Review: Emma by Jane Austen and Crystal Silvermoon

A Graphic Novel

Note: in writing this review, I’m assuming everyone knows the basic plot, either from reading the book, or seeing the movie. Well, one of the movies (personally, I prefer Alicia Silverstone and Paul Rudd in Clueless rather than Gwyneth Paltrow’s period portrayal).

Emma has never been my favourite Austen heroine—she doesn’t have Lizzie Bennett’s wit, she’s lacking in intelligence, and she’s a snob (e.g. refusing to allow Harriet to pursue a relationship with Mr Martin because he’s only a farmer, yet ignoring the fact Harriet is parentless and can’t expect to marry into Emma’s class). I’m also not sold on Mr Knightley as a romantic hero. Sure, he’s waited all these years for Emma to grow up, but isn’t there something a little creepy about marrying the guy who used to rock you as a baby?

But I needed a graphic novel for my 2015 Reading Challenge, and the manga version of Emma appeared on NetGalley (thanks to NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review). I’ve never read manga before, and it did take a little getting used to: it starts from the back, and pages are read right-to-left, not left-to-right like the American and British cartoons I read as a child. So that took a little getting used to, and I did have to re-read a few pages because I accidentally started on the left.

I enjoyed the story once I got into it. The adaptation is excellent, especially in the way it captures the essence of the story. The visuals helped bring Emma (and Knightley) to life in a new way, and I was struck again at how brilliant Austen’s writing is. Recommended.

This counts towards my 2015 Reading Challenge as a graphic novel.

Review: The Dubliners by James Joyce

A Book I Didn’t Read in School

I loved reading even as a child, and I always read all the books I was supposed to read in school, so this challenge was always going to be difficult.

In my first year of university, I signed up to English 101, Twentieth Century Literature. But I missed the first week of classes, which was when we were supposed to have read the first assigned book: Dubliners, which is a short story collection based in Dublin, and is set in the early years of the twentieth century (which was why it was the first book on the class reading list).

I made it to the second lecture, and all I can remember is the lecturer talking about Ulysses—apparently some of the characters in The Dubliners also feature in Ulysses (which I also haven't read). The result was the lecture made no sense to me, and I wasn't at all motivated to rush out, buy and read Dubliners.

Anyway, now I have read The Dubliners, and all I can say is I didn’t miss much. I’ve never been a fan of cliffhanger endings, and it seemed like all these stories ended just when they were starting to get interesting. Too many of the stories didn’t have a satisfactory resolution, to my mind. And too many of them didn’t have happy endings (hey, I’m a romance reader. I like happy endings).

The writing was understandably dated, with lots of old-fashioned description, telling, and omniscient point of view. But there were pearls in there. This quote sums up how I saw Dubliners:

The poor lady sang Killarney in a bodiless gasping voice, with all the old-fashioned mannerisms of intonation and pronunciation which she believed lent elegance to her singing.

I can hear that voice. It’s like the overacted movies from the 1940’s, before method acting was discovered, and it’s like some writing from newer writers, who haven’t read enough modern writing to know they are writing in a distinctly twentieth century voice.

There were also excellent examples of subtext, of subtly implying what he didn’t want to show:

He had never been violent since the boys had grown up.

There was an underlying racism that we’ve hopefully grown out of:

Is it because he’s only a black?

There were excellent examples of showing class and accent through vocabulary choice and word order:

The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you.

There was some writing which was strong in any time:

. . . too excited to be genuinely happy.
. . . laughing as if his heart would break.

And there was humour (although I’m not sure if this was intentional):

. . . a young man of about forty.

If only! (And this was written when Joyce was in his mid-twenties.)

No, I didn’t enjoy Dubliners in terms of the stories or the characters. But I can see why my university selected Joyce as one of the finest writers of the twentieth century.

This book counts towards my 2015 Reading Challenge as a book I was supposed to read in school but didn't.

Litfuse Tour + Reading Challenge - An Endless Christmas by Cynthia Ruchti

There's no getting out of Christmas now, despite Katie rejecting Micah's marriage proposal. Cozy up this holiday season with Cynthia Ruchti's new novella, An Endless Christmas. The Binder family celebrates every Christmas as if it were their last. Too many people, too much snow, and too little room should be a recipe for disaster. But sometimes too much is just enough. Especially when it’s Christmas.

Celebrate the holidays with Cynthia and An Endless Christmas by entering her $100 Target gift card giveaway!

 

One grand prize winner will receive:

• A copy of An Endless Christmas
• A $100 gift card to Target

Enter today by clicking the icon below. But hurry, the giveaway ends on November 30th. The winner will be announced December 1st on Cynthia's blog.

My Review

I enjoy reading Cynthia Ruchti’s online devotions, so was looking forward to reading this novel. While it had the same excellent writing and spiritual insight her devotions had, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d hoped. To start with, I felt like I’d been dumped in the middle of something as Katie Vale doesn’t accept her boyfriend’s marriage proposal, made in front of his entire extended family on the first day of their week-long Christmas celebration (we then backtracked, which made me wonder why we didn’t start with the backtrack and move forward).

There was also Katie’s personal insecurities which led her to turn down Micah’s proposal, and her unwillingness to talk about them:

“It frustrates me when I read a novel about a conflict between people that goes on and on when all they need to do is sit down and talk to each other for a few minutes. And listen to each other.”

I agree. This bugs me as well. So why did it take until the halfway point in An Endless Christmas for Katie and Micah to have this conversation? The other thing that bugged me was the Binder family: there were so many of them it became difficult to keep them straight, and they were too perfect. Yes, I know they weren’t actually perfect, but even their imperfections seemed perfect, which meant it didn’t ring true for me.

However, there were things we can all learn from the Binders, even if they are a little too perfect. The importance of family. The importance of God in our lives. The importance of finding joy where we are, of finding delight, of being satisfied with what we have.

