something of an editorial job ... but concluded with a new fan for writer Linda Merlino.

The story begins at the end.

"I fear that the dead are gathered here in this corner of Whales Market, that the sums of several lives are laid out on gurneys like me, and that yesterday I thought the worst thing happening was my breast cancer."

Hudson Catalina—"Hudson like the car, Catalina like the island, Hudson Catalina, I love you," her husband Jack whispers to her in their marriage-long game—is on the brink of giving up. Her mother has died of cancer, as has her grandmother. Now, after a double mastectomy, as she battles for life, or is it that she battles against the torments of medicine, chemo and radiation, 38-year-old Hudson wishes only to be done. Done. With all of this. Despite her four lovely babies, her ever patient and devoted husband, Hudson is beyond tired of the fight. It is Tuesday, and she throws some delicate treasure against the mirror, breaks all, feels broken herself, and has no patience left. Not even for the love of her family and closest friend. What's the point?

You know how that happens. You reach the end, what feels like the end, and when you think you have encountered the worst life can shovel on you, you encounter something even darker. Here is the belly of the whale, and Hudson is swallowed into it. Dragging herself out into a storm to go to a small grocery for a few items in preparation for her daughter's birthday, surely the last one she will share, Hudson becomes hostage to a young man gone mad with his own devastated heart and broken spirit. Here begins a nightmarish night of being held hostage, handcuffed to the dead and dying, hope threaded to another boy who is mentally incapacitated. Pressed that hard and so harshly against yet another wall in her waning life, Hudson Catalina makes some discoveries about herself and about where hope begins ... somewhere beyond the point where you think you lost it.

I am keeping my eye closely trained on this new author. Learning that Merlino wrote much of this book in longhand, scribbling notes throughout a busy mom's day, I understand the drive and motivation that could produce such a worthwhile read. In a day and age of a struggling publishing industry, just when you are about to lose hope in the literati, this kind of writing makes you find new hope yet again.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, founder of Authors' Coalition (www.authorscoalitionandredenginepress.com). It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews and reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page.

Endings a Tragedy for Thinking Readers

Title: Endings
Author: Barbara Bergin
Fiction
ISBN: ISBN: 978-0-86534-519-5
268 pp.
$28.95
Available: Sunstone Press, Amazon
Publisher: SUNSTONE PRESS
Box 2321, Santa Fe,
NM 87504-2321
(800) 243-5644


Reviewed by Connie Gotsch

Endings by Barbara Bergin, published by Sunstone Press, appears to chronicle the responses people make to life altering situations somewhat beyond their control, but to which they have also somewhat contributed. Then again, maybe the story deals with the fabrications people spin to rationalize the life choices they make.

Stunned by the loss of her husband and two children in a freak automobile accident, Dr. Leslie Cohen has sold her medical practice, abandoned friends, hit the road as a locum tenens orthopedic physician, and stopped forming long term relationships.

Through a series of flashbacks triggered by events, characters and plot points, the reader learns, or seems to learn, why love terrifies Leslie. She was tailgating her husband, Chris, as they headed for a family holiday. The driver ahead of him slammed on his brakes, Chris hit his, and Leslie plowed into him, killing him and her children. Guilt and consumes her, especially since she had Chris had hit a difficult point in their marriage.

Many books on the theme of carelessness at the worst moment resulting in painful loss, would lead Leslie into a nice, comfy small town, where friendly people would wrap her in warmth. Next Leslie would go through personal growth and transformation. She would find herself in the company of a handsome man with whom she shares much, but would fight her growing love for him. His patience would win her over. She would work through her grief, forgive herself for her part in the accident, marry the hero, and go into practice with the doctor whom she has come to relieve as a locum tenens.

Endings sets up that possibility. Leslie heads to Abilene, Texas, to substitute for Doc Hal Hawley who is preparing to have serious cancer surgery. Then almost to town, she slides into a fishtailing horse trailer driven by Reagan, the man who ends up her love interest. That could set ‘Endings’ on the predictable course, love marriage, more children, happily ever after. But using this twist and many others, Barbara Bergin slowly turns the story’s plot to a very different kind of growth and closure for Leslie.

So cleverly does the author disguise this arc in the predictable moonlit nights and kind souls one would expect to try to help Leslie, that the tale ends with a surprise that leaves the reader shaken and wondering just what Leslie’s part in her own tragedy was, or just what happened on the road that day tailgating Chris, and what transpired afterward, considering the state of their marriage.

Barbara Bergin supplements her clever plot line with elegant character development and description of locale. An orthopedic surgeon herself and a horse woman, she takes the reader both into the operating room and the rodeo area with equal vividness. Her medical descriptions never turn gory. Her description of love has just the right amount of steam.

