Time Fixers (Miles in Time Book 2) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Time Travel YA Continues with a Timeless Volume

 Time Fixers (Miles in Time Book 2) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Time Travel YA Continues with a Timeless Volume 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Well The Hardy Boys are at it again. No, not those Hardy Boys. Simon and Miles Hardy, the time traveling brothers from Lee Matthew Goldberg’s 2-Part YA Science Fiction Time Travel series. The first volume, Miles in Time, involved the adventurous detective Miles going back in time to prevent his scientific technogeek older brother, Simon from being murdered by unidentified assailants. He saved his brother but made a mortal enemy in Omni, the secret sinister organization that put the initial target on Simon’s back. 

The second volume, Time Fixers is a stronger, more personal, and also more focused adventure that raises the conflicts. This time Simon is able to improve his time travel device to travel beyond the previous week. Instead it can send the traveler back to 1999. For the brothers, that means one important thing. In the present, their mentally ill mother is institutionalized. They can go back to when she was in high school and resolve the family trauma that led to her years of addiction and mental illness. The brothers are not alone. Miles told his girlfriend, Maisie about the previous time traveling adventures. She comes with, hoping to resolve a family conflict of her own with her missing mother. The trio become embroiled in not only their own family histories but the origins of Omni whose members might be all too familiar to them.

In the first book, the focus was on adventure with some family drama thrown in. This one reverses that by devoting more time on the family drama and minimizing the adventure but still making it an important part.

There is deep trauma that is explored particularly with Miles and Simon's mother, Patty. When they left her, she was addicted to pills, spoke in monosyllables and non sequiturs, and committed self-harm. The years of being broken and non-functional took their toll. She is lost to her family in the present so the brothers want to change her past.

Once they see Patty's family, Simon and Miles understand their mother more. Before they pitied and cared for her. Miles in particular often nursed her when his father, Kip could not. However, as much as they missed the loving and involved woman that she briefly was when they were small, she is now a remote cypher to them. They can't break through her precarious vulnerable exterior and have given up trying to communicate with her. She is less a mother to them and more of an object of pity, concern, and frustration.

In the past, they see their mother as a feisty multifaceted emotional girl who is hurt at home and trying different means to detach herself from that hurt. The brothers focus on the causes of what made their mother turn out the way that she did rather than the effects of what it created. Patty is a person who had her life ahead of her and could have lived it openly and creatively with plenty of love, acceptance, and support but was stopped by  abusive and narcissistic parents. The boys have to rescue their mother not only from her toxic home but from herself and the woman that she turns into.

Patty isn't the only person that the boys and Maisie try to help. They try to prevent a tragedy in Kip’s young life that left him withdrawn and falling into self-isolation. Maisie also recognizes her parents' struggles and insecurities so she doesn't end up alone. The teens are given insights into their parents as people, kids like them who were uncertain, confused, awkward, idealistic, intelligent, rebellious, immature, curious, surly, argumentative, cynical, and ready to challenge the world that their kids would later inherit. They are going through the same struggles about identity, acceptance, and belonging that their children are going through in the 2020’s.

There are  other aspects of the book that shine. There are  humorous moments when Simon, Miles, and Maisie go to the past and gape at the weird fashions, old fashioned technology, and the music. There are also clever references about the time period that border on nostalgic.

The adventure also goes through some fascinating twists, climaxes, and resolutions. The trio are stalked by enemies that use a variety of means like threats, manipulation, and feigning friendship to find their technology, divide, and destroy them.

It's also interesting to see Omni in its earlier form as a small organization with few employees but nefarious goals before its 2020's incarnation as a widespread conspiracy with various members, outlets, and schemes. We also see how the agents got involved with this organization, why they joined, and why they stayed when conscience should have told them otherwise. Similar to their parents, the kids see their adversaries as people who had reasons for what they did and could have lived different lives. Instead they chose a path that led to financial gain, corruption, violence and self-destruction.

Time Fixers is a brilliant book about how choice and trauma shaped our past and created our present. It also happens to be a great thrilling adventure to spend time with. 

