Weekly Reader: Cogrill's Mill by Jack Lindsey; Cute Charming Romance Has A Lot of Laughs and Weirdness

Weekly Reader: Cogrill's Mill by Jack Lindsey; Cute Charming Romance Has A Lot of Laughs and Weirdness

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Jack Lindsey's novel, Cogrill's Mill is sort of what would happen if you transported P.G. Wodehouse's characters to modern day and had someone like Richard Curtis write about their current love lives.

It is a cute and charming story about a spoiled rich man with very little common sense who goes into a business partnership with a Bohemian photographer and he opens his business to her artist friends. You just know this is one of those types of books where people will fall in love and hilarity will ensue. Luckily, it is a genuinely funny sweet book that even though the journey is familiar, it is also a lot of fun.

On his 30th birthday, George Cogrill is given the riot act by his Aunt Jane. He is not married, has not held down a job, and has done nothing with the money he inherited from his father. There is a codicil in the will that states that if he hasn't done anything with his fortune by the time he is 30, then he forfeits his inheritance.
Aunt Jane has a suggestion to start. Years ago, George's father cheated his former business partner, Victor Gloam, and built his financial empire off of that. Jane commands that George give half of his inheritance to Gloam. Unfortunately, Gloam died leaving his daughter, Vicky.
When George is ordered to give that half to Vicky, Vicky has some ideas to create business. One of them is to market and sell the delicious apple cider that George produces from his mill. The cider is highly recommended but only available at the local pub. Vicky also wants to expand the mill to open a fashion photography studio and maybe an artist's colony inside the small English village inhabited by George and Aunt Jane.

Cogrill's Mill is hilarious, partly because it deviates from expectations.
While Aunt Jane seems to be borrowed from Wodehouse's elderly pesky dictatorial aunts, she is not from the Edwardian Age so much as she is a retiree from the Age of Aquarius. Instead of the stereotypical “old lady” hobbies like gardening or crocheting, Aunt Jane likes to ride motorcycles. She has plenty of them but only British variety: Triumph Bonnevilles, Norton, and BSA. “These Japanese and continental machines are much too inferior,” she insists. Later, when someone mentions Harley-Davidson, she asks who that is. Though nationalistic in her choice of vehicles, Aunt Jane welcomes Vicky and her new friends. She finds new people to befriend and be nosy towards while biking across country roads.


Lindsey also does a great job of writing George, Vicky, the villagers, and the visiting artists making them a delightful community of likable characters.
Jack, a local pub tender, is the first to cheer lead for George's cider and ends up being at the forefront of selling the stuff. The cider makes a killing of Jack's pub business, much to his chagrin, when tourists keep arriving at his pub for the cider.

There is Justin, an artist that George believes is involved with Vicky until he is informed that Justin is involved with Jonathan, a model. Justin and Jonathan are frequently together so it is no surprise to the Reader as it is to George, thereby showing that George really needs to get a clue.

There is Tom Firkin, a gamekeeper who hides artistic talent and develops a romance with Vicky’s model friend, Miranda, despite his bucolic shy exterior. His dialect reveals that he is far from the dumb rural stereotype. Instead he is a sweet man who just needs encouragement from the right woman.
Miranda inadvertently causes a running gag by revealing her real name, Mabel, to George. George covers up for Miranda's embarrassment by telling Vicky that Mabel is the name of Jane's cat which she doesn't have. Vicky then spends some of the book looking for Aunt Jane's nonexistent cat.

Of course George and Vicky have some cute moments where the ambitious Vicky bickers with the complacent, George. There are also plenty of misunderstandings such as George proposing a business idea to Vicky and both she and Aunt Jane think it's a marriage proposal.
These humorous moments are driven by the characters’ personalities and behaviors giving a sweetness and gentleness to the events.

There are some weird moments towards the end. A smooth relative of Vicky's turns out to be a crook who takes some unnecessarily violent repercussions on the other characters. One wealthy character dies and leaves their fortune to their dog and another character gets amnesia and spends some time with a British Country-Western band.
The last third of the book becomes silly and farcical instead of the gentle character-driven comedy but most of the book produces some sweet moments that make you root for the characters and want to see them succeed.

Underneath the sweet characters and humorous plot points, there is an underlying theme of moving out of one's comfort zone and taking chances. Once George and Vicky share the fortune, they discover hidden talents in other people like Tom, Jack, Justin, Miranda and other characters. They also discover talents within each other.

George is revealed to make a great cider that he has never wanted to market until Vicky convinces him to. He also has a good eye for photography so he starts taking his own pictures becoming an honorary member of the artists’ colony.

Vicky also has some talents that encourages her to step onto the other side of the camera. She is very photogenic and becomes a model. She also acquires an acting talent and accepts the lead in a romantic comedy (inside the romantic comedy that is the book, Cogrill's Mill). The two achieve success once they display those talents to the world.

