Tag: book review

Oneiron

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Lindstedt, Linda. Oneiron: a fantasy about the seconds after death. Translated by Owen Witesman. London: OneWorld, 2018.

Reason read: I requested this book as an Early Review from LibraryThing.

How to describe this book? Odd? Maybe. It is the imaginative story of seven unique women who are caught in a space somewhere between death and the final destination, wherever that may be. It is obvious all seven women have passed away but they themselves are not fully cognizant of that fact. They aren’t even sure they know where they are except to say they are in a white room devoid of detail. Each woman has a thoroughly detailed personality and an elaborate past to match. More time is spent telling the reader where they have been instead of moving them forward to where they are going. It gets heavy at times. Certain scenes are graphic.

Disclaimer: I normally only chose two different types of books from LibraryThing for the Early Review Program: nonfiction and debut novels. For some reason, the premise of Oneiron (pronounced o.ne:.ron from the Greek, meaning dream) fascinated me: seven women meet in an undefined space only seconds after their deaths. They are in the space between life and afterlife. The don’t understand this in-between world.

Second disclaimer: I was not prepared for the lesbian sex scene right off the bat, only four pages in.
Truth be told, I had a hard time with this. I could put it down for days weeks and not miss the characters I abandoned. I didn’t find a likable woman in the bunch. Maybe that was my problem.

Author fact: Lindstedt’s debut novel was Scissors. Another useless piece of trivia: Lindstedt has amazing cheek bones. She could model in her spare time. Maybe she does.

Book trivia: Oneiron has already won the Finlandia Prize, Finland’s highest literary honor. Another piece of trivia: Oneiron is organized a little differently than American published books. Table of contents is in the back while the author bio is in the front.

A Few Figs From Thistles

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Millay, Edna St. Vincent. A Few Figs From Thistles: Poems and Sonnets. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1922.

Reason read: April is National Poetry Month.

The poem Pearl wanted her readers to focus on from A Few Figs From Thistles is “The Unexplorer” (p 24). It is an incredibly short poem about a little girl who asks her mother where the road by their house leads. The mother replies it ends at the milk-man’s door. For some reason that information suddenly ends the little girl’s desire to go down the road. I am of a darker mind when I think the little girl is afraid of the milk-man and doesn’t want to run into him when really it could be she thinks the milk-man’s front door is not an exciting enough destination. So she has put it out of her mind. She is no longer curious. That’s the thing about poetry. It is ambiguous enough that it could mean anything you want it to. I prefer the darker version. the milk-man’s front door is not a place for young girls.

As an aside, from every aspect of my accounting, from the spreadsheets to the codes in LibraryThing, A Few Figs From Thistles is supposed to be a More Book Lust read as well as from Book Lust To Go. It’s not in the index of More Book Lust nor can I find it within the obvious chapters. Really weird.

Author fact: To her friends, Edna was called Vincent.

Book trivia: Read between the lines and you will find Millay’s viewpoint on feminism and sexuality.

Nancy said: This poem sets the tone for Pearl’s entire book, Book Lust To Go (p xiii). She is not a traveler and she cites “The Unexplorer” as explanation. It’s kind of funny.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the introduction (p xiii).

Zeitoun

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Eggers, Dave. Zeitoun. New York: Vintage Books, 2009.

Reason read: Louisiana was founded in the month of April.

For the rest of the world, Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath of her horrible devastation are receding images in the rear view mirror; images replaced by other natural and man-made disasters of bigger and nastier proportions. To the rest of the world what happened in New Orleans is fast becoming a series of footnotes in history’s troubled narrative. But, for the people of New Orleans, the nightmare is far from over. Zeitoun is just one man’s story. A man who stayed to wait out the storm. A man who tried to help those in need wherever and however he could. A man caught up in racial profiling, prejudices, and fast-ignited bad judgements. There were hundred of stories just like his. Dave Eggers makes the story more interesting than run of the mill.

