The Bookshelf Reviews 2.0 - The Compendium

In High Places, by Tom Morrisey

2007-04-04T07:13:00.001-07:00

In High Places is a wonderful work of literary merit that probes the fractured relationship between father and son after their mother shockingly takes her life while they’re away on a climbing trip in West Virginia. Tom Morrisey’s narrative voice is well-developed and his prose is sophisticated; this is truly a well-written novel that digs into the uncertainty and unexpectedness of life. Morrisey clearly shows off his writing chops, which speaks very well of his English and Creative Writing background at Bowling Green University. This type of work speaks of a writer whose career will endure far past fads, popular trends in pop literature, and blog tours.

At once robustly “manly”, warmly nostalgic and deeply sensitive, In High Places explores salvation and established Christianity from the other side of the fence in a first person narrative that’s so powerful it reads less like a work of fiction and more like a revealing memoir. Sixteen year-old narrator Patrick Nolan is crafted perfectly, teetering at the cusp of manhood but still inexperienced, often rash, and very, very realistic. It’s always a balancing act when taking a teen or child and making them prime characters in adult fiction; hard to make them believable, full of depth, and not “YAish” (Young Adult Literature). Patrick is a man-not yet man, and by the end of the novel, readers will feel connected to him in a vibrant, visceral way.

Though In High Places tells a story of salvation, redemption, forgiveness, and trusting God, it has a broader appeal, especially because Patrick Nolan tells his story from the other side, coming to know Christ from a position of complete ignorance. It’s realistic in its presentation; Patrick’s main motivation for attending church is not to soothe the pain of his mother’s death or find what’s missing in life, but Rachel, the stunning preacher’s daughter.

Even though mountain climbing and climbing lingo play large roles in the story, those unfamiliar or uninterested in climbing will still enjoy this novel. This is a story about father and son, and what God can do to heal the breach of hurt and loss. On a passing note, each chapter is preceded by climber’s aide quotes taken from poplar climbing manuals, and after close inspection, you’ll see that every quote has an intrinsic connection to the emotional tones and patterns of the following passage. This is the work of a meticulous artist whose attention to detail and word choice makes you think of Ernest Hemingway.

The ending of the novel is touching as well, content to leave Patrick and the reader wondering about the “what-if’s” and “what might have beens” of life, but it doesn’t close on a depressing note, rather re-affirming in an introspective way one of the story’s central tenets – not only is hope often all we have to hold to, it’s also enough.

Visit the author’s website. Buy In High Places.

Reclaiming Nick, by Susan May Warren

2007-03-27T19:03:00.000-07:00

Reclaiming Nick, by Susan May Warren, is a moving story about a wayward son returning home to seek reconciliation, only to find that time is cruel, and sometimes a change of heart comes too late. It bears testimony to the hard fact that time can’t always heal wounds, and that righting past wrongs requires more than a simple I’m sorry.

Nick Noble has tried many things to forget the past – college, a stint in the military, being a cop, and lately flipping pancakes at a small roadside diner, but nothing quite blocks the stinging knowledge that things aren’t as they should be. In a fit of anger, Nick left behind everything he loved: his father, the Silver Buckle - the ranch and land he loved - his best friend Cole, and most importantly, his girl - his one true love, Maggie.

Despite the holes in his heart, he stays away from home, burning with resentment, not sure how to ask for forgiveness – not even sure if he wants to. The passing years aren’t kind; law enforcement doesn’t work out; especially when he realizes he put the wrong man behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit - and he’s never forgotten the sting of betrayal and the feel of Maggie, soft and tender, in his arms.

However, when the family lawyer Saul Lovell seeks him out with the news that his father has died, everything changes. With Bishop Noble gone, Nick’s last chance at reconciling with his father is gone too, and something else – somehow, his old friend turned traitor Cole St. John managed to rook Bishop Noble into leaving half of the Silver Buckle to him. Vowing that his family’s land will never return fall into a traitor’s hands, Nick storms home….unaware that he’s followed by an intrepid reporter determined to punish him for framing an innocent man - her brother - and that she’ll stop at nothing to get the real story.

Infused with righteous anger, Nick vows to contest his father’s will, but when he gets home, he finds things have changed in ways he never imagined. His sister Stefanie runs the Silver Buckle now, and to his surprise he finds her not the least bit shocked at their father’s bizarre gift to Cole; rather, angry at him, accusing Nick of coming home to hurt them even more. The ranch is being turned into an attraction for “city slickers” to help pay the bills, Cole is sick, weakened by a failing liver – and the most crushing blow of them all, Maggie has moved on, and married the very man he counts as his greatest enemy – Cole St. John.

Reclaiming Nick is a powerful character study on many levels, portraying a painful truth about life; the path to restoration isn’t one to be undertaken lightly, fraught with wounds that cut deep to the heart. Warren’s narrative is authentic, and she creates very believable characters, especially Nick Noble, because even though he’s trying to atone, as a reader sometimes we’re not going to like him – he’s pigheaded, a little stuck on himself, and convinced he knows best. He’s a very good portrayal of a wounded man who’s covered over his pain with swagger, self-confidence, and aggressive drive.

Also, there’s some suspense, as a shadowy stranger lurks around the Silver Buckle, engaging in sabotage, plotting revenge – vowing that Nick Noble must die for his sins. Reclaiming Nick is a wonderful take on the “prodigal son” story, and hopefully we’ll see more of the Noble legacy.

Vist the author's website, and Nick Noble's blog.

Guest poster - Randy Ingermanson

2007-03-21T14:20:00.000-07:00

People sometimes email me and ask if any of the science in Double Vision is true. I always tell them that most of it is true.

E-commerce all around the world depends on being able to transmit financial information securely over the wires. If you buy a book on Amazon, you need to type in your credit card information. And that needs to be encrypted on your end and decrypted at Amazon, because the information is going to pass through a lot of computers along the way, and there is no way to keep anyone at the computers from peeking at your data!

There is a minor miracle going on here, because in order for Amazon to decrypt your information, your computer and Amazon have to agree on a secret key for encrypting and decrypting. And how are you going to exchange that secret key securely? You might think that you have to encrypt the key and send it to Amazon to decrypt. But that requires a SECOND secret key. How are you going to exchange that SECOND key securely? This problem could continue forever! How do you solve it?

The answer is where that minor miracle comes in. Your computer creates and sends "half of a secret key." Amazon's computer creates and sends "another half of a secret key". Through some mathematical magic, the two computers can then create a whole secret key that nobody else knows about. The mathematical magic relies on the fact that if you multiply two huge numbers together and tell somebody the answer, they will find it supremely difficult to figure out which two numbers you started with.

Unless they have a quantum computer. A quantum computer could solve that problem and break your secret code with Amazon.

I want to emphasize that this has been demonstrated in the lab for a very small quantum computer. IBM did this several years ago, using a quantum computer with 7 "quantum bits".

This means that IN PRINCIPLE, e-commerce all around the world is at risk. If somebody had a large enough quantum computer (with about 10000 quantum bits), they could read all that encrypted mail going around and know everybody's secret keys.

The only thing keeping this from happening is that it's HARD to create a quantum computer that big. In my novel Double Vision, I imagined what's going to happen on the day somebody figures out how to make a large quantum computer. The ideas I used are similar to the ones IBM used to make its quantum computer. Similar, but not identical. I had to make up a little bit of science--but only a little bit.

A lot of physicists believe that large quantum computers will be feasible in the next few dozen years. (And a lot of physicists are skeptical, but history has taught us not to bet against technology.)

When we get large quantum computers, we're going to have to change technologies. And there is a good, secure technology that we could change to. As I said, in order to DECRYPT conventional codes, you need a large quantum computer. But there is another kind of encryption technique that exists NOW that also uses quantum computing to do encryption and decryption. This technique only requires one quantum bit. It is unbreakable but still a bit expensive. Eventually, it'll be cheap enough for everyone.

So what quantum computers take away with one hand, they give back with the other.

Best regards,
Randy Ingermanson

Check out Randy's book, Double Vision, at Amazon.com. For even more fun, go to his website at www.rsingermanson.com

The Fifth Man, by Randall Ingermanson & John B. Olsen

2007-03-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

In the sequel to Oxygen, winner of the 2002 Christy Award, the mission to Mars continues as astronauts Valkerie Jansen, Bob Kaganovski, Alexis Ohata, and Kennedy Hampton search the arid, lifeless desert terrain of Mars for any signs of life, even the most microscopic. They've survived great obstacles to reach this point - an early flight explosion on their trip to Mars, the discovery of a potentially life-threatening bio-organism shortly after the accident, and personal difficulties in their relationships - but it all seemingly pays off as Valkerie discovers a microscopic organism buried in a deep tunnel protected from the sun's harsh cosmic rays. Despite her uncertainty about how to deal with Bob's awkward marriage proposal - especially considering their claustrophobic conditions - she's elated at the prospect of doing what so many have dreamed and theorized about: discovering life on Mars.

However, trouble is brewing under the surface. While Commander Kennedy Hampton shows increasingly aggressive, confrontational behavior towards the rest of the crew, Bob Kaganovski feels watched out of the corner of his eyes. He's gone through all the psychological studies and training, and is well aware of the potential stresses of being alone with only three other people on a desolate planet - but still, he feels certain that something is out there, watching their every move. Coupled with the pang of unrequited love, the foundations for an explosive decompression are laid. When Valkerie and Kennedy fall ill with an unexplained sickness and start hallucinating sounds and an other presence, a match is held very close to burning flame.

Meanwhile, things are unraveling at NASA in Houston. As top flight officials face mounting pressure over whether or not they should bring back their sick astronauts and risk "back-contamination" - contaminating Earth with a potentially extraterrestrial bacteria - it becomes clear someone at Mission Control can't be trusted. Whether it's a Russian spy or one of their own gone bad, a hacker is on the loose, determined to do everything in their power to ruin the mission and strand their astronauts on Mars forever.

Commander Kennedy goes insane and attacks Valkerie and Bob; someone steals the Rover and sabotages vital equipment and supplies, and strange things go "bump in the night". Have they all gone mad with a Martian disease...or is there a "fifth man" among them?

This is a novel I REALLY wanted to love; in fact, I did for most of the story. Olsen and Ingermanson lay down a narrative that's tense and suspenseful, the science is plausible and believable, and there are a lot of Red Planet (Val Kilmer) and Mission to Mars (Gary Sinese) vibes that really makes the reader wonder: is a Christian science fiction novel going to go where no Christian science fiction novel has gone before, (pun intended), and declare life on other planets?

**SPOILER ALERT** Alas, the spookie heebie jeebies are explained away, making this once again a "safe" Christian science fiction novel that colors within the lines. The skill to tell an engaging story is here, and while many won't blink twice at the novel's ending, I'm sure more than a few will feel a little disappointment upon discovering the "fifth man" isn't who/what we were hoping.

This is an enjoyable, suspenseful novel for the most part, but if you were hoping for boundary-pushing science fiction that'll pose interesting questions concerning theology and life on other planets like Rendezvous With Rama, and Rama II by Arthur C. Clarke, this isn't it, despite skillful writing and attention to detail.

Visit Randy's website, and for more Randall Ingermanson fiction, try Double Vision, his suspense-romance-thriller.

Double Vision, by Randall Ingermanson

2007-03-19T17:23:00.001-07:00

Dillon Richards is one of CyberQuanta's most talented computer programmers, but he isn't "Normal" like everyone else. Afflicted with "Asperger's Syndrome" his entire life, he's always seen life from a different perspective; through a different set of rules and regulations. To Dillon, order is the cure to chaos; logic the bedrock of existence, and rationality the key to a better life. He believes in science and God, and though both "faiths" have seemingly unsolvable contradictions, his belief in them remains unshakable. However, though he understands quantum string theory and the "multi-verse", he finds women and love to be inherently chaotic and impossible to understand - why would anyone allow themselves to fall in love in the first place?

Keryn Wills, part-time mystery author and financial accountant for CyberQuanta is just the type of woman Dillon finds interesting and fascinating. A committed Christian who loves books, talking about alternate universes and Shakespeare, Keryn seems to be the right fit for the order-conscious Dillon - until the vivacious, risky, and outlandish Rachel Meyers storms onto the scene. Not only is Rachel bold and beautiful, she's dreadfully smart, almost as skilled as Dillon himself, and not afraid to flaunt "what God gave her".

Suddenly, Keryn is faced with daunting competition for Dillon's affections...but is there really any competition? Despite her infectious zest for life, Rachael is horribly conflicted about God, and it's very possible that in his strictly ordered, nonsensical and logical world, Dillon finds the idea of relationships and love beneath him in the first place. What's a romantic mystery novelist to do?

Of course, throw in a revolutionary quantum computer that will change the way the world thinks about encryption, personal security and privacy; federal conspiracies and a flight from powers wanting the quantum computer for their own nefarious reasons, and these three individuals are thrown into a pressure cooker that will not only test their limits and entangle them in a web of deception, misdirection, and lies, but also force them to consider their relationship with each other and their relationship with the divine power behind all design and purpose - God himself.

Double Vision is a quirky tale full of suspense, humor, and intrigue that brings a fresh flavor to Christian fiction. Randall Ingermanson writes about romance with as much authority as he does about all things scientific, and a carefully structured narrative results in a solid story leaving no stone unturned, no loose ends, and a painstakingly concealed plot twist at the tale's conclusion. His depiction of Dillon as an adult afflicted with Asperger's Syndrome is authentic, and his character development - juggling three main characters - is rich and full of depth.

Though Double Vision is billed as "A Novel of Intrigue and Suspense", the real focus is the developing relationship between Dillon, Rachel, and Keryn. Most of the suspense serves to put all three characters into situations in which stress brings them closer together and challenges their preconceptions of each other and the world around them, but this doesn't detract from the novel in any way, just makes it much more of a character-driven story, rather than a plot-driven one. The suspense and action builds slowly, much like the movie The Pelican Brief (Denzel Washington; Julia Roberts), and we don't really go "on the run" until a little over half-way through the novel.

Though more of a romance novel than pulse-pounding action/suspense, Double Vision is sure to entertain and engage readers, and the conclusion does come out of "left field", surprising the reader with its revelations. For some quantum computing, romance, and intrigue, pick up Double Vision today.

Visit his website.

2007-03-01T04:01:00.000-08:00

In today’s generation, Christian parents face more obstacles than in any other point in history, perhaps even more so than those early Christians who hid their churches in their homes. With the advent of cable television, the Internet, cell phones and seemingly omnipresent advertisements telling our children – and let’s be honest, us – how to look, act, dress, live, and what to believe in, Christians are engaged in all out warfare for not only for our own souls, but those of our children as well.

It doesn’t help that Christianity is more splintered than it’s ever been. A line has been drawn down the middle, and sides have been chosen: there are those on one side who deride “cultural sensitivity” and “Contemporary Worship” as “watered-down” and departing from Scriptural truth, and those on the other side who sneer at folks still reading their New King James Bibles, calling them “legalistic” and “not with the times”. Popularity of speakers and spiritual self-help books abound, to the point where recently, when a young lady was threatened by a burglar, she pulled out – not the Bible – but rather a popular devotional book instead.

So, there a skirmishes all around, one side pointing the finger at another, but one thing that cannot be denied is the almost overwhelming crop of young parents and even younger children who feel isolated and cut off from God. They are desperately seeking answers in a post-modern age that refutes the sovereignty of answers, and many of them feel desperarely alone in their fight.

Generation Next Parenting, by award winning novelist Tricia Goyer, is an excellent devotional – not self-help book, not sweeping craze built on well-meaning concepts and snazzy catch phrases. It’s an excellent tome of guidance for today’s young parents. Founded on sound, Biblical principles – using only three or four different translations of the Bible, rather than fifty – Generation Next cuts right to the heart of what it means to be a young parent today; facing challenges and worldly opposition that our parents and grandparents never had to face.

A big selling point of this book is Goyer’s frankness concerning her own mistakes and downfalls in life; she’s open and honest – sometimes painfully so (but in an empathetic, good way). For me, as a young “Gen X’er” parent myself, this made quite an impact: I can’t count how many times I’ve read a devotional book by some award winning speaker, pastor, or theologian, and thought to myself - “Hmm…must be nice living in your world.” However, throughout Generation, I laughed, I winced, I sometimes felt stirred, (no, I didn’t cry – because of course, we men never do that….sniff.)

The book’s format is unique, as well – filled with relevant cultural quips and anecdotes, (those of us secret Duran Duran admirers will feel right at home), it’s laid out more like a study guide or textbook, rather than a…well…really big book with lots of words that’ll never get finished in the middle of work, doing the laundry, feeding the kids, changing the diapers, (which this man does do), and running the kids to every practice and event known to man. But don’t worry, “busy bees” – simplify is one of this book’s loudest hearkening calls.

On a final note, MEN should absolutely, positively read this book as well. Though it’s written with a decided slant toward the female reader, for too long Christian men have distanced themselves from the “messier” side of leading the home spiritually (and I do mean “messier” literally; my father always said he changed the required amount of diapers a man was supposed to – one for me, and one for my sister!). This book gives practical, ground floor advice for all parents who desire their homes to be Godly ones, and should be on every Christian “Gen X’er’s” shelf.

Visit the author’s website: http://www.triciagoyer.com/. Check out her recent fiction release, in A Valley of Betrayal.

SCIMITAR’S EDGE, BY MARVIN OLASKY

2007-02-28T18:03:00.000-08:00

It is March 1st, time for the FIRST Day Blog Tour! (Join our alliance! Click the button!) The FIRST day of every month we will feature an author and his/her latest book's FIRST chapter!

This month's feature author is:

Marvin Olasky

and his book:

Scimitar's Edge

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr. Olasky is editor-in-chief of World Magazine, a senior fellow of the Acton Institute, and a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He and his wife Susan have been married for 30 years and have four sons. He has written 17 non-fiction books and has also started (with several others) a Christian school; he has been a crisis pregnancy center chairman, a foster parent, a Little League assistant coach, a PTA president, and an informal advisor to George W. Bush. He is a graduate of Yale University and the University of Michigan.

Stepping away from his roles as professor, historian, and creator of "compassionate conservatism," Marvin Olasky, editor-in-chief of WORLD Magazine has penned an edge-of-your-seat novel that educates as well as it informs.

SCIMITAR'S EDGE is the story of four unique Americans on a journey that takes them to a world of great beauty and great danger. Olasky uses his vast knowledge of the culture to pen a tale about the War on Terror that is so realistic it might have been taken from today's headlines.

A FEW QUESTIONS WITH THE AUTHOR

1. What's the book about?

At its basic level it's about Americans who go to Turkey for a vacation -- I spent a month there two years ago -- and are kidnapped by Turkish Hezbollah; the question then is how to get away and whether to forget about the whole thing or attempt to fight back. In another sense Scimitar's Edge is about America and the war against terrorism: Now that it's almost five years since 9/11 many of us almost seem to be on vacation again, but the terrorists are not.

2. You're a journalist and professor by trade, with about 18 non-fiction books in your past. What led you to turn to fiction?

Largely fun. In one sense I was playing SIM Turkey: Drop four people into a harsh foreign environment, give them action and adventure, build a romance … I grew to like the characters and wanted to see what they would do. I also enjoyed the challenge: I've written lots of nonfiction books and know how to do that,
but this was all new.

3. Is your research for fiction different from your nonfiction research?

The trunk is common - as I traveled through Turkey I took notes on geography, food, customs, and so forth - but the branches differ. My nonfiction research emphasizes accuracy concerning what has happened; for example, every quotation
has to be exactly what a person said. In fiction, though, I'm
inventing dialogue, yet everything that happens has to be true to the characters and the situation.

4. What's been the feedback from your fans since your switchto fiction? Oh, are there fans?

Actually, I've gotten excellent reactions from many of the folks who like my nonfiction. A few worry about sexual allusions - one of the characters is a serial adulterer and two of the others, as they fall in love, encounter sexual tension. Scimitar's Edge is also an action/adventure novel so there's some shooting, and one of the main characters is a terrorist who relishes lopping off heads. So anyone who wants a sugary book should look elsewhere.

5. You also include some descriptions of what's been called "the forgotten holocaust" a century ago, and explain some Turkish history.

Turkey was the proving ground for the first sustained governmental attempt at genocide, as Turks killed over one million Armenians and sent many to concentration camps; Hitler admired that effort. But Turkey has often been a central player in world affairs, not a backwater. Nearly two millennia ago Turkey became a Christian stronghold: The seven churches John addresses in the book of Revelation, for example, were in what is now Western Turkey. Going back one millennium, what is now Turkey was the front line for a clash of Christian and Muslim cultures.

6. I know you wrote your doctoral dissertation about film and politics from the 1930s through the 1960s, a time when Westerns were one of the dominant genres, and I see certain Western-like elements in this book.

Westerns came in about seven different varieties, and one of them was called the "revenge Western," where a bad man has killed a beloved person and the hero heads out to bring him to justice. In nuanced Westerns the hero at various points asks himself whether his end justifies his means and whether it's worth giving up a lot to carry out what he planned. An internal struggle of that sort occurs in this book as well.

7. Scimitar's Edge is an unusual novel that combines action against terrorists with quotations from Walker Percy. In fact, the book ends with an allusion to one of Percy's most enduring characters, Will Barrett. Were you consciously trying to walk a knife-edge between high-brow and low-brow culture?

Not consciously; that's just where I am myself. Since evangelicals are sometimes disparaged as dumb, some press to show we're not by tossing around Latin phrases or going to opera rather than popular movies -- not that there's anything wrong with opera, as long as there's a car chase within the first five minutes. To me it comes down to enjoying the pleasures God gives us, including those from both popular culture and literary culture.

8. Are you planning a sequel?

When I talk with students about careers we discuss the importance of both internal calling and external calling - do you feel God's pleasure as you do something, and do other people think you're good at it? I feel the internal call to write more novels; I'm trying to discern the external call from readers.

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Note: All present-day characters are fictional except for the media and political personalities in chapter sixteen and one character in chapter twenty-one: There really is a Metropolitan Ozmen at the Deur-ul Zaferan Monastery near the Turkish- Syrian border.

Descriptions of historical characters are factual. Suleyman Mahmudi did build Castle Hosap in southeastern Turkey in 1643.

The chess game in chapter fourteen derives from one played by Gustav Richard Neumann and Adolf Anderssen in Berlin in 1864, but then it was not a matter of life or death.

PROLOGUE

Zeliha Kuris sat in her living room in Konya, scarcely believing what she was watching on TRT1, the major government-run channel in Turkey. The second of the twin towers of New York was crumpling. She cried, thinking of the horrible way so many were dying. Then came a knock on her door.

She peered out cautiously. Ever since her last book, threats from Hezbollah terrorists had come as fast as the sewage ran after heavy rains. One fatwa against her read, “She has confused and poisoned Muslims with her Western ideas. She deserves death.”

But it was only a man, Trafik Kurban, whose ailing mother she had helped. They had met in the room at the hospital where the old woman was dying of lung cancer. Trafik’s hollow cheeks and chain-smoking habits made generational continuity likely, but he had seemed friendly enough as he joked about his favorite American film, The Wizard of Oz. Zeliha opened the door to him.

“I have a present for you in my car,” he said, taking her hand in his own—it was sticky soft—and pointing to a white Mitsubishi that sat at the curb. “You showed yourself a true daughter of Turkey during my mother’s duress, and I want to thank you.”

Zeliha looked up and down the street but saw no danger signs. She smiled and followed him to the vehicle. Trafik reached in, pulled out a three-foot-tall scarecrow stuffed with straw, and handed it to her. She gave it a puzzled look before smiling and saying, “It’s lovely.”

Then Trafik stuck a needle into her arm and shoved her into the car.

She came to in a dank basement. At first all she could sense was the overpowering smell of onions. The odor hung in the air and left her struggling for breath. Her hands were bound behind her back, her legs tethered to a pillar. All was quiet, but then she heard movement and conversation on the floor above.

She strained to catch what was being said. A man with a booming voice. He sounded joyous. “Passed the initiation . . . Trafik, one of us . . . member of Hezbollah.”

Hezbollah! So Trafik was not just a petty criminal. Hezbollah! Instantly she knew what would happen though her tormentors made her wait. She lost track of the time and must have dozed because when she awoke her throat was parched and a glass of water sat just beyond her reach.

She often heard the man with the loud, harsh voice talking and then laughing outside the door. When the door opened, the smell of fresh bread wafted into the room. Only when her mouth was as dry as Saudi sand and her stomach cramped from hunger did the loud man enter. Even then he was patient, standing for a time just staring at her.

Finally he leaned close, smelling of garlic, his thick black mustache tickling her check. Spit from his mouth sprayed her face. “You wanted to be Turkey’s Salman Rushdie or Taslima Nasrin, eh? They deserve to die, and you will.”

On the first day he beat her. On the second day he dripped burning nylon on her, all the time complaining that he had to use primitive torture devices because her Western allies kept him from getting modern electroshock devices. He demanded information about the members of her conspiracy. She explained that there was no conspiracy, that she had only written what was true. He became furious.

Upstairs she could hear The Wizard of Oz playing nonstop, with the Munchkins’ song turned up loud to cover up her screams. She imagined Trafik was watching, and her one hope was that he would come to see her so she could ask him how he felt betraying the woman who had been his dying mother’s only friend. Trafik did not descend, but she heard him chortle as the Wicked Witch screamed, “I’m melting, melting.”

Finally he did stand in front of her, but instead of displaying remorse he held a camera. As the loud man did his work, Trafik silently recorded the ravages of torture. Summoning her remaining strength, Zeliha spat at him. “How could you do this?” But before he answered, if he answered, she lost consciousness and never returned to life.

PART ONE
INNOCENTS ABROAD

CHAPTER ONE

Providence Community Church in South Philadelphia was hosting its end-of-the-school-year rally. Five hundred members of church youth groups from the Philadelphia and Wilmington areas came to hear a hot rock band and enjoy a cookout, with a skit about the danger of growing gang violence sandwiched in between.

The band was hammering at high decibels in the low-lit sanctuary. Teens stood on the pews, swaying and clapping to the music. No one noticed a young man entering through the double doors at the back. A white and blue bandanna covered his head and an obscenity-laden T-shirt hung nearly to his knees, still not far enough to reach the crotch of his baggy blue jeans. His right arm was tattooed with spiderwebs, “laugh now, cry later” clown faces, and the name “Luis.” His right hand held a .38. Before a greeter could offer a welcome, Luis sent a bullet through one guitar and another clanging into a microphone stand.

As the band members froze in confusion, teens in the audience laughed and applauded the clever opening to the skit. A third bullet tore into the bass drum and sent the band members scurrying.

A lone voice yelled, “He’s shooting at us! Duck down!” The skinny youth pastor, looking not much older than the kids who packed the dark sanctuary, stood up and waved his arms wildly. “This is not the gang skit. This is for real.” His voice cracked, sending the crowd into fits of laughter. Suddenly his left arm jerked wildly and a red stain spread over the sleeve of his white shirt. “Get down in the pews!” he screamed.

Kids close to him began to yell and duck under their pews. Those on the other side still thought they were part of an interactive skit. “Paintball!” one boy yelled. ”Awesome!”

Luis was outraged. “Shut up! All of you just shut up! Enough of this Jesus crap!”

One girl whispered, “Can he say that in church?” The boy next to her shouted, “Wash your mouth out with soap!” His friends gave him high fives.

