The winner of the giveaway of the paperback version of The Tenth Plague by Adam Blumer is Faith. Congratulations, Faith!
For those who didn’t win, check out Adam Blumer’s Facebook page, where he’ll be posting about various other giveaways over the next few months.
Thanks for entering, and thanks to Adam for sponsoring the giveaway and writing such great books!
I’ve had The Reunion by Dan Walsh in my Kindle app for months now (or years…yikes!), but Lou Ann’s review caused me to move it up to my next Kindle read.
Aaron Miller is a Viet Nam vet who works as a maintenance man in a trailer park. Serious injuries sustained in the war sent him home and caused him to become addicted to painkillers. He lost his family, his job, his home, and lived on the streets for a time. But he found the Lord and began the slow road to recovery.
Even though his job might not look prestigious to most, he does it well. And in the course of it, he seems often to be put in the way of people who need help. A teen-age girl with an abusive boyfriend. A legless veteran who is on the verge of ending it all. An elderly woman whose home is crushed by a tree.
Unbeknownst to Aaron, three men he knew back in Nam are looking for him. And when one of them hires journalist Dave Russo, who is writing a book about Viet Nam vets in honor of his later veteran father, they just might find him.
All of Dan’s books that I have read are heartwarming, but this one is probably the most so. I kept thinking it would make a great Hallmark Movie. 🙂 I loved the Amazon introduction to this book: “There are people in this world we pass right by without giving a second thought. They are almost invisible. Yet some of them have amazing stories to tell, if we’d only take the time to listen…” I loved Aaron’s character and could just picture him as one of those kinds of people most would tend to overlook but who faithfully does his work well and who has a great story behind him. I enjoyed Dave’s story as well. Dan did a wonderful job weaving all the different elements of the story together and pulling at the heartstrings.
Here are just a couple of quotes that stood out to me:
Of course, it was clear the thing Billy needed most was a friend. It didn’t help that Billy talked so much once he got going. One thing after another, like he’d been sitting on a mountain of words and Aaron had come in and set off a volcano.
Most of the people who blame God for everything never even try things his way, so how can they blame Him when it all goes wrong? But they do. I did. For years, til eating that meal. That day, the lights came on. And I saw that all I ever did was do things my way, my whole life. And all it ever did was get me in trouble and more trouble.
I also enjoyed the Author’s Note at the end where Dan says two stories about two different WWII Congressional Medal of Honor winners (Bobbie E. Brown and Bill Crawford) who came home, eventually became janitors, and had very different endings inspired him and caused him to think about people we overlook who might have amazing life stories or might have accomplished great things no one would ever guess. Plus he was inspired by Jesus’ example of speaking to out-of-the-way, overlooked people. And I join him in expressing gratitude for “the unsung warriors whose actions have made it possible for the rest of us to live free.”
(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)
In A Slender Thread by Tracie Peterson, five sisters return home to Council Grove, Kansas, for the funeral of the mother who had abandoned them to pursue an acting career. They gather at the farmhouse of their grandmother, Mattie, who raised them and tried to instill in them a hope and faith in God. But each of the women has been affected in different ways by their mother’s desertion which causes conflict between them.
Ashley is married to a doctor, has two young boys, and is vying for Supermom status, trying to be everything her mother was not to her. Brook is a model who can’t let herself open her heart to the possibility of love. Connie feels alone because her two older and two younger sisters are close, and she has a different father, so she feels the odd woman out on many fronts. But she makes it worse by putting up walls that none of them can break through and making choices that she knows Mattie would be heartbroken over if she knew. Deirdre was the only planned child of her mother, conceived to try to heal her marriage. She’s the peacemaker but hides a secret obsession. Erica was the youngest, born barely 9 months after Deirdre, a gifted musician who puts her potential career above her love interest.
As the girls gather for the first time in years, tensions rise to the surface and harsh words break out on all sides. Mattie tries to point them to the love the have for each other, the “slender thread” that ties them together, and to God’s help and grace, but each one is too immersed in her own issues.
