The Lesser Blessed

Turns out this novel involves high-school-aged teens in a community in Northern Canada. Added to the usual themes of coming of age, raging hormones, girls, sex, and parents are issues of gasoline sniffing, drugs, alcoholism, poverty, whitey vs native.

Told from the point of view of Larry, a Dogrib, the picture painted is not pretty. The narrative is violent, depressing, drug-filled, and despondent. Children grow up fast in this environment. We read about suicide rates in Northern communities, here we hear about the culture that spawns them from the point of view of those youth.

Mightier than the Sword

Being book 5 in the Clifton Chronicles. Jane Smiley's multi-generational trilogy is so full of characters it becomes hard to keep track of them all. Archer solves this issue by regularly killing off his people. Since book 4 ended with a bang that seemingly involved his entire cast it seemed obvious that he had to come up with some sort of rescue or he'd have no one to write about.

Write what you know is a standard dictum. Given his checkered past what this author knows has become a thing I no longer feel comfortable sharing. The machinations of Bond or Wall Street hold no charms for this reader. Having run out of likeable characters to follow I've lost interest in reading further in this series. However as usual Archer leaves the reader with a cliff-hanger ending. Since I'm borrowing this series from a library and I've already read the first couple chapters of book six....

In the Unlikely Event

Miri is growing up Jewish, at least culturally Jewish in a Gentile world. Child of a single mother her grandmother, with whom they live, is not pleased to learn she's dating a goy boyfriend with an Irish name. Miri is mortified to learn that her fancy clothes are well-preserved hand-me-downs charitably donated by her Mother's acquaintance. Fortunately the original wearer is not like my cousin who greeted me at church with the declaration--you're wearing my suit.

Elizabethtown where they live has been hit by three plane crashes. This book is not easy reading. It's 402 pages seem to stretch on and on, progress seeming extremely slow. I could use a character list to keep all the people and their inter-relations straight.

End of the Innocence by John Goode

Book 4 is more than 100 pages longer than the first three combined. This is not a stand-alone book so read books 1-3 first either as Tales from Foster High or individually, first.

As the boys discover there is a vast difference between what the law allows and requires and what a small-minded closed society accepts. Mercifully for our pair high school students have short attention spans and today's sensation rapidly becomes boring history and matters settle down to a dull roar. As with any high school romance theirs has its ups and downs. What no one saw coming was the prom queen's settling for friendship. Seems she isn't the vapid air-head one might have thought, but then neither is the jock she once dated.

Having grown up poor on a rural Nova Scotia farm I have trouble identifying with kids who get a car at 16, obviously have generous allowances and/or part time jobs, and are sexually active.

My one major complaint with this book is that the point of view changes so often it is hard to keep track of who is doing the narration, Brad or Kyle.

The book takes on so much more than the coming of age story of two gay teens in a small, close-minded, bigoted North Texas Community. It also tackles the issues of involuntary outing, cyber bullying, gay suicide, conversion therapy--the so-called straight camps, and the moral argument against homosexuality. Kyle knows his Bible, chapter and verse better than I do.

The latter part of the book needs some editing for grammatical errors such as subject/verb agreement. Brad's Christmas gift of 3 quarters, a nickel and a penny adds up to more than 4 coins. Those quibbles aside once I got into this book it was difficult to put it down.

The Nest by Kennety Oppel

Ironic that I now have two novels signed out that have the title "The Nest"

Much fantasy writing is overly derivative of the master, JRR Tolkien. The present writer is one of a select few I account as being truly original. There are times in reading this book that I have to remind myself that this isn't Neil Gaiman, another of my select few.

Fantasy requires suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader. I can buy into this fantasy save for one detail. I can't believe a child old enough to be left home without a babysitter but too young to be responsible for his siblings was left home alone with an unhealthy baby.

Where Nerves End

Tucker Springs is yet another Romance Novel Series by an author named L. A. Witt. So I've become somewhat hooked on romance, gay in this instance. This one involves Jason who hooks up with single-father acupuncturist Michael. Single parents seem to be a theme running through these novels, hetero and homo, though this series is not of the cowboy genre.

