Login or Register for free to create your own customized page of blog posts from your favorite blogs. You can also add blogs by clicking the "Add to MyJacketFlap" links next to the blog name in each post.
Blog Posts by Tag
In the past 7 days
Blog Posts by Date
Click days in this calendar to see posts by day or month
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: "W" Authors, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 5 of 5
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: "W" Authors in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
"Persephone, Daughter of Demeter, the harvest goddess. Kidnapped and forced to--" Wrong! In every book of myths, the same; in every book, wrong! Oh, I know it all got complicated because of the choices I made. I'm not trying to pretend I'm blameless. Still, after thousands of years, I wish people knew what really happened when I walked in my mother's flowering vale and the black horses landed, crushing flowers and filling the air with heady perfume. Just once I'd like to set the record straight.
Persephone narrates Radiant Darkness telling her version of how events went down. How she came to be the Queen of the Underworld. What can I say about this one? If you like Greek mythology--novelizations and retellings of mythology--then I think you'll enjoy this one. It's a tell of rebellion and frustration. Perspephone is the daughter of a goddess. And she's tired of it. Tired of her mother alternating between being domineering and controlling and being neglectful. Her mother is always off being worshipped. Off to this or that festival. Persephone feels the time has come. She's ready to be a woman. Ready to be accepted as one. The problem? Her mother treats her like she's six.
So when Persephone meets a tall, dark, handsome stranger, she's all for love. True, she doesn't know his name. True, he's mysterious. But he represents everything that is missing in her life. So she continues meeting him. Again and again. Until one day she learns the truth. He's a god. (Not a big surprise there, after all, her mother is a goddess.) But he's the god of the underworld. If she chooses him, she'll be leaving everything behind. Is she ready to make that choice? To live with her consequences?
If you haven't read one of Nancy Werlin's books...you really don't know what you're missing. Here are the books I have read (and loved): Rules for Survival, Double Helix, and Black Mirror. I can now add Impossible to the list. (If anyone is looking for books to read during the 24 Hour Read-a-thon, I'd definitely recommend Werlin!)
What can I say about Impossible? It's good. It's a page turner. It matches my high expectations in a Werlin novel. But that doesn't really do it justice, does it? Lucy Scarborough is our heroine. She's seventeen. It's spring. She's preparing for prom. Little does she know just how at risk she is to falling prey to the old-family-curse. A curse that she, of course, has no knowledge of. She's got her foster parents. She's got her best girl friend, Sarah, and her best guy friend, Zach. She's got a prom date, Gray. She's not quite carefree. She's a bit bothered that her birth mother, Miranda, has popped up in town again. Lucy always finds it hard to deal with her mentally ill, emotionally unbalanced, and homeless mother. But Lucy is full of hope for the future...
Back cover:
From the sting of my curse she can never be freeParsley, sage, rosemary and thymeUnless she unravels my riddlings threeShe will be a true love of mine
Jacket copy: Lucy has only nine months in which to break an ancient curse.
Lucy Scarborough is seventeen when she discovers that the women of her family have been cursed through the generations, forced to attempt three seemingly impossible tasks or to fall into madness upon their child's birth. How can Lucy succeed when all of her ancestors have tried and and failed? But Lucy is the first girl who won't be alone as she tackles the list. She has her fiercely protective foster parents beside her. And she has Zach, whose strength amazes her more each day. Do they have enough love and resolve to overcome an age-old evil?Inspired by the ballad "Scarborough Fair," this spellbinding novel combines suspense, fantasy, and romance for an intensely page-turning and masterfully original tale.
Willard, Elizabeth Kimmel. 2008. Mary Ingalls On Her Own.
"Mary Ingalls stepped carefully from the train onto the bustling platform in Vinton, Iowa. She stood straight and quiet, her hands clasping the handle of her small suitcase. Her pale blue eyes shone with a mix of anxiety and excitement. Mary took a deep breath as the cool November breeze fanned her flushed cheeks and carried the hot smell of engine steam past her nose."
The novel, Mary Ingalls On Her Own, opens with Ma and Pa and Mary arriving in Vinton, Iowa. They have brought their daughter to blind school, a college for the blind. Everyone in the Ingalls family has worked so hard in order to provide this opportunity for Mary. And Mary know she is fortunate and blessed to be here. Her emotions on this day are mixed. Feeling sad to be leaving her family behind, to be leaving Laura behind. Laura has been her best friend, her confidante, her "eyes" for years now. Yet she feels the need to prove herself, to gain independence, to try her best at this new venture. The novel only spans two months, perhaps even a little less time. (From her arrival on that November day--we're not told when in November she arrives--to Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. During this time Mary has her moments.
