Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger

“Everyone has something worth it inside of them even if it doesn’t show. Sometimes you have to look a little harder than other times, but don’t give up. Otherwise, all your going to see is a sorehead who plays 3d base”

 It’s been a long time since I was moved by a book the way I was by Last Days of Summer and now I am afraid that what I read for the next while will fall tasteless and flat due to this experience.

c/o stevekluger.com

      My friend Allison recommended the book as one of her favourites and, knowing her love for Americana and baseball, I had a slight inkling of what I was getting myself into.

         I wasn’t, however, prepared for the expert epistolary execution of the narrative or to be moved to tears ---in the midst of---and while laughing---hysterically at the antics of the irrepressible Joey Margolis and his unconventional friendship with his hero, 3^rd baseman Charlie Banks.

         I finished the book last night ( I had been wanting to savour it, I didn’t want it to fly by so quickly), went back to the beginning and started again.

Not everyone could write this book. This book has spark and zest and zip and it just FEELS. SO. ALIVE.  What makes this book and its inherent voices spring to life are the slight idiosyncrasies, turns of phrase and even spelling and grammatical mistakes that fly between the smart aleck kid and his talented father-figure.

         Using ephemera (ticket stubs, report cards, telegrams and postcards), interview transcripts between Joey and his psychologist, letters on the presidential letterhead from FDR’s office  (Joey has a LOT to say about politics) and newspaper articles, the story unfolds and you are immediately plopped into the action: America on the brink of a war already in full swing on the other side of the world, a kid on the brink of adulthood sick of mourning his deadbeat father and a nation who is enraptured by baseball, by Hollywood, by larger-than-life heroes: abroad and on home soil. One of these heroes just happens to form and inseparable bond with a bullied kid in Brooklyn.

         Joey is far smarter than he should be and ---what is more--- he is cunning and manipulative, loves pranks and dirty jokes and naughty postcards, and just wants someone to look up to. Some attention. The only attention he gets in his anti-semitic neighbourhood finds kids cutting his cheek open with a coke bottle. You can’t help but feel that if these kids took the time to know Joey they would want to be him. Heck, I want to be him: he’s smart ( whip-smart) excels at everything, has a better handle on the New Deal than the state office does and has a knack of finding out information.

         While in Juvie for a stint, he writes Charlie Banks, 3^rd baseman. He doesn’t want a t-shirt or an autograph, he wants a ball hit outta the park. At first he pleads with the case of imminent death by malaria, and then he is blind, and finally Charlie catches on. The canned responses he is so used to sending little fans won’t work with this gutsy kid.

         I am writing because me and the other boys are shoving out for Montazum and Tripoli and other palces where fighting is already fearce and we are not expected to come back alive. Anyway last night we were in our bunks wondering how many more sunsets we would get  to see, when all of a sudden the Sarge said “Gee, wouldn’t it be great if Charlie Banks could hit but one more before we go off to lay down our life?” ……..So I would appreciate if you would come to the plate sometime during Saturday’s game with Saint Louis and point to one of the outfields and say “This is for my friend Joey Margolis” (please do this on the radio” Then all you have to do is hit one over the wall. God Bless America”

         They banter, they argue, they write back. Sometimes Charlie’s girlfriend Hazel writes in, sometimes Stukey, another player from Charlie’s team.  Joey wants Charlie to come for dinner, Charlie says in your next lifetime, kids threaten Joey and Charlie is there, a baseball player, a god….those kids won’t beat up on Joey anymore.

         Joey wants to go on a road trip with Charlie.  Joey wants his father to be there for his bar mitzvah. In both cases, it is Charlie who comes through.

When Joey enters a  presidential essay contest on why his father should be the President of the United States, it is Charlie’s name and actions that grace the page, Charlie and Joey go to the White House.

         I could’ve read forever about their antics together. Their letters, their little quibbles, the postscripts in Charlie’s letters to Hazel when he mentions that he can’t believe, while watching Joey, how little he is: a little kid with a big, unfathomable brain, their Christmas cards, their funny names for each other. This book could’ve been eight times longer and that day-to-day correspondence would’ve had be laughing and crying simultaneously.

         Then Pearl Harbour happens and the world changes and Americans don’t need baseball heroes anymore, they need real heroes to fight in the Pacific arena.  Joey gets used to the fact that Charlie will be writing, not from the road, but from another country.