Thanks to Worthy Books, Litfuse Publicity and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

This book counts towards my 2015 Reading Challenge as a book set during Christmas.

Review: One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp

I am not the target reader for this book.

I bought it a year ago on the recommendation of two friends, and I still haven’t finished it. I’m not going to: I picked it up again, and I simply don’t get the appeal. The writing is too esoteric, too literary for my taste, as though it's focusing on beautiful words at the expense of being understood. Some sentences I read and reread and still don’t know what they say.

I love the concept: Count your blessings (literally). Be thankful. Show gratitude. Live in joy. Live in communion with God. Live fully right where you are. But that, for me, should be simple. And One Thousand Gifts is anything but, as I continually find the language getting in the way of the message.

It has over a thousand five-star reviews on Amazon, but my opinion is firmly aligned with the 10% minority who give it one or two stars. Two stars on Amazon means “I didn’t like it”; one star means “I hated it”. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I hated it. As I said, I like the idea. My issue is with the execution, as one sentence that is simply beautiful is followed by one that might as well be written in another language. But I didn’t like it (which will still mean just one star on Goodreads, which has a different rating system).

Ironically, the one and two-star reviews show up as “Most Helpful” on the Amazon page, with thousands of “helpful” votes between the top three reviews. Perhaps this suggests just as many people dislike this book as love it, but as good Christians they follow the Bambi rule and don’t wish to write a critical review. I can see their point. I’m writing this review, but I won’t be posting it on Amazon.

Writing, to me, is about reading. It’s about expressing an idea in words your reader can understand, appreciate, apply. One Thousand Gifts has obviously spoken to thousands, perhaps millions, of women, but I’m not one of them. I just don’t get it. I don’t get the language, and I don’t get the appeal.

One Thousand Gifts counts towards my 2015 Reading Challenge as a book with a number in the title.

Review: Christy by Catherine Marshall

A Book Made into a TV Series

I’m not a big TV watcher—there are too many books to read! But I remember watching Christy on television in the early 1990’s, then buying and reading the novel the series was based on. I’ve now reread it, and conclude it absolutely deserves its place as one of the classic Christian novels. It’s also the book which inspired the Christy Awards, annual awards celebrating the best in Christian fiction.

Christy was first published in 1967, and is based on the story of Catherine Marshall’s own mother and her experiences teaching in Cutter Gap, in the Great Smoky Mountains in 1912. It’s told entirely in first person, from Christy’s point of view, and this gives the novel a contemporary feel despite its age.

At just nineteen, Christy is young to be given sole responsibility for teaching almost seventy children in the one-room school, especially when some of them are only a couple of years younger than she is. Yet after her initial settling-in period, she makes it sound easy, and the novel moves outward to look at the lives and beliefs of those Christy shares the Cove with. They have deeply held traditions and beliefs, and are resistant to change (some are still recovering from the changes introduced by the War Between the States, despite it being over for some sixty years).

It’s definitely a character-driven novel as we watch Christy settle into the difficult and remote life, and make friends with some of the local women. It’s also an almost first-hand account of life in this difficult and often depressing environment, but Christy (and Marshall) manage to look at most events with intelligence, discernment, and often a touch of humour.

If you’ve never read Christy, do. Catherine Marshall was one of the premier Christian writers of her time, and Christy is one of only two novels she ever wrote. Both Christy and Julie show her depth of understanding of things of God, and are well worth reading.

This book counts towards my 2015 Reading Challenge as a book made into a TV series.

Reading Challenge: Love Comes Softly by Janette Oke

A Classic Romance

When most people think of “classic romance”, they perhaps think of Pride & Prejudice, or Jane Eyre, or Georgette Heyer, or Dame Barbara Cartland (who I’ve never read!). But I thought of Janette Oke, because her Christian romance novels have become modern classics and broke new ground in the Christian fiction market.

The other reason I like Janette Oke, especially her Love Comes Softly series, is that she acknowledges romance isn’t just the hot-and-heavy falling in love. Clark and Marty, the lead couple in this first book, form a marriage of convenience after the unexpected death of Marty’s husband leaves her alone in the West, with nothing but a broken wagon and a few personal possessions. Clark is a widow with a toddler, and needs someone to care for Missie while he works his farm.

Over the course of thirteen books we see Clark and Marty marry, fall in love, raise children, watch their children fall in love and marry and have children … They also face bad times and tragedy, and I think that’s the real strength of Love Comes Softly: it shows that love is more than romance.

Love Comes Softly was first published in 1979, and this was noticeable in the way writing and publishing standards have changed (for example, Marty both thinks and speaks in double quote marks, which I found confusing at first as I was raised with ‘one quote mark for thought and two for speech’).

But the characters and the story have held up over the years, and Clark and Marty are still as lovable as they were the first time I read this … which must be over twenty years ago. And it’s been reread many times, especially before Kindle made new books so affordable. I own the whole series, and they have a deserved place on my keeper shelf.

This book counts towards my 2015 Reading Challenge as a classic romance.

Reading Challenge: It Happened at the Fair by Deeanne Gist

A book I own but have never read

Amazon Description

Gambling everything—including the family farm—Cullen McNamara travels to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair with his most recent invention. But the noise in the fair’s Machinery Hall makes it impossible to communicate with potential buyers. In an act of desperation, he hires Della Wentworth, a teacher of the deaf, to tutor him in the art of lip-reading.

The young teacher is reluctant to participate, and Cullen has trouble keeping his mind on his lessons while intently watching her lips. Like the newly invented Ferris wheel, he is caught in a whirl between his girl back home, his dreams as an inventor, and his unexpected attraction to his new tutor. Can he keep his feet on the ground, or will he be carried away?

