Lucky Breaks Review

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(More customer reviews)At age 10 Lucky Trimble survived running away from home, finding her Higher Power and all the craziness the town of Hard Pan, California --- population 43 --- has to offer. All of this, though, is nothing compared to what awaits her at 11 years old. After all, eleven is much more intrepid than only ten. The more Lucky looks for intrepidness, the more things seem the same --- or do they?
Lucky's best friend, Lincoln, is gaining recognition with his world-class knots. His latest obsession is safely hidden away for the upcoming International Guild of Knot Tyers contest that promises fame and the possibility of leaving Hard Pan --- and Lucky. Brigitte, Lucky's legal guardian, has created her own niche in Hard Pan with a delightful French cuisine restaurant open for lunch on the weekends. Everyone has a piece of advice for Brigitte as she continues to adapt to the American way of life while staying true to herself. Miles --- newly certifiable genius --- is excited to share his sixth birthday celebration with Lucky, and he wants the whole town invited.
Lucky has come to the conclusion, however, that only a girl best friend will truly make her 11th year unforgettable. Enter Paloma Wellborne, niece of a geologist who happens to stop at Brigitte's cafe for lunch on the way to surveying rock layers in the desert. Paloma and Lucky hit it off right away --- laughing hysterically at gifts for chickens, swimming lessons in a bucket, and other all-important girl conversations. When Paloma's parents agree to let Paloma spend the weekend, Lucky makes plans to impress her with all the wonders Hard Pan has to offer. Lucky plots to uncover the mystery surrounding the rather large box sitting in Short Sammy's yard, stay far away from Lincoln and Miles, bake over 50 cupcakes for the birthday celebration, and perhaps search for a long-lost broach hidden outside of Hard Pan.
While Lucky promised both Brigitte and Paloma's parents that she would make good decisions, Lucky also promised herself that she would be intrepid from now on. Lucky doesn't live up to her namesake, however, when things go unplanned and she puts both Paloma and herself in danger. Her fearlessness starts to break, and she is forced to make some tough decisions that impact others more than she had imagined.
Susan Patron created magic in her Newbery Award-winning THE HIGHER POWER OF LUCKY, and fans will not be disappointed with this rewarding sequel. Matt Phelan once again sprinkles elegant drawings throughout that bring an added depth to the story. I appreciate that as this series grows so do all of the characters. They have learned from their mistakes, but they still continue to make new ones. I also enjoyed the ease in reading the book. You feel as though you're tagging along with Lucky and are in the center of the action. It's a fast read, but a very rewarding one. LUCKY BREAKS is the second book in the Lucky trilogy, and readers can expect a satisfying conclusion in the future.
--- Reviewed by Benjamin Boche (bennyboche@hotmail.com)

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The Thomas Ladies Club Review

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(More customer reviews)Mr. Hoppe's biggest weakness in this novel is describing efficiently in print what a good film director could put on the screen with great effectiveness. An example is an instance of eco-terrorism in a small Eastern New Mexico town involving a nut case, a fertilizer bomb, a feedlot, our hero Mr. Lauderback, and assorted local residents. There is some fear, some farce, and some fine visuals involved, but it takes the author a full 50 pages to get the afternoon's events concluded. As a reading experience, it is hard to follow and it drags. In a film, it could be hilarious. Much later in the book there is a political event that goes very wrong, followed by a prairie fire that threatens the community. While both incidents require fewer than 50 pages each to conclude, seeing these events on a big screen could be wonderful, while reading about them is just not as dynamic. Do my criticisms mean that this is not a good novel? Whoa, don't jump to that conclusion. "The Thomas Ladies Club" is one of those books that begins without much promise, and day-by-day gets better and better. The main character, known only as Lauderback, is a person with whom I can fully identify. He is a grown-up but not a success. He moves from town-to-town, usually smaller and smaller, getting hired as the sole reporter on newspapers that are published less and less frequently and are on the edge of extinction, like the communities they serve. I've been there and done that, and Mr. Hoppe's depictions of the reporter, the publisher/editor, the advertising woman, the local retailers, the small-time radio guy, etc. are spot-on. I've known those people well. The reporter's start is quite unsatisfying, his life empty, but something magical happens after the big feedlot bomb plot fizzles. He is adopted by the ghosts of several ladies who were important cogs in the civic life of the town 60-80 years ago. He can't explain why or how or even tell anyone about it, but his connection to this grander past leads the local paper to new life, to internet fame, and Lauderback maybe even to love. Speaking of the latter, there is a sexual interlude in this novel which is done perfectly, considering the parties involved. Not very graphic, but quite convincing, and an essential moment which happens at the exactly right time. If you, prospective reader, never worked for money-losing weekly papers, or never lived in a stagnant rural town, or never moved from place to place, mostly alone, mostly reluctantly, mostly underpaid and overworked, perhaps you won't have much sympathy for Mr. Lauderback's trials and triumphs. I saw myself in a great many of the scenes. If this world is foreign to your experience, you may want to learn about it. "Journalism" is not really the point...there are lonely nomads such as Lauderback who manage small department stores, or cable TV companies, or who take x-rays in 11-bed hospitals, or who are patrolman number three on a force just that size. This novel gives people like that, like I was once, some hope that the jobs are actually important, the people we meet were really meant to meet us, and the last town was vital to what we'll learn and grow from in the next one. There are several typos in my copy of this novel, and it sure isn't perfect, but damn, it's good enough so that I am happy I spent some hours with it. The ending, especially, although not absolutely joy-filled, rings true and is beautifully composed. This is Bruce Hoppe's second book. It earns him a right to give us a third, even better one.


