Remember When....

Remember that one time when Mindy kissed Danny on the cheek at that music festival?

Well, then this happened last night

and it was amazing and glorious and means a lot in my world

<3 p="">

Happy Book Birthday ' My Hope is Found'

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE Joanne Bischof's  Christy-nominated and achingly beautiful Appalachian setting and her gorgeous, finely-threaded prose.  You will too!

The final book in the exceptional Cadence of Grace series wraps up Lonnie and Gideon's long and arduous journey toward love and acceptance.

Read my review of Though My Heart is Torn here 
Read my review of Be Still My Soul here
Read my interview with Joanne here 
Visit Joanne on the web

I'm a Les Miz Junkie

I'm kinda a Les Miserables junkie. I've seen it a billion times: in Toronto (where I live and often with Colm Wilkinson as Valjean ), on Broadway, in London's West End.  I am still trying to convince the world that multiple viewings is a sound financial investment.

I love it!  So the new production just had its opening night in T.O. last night starring the amazing CANADIAN! (holla!)  Ramin Karimloo and while I wasn't there, I have three trips planned in the near future ... so it's good to hear that the reviews are good:


Here and here and here 

isn't our friend Ramin a dish? the best-looking JVJ ever!

Apparently this revamped version is heading to Bway soon.   In other optimistic news, Cameron MacKintosh is going to re-mount my other favourite Miss Saigon which is long overdue. Because, honest to pete, my most recent experience with this show ( I'm a junkie for this, too) in 2010 was really scaled back.  Hopefully, it remounts splendiferously.  Long live the 80s/ 90s renaissance of musicals!

URGH

Guys, I am sorry.
I have been avoiding you.

I have been writing and at the ARCHIVES and researching for the new book and working on the new book's complicated proposal and, of course, working at my real job and socializing and stuff.

Anyways,   I am over at Novel Crossing again today talking about Vienna Prelude; because, why not?

Go to!

Also, it's almost thanksgiving! NOM NOM! gobble.

HAPPY BOOK BiRtHdAy, "ALL FOR A STORY"

My friend, confidante, sage, partner-in-crime, half of the unending vaudeville act of life, Allison, has a new book out today and it is adorbs, you guys!

1920s: check! 
feisty heroine: check! 
1920s vernacular: check! 
flapper hair-dos: check!
adorkable hero who looks like John Krasinski: check! 
hero's name is Max: check! 


I'll be posting a full review of this on Novel Crossing eventually; but I wanted to give the book the little book release birthday party it deserves


so ---go buy it

note: Aimee Semple McPherson --the noted evangelist first mentioned in All For A Song also plays a role her; but you don't have to read both. This one can stand alone and is contained.


BEST PRESENT EVER!

visit allison:
....facebook
....twitter

'The Honk and Holler Opening Soon' by Billie Letts

I am a big fan of the book Where the Heart Is because it is so deliciously moving and sad and wonderful and romantic. More still, it is a snapshot, like Novalee’s or Moses Whitecotton’s in the dark room, of a life in Oklahoma so foreign to me: the landscape, the mobile homes, the southern vernacular. Most of all, because it is so gloriously heart-warming and poignant.


I think Letts has a way of ushering you into her world and sitting you down with a cup of sweet tea ( I learned the difference between it and iced tea recently ) and telling you about wonderful people’s wonderful lives. Now, these wonderful people are stricken with tragic circumstance, but they overcome to find community and home.

Home. Home is a major motif in Letts’ work. Indeed, reading The Honk and Holler Opening Soon on the weekend reminded me a lot of LM Montgomery. Not for similarities in cadence, tone or plot; but in the assimilation of home as a major ongoing theme. The Honk and Holler, a diner and greasy spoon in Seqoyah Oklahoma, becomes home for its wheel-chair bound owner, Caney, his adoptive mom MollyO, Bui, a young man late of Vietnam who is waiting for his wife to join him for a new life in the States and Vena Takes Horse, a beautiful Native American woman who is roaming, an injured dog in her care, trying to find a place to make ties. Nomads, wanderers, broken souls. In this sense, The Honk and Holler is very much like WTHI: in that it advocates community in the most unlikely places.


I really enjoyed the sparkly notion of home, the diner, of course being one conceptualization of it, and Vena’s ramshackle residence in an old school bus being another; but beautifully woven into Bui’s residence in a local church basement. A Buddhist, Bui sleeps in the church basement but not before appropriating the altar to practice his home religion. In return, he acts as altogether guardian angel for those who worship there: fixing lightbulbs, taking custodial duties with a resident joy, painting and helping out. When Bui suffers a tragic accident, his new family---of such different faith; but similar spirit--- takes care of him.


I love when Letts speaks to the best kind of religion: all full of action and love; blind to differences and inspired by the greater good of the community.

The Honk and Holler Opening Soon is a tale of heartache, the remnants of the Vietnam war ripple through the 1980s setting and haunt several of the main characters. The pages are awash with prejudice and betrayal; but in the end love is found. It takes a bit, it takes some soul-crushing moments; but Letts’ pen is swift and fast and I can sense her smiling, winking at us, ushering us in.

What a strong voice she has. Remind me not to wait 15 years to read another of her books.

Litfuse Blog Tour: The Courier of Caswell Hall by Melanie Dobson

from the Publisher:

An unlikely spy discovers freedom and love in the midst of the American Revolution.

As the British and Continental armies wage war in 1781, the daughter of a wealthy Virginia plantation owner feels conflict raging in her own heart. Lydia Caswell comes from a family of staunch Loyalists, but she cares only about peace. Her friend Sarah Hammond, however, longs to join the fight. Both women’s families have already been divided by a costly war that sets father against son and neighbor against neighbor; a war that makes it impossible to guess who can be trusted.

