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Category: Genre Fiction

Review: Queen of the Summer Stars by Persia Woolley

[ 4 ] June 28, 2011

Reviewed by Jessa Larsen

In a country still in chaos from the collapse of the mighty Roman Empire, young monarchs King Arthur and Queen Guinevere struggle to pull the country back together while also establishing the Fellowship of the Round Table. Guinevere skillfully manages her new husband and household. She enjoys her newly acquired duties as the Queen but continuously battles her thirst for the freedom she once knew. Guinevere also faces the conflict of her growing love for Lancelot versus her loyalty to her husband and King.

Gwen loves her country and believes herself to be growing to love her husband, but as she experiences what life is really like as Arthur roams the countryside recruiting for the cause that he loves with all his heart, she’s not quite sure anymore. Things become more complicated after an incident in which Gwen is accused of poisoning Arthur and even more so when she discovers his view on having children. Despite these setbacks, the ever determined Gwen keeps her head high and does what needs to be done in life. That is, until she begins to fall in love with Lancelot. She must make a choice between love and duty once and for all.

Queen of the Summer Stars is the second book of the Guinevere trilogy and just as riveting. We begin to see Gwen blossom as she takes on womanhood, marriage, and her duty as a Queen to her King and country. We watch her struggle with what she wants in life versus what she has received and how she chooses to handle it.

I’ve always been in love with the stories of King Arthur to begin with and I love seeing them portrayed as real people. I especially love seeing Gwen live and love and make real choices. I highly recommend reading both books that have been written for the trilogy thus far and I can’t wait for the third installment to be available.

Rating: 4/5

Check out Jessa’s review of the first installment in the series, Child of the Northern Spring

Jessa lives in Utah with her husband, 2 sons, 2 cats, and 2 dogs. She goes to school full time as an English major with a focus in creative writing. She likes anime and reads books and plays video games in her moments of spare time.

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Sourcebooks Landmark. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Review: Death by Facebook by Everett Peacock

[ 5 ] June 27, 2011

Reviewed by Melanie Kline

“What if your family and friends, co-workers and boss first heard of your death, via Facebook?” This is the question posed on the back of the book and being a Facebook user myself, it definitely stirred my interest. Unfortunately, the subject was barely touched upon at all.

While in Hawaii, Private Jimmy Turner dies when he is pushed into a volcano in a restricted area. Worse yet, Janet, the love of his life, is the one who does it by luring him there to have sex. Janet then goes back to their cabin and makes a post on Jimmy’s Facebook page. The post reads: “I just wanted to let you all know that I am dead.” She then cuts off all of her hair, dons Jimmy’s clothes and proceeds to parade around Hawaii as if she is Private Turner and nothing is wrong. Eventually, when Jimmy doesn’t show up for his deployment, military police come looking for him and Janet flees.

After totaling the car, Janet meets Starshine Aloha, a hippie who lives off of the land along with a few of her friends. Janet introduces herself as Jimmie and is staying with the group when the volcano she pushed Jimmy into erupts and she winds up in a fight for her own life.

While I found the book interesting, I did not feel that Death by Facebook by Everett Peacock addressed the million dollar question at all. In fact, I thought that there were far too many unanswered questions. Janet killed Jimmy because she read a Facebook post on his account from his brother stating that she could be their long lost sister. And yet, she never questioned him about it – instead she opted to kill him rather than investigate the rumor. Later in the book, Janet found herself pregnant with Jimmy’s child and had a late term abortion, stating that “my brother did this to me”. Why did she feel the need to impersonate him after his death instead of just living her life?

Another issue I had with Death by Facebook was that it was barely proofread, if at all. There were misspellings throughout; on some pages and in the same paragraph, beer cans became beer bottles, etc. All in all, this was an intriguing read, but not at all what I had expected, way off from the subject matter and made even more irritating by the spelling and grammar mistakes.

Rating: 2.5/5

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Everett Peacock. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Blog Tour: A Reluctant Queen by Joan Wolf

[ 3 ] June 24, 2011

Please welcome Joan Wolf, author of A Reluctant Queen, who is touring the blogosphere with LitFuse Publicity!

