By Erwin Mortier
This work is and isn’t about World War I. Helena, writing journal after journal as an elderly woman cared for by one harsh homecare nurse and one loving homecare nurse, first shows readers what her life has become. Then we see how life was before the war…comfortable, pleasant, and in many ways a mirror image of the nurturing kindness the elderly Helena receives from the kind caregiver.
Not until long into the book does Helena finally turn to the wartime events. This is in part because the visitation of the fighting on her country was so terrible, she has difficulty coming to terms with it even at this late date. But she is driven to do so…not because she believes the journals will leave some lasting legacy; in fact, she tells the caretaker to distribute them at whim, and shows herself to be as unattached to them as falling leaves in the wind.
Really, she is writing for herself. She needs to retrieve from the mud that swallowed so many men dead and alive some understanding of what this monster was and how it changed her and her country. The sweep is epic yet is told from such a close and intimate understanding of one woman’s life that readers cannot help but feel the horror Helena had as a witness.
Then, at the end, we see that Helena’s words have had a broader impact beyond her life. The simple words of her caregiver, relaying her own family’s story of loss, resonates in a few brief pages with everything Helena has needed hundreds of pages to convey through her own efforts.
What shining beauty is in her words.
I was given an ARC (digital) by the publisher to review.
Want more fiction like this? Try Message Stick. A biracial man only faces his hidden past when forced by mysterious events surrounding the disappearance of his best friend.

I got up to page 138 with this. The first chapter was compelling enough to keep me interested; the author presents three viewpoints here, all with their own backstories.
Quickly, however, I found two things very annoying. First, the author talks down to the YA reader. Second, although this is set in some future time, the cultural references were all of today’s moment…and actually even outdated for today. So, even though the characters admitted using old cultural references, it didn’t come off well. Because of these two issues, it really sounded like an adult author trying too hard to reach the teen reader…and that’s a big turnoff.
Finally, as the pages turned, the author intruded more and more into the narrative and dialog. By the time I stopped reading, it felt like he was preparing to deliver a “big message,” which is also a turnoff. Not that fiction can’t deliver messages; they just need to be handled with a lighter touch.
2 stars.

Well, I gave this one a go. I enjoyed the concept but the way the author treated the overarching theme ended up drowning in dialog.
I don’t fault the author for this. It was pretty common to the time it was written to use didactic dialog to convey big chunks of information. So he was right in line with his times. I just wasn’t into reading this kind of book at this time.
I might return to it later and read the entire thing because I found the way he handled the narrative quite compelling. He was a brilliant writer, and is worth the effort. Just not this month!
3 stars.

By A.J. Kazinski
I selected this book because I found a number of parallels in the structure to a work I’m currently writing. I was interested to see how the author (in this case, two authors working under a single name) handled the information readers need to know to understand the plot points as well as how that information was spread across multiple characters.
The first 100 pages were strong enough. But the middle part bogged down in elements that were repetative and, frankly, the devices used by the authors were clunky. I kept reading because I wanted to see how they finished the work and how the devices changed throughout. I can’t say I would have kept reading if not for what I might learn about how to handle my own project.
I continued on because this was an “instant” bestseller in the authors’ country and has received some press in the U.S. because of that. I was interested to see why this became a bestseller, and was surprised whenever I found another of those clunky devices, unnecessary repetition, and poorly executed scenes.
Then, the end matter told me what was really up. It seems the authors are both filmmakers in their home country. So the book was a bestseller pretty much because of their fame rather than any quality attributed to the book.
Was the plot interesting enough? Yes. But too many of the other elements associated with the book were poorly excuted to support its success.

Very interesting read. Not sure I liked the jokey portions; they sometimes came off as too flippant. Otherwise a great read about a guy who tosses everything to live in the woods…and yet who can’t find the solitude he craves when others take that as a signal to do the same and move in next to him.
I do like the redemption he achieves with his son at the end. And the fact that he doesn’t give up on his new life…he just moves on. He moves forward, really, and that’s a powerful statement.
4 stars!
If you’re interested in reading a book that can help you examine your life without having to leave everything behind, try Seven Sisters: Spiritual Messages from Aboriginal Australia.

I read this work right after reading the first in this four-book series. That was a mistake. I would have enjoyed this much more if I had taken a break from the series and returned to this after reading other books that don’t deal with this historical event (WWII).
Because I came to it so quickly after the first book, parts of it felt too much like a repeat of events in the first book. I would place that as my fault, not the author’s.
Otherwise, a very enjoyable read. The author could have gone more into the protagonist’s life; the war felt like it was overbalanced in terms of how much time was given to that rather than her journey as a little person. But I stuck with it because I wanted to watch her travel through the parallel journey of being an outsider (as Jews and others were during the war). In the end, I didn’t feel as satisfied as I felt this protagonist deserved. However, the book as a whole is well done and worth the time to read.
3.5 stars.
For more fiction about the impact of historical events on real lives with a protagonist who is an outsider in their own culture, try Message Stick.

