The Bloodbound by Erin Lindsey

The Bloodbound.  Erin Lindsey. Ace Books. September 2014. 368 pp. pbk. ISBN #: 9780425272688.

Lady Alix Black is one of the King Erik White’s noble soldiers who disobeys orders during the major Battle of Boswyck and saves the King’s life.  For that deed he appoints her his personal protector and head of his personal guard.  It’s a tough job given his stubbornness and frustrated moods due to his leg injury from that same initial battle against the Oridians.  In this first fantasy novel of a planned series, the King learns that his brother, Tomald, is a traitor and is behind the new battle.  The reason for this traitorous behavior seems rather silly, but it turns out there is more than meets the eye. Still, having one’s own brother turn against one and try to claim the Kingship for his own is a tough nut for King Erik to swallow.  Add to that that Alix’s brother, Riga, has disappeared while out on a scouting mission for the King. 

Initially the King decides to allow others outside his immediate circle to believe he was killed in order to see just how far his brother will go and what alliances that brother will make in his quest for the crown.  We also learn that Alix has a lover, a fellow scout named Liam, whom she will never be allowed to marry because of his lower class status.  We learn of the mysterious power in the bloodbound swords only the nobility are allowed to carry and use in battle and later what the Oridians will do to counteract that extraordinary power, creating their own genetically perversions called “thralls.”

To say more would be a spoiler, so suffice to say that the reader is quickly rooting for the King, Alix and those who will loyally do anything to protect their King and restore his power.  The battles, led by the “Priest” and his forces, are fierce and betrayal abounds along with multiple surprises and discoveries.  Alix is a perfect heroine, being fierce and tough in battle with enough kindness and compassion to appeal to every reader.

Fans will find themselves eagerly looking forward to the next sequel to this fantasy novel.  Well-written, Erin Lindsey!

Light and Darkness by Wendy Lawrance

Light and Darkness.  Wendy Lawrance. GWL Publishing. June 2013. 380 pp.  ISBN#: 9781905378470.

Harry is a lawyer but early on in this story decides to forsake his legal career and become a full-time painter/artist.  This is made clear in the awful days of grief after he loses his beloved wife, Bella.  Devastated with sorrow, he finds he cannot draw his love and finds his only comfort in their daughter, Rose.  Because he has inherited a large amount of money, he is able to leave city life and reside in his beloved seaside home.  His family worry about him as time passes and Harry’s grief seems as severe as the day he lost Bella and his meetings with them for holidays are fraught with a constant nervous tension.  Some distraction occurs with the looming possibility of WWI and Harry realizes he needs a change of scenery and purpose, although his only hesitation lies in the face he would have to leave Rose with his family.  However, war breaks out and Harry enlists.  Who knows how the future will evolve?  All Harry knows is he’s not afraid to do his patriotic duty and fight for England. 

Before Harry and his peers go off to the actual war, they are forced to spend what seems an interminable time training and being moved from camp to camp.  During that time he makes a good friend with Edward, a young man anxious to be off to war, if only to avert his thoughts from his beloved fiancé, whose family doesn’t see him as a favorable future husband.  Harry, on the other hand, finds the separations from Rose awful with each brief leave he gets before the final one week leave when he knows this will be his last time with Rose for a very long time.

War indeed is hell and the reader learns of the brutal battles, wounds, and death constantly barraging British troops from German soldiers and weapons.  Harry turns out to be a well-balanced, responsible and yet compassionate officer who unfortunately seems powerless to divert the pompous and dangerous orders of a commanding officer who drinks to hide his fear.

At one particular point, Harry and his fellow soldiers are forced to rest at a French farm where a woman Elise is a gracious host even though supplies and meals are sparse.  Over time Harry quickly falls in love with Elise but their relationship is riddled with insecurity because of the future. 

The novel’s end is so deeply tragic that it shocks the reader to the core and leaves all reeling!  Wendy Lawrance clearly knows her history about WWI and depicts it exceedingly well.  Her rendering of different types of love, sorrow, fear and joy are superb, providing just enough twists and turns to make this story an exquisite account of how war affects and changes all involved! Very good read! 

Five Days on Ballyboy Beach by David J. O'Brien

Five Days on Ballyboy Beach.  David J. O’Brien. Tirgearr Publishing. September 2014. 205 pp. pbk; 1246 KB. E-Book. ASIN #: B00NIVD8K2.

What’s the essence of a satisfying life? Some people journey through life without ever thinking about that pivotal question.  The young men and women vacationing on Ballyboy Beach in the summer of 1996 don’t fit in that niche and that is what makes this story so unique and satisfying!

Derek and his college friends, male and female, are vacationing.  Sure, their conversation frequently returns to intense focus on how much they can drink, what they can drink, who will go to town to get that drink, and of course the proverbial teasing and leaking of true and false bravado about sexual performance.  Yes, they compare and want to know who was a better partner; but interestingly, some associate sex more with a committed (even if temporary) relationship. How old-fashioned and sexy is that?