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Picture Lauderback, a 21st century itinerant reporter, laboring in self-inflicted obscurity for dying country weeklies across the Heartland. He is down...but not out. (The only reason he's not out being it would never occur to him that he's down.)Picture the Thomas Ladies Club, a relic of a building, all that is left of the dust bowl blighted town of Thomas. And its long gone club members, the keepers of high spirits and side-splitting one liners with which they raged against the darkness of their times. There was Fern Sisk, who once met Emma Goldman, the affable Nell "Sissy" Childers, and, former Harvey girl and wing walker extraordinaire, Emmaline Blankenship. Picture Lauderback hearing their voices. And that they can talk, Lauderback and the women. For the Thomas Ladies, those sirens of the steppe, have plans for Lauderback.And those plans have little to do with Lauderback's quixotic quest to revive the Heartland via the much disputed power of his pen, nor with his all time historical hero, the agrarian populist, "Sockless" Jerry Simpson. Picture only these things (The love story? Don't even think about picturing that.) and you will have nibbled at a story as enduring as legend yet as current as the latest Wall Street Ponzi scheme. While this book is about surviving one's own existence, neither a feedlot ecoterrorist nor the fusion band, Rasta Cowboy, neither the southwest monsoon frog wizard nor the antics at the annual Buckaroo Cotillion can deter Lauderback from keeping such weighty pursuits, if only in his view, firmly on the festive side.

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All That I Have: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)What a wonderful, fantastic novel. Last year I read this author's book, Go With Me, which became one of my top reads of that year. I already know that this book, All That I Have, is going to make this year's list.
Both books are short - you can easily read them in a few hours. But they are both jam-packed with such clever and funny prose that you will want to reread certain passages over and over again, just for the joy of it.
Short summary, no spoilers -
This is a story about Lucian Wing, a humble, laconic, and very wise sheriff in a rural part of Vermont. Suddenly his quiet and relatively uneventful life is challenged by a series of events - a local dimwitted hoodlum nicknamed Superboy picks the wrong house to burgle - and makes off with a strongbox owned by some suspicious and violent Russians who have just moved in the area. Needless to say, they want it back.
Throw into the mix Wing's overly ambitious deputy, an exotic female photographer of dubious age, a guard dog described as a "bull mastiff-wolf-alligator hybrid" and a crew of truly eccentric characters and you can see this gets interesting. Oh, and Sheriff Wing may be having his own marital strife, to boot.
But as I stated earlier it's not simply the plot that makes this book sing. It's the incredibly clever and witty prose and Freeman's ability to string together a series of words that not only make you laugh, but make you shake your head in recognition of their veracity.
While reading this book, I placed little stick-it arrows in all the passages that I wanted to remember. Looking at it now, if I threw this book in the air, I believe it might fly on its own - I used up a lot of those stickies.
Needless to say, highly, highly recommended. I believe this author is so talented, and his writing style unique. I am already looking forward to his next book.

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Peculiar, MO Review

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(More customer reviews)Question: How does an extraterrestrial civilization survive the impending destruction of its home planet?
Answer: Embed your species' DNA in meteors and send them flying throughout the galaxy in hopes that eventually one of the meteors will impact on a planet that is suitable for regeneration of the species.
That's the scenario for Robert Williams' first rate science fiction novel "Peculiar, MO." The story reminded me a bit of a cross between "Andromeda Strain" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," but in fact it's neither. In "Andromeda Strain," the action takes place primarily at a remote laboratory where scientists study the alien organism that has infected and killed most of a small town's population. In "Peculiar, MO," the action is in the town itself and centers around the organism's effects on the local people and a biological terrorism military unit that is studying the alien organism and trying to limit its spread. The tension grows steadily as the unit's scientist comes to the terrifying realization that the organism is attempting to invade the earth, not just infect it.
The author's scientific explanation of the mechanism by which the alien plasmids (short strands of DNA) could use earth's plants and animals, including humans, to regenerate the alien species and rebuild its group consciousness and memory is quite detailed. I don't remotely have enough science background to know how plausible this is, but it was a fascinating concept that was more credible than the typical aliens-invade-human-bodies stories. I'll give the author a lot of credit for originality.

