Guest post: To Write or Research? by MCV Egan

Today I’m thrilled to introduce MCV Egan, author of The Bridge of Deaths, a love story and mystery centred around a plane crash off Danish shores just prior to World War II. She has very kindly agreed to do a guest post for me, and even offered her blog for me to post on as well! (You can find my post here if you are interested.) Anyway, you don’t want to read me rambling on, so without further ado, here she is!

MCV Egan

To Write or Research?

Research in the 21^st century is as easy as a quick Google search, watching a film or reading a book. Is it really that easy? I personally think it is not and that many of today’s writers suffer when their work is not backed up by the key component KNOWLEDGE.

As nonsensical as it may seem knowledge is the key component to writing a fabulous and concrete piece. Knowledge comes from experience and research. Is this too absurd, too obvious? Unless you have the educational background in what you write about and stick to just that ‘one subject’ it is not.

If you create a fantasy world to make it believable you need knowledge of how the key components of your landscape and atmosphere will affect the story line, the way the characters breathe, move, feel and exist.

If you write about a certain era you need the clothing, vernacular, and setting. Was that building there in 1890? Was that expression used?

Even in a story of the day, if you have a character of a certain age, how do they speak?

As wonderful and easy as the information superhighway is at providing facts and data right at our fingertips, it has also done so for our readers. The availability of information today has made it far more difficult for a writer; any bored reader can look up a thing or two. The very reader can besmirch your name by blogging about your lack of accuracy!

I personally like to use a wide variety of sources and some are on-line and some are old-fashioned magazines, newspaper microfilm, books, movies, documentaries and interviewing or observing people.

For my WIP I am hooked on Psychology Today. I had not touched a copy in years and I find that old copies are full of fantastic articles that have helped me enhance story line and have also provided some pretty cool and quirky ideas. I also people watch a certain age group; I do so in cyberspace as well as at Starbucks. I am not writing about 53 year old menopausal women fighting hot flashes. If menopause gets any worse I probably will soon!

I believe there are countless fantastic writers out there. In this era of blogging and the ease of communication I see it every day. The one key component that will make anyone standout in the fierce competition of the 21^st Century wordsmith is knowledge. This goes to every aspect of a story; Characterization, setting, plot.

Get to know your characters in a level of familiarity that far supersedes what the reader will see. Understand what would make them tick even in areas that are not what you are writing about.

As a writer your awareness will guide the reader to experience the moment, the sound and the feel of it all.

When you have that feeling of eureka with the first draft be your own worst judge when you re-read and look up any fact that you could possibly question, as simple as would a 16 year old today, in the 1990s in the 1980s talk, dress or dance that way? Or as complicated as at what altitude does the thin air in a mountain make a climber hallucinate?

So what do you think? Was I that absurd and obvious?

 

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The Bridge of Deaths, by MCV Egan

MCV Egan lives in south Florida in the United States and is fluent in four languages. From a young age she was determined to solve the mystery of her grandfather’s death, which resulted in The Bridge of Deaths, the culmination of nearly twenty years of research and analysis. If you like the way she thinks, please go and follow her blog and, even better, check out The Bridge of Deaths, which can be found at Amazon and a number of other booksellers. She can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

 

I’ve done it!

Celebration champagne (Photo credit: Lisa Brewster)

 

Yes, folks, it’s celebration time. After WAY too long (I started this process over two years ago), I have finally finished the first draft of my novel.

*pops champagne*

It’s been a long and interesting process, and I’ve learned a lot along the way, both about storytelling and also about myself. From my decision to cut over 70,000 words back at the start of the year and restructure the whole thing, to the blogs I’ve been frequenting and the courses I’ve attended (a big hello to Lucy Clark, who has been extremely helpful), it’s been a journey of ups and downs, peaks and troughs, finally culminating in today, when the last scene was penned and the book finished.

It’s an odd feeling. I have written completed novels before, but this is the first one that I’ve felt confident enough to unleash on an unsuspecting public by way of publication. (Yes, I have other things online, under another name, but that’s something else entirely.) And I know that this is only the start – there are months of editing ahead of me. Heck, I haven’t even read the whole thing through from start to finish yet to make sure it makes sense! I have a bundle of notes that I will keep handy when I get to that point, just to make sure I’m going in the right direction when it comes to structure and the like, and I’m full of enthusiasm to get that process underway. I know, though, that I need to let it rest for a little while. Give myself a break. Because only when I’m looking at this story with fresh eyes will I be able to edit it properly.