With success comes problems like the rush of tourists, sycophants who suck up to the newly famous, and in one chapter, George having to speak at conferences while hung over. But those problems help turn the lives of George, Vicky, Aunt Jane, and their friends around into something different.

The characters in Cogrill's Mill move on from their lives into new experiences that change them, sometimes better and more fulfilling and sometimes worse and with more headaches. But, the new experiences move them beyond their exteriors to become characters that are sweeter, funnier, more authentic, and more real.

New Book Alert: Strung Out: One Last Hit and Other Lies That Nearly Killed Me by Erin Khar; Deeply Emotional Account of Heroin Addiction, Recovery, and the Psychology Behind the Addiction

New Book Alert: Strung Out: One Last Hit and Other Lies That Nearly Killed Me by Erin Khar; Deeply Emotional Account of Heroin Addiction, Recovery, and the Psychology Behind the Addiction




By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: It is interesting that I am reviewing Erin Khar’s Strung Out: One Last Hit and Other Lies That Nearly Killed Me for this blog at the same time that I am reviewing The United States of Opioids by Harry Nelson for another site. Both books illustrate how large the Opioid Crisis has become and how it affects both society and the individual. The latter book is a dry fact based account of the Crisis and how it began as well as the various institutions and people that put the Crisis in motion. What it lacks is the personal and the individual case story of people with addictions. It sacrifices the details for the picture of the crisis at large.

Erin Khar's memoirs fills that need. It fills in the details and makes the Opioid Crisis personal. It tells the story of Khar's struggles with drug addiction as well as the mindset that led her down this path as well as her recovery from her addiction.

Khar, a radio advice columnist, was inspired to write this memoir after watching a news report on opioid addiction with her then-twelve-year-old son, Atticus. Atticus asked if his Mom ever had taken drugs. Khar was stunned at the question and hoped that she would never have this conversation with her son, so she could maintain his innocence. She explained why people became addicted and realized that she had to open up about her own past.

Khar writes the mindset of a person with an addiction really well. One way that she accomplishes that is by showing the reasons behind the addiction. Many people think that the addiction is the problem, full stop. When a person breaks their addiction, then they will be fine. Khar's writing shows that is not always the case.

Even before she first sneaked Darvocet from her grandmother's medicine cabinet, Khar was beset with problems that made her young life impossible. Her parents’ divorce along with her father's behavior in trying to buy her love with material possessions and her mother's involvement with an abusive boyfriend traumatized her. Khar had low self-esteem and even as young as four years old, she cut herself and held notions of suicide.

Throughout her young life, Khar derided herself as “ugly” and a “monster,” feeling insults from other children and rejection from boys deeply.
In a later chapter, Khar encountered an old family friend and had a panic attack. She remembered that he molested her when she was four years old and blamed herself ever since. These incidents reveal the lost soul that Khar was before she stole the Darvocet and injected heroin with her boyfriend at 13 and began an addiction that claimed her teen and young adult years.

Khar's book is graphic in its detail about her addiction and how it affected her friendships and romances. Through high school, Khar lived the exterior of the perfect A+ student who was a cheerleader, volleyball player, and horseback rider. In her spare time, she swallowed pills from friend's medicine cabinets, cut herself, took heroin, and slept with her boyfriend, Ted. Much of Khar's retreat into her addiction stemmed from her trying to act like the perfect student in front of everyone so she could hide the pain underneath. Readers with addictions and psychiatric disorders will completely understand this exhausting masquerade that they use to hide the lost soul underneath.

After her grandmother's death when she was fifteen, Khar withdrew from her egocentric father and depressed mother and explored the night life in ‘90’s downtown L.A. that involved her going to clubs, dating several unappealing men, and of course frequent drug use. She lost many of her friends and boyfriends. Ted and Khar broke up after Sam, Ted's cousin and another drug user that she was seeing on the side, died of an aneurysm. Her best friend Ellen, with whom Khar saw many rock bands, broke up with her after she spent too much time with another boyfriend, Ian. Ian, an older man, ended things with her because they were far apart in age (though Khar suspected that he was seeing someone else.). The breakups sent Khar in an even further downward spiral as she experimented with crystal meth and pills.

She dated a drug dealer named Mike-Jim (“He said his name was Mike, but really it was Jim or the other way around,” Khar said) so he could supply her with her new drug of choice,crystal meth. Another unstable boyfriend, Will admitted that he put thirty phenobarbital in her spaghetti after she broke up with him.
These chapters grimly show how each break up, each disappointment, and each instance of abuse and mistreatment can bruise an already fragile personality. To cope, sometimes a person with an addiction can use that as a reason to continue their addiction.

Even when she tried to find a fresh start, Khar was surrounded by her old demons. She spent some time in Paris attending Sorbonne University, going to cafés and museums, making new friends, and trying her best to break her addiction. She became involved with Vincent, a Frenchman, who eventually moved to Los Angeles with her. When she discovered that he hadn't broken up with his old girlfriend, he moved out and she relapsed back into heroin.

