Fans of Jennifer Weiner won’t be disappointed by her new book, The Next Best Thing. And the book won’t disappoint readers intrigued by seeing Weiner’s name on bestseller lists or her other books displayed as staff picks at their local bookstores.

The story follows Ruthie Saunders as she brings her idea for a sitcom focusing on a young woman and her grandmother to life. The sitcom loosely follows Ruthie’s own story: a young woman trying to succeed in a male-dominated world while living with her grandmother. In real life, Ruthie was raised by her grandmother after her parents’ death. The two moved to Los Angeles so Ruthie could pursue her dream of writing for television.

The Next Best Thing tracks her journey from assistant to showrunner, offering readers glimpses behind the Hollywood curtain as Ruthie decides how much she’s willing to compromise with the network to get her show on the air. Along the way, Ruthie’s relationship with her grandmother continues to evolve.

Weiner has a gift for creating vibrant characters; even minor characters are fully fleshed out on the page. The small details she invests in her characters end up making them seem like people you may know, or, in the case of The Next Best Thing, people you’ve read about in tabloid headlines.

The book’s release date couldn’t be better timed. The Next Best Thing is just right for taking to the beach or poolside. The plot moves quickly and keeps readers interested all the way through. Weiner show more deftly avoids making the book a vapid read – one of those summer books meant to be forgotten once it’s read and left behind at the shore house. Instead, she delivers a story with characters facing real decisions and who, at times, make real mistakes. Ruthie isn’t perfect, and that’s one of the reasons readers will come to love her and hope that Weiner revisits this slice of her universe in future books. show less

Chances are, even if you’re not a fan of Star Trek (in any of its incarnations), you can reference Captain Kirk, “live long and prosper,” and “beam me up, Scottie” in conversation. Casual fans may remember the episode with the tribbles or visiting Vulcan. True fans know “beam me up, Scottie” was never uttered on screen.

Mark Clark’s Star Trek FAQ: Everything Left to Know About the Voyages of the First Starship Enterprise serves all three classes of fans. As he explains in his introduction:

Star Trek FAQ is primarily a historical account, with some analysis and criticism to provide perspective …. While it’s perfectly acceptable to read this book front to back, Star Trek FAQ has been designed for nonlinear consumption. Each chapter functions independently.

Clark’s self-assessment is on the money. Repetition can’t be avoided given how the book is organized. Fans of any stripe will be better served by dipping into sections that catch their eye from time to time. Not every section is for every reader.

Star Trek FAQ doesn’t take an academic approach, but it isn’t a tell-all book of feuds and dressing room hi-jinks either. Clark manages to hit both notes though.

He addresses Gene Roddenberry’s goals in creating the show and uses it to provide commentary on modern society and to answer why the show’s popularity carried on from the original series through four expansions of the universe on TV plus movies, books and a pervasive hold on pop show more culture:

Roddenberry’s vision of a future where the ancient evils of war, poverty, and racism have been replaced by peace, prosperity, and brotherhood comforted its audience during the turbulent 1960s and continues to reassure viewers today …. Until his vision becomes a reality – something that, sadly, is unlikely to happen any sooner than the twenty-third century – Star Trek will continue to serve as a beacon of hope.

The book starts with the creation of the show. For hard-core fans, the list of influences won’t provide any surprises, but Clark does a good job showing the specific pieces Roddenberry took from his muses. Bios of the original cast highlight their pre-Trek appearances, but misses the opportunity to explain why the actors were hired for their particular roles.

One of the highlights of the book is how Clark covers the episodes. Instead of a season-by-season plot summary, he divides his episodic discussion into villain type. Tribbles show up in the monster category, while “malignant life forces” highlights Redjac (“Wolf in the Fold”). Technological terrors and madmen round out the villain section. Vulcans, Klingons and Romulans have their own chapter. Other episodes are discussed according to the show’s setting: strangely familiar worlds, strange old worlds (the time travel episodes), strange new dimensions and strange new worlds.

The organization works well and may send you searching for reruns to spot connections you may have missed the first (or forty-first) time you watched the series.

One of the best sections covers Trek technology. It explains what the tech does, how it works and whether we may ever see it. It’s a great introduction for someone new to Star Trek and offers some laughs for longtime fans. For example, on when man will ever see the transporter come to life:

So when can I buy one? Right after you ride your unicorn over to Frodo’s house and borrow his magic ring. The transporter defies so many of the basic laws of physics that it is, essentially, a fantasy element dressed up as science fiction.

Some sections are for true die-hard fans who want every detail down to music rights and how score changes were needed because of rights issues when the show was released on VHS but restored for the DVD release. Casual fans may skip these sections.

At times, Clark provides a little too much information. A section on Star Trek’s competition covers Bewitched with details about the cast switch, influences on the series, spinoffs and the 2005 movie. The section on famous actors, scientists and politicians who were Trek fans may be interesting to some, but may seem like too much padding to others.

The FAQ ends flatly (famous fans precedes a bibliography) for a book that began by addressing Roddenberry’s philosophy behind the series. Perhaps Clark’s planned sequel, which will look at the movies and Star Trek: The Next Generation, will bring those opening thoughts full circle. For now though, Star Trek FAQ can be a book with which to dip your feet into the Star Trek universe or with which to add to your knowledge of Trek minutiae. show less

In Between You and Me, Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus turn their focus from the world of New York nannies to the fast-paced world of Hollywood personal assistants. Logan Wade leaves her boring Wall Street job to work for her cousin, Kelsey. Will Logan maintain her own identity while navigating her new world of paparazzi, helicopter parents and family secrets?

Readers who enjoyed McLaughlin’ and Kraus’ first novel, The Nanny Diaries, will be entertained by this one. The book moves quickly through an ever-escalating series of events, giving readers little time to reflect on the plot holes Logan nimbly ignores.

Kelsey ascended to celebrity on a music program for teens. Her own pop music career took off shortly after the show ended, with her parents responsible for all decisions and for pushing Kelsey to and beyond her limits. Between You and Me hints at the darker side of having no control over your life and living to support an image, but doesn’t go far enough. If anything, Kelsey’s attempts to take back her life lead to her inevitable downfall.

Logan and Kelsey grew up together and were close before Kelsey’s entry into Hollywood. Kelsey’s dad is a recovering alcoholic by the time the book starts and Logan has vague memories of a car accident. In Logan’s version of history, the accident led to Kelsey and her mom deserting Oklahoma for California and to Logan’s parents breaking away from that side of the family. McLaughlin and Kraus bring up the accident and show more the girls’ childhood often enough that readers know something more is there, but what they deliver doesn’t live up to its promise. Or maybe it’s too easily pushed under the rug again.

Where the authors succeed is in creating interesting characters readers will want to know more about. Unfortunately the characters make stupid decisions that the authors don’t always explain or too easily chalk it up to “that’s just wild Hollywood.”

The book’s fast pace also doesn’t let readers spend as much time as they might like getting to see behind the velvet rope. McLaughlin and Kraus have a knack for describing party scenes and backstage drama; the book would have been better served if they employed it more often. Perhaps slowing down the book and splitting into an introduction to the Wades and then a sequel detailing their downward spiral would have been a better approach.

As it is, Between You and Me is a light piece of summer fluff that entertains as long as readers are willing to suspend disbelief again and again. show less

Any introduction to writing or literature class will include the theory that most (if not all) books follow a pattern of escalating peaks that reach a climax before drifting off into a denouement. In a line graph, the crux of the book, regardless of the genre, would stand above everything else. The pattern of plot denotes a clear beginning, middle and end.

But what if a book chooses to disregard this tried-and-true formula? What if the book chops off the traditional beginning and end? What if the middle the book portrays would be more of a flat line in a traditional book’s graph?

If the book is The Odds by Stewart O’Nan, you’re in luck. And, under close observation, the flat line displays fractal properties of the traditional plot graph. Readers meet Art and Marion Fowler as the couple travels to Niagara Falls. A whole other novel could take place before page 1: The Fowler marriage and finances are already dissolving, with only legal steps remaining before both are wiped out, when we meet them.

The two return to the site of their honeymoon with what remains of their savings in a last-ditch attempt to regain financial solvency at the casinos. The plan is Art’s idea; Marion goes along with it because she doesn’t have a better idea. Art’s other idea is to win back Marion’s heart, to return to the passion of their younger years. Marion just wants the weekend to be over.

Like O’Nan’s Last Night at the Lobster, it’s easy to say not much happens in The Odds. show more Instead both novels offer a glimpse of a couple of almost ordinary days in the lives of ordinary people.

What other authors might treat as a peak to build tension — say, a bus accident — O’Nan uses to build character. Art wants to comfort Marion, but isn’t sure how it would be received given her constant rejections of intimacy. Marion wonders how the accident will delay their trip.

ONan tells the story from a third-person point of view that shifts perspective between Art and Marion. The transitions in perspective work seamlessly and serve to fill in some of the back story that led the couple to page 1.

While Art saw the divorce as a legal formality, a convenient shelter for whatever assets they might have left, from the beginning she’d taken the idea seriously, weighing her options and responsibilities—plumbing, finally, her heart—trying, unsuccessfully, to keep the ghost of Wendy Daigle out of the equation. How much easier it would be if Wendy Daigle were dead …. She’d lost her spot on the page and read the same sentence again, sighed and kneaded the bunched muscles of her neck.

