Category Archives: Reading

My TBR (to be read) pile, my take on my favorite reads and more

Reading

Ghost of a Chance by Kerry Blair – Review

I had the pleasure of meeting Kerry Blair at the LDStorymakers Conference last month. She was wonderful and kind and gracious even before I mentioned the fact that I’d just bought Ghost of a Chance, but hadn’t read it yet. She joked that if I didn’t like it, she’d be happy to refund the 50¢ she got as royalties. Her friend, Deb, also at our table, handed me two quarters and told me to say I loved it.

So yes, I have been compensated for this review. And yes, I did enjoy this book. I picked it up because . . . well, have you seen my latest projects? I’m just a little interested in Catholic things these days and part of this mystery is set in a crumbling Catholic mission.

But I’ll tell you right now—once you open this book, the Catholic angle isn’t what keeps you reading. The best thing about this book, hands down, is the voice. The protagonist, Samantha Shade, is absolutely hilarious—she’s witty, funny and as devoted to parentheticals as I am. While it always takes me a little while to get used to first-person narrators, since they’re not the default these days, once I was used to it (within the first chapter or so), I was hooked—and the book would not have been the same without it. When it comes down to it, whether you relate to that voice will determine whether you like the book.

This book also gets genuinely oh-crap-it’s-one-AM-and-I-need-sleep-but-I-can’t-stop-after-reading-that creepy. Yet it’s still very funny and very light in many ways because of the narrator.

Let’s see, the cons. I kind of felt like we lost the hero, Det. Thom Casey, for a while while he was off solving the crime and collecting the necessary info to save the day. And of course, a lot of it is over the top, but it’s played for humor and with the narration style, it all works. A very fun read!

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Reading

The Hourglass Door by Lisa Mangum – Review

I think I’m a hard-to-please reader, but really, usually like reading just about anything, so it goes without saying that I liked The Hourglass Door by Lisa Mangum. But I didn’t just like it; I really enjoyed this book! I definitely wasn’t expecting this—I wasn’t expecting much of anything, since I got a free ARC at the LDStorymakers Conference last month, and since the beginning felt a little slow.

A young adult novel, The Hourglass Door is about Abby Edmunds. She longs to live without limits. When she falls for the handsome exchange student from Italy, Dante Alexander, however, she is introduced to a world where even time can’t hold onto her.

The writing was beautiful. I was really impressed by the visual and emotional imagery. I loved the cadences of Lisa’s writing, in particular the pattern she set early on with the paragraph “I felt so much older than seventeen. Cold and old and hollow.” The same pattern is repeated other places in the book. I felt like someone else might have thought they were repetitive, but I found them beautiful in their symmetry.

The mystery was revealed a little more slowly than I would have liked, but I kept reading. I was definitely rewarded for continuing—the mystery was deeper than I’d expected (but, thankfully, not so deep as to induce headaches, and definitely not beyond the intended audience). As I neared the last pages, I was afraid the story would end without finality, and while there’s plenty of room for the sequel, there is a pretty good sense of “The end.”

I always read with a critical eye (sigh), and there were a few things that pulled me out of the story. I keep some pretty educated company, if I do say so myself, and while I do know what it means I’ve never heard anyone use “thrall” in conversation, let alone a 17-year-old (there are really only a couple of places like this).

However, my biggest complaint was when the story skipped ahead a few weeks at a time in a couple places, the narrative summary read like . . . well, summary. I don’t mind skipping ahead a few weeks at a time at all, but in a book that deals with the nature and the fabric of time, I expected those transitions to be handled a little more smoothly.

Neither of these really bugged me that much, though, and the book’s strengths more than compensated for its weaknesses.

I’m looking forward to the sequel, The Golden Spiral, which is due out next summer. I definitely recommend this book.

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