Warren Rochelle's Blog, page 2

What the Light Leaves Hidden, by Terry Kennedy

What a beautiful book!

I loved it. I can only echo what Jaki Shelton Green, North Carolina Poet Laureate, says on the back cover: "What the Light Leaves Hidden is a powerful poetic litany that demonstrates what it means to be fragile and wounded inside the immediacy to be vital and loved. Terry Kennedy's elegy evokes invocation and benediction where tenderness permeates every page, reminding us that we are all made vulnerable by simply being alive."

This poem of grief, loss, mourning, and deep and profound love is both beautiful heartbreaking.

Highly recommended.

Rescuing Patty Hearst, by Virginia Holman

a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1..." style="float: left; padding-right: 20px">Rescuing Patty Hearst: Growing Up Sane in a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This memoir of growing up with a schizophrenic mother is both beautiful and heartbreaking, and yes, sometimes "painfully funny." It is "an unflinching account of the dark days [and years] when Holman's family was held hostage by her mother's delusions" and a "startling memoir of a daughter's harrowing sojourn in the prison of her mother's mind" (front cover). Part of this sojourn, takes place in the 1970s when Holman's mother, in her first psychotic episode, takes her and he sister to a family cottage to prepare to set up a field hospital for refugee children in an imaginary war. Patty Hears, whose story happened at the same time the years in the cottage, becomes a metaphor of loss and recovery and identity which adds to the power of Holman's story.

Ultimately this is a story of escape and survival and love and of "losses [that] are unspeakable" (iii).

Highly recommended.



View all my reviews

Portable Magic, by Mark Allan Gunnells

Portable Magic by Mark Allan Gunnells

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In his new story collection, Portable Magic, Mark Allan Gunnells explores a wide range of genres, including a post-apocalyptic tale, a ghost story, tales that blur the boundaries between reality and fiction, such as when a grieving fan at the mausoleum of his favorite writer, meet a grieving character, a journey into a dream, among others.

Gunnells, who is best known for his horror fiction, does not disappoint in this new collection which crossed more than one genre boundary. I especially liked that this story collection is about stories and storytelling. Gunnells sets this up with a frame story. Fifteen-year-old Lance receives as a birthday present from his uncle, an antique manual typewriter. When Lance, an aspiring writer, sits down to write, he feels an almost electrical jolt when he touches the typewriter keys. His stories change. It seems as if he has accessed imagination he didn’t know he had. His stories acquire a new power, and he is surprised at the stories that seem to be flowing out of his fingertips. He seems he has found his muse, or rather, the typewriter is helping find his own interior muse.

I want to look a little more closely at three of Lance’s unexpected stories. The first, “The End is the Beginning,” is a tale of a high school student, Kyle, waiting for that all-important letter: has he or has he not been accepted into the college he desperately wants to attend. The letter comes, but the letter has only has only two words, The End. Kyle is devastated, he wants to go to the school and find out what this means. His mother shakes her head and tells him their story is over. “You can’t leave this room,” she tells him. “You can’t even leave this moment. “We’re in a short story, not a novel.” Her face goes blank. She no longer seems human, but rather a mannequin. These are not the characters one expects. They know they are in a story; the reader has been invited into the story’s backstage. Kyle refuses to accept his ending and challenges his Creator, Malek, demanding a longer script, a bigger part. In essence, the reader is invited into the process of storytelling.

“The House That Dreams Built” takes the reader from story as theatre, story as the act of storytelling, to story as dream. Keith comes home to find an unexpected gift from his husband, Gene. Inside the package he finds a tiny “two-story house, brown, shingled roof, two attic windows,” a replica of the home of Keith’s favorite writer, Bradley Raymond. The replica was carved from a brick of Raymond’s home, now torn down. Raymond’s fiction was Keith’s escape from bullying and parental abuse. The gift triggers dreams, dreams of the real house and Raymond upstairs writing, and again, Keith has a gift from the writer. Yes, Bradley Raymond is meant to be a homage to Ray Bradbury, whose fantasy and science fiction can be said to be akin to dreams. This story is also about dreams as story, as the stuff of story. That Raymond’s stories helped Keith survive is a testament to the power of stories..