My Review

It Happened at the Fair followed the pattern of Gist’s other recent novels, in that it’s more “clean fiction” than “Christian fiction”, and I’m sorry to see this (although at least this didn’t have the world’s worst sex scene, which is what her next book boasted. Authors, if you’re not comfortable writing a sex scene, don’t. A bad sex scene isn’t going to win you any readers, but may well lose you some).

There were other issues. I don’t like the “other woman” (aka the man can’t make up his mind) plot. There were a lot of misspelled words, meant to illustrate Cullen’s hearing problem. While I can see what the author was trying to do, I found it irritating. The novel seemed to end too quickly, partly because I could feel there were a lot of pages left, but these were actually the author’s notes (she did a lot of research, and it was excellent. I really enjoyed reading the notes).

The pictures of the Fair at the beginning of each chapter also annoyed me … not because of the pictures, but because the captions underneath turned out to be chapter spoilers (as an aside, she used these in Tiffany Girl  as well. I read that on my Kindle, and they were even more annoying on the Kindle than in the paper book).

The historical aspects of the Fair were interesting: automatic fire extinguishers, the Cold Storage fire, the debate between teaching deaf children lipreading vs sign language, the discrimination against the deaf. But being interested in the historical aspects isn’t enough. That’s not why I read fiction.

Deeanne Gist used to be one of my favourite authors because of her combination of excellent research, excellent writing, great plots and characters, and her ability to write Christian fiction that challenge the norm of “Christian fiction”. But while her last few books have been competent, they haven’t been memorable in the way books like A Bride Most Begrudging or Courting Trouble were memorable. The result, I’m sorry to say, is that she’s no longer a must-read author for me—one really good book out of the last four isn’t enough, not when her early books were all hits. I might read and review her next book, but I’m not going to buy it.

It’s not that It Happened at the Fair is a bad book. It’s not. It’s just not excellent or outstanding or memorable or a book I want to make all my friends read, and her early books were all those things.

This book counts towards my 2015 Reading Challenge as a book I own but had never read.

Reading Challenge: A Noble Masquerade by Kristi Ann Hunter

A book based entirely on its cover

The cover is beautiful! And what’s even better: the rest of the book lived up to the promise. This is easily one of the best books I’ve read this year. I think. I read it so quickly I might have to go back and read it again just to be sure …

A Noble Masquerade is Regency romance, my favourite historical period and one that is woefully underrepresented in Christian fiction. It’s also got a strong suspense plot, and it’s no secret romantic suspense is my favourite genre. The book is off to a good start …

Lady Miranda Hawthorne might titled and have been raised to be a lady, but she’s not a lady at heart. She has unladylike thoughts and sometimes does unladylike things, and she’s currently bemoaning her single state. For years, she’s been pouring her unladylike heart out to Marsh, her brother’s best friend since his school days. Not that she’s ever posted the letters. A single woman writing to a man is most unladylike.

But after one particularly stressful evening, in which Lady Miranda realises her shallow younger sister is going to eclipse her socially once she is “out”, Miranda finds herself in conversation with her brother’s new valet—his handsome new valet--and writing yet another letter to Marsh. Only the valet finds the letter and posts it, and a week later, Miranda gets a response from Marsh, the mysterious Duke of Marshington who no one has seen for nine long years. Oops.

Things soon get complicated as Miranda finds herself fighting an attraction to Marlow, completely the wrong man, and getting to know Marsh through his letters … and finding herself attracted to him as well. Then the suspense plot takes hold, and I don’t want to say anything more because that would be a spoiler. You’ll just have to read it for yourself to find out what happens.

There were times when it didn’t seem like A Noble Masquerade was the first novel in the series at all. It wasn’t as though I felt I was missing information, more that it felt like the characters had more history together than I was seeing on the page. When I checked Amazon, I found I was right: Kristi Ann Hunter also has a free prequel novella available, A Lady of Esteem. I obviously downloaded this immediately, and am planning to read it right after I finish this review ...

A Noble Masquerade will appeal to fans of historical romance, especially Regency romance. The writing is excellent, with plenty of plot twists and turns, quirky characters and plenty of humour, along the lines of general market author Julia Quinn. But it’s definitely Christian fiction, and the faith elements are handled especially well. Recommended.

Thanks to Bethany House and Litfuse for providing a free ebook for review.

This book contributes towards my 2015 Reading Challenge as a book based entirely on its cover.

Reading Challenge: This Quiet Sky by Joanne Bischof

Reading Challenge: Book That Made Me Cry

I actually “read” the Audible audiobook, narrated by Gail Shalan. She had a beautiful voice with a youthful, breathy tone, which made it easy to believe she was a teenager from Rocky Knob, Virginia, in the mid-1880’s, especially as the book is written in first person present tense, and entirely from Sarah’s point of view.

There were a couple of words I didn’t understand because of her accent—I worked out pecan, but others remained a mystery (in case you were wondering, in New Zealand we put the emphasis on the first syllable, so it’s pea-kin, whereas she pronounced it pi-can with a very short p). However, the voice and accent were authentic and well-portrayed, and not understanding the odd word didn’t affect my enjoyment of the story at all.

This Quiet Sky is the story of Sarah Miller and Tucker O’Shea, the oldest students at the one-room school in Rocky Knob. Sarah is new in school and behind in algebra; Tucker is a math whiz who is asked to tutor her. A hesitant friendship develops, hesitant mostly on Sarah’s side because of the rumour that Tucker is dying from some unknown cause. Those who have read Bischof’s earlier Cadence of Grace series will recall Sarah Miller is Lonnie’s aunt.

That was my first surprise, and it wasn’t entirely welcome. I only read the first book in the Cadence of Grace trilogy, because I didn’t enjoy the characters or the plot (the setting and the writing were excellent, but that’s not enough to make me read a novel!). Also, first person present tense suggests contemporary Young Adult fiction to me, and the cover also made me think this was a contemporary novella. So the time setting was another surprise.

