City of Women-A Personal Favorite of 2012

 

Personal Favorite 2012
FTC: ARC from HNR Magazine
Review will be in August Issue. 
Photo: Library Thing























© [Wisteria Leigh] and [Bookworm's Dinner], [2010].

Review & Interview-The Disappearance

The Disappearance
by Efrem Sigel
Permanent Press (February 1, 2009)
264 pages











The Disappearance by Efrem Sigel's is a divergent story within a story. Joshua and Nathalie come home after a morning running errands and discover their 14-year old son Daniel is not at home. After a short while they realize he is missing and they are frantic with desperation, not knowing what to do. He has vanished without any clues. They must face the hours, days, weeks -- and perhaps more — of tortuous tension while they wait for any positive word about him. The story is a mystery of what happens to Daniel, but it is also a story about his parent's relationship.


What happens to a marriage when something so gut wrenching occurs? How does a couple cope with such dismal despair? As the weeks go by Nathalie and Joshua cope differently, isolating and insulating their feelings. No longer able to support each other, they aren't even aware of one another as they are hidden behind a victim's veil. Sigel uses densely polished poetic lyrical verse. His sensitive style is beautiful, and through his artistry and details you are able to empathize with Nathalie and Joshua as they face an uncertain future. The Disappearance is a rhythmic roller-coaster of emotions.

Here is an interview I recently had with Efrem Sigel about his book The Disappearance.

Wisteria: The disappearance of a child is such a tough subject. Were you afraid it would scare readers away from the book?



Efrem: The book begins with the disappearance of 14-year old Daniel Sandler, but my hope was always that The Disappearance would be more than just another “child disappears, who did it?” mystery. The mystery is there, of course, but it’s also a family drama, the story of a marriage, a story about how ordinary people can either surmount, or be defeated by, extraordinary and tragic events. If it works, it’s because in the end it’s more a love story on multiple levels than a tragedy.



The way you portray the parents, Joshua and Nathalie, seems to make their emotions so palpable to readers. How did you do this?

I knew that I needed fully fleshed-out and believable characters to make the novel work. Joshua and Nathalie are such different people, one impulsive and action-oriented, the other cerebral and withdrawn, that it was inevitable they would react to this calamity in very different ways. Out of these differences, and the spiraling tension caused by the mystery, I hoped to develop a momentum that would drive the story while enhancing the reader’s understanding of and identification with the characters.

A book about such an emotionally charged experience leads to the natural question: has anything like this happened to you?

No. But as a parent I know the fears that engulf you when a child is not where he or she is supposed to be, and I tried hard to get inside the heads of parents actually living through such an ordeal. By the end, I felt as if I were living through it myself.


Was the ending of the book what you had in mind from the outset?

Yes and no. I knew what had happened to Daniel, though not why, but the ending that I wrote early on quickly got discarded, and it took quite a while to find the ending that felt right.

What made you pick such a tiny town as Smithfield as a setting for the book?

It’s a setting I know well, a bucolic small town in rural Massachusetts, the kind of place where nothing ever happens. The contrast between the idyllic setting and the terrible event is another source of tension in the story, as is the fact that the Sandlers are outsiders in this town.



The Disappearance is your second novel, but it comes 36 years after the first. Why the long wait?

In between novels I started and ran a couple of business newsletter companies, wrote magazine and newsletter articles and nonfiction books, but was always exploring ideas for new fiction. Ten years ago I was able to return to fiction in a serious way, first with short stories and then with the idea that turned into The Disappearance. I’m hard at work on a new novel, and will do my best to see that it won’t take another 36 years for number three.



More information about Efrem Sigel and The Disappearance is available at www.efremsigel.com

Sunday Salon-Review-Jake Ransom and the Skull King's Shadow

Jake Ransom and the Skull King’s Shadow
by James Rollins
Harper Collins
9780061473791
April 28, 2009,416 pages





James Rollins, writer and New York Times best selling author of adult books has written a young adult book of extraordinary excitement on every page. I read it this weekend in one day, a quick read although about 400 pages. It is his pacing and clever combination of writing action to drive the text. You can't stop, he won't let you. Anyway, if you have a 5th grader, middle school student who likes adventure, with some fantasy. Maybe a Macguiver meets Indiana Jones then this book is for him/her.

Review:

Jake Ransom and his older sister Kady receive a mysterious invitation to an opening exhibit of Mayan Treasures at The British Museum in London. Three years ago their parents disappeared on an archeology exhibition. Jake, having a penchant for studies and strong desire to follow in his parent’s footsteps is thrilled. Kady, diva and social butterfly is reluctant to go, but ultimately agrees when she realizes cameras will be everywhere. How could she possibly miss this fashion and social opportunity.

Unfortunately their trip to London takes them farther than they expected as they find themselves in another place. It’s definitely not London as they immediately face a carnivorous dinosaur. Ultimately they meet the inhabitants who are people from multiple ancient civilizations all living together in a place called Calypso.

Rollins has set the scene for the perfect action adventure story for middle grade students. They are lost in a strange place. They are alone are among strangers. They
are immediately faced with their first life or death challenge.

