Sheila's Guests and Reviews

Will someone buy you a book for Valentine's Day? What sort of book? For my husband it might have to be a thriller, Scandi-noir perhaps. For my mum, a cat book for sure. For my sons, maybe a scifi action adventure. For their girlfriends? And for me? If your taste tends toward mystery and/or food and/or animals and/or romance, there's sure to be something here to fit the bill. Gluten-Free Murder by P.D. Workman is the first of a series of small-town mysteries, tinged with romance, and deliciously scented with baking. It's even gluten-free baking, which is bound to appeal to me. Light-hearted, fun, and even moderately informative, it's a good cozy read to enjoy with some easy-drinking two-star coffee. Plus there's a cat! Then there's Cat Café by Mollie Hunt . It's either the 5th or 6th in its series, and I'm gradually catching up after reading the first one some while ago. Set around a cat cafe in Portland, rather like my beloved Purringtons, it'...

Today I'm showcasing a free ebook - Every Reasonable Double by Pamela Samuels Young. It's a mystery/legal thriller and I hope to read it soon - definitely on my to-read list. Enjoy! And thank you to Pump up Your Book for introducing it. EVERY REASONABLE DOUBT PAMELA SAMUELS YOUNG * MYSTERY/LEGAL THRILLER * Title : Every Reasonable Doubt Author : Pamela Samuels Young Publisher : Goldman House Publishing File Size : 722 KB Genre : Mystery/Legal Thriller When attorneys Vernetta Henderson and Neddy McClain are tapped to take on the biggest case of their careers, they are less than thrilled about working together. Their strained relationship, however, is the least of their problems. Their socialite client—charged with the brutal murder of her husband—is demanding an immediate dismissal of the case. But a ruthless prosecutor is determined to make sure that doesn’t happen. Forced to fight a common enemy, the two women close ranks and, in the p...

A recent speaker at our writers' group writes horror, or "horror light" as he described it. Straight after the meeting I read and enjoyed his novel WiZrD, which reminded me in many ways of my favorite Stephen King novels - the less heavy and wandering ones. I also enjoyed discussions with friends about the difference between magical realism, fantasy and horror. Someone suggested it's all a question of balance; if the real and the magical are equally balanced, it's probably magical realism. But what if the real and the horror are equally balanced, or the mystery and the science fiction, or the imaginary and the real? Which got me thinking, maybe we do have to fit our books into genres, but maybe the best stories are those that balance their labels so invisibly that we don't question which genre we're in as we read. I'm not sure where that would leave my books. I'm definitely working on some magical-realism teen novels, but I've been working on t...

I'm writing (and researching) John's Joy at the moment, a book of children's stories based on Revelation. I know it sounds odd, but I've always loved Revelation, and the more I learn about it the more I love it. So why not try to convey that excitement (and mystery) for kids. Meanwhile I'm also rewriting my old Hemlock stories, in hopes of getting them published (maybe Ink-Filled Stories will take them, but that's a mystery). I'm compiling my cat tales into Claws for Concern. And I'm editing, formating, and generally playing with other people's books. And I'm reading. So here are some more book reviews and coffee recommendations (because, of course, I'm also drinking coffee). Someone Else’s Daughter by Linsey Lanier is the first in a mystery series starring a once-abused woman who's daughter went missing as a baby. Sensually direct, never sweet, and filled with contrasts and humor, it's the sort of tale you'd love to watch o...

Do you prefer sweet, sharp or dark... or all three rolled into one. With two romances recently read, my book reviews should surely be sweet, except those romances had the sort of sharp insights and even dark (or stark) reality, they can't be simply classified with only one kind of flavor. Then there were all the other books. And then time ran out, so here are just a few book reviews while I snatch moments from trying to get my own volumes released. Sweet William by Sherrie Hansen and Goldenrod , by the same author, are both Scottish-themed romances that delve into differences of language, culture and meaning as Americans and Scots try not to fall in love. An intriguing extra is the "meaning" of flowers. But best for readers is the sense that love is stronger than death, that romantic love doesn't eliminate other kinds of love, that faith is part of real life and not everyone shares it, and that misunderstandings really can be overcome. Enjoy with some well-balanced...

I'm getting all these emails about resubscribing to blogs and GDPR regulations etc. I suspect I may end up with a much cleaner Inbox after this, and more time to read and write. Hurray! Though I do apologize to all those people I've failed to resubscribe to - those links that sent me nowhere or said I'd already been there or timed out on me... Who knows where I am or will be next week? On which existential note, I think I might post some serious book reviews of serious books for a change. I've read a number of really enjoyable novels recently, literary, dramatic, confusing, intriguing, or simply so deeply evocative I couldn't put them down. So pick up a coffee and see what you think. Please remember, the stars of for the coffee strength and nothing to do with quality. (Is all coffee good?) First is Annie’s Bones by Howard Owen , a literary mystery that alternates between past and present, evocatively recreating the world of a student who doesn't fit in and a...

