More Books than Time

Book Reviews - Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction - By an Adult for Adults

Polar Vortex – Suspense in the Bitter Cold by Matthew Mather

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After the first few pages of Polar Vortex I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep reading.  A passenger plane has crashed somewhere in the Arctic and the National Transportation Safety Board has nothing to go on.  No transponder signals, no broadcasts, no mayday, no locator transmissions.  “So a Boeing 777 with three hundred seventy-eight souls disappears over the North Pole and all we have is that?”  “That” is a journal handwritten by a passenger, Mitch Matthews.  I dreaded reading how Mitch and the rest ended up dead, lost in a sea of ice.

I did keep reading and got caught up with Mitch, his 5 year old daughter Lily, and the other passengers.  They survive the crash, but are in the Arctic with summer clothes, minimal food and water, no heat or power.  The cover shows Mitch and Lily looking at a blaze of color and light.  Did the passengers disappear into some fantasy or science fiction rip in space?  Did they all starve and freeze?  Somehow Mitch’s journal survives, did Mitch or Lily or anyone else make it?

Author Mather has created a compelling story of love, hardship, endurance, all while we readers believe most end up dead.  Somehow the story and the people reach in and grabbed me, kept me reading despite dreading the end.  The characters tell the story in how they act and how they work together to survive, how Mitch works to keep Lily and young boy Jang alive, how they eventually end the story.

There is a villain and there is a reason.  I guessed right on the reason and had no idea about the villain.  Mather made him credible to his victims and to us readers all the way through his novel.  Excellent job of developing a compelling, addictive story.

Pacing Problem

The writing is good, with a few pacing problems and some confusing motivations.  About 35% of the way through the book drags for a bit, as not much is happening and the passengers have not yet coalesced.  This slow spot doesn’t last long, and ends when we hit the next problem, the confusing section.

Less-Believable Plot Points

Some erstwhile rescuers reach the plane, give out warm survival suits, even child size ones to the two kids, and some food.  No one is quite sure about these newcomers as they claim to be Finnish marines, but the passengers know they aren’t anywhere near Finland and the others don’t seem to be speaking Finnish.  It doesn’t add up but everyone is exhausted, cold and hungry and isn’t about to look a gift rescue in the teeth.  At least not until the rescuers start shooting.  All the surviving passengers jump into one of the rescue Zodiac boats and leave.  That is the hinge point of the story and I didn’t buy it.

Granted no one is thinking clearly, even so, it’s hard to see why people starving in the middle of the Arctic would leave rescuers to hop in a tiny boat to seek their own way home.  The rescuers indeed seem untrustworthy and make everyone uneasy, but if they were simply going to kill everyone, then why not do it immediately, not feed and clothe them first.  In any case the passengers do agree on a path and proceed.

The other unbelievable point is that Mitch was able to use a pen to record his journal right to the end, in blinding snow and wind, in 50 below weather.

Summary

It is because the people are so compelling in their never-ending drive to survive the crash, to get home, to save the children that Polar Vortex will stay in my head for a long time.

4-5 Stars

The Book Charmer by Karen Hawkins Dove Pond North Carolina

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After binge reading Betty Neels’ sweet and simple English romances, I was glad to get into The Book Charmer by Karen Hawkins. Yes, there is a hint of romance, but the love is for family, for place, for friends.

Dove Pond, a small town in North Carolina, is home to the Dove family, the Phelps family, the Parker family. We begin when Grace moves to Dove Pond with her foster mom, Mama G, and her orphaned niece Daisy. Grace has out-worked everyone to reach financial security in Charlotte, and comes home to take care of her mom and niece when she realizes Mama G has dementia and Daisy’s mom dies of an overdose.

Grace always does her duty and does it very, very well, lets nothing or anyone stop her from reaching the aim she has set for herself. Sadly, there is no happy ending possible for Mama G. Grace grieves for her mom.

