(This is another one I got to read at the beta stage, and I recommend it. Ms. Monson asked for opinions on a chapter in the middle, and I was hooked. When she asked for beta readers for the whole book, I volunteered.)
It's women's fiction, a love story, romance, inductive mystery, thriller, tale of stalking, tragedy, tale from an unreliable witness, ...
Potent mix.
Recapping the blurb:
Deb finds herself facing mid-life crisis, bored, questioning her own marriage, and tempted by a forbidden relationship, as two friends face much more difficult crises.
Her old friend Betty deals with old wounds from a love lost long ago, wounds which are reopened in a life-threatening manner.
Her new friend Mariah comes to grip with tragic loss when her husband suffers a disabling injury at the worst possible time, and then faces an even greater loss.
Betty and Mariah have hard choices forced on them, but are able to find a choice for a hopeful future.
Deb helps them both by just being there for them. But who will help Deb when she gives in to temptation?
Her help comes from a source she did not expect, although both she and the reader have a few hints along the way.
Dark in places, this is a heartwarming novel with a twist of an ending that reminds the reader that life can still be good.
The book listing on goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40977365-when-love-is-lost
Can be purchased on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/When-Love-Lost-Kaameo-Monson-ebook/dp/B07FMRG241
Showing posts with label romance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label romance. Show all posts
Monday, December 30, 2019
Monday, August 5, 2019
Book Review: Meet Me at Half Court, by Julie Spencer
Julie Spencer is an author of sweet romance ranging from teenage to adult. I think she writes other things as well, but that seems to be her focus right now. She likes to post some of her works in progress in her blogs as she writes, so that fans and other interested parties can get hooked read them.
I've been reading along and commenting on some of those, and she asked if I'd put up a review of Meet Me at Half Court.
The premise is simple. A tomboy high school girl with a genius for basketball and an eye for a college scholarship finds herself choosing between her old, good looking next-door-neighbor boyfriend from elementary school days with a bit of history, whose interests lie in something other than basketball, and an equally good looking new transfer student basketball player with an attitude and something of an excuse for it, and something in his garage that he probably doesn't want all the kids at school knowing he has.
Let's see what else I can say without having to give a spoiler alert.
I find myself wishing Julie had been willing to draw the plot out a bit and give the story less of a binary ending. (I have friends who have been in the position of the less-favored boy, you see.)
I suspect it will be more interesting to middle grade girls than other audiences, generally speaking. There are a lot of fun scenes. The sports angle works, although it could have been worked harder if she had been willing to add chapters. There are some gooey romance scenes, but they stay appropriate for an audience not looking for steam.
I think I can also recommend it to Japanese high
school students looking for something relatively safe and relatively simply and modern to build their English
reading skills with. And for parents looking for something for their middle grade children to read.
Monday, July 30, 2018
Book Review -- Diving for Love by Jenny Flake Rabe
Yeah, it's a quirky title. Not exactly the worst choice for the title, and I'm not sure I could have chosen a better title, but it might make you expect it to be about pearl divers.
Or about snuba divers.
Oh. Wait. It is about snuba divers.
Or about one part-time snuba diver guide, negotiating deep and dangerous waters of personal and social relationships during one summer of high school. And about her summer job helping her uncle with his snuba business.
You can read the official blurb on Amazon or Goodreads or, say, the Balanced Writer. My summary follows:
Mariana takes us on a tethered dive through a slice of her life that skirts ethnic issues and plows through moral and economic issues as she solves several mysteries in her life, the most important of which is why her best friend doesn't seem to want to be her boyfriend. Most important, that is, until her uncle's busines and her grandmother's house become targets of sabotage and her own life is endangered.
Now, Jenny never took any of my advice when she was writing it. (Well, just once.) And that's actually a good thing. If she had written the first two chapters my way, the story would have been over before it began. The other young lady would never have had a chance with the best friend, and neither would the mysterious other guy with Mariana. And that unscrupulous businessman would have been dead meat within a week of Mariana's arriving at her Grandmother's house and her uncle's snuba outfit, I'm pretty sure.
So we get to enjoy watching Mariana solve her mysteries and untangle that very important tangled relationship, with the help of her grandmother, uncle, uncle's girlfriend, mother, and others close to her. And of course with the help of her best friend. And Abuela's wonderful cooking.
