Book Review ~ The Physics of Relationships

 

2 out of 5 stars  ~~  Book Review

Even though this narration was supposed to be from the Mom, the author’s masculine voice frequently leaked through.    I can’t quite put my finger on the whys or hows but there is a definite masculinity to her/his ‘dry’, analytical tone. And  I never discovered her name.  

The narrator is the Mom figure in the story. Unfortunately, she is just that. A talking head. Her deeper feelings aren’t explored. The narrator talks at the reader with conclusions rather than a true exploration.  Is Chas guilty of ‘man-splaining’?  

Early on the family unit fell into being a clique.  Two husbands, one divorce, 1 male child, 1 female child, 1 best friend. 

Speaking of the BFF. Amy  moves in with Mom for awhile. She also is having troubles in her marriage.   They end up sharing the same bedroom and bed and eventually Amy makes tentative sexual ovatures to her good friend.  (This is an 8  on the ‘ick’ scale.) First of all, middle-aged BFFs would not share a bed. Except at a hotel, on holiday, and there was only one room/1 bed available and they were desperate for lodging.  (Guilty!)
Why do most men think that if two women are very close friends, they must have lesbian tendencies just under the surface of the friendship? 

This might have been a better book if the author had written in his own voice (as narrator) and told the story from the three men’s point of view. Greg, Lawrence, and Phil.
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Book Review – Catherine Ryan Hyde’s latest book

 

5 out of 5 stars

One of the most delightful things about this author is the reader NEVER  knows where she is going with her story-line.  And A Different Kind of  Gone is no exception.  
Catherine Ryan Hyde starts us off with a  search and rescue for a missing girl.  And ends us…..well…….I’m not known for my ‘spoiler alerts’, am I?
This was my favorite.” Wait! I say that every time I set one of her books down, finished.   Until the next one comes out (grin).

I can’t  give my readers  even a short synopsis because no matter what  I write, it would give something away.  But the story has everything!  Norma, Jill and Wanda are incredibly brave. The horses and dogs (two of my favorite things) swirl through the story and add such color and flavor. 

I recommend all books by Catherine Ryan Hyde but my top three favorites are this one and Allie and Bea and  Have You Seen Luis Velez?           

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Book Review ~ October in the Earth by Olivia Hawker

 

5 out of 5 stars

My favorite book of all time was Hawker’s One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow.   Until now.

Little did I know this author has more to write and stories to tell. The writing is exquisite in October in the Earth.  The characters are compelling and easy to love.  While I have never ridden the rails, myself, I was completely empathetic to the two lone women out in a cruel and mean world, during an era that suppressed women and crushed dreams and aspirations.  

As a rule, I skim ‘acknowledgments’ and ‘author’s notes’ but I wanted to know what Hawker was thinking when writing this great American novel.  So I read on…to discover that she started rewriting it (for the sixth time) just a few days after she had sworn off writing forever.  That’s how close we all came to never seeing this masterpiece. How close we came to losing this brilliant author.   Lucky for us she was compelled to return and write a little more. 

The Great Depression hit the 30’s of the last century with a devastating effect on the nation. Whole families take to the rails because, while dangerous, it is free transportation to maybe a better life…a life where they can, at least, feed their children. Fate or life…or whatever you want to call it…has driven Del and Louisa away from a relatively safe home life to riding the boxcars looking for any menial job. Sustenance for one more day.  Following the harvest, crisscrossing the nation by rail.  They meet by accident and forge a bond that nothing can break…maybe. 

Olivia Hawker writes compelling page-turners and usually, the ending is a surprise. In my humble opinion, this book replaces The Grapes of Wrath, by John  Steinbeck as the classic story of the nation’s struggles during the Great Depression. 

 

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Interview with Author, Donna Everhart (part 2)

Donna & her grandkids

Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?

