Theatre Review: Mary Poppins

Tonight I had the privilege of seeing Mary Poppins at the Princess of Wales here in Toronto.


Before I go further, may I just blatantly pronounce that I adore that we are getting Les Miz back in 2012? I have seen it 8 times in Toronto (four of those times WITH Colm Wilkinson as Jean Valjean), once on Broadway and once in London's West End.   Apparently, this new production has re-imagined staging.  Bring it home to Toronto, people, we LOVE this show.


But, I digress. 

Mary Poppins is produced by Cameron Mackintosh with a new Book by Julian Fellowes. While it maintains many of the standards penned by the Sherman Brothers (composers-in-residence for many of the best-loved Disney films of the 1950s and 1960s ---- they wrote It's a Small World, y'all), there are new numbers added to the show at an unfortunate disconnect. Any musical number not penned by the Brothers Sherman, and added to the re-vamped stage production, though perfunctorily performed by tonight's awe-inspiring cast, seemed jolted and intrusive. 


While this adaptation's story varies from the 1964 Julie Andrews movie and borrows heftily from the P.L. Travers' source material, the jumbling of the musical numbers in different chronology than the film and the insertion of some of the anecdotal instances indigenous to the book make for an odd theatrical experience.  


That being said, this production has some of the greatest moments of staging I have ever seen in my 20+ years as an avid theatre goer.  This production's choreography of "Step in Time" was nothing short of slack-jawed brilliance. At one point, amidst a bevy of chimney sweeps scaling and tapping the staged London rooftops, our Bert escalates aside the stage and upside down: with the careful engineering of the suspensions fans of Wicked are now used to as a mainstay in modern musical theatre.   It was one of many enchanting moments.  The choreography in SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS (sorry, it must be capitalized) was equally remarkable.





The story plays out much as it does in the film: with the motifs of childhood imagination, lessons being learned with a "Spoonful of Sugar" and a hint of charity for man and child and with adults realizing that flying a kite with their family trumps any invasive moments of financial precision at one's obsessive job.   Much like Peter Pan's Mr. Darling, so investor Mr. Banks must slowly learn that his family and his childhood are worth re-possessing and the sense of awe and wonderment found in gingerbread stars is as close a link to his growing son as it is to his own careful upbringing.


As in the film we are so familiar with, the hand-shake of a chimney sweep is good luck, the tattered wares of a woman on the steps of St. Paul's heed all to sacrifice tuppence in motions of charity, and made-up words and colourful antics are the stuff that teach children exactly what they need to move from precocious to darling...


The cast was fabulous having just toured the US from Broadway and I was happy to see some familiar Canadian faces grace the stage.  As one example, Laird Mackintosh played Mr. Banks: anyone who saw The Phantom of the Opera here in T.O. during the 90s as many times as I did ( also with Colm Wilkinson. Torontonians, we are LUCKY that he calls Toronto home!!!!), would recognize him as a popular Raoul.   Rachel Wallace sang with the clear Julie Andrews' crystal soprano befitting the nanny "practically perfect in every way" and it was a delight to see the hints of romantic chemistry flowering between Mary and Nicolas Dromard's adorable Bert. [check out the full touring cast here]. Dromard is from Ottawa!  So glad he's a national treasure!


Bert was a wonderful narrator/jack-of-all-trades much like he is in the film (as we excuse poor Dick Van Dyke's mournful Cockney accent).  This Bert was pitch-perfect and both he and Mary seemed to be having genuine fun with the material they presented in high-pitched, gleeful intensity.  If they needed to kick their knees up to "step in time" with the band of guardian angel chimney sweeps, they did so with jubilant conviction.


Two minor points: the first time I had heard and internalized the meaning of the word "Suffragette" was due to Glynis John's recognizably husky number in the film version.  I wished that Mrs. Banks' character on stage were given the same political convictions to levy her stance as female equal to her workaholic husband. Instead, we are given glimpses into a theatrical history which she trades happily to be full-time nanny to her children when all is happily resolved. Secondly, I thought that the production threw away, as it were, the number Feed the Birds.  Specifically requested at Walt Disney's funeral (being his favourite number) and providing a symbol of charity and good-will, the ethereal chords of this hymn-like number were heard clearly (with strong organ, thank goodness) during its performance; but I wish they had returned to its theme as they did other songs.


[Though Mary Poppins is set in the Edwardian era, I must say that this hardcore Horatio Lyle fan kept thinking of Lyle: partly through Bert's accent, perhaps with the backdrop of St. Paul's.... he is never far from imaginatively away.]

A final moment for the set: like a story book illustration: the set is sketched and blasted with broad strokes of colour and charcoal, not unlike Bert's drawings in the park.  The house on Cherry Tree Lane unfolds quite wonderfully like a doll's house, with Mary Poppins able to snap the gas lamps on and off at her every whim.


