Murder Under Redwood Moon by Sherri Dodd; A Realistic Mystery Thriller Starring a Modern Witch

 Murder Under Redwood Moon by Sherri Dodd; A Realistic Mystery Thriller Starring a Modern Witch

By Julie Sara Porter

Spoilers: Sherri Dodd’s murder mystery, Murder Under Redwood Moon is a Supernatural Murder Mystery that doesn’t feel like one. Many Supernatural Murder Mysteries that star witches or similar people, for lack of a better term, Harry Potter the book. They depict witches using superpowers like clairvoyancy, precognition, telekinesis and often depicts them going against paranormal characters like other witches, ghosts, demons, vampires and the like. The emphasis is less on mystery and more on the fantasy-like setting in which they live. Muder Under a Redwood Moon is a realistic Murder Mystery that happens to star a witch.

Arista lives in Boulder Creek, California near her Aunt Bethie who raised her and works at a New Age shop called Earth and Ocean. A former high school acquaintance, Michelle is missing and later her body is found. She has been murdered so Arista, Bethie, Arista’s best friend Maddie, boyfriend Shane and their other friends try to find out what happened to her. Could the new Goth couple, Jaxon and Yelena have anything to do with it? How does this correlate to another missing woman? Why is there a strange connection to Arista’s own past and those of her missing parents?

Murder Under a Redwood Moon is the closest many fiction writers can get to portraying what it’s like to be a witch in the real world. They may have different rituals, traditions, and invoke the names of gods, goddesses, or an unnamed deity. But the magic is very understated and not fanciful. It is based not on amazing magical things physically happening but on the power of belief over what witches can do. 

We don’t see magic spells work except in situations that could be interpreted as magical or mundane. Arista has flashes of insight that could be examples of psychic powers but could just as easily be signs of her being a good judge of character. There are communications with the dead mostly via Ouija board, but they are not set up as unspeakable demonic horror. It's depicted as a ritual to cleanse the mind of confusion and hopefully get some solid leads and answers. 

When Arista and her aunt chant to their gods, it’s treated like prayer, something that they believe in but is not noticeable by anyone else. It's a means to open their mind to possibilities and release tension during stressful and tense times. When they use magical objects like crystals and Tarot cards, the only power is what they put into them through their belief and intentions. 

The protagonists’ Pagan path is portrayed authentically and so is the antagonists’ path. In many Occult/Supernatural Based Mysteries, the antagonist is often something or someone magical. It could be a demon, a more powerful witch or wizard, or another fantastic creature that defies expectation. Here they are human, all too human. They have a sick perverted mind over how they think that the world should be and who they have to hurt to make it happen. 

The opening chapter which is a flashback to Arista’s childhood shows the kind of enemy the characters are stacked against. Someone who will hurt anyone, even those close to them, if it means their goals are met. It’s an all too real action, one we are exposed to every day through the myriad of true crime stories involving people with destructive violent impulses, no respect for those around them, and an outlook that dehumanizes their victims. 

Murder Under Redwood Moon is not the type of Supernatural Mystery that one reads for escape. It is the type that one reads when they want to find a path that helps them face the darkness that surrounds them every day.

The Sunflower Widows by Matthew Fults; Building Community Through War and Grief

 

The Sunflower Widows by Matthew Fults; Building Community Through War and Grief 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

This review is also on Reedsy Discovery.

Spoilers: War brings many victims not just those who were killed but in the survivors especially those who have lost loved ones during war. For the friends and family members, the loss brings long term grief and sorrow. Even when the reasons to go into war are understandable, it still brings violence, death, and heartache. Sometimes the only things that a survivor can do is continue and find positive means of survival. One of the ways is to form a community of those who have had similar experiences so they can share their loss together. That's what happens to the women in Matthew Fults’ novel, The Sunflower Widows.

The Sunflower Widows tells the story of four women from a small Ukrainian village who have lost husbands and other loved ones in battle, particularly during the recent Russo-Ukrainian War. They meet at the home of Kathryna, an elderly woman who is familiar with death and grief. She befriends three younger widows, Yulia, a newlywed, Anna, a middle aged wife of a career soldier, and Natalya, a suddenly single mother. They form a network of support, understanding, and love.

