Runebound (The Last Rune of Rungardvik Book 1) by Alessa M. Norwen; Evocative Historical Fantasy About a Kingdom in the Crossroads of Great Spiritual Change

 

Runebound (The Last Rune of Rungardvik Book 1) by Alessa M. Norwen; Evocative Historical Fantasy About a Kingdom in the Crossroads of Great Spiritual Change

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

This review is also on Reedsy Discovery.

Spoilers: Alessa M. Norwen’s evocative Historical Fantasy Runebound, the first book in her The Last Rune of Rungardvik series is about a kingdom caught in the crossroads of great change. Change in religion, change in alliances, change in expected gender and social roles, and a change in conflict and diplomatic relationships between separate kingdoms.

Milena, Princess of Mecklenburg, is arranged to marry Heinrich of Lundberg of the Saxon House of Welf to secure Mecklenburg's standing within the Holy Roman Empire. She is not happy about being sold and given away like a bargaining chip. 

Milena fights her own way. Despite the kingdom being Christian, Milena secretly studies the old Pagan religion and practices intuitive and clairvoyant abilities. She uses her secret practice to fight against this arrangement and to carve her own path.

Milena is a character who strives to find her own agency and independence despite this Christian upbringing which tells her that she should be submissive to male authority like her father, future husband, and the Church. It's a man's world and Milena is told that she has no choice but to accept it.

As previously mentioned Runebound features a kingdom that is on the crossroads of change. Mecklenburg in Pomerania was largely pagan and had several small enclaves with chieftains. Milena's mother, Woizlava was the descendant of pagan chieftains and still practices the old ways though she outwardly identifies as a Christian. 

Her husband, Milena's father Pribislav is a Christian and expects his family to follow suit. However though he holds the Church in high esteem, his conversion has less to do with spiritual reasons and more to do with pragmatism. The Holy Roman Empire is a formidable force that is expanding. Pribislav is simply backing the right horse and siding with the winner.

Milena also recognizes this division through two people in charge of her education: Bishop Anselm, head of the church and Pribislav’s spiritual advisor and Dobrawa, Woizlava’s midwife who trained her in the pagan arts in secret and is now doing the same to Milena. These two represent the clashing faiths that surround the story because unlike Melania’s parents who had to compromise who they were, Anselm and Dobrawa will not.

Bishop Anselm is a conniving manipulator who uses the fear of God as a weapon to maintain his authority. He is the type of person that would thrive in modern day as the living embodiment of the Christian hypocrisy that would ordering murder, rape, genocide on anyone and throw Biblical buzz words and Apocalyptic terms around to make it justifiable. Anselm uses threats, violence, intimidation, abuse, spies, and at one point arson to force his authority.

Anselm is a prominent advisor that keeps Milena at a distance. He knows that she is a threat to him with her intelligence, intuition, and strong will. He stresses the Biblical passages which state women should be subservient to men and that they are the bearers of original sin so Milena’s observation could be considered questionable even potentially Satanic. As long as she is packed away and married off, he is free to dominate Pribislav and rule Mecklenburg from behind the throne.

While Anselm uses Christian doctrine to diminish Milena’s presence, Dobrawa encourages her. Instead of dogmatism directed on behalf of a male God, she tells the princess stories about ancient gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines from Slavic Mythology (Those who are interested in mythologies from around the world will like this beginner's introduction to figures like Perun, Veles, Rod, Mokosh, Morana, Chernabog, The Firebird, and Baba Yagga). 

Dobrawa guides Milena through visualizations where she displays precognitive abilities. Milena is gifted runes that serve as touchstones to communicate with the deities and spirits around her. Instead of telling her to be submissive, Dobrawa inspires her to maintain her own strength and leadership skills.

Milena is able to retain a willful presence despite attempts to censor or stifle her. She challenges an arranged marriage without her consent. Then when the situation becomes dire and marriage veers towards inevitable, she decides that even if she has to get married, she is going to give her future husband a hell of a time. He won't have even the slightest notion that he can control her.

Cambridge Street by Steven Decker; Intimate Family Saga About Italian-American Family

 

Cambridge Street by Steven Decker; Intimate Family Saga About Italian American Family 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: One of the best ways to learn about the past is to research our own family history. This research teaches us where we came from, the struggles that our ancestors faced, what challenges befall them, and our inherited legacy. Steven Decker researched his own family history, the Tomasellos. The results are Cambridge Street, this intimate personal family saga about an Italian family emigrating to the United States during the Roaring Twenties.

The Tomasso Family are forced to leave Sicily because dwindling supplies cannot feed and provide for all of them. So eldest brother Paolo emigrates to the United States with his reluctant wife, Gianna, their children, Gianna's mother Stella, and Paolo’s brothers, the idealistic spiritual Leonardo and the sly criminal Renzo. 

The family settles in the Little Sicily area of Chicago where they face poverty, family conflicts, threats from organized crime, and the sacrifices and ambitions to achieve the American Dream. 

In writing the experiences of the Tomasso Family, particularly the three brothers, Decker reveals the various conflicts and concerns faced by immigrants when they are in a new place and their former roles are challenged. They are forced to find another way to live and adjust.

Paolo and Gianna have to face uncertainty. In Sicily, Paolo was one of several farmers. He worked alongside his father according to the planting and harvesting season. It was a routine existence that he knew when to plant seeds, when to grow and note the progress, when to harvest, when to store and when to eat. It was a cycle that his family knew well.

Also he and Gianna were surrounded by family, uncles, aunts, siblings, cousins, parents, long-time friends, and neighbors. It was a legacy recognized by several generations which contributed, networked and knew that if one person needed help, others were close by.

Now in Chicago, they are out of their comfort zone. Paolo now works in a slaughterhouse for human managers and supervisors who act with more authority than the seasonal weather cycle can. It is hard backbreaking work with very little rewards.

 The fertile fields are replaced by city streets. The peaceful villas by tenement slums. Before Paolo knew that he and his family would be cared for. Now they have the fear of poverty, homelessness, and hunger hovering overhead.

As if that wasn't hard enough, the Tomasso Family are now among strangers instead of family. Gianna in particular feels the loss as she misses the network that she knew and feels uncomfortable around people that she does not. She gives birth to more children, becomes a committed church member, and finds common ground with others around her.

 She and Paolo now have a found family made up of fellow immigrants and American citizens that are in the same situation that they are in: working hard in a new country and hoping for a better day.

Renzo was in a different situation. He is charming, ambitious, and slick. He would prefer to take the easy path to fortune. He assisted criminals by doing leg work, delivered messages and packages, and used his wit to escape from tight spots. He also romanced unattainable women including the wife of a dangerous operative.

At first, Renzo didn't even want to go to America. He wanted to ascend in his fast glamorous life, perhaps becoming a Don in his own right. However, a very spirited discussion with criminal rivals involving gunplay and death threats caused Renzo to change his mind and come with.

Just as in Sicily, Renzo is involved in organized crime but being older, more mature, and away from the insulating protection of his large family and their certain legacy, Renzo is aware that he is pursuing a path that is not just dangerous for him. He is also causing great danger to those around him.

Renzo’s increased loyalty towards his family and his close proximity to the more unsavory aspects of the criminal life force him to face real consequences. In one heartbreaking moment, he realizes how much this lawless pursuit has cost him. 

Leonardo is the quiet scholar in the family and was destined to join the Church as a priest. He has the skills and temperament for this path and he was too even tempered and obedient to question it. It was an expected required path so he followed it. 

While Leonardo acquiesces, his real feelings are ascertained by how quickly he discards it once he lives in America. He declines going to seminary and falls in love. He opts not to serve God behind the cloistered walls of the priesthood.

Instead, Leonardo becomes involved with the community becoming proactive and spiritual but also continuing human pleasures like marriage and fatherhood. He has the best of both worlds: a definite belief in God and a love to share it with.

A tragedy occurs that won't be revealed here but changes the Tomasso Family. They have to face danger, grief, fear, anger, vengeance, redemption, and guilt. 

Those left behind have to weigh whether to seek revenge or move forward. They wonder what the American Dream can possibly mean if it costs too much to pursue and not everyone will be able to achieve it.

