Tag Archives: Book Review

Splinters of Light by Rachael Herron

This book is a heart-breaker, make no mistake. There’s absolutely nothing good about the main dilemma here–Nora, a single mother in her early 40s being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. It’s a horrible subject, a miserable, tragic, awful thing … which is why I hesitated to pick it up. I’m in the middle of watching my best friend’s mother disappear under the inexorable weight of Alzheimer’s and it’s a sensitive, difficult subject. So, how could it possibly make for a good novel that would be anything other than depressing and grim?

Well, Rachael Herron manages beautifully. I’ve been reading her books from the very beginning, and have watched her writing getting stronger and better all the time, but I admit I had doubts that she would be able to pull off something of this scale. A subject matter this heart-wrenching? With such important and sensitive issues and ramifications? I knew she would do a decent job, but really, it would take a master to do it the justice it deserves.

Apparently, Rachael is a master, because as heart-breaking as this is (and make no mistake, parts truly are), it’s also beautiful. The reactions of Nora, her twin, and her teenage daughter to this devastating diagnosis are right on the mark, and–while I wouldn’t dream of giving anything away–this ended as perfectly as such a story can. In clumsier hands, this would have been a disaster, but in fact, it’s a wonderful book. I’d give it four and a half stars if I could–and the half I’m taking off is primarily because of the devastating subject matter. It’s not an easy book to read, if only because you know there can be no miracle cure at the end. It’s not easy, but it’s excellent.

Highly recommended … though you’d do well to have tissues handy. You can get your copy at your local bookshop or at Amazon.com.

Splinters of Light by Rachael Herron

This book is a heart-breaker, make no mistake. There’s absolutely nothing good about the main dilemma here–Nora, a single mother in her early 40s being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. It’s a horrible subject, a miserable, tragic, awful thing … which is why I hesitated to pick it up. I’m in the middle of watching my best friend’s mother disappear under the inexorable weight of Alzheimer’s and it’s a sensitive, difficult subject. So, how could it possibly make for a good novel that would be anything other than depressing and grim?

Well, Rachael Herron manages beautifully. I’ve been reading her books from the very beginning, and have watched her writing getting stronger and better all the time, but I admit I had doubts that she would be able to pull off something of this scale. A subject matter this heart-wrenching? With such important and sensitive issues and ramifications? I knew she would do a decent job, but really, it would take a master to do it the justice it deserves.

Apparently, Rachael is a master, because as heart-breaking as this is (and make no mistake, parts truly are), it’s also beautiful. The reactions of Nora, her twin, and her teenage daughter to this devastating diagnosis are right on the mark, and–while I wouldn’t dream of giving anything away–this ended as perfectly as such a story can. In clumsier hands, this would have been a disaster, but in fact, it’s a wonderful book. I’d give it four and a half stars if I could–and the half I’m taking off is primarily because of the devastating subject matter. It’s not an easy book to read, if only because you know there can be no miracle cure at the end. It’s not easy, but it’s excellent.

Highly recommended … though you’d do well to have tissues handy. You can get your copy at your local bookshop or at Amazon.com.

No, no. This isn’t a grammar-filled post to explain all the intricacies of verb tenses in the English language. How could it be? English is complicated and it would take an entire book to explain it all–far more space than a single blog post.

Which is exactly the point, because I’m here to tell you about just such a book.

Title: The English Tenses: Practical Grammar Guide
Author: Phil Williams
Publisher: English Lessons Brighton, 2014

Published in the UK, this book addresses a problem for people learning English as a second language–how to recognize and use the assortment of our many verb tenses, both in theory and in actual practice.

English is complex, but at least I grew up with English in my ears. Even if I couldn’t tell you what a split infinitive was when I was five, I knew what they sounded like, just as I knew to match singular-plural subjects and verbs in a sentence even if I didn’t know exactly why.

For everyone else, though–the people who need to learn English when they were born with other languages embedded in their brains–it’s another story. They need to learn all of English’s many rules from scratch, and that can’t be easy. I’ve always admired that because English is the only language I can speak or read with any facility at all. (Classroom French didn’t make as much of an impact as Mme. Martin had hoped.)

I know how complicated English is, and few things are harder (other than the quixotic spelling rules) than the verb tenses.

And so, here is Phil William’s book.

Did you know there are twelve distinct tenses in the English language? Twelve! Four variations each for past, present, and future tenses.

No wonder people get confused. I know I get confused identifying the more obscure ones ones. I can use them, yes, but trying to explain them? Um … like many people who grew up with certain knowledge on their tongues, I take my language for granted.

This 127-page book addresses all that. It’s meticulous in its approach to just about every variation for past/present/future tense there is. (I say “just about” because while I can’t think of anything he missed, I can’t guarantee that there’s not some little-used verb usage that wasn’t addressed.) In terms of practical guides, though … this book definitely does the job.