As such, I’m taking December off writing entirely. I shall continue to blog, of course, and to read, but the novel is being put away until the Christmas and new year celebrations are over. Then, once I’ve had that break, I’ll bring out the red pen and really go through it – structurally first, then characterisation and the like, and finally line edits. I’ve chosen this order because line edits are so easy to do, and if I start with those I’ll get sidelined with those and never do the big stuff. Besides, why busy yourself with the minutiae when you know that it’s all likely to change anyway when you do the structural edits?

So there it is. I’m about to uncork the champagne to celebrate, and I’ve promised my fingers a manicure as a reward. After all, they’ve done the bulk of the work here. And then I’m putting this manuscript away until 2013, when I can hopefully attack it with fresh eyes.

Boy, am I exhausted. But really, really pleased with myself at the same time. This is a milestone and one I’m determined to mark. Cheers all!

 

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Book review: Who Will Save the Planet? by Peter McLennan

Who Will Save the Planet? by Peter McLennan

This is a review of the book Who Will Save the Planet? by Peter McLennan. You may remember Peter from his three part series on my blog a few months back (part 1, part 2 and part 3), where he talked us through the self-publishing process. Well, I’ve agreed to review his debut novel, and let me say it’s a fine read.

The story centres around Jason Saunders, a fourteen year old boy from small-town Australia. Still smarting from losing the school debate on whether global warming is indeed an issue that needs to be dealt with, Jason goes to his local beach for some me-time, sees a man floundering in the water and swims out to rescue him. The man turns out to be the Australian Prime Minister, who in front of a bunch of media tells Jason he can have anything he wants. The answer? Emission control targets, which is topical not only because of the school debate, but also due to an upcoming global meeting on climate change.

It’s a well-written and engaging story, told not just through Jason’s eyes but also through the prism of Cabinet meetings and, well, let’s call it “secret leaders’ business”. The Government – which by the way could be either of Australia’s major political parties, as it’s not specified which one they are – isn’t necessarily sold on the idea of emission control targets, and wonder if it’s possible to make Jason change his request. After all, with the promise of whatever he wanted caught by the television cameras, they’re in a bit of a hard place politically.

The ups and downs of politics, the personal charm of the leader and the stubbornness – or otherwise – of a fourteen year old boy caught in the middle makes for an engrossing story. Engagingly written, I found myself unwilling to put it down, even when I had to.

That said, of course, I’m not saying that the book is without faults. Early in the book a girl in Jason’s class called Emma makes a few appearances, and it’s implied that Jason has a bit of a thing for her. This would generally make one think that she would have a role later in the story, but past the first few chapters she doesn’t show up again. To me that feels like a loose end – why include her if she’s not going to have a role?

The other thing that bothered me was Jason’s desire for a large, petrol-guzzling SUV. Sure, I can see a fourteen year old eyeing off something like that, and encouraging his father to buy one, but for a boy who staunchly claims over and over that “if it’s bad for the environment I don’t want it”, it does seem an odd preference. Maybe if he planned to convert it to run on used vegetable oil from the local fish and chip shop that would make more sense, but if he did it’s not mentioned in the narrative.

Overall, though, it’s an entertaining story for a young adult audience. Those from outside Australia might find some of the politics confusing, but then again it’s explained pretty well in the text (the PM does have to make sure Jason knows how the system works) so that shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Sure, if you’re one of the climate change skeptics you might take issue with Jason and his convictions, but then again I wouldn’t expect a climate change skeptic to pick up a book called Who Will Save the Planet? anyway. Assuming, though, that you’re not turned off by a few paragraphs of political explanation and a theme around fighting global warming, I would say it’s well worth a read.

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Who Will Save the Planet? by Peter McLennan
200 pages (paperback)
Published by Peter McLennan
Available on Amazon.com as e-book and paperback.

Book review: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender

This is a review of the book The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender. The first thing that strikes you about this novel is, understandably enough, the title. It’s evocative yet teasing – you get an impression from it but you’re not really sure what it’s about. After all, how can lemon cake be sad?

The second thing that strikes you when you start reading is the way Bender treats dialogue, which is without quote marks /inverted commas / whatever you want to call them. Third paragraph in you get the first taste of this, which I admit takes some getting used to, viz:

How about a practice round? she said, leaning past the door frame.

