Category Archives: Authors P-T

Carolina Dreams: It’s All Anne Rivers Siddons’ Fault

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Anne Rivers Siddons is responsible for one of my ultimate fantasies: a Carolina beach vacation.

I’ve been a fan of the author Anne Rivers Siddons ever since my mother and I started scouring the new fiction shelf at the San Jose Public Library for her work. Sure, she writes male characters that are only slightly more real than the men in Elin Hilderbrand’s Nantucket novels, but her women are strong, and three-dimensional. More importantly, the HOUSES they live in are amazing. When I think of Anne Rivers Siddons, I think first of the beach, then of women characters, and then of architecture.

Outer Banks

One of the first Siddon’s novels I remember reading was Outer Banks. It was about true love and lost love, coming of age, finding one’s path, and of the changing relationships between friends, lovers, and families, and of course it had a wonderful house where much of the drama took place.

Granted, Siddon’s houses are nothing like the Carolina Designs homes that people can rent for their very own Carolina vacations. Hers tend to be draughty old summer cottages with sand stuck between the floor boards, and weathered paint. Charming to read about, but not where I’d want to stay.

So, where do I see myself on my fantasy visit to Carolina? Well this house is my ideal. It sleeps ten, so Fuzzy and I could invite the entire family, but everyone would still have their own space. It has cable, wifi and a wet bar (because we all know vacations are all about booze and the internet), and xbox, so my vampire-skin husband would have something to do while I’m basking on the sand or splashing in the surf. It has a lot of bathrooms – really important – and it also has a full kitchen. And did I mention the pool and tennis courts.

I have an aunt whose husband’s family owns a “cottage” in the Hamptons. Like the old homes in Siddon’s novels it’s huge and cold, with beds that include one referred to as the double taco, because it folds you into itself so completely – and not in a good way.

My vacation fantasy does not involve being suffocated by an ancient bed.

My vacation fantasy draws elements from another of Siddons’ novels, Low Country, which was all about the relationship between Anglo and Gullah communities in South Carolina. As much as I’d love an ‘in’ into the Gullah world, what really drew me about that novel was the food. The characters in that story were tied to their food, to their Sunday dinners, to sharing meals together, and as someone who grew up in a family of amateur and professional chefs, food is a language I speak well.

I long to have my family assembled for a barbecue within sight – or at least scent – of the ocean, with those coastal breezes making everything taste better. I want to sit on a deck at dusk nursing a beer and nibbling on the perfect burger, and not caring that there’s sand in my hair and that my nose is a little sunburnt.

I want to have wonderful days by the sea with people I love, and then, like Ms. Siddons, I want to curl up and write about it, turning it into a novel, a series of short stories, a memoir.

I want to be in Carolina..and it’s all Anne Rivers Siddons’ fault!

Low Country

Review: Three Cups of Tea

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Three Cups of Tea
Three Cups of Tea
by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

I initially picked up Three Cups of Tea some time last year, in the same shopping trip that included picking up a couple of different anti aging creams for my mother, having my hair done, and spending some time alone with a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich at Barnes and Noble. I didn’t actually read it until recently, however, because it got lost in my house – so lost, that I actually picked up a second copy thinking I’d never purchased the first!

I’m glad I finally read this book though, because the story is beautiful. I mean, I disconnected a bit in the first third of the book when author Greg Mortenson, whose story this is, was living in his car to save money so he could get back to Pakistan, but by the time I got to the end of his book – which is really just the beginning of his legacy – I was completely invested in the man and his mission.

For the five people who haven’t read it, Three Cups of Tea is the story of an American mountain climber who fails to reach the summit of K2, becomes severely ill during his descent, and gets lost in a remote corner of Pakistan, where local villagers take him in, help him recover, and essentially adopt him. As thanks, he promises to return and build a school where the young women of the village can be educated. He eventually makes good on his promise, first building a bridge, then the first school, then heading a foundation with a mission of building more schools in Pakistan, all for educating women and girls, while still being respectful of local religion and customs.

And to top it all off, this is all taking place at the very beginning of the Taliban’s rise to power.

While, at times, my not-so-inner snob found her skin crawling at the less-than-pristine conditions of Mortenson’s living arrangements, I finished the book with tears in my eyes. I feel this book should be required reading for everyone, everywhere.

Goes well with: Tea and flat bread.

Review: The House on Oyster Creek, by Heidi Jon Schmidt

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House on Oyster Creek
The House on Oyster Creek
Heidi John Schmidt
NAL Trade, 368 pages
Get it from Amazon >>

I picked up The House on Oyster Creek because the title and cover blurb intrigued me. It ended up being nothing like what I expected, but that’s not a bad thing.

