The Big Thing-Phyllis Korkki

First line: "I've wanted to write a book since I was eleven."

New York Times writer and editor, Phyllis Korkki, has always aspired to write a book. She has a novel in progress, but with The Big Thing: How to Complete Your Creative Project Even if You're a Lazy, Self-Doubting Procrastinator Like Me, she decided to explore the world of creative projects as she completed her own--the book. The Big Thing isn't a self-help book in the traditional sense of self-help works, but it is inspiring and insightful.

Throughout the eleven chapters, she examines a wide range of "big things" from art to charities, even the idea of not having a big thing. And Korkki illustrates how there is no one set recipe for achieving this monumental goal, but there are proven guidelines that may help some to stay focused and motivated...or even know when it's time to set "the big thing" aside for awhile or permanently.

Korkki interviews various specialists and masters in areas such as physical health and mental health to enlighten herself for her end goal and to help the readers further their own. From posture and breathing to dealing with anxiety and depression, maintaining one's health is imperative. She looks at the value of sleep and, while acknowledging that there is a very small percentage of the population that can function normally on very little sleep, the vast majority need regular, structured sleep patterns for optimal health: "Nearly all the functions of the brain and body improve after sleep, and are impaired by a lack of sleep." In other words, the belief, "I'll sleep when I'm dead" only gets you to dead faster, while it impairs your ability to complete your "big thing."

Korkki also delves into the opposite end with illness--both mental and physical--and how it relates to major accomplishments.  Through artist Frida Kahlo, author Laura Hillenbrand and Charles Darwin she looks at various ways successful individuals have worked with and around their illnesses. Korkki even includes a section devoted to addiction.

Fascinatingly, Korkki found that "external rewards often undermine people's intrinsic motivation." And those extrinsic motivations have been growing over the past four decades due in large part to the growing presence of advertising. While they can be powerful, "research shows that when people become more focused on them, the quality of the product declines and they are less happy."

Old and young alike, Korkki finds evidence of The Big Thing in all ages and in all shapes ans sizes. People who go after their big goal while working full time or happen upon it before their teenage years. Plus, it's never too late. She advises:

"No matter who you are and what you do, you probably have at least twenty minutes a day--and probably much more--to work on your project, and that adds up. You need to trust in the power of incrementalism."

Regardless of who you are, if you have aspirations of your own "big thing," you're likely to find valuable ideas and motivations in Phyllis Korkki's journey to her own goal. Written plainly and well-researched, The Big Thing is fascinating, thought-provoking, and eye-opening. I wanted to read this book because I have my own project and within the pages I found not only a lot to chew on (metaphorically speaking of course) but plenty to spark my own drive. She also provides a new perspective on a lot, like the idea of being lazy. It would be hard to finish this book and not feel ready to take on the world...or at least your "big thing."

Korkki advises asking yourself three main questions in relation to your creative goal:

1. Do you have the talent/ability/skills to do this Big Thing, or the motivation to learn and practice them?
2. Do you have the commitment and drive to work on the Big Thing at least somewhat steadily?
3. Is it worth the sacrifice you will have to make, in time and money, to complete it? Maybe something else is more important.

If you have something in your life that you could answer yes to on these questions, The Big Thing may be just want you need.

The Big Thing releases today in hardcover from Harper (ISBN: 9780062384300)and as an unabridged audiobook (ISBN: 9781504735629), narrated by Sandy Rustin, from HarperCollins and Blackstone Audio.

  

   

My review today kicks off the TLC book tour for The Big Thing. Check the schedule to see how other bloggers are reacting to Korkki's insights into your big creative project.

Disclosure: I do some contractual work for one of the owners of TLC Blog Tours. My work with them does not obligate me to a specific kind of review. The reviews are still my own opinions and reflect only my thoughts on the novels. If you care to read more, you can find more information on my Disclosure page.

After Alice - Gregory Maguire

Good gads she's posting today! I'm so, so sorry for my silence of late, friends. I've been a bit swamped with work, some professional development classes, my nephew's baseball season and a big announcement I'll have coming soon. I hope you're all having a great July so far and finding lots of wonderful things to read. Before I post my review today, I just wanted to share a couple links with you. First is the July Nerdy Special List. There's quite a few great books coming out in July; I had a hard time picking my title for this month, but I did finally narrow it down. There may or may not have been a coin flip involved. And secondly, I had my first review accepted by the Christian Science Monitor. That one is for Ben Winters' The Underground Airlines. You can read it here.  O.k. on to today's review...

First line: "Were there a god in charge of story--I mean one cut to Old Testament specifics, some hybrid of Zeus and Father Christmas--such a creature, such a deity, might be looking down upon a day opening in Oxford, England, a bit past the half-way mark of the nineteenth century."

