Canadian Reviewer Lauds Their Women's Day and Ruth Latta's Young Adult Novel

Book Title: Grace and the Secret Vault

Author:  Ruth Latta

Author Website: http://ruthlatta.blogspot.com

Genre: Young adult historical fiction

Publisher: Baico Publishing Inc. (Ottawa, Canada)

ISBN: 978-1-7721-60925

Review link: http://ruthlatta.blogspot.com

Purchase Online:  info@baico.ca

Reviewed by Stephen Dale originally for Apt.613 (online magazine, Ottawa, ON)

                To mark International Women’s Day in 2017, a group called Equal Voice organized an event in which young women from across Canada occupied all 338 seats in the House of Commons. The women spoke powerfully of the issues that are important to them and, in the process, made a strong symbolic statement about how politics might be different if more women were involved. With only a quarter of the seats in Parliament currently occupied by women, it’s clear that the seat of Canadian democracy remains, overwhelmingly, a boys’ club.

                That the number of female Parliamentarians has increased to some extent recently is a testament to the strength of a few trailblazing women determined to defy the odds and take their place on the national political stage. One of those pioneers was Grace Woodsworth MacInnis, who served as the NDP Member of Parliament for Vancouver Kingsway between 1966 and 1974.

                Ottawa novelist Ruth Latta recalls that, as a student at Queen’s University in the early 1970s, she was fascinated with this diminutive yet dynamic women, one of the first Canadian Parliamentarians to regularly raise issues of concern to women on the floor of the Commons. Latta’s latest young adult novel, Grace and the Secret Vault, (Ottawa,  Baico Publishing Inc. 2017  www.baico.ca  ISBN: 978-1-77216-092-5) is a fictional account of an especially formative period in Grace’s life.

                Although the book doesn’t deal directly with Grace’s work as a politician, in a subtle way it sheds light on how the future MP developed the determined outlook and fortitude of character that would be necessary to storm the bastions of male power.

The novel recreates a particularly turbulent year in Grace’s early life. Her father, J.S. Woodsworth (who would go on to lead the CCF, the forerunner of the New Democratic Party) had lost his job as a minister in an idyllic British Columbia coastal town because of his opposition to the First World War. In 1919, with the war over, Grace’s father remains unafraid of courting controversy. He travels the country speaking out for social justice, and takes a role in organizing the landmark Winnipeg General Strike.

Against the backdrop of these historic events, Grace gets an up-close lesson in courage. Her father stands tall in the face of condemnation, economic sanction, and even the threat of violence. Perhaps more importantly, Grace’s mother summons a special kind of strength: keeping the family afloat by working as a teacher, overseeing a chaotic household of high-spirited children, setting a tone of optimism and good humour.

Latta tells this story in a fluid, fast-paced and conversational way, seamlessly weaving together the daily details of life in the British Columbia of a century ago with the book’s overarching political narrative. The characters’ dialogue is conveyed convincingly in the lexicon of the day, but the emotional pull of the story is timeless. And despite its subject matter, the author avoids propagandizing. There’s also a sly twist on the idea of the “mystery” that adds some fun at the end.

Grace and the Secret Vault is a lively read and a historical tale with a clear resonance for the contemporary reader, especially for the young person who might want to grow up to change the world.

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Ottawa writer Stephen Dale’s latest book is Noble Illusions: Young Canada Goes to War (Fernwood Books).

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ). This blog 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.

Mini Review Gives Top Ratings to New Suspenseful Romance

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TITLE: A Killer Among Us

AUTHOR: Deborah Byington, 

• ASIN: B071ZNDFDK
• PURHASE: www.amazon.com/dp/B071ZNDFDK/ref=nav_timeline_asin?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

GENRE: Romantic Suspense

Reviewed by Rrclark originally for Amazon

I very much enjoyed this story and I am anxiously awaiting the next segment of this trilogy. I 

might have lost a lot of sleep trying to read during my down time but it was well worth it! 

