Ron Seybold
This is a searing, sparkling story of life from the other side of the tracks, in a small town, where our heroine is learning much more than what's being taught in her high school. She's learning about love and how it can overpower even the old hurts. If you've ever lived the life of foster family or public assistance, this will beam with authenticity. If you've ever wondered about the hearts and desires of people well-removed from prosperity, this is your chance to immerse yourself in details that are rich with sensory delights, even while they sketch the down-and-out. There's love and tenderness in here, too, enough to make you cry. You can't help but be there, battling your way out of a tough start in a young life. A great debut not to be missed.
What a blessing to have spent hours with this book. The love and desperate drive to survive the war's iron grip is on every page. This is the rich interior soul of the fine movie of the same name and worth every turn of the page.
Sweeping, intricate, crowing spectacle
There's no lack of things to love here, but best of all is the depiction of the world of the earliest 1900s. This book's most enduring character is the places of that time. It's literary and lyrical with many surprises along the way.
Written with the literary aplomb of a freewheeling comic, To Squeeze a Prairie Dog invites readers to savor the small family moments of Texas state data entry workers. The Austin where the story unfolds is a loving snapshot of 13 years ago, when dot matrix printers still ruled and reporters gave out business cards. Amid the character snapshots that splash ordinary people onto the page, this book stops to display pathos and fables in equal measure. A governor in a gold-plated wheelchair, a supervisor working his hardest at his drinking and guitar, and a guileless newbie discovering Austin and the glories of workplace snacks — these are the people in Semegran's quirky book. Comedy by way of absurdity is in plentiful supply here. If you wonder about the personal lives of people who input the details of your life inside the soulless buildings of a state capital, To Squeeze a Prairie Dog will pop open your eyes.
Scott shared his book with me prior to publication. Honest opinions here.
Wow, what a ride. In a post-post apocalyptic world, a French orphan from a dank ghetto has grown into an elite military warrior. He stands up against his military society to sacrifice his career and cast off his comforts, then becomes an outlaw and fugitive. This book is a heady blend of Japanese and French cultures, all oh-so-authentic, played out onto the 23rd Century where the moon and Mars are fully colonized and Paris is reduced to a city in the sewers. The characters carry heavy losses and harbor deep dreams, and there's a streak of madness where it can do the story the most good. It's impressive to read Japanese and French alongside striking English, and none of it ever seems to be there to call attention to itself. Along the way we meet a benevolent priest and a relentless robot—the former full of compassion and that best mentor magic like Shepherd Book in Firefly, the latter crafted to be a device whose spirit reminds you of the shiniest parts of Iron Giant and the soulless T-1000 in Terminator 2.
Asthana makes it all work together, using an arch tone that mounts his voice you hear drumming long after you're done reading. The sex isn't salacious and the combat violence feels genuine, the latter told with some reverence for the classic war stories we know and love. There's plenty of sensory detail all around. Good to see this is the first of a series, just to know that the adventures of Bastien and Marie, as well as the Emperor of Japan and the Martian High Council, will continue to take flight. Recommended.
Even more tension here in the second installment
There's a rich tableau of intrigue in the latest book in the Final Wars series. With the cyborg queen of New Paris deposed and in exile, hidden by an emperor's son, the Nipponese and Martian cultures have intense conflicts come to a boil in this book. It's an amazing thing to see artificial intelligence-driven military power facing off against a generations-old Nipponese royal family, one where three sons duke it out for control of their world: a moon base called Nippon One.
The Japanese culture and traditions are fully deployed in this book. Final Wars Rage has a reverence for the code of the Japanese people and an awareness of how those habits can hobble a people, too. If you wonder how the country's national anthem would play out during a tense negotiation with a world directed by AI constructs as leaders — yeah, that's centuries-old tradition against advanced AI code — Final Wars Rage delivers. The book also breaks the boundaries of death and the life after, wrapped around the great tent pole of love.
The writing is vivid and the dialogue is sharp. There's visceral violence, because that's what you might expect out of the 23d Century where the technology is still well designed for destruction of humans. The green fog is still hovering around what's left of Earth, a planet that's not entirely wiped out. It's a pirate playpen now. But one of the greatest gifts here is the characters, drawn with attention to detail and the kind of connections you can expect in a book that has its eyes on a trilogy.
It's hard to get everything that this book does well into a review like this, so go enjoy the discovery. Book One mixed French with Japanese milleaus in the same adroit way that Book Two blends Martians and Nipponese. Though it all, the hero Bastien Lyons gives us a set of shoulders to ride through the adventure. What he sees in his heart, as well as before his eyes, gave me a wild ride.
There's plenty of variety in this story collection, one of the marks of a pro storyteller. From a time travel assassin to a robot boyfriend to the ghost of grandfather abducted by aliens, Asthana shows great range in here. There's a classic Western in “The Visitor” with its main character that invites all of our biases from the genre before it reveals the betrayal that always comes on the frontier. I was surprised at the humanism around every story. Monsters and Little Green Men kept me guessing about how each story would unfold. Asthana's got a three-novel series up here (Final Wars) on Amazon. This collection shows he's got a rich set of more stories left to tell.
A masterwork of suspense and love and history
The first book is the best, sometimes for authors. It seems to be true here. I read The Good German from Kanon first and loved it. This is even richer, full of love and faith and the dire consequence of a mission that would change the world. The language of the writing is a set of gems, too. He's the master of works from the 40s, bursting with history and the small but apt detail.