The library's tidy. The books can be found. And the world keeps spinning around. I'm enjoying the delight of a son's bedroom now repurposed as a home for all my books, and the benefits of last year's flood that engendered this repurposing. I'm still regretting the books I lost, and staring anxiously at bottom shelves, four inches above ground level, just hoping that will be enough if the worst comes to worst. But we have water detectors now. As long as we're home when the worst comes to worst, I shall hear a loud noise and come down to rescue my world... ...which keeps spinning around. The books on my review list for today are a very curious mix--the only thing they might have in common is that curiously spinning world... and the fact that they create their own worlds made of words... T he Nut File by John Skoyles presents an almost real world in almost a series (or sequence) of essays, very short stories (sometimes only one sentence) and ponderings, and ...

With the world growing darker (politically and in season), fires burning, waters flooding... I ought to look for something light to read, but I end up haunted by dark matter and enjoying the sense that perhaps we can learn, if not directly from the past then possibly from its fictional recreation. So here I am enjoying Alice in Sinland, Killing the Devil, following Stainer through a collegetown summer of drugs, watching Ruined Wings try to fly, Missing Presumed and Accountable to None. Dark matter indeed, but some of it's hauntingly evocative, literarily beautiful, and gripping to read. And some of it's just dark. Here are some book reviews anyway. Enjoy complex four-star coffee with the more complex reads, and dark five-stars for the darkest ones. Alice in Sinland by Antara Mann is an oddly surprising dark read. An up-and-coming lawyer is asked, "What do you want?" and realizes she always wanted to be a star. Down the rabbit-hole of modern-day stardom she goes, wh...

The speaker at our local writers' group writes historical fiction, but his characters have traveled in time so it's science fiction, and there's lots of action, maybe even war, so military fiction perhaps, aimed at adults, but some of the characters are teens so adult and young adult, but... But what's in a genre? I'm so behind with posting book reviews I'm wondering if I'll ever succeed in collecting them together by genre. Perhaps I should just post and click and post and click again. But let's see how it goes. I'll try for mystery. What's in the mystery genre? And what coffee will you drink with it? Murder at the Manor by C. T. Mitchell is a pretty short mystery. It's got a murder and the suspects are a very limited group. I think that makes it a cozy mystery. It makes for a fun novella though, and a nice introduction to characters who continue through an Australian detective series. Lady Maggie might be an Australian Miss Marple--I...

Some novels are told from a single point of view. Others invite you into lots of different minds and ways of seeing. Some offer a single main protagonist, but open your eyes to things they've failed to see. And still others let the reader float free over a sea of strangers. So... do you prefer books with one protagonist or with many? Or does it depend on the story, or the author, the writing style, the promise fulfilled by story's end? For myself, I've experimented with multiple points of view (in Divide by Zero ), single point of view ( Infinite Sum ), and a single protagonist who doesn't quite see it all (in Subtraction, coming August 1st from Indigo Sea Press ). I read and enjoy books written in many different styles, and I can honestly say I enjoyed all the novels included in today's reviews. So, choose your novel and choose your brew. Please remember the ratings are for the coffee, not for the book (which by no means suggests the coffee's more important...

I read a book called " The Mystery Tomb " recently. Can you guess, it was a mystery? Characters had mysterious backstories. Locations revealed unexpected treasures. Desire and intention collided while truth slipped and slid, awaiting the final reveal. Mystery for sure. " Deadly Spirits " is a mystery driven by a wonderfully human narrator whose favorite spirits come in bottles, but whose life revolves around mysterious deaths. " Raining Men and Corpses "? has to be mystery and humor for sure. Meanwhile " Dead Shot " is a more juvenile mystery-adventure with deeply serious themes. Then there's " Girl With All The Gifts ." But it's that horror isn't it? Except it's also a mystery, filled with the question of how, why or what she is, and how, why or what she might hold as the clue to the future. A mystery that doesn't  resolve all it's clues, Gifts proves all the better perhaps for not doing so, and lingers in the...

Our family mystery is how did so much water get into the family room, bedrooms, storage room and furnace room of our house. It's an ongoing issue, so no story arc yet--no sense of completion. But at least I've got my computer up and running again, except I have to put it away to feed people since it's sitting on the kitchen table. In between disposing of soggy boxes bursting with ruined memorabilia, watching sons cut up and drag away soaked carpet and underlay, moving furniture, panicking about surge protectors that clearly didn't protect (perhaps they didn't have water surges in mind when they designed them), ..., I have on occasion sat down and lost myself (and my woes) in a mystery novel. Such novels are good for losing yourself (and your woes). They helped a lot (as did amazing family and friends -- you know who you are; I couldn't possibly have coped without you!) . So here are some reviews. If your coffee maker's not plugged into the same socket as y...