There are hints of magic everywhere in this production and the children in the audience, of a generation who probably wouldn't be able to sit through the 1960s movie, were dazzled. As was I.

the hardest part of being me...

my memory.

it's a blessing and a curse

i remember everything in precise detail

smells, colour, sounds

a chord of music will transplant me

a word transpose me

a moment will render completely coloured deja vu

it makes me a perfect patient as i step the slow steps to my doctor's office and slink into his chair

it makes me a perfect patient as he slowly pulls every last inkling of imaginative, kaleidoscope thought from the recesses of my vortex-mind

he excavates and, like an archaeologist, knows just where to scrape the scantily wisped dirt to find the golden treasure beneath

i wish i could turn my brain off without medicinal help


i wish that the memories wouldn't flood altogether in a jumble of colour, scent and smell and sound

i wish that an opening chord wouldn't haunt up a pile of unwanted fragments

that my eyes would keep from watering

that my darkly lit apartment, with its sole-burning candle flame wouldn't strip back to a decade ago


i wish that i could put it all on hold with some slightest trick of mind ---instead of medicinal numbness

instead, thoughts crowd and flash and bend and round and erect themselves until my hand shakes and my cheeks burn....

all at once they scrape across my mind's eye and feel like the streetlamp does when its shadow first mellowly hits the slackened,  spanse of rain-soaked pavement

i don't want illumination

i want to turn it off

instead, in repeat-mode, it finds its way....

'Great Expectations' Photos make THIS gal VERY happy!

Thanks to our friend Gina at Dickensblog, I have been kept in the near loop of all things Great Expectations and I remain super duper excited about the new adaptations in our near midst!

Check out these photos! :



[Source]
Also, make sure to check out Dickensblog to learn everything you would ever want to know (and that still wouldn't be enough) about Charles Dickens, film adaptations and where all things Dickensian can be found on the web!

If "Community" saved October on the laugh-front; then "Psych" is winning November hands down

This post has no literary merit:

I have been watching a ton of Psych and it is ridiculous and funny and they don't know what to do with their secondary characters; but that's okay because of the three leads: adorable Shawn Spencer (be ye warned, he takes a few episodes to be able to tolerate and then you will fall madly in love), his adorable best friend, Gus, and his father, strict retired cop, Henry.

Zeee pineapples .....

Props to Carlton Lassiter who is the only believable secondary character  and the only one who actually seems to have some purpose, in all of his tight skepticism through the first two seasons.  I think this show takes a bit to find its stride; but its inaugural season has some incredible moments!

Canadians--- I got the first, second and fourth season for 12.50 each at Future Shop at Yonge/Dundas Square-- so you can find it there---- cheap used copies are available at amazon.ca and you can download it on itunes Canada, too!

A clip?  Mais oui!




Anyways, it makes me literally giggle ( I mean George Takei has a wonderful cameo, there is random singing and dancing and some of the obscure movie references are to die for).

This from the same station that brings us the quirk that is Monk , Burn Notice and, my favourite, White Collar. Quirk, quirk, quirk....

mmmm..... pineapple.....

Also, you will crave pineapple ---- all the time.  You will buy some and eat it. Because pineapples are a silly and gloriously unexpected motif.

Oh ... and even though it is "set" in Santa Barbara, Canadians will recognize B.C. as its REAL location very quickly.....

Anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in the Media

As someone diagnosed as OCD with elements of Anxiety and Panic disorder, I find it helpful when I can identify with characters in the media who exemplify some of the same symptoms.

Two shows do very well in exposing these diseases in a sensitive, provocative and well-researched manner: doing well to raise awareness about mental illness in our society.

Currently, the CBC is using actor Matt Watts' personal Social Anxiety Disorders and the tenets and phobias therein as the weekly premises for the show Michael: Tuesdays and Thursdays. This show, created by Bob Martin ( Canadian Comedian and writer/star of Broadway's The Drowsy Chaperone) does well in introducing cognitive behavioural therapy when wed with medicinal therapy to help Michael with his anxieties and phobias.

Michael has tendencies of agoraphobia and his weekly "homework" can see him doing everything from attending a crowded movie theatre, to returning to spaces housing painful memories, having candid conversations and even asking a stranger for the time.

What impresses me about this show is not the continuing plot points; yet the exposition of the ongoing (15 years) relationship between a psychiatrist and his patient: proving that anxiety disorders can be treated; but not completely cured.  Having Matt Watts'  express his vulnerability and struggles and having the credits mention that the show utilizes Watts' personal phobias and anxieties makes a great step toward awareness of mental illness in a funny, sombre and often touching way.

I don't recommend the show for the other aspects of each story arch (I find the writing to be oddly-paced); but I do find this aspect of the show extremely well-written.

Matt Watts speaks to his Anxiety Disorder here and to an open panic attack here.

As someone who suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ( though diagnosed as having an Obsessive Compulsive Social Disorder and not the severity of compulsion and repetition as physically expressed here), I have always had a soft spot for Adrian Monk: the detective whose OCD makes it difficult for him to perform even the slightest tasks: despite the brilliance of his brain and his impenetrable dedication to solving his wife's murder. (Note: if you watch Monk, which I did religiously during its long run---even going so far as to own my favourite seasons on DVD for revisitation, your heart will be broken. Tony Shalhoub deserved the many awards and accolades he won for his mind-boggling portrayal of Adrian Monk).

Monk does well at presenting OCD in a humorous way; but with a lot of heart.  Monk's phobias are ever present; but he is a character whom the entire police force respects.  His disorder, his disease, never get in the way of his mental capabilities.

Actor Tony Shalhoub has said he suffers from elements of OCD and comprehends its debilitating nature and how it can cause embarrassment and distress for patients suffering from it.  He speaks to the importance of his character and the show's pre-occupation with raising awareness here and here.




I find that both of these television shows do well at presenting mental illness in a real and very exposed way; while still maintaining a lot of heart.  As such, they raise awareness.  You'll notice that both clips feature the patient in cognitive talk therapy: emphasizing the importance of this relationship while exposing the vulnerable and seemingly irrational fears and phobias of the patients.

