Book Review: The Toadhouse Trilogy Book 1, by Jess Lourey

I love clever books. This week's reviewed book just keeps unfolding the cleverness the more I think about it.

The Toadhouse Trilogy Book 1, by Jess Lourey, was one I found in the reviews on IndieReader.com, with a big stamp of approval on the review page. I bought it along with The Secret of Spruce Knoll and just finished it the other day. It's not a slow read, it just took me that long to get back to it. I loved it, though.

It tells the story of Aine and her brother Spenser (pay attention to the spelling) who live with their Grandma Glori in Alabama, in the 1930s. At 16, Aine is planning on moving away from the house once she is old enough, and taking Spenser with her to strike out on their own, away from the strictness of their home life. We first meet Aine when she's chasing what she sees as a miniature man through the woods, and the story turns to her and Spenser saving the life of a little boy named Tru. The possible identity of Tru made me smile a little, and you'll have to do some searching. Here's a clue: Harper Lee. This first clever turn in this book just shows how thoroughly it was written.
It all changes one day when their home is attacked by a nasty individual named Biblos. He kills Glori and Aine and Spenser flee in the toadhouse with a young man named Gilgamesh. The toadhouse is a device that travels between stories, shrinking the passengers to a tiny size and taking them to another world.

Aine and Spenser live in a book, and they have to find a clue that will lead them to their actual home, Tir Na Nog.

They journey to other books, starting with The Time Machine. (That part actually made me dream about small squads of midget ninjas dressed like the kid in Terminator 2. No, it didn't do anything weird to the original story. Eloi grunge-ninjas are exclusive to my brain.)

The only memory Aine has of her previous life in the land of fairies is of her mother, whose name is Helen. Along the way, she struggles with her decisions, slowly comes to trust the mysterious, sad Gilgamesh, and watches her little brother begin to grow up. After the last confrontation of the book, the story wrapped up very quickly and made me eager for the sequel.

What I love about The Toadhouse Trilogy is that it feels like a puzzle. There are little clever turns, and twists, and nods to other books, and only hints as to the true identity of the villain, Biblos (I just figured it out this morning.) This clever puzzle of a book kept me thinking of it after I finished it, and I want to know what happens. I care what happens. It's very obvious that Jess Lourey took a lot of care when writing this book.

The next one's out in June.

I will be splurging.

Book Review: Pinelight by Jillian Peery

I very literally bought Pinelight by accident, while looking for free Kindle books on Amazon's website. For some reason, I had one-click ordering turned on and one wayward click purchased the book. It was only 99 cents, but I was a little bummed at first. Now I felt like I had to read it. So I poked around to find out about it.

The beginning takes place in Louisiana, and that caught my interest. Then I clicked through the first couple of pages, and there, before the opening chapter, was a Bible verse, Ephesians 6:12. A YA book with faith-based themes, a battle between good and evil, and, it seemed, adventure. For some reason, after realizing that, it didn't seem like a typical YA paranormal romance (and it's not.) I felt a little more enthusiastic about Pinelight, and finally read it a couple of weeks ago.

Yes. This is a good book.

It starts with the main character, Clara, riding in a truck with her now former friend Erik. Because it begins in the middle of a scene, the conflict between them is slowly revealed, and I liked that. Erik has betrayed Clara's trust by finding and reading her diary. Clara's life is already complicated, because of a missing chunk of memory and the absence of her parents (she lives with her aunt.) She has one friend at school, who I hope to see more of if there are more than three books, and a nemesis in a popular girl who is just plain mean.

When Clara comes home one day to find her aunt missing and Erik prowling the house with another woman, she flees to a family friend who is much more to her than she thought he would be. After their arrival across the pond, Clara stumbles into another world. There's a touch of romance, but with a darker undertone that leads up to the end conflict.

What this Christian-themed novel lacks is exactly what makes it refreshing. Clara has absent parents, but the author doesn't crutch on making the main character a tragic orphan. Also gone is the innocent lamb sacrifice that so frustrated me in several of Ted Dekker's books. There are no perfectly beautiful and always so nice and sweet characters, like Bryan Davis. Clara is gifted, but with a much heavier burden than being nice. She and her family are bound for battle, and that is kept important.