Weight of a Woman by Judith Jackson-Pomeroy; Substantial Characters Counter Light Development

 

Weight of a Woman by Judith Jackson-Pomeroy; Substantial Characters Counter Heavy Length 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: There is an old trick or piece of advice with storytelling. It’s “Tell people what you are going to tell them. Tell them. Then tell them what you already told them.” It works well when you are writing short works like a review, a political column, even a short story or a novella. It doesn’t work so well when you are trying to write a longer work like a novel. That’s the biggest problem with Judith Jackson-Pomeroy’s novel Weight of a Woman, a romance with fascinating leads but not enough to do that changes them.

Sara Wolfe is a Women’s Studies college professor and outspoken Feminist. She is a popular teacher and bonds with her students. She is in a long term but open relationship with Tom, another professor and has close friends in Jane, director of the Women’s Resource Center and Marco, an award winning poet. Even though she is well respected at this university, she has her sights set on a Wellesley fellowship. However, her seemingly perfect life hides some disturbing secrets. While attending a concert with her friends, Sara becomes enamored with Seth, a rock singer who is also one of her students. As if a romance with a student wasn’t controversial enough, Seth also has secrets of his own that could jeopardize his career and his relationship with Sara. 

The sad part is Weight of a Woman is actually very good, particularly in terms of characterization. The core romance is between two people who are seriously damaged and are in desperate need of psychiatric care. The type of romance that could strengthen or tear them apart and this book suggests that this s in danger of doing both. 

Sara projects an image of great confidence, wisdom, and integrity who courageously shares her convictions and stands by them. But that image disguises the troubled broken soul underneath. Her relationship with Tom is very toxic and emotionally abusive as Tom condescends her with his misogynistic and homophobic views and chips away at her Feminist views as a means of control. 

She is riddled with insecurities and anxiety that manifests itself as severe Anorexia. She starves herself and degrades her own appearance. In social situations, where she has to be seen eating, she chews her food, but doesn’t swallow. Instead, she empties it out into a napkin.

Sara is also a sexual assault survivor which has given her massive PTSD and trust issues. She can’t trust the men that she’s involved with and often has a hard time trusting herself. She stands as a paragon of Feminist values because they represent the type of woman that she wants to be, not the woman that she actually is.

 Even though Seth expresses his views through his songs and is just as committed to his beliefs as Sara is to hers, he has problems of his own. His music career is at a crossroads and he is torn between staying true to his artistic integrity and signing with a major label to get more money and exposure but selling out. 

Similar to Sara, Seth also has self-destructive tendencies. He has a history of cutting and is addicted to various drugs. Like Sara, he also projects an air of charisma and creative defiance, but his addictions reveal his vulnerabilities. He can't hide the needle marks on his arms or scars on his body just like Sara can't hide her dangerously thin weight.

Sara and Seth are memorable characters, either alone or together. This book is a brilliant character study of this pair.The conflicts are interesting because they expose their frailties and leave them at their most naked, honest, and defenseless. Unfortunately, Sara and Seth are hampered by constant repetition and little changes in their development. 

There are only so many times where we can hear the characters argue about the same things over and over. Marco and Jane arrange various interventions for Sara so often that they are practically scheduled. Sara and Seth confront one another about their addictions but these confrontations appear to have little bearing since they still fall into them. Yes, that happens often in real life where people often don't seek help or have the same issues and this book brilliantly explores that. But at the same time, it also stands as a red flag for why Sara and Seth might not be good for each other. 

Their disagreements about the trajectory towards Seth’s recording career, particularly his selling out, are almost hypocritical on Sara’s part since she too desires to ascend to a higher position with more money. Also they are divided by different views on sexuality which is a huge wedge between them that becomes more prominent the more they argue about it.

The book could benefit from a tighter narrative structure with more character self reflection and evolution. While individually, Seth and Sara are intriguing and could be a compatible happy couple, they could just as easily break up. They already have plenty of emotional baggage and different views on how they see their future. Because of having the same arguments and discussions, they can’t seem to reconcile them. A late complication suggests happiness, but it could just as easily lead to more strife and trouble. 

Because of the little change in character, Pomeroy does them a huge disservice. She gives plenty of good reasons why they need to work on themselves and get some serious psychiatric and emotional help separated or at least as friends. But she doesn’t give us enough good reasons why we should be rooting for them to stay together. 

