Maybe with a Chance of Certainty

What does the brilliant high school nerd have in common with the Letterman jock? Surprise, they're both gay and they both have an alcoholic parent. Tough to think who has the bigger problem here.

Without throwing hip language at one or resorting to profanity and bad grammar the author manages to perfectly evoke the insecurities and tensions of those high school corridors. Behind that confident exterior the high school jock and the prom queen have the same raging hormones and insecurities everyone else shares, they just have more to lose.

The story is told from the point of view of the nerd. Girls have long been portrayed as besotted and struck dumb in the presence of the object of their overwhelming affection. Here we learn that boys can experience similar emotional paralysis.

Near the end of this book Kyle lays it on the line for his high school prinicpal:

 

The teacher is struck dumb.

Ask Him Why

This novel is about what happens when a sibling gets accused of wrongdoing. The media frenzy that gathers outside your doors hounding your family and inconveniencing the neighbours as well. The graffiti painted on your walls by vandals. The bullying classmates who make life difficult, the boyfriends whose parents refuse to be associated with you. The work your father loses due to the notoriety. The people who shun all members of your family. The hurtful press and social media commentary. The sense of hurt and loss that a person you loved, looked up to, and idolized could so fall from grace.

The novel takes a turn for the truly weird in the second half and then jumps forward nearly 10 years.

The sample provided interested me sufficiently to move me to buy the whole. The author can seem a little preachy but the story pulls you in.

Finishing a book is like losing a friend. One is saddened to have lost the relationship but glad to have had the experience while it lasted.

A Creed at Stone Creek

Steven's name is Creed but he's only distantly related to the Creeds we've already met. This family seems to have a lot of lawyers. It's his adopted son five-year-old Matt, orphaned by Steven's best friends and former partner who initially tugs at one's heart strings.

A word about the conventions of Romance Novels, in this case Cowboy Romance. The male is always a magnetically virile hunk of manhood and his romantic interest equally sexually attractive. The two are introduced in the opening pages and the remaining story involves the path to marital bliss. Happy endings seem guaranteed. At some point there will be a detailed description of their coital encounters. Well-written romances such as this one rise above these conventions or I wouldn't be reading them. They also seem to be wildly popular, just ask Harlequin.

This one seems to have more drama than most and introduces us to the protagonists in the following entries in the series.

A Creed Country Christmas

Well I asked for a prequel but the author's done me one better and gone back an entire century to the Creed family patriarch who homesteaded the original family ranch. Life is rugged and Montana Christmases are cold and snowy but romance blossoms in the wintry cold or the generations wouldn't follow. I may not read this for the romance but there's enough added to satisfy the need for a good read.

Montana Creeds: Tyler

Being book 3 in a series that runs to 7 volumes. If it has yet to be written this series cries for a prequel that would follow the lives of the wild Creed boys, their alcoholic father Jake, his three wives-their various mothers, and their “grandma” Cassie in her Teepee.

As usual the romance at the centre of the tale is telegraphed from the opening pages. The men in these tales are always described as R-rated eye candy with prodigious 'equipment'.

More bedroom gymnastics in this outing, indeed splendour in the grass but enough other things going on to make it interesting.

Being book 3 in a series that runs to 7 volumes. If it has yet to be written this series cries for a prequel that would follow the lives of the wild Creed boys, their alcoholic father Jake, his three wives-their various mothers, and their “grandma” Cassie in her Teepee.

As usual the romance at the centre of the tale is telegraphed from the opening pages. The men in these tales are always described as R-rated eye candy with prodigious 'equipment'.

More bedroom gymnastics in this outing, indeed splendour in the grass but enough other things going on to make it interesting.

Montana Creeds: Dylan

This is book 2 in this series of Romance Novels. The essential romance at the centre of things is telegraphed from the opening chapters. It is the character development and all the side issues that get in the way that make this good reading and I wouldn't be spending my time if it wasn't engaging reading. Not great literature of course but well written, well edited text to beguile an evening.

Scorch Trials

Being book two of The Maze Runner Series. Since I've seen the movie based on book one it's hard to read this without picturing Dylan O'Brien as Thomas and Ki Hong Lee as Minho in his runner harness looking oh so brawny. The 370-page book has 65 brief chapters that give the story a choppy episodic nature. The trilogy extends to over 1000 pages.

I read book one in the series to see what all the fuss was about before watching the movie version in part because I knew Dylan O'Brien from Teen Wolf. Book two comes off as overly wordy, even turgid. I can't get sufficiently interested in it to spend the time to finish reading it. I would also note that inventing words to replace profanity I would not be allowed to use in an Amazon review is still swearing, it just sounds more awkward.

Chasing Fireflies

Took me several chapters to get involved in the storyline. “Sketch” is a non-verbal abused kid who ends up in hospital where he is met by Chase Walker a reporter who also happens to be a foster child. Chase's challenge is to get through to this child and establish his identity. Sketch communicates by drawing, a skill he has mastered magnificently at his young age.

The story is narrated by Chase who in telling Sketch's story relates his own parallel history as an orphan. Side-issues are the rivalry between brothers for a rich inheritance, the mystery of a triple murder, and a fortune in disappeared bearer bonds.

In the end this story seems overly contrived and stretches belief but its heart is in the right place.