Sarah Dove loves her town and knows it is dying as businesses and families move out, tax base shrinks and people become apathetic and fatalistic. Books talk to Sarah and an old journal written by her ancestor over 200 years earlier warns Sarah the town will die unless she or someone with her saves it. Sarah sees cats’ behavior and flowers changing color as predicting that Grace is in fact to be the town savior.

Grace wants nothing to do with Sarah at first; Grace is the new town clerk and wants to do her work, do it well for a year, then go back to Charlotte. Presumably Mama G will be better or dead by then.

The Book Charmer is the story of friendship. How will Sarah convince Grace to help? How will Grace shrug off her wariness and remove the barriers she constructed to avoid friends and close relationships? How will Grace work with the myriad other Dove Pond characters to save the town?

Karen Hawkins charms us with the lively characters. Aside from Sarah and Grace, Mama G, Daisey, the cat Killer/Theo and hot neighbor Trav, Karen Hawkins introduces caregiver Linda, banker Zoe, realtor Kat, tea-maker Ava, pet store owner Ed, the other members of Dove Pond Social Club who turn the town’s Apple Festival into a giant success, a business outreach/family fun time/recruitment drive.

I enjoyed The Book Charmer and its cast of people with their quirks and problems and will look for other novels set in Dove Pond. Please note this novel is unlike many of Karen Hawkins romances and has no explicit sex.

4 Stars

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Impact by Douglas Preston – Suspense and International Intrigue in a Science Fiction Background

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Impact starts as suspense, a thriller with two strands.  Ex-CIA Wyman Ford travels to Cambodia to find the source of some new, beautiful and highly radioactive amber colored gem stones.  Resourceful Wyman manages to reach the mine site in the back hills of Cambodia, braving murderous ex-Pol Pot Brother #6, gem dealers, corrupt local officials.  He finds the mine is far too large for the CIA to have missed in aerial reconnaissance and it is run by sadists who force peasants to labor in the radioactive pit.

Wyman figures out the pit is actually the exit point from a meteor and decides to find where it entered.

Meanwhile Abbey Straw sees a meteorite strike in the islands off the coast of Maine.  She drags her best friend off to find the meteorite, fights off a would-be rapist, sinks her father’s lobster boat but finds only a smooth hole, no meteorite.  Wyman connects with Abbey and they start looking for the source of the meteor that stuck Maine, passed through the earth and exited in Cambodia.

The science fiction aspect adds drama and existential threat to the story.

Preston gives us interesting people that we come to care about.  Abby is young, impetuous, brave, foolish and very smart.  She loves her father although she has the usual push/pull to get away from home.  She loves her friend Jackie despite knowing Jackie is a bit dim and never going to make anything of herself.  Wyman Ford is complex, smart, brave, patriotic and not at all intimidated by power.

Overall Impact is good, with well-done people interacting within a complex plot.  True, some of the events resolve themselves a little too neatly, but that’s the nature of thrillers and space opera.

4 Stars

 

Stuck in Manistique by Dennis Cuesta – Gentle Comedy in a Small Michigan Town

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How could I pass up a novel set in Manistique, a small town along a beautiful stretch of Lake Michigan beach in the Upper Peninsula?  Stuck in Manistique is unusual, a bit of romance with a touch of screwball comedy, and meant-to-be-quirky characters.

Protagonist Mark is a financial planner in suburban Chicago who inherits his aunt’s home in Manistique, not realizing it is a bed & breakfast.  He quickly learns when his first guest, young medical resident Emily shows up, fresh from deciding to walk away from her affair with her mentor doctor.  Emily has nowhere to go because the town’s hotel is full with a bus tour group and she hit a deer on US 2 and the town’s dealership cannot fix her Saab quickly.  Mark allows Emily to stay, followed by elderly George, then weird maybe couple Yvonne and Peter.  In between all this Mark must scatter his aunt’s ashes on Indian Lake with the help of Bear Foot, a local visionary friend of his aunt.

So far so good, we have the screwball elements in place with people coming and going, all while our hapless innkeeper is the victim of his own kindness.  Romance, death, revelation all ensue.