Those familiar with Gregory Maguire's (The Wicked Years series) work will likely not be surprised to hear me say that his stunning gift with words and story-telling made After Alice a delightfully charming, incredibly creative, deeply insightful fantasy that should stand the test of time, just as its inspiration, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, has.

After Alice is the story of Alice's friend Ada who is headed to see Alice just moments after the spirited young girl falls down the rabbit hole. Ada accidents upon the same gateway to Wonderland and finds herself spiraling down as well. Ada's descent into the wacky world of the Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat, White Knight (or Night) and Queen of Hearts frees her from the physical disabilities she endured at home, so she sets out on a magical adventure to find Alice.

Meanwhile, back among the boring realities of home, Alice's sister, Lydia, and Ada's governess, Miss Armstrong, are trying to find the missing girls.

Maguire's innate ability to build fantastic plots around the barely mentioned characters of epic fairy tales--plots that compliment and never contradict or alter the original stories--is awe inspiring. But he goes beyond that. In After Alice, the whimsical language echoes Louis Carroll's but still maintains a distinctness to Maguire's style. His playful approach to the world of words transfers to readers a youthful exuberance and giddiness while reading:

Beyond the door, the lawn was shorn and rolled to Pythagorean precision. The clouds were perfect, neither too many nor histrionic. As she watched hungrily, the cumuli began sliding down the side of the world and changing places with the lawn. This proved disconcerting, like a picture in a book turned upside down. Why, there was the Ace of Spaces digging a hole in the lawn-sky, and stuffing Rosa Rugosa root-first into the green-fringed heaven hovering over a blue eternal sky-sea. It was amusing to see the Ace of Spades sprinkle water upward.

Then while he's entertaining his reader with poetic imagery and playfulness, he sneaks in social issues--issues that seem to transcend time, like the glacial slowness of change:

"The law says one thing and custom another," replied Mr. Winter. "What the assemblies legislate and what happens on the back roads of small towns are not always in agreement. Put another way, history takes a long time to happen."

In this instance they're referencing the abolition of slavery in the United States during the Nineteenth Century, but that statement jumps off the page as glaringly true today for things like race, gender and sexual orientation equality.

And Maguire's insights aren't confined to social issues. He taps into human complexities as well:

As for dreams, they are powered by urgent desire, even if that desire is only to escape the quotidian. Ada, who lived with a sense of disappointment and failure, thanks to her misshapen form, suffered from a flat dream-life, one that seemed poorly differentiated from her waking hours. As a stolid child, her dreams were of static things, almost still-lifes: a lump of cheddar on a board, a goat roped to a tinker's cart, a curving road.

This enchanting, fun spin on the classic tale of Alice's wild adventures is as surprising as it is entertaining. There are captivating curiosities with every page turn. So settle yourself in for a fall down the rabbit hole into the marvelous world of Gregory Maguire's Wonderland.

After Alice is now available in trade paperback from William Morrow (ISBN: 9780060859749). You can still get a copy in hardcover (ISBN: 9780060548957) and there's an unabridged audiobook (ISBN: 9780062562272), narrated by Katherine Kellgren, from HarperAudio.

  

   

My review today is part of the TLC book tour for After Alice. Check the schedule to see how other bloggers are reacting to their tumble down the rabbit hole with Ada.

Disclosure: I do some contractual work for one of the owners of TLC Blog Tours. My work with them does not obligate me to a specific kind of review. The reviews are still my own opinions and reflect only my thoughts on the novels. If you care to read more, you can find more information on my Disclosure page.

The Price of Prosperity - Todd G. Buchholz

First line: "I am a little kid in the backyard, swatting mosquitoes off my legs and waiting for Dad to flip a burger onto my paper plate."

Todd Buchholz's  book The Price of Prosperity: Why Rich Nations Fail and How to Renew Them is his argument for why wealthy nations fall. He examines economic, political and cultural realms that he believes contribute to the undoing of these prosperous countries. Buchholtz views birthrates, global trade, debt, work ethic and patriotism (or lack thereof) as the central fissures in the strength of a successful nation.

As much as I was looking forward to reading this book, I was ultimately disappointed. As much time and effort as Buchholz puts into detailing historic empires and their leaders, he fails to address many of the arguments that counter the foundation for his theory.  In an effort to make economics a bit more entertaining, he provides metaphors and examples using current pop culture, but many if not most fall miserably short of actually supporting his arguments.

I was a bit apprehensive when early in the book, during his discussion of decreases in birthrates, he makes a comparison between numbers of children and numbers of pets:

"We have about 75.5 million children in the United States but 90 million cats, 75 million dogs, and 170 million freshwater fish. Together Petsmart and Petco sell $10 billion in pet goods. The largest children's retailer, the Children's Place, earns just $1.8 billion in revenues, pretty much equivalent to what Americans spend on snakes, turtles and lizards."