It's not without the romance aspect, but it appears that the series (as I'm gathering from the sequel, Tigerlily) while indulging in the romantic aspect, is more taking the "sacrificial love" path. I like that. Yes, the characters are young. Yes, they are probably in love. But that's not the only part of the book; it's a much more complex story.

Okay, I'll stop gushing now.

Pinelight, by Jillian Perey, was probably the best book I've ever accidentally bought. Okay, yes, it's the only book I've ever accidentally bought, but I really enjoyed it. Highly recommended.
 

Book Review: The Secret of Spruce Knoll

I like trying new things, especially when it comes to books. Lately I've been delving more into YA indie fiction, and I feel like I've been rewarded for doing so. I read more now, because indie digital books are cheaper. I'm changing it up a little, and this week's book review is on a good old paperback.

The Secret of Spruce Knoll by Heather McCorkle was reviewed on IndieReader.com, and since the reviews on Amazon were pretty favorable, I decided to check it out for myself. I ordered both it and The Toadstone Trilogy Book One and got them right before Christmas.

The story follows newly orphaned Eren Donovan as she moves halfway across the country to live with her aunt in the tiny town of Spruce Knoll, Colorado. Her ancestry is half-Irish and half-Maya, something the townspeople seem to automatically hate her for. She makes a fast friend in Aiden, a fellow orphan who lives with his adopted parents and adopted siblings. The secret in question is that the entire town is made up of channelers, or people who manipulate energy from the earth to fight or heal. Almost from the very beginning, Eren gains her powers. What follows are mysteries, sinister townsfolk, a lot of commentary about racism, and an epic-ish battle as she discovers what really happened to her parents.

I finished this book with a meh feeling. It felt like a cross between Harry Potter and Twilight, only harder to get into. The structure of a good story was definitely there, and the characters were okay, but I felt like it could have used a little more work to open things up a little. Some characters changed very quickly, or were never surprising, and the book when on a lot about how much everyone hated mixed-blood kids, only to drop it later. I don't like the feeling of floating outside the story, and I truly wish it had been more captivating.

Overall, I thought The Secret of Spruce Knoll was okay, but not a series I could really get behind and become a huge fan of. I don't think I'll be getting the sequels.

Book Review: Stained by Ella James

Last week's book review was on a really cool book I got for free.

Maybe I should do weekly book reviews here, because I've got another one for you this week. Yes, it was indie. And yes, it was free.

After getting my Google Nexus 7 all charged up and ready to go, I went ahead and downloaded the Kindle app and two books to the device. Stained by Ella James was the first book I picked of the two. It's a YA paranormal romance, with angels bad guys and such, and it was pretty good.

It gets down to business quick, immediately stealing everything important from the main character, Julia, and shoving her out into the cold world in the sketchier neighborhoods of Memphis, Tennessee. But Julia isn't a spoiled kid with no idea how to survive. She's actually a recently adopted teenager, fresh out of the foster system, and not quite normal herself.

She meets (and heals) this guy named Cayne. It's not a love at first sight kind of deal. Though her internal thoughts do admit this guy to be hot, they don't get along. They agree to travel together to attract the bad guy who almost killed Cayne. Eventually, they do become friends, and more, as is to be expected, and both discover more about themselves that they didn't know before. What follows is adventure, but frightening and perilous, and the ending leads directly to a sequel.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a nice quick read with snappy dialog, a pretty neat tour of the United States, and decent storytelling. I felt at first that Julia was a little bit emotionless until I got further into the story, so don't be turned off by that.

I'm not decided on whether I'll get the sequels or not. I can't really spare for a paperback right now, and the digital copies come in at $2.99 per book. I might, because I do want to know how this story ends. We'll see.

At any rate, Stained by Ella James is free in the Kindle store and a fun read. Recommended.

Book Review: Stray by Andrea K. Höst

Times are tough, but I really love to read. I'll take the occasional splurge on a nice hardcover that I know I want to read, or that looks interesting. I actually bought Marissa Meyer's Cinder at the same time I bought The Hunger Games, and loved both.

But, alas, my school loans are in repayment right now, and it's a lot of money. I've got some nice savings I'd like to not dip too much into. Being frugal has led me to seek free ebooks by indie authors.

That led me to Stray by Andrea K. Höst, book one of the Touchstone Trilogy.

It was free, and it was awesome.

