The Quick Silver Project by J A Lightender

 

The technology associated with the internet has trickled down into many different areas changing the way we do things. When my husband and I were first married we bought an expensive set of encyclopedias. An investment in our children’s future the salesman told us. Less than five years later, these books were so useless, we had them propping up furniture. Who needs to haul out a heavy leather bound volume when at the touch of a few key strokes, all the most up to date information in the world can be staring out a monitor at you.

The book industry is no exception.

For years and years, reading a book required three things, a – a book, b – the ability to read and c – a few minutes of quiet time. Not anymore.

The advent of books on cassette was exciting, until the bulky players were replaced by CD players. You could actually exercise with one of those in your pocket. Except for when you jumped too hard and they skipped. Then the MP3 came along. As small as a pocket watch, and no bump problems.

In the mean time Amazon introduced its Kindle, followed rapidly by almost every other major electronics company and cell phone manufacturer. A small tablet size electronic devise could hold hundreds of your favorite books and allow you to read them in bed or on the plane without the bulk of a hundred books.

A third type of book currently available is known as e-books. These are books written for and published on the internet. Often in a pdf format, these offerings are usually much cheaper than traditional hard and soft cover books and can be read right off the computer or printed up. Authors of various genre’s are hopping on the e-book bandwagon and readers are following in ever increasing numbers.

One e-book reader made the switch during a week of heavy storms last winter. Unable to leave her house, she was able to find books online, purchase them with her credit card and download the text in a matter of minutes without stepping foot into the cold.

E-books aren’t just for adult genres but many talented children’s writers are using this same method to more effectively reach their target audience. Take J.A. Lightender whose new series Forbidden Portals is available at Jewel’s World website for $3.99.

Her first book, The Quicksilver Project follows Renny a thirteen year old boy who receives an unusual gift for his birthday. Lou is a beautiful Dalmatian with one rather extraordinary feature, he can talk. Lou is on a mission to save pets everywhere and in order to do it he needs the help of Renny and his new friend Quinn.

What follows next is an exciting adventure that leads the trio through a very strange pet store, into hidden alley’s in the city and ultimately to a magical island.

The Quicksilver Project is a book that will tempt the most unenthusiastic reader. The pace is fast and the characters are easy to relate to. Lightender manages to pack a lot of excitement into a book with a length that is perfect for a middle grade reader.

If you’re looking for a fun summer book for your kids, consider The Quicksilver Project.

Review of Imprints by Rachel Ann Nunes

 

I’ve always had a taste for the unusual in my fiction. I like authors who can come up with a twist on a common genre and make it fresh and unique. For national writers, there’s a lot more freedoms to experiment but within the LDS market, the boundaries are fairly rigid. Certainly there are good reasons for this. Vulgarity, sexually explicit scenes and bloody violence have become the norm in much of the world’s fiction. We don’t want those same vices to taint our LDS novels, however, there are other ways to shake things up without lowering the quality or spirit of the fiction we all love.


Rachel Ann Nunes, author of over twenty novels recently published a book that is something of a first for LDS readers. Nunes calls Imprints a Paranormal Women’s Fiction, I call it a fast paced romantic thriller with something extra. However it may be labeled, this is a book you won’t want to miss.


The heroines name is Autumn Rain. The adopted daughter of charming hippie parents, Autumn is raised as a child of nature. She runs an herbal shop/antique store, refuses to wear shoes and will not allow anything into her mouth that isn’t natural and organic. Oh and one other thing… when she touches objects, belongs that mean something to their owners, she gets visions.

These visions aren’t always pleasant nor are the emotions connected with them, yet as word spreads of her gift, people searching for lost family members come to her, begging for help. One such situation pulls Autumn into a commune where things are not as they appear. Danger is everywhere and soon Autumn is fighting for her life against an enemy who will do anything to protect his secrets.

I loved the addition of this psychic power into a genre that is hugely popular with LDS audiences. It adds kind of a fantasy twist that is both exciting and intriguing. A luscious love triangle accents but doesn’t take over the story or slow down the suspense.

If you’re looking for something a little different to read this summer, then Imprints by Rachel Ann Nunes is your book.

 

Gravity vs. The Girl by Riley Noehren

 

Next week LDSBookcorner will be running 2009 Whitney Award winner Riley Noehren’s book Gravity vs. The Girl. Noehren’s book tied for Best Novel by a New Author with Dan Well’s book, I Am Not A Serial Killer.

I find that some of the most unique and intriguing books by LDS writers tend to fall into the Whitney’s General Fiction category, and this year was no exception.

Though the cover of Gravity vs. The Girl is relatively simple, the title caught my attention immediately, and it was the first book I read after the finalists were announced last winter.

The premise is distinctive as well. Samantha Green has just spent the better part of a year in her pajamas sleeping away her life after going through an emotional breakdown. It’s time for her to wake up and get on with her life, but she is still traumatized and weak. To assist in the healing Samantha encounters four ghosts, phantoms of her former self. A young child who’s just lost her mother, a teenager trying to figure out who she is, a collage aged young adult with a rebellious streak and a thing for drummers and a high powered lawyer who doesn’t want to let go of her massive shoe collection and beautifully decorated condo.