The shooter turned and glowered at them, cursing in a combination of Spanish and English, swinging the gun from side to side as he sidled away from the doors and snarled, “Where’s Carlos?” He snapped off two shots, hitting a girl. She screamed, moved her hand to her shoulder, looked at her red-stained fingers, and screamed again: “He shot me!”

Her voice reflected shock and betrayal. That’s when panic set in.
_
Across the parking lot in the church manse the old air conditioner rat-a-tatted as Washington Post national security correspondent Halop Bogikian finished his interview of pastor David Carrillo, known for his work with gangs. This was an unusual assignment for Hal, but reports of Al-Qaeda connections with a Hispanic gang, Mara Salvatrucha—MS-13 for short—were surfacing; and his editor thought he should learn about the gang and the possibility that it could smuggle an atomic bomb across the border.

The journalist and the pastor sat across from each other at a round oak table in the book-lined study. Carrillo leaned back in his chair, a smile playing around his lips. Hal thought the pastor too relaxed, too comfortable in his own skin, so it was time to pounce. Leaning forward, pen poised above his reporter’s notebook, thin and wiry Hal searched the pastor’s face. “You’re saying that hard-core gang members, even members of MS-13, get religion and turn from their wicked ways?”

“I know you don’t believe it, but that’s what often happens.” Hal shook his head as though dealing with an imaginative six-year-old. “Church and state issues aside, why should anyone believe that gang members will give up power—and what seems to them an efficient way to get money—for God?”

Carrillo smiled. “I’m not expecting you to take my word for it. A young man, Carlos, is waiting in the living room. He has a remarkable story to tell you if you’ve got the time.”

Hal glanced at his watch. He wanted to get back on the road to Washington. This whole trip to Philly had been a mistake, proving once again that you couldn’t trust an editor to know the elements of a decent story. He began to offer an excuse as he capped his pen, but the pastor looked like a little kid who had called him chicken. Hal removed the cap from his pen. “OK, I’ll listen.”

Carrillo opened the door to the living room. “Hey, Carlos, come on in.” A heavy-set boy with a bad case of acne shuffled into the room, his pants dragging on the floor. His black hair was slicked back from his face, and the beginning of a wispy black goatee shaded his jaw. Though he was seventeen, his voice cracked when he spoke: “Me and my friends joined a street gang last year, La Mara Salvatrucha. Guys call it MS-13.”

Hal nodded, thinking, Here comes one more of those born-again stories.

“A couple of weeks ago, a little after midnight, three of us were standing near a 7-11, and some chicas cruised by, shouting insults at us. Our leader, Luis, hurled a bottle at them, but they kept going. Then a few minutes later we saw this big old Chevy come by. Three guys from the South Side Locos with baseball bats. They chased us into the projects.”

Hal thought, Might as well get some more human interest. He began writing.

“Luis said, ’Let’s get our machetes and show them.’ Those Locos saw us coming out and ran, man. It was funny. But one of them tripped. The others kept going, so we caught him. I kicked him a couple of times. But Luis said, ‘Let’s teach the Locos that they can’t mess with MS-13.’”

Carlos was silent for a time. He pulled a chain out of his pocket, which he twisted and twined between his fingers. The faint roar of noise from the nearby highway continued. A car backfired.

The pastor said, “Sounds like the concert is over. I’m not hearing the bass.” Hal took another look at his watch and tried not to let the kid see how impatient he was to be off.

Carlos started up again: “OK, I want to get this off my chest. Luis started to nick that guy with his machete: hands, head, all over. I tell you, Luis is more loco than the Locos. He covers his whole body with MS-13 tattoos. But when he started to cut that guy’s fingers off it was bad, real bad.”

Hal’s pen flew over the page of his notebook. He kicked himself for not bringing a tape recorder. While he wrote, trying to capture the cadence of the boy’s speech, he felt the first flutter of excitement: This could be a good column, maybe even award winning.

Across the table the boy’s voice stopped. Hal looked up from his notebook and saw Carlos crying. “The guy was screaming. I was screaming. Luis kept cutting. Left only the thumb. He laughed and said the guy could hitch a ride home. That’s when I decided I had to get out. My mom could tell something was wrong. She nagged me nonstop and wouldn’t get off my back until I came to talk to the preacher.”

Just then a young woman ran in. “Pastor, come quick.” Hal took in bright hazel eyes, slender neck, soft shoulders, and a name tag reading “Sally.” He had never seen anyone so lovely. Then her words sank in: “Someone’s shooting in the sanctuary. I’ve called 911.”

Carrillo jumped up and headed out the door to the church building. Carlos’s face blanched. “Luis! It’s gotta be. He’s gonna kill me.” He looked desperately for a place to hide. Sally bit her upper lip. “Stay here. You’ll be safe.” She looked up at Hal as though seeing him for the first time: “You stay with him.”

Hal said, “Can’t. I’m a reporter.” He grabbed his pad and slammed through the front door toward his car. He heard Sally’s scornful voice at his back: ”That figures. He wants to be first with the story.” She gave Carlos a reassuring pat on the back before following the pastor.

Carrillo entered the sanctuary through a side door and surveyed the scene. Children cowered behind the pews as Luis stalked back and forth, careful to stay away from doors and windows. “I want that traitor! Where is Carlos?” he kept yelling.

Carrillo took a step into the sanctuary: “Put the gun down, son. This is a house of God.”

Luis sneered and swore at him. Carrillo kept his voice even. "You haven’t killed anyone,” he said, hoping it was true. “The police will be here soon. It will be better for you if you put the gun down.”

“Shut up! I don’t want more Jesus junk like the lies you told Carlos. I should just shoot you and put you out of your misery. Want to die?”

Carrillo said evenly, “You can shoot me if you want. I’m not afraid to die. I know where I’m going.”

“Don’t give me any heaven stuff,” Luis screamed. “I can turn this place into hell. My boys and me are gonna nuke the city. And I’ll start with you.” He pulled the trigger, and Carrillo felt a piercing pain on the right side of the chest. As he crumpled to the floor, the shooter turned his gaze toward the front of the sanctuary.

Suddenly a voice from the back demanded, “Drop your weapon.”

Sally stood just outside the side door through which the pastor had entered. With her foot she held the door open about six inches. She could see Carrillo on the floor. The mystery speaker was outside her line of vision. She strained to hear police sirens.

Luis ran past the side door toward the back. She could hear his heavy breathing and his heavy footfall on the tile floor. He raised his gun and fired twice. Then Sally heard an answering shot and the metallic sound of a gun being kicked across the floor. She opened the door cautiously and saw Luis on the floor, and a shadowy figure walking away.

With no time to puzzle over the identity of the second shooter, Sally pushed open the door completely and crab-walked to the pastor as he moaned and a rising chorus of cries filled the sanctuary. Carrillo’s shirt was soaked with blood. Sally looked vainly for something to use to staunch the bleeding, before settling on her skirt. She unzipped it and slipped it off, then bunched it up and pressed it into the wound.

She waited for the sirens. What’s taking so long? she thought. She hadn’t prayed for a long time, but she did now, although it was more of a complaint: God, how could you let this happen? What’s the point?
_
As the first police cars fishtailed into the church parking lot, followed by ambulances, Hal started up his Jetta, which he’d parked on the street across from the manse. The hand that had held the Colt .45 shook, and he wished that he still smoked. He didn’t know if he’d killed Luis or not; he hoped not. Not knowing whether he should stay, he asked himself what the penalty was for a person with one shooting in his past using an unlicensed gun to save lives. He decided not to stay and find out.

As Hal headed onto the highway, he called his editor, gave him the outlines of the story, and said wire service reporters would be there soon. Brushing off demands that he stay and do the reporting, he used the sentence he had used many times before: “If you don’t like it, fire me.” Sometimes editors had complied.

He turned on the radio, scanning the stations until he found a news-talk station where some caller was blathering about delays at airport checkpoints. He was about to jab the button again when he heard a special bulletin giving brief details about the shooting. Then the soft voice of an eyewitness identified as Sally Northaway was describing the pastor’s action and telling a reporter, “I’ve never before seen bravery like Reverend Carrillo’s.”

Hal scribbled “Sally” in his reporter’s notebook as he tried to erase the memory of her scornful denunciation when he fled the room. He flipped to another station: “A pastor is in critical condition, and four others plus the accused gunman are wounded. It would have been much worse except for the intervention of an unidentified bystander.”

Hal honked as a Mercedes cut him off. He let a Ford Focus get in front of him as they approached a tollbooth. He turned on the CD player and listened to Patty Griffin’s melancholy voice: There’s a war and a plague, smoke and disaster Lions in the coliseum, screams of laughter, Motherless children, a witness and a Bible, Nothing but rain ahead, no chance for survival.

Hal let himself be lost in her misery and hellish visions, preferring them to his own. Only when he reached the outskirts of D.C. and saw out of the corner of his eye an IKEA store with a sign proclaiming “Manager’s special. Swedish meat balls $5.68. Comes with salad,” did he think about eating. He parked in a huge lot, noting with irritation the SUVs surrounding him.

Hal entered the modern building and immediately felt himself relax. Something about the white walls, cool wood floors, and spare furniture always did that to him, though he didn’t know why. Probably had to do with all the stories of human abuse and torture he’d been forced to endure at his granddad’s knee: IKEA represented cool detachment.

The cafeteria was nearly empty except for a couple drinking coffee by the windows. Hal pointed at the meatballs and said, “No gravy, please. Vegetables instead of potatoes.” He filled his salad bowl with lettuce and added two cherry tomatoes. The cashier rang it up: “$7.10.”

Hal waited a second and said, “Taxes aren’t that much, even here in Maryland. The sign said $5.68.”

The cashier stared at him and replied, “That don’t include the toppings on the salad.”

He stalked back to the salad bar and dumped the tomatoes into their bin. He returned to the register: “How’s that?

$5.68?”

The cashier laughed. “Yes, sir.”

Hal took a table away from the windows and as far from the register as he could get. He ate slowly, relishing the meatballs and remembering how his grandparents had told him to chew everything twice and hug every penny. Contemplating how they had nearly starved as small children during the Armenian holocaust that was a sidelight of World War I, he wiped his plate clean, then drove to his apartment in a not-yet-gentrified building east of Capitol Hill.

Outside his door, Hal took in the odor of urine that never went away. One of the neighbor kids had left a couple of matchbox cars in front of his door. He gave them a soft kick that sent them rolling down the corridor. He unlocked his door and stepped into the living room, which was largely filled by an IKEA couch, its once-white cushions turned gray. A round pine table covered with cigarette burns, stains, and words etched into the soft surface by Hal’s too enthusiastic scribbling sat in front of the room’s one window.

One wall was decorated with portraits of Armenian leaders that he’d inherited from his dad. On the opposite wall an entertainment center looked forlorn, with a twelve-inch television in the space allocated for one much larger. A folder containing photos taken of Hal with important politicians was nearly buried beneath a stack of papers. He threw his rumpled blazer onto the couch and flicked on the news. The church shooting received some play, but his role merited only a brief mention at the end: “Police are trying to pin down the identity of the hero who prevented a mass killing today.”

He paced the room, thinking it crazy that he had a good story but couldn’t write it and even had to hope that no one would connect him with the shooting. Maybe it would be best to get out of town for a while. He could use a vacation.

Hal spent the next hour jotting down notes for a presentation he would make the next morning in response to a speech from an academic crank—not just any crank but his freshman roommate from Columbia sixteen years before. Finally, near midnight, he flopped down on his mattress, which lay on the floor next to wire baskets filled with clothes. He complimented himself on his stoicism and lack of concern for material things. But as he drifted uneasily off to sleep, he was asking himself what he did care about.
_
Also at midnight Washington time—seven a.m. in Antakya, Turkey, the city known in biblical times as Antioch—a man who knew what he cared about convened a meeting in a terrorist safe house to discuss his next move.

The man, Suleyman Hasan, had a Middle Eastern marquee idol’s features—height, thick black mustache, and olive skin. His lieutenant, Trafik Kurban, sat to the right, sucking furiously on a cigarette and grimacing frequently, as if pressing salt on an open wound. Mustafa Cavus, his well-muscled but potbellied special agent, sat to Suleyman’s left in a molded plastic chair, wiping at his nose with a gray handkerchief as he waited for the chief to speak.

Sitting in the back were Suleyman’s wife, Fatima, and a friend of hers, Kazasina, along with four students: Gurcan Aktas and Zubeyir Uruk from the University of Bosphorus in Istanbul, Sulhaddin Timur from Dokuz Eylul University in Izmir, and Fadil Bayancik from Mustafa Kemal University in Antakya.

The students all wore thick mustaches in imitation of Suleyman as well as school insignia because their leader insisted that his new insurgents have degrees. He had told them in his loud, deep voice, “We do not want to be seen as ignorant and poor people adopting terror out of desperation. We are poets and chess players, not gunmen.”

Tonight Suleyman was so bored that he was soliciting suggestions: “It would be wonderful to have a nuclear bomb, but while we are waiting, what should we do?”

Mustafa and Trafik argued for what they knew how to engineer— more bombings of synagogues and government buildings— but Suleyman shot down that suggestion: “I’d like a vacation from small-scale bombings. They’re the same old same old, as my classmates at the University of Texas used to say. Interns, what do you suggest?”

Sulhaddin perked up: “How about using poisonous gas on a subway train?”

Suleyman shook his head, arguing that it was too random in its effects: “We want to show the world that terror is not anarchy, that we can be precise in dealing even with those who resist Allah.”

Gurkan had been weaned on violent videos: “Let’s take a hostage and film his beheading.”

Suleyman stood up and began pacing: “That’s a good thought. I haven’t kidnapped anyone for a couple of years. But how do we rise above run-of-the-mill hostage-taking?”

The room was silent until Suleyman pulled from a bookcase a small volume with yellowed pages. “I have an idea. I have studied the work of my ancestor Abu’l-Hasan al-Mawardi, al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah, peace be unto him. A brilliant scholar, he died in Baghdad in 1058, but first he discoursed on how to treat captured enemies. He gave four possible actions. The first of the four is to put them to death by cutting their necks.”

“Yes, neck-cutting is good,” Mustafa said in his high, puffy voice. “What are the others?”

“The emir also may enslave captives,” Suleyman recited, almost seeming to go into a trance. “He may show favor to them and pardon them. He may ransom them in exchange for goods or prisoners.”

“That would be fun,” Fadil said. “We’d see the captives squirm, competing for our favor.”

Suleyman stroked his mustache and agreed: “This could be a pleasant vacation activity while our allies work on finding nuclear materials. We could show the world that we act thoughtfully, in accordance with our history.”

He paused in contemplation, and the room was again silent until Suleyman clapped his hands and said, “Yes, let’s do it. We may have to wait a while, but I would like to capture four Americans vacationing in our country and use all four of my ancestor’s options.”

“An elegant plan,” Mustafa exulted.

Suleyman spelled out the details: “We will cut the neck of one captive. A second will be a woman to enslave so we can repay the Americans for the way they treat women. A third we will pardon, so that person will tell the world our story along with one important detail: that we are ready to ransom a fourth.”

“Brilliant,” Trafik coughed.

“Excellent,” Suleyman smiled. “We will do our scouting and find the right group of four. We will all have a wonderful vacation.”

A Valley of Betrayal by Tricia Goyer

2007-02-28T15:28:00.001-08:00

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing

A Valley Of Betrayal(Moody Publishers - February 1, 2007)
by Tricia Goyer (fellow CFBA member, blogger, writer, and homeschooling mom!)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Tricia is a members of the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance. She also has a blog, It's Real Life and a parenting blog Generation NeXt.

TRICIA GOYER is the author of five novels, two nonfiction books and one children's book. She also was named Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference Writer of the Year in 2003. In 2005, her novel Night Song, the second title in Tricia’s World War II series, won ACFW's Book of the Year for Best Long Historical Romance. In 2006, her novel Dawn of A Thousand Nights also won book of the Year for Long Historical Romance. Tricia and her husband, John, live with their family in northwestern Montana.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

We are pleased to be able to review her exciting Chronicles of the Spanish Civil War, A Valley Of Betrayal

For reasons beyond her control, Sophie finds herself alone in the war-torn Spanish countryside, searching for her beloved Michael. His work as a news photographer has taken him deep into the country wracked by civil war. What was once a thriving paradise has become a battleground for Nazi-backed Franco fascist soldiers and Spanish patriots. She is caught up in the escalating events when the route to safety is blocked and fighting surrounds her.

Secrets abound in the ruined Spain. Michael is loving but elusive, especially about beautiful maria. The American who helped Sophie sneak into Spain turns up in odd places. Michael's friend Jose knows more than he tells. When reports of Michael's dissappearance reach her, Sophie is devastaed. What are her feelings for Philip, an American soldier who comes to her rescue?

Sophie must sift truth from lies as she becomes more embroiled in the war that threatens her life and breaks her heart. On her darkest night, Sophie takes refuge with a brigade of international compatriots. Among these volunteers, she pledges to make the plight of the Spanish people known around the world through the power of art.

Acclaimed author Tricia Goyer creates a riviting cast of characters against the backdrop of pre-WWII spain. Love, loss, pain, and beauty abound in A Valley Of Betrayal, the first book in her new series, Chronicles of the Spanish Civil War.

Wedgewood Grey, by John Aubrey Anderson

2007-02-21T17:18:00.002-08:00

The spiritual war of Cat Lake, Mississippi continues as forces of good and evil clash in an epic struggle for the souls of this close-knit community, as demons incite those of weak and intemperate nature, while guardian angels strengthen the resolve of those who love the Lord and are committed to His righteousness. Anderson’s second novel interweaves the actions of humans and ministrations of angels and demons more subtly than Abiding Darkness, resulting in a more engaging, enjoyable narrative.

Mose Washington’s life has always been touched by the supernatural. Ever since the sacrifice of his son, Mose Jr., to save the life of Missy Parker, Mose has been acquainted with the sentiment, “I must decrease, so that He must increase”. Though trials have buffeted his life: the loss of his beloved son, a long stint on a prison plantation for a crime he didn’t commit, the death of his wife, lost time and heartaches, Mose has always trusted that God’s Will knows best. When he feels God’s urging to investigate a confrontation on a dark road in the middle of the night, he obeys without question, making sure his shotgun is loaded and at the ready.

When the dust clears and the gunplay ends, Mose finds himself on the run with a thirteen year old black boy – now an orphan, his mother dead at the hands of drunk college boys looking for fun at the expense of a black woman’s life – sought for questioning in the death of Oliver Bainbridge, only surviving son of United States Senator and vicious bigot, Halbert D. Bainbridge. With the FBI on their trail, Mose and the boy disappear into the Delta, looking to make new lives for themselves as they lean on God for support and care-taking.

FBI Special Agent Jeff Wagner isn’t like the rest of his federal agent brethren – he’s a mold-breaker who thinks on his own, rather than blindly following “all the rules”. This independent, open-minded perspective is Agent Wagner’s only chance of surviving the spiritual maelstrom that swirls around Cat Lake, as forces beyond his ken seek not only to destroy the lives of all those involved, but perhaps corrupt and ruin his own soul as well, while he labors to understand what really happened on a dark road in the middle of the night, and the part Mose Washington played in this horrible event.

Wedgewood Grey is a much more engaging story than its predecessor, Abiding Darkness, simply because the narrative stays in one time period, unlike Darkness, which spanned several generations and watched its principal characters grow up As a result, Wedgewood Grey sports a more involved, eye-catching plotline that’s easier for the reader to “lock in to” and follow. This novel is more a work of mystery or suspense, and this makes it a much more enjoyable read, especially for those whose attention might be prone to wandering during the character-study that was Abiding Darkness.

The instances of spiritual involvement and manipulation are handled better in this novel; executed with a finer touch than in Darkness, which makes the story much easier to read without numerous interruptions by asides from the perspective of demons or angels. Ironically enough, though Wedgewood is supposed to be chiefly about Mose Washington and his flight from the law, Agent Jeff Wagner weighs in as the strongest character for most of the novel, and out of the two works, his character development stands as the best.

All of this is not to say that Abiding Darkness wasn’t a fine novel; rather that Wedgewood Grey moves along at a quicker, more action-oriented pace and is a much more focused narrative, rather than a panorama of several different life-lines and familial intersections. With this much development from the first novel to the second, the third installment in the Black or White series, And If I Die, should be a novel to watch for.

Bonus Review of Abiding Darkness, by John Aubrey Anderson

2007-02-21T17:18:00.001-08:00

The story follows the life of Missy Parker, a white girl who’s been deemed “special” by dark and holy powers alike. Through her young life and through adulthood, Missy is unwittingly the center of a demonic and holy tug of war, as unseen, dark forces wage war against her; first in an effort to sway her soul, and forever after in an effort to hurt her and the ones she loves. Twice these forces claim the lives of those close to her, as two people she cares for sacrifice themselves for her.

However, the dark forces that dog her every step are thwarted by the prayers of those close to her and Missy’s own determined spiritual development. Also, beyond her ken and of those around her, an angelic host stands guard, making sure that God’s special ones are not harmed by the Enemy’s hand. The novel ends as a demonic and angelic forces clash once again, and the storyline leaves us expecting continued repercussions of the Cat Lake ‘War of ‘45’.

The characters - Missy Parker, Mose Washington and Mose Jr., Bobby Lee Parker, David and Pat Patterson - are rich portraits painted by a writer clearly skilled at character development, and the narrative moves through time in a very “Forest Gump” sort of way – snapshots of crucial events are vignettes of strength and endurance, and there is the sense this would make a wonderful movie or even television miniseries. The story moves at its own pace; at life’s pace, and Anderson does something many other writers have tried and failed – he creates a panoramic view of life, faith, and a friendship that exceeds both societal and racial boundaries.

The only thing I had trouble with were the occasional “interruptions” of demonic forces as they plot Missy Parker’s destruction, and the angelic hosts that guard them all. Though I understand the underlying motive and the story’s central theme – how the forces of evil, the “abiding darkness”, endures through time, and God’s provision of protection against that darkness - these portions just didn’t seem to mesh well with the rest of the story, for me, at least. In many ways, I felt the story would have been just as powerful – perhaps even better – if these moments were either meshed in with the story in a more subtle fashion, or left out all together. I believe the author’s theme – that unseen, supernatural forces clash around us daily – would have still come through the story itself, even without these little asides.

However, this in itself is not enough to detract from the overall quality of the novel, which has literary aspirations and for the most part doesn’t fall short of them. Abiding Darkness is a promising, solid first entry into Anderson’s trilogy, The Black & White Chronicles, and readers will eagerly welcome the second novel in the series, Wedgewood Grey, as a continuation of this rich tapestry of the Southern literary tradition. With this novel, Anderson has proven himself adept at setting the mood, establishing a convincing milieu, and creating a story that resonates with depth and meaning.

Visit the author's website, and read chapter one of Abiding Darkness. Purchase the sequel, Wedgewood Grey, and check back tommorrow for its review.

Christian Writer's Market Guide

2007-02-14T09:52:00.000-08:00

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance

is introducing
Christian Writer's Market Guide
by
Sally Stuart.
WaterBrook Press; Pap/CDR edition (January 16, 2007)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Sally E. Stuart is the author of thirty-four books and has sold more than one thousand articles and columns. Her long-term involvement with the Christian Writers' Market Guide as well as her marketing columns for the Christian Communicator, Oregon Christian Writers, and The Advanced Christian Writer, make her a sought-after speaker and a leading authority on Christian markets and the business of writing. Stuart is the mother of three and grandmother of eight.

ABOUT THE BOOK

For more than twenty years, the Christian Writers' Market Guide has offered indispensable help to Christian writers. This year, for the first time, this valuable resource comes with a CD-ROM of the full text, so you can search with ease for topics, publishers, and other specific names.

The 2007 edition also includes up-to-date listings of more than 1,200 markets for books, articles, stories, poetry, and greeting cards, including information on forty new book publishers, eighty-three new periodicals, and thirty-four new literary agents. Perfect for writers in every phase, this is the resource to get noticed–and get published.

It contains listings for: 695 periodicals, 228 poetry markets, 355 book publishers, 133 online publications, 29 print-on-demand publishers, 1185 markets for the written word, 321 photography markets, 31 e-book publishers, 122 foriegn markets, 112 literary agents,and 59 newspapers.

It also gives you comprehensive lists of contests, writers groups and conferences, search engines, pay rates and submission guidelines, editorial services and websites.

Christian Writers' Market Guide is a "must have' for any serious Christian writer that is looking to get published!

The book link is: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400071259

Sally's website is: http://www.stuartmarket.com/

Update On My Writing Endeavors

2007-02-08T14:44:00.000-08:00

Well, seeing as how I seem to get some good responses on my blogs over here, I thought I'd take a moment to update folks on some writing opps I've got in the next few months.

First of all, the review writing is really steaming along well. Folks seem to like my little newsletter, and recently I was asked to be a staff writer for Nappaland: The Internet Magazine For Families. Not only is this another avenue for my writing...but Nappaland is also a literary agency as well, the same one who handled the recent River Oak suspense novel, Sinner, by Sharon Carter Rogers. This is important, because any kind of connection to a literary agency is a good one. This is not to say they'd want to represent my work, necessarily...but it's just a step in the right direction.

I'm also in negotiations with our city newspaper to write a weekly book review column. It will feature a Christian author once a month, but because it's a mainstream publication, most of my reviews will be of mainstream works - which is okay, because I read all that stuff anyway. This is important because Internet "ezines" are cool, but you can't beat print exposure, in my book. Also, it would be good for some local exposure, if I am ever lucky enough to get something published, and - as I'm trying to get into Binghamton University's Creative Writing Program - writing book reviews for the local newspaper is something I'd like to do right alongside writing fiction. Oh, and it might pay, too; peanuts, probably, but pay is pay, right?

Finally, I've got some entries in a few contests, and though I'd like to win/place and get some cash, I'm just as interested in a little exposure and the critiques, honestly. I've got two entries in the ACFW Genesis Contest; I'm prepping a third, and even debating entering a fourth. Luckily, my articles and reviews have done well enough on Associated Content, so I've got some $$ saved up in my PayPal account to pay the entry fees. That's sorta my plan right now; peddle my wares to AC for a pittance, and use that pittance to pay entry fees for short fiction and novel contests - if I'm accepted in BU's Creative Program, I'll be mainlined TONS of contest opportunities.

I also have an entry in Relief Journal's Coach's Midnight Diner contest, and I'm finishing my second entry for that same contest. Again - money and winning would be nice, but just getting published in the journal will be cool enough. I've also got an entry sitting on my brain for Faith in Fiction and Relief Journal's Daily Sacrament contest. Just gotta sit down and bang that one out.

Anyway...thanks for listening!

The Longing Season by Christine Schaub

2007-02-07T16:51:00.000-08:00

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducting The Longing Season (Bethany House July, 2006) by Christine Schaub.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Christine Schaub is the author of the MUSIC OF THE HEART series, including Finding Anna, the “rest of the story” behind the writing of the hymn “It Is Well With My Soul” (October 2005) and The Longing Season, the story behind “Amazing Grace” (July 2006) with Bethany House Publishers, a division of Baker Books.

In 2003, Christine won the “On the Page” screenwriting contest at Screenwriting Expo 2 in Los Angeles. Her one-page story, written on-site in 24 hours for Jacqueline Bisset, was selected by the actress as the best Oscar Wilde-type comedy for her persona.

While working in freelance corporate communications, Christine completed three feature-length screenplays, including a drama/comedy, romantic comedy, and sci-fi action/drama; developed four biopic teleplays for the stories behind the hymns; and published an online column for the MethodX website (Upper Room Ministries).