         Charlie once drafted a contract specific to their relationship, outlining his demands for their unlikely friendship. This contract, the war rippling through it, is forced to change.

         I love stories about makeshift families: through time, tide and circumstance, people finding each other and holding on for dear life. This speaks to two lonely people who both need some: a kid who needs a hero when his dad goes away, a hero who needs to influence someone in a more concrete way than hitting a ball out of a park.

         This is the kind of book that will appeal to many: to men, to women, to those who just like to snortle tea outta their mouths while reading…

         This is the kind of book that you borrow from the library (like me), get halfway through and add to your immediate amazon purchase list.  This is the kind of book that will rip your heart out and make you cry, but you’re so busy laughing that the noise emitting from your nose and mouth is like a stunted chuckle-chortle-sob.

I love this book. I love that Allison loves this book. I love that I understand her even more having read this book  ( that’s what favourite books do, kids, they allow you to steal into the recommending parties’ psyche and you’re given a slice into their brain for awhile), you will love this book.

Just go read this book. Everything will taste like flat coca cola for weeks after reading it ( it’s gonna for me) but golly! It was SO worth it.

And now, some quote spam because I am crying just thinking about all of this:

“Your head and your heart are two different things. One of them can get you into trouble and the other one can’t. It’s okay to be scared when you can’t tell them apart. That happened to me every day of my life. But nobody ever saw it except you.”

“When you get famous or rich and maybe you thnk that you wish I was there to see it, remember that one way or the other I am”

p.s. There’s a nice nod (or two ) to David Copperfield
p.p.s This book should be a movie
p.p.p.s. Visit his website. he is the BEST 

Litfuse Blog Tour: Fear, Faith and a Fistful of Chocolate

Fear, Faith and a Fistful of Chocolate, is a light, anecdotal and humorous approach to the little worries which plague us each day.

Christian humourist Deborah Coty doesn't hold back when it comes to infusing her short, devotional-sized motivational chapters with personal experiences making for an easy, short read ideal for women's groups and church book clubs.

Each chapter starts with a scripture verse to get the ball rolling. From there, Coty walks us through a few real-life examples, targeting fears---from general to overt--- and typing them up with discussion questions and thoughts to ponder independently or in a group.

Coty has a light, breezy style with some gentle, clean humour devoid of any edge. If you are looking for a sweet book ( a gift book, perhaps?), this might be the perfect idea--- tied with a bit of chocolate and with the promise of discussing its wisdom after each nugget has been exhumed and pondered.

Enter the Kindle Fire Giveaway!

Enter Today - 2/14 - 3/6!


visit the Litfuse Landing Page here 

Bell Let's Talk Day

Readers of the blog know I have never shyed away from being open about my struggle with anxiety and  OCD. I am one of the lucky sufferers who, though I will always have to cope in some way, has largely overcome it and have been able to function as a successful, happy human being :)

That's not without a lot of work and frustration on my part, and the part of health professionals, and not without a lot of challenges and hurdles.

I am one of the fortunate few. Millions suffer from Mental Illness without diagnosis, recognition, or a chance to resolve their situation and receive the help they need. More still, millions suffer in silence. To add, there is still a stigma nationally that separates this legitimate illness from the "easier to identify" illnesses which plague people.

....It's like having a broken arm and not wearing a sling. The pain is there, the medical problem is legitimately there, but the sling is hidden.


Bell Canada is donating 5 cents to mental health initiatives from every tweet sent (#BellLetsTalk) every time the image I include here is shared on Facebook, and every time users text and make a long distance call. < learn more about the initiative and campaign here >

This is in no way, shape or form a sponsored post. This is, instead, a grateful opportunity from someone who has overcome and learned to cope with mental illness to spread recognition to those who may still be uneasy speaking about it or pursuing medical attention. More still, it is intended to provide awareness to a campaign that I believe strongly in.

Now let's all go eat pancakes! because it's ALSO Shrove Tuesday !

Film Review: the Mill and the Cross dir., Lech Majewski

Discombobulated Musings on a Film so Surreal and Reverent, I cannot surmise it in adequate Words.

source: Wikipedia

"So this could be a group of saints, returning from the past to mourn the present state of Flanders."

What would it be like, you might wonder, to see a painting as an artist imagined it, to steal into its world, examine its blots and colours and idiosyncrasies and irregularities, and exhume the breath of those inhabiting its great canvas?