Other Lovers (Love, Sex, Poetry, Peace) by Natalia Rachel, Heathcliff Unbound by Robin Robby

 

Other Lovers (Love, Sex, Poetry Peace) by Natalia Rachel 

I mean this in the best way but Natalia Rachel's novel in verse, Other Lovers (Love, Sex, Poetry, Peace) reads like a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

I mean that it is a raw, unfiltered, emotionally realistic book about a woman's struggles with romance, dating, sex, relationships, and her own self-worth.

The book is told partly through poetry and partly through first person prose about Lena, a woman who goes through various moments in her love life. She discusses bad romances, sexual desires, emotional openness, fixations and obsessions, emotional compatibility, partner violence, heartbreak, and embarking on new relationships. All with a deft, witty, and insightful hand.

The free verse poetry is structured and confessional. It captures the confusion, sadness, anger, and hope of modern romance. “Kiss of Death” details an abusive relationship. Lena tells her former lover “I let you/Kiss me/Into some kind of/Slow soul death.” He enchants her with love bombing and physical affection. She is captivated though her older self knows that she is in for heartbreak.

Later the picture becomes clear when Lena learns that his kisses come with a price tag. “But also with/Incredible demand/Claiming my body/And banishing/My spirit.” The price of this toxic relationship is the banishment of her free will.

She looks for a man to soothe the abused girl that she once was but instead he adds to her trauma. By the end, Lena has no choice but to end her relationship before she loses herself.

Rachel's prose provides immediacy, raw vulnerability, sardonic insight, and a world weary survivor's instinct. 

“Bad Bitch Good Girl” for example is about Lena feeling caught between the two extremes of being a bitch or a good girl. It's similar to the “Madonna-Whore” Complex where women are objectified into various categories either the sweet nurturing virgin or the passionate sexual nymph and the twain are not supposed to meet. Lena questions these roles wondering why men don't see the whole complex woman instead of what they want to see.

This chapter also discusses Lena’s relationship with Leonardo after an unhappy marriage and divorce. Rediscovering her passions, her relationship with Leonardo is strictly erotic, sexual, and without long term commitment. 

It is a relationship that is not bound to last. When Lena has a flashback of abuse, Leonardo says a few platitudes but lets her suffer through them alone. When Leonardo reveals that he has to leave because of a family emergency, Lena just lets him go. A relationship built solely on sex is not one that allows for emotional complications like PTSD and family strife.

Besides relationships and love, Other Lovers also reveals that Lena is on a journey of personal discovery. One of the final chapters, ”Little Gifts in the Sand,” reveals her resilience. 

Even though she had a long string of bad relationships, Lena realized that she emerged stronger through them. She says, "I rise up/Eventually/Glorious/A phoenix returned.” Like a phoenix she emerged from the flames of unhappiness and became a more centered person with a richer heart, wiser bones, a more humbled heart, and sharper wit. She may not have found love, but she is aware of who she is, what she wants, and she is determined to get it.

Lena learned that being in a relationship is fine but the best and strongest relationship one can have is with themselves.

Heathcliff Unbound by Robin Robby 

I admit that I love to read and write fanfiction. I am always curious about the other aspects of my favorite characters. Where they came from, what is in their future, and what goes on when we're not looking. Fanfiction satisfies my curiosity that wants to fill in those unspoken blanks. 

Robin Robby appears to like fanfiction as well. 

After writing two books that focus on Jane Austen as a lead character, Jane Austen’s Totally Unexpected New York Adventure and Dear Emperor, Yours Jane, Robby switched gears to focus on another giant from English Literature. He focused on the world of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and the brooding, arrogant, passionate Heathcliff.

In Heathcliff Unbound Robby focuses on Heathcliff’s missing years from when he was exiled from Wuthering Heights and his beloved Catherine Earnshaw to when he returned to the Heights, wealthy, domineering, and seeking revenge on those who wronged him.

This novelette takes Heathcliff to the United States where he works for a shipping merchant named Mercer and catches the eye of his independent intelligent daughter, Victoria. However this location is a mere stepping stone to eventually return to Wuthering Heights and Catherine. 

This gives a more modern analytical look at Heathcliff. He is every bit the brooding toxic Byronic anti-hero that Bronte describes him, which makes him detestable in my eyes but romantic in many others’. 

Most of Heathcliff's time is spent moping about the Heights while working for Mercer. He develops a head for business and is able to earn a decent living. A living which will ultimately fund his return to gloat at the scoffers who called him “a foundling G&_$y brat” and made his early years miserable.

 In fact he is so successful at the business that if it weren't for Heathcliff's preordained fate foretold by Bronte, one would wonder why he doesn't just use his business acumen to become an American tycoon and move on with his life. But he wouldn't be Heathcliff otherwise. 

Victoria is a unique presence because she is the exact opposite from Catherine. Steady to Catherine's vulnerable. Intelligent to Catherine's passion. Sharp wit to Catherine's outbursts and withdrawals. Independent to Catherine's neediness. She entertains a relationship with this newcomer and even though she is attracted to Heathcliff, this relationship is not the be all and end all for either of them.

Victoria is merely transitory, a temporary release of buried passions, flickered briefly and ends just as briefly. Victoria thinks that Heathcliff is unlike anyone she has ever met before. Heathcliff thinks that Victoria is a means to an end. He is saving his strongest and deepest feelings for the girl that he left behind.

This novelette is not meant to change anyone's feelings for Heathcliff. It's more of an additional couple of chapters to a larger story to fill in the blanks until his fated return. It's fanfiction but it's interesting fanfiction.

And Then They Fell in Rome by C.L. Rosario; Magical Realism Novel About Love, Coincidence, Fate, and The Power of a Great Bromance

 And Then They Fell in Rome by C.L. Rosario; Magical Realism Novel About Love, Coincidence, Fate, and The Power of a Great Bromance

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

This review is also on Reedsy Discovery.

Spoilers: C.L. Rosario's novel And Then They Fell in Rome, is a powerful Magical Realism Contemporary Fantasy book that says a lot about love, romance, fate, coincidence, synchronicity, and maturity. Mostly it's a book about the importance of friendship between men. A novel that is largely concerned about romance is told primarily from the points of view of a group of male friends, a circular bromance if you will.

A group of friends called the Troubadours meet up in 2021. They are Freddy Bustamante, Juan Fernandez, Charlie Costa, Brian Verdugo, and Jan Luis Larose and are reuniting for the first time since their Senior year in college three years prior. In the middle of their drinks, laughter, and reminisces, a woman appears. She is called “La Bruja” (“The Witch”) or “The Stranger.” She says that she had been following them for some time, entered the minds, and took the forms of people that they met. 

La Bruja has a challenge for the guys. One of them, Jan Luis, was “compromised on a cosmic level” and is in danger of dying young. The only cure is love. The other Troubadours need to help him find love. To make things even more complicated, La Bruja removes the memories of their conversation from The Troubadours’s minds. So they know that they have to help Jan Luis but not how or why.

The book is rich with moments of magical realism with more emphasis on the realism than the magic with the exception of the appearance of La Bruja who comes straight from the latter. Her presence is reminiscent of Latin American novels that fit the magical realism subgenre. She is a mythical and legendary creature in a real world setting. The guys are talking about everyday things in a commonplace setting then BAM, she appears and moves things in a different direction. 

Most of the book focuses on situations that can be magical, mundane, coincidental, or from a more cynical perspective contrived. When the characters, except Jan Luis, go to Rome, a series of serendipitous moments lead them to the right people at the right time. After one relationship is threatened, one of the Troubadours encounters another woman who is connected to his previous lover.

Conversations and encounters are told through multiple perspectives so we don't realize that characters are supposed to meet and fall in love until it happens. Going down the right street, visiting the right cafe, and looking up at the right time leads to a meeting with the love of a lifetime. Even Jan Luis’s later trip to Rome seems to be fated to occur at that specific moment in time.

Similar to works like One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, La Bruja 's presence is tied to the real world conflicts concerning the characters. However the two books merge magic with politics, war, colonization, authoritarianism, and other global issues. 

The focus of And Then They Fell in Rome is exclusively on personal friendships, romantic attachments, and the interactions between men and women. Romance in and of itself can be considered magical with people looking and acting like the best versions of themselves to attract and enchant someone else. Sexual and emotional attachments are often described in fantastic ways (“She enchanted me.” “He's so charming.” “I am drawn to your presence.”) 