In 1997, during the height of the so-called “heroin chic” trend, Vincent and Khar’s mother forced her into rehab. While she tried to follow the twelve-step program to the letter and bonded with many of her fellow patients, her addiction was never truly far behind. A friend at the rehab overdosed during his release and she was too terrified of a relapse to go help him, sending her mother instead.
When she was caught between two men, she missed heroin and returned to the drug.

During a psychiatric session with her mother, Khar's PTSD from her earlier molestation was mentioned. Her mother's denial of the events sent Khar into depression and a return to cutting as well as the drugs.
It is truly heart-breaking to read about this woman travelling from place to place, friend to friend, lover to lover hoping to break her addiction. But the seemingly endless cycle continues and she once again finds herself alone and reaching for the needle or the bottle.

There are some truly chilling moments that reveal how a drug addiction can be unpredictable and frightening, to the point that a person with an addiction can't trust their own mind, body, or the people around them. During rehab, Khar hallucinated spiders crawling up and down her room.

After she and her friend, Diana, had shot up, Khar accidentally o.d.’ed, to the point that she almost died.
A pregnancy with Jack, a troubled boyfriend, ended in an abortion, but Khar continued the relationship because of the drug access they provided for each other. Khar knew the relationship was unhealthy (“The difference between us was that Jack was a drug addict and I was a mentally ill person who had an addiction,” Khar said), but stayed with him.

Many of Khar's transactions put her at the forefront of the socioeconomic gap and she realized that as a biracial woman from a wealthy family, she had advantages such as access to good rehab centers and treatment programs, that many of her fellow addicts and dealers did not.
She bought drugs from many people who were on the lower economic scale and were primarily black and Latino. She witnessed many of the unfair treatment they got such as harsher prison sentences or deportation while she and others of her background were given court appointed rehab.

In one haunting moment, Khar bought drugs from a 12-year-old African-American boy. She reasoned that a 12-year-old doesn't just wake up one day and decide to sell drugs. He sells them because he has no other options in the neighborhood in which he lives and is denied many of the employment, education, and health access that Khar had.

Khar finally kicked her addiction for good, when she was pregnant with her son, Atticus. However, many of the reasons behind her addiction such as low self-esteem and unhealthy relationships continued. Atticus’ father, Michael continued to hold her addiction over her head and refused to admit his infidelities causing Khar to solely blame herself for the end of their marriage. She also started a clothing line with a friend that fell apart so she avoided situations and her friendship ended for a time.

These last chapters reveal the end of the addiction is not the whole story, especially when the reasons behind the addiction remain. When she held Atticus for the first time, Khar repeated a mantra: I love him more than I hate myself realizing that she still had the capacity for love.

She began to make healthier choices like hanging out with better friends who encouraged her sobriety or had recovered themselves and acted as guides to aid her. She got involved with Yoga to help change her mindset and outlook. She found her gift for writing and took to blogging essays and an advice column, Ask Erin.(“She's made all the mistakes so you don't have to.”) She also fell in love with and married Seth and had a second child, Franklin finding stability and happiness in her family.

Erin Khar's book is brilliant at capturing not only a drug addiction, but the reasons and mindset that created the addiction and the resources, healing, and emotional support that one needs to make a full and complete recovery.

New Book Alert: Corruption Behind Bars: Stories of Crime and Corruption in Our American Prison System by Gary York; Gripping Eye-Opening Accounts of Criminal Activity In American Prisons

New Book Alert: Corruption Behind Bars: Stories of Crime and Corruption in Our American Prison System by Gary York; Gripping Eye-Opening Accounts of Criminal Activity In American Prisons




By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: Gary York knows a lot about corruption in the prison system. As a Senior Prison Inspector, he spent twelve years conducting criminal, civil, and administrative investigations in many state prisons.

He wrote books on the subject and his book, Corruption Behind Bars: Stories of Crime and Corruption in Our American Prison System is a gripping account of many of the situations inside these prisons. What he found were buildings full of lawbreakers, both inmates and employees. York's book is filled with 42 chapters of such stories.

York begins his book by discussing how a prison becomes a den of more illegal activity than the outside.
“Imagine taking a group of dishonest individuals and putting them all in the same location. Now add, a few corrupt staff members…..This mixture can cause numerous illegal activities. Just one corrupt staff member...can cause a chain of events that lead to months of investigative work in order to infiltrate and dissolve the illegal activity. Corruption causes citizens to feel officers are not trustworthy and leaves them wondering who the officers are working for, the citizen or the inmate.”


In the first chapter, York chillingly explains the recruitment process that he calls “The Inmate Recruitment Game.” Once they enter the Graybar Hotel, inmates are denied certain privileges, such as drugs, sex, even simple things like a home cooked meal. They get by these restrictions by either making sure their friends get hired in the prison or, failing that, find a way to blackmail or entice a staff member. They may find information on the staff member, such as an extramarital affair or financial dirty dealing, from friends on the outside.