No matter. I found I liked Sarah a lot more than Lonnie, and Tucker reminded me of Augustus Waters from The Fault in Our Stars. Actually, there were a lot of similarities between This Quiet Sky and The Fault in Our Stars (thankfully, not the awful support group), but certainly in the theme and tone. Of course, This Quiet Sky is Christian fiction set in the 1800’s, which means Sarah and Tucker have a whole different set of challenges, but they also have the one thing Hazel and Gus didn’t have: faith.

And this faith aspect gives the novella a depth The Fault in Our Stars lacks, even in the much-shorter length. Recommended … but not if you’re in the mood for a light-hearted and relaxing read.

This story counts towards my 2015 Reading Challenge as a book which made me cry.

Review: Red Like Crimson by Janice Thompson

A Book with Antonyms in the Title

(I know red and crimson aren't exactly opposites, but they clash, and should never be seen together. That's why I'm counting this as a book with antonyms.)

Adrianne left college eight years ago when she found out she was pregnant because she didn’t want to destroy Chris’s calling to serve as a missionary in Central America. She now lives in Philadelphia, and is beyond surprised when Chris visits her workplace one day as a member of a wedding party. For his part, Chris is shocked but pleased to see Adrianne again, as he never understood why she left college with no warning, or ignored his letters (like, posted letters. So quaint).

The persistent difficulty of a secret baby plot is the secret. There has to be a good reason why the woman never told the man she was pregnant, because many readers will find it hard to like a heroine who deliberately keeps that kind of information from a man, especially if he’s a good and likeable man (which we hope he is, because we want to see the couple together by the end). We need to see the heroine make at least reasonable attempts to contact the father, or have some major yet believable reason why she doesn’t.

And this is getting harder and harder with smart phones, email and social media: most people, especially young and new adults, own a smart phone, have an email account (that doesn’t change address even if they do) and are on some kind of social media (e.g. Facebook, Instagram). This makes it less and less likely that a woman simply wouldn’t be able contact her baby’s father. Red and Crimson got around this by being set in the near past—I found at the end the story was written in 2007, and the lack of mobile phones and the mention of a digital camera made it feel that old (and isn’t it ridiculous that only eight years ago feels ‘old’?). Despite this, the writing was strong enough that I never questioned the lack of email or social media as I was reading.

I got the impression from the ongoing “never the groom” comments that Red and Crimson was part of a series—it felt as though I was supposed to know Chris, Stephen and some of the other characters. But the story stood alone, and I never felt as though I was missing valuable character history in order to understand Red and Crimson. Nor did I feel as though I was being dumped with information about minor characters (something I have come across in other novels).

The theme of the story was forgiveness: God has forgiven us our sins, so we need to forgive ourselves and move on into the life God has planned for us. It’s a message many of us have heard before, but a message that bears repeating. It also reinforces the truth that we are called to be missionaries wherever we are placed, that we don’t have to be in some far-off developing nation to serve God (and while the author doesn’t specifically say so, some people serve God from their homes by writing Christian fiction).

Overall, Red and Crimson was an enjoyable if quick read that Christian romance lovers should enjoy. It was a sweet story with a plenty of conflict but not so much that it felt over-the-top (unlike the last novel I read …). There were a couple of typos (like Adrianne and Adrienne in the book description!), but nothing which interfered with my enjoyment of the story.

Review: The Advocate by Randy Singer

A book at the bottom of my to-read list

The Advocate is the imagined memoir of Theophilus, the man for whom the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts was written. It begins with a memorable opening line:

“I was fourteen years old when I learned what it meant to be crucified.”

The narrator is Theophilus, who is training to be an advocate, a lawyer, a profession which brings him into contact with many of the famous figures from early Christian history. The author truly brings the time and place alive (perhaps too alive at times). Historical characters include Pontius Pilate, Caligula, and Nero, as well as Jesus and Paul.

The first half of the novel was written entirely from the viewpoint of Theophilus, and is excellent. He’s an intelligent man with an engaging voice. He is well able to analyse and interpret the historic events he finds himself part of, especially as he is writing across a passage of many years. I found this brought the days of the early New Testament to life, and provided an insight into the culture and politics of the times.

The story then moves into a combination of first person and third person, and I didn’t find that worked so well. The writing was still good, but I found the movements between Theophilus and the other viewpoint characters weren’t as smooth as I would have liked. But it then switched again, and the final portion of the book was a powerful and challenging read. Recommended.

This book counts towards my 2015 Reading Challenge as a book from the bottom of my to-read list … because it was a paperback, and it was literally at the bottom of my pile because it was slightly bigger than most paperbacks.

Review: Jaded by Varina Denman

A Book with a Colour in the Title

I passed on this book when I first saw it available for review. The cover looked boring, as though it was about the Amish, or perhaps their Mennonite cousins. The blurb didn’t attract me, although it did make it clear that the book was set in small-town Texas, with no Amish or Mennonites in sight. It looked boring.

But then reviews started coming through, specifically a review from Andrea Grigg. She raved about Jaded … which convinced me that maybe I’d misjudged Jaded, and persuaded me I had to read it (and I’d missed the opportunity to get a review copy, so I actually had to BUY this one!)

I admit that at first I wondered what Andrea was so excited by. Ruthie Turner hates church and works two jobs to support herself and her depressed mother and desperately wants to escape the tiny Texas town of Trapp (although I didn’t pick up on that obvious pun while I was reading). Dodd Turner is the new high school maths teacher, and the new town preacher. The teaching job puts him in regular contact with Ruthie, who he is attracted to but who will barely give him the time of day.

