The Girl in the Box by Sheila Dalton

*** Cross Posted at http://theliterarymb.com ***

Synopsis: Former bar singer and Buddhist meditator Caitlin Shaughnessy, a Canadian journalist, discovers that Inez, a traumatized young Mayan woman from Guatemala, has killed Dr. Jerry Simpson, her partner of many years. 
Caitlin struggles to understand what happened, and why. In the process, she confronts her own demons, as well as the innocence and wonder within Inez which seem to belie the young woman's violent actions.

Review: When I picked up The Girl in a Box I was not really sure what to expect. Most titles give an idea of what the book is about but this book is really literal when it comes to the title. The author clearly did a lot of research when choosing a location for her book to be based in. The book starts off with Jerry, and how he found the girl in the box, Inez. Jerry has a long history with the country of Guatemala, in fact it’s where he met Caitlin, the woman he loves. The parts where Jerry is on this trip are very sad to read, and unfortunately probably very accurate.

    Inez is kept in a wooden box, away from her family’s home, and she is kept in this box with a chain and a lock. It is clear she is a disturbed girl, most likely with some kind of mental issue that her family just doesn’t know how to treat; and so they lock her up for her own well being. Ultimately Jerry brings Inez home with him back to Canada to live with him, as a way for him to help her. The situation ends as tragically as it began. Inez kills Jerry.
   
     The story is mostly told from Caitlin’s point of view. As the woman who loved Jerry, and had even come to bond with Inez, she is shocked and traumatized at the sudden and violent death of her partner. This turn of events for Caitlin causes her to search for answers as well as take a look at her and Jerry’s past.

    This book is definitely a book for people who are looking for psychological mystery. Most mysteries that involve murder involve a lot of build up into finding out who the killer is and then catching them and bringing them to justice. This book is not about that, the killer is known from the beginning and is tried in a court of law. This book is about the inner workings of people’s lives, motivations, and a search for truth. I enjoyed the journey and the search for what happened, even though it dealt with very sad subject matter and pulled at your heart strings when the reader reads it.

What Would Satan Do? by Anthony Miller

***Cross posted at The Literary Mind Blender, you should check out the site, it's great with a wide range of reviews and books alike!***

Synopsis: Disgusted with God’s plan for Judgment Day, Satan has quit his job and abandoned Hell in favor of a quiet retirement in Washington, D.C. But life on Earth is tricky for an ex-angel with a short fuse and no impulse control. When a parking attendant mysteriously bursts into flames and a weight-challenged woman somehow ends up in low-Earth orbit, Satan finds that he has attracted the attention of several meddlesome federal agencies. Even worse, there are signs that the governor of Texas has somehow gone ahead and started up the end of the world without him.

Review: The title of this book most definitely is striking, and my first thought upon seeing it was “oh boy this title is going to get a reaction”. However after reading the synopsis I decided it was worth a read. I haven’t read a lot of comedic books, so my only hope going in was that it maintained the same level of funny that the synopsis has. Thankfully, Miller delivered, and the book was hilarious.

Satan as a character is really amusing to me. The book starts off with Satan already abandoning hell to live on earth, and it turns out Satan is passing his time, or rather amusing himself, by being a professor teaching Introduction to Religion. To say Satan’s take on religion is interesting would be understating it.

The Satan we all know about is the one who wants to bring about the end of the world, but not Miller’s Satan. Satan has got it all figured out, if he starts the apocalypse, he loses, so Satan says screw it and goes to earth. Turns out someone else had other ideas, and starts everything without him.

Throughout the book Satan is trying to figure out what is going on and essentially how to stop the end of the world from happening. Although you shouldn’t go thinking of Satan some great guy looking out for humanity, Satan often leaves bodies and more than one fire in his wake. Satan does everything with his own flare.

The book includes a lot of interesting and amusing characters, a ex-CIA guy, a “dirty” hippie, a hot FBI agent, a power hungry governor, and of course a televangelist. Miller’s take on how the world works is a hilarious commentary on our society. As a native Texan myself I also love how so much of the story takes place here in Texas; there were so many instances of me thinking to myself, “I know exactly what he means”.

Overall, this book is great fun read. And while there is of course the humorous element, there is a lot of great commentary on our society. The writing is smart too, which is a huge plus. I think this is a great read for anyone who is wanting to escape the world for a little while and have a little fun, it will definitely make you laugh.

Anthony Miller Interview

***Cross posted at The Literary Mind Blender, you should check out the site, it's great with a wide range of reviews and books alike!***

As a new book reviewer, I can’t tell you how excited I was to be interviewing an author for the first time, and Anthony Miller was a great first interview. His book What Would Satan Do? is both a funny book but also provides a great satire to today’s society. The following is the interview I had with Anthony over the past couple of days.

