Category Archives: Authors A-E

Review: The Shakespeare Manuscript

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The Shakespeare Manuscript

The Shakespeare Manuscript
Stewart Buettner

Product Description (from Amazon.com):
Not one of Shakespeare’s plays exists in manuscript form until a failing bookseller discovers a long-lost, early version of HAMLET. In an attempt to trace the puzzling manuscript’s origins, its new owner finds he can’t trust the identity of play’s author and soon has doubts about his own. But by then, the race to stage the new HAMLET is on, taking a toll on everyone involved. In the end, the new play leaves audience and actors alike wondering about the unexpected and moving consequences of the play they’ve just experienced.

Review:

This was my last book for the 2011 RIP Challenge, but I’ve been so busy that I’m a week (or more) behind in getting the review loaded. I FINISHED reading it on October 27th, however, so it still counts.

This was part soft mystery part contemporary fiction. We have a dynamic playboy director, an agoraphobic actress, the actresses gay rare bookseller father who seems to be suffering from dementia, a politician and his family, and a remote country house. All of the ingredients, I thought, for “Deathtrap” with “Hamlet.”

It was no “Deathtrap.”

But it was a lovely story about relationships, finding your place in the world (again), and being true to yourself. It was also an exploration of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, who really wrote it, and whether or not the script found in the novel is really an early version of the script, a prequel, or a hoax.

The characters felt like they could have been real, for the most part, and I liked that the author didn’t give us a real answer to who wrote the script…there are several possible solutions to that mystery.

Goes well with a mug of strong coffee and a slice of peach pie.

The Shakespeare Manuscript
Stewart Buettner
Performance Arts Press, April 2011
278 Pages
Buy this book from Amazon.com >>

Readers Imbibing Peril (art by Melissa Nucera)

Review: Murder by Mocha

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Readers Imbibing Peril (art by Melissa Nucera)

Murder by Mocha
Cleo Coyle

Description (from Amazon.com):
The national bestselling author of Roast Mortem serves readers a fresh new Coffeehouse Mystery.

Includes chocolate recipes!

A divorced, single mom in her forties, Clare Cosi is a coffee shop manager by day, an irrepressible snoop by night. When something is wrong, she considers it her mission in life to right it, and murder is as wrong as it gets.

Can coffee enhance your love life? Clare’s Village Blend coffee beans are being used to create a new java love potion: a Mocha Magic Coffee that’s laced with an herbal aphrodisiac. The product, expected to rake in millions, will be sold exclusively on Aphrodite’s Village, one of the most popular online communities for women. But at the product’s launch party, one of the website’s editors is murdered. Clare is convinced someone wants control of the coffee’s secret formula and is willing to kill to get it. Can she stir up evidence against this bitter killer? Or will she be next on the hit list?

Murder by Mocha

Review
I’m not entirely sure what prompted me to start reading Cleo Coyle’s Coffeehouse Mysteries, but I fell in love with her work pretty much instantly. Why wouldn’t I? I’ve been a barista, and I am a coffee snob.

In the most recent addition to this series, Clare Cosi is getting more and more serious with her police detective boyfriend Mike Quinn, and there are two separate murder cases. One’s Clare’s baby, and involves the company funding Mocha Magic, the chocolatey coffee aphrodisiac for which her beans are being used. The other’s a cold case that involves Mike’s colleague (and Clare’s daughter’s lover) Franco.

As always the dialogue is snappy, the descriptions of place feel three dimensional, and the plot is gripping without being too bloody or too silly. It was nice to see Clare’s ex in a helpful role this time, and I get a big kick out of her (former) mother-in-law, as well as the staff of the Village Blend Coffeehouse.

Cosi’s books are always a great way to fall into a season of Autumn mystery reading, and this one marks my first official entry in the 2011 R.I.P. celebration of dark literature.

Goes well with: a salted caramel mocha.

Murder by Mocha
Cleo Coyle
Berkeley, August 2011
384 pages
Buy this book from Amazon.com >>

30-Day Book Meme #6: Tuesdays with Morrie

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Tuesdays with Morrie

There aren’t a lot of books that really make me sad, though there are many books with individual moments that cause me to get a little weepy. One book that does make me sad, however, is Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie. I actually only read it for the first time last month, but it made me sad, and it made me angry – we don’t treat our older citizens very well – and it made me miss my grandparents.