As Samantha slowly creeps back to life, dealing with the powerful and often poignant influences from her former selves, it’s clear that her future will be a lot different than the past she’s left behind, but how and in what way remains to be seen.

I loved this book. I found it fascinating to read in a strange and sort of hypnotic way. Noehren pulls you into a world where there are no sign posts, and no sense of direction. Yet despite that confusion, the reader can’t wait to dive in deeper. There are profound truths hidden in these lines and a perspective of life I hadn’t considered before. At the same time I was highly entertained.

The characters feel very real, and the pace is quick enough to keep the reader's interest. There is a tendency for books with a message to get a little preachy, but this is not the case with Gravity vs. The Girl. Instead it is revealed through the characters, allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions.

I would highly recommend this book, especially to those readers who are looking for a little depth and sophistication in their summer time fiction.

A Must Read This Summer - Awakening Avery by Laurie Lewis

 

What could be more appropriate for a long hot summer afternoon then curling up with a book set on the beach front at Anna Maria Island in Florida? Even the cover looks cool and refreshing. Like most readers, I put a great deal of stock in book covers. If I haven’t read the author before, I usually study the cover and then flip the book over and read the teaser on the back.

On first read, the back cover text was confusing. It talked about a family vacation spot in Anna Maria Island and then in the next paragraph referred to the family’s waterfront condo in Baltimore. Further down colorful characters from the Ringling’s Ca d’Zan mansion was mentioned, and I’m thinking clowns, acrobats in sequin costumes and maybe a lion tamer. None-the-less I was intrigued and anxious to see how author Laurie Lewis could actually pull all this together.

This isn’t Lewis’s first book. She’s the author of a historical series called Freemen and Dreamers, a series of novels based around the time of the American Revolution. However, Awakening Avery is a complete departure from that genre.

Awakening Avery reminded me of an LDS version of the Shell Seekers by Rosemund Pilcher. It has that same sense of realism, with characters that are complex and a plot that is sweeping in its emotional honesty. It’s a book that entertains, inspires and makes one stop for just a moment and consider the fragility of life… before going back to being entertained.

Avery, the main character is a woman in her late forties. She’s a successful writer, the mother of two sons and one married daughter, and recently widowed by the death of her husband after a long battle with health issues resulting from years of unchecked diabetes. She is angry, depressed, lost and like a typical LDS woman, she’s doing her best to hide it from everyone, especially her children. But it isn’t working, and they feel that they are losing her as well.

The family owns a condo in Baltimore, Maryland, near Avery’s family on the east coast, and Avery decides to travel from her home in Utah, to the condo and sell it, thus erasing another painful memory of happier days. Upon arriving she meets Teddy and Rider, an x-rodeo couple who are now successfully running a real estate business.

Avery and Teddy become close friends and it is through them that she learns of Gabriel, a man on Anna Maria Island who is looking to trade his house for the summer with someone who lives near Washington DC.

Anna Maria Island was a favorite family vacation spot, and Avery imagines it might be just the place where she and her family can heal.

Gabriel, a widower of many years has messes of his own he’s trying to deal with. Two beautiful but headstrong daughters have become dependent on him, refusing to take responsibility for their own lives. He’s hoping that by forcing them out of the nest, so to speak, they will find their own wings.

When I read a book, I want to feel like I’m walking beside the characters, seeing what they see, smelling what they smell. On the other hand, I don’t want pages of unnecessary description to stop the flow of the plot. Lewis has done an excellent job of balancing the two. From the water taxi in Baltimore, to the overwhelmingly opulent Ca d’Zan mansion, once home to the famous Ringlings, and now a museum, I not only felt like I was experiencing these places first hand, but that I wanted to actually go there myself.

The story caught me up right from page one, and was difficult to put down. At 344 pages it wasn’t a straight through read, but it was one of those stories that stayed with me, urging me back to the characters and the plot every chance I could get.

This book has humor, inspiration, romance and heart break, but it does not have any lion tamers. It does have a great recipe for fruity pancakes with a surprise ingredient… but if you want to get the recipe… you’re going to have to read the book.

The Whitney Award Winners Are Announced

 

Part One

Last Saturday, April 24th, the third annual Whitney Awards Gala for 2009 was held at the Marriot Hotel in Provo, Utah, with some of the top LDS writers in attendance both as finalists and as presenters.

The Whitneys are an award program set up to encourage excellence in LDS writers. The organization was named after Elder Orson F. Whitney, an early apostle in the LDS church who prophesied “We will yet have Miltons and Shakespeares of our own.”

Readers are invited to submit their favorite novels published during the current year for consideration as possible Whitney Award Finalists. Five finalists are chosen in each of the following five categories: General Fiction, Romance, Suspense/Mystery, Speculative Fiction, Youth Fiction, Historical, Best Novel of the Year, and Best Novel by a New Author.