Fun reading.
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
New Book -- The Witch of White Lady Hollow -- by C. David Belt
Some might question whether a good Mormon could write real horror novels.
But many good Mormons read horror novels. I think I might suggest that is at least one good reason why we need good Mormon authors to write in the horror genre.
The Witch of White Lady Hollow, by C. David Belt, is a new novel in the horror/fantasy genre. When it is published, you will be able to find it in the usual places. (I had the opportunity to beta-read it through the LDS Beta Readers group on Facebook.)
The setup has a Mormon divorcee, Molly Moonshadow, moving to a 1970s backwater town in Missouri with her high school-aged daughter Tabitha, to teach, and to escape from an abusive ex-husband. She has found a cheap house outside city limits where she can live with her daughter.
That the house is haunted is probably not surprising, but what--or who haunts it, and how dangerous the haunting is, is a very interesting story that takes much of the novel to unfold.
Whether the haunting is limited to their house or extends beyond it is another question of interest, as is the involvement of the local police, other high school staff, students, and even the local branch of the Church.
Belt uses the tools of horror fantasy to explore some very real issues of abuse. Sexual preference, gender identity, power relationships, and rape are also touched on. Innocent people do get hurt, but abusive people get their just deserts (sometimes in ways that are graphic enough to turn more than the stomach -- be warned).
If you are lookig for light fantasy, this is not. But it's also not a one-way trip down.
I am not a fan of horror, so it's a little out of my genre. But I think it's a good read, and thought-provoking. I suspect that some of my friends and family who are fans of horror will find it a very good read, too.
But many good Mormons read horror novels. I think I might suggest that is at least one good reason why we need good Mormon authors to write in the horror genre.
The Witch of White Lady Hollow, by C. David Belt, is a new novel in the horror/fantasy genre. When it is published, you will be able to find it in the usual places. (I had the opportunity to beta-read it through the LDS Beta Readers group on Facebook.)
The setup has a Mormon divorcee, Molly Moonshadow, moving to a 1970s backwater town in Missouri with her high school-aged daughter Tabitha, to teach, and to escape from an abusive ex-husband. She has found a cheap house outside city limits where she can live with her daughter.
That the house is haunted is probably not surprising, but what--or who haunts it, and how dangerous the haunting is, is a very interesting story that takes much of the novel to unfold.
Whether the haunting is limited to their house or extends beyond it is another question of interest, as is the involvement of the local police, other high school staff, students, and even the local branch of the Church.
Belt uses the tools of horror fantasy to explore some very real issues of abuse. Sexual preference, gender identity, power relationships, and rape are also touched on. Innocent people do get hurt, but abusive people get their just deserts (sometimes in ways that are graphic enough to turn more than the stomach -- be warned).
If you are lookig for light fantasy, this is not. But it's also not a one-way trip down.
I am not a fan of horror, so it's a little out of my genre. But I think it's a good read, and thought-provoking. I suspect that some of my friends and family who are fans of horror will find it a very good read, too.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
New Book -- Off Script -- by Liv Bartlet: Contemporary Love Fantasy
Again, being a member of the LDS Beta Readers Group on Facebook has given me a chance to review a new book: Off Script, by Liv Bartlet (Rebecca Charlton and Sarah McKnight). This is a book I read in beta versions and was gifted a copy of the published version.
From one point of view, the story is a modern interpretation of a Regency-style romance -- how a pair develop their relationship while threading through the unwritten rules of upper-class (modern) society.
From another point of view, it's an examination of violence and power in relationships, and something of an implicit advocacy piece, especially for women, providing an LDS/Mormon female protagonist as a proxy for women's issues and other characters as proxy for other current social issues. (The advocacy does not qet in the way of enjoying it as a novel.)
The context is an intersection of LDS and non-LDS adult society, but the LDS society seems to be a proxy for pious society, and is not crypticaly LDS. I think the LDS references will not be opaque to non-LDS readers -- the reader will find them similar to references to Catholicism or any protestant sect as plot devices in many novels.
Warnings up front, there are several make-out or similar scenes, terminated by one or the other protagonist's sense of morals, or especially by the authors' sense of modesty in one case. There is one date rape scene, curtained by the female protagonist's delirium and loss of consciousness. There is also some violence. These elements are not gratuitous, but integral to the plot.