The Sunday Salon: Free Kindle-ing

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The Sunday Salon.com

It was roughly a year ago that I received my Kindle e-reader as a birthday present from my aunt. I fell in love with it almost immediately, although I confess that the ability to have a new book in just a few seconds means that I spend far more on ebooks than I ever did on physical ones, especially since I still buy paperbacks to read in the bath!

Soon after I received my Kindle, I was introduced to ereaderIQ.com, a website that compiles new releases, price changes, and even free books for ereaders, and helpfully shoots you a daily email message with links to them.

Now, some of the free books are obviously free because they’re self-published (which that doesn’t mean they’re BAD, though it often means they’re either explicit sexual or explicitly Christian), but others are the first books in established series that are free to garner new audiences, or free because they’re backlisted, or free because they’re previews…

Blue, Lou Aronica

The thing is I’ve discovered some amazing work that people are literally giving away for free. The week before my nephew died, I downloaded a free book called Blue, by Lou Aronica, which was about a divorced father trying to maintain a relationship with his teenaged daughter, while she struggled with a relapse of cancer. It sounds really sad, and I guess parts of it are, but it was also a lovely fantasy, a brilliant father-daughter piece, and actually, I found it to be full of healing and hope.

I didn’t review it, because – well, I didn’t review anything, or maintain any of my blogs, really, between April and August. But I thought it was a great read, and I heartily recommend it.

Then, last week, as part of my self-indulgent birthday week of reading as much as possible, I downloaded a free copy of Megan Foster’s award-reading novel Megan’s Way. I finished it on Thursday or Friday, and tweeted about it, and ended up in a brief chat with the author. It, too, was a lovely book with a really beautiful parent-child relationship at its heart – this time with the title character – Megan – and her teen daughter Olivia.

Megan's Way, Melissa Foster

More magical realism than true fantasy, this was exactly the book I needed to read at the time that I downloaded it, and I loved it so much that I’m eager to read more of Foster’s work. Look for the review of Megan’s Way here on this blog in the next day or so (I meant to get it done over the weekend but life conspired against me).

These are just two examples of books I’ve read for free (or very little money) via my Kindle. Do I still love cracking open a paperback, or going to a reading and buying a signed copy? Of course! But I love being able to have a portable library as well.

My only dislike of my Kindle – and the technology in general – is that not EVERY book is lendable. After all, every hardcover and paperback is.

30-Day Book Meme #1: The Wave

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The Wave

The 30-day book meme asked me to talk about the best book I read last year. I don’t really rank my books in “best ever/worst ever” categories. I either didn’t like something, liked it, or loved it enough to read again. One of the books that fit the latter category, was The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean, by Susan Casey (review here).

This book alternates chapters, speaking with scientists and then surfers about finding the world’s biggest waves, predicting ocean waves and currents, surviving rogue waves, and even seeing waves from space – no really.

It’s a great book to go back to in weeks like this one, when it’s predicted to reach 109 today, and I’m really missing the ocean, but I’d recommend it to anyone who likes the science behind sailing and surfing, and why waves may be getting bigger and more dangerous.

Was it really the best book I read in 2010? Maybe, maybe not. It did, however, inspire me to download a surf report app for my iPhone.

Review: Seaworthy, by Linda Greenlaw

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Seaworthy
Seaworthy
Linda Greenlaw
Viking, 256 pages
June, 2010
Read the first chapter for free >> or Buy this book from Amazon.com >>

Product Description (from Publishers Weekly):
After a 10-year hiatus from blue-water fishing, Greenlaw (Hungry Ocean) went cautiously to sea, seeking a payday and perspective on her life. Thanks to The Perfect Storm phenomenon (both book and film), she was celebrated as America’s only female swordfish boat captain. She was now also a mother and an author who relished a new challenge, traveling 1,000 miles from her Maine home with an eager crew of four guys—three of them experienced sailing buddies—looking for swordfish on the 63-foot, six-and-a-half–knot steel boat Seahawk on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. It was a 52-day trip—and a sensational misadventure. Nearly everything that could go wrong, did, including her arrest for illegally fishing in Canadian waters. Greenlaw chronicles it all—a busted engine, a malfunctioning ice machine, squirrelly technology—with an absorbing mix of nautical expertise and self-deprecation. After inspecting the Seahawk, Greenlaw calls it rough, but stable and capable. Then she writes, “Although I was referring to the boat, I couldn’t help thinking the same could be said of her captain.” From mishaps to fish tales, Greenlaw keeps her narrative suspenseful. Between bad luck and self-doubt, she moves from experience to wisdom, guiding both crew and readers on a voyage of self-affirmation.