As much as we all dream, and have to dream, the last story I want to talk about asks us to consider how much we need stories. “The Library” takes place after the apocalypse. Books are rare, as many were used as fuel. Lowell and Dru are on the run, seeking a haven from the chaos. They come across The Community, where stories are be bought by making a trade. As Avery, a member of The Community, tells them, “no one knew how badly they missed stories” until they were hard to come by. “People gotta have stories.” They make their deal and are invited into the library. There are no books. Instead, they find a man, a writer whom Lowell recognizes. He tells them the stories they bought. This living library is being kept prisoner. What should Lowell and Dru do, if anything? Answering this question proves less straight forward than they imagined. This story attests to the power of stories and how essential they are. It reminds us that stories were oral first, told by people like this living library who tells stories he knew by heart.

When I finished this gem of a collection, I found myself thinking of Walter Fisher (1931-2018), Professor Emeritus at the USC Annenberg for Communication and Journalism, and his idea that humans should be “reconceptualized as Homo Narrans. Humans are the animals that tell stories. We are all storytellers. He argues in Human Communication as Narration: Toward a Philosophy of Reason, Value, and Action, among other things, that “all forms of human communication must be seen as stories …” Granted, the idea of stories here is a broad one, but it speaks to what Gunnells is exploring in this collection: the art and process of storytelling, storytelling as a creative act. We tell stories to entertain, yes, and we also tell them to make sense of, and interpret, human experience.

This collection celebrates this essential human act. That these tales are told through a queer lens, adds to the power of these tales I do find myself wishing the stories were longer, which again attests to their power.


Highly recommended.





View all my reviews

Death in the Spires, by K.J. Charles

a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2..." style="float: left; padding-right: 20px">Death in the Spires by K.J. Charles

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Big K.J. Charles fan here.

Ten years ago, an Oxford student, Toby Feynsham, was brutally murdered. The case was unsolved. In 1905, Jeremy Kite, is haunted still by this murder, a crime which ruined his life, "and stole his best friend" (backcover). Then, someone mails his boss an anonymous letter, accusing him of the crime. Jeremy--Jem--loses his job. He decides it's time to discover the truth.

So the story begins. Jem decides to find his close circle of friends at Oxford, "known as The Seven Wonders for their charm and talent." He discovers they "are tormented and broken as himself." Could one of them have killed Toby? As Jem digs deeper, long kept secrets are exposed, long repressed feelings resurface. And someone is determined to stop Jem--and are willing to "silence him for good" (backcover.)

This is a dark story, of loss and grief and hate and jealousy. Yet, it a story of redemption and love and forgiveness.

Beautifully written, and well told, a page turner. Recommended.



View all my reviews

The Hencha Queen, by J. Scott Coatsworth

The Hencha Queen by J. Scott Coatsworth

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Welcome to Tharassas, a planet light-years from Earth and the home of a 400-year-old human colony, a colony now in peril. The spore mother awaits the progenitor. “News of the world flowed into [her] through her children, the forerunners …” The world she finds herself on, needs to be changed; it is “far too cold and dry to sustain her progeny outside the mountain walls” (6). And changed it will be, as she begins to prepare for the progenitor, his kind. Soon, she will release seeds, and the world will never be the same.

But Silya, the new Hencha Queen, knows trouble is coming. How she save her people, even with the aid of the semi-sentient Hencha plants? Is there enough room in the caves to provide sanctuary for so many? Can she convince those who just want to wait and see? What about the old technology found in the caves? Will it help? Those who want to wait are proven wrong as refugees pour in, their homes destroyed, their farms ruined, the land devastated.

Silya does have help. Raven arrives on the back of flying verents. Raven, a verent rider, and no longer a thief, seems to have found himself. Kerrick, the guard, will fight with her, even as they discover each other’s hearts.