“Want a neck rub?” Art offered.

“I���m just tired of sitting.” She shifted and went back to her book, ignoring him again.

These little rebuffs, he would never get used to them. Years ago he’d come to accept that no matter how saintly he was from then on, like a murderer, he would always be wrong, damned by his own hand, yet he was always surprised and hurt when she turned him down.

Art and Marion are masters of masking their reactions. Inside, they may question what the other is doing, imagine unsaid conversations and untaken actions. On the surface they remain calm, even though, and sometimes because, that calmness frustrates the other.

The Odds ends when the Fowlers’ weekend at the Falls does. What happens to them after the casino is left to the reader decide. O’Nan’s approach may not be the traditional peak-and-valley storytelling, but his quieter approach is worth spending time with. show less

Books captivate readers for a number of reasons. Maybe it’s a character that reminds you of someone you know or someone you want to know. Maybe it’s a setting that you’ve always dreamt of. Maybe the plot engages your attention fully, refusing to let go even as it twists and turns.

If you’re lucky, a book captivates you because of its author’s voice and its author’s awareness of how to build character relationships and how to maintain suspense. Readers of Matt Bondurant’s The Night Swimmer can consider themselves among the lucky.

Bondurant centers his story on an American couple who win a pub in Ireland. Many people might take the cash equivalent of the prize, but Elly and Fred make the decision to leave everything and everyone they know behind. As Fred restores the pub in Baltimore, Elly spends her time swimming in the waters off Cape Clear Island.

Elly has a minor genetic abnormality (an evenly distributed, thin layer of fat) that allows her to spend long amounts of time in cold water. Her communion with the ocean is one of the strong points of Bondurant’s writing, likely because he is a long-distance swimmer himself.

A side note – the locations in The Night Swimmer are real, and images are available on the web if Bondurant’s word paintings make you want more.

Another strong point of the novel is the bond between Elly and Fred. Bondurant doesn’t describe their love in over-the-top prose. He lets his characters’ actions speak for themselves. It’s show more clear these two love each other, which makes it slightly confusing when events of the novel begin to overtake their relationship.

Elly and Fred begin to feel the power of the Corrigan family which controls most of the commerce and culture of Baltimore and Cape Clear. The Americans are outsiders and Elly’s growing awareness of the undercurrents on Cape Clear make them more of a target. Fred retreats into a novel he’s trying to write and neglects the needs of the bar. Elly retreats into her swimming and getting to know Cape Clear. The two start to drift apart, but Bondurant never fully explains why.

It’s a jarring flaw in the novel. Other plot points go unexplained. For some of them, this works – Elly starts to learn about mysteries on the island and she may not need all the answers. Some of the island’s mysteries though cry out for explanations, at least for the reader.

Highgate, a blind goat farmer who becomes central to the story, may be more than he seems. As may the Fastnet lighthouse, which exerts a strange pull on Elly.

It’s to Bondurant’s credit though that these flaws are minor. The story is told from Elly’s point of view, and Bondurant never once drops the female perspective, a feat not all male authors can pull off. The mood he creates throughout The Night Swimmer pulls a reader in. His descriptions of setting and character are active. Readers experience the setting as Elly does, not as a laundry list of flora and fauna. Even when Elly befriends a visiting birder (who offers his own threat to her marriage), her exposure to the numerous species excites the readers, rather than becoming a mind-numbing list of bird names.

The novel builds exquisitely to a series of climaxes before ending on what may seem an abrupt note. Perhaps that’s an area for improvement in Bondurant’s writing. Or perhaps it’s just a sign of not wanting to find yourself on the last pages of a book. show less

As America expanded beyond its original 13 colonies, almost all new states and territories were added through treaties, purchases or by claiming land the U.S. government felt no one owned. Texans will tell you their state was an independent country before annexation although Mexico refused to acknowledge its independence.

Then there’s Hawaii. The chain of islands, annexed in 1898, was originally a series of island kingdoms before being unified in 1810 under Kamehameha I after a series of battles. Seven kings and one queen ruled the island chain before the monarchy crumbled under an influx of foreigners who invested heavily in the country.

Julia Flynn Siler’s Lost Kingdom details the end of Hawaiian independence in a fact-filled book that falls just short of a must-read.

The story of Hawaii’s downfall is readymade for Hollywood – kings and queens fighting for their people, villainous sugar-cane magnates, midnight coups, secret messages encoded in songs. The facts as Siler lays them out should be a more compelling read than they are. Perhaps Lost Kingdom’s shortcomings are only apparent when judged against other history books, such as those by Erik Larsen. And it may be unfair to judge Siler’s work against Larsen. The two writers have different styles, and a reader’s personal preference may determine which comes out on top.

Siler begins her tale of Hawaii before its last monarch, Queen Lili’uokalani takes the throne. The book explains the Hawaiian acceptance of show more visiting missionaries and lays the groundwork for what should be a peaceful future.

To the Hawaiians’ detriment, the foreign population brings disease for which the native population has no natural defense. The native population begins to decrease as Europeans and Americans increase their numbers. Marriages between Hawaiians and outsides further dilute the native population.

As children raised by missionaries come of age, economic forces begin to tug at Hawaii. The islands can grow sugar and foreign investors are quick to start building empires and making their fortunes. When the crown needs to borrow money, it is foreign loans that shore up the throne. And with those loans come requests for favors and political power.

Siler portrays an almost inevitable march to Hawaii’s subjugation to outside influence. By 1887, King Kalākaua is forced to sign what becomes known as the Bayonet Constitution. The new constitution moves power from the King to his cabinet and legislature. Foreign resident aliens could now vote as could Hawaiians who met economic and literacy requirements. Asian immigrants, who made up a substantial part of the islands’ population, saw their right to vote taken away.

Lost Kingdom wants to place Lili’uokalani as its central figure, but history dictates other figures take center stage before Lili’uokalani gains the throne. Siler is rightly fascinated by Hawaii’s queen (whose authorship of one of Hawaii’s most famous songs “Aloha Oe” is among her many accomplishments), but that fascination sometimes leads to a less detailed portrayal of other monarchs or the sugar barons. The book is not an objective look at Hawaii’s history; Siler tells the story from Hawaii’s point of view. Claus Spreckels, Lorrin Thurston and other foreigners are clear villains, motivated by profit and not caring about the Hawaiian people. After reading Lost Kingdom, it’s hard to argue otherwise, particularly in the case of Thurston who seemed to take personal pleasure in destroying the monarchy. One suspects another side of the story exists.

Lost Kingdom is a worthwhile read for those interested in Hawaiian history and culture, America’s expansion and how less powerful governments and people can be swept away by an economic tide. It’s not a perfect book and readers truly interested in Hawaii should seek out a more balanced book, but Siler’s story is interesting. show less

For some people, the time after college is a second adolescence. Responsibilities of exams and classes are over, but responsibilities of the real world haven’t kicked in yet as recent graduates look for a job in their chosen field or continue to struggle to define what they want to do when they grown up.

The latter is the situation facing Esther in Leigh Stein’s The Fallback Plan. Having moved back in with her parents, Esther feels very much in between stages of her life. She drifts for a bit before landing a babysitting/nanny job with family friends. The family’s youngest daughter died six months before the novel opens, and Esther’s job involves entertaining the remaining daughter, May, while her mother works on a mysterious art project in the attic.

Along the way, Esther indulges her previous college and adolescent side by hanging out in playgrounds smoking marijuana with childhood friends.

The book moves quickly, and Stein draws clear characters at crossroads in their lives.

The problem, unfortunately, is that it’s hard for readers to care about characters who aren’t sure whether or not they like themselves. Esther’s inability to move forward as an adult could be an interesting character trait if Esther seemed more invested in moving forward or had strong feelings about it either way. Instead she drifts, a little too willing to accept whatever is thrown at her without being upset or joyful over her circumstances. Esther doesn’t seem to have an opinion of show more herself and it’s difficult for a reader to care much about her either.

It’s telling that the stories Esther tells May to pass the time are more interesting than Esther’s own story. The original fairy tales center on a young panda girl whose travails mirror Esther’s. When Esther falls for Jack, one of her childhood friends, he shows up in the panda’s story.

How the panda experiences the crush is not as predictable as what happens to Esther and Jack. Also predictable is the relationship between Esther and May’s father.

Yet, despite the predictability, nothing happens. Esther has a safe pseudo-affair with May’s father, but it doesn’t progress to the point of danger. She sleeps with Jack, but the lack of emotional consequences or effect on the plot makes it another “meh” event in Esther’s life. Amy shows clear signs of being dangerously unhinged and Stein lays the groundwork for a big event that would threaten May or Amy that never materializes.

The novel ends as it began. Esther recognizes that her childhood is over, but doesn’t have a firm plan for the future or a firm grasp on who she wants to be. She’s grown closer to her parents and recognized she wants more than meaningless sex and affairs, but the overall impression is that the events of the novel weren’t that important to Esther, which makes them not that important to a reader. show less

Think about a toaster for a second. Doesn’t seem all that complicated. Could you build one?

If you had all the pieces – body, wires, levers, etc. – could you put together a toaster? Probably, especially if you found something online.

