Weekly Reader: 7 Days in Hell: A Halloween Adventure to Wake The Dead by Iseult Murphy; The Literal Vacation from Hell

 

Weekly Reader: 7 Days in Hell: A Halloween Adventure to Wake The Dead by Iseult Murphy; The Literal Vacation from Hell

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Iseult Murphy's horror novel, 7 Days in Hell: A Halloween Adventure to Wake The Dead delivers on its title. It is indeed a vacation from Hell and a very terrifying reading experience.

Dublin twin sisters, Vicki and Irene Murtaugh are on vacation in the country with Irene's dog, Ronnie. They stop at Boss Cottage in the rural isolated village of Basard. They don't question the strange family that owns the cottage and pop in and out of the fog. They don't question the oddly chirpy American family also staying there. It's at night that things start to get….weird.

First the sky seems to become a strange luminous color even at night. Then  there are those strange sounds at night that sound like cheering. Whenever, the twins ask the locals about the nocturnal weirdness, their nonanswer amounts to "none of your business." When they tell a priest where they are staying, his "God be with you," is less polite chatter and more "Get out while you still can." Not to mention their car breaks down and the local mechanic is in no hurry to fix it like they want them to stick around for awhile. 

Then on Halloween night, their curiosity gets the better of them and they observe hundreds of robed and masked figures engage in a terrifying ritual.

This is an unforgettable horror novel because it is nightmarish at times. The ritual that the twins find themselves in includes many horrifying images of cannibalism, infanticide, dismemberment, and feasting on human blood. This is a chapter that is not for the strong of stomach.

Afterwards,paranoia filters in as Irene and Vicki don't know who to trust, believing that anyone in the village could have taken part in the ritual and could be sizing up the sisters for their next sacrifice. There is even a point when the twins are separated and reunited that the Reader's suspicions turn towards one of the twins.

7 Days in Hell is quite strong in character as well as terror. Irene and Vicki are the typical good twin/bad twin dichotomy but the two are excellent protagonists in their differences. Vicki is the more action oriented of the two, preferring to run or at least fight. She is quick to guess ulterior motives and is able to use her suspicions to try to get away or stand up to her antagonists.

Irene is the quieter, more spiritual minded of the two. When Sunday comes, she makes sure that she and Vicki attend mass even though they are on vacation. She is more fearful of the ritual and when she and Vicki are separated, she heads for the priest's house to request his help. She has a strong sense of faith and is a deep thinker and these qualities get her through this terrifying week.

7 Days in Hell is a terrific horror adventure akin to Rosemary's Baby, the original Wicker Man, or The Exorcist. It is definitely one hell of a book.

Weekly Reader: Who's There: A Collection of Stories by Dimas Rio; Five Terrifying Unnerving Tales of the Supernatural

 

Weekly Reader: Who's There: A Collection of Stories by Dimas Rio; Five Terrifying Unnerving Tales of the Supernatural

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Dimas Rio's horror anthology,, Who's There: A Collection of Stories weave five tales that are unsettling, unnerving, and utterly terrifying.

This anthology only has five stories and is 165 pages long. Rios clearly favored quality over quantity because each story packs a tremendous punch of terror, suspense, and paranoia

The five stories are: 

"Who's There"- Before his upcoming wedding, Adam, a

prospective groom's jitters go beyond the usual cold feet. There are some Poe-esque qualities to this story as Adam's thoughts get more  and more unhinged. He becomes truly monstrous as the Reader learns just how difficult his relationship with his intended bride is and how far he would go to maintain his single status. 

"At Dusk"- The Narrator is interviewing a local mystery writer who has a terrifying secret. This story seems to come out of the Twilight Zone with its emphasis on a fantasy supernatural theme and its twist ending (which is a little obvious). However, the mystery writer is a memorable character both in his recall of his spooky experience and the killer denouement.

"The Wandering"-Badrun, a security guard follows some mysterious noises inside a high rise and is haunted by mysterious letters detailing a doomed courtship. This book makes much of its setting. The isolation and claustrophobia of the city is revealing throughout this tale. The high rise is filled with the abandonment and isolation of after hours. Badrun is also an interesting protagonist as the mysterious letters stir up memories of his past that he had long buried.

"The Voice Canal"-While preparing a dissertation, Gio, a young man gets strange phone calls from his father. Instead of horror, this story goes for sentiment and heart. Gio is an ambitious but loving young man who is very close to his friends and family. His conversations with his father reveal their close relationship. His father has an uncanny ability to know exactly what troubles his son and knows the right thing to say, not just for supernatural reasons but by being a loving father.

"The Forest Protector"- Told from alternating views between a mother and son, the mother, Alma, has a strange connection to a mysterious creature of legend. While the majority of the stories are set in Rios' native Indonesia, this story makes the most of the setting. The creature with whom Alma is connected is one from Indonesiian folklore, a forest monster who protects some but destroys others. Alma's son, Ralfa reads comic books and possesses an almost encyclopedia knowledge of various local characters like Mahardika, the Forest Protector.

What also makes this story stand out is the alternate points of view. Alma hovers between being fiercely protective of her family and fearing for her own sanity and what monstrous form that she inhabits. Ralfa is torn between his childhood fantasies of superheroes and magical creatures and the reality of poverty and having a troubled mother. This story could almost be a metaphor for a dysfunctional relationship between a mentally ill parent and their worried anxious child.

Who's There is a terrific collection of short stories that will scare the living daylights out of anyone who encounters it.