I was disappointed in this read. Once more overly wordy by far and angst ridden. This pair don't know what they want. Jason's aching shoulder gets more play than their love life. Dylan, the seven-year-old boy is a cut-out figure who appears to play video games and in the final analysis comment on the affairs of the adults in his life. The kid has his priorities straight. He wants a stable home life and loving parents, their sexual orientation is immaterial to him, after all "girls are gross".

Midnight Ride

The first in yet another Cowboy Romance series by author Cat Johnson. The cover art pictures a husky model with massive shoulders and biceps. Tyler is a happy go lucky ranch hand out for good times when he runs into the widow Janie from the ranch next door. Hard to believe this hunk ran from anything but they meet up when she finds him hiding from trouble in the back of her dual-wheeled diesel truck. And so the adventure begins.

Like red tape so-called because the clerks who wrote it were paid by the word this novel is unnecessarily wordy. It may make for greater drama in these tales but the women in them seem terribly needy and insecure about themselves and their relationships. At the slightest pretext they seem to doubt themselves and the commitment of their perspective mates and lapse into an orgy of fretting and brooding. Given this lack of confidence their eventual agreements to marry these guys seem rather insincere. If a woman expects a man to account for every moment he's out of her sight before marriage what's to expect matters to be any different after?

The Creed Legacy

The prodigal has returned and despite a decade of separation the identical twins Brody and Connor still resemble two peas in a pod and Brody unabashedly helps himself to his twin's wardrobe. Since book 6 Connor and Tricia got married and a baby Creed's arrival is imminent. At issue in book 7 is the path to matrimonial bliss Brody and Carolyn will take. If a certain ennui creeps in here you're reading me correctly.

If you're familiar with the joke about what happens when you sing a country music song backwards these novels seem to follow a similar pattern:

You get your dog back=generally a stray

You get your truck back=generally brand new

You get your house back=often newly built

You get your wife back=generally newly wed though past flirtation is often the case.

The sex is always good, marriage and a baby follow, these boys are virile, and succeeding babies, to quote Davis in this outing, take nine months.

And a rodeo past is often part of these boys' history. They never seem to lack for money though I can't imagine most make a killing on the rodeo circuit.

Perhaps I should admit that the law of diminishing utility is coming into play here.

As the series winds up I predict the next Creed will arrive in under nine months.

Raise a Glass

Monday morning and the young pair prepare to face the music heading back to school. The point of view switches between our two principals. The author prolongs the agony with lengthy passages of introspection making extensive use of sports metaphors in Brad's case. We know the lad's a jock but the author's knowledge of baseball play and the intimate details such as the use of a "cup" may not be shared by all his readers especially bookish nerds such as Kyle.

Book three describes going back to school on Monday and everything one could dread about that day seems to hit these two. As the day ends their two mothers spring into action and little is more fearsome than a lioness defending her wounded cub.

End of the Beginning

In book 2 of this series the narration switches to the jock, Brad. If you've been reading so far you're aware that Brad outed both himself and Kyle in rather dramatic fashion at the end of book 1 before the entire school. Kyle has suddenly ceased to be invisible and Brad has abdicated his position as the golden boy.

Brad talks about the sports experience in the locker room, on the field, and in the dugout in rather homoerotic terms, though of course most jocks would staunchly deny having any gay tendencies. Book two is full of introspection which tends to slow the pace down considerably. What becomes apparent is the fact that even in one's darkest hour help may come from the most unlikely of sources.

The action takes place over the course of a Friday and the weekend following.

Creed's Honor

For this branch of the Creed Family we move to Lonesome Bend, Colorado to another sprawling ranch owned jointly by Steven's identical twin cousins Brody and Connor. Connor personifies the good son who stayed home to keep up the family heritage while his brother Brody, older by 4 minutes, is the black sheep of the family who ran off to join the rodeo circuit and play the field with buckle bunnies. This book follows Connor's journey to matrimonial bliss with Tricia, who lives with her Great-Grandmother. I cannot be accused of spoilers because, as usual, the entire plot is telegraphed from the opening pages. As is generally true of Romance Novels the story here is the rocky road to true love.

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.