The impression that is created--and I believe intended--is "wow! Look how much more we spend on our pets than our children." Only he's comparing apples to basketballs. The last time you walked into a Petsmart or a Petco, what could you buy for an animal there? Food, treats, clothes, leashes/crates/etc, bedding, grooming, training, toys....this is, of course, an incomplete list and can cover a pet for its entire life. Children's Place sells clothing and maybe some minor accessories for a limited span of a child's existence. Children require far more time, money and resources to raise than any pet that's legal to own in the United States.

Now in the whole scheme of things, this comparison is pretty unimportant to the book, but the fact that something so banal is full of logic holes puts the reader on alert immediately.

Ultimately Buchholz's point is that the wealthy have fewer children than the poor:

"US families earning over $75,000 per year have fewer than fifty-five babies per thousand women. This is half the birthrate of families earning less than $10,000."

He does go on to say that children are "messy, loud, worrisome, and expensive." But a paragraph later says,

"Yet children have always been messy, loud, and expensive. In 1900 the average white woman in America was ringed by three or four whining, crying, and loving children...So what has changed to explain the declining preference for children? And why is it so widespread?" 

The answer to that question could be a book in itself. And in the United States it's not going to change while college-educated, career-minded women are penalized for having children.

Buchholz then goes on to talk about historical cultures whose downfalls followed wealth and subsequent drops in birthrates. One example he uses highlights a culture that essentially farmed out their military because they didn't have enough citizens to serve in it. And the military was then susceptible to the highest bidder and turned on the country it was supposed to be defending. Legitimate concern. However, in the United States, the wealthy are the least likely to even serve in our military. So if the idea is for the wealthy to have more children, I'm not sure how this example fits into the scheme of his argument.

And the elephant in MY room while reading this section is lack of discussion about the limited resources of the planet. Even in our prosperous United States, we have areas that struggle with viable water sources. We don't want to become one of the nations on Earth that don't have room or food or water for the huge families they are having in order to have strong numbers to defeat their enemies. If we can't take care of our citizens, our enemies are a moot point. Then of course there's also the damage it does to other elements of the planet that we destroy in order to make room for the growing numbers. The planet's population is larger than it's ever been and it's not moving backward despite low birthrates in some countries. At one point, Buchholz seems to be mocking politicians who care about the environment, and he says,

"What a shame if an avalanche of our debt buries our grandchildren so deeply that they have to sell off national treasures to make ends meet."

Granted at this point he's talking about government debt, but this point so oversimplified the issue of the environment and never even touches global warming. It also neglects the point that if we don't do something to counteract things like our abysmal infrastructure and education system--both things that continue to erode because we're worried about this debt--debt isn't going to matter to our future generations because the country won't exist as it is now.

Now Buchholz does proceed and address the value in immigration, but his offered solutions for how to deal with the resistance to immigration fall very short and, quite honestly, left me with a bad taste in my mouth:

"But I would ask this question: if other advanced countries impose six months to an entire year of mandatory service on their own citizens, would it be so terrible to impose some slight inconvenience on immigrants who apply for citizenship, especially an inconvenience that would enhance their knowledge of the country they aspire to join?"

We already impose a test on these people that many natural citizens can't pass. But let's add to the expense of the process, requiring them to travel around the country and not be working so they can have their passports stamped at "historical landmarks, museums, and libraries." And I'm still not sure how that helps our xenophobic culture be more accepting of these people, who are already proving their dedication to the nation.

Buchholz says he would impose a similar requirement for any U.S. citizen who applies for a student loan through a federal program. Again, people in need of money are now put at further disadvantage in order to prove they are worthy. Never mind the towering debt that's burying these young folks already. No mention, however, of big businesses and the wealthy that take advantage of tax breaks and other government funds.

Sadly, I found myself going through the entire book this way. I typically mark up pages with excerpts I love and word choice or phrasing that moves me. In this reading I was marking every passage where I found logic issues or neglect of relevant information.  And I'm not referring to one-off exceptions.

Buchholz refers to the average income of people in the United States. With our current income chasm, the "average" doesn't refer to a lot of households. He says, "The price system and the 'invisible hand' of the market coordinate all of this." No, they don't. That's why we have unions, regulations, child labor laws, etc. And when those regulations have been drawn back, we see that greed knocks the invisible hand right off the invisible wrist.

He refers to the laziness of teenagers and the fact that fewer have summer jobs. But there's no evidence he did any research as to why fewer have summer jobs. Is it possible they are volunteering? participating in various kinds of summer camps? taking care of younger siblings at home? And generations don't simply become lazy on their own. To point the finger at this generation and say they have a bad work ethic is to completely ignore the helicopter parent phenomenon and the role that plays in the child's development. He refers to them not being willing to relocate to a state with lower unemployment rates and not getting driving licenses. However, he neglects to address the costs that keep people from doing things like this. He talks about cars and their affordability. Sure if you come from a well-to-do family, money isn't as big an issue, but Buchholz has already pointed out that the well-to-do are having fewer children. The poor don't have money for additional cars, insurance, license fees, etc. And if you don't have a reliable source of transportation, could that possibly impact your ability to get or hold a job?