What if you didn’t have the pieces? Could you make them? Thomas Thwaites took that to the extreme with some inspiration from Douglas Adams and detailed his efforts in The Toaster Project. He doesn’t pop down to the local hobby store to pick up the electronics he needs. Nope, Thwaites smelts iron and makes plastic … from scratch. And here I thought my brownies were impressive.

The book’s a quick read, and I recommend it. It’s not just a story of processing copper and nickel. Thwaites touches on environmental issues of mining and waste and has fascinating conversations with professors, scientists and people who spent their lives learning how to do what Thwaites is trying to do in a couple of months.

If the book has a drawback, it’s that it’s too quick of a read. Thwaites could have spent more time expanding on the issues he encounters or profiling the people who help him. I wanted to know more, but maybe that would have changed the book into a dry sociology piece.

The Toaster Project points out how much we take for granted. A toaster is an incredibly complex machine with multiple components (about 400) that break down into even more components. I couldn’t make one. I wouldn’t even know where to start. Thwaites figures it out show more though and his toaster works … sort of. You’ll have to read it to find out the details. show less

The explosions of an action movie or the “Pow! Bam!” of a comic strip are always exciting, but, for most superhero fans, what really makes a successful hero is the story. Setting aside the science-fiction bent of teens with mutant powers or mad scientists exposed to chemicals, underneath the mask is usually a normal person. What made him (or her) reach for a cape and start prowling city streets at night?

Raymond Benson’s The Black Stiletto offers a case study to answer such questions. Eisenhower’s in the White House, and Judy Cooper escapes an abusive stepfather, only to find herself embroiled in romance, murder, the mafia and vigilantism in New York City.

Her exploits as the Black Stiletto (named for her favorite knife) make her a household name through the 1960s. The police don’t know what to make of her, but, since Judy keeps her identity hidden successfully, they never have a chance to catch her.

When the book opens, Judy’s son, Martin, is going through her belongings at their old home. Stricken with Alzheimer’s disease, Judy is now in a nursing home. Benson skillfully switches from the son’s point of view to Judy’s diary as the reader and Martin uncover his mother’s secrets.

Benson’s previous credits include several James Bond novels and several movie and video game adaptations. His experience writing action sequences works well in The Black Stiletto. Judy’s escapades have more than a note of comic-book/action-movie realism to them, but this works show more well within the context of the novel.

What doesn’t work so well is the introduction of a third point of view. This one is from Roberto Ranelli, recently out of prison and with a vendetta against the Stiletto. The information in Ranelli’s sections is important and of interest, but the point of view is jarring. It makes sense for Judy’s sections to be written in the first person – we’re reading her diary along with her son. And since Martin is the first character we meet, it is easy to accept his sections in the first person. But when Ranelli is introduced, questions about how readers know what he’s thinking start to interfere with the story. Benson may have been better served to write Martin and Ranelli from a third-person point of view, saving the first person for Judy’s diary.

The point-of-view problem is a small quibble (as is the unnecessary preternatural hearing, grace, etc Judy exhibits from puberty). The Stiletto comes across as a believable vigilante, albeit one in a mask and black leather outfit. Her motivations are straightforward and she has justifications for becoming involved in the crimes detailed in the novel. Yes, she ends up with an almost-cliched job at a boxing ring and some of her back story reads as if Benson worked his way down a checklist of genre tropes, but he uses the cliches and tropes well. The story and Judy’s character remain the most important aspects to The Black Stiletto. And Benson captures the voice of 15-year-old Judy.

Benson’s website announces a second book in the Stiletto series (coming in May 2012). If the first novel is any indication, the second will be an exciting read. show less

When the Grim Reaper is your only constant companion, life can be strange. That’s how it is for Casey Maldonado, heroine of Judy Clemens’ Grim Reaper series. Death and Casey have been constant companions since Casey’s husband and son were killed in a car accident that Casey managed to survive.

Flowers for Her Grave is the third book in the series. It finds Casey and Death in Florida, on the the run from police and the manufacturer of the car that killed Casey’s family. Explanations about how Death became Casey’s companion are absent, and readers new to the series may want to jump back to an earlier book for the background.

The background may not be all that necessary. All a reader needs to know is that Death hangs around Casey, serving as a combination of a Greek Chorus, Jewish mother and Cat-in-the-hat-esque observer. Death’s real purpose is to give Casey someone to talk to in order to provide exposition for the reader.

The plot centers around a mysterious death at an adult community where Casey, under an alias, finds work as a personal trainer. Casey plays Nancy Drew to solve the crime, all the while hoping the local police don’t discover her true identity and trying not to act on her growing attraction to one of the detectives. Readers can easily keep up with the twists and turns of the murder investigation, spotting red herrings as they appear and vanish.

Clemens tries to make the novel a mix of humor, pulp crime and the paranormal, with a dash of romance show more and female empowerment thrown in for good measure. As would be expected in the growing genre of supernatural chick lit, Casey doesn’t need a man to help her get things done. She’s a martial arts expert who’s inevitably smarter than those around her, except when the plot calls for her to forget something or overlook an obvious clue in order for the story to advance. The mishmash of genres works against developing affection for Casey. Her backstory is tragic, but the lighthearted tone of the books clashes with the few times Casey is reminded of her losses.

Death’s main character feature is sarcasm, and the other characters are virtually indistinguishable from each other apart from gender, occupation and name.

The end result is a harmless, lightweight novel, the sort you might buy in an airport, only to leave behind unfinished on the plane. Flowers for Her Grave has some entertainment value, but it doesn’t grab a reader’s attention and make you anxious to read the previous books or look forward to the next. show less

Tackling serious topics can be tricky for a young adult novel. Writers can easily fall into a trap of presenting one side of a debate thinly cloaked in character and plot devices. The novel can become a parody of the Afterschool Special and focus on its message rather than its story.

In Trouble by Ellen Levine is not one of those books. Although teen pregnancy is at the center of her story, Levine’s characters drive the story. The 1950s New York setting helps remove issues surrounding teen pregnancy from a modern reader’s world, but Jamie Morse, Levine’s 16-year-old protagonist, could easily eat lunch in any high school cafeteria today.

Spoilers ahead.

Readers meet Jamie during a phone call with her best friend, Elaine. Elaine needs Jamie’s help to sneak off for a weekend with her college boyfriend. Jamie’s views of teen sex are colored by her recent date-rape experience. As if that weren’t enough for Jamie to deal with, her father will be returning home from 11 months in prison. He was sentenced for contempt of Congress as part of the McCarthy hearings.

The McCarthy connection could serve as a novel on its own that may not belong in In Trouble. The conviction speaks to how Jamie’s father thinks and what his family supports means in the larger context of the novel, and it serves to flesh out Paul, Jamie’s would-be boyfriend and editor of their school’s newspaper. Those aspects could have been developed differently.

When Elaine discovers she’s pregnant, show more Jamie contacts an older cousin for information about abortions. Soon, her entire family is involved, although Jamie, like her father, refuses to name names beyond assuring her family she is not the pregnant girl.

A less talented writer would use the family discussions as a focus for the novel’s debate, presenting one (or several) sides of the argument. Because Levine has a gift for breathing life into even minor characters, the family discussions are natural. No character stands out as a straw man.

Jamie’s aunt reveals a long-ago abortion to Jamie in confidence. And In Trouble picks up a slight lecturing tone as Aunt Shelia tells Jamie that pregnancy doesn’t happen only to loose girls and premarital sex does not make Jamie’s friend a slut. The sentiment is echoed in Levine’s afterword, which also adds historical context for the book.

Elaine holds strong to her belief that her suddenly absent boyfriend will marry her and they’ll raise the baby together, but eventually her secret becomes apparent to her parents. Elaine is sent to a Catholic home for unwed mothers, a decision Jamie finds hard to understand.

Jamie’s difficulty intensifies when she discovers the rape has led to her own pregnancy. Since she never told her family about the attack, she feels she cannot tell them about the pregnancy. She tells Paul, who goes with her to a doctor for a pregnancy test. The two pretend to be married in order to receive the test.

After a failed attempt to get an abortion — the unlicensed abortionist discovers Jamie isn’t 18 — Jamie ends up telling her parents. Jamie’s family is the polar opposite of Elaine’s, and her parents help her get an abortion. Shortly after the procedure, Jamie learns Elaine was forced to give her baby up for adoption.

The book ends somewhat abruptly. Elaine and Jamie’s friendship is irrevocably changed by their different decisions. Jamie’s relationships with Paul and her father are at the beginning of something new or something to be mended. Levine doesn’t continue with Jamie’s reactions to the abortion, which works for the novel. Jamie’s reactions aren’t something to come and go in the space of a few weeks. Levine told the story she wanted to tell and leaves the next pieces to the reader’s imagination.

The publisher lists the interest level as ages 12 to 18. In Trouble may not be appropriate for the younger part of that age group who may not be ready for discussions the book is sure to engender. Jamie and Elaine represent different answers to teen pregnancy, although the novel comes down more on the pro-choice side of the abortion debate because Jamie tells the story. If Elaine narrated In Trouble, the book may have come down more on the pro-life side. Levine’s afterword details her own perspective on the debate.

More than being a pro-choice or pro-life book, In Trouble’s main message is one of support for and from family and friends. The characters behave like real teenagers of any time would, and the story flows naturally. show less

London in the mid 1850s. A manor house governed by a stern housekeeper while the Lord of the house slowly goes mad. A soldier who loses a leg upon his return from the Crimean War. Secrets and strange bumps in the night. Clothes and furniture that move when no when watches. And at the center of it all, a 15-year-old scullery maid, unaware of the secrets that surround her.