Stuck in Manistique is short; it won’t take more than a couple hours to read.  There isn’t much action beyond eating at the various pubs and pizza joints, running along the shoreline, paddle boating on Indian Lake and driving around the UP and the northern Lower Peninsula.  The main story is the people.

  • What is the connection between Mark and Emily?  They both feel something, but it isn’t romance.
  • Will Mark decide to stay in Manistique?
  • Will Emily finally cut the connection with her adulterous lover/boss?
  • Can Mark get over his fear of bridges?  (Believe me, you do not want to drive over the Mackinaw Bridge if you are afraid of bridges!  It’s huge.)
  • Can Emily come to peace with her guilt over Nicholas?
  • Will George ever catch up with his tour group?
  • Will Peter and Yvonne make it around Lake Michigan in his electric car?

Simple questions.  The author manages to bring these together in a gentle comedy that is engaging, and combines it with beautiful setting and an atmosphere of What Next Can Go Wrong?

There is almost enough meat to the characters to make Stuck in Manistique a winner.  The people tell us about themselves, and while we see Mark being kind in action, that kindness doesn’t quite align with his internal story about dumping his girlfriend when she wanted to get married.

Writing is good although don’t expect a lot of action or snappy dialogue.  The characters are the story here.

3 to 4 Stars

I received this via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

 

Friends at Thrush Green – Gentle English Country Town Novel by Miss Read

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If you get tired of novels about married angst, or alien invasions, or children misbehaving, then try Miss Read’s novels set in small English villages.  Her people enjoy life; they meet problems and forge through, always with neighbors and friends along to help (or gossip).

I enjoy Miss Read’s novels.  I like to read about people whom I would like to know in person, and people who embody the best of human nature, generally good but imperfect, with failings large and small.  I like that there is little or no profanity, no vulgarity, no smut, no blasphemy.  The characters attend church, grocery shop, help out a neighbor, clean the house, enjoy life as it comes.

The characters in Friends at Thrush Green confront serious problems.  Elderly Bertha Lovelocks is senile and has taken to thieving, driving her gentle sister nearly to tears.  Margaret Lester is an alcoholic.  Percy needs a wife and several young ladies need to get married suddenly.  Friends come together to help.

The setting is enjoyable.  We are in a tiny village where not everyone has a telephone.  No cell phones or internet mar the peace and the biggest hobby is gardening.  This is a peaceful novel about life in a quiet English village.

I think this novel may be easier to read in print format.  If you want to look up a given character (is he the minister or the retired doctor??) it is much easier to flip back in a print book.

4 Stars

Wow! Humor at Its Best – P. G. Wodehouse on Hoopla

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There is no one like P. G. Wodehouse.  No one has his combination of humor, plot, characters and language.  Not to mention the fun of reading about house parties in old castles, valets and butlers, ocean trips across the Atlantic, girls on the make, dressing for dinner, mad coincidences, traveling on the train (leaving just ahead of a wrathful aunt).

Our old library had about 50 Wodehouse novels and I read every one and bought more and read those too.  For years it seemed as if Barnes & Noble or Amazon stocked the same 50 or 60 novels that everyone has – Jeeves and Wooster stories, a few trips to Blandings Castle, Galahad Threepwood and his buddy Uncle Fred – but neglected many of his less well-known stories.

I’m so glad to see Hoopla offers many of these novels that weren’t readily available.  I’m borrowing one a month for now, such a treat.  Both Amazon and Barnes and Noble have many more Wodehouse masterpieces now.

The Gem Collector

Jimmy Pitt, once a distinguished safe cracker and jewel thief, now a distinguished rich baronet, is dining alone at the Savoy Hotel when he notices a young man at a nearby table who shows all the signs of not having his wallet.  Jimmy helps the fellow out.  This is how Jimmy meets Spencer Blunt, who just happens to be the son of Lady Jane Blunt, now married to Mr. McEachern, formerly a New York policeman.