DE. You’re “looking” at a procrastinator. I’ll come to my desk every day and have a word goal in mind (usually 1,000 words) and oftentimes do everything but start working toward that goal. What follows is GUILT as time ticks by. By the end of the day, if I haven’t made the word count because of lost time on something unrelated to my writing goal, there’s the inevitable slump in mood. My best days are when I make a concerted effort to get the word count in. Even if I don’t, and get, say, 500 words, I’m happier for it because I know the effort was honestly made. It takes discipline to not get onto social media or think of the other million ways to avoid doing what needs to be done to accomplish the end result – i.e., a finished book. What I’ve found works best, write first; everything else comes after – even laundry.

Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters?

DE.  Usually through an idea for a story. Sometimes a name comes to mind first, and I start to think about who this person would be, and what is it they want, what they’re good at, what they’re bad at, and if they have any enemies. It’s kind of all over the place. A messy, messy process.  

Q. What first inspired you to write?

Donna with hubby

DE. Reading stories that made a big impact on me were the main influence or motivator. The enjoyment I got from books where I wouldn’t stop reading for a long time, and when I finally took a break, I’d look around in a daze. I’d become so invested in that world, I think I was surprised I wasn’t “there,” instead of sitting on a couch in my living room. That kind of story made me want to create something similar. The idea of affecting a person’s mood, thought process, and emotions resonated for whatever reason.

Q. What comes first to you? The Characters or the Situation?

DE. It’s actually been both. It’s never always this, or that. For example, in my debut, The Education of Dixie Dupree, it was the character of Dixie. In The Road to Bittersweet, it was the situation – the 1940 flood in western North Carolina. It just depends. When I begin to search for a story, I’m often lookin g for a situation, but out of nowhere, a name will come to mind – and then I’m thinking, who is this? (I have to have a name before I can develop a character)

Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing?

DE. Absolutely. When I’m really in that zone, hours can go by and I’ll sort of come out of it and realize, oh, wait. I haven’t eaten. I’m often shocked half the day is gone. It’s kind of scary sometimes!  

Donna with her granddaughter

Q. What compelled you to choose and settle on the genre you now write in?

Donna with daughter

DE. I love, love, love reading stories set in the South where I’m from, and so I guess it makes sense I’d want to write about my culture and the region I love. Aside from the classics out there for Southern literature, like Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner, etc., it was reading the more contemporary writers like Kaye Gibbons (Ellen Foster) and Dorothy Allison, (Bastard Out Of Carolina) that jumpstarted my urge to pursue it. After I read their books and I was on the hunt for more stories like theirs. This was around 1987, or so, and as I began to discover these Southern stories which really resonated with me, I knew if I ever wrote anything, it would be something like this.

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Author, Donna Everhart ~ Interview

Donna Everhart is a USA Today bestselling author known for vividly evoking the complexities of the heart and a gritty fascination of the American South in her acclaimed novels. She received the prestigious SELA Outstanding Southeastern Author Award from the Southeastern Library Association, among many others.  Born and raised in Raleigh, she has stayed close to her hometown for much of her life and now lives just an hour away in Dunn, North Carolina.  

Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, or special space for your writing? Or tell us about your ‘dream’ workspace.

DE. I have an office upstairs that’s pretty secluded, which I love. It’s actually the same office I used when I was working way back when in the corporate world. Since I left that occupation in 2012 to write full-time, the one big thing I’ve changed is adding bookshelves. Lots of them! These shelves hold my inspiration and of course, my entertainment. The books in the pictures were placed right after the bookcases were built when I was still organizing, and boy, that was a lesson learned. I must’ve moved my stacks at least three times until I finally settled on read non-fiction/craft books to be read and my own work.

Q. Do you have any special rituals or quirks when you sit down to write? (a neat workspace, sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, a glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.)

DE. We’re all so uniquely different with how we approach writing, so, I suppose you could say we all have quirks. I don’t necessarily need a completely pristine

 workspace, but I don’t want it so messy it’s distracting. I like medium point pens, although I don’t (and never will) work in long hand. The pens are for taking notes when I have an idea I don’t want to forget. And, usually, around 4:00 p.m., I often need a break, and I’m prone to have some caffeine so I can catch a second wind. It’s usually coffee, but if it’s really hot, (I’m in NC – it gets pretty hot!) I’ll opt for slightly sweet iced tea with a squeeze of lemon.

Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?

DE. I found a body on the beach once. It was a young man in his early 30s who was pulled out by an undertow. It was right after 9/11 and eventually I found out he was fasting, and praying, and on that particular day, the day he was due to go back home to West Virginia, he went out for a swim and, sadly, drowned. I found out all of this through his mother who contacted me later. She was able to find my address from her other son who was a state trooper, and had access to information. She wrote to thank me for holding his hand until help came. Even though he was gone, I felt compelled to do that. It was kind of scary because his eyes were still open, and I SWEAR he could see me, but given other things going on with him physically, it was apparent he’d passed on. It was really tragic and sad.

Q. What tools do you begin with? Legal pad, spiral notebook, pencils, fountain pen, or do you go right to your keyboard?

DE. I go right to the keyboard. My writing is too messy, (note the remark about long hand above) and I think too fast (sometimes) to be able to write anything legible. I even have trouble with my grocery list and deciphering what the heck I wrote on it.

Q. Do you have pets? Tell us about them and their names. 

DE. I don’t have any pets at the moment. I used to have Yorkies. First, we had “the girls,” Bella and Kiwi. We tragically lost them in the summer of 2012, within three weeks of each other due to that whole fiasco with jerky treats. (If anyone is wondering what I’m talking about, just Google dog jerky treats made in China and FDA.) About 4 months later, in December of 2012 we got another little Yorkie we adopted who was 3 years old. His name was Snickers, but we renamed him Mister. (close in sound) He was a mess, really quirky, was NOT food driven – at all. He had some health issues like IBD, and chronic pancreatitis. We also tragically lost him in the summer of 2021. I took him to get his teeth cleaned and he suffered a catastrophic event. It’s a long story, but it tore my heart to pieces. Right now, we don’t have any pups, but I keep going out to sites to poke around and look. I know one day we’ll have some again. I’m thinking of adopting a bonded pair, if I can. I think that would be perfect.

Q. Do you enjoy writing in other forms (playwriting, poetry, short stories, etc.)?
If yes, tell us about it.

DE. The only other form of writing I’ve done is a very short form of flash fiction. I used to write these one-hundred-word stories where five prompt words were

Coming Soon!

provided and the goal was to write a complete story (beginning, middle, end) in 100 words. I’m so consumed now with writing to contract that I’ve not done this in years, but it was fun, and actually really challenging – more so than you’d think.

Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?

DE. You’re “looking” at a procrastinator.

Don’t miss part 2 of this entertaining interview with Donna next week. 

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Book Review ~~ Just a Regular Boy by Catherine Ryan Hyde

   5 out of 5 stars  ~~  Book Review

A Jewel.  Flawless, as is the norm for Hyde.  

A story of unconditional love and bottomless generosity of spirit.  
The characters are so richly drawn that writers of lesser talent or experience have cause to weep. 

This reviewer flirts with being bombastic, I know.  But I know with each book, [like the last], I crack open to the first page of the story, and I am lost in Catherine Ryan Hyde’s world be it runaways, old crotchety men, strangers coming together in unlikely, but totally believable situations, or in this case a “wild thing”. 
My readers know I abhor giving a synopsis of the story [ruining it for everyone]  and I will refrain once again. I will say this, ‘Just a Regular Boy’ will uplift you and make you happy that this author created these characters and you got to meet them!

This book is a must on your ‘books to read’ list. 
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Crow Mary by Kathleen Grissom ~~ Review

    4 out of 5 stars   ~~  Book Review

 

A much-awaited novel by Kathleen Grissom, who is well known and touted for her two previous books, The Kitchen House and Glory Over Everything.  While she never mis-stepped when writing the latter and, as far as I could tell, got it mostly, if not entirely right, there were a few things that made me itch to correct her while reading Crow Mary.  Maybe I’m overly sensitive as I myself lived on tribal lands (Makah Nation) as a young woman for over two years in Neah Bay, Washington. (Pacific NW.)