However, in another part of the novel, they begin to discuss the topic of “destiny.”  They think about the 9 to 5 jobs each has, except Derek, and where those jobs are going.  They talk about what the future holds but gradually wind up realizing what they have for sure is only now and anything else could happen.  Little does the reader realize how pivotal these unusual conversations are.  Oh, and one must recognize that perhaps today’s youth have deeper thoughts than other older people credit them with having.  It adds something special and immediately takes it out of the stereotypical zone of romance and partying commonly generally attributed to college students and young adults.

Derek moves past dreaming of just sex with anyone to beginning to deeply care about one particular young woman. It’s quite a move for him to initiate something beyond a one-night stand but he evolves nicely into this new aspect of his life, opportunity to be real and that draws others to him as a leader.

When the most important scene in the book slams the reader in the gut, he or she is certainly not expecting the ultimate destiny that in a few moments unfolds as well as its aftermath.

Five Days on Ballyboy Beach is very good contemporary fiction and nicely crafted.  This reviewer would recommend it for adults and young adults as well.  It’s sexy without being gross and it’s sincere and blunt without being trite.  Read it and discover a great story for yourself!

Penny: Women and War by Ellie Keaton

Penny: Women and War.  Ellie Keaton. Amazon Digital. E-Book. August 2014. 276 pp.  ASIN#: B00N47L8ZC.

Penelope (or Penny as she is called herein) is a French woman who has lost both of her parents due to the cruelty of Alain, the man who controls most of the small French town where Penny lived for most of her life.  It is a neighborly and elderly woman whose kindness to Penny builds up her strength to travel to England and meet the relatives she’s never known in the past.  As Penny has been raised as a farmer’s daughter and is totally unused to the world of aristocracy, she is hard-put to conform to the expectations of her rich Aunt and cousin. However, her grandmother, Meme, is determined to build up Penny with love in the present, disregarding the past in which so much harm was done to so many people in this family. None of this warm and hostile treatment deters Penny from her decision to do what she can for the war effort and to exact revenge on the man responsible for the death of her parents!

This is the story of Penny’s training and activities as a member of the French Resistance during WWII.  She is hired by England because she passes all of the tests, speaks fluent French and passes with great skill the training for her work as a British spy.  During her training she’s attracted to someone she thinks is enlisted as a Royal Air Force member.  Is this real love or just an initial infatuation?  That picture will change during her time in France when she is even more attracted to a fellow spy, Victor.  While in that service, she observes the brutal attacks of German soldiers, the arresting and torture of innocent French men, women and children by Germans and the fact that she can and does kill when the need arises. Penny is challenged further when she is arrested and tortured as a spy.

However, the war story needs to be told.  Penny is a survivor but the obstacles she faces test every mental, physical and emotional ability she possesses.  Even more distressing is the fact that many of her people are traitors in order to survive.  That makes it no less evil to Penny who does what she has to do.  She also learns that she may have to make a choice about her dream for revenge, one that may hurt her more than the one who she hates more than anyone in the entire world.

Penny: Women and War is a great read and shows a maturity in Ellie Keaton’s writing skills as she has crafted a more complex plot than in her previous novel in this series.  Finely written, Ms. Keaton and highly recommended!

Supreme City: How Jazz Age Manhattan Gave Birth to Modern America by Donald L Miller

Supreme City: How Jazz Age Manhattan Gave Birth to Modern America .  Donald L. Miller. Simon and Schuster.  May 2014. 784 pp.  ISBN#: 9781476745640.

New York City’s fame lies in its dynamic people, places and events that have earned it the fame and fascination of the world.  Donald Miller’s tome, however, concentrates on the evolution of that immense growth since the time just preceding the Jazz Age to the present.  Great stories involve vibrant people who usually have a multifaceted presence that most people find intriguing and perhaps praiseworthy or even notorious. 

Our story opens with a long complex, multilayered presentation of New York City’s Mayor Jimmy Walker.  A man who secretly longed to be in the exciting world of acting in New York City’s theater, circumstances led him instead into governance.  He was a man who pushed the development of huge projects, particularly the city’s railroad system and real estate development, while often neglecting to realize that his attention to financial overspending was lacking.  At the same time his personal life was the fodder of tabloids with partying and an extramarital affair.  The world either loved or hated Jimmy Walker; but either way, he remains an outstanding figure in New York City’s history.

The rise and fall of Tammany Hall, the political system that controlled elections and their aftermath in every single segment of NY business, government and society, is a fascinating read.  It was not only focused on local politics but also had an immense influence on national elections.  What began as a group of powerful players that offered protection, jobs, health care, education and so much more to the little-known citizen became a huge organization that bred inescapable corruption.  

The remainder of the text explores diverse areas of New York City’s fame: its highbrow growth in real estate and fashion along Fifth Avenue and other memorable places within the city, its skyscraper and architectural development, its fragrance and beauty industries through the genius of Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden respectively, its phenomenal talented and unique music industry beginning with the famed Jazz music evolving from downtown Harlem, its stupendous creation of mammoth transportation entities such as Grand Central Station terminal and the Holland Tunnel, and so much more.  