When it was all said and done, I had to wonder about Zeitoun’s character. Here was a man who stubbornly made his wife and child walk four hours one way on a beach to reach a rock formation he could see in the distance.
As an aside, I tried to not let the rest of Zeitoun’s public story change how I read Eggers’s book. Like everyone else, I Googled Zeitoun and found out about his violent behavior towards his wife and their legal battles. So sad.

Quotes to quote, “The winds were still many days from being relevant to his life” (p 24).

Author fact: Dave Eggers was born in Boston and is my age.

Book trivia: Oddly enough, even though there are photographs in Zeitoun they are of his family and not what everyone would expect, of the devastation in New Orleans.

Nancy said: Nancy outlines the basic plot of Zeitoun.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “News From N’Orleans” (p 155).

“Travel”

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Millay, Edna St. Vincent. “Travel.” April Second. New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1921. p33.

Reason read: April is National Poetry Month. Note the title of the book from where “Travel” was published.

The poem “Travel” reminded me of Freya Stark in it’s restlessness and sense of adventure. To look at train tracks and wonder where they end up. To watch a plane make its way across the sky, the contrails fading bit by bit, and guess its final destination. Who hasn’t done that?
Confessional: As a child I did the reverse. While riding in my father’s car I used to watch the world passing by and if I saw someone in a yard raking leaves or watering a garden I would try to put myself in their shoes. To stand there, rake or garden hose in hand as the silver car flashes by with the little girl peering out the window, her blank face staring. What was it to be standing still as my other self rode by? Did the gardener wonder where I was going?

Author fact: Millay was born in Rockland, Maine.

Poem trivia: the theme of restlessness has been compared to Millay’s sense of sexuality and how she “traveled” between genders as a bisexual.

Nancy said: Nancy said she could identify with Millay’s poem “Travel” because it described how she wished she felt – that sense of adventure to ride the rails no matter where they took her (p 138).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the introduction to the chapter called “Making Tracks by Train” (p 138).

Charmed

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Roberts, Nora. Charmed. the Donovan Legacy Book Three New York: Harper Collins, 2011.

Reason read: to finish the series started in February in honor of Valentine’s Day. Confessional: Nancy Pearl just said to read The Donovan Legacy. She failed to mention there is not a single book with that title. It’s actually a set of three: Captivated, Entranced, and Charmed. There is even a different version of The Donovan Legacy with a fourth book, Enchanted. I read one book at a time each month since I am guessing that’s how they were originally published and I stopped with Charmed.

For those of you playing along at home, Charmed is the third book in the Donovan Legacy series. Three cousins, Morgana, Sebastian and Anastasia are all witches of Irish descent. With Morgana and Sebastian married off in Captivated and Entranced respectively, Ana is the last single cousin/witch. She is having the most trouble finding a mate due to her supernatural ability to feel empathy and heal broken whatevers. Enter Boone Sawyer, single (widower) dad and new neighbor. Conveniently enough, he writes fairy tales and has even corresponding with the Donovan matriarch in Ireland. He’s a big fan. Ana falls in love with his daughter and Boone falls in love with Ana. It’s a match made in heaven except Ana can’t tell Boone she really is a witch. She’s afraid he will act like the last guy and dump her cold. So she has cold feet. It takes an accident for them to break the impasse and live happily ever after. Hey, this is a Nora Roberts romance after all!

Book trivia: Like the other two in the Donovan Legacy series, there are some spicy sex scenes.

Nancy said: nothing because Charmed isn’t listed in Book Lust anywhere.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust though technically not. See above. From the chapter called “Romance Novels: Our Love is Here to Stay” (p 203) though technically not.

Witch World

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Norton, Andre. Witch World. Boston: Gregg Press, 1963.

Reason read: Andre Norton died in March. Read in her honor.

I always root for the underdog and in Witch World the heroes are misfits. Simon Tregarth is ex-military, a colonel who has been framed. He is on the run and needs to disappear quickly. Enter Dr. Jorge Petronius who knows exactly where to hide out hero…in the witch world of Estcarp. Petronius has a special stone he calls the Siege Perilous that can judge a man’s worth and then send him to the world best suited for his soul. Simon was sent to a medieval land where its inhabitants are at battle; perfect for a military man. The action picks up from there.

