Sarah Scheele's Blog, page 32

DANCING UP A STORM STORY COLLECTION

This is a collection of 9 short romance stories from the finalists of a writing contest themed on dance, hosted by The Woodlands (Texas) chapter of ACFW. Since I know a few ACFW Texas authors, I was eager to try it.  I like reading short story collections because I get to meet a wide variety of authors without having to read too much from any of them.

This one was pretty good. However, it IS a romance collection. Although the description might imply other genres, I felt the bent was definitely romance. I'm not sure why there was a distinction between the contemporary and romance categories because they were essentially identical. A Vietnam era story was even listed in "contemporary," when it is certainly not. There were 4 contemporary stories, 2 historical stories, and 3 speculative stories. Some that stuck out to me were:

“When I’m Gone,” the opening story, was really well-written and touching. Even though the vintage era is not my favorite setting, I could see why this one got first place.

My least favorite story was “The Confession.” I liked that the author was not afraid to show persecution of Christians by Muslims, but the area where the heroine is forced to reveal everything about her life because of a truthtelling machine was painful, especially since she was not very likable and had done some embarrassing things.

“Teething Troubles” was probably the one I found most enjoyable, it was about the (very realistic) little struggles and conflicts of a young couple dealing with their first baby. They reminded me of my parents!

“The Last Waltz” was an unusual story that really stuck out—it blended historical Vietnam era with romance and felt more speculative than some of the actual speculative entries because of the hero’s ability to have visions and the slightly hysterical, symbolic nature of the many of the scenes.

“Night Dance” was a good, sweet fantasy romance. A girl who feels awkward because she looks like a gnome befriends a young pixie who has been adopted by wealthy elves. It felt paranormal—the hero is a magical young man who can fly, etc—but had a gentle tone whereas most paranormal-type stories are very dark.

UNDAUNTED HOPE BY JODY HEDLUND

This book was a bit disappointing. Really well-written. Crisp, flowing, descriptive—and almost no padded or draggy areas. The villain, a cruel and corrupt man who forced women to sleep with him or their husbands would be killed was based on a real person and was surprisingly realistic. The book had a lot of exciting action, including a disturbing area where the hero and his brother were stranded on ice for a long time and some of the brother’s toes had to be amputated. But the heroine, Tessa, was kind of bizarre.
 
She moved to a mining town to start over her life after her absurd behavior towards her sister’s boyfriend gave her a dirty reputation. (She drugged the guy and lay in his bed so he would be forced to marry her. Ever afterwards people called her, poor little thing, a “loose” girl. Sorry, but that IS LOOSE! At least, I wouldn’t call it restrained.) I can appreciate the theme of an imperfect, ordinary girl wanting to be given a second chance. But Tessa was never particularly decent--in fact she spent the whole book almost slipping into intimacy. Her slutty pupil Josie openly despised and even blackmailed her when Tessa tried to correct her behavior, because Tessa really was an idiot.
 
Her lack of self-control was toddler-like. She rarely had any other thoughts in her head except “wow, that man’s body,” “wow, is that other man looking at MY body,” “wow, I could be removed from my job if I’m in a relationship, but I love kissing,” “wow, are those men gossiping about me,” “WOW, THAT MAN’S CHEST.” She also couldn’t disguise these thoughts from the men. I found her obvious drooling over Alex’s body, in his presence, slightly weird. The girl has a problem, I think. Not to mention the contrived rivalry between Alex and his brother Michael for her hand. When the brothers returned from the ice she threw herself YELLING on Alex, hungering for his lips, while Michael lay about 2 feet away almost dying with his toes falling off, and Tessa never once showed ANY CONCERN or looked at him. I could not believe he’d think twice about her again after she was so uncaring.
 
So—it stuck out from the crowd. Somewhat in the way a giant purple thumb does.
 
I was given this book by Bethany in exchange for my unbiased review.

THE ANNUNCIATION BY RON TEACHWORTH

This exciting and unusual novel is based on true events from the late 1990’s. The book centers around an assassination attempt on the Pope by underground radicals, which closely involved a group of foreign students participating in an art restoration program in Italy. Two of the students, Olivia Gianetti, and Finn McNelis, fall in love but keep it a secret because they have sworn to be celibate and are confused by their feelings for each other.  As the visit of the Pope draws near, and the discovery of a rare sketch in the wall of a fresco only adds to the tension and questions, will the attended assassination be pulled off or can an unlikely hero save the day?