There is a section that directs attention to the Labor Participation Rate and Buchholz refers to it as the "proportion of adults who want to work." But he mentions nothing about the growing numbers of people who have taken themselves out of this arena because they've tried to find jobs and have been unsuccessful for so long that they've given up hope, that their time out of the workforce makes employers pass over them automatically. In a nation that puts up so many barriers for those coming out of prisons, a nation that has to petition employers to hire veterans coming back from war, a nation whose sky-rocketing cost of education puts it out of reach for a growing percentage of the population--people who desperately need new skills in order to be marketable, the term "want" is a huge over-generalization. 

While there are legitimate concerns presented in The Price of Prosperity, and I'm glad I read it for a view point that doesn't necessarily align perfectly with my own, it reinforces for me the fact that we're neglecting vital realities that exist in our nation. For Buchholz to make the statement, "When rich nations begin to shatter, everyone has a comfy bed--but fewer people have a reason to get out of it," I know he's neglecting realities and his credibility is, therefore, destroyed. I believe in the United States. I'm not lining up to relinquish my citizenship. But I do not believe The Price of Prosperity holds the answers to the problems that plague us. For that, we'll have to look elsewhere.

The Price of Prosperity is available in hardcover from Harper (ISBN: 9780062405708). It is also available as an unabridged audiobook (ISBN: 9781522690788) from Brilliance, narrated by Buchholz.

  

  

My review today is part of the TLC book tour for The Price of Prosperity. Check the schedule to see how other bloggers are responding to Todd Buchholz's solution to our country's prosperity problems.

Disclosure: I do some contractual work for one of the owners of TLC Blog Tours. My work with them does not obligate me to a specific kind of review. The reviews are still my own opinions and reflect only my thoughts on the novels. If you care to read more, you can find more information on my Disclosure page.

Father's Day - Simon Van Booy

First sentence: "Harvey was born in a redbrick hospital on a hill."

Even though yesterday was Mother's Day, today I'm writing about Simon Van Booy's newest novel, Father's Day. In this heart-warming tale about what defines a father, six-year-old Harvey loses her parents in a car accident and goes to live with her uncle--her father's estranged older brother, Jason. Their story is told through a series of flashbacks during Jason's Father's Day visit to Paris, where an adult Harvey now lives. Harvey has created a Father's Day box for Jason containing a series of symbolic gifts. Each day Jason removes one of the gifts and opens it during their travels around the scenic city. The unveiling of the gifts are interspersed with flashbacks explaining the significance of the gift in relation to Harvey and Jason's relationship. All of the gifts lead up to mysterious revelation Harvey plans to make to her father.

Jason is a ex-con and a recovering alcoholic with an anger management problem when Harvey comes to live with him. He's disabled from a motorcycle accident and supplements his government assistance by selling things on eBay. Harvey's social worker, Wanda, has a gut feeling that despite these problematic characteristics, he's the ideal placement for Harvey. A veteran of the Children's Services Department, she manipulates the system in order to finagle Jason a trial period as Harvey's guardian, and ultimately the adoption is finalized.

The pair never have a lot, but together they possess everything they truly need and make a complete family. As much as Jason teaches Harvey about life, she reciprocates. They save each other.

Van Booy's stark style makes every sentence burst in this beautiful novel about the value of families, whatever form they take. Jason and Harvey's life together mirrors that spartan style. Jason can't give Harvey a lot of material possessions, grand vacations or elaborate experiences, but she treasures everything they have. He regularly sacrifices for her and she understands the value, seeing the beauty and vulnerability beneath Jason's harsh exterior.

Harvey's voice as a child is as authentic and endearing as Jason's frustrated, adult perspective is empathetic. Van Booy drives home the importance of redemption, even in those society would consider beyond it. Sometimes we need to see those people through the eyes of a child, someone who hasn't learned biases, judgements and most importantly how to hold grudges. 

Early in the novel, when Jason is remembering his younger brother--Harvey's first father--Van Booy says, "He considered how memories hold our lives in place but weigh nothing and cannot be seen or touched." The memories in this charming novel hold the lives of Jason and Harvey in place and they hold the readers captive. Harvey's surprise for Jason at the novel's conclusion may not be a surprise for all readers, but it doesn't diminish the powerful theme behind the novel: a father isn't defined by DNA and dad's don't have to be perfect. The best ones are simply present, making those memories with their children.

Father's Day is available from Harper in hardcover (ISBN: 9780062408945) It's also available as an unabridged audiobook download, narrated by Bronson Pinchot, from Harper Audio.