There’s a lot of bickering in this book. A lot. It’s meant to show that their issues go beyond the usual sibling rivalry, but they seem extraordinarily touchy and too willing to get offended by innocent remarks. Some of the same issues keep coming up over and over – which does happen when people are fixated on their past hurts without attempts to come to peace with them. But it did get old. The story seemed very slow in the first section when the girls were all together but the action picked up quite a bit when they all went back to their own lives and we saw them in their own setting. Their characters were developed quite a bit more then.
But I did appreciate the emphasis that we don’t have to be bound by a bad past or a parent who has failed us. We’ll forever be affected by them, but with grace and forgiveness and God’s help, we can put the past in perspective and forge new trails for ourselves and our families.
(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)
A few years ago I posted this review of Adam Blumer‘s The Tenth Plague along with an interview with him. At the time the book was only available in an e-book format, and it still is. But now — in fact, today — his publisher has released a paperback version. If you’d like to enter for a drawing to hold a real live copy of this book in your hands, leave a comment below (US addresses only, due to the expense of shipping). A week from today, April 12, I’ll draw from the names entered with random.org, and we’ll send one happy winner a copy!
Here’s a recap of the review and interview:
In The Tenth Plague by Adam Blumer, Marc and Jillian Thayer have just adopted a new baby boy, and a friend has invited them to a Christian-themed resort for some rest and time together as a new family.
When they arrive, however, the retreat is in upheaval. A company planning a new Bible translation is having meetings at the resort, and a throng has arrived to protest. Someone rigged the water system to dispense what appears to be blood from the faucets. What seems an odd prank is soon discovered to be the first in a series of events based on the Biblical ten plagues of Egypt, some of them resulting in fatalities. Marc calls on a friend, a retired homicide detective, to help with the investigation as the plagues escalate.
Gillian, meanwhile, runs into someone who has hurt her deeply in the past. She thought she had put it all behind her, but the old anger and hurt rush back in like a flood, and she wrestles with the need to extend forgiveness.
The Tenth Plague is a sequel to Fatal Illusions, Adam’s first book (which I reviewed here), but you don’t have to have read the first book to understand and enjoy the second. Both books are tremendously suspenseful and feature realistic, everyday Christian people trying to discern and apply God’s will in their circumstances. I enjoyed them both very much!
Here is an interview with Adam:
What was your inspiration behind The Tenth Plague?
One day I was reading the book of Revelation and came across 22:18–19. “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book” (ESV). My mind began playing the “what if” game. Would God really bring a biblical plague on someone who tampered with His Word? I chatted with a few theologian friends, and the plot emerged from there.
How does this novel compare with your first novel, Fatal Illusions?
Though the plot, of course, is different, the two novels share a number of similarities. Both are set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where I live. I like to write about average folks like Marc and Gillian Thayer, a pastor and his wife who face unexpected, even threatening, events. Of course, there’s another really bad killer who wants to do them harm, and their retired homicide detective friend, Chuck Riley, once again comes out of retirement to help them. I also like to weave in a historical event that somehow relates to the present day. In Fatal Illusions, it was the killer’s obsession with Houdini; in The Tenth Plague, an old mine disaster plays an important role. The past always plays an important role in the present—a running theme in my novels. Overall, I like to write about redemption: how biblical truth offers the answers to the complicated issues of life. Stories, like parables, present some of the best ways to illustrate biblical truths.
What was one of the most important lessons you learned during the writing of this novel?
The power of the collaborative process. I had a fairly strong first draft, but I was stuck. A novel editor provided a creative springboard and helped me see where my true story lay. Without her help, I doubt this story would have seen the light of day.
What part of writing this novel took the most work?
This novel required a ton of research. From an old mining tragedy to autism, from adoption law to anthrax, from pheromones to the Oklahoma City bombing, the research for this one required much more than I ever expected. I’m so thankful for technology and ease of access, thanks to the Internet. Without Google and so many resources at my fingertips, I’d probably still be researching this story.
So far, what has been your favorite work experience in life?
During one summer between years in high school, I worked at a library, a book lover’s paradise. Granted, a lot of the work involved stocking shelves, but being surrounded by so many fascinating books and interesting authors was pure heaven. I was born a die-hard book lover, and I’ll probably die one too.