Confessional: I was a little taken aback by Sandra Miesel’s description of the enemy in her introduction. She called them “alien Nazis” (p xiv).

Quote I liked the best, “She was a bleached thing, grown in the dark, but a vitality within her was as strong as the supple blade a wise swordsman chooses over the heavier hacking weapon of the inexperienced” (p 67).

Author fact: Norton wrote her first novel before the age of 21 years old.

Book trivia: Witch World is the first book in the Witch World Series. There are at least nine other books in the Escarp portion of the series, but I am only reading the one. Fro the High Hallack Cycle I am reading The Jargoon Pard and from the Turning I am reading The Warding of Witch World. Are you confused yet? I could be.

Nancy said: Witch World is included in the list of “critically acclaimed fantasy” (p 215).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the long chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 213).

Slide Rule

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Shute, Nevil. Slide Rule: the Autobiography of an Engineer. New York: William Morrow & Company, 1954.

Reason read: William Oughtred, the inventor of the slide rule, was born in March. Read in his honor.
Confessional: my father, being a man in love with boats and the ocean and nautical charts, taught me how to use a slide rule for navigation when I was really young. It was such a long time ago I doubt I could plot a course these days, though.

This is supposed to be Nevil Shute’s autobiography but I would say it is more a memoir about his career in aviation. He doesn’t delve into his personal life too deeply. There is nothing about his childhood, his marriage, becoming a father, or much of his writing career, for example. You don’t know much about his family life/childhood, how he met his wife, when he had children, or even how he became a writer in the first place. Slide Rule is more about Shute’s life in aviation; how he became a calculator for the firm of DeHavilland when they were designing rigid airships. What’s fascinating is his company was in competition with the government to build airbuses. After an airbus disaster Shute founded the company Airspeed, Ltd and had lukewarm success being profitable building private planes. At the start of World War II the nature of the business changed and Shute slowly started to withdraw emotionally from Airspeed. The memoir ends with him leaving Airspeed after being voted out by the board. Meanwhile, his career as an author was just starting to take flight.

Quotes I liked, “The happily married man with a large family is the test
pilot for me” (p 67), and “A man’s own experiences determine his opinions, of necessity” (p 140).
Author fact: Nevil’s full name is Nevil Shute Norway. He explains his reasons for using his Christian names alone in Slide Rule.

Book trivia: Slide Rule has a small sections of photographs, including a couple of the author.

Nancy said: Shute thought of himself as more of an engineer than a writer, according to Pearl.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the obvious chapter called “Nevil Shute: Too Good To Miss” (p 198).

Coast of Incense

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Stark, Freya. The Coast of Incense: Autobiography 1933 – 1939. London: John Murray, 1953.

Reason read: to finish the autobiography of Freya Stark, started in January in honor of her birth month.

Freya Stark was born to travel. Unafraid. Unconcerned with custom, tradition or the assumed proper behavior of the single woman, Stark was a woman who did as she pleased. Long fascinated with maps she set out to be a lady “traveller” in the middle east. She thought it fun to be “a speck on the map of Arabia” (p 58). The only reoccurring obstacle in her way was illness, whether it be dysentery or the measles, or her heart, she was frequently bed ridden. Never the less she traveled throughout the Hadhramout of South Arabia. As with her other autobiographies, Stark introduces each chapter with a present day impression followed by alternating letters from the time frame. She is careful to weave memory with retrospection to build a compelling portrait of her life.

Personally, I loved her descriptions of Himyar, her pet lizard the best.

Best quotes, “…for no iron curtain yet discovered will stand against the pressure and persistence of life, and I still hope to live long enough to write about an opening door” (preface, p xiii), “..and again astonished me with the strangeness of being rewarded for what one likes to do – although it is, perhaps the best thing to be rewarded for” (p 15), and “A young Yemeni teacher comes three hours a week and Arabic is pouring back into my brain” (p 40).