One snowy night Lydia discovers a wounded man on the riverbank near Caswell Hall, and her decision to save him will change her life. Nathan introduces her to a secret network of spies, couriers, disguises, and coded messages—a network that may be the Patriots’ only hope for winning the war. When British officers take over Caswell Hall and wreak havoc on neighboring plantations, Lydia will have to choose between loyalty and freedom; between her family’s protection and her own heart’s desires.

As both armies gather near Williamsburg for a pivotal battle, both Lydia and Sarah must decide how high a price they are willing to pay to help the men they love.

One of the reasons I  appreciate the Courier of Caswell Hall is that it delves into a period of history that I still feel is largely untouched in Christian historical romance.  C’mon, you guys, your revolutionary war years are fascinating: the espionage, the loyalists and the new americans, the rife and imminent threat of the French Indian wars still hot on your heels.  I find it really fascinating as a new world tries to emerge and the historical details in Dobson’s book reflect her obvious passion for history, and for this integral part of American history.

I also very much appreciated how independent, intelligent and strong-willed our parallel heroines are.  Romance is, certainly, a part of their lives; but their convictions and moral compasses are the driving forces. Their willingness to obey God beyond human expectation and the rigidity of their circumstance.  When romance is granted them it is again a force for the independent: severing them from the apropos and ordinary.

I must confess that, at the beginning, the switch between Lydia and Sarah’s stories felt a little wobbly and forced to me; but the pairing did eventually find solid grounding.

Lately, I have been trying very hard to focus on what makes opening chapters so readable, memorable and fantastic. Here, we are dropped in the action immediately when Lydia goes for a stroll and finds a stranger. The premonition that this might be the enemy weighs heavily on the reader as she tries to do her Christian duty by nursing him to health while hiding him from her conservative father.  The familial tension, Lydia’s severed family ( the disappearance of her brother) and her political unrest of a world torn asunder are made immediately transparent.

There are edges of mystery on every page. The Courier of Caswell Hall is a bittersweet goodbye to the Summerside Press American Tapestry series. Readers should relish the unique setting, vivid historical canvas, and independent and incorrigible heroines who find love and adventure when the novel spins to a satisfying end.   I loved the battlefield sequences and the patchwork quilt of historical references including General Washington and Lord Cornwallis.  This is an exciting, edifying time period made illustrious when pitted against the beautiful Virginia setting of the novel.

If you’re into solid faith fiction with mistaken identities, the promise of love and tons of adventure, then look no further than here.

Litfuse Landing Page

Buy on AMAZON

visit Melanie Dobson on the web

Guys: I am seriously reading this ... I am just a little behind :-) ( see previous ACFW post)

This week, the

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing

Born of Persuasion

Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. (September 1, 2013)

by

Jessica Dotta


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Born in the wrong century–except for the fact that she really likes epidurals and washing machines–Jessica Dotta writes British Historicals with the humor like an Austen, yet the drama of a Bronte.


She resides lives in the greater Nashville area—where she imagines her small Southern town into the foggy streets of 19th century London. She oversees her daughter to school, which they pretend is an English boarding school, and then she goes home to write and work on PR. Jessica has tried to cast her dachshund as their butler–but the dog insists it’s a Time Lord and their home a Tardis. Miss Marple, her cat, says its no mystery to her as to why the dog won’t cooperate. When asked about it, Jessica sighs and says that you can’t win them all, and at least her dog has picked something British to emulate.




ABOUT THE BOOK

The year is 1838, and seventeen-year-old Julia Elliston’s position has never been more fragile. Orphaned and unmarried in a time when women are legal property of their fathers, husbands, and guardians, she finds herself at the mercy of an anonymous guardian who plans to establish her as a servant in far-off Scotland.


With two months to devise a better plan, Julia’s first choice to marry her childhood sweetheart is denied. But when a titled dowager offers to introduce Julia into society, a realm of possibilities opens. However, treachery and deception are as much a part of Victorian society as titles and decorum, and Julia quickly discovers her present is deeply entangled with her mother’s mysterious past. Before she knows what’s happening, Julia finds herself a pawn in a deadly game between two of the country’s most powerful men. With no laws to protect her, she must unravel the secrets on her own. But sometimes truth is elusive and knowledge is deadly.




If you would like to read the first chapter of Born of Persuasion, go HERE.

Rachel's Adventures at ACFW

with Kaye Dacus on prom night

On the weekend I went to the ACFW conference in Indianapolis. It was my absolute first and I think, honest to pete, I will be tired for the rest of my life.

It’s not just the travel and the lack of sleep because you are up chatting with Jess Barnes ( although Anthony Howell wasn’t mentioned once), it is the energy of the place ( I have never been in such a large hotel with 600 other authors before) , the anxiety before the meetings, the “being on” and turning your brain on and being able to smartly ( or so you hope) assess the merits of your book while across an editor in a meeting room, and being able to remember names and, in my case, being able to apologize because “I know I’ve read your book I just cannot remember the title; but did it have a red cover?  That girl. On the front. Yah, her.”

My favourite part of the conference was randomly and unexpectedly bumping into authors I love.  You turn around: there’s SARAH SUNDIN, or GEOFFREY WOOD (he bought me a beer! it was amazing) or MAUREENLANG! I accosted Jenny B. Jones and Nancy Herriman who, poor lady, was trying to get an elevator.

I had lovely conversations with the stunning SarahLadd.  I giggled with Katie Ganshert and realized: wow! She’s a peach!  I hugged Kathleen Y’Barbo Turner a billion times.  It was authors---authors everywhere.

And, I, dear readers, am a total gushy fangirl.

Another highlight was meeting people I have long connected with online in person. Elizabeth Byler Younts (ARGH! LOVE SO MUCH) Sarah LoudinThomas( whose work I was a fan of before she had work to be a fan of ) and Melissa Tagg, Carla Laureano (girl crush!) and Joanne Bischof were highlights. My heart lifted when I saw them walk in a room. 

