New! SyFy Mobster Novel "Tracking Shadows" recreates Film Noir in 2096

Book Summary:

The latest installment from 2096!

In 2096, the American government has gone above and beyond to ‘protect its citizens’, even regulating sugar and coffee. Every new legislative measure opens up a black market for an enterprising person willing to seize the opportunity.

In Chicago, Slick Micky is the king of smuggling. Known to deliver anything, anytime, anywhere, he specializes in caffeine and sugar and works in the anonymity of shadows. But recently an old enemy is tired of waiting for Micky’s empire to crumble and has called in the best assassin in the business to take him out.

Trina Durham is an assassin with a sterling reputation, thanks to her unique ability to induce deadly hallucinations. When Slick Micky killed her best friend, she left Chicago – forever. She’s back now, unable to resist the perfect opportunity for vengeance. But no one warned her Slick Micky might as well be a shadow. Or that shedding light on the man and his secrets would put both her heart and reputation at risk.

About the Author:
Regan Black writes action packed paranormal and urban fantasy novels so readers can savor a fantastic escape from the daily grind. Raised in the Midwest and California, she now lives with her family in the South Carolina Lowcountry where the abundance of history and legend fuels her imagination. Experience a Regan Black adventure at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords. You can keep up with Regan at ReganBlack.com, twitter @ReganBlack and Facebook.


An Interview with Regan Black:
We are so delighted to welcome Ms Black to The Bookish Libraria, and she's agreed to answer some questions that will help us get to know her personally.  So, let's begin:

1) Please give us a description of your writing area. If you don't mind, we'd love you to be as specific as possible...what's on your desk, what do you see in front of you right now, do you have any "good luck" things, etc.?

What a great question! I use an alphasmart NEO when I'm drafting my books so I can write anywhere. My most effective 'stationary' place to write is at my grandmother's antique secretary desk, but right this minute I'm at my office desktop computer. My desk is an armoire style piece, so I could close the doors on the clutter, but that's never actually been accomplished.
As usual, there's way too much on my desk, but it's a semi-controlled state of chaos. (If you ignore the many post-it notes featuring things like the progress on my blog scheduling, radio interview reminders, little motivators, etc. I try to keep the writing surface relatively controlled, with a notebook, and a spiral bound pocket folder for immediate, task related things.
The desk 'walls' and doors are another story. I keep a Walt Disney World lanyard with my favorite pins looped over one door and I installed some cork board tiles on the inside of the doors to pin things like cartoon strips that tickle me (currently there's a Pearls Before Swine that makes everyone laugh). Along with cards and memos, there's also a Captain Underpants coloring page my son gave to me years ago to make me take a laugh break when I'm working. One of my favorite pictures of my husband and kids and our first greyhound has a permanent place here too, as well as several candid shots of close friends.
The shelves above my monitor are a hodgepodge of things to make me smile, spark creativity or encouragement, and otherwise distract me when editing or marketing gets hairy. There's an Orange m&m screen cleaner, a small Figment plush from WDW, a Snoopy at a typewriter keeping my alphie USB cable safe, and the Pixies at play and Writer at work signs are always within easy reach. Of course my desk wouldn't be complete when school's out without the "Do Not Disturb until:" sign. I used to have to put up a post-it note with a time so the kids wouldn't interrupt me. (No, a closed door with basic first aid instructions and the typical "don't tell me unless you're on fire or suffering arterial bleeding" didn't work when they were younger) I guess seeing the end-time gave my kids hope that I would indeed return to the real world. Now, it's nostalgic.

2) When and where were you when the idea for "Tracking Shadows" first came to you? What inspired you?

Tracking Shadows came to me while I was in the kitchen brainstorming with my daughter. I'd just spoken with my agent about possible ways to launch a Regan Black Facebook fanpage. We'd decided an original novel, posted in daily segments was possible, but we hadn't decided who it should feature. My daughter and I agreed that Slick Micky had a lot of potential as a lead character, so I mulled it over and when that opening scene came to me, I knew I had the project in hand.
I suppose it's a theme of my writing, but I always get inspiration from where we've been, both in my research and in my character development. Sometimes the past can stay there, but often it reaches up and interferes or influences the present.

3) What did you want to grow up to be when you were a little girl? Did you ever see yourself as a writer?

I was groomed from a very early age to be an independent entrepreneur. What I wanted to be ranged from a special ed teacher to dolphin trainer to veterinarian, but it looks like independent entrepreneur won out (after wife and mom). I can't say I ever specifically dreamed of being a writer, though many a scrapbook holds proof I've been writing since I learned to hold a pencil.