At that point I found myself flicking through the book, wondering if this was how dialogue was done the whole way through. The answer is yes. It’s clearly a stylistic choice, but it does mean that the way some of it is written is stilted, as you have to have a he said/she said type of tag for every item of speech. Otherwise, it would be seen as internal musing from the narrator. Perhaps if it wasn’t written in the first person it might have felt cleaner, I’m not sure, but as I said it did take a little while to get the hang of it.

Once you get past that, it’s quite a haunting book. I was happy to suspend disbelief for the main premise of the plot, which was that a young girl suddenly acquires the ability to absorb people’s emotions from the food they make. It starts on her birthday when her cheerful, loving mother makes her a lemon cake, and at the first bite all she can taste is sadness and desperation. Hence, the title. It’s a difficult ability to live with, as it permeates every part of her life – she can identify which farms grew produce, which factories put things together, what the mood of the person who was stirring it was.

While I was perfectly happy to accept this ability, though, I was less open to the world of her brother. A gifted yet socially isolated boy, he has moments where he just disappears, and no one can find him until he just as suddenly re-appears, seemingly no worse for wear. When the reason for that was revealed late in the book, I found my suspension of disbelief suddenly voided. Rose, the narrator, had a story I could go along with. Joseph, the brother, though – his story I had much more trouble with.

This, of course, is likely to be something that just bothered me, and there are bound to be thousands of other people who have read this book who have no difficulty with it at all. However, for me it meant that my enjoyment of the book diminished towards the end. While I found the writing style and Rose’s story haunting, evocative and invading my dreams at night, I found Joseph’s story vague, bizarre and obtuse. Sure, the fact that it was told from Rose’s point of view meant that of course the narrative would give more information about her own condition, but I still found it unsatisfying, like it was something the author hadn’t planned and needed to find a resolution to. I’m probably wrong, but that was how it felt to me.

Beside that, I did enjoy this book. The writing is excellent and the plot, particularly as it concerns Rose, is original and thought-provoking. The title got my attention and the story drew me in quickly. I’m only sorry that the ending wasn’t more to my tastes.

———————

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender
292 pages (paperback)
Published by Windmill Books (UK)
Available on Amazon.com as ebook, hardcover and paperback

Guest post: On writing Illusion, by Dy Loveday

This blog entry was first posted on Beth Cato’s blog Catch a Star as it Falls. Beth is Dy Loveday‘s critique partner, and she  (and Dy) have very kindly given permission for me to re-blog it. Dy’s first novel, Illusions, was released last week by Liquid Silver Books and is available from there and Amazon as an ebook.

In the interests of full disclosure, I will state here that I work with Dy’s partner, so I’m doing my best to give her and her book as much publicity as possible. I’ve started reading it and it’s incredible so far, so please give it a try.

Anyway, take it away Dy!

——————

Illusion, by Dy Loveday

I remember sending my first 50 pages of the novel to a crit buddy I’d met on the Online Writers Workshop (OWW-SFF). She gently told me I’d made some of the same mistakes she’d made when first starting out, and proceeded to show me exactly what needed to change to get the manuscript into shape.

Writing Illusion wasn’t easy. It took me around 6 months to get the first draft down and another 18 months of hard slog to revise structural problems. Writers often focus on the line edits or nits, misspelled words or agonize for hours over paragraphs of text. But the real problem usually lies in the harder to fix structural issues: boring main characters, superfluous secondary characters, a clichéd or obvious plot line, and my particular bugbear, the wrong point of view. I recently wrote a short story and it just didn’t work. Until I realized I’d been telling it from the daughter’s point of view when it was really the father’s story. Thankfully, it was only a short story, but still …. *bangs keys extra hard for emphasis*

Major revisions can also be enjoyable. During the revision of Illusion, I found myself fleshing out characters, giving them stronger goals and motivations, cutting entire scenes and adding new ones. Maya became less sarcastic and more vulnerable, more specific in her reactions as events in the scene moved her further away, or closer to her goal. I wanted the climax to be exciting, so I spent extra time foreshadowing events, creating decent causal links and giving Molokh a clear agenda. By the end of the book I hoped that even if the reader didn’t like Maya, they’d understand why she did the things she did, and find her interesting and believable.

Working with my OWW crit partners helped a lot. I think every writer needs to surround themselves with a good writing community, because let’s face it writing is a lonely existence. Writers spend so much time in their head it’s easy to forget there are others out there, trying to do the same thing. The virtual support community was essential for me and helped me to develop the skills of the craft. I say ‘develop’ because despite various workshops and writing degrees, I’m still learning. That’s the great thing about writing. It’s such a complex art, you can only get better.