When Shelfari closed and Goodreads absorbed its reviews, I found myself landed with tons of new shelves on my Goodreads page. Every tag was now a permanent link between (some of the) books I'd read. And the books I'd so carefully shelved before were now scattered among the morass. One tag I'd used on Shelfari but not Goodreads was "literary," which got me wondering, what did I mean when labeled a book that way. Is all writing literature? Do the books I labeled literary somehow have more literary merit? Or maybe it's lit if it's character driven and just fiction otherwise? Which then begs the other question, what is "just fiction"? I remember when I was growing up, I graduated from the children's to the adult library, aged around 10, and delighted in those yellow backed Golancz science fiction novels. My granddad read James Bond adventures and Westerns, so of course I read all of those too. Mum and Dad had library books hidden under the be...

I've just started reading Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water and I'm hooked. As a Christian author, I love her comment that "if it's bad art, it's bad religion." And I'm really enjoying her insistance that Christian art makes no more sense than Christian oranges. If art is creation, and if Christians believe in a creator, then that creator should have a hand in all art ... even in books where the protagonist despises religion ... even in mysteries where a graceless protagonist objectifies every woman he meets ... and even in a fictional world where the clone might ask the computer which one has a soul. I'm definitely hooked, and with two book titles containing the word grace among those for which I'm posting reviews, I'm wondering if I picked up the book by accident or if it picked me. Anyway, create some well-flavored coffee, sit down, and see if any of the books in this list will attract you to read: Grace by Howard Owen  is fif...

If you've followed my book reviews, you probably know I have a preference for fiction. I like the order of beginnings middles and endings. I like to know there'll be a purpose revealed between the lines, and that those unknown lives won't hurt, though they'll haunt from the turning of the page. Real life has an awkward habit of being really messy. And I meet real people every day--why should I want to meet a stranger in a book? I was asked to review a memoir recently--not my favorite genre. But this wasn't just an ordinary memoir of ordinary everyday life; this particular memoir was written from jail. I couldn't decide if that would make me like it more or less. After all, this was hardly going to be a character I'd really want to meet. Would I want to spend all the pages of a book in his company. And his world? Wouldn't it be full of complaints and railing against the system? But it did have a cool title. So here are my reviews of some seriously g...

I've long loved to write and tell stories, but I've had a lot to learn, over the years, about how to write and tell stories. First there was that great head-teacher who made me choose between the pencil and microphone, thus teaching me to write. Then there was the brother who told me all fiction is lies, thus teaching me not to write. Then a friend suggested how wrong it was that people never go to the bathroom in children's novels. "Maybe they do in grown-up ones," she suggested. So I started to read the library  book under Mum's bed while I dusted her room. Nobody went to the bathroom there either. So I start to write "real" stories where every detail was told, and then I learned it's better to "show now tell," and then... Well, I learned, slowly. And people don't go to the bathroom much in my books, children's or adult's. After all, I don't tell how many breaths they take from morning to evening either. But how real...

All roads lead to Rome, or so I'm told. But perhaps they lead to different Romes, to imagined destinations where all is revealed. The thought had me wondering if all novels somehow incorporate roads, or paths at least. Though the first one I read last week has a whole long list of very real roads, criss-crossing the States and leading, inevitably, home. Asphalt Asylum by Steve Theme chronicles a hitchhiking trip from Washington to Florida and back, and is probably memoir rather than novel - which means it really shouldn't be my sort of thing, but I loved it. The author lyrically recreates the scenery for the readers, then invites us into the lives of some fascinating drivers, ranging from generous to scary. It's the kindness of strangers (and sometimes, maybe, their prayers) that protects him, and the loser wins and finds himself. A very cool narrative, best enjoyed with some well-balanced, full-flavored three-star coffee. Cast A Road Before Me by Brandilyn Collins is...

It's one of those favorite remembered misunderstandings--the child who stares at flies, watch in one hand and plastic-tipped arrow in the other, obeying an edict that was meant to be an observation: Time flies like an arrow. But this week time has truly flown. I had great plans of books to read, and instead I filled the hours with efforts to fulfill the promise of good news. Good news number one was an email asking for copies of Dribble-IT . Currently only available from Lulu, the price is fine for purchasing online, but I'm not sure what price I can afford to sell it at. I'd long intended to add the book to Createspace, so now, at last, I did it--well, I nearly did it; watch this space and I'll give you the link when the files are finally done. Good news number two was an email from my publisher with a tentative cover image and interior files for my next novel: Infinite Sum. So hours were spent re-reading the interior file, checking for errors of writing or forma...