4) Did any of your teachers ever identify you as a "good writer?" Or, was there someone else who gave you the support to know you could write a novel?

In sixth grade, a teacher told me my poetry was worthless. In high school, my literature teachers thought I would go into journalism. Turns out my first publications were poetry and I prefer making stuff up rather than reporting on the real world.
I'd never believed I could write a novel, I was focused solely on the poetry and essay side, until my husband's office got remodeled. He came home to work for a few months and it really interrupted my daily writing rhythm. One day the poetry was rainbows and sunshine, then next it read like I was ready to toss myself out the nearest window.
The remedy? I fictionalized our romance, trying to remember what I'd found so appealing about him. Turns out that book is the worst romance novel ever, but it was a full length novel, and a turning point.
Encouragement to pursue a career as a novelist came from my husband, my grandmother (of the antique desk) and my closest friends who laughed with me then, and keep laughing with me over the professional and personal ups and downs today.

5) Who are your favorite authors?

Oh, that's a loaded question. I read as much as possible! Kresley Cole, Sabrina Jeffries, Nora Roberts, Clive Cussler, Holly Jacobs, J.K. Rowling, Karen Hawkins, Jayne Ann Krentz are just the tip of the iceberg. And I've met so many talented authors since venturing into publishing and many of them have been kind enough to offer advice, inspiration, and encouragement. I always learn so much from reading books as well as from authors who invest their time to help other writers.
6) What are you reading right now?

Debra Webb's new book, Dirty, and I'm loving it!

7) Tell us something you want to share with us, please.

I'd like to encourage people to invest the time and energy to discover their inherent talents and strengths. I can whip up a brand new world for a novel, but I can't bake a cake from scratch. It is such a blessing to be able to create stories that entertain readers. It wasn't a straight or smooth road that got me to this point, but I've learned the journey's where the real fun is anyway (although there's not much fun in a journey that requires you to eat anything I try to bake from scratch).
Many people I talk with online or in person resist following what they love and what they're good at, afraid that what comes easy to them isn't a valuable commodity. But we all have something we excel at, something we can share with others to better ourselves and our world, and it fosters contentment and true happiness when we uncover it.
Thank you, Regan, for taking the time to work with me on this interview.  I loved your thoughtful answers...it gives us insight into your creativity and your humor!

Thanks so much for hosting this stop on the Tracking Shadows blog tour. Your interview questions were delightful and it's a pleasure to be here with you and your readers.

My Review:

First, let me say that I wasn't able to put down "Tracking Shadows" once I started reading it.  It is a book that immediately interested me because I had to get my head around the film noir atmosphere with the tinge of a science fiction addition.  I loved it from the first paragraph.

Regan Black has the mind and hand of a Mickey Spillane on steroids.  I couldn't stop reading her sassy lines from characters that grabbed me like a steel wrench.  Her anti heroine, Trina, is the alpha woman we dream of being...smart, beautiful and strong in a man's world, but sensitive, and carrying around that emptiness that the love of life can only fill.  She's scarred by the loss of her childhood sweetheart, the only person who made her feel safe from a family who mistreated and beat her down emotionally.  As and adult, she finds the physical and intellectual outlet for her emptiness and her psychic gifts by becoming an A+ assassin bent on revenge for those who killed Joel, that childhood friend.

Joel has become Slick Mickey, the biggest gangster smuggler in Chicago, with a staff of "mules" who distribute contriband to those who pay for it in secret.  The title of Slick Mickey is coveted by gangster rivals, and assassins are recruited to knock Mickey out of his seat of power.  With technologies and gifts of his own culled from the 2096 futuristic discoveries, Slick Mickey is able to maintain a fortress of security, and a family loyal to his secure and family-like ways.  There appears to be a soft center at the heart of this mobster boss who only deals in sugar, coffee and cigarettes, and not drugs and dangerous contraband unlawful to the futuristic government.

It is through the impact of Trina and Slick Mickey's ill-fated reunion that we experience the tension of love and hate on the characters.  They are wonderfully and richly developed.  Each of them are characters who seem alive and emotive people; they kept me in mind of a younger Russell Crowe, and a Scarlet Johansen couple.  Tough and tender...