Michael Ford’s The Poisoned House trots out nearly every trope found in a Gothic novel. The target young adult reader may be new to the genre of haunted Victorian families and may not wince every time Mrs. Cotton, the housekeeper, threatens young Abigail Tamper, the book’s heroine. Older readers, however, will recognize the stereotyped characters and plot twists long before they occur. And if younger readers have been exposed to Algernon Blackwood or Henry James, they may wonder if Ford deserves a place among them.

The Poisoned House sticks to the Gothic formula without straying. This is both an asset and detriment for the book. The formula lays the groundwork for the story, and readers should have an easy time following along. The main plot twist carries enough foreshadowing on its shoulders that young readers can congratulate themselves for figuring it out ahead of the big reveal, even if the reveal depends on one character’s complete change in personality that may dumbfound older readers.

Abigail, or “Abi” as she is called by other characters, is an amalgam of every young Gothic heroine. She is show more plucky. She has hidden intelligence and taught herself to read from the books in her employer’s library (although she cops to having poor handwriting and her use of the word “pumps” to describe her footwear could throw older readers out of the story into a search for the words etymology). She enjoyed a special sibling-like relationship with the young master of the house (now the aforementioned war hero). She was the daughter of a servant and given special privileges while raised in the house she now serves.

Ford could have deviated from the formulaic road map now and then and elevated the story: Did the parlormaid have to become pregnant by her footman boyfriend; was it necessary for Mrs. Cotton to abuse her position as housekeeper and the lord’s sister-in-law so obviously; why did no one talk about the supernatural activities at the house?

It is when Ford turns his attention to the supernatural that the story takes hold of the reader. Are the strange events the result of a ghost or a human? A medium visits Mrs. Cotton and manages to convey a garbled message to Abi. A strange figure appears in a daguerreotype image.

Abi, however, is far too accepting of what she interprets as supernatural events. Even without a 21st-century cynicism, the scullery maid doesn’t question what is happening around her, even when events seem to tell her to mistrust everything she knew about the people with whom she’s spent her life. show less

http://tammydotts.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/review-a-year-and-six-seconds/

When her marriage ends, Isabel Gillies finds herself and her two young sons back in New York, living with her parents. Her memoir, A Year and Six Seconds: A Love Story, recounts her struggles to put the pieces of their lives if not back together again, at least together enough to take on a new shape.

Gillies’ voice is that of a close friend, and the memoir reads as if the reader and Gillies were catching up over a cup of coffee. The tone is engaging. Memoirs can often read as if the author is dumping all her dirty laundry onto the page for readers to revel in and for the author to take pride in. Although there’s something to be said for the “no shame” approach, Gillies takes a different tack.

She retells the initial days of moving back to the family home with the right mix of full disclosure and privacy. She cops to feelings of embarrassment about living with her parents and how it affects their lives, but doesn’t dwell too much on it. This is not a “woe is me” memoir. Gillies never panders to her readers, offering clichéd advice about surviving divorce or jumping into the dating pool again.

Instead, Gillies matter-of-factly describes the events of the year after her marriage ended, without excessive hand wringing or wallowing. She doesn’t whitewash events either. She’s the first to admit when she’s incapable of rising above feelings of jealousy, anger and complete sorrow. The show more emotions of the past are still fresh in her mind, but the perspective of time lets Gillies write about them with a slight sense of distance.

What comes through most of all is her love for her two sons. The move from a suburban college town in Ohio to Manhattan couldn’t have been easy for the family. But Gillies and her parents make the most of it for the boys. Whether it’s turning getting dressed in winter gear into a game with waiting chairs or finding the perfect nanny through Craigslist, Gillies writes with honesty about single motherhood. She has a strong support system and acknowledges it as helping get her through the year.

Details of the marriage’s end are left to Gillies' previous book, Happens Every Day: An All-True Story. A Year and Six Seconds spends its time looking at how divorcing parents try to remain a family across state lines and how Gillies is able to accept that reconciliation is out of the question and she wouldn’t want it anyway.

The six seconds of the title refers something a friend told Gillies – it takes six seconds to fall in love. As she explains, six-second love isn’t “a fleeting through about how someone is hot, and I’m not talking about a crush; I’m talking about knowing with certainty that you could spend your life with this person. In an instant, not only are you down the aisle, but you have had the babies, you have reached old age, and you are buried side by side under a tree for all eternity. In six seconds, you see it all. And you feel it; you feel the love that will make your whole life shift. Six-second love is real, but it doesn’t always get you to happily ever after.”

Gillies gets a second chance at six-second love toward the end of the memoir, about a year chronologically after her first marriage ends. This isn’t a spoiler: Gillies tells readers up front that there’s a second love in her life. But the memoir doesn’t follow Gillies on madcap adventures in dating. She talks about her first post-marriage kiss (a true New York moment) and some of the dates she went on, but they’re not important to who she is now and Gillies rightly leaves details out of the memoir. Some readers may want more from the book in this regard, but the love story of the subtitle is really about Gillies’ love for her sons and (as corny as it can sound) for herself.

If the memoir had ended before Gillies' second marriage or even before she met her husband, you have the feeling she and the boys were going to be okay. And you look forward to the next time you can get together over coffee. show less

When an early morning police raid meant to uncover evidence of financial fraud also uncovers involvement in child pornography, Sir Wilfred Hadda resists arrest and ends up in a coma for nine months. He awakens to find a rock-solid case against him and divorce proceedings initiated by his wife. Sir Hadda – Wolf to his friends – spends the next seven years in jail while his ex-wife marries his lawyer and denies Wolf any contact with his daughter.

Wolf meets regularly with psychiatrist Alva Ozigbo. At first, he denies the child pornography charges, but after several sessions, Dr. Ozigbo breaks through to her patient and he claims responsibility. Granted an early release, Wolf returns to his childhood home in Cumbria and begins an investigation into what really happened.

The question of Wolf’s guilt isn’t fully answered until near the end of Reginald Hill’s latest pageturner The Woodcutter. And the answers involve a shadowy government agency, personal betrayals, hidden motives and lots and lots of secrets.

Hill begins the novel with a quote from The Count of Monte Cristo, which should clue readers about the levels of deception from all sides. Three quick scenes follow, each depicting a different time and what appear to be turning points for the nameless characters. The scenes are riveting but quickly forgotten as the main novel picks up speed. Hill returns to the opening later, and clever readers will pick out connections.

Once in prison, the novel focuses solely on the show more cat-and-mouse game between Wolf and Alva. Wolf provides Alva with written pieces of his backstory until he achieves a breakthrough and ends what Alva sees as self-denial.

Upon Wolf’s release, the novel switches gears. Characters viewed only through his prison writings take their own turn center stage. McLucky, the policeman who guarded Wolf in the hospital, is now a private investigator Wolf hires to look into the crimes. A Russian mobster who fancies Imogen, Wolf’s ex-wife, becomes a tool for Wolf to use. Imogen and her monied family have their own secrets to hide.

The novel changes from a psychological thriller to a hardboiled crime story, with all the high and low points of the genre. Alva discovers she’s sexually attracted to Wolf, despite believing he’s a pedophile. Coincidences make for convenient plot points. The final plot twist delivered by Imogen seems to come out of nowhere and isn’t necessary.

But the overall writing is well done, and Hill takes his time setting up the final unraveling of the mysteries. Every character serves a purpose and moves Wolf closer to not only finding his answers but to revenge.

Hill knows how to create a complicated plot that doesn’t lose the reader’s interest. Even readers who figure out the mystery before the end will want to keep reading to see how all the seemingly disparate pieces fit together and how Wolf and Alva handle the answers they uncover.

The Woodcutter isn’t a book that will change your life or open your eyes to a truth about the human condition. It is, however, an entertaining mystery that you won’t be sorry you spent time with. show less

In 1994, nine English majors met for a night class at Jasper College. What made the night class special was its professor: Richard Aldiss, a convicted murderer. The nine students are given the task of discovering the identity of reclusive, renowned author Paul Fallows.

Years later, after the class resulted in Aldiss’ acquittal and the revelation of Fallows’ identity, the students reunite at a funeral. One of their classmates was murdered in an eerie imitation of the crimes of which Aldiss was accused.

Dominance by Will Lavender keeps both timelines in the air smoothly by focusing on Alex Shipley. In 1994, she’s the student responsible for solving the 1994 mysteries. In present day, she’s a Harvard professor. The reputation from her student days lead the police and Jasper officials to ask her to help solve the current crime.

That should be the signal that Dominance is not a piece of literature, that it’s nothing more than a Lifetime movie in book form. How Lavender juggles the two stories, however, makes it a little more than that, requiring a little more from readers expecting a James-Patterson-esque mystery to leave behind on the airplane or forget after reading. The final twist of Dominance makes it a novel readers won’t soon forget.

In 1994, the students don’t know what’s about to happen to them. In the present, they’ve all lived through it and don’t need to discuss it in detail. Lavender cleverly avoids exposition traps by doling out information almost show more on a need-to-know basis.