  

   

My review today is part of the TLC book tour for Father's Day. Check the schedule to see what other bloggers are saying about Simon Van Booy's newest novel.

Disclosure: I do some contractual work for one of the owners of TLC Blog Tours. My work with them does not obligate me to a specific kind of review. The reviews are still my own opinions and reflect only my thoughts on the novels. If you care to read more, you can find more information on my Disclosure page.

Pleasantville - Attica Locke

First line: "They partied in Pleasantville that night, from Laurentide to Demaree Lane."

Attica Locke returns to her lawyer protagonist, Jay Porter, from Black Water Rising in her third novel, Pleasantville. Set fifteen years after the close of Black Water Rising this new thriller takes Jay Porter into dangerous political territory when a young campaign volunteer vanishes.

Perviously, two other young woman were kidnapped--about a year apart--only to later be found dead. Their murderer kept them alive for several days before dumping their bodies in the same nearby field. There are some differences to the cases, but there are enough similarities that everyone is in high alert, hoping to find the teen before her assailant can leave her in that same field.

When Neal, the nephew and campaign manager of one of the mayoral candidates, is arrested for the disappearance, Neal's grandfather Sam--a prominent citizen originally from Pleasantville--calls on Jay to represent him. Despite his lack of experience in criminal law Jay finds himself with little other choice and takes up the defense. It isn't long before Jay is wading in a case that reaches wider and deeper than the alleged kidnapping of a teen girl.

Pleasantville is a complex, multi-layered thriller with universal themes of power and class. It also pokes at political issues that are just as relevant today as in the novel's 1990s setting. On another level, Locke puts the family unit under a microscope to examine the myriad intricacies that develop over time and through struggles.

Locke's characters are richly developed and readers should have no trouble connecting with them: their motivations, emotions and conflicts. The supporting cast is as engaging as the lead roles. Locke is especially strong in her depiction of a single father trying to make his way with two young children: connecting with them, keeping them safe and raising them to be good people.

The plot overall has a somber tone, but Locke also throws in the occasional line that flickers of playfulness in her writing, "Lucifer himself probably showed up to Jesus's house at least once or twice, claiming to have the twenty dollars he owed our lord and savior."

Readers don't need to be familiar with Black Water Rising to thoroughly enjoy Pleasantville. A gripping story that offers up a lot of food for thought as well as a captivating plot that keeps the book's momentum swift, Pleasantville doesn't disappoint.

Pleasantville will be available in hardcover on April 21st from Harper (9780062259400) and as an unabridged audio (9780062374042), narrated by J.D. Jackson, from Harper Audio.


       

My review today is part of the TLC book tour for Pleasantville, which started yesterday and continues throughout the month. Check the schedule to see what other bloggers are saying about Attica Locke's newest book.

Disclosure: I do some contractual work for one of the owners of TLC Blog Tours. My work with them does not obligate me to a specific kind of review. The reviews are still my own opinions and reflect only my thoughts on the novels. If you care to read more, you can find more information on my Disclosure page.

To Dwell in Darkness - Deborah Crombie

First line: "In the first moment of waking, he had no idea who he was."

In her sixteenth go round with the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James duo, Deborah Crombie packs an explosive punch, both literally and figuratively.

Melody Talbot, Gemma's detective sergeant is in  St. Pancras concourse to watch her boyfriend, Andy, perform a live concert when a great explosion rocks the entire concourse. Melody reacts with officer instincts and moves toward the explosion while everyone else is stampeding away. As she breaks through the mob with the help of a good samaritan, she discovers a man burning to death as a result of the white phosphorus grenade he was holding. The individual who ignited the bomb is beyond help--and beyond recognition, but others in the area have been hurt so the authorities and medical personnel are summoned.

St. Pancras is now part of Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid's patch in his new assignment at Holborn Police Station. So when a young woman comes in to declare a friend missing since the explosion, Kincaid's the man she must talk to. The young woman along with her friends were protesting that day and Ryan Marsh, one of their group, was supposed to ignite a smoke bomb in order to attract the attention of the media present for the music concert. Ryan hasn't been seen since just before the chaos ensued.

Ryan Marsh poses a new mystery for Kincaid, there doesn't seem to be any trace of him anywhere. On the QT, Kincaid's friend and former colleague Doug starts digging into the possibility that Marsh is an undercover cop.

Meanwhile, a new possibility for the explosion victim arises when another young woman--also a part of the group of young protesters--comes in to declare her boyfriend also missing. Kincaid's responsibilities in the case continue to pile up: identify the victim, locate the missing individual who is not the victim, find out how and why a wp grenade was mistaken for a smoke bomb. And do it all while adjusting to a new detective sergeant who doesn't seem to like Kincaid much.