The technological components of this book are subtle and don't overtake the story which was refreshing for one who isn't quite capable of understanding all the nuances of that sort of thing.  There was just enough to keep a novice interested, maybe a little more than that, but not enough to make one set aside the book in frustration.

Ms Black has written quite a few books in the 2096 timeframe, which is of great interest to me now that she's gotten me started!  I'm going to be looking for her books and reading them in sequence.  I like her writing style.

Regan Black has a certain edgy quality to her writing.  She writes like an old "beat" reporter in a way.  It's just awesome to read.  If you're a fan of old 1940's detective novels, or if you like film noir..."The Postman Always Rings Twice" or "The Black Dahlia,"  I believe you'll like "Tracking Shadows."  It's not that the book is so much like those I mention above in full...it's just that flavor kick that's so unusual, I predict you'll want to come back for more.

5 stars for "Tracking Shadows"

Deborah/TheBookishDame

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"Hereafter" YA Novel's ghostly otherworlds enchant!



Book Publisher's Summary:

Can there truly be love after death?
Drifting in the dark waters of a mysterious river, the only thing Amelia knows for sure is that she's dead. With no recollection of her past life—or her actual death—she's trapped alone in a nightmarish existence. All of this changes when she tries to rescue a boy, Joshua, from drowning in her river. As a ghost, she can do nothing but will him to live. Yet in an unforgettable moment of connection, she helps him survive.


Amelia and Joshua grow ever closer as they begin to uncover the strange circumstances of her death and the secrets of the dark river that held her captive for so long. But even while they struggle to keep their bond hidden from the living world, a frightening spirit named Eli is doing everything in his power to destroy their newfound happiness and drag Amelia back into the ghost world . . . forever.



About the Author:

Born and raised in Oklahoma, Tara Hudson graduated with a degree in law, mostly because she believed all the horror stories about English majors and their careers in the food-service industry. Luckily, she soon remembered how much she loved telling ghost stories, particularly to her girlfriends who liked visiting abandoned cemeteries as much as she did. Tara currently lives in Oklahoma with her husband, son, and a menagerie of ill-behaved pets.





My Review:

Beautiful cover, ghostly, isn't it?  Another one of those pale girls with long hair and their backs turned to the reader, leaving us to fantasize about how beautiful she is. I like the idea, frankly. Somehow seeing faces makes me feel the book is a romance novel. But, now, seeing this sort of cover gives away the idea of a spirit-driven story. Or, paranormal theme as it were.

Young adult literature is stepping up, and has been in the last years, taking its place in literary circles. It seems to me that we have to give credit to Harry Potter for this revival. I'm one of those who cast aspersions on it to begin with but I'm a believer now! Once I dained to read Harry, it was YA lit. for me, forever...

"Hereafter" is a book that reads like a dream.  It picks us up immediately and carries us through the horrors of gasping for breath, through the dark waters of drowning, and the fear of sleeping. Chilling.

I enjoyed this book with the idea of a ghostly love story that redeems both the girl and boy who overcome their watery grave and would be grave.  Bound in a need to find redemption, these characters are well developed and sympathetic.

Tara Hudson, while writing her first book, is an author I was impressed with and was left hoping she would write more, soon. I found her a capable and interesting writer. Her imagination caught me up immediately.  Her success at drawing the reader into the life of her characters was done in a seamless and effective way. I was simply captured by Amelia and Joshua...their love, and their commitment to each other as they strive to uncover the mysteries that consume them.

Ms. Hudson's handling of the tension between the couple and the villian who attacks them makes for a novel that brings just the right amount of horror and anxiety to the mix.

This is a beautiful young love story tinged with sadness and a ghostly horror...  I bought the whole thing without reservations and found it a good, "get away" novel. It will be great for the YA crowd, and their moms will love it, too.  In fact, I'm sending my copy along to my 30-something daughter to read!

Another note:  The inside of the book smells heavenly.  I wonder if HarperTeen is perfuming their paper for the YA crowd?  I love the smell of the paper.... Yummy

Please leave me a comment to let me know what you think about the cover and what story it tells about the book before you read the cover summary.

Happy reading this week!

Deborah/TheBookishDame

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Go Back In Time To Your First Love--Read "To Be Sung Underwater" by Tom McNeal for an unforgettable love story that takes you there!

Book Summary:

Judith Whitman always believed in the kind of love that "picks you up in Akron and sets you down in Rio."  Long ago, she once experienced that love.  Willy Blunt was a carpenter with a dry wit and a steadfast sense of humor.  Marrying him seemed like a natural thing to promise.  But Willy Blunt was not a person you could pick up in Nebraska and transport to Stanford.  When Judith left home, she didn't look back.