I highly recommend to everyone the suspense, mystery, and a little romance keeps you 

begging for more from this author.

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Learn more about Deborah Byington on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/deborahbyingtonauthor/?ref=bookmarks or  https://writing-and-publishing.mn.co/home

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ). This blog 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.

"My Brothers Keeper" Reviewed by Religion Journal

Book Title: My Brother’s Keeper

Author: Bill Kassel

Author Website: www.billkassel.com

Genre: Historical/Religious Fiction

Publisher: Company Publications/Saint Joseph Communications

ISBN: 978-0-938984-06-1

Review Link: http://www.hprweb.com/2016/09/early-fall-reading/)

Purchase Online at: https://saintjoe.com/products/my-brother-s-keeper?taxon_id=107

Reviewed by Fr. Michael P. Orsi originally for Homiletic and Pastoral Review

My Brother’s Keeper is an inspirational novel of a type that used to be broadly popular: a Bible-based narrative that expands on the Gospels to tell an engaging story about a character whose life is touched by Christ. Classics such as Ben Hur and The Robe are examples of this genre of religious storytelling that was once at the heart of the literary mainstream.

In our cynical, materialist age, such works have largely fallen out of fashion. Even the Christian publishing houses tend to shy away from Bible fiction, preferring instead to offer contemporary or historical tales that center on moral conflicts, along with those innumerable series of so-called “Christian romances.” And when secular publishers touch on the Bible these days, we’re mainly treated to gnostic conspiracies or wild speculations about Jesus’ “secret wife.”

Catholic author Bill Kassel is attempting to swim against the fashionable tide with a tale that’s remarkably orthodox but that offers an unconventional perspective on Jesus and his family. He accomplishes this through a deft blending of canonical and non-canonical elements, spiced with historical research and a good deal of imaginative supposition.

His story is premised on two ancient pious traditions: (1) that Joseph was a widower with children when he married a much younger Mary, and (2) that Mary herself had been raised in the Temple at Jerusalem as a sort of Jewish proto-“nun.” These ideas are not Kassel’s inventions, but rather are rooted in the Apocryphal Gospels (such as the Protoevangelium of James), early Christian writings that are largely overlooked in the Western Church today.

The plot of My Brother’s Keeper gets nudged into motion when Joseph is asked to take a teenage Mary as his wife because she is approaching her “impurity” (the onset of menstruation), which will require her to leave the Temple. Mary’s mother, Anna, is dead, and her father, Joachim, is nearing death himself, so the girl needs a home and husbandly protection. The twist is that this arrangement must allow Mary to preserve the celibacy she has chosen for herself.

Thus Kassel both sets the stage for all kinds of domestic complications within Joseph’s extended household, and advances a neat rationale for the Catholic doctrine of Mary’s Perpetual Virginity which even Protestants might accept. Through such clever literary contrivances My Brother’s Keeper tries to fill many of the gaps in the Gospels and answer questions that have challenged the Christian imagination over millennia.

The book’s anchor is James, described in the Bible as “the brother of the Lord,” and in Kassel’s telling the youngest of Joseph’s children. James dreams of becoming a Doctor of the Law. He pursues his goal under the tutelage of Hillel, the most renowned sage of First-Century Judaism, and Gamaliel, Hillel’s grandson (who is recognized as an important leader of the Sanhedrin in The Acts of the Apostle).

As James rises to scholarly prominence, Joseph, on his deathbed, exacts a promise from him to protect Jesus, whom Joseph believes to be the Messiah. James doesn’t share his father’s certainty about Jesus and his spiritual pedigree, but he nevertheless agrees to do what he can—in essence becoming his brother’s keeper. Later in the book, when Jesus’ ministry has begun stirring controversy, James cultivates a friendship with Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, in an effort to make good on the promise to his late father and assure that Jesus isn’t railroaded by corrupt religious authorities.