1. If you had to pick a theme song for your book what would it be?

Anthony Miller: I'm not sure there's a song that fits. The main themes of the book are (1) identity, and (2) self determination. (Yes, it's a silly book, but there are some deeper themes if you're in to that sort of thing.) Satan realizes he's nothing more than a pawn created to fill a role in a divine plan, i.e., he's the mythical equivalent of a straw man, which sucks, so he decides not to play along, leaves Hell, and tries to create a new life as a human. But that leaves him with a problem -- which never quite occurs to him, but I hope will be apparent to the reader -- that of who he is once he decides to cast off his pre-determined identity. There's actually a chapter that alludes to a scene in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man -- which is my way of highlighting an idea that otherwise takes a back seat to the silliness. I don't know any songs that quite fit those themes.

There are some songs that come to mind immediately, however -- mostly because I listened to them repeatedly while writing the book. These are: (1) West Coast, by Coconut Records (this is just Jason Schwartzman, the actor who played the lead in the movie Rushmore), and (2) most of the songs off of the Silvesun Pickups' album, Swoon.

2. What is Satan's favorite movie?

AM:Star Wars -- Episodes IV, V, and VI. It's actually part of the plot. Satan watches the movies, struggles to figure out whether he identifies with Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, or the Emperor, and sets out to find George Lucas in an effort to show the man a thing or two about mythic storytelling.

This is a great question, in part because Satan actually likes movies a lot. He writes a blog where, among other things, he reviews movies: http://www.robotsandlava.com



3. When did you start writing, have you been writing since an early age or is this a new found passion?

AM: I first wrote stories when I was a teenager. In fact the idea for the Militant Arm of the American Geriatrics Society relates back to a short story I wrote when I was thirteen. It was about old people who escaped the old-folks home, got some guns, and started kicking ass. A guy named Picklez borrowed that story and never gave it back. Picklez, if you're out there, and you're reading this, I'd like my story back.

I didn't write anything for a long time -- except legal briefs (I'm a lawyer during the day) -- until I was in a Bible study learning about the Book of Revelations and thought, "Holy crap! Satan really gets the shaft here!" That prompted me to write this story.

4. If you had to pick one character you are most like, which one would it be and why?

AM: That's easy: Satan. Some of the episodes in the book actually started out as journal entries when I was attempting to cope with an ill-conceived relocation to Washington, DC. Satan encounters the world pretty much exactly as I do, except he's not bound by normal social mores and has the necessary supernatural abilities to mount adequate responses to the absurdities of daily life. He also likes fast cars and ice cream.

The book I'm working on now is also about Satan, because I don't think I could -- nor do I want to -- try to write anything else. They say, "Write what you know," right? This one has Vikings though, so that's good. In it, a group of Scandinavians decide that their days of selling flat-pack furniture and making the world's safest cars are over, and that it's time to return to the old ways of raping and pillaging. Satan has to save the world -- again.

5. What was the hardest scene of the book to write?

AM: There's a scene that called for some sexuality, and I found that I just couldn't do that. (No romance-novel sequels starring Satan -- sorry!) There may be one other instance, but I think that's the only place in the book where I break the narrative and address the reader directly to apologize for the lack of turgidity or quivering members in the story.

Other than that, I'd say any chapter that didn't involve Satan. The Satan chapters almost wrote themselves. For any given situation, I only have to think, "How would I react here if I could say whatever I wanted and also set people's heads on fire?" Compared to that, writing about normal people is hard.

6. You mentioned an ill-conceived move to DC, which explains the DC setting within the book. But why did you chose Texas as a main location in the book?

AM: I chose DC because of my personal experience -- I think of DC as Hell -- but also because, if you try to pronounced "DC" phonetically, you get something like "dis," and "Dis" is the city at the center of Hell in Dante's Inferno, where Satan lives.

As for Texas, it just made sense as the place where Dick Whitford -- who is basically Dick Cheney -- might reside, and where you can find plenty of batshit Evangelical preachers and megachurches. I grew up in Houston and used to go to an arena called the Summit to see the Rockets play basketball. Now the Summit is a church where a televangelist by the name of Joel Osteen (I think) practices his special brand of magic.

7. At the beginning of the book, when Satan is just trying to live out his "human" life, he has a normal job just like anyone else. Why did you chose to make Satan a professor at a university?

AM: Georgetown is a Jesuit school. The Jesuits are the semi-militant "Society of Christ" founded by Ignatius Loyola -- which is a nice parallel to the Militant Arm of the American Geriatrics Association. Having Satan entertain himself by posing as a professor of religious studies at Georgetown was just too good to pass up. If I recall correctly (it's been a while), the name he uses (Prof. Astrovalde) means something like "fallen star," which seemed appropriate.

Perhaps it's not clear in the book, but Satan works as a professor not because he has too, but because it's an entertaining way to passing time.

8. If Satan was in a book club what book would he be reading right now?

AM: Maybe Maccoby's The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity or something about space or quantum physics. I think he'd get a kick out of the idea of scientists pondering the possibility that observation determines the path of a photon or whether a cat is dead or alive. He might also get into some of the good Bernard Cornwall books about Vikings and Alfred the Great.

9. In the book Satan loves setting things on fire, is this an ability you wish you had?

AM:Seems like it would get me into trouble. My willingness to express my feelings verbally to fellow drivers gets my into enough trouble already. Setting folks on fire would only make it worse.