Even the ideas of creating lasting relationships, finding compatibility, and finding that perfect partnership are actions that often resist being analyzed and quantified because there are always exceptions, variables, emotional experiences and situations leading to other potential outcomes. So this book just injects literal potential magic where figurative magic already existed to give a slight nudge to the characters.

Speaking of characters, this book has some well written multifaceted characters. While La Bruja is my personal favorite, the Troubadours and their love interests convey richness and complexity.

The Troubadours are a group that doesn't play on conventional male stereotypes when guys get together. They aren't looking to drink, party, have wild and crazy adventures, and score as many hot willing babes as possible. They are ready to enter the next stages of their lives, as professionals, committed boyfriends, potential husbands, and maybe someday fathers. They aren't looking for one night stands. They are looking for a lifetime.

The complexities of modern relationships are shown through the Troubadours’s romantic experiences as they look for their potential partners. Juan goes through three separate romances before he realizes that he let his jealous assumptions interfere with what could have been a great relationship. One woman leads him to face his regrets so he can change his future. 

Cinephile Brian keeps comparing his love life to favorite films and hopes to find the leading lady in his life. He is faced with the reality that real people don't act according to a script. They need to be recognized for their frailties, flaws, and insecurities, not his fantasy projections of them.

Former frat boy Freddy is caught between two women: Maddy who represents his lost wayward wild youth and Katelyn who offers a chance at adulthood, maturity, realization, and authenticity. He also has a previous close association with La Bruja and is the only one who remembers her conversation with them and sees the truth that no one else does. 

Charlie is tempted to cheat on his girlfriend with unexpected results. This encounter forces him to confront his own thoughts about fidelity, desires, commitment, and adulthood.

 What about Jan Luis, the central focus of these romantic journeys? His past of an unhappy childhood with separated parents and a previous break up of his own have made him reluctant to seek or accept love. He is in danger of closing himself off emotionally and achieving fulfillment only in dreams and fantasies.

The love interest characters are just as brilliantly written. These are characters with their own stories, identities, and agencies. They aren't there solely to fulfill the Troubadours’s romantic desires but are meant to stand toe to toe in equal footing with them. The relationships happen because the characters work on improving themselves as individuals before they become coupled. 

While the romance and magical realism are important aspects of the story, by far the central relationship is not between the Troubadours and their significant others. It is among the Troubadours themselves.

These are five friends, who are brothers in heart and spirit. The conflict of helping Jan Luis find love becomes a catalyst that leads to their own conflicts and questions. They would be unable to evolve without each other. It's easy to recognize that these men deserve romantic love when we see that they are capable of maintaining a filial love. They are there for each other through university, work, romance, and marriage. Chances are their future kids will have not only loving fathers but four honorary uncles that will protect them with their lives.

It's also a kind of brotherly love that inspires change in each other. They aren't afraid to give one another advice or criticism to say exactly what they did wrong and how they can be better people. It is among the best bromances that I have read in recent novels. They aren't just there for each other in good times but bad as well.

And Then They Fell in Rome is a book that is magical, realistic, romantic, and bromantic.

By The Sword (Guardians of The Crown) by Alison Stuart; English Civil War Backdrops Engaging Romance and Fun Predictable Adventure

 

By The Sword (Guardians of The Crown) by Alison Stuart; English Civil War Backdrops Engaging Romance and Fun Predictable Adventure 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: The focus of Alison Stuart’s Historical Fiction novel By The Sword part of her Guardians of The Crown is not the English Civil War. That's just the historical backdrop. It's not really even a Woman's Fiction about a woman living with and challenging her role similar to The Wedding Shroud by Elizabeth Storrs. Those are parts of it but the main focus is the romance between the main characters.

 The novel is formulaic, runs on far too long, and some of the dialogue and plot points seem to survive on a charcuterie platter consisting solely of Velveeta cheese products. But the characters are winning, their trajectories hold the reader’s interest, and despite being predictable and formulaic, there are charming moments that make you root for these likeable characters.

In 1650 England recently widowed Kate Ashley and her son Tom were facing genteel poverty when they received word from their dying grandfather-in-law. In absence of any male heirs, he designates Tom to inherit the Thornton Family estate. Since he is only a boy, his mother Kate cares for it until he comes of age. She must restore the estate to its former glory and fend off greedy neighbors.

Jonathan Thornton, grandnephew, cousin of Kate's late husband, and exiled because of his loyalty to King Charles, now wants to garner support for the king. He meets the young widow and helps her with the inheritance and defending her new homestead. However, the two become attracted to one another despite avenging armies, a menacing rival of Jonathan's, and Kate's complicated feelings and loyalty to her late husband's family, particularly his handsome cousin.

The novel centers around an appealing couple that carry the book together or separately. Kate is an older character than the usual one that leads Historical Fiction. She is a widow approaching middle age and is already used to being an experienced leader in her household. This is less about a young woman discovering her agency than it is about an older woman maintaining her agency during great change and turmoil.

Kate is uncertain about being around her late husband's estranged family as anyone would be coming to a house of strangers. But she quickly accepts this change and settles into the family. She befriends many of the locals like Jonathan's sister and becomes an indispensable member of the household. It's likely that when Tom comes of age, the Thornton Family estate will be in good hands. 

Jonathan also carries a world weariness that comes with age and experience. He is on the side of the Royalists, even fights alongside King Charles whom he considers a friend. His war time experiences enable him to think fast on his feet which comes in handy when getting himself and Kate out of trouble. He is used to violence and tough situations.

However, we also see someone who probably realizes that he is past his prime as a soldier. The passages where he acts as a father figure to Tom and as a love interest to Kate reveals him as someone who wouldn't mind settling down and has found the right family to do so.

Kate and Jonathan’s romance works pretty well even through the predictable formula. There are plenty of moments where Kate, Jonathan, or both are in a tight spot and need to use fighting prowess, intelligence, or medical know-how to get them out of it.

There are one dimensional antagonists that are no match to the heroes. One has an understandable grudge against Jonathan but is written so broad and reprehensible that their somewhat justifiable reason disappears underneath the veneer of melodramatic boos and hisses.

It's like those old adventure movies and novels where you shake your head amused, know the good guys will survive, but enjoy the cliff hanging excitement and the romance. It's fun but predictable. But remember, predictable can sometimes be fun. 

Threads of Fate by Aminah Bridgette Fox; Occult Academia Horror Novel Hints At Real World Issues

 

Threads of Fate by Aminah Bridgette Fox; Occult Academia Horror Novel Hints At Real World Issues

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Aminah Bridgette Fox’s novel Threads of Fate, is similar to a Twilight Zone episode. When creating the anthology series, Rod Serling realized that he could insert his political views into a Science Fiction show. He used Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror tropes to make the connections to issues like equality, conformity, mental illness, autocracies and so on. He told a great story and also revealed basic truths that should be considered and listened to. Other creators also did the same.

Threads of Fate is like that. It is a gripping and mesmerizing Supernatural Horror Occult Academia novel about missing college students, cults, and the existence of monsters like vampires that hides important themes of marginalization, economic and racial division, gender and sexuality identities, and the secrets in educational, government, corporate and political institutions

Milford University student Tammy Moore is reported missing. Her friends, particularly her best friend and roommate Manuela “Manny” Webb are anxious and grief stricken as weeks and months pass and still no words, signs, or clues appear about her presence and whether or not she's alive. Tammy isn't the other one. Other students go missing and Manny notices some interesting sigils around campus. There might be a connection to the missing students and the mysterious sigils. It is a connection that reveals a dark sinister side to the university, faculty, staff, and student body and a conspiracy that has been going on for hundreds of years and taken countless lives.

This book walks a thin line between a realistic and paranormal thriller. The book is technically an Occult Academia but it doesn't feature magical studies or supernatural creatures as professors and students. Instead it looks like any other university, stately buildings, well tended grounds, student centers, offices, organizations, libraries, labs, and areas named after wealthy donors. Bleary eyed students and cynical professors go to and fro their daily lives to teach, study, drink coffee, publish, attend meetings, date, and everything else. It's the curriculum, focus, and classes that are unusual.