Twenty years later, Judith's marriage is hazy with secrets.  In her hand is what may be the phone number for the man who believed she meant it when she said she loved him.  If she called, what would he say?  To Be Sung Underwater is the epic love story of a woman trying to remember, and the man who could not even begin to forget.

“You don’t so much read To Be Sung Underwater as you’re consumed by it … the bravest, most beautiful book I’ve read in a long time.” —Markus Zusak, author The Book Thief

Author: Tom McNeal:
Tom McNeal was born in Santa Ana, California, where his father and grandfather raise oranges. He spent part of every summer at the Nebraska farm where his mother was born and raised, and after earning a BA in English at UC Berkeley and an MFA in Creative Writing at UC Irvine, he taught school in the town that was the inspiration for his novel, Goodnight, Nebraska. Tom has been a Wallace Stegner Fellow and a Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, and his short stories have been widely anthologized.

My Review:

I'm frankly so humbled and left lingering in the aftermath of Tom McNeal's writing that I hardly know how to express myself.  A strange place for me as a reviewer.

Having just finished "To Be Sung Underwater" today, I find myself heart-weary and contemplative...much like I felt after reading Pat Conroy's "The Prince of Tides," though the story lines are nothing alike and the protagonists are far from the same.  It's just the quality of how the books both reach something deep inside, something that rings so near and dear and so close to the heart.  This novel left me breathless, left me aching and longing for just one more time...just one more piece of the story...just a bit more...because I didn't want to put my own depth of feeling aside...again.

Mr. McNeal is an author of extraordinary skill, with the capacity to share a depth of humanity and feeling that reaches beyond our minds to the heart of us. He's one of those special, wise men that are so rare, he has to be beloved by all who know him.  He's one of those writers who will live a long time in American literature. 

He's a herald of the Midwest and the natural, simpler ways of life that are the bread and butter of our nation.  He's an author whose work will come to mind often through the years.  He gives us hope that through all the stresses, the paths leading to dead ends, and the corruption of our Age, love remains the constant and the most precious gift we can attain.  We can still believe in love.  And he reminds us that young love is as valuable and real as a love forged in later years.

"To Be Sung Underwater" is a love story that will carry you along through joy and misunderstandings.  It will take you back in time, and it will break your heart.  As Judith begins her journey of finding a young love with Willy, walks away from it and returns to find him again many years later, we travel alongside in our own fantasies of "what ifs."  Tom McNeal causes us to reflect.

"To Be Sung Underwater" is also a story about the history of a marriage of minds.  A marriage like some of ours...forged by intellectual stimulation and likeness, a common goal and the following of a "better life" with all its rewards.  It's the story of a marriage of good intentions and good companions...a marriage that makes sense and is a good match, but that fails over the long haul because it may not have had a foundation in true love.  Not the love.  Tom McNeal causes us to make an assessment.

Judith's teenaged years to her days of middle age reveal her to be a character both powerful in her determination to know and rescue herself, as well as to save her life light which often seemed to be eaking away.  The eventual marriage she's stayed in for nearly 20 years has become brittle and poisonious for her.  Finding her husband's assistant in her own hotel room with a man she thinks may be her husband is one of the catalysts that makes her move back in time to find where she lost sight of her self.  Tom McNeal causes us to search ourselves.


Willy of course represents lost dreams and the road less travelled.  He's the beautiful boy of summer, the boy of all that's simple and natural and stressless.  He's the Garden of Eden.  He personifies love and its joys and passion.  Willy is the one who makes time stand still and who is  never forgotten~the love of Judith's life.  He is the one she can be her authentic self with, and the one who really knows her.  Willy is her safe place in a world that's crumbling around her...the one whom she loves eternally and who loves her, too.  Tom McNeal offers us this opportunity to go back to those days when we were young and in love...

But, even in Paradise things are not perfect as we and Judith and Willy know.  Life steps in.  The campsite built in memory of their time spent there as young sweethearts is aging and in need of repair.  Willy is not well.  Judith has a difficult time allowing him to take her watch away...losing herself in a world where time stands still.  And, as winter approaches, even nature sings a different song.  The bitter sweetness of their reuniting is simply beautiful and painful to read about. 