Montana Creeds: Logan

The author writes Cowboy Harlequin Romances. This series begins with Logan Creed and introduces his brothers Dylan and Tyler. Logan is, of course tall, raven haired, brown eyed, handsome with high cheek bones and you can bet his brothers will be equally virile sexually attractive males, all of them rodeo stars. It is one of the clichés of the genre that ordinary-looking men never get any action. That quibble aside these books are always well-written and edited, easy to read. I sat down and read 100 pages at one sitting.

The scene is a 10,000-acre Montana ranch and conveniently the love interest lives in one of the three ranch houses on the property. A single Mom with two wrangling sons 8 and 10 plus an estranged, divorced husband lurking around the edges. Throw in an old pickup, a dog, and a retired rodeo bull.

The romantic plot-line may seem predictable but the characters are well developed and the back-story never seems contrived. No one will call this great literature but it makes light reading when one needs relief from heavier topics and it comes with the assurance of an eventual happy ending.

This one turns out to be more mystery thriller than romance and keep the bedroom gymnastics to a minimum.

Be Careful What You Wish For

This is book four of the Harry Clifton Series. More than any book yet this one is set in the world of business. An author who likes cliff-hanger endings to entice the reader to buy the next in the series gives this book an explosive ending.

Keep Quiet

If you've read Reservation Road or seen the movie based on it then you have an idea of the plot for this book. Another movie in a similar vein would be I Saw What You Did Last Summer. It may be possible to hide a crime but living with it is quite another proposition. The fact that the wife and mother here is a judge adds an ironic twist. At the heart of this tale is the fact that the relationship between father and son is one of parenting not buddy, buddy; parenting is not a popularity contest. Somehow the book comes off as less than satisfying and the snapper ending seems somewhat contrived.

His Whole Life

At first glance everyone in this novel appears to be on a guilt trip. The protagonist we follow in His Whole Life is Jim whose family is visiting his uncle, his mother's brother, who lives in Lanark south-west of Ottawa, Canada, Jim's family lives in New York City. Jim and his mother, Nan, move back to the winterized log cabin to live when the owners die leaving Jim's father behind in New York. Most of the action, such as it is takes place in Jim's mind.

This is a Canadian novel despite its part-time location in NYC and Quebec Separatism and Referendums work their way into the storyline. The story follows Jim from age 8 to 17. Somehow as much as I enjoyed reading it this book was tough going.

The Life We Bury

Joe Talbert's mother is a typical alcoholic--manipulative, predatory, self-centred. Reading about how she treats her son will make you understand how one can love someone and want to throttle them at the same time. His brother Jeremy can't help the fact he's autistic. No matter how many times Joe thinks he's escaped his mother does something to drag him back.

The story grabs your attention and keeps it. Turns out to be one part murder mystery, one part thriller.

Common Ground

I can remember when Justin Trudeau was born on Christmas Day 1971. There followed many pictures of he and his brothers peering between the legs of world leaders when his father took them along to Commonwealth Conferences or State Visits. When he decided to run for office Maclean’s Mag published a multi-page spread in which they interviewed his skiing buddies and anyone else they could persuade to talk. In the most recent election the Tory Party ran some very un-Canadian attack ads. History will judge whether or not he was “up to the job” but if a son learns his trade by watching his father Justin had a unique training ground. So far there have been no pictures of him pirouetting behind the back of the Queen or saying fuddle duddle. This autobiography serves as his attempt to set the record straight.

The book is well-edited and very readable. After trying out the generous sample first chapter I was moved to want to read the rest.

When I reached the section documenting the electoral machinations I got bogged down. First Trudeau persuaded the Liberal members of his riding to select him as candidate over the party leader’s approved choice. Then he persuaded the voters of Papineau to unseat their elected representative in his favour. Then he persuaded the Liberal Party of Canada to select him as party leader. Finally helped elect a majority government making him Prime Minister.

Even if the cachet of the name Trudeau didn’t work in his favour the family fortune enabled him to conduct his electioneering with a sense of comfort. It takes $2 billion to elect a president of the US. The record of donors and their contributions are a matter of public record in Canada. Trudeau’s maternal grandfather was a bagman for the party. He gets mention but in slightly more flattering terms. These final chapters are more political statement than biography. I happen to agree that the Harper Tories needed defeating. Ploughing through Trudeau’s policy statements makes for dry reading unless you’re a politico junkie.

Best Kept Secret

Book Three of the Series. Book two ended with another cliff-hanger as the House Of Lords returns a tied vote on the matter of Harry vs Giles.

Britain’s highest court of appeal may have established in law that the two were not brothers but doubt remains. Harry becomes a writer and Giles an MP. A fourth generation of Cliftons and Barringtons continue their adventures here with just as many plot twists and as much excitement. The story continues to be told from multiple points of view at times back-tracking when the centre of attention shifts.

So is it a spoiler to say that Sebastian’s younger sister Janice may be his Aunt. Is this anything new in Britain’s inbred aristocracy. As a biographical aside it might be noted that the author has personal prison experience. The author continues to keep the reader in suspence with cliff-hanger endings.

If books one and two sparked your interest you’ll love book three and probably want to read book four.

The Sins of the Father

Second in a series that at time of writing stretched to seven volumes. Book one had a cliff-hanger ending as young Clifton learned that assuming the identity of someone whose past one doesn't know can be fraught with unknown hazards.

Somehow it took some time for my interest in this book gain hold but after a few chapters it becomes difficult to put it down.

Once more we are faced with a cliffhanger ending as the House of Lords returns a tied vote in the matter of Giles vs Harry.