Occult Studies is an academic discipline and there are courses on the subject like “Cultural Histories of the Occult and Forbidden Knowledge.” There are professors like Beau Moreau who are authorities on the subject and some literally wrote the books on Occult Studies. Students can even major in the subject alongside Creative Writing, Communications, or Medicine.

The book doesn't say what the employment outlook is like for one who majors in Occult Studies but it would be interesting to find out. The iconoclastic studies alongside the normal setting perfectly reveal that book combining something ancient, magical, and supernatural with something modern, realistic, and relatable.

The missing students plot point provides commentary on many actual issues. There is the media frenzy particularly on social media where grief becomes a public spectacle, a person even a dead person becomes a commodity for hits, shares, and comments. 

The case becomes a cause celebre then disappears when the reporters, bloggers, and law enforcement officers do. The 15 minutes of fame are sped up to about 5 in this day of quick and disposable fame and infamy.

Manny and her friends are caught between trying to solve the mystery of the disappearances and go through their usual college life but it's hard to do with people wanting to find out the gory details. 

Since Manny's best friend was one of the victims, she is constantly surrounded by questions, accusations, and publicity depicting her in many roles from the actual murderer to the brave survivor. Her grief is magnified by the notoriety so she seeks therapy to sort out her grief, anger, and helplessness. 

There is also commentary about the type of people being murdered. The majority of the victims are either students of color or were involved in DEI organizations and causes. This connection opens up conversations and arguments about prejudicial assumptions about the victims and their assailants. 

It also puts an edge on the arrival and departure of the media circus. One could look at the constant presence as a counter, almost an overreaction to a press that is often accused of perpetuating “Missing White Woman Syndrome,” but the abrupt end could be seen as the press doing that very thing. They chase a lead with a racial narrative then step away when the consequences become too great when civilians involve themselves.

Manny is in a precarious position as a Black female asexual student who was in the right place at the right time to avoid the fate Tammy was thrown into. She knows that she could by definition become a target making her times walking alone on campus even more suspenseful in ways that some of her other friends don't have to worry about.

However, Manny is able to take actions in ways that authorities and the media will not allow. She and her friends investigate on their own. In one heart stopping chapter, she witnesses a terrifying ceremonial ritual which reveals a lot about many of the more privileged people that surround university life. When those channels fail and prove to be dangerous, she and her friends guess the potential future victims and try to protect them from the kidnappers by following them.

There is a transition between reality and fantasy when a plausible albeit supernatural novel becomes entirely a supernatural novel with very little plausibility. A discovery about one of the characters moves this character to center stage and develops their relationship with Manny in questionable potentially disturbing ways.

In making comparisons between fantasy and the reality subtext, Manny’s relationship between this character asks a lot of uncomfortable questions about sexual power and dominance, intergenerational romance, racial implications, and sexual identity. It moves the book into a different direction which may not be one for the better.

April-May Reading List

 

April-May Reading List 

Threads of Fate by Aminah Bridgette Hobbes

By The Sword by Alison Stuart 

Cambridge Street by Steven Decker 

And Then They Fell in Rome by C.L. Rosario 

Tom Ryan's Shoes: Legend of The Banshee's Castle by T.A. Keenan

Sketch by Ros Hill*

Whispers of Blue Ridge by Nina Purtee*

Runebound by Alessa M. Norwen

Girl in Ice by Erica Ferenick

Sympathy for the Devil by Alex Stevens

Nobody Will Miss Them (A Belfast Murder Mystery Book 9) by Brian O'Hare 

Beneath the Umbrella by S.L. Hayes

King of My Scars by Abby North 

The Gilded Shroud by Sterling Beaudin

Being Laramie Buchanan by Cynthia Clark*

Where The Streetlight Ends by Bradley Butts

The Courage of Two: Anne Hutchinson, Mary Dyer, and The Fight For Freedom of Conscience in Early America by Nancy Jean Kelley*

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Ghostwrite/Co-Write:$200-400.00

*These are books reviewed for LitPick 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, 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, Eureka Publishing, Vanguard Publishing, and Book Square Publishing. 

Payments can be made to my PayPal and CashApp accounts at juliesaraporter@gmail.com

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

We Spread by Iain Reid; Delicate Symbolic Open Ended Look at Old Age and Senior Care

 

We Spread by Iain Reid; Delicate Symbolic Open Ended Look at Old Age and Senior Care

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: This is the second book in a row, after Delusions of Madness by Kimberly K. Taylor, in which institutional care is an important focus. Delusions of Madness was a dark disturbing Historical Fiction about the institutional abuse found in a 19th century mental asylum and the stranglehold of the patriarchy that controls it.

We Spread by Iain Reid, the second book, focuses on Senior care in modern day. The setting and plot aren't the only things that are different about it. Where Delusions of Madness is more direct and honest about the mistreatment suffered by the patients, We Spread is more hidden, subtle, and delicate with how Senior care is portrayed. It is surrounded with potential metaphor, allegory, and open ended questions that are left for interpretation. 

Penny, a Surrealist painter, has just lost her partner who passed away. After an incident where she collapses, her landlord authorizes her commitment to a long term care residence which both he and the center’s staff insist was arranged by her partner. She doesn't recall such a conversation and is very reluctant to go. However the three other residents, Pete,Ruth, Hilbert, and the only two staff members, Jack and Shelly, seem very nice and she's well taken care of so maybe it will work out. 

That is before strange things start happening. She and other residents start to forget things that they always used to remember. There are moments of missing time where they may have slept for several hours or days due to medication. Some of the residents’ personalities are different. Objects keep appearing and disappearing. There are whispered conversations and warnings about the residence’s founder, Shelley whose behavior is utterly bizarre.  

Six Cedars seems like a pleasant setting that perhaps might be just a bit too pleasant. Penny's first description of the residence is a stone house surrounded by trees. It's big, old, plain, and the only sounds are songbirds and natural silence. The foyer is clean and immaculate with fresh roses, two leather chairs, and the sound of a violin coming from one of the rooms. 

Penny's room has a queen bed, a thick duvet, a recliner chair, lamp, dresser, desk, and a grand window facing the forest. There are common rooms, a hair salon, a dining room, and even though residents are not permitted to go outside alone, they can be accompanied plus every room has a scenic natural view. 

It's safe, comfortable, welcoming, clean, sterile with no clutter, dust, or personal items. It's the kind of place that relaxes one because they don't have to think about duties, responsibilities, stuff, mental clutter. 

Penny can get her needs met and everyday she sees new brushes, paint, and other supplies encouraging her process that appear as if by magic. Who wouldn't want to live in such a nice, comfortable, quiet place that allows you to create to your heart's content?

 Penny bonds with the other residents who have their own interests as much as Penny has with her art. Pete was a concert violinist and plays in his room. Ruth is a polyglot and often peppers her conversations with French phrases. Hilbert is a mathematician and often speaks in complex puzzles and equations. Each one has a special means of communication and self-expression and uses it to create a shared language of words, music, numbers, and pictures among them.

Though the staff is small, they are also memorable. Shelley is a beautiful woman who seems to genuinely want to give the residents the proper care that they need and allow their minds to flourish and grow. She also has an interest in biology so often speaks in terms of environment, plant cycles, and growth. Jack is probably the least developed of the main characters, but he alternates between being a helpful guide and a fountain of frantic exposition especially when the weird things start happening.

The sinister happenings don't occur until halfway through the book so the Readers fall into the same subtle complacency and detachment that Penny first does. Things are strange here but this place is too nice. Everything is so routine. You don't have to think about the strange things or the world outside. Everyone here will take care of you. Now lie down and relax. Oh you can't remember your partner's name whom you have been with for decades? Well perhaps that's a sign of dementia. We'll have a doctor look you over in the morning. Now take this drug, lie down, and sleep for a couple of days.

It works because it puts the residents in a stagnant comfortable routine. They can't and won't question anything because there doesn't seem to be anything to question. There's just a general unease when memories become fragmented, items are missing, and Penny can't recall details like whether or not she and her partner ever did talk about this place or their future end of life plans. When Penny starts questioning them, she can't get anyone to act in meaningful ways beyond talking. She isn't sure if she wants to either.

What is particularly compelling about this set up is because it is so subtle it remains uncertain if anything sinister really is happening. After all, absent mindedness and forgetting details are signs of dementia. The languid tired feelings could just be that their minds are becoming numb from routine and the appearing art supplies and other things could be gifts from Jack and Shelly to keep their minds active.