Reviewed by Claudia Robinson

“Telling him would force her to make a final choice: she could be a Jew and tell him who she really was and why she had been sent to him; or she could be a Persian and continue to lie to him for the rest of her life.” Esther, A Reluctant Queen

Esther’s Uncle Mordecai has had a dream. A dream in which God’s vision for his people has become clear and personal, a dream that requires him delivering his beloved, beautiful niece, Esther, in to the hands of a Persian King. By placing Esther into King Ahasuerus’ court, Mordecai hopes to gain the King’s ear, turning it away from Haman, the Edomite, who currently holds the coveted position of King’s confidant. Mordecai is confident that with Esther’s gentle guidance, God’s plan will be enacted by Ahasuerus, resulting in peace between all religions, instead of the War Haman seems eager to persuade the young King to wage.

Esther is forced to lie about her Jewish heritage and put aside her rituals in order to marry the King, relying on her Father’s Babylon blood to persuade the Court of her merit. Reluctant, afraid and confused, Esther is thrown in to a life she knows or understands nothing about. With the help of her faithful serving girl, Luara and the eunuch Hathach, Esther quickly learns the ropes and gains the favor of the Court with her charm, wisdom and empathic handling of royal affairs, including the favor of the handsome King. When Esther finds herself falling in love with the charismatic Ahasuerus, loyalties and duties become torn, lines of loyalty blurred. Love of family and God are tested, daily, and Esther is forced to choose between fulfilling the role God has asked of her, or the man whose love she can’t live without.

A Reluctant Queen is a revamped version of a biblical tale. A love story, rife with betrayal, sacrifice, devotion and consequence of actions, A Reluctant Queen offers a sweet tapestry of two young lives, woven together by destiny and duty. It is an easy read, detailed and lush with emotion.

Unfortunately, Wolf elaborates too much on character appearances, which can lend a juvenile slant to the tale just when the reader is sinking their teeth in to the tale. I felt let down that Wolf felt such an elaborately threaded story, obviously well researched, and well written, needed to be gilded in soap opera fashion. In some parts it was fatalistic, as in the Bible meets People magazine. Sometimes, especially in this case, less is more. Other than that, A Reluctant Queen was a sweet, beautiful, entertaining spin of an ancient love story that anyone who reads it, will surely enjoy.

Rating: 3.5/5

Claudia lives on beautiful Cape Cod with her husband and two children.

The review copy of this book was provided free of any obligation by Thomas Nelson. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Review: Praise Jerusalem! by Augusta Trobaugh

[ 4 ] June 23, 2011

Reviewed by Caitlin Busch

With the promise of a fresh start, three women set out for the town of Jerusalem in Jefferson County, Georgia to find a house that may – or may not – be there. The narrator, an old white woman named Amelia, is forced by dwindling finances to move out of her family home, all while reliving evermore vivid and frequent memories. Maybelline, a born-again Christian from another town, is escaping the stigma of being pushed out of her boyfriend’s truck to care for Amelia, who is showing signs of senility. Mamie, an African-American woman, is looking for a way out of a violent relationship when they meet on the road. All three women are seeking redemption in their own ways – and all three find it in a town called Jerusalem.

Like many Southern novels, Praise Jerusalem! deals with serious issues such as race relations, violence and extreme poverty. Like Toni Morrison, Augusta Trobaugh successfully couples lyrical prose with grotesque imagery to draw an intense emotional reaction from the reader. The narrator’s memory episodes focus on her relationship with Aunt Valley, an African-American woman hired by her mother to care for her one summer, and a brief but shocking encounter with a maid’s starving family. As these flashbacks invade the real world more and more, causing Maybelline and Mamie much distress, Amelia recalls Old Auntie – an old woman stuck in a moment of childhood tragedy, a parallel redemption story – and there is a tremendous crescendo before all three women find their places in the new house.

I found Praise Jerusalem! terrifically uplifting. It contains such valuable lessons about the relationship between compassion and pain, and between freedom and the ability to love. If it weren’t for her deep and honest compassion, Maybelline could have been a darkly comic cartoon. Maybelline had suffered but remained sympathetic to both Amelia and Mamie despite their attitudes toward each other, because there always was something in them ready to improve if allowed. As Aunt Valley said, “You can’t throw away love. It just don’t throw.” All it took was a lesson in accepting the compassion of others. There is a great deal of wisdom in Praise Jerusalem!; it is a simply outstanding read. You will certainly be moved!

