Anthology – The Beast Within The Howling / Smoke on the Water / Redeeming the Wizard

Authors: Jennifer Lyon, Erin McCarthy, Bianca D’Arc

Review by Cynthia F. (frazerc)

Loosely themed anthology with the usual ups and downs.  Action based plots.

“The Howling” BY Erin McCarthy I can’t review as I didn’t read it. I really dislike the Russian folktale that is the basis of the term “throwing someone to the wolves” and since it opens with that I moved on the next one.  I’m sure the author wrote it beautifully – she always does – it just wasn’t for me.

“Smoke On The Water” BY Bianca D’arc was a good read – zombies and spies oh my!  Our hero is the surly but well trained agent and resents being assigned to work with our heroine is not.  A chemist by training who happens to be immune to the zombie infection she’s been dumped into the deep end and told to swim.  As the heroine says to herself:  “I’m no Chuck Norris, I’m not even Chuck E. Cheese!”  Frankly, the whole shambling undead thing is a turn-off for me but the interplay between the hero and heroine kept me reading.

“Redeeming The Wizard” BY Jennifer Lyon was the real winner of this anthology.  I loved it.  The hero is a wizard with issues [fried powers, a portal that leaks demons, and trust issues – all generated by the betrayal of a woman] and a heroine with issues [no magic which puts her way at the bottom of the food chain, undeserved guilt over the death of her parents, and now her beloved grandmother has been kidnapped].  She marches off to demand the wizard find her Gram – she threatens him with blackmail and then promises anything his heart desires…  Interesting world, I’d like to see more of it.

Iscariot: A Novel of Judas by Tosca Lee

Review by Kelsey O.

Wow.

This was a really deep novel. The reader is taken to the very heart of a very complex and conflicted man. Tosca’s storytelling of Judas’ life makes you rethink everything you know and have been taught. Judas did not come by his decision lightly when he turned Jesus over to Pontius Pilate. He didn’t even know that is what he was doing. He thought he was saving Jesus but his limited knowledge of the law (even though he really did think he knew everything) was used against him.

Judas starts his life out being the son of a traitor and it seems everyone he attaches to becomes one also. In Jesus, he thinks he finally found someone to believe in so he joins the Nazarene’s followers in hopes of finally being free of Rome’s rule. Unfortunately, Jesus has other plans and so begins the frustration on Judas’ part. He never understands why Jesus just won’t toe the line a bit instead of always going against the old Jewish laws.

Iscariot: A Novel of Judas is worth reading. Not only for the recreating of the harsh living of people back then but for the different view of the life of Jesus Christ. The reader is taken on a journey through the eyes of Judas and dives into why a man who has obvious devotion for the Nazarene ends up betraying him.

Strawberry Yellow by Naomi Hirahara

Review by Cheryl R. (Spuddie)

#5 Mas Arai series; protagonist: Mas Arai, 70=something Nisei (American born of Japanese immigrants) who is a gardener and lives in LA. Mas (short for Masao) went with his parents to live in Japan and he is a survivor of the Hiroshima bomb, after which he returned to his native California.

This series has become one of my favorites and I was very happy to see this newest entry published a short time ago after a break of several years. I always get a bit of culture shock at first getting inside Mas’ head because…well, because he’s not a white, middle aged Midwestern woman I guess. LOL What I mean to say is that the author does a wonderful job of making you believe from the inside out that Mas is who she says he is. J

In this book, Mas is off north to Watsonville (his hometown) for the funeral of his second cousin, Shigero “Shug” Arai. Being a bit of a loner and not one given to emotional displays, Mas really isn’t eager for all the nostalgia he feels seeing his old stomping grounds and friends from his youth and hopes to return quietly home after the funeral, having done his duty by attending. However, Minnie, Shug’s widow, corners him and tells him that she believes her husband was murdered. Unlike the humble Mas, who works in the dirt and drives an old beat up Ford pickup held together with duct tape and love, Shug was a college-educated man who became a famous strawberry breeder and his company was about to reveal a new strain of berry that was described as revolutionary, and immune to the yellowing disease that plagues strawberries from time to time.

When a young hakujin (white) woman who was having an affair with Shug’s son is found murdered soon after the funeral, Mas begins to wonder if the widow isn’t right and agrees to stick around for a day or two and see what he can discover. Besides, the police have told him they may have “more questions” for him, since he provided the alibi for their chief suspect, Shug’s son, so he’s not really free to leave anyway. Then his motel room is broken into and searched and the brake line on his truck is tampered with, and Mas gets deeper and deeper into tying together the old wounds of the past to present-day motives for revenge.