Author fact: Stark was one feisty woman. Take these quotes for example, “I spent a long time the night before wondering whether I should take our little revolver and shoot the Duce as he came by” (p 6). Then there is this: “Little details one would never think of, such as one’s hostess stopping in the middle of dinner to see if there is vaseline on your knife, as it has just come out of someone’s waistband” (p 72) and “…”but I walked on, stolid and angry, with an occasional remark, on the wickedness of robbing travellers, thrown behind me” (p 246).

Book trivia: The Coast of Incense has a great collection of photographs. There is one of Freya looking like a model in Athens that I just love.

Nancy said: nothing that hasn’t already been said somewhere else.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Lady Travellers” (p 142).

Two Plays and a Premise

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Dennis, Nigel. Two Plays and a Premise: Cards of Identity and The Making of Moo. New York: The Vanguard Press, 1958.

Reason read: March is National Read month. I’m reading this just because.

The entire story centers around the Identity Club, a group of psychoanalysts who come together once a year to discuss phony identity cases which don’t involve real patients. At the same time, the local townspeople are being brainwashed into believing they are servants for the psychologists. They lose their identities in order to serve the whims of the shrinks. The end of the story, which I never got to, involves a Shakespearean play. For me, the plot disintegrated midway through the story and I gave up. It started off great. The slow brain washing was sinister in places. Miss Paradise’s brother goes missing and she doesn’t recognize him as the therapists’s servant. Or calling the doctor by different names in order to confuse him. Both scenarios were funny and evil and brilliant.

Confessional: I was supposed to read the full length novel of the same title but I ordered the play instead. By the time I noticed my mistake it was too late. I never would have been able to finish the 300+ page novel in time so I stuck with the play.

Line I liked, “Many a man’s life has been thrown away through the mumbling of his survivors” (p 61).

Author fact: Nigel wrote a smattering of other books but this is the only one I am supposed to read for the Challenge.

Book trivia: Card of Identity is both a novel and a play. For the latter it becomes a play within a play.

Nancy said: Nancy listed Cards of Identity as one of her faves (p 33).

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the odd chapter called “The Book Lust of Others” (p 33). Cards of Identity was discovered in Writer’s Choice: A Library of Rediscoveries compiled by Linda Sternberg Katz and Bill Katz.

The Good Son

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Gruber, Michael. The Good Son. Read by Neil Shah. Blackstone Audio, 2010.

Reason read: The history of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan begins in March.

From the very beginning you cannot help but root for Theo. He is an ex-Delta soldier trying to be the sensitive tough guy while is mother is being held captive. But, he is only part of the story. Let’s talk about the mother, Sonia Laghari, for a moment. She, along with eight other members of a symposium on peace, have been kidnapped by armed terrorists. Being a deeply religious Jungian psychologist, Sonia becomes the leader of the abducted group. Using her knowledge of the kidnapper’s language and religion she uses her Jungian psychology to interpret their dreams if only to get in their heads. She wants to instill the premise that you can simultaneously hate the war but love the soldier. Despite her own life being in danger, she attempts to generate harmony to “protect” her fellow captives. A sort of reverse Stockholm syndrome. Meanwhile, in Washington there is a Vietnamese National Security translator listening in…The Good Son combines psychology, sociology, religion, and relationships into a thriller well worth the read.

Quotes to quote, “It is easier to tell the truth to the world than to people you love” (p 125) and “Hope and some slight relief from the worst are the best weapons of any tormentor; the torturer smiles and offers a a cigarette” (p 158).

Author fact: Gruber used to be a marine biologist, a restaurant cook and a federal government official. A man of many varying hats. He could be called one of the most interesting men in the world…

Narrator fact: Shah has appeared on the television series, Law & Order.

Book trivia: Due to the nature of Sonia’s character, be prepared for a few didactic moments as Sonia interprets the dreams of her captors and recites poetry.

Nancy said: Nancy called The Good Son a “riveting thriller” (p 214).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Sojourns in South Asia: Pakistan” (p 212).