Pilate is only one of the Biblical figures who show up in this book and are revealed in unexpected ways. Joseph of Arimathea and Saul of Tarsus are two others who play surprising roles in James’ life and add density to the plot. Numerous made-up characters enrich the story as well. In fact, one of the book’s strengths is the variety of perspectives on Jesus illustrated as people grapple with their questions about this strange prophet from Nazareth.

Looking back 2,000 years and knowing how things turned out, we sometimes wonder why anyone, at the time, would have missed Jesus’ true nature. But it wasn’t necessarily clear, then, who Jesus was or what he was up to. The book captures those ambiguous circumstances, maintaining an appropriate atmosphere of tension and uncertainty throughout, until Christ’s post-resurrection appearance to James (mentioned in the Bible) near the end of the story.

Kassel demonstrates a deep appreciation for the Jewishness of Jesus and for the Old Testament roots of Christianity, evident in his research into the laws and customs of Judaism. His command of the period’s history, the local geography, and especially the political conflicts of Roman-occupied Palestine make this work instructive as well as entertaining. And it allows the author to avoid either over-romanticizing life in Jesus’ day or blaming the Jews, as a people, for Christ’s death.

My Brother’s Keeper can be viewed as part of a literary genre concerning Jesus that goes back to at least the second century A.D. But it achieves a contemporary plausibility, to which modern readers can relate, by emphasizing the human dimension of the story over its miraculous aspects. This is a highly engaging work of fiction that can be readily employed in religious education programs for both adults and teenagers—though some care should be taken with young people. Kassel doesn’t soft-pedal the violence of the period. His portrayal of crucifixion is particularly vivid. It makes one appreciate what Christ suffered, but it could be a bit unsettling.

Perhaps if My Brother’s Keeper gains a sufficient following, it might help to bring quality religious novels back into popularity among the general readership. My one concern is that 1,000 years from now, when it’s discovered in cyber-space, it may attain the notoriety of the ancient Apocryphal Gospels and engender a sequel to The DaVinci Code.

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ). This blog 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.

Unique Opportunity for Getting Reviews!

This blog is usually reserved for reviews. It was inspired by the difficulty so many authors have getting reviews and getting those reviews exposed to readers after they have one they love. So . . . I decided to let the many authors and other industry professionals know about this unique opportunity. It is an opportunity I recommend to my clients because it has worked for me. Note: There is space for only five more books! Open to non members Deadline September 20 for next issue Room for only 5 more books View this email in your browser

Get your book in front of 1,800+ book reviewers and book bloggers The mystery of getting a book in front of legitimate reviewers baffles most indie authors and small publishers. Where do I find these people? What do I present to them? Do I send a print book or ebook? Feature your book in the new service from SPAWN,  open to members and nonmembers. Sign up now and be part of New Releases from... Deadline for next issue is September 20, 2017 Book must have been released this year. Looking for Winter 2017 releases for advance reviews. View the June Issue Praise for New Releases from...SPAWN "As much as I am a do-it-yourself kind of marketer, one author can only do so much! SPAWN's outreach to reviewers got results--one of the best pay-for-help services I ever used!" ~ Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically  "WOW! We already received three book order from reviewers in less than 24 hours. Thanks, so much." - Bob Osland, Surepoint Publishing DO YOU HAVE A BOOK PLANNED FOR WINTER RELEASE? Editors had a positive response to New Releases from...SPAWN. One thing several wanted were unreleased books, those coming out in the Winter.

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 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.

Angie Gallion Chooses New LGBT Novel for Gallion Picks Reviews

Title: Two Natures

Author: Jendi Reiter

Author's website: http://www.jendireiter.com

Genre: Literary fiction, LGBTQ

ISBN: 978-0-9969074-2-2

URL: https://www.angiegallion.com/single-post/2017/08/04/Two-Natures-by-Jendi-Reiter

Publisher: Saddle Road Press

Reviewed by Angie Gallion originally for Gallion Picks Reviews

One of the things I try to do when I am accepting books for review is to not only review the type of books I would write.  When Jendi Reiter contacted me to offer her book, a gay love story with a Christian undertone, I didn't know what to expect from Two Natures, but was happy to give it a go. What I got was a well written novel with enough descriptive detail to let me walk the life of the main character Julian.  The novel begins in New York City in January 1991. Our protagonist is a fashion photographer in New York, and yes this is during the height of the AIDS epidemic. This book offers a brutal, but not unkind vision of early 1990's.