For example, the night class introduces the students to a game known as the Procedure. They refer to it in the present day setting as well. The rules of the game or how the students are involved remain unclear for a good while. Lavender explains it at exactly the right time, when readers are just about to give up caring about the game out of frustration. Granted, the game is odd and it’s hard to picture anyone taking it as seriously as its proponents, but, at the same time, it’s popular on college campuses where young adults may be more indulgent. That is, it’s popular on Lavender’s fictional campuses, although it’s not far fetched to see it catching on in reality.

The biggest problem with the game is its dependence on Fallows. Although the author is a central part of the mysteries, Lavender doesn’t do much to establish why he carries such importance in modern literature and why his works would captivate students so.

Aside from Alex and Aldiss (who although innocent of murder seems capable of everything else and more of which he’s accused), many of the characters blend into each other. The grieving widow, herself a former member of the class, appears on scene only to cry and serve as a brief red herring. That’s not a spoiler; it’s evident she’s never really a suspect. Another classmate appears to serve only as a sexual diversion. Alex’s former boyfriend is a little more fleshed out, but not fully enough to prevent some contradictions. Oddly, the minor character who does stand out is Daniel Hayden, one of the students. Hayden dies between 1994 and the current story, but his behavior in 1994 makes him someone Lavender should used as an example for how to create the remaining characters.

These flaws don’t matter all that much. Dominance remains an entertaining and suspenseful read. Lavender builds tension, increasing the stakes as the novel progresses. Readers can’t sit back and wait for the answers to the novel’s central mysteries to be handed to them. As Alex investigates each time’s mystery, every piece of information leads to the next, with clues intertwining across time. Sometimes the characters miss obvious connections, but there’s plenty for the reader to have to work to figure out. Much like Aldiss points his students in the right direction (or occasional wrong direction) and leaves it to them to identify and answer the correct question, Dominance expects its readers to do the same.

Not all answers readers come up with turn out to be correct. And the last pages of Dominance have the potential to cast the previous pages in a new light. A re-read promises a new experience.

Dominance is an above-average summer read. Pages will turn quickly. show less

The Map of Time presents three separate stories set in Victorian England. In the first, Andrew Harrington seeks to travel through time to save Jack the Ripper’s last victim, with whom Andrew was in love despite the differences in their social class. The second centers on Claire Haggerty’s desires to find a world where she belongs; she settles on the year 2000 when England has been overrun by robots. The final section has H.G. Wells determining which universe is real and which is merely a parallel universe destined to end abruptly.

If that seems confusing, you’re not far off. The three stories are tied together loosely by the illusion and reality of time travel and by the presence of Wells.

The ideas behind the novel are promising. The first two sections look at the ethics and paradoxes of time travel, while simultaneously rejecting it.

Whether Wells helps Harrington really save Mary Kelly, thus creating a parallel universe in which she and Harrington can live out their lives together, isn’t as important as the effect of believing in possibility. Likewise, Haggerty’s search for somewhere her 21st-century outlook is at home and her beau’s search for meaning in life doesn’t depend on his true identity or whether Haggerty visits the future. Much like Dorothy, the answers they seek were at home all along. To explain more about the ins and outs of the Harrington and Haggerty plots leads into spoiler territory.

Not that there’s much to be spoiled. The Map of Time show more doesn’t live up to its promise nor its book-jacket description. The characters are superficial and show no objection to being pushed into various set pieces by their overly vocal creator. Imitating the “dear reader” voice of some Victorian authors, Palma inserts himself as a commentator on action and character. At one point, he tells the reader he’s going to skip over a scene because it would be boring otherwise.

Wells is an integral part of Harrington’s story and pops in and out of Haggerty’s. He receives his own focus in the final section of the book where he, Henry James and Bram Stoker are told a time traveler is about to kill them and claim some of their works as his own. Wells is perhaps the most well-developed character of the novel. Not surprising as Palma has historical details to draw on. But the section feels underdeveloped and tacked on, as if Palma wanted a better hook to draw in readers.

He may not have needed one. The Victorian era is a favorite setting for authors, particularly those who dabble in time travel without jumping into steampunk. Like its cousins, The Map of Time makes sure readers revisit the high points of the time as if moving through a checklist: Jack the Ripper, Joseph Merrick, electricity, social mores. Some of these are relevant to the plot; others, mere waystations before the last page. Wells’ meeting with Merrick is the best nod to the genre tropes, with the conversation having an emotional resonance absent from the rest of the novel.

The main problem with The Map of Time isn’t that it’s a bad novel. Palma’s writing can be engaging, and the pages turn quickly. Readers looking for a great time travel story or Victorian novel or simply a good read, however, will be disappointed. Too often, Palma neglects what could be a good novel in favor of moving quickly to the next section or wrapping up the novel. Glimpses of a novel that could have been devoted to Tom Blunt’s life in the lower classes or one about Wells’ personal life may cause readers to wish they could find a parallel universe to read these (possibly) more rewarding stories. show less

The Fleming family retreats to a family cottage in the Outer Hebrides following the death of Nick Fleming in 1980s West Germany. Accusations of treason and a suicide note from the diplomat lead his wife to question how well she knew her husband while her two daughters struggle to define themselves and her young son leaves clues for his “lost” father to find the family. As the Flemings arrive on the island, a tamed bear escapes from his owner and hides out in a sea cave. A strange connection forms between bear and boy as Bella Pollen weaves a sleepy sort of magic in The Summer of the Bear.

The novel moves at a well measured pace: slow but designed to capture readers. Pollen creates a world to spend time in. When she brings the main plot threads together, it’s with a feeling of moving the characters along to whatever waits for them after the last page is turned.

Pollen’s chapters alternate perspectives among the Fleming family. Letty pieces together evidence of Nick’s treason while shutting herself away from her children. Georgia, the older daughter, accompanied her father on a trip to East Berlin and knows something about the secrets he was keeping. Alba, the middle child, uses anger to keep her feelings at bay. Jamie is the special one; his mind doesn’t work the way it should and it takes him a long while to understand his father isn’t lost, but dead.

The characters could be written easily as stereotypes. The two daughters struggle to emerge as fully realized show more characters, with only Georgia achieving that successfully. Letty and Jamie, however, are very real. Jamie’s mental disabilities – which are never categorized clearly – could have made him too precious, but Pollen grounds his differences in having Jamie just be a child, fighting with his sister and looking for proof that his bear is real.

Jamie and his father were supposed to go to the circus on the day Nick died. Among the attractions was a bear act, and when Jamie sees a truck advertising a performing bear on the family’s trip to the island, he decides the bear will help him find his father.

The bear feels a connection to Jamie as well, and Pollen checks in with the bear in short chapters that may be too anthropomorphic for some readers but can be explained by the bear’s time with humans. Pollen stops short of delivering magic realism, but doesn’t offer explanations for everything either.

The Summer of the Bear has some flaws. The answers to Nick’s treasonous behaviors seem like an afterthought as the novel increases tension about Jamie and the bear. What Nick may or may not have done gives the other characters something else to do. An environmental MacGuffin near the end of the novel provides an excuse for Letty to leave the family cottage and not much else.

But the flaws are minor or, at least, don’t negate the engaging story Pollen tells. The Summer of the Bear is a novel to relish and to mourn when the last page is read. show less

Inspired by the true stories of the first female doctors, The Heart Specialist promises a story of overcoming adversity and struggles to gain acceptance in a male-dominated world. The novel also promises a mystery and family drama as Agnes searches for clues to her father’s whereabouts who deserted the family after possibly murdered his mentally imbalanced sister. Unfortunately, the novel does not deliver on these promises or any of the other intriguing plots and characters Claire Holden Rothman introduces only to leave dangling or set aside in favor of another.

The novel begins when Agnes is a child and concludes when she’s in her 50s. In between, it pauses at what may be important moments in Agnes’ life before jumping several months or years to another moment even as it skips scenes Agnes alludes to later.

In some sections, Rothman provides detailed settings and secondary characters only to turn her back on them just as the novel’s world starts to feel real. Events move too quickly to get more than a fleeting glimpse of Agnes’ formative years at her grandmother’s home in rural Canada and then at a boarding school. Her time as an undergraduate college student is only mentioned as a stepping stone to her thwarted attempt to attend McGill University as a medical student. When reading these early sections, it can feel as if they’re delaying Rothman from getting to the meat of her story, yet simultaneously wanting her to slow down and explore the world’s show more she’s creating.

Characters other than Agnes are given short shrift. Her sister Laure is sketched broadly, so when Laure’s marriage or her medical problems draw her back into Agnes’ story, it’s hard to care about what happens to her. Agnes’ obsession with a former student of her father’s is equally hard to understand.

Relationships between characters are ill established or based on contradictory information, diluting any effect from what clearly should be important scenes and character moments. It requires too much time or flipping back to recall when a relationship became so testy or so familiar.

The love story Rothman introduces late between Agnes and her assistant pops up out of the blue, even including a digression into Agnes’ discovery of auto-eroticism, which stands apart jarringly from the rest of the novel.

The mystery that seems to set the tone for the novel and seems to serve Agnes’ raison d’etre – her father’s disappearance and possible crime – is wrapped up as an afterthought, no real answers given and Agnes (along with the reader) not particularly caring about the resolution.

These flaws are a shame. At times, Rothman shows a deft hand at drawing you into a scene. Agnes’ childhood leaves you wanting more, as does her time organizing the medical museum. Unfortunately, Rothman doesn’t trust her instincts and let you spend time there.