What would it be like to seep into its folds, to watch it come to life, to view its creator as he sketches out its shape-in-embryo, chooses the axis, the crux of the focal point and weaves the action around and around that pinnacle like the web of a spider?

The Mill and the Cross is rather like revelatory examination of a work.  The film angle never strays from straight on, the viewer is never given any perspective they would not have looking straight on from the canvas.  No fancy, angled-camera work here, rather an exposition.

It begins as Bruegel discusses the inspiration for his next work with his patron.  They weave amidst a flock of still characters, Bruegel conniving slight touches: the re-positioning of a hem, the flounce of a skirt of fabric.  From there, the camera moves out and we are left with the opening shot. That of the great  1564 painting The Procession to Calvary

It is an examination of the political turmoil, the occupation of Flanders under the Spanish, the barbaric persecution of the protestants in a Catholic-dominated land.  But it speaks beyond its specific circumstance, entreating viewers to ponder the barbaric and judgment in their own times, humanity's cruelty to one another and the moments of grace that can intercede to infiltrate meaning to the meaningless and hope to the hopeless.

The plot is an interlacing of moments, of scenes, of tableaux: beginning from the first action where we see two men chopping down a tree in the forest. The Christian symbolism here is not just overt, it is seeped in every crevice of the work. More still, it unfolds into a re-creation of the Crucifixion, as seen by the eyes of an artist in an occupied land.

"In our land we're reduced to beggary. If only time could be stayed. If it could only be brought to a stop. If only we could wrestle this senseless moment to the ground, clearly speak its name to its face and break its power....." says Bruegel's patron at one point.  And brutality is rampant: a young man is severed from his wife, beaten and hoisted on a pole, a woman is buried alive. We are never to know what their crimes were. We are only to know that Spanish persecution in the name of Christ is subjucating tyranny in the same way it did at the time the Romans persecuted our Lord.

source: tweedslandsgentlemansclub.blogspot

There is little speaking, merely figures who move listlessly and grounded throughout the visual scope of Bruegel's imagination. What is said is sparse; but lovely all the same ...almost Shakespearian...certainly poetic. Especially Mary's internal dialogue. Yes, Mary, Simon, Judas and Peter are all present in this re-working of the final days of Christ's life.

Yet, interwoven more greatly are symbols that divine Christ long after his execution, speaking clearly to those who are familiar not only with His influence but the entirety of the Tale told: a lamb is wrested from the back of a stone cottage, the millers make bread. The colour of the Spanish tunics is red: the otherwise muted colour of the landscape drawing back so that the focal point is on the colour of blood.

Christ is in all.

The Great Miller acts as God watching the action below and Bruegel, as artist, acts as God ---able to stop time and meander and manipulate the action, express it, capture it for all the world to see and learn from. For just as Bruegel lifts his hand to stop the motion affront him  ( the way to Calvary) so the omniscient miller from his post on high raises his hand to stop the grinding wheel. Ever think of how a windmill, when caught in a certain position in its ongoing wheel takes the shape of a cross? Here, a moment of intersection against a looming sky makes for an ethereal and equally eerie symbol.


Judas hangs himself as Bruegel picks up scattered sketches
The storm rises and the rooster crows, the mill continues turning


You can see God in everything...you can see God in Bruegel ----though, like the inspiration, Christ and His moment of sacrifice is lost in the carousel of commotion. Nonetheless, though overlooked in the massive span of action and populous, He is there all the same, turning the wheels in motion, redeeming all at once. "All these great events go right unnoticed by the crowd", Bruegel says, thinking of the moment when the perspective shifts and the throng watches Simon break to carry the cross for Jesus

A landscape sprung to life from the crevices and caches and catches of oil work and matted and imagined in vivid life

Characters in tableaux: lusty, ordinary, tortured, frail.... humanity on parade.

Artists' renderings of life are beautiful and yet the seed that roots this beauty is borne, here, of tribulation; but not without a powerful symbol of redemption and not without a working of Grace.


Note: this is a relatively violent movie though rated 14 A.

Author Interview: Allison Pittman

I really, really love Allison Pittman!  And I was thrilled to read and review her delicious new novel All For a Song .... make sure you check out my review on Novel Crossing 

I also, really like Allison because she may be my favourite facebook-banter discovery EVER! She's fun, guys! super fun and I am so blessed to have been able to connect with her personally over the past five months or so. Plus, I get to meet her for REALZ in september :)

So, I give you..... ALLISON!