In this lyrically written novel, you can hear the coming and going of the tide off Cape Cod in the author’s words. Schmidt certainly knows how to set a mood – and she does so, here, with delicacy. When we meet protagonist Charlotte Tradescome, and her husband Henry, we are given the impression that the younger, more vibrant Charlotte loves her thorny, somewhat aloof husband, but is no longer entirely “in love” with him, especially since the birth of their now-three-year-old daughter. …

When Henry’s father dies, and the couple inherit a house on the cape, Charlotte seizes it as an opportunity to take her child away from the hustle and bustle of life in New York City, and give her something “real.” She immediately embraces the new location, the crusty locals who deem her a “washashore,” and the rhythm of life on the shore. She also falls for a local oyster farmer Darryl Stead, while Henry spends his time reading, writing, and hitting the local pub late at night.

In any other author’s hands, Charlotte would divorce Henry, marry Darryl, and proceed to have an epic romance. In Schmidt’s hands, that doesn’t happen, and while Henry is portrayed as the ultimate curmudgeon, we also see that there’s real affection between himself and his wife.

It is, however, the land war that Charlotte accidentally causes that is the center of this story – and a metaphor for the Henry/Charlotte/Darryl triangle. When selling off part of their land, Charlotte left the door open for greedy rich folk to build a house totally out of tune with the coast, and block access to the oyster farms.

Of course Darryl is one of those most affected by that act, and of course they work together to rectify the situation.

Meanwhile, the year turns, the characters grow, and every few scenes, fresh oysters are being cooked and served.

This may not be the best novel in the world, but for summer beach reading, it holds some lovely surprises – pearls in the oysters, if you will.

Goes well with: Fried oysters and cold beer.

Review: The House on First Street

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The House on First Street
The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story
by Julia Reed
Harper Perennial, 224 pages
Get it at Amazon >>

Julia Reed’s The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story may be her memoir of the renovation of the home she buys (across the street from Anne Rice’s old place) with her husband, after many years of living in tiny, funky New Orleans rentals, and not quite cutting ties with New York, but it’s also a love story about old houses and old cities, and the magic that both offer, if you only know how to feel it.

While this book, with it’s comical (to those of us who are merely reading about it) and familiar (to any of us have gone through it) tales of slow, less-than-adequate contractors, dusty floors, paint disasters, plumbing woes and the search for the perfect appliances, fixtures (everything from the most charming door knob for an inside door, to debates about porcelain – should they use Toto toilets or some other brand?), rugs, and furniture is essentially about the relatively common practice of restoring a vintage home, it’s also a first-hand account of the aftermath of Katrina.

The hurricane struck, you see, just two weeks after Reed and her husband had finally moved into the House on First Street. They were lucky – they lost an expensive tree, and had some minor exterior damage – but their neighborhood didn’t flood. Nevertheless, Reed was in position to be in the city sooner than most of the other residents, and while she shares humorous anecdotes about buying barbecue for an entire platoon of National Guards, underlying the wry tone is the poignance of a woman who just wants to go home.

Review: Angelology

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Angelology
Angelology
by Danielle Trussoni
Viking, 464 Pages
Get it from Amazon >>

When my friend Deb told me she was reading a book called Angelology, and that I had to read it, too, I was skeptical. I mean, it sounded like some funky new age treatise, and secretly, I was worried about what chemicals might be misfiring in her brain. Then she began to describe the plot, and even before she gave me the book, I was hooked.

Imagine a world where angels walk beside us, not as mystical guardians but as immortal (or as near to it as makes little difference) preter-natural beings with huge mafia-esque family businesses. Oh, they’re not ‘out’ or anything – but they exist nevertheless – at least in the reality Trussoni has created.

Enter Sister Evangeline, orphan, nun, restless soul. She’s been assigned to work in the convent library, and one day while she’s doing just that, she intercepts a letter asking for proof of a connection between her convent’s former Mother Superior and Abigail Rockefeller, yes, the Abigail Rockefeller.

That letter sparks a romp through art, literature and history that even Dan Brown would be humbled by, replete with mystery, intrigue, faith, science, and maybe even a little magic.

To describe the plot more would be to ruin it. Suffice to say Angelology is a gripping paranormal mystery/thriller of epic proportions.

Goes well with a slice of angel food cake, fresh strawberries, and a perfect cappuccino.

Review: Lost & Found

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Lost and Found
Lost & Found
by Jacqueline Sheehan
Avon, 304 pages
Get it at Amazon >>

Because I’m a sucker for a cute face – especially when the face belongs to a dog with a number like ls4278 instead of a name, there was no way I could pass by the trade paperback edition of Jacqueline Sheehan’s novel Lost & Found. After all, there’s a cute dog on the cover.
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This dog, however, does not have a number instead of a name. When protagonist Rocky loses her veterinarian husband in the opening chapter, she decides to leave her job as a psychiatric counselor attached to a local university, and moves to a remote island in Maine to become the animal control warden. Once there, she meets Isaiah, the local vet, Tess, the local therapist, and Melissa, a young girl struggling with anorexia. She also meets Lloyd, after rescuing him from behind a dumpster, where he’s nursing the infected wound caused by an arrow.

Lloyd is the dog on the cover, a black lab who eventually serves as the catalyst for healing and change among all the women in the story.

This is a gentle novel, and I’m reading it on vacation, so even though I’m enjoying the story, it’s making me miss my dogs, more.

