Review - Dance of Souls by Audrey Kalman

This novel starts with the story of Amy, a sculptor and Zach, a student; a mother and son introduced to us just as the son is running away from home.  Throughout the book we are introduced to a public school science teacher whose finding of God causes drastic changes to his previously monotonous life; a documentary film maker and his assistant; a police officer; a Muslim woman; a school principal, a spoiled rich kid; and several others.  All of these characters at first appear to have lives that have no connection to each other, but as their storylines unfold all of their lives begin to weave together.  With characters of all ages and backgrounds, storylines running from the mundane to the curious and exciting, I think just about anyone could find something in this novel to touch them in some way.

It was, however, painfully obvious to me from the very first page that this is a self-published novel.  I literally lost count of all the typographical errors, grammar blunders, punctuation problems, missing words, and over-complicated, incorrectly structured sentences that riddled this novel.  All of these are issues that even a novice editor would have noticed and marked for correction prior to publication, and I couldn’t help but think that surely the author must have known someone with a love for the written word and a little remembrance of high school English class that could have reviewed this novel for her prior to submitting it to the public.

As if the editorial issues didn’t make this book hard enough to read, the author had a habit of moving back and forth in time in a manner that I found to be somewhat confusing and definitely annoying.  In addition, her attempts at foreshadowing were extremely blatant and often stated outright exactly what would happen several chapters later.    Quite a few of the many main characters in this novel were poorly defined leaving the reader confused about their actions and reactions.  The storylines, while basically very good, often lacked definition, and were not brought to enough of a close at the end of the novel for my comfort.

 All of these issues made the book a little more difficult to read than it truly needed to be.

I have, since finishing this book, discovered that this was the author’s first published work.  I think this novel could be an extremely good read and would be a great sell if it were a little “cleaner”.  It was obvious that the author has a fantastic imagination and is actually quite a skilled writer; what she desperately needs is an editor to help work out some of the kinks.

Review - Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

I have not read Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman, so I cannot speak to the similarities mentioned by other reviewers of this book, but I can tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I find Sarah Addison Allen's writing style to be deliciously easy to read with just enough descriptive detail to tell you what you need to know without wasting precious trees on pages of superfluous narration.

Her story of the Waverly sisters is woven with just enough wonder and magic to make it slightly reminiscent of a good old fashion fairy tale without being overladen with supernatural themery. The characters are all a bit quirky, but they are all presented in the author's easy-going light-hearted manner that make them so very loveable and interesting!

While the individual storylines involve real-life trauma and turmoil, the author manages to maintain a light and easy feel throughout the book. Topics that could easily be made into a darker and more foreboding tale are instead presented in a lighter, less overpowering context to allow the positive intentions and inner strength of her characters to shine.

Set in the small town of Bascom, North Carolina, the Wavery family has long been considered by their neighbors to be unusual. Waverly family members are special lot: guardians of a seemingly sentient apple tree; weavers of magical culinary dishes created from their own garden; psychicly intuitive gift givers; hair stylists with a knack for bringing out hidden qualities in their clients with the snip of a scissors.

A light and easy read, I would recommend Garden Spells to just about anyone!       

Review-Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith

I don’t know what possessed me to read this book.

It is true that I am a fan of vampires and other supernatural beings; both from the standpoint of their historical place in mythology and superstition as well as their place in modern fiction and film. It is also true that I am a fan of just about any kind of history, be it documentaries on my favorite nerdy television stations, biographies from the library or historical fiction. Still, I am surprised that I actually paid for and proceeded to read a tome with a title as hokey as: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter; and by an author of another book with the equally, if not even hokier title of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies!

But I did. I downloaded the kindle edition, and by the end of the first chapter this history-loving fan of mythology and the supernatural was entranced!

The book is skillfully written in the form of a biography, complete with a multitude of first-hand accounts from Lincoln’s personal, albeit fictional, journals; which conveniently happened to fall into the hands of the author. It is never fully explained why the giver of the journals chose the author as the one to receive them, turn them into a biographical account of Lincoln’s life as a vampire hunter and then share the story with the rest of the world. This was the first of a few items of unexplained convenience/coincidence that left me a bit disappointed at the end.

In general I enjoyed this book. The author did a fantastic job of weaving a relatively believable vampire conspiracy into the historical facts of Lincoln’s life story and political career. Yes, I said believable, please allow me to clarify. That would be “believable” in the context of what one might consider to be realistic behavior by an unrealistic being. I do believe that if vampires existed the behaviors they exhibited in this book would most certainly be a viable behavior pattern for them to adopt, or attempt to adopt in order to survive alongside the non-vampire majority.

For those of you less thrilled with the whole vampire genre of fiction and film that has again become so popular in recent times, don’t discount this book because of its hokey title or its vampire content. You will not be bored with drawn out descriptions of vampire attacks, blood sucking vampire lust, or the turning of humans into vampires. In writing this book as a faux-history it is almost as though the author did not want to glorify the vampires or give them any chance at some sort of romantic empathy on the part of the reader. There are an amazingly small number of descriptions of vampires attacking humans and those that did find their way into print are written in a very matter of fact manner as if they were only included in the tale because of their great importance in the life Lincoln.

On the flip side of the story and as an amateur history nut I was quite impressed with the amount of research the author did to ensure that the non-vampire related aspects of the “biography” were accurate and historically founded. There were times when history was bent a bit to allow the vampires to fit a bit better, but overall the history in the story was enticingly accurate.

The writing style made an easy read, the research made it a believable read, and the content made it a fun read. There were however a few ends which I felt were tied up a bit too loosely or too conveniently; and the ending, which I will not reveal here, left me wanting for just a few more details. However, overall I enjoyed the read, and if I can get past the titles, I may even read another book by this author!