I revised Illusion with the reader in mind and focused on four questions:

1. What contract with the reader did I establish on the first page?

2. What anticipation is this scene creating?

3. Is this causally related?

4. And most important of all, did I fulfill the contract with the reader? Did I deliver what I promised to deliver?

Thank you Beth for hosting me on your site and for helping me with Illusion. Your unique blend of encouragement, humour, gifted writing and ability to find the answer to plot holes was immeasurably helpful, from those first 50 pages to the final product

——————

Thanks Dy, and thanks also to Beth for allowing me to re-host this. I hope that you all check out the book, and importantly leave a review! As a first time author, Dy needs all the support she can get so please do your best and share the love a little. I promise, I’ll do the same for you.

NaNoWri-NO

 

Image: NaNoWriMo.org

 

That’s right. I’m not doing it.

This year, for the first time in three years, I’ve made the decision not to do NaNoWriMo.

It has nothing to do with dissatisfaction with the NaNo people or process. I’ve done it two Novembers in a row and won each time, though I admit I failed dismally at Camp NaNo this July. The thing is, though, that with my current story, I don’t have 50,o00 words left to write. Sure, I could write something else, but my priority at the moment is really to get this first draft finished. I’m already three months overdue and, with my new deadline being Christmas, I just want to get it over with.

I toyed with the idea of trying to finish it by the end of October and doing something completely different in November with NaNo. Unfortunately, I’ve been unwell and a number of other things have been coming back to bite me, and the time (and, frankly, inclination) just haven’t been there. I’m working my way through these final scenes and I’m getting there, but it’s a long, drawn out process. Perhaps if I was one of those people who writes in order it would be different, because I’d be building up to the dramatic end of the story, but I’m a non-linear writer and the end has been written since, well, two NaNos ago. No, what I’m doing now is doing a couple of sub-plots and some filler scenes that lead onto the next bit of drama. No wonder it’s taking me forever.

As such, I’m giving NaNo a miss this year. Instead, I’ll use November to (hopefully) kill off these last 15,000 or so words that need writing, and get this draft done once and for all. My character biographies are helping dramatically, I might add; that little writing exercise is clearly one that works really well for me. (Actually, there seem to be a lot of similarities between my writing habits and those of the lecturer in this course I’m doing, which is incredibly helpful.)  Then, once my draft is done I’ll take some time off over Christmas and attack it with the red editor’s pen in the new year, refreshed and, with any luck, able to look at it with a new set of eyes.

Then next November I’ll do NaNo again, with the next story. At least, that’s the plan as it stands now. Wish me luck! :)

 

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Book review: The Harbour, by Francesca Brill

The Harbour, by Francesca Brill

This is a review of the novel The Harbour, by Francesca Brill. Set in Hong Kong during the Second World War, it follows the story of Stevie Steiber, an American journalist, and her illicit affair with British Major Harry Field.

The tale is an intriguing one. With a backdrop of impending war in a colonial outpost foolishly clinging to the belief it is untouchable, we see the frustration of a woman wanting to write something substantial and worthwhile, but forced by circumstance to deliberate on the frivolous antics of the British ruling class. You know, what sort of frocks are being worn to the races, that sort of thing. She is trying to convince some of the area’s most powerful Chinese women to allow her to tell their story, but always there is something in the background that seems to be going against her.

Add to this her quite frankly odd relationship with her editor (they got married to give her Chinese papers, yet he is already married and his wife is quite fine with the affair) and her fateful encounter with Harry Field and you have a fascinating and potentially explosive mix. That said, however, I didn’t really feel it lived up to its potential. Perhaps it was the head-hopping – I have difficulty with more than one or two POVs being shown per scene, and sometimes in this there were five. I understand that Francesca Brill has a background in writing screenplays, which is where this tendency probably comes from, but that doesn’t make it any less dizzying for the reader.I felt that perhaps more effort should have been put into external narration in these cases, as it is perfectly possible to demonstrate what a character is feeling or thinking by describing their actions, and it leads to less of a mosaic of points of view.