The Story of the Other Wise Man

This is a small book published in 1895 of which I only recently heard and today read. This little morality tale makes it plain that the success of a quest often lies not in attaining the goal but in how one makes the journey.

Any Means Necessary

For me a book like this is guilty pleasure offered by one E-Book seller as a free weekend read. Described as a thriller it depicts the kind of black ops most would rather not know about or admit are carried out and certainly not on American soil. As a moral conundrum does using our enemy's tactics against them make us like them and are such black ops justified under any circumstances.

This book proves that action-adventure can be depicted without the text being laced with profanities. The text is also well edited, grammatically correct, and easy to follow.

The action sort of drags in the middle before picking up for an unsatisfactory ending that leaves much unresolved. Proving that this book one is offered for free in hopes you'll buy book two to find out how it all comes out.

Only Time Will Tell

A story set in Bristol, England. First in a series charts the life of Harry Clifton born in 1920 to the wife of a dock worker killed before he was born. The same events are covered from the points of view of several of the actors in the story. For those with a sense of outrage at the abuse of power and privilege in class conscious England of the period this series will ring true. The series stretches to seven volumes.

Some of Tim's Stories

S.E. Hinton's juvenile delinquents have grown up. In this series of tales one of them is doing hard time. Set in Oklahoma these are good ole boys who party hard, have hangovers the next morning, then drink hair of the dog. A small short story collection the interviews with the author that make up more than half the book are for rabid fans only.

Duplex

I've tried reading this several times but just can't get into it. Maybe at a later date. After persevering to the midpoint just couldn't justify pressing on.

Golden Age

[This is book three of a trilogy. This review presumes the reading of book two.]

Book two ended with Frank discovering that his nephew Tim fathered a son before his death in Vietnam the family had no knowledge of. The family tree that indicates that Tim sired a child by Charlie's wife is surely a misprint.

The reader will contine to need to consult the family tree in an attempt to keep all the family members and their relatsionships straight. This continues to be meat for several books all rolled into one. This fictional story continues to incorporate historical events including the 9/11 terrorist event.

The book is rewarding reading but the text is densely packed and takes some time to plough through especially with back-tracking to consult the family tree. In that regard a paper copy would probably be easier to manage.

The final chapters are placed in the future.

Rules for a Knight

When I tried to watch Ethan Hawke's The Hottest State I found the actor so obnoxiously self-absorbed I couldn't finish the movie. I was not inspired to read the book nor have I gotten to Ash Wednesday. Who knew the actor had a decent book in him.

Rules for a Knight is a commentary on the seven virtues with a few extra bits thrown in for good measure. Could it be the actor has finally matured into a thoughtful man?

The Book of Three

This is obviously a YA novel and as with so many of its ilk derivative of JRR Tolkien. It is also a good read and curled up by a winter fire it would be quite possible to complete it in one evening. First of a series.

Early Warning

Book two begins in Iowa on the farm with Walter’s funeral, then switches to East Coast Washington and West Coast California to follow family members. Walter and Rosanna had four children who married and had offspring. By 1953 the third generation has appeared on the scene and what with duplicate names and nicknames the reader will need to consult the family tree to keep them all straight.

Although Joe and Claire remain in farming country the East Coast branch of the family become involved in business and government agencies. The Vietnam War and three assassinations figure in the storyline. Henry has gay partners and continues in higher education eventually becoming a professor of Medieval English Chicago. One character sees a charlatan psychiatrist/therapist who has sex with his patients and another couple experience a religious cult and have a bi-racial relationship. AIDS gets mention.

Year by year we jump between the various families who in typical American style gather for funerals, Thanksgiving, and Christmas; celebrate the occasional birthday, graduation,or wedding.

This book continues the family story begun in book one and as such is not a stand-alone volume. At nearly 500 pages it is a major reading investment. Compared with book one in the series and many other books I’ve read this was a tough read.

The Free

This is a book told in the third person. Although it is well edited for the most part the centre of focus changes so often and so many principal characters are introduced it becomes difficult for the reader to figure out who the book is about or how all these disparate people fit together. There doesn’t appear to be any one main character.

The nurse
Her favourite patient
Her father
The runaway girl
Her squat mates
The night man at the group home
His second job
The gal where he buys donuts
The injured PTSD Vet
His roommates
His mother
His girlfriend

The hospital where Pauline works and most of the rest become patients or their visitors appears to be the unifying force. And in a parallel storyline in italics which appears to be Leroy’s hallucination or dream the Free of the title are a vigilante group who  hunt Leroy and his partner. The name is ironic because they are imprisoned by their hate.

This isn’t the kind of book that leads the reader to expect happy endings. It does paint a realistic picture of these people’s onging lives and struggles. There are no climaxes or resolutions, the final chapters seem to jump forward several years and then it abruptly ends.

The Lobster Kings

The story is narrated by Cordelia who helps work her father, Woody’s fishing boat. There is a sense of outrage, injustice that underlies the tale when her mewling baby brother, her father’s first-born son is seen as the inheritor of the family fortune and business. Ironically, it is her mother who believes that a daughter’s place is onshore, not on the sea.  Even more ironic that the boy lacks interest in being a fisherman. Life on the sea is a hard one and the book pulls no punches. The tale is told matter-of-factly. People die and get injured, grow old and retire. Sibling rivalries flare and on a small island justice is meted out vigilante style. Wars over fishing rights are fought.

Lobsters are termed Bugs.