Joanne Bischof and I (totally stole this pic from fb)

All of the blogs I follow? The books and such ladies, Steve Laube, Chip MacGregor, the Litfuse Girls…. The list goes on…. They were all there! CELEBRITIES! And Frank Peretti was there too---but he scares the heck outta me….well, his books do.

AND REL MOLLETT who is sweet and sunshiney and whose genuine love of books radiates. I had such fun with her

---And Liz Johnson! Kaye Dacus! it was amazing

---the lovely Amy Haddock of Novel Crossing and WaterBrook who made me the best cookies I have ever had in my life 

I didn’t make it to one workshop. My appointments criss-crossed and I ended up having some last minute meetings; but I realized that this conference, for me, was not about taking in  in a school-like setting, it was about immersing myself in the culture.  The online world stretched out and social media ( which is a wonderful thing ) incarnated into this buzzed and elated atmosphere.

I came back with a very very very very long and arduous to do list as well as instant communication with my lovely agency on where to go next.  

In short, I have to write. A lot. There will be writing. A lot of it

Oh …and I went shoe-shopping with Allison Pittman ( who am I kidding. I think I paid the conference fare just to hang out with Allison Pittman. She’s my mentor, critique-r, encourager, drinking buddy, philosopher, sage, muse, wise, funny, half-of-my-undending-vaudeville-act, Texan counterpart. 

*All pictures I stole from other people’s facebook feeds because I have been too lazy to upload my camera pics.

at payless! with Le Pittman

ACFW prep!

So, I am off to my first ever ACFW conference. This year it is in Indianapolis and I am rooming with my friend Jess and pestering tons of my favourite authors and publishers.

Getting ready for the conference took a lot of work.
First, I had a prep call with my agent to ask dumb questions which she very wonderfully answered.  Then, I navigated around my goals for the conference ( the first and foremost goal was to jump up and down and hug people and socialize) and then I did all of the administrative work that it takes to get ready for editorial pitches.

this is my fav. image to pair with Sound Beyond Hearing

My first novel is currently out on submission; but my novel-in-progress is not the novel I anticipated writing next; but such is the way of the world.   So, I knew I needed to be armed with the following

• business cards (my corporate ones from my day job wouldn't count)
• writing samples of both the completed MS on submission and the MS in progress
• one-sheets
• the materials requested by the different editors I am meeting with ( they all wanted to see different things as befitted their agendas and their hope for the interview): including a proposal, a proposal and a first chapter, a copy of the MS, etc.,

plot of new novel!

this pic of the Ward captures a lot of the new book

The people at Staples and I have been very good friends!

Because I have changed my next novel and have been going in a different direction, I also had to re-vamp my one-sheet so that it features the completed novel and also gives a snapshot of the new novel.

Ye olde Sound Beyond Hearing plot 

I'll be in touch and keep you posted from the Conference 

the Liebster Award

The Liebster Award from Rel:

Yay! Rel was kind enough to nominate me for a Liebster Award which means I get to answer fun things for all of you. I look forward to meeting Rel this weekend at my first ACFW conference in Indianapolis.....


1. What is the name of the most recent book you have finished and loved?

Okay, well, I kind of am terrible at blogging of late because I have been really busy working on a new novel; but Lori Benton's Burning Sky was a book I absolutely L-O-V-E-D. Someday you will read my thoughts on it. For now, just know that it was the bomb...



2. What is the 17th line on the 125th page of the book you are currently reading?
"Later I learned Etruscan, Greek, Egyptian, and Roman treasures were numbered amongst them"---I'm reading Born of Persuasion by Jessica Dotta.



3. When did you realize you were a true book lover?
In grade one we were given an assignment: if we read to an adult for a half hour every day we got stickers on the board and then won a shiny maple leaf pencil. I read a bit of Black Beauty to my mom everyday. I loved it. There was also the time in Kindergarten when I cried because I had to return Dr. Seuss' The Sleep Book back to the school library. Dad read it to us every night and when it had to go back I was devastated. Don't worry, this has a happy ending: I learned that the great thing about libraries is that you can sign the books out again....



4. What is your genre of choice? Why? It honestly depends. When I am reading CBA stuff, I prefer Historical and Historical romance because I just think it is one area that the industry really excels at and it includes some of my favourite author voices in the world of Christian Fiction. When I am reading non-Christian, I like classics, LOVE nautical fiction (PATRICK O'BRIAN) and British mysteries: Martha Grimes. Honest to pete, though, I also like fantasy and YA and literary fiction so it really depends on the mood I am in and what I have a taste for.



5. What is the name of your ‘comfort reading book’? (one you will pull out and read when you want something familiar) I have a few: The Blue Castle by L M Montgomery, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, The Extraordinary and Unusual Adventures of Horatio Lyle by Catherine Webb. If I am far from home, these books take me back. If I have a chill, they are my blanket.






6. Who has encouraged you the most in your reading pursuits? My aunt Annette really fostered all of my creative pursuits and outlets: classical music, theatre, opera, film. Her bookshelves were full of feminist tomes and musical history and classics like Jane Eyre, Emma and Manon Lescroart and I would steal them off her shelf. She gave me my copy of A Room of One's Own. But, I also enjoyed how much she cherished books. The first time she read Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels, she scrawled underlines in pencil of the most poetic nuances: "ropes of smoke" "bog boy", I really liked those tremulous little lines on the page. She did the same for The English Patient. My dad is also a huge bookworm: not fiction so much as history, theology and biography so I know he helped me catch the reading bug. He has books everywhere.