Even some of the stranger events like odd discoloration on one characters' skin, Jack's frantic late night warnings, and a crucial overhead conversation could just be nightmares or delusions from Penny since she is the only person who experiences them. 

A metaphor that is spread throughout is Penny's connection to art. She laments that when she was with her partner, some of her more complex Surrealist paintings were unfinished while he often flourished creatively. 

Since she has all the time in the world in Six Cedars, she can finally work on them. But she is always finding something incorrect, flawed, or wrong with them so she has to start all over again. It's almost like she doesn't want to finish them.

This conflict could be symbolic of her feelings towards Six Cedars. She is curious but uncertain. She thinks that her life might be in danger or she's paranoid and imagining it. She wants to find out but doesn't want to find it. Because finishing the painting is like finishing a story. If she asks questions and gets answers that she doesn't want to hear, then her story is finished. She is moving closer to the edge of her life and while she sees the view, she is afraid of jumping off. Her life is in her art and now her art and life are here in Six Cedars. Is she really ready to put her signature on the painting and read the final end page?

Delusions of Madness by Kimberly K. Taylor; Harrowing Historical Fiction About The Reality of Mental Asylums and Mistreatment of Women

Delusions of Madness by Kimberly K. Taylor; Harrowing Historical Fiction About The Reality of Mental Asylums and Mistreatment of Women

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews 

This review is also on Reedsy Discovery.

Spoilers: Delusions of Madness by Kimberly K. Taylor is about as skin crawling, creepy, harrowing, and anxiety inducing as any Supernatural Horror book or movie. The most disturbing part of this Historical Fiction nightmare is that it is true. It depicts the lives of patients, especially women in a 19th century mental asylum and it does not skimp on any of the details. Even if you don't have dementophobia (fear of insanity-which I do), you might still have nightmares.

Proper 19th century Ohio wife and mother, Cassie Alexander is institutionalized by her husband, Jed who reports that she has gone insane. She hasn't. She and Jed are having marital problems and he is having an affair and needs to get rid of the competition before he can move onto the Second Mrs. Alexander. He convinces a judge that she needs to be institutionalized, so she is sent to a mental asylum.

When Cassie arrives, she finds a filthy degrading place filled with suffering patients, practices that damage them even more, and a sadistic or indifferent staff that tortures and abuses those under their alleged care. It doesn't take Cassie long to figure out that mental asylums are not there to treat people or help them recover. They are places to put people to forget about them.

Mental asylums have become an important topic in the past year with President Trump insisting that immigrants “from prisons and mental asylums” are being sent to the US, probably confusing mental asylums (institutions for the treatment and care of the mentally ill) with asylum seekers (people fleeing persecution, war, or violence and applying for legal recognition as refugees to another country but whose claims are still pending). Last year he signed an executive order aimed at reducing homelessness and severe mental illness by encouraging the expansion of involuntary, long-term commitment into psychiatric care including reducing community health services and bringing back long-term mental institutions and insane asylums.

It's important to remember that the treatment at such centers wasn't always the best and to understand the history of how people were treated back in the day, to recognize the mistreatment for what it was, prevent such abuse from repeating itself, and remember that there are resources that can be contacted if such abuse does happen now.

Taylor pulls no punches in her descriptions of the horrid conditions that Cassie and the other inmates/prisoners suffer through. We are treated to drafty mildewed walls, filthy floors with rancid odors and waste that is barely cleaned, uncomfortable and filthy beds, rats and other vermin that inhabit some of the rooms, and the sounds of tortured sobbing and screaming. It is not a pleasant place to say the least, said Ms. Obvious.

Then there is the staff who make Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest look like Florence Nightingale. They beat and physically torture the patients and purposely use dehumanizing language to bring them down to their lowest basest level.

Dr. Gooding, the asylum's primary physician, sexually assaults the patients. One of the patients ends up pregnant and he arranges for her to have an illegal, painful, and potentially destructive abortion. Matron Harrow, the asylum director is adept at manipulating and mentally abusing her charges. She has a particular vendetta against Cassie because there is a personal link between her and Cassie's erstwhile husband. She saves the worst punishments for her.

The asylum patients are subjected to various torturous punishments disguised as treatment from the moment they enter. They are branded upon entry. If one steps out of line as Cassie does, they are sedated and deprived of food and water. They are subjected to torture disguised as treatment like dunking their heads in ice cold water, throwing them in solitary confinement, or strapping them to a chair and spinning it around to the point of disorienting them.

 There are also early forms of electroconvulsive therapy and lobotomies practiced by people who do not know what they are doing.All of these are means to break a patient's spirits and remove their free will. If they are constantly monitored, ridiculed, tortured, beaten, and dehumanized, they will consent to anything.

The dehumanization is revealed in various ways in the book. Some are left screaming. Others sit in fetal positions crying. Many just lie inert, no longer giving a damn. One woman whose child has died holds nothing but air in her hands under the delusion that her baby is with her. The sad part is if help and reform comes to the asylum, these women will be too far gone to appreciate it.

In some ways, the asylum is representative of the patriarchy. Women’s sanity is determined by husbands, male family members, judges, doctors, and attendants who make medical decisions for them. Women who help the system like matrons, nurses, and Conservative women can only seize power by siding with men and condemning women who don't fit the program. The results are the women are silenced, isolated, deprived of any agency, and left utterly dependent and complacent to whatever abuse they receive.

Just like other facets of the patriarchy, it takes women to challenge it and reveal what is wrong. While most of the female patients are left dependent and animalistic by the abuse, ironically it strengthens Cassie. She argues with staff when she or others are abused. She stands up for and defends those who can no longer speak or reason for themselves. She still recognizes their humanity. She covertly takes notes on her situation and tries to send hidden messages to authority figures so something legal and permanent can be done to stop it. She's not the only one.

The book is set around the same time that Nellie Bly wrote her famous Ten Days in a Mad House expose in which she faked mental illness symptoms to be institutionalized and was sent to Bellevue Hospital and later Blackwell Island. She took notes of the poor treatment and abuse and compiled them into her book which was such a sensation that reforms in mental institutions began almost immediately. Bly and her book even get a shout out in this book as Cassie and her fellow inmates now have someone speaking out for them and telling the truth. 

Cassie in the book and Bly in real life forced the public to see that the mentally ill, particularly mentally ill and institutionalized women are people with names, histories, and identities. They challenged the people in charge and on the outside to recognize their humanity and change and reform the institutions accordingly.

 

Dissolved (Gutted, Dissolved, and Then Finished Trilogy Book 2) by Anna Madorsky; Semi-Return to Normalcy-Maybe

Dissolved (Gutted, Dissolved, and Then Finished Trilogy Book 2) by Anna Madorsky; Semi-Return to Normalcy-Maybe

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

This review is also on Reedsy Discovery.

Spoilers: Since this review is for the second volume in a trilogy, I advise you to read my review for the first volume, Gutted and be forewarned that this review will contain MAJOR SPOILERS!!

 In Gutted, the first volume of Anna Madorsky’s Gutted, Dissolved, and Then Finished Trilogy, Elliot, a woman troubled by PTSD and frequent insomnia, meets Jason, a highly intelligent, temperamental stranger who shares many of her philosophical Nihilistic thoughts. The two become lovers and kindred spirits before Jason reveals that in moments of fury, he killed people in the past and still has the urge to kill again. Elliot is at first frightened but then is drawn to his aggressive energy and open contempt for people around them. They marry and she becomes complicit and eventually partners with him when he goes in for his latest kill: a man who brutally kidnapped, raped, and murdered her friend Abbie. Elliot helps Jason cover up the crime but their relationship has been significantly altered so she decides to take a break from their marriage. She won’t notify anyone but she can’t be with Jason right now. She leaves him to find a different life for herself.

Dissolved, the second volume is mostly about her time alone. If Gutted was a journey of Elliot discovering the dark side within herself and Jason and taking those dark sides to frightening levels, then Dissolved is about the opposite. It involves Elliot trying desperately to return to normalcy or perhaps embracing it for the first time.