Adjusting to life on her own in this new environment isn't quite as easy as Mary thought it would be. She does have two great roommates Hannah and Blanche. However, she also has one grumpy neighbor, Mattie, a girl who is only partially blind. And this young woman is going to try her patience something fierce. Mattie sees Mary as being a GOOD GIRL. Interpret that as being a goody-two-shoes or self-righteous or stereotypically perfect. Mary does have to wrestle with that image. She doesn't feel like a good girl. But she's aware that others have always had that image of her. She's not sure how she's projecting that image so much, just that it must stem from the fact that she doesn't speak without thinking. She's not prone to putting her foot in her mouth. Or giving way to anger. Or really letting people have it.
As for the plot, not much happens. That's not being rude. There are a few things now and then that "happen." But this one is about exploring the inner thoughts of one character. The emphasis is on character growth in other words.
The novel is fiction. While we know that Mary attended this college for the blind, we don't know much about her experiences there. We know she was a good student. We know she was known for being well-behaved and intelligent, but we don't know much about her personal life, her thoughts, her emotions, her hopes and dreams.
For those that can't get enough of Little House, this one might be for you. One of the things I enjoyed was seeing little facts or details from the other novels turn up. References to what Ma, Pa, Laura, Carrie, and Grace were doing. References to Mary's past and their present as well. For example, we hear by letter from the family occasionally giving updates. And if you've read the other books cover to cover, you know where that fits in here. So that was fun.
Eddie McCall is a good kid. He does his homework, picks up around the house, and cooks dinner for his mom when she has to work late at a Chicago hotel. Then Eddie's best friend, Whip, shows him a printout from the Internet--a picture of a full-grown, honest-to-gosh buck-naked woman--and suddenly Eddie can't seem to think about anything else. If only there were a man around he could talk to--but for all of Eddie's thirteen years, his father has been a mystery, absent and unknown.
Try as he might, Eddie can't stay away from the computer. He knows his mom will be upset if she sees the sites he's visiting. Still, he sure doesn't expect her to ship him off to her hometown of Sheldon, Indiana, to live with his great-uncle Peavey for an entire month. Peavey isn't exactly the father figure Eddie's been looking for. He spits tobacco juice into a can, calls a toilet a "commode," and certainly doesn't own a computer. He's never even been on a date!
As it turns out, however, both Peavey McCall and Sheldon, Indiana, hold some very surprising secrets...
There were parts of Double Click for Trouble that I loved, just really really loved. Then there were a few elements that didn't quite work for me. Slight irritants in the plot that just kept me from falling deeply in love with the book. Still, I must say that I'm rather fond of this book. It may not be L-O-V-E with fireworks, but I still liked it plenty. And I loved, loved, loved the ending.
The characters. Loved them for the most part. Loved Eddie. Loved Uncle Peavey. Loved Della. Loved Ronnie (Veronica). There were some other characters that I liked but would need to know more in order to love. I never really got to know the Mom enough or Whip enough for that matter. I was intrigued by Whip's story, however. His deep-and-sensitive and vulnerable side that readers get just a few glimpses of now and then. In my opinion, the novel's top strength is in the characters. The developing relationship between Eddie and his great-uncle. His friction-filled relationship with Ronnie. His whole coming-of-age story, it just works. It might not work completely evenly, but it works.
The setting. I loved the book once he got to Indiana. Everything just seemed better after that. The first setting, the urban setting of Chicago, it isn't that it doesn't work at all. It's just that it doesn't work as well. I'll try to explain it. This Chicago-setting was like climbing the first hill of a roller coaster. It's a bit slow, a bit jerky, and there is just a lot of waiting for everything to really begin. After he goes to Indiana, that is when it gets started, that is where the heart and soul of the novel is. It is here that the energy and focus reside.
The plot. The plot didn't work for me all the time. Parts of it worked--and worked well--other parts not so much. But here's the thing, I cared--really cared--about the characters. So I could be almost completely forgiving of the teeny-tiny didn't-quite-work-for-me bits in the plot. I'll be honest. I think the parts that irritated me slightly still ring with authenticity if that makes sense. Eddie, I believe is 12 or 13--somewhere around there, and there are just a few things about him that while authentic make him slightly irritating. There is a reason that it takes a special calling to work--as a teacher or volunteer--with kids in this age group both girls and guys. It's a difficult age to live through, and it's a difficult age group--in a way--to interact with. Not all the time, not every kid, but there are just rough patches that must be endured. It's not fun for the parent, the child, the teacher, or the sibling.
At its core, Double Click for Trouble is a coming-of-age story. It illustrates in just one of many ways this wonderful quote by Brent Runyon:
"The second hardest thing to do in life is to change from a child into an adult. There are so many ways to mess up. So many ways to get lost. It's like crossing the ocean in a rowboat."--Brent Runyon
Hi Becky! Sorry to jump the gun, here, but I'm going to bed really soon, and I'll be out for much of tomorrow, so I put up my PF post early: http://kellyrfineman.livejournal.com/306516.html
Sounds like a very interesting read, thanks for the review.
This looks good!
More Greek mythology? I'm there. :)