Stray begins with the main character, Cass, walking out of our world and to another one, unexpectedly. Using an empty diary she bought for a gift to record what's happening, Cass recounts the world she's in, the creatures that inhabit it, her attempts at survival, and eventual rescue by other humans who are more than they seem to be.

Once rescued, Cass doesn't get to return home, but though a series of events, discovers that she's much more than she ever knew herself to be. It's also a very funny book.

Host has built a very detailed, fascinating, and convincing world for her characters to inhabit, and made an alien world seem pretty comfortable, even when it's unusual. I read this book on my phone's Kindle app, mostly in line for a Black Friday sale laptop, and then a lot over that weekend. I honestly couldn't put it down, and I will be buying the sequels, Lab Rat One and Caszandra.

Even if you're not a teen, this book is fun, and as of the time of this post, is $0.00 in the Kindle Store. If you don't have a Kindle, that's cool. I don't either. I have the Kindle app on my computer, phone, and Google Nexus 7, because the app is free. If you're not a fan of Kindle or Amazon, it's also available here at Smashwords in a variety of formats and still wonderfully free.

Can't beat a good book for an awesome price like that.

But seriously, check out Stray by Andrea K. Höst.

Being Old-Fashioned

I just got rid of two characters again, and I could not be more relieved.

The difference is, these two didn't start out as main characters. They were side characters first, in an original version of the book's opening. Then they were cut out from that scene, only mentioned offhandedly by the main characters. Then they popped up again in a new part of the book, and I was gonna let them stay there.

But they didn't do anything and I never planned for them to. They were props, not even useful as diversions to throw the reader off. Just there, existing, at best to force an idea on the reader, and I'm not happy with the idea in question. 

So they had to go. Another guy is staying, but I have big plans for him as this story moves along.

It was a very quickly made, very final decision that came as I was editing the new part the other night. I printed out the manuscript and put it in a binder. I like that better because I get a better feel for things. It's more hands on. I have a red pen, and I jot things down on the page and slap sticky notes at crucial points I want to change. I discover more about the book that way. It's not on a screen, giving me eye strain. It's like working on a sculpture in soft clay. Take away here, add there, and find more hidden in the story. More possibilities.

It's old fashioned, sure. No doubt about that at all. But before I rediscovered this technique, I would always feel a little apprehensive about opening that Microsoft Word file. It was intimidating, I suppose. But with 270 pages of paper, a binder, and a red pen, I feel more comfortable with it even as it grows longer and becomes more.

It made me be able to let go of two characters who offered nothing. It's making my book more of what I imagined it to be, and I love that.

So here's to being old-fashioned. And good books, too.

A Real Excerpt This Time!

Five minutes ago I opened this page to paste an excerpt from the novel. I chickened out.

Then I did it again anyway.

So here's a bit of the book. This part hasn't been fully edited, so don't jump on me quite yet. It's just actual proof that this is a real thing. 

-----------
Anya tugged thick string that hung from the attic door. "I think there's some old albums up here." With a squeal of metal, the attic opened like a mouth in the ceiling.
"Why pictures?" Matt asked as she unfolded the ladder.
Anya climbed up. "Sometimes my family keeps more than pictures. Birth certificates and stuff, too. Maybe I'll find something. Maybe more letters."
The clatter of rain on the roof was louder up here, the dark room cooled off in the afternoon storm. The big windows let in the gray light.
A partly smushed cardboard box rested in the corner. The word "Pictures" was scrawled across the side in marker, now faded. She pulled it to a clear area on the floor and sat. Matt settled across the box from her.
The box hadn't been taped shut; rather, the four panels were tucked into each other. Anya pulled them apart, and they flipped open, flicking dust into the air. She coughed, and Matt sneezed.
"Oops," she said.
A layer of creased yellow tissue paper concealed the inside of the book from Anya's view. She pulled it away, carefully, and revealed an old photo album. The word Photographs in gold adorned the leather cover. Underneath where it had been in the box were more books, some a little newer, and newspapers lining the bottom.
"Nice find," Matt said.
Anya grinned. "Pretty cool. It might have something in it, at least." She pulled the book into her lap. She saw Matt move out of the corner of her eye as he sat beside her. The book felt dry in her hands, like the leather was about to crack. She pulled the cover open.
On the very first page an old black and white photo, yellowing at the white edges, showed a middle-aged man and his wife in front of a house, both smiling. In pencil, someone had scrawled "Pop and Mom" underneath the picture. A card with flowers printed on it was tucked into the crack of the spine.
"Think that's him?" Anya asked her friend.
"Could be," Matt said. "What's in that card?"
Anya picked it up and opened it. A short note in neat handwriting took up the inside.