To maintain distance between herself and Jason, Elliot offers to house-sit for Oluchi, friend of a friend in Portland. In this new location, she makes new friends and becomes a different person. Unfortunately, she can’t stay away from Jason for too long and the two reunite. Their reunion brings back their actions and unresolved conflicts and Elliot has to either leave Jason to his own devices or return to their “Bonnie-and-Clyde” escapades.

In the previous book, Elliot lived in a cloak of darkness. She was still scarred with the traumas of her past and her mind was fogged from sleepless nights and damaging memories. She became easily susceptible to Jason’s manipulations, intellectual rhetoric, and pressing dark souled charisma. 

She thought that she found someone who shared her pessimistic views of the world until he revealed that he had been purposely stalking her. What he needed was a partner to share and facilitate these dark urges to commit murder. She was an outsider to everyone but to Jason and began to embrace a complete isolation from the world and a detachment to its laws and standards.

Dissolved is about the same woman trying her damned best to join that world that she once felt isolated from. Elliot invigorates her friendships by becoming more involved in their issues. In the previous book, she displayed some empathy for a coworker having trouble with her aging mother, and a couple of friends that are having marital problems. Most prominently, her concern for Abbie is what motivates her and Jason's rage and desire for murder. But her interactions with them conveyed world weary detachment as though she viewed them through thick glass, observing and feeling but up to a point.

However, she blossoms in Portland. She bonds with Oluchi enough to give her some information about her marriage (though not all of it). An elderly neighbor, Josephine treats her like a surrogate daughter. Rav and Yesenia, a fighting married couple, are put into her confidence.

Rav and Yesenia’s subplot proves an interesting contrast to Elliot and Jason. Rav and Yesenia's fights are loud, emotional, and almost darkly comic like a realistic sitcom with a hard edge. In other words, they are the type of couple that Elliot and Jason tried to avoid becoming. Rav and Yesenia's marriage conflicts are all outward while Elliot's and Jason's are inward.

Also Rav proves to be a contrast to Elliot herself especially when Jason returns. Just as Elliot sees Jason as a means to share her trauma and her grief, Rav sees them as a means to reflect his own aggressions and irritations. He is drawn to their shadow presence as much as Elliot had been to Jason. Looking at it now from the outside, she recognizes the harm and toxicity to the relationship but also is aware of her own longing for Jason's presence once more even as she tries to reject him.

Elliot also has a potential second love interest in Caspian, a bookseller. It isn't quite a romance but it is a deep respectful friendship. Caspian is an alternative to Jason. Like Jason he is highly intelligent, speaks of philosophical, metaphysical, and literary concepts, and causes Elliot to look inward. However he does so in a more positive way that seeks to better her not pull her down to a lower level as Jason does.

Normally, I don't care for love triangles but this is one that actually kind of works because of what Jason and Caspian represent to Elliot. Jason opened up her outsider status and encouraged her to acknowledge her darker angrier side, the side that had been hurt, hates the world, and wants to pass that hurt along to someone else.

Caspian wants to encourage Elliot's softer, more empathetic side, the type that wants to be loved and surrounded by loving, understanding people. Elliot opens up to share her thoughts about poetry, literature, and finding creative means to express her emotions. Caspian gives her possibilities to see past that hurt and find a way to move on from it. He opens up the insider status and the desire to belong and be accepted

Another way that Elliot expresses the desire to belong is through her family. In the previous book, Elliot was abused by or estranged from her immediate family. She was left isolated without anyone close to her, no positive examples to learn from leaving her alone and vulnerable.

Now she learns that her father died and she makes an attempt to reconcile with her mother who lives in Australia with her younger brothers. Elliot recognizes her own wasted effort at a reunion when the woman turns her back on her daughter while justifying choosing her sons over her. 

Instead Elliot actually does discover a found family in her Aunt Ava, her father's sister. She runs a New Age shop, reads Tarot Cards, and gives Elliot maternal advice about love and relationships. She is the older feminine guide that Elliot needed all along. It's particularly intriguing that she finds this familial link while separated from Jason. Without Jason her circle has widened but with him, it was severely limited.

You will notice in my review that I don't refer to Elliot and Jason's romance much but refer to other characters. That's because Jason isn't in it as much as the others. In his frequent absence from the narrative, other characters take prominent roles in Elliot’s life. She seems to be doing alright without him. For a time.

When Jason returns, Elliot realizes how much she missed that intense passion between them and their unique relationship in a world of two. She also is more suspicious of him and receives non-answers when she asks if he killed anyone else since they have been apart. She wonders if her presence was able to satisfy his bloodlust or at least redirect it to people who they felt deserved to die like abusers and rapists.

She is torn between the man that proved to be a dangerous killer and the man that she feels understands her the most. Even though she worked very hard at improving herself since their separation, she still has traces of that sad, mentally scarred, traumatized young woman that Jason met. The more she tries to deny their connection, the harder that it is to resist him.

Gutted revealed that Elliot was figuratively cut open when Jason explored her vulnerabilities. Dissolved reveals the tug of war between Elliot's personas: law or lawlessness, inner peace or outward violence, belonging or isolation, love or loneliness, society or outsider, burying her painful past or letting it consume her, being a decent person helping others or a violent criminal creating someone else's pain. Eventually, one or the other persona is going to have to dissolve, leaving only one. 

 

A Collection of Tiny Stories: Diminutive Tales From The Tips of My Imagination by C.K. Sobey; The School of Optimal Futures by Annie Flint

 

A Collection of Tiny Stories: Diminutive Tales From The Tips of My Imagination by C.K. Sobey; The School of Optimal Futures by Annie Flint 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

 

A Collection of Tiny Stories: Diminutive Tales from The Tips of My Imagination by C.K. Sobey

This review is a summary. The entire review can be found on Reader Views.

Sometimes writers can say much with very few words. That's what C.K. Sobey demonstrates with the anthology A Collection of Tiny Stories: Diminutive Tales from The Tips of My Imagination. Sobey presents 24 short stories no longer than one or two pages or a few paragraphs to describe a conflict, a setting, a character, or a specific moment. 

A babysitter discovers dark secrets about her neighbor. A bookworm receives a personal message from their latest book. A woman receives a newspaper with a prophetic story. A woman writes to her husband during WWI. A little girl wants a new doll for her birthday. A janitor longs for a different path in life. An abusive man encounters a witch. Workers make the most of the dockyard night life. A woman finds an abandoned teddy bear and takes it home with her.

Sobey doesn't use many words. The words that are used capture those brief flickering moments which dare readers to read, visualize, and understand a brief point in time. They are descriptive, lyrical, visceral, and skillful in depicting a single lasting image within each story.

The School for Optimal Futures by Annie Flint

This review is a summary. The entire review can be found on LitPick.

The School for Optimal Futures by Annie Flint book is a YA dystopia science fiction novel that acknowledges the conflict between the domineering authority figures and the young courageous rebels but also comments on many of our current conflicts with technology, government overreach, and education.

 Ginger is sent to The School for Optimal Futures, an elite bizarre private school. The curriculum is strange. The faculty are very secretive and students disappear. Ginger and her new friends, Zoe, Matty, and Aiden discover a conspiracy between the school’s founder and the tech company that owns the school and the nearby town. 

The School for Optimal Futures gives a pleasant exterior but is questionable internally. It has a beautiful campus, interesting curriculum, welcoming students, supportive faculty, but it's all surface.

There is something performative and uncomfortable about the whole situation, like the school is playing the part of a welcoming empathetic place for misfits and outsiders but isn't really. Things like constant surveillance and.missing students and faculty members are highly suspicious plus a giant tech company has complete control over the school.

 The book’s plot is a savage commentary on surveillance, corporate control, and the manipulation of educational standards to serve the goals of the oligarchs and the world they strive to create. The school is written as a microcosm of what is already being done on a larger scale by large corporations who focus on gain and control rather than humanity and preservation.

The School for Optimal Futures calls to attention many of the real-life world problems but also offers ways in which they can be countered, challenged, changed, and maybe defeated.

 

Gutted (Gutted, Dissolved, and Then Finished Trilogy Book 1) by Anna Madorsky; Troubling Relationship Turns Destructive and Toxic

 

Gutted (Gutted, Dissolved, and Then Finished Trilogy Book 1) by Anna Madorsky; Troubling Relationship Turns Destructive and Toxic

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Even if the introduction of Anna Madorsky’s book, Gutted, the first book in her Gutted, Dissolved, and Then Finished Trilogy, doesn’t outright spell out what happens to the central couple the first few chapters alone carry an initial feeling of unease that this couple is not going to be a happy one. This feeling only grows long before we learn about the violent history that haunts them in the past and the impulses that still rule their lives.