Consider the qualities that make you unique. How do these qualities come out in your writing?
I love suspense fiction and history, so a blending of the two always seems to come out in my writing. In high school, I won awards in calligraphy; Gillian Thayer, my female lead, is into calligraphy in a big way (it’s her job). I’ve always been intrigued with how one’s past impacts his or her present and future. This is a recurring theme in my novels because it’s part of who I am. Now that I think about it, what I write is inseparable to some degree from who I am.
Introduce your plot summary and main characters. What is your favorite part of the story?
Water turns to blood. Flies and gnats attack the innocent. Marc and Gillian Thayer’s vacation resort becomes a grisly murder scene, with a killer using the ten plagues of Egypt as his playbook for revenge.
When their friend turns up dead, Marc and Gillian put their vacation on hold, enlist the help of a retired homicide detective, and take a closer look at the bizarre plagues as they escalate in intensity. Meanwhile, a stranger is after the Thayers’ newly adopted baby. Will they uncover the truth behind the bitter agenda before the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn son?
My favorite part is when the firstborn son is revealed and the novel culminates in the tenth plague. This is the most suspenseful and action-packed part of the story, with several key characters in jeopardy. I had a blast writing it.
One of the main themes of The Tenth Plague is confronting and dealing with your past. What can readers take away from this theme, especially in a novel that deals with religion and death?
Both the villain and my heroine, Gillian Thayer, grapple with heartbreaking real-life issues from their past. But how they respond shows two very different paths. My hope is that readers will see the stark contrast in the context of biblical truth presented in the story. The bottom line is that God is enough, and He offers the solution to every problem of life. This is another repeated theme in my stories. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about my latest project.
Some content used by permission of Kirkdale Press
The Mount TBR Reading Challenge (to read books one already owned) has checkpoints every quarter where we can report how we’re doing. So far for this challenge I have read (each title links back to my review of it):
The levels, or “peaks,” for this challenge are met with every 12 books read, so I am well on my way to the first one. I had only committed to the first one, but it looks like I may reach the second one by year’s end as well.
Only five of these were on my original list, but I don’t think that matters. I do still plan to read the rest of them plus others if I can. In fact, I am nearly done with one of them and partway into another one.
Bev (our hostess) also suggested some other things we could share about the books we’ve read, like a favorite book cover or character. I think for me the favorite book cover would go to Searching for Eternity by Elizabeth Musser.
I like elements of the story that are there – Emile, the scene from the Varsity in Atlanta, and the passport from France. I tend to like drawn/painted rather than photographed covers for fiction.
Favorite characters….that’s a hard one. But I think it would be Truman Wiley from Not In the Heart by Chris Fabry, even though he’s not a good guy for most of the novel. I like his journey and how he is written.
Another question was whether any of the books surprised us. That would again go to Not In the Heart by Chris Fabry. The initial description of the story intrigued me, but there were so many more layers to it than I expected. It was my first of Fabry’s books, but I immediately bought another one after finishing this one.
One that surprised me negatively was Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. Perhaps that was due to having heard such wonderful things about the writing, so my expectations were built up overly high. I did come to agree about the writing by the time I finished, but it was awfully hard to get into.
Bev didn’t ask this question, but probably the most beneficial of these books would be What Are You Afraid Of? Facing Down Your Fears With Faith by David Jeremiah.
So that wraps up this checkpoint – looking forward to the next one!
In Every Waking Moment by Chris Fabry, Devin Hillis is a filmmaker with vision but no cash. He wants to make a documentary of the stories of people in the Desert Gardens assisted-living facility. He tries to support himself in the meantime by making shorter memorials for funerals, but that’s not paying the bills, and both his partner and his landlord are on his case.
His time in Desert Gardens brings to his attention an employee there named Treha Langsam. At first she looks like perhaps she is developmentally delayed somehow, but she is very intelligent. She has nystagmus, a condition which causes her eyes to be almost constantly moving, and when she’s agitated she makes a typing motion with her hands, but otherwise she seems emotionless. She grew up in various foster homes and has little to no memory of her history. But she seems to have a gift: she is able to bring out residents who have been closed off and uncommunicative to where they are speaking clearly. She was hired for janitorial services, but when the facility supervisor, Miriam Howard, saw her work with the residents, she let her have free reign to interact with them. Devin thinks Treha may be the story he’s looking for.