R:You often write books that deal with challenging themes: especially considering they are written for the Christian market. You’ve tackled the history of Mormonism, the controversial Evangelicalism of Aimee Semple McPherson, what draws you to subject matter that, within the confines of the CBA, can be regarded as edgy?


A: I don’t know that I’m necessarily drawn to “edgy.” I think my stories sometimes skew that way because I every novel starts with a character. I don’t gravitate towards historical time periods or geography, and I never set out to tackle any kind of spiritual theme. I create these people, and I find a way to showcase their story. So, for example, in The Sister Wife books, I wasn’t necessarily wanting to shed the spotlight on Mormonism, I created this man, Nathan Fox, who wanted so badly to be something in this world, he embraced the doctrine that offered the promises he desired. In All for a Song, after studying Aimee Semple McPherson, I found Dorothy Lynn in her shadow. And, I have to say, the 107-year-old Dorothy Lynn came first; the story of her younger self long after.


R:Aimee Semple McPherson is a popular figure in 20th Century Christian history. What was the most difficult part of fictionalizing an icon and breathing her to life in your pages?

A:I was (and am) so afraid of misrepresenting her, especially to those who know her and her ministry. So, I watched videos of her appearances and speaking to try to capture the feel of her on stage, but then featured her in private, undocumented moments. I know that some might see the portrayal as unflattering, but I think she was probably much more Oprah than Beth Moore, you know? She was a powerful woman—in terms of media savvy and manipulation, probably the most powerful in the country at the time. I have no doubts about her love for the Lord and the awesome role she played in preaching the Gospel and winning others to Christ. But, with all that, at the bottom line she was a business woman fiercely in control of her brand and her message, before anybody ever really knew what all that stuff even meant.

R:Roland Lundi’s a rascal--- but he’s a fun rascal!... and so well-drawn. You’ve written some very dishy guys: Cullen in Lillies in Moonlight, Dave Voyant in Stealing Home, do you have a favourite character?

A:Dave Voyant is definitely up there—mostly because it was so much fun aging him through the novels. And I loved Cullen, too, because I had the chance to write from a male POV and really capture the physical attraction a man has for a woman. A pet peeve of mine is when Christian fiction gouges out the masculinity of attraction, and we have these big, macho, awesome ranchers or whatever asking God to forgive them for noticing a woman’s figure. God designed men to be visually stimulated. He’s looking at a woman who, according to the story, he will love and cherish forever in the confines of marriage. Just be honest, you know? One of my favorites is that dishy Cajun baseball player from The Bridegrooms, Louis LaFortune, who was an absolute, unrepentant cad—but self-actualized about it. I like my men to be…MEN. And, wait until y’all meet Max in the next book…



R:There’s a subtle romance in All for A Song which takes a back-seat to the more prominent journey of Dorothy Lynn coming into her own and her spiritual awakening. How did you find the right balance---to keep those readers like me who enjoy a bit of chemistry tantalized---while still making sure that the deeper themes of the novel were at the forefront?



A:SPOILER AHEAD!!!!! I’m not even sure I achieved real balance there, but I’m OK with it. I think I sometimes get frustrated with stories—even romances—that showcase this idea that all of the character’s happiness and fulfillment center around that ultimate relationship/marriage. Here’s the deal: Dorothy Lynn spends the overwhelming percentage of her life with Logan. She loves him. She was happily married until death-did-them-part. But she did give up something potentially great in order to be his wife. To me, there’s a bittersweetness to that. For me to make that work, I think the key is what you said—tantalize. I had so many false starts in writing that part of the story—more than any other book. I had everything from the first time they met, to their first date, to their first kiss…I finally knew I had to start their story with them already firmly in love and future-focused. I wanted physical attraction and appropriate physical passion to keep her grounded.



R:What does your research process look like? Do you research while writing, or do you tend to try and get it out of the way before you start the novel?
A:Mostly while writing—otherwise, I’d never start writing! I’ll devote maybe a week or so to pure, directed research, but then I have to get started on the story so I can establish that character voice and pace. Then, in the middle of it all, I have to take an hour off of writing to see if Darlene would have a doorbell, ya know? Or, like, I want the sisters to go to the movie, preferably a Rudy Valentino movie, so I have to stop and make sure there was a movie released at the time of the story. Sometimes that backfires. While writing my current novel, for example, I was thrown for a loop because there were no women’s prisons in California prior to something like 1935. So I had to relocate a huge chunk of my story because I couldn’t just dump my girl in Alcatraz. Result? The story is much stronger.