But where is Aik, Raven’s soul mate? Burdened by the mysterious gauntlet, is desperately seeking Raven. His quest leads him to Anghar Mor—or is this the will of the gauntlet, which seems to have its own agenda, and Aik is but its tool. Can Aik survive? Can Raven find him in time? Will Spin, the AI from old Earth, be able to help?

Time is running out.

This third installment of J. Scott Coatsworth’s Tharassas Cycle is a worthy continuation of a series I have grown to love. Fast-paced, fraught with peril, this is a real page turner. “Things have [indeed] gotten apocalyptic” (back cover). This is a richly imagined world, with solid details of culture, history, flora and fauna (benign and malevolent). The characters, human and alien, are believable. I find myself hoping for a happy ending, for lovers to reunite.

Highly recommended.



View all my reviews

River Quest, by Sylvia Kelso

The River Quest by Sylvia Kelso

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The River Quest, by Sylvia Kelso, is a beautiful book.

In many ways, it is a classic quest story. The Hero is given a quest, or takes up a quest. A journey follows, one beset with trials and tribulations. The Hero often travels with chosen companions who will be at the Hero's side until the end. This quest will change them all. The Quest isn't complete until the task is complete: the Grail found, the Enemy conquered. The Hero returns, with a boon for the people behind, a gift.

In Kelso's reimagining of the classic quest, there is no Grail, but rather the Source of the River to be found, the drought lifted. This boon will save the people of the Hero, their Prince Arxes--and the peoples who live along this great River of the world. He will save his father who is on the edge of madness, as he fishes for fish that are no longer there in a drying river. The River-Maiden has chosen him for this task.

Arxes travels at first, with only brave companion, his "staunch comrade ... Captain Ervan-second-Phylarchy-third-Taxis-royal-Phalanx ...suh" (15). They are joined by the brave Tomyris, daughter of the chieftain of the Plainsfolk. On their perilous journey seeking "the River's mysterious source," they will travel through "desert, forest, city and steppe, encountering an emperor, an enchantress, a shaman, a witch. "They will meet unforeseen friends and foes, gods, monsters, beings out of myth: they will risk the elemental perils of lightning, fire and ice" (back cover). Each will be tested, and tried, as heroes on a quest must, and they will be faced with hard, hard choices.

The world of River Quest is richly imagined and detailed. The language itself becomes a river of words, of metaphor, of meaning. The gods they encounter, both benign and not, are the mythos of the world, including the Horned God, the Smith, among others. This Quest is a journey of love, of companions, and of the heart, as each companion grows and becomes themselves. It doesn't matter that the reader knows how a Quest should end.

Highly recommended.



View all my reviews

Read this book: Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson

a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5..." style="float: left; padding-right: 20px">Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Everyone should read this book. It should be required in college, if not high school. It will break your heart. It will, if you are a member of the dominant caste in America, as I partially am, make you take a step back, and examine your complicity in the maintenance of said caste.

"In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America, as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative ... how America today throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system ... " (front cover). This caste system supports and sustains the dominant white caste, as it suppresses and denigrates the subordinate caste, African Americans. She compares the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, documenting "how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their outcasting of the Jews" (front cover).

I would argue, that in addition to the clean, accessible writing, and the thorough research, the power of the book lies in the personal narratives of those who "experience the insidious undertow of caste [that] is experienced every day," an evil that affects everyone. These stories--tales of ordinary and famous people, tales of brutality and pain--will break your heart.

Read this.

Highly recommended.



View all my reviews

A Short Review of Lost Kites and Other Treasures, by Cathy Carr

href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9..." style="float: left; padding-right: 20px">Lost Kites and Other Treasures by Cathy Carr

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Twelve-year-old Franny Petroski makes lists of Things That Currently Worry Her. She lets no one know “how often she thinks of the charismatic, troubled mom who left her years ago” (front cover). Nor does she talk about what she remembers her mother did when she was around. She does share her found art that sometimes turns into presents. Her grandmother has a “big piece of bark [she] found last spring” Painted with sunflowers, it’s in her grandmother’s bedroom (4). Some trash, like the kite she finds outside school, with her best friend, Ruben, needs to be rescuing. She is indeed a creative soul. With Nana, she is safe and secure. She has close friends. Her art teacher, Miss Midori tells her to trust her art brain telling her to keep these found strange things.