The thoroughly researched Vatican high church setting and its subtle art references were mixed with suspense. The writing was journalistic and factual, even brief at times but filled with details. Olivia and Finn’s romance was very observantly handled. At times I couldn’t help laughing at how recognizable, even commonplace their attraction was, with Olivia thinking wistfully that Finn’s smile reminded her of Hugh Grant, and Finn’s hot embarrassment when he spilled his underwear-filled suitcase at Olivia’s feet. Side characters, among them Vanessa, a fellow seminarian of Olivia’s and a confidante,  Father Paggi, a friendly priest, and Daresh Oldani, the planned assassin of the Pope were shown colorfully. The end was a surprise, and the frequent banter and humor from the characters helped flesh out and ground in ordinary life the premise and situations.  A fun and informative read. Five star.

I was given this book by BookLookBloggers in exchange for my honest review. The opinions expressed are my own.

THIN ICE BY IRENE HANNON

I signed up to review for Revell several months ago, but didn’t read much from them. (They publish a lot of Amish.) The premise of Thin Ice pulled me in. I’ve always had interest in figure skating and used to watch it quite a bit. The book is well researched in this regard, although the skating element is only mentioned sometimes because the heroine is a retired skater and no longer competitive. Christy Reed has put Christine Reed, a promising Olympic-hopeful teen star, behind her and created a new life for herself. Christy is devastated when her sister Ginny is killed in a fire—and mystified when a note from her dead sister pops up months later. She goes to the FBI for help and teams up with agent Lance McGregor to solve an increasingly frightening case.

I liked how fast-paced and well-written this book was. All the details of Lance’s office co-workers, his family of brothers, and Christy’s personal life as a former skater were succinct and made the storyline seem as visual as watching a crime show on TV. (Which is not easy to recreate in a book.) Christy’s faith was clear and woven into the plot without seeming pushed or unnatural. Her selfless actions in leaving the skating world underpinned her sincerity and it was easy to see how Lance would be impressed by her. However, I just didn’t like Lance at all. He was unprofessional and greasy towards her, with a cocky chip on his shoulder, and an invasive attitude. By the time he was openly drooling over her legs in a skating costume—legs, legs, LEGS now noticed by him for the thousandth time—I was like “dial it down, WEIRDO. She’s got legs, get over it!” Also—I don’t want to give too much plot away—but the villain was a rather garishly troubled young man who was cruel to his feeble, demented grandmother and tortured mice. We’re supposed to think of him as a psychotic kind of case, but I didn’t really find his mind pleasant to explore.

So---it’s good. But maybe could have been better. It might be somebody’s cup of java, though.

PROGRESS REPORT

It's been several months since I posted anything here besides book reviews. I've been active in continuing my publishing plan. Ryan and Essie has been out since October and is getting reviews. Incidentally it's also free on January 16 for anyone who hasn't picked it up yet. I deeply value this story, but I'm not sure if I'm going to write more stories in this universe. I've been sorting through my projects and since working on them  I'm developing more sense of direction. Thank you to everyone who did read this story and I would encourage you to read it if you haven't, since Ryan and Essie really reflects my childhood and the unique, isolated world I lived in at that time.
December was a very busy and difficult month for me. I really needed God to pull me through some things that happened during the last year. But around about Christmas, in the midst of other things going on, I published Victoria: A Tale of Spain. Moving the story from an imagined world to Spain in 1714 wasn't challenging, since the world I'd created for the Valley Stories was so detailed. The main alterations came in making Victoria's father a duke, not king of Spain, and in tweaking the relationship between Lucy and Alaina to more mirror Victoria's with Bella. Victoria had a really good January Kindle promotion and has been getting steady readership on KU.
The Prince's Ball is taking more time than I had planned, since it is a much longer book than I remembered. At present it's over 100k, whereas most of my stories run about 20-30k. I had trouble remembering its length because 15 years ago I wrote extremely long chapters! The book had only 10, but each was about 10,000 words! Anyway, I'm going to publish at least 2 books before The Prince's Ball is complete. In the meantime, Consuela and Alyce were renamed the first and second Sherban story and given new covers to archive them as discarded material. They will no longer be available on Kindle after The Prince's Ball is published. I thought about making Consuela a companion story to The Prince's Ball, but opted instead for The Miniature Hamlet, which was written close to the time of The Prince's Ball and suits it in tone.