But Miriam is about to retire, and the new supervisor is more concerned about her own rules and regulations than care of the residents. She has her eye on Treha, threatening to fire her if she does anything other than clean.
What will happen to Treha and the residents if she loses her job, and will Devin and Miriam be able to solve the mystery of Treha’s background, not just for the documentary, but for her future?
I got this book right on the heels of finishing Not in the Heart by Chris Fabry because I loved his writing so much and wanted to read more. I was looking at that book on Amazon when a link to this book with these words from Chris intrigued me:
What if this is as good as life gets? Are you okay with that?
This question has haunted me over the past few years. Several years ago we moved to the desert for health reasons. Looking for recovery in a dry and thirsty land. And I realized my soul was more thirsty than anything.
Every Waking Moment is my effort to take some of the pain and loss of life and sift it through the life of a young woman who’s been marginalized in society, working among people who are marginalized (the elderly). This character, Treha, has an extraordinary gift that few observe because she’s “different.”
Like most of my tales, it’s a love story, a mystery, part thriller–but mostly a character sketch of lonely people looking for hope. And it’s my intent that you find hope and meaning for your own life through Treha’s journey.
That theme of “What if this is as good as it gets” comes up for several characters throughout the book. Poking around Chris’s web site, I saw that this novel arose in part because of his family’s experience with toxic mold and the detrimental effects it has had on his family’s health. That is not what caused Treha’s problems, but he draws parallels from the experience.
Not in the Heart was fast-paced and suspenseful. Every Waking Moment is a different kind of book. It has moments of suspense, and of course there is the mystery of Treha’s history and what made her the way she is. But overall the book has a different pace and feel to it. But it is still quite good.
Some of the lines about or by the facility residents were especially poignant to me with the decline of my mother-in-law’s health and abilities over the last several years:
The daughter didn’t realize that this was part of the problem. The same tasks that wore her mother down were the tasks that gave her structure and stability. Worth. When she could no longer do them and others were paid to accomplish things she had done as long as she could remember, life became a calendar of guilt–every day lived as a spectator, watching others do what she couldn’t.
Deciding what Mother would like or wouldn’t like was a seesaw between two relatives who were guessing. Love looked like this and worse and was accompanied by a mute, white-haired shell.
“I want that person you knew to return. But the truth is, this may be the best we achieve. Today, having her here and comfortable and not agitated…that may be as good as we get. Are you okay with that?”
“Your love for your mother is not conditional on her response. You love her for who she is. You don’t love her because of the things she can do for you.”
“The medical community views individuals as patients to be cured. But when people age, they’re not looking for a cure as much as they are for encouragement to continue. Our work here is not about curing. It’s about the dignity of each person…”
“Value people not just for the income they provide us. Value them because of the lives they’ve lived. Value each person who pushes a broom or cleans a bedpan. And value the girl whose life is marred, yes, but who gives these people more than a doctor ever will.”
“Growing older is not much fun. It’s the slowing down that gets to you. Elsie calls it ‘vigor mortis.’ You just can’t do what you used to.”
“Old age teaches you in a very unkind way that things won’t necessarily get better. Not in this life. In fact, you can pretty much count on things degenerating. Being content is not a lack of ambition. It’s being able to rest and relax and know that your worth doesn’t come from what others think of you or even what you think of you.”
And one I loved just for the writing: “Retirement was bearing down on Miriam like a semitruck trying to make it through a yellow light.”
For those of you who like book trailers:
I enjoyed this book quite a lot and can heartily recommend it to you.
(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)
The folks at 5 Minutes For Books host What’s On Your Nightstand? the last Tuesday of each month in which we can share about the books we have been reading and/or plan to read.
It’s been another busy month, but I’m thankful for the mini-breaks that reading provides.
Since last time I have completed:
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens, audiobook, reviewed here.