‘Endings’ is not a book that will give the satisfaction of a happy conclusion, but it will leave the reader considering just genuine people really are, and what they might or might not control in their lives.
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Reviewer Connie Gotsch is the author of "A Mouth Full of Shell" and "Snap Me a Future" published by Dlsijpress. She is featured in "The Complete Writer's Journal" Also available at Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/s/ or
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_a?url=search-alias%3Dapparel&field-keywords=a+mouth+full+of+shell&x=0&y=0


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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, founder of Authors' Coalition (www.authorscoalitionandredenginepress.com). It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews and reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page.

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Ever Felt You Were Dreaming the Truth?

When She Sleeps
By Leora Krygier
Published by Toby Press
Author's Website

Excerpted from the Library Journal

“This novel... uses the dualities of light and dark, dreaming and waking, and East and West to remarkable ends. The horror and disruption of war, never discussed directly, are instead made evident in the actions and interactions of the characters. A good literary look at the Vietnam War, this brings together the Vietnamese and the American perspective through the lens of divided families.”
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Library Journal reviews

A Well Written Insight Into Human Suffering

Title: Sleep Before Evening
Author: Magdalena Ball
ISBN: 978-1-904492-96-2
Page count: 296
Format: paperback
Release Date: 24th July 2007
Available: http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Before-Evening-Magdalena-Ball/dp/1904492967/


Review by Warren Thurston,
owner of Pentales


Sleep Before Evening is Magdalena Ball’s debut novel. It is a beautifully crafted piece dealing with rejection and betrayal. Those of us who have felt that someone we loved deeply betrayed us, will form an immediate bond with the main character.

Marianne is a vivacious nineteen year old, full of life and a brilliant scholar. She is at the peak of her powers when life decides it will test her character. Eric, her much loved grandfather and mentor, is suddenly struck down by a stroke. His death begins a series of events that takes Marianne into a world of darkness, filled with drugs and depression.

Hurting to the core about the loss of Eric, and the fact that she was denied the chance to say goodbye, Marianne hates the world. She also starts to hate herself and seeks solace in the arms of Miles. He is a struggling musician who for a time is the maestro who conducts her life.

Lily, Marianne’s mother, also has her own demons eating at her. She is so wrapped up in her struggle to find happiness and fulfillment, that she cannot see what is happening to her daughter. It is a flaw that many parents are guilty of, not through an act of selfishness, but one brought on by their own struggle to survive.

Confused and angry Marianne deteriorates to the stage where fantasy, reality and pain are so intermingled within her, that she loses contact with her real self. She was entering the stage of what the noted British psychiatrist Hall called, drifting back to the time before you are born. It is a stage along the path of mental recovery, where one’s mind is in an infantile state, as it retreats from the hurt it finds itself in. Then when it feels strong enough it comes forward again, out of the darkness and into the light. This usually brings with it a positive change in an individual, making them mentally stronger and enhancing their creativity.

This is a good story that makes the reader feel the highs and lows of Marianne as if they are their own. It reminds me of the style adopted by the Russian writer Dostoyevsky. He had the ability to get the reader to feel exactly what his characters felt; a gift Magdalena ball has too.

Sleep Before Evening is a well written insight into human suffering. The author shows an in-depth knowledge of how to hold readers attention, and make them eager to know more. This is a debut novel that shows the author has many more novels inside her, which will provoke strong emotions in readers of her work.

The Perfect Storm-of-a-New Kind

Storm
By Joyce Anthony
Star Publish Books, 2007
Author's Website: http://joyceanthony.tripod.com/

This review is by Jamieson Wolf. It originally appeared on The Book Pedler

Storms are bringers of many things; winds that rip the sea apart, dark skies that foretell danger, limbs ripped from trees and rain that pummels down all around us. But what if a storm brought something else all together? What if a storm brought something that would change your life?

This is what happens to Sam. A lighthouse keeper, he takes his job seriously. He is the last thing between a ship and the rocks of the coast. Playing solitaire as a fierce storm rages outside his lighthouse, he is thankful that he is safe inside. What he does not know, however, is that his life is about to change forever.

Going outside the next morning to survey the damage, Sam comes upon a wicker basket. Inside is a baby that stares at Sam with eyes that are wise beyond their years. Sam wonders how anyone could have gotten the child onto the island; they are surrounded by nothing but water, clam now that the storm had passed.

Deciding to take care of the baby, he calls the child Storm, naming him after what brought him to the island in the first place. Thirty three years later, Storm rests by Sam’s side as he lies dying. No matter what Storm does, Sam is not comfortable. A chill has invaded his bones and he knows he is not long for the world.

Knowing this, Sam tells Storm that he is meant for great things. “Follow the railway tracks and seek the whirling rainbow. There you will find what you are meant to be.”

After Sam’s death, Storm finds himself in a small town where he hears a voice in a dream telling him that he must find his destiny. He finds the railway tracks that Sam spoke of and soon meets a pure white dog with amethyst eyes. When the dog leads Storm to a battered woman by the train tracks, Storm has no idea that he has found his destiny.