All I want to say in the end is that you must take the fastest way possible to get your hands on this book.  It's a novel of immense character and beauty.  You will never forget it.  This author will touch your heart and soul with his story of love and loss, of regaining oneself, of well-meaning betrayal and of life and death.

It's one of those rare books I plan to read again.  I leave you with this  passage:

"Here's the thing, Judy.  Here's the thing we have to look at and accept.  For you, I was a chapter--a good chapter, maybe, or even your favorite chapter, but still, just a chapter--and for me, you were the book."

"No, no, Willy, what you're saying about me--that's just not ture,"  she said, but she didn't say what she thought was the truer, darker truth:  that, to use his methaphor, he had been most of the book, but she had been too careless or self-absorbed or oblivious to know it, and it was too late to change the ending.

And of this poem by Horace Mann written on a Victorian punch-paper sampler that Judith's father gave her:

Lost,

yesterday,

somewhere between Sunrise and Sunset,

two golden hours,

 each set with sixty diamond minutes.

No reward is offered,

for they are gone forever.

This is simply a great novel written by a man of substance and depth.  5 stars...6 if I had them to give.

Deborah/TheBookishDame

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Books on My "To Read" Shelf from the UK

Book Summary:

Irene Stanley thought her world had come to an end when her teenage son, Shep, is murdered. Daniel Robbin, who had spent his teenage years in and out of trouble, gave himself up to the police and was given the state's harshest sentence: death by lethal injection. Now, nineteen years later, as the state penitentiary prepares to execute Robbin, Irene Stanley must reveal what she has been hiding from her family. That in order to survive the anger and grief she had at loosing her so, she not only had forgiven the man who killed him, but had come to be his friend. Her revelation stuns her family and cracks open the secrets that had been surrounding her son's death. Secrets that reveal how little she understood Shep, her husband, or herself. Dramatic, emotional, and ultimately uplifting, "The Crying Tree" is an unforgettable story of love and redemption, the unbreakable bonds of family, and the transformative power of forgiveness.

Book Summary:
 He had always been scared of flying. Now, the fear is real. A plane crash. The water is rising over his mouth. In his nostrils. Lungs. As Daniel gasps, he swallows; and punches at his seat-belt. Nancy, the woman he loves, is trapped in her seat. He clambers over her, pushing her face into the headrest. It is a reflex, visceral action made without rational thought...But Daniel Kennedy did it. And already we have judged him from the comfort of our own lives. Almost a hundred years earlier, Daniel's great-grandfather goes over the top at Passchendaele. A shell explodes, and he wakes up alone and lost in the hell of no-man's-land. Where are the others? Has he been left behind? And if he doesn't find his unit, is he a deserter? Love; cowardice; trust; forgiveness. How will any of us behave when we are pushed to extremes?

The Book Summary:

1920. The Great War has been over for two years, and it has left a very different world from the Edwardian certainties of 1914. Following the death of his wife and baby and his experiences on the Western Front, Laurence Bartram has become something of a recluse. Yet death and the aftermath of the conflict continue to cast a pall over peacetime England, and when a young woman he once knew persuades him to look into events that apparently led her brother, John Emmett, to kill himself, Laurence is forced to revisit the darkest parts of the war. As Laurence unravels the connections between Captain Emmett's suicide, a group of war poets, a bitter regimental feud and a hidden love affair, more disquieting deaths are exposed. Even at the moment Laurence begins to live again, it dawns on him that nothing is as it seems, and that even those closest to him have their secrets ...

The Book Summary:

'Heddy Partridge was never my friend. I have to start with that. Heddy Partridge was never my friend because I was pretty, popular, clever and blonde and my friends were pretty, popular, clever and generally blonde, too. Heddy Partridge was none of these things.' Laura Hamley is the woman who has everything: a loving and successful husband, two beautiful children, an expensive home and a set of equally fortunate friends. But Laura's perfect world is suddenly threatened when she receives an unwelcome phone call from Mrs Partridge, mother of Heddy - the girl Laura and her friends bullied mercilessly at school. Heddy has been hospitalized following a mental breakdown, and Mrs Partridge wants Laura's help to get her released. As Laura reluctantly gets drawn back into the past, she is forced to face the terrible consequences of her cruelty. But, as her secrets are revealed, so too is another even more devastating truth, and the perfect world Laura has so carefully constructed for herself begins to fall apart. "This Perfect World" is the debut novel from a brilliant dark new voice.