The explanations are clear, even for such a complex subject. The examples are precise and while there are a number of necessary charts to study, that’s necessary for thoroughness–and this book is very thorough. I can’t remember reading this much nitty-gritty detail since Mrs. Babyock’s eighth grade English class … and that’s a good thing.

If I were learning English as a second language, I would need a book just like this to help figure out how to say what I needed to say.

People take their native language for granted. Even if your school system was thorough in teaching you grammar (and that’s not something you can ever assume), even the most careless native speaker is going to have a head start over someone coming new to the language. And when it’s all new and strange (and English can be very strange), it helps to have a clear, easy to read guide to help navigate your way.

Better yet, it works for native speakers, too. Just because you can use the language doesn’t mean you know all the rules, after all.

Okay, folks, I’ve got something different for you today. Not only is it an interview, but … the author interviewed herself! Our mutual friend, Sara J. Henry, asked me if I’d be willing to host Jodi Compton to help her promote her new book, “Thieves Get Rich, Saints Get Shot.” I said yes, of course! Except … since I haven’t read the book, that made it tricky to come up with good interview questions. No problem, they said. She’ll ask the questions herself!

So, without further ado, let’s give a big Punctuality Rules welcome to Jodi Compton!

Thieves Get Rich, Saints Get Shot: A Q&A with the author! … and, um, by the author….

Q. Who are you? Where is Deb?

A. My name is Jodi Compton. Deb and I have a friend in common, Sara J. Henry, the author of ‘Learning to Swim.’ Sara brokered this deal in which I’d do a guest post for Punctuality Rules. I’m the author of four crime novels, the latest of which, Thieves Get Rich, Saints Get Shot, came out on July 19.

Q. So which have you written about, a cop or a P.I.?

A. Neither. My protagonist is in her early 20s, a failed West Point cadet, and is drawn into troubles not of her making. In Hailey’s War, she protected a 19-year-old girl from a mobster, nearly dying at the hands of one of his men when she was tortured for information.

Q. Good times! So what happens next?

A. Well, Hailey goes back to Los Angeles and falls into a role as the lieutenant of a rising Latina gangster, Serena “Warchild” Delgadillo, who played a significant role in the first book. The fun — lawless and amoral though it is — comes to an abrupt halt when suddenly it’s all over the news that Hailey killed two people in San Francisco. It’s definitely her they’re describing, but she hasn’t been anywhere near northern California. So she and Warchild head north to get to the bottom of things.

Q. If I know crime fiction, there’s a fine-looking guy as well, right?

A. Two. Hailey has a long-unrequited attraction with her cousin CJ, who is tall and lanky and sexy and unfailing decent to women, but unavailable to her because of the American taboo about relationships between first cousins. That’s why Joel Kelleher appears on the scene. Hailey’s initially attracted to him because he superficially resembles CJ, but he develops into a full-fledged character in his own right. He’s a cop, too, which is problematic, since Hailey and Warchild are working the other side of that particular street.

The physical similarity between Joel and CJ plays a small but important role in the third Hailey Cain book that I’m revising right now: Hailey calls Joel by the wrong name at an intimate moment, and that effectually ends the evening. In the following days, Hailey has to ask herself: Is this man real to me, or just a kind of methadone for my CJ addiction? Do I have the right to ask him for a second chance? Do I want to?

Q. Wait — you just said you’re working on the third Hailey Cain book, but earlier you called yourself the author of four crime novels. The math doesn’t add up.

A. Okay, yes: the first two were about a Minneapolis missing-persons detective, Sarah Pribek. Those were 37th Hour and Sympathy Between Humans. They’re a little more traditional than the Hailey stories, meaning that they’re police procedurals. A lot of people ask me if I’m going to write about Sarah again. The unsatisfying answer is, I really don’t know.

Q. Hailey is very Angeleno. Is that where you’re from?

A. No, I grew up east of San Francisco. And Hailey grew up east of Vandenberg Air Force Base, more than an hour north of L.A. If you look at a map of California, and see the westernmost “heel” of the state, that’s about where she’s from. The choice of L.A. as Hailey’s chosen, adult “hometown” grew out of an unrequited crush I have on L.A. It’s such a big, warm, freewheeling, pan-cultural place and, I think, unfairly maligned by outsiders. I go down there as often as I can. Whether I’ll ever live there, well, I’m really not sure.

Q. That’s the second time you’ve said “I really don’t know” or “I’m really not sure.” Would you describe yourself as more wishy or washy?

A. What’s the difference again?

Q. Uh, it’s, uh … Well, that’s all the time we have! I hope readers have really enjoyed this. Thanks, Deb and Sara, for this opportunity.