Of course Lady Jane and her society don’t know that Mr. McEarchern was a policeman and believe his money came from Wall Street, which is only partially true, as he certainly got some bribes while on that exciting street.  McEarchern and Jimmy know each other (of course) and both know the other had been as crooked as could be, and both want to present reformed faces to the world.

Jimmy goes with Spencer to his mom’s and McEarchern’s home for an extended house party where he again meets Molly, McEarchern’s daughter.  As usual with Wodehouse we have assorted nasty characters, love interests and naturally, Spencer’s obnoxious aunt who owns a pearl collar supposedly worth 40,000 pounds, or $200,000 at the exchange rate of those days.  (This is roughly several million in today’s money.)

If you can see the plot thicken from here, then congratulations, you are a Wodehouse reader.

I thought The Gem Collector was a little more serious than some Wodehouse.  For example, Lady Jane is “drawn to Mr. McEarchern.  Whatever his faults, he had strength; and after her experience of married life with a weak man, Lady Jane had come to the conclusion that strength was the only male quality worth consideration.”  “She suspected no one.  She liked and trusted everybody, which was the reason why she was so popular, and so often taken in.”  McEarchern “had an excellent effect upon him (Spencer) but it had not been pleasant.”

Another character is a card shark who lives from house party to house party and preys on young men.

Both Jimmy and McEearchen are interesting people, as is Spike, Jimmy’s former sidekick now masquerading as his valet.  Will Jimmy restrain his love of fine jewels or will he once more give in and steal the pearls?  Will McEarchern manage to act the gentleman or will he get the horsewhip out for Jimmy?  Will Spike lose his accent?  (I wish.  Spike’s accent was the one negative in the story.)

5 Stars

A Damsel in Distress or No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

This is another romantic comedy with plenty of mistaken identities, meddlesome aunts and love triangles.  Our leading man, George Bevan, is an American playwright currently in London for his hit musical.  He meets Maud when she jumps in his taxi and things go sideways from there.

A Damsel in Distress is also a little bit more serious than most of Wodehouse’s books with all three romances a bit out of the ordinary.  Wodehouse shows real feelings with these characters.  People don’t spend the entire novel ducking aunts or getting clever or hiding behind the sofa; instead we see self-sacrifice and men risking social opprobrium to marry the ladies they love.

The story is still Wodehouse funny, but a bit less fluffy than the Jeeves stories.

Amazon offers A Damsel in Distress; currently the Kindle version is free.

4 Stars

Review: That Thing Around Your Neck – Short Stories by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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The first story in this collection, “Cell One”, is set solely in Nigeria, time not given but likely in the last 20 years.  I read this as part of December’s A Season of Stories and it is unforgettable.

As in most of the other stories, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tells Cell One through the eyes of a young woman, sister to trouble-making Nnamabia, the brother her parents favor and cosset.  Both young people attend a Nigerian university that is frequently beset by violence as cults (gangs) of young men attack each other, often resulting in murder.  The police arrest and jail Nnamabia after a fatal attack and his sister and parents visit him in jail every day via a 2 hour drive.

“Cell One” reaches its emotional height by how matter of fact the sister narrates the events, from shake downs by the highway police to shake downs and bribes in the jail to the endless beatings and humiliation.  The brother tries to spare the life and dignity of an older man who is imprisoned because the authorities cannot find his son; the guards beat this older man daily and the brother risks his own life to try and stop it. We do not know what happens after, whether the brother grows up after this or slides back to being the favored child who gets away with stealing from his own mother.

That Thing Around Your Neck includes several stories set in both America and Nigeria.  One of my favorites is “Imitation”, about a Nigerian wife, Nkem, whose husband is a Big Man back home.  He moved her and their children to America while he spends 50 weeks a year back home.  When the wife discovers he is bringing his mistress to their home in Lagos she decides to move everyone back to Nigeria, standing up to her husband for the first time ever.  I enjoyed the character Nkem and her combination of realistic expectations (of course her husband strays) with determination to have a real marriage and family life.