My Report:

I'm so happy I found the following book site just snooping around.  It's a UK book shop with a connected book club, and that's my cuppa tea once in a while just for a change of scenery.  Alot of what they feature is similar to our best sellers list, but some of their books are new titles to me...ring of English authors and subjects...and are "must haves" for a staunch Anglophile like I am.

The above are my newest purchases which I can't wait to receive.  They were on a half-price special right now with a link through "Richard and Judy's Book Club," a snappy and selective couple who review books having much to say and share about their choices. The books are bought through the bookseller WHSmith...  I like the easy buying connection for US buyers and the half-price offer.  Wonder how often that runs?  They did show a bundle offer each season for all of the books recommended by Judy and Richard.  But many of their chosen books are those we can find here for our Kindles or at our own bookstores, and aren't practical to buy as a bundle.

Judy and Richard each have a shot at reviewing the books they've chosen, they have author information, pdf excerpts of the books, author interviews, videos and the like.  A wealth of information for the discerning reader and purchaser long distance.

All the books have different covers than the American volumes, which are fun as far as I'm concerned, as well.

Check the site out at:  http://www.whsmith.co.uk/

Just thought I'd share my MIDNIGHT MARAUDING with you, dear Bookish Friends.  Now you know why I stay up all night!


Deborah/TheBookish Stitching Dame

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"Ella Bug" by Gregory Turner-Rahman A Childrens' Book for the Evolved Family

The Book Summary:
Ellabug is the simple story about non-traditional families following a young ladybug, as she begins to question her identity. Raised in a family made up of different animals, Ellabug desires ‘normality’ and uniformity which she finds in a family of ants whom she meets in the garden. Ella decides to escape the craziness in her own home by joining the ants. They, however, have a very different life and Ella is surprised when they work endlessly. Ella fears she has lost her parents forever and she quickly grows to appreciate her quirky family. Just when all seems lost, Ella’s parents call to her and they are reunited. All ends happily. Ella has learned that each family is unique in their own way.

About the Author:
Gregory Rahman-Turner is currently working full time as a tenure-track faculty in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Idaho where he teaches visual

communications design, digital imaging, and some theory and history courses. He is trained as an industrial designer and architect but has been a graphic designer and illustrator for over a decade and has served such clients (either directly or indirectly) as Precor, Jansport, Hasbro, a host of smaller businesses and individuals. He received a Clarion award for his work on a magazine called Skew (from Washington State University) and recently had an illustration showcased on The New Yorker website.

My Review:

What a darling book fit for children and parents, alike.  Who wouldn't love to introduce their children to a little Ellabug who has the courage to wonder about her circumstances living in a family with mixed caretakers and loved ones? 

Ellabug's adventuresome spirit, her bravery and her willingness to try new things teaches a great lesson to children who find themselves on the brink of feelings they aren't sure how to express.

I loved the unusual illustrations.  Many of the children's books we love and read today are filled with beautiful, but standard pictures that seem familiar to children and to us.  Ellabug steps out of the mold into another, interesting perspective.  Greytones aren't ones ordinarily thought of as backgrounds...however, they work in sharp contrast to the colorful sets of flower and fauna and animals, bringing them more sharply into focus.  Children will love this!  It's sophisticated and interesting.

There is much symbolism in Ellabug's journey.  So, there is so much that involves a parent and child.  This engenders conversation which enables a little one in expressing their own questions and anxieties, if they have any.  At the very least, conversation is opened and that can never be anything but good.

I highly recommend this paperback book for you and your children.  I'm buying it for all of my grandchildren.  It's that good!

5 stars for "Ellabug"

Deborah/TheBookishDame

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Dystopian Novels Ring True and Traumatic! "Life As We Knew It" "Dead and Gone" and "This World We Live In" by Susan B. Pfeffer

 "THE DEAD AND THE GONE"   by  Susan Beth Pfeffer 

Library Journal Review:
An asteroid knocks the moon closer to Earth, and every conceivable natural disaster occurs. Seventeen-year-old Alex Morales's parents are missing and presumed drowned by tsunamis. Left alone, he struggles to care for his sisters Bri, 14, and Julie, 12. Things look up as Central Park is turned into farmland and food begins to grow. Then worldwide volcanic eruptions coat the sky with ash and the land freezes permanently. People starve, freeze, or die of the flu. Only the poor are left in New York—a doomed island—while the rich light out for safe towns inland and south. The wooden, expository dialogue and obvious setup of the first pages quickly give way to the well-wrought action of the snowballing tragedy. The mood of the narrative is appropriately frenetic, somber, and hopeful by turns. Pfeffer's writing grows legs as the terrifying plot picks up speed, and conversations among the siblings are realistically fluid and sharp-edged. The Moraleses are devout Catholics, and though the church represents the moral center of the novel, Pfeffer doesn't proselytize. The characters evolve as the city decomposes, and the author succeeds in showing their heroism without making them caricatures of virtue. She accurately and knowingly depicts New York City from bodegas to boardrooms, and even the far-fetched science upon which the novel hinges seems well researched. This fast-paced, thoughtful story is a good pick for melodrama fiends and reluctant readers alike.—Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library