I had a problem with several nation lineage issues regarding Crow Mary’s knowledge of her own people. Wouldn’t Mary mention that the Crow People were originally a minor subset of the Sioux Nation and now were at war? The Crow had migrated from the Great Lakes area to the Dakotas and Montana.  Know that in spite of the fact that the Sioux were now an enemy of the Crow People?

Secondly, Nakoda is spelled in the book with a ‘D’ when the correct spelling and the most commonly used name is Nakota with an ‘t’. 

Mary is a proud Crow woman who really doesn’t take any guff off of any man, native or white.  Yet she refers to herself and to her tribe as “Indians”, a derogatory term invented by the white man.   I don’t know of any written history of where the People in question thought or spoke of themselves as “Indian”.  I think the author also missed an opportunity to weave in Mary’s nation’s full name that the white man bastardized it to simply, “Crow”. 

Please don’t misunderstand, this is a really, really good story, and maybe the average reader wouldn’t pick up on any of the things that bothered me but be that as it may…..I could not give the book the resounding 5 stars that I had anticipated doing.  

Spoiler Alert:  Don’t read the prologue. It’s a clear indication of how the book ends. (or one of the endings) Within the book itself once I read of the practice of the ‘wolfers’ using strychnine when trapping, I thought I knew how the book would end and that spoiled it for me somewhat. 

Did you miss my interview with Kathleen Grissom?
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Interview with Victoria Costello (conclusion)

Q. Are you working on something now or have a new release coming up?

VC. My new book comes out on June 13, 2023, and I couldn’t be more excited to bring it to readers. As mentioned, it evolved from the true story of my tragedy-plagued Irish American family I told in A Lethal Inheritance, but with me giving myself permission to ask, What if? What if the youngest family members dared to confront and reverse this legacy of violence and madness? The result is Orchid Child, a mix of history and fantasy inspired by Celtic folklore, along with science, and bits of mystery and romance. It’s a story told in three voices, one per generation, over a century.
Teague is the novel’s orchid child, who hears voices and talks to trees, but rarely people. Bullied back home in New York, he finds validation when his Aunt Kate takes him to West Ireland, where neo-Druids identify his strange perceptions as the gift of second sight, putting Teague at odds with Kate who sees his mental differences as a medical problem to be fixed.

Kate is the family success story, whose rising star in neuroscience has crashed in a sex scandal. She vows to salvage her career by taking on a study on the epigenetics of family mental illness in a rural Irish county. Only to discover she’s unknowingly come to her ancestral homeland, meaning she’s studying her own genes. As Kate’s research is blocked by hostile locals, Teague drifts further into his pagan fellowship, pushing Kate to confront the limits of science and the power of ancestral ties. Ellen is the apothecary’s daughter who will become Kate’s grandmother. Forced to flee Ireland for New York City after her beloved, also a holder of second sight, is accused of betrayal in the 1920 Irish Rebellion, Ellen lives to her eighties as the matriarch who struggles with the burden she’s accepted to keep the gift alive—until the family wound, past and present, can be healed.
I’m feeling gratified by the early positive reviews, the feeling that the story you’ve slaved over for ten years, is touching people, making them think and have hope when times are tough.

Q. When did you begin to write seriously?

VC. A weird thing about me is that even as a kid, when I kept a diary, or scribbled poems, I always took my writing seriously. It probably has to do with the fact that I’m a Scorpio and writing has always been my secret life. And that’s probably why it took until this year, when I’ve just turned seventy, to share my most secret story with actual readers around the world.

Q. Do you think we will see, in our lifetime, the total demise of paper books?

VC. I, for one, love paper books, especially hard cover, fine paper books, but I read e-books and listen to audiobooks more often

for practical reasons. I imagine I’m typical that way. So until we run out of trees, that will probably stay the norm.