It should be considered oriented towards a mature reader.
The authors are intentionally provocative, and provide a list of topics of discussion at the end.
You can find the book at Amazon, at least. (Google search as https://www.google.com/search?q=off+script+liv+bartlet.)
My personal evaluation:
It is carefully crafted and flows well, and is not too long. (There were several scenes cut from the beta version I read which I admit I missed in the published version. But cutting them does make for a better read.)
The parts that are supposed to be enjoyable are enjoyable, those parts that are supposed to evoke other emotions are somewhat modulated, so as not to cause the reader to want too much to throw the book at a wall. (The beta copy was a bit more visceral.) Overall, it is both enjoyable and thought provoking.
I'll give it at least four out of five.
From one point of view, the story is a modern interpretation of a Regency-style romance -- how a pair develop their relationship while threading through the unwritten rules of upper-class (modern) society.
From another point of view, it's an examination of violence and power in relationships, and something of an implicit advocacy piece, especially for women, providing an LDS/Mormon female protagonist as a proxy for women's issues and other characters as proxy for other current social issues. (The advocacy does not qet in the way of enjoying it as a novel.)
The context is an intersection of LDS and non-LDS adult society, but the LDS society seems to be a proxy for pious society, and is not crypticaly LDS. I think the LDS references will not be opaque to non-LDS readers -- the reader will find them similar to references to Catholicism or any protestant sect as plot devices in many novels.
Warnings up front, there are several make-out or similar scenes, terminated by one or the other protagonist's sense of morals, or especially by the authors' sense of modesty in one case. There is one date rape scene, curtained by the female protagonist's delirium and loss of consciousness. There is also some violence. These elements are not gratuitous, but integral to the plot.
It should be considered oriented towards a mature reader.
The authors are intentionally provocative, and provide a list of topics of discussion at the end.
You can find the book at Amazon, at least. (Google search as https://www.google.com/search?q=off+script+liv+bartlet.)
My personal evaluation:
It is carefully crafted and flows well, and is not too long. (There were several scenes cut from the beta version I read which I admit I missed in the published version. But cutting them does make for a better read.)
The parts that are supposed to be enjoyable are enjoyable, those parts that are supposed to evoke other emotions are somewhat modulated, so as not to cause the reader to want too much to throw the book at a wall. (The beta copy was a bit more visceral.) Overall, it is both enjoyable and thought provoking.
I'll give it at least four out of five.
Sunday, January 21, 2018
Romance from Friendship
Some interesting things came together for me today while I was talking with Jenny Flake Rabe about romance literature.
Background:
While participating in the LDS Beta Readers group on Facebook, I was made aware that romance, in the fantasy novel subsection of the publishing industry, at least, means stories in which people get together at the end, after all the obstacles that would prevent them from doing so.
Now, when I was in high school, the definition of romance for literary purposes was still somewhat rooted in the old definition. Romance then was what we now call adventure, and adventure then was generally not the fun, easy, happy adventure we think of now, but adventure with real risks, that did not always turn out well.
So the publishing industry only wants no-risk romance of the heart?
We've lost something.
The greatest feature of human existence is to learn from our mistakes. That means we need literature about failure as well as success. We need more examples of relationships that don't work out the way they are planned to work out.
But that was not what I was discussing with Mrs. Rabe.
Recently, five of the participants in LDS Beta Readers have put together a cooperative Regency romance group that they are publishing serially using WordPress. It's a fun read. If you are a fan of the ton, as I have said somewhere else, you might want to sign up.
And I learned that Regency romances are about the period of British history known as the Regency, a period of social change in Britain.
(This might or might not be important. Fashion during the Regency was one of the few periods in which the corset was not a part of the fashionable female wardrobe, and I would like to research whether fashion reflects a broader allowance of women's rights. But I do not know about such things when I write this.
If this is a meaningful observation, it would indicate the Regency period as an intersection between freedom and protection which was repeated for a larger class in the USA during the 1940s to '70s, where women were both treated with respect and allowed to direct their own course to some extent.)
Regency romance novels are primarily about navigating the complex protocols of upper class and upper-middle class British society of the period, from acquaintence to social intimacy, from there to courtship against protocol, ending with finding a successful loophole in the protocol to allow moving from courtship to marriage. This is presented as an adventure, in either sense, and thus as a romance of the heart.