The Others (Book 1 in the Council Trilogy) by Evette Davis; Blue by Charles Keatts; The Blind Smith (Book 1 in the Forge Trilogy in The Shadow Guardian Series) by G. Russell Gaynor; Eveningstar: Awakening by Samantha Curl

 The Others (Book 1 in the Council Trilogy) by Evette Davis; Blue by Charles Keatts; The Blind Smith (Book 1 in the Forge Trilogy in The Shadow Guardian Series) by G. Russell Gaynor; Eveningstar: Awakening by Samantha Curl 

The Others (Book 1 in The Council Trilogy) by Evette Davis

The entire review can be found on LitPick.

Evette Davis’ The Others is an intriguing concept that is illustrated with intrinsic copious details that fully explores it.

Political consultant Olivia Shepherd is suffering from a professional crisis when she encounters Elsa, a spirit called a Time Walker. Elsa informs her that her rival, Stoner Halbert has made a deal with a demon and is using that influence to grab power. As if that's not enough there is a hidden society called The Others: vampires, fairies, witches, ghosts, and other creatures. They live alongside our own and affect the human world around them. Olivia has some untapped abilities and must use them and her newfound friendships within the Others community to make some important political changes of their own, ones that will benefit humans and Otherkind not dominate it as Halbert wants to do.

The Others Society is captured brilliantly because it seems so much like the normal 21st century human society. The Others live in houses, have regular jobs, and go about their daily lives.

Once she is introduced to the concept, Olivia realizes that she is surrounded by The Others. Her best friend Lily, a teacher, is a fairy. William, a musician whom Olivia begins a relationship with, is a vampire. Gabriel, a multi billionaire who mentors Olivia, is a witch and so on.

There are also some other interesting facets to the plot. William and Olivia begin a tentative romance that is conflicted by differing views but a strong emotional and physical connection.

The political landscape is adequately explored and has some very timely relevance in an already eventful Presidential election year.

The Others takes a fascinating concept and lets the imagination run wild with it.

Blue by Charles Keatts

Blue by Charles Keatts is not an easy book to read. It's confusing, rambling, and disjointed, but it is also honest, introspective, and real. It shows the mental decline of a creative artist who is losing himself to addiction, depression, disconnection, and the despair felt by the people around him.

The Narrator mostly ruminates on his struggles and those of the people around him. They are highly artistic and highly troubled. There's Robert, a music critic, who falls into addiction and various love affairs. His painter friend, Ann soothes herself with heroin. The Narrator, a novelist and poet, has flashbacks of his unhappy youth and is overcome with depression, manic thoughts, and alcoholism. Other names and situations float through the book and disappear quickly as the Narrator’s sanity spirals.

This book is not an easy read. The narrative is confusing, repetitive, jumps from one point of view to another, and rambles on with little to no point. At times it comes across as boring. It tries for a stream of consciousness narration ala James Joyce or Virginia Woolf and sometimes it works but often it doesn't.

Blue works by capturing the slipping sanity of a brilliant but unraveling mind. The Narrator can't keep his thoughts together so it shows in the chapters. He repeats himself, tangles his thoughts, forgets names and places. Even his descriptions of Robert and Ann are causes for concern because The Narrator purposely leaves information out. It is unclear who Robert and Ann even are in his life. Are they friends of his? Is he Robert? Are they parts of his psyche? Fictional characters whose conflicts bleed into his own? We don't know and it is left to interpretation.

At times however, the narration is too complex and pretentious for its own good.

Blue contrasts with another recent book, blue: season by Chris Lombardi which also captures a stream of consciousness narration but does it better than Blue. blue: season is also narrated by a character who is a genius but has a fractured mind but this is a book with a character and plot. It doesn't lose focus so it can tell a good story along with a smart introspective narrative. We care about the characters and want to explore this strange journey into one woman's struggle with mental illness and traumatic memories of her past.

Blue on the other hand is more concerned with showing off the narration than putting it together in a book. It's hard to understand who the Narrator is or who the other characters are partly because of the limited perspective. We only see everyone through the Narrator's eyes. They all live miserable lives and that's it. The bleakness overpowers and since The Narrator jumps around, we can't really know the characters beyond mere sketches. The misery just piles on them without any full understanding of who they are as people or a reason why we should care about them when they reach rock bottom.

Blue is hard to comprehend and sometimes hard to care about, but it is an introspective and honest book about a brilliant mind that is falling apart. As those around him suffer from their own problems, he has to deal with his own heartaches and disappointments. The Narrator lives inside his own head and finds solace in his writing. If in fact, Robert and Ann are fictional characters that he created, he is perhaps using their addictions and psychological problems to confront or even avoid his own. 