1 in 10  Canadians suffers from an Anxiety Disorder; yet the stigma behind mental disorders remains prevalent, pervasive and acute.   As a society, we need to openly discuss these diseases as they are---diseases--- while their treatment can sometimes require elements which evade other diseases, i.e., a hybrid of cognitive talk therapy AND medication; rather than just medication and while these diseases are not so much curable as treatable, they are still valid and, more likely than not, you or someone you know suffers from a facet of anxiety, depression or compulsion.

I have an anxiety disorder--- how the heck will i deck those friggin' halls.....

The other day I was in a good mood. It's the point of November where a chill nips the air, the sun sets earlier settling on the lights of Toronto's mellow skyline and Christmas music floats from the retail outlets.

I had hiked up to Yonge and Eglinton to visit the David's Tea shop there and while there, I ducked inside Future Shop for new earbuds.

Upon hearing It Came Upon The Midnight Clear on the speakers in the store, I immediately broke down.  Crying and hyperventilating, I had to take refuge by finding something to grab hold to.

If you read my Advent Tour post from last year, you know that Christmas music is a major part of my life; it speeds through my veins, is much a part of my fibre.... as is all of hymnody and church and sacred music history.

I have never been able to get through Silent Night with a dry eye ( and have had to leave church before because of the overwhelming emotions it elicits); but It Came Upon The Midnight Clear?

In an attempt to dissect my panic attacks and public and private breakdowns after-the-fact, and to have something to report to my psychiatrist in our ongoing discussions and treatment, I will wait until the episode has passed, collect myself ( often ashamedly: in this case having assured two kind shoppers that I was alright--- just emotional over the Holidays--- you can get away with being vague at Christmas: it is such a cornucopia of conflicting nostalgia) and sit for a moment to connect my mental dots.

Christmas music will always hit  me and speak to me as most religious music does--- it is partly because I have an ingrained passion (which I mentioned) and partly because no matter how betrayed or disillusioned I am with the more flawed aspects of the religion I grew up with and practice, it remains a pure intercession which metes out grace, poetry and a sense of history that melds hundreds of years of followers together.... it binds.


But, what I am realizing, and what I attribute to the Disease is its waterfall effect.    I have a bit of a freaky memory which remains a blessing and a curse. I remember, in detail, vivid and resonating smells, sounds, conversations and moments like photographic snapshots on constant slideshow in my brain.

As I try hard to piece together the fragments of myself now jumbled, muted, spread out like shattered shards of pictures unmoving and forcedly symbolic,  I am overwhelmed by memory.

Music has always linked my brain to the past and to specific moments.  I have experienced 30 Christmases (well, lets say 25 or 26 lucidly) and with the strains of a familiar song,  all of the memories, at once, good and bad: those which formed my psyche, those which perturbed or suggested unending loss all crowded with the chords of a song and the pressure, the weight on my shoulders was intrusive.

It's more than a moment where you softly recall the low-tinted and framed moments of happy memories of a childhood past.    In the moment in Future Shop, holding on to a rack of video games, hundreds of pictures crammed my brain while the part of myself who cannot fathom what Christmas will look like now that I have been changed (am changing)  and the part of myself that cannot reconcile public events--- even to the point of having panic just thinking of standing in the doorjamb of a church at my favourite time of year: where snow falls softly and the organic chords of my favourite carols waft from within, it left me bereft and broken.


While I slowly become more lucid, while the days of effort seem to, in ways, pay off in leaps and bounds and honesty drips from my tongue and my keyboard, I begin to recognize the price paid, the veneer that left me in ignorant bliss, the band-aid ripped off which forces me, productively yet cruelly, to confront that that always bathed in glorious light has somehow become exposed.... that holidays once jolly and merry and full of warmth are now being seen with a sense of perturbedly quaked and shaken awe---- What will Christmas look like? What can it look like?  If it is mid-november and I am avoiding retail outlets after my Future Shop outburst, how will I make it through the next month and a half?

Must the entire world be privy to what I am privately experiencing?  No wonder so many sufferers of panic disorder become, as I recoil to admit I suffer from, agoraphobia.


But, I keep forcing myself out, stripping everything bare and trying to turn the scrutiny of the world off...


Because I never could get through Silent Night without crying---- I can bank on my emotions to overflow attuned to melodies that string me in a consciously spiritual, nostalgic, insensitively invasive way....

Sometimes people will see it and wonder..... but I'll breathe deeply, stutter, shake my hand at lightning speed and keep walking.... because Christmas has always been my favourite thing and Christmas music my favourite sector of the Holiday.


So I will be bloody damned if it will tackle and break me in the end.

There will be moments. I  will be vulnerable and exposed---- but I will keep walking through it and I will keep assuming that the Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men vibes that sprinkle my city's streets and force wide-eyed gazers to stop outside the candy-coloured toy trains in the Bay windows at Queen will reconcile my somewhat odd public spectacles with a click of a tongue and perhaps a remembrance of a loss that they experienced.... something that snaps at them during the holidays....


Except mine is not a loss, per se, it is a re-opening, a re-programming, a reformation....

My religion underwent it several times ( In fact, the King James Version of the Bible just celebrated its 400th Anniversary, as a semi-related factoid) and so shall I....