The women's stories are individually told through flashbacks that focus on their lives and relationships before the war then moves to the present as they form a tight bond of sisterhood that encourages laughter, tears, empathy, and understanding. They are fascinating characters coming into their own separate lives before they come together as a group.

Their past stories are moving, detailed, emotional, and sometimes even funny. For example, Yulia and her husband Maksym have a meet-cute when she and her female friends have a flirting match with him and his male friends. In their one and one battle of words, they both emerge as the winners because they agree to date. The date blossoms into a relationship that evolves into a happy marriage for a time.

The flashbacks feature memories that become precious because they are gone. Even the most mundane of activities carry significance that they didn’t before. Anna’s grief is haunted by conversations that were started but never finished about how she and Borys saw their future particularly with or without children.

Their past memories parallel with their new normal in which they have to live without their loved ones.Natalya tries to put up a brave front for her infant son while her world falls apart around her as she mourns her husband. Dmitryo’s death. Her conflicts in being present for her son while wanting to withdraw into herself and her memories are understandable and relatable especially by those who have experienced similar loss. 

They don’t even have to be widows to understand the pain that these women go through. Kathryna herself was unmarried but is no stranger to death. As a child, her father was killed in WWII before she had the chance to really know him. She empathizes with these women because her mother went through the same process.

Because the characters are at different stages in life, the deaths feel like an interruption of what would be a normal process of one life transition to another. Yulia wanted to have a longer marriage to Maksym than the one that ended early and abruptly. Anna was looking forward to Borys’s retirement and spending her twilight years with him. Natalya now has a child, Zdeno, who will grow up never knowing his father, Dmitryo. Putin robbed them all of those chances when his Russian Army invaded their country.

The cause of the war is to fight against the invaders and for Ukraine to maintain its independent sovereignty. The four women understand that and want to live in a country free of invaders and Russian authority disrupting their cities, homes, routines, and daily lives. But agreeing with the cause doesn’t make the grief any less bearable and their husbands any less missed. This acknowledgement of courage and sacrifice can be seen when Kathryna lays out two more chairs when she meets the other three women. The reason that she sets the two empty chairs is because “there will always be widows.” 

The Sunflower Widows has a strong theme of community and togetherness. In their mutual grief, the four women are there for each other. They listen to each other’s stories offering tea and conversation. The other women hold and sit for Zdeno becoming honorary aunts. They encourage each other to change jobs and relocate if they have to. They wipe away one another’s tears and wrap their arms around each other with loving embraces. 

In collaborating and communicating with each other and drawing other mourners in, the Sunflower Widows learn that while grief never really goes away, there can always be something positive found in sharing it with and helping others. 

Sanity Test by K.E. Adamus and Fate's Last Melody by Vanessa Smith

 

Sanity Test by K.E. Adamus 

This review is a summary. The main review is on LitPick.

Sanity Test is a short but very disturbing look at two very troubled, conflicted, and potentially delusional men

This is a series of emails between Hubert Kawka and Wlodzimierz Pawski. Their emails reveal a great deal about their characters and perspectives through the emails. 

It appears that Kawka is a mentally ill patient in a psychiatric hospital and Pawski is his primary carer, but as the emails continue they become more frantic and questionable. The reader starts to wonder who is sane and who isn’t and who exactly these characters are in relation to each other.

Kawka straddles between childlike impulsivity and frightening sociopathic behavior. Through his emails, he describes a series of dramatic means to get Pawski's attention. He harbors an unhealthy fixation to an unhealthy obsessive degree and is gaslighting the other man. 

However, Pawski’s emails also raise concern. He is more emotional and threatening from the initial emails. This is definitely a potential sign that things are not what they seem and adds to the overall uncertainty that we can’t trust either of these men.

As Pawski becomes more unstable, Kawka becomes more reasonable which leaves the reader with questions about who is real, who is fictional, who is sane, who is insane, and who we can trust. The book gives us no real answers and leaves the reader to make their own conclusions to understand this strange and disturbing duo, 

Fate's Last Melody by Vanessa Smith 

This review is a summary. The main review is on LitPick.

Fate's Last Melody has a strong sense of setting and tone by depicting Hell with all of its overall darkness, graphic violence, scares, and ominous energy coming out from every corner. There is a sense of abandonment, hopelessness, and desolation that exists primarily throughout the book. 