7. Your most memorable hero, and why?




Tumblr.com

Gosh. I don't even wanna start with this. Umm. Wow. Okay, well I am a big Sherlock Holmes fan so obviously he and I have a special relationship. But, I am going to say that Stephen Maturin from the Patrick O'Brian canon has really influenced the way I look at the wonderful dimensions of characters as painted and scripted on page. Maturin just fills me with some sort of soft reflection, some pensive pursuit of understanding every beguiling tenet of his multi-faceted personality. I ache for him and applaud him and champion him and long to steal inside his mind. He just is...well.... he's a modern classic, that's for sure.


8. If you had to swap lives with a character, who would it be and why? Valancy Stirling of The Blue Castle ---it's my favourite romance so I would be sewn into a perfect love story, I would get to hang out with Barney Snaith and I would get to live my days on a gorgeous Muskoka island which really floats my boat.




9. Do you alphabetise your books by author or title, on your bookshelves? by author



10. Why do you read? Because my life is not exciting enough, because I want to steal back two hundred years ago and smell and sense it, because I want to travel forward, because I want to creep into the recesses of other's minds, because I want to find other people who are just as anomalous as myself, because I want to find the antecedent to dreams and the answer to everything, because I want my imagination to talk faster than my brain can keep up, because I want to understand God and the universe, because I am not good enough on my own.

This is open to any reader of the blog. Join in and have fun.

NEW PINTEREST BOARD

Hi friends,
I have been writing up a little storm.  Brain vessel overturned and spilled out all of these ideas and I don't want to LOSE ONE OF THEM

I mentioned earlier that the novel I am currently writing is set in TORONTO! Edwardian TORONTO! (so excited to write about my home/favourite place on earth)

Toronto in the 1910s and just before is very well documented in photographs and I was able to excavate history about its highest highs to its lowest lows: including the now-obliterated slum called St. John's Ward ( known as the Ward and which I kind of liken to NYC's Five Points) using photographs and maps.


IF you are so inclined to step into Edwardian Toronto, here are some of the things that are inspiring me: images and fashion, etc.,

http://pinterest.com/rachkmc/jem-and-merindas-guide-to-the-commonplace-and-crim/

GARROW'S LAW!!!! (so good)

Garrow’s Law. You guys. Wow.

So, I started watching this a few years ago; but I am finally making my way from the beginning through the entire series.  William Garrow is a brilliant lawyer who, though from humble means, through his hard work as apprentice to the pragmatic John Southouse, has raised himself to the level of a gentleman (such as his nemesis prosecutor Silvester) in his comings and goings at court.

from the Guardian

The 18^th Century, as you know, was a hugely pivotal era in terms of the shifting of morals, laws and the state of human happiness and well-being. Garrow helped propagate several changes, helping to usher reform chiefly on behalf of prisoners. In an age where branding, hanging, burning at stake and wrongful imprisonment for the slightest crimes awaited those unfortunate and defenseless prisoners shoved into the dock at the Old Bailey, Garrow coined his belief that every man be innocent until proven guilty. With him, the law and the right of the prisoner for sane and solid and solemn legal council changed.

Courtroom dramas are always riveting. For me, as a lover of detective stories and mysteries, I enjoy how the truth is let out often in the intricate and theatrical summations and evidence presented to the juries.  This courtroom drama, however, stands heads above any others because of its pure glee in excavating the strangest historical cases: ripped directly from the Old Bailey’s records.

Historically, Garrow was able to assist those standing trial for everything from infanticide, sodomy and high treason and loan a voice of compelling and compassionate leniency when the crown would rather rid London society of those even suspected of committing a crime.  Evidence was hard come by and circumstantial evidence prevailed: but Garrow’s quick mind and stern moral compass allowed him to logically infuse the circus of the courtroom with sound counsel and judgment. To add, he was extremely proficient at winning the sympathy and understanding of a jury.

The series provides a fascinating glimpse, entrenched with verisimilitude, into the cases that Garrow presided over.  Andrew Buchan plays Garrow as a lion in the courtroom but often out of water when not in the realm of the law.   He excels at blunder-headed moves that lead to the entrapment of his reputation by the cunning Sir Robert Hill, whose wife Lady Sarah, is an ardent female voice in the male-dominated society of the court systems.

I have so enjoyed the pitch-perfect dialogue, the theatrical antics, the climaxes and the denouement of each courtroom drama aside which moments from Garrow’s personal life are added in centrifugal and apt movement.   Georgian society is a fascinating one and the wigs, the costume make-up, the double standards and the bawdy double entendre of a society rid of the manners ushered in with the Victorians is on promenade here.

Check it out.

Note, I really enjoyed searching out the Old Bailey recordswhich are pristinely documented online for all to view.

As you can see from the screenshot, a search of William Garrow elicits several of his cases ---those which the series are based on:

Also, this is one article of the many that exposes some of Garrow's well-documented life: William Garrow: the Robin Hood of the courtroom 

At Day's Close: Night in Times Past by A. Roger Ekirch

Apparently I care about how our ancestors spent their time after dusk.

Wow, that sounded dirty. I didn’t mean it to be. Well, I suppose I did because did you know that they use to hang cowdung at the foot of their beds to detract fleas? That everyone washed only their feet before bed and everything was disgusting? That clean linen (and remember people gave birth and died on beds ) was almost unheard of in the lower classes? That spacial constraints forced entire families to sleep in one or two beds, that any visiting parties became a bedfellow and ALSO shared a bed?

It goes on and on.  People had a better sense of using their other senses to wade through the dark: especially merchants returning home by horse after a long market day. In the same vein, however, and so unfortunately, our forebears were prone to any and all kind of accidents: falling in ditches, losing their footing and ending up in a well.  Thank the lord for flashlights.

Night was  a time of superstition, of theft and murder, of a world unhindered by social obligations for the most part ( those crept in in the upper classes during the 18^th Century and the Industrial Revolution changed it all ) where sleep and rest was a God-given gift after the toil of the day.