The Miniature Hamlet is not a parody. It is an inversion--an exploration of Hamlet. During college I dashed it off because I was fed up with the admiring way most textbooks and professors spoke of Hamlet. This guy is crazy, unconstructive, and ends up killing everyone including himself. Far from being a classic figure everyone can admire and relate to, he is a warning about the dangers of becoming pointlessly morbid and self-engrossed. The same holds true for the other characters in the play, who come to tragic ends flatly because they're all very stupid people. But this same stupidity can just as easily become funny as tragic. The Miniature Hamlet follows the scenes and dialogue of Hamlet very closely--in fact, my sisters learned much of Hamlet from it because after reading it for 10 years they felt complete familiar with every situation upon reading the actual play. It's not a mockery of Hamlet--rather, it's a way to appreciate who these characters really are. This analytical attitude suits The Prince's Ball, which constantly plays with and inverts literary tropes and stock situations.
And lastly, a little teaser for my next book, The Test of Devotion, a historical romance set in 1860s Texas. I wrote this story a couple of years ago as an experiment to see if I could meet the strict genre criteria of publishers like Love Inspired. It's much more market-focused than my other publications so far, so it has a few cheesy situations and predictable characters. (And a romance of course--actually two.) But it was fun to write and I'd like to try it out on readers. It should be out in February. Here's the blurb:

Hardy Mexican outlaw Viajero holds a strong suspicion of everything, including religion--until he meets an idealistic former plantation owner on a mission.  Henry Trevalyn's wife has abandoned their marriage and he needs Viajero to help find her.  When their search leads them to an isolated hotel in the wilds of Texas, Viajero knows he has to act fast if lives are to be saved.
 
Jenny Forsythe has a secret. One too many, actually. Working in a hotel in Laredo isn't easy for the daughter of an unpopular missionary.  The hotel has become a hotbed for criminals--and one or two very important guests with vague identities. When two traveling men start asking questions at the hotel, it's only  a matter of time before Jenny finds herself deep in trouble. 
 
Only the healing power of faith and forgiveness can keep her from ending up in the hands of a murderer--and  enable Viajero to find his new friend's wife before it's too late.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO HErEtiCS BY DAVID E. WILHITE

As the new year begins, I finally completed the review for a book I’ve had for several months. The Gospel According to Heretics was written to help Bible study students to understand certain ancient Christian heresies from the early church period.

This book is not for beginners. Instead of introducing you to the early church, Mr. Wilhite assumes you are already very familiar with it. This book is not about why Christians teach what they teach. It is about why the heretics taught what they taught. You should read standard books on early church history before you will find this book useful. Although I had studied the early church at the college level a decade ago, I would have benefited from some review before reading this book.

That said, Mr. Wilhite writes a good reference for people who can add it to their other study materials instead of reading it on its own. He explores 10 early “heresies”—variations from orthodoxy—and shows how they justified their spinoff teachings. He uses humor to make his points memorable. This humor is filled with inside jokes and will frustrate readers who are not familiar enough with the material (i.e. Apollinarianism is “God-in-a-bod.”) His ultimate point is that because of these heresies, the church fathers were driven to state their gospel more clearly. The heretics were actually good for the church in the end, although they did need to be removed. Mr. Wilhite also makes the suggestion that Islam can be seen as one of these early heresies, similar in tone and origin to them, but more extreme. This will be viewed as very controversial by many.

Bottom Line: A good academic supplement. Not a great book for light informational reading.

THE CAROLS OF CHRISTMAS BY ANDREW GANT

I’ve loved to collect Christmas music for years. Everyone has their favorite carol—and their favorite rendition of their favorite carol. The carols come to us from every phase of Christian history, and from many languages. Sometimes we can tell how ancient they are just by their structure. Christmas songs are so abundant and diverse, it’s like having a whole world of music centered on this one season of the year. That’s why I was eager to read this book about the history of the most popular carols—and I enjoyed “The Carols of Christmas” almost as much as I was hoping to. The carols you like say everything about you. This book helps explain exactly why that is.

Mr. Gant, a college professor and choirmaster, gives detailed, well-researched lectures on 21 popular carols. The book is divided into sections based on the phases of the Christmas season. (For instance, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” is at the beginning since it emphasizes the Advent of Christ. “We Three Kings is at the end, since the Wise Men came long after Jesus’ birth and their coming was celebrated after Christmas for centuries.) The style tends towards academic and stuffy, but I found reading it aloud to my little sister, a music student, enormously helped tap into the book’s potential. Lectures are typically heard by groups of people because the shared experience helps with learning.

There were all sorts of fun little tidbits. Did you know that “Away in a Manger” was baldly, dishonestly attributed to Martin Luther—when he DID NOT WRITE IT—on its publication in the late 19th century? That “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night” has literally hundreds of variations that could fill a whole book on their own? That the French author of the soaring “O Holy Night” was anti-religious and that the tune was composed by a man who wrote their equivalent of film scores? That “The Holly and the Ivy” was a crass pagan fertility song into which early Christians sewed faith lessons? And that “Good King Wenceslas” was put into our current carol form by a man who mysteriously created such crowd hostility that people threatened to stone him and burn down his house? These are just some of the many pieces of information in this book.