New Book Alert: The Serpent Queen by Tyler M. Mathis; Odd, Weird, and Shallow Dark Comic Horror About A Serpent Goddess

 New Book Alert: The Serpent Queen by Tyler M. Mathis; Odd, Weird, and Shallow Dark Comic Horror About A Serpent Goddess

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: You know that Tyler M. Mathis' novella, The Serpent Queen, is going to be a fun and interesting ride when you read the dedication, or lack thereof: "This book is dedicated to no one." It's a darkly comic touch in a book that is brimming with them. (Sure hope Mathis' friends and family weren't too hurt by that. I mean, rude.)

The Serpent Queen is similar to a Tales from the Crypt comic or episode, a dark, weird, and erotic horror novella that involves a serpent goddess wrapping herself around a married couple.

Jenn and Jeff are married but not exactly faithful to each other. They have an open marriage and have had multiple affairs. When they aren't sleeping with other people, they are fantasizing about them. In Jenn's case, she fantasizes about men and women. However, the Smiling Swingers have reached the age where partying and open affairs are not as fun anymore. So they are leaving Chicago to New York City to have one last hurrah before they settle into comfortable middle age. So they do what any hot blooded sex crazed couple would do: go to a reptile show.

However this reptile show is not your standard program for the public library and the herpetologist, Dr. Natalia Manasa is not your usual snake whisperer. The show starts out innocently enough with her showing non poisonous reptiles and mentioning their origins. Then things get weird when her little pets take vengeance on a heckler by brutally attacking him. Even better, the audience seems to delight in the cruelty so much that they are salivating for the heckler's blood and posting videos of his humiliation on YouTube. Jenn is even more embarrassed that Jeff is one of the followers as though he were hypnotized. When it comes to animal experts, Natalia Manasa is no Steve Irwin.

Things get even weirder when Manasa appears to be attracted to Jeff and Jenn and invites them both to a strange party so she could get to know them better.

This book isn't really deep in characterization. Jeff and Jenn are the prototypical argumentative couple and alternate between annoying and pathetic. Jenn is extremely whiny and Jeff is immature so it's hard to take either of them seriously or care much about what really happens to them beyond the creepy weirdness factor.

Manasa herself is a scene stealer of the highest order. She enchants and seduces both couples and seems to have a whole cult, as well as her beloved serpents, at her beck and call. She is a sexually fascinating character but after a while she starts to wear thin. She lacks the subtle nuances and characterization of other similar seductresses like Lilith in R.E. Wood's Succubus Affair. Her sexual magnetism begins to run into self parody especially at the end when she is confronted and somehow she still seems to get her way, even coming off in a better situation than before.

There are some pretty graphic parts that are the highlight of the book, particularly when Jeff and Jenn go to the party. Manasa knows what the couple's erotic desires are and she provides it in many ways. There are some servants of Manasa's that appear to not only satisfy her needs but to give her guests a good kinky time.

There are plenty of moments that are hallucinatory and terrifying, not surprisingly, involving snakes. Jenn receives a very shocking operation that puts her up close and personal with the cuddly critters. It becomes clear that Manasa is just as cold blooded as her pets with an almost hypnotic way of catching her prey before she feasts on them (and in some cases, that may not be a metaphor.)

The Serpent Queen has a way of drawing the Reader in and fascinating them with the erotica, suspense, and weirdness but after a while the lasting impact feels flat. It's more like a non-lethal snake, gruesome when you look at it but easily forgettable once you walk away from it.

Classics Corner: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald; Welcome to the Public Domain, Old Sport

 

Classics Corner: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald; Welcome to the Public Domain, Old Sport

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Jay Gatsby has achieved a feat achieved by many before him such as King Arthur, Robin Hood, Don Quixote, Cinderella, Hamlet, Jane Eyre, Mr. Darcy, Oliver Twist, Ebenezer Scrooge, Sherlock Holmes,  Alice, Dracula, Huckleberry Finn, The Wizard of OZ (book form not MGM movie form) have received. He,Daisy and Tom Buchanan, Nick Caraway and the "whole rotten crowd" have entered the public domain. That means that F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic gets all that comes with it: academic interests, adaptation, remakes, alternate points of view, parodies, merchandise and the rest. (A zombie version is reportedly in the works.)

Many take The Great Gatsby at face value. They think it reveals the glamor of the Roaring Twenties, the parties, drinking, and what the hell fun before reality hit with the Crash of '29. It's a lot deeper than that.

The Great Gatsby is about the illusion of fame and celebrity and how the rich and famous look to the people underneath them. To them, they look attractive, carefree, and cannot possibly have anything wrong with their lives. The countless suicides, public meltdowns, and o.d’s of celebrities have shown otherwise. Inside every celebrity is a frightened suffering person that has to hide that suffering under the spotlight

Jay Gatsby, the eponymous protagonist Fitzgerald’s novel is someone who has an illusion of a rich and famous life but suffers a lonely existence. He is a wealthy mysterious man who throws the wildest parties that are attended by the best and brightest of the Roaring Twenties: gangsters, politicians, actors, producers, and scores of flappers.

The people drink, dance and have a great time and wonder about their mysterious host who throws the parties but is rarely seen at them. Is he a bootlegger? Is he a distant cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm? Did he kill a man? No one knows, but still they go to his parties. All they know is he is the  man who seems to have everything, wealth, splendor, fame, and the masses can’t help but enjoy themselves.

To them Gatsby is the embodiment of the Jazz Age: Live free, live rich, live large, and have fun. In this liberated freedom of the Jazz Age, many people felt free to experiment. Women in particular were free from corsets, wore short skirts, smoked in public, and were allowed to embrace their sexuality and that often involved having affairs. Fitzgerald captured that carefree and sexually liberated milieu that surrounds Gatsby perfectly.