The book speaks to everything about night. Everything that kept our forebears ticking after the clock settled beyond the dusk hours.

The most interesting bit of the extensive research? The fact that we used to sleep in bi-modal and segmented patterns.  Get this, blog readers, research (which cites greats works of literature, primary sources and numerous first hand accounts from Barnaby Rudge to  Jane Eyre and Chaucer) proves that our ancestors went to be at 9 or so and woke up in the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT for a few hours thus concluding what they called “First Sleep.”  While awake, they would smoke tobacco, talk to their bedfellows, engage in “other” night-time activities (wink-wink, nudge), even visit neighbours, say their prayers (special matins created for early morning that fit so tightly into the research here) before settling into SECOND SLEEP.

With the Industrial Revolution, gas-lamps and electricity, with the rise of coffee houses and the ability for those who were respectable to embark on social escapades outside of the region of the local pub or tavern (where hooligans and ladies of the night reigned supreme), people began going to bed later and sleeping through the night. No First Sleep and Second Sleep with a couple of interesting hours of waking interval betwixt. No. Just sleeping straight through.

We’ve changed a lot and this book gave me the best sort of glance into the secrets of yesteryear.  There is fascinating research in here; but a lot of it and a lot of citations. So if you are willing to spend some time meandering through extensive musings on night in centuries of yore, then this is your book.

Because I can never talk about 'Great Expectations' enough

...on Dickensblog again today talking about Pip and Soulpepper's recent adaptation


Visit HERE 

"The Single Woman" by Mandy Hale

 [ Rachel's Note from 2 Hours After Publication of Post ---: first off, the lovely Lori Smith was kind enough to remind me what I had set out to say but had forgotten to:   authors have little say in their covers and I should have stressed that the cover itself is not the author's responsibility.

Secondly, this is a gift book.  I was not under that impression when I encountered it on amazon nor when I conversed with the author on twitter yesterday.  Nonetheless, the content itself and the words are what are post potent with me as a reader ---regardless of its packaging and my thoughts on some of the quotes and ideas have not changed having learned that this is a giftbook.  But, there you go! if you want a giftbook, there's another upsell ;) ]


When I first saw  The Single Woman on amazon the across-the-board  five star reviews made me wary. You see, five stars for a Christian-published book is not unheard of. We love writing positive book reviews and yet the topic is so sensitive ---- anything less than five stars might have indicated that it strayed from other books of its ilk: might have reflected a kind of dissonance indicative of a wander from the norm....   Might have made it jump out as a book to end the string of books written by Single Christian women that didn't seem to resonate with me at all. Negative reviews can often mean that someone who didn't like the book was passionate enough about their dislike to log in and outline how it chafed with them.

I even used it to spark a discussion on Facebook and on twitter in which the author immediately and passionately engaged.  That intrigued me even more so I bought it.   The chapters are so flittingly short I didn't find it hard to breeze through.  There are quotes from  Hale's twitter account and guides and tabbed lists ornamented with heart bullets. It is not so much an exploration of the fabulousness of single life as a good reminder guide on how to enjoy life.  It does marginalize itself in ways by painting women of a certain ilk into a corner.  If this scenario is one that tickles you: "...not having to shave my legs if I don't want to and blasting Girl Power tunes and singing into the broom handle while I'm cleaning my house" then you are in good company.   I always felt like a bit of an outsider on the Christian singles front and, unfortunately, this book made me feel even more so because, personally, I had trouble relating to Hale's experience at all.

Let me begin by pointing out some strengths to the book.  First, Hale is right in her belief that single women (and men), heck! people in general--- need to be told that they have value beyond their marital status, social status or appearance.  Let this ring again and again.

Secondly, I do not doubt the sincerity of the author's intentions to fill a gap she expresses she found missing in modern culture ( unfortunately, she falls into the trap of aligning acutely with it; but more on that later ); but her sincerity and her platform prove that this is a message that has been well-received.

Finally, you cannot go wrong with owning your independence. Lines like this "The real fairytale is designing a life so amazing that you don't want to be rescued from it" really resonated with me. 

My biggest complaint is that there is nothing in it that differs from the other Christian books I have read targeted at single women. The publisher, Thomas Nelson, is one I respect in the faith based community. Hale's Christian worldview is minimally present, couched in a few paraphrases of 1 Corinthians in one chapter and random mentions of God and scripture; but fails to speak at all to the sometimes-felt and experienced constrictions of the Church culture for a single person. Certainly she mentions the stigma against singleness equaling depravity; but I was so hoping that her voice would speak out  from experience.  To add, and no fault of her own, Hale speaks for women who have had several serious relationships and dates -- an experience that  several  Christian woman of my acquaintance will not find easy to relate to. Speaking to the difference between "Mr. Now" and " Mr. Right Now" will, again, be foreign to several women who subscribe to Evangelical beliefs of courting and staying equally yoked. The Christian worldview, here, seems drenched in the Worldy worldview ( the capital W as pronounced as it is in one of my dad's emphatic Sunday sermons)


Hale is full of good-sense tidbits which speak more to being happy as a person than to being a single woman. To add, these tidbits were solidly entrenched into a narrative I just didn't relate to.  "Sassy stilettos"?  Oreo binge fests while watching "Friends re-runs"? It is  safe to say that although I am the demographic for this book it is not marketed to me. 

 I feel this book will cater to the woman who enjoys a good Chickflick montage of pink-trussled memories fading mutely in cascading pensive melody. But.... I  realized, yet again, how few relatable books there are out there for strong-minded, independent and intellectual Christian women who want someone who champions equality, who understands the confusion of having relationships of this matter evade them, who digs deeper into the manifestation of the Single Stigma within the context of the Church and who uses the Christian worldview to prod more deeply into scripture and experience.