Several stories showed how both Americans and Nigerians may have nutty ideas about each other, making overly sweeping generalizations about behavior and culture.  One example was “Jumping Monkey Hill” where Edward, the literature seminar leader gently refuses to believe one author’s work is truly African, stating “how African is it for a person to tell her family that she is homosexual?”.  In “The Arrangers of Marriage” the new husband seeks a lighter-skinned Nigerian wife, then has her use only her middle name, Agatha, and tries to turn her into an American, cooking American food, speaking American English.

Many of Adichie’s characters are away from home, are lonely, horribly lonely even when surrounded by people or married.  The stories are good because we connect with the people.  Adichie uses the short story form well, focusing on people’s feelings, their fears and longing, telling stories with small plots and big characters.

5 Stars

The Candidate – Far Fetched Fiction, We Hope

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Liz Wiehl’s new novel The Candidate featuring star news reporter Erica Sparks uses America’s presidential election as the backdrop for nefarious and increasingly unbelievable events.  Erica interviews presidential candidate Mike Ortiz and his glam wife Celeste for her show and leaves both impressed and vaguely troubled.  Something seems off about Ortiz and the couple’s relationship; in fact, Mike seems to look to Celeste for answers, not a good sign for a president.

Erica is standing right in front of the next two horrifying scenes, first when Ortiz’ leading opponent for the nomination is assassinated and then in the courtroom when the assassin is himself murdered.  Both trouble her because neither culprit has any background to indicate a problem and both have months-long gaps in their history which they cannot account for.

The novel is all plot and it’s increasingly ridiculous.  How many times can Erica be the target for something?  And how will she fight back when no one else was able?  How would she hire a personal assistant/nanny without seriously investigating her?

Wiehl tries to build in a romance/family conflict as Erica worries about and wants to spend time with her daughter Jenny but continues to answer ambition’s call to be that top-rated news show host instead.  She hires an intern to be her assistant and to take care of Jenny, not realizing that the assistant is loony.  These interpersonal conflicts seem pasted on in order to make Erica likable and to give an opening for the personal assistant’s betrayal.

Overall The Candidate could be fun if you can suspend all belief and look at Erica as a cross between Wonder Woman and Brenda Starr.  I didn’t care for it once the basic plot was uncovered.

I received this from NetGalley in exchange for a review.
2 Stars

Dealing with the Apocalypse – A Christian Novel of Love and Joy

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Author Robert Lampros offered his novel, Last Year’s Resolution, to interested readers through Goodreads.  I was pleased to get a complimentary copy, paperback and not an e-book, from him and am glad to review it.

Lamrpos asks the question, What would happen to a normal, happy, successful person when the Apocalypse happens?”  By the way, this is the real Apocalypse as foretold in Revelations, not the usual end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it that is a staple in science fiction and fantasy.  Lampros does not go down the rabbit hole of the rapture, which some Protestants expect as the first step when believers are swept up to heaven before the world falls apart for several year under Satan’s rule.  Instead Lampros postulates that most people survive, go on living their lives as much like usual; through the plagues, earthquakes, even the Beast.

Edmund Stovender is the lead character, a successful young author.  He has faith but isn’t immersed in it, God is part of his life but not a big part.  He meets Marie when she asks him for an interview and something about her questions and her voice intrigues him.  They fall in love.  Their lives together begin only after the first step of the Apocalypse, a testament to faith and love.  They marry and have a child, move to a small town in Iowa.

Edmund’s agent, Salem, is the typical unsure adult who doesn’t think about God and rarely prays but he find himself reaching for half-remembered prayers when the sky bursts into flames.  Like many he survives the initial onslaught and continues through his normal career, albeit with a fresher appreciation of Scripture and God.

I liked the book’s focus on normal life and how one can testify best by the small things, by living one’s life as a faithful Christian while working, falling in love, raising a family, making a living, being in the world but not of the world.  Edmund and Salem were believable, interesting people.  Marie was a little less complete.  None of the characters were cardboard cutouts.