What an invention fest, built on our current political woes. Imagine a Red America and a Blue America side by side, but with households defined and separate governments for each – all in neighborhoods side by side. The writing is personal and intimate and the action is moving, too.
Every page a delight
The best thing I've read this year. Lyrical language. Fascinating history of an under-plumbed time. Funny and sad and knowing, this novel shows how love, lust, and liberty's pursuit can drive a story into our hearts.
Full of joyful spirit of youth. Detailed sketch of life in rural Progressive Era, without much elbow rubbing with famous people. Fascinating work here with the setting of a resort in upstate New York. I loved the work with the characters, and the bonus is the way Donnelly uses vocabulary to extend her main character's personality and desires.
A book that lives up to the vision of the movie. (It can be harder than it looks; the reference movie is Field of Dreams). There's a soul inside baseball, and this book captures it. It's even worth moving through the reflective parts of the story to embrace its power as a whole.
A high flyer
Few books reach this altitude. I reveled in its characters and drew the warm blanket of its lavish world around me, day after night. Shipstead has written a book whose equal might only be Lonesome Dove. As that classic's love is to men, this one adores its women. Read this and savor the creation of a story that encircles all of our doubts and dreams. Yes, you can do something this grand, if you set a course for majestic points.
A little didactic, but it lives up to its longstanding rep as an essential to writing non-fiction. Doesn't dip into the wonders of creative nonfiction or the current term, narrative non-fiction, among its topics.
Brilliant, as they say. Enjoy!
Characters. Dialogue, plot, and surprise. Ireland in all of its glory and grim setting. Masterful. A joy ride. Savor this.
A moving, fine-crafted adventure of the heart
Semegran's latest novel is a moving and tender story of middle schoolers in 1980s Texas, entering into an adventure that conjures Lord of the Flies with good measures of Stand By Me. The charm is in watching the story of how these boys became older in a matter of days—when their lives were on the line—while the book embraces universal childhood fears and hopes. This is a book rich in detail; it revels in specifics of time and place. It made me feel as if I was living in the part of Texas where it unfolds. The dialogue between the boys rings true, too.
Genuine stories stay with us, and Semegran's book shows the mark of lived experience, observed with the wisdom of survival. If the 1980s were your richest years, this is a book that can remake middle school into a great lesson in love.
Make this a significant part of your writing toolkit. Worth the work to use in building your writing skills. There's a reason this has a 25th anniversary edition. It remains relevant.
Vivid settings and a fine love story in this one, but the characters seemed developed in a hurry.
When I read Deja Vu, it was easy to see why it's an award winner. A fetching heroine, a hero with a past he's trying to outrun, and the fates that try to bring them back together after their time long ago as high school sweethearts. The writing crackles with a bounce that puts humor into every encounter. Death by car wash eliminates one character. While the story mounts, though, it turns to the essentials of our lives: love that lasts, and finding the kind that fits for our soul.
Deja Vu isn't glib or filled with formula, but it's a romance award winner. The author deserves the attention he's won with his Ben Franklin prize. This is the all so rare romance written by a man, but with a tender take on what women want for themselves in love. Highly recommended.
This is a powerful and exhaustive report from the pitchers who made hurling an art. Kepner calls on his deep background in sportswriting to talk with hundreds of players about the 10 essential pitches. With all of the changes in baseball's pitching strategies and practices, reading K is essential to knowing what's at the heart of the success of a staff. It's a dictionary and thesaurus of the language that makes those 108 stitches spin their way into the hearts of fans of all ages.
One of the best books for keeping your keys or your pen moving. Thoughtful, gentle and honest.
A powerful, heart-rending, and inspiring book. Humans could take notes from this one. You will never look at your dog the same. If writing like this can illustrate the life of the heart using a beloved pet as the protagonist – telling a story from the dog's point of view – just imagine what it will do for the humans in the story. Not one false note.
This is powerful and spry toolbox for any writer. Language so clear you can feel your want to hum it.
Progressive Era women's fiction is becoming a mainstay, but Cartier's Hope stands out among a growing field of titles. The book pulls you in with its elaborate attention to period detail. Soon enough, you find yourself rooting for our heroine, a young woman making her way back from a well-intentioned tragedy to retake her place in journalism, one of the few careers open to women of that era.
Yes, there is the Hope Diamond, and its whereabouts get shady amid a plot with plenty of family and character secrets. What is surprising is the layers of complications that lead the reader through the world's injustices, leading to a shocking bit of history that propels our heroine into action.
The book runs on beyond a reasonable finish to its story, in large part to give us all the ending we secretly crave where love and rebellion intersect. The author's research is sound, and sometimes striking in its depth. Leading a life of pursuing liberty can be thrilling to watch.
A quirky journey with surprising smiles. Thanks for the ARC copy to explore.
You won't read another like this. At once a celebration of friendship and an elegy for loss, The Codger and the Sparrow unreels improbable surprises that ride along in a hearty road story. The mashup of aging alcoholic and rising teen artist is only the start of the tension in this swift novel. Besides the generational gap, there's a bridge to be built between these characters' race and culture. Away this spirited book travels, searching for the duo's desires while it keeps a close eye on the details that would spark a careful artist's eye. The images it captures are extraordinary poetry.
Community service after skirmishes with the law is the device that brings this pair together, seeking a return to love and a fresh start at happiness. We travel along with curiosity across these chapters, guided sometimes by the nostalgia of paper maps and at other times the spot-on steps of a smartphone. There might be peace at the end of these pages, but I won't give away that spoiler here. In this novel, the journey is the destination. Enjoy this ride.