R:As Christians, what can we learn from the flamboyant 1920s? It’s obviously an integral and historically-charged decade that paved the way for a lot of tumultuous years to follow. What do you think it was like for believers suddenly faced with conflicting moralities and a fresh way of looking at the experience of worship?

A:I picture it being like a national parent dealing with a national teenager. All of a sudden, our home and our values mean nothing, and you’re just going crazy with the booze and the sex and the Charleston. We had a little bit of a hard time selling the idea of a 1920’s setting to the Christian market, because nobody associates faith with that time period, which made me a little crazy. Of course there were Christians! And evangelists, and churches, and people who looked to God for solace and grace. In some ways, I think, people were freed from some of the stagnancy of religion and worship. Sin and vice had escaped the saloon and were worming their way into popular culture and mainstream behavior, so it seems like faith had to become more genuine to stand up against it.


R:What’s next, Allison Pittman?

A:I’ve got two more books coming along that keep us in the 1920’s, with a few cameo appearances by Sister Aimee and Roland Lundi! And from there—well, that’s what I’m grappling with right now! I sometimes envy those writers who have that identifiable “brand.” Like, you know it’s going to be a small-town western story, or you know it’s going to be a pioneer, or whatever. I’m not like that. I have to wait for some girl to speak to me from the pages of my research, or a photograph to scream its story, or the perfect question to come up during an aimless web search. That’s the second-hardest part of this job for me, finding the idea. The hardest? Wrapping words around that idea to try to sell it. Tell you the truth…I can’t wait to know what’s next!

follow Allison on twitter 

Like her on Facebook

Visit Allison's website

Literary Scavenger Hunt

There is a mistake in this really fun list.

Can you find it?

hints:

not grammatical or spelling

not a personal preference mistake ( i mean, we'd be at THAT all day: obviously MORTIMER over Eugene Wrayburn)


go forth and find and report said findings

people who SHOULDA made the list--STEPHEN MATURIN! 

Bees in the Butterfly Garden by Maureen Lang

Bees in the Butterfly Garden has two BIG things going for it a. ) it’s a Christian Historical about THIEVES ( and no, not the lame Gown of Spanish Lace type) b.) Maureen Lang is a beautiful, beautiful writer.

Meg Davenport is your run-of-the-mill prep school sweetheart. She’s learned the ways of etiquette and propriety, she is bred to be a proper wife for a society man. But, when her father, who has long supported her tenure at boarding school and is proud of all she is learning from Mme. Marisse’s Handbook for Young Ladies, passes away and Meg learns his true identity and the true nature of her past, Meg’s world is turned upside down.


Meg’s father John Davenport was one of New York’s finest criminals. Wanting to spare Meg his life and ensure she was well set up among the echelon of the Fifth Avenue families he robs, he kept his true nature a secret from her in hopes that should he pass, Meg would be supported by a husband and a rich lifestyle. But, Meg’s too canny and too spirited to settle for her late father’s wishes. In fact, she’d much rather learn more about his past and try her hand at the family business among such hardened ne’er-do-wells as Pubjug and Brewster and others of her father’s crew. Her father’s protégé, however, the irrepressible Ian Maguire wants to honour John’s wishes and keep Meg from the underhanded business she is suddenly so curious about. All of Ian’s life he has heard Meg’s name praised to the skies by her father and now, with Meg in his path, a beautiful and refined young woman, he cannot imagine entrenching her in the shady lifestyle of her heritage.


When an inadvertent opportunity pairs Ian and Meg together to steal from one of the wealthiest families in New York, their paths cross as adversaries and suddenly as prospective courters. Meg discovers whether or not she has the heart for burglary and Ian begins to wonder if the slight tugging at his conscience comes from a higher place.


Though constant quotations ( seriously, beginning every chapter), took away from the flow of the story and loose ends wrapped up really well (as in as pertly and properly and easily as an episode of White Collar ), this was a fun, fast, energized and extremely well-written novel. Indeed, my first from Maureen Lang whose previous books I now want to seek out.