While Kincaid is up to his neck in questions surrounding his case, Gemma is certain she knows who committed the rape and murder of young girl, but there's no forensic evidence to support her. She struggles to find an overlooked clue or a new angle, so they can arrest the monster responsible.

On the homefront, Toby and Kit discover a frail mother cat in the garden shed who has just given birth to a litter of kittens. The Kincaid/James household just got a little bigger.

Deborah Crombie has a stellar talent for weaving a complex story together in about 300 pages. She manages to tell two mysteries and develop infinite interpersonal relationships without losing her readers. Instead she pulls them deeper into the world of her British duo and interlocks all the pieces so that a complete image is created when the puzzle comes together.

The dynamics of character relationships are as engrossing as the who-dunnit. The Kincaid/James children offer an element of innocence and hope that opposes the darkness and despair they adults most often see in their career world. The children's dialogue is authentic and unguarded, offering insight only young minds can provide.

But as I gush over the character relationships in the book, I don't want to neglect the strength of the plot. The suspense is well developed with aptly placed plot twists, red herrings and a limited narrator; this all works to keep the pace swift. The psychological elements of Crombie's novels heighten the intensity for a thrilling crime novel.

A few little extra details I feel are worth mentioning include the map on the end papers. It's a great resource to understand the geography, especially for a reader like me who has no working knowledge of London. The other is Crombie's attention to detail down to the pets. As an animal lover, I'm acutely aware of their role in novels. In this particular one, Erika, an elderly friend of the family makes a choice about kittens that is so well considered. It's probably a small detail that most will glance over, but for me I was moved by Crombie's thoughtfulness in its inclusion.

While there are elements that weave through the books in the series, To Dwell in Darkness, can easily be read and enjoyed without any background, with some background or of course with all the background. I came to this series late, but am very glad I finally made it. I thoroughly enjoy these books.

To Dwell in Darkness is available in hardcover (ISBN: 978-0062271600) from William Morrow. It is also available as an unabridged audiobook (ISBN: 978-1482992434), narrated by Gerard Doyle, from Blackstone Audio.

My review of To Dwell in Darkness is part of the TLC blog tour. You can find the entire list of blogs participating in this tour on their site. And you can find Deborah Crombie at her website, blogging at Jungle Red Writers or on Facebook and Twitter. She was also a Five on Friday guest here awhile back. If you missed that, be sure to check it out.

Disclosure: I do some contractual work for one of the owners of TLC Blog Tours. My work does not involve this tour or any other tour I would agree to be a part of here at the blog. Nor does my work with them obligate me to a specific kind of review. The reviews are still my own opinions and reflect only my thoughts on the novels. If you care to read more, you can find more information on my Disclosure page.

Eyes on You - Kate White

First line: "The shoes had made a nasty dent in my paycheck, but I wasn't sorry I'd splurged."

Robin Trainer is on top of the world. She's just published a bestselling novel and she's the co-host of a successful cable talk show. But during a book party she discovers a nasty note someone has left in her purse:

"You evil little bitch. You'll get yours."

While the note bugs her, she's able to write it off as someone's jealous prank. That is until other frightening things start happening to Robin: book jackets torn through her author photo, a vandalized Barbie doll left in her office, sabotage to her make-up.

Robin is mentally evaluating everyone around her to figure out who has an ax to grind. And it's simultaneously throwing her back into a trauma from her childhood. The threats escalate and Robin feels the world closing in on her. Everything she's worked so hard for is falling apart and if she doesn't figure out who is threatening her, she may just end up dead.

Eyes on You isn't a new thriller plot concept--a mysterious someone sending the protagonist over a psychological bridge--but it is written engagingly and with a strong momentum. This is a great book to toss in your beach bag for some enjoyable reading this summer.

There is plenty of suspicion thrown around to all the characters to keep the suspense strong and the reader questioning the outcome. However, there were a few loose ends, leaving me wondering at the conclusion if they were on purpose or if the issues were simply forgotten. This also loosened up the plot as a whole.

Kate White paints an insider's look at New York City, especially among the city's well-to-do: glamorous apartments and office spaces, restaurants and shops. It's a realm of the city where you need to watch your back so you don't get stabbed or stepped on as someone else is trying to climb the ivory tower.

Eyes on You is a quick, fun read. It may not make any earth-shattering changes in the thriller realm, but when you crave something a bit lighter, Eyes may just fit that bill.

Eyes on You releases June 24th in hardcover (ISBN: 978-0061576638) from Harper. It will also be available as an unabridged audiobook (ISBN: 978-1483005102), narrated by Abby Craden.

My review is part of the TLC Book Tour for Eyes on You. I am kicking off the tour, so you can follow along with the remainder of the tour to see what other bloggers are saying about the book.