If you want something ethereal, listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing one of the most hallowed and harrowing pieces of music ever composed.... this take very much captures the rare simplicity of one of the most everlasting Christmas Carols

shameless post about something that makes me insanely happy....

When I am blue, I pull out my dvds of White Collar.  Then I am not blue anymore.

Best bromance since House and Wilson, y'all.

Wait? you haven't seen White Collar?  well, you should.....




This post has no literary merit.

In Which We Speak to the Disease

Hello Bloggosphere,

I have been sporadic here of late; have completely drifted from finishing projects started (namely RIP Challenge, a Study in Sherlock, Great Adaptations) which I have every intention of someday finishing.

NO STARBIES in my STARBIES mug

My absence however, has been brought on by a certifiable illness: I have a severe anxiety disorder which includes a dash of Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, Panic Induced Agoraphobia, Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder and a wee bit of depression.

I am getting the help and treatment I need for this VALID illness and am on MEDICAL LEAVE from work (I have been off work since October 1st and will probably return in Feb: thank God for an amazing company which allows me to take disability/medical leave with full pay) ; but a lot of things in my life have changed ---including my presence on this blog.

I have a wonderful doctor and therapeutic appointments and homework which blends medicative therapy with experimental cognitive therapy; but it has also come at some costs.

1.) READING: The drugs make it VERY hard for me to read. In fact,  where I used to read ALL THE TIME, I read at a much slower pace.  This is a temporary thing; but frustrating. So frustrating that I was sick of having something I truly loved "stolen" from me ---so I bought a pile of Archie Comics, reverted  to my 8 year old self and got to task.

With this slow and painful return to having my mental faculties (exhausted from meds and the small seemingly insignificant exercises which work toward allowing me to reintegrate myself back into society), I have been able to still fulfill some blog tour work and, what is proving a rewarding challenge, read through the INSPYs books  I have been assigned as a Romance Judge. It just takes longer than previously and some days cannot happen at all.

2.) COFFEE: my favourite thing in the world other than books has been taken from me.  No Starbucks. Decaf Only....so I have been drowning my sorrows in literal gallons of David's Tea ---God Bless their amazing selection

3.) A SOCIAL LIFE:   My illness has become so advanced that I have had to (doctor ordered) miss my sister's phd convocation, a close friend's wedding weekend, birthday parties, housewarmings, Hallowe'en: all because seeing more than one or two people at a time is impossible right now. Church is out. Crowds are out.

4.) HAND TREMOR AND STUTTER: I started having a consistent hand tremor mid-September at work during our busiest and most stressful time of year. I would hide my hand in my pocket (wearing dress pants and skirts with pockets?  I sometimes wore jackets so I wasn't hoisting out the less attractive wear in my closet)  which advanced once I left work and was finally allowed to show my symptoms (meaning my brain was on autopilot: function,function,hide,function as I went through the motions).  My anxiety has also led way to a temporary speech impediment: I stutter. This is not forever; but part of me thinks that the tremor and stutter are my brain's way of saying: we have kept you a Rachel-bot for so long; we need sometime to let our true colours show.  Also, my way of sub-sub-consciously allowing the world to visibly know that I am sick: so that expectations are kept ( as they should be) at a minimum

ABOUT ALL I CAN READ RIGHT NOW: face it, sorta fun!

I know that Anxiety Disorders plague  many people on the bloggosphere in many ways and one of the hardest things for me to come to terms with was allowing myself to recognize that it is an illness "worthy" of medical leave from work; or life.

We do not look at someone with diabetes, say, or cancer and say: you are taking time off of work for treatment, pshaw!   But, there remains a stigma with mental illness that even I, a sufferer of,  bought into.

It's time to stop that.

I am being completely honest about the illness because I know other people suffer from it in varying degrees.

I know I am not the only person with recurring panic attacks, who hyperventilates, who cannot handle the pressure of being in crowds.


Funny thing is, kids, that I  was the most social person people had ever met. I  have literally dozens of friends, was always the social leader, work in a very people-driven facet of the publishing world and can mingle as well as the rest of them.


When I was told that I was a Conditioned Extrovert, I was not surprised. My real self is most comfortable at a pub with a friend or two; or hiding away in my apartment with tea and candles and a book or two.....

My own stigma and my own rallying against my own disease was shameful. I didn't believe I was "worthy" of time off of work, I didn't believe that I had an illness with a severity that dictated all of the medication and treatment.  My amazing doctor had to continually pull textbooks off of his shelf and point to how legitimate my illness is.


In fact, my accepting it as legitimate, makes his work legitimate. My treatment at a large research hospital in Toronto proves that Anxiety Disorders are so prevalent and so wracking and so real that they must be spoken to in an entire department in psychiatry: that research and articles must be given to a world who still cannot quite grasp what they cannot understand.


I thought that Scott Lynch, author of the Lies of Locke Lamora and the other Gentleman Bastards'  sequence titles I adore to death, was strong and wonderful for opening up about his anxiety and how, as an author, it had kept him from attending events, from writing, from feeling like himself.

I thought I would share it here


A doctor once told me that the reason he almost went into psychiatry is because he feels, in ways, it is the worst of all diseases as it keeps the sufferer from feeling like themselves....

My lack of presence on this blog, the time it is taking me to post on novels that publishers have been kind enough to send to me, the fact  that I have not yet tackled LYNN AUSTIN'S NEW BOOK: are all ramifications of a real, live disease.