We all saw the cover and went “ooooo pretty!” when it was first released and the inside is pretty, too! I really enjoyed Lang’s attention to slight detail: the offerings of refreshment at an outdoor concert, the place settings and courses at an upper-crust dinner party, the marks and mars of Ian’s trade. It is obvious that Lang was suffused with a passion for the time period and its intricate complexities as she wound her way through the writing process. Meg’s penchant for flowers was also welcome. While faith of any sort seems rather light in the first half, the second half doles out plenty by way of redemption, mercy and grace, especially as emblemized through a painting of Christ and the two thieves at Golgotha. While this might seem a little too obvious a metaphor, Lang’s gentle evocation of the wistful and rueful effect it has on its viewers made it, in short, work as a tie to the Christian message.


I immediately sensed Ian’s fascination with Meg and, at first, am certain that it was borne of the duty he felt towards her father. It would have been easy, thus, to assume that the love of he felt for her was one more of idolization. However, the more circumstance threw the two of them together, Lang deftly interwove moments where their chemistry deepened---where Meg saw beyond Ian’s exterior as a talented crook and focused on the man he was (confused and hurt from his past ).


As mentioned, the plot threads tied up a little too nicely and the denouement occurred rather quickly. Ian’s planted “ excuse” to secure Meg’s protection in a scene and his explanation for a missing item didn’t quite seem credible to me, but, as I mentioned earlier---- this is kinda like White Collar and Ian kinda like Neal Caffrey ( is Caffrey now an archetype for dashing gold-hearted criminal who you can’t seem to stay mad at despite his erring of the law?--- and I kinda like White Collar.


Unique, smartly written and featuring characters who drink wine! Imagine! Also, featuring characters not quite black or white: who trust and serve God while performing tasks that maybe don’t QUITE inch up to the Ten Commandments.

At Drake's Command by David Wesley Hill

This novel not only had the best blog pitch I have ever read (shamefully, I have had it on my kindle since December and have been remiss in writing this blog post ), it has the best opening chapter of any book I can recall. Ever.

Reader, it is gripping.

It is subtitled The Adventures of Peregrine James During the Second Circumnavigation of the World  and it takes those of us smitten with nautical lore to a time and tide oft abandoned by novelists who would much rather pursue the great Napoleonic-era vessels of the late 18th and early 19th Century.

Its freshness, its panache; but also the skilled hand that leads us happily along are what solidified this as the best nautical story I have read since I turned the last page of The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey by Patrick O'Brian near a decade ago.

Let me start with the opening chapter....A Fine Morning to be Whipped... and a fine chapter to guide any of us who employ or passion for scribbling.  We meet Perry and we fall in love with him by the second sentence.

We are immediately thrust into the time and circumstance that led him to his unfortunate whipping post as the grey dankness of a November sky settles around him.   In just a few pages, Perry is given a reason to run off and join Drake, an entire backstory, a well-rounded bout of characterization. You will love him. 

I loved him immediately. If this book had instead been Perry's Adventures on Land Escaping Whipping Posts, you can bet I still would have read it.  

Nonetheless, and fortunate for those of us who enjoy a bit of the salty brine in our literary adventures, we are given a first-class glimpse into life aboard an Elizabethan-Era vessel. Hill has more than done his homework and descriptions such as the following pepper the fast-flying pages:

At the stern, a half deck and a poop deck were built above the main deck and on top of one another, so that the rear of the ship rose higher than the forepart, something like the posture of a cat crouching to strike. On the half deck I saw Drake, his fiery hair unmistakeable, as was his pose of command. 

While Cook's assistant Perry gets more than his fair share of unintentional espionage ashore, it is his life and the politics interred in the planks and shafts of the vessel that best caught my imagination.  To add, Hill's beautiful writing:

The ship shuddered like a horse preparing to gallop and then surged forward as one sail after another was set. I craned my neck and watched them swell with wind, a garden of strange and beautiful flowers blooming in the moonlight.  The highest sails, the topsails, had square red crosses in their centres, but the lower ones, the main courses, were plain white. Small dark blotches against the canvas were sailors balancing on lines far above the deck.

Hill doesn't hold back with the similes which spring the ship to life as a living, breathing entity and it is this reverence for a vessel: suffused with the breath and palpitating pulse supplied by the rigours and efforts of the men onboard 

Peregrine’s adventures are a series of vignettes ---from land and at sea--- interspersed with historical trimmings and sewn up together in great detail.  Marooned, kidnapped, on expeditions of espionage, for a lowly cook’s assistant, Perry is given a fine taste of life at a time when politics and warfare interwoven to an extent that test his conscience.