Poor Mas! He always ends up putting his foot in it, when he’d like nothing more than to do his work and live a quiet, peaceful life—a cold beer, a game of dice or cards with his friends now and then. He’s a delightful, well-fleshed character with a definite personality and each of these books have provided a focus on a different cultural facet of Japanese-American life that I have very much enjoyed learning about from the inside via Mas. Some people have said they didn’t like the sort of accented pidjin-English Mas speaks and thought it was demeaning. I personally thought it added flavor and seemed quite realistic and helped with the whole believability factor of the character. I very much look forward to the next installment in this series. I also have to admit that I will probably never look at those plastic clamshells full of red, ripe strawberries at the market in quite the same way again! Highly recommend this series, although it’s always better to start from the beginning with Summer of the Big Bachi. Enjoy!

By Fire, By Water by Mitchell James Kaplan

Review by Mirah W. (mwelday)

When I plan to travel to a new place I like to read books set in that location prior to my visit.  I feel it gives me one more way to connect to a place and it bridges two of the things I love most in life: reading and traveling.  In preparation for my trip to Spain this summer, I found ‘By Fire, By Water’ by Mitchell James Kaplan.  Set in the late 1400s, the novel explores the Inquisition during the reign of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.  At the heart of the novel is Luis de Santangel, the Chancellor of Aragon and a converso, meaning he is of Jewish descent but converted to Christianity.  Throughout the novel Luis learns life lessons through his various trials and relationships.  The novel takes place in several cities I will be visiting, including Seville, Toledo, Cordoba and Granada.

Having not read much about the Inquisition, I was looking forward to learning more about Spanish history.  What Kaplan created is an almost living, breathing account of the events.  The characters came across as very real and genuine and the depiction of society was disturbingly real.  I can’t imagine life during that time; even if a person was doing nothing wrong, he or she would have been constantly concerned with how someone might misconstrue an action or word.  The Inquisition tore apart families and communities and it seems even those in positions of authority had their hands tied against challenging the system.

At a time of so much persecution it is easy to imagine how someone could lose sight of his or her true identity.  At one point in the story, Luis contemplates his life, relationships and decisions.  This was his conclusion: ‘A person was a web of relationships with social and religious groups, with society as a whole, with God.  To change these affiliations was to alter one’s being.  To sever them was to destroy oneself.’

As a reader who likes to have all the loose ends tied up, I appreciate when the author gives me the complete tale.  In my opinion, certain stories are not conducive to an interpretive ending and I think this is one of those stories.  So fear not, Kaplan provides an epilogue to let us know what happens to the characters, aside from what we all know happens for Christopher Columbus and the New World.  At least, I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by letting that cat out of the bag.

The Author’s Note provides some of the historical facts and persons included in the novel.  There is no doubt Kaplan did his research and, in the end, it helped him create a story that is simultaneously heartbreaking and hopeful.  I am glad I chose this book to help me get ready for my trip.  When I’m walking through Seville or Cordoba or exploring the Alhambra I’ll have a perspective, and perhaps a different appreciation and understanding, I wouldn’t have had without reading this book.

The Unsuspected by Charlotte Armstrong

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

This outstanding suspense novel from 1946 opens with nephew Francis talking to his Aunt Jane. They are contemporaries – Jane was the youngest sister of Francis’ dad – so they share a set of friends. They are discussing the apparent suicide of Francis’ fiancé Rosaleen. Neither can believe Rosaleen did away with herself in the home of a rich and famous radio and theater producer named Luther “Grandy” Grandison who employed her as a secretary and accountant.

They reluctantly conclude that Grandy might have murdered her so this novel is more ‘howdunnit’ than ‘whodunnit.’ I don’t want to give away the twists that complicate their gathering of evidence that proves Grandy as the perp. But I can say that a love angle makes things lively too. The smooth writing makes us shrug over the improbabilities. The climax is a winner, in a unique setting, with the scales falling from the heroine’s eyes and her rising to the occasion to save her sweetie, in a nod to tried and true Gothic tradition.

Readers of a certain age will no doubt recognize the style of the cover. When Dark Shadows made Gothic cool, lots of book covers imitated the look. Young heroine. Walking the grounds of remote creepy mansion. Full moon shining through leafless trees. But though this novel has Gothic elements, it really isn’t a Gothic.

As a page-turner of a suspense novel, it is not surprising that it was a best-seller in its time. So much so that it was made into a movie in 1947. One of the first film noir movies, it was directed by heavy-hitter Michael Curtiz and starred a well-cast as Grandy Claude Rains, best known as The Invisible Man and the oily shocked shocked police inspector in Casablanca.