"Elijah,
    My parents had this picture of your mama and daddy at the house.
    I thought you might like to have it. Please let me know if you find out
    anything more concerning our conversation last week.
           
                Best,
                Mildred"

Anya read the note over again. "Who's Mildred?"
"Well, who's Elijah?" Matt answered.
"That one's easy," Anya said. "He's my great-grampa. Elijah Dupree, so Gavin's son."
"So that means his daughter is..." Matt trailed off.
"My granny." Anya cleared her throat. "She married a McCall." Anya placed the card back into the edge and carefully turned the page again. More pictures followed, all of them old and sepia toned or black and white. She paused on one of a little girl sitting on the same porch in the first photograph. A different hand had written "Jeannie" underneath. Anya smiled.
The rest of the pictures, of family dinners and days at the beach and one of her Granny dressed up and standing stiffly beside some boy, filled the remainder of the book. The last few pages were Christmas pictures, all of a tree in a living room. There was Jeannie again, a little older, and a few other young people. Anya's gaze paused on one detail of the photograph, a frame beside the tree. It didn't look like a picture, but there were words. She pointed at it.
"What do you think that is?" she said.
"Any pictures closer than that?" Matt asked.
Anya turned the page. "Might be." The rest of the photos were all of a Christmas tree, and all of Jeannie beside it, older each year. The frame appeared in each one, but the pictures varied in distance. The last photograph of the book was a group picture, with a much older Gavin Dupree seated in an armchair and surrounded by family. A few branches of the Christmas tree protruded into the edge of the photo, and the same frame in the other pictures hung above the chair, just over Jeannie's head. The words in the frame were a nonsense poem.

I'll sell you a riddle for a dime
said the bishop at the chime.
With tables and ravens and eggs on a wall
and diamonds and pennies and keys and all
the top of the tower pressed down to fall
my riddle is finished sir; what is your call?

Matt leaned in closer. "What is that?" he asked.
Anya frowned. "I think it's one of those sampler things." That poem doesn't make any sense... "Wonder what it means?"
Matt shrugged. "Maybe nothing?"
"Maybe," Anya said. "I mean, samplers like that were usually meant to just show off skills and stuff...Might be more, though. Some weird government code or something."
"Think whoever made it was crazy?" Matt asked with a smirk.
Anya laughed. "Maybe." Anya shut the book and peeked into the box at the rest of the stack. The yellowed newsprint caught her eye again. "Sweet, old newspapers." She hefted the remaining books and set them to the side before pulling the soft old paper into her lap.  The date in the corner was March 3, 1972.
"Pioneer 10 Launched" read the headline in big letters.
"Cool," Matt said.
"Seriously." They quieted and read the article silently. The block of text took up half the front page, and at the end, in a tiny bit of dead space, were more words, handwritten.

It wasn't insanity. They found other stars first.

Anya blinked and looked at Matt. He met her gaze.
"What the heck does that mean?" she said.
"Are there any other pieces?" Matt asked.
"Nope." Anya let the paper slide to the attic floor. She reached for another album and pulled the cover open as Matt folded the paper. "Let's look through the rest of these," she said.
"Okay."

The photographs moved forward in time as they progressed through the books. One of the last ones even showed Anya as a little girl, sitting on a porch swing with one of her cousins. The embroidered sample appeared on the wall in several of the pictures, sometimes only a corner, but always in the pictures of that wall. The next to last picture showed a different room in color, the wood paneling on the walls lending a dimness to the scene of a family together, some in Christmas sweaters. The sampler was on this wall, too.
The last picture had the same room, same paneling, and some of the same people, older now, and a few new faces in the frame.
The sampler was gone. Not replaced by anything; the wall was empty.
She poked at the glossy paper. "It's gone."
"Maybe they moved it." Matt closed the book in his lap.
"Maybe." What did those words mean, and who wrote them? Anya sighed. "Do you know what time it is?"
Matt looked down at his watch. "Two o'clock."
She tilted her head. "Wanna go to the library with me?"
Matt shrugged. "Sure. What for?"
"Family research." Anya grinned and stuck the old newspaper back where it had rested for so long, then followed it with the stack of albums. "Might be some cool stuff." She stood.
"I still swear I've heard Dupree's name somewhere," Matt said as Anya backed down the ladder. "Not sure where, though."
Anya smiled. "Maybe we'll find out."