Gatsby’s life is recounted by Nick Carraway, the naive narrator and Gatsby’s next-door neighbor. At first, Nick watches bemused at all the people who attend Gatsby’s parties. He watches the events next door with a detached admiration and perhaps some slight envy at his neighbor’s carefree seemingly easy adventurous lifestyle (some think maybe with lust for Gatsby). Until he realizes that he has a closer connection to Gatsby than he was previously aware. This connection comes in the form of Daisy Buchanan, Nick’s second cousin and her husband, Tom, an old friend of Nick’s.

While getting reacquainted with the Buchanans and their friend, Jordan Baker whom Daisy wants to “fling together” with Nick, Nick learns that Tom has a mistress in the city and that Daisy and Gatsby are former lovers. Nick becomes a go-between as Daisy and Gatsby are reunited and rekindle their love affair.

By far the most intriguing character in the book is Gatsby, whom Nick describes as “worth the whole damn bunch put together.” At the very least, he is a much better character than the narcissistic Daisy and the bad-tempered Tom whom Nick describes as “careless people. They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they made.”

 As Nick gets to know his wealthy friend, he begins to piece together the events in his life that shaped him. He learns about Gatsby’s impoverished background and his drive to improve himself and his situation. Nick also learns how Gatsby obtained his wealth through his military service and making good connections with wealthy, sometimes shady characters. In learning about Gatsby’s backstory, Nick saw a man who was constantly trying to look upwards and always trying to achieve happiness.

Even when he has found wealth, success, and is surrounded by the “Bright Young Things,” Gatsby still isn’t happy. He purposely chose the mansion on West Egg, Long Island, because it overlooks the lake surrounding the East Egg where Daisy lives.  Jordan confides to Nick that the only reason that Gatsby began the parties in the first place was so by chance that Daisy would wander into them. It’s no surprise that once Daisy is back in Gatsby’s arms that the parties cease. Through all of his wealth, connections, and fame, Gatsby still yearns for his lost love, “The One That Got Away.”

What makes Gatsby’s story sadder is that Daisy is not really worth the attention Gatsby gives her. He is still caught up in his romantic juvenile fantasies of the young innocent girl that he remembers, not the vapid flirt that she has become. She is less interested in loving Gatsby than she is fascinated by his big house and shiny things and wants to get even with her husband and his mistress, Myrtle Wilson. Even when Gatsby forces Daisy’s hand by confronting Tom with their affair, she still can’t summon the courage to decide between them playing both men at once. Even after a violent occurrence which puts all matters upfront, Daisy avoids Gatsby entirely and poor Gatsby still believes that somehow, someway Daisy will come rushing into his arms.

Like the real-life celebrities who have come to violent ends, Jay Gatsby’s life is sadder and lonelier than anyone realizes. This is shown particularly in the final crushing scenes when despite all of the countless people that attended his parties, despite the love he held for Daisy, the only people in attendance at Gatsby’s funeral are a permanent house guest, Gatsby’s estranged father, and Nick, who is revealed to be Gatsby’s best, truest, and only real friend.

New Book Alert: Trapped in Time by Denise Daye; Typical Time Travel Romance With Strong Independent Female Lead

 New Book Alert: Trapped in Time by Denise Daye; Typical Time Travel Romance With Strong Independent Female Lead

 By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Once again, we encounter a novel on the concept of love and time. This time instead of reincarnation, we encounter time travel. A modern woman is inexplicably thrust back into the late 19th century and has to compromise her modern independent feminism with a time of corsets, suffrage, and arranged marriages.

Emma, a modern 21st century woman, leaves a bad party. She had a rough go of things with an impoverished childhood with an abusive father and an inability to trust men because of that. However, she had a decent career as a pharmacy technician and is currently going to medical school to become a pharmacist. That is before a strange light emerging from an old coin transports her to 1881 London.

There are the typical comic scenes with the fish out of water away from their own time. People mistake Emma's iPhone for a music box and dismiss everything from her shirt dress to her modern slang as just being "typical American." Emma almost too quickly adjusts to being in the 19th century to the point that she questions whether her new 19th century friend, Lilly, would understand that she's a "pharmacist." Lily does understand when she uses the term "chemist" though thinks that it's odd for a woman to be studying such a field.

Since Emma has no idea how she got there and no way of getting back, her logical mind tells her that she needs to study this problem and she needs time and luxury to do it. There are very few employment options for women and only two that allow that time: what Lilly does, prostitution, and well marriage. Emma doesn't want to become a prostitute so marriage it is! The two conspire to get Emma married off to the most titled rake in England, a known heartbreaker (so it will be easy to leave him when Emma hightails it back to the 21st century.) Unfortunately, complications ensue when Emma and Lilly's thought out trap snares the wrong man and Emma starts to, gulp, like him.

The love triangle is standard for the historical romance well with the exception that the heroine is from the future. William Blackwell, Duke of Davenport, the one that Emma first has her sights on is the typical dashing womanizing rake. He is almost a stereotype of this character with few redeemable features. John Evergreen is the nice guy who of course falls in love with the girl and vice versa. The romance aspects are the typical ones found in these type of books. However, the ending is a bit unique for a time travel novel and is an unusual bright spot.

Actually, the parts that shine the most are the moments between Emma and Lilly. Lilly helps Emma adjust to life in the 19th century including giving her a Victorian era makeover and revealing the hard life of a prostitute and that she wasn't born one. She is happy to play the part of lady's maid to Emma's eccentric American widowed heiress considering it a step up.  When Emma tells Lilly about her life in America, actually her life in the 21st century, Lilly begs that Emma take her with her. Many of Emma and Lilly's moments together are the true heart of the book and show the real change that could come about when one is able to think forward enough to challenge the circumstances that they were born into.

Trapped in Time is mostly average in terms of romance but it's female characters stand out making it a sharp clever take on time travel and women's status in this and previous centuries.