I will be speaking to this blog hopefully more frequently in the coming weeks: and certainly as we inch closer to the INSPYs which, as mentioned, I am honoured to be judging.

But I also breathe a sigh of relief: because now all of YOU know what's going on and stigma is often hidden in shame and secrecy.

There is nothing to be ashamed of.  I would never walk up to someone with pneumonia and say "did you have a nervous breakdown?"

The same should keep  us from pre-judging those with disorders which start mentally and show physical symptoms.

The Measure of Katie Calloway by Serena Miller

From the Publisher: 
Her heart seeks sanctuary in the deep woods. But will trouble find her even here?

The Civil War has ended, but in Katie Calloway's Georgia home, conflict still rages. To protect herself and her young brother from her violent and unstable husband, she flees north, finding anonymity and sanctuary as the cook in a north woods lumber camp. The camp owner, Robert Foster, wonders if the lovely woman he's hired has the grit to survive the never-ending work and harsh conditions of a remote pine forest in winter. Katie wonders if she can keep her past a secret from a man she is slowly growing to love.

With grace and skill, Serena Miller brings to life a bygone era. From the ethereal, snowy forest and the rowdy shanty boys to the warm cookstove and mouth-watering apple pie, every detail is perfectly rendered, transporting you to a time of danger and romance.

The Measure of Katie Calloway is an excellent, well-researched, carefully-plotted read. I very much enjoyed this slice of slightly different Christian historical fare.

The beginning of the novel will remind readers of Victoriana of Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: a young woman runs, this time with her young brother, from the beatings of her abusive husband. Here, a Civil War vet named Harlan determined to ensure his wife's untimely demise.  Unsure where to find work or sustenance, Katie providentially runs into Robert Foster, the foreman of a Michigan logging company where a good cook is immediately needed.   Katie's tenacious spirit and talent in the kitchen find her a perfect match for the voracious loggers.

Surrounded by rough loggers in the shanties outback, Katie's already wavering trust of the male sex is tried and tested; but Robert Foster and some of the more noble loggers slowly turn her opinion.  

Elements of trust are a major motif in the novel.  As Katie learns to open her heart again; so Robert Foster slowly learns to let go of his past as a surgeon during the Civil War.   The historical research is meted out perfectly. Moreover, the atmosphere of the crude mining environment is painted with historical integrity.   I was wowed by Miller's grasp of the time and of the mining community. Each well-paced chapter, for example, is framed with a shanty song of the time adding to the historical relevance and flavour of the tale. 

I was most impressed with the heart-stopping climaxes of the tale:  one, surprisingly, and refreshingly, occurs little past the halfway mark when a forest fire threatens the livelihood of all of our well-painted characters.   The treatment given to Katie's husband and his dogged pursuit to find her and give her her just desserts is also well-maintained in the background as the story plugs forward.

This is a strong offering for a Christian historical which paints a time and place I had not read of yet.  The lingering effects of the Civil War still haunt the characters.  There is a believability of time and place that is winsome in this genre.  Elements of faith play as a stronghold; but never venture into preachy territory. All readers will enjoy this novel with a hefty spice of character and faith.

I applaud Miller for this great addition to Christian historical fiction and I strongly encourage you to seek it out. In a tale that could easily seep into melodrama, Miller's strong prose and solid plotting give great credibility to the novel.

Visit Serena Miller at her website to learn more about the author and her writing of this text.

My thanks to Revell for the review copy of this novel.

You can purchase The Measure of Katie Calloway on amazon.

TLC BLOG TOUR: Beyond All Measure by Dorothy Love

Ada has loved deeply and lost dearly. But protecting her heart could mean missing the love of a lifetime.


Ada Wentworth may be young, but she's seen enough of life to know she can only rely on herself. Everyone including God it seems, has let her down. Having lost her family, her fiance, and her fortune, Ada journeys from Boston to Hickory Ridge, Tennessee, to take a position as a lady's companion. Though initially charmed by the pretty little Southern town tucked into the foothills of the great Smokies, Ada plans to stay only until she can earn enough to establish a millinery shop.
Her employer, Wyatt Caldwell, the local lumber mill owner, is easily the kindest, most attractive man Ada has met in Hickory Ridge. He believes Providence has brought her to town and into his life. But how, after so many betrayals, can she ever trust again? Besides, Wyatt has a dream of his own. A dream that will one day take him far from Hickory Ridge.


As the South struggles to heal in the aftermath of the Civil War, one woman must let go of her painful past in order to embrace God's plans for her. Can she trust Him, and Wyatt, with her future and her heart?


Ada has lost everything: her family, her livelihood, her dearest love and her future; but her will and spirit are the perfect match for the rough Hickory Ridge terrain and the rough-around-the-edges Wyatt Caldwell.  This is one book in which the reader will fall for the hero long before they fall for the seemingly overtly-stubborn heroine. However, after learning more about the circumstances driving Ada to her new life, so she softens and glistens in the reader's eye.  Matched with Love's strong prose and knack for this readership, the pair is a solid offering and a sure-fire hit with women who love a bit of Western texture in their hearty romance. 


Readers of Karen Witemeyer and Tamera Alexander will love this debut offering from Dorothy Love. Reminding the reader of the steadfast heroine of A Tailor- Made Bride and her determination to succeed in a new life for herself with her penchant for sewing as her livelihood, so Ada is determined to use her new life as lady's companion to the prickly Lillian to start her millinery business.


