Collected Miscellany

It really wasn’t my intention but I have taken a little break from blogging. As I noted below it has been a combination of things to mundane to mention. Sometimes you just get out of the blogging rhythm. Life interferes, etc. I just need to find my modus operandi for the summer; get a sense of the what, when, where, and why. A full blown overhaul isn’t needed just a little adjustment. I should be set to go sometime this week

I have a variety of books yet to review (from Christian thrillers to sports memoirs to grammar books) so check back periodically for new content.

As a huge fan of the Sharpe Series by Bernard Cornwell (Richard Sharpe is a British soldier during the Napoleonic Wars – a must read for all military history fiction fans – the first book is Sharpe’s Tiger), I decided to explore some more of Cornwell’s writings. As a result, I came across the Grail Quest Series (book titles include The Archer’s Tale, Vagabond, and Heretic). As you can tell from the Series title, the books concentrate on the mystery of the whereabouts of the Holy Grail. This Series is as well written and researched as the Sharpe Series. They are well worth a look.

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As I noted in a recent In the Mail, I haven’t read a great deal of Christian fiction. I have read fiction by Christians and about Christians, but nothing that was strictly in this category. When I thought about it, which wasn’t all that often, it seemed to me that “CBA” books were dominated by romance and historical fiction or some combination of the two. I admit I didn’t do much research, but what I saw never really caught my eye.

Recently, I have sought to reassess this situation by reading some of best this category has to offer. To make it easier on myself I asked Dave at Faith in Fiction for some recommendations (more about those books later) and I joined the Christian Fiction Blog Tour.

It took awhile to get on the list and start getting the books, so this week is my first of actual participation. The book covered is Kathryn Mackel’s The Hidden If this book is any indication of the overall quality, I am excited about the rest of the year. The Hidden turned out to be an emotional and suspenseful supernatural thriller. I found myself reading furiously trying to finish. I read on the bus to work this morning, at lunch, and on the way home in order to finish.

The plot focuses on Boston psychiatrist Susan Stone who returns to her childhood home in Colorado to help her injured father run his horse farm. Things get off to a rough start when the birthing of her father’s prize Arabian goes badly. This escalates tensions and brings all kinds of family grudges to the surface. Unable to deal with her feelings Susan heads off into the stormy night on the same horse that threw her father and sent him to the hospital.

Leading the horse up the dangerous mountainside she is thrown from the horse and into a dark crevice. There she finds a young man chained in a cave. In helping this mysterious stranger Susan unleashes events that will change her family, and the sleepy Colorado town they live in, forever.

Continue reading →

As I noted in a recent In the Mail, I haven’t read a great deal of Christian fiction. I have read fiction by Christians and about Christians, but nothing that was strictly in this category. When I thought about it, which wasn’t all that often, it seemed to me that “CBA” books were dominated by romance and historical fiction or some combination of the two. I admit I didn’t do much research, but what I saw never really caught my eye.

Recently, I have sought to reassess this situation by reading some of best this category has to offer. To make it easier on myself I asked Dave at Faith in Fiction for some recommendations (more about those books later) and I joined the Christian Fiction Blog Tour.

It took awhile to get on the list and start getting the books, so this week is my first of actual participation. The book covered is Kathryn Mackel’s The Hidden If this book is any indication of the overall quality, I am excited about the rest of the year. The Hidden turned out to be an emotional and suspenseful supernatural thriller. I found myself reading furiously trying to finish. I read on the bus to work this morning, at lunch, and on the way home in order to finish.

The plot focuses on Boston psychiatrist Susan Stone who returns to her childhood home in Colorado to help her injured father run his horse farm. Things get off to a rough start when the birthing of her father’s prize Arabian goes badly. This escalates tensions and brings all kinds of family grudges to the surface. Unable to deal with her feelings Susan heads off into the stormy night on the same horse that threw her father and sent him to the hospital.

Leading the horse up the dangerous mountainside she is thrown from the horse and into a dark crevice. There she finds a young man chained in a cave. In helping this mysterious stranger Susan unleashes events that will change her family, and the sleepy Colorado town they live in, forever.

Continue reading →

I missed this until today, but Chicago Sun-Times book editor Henry Kisor is retiring this Friday:

In retirement I’m going to keep on writing, working on my North Woods mystery novels, revising an old book for a new edition and doing a little historical fiction. I’ll also spend time in the basement workshop, fashioning what I hope will be fine oak furniture in the Arts and Crafts style. You’ll find me at the airfield, too, babying my vintage Cessna two-seater and soaring over the countryside. There is also that growing number of grandchildren for my wife, Deborah, and me to spoil.

In the evenings I’ll sit by the fire with a glass of sherry, the dog warming my feet, reading the latest books as well as the classics. But this time I won’t have to view them with a critical eye — I’ll just plunge into pools of imagination and drift on waves of wonder.

It was a fine, fulfilling time, these last 33 years, and I thank you all for being part of it.

For more on Kisor see my reviews of his Northwoods mysteries Season’s Revenge and A Venture Into Murder as well as my Q&As with the author here and here.

I wish Mr. Kisor the best of luck on his retirement and will look forward to reading more of his fiction.

Richard Lewis, whose young adult novel The Flame Tree was one of my favorites of 2004, has a new novel coming out at the end of the year. THE KILLING SEA: A Novel about the Tsunami that Stunned the World is forthcoming from Simon and Schuster in December. The novel’s film rights have already been bought by Fox 2000 and Scott Free Productions.

Lewis, whose parents were American missionaries to Indonesia, also blogs about surfing and writing from Bali at Novelist in Paradise. Here is how he described how his second novel came to be:

I was a volunteer relief worker in Aceh immediately after the tsunami disaster, and spent a total of about a month there. My agent Scott Miller urged me to write a story, which came naturally out of the dozens and dozens of people I talked to, and the ground I covered in my volunteer work. Because this is primarily for the US market, I introduced a American teenaged girl and her younger brother, traveling on a sailboat that is caught in the disaster. Her story is interwoven with that of a teenaged Acehnese boy, and who meets up with her.

I wrote a couple opening chapters and a synopsis of the rest of the story as I saw it. Simon and Schuster bought it overnight, the quickest turnaround Scott has had.

So check out the blog and look for The Killing Sea at the end of the year.

P.s. Here is a Q&A I did with Lewis last year.