Melody is a woman who is abducted during a night on the town with some friends and a potential boyfriend. Her abductor is not a human psychopath. He is a demon named Nyx who takes her to Hell, where she learns that she is the daughter of one of the Fates from Greek Mythology. Melody has to find her way through Hell and learn how to use her inherited powers of seeing and changing other's Destinies before she meets The King of Hell who has his own agenda involving Melody. 

Melody’s first view of Hell is a dark desolate place shrouded in shadows. The descriptions aggravate the senses and the landscape shapes itself to torture those suffering. Needless to say, it's not a pleasant experience.

Smith makes her version of Hell a composite of different mythologies most notably Abrahamic religions and Hellenic Mythology. Hell is led by The King of Hell who is so vaguely described that he could be either Lucifer or Hades, so it could go either way. The Judeo-Christian influence is shown primarily through the 7 Deadly Sins while the Greco-Roman aspects are revealed mostly through the presence of the Fates and the Titans.

There is an overall feeling of helplessness and abandonment until the end when Melody and other characters are inspired to fight against The King of Hell. But there are some potential questions about the actions that were taken to do this which suggests that Hell might end up with another dictator, one who will also torture others for eternity, inflict pain, and control others.

The Diminutive Defenders of Num (The Legend of Guts and Glory Freedom Fighters of Nil Book 3) by Jessica Crichton; The Final Chapter In This Legendary YA Series

 

The Diminutive Defenders of Num (The Legend of Guts and Glory Freedom Fighters of Nil Book 3) by Jessica Crichton; The Final Chapter In This Legendary YA Series 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: STOP! Before you read this book, I request that you read my previous reviews for Dr. Fixit's Malicious Machine and The Counterfeit Zombies of Noc, Volumes 1 and 2 of Jessica Crichton's The Legend of Guts and Glory Freedom Fighters of Nil to understand the series. (While you're at it, read my review of Crichton's stand alone novel, Tipani Walker and The Nightmare Knot. While it is not set in the Guys and Glory Universe, it retains many similar themes). This review will contain MAJOR HEAVY DUTY SPOILERS for the series, so please read this review with caution.

You're back? Oh good, now on we go with Volume 3: The Diminutive Defenders of Num.

Now we come to the potential end of this bold, brilliant, amusing, gripping, suspenseful, involving, surprising, and endlessly entertaining YA Dystopian Science Fiction series by Jessica Crichton. She clearly put a lot of thought into how to bring the adventures of wonder twins Trevor and Tabitha Tate AKA Guts and Glory respectively to a satisfying and memorable conclusion and she did.

To briefly recount the previous volumes. In Volume 1, Trevor and Tabitha’s mother was kidnapped. The twins and their older sister, Emily are recruited by Dr. Fixit who tells them that she was taken to the land of Nil. When they arrive in Nil, they discover that it's a dystopia in which gangs of Kids between 7 and 12 are formed to battle against gangs of Teens. Adults are nowhere to be found. Emily, later called Spirit, is taken by the Teens and eventually joins them. The twins in the meantime join the Kids, obtain the names Guys and Glory, and make new friends like Books, Turtle, Snot, Roach, Blaze, and Papercut. They also vie with the Kid's leader, Fist, who later is revealed to be their missing older brother. They learn that Dr. Fixit has villainous intentions for sending them to Nil. Then they encourage the Kids to team up with the Teens to fight the real enemy. 

After Fixit is temporarily defeated in the first book, the second volume features the Kids traveling to the nearby land of Noc where they encounter Fixit's formidable ex, Marie. She controls a group of elderly people to become zombies that obey her bidding. She uses her manipulative abilities to turn many of the Kids including Guts into zombies as well leaving Glory alone to fight against them. Meanwhile Guys and Glory explore the meanings behind their new names and what they can do to earn them. They discover that the Zombies are the Kid's grandparents and once they break them from Marie's hold, they receive new allies in the struggle against the tyrannical Dr. Fixit.