I quite enjoy this new trend in Christian historical fiction wherein the heroines are driven not only by their desire to settle and find true love and family; but also by their need to prove themselves and utilize their skills to make positive changes in the communities now altered by their arrival. Unlike Lily Bart failing haplessly at all trades she tries in Wharton's House of Mirth, Ada is a strong-minded heroine and, despite her privileged upbringing, seems capable of handling herself quite readily in the midst of adversity.


Smart, winsome heroine, attention to historical detail and a very swoon-worthy hero, not to mention charming moments and stalwart prose, this is a fresh and unique tale to add to your Christian bookshelf.   


One historical journey I appreciated was the influx of the original Ku Klux Klan: this clash of racism and prejudice, not often explored in Christian fiction of this historical ilk, was well-researched and added a layer of much-needed conflict, friction and suspense.


Thanks so much to TLC for allowing me to participate in this blog tour!


Check out the other stops on this tour:

Beyond All Measure by Dorothy Love

Monday, October 24th:  Reviews from the Heart

Tuesday, October 25th:  All Grown Up? 

Wednesday, October 26th:  I Am A Reader, Not A Writer  author Q&A

Thursday, October 27th:  A Fair Substitute for Heaven

Friday, October 28th:  Life in Review

Read more about Dorothy Love on her website ( she even has a Q&A section of interest to readers). 

I also mean to seek out her first Hickory Ridge novel, Beauty for Ashes


You can purchase Beyond All Measure on Amazon

My guest spot on 31 Days of Hallowe'en: Dickens and Hallowe'en

I was fortunate enough to feature in Read All Over Review's 31 Days of Hallowe'en and even more fortunate to speak on a favourite subject, DICKENS!  I have reposted it here for you to see; but make sure you check out the website and follow all 31 gruesome, literary days!

31 Days of Halloween { guest post } Dickens and Hallowe’en:

Today we are joined by Rachel from A Fair Substitute For Heaven, who talks about one of my favorite subject: Charles Dickens!

During October many readers pine for the fiction that makes our skin creep and crawl, for things that go bump in the night, for the chilling ghost stories of The Headless Horseman or James’ The Turn of the Screw. In literary fiction, Charles Dickens, fed heaps of the grueling macabre into his fiction. This Hallowe’en, I want to walk you through a few chilling vignettes of Dickens at his most gruesome. We’ll meet ghosts, thieves, witness murders, learn of Dickens’ penchant for descriptions of the gallows and paint a clear, rain-soaked cobblestoned world of gaslight and fright.

Here are a few examples of the dreariest Dickensian tales, a snapshot of some of their most malevolent characters and hopefully enough tingly-feelings to beguile you to revisit their worlds once more:

OLIVER TWIST

Photo Caption: Fagin waits to be hanged

There is a portentous sense of the macabre hovering in many of Dickens’ grim Victorian worlds including the conniving Fagin, the bandleader of a pack of boy thieves and Bill Sykes, the murderous henchman who skulks the streets of London at night: pilfering here and there, his mangy dog in tow.

Nearer the beginning of Oliver Twist, the scene is an undertaker’s: Oliver leads funeral processions for children’s funerals in a tall, be-plumed black hat and his forced to sleep in the dank dusk with coffins awaiting their next corpse.

According to eyewitness accounts, during Dickens’ numerous reading tours of Europe and North America, audiences were moved to fainting when Dickens read of the brutal death of Nancy at the hands of her lover, Bill Sykes. 

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Photo Caption: Miss Havisham shows Pip the remnants of her abandoned wedding feast.

The macabre pervades Great Expectations from the opening scene: a gloomy graveyard where the young and impressionable Pip visits his deceased parents and long dead siblings. From out of the fog of the marshes he is pounced upon by a convict, a veritable bogeyman. The haunting of young Pip’s formative years continues with a house as gothically eerie as they come: Satis House wherein the phantom-like Miss Havisham strolls in yellowed white wedding dress, her untouched wedding feast rotting upon a long table: alive with maggots, beetles, mice and rats; the clocks all stopped timelessly, her long sinewy fingers folded as she plays maniacal matchmaker with Pip and her coldhearted ward Estella.

If that’s not enough, the villainous Orlick meanders in: an embittered blacksmith’s help who is as violent as his stalkerish behavior would allot.

OUR MUTUAL FRIEND

Photo Caption: the Thames

Villains are pronounced in Our Mutual Friend, this meandering and carousel-like novel featuring unidentified corpses, cases of mistaken identity, lies, betrayal and the theft of goods from bodies lost to the river, Not unlike the dastardly M. Thenardier scraping the corpses of the barricades after the July Revolution in Les Miserables, so Gaffer Hexam and Rogue Riderhood skulk the dirty river Thames by moonlight in hopes of finding a rare diamond in the rough. When Rogue Riderhood betrays his partner, Gaffer Hexam, it is for a murder: that of the unfortunate John Harmon. Other characters in this dim tale include the taxidermist, Mr. Venus, who is in love with bones and Bradley Headstone: whose name is just as pernicious as it sounds…. When we’re not wallowing in talk of the dust pile heaps that employee many helpless and hopeless of the downtrodden, we are riveted by the manic motives of the jealous Headstone who rages in violent episodes as he pines for the beautiful Lizzie Hexam.

Other Dickens novels feature moments that greatly fall into the category of plain creepy….