And, since this is a novel of this century and the bountiful harvests of yore are no longer so plentiful the lure of easy money from drug running rears its ugly head. The patriarchal progenitor of the Kings Clan was a painter of some note and his paintings are described at fitting points in the story.

Four

This book is a series of novellas that are told in the first person from Tobias Eaton's point of view forming a prequel to the Divergent series documenting Four's own initiation and the rivalry between he and Eric. The final section parallels Tris' arrival at Dauntless.

The book assumes the reader has read the Divergent Series and would be hard to follow without that prior knowledge. For Divergent fans this is a useful addition to the canon.

One is disposed to like Four and reading this book brings him back to us. The fact that he here admits to and confronts his own frailties, vulnerabilities, and misgivings somehow makes him more real to us. Having seen the movie versions one cannot help but picture him as Theo James.

Virgin River

First in a lengthy series of Romance Novels set in the mountainous Redwood region of Northern California. The author's books are well written with decent plots that make the love-making scenes an adjunct to the main storyline. Still I don't read them for the vicarious titillation value.

Some Luck

The opening chapter of this book provides the best description I've ever read about an infant's perception of the world around him. Piaget would be proud. It continues to see the world from a child’s perspective highlighting sibling rivalries and disputes. Why do some children insist on testing the limits and defying their parents no matter how many times they get punished for disobedience?

As the story continues the lives of the children continue to have an important role in the plot. Each chapter begins a new year from 1920 to 1953, the Depression, The Dust Bowl, and WW#2 playing prominent roles.

Following the lives of the various family members we are introduced to a remarkable number of themes all narrated in the third person. The novel is sweeping in its scope.

Let It Ride

Second in L.C. Chase’s trilogy it follows the same characters but concentrates on another pair, here Bridge Sullivan and New York-born Paramedic Eric Palmer. The crew is rounded out by fellow rodeo rider Kent Murphy and the pair we met in book one pickup man Marty Fairgrave and former Bull rider Trip Colby. Early on we are introduced to Toby and his brother Cory who announces that he is gay telegraphing the plot for book three.

If the path to true love had no obstacles Romance Novels would be rather short and sweet but mankind would seem a fallen race and the lovebird's foibles and emotional hang ups seem to invariably get in the way raising the question, is anyone truly normal? The facades we put up to mask our inner turmoil often get in the way.

This book is more bump and grind than story for my taste and the book is not well edited, being filled with grammatical and spelling errors which detract from the storyline further. Frequent use of profanity may be fitting for the characters involved but it begins to feel inappropriate, especially in the hands of a female writer.

Unless you're reading books like this for their titillation value it will quickly become tiresome. 

I've quipped that Romance Novels supply employment for bodybuilding models. This one's eyes, if you go by the book it fronts should have been blue-purple.

Allegiant

This is book three in the Divergent trilogy. The off again, on again romance between Tris, Beatrice Prior  and Tobias Eaton, (Four), continues its rocky road. The plot thickens as the central characters leave the city and learn new dimensions and meet new people. Plot lines become more convoluted and confusing both to the reader and the characters we are following. Nothing is as it first seems, it appears. Matters become increasingly confusing and unsettling. Don’t expect Hollywood endings  here, this isn’t a fairy tale.

The Reason You Walk

The author's name, Wab Kinew, as used here and on radio is a shortened version of his true Anishinaabe name. All First Nations writers talk of residential schools it seems. Government policy at the time supported by the church was aimed at assimilating Native Children by seizing them from their parents and depositing them in church-run schools. As his fellow writer Thomas King would say policy was aimed at either annihilation or assimilation.

This book is autobiographical. Whether or not it is exactly true in all its details it documents the myths of the author's life. The writing style is very readable. I particularly like that he always provides an English translation for Native languages.

In telling his story the author documents many traditional Native rituals including the Lakota Sundance and fasting which some have called a vision quest. Many of these seem strange to those of us who share European Ancestry and even the author shares his doubts.

In concluding Kinew decides that holding on to grievances allows them to claim he who holds the grudge. Healing will come through reconciliation, not separation; understanding, not suspicion; and most powerfully love, not hate. It is these principles that underlie his writing style and make this book so appealing.

The Things a Brother Knows

The story is narrated by the younger of two sons of an immigrant Jewish family who live in Boston. Levi and Boaz share a bathroom but when his brother returns from a stint in Marine Service a relationship that was distant when his brother, older by three years, hit high school has now become completely withdrawn. The man who returned from war is not the boy who enlisted.

Levi has two best friends, Zim, the boy across the street and Pearl, a Jewish Chinese girl adopted by a single mother—a friend, not his girlfriend.

Essentially this is a story about PTSD and a loving family's attempt to understand and support a troubled young man.

L.C. Chase writes Cowboy Romance Novels, specifically Gay Cowboys. These cowboys happen to be Rodeo Cowboys as the cover art will show. That they are young, tall, strong, and handsome is cliché. The path to true love will not be straight or easy else there wouldn’t be a story in this. Being openly gay in the macho world of championship rodeo adds a complicating twist. If you don’t mind reading about a short bit of bedroom gymnastics this is a good read. Ride ’Em Cowboy! 

The Secret Language of Doctors

Doctor Brian Goldman is an Emergency Room Physician in Toronto. He is also host of the CBC program White Coat/Black Art. Despite the title this book is more an assessment of the state of Medical Health Care in North America than a dictionary of medical slang/argot/jargon.