Now in Volume Three, The Kids and Teens are united so they decide to finally cut Dr. Fixit off at the source. They will enter his fortress in the Land of Num and defeat him once and for all. Along the way, they find brain washed Adults, and robots that obey Fixit without question. Along the way, the Kids rediscover missing family members and learn some interesting truths that reshape their worlds. Guts, Glory, and their siblings also learn the reasons for their existence and their real purpose for coming to Nil in the first place.

Crichton is a consummate YA author because she doesn't write for a young audience. She doesn't dumb down her writing style, hide traumatic and serious topics from her readership, and doesn't talk down to her Readers. She trusts that her Readers will understand her prose without sugarcoating or making it too juvenile.

One of the ways that she accomplishes this in this volume is through narration. Dr. Fixit's Malicious Machine is told through Guts' point of view and The Counterfeit Zombies of Noc was told by Glory. They were simple limited first person narratives and we got to exhibit the plot through one pair of eyes and voice each. With The Diminutive Defenders of Num, Crichton throws that out the window by giving multiple first person points of view. 

Instead of one specific narrator, this book has ten: Guts, Glory, Spirit, Fist, Snot, Papercut, Books, Roach, Turtle, and Blaze. Instead of capturing one voice, she captures all of them and makes them as diverse as possible. 

This is no doubt an insurmountable task that I do not envy Crichton for. However, it shows her immense trust that her young Readers will be able to follow such a narrative process without getting confused.

 It helps that she puts a name identifier at the beginning of each section to point out who is speaking and each chapter has a map which follows the path that our heroes take. But the variety of many voices and the multi layers of a complex narration cannot be understated. 

The complex narration helps to develop the characters and gives them opportunities to stand out. Guts and Glory have some great moments particularly after they are separated and take different roles in fighting against Fixit. Guts is thrown into Fixit's inner sanctum and finds out some traumatic secrets about their foe. Glory also has her heroic moments especially when she learns that her abilities have increased exponentially.

Other characters get to shine on their own showing courage, empathy, intelligence, defiance, and individuality. While they are all terrific, the two biggest stand outs in the ensemble are Guts and Glory's older siblings, Fist and Spirit showing that great characterization is a Tate Family trait.

Fist has been mostly the dominant dictatorial leader turned traitor turned antihero in the previous volumes. Now, he gets more depth as he bonds with Blaze, one of the younger kids and treats her like a kid sister. He also faces his own abandonment issues knowing that his mother and siblings left him behind when they fled Nil and traveled to Earth and ruminates the difficulties of being a member of the Tate Family of heroes and what it means to be one himself. 

Meanwhile Spirit has deals with her own insecurities about what role she should play in the resistance and acknowledges her complicated relationship with her family, particularly her mother. She also has to discover and accept her own inner power when danger approaches.

One of the more unique and humorous touches to this series is Crichton's use of dialogue. The Kids and Teens speak in a language that uses a strange composite of pidgin English and slang. For example Blaze at one point describes travel by boat as “Bein’ onna boat makes ya real tough. The wind’s blowin’ on yer face, but ya can just stand there an’ tell it ta shut it, cuz ya ain't goin’ nowhere anyhow.” 

It takes awhile to get used to but it definitely gives the impression of gangs of young people whose education has been limited, have to act and talk tough to survive, and learn to communicate by their own merits. 

The more hilarious aspect is the Numspeak language spoken by the Adults. It consists entirely of business communication jargon and cliches. For example “bottom line” is someone's name, “cutting edge” is now or today, and “level the playing field” is discussion or communication. 

As someone who has to review a lot of Self-Help, Personal Development, and Business books where these phrases occur so frequently that I inwardly roll my eyes when I see them, the concept of building a whole language around words like “think outside the box,” “synergy,” “zero sim game,” and “paradigm shift” personally amuses me. I also questioned and felt my current age when I realized that I understood the Adultspeak upon first reading it better and more clearly than I did the Kidspeak.

A slight and questionable flaw with this book is the muted presence of events and characters from the previous book, The Counterfeit Zombies of Noc. The Grandparents are introduced but don't play a huge part of this volume with the exception of The Tate’s grandmother. There is a lot about brainwashing and manipulation which is similar to Marie’s hold on the Zombies, but there is no direct link to that process. 