The carols covered are: O Come, O Come Emmanuel; O Christmas Tree; The Holly and the Ivy; I Saw Three Ships; O Little Town of Bethlehem; Good Christian Men Rejoice; O Come All Ye Faithful; While Shepherds Watched; O Holy Night; Ding Dong Merrily on High; Angels From The Realms of Glory; Hark the Herald Angels Sing; Away in a Manger; I Wonder As I Wander; Good King Wenceslas; Personent Hodie; Here We Come a Wassailing; The Twelve Days of Christmas; We Three Kings; What Child is This?; and Jingle Bells.

RISING DARKNESS BY NANCY MEHL

I really connected with this contemporary suspense novel.  The plot centers around a young reporter named Sophie Wittenbauer, who ran away from her abusive and controlling Mennonite background under a cloud of shame.  While taking a robbery case that promises to be the making of her career, she stumbles across a familiar face- -and realizes that she will have to dive into her past.  Her mission takes her to a small town called Sanctuary.  In Sanctuary, she reunites with another man from her strict hometown of Kingdom--Jonathan Wiese,  a young pastor she once adored from afar. As threatening notes come her way and danger escalates, can Sophie track the felon down and keep her feelings for Jonathan at bay, or is she doomed in both endeavors?

From the beginning I liked and related to Sophie.  Her background of self-righteous abusive parents, unloving church, and lack of education were handled with honesty and realism.  The terrible boredom and abuse of such situations was not glossed over nor was it handled with loving and sensationalized detail.  Her secret insecurity  and outward over-confidence were completely realistic from someone in her situation, painfully unprepared to live normally, but trying all the same--copying modern hair and makeup from TV, recording herself a CD of self-affirming notes etc. Her love for Jonathan almost seemed over blown since he was such an unimportant young pastor, until you remember that he was one of the very few people ever to be nice to her.  Side characters added color and interest and the end came off happily without seeming sappy.  Five star romantic suspense and Mennonite fiction.

THE ONE YEAR HOME AND GARDEN DEVOTIONS BY SANDRA BYRD

This book is good and solid, sure to please pretty much everyone. A great item to give as a gift to an older woman in your life, even if you don’t know her well, but can be enjoyed by younger people as well. Sandra Byrd, already established as a prolific fiction author, has a simple and relaxing style in this devotional. Each day of the year has a cute—typically amusing—little anecdote from her own life or the things she has noticed in nature around her. The anecdotes encourage you to think about a scripture verse written below.
 
The little stories were often very funny, but some of my favorites dealt with serious topics such as disillusionment with churches, wistfulness over dead friends, broken relationships, and the growth of inner darkness (accurately compared to mold growth!) I wasn’t able to go through this whole devotional in the leisurely, year-long way I ideally should have, because I needed to get this review up in a reasonable amount of time! But I intend to start it again in January, which is where the book’s layout begins. It’s one of my first devotionals and I really like it.

I was given this book by Tyndale in exchange for my honest review.

MIRROR IMAGES BY LAURIE NORLANDER

When I received this book for review, I was expecting a typical contemporary mystery. Unfortunately, this book did not have much of a plot and what existed of the storyline was very foolish. The intriguing blurb lured me into a disappointing, silly story. The heroine, Madison Kowalski, a photojournalist with a degree from Yale, decides to plunge herself into an investigation when she realizes that her ex-boyfriend's twin has died. Certain attending the funeral of the deceased Chris will lead her to her ex, she tracks her old love down, vowing recompense because he stole thousands of dollars from her years ago. 

At times I wondered if this author was writing this as a parody of predictable genre fiction, but sadly I think she might have been quite serious. The threadbare characterization soon dragged the plot into a meandering, vague series of human relationships that flatly defied credibility. For instance, when Madison discovers Chris's secret records on the back of his daughter’s coloring pages. He's a millionaire. The daughter lives in a huge mansion with every luxury on earth--why would she not have her own coloring book instead of just happening to draw on her father's incredibly incriminating papers?? Madison was stupid and inordinately vain. She spent far more time imagining every single man in town was eyeing her suggestively than making any headway in the contrived twins mystery--and the romance? The romance. Oh dear, the "romance." She picked up a greedy drifter with no job, took him home, let him waste her  money on beer, beer and  more beer, put off her dreams of a family because he hated children, and agreed to take freezing Chicago walks with him, in the early morning, while he quoted poetry to the skies. Even after she thought he stole all her money, she was still into this guy. Also, he had long hair and weird eyelashes. Yep, you heard that right. Really weird eyelashes. By the end I was convinced he was about as handsome as a chicken and I no longer cared about what was left of the plot.