White Man’s Grave

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Dooling, Richard. White Man’s Grave. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994.

Reason read: this explanation is a little convoluted: Dooling was born in Nebraska. Nebraska became a state in March. Nebraska has nothing to do with the plot of White Man’s Grave.

When Peace Corps Volunteer Michael Killigan goes missing the people in his life react very differently. His father, Randall, a high powered bankruptcy lawyer, throws money and power at the situation, hoping he doesn’t have to get his hands too dirty with his son’s failings.  Meanwhile, best friend, Boone Westfall, does the exact opposite. He throws himself headlong into the West African world of witch doctors and supernatural voodoo. Interestingly enough, the voodoo comes to Indiana. Randall receives a strange package; a bundle of black rags soaked in what looks like human blood. And that’s when the hallucinations start. Meanwhile, across the world the Liberian rebels are taking over Sierra Leone, corruption is leaking out from every corner. Secret societies of leopard men, bush devils, human baboons and witches prevail. In the midst of it all one question still remains, what happened to Peace Corps volunteer Michael Killigan?

Confessional: I got a little weary of the repetitive descriptions of gory witchcraft. Everything was matted in hair and blood and teeth.

Two quotes to quote: “His wife was terribly calm, almost formal, which told him something was terribly wrong, and she didn’t want to tell him on the phone, because she was afraid he would lean out of the clouds on Olympus and throw lightning bolts at her” (p 18), and “Randall held his breath and mastered a rogue emotion, which threatened to bolt from his stables and make an ass of him” (p 242).

Author fact: The photo Dooling used looks a little like Matt Damon. Another Dooling trivia: he lived in Sierra Leone in the early 1980s.

Book trivia: The cover of my edition of White Man’s Grave is creepy. A baboon with bleary eyes stares out from on top of a man’s muddied torso. The man is holding a bowl of bones and a picture of a man. Underneath the man’s torso are bare legs, one wearing a sneaker, the other barefoot. None of these images are proportional to the other so the overall effect is very disjointed and disturbing.

Nancy said: Nancy includes White Man’s Grave because it is one of two satirical novels about the culture clash in Africa.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “African Colonialism” (p 14). As an aside, this is the first book I am reading from this chapter. Isn’t it amazing? After almost 18 years of reading I finally chose a book from “African Colonialism.”

Roman Blood

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Saylor, Stephen. Roman Blood.  New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991.

Reason read: Saylor’s birth month is in March. Read in his honor.

It’s Rome in the year 80 B.C., and Gordianus the Finder has been summoned to the house of Cicero. Only twenty six years old, Cicero needs help defending a client in court. A wealthy farmer has been accused of patricide, the most heinous crime of Roman times. Cicero needs evidence to support his case and Gordianus is just the man to find it. Only, this is ancient Rome where slaves and masters practice deceit and betrayal on a daily basis. Who is telling the truth and who is behind the lies? As Gordianus’s investigation takes him closer and closer to dictator Sulla himself he knows he is in trouble. How far will he go to help Cicero uncover the truth? And is that truth worth uncovering?

As an aside, I want to know if Rome still has streets as described on page 23, “It was a street never touched by sun, never dried by its heat, or never purified by its light – filled with steam at high summer, coated with ice in winter, eternally damp.” I don’t know why, but that sounds magical.

Quotes to quote, “Romans love the strong man who can laugh at himself, and despise the weak man who cannot” (p 249), and “Some people are not at their best when roused from bed in the middle of the night” (p 268).

Author fact: taken from the book jacket, “Saylor’s fascination with ancient Rome began at the age of eight when he saw a censored print of Cleopatra at a drive-in theater theater…”

Book trivia: Roman Blood is Saylor’s first novel.

Nancy said: Nancy said Saylor writes “superior historical mysteries” (p 60).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “The Classical World” (p 60). Pearl includes other Saylor mysteries: Venus Throw, Last Seen in Massilia and A Twist at the End but she doesn’t indicate Roman Blood and the next two are part of a mystery series. If she had, I am pretty sure she would have listed them in order as Roman Blood should be read before Venus Throw and A Twist at the End is not part of the Sub Rosa series.