How can a writer who could write a tour de force like this thriller be so neglected today? Luckily she is very well represented here at PBS, with piles of novels up for ordering. Go to it! Enjoy!

Below are some of Charlotte Armstrong’s books that are currently available to order. Click on the cover image to be taken to the book information page on PBS.

Lord of Darkness by Elizabeth Hoyt

Review by Issa S. (Issa-345)

This book was hard to rate.  To start out, I loved Thief of Shadows.  Winter Makepeace is my favorite historical hero of all time so I knew this one would not live up to the prior one but I was surprised by how far it fell.

Godric St. John, one of several Ghosts of St. Giles, is blackmailed into marrying Margaret (Megs) who is pregnant with her dead lover’s child.  She loses the baby and lives in the country for two years.  She decides to return to London, with a number of female family members, to seduce her husband because she wants a baby.

Not enamored by Megs and her entourage he rebuffs his wife’s seduction and continues his ghostly duties.  He has yet to get over the loss of his late wife Clara and is committed to his work as the Ghost.

Neither Godric nor Megs was fleshed out well.  Megs has little personality to recommend her and her push to force Godric to give her a child off putting.  Godric is dull.  We learn why he became the Ghost, but the passion we felt with Winter Makepeace is sorely missing.

Megs learns Godric is the Ghost the same way Isabel found out in the previous book so no fresh ideas there.  And by the end of this one, everyone seems to know Godric is the Ghost.  Here I thought the secrecy regarding the Ghost was important.

Godric and Megs’s love story never really grabbed me and in the end I didn’t care if they had their HEA or not.

However, I rated the book a little higher for two things.  I liked the set up for the next book and am very hopeful for that one.  I’m also intrigued with the story of the dragoon captain Trevillion. I hope Hoyt expands what she’s doing with him and makes it better than an simple, obvious conclusion.

This is not a bad book, I still enjoyed reading it but it is one of the weaker books of the series.

The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman

Review by Vicky T. (VickyJo)

Early in February of this year, archaeologists made an amazing discovery: a skeleton buried under a parking lot in Leicester, England turned out to be the remains of King Richard III, the last Plantagenet king to rule England.  The skeleton itself was unearthed the previous fall, but finally identified, thanks to DNA testing.

I was all over this story, for several reasons.  I have a degree in physical anthropology, which involves the study and identification of human bones; I love English history, the earlier the better; and like so many others, I was familiar with Richard III and the controversy over his life.  He had a pretty awful reputation as the man who killed his two young nephews in order to become King.  William Shakespeare portrayed him as an evil hunchback with a withered arm and uncontrolled, amoral ambition.

The New York Times as a nice article, photo and a video about the story at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/world/europe/richard-the-third-bones.html?_r=0 for those of you who are interested.  I was fascinated!  First, the spine is definitely shaped like the letter S—a sign of scoliosis.  (His arms look fine, though.  Will Shakespeare must have exaggerated just a bit—yet another fascinating discovery!) His skeleton shows the proof of many wounds; Richard died in battle after ruling England for a short two years.  Plus, the fact that scientists found viable DNA from a 500 year old skeleton was amazing too.  I guess this makes me a Bone Geek, but there it is.

All of this fascinating news led me to pick up the novel The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman.  It tells the story of Richard III from his early childhood until his death in 1485.  Penman does her research; this is beautifully written and at almost 1,000 pages, very thorough in scope.  I happen to own a first edition hardcover of this book, but believe me, I was very tempted to spend $10 and buy it for my Kindle, just to save my poor wrists!  Penman tells us the potentially confusing story of the War of the Roses, a battle between the House of York and the House of Lancaster for the throne of England.  She does a terrific job of helping the reader keep all the characters and the events straight.  It was a complicated time politically, and Penman outlines how alliances and loyalties might have been created, changed and abandoned.  I think any author that writes of this time takes a stand, and leads the reader to take one as well: either you believe Richard did make his nephews “disappear” from the Tower in order to take the crown, or you believe he was innocent and wrongly maligned by his political enemies.  Penman is solidly on Richard’s side.

The problem with reading historical fiction is that I know how this story is going to end.  Richard will die on the battle field of Bosworth, but first, he will lose his young son and heir, and his wife, Queen Anne.  I’m almost on page 800, so it’s coming soon, and it’s incredible how sad I’m feeling, knowing these characters that I’ve come to love will soon perish.  But I have to say that, knowing now where his remains are makes it a little easier to reach the end of this wonderful novel.  The story hasn’t ended yet, for there is another great battle brewing: where to bury his remains now that the lost King has been found.  Stay tuned!