York's profile of these inmates show them as master manipulators. They befriend the staff member and learn secrets on them, then trick them into giving them a simple contraband item like a single cigarette or a can of beer. Then, they will ask for bigger items. If the staff member refuses, the inmate then threatens to reveal the secret they learned as well as the earlier contraband. Suddenly, the inmate has a new friend, that gives them whatever they want including illegal contraband and , lo and behold, the corrupt inmates and employees rule the Big House.

One chapter in York's book illustrates this concept clearly. Helen, a classification officer, supervised inmate orderlies in a move from her old office to a new one.
A handsome inmate began smiling at her. She smiled back in a more flirtatious manner. The inmate then began writing her poems and painting floral pictures as gifts.

Helen was flattered by the attention and already was in trouble for not reporting the gifts. She and the inmate sneaked into the old classification office and had sex. The captain entered the office to find Helen and the inmate in flagrante delicto. The inmate was locked up in disciplinary confinement and Helen was removed from her job. However, when the inmate was transferred to another prison, Helen was added to his visitor's list.
This chapter reveals how the inmates use the staff members’ insecurities and loneliness against them. By manipulating Helen’s need for romance and telling her the right things to make her think she loved him, the inmate’s sexual needs were met.

If not sex, sometimes the inmates wanted other urges to be satisfied like their drug and alcohol addictions.
A drug treatment center was under investigation from York for this very reason. York searched the financial records and discovered that there were frequent requests for new window screens. York learned that male offenders often broke through the screens, either to be with female offenders or to pick up drugs that friends and family members dropped off in the woods outside the treatment center.
The male offenders picked up the drugs and entered the female's section through the window. The offenders engaged in sex, drinking, smoking marijuana, and taking other drugs. “They were angels by day and vampires by night,” York observed. The entire program was shut down and the officers and other staff members were relocated.

Women's prisons can also be hotbeds for contraband. Many of the items demanded are things to enhance an inmate's femininity, such as make up, perfume, and jewelry, particularly tongue rings. In a women's prison, York discovered that two female officers made extra money on the side by bringing the inmates tongue rings and name brand makeup. The makeup was provided to replace the generic makeup approved by the prison and hated by the inmates. The tongue rings were a fashion statement because they were stylish and cool and also because the inmates used the tongue rings on each other for oral sexual pleasure and arousal. After York confiscated the tongue rings and makeup, he learned the names of the officers from the inmates. The officers resigned and surrendered their correctional officer certifications for life.

Sometimes the officers are just as corrupt as the employees as York shows in his chapter involving Florida's former Department of Corrections Secretary James Crosby. Crosby hosted wild parties with bigwigs, booze, and girls. He and other officials accepted kickbacks from private vendors and state funds. Other officials imported and sold steroids to give to the prison softball team. Crosby also protected officers who abused and intimidated inmates and staff.
Many of Crosby's cohorts were exposed and investigated. Some came clean particularly about the steroid use and the parties. Eventually in 2006, Florida governor, Jeb Bush ordered Crosby to resign. He agreed to plead guilty for accepting kickbacks and was sentenced to eight years in a federal prison.
The chapter on Crosby shows what happens when a prison official is as corrupt and scheming as the inmates. When that happens, the whole system can fall apart when citizens can't trust that law officers will protect them.

Sometimes the favors that staff members grant inmates seem innocuous but are symbols of power one has over them. This is particularly true for Warden David Farcas of the Charlottesville Correctional Institution. Farcas recruited captains, officers, and supervisors into what was called “The Family” a small group of prison officials who did favors for each other like covering up abuse. While inmates spoke up against the mistreatment, authorities did not take their claims seriously. Officers were supposed to testify as well, but the officers were too afraid of “The Family” to protest.
Farcas also granted favors to prisoners that he liked such as letting some use his cell phone to make long distance calls. In his previous position, Farcas gave an inmate and his father a steak dinner. He later had the same inmate transferred to Charlottesville.
One of the more bizarre favors that Farcas granted the inmates was to invite a skydiving team land on the prison compound during their annual Christian program. It is forbidden to allow airplanes to enter a prison without receiving approval from the State Capitol, conducting background checks on those who use the plane, and searching the plane for contraband or potential escapees. Farcas sidestepped these regulations and granted the skydiving team permission for no motive but to show off his power and prove that he could grant such a huge favor.
The Inspector General's office received various complaints on Farcas’ behavior from inmates and officers who were willing to talk about the Family's doings. Farcas was removed from his position, but temporarily received a new wardenship at Cross City Correctional Institution during the rise of Secretary James Crosby (see above). When Crosby resigned, Farcas was one of several prison employees terminated by Governor Jeb Bush’s actions to end illegal activity in Florida's prisons.

