Review of Sweet Thunder by Ivan Doig


Sweet Thunder

Sweet Thunder by Ivan Doig

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have read several of Ivan Doig’s novels, all set in Montana after WWI and before WWII.

Doig writes with humor, understanding and wonderful skill, and I haven’t found one of his I didn’t think was excellent. (Some are more excellent than others.)

The story takes place in the city of the Anaconda copper mine, in the early ’20’s. The narrator (this is told in first person) has just returned from a year long honeymoon to take over a mansion gifted to him from his former boss.

The problem is that the mansion beginning to look like a money pit and the town is caught up in the struggle of the miners against the ruthless Anaconda Copper Mining company. Morris, the narrator, needs a way to bring in some cash.

He finds himself writing editorials for The Thunder, the city’s new pro-union newspaper that dares to engage Anaconda in its conflicts.

Morrie is very good at putting words together, which unfortunately leads to some sticky situations, with attempted murder, mayhem and blackmail.

Reading Doig is like sitting down with an engaging friend with the gift of gab and a good heart – and a wicked sense of humor. He never fails to satisfy.

I have this one in hardback, and I learned after I finished it that the main character is also in Doig’s ‘The Whistling Season’, which I have put on my ‘to read’ list.

View all my reviews

Review: The Governess of Penwyth Hall


Four Stars

I picked up this book on a whim based on the beautiful cover. A quick riffling through the pages revealed good writing and characers that seemed (at very first glance) to be believeable and engaging.

Cordelia Greythorne, widowed, has taken a position as a governess in a wealthy man’s house. Tragedy and mystery lies behind her choice of occupation. In a trick of fate, her employer is fatally injured in a riding accident, and she and the children are sent to his surviving brother living in Cornwall.

Cordelia takes the chidren to their uncle, and the story goes on from there. The uncle, Jac Trewethy, accepts his niece and nephew, and welcomes them and their governess into his home. Love blooms, but the shadows of the past intