Blog Archives
Never a Choice but Always a Gift
Max Kristoff, a man in his thirties who is living in New York, is about to come face to face with his past. When he walks into a house in Brooklyn, trying to connect with a person from that very past, he is plunged into a haunting situation. This situation sets him on a journey that will reveal—not only his character—but what lies in his heart and soul.
Will Max find what he is searching for?
Will he ever find closure?
Will he find himself along this journey?
Or will he die without every knowing the answers he’s always been seeking?
Never a Choice but Always A Gift By Adam Que is a book about change. Que takes you on a journey of Max’s life. Max was born and raised in the Bronx and currently living life with no real thought of tomorrow. After receiving some surprisingly unsurprising news, his life is bound to change.
Trials and tribulations surround Max and his long time friend, Bibby. Love, sacrifice and pride are challenged throughout the story. Memories are always with us. Can these two forgive and forget, or will they live the remainder of their lives holding a grudge?
Que’s use of vocabulary helps the reader relate to the different characters and really help you feel the emotions. The reader is lead along an easy to follow narrative that is sure to stimulate emotional response. That being said, there are times where the vocabulary becomes redundant and phrases are repeated which disrupts an otherwise sentimental novel.
Max is a well developed character and the story is gripping, but I felt that his thoughts in the beginning of the novel were constantly interrupted by tangents, side stories and information dumps which caused the story to lose focus. But when Max meets his love interest Celeste the background information is given in a less dense format and the novel flows easily and keeps the readers attention.
This novel is one of the more unique one’s I’ve read in 2016. Story detail is revealed through the use of double narrative. Things that Max is not willing to tell the reader is revealed through Bibby’s perspective. The switch of perspectives results in a change of language and tone which truly captures the feel of a new narrator. Few books I have read with a similar method of perspective change have lacked that quality.
I recommend this book to people going through hardships. Hope and unconditional love are cornerstones in the characters relationship. Never a Choice but Always A Gift is about a journey, but not the kind where characters trek through exotic locales. It’s a journey through life, to find love.
Pages: 266 | ASIN: B01EYS4Z9U
Zurga’s Fire
Travel back in time in this fantastical adventure with Zurga’s Fire, book three in the Orfeo Saga. Murray Lee Eiland Jr weaves his tale that takes place in historical Greece and the rest of the Mediterranean. Broken up into four books filled with short, easy to digest chapters we begin with Daryush, a young man who has been living as a consort for the Empress Zinaida. If you are just coming into this saga, you won’t be able to get a true grasp on what previous volumes have covered. What we learn from Daryush and Zinaida is that theirs is a young love and she has recently acquired her position of power. Due to their differences Daryush decides to leave Babylon in order to preserve his life. We then begin to follow him on his journey while meeting other important characters and breaking off to follow them. It all comes back around and end with Daryush.
Eiland is very good at keeping his chapters short and to the point. Instead of long, drawn out chapters that cover far too much information to digest well, this tale has the benefit of being broken into four books and a total of 70 chapters. While that may seem like a lot, the story doesn’t break 300 pages. There is even a historical note for those history buffs who are reading. This is a historical fantasy-adventure tale and Eiland does his best to keep information as true to history while taking certain artistic liberties. This makes the book easy to read without getting bogged down by technicalities. While the information regarding tribes, empires and villages is indeed massive, it is all presented in shortened, easy to read ways.
Daryush is not the titular character, although he feels like one. He weaves in and out of the story that the reader can get deluded into thinking it’s all about him. The book is called Zurga’s Fire for a reason and that is made quite apparent in the third book within this volume.
Aside from being a bit in the dark to previous accomplishments in the first two books, Zurga’s Fire stands well on its own. The story feels complete at the end and doesn’t leave too many unanswered questions. The writing is clean with little to no grammatical errors and the chapter formatting is nice on the eyes. The intrigue, romance and mystery that pepper the tale are all tasteful with nothing feeling forced or contrived. This is a spectacular feat to accomplish when you have so many characters with such intricate lives.
If you’re looking for a good read that won’t have you feeling overwhelmed then Zurga’s Fire by Murray Lee Eiland Jr is definitely something you should consider. Not too heavy on historical explanations and easy to read with short chapters, this third installment in the Orfeo Saga is pleasant and satisfying.
Pages: 244 | ASIN: B017YFKZSU
Dreamers Like Me
Christopher Clark Author Interview
Wyatt is an average kid with aspirations of serving in the Imperial Army when a strange dream leads him down a harrowing path that changes his life forever. What was the inspiration for the original and fascinating idea at the center of The Humming Blade?
The story is, in all honesty, the story I would’ve wanted to read in my youth. The Campbellian hero is relateable for a lot of reasons, and that blueprint is, in many ways, the blueprint for Wyatt’s journey. A dream or a prophesy are often found in those stories, and this is no different. Wyatt has to discover not only what it means to be a hero, but also what it means to truly have no say in the major life events that define the book.
I find the world you created in this novel brimming with possibilities. Where did the inspiration for the setting come from and how did it change as you were writing?
All of my ideas start out very small – a place, a specific thing, a person, etc. The Humming Blade was born of the idea of a world where the things everyday people see are built upon the bones of of something much older, greater, and harder to understand. It became necessary to make this setting familiar, because it had to feel easy to understand and subsequently easy to subvert. The idea that the familiar and the normal can be built upon the foundation of something completely alien is something that I love to think about our own world all the time. I think that dreamers like me will really find an easy home in this setting.
Wyatt is a well developed and intriguing character. What was the inspiration for his character traits and dialogue?
Wyatt is a little bit of every late-teens kid – smart, fast-learning, driven, and well-meaning. He’s bored of the only hand he feels is available to him and desperately wants to find a way out, which is certainly a feeling that I know a lot about. He’s something we’ve all been or all will be at some point in our lives. But he has a few bad traits of teenagers, too – he’s a bit mouthy, selfish, and stubborn. His motivation for most of this story is not to save the world or avert catastrophe; he just wants his mom back home where she belongs. He’s forced into making choices that he never wanted to make, and realizes that maybe the old and familiar life he lost wasn’t so bad after all.
I enjoyed the ending of the novel, although it left some things unanswered. What will book two cover and when will that be available?
The ending was definitely a deliberate choice on my part. Wyatt will begin the next book struggling with the ramifications of what happened, as well as a greater question: what place is there in the world for the “Chosen One” once he has fulfilled his destiny? What does he do now that he’s served his purpose? All throughout the first novel, the reader sees glimpses of things happening behind closed doors. Those scenes are like seeds – in book two, those seeds will grow and bear fruit. As far as when the book will be available, I hope to have it written soon. The first thirty-thousand or so words are already written, and the rest will come easily. I’m working on another project (some stories just have to be written!), but once that draft is complete and I’m off editing it, writing will resume on The Humming Blade’s sequel.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
Wyatt Arden thinks he leads a pretty normal life. He lives on a boring, everyday farm outside of a sleepy little town called Ven, doing boring chores for his mom when he’s not in school. He yearns for a chance to enlist in the Imperial Army and bring some excitement to his life, but he’s sure that will never happen. Wyatt soon learns that it only takes one strange dream for everything normal about his life to change. In that dream, he envisions a beautiful, powerful sword, a blade linked to deep magic and even deeper mysteries. The dream precedes an unexpected series of events that lead Wyatt into a harrowing, life-altering struggle for the lives of his friends, his family, and the world as he knows it. Wyatt must face vicious killers, dark schemers, and beings of such great power that their existence was erased from history. His only weapon? The Humming Blade.
The Fool’s Truth
Murder and mystery with shimmers of romance are all the delectable things that Loretta H. Marion has to offer with her tantalizing tale The Fool’s Truth. We are introduced to our protagonist, Cordelia Richmond through a first-person perspective on this tale. She is calling an old friend: someone to whom she trusts her very life. She’s been locked in a dangerous situation and her maternal instincts are telling her to run. And run she does. Cordelia is fleeing an unsatisfactory marriage to a man of impressive power while trying to retain her sense of self. It is during her flight that our sweet Cordelia becomes wrapped up in a devastating mystery through what many would consider coincidence. Given the spiritual aspect of our protagonist one can only pause and recall: ‘there is no coincidence, there is only fate’. For all the colorful experiences Cordelia has accrued in her lifetime, nothing could quite prepare her for what was to come.
Fragmented into small chapters that focus on one character at a time, The Fool’s Truth is eloquently written and carefully plotted out. As is the case with many mysteries if the author doesn’t know where they want the story to go, you’ll end up with a hot mess. Marion leads her readers through many twists and false starts to bring them to the satisfying end of their journey. Even the first chapter of the book is almost a ruse; meant to cause the reader to picture and assume something entirely false. It’s important to note that Marion does wrap up all her threads by the end of the tale.
A drawback from being written so fragmentedly is that the chapters concerning Cordelia are written in the first person. This can throw the reader off if they are expecting a third-person view like the rest of the book. However, while this may be off-putting, it does not detract from the story itself. It does its job to cement Cordelia as the main character of this novel, though there would have been little doubt of that. For all the trouble our heroine finds herself in, this is still very much her story.
What a twisted journey it is. The characters are all intricately tied together with false identities, broken pasts and loveless marriages built on security, not affection. There are some surprising truths near the end of the book and the final part does an excellent job of wrapping everything together. In what must have been a labour of love The Fool’s Journey spans more than three hundred pages, yet every single one of them unfolds pieces of the puzzles that Marion scatters throughout the tale.
At times breath-taking and other times heart-pounding a true mystery lover will not want to let The Fool’s Truth pass them by. Even the romance aspects of the story are not overpowering and flow naturally, without taking away from the central core of the tale. The romance is a side dish to the main course of full-bodied mystery that Marion has to offer.
Pages: 377 | ASIN: B01LY8U5B1
Beauty of the Fall
It is impressive, nay amazing, what the human soul can withstand. The Beauty of the Fall by Rich Marcello chronicles one such journey. Our protagonist is Dan Underlight, a man approaching the end of his prime who is getting laid off from the company he helped found. Dan has always been involved with hi-technology and the story opens with his seemingly unjust dismissal from a company he has birthed and nurtured much like a child. As Dan leaves RadioRadio Software after being pushed out by his founding partner, Olivia, we are privy to the sensational emotional and physical journey he undergoes. We learn that a few years ago Dan lost his only child, ten-year-old Zack, and that he dropped into a deep depression. We learn that Dan is divorced and that there is nothing in his life that brings him joy as much as working for RadioRadio had. When we begin our story, we meet a battered man who has nothing left. Then he begins a journey, and takes us with him.
Marcello is a master with language. The story flows in such a natural way it is easy to get sucked into what you’re reading and lose track of time. There are no unnecessary words. In a tragically beautiful tale like this it is easy to drown your story in frivolous language. Marcello keeps the dialogue short and only uses it when absolutely necessary. We journey through this story from Dan’s perspective as it is told in the first person. Marcello weaves effortlessly between Dan’s thoughts and the words he and those he meets say. Poetry peppers the text due to the creative Willow who will become both a source of strength and sorrow for Dan. He is a man who is grieving: grieving the loss of his child and the loss of his reason for existence. We go with Dan through therapy, we journey with him on his pilgrimage and we arrive at his revival as he creates a company even better than the one he had before. It’s not all roses and sunshine for Dan, however, and we also continue with him through his intense sorrow and his drunken attempts at coping. Marcello’s portrayal of the human condition is fantastic and readers will not be disappointed.
The story is broken down into parts and time flows effortlessly. In some novels time skips are awkward and unnecessary. Even the short six month time skips are effortless and useful. When we meet Dan, he is broken and wounded. He rebuilds, even better than before, but suffers two detrimental losses that may have readers concerned about his recovery. After all, he is only human and the soul can only withstand so much pain. Marcello doesn’t disappoint and the resolution of The Beauty of the Fall is realistic and will leave readers feeling confident in Dan’s choices for the rest of his life.
If you’re looking for a masterful tale that will have you laughing, crying and questioning how you view yourself in the universe, you will not be disappointed with Rich Marcello’s wonderful portrayal of the human condition in The Beauty of the Fall.
Pages: 283 | ASIN: B01MFCTYYW
Paralian – Not Just Transgender
The term “Paralian” comes from ancient Greek origins, and it has taken on the meaning of “people who live by the sea”. There could be no more apt title for Liam Klenk’s autobiography. In Paralian: Not Just Transgender, He recounts the sweeping and nomadic movements of his life via the lens of the rivers, lakes, and oceans by which he periodically makes a home. Water is the element of change and transition. It is also the element at the heart of so many human-nature entanglements; the resource that has always defined and guided the movements of our species. Fittingly for a tale of bodies, travels, transitions, and wandering, Klenk uses bodies of water to parse the sections of his life like chapters in a narrative.
The voice and experience of Liam Klenk is tender, vulnerable, and honest. It comes to the reader unassumingly and asks only for a patient ear. As the title would suggest, Paralian: Not Just Transgender tells a tale far wider in scope than Liam’s courageous journey through gender confirmation. If anything, the story is about the contexts that occur before, during, and afterwards. It tells the story of a human being finding his place in this world. It opens near the River Enz in Germany, with a young girl named Stefanie and illustrates how a complex and tumultuous family origin, vexes and feeds her inherent confusion over identity. At the end, the reader closes on a confident, middle-aged man named Liam who views the world through hopeful, optimistic eyes from an airplane above Hong Kong. In the intervening pages a transition obviously happens but—to the author’s point—so does a full life. As Stefanie becomes Liam, the reader is taken abroad from Germany to Seattle, from Zurich to Italy to Macao, and all points in between. What makes Klenk’s tale so necessary is that we get a story about a transgendered individual that articulates that while a singular aspect of his life was important, it by no means is the sole determinant of identity.
Regarding execution and readability, there are some pieces that could give readers trouble. As with many ESL authors, minor line-level similes and metaphors go overboard at times and actually distract the reader from the emotional intensity of scene and moment. The larger issue however is that Paralian: Not Just Transgender isn’t just a fascinating book, as it is several fascinating books mashed together. Because Life has no definitive plot, the best works of biography and creative nonfiction tend to follow an A-side/B-side construction in which real world chronologies and events are echoed and digested alongside another more metaphorical through line. Klenk’s book is framed around the metaphor of nomadic travels and bodies of water, but the device is often glanced over or abandoned entirely for lengthy sections. This leaves the prose, like it’s subject, to wander widely. Luckily for Klenk, his book is entertaining enough that its propensity to lose direction is easily forgiven.
Pages: 456 | ISBN: 1785891200
Jabberwocky: A Novella
Theodore Singer Author Interview
Jabberwocky: A Novella follows Astreus, heir to the House of the Jabberwock as he embarks on a quest to slay the Jabberwock. There is obvious inspiration from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, but what was the inspiration for the epic journey that Astreus undertakes?
I have always loved stories of quests, and became fascinated with the idea of a quest stripped down to its bare essentials – a journey by a lone hero through a series of landscapes and events. I also got the idea of writing a novel inspired by the Lewis Carroll poem Jabberwocky, and eventually put the two together. This worked particularly well for me, because the poem says almost nothing about the events of the quest, just its beginning and end. It’s all reduced to a single line: “Long time the manxome foe he sought”. It was the perfect empty space where I could place my quest story.
Astreus leaves his cozy privileged life behind for the sake of the quest. What do you think drives Astreus to the quest rather than being safe at home?
Apart from youthful restlessness and a wandering heart, it’s the sense that life could be more. As I say in the novella, it’s the idea of enlarged possibilities. It’s the feeling that you don’t have to accept the life that has been laid out for you – instead, you can create your own life. Ultimately, it’s about personal freedom. That’s why people have always admired people like pirates and gangsters. Despite their grievous shortcomings, for people crushed by their circumstances, they seem like heroes for rebelling against those circumstances.
There is a city in your story where psychic cats live with their human servants. I find this setup endlessly entertaining. How did this idea start and develop as you wrote?
I have a certain fascination with chess, despite being a terrible player. Once I was sitting on the floor at home, playing through a grandmaster game from a book, when my cat came and sat opposite me and stared intently at the board and pieces. It looked exactly like she was playing a game against me. This gave me the idea of a city where cats played chess against each other to determine status, instead of physically fighting the way cats usually do. It followed that they would need human servants to move the pieces for them. I started with that when my hero came to the city, and the finer details suggested themselves to me quite naturally as I progressed.
What is the next story that you’re writing and when will it be published?
I’m writing a full-length novel about a strange world, based on a single strange concept. I can’t say more than that, but it should be finished in about a year.
Author Links: Website | GoodReads
Tarbabies: The Shadow Man of Ichabod Lane
Tarbabies follows the protagonist, Josh, as he and his wife experience a catastrophic event that changes the world as we know it. Through news reports, Josh watches as New York City falls victim to what he calls “tarbabies”, monsters made of a soft, gooey substance. These tarbabies have the ability to change any living thing they touch into one of them, and they are immune to physical attack. It’s not long before the simple yet dangerous monsters show up in his neighborhood, and despite their slow, plodding movements, they manage to increase their numbers daily. Josh and his neighbors try to learn as much as they can, but their knowledge might not be of any use, as they are slowly running out of allies. What they do learn, though, is just as mysterious. There is something attractive about these monsters. People attacked by them feel no pain, and instead seem to experience some kind of euphoria before being taken over completely. Josh and his wife leave their quiet neighborhood, determined to reach the safety of her parents’ home across the state. Will they make their journey safely? What are these monsters, and are they getting smarter?
Josh and his wife have loving, fun interactions. Brady did very well crafting these two, and I spent almost every page of the story hoping that both of them make it through. The author also excelled at creating each of the characters on Ichabod Lane, especially the young boy Logan, who treats the dangerous, slow-moving monsters as a fun activity.
The novel also has a nice balance of settings. There are scenes taking place in big cities, small communities, woodlands, and more. The characters travel well and the descriptions of their travels are very entertaining. Particularly, it was fun to read about Josh and his wife and their hiking adventure through the Catskills.
This novel is written very well. If I have any complaints, I would say that the pacing is a little rough, due mostly to the slow pace of the monsters, themselves. The main thought for the first half of the book is that if the main character does get captured by any of these creatures, it would be a silly mistake that would only immensely frustrate the reader. The events also take a long time to unfold once the initial shock from the discovery of the monsters takes place. There are several characters that are well written, but their interactions are difficult to care about as the action is a bit dull.
Overall, this novel provides plenty of tension and suspense through the monsters that have invaded New York. While the reader may want to experience more suspense and action, the author seems to be in this story for the long game, taking his time to develop the characters and to develop the rapidly evolving monsters. This series will be more entertaining the longer one reads, so don’t quit if the first hundred pages aren’t enough.
Pages: 272 | ASIN: B017PSKB58
LITERARY TITAN 