Two Natures is a very honest bildungsroman, a coming of age novel, with all the key factors, finding your path, breaking with your parents' traditions, learning to stand independent, with a healthy side of Southern Baptist guilt and a childhood fractured by abuse. His journey is complex and the people that populate his life are founded and defined.  Julian is a serious person, and artist, a person sometime prone to self reflection.  He felt familiar to me, just like an old friend.   There are no caricatures here, no one sided coins. This book could have been about my college friend, who was coming to terms with his own sexual identity during the years I knew him, the same years this book covers.  He was creative and passionate, and a little awkward about who he was recognizing as himself, just like we all are.  Julian touches the underbelly of New York City, and we are witness to it.  Reiter does a great job of bringing the city, and all of her locales to life.  She gives enough description and flavor that I got to be there without having to examine every blade of grass along the way.  Reiter does exactly what I like in a book, she lets me walk as the character.  I am Julian as he struggles against the traditions of his family and the calling of his own soul.  I feel his turmoil as he moves through this time in his life and I feel his heart break, along with his joy.  

This book is complex, with religious, political, and social realities in the mix.  Reiter paints the dimensions of her characters with a very fine brush, capturing their shadows and scars very nicely.   This book does not shy away from anything, but it also doesn't make you wallow.  There were scenes that made me uncomfortable, in my middle aged, traditional soul, and the very next scene would remind me again of all of our shared human condition.  People are people, regardless of their trappings, we all want the same things of lives, to be safe, to know love, to be accepted.   You will cheer for Julian in his triumphs.  You will weep for him in his despair.  You will know him. 

Two Natures by Jendi Reiter is a good book with a really big story.  It is published by a small publisher out of Hilo, Hawaii, Saddle Road Press. 

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Angie Gallion is the author of Alison Hayes Journey, Intoxic, Purgus, and Icara. Her website is also the home of Gallion Picks Book Reviews of Small Press and Indie Press Writers."Bringing Attention to One Great Book at a Time." Follow her on Twitter @AngieGallion

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jendi Reiter is the Editor of WinningWriters.com 

Writer's Digest "101 Best Websites for Writers" and author of the newly released novel Two Natures (Saddle Road Press). See the book trailer at http://bit.ly/twonaturestrailer. 

"Intense revelations about what it means to be both Christian and gay...a powerful saga" --Midwest Book Review

"Things are not what they appear to be: nor are they otherwise."
Surangama Sutra

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ). This blog 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.

 

University Librarian Reviews Creative Nonfiction

Interweavings

Subtitle: Creative Nonfiction

Author: Carol Smallwood

Genre: Creative Nonfiction

Publisher: Shanti Arts Publishing, Brunswick, Maine, 2017

ISBN 978-1-941830-46-8

Paperback, $16.95, 162 pages.

Purchase from Amazon

Reviewed by Patti Gibbons originally for Amazon
Accomplished author, poet, and editor Carol Smallwood’s latest offering, Interweavings: Creative   Shanti Arts Publishing, 2017, is a collection of essays that offers readers a chance to view select moments of Smallwood’s life where she pauses, as a woman and as a writer, to reflect, analyze, and contemplate the interconnectedness of her earlier self, life’s universal moments, and the outlook that comes with the passage of time. Smallwood’s perspective brings strength ingrained in her as a member of her generation’s feminist movement, a theme that supports the overarching tone of the collection of essays.