Goes well with an animal to cuddle.

Teaser Tuesday: Angelology

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On Teaser Tuesdays readers are asked to:

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between 7 and 12 lines.
  • You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given.

I’m watching the current episode of Glee as I write this (DVR’d earlier) and am trying to dash this off before it resumes. It’s been a pajama day for me, as I’m not feeling well. Again. I didn’t even read, but I have a stack of stuff waiting to be read. One of the books in question, is Angelology by Danielle Trussoni.

Suddenly a hot, sticky substance seeped over the skin of my palms. Lifting my hands, I squinted, trying to determine what had happened. A gummy golden film, transparent and glistening as honey, coated my hands, and when I held them up in the light of the angel’s skin, the substance refracted, scattering a reflective dust over the cavern floor, as if my palms were coated in millions of microscopic crystals.

Quickly, before the other angelologists saw what he had done, we wiped our hands against the rocky surface of the cavern wall and slipped them back into our gloves. “Come, Celestine,” Dr. Seraphina said, “Let’s finish with the body.”

(Angelology, by Danielle Trussoni, page 230)

Teaser Tuesday: Twelve Rooms with a View

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On Teaser Tuesdays readers are asked to:

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between 7 and 12 lines.
  • You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given.

To be honest, when I first began reading Twelve Rooms with a View, the new novel by Theresa Rebeck, I thought the lead character, Tina, was a bit dense. This is a woman who doesn’t know the difference between a prevera review and Prometheus Unbound, I thought. But it turned out that Tina had her own form of intelligence, and I ended up really liking the book. A lot.

Eyeing Mrs. White’s gorgeous pink outfit, I felt a sincere moment of sympathy for those teenage girls learning a broader system of values. I mean, their mother was running all over New York City in designer suits, and they had to throw on the same ugly pleated skirts every morning before heading uptown to hang out with a bunch of nuns. It seemed like a pretty nasty fate, especially considering that they lived in Manhattan, where I would have thought that nobody, and I mean nobody, went to Catholic school to learn values.

— from Twelve Rooms with a View, by Theresa Rebeck (page 94)

Book Trailer: The Baseball Codes

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Listening to NPR while I was doing my morning bathroom routine earlier today, my attention was caught by a conversation with the author of a new book called The Baseball Codes that’s all about the official and unofficial rules, regulations, and codes of etiquette involved in baseball. While I’m not generally a sports fan, I do have a soft spot for baseball, and have fond memories of watching ball games on television with my grandfather when I’d be at their house during the summer.

I miss those summers.

In any case, when it comes to marketing books, one of my favorite promotional products isn’t really a tangible product at all, but the book trailer. So, here’s the book trailer for The Baseball Codes, by Jason Turbow:

Review: This One is Mine, by Maria Semple

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This One is Mine
This One is Mine
by Maria Semple
Back Bay Boo. ks, 320 pages
Get it at Amazon >>

Maria Semple’s debut novel This One is Mine sounded like it would be just my thing when the publicist offered me a review copy. Then I read it, and learned that while Semple’s characters are vivid, and her writing voice easy to read, her book wasn’t quite my thing after all.

This One is Mine is the story of Violet, who has violets tatooed behind her ear, and was once a television writer/producer, but who quit working when she became a mother, choosing to focus on raising her baby and caring for the huge L.A. home she and her music producer husband (David) live in. She does this, not on her own, but with the help of the nanny, whom is called LadyGo (which clueful readers figure out about two-thirds of the way into the book comes from the nanny’s habit of retelling conversations with liberal use of the phrase, “Lady go, “blah blah blah…”). In the opening chapters, however, we see a home with a dead rodent in the hot tub, and honey leaking through the kitchen ceiling, two items that are never resolved in the story.

Violet is restless, and feels trapped, and ends up having a short-lived affair with a D-list bass-player named Teddy. It would be wonderful if this affair stirred Violet from her stupor, and sent her either back to the office, or back home to really take charge, but Teddy is so unlikeable – he’s a loser with bad hygiene and a drug habit who pretty much only cares about music, sex, and his car – that this relationship left me feeling as slimy as Violet should have. Seriously, I like to read in the bath, but this book made me want a shower.

Then there’s Sally, David’s sister. 36, beautiful and completely neurotic, she’s latched onto a sports statistician who is about to become famous and successful in a whole new way – she thinks – and when their relationship isn’t everything it seems, doesn’t talk to him the way reasonable adults do, but hides her problems.

Still the book ends on an up note, and despite the overdramatic characters and implausible situations, it’s important to remember that author Semple is, herself, a producer/writer, and this novel is meant to be social satire. And it succeeds well at this. I especially enjoyed David’s trip to a sweat lodge – I laughed so hard at THAT scene that the laughter served in place of allergy relief.

Is it outright funny? I suspect only if you live in L.A. or are close to people who do, will it generate belly laughs. Do I wish I hadn’t read it? No. It was interesting, just…not particularly my thing. I do think its likely to be quite enjoyable for most women, however.

Except for the tattoos of violets behind the main character’s ears. Those, I really liked.