Many Regency romances start with the co-protagonists already being in a friendship. The greatest conflict is the risk of changing the relationship. If things do not go well, a value friendship can be lost, and both parties are usually hesitant to take that risk.
There is a class of social philosophy that suggests that the route from friendship, through courtship, to contracted marriage is an excessively dangerous course. I don't know where that philosophy comes from.
Yes, feelings can be hurt, but real friendship survives hurt feelings.
Romance novels are fantasy, of course. But they do provide something of a window on society.
Fantasies themselves are not just escapist recreation.
We use fiction to construct abstract models of reality. The are notoriously inaccurate, but that is not a problem. Most of our science begins with notoriously inaccurate models.
Sure. Modern science has refined models which get pretty close to measured reality, but we had to go through inaccurate models to get here, as a society. And, as individuals, we still have to start with inaccurate models in order to approach the accurate models.
Our fictions are the inaccurate models with which we attempt to approach our understanding of society and its institutions.
The popularity of the Regency romance should indicate to us that the idea of navigating through different kinds and levels of intimacy is valid. If it is, beginning at friendship ought to be a perfectly valid approach. I'm going to argue that it ought to be a more successful approach than beginning from zero.
Background:
While participating in the LDS Beta Readers group on Facebook, I was made aware that romance, in the fantasy novel subsection of the publishing industry, at least, means stories in which people get together at the end, after all the obstacles that would prevent them from doing so.
Now, when I was in high school, the definition of romance for literary purposes was still somewhat rooted in the old definition. Romance then was what we now call adventure, and adventure then was generally not the fun, easy, happy adventure we think of now, but adventure with real risks, that did not always turn out well.
So the publishing industry only wants no-risk romance of the heart?
We've lost something.
The greatest feature of human existence is to learn from our mistakes. That means we need literature about failure as well as success. We need more examples of relationships that don't work out the way they are planned to work out.
But that was not what I was discussing with Mrs. Rabe.
Recently, five of the participants in LDS Beta Readers have put together a cooperative Regency romance group that they are publishing serially using WordPress. It's a fun read. If you are a fan of the ton, as I have said somewhere else, you might want to sign up.
And I learned that Regency romances are about the period of British history known as the Regency, a period of social change in Britain.
(This might or might not be important. Fashion during the Regency was one of the few periods in which the corset was not a part of the fashionable female wardrobe, and I would like to research whether fashion reflects a broader allowance of women's rights. But I do not know about such things when I write this.
If this is a meaningful observation, it would indicate the Regency period as an intersection between freedom and protection which was repeated for a larger class in the USA during the 1940s to '70s, where women were both treated with respect and allowed to direct their own course to some extent.)
Regency romance novels are primarily about navigating the complex protocols of upper class and upper-middle class British society of the period, from acquaintence to social intimacy, from there to courtship against protocol, ending with finding a successful loophole in the protocol to allow moving from courtship to marriage. This is presented as an adventure, in either sense, and thus as a romance of the heart.
Many Regency romances start with the co-protagonists already being in a friendship. The greatest conflict is the risk of changing the relationship. If things do not go well, a value friendship can be lost, and both parties are usually hesitant to take that risk.
There is a class of social philosophy that suggests that the route from friendship, through courtship, to contracted marriage is an excessively dangerous course. I don't know where that philosophy comes from.
Yes, feelings can be hurt, but real friendship survives hurt feelings.
Romance novels are fantasy, of course. But they do provide something of a window on society.
Fantasies themselves are not just escapist recreation.
We use fiction to construct abstract models of reality. The are notoriously inaccurate, but that is not a problem. Most of our science begins with notoriously inaccurate models.
Sure. Modern science has refined models which get pretty close to measured reality, but we had to go through inaccurate models to get here, as a society. And, as individuals, we still have to start with inaccurate models in order to approach the accurate models.
Our fictions are the inaccurate models with which we attempt to approach our understanding of society and its institutions.
The popularity of the Regency romance should indicate to us that the idea of navigating through different kinds and levels of intimacy is valid. If it is, beginning at friendship ought to be a perfectly valid approach. I'm going to argue that it ought to be a more successful approach than beginning from zero.
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