There were a few places in Last Year’s Resolution where Lampros intimated things weren’t all that rosy around Edmund.  The American Association of Ethical Arts, Sciences and Practices shuts down Edmund’s last play and tries to jail him for the crime of Artistic Endangerment.  The AAEASP feels his very successful play “threatens the safety and well-being …(or) affronts the consciences and moral integrity of the populace.”  I would have liked to know more about this group and its influence on American law and how we got to censorship.  Was the AAEASP in the pocket of the Beast?

Likewise the President acknowledges that events are following those in Revelations.  We don’t see any mention of him being impeached or threatened which one would expect if it is a crime to offer an inspiring play in a public theater.

Overall the book was solid.  It is short, not much more than an hour’s read, but I expect the ideas and themes to linger much longer.

4 Stars

Wheat That Springeth Green by J F Powers – A Priest’s Life and Growth

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I read Wheat That Springeth Green by J F Powers several years ago and the characters stuck in my mind like a song that you hear every now and then and each time stop to listen.

The novel follows Joe Hackett through his youthful sympathy for older priest Father Day, to his teenaged sexual encounters with the girl and maid next door (complete with syphilis) through the seminary with his pig-headed pursuit of his image of God, to his work as the Catholic pastor in Ingenook.

Along the way Joe struggles to live a life of virtue, to help others reach sanctity, to be a good man and a good priest.  He tries a hair shirt and hours on his knees in the seminary but is never able to achieve the immediate and obvious union with God that he seeks.  He fights disillusionment and an ever-growing beer belly, parishioners’ stinginess and the constant battle between holiness and worldliness.

Writing Style

J. F. Powers combined stream-of-conscious with modest narrative, all from Joe’s point of view, and abrupt changes of scenery and time.  The book would be a little easier to follow with a bit more narrative.  For example, Joe finally gets assigned as a pastor to his own parish, but we have to surmise that by the change in tone and topic in a new chapter.

The stream-of-conscious thoughts are Joe wrestling with a problem, neatly listing the pros and cons, and sometimes the dialogue he wants to have but cannot.  The archbishop increases the assessment against his parish, but Joe feels bound to not make money requests to his parish.  He implemented a flat fee concept with the promise that he wouldn’t ask for extra funds.

Joe imagines discussing this with the Arch, all with a happy ending.  Instead he and his assistant divide up the DPs (deliquent parishioners who don’t give) and visit some each evening to ask the families to live up to their stewardship responsibilities.  (We can imagine how well that works.  On average in any parish a third give regularly, a third give once in a while and a third never give.)

Characters

Joe is inherently kind and thoughtful, not what one would expect reading his famous question posed in seminary “How do we make virtue as attractive as sex?”  As a boy Joe sees his pastor, “Dollar Bill” treat his assistant Father Day rudely and be greedy with his parish.  As an adult Joe seeks out Father Day, makes him his confessor, treats him kindly and with great respect.

The most striking example was with Catfish Tooney, sorry, Monsignor Tooney, Joe’s former classmate and general pain in the neck in the diocesan chancery.  Joe built a nice rectory in his parish and wants the archbishop to bless it, but must go through Tooney who of course says no.  Later the archbishop asks Joe in person why he hasn’t had him out to bless the rectory and Joe bites his tongue and struggles for days to find a way to answer without calling out Tooney.  Most of us wouldn’t bother protecting a guy who’s been a jerk for years.

Humor with Seriousness

Wheat that Springeth Green is funny even while treating serious topics like God, faith, virtue, money, sex and dreams.  Joe has a good sense of humor and Powers does a good job showing us the funny moments, both inside and outside of Joe’s head.  We see Joe evolve from a precocious youngster to an obnoxiously self-important seminarian to an earnest priest dedicated to his own holiness and hopefully that of the people he serves, to a priest who compromises with the world to one who re-ignites his own faith.  Along the way we smile and maybe even laugh a bit at life.