It all seemed a bit mundane and annoying. Ruthie annoyed me because I couldn’t see why she didn’t just up and leave (if she can get two jobs in a town as small as Trapp, surely she can get a job anywhere). The people of the town of Trapp annoyed me because of their small-minded attitudes. And the people of the Trapp church especially annoyed me, for their judgemental and ignorant attitudes (they probably believe King James wrote the Bible).

But I persevered because the writing was excellent. It mixed first person (Ruthie) and third person (Dodd), which is something I’ve seen more novels fail at than succeed at. Once I got past the initial glitch that Jaded was written in both first and third person, both points of view flowed well. Ruthie was a particularly strong viewpoint character: I didn’t necessarily like her, but she had an engaging way with words:

“My uncle was pushing seventy and moved slower than a horned lizard on a cold day.”

Great image.

“I thought how nice it would be to keep inching back, crawling to a place where memories couldn’t meet me.”

That evokes an emotional response, a feeling of recognition. It’s strong writing.

“Loneliness floated over me like a snowdrift. Loneliness so thick I could smell it. Taste it. Hear it. Not even why my daddy left had I felt anything like it. Not even when the church shunned us. Not even when Momma became a ghost.”

Wow. One paragraph manages to pack in Ruthie’s entire backstory as well as several rounds of emotional punches. If only every novel I read had such good lines.

But it’s one thing to say the writing was strong. Great writing is nothing without a good story and engaging characters. And it took a while, but I did eventually connect with Ruthie and the other characters, perhaps a quarter of the way through. After that, I didn’t want to put the book down. It was that good. The writing may have pulled me in, but it was the characters who kept me there. And now I want to read the sequel, Justified.

Thanks, Andrea. I really needed more books on my to-read pile.

This book counts towards my 2015 Reading Challenge as a book with a colour in the title.

Review: Oslo Overture by Marion Ueckermann

Sheppard meets Angel

Anjelica Joergensen—Angel—is one of the few females in the male-dominated world of professional wingsuit flyers. Not only is it a dangerous occupation, it’s one which attracts daredevils with too little thought for safety. She’s lost her heart to a fellow wingsuiter once before, and isn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

Kyle Sheppard has travelled all the way from New Zealand to Norway with his wingsuit team to participate in a record-setting jump as part of Norway’s National Day celebrations. He immediately gets off on the wrong foot with the pretty wingsuiter, which is unfortunate as he is attracted to her. But he’s not interested in anyone who doesn’t share his Christian faith, and she doesn’t seem to be interested in him, either …

It’s great to see a Kiwi character in a Christian novel, especially one who is recognisably Kiwi without being cliché. Some might see the team performing the haka as cliché, but who’s going to argue with men performing a war dance, especially when the translation—it is death, it is life—is so apt for those participating in such a dangerous sport. For those of you who have never seen a haka performed, get thee to an All Black test … or visit YouTube.

It’s also great to see fictional women in unusual surroundings and occupations, and to see two characters for whom the Christian faith is a lifestyle, not something to be mentioned once or twice to qualify them for the Christian bookstore (sorry, but I’m getting a little tired of “Christian” novels which aren’t. If they aren’t, that’s fine. Just don’t publish them as Christian novels. Sorry. Rant over).

The main characters were likeable, and I wanted them to get together right from the start. There were also some good minor characters, especially Eric and Luke, and I’d like to see more of them … (hint, hint). The writing is strong, and the novella was an enjoyable if brief break from daily life.

There are a couple of characters in Olso Overtures who were in Marian Ueckermann’s previous novella, Helsinki Sunrise, but the two novellas are standalone stories (I haven’t read Helsinki Sunrise, but am tempted to add it to my ever-growing to-read pile. I’m told self-control is a virtue. When it comes to books, it’s not a virtue I possess).

I’m always a sucker for a good romance, especially one with an out-of-the-ordinary setting, and Oslo Overtures ticks all the boxes for what I think a Christian romance should be. Recommended for those who like extreme sports and exotic locations (whether participating and visiting in real life or vicariously through fiction!).

Thanks to the author for providing a free ebook for review.

This counts towards my 2015 Reading Challenge as a book set in another country. Yes, most books I read are set in another country but I figured Norway was a whole lot more exotic than my usual US/UK literary destinations!

Review: The Bones Will Speak by Carrie Stuart Parks

A killer with a penchant for torture has taken notice of forensic expert Gwen Marcey . . . and her daughter.

When Gwen Marcey’s dog comes home with a human skull and then leads her to a cabin in the woods near her Montana home, she realizes there’s a serial killer in her community. And when she finds a tortured young girl clinging to life on the cabin floor, she knows this killer is a lunatic.

Yet what unsettles Gwen most is that the victim looks uncannily like her daughter.

The search for the torturer leads back in time to a neo-Nazi bombing in Washington state—a bombing with only one connection to Montana: Gwen. The group has a race-not-grace model of salvation . . . and they’ve marked Gwen as a race traitor.

When it becomes clear that the killer has a score to settle, Gwen finds herself in a battle against time. She will have to use all of her forensic skills to find the killer before he can carry out his threat to destroy her—and the only family she has left.

2015 Reading Challenge: A Book that Scares Me

There are certain places around the world that simply aren’t safe. Top of the list in both TV-land and book-land is anywhere Miss Marple is visiting, because Miss Marple visiting a friend means someone is about to die. Other dangerous places in TV-land include most out-of-the-way villages in England (thanks, BBC), and Hawaii (we expect murders in LA, Miami and New York, but not in the paradise that is the Hawaiian islands). In book-land, we have the tiny English village where Drew Fathering lives, certain Amish communities (thanks, Vanetta Chapman), and that part of Utah where Carrie Stuart Parks has set her forensic thrillers: A Cry From the Dust, and now The Bones Will Speak.