What struck me about Perry was how he was a perfect counterbalance of light, hearty adventure, riddled with a wry wit and a cunning way of capturing circumstance and a human who realizes his own misgivings and shortcomings. At the death of a friend and comrade, Perry turns to retrospection and consequently to moodiness. Perry is refreshingly human. To recall O’Brian, I was most taken by his series because of the depth of characterization. Here, I felt deeply for the characters ( even those in periphery are well-painted) and the myriad of circumstances that bind them together and rift them apart.

Hill’s grasp of dialogue and his apt attention to infusing fictional banter with historical gravity (especially when it comes to painting scenes from the history books with Frances Drake and Thomas Doughty in play ) is wonderful.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough to lovers of nautical fiction. Most know that I have waded through what seems an endless array of nautical stories in hopes of recapturing the feeling and essence that wafted from the pages of an O’Brian story--- often to no avail.  I cannot WAIT for the next adventure to hit stores.

For those who are uninitiated to nautical fiction; but are captivated by history ---there is enough in the pages of humour and adventure to keep you engaged.

check out this post at Historical Nautical Fiction with an interview

I would like to thank the author for the opportunity to review this book and offer a mea culpa for my tardiness in this post 

The Magic of Ordinary Days by Ann Creel

 When I'd headed out here on my wedding day, I hadn't realized I'd bought a ticket to my own history, a different one from studying Akh-en-aten and Horizon-of-theAten, maybe but a living, ongoing one.

There's an unofficial literary trope (popular in the Christian romance world; but also rippling elsewhere) where love comes after marriage. Mail-order bride stories, marriages of convenience, marriages to secure reputation for a woman pregnant out-of-wedlock.

Several of these are saccharinely sweet and seem run-of-the-mill: a plot we have read a billion times. Nonetheless, it is a romantic trope I enjoy.

The Magic of Ordinary Days is by far the strongest literary offering to this story.  Creel has a way with words, with simple poetry, that steals into you and whisks you from where you are sitting to the colourful Colorado world she is painting with her well-selected words.

During the Second World War, Livvy becomes pregnant by a soldier who seems to forget about her as he steals off to the front lines. Her minister father arranges for her to wed a shy farmer about an hour out of La Junta, Colorado. She can deliver the baby and be part of a respectable family.

Livvy recognizes Ray immediately for the kind and gentle man he is. But, also for the limitations of his experience.  He is a beet farmer and while he receives special treatment for his integral work (gasoline unlimited during fuel rations, unlimited sugar to sweeten the beets), his life has been a secluded and lonely one---made more so by the passing of his brother Daniel at Pearl Harbour.

Ray is someone who will love completely anyone he has to love.  This greatly put me in mind of that old John Knowles quote from A Separate Peace : "When you love something it has to love you back in whatever way it has to love."   Livvy recognizes his peace and patience, yes, but she is still waiting for life around the corner.

She tells us:  I had never run in my life in order to meet men or find romance, although I wasn't immune to those things, either. I'd always dreamed that someday love would come into my life in some spectacular fashion. Probably it would happen in another country, on board a ship, most likely it would unfold during one of my future treks to uncover a secret history. One side of me knew that these were the dreams of an inexperienced girl, and yes, I was inexperienced in love; but it didn't bother me.


Olivia's dream was to become an archaeologist and excavate the earth for the past. When her mother got sick and the marriage of her sisters dictated that she be the one to care for the ailing woman, Olivia saw her dreams shelved. Now they are interred in some hidden place as she is flung out into the middle of nowhere- Colorado, an hour from the nearest library, bound to a man she cannot hope to understand. All the while, she is aware of the life growing inside her and how the baby's presence will plot her securely to the land even more. In short, Livvy's life seems to be over.


What Magic of Ordinary Days works well at is creating a pyramid of several interlocking events ---some historical---some fictional that tier upon one another in layers seemingly simplified by the narrative conjecture of a well-spun story. The interception of Ray's familial history and the arrowheads and artefacts Livvy unearths around the farm gently nudge this taut symbolism onward.

Olivia is right to recognize that "just listening to the radio news is a study in history, Especially now" as the Second World War ravages around her.  To bring the War more firmly to home soil, Creel presents us with two Japanese American women who work on Ray's farm: Lorelei and Rose. Their pride, their normalcy, their dedication to the land and to try and establish their right to live as Americans as they always have ( despite the immediate racism and prejudice incurred by Pearl Harbour) are a welcome way to bring the War Front to the idyllic farm life.