Most importantly, it would have been interesting to see Marie play a part in this volume. The idea of her  and Fixit, lovers turned exes vying with each other or working together for control of the people, is fiendishly delightful. The three books would have tied together better instead of giving the overall impression of jumping from Nil to Num without stopping at Noc along the way.

However this is a small flaw in a book that is filled with climactic moments that bring the series to an overall successful conclusion. In YA literature, it should become legendary. 

September and October Reading List

 

September-October List

Wow 13 reviews in one month! That's the most monthly reviews this year! 

I have news. I am still continuing the blog quite naturally but I am also working on some other projects. I am still editing and proofreading Elyria's Journey by Rina Hodson. I have also accepted positions for other book groups, three of which LitPick, MockingOwl Roost, and Reader's Views have strict rules about whether reviews can be shared with other outlets so even though I am working on reviews, they might not be shared on the blog at least for now. I also have a potential tutoring job starting this week. So my entries may not be as frequent as they are in other during other months. 

Murder Under Redwood Moon by Sherri Dodd

The Sunflower Widows by Matthew Fults

Madame Fiocca by Suzy Henderson 

Sanity Test by K.E. Adamus*

The Bluestockings: A History of The First Women's Movement by Susannah Gibson*

The Book of Outcasts by Martin Nagin*

The Diminutive Defenders of Num (The Legend of Guts and Glory Freedom Fighters of Nil Book 3) by Jessica Crichton

The Healer’s Daughter by Myriana Merkovic

Dear Emperor, Yours Jane by Robin Robby 

Chloe's Crusade (The Teddy Bear Chronicles Book 2) by Donnalyn Vjota 

Aliza in Naziland by Elyse Hoffman

Small Worlds by Gail Vida Hamburg

The Amazing Flight of Aaron William Hawk vol. 2: Wings of Emifra by J. Bruno 

Fate's Last Melody by Vanessa Smith*

Indiana Belle by John A Heldt*

Shut Me Up in Prose by Maithy Vu*

Rebirth Protocol: The Return of Earth's Guardian and The Sword Magus Supreme by Nyxaris

The Red Wedding by Alessandra Oddi Baglioni

Labyrinth of Shadows: The Witch's Return Part 1 by Michaela Riley

The Hidden Raphael's Banker by Alessandra Oddi Baglioni 

The Orphanage on Cheswick Court: The Hollowbloods by Haule Voss

Survive The Cursed by Ashton Abbott 

If you have a book that you would like me to review, beta read, edit, proofread, or write, please contact me at the following:

Bluesky

Facebook

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Email: juliesaraporter@gmail.com 

Prices are as follows (subjected to change depending on size and scope of the project):

Beta Read: $50.00-75.00

Review: $50-100.00**

Copy/Content Edit: $100-300.00

Proofread: $100-300.00

Research & Citation: $100-400.00

Ghostwrite/Co-Write:$200-400.00

*These are books reviewed for LitPick, Mocking Owl Roost, or Reader's Views and will only feature a summary and a few paragraphs with links to the full reviews on their sites. Some may not be featured at all.

**Exceptions are books provided by Henry Roi PR, LitPick, Reedsy Discovery, Hidden Gems, Mocking Owl Roost, Voracious Readers, Reader's Views, and DP Books. Payments of short Nonfiction reviews are already facilitated through Real Book Review, Amazon Book Groups, Michael Cheng, Five Stars Books, and Book Square Publishing. 

Payments can be made to my PayPal, Payoneer, or Google Wallet accounts at juliesaraporter@gmail.com

Well that's it. Thanks and as always, Happy Reading.

*These are books that I review for other sources like LitPick, MockingOwl Roost, or ReadersViews. They will either appear as summaries or short reviews on my site with links to the longer version or won't appear at all

The Lindens by Barney Jeffries; Lovely History of a House and Its People

The Lindens by Barney Jeffries; Lovely History of a House and Its People 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Barney Jeffries’ The Lindens is similar to Edward Rutherfurd’s Epic Historical Fiction novels like Sarum, London, and New York. Like Rutherfurd, Jeffries covers a large cast of characters for an extensive period of time in a specific location. This book covers approximately 150 years of a house in Marshmead, England called The Lindens.