Elliot, a frequent insomniac, heads for a cafe in the rain in a desperate attempt to find something to soothe her. On the way there, she meets Jason, a mesmerizing stranger who asks probing and philosophical questions and understands the dark aspects luring inside her subconscious. The two become close and more intimate while Jason hints at some disturbing impulses and mannerisms.

 Finally, in a candid moment, Jason reveals his history of violence, darker urges and impulses which consume him, and that he still has those urges even now. Elliot is left with a moral quandary. Should she turn a blind eye to his behavior, help him no matter how far his urges take him, or leave him, inform the police, and regain her life?

The overall tone of this book is bleak. Both Elliot and Jason are disturbing characters caught in their own shadow natures and emotions particularly trauma, depression, anger, violence, hatred, and depersonalization. 

This is a couple that is practically destined to be a killer couple long before the first victim is identified and the body is laid out. Separately, they are miserable and insulated. Together, they are destructive towards others and themselves.

Their first encounter in hindsight is a lesson in subtle manipulation, control, and dominance. Elliot’s thought process is incredibly askew because of her insomnia and her early traumatic home life which causes her to withdraw into herself. She is very susceptible to Jason’s influence which he later revealed was among the reasons that he purposely sought her out.

Jason captivates her by echoing many of her own thoughts about the world around her. He offers his own Nihilistic views which she resonates with. She sees a partner in their mutual dark views of the world around them and who turns those thoughts into a distorted logic. If they have been hurt by a cruel and unfeeling world around them, can anyone blame them for seeing nothingness everywhere they go and thinking that life is completely pointless?

 If life is pointless, then there is no reason to honor laws, ethics, morals and other barriers. Jason rewords and reframes these views so Elliot thinks that she thought of them herself. She then thinks that Jason is a kindred spirit when all he is is a pathway to further isolation.

Elliot feels detached from everyone except for Jason. A chapter that illustrates this is when she and Jason have dinner with her close friends. Elliot’s friends’ marriage is happy. They are well adjusted with their house, careers, and dog. These are goals many aspire towards, but Elliot cannot help but think that it’s a phony surface. 

Elliot is shut out from achieving such a life, so she doesn’t bother to hope for them. Instead of wanting what she can’t have, she finds the flaws within and magnifies them until they turn into the whole picture. Instead of trying to move beyond her status, she remains detached, depersonalized, and immobile. Miserably unhappy but unable or unwilling to act upon it until Jason enters her orbit.

While Elliot simmers in her thoughts and unhappiness, Jason is the one who brings them to the surface. He is the agent of chaos that does the things that Elliot dreams of doing but is hampered by her own inertia. 

Jason reveals a dark past in which he was forced to respond to violence with violence. Instead of feeling remorse or justification, the violence became an obsession and fixation. It is an itch that he can't scratch so satisfies it by hurting others.

Jason likens his violent actions to an urge that when he sees someone that angers him, he needs to satiate that obsession with blood and murder. For someone who speaks so well about philosophy and metaphysical concepts, he cannot articulate his murderous impulses until Elliot rationalizes them.

 As he reframed her dark thoughts, she reframes his random acts and urges into a means of self-protection and defense. As Elliot is controlled by Jason, Jason is controlled by these urges. Elliot’s own inert thoughts are given movement by Jason and Jason’s acts of violence are given rationale by Elliot.

The violent acts occur in the final chapters and are almost cathartic after the build up provided by these two disturbed individuals. It is bloody, brutal, and purposely grotesque. For all of the depth in characterization that is given to the two lead characters, when we see them acting out their violent fantasies their mystique and control disappear.

 They no longer see each other as mutual lost souls drifting along in an uncaring world. They see partners and instigators in escalating the chaos and violence that contributed to that uncaring world. 

Intervention (The Galactic Milieu Series Book 1) by Julian May; How the Galactic Milieu Began

 

Intervention (The Galactic Milieu Series Book 1) by Julian May; How the Galactic Milieu Began

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Upon rereading The Galactic Milieu Series by Julian May, I came to a discovery that I never knew for decades: the series is not a trilogy. When I purchased the series in the late 90’s, it was advertised on the covers as a trilogy. I read it in order as a trilogy. It has a beginning, middle, and end, with some intriguing exposition and back story, as a trilogy. Everything about it screamed, “Read me, I'm a trilogy!” Well, it turns out that I was wrong. The Galactic Milieu Series is actually a four book series. 

Well depending on where or when you read it, the series is either a four or five book series. The actual first volume, Intervention was published in 1987 in the UK as one volume and in the US as two volumes: Surveillance and Metaconcert. The subsequent books, Jack the Bodiless, Diamond Mask, and Magnificat published in 1991, 1994, and 1996 respectively were released as a trilogy separate from Intervention at the time. Intervention has subsequently been rereleased as one volume and renumbered to fit the series proper. 

Oh and to make things even more interesting, I just learned that Intervention links The Galactic Milieu Series to May's earlier series, The Saga of Pliocene Exile. Even more important, some Milieu characters, most notably Marc Remillard, serve double duty in both series making them one continuous shared universe, The May Literary Universe or MLU if you will. Julian May loved to make things difficult for her readers didn't she? But I digress.

The good news is that the intriguing exposition and backstory hold up as a decent gatekeeping introduction to the rest of the Galactic Milieu Series. Intervention gives us important information about the Remillard Family, the Galactic Milieu, the Atoning Unifex, and the introduction of metapsychic abilities, the sociopolitical intergalactic circumstances that will affect the world at large and the Remillard's personal struggles and conflicts which will result in the creation of Fury, the metapsychic creature who will make the family’s lives miserable in the next three books.

The book begins when narrator Rogatien “Rogi” is a tween with his twin brother, Donatien “Don,” in the 1940’s and ends in the late 90’s when intergalactic intervention occurs. It is a fascinating experience to read this book after the trilogy just to see how concepts like psychic abilities are introduced. 

In the subsequent books, metapsychics are so well known that those abilities are considered commonplace. It's interesting to see a point when they are so new that it scares Rogi the first time that he hears someone's thoughts. He, like anyone else who would discover mental telepathy, thinks that he imagined it or he's going crazy. 

Throughout this book, we see metapsychic abilities evolve from a pseudoscience, to a theory, to something few people have, to a recognized legitimate phenomena, to something openly studied and practiced, to something feared and used to dehumanize others, to something that gives a huge advantage for those who have it, to becoming a central facet in some lives. The trajectory has some historical and scientific parallels in the real world. 

I keep forgetting to mention in these books there are five types of metapsychic abilities. There is creativity which creates illusions, change shapes, manipulate energy, and assemble matter into new forms, coercion which is mind control and overwhelming mental awareness and creating mental defenses, psychokinesis which is telekinesis, farsensing which is communicating with others mentally and sensing remotely, and redaction which is psychic healing and mind reading. In previous books, some excel in one specific ability like Dorothea with redaction and Rogi with creativity while others notably Jon can practice all five.

 This book emphasizes those different types and how they can be used and misused. Some use their specific abilities to help others like Denis who uses farsensing to create a bridge of understanding between those who are metapsychic and those who aren't. Then we see those like Denis’s brother Victor who uses coercion to commit criminal violent activity. It shows the different talents that one can specialize in and what means they use them for.

The book also introduces us to the conflicts found within the Remillard Family. Fury has yet to be formed but we see the toxic environment in which such a being would be mentally created and thrive inside a powerful subconscious. Rogi and Don’s struggles begin early. As Rogi studies his abilities and comes to terms with his sterility, Don falls into alcoholism, early marriage and fatherhood, and philandering. Rogi who is in love with Sunny, the woman who married Don, becomes the de facto father figure in their lives alienating Don further.

 Rogi eventually bonds with Denis who becomes a favorite nephew to him. Rogi and Denis’s mentor protege relationship is one of the highlights of this volume. He guides him in testing his metapsychic powers foreshadowing Denis’ eventual status as Remillard Family Head and prominent leader in metaphysics study and intergalactic relations. This also retroactively makes the decline of their relationship in the remaining books much more poignant knowing how close they once were.