Christine honed her writing skills after more than 15 years in corporate communications for healthcare, pharmaceutical, and entertainment companies. She has also been a featured conference speaker on working with at-risk youth and changed lives in the classrooms with her creative presentation style.

Christine's love for the arts and creativity have taken her from church platforms to civic and professional stages, performing classics and dramas from her own pen.

Christine graduated from Anderson University with a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications. She has served on numerous boards and committees, usually as Communications Chair, and has received both regional and national awards in writing and design.

ABOUT THE BOOK

All of the books in the MUSIC OF THE HEART series are based on a hymns and their histories. The Longing Season is about one of the greatest redemption stories of all time: John Newton and his song, Amazing Grace.

Nature conspires against him, tossing the ship like a toy. Directionless--just like his life. It seems his odyssey will end here, in the cold Atlantic.Grief and terror grip his heart, but he will not surrender...not yet.She reads the sentence again and again.The first day I saw you I began to love you.He'd written the words, sealed and posted them, then vanished.
She has a choice--turn toward the future, or wait, wating and hoping.
And so begins her season of longing.

Christine's website link is: http://www.christineschaub.typepad.com/

The book link is: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764200607

Bonus Review of Comes A Horeseman, by Robert Liparulo

2007-01-31T15:08:00.000-08:00

Secret Organizations. Global conspiracies. Ancient prophecies and Machiavellian plots to rule the world. Throw in a hulking assassin from an Old World clan of killers stalking two FBI agents on the run, a list of victims connected by an intriguing string of supernatural clues, and you have Robert Liparulo’s first novel, Comes A Horseman, now out by WestBow Press.

FBI Agents Brady Moore and Alicia Wagner have stumbled upon something dangerous and evil, spawned centuries before, reaching out from the furthest corners of the Earth to destroy their lives in one vicious swipe. A field test of crime-scene detection equipment turns into a fight for survival; as assassins from an ancient order tries to claim their lives, sending them headlong on a harrowing, griping global odyssey. On the opposite side of the globe at the end of their journey awaits a puppet master pulling the strings, his machinations carried out with one intention only: to gain power beyond man’s wildest dreams.

Ancient prophecies come into play, shadowy organizations work behind the scenes as Comes A Horseman explodes from the starting blocks, grabbing readers by the necktie and pulling them along for the ride. This is a fast-paced story running at a breathless pace over a longer-than-usual four-hundred plus pages. Don’t be turned off by the length, however, Liparulo uses it well to develop his characters, giving them a depth and background sometimes missing in many of today’s contemporary Christian thrillers.

Brady Moore mourns the loss of his wife; and Liparulo paints a sobering and realistic picture of a grieving husband; egro, this is no Rayford Steele. He and Wagner strike the right notes along the “buddy cop” vibe, and younger characters are not childish or trite but thought-provoking and deep.

Also, while not gratuitous or obscene in its depiction of violence; Horseman is not for the squeamish; but then again, it’s a novel about a world cycling toward its last days, with jaded, hurting heroes battling for their lives against those who have no respect for life. Any watering down of the plot would rob it of its breath-taking; grip-the-edge-of-your-seat intensity. However, despite the fact that any violence in the novel is thematically legitimate, Horseman is most appropriate for elder teenage readers and above.

The only faults found in Comes A Horseman? For this reviewer, some of the high-tech crime scene investigation terminology feels over-done. Liparulo has obviously done his research, but in many places it feels somewhat over-the-top, interrupting the narrative flow with technical descriptions. However, fans of CSI and other similar shows will probably find this as a plus.

And, of course, a Christian supernatural, political - intrigue thriller must always have a shadowy character who may or may not be the Anti-Christ in waiting. However, credit Liparulo largely for doing the unexpected with this, and he pulls plot strings near the end of the novel that are unexpected and surprising.

Though the action wraps up a little quickly for my tastes, it's consistent with the story's break-neck pace, and in his first novel Liparulo has written a multi-tiered, multi-plot line story that should satisfy those who like complex tales with crisscrossing plots and well-laid surprise turns just around the corner. Comes A Horseman is a solid one-two punch that delivers.

Most admirable is his realism in dealing with spiritual matters and faith concerning the lead characters. These are not cardboard cut-outs serving as pat Sunday School lessons; they are real people with real problems, struggling to reconcile matters of faith with deep, painful scars. He does not tie the story off in a neat little bow spiritually for all the main characters, which is refreshing to see in Christian fiction, because life isn't that way either.

Vist the author's website, and look at his new novel, Germ.

Germ, by Robert Liparulo

2007-01-31T04:30:00.000-08:00

In a stunning follow-up to last year’s pulse-pounding thriller Comes A Horseman, Robert Liparulo’s new thriller, Germ, brings to life the all too real specter of biological warfare in an epic storyline that reads much like The Stand meets The Bourne Supremacy.

While Comes A Horseman was an enjoyable, solid first entry for Liparulo – portraying realistic characters laboring under harrowing conditions – Germ is a true work of art. From the moment Special Agent Goodwin Donnelley’s car barrels down a highway under hails of bullets, the action is relentless – however, the timing is near perfect. Just when it seems too much, too fast, the pace slows; the reader and characters catch their breaths….

…and the bullets start flying once again.

An old, bitter grudge has brought the world to the brink of destruction. A virulent strain of Ebola has been designed that’s not only deadly and fast acting, but can also target specific individuals based on their DNA makeup. The implications are astounding: anyone anywhere is at the mercy of a virus tailor-made for their genetic blueprint.

The threats are manifold: those on the “list” are doomed to die painful, bloody deaths as their organs liquefy inside of them, those who have learned of this new bio-weapon are hunted by a mysterious, deadly assassin that not only seems omniscient and omnipresent, but able to resurrect himself from death. The clues are there, buried on a microchip smuggled into the U.S. – but will Special Agents Julia Matheson and Goodwin Donnelley unravel its mysteries in time to save thousands of lives, or will bio-terrorism destroy what we know of the world, leaving in its wake thousands of deaths and a new world order – based on fear and the mercurial whims of man driven mad by grief?

Robert Liparulo has taken a very realistic threat and crafted a story that ranks right up there with any of Robert Ludlum’s novels. The dialogue is real, the characters painstakingly crafted, and it’s not hard to see this projected onto the big screen in a Hollywood adaptation – maybe with Ron Pearlman, (Hellboy, Blade III: Trinity), as the reluctant pastor turned combatant Stephen, and Ashley Scott, (who certainly proved her action-chops and stunt abilities on the WB’s short-lived Birds of Prey), as Special Agent Matheson.

Most importantly, Germ – like many recent CBA, (Christian Bookseller Association), releases, embodies what has been recently dubbed as “faith fiction” should be: an excellently written and crafted work of fiction that adheres to a sense of moral value worth, realistic and accessible to all, yet at the same time inoffensive for a Christian to read. Germ will grab you by the collar, and won’t go until you reach the end of its roller coaster ride.

Vist the author's website.

Abiding Darkness, by John Aubrey Anderson

2007-01-31T04:19:00.000-08:00

Abiding Darkness, by John Aubrey Anderson, is a promising work of literary weight that’s a wonderful period piece steeped in nostalgia and good old fashioned, Southern living. Told in a style reminiscent of Flannery O’Conner and other Southern writers, Abiding Darkness takes the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s and fleshes them out to real-life proportions, so much so you can smell the catfish roasting on the fire and hear the Temptations playing in the background. The characters are wonderful studies of simple, foundational living, and the narrative drawls in a uniquely Southern fashion, Anderson writing the character’s dialogue as only a Southern writer could.

The story follows the life of Missy Parker, a white girl who’s been deemed “special” by dark and holy powers alike. Through her young life and through adulthood, Missy is unwittingly the center of a demonic and holy tug of war, as unseen, dark forces wage war against her; first in an effort to sway her soul, and forever after in an effort to hurt her and the ones she loves. Twice these forces claim the lives of those close to her, as two people she cares for sacrifice themselves for her.

However, the dark forces that dog her every step are thwarted by the prayers of those close to her and Missy’s own determined spiritual development. Also, beyond her ken and of those around her, an angelic host stands guard, making sure that God’s special ones are not harmed by the Enemy’s hand. The novel ends as a demonic and angelic forces clash once again, and the storyline leaves us expecting continued repercussions of the Cat Lake ‘War of ‘45’.

The characters - Missy Parker, Mose Washington and Mose Jr., Bobby Lee Parker, David and Pat Patterson - are rich portraits painted by a writer clearly skilled at character development, and the narrative moves through time in a very “Forest Gump” sort of way – snapshots of crucial events are vignettes of strength and endurance, and there is the sense this would make a wonderful movie or even television miniseries. The story moves at its own pace; at life’s pace, and Anderson does something many other writers have tried and failed – he creates a panoramic view of life, faith, and a friendship that exceeds both societal and racial boundaries.

The only thing I had trouble with were the occasional “interruptions” of demonic forces as they plot Missy Parker’s destruction, and the angelic hosts that guard them all. Though I understand the underlying motive and the story’s central theme – how the forces of evil, the “abiding darkness”, endures through time, and God’s provision of protection against that darkness - these portions just didn’t seem to mesh well with the rest of the story, for me, at least. In many ways, I felt the story would have been just as powerful – perhaps even better – if these moments were either meshed in with the story in a more subtle fashion, or left out all together. I believe the author’s theme – that unseen, supernatural forces clash around us daily – would have still come through the story itself, even without these little asides.

However, this in itself is not enough to detract from the overall quality of the novel, which has literary aspirations and for the most part doesn’t fall short of them. Abiding Darkness is a promising, solid first entry into Anderson’s trilogy, The Black & White Chronicles, and readers will eagerly welcome the second novel in the series, Wedgewood Grey, as a continuation of this rich tapestry of the Southern literary tradition. With this novel, Anderson has proven himself adept at setting the mood, establishing a convincing milieu, and creating a story that resonates with depth and meaning.

Read Chapter One of Abiding Darkness below. Visit the author's website.

2007-01-31T04:18:00.000-08:00

It is February 1st, time for the FIRST Day Blog Tour! (Join our alliance! Click the button!) The FIRST day of every month we will feature an author and their latest book's FIRST chapter!

This month's feature author is:

John Aubrey Anderson

and his book:

Abiding Darkness

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

John was born five miles north of the setting for Abiding Darkness, a cotton country town within a rifle shot of two rivers, a bayou, a double handful of lakes, and endless acres of woods.

After graduating from Mississippi State, he flew six years in the Air Force then twenty-nine years for a major airline. And now he gets to write.

He and his wife have been married for forty some-odd years and live in Texas—about twenty miles south of the Red River. He spends the biggest part of his time writing; she’s immersed in leading a comprehensive, women’s Bible study.

They like greasy hamburgers and Dr. Peppers, most species of warm-blooded creatures (the kind that don’t normally bite), and spending July in the mountains.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Abiding Darkness is the first book in the Black and White Chronicles.

It initially anchors itself in the relationship between two children.

Junior Washington is an eleven-year-old black child. He lives in a small cabin out on Cat Lake; his parents work for the Parker family. He’s loyal, he’s compliant beyond what would normally be expected of an eleven-year-old boy, and he’s a committed Christian.

Missy Parker, who lives on the other side of the lake, is the crown princess of the Parker family. At seven years of age she’s beautiful, wealthy, willful, and tough as a tractor tire. And—in the midst of the most defined segregation in our nation’s recent history—this little white girl and Junior Washington are best friends.

Only one thing stands between these two children and a storybook childhood . . . they are destined to encounter a faithful servant of the Author of Evil.

Abiding Darkness starts almost gently. The first sentence offers doubt, but readers may not see any real trouble surface until a few sentences later, and that’s mostly kid stuff, almost cute. From there through the second chapter readers are given a little more to think about . . . an opportunity to imagine what might happen to the children . . . especially the girl.

By the end of the second chapter intuitive readers will be taking a deep breath . . . they’re going to need the oxygen.

THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Summers were mostly reliable.

The always followed spring. They always got hot. And they always promised twelve weeks of pleasure to the three children at Cat Lake.

The summer of ’45 lied.

^ ^ ^

The whole thing started right there by the Cat Lake bridge.

They were playing their own version of three-man baseball when Bobby knocked the ball onto the road near the end of the bridge. Junior was taller and faster, but Missy was ahead in the race to get it. Bobby and Junior were older, but Missy was tough enough to almost keep up, and the boys usually held back some so they didn’t outdo her too much.

Missy was still a few yards from the ball when it rolled to a stop near the only car in sight. A boy taller than Junior stepped from behind the far end of the car and picked up the ball; he was followed by two more boys—one younger than Missy and another almost as tall as a man.

Missy slid to a stop in the gravel and yelled, “Hurry! Throw it!” Junior jogged up behind the girl and waited.

A heavyset man in a rumpled suit was standing in the road by the driver’s door; he allowed himself a long look at the girl and whispered something to the boy with the ball.

The boy nodded at what the man said and backed toward the car. The tallest boy moved up to stand by the man.

The fat man eyed Junior, then looked up and down the deserted road before beckoning to Missy. “Why don’t you come closer, and he’ll let you have it?”

Missy ignored the man and advanced on the boy with the ball. “Give it.”

When she walked past the taller boy, he fell to his hands and knees behind her and the one with the ball shoved her over his back. When Missy hit the ground, all three boys laughed. The man grinned.

In the near distance, a foursome of well-armed witnesses—tall, bright, and invisible—stood at a portal between time and eternity and watched Bobby Parker leave home plate and sprint for the bridge.

One of the group said, It begins.

Junior Washington’s guardian answered for the remainder of the small assembly, And so it does.

The three guardians conferred quietly about the events taking place before them; the archangel watched the unfolding drama in silence. The quartet—guarded by the wisdom of the ages against restlessness—waited patiently for a precise instant in time that had been ordained before the earth was formed.

The middle kid was plenty bigger than Missy, but she came off the ground ready to take him on. When she waded in, the tall kid grabbed at her. Junior got a hand on the strap of Missy’s overalls and yanked her out of the boys’ reach. He held her back with one hand and popped the tallest kid in the nose, hard enough to knock him down.

When the boy landed in the gravel, the man started swearing. He reached into the car, jerked a mean-looking billy club from under the front seat, and turned on Junior. “Okay, Black Sambo, let’s see h—”

Bobby was short steps from the trouble, running wide open, when the archangel broke his silence. The long-awaited time is come. He pointed his bright sword at a point between Bobby and the man with the club and said, In the Name of Him who sits on the throne, and for the Lamb—go there and turn the tide of evil.

Bobby—barely slowing when he got to the confrontation—tripped over thin air and rammed the business end of the bat hard into the man’s back. The man lurched forward, stumbled over the boy Junior had knocked to the ground, and sprawled on top of him.

Knocking the man down wasn’t what he’d planned, but Bobby knew better than to back off from a pack of bullies; he was talking before the man rolled over. “You keep your hands to yourself, mister.”

The red-faced man struggled to get up, cussing and pointing the club at Bobby. “Son, when a boy hits me, he steps over the line to manhood. That means you’ll get the same beatin’ I’ll be givin’ this nigger.”

On the Parker place, Negro folks were called black or colored. For the children, transgression of that rule meant someone was going to get his mouth washed out with soap. Missy and Junior froze when the man said the forbidden word; Bobby didn’t.

When Bobby squared his stance and drew the bat back, the man rethought his position. “You better put that down, boy.”

Bobby was only twelve, but he knew serious trouble when he saw it—and he was the one holding the bat. “I reckon not.” He and Junior and Missy had made a law about standing up for each other, and these strangers had chosen to be their enemies. If the man made a threatening move, Bobby was going to swing for his head and deal with the consequences later. “You’re on Parker land, mister, an’ you best be gettin’ off.”

The baseball bat had the man stymied. Exertion and frustration soaked his collar with the sweat. “This isn’t your land; it’s a public road.”

Bobby said, “That might be, but the land on both sides of the road belongs to the Parkers—an’ that’s us.” He looked the man up and down. “You ain’t from around here, are you?”

The man’s wide mouth and thick lips were not unlike those of a bullfrog; small, widely-spaced teeth and flesh-draped eyelids contributed to a reptilian appearance. “What if I’m not?”

Bobby cracked a hard smile. “’Cause if you was from around here, folks would’ve told you not to mess with the Parker kids—that’s us, ’specially the black ’un an’ the girl.” He pointed the bat at Junior and Missy. “That’s them two.”

From within the car a woman’s voice said, “Let it go, Halbert. Don’t be getting heated up over some white trash.”

When the woman called them white trash, Missy puffed up and started for the car. Junior grabbed the strap of her overalls again. “Stay quiet, Missy.”

The girl jerked loose and glared at Junior, but she stayed where she was.

The tallest boy got in the car, holding a hand to his bloody nose. The other two weren’t ready to leave.

The man looked at the car and back at Bobby; he didn’t want to leave either, but he wasn’t going to argue with the woman. “Git in the car, boys.” His tongue came out and made a circuit over the fat lips; he let his gaze rest too long on the girl, and he spoke to her last. “You’ll get yours, Little Miss Blue Eyes. Just you remember Hal Bainbridge said so.”

The woman in the car leaned across the seat. Facial features that had been cast to portray beauty were twisted into an angry mask. “Halbert!” she snapped, “I told you to shut up and get in the car.”

The two smallest boys were the last ones to climb. The one who had pushed Missy said, “I’ll be back.”

Missy made a face.

When the Bainbridge family withdrew, a creature that had been traveling with them stayed behind.

The being that remained on the Cat Lake bridge had been working his vile mischief in the Bainbridges’ lives for years. His brief observation of Missy Parker, however, ignited a hatred that far exceeded anything he had ever felt toward Estelle Bainbridge. He petitioned his leader, the high-ranking villain who was assigned to the Bainbridges, to let him stay at Cat Lake and work his evil on the girl and those around her. The one to whom he answered hated to grant any request that might strengthen the position of a subordinate, but he hated humans more. So it was that the malevolent being stayed behind while his former superior and dozens of their kind moved away with the Bainbridges.

The spirit-being assayed his intended victim and was encouraged by what he saw. The girl was self-willed, self-centered, and self-confident—all traits that made her more susceptible to his influence. Early pieces of his plan were arranging themselves before the Bainbridges’ car was out of sight. He would recruit his own team of underlings from the demonic realm. When he and his chosen confederates were in place, he would formulate a plan to destroy the girl’s life, maybe in bits and pieces over the coming years, maybe catastrophically in a single day. There might even be a way to use the Bainbridges to help bring her to ruin. And, if the opportunity presented itself, he would do the same to the two meddlesome boys.

When the car was down the road, Bobby turned on Missy. “You can’t be startin’ fights with boys bigger’n you.”

“I didn’t start it. He did.”

Bobby watched the car. “Well, don’t be messin’ with folks like that. That man had somethin’ wrong with him, like he was mean or evil or somethin’.”

“I ain’t scared of the boogeyman.”

“I don’t mean like that. I mean grown men who stare at little girls like that—stay away from ’em.” He watched the car disappear behind a curtain of dust. “An’ if that bunch comes around here again, you head for me or Junior, you hear me?”

The girl directed her wrath at her brother. “You’re not my boss, Mr. Bobby Parker, an’ I’ll have you know I ain’t a little girl.”

Bobby was still learning that he needed to tell Missy to do exactly the opposite of what he wanted done, but he knew who carried the most influence over her. “Tell ’er, Junior.”

Junior picked up the ball and offered it to the girl. “Do like he says, Missy. A growed man that’d speak bad to a lit—to somebody not big as him has got somethin’ wrong inside ’im. That man had the devil in ’im.”

She turned her back on the ball because she wouldn’t be bribed. “Well, if a’ evil man shows up again, an’ I can’t whip ’im by myself, y’all can help.”

The boys took that as a concession and followed her back to their baseball field.

^ ^ ^

Amanda Allen Parker was the first girl born into the Parker family since the Surrender. Maybe they had spoiled her or maybe she knew she was special. Whatever the cause, “Missy” Parker was a young lady who didn’t just give orders—she laid down the law for those who drew near.

When they didn’t call her Missy, everybody on the Parker place and most people in town just referred to her as the girl. The petite picture of brown-haired Southern charm endured the company of women when she had to, but she preferred the attention of the males of her domain.

The Old Parkers and the Young Parkers lived out south of town in two nice houses set back from the west side of Cat Lake. They got good shade from a stand of oaks planted by their ancestors and the cool of a lake breeze when the wind was right.

Bobby Lee Parker ran the Parker Gin; young Bobby looked as if he had been spit out of his daddy’s mouth. Young Mrs. Parker played bridge, went to the garden club and Missionary Society, and tended her yard. Old Mr. Parker farmed ten sections of cotton land, played dominoes, drank coffee, and visited with his friends. Old Mrs. Parker, the genetic source of the girl’s spitfire personality, stayed close to home and baked things.

The Washington family—Mose, his wife Pip, Mose Junior, and little Pearl—lived across the lake from the Parkers. Their home was set back in a stand of pecan trees planted by the same hands that put down the Parkers’ oaks. Mose had been born in the cabin and inherited the house and forty acres of good sandy land from Pap, his great-granddaddy. Back behind the cabin, a full section of Old Mr. Parker’s cotton land separated Mose’s place from the trees of Eagle Nest Brake. Pip, her brother Leon, and her momma Evalina “did for” the Parkers during the week. Mose was Mr. Bobby Lee’s overseer at the gin.

When she became old enough to walk, the girl went where Old Mr. Parker went. While he drove, she stood beside him, one arm on his shoulders, the other holding on to the seat back. When he played dominoes at the pool hall, she sat on his lap. It was the men at the pool hall who had named her Missy—she and those same men called her granddaddy R. D. Trips to that establishment dimished in frequency after Pip had to switch her for “cussin’ in my kitchen.”

Once she started to Mrs. Smith’s kindergarten, Missy’s day-to-day activities became even more curtailed. She countered by playing hooky when she’d had her fill of finger painting and stories about animals made of gingham and calico and velveteen.

After the second time she got called away from her Thursday morning bridge game to hunt for the girl, Young Mrs. Parker taught Pip how to drive. For the next two years, Pip was called into town about twice a week to retrieve the girl from the pool hall. When she was captured, Missy’s complaints were drawled in a little-girl bass voice.

On her first day in first grade, the girl and the staff at the elementary school encountered the first in a series of unique obstacles. The magnitude of the initial confrontation was probably connected with the fact that Missy was on a first-name basis with most of the men in Moores Point, including both bankers and both white preachers.

Missy finally came out of her chair when the first-grade teacher persisted in calling her Amanda.

Hoot Johnson, the school’s janitor, attracted by the mounting sounds of battle, abandoned his dust mop and intervened to contribute his unsolicited—and uninhibited—opinion. The girl’s reaction to what Mr. Johnson had to say didn’t help the situation.

The teacher made a strategic blunder when she decided she would enlist the aid of the principal. The principal made the mistake of showing up, and the tension multiplied geometrically.

Someone eventually called the pool hall and let Old Mr. Parker know about the conflict.

When he got to the school, the farmer didn’t have to guess where the girl was; the war in Europe could not have been heard over the commotion coming from the first-grade classroom.

The adults in the room—a scattering of teachers, the principal, and one vocal janitor—were all yelling at the girl or each other. The other first-day first-graders—joined by two brand-new teachers who had made the mistake of coming to see what on earth the noise was all about—were all cringing in the farthest corner of the room. The girl, who seldom found it necessary to yell at anyone, especially an adult, was keeping her voice down. She was, however, employing the teacher’s chair to be at eye level with the other combatants.

There was Missy, standing in the chair, her tiny fists at her waist, leaning into the principal’s face, her Dutch boy-cut brown hair popping back and forth as her miniature bass voice cataloged the things she didn’t like about his institution. She took passing note of her granddaddy’s presence but continued with her business. She reasoned that if R. D. needed to talk to some of these folks, he was gentleman enough to wait his turn; if he needed to see her, he’d wait ’til she was finished. And wait he did. Leaning on the door frame and giving himself a manicure with his favorite Case pocketknife, the cotton farmer stood by for a break in the storm.

When a majority of the folks finally stopped to catch their breath, Old Mr. Parker put away his knife. He got everyone settled down, borrowed the teacher’s chair from the girl, and presided over the formation of a multifaceted truce.

In the future, the school’s staff would call the girl Missy; she was old enough to decide what her name was. In return, Missy would address the Truitt Elementary School’s principal as Mr. Franklin, not Jimbo, for basically the same reason. Missy would address Mr. Johnson, the school’s janitor, as Hoot because he and the girl were good friends and both preferred it that way. And, one of the teachers crouching in the corner would be released from her contract before the girl moved up to her grade level.

The last point of the truce was a little vague and never resolved to the girl’s satisfaction. It had something to do with whether she could stand on the teacher’s chair, balanced against how many adults were “raisin’ sand for no good reason” when the girl needed to make herself heard.

In the pool hall that afternoon Jimbo Franklin said, “You know somethin’? That girl ain’t always pliable, but she’s almost always fair. I musta been about a bubble offa plumb to take that teacher’s side.” The sages in the pool hall, including Hoot and R. D., nodded. They agreed with every word he said.

During the next year, the second grade had tolerated her well enough; the reciprocal wasn’t always true.

She was three feet tall in the summer of ’45, on the slender side of a pound an inch, with what Scooter Hall called “about eight ounces of eyelashes” strategically situated around midnight blue eyes.

When the sun was out, the three older children at the lake—two Parkers and one Washington—were inseparable. Junior usually deferred to white folks of all ages, and both boys required themselves to yield to most adults. The girl’s deference, however, was never offered capriciously; people of all colors and ages were evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and any recipient of her respect had earned it.

For those times when they stepped away from the rest of the world, the children—like a tiny nation—followed an often-argued tangle of laws they had fashioned for themselves.

For three months every summer, and at any other time the children were together, their respective parents—who never knew what might be coming next—waited for the “other shoe to drop.” Or as Old Mr. Parker put it, “for the next shoe to crash through the floor and take most of the house with it.”

^ ^ ^

That spring, the three had used up practically a whole Saturday morning arguing about what to name the boat.

The year before, they had procured the building materials for the vessel by tearing the siding off a dilapidated cotton house. Pip’s brother Leon, who took care of things around the Parkers’ houses, was perfectly content to cater to the girl’s every whim. Missy traded him two of Old Mr. Parker’s cigars for his help with the boat. Leon sawed the boards, helped the children nail them together into something that would almost float, and showed them how to put tar in the cracks “so it don’t leak too bad.” The finished product looked like a pauper’s coffin: roughly seven feet long, two feet wide, with two-foot sides. They swamped it so often the first month that Pip told them, “Y’all could use it for one o’ those summarines.” Missy made a new law that only one person could stand up in it at a time, and they kept slopping on tar until they got so they could stay most of the day on the lake without sinking, unless somebody broke the rule. Pip complained, “When they git outta that confounded piece o’ junk, they’re so black I can’t tell which one’s Mose Junior.” It wasn’t the kind of craft a person would want to venture out in while wearing Sunday clothes.

The argument about the christening surfaced because Bobby wanted to name the boat after his hero. Mose Junior said he thought it might be good to name it something out of the Bible, but he cared more about getting started with the painting. When it came right down to it, Missy didn’t really care what they named the dadgummed boat; she was just tired of Bobby getting his way just because he was twelve and she was seven. Bobby countered her objections by claiming they were a democracy, then bought Mose Junior’s vote with the promise that Junior could do most of the painting.