Sweet Grace: How I Lost 250 Pounds And Stopped Trying To Earn God’s Favor by Teresa Shields Parker, recommended by Melanie, reviewed here.
Not In the Heart by Chris Fabry, reviewed here. Excellent!
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, reviewed here.
The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White, audiobook, reviewed here.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain, audiobook, reviewed here.
Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne, audiobook, reviewed here.
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, audiobook, reviewed here.
What Are You Afraid Of: Facing Down Your Fears With Faith by David Jeremiah was finished and mentioned at the last Nightstand, but I had not reviewed it yet. That review is here. I think this will be a favorite of the year.
Every Waking Moment by Chris Fabry. Just finished it this weekend – review coming soon, hopefully.
Though that looks like a lot, a couple of them were mostly read in Feb. and just finished up this month, the last Nightstand was almost a week before Feb. ended (giving us an extra week in this Nightstand’s reading), and five of these were fairly short audiobooks.
I’m currently reading:
True Woman 201: Interior Design by Mary Kassian and Nancy Leigh DeMoss.. Enjoying very much.
Beyond Stateliest Marble: The Passionate Femininity of Anne Bradstreet by Douglas Wilson
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, audiobook.
Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Pamela Smith Hill. I probably should not include this because I don’t know if I have actually looked at it this month. 
As I’ve said before, it’s a big book that doesn’t really fit in the places where I keep books I am reading, so I keep forgetting to pick it up. I started it in Feb. and need to make a determined effort to finish it.
Up Next:
Pride, Prejudice, and Cheese Grits by Mary Jane Hathaway
The Renewing of the Mind Project by Barb Raveling, recommended by Kim.
After these, I still have some Christmas presents and my reading lists for the year to choose from.
What are you reading now?
The Old Man and the Sea is a short novel by Ernest Hemingway published in 1951. The last of his major works published during his lifetime, it earned him a Pulitzer Prize and contributed to his winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The old man is named Santiago but is usually just called the old man. He’s an aging fisherman in Cuba who, at the story’s beginning, has gone 84 days without catching a fish. A boy, Manolin (usually just called the boy), had been assisting him, but after forty days without a catch, his parents make him quit to work with another boat and tell him the old man is the worst form of unlucky. But the boy still cares for him and helps him out as he can.
As the old man wraps up his tasks for the day and prepares for the next, we see a little of his home and lifestyle. He lives alone with very little interaction with others except the boy. His wife has died and he has taken her picture down because it makes him too lonely. He lives in pretty abject poverty (offering the boy some of his dinner of fish and rice which the boy knows is nonexistent, tattered and patched sails, sleeping on newspapers). His one great interest besides fishing is American baseball with Joe DiMaggio being his favorite (partly because DiMaggio’s father was a fisherman). The old man and the boy discuss baseball while they eat a dinner donated by the local cafe owner. Santiago muses that he must do something nice for the cafe owner when he can.
The old man determines the next morning to go out further into the sea than fishermen usually do. He notices a bird circling the water and decides to follow it. He caches a tuna that he saves to use as bait. He’s precise in his actions and obviously skilled by many years at sea, knowledgeable about the characteristics and habits of many sea creatures.
Finally his deepest line tugs. The old man can tell it is a big fish and is confident that it is probably a marlin. He manages the line to keep it from breaking yet tries to hold it firmly enough that the fish is actually hooked. It’s too big to haul in, however, and he realizes that the fish is pulling him out to sea. At one point he sees enough of it to tell it is two feet longer than his skiff. He pulls the line over his shoulders to distribute the weight of it, but his hands still cramp and bleed from the line. He lets the fish pull his boat until it can get close enough for him to harpoon it. But he is pulled even further out to sea and can no longer see land.
Since this is such a short novel, telling more of the story would reveal the rest of the plot, so I’ll leave it there. But as you can imagine, the man has to deal not only with the fish but his own age, injuries, need for food and rest, and eventually sharks. The reader is given a window to his thoughts about life, baseball, nature, etc.