Juvenile correctional facilities also have their share of illegal activity going on inside those walls. In Hillsborough Correctional Institution, The young offenders got into fights, arming themselves with broom handles and padlocks as makeshift weapons. Warden Roderick James declared “If you want to act like animals, then you will be treated as animals.” Officers then handcuffed the young men to a chain link fence then laughed as a thunderstorm poured down on the boys.
James ordered the officers to use pepper spray on any dissenters. The inmates spent the night on the gymnasium floor handcuffed on the basketball court floor and sleeping on thin mattresses. The young men spent 33 hours handcuffed, before being released.
The inmates and officers, lieutenants, a major, the assistant warden, and the prison chaplain all testified that James ordered the punishment. James denied being involved in punishing the boys, but his attendance on the court log told a different story. James was demoted, suspended for a few days, and transferred to Avon Park Correctional Institution where he was eventually promoted to warden once again.
This chapter highlights a heart-breaking reality in America's prisons that sometimes when officers are caught breaking the laws that they swore to protect, unfortunately they receive very little punishment.

York's book is an eye opening look inside prisons where instead of rehabilitating and receiving second chances, the people on both sides of the law are often guilty of doing more of the same.

New Book Alert: Succubus Affair by R.E. Wood; Erotically Charged Supernatural Thriller Brings Mythological Villainess to Modern Day Manhattan

New Book Alert: Succubus Affair by R.E. Wood; Erotically Charged Supernatural Thriller Brings Mythological Villainess to Modern Day Manhattan


By Julie Sara Porter


Bookworm Reviews





Warning: This review will frankly discuss the sexual themes and descriptions in this book of which there are plenty. Reader discretion is advised.

Spoilers: Lilith is an intriguing character in Jewish folklore. A figure from the Apocryphal Bible, she was Adam's first wife and was created from the dust like him. She refused to take a secondary position and she was cast out of the Garden of Eden and Eve grew from Adam's rib to emphasize her subservience.
Lilith's legend has taken on various characteristics depending on who reads her legend and interprets the analytical and allegorical meaning behind her.
Starting in the Medieval Era, she had been seen as a Succubus, a female spirit that visits homes at night to steal the breath from infants and render men impotent and powerless. (Some believe that her mouth explained the origin of nocturnal emissions.) In some literary and legendary accounts, she is seen as an unrepentant demon from the depths of Hell.
In more recent times, she has gained a different outlook. Many feminists see her as a symbol of rebellion against the patriarchy that in her willingness to leave Eden instead of obeying Adam, she was declaring her independence. She is seen as a vibrant sexually charged character who takes control of her life.

R.E. Wood gives us this complex figure in his novel, Succubus Affair. Wood transports the legendary demon to Modern day Manhattan in this erotic sexually charged supernatural thriller which is also a commentary on modern consumerist desire for self-gratification and the sexual and emotional power plays between lovers.


When Lilith enters the novel, she proves to be a seductive force to be reckoned with. She seduces a man at a nightclub and after some mind blowing sex, she drains the life from him turning him from a horny young man in his early twenties to an emaciated old man drained of life. She also literally grows a pair to seduce a gay customer service representative with the same results.

However, Lilith is not just in Manhattan to satisfy her hunger and sexual urges. She has long-term goals to get money and power. She gets both in Norman Gleason, CEO of Gleason Financial Services. She manipulated her way into the job of Norman's personal assistant removing his suspicious former assistant then moves into his house alienating Norman's gorgeous wife, Judith who not surprisingly wants a divorce.
Lilith thinks that she has it made or is going to get it: a billion dollar fortune, a powerful position as assistant and possibly CEO once she receives Norman's finances and seizes control of his company, and enough men in Manhattan to satisfy her hunger. But she is drawn to Bob Martin, a newlywed employee of GFS. He at first resists her and she is incensed and curious about why Bob is so different and why he has such a hold on her.


Succubus Affair is a superior book to Voodoo Warning in every way: superior in suspense and fear, superior in description, and superior in characterization. When the plot of a horror novel involves relationships, the author better make them interesting and Wood does.

The most interesting figure is Lilith herself. She is not identifiable or relateable, but she is mesmerizing. As she draws in her prey, she seems to draw in the Reader so that they are not rooting for her but they are fascinated by what she does and how she operates. She painfully emasculates a potential rapist and completely destroys seven men in a bloody terrifying group orgy. She is like a villainess in a soap opera or a psychological thriller (of course being Lilith, she is the O.G. of female antagonists). She wants and she isn't afraid to take what she wants sometimes in the most destructive, illegal, and painful way imagined.

It makes sense that Lilith comes to the modern 21st century. In a time when consumerism and self-gratification is high, here comes a creature who is the living embodiment of that desire to please ourselves.

It is no coincidence that Lilith ruins romantic and familial ties. When dating can be disposable, people change couples as fast as they change their clothes, and love can sometimes be hard to find and define, of course there would be a creature who survived by severing those ties.

It is also no coincidence that it's a female character doing this. Lilith is not an outsider from another time. She exhibits those patriarchal alpha characteristics of dominant sexuality and instant gratification and turns it around on the male characters in the story.


This leads to an interesting question: how much of Lilith's behavior is mesmerism and do her assailants have any free will or control over their behavior? Many characters that she seduces are the types who are drawn by sex and their own bravado.