They “happened across” a can of white house paint on the top shelf of the tool shed and made a paint brush by tying a wad of pine needles together. Unraveling the boat’s actual name called for the reader to do a little traveling. The lettering was white and bold; the spelling was close. Junior’s GENRALROB worked its way down the starboard side; around the corner, the bow showed Bobby’s neatly done ERT. The arrangement of the general’s middle initial and last name on the port side was Missy’s responsibility—they came out EEEL. The craft was one of their greatest accomplishments, and they were rarely near the water without it.

Young Mrs. Parker took some snapshots of the paint-splattered trio standing by their pride and joy and gave one to Pip. The two mothers kept the cherished photographs on their dressers until the day they died and occasionally laughed together at speculations of what kind of grandchildren they would see from the mischievous threesome.

They had no way of knowing that the three little figures in the picture were never going to have children.

If The Shoe Fits, by Marilynn Griffith

2007-01-24T15:53:00.000-08:00

This month we are reviewing not one, but two books by Marilynn Griffith! This prolific writer has TWO books coming out this month! This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is posting about If the Shoe Fits (Steeple Hill Cafe', 2007) by Marilynn Griffith (fellow CFBA member, blogger, writer, and mother of seven)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Marilynn Griffith is wife to a deacon, mom to a tribe and proof that God gives second chances. Her novels include Made of Honor (Steeple Hill, Jan. 2006), Pink (Revell, Feb. 2006), Jade (Revell, June 2006), and Tangerine (Revell, January 2007). Her other credits include Chicken Soup for the Christian Woman’s Soul, Cup of Comfort Devotionals and her Shades of Style series (Revell, 2006). She lives in Florida with her husband and children. To book speaking engagements or just say hello, email: marilynngriffith@gmail.com.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Have Glass Slipper, Need Prince...

If the Shoe Fits is the second book in the Sassy Sistahood Novels. The first in the series was Made of Honor (Steeple Hill, Jan. 2006).

In all my thirty-five years, I, shoe designer Rochelle Gardner, have never had so many men interested in me! My teen son's dad is back in my life after suffering from amnesia (yes, really). The church deacon has had his eye on me for years (and never said a word). And the young waiter (from the restaurant I've visited for singles' events) is trying to steal my heart. I've been struggling with my faith, trying to figure out which man God has chosen for me and wondering if I have the courage to step forward, on my not-so-pretty feet, to accept love. It's almost too much for the Sassy Sistahood to handle, but my girlfriends always have my back!

The book link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0373785763

Marilynn's website link: http://marilynngriffith.typepad.com/rhythmsofgrace/

2007-01-24T08:35:00.000-08:00

Not too long ago, Aiden Thomas’s life was depressingly normal. He was nothing more than a slightly overweight, geeky bookworm no good at sports or anything else remotely cool. He did have one friend – oddly enough, a popular kid, Robby - but when his Grampin got too sick to live by himself, and his entire family moved away, he lost even that. He was back to square one; worse – now he had no friends, and was alone in a new school.

Then, he found the Scrolls of Alleble, which whisked him away to the magical world of The Realm, where all the people are mirror images of those in this world. There he faced danger and peril; encounters the awesome power of King Eliam as well as the frightful power of the evil betrayer Paragor, and is changed forever. He becomes more than he ever imagined, as he gives his life over to the grace of King Eliam. However, as Aiden returns to his world, he receives a vision that chills him to the core: Robby’s Glimpse – his best friend – in service to the evil Paragor!

When school opens in his new town, Aiden encounters Antoinette, a fierce, vibrant young girl with a talent for art and a powerful roundhouse kick. As the grace of King Eliam would have it, she and her family are also believers in King Eliam! Soon, Antoinette receives visions, signs she will be the next called into The Realm. Sure enough, Antoinette makes the same ethereal passage as Aiden, and encounters all the wonder of The Realm, as well as the grace of King Eliam.

And not a moment too soon, because Paragor has set dark wheels into motion, waking the dreaded Wyrm Lord and The Seven Sleepers as his end-game gambit to defeat King Eliam and take The Realm for himself. Antoinette and eleven other knights have been tasked with preventing this, but she is side-tracked by Aiden’s desperate plea to find Robby’s Glimpse, and persuede him to give his life to the King. She is partly successful: she tracks down Robby’s Glimpse, a powerful, arrogant knight named Kaliam, battles him fiercely in combat – but is defeated, and imprisoned in Paragory, awaiting her doom.

As the end approaches, Aiden quests for Robby’s soul in the real world, while Antoinette and the forces of Alleble prepare for their fiercest battle ever – perhaps their last. With the Wyrm Lord, The Seven Sleepers, and now the Scroll of Prophecy, victory is all but assured for Paragor; however, the myth of the Three Witnesses provides hope to the King’s followers. It’s told that in the end, King Eliam will raise the three greatest warriors The Realm has ever known to defeat Paragor. The only question remains: is this myth, or prophesy? Will the Three Witnesses be raised in time, or will The Realm fall into eternal darkness?

The Final Storm brings The Door Within trilogy to a resounding conclusion, as forces of evil and good collide with epic force. The final installment in the trilogy is much like Matrix: Revolutions, with the storyline splitting into equal parts as the war within The Realm spills over into the real world in very tangible ways, and this heightens the peril, as not only The Realm stands at risk, but all reality as well. Baston ends the series well, but not without fulfilling plot twists and teaser elements laid through the first two novels.

The Final Storm’s greatest strength lies with its ties to real world elements, and though the other stories really lack nothing, after reading the final installment, I would’ve liked to see stronger crossover elements between the two worlds. However, thanks to Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, we are now living in a “prequel” world, so it’s very conceivable that Baston could look back and revisit The Realm to tell another tale: perhaps Grampin’s first trip to The Realm?

For a classic fantasy truly worthy of the title Christian Epic, pick up The Door Within trilogy today.

Posted by Kevin Lucia

The Rise of the Wyrm Lord, by Wayne Thomas Baston

2007-01-23T08:19:00.000-08:00

When Aidan Thomas learned he was moving away from home and his best friend to live with his eighty-year old ailing grandfather halfway across the country, life turned inside-out. Without Robby, it was back to being un-athletic, unpopular, bullied and pushed around. It was the end of life as he knew it, a new beginning he wanted no part of.

However, Aidan finds the sacred scrolls of Alleble in his grandfather’s basement and embarks upon a journey to The Realm, changing his life forever. A place of ancient magic embroiled in war; on one side stands King Eliam - loving, eternal ruler of Alleble, and Paragor - once trusted herald of King Eliam, now evil ruler of the hellish lands of Paragory. In The Realm, Aidan surmounts challenges revealing his true measure, and when he finally returns home, he burns with the desire to impart King Eliam’s love to everyone.

Things aren’t turning out as great as he’d hoped. While leaving The Realm, he received a disturbing vision, one showing Robby’s mirror-self serving Paragor. Worried about Robby’s eternal destiny, Aidan emails repeatedly for weeks with no answer, and when he finally does get ahold of Robby, he’s distant, guarded, and acting very strange.

Aidan is convinced Robby’s in eternal danger, but what can he do? The rules are clear; King Eliam calls a person to The Realm once a lifetime - there’s no way he can reach Robby’s mirror-self with King Eliam’s love.

Enter Antoinette Reed, Aidan’s art classmate at his new school. When he sees her artwork - a rendition of Paragory’s outer gates, and she sees his, The Seven Fountains of Alleble, they realize the amazing truth: they’re both believers of King Eliam, true citizens of Alleble.

Even more astounding; Antoinette receives a ghostly vision of Aidan in warrior dress, and on the back blank pages of her Book of Alleble, the same poem that brought Aidan to The Realm appears. Antoinette has been called to serve King Eliam, but before she goes, Aidan tasks her with a desperate plea - find Robby’s Glimpse, and somehow convince him of the truth of King Eliam’s love, to save Robby’s soul!

When Antoinette arrives in The Realm, she discovers another shocking truth: she is the mirror-self of Lady Gwenne, Aidan’s close comrade and friend! Though heartened by this, as well as warmed by her quick friendship with Aidan’s Glimpse, Aelic, Antoinette encounters a world in turmoil: imposters have spread everywhere, speaking falsehoods and lies, attempting to destroy alliances with Alleble. Even worse, rumors abound that Paragor seeks to unleash an ancient evil power locked away for centuries. The fearful question lingers: is the rumored Wyrm Lord a myth, a fable - or Paragory’s new weapon against Alleble?

The Rise of the Wyrm Lord, the second installment in Wayne Thomas Baston’s The Door Within Trilogy, jacks up the action a notch, successfully following up The Door Within. Baston continues to weave classic Bible stories into an intriguing tale, and makes this novel even better than the first - which is not easy to do - by going “off the Biblical” map with the Wyrm Lord and the Seven Sleepers’ mythology. The second novel is an excellent tale, building on and improving The Realm mythos.

At first I was disappointed Aidan wasn’t returning to The Realm¸ but this offers a fresh new story from Antoinette’s perspective. In The Door Within, the characterization was solid, believable, but in this novel they grow and acquire depth in ways most Christian fantasies don’t today.

The pace picks up, the threat of the Wyrm Lord and the Seven Sleepers looming over every page. One thing to admire: many writers make the mistake of showing off their hidden bad guys too early, and in this novel, we only get tantalizing, shadowy, menacing glimpses of the Wyrm Lord and his minions. This adds suspense; Baston is now playing the “cruel author”, (which we all love so much), by making us wait for the last novel for the pieces to fall into place.

The Rise of the Wyrm Lord ends in a cliffhanger: we are left suspended, in true Empire Strikes Back fashion, without a clue as to what’s going to happen next, as we learn that not only is Antoinette in mortal danger, but so is Aidan - even in the “safer, real world”. All we can do is trust in King Eliam and his grace, and wait until the series concludes in the final novel, The Final Storm.

Posted by Kevin Lucia

The Door Within by Wayne Thomas Baston: A Contemporary Chronicles of Narnia

2007-01-22T05:20:00.001-08:00

Life hasn't been so great for Aidan Thomas. His parents never asked him if he wanted to move - like typical parents, they just decided to, whether he agreed or not. Secondly, moving away also meant leaving Robby; Aidan best friend. Robby is everything Aidan isn't: funny, athletic, popular - with him as a friend, at least people noticed Aidan instead of ignoring him.

To make matters worse, they've moved in with his grandfather - Grampin - because his worsening health. The prospects of living with his eighty-year old grandfather thousands of miles away from Robby are dim, and with nowhere to fit in and no friends, things look grim indeed.

Strange things start happening, though - Aidan is plagued with dreams of another world, and he swears he's seen things lurking in the trees outside the house. His parents - average, boring adults - discount his stories as a "good imagination", but Aidan knows it's more than that. Something is happening, something is coming.

One day, Aidan ventures to the basement, hoping to find anything interesting, when that something he's been waiting for finally happens. In a lightstorm of spectral blue light, three earthen clay pots appear. Hoping for treasure: diamonds, rubies, or gold coins; Aidan tries to open them, but when he touches the pots, they shatter - revealing three ancient scrolls.

Aidan unties them, expecting to find nothing more than an entertaining fantasy - but instead, his life changes - forever. He's whisked away into another world ruled by the great, everlasting King Eliam. It's a land of peace and prosperity, threatened by the evil realm of Paragory, led by Paragor - former trusted herald of King Eliam turned traitor, now the greatest evil in all The Realm. Aidan is plunged into a generations-long conflict, as he embarks on a journey testing not only his heart and will, but also his soul.

The Door Within, the first of The Door Within Trilogy, by Wayne Thomas Baston, is an enjoyable work playing off the most classic fantasy elements - an average boy, undervalued in the "real" world is called to a magical realm where he discovers what he's really made of. The plotline is best suited for early teens, with more depth than contemporary novelist R.K. Mortenson's Landon Snow series. The Realm is more grown-up and hazardous than Landon Snow's Wonderwood, a lot like Tolkien's Middle Earth. It's not hard to see reflections of Mordor in Paragory, as well.

There are some decent surprises built into the characters - both worlds are "mirror" worlds, with corresponding doubles in each, which reminded me of a youth-friendly The Talisman, by Stephen King. Best of all, for the most part, this is a creatively written allegory, a lot like C.S. Lewis's beloved Chronicles of Narnia, and Baston parlays Biblical lore into the story deftly, accurately, and convincingly.

This is a great book that promises much for the rest of the series. The Door Within leaves you anxiously awaiting its sequel, The Rise of the Wyrm Lord, as well as wondering just who will be called by King Eliam next - just like in Narnia, a person's service in The Realm is limited. After Aiden's time of glory has passed - who will be called next?

Posted by Kevin Lucia

"Showdown" at the Not-So-OK Corall

2006-12-24T15:52:00.000-08:00

::SPOILER ALERT:: I mention some key plot elements in my review that may ruin the story for you. If that's possible.

Ted Dekker is a total "hit or miss" with me. I began my foray into his work with Thr3e and literally could not finish the book. But, assured by a friend I trusted, I gave him another shot and picked up Black. I was not disappointed. The day I finished Black, I started Red and the day I finished Red, I began White. I absolutely loved The Circle Trilogy, so you can imagine my eagerness when I discovered Showdown, which is roughly a continuation of the Trilogy, centering around the mysterious Books of History which bring written words into real life.

Showdown begins with promise, builds weakly, and putters to a pathetic end. Is there any action in Showdown? Plenty, I suppose. Actually, Showdown is a fairly gory and violent story. I would not recommend it to anyone under the age of maybe 15. If it were to be made into a movie as written, it would be rated "R", "PG-13" at the least.

The story is about a tiny, isolated town in Colorado. It literally has one grocery store, one church, one beauty shop, and once had a movie theater. The town of Paradise (such an awfully cliche' name, all things considered) has a population of about 400, but we only really get the feeling that it's populated by about twenty. The remaining population are only briefly referenced a few times, which skews the feel of the story, in my opinion.

The opening scene is pretty good, actually. Johnny Drake, a boy of about fourteen, is sitting with his old (very old) friend Cecil as a stranger decked out in what can only be described as a gunslinger's getup from a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, strides into town on foot. Marsuvees Black is an outlaw prophet come to Paradise to bring the sleeping residents a message of "grace and hope" and to shake things up a little.

In the first few pages, Black murders 80 year old Cecil by scaring him into a heart attack and Johnny Drake is the only witness. From this point forward, young Johnny is the only person in Paradise who is able to resist the charms and deceptions Black brings to the town.

Beginning at the Episcopal church that night, Black calls a town meeting where he wows the people with a sleight-of-hand show that really gets everyone's attention. Who doesn't like to be entertained at church, after all? He openly challenges the pastor, Father Stanley Yordon, who leaves almost immediately the following day for a scheduled conference with the Bishop in Denver and does not return for several days. I was fully expecting Stanley to return and do something of consequence, but in all fairness to the story, he was absolutely useless as a character except that Dekker needed a church and a church needs a pastor. Well, and there's the affair with Johnny's mother, Sally. And their child. I won't spoil that should anyone reading this actually decide to read Showdown. Still, it really didn't add to the story.

After getting to very briefly (and shallowly) know the characters in Paradise, we move to a mysterious monastery where a group of orphans are attending a special school. In reality, they are the unknowing participants in a spiritual experiment organized by the headmaster, David Abraham (yes, just like Abraham in the Bible). It turns out that Marsuvees Black is one of the monks "teaching" the 37 or so students at the school. The students are taught primarily through writing. Everything centers around writing and for good reason: the mysterious blank Books of History we first hear about in The Circle Trilogy have appeared here. If you were perplexed by Dekker's ending in White, you will now solve the mystery of who Billy is. Billy is a thirteen or fourteen year old "orphaned" student at the seminary who is an exceptional thinker and writer. In fact, his only real challenger is Samuel Abraham, the son of the headmaster.

We learn that there are forbidden tunnels under the monastery and that Billy has been tempted by Black to enter them where he discovers the blank Books of History. (The Books of History have he ability to create history based on whatever is written in them, so long as the writer has "the faith of a child", which, given the age of the children, was a bit unconvincing to me. Whoever has seen a preteen who was filled with nothing more than angst and sarcasm?) Billy also discovers the giant worms (which are never really explained) that live in the tunnels and excrete a hallucinogenic sludge that seems to help blind him to the evil lurking about. In time, Billy begins to coerce his friends to visit the forbidden tunnels, which finally leads to a "debate" (one of the many "showdowns" of the book and just about the weakest "debate" I've ever read), resulting in a drastic change in the way the monastery operates. A majority of the students follow Billy down into the dungeons and are conscripted into helping him write his story. A story about an evil prophet who visits a sleepy little town called Paradise, Colorado...

I won't belabor on with more details, except to point out that the story is just incredibly weak. The characters are extremely shallow and the circumstances are just too unbelievable, even as a supernatural fantasy/thriller. Dekker does a poor job creating characters you care about, which is surprising because he did such a good job of that very thing in The Circle Trilogy. Several characters are brutalized, some are murdered, and I found I just didn't care. I felt I was just reading words on a page (actually at the half way point of the book, I was seriously wondering whether I would even bother finishing it. It did get better after that point, but only just.) One big problem I had was how unusually remote the town was. It just didn't make sense when the phones went out and the power failed that SOMEBODY didn't notice. Don't these folks have families? If you live in a remote area, aren't there like REGULAR deliveries or some sort of near DAILY contact made? What about law enforcement? Heck, what about the MAIL?!

The central message of Showdown is actually very good and full of meaning to Christians. "Grace and Hope without Love is powerless." In the end, sacrificial love is what saves the day. But his way of telling the story-- of illustrating the power of love--had no power. Young Samuel's selfless act in the end meant absolutely nothing because he had nothing invested and therefore, nothing risked; no real reason to give his life to save the people of Paradise (or his "dear friend" Johnny), and without that very important connection, it had virtually no meaning for me and therefore no power. Words on a page.

I felt I had been beat over the head with allegory instead of told a fascinating tale about characters I cared about and those wonderful blank books. I didn't even hate the villains! How can you not at least hate the villains?! Lack of good character development really hampered the story. Dekker does a passable job with dialog, although he has the fourteen year olds sounding like eight year olds at times, and like proper Victorian ladies at other times. Who winks anymore? If I see a fourteen year old kid winking at another kid, I'm calling the cops. I also found his use of everyday language in the narration to be annoying at times. It almost read like a fourteen year old had written it at times. Hmmm...

The biggest problem I had with the story is the way the extreme conflicts were resolved. Far too trite, in my opinion. Well, they were "fantastic" in a sense and would look cool on a movie screen (anybody see a pattern here?), but they just didn't make much sense. Dekker seems to draw out the story with a few "key" revelations that don't make sense, either. Yes, the revelations themselves made sense, I guess, but why his characters kept them hidden until "everyone was ready" did not. It became clear that he needed to push the plot and stretch the story. Big mistake, in my opinion. It subtracted credibility from his characters and from him as an author.

As I said, I absolutely LOVED The Circle Trilogy (Black, Red, and White), but I wouldn't recommend anyone waste their time reading Showdown. On a scale of one to five, I rate it a solid two. (Hey, at least I finished it! I couldn't finish Thr3e!) It's obvious Ted Dekker is a good writer from The Circle Trilogy. Why he didn't put those same skills to use in Showdown is the biggest mystery of all.

Review by: Kris St. James

Showdown, by Ted Dekker

2006-12-20T03:11:00.000-08:00

There's a new law in town, as the saying goes, and it's a black trenchcoat-clad wanderer by the name of Marsuvees Black. Charismatic and smart; either a master of “sleight-of-hand” or something more sinister, Black has come to “set the town of Paradise free”. Nature abhors a vacuum, as another saying goes, and where there is a vacuum, something always rushes in to fill the space. In the spiritually empty, jaded, and religion-by-ritual town of Paradise, the vacuum has just been filled.

But the question looming large in everyone's mind is by what? A prophet, fanatic cult-leader, or simple con-man looking to make a quick buck?

Or is it something far, far worse?

Not long after the mysterious Black's arrival, this small, tight-lipped community begins to tear apart at the seams as the lines between fantasy and reality blurs according to Black's mercurial whims. One minute sinner; the next minute saint, but no doubt powerful, Black weaves a tenuous web of magical half-truths and seeming miracles, promising to set the townspeople of Paradise free from the shackles of their guilt and sin in radical, experiential ways. He promises them their dreams, and brings to life their worst nightmares.

Deep, dark secrets are unveiled, private anguishes and tortures made shockingly public, and the temptations and darker inner urges of man are played by Black like keys on his own personal, dark master piano. Jerking like puppets tugged along by a mad puppeteer, the people of Paradise march helplessly to either their doom or salvation, whichever pleases the whims of Marsuvees Black at the moment.

Standing against Black is a boy named Johnny, and a mysterious enclave of monks hidden in a monastery deep in the mountains, their agenda and purposes unclear. In the end Johnny will stand alone, pushed to the edges of a faith that has never quiet believed, and a belief that has never had quite enough faith.

Ted Dekker has woven an intricate, haunting tale about the war between good and evil, and the literary master of “sleight-of-hand” never tips his hand once, keeping the reader guessing until the very end. There is depth in this novel; in the multi-tiered plot-line and in Dekker's connection with the often sad truth of the Christian life here on this Earth; things get complicated, things get dark, and things get messy.

Though he refuses to tie everything off in a nice, perfect little red bow, the truth shines through the pain: the only hope for the hopeless is the holy love and sacrifice of Christ. With th e novel ending in a twist that promises follow up stories, Showdown is a bold new addition to Dekker's resume.

Review by Kevin Lucia

Upcoming Christian Science Fiction/Fantasy Events

2006-12-17T09:20:00.001-08:00

Please keep tucked in your pocket two upcoming blog posts for fans of Christian Science Fiction or Christian Fiction in general:

1. This coming Monday, Speculative Faith will be posting an interview with Nick Harrison, senior editor at Harvest House concerning their new line of fantasy fiction...

2. ...and, an open letter on A Christian Worldview of Fiction to all fans of Christian Science Fiction & Fantasy about why it is important to participate in the marketing and some starter ideas of what can be done.

Please visit both these posts, reference them to your friends, and comment!

Extra: The Hidden - Kathryn Mackel

2006-12-13T15:23:00.000-08:00

"A dark ravine. A fiery death. An unimaginable secret.

Some things are best left hidden.

Grieving over her son's death, psychiatrist Susan Stone returns home to Colorado to help her elderly father manage his horse-breeding business. After a botched delivery of a prized foal, Susan rides wildly into the mountains, seeking release from consuming guilt. Thrown from her horse, she tumbles into a dark ravine and makes a startling discovery--a young man, chained in the darkness."

This book, The Hidden, is a unique book. It's hard to place it in a specific genre because it crosses through several of them: suspense, mystery, supernatural, psychological thriller...

Ms. Mackel takes us back to Lucifer's fall, then propels us eons forward to our own time where the battle still rages in the hearts and lives of Susan Stone and her family.

Susan is devastated by the loss of her beloved son, an apparent suicide. She is wracked with guilt as she tries to discover the reason for his death, and the bitterness that forms is yet another layer of stone around her heart--stone that had started to form when her father refused to protect her from her mother's abuse.

A post-midnight call brings Susan from Boston back to her father's ranch where he had bred Arabian horse since she was young. After almost losing a prized foal in the birthing, Susan takes to the hills, riding a spirited horse, memories of her failures beating at her until she could take no more. She is thrown from her horse into a dark ravine. Bruised, but still alive, she seeks the death that eludes her efforts, for she cannot find it at the bottom of the ravine.

Instead, she finds Jacob.

An apparent victim of abuse like herself, she frees Jacob from his chains and embarks on a journey to discover who he is, and in the process she is freed from her own chains.

As you can see, I've waxed a bit eloquent while giving a run-through of the story for you, but that is nothing compared to the book itself. Ms. Mackel is a true storyteller, showing her mastery of the craft in her latest book.

The character Susan Stone, as well as the other characters, Melissa, Jeannette, Rick, and Charlie, is a one many of us can relate to. How many of us live in a "dysfunctional" family? How many of us dream of healing breaches between us and those we love, but are afraid of the things we'd have to do for the healing to begin? How many of us pray for our loved ones every day for an incredible work to bring them to God?

I liked the book so much, I passed it on to my mother as soon as I had finished the last page. Though there was one part in particular she didn't care for (which I put down as proof of Ms. Mackel's skill), she also enjoyed the book. I am going to recommend this book to everyone I can think of, and I am also going to put Ms. Mackel's other books on my must-read list.

Check out her new book, Trackers, at Amazon.

Review by Lauren Bombardier

Bonus Review of The Hidden, by Kathryn Mackel

2006-12-13T14:52:00.000-08:00

However, her father's riding accident, which sends her rushing out to the family farm, (once prime Arabian horse breeding grounds), sets into motion a chain of events forcing Susan to confront the worst things about herself that she's hidden deep within. The pain of abuse at the hands of her mother. The aching hole in her heart from her son's suicide. The bitter feelings of loss and failure.

All of these things churn about inside, as Stone becomes embroiled in something much larger than herself, testing the measure of what she is, challenging what she's become, and pushing her to see what she could be.

After her badly mishandled delivery of a foal on her father's farm, Susan flees wildly into the mountains to escape her pain, perhaps permanently….much the way her mother did so many years ago. What she encounters there opens the door to a mystery that will either set her free from her fears and the burden of her guilt, or plunge them all into a horror not known for ages.

Hidden deep in a cave, chained to the wall in ancient, iron manacles is a young man whom they come to know only as Jacob. In perfect health; with the wide-eyed innocence of a youth, Jacob has no recollection of who he is, or whence he came. Apparently he can work minor miracles, causes electronic medical devices to go haywire, and may or may not be connected to the evil stalking them all.

For there is a murderer on the loose, leaving charred, barely recognizable bodies as his calling card. Somehow Jacob is tied to the murderer and the deaths, and she must unravel the mystery before it is too late, while facing her fiercest inner demons, all the while fearing the truth of the novel's tag line: Some things are best left hidden.

Kathryn Mackel's novel of spiritual warfare is a gripping read written in the visceral, vivid style one would expect from a member of the screenwriting team that created Left Behind: The Movie and the film adaptation of Frank Peretti's Hangman's Curse. Her prose is stylish and direct; while reading you get the feel of something that would translate very well to the big screen.

The Hidden provides well laid plot twists held 'close to the chest' until the end, and the villain pops up far from where he's expected. Other reviewers have criticized the villain as being 'typecast' and 'clichéd', but I found him to be fiendishly delightful; the perfect foil to the innocent, amnesia-struck Jacob. In fact, the novel would have been served well with more detailed appearances of this elusive bad guy.

Also touching and heart-rending is Mackel's portrayal of the relationship between Susan and her mother, and anyone who has had less than pleasant relations with their parents will be moved by these parts of the narrative. The pain Susan harbors from her childhood is fresh and gripping; real and tangible, and I'm sure very relevant to many.

Mackel also deals with the relationship between the things we hid in our hearts and the nature of spiritual warfare. She weaves spiritual truth into a moving story; creating a tale that is imaginative, edifying, and thought-provoking concerning our own lives, all at once.