As his life and the other's collapse, The Narrator who once found solace in his own mind can no longer trust it. He completely retreats into the fragmented remains in his mind as they slip away into nothingness. 

The Blind Smith (Book 1 in the Forge Trilogy in The Shadow Guardian Series) by G. Russell Gaynor

Note: This book was not selected because of current events. This schedule was made beforehand. Use caution when reading this review.

Even though G. Russell Gaynor’s The Blind Smith is 112 pages, it is a tightly wound and taut thriller about betrayal, revenge, and using one's own abilities and power to get that revenge.

An assassin blinds teen tech billionaire John J.J. Moore and kills members of his security team. He is taken in by Bob, a mysterious figure who teaches the young man how to be an assassin. Within a few years, J.J. excels in his training and recruits some new assassins to help him plan his revenge on the people who attacked him and killed his friends.

The opening chapter begins with a violent attack and there are some other subsequent action oriented chapters. However, the emphasis in this book is on gathering intelligence and planning strategies. Fighting harder takes a backseat to fighting smarter.

J.J. is particularly skilled in the whole “fighting smarter” mindset. He fits the description of someone who “plays 3D chess while his opponents play checkers.” In the beginning of the book, he is taught to use his other senses to become a formidable fighter ala Daredevil.

This style not only sharpens his physical strength but his mental strength too. He almost obtains a second sight and awareness into his allies and opponents's thoughts and actions.

With J.J.’s physical strength and analytical prowess, he is more than formidable against his enemies. Half way through the book only a few years into his training, he is already recruiting and leading his own groups. He picks into his protegee’s desires for revenge and anger at being wronged.

He helps his new recruits channel their anger into being a fighting team that makes up for the deficiencies that he lacks. They will be his force for revenge over the enemies who attacked him and the traitors that allowed it.

The Blind Smith is a brilliant game between a genius who is conditioned to fight and those who he is conditioned to fight against.

Eveningstar: Awakening by Samantha Curl 

Samantha Curl’s first Eveningstar novel, Awakening, skillfully tells three separate stories with the same characters. Curl then entwines them into one wide reaching expansive Epic High Fantasy that passes through three universes.

Alethia Eveningstar is the daughter of The God of War and Queen of the Stars and is destined to defeat Kakaron, God of Chaos before she can inherit her father's title. Kakaron seduces and betrays Alethia before making an escape. The Goddess-to-Be has to live ten or eleven lives encountering and fighting Kakaron before their final battle. Most of the book is set during two of those lives: Our Realm, where she is a high school girl in modern times discovering magic powers while dealing with new friendships, romance, and studies and the Other Realm, a Medieval like forest where her powers manifest as she is involved in a love triangle between her betrothed and a handsome and familiar stranger.

For a short novel of 178 pages, a lot is accomplished in an impressive manner. Curl devotes enough time to all three universes to give us ideas of the plots, settings, and characters and how they overlap and interact with each other. 

With time and interdimensional travel and the decision to set alternating chapters into different worlds, Awakening can be a very difficult book to follow. But thankfully many plot points parallel each other enough so if it already happened in one universe, the Reader will expect it to happen in another.

The key is to make each universe unique from the others and Curl does this superlatively. We know that Alethia and Kakaron are destined to encounter each other in each universe. 

There are also friends, relatives, authority figures, and romantic rivals that carry over in amusing ways. It gets to the point where the Reader goes “Okay there's this character in Our Realm. She should appear in the Other Realm right about..now.” It becomes an interesting game to see how quickly the characters' doppelgangers appear and in what way plots shift in the various worlds.

There are some interesting twists to keep Readers from expecting or assuming too much. One character strangely can jump from universe to universe so instead of being a reincarnated soul or a double, he's the same person in all three worlds and is able to teach Our World Alethia this ability so she can see what her Other Realm counterpart can. The circumstances of how Alethia and Kakaron meet, what forms they take, who seduced who, and how they discover the truth are different each time. Different enough that in one universe, Kakaron’s reveal is a genuine surprise. It keeps the momentum going in this strange novel.

Eveningstar: Awakening has a lot of fun playing with the laws of time and space and taking the Reader along with it.