The Lindens was built in 1885 by rising businessman Arnold Cann for his family. The various characters that live there are an eclectic group of people over the years who have their own rich and captivating stories to tell. There's Tessa Hobson, a highly intelligent milkmaid with an advantageous marriage, Henry Cook, a WWII evacuee who acquires a love of birds, Irene Cotter who is contemplating leaving her abusive marriage, Arthur and Eleanor Aldridge, a hippie couple who weigh their next steps after their successful children's book series comes to an end, The Blakes, a multigenerational family that has an eventful Christmas season with plenty of emotional baggage, Veronika Lambert, a Slovakian immigrant who is faced with xenophobic neighbors, and Marsha Wood, whose investigation into The Lindens and its residents brings all of the various characters together.

Like any good Historical Fiction novel about a particular space, Jeffries personifies The Lindens so that the house becomes a character in its own right, in fact the central character. Its solid brick exterior, gabled windows, and bay windows suggest a stable protectorate for those who live there. The four bedrooms, indoor bathroom, two smaller servant rooms, drawing room, cellar, lawn, walled garden, stables, coach house, and orchard reveal The Lindens as a home of tremendous wealth but restraint in showing it off. The various touches that are added over the years such as the row of lime trees, the pond, built-in swimming pool, fountain gardens, and additions give the home different traits and characteristics that are found within each family and over the generations. 

In general The Lindens is a house that can very quickly become a home. It is beautiful, stately, charming, steady, ornate, proud, imposing, warm, and inviting. It holds the various memories, voices, personalities, behaviors, triumphs, tragedies, loves, and losses of the people who lived there.

Besides capturing The Lindens’ many facets and changes, Jeffries also captures the various characters’ individualities and complexities. A truly insurmountable and impressive feat considering the large cast that covers hundreds of years of English history. There are many well written characters from different backgrounds, goals, personality traits, experiences, and memories that surround the book. Jeffries created a memorable ensemble.

Tessa Hobson starts the book out strong. She is a dairy maid from a lower class family, but instantly shows her vast intelligence that is beyond what most people think of her. She captures the eye of The Lindens’ heir, Roger Cann, as he reads Romantic poetry out loud. Tessa is amused that it appears he is reading out loud to the cows. This gesture becomes a running gag between the couple as they joke that they met when “Roger read Keats to the cows.” This moment of literary connection leads to others as Tessa reveals her own literary interests from Thomas Hardy, to the Romantics are as vast as Roger’s.

Tessa however isn’t just verbally intelligent, she reveals herself to be brilliant in numbers by keeping track of her family finances and tallying the gallons of milk that are collected and distributed. She also has an entrepreneurial mind as she has plans to modernize the Cann’s dairy farm and far reaching goals to see those plans through. It’s no surprise that Roger’s father, Arnold recruits Tessa as the farm’s manager and bucks tradition by putting a woman in charge of a growing business that ends up a success.

The importance of knowledge and learning is spread throughout the centuries as the characters receive opportunities to learn new things, express that knowledge in different ways, and pass that knowledge to others. One of those characters is Henry Cook, a boy from London taken in as an evacuee by Tessa in her old age. Henry gains a love of nature as he explores the gardens, the trees, the orchards, and especially the birds. Tessa and Henry bond through their bird watching trips where he learns to identify the various bird species that surround The Lindens.

This love of nature continues throughout Henry’s life as he becomes a respected ornithologist who writes a series of books about birds in England. In old age, he revisits the Lindens with his family and cries tears of joy as he locates the current avian inhabitants of the estate, no doubt descendants of the birds that he knew when he was a boy. He also passes this knowledge and love of nature to the young people that accompany him like his grandson, Laurence Wood, Laurence’s wife, Aleesha, and Aleesha’s sister, Marsha.

Besides knowledge, The Lindens becomes a therapeutic location that helps its residents and visitors explore their creativity and individuality. Arthur and Eleanor Aldridge wrote and illustrated The Brixton Bunnies, a series of satirical children’s books that also appeal to adults. They received plenty of inspiration, fame, wealth, and made their voices and opinions heard through these books. But they landed in a rut and felt the series ran its course. Buying the Lindens gives Arthur some much needed inspiration for his next project: a series of serio-comic stories and novels about life in the country. 