While she encourages us to laugh "in the  face of the stigmas and stereotypes", they are, unfortunately, alive and well here. How can one celebrate singlehood as an independent and inspired female if one is presented with a  book with a packaging that caters to societal  standards of womanhood: a stiletto heel, pink, sparkles, hearts, manicures, frilly phrases and gorging on ice cream? While Hale excels at reiterating the brilliance of independence; she rescinds this forward thinking with quotes like this which, to me, were a disturbing balance: "We pay our own bills, file our own taxes, change our own oil  (or cruise on down  to Jiffy Lube on Ladies' Day for a half-price oil change" This chaffing of independence and equality coupled with a "Ladies' day" immediately segregating the sexes and conjuring images of sexualized and objectified women showing up for a discount based on gender alone was an odd juxtaposition for me.

To add, she advocates gender stereotypes and labels by straddling the domestic and a single woman's lack thereof....  "She’s not afraid to change her mind…but petrified to change a tire. She makes her own decisions…but can’t make toast without burning it. Her idea of a three course meal is a Lean Cuisine. There are shoes in her cupboard where flour and sugar are supposed to be. She is the Single Woman. She's me and she's you"
I cannot change a tire and I do burn toast; but I think this has little to with the gender or marital status. A friend aptly pointed out that this is in the same camp as those books which speak to the limitations of men when it comes to parenthood. The Single experience is not universal.

At the core, I came away realizing that her point is that women are fabulous:  but this book is not necessarily targeted FOR single women as her title and promotion suggests.  Instead, it is a good reminder for anyone who needs a boost. Most unfortunately, the book falls into the traps of branding and stereotypes: perpetuating the "chick" mentality we see in shows like Sex and the City ( oddly enough, a cultural phenomenon ostracizing much of a Christian audience who are uncomfortable with its subject matter). All of the branding in the book---she mentions retailers by name---Nordstrom and Target, for example--- heightened my opinion that this book, again, establishes further our societal tendency to label.  Labels are not what we need. 

 There is always a need for women to hear they are fabulous: but an authorial voice resplendent with tales of James Dean look-a-like boyfriends, splurges on frappucinos and great almost-engagements in jewelry stores will not strike a chord with several of the  Single Christian women who read this blog.  Be  fabulous because God loves you, Be fabulous because Jesus has got your back, Be fabulous because you are living for an ordained purpose whether or not you said the included affirmations or have the "sassy stilettos" Hale refers to.  It's okay not to align with this archetypes painted in this book;  this modern conceptualization of fabulous canvassed on this book's cover in the airy pink font and heel. The modern conceptualization of fabulous and single is mirrored here contains a few price tags, brand names, and some wisdom.


I read this book under the impression ( however wrong I might have been ) that due to its publication by Thomas Nelson and from its back cover copy, that it was written specifically toward the Christian single woman experience.  As such, my review of the book is greatly informed by that. There are several optimistic life-lessons for all of us here: single or non. Male or Female.   As always, what I found to be lacking in the book might be what you are LOOKING for in a book so check it out for yourself. 


                                                               * * * 

So what would I like to see in a book on single women published for the Christian marketplace?  I told @hopefulleigh and Kaye Dacus the following in conversations this morning

1.) A book ensconced in a Christian worldview 
2.) Exploring how purity and abstinence inform the dating scene
3.) The differentiators ( which are many) between being a single Christian woman and being a single woman
4.) Biblical backup


Please check out Kaye's series on Being Single in the Church  -- like me, you will applaud the candor.  I also appreciate Leigh Kramer's blog which touches on the same subject and Lori Smith has done magnificent work culminating in a rumination of her single experience in The Single Truth and   A Walk with Austen

Random Things

First, I went to my gorgeous friend’s gorgeous wedding on Vancouver Island which is a gorgeous place and led me to ponder what books I have read set in British Columbia. And with the exception of Susan Juby I think I am blanking.  But, at the very least, the Alice, I Think  series

                                                                * * *

I was greatly saddened to hear about the passing of Elizabeth Peters who has the best quotes in the history of the world ---

“No woman really wants a man to carry her off; she only wants him to want to do it.” 

“I disapprove of matrimony as a matter of principle.... Why should any independent, intelligent female choose to subject herself to the whims and tyrannies of a husband? I assure you, I have yet to meet a man as sensible as myself! "

“When one is striding bravely into the future one cannot watch one's footing. ”

I love Amelia Peabody and I LOVE Elizabeth Peters

                                                                * * *

Secondly, here is an interview with the lovely mystery maven and all-time favourite of mine, Martha Grimes --- a nice prelude to the newJURY NOVEL WE GET NEXT YEAR!

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Over the weekend, I watched 4.5 seasons of Doc Martin  ( which I discovered care of Tessa Afshar's blog ) which is just delicious and wonderful and tickles my funny bone and makes me ache with its adorably gruff, rough-around-the-edges romance.   To add, the series is set in gorgeous Cornwall with a sea-side view to die for.

I love the slow-burning romance between Doc Martin and Louisa, the local primary school teacher who steals his heart at first sight. Not unlike House ( but with more heart, indubitably), Martin struggles with social proprieties and etiquette. His bedside manner is appalling and his treatment of his neighbours and friends leaves a lot to be desire. But, oh! How he loves Louisa.  If you watch, you will hear that he says her name in a softer cadence than any other name---or line ---for that matter. And his odd, crinkly and harsh physiognomy lightens when she is nearby .

It is really quite endearing and but one circle of many, many outlining rings which take us through perplexity, surges of eccentricity, medical cases and the lovely, lofty little wonders of small village life.

I take to writing again --- this time --- I can write about what I know: My CITY

As an aspiring writer, I realize that I need to keep my fingers tapping and my creative juices flowing.