Disclosure: I do some contractual work for one of the owners of TLC Blog Tours. My work does not involve this tour or any other tour I would agree to be a part of here at the blog. Nor does my work with them obligate me to a specific kind of review. The reviews are still my own opinions and reflect only my thoughts on the novels. If you care to read more, you can find more information on my Disclosure page.

Mind of Winter - Laura Kasischke

First line: "She woke up late that morning, and knew:  
Something followed them home from Russia.

Holly Judge and her husband Eric Clare overslept Christmas morning. As Eric dashed out the door to the airport to pick up his parents, Holly began the laborious process of preparing for a holiday and a house full of people.

Meanwhile, Holly and Eric's teen daughter Tatiana, who they adopted from Russia, is behaving strangely. She's ignoring her mother's requests for help, changing her clothes repeatedly and swearing at Holly. One minute she's kind and loving, the next she's angry and volatile.

With a snowstorm raging outside, all of the holiday guests are stranded and unable to make Christmas dinner. Eric has to detour to the hospital because his mother is acting confused and disoriented. So Holly's left alone to deal with Tatiana's tantrums until her husband can return. As the swinging door of Tatiana's emotions flips back and forth, Holly remembers the process she and Eric went through to adopt "Tatty" and the life they had once she came home to live with them.

But this Christmas, will Holly discover that more than just a beautiful baby girl came home from Russia with them?

Beware of this psychological thriller, it's addictive. Once you pick it up, you'll likely have a difficult time putting it down. The plot is bewitching and the characters are enchanting. Tatiana is Holly and Eric's fairytale princess, but this story is more in line with Grimm than Disney.

While I feel that the plot is loose and could have been tightened up significantly--detail often had a tendency to be redundant or excessive and the repeated use of parenthetical phrases pulled me out of the story--the foundation is a suspenseful, mind-boggling mystery. The alternation of present day with past memories slows the momentum of the plot down, so it's not especially fast paced, but it enhances the suspense and pumps up the reader's adrenalin levels.

Holly and Tatiana are engaging characters. The reader is closest to Holly as the story's narrator, but her depictions of Tatiana from their first encounter in Russia and throughout her childhood are endearing, starkly contrasting the brooding, erratic teenager tormenting her mother on Christmas. Holly helps the readers to fall in love with her daughter, just as she did, so they're invested in what's plaguing Tatty and how it can be resolved.

Holly is a sympathetic character. As she looks back on her journey to adopt and raise Tatiana, she identifies her faults and failures as a first-time mother, looking for ways she could have changed, been a better mother, so this Christmas day would have turned out differently. Who hasn't experienced regrets and can't identify with this feeling? As Holly learns throughout her day, hindsight is 20/20 and sometimes when we simply don't want to see what's right in front of us, we don't.

As the white pristine snow blankets the world outside her home, chaos rages inside Holly's world. So clear your calendar once you pick this one up because you aren't going to want to take a time out for anything until you discover exactly what followed Holly, Eric and Tatiana home from Russia!

Mind of Winter is available in hardcover (ISBN: 978-0062284396) from Harper. There is also an unabridged audiobook version (ISBN: 978-1482992670), narrated by Justine Eyre available from Blackstone Audio.

My review of Mind of Winter is part of the TLC Book Tour. You can see what other bloggers are saying about the novel, by visiting the tour site for a complete list of tour participants. And you can learn more about Laura Kasischke at her website.

Disclosure: I do some contractual work for one of the owners of TLC Blog Tours. My work does not involve this tour or any other tour I would agree to be a part of here at the blog. Nor does my work with them obligate me to a specific kind of review. The reviews are still my own opinions and reflect only my thoughts on the novels. If you care to read more, you can find more information on my Disclosure page.

I'll Sleep When You're Dead - E.A. Aymar

First line: "Just an hour before my wife was murdered, I pulled into a long line of vehicles waiting outside of our daughter's elementary school."

Tom Starks is a young community college literature professor whose life is turned inside out the day his wife is brutally murdered. Left alone to raise his adopted daughter, Julie, Tom's nightmare intensifies when the man convicted of killing his wife is released from jail three years later. Tom's wounds are still fresh and his grief still intense. He is determined to see justice done, even if that means hiring an assassin. If the courts won't make the man pay for his sins, Tom will act as judge, jury and executioner himself.

But Tom learns that doling out justice isn't a nice tidy business. The circle of Hell he found himself in from his wife's murder pales in comparison to the lower ring he enters when his assassin bungles the job and comes after him and his daughter.

I'll Sleep When You're Dead has some major strengths as a novel and it has some major weaknesses. E.A. Aymar depicts a man blinded by the grief brought on from his wife's murder. It's hard not to feel compassion for that. But Tom's self-absorption with this grief makes him a less empathetic character, especially when he seems to prioritize his own grief over that of everyone else's, including his young daughter Julie.