The author builds the story around several characters. The principal characters, including Kelly Ross, Spencer Dale, and the mysterious John Gordon, are likable, well developed three-dimensional characters. There are some bad guys too, and the author kills them off in some very satisfying (i.e., gruesome) ways.

As another reviewer noted, the military unit involved in the story was very small and was led by a non-commissioned officer, with privates doing most of the work. This wasn't very realistic, since the government had already dealt with a previous meteor strike that contained the alien plasmids, so the potential danger was recognized. I'm guessing that the author's reasoning was that a larger unit, such as a battalion, would have brought too much attention from the local people. In any case, this is a fairly minor quibble.
Having read other stories by Robert Williams, I expected the writing to be of professional quality, and it was. The story flowed smoothly from scene to scene, and the characters' dialog was realistic. The story grabbed me from the beginning, and the action is pretty much nonstop, ending in an extremely tense and violent climax. Blended smoothly into the action is the relationship between Kelly and Spencer and the blossoming romance that brings them closer together.
Editing was generally good, but there were a number of typos in my Kindle version. There weren't enough mistakes to affect my enjoyment of the book, but the author should have proofread his final manuscript more closely.
No spoilers here, but after reading "Peculiar, MO," I don't know if I'll ever turn my back on a cat again!
The bottom line: This is a first rate page-turner for science fiction and techno-thriller fans. It's certainly one of the most original and intelligently written alien invasion stories I've read.


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Welcome to Peculiar, MO. For most, life is good in this idyllic Midwestern town, until a falling star brings an unearthly menace. Soon animals are found dying of a mysterious disease. At night, beasts begin to cry out in voices that sound almost like words, as they are drawn to a burned clearing to serve an alien will.
Local widow Kelly Ross, who is struggling to make ends meet after the death of her husband, sends her young son into the forest on an errand, where he makes a frightening discovery.
Spencer Dale, the town's mechanic, whose past contains a painful secret, begins to experience strange dreams and visions, as he relives memories that are not his own.
Nine-year-old Rachel, a child of nature, becomes linked to an unspeakable crime that took place more than eighty years in the past, while a military operation moving inexorably towards the meteor's impact site makes its presence, and its plans, known.
All of their lives are linked together, and their courage and faith are tested, as they are drawn to the site where the star fell to Earth and an alien life cycle reaches its terrifying climax.

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Show Me Good Land Review

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(More customer reviews)I started this book last night and I can't put it down (with the exception of much needed sleep of course though even that was fought for want of reading more). The characters in the story are complex,very real and so endearing....ALL of them. You find your heart breaking for those you thought cold and end up wanting the best for all of them. Her eloquence draws you in and keeps you there content to watch the world unfold. A truly great book!

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Show Me Good Land is the debut novel for author Shonna Milliken Humphrey. Likened to work by Carolyn Chute and Cathie Pelletier, Show Me Good Land details four lives, each connected to a rural northern Maine community by the same gruesome murder. Odie Hollander solves the murder while spending time in jail on a domestic violence assault charge. Miles Compton, gay, is a listed sex offender after having a relationship with an underage student. Emmett Pratt manages the local gas station and is accused of killing his aunt. Rhetta Ballou is driving home after leaving town as the teenaged mistress of her high school teacher almost two decades ago. Show Me Good Land looks hard at constructed social norms, especially those in the confines of an isolated, poor, rural area. Is violence ever justified? Abortion? Underage sex? Underage gay sex? No character is fully good or fully bad, and the pleasure of this book's reading lies in discovering where individual moral lines are drawn.

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The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove Review

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(More customer reviews)Christopher Moore has a fluid and yet compact writing style that is descriptive enough to flow swiftly without tedium. What separates him from the rest of the pack are the fantastical events he unfolds in his comedic tales.
A great Sea Beast awakens from his slumber, feeling a bit randy and ready to emerge. When he finds a tanker truck refueling at a gas station in Pine Cove, he mistakes its purring engines for a come-on signal from a female. However, mounting a gas tanker may have dire consequences, and our Sea Beast is badly burned in the process.
He makes his way to a nearby trailer park, where he alters his outward appearance to look like just another trailer while he heals from his tanker encounter. He parks himself next to Molly Michon's trailer, an ex B-Movie queen with mental problems. She is the only one who knows the trailer is alive, and promptly names him Steve.
The town of Pine Cove is a small, usually quiet tourist town, until Bess Leander, seemingly the queen of domestic bliss, commits suicide. Local psychiatrist Val Riordan blames herself for not paying enough attention to her clients, and promptly takes her entire patient list off of their antidepressants, while stoner constable Theophilius Crowe realizes there is something suspicious about Bess's death and decides to investigate despite the warnings of the county sheriff to just let it go.
`Lust Lizard' is rich with colorful characters, fantastical delusions, a crusty bartender, some wonderful tie-in's to Moore's `Practical Demonkeeping', blues music, and a tasty peek into the mind of a lustful Sea Beast named Steve. And when Steve's feelings of lust bleed out into the human population, feelings explode into passionate actions. While through all of this, Theo must not only discover why everyone is behaving strangely, but what is behind the death of Bess Leander.
One of the things I loved about `Lust Lizard' was Moore's addition of a character named Gabe Fenton, who is a scientist doing studies of the rat colonies around Pine Cove. Some of the similarities between Gabe's rats and the human colonies that surround us are worthy of pondering, comparing the behavior of one species as a herd to our own was very tongue in cheek and yet hilarious once noted and accepted.
All in all, The Lust Lizard Of Melancholy Cove is a very funny romp into the human mind and the antics of an ancient creature named Steve. A worthwhile read. Enjoy!