As with any good thriller, there were several likely suspects (evildoers, as my daughter would say), plenty of red herrings, and that sense of impending doom for the characters that keeps me turning the pages in the vain hope that if I read fast enough, I’ll somehow be able to prevent whatever evil plan the villain has cooked up. That might sound delusional, but it’s indicative of the level of suspense the author has managed to achieve.

Gwen Marcy is a fascinating character. She’s a single mother of a rebellious teenage daughter (her husband divorced her while she was going through cancer treatments), and she’s trying to pull her life back together. She also has an interesting occupation: she’s a forensic artist, which means she takes skulls and reconstructs them to help identify the victim. It’s an interesting occupation and brings to mind Tim Downs and his forensic entomologist (an occupation Gwen could never have: she hates bugs). However, Gwen is a more well-adjusted character than Downs’s Bugman.

The one slightly odd thing about The Bones Will Speak is the way the story is told: it’s a combination of first person (Gwen’s point of view) and third person (the other characters). This is an unusual writing choice and it did jar me at first, but I forgot about it once I got into the story, partly because the story and characters were so compelling.

Overall, The Bones Will Speak was an excellent thriller, and while it’s not exactly a tourist advertisement for Utah, I’ll certainly be on the lookout for the next Gwen Marcy book.

Thanks to Thomas Nelson and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

(This counts as a book that scares me because any book about a missing child is scary. Because it could really happen.)

2015 Reading Challenge: The Gifting by K E Ganshert

A Book Set in High School

The Gifting is written by Katie Ganshert, who has previously written some rather lovely Christian women’s fiction and a couple of romance novels. The Gifting trilogy, using the KE Ganshert pen name, is her first foray into young adult literature, and self-publishing. It’s written from a Christian world view, but not to the point where the faith elements are pushy (at least, not at this stage. I can see they might get more obvious as the series progresses).

The Gifting is a young adult dystopian thriller, along the lines of The Hunger Games, Divergent, Twilight or Anomaly with elements of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The first-person narrator, Tess Eckhart, sees strange things no one else sees … but lives in a society when any hint of imperfection is frowned upon, especially if that imperfection is mental illness. And seeing things is definitely not sane.

When her visions force her family to move from Florida to California, she meets Luka, the most popular guy in school, who all the girls are hot for and who doesn’t date any of them (remind you of anyone, Twilight readers?). For some unknown reason, he befriends Tess (remind you of anyone, Twilight readers?), because there’s something they have in common (remind you of anyone, Twilight readers?).

Yes, I would have enjoyed The Gifting more if it hadn’t been full of things that happened to Bella. It also seemed a bit odd that it wasn’t clear when it was set: Tess uses a laptop and iPad, which makes the technology seem very 2015, yet other aspects of the novel suggest it must be set at least twenty years in our future.

Like Twilight, The Gifting has that combination of plot and pace which kept me turning pages and resenting when I had to put my Kindle down for unimportant daily tasks like work and sleep. But the writing in The Gifting is better, and Tess isn’t nearly as annoying as Bella. The first-person point of view worked well—it would have destroyed some of the tension if we’d known what Luka was thinking.

Overall, The Gifting was an excellent read, and if I didn’t already have 100+ books in my to-read list, I’d be clicking to buy the sequel. The second book in the trilogy, The Awakening, is already available and the third book, The Gathering, is currently available for pre-order.

This book counts towards my 2015 Reading Challenge as a book set in high school (finding one was harder than I thought!).

Review: Daughter of the Regiment by Stephanie Grace Whitson

Impressive as Always

I’m always impressed by Stephanie Grace Whitson’s books, by her writing, by her characters, by her historical accuracy, and by the way she manages to weave those things together to always produce a novel worth reading. I admit, Daughter of the Regiment wasn’t the easiest novel to get in to, at least for me.

It’s set in Missouri, and I’m not American so I had no idea where it was. It appeared to be in the South but it wasn’t a state that’s featured in other fiction I’ve read about the War Between the States (it’s really more West than true South, which might explain my confusion). And I was initially confused about which side was which—I’m used to North and South, not Confederate and Union (I read this before the recent fracas about removing the Confederate flag from whichever building it was on. I’ll know for next time. Confederate is South).

Anyway, it’s the early days of what later becomes known as the Civil War, the War of Northern Aggression or the War Between the States (depending on where you live and, I suspect, how old you are). Maggie Malone is left alone on the family farm in Little Dixie, Missouri, after her two younger brothers go off to fight for the Union. She goes off to search for them after raiders destroy the farm and she realises the local sheriff—a Confederate supporter—isn’t exactly proactive about rounding up the miscreants.

Maggie manages to make a place for herself in the regiment, and what follows is a fascinating insight into a different side of army life. There’s also an unlikely friendship with a planation belle, a love interest, and a subplot which addresses deeper issues of faith, love and family. The writing is excellent, and I very much enjoyed the story. Recommended for fans of historical fiction.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

This book counts towards my 2015 Reading Challenge as a book by a female author. Really, it should have been a book by a male author as I mostly read female authors!

2015 Reading Challenge: In Good Company by Jen Turano

Fun, fun, fun

Jen Turano is the author I save for those days when I want a lighthearted read, something that’s going to entertain and amuse me without getting too much into the harsher side of life. Some days I want serious fiction with a message. Some days I don’t. Those are Jen Turano days. She manages to write funny characters and situations without ever crossing the line into cringey, and that’s a huge achievement.

It’s Long Island, 1882, and Mr Everett Mulberry has recently become guardian to three children who run every nanny off in days. Miss Millie Longfellow is his only hope, which is unfortunate for him. Also unfortunate is Miss Caroline Dixon, his almost-fiancé, who doesn’t like the children and wants to send them to boarding school. Despite the problems he’s having, that’s not an option.