The thing about Linda Greenlaw’s books is that even if you have no real interest in commercial fishing, her storytelling style is so engaging, that for a moment at some point, you’ll wish you were on the boat with her. Well, you will if you’re not me. I love scented bubble baths, mochas, and mani-pedis too much to ever live the rough life of a fisherman, though I’ll admit that it must be nice to spend weeks at a time without all those ads exhorting you to “watch this” or “click here.”

Like many people, my first introduction to Greenlaw was through the book and the movie The Perfect Storm, but my first introduction to her writing was one of her books about lobstering and living on an island – I still haven’t managed to read The Hungry Ocean (I really want to, though). So this book, Seaworthy was my first experience with Greenlaw writing about her first passion, sword fishing, and for a moment, even I did want to be there.

Greenlaw’s writing, though, is so vivid that you almost are there with her in the wheelhouse of her boat, listening as she leads her crew into a battle against the sorry shape of their boat, the fish, the sea, the weather, and the calendar. It’s her first time back on a sword boat in ten years, and she admits to feeling rusty, but capable. Her crew, made mostly of people who have spent their lives fishing, clearly has deep respect for her, and if their interactions seem casual to the reader, then it’s best to remember that this is not a ship at war, but a commercial fishing boat.

It was only a line item at the end of the acknowledgments that made me realize Seaworthy was somehow connected to the Discovery Channel’s series Swords: Life on the Line which I vaguely remembered seeing ads for (I’m so talented, I missed both season one AND season two, however, despite the fact that they follow Shark Week, and you all KNOW I LOVE Shark Week.). Netflix had season one streaming, however, so while I was in bed with a nasty cold over the weekend, I watched all eight episodes.

The events relayed in Seaworthy roughly coincide with season one of Swords but the book includes events not shown in the series, and also goes into more detail. I’m looking forward to the second season, when it’s available on DVD or in streaming format.

As for this book, I read it in Kindle format, so I’ll probably have to archive it to save space at some point, but it’s definitely something I plan to re-read. It was a wonderful memoir, full of jeopardy and laced with humor. That Greenlaw went back out on a sword boat the next year, explains much about both the author, and the book.

Goes well with grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.

Review: STTNG: Enterprises of Great Pitch and Moment

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ST:TNG Enterprises of Great Pitch and Moment
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Enterprises of Great Pitch and Moment
Keith R. A. DeCandido
Simon and Schuster, 320 pages
March, 2008
Buy this book from Amazon.com >>

Product Description (from Amazon):
A new Federation President has been elected, and his first order of business is to attempt to restore the alliance with the Klingon Empire. To that end, he sends Captain Picard to Deep Space 9, in the hopes that Picard’s relationship with Chancellor Gowron might lead to a normalization of relations.

At first, things go well, as Gowron agrees to meet with Picard and Captain Sisko of DS9 on a neutral planet — but when their runabout is shot down, it’s up to Commanders Worf and Data to find out the truth before their captains are killed!

I hadn’t read a new Star Trek book in a while but I always enjoy Keith DeCandido’s additions to the franchise, and I’d been wanting something that took place post-series but pre-Nemesis, that all my favorite characters. I wasn’t disappointed at all – even though some of those characters were off-screen, their presence was still felt, and while this was essentially a DS9 crossover, it was a legitimate one. Picard and Sisko must team up to fix the Federation-Klingon Empire alliance (I maintain that the best way to lose weight fast is to try and out-fox the Klingons) and of course Data and Worf, working from the Enterprise and the Defiant have to help.