There is a lot about writing that involves silence and waiting.  Rather than think and muse upon the finished book, I am encouraged to keep moving onward and upward producing more and keeping my little brain-wheels turning.

I wrote my first novel in a very intensive spurt and was very exhausted after it.   The querying and landing a place with an agency, the proposal and submission guidelines, the last-minute edits and suggestions--- all of it was scrunched together in the beginning part of this year and I needed a breather---which I happily took. To read, to recharge. To socialize with the people that I ignored while I was Boo Radley-ed up in my apartment and to watch baseball.

But  my fingers have started tapping again for a fresh new series idea: something that ( and this is the amazing thing about literary agents, they have brilliant ideas strewn from their close attention to market needs and trends) without a planted suggestion I never would’ve thought of trailing.

So now I am off and down the rabbit hole, hoppity hop, and giggling like a mad-woman because it is so silly and yet. so. Me.

As much as I enjoy the idea of my imagination planting a kernel which sprouts into a story of my own mental fruition; so I enjoy picking up a bread crumb and following a trail.

While my previous books (some in embryo ) take place in Eastern Canada, the new series idea is here. At home. In Victorian Toronto.

This locale is in and of itself, an exhale of relief for me.  While I am familiar with Nova Scotia from several trips and visits and musings and research, Toronto is my home.  Not my hometown. But, my home.    Weaving through the Old Town Toronto---through  the St. Lawrence neighbourhood, down Jarvis and the beginnings of the City of York. I love Victorian Toronto.  I love Toronto in general. I am in love with my city and setting a book here just sends little shivers down my spine because my city is so ingrained in my consciousness and so accessible.  When I write of Halifax I still  rely on a map. I don’t need a map of Toronto, I can walk its circumference with my eyes closed: looping down alleys, taking lesser known paths, following the peal of the St. James Church bells.  I know the smell of the harbour and the slip slope of the skyline as it would have looked before we planted skyscrapers. I know Toronto.

So I am kind of in love with this new book idea because I am kind of in love with where I live.

And while I am in love I giggle at the prospect and where my funny little brain comes up with this stuff.  Like, really giggle.

Giggle like this, giggle.

BreakPoint: Modern Standards are oppressive as the old in "Much Ado about Nothing"

Check out my piece on Joss Whedon's most recent adaptation of the Shakespearian classic at Breakpoint today

Harvest of Gold by Tessa Afshar

This week, the

Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing

Harvest of Gold

River North; New Edition edition (July 1, 2013)


by

Tessa Afshar


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

TESSA AFSHAR was voted "New Author of the Year" by the Family Fiction sponsored Reader's Choice Award 2011 for her novel Pearl in the Sand. She was born in Iran, and lived there for the first fourteen years of her life.  She moved to England where she survived boarding school for girls and fell in love with Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, before moving to the United States permanently.  Her conversion to Christianity in her twenties changed the course of her life forever. Tessa holds an MDiv from Yale University where she served as co-chair of the Evangelical Fellowship at the Divinity School.  She has spent the last thirteen years in full-time Christian work.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The scribe Sarah married Darius, and at times she feels as if she has married the Persian aristocracy, too. There is another point she did not count on in her marriage-Sarah has grown to love her husband. Sarah has wealth, property, honor, and power, but her husband's love still seems unattainable.

Although his mother was an Israelite, Darius remains skeptical that his Jewish wife is the right choice for him, particularly when she conspires with her cousin Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Ordered to assist in the effort, the couple begins a journey to the homeland of his mother's people. Will the road filled with danger, conflict, and surprising memories, help Darius to see the hand of God at work in his life-and even in his marriage?

A hidden message, treachery, opposition, and a God-given success, will lead to an unlikely bounty.


If you'd like to read the first chapter of Harvest of Gold, go HERE.

Theatrical Adventures: 'Anything Goes' and 'Great Expectations'

Anything Goes contains a slipshod plot (plot is a strong word) to which P.G. Wodehouse was contributor about the crazy happenings, disguises and mistaken identities aboard a cruise ship. I won’t go into the plot, or lack thereof, because, like most screwball comedies of the 1930s, it really doesn't matter. It is the antics, the characters and the chemistry and…here… the singing and the dancing that make this a visual and musical treat.

What we have here, splayed like a deck of shiny playing cards, is the best of the crème de la crème Cole Porter.  More than any other musical featuring his prolific work ( I think, first, of Kiss Me , Kate ) Anything Goes has a songlist that shines with De Lovely, the titular song, Blow, Gabriel, Blow and the eerie discordance of Easy to Love.

His lyrics, easy to trip over the tongue and far deeper and list-like ( think You’re the Top, I Get a Kick Outta You) than meets the ear, add a deft layer to an otherwise frivolous story about a rag tag crew at sea.

The Roundabout Theatre production starring Rachel York ( who is a goddess. I first saw her on stage in Kiss Me, Kate  in London's West End  and have worshipped her voice forever ) features a brilliant orchestra, expert direction and staging, succinct choreography, energy and flair which garnered one of the most enthusiastic audience responses I have ever seen in a theatre.

I was boggled by the immense talent of everyone on stage: no one hit a wrong note, the voices were high and belty and, in York’s case, brandished with the salty cadence of a brash, golden-tongued dame of the age, the tapping was fleet and fast and the comedic timing was to die for.

This is a musical throwback to a golden époque.  For those who are tiring of the technical spectacles that Broadway has become ( don’t get me wrong, I love me some special effects; but we don’t always need flashes and bangs) then what you have here is a stage set for the showcase of supreme talent: led mostly by York who is so riveting, dashing and jaw-droppingly gorgeous and brassy that you might not be able to take your eyes off of her throughout the production.

                                                                         * * * 

In stark contrast, I had the opportunity to see Soulpepper’s intelligent remount of Great Expectations last night, adapted and directed by Michael Shamata.  who, for the Soulpepper lot,  is no stranger to Dickens having his thumbprint on the renowned version of a Christmas Carol they stage every other year.