Weekly Reader: Rosemary for Remembrance by Nikki Broadwell; Dark War-Torn Reincarnation Novel Reveals Struggles, Conflicts, and Love Lasts Through The Centuries

 Weekly Reader: Rosemary for Remembrance by Nikki Broadwell; Dark War-Torn Reincarnation Novel Reveals Struggles, Conflicts, and Love Lasts Through The Centuries

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: In a strange bit of coincidence, Nikki Broadwell's Rosemary for Remembrance is the second book that I am reviewing in a row that has a theme of reincarnation. While the two books tell a somewhat similar story of lovers discovering that they were together in one lifetime and are in love again in the present, they couldn't be more different in their approach. Amelie Pimont's Canvas of Time is a beautiful novel of lovers torn apart in different life times and realizing that they were always fated to be together. It is idyllic and dream-like as they rediscover each other time and again and are able to go through their differences by realizing that they are meant to be.

 Rosemary for Remembrance takes a far darker approach to the idea. This book seems to say that "Yes you were together and you will be together again. You will get that and all that comes with it: including the arguments, conflicts, separations, stress that you had before and get to relive it again in another life. Oh yeah and you may not have been happy the first time or this time either."

I don't want to say one is inherently better than the other, just that they certainly make you think different things about the idea of reincarnation and whether you want to spend more than one lifetime with a person.

We first encounter Rosemary and Dylan Hughes in 1957, right as they are planning to divorce. Rosemary's father has just died and the estranged couple are going through his estate. There are some hints as to the reasons behind their separation: presumed infidelity, different lifestyles, PTSD from WWII, Rosemary gaining independence, take your pick. As if that's not enough, Rosemary has waking dreams and visions of a woman in the 19th century named Rebecca and her husband, Edgar. A further twist occurs when Dylan confesses that since he came back from the war, he has had similar but foggy dreams of the same  couple. The book fills into the Hughes' meeting, at times tempestuous marriage, their wartime experiences, separation, and the strange connection that they have to Rebecca and Edgar  revealing that they were once them in a former life.

Rosemary for Remembrance could be considered an anti-Romance novel or maybe not so much anti-Romance as it is a realistic novel about the struggles that romance and marriage can bring. After all the books I read these two months where marriage is the be all and end all (and a couple of books where it shouldn't be), this and The Second Mrs. Thistlewood are the most thought provoking, troubling, and in some ways the best. Even Canvas of Time is lost in a haze of romantic fantasy, even more so by suggesting that love can outlast a life span and be reborn if two souls are meant for each other. Rosemary for Remembrance and The Second Mrs. Thistlewood pull the same trick that George Eliot did with Middlemarch: deconstruct a love story by getting the courtship and marriage out of the way early to give us the troubled disillusionment that occurs once the ``I Do's" have been said and the honeymoon's over. It also helps since we already know that Rosemary and Dylan are bound to be separated, even their early marital bliss is tempered with the cynicism in knowing that this marriage may not survive.

Broadwell one ups Dionne Hayes, author of The Second Mrs. Thistlewood on one aspect. Hayes shows what happens when an innocent woman is married to an abusive jerk, so all the unhappiness in the marriage is caused by one spouse who is justifiably punished for it. Broadwell's book shows that the Hughes' unhappiness is spread equally between both parties. 

It's like reading about a celebrity divorce and siding with one party. Then you hear something else that makes you turn to the other side. After awhile, you think both parties are nuts and you are left hoping that they either break up permanently and move to opposite sides of the planet so they don't come anywhere near each other or realize that they are the only people crazy and stubborn enough to put up with each other, get back together, and leave the rest of us alone.

To her credit, Broadwell captures both Rosemary and Dylan rather well so their marriage is not an "either or" situation of hopeless neurotics who can't live with or without each other and make everyone else miserable in the process. They are two people who like and want different things, spend much of their time separated, and never really take the opportunity to talk out their issues.

We see some of their incompatibility begin the moment their marriage does. Dylan is a military captain hoping to marry into a wealthy family so he could move up a few notches in Washington society. Rosemary is from a wealthy family but is starting to regret the privileges that her wealth provides. She would rather take art classes than attend functions with the other officer's wives.

We also experience Rosemary suffering from the isolation when she and Dylan are assigned to the Philippines. Despite the heat, mosquitoes, and constant chit chat with the officer's wives, Rosemary gets her first real moments to shine. She learns more about the world by befriending a Filipino woman, rekindles her passion for Dylan (particularly during monsoon season), and begins to take her painting seriously.

In fact Rosemary's painting is what keeps her active and going when she returns to the States and Dylan remains to fight in the Pacific Theater. She sells her art and begins to enjoy an independent life in the country. True, she worries about Dylan and is pestered by dreams about Rebecca and Edgar. But for the first time, she is not bound by a father or husband and she likes it. When Dylan returns, he feels out of place with the New Woman that his wife has become and wants her to return to the life of an obedient military wife.

However through Dylan's struggles, we realize that he is more than an old school social climbing military man. We experience his harrowing time on the Front and as a POW. We understand why it's difficult for him to return to a life that has gone on without him, a life that he is uncertain that he wants anymore. 

Dylan's time in the POW camp is the most gripping and most honest part of the book. His journal entries tell of forced marches, malaria, dysentery, and torture. Dylan is constantly surrounded by death and is torn between fearing his death and hoping for it. The prison chapters are extremely graphic and realistic depictions of war in the middle of a troubled romance and supernatural novel. There is a difference to these sections that highlight over the rest of the book and with good reason. 

According to the Introduction and Acknowledgement, Broadwell used her own father's journal entries of his POW experiences during WWII with only some slight name changes. In fact, the journal is what inspired her to write the novel in the first place. Surrounding the fictionalized version of her father's wartime experiences, she created a couple unlike her parents and built a supernatural romance around them. 