The other thing that may have stopped this story from fulfilling its potential is the scant attention paid to the feelings of the main protagonists. This is supposed to be a love affair that transcended everything, breaking up marriages, leading to social ostracism a la Anna Karenina, yet I didn’t really feel it. There was a lot of attention paid to what these people did, but comparatively little on how they felt and how that impacted on their decisions. In other words, the longing that they were supposed to be experiencing just didn’t jump off the page for me. For a book whose cover boasts the quote, “We need more love stories like this,” it was distinctly underwhelming.

Despite these shortcomings, it was a well written book and the story it told was indeed fascinating. As a debut novel it shows a lot of promise, and the characterisation of Stevie in particular was outstanding. I particularly liked her responses to questions about her personal life once the war had finished and how people tried to cope with her decisions  I also liked the depiction of Harry in the POW camp and how he came to do some of the things he did. The truth is that people’s actions, particularly in wartime, are very rarely black and white, and the shades of grey shown in this novel demonstrate that brilliantly.

All in all, I enjoyed  The Harbour. While some aspects of it did disappoint me, it does give an outstanding depiction of life in Hong Kong in the 1940s and the challenges and troubles faced by its inhabitants, and as I said the characterisation was indeed excellent. For a good historical novel about the war in Hong Kong, it’s well worth picking up.

 

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The Harbour, by Francesca Brill
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing
342 pages (paperback)
Available from Amazon.com as  paperback and e-book

Guest post: Get out of the way, by Paulette Mahurin

The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap, by Paulette Mahurin

When I was writing my story, The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap, I did a lot of research into the time period when Oscar Wilde was imprisoned, 1895, going off on tangents about the Donner Party debacle, France’s divide on the Dryefus Affair, Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta address turning racism on its head at that time, on down to the minutia of the landscape of Walker Lake and the Nevada terrain, where the story took place, etc. When it came time to incorporate my research into the story line, I wrote, and wrote, filling pages, that would make any grad school thesis chair proud.

It was such a happy time until I sat down to do my first read through. The first three chapters were fast paced and really got me into the story, but when I came to the fourth chapter, I was jerked, like whip lash, from the fast paced, interesting plot, into details about historical facts that were as boring as any college level text could get. My heart sank as I removed line after line, still wanting to keep in enough text in to show what a “smart” writer I was, all to the detriment of the flow of the story.

I battled with my insides, my head saying, You put in a lot of time, this is interesting and important history while my gut screamed at me, you idiot, any intelligent reader will see through this. People don’t want to read about your efforts they want to read a good story. Get that junk out of there. And, so I did get it out, every single thing that was about me showing off, about me in the way of the story, about how I wanted the attention, and I let the characters guide me in their voices for what to keep and what to let go of. I hated letting go, knew I had to do it, like exercising—don’t want to do it but when I do I feel better.

When the rewrite was finished and I sat down with the manuscript before me to do another read through. I went from chapter one through twelve, then stopped, not because I was bored or pulled off the story, but rather I was tired and it was late. There were no big chunks left to cut. That was my last creative rewrite. After that it was line editing and tightening up grammar, the structure so that the house of the story didn’t look unprofessional, which again would act as a distraction.

I learned that when I got out of the way, and let the story flow, when I gave up the struggle to want to show off, it bettered the story, and the characters came alive, as if to say it’s our story, not yours. Next time, stay out of the way!

 ——————

Excellent advice, Pauline! I’ve found it always helps the story if you impose yourself on it as little as possible. And, I must admit that now I’m very curious about the book!

Paulette Mahurin

Paulette Mahurin, an award-winning author, is a Nurse Practitioner who lives in Ojai, California with her husband Terry and their two dogs–Max and Bella. She practices women’s health in a rural clinic and writes in her spare time. Her book, The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap, is about homophobia in the late nineteenth century, at the time that Oscar Wilde was so famously imprisoned for sodomy. All proceeds from the book are going to the Santa Paula Animal Rescue Center (see, I used the American spelling!) in California, which is the first and only no-kill shelter in Verona County, where Paulette lives. This is a cause very close to her heart so please consider helping out by purchasing the novel.

To whet your appetite, here’s the blurb:

The year 1895 was filled with memorable historical events: the Dreyfus Affair divided France; Booker T. Washington gave his Atlanta address; Richard Olney, United States Secretary of State, expanded the effects of the Monroe Doctrine in settling a boundary dispute between the United Kingdom and Venezuela; and Oscar Wilde was tried and convicted for gross indecency under Britain’s recently passed law that made sex between males a criminal offense. When news of Wilde’s conviction went out over telegraphs worldwide, it threw a small Nevada town into chaos. This is the story of what happened when the lives of its citizens were impacted by the news of Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment. It is a chronicle of hatred and prejudice with all its unintended and devastating consequences, and how love and friendship bring strength and healing.

