Thayer’s Comments (group member since Jan 25, 2016)

Thayer’s comments from the Net Work Book Club group.

Inspired by the captivating French television series, I've recently been reading the Nicolas Le Floch Investigation novels by Jean-François Parot.

Magnifique!

Jean-François Parot

Thanks Frenchie!

Thanks, Groovy, for the welcome!

I'm not certain to whom it is you address, Mr. Brooks, as to where from? I'll answer on the off chance and hope not to embarrass myself by replying. St. Paul, although I wish I could say it were somewhere in Scotland. My son did part of his undergraduate studies at Aberdeen and I have a very close friend from Edinburgh. It's like looking out my window and saying: Am I in the wrong place or what?

I only just joined the group, but would like to say that I think that any relationship between the characters has to be evolving, not too fast, not too slow. One reads about lackluster "cardboard" characters, but I think this applies to relationships as well. Relationships of any depth bring out the strength, but also the vulnerabilities of each character. Those strengths and vulnerabilities are what gives dimension to any relationship, whether that relationship turns out to be fair or foul.

I don't mind first person narrative as long as it is not weighted by unyielding introspection. I do like introspection in literature, so that is a plus, but it can also become too bloated, and there is always the danger of a sort of repetition in internal dialogue if over-indulged in. I think that a writer can show many things in first person narrative without the constant voice of the observer, and that is the trick to writing in that format.

The evolving relationship in Hermann Hesse's, Narcissus and Goldmund, is a good example of character/relationship dynamics. I can't think of a specific line at the top of my head, though. It's a very affecting novel.

The final question circles back to the first one for me. If the relationship is not layered, the dialogue true to form (realistic, in the sense of time, place, etc.), then you have one-dimensional everything. Not so good.

The questions make perfect sense. For my own tastes, I like historical novels with layers of atmosphere and again, evolving characters and relationships. But, I also like a bit of magic realism in dramatic literature. South American writers are masters at this. I adore Southern Gothic novelists (ie: Welty, Faulkner) and playwrights (ie: Tennessee Williams, Lillian Hellman).

Best wishes with your writing!

Thanks, Mr. Brooks! We've had a relatively mild winter as winters go up here in the north country, but there was a bit of snow already on the ground beneath the added mix today. I'm still shell-shocked after a raging ice, snow and frozen February three years ago, so I have to confess I'll take the mild, although I have to say a little bit of snow kind of makes the winter feel like winter. Just a bit, though.

T4bsF (Call me Flo) wrote: "Hi Thayer (very apt name for the prevailing weather conditions). Hope you enjoy the group."

Thank you for the welcome! The group banner is beautiful...the weather, not so much, although hereabouts mostly just fog and a bit of sleet/snow mix.

Hello Everyone!

If you enjoy mystery with a good dash of suspense and a literary flavor, spiced with the supernatural, I would like to share two of my books currently offered. I anticipate my third supernatural mystery novel, Pearl House, to be available by midsummer. Pearl House is the story of a mysteriously iridescent house by the sea.

Following is a brief overview of both works presently available:

The Evangeline Heresy

Once a power reveals itself...there is no turning back.

Through a chance encounter at a biodiversity conference in Chicago, biologist Ethan Broughton is invited to investigate a potent medicinal plant and a rumor of curative miracles on Porringer Hill in East Tennessee. What he finds is an isolated community of disturbing superstition centered on a strangely compelling young woman possessed of a mysterious ability to heal all wounds.

Ethan believes the extraordinary claim to be little more than smoke and mirrors.

He couldn't be more dangerously wrong.

The Gilded October

The partition separating the haunted from the haunter is often perilously thin, and obsession has an uneasy way of reaching across the veil.

Unsettled by repetitive nightmares and somber preoccupations, Eli Nicholson leaves the familiar melancholy of Oxford in the spring of 1928 and travels to the West of Ireland. But the charming cottage he rents for the season to escape his demons has a lingering disturbance of its own...and a memory waiting to be revived.

Good afternoon! I've only just now discovered and joined this group!

I hope this finds everyone suffering through blizzard, ice or flood water, safe in their respective nooks, dry and warm!