The New Book Review

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Angie Gallion Picks Bunche's New Novel for Review

Title : Mercy's First Semester
Author : WM Bunche
Author Website : W.M. Bunche – Author

https://wmbunche.com

Genre : General Fiction

ISBN : 978-0692830307
Reviewer : Angie Gallion, Gallion Picks Book Reviews

Review Blog : angiegallion

Amazon Purchase Link

angiegallion

Reviewed by Angie Gallion originally for Gallion Picks Book Reviews

The Review:

I would like to preface this review by telling you that I read this book twice. It was good, very good in fact, and it is profoundly relevant to the world in which we live. It is a book that gave me an expectation, and then completely blew me away by the experience it took me on. The book opens with the people who love our hero, Mercy, who are reminiscing about their experiences with him. I expected this to be a story about a troubled man finding his salvation, and in some ways that is exactly what I got, but there was more. So much more.

W.M. Bunche tells the story of a young man, home after two tours as a Cavalry Scout in Iraq, Joshua Mercier, "Mercy." Mercy is intelligent, passionate, complex. He suffers with PTSD and as part of his therapy he is encouraged to take a writing class at a local college. Much of the story is told through Mercy's writings for a creative writing class. Although the timeframe of the book actually lasts for only a period of months, just a little more than a college semester, the story that is told goes far back into Mercy's childhood. We are with Mercy in Iraq, we know the people he knows and I feel a little PTSD for having walked with him through it. This book reads as an honest compilation of a life. I want Mercy to survive, I want him to succeed at finding the answers he needs, even as I understand that his psyche is fragmented, even as I understand that the there are no magic buttons. I desperately wanted to press one for him.

I don't want to give away how the beginning comes to the end, because it's a journey everyone should take, with an honest and open mind. I was heartbroken at times, as this novel unfolded, and Mercy felt every bit as real to me as if I had grown up with him down the road. This is not your typical war story, it's not your typical recovery story, it's not your typical reminiscent story. There is nothing at typical about this book. It is a book that should not be overlooked.

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

angiegallion

Angie Gallion is an author in her own right and reviews books for her own blog at Gallion Pick Book Reviews. She is also an avid tweeter.

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.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Contest That Could Help Authors Get an Agent

There aren't too many contests that can help you get a publisher or agent by including the honor they may bestow on your book in your query letter (and media kit!) Here is one I entered and won a couple of years ago that is giving my agent a little extra ammunition for by second novel, This Land Divided. Here is a little more about it from the sponsor, B. Lynn Goodwin, Managing Editor of http://www.writeradvice.com.

Curious about how your opening might sound to an agent or editor? Enter Writer Advice’s SCINTILLATING STARTS Contest for fiction, memoir, and creative nonfiction. Grab and hold us with your opening paragraphs. Send us up to 1000 words of your first chapter by 12/01/17.

We are known for our feedback, as you can see in the tan box at www.writeradvice.com, and would love to tell you what's working and what an agent might say.

Guest judges will be last year’s winners.If your work is shared on Writer Advice, you’ll be able to tell prospective agents, publishers, and book buyers that you were one of the winners of Writer Advice’s Scintillating Starts Contest.

A cash award of $300 will be split among those whose work is shared. The submission fee is $16.50. This contest is open to anyone who has not signed a contract for the book submitted.

Questions? Post them here or e-mail me at Lgood67334@comcast.net. We hope to hear from you soon.

Thanks,

Lynn

MORE ABOUT B. LYNN GOODWIN

Lynn is Managing Editor of www.writeradvice.com and an author in her own right including

Talent and You Want Me to Do WHAT? Journaling for Caregivers. Her newest book, a memoir, is Never Too Late: From Wannabe to Wife at 62, will be released in December of 2017. Learn more about her and her writing at blynngoodwin.com.

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Saturday, October 21, 2017

Tony Baker Is Blown Away by Coming-of-Age Book

Title : Purgus

Author : Angie Gallion

Genre : General Fiction/Coming of Age

ISBN : 978-1539133810

Rating : 5 out of 5 Stars

Amazon Purchase Link

Reviewed by Tony Baker originally for Amazon

As I sat down to read Purgus, the second book in Author Angie Gallion's series, I was excited and filled with wonder. How could the next book in this series blow me away as did the first? Well, it did...not just a little but completely! The next in the life of Alison was so gripping I actually felt like I wanted to enter the book and be a part of it. As I stated in my first review of Intoxic, this Author me right next to her. The writer once again captured the true feelings and gut wrenching pain that those of us like Alison feel in our actual lives. Myself, and so many out there have lived this life described in this journey. I say that because it is a journey, just like mine. Thanks to this one-of-a-kind Author I have turned and faced my own demons that have haunted me most of my life, and I'm 62. Through her writing I have found healing for a wound I have carried since I was a young boy. As I closed the book at the final chapter I was completely at peace. This journey of Alison is formidable and shows you can turn your life around no matter what has happens to you. She is us and we are her. I can only imagine what is in store for Alison in the next book (Icara), but I'm about to find out! Well done Angie Gallion!