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Charlotte Figg Takes Over Paradise Review

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(More customer reviews)This book starts out fast and holds your attention until the last page, Joyce Magnin is a new to me author, with a writing style that reminds me of Fannie Flagg, its a story of a lady really becoming the person she was meant to be, all it took was the death of her husband, and a move to a trailer park!

Charlotte Figg's husband Herman was the top Fuller brush salesman in his area, basically a unhappy man, Charlotte seemed oppressed by him, but a few pages in he drops dead in the kitchen floor, and even though Charlotte doesn't realize it yet her life is about to change for the better.
When Charlotte finds a life insurance policy in the bottom of Herman's salesman's bag, she knows at least she wont have to worry about money for a while. One of the first changes Charlotte makes is allowing a stray dog, whom she calls Lucky into her life. When Lucky steals the neighbors mail, Charlotte starts looking thru one of their magazines called Road Tripper, a RV magazine. When she comes across an ad that says nice looking double wide for sale with the contact person being Fergus Wrinkel at Paradise Trailer Park, she gets a bit of wanderlust, the picture included in the ad shows an eye catching trailer with wide window and awnings hanging with pots of pink and purple verbena. So she calls and purchases the trailer site unseen. So after selling her home, she heads for Paradise, where she is shocked at what she finds, instead of the pretty trailer in the ad she has purchased a run down mobile home that has racoons living inside it, when she complains to Mr. Wrinkel he informs her she is stuck with the trailer. Charlotte feels like such a fool, but soon she meets some people from the trailer park and they assure her that they will help her get her trailer fixed up.
She meets a quirky bunch of people at the trailer park from Rose Tattoo, to Ginger Rodgers, the trailer park residents each have their own issues. When Rose realizes that Charlotte used to play softball, she convinces Charlotte that they should get a team going in the trailer park. While everyone at the park suspicions that Mr Wrinkel his hiding something, Charlotte believes he is abusing his wife Suzie. When Charlotte encourages Suzie to leave Fergus, she realizes it wont be an easy thing to do, and when Fergus threatens Charlotte will she back off or will she continue to try and help Suzie?
Taking a trip to Paradise with Charlotte was a real adventure. The trailer park was filled with such a cast of characters, and Charlotte fit in perfectly. After the death of her husband, whom she was married to for 26 years, she was able to start living her life the way she wanted, and even though she sometimes made mistakes it seemed as if she had friends that were there to help her, and friends was something she never really had while Herman was alive. This story had some very humorous moments, but also some very serious ones as well, the one thing that Charlotte tended to do when she was upset or worried was bake pies. I really enjoyed the way the author allowed Charlotte to grow from a frumpy oppressed housewife into a lady with courage strength and a sense of who God wants her to be.
The author does an amazing job weaving this story in a way that allows the characters to capture your heart, I felt like I was visiting old friends while reading this book.
If you enjoy a story with a quirky cast of characters, that deals with a few tough topics then pick up this book, you wont regret it.
Thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for providing me a review copy of this book.

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Newly widowed Charlotte Figg purchases a double-wide trailer sight unseen and moves to the Paradise Trailer Park with her dog Lucky. Unfortunately, neither the trailer nor Paradise are what Charlotte expected. Her trailer is a ramshackle old place in need of major repair, and the people of Paradise are harboring more secrets than Bayer has aspirin. Charlotte s new friend Rose Tattoo learns that Charlotte played softball and convinces her to rally the women of Paradise into a team. Reluctant at first, Charlotte warms to the notion and is soon coaching the Paradise Angels. Meanwhile, Charlotte discovers that the manager of Paradise, Fergus Wrinkel, abuses his wife Suzy. Charlotte sets out to find a way to save Suzy from Fergus and in the process comes to a difficult realization about her own painful marriage.

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