Then everything changes. Nana falls, breaks her leg, and needs surgery to put it back together. After that, “eight weeks with the leg immobilized and fully extended,” followed by “four weeks in a hinged brace,” followed by “serious physical therapy” (23). Nana and Franny live in a second-floor apartment in a building without an elevator. Now, Franny’s worry list gets longer, including how they will get from the hospital, where will they live, if they can’t stay in their apartment, how will Nana go back to work in a dental office if she can’t stand, to where Franny will stay that first night (27). Help comes from the Yaos, there is a place to stay, but managing life post-fall and surgery prove difficult. A lot of things have broken. Nana reluctantly calls for her estranged son, Gabe, to come help. With Uncle Gabe’s arrival for a two-month, come new tensions, and eventually the revelation of family secrets. Perhaps the biggest secret is that Franny’s missing mother has bipolar disorder, an illness that eventually led to her incarceration.

How does Franny cope with these painful discoveries about her family? What does she discover about herself? The readers learns, as Franny learns who she is and who she can be. She begins to understand what it means to be an artist and that she is brave. She is not perfect, but then, who is.

This well-written novel tells Franny’s story with grace and good humor. The trauma of dealing with a family member who has a mental illness is presented with care and careful attention and respect. The reader learns as Franny learns. I was also struck by the richness of detail of place and character, from a cantankerous toilet to a fading avocado kitchen to the mysteries of pie making. Franny’s found art are things of beauty, repurposed from the trash. Franny the heart of the novel, is a truly likeable and engaging character who, with whom the reader will fall in love.

A beautiful book, highly recommended. Yes, the intended audience for this novel are middle-grade children, Even so, readers of all ages will love this young heroine and her story.



View all my reviews

Tales of the Seal People: Scottish Folk Tales, by Duncan Williamson

Tales of the Seal People: Scottish Folk Tales by Duncan Williamson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I want to know more about selkies, or as they are called in this charming collection of tales, silkies. One of "Scotland's Travelling People, formerly called tinkers," Duncan Williamson learned these tales years ago "directly from working with crofters and fishermen along Loch Fyne," in Scotland (147, 3). Or from any one who "would tell him a tale" (back cover).

They are wonderful. These stories were, as Williamson explains, "never made, they were never set to any pattern. They were just 'something strange' according to them that actually took place. It was family history, that's the truth" (3). I would say there is sort of a pattern or recurring threads: live and let live, there's enough in the sea for men and seals, leave them be and they will leave you be. Care for a selkie, love one, and they will do the same for you. If not, they do take revenge. These stories do teach that all life is interconnected, that nature must be cared for or lost. They also teach of the intersections between humans and the animals, between the magical and the mundane of love, obsession, and revenge.

Good stuff.

PS: I just re-read this lovely collection of selkie stories from Scotland. I'm doing research on selkies and seals for a story I am going to write and felt this was a book to re-read. The details of selkies, their lives, how they look, and love, and the wonders of their interactions with humans, will help in creating a selkie character in the context of selkie lore.



View all my reviews

A Short Review of Flashes, by K.L. Noone

a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2..." style="float: left; padding-right: 20px">Flashes by K.L. Noone

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I love this collection of flash fiction, short fiction, and one novella--all love gay love stories, all with happy endings! The men, where and who they are, what has happened to them before, are a wealth of diversity: "FFrom holiday decorating at a historic castle to werewolf FBI agents, from nightmares aboard a starship to a book-thief encountering a king’s brother in a fantastical library, and from pain and abuse, recovering from an accident, and trying to recover a career"--they are all here. And their stories are told in rich and sparkling langauge.

A pleasure to read! Recommended.





View all my reviews