Smallwood’s assembly of over forty essays are organized into seven thematic chapters, and work on the individual essay level, as groups of essays, and finally as a whole collection. Looking at the mundane, such as visits to the post office or to the library, Smallwood works in an accessible realm, one which readers of all backgrounds can relate to, but her voice filters her experiences through her vantage point, namely as a woman born in a pivotal generation, and through it rings a perspective that prompts readers to go beyond an interpretation of her stories as descriptive pieces, to a body of work that provides a faceted look at the small moments of life that communicates deeper meanings and speaks to experiences Smallwood narrates from her reflections across her lifetime. Smallwood shares her private thoughts in clear and uncensored terms, not for shock value, but as a reflective simplicity that has come clearer into view as she benefits from the long view of maturity.

Interweavings: Creative Nonfiction is a peek into a writer’s sketchbook, a collection of ponderings and meditations when the author encounters silently powerful moments in her everyday life, and rubs and massages them to tease out the emotional underpinnings and delineates how each speaks not only to the conversation at hand, but to deeper dialogues when examined in light of a lifetime of living and experience. The perspective presented in the individual essays is perhaps clarified by the writing process, and Smallwood, as an author skilled in many genres, is able to share feelings, sentiments, and wisdom with an apparent simplicity and economy of words, due in large part to her mastery as a writer. Smallwood’s Interweavings: Creative Nonfiction shows universal expressions of feeling.

Readers of all backgrounds could easily connect with the themes, and readers seeking to examine American life and the life of twentieth century women, in particular, would delight in the insight Smallwood provides, and the honest reflections she shares. Smallwood’s essays leak with quiet sentiment and encourage readers to approach her prose intuitively. Honest and uncoated, Smallwood evenhandedly leads readers through a series of richly described vignettes that are relatable and prompt readers to interject themselves into the circumstances she writes about, to experience situations first-handedly themselves, as well as on behalf of the author.

As Dr. William Brevda, Professor of English at Central Michigan University, aptly points out in the foreword, “What Smallwood has written is literature. It has staying power.” Through her descriptive yet careful voice, Smallwood candidly captures how she experiences daily life through the medium of language in a profound manner that reaches the level of lasting art.  

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Patti Gibbons works at the University of Chicago Library in the Special Collections Research Center. 

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ). This blog 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.

A Very Basic Primer for Reviewing Favorite Books Online

If you are an author you are an avid reader anyway, why not review books. Amazon and other online bookstores like BN.com that allow voluntary posts. If you come to TheNewBookReview' to find good reading, this review site is open to publishing your reviews (see the submission guidelines in the left column!)  but so are most online bookstores.  It only takes a few moments to add a thoughtful review on Amazon and other readers’ sites and it's fun to spread the joy of books.

Here's a quick study of how to go about it:
 Click on Amazon’s link that gives review guidelines. There is no point in wasting your time because of a minor infraction.

 Use a jazzy or thought-provoking title for your review.
 Type in your byline before you start your review.

 Type in a brief tagline (like a mini bio) at the end of your review but, unlike other sites, do not use your Web site address in it. Your review will be rejected if you use a Web site address—yours or any other.

 If you are an author, your When your review will automatically include a link to that lovely little Amazon feature, "Your About You Area" or your Author's Profile. That is, of course, if you've installed it using Amazon Connect.

 Edit your review. Copy, paste, rewrite and add one to BN.com as well.

 Amazon readers are more likely to click to learn more about you or your book if your Amazon reviews are attention grabbers.

 When possible, let the author know that you posted a review of her book on Amazon. It’s more than a courtesy. She will feel honored.

 If you cannot recommend a book, consider not posting. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we must post only rave reviews nor that noting weaknesses aren’t valid. It’s just that there is no point in slashing and burning a book an author has invested herself in.

I advise that authors use reviews to network with authors and publishers in The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't. There are a slew of other ways to promote and make connections in TFBP, too. Some that will help you get professional reviews.

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ). This blog 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.