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Learn more about Angie Gallion here: angiegallion

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Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Jendi Reiter Reviews Em Jollie's Poetry

Field Guide to Falling
by em jollie
Website https://www.facebook.com/emjollie
Genre - Poetry
ISBN-10: 0997347201
ISBN-13: 978-0997347203
Name of reviewer - Jendi Reiter
Published in Reiter's Block, Jendi's blog -
Link to buy book - best to buy directly from emjollie@gmail.com but also available on Amazon

Reviewed by Jendi Reiter originally for her blog, Reiter's Block

Western Massachusetts writer em jollie’s new poetry collection A Field Guide to Falling (Human Error Publishing, 2017) is like a stained-glass cathedral window: even in scenes of suffering, the glorious colors give joy and uplift. Much of the book processes the aftermath of breaking up with a beloved woman, though at the end, the narrator seems to find a new beginning with another partner and a greater sense of herself as complete and sufficient. But this therapeutic summary can’t do justice to the mystical meaning of her journey. The speaker bravely walks up to the edge of everything we consider permanent, looks into the clouds swirling above the bottomless gulf, and finds a way to praise their ever-changing shapes. These poems imply that the value of falling–in love, out of love, out of Eden into a world of loss–is in how it challenges us to keep our hearts open, to say Yes despite it all.

Specificity keeps these classic themes fresh. A lesser poet would risk pathos with the extended metaphor of “How to Set a Firefly Free” as a farewell to a relationship where love exists but is not enough. This poem works because it is a real firefly first, a symbol second.

Firefly, suddenly setting aflame cut crystal hanging
from ceiling fan pull-chain. Greenish glow in each facet
while all night dogwood salts dark-wet sidewalk
flowers ripped gloriously open in rainpour.

Isn’t that a love poem all by itself? Those “flowers ripped gloriously open” already remind you of your own worthwhile heartbreak, whatever that was. The ending, which makes the personal connection explicit, only confirms what you felt it was about from the very first lines.

…If only
I didn’t know why lightning bugs blink.
If only I wasn’t so wise to the fact that your light
does not belong to me, will not ever.
If only I didn’t know that was right.

So naturally I just Googled why lightning bugs blink. Wikipedia says the trait originally evolved as a warning signal to predators that the bug was toxic to eat, but now its primary purpose is to communicate with potential mates. This dual meaning of sex and death confirms the speaker’s sad verdict on this love affair, which earlier in the poem she compared to the bond between a neighbor and his snarling dog: “[w]e said they were so mean they belonged together. Yet there/was something sweet about the belonging.”

jollie has one stylistic tic that I understand is common to the Smith College “school” of poetry, which is the occasional (and to my mind, random) omission of “a” and “the”. I’m sorry to say this is a pet peeve of mine. It creates a missing beat in the rhythm of a sentence, which distracts me. It’s fine to twist grammar to make a more compressed line, but I feel that this works best when the entire poem is written in an unusual voice, not when a single part of speech is excised from otherwise normal English.

jollie has kindly allowed me to reprint the poems below. It was hard to choose just two! Buy her book here.

Object Constancy

Sand can be grasped in a palm, yes. But wind
will take it eventually. Heart is body’s hourglass,
holding its own beginning
& end, its constant ticking tipping moment into
granular moment, for a while. You could take my skull
in your hands, but you will have to give it back
at some point. As will I.

Sure, Freud’s nephew came to understand
that Teddy Bear was just over edge of crib when it
disappeared from sight. But where is that Teddy now,
if not in some museum, curators desperately
fighting its inherent impermanence? Presence has to be
interrogative, doesn’t it, rather than declarative?
Dust is still dust. What I mean is: how
do I trust more than what I learned in the chaos
of childhood when since then I’ve been ingrained with loss
upon loss, like every human walking wings of light
through time?

Feather the paintbrush of my fingers across your jaw.
Feather the paintbrush of your fingers across my jaw.
We color each other for this moment. Just this one.
Then it’s done, days like hungry teeth devouring
endless could-have-beens into the finite sacred what-was.
I say: I love you (I have no choice)
What I mean to say: I let go (I have no choice)

****
A Few Desires, or How to Hunger

I want to be the malleable soap
your hands sculpt as you cleanse yourself,
as ordinary and as daily and as caressed as that.