The only negative comment would be about the crafting of town Sheriff Rick Sanchez. The past relationship between Stone and Sanchez seemed to have potential as Stone comes home from Boston, but both characters become opposed throughout the course of the novel concerning what should be done legally about Jacob and his guardianship. Also, I became interested early on in Sanchez's past: military experience, a failed marriage and children, and the biting regret he feels over both – especially as a born again Christian. However, as the pace of the novel picks up, this is not touched upon much.

Overall, The Hidden is an enjoyable read that "gallops" ahead at a breathtaking pace. You can visit Kathryn Mackel's website at: http://www.kathrynmackel.com/. Get Mackel's latest work, Trackers, at Amazon.com.

Review by Kevin Lucia.

Trackers, Kathryn Mackel

2006-12-13T14:01:00.000-08:00

The future world is a blasted shell of its former self. Horrific wars have ravaged the landscape, leaving behind tracts of useless wasteland, and humanity has devolved into a feudalistic society based on power, might, and greed. Like Esau long ago, mankind has sold its birthright in exchange for the selfish pursuit of prideful desires, and nothing remains of the modern world. Now all that exists are strongholds ruled by ruthless warlords served by “sorcerers” retaining just enough knowledge of genetic engineering to alter animals, plants, or people in any fashion – no matter how absurd or perverse. Caught in the middle are villages full of simple people, clinging to a forlorn hope of a better world.

However – hope is never futile, especially when placed in the One who rules and cares for all, regardless if humanity has forgotten Him. Years before the Endless Wars laid waste to Earth, God worked to secure the future. Led by prophetic visions, a select group of people left the world behind in the new Ark, hiding beneath the ice in the Polar Regions, until such a time when they could reclaim the world for God’s glory.

They are the Birthrighters. Trackers: those commissioned to hunt down and recover species of all kinds in need of replenishing, and Outriders: the warriors of the Birthright Project, who stand in the way of the evil that threatens them.

For several years, they’ve tracked countless species, fought off many foes, but now the hour grows desperate. A new sorcerer named Simon has joined Alrod, a stronghold warlord whose hate for the Outriders already burns brightly. With supernatural powers extending far beyond simple genetic manipulation, Simon aides Alrod as he strides forth to recruit an unholy army worthy of an almighty overlord.

Within the Birthright Project, personal desires, agendas, and resentments threaten the future of their quest. Like monastic orders of old, Outriders are forbidden to marry or have relationships, because their mission is so great they cannot afford the distraction of “love”. However, humans were created to love and be loved, and how much longer can this be denied of them, before they turn into something less than human themselves?

There’s a lot to like in Trackers, Kathryn Mackel’s second installment in the Birthright Project series. A more robust work than her recent thriller, The Hidden, Trackers boasts a haunting look at the future of mankind, one that makes the reader think of Road Warrior and Mad Max – just without Tina Turner and those funky earrings. Those who enjoyed Stephen King’s The Gunslinger will like this story of an apocalyptic future and the quest to restore God’s natural balance. In King’s apocalyptic vision, “the world had moved on”, and in Trackers, it has moved on to a dark, dangerous place crafted with an imaginative vision.

I enjoyed Simon the sorcerer – possibly an oblique reference to the Biblical Simon who tried to buy the disciples’ miracles – and his character reminded me strongly of Roland’s nemesis, Walter – “the man in black” (The Gunslinger). This is a trait Mackel has shown me twice so far: the ability to craft a threatening, sometimes entertaining villain, which I would argue tips a work from “good” to “great”.

The character development is strong, and Mackel isn’t afraid to kill off a protagonist, which lends the tale a suspenseful reality. Trackers is a work of masterful creativity, the result of a painstakingly-crafted vision. Make sure to check out the first book in the Birthright Project, Outriders, to experience the full depth of Mackel’s vision.

Visit Kathryn Mackel's website, and read Chapter One of Trackers. **NOTE: be sure to visit tomorrow for a bonus review of Mackel's recent supernatural thriller, The Hidden.

Review by Kevin Lucia.

Never Ceese, by Sue Dent

2006-12-06T15:48:00.002-08:00

Never Ceese by Sue Dent

http://www.neverceese.com/
Buy it on Amazon

"A vampire…

A werewolf…

Can two who were wronged make it right?

One selfless act – by their faith."

For those who know me, they know that once upon a time I had a thing for vampire books. Unfortunately, when I decided to concentrate on fiction that had a more positive spiritual message, I had to give up the vampires.

That is, until I met Sue Dent.

I met Sue on the Faithwriters message board. Her bubbly posts and wacky sense of humor attracted me, and I invited her to the ECW message board where she fit in quite nicely. I soon discovered what her book was about and put it on my list. When she asked for a review, I jumped at the chance!

Never Ceese is definitely and intriguing first book, and no, I did not misspell the title. How many books have you read or movies have you seen where vampires and lycanthropes (the technical term for werewolves, et al.) are at odds with each other, if not outright war? The movie Underworld comes to my mind.

In this book, a vampire named Richard and a were wolf named Cecelia (or Ceese) must work together if they want to be free of the curse that makes them what they are. As you can imagine, neither one is thrilled with the idea. The issue is further complicated by a professor who thinks he's found the way to become immortal.

Fortunately, they have help. First in the person of Mamá, then in two university students.

As cursed beings, Richard and Ceese cannot even think on holy things, let alone walk on holy ground, yet it is all that is holy that will save them. Richard's hopelessness is soon overcome by Ceese's desire to be free. Even though Ceese isn't able to "think on these things," she struck me as the most spiritual character in the whole book. Her quiet faith enabled both of them to find the hope they needed.

It is a story about faith, hope, and love. Without these, we cannot exist. Sue has brought them together in a unique way, and I have to say I am looking forward to the next one!

Review by Lauren Bombardier

Never Ceese, by Sue Dent

2006-12-05T22:48:00.001-08:00

Fellow Southern author Sue Dent's first book Never Ceese is a story about a werewolf named Cecelia and a vampire named Richard. So far, so good. These are your typical, classical horror characters who live for the night and are prone to feast on the flesh of others. People you can rely on. And she doesn't deviate from the myth and lore that surround them. Much.

The story begins as the vampire Richard encounters an unwanted guest in his English manor. A nosy neighbor is suspicious that Richard is the cause behind the mysterious disappearance of his goats and nearly catches him in the act, if it weren't for the visiting werewolves in the area. Enter Ceese, the young werewolf maiden who's arrived via invitation by Richard's aging companion, Penelope.

The two immediately do not get along and would, but for their adoration of Penelope, have torn each other to shreds. But, there is more at work here than the mere gathering of mythical immortals. Penelope is dying and she has one last request for her dearest friends: love one another.

This is the overall theme throughout Dent's interesting tale of "two who were wronged", who eventually--painfully--learn to work together to solve another mystery and defeat another monster unknown to them all, an evil geneticist who seeks the answer to immortal life through researching--and hunting--mythical creatures like vampires and werewolves. He will stop at nothing to succeed.

Dent's characters do differ from the stock ones we're all accustomed to in a very important way. They are not mindless, brutal killers. Bloodthirsty, yes, but they are constantly resisting the urge to kill, and, thus, curse another human. Feeding on rodents, goats, virtually any warm-blooded animal helps to satiate the never ending thirst for blood, but how long will they be able to resist that most delicious morsel man? There is a chance that their curses can actually be lifted if they can find the strength within to resist their selfish natures and act selflessly toward another. Will they succeed? That same basic choice lies before us all every day...

Sue Dent hails from Mississippi and her Southern knack for good story tellin' shines through brightly. The story is geared more for a teen audience, but I found it a fun read. The pace was exciting as the relationship between these two creatures began to develop from sheer hatred to tolerance to true devotion and finally...love? Well, you'll have to judge for yourself, as there is more to Ceese and Richard than you may think. The action is almost cinematic and the dialog very engaging. I felt I knew the characters as the story progressed and I believe teens everywhere will identify with them as well. I found myself racing ahead in my mind as I tried to piece the mystery of their strange connection together as well as eager to see how they would work their way out of a hopeless situation.

But the best aspect of Never Ceese is the message of hope. If two cursed humans can find a solution that removes their torment, then perhaps that same hope is available to us? Perhaps there is a way out of the self-indulgent, self-centered existence we all find ourselves cursed by. Never Ceese will certainly entertain you as well as challenge you and I believe it will make a welcomed addition to any reader's bookshelf.

Review by Kris St. James.

Never Ceese, by Sue Dent

2006-12-05T22:41:00.000-08:00

Werewolves and Vampires….oh my!

Centuries ago, two unfortunates were wronged in the worst way imaginable; they were cursed by evil forces they did not bring down upon themselves. One was made a vampire, a creature of the night, forced to find sustenance on the life-blood of others, and subject to whims and passions never meant for humankind to experience. The other was bitten by the wolf, and is now a prisoner to the wild beat of nature, running with the pack, lost in the primitive uproar of instinct and survival.

Perhaps worst of all: they are cursed to live with near immortality, to walk the face of the earth while those they love die, and if they do die while still in the grip of the curse; by either a silver bullet or a wooden stake, they will forever miss the chance of an eternity in heaven with those they love and care for.

They have one chance, as this unlikely pair is drawn together by unseen forces, to reclaim their mortality and a chance to pursue a normal life, a chance to go home to heaven when they die, and it lies buried in a riddle cryptic as it is contradictory, Two wrongs make a right. Richard, the cynical, sarcastic vampire and Ceese, a culturally naive werewolf inexperienced in the ways of human beings, leave the comforts of home and the wild behind as they travel from England to New York in search of the one thing they desire more than anything: an end to their curse.

However, working behind the scenes are forces that want them for other reasons, and none of them altruistic. As Richard and Ceese struggle to loosen the bonds on their souls, someone else lusts after what they have: immortality, power…and will stop at nothing until they have it for themselves.

In her first novel, Sue Dent has crafted an intriguing mix of two genres yet thought exclusive; Christian faith-based fiction and dark, noir-fantasy, and it comes off well. The key difference between her novel and others revolving around vampires and werewolves is its focus: Dent focuses on that which our two protagonists want most, an end to the curse and chance for a restored relationship with all that is good and holy, and not on the aspects of the curses themselves. However, her touch is light here: it is not a Sunday school lesson with a pretty red bow at the end; it is a story about enduring faith and love.

Richard is hopelessly sarcastic and cynical, evoking images of Tom Cruise’s blond haired and egotistical Lestat, and Dent portrays Ceese as a poignant picture of what faith can do even in the thrall of the curse that damns her. Never Ceese is also rife with cultural humor and satire, and though the reader treads the dark streets of film noir and intrigue, they will find themselves chuckling out-loud just as many times as they shiver.

Ceese ends with surprising plot-twists that work well but perhaps could have been hidden a little better, and it may have a theological “bump under the rug” here and there – but who cares? It is a work of fiction, and a creatively imaginative one at that. The novel also successful wraps up the narrative while leaving a nice hook for its sequel Forever Richard.Never Ceese can be purchased from Amazon. Visit the author’s website: http://www.neverceese.com/. She regularly answers questions on her forum there, and also maintains a myspace as well.

Review by Kevin Lucia.

Landon Snow & The Island of Arcanum - CFBA Tour

2006-11-28T16:02:00.000-08:00

Landon Snow’s life has been anything but boring and commonplace. Ever since he got swallowed up by a book not too long ago, (yes, a book, and a magical one at that), he’s been opened up to a whole new world of wonders and sights. He’s traveled to the faraway, magical land of Wonderwood, met talking animals, books, and chess-pieces, encountered strange but brave warriors, and taken advice from a sage, mystical poet who can sense the future. Life will never be the same as a mysterious library in boring old Button Up, Minneapolis becomes a portal for adventure, excitement, and breathtaking feats of courage.

His travails haven’t been without danger though, as he’s battled the nefarious, shadowy forces of Malus Quidam, battled to free his sister Holly from his dark magic, and struggled to set the people of Wondewood free. That – and trying to be a normal kid all at the same time, with all the normal things kids worry about: his sometimes annoying sisters, fitting in at school, making good on the football field…

That’s where we find our young hero in his latest adventure, Landon Snow and the Island of Arcanum. Landon’s school, Winterwild Middle School, is embroiled in a heated grudge match against their gridiron rivals, Tangleriver Middle. Landon’s just been handed the pigskin on a dive play up the middle, determined to burn former classmate Jake – a linebacker who’s a little too cocky for his own good – with a dazzling combination of speed and agility.

What he’s not counting on is another one his patented visions – right in the middle of the game, for Pete’s sake! Instead of a football field full of players, Landon finds himself surrounded by strange, talking animals speaking in a foreign tongue, on a dark, Stygian night. Of course – bam! – the vision goes away, and the confused Landon finds himself flat on his back, tackled once again by Jake, his vision fading into a dreamy nothingness.

The vision is just the start of Landon’s new adventure, and even as his family travels to visit his grandparents in good ole’ Button Up, Minneapolis, he mulls over what it means, and what may lie ahead. Of course, without fail, he and his sisters Holly and Bridget find themselves in that magical library again, and no sooner do they arrive, it happens – The Book Of Meaning starts flipping its pages, the entire library floods to the brim with water, and just when they are sure they’re going to drown – they find themselves in the middle of an ocean on an abandoned ship, headed for a new adventure!

This new installment in the Landon Snow series simply adds to a growing movement within Christian young adult fantasy to return the magic to storytelling. R. K. Mortenson writes a well-crafted. enjoyable tale that feels so much like the beloved Narnia Chronicles, (this one especially evoked memories of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader), but still retains its own originality. It doesn’t merely borrow elements of Lewis’ classic tale; it reshapes them into a timeless story that’s very relevant to kids today.

There are many writers emerging who’ve recognized the need to return the mystery and magic to youth fiction, but with the exception of a few notables, (Raising Dragons, by Bryan Davis; Never Ceese, by Sue Dent), few approach the solid literary chops of Mortenson. In my long years of reading, I’ve encountered many YA novels that I believe were written either as direct propaganda, or the author mistakenly assumed YA novels were easier to write because of the younger aged readers. The Landon Snow series is clearly written by someone who’s been gifted with the talent of storytelling.

One note: this was my first foray into the Landon Snow saga, (but not my last, especially as a junior high English teacher!), and I did find it a little confusing at first catching up with all that had gone on before. I recommend you read the previous two titles in the series; Landon Snow and the Shadows of Malus Quidam, and Landon Snow and the Auctor’s Riddle – but hey, based on the latest adventure, that’s like recommending you eat more turkey and stuffing on Thanksgiving! It’s a given!Visit http://www.landonsnow.com/. Purchase it today!

Taking on "The Taking": He pulls it off...

2006-11-27T11:36:00.000-08:00

I think I should acknowledge something upfront. I am not a die hard Dean Koontz fan. I'm not sure I'm a die hard fan of any one author save Faulkner, and that's on a daily basis. But, I do like this book and I'll explain the title of my review in a moment.

The story is really not so extraordinary: it's basically "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" meets "Hell Raiser" with a healthy dose of Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees, sans a lot of foul language, which was a big plus with me.

In a nut shell, novelist Molly Sloan (why are the heroes always writers?) has trouble sleeping one stormy night. She decides to make good use of her insomnia by working on her latest novel, but she senses something is wrong. The rain is unusually hard for California this time of year. There's also something odd about the smell...and the fact that it glows faintly. An odd encounter with a strangely calm, yet nervous pack of coyotes on her front porch and her husband, Neil, waking from a nightmare of "a mountain falling down on us" leads to a surreal vision reflected from their bathroom mirror: the room is covered in vines and decay and something humanoid is briefly seen crossing the room, but when Molly and Neil look back, all is normal.

The Sloans know something is wrong and soon discover from watching television that the whole world is being enveloped by the torrential storm. Acting on instinct and fear, they load up their SUV with guns and supplies and head down into Black Lake, the local town.

After making their way to a local tavern where others have gathered, each believing that some menace is at work, they discover the town is under attack. We also learn about Molly's past, how she saved five children when she was a child by shooting her deranged father (Michael Render) as he rampaged through her school, murdering anyone in his path to get to her. Render (currently an inmate in a mental hospital) suddenly appears at the tavern and confronts Molly. Only it's not really Render. He's dead.

Other strange things begin to occur: the dogs are unnaturally drawn to Molly while at the tavern, a friend reveals his theory of alien terra forming and shows them the "thing" growing in the closet. The Sloans have another vision in the mirror behind the bar, except she and Neil and the few children present have no reflection. The story progresses rather quickly from that point as Molly and Neil move about the town in search of other abandoned children stranded in the apocalyptic rain. Then all hell brakes loose. Literally.

Zombies and murderers roam the streets. Strange craft fly silently overhead and the first alien creatures appear; crab-like creatures that resemble a pulsating fungus. Overhead, the alien craft hide behind a dense purple fog and seem to scan Molly as they pass overhead. Scaly, monkey-like creatures are hiding in the trees, watching. Then there's the dogs. The town is virtually deserted except for the children they encounter as they search from house to house, led by dogs who seem to know where to look. The children are important to the aliens and Molly soon develops the feeling that they are being herded; collected.

I won't spoil the rest of the book because it is worth reading. The characters are exceptionally thin and uninteresting on the whole, but in the end, it does make sense why certain people (such as Molly, the almost famous author and her husband Neil, the former Catholic priest, as well as other "average Joes") are "chosen" to collect the children.

The dialog is passable. I can't always say that about Koontz's characters in all his works. As a side note, I see some inconsistency in his works overall, but here, the dialog is actually ok considering it's an "end of life as we know it" tale.

One thing I had to be careful of (this was an unabridged audio book) was not allowing too much of the reader's interpretation of the character's voice get in the way of what was being said. Difficult to do at times and Ari Meyers does a superb job reading, but the character of Neil was just absolutely flat no matter how you look at him. I seriously believe he could have been cut from the story (well, not with the ending, but he could have been in a comfy coma somewhere and awakened at the end.)

Molly's character, on the other hand, was unnecessarily complex once you find out her true purpose. Purpose is a key word here. As I mentioned before, she shoots her father when she is a child as he murders children and adults in her school. So, yes, she has a history of saving children, but it doesn't really fit the story as a whole. It's overhead and really, it's just too unbelievable and too coincidental. He should have focused on her artistic abilities. The past lives of these characters really proves to be inconsequential in the end. What they are doing now is what matters. Quite a lesson to learn.

The scenery Koontz paints is very vivid, however. Having read several of his books and those of similar substance from other "horror" writers, he creates a very real "Hell on Earth" to be sure. This was problematic for me after a while because as I neared the end of the book, I began expecting some sort of resolution, some glimmer of hope or some fool hardy plan to bring this all to a conclusion with the good guys defeating the bad guys. Instead, it continued to grow darker and darker and absolutely didn't let up until I despaired of a sequel--something I wasn't willing to work through. But, he pulled it off beautifully in the end. Yes, this is a moral tale and if you aren't familiar with the Biblical story of Noah, you won't fully appreciate the fine job Koontz does in resolving the ending. I also appreciate his sparing use of profanity.

The pace was pretty much typical Koontz, except where I felt he'd usually let up a bit and have his character formulate some sort of escape plan. Not here. It's full speed right up to the end and you'll never "see this one coming". But it works. He pulls it off...

If you're looking for a tale full of interesting characters and complex relationships or even meaningful interaction beyond "Don't worry, I got yer back!", The Taking won't satisfy. But, if you're interested in what I'll probably say for sometime to come is some of the creepiest images and circumstances that truly left me wondering "How on Earth are they going to get out of this?" as well as a decent (but not entirely "accurate") Biblical allegory of a future "Flood", then "The Taking" is worth your time.

Also, I can't give enough praise for Ari Meyer's excellent reading of the book. She truly has a wonderful range of voice and does an excellent job of capturing the mood in every scene.

Calm, Cool, & Adjusted, by Kristen Billerbeck

2006-11-26T13:06:00.001-08:00

Miles run: 0
Laps in the pool: 0
Desperation level: OFF THE SCALE!

Kirsten Billerbeck, one of the first “Christian chick-lit” authors, scores another hit with her latest release in the Spa Girl Series: Cool, Calm, and Adjusted. A story about life, love, and the pursuit of whole grain oats, wheat shakes and maybe even a date, this novel is a lively tale about a middle-aged woman dealing with scars from the past, despairing because all her friends are getting married and leaving her behind, and wondering if she truly has traversed over that thin line separating health enthusiast from full blown “nature freak”.

Poppy Clayton is in charge of her world. A chiropractor in one of the least natural places on the face of the earth, Silicon Valley, she preaches the message of healthy living and eating, waste not want not, and no woman should depend on a man for fulfillment and success. She’d like to think she’s in touch with the way God would have all of us live: a frugal existence with no preservatives, flowing with positive energy and system cleansing foods; however¸ her friends are worried that she’s tip-toeing the edge between natural, spiritual living and fanaticism.

To prove she’s capable of living a normal, “eat McDonalds’ French fries and chocolate every now and then” life, they’ve assigned her a task: find someone normal to bring to her best friend Morgan’s wedding, so she won’t spend the entire time evaluating guests’ gastric functions and eating habits. Their punishment, should she prove unequal to the task: set her up with a date of their choosing.

So, the race is on: should Poppy take the charming, attractive, but utterly self-absorbed, (in her enlightened opinion, anyway), plastic surgeon Dr. Curran – who she grudgingly shares office space with, by the way – or the entrancing, retired millionaire Simon Jennings, one of her patients who’s been offering to sweep her off her feet for the past year or so?

What to do; what to do?

Throw in unresolved conflicts with her father and step-mother, as well as buried grief over her mother’s death, and the desperation level for Poppy is nearing critical levels. She wants to live with the confidence that she’s Poppy – her own person, defined by no one’s rules – but as the wedding draws nearer and the desperation levels escalate, she wonders if perhaps “normal” is impossible for her, and she’s just going to end up as “that weird lady living alone with all of her cats”. This isn’t just natural enzymes, positive energy and good chi – this is the rest of Poppy’s life.

Calm, Cool, & Adjusted is another one of the great “chick-lit” tomes I’ve run across lately. As a character, Poppy is a firecracker – witty, sarcastic, and maybe even a little oblivious to her own strangeness. However, she is also mildly tragic as well, because one can easily picture this happening in anyone’s life. I found this novel especially enjoyable because we’re living in an age when being a “Christian” requires you to do certain “things” or act in a certain “way”, and I’m sure everyone feels very keenly the conflicts of being ourselves within today’s “Christian culture”.

Calm, Cool, & Adjusted is a winner that is funny, endearing, and a little sad, all at once. Health fanatics and junk food eaters alike, pull out either a Snickers or Nature Trail bar, and curl up with this novel today.

Visit the author's website.

Welcome!

2006-11-25T15:55:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the launch of The Bookshelf Reviews 2.0 - The Compendium. Both myself and my esteemed writing colleague, Kris St. James, will be running this blog as a companion blog to the original Bookshelf Reviews, and our goal is to review the same books - as often as opportunity permits - and have fun with whatever differences we may find between what we like and dislike, as well as continuing to promote the best and brightest voices in Christian Fiction. Consider us the literary version of Siskel and Ebert - not that other guy, because I can't remember his name, honestly.

From time to time, we may offer random rants about anything and everything literary. We'll also post reviews of secular works that catch our eyes also - get used to it, 'cause there'll be a lot of King and Koontz spoken around here, with a little Peter Straub thrown into it as well! We'll also feature interviews with some of the Christian Fiction authors we're blogging about.

Have fun, enjoy - and poke around!

Regards;
Kevin Lucia & Kris St. James

Something That Lasts, by James David Johnson

2006-08-01T14:22:00.000-07:00

On the outside, Reverend David Parst has it all: a loving wife and son, a thriving church, and an adoring congregation. He is the epitome of the modern ministry success story: he’s a man with integrity, ethics, a heart to serve the Lord, and a savvy business sense that’s helped his church community grow.

On the inside, however, a growing uncertainty troubles Reverend Parst. Caught up in the success of his ministry-related financial endeavors and the growth of his church, stuck in a rut from the daily grind and demands of ministry, he wonders if perhaps he was meant for more than just the humble calling of being a pastor, that there is a far more exciting, daring side of his life that he’s missed in the pastoral lifestyle.

For just one slip of a moment, he allows his guard to fall, feeding selfish desires rather than walking close to God. In his pride, he neglects his faithful, dutiful wife Sarah, and discounts the potential damage to the one person who idolizes him more than anyone else, his son Jack.

One slip of his guard, several seemingly harmless, indulgent moments, and the great Deceiver rushes in. Reverend David Parst falls from grace, committing a tragic mistake that reverberates for several generations to come.

Something that Lasts is James David Jordan’s first novel, and it touches all the right heartstrings. It is difficult to read at times, especially if someone you know has suffered through the tragedy of adultery and been witness to all the damage it can bring to a family, both heart and soul.

It’s a story that all genders can relate to; giving a realistic warning to men about the legacy we leave behind for our children, and it can touch women who have been involved in such situations themselves. Also, true to the tagline on the back of the book – A Power That Reaches Across The Generations – it’s a story showing that even though time doesn’t always heal all wounds, the tender grace and mercy of a loving savior can.

The novel does suffer some pitfalls in areas. Jordan creates some very poignant, touching vignettes, snapshots along the way, but some readers may find that these snapshots don’t link up to a fulfilling story. The storyline spans almost thirty years, and you get the feeling that some vital parts that would’ve been very interesting are passed over simply for the sake of fitting everything into one book, which makes it feel like it lacks a little depth in some places. The work would’ve perhaps been served better to shorten the span of the storyline somewhat, and zoom in closer on a few incidents, rather than giving a broad panorama that’s promising but ultimately a little unfulfilling.

Also, the plotting feels scripted, formulaic. It’s almost something you can imagine nine out of ten people sitting down and putting on a piece of paper: pastor is tempted by success, cheats on wife, does his penance while his son withdraws from God, and years later the whole incident replays or almost replays in the son’s life, teaching him a lesson, and the father and son are ultimately reconciled.

It would have been far more interesting to perhaps have the wife cheat on the husband, and examine things from the flip-flopped perspective – true, it’s a rarer occurrence, but also by that account not nearly as talked about as much, nor used as frequently by writers and screenwriters.

And, this is somewhat daring to say, because it’s a risky thing to try and make a reader sympathize and relate with an adulterer….but Reverend Parst seems to fall far too easily, the blame solely attributed to his pride. In life, things are rarely that cut and dried.

All in all, however, Something That Lasts is a good read – a panoramic view of God using even a tragic mistake to bring about His will, and a sobering reminder of the horrible consequences of sexual sin – especially those extending past just ourselves, but to those we love.

Something That Lasts should be on sale at all major retail bookstores. You can visit James Jordan’s Website at:

http://www.jamesdavidjordan.com/

3 out of 5 Stars

Saint, by Ted Dekker

2006-07-29T16:49:00.000-07:00

Carl Strople is many things. He’s a highly trained assassin, schooled in dozens of the most deadly martial arts. He has endured unbelievable feats of physical endurance and has mastered complete emotional control. He is rated in just about every weapon imaginable, and is the proud product of the most advanced chemical and emotional conditioning known to man.

As a sniper, he can hit a target from an impossible 2,000 feat away; as a strategist his execution is flawless. As training progresses for his greatest mission ever – the assassination of the president of the United States – he shows just the barest hints of latent telekinetic abilities, as well.

His memories broken down and built back up many times over, Carl Strople doesn’t know much about himself, but what he does know, he feels is truth, unreservedly:

He is a survivor. He is utterly dependent on his handler, Kelly – a mysterious, beautiful woman he feels he loves but doesn’t understand why. He is destined for greatness.