This year’s winner for Youth Fiction is The Chosen One by Carol Lynn Williams. It tells the story of a 13-year-old girl growing up in a polygamous community where the prophet has decreed that she must marry her 60 year old uncle. This novel is the kind of book that you can’t set down, yet makes you angry. Williams pulls you into her world and keeps you prisoner there until the very last page.





This year’s winner for Speculative Fiction Servant of a Dark God by John Brown. Servant of a Dark God is the first book in a gripping fantasy series. Full of dark magic, strange creatures and monsters, this book tells the story of a land where the days of a person’s life can be harvested, bought and stolen. An epic tale of good versus evil, this book is a must read for any true fantasy fanatic.





The winner for Romance this year is a wonderful book that we ran a few weeks back by >Liz Adair called Counting the Cost. A romance set in the ranch country of New Mexico, Adair manages to keep a gritty air of realism to her story while at the same time weaving in the tender strands of romance. This book is well written and engaging from page one.






The best Suspense/Mystery award for 2009 went to Stephanie Black for her thriller
Method’s of Madness. Incidentally Black also won the 2008 Suspense/Mystery category for her first novel
Fool Me Twice. Black has skill for weaving a story that keeps you on the edge of your seat, with more twists and turns than a mountain road. Its fine writers like Black that keep the bar high for LDS mystery writers. If you’re looking for an exciting and intense suspense novel with a touch of romance, then this is the book for you.


More next week

Crossfire, a novel by Traci Hunter Abramson

 

I discovered Traci Hunter Abramson a year and a half ago when I bought and read her book Royal Target. Tracy has been writing since 2004 and has at least seven thrillers to date, but it wasn’t till I was browsing in an LDS Bookstore and noticed the gold crown on the pink cover of Royal Target that I became aware of her as an author. Turns out she lives in Virginia, down the street from a good friend of mine from college… it’s a small LDS world isn’t it?

Abramson is an ex-CIA employee who uses her years in the agency to give her thrillers a biting edge of realism. Last year I read her novel Lockdown and though I thought it was good, I found the romance seemed to overshadow the plot. Then at the beginning of the year, Crossfire was released and I fell in love with Abramson’s style all over again.

Both Lockdown and Crossfire are Whitney Award Finalist in the Mystery/Suspense catagory and feature a group of LDS Navy SEALs known as the Saint Squad. Lockdown is set at a college campus and featured Tristan Crowther a member of the Squad and Riley Palmetta a woman who lived through a tragic college mass shooting.

Crossfire is set in the Caribbean where a powerful terrorist group is plotting a huge strike on the US. Vanessa Lauton has infiltrated the powerful crime family behind the plot posing as a family member, but when her CIA handler has a sudden heart attack, the Saint Squad is called in to find her and stop the threat.
Seth Johnson has a personal interest in this case. He dated Vanessa when they were younger and would have married her, but he wasn’t a member and she wanted a temple marriage. Six years has past and Seth has since joined the church, but it may not matter. The situation had turned deadly and Vanessa and Seth are balanced in a life and death struggle.

The pacing was perfect. Abramson keeps the suspense high on both the thriller side and the romance side, not allowing either to overrun the other. She has created characters that seem real both as government trained SEALS and as Latter-day Saints. Not an easy thing to do.

I had a hard time putting this book down until I got to the explosive climax. This is a true romantic thriller and a must read for anyone like me who loves a good suspenseful novel.

Elodia Strain's Previouisly Engaged

 

One of the first things I liked about Elodia Strain was her name. It’s unique, fun to say and in fact sounds like a name for a romance writer. Then I saw her photo.



Is she cute or what?

After reading her book Previously Engaged a 2009 Whitney Award Finalist in the Romance category, I thought her picture and her writing style match perfectly.

Strain’s website, all pinks and purples with a really cute bouncing bridal bouquet, says that she was born in Fairbanks, Alaska, her favorite color is pink, she could live on chips and salsa for the rest of her life and her dream car is a 1967 Ford Mustang.

Published by Cedar Fort, Previously Engaged is her second novel and a follow up to her first book, The Icing on the Cake which was also published by Cedar Fort in 2007.

Previously Engaged follows Annabelle Pleasanton a young women with a good heart and a penchant for getting herself into unbelievably funny trouble. Consider the predicament she finds herself in after entering a contest for a free cake and instead winning a $50,000 dream wedding. Sounds perfect except for just one tiny little problem, her boyfriend Isaac hasn’t actually proposed yet.

To complicate matters further, her handsome, single and now rich ex-boyfriend Alex drops into her life unexpectedly, while Isaac’s family has their heart set on sexy former model Chloe as his future wife.

Annabelle, like all the characters in this book, is well developed. She’s the type of girl that would drive you nuts as your daughter, but would make a fun best friend. And the romantic conundrums kept me on the edge of my seat till the very last moment. The plot was fast, and the style clever and light.

If you love romance and want to enjoy a good laugh, then Previously Engaged by Elodia Strain is the perfect book for a spring afternoon of light reading or a fun Mother’s Day gift.