Dylan's time as a POW is intentionally a distraction from the rest of the book because of this real world genesis. It also gives a lot of motivation to Dylan's post war character as a man who is guarded and unwilling to recall the past. He wants to move ahead and not go back to that place.

As compelling and troubling as Rosemary and Dylan's marriage is, Rebecca and Edgar's is even more so. The two are surrounded by societal pressure and frequent separation but their incompatibility is never breached. Instead it gets wider as Edgar has an affair and fathers a child and Rebecca is later institutionalized. Unlike Pimont's Eli and Sarah, this is a couple that are not destined to be soulmates. It's not the love that lasts beyond their deaths, it's their struggles and conflicts. Those are what haunt Dylan and Rosemary, along with the troubles that they have within their own marriage.

The final third of the book that covers the aftermath of Rosemary's father's death goes in some odd directions like introducing some characters who add further complications and could have used stronger introductions (particularly one who also shares the past life with Rebecca and Edgar). It also veers towards a happy ever after with a vengeance or at least a "let's work things out" conclusion. It is kind of difficult to picture Rosemary and Dylan having a subsequent happy reunion with so many problems hanging over their heads. (In fact the book gives several good reasons why they shouldn't be.) 

One could say that they recognize the fractures within their marriage and are determined not to explode the way Rebecca and Edgar did. It could also suggest not happy ever after and end of conflict forever but conversation and compromise. Recognizing their own difficulties and strengths are what help Rosemary and Dylan exorcise Rebecca and Edgar's torments once and for all.

Rosemary for Remembrance is a dark  supernatural romance, one that doesn't gloss over troubles then or now. Instead, it forces characters to confront them head on as individuals before they can confront them and become a couple.

New Book Alert: Canvas of Time by Amelie Pimont; Haunting and Beautiful Romance About Reincarnation and Love Lasting Over Time

 

New Book Alert: Canvas of Time by Amelie Pimont; Haunting and Beautiful Romance About Reincarnation and Love Lasting Over Time

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas is one of the best thought provoking novels about reincarnation. In it, six separate stories from different genres are brought together by the idea that the six protagonists are the same person reincarnated over the centuries. The character changes genders, ethnicities, skin color, and sexualities but inside they are the same person having the same thoughts, similar goals, and motives revealing that the body is just the cover for the eternal soul underneath. It is a transformative novel that stays with the Reader long after the book is closed.

Amelie Pimont's novel Canvas of Time is a similar work. It is not as complex or invites deep thought the way Cloud Atlas does, but it is a haunting love story which involves a pair of lovers who get acquainted, fall in love, are separated by cruel circumstances, only to meet again the next life. It's much simpler than Cloud Atlas but is every bit as beautiful and unforgettable.

The two lovers that we meet are Eli and Sarah (same names every time) and we encounter them in Ancient Egypt, 20th century France between the World Wars, modern 21st century  California, and a futuristic spaceship. The landscapes are almost dream-like yet precise in their details. 

The fairy tale aspects of the princess and the commoner trope are explored beautifully in the Egyptian segments as spoiled Princess Sarah flirts with slave Eli, then he defends her against an avenging army. It is a strange attraction of opposites as the two see each other beyond the wide economic gulf that separates them. Then just when you think it will turn out well for them, it turns into a Shakespearean tragedy.

While the Egyptian section captures the romantic fairy tale aspects of "long ago and far away," the French section captures the minutiae of everyday life along with the stress and sacrifice of living during war time. Unlike the Egyptian segments, the events are rooted in actual history. Eli and Sarah are born into two separate farming families that are close friends and live in an almost communal existence. Through Eli and Sarah's youth, we see the children study the facets of agriculture like milking cows, building efficient machinery to help with the farming, selling their wares to the market and so on. Then every night, the two families gather together for storytelling. It's a pleasant nostalgic atmosphere. 

When World War I begins, it is an explosion that destroys the peaceful existence that occurred previously. In some very traumatic chapters, German soldiers use their family farm as a base and force the families to work for them. The constant abuse, sexual assault, malnutrition from rationing, and physical and emotional stress takes its toll on both families to the point that Eli and Sarah lose family members. The losses bring them closer together. The years between the wars are a welcome normalcy as Eli and Sarah explore their fire forged romantic feelings into a marriage and parenthood before reality slaps them in the face again with another World War.

The segment set in modern America takes on the themes of magical realism by featuring dreams, psychic connections, automatic art, and fantastic coincidences suggesting that Eli and Sarah live a fated existence that propels them to their destiny. In this reality, Sarah is a photographer who is on assignment to take pictures of orphaned and abandoned children. She even develops a maternal bond with one of the young girls that she photographs. Meanwhile, Eli is an artist who paints pictures of a woman whom he has only seen in his dreams and scenes of his past lives.

There are some magical scenes in this segment such as when Sarah has visions of Eli in this study painting and the two have a telepathic conversation and get to know each other before they meet face to face. The book plays out as though their previous lives were building up to this moment when they finally meet in the present.

By far the best part is the science fiction story because it not only develops our lovers but the situation that they are in and why they fight so hard to be together. In this version, Sarah is one of the few survivors of a planet that has been destroyed by an environmental disaster. The residents of the ship want to take them to their home planet but first  they are given rigorous physical training, a list of rules that must be obeyed, and are made the test subjects of  some strange experiments in the med bay. Before they arrive on their planet, they pick up Eli who has been stranded and has learned to adapt on his planet. Of course, Sarah and Eli fall in love once more.

Eli and Sarah's romance is augmented by the science fiction setting in which a conspiracy is revealed causing them to question the others around them, even one another. We also see the results of making a personal sacrifice for those you care about and how it leaves its mark on generations to come.