Ultimately, The Heart Specialist comes across as an outline of a larger, more complete and more interesting novel, as if Rothman had written key scenes and then neglected to go back and fill in the missing pieces and transitions. show less

This review originally posted at: http://tammydotts.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/review-before-i-go-to-sleep/

A woman wakes up. She doesn’t recognize the room she’s in or the man in bed next to her. Her first thought? Another one-night stand, this time with a married man. But in the bathroom she finds photos of herself and the man, some carefully labeled “Ben, your husband” and “Christine” pointing to a photo of herself. And the face that looks back at her from the mirror isn’t her own, or, rather, it’s her own face but much older than she thinks it should be.

This is how Christine Wheeler starts every day since an accident took away her memories and her ability to form new ones. A blank slate, dependent on her husband’s patience as he answers questions he must have answered thousands of times before.

As Christine begins to cope with that day’s discoveries, a cell phone rings. It’s her doctor, who tells her she’s been keeping a journal to help her remember.

Finding the journal, Christine begins to read about what her therapy uncovered and what few memories have come back, triggered by another photo or a visit to a place she used to live. The journal raises more questions than it answers. Is Ben lying to her about her past? If he is, is it to protect her from sudden grief over events long past or does he have another agenda? What led to Christine’s accident? Why did she write “Don’t trust Ben” on the front of the journal?

Told exclusively from show more Christine’s point of view, Before I Sleep by S.J. Watson pulls the reader into the disorienting world of amnesia. It’s generally considered difficult for a male author to write a female character well, but Watson’s Christine doesn’t suffer from a gender disconnect between author and character. Her mistakes and flaws build a picture of a real person, albeit one who has to build her own self-picture anew every morning.

After a protracted prologue (which serves mainly as an info dump – this is Christine; this is her condition), the story unfolds slowly, teasing the reader with glimpses of Christine’s past.

Christine’s struggles to put the clues together ground Before I Sleep in an immediate sense of "now." Repetitions of her routine could be off-putting, but Watson adds just enough new information to keep interest high. And not all of the information is accurate. A reader looking to figure out the puzzle before Christine may be disappointed: Christine’s returning memories aren’t always real. Her doctor explains to her (and the reader) that “confabulation” describes the mind’s attempts to invent details to make sense of things, to fill gaps in memory.

As the book progresses, the stakes for Christine get higher. Her struggle is no longer just about recovering her memory. Her life may be in danger. Watson’s pacing is almost pitch perfect as Christine connects more pieces of her past and events move toward a surprisingly action-packed conclusion. The ending may strike some as a little too perfect, a little too reminiscent of a Lifetime movie, but Watson’s last paragraphs put the story back on track and the novel satisfyingly concludes in the only way it could. show less

A young girl disappears in the woods, leaving no real clues where she’s gone or who might have taken her. She told her brother and cousin she was going to live with the King of Fairies. It couldn’t be true, could it? Except her brother had chased after fairy bells in the woods, too.

Fifteen years later, Lisa is still missing. Her brother, Sam, hasn’t gotten over her disappearance. His girlfriend, Phoebe, has her own suspicions about fairies. When they receive a mysterious call that leads them to Lisa’s Book of Fairies, they reunite with Sam’s cousin, Evie, at a remote cabin. Evie “knows” things, including that Phoebe may be pregnant. An old woman shows up at the door, singing Lisa’s childhood songs, only to stab Evie and run off, stripping off a disguise and revealing she’s a young woman. Phoebe and Sam give chase, but the young woman tells police the couple abducted her. Back at the cabin, there’s no trace Phoebe and Sam stayed there and no sign of Evie.

Once home, Phoebe and Sam discover the Evie they met at the cabin isn’t the real Evie. They find themselves drawn deeper and deeper into the mystery of Lisa’s disappearance. Was she taken by the King of the Fairies? Or was a more sinister, all-too-human villain behind her disappearance?

The bones of a good story lie beneath Jennifer McMahon’s Don’t Breathe a Word. What starts off as a young teen’s desire to believe in something magical, to be something more than ordinary pick up a sinister show more undertone as the plot progresses. As McMahon writes, “What if things happened to you—special, magic things—because you’d been preparing for them? What if by believing you opened a door?”

Chapters flip between Phoebe’s investigation into Lisa’s disappearance and 15 years earlier to Lisa’s attempts to contact the Fairy King. The chapters from Lisa’s point of view are stronger. McMahon does well when writing about the transition to being an adult while wanting to cling to parts of childhood like believing in fairies. Her teen and preteen characters are believable, making mistakes and assumptions that real teens would. The plot in these chapters is a bit muddy at times, but that can be excused by gaps in Lisa’s knowledge of her family’s history.

The Phoebe chapters are more problematic, with some inconsistencies in how characters act and one too many plot twists and reverses. A hint of deus ex machina in the form of a late-introduced character to provide answers doesn’t help.

As those answers come, the end of the novel feels rushed as information is dumped on the reader through a discovered diary. The full scenes McMahon was able to portray of the young Lisa give way to quick flashes and hints of scenes that may have played better if more fully developed. show less

A teenager with Jekyll and Hyde personalities. A young duke with mystical powers. A girl genius who can speak to machines. A rough-and-tumble boy with a heart and bones of metal. All joined together to thwart a plot against Queen Victoria.

The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross is set in a steampunk version of Victorian England. For readers not familiar with the steampunk genre, it (typically) refers to a world in which steam power is the main source of energy but more modern technology is available. In Cross' world, this means pocket-size telegraphs, clockwork robots as servants and steam-powered motorcycles.

This young-adult romance novel centers on Finley Jayne, the Jekyll-Hyde character. She never knew her father, whose scientific experiments passed on his genetic quirks to his daughter. Now, her blood teeming with Organites (organic nanobots that can heal), she struggles to accept the second personality inside her.

A chance encounter brings her to the attention of Griffin King, a young duke with powers and secrets of his own. King can access the Aether, a mystical energy from the spirit world. When the story starts, King has already gathered teens with other abilities and set up a sort of investigative service, continuing his parents' work.

The adventure story follows the teens as they investigate a series of thefts orchestrated by a man calling himself The Machinist. His talent is creating automatons with sufficient strength to kill a man along with a few other show more secrets.

As part of the Harlequin family, a romance is expected. Griffin helps Finley as she tries to meld her personalities without losing herself. Naturally, the two are drawn to each other, despite the complications of Finley's attraction to Jack Dandy, a mysterious underworld figure who is equally drawn to Finley. This triangle is a weaker part of the story, in part because Finley is the weakest character. Her motivations are unclear at times, and she is more likely to accept what others are telling her despite descriptions of being a strong character. Why Griffin and Dandy are drawn to her is muddy: that she's the female lead is the best explanation.

Better portrayed is the relationship between two secondary characters, Sam and Emily. Sam's powers lie in his strength and the fact that Emily, an engineering whiz, was able to save his life by replacing his heart and several bones with metal. All of this happens before The Girl in the Steel Corset begins. Sam's discovery of his cybernetic parts threatens to destroy his friendship with Emily before it can blossom into love.

Sam and Emily, along with Griffin and the other characters, come across as more real than Finley. Although the reader is dropped into what feels like the middle of an ongoing series (the book is actually the first in The Steampunk Chronicles), Cross' descriptions of these characters and their actions in the opening chapters give the reader a quick sketch of who these people are. Would Finley have as much beneath her skin.

As the group finds more clues about The Machinist's plans, the reader quickly puts together the plot before the characters do. Some of the clues are obvious, and it's hard to accept some of supposedly brilliant characters take longer to reach the same conclusions. The plot plays out largely as expected, but the pacing is good and there's some fun to be had in seeing how it all plays out.

In an afterword, Cross says she "wanted to write League of Extraordinary Gentlemen meets teen X-Men." She falls a short a bit. It's not Alan Moore's League she emulates as much as something between Moore's graphic novels and the maligned film. The steampunk elements are done well. Cross' inventions are machines that fit well into Victorian London. The abilities of the teens could have used some more explanation or background. Finley is the only one who's discovering what she is for the first time. The others' abilities change slightly through the book, but they don't seem surprised and have already accepted their differences. If Cross had spent more time detailing how Griffin, Sam and Emily adapted to their abilities or discovered them, the reader's relationship with these characters would only have been strengthened.