When Judith learns the truth that Lilith is a succubus, she points out that Norman is still responsible for leaving her and allowing Lilith to gain access to his accounts and business. Judith continues divorce proceedings and obtaining her assets from her ex-husband and his demonic mistress.

Bob is able to resist Lilith for a long time because he is happily married to his wife, Mags. Even when he succumbs to Lilith, he is torn between being led by his heart for Mags and his dildo for Lilith. That is what fascinates Lilith so much, that he is able to resist her magnetism for so long. His love is a shield from his desires and that makes Lilith so determined to have him and break those desires.

Succubus Affair is a novel that is graphic and erotic in how it reveals the characters’ sexuality but it is intelligent in how it turns that sexuality on the characters’ heads into something seductive, and dangerous. passpassionate, and dangerous. AN

New Book Alert: Voodoo Warning by R.E. Wood; Thriller About Plane Crashes and Zombies Is Reminiscent of 1970’s Films

New Book Alert: Voodoo Warning by R.E. Wood; Thriller About Plane Crashes and Zombies Is Reminiscent of 1970’s Films





By Julie Sara Porter


Bookworm Reviews





Spoilers: R.E. Wood’s horror novel, Voodoo Warning is reminiscent of those old disaster and horror films from the 1970’s. It doesn't have much in the way of deep characterization or themes beyond mere survival. But it makes up for that in genuine suspense, graphic description, and the kind of thrills that you expect from this kind of book.

The book begins on a passenger airplane in the 1970’s. It has many of the standard characters you expect in such a story: the stalwart Colonel with his fed-up wife, the doctor who is conveniently on board in case they need a medical emergency, the arguing couple and the hippy couple (this is the ‘70’s), and the hero caught in a love triangle between an innocent naive college student and a sharp tongue experienced school teacher, and of course the crew: the gorgeous flight attendant, the handsome pilot, and the loyal co-pilot. The characters are pretty flat. They are more like plot devices for the thrills and horrors to happen to them rather than people who are suffering because scary horrible and things are happening to them.


This is one of those books where the plane no sooner takes off than you know it's going to crash.

And crash it does. It crashes in the uncharted areas of Peru. The first couple of chapters make the Reader think this is going to be a survival story somewhere between Lord of the Flies and The Poseidon Adventure in which the survivors pull together and


find a way out becoming either closer because of the journey or turning on each other brutally. Unfortunately, the disappearing corpses (not to mention) the book's title) lead the book into horror-zombie territory.

There are genuine chapters that produce chills particularly when the characters enter a creepy mansion. They are being stalked by a sinister mambo and his bloodthirsty tribe. Yes, uncomfortable stereotyping is present in this novel too. Voodoo practitioners are the antagonists here. Though one character does the Readers a favor by differentiating the Voodoo practiced in this book from the Voodoo practiced in Haiti and New Orleans. However, most of the book features passages this side of Voodoo presented in Hollywood movies. The novel pays as much attention to real life spiritual paths as it does to its characters.

But that's not what is to be looked for or found in this book. Reality and characterization take a back seat to chills and scares. Wood delivers on those. Does he ever.
Many creepy moments occur when the characters are caught inside the mansion with the Mambo outside and they fall prey to creatures floating in and out of the shadows, chanting whispering among the trees, and a deep voice warning them to get out.


Not to mention that many of the characters are equipped with their own personal emotional baggage that already puts them on the edge. Couples fight. Lisa, the naive student has jealous eyes for Mary, the schoolteacher when she and Jim, the hero flirt with each other. Some characters are mourning the deaths of the other crew and passengers.
The atmosphere is scary enough when the creatures are outside allowing the supernatural creatures to creep in slowly with the emotional tension. When the Mambo unleashes his powerful attacks on the survivors, it is graphic and bloody, but almost not as scary as the tension that preceded it.


When the survivors are taken out one by one and some characters are witness to the rituals, it is everything you expect from a horror novel. There is blood here and mutilations there and a native tells the plane crash survivors how his mother died in a ritual when he was young. The chapters with the Voodoo tribe should produce some chilling mental pictures and nightmares.


However, for genuine fear, the build up is scarier than the execution. Sometimes, the creatures in the shadows are more terrifying when they are subtle and left to the imagination than when they are present in all of their gory glory.

Voodoo Warning is an exciting novel even if it's kind of predictable including the end which is one of the most clichéd obvious endings in the genre. But if you want a genuine scare for Halloween, this is a good suggestion for that. However, R.E. Wood wrote novels that are scarier and are better written making them more memorable as well as scarier.

New Book Alert: Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell; Charming and Funny Look At the Life of a Scottish Bookseller

New Book Alert: Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell; Charming and Funny Look At the Life of a Scottish Bookseller

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Shaun Bythell's Confessions of a Bookseller is not long on plot. In fact there is hardly any plot in the book. Instead this sequel to Bythell's previous book, Diary of a Bookseller has plenty of charm, humor, witticisms, and eccentric characters that would be unbelievable in fiction were they not real people.