“Those of us who have been writing
fiction for a long time know how easy it is
to get caught up in the act of writing,
in the characterizations, structure, descriptions,
dialog, polishing of language, and—that
most hair-rending of all issues—whether or not
it’s ever okay to use words ending in -ly.
We wrack our brains over this stuff.
We read intensely for hours on end, taking notes,
researching how the greats handled it.
We lie awake nights and weep…”

I’ve been reading since I was three (says my Mom), and writing for almost as long. I’ve got literally thousands of books on my bookshelves. I read about writing; I write about reading; and vice versa. I studied writing in college, and probably have too many books on writing since I should be, well, writing.

Yet, I’ve never read another book quite like Victoria Mixon‘s The Art and Craft of Fiction: A Practitioner’s Manual. It’s like a Master’s class in fiction, all assembled inside one, handy-dandy cover (either electronic or paper).

This is not a book about punctuation or grammar. It’s not about the “rules” of writing. It’s not about the writer’s mindset, thought-processes, habits, or intentions. It doesn’t tell you how to write or how to find the time to write … though it touches on each of these.

What it does do, is tell you what you need to put together a well-crafted story that will hook your reader and drag them along for however long a journey you choose to take. It’s masterful in every sense of the word–because it is full of tips, tricks, secrets, and devices that belong to a true master.

“The only reason I know
for writing fiction is to tell stories.
And the only reason I know for
telling stories is the same as that for
telling jokes: to get to the punchline. …
The basic act of fiction is the art of telling a story.
You can—and will—spend far more hours
and energy on the craft of writing fiction
than you do on creating the story itself, but
the reason for writing a story remains the same: to tell it.”

Even those of us who live and breathe the written word, who pass our time going from story to story, can’t always grasp what makes some fiction sing and some fiction fall flat. We can tell when it works (hopefully), or when it doesn’t, but we can’t always put our finger on exactly what makes a seemingly well-crafted novel fail. Or why one that isn’t particularly well-written works anyway. I can listen to Mozart and know that I’m hearing a master, but I can’t tell you exactly what makes his chamber music so much better than Salieri’s. I can’t always specify what makes one author so much better than another–just that I know in my gut that it IS better.

That’s fine for a reader, but if you’re a writer, knowing the whys and wherefores is important. You might be lucky enough to throw together a masterful meal on your first trip into the kitchen, but if you want to write seriously, you’re going to need to be able to do it again and again and again … so you need to know HOW.

Well, Victoria Mixon does, and she graciously shares it with us. She not only points out what makes good writing GOOD, but she tells you how to do it yourself.

Again, I don’t mean that this is a normal writing book with general, good advice. There are lots of those (and you should read those, too). And while she does cover some of the nitty-gritty stuff like punctuation, and describing the difference between general editing and line editing, those are not the most valuable parts of the book.

This book tells you WHY one plot line works and another one doesn’t. It tells you how to make your characters breathe on the page–and how to keep your reader turning them. She explains the importance of plotting but not overthinking. The importance of having fun with your first draft, like when you were a kid and your imagination was untrammelled. She also stresses the importance of letting your manuscripts cool off between your first draft and your first re-read.

This book won’t automatically make you a better writer. It’s not filled with “Write Better Now” schemes, or a bullet-point list of things to do to make it to the bestseller list. Writing, good writing, is WORK, and you’re always going to have to work at it. But this book will tell you what to strive for.

“Never listen to anybody
who tells you not to love or hate anything
about your chosen art.
Love your work. Love every little bit of it you can.
Love the paper and pen nibs and keyboard,
love the punctuation and vocabulary and syntax,
love the alliterations and etymology and patois and
Great Vowel Shift of the fifteenth through eighteenth
centuries. Hate what really burns you up.
Throw yourself, like Camille, across the
fainting couch of literary aspirations.”

Better still, this book doesn’t read like some dry textbook. (Hence the scattered quotes through this review.) It’s lively and fun and brimming with life. Metaphors show off their colors, instructions are witty, and it ultimately feels like getting advice from your best, smarter-than-you friend.

“And this is why fiction is not just a craft, it is art.
Because art is about discovering the unknowable.
It’s about diving into that river of reality and fishing up
what you find, turning it in the sun to make the light
refract off it and show not just what it looks like,
but what it resembles, what it’s not, what it could be,
what it might be, what, in fact—in the alternate
universe in which we all simultaneously live
without even knowing it—it really is.

(In the interests of full disclaimer-ship, I will mention that this was a free review copy, but that does not change the fact that it blew me away.)

Want a look inside? Click here. Or go straight to Amazon.com and order a copy. It’s also available as an ebook PDF from Victoria’s site.

You won’t regret it.