For all its faults though, The Girl in the Steel Corset is entertaining and enjoyable. Most of the characters create an impression and show promise for future books in the series. show less

Once upon a time, a little girl and her father wanted to know if they could read aloud for 100 nights in a row. When they reached that milestone, they decided to keep going. Eventually, when the little girl went to college, the nightly reading stopped after 3,218 nights.
The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared by Alice Ozma uses those nights of reading as the frame for an episodic memoir that covers life in the Bronzina household from when Ozma is in the third grade to present day.
Her father is a elementary school librarian, and his love of literature is evident the name he gave his younger daughter.
Ozma begins each chapter with a quote from a book she and her father would have read around the time of the incident that anchors the chapter: The Giver for a chapter about the death and funeral of her beloved beta fish; Charlotte’s Web for a chapter about watching spiders and summer storms on a porch; Dicey’s Song for a chapter about the awkward father-daughter conversations about a growing daughter.
A reading list at the end of the book details most of the books the two read during what the referred to as “the streak.” It’s full of classic children’s books that most readers have encountered at one point or another.
The episodic nature of the book is, in part, the book’s downfall. Ozma never spends enough time with pieces of her life that, in a different memoir, could serve as a centerpole. Her mother leaves the family, but it doesn’t seem to show more affect Ozma and her father much other than the two of them trying to figure out what would make an acceptable Thanksgiving dinner. Her older sister pops in and out of the book but doesn’t seem to be part of the family.
At times, this isn’t a problem. After all, Ozma is telling the story of her relationship with her father. At others, however, the episodes rush by before their importance in Ozma’s life is clear. The Reading Promise is Ozma’s first published work, and the pacing shows that. You want to stop her as she’s writing and encourage her to put more words on paper, to spend more time with an episode. The scenes are probably vivid in her memory, and her writing is engaging so readers want to spend more time with the scenes. Unfortunately, Ozma is on to the next one far too quickly.
One of the stronger points of the book is her writing style. In the beginning chapters, the voice is that of a younger child, capturing who Ozma was at the time. Sometimes, she can come across as precocious, one of the kids you only see in sitcoms, but by the end of the book, it’s clear that Ozma was an intelligent child and, although some of the dialogue may be a fantasized version of how she spoke as a child, it fits with the picture of who the author is.
Readers expecting a close discussion of children’s literature and how it affected Ozma may be disappointed. The nightly reading is just a framework for stories about growing up. What does come through is her father’s love of reading and the importance both he and Ozma place on reading to children and making a place for literature in the home.
Ozma ends the book with a sudden, almost academic paragraph on the need for a commitment to reading in modern life. It feels out of place; after she had done a decent job in showing the need, she doesn’t need to explain it. show less

The surprisingly hard-to-put-down Chasing Aphrodite traces how the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles built its impressive collection of classic artifacts along with its impressive reputation, only to see it crack in the wake of accusations of participating in an antiquities black market.

Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino build the book from their initial articles in the Los Angeles Times. The reports were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Journalism after the articles exposed the Getty and other museums for their roles in questionable collecting.

From the beginning of the book, Felch and Frammolino make it clear this is not a dry look at museums. “The museum world’s dirty little secret came to light amid revelations about pedophile priests in the Catholic Church and widespread steroid use in Major League Baseball,” they write. Two scandals most of their readers would have been hard pressed not to notice in the news. News about the Getty and other museums may have not garnered attention among people outside the art world at first, but placed into context with two other scandals, the Getty scandal acquires a new relevancy for most people.

As Chasing Aphrodite follows various pieces of art from discovery and looting through to public unveilings at museum galas, the authors introduce a plethora of characters. Equal attention is given to ordinary fisherman who pull a bronze figure from the ocean to billionaire J. Paul Getty himself and on to the museum show more personnel and Italian police investigators. The characters are real people, and readers walk away with a sense of the conflicting ambitions of each.

Even passages about the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and changing international law about importing and acquisitioning antiquities that could, in other works, be skipped over to get back to the “good parts,” keep the reader’s interest.

The Aphrodite statue serves as the touchstone throughout the book. The statue is believed to have been looted from Sicily, and experts now question whether it depicts the goddess of love or, through the convoluted family ties of Greek and Roman mythology, her cousin Persephone. Spoiler alert for those who didn’t follow the original articles or ensuing publicity: the statue is now at the Aidone Archaeological Museum in Sicily.

Time and again, Felch and Frammolino return to the Aphrodite statue, using her journey to follow the trail of black and grey market dealers and the surprisingly high propensity for some museum officials to forge documents of origin and even personally smuggle artifacts into the United States.

The Italian investigation into the key players undoubtedly took a long time (the book covers years) and was likely repetitive and involved more paper shuffling than action. It’s to Chasing Aphrodite’s credit that the investigation seems lively. Scenes where the key investigators discover photographs and artifacts in a warehouse seem lifted from a movie. A brief mention that two investigators develop a personal relationship heightens the life imitating art atmosphere that permeates the book.

For someone not working in a museum, the descriptions of internal politics and power don’t seem real. Flaws that stand out in fiction as clichés – hubris, narcissism, greed – are real human traits. The jockeying for power at the Getty and need to improve the collection seem to bring out the best and worst of the people involved. Arguments for acquiring questionable artifacts may start off well-intentioned but are overwhelmed by the mounting arguments against. Even then, some museum officials persist in clinging to their old ways more fiercely than before while presenting a public front of protecting the countries of origin. Unlike fiction, villains of the piece aren’t as black and white. The authors make it easy to understand how the collecting process began and why it continued for so long.

Inevitably though, the Getty and other museums had to change their policies. As an Italian archaeological director writes to True, “Do you have any idea how many archaeological sites have been plundered so that a single object can reach the market? How much scientific evidence we have lost? How many other objects have been destroyed? Acquiring from the market is a crime against science and against the cultural and historic patrimony of another country.” show less

In the late 1930s, Ernest Hemingway filed dispatches from the Spanish Civil War for the North American Newspaper Association. His experiences covering the war would inform his masterpiece For Whom the Bell Tolls along with other works. He would be one of the driving forces behind the documentary film The Spanish Earth, serving as its narrator and shaping the content.

Alex Vernon’s Hemingway’s Second War examines this critical period in Hemingway’s life and investigates the ripples it cast in his writing, his relationships and his politics.

Vernon is an associate professor of English at Hendrix College, Conway, Ark. His specialties include Hemingway, and American War Literature, making him well qualified for the comprehensive analysis of For Whom the Bell Tolls in this context.

The book begins with a biographical overview of Hemingway’s coverage of the Spanish Civil War. The opening chapters provide background for subsequent parts discussing The Spanish Earth and For Whom the Bell Tolls. Vernon’s intention is to provide a literary biography, not merely a recitation of facts about the war (sadly, not well known to many Americans) or a straightforward criticism of the novel. As Vernon puts it:

Literary biography is one part detective work, one part library science, one part journalism, one part literary criticism, one part history, one part pop psychology and one part gossip column.

Vernon accomplishes what he sets out to do, but his work is perhaps best appreciated by show more fellow academics and Hemingway scholars. At times, the book reads as a series of academic lectures, complete with asides and apologies from Vernon that don’t always feel smooth. “It is worth quoting at length this dispatch’s transition to first person,” he writes at one point. The frequent commentary on the act of writing the book can be intrusive. On occasion, Vernon can also introduce a thesis and provide strong support for it, only to reject it (with equal support) paragraphs later. For academia which encourages debate this would be suitable. A reader here may wish Vernon had chosen a side and stuck with it.

That is not to say Hemingway’s Second War is a dry piece of academia. At times, it sings. A section on life in Madrid stands out in particular. Quotes from Hemingway’s fellow journalist Virginia Cowles help draw a detailed picture of the circus and camaraderie among correspondents who live close to war but are not active participants. Vernon’s references to Hemingway’s contemporaries is one of the stronger points of the book, although without a preexisting understanding of the players, some nuance may be lost on a casual reader.

The bulk of the book devoted to For Whom the Bell Tolls also stands out. Vernon digs into every layer of symbolism and finds parallels with reality and draws strong comparisons to Hemingway’s life and other works.

By organizing the book by subject matter – biography, film, novel – a sense of chronology is lost, but as Vernon pointed out, the book is not merely a history. The organization, which may work well in a class devoted to Hemingway, leaves a scattershot impression on the casual reader who picked up Hemingway’s Second War to learn about Hemingway or the Spanish Civil War and finds himself confused about the book’s focus. The section on The Spanish Earth could stand on its own as a lengthy article or complete book. As with his discussion of war journalism, Vernon provides valuable insights into the documentary process from funding and initial planning onto lighting through editing and distribution. It’s when Vernon really digs into a tight subject that the book becomes alive.

The breadth of Vernon’s task is both a fault and a merit of Hemingway’s Second War. The examination of almost anything and everything related to Hemingway, The Spanish War and For Whom the Bell Tolls is comprehensive and certainly of interest to Hemingway aficionados. Other readers may feel pulled in too many different directions as they search for a through line. show less

Only a quarter of the way into the book and I felt like I had known these women for years. It quickly became a book I wanted my book club to read and has earned a permanent spot on the list of books I recommend to friends

I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. I felt a little lost in the beginning and the christian fiction aspects weren't as subtle as a nonreligious reader may like.

The title of Joe Hill’s second novel encapsulates the problem facing its main character – Horns. Ignatius “Ig” Perrish wakes up after a hard night of drinking brought on by the one-year anniversary of his girlfriend’s murder. He may not have his memories of the previous night, but he does have horns. Actual, bony protuberances. A logical trip to the hospital finds the horns aren’t the only unusual thing about Ig.

He has the ability to make people around him disclose their innermost thoughts, sinful fantasies and confessions of past and planned crimes. If he touches someone, he sees their sinful pasts. If he thinks about it, he can make them act on their worst desires.

The first few people Ig listens in on confirm one of his worst fears. Everyone believes he’s guilty of murdering and raping his girlfriend, Merrin. Even the local priest isn’t immune to what Ig suspects is the horns’ Satanic influence. Nor are his parents who just wish Ig would go away. His brother, who hosts a late-night talk show, falls under the horns’ spell and tells Ig who really murdered Merrin. And all of this happens in the first fifth of the book.