I chose this book for the Back to the Classics Challenge as a reread of a classic I had read in high school. I do remember the story from then, but I don’t think I had appreciated Hemingway’s sparse, clear writing at the time. I believe this is the only book of his that I have read, but rereading it has made me want to explore some of his other work.
I read some of the analysis of the story at Sparknotes and Shmoop, and both offer some interesting theories about symbolism in the book, but a quote I read from Hemingway (which didn’t name the source) said there is no symbolism in it (“There isn’t any symbolism. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish.”) But I think the story does show the dignity, endurance, and triumph of the spirit of the old man through the ordeal he faces.
Here are just a few quotes that stood out to me:
“Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with that there is.”
“I may not be as strong as I think, but I know many tricks and I have resolution.”
“You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food, he thought. You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?”
“Only I have no luck any more. But who knows? Maybe today. Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”
“Fish,” the old man said. “Fish, you are going to have to die anyway. Do you have to kill me too?”
I listened to the audiobook read quite nicely by Donald Sutherland.
(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)
The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White tells the story of the boyhood of King Arthur. He has no idea he is descended from royal blood. He’s growing up in the family of Sir Ector in his castle near the Sauvage Forest in England. Arthur is known then as “The Wart” and knows he is not a “proper son,” but we’re not told yet where he came from and how he got there. Sir Ector’s son, Kay, is about the Wart’s age, and they take lessons together in everything from History to jousting and hawking. Kay’s destiny is to become a knight: the best that The Wart can hope for is to become Kay’s squire.
When Sir Ector decides the boys need a tutor, the Wart happens upon Merlin. Merlin is a magician who is moving through time backwards, which often confuses him as to whether something is about to happen or has already happened. He is an able tutor, but he gives more time to the Wart, telling him it’s best to learn from experience and therefore turning him into various creatures, like a fish, a snake, an ant, a bird, and a badger, and sending him into each creatures environment to interact with others.
The Wart feels bad that Kay doesn’t get any adventures and wants Merlin to turn him into something, but Merlin insists he can’t use that magic for Kay. But he does send them off on a trail in the forest which leads them to Robin Hood’s camp and an expedition to save prisoners from the fairy queen, Morgan la Fey.
The word that seems to stand out to me to describe the Wart as a boy is decent. It’s not that he’s brave because bravery is a good trait in itself, but in doing the right thing he has to exercise bravery, such as when he and Kay take their father’s prize hawk into the woods to hunt rabbits, and Kay mishandles the hawk, resulting in its flying into a tree and not coming back to them. Kay goes home, but the Wart stays all night alone in the forest to keep an eye on the hawk so they don’t lose it. He’s also thoughtful, merciful, humble, and kind.
The musical Camelot is based on White’s version of Arthur’s story, and once I saw an interview with Richard Harris, who played Arthur in the film version, in which he said that he played him as someone who has greatness thrust upon him, but Richard Burton, who played Arthur on stage, played him as someone born to greatness. I can see both elements here. He is born to greatness, but he doesn’t know it yet. But events like the climatic removing the sword from the stone are done, not with the desire to overcome the challenge and prove himself king, but to help someone. He discovers only later that the sword would only come out for the person destined to be king (having missed the conversation in which everyone else talks about it) and at first feels quite uncomfortable with Sir Ector and Kay treating him like a king.
The Wart’s various experiences with animals were not just to teach him about nature. According to various sources, they also served to teach him about various governments. The pike, for instance, who was the king of that particular body of water in which the Wart was learning to be a fish, had absolute power but was deceptive and cruel. A colony of ants, on the other hand, acted like mindless automatons working for the greater good, which some suggest is meant to portray Communism (oddly, the ants aren’t included in the version I listened to, but I saw them mentioned in other sources). Perhaps what he learns about governing from each of them is brought out in the later books, but in this one, the various lessons he learns from them come back to him as he tries to pull the sword out of the stone. For instance, when he was trying to learn to swim as a fish with fins instead of arms and a tail instead of legs, Merlin kept telling him to “put his back into it.” That as well as bits from his other experiences came back to him in that moment.