Q. What makes a writer great?

VC. Oooh, hard one. Maybe the courage to bare their soul, regardless of what anyone thinks or says. The ability to find the right, and the fewest, words to express the ineffable.

Q. and the all-important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like for you?

VC. It all comes down to perseverance. Orchid Child took ten years from beginning to end. You have to want it more than anything else in your life during that time of writing, revising, querying, and promoting. There may not be room in your life while you have young kids to raise. That’s why I think a lot of women publish later. But I believe our books are richer for it.

Q. How have your life experiences influenced your writing?

VC. It’s all there in my writing.

Q. What’s your downtime look like?

Top of Mt. Victoria

VC. Walks with friends in our wonderful downtown Ashland, Lithia Park. Hikes in the hills. Cat play. I really don’t have what you would call hobbies. I eat but I’m not a cook. I read and watch endless Scandinavian and British mysteries, from Shetland to Inspector Morse, I find are the perfect diversion when my mental energies need a rest.

Q. Have you or do you want to write in another genre?

VC. Being new to fiction, I’ll stick with it for the time being as my main creative output. I’ve also been writing essays on craft and theory of fiction and especially autofiction.

Q. Note to Self: (a life lesson you’ve learned.)

VC. I’m good enough. Pretty enough. Smart enough. Why, oh why, did I, like most women, take so long to learn this? Being enough is wonderful. Try it!

Did you miss the beginning of this interview?
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H.W. ‘Buzz’ Bernard tells us more…Interview (part 2)

Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?

HWB. Little elves are not going to come in the dark of night and write your book for you. So: BUTT IN CHAIR, FINGERS ON KEYBOARD.

Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters?

HWB. I don’t have a magic formula for that. Since I write historical fiction, some of the characters I run with are real. Many others that I create and plop into historical situations are an amalgam of traits and backgrounds drawn from friends, family, and coworkers I’ve known over the years . . . many years. And a few are just flat out made up.

Q. What first inspired you to write?

HWB. I’m not sure. I always enjoyed reading. Then in high school I discovered I could write pretty well, too, and received some recognition for that. I was also sports editor for the high school newspaper. At the University of Washington, even though I was a physical science major, I took some courses in creative writing and managed to hold my own.

Q. What comes first to you? The Characters or the Situation?

HWB. Usually the situation, although I often develop the characters in tandem with the plot. In the end, it’s the characters that carry a story. If you don’t have 3D, believable people in your tale, nobody’s going to care about it.

Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing?

HWB. Not really. But I hate to leave a scene unfinished, so I’ll keep plowing through one until it’s complete, or until I find a logical break in it. It’s then I may discover it’s 4:30 in the afternoon, not 3 p.m. like I thought.

Q. What compelled you to choose and settle on the genre you now write in?

HWB. The history of WWII is packed with stunning tales that totally fascinate me. They are stories filled with facts and statistics, and strategies and timelines. But I want to bring these things alive. I want readers to realize that real people, just like them or their friends, lived these dramas. I want folks to pick up my novels and not just read about history, but experience it, live it. I want them to sit beside a pilot on a bombing raid, to experience the mind-numbing shock of discovering a Nazi death camp, to become lost in a Burmese jungle crawling with enemy troops, native headhunters, and blood-sucking leeches. I want my readers to keep turning the pages in my books long after they should have turned off the lights and fallen asleep. Or I want them to tear up because a character they were rooting for didn’t make it . . . or had something surprisingly good happen when all seemed lost.

Q. Are you working on something now or have a new release coming up? If so tell us about it.

Book signing

HWB. DOWN A DARK ROAD will be released May 9th. It’s a “gut punch of a novel” based on the WWII exploits of a prominent Oregonian, Jim Thayer. You’re side-by-side with Jim when, as a young infantry lieutenant, he and his platoon stumble into the very heart of darkness near the end of the war. The scenes are chilling and unforgettable, and Jim refused to discuss what he had witnessed for decades after. When he finally did, my wife—who had worked for Jim when she was a young girl—was one of the people he talked to. After that, she kept a scrapbook of write-ups about Jim. She showed it to me after our recent marriage (and after Jim’s passing) and insisted there was a great story there. I was reluctant to agree initially, but after further research and getting support from Jim’s family, I saw the light, and DOWN A DARK ROAD was born.