In Paulette’s words:

“The story was inspired by a combination of factors all coming together at once. I had been dealing with a friend in the closet when I took ill with Lyme Disease, and in that time there was little else I could do but write. When I felt better, I took a writing class in which the teacher presented with a stack of photos. We were to pick one and write a ten minute mystery from it. The photo I picked was of two women, standing very closer together, looking extremely sober, fearful, dressed in circa twentieth century garb. It screamed out lesbian couple afraid of being found out. When I started the research into the history of homosexuality and societal views documented on the net, I found interesting data to set the stage, for instance the news of Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment, which did go out over telegraph wires and was in an article in The New York Times, April, 1895, which was a homophobic write up, disdaining not only Wilde but homosexuality in general as immoral. Attitudes toward same sex relationships changed from a civil tolerance to overt hatred and hostility toward gay men. I also found out what that time period was like for a lesbian couple, and again an instance is women could have friendships, even live together as spinsters if they could afford to, but were a woman labeled a lesbian she was considered (diagnosed) insane and thrown into a mental institution, her treatment (cure)was rape at the hands of her physician directly or indirectly, to help her enjoy a male. This research coupled with the photo and my personal experience in dealing with women through my profession as a Nurse Practitioner (that one person in the closet I was working with had been severely traumatized sexually and to this day, as an older adult is afraid to come out), culminated in the story, moved the story, and has given me the energy to continue to promote it, all in the name of tolerance.”

If you’re interested in knowing more, you can purchase the book at Amazon US and UK in paperback and e-book. You can read more about it here, or read the book blog here. Alternatively, Paulette can be found on Twitter (@MahurinPaulette), Facebook and Google Plus.

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Novel excerpt: Equinox (Ethos) by Desiree Finkbeiner

Today I’m thrilled to be featuring an excerpt from Ethos, Equinox by Desiree Finkbeiner. You may recall that I featured the first book in the series, Morning Star, back in May, so it’s great to be able to do the sequel as well. The final installment will be out in early 2013.

Ethos, Equinox by Desiree Finkbeiner

 

Here’s a taste for you:

—————–

We hiked down through the trees towards the camp, trying to keep quiet. I counted a few Jeeps, a couple four wheelers, and a rugged camouflage military vehicle with a satellite receiver affixed to the roof. There were footprints in the dirt surrounding the extinguished camp fire, leading off in all directions as if they had been camped there for some time—maybe a few weeks.

“What are you doing up here?” We were startled by a strong male voice with what sounded like a thick African accent, coming from the trees. I spun around and looked up to see a large, dark-skinned man sitting in a deer stand—so dark that the white of his eyes looked like alabaster set into ebony, his irises nearly black. He had a closely shaven head, was armed with rifle, and had a radio slung over his shoulder. He wore camouflage and combat boots. “This trail is closed.”

I glanced at Kalen, who was eying the man down with a discerning glare. “If it’s closed, then why are you here?” he shot back with a challenge.

“I work with the forest department.” He spoke authoritatively. “You have no business being here.” He pointed towards the parking lot where the RV was parked. “Go back where you came from. There are other places to hike.”

“We’re not here to hike.” Kalen stood his ground. “We’re here to see Brach.”

The man lifted his rifle and aimed it at Kalen. “Who sent you?”

“Hunter.”

The man stood there for a moment, sizing us up, but kept his rifle aimed at Kalen. Without taking his eyes off of us, he reached for his radio and spoke in a foreign dialect. Though I wasn’t sure what language he was speaking or what country it came from, I understood every word. It was definitely an Earth language, something from Africa, but he didn’t realize I could understand him. “Brach, there are people down here at the camp looking for you. They claim Hunter sent them. What do you want me to do with them?”

“Who are they? What do they want?” A deep voice sounded from the radio.

“What is your business?” The man relayed in English.

“We will only speak with Brach,” Kalen demanded.

“You will tell me, or I will kill you.”

Kalen smiled, stepping in front of me. “Your bullets are no good on us. Take us to Brach; we have news for the Rise.”

He glared at us for a moment, then called back on the radio, in the foreign dialect. “It’s about the Rise. They insist on seeing you. Two female, one male. They do not appear to be armed. What are your orders?”