The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White was originally published in 1938 but eventually it was combined with other books about the legend of King Arthur in The Once and Future King in 1958. It underwent quite a bit of revision by the time the 1958 version was published, incorporating some material that White had wanted to include in a fifth book in the series. According to Wikipedia, stand-alone publications of the novel tend to use the first version while publications of all four books into The Once and Future King used the revised. According to the PDF accompanying the audiobook I listened to, this version uses elements of both.
This book reads like a fairy tale or a boy’s adventure story, but it’s not technically aimed at children. There are comic moments along with the adventures and lessons as well. It was the basis for the Disney movie by the same name, but, as usually happens, much was changed in the cartoon version. I understand that the rest of the legend gets darker as it progresses in the other books. I haven’t decided yet whether to read them.
As far as potential objectionable elements go, there’s the whole issue of Merlin being a wizard, the Wart being turned into other creatures, and a fight with a witch. If you allow fairy tales, these shouldn’t be a problem: when my kids were young, I avoided stories with witches, but at some point when they were older decided that fairy tale witches were different from the real thing and operated more as the antagonist in stories. But if you have a problem with that or think your children shouldn’t be exposed to that yet, then you’d want to avoid this book. There is also a good deal about evolution and a good bit of violence, though it’s not gratuitous nor overly descriptive. The one brief part I didn’t like was the flippant portrayal of God in one legend.
But when it comes to the adventures themselves and Arthur’s growth into the man and king he eventually became, I enjoyed the story quite a lot.This book ends not long after Arthur’s coronation, and I assume the next one picks up some time after that.
(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)
In Not In the Heart by Chris Fabry, Truman Wiley was once a promising reporter. However, downsizing cost him his job and a gambling addiction has resulted in estrangement from his family, the loss of his home, and some shady characters coming after him for a debt he owes. On top of everything else, his son is in the hospital and needs a new heart.
But an unexpected opportunity arises: a death row inmate wants him to write his story before his execution. The inmate’s wife is in the same Bible study as Truman’s wife, who has known about and prayed for Truman’s son’s condition for years. In return, the inmate wants to give Truman’s son his heart. He wants something good to come from his death. The public has mixed emotions and the governor needs some persuasion, but it looks like the heart donation will be approved.
As Truman begins to write the story, however, it begins to look like the inmate’s claims of innocence might actually be true. If he didn’t kill the murdered girl, who did? And if he’s innocent, what happens to Truman’s son?
I’ve never read a book by Fabry before and got this one on a Kindle sale because the story sounded interesting. His writing grabbed me from the start and the story kept up at a rapid pace all the way through. Some surprising twists and turns near the end led to quite an unexpected ending. In short, Fabry has a new fan. I loved some of his phrasing:
The trouble with my wife began when she needed Jesus and I needed a cat.
The woman of my dreams. The woman of my nightmares. Everything good and bad about my life. The “I do” that “I didn’t.”
Someone said, “Hey, Wanda,” and I deduced that this was Wanda. This is why I am such a good reporter.
I pulled out my phone as I hurried along and texted Abby, U OK? I had to stop while I texted because I am not a teenager.
A black pit bull barreled against the fence, jaws dripping with saliva, viciously barking like Old Yeller after the hydrophobia kicked in.
Ron pointed Helen’s gun at me. What kind of name is Ron for such a menacing figure?
Throughout most of the book, Truman’s view of faith is outside-looking-in. He doesn’t share his wife’s faith and pretty much disdains it. He doesn’t believe the inmate’s (Terrelle) profession of faith and dreads writing that part of the book, but he wants to handle it in a way that doesn’t offend “the faithful.” In my one minor criticism of the book, Truman’s own faith journey seemed a little rushed at the end – but then, everything was happening pretty fast at the end.
The point of view was unusual in this book. Most of the time it was from Truman’s point of view, written in the first person. But other chapters from the point of view of other characters are written in the third person.
One area I am somewhat on the fence about concerns his descriptions, mainly in a seedy club owned by one of the potential bad guys. Fabry is careful not to get overly descriptive, but some readers might feel he pushed the envelope a bit more than they’re comfortable with there.
But overall I loved the book and have already started on another by Fabry.
(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)
Stray Thoughts 