Supreme City is a fascinating read as Donald Miller has infused each segment with personal interest and factually accurate facts that makes this a highly readable and intriguing study.  He has obviously intensely researched his subject and yet never allows it to become dry or boring. This is a text to not only slowly relish but to keep on one’s coffee table, not as a dust-gathering knickknack but as a book that will draw further interest and reading from all who stop to momentarily and briefly pursue any one of its page – it’s that great and wonderful a book and definitely a classic study of New York City!

The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic: A Novel by Emily Croy Barker

The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic: A Novel.  Emily Croy Barker. Viking: Penguin Group (USA). July 2014. 576 pp.  ISBN#: 9780143125679.

Nora Fischer has just been dropped by her boyfriend and her Supervisor has informed her that her slowness with her dissertation writing is proving to be a problem that might mean she’ll be out of the program.  All in all, she’s in a bad place, unable to be inspired to do the requisite research and writing and in a surrealistic way unable to accept that her former lover has dumped her.  So she decides she needs a break and sets off to a friend’s wedding.  One day she decides to take a walk, one that will change her life forever!

For Nora has literally walked into another world, time and place!  Ilyssa becomes Nora’s mentor, guiding her with gifts of dress, makeup, and introductions to the “partying” crowd who share love and fun indiscriminately.  In time Nora can hardly believe she was the troubled woman of before as now she sees herself in an entirely new way – beautiful, smart, and loving life!  Ilyssa’s son Raclin is an artful, teasing and seductive lover with whom Nora becomes obsessed!  It all seems too good to be true and so it is – after their wedding, Nora begins to realize that something is dreadfully wrong.  Raclin has no time for her and disappears for days, eventually telling her that now she is pregnant, he will have very little time for her.  Now Nora begins to realize something is dreadfully wrong and that these people are far from human and are her sinister imprisoners.  One ray of hope appears in the magician Aruendiel who will rescue Nora, albeit reluctantly!

Nora longs to return to her own life but must learn the magic she abhors in order to go home. This portion tends to slow down and drag a bit but she will learn what she needs to, to a certain degree.  The relationship between Aruendiel and Nora seems to be of growing attraction the never really evolves to reality for some unspoken reason.  However, the last portion of the story picks up the pace with a few unexpected and stunning turn of events, leading this reviewer to believe there will definitely be a follow-up to his intriguing novel.

There are allusions to Pride and Prejudice, Game of Thrones, Alice in Wonderland and a few other vaguely veiled connections.  I’m not sure these work so well but they perhaps increase the tension-filled plot.  The origins and purpose of the enemy are slowly and even lately provided, which is interesting to a point but then inches into frustration.  Standard formulaic fare or a new addition to the Harkness, Potter, Martin-style fiction – you the reader must decide!

Interesting, Ms. Baker!

The Mathematician's Shiva by Stuart Rojstaczer

The Mathematician’s Shiva. Stuart Rojstaczer. Penguin Group (USA). September 2014. 384 pp.  ISBN#: 9780143126317.

Alexander "Sasha" Karnokovitch’s mother is dying and he would like to protect her final days and the aftermath of her death with a small family’s presence and quiet dignity.  But Rachela is one of the most famous mathematicians in the world and it is believed she secretly had solved the most difficult mathematical problem in the world, the Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize problem.  They fear she will take it to her grave and therefore plan on being there to find it either before she is laid to rest or before the family takes control of her material legacy.  Sasha is just as determined to keep order and not let these crazy people create chaos and dissension in the days ahead.

Sasha is mourning, both before and after his mother’s death, a great woman.  He knows perhaps she wasn’t the warmest mother to him but she was definitely a “brilliant” mother, a woman who always used reason and common sense in her advice to him.  She spends the few months before she dies trying to do years’ work as she wanted to leave nothing unfinished. Such determination and fortitude marks her mothering of Sasha, who has also become a renowned geophysicist.  Reason and common sense borne of suffering are the hallmarks of Rachela’s parenting.

We learn from her own words the suffering she and her family endured as a Polish Jewish Russian in WWII. It was a time when individuals abandoned family members in order to survive.  Later on, the fact that she was a woman in the world of mathematics totally dominated by men led to this same survival instinct rearing its head; victory was the reward but a victory borne out of incredibly hard work coupled with obsession and highly creative thinking.

Interspersed between the meetings of family and friends are Rachela’s own words about her own moving, dynamic life. It includes her meeting with the man who was to be the mentor behind her career, a man whose genius has remained unsurpassed except perhaps by Rachela.  Years later, the mathematicians who gather to sit Shiva are a crazy lot who converse in a slapstick comic style.  Their time together, monitored and limited by Sasha’s rules, is a mixture of sadness, speculation, careful and not so careful questions, and just plain schmoozing back and forth. It has smatterings of Saul Bellow, Philip Roth and Woody Allen humor and dialogue. For Sasha, it’s endearing and crazy-making in this world of geniuses with whom his mother had worked, lived and loved. It’s a truly abnormally normal family Shiva, a delight!

Stuart Rojstaczer has written a very clever novel about the past and present as well as the allowing us to share the minds and hearts of those who foster and share sheer genius!