Your heart will beat with the cadence of his poetic prose. Fast moving drama pushes you forward with a driving beat through his use of lyrical text. Rollins is a master of momentum and tension. A barrage of sound effects will come alive as you are compelled to turn each page no just reading but hearing the story.

Students will beg to stay up late to read this book and it will fly off the library shelves. Let’s hope the sequel is not far behind. This well written series will fill the holes in many library collections. Rollins is a natural fit for the young adult fantasy adventure drama.

Wisteria Leigh
New Milford, CT

The Secret Keeper, by Paul Harris

The Secret Keeper by Paul Harris
Penguin Group
ISBN 978-0-525-95102-5
$24.95 ($27.CAN)336pp

I really enjoyed this book and read it in one sitting. This novel is alive, fast paced and will move refusing to let you catch a breath. A tension thriller throughout with intricate plot twists and intrigue, you will feel greedy for more. Here is my review:

The Secret Keeper


Harris doesn’t waste any time shocking you into a compelling need to continue as the opening chapter captivates your attention to read on. The Secret Keeper is a Transcontinental consummate adventure thriller traversing between London and Sierra Leone. In London, Danny Kellerman receives a cryptic letter of desperation from his ex-lover Maria. He is a journalist who four years earlier reported on the political upheaval in Sierra Leone where he met Maria. The postmark is three weeks earlier and all sense of reality disappears when he discovers that he is too late and Maria is dead, a victim of a robbery and murder while driving in the country.
He manages to convince his boss their is a story lurking behind the letter he received and he is soon on board a plane to Freetown. As his plane takes off his thoughts are on everything but his current relationship with Rachel. Kellerman finds a vastly changed Sierra Leone, peace has won over the war torn countryside, but in its place a sea of secrets, corruption, collusion, mistrust and an endless struggle for power by a host of candidates emerges. Further, Danny uncovers distressing information that indicates Maria was keeping secrets. Faced with a soul searching decision in the first chapter, Harris revisits the scene in the end where Danny is held captive. He is forced to decide whether revealing the truth, printing the truth-is worth the potential wretched ramifications of his obdurate actions.
Harris’s poetic prose style lends itself to a one night read. You will see as I did putting this book down for even a moment is quite difficult. His prolific use of carefully placed similes, paints a vibrant palette of imagery bringing the reader into the story.
A debut novel, will cause a few white knuckle moments, you won’t want to miss it. Paul Harris is a novelist to watch and anxiously await his next book.

Wisteria Leigh

Tuesday's Tablet-Debut Novel by M.F.Bloxam

Welcome to my first issue of Tuesday's Tablet. I will post reviews here that are the new releases, upcoming releases, debut novels and less familiar titles out on store bookshelves. Books falling below the rating scale will not be featured on this blog, rather in my Library Thing collection. I really like your comments, whether you have read the book or not. If you agree or disagree, please add your thoughts. Thanks for reading....Wisteria

The Night Battles

by M.F. Bloxam

A brief note about the author from the jacket of the book:
M.F. Bloxam has lived in Sicily and on both US coasts. She is the author of prize-winning short fiction and creative non-fiction. A background in anthropology and museum work informs her writing. She lives with her husband and two cats on New Hampshire's seacoast. This is her first novel."

My Review

The Night Battles by M.F. Bloxam
The Permanent Press
$28.00
260 pages,hc
ISBN1579621716

Reading The Night Battles, evokes dark forgotten memories from the past when monsters lived under beds and in closets. Psychologically awakening this book will stimulate your neurons to that time long ago when fantasy fogged reality.

Joan Severance, an anthropology professor at Brown University has reached an impasse in her career, her future in academia tenuous. Granted a sabbatical, she accepts a position in Valparuta, Sicily, to work as an archivist under the tutelage of Signor Chiesa. She soon becomes engrossed in her work, unearthing historical records. She begins reading about Piero Quagliata his life and then his untimely, unnatural death in 1552. Abruptly the files she sifts through lead no where, something is missing.

Joan becomes attracted to Chiesa. As their relationship deepens, she comes to know his horror with the night battles. In Valpurata you are either benandanti or malandanti, the workers of evil. The benedanti spend four times a year battling the witches. One morning she witnesses the leftover carnage from one of these night battles. Joan senses her appearance in Sicily is not coincidental.

The thrill of The Night Battles is reading the book and imagining the fantasy. It is illusion, mystical, magical and personal to the reader. Valpurata becomes Joan's rabbit hole, with fantasy and reality obscured as she learns the history of Piero and his relationship with the benandanti.

The author’s strength is her beautiful poetic phrasing. For example:

“Outside, the wind saws against the building like a train taking a curve.(103)
“I miss him so terribly that it seems he must have only set like a moon, gone below a certain horizon. I still feel the pull of his body.” (238)

The Night Battles commands your attention with mesmerizing intrigue and alluring appeal. M. F. Bloxam's novel is distinctly unusual, a thriller, tightly taut with tension. Bloxam is a sensualist with an acute sensory awareness that makes this book live.


Wisteria Leigh

Thanks to The Permanent Press for the ARC of this novel.
This review was first published on Blogcritics.org