Q. Note to Self: (a life lesson you’ve learned.)

HWB. Always have a Plan B, and maybe a C and a D. You’ll need them.

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Interview with H.W. “Buzz” Bernard, author of Down a Dark Road

TS. “Buzz” Bernard is a best-selling, award-winning novelist. His debut novel, EYEWALL, which one reviewer called a “perfect summer beach read,” was published in May 2011 and went on to become a number-one bestseller in Amazon’s Kindle Store. In 2020, Buzz switched from writing suspense/thriller novels to WWII historical fiction. 
Buzz’s fourth WWII historical fiction novel, DOWN A DARK ROAD, is scheduled to be released on May 9th.
Before becoming a novelist, Buzz worked at The Weather Channel as a senior meteorologist for thirteen years. Prior to that, he served as a weather officer in the U.S. Air Force for over three decades. He attained the rank of colonel and received, among other awards, the Legion of Merit. Although a native Oregonian, Buzz lived for 35 years in Atlanta, and now resides in Kennewick, Washington, with his wife Barbara and their fuzzy Shih Tzu, Stormy . . . who doesn’t live up to his name.

Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, or special space for your writing? Or tell us about your ‘dream’ workspace.

Stormy in Buzz’s studio

HWB. I have a writer’s studio that is separate from the main house. It was built just over a year ago. It’s rather large since it has to accommodate books, photos, plaques, and general “stuff” that I’ve accumulated in over 60 odd years of work.

Q. Do you have any special rituals or quirks when you sit down to write? (a neat workspace, sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, a glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.)

HWB. Not really. But I do need a cup of coffee every morning to get my heart started.

Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?

HWB. Although I began writing short stories when I was in high school, I didn’t become serious about writing novels until I was 60 years old. My first novel, EYEWALL, was published when I was 70. So you can do the back-of-the-envelope math and figure out I’m continuing to write well into geezerhood.

Q. What tools do you begin with? Legal pad, spiral notebook, pencils, fountain pen, or do you go right to your keyboard?

HWB. I typically go right to my keyboard, although I’ll occasionally scratch notes on a writing pad if I’m doing research on the run. I love writing on a computer because I can edit as I go—trying this word or that, and experimenting with sentences of different lengths.

Q. Do you have pets? Tell us about them and their names. 

HWB. I have a 12-year-old Shih-Tzu named Stormy (who is actually pretty docile). He demands that he accompany me to the studio every morning. Not that he wants to be with “Daddy,” but because he knows he’s going to get a cookie from my stash in the studio.

Q. Do you enjoy writing in other forms (playwriting, poetry, short stories, etc.)?
If yes, tell us about it.

HWB. Not really. But I started my writing avocation by selling articles to magazines and Sunday supplements (remember those?) of newspapers. I wrote five nonfiction (trade) books back in the Middle Ages, but decided that was too much work for too little monetary return. (This, you see, was waaay back when “cut and paste” meant you literally had to cut and paste . . . because you were writing on something called a typewriter.) I gave up writing for awhile after the nonfiction books, but missed it. That’s when I decided to try my hand at creating a novel. How hard can that be? I thought. Pretty damn hard, it turned out. But in the end, it turned out to be a whole lot more fun than anything else, at least for me.

Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?

Part Two will post next week. Don’t miss it!
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To receive my weekly posts, sign up for my  On the home page, enter your email address. Watch for more interviews with authors.  March-Apr:   Joshua Hood, author of ROBERT LUDLUM’S THE TREADSTONE RENDITION  April: Author, H.W. ‘Buzz’ Bernard May: Victoria Costello.

A few BOOKS BY TRISHA SUGAREK