Cloud Atlas is more of a thinking person's reincarnation novel. Mitchell does some tricks with the narrative like splitting the stories in half and having characters ask questions in one lifetime that are answered in another. Some things are inferred like whether other characters around the protagonists also shared past lives with them but nothing is ever outright stated leading the Reader to figure things out.

Canvas of Time on the other hand is more straightforward, the feeling person's reincarnation novel. The stories are split in a specific order with beginning, middle, and end. There are call backs and call forwards to former and future lives. In one lifetime, Eli gets violently stabbed, so in another he develops a fear of knives. In the present, Sarah visits the farm in France where she and Eli lived in that time period and recognizes it. 

Even characters reappear and play similar roles throughout the lovers' many lives. A female friend of Sarah exists as a fellow refuge, a slave, a village girl, and her sister in separate lives. A little girl attaches herself to the lovers in various lives sometimes as a sister,  daughter, or a young girl whom Eli or Sarah bonds with. A severe villainous character switches uniforms, ranks, careers, and even gender once but can't hide their true cruel despotic nature underneath. These echoes carry throughout Sarah and Eli's journey as a cycle that exists through time.

Canvas of Time is not only a remarkable fantastic love story but it is one that reminds us that love can exist throughout time and sometimes death is just another journey to a new life, adventure,and love.

Weekly Reader: Energy of Love: A How-To Program To Self-Empowerment and Self-Love by Susan J. Witt; A Lovely Journey Towards Self-Love

 Weekly Reader: Energy of Love: A How-To Program To Self-Empowerment and Self-Love by Susan J. Witt; A Lovely Journey Towards Self-Love

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Sometimes when we are busy and stressed out, we don't take as much time as we should for ourselves. These days with the pandemic, an economic crisis, socio political unrest, family and professional demand, it's hard to do that. But it is needed more than ever. It is important to recognize self-love and to empower our own souls and spirits. 

Susan J. Witt's book, Energy of Love: A How-To Program To Self-Empowerment and Self-Love is a lovely guide that helps the Reader take that much needed time to recognize and treat oneself.

The book operates on the theory of quantum mechanics that everything, even our own thoughts, run on energy frequency. The concepts that Witt introduces on Energy of Love help activate and improve your energy. Witt compares her book to a study,  a study which shows that the heart, like the brain, can "think and be measured as 'wave frequency. Witt writes, "This study has changed the way that we think of our physical and eludes us to a great powerful force within its heart center. It is this profound truth that gives us the baseline and knowledge of how one's life."

Witt's book takes both a scientific and metaphysical approach to the concept of energy and Self-Love showing that in many cases, the terms are closer than believed.

In fact, two chapters discuss energy in scientific and spiritual terms. In one chapter Witt discusses how energy and matter make up the universe. "Energy can change matter," Witt writes. "The amount of energy expelled can cause things to happen or change…..(Energy) can never be created or destroyed. It can only be changed." 

Witt uses Dr. Masaru Emoto's provocative and controversial studies of water crystals changing according to thoughts and words. Emoto's study itself has been under strict scrutiny (especially his claim about the power of positive thinking improving polluted water which Witt sidesteps in her summary.). Witt's book shows that the Universe is ever changing and what we believe about it and our bodies is a constantly evolving and learning experience. This experience can contribute to our awareness of ourselves,our bodies, and our emotions.

The spiritual chapter defines the body's energy particularly by the chakras, the seven energy vortices that lie within our body from the base of our spine to our head. Each of the chakras is associated with certain thought patterns or issues from basic material survival to knowledge and conscious thought. Sometimes a certain problem will affect the part of the body in question. For example if someone is going through a bad breakup, they may feel physical pain near the heart center. (There's a reason it's called heartache or heartbreak.) That may be the chakra out of alignment because of the issues affecting it. 

Neither the scientific nor the spiritual chapters provide concrete answers, but most books of this type are not supposed to. Instead they use different interpretations to define energy. Neither are right or wrong, they are just different words.

 The chapter called "Analyzing Your Thoughts: The Energy of Thoughts" discusses neuroplasticity, this process of changing our thought patterns. This identifies the changes in our brain physically and functionally based on our life habits."

Witt writes that neuroplasticity is responsible for how we change our thought patterns and why depressive thoughts continue to linger 

long after something troubling happens. On the same token, they also allow more positive thoughts to reflect after something happens when we feel good about ourselves. The trick that Witt writes is that the stronger that a neuron connection lasts, the stronger that real connection lasts. Witt's book offers ways that we can express that love within ourselves, so we don't always have to depend on outside stimulus to keep happy. We can do daily things that help change our outlook and improve our neuroplasticity.

Many of the chapters offer different things that help contribute to changing one's thought process. Many of them like Affirmations and Mindfulness can be found in various books of this type so technically Witt isn't telling us anything new. However, they go along with the ideal of taking the time to do good things for yourself. 

For example the chapter on affirmations reveals that these words reflect the willing power to change. When someone makes a mistake and thinks "I'm so stupid! I can't do anything right," the person could instead focus on the areas in their life that they can do or better yet ways to improve that specific event should it happen again. 

The more that a person says their affirmations, then the more that they believe.

The book also allows the Readers to improve their relationships with others not just themselves. The chapter on forgiveness asks that the Reader think about someone who wronged them in the past and learn to release that anger, find forgiveness for that wrong, and move on. The fact that the forgiveness meditation takes more than one day within the text reveals that forgiveness is not a quick and easy fix. Forgiveness is something that can take awhile to feel but allows the person doing the forgiving and the one who needs it the chance to adapt and evolve.