In his position he gets to see acutely ill patients but often does not get to provide after care. However, he works in a system that rewards through-put and not quality of care and therefore pays a doctor more for dealing with a cold, a cut, or a broken arm; than spending the time it would take to counsel a patient about the lifestyle choices that underlie their medical issues. Doctors have come to be regarded as wizards who can cure all ills whereas too many medical conditions are the result of lifestyle choices—smoking, diet, exercise. Rather than depend on doctors and medical science to provide all the answers patients need to take responsibility for their own health.

The language thrown around hospitals between nurses and doctors therefore becomes both a means of transmitting a great deal of information in as few words as possible and an expression of their frustration—blowing off steam. Of making derogatory comments in a language that the public hopefully will not understand or misinterpret.

Most of us look to hospitals as centres of healing, in French the word is Hotel Dieu. Imagine then the let-down involved in learning that nurses treat each other in an appalling fashion with a definite pecking order that heaps abuse on new recruits. That rather than being patient centred doctors shunt patients around to ensure they don't die on their watch and refuse admissions to their wards or engage in delaying strategies that endanger patient's health. That various specialities demean one another and use derogatory language. If this is how they treat one another what does it say about their patient care.

Half a Life

When a careless carefree moment results in the death of a child or young adult the emphasis is usually placed upon the grieving parents, relatives, and friends. Here, we get to hear about it from the perspective of the young driver who had a biker swerve in front of his car resulting in that person's death. The fact that he is not held responsible for the incident does not absolve him of the grief and angst he feels over being the agency for another's death. Eighteen years after this tragic event occurred in the life of his eighteen-year-old younger self Darin Strauss writes about what happened to him half a lifetime before.

It's called survivor's guilt. Think of a subway driver entering a platform at forty-miles-per-hour when a mental patient jumps in front of his car. He already has the train's maximum braking power engaged and in any case he has ten carloads of passengers behind him to consider so there is nothing he can do to avoid the splat that hits his windows in a split second. But does the fact there was nothing he could have done to avoid this incident relieve him of the post dramatic stress he feels in the aftermath.

The opening sentence here says it all:

“Half my life ago, I killed a girl.”

Little House on the Prairies

The Ingalls and the Wilders may not have been gypsies but they seemed never to be satisfied with their situation establishing numerous homesteads in several states. Indeed there are at least 5 locations claiming to be the author's birthplace. The books are written in a simplistic style seemingly to explain to succeeding generations how settlers lived and how they built their homes from the materials at hand without the aid of architects and contractors. This book describes in great detail the building of a log cabin on the prairie 40 miles from Independence Missouri.

In contrast to a neighbour I had whose wife claimed he was incapable of even changing a lightbulb these men are extremely handy with their tools. Since I grew up with many of the tools now exhibited in museums I find these descriptions interesting and the books are light reading compared to many of the other tomes I read.

Unlike today's permissive milieu children were expected to be seen and not heard for example not speaking at table unless spoken to. Interrupting adults was unheard of.

The attitudes espoused in these and other books are at odds with Thomas King’s The Inconvenient Indian or AS King’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. It was people such as the Ingalls who encroached on Indian territory and felt it their right to squat on Natives’ ancestral lands and agitate for the Indian’s removal from it.

As this volume ends the Ingalls are on the move again after having just put in a garden. 

The Back of the Turtle

Thomas King's book has 99 short chapters that jump between half a dozen story-lines involving different locations and even time periods. The challenge is determining how all these characters and places fit together. All this by way of saying that the book does not lend itself to casual browsing.

There's a large conglomerate located in downtown Toronto, its president, and his support staff involved in Genetic Manipulation and the tar sands; a west coast reserve; and a ghost reserve where a disaster killed all the residents. Worked into the story are current events such as the duck kills in Northern Alberta and water poisoned by tar sands operations. It's left to the reader to tease out where all these disparate threads are headed.

We have:

1. Sonny who lives in the run down Ocean Star Hotel.
2. Mara the Indian woman who has come back to Samaritan Bay.
3. Nicholas Crisp who frequents Beatrice Hot Springs.
4. Gabriel Quinn the Biological Scientist who walks away from his job in Downtown Toronto to return to his place of birth.
5. His boss Dorian Asher, CEO of Domidion and his female assistant Winter who work in Toronto.
6. And finally the dog who fully qualifies as a character in this story.

And since this is fiction not real life it all resolves to a satisfying happy ending.

Sapiens

Yuval Noah Harari writes a macro history of humankind that begins with the cognitive developments that led to the supremacy of Homo Sapiens and led to the demise of other sentient lifeforms. He goes on to chart the agricultural revolution that tied us to our fields and communities and then the industrial revolution that introduced the concept of structured schedules and time. He ends with a philosophical and scientific discussion of what constitutes happiness and a look at bio-engineering.

His conclusions overturn many popularly held beliefs and will give all who read this book cause for sober thought about what they thought they knew.

Insurgent

As book two of the divergent series Insurgent follows seamlessly from book one. It continues to reveal pieces of the puzzle that is Tobias Eaton's life. If you liked book one this middle book carries the story along. It should not be read independently.

[Those sensitive about possible spoilers read no further.]

The majority of Factionless are failed Dauntless Candidates. No one fails Abnegation but a large proportion fail Dauntless. There are no old or infirm Dauntless as the aged are either pushed out or driven to suicide.

Each faction has its own unique style, its own myths and philosophies. Under Eric Dauntless reflects his sadistic and duplicitous nature. In this outing we discover that the Factionless have united to form their own unique faction.

