The Tinker and The Witch A Cozy Fantasy Character Tale by G.J. Daily; The Bellfontaine Haunting by Marie Wilkins; The Other Emma by Sharon Gloger Friedman; The Dressing Drink by Thomas King Flagg; The Book of Outcasts by Matt Nagin
Bookworm Reviews
Spoilers: A couple of months ago, I have received two new book reviewing clients, MockingOwl Roost and Reader Views. Similar to LitPick, I cannot show the entire review here but I can summarize them with links to the full reviews. So far I am not disappointed with the work or the books that I have read.
Besides these future reviews will include:
For MockingOwl Roost: The Bluestockings A History of The First Women's Movement by Susannah Gibson, Indiana Belle by John A. Heldt, Violeta by Nikki Roman, Jack The Bodiless The Galactic Milieu Trilogy Book 1 by Julian May, and its sequels Diamond Mask and Magnificat.
For Reader Views: Shut Me Up in Prose by Maithy Vu, Gravity Flow: The Jimmy Whistler Stories by E.M. Schorb, Walk With Me One: Hundred Days of Crazy by Ernesto Lee, and Penthesilea: Ride of The Amazon by Stephanie Vanise.
For MockingOwl Roost:
The Tinker and The Witch: A Cozy Fantasy Character Tale by G.J. Daily is a gentle charming modern fairy tale reminiscent of works like Alice in Wonderland, The Phantom Tollbooth, The Wizard of OZ, and A Wrinkle in Time. It is rich with a beautiful setting, well developed characters, and a plot built on themes of chance and destiny.
Andrew, a young tinker, is caught in a snowstorm during a routine trade expedition. He finds Lorna, an eccentric witch and town recluse. Andrew senses a connection to her so he searches for his past and answers to questions that haunted him.
The young readers will enjoy the tropes in this book such as the enchanting setting and fascinating magical characters. The characters are well written, particularly Andrew and Lorna. She facilitates Andrew on his search for self-discovery and identity. He walks down a path of keys, clues, coincidences, fate, and destiny
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The Bellfontaine Haunting: A Supernatural Thriller by Marie Wilkins
The Bellefontaine Haunting by Marie Wilkins is a suspenseful gripping thriller and murder mystery, It is a ghostly tale that reminds readers that sometimes cold cases don’t always close.
News reporter Kara King returns to her hometown of Bellefontaine, Ohio and reopens The Bellefontaine Ledger, the local paper. In the office, she sees Renee West, the ghost of a former Ledger reporter who went missing and is believed to have been murdered. Kara decides to look for answers.
The book is both eerie and purposeful. Renee begins as a silent wispy presence that gets more pronounced the more Kara looks for the truth. Kara’s interactions with Renee reveal that she was once a person whose life ended abruptly. It’s up to Kara to find out who ended it and why.
The Other Emma is another great Historical Fiction novel by Sharon Gloger Friedman, the author of Ashes and In Freedom’s Light. This one focuses on the intricate complex plot which envelops the protagonist.
In 1880, orphaned Rose Larkin is adopted to become the companion of spoiled wealthy Emma Boyeston. The relationship begins frosty but then changes into a grudging respect between the two strong-willed young women. Unfortunately, bankruptcy, death, and a blizzard alters Rose’s new life leaving her to make some desperate decisions that affect her future.
The book explores the Gilded Age by focusing on the income disparity between rich and poor. Rose’s former life of poverty and want is completely different from her current life of wealth and ostentation. Emma’s family has wealth, resources, and connections that someone like Rose could never have had. This division leads to a twist halfway through the book that puts Rose’s life in an entirely new direction.
For Reader Views
The Dressing Drink: An Orphan's Legacy Intertwines Triumph and Tragedy, Revealing The Truth Behind The Glamor-Sip Carefully, One Page At a Time by Thomas King Flagg
The Dressing Drink is a revealing memoir about Thomas King Flagg’s dysfunctional upbringing by his troubled parents, Dorothy Mary Flagg and Irwin Whittridge. Flagg brought his parents to life with detailed descriptions and literary devices.
The majority of the book focuses on Flagg’s parents and the contrast between them. Dorothy had a wealthy upbringing and Irwin a poor one. They both had troubled relationships with their parents, siblings, unhappy early marriages, addiction, and mental health issues that marked their relationship with each other and their son.
Flagg recognizes his parents as individuals first. He dissects their background and how they became the people that he knew. Their emotional and mental disorders, insecurities, and parenting difficulties become understandable when Flagg and the reader realize where they came from.
To really understand his parents, Flagg wrote his book as a nonfiction narrative getting their interior points of view and describing events that he would not have known but might have speculated about. This technique helps us understand his family inside and out.
The Book of Outcasts by Matt Nagin is a strange, satirical, outlandish, farcical and often uncomfortable anthology about people who are considered outsiders. It’s a captivating series of short stories that are impossible to get out of the reader’s mind.
An unhappily married couple contemplate violence during a vacation. A compulsive gambler goes to extreme measures to feed his addiction. An author is harassed by his alter ego (who shares the same name as the author of this anthology). A game show feeds off of the misery of others and audience dependence on exploitation. These and many more are colorful stories that enter the mind and expose people who are outsiders because of their unusual thoughts, unhealthy obsessions and fixations, society’s rebels and freethinkers, or have severe psychopathic tendencies.
Nagin has an eye for detailing human weakness. Readers who appreciate unsettling stories about the dark side of human nature will like reading these stories.
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