Listen Up Award
Publishers Weekly
Best Books for Young Adults
Young Adult Library Services Association
Teen's Top Ten
Young Adult Library Services Association

Meet the Author:   Susan Beth Pfeffer

I decided to be a writer when I was in first grade and I've been fortunate to have lived my dream. Among my books are Kid Power, About David, and The Year Without Michael and The Riddle Streak. I'm also the author of a trilogy of books (sometimes called The Last Survivors), Life As We Knew It, The Dead And The Gone, and This World We Live In. My 77th book, Blood Wounds, is scheduled for publication on Sept. 12, 2011. I have a 99 year old mother and a 2 year old cat and many wonderful friends.

Book Cover Summary:
It's been a year since a meteor collided with the moon, catastrophically altering the earth’s climate. For Miranda Evans life as she knew it no longer exists. Her friends and neighbors are dead, the landscape is frozen, and food is increasingly scarce.

Miranda and her two brothers spend their days scavenging for food and household items, while their mother stays at home and desperately tries to hold on to the ordinary activities of their previous life. But they all know that nothing is truly normal in this surreal new world they live in.

The struggle to survive intensifies when Miranda’s father and stepmother arrive with a baby and three strangers in tow. One of the newcomers is Alex Morales, and as Miranda’s complicated feelings for him turn to love, his plans for his future thwart their relationship.

Then a devastating tornado hits the town of Howell, and Miranda makes a decision that will change their lives forever.


My Reviews:
I found these two YA audiobooks while browsing my local library's downloadable media, recently.  I'd never really heard of Susan B. Pfeffer, so I had no idea what I was in for but the story premises sounded good.  Now that I've discovered her, there's no turning back for me!  I'm a huge fan.

Dystopian novels are my newest craving and I'm always looking for good ones. It seems to me that YA fiction is hitting that mark best.  The authors are rising to the challenge, and their work is stellar...interesting and engaging.  With historical foundations such as "The Giver" by Lois Lowry, which I reviewed last month, the young adult genre has a "grandmothered" path laid for them.

It's difficult for me to listen to audiobooks.  I find them sleep inducing for one thing, and they make me want to do something with my hands for another thing..."idle hands are the devil's workshop" my grandmother taught me...so I want to stitch or knit!  When I do find something to do it often distracts me from the book!  And, further, it makes me wish I were reading the book instead of listening.  Hence, a little anxiety accompanies these things for me and I don't often make use of them.

This time, I listened attentively while making jewelry and found I was lost in the books, hardly knowing what I was making!  These books are very special.  The narrator is perfect for the main character, Miranda.  Her voice reached to the heart and captured the true essence of Miranda.  This alone made the books more believable.

Ms Pfeffer clearly is a veteran writer.  Her dialog is perfectly pitched and her characterization is excellent.  It reaches an ordinary cadence to the listener/reader making each character both real and full-bodied.  They were individuals that I felt close to and loved knowing.  I was, of course, especially fond of Miranda, but I also found myself protective of her mother, who tried so hard to maintain a safe and "normal" existence for her children amidst the decay that leached life all around them.  All of the characters lend themselves to one's interest and concern.  I've rarely found this in novels of any genre. 

In these novels a meteor has crashed into the moon and set the Earth into a disaster of such proportions that life hangs by a thread.  The sun is hidden, ash and smoke covers everything, thousands of people die and continue to die from catastrophic disasters.  Without the sun the plants and crops are contaminated and fail, and such common things as running water and electricity become non-existent.  Food becomes rationed and is minimal.  Miranda and her brothers scavenge abandoned homes for such simple items as toilet paper, books and soap. 

Relationships take on a new significance in this uncertain new world.  People become more precious and a new baby becomes even more a treasure.  Sickness and any sort of medical condition becomes a disaster waiting to happen with no hospitals and no medical supplies.  When one of the family is seriously injured, Miranda is faced with a moral dilemma that could affect all of them. 