I want to be the cutting board, that firm surface
you can lay edges against, that allows you
to divide roughage from nourishment.

I want to be the pillow case, containing all
the softness for resting your public face
and the slim canvas you play your private dreams onto.

Let me suds into joining the stream of water
down the drain, become the bamboo board
oiled so many times until finally, split, I am

placed on the compost pile. Let the laundry
tear my threads until, like the pillow case,
I cannot contain, but let every thriving thing seep out.

But in truth I can be none of these things,
just this tiny self loving you, accepting your gifts,
providing what sustenance I can in return.

In other words, use me up, until I am done with myself.

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Jendi Reiter is a poet, novelist, and principal of the essential WinningWriters.com where she often judges for their sponsored poetry contests. She also blogs at Reiter's Block. Find quotations from Rumi in many of her signatures:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"There is a morning inside you, waiting to burst into light."
~ Rumi

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Friday, October 13, 2017

Joan Dempsey's New Novel Gets Raves from Reviewer Karen Dodd

A POWERFUL BOOK FOR OUR TIMES

This Is How It Begins, A Novel

by Joan Dempsey

She Writes Press, October 2017

ISBN 978-1631523083

Paperback $16.95; E-Book $9.95

Fiction: Literary, contemporary, political, LGBTQ

http://thisishowitbeginsnovel.com/

Get Your Copy Here

Reviewed by Karen Dodd, author of Deadly Switch: A Stone Suspense , originally for Amazon
5-Star Review

I absolutely loved this book! I literally couldn't put it down. At the same time, I didn't want it to end. Everything about the story was exquisite: the rich, beautifully developed characters, the simultaneous sub-plots (which were tied together seamlessly) and the obvious research that went into the writing. I couldn't help thinking how very timely this story is in today's political and social atmosphere.

I was fortunate to be an advance reader for Joan Dempsey’s This Is How It Begins, a novel about an eighty-five-year-old Polish American art professor, Ludka Zeilonka, her family, students, and a mysterious man whose memory has haunted her for sixty years.

The story, set in 2009, but with skillfully written bits of backstory, grabbed me by page four and never let up. Without slowing the pace, Dempsey takes the time to create multi-dimensional characters, as well as a strong sense of place and setting. Somehow, she has created characters and situations that could easily be defined as “good” or “bad,” without imparting judgment or suggesting to the reader how they should feel. Just the opposite; I found myself challenging my own tendency to see things as black or white. Besides entertaining us, the author’s uncanny ability to expose truly awful modern-day and World War II injustices, and yet remain unbiased, has kept me thinking about this story long after I finished reading it.

I recommend this book to anyone, regardless of the genre they might normally read. I’m normally a consumer of mystery/thrillers but This Is How It Begins has elements of literary fiction, historical fiction, modern-day political and social issues—and yes, it has a compelling mystery to it!

I am thrilled that This Is How It Begins has been accepted as a must-read for our book club this year!

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joan Dempsey
Author and Writing Teacher
THIS IS HOW IT BEGINS, a novel
m:	207-310-0365
w:	thisishowitbeginsnovel.come: joan@joandempsey.com

HEAR ME READ AN EXCERPT FROM "THIS IS HOW IT BEGINS"

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Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Malala Gets Reviewed--and Critiqued

Title: I Am Malala

Subtitle: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban

Author: Malala Yousafzai

Co-author: Christina Lamb

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

307 Pages eBook $9.99 paperback $11.99

ISBN 978-0-316-32241-6

Available at Amazon

Reviewed by Scott Skipper originally for his blog at ScottSkipperblog.com

The whole world knows that Malala is the Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban because she campaigned for girls’ education. I Am Malala is much more than recounting that gruesome event. It is a frank and accurate history of Pakistan, especially the Swat region and the Pashtun tribe. She is brutally honest about the barbarism of her people, particularly concerning the subjugation of women who are denied an education and forced to confine themselves to home and travel only with a husband or male relative. They often practice arranged marriages and sell daughters as brides to settle family blood feuds. Malala also reveals in vivid terms the dysfunction and duplicity of Pakistan’s government and army who, while claiming allegiance to the US and accepting billions of dollars, aided and abetted Osama bin Laden.