In Good Company is well set up: the nanny who can’t keep a job and the man who can’t keep a nanny. Add a little mutual attraction, a determined almost-fiancé, three unruly children, a gaggle of peacocks and sundry other four-legged creatures and the stage is set. There’s even some suspense around the death of the children’s parents—and I have to say the resolution of that subplot was quite unexpected.

The characters were excellent. Millie was similar to other characters I’ve seen, in that she comes across as scatterbrained to the uninitiated, but has a heart of gold and her seemingly unconventional methods of childcare not only tame the children but serve a larger purpose in the plot. Everett was the somewhat foppish male who wants to do the right thing but doesn’t know how. And the children. Well. A lot of authors get children wrong, with characters and personalities inconsistent with their ages, but Turano nails them, even though the children are every bit as idiosyncratic as the adults, especially Rosetta and her unusual pets.

But it’s not all fun. There are some serious messages hidden within In Good Company, particularly around how we are all valuable and how we need variety to teach us about life. As one character tells Everett:

“You’ve been surrounded solely by like-minded individuals—and that has not given you a proper perspective on life.”

It wasn’t talking about the Christian “bubble” many of us live in, but it certainly applies. We are not called to be of the world, but we are most definitely called to be in the world. And we need to be to gain that proper perspective.

Recommended for a lighthearted read with a message.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.

This counts towards my 2015 Reading Challenge as a funny book. 

Review: Advanced Twitter Strategies for Authors by Ian H Sutherland

Excellent ... but not for Twitter Newbies

Twitter is one of the major social networks, and with approximately eleventy-billion tweets sent daily (many of them containing #GoT memes and spoilers), it’s one authors need to know about. If you do know about Twitter and want to learn to leverage the power of the beast, read on. If, like Jon Snow, you know nothing, you would be better reading a beginner guide first—I recommend Belinda Pollard’s blog posts, or Twitter for Writers by Rayne Hall.

Advanced Twitter Strategies is what is says in the title: advanced strategies to build a substantial Twitter following in a short time by following Sutherland’s SHARP principles and using his recommended tools. He has personally built a following of over 30,000 tweeps in less than six months, and achieves this in 15 minutes a day. That’s impressive: I’m not interested in “advice” from people with fewer Twitter followers than I have.

Sutherland uses a range of tools to automate as much as possible within Twitter’s rigid anti-spam guidelines, and he takes the reader through each of these tools in detail: how to set up an initial account, which features to use and how to use them, and how to spend your 15 minutes per day. Down to the second. And it looks achievable …

Yes, there is a catch: the system will take more than 15 minutes to set up initially, and Sutherland uses the paid versions of some services. These services have a combined cost of $14.75 per week at current prices, so this isn’t a strategy you will necessarily want to follow if you don’t actually have something to sell. Like a book. He also points out the importance of having the basics covered with your book: excellent content, good cover, and good reviews. (What’s the saying? Excellent marketing will only make a bad book fail faster.)

Given there is a cost in implementing Sutherland’s method, you’ll want to monitor your ROI: are you selling enough additional books to justify the expense? (Alternatively, how much time will these tactics save you that you can then spend on writing your next book? I’ve heard writers complain that marketing takes *hours* each day. Does it? Or are they procrastinating?)

One thing would have made the book more helpful: I would have liked him to explain why he chose a particular service provider over the other companies offering a similar service. What are the pros and cons of SocialOomph vs Buffer as a scheduling service? Of Tweepi vs. JustUnfollow (now called CrowdFire) to manage following and unfollowing? I use Buffer and CrowdFire. Should I change? Why?

I would add one further caution: social media does not necessarily sell books. Yes, I bought this book based on a tweet from the author, but that is because I have seen his name in my Twitter stream and recognised him as an author who offers good content (in his case, #twittertips, following his own SHARP principles) rather than an author who fills my feed with self-promotion. People, Spam® is a food, not a marketing strategy.

While I’ve found it easy to connect with writers on Twitter, I haven’t found it so easy to find readers, especially readers of Christian fiction (readers of book marketing and writing craft books? I’ve found thousands of them). So if your target reader is busy on Pinterest looking at inspirational quotes, craft ideas or wedding dresses … this won’t help.

But if your target reader is active on Twitter and connecting with people through Twitter is part of your marketing plan, then I recommend this book. I believe it does what it says on the tin.

This book counts towards my 2015 Reading Challenge as a nonfiction book.

Review: Hidden Identity by Carol J Post

2015 Reading Challenge: Mystery or Thriller

I’m always a fan of a good romantic suspense story, and this one ticks all the boxes: intelligent heroine with a secret, handsome and godly cop, and more twists than I usually find in a full-length novel, let alone a shorter Love Inspired Suspense. Even better, I didn’t see the twists coming …

Meagan Berry faked her own death and moved to Cedar Key, Florida, to escape her ex-fiancé. But then her face makes the news after she rescues a man from a plane crashed in the water … a man who turns out to be a senator. Now strange things are happening, she’s convinced her ex is here to get her, and she doesn’t want to end up like his last fiancé.

Police Office Hunter Kingston is attracted to the town’s pretty new resident, but he’s soon convinced she’s hiding something (duh). And she’s not a Christian. But that doesn’t stop him wanting to protect her … especially when it seems someone is after her.

Meagan and Hunter were both excellent characters. Hunter’s only problem was that he was perhaps too larger than life, too perfect, but that fault is easy to forgive in a romance novel. Meagan was a more complex character as we didn’t find her secrets all out at once, which added to the tension. She had plenty of struggles, both personal and spiritual – growing up surrounded by abusive men meant she found it hard to trust men at all—even the almost-perfect Hunter—and she found it even harder to trust God. If He's really on her side, why do all the bad things happen?

Anyway, Hunter was the perfect hero for a woman with issues about trusting men and trusting God, and I enjoyed getting to know him and see the way he was able to both keep Meagan safe and show her that not all men were abusive. There was also one powerful scene where he did show himself as less than perfect, and I liked the way that threw even more conflict into his relationship with Meagan.