There are several lovely nuances to the story that exhume history in ordinary ways much as the title bespeaks ----the enchantment and surprise one can find during the seemingly redundant circumstances that silently stilt our lives along.

The most important aspect for me, was the burgeoning and well-trained love she began to experience for her husband.  Can one teach love? Can one learn to love? Creel would have us believe that circumstance and time and the right re-jigging of our personal preferences to explore new horizons would prove so.

In the past, Livvy explains, I would've listed things such as common interests, mutual attraction, worldliness and higher education.  My freedom above all else. If I had found love, it would have had to be the kind that overwhelmed and overpowered all else.

What she speaks above is direct to her personal experience for Ray loves her completely and it suffuses his every word and action since his arrival. At one point, as they start to explore physical intimacy, Livvy describes his touch over her curves as that lining the rim of a delicate china tea cup. He treats and explores her very much in the same way she delicately muses and delights over her priceless artefacts.  Ray loves her because she is his. She came to him. He doesn't know how else to exist other than to immediately love his new wife and their new baby.

Livvy quite realistically rails against this consuming love, especially as housed in the vessel of a shy and awkward farmer, but the more she studies Ray and the more she learns to accept that she deserves something so wholly consuming and pure, the more she can fall into his passion for her.  It takes time, though

I wanted to understand his love, to see it clearly before me, to put it into a form that I could roll around in my palm and examine like modelling clay. Or I wanted to write it with words of reason and illustrate it with romance. I wanted to study it as once I'd studied my books.

Livvy's lesson in accepting the grace-that-bowls-her-over of Ray's love is the same lesson she learns in forgiving herself for the momentary lapse of judgment that led her to sleep with an officer on furlough.


Yes, there is a trope--- a trope that sews everything from Sarah Plain and Tall to Love Comes Softly ---the story of the mail-order bride or the marriage of convenience. If you love these stories and if you want to read possibly the best and most thoughtful incarnation of a romance budding from circumstance and acceptance, then this is the book for you.

Litfuse Blog Tour: Secretly Smitten

Just in time for Valentine's Day, romance lovers have the chance to steal away to the idyllic little logging town of Smitten. Therein, they'll find lampposts wreathed with twinkle lights, a main street with charming old-fashioned shops, a delightful cast of quirky characters and three sisters---and a mom--- who get a chance at love.

Kristin Billerbeck, Colleen Coble, Denise Hunter and Diann Hunt whisk you away in four separate but intertwining vignettes about four prospective relationships.

Think of it like a box of chocolates with a creamy centre.  The outside of the box features the girls' attempt to unravel the mystery of a pair of dog tags found in their grandma's attic and late of the Vietnam War.  This charming mystery provides the outer layer, inside, you can pick and choose whatever your favourite treat, bite in and taste the confectionary delight of four very different but very charming romances.

My favourites included the budding relationship between sweet widower Ryan ( who, ladies, runs the ice cream parlour in town and makes a mean chocolate fudge sundae) and Tess --- whose curves and outgoing demeanour and large heart make it hard for her to believe she will find true love. Especially with someone as handsome as Ryan ( even though she's secretly pined for him for years).

Zoe is eager to help skim off the shyness of her townspeople by creating and marketing a chance for them to get to know each other in a social and romantic setting. Cupid's Arrow seems the perfect match-making service but, unfortunately, William Singer is worried about how the enterprise will mar the perfect town and city regulations and codes he is so set on observing.

This book and its lovely little stories remind me very much of the saccharine fare of the Hallmark television movies (that even though I good-naturedly mock, I obviously enjoy) and that is just what we all need during this month dedicated to love and romance! So get some dark chocolate, pour yourself a sweet glass of pinot and sink into these light and lovely stories.

From  a stylistic viewpoint, I must admit that I was impressed with the way that four different authors with four completely different voices were able to weave together a stories that while quite different, stitch together quite seamlessly.


Litfuse Landing page here

Make sure to join the event:


RSVP Today!

Book Love: Lori Benton

Good book day!

you can FINALLY pre-order the gorgeous Burning Sky from new Waterbrook author Lori Benton

Learn more here


PRE-ORDER:

'The Blue Castle' for Femnista

Well..... we all know that my favourite love story is Barney and Valancy's in The Blue Castle.

In this month's Femnista I explore my life-long love with my favourite romance of all time.


READ HERE: 

Readers of The Blue Castle know that the train is a big part of it. Here's the CPR in Bala, Muskoka where Maud set her imaginative tale.