All of these books are very special reads or audiobooks, whichever your choice may be.  While I haven't read "The Dead and The Gone" yet, I hope to as soon as I can get a copy of it.

Ms Pfeffer is a very gifted writer who makes characters rise above the ordinary.  She is more than imaginative, she's able to create worlds that are so believable you could walk into them in a blink of the eye.  It was frightening at times to hear the struggles Miranda and her family were enduring...making me wonder if life after a horrendous disaster of such proportions would be viable for the elderly and infirm at all.

"Foretelling" and eye-opening, these are books you really
don't want to miss this year.  Dystopian books at their best.

5 stars

  Here is a cover preview of Pfeffer's new book to be released in September.  I can hardly wait, and am hoping for a copy to review.  Stand by!

Please take a moment to visit her site to see her other books.  She's quite a prolific author of YA fiction.  And, she has amassed considerable awards for the books above...

http://susanbethpfeffer.blogspot.com/

Happy reading!
Deborah/TheBookishDame

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"The Fear Principle" ~ An Interesting Syfy Slant on Criminal Rehibilitation

The Official Book Summary:On Prison Planetoid Three, Jaguar Addams and Alex Dzarny rehab the worst criminals by telepathically making them face their fears. Their current case is hitwoman Clare Rilasco, emotionless, beautiful, and part of a death machine plot that threatens to take over the world.
Jaguar can’t tell who the bad guys are anymore, as she’s dragged into her own terrifying past by Clare’s telepathic tricks. While the search for the man behind the mirror continues, Jaguar and Clare are enmeshed in a relationship of seduction and trickery that makes Jaguar face her own deepest fears.

 

About the Author~Barbara Chepatis:
BARBARA CHEPAITIS is author of 7 published novels, including the critically acclaimed Feeding Christine and These Dreams, as well as the sci-fi series featuring Jaguar Addams. The fourth novel in that series, A Lunatic Fear was a finalist for a Romantic Times Bookclub award. Her first nonfiction book, Feathers of Hope, came out through SUNY Press in July.
She has optioned two scripts, and has recently been awarded a seed grant to develop a documentary titled Making Peace.
She is founder and director of the storytelling trio The Snickering Witches, and faculty with Western College of Colorado’s MFA program in creative writing.

Read an Excerpt:

“You’re way out of line, Dr. Addams,” he said coldly. “Whatever Nick’s doing, I’ll handle. You better keep track of yourself.”

“Oh, I can track myself. Don’t you worry.” She put her hands on his desk and her face level with his, leaning forward.
“I can track a cat under a new moon, or the smallest scent of death in open air. I can track last week’s eagle in a cloudy sky. And I can track you, Supervisor. Even you. So keep Nick away from me, or I’ll take care of him myself. My way.” She shifted her wrist deliberately, letting him see the tip of her glass knife, gleaming red at her wrist. She gave it a second, two seconds. Then she turned on her heel and left.

My Review:

I found "The Fear Principle" to be an odd book of good things and not so good.  While I thought the premise was fantastic and I chose to read this book as a part of my research on new and fairly unknown authors, the book fell somewhat short of my expectations.

There is no doubt that Ms Chepatis is an author whose books are published and enjoyed by many. I haven't read her other books, sadly, and perhaps that would answer some of my questions having to do with "The Fear Principle." This is one of the books in her series about Jaguar Addams, and to be fair...I don't think this is a stand alone book.

From my perspective, I found this book difficult to get into. I was not interested in the characters, per se. Even Jaguar didn't enlist my sympathies, nor did I feel an affinity to her, or a sense of her actual work. To me, the story seemed disjointed in terms of what was really happening and what was telepathically created for the criminals.

What I did enjoy about the book was the possiblitites...that is, I enjoyed the parts that made me think. I enjoyed the parts that kept me reading, wondering how Ms Chepatis would handle Jaguar's relationship with Nick and Alex.  I wondered how she would pull her relatively minor criminal out of his psychic-world to rehabilitation, and how she would use her very dangerous hit-woman to save herself and others.  It was the getting there that just wasn't well done in the writing, for me.

I recommend this book with some hesitations.
It gets a 1 star...meaning it's interesting but I'm not sure if I'd recommend it to everyone.

Perhaps those who are familiar with Ms Chepatis' other books will be excited with this new series addition!

Deborah/TheBookishDame

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