LITTLE DORRIT

Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher puts one immediately in mind of its predecessor, the fall of the House of Clennam in Little Dorrit : years of secrets, violence and shame crumble under the dusty weight of a structure ravaged to the ground.

A TALE OF TWO CITIES

The Vengeful Madame Defarge performing that most mundane of domestic tasks, knitting, at the foot of the guillotine: her lust for blood as quick and frenzied as her hands clacking her speedy needles.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Caption: Scrooge is led by the Ghost of the Future to his gravesite: abandoned and alone

The famous Haunting of Scrooge may be a few months too early for our purposes yet is one of the most famous Ghost stories: appropriating ethereal supernatural presence for both good and ill purposes. Near the end, the miser Scrooge comes face-to-face with his mortality and the vapid existence he led when his abandoned gravestone is pointed out to him amidst the unfeeling snow.

BLEAK HOUSE

Bleak House: features the batty Miss Flite—who christens her caged birds with apocalyptic names awaiting the day of judgment and a court case that consumes young, fresh and impressionable wards in a life-sucking way not unlike vampirism

While Bleak House’s Lady Deadlock is deliciously, drearily stagnant, awaiting the colour in life that will never fill the dark contours of her dreary life; so Mr. Tulkinghorn, her nemesis, skulks nearby with evidence that reminds of the most compelling of murder mysteries. Speaking of murder: the uncomely demise of Captain “Nemo” Hawdon features prominently in the story’s many threads, confused parentage and foreboding manners pepper the ongoing mysterious nature and the novel features Inspector Bucket: noted to be the one of the first (if not the first ) fictional detective.

As seen in David Copperfield, Oliver Twist and Great Expectations (to name a few examples), grim pictures of an orphan’s life were not unknown to Dickens’ pen and what could be more eerie than a creaking, rat-ridden, squelching damp hovel of a school for boys.

In NICHOLAS NICKLEBY: the aptly-named Wackford Squeers’ School for Boys is one of the most dark, dreary and scary places in literary fiction Squeers takes unwanted children: those crippled, deformed or abandoned and squeezes money out of them while horrendously mistreating them

The aforementioned are just snapshots of some of the more horrific and terribly tantalizing moments and features of the greatest Dickens’ novels. Charles Dickens may not have been wholly conscious that his work would be appropriated by those who love the ghoulish, the supernatural and the things-that-go-bump-in-the-night; but his eerie atmosphere was embedded naturally. First, he had the perfect setting: dank, overcrowded Victorian London: a place that he walked for hours every night while conjuring the spirits of the pen to help him paint the often grotesque portraits we see above. Secondly, he underwent a dark childhood full of life in a debtor’s prison (not unlike his heroine Amy “Little” Dorrit, in her eponymous tale, and filled with the fumes of an inhumane blacking factory. These dark tenets of his developing imagination as well as the vivid way in which he was able to reconstruct humanity: from its basest and darkest to its loftiest and most noble rendered him a perfect Hallowe’eny writer. Though not technically horror in the same way we label the genre frequented by Poe, Dickens’ dark atmosphere loans the chills and thrills required for those rainy October nights when branches tap the trees and you ache to be lost in a book where every crevice, squeak and move will recall ghosts, gruesomeness and shadow.

Faith Words Blog Tour: Kiss of Night by Debbie Viguie

From the publisher: While visiting Prague for her beloved grandmother's funeral, Susan meets a dark, mysteriou man to whom she feels an instant and mesmerizing attraction. The man--Raphael--is a vampire, cursed for his sins to roam the earth for eternity. He needs Susan's help in a secret war against evil in a supernatural world that Susan never believed existed until now. Together, they are called on to exercise both courage and faith. KISS OF NIGHT ultimately asks the question: What would happen if a vampire truly accepted God?

Well, kids, it's come to this. The Christian industry--- known in the past to emulate popular secular trends and infuse pop culture with a stream or two of grace, has entered into Vamp territory.   While Thirsty by Tracy Bateman used Vampirism as a metaphor, Kiss of Night stars Raphael: a True Blood, Anne Rice, Edward Cullen VAMPIRE caught in a struggle of spiritual warfare.

Christians: meet Vampires.   Theology and the fiction surrounding legends of the undead is nothing new. After all, Christ rose from the dead three days after His Crucifixion; subsequently appearing in slightly different form to his disciples before ascending to heaven.   As blood remains a major metaphor of salvation and redemption in the Bible and in Christianity, so does blood remain a life-giver in the lore of Vampirism.   Symbolically, it is almost logical that these two tenets should meet.   Especially if you need to put a face to the very real and prevalent darker evil forces Christians believe exist as truly as higher good. While Frank Peretti's fiction explores the more demonic elements, thus juxtaposing Biblical entities with a fiction that makes Spiritual battles ongoing and contemporary, so Viguie re-imagines the power between Good and Evil by using a timeless myth: that of an undead creature condemned to roam the world in a sort of half-life, sucking what he can from human warmth and kindness.

I'm going to be brutally honest and tell you that my preference is for Christianity and Vampirism to stay in their separate spheres: that God ordains good and ultimately negates darker forces and that age old Sunday School Question: "Would you be watching True Blood if you knew Jesus was in the room?" proves that never the twain should meet.   However, I do believe that this fiction is timely and inevitable. At the very least, it can be a springboard for discussion.  The book itself features Discussion Questions at the back; but I would like to point future readers to ponder a few other things:

Do Christians go too far in appropriating secular popularity in order to provide a Christian alternative?  Christian Vampire Fiction is nothing if not an attempt at validating a very popular secular trend for our own.