Midway through the book seems to drag but the pace picks up as it moves toward the climatic conflict.

[Those sensitive about possible spoilers read no further.]

The majority of Factionless are failed Dauntless Candidates. No one fails Abnegation but a large proportion fail Dauntless. There are no old or infirm Dauntless as the aged are either pushed out or driven to suicide.

Each faction has its own unique style, its own myths and philosophies. Under Eric Dauntless reflects his sadistic and duplicitous nature. In this outing we discover that the Factionless have united to form their own unique faction.

Midway through the book seems to drag but the pace picks up as it moves toward the climatic conflict.

Divergent

I enjoyed reading this book. From the opening pages it engages the reader and carries you forward. Forget the labels, this is a morality tale about human nature—its good and evil nature. There is violence and risk taking but since these are teens there is also tenderness and love though its expression is often ambiguous. This is book one of a trilogy so expect to be drawn to read the following books in the series. I'm about to watch the movie based on this book.

Fifty Shades of Grey

Began reading this to see what all the fuss was about. More worrisome than the fact that someone felt compelled to write these books and that they found a publisher is the fact that there are people who who enjoy reading them and express interest in their subject matter. The writings of the Marquis de Sade have long been considered pornographic and virtually unreadable and although I resist the practice of censorship and book bannings I find little literary merit in these books. Although I may be aware that there are people who derive perverted sexual pleasure from bondage and sadomasochism I have better things to do with my time than read about them. Whether or not the object of these practices consents to domination it still smacks of assault on another fellow human and sexual abuse.

Golden Son

Max is transgendered, his body possesses both male and female genitalia. Add a rape scene in the opening chapters and this hardly seems like a young adult novel. The book is told from multiple points of view, at least the narrator's name heads each section. The language seems aimed at teenagers not adults but the philosophical and psychological discussions are very mature. Some of the philosophical discussions distract from the narrative flow but on the whole this book tackles a difficult subject with candour and empathy.

We, the Drowned

We the Drowned
by
Carsten Jensen

There's a sameness about the lives of sailors before the mast and miners below ground and whether you drown at sea when a ship goes down in a howling gail or die of starvation and foul air after a mine collapse the result is the same and men feel powerless to act in their own defence. In spite of this generations of sailors and miners ply their trade with a sense of fatalism as their fathers did before them. Alas, little seems to have changed over the centuries and despite advances in technology man is still powerless in the face of a raging sea.

The brutality of life in the mid-1800’s as described in these pages is unsettling. I'm reminded of the story of the little girl who arrives at school eager to learn who is lined up with her classmates and watches as each in turn is beaten by their new master. An entire chapter is devoted to the description of a sadistic Danish Schoolmaster who administers daily flailings with a rope. In the end the only thing his male students learn in their 6 years with him is how to take a beating. This lesson they take with them when at 12 to 14 they go to sea as cabin boys and the beatings continue.

The captain of a sailing vessel that could be at sea for years at a time had the power of life and death over his crew, to this day captains have the right to perform marriages. Given the dregs of society that were often rousted out of bars and jails to fill out a ship's complement iron discipline was probably necessary but the cruelty and hazing here described makes one wonder why anyone in their right mind would submit to such indignities.

Given the conditions in which these men live the language used is salty and the sufferings they endure are described in a frank and forthright manner. In battle men soil themselves and as cannon and musket balls fly bodies are rended and blood and guts flow. This is not a book to be read by the squeamish.

All this said the stories told here ring true and bring to life an era that is now history. Never boring they keep one turning pages to find the outcome. There is a matter-of-factness about the way these sagas are related and a fatalism about the way the hardships these men must endure are described. While their menfolk are at sea for years on end their wives back home keep the family together cooking and cleaning without an end in sight and without any certainty that their men will ever return or that word of their demise will ever reach home.

It’s one of the ironies of a sailing vessel that calm seas are not a good thing. While a ship lay becalmed in the horse lattitudes fresh water and food supplies could run out leaving a crew in dire straits. With no land in sight and a cloudless sky desperate things could happen. On the other hand storms at sea can drive a ship onto a lee shore, a reef, or a rocky shoal and when water temperatures are near freezing or the waves 100 foot high the ability to swim means little.

This book gives a unique perspective on the life of the women and children back home that would not go amiss in much of Newfoundland. Husbands and fathers went to sea for periods of up to 5 years and were not heard of until their boat came back in port. Children were born never knowing their fathers or meeting a stranger after they attained school age. Boys became midshipman at age 12 to 14, cabin boys in less exalted contexts and likely objects of sexual favours. The wives back home became defacto widows for years at a time and all too often never heard of their husbands again if their ships went down without a trace. The transition from sail to steam to diesel engines and iron ships was horrendous for many. Ship to shore radio and the internet has ushered in an entirely new communication age but sailors whether navy or merchant marine are still physically absent for extended periods of time.

Indian Horse

White society's treatment of the original aboriginal residents of North America constituted variations on two themes: assimilation or annihilation, a process that came close to succeeding. The Christian Church was more than complicit in abetting this process. In their missionary zeal Jesuits brought Christianity to the heathen and with it European disease. In their hubris missionaries failed to understand that a people's theology is tied to their culture and way of life. The dislocation that these priests began was continued by the residential schools. Traditional life was hard and children were allowed to be children and physical punishment was unknown as was mental cruelty. Children forcibly removed from their parents were forbidden their own language and religious practices. Many were physically and sexually abused. Several generations of this system produced a cohort who had lost their traditional heritage, their language, culture, and myths; drank too much; ate unhealthy diets, and suffered from alcoholism, obesity, and diabetes.
The Old Ones, elders, who still remembered the traditional values were spurned by their offspring who shamefully rejected the Old Ways. Children were torn between their grandparents values and their parent's beliefs. Should the dead for example be buried in a traditional manner or be placed in expensive coffins and exposed to the ministrations of priests whose schools exposed them to the diseases that killed them in the first place.