------------------------------

Rough, but an actual thing I'm pretty excited about. And editing now. 

Where Was Twilight When I Was a Kid?

 A couple days ago, I read this article on io9.com. It's called 9 Reasons to be Grateful for Twilight, and it's a pretty good article. (The site's awesome, too. Seriously, check it out if you love sci-fi or anything geekish. It's great.) I'm gonna zero in on one point, though.

Twilight made young adult books cool.

Growing up in the early 2000s, you'd think that publishers just assumed that teenagers didn't read. It's not like the entire young adult genre was non-existant; it just didn't get a lot of attention. Back then I didn't read the Harry Potter books, and even if I had, that was only a few books, because not all of them had come out yet. My local library was pretty disappointing anyway, but even big chain bookstores like Books-a-Million and Barnes & Noble didn't have much to offer beyond those horrible coming of age novels about puberty and survival or some junk. 

I did have the Lord of the Rings books, and I did read them five times. I have The Hobbit, which has been consumed three or four times. I also read a few of the Princess Diaries series. I actually have the first five of those. They're pretty beaten.

And folks, if you're counting, that's a grand total of nine books. Add the Christy Miller series, and that makes twelve, but they were extremely short novels, between 150 and 200 pages each.

So beyond an epic, much imitated fantasy and a blip of teen chick lit, I didn't read all that much of any variety. I was ecstatic when I discovered the first book in the Inheritance Cycle, Eragon, hiding at Books-A-Million one afternoon. But I needed more. I wanted adventure books, with swords and fighting and action and maybe a little romance and possibly some sarcasm. I couldn't find anything I liked at stores because there wasn't anything to find, or at least anything I liked. I mean, I'm picky, but come on. I wanted something more. When I started writing my book, I took it as my mission to provide some sort of epic fantasy to my overlooked generation.

I kept writing my book and looking for stuff to read and chatting on internet forums (though most of that had been LOTR, and didn't last to long after the last movie came out. I'd also probably be more excited about The Hobbit if this year was 2005.) I graduated from high school and headed off to college, met a lot of friends who loved to read as much as I did (and who also enjoyed LOTR) and my angsty, whiny self calmed down and took a backseat and went shopping a whole lot. At some point in 2005, Twilight made its PG-rated debut on bookshelves and became a bestseller. I guess that's when publishers and booksellers began to notice an entire demographic.

When I finished my junior year of college, I decided I needed a break from Bob Jones University. I wanted to take some time off, work, and finish up a correspondence course on the Protestant Reformation. I applied, and finally, late in the summer, got a job at Books-A-Million.

I've talked before about the business effects of the first Twilight film, which came out in 2008, at the same time I was working in the bookstore, and how it led to more people purchasing books (and us running out of New Moon right as Christmas shopping picked up.) By that time, the fourth book was out, and selling crazy. At some point that year, Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games came out. I remember seeing it at B&N in Greenville SC.

Suddenly, what I wished for in high school has come true. Yeah, it took a minute, but the YA section at B&N is much bigger than I ever remember it being when I was a teenager. I still browse every so often, checking out cover design (because I straight nerd over stuff like that.) I like to see where the trend is going. Looks like vampires and werewolves are still pretty solid, but the really cool kids are post-apocalypse survivors

I still read YA, and I'm not alone. No, I'm not trying to reclaim my youth. I'm 26 and I don't feel that age anyway. A lot of YA is just plain good, quick fiction, which is what I've looked for. Something I can curl up with at night, under a blanket. Something that will give my brain a break because I'm working on my own stuff.

I admit, I'm a little jealous. I wish there had been more books for teens when I was a teenager, more of the adventurous stuff that I craved. But I'm glad that demographic is no longer ignored. And hey, if I get some good entertainment out of the deal, all the better.

Because let's be honest. At the end of the day, there is nothing quite like a good book, a warm puppy, and a nice cup of coffee for curling up with on a lovely rainy day.