All this is very interesting and on the mark. Because Pakistan is supposedly an ally, we seldom hear the truth about this ruthless, backstabbing, hypocritical nation of tribal barbarians who possess nuclear weapons. We can see video of Taliban in Afghanistan herding women into soccer stadiums and shooting them in the head, or stoning women on the street. What we don’t see are videos of the same atrocities in Pakistan. Malala describes these outrages in an almost offhand tone and never once considers that the root cause of the problem is Islam. Despite her ordeal and having become a world-renowned proponent for educational reform, she faithfully accepts the repression of women, keeps the scarf on her head, and claims to want nothing more than to return to the Swat valley where her attempted assassin has become leader of the local Taliban. She tells about, when visiting Mecca, her mother bought a new burqa for the occasion. It can’t be both ways. One is either subjugated or not. She even sugar coats parts of the Quran, once stating that Mohamed “migrated” from Mecca to Medina. History tells us that the Meccans had had enough of him and ran his ass out of town.

I have to say that I am glad I read I Am Malala, but I can’t say that I ever warmed to the person. I also think that this book isn’t particularly well edited. How much the co-author contributed, I can’t say. The voice sounds genuinely Malala’s, but there are some places where a native English speaker might have suggested changes. It also bothered me that in her gushing admiration for Obama, she claimed that he rose from a struggling family. Struggling how? Is being raised by affluent white grandparents struggling? It’s a remarkable story that shines a light on a global crisis, but I’m not sure Malala Yousafzai actually sees the crisis.

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Scott skipper is the author of authorHalf Life, A Little Rebellion Now and Then, and numerous other titles. Learn more about him at:
Official Author's Website www.ScottSkipper.com
Facebook.com/Scott Skipper
Twitter: @SSkipperAuthor--

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Sunday, October 8, 2017

How-To Book for Beginning (And Not-So-Beginning!) Poets

How to Write Classical Poetry

Subtitle: A Guide to Forms, Techniques, and Meaning

Coeditors: Evan Mantyk, Connie Phillips

Publisher: Classical Poets Publishing, 2017;

156 pages; $19.99

Paperback available on Amazon

Illustrated

ISBN-10: 1546853316

Submitted by Carol Smallwood, author of In Hubble’s Shadow (Shanti Arts, 2017) and In the Measuring (Finishing Line Press, 2017)

How to Write Classical Poetry: A Guide to Forms, Techniques, and Meaning is divided into three parts. The first is why great poetry is still useful today. The second is how to write specific forms such as the haiku, triolet, villanelle, rondeau, terza rima, limerick, rubaiyat, pantoum, sestina, rhupunt with examples of them as modern and classical poems. The third is ten of the most famous from such giants as Robert Frost, William Shakespeare with discussion about each poem.

As a writer and reader I’ve often wondered what exactly makes a formal poem or a free verse poem and how does a sonnet differ from a villanelle—and what about rhyme and/or meter? Or more basically, what makes meter? The classical forms of poetry in my experience are not often covered in creative writing classes so this guide is most timely.

An example of its usefulness is the section about the sonnet divided into four levels:

Easy: A Sonnet in 10 Minutes

Medium: Rhyme-y Poetry

Medium-Difficult: Poetry with Rhyme and Structure

Difficult: Sonnet in Iambic Pentameter and Careful Attention to Meaning

The guide includes a painting selected as a subject to write about with steps on writing with samples of each level of difficulty in composing.

“The Mechanics of Classical Poetry” a six- page discussion of rhyme and meter: terms to understand better such as iamb, trochee, and couplets, octets. “How to Write a Poem Like ‘The Raven,” a 11 page discussion about how the poem is written (deciphering the meter), a modern example, and writing one of your own.

The Society of Classical Poets, the publishers of the book, was formed as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization to foster good poetry as well as formal poetry in 2012. You can subscribe and have free formal poetry e-mailed to you on their website: http://classicalpoets.org. One of the editors, Evan Mantyk is a teacher and the President and Editor and they accept poetry, essays, reviews, and offer competitions, annual journals, and much more on their visually stunning, constantly updated site. The Society has members around the world with a physical location in Mount Hope, New York.

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Pages

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Angie Gallion Picks Bunche's New Novel for Review

angiegallion

angiegallion

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Contest That Could Help Authors Get an Agent

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Tony Baker Is Blown Away by Coming-of-Age Book

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Jendi Reiter Reviews Em Jollie's Poetry

Friday, October 13, 2017

Joan Dempsey's New Novel Gets Raves from Reviewer Karen Dodd

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Malala Gets Reviewed--and Critiqued

Sunday, October 8, 2017

How-To Book for Beginning (And Not-So-Beginning!) Poets

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