Eat And Get Gas ~ Book Review

                              4 out of 5 stars  ~~  Book Review

A story of the tangled threads of a family.  Complex in its strife but always with familial love.  Like any other family, the threads are co-dependency, love outside of wedlock, unrequited love, addiction, illegitimate kids, and secrets.  Do you know a family without secrets?  I don’t. 

The only real villain in this story is the Vietnam War.  When young men or old boys (depending upon how you look at that war) were sent to their deaths or returned, alive but damaged beyond repair.  PTSD wasn’t a thing yet and was pretty much left untreated.   

Despite the sometimes heavy subjects, J.A. Wright’s writing is superb.  Easy-going, light, a delight to read.  I highly recommend this book to my readers. 
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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?           

Did you miss my interview with this author?
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A New Mystery Series from Grace Burrowes ~ Book Review

4.5 out of 5 stars   ~~   Book Review 

Grace Burrowes is well into her new series, The Lord Julian Mysteries.  And Burrowes is the VERY BEST at writing in the 1800’s. There is no one who comes even close to her accuracy and care with the period.  She evokes the people, the places, the animals, and the activities, for her readers to ‘see’.  Her flavor never wavers. 

 

Book One, A Gentleman Fallen on Hard Times, is a mystery to the last page.  I don’t know why but this reviewer had it in her head that these would be murder mysteries.  Not so (so far as I’ve only read book 1), and the stories are richer for it.  No spoiler alerts in the form of a synopsis from this reviewer. 

I particularly love Burrowes’ rich character development.  Lord Julian and Lady Hyperia are perfect protagonists. And Lord Julian Caldicott is a welcomed addition to the list of Burrowes’ characters. 

 I am so looking forward to reading A Gentleman of Dubious Reputation soon and recommend A Gentleman Fallen on Hard Times to all of my readers. Book Three is out!!

Did you miss my interview with Grace Burrowes?
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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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Trisha’s poetry gets a Rave from BookReview.com

Title: Butterflies & Bullets
Author: Trisha Sugarek
Rating:  Must Read!
Publisher: Trisha Sugarek
Reviewed by: Eric Jones, Book Review

I knew Sugarek’s work in the past from her collection of short children’s plays, Ten Minutes to Curtain, which involve the complicated dynamics of growing up. Flannery O’Conner said that if you live through childhood then you have enough material to write forever, and Sugarek has been there and then some. Her short work for the stage has put her in the perfect position to transition from play to poetry with her new book, Butterflies and Bullets.

Even the title denotes the strange duality between innocence and loss, and that theme is prevalent throughout the work. Mostly in free form, Sugarek keeps everything in a minimalist range, lending focus to intimate moments like a man playing his Mandolin beside a fire or the quiet landscape of the Serengeti just before rainfall. These truncated pieces of life feel like literary snapshots. These are Sugarek’s butterfly collection. Then, of course, there are the bullets.

The bullets are also set in free form, however they deal with much more happenings and are more narratively set. My favorite poem is one of these. “Hair Cut… Two Bits” chronicles the return of a barber from war-torn Europe in 1934 via a freighter into the Mississippi from the Gulf. The story, though scarcely a few pages, manages to convey the loss, struggle, and triumph of war given a single, near microscopic, experience. Not to mention that it’s all the more topical today, given the current mess in off the shore of New Orleans.

There are many that are like these, managing to say a lot with only a little and Butterflies and Bullets comes off splendidly. The collection feels complete and utterly whole, no piece of the pie excluded. Such close ups reveal that every place is connected. The ocean, if you look closely enough, looks just like rain on the blistering asphalt of your driveway. Shanty Irish curtains, at a certain scale, are indistinguishable from the sculpted wood of a Native American totem pole. This is the nature of Sugarek’s poetry, that when you pull back you see how different everything is, but when you put it under the microscope, a butterfly is really just a bullet with wings. 
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haiku, poetry, pen and ink art, poems, Japanese haiku,

Book Review * Saints of Swallow Hill by Donna Everhart

5 out of 5 stars     ~~ Book Review 

Donna Everhart knows how to capture the heart and mind of her reader from (practically) the first page.  Del and Rae Lynn couldn’t be two more different personalities, but the reader quickly empathizes or feels some affection (in the case of Dell) early on.  While Donna has her own unique voice she did remind me, at times, of a blended flavor reminiscent of One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow by Olivia Hawker, and Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. Lofty company, in my opinion.  

If you had told this reviewer she would be reading about ‘turpentiners’ next, I would have said, “Say what?”
It’s a fascinating, exciting story set during the Great Depression.  Desperate people using any idea just to survive with literally the shirt on their back and little else. 

If you don’t read another book this year, be certain you read Saints of Swallow Hill.  I highly recommend it!

Coming soon! An Interview with Donna Everhart!

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COMINGSOON!

 

Book Review ** Shaman’s Stone by H.S. Dunham

2 out of 5 stars

While I didn’t intend to review this book for content, it was such a perfect example of poor/bad formatting that I was compelled to review, at least, the formatting or lack of.

No header with author/title name
The book appeared to be sloppily formatted for an e-book and was then published as a paperback without any proper and industry-standard formatting. 
The photos on sporadic pages were of such poor quality (almost a grey scale) they should have been eliminated when proofing the book.
The story should do all the work. Crutches like poor-quality photography should not be needed. 

There was practically no dialogue. Which you will know if you have followed me for any length of time is a LARGE   ‘no-no’ in this reviewer’s opinion.  When there is dialogue (second half of the book) it also is not formatted correctly: new paragraph, justified to the far left. Even if only one line.  
A good writer should know how to write dialogue and move the story forward with it. 

The chapters and boys should have been interwoven, every few chapters.  The current book is: roughly the first half of the pages is Little Turtle’s story and the second half of the pages is Ben’s story.  There’s little if any tying it all together at the end.  Leaving the reader with two short (ish) stories. 

Little Turtle is a sympathetic character but he needs more fleshing out; him as a person with a history not always in the shadow of his chief-father and the powerful shaman. He is very likeable; humble and sweet natured. 

Ben is not sympathetic. He is a typical modern-day teen. Sullen and entitled. The writer should always be able to give the reader something to like about his characters. 
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Formatting  
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Book 1 in series

Book Review ** Kindergarten at 60

This is a delightful narrative about a long-married couple, safe, comfortable, and settled in their ways. They’ve both sort of retired. They still teach.  Then one day they step way…way…way…WAY out of their comfort zone.  THAILAND.

They finally arrive, after a laborious trip through red tape, to a far-flung Providence.  They have anticipated that they would still teach in the age group that they have so much experience in…teens to young adults. 

For years the author, Dian Seidel has been teaching English as a second language, and Iyengar yoga in the US. Sounds like one of the most adventurous things she does is open ocean swimming.’ Adventuresome’ at least in this writer’s mind. It would scare me to death!

My only critique is that the author spent way too much paper on the bureaucratic and endless paperwork to get into Thailand. I don’t think the reader particularly cares for a blow-by-blow description of each hurdle.  A couple of paragraphs would have covered it.  We got it!

I would have liked to have seen more pages dedicated to the family lives of some of the students. That would have made for good reading! 

I would recommend this book kto my readers.  It was charming. 
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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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