There are plenty of activities within the book that allow the Reader to become an active participant not just a Reader. The chapter on meditation is a several day process. First the Reader is encouraged to pay attention to their breathing and allow their mind to wander,investigating where it wandered to, when, and what their thoughts were before and after the wandering. For example, if someone is breathing and their stomach growls, they may think of food rather than their breath. 

Another step involves doing simple mundane activities like brushing one's teeth or reading a book and concentrating only on that activity. They can focus on the present and what they are doing and nothing else. 

Once that process is mastered, the meditation then is increased to ten to twenty minutes focusing on their breath and bigger thoughts, perhaps creating a calming visualization to guide the meditator to a peaceful mental image. Of course the Reader is encouraged to write these things down to capture what they learned and observed from this experience. For example a person might visualize that they are in a peaceful field when a figure appears. They are then encouraged to write about the figure, how they made them feel, anything significant about them, or any message that they may have to give.

Energy of Love is a beautiful ongoing process that gives the Readers a few much needed moments a day in which they can learn about and love themselves. To quote a popular song "learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all."*

*Lyrics to "The Greatest Love of All," Songwriters: Linda Creed/Michael Masser. All Rights Reserved.

Centricity (Centricity Cycle: Book One) by Nathaniel Henderson; Involved, Immersive, and Expansive First Volume of Epic Science Fiction Series

 

Centricity (Centricity Cycle: Book One) by Nathaniel Henderson; Involved, Immersive, and Expansive First Volume of Epic Science Fiction Series

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Nathaniel Henderson's Centricity is a very complicated Science Fiction novel. It's expansive, involved, is filled with technological and scientific jargon, and has various characters and plots. It's the type of book that forces you to pay attention, sometimes read and reread various chapters to understand character motives and actions. However, that's what makes it a great novel. Because of this complexity, it is a book in which the Reader not so much reads but dives into and submerges themselves into. Thus creating an almost immersive experience.

There are various things going on so Centricity is something of a chore to summarize, but I shall try my best to recount the various plots and subplots. The setting is a place called Naion in the distant future. (Historical information reveals that this is future Earth and that Naion itself might be a newly formed North America, but nothing is officially confirmed. Their timeline is even set in 278, past a time called the Foundation.)

A courier called Ekram is caught in the middle of the kidnapping of Yiju Gainen, an ambassador's daughter when both he and the girl are killed in a struggle between corporate representatives. The media has portrayed Ekram as a ruthless psychopath, but there are hints that there is a bigger conspiracy and authorities are content with laying the blame solely on Ekram.(The first chapter reveals that he was a naive patsy in over his head and didn't even know that the "package" that he was hired to transport was a young girl before he saw her for the first time.) 

This case among others are being investigated by the Civil Protection and Compliance Agency (CAPCA), particularly Interagency Coordination Manager, Adasha Denali. Adasha is not only investigating what went wrong with the kidnapping, but also the circumstances surrounding the death of her mentor and possible lover, Gabriel Bachsare. Her investigation into Gabriel's tracks reveals that he may be hiding a felonious past.

Fellow CAPCA agent, Tenu Rown, is the sole survivor of an attack that left his regiment dead or in the case of his lover, Maria Salvatore, captured and tortured by Scott Voros, a sinister mercenary for a giant corporate entity, Alkanost Security.

 Meanwhile, reengineer and drug addict, Kannik "Nik '' Amlin learns that his surrogate father, Daal Ormonde, is dead and he is brutally interrogated for Daal's death. While trying to earn some money, take drugs, and learn who killed Daal, Nik finds himself the target of sinister figures who track him through cyberspace. These various investigations reveal the existence of an important piece of hardware called the Acorn, which is very valuable and very dangerous. Like I said, it's a complex book.

Centricity is the type of Science Fiction novel that great care went into world building including Naion's history, economics, government, social standings, technology, and culture. Naion is a world of a strict hierarchy with the 1 percenters living on top in high rises and the rest living down below. Corporate control divided parts of the world so many of the government workers are in charge in name only with CEO's making the final say.  Unemployment, poverty, and violence are regular events so many of the impoverished numb themselves with drugs and more violence, doing any illegal activity for pay and these corporate reps will pay. While CAPCA is considered law enforcement, the "white suits" are generally mistrusted and resort to sometimes brutal means to obtain information.

What is paramount in Naion's society is that everyone has cyber implants, called nimphs, connected to their brains. Information can be downloaded and appear right in front of the user. One user can have a public conversation with one person and a private separate one with another as Adasha shows in one passage. (Though there are implications that these conversations are not as private as initially believed.) If a character wants to get away, they can experience a total augmented reality with all five senses as Nik does in a vibrant almost hallucinatory chapter. This augmented reality can become an addiction and the book does not skimp on the comparison. Naoin's technology is like social media/VR times 1,000.

It's clear that Henderson was inspired by the cyberpunk works of Phillip K. Dick and William Gibson, particularly Blade Runner and Neuromancer. Henderson took those works and gave them a 21st century outlook making futuristic comparisons to this current life of income inequality, corporate control, and the over abundance and saturation of technology. The difference between Henderson and his forebears is that people like Dick and Gibson had to imagine that world to come. Henderson only has to read the news and tweak it a little to fit his futuristic setting.

Besides Henderson's impressive world building, he also gives memorable characters to inhabit Naion. His two best characters are Adasha and Nik. They reveal the huge gulf between characters on opposite ends of the socioeconomic divide. Indeed, their particular stories don't even really converge until late in the book when they are at the same location and even then, they don't see each other or share a word of dialogue between them.  

Adasha represents the people on top. She is wealthy with an important title in which she worked hard to obtain. Her family is well connected and includes a sister who is a rising politician. When she gives orders and asks questions, she gets answers. 