Rating: 5/5

Caitlin is a fiction writer who also dabbles in poetry, creative nonfiction and acrylic painting. When not reading, she enjoys hiking, cooking and spending time with friends and pets. She earned her B.A. in English from the University of Portland and currently resides in Louisiana.

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Bell Bridge Books. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Review: Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

[ 5 ] June 20, 2011

Reviewed by Elizabeth Talbott

R is a zombie. He doesn’t remember his full name or what he used to do or anything about his life as a human. Like all the others in the zombie overrun world, he just shuffles around and mechanically goes through the motions in the barren post-apocalyptic world. Every day is basically the same and goes by in a bland gray blur except for the occasional dream. That is, until he goes with a pack of zombies to feed and eats a teenage boy’s brain. This in itself is nothing special, but he is suddenly flooded with the boy’s memories.

He looks at Julie, the boy’s girlfriend, and saves her from the other zombies after feeling the boy’s love for her. R’s decision to save Julie ultimately changes him in ways he never thought possible. After he takes her to the plane he lives in, they start their own awkward and strangely sweet relationship, much to the chagrin of some of the other zombies. Can the living ever truly coexist with the living dead?

Warm Bodies is the best zombie book I have ever read. Ever. Everything about this book is exceptional and goes above and beyond what other zombie novels have done. The novel starts off as many zombie novels do: with the world a barren wasteland covered in zombies whose only interest in humans is in their brains. None of them are really self aware or have any care for what happens except for R.

At first, R is much like the rest of them. He has a zombie wife and zombie children, but they aren’t really a family. He is only able to communicate in sparse syllables and shrugs. After he meets Julie, everything changes. He feels love for her and eventually stops wanting to eat brains at all. Instead of being satisfied being a dead automaton, he strives to regain his lost humanity. R is the only zombie I can think of that is the hero of a novel and develops as a character more than most human characters I’ve read.

Warm Bodies, beneath its zombies, is ultimately about us. The typical zombies are those that have forgotten how precious life is. They go around their daily lives mechanically and just care about mundane things like money and their jobs. The zombies in the novel go through what they would as humans, such as eating, being with their families, and having sex, but it’s a ghastly parody of actual human life. Even though it’s funny, it still shows us that we shouldn’t take our lives for granted and that we often forget how important love really is.

Warm Bodies is a book I would recommend to everyone I know and many that I don’t. The eloquent language, clear voice, and relatable themes make this book reach people beyond the zombie genre. The ending was absolutely perfect and I really hope that Isaac Marion keeps writing because I will definitely be reading whatever comes next.

Rating: 5/5

Elizabeth is a student at Cal State Long Beach. She laughs a lot, loves cats, and lives for music and books. You can read her blog here: http://titania86-fishmuffins.blogspot.com/

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Regal Literary. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Review & Giveaway: Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister

[ 156 ] June 19, 2011

Please join Erica Bauermeister, author of Joy For Beginners, as she tours the blogosphere with TLC Book Tours!

Reviewed by Poppy Johnson

In Joy For Beginners, the main character, Kate, meets up with friends after recovering from cancer and finds she is in need of an adventure. Kate and her friends – Caroline, Marion and Daria (sisters), Sara, Ava and Hadley – each tell their own perspective throughout the book. From these separate chapters, the reader gets a glimpse into the lives of the women. They all agree to go on a white water rafting trip in the Grand Canyon, and the book describes the fears and joys they discover on the trip.

Each woman’s story is poignantly told. There are quite a few heartfelt moments as they share their joys and sorrows without apology for the raw feelings the emotions bring up. The courage of the women never wavers, as they manage their houses and families, break off on their own to explore a vacation in a foreign land or allow new expressions to flow through their veins. The women push past their collective fears to live their lives in a full and robust way, including the famous rafting trip, which is described in detail near the last third of Joy For Beginners.

By the end, Kate comes to terms with her feelings over her past illness and with accepting her body after the cancer. As she shows others her scars, she allows the fears to leave her and a new acceptance to take the place of pain and fear. I recommend Joy For Beginners to anyone interested in survivor stories and stories of women who can find courage after an illness.