Is the novel merely an emblem of a unique and new take raising questions about Hell and the afterlife, Eternal Damnation, and all that fun stuff...... or does it do nought but force a discordant clash between that which is Higher and Good and that which dwells ultimately in the darker forces of human nature?

To speak to the prose itself, I found a times it read very much like a Vampire story with Christianity tossed in to give it legs in a new market.... Not to mention the rather awkward infusion of Chapter heading scripture verses which speak to blood, the afterlife....anything to suit the author's timbre.
Take Chapter Fourteen, for example: " For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul"---Leviticus 17:11.  Pretty straightforward when inserted in its original context: as re-emphasizing the Sacrifice that plays into the whole of the Christian tradition.

I honestly, as mentioned, find this a little strained and a little odd. I don't know if Christians need Vampires and I don't know if we can make the  case that Vampire fiction in a Christian vein will save the worldly souls that the Evangelical publishing world wants to string into the fold....

However, there's no doubt that this is an exciting read and that the author has pushed boundaries.  I commend  Hatchette Books for taking this risk and I commend Viguie for boldly going into territory where I know a lot of questions will be raised.

The questions are the most important part; so is the subsequent discussion.  Every popular Christian or Religious tome from The Shack to The Da Vinci Code has excelled at one thing: it has forced an open dialogue between those in favour and those against.   I have a feeling that Kiss of Night, like the two aforementioned novels, will be hard to avoid.   There will be no inkling of a Laodicean thought about it.... you're either in or out....

You won't be either if you don't at least give this book a closer look.  I feel it is an important work because it proves, as mentioned earlier, that Christians are invested in emulating trends... even if it means dappling into dark territory much scorned by our tradition for years.

I recognize that this review did not speak to specific plot points in the novel, or to Raphael and Susan's story; but I think it holds enough twists and surprises to intrigue you when you experience it for yourself. Rather, I wanted to use this space to raise questions about this bold foray in fiction and to encourage you as a faith-based reader ( or non-faith based reader) to explore this nearly unchartered territory. I will say this, I loved the Crusades backstory and the haunting and hallowed landscape of eerie Prague...


You should visit the author's website to learn more about this and some of her other titles
If you tweet, or are an active member of TWITTER, please note there will be a Twitter book Party for this title on OCTOBER 7. Use hashtag #kissofnight to join the discussion.

OTHER BLOGGERS featured in this book tour include:
http://www.fredasvoice.blogspot.com
http://www.kittycrochettwo.blogspot.com
http://www.heartofabookworm.blogspot.com
http://www.practicalfrugality.blogspot.com
http://www.electrifyingreviews.com
http://www.myonlyvice.blogspot.com

Make sure to check out these blogs for their opinions on this unique read! As for my copy, I'm passing it on to my friend Blake--- who may or may not yet believe that Christian Vampire fiction ACTUALLY exists ;)

Happy Reading!

This book is the first in a trilogy

My thanks to Hatchette Book Group for my review copy

The Lady of Bolton Hill by Elizabeth Camden

I, like most of the followers of Christian Romance, was captivated when I first saw the striking cover  for The Lady of Bolton Hill: a woman of the late Victorian age, staring wistfully out to a towering skyscraper: a clash of tradition with industry and change.

The city setting is as unique as some of the tenets of this historical romance. Daniel and Clara's world is Baltimore, Maryland: where high society, glitter and riches frost the booming industry, invention and grit of a world that is not what it seems.

This cover is SO pretty! 

Clara Endicott and Daniel Tremain have been friends for years: very close friends in that sort of L. M. Montgomery Teddy/Emily or Anne/ Gil type of way: they yearn for each other's company, to learn, to play music; but are from very different worlds. Tragedy in Daniel's family catapults him into a state of progressive revenge: not only does he make a name for himself, destined to prove worthy of Clara and her world, he invests every fibre of his energy into seeking justice for a deed long done.

Danger, confusion and change await the two as they rediscover themselves and their child infatuation slowly blossoms into love.

The most poignant scenes take place in the music conservatory: where Clara and Daniel experiment with Chopin and with compositions of their own.  The musical undertones of the novel were well-handled by Camden's pen. I also quite enjoyed the well-researched business world that took Daniel and his ilk high above the city in those massive skyscrapers, slowly chugging the wheels of change into motion.

The friction between Daniel and Clara as adults is a believable exposition of faith and doubt: while Clara holds steady to her belief that the Almighty is the ultimate Judge, Daniel cannot see past the wrongs done to himself and his family.   The reader is engaged and slowly, deliciously tortured as you watch them inch toward meeting half way.

I highly recommend this novel as an example of a thought-provoking, well-researched and well-balanced novel by a fresh voice in contemporary Christian Romance. 

I look forward to more by Elizabeth Camden.... and to see more of her cover treatment!

In fact, you can read more about the cover process for Lady of Bolton Hill in this article. The Novel Process shows us the many different covers considered for the book before the final decision and ( in my opinion) the right one.  For fans of books, I found this a captivating snapshot and a nice companion piece to the book.

look! how pretty!

You can visit Elizabeth Camden's website to read her blog, learn more about The Lady of Bolton Hill and for a sneak peek at her new novel, the Rose of Winslow Street, publishing early 2012

My thanks to Bethany House for the review copy.