Adasha sometimes questions the strict regulations that CAPCA has over them and tries to investigate within the perimeters. However, sometimes she has to bend and break the rules when she learns about the various cover ups. Her discoveries cause her to question the people around her and to travel incognito to find out what she needs without interference. Adasha is a highly intelligent, rational, strong woman  who fights with brain and muscles. She will research a problem and fight anyone who gets in her way. 

If Adasha represents the upper class, Nik represents the lower. He scrambles to do technological work for pay and can't afford to turn anyone down. These jobs often get him involved in some dangerous, painful, and potentially fatal situations such as looking for the missing friend of the woman that he loves. He is just one of the many cogs drifting along in clubs and augmented reality to soothe their hunger, homelessness, and aimless lives. The only family that he has are a mentally ill mother and some men, including Daal, who were friends of his late father's. He is alone in the world and senses that if he disappeared, no one would care. Nik loses himself in drugs and simulations because his real life is so meaningless and terrible.

While Adasha has her name and prominence to speak for her, Nik has only his technological skills. He searches multiple networks, bypassing and hacking his way through firewalls and fail-safes, to find the right nugget of information. Unfortunately, these searches take a great toll on his health and safety. In one chapter, he is overwhelmed by the information that almost causes his nimph to burn out. In another chapter, he downloads something directly into his nimph and his demeanor afterwards suggests that he will be overcome by mental illness from his inability to handle what he learned.

In their different ways and experiences, Nik and Adasha reveal a troubled society that is on the verge of tyranny and collapse and requires some to challenge and rebel against it. Maybe Nik and Adasha are those rebels.

Centricity leaves some questions unanswered and some plot points unresolved leaving those outcomes for future volumes in the series. It may be hard to top Book #1. Centricity is a total immersive complex experience that results in the best Science Fiction novel of the year so far.

New Book Alert: Something for Bebe by Neil A. White; Intricate Suspenseful Thriller About War Crimes and Revenge During and After The Bosnian War

 New Book Alert: Something for Bebe by Neil A. White; Intricate Suspenseful Thriller About War Crimes and Revenge During and After The Bosnian War

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: The Bosnian War was a conflict that lasted from 1992-1995 and involved the countries of former Yugoslavia. After the Eastern bloc collapsed, various ethnic groups such as the Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) warred against each other in the country now known as Bosnia and Herzegovina. Ethnic cleansing occurred as Bosniaks and Bosnians Croats were forced to flee their homes or were exiled by the Army of the Republika and Serb paramilitaries. Methods included killing of civilians, rape, torture, destruction of civilian, public and cultural property, looting and pillaging, and relocations of various populations. Between 700,000 and 1,000,000 Bosniaks were removed from their homes by Serbian forces. Several people including Serbian politicians, soldiers, and officials were eventually tried by the UN-backed International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. As with many violent conflicts, Bosnia and Herzegovina is still trying to recover from those terrible days.

The Bosnian War is the backdrop for Something for Bebe by Neil A. White, an intricate and suspenseful thriller about long awaited revenge during and after the Bosnian War. It tells the story of an American journalist who vows to destroy the men who ruined his wife and her family's lives.

Veteran widowed journalist, Elliot Kruger is dying and he has something important to do before he shuffles off this mortal coil. He mails one note to four different men telling them that they may not know him but he knows them, that he is their conscience, and that he is coming for them. He then sends some information to Madison "Maddy" Holt, his young fellow journalist and protegee to research the story on what he is planning to do. Finally, he travels to former Yugoslavia to see justice done up close and personal with Maddy, the CIA, Serbian forces, and other interested and violent parties close behind.

Something for Bebe is a novel that is a thrilling chase and an engaging mystery rolled into one. Maddy and her friend, Grant Stanhope, travel to the former Yugoslavia to piece together the various questions of Elliot's past and why he traveled such a long distance to see justice done. They are constantly aware that they are being monitored and are chased out of hotel rooms by suspicious characters. Many characters are killed in graphic ways. One in particular is found in a men's room with entrails, blood, and organs around him, a sign that not only someone wanted this character dead but to suffer before their death. 

Calls and messages to Grant's mother, who works for the State Department, reveal that this case has higher stakes than Elliot's one man revenge. Many of the higher ups in Europe and the United States don't mind playing the people under them like chess pieces and it shows. There are also other characters whose motives are a complete surprise adding further twists to the storyline.

The highlight of the book are the chapters that are set in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the past and present. As Elliot searches for his old enemies and Maddy and Grant search for Elliot, the Reader learns the story of Elliot's late wife, Berina "Bebe" Berberovic. The chapters reveal her as a Bosniak woman who was forced to watch as her neighbors were exiled, family members are killed or separated from her, and she is imprisoned. During her imprisonment, she is tortured and raped. It is a truly gripping and heartbreaking account of a woman being made to suffer because she is Muslim in a country that is violently prejudiced against them. Bebe's story is just one example of the many who suffered through those horrendous war years.

The Bosnia and Herzegovina described in the novel's present is still coming to terms with this violent past. Many of the characters that Maddy, Elliot, and Grant encounter have selective amnesia in not wanting to recall those days. They want to retain a small fraction of peace in which they were deprived from nearly 30 years ago. A whole generation has been born and matured since those days and only have ruined buildings and villages containing a smaller populace to tell them. This is a populace that will not and cannot remember those days.

Unfortunately, some of the perpetrators have gone unpunished. While some were made examples of during the tribunals, others escaped to other countries using pseudonyms. One of the more sadistic characters is arrogant enough to practically hide out in plain sight, still believing in his old prejudices and is willing to look for political allies to enable him to continue the work that he started during the War. He is a truly vile being and it is not a great loss in hoping that justice, in the form of Elliot, comes calling.

Something for Bebe is an exciting and heartbreaking account of war and revenge revealing that sometimes, retribution can wait but it does happen.