The Remillards have several generations of family rivalries and this book shows the origins with Rogi and Don, then with Denis and Victor. While Don is simply a failure that exists for hedonistic pleasures, Victor is much more cunning and ruthless. He sees metapsychic powers as a means of superiority over people who don't have them.

As previously mentioned, Victor uses coercion in violent and destructive ways such as assaulting women, accessing accounts and government secrets, and brokering an alliance with organized crime leader, Kierian O’Connor while manipulating O’Connor’s daughter. In this reality, the Cold War is still relevant into the late 90’s and Victor manipulates various political sides to his advantage.

Later such things as intergalactic intervention, creating the Galactic Milieu, and interstellar travel will do their part in making these Earth struggles between warring nations and the law and lawless seem minor in comparison. But here they are in this book, present and unaware that the time when Earth's residents believed that they were alone in the universe and can treat the planet as horribly as they want will soon be at an end. Victor, like many, is all about his personal gain until forces greater than himself render them null and void.

As far as the aliens are concerned, mostly they interact with each other in space, observe Earthling activity, and debate whether this planet deserves Intervention and an invitation to join the Milieu (No spoiler alert: obviously we know they will extend the offer and Earth will accept otherwise the previous books would never have happened). Mostly they just summarize what has happened so far.

However one alien character fascinates: The Atoning Unifex AKA Rogi’s Family Ghost. The Unifex has been helping Rogi since he was young to discover his powers, predict his future, help him face conflicts, and provide the extra strength for self-defense. There were hints in the next three books of what exactly the Unifex and what their motive is for helping Rogi without confirming or denying the truth. One line in this book reveals the truth behind this character’s identity and why they are connected to Rogi.

Readers could skip Intervention and begin with Jack The Bodiless as I did. The exposition is revealed in an easy way to follow without getting lost and the three books could be seen as occurring en media res. It wouldn't have changed anything and there are advantages in reading the three without it like gaining immediacy with the characters and being left surprised at the twists and revelations.

However, Intervention does include some interesting backstories and take us to the beginning of Rogi and The Remillard Family. In turn it makes the remaining series more meaningful and powerful.

Now maybe onwards to The Saga of The Pliocene Exile to get the full story.

The Wedding Shroud (A Tale of Ancient Rome) by Elizabeth Storrs; This Woman's Roads Lead From Rome to Etruria

 

The Wedding Shroud (A Tale of Ancient Rome) by Elizabeth Storrs; This Woman's Roads Lead From Rome to Etruria 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: I admit that as much as I am fascinated by Greco-Roman Mythology and am a huge History and Historical Fiction fan, I actually don't know a lot about Etruscans. I knew that they originated in Etruria and were the early settlers of what would become Rome. They were led by a city-state system. 

They obtained wealth and power through mineral resources, agriculture, and maritime trade with Greece and Carthage. They influenced much of Roman culture. They went into decline after the Etruscan kings were overthrown, conquered by Rome, and the Etruscans absorbed into the Roman Republic/Empire with their culture and language merging with Rome’s. 

Most of the time history treats the Etruscans as a footnote between the fall of Ancient Greece and the rise of Rome. However they were a people with a distinct history and culture. The Etruscans left their own mark in history and The Historical Fiction novel, The Wedding Shroud (A Tale of Ancient Rome) by Elizabeth Storrs shows that.

In 406, Caecilia, a young Roman patrician/plebian woman, is arranged to marry Val Mastarna, an Etruscan nobleman as part of a treaty. At first she is unhappy and determined to remain true to her Roman ideals but slowly adjusts and feels accepted in this new world. 

She even comes to care about Masterna, his adopted son, Tarchon, her handmaid/friend Cytheris, and another friend, courtesan Erene. She is caught between the world that she came from and the one in which she loves.

This book is strong in setting and character. The Etruscan setting including time and place is awash with details. It uses the Historical Fiction trope of a newcomer from one society seeing another for the first time and contrasting the societies. It's predictable but in this case works very well.

Caecillia was born and raised in a Roman society where everyone knew their place and position. Caecillia comes from a plebian, lower class, father and patrician, ruling aristocratic mother which Roman society considers her half-caste. While moving from one status to another is possible, there are limitations to what a plebian or their children can be permitted to achieve.

Because of this outsider status, Caecillia’s father raised her beyond the expectations of a proper Roman girl. Instead of just learning basic reading, managing the household, and domestic home care. He raised her to discuss politics, philosophy, leadership, and to read dense literature. What a boy of her status would learn. She becomes quite an intelligent young woman but has nowhere to use it.

After her father dies, Caecillia loses the only encouragement that she has. In the home of her aunt and uncle is where she truly learns that her status as a Roman woman is nonexistent. She is told to wear pale colored linens, to practice homecare, and learns that her authority and status only ends within the household. 

She is to remain housebound while any future Roman husband would fight in battles, head city-states, and manage multiple lands. They can participate in ritualistic games and gatherings while she cannot even look upon them. Her upbringing from her aunt and uncle is rigid, conservative, and uncompromising. After a long time, she is conditioned to accept it.

The education that Caecillia’s father gave her disappears because of her lack of use for it, though it does give her a questioning personality and a strong will. After many years, Caecilia is conditioned to know and accept her place. The potential that she might have had disappears within the required Roman gender roles.

Caecilia is isolated by her stern parental figures only to have her cousin, Marcus, and a family friend, Drusius to confide in. If not for a strange change in circumstances, Caecilia might have remained an upper class desperate Roman housewife. Instead, she arranged to marry Masterna without her consent. 

It is worth mentioning that this book is set long before Rome would become the Empire which spread throughout the western world. It was still several small unstructured and disorganized city-states and were constantly battling other ones. Caecilia’s family lives on the outside of the central government closer to the Etruscans in nearby Veii than they do to other Roman city-states. They are constantly fighting so any form of peace is imperative. 

That is what is the center of Caecilia and Masterna’s arranged marriage. For the Roman and Etruscan city-states to form an alliance with and strengthen their bonds to maintain peace and potentially defend themselves from other larger city-states and enemies.

When Caecilia enters Veii, it’s like she is in a completely different world. Where she dressed in drab plain outfits, the Etruscans were bright colors and elaborate jewelry. Where she was raised to suppress her emotions and desires as a stoic Roman wife, the Etruscans, even the women, openly discuss their frank sexuality and have very fluid relationships. 

The most impressive discovery that Caecilia learns is that Etruscan women have authority. Caecilia seeks advice from Masterna’s mother who is very politically influential. Even Erene, a courtesan, has advice to give on how to use her sexuality as a power move. Through these women, Caecilia gains self-actualization in her life and marriage which had been lacking in her Roman upbringing.

Because of this influence, Caecilia is able to gain power and prestige in her marriage. She learns that Masterna had a wife that had died, she allows him to grieve up to a point. When the time is right, she informs him that she is in front of him and while his late wife may still have a place in Masterna’s heart, in his home and his bed Caecilia comes first. 

Caecillia also delays the conception of a child until she is certain that her place is secure in Veii and that she is accepted among the Etruscans. She is also concerned about Masterna’s past difficulties in producing children. She knows that the presence of a child, especially a son, might alter things in her husband’s favor. 

She takes medicine as contraceptives to delay parenthood as long as needed. Only when Caecilia is secure in her marriage and status,and Masterna’s virility, does the possibility of having a family come into play. 

Caecilia also brokers relationships inside Veii. She treats Erene and Cytheris like women with their own agenciesvand gains empathy with their struggles. She has an older sister-kid brother relationship with Tarchon to the point that she advises him to get out of a very unhealthy toxic relationship with Masterna’s priest brother.

Then there’s Masterna. Their relationship begins very antagonistically as she objects to being forced into marriage like a bargaining chip. He tries to dominate her with his masculinity and authority. She chips into his demeanor to discover the more vulnerable open side of him that grieves for the wife that he had while beginning to care for the wife that he is currently married to. His and Caecilia’s marriage evolves into an equal partnership and potentially a love match.

Caecilia changes in her marriage and becomes a stronger, more confident, more self-aware woman, potential leader, and proud Etruscan.