This is the second book in the Cedar Key series (following Deadly Getaway), but can easily be read as a standalone novel. It sounds like a great location for a holiday, as long as you don't mind all the murderous crazies the town seems to attract!

Thanks to the author for providing a free ebook for review.

Review: SPLASH! by Various Authors

2015 Reading Challenge – Short Stories

SPLASH! is a compilation of nine faith-filled romance novellas by indie authors from around the world. Yes, I know novellas aren’t exactly short stories, but I haven’t read short stories in years and Amazon had this listed in the Christian Short Stories category. I figure that means it counts.

It’s hard to review nine different stories by nine different authors. I’ve and enjoyed read previous books by the first three authors, but the other six were new to me. No matter. My previous knowledge of the first three set high expectations I hoped the others would match.

Overall my expectations were met. Yes, the writing and editing was better in some stories than others. Yes, I liked some of the stories better than others (with nine stories there is always going to be a couple I like more or less than the others, for whatever reason). Yes, the Christian element was stronger in some stories than others. But all nine had a solid Christian message, and it was good to see (read?).

I’m sure you don’t want to read my extended views of each novella, so I’m going to give you a whistle-stop tour of all nine, prefaced by one simple statement: this is a great light read, and you might just find a new favourite author.

His Perfect Catch by Narelle Atkins, set on the beaches of New South Wales, Australia. Mia is escaping Sydney—and her ex-boyfriend—and finds hew new next-door neighbour is Pete, her teenage crush. There’s a heap of attraction, but is Pete planning to move back to Sydney? I edited this story which means I’m naturally biased towards it, but I did enjoy Mia and Pete’s story, especially the location (it’s not New Zealand, but it’s close), and the fishing scenes (Mia might not be as high maintenance as Pete thinks, but flat shoes are still a stretch for this city girl).

Sweet Serenade by Valerie Comer, set in the wilds of Canada, in which outgoing tour guide Carly finds she is attracted to the brooding Reed, despite her cousin’s assertion that he’s a standoffish ice man. A fun story, and I especially liked the way Carly and Reed were able to stand up for themselves and their beliefs in a lake of lukewarm churchgoers. This is one of those novellas I’d like to have been longer, so we could see more of Carly and Reed sharing their faith as they fall in love. It’s the third novella in a series, but works just fine as a standalone story.

More than Friends by Autumn Macarthur, set near Edinburgh, as Catriona is desperate for a man to chaperone a church trip to the beach with her and a minibus full of disabled children. She turns to Alistair Murray, her brother’s best friend, a work colleague … and the teenage crush she never quite got over. Friends to more-than-friends is one of my favourite plot devices, and this one had me smiling as Ally and Cat worked things out.

Love Flies In by Heidi McCahan, set in Alaska as new Christian Tisha McDowell reconnects with her college nemesis Chase Binford, the guy she used to hassle for his Christian faith … and apparently kissed. Once. I always enjoy stories set in Alaksa—it’s the US with a twist—and this novella showcased the setting well. And, yes, there was some romance once Chase worked a few things out. Men. Eternally frustrating, but you can’t have a Christian romance without one.

Testing the Waters by Lesley Ann McDaniel, set in Crescent Cove, Oregon, where Curt Mason is working as a waiter to help out a friend, and meets the gorgeous and glamourous Theresé from Paris. Except she’s actually plain Theresa Reynolds from Portland. I was initially hesitant about this—I’m not a fan of lying heroines or heroes—but the author redeemed the plot and wove in an important point about being who we are meant to be in God, so I was more than pleased with the end.

The Lifeguards the Swim Team and Frozen Custard by Carol Moncado has an intriguing and potentially amusing title, but the story didn’t live up to the promise, partly because I never got a fix on where it was set, and I had some initial confusion about a couple of the characters. But it was fun once it got going, and my lasting complaint was it ended too quickly (an unfortunate side-effect of the novella!).

Time and Tide by Lynette Sowell, set in Chincoteague Island, Virginia, where fashion writer Karyn Lewis has retreated following the loss of her job. She reconnects with high school friend Brodie … but gets a shock when she meets his daughter. This wasn’t one of my favourite stories—I didn’t see enough chemistry between Karyn and Brodie, and the plot seemed too detailed for the novella format. It’s ironic, because Lynette Sowell is probably the best-known author in this set, but I found the other stories featured stronger, fresher writing.

Draw You Near by Jan Thompson is set in Savannah, Georgia, where Londoner Lars Cargill has come to find the mysterious woman in a painting by Abilene Dupree. This had potential, and parts of the story were really sweet, but Lars came across as more American than British (perhaps he’s really from New England). On the plus side, there was plenty of chemistry and a shared faith between Lars and Abilene, but that came to a head too quickly and the last quarter of the story dragged. A lot.

Orphaned Hearts by Marion Ueckermann, set in Zambia near the mighty Zambezi River and Victoria Falls. I’m a sucker for exotic locations, and my only experience of Africa is Egypt, so this story really attracted me. Lady Abigail goes to Africa to spend a year teaching in an orphanage … and to get away from an ex-fiancé she can’t ever see herself marrying. She meets handsome widower Simon, who runs a different kind of orphanage—an elephant sanctuary—but who has given up on God since the death of his wife in childbirth. No, the plot isn’t exactly unique, but the setting is and that made what could have been a ho-hum story rather special.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading these novellas, and have certainly found some more authors to add to my to-watch list. My ever-longer to-watch list. Some of these novels are part of a series of novels or novellas, but they can all be read as standalone stories.

Thanks to the authors for providing a free ebook for review.

I do have one free copy of the SPLASH! Kindle ebook to give away—leave a comment to be in the draw to win (winner drawn one week from the publication of this post).