Rating: 5/5

After a decade of working in several NYC law departments and teaching, Poppy decided she enjoyed writing full-time. She currently works as a freelance writing consultant, and lives with her husband and sons on the East Coast.

Giveaway:
I have 1 copy of Joy For Beginners to give away!

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This giveaway is open to US and Canada residents only. Deadline to enter is midnight on July 8, 2011.

Review and giveaway copies were provided free of any obligation by Putnam Adult. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Review: 22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson

[ 5 ] June 17, 2011

Reviewed by Alyssa Katanic

Often, when we think of WWII, we think about the Holocaust and the Jewish people who suffered unspeakably at the hands of the Nazis. However, the suffering did not stop there. 22 Britannia Road is a fictional novel that seeks to explore the suffering and recovery of a Polish family who had been separated for six years during the war and later reunited in England.

Hodgkinson shuffles together the family’s present with clips of their past as they became a family, and as they suffered through the war separately: the father joining the British troops and the mother and son left behind in Poland. Each time she shuffles in a part of their past, it helps to shed light on why they may react to their present as they do. All the father wants is to live a perfectly normal British life in such a way as to make his own father proud. The mother longs to give her son a normal family with a father to love and be loved by. The son, on the other hand, has grown up since toddler hood in the horrors of war. Surviving those horrors is his normal. So the question becomes, will they all be able to give up their notions of “normal” and accept the harsh realities of their life as it has been, in order to grow together from there? Or, will father and mother cling to “normal,” continue to hide from the past, and end up loosing what they had hoped to reestablish: family?

As in all stories relating to the horrors of WWII, not every scene is a pretty one, however, Hodgkinson does keep such scenes to a relative minimum. It is still often heartbreaking and quite suspenseful. It also gives the reader a picture of female survival from different characters’ perspectives throughout the book and how female sexuality plays into that according to the author.

22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson is not a light read, but it is a well thought out and thought provoking one.

Rating: 3.5/5

Alyssa is a wife and stay at home, homeschooling mother of five, with two boxers, two cats, a soft shelled turtle named after Bob the Builder, and 7 frogs (admittedly a homeschooling project gone froggy). In all her spare time, she loves to read and believes that there is no such thing as having too many books!

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Pamela Dorman Books. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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Review: Promises to Keep by Ann Tatlock

[ 6 ] June 16, 2011

Reviewed by Amanda Schafer

Roz is a young girl who misses her father.  Her mother had enough, and moved away from Roz’s father in order to keep her children safe. Roz’s father, Alan Anthony, tracks down his family and convinces Roz that he is a changed person and that he wants nothing more than to reunite with them. He keeps meeting Roz in secret and won’t allow her to tell anyone that he is in town. Some people they run into call her father by a different name, and seem to think she is his niece, not his daughter. Confused, Roz ignores the voice in her head that are telling her not to trust her father.

Mara is Roz’s best friend and she has secrets of her own. Together, the girls make a pact that they will pray for things to work out for each of them, and most of all with their fathers. Mara figures out the truth about her father very early on, while Roz continues to trust her own in secret. He keeps telling her that everything will be ready in a short time and Roz just waits and hopes for that day to come.

Tillie is a curious old lady who shows up on their doorstep, claiming that they are living in her house. Declaring that she will die in her own home, Tillie moves in and stays with the Anthonys. But while she’s there, Tillie shares her faith with Roz and the rest of the family. She offers advice when asked and help when needed.

All of the characters in this book have “promises to keep”. Roz and Mara promise things to each other, Alan makes promises to Roz, Tillie promises to die in her own home, and Roz’s mother promises to protect her children and keep them safe. Can they all keep the promises they have made?

Ann Tatlock weaves an interesting tale in Promises to Keep showing the life of a battered wife who is trying to make a new start. At the same time, she does it all from the perspective of a child who wants her family back together again, but knows in her heart things will never be the same. Promises to Keep wasn’t my favorite book by Tatlock, but it was interesting to see how it all played out in the end.

Rating: 3.5/5

Amanda lives in Missouri with her engineering husband, two sons, and one daughter. In between homeschooling and keeping up with church activities she loves to read Christian Fiction, Women’s Fiction, and any Chick-Lit. She never goes anywhere without a book to read!

Review copy was provided free of any obligation by Bethany House. No monetary or any other form of compensation was received.

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