Tom seems devoted to Julie at times and at other times he comes across as a man who'd rather be freed from the burden of the pre-teen girl, not of his own loins. From one vantage point this might be attributable to his uncontrollable grief--Tom's done nothing healthy to deal with the despair stemming from his wife's murder. From another point, it casts Tom in a shallow light, more like the evil step-dad than the all-protecting father.

Aymar builds the reader's awareness of Tom's state of mind through flashbacks and comically inserted visits from Tom's wife's spirit. In addition he creeps in with several scenes from Tom's classroom where his students are studying Alexander Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. The lessons the students learn about Dumas' symbolism parallel Tom's plight. These individual pieces are all good contributions to Tom's character, but the building stage consumes over half the book and the action of the plot doesn't pick up until late in the novel. This helps to build the sense that Tom is wavering over his decision to hire a killer but it also slows the momentum of the novel considerably; for the first half of the book readers are wondering if it was shelved in the wrong genre section.

While not unusual for a first novel, the language and writing often came across as awkward and forced. Instead of flowing naturally and causing the reader to be swept away in the story, the mechanics were obvious.

E.A. Aymar has a great concept for the first book in his Dead Trilogy, I'm just not sure the execution of the idea was as strong as it should have been.

I'll Sleep When You're Dead is available in trade paperback (ISBN: 9781626940857) from Black Opal Books.

My post today is part of the TLC blog tour for I'll Sleep When You're Dead. You can check out the other bloggers who are participating in the tour and see their reactions to this novel as well.

Disclosure: I do some contractual work for one of the owners of TLC Blog Tours. My work does not involve this tour or any other tour I would agree to be a part of here at the blog. Nor does my work with them obligate me to a specific kind of review. The reviews are still my own opinions and reflect only my thoughts on the novels. If you care to read more, you can find more information on my Disclosure page. 

The Magic Circle - Jenny Davidson

First line: "YOU: the most junior reporter at the New York Tribune."

Ruth, Lucy and Anna are a circle of friends who develop an unusual obsession with live-action, role-acting games. Ruth has made this her career passion and is working on a game "Trapped in the Asylum" for the college campus where she is working. Lucy is Ruth's roommate and at first the most reluctant to be involved in these role-acting games. Anna lives down the hall from Lucy and Ruth. She's a Danish sociologist in New York to study cultures of urban exploration and she presents herself as fearless.

When Anna begins to take a special interest in Ruth's games and her brother shows up unexpectedly, the group develops a game around Euripides' tragedy The Bacchae. As the game becomes more intense, the stakes continue to rise.

Ruth explains that the "magic circle" is "just a way of talking about the amoeba-shaped space of play, one that's distinctly demarcated from the ordinary world outside. Whatever happens within the magic circle is fundamentally discontinuous with the external world." But what happens when the magic circle stops being discontinuous and begins to bleed into the external world?

Jenny Davidson has a great underlying concept for her story in this novel. She attempts creative ways of telling the story with unreliable narrators. Her characters are highly intelligent women who become wrapped up in a "game" readers would assume they knew better than to engage in. But this simply illustrates a magnitude that can exist when intelligent people get lost in the energy. Think of the brilliant people who allude the authorities as serial killers or those that take control of their governments and wreak havoc. The young adult book The Wave is a true-life example of how otherwise smart individuals become consumed not only with power but the sense of belonging, the sense of order. And World War II is probably the most mortifying example of it. Davidson seems to be aiming at both a psychological and intellectual game through these characters.

I did not, however, feel that her approach to telling the story created a tight, cohesive plot. I often found myself thinking, "where is she going with this" then never being able to answer the question. And at times I felt the poetic language was weighing down the story instead of moving it along--it looked nice but wasn't functional. The novel itself is not long, coming in at under 200 pages, but I felt there was a significant amount that could have been cut without damaging the heart of the story.

One of my aims when I read a novel is to figure out what I believe the author's goal was with the story. I don't think I was able to fully realize this in The Magic Circle. And that may be my fault as a reader--possibly having expectations that I should not have--and it may be Davidson's fault as the writer in not making that recognizable. The only real judge for that is other readers. This wasn't a book that blew my skirt up, but it may be just your cup of tea.

My review is part of the TLC Blog Tour. You can get an idea of what the other readers on the tour thought of The Magic Circle. The full schedule is listed here.

The Magic Circle is available in trade paperback (ISBN: 978-0544028098) from New Harvest and an unabridged audiobook version (ISBN: 978-1469282855), narrated by Emily Beresford from Brilliance Audio.

Disclosure: In recent months I have begun doing some contractual work for one of the owners of TLC Blog Tours. My work does not involve this tour or any other tour I would agree to a part of here at the blog. Nor does my work with them obligate me to a specific kind of review. The reviews are still my own opinions and reflect only my thoughts on the novels. If you care to read more, you can find more information on my Disclosure page.