Bythell owns and operates The Book Shop, Wigtown the largest second hand bookshop in Scotland. This book covers 2015, a year in which he dealt with quirky colleagues, eccentric customers, and the difficulties of running a book store.

Bythell was surrounded by a colorful group of colleagues that could have come out of fiction themselves. There is Granny, an Italian woman, who earned the nickname because she talked about aches and pains and talked about death. Another one is Petra who rented the upstairs apartment to host belly dancing classes. (“Shake, Read, and Roll” would make a good slogan.)

One of the stand outs in this kooky cast is Nicky, Bythell's main employee. She arrived fashionably late, wore black clothes, and brought food on Foodie Fridays (usually stuff that Bythell didn't like.). Often she and Bythell bickered about how the store was run. Nicky gave her two weeks notice once, but the two relied on each other for help and friendship.

Nicky is like most friends and co-workers. You fight, sometimes you want to see the back of each other. But you also rely on each other for loyalty, laughs, strength, and friendship.

As humorous as Bythell's colleagues are, his exchanges with customers are equally as memorable.
One of the struggles Bythell had were donations that meant more to the customers than to Bythell. Many entries feature Bythell driving several hours out of his way to investigate boxes of books only to return with less than a handful because the books were either damaged beyond repair, written by authors that are widely distributed like Dan Brown or Stephanie Meyer, or of only personal interest to the donor. (Family Bibles are out for that reason.)

Another issue the introverted Bythell often had to deal with were talkative customers, who began discussing reading habits then talk about family struggles and personal habits. “NEVER ask for an anecdote when you work in a bookshop,” warned Bythell.

One hilarious roundabout conversation occurred between Bythell and a customer who had to learn the difference between a bookshop and a library.
“Will to live rapidly diminishing,” Bythell inwardly moaned as he said for what seemed like the hundredth time that no she didn't have to return the books once she bought them.

Bythell also had to contend with weird questions asked by customers about what books he had. One asked for a childhood book that she didn't know the name but featured a koala stealing berries. Anyone who works in a book store or library will understand the vague requests. (“I don't remember the name of the book but it has a red cover.”)

Bythell also had to contend with his share of unusual requests both in person and online. One online request asked for Mein Kampf along with other pro-Nazi materials. Bythell didn't know why and didn't want to know.

There were also customers that asked for specific books about certain subjects every day from Scottish genealogy to trains. One of those types of customers was Bythell's father, an avid fisherman who always asked for books about anglers and fish.

Along with colleagues and customers, Bythell also wrote about the advertising that he did to draw in customers, particularly online where he received interest from as far away as Asia, the Americas, and the other European countries. For Christmas, he and Nicky posted two different videos and had the visitors vote on their favorite.

He also wrote about the various quotes that he and other co-workers displayed on Facebook that deal with books and reading. One of those reads “You passed by a Book Shop. Is something wrong with you?”

As much as the Internet was a boon to Bythell's business, it could also be a curse. Bythell became so irritated with customers realizing that they had books on their Kindle that he and a colleague designed and sold “Death to Kindle” mugs at the Book Shop.
In his previous book, Bythell displayed a broken Kindle on the wall of the Book Shop. The display went viral earning Bythell some extra online celebrity.

By far the most eventful time for the Book Shop is the Wigtown Book Festival which takes place during the final week in September. Bythell wrote about the planning, preparation, and organizing an event from a village of less than 100 citizens welcoming people from all over the world. Besides offering discounts, Bythell participated in various events like the Literary Quiz, the optimistically titled Wigtown's Got Talent, and the Fun Run (which he admits is an oxymoron).

While the plot of Confessions of a Bookseller is slight, there is one plot thread that dangles throughout the book. That is Bythell's relationship with his partner, Anna. Anna created different things associated with the Book Shop, like the Writer's House, which offered courses in reading, writing, and art and the Open Book, in which renters can temporarily operate and organize their own bookshop, like an Airbnb. Granny started working there.
As good as Anna was for business, and as good as she and Bythell were personally, they had differences that could not be met. In his mid-forties, Bythell wanted to start a family, Anna was much younger and did not. They broke up and Anna returned to the United States.

Some of the most moving chapters are when Bythell encountered old friends and explained why he was alone, feeling a lump in his throat. During Christmas, he sent her a cordial happy holidays email and wished he could see her in person.

Despite the quirky colleagues, odd customers, and demands on his personal time, Bythell is clearly a man who loves books and loves sharing them with others. This is shown in the first entry when he writes, “The pleasure of handling books that have introduced something of cultural or scientific significance to the world is undeniably the greatest luxury that this business affords and few -if any-
walks of life provide such a wealth of opportunity to indulge in this. This is why, every morning getting out of bed is not an anticipation of a repetitive drudge but in expectation that I may have the chance to hold in my hands a copy of something that first brought to humanity an idea that changed the course of history….That is what it's all about.”