He is a killer.

However, when he fails to kill Robert Stenton, the president of the United States, Carl’s rock-sure certainty falters. The fabric of his reality tears apart as strange, alien feelings well up past his emotional control. When he encounters a man claiming to be the president’s spiritual advisor, he hears two things forever changing who he thinks he was, is, and was meant to be.

Remember Project Showdown.

As a nefarious voice from the past would say, “game on, time to trip on some grace juice, baby.”
Ted Dekker’s narrative style and prose continues to become seasoned and deft, placing him among the premier suspense novelists today. Not to discount his other fine works, but Saint feels heavier, more substantial, making Dekker worthy of being mentioned in the same name as Grisham, King, and Koontz. There is a maturity in the narrative voice speaking of a writer in his prime.

The first half of the novel is jumbled and confused on purpose, giving us a front row seat to Carl’s mental maze. This is a nifty genre twist for Dekker; Saint reads like The Bourne Identity, (Robert Ludlum), meets The Matrix, meets Mr. Murder (Dean Koontz).

Dekker also continues to build a new Christian mythology reaching past just one novel, combining many of his works into a far-reaching story arc that is yet to be revealed. Marsuvees Black is obviously not done stirring up evil, even if it is from beyond the grave.

And of course, Dekker continually perfects the genre of “faith fiction”: an astounding, cracking good read founded on the Biblical truths of love, grace, and redemption.

Saint will hit the shelves in September, and can be purchased locally from Arrowhead Christian Bookstore, on Harry L. Drive in Johnson City, New York. It can also be pre-ordered on Amazon.com.

http://www.teddekker.com/

5 out of 5 stars

Remember, you can read past reviews archived at: www.kevinlucia.net/kevinskorner.

First Friday For August: Rock Star 2: Full Tilt

2006-07-26T03:44:00.000-07:00

Rock Star 2: Full Tilt
A Novel by Creston Mapes

Black night. Familiar backstreets. Windows down. Cold air. Cruisin’ free. Top of the world.

This was what it was about, baby. Lit on meth and movin’ at what seemed like the speed of light.

Lords of the night.

Over to Fender’s Body Shop on autopilot. Hands drumming on the dash and seats to the beat of the night and the pulse of the blood pounding through their veins.
Down the slope.

Whoa.

Past the dimly lit customer entrance and around back of the shop the Yukon swung and jerked to a stop. One, two, three of them exited the SUV and glided through the gate that was cracked open.

Wesley Lester was last to pass through the high chain-link fence. He slowed to peer at the snow-covered wreckage way out back of the shop, much of which had sat unchanged, like an eerie sculpture, for months beneath a haze of dim yellow lights. Dozens of mangled cars and pickups, SUVs, a hearse, vans, and an old school bus sat like jagged headstones in a haunted cemetery, some piled one on top of the other.

Several hundred yards away, in the vicinity of the far lamppost, David Lester’s black Camaro lay still and sinister. Wesley’s little brother and two teenage friends had perished in that car with David at the wheel. Seventeen years old. Too dang young to die.

After having rushed to the surreal scene of the wreck in nearby White Plains a year ago, Wesley had never ventured back to reexamine the remnants of his little brother’s car—or the totaled Chrysler that carried an elderly couple from Scarsdale, also pronounced dead at the scene.

On the way toward the huge body shop, Wesley shivered at the chill of the New York winter—a feeling his little brother would never experience again. Grinding his teeth, Wesley ran several yards, bashing the already dented door of a white Beamer. Spinning away, he welcomed the sense of release, thrust his dead brother out of his jumpy mind, and followed the others.
Brubaker led the way through the employee entrance, slamming open the heavy steel door against the outside of the fabricated beige metal building. "Ah, smell that?" he said, not looking back. "Good ol’ Bondo. Be high all day if you worked in here."

Wesley cruised in last, leaving the door wide open and purposefully taking a giant whiff of the pungent air that reeked of metal and plastic dust.

Like mice, the three figures zigzagged through a maze of half-repaired vehicles toward an area that glowed white, back in the far corner of the building.

As they drew closer to the dancing light and long shadows, hard-driving music mixed with the static sound of a welder. A dark blue ’65 Mustang sat up on a hydraulic lift, and beneath it—behind a welding hood—stood Tony Badino.

Brubaker and Wesley came to a standstill, fascinated by the sparks that rained down on Tony’s dirty, charcoal coveralls and scuffed brown work boots; the kid stopped between them, equally entranced.

Tony must have seen them but went on welding like a macho man, his brawny legs braced apart, tool belt hanging low around his lean waist, broad shoulders and triceps locked in place as he hoisted the blazing welder.

Brubaker was like a four-year-old. Constant motion. Bobbing his head, singing unintelligibly, rubbing his face and arms, and repeatedly peering back toward the door and out the dirty windows. His paranoia was enough to make anybody start seeing things. The kid in the middle watched spellbound as Tony melded metal to metal.

In the scalding flame, Wesley remembered his brother, curly haired and anxious, slapping a twenty-dollar bill into his hand for a teener—one-sixteenth of an ounce of some of the best crank Wesley had ever come across. Then he flashed back to David’s demolished Camaro hours later—what was left of the engine, parts of the car scattered along Post Road, still smoking.

Once again Wesley was slapped in the face by the fact that he was the one who had poisoned his brother’s bloodstream the day he drove to his death.

No. No. No!

It wasn’t the meth that killed his brother. It was the years of Everett Lester’s tainted music that had contaminated David’s mind. It was Everett’s empty promises and repeated letdowns that had sent David longing for the grave and a so-called better life on the Other Side. And Everett would burn for it; uncle or no uncle, he would pay. Because Wesley was hearing the voice again.

Wesley actually jerked when Tony snapped back the flame, lowered the welder in his right hand, and flipped the dark visor up with the other.

"Boys." He eyed the dazed kid in the middle.

"This is the dude we told you about, from Yonkers," Brubaker yelled proudly above the music, rubbing at the insides of his elbows with his wrists. "Needs an ounce."
Tony extinguished the pilot on the welder, lowered it to the concrete floor by its cord, then walked over to the stereo and turned it off.

"Slow down, Brubaker." Tony shook off his big, stiff gloves and removed the hood to reveal a tough face with small, pronounced features and a glistening scalp covered only by what looked like about two weeks’ worth of brown hair.

Reaching inside the front waist pocket of his coveralls, Tony pulled out a silver Zippo and a pack of Marlboros. Tapping one out, he stuffed it in the side of his little mouth and lit it with a grimy hand. As he took a long drag and snatched the cigarette away with his left hand, Wesley noticed a small tattoo of an upside-down cross on the inside of his wrist.

Tony was one creepy dude. Knew what he wanted. Had kind of a fiendish aura about him. People were naturally scared of the guy. Maybe that’s why Wesley liked running with Tony, because it was risky and unpredictable. That gave him a rush. And it didn’t hurt that Tony always had the best jenny crank on the street.

Grabbing a hanger light from the frame of the Mustang, Tony walked beneath his work, inspecting the length of the exhaust system.

"How do you know Lester and Brubaker?" He tapped the muffler, cig in hand.

"Uh…a friend introduced me to Wesley at a party," the middle kid said.

"When?"

"Last week."

"And Brubaker?"

"Met him a couple nights later."

"Been tweekin’?"

"Uh…when do you mean?" The kid’s eyes darted to Bru then Wesley.

"Tonight." Tony stopped and stared at him.

"Earlier today," Wesley interrupted. "Couple teeners."

Tony went back to inspecting his work. "That same stuff from the other day?"

"Yeah. Finished it off." Wesley coughed, feeling somewhat like a raw recruit reporting for duty

before some high-ranking officer.

"This new cristy blows that stuff away." Tony glanced at the three visitors, his right eye
twitching. "Just in from Pennsylvania. Keep you amped for days. I’ve been workin’ nonstop
since yesterday—goin’ on, what? Thirty-five hours?"

Brubaker and the stranger nodded, swayed, and laughed. Wesley simply stared, promising himself he wouldn’t bow down to the grease monkey like everybody else.

"So you need an ounce." Tony held the light up close to the tailpipe.

"Yep," piped up the kid in the middle.

"Good old Wesley Lester. I can always count on him to bring me the finest clientele." Tony nodded toward Wesley. "Do you know who this guy is? Who brought you here tonight?"

The kid stared at Tony with hollowed eyes and shrugged.

"This is the great Everett Lester’s nephew. Bet you didn’t know that."

What the heck?

The kid turned to Wesley. "No way."

"Straight," said Tony. "You’re in the presence of the bloodline of one of rock ’n’ roll’s greatest
legends."

"Dude," the kid exclaimed, "I saw one of their very last shows—at The Meadowlands. They played three and a half hours, at least."

"With Aerosmith," Tony chimed in. "I was there. Wesley was supposed to be there backstage, but Uncle Everett stood him up."

"That’s cold," Brubaker mumbled.

Silently, expressionlessly, Wesley agreed.

Tony smirked at Bru, but it went right over the head of the kid in the middle.

"I lived and breathed DeathStroke," the kid said. "Lester was so stoned out of his mind that last show, he could barely stand by the end. But they jammed their hearts out."

"And now he’s a Jesus freak." Tony’s eyes shifted to meet Wesley’s, but his head didn’t move.
Wesley met his glance without flinching. His nostrils flared and his temper cranked up like the flame on the welder. He searched Tony’s face for the reason he would be trying to push Wesley’s buttons.

The kid in the middle picked up on the friction.

Tony smirked, knelt down, and began banging his tools into the drawers of a tall red metal toolbox on wheels.

"What’s he like, anyway?" the kid barged ahead. "Everett Lester, I mean…"

Brubaker looked uneasy, twisting and bouncing slightly on his toes.

"He’s a loser, okay?" Wesley snapped, walking over to a workbench cluttered with jars of nuts and bolts and old tools. "Dude’s a lyin’ hypocrite. Dang waste of breath!"

"Where does he live?" the kid asked. "Does he still have a place in Manhattan?"
Wesley’s back was to the others. He fingered the tools without a word. I wonder if he’d shut up if I heaved this jar of bolts at his head.

Brubaker ran interference. "He has a farm near Bedford and a place in Kansas—where his wife’s from."

"Oh yeah, that chick who converted him," the kid said.

Tony slammed the middle drawer closed.

"That was some story. I heard she wrote to him ever since she was like a teenager—Jesus this and Jesus that. And finally it stuck…can you believe that? The guy went off the deep end!"
Tony stood, banging another drawer shut. "Some people hit you over the head again and again with that Jesus hype till you’re brainwashed. Seen it happen."

"Well, look at the guy," the kid said. "I mean…he’s changed! I saw him and his wife on Larry King Live and he, I mean, it’s like he’s a different person—"

"Let’s do this deal!" With three long strides and a commanding kick, Wesley booted a large piece of scrap metal twenty feet across the dusty white floor.

The corners of Tony’s mouth curved up into a quick smile as he raised an eyebrow at the kid in the middle, stomped out his cigarette, and walked over to an old white sink. Pushing up his sleeves, he rinsed his hands and squeezed a glob of gray goop into his palm from a bright orange bottle.

"You got the cash?" he asked the kid above the running water.

"Yeah, yeah." The kid dug almost frantically into his front pocket and pulled out a clump of folded bills.

"Count it, Wes," Tony ordered, still washing.

Wesley hesitated before snatching the wad and rifling quickly through the bills. "Fifteen hundred. It’s here."

Tony dried his hands with a dirty towel, wiped his face with it, and looked at himself in the smudged mirror above the sink. Then he found the kid’s reflection in the mirror. "You don’t know where this devil dust came from."

"Oh…d-definitely n-not." He smiled anxiously. "I don’t even know you. We never met, as far as I’m concerned. Nope. Never met."

Tony dropped the towel on the edge of the sink and walked to the tool chest. Lifting the top, he pulled out a Tech .22 assault pistol with his right hand and a good-sized bag of off-white, crystal-like powder with the other. Turning, he tossed the bag to the kid, who fumbled it awkwardly but mangled it at the last second before it escaped his hands. Embarrassing.

"You hear about the body that turned up in Canarsie other day? In the scrap yard?" Tony approached the kid, whose forehead was glistening with sweat.

Here we go. Wesley wished Tony hadn’t picked up the gun but, at the same time, found it strangely exciting.

"Uh…no." The kid eyed the piece. "No, I missed that."

"Well, don’t miss what I’m telling you." Tony’s voice grew vicious as he neared the kid’s face.
"That guy had it comin’, okay? I know that for a fact."

The kid’s mouth was wide open, big eyes flashing, cheeks red as radishes.

"He was blabbin’ about where he got his rocket fuel."

"Listen, I…"

But before the kid could eke out another word, Tony lifted the modified Tech .22 sideways, shoulder-high, squinted, and blasted six rounds across the base of the metal wall beneath the workbench with one squeeze of the trigger.

Brubaker floundered back four feet as the smell of gunpowder hung in the air and the rattle of gunfire echoed in their ears.

The kid’s red face went ash white, and he looked as if he might lose his dinner.

Wesley kept a stone face, not wanting to show a trace of the fear that was making his hands shake.

"You know how many twenty-twos this mag carries?" Tony grabbed the fat magazine with his free hand.

The kid jerked his head in one rapid no.

"Twenty. And I got it rigged so I pull the trigger once and the thing can unload. You understand?"

The kid opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

"Word on the street is, the dude in Canarsie was a rat-squealing tell-all." Tony lightly tossed the Tech .22 in his right hand. "He got himself whacked for blabbing."

"Oh…don’t worry—"

"And the same will happen to you if you tell one soul where you got that cristy, you read?"

"Oh, hey, I read, I read. I’m not about to—"

"Now beat it!" Tony hoisted the weapon up to his shoulder and the kid scrambled an about-face, practically sprinting for the door with a blubbering Brubaker right on his heels.
Badino’s dark eyes locked in on Wesley, followed by the cock of his head and a smirk. "He ain’t gonna do no talkin’, now is he, Wes?"

Wesley watched the two figures scurry into the darkness. "No, I don’t believe so."

As Tony banged the Tech .22 back into the toolbox, two things occurred to Wesley: 1) He would love to see the bullets from that weapon rip through Everett Lester’s sickening, superspiritual flesh, and 2) if you ever wanted to commit a murder, Tony Badino was probably a very good person to know.

************************************

Excerpted from Full Tilt © 2006 by Creston Mapes, Inc. Used by permission of Multnomah Publishers, Inc. Excerpt may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of Multnomah Publishers, Inc.

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

FULL TILT

published by Multnomah Publishers, Inc.

Published in association with the literary agency of Mark Sweeney & Associates, 28540 Altessa Way, Bonita Springs, Florida 34135© 2006 by Creston Mapes, Inc. International Standard Book Number: 1-59052-506-X Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from:New American Standard BibleÒ Ó 1960, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Other Scripture quotations are from:The Living Bible (tlb)Ó 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.All rights reserved. Multnomah is a trademark of Multnomah Publishers, Inc., and is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The colophon is a trademark of Multnomah Publishers, Inc. rinted in the United States of America
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission. For information:

MULTNOMAH PUBLISHERS, INC.601 N. LARCH STREETSISTERS, OREGON 97759

Conviction, by Skylar Burris

2006-07-23T19:39:00.000-07:00

If you’re looking for something literary and are frustrated with the over-easy reading books of the twentieth century - you know the ones – three hundred page hardcover volumes that cost over $20 even though the font size is close to 14, most of the paragraphs are only a sentence or two long, and they last about a day or so, then Convictions, by Skylar Burris, could be just the thing to give your “little gray cells”, (Hercule Poirot – Agatha Christie), the workout they so truly deserve this summer.

For those of you who actually liked The Left Behind series…perhaps not.

In any case, Convictions is a well-written tale told in the classic style of writing, hearkening back to the good old days of the Bronte Sisters, Johnathon Swift, and James Joyce.

A sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, it is much more than a writer playing off of the groundwork of another. I myself have never read Pride & Prejudice, (I think a fraternity was having a dunking booth fund raiser on campus that day and I skipped class), but the novel stands well by itself – reading its prior is not necessary for enjoying this clever tale.

Burris has certainly done her homework on the historical and literary elements of the period, and she falls into the footsteps of the time-period’s style of writing well, without parroting Austen’s style. The reader is presented with great balls and ceremonies, flouncing ladies looking to snag a man and a tidy inheritance, scheming suitors looking for a bride to be, and amongst them, hearts yearning for true love in only the way Romantic characters, (that’s capital ‘R’ for the literary time period; not as in Harlequin), truly can.

One thing Burris did an excellent job on is the crafting of the disinherited Jacob Markwood, the new vicar in town. She’s done a neat trick here: playing with elements of faith and Christianity without them being visible, obvious plot ‘props’, which is something many Christian novels often fall prey to. However, be sure to note: though the story explores elements of faith and morality, it does so from the perspective of the common human being as they go about their lives, and does not present a didactic “moral of the story” at the end.

As a reader, you will empathize with poor Jacob as he struggles with his growing attraction to the already engaged Georgiana Darcy, (whatever is a man of God to do about such things?), you’ll groan at the antics of Kitty Bennett and Niles Davidson, and sigh in contentment as everything works out all right in the end. Sometimes, that can be a very typecast ending, but in this novel it is the most logical and satisfying conclusion. Good thing Burris didn’t pull a fast one like many of the Romantic Period writers and have Miss Darcy catch a fever and die of pnemonia in the last chapter!

The pace of the novel takes its time, and though for the more attenion-challenged this might be frustrating, it is the only way to tell this tale and be true to the period from which it is inspired. This is a novel about the human experience, emotions, hopes, dreams, and lives that cross and intermingle in the most unexpected ways. To speed up the narrative would do the novel a great disservice.

In the end, the only thing that a reader should be cautioned about is the same thing I began with: this is not one of this ‘read during the commercials’ type of book. If you choose to pick up a copy of Convictions, make sure you block out the time necessary to enjoy it to its fullest.

Sklyar Burris is a free-lance editor, and used copies of Convictions may be purchased online at Amazon.com, however the novel will be re-released by the end of the summer in a new edition. For more information, visit the author’s website: http://www.editorskylar.com/

4 out of 5 stars

Angelos, by Robina Williams

2006-07-19T20:51:00.000-07:00

Looking for an imaginative tale blending elements of classical Greek history and mythology with contemporary matters of faith and spirituality? Perhaps you’re seeking an alternative to the Harry Potter craze for your older teenagers, or something just a bit more cerebral than The Chronicles of Narnia for yourself. If so, perhaps Angelos, by United Kingdom author Robina Williams, could possibly fill a spot on this summer’s reading list.

Angelos follows the dimension-hopping, reality bending adventures of Quant the cat, a furry feline with a penchant for sarcastic non-sequeters and a metaphysical out-look on existence that would bend the minds of even the most non-linear folks. From the shores of Crete to the hallowed halls of a friary full of monks in the countryside, Angelos is a pleasing little romp through the annals of both classical Greek mythology and the history of the Franciscan Order.

Williams takes these classics of Greek literature and puts her own spin on them, creating amusing caricatures that are cheeky, whimsical fun to read: the Minotaur, a self-conscious, humble fellow who’d rather be a vegetarian than eat poor Athenians, (of whom he abhors the taste), and Deiphobe, Sibyl of Cumae, an oracle who gets her clairvoyance from inhaling Ethyalene gasses and chewing on laurel leaves rather than mystical powers, are only two examples of characters re-cast in different, tongue-in-cheek portrayals.

Angelos is written in a conversational, easy to read style, and if it weren’t for a few minor “adult-oriented” topics of conversation pursued by some of the characters, this novel would be a good fit for adolescents, especially in the user-friendly way it acquaints readers with classical Greek lore. However, because of those relatively minor and one-time instances mentioned in passing and not endorsed in any way, Angelos should be relegated to elder teenage readers and above.

A positive point about the novel is the quantum cat himself, Quant. With all the ‘cat-related’ mythical archetypes already in use in books and movies, (one really BIG cat in particular that we all know and love), his character could have easily come off as one-dimensional and typecast, but Quant by far is the most intriguing character in the story. In fact, the novel would have been served better by focusing more on Quant himself, and a little less on the inner dynamics of the friary, which at times seemed distracting and superfluous.

There are two things for readers to note about Angelos. Firstly, it is the sequel to another book, Jerome & the Seraph. Angelos is not a direct narrative continuation of that novel, but it is recommended that Jerome & the Seraph be read first to help familiarize with the world of the friary and Quant’s main “side-kick” – for lack of a better term – the ghost of the dearly departed Brother Jerome.

Secondly, the narrative delves into the nature of metaphysics, reality, and the flow of time, so it can get tricky to follow at times. Readers may get distracted by some of the diverging plotlines and Quant’s oftentimes metaphysical obtuseness.

Angelos is a laid-back read, and the narrative flow does seem to dawdle in places. There is no clear antagonist or protagonist, and the story is less about conflict between two sides, and more about a journey in the pursuit of understanding. It might be considered a little slow for action lovers; however introspective readers will find it amusing, as well as thought provoking about the nature of myths and the truths in history that may have given rise to them in the first place.
Very reminiscent of Stephen Lawhead’s Christian works, (Pendragon, Byzantium), and like many works following a new trend in the Christian fiction market, Angelos is not an evangelizing story bolstered by certain required Biblical truths along the way, ending with the required, proscribed conversion at the end. It must be read with this in mind: it is not promoting or endorsing anything, merely telling a story and asking the eternal question all writers encounter at some point in their own narrative journeys: what if?

Angelos is published by Paladin Timeless Books, an imprint of Twilight Times Books. Jerome & Seraph, Angelos, and other books published by Twilight can be purchased at Barnes & Noble Online, Borders Online, and Amazon.com, as well as from the publisher’s website, which is: http://www.twilighttimesbooks.com/. Visit the author’s website at www.robinawilliams.com.

3 stars out of 5

Chapter Excerpt of the sequel to Peter Dudek's Shadows in Woodend: Crimson Light

2006-07-08T19:54:00.000-07:00

Saturday, July 08, 2006
Crimson Light Unleashed!

Since it's going to be quite some time before I can get the Arvalast series in it's final form (at least book 1 and 2), I'm going to begin posting one chapter of the sequel to Shadows in Woodend - "Crimson Light" - each week. It is nearly in its final form, and I hope those who have read and liked Shadows in Woodend will enjoy it. I apologize; the chapters are relatively long and may take some time to read. But feel free to print them out and read them on paper at your leisure. I just want people to be able to get a glimpse of where I'm taking the series.
During the "unveiling", I will be offering prizes to various people based on questions from the books. I'll keep you all updated on this. Please, if you like the books, point your friends to this blog for the next 27 weeks (that's how many chapters there are) and let them know what you think.

The first prize I'm planning on offering is a free copy of Shadows in Woodend. I plan to post the question next week.

Here is the first chapter. Remember, it's not in its final, final form, but it's certainly getting close.
In case you forgot, at the end of book 1, Woodend fell into a riot, and Tarin, Sarky and Dibbs were kidnapped by strange, red-cloaked creatures. Now, the adventure continues in the sequel - Crimson Light. Enjoy!

Chapter I
After the Riot

Gildareth knew what would transpire before he came to town. Gazing around at the chaos did nothing to alleviate his heavy heart. For a moment, he wished to be like the townsfolk—oblivious to the dangerous tide seeping ever closer to the walls of Woodend, a tide so powerful that all memory of the riot would quail in comparison.

Townsfolk continued to pour into the main road from the numerous alleys and side streets acting as the road’s tributaries. Women and children frantically scanned the scene, their screams of grief signaling that the lifeless face of another beloved husband, or father, or friend had been recognized. One young woman escaped the crowd and ran to the tall guard who had been the first victim of the outbreak. She collapsed onto his body and wept, but he was unable to answer her desperate pleading to awaken.

Gildareth watched her weep, wishing he could take away her pain, wishing Arvalast was not cursed with the violence of Wrathar and the consequences of his rebellion. Anger and sadness converged within him, burning him. A hot tear slid down his face. As it hit the ground, a little girl blindly ran into him.

“Uncle Bill!” she called. “Where are you!” She noticed the man in front of her. “Please sir, have you seen my uncle?” Sorrowfully, Gildareth directed her gaze to the other side of the street where Clooney stooped beside a once sturdy man. She froze and began to tremble.

The fire within him grew hotter still. Gildareth knelt beside the poor child and pulled her into his arms. “Shhh … it is okay, little one.”

“He … he’s dead! Those men … they killed him!” She exploded in tears and collapsed into Gildareth’s chest. “Today was his birthday. Why— Why on his birthday?” In her hand, she held a little wooden dog. Gildareth took the little animal from her and looked it over intently.

“This is quite beautiful. Did you make it yourself?”

She choked back more tears and nodded.

He slowly turned it, carefully evaluating each cut and groove. “I think even the King Himself would be honored to receive such a magnificent gift. Why, it must have taken you days to complete this!”

Her eyes twinkled behind two tiny lakes of sorrow. “Do you think Uncle Bill would have liked it?”

“I most certainly do! And do you know what else I think?”

“What’s that?”

“I think your uncle’s friend over there might need a little present himself. He looks terribly sad.”

And indeed, he did. The grief-stricken man was hunched over Bill’s crumpled body, rubbing his face with both hands and peering at the sky as if a reason for his loss might rain down from the depths of the clouds.

The child looked at the wooden animal, then at Clooney. Timidly, she approached him and tapped his shoulder. He shifted his gaze down to her and immediately turned as red as a cherry.
“I’m so, so sorry about … your uncle,” he said. “I didn’t know another of ’em ruffians was still there. I could have saved him, but I just didn’t know.”

Ignoring his words, she handed him her uncle’s gift. He gingerly took it from her tiny hand and smiled. “It’s beautiful. Was it for him?”

She nodded.

“And now yer giving it to me?”

Another nod.

With his finger, he carefully wiped a tear from her cheek. “I love it, but I can’t be takin’ no birthday present from ol’ Bill, now can I?” He reached for Bill’s stiffened hand and opened it, then placed his niece’s gift within. “He loves it, don’t he?”

In the distance, Gildareth smiled.

Hamlin was lost in the midst of a mob of sobbing women and children, along with angry men busily discussing plans to find the ruffians who’d started the riot and feed them to their dogs. A few others were whispering about the governor’s sudden disappearance from the scene.
He desperately wanted to find Sarky, yet was too tired and scratched up from his fight with the kidnappers to even begin formulating a plan. That’s when he felt a heavy tap on his shoulder. He turned around and saw a large man.

“You said three were taken, gatekeeper. Who was the third? Did you remember what he looked like?”

Hamlin said nothing. His mind was still spinning so fast he hadn’t yet realized the man was talking to him.

“Speak, gatekeeper! Who was the third?”

Hamlin came to with a start. “It was another boy!”

“Describe him.”

He rubbed his forehead in an attempt to collect his thoughts and regain his composure. “After the one carrying Sarky and Dibbs slashed at my face and knocked me over, another ran by. He carried a lad who was unconscious – skinny with sandy blonde hair. Looked about fifteen.”

The man grimaced. “Tarin. Tarin is the third boy.”

“Yes, that’s right. I remember now. It was that shy lad that lurks about the town at night. Sarky’s talked about him before. Tarin he called him – and you’re his father, Kandis, aren’t you?”

“You said they went into the woods. How long ago?”

Hamlin closed his eyes and tried to remember, though the distant rumbling of thunder made it hard. As he thought, it began to rain, then pour. Even the heavens seemed to be weeping over Woodend’s plight.