However, creativity and the results of that creativity can be all-consuming. The Aldridges were once united in working on The Brixton Bunnies as a duo, but since moving to The Lindens, their lives veer away from each other. Eleanor is enamored with this country home and continues to illustrate adaptations of children’s classics. Despite writing about the country, Arthur is interested in expanding his writing interests and his horizons. He wants to travel, see new places, and meet new people, including other women. Not surprisingly, these differences become insurmountable and the couple realize that their marriage has to come to an end which results in trauma for their son, Felix. He goes through a series of problems in his life including addiction, depression, constant relocation, and frequent job dissatisfaction before he returns to The Lindens to find a peace of mind and his own creativity and voice. 

The Lindens is a location of coming and going and is different things to different people. For Irene Cotter and her son, Eric, the house is a beautiful prison that stands as a symbol of their captivity by an abusive husband and father. The only way that they can achieve any freedom is to leave it. For Veronika Lambert, The Lindens is a symbol of freedom as she flees her troubled home country to a place of security and comfort. 

The Lindens is also a place of nostalgia among and is a place to come back to and relive a carefree innocent childhood. One of the best chapters that illustrate this is when the family of Julia and Glen Blake are reunited for the winter holidays. The parents and their three children come to terms with their adult struggles and conflicts while retaining those youthful memories, competitions, arguments, and family ties. The oldest daughter, Alex, has a high powered white collar career but is consumed with loneliness, envy, and alcoholism. Their only son, Robin and his wife, Kelly are at odds because of their different parenting styles towards their infant twins. Meanwhile Ruthie, the youngest, is concerned whether her family will accept her girlfriend, Marsha.

It’s worth noting that the majority of people who receive the house are not direct immediate descendants or heirs. It isn't primarily a home that is passed from parent to child. Nephews inherit from aunts and uncles. In-laws receive it instead of blood relatives. Mostly, families purchase the home from previous tenants. Most of the characters are not related by blood, nor do they arrive or leave the Lindens with the comfort of a wide ancestry which tell them that this space is and will always be theirs by birth. Instead they are united by their connections to the house and to each other. 

The various characters are drawn together by an investigation conducted by Marsha. Her curiosity about this place and its inhabitants opens a wide circle among them. Some purchase The Lindens from others. Some marry or become romantically involved with members of the other families. Visitors return to this beautiful house that once held their pasts. Even those who are long deceased are shouted out by current inhabitants visiting their graves or recognizing their contributions to the house. 

It’s a wide circle that is centered around this one space that meant so many things to so many people. The people that dwelled within, the characteristics and traits that were included, the memories and connections that are formed, the history, its current life, and the future generations are what turns this house into a home.

Hope in Paris (The Teddy Bear Chronicles Book 1) by Donnalyn Vjota; The Adventures of The We Really Care Bears

 

Hope in Paris (The Teddy Bear Chronicles Book 1) by Donnalyn Vjota; The Adventures of The We Really Care Bears

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: I am going to give a warning before I begin the review. Bear with me now.

Donnalyn Vjota’s book Hope in Paris: The Teddy Bear Chronicles is NOT a children’s book. Yes it is narrated by three plush teddy bears. Yes, it’s a cute concept and there are even some moments that could be considered adorable. But this is a book that is written for adults (maybe teens but adults are the central target audience.) Adult themes like domestic abuse, mental illness, sex, stalkers, mid-life crises, familial abandonment, addiction, and murder are important plot points. Now that's over, with the review. 

The idea of an adult novel told from the point of view of stuffed animals has potential to be an overly cutesy saccharine fluff piece or a Contemporary Fantasy in which the humans interact with the toys ala Ted or the toys talk to each other ala Toy Story. But despite the odd premise, Vjota actually writes the book, Hope in Paris, as straight and as realistic as she can. With of course the added caveat that the narrators of the book are a trio of stuffed bears belonging to some damaged and helpless humans that need some assistance to make their difficult lives more bearable. 

The three bears are:

Fair Bear was won at the Illinois State Fair by Mark as a gift for his girlfriend, Haley. Haley left and now Fair Bear lives with Mark and his new girlfriend, Kelly. However, the relationship between Kelly and Mark is becoming toxic and abusive and Fair Bear has to be an eyewitness to various violent acts, particularly getting thrown around by this pair of angry humans.