There was a long pause before a response finally came, “Shoot them.”

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Okay, I’ve got shivers up my spine! I can vouch for how good the first book was so I can’t wait to read this one, especially with a snippet like that to whet my appetite.

Equinox will be released in the next couple of weeks so keep an eye out for that. In the meantime, if you haven’t read the first book yet, you can find Morning Star on Amazon in paperback or ebook.

About the author

Desiree Finkbeiner attained a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design from Missouri Southern State University (2006) with a heavy background in business, marketing, music and fine art– She was heavily involved in campus affairs and served actively in several committees focusing on campus entertainment and events.

She had a scholarship for acting in college though she was not a theatre major. Although she no longer performs or focuses on musical/performing arts, she has chosen to shift her talents to other areas that are more conducive to raising a family.

Continuing education is a constant adventure for Desiree with topics of interest ranging from civil and corporate law, history, political conspiracy, homeopathic medicine and spiritual healing. She prefers to read non-fiction, especially on topics that educate and broaden her perspectives on controversial issues.

With thousands of completed art works in her archives, most of which appear in private collections worldwide, Desiree hopes to focus more on publishing, marketing and licensing her work so she can leave a legacy behind.

 

Book review: The Scent of Lemon Leaves, by Clara Sanchez

The Scent of Lemon Leaves, by Clara Sanchez

This is a review of the novel The Scent of Lemon Leaves, by Clara Sanchez, a fascinating story of when the present and the past collide.

The story tells the tale of two protagonists – Julian, an octogenarian former concentration camp inmate who has made it his life’s work to hunt down former Nazis to make them pay for their war crimes; and Sandra, a thirty year old woman who finds herself pregnant to a man she doesn’t love, and escapes to the Spanish coast to try to work out what she wants to do with her life. Their paths cross when Sandra meets an elderly Norwegian couple on the beach and strikes up a friendship with them, letting them adopt her (not literally) as a quasi-grandchild, only to discover that Julian is investigating them for their past sins.

I found it a difficult novel to get into, to be honest. I had high expectations from the blurb but the opening chapters didn’t really connect with me. After a while, though, I was hooked to the point that I didn’t want to put the book down. The two points of view have a fascinating juxtaposition, with Sanchez successfully going from the mind of an eighty year old man to a thirty year old woman without skipping a beat. Sometimes, particularly in descriptive sections, the voices were not very different, but then a reaction to something or an offhand comment would remind me forcefully that these were very different people.

Admittedly, some of Sandra’s decisions baffled me, as I would have done something totally different in her shoes. Then again, she and I are of very different character and, importantly, she remained in that character for the duration of the book. The other thing that I occasionally had trouble with was the fact that I am unfamiliar with Spanish customs, and therefore finding offices and shopping centres routinely open at eight in the evening had me scratching my head, until I remembered that in Spain it’s customary to have a siesta in the middle (and hottest part) of the day, and conduct business when it cools down later on. It’s a little thing, but it was just something I had to continually remind myself of so that some of the times used in the story made sense to me.

I don’t want to give the plot away, but I just wanted to mention a few things that really stood out for me. One was the fear Sandra had for the tenant in her sister’s house not far from where the Norwegians, Karin and Frederik, lived, after Karin saw him treat Sandra with disrespect. Another was the respective fates of Elfe, Bolita and Heim; yet another was the revelation at the very end by Elisabeth, also known as the girl on the beach. Finally, the explanation as to why Sandra’s pregnancy was relevant, which I had wondered about – why make her pregnant? What did it add to the story?Each of these revelations was a twist I hadn’t seen coming.

Congratulations must go to Julie Wark, who translated the book from Spanish into English. I have a feeling that a novel like this would have given a translator a few challenges but, unlike some translated books I have read, it flowed like it had been written in English.

All in all, The Scent of Lemon Leaves is a fascinating, intriguing and addictive book, showing the very human side of people the world sees as monsters and how they are, in many ways, just like everyone else. It asks whether it is worth chasing and prosecuting people for war crimes committed sixty or seventy years ago, or whether we should just let nature take its course as it does with everyone. And it shows how seemingly innocuous decisions and events can have repercussions that change your life. It makes you think and it infiltrates your dreams, and I thoroughly recommend it.

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The Scent of Lemon Leaves, by Clara Sanchez
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing
311 pages (paperback)
Available from Amazon.com as  paperback and e-book