The water began to soak through Kandis’ cloths making him even more impatient. “Well, how long ago did they enter the forest?”

Hamlin shivered. “It wasn’t long ago. Certainly less than an hour. Wait a moment! Are you considering going after them?”

But Kandis had already brandished his axes and gone charging south.

“Wait! I’m coming too!” He looked around for something to use as a weapon. A flash of lightening revealed a nearby slab of wood. He grabbed it up and followed the lumberjack, the thought of clubbing the beastly kidnappers and saving his son fueling him in the midst of his pain.

Soon they reached the gate. Kandis knelt and began searching for tracks. Beyond the clouds, the sun had nearly set, stripping the forest of its few remaining provisions of light. Hamlin gazed into the trees, but could not see far. A moist breeze blew from the east, upsetting whatever gray hair was not already unruffled on his head, and bringing with it the cool scent of leaves and moss.

He began to approach Kandis and was instantly greeted with the broad, calloused palm of a hand. “Don’t move. You’ll ruin the remaining tracks.”

“Why do we need tracks? Didn’t the beasts just travel south along the road?”

“Do you honestly think they would simply stroll down the road with stolen children?”
Hamlin had no response.

“Of course they wouldn’t. They'd be spotted too easily. Although, with those red cloaks you mentioned, they’ll be easy enough to spot once we catch up to them, even in the dark. That is, if your memory hasn’t botched that little observation.”

“They were wearing them all right! But I wouldn’t be too hasty in thinking everything’ll be well when we catch up with them. They had claws, in case you forgot, and not like the nails you and me got on our fingers. These things were animal-like, and sharp. Look what they did to me! Look at all these scratches! But don’t get me wrong. I want to club them as much as you do. We just got to be cautious. I want to save my boy without dying in the process.”

“As do I.” He saw some imprints in the ground and jolted upright. “Aha! I’ve found their trail. Let’s go.”

“Wait, shouldn’t we get some torches? It’s going to be pitch black in the forest.”

“I’ve been a woodsman for many years, and I know the forest better than I know all the alleys and roads in Woodend. I won’t get lost, even in the dark. And besides, if we carry torches we won’t be able to sneak up on our enemies.”

“Well, lead on then.”

Kandis bounded into the trees, speeding through the foliage with barely a sound. Hamlin followed clumsily after him, and immediately stepped into a pile of twigs.

“Shhh,” came a whisper from ahead of him.

"Sure, treat me lousily because I’m not a great woodsman,” Hamlin muttered. “Great woodsman, idiot – what’s the difference? Lumberjack’s are a pain...ahhhh!” Hamlin face was completely encased in an abnormally large spider web. He frantically began trying to pull it off, but it only made it more determined to stay right where it was.

“Be quiet back there!”

“Shut up! I got spiders crawling all over me – blahh!” he shivered.

“I doubt they’ll harm you, gatekeeper, though I wouldn’t weep if they did.”

“My name’s Hamlin, and I’d appreciate it if you’d called me that. And watch your attitude with me. I know your upset, but don’t forget, my son’s gone too.”

Kandis sighed gently. “I’m sorry Hamlin, it’s just – my son’s been kidnapped; the town’s in an uproar; it seems the whole world’s gone mad. And I can’t help to wonder where the King is in all of this.”

Hamlin allowed a brief pause. “So, you’re one of those King followers, eh?”

“Yes, I’m a servant of the King, if that’s what you mean.”

“Do you have one of those…Illuminas?”

“Yes. It’s in my pocket.”

“Did you ever give it up, I mean, during Bolard’s Royal Decree?”

“Of course not!”

“Did Bolard punish you?”

Kandis silently continued through the forest. “Yes,” he finally responded. “I was jailed and my family treated very coldly. All our friends turned against us. Some still don’t speak to us. My son took it hardest. We have some new friends now, all of us; that is, except for him.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Tarin has always been a very timid boy. I don’t know why; I guess he was just born that way. And things just keep getting worse for him. He was hurt so badly last night, though I don’t fully understand how or by what.

Forgetting to remain stealthy, Kandis pulled out his axe and started smashing his way through a group of thickets standing guard in front of him.

Hamlin placed a hand on his burly shoulder. “Don’t worry, friend. We’re going to save your boy, along with Sarky and Dibb’s. And if we’re lucky, maybe that King of yours will help us.”
Kandis stopped swinging. “Your right.” He pulled out his illumina. It glowed gently in the night, just barely illuminating the surrounding trees.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m asking my King for help. You’re welcome to join me if you like.”

“I…I really don’t know. Maybe you should just do it.”

“Come on gatekeeper, it’s for your son.”

“It’s been a really long time.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Fine, I’ll do it, but only because of Sarky.”

Together, the two men began beseeching the King’s aid, Kandis more than Hamlin. But if the
King would help them, they would ask, no matter how silly it might appear.

The illumina grew gently brighter as they made their petitions, but as if it knew secrecy was necessary, it kept its glow to a minimum. Only the raccoons and night owls noticed it at all, and perhaps a King.

© Peter Dudek

Superman Returns - so what if it's not a book!

2006-07-05T18:14:00.000-07:00

“Man of Steel” Review
by Kevin Lucia

Like the undying, loyal Spidey fans before Toby Macguire became everyone’s “friendly neighborhood Spider-man”, Superman fans the world over have had to wait patiently, often despairingly for Krypton’s last son to once again explode onto the big screen accompanied by John Williams’ trademark Superman music. Though their “Man of Tomorrow” thirst was held at bay by a slew of television shows; several well-done cartoon incarnations, the adequate Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and the groundbreaking new mythology Smallville, their hunger never abated as they waited breathlessly for Christopher Reeve’s heir. They were patient through an endless slew of casting calls that rumored everyone from David Boreanz, (Angel, Bones) to Heath Ledger (A Knight’s Tale, The Patriot), and certainly breathed a big sigh of relief when the Timothy Burton (Batman) and Nicolas Cage (The Rock, Face/Off) ship passed. Don’t get me wrong, Nick is absolutely perfect for Marvel’s next big screen dash, Ghostrider - he is a promising cast for Johnny Blaze. But Supes? Sorry.

Finally, when Brian Singer (X-men, X-men 2) signed on, Superman fans breathed a big sigh of relief.

However, trouble was on the horizon. Were they over-budget? Brandon who? And what’s up with that cod-piece?

Look, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s….a flop?

As all movie goers got the chance to see this past week, that was hardly the case. Although not quite the resounding success of another rejuvenated series, Batman Begins, (to steal a phrase from Connor Mcloud - there can be only ONE Batman, and he is Christian Bale), Superman Returns was a solid return to the box office. Even if he needs a little work on his Superman - which is debatable - Routh nails Clark Kent much better than I ever felt Reeves did, taking a bumbling moron and transforming him into a well-intentioned, kind if somewhat nice guy who often gets over looked (Although, the determined face he makes when his glasses fall off and he’s on the verge of revealing himself to Lois was so reminiscent of the late Christopher Reeve, it was kind of spooky).

Kevin Spacey was good as Lex Luthor, but he caters more to the Gene Hackman school of the character - a con man, certainly amoral and therefore a menace, but really in it for a quick buck. I truly hope Warner Bros gives the Smallville cast a shot at big screen fame, I personally feel the Michael Rosenbaum Luthor to be far more evil and malicious.

There are enough twists and virtual plot bombs - sorry, you can’t twist the arm of this reviewer - to make watching the movie a worthwhile experience. That, and as someone who was never a personal fan of Margot Kidder, (sorry Margot - Terri Hatcher you’re not), I liked Kate Bosworth’s Lois Lane.

The only downside of the movie was Luthor’s master plot. It wasn’t bad, and the resulting Christ imagery of a kryptonite-weakened Superman getting beaten down and kicked as if he was on the way to Golgotha was moving and actually quite a daring move by Singer, but it was just a money-making scheme. I would have liked it a little better had there been something a little bigger as the big, bad plot in the movie. Oh well, rumor has it the next movie is going to examine the groundbreaking Doomsday and Death of Superman comic book line, and THAT is a breathtaking thought...as long as they don’t hire Ang Lee to direct and have the “Comish” play Doomsday in a big rubber suit.

Can anyone say “Hulk Smash?”

A final note for all you gals: wives and significant others who equate superhero movies with testosterone and men in tights, (look….is that Carey Elwes?), Singer has been quoted as calling this movie a chick flick, and it really is. It has a surprising emotional depth lacking in most comic book movies, with the exception of the Spider-man series.

Final Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Kevin Lucia is a book review columnist for The Baptist Voice. His reviews and short fiction have appeared in Millennium Science Fiction Magazine and The Colesville Carrier. Kevin currently works as a middle school English & Literature teacher at St. John the Evangelist School in Binghamton, NY.

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Brandilyn Collins First Friday Notice

2006-07-03T20:22:00.000-07:00

Here is something really different. But really cool. Author (and blogger) Brandilyn Collins has written a novel that comes out in August called Violet Dawn. It is part of a new series she has started called the Kanner Lake Series. She sent out Advance Reader Copies to those who requested them and asked them to choose a character that they liked. Then she asked the readers to send her a make believe post from the character for a make believe blog by the 'Kanner Lake' make believe residents. This is going to be an actual blog full of ficticious bloggers written by real bloggers who liked Violet Dawn. Confusing? Well, it begins today, July 5th! Go check it out by pressing the button for Java Joint!

FIRST Day, July 1st -

2006-07-01T09:50:00.000-07:00

It is July 1st, time for the FIRST Day Blog Tour! (Join our alliance! Click the button!) The FIRST day of every month we will feature an author and their latest book's FIRST chapter!

This month's feature author is: Marilynn Griffith.

Marilynn Griffith is a freelance writer and conference speaker whose online columns reach over 20,000 women each month. Her recent writing credits include Pink(Shades of Style #1), Made of Honor, Chicken Soup for the Christian Woman's Soul, Proverbs for the People, and For Better or for Worse. She is also a blogger! Visit her Rhythms of Grace blog and learn ever so much! Marilynn lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with her husband and children.Her latest book, Jade (Shades of Style #2), just came out and she has agreed to be our July feature author for the FIRST Day Blog tour.Having the perfect life isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Designer Lily Chau doesn't know if she's finally got it together or if life is starting to unravel. With a successful boyfriend and a great job at up-and-coming fashion house Garments of Praise, it seems she has the perfect pattern for success. But her mother's health is failing, her boyfriend just won't pop the question, and being a pattern maker is a far cry from having a clothing line of her own. Lily is sure her hands are just too full to draw her deepest dreams.Raya and Chenille, Lily's pals at Garments of Praise offer plenty of advice and sympathy. Jean, Lily's co-worker and second Mom even goes behind Lily's back to boost her chances of success. When she's chosen for the reality show The Next Design Diva, it seems like the chance of a lifetime for Lily. But the mysterious designer chosen to mentor her sends her spinning. He's fresh, fine—and way off limits. Suddenly Lily's life goes from carefully patterned to nothing but a tangle of threads.

Praise for the Shades of Style series:"Griffith's ...Shades of Style series features four women in the fashion industry: Raya, Chenille, Lily, and Jean. The women fight to save their struggling business and learn some important lessons about people, life, and faith."— Library Journal
“The …Shades of Style series combines multicultural characters with heartache, drama, humor, and romance.”—Charisma Magazine

Read the FIRST chapter!PROLOGUE

The envelope held Lily Chau’s future. She held a letter opener, stabbing under her nails for the remnants of her past. Skimming under the nail of her ring finger, she snagged what she’d been going for, a hunk of prunes caught under her nail last week during the chop and puree fest once known as her mother’s breakfast. A breakfast that her mother had returned as quickly as Lily had spooned it all in, leaving Lily standing in a puddle in her best shoes.

“Jump in the shower. Grab the black pants. Your wrap blouse is clean. I saw it the other day,” her neighbor Pinkie had said, arms going in every direction. “You don’t know how to feed her, Lily. You should have waited for me.”

Lily had tried to wait, but her mother wasn’t in a waiting mood today. The guilt over leaving her mother hungry with their neighbor had sent her into a chopping blending frenzy that ended as such things usually did, seeping into her shoes and staining her best skirt. But that was okay. She’d put a barrette in her mother’s hair and fed her breakfast. Where God chose to store that breakfast was up to Him.

Though Lily was known around the office for her eclectic and exciting personal style, the pants she wore now were turning into her work uniform. But her mother was still alive, her boyfriend was still dropping hints about their inevitable wedding and she grew closer to God each day. Things were good, with hopes of getting better. Becoming stable.

So why was she holding the letter opener in both hands? Lily poked the point of it into the envelope, tracing the letters in the return address: The Next Design Diva Show, Nia Network. Lily slipped the blade into the envelope’s back flap then slid her finger against the instrument’s edge. She pulled upward slightly, ripping the corner and . . .

“Are you sleeping in here?” A husky voice laced with laughter echoed in the hall before its speaker reached Lily’s office. Jean believed in giving people warnings of her impending arrival, even her friends. For everyone but Lily, the announcement was usually warranted since people tended to find Jean a little intimidating. Lily saw through Jean’s fast moves and loud talk . . . to her heart. She hoped her friend wouldn’t see her through her just as quickly today.

“Can’t you ever stay in your office during the creative hour? We’ve got thirty more minutes. Take a nap why don’t you? Or color in a coloring book like that guy over in production.” Though Lily chided her loving workaholic friend for coming to visit when they were all supposed to be spending time alone to refuel their creativity, the interruption was a gift. For a moment she’d let herself consider something impossible. Something still forked on her letter opener.

Jean whisked into the office just as Lily swept the letter into her desk drawer, where it would accompany her secret copy of Modern Bride and a cigarette she’d found after quitting and hadn’t thrown away.

Lily squirmed under her friend’s withering glance as Jean pushed Lily’s huge fossil doorstep into place. Jean shook her head. “Oh my. Now she’s cramming things into that drawer again. Don’t tell me. You’re peeking at those silly ten dollar wedding books? Or were you dreaming of that picket fence on Long Island with your doctor friend?”

Warmth rushed to Lily’s face. “Neither. You need to stay out of my desk, you nosy thing.”
Jean approached Lily like a lioness in a good suit. A hearty laugh bubbled up from her throat. “Listen, honey, nobody needs to be nosy to know anything around here, especially when you stuff that drawer so full it can’t shut. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to come in here and pick all that mess off the floor since you ran the custodian away from here.”

“Here you go with that again. I told you. I did not run the custodian away. He can still clean in here . . . when I’m around.”

“Uh huh,” Jean shook her head in pity.

“He was stealing my rocks!” Lily banged the letter opener on her desk, wanting to shove it into the drawer too, but now to afraid at what might come flying out if she did.

“Listen to what you just said. Stealing rocks. Now I admit you’ve got some of the best pebble and bauble collections I’ve ever seen, but you’ve got to let it go.” She reached around Lily and yanked out the drawer. The magazine unfurled as if she’d pulled the string on a parachute. Fabric swatches, neon note squares and office supplies spilled over the sides and onto the floor.

Jean stuck her hand toward the back and came out with a pitiful excuse for a Virginia Slim. “You’ve got to let this go too. You haven’t smoked in almost two years. What are you doing, planning a slow suicide some time in the future?”

“I-I-just give me that, okay?” Lily reached for the cigarette and peeled back its skin, emptied the tobacco guts into the trash while trying not get too much of the smell on her fingers. As she considered what she’d really saved up for later, disobeying the voice of God, Lily became much less concerned with Jean and more concerned with her own heart. Sometimes it seemed like she’d come so far, but there still those little secrets she tried to keep, parts of her life she tried to stuff in a drawer. And God kept having to come and pick up the pieces when it spilled over the side.

She grabbed a wet wipe from her purse and scrubbed her hands, only to realize what dangled from Jean’s fingers.

The envelope.

The rumpled magazine had covered it, but as usual Jean had left no stone, or mangled bridal book unturned. She looked as though she’d caught a tiger by the tail.

“So they did pick you! I knew they would. They had to. I told Raya I was going to call her father myself if they didn’t.”

Lily froze. She’d carried the envelope around in her purse for two days wondering why the show had written her. She considered submitting sketches several times, but each time something happened with her mother’s health to make her forget it. There was also the quiet that had come over her every time she’d prayed about it. She felt as though she was suppose to wait and see the salvation of the Lord, that what God had would come to her through another way. Now it seemed that her other way might be from the office down the hall. “What did you do?”

Beads from Jean’s bracelets jangled as she shook her wrists. “Nothing much. I took a few sketches from your book and scanned them. Sent that robe you designed for that stupid boyfriend of yours—”

Lily clenched her fists. “The kimono? That was Ken’s Christmas present. I’ve been looking everywhere for it. How could you?”

Her friend smiled. “Easy. Now hush and open the letter. At least I don’t try and match you up with men. Not that you couldn’t use some help there too . . . Don’t look at me like that. I care about you.”

If this was caring, Lily didn’t want to think of what not caring might feel like. She pried the letter from Jean’s fingers and placed it into the drawer, now empty except for a star-shaped paper clip in neon pink and a pencil with no eraser. Lily’s sketching pencil. She stared up at the ceiling. “Why couldn’t I have regular friends who don’t care about me so much. Goodness, Jean, how could you? I mean sure I’d love to have my own line, my own show, but I can’t—”

“Here we go again. You really should have been a Catholic you, know. You’re a natural at the guilty martyr thing.” Jean dropped into the chair a few inches away. “We’ve been over this a gazillion times. You can do this. None of your excuses hold water, especially your first one, that you’re not good enough. You’re good enough and you have the sense to still question your talent. Good enough for me. As for your mother, she can go wherever you go.”

It was Lily’s turn to laugh this time, though there was little humor in it. “Like the way your grandkids could go wherever you go, Jean?”

Her stoic friend grabbed the desk with a white-knuckled grip. “Okay, you got me. I still think you should open it. Just to know.”

“No thanks,” Lily said, taking the letter from the drawer and ripping it to shreds. “Some things are best left unknown. The things that count though, that people care about you and want the best for you, those are the prizes of life.”

Jean’s jaw tightened as she swept the torn bits of paper into the trash with her cupped hand. “Oh, please. Friendship is great and everything, but this is it! Your shot. And you ripped it up. How could you?”

Lily covered her friend’s hand with her own. “I don’t know, but I did. If it’s mine, God will bring it back . . . at a time when my hands are free enough to hold it.”

From JADE, by Marilynn Griffith, Revell BooksISBN 0800730410, June 2006, Copyright © 2006. All rightsreserved.

TO ORDER JADE (SHADES OF STYLE) PRESS HERE!

Relentless, by Robin Parrish

2006-06-28T14:08:00.000-07:00

We wake up every single day and see the same face in the mirror. Every day, same life, same job, same face. For some, this is a comforting reality - stability, consistency, an anchor securing one's place in the world. It's a reassurance to be able to wake up in the morning and know who we are, and what we're meant to be.

One day, as Colin Boyd is waiting to get on the bus to go to work, he has all of that ripped away as he looks across the street, and unbelievably sees himself, walking to work, ready to start a new day. When Colin frantically whirls to inspect himself in a store window and sees a stranger looking back at him, that sense of identity, of knowing who he was is stripped away, as everything he knows and loves is taken from him. He is now Grant Borrows, a man who is mysteriously wealthy, trained in all sorts of things a normal person knows nothing about, with no past, no present, and no purpose, no identity...and is marked for death.

His only clues to what has happened to him: a mysterious girl with a penchant for showing up and vanishing without a trace, giving him cryptic advice and going around barefoot; a scientist and his assistant involved in a secret government project; several people who apparently want him dead, and the ornate, ancient looking ring on his finger that will not come off, no matter what he does.

Eventually, Colin - now Grant - encounters an enclave of people just like him; people who have been Shifted, and have lost the lives they used to lead, just like him. As Grant digs deeper and deeper into the mystery of what has happened to him, it becomes clear that whatever happens next, it is only the tip of an iceberg of secrets and prophecies, as a foretold destiny hurtles towards Grant - wanted or not. His family was not what it seemed to be, he is frightend by the power that grows within him, and even those who share his fate are uncertain what role he will play in the days to come.

And then there is The Keeper, a mysterious, invisible hand moving around Grant and his fellow life-orphans like chess pieces on a cosmic chessboard. What draconian plan does he have for the world, and why did he create a virtual army of super beings? To defend the world against something horrible...

...or to take it over for himself?

Robin Parrish's first outing is a work of impressive complexity. He blends together multiple plotlines and narratives, laying clues and leads in all the right spots, revealing things in some places, orchestrating surprises around all the right corners, and deftly slipping other things just out of view. The story is rich in detail, and the pacing frenetic. Those who love action will enjoy this read, and it would translate well to the big screen. You can easily imagine Harrison Ford in the role of Grant, running frantically from scene to scene as he did in Frantic or The Fugitive; or even Dennis Quaid playing an unlikely hero who wants nothing more than to be left alone.

However, the pace could slow down a little in some parts and provide some room for more character development. Grant and his fellows have flashes, but while Parrish handles the action sequences and intricate plotting well, he comes up a little short in developing his key characters, in my opinion. Grant switches too easily between wanting to be left alone and raging over what's happened to him, and in some cases the nuances and emotional depth of the characters feels somewhat flat and underdeveloped.

Also a disappointment was the "dirty cop" character, Detective Drexel. Overweight, boorish, loud and overbearing as well as being sold out to the enemy - haven't we seen that too many times before? Better if the detective had been written as cool, calm, determined and moral...
and then play the switcharoo, like Gary Sinise's character in Ransom.

All in all, Relentless is a good, solid read. You'll get caught up in the action and the frenzy, and pulled into trying to decipher what has happened to Grant and just what The Dominion is. This is a creative and imaginative tale; one that should have mainstream appeal. Relentless also marks a bold new direction for Christian fiction; in the tradition of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, this is a complete work of fiction. However, it is edifying for the Christian reader to enjoy, and exciting enough for all to read. He grabs you by the neck at the end with a surprise twist that delivers much promise for its sequel, which will be out sometime summer 2007.

Relentless will hit the shelves of your local bookstores in July. Locally, it can be purchased at Arrowhead Christian Book Store, on Harry L. Drive in Johnson City, New York, as well as Barnes & Noble in Vestal, NY. Visit Robin Parrish's website at: www.robinparrish.com

The Quick, by Dan Vining

2006-06-28T12:39:00.000-07:00

The Quick, by Dan Vining

Jimmy Miles is no ordinary private investigator, but who is, right? It takes a singular personality to roam the streets of L.A. and try to do some small good amidst the moral decay and degradation of a society caring more about its pocket and lusts than for their fellow man, and Jimmy is just such an individual. Of course, it would also take someone who boasts an odd mix of altruism and emotional distance to not become sullied by the easy, care-free temptations so seductive to all humans: lust, envy, greed, vice....

Jimmy has all the emotional distance he can handle; because he's different.

He's something more than human and less, and as he lives an unusual, atypical life, he daily straddles the world of the living and another, shadowy world existing between the shadows of what we call reality and others call the beyond. His unique skills are either a blessing or a curse, but to call him damned or charmed just doesn't quite fit the ticket, as nothing quite "fits the ticket" for Jimmy Miles. He exists somewhere in-between the shadow and the light; this is where he has learned to make a home for himself.

He is a Sailor, and the night is an ocean he knows far, far too well...perhaps too well, for his own tastes, even. However, it’s his life, and he has learned all he can about his unique place in it, making peace with his existence.

The case comes almost too naturally, too easily, and has all the hallmarks of a bad Spencer Tracy movie: a tall, gorgeous husky-voiced brunette who is looking for answers about the death of her parents. She's rich, she's talented, and she wants Jimmy to take her case. It's one of those things that practically scream "stay away", but in the end, Jimmy doesn't, because after all...what else better does he have to do?

However, the deeper he is drawn into the past and the case, more questions are brought up than answers. When other Sailors...who rarely, if ever, have anything to do with Jimmy...start exerting pressure upon him to walk away, Jimmy is thrust into the middle of mystery that hits much closer to home than he ever would have imagined.

In his first outing, novelist Dan Vining has made a successful entry in the world of supernatural noir fiction. The Quick is the perfect blend of eerie, supernatural story-telling and big-city, hard blues detective fiction. The enigma of the Sailors' plight is compelling and intriguing, and he's also satisfied to simply leave some parts of the mystery unexplained, therefore attributing a mythical, spiritual feel to the novel that is applied with just the right touch. Also heartening is the deft with which Vining tells his tale; stylistically his form is short and direct, and unlike some of those who work in cop or detective fiction, the vulgarity is kept at a minimum, making it a good, mainstream read for all.

At times, the plot crawls somewhat, and reader reaction will likely be mixed depending on what specific readers are looking for: this is an introspective, mulling novel, which will appeal to thinkers, but perhaps less so for those fans of pulse-pounding action sequences and
roaring car chases - although this novel boasts a few of those as well.

Some readers may feel that the climax peters out in the end; the resolution of the novel is laid back, and no more light is shed on the mystery of what it means to be a Sailor. Those who want answers may be frustrated by this, but for those who simply enjoy the ride, The Quick is a solid tale. Jimmy Miles has effectively become the new...supernatural...Ellery Queen.

The Quick can be bought in any bookstore, as well as online at Amazon.com, as well as Barnes & Noble. Visit his website at: www.danvining.com.

3 out of 5 stars

The Hidden, by Kathryn Mackel

2006-06-07T16:45:00.000-07:00

Psychiatrist Susan Stone lives in her own private little hell; a cold, lonely place carved out of pain, regret, and a hardening sense of failure. Mistreated by a hard, uncaring mother; her husband Paul stolen from her too early in their marriage by a tumor, and her son Christopher leaving life the way no one should – out an apartment window in Boston – has left her empty and distant. For Susan life is a hard, empty place, devoid of comfort. The only thing anyone can depend upon is oneself; certainly not family, and definitely not God.

However, her father’s riding accident, which sends her rushing out to the family farm in Colorado, (once prime Arabian horse breeding grounds), sets into motion a chain of events forcing Susan to confront the worst things about herself that she’s hidden deep within. The pain of abuse at the hands of her mother. The aching hole in her heart from her son’s suicide. The bitter feelings of loss and failure.

All of these things churn about inside, as Stone becomes embroiled in something much larger than herself, testing the measure of what she is, challenging what she’s become, and pushing her to see what she could be.

After her badly mishandled delivery of a foal on her father’s farm, Susan flees wildly into the mountains to escape her pain, perhaps permanently….much the way her mother did so many years ago. What she encounters there opens the door to a mystery that will either set her free from her fears and the burden of her guilt, or plunge them all into a horror not known for ages.
Hidden deep in a cave, chained to the wall in ancient, iron manacles is a young man whom they come to know only as Jacob. In perfect health; with the wide-eyed innocence of a youth, Jacob has no recollection of who he is, or whence he came. Apparently he can work minor miracles, causes electronic medical devices to go haywire, and may or may not be connected to the evil stalking them all.

For there is a murderer on the loose, leaving charred, barely recognizable bodies as his calling card. Somehow Jacob is tied to the murderer and the deaths, and she must unravel the mystery before it is too late, while facing her fiercest inner demons, all the while fearing the truth of the novel’s tag line: Some things are best left hidden.

Kathryn Mackel’s novel of spiritual warfare is a gripping read written in the visceral, vivid style one would expect from a member of the screenwriting team that created Left Behind: The Movie and the film adaptation of Frank Peretti’s Hangman’s Curse. Her prose is stylish and direct; while reading you get the feel of something that would translate very well to the big screen.