All the Way Home

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Giffels, David. All the Way Home: Building a Family in a Falling-Down House. New York: William Morrow, 2008.

Reason read: All the Way Home takes place in Akron, Ohio. Ohio became a state in March.

Who buys a house  they describe with adjectives and nouns such as these: rusty, dusty, decay, debris, ruin, smelly, stained, treacherous, flaking, rotted, grime, filthy, cluttered, damaged, wreckage, decomposed, dark, cracked, dingy, chilly, ugly, broken, dirty, scratched, soot, dangerous, rotten, warped, collapsed, cramped, broken, discolored, disintegrated, discolored, poisonous, fermenting, or crusted? You half expect to find, buried deep in the debris, a mummified body a la Bates Motel. In fact, when Giffels first tours the house there is a woman, perched amid the disaster. But, buy the house he does.
Giffels, a self described handyman, needs projects. When he buys the 1913 mansion on North Portage Path (Akron, Ohio) there is every indication he has bit off more than he can chew. That only becomes apparent to himself when he attempts to remove paint from every single door hinge in the house. The master bedroom alone has seventeen doors with at least two hinges…you do the math. And that’s just hinges. Never mind the structural damage like a leaking room that requires 55 roasting pans to catch the downpour whenever it rains, or the jungle of wisteria growing in through the cracks. Then there are the uninvited guests: mice, squirrels, raccoons, termites, carpenter ants, gawkers…it’s a wonder Gina didn’t divorce him.
One of a thousand quotes of humor, “more than anything else, I do not want to die a cartoon character’s death” (p 5).
Quote of foreshadowing, “And I honestly couldn’t decide which I wanted more; to get the house, or to get the house out of my system” (p 73). Indeed, there are numerous times he hoped to get out of buying the house. Starting with his sister-in-law’s neighbor, Earl. Hoping seventy-plus-year-old realtor Earl would advise him it’s a lost cause after seeing it; praying the inspector would say it’s his professional opinion the house is hopeless; and wishing the owners will refuse his insultingly low ball offer. Giffels is seeking any and all opportunities to wriggle out of the fantasy; to escape the choke hold of unreasonable and borderline fanatical desire. None of “outs” happen for Giffels and All the Way Home is born.

Author fact: Giffels used to write for MTV’s Beavis and Butt-Head so you know he has to be funny. And. And! And, I think it goes without saying he must like music since he worked for MTV. Indeed, he quotes Tom Waits right off the bat. Other musicians mentioned:

  • Lou Reed
  • Henry Rollins
  • Paul Westerberg
  • Rage Against the Machine
  • Judas Priest
  • R.E.M.
  • Henry Mancini
  • P.J. Harvey
  • Dave Brubeck
  • Guided By Voices
  • Suzanne Vega
  • Liz Phair
  • Duane Allman
  • Janis Joplin
  • Sonic Youth
  • No Doubt
  • Gewn Stefani
  • Henry Rollins
  • Circle Jerks
  • Rod Stewart
  • Guns ‘n Roses
  • Cyndi Lauper
  • Beatles
  • Joe Strummer
  • The Clash
  • Police
  • Andy Summers
  • Pete Townsend
  • Jimi Hendrix
  • Kurt Cobain
  • Chrissy Hynde
  • Yngwie Malmsteen
  • Morphine
  • Mark Sandman
  • They Might Be Giants
  • Replacements

The list was so eclectic I thought about making a mixed tape (because that’s how old I am coming from an era when mixed tapes were a thing). I would call it “All the Way Home.” Here is my (short) fantasy track listing:

    • “You’re Innocent” (when You Dream)” – Tom Waits
    • “Unsatisfied” – Paul Westerberg
    • “So. Central Rain” – R.E.M.
    • “Moon River” – Oranji Symphony
    • “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” – Cyndi Lauper
    • “Money (that’s What I Want) – Beatles
    • “I’m Just a Girl” – No Doubt
    • “Cats in the Cradle”  – Cat Stevens
    • “Swing it Low” – Morphine

Book trivia: Aside from a smattering of photographs in the beginning All the Way Home is mostly devoid of pictures. Bummer.