Wagamese makes all this plain in an engaging manner in a story that makes compelling reading. The story is filled with tragedies and heartache, this is no child's fairy tale.

Wildest Dreams

Book nine in Robyn Carr’s Thunderpoint Series. Introduces Ironman Blake Smiley. Not sure how a pro triathlete affords a million-dollar home; those endorsements and sponsorships must be lucrative. Hearing about the training, supplements, diet, and exercise schedule this lad endures makes his life sound more like a science experiment than an actual living person. Elite athletes are anything but amateurs these days.

This being a romance he has to have a love interest. Blake moves in next door to Grace and Troy. We continue to hear about most of the other residents of Thunderpoint. Somehow after 9 books the story ends rather abruptly.

A New Hope

Book 8 in the Thunderpoint Series continues the series as if this is one extended story continuing with the wedding we ended with in book seven. The focus simply shifts to another couple.

What has always made these books worth reading is the fact that the action takes place inside a community in which all the characters are given equal attention. The world they live in isn’t just background, it becomes real  in our minds.

One quibble, the dog on the cover should be a Great Dane like Ham, Sarah’s dog....

One Wish

Book 7 of Robyn Carr’s Thunderpoint series. As the book begins we meet Grace, the florist shop owner introduced to us in The Homecoming but it’s as if we are meeting an entirely new individual, or learning new aspects of her life barely hinted at in the previous book. Troy, the high school teacher with interests in skiing and river rafting, was introduced in Book 6 as well but here the focus has shifted to their relationship. The timeline continues seemlessly taking up where Book 6 left off.

Romance is not my normal genre so there are conventions here that are new to me. One of them seems to be that the happy couple go through perilous trials on the way to marital bliss but that ending always seems to be inevitable. Somehow it doesn’t seem realistic to me that every liaison have a happy ending however....

It is the character development and the sense of place that makes these novels worth the read. These people seem real to us, they are not cut out figures who end up in twisted bedsheets with clothes scattered along the way.

The Homecoming

Robyn Carr’s Series of Romance Novel’s set in Thunderpoint, Oregon near Coos Bay is a better than average set of novels or I wouldn’t be reading them. I’ve visited the area and loved it. Her characters are well developed and continue to appear in succeeding editions. In short these aren’t cut out figures used as a means of writing about bedroom gymnastics. It’s there of course but these people have lives outside the bedroom.

That being said this particular entry is totally predictable, the outcome telegraphed from the opening chapters. Boy next door is best friends with girl next door. Fails to appreciate his true feelings and hurts hers. Years later they reconcile. This isn’t a spoiler, the plot is self-evident from the beginning. What make the book worth the read is the fact that both the lovers in this tale have professional lives and family and friends who interact with them. Thunderpoint is a small town and everyone knows everybody.

To Reap and to Sow by JP Roberts

Having read Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey I've come to understand that cowboys were a randy lot. Bookbub has introduced me to Harlequin's Western Division. The present tome is the 311^th in Penguin's All-Action Western Gunsmith Series which as of 2007 had apparently sold nine million copies. The hero Clint Adams makes ample use of his modified Colt but equal use of another gun when he goes for rolls in the hay. Unlike so many movie Westerns the writer here is realistic about the accuracy of the metal weapons, plenty of lead flies to little effect. This paperback was given me by a fellow camper at an RV Park in Fort Davis, Texas. The chapters are short, the point of view constantly changing, this is a quick read. Don't expect too much.

The Bean Trees

The print in my trade paperback copy is rather tiny.

Barbara Kingsolver grabs the readers’ attention from the first page and holds it however by the half-way point I had fallen asleep reading this tome 8 times. It does pick up later on.

Modern fuel-injected vehicles cannot be started by popping the clutch in third gear while they’re being towed, pushed, or run downhill.

The bean trees of the title are Wisteria Vines. The story involves illegal aliens from Guatemala and an orphaned Cherokee child who is the victim of child abuse.

Devious

This is a better than average teen romance. Volume one of the trilogy, Dangerous, is still offered free to get one interested. The book has some grammatical errors but otherwise is well written and edited. It’s a cliché that in these stories the male is always tall, dark and handsome, hard bodied with narrow hips, wide shoulders and bulging rock-hard biceps. Wimps, it would seem never get the girls. And only a voluptuous beautiful suitor would be worthy of this hunk of manhood. This first person narrative is told alternately from the guy’s and the girl’s point of view. 

Are all high school romances as fickle, untrusting, jealous as this one. This couple run hot and cold as quickly as a Texas weather pattern. Does a girl have to “put out” to keep her guy interested? The fact that Dara’s drunk father killed Stone’s twin brother is a complicating factor in inter-family relationships.

No one will accuse this YA Novel of being great literature. The offer of book one got me interested in seeing where the author would take the storyline. I was rather disappointed when book 2 turned out to be a mushy teenaged soap opera.