First and foremost, I was entranced by how much of the original text he used ---- wavering from some of the usual nuances of adaptation and including more of the story than I thought was possible.  Having seen and studied adaptations of this novel for decades, I know the usual ways that directors decide to cut and paste the story and bring it to light due to restraints of time and audience limitation.   Shamata’s version doesn't talk down to us. But, I do wonder if some of the off-hand way the guiding information that sews up this complex plot is soliloquized quickly and not without confusion to the audience.  I was with a friend who had no previous knowledge of the source material and could completely understand what facets of the tale threw her off when presented in a quick and somewhat hurried manner.

The language transposed with Dickensian flair and uttered with such supreme confidence by Jeff Lillico’s Pip was a bit of genius. He opens the play as a retrospective Pip, immediately uttering some of the most famous lines of the book as he looks back on his childhood. There, the sparse staging ( theatre in the round, a handful of chairs, a bricked beam that acts as chimney and building side and forge alike ) gives way to the imaginative marshes: the lighting at times eerie, exuberant and, when Pip finally reaches London to experience his eponymous expectations, muddled and bright.

The action on the stage melded well with the space and I was caught immediately in imaginative flux: my brain sinking into the depth of the story and the fascinating aura of each and every character.   Lillico is a strong, if dour, Pip who tends to forget the moments of lightness.  He whines a lot about his past decisions

 ( well-wrought considering what an insufferable and ignorant snob he becomes in Act II ) ; but we rarely see that counterbalance—something I love about Pip--- he has a tough circumstance, sure , but he meets it with gumption. 

Kate Trotter’s Miss Havisham, doesn’t possess the psychological complexities of the character: rather features a prominently bitter old lady who is a hybrid of depression and anger.  At times, I found her grating. She could have been softer. She needn’t have raised the  timbre of her interestingly squeaky voice or flourished large movements in order to convey the heartbreak of her past. 

Herbert Pocket was a delight. There, nothing more to say on that. DELIGHT.

Uncle Pumblechook and Magwitch were passable ---both made more so by some of the great lines given both.   A side note: Pip, as narrator, often intercepts the fastly spinning action with beats of lines quick and succinct that help the flow of the story while reiterating his importance as the center of it. It is his biased perspective and he has every right to break the action and swiftly speak to the audience. 

The strongest cast member was Oliver Dennis who may actually be my favourite actor in the Soulpepper Company so wide and competent is his range. The play does extremely well at diving deep into the Pip and Joe relationship and its fundamental crux in Pip’s development.  Their friendship is early established as his Joe’s innate greatness.  Having already taken liberties of some plot points ( due to time constraints, I am sure),  Joe’s payment of Pip’s debts at the end ( in my estimation the most poignant and important part of the story ---symbolically and figuratively) sinks somewhat into the general act of Pip falling on the recently wedded Joe and Biddy’s kindness and their giving their forgiveness freely.

Double casting is not a favourite device of mine; but here, is quite wonderful:  Wemmick/Joe, Estella/Biddy, Mrs. Joe/ Molly.  Each actor is so confident and so changed that you do not think at all of their pairings, rather lose yourself in each individual scene.

The ending is not as stark a contrast as Pip has fed us his self-awareness of his ingratitude throughout.  These narrative breaks are not unlike the same disposition of the novel and show that Schamata is confident with his source material.

It isn’t without flaws; but those flaws are borne of adapting a perfect work of literature and its transposition to another, shorter medium.  The careful attention to detail as well as the obvious love the director and I share for the story set it with the best of literary stagings I have seen.  I often think that the best adaptations are not those without liberties; but those which capture the essence of the novel. This captures the essence of the novel. 

Summer Update

muskoka is gorgeous

I  have been abandoning this blog for the beautiful weather, films, friends, food, social events, sunshine and baseball ---for that, I apologize; but such is summer in my gorgeous city

First off,  I wanted to take a moment to introduce you to Bala, Ontario --- it was during Vacation here that LM Montgomery was inspired to write The Blue Castle.  Deerwood, Valancy’s residence, is based on Bala and Barney’s Island on Lake Mistawis ( actually Lake Muskoka) is right nearby.  It is a gorgeous part of Muskoka, Ontario and just breathes Blue Castle: the penultimate moment at the train tracks? Yep, you can often hear a train speed through Bala.

bala has a waterfall :-)

I am a huge fan of literary (fictional) pilgrimages and a huge fan of the locales in which I grew up: in little northern Orillia, summers spent at the cottage in Muskoka, so if you are ever in this area, please go. 

Now, on to what I have been reading/ viewing

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion: quirky, fresh, reminded me of As Good As it Gets. Cinematic

The Kingmaker’sDaughter by Philippa Gregory: lush, expected, soapy, visceral, regal, Richard III, malevolent

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell: heartbreaking, earnest, nostalgic, sparse, bubblegum narrative that pops, sweet, salty language, bitter, cold, warmed by music

Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson: reminded of TheodoraGoes Wild; sweet, British, a touch of Cold Comfort Farm, anecdotal, hopeful, rural, whimsy

Mistaken by Karen Barnett ( head over to Novel Crossing to read my review)

The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty: straight cut, evocative, 19

20s, flapper, exquisite, tortured, convoluted

Viewing:

Despicable Me 2  See here

The Lone Ranger: go for the scenery. Amusing. Plotless. Pretty

The Way, Way Back: nostalgic, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash should write everything, sweet, bond, funny, throwback, John Hughes, awkward, coming-of-age, stirring

Frances Ha: black and white, modern dancer, displaced, New York, camera angles slitting through fractioned action

Monsters University: colourful, friendship, bright, silly, gooey joy