The thing about Star Trek novels is that they’re best when they expand the Trekiverse, giving us glimpses of parts of future life that the shows don’t. This novel was a bit short on that, but still a satisfying read.

Goes well with tea, Earl Grey, hot.

Review: The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey

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The Wave
The Wave
Susan Casey
Doubleday, 352 pages
September, 2010
Read the first chapter for free >> OR Buy the book from Amazon.com >>

Description (from Publisher’s Weekly):
Casey, O magazine editor-in-chief, travels across the world and into the past to confront the largest waves the oceans have to offer. This dangerous water includes rogue waves south of Africa, storm-born giants near Hawaii, and the biggest wave ever recorded, a 1,740 foot-high wall of wave (taller than one and a third Empire State Buildings) that blasted the Alaska coastline in 1958. Casey follows big-wave surfers in their often suicidal attempts to tackle monsters made of H2O, and also interviews scientists exploring the danger that global warning will bring us more and larger waves. Casey writes compellingly of the threat and beauty of the ocean at its most dangerous. We get vivid historical reconstructions and her firsthand account of being on a jet-ski watching surfers risk their lives. Casey also smoothly translates the science of her subject into engaging prose. This book will fascinate anyone who has even the slightest interest in the oceans that surround us.

I was browsing books on the Kindle when I came across the latest from Susan Casey, who wrote one of my favorite books, The Devil’s Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America’s Great White Sharks about the white sharks near the Farallon Islands, and the scientists who observed them. I love ocean stories, have been reading a lot of memoirs lately, and knew the author’s work, so I tried the sample chapters and was instantly hooked.

What I love about Casey’s work is that she blends science with interviews and personal observation, and The Wave combined all three to perfection. While the chapters didn’t always alternate between scientists and surfers, most of them did, and looking at waves from these two, radically different perspectives really worked. As I was reading, I could almost feel a surfboard beneath my feet (and I don’t even surf!) and taste the salty tang of ocean air.

If you love the ocean, are fascinated by climate change, or are just seeking a glimpse into the life of big-wave surfers, this book is for you.

Goes well with clam chowder and a cup of brisk, black tea.

Recommendation: No Impact Man, by Colin Beavan

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No Impact Man

I first heard about No Impact Man through a friend who mentioned his blog at least a year ago. Now, I can’t speak with any authority on what the best fat burner might be, but I’m thinking giving up elevators, meat, cabs and cappuccinos while living in New York City is probably a pretty good alternative, and that (and more) is what No Impact Man (aka Colin Beavan) and his wife and daughter chose to do (in stages) for a year.

They began with small changes – giving up buying any new clothing or other items, eliminating the use of plastic water bottles, disposable diapers, or foods from further away than 250 miles, and even, for the last half of their year of experimentation, turning off the electricity in their apartment.

While I haven’t read the actual book, I’ve read the original blog the book is based upon, and I’ve seen the documentary (which, btw, is playing this month on the Planet Green (GRN) cable channel, and available from Netflix in DVD or streaming formats).

So, I’ve added it to my list of books to buy the next time I buy books. I’ll be getting the Kindle edition, but never fear, the paper versions are printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper.

Review: Baby Bonanza, by Maureen Child

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Baby Bonanza
Maureen Child

Product Description (from Amazon.com):
Twins? The startling revelation that his affair with Jenna Baker had produced two little boys was almost impossible to grasp. Tycoon Nick Falco had never considered himself the settling-down type, yet now that fatherhood had been thrust upon him, he was determined to give his sons his name. But their mother wasn’t about to let him back into her life…at least not without those three little words Nick had never, ever said.

Sometimes a Silhouette romance can be just as much of a boost to your mood as a multivitamin can be to your health, and this book was no exception. Formulaic? Of course. Dashing hero with feisty heroine in preposterous situation? You bet. But, at the same time it was also a lovely two hours or so of reading on a day when all I wanted was light fluffy stories with happy endings.

Of course, the fact that I got this book in Kindle version for free, didn’t hurt.

Still even with all the “required elements” that a Silhouette Desire novel has to have, and even though I don’t believe a woman finding herself pregnant after a one-night stand would keep the babies, author Child created a lovely mood and I’m seriously lusting after the beach house at the end of the book.

Goes well with hot tea and banana bread.