Dear Life

Alice Munro’s latest collection of short Stories published just before she won the Nobel Prize. This collection is very adult in its content the situations not suitable for children though written about children caught up in very mature circumstances. The ‘you’re too young to understand’ clause applies all too often. The writer has long since lost her innocence and even in rural small towns rather tawdry goings on occur. Life is raw and given the Great Depression and the War Years that followed somewhat lacking in romance and fantasy. The writer escaped in books but the reader here is brought up short. The era was that of my own mother and Munro evokes it unerringly.

Not on Fire, but Burning

The book opens with an act of Nuclear Terrorism but continues nearly a decade later with a story of repressed memories, xenophobia, and family values. The Gulf War and Muslim extremism are bound up along with current security fears, founded or unfounded. There are extremists on both sides. The story is set in a dystopian future told in the main from the point of view of teenage boys, the narrator keeps changing and that makes following the storyline rather confusing at times. The tale follows various tracks in a what if sort of pattern taking alternative paths ending in a confusing muddle.

Everybody Sees the Ants

When Lucky Linderman decides to survey his fellow classmates on their preferred mode of committing suicide he gets some undesired attention. Being small for one’s age tends to get one unwanted attention from the class bully. Lucky doesn’t seem to be living up to his name.

Too many disengaged Fathers around whose jobs occupy all their time. I’ve met overweight slobs like Lucky’s entitled, obsessive, hypochondriac, pill-popping Aunt Jodi. If she didn’t come with the deal Lucky would move in with his mother’s brother Uncle David tomorrow. To cope Lucky has a rich fantasy life lived in his imagination, not video games.

Fifty years later I can still identify with this character. Bored by school, picked on because he isn’t athletic, small for his age, and prefers reading to being outside.

Lucky learns what every child comes to understand. That his parents aren’t perfect. That adults are just as confused and messed up as any teenager.

Medicine Walk

Richard Wagamese’ Indian Horse was a Canada Reads Contender. Until then I like most had never heard of him. This book as much as any shows him to be a very readable author and exponent of his aboriginal culture.

Franklin Starlight has been raised by his grandfather wise in the old ways. He knows how to live off the land: hunt, make camp, find food, take care of himself.

His father Eldon is a town Indian who has lived by white man’s ways, an alcoholic, who is dying of cirrhosis of the liver. Although never a presence in his son’s life they make this last journey together to fulfil a dying man’s wish for a traditional burial. His father also wishes to tell his son his life story.

Frank was raised seemingly by his maternal grandfather who worked 80 acres of farmland. No mention is made of his Mother, did she die in childbirth?

I like this story but on the face of it a boy packs his dying father into the wilderness on a horse like so much baggage and buries him there after feeding him unknown tribal medicine. This may have been what the man wanted but I shudder to think how it would look in the eyes of the law.

Redeployment

Phil Klay’s book begins with a group of soldiers returning from a seven-month deployment. Soldiers on a plane with their guns unarmed between their knees left with nothing to do with their hands when required to hand them in. They carried their guns onto the plane but their bayonets were forbidden.

Returning home after seven months to find a wife 5 months pregnant, their home empty, their wife gone, their lives on hold, lacking purpose. Their memories haunted by what they had seen, friends they had lost, things they had done.  Reaching for that gun which isn’t there. Resorting to alcohol or withdrawal in a vain attempt to cope. This writer evokes all this with a realism that makes it all too real for the reader at least in the initial chapter.

The author uses military acronyms indiscriminately without defining the terms which may lend authenticity to the story but is confusing to the uninitiated. The narrator would seem to be Sgt Ozzie Price though names are rarely used here. And so I discover that the narrator changes from chapter to chapter because this is a book of short stories not a novel. And, like so much of the best fiction written about war, written by someone who never served on the front lines. Most who did do not want to talk about it or if they do many years after the fact. Since this author didn’t serve at the front he probably tries too hard to make it real hence the acronyms among other things that make this book difficult to assimilate. For example the chapter titled OIF?

When the author drops all the jargon this isn’t a bad read. He has a feel for his topic. He has worthwhile things to say about how a Chaplain, a Catholic Priest,  handles a disillusioned  soldier; about how a vet explains his war experience to a fellow student post-war. To soldiers war has nothing to do with the political reasons for waging it; it’s about surviving and supporting the fellow soldiers in your unit whether or not you like one another. What he has to say helps makes it clearer why suicide now accounts for more casualties than combat itself.

Reversible Errors

Another legal number from Scott Turow whose Presumed Innocent became a movie. There seems to be a tradition of those in the legal profession penning novels. This outing ranges far and wide from the courtroom doing little to make those who uphold the law look upstanding. The book is riddled with the usual plot twists and side issues. Who knew lawyers and judges were such a randy lot.

Uglies

George Orwell wrote his classic dystopian novel back in 1949. Back then 1984 seemed a distant future date, it is now 31 years in the past. Writers are still inventing cautionary tales about future horrors and the present novel is one of them.

This is YA literature, dialogue driven, and easy reading. It grows on one as the story progresses proving to be above average in quality. It is also well-edited, something I’ve learned not to take for granted in E-Book Literature.

The plot includes possible betrayals, love triangles, teenage angst; typical growing pains. It also explores social pressures, conventions and mores. The pressure to conform, accept certain ways of looking at things and each other. And since the title is Uglies our sense of what is beautiful and normal. There is also enough action and adventure to create excitement and suspense.

The book also ends with major plot lines unresolved leading one to buy what must be book 2 to find out the resolution. I feel ambushed.