10. Satan is also quite proud of his car, did you pick this car because it was your dream car, or did you have other reason behind the Lamborghini?

AM:The Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera is definitely up there on my list, but the car just seemed like a good fit for the character. Lamborghinis are designed to be outrageous, and to appeal to the most juvenile, visceral desires of guys who like cars (yes, I think men are the target demographic). Plus they just look evil.

Satan, in my story, is trying to shed all of the baggage of millenia of being described as and told he is the baddest of the bad. What if he's not really evil? What if he's just a gargantuan ego, both in the "I'm right" sense and the "I want what I want" sense? What car would he drive then? Easy: A Lamborghini. Here's a pic, so you can judge for yourself: http://www.cars-wallpapers.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/lamborghini-gallardo-lp-560-4.jpg

11. Lastly, is there anything you want a prospective reader to know about the book?

AM: What I want prospective readers to know... probably that it's written for people who like Douglas Adams, Beavis and Butthead, and Monty Python. And the humor and the story are supposed to work on multiple levels. It has silly, juvenile, irreverent humor, but it also has some deeper stuff going on. Thus far, people seem to like it -- even the old ladies who are offended by it can't seem to help laughing. Mostly I just want folks to know it's out there.

Thanks for taking the time to interview me. Your questions have been great, and I've enjoyed trying to give you good answers. I hope you enjoy the book!

High Midnight by Rob Mosca

***Cross posted at The Literary Mind Blender, you should check out the site, it's great with a wide range of reviews and books alike!***

Synopsis: Ghouls, crytids, homicidal clowns, knife wielding chimps and the best damn phantom bordello north of the border… welcome to Unity, Texas! A gonzo pulp western for the 21st century, High Midnight is a timeless tale of blood and redemption set against a preternatural and pre-apocalyptic Texas.

Review: I am a very new reader to the horror genre. I think this may actually be my first horror book, but as a lover of books I figured I would give the genre a go. Mosca’s writing is really well done, descriptions are very vivid, and it is very easy for the reader to picture the scenes unfolding in their own minds. One of the first things I noticed when I started reading the book was how easy it was to follow even with the use of flashbacks, something I really appreciate in an author.

When you start reading this book it is clear you are entering a universe that quite different from your own: homicidal clowns, a sheriff drinking out of a bottle of liquor while on duty, and of course “sleep walkers” on a mission to devour anything in their path.

The story starts out introducing the main characters, and it ultimately comes down to the gang of clowns and the sheriff. The gang of clowns are clearly only interested in themselves and willing to do anything to get what they want. The Sheriff is introduced as a very flawed man, as law enforcement you would expect him to represent good, which while he ultimately does fight for good he has his own evils within him. In many ways this book is kind of a warped version of the classic good versus evil tale, with redemption of certain characters along the way.
While I don’t think this book is necessarily for me, I can think of at least five of my friends who would love this book. For that reason alone I am going to give this book a rating of “Like It” because even though it isn’t one of my favorites, it’s well-written, amusing at parts, and would clearly be a good read for fans of this genre.

Buy High Midnight on Amazon!

The Fool's Journey by Mary Chase

***Cross posted at The Literary Mind Blender, you should check out the site, it's great with a wide range of reviews and books alike!***

Synopsis: Deirdre Kildeer is a woman with a secret past that she doesn’t want anyone to find out about. She believes she has finally escaped her past and carved out a new life for herself as a professor. But what begins in celebration quickly turns into fear as the past she thought she has left behind comes back to haunt her as well as threaten the life she has made for herself.

Review: The book centers on Deidre, who at face value just appears to be a young professor and poet who is working her way up the academic ladder. While her story begins with the celebration of being awarded for her work in poetry it quickly takes a bizarre turn. While shopping and having lunch with her friend Panda, a stranger in the market cuts off a chunk of her hair. And from there the events of her life just keep getting stranger.

After the incident at the market, Deirdre starts to allude that she has some heavy secrets in her past that she does not want to come to light. She seems to suddenly come under attack from both long lost family members as well as members of the academic community where she teaches at, and both could result in her secret coming out.

Thankfully, Deirdre is not alone throughout the story; she has several friends who try to help her along the way, as well as her housekeeper, Rosa, who ends up being a mother-like figure to her. Rosa and her nephew Manny end up being people Deirdre can trust and provide a much-needed sense of relief for her. These two characters are the only ones that Deirdre really lets her guard down around, and it is within those scenes where the reader really gets to know her.

Overall, I think the book starts off a little slow for my taste. There is a lot of build up to finding out what the secret Deirdre has been holding on to is, and about half way through when you find out what it is, it makes her more likable as well as helped make me want to know what was going to happen to her, and ultimately to root for her. There is a little bit of mild romance in the book, although it felt a little bit unfinished. If you are looking for romance this is not the book for you. If you are looking for a quick, enjoyable read with some mystery thrown in then I think you will like this book. Also if you are a poetry lover the book is laced throughout with poetry references and poems, and they are intertwined in the plot quite well. Overall, I liked it.

Buy Fool's Journey on Amazon!