Read Our Lips Reviewer Shares Fave with The New Book Review Readers

Title: Reverb

Author: J. Cafesin
Reverb website: http://reverbnovel.com
Genre: Romantic Suspense; Literary Fiction
ISBN-10: 0615756395
ISBN-13: 978-0615756394
Rating: 5 Stars
Purchase on Amazon. 

Reviewed by Angie originally for Read Our Lips

Listed as Favorite Book!

Sir James Michael Whren goes by James Logan is attending his half brother's funeral in England. He's anxious to get back to his music studio to continue working on his current project. His father, Edward Whren wants to have chat with him about his future which leaves James feeling resentful and sullen to his father's presence. Edward continues the conversation he started five years prior to which James replies let's not go down this road again because he wants nothing to do with Whren Trust or inheriting anything from his father. Edward Whren hatches a plan to keep James in England but he could not foresee what happens next to James. James is arrested at Heathrow Airport on a trumped up charge of dealing drugs and forced into rehab but that is the beginning of his worst nightmare of his life for the next year and half. James manages to escape where he's being held to eventually States to gain access to his money~so he can disappear again. James does that and more. He's hidden on island of Greece called Corfu and eventually meets Elisabeth Whitestone and her son Cameron. James slowly comes out of his shell being around Elisabeth and Cameron. James is completely haunted by his past and can't seem to shake just wanting to die. Elisabeth knows that something awful happened to James eventually gets him to start eating and pick up his musical skills again. Will James let his past continue to haunt him? Will James find his muse again? Will James love both Elisabeth and Cameron? Will Elisabeth admit her feelings for James? Your answers await you in Reverb.

Reverb is gut wrenching emotional rollercoaster from first page to last page. I've found my favorite book and character of the year in this book. I honestly don't have the words to explain or describe how this book affected me. I applaud the author for bolding stepping into this dark path and the courage to follow thru with it. I highly recommend this book. I look forward to next book presented by this author.

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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 read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine 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.

National Librarian Reviews Literary Fiction

Title: The Butterfly Prison

Author: Tamara Pearson

Author website: resistancewords.wordpress.com

Genre: Literary fiction

Publisher: Open Books

ISBN: 0692449264

Reviewer: Alison Dellit

Original review published on: Amazon

Reviewer's rating: 5 stars

Buy here.

Gets in your hear

Reviewed by National librarian Alison Dellit 
"Monarchs with business suits instead of crowns spent four thousand American dollars per day on accommodation at the APEC Summit in Busan, South Korea, in December 2005. The luxury banquet for summit participants cost 1.5 million dollars. It surely must have been Rollsroycefood, swan toilet paper, musical champagne.

Meanwhile the city government closed the street stalls near the venue and walled off the poor quarters. Thirty-five thousand police kept protesters away. If they could, the government would have gathered up the sun too and put it inside a crystal cage in the centre of the summit, leaving just the crumbs of yellow light scattered about for the rest."

"Sitting on the fence, he imagined/remembered a photo of his mum's eyes when she slept. A close up of one eye that was still, but not peaceful. The skin eyelid skin was pulled tightly, as though it was toiling. Paz gave the photo detail; skin lines crossing, the eyelashes dark and gentle."

The Butterfly Prison is an absorbing, rewarding and challenging reading experience. Pearson's language, a rhythm of description and reflection, is punch-the-air, breathtakingly good when it soars, drawing you seductively in to the perspective of her two protagonists, and carrying the fury, the despair, the strength and finally the hope of the world's poor with it.

Poverty Pearson sees as the theft of not just resources, but of joy, of creativity, of a life with possibility and variety from most of the world. The novel is a long scream of protest at this theft, and unlike many overtly political books, never simplified, never superficial.

Pearson, who grew up in Sydney's west and then spent most of her adult life in Latin America, draws seamless lines between the experiences of the world's poor, whether in Mexico City or Redfern, Venezuela's Merida or Macquarie Fields. The portrait of the latter - "Every day in Macquarie Fields, police cars parked in groups of three outside the supermarket, the station and the park. Officers patrolled the quiet public housing streets, and their shadows stuck to the public housing walls, haunting people even when they weren't around" - is searing, indictatory, confronting an instantly recognisable. It would have been easy to set this tale of poverty and resistance in a country renowned for both, but by setting the tale in Australia, Pearson confronts the reader to understand the universality of poverty, of theft and of the war being hope and hopelessness. She refuses to allow a middle-class Australian to look away, to pretend the problem is elsewhere.

The main technique employed here - the use of interspersed paragraphs of world history, works particularly well, and serves to break up the lengthy and occasionally repetitive, narrative (and in a surprising connection, reminded me somewhat of comic writer Warren Ellis' integration of headlines and story, albeit with a more driven tone).

Which is not to say the novel is grim. Far from it. Pearson has such love for humanity - her protagonists' creativity shines, and their love for housemates and collaborators gives the novel bounce and energy. A key theme of the novel is the families we construct for ourselves, the importance of loving and being loved, of being part of we and not just I.

The book is uneven - not unusual for a first novel - with clunky constructions popping up and pacing issues, particularly in the first half which drags too much. The author has time and space to grow, to make the soaring heights of the book closer to the normal terrain. I was a little worried that I wouldn't love this book, but while the flaws are real, there's no question that this is one of those which creeps inside you and changes something.

----- 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 read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine 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.