Nancy said: “This is more than a do-it-yourself memoir; rather it’s a paean to his hometown” (p 168).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called simply “Ohioana” (p 168).

Infinite Hope

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Graves, Anthony. Infinite Hope: How Wrongful Conviction, Solitary Confinement and 12 Years on Death Row Failed to Kill My Soul. Boston: Beacon Press, 2018.

Reason read: this came as an Early Review for LibraryThing.

I think the title sums up Anthony’s story. I am not spoiling the plot by saying he was wrongfully convicted of a crime he did not commit after his “accomplice” blatantly lied on the witness stand. The title sums up the story, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. What the title cannot convey is Graves’s spirit; his faith; his resilience to survive mentally and spiritually. Solitary confinement could have broken him. The mere fact he was on death row could have filled him with enough despair to shatter his hope in humanity. There were times Graves was angry. There were times he was afraid. But, he never lost the will to prove his innocence. Even after his freedom was restored, Graves did not stop fighting. See Author Fact below.

I need to talk about perception for a minute. There is a reality show called Cold Justice that “stars” Kelly Siegler. Have you seen it? When I first started watching the show I was disappointed more cold cases were not solved. Then I began to wonder if Ms. Siegler felt the pressure to close cases, not only for the sake of the victim and family, but because America was watching and judging… just as I was when I experienced disappointment. Did she get to the point she wanted to solve cold cases “by any means necessary” which in my mind meant find a suspect first and then build a wall of evidence around his or her guilt? This first question prompted another; when you find a viable suspect, do you spend all your energy and efforts trying to make the charges stick and never mind looking for other possible suspects?

As an aside – do yourself a favor and listen to “I’m Not the Man” by 10,000 Maniacs. I know lead singer Natalie Merchant is sometimes hard to hear, but pay attention to what she says at 0:38 seconds in, “He knows the night like his hand. He knows every move he made.” Just like Graves. Actually the whole song could be Grave’s story – an innocent man on death row. It’s haunting.

Author fact:  Graves is the cofounder of Join Hands for Justice.

Book trivia: This was too short! Less than 200 pages I know Graves had more to say and I would have listened.

Entranced

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Roberts, Nora. Entranced: Donovan Legacy Book Two. New York: Silhouette, 2004.

Reason read: to continue the series started in honor of Valentine’s Day.

Mary Ellen “Mel” Sutherland is a no nonsense private investigator who is more comfortable in jeans and a tee shirt than high heels and a slinky dress. She runs three miles a day and prefers to be alone. Her tomboy ways don’t allow her to enjoy pink toenails or frilly outfits or even the searing looks from admiring men.
Sebastian Donovan just happens to be one of those admiring men. He is a wealthy psychic hired to help Mel find a missing child. Mel is less than thrilled to need the help of a kook she doesn’t believe in, but she has no choice. The missing child is her friend’s infant son, David. As you might have guessed, Sebastian is one of the Donovans, related to Morgana (from book one of the Donvan Legacy) as cousins. He is also a witch and, did I mention devastatingly handsome? Of course Mel cannot help but be drawn to him. It’s cliche, but she is annoyed with him until she isn’t.

Author fact: Nora Roberts has five different pseudonyms.

Book trivia: Morgana, Nash and even Luna the cat make an appearance in Entranced. Morgana and Nash are expecting their first child and throughout the entire story I worried their newborn would be stolen as part of the adoption scam.

Nancy said: absolutely nothing.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust not in the chapter called “Romance Novels: Our Love is Here to Stay” (p 207). I am super annoyed with The Donovan Legacy being the title of the book I was supposed to read. Here’s what I want to know: were the Donovan books published together as one book and then sold separately later? Or were the books published one at a time first and then sold as a package? Which came first, because that is what really matters to me. If I had more time I would research this further. My guess is the latter.