The dog with the amethyst eyes leads him down a path that will change his life forever and will challenge everything he knows. And Storm must rely on all of his strength if he is to help others and to survive…

This was one incredible read. From the first words, I knew I was in for a literary treat. After reading the first chapter, I knew I was in for a life changing experience. Rarely does a book come along that speaks to me so clearly, so beautifully and I was blown away by the beauty of Storm.

Part parable, part fantasy, party mystery, part spiritual quest, Storm is unlike anything you have read or will read. Ever. I can’t even come close to describing the beauty and depth of this novel, the sheer gorgeousness of it. I am still haunted by this novel, thinking of it, dreaming of it. You will find yourself thinking of this book well after you have turned the last page.

What I love most about this book is the story. It’s so simple yet it manages to touch on every emotion you can name. I laughed and cried while reading this novel. It’s written with such a depth that it’s hard to believe this is Anthony’s first novel; she writes with a maturity of a seasoned writer and the beauty of her words is breathtaking.

Even though there is a spiritual message in this book, it doesn’t hit you over the head. Storm makes you think and it makes you feel and that is the true power of a book. It’s been a long time since I’ve been so affected by a novel, so moved by words I’ve read.

This is one of the best books I have ever had the pleasure to read. I can’t get Storm or those amethyst eyes out of my head and I don’t think I’ll ever want to. Storm helps reshape how you look at the world, how you look at others and, perhaps most importantly, how you look at yourself.

Storm is an enchanting work that I will read again and again for years to come.

Ahhh, Those Controversial Whales!

Whale Song
By Cheryl Kaye Tardif
Kunati, Inc.
ISBN: 978-1-60164-007-9
Copyright 2007
Trade Paperback, 200 pages, $12.95
General Fiction/YA

Reviewed by Mayra Calvani, www.mayracalvani.com

Whale Song is a beautifully written novel that deals with a controversial subject and combines elements of myth, legend, and family drama.

The story begins when thirteen-year old Sarah Richardson moves with her family to Vancouver Island, leaving behind her old life and best friend. In spite of the fact that not all of her new classmates offer her a warm welcome, Sarah soon makes a good friend, a native girl called Goldie. A white girl where most of the people are Indian, Sarah soon experiences prejudice and racism. Her escape is her loving home, her friendship with Goldie, and her love for the killer whales that inhabit the island waters. From Goldie’s grandmother she learns many legends and Indian myths about these magnificent, intelligent mammals.

Then disaster strikes and all that Sarah holds dear is snatched away, leaving her enveloped in a dark vortex of confusion and loneliness. As her life abruptly changes, the issue of racism is replaced by a much more controversial one. Does the end justify the means? Does love justify breaking the law?

The story is told in the first person by Sarah herself; the reader is drawn into an immediate intimate rapport with the young protagonist. The language, in its simplicity, heightens the strong moral conflicts which carry the plot. In spite of the family drama, no silly sentimentalism mars the prose, and Sarah possesses a strong voice that is both honest and devoid of embellishments. The author has managed to create a sense of serenity and beauty that has to do with the mythical setting and the ‘parallel’ presence of the killer whales and wolves.

Consider this excerpt taken from the prologue and which sets the tone and mood for the rest of the story:

I once feared death.

It is said that death begins with the absence of life. And life begins when death is no longer feared. I have stared death in the face and survived. A survivor who has learned about unfailing love and forgiveness. I realize now that I am but a tiny fragment in an endless ocean of life, just as a killer whale is a speck in her immense underwater domain. (p.9)

A sad yet uplifting novel, Whale Song is about the fear and innocence of a young girl and about coming to terms with the shocking and painful truth one often must face. Above all, it is a novel about forgiveness and forgiving oneself.

Wowee! Zowee! A Review by Clive Ashenden

Title: FranticBy Frances Lynn
Available on Amazon
Author's site: www.franceslynn.org


In 'Frantic' we follow Alice, a naive English girl, aching to rebel against her posh upbringing, as she descends into a glittery hell peopled with dangerous grotesques and dusted with white powder.


After sharpening her claws on the butt end of the sixties, author Frances Lynn tears into the seventies' alternative scene with glee, exposing the hypocrisy, shallowness and sad junkie lifestyles of the 'beautiful people'. However, this is not just a novel about sex, drugs and rock n' roll; it's a novel filtered through them. So the reader gets to enjoy vivid acid tinged prose, and riotous cartoon depictions of San Francisco and London. At times, the style is reminiscent of counter-culture icons William S. Burroughs and Robert Anton Wilson, but with a fairy-tale sweetness neither of those authors have.


Fans of Frances Lynn's "Crushed", will recognise the same storytelling skills but may be shocked at the unbridled content. Freed from the constraints of writing for a teen audience, the author can display the the sharp wit which made her Britain's bitchiest columnist.


Like Alice says: "Wowee Zowee!"