The Hidden provides well laid plot twists held ‘close to the chest’ until the end, and the villain pops up far from where he’s expected. Other reviewers have criticized the villain as being ‘typecast’ and ‘clichéd’, but I found him to be fiendishly delightful; the perfect foil to the innocent, amnesia-struck Jacob. In fact, the novel would have been served well with more detailed appearances of this elusive bad guy.

Also touching and heart-rending is Mackel's portrayal of the past relationship between Susan and her mother, and anyone who has had less than pleasant relations with their parents will be moved by these parts of the narrative. The pain Susan harbors from her childhood is fresh and gripping; real and tangible, and I'm sure very relevant to many.

Mackel also deals with the relationship between the things we hide in our hearts and the nature of spiritual warfare. She weaves spiritual truth into a moving story; creating a tale that is imaginative, edifying, and thought-provoking concerning our own lives, all at once.
The only negative comment would be about the crafting of town Sheriff Rick Sanchez. The past relationship between Stone and Sanchez seemed to have potential as Stone comes home from Boston, but both characters become opposed throughout the course of the novel concerning what should be done legally about Jacob and his guardianship.

Also, I became interested early on in Sanchez’s past: military experience, a failed marriage and children, and the biting regret he feels over both – especially as a born again Christian. However, as the pace of the novel picks up, this is not touched upon much.
Overall, The Hidden is an enjoyable read that “gallops” ahead at a breathtaking pace. You can visit Kathryn Mackel’s website at:

www.kathrynmackel.com

and The Hidden can be purchased locally at Arrowhead Christian Book Store; on Harry L. Drive in Johnson City, New York.

First Friday Post for Chris Well, author of "Deliver Us From Evelyn"

2006-06-04T19:15:00.000-07:00

Everyone from the Feds to the mob is scrambling to find the husband of heartless media mogul Evelyn Blake. But no one can decide which is worse—that he is missing, or that she is not ...

CHAPTER ONE
Sunday night. April 23.
On his last day of this life, the Right Fair Reverend Missionary Bob Mullins checked the party dip. Just stuck his finger right in there, pulled some glop free, stuck it in his mouth and sucked.
Hmm, good dip.

He wiped his saliva’d finger on his jacket, popped the top off a can of Pringles, shuffled a neat row of curved chips onto a Dixie brand paper platter.
There.

Setting the can down, he stepped back from the secondhand coffee table in the middle of the shag-carpeted office, looked at what his party planning skills had wrought. And he saw that it was good.

He went to the stereo system across the room, selected a CD. Personally, he would have preferred something by the Rolling Stones, maybe Exile on Main Street or Beggars Banquet -- muscular, honky-tonk rock ’n’ roll you can get drunk or stoned to, depending on your mood. He could really go for the bluesy wail of “Tumbling Dice” right now.

But the music library here offered none of that. Besides, his marks -- that is, the members of his “flock” -- held certain expectations regarding what music was appropriate for a prayer meeting. Especially in a small armpit of a town like Belt Falls, Illinois.

(Who names a town “Belt Falls,” anyway?)

The ladies would be here soon. Then Missionary Bob could use his people skills, honed from his years of "ministry," to good effect. Would lead the group in a spontaneous (but carefully planned) evening following “the Lord’s leading” -- some Bible, some hymns, some ministry time.

A carefully rehearsed prayer, a combination of wails and pleas, which experience had shown to be a very effective prelude to the passing of the offering plate.

Swept up by the rush of maudlin and spiritual emotion, the ladies would cough up plenty.
“Yea, but there are those who do not have it as comfortably as we do,” he found himself practicing, fiddling with chair placement in the circle, maneuvering pillows on the couch. “Poor children who do not have the food or clothing or shelter such as we take for granted.”

He double-checked the handy photos on the table. The orphanage in Mexico went by a lot of names. It would not do for the Right Fair Reverend Missionary Bob Mullins to get all weepy-eyed over JESUS AMA A LOS NINOS PEQUENOS and then whip out a photo showing a bunch of tiny brown faces smiling under a banner that said CHILDREN OF HER MERCY ORPHANAGE.

Following the fiasco in the last town, he’d played it cool once he got to Belt Falls. (Really, who brings a wagon train across the frontier, breaks ground on a settlement and says, “From henceforth, this shall be known as ‘Belt Falls’”?)

Ever since Andrea -- his partner, his companion, his ray of light -- had got Jesus, she'd stopped helping with the scams. Stopped helping him fleece the flock, so to speak. She laid it on thick enough, It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, and all that.

He tried to smirk it off, tried that face that always brought her around, but it didn’t seem to work anymore. Whatever had got hold of her wasn’t letting go.

Missionary Bob would never admit it to anyone, least of all himself, that the dividing line between success and failure began and ended with Andrea. When she was working with him, the scams worked like butter.

But then she got religion and the whole machine went up in flames.

Not that Missionary Bob got the clue. He kept working his games, town to town, each new gambit failing, each new town harder to crack than the last.

Once he set up shop here in Belt Falls (don’t even get him started about the name of the town), he took his time getting to know the people. He found them to be a small, close-knit community, smugly going to their church services.

Smug, but not that pious -- it did not take much effort to plant sufficient evidence that the only pastor in town was a raving drug user, maybe even a dealer. Not enough evidence to get the man convicted -- even the hick sheriff saw it was a weak case -- but the hapless pastor had to make only one phone call to the wrong deacon asking for bail money before word of his unholy lifestyle rushed through the congregation like wildfire.

In the eyes of God and the law, he was probably an okay guy. But once a congregation chooses to believe the worst, a preacher may as well pack his bags and move on.

Missionary Bob had even heard tell of one particular church, somewhere in the Midwest, where the members had booted the pastor because he'd had the temerity to wear short pants to a church potluck.

Yep, hell -- if it existed -- would be packed to the lips with smug, busybody churchgoers who ran their preacher out of town because he had worn shorts to a church potluck. Or, as in this case, was the victim of circumstantial evidence planted on him by a traveling huckster.

He stood and straightened his dress jacket. Felt a bulge in his left pocket, was surprised to discover a coaster with the face of Jesus on it.

He looked around the office, befuddled. When had he picked this up?
You don’t have to lift anything here, he reminded himself. You’ve pretty much lifted the whole office already.

Missionary Bob, in what used to be the hapless pastor’s office, heard steps echoing from the foyer, somebody clomping up the stairs. My, my, thought the Right Fair Reverend Missionary Bob Mullins, these ladies do need to lose some weight, don’t they? Whoever this was, she was pounding the stairs to wake the devil.

He stopped fidgeting with pillows and stood up straight, getting into character. Thinking of his plan, his mission, remembering the correct accent and speech patterns of a Right Fair Reverend Missionary, an accent as specific and undeniable as the drawl of New Orleans or the wicked blue-blood of Boston.

There was an insistent pounding on the door, a battering, really, if he had stopped to think about it. But he was too wrapped up in the character of a Right Fair Reverend Missionary. He slapped on a toothy grin and opened the door. “Welcome, child, to -- ”

It was a man. A. Large. Man. A grizzled bear towering over him, bloated flannel shirt cascading out of pants where they were almost tucked, tractor cap on his head declaring EAT ROADKILL. The grizzly bear pressed his flannelled beer belly against the Right Fair Reverend Missionary, leaned down from on high and belched, “I’m Darla Mae’s husband.”

The Right Fair Reverent Missionary Bob Mullins broke character and cursed.
The rest of the confrontation was like a dream, a nightmare of slow motion, the bear smacking him, a freight train to the skull, tossing Missionary Bob across the room. Hitting the coffee table as he went down, elbow in the dip. The grizzly roaring, storming in, Missionary Bob on the floor, scrambling backward, away, fleeing in the only direction he could, farther into the room. The angry husband kicking the table over, party snacks flying, dip spattering across the bookcase.
As Missionary Bob kicked to his feet, always moving backward, until the wall stopped his escape, one question kept flashing through his mind: Is this about the fake antique Cross of James or is this about the adultery?

Either way, his back against the wall, this grizzly man bearing down on him, Missionary Bob was out of options. The giant man, his eyes red, had barrel fists clenched and ready to swing, like jackhammers.

There was a noise behind the grizzly, at the open door. “Missionary Bob?”

One of the ladies.

The enraged husband turned at the voice. Missionary Bob took his one and only chance, grabbed the stone head of Moliere, clubbed the grizzly across the side of the head. The man stumbled backward and fell.

Missionary Bob, fueled by anger and fear and blind, stupid adrenalin, kept clubbing, again and again. The man on the floor now, blood streaming from his head. Missionary Bob clubbing him with the bust again and again. On his knees, on top of the man, clubbing him again and again and again.

Finally, adrenalin loosening its grip, Missionary Bob became aware that the man was not
moving. Clutching air in hot, painful gasps, he dropped the bust to the carpet.

Felt something wet on the side of his face, wiped it with his sleeve, saw blood smeared on fabric.

Not his own blood.

Gasping, wheezing, he looked up and saw the witnesses, ladies pooling in the doorway, staring agape at the Goliath on the floor, downed by the David with his stone.

© 2006 Chris Well
Buy now at Amazon.com

Never Ceese, by Sue Dent

2006-05-26T16:04:00.000-07:00

Werewolves and Vampires….oh my!

Centuries ago, two unfortunates were wronged in the worst way imaginable; they were cursed by evil forces they did not bring down upon themselves. One was made a vampire, a creature of the night, forced to find sustenance on the life-blood of others, and subject to whims and passions never meant for humankind to experience. The other was bitten by the wolf, and is now a prisoner to the wild beat of nature, running with the pack, lost in the primitive uproar of instinct and survival.

Perhaps worst of all: they are cursed to live with near immortality, to walk the face of the earth while those they love die, and if they do die while still in the grip of the curse; by either a silver bullet or a wooden stake, they will forever miss the chance of an eternity in heaven with those they love and care for.

They have one chance, as this unlikely pair is drawn together by unseen forces, to reclaim their mortality and a chance to pursue a normal life, a chance to go home to heaven when they die, and it lies buried in a riddle cryptic as it is contradictory, Two wrongs make a right. Richard, the cynical, sarcastic vampire and Ceese, a culturally naïve werewolf inexperienced in the ways of human beings, leave the comforts of home and the wild behind as they travel from England to New York in search of the one thing they desire more than anything: an end to their curse.

However, working behind the scenes are forces that want them for other reasons, and none of them altruistic. As Richard and Ceese struggle to loosen the bonds on their souls, someone else lusts after what they have: immortality, power…and will stop at nothing until they have it for themselves.

In her first novel, Sue Dent has crafted an intriguing mix of two genres yet thought exclusive; Christian faith-based fiction and dark, noir-fantasy, and it comes off well. The key difference between her novel and others revolving around vampires and werewolves is its focus: Dent focuses on that which our two protagonists want most, an end to the curse and chance for a restored relationship with all that is good and holy, and not on the aspects of the curses themselves. However, her touch is light here: it is not a Sunday school lesson with a pretty red bow at the end; it is a story about enduring faith and love.

Richard is hopelessly sarcastic and cynical, evoking images of Tom Cruise’s blond haired and egotistical Lestat, and Dent portrays Ceese as a poignant picture of what faith can do even in the thrall of the curse that damns her. Never Ceese is also rife with cultural humor and satire, and though the reader treads the dark streets of film noir and intrigue, they will find themselves chuckling out-loud just as many times as they shiver.

Ceese ends with surprising plot-twists that work well but perhaps could have been hidden a little better, and it may have a theological “bump under the rug” here and there – but who cares? It is a work of fiction, and a creatively imaginative one at that. The novel also successful wraps up the narrative while leaving a nice hook for its sequel Forever Richard.

Never Ceese can be purchased from the author’s website: http://www.neverceese.com/. She regularly answers questions on her forum there, and also maintains a conversation thread at the Emerging Christian Writer’s Forum.

3 out of 4 stars

Waking Lazarus, by T. L. Hines

2006-05-26T15:35:00.000-07:00

Life is not pleasant for Jude Allman. Living in solitude, days gripped by a numbing paranoia that ‘they’ are watching his every movement, Jude shuffles his way through existence, hoping to be left alone, in peace. The best he can hope for is a simple, uncomplicated life, the worst a past that threatens the small sliver of quiet he’s created for himself in Red Lodge, Montana.

Working as a custodian in a local school, he has left behind a life of sensationalism, pain and regret; slipping into a numbing haze under the assumed name of Ron Gress; an empty life as an empty shell. He has a son he loves but cannot touch, a past that will not go away, and one simple mantra that stands in between what he is and what he used to be:

Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

Jude Allman is not like other people, a fact he's known all his life. While some strive for a life of significance, all Jude wants is to be like everyone else, but life will never be average for Jude. Nothing will ever be quite normal for someone who’s died three times, coming back to life each time with one haunting thought: nothing matters. There is no purpose, there is no reason, there is no Providence, there is no Other Side.

Jude would like nothing better than to sit in his dark little corner of the world and let everything pass him by, but fate has different plans for him. First of all, there is the young Kristina, who arrives on his doorstep with all the worst symptoms of hero worship, spurned on by a belief that Jude has a purpose; a destiny that he’s ignoring. Despite his half-hearted rebuffs, she refuses to go away, turning up again and again like the proverbial ‘bad penny’.

Secondly, there are the visions that suddenly intrude upon his solitary life, speaking of something deeper and more profound than he’s ever imagined, or is quite ready to accept. Why does he suddenly sense the death of others, and what is he supposed to do about it? How can he save others when he’s barely able to save himself?

Then there is the string of kidnapped children, ripped from their homes by someone impossibly evil. A growing realization that he has a part to play in the grisly affair looms over Jude, however doing so means facing past fears and memories long walled off, as well as placing his belief in something larger than himself, which since the death of his mother is impossible to do.

Finally, there is his son Nathan and the boy’s mother, Rachael. As the visions and glimmerings of his potential destiny transform him, the possibility of having a normal, loving relationship with a family brings the greatest ache to his heart. Jude has reached a point where he may be ready to commit his life to Nathan and Rachael, but how can he do that while having visions of death, jerked along by the strings of an unseen, unknowable destiny?

This is the novel Christian Fiction has been waiting for. Along with Dekker and Peretti, Hines gives the genre increased credibility as he crafts a tale that is imaginative, truly creative, as well as thought-provoking and edifying. Jude Allman, like Odd Thomas, (Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas, Forever Odd), and Johnny Smith, (Stephen King’s The Dead Zone), is a realistic, unlikely hero who simply wants to get through the day and have a normal life, much less save the world.

Hines lays enough plot twists to keep the reader guessing. Nothing is what it seems: not Jude, his father, Kristina, or the vicious Hunter who stalks the streets of this novel, and it is refreshing to read a Christian supernatural thriller that is not afraid to “go off the beaten path”, so to speak. Waking Lazarus is truly a tale told by a bard, a story-teller, a “tale-spinner”, and not a Sunday School lesson dressed up as a novel.

A nice touch also: Jude finds his gift alarming, frightening, overwhelming at times. The story doesn’t trivialize spirituality and the supernatural; reminding the reader that even given His love and mercy, the nature of God is something more powerful than our perceptions and pre-conceptions allow us to understand.

The only thing that could be improved upon in Waking Lazarus is that if Hines chooses to write a second Jude Allman novel, it would be interesting to see it told from the first person narrative, bringing the reader completely inside the world of Jude Allman. In the hands of a talented writer, (which Hines clearly is), the first person narrative is a powerful tool. Imagine a novel starting with: My name is Jude, and I’ve seen the Other Side…

Waking Lazarus will hit the shelves in July 2006. Locally, it can be purchased at Arrowhead Christian Bookstore on Harry L. Drive in Johnson City, New York; and at Aaron’s Rod, the campus bookstore at Davis College on Riverside Drive in Johnson City, New York. It can also be purchased online at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764202049. The author can be contacted via his forum on his website: http://www.tlhines.com/blog/.

5 out of 5 stars

Comes A Horseman, by Robert Liparulo

2006-05-26T15:26:00.000-07:00

Secret Organizations. Global conspiracies. Ancient prophecies and Machiavellian plots to rule the world. Throw in a hulking assassin from an Old World clan of killers stalking two FBI agents on the run, a list of victims connected by an intriguing string of supernatural clues, and you have Robert Liparulo’s first novel, Comes A Horseman, now out by WestBow Press.

FBI Agents Brady Moore and Alicia Wagner have stumbled upon something dangerous and evil, spawned centuries before, reaching out from the furthest corners of the Earth to destroy their lives in one vicious swipe. A field test of crime-scene detection equipment turns into a fight for survival; as assassins from an ancient order tries to claim their lives, sending them headlong on a harrowing, griping global odyssey. On the opposite side of the globe at the end of their journey awaits a puppet master pulling the strings, his machinations carried out with one intention only: to gain power beyond man’s wildest dreams.

Ancient prophecies come into play, shadowy organizations work behind the scenes as Comes A Horseman explodes from the starting blocks, grabbing readers by the necktie and pulling them along for the ride. This is a fast-paced story running at a breathless pace over a longer-than-usual four-hundred plus pages. Don’t be turned off by the length, however, Liparulo uses it well to develop his characters, giving them a depth and background sometimes missing in many of today’s contemporary Christian thrillers.

Brady Moore mourns the loss of his wife; and Liparulo paints a sobering and realistic picture of a grieving husband; egro, this is no Rayford Steele. He and Wagner strike the right notes along the “buddy cop” vibe, and younger characters are not childish or trite but thought-provoking and deep.

Also, while not gratuitous or obscene in its depiction of violence; Horseman is not for the squeamish; but then again, it’s a novel about a world cycling toward its last days, with jaded, hurting heroes battling for their lives against those who have no respect for life. Any watering down of the plot would rob it of its breath-taking; grip-the-edge-of-your-seat intensity. However, despite the fact that any violence in the novel is thematically legitimate, Horseman is most appropriate for elder teenage readers and above.

The only faults found in Comes A Horseman? For this reviewer, some of the high-tech crime scene investigation terminology feels over-done. Liparulo has obviously done his research, but in many places it feels somewhat over-the-top, interrupting the narrative flow with technical descriptions. However, fans of CSI and other similar shows will probably find this as a plus.

And, of course, a Christian supernatural, political - intrigue thriller must always have a shadowy character who may or may not be the Anti-Christ in waiting. However, credit Liparulo largely for doing the unexpected with this, and he pulls plot strings near the end of the novel that are unexpected and surprising.

Though the action wraps up a little quickly for my tastes, it's consistent with the story's break-neck pace, and in his first novel Liparulo has written a multi-tiered, multi-plot line story that should satisfy those who like complex tales with crisscrossing plots and well-laid surprise turns just around the corner. Comes A Horseman is a solid one-two punch that delivers.

Most admirable is his realism in dealing with spiritual matters and faith concerning the lead characters. These are not cardboard cut-outs serving as pat Sunday School lessons; they are real people with real problems, struggling to reconcile matters of faith with deep, painful scars. He does not tie the story off in a neat little bow spiritually for all the main characters, which is refreshing to see in Christian fiction, because life isn't that way either.

Comes A Horseman can be purchased locally at Arrowhead Christian Bookstore on Riverside Drive in Johnson City, New York. The author’s website is: http://www.robertliparulo.com/

House, by Ted Dekker & Frank Peretti

2006-05-26T15:21:00.000-07:00

You’re driving along a deserted, out of the way, back-woods road in the middle of Alabama, estranged wife at your side. What's left of your marriage is doomed to failure; everything you've ever treasured in life is slipping away, right through your fingers. You've fought, pleaded, and prayed, all to no avail.

Your life is going to be changed forever; the prospect of the yawning chasm in your tortured heart is too much to take, making you feel like a drowning swimmer gasping for air, taking in nothing but brackish, stained pond water.

That’s when you realize that just as you’re lost in life….you're lost on a backwoods road in the middle of Alabama. That’s when your shiny blue Mustang blows all its tires running over a deviously laid metal strip of road-teeth. That’s when you stumble into a bizarre, twisted game of guilt and sin; life and death.

That’s when you make the mistake of entering the House.
One Game. Seven players. Three Rules.
Game Ends at Dawn.

Novelist Jack Singleton and his budding country-singer wife have unwittingly become part of a deadly game that has never seen any winners, and they are pitted against an evil, malicious entity called the Tin Man. The Tin Man; or Barsidious White, has played this game countless of times, with the same result: the dead are piled high, as he walks leisurely on to the next house.

The rules are simple: this is Barsidious White's house; and he pulls the strings. The participants of this twisted little game will be forced to face their worst nightmares come to life, and it’s anybody’s guess who will survive the night.

This is the novel Christian fiction has been waiting for, perhaps marking a turning point in the development of the Christian supernatural thriller. The result of pairing Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti produces the expected: a vivid, tense pace; a story-line guaranteeing nothing but the unexpected and an unflinching look at the things inside us that makes us unworthy of grace.

However, as usual, Dekker and Peretti use this to further highlight the importance of God’s loving mercy, and the product is something that many Christian fiction-lovers have undoubtedly been long awaiting, this reviewer included; a novel that is unpredictable and unique, where the “magician” doesn’t reveal all of his tricks at the end of the show, but the result is still something edifying and glorifying to God.

Readers of Showdown will also sense the potential connection between such bad guys, (which Dekker once again lets slip away at the end of the novel; a refreshing twist), as Marsuvees Black and Barsidious White. It leaves the reader wondering if Dekker is verging on some sort of epic cross-over storyline, which is also something much needed within Christian fiction today, in this reviewer’s opinion. Perhaps the next evil villain’s last name will be Red?

Either way, if you pick up House at Arrowhead Christian Book Store on Harry L. Drive in Johnson City, NY, you can be assured of two things:
1. you will be pulled along for the ride, joining the poor victims of this game in their frenzy; 2. you will have no idea from which direction the next hit will come.

Will you make it to dawn?

Ted Dekker: www.teddekker.com
Frank Peretti: http://www.frankperetti.com/

Shadows in Woodend, by Peter Dudek

2006-05-26T15:15:00.000-07:00

The days have grown dark in the lands of Arvalast. The people have forgotten about their King, and the light is fading from the countryside. As the stories of the King of Arvalast and His long ago holy rule passes into the annals of myth and legend, dark things prowl the woods, and shadows grow long.There is evil afoot, as the last days descend upon Arvalast.

The light of the Illumina, magical flasks of holy, pure light that all Arvalast citizens carry with them, is dimming, as their collective faith in their King becomes trite, ritualized. Woodend, a great walled city in the Northern Regions of Arvalast, is a last bastion of light and good, holding true to the stories of their once and forever High King. However, the shadow wraiths of an ancient enemy are returning, and the baser emotions of mankind; sloth, envy, hatred, are spilling over as these wraiths worm their way into the hearts of the people.

Enter a mysterious stranger on a dark, windblown night, astride a mighty steed. Gildareth has come at last; a long-awaited herald of the long absent King of Arvalast; so long awaited that none expect his arrival, nor heed it. He comes to warn of a growing evil in the lands of Arvalast, and he brings with him the full light and power of the Illumina.

On the inside of Woodend, Willerdon, a tired, exhausted town governor who fears for his family and his people sits paralyzed by his own lack of faith, unaware that his son Tarin sits on the very edge of the epic conflict of good and evil. All the while, the forces of the enemy draw closer, as the hour becomes desperate.

In his first novel, Dudek has created an epic fantasy reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings and C.S. Lewis’s classic Narnia series, with many key plot elements in common. Like Tolkien’s tale; the future rests in the hands of a simple boy, Tarin, (who is perhaps not as noble as Frodo Baggins but is not a needlessly idealized hero either), and Gildareth, as the Kind’s Herald, evokes images of Tolkien’s Aragorn.

With the shadow wraiths, Dudek plays with the subtle influences of evil on those who lack faith, and the Illumina as a talisman symbolic of faith is a nice twist, serving as almost an ‘anti-ring’.

Fans of Arthurian legend will appreciate the “absentee king who promises to return” theme, and surely all Christians can recognize the symbolism of Christ. Dudek has also shown the same attention to detail in creating his world as both Tolkien and Lewis, starting the novel with diaries and historical accounts, setting the foundation for the story.

Shadows of Woodend finishes off with a cliffhanger ending, leaving the reader wanting more, and though this is Dudek’s first novel, he crafts his story well enough for it to be engaging. A major plus of this new fantasy series is that, like LOTR and Narnia¸ parents can be sure their children are reading something that is edifying and pure, as well as a creative and imaginative.

Shadows In Woodend can be purchased through Amazon.com, or at the author’s website at: www.arvalast.com Peter Dudek is currently wrapping up the final stages of the longer, more fully fleshed out sequel, Crimson Light. Excerpts and concept art are available on his website, and he also responds regularly to questions and comments from his readers on his writing forum.

Showdown, by Ted Dekker

2006-05-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

Marsuvees Black has come to town, baby, and ain't nothing going to be the same in the small desert town of Paradise, Colorado ever again. He's going to set you free, make you see the light, and trip on the “grace juice of God” baby. Once Marsuvees Black gets his grip, all you're going to do is trip, trip, trip...

There's a new law in town, as the saying goes, and it's a black trenchcoat-clad wanderer by the name of Marsuvees Black. Charismatic and smart; either a master of “sleight-of-hand” or something more sinister, Black has come to “set the town of Paradise free”. Nature abhors a vacuum, as another saying goes, and where there is a vacuum, something always rushes in to fill the space. In the spiritually empty, jaded, and religion-by-ritual town of Paradise, the vacuum has just been filled.

But the question looming large in everyone's mind is by what? A prophet, fanatic cult-leader, or simple con-man looking to make a quick buck?

Or is it something far, far worse?

Not long after the mysterious Black's arrival, this small, tight-lipped community begins to tear apart at the seams as the lines between fantasy and reality blurs according to Black's mercurial whims. One minute sinner; the next minute saint, but no doubt powerful, Black weaves a tenuous web of magical half-truths and seeming miracles, promising to set the townspeople of Paradise free from the shackles of their guilt and sin in radical, experiential ways. He promises them their dreams, and brings to life their worst nightmares.

Deep, dark secrets are unveiled, private anguishes and tortures made shockingly public, and the temptations and darker inner urges of man are played by Black like keys on his own personal, dark master piano. Jerking like puppets tugged along by a mad puppeteer, the people of Paradise march helplessly to either their doom or salvation, whichever pleases the whims of Marsuvees Black at the moment.

Standing against Black is a boy named Johnny, and a mysterious enclave of monks hidden in a monastery deep in the mountains, their agenda and purposes unclear. In the end Johnny will stand alone, pushed to the edges of a faith that has never quiet believed, and a belief that has never had quite enough faith.

Ted Dekker has woven an intricate, haunting tale about the war between good and evil, and the literary master of “sleight-of-hand” never tips his hand once, keeping the reader guessing until the very end. There is depth in this novel; in the multi-tiered plot-line and in Dekker's connection with the often sad truth of the Christian life here on this Earth; things get complicated, things get dark, and things get messy.

Though he refuses to tie everything off in a nice, perfect little red bow, the truth shines through the pain: the only hope for the hopeless is the holy love and sacrifice of Christ. With th e novel ending in a twist that promises follow up stories, Showdown is a bold new addition to Dekker's resume.

Showdown can be purchased locally at Arrowhead Christian Bookstore in Johnson City, New York. Ted Dekker's website is: http://www.teddekker.com/