In a typical horror novel, Ig would embark on a quest to rid himself of the horns and seek justice. But Hill isn’t a typical horror writer. Instead of rejecting the evil of the horns, Ig embraces it, finding it second nature to encourage people to act out their desires. Ig isn’t a hero in the conventional sense of the word.

It could be show more hard to root for him to succeed – usually a reader cheers for the characters fighting the devil – but traditional good and evil don’t apply here. Hill doesn’t take a black-and-white view of the world in Horns; it’s grey streaked with darks and lights. Perhaps the question underlying the novel’s events is whether evil is necessary.

Where Hill hits his stride is in the extended flashbacks to younger versions of the main characters. The novel becomes a coming-of-age story where teenagers do stupid teenage things that create bonds between them lasting well into adulthood. The allure of cherry bombs (made before child protection laws) sets off a chain of events that introduces Ig to Lee, who becomes his best friend and the third player in the Ig-Merrin relationship.

Lee has his own issues to deal with as an adult, and the clichés a lesser author might trot out never come to pass. The characters are complicated and fully realized. Even minor characters enter with a full history. The reader has the impression Hill knows all of his characters down to what brand of toothpaste they use. Hill’s talented so he doesn’t feel the need to put everything he knows about the character down on the page. It’s enough that he knows and uses that knowledge to inform the choices the characters make.

The novel holds more than well-drawn characters. Hill writes exciting action sequences that send the reader along with Ig on his journeys down the Evel Knievel trail. It is all too easy to immerse yourself into the novel – seeing a cherry tree and hearing a trumpet play – and devour the book in one sitting.

The flashbacks can hold more attraction than the present-day pieces, but that may be because they tell the story of before Ig’s life fell apart. As the horns become more important to who Ig is (and snakes begin to follow him), the reader starts to look for signs Ig will find a way out, that good will prevail and innocence will take the day. These things happen … and they don’t. Not all questions are answered by the last page. And the ones that are don’t come with a nicely tied ribbon on top.

It’s inevitable that Horns will be compared with Hill’s first novel, Heart-shaped Box. Whether one is better than the other is a matter of personal taste. The two novels are different enough, with Horns coming off as a little more fantastical and requiring a little more suspension of disbelief. Regardless, Horns is an enjoyable read that leaves you anxious for another book from Hill. show less

Color. Look around. Note the shades of greens and blues out the window. The yellow and orange threads in a carpet. Now imagine all but one shade gone. You can only see one natural color. Everything else comes through to you through artificial paints, as if Ted Turner’s colorization had taken over the rest of the palette. And that’s only if your town can afford to keep the artificial color pumps on.

Welcome to Jasper Fforde’s new novel, Shades of Grey. Since an unexplained incident sometime in the distant past, almost everyone in the world can see only one color. People are ranked according to which color they can see and how much of it they can see. The Greys see no color and are at the bottom of the caste system. Reds are just above them, with higher status and power granted the further along the color spectrum you are. Signs tell us the univision world was once very similar to, or perhaps was, our world: Picasso and Vermeer paintings still exist.

At the start of the novel — or rather, right after the main character tells readers he’s being digested by a tree — Eddie Russet accompanies his father to an outlying village with little synthetic color. As the village prefects explain their looser interpretations of the color laws, readers get tantalizing glimpses of the rules that govern Fforde’s latest world. Great Leapbacks have erased most technology, etiquette must be followed, and spoons are incredibly important to one’s self worth.

All Eddie wants is to show more earn enough credits to leave the village and earn the hand of his beloved Constance, a member of the highly regarded Oxblood family. A Grey named Jane soon ends his hopes of a normal, unassuming life by introducing him to thoughts of revolution and forcing him to decide what matters most: marrying up and upholding the laws of the community or falling in love and standing up for honor and integrity.

The Univision world has existed for hundreds of years, so characters are familiar with intricacies readers are not. Some parts of the world are very similar to the real world, while others are not. It’s easy to get bogged down in the differences and throw your hands up and walk away. Readers familiar with Fforde’s Thursday Next novels may have a leg up in understanding Shades of Grey. The best approach is to tilt your head slightly to get a different perspective and let Fforde’s deftly drawn characters and well-paced plot pull you along. It’s not necessary to understand all the laws of the world. After all, Eddie is starting to question some of them and even break one or two. Besides, Fforde plans two more books in the series, which may — or may not — explain why swans attack and what causes Mildew show less

Almost everyone in the United States knows the story of the Wizard of Oz. Whether you’re familiar with it from TV reruns of the 1939 MGM classic or from reading the books, chances are you’re well acquainted with Dorothy and her quest to follow the Yellow Brick Road.

What you may not know is that like Dorothy, her creator, L. Frank Baum, experienced a tornado when he was young. Or that Baum’s interest in spiritualism informed his creation of the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion.

In his Oz books, Baum clearly followed the old adage: write what you know. He may not have physically been to Oz and walked through the Emerald City, but he used everything from his life to inform his creations. Rebecca Loncraine (www.rebeccaloncraine.come) takes a detailed look at Baum’s life and its ties to his fiction in The Real Wizard of Oz: The Life and Times of L. Frank Baum.

She begins eight years before Baum’s birth with a glimpse at the growing fad for mediums who could contact the dead and the effects of a diphtheria epidemic on Baum’s family. Her attention to detail is great, and a reader comes away from the early parts of the biography with a full understanding of growing up in the latter half of the 19th century. At times, the level of detail can frustrate a reader, who wants to get to the good stuff, when Baum comes into his own and begins writing.

Patience is a virtue as each chapter detailing Baum’s young life sets the stage for the next chapter. His family show more newspaper, created when he was a child, holds the seeds of his later fiction. As does his interest in theater. In 1882, Baum married Maud Gage. His close ties with her family would lead him to follow his brother-in-law to Dakota Territory where he experienced droughts and conditions similar to those Dorothy Gale would face before her fateful tornado ride. He also wrote about reports of Sitting Bull’s ghost dancers in his Aberdeen Saturday pioneer, a newspaper he acquired in 1889.

Baum began working on The Wizard of Oz in 1898. He drew on his memories of Civil War amputees, his fear of scarecrows, the Chicago World’s Fair and a powerful imagination to create his world. His niece, Dorothy Gage, was born one month after Baum started writing. She would die five months later.

Once The Wizard of Oz is published, Loncraine’s book picks up momentum. Oz becomes a incredible success, allowing Baum to write other fairy tales and to further explore Oz. He creates a stage musical of the book, which dazzled audiences with its use of electric light and stage trickery.

Financially successful, Baum continues the Oz series, using the books to create a world that should be, rather than the world rapidly growing in the 20th century. Uncle Henry and Auntie Em face bankruptcy in an Oz sequel so Dorothy arranges for them live in a utopian Oz.

Loncraine follows Baum through the wild success of Oz and his alter ego pseudonyms, his financial highs and lows, all the while emphasizing Baum’s love of children and childhood and his dedication to imagination. The book continues past his death in 1918to Maud’s attendance at the 1939 MGM premiere.

The Real Wizard of Oz isn’t just a biography of L. Frank Baum, but a biography of Oz. The two are intertwined, perhaps just as Baum would have it be. show less

It seems everyone on the planet has some level of familiarity with Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. Devoted fans eagerly awaited the next installment of the lengthy books. When the last book in Meyer’s series appeared in August 2008, the books’ fans switched their anticipation to movies based on the books.

Thanks to a parody from The Harvard Lampoon, Twilight devotees now have something new to read, although Nightlight’s humor may be better appreciated by Twilight’s detractors.

Nightlight pulls no punches in its entertaining vivisection of Meyer’s mythos. Situations and characters from the source material are stretched, inflated and mutated to comic proportions. Twilight’s Bella Swan becomes Nightlight’s Bella Goose; the original’s quirky lack of coordination becomes the parody’s death-defying clumsiness. Edward Cullen, the vampire heartthrob, becomes Edwart Mullen, a “venture meteorologist with a bent for slowly accumulating money from .0001-cent web ads.”

Edwart is not a vampire. A fact Bella Swan doesn’t let stop her in her obsessive pursuit to date a vampire and have him turn into one of the undead. After all, Edwart doesn’t eat his baked potatoes, snowflakes magically melt when they touch his skin, and he is able to resist the charms Bella is sure she possesses. All well-known signs of the undead to Bella, who manages to twist every coincidence to fit her world view.

The Harvard Lampoon takes every possible shot it can at Meyer’s often clichéd show more writing and bizarre plot twists. Nightlight mimics Twilight’s style perfectly, down to its mockery of New Moon’s — the second in Meyer’s series — depiction of Bella’s months of depression.

True Twilight fans may bristle at Nightlight, but they’re also the ones who can appreciate it the most. Without a basic understanding of Meyer’s characters and plots, a Nightlight reader will most likely be lost. Those intimately familiar with Twilight will find much they recognize in Nightlight.

Hard-core parodies can be tough to get into, and the beginning of Nightlight tests its readers’ determination. Absurdities pile up quickly to the point of, well, absurdity. The writing style seems juvenile, but mirrors Meyer’s style perfectly. After the first few chapters, however, it becomes easier to settle in to Nightlight’s rhythms and appreciate the fun it pokes at Twilight and its legions of devoted fans. show less