Any of us who work with books whether selling, lending, publishing, appraising, editing, writing, teaching, or reviewing them understand completely.

New Book Alert: A Life Worth Living: Meditations on God, Death, and Stoicism by William Ferraiolo; In Depth Look At Using Stoicism in Times of Trouble

New Book Alert: A Life Worth Living: Meditations on God, Death, and Stoicism by William Ferraiolo; In Depth Look At Using Stoicism in Times of Trouble

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




In William Ferraiolo's previous book Meditations on Self-Discipline and Failure, he introduced the Reader to the concept of Stoicism, a philosophy in which followers practiced reason, rational behavior, and control over emotion. The book offered little paragraphs of advice on various situations.

Ferraiolo's follow up, A Life Worth Living: Meditations on God, Death, and Stoicism is a more in depth look, at using Stoicism during times of great stress. Ferraiolo goes into great detail on how Stoics can face the issues that plague them.

The introduction makes clear what this book is made for. In a master of understatement, Ferraiolo’s intro states “The world is a rough place and no one gets out alive…..We are entitled to have precisely none of it. None of us had to be born.” The important thing to remember is Socrates’ philosophy of “the unexamined life is not worth living.” One way to examine life is with a sense of detachment and looking at the way your emotions and how you react to the world.

Unlike the previous book, Ferraiolo doesn't resort to short homilies that offer brief insights. Instead each chapter is a more detailed look at current issues and how Stoicism can be practiced when faced with him.


One method that Ferraiolo introduces in his book is the IDEA Method, four steps to practice Stoicism. It stands for:

I: Identify the real issue-What is really concerning us? When we are mad about something, what is the root cause of our anger?

D: Distinguish “Internal” from “External”-What is beyond our control-external and what is within our power to change-internal. Is the problem something we can fix, can it be fixed by someone else, by both or neither?

E: Exert Effort Only Where It Can Be Effective-If the problem is internal what can and should be done to fix it? Is it necessary for example to obtain so many material goods when everything falls away? Do we have a good work-life balance?

A: Accept the Rest Amor Fati-If the problem is external, what are the results and how do we accept it? Even if it is internal, have we done everything we possibly could? How do we react at the results with calm and acceptance or with rage and tears?

One of the big issues that plague us in modern society is mental health. While Ferraiolo doesn't dismiss conventional treatment like therapy and medication, he advises the Reader to look at the issues that surround the anxiety.

Concerns about another person's health and well-being lie within that person and not within others surrounding them. Anxieties about death are not necessary because no matter what happens, we are all going to die. When someone is concerned about failure, their anxieties may trouble them so much that their fear becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The book also discusses the obsession with the needs of the external world such as money, material goods, or constant adulation. Simplicity is living your life without the excesses of the external and appreciating what one has instead of obtaining too much.

Stoicism is also a philosophy that admits free will and is less dependent on the will of a higher deity. While many of the Stoics believed in a God of some form, they knew that their behaviors were in their control. Even modern Stoics can match their behaviors to their current beliefs.

Many practicing Buddhists can find comparisons between their belief and Stoicisms. Like Epictetus the Slave who practiced a life of simplicity, Prince Siddhartha Gautama walked away from his royal life that shielded him from illness, old age, poverty, and death. Buddhists and Stoics share a calmness in the face of suffering and a life of simplicity.

Agnosticism is also a belief system that is joined with Stoicism. Stoics and Agnostics both realize that they know nothing, so they often question the world around them. Ferraiolo counters the thought that Agnostics are inherently weak. On the contrary, he writes that it takes a lot of strength to question and accept that we may not fully know how the Universe works.

Ferraiolo finds Stoicism everywhere even in popular culture. He devotes one whole chapter to Anton Chigurh the sinister hit man from the film, No Country for Old Men. Chigurh has no back story, no motivation. He just is who he is, death incarnate. He is stoic in his behavior and demeanor using a flip of a coin to determine who lives and dies. Ferraiolo cites three examples from the film which illustrates his method of killing. One character says “The coin has no say. It's (Chigurh) who decides.” Chigurh is someone who is completely detached from his emotion to the point that he accepts life and death equally.

Among the big questions philosopher ask is how can evil exist especially if there is a benevolent God. Along with that question is whether we have Free Will.
Morals are the principles in which people live according to spiritual practice, laws, and personal beliefs. The ideal that we are responsible for our behavior and the emotions that occur reflects our principles and how we choose to live. With Stoics the question often is not what happened, but how did I choose to act upon it.

In Roman times, Stoics often chose death over dishonor by suicide. While in modern times, suicide is not a favorable action, one can replace that behavior with an acceptance of death. That's why people sign DNRs or make their last wishes known. Some choose to die rather than suffer in illness. The stoic mindset towards death is to face it as you would life with a calm acceptance.

As before, Ferraiolo shows that Stoicism is not a philosophy for everybody. Humans are by consequence emotional creatures and Stoicism runs counter to that. Instead, it tells us how we can face illness and suffering with change but also acceptance when we can't change it.