Love Bear is owned by Richard, who is perpetually unlucky in love. He promised his deceased mother that he would settle down and marry the right woman but his ideas about romance are overwhelming. On the third date, he tried to give an expensive gift and Love Bear to them as a marriage proposal which they turn down leaving him alone with his plushy ursine friend.

Sleepy Time Bear is the companion of Ms. V, an American former actress turned drama teacher living in Paris and working at an orphanage. She has mental health difficulties and a mysterious past that gets revealed through the course of the book.

 The three bears and their humans are thrown together in Paris where they end up linked to each other in surprising ways that will give them and the Readers great paws.

One of the most interesting and endearing touches to the book are the bears themselves, their narrative voices, and their relationships with their human companions. It's particularly amusing how the humans take their bears everywhere they go to the store, to a cafe, on a date, on vacation, and just about everywhere else. Of course Vjota did this for narrative purposes so the bears could report on important plot points but there are deeper possibilities. It could be that they are that lonely and desperate for someone, anyone to talk to, confide in, and hold onto even if they can't move or talk back to them. 

The bears awaken those inner children who used their imaginations to find a temporary escape from their sadness and despair. Having a Bedtime Bear Care Bear on my bed who watches with Grogu, Sadness, Hilda The Plush Witch, and Trixy The Plush Black Cat as I work from home, get depressed, have panic attacks, stress about deadlines, get lost in a book, and ruminate about middle age, I completely understand the need to have those comfort objects when we just can't bear it any longer. 

These characters’ emotions run the gamut between too hot, too cold, and just right.They alternate between childlike naivete and deep awareness. There are things that they don't completely understand about the human world that surrounds them. For example, Sleepy Time Bear confuses one of Ms. V's psychotic breaks with a play rehearsal. It just assumes that she's talking in character and playing a role when one of her alternate personalities or delusions take over.

This childlike innocence gives them an empathetic understanding towards their human friends. Sleepy Time is presented by Ms. V at night to orphans who can’t sleep. It is also there as a friend shaped shoulder to cry on when Ms. V is overwhelmed by her illness and estrangement from family members. Sleepy Time Bear is a silent observer that loves her and never judges her and instead opens its furry arms in comfort and acceptance.

Sometimes the bears are wiser than the humans. That is particularly true with Love Bear and its relationship with Richard. While it is a bear that represents romance, Love can be very sardonic and frequently snarks about the human friend. After observing Richard missing flirtatious cues from a woman named Rachel, Love Bear practically face-paws with embarrassment from inside its bag. “The man does not know flirting even when it's standing in front of him and named Rachel,” Love fumes. 

At times, Love practically acts as Richard’s wing man uh bear observing his companion’s dates and commenting on his failures and successes. However, Love is also aware that Richard is lonely and wants to love and be loved. He just doesn’t know how to pursue it and has overblown fantasies about what it should mean. Once he learns to slow down and let a relationship take its course, Richard is able to show himself to be the nice sweet slightly geeky but solid dependable guy that Love Bear knows him to be. The type of man who anyone would be interested in taking their relationship fur-ther.

The book gets incredibly dark particularly during Fair Bear’s chapters that focus on Kelly and Mark’s troubled relationship. There are moments of anguish when Fair observes Kelly getting beaten and threatened by her boyfriend. It wants to do more to help but knows that it is limited since it's just an inanimate object and unable to physically help her. It’s just an object for her to cuddle and pour her heart out to when she can't take it anymore.

However, a twist occurs in which Fair turns out to contribute more than just comfort for Kelly. In fact, it becomes an important clue that inspires Kelly to leave Mark and find evidence against him when she learns of his criminal history. She is grateful for Fair Bear’s unintentional assistance and when she finally departs, she takes the grateful bear with her. Kelly definitely chose the bear but this time the bear also chose her. 

The teddy bears in the book may be inanimate and unable to actually communicate with their human friends but they are also catalysts for them to change and improve their lives. To leave broken relationships and dead end jobs. To find real love. To rediscover their roots and reunite with people they thought were gone from their lives. To reinvent and rediscover themselves. To become self-actualized and authentic. They reached for the bears for companionship and to soothe aching hurts and instead changed their lives for the better. Thanks to their furever friends.