Another fantastic read. Introspective through the use of many tiny snapshots of different people in her town. Although told from a girl’s point of view, this has the mature voice of a woman looking back in time.
Come back tomorrow for more on this author and books from this series.
5 stars!

By Tom Phelan. Available Feb 3, 2015
This work is very uneven. The portions that are nearly pure narrative are very well written, interesting, and have a pacing that works well for the storyline and the humor woven throughout. Quite delightful, really, and kept my attention both as a reader interested in the story and as a reviewer considering the quality of the work overall.
However, the dialog did me in. It was overloaded with moments that stretched the humor as well as information that really should have been provided to readers in narrative. I enjoy a more subtle movement through a story, even one with so much humor involved, and didn’t find this a satisfactory read.
I do believe there is an audience for this book, and readers who don’t mind overdone dialog will really thrill to have found this book. But my personal engagement with it left me dissatisfied.

What better gift can you give yourself than diving into a book…or many books…over the holidays? Escape from the crush of details, forget about your family woes. Read about other family woes! Travel the world in your mind! Sample feasts without the calories!
Starting today, you’ll find one book review each day until after New Year’s. I’ll continue posting pubishing insider information, of course, so visit often for the best tips and updates for all things publishing- and writing-related.

This work started out well with the first chapter. It provided an intense moment, showed the characters’ personalities well, and promised much. Then it collapsed. The narrative switched into second person, which is technically very difficult to maintain.
The narrative also became much less compelling. The character’s backstory wasn’t compelling, and the writing wasn’t strong enough to make up for it. It became confusing due to the number of people mentioned; without any direction from the author on where to focus, the novel began to feel like too much work to follow.
I stopped reading before page 30. I do think that for a certain kind of reader, one interested in this historic timeframe (which I am) and who also likes a bit of soap-opera kind of drama (which I don’t), this work could be a great read, so do give it a try.
1 star.

Fram by Steve Himmer
Available January 13, 2015
I received an ARC from the publisher.
A fantastic romp with an ending that couldn’t make sense any other way. Oscar, a bureaucrat made dry and brittle by a life of paperwork and duplicate copies, lives in his imagination. He nurtures a childhood dream of being an arctic explorer, something he vicariously fulfills by working at the U.S. Bureau of Ice Prognostication, an agency created to counter the Soviet’s Cold War threat. The agency never died, nor did Oscar’s dreams.
He spends his days living those dreams by imagining what might be discovered in the Arctic then generating the reams of paperwork to prove that these “discoveries” are real. Towns, schools, mining companies and paper mills, even hot springs are all drawn onto the vast emptiness of the ice. At home, he communes with decades of old National Geographic magazines that trumpeted the original polar explorers’ journeys.
When Oscar is sent on an actual mission to this place he has only ever dreamed about, he becomes entangled in a snarl of espionage and rival agencies. As he digs deeper into the secrets and strangeness, he discovers that the arctic expanse of his marriage has been as important an element in his life as the actual region. At the end, readers will know that there could have been no other resolution to the bizarre journey that is Oscar’s life.

This work by Peter Terrin is a fantastic book that looks into many areas of the human mind at the same time. Written in spare prose that reflects both the setting and the lack of information the guards have about the outside world, the novel is truly a literary and storytelling triumph.
I received a copy from the publisher so that I could write a review of the translation, and was rivited by the work. I haven’t heard about this author before but the concept was interesting. While I expected a dystopian style read, what I found was much more nuanced and stylistic than the usual novels in this genre.
The guard who takes the lead in the narrative is not the leader inside the two-person squad. That choice from the author opened up this story to telling a subtle yet powerful story about confinement, control, voluntary subjugation, and the dynamics of human relationships in personal and organizational terms. The same elements can be read on an extended level that touches on elements we’re experiencing in different developed cultures today.
All these elements unfold in tiny ways that are no less powerful for the gradual movements involved. Some readers have responded to this work with confusion, claiming that they either didn’t understand the work or that later events were not supported throughout. I disagree. This novel reveals itself to readers who pay attention. For those who want more from a dystopian story than the usual justice-is-served or all-are-doomed endings, The Guard is the one to read. The Guard will be available in English starting Jan 6, 2015 in the U.S. and Canada.

A beautiful fable for adults. This work has it all: a central character you really care about, descriptions of the setting and places she visits that come alive with meaning, and questions over not only whether she will survive this terrible winter but what will happen to her friend in the end.
The images drawn by the author were fantastical yet always stayed embedded in what might really occur. The danger was real while being heightened by her youthful outlook both because children can fear things they don’t understand and because they ignore risks adults know are extreme.
At the end, the heart of the book blooms. This is the girl’s heart, her way of looking at the world, and the shift that occurs for her because of what has happened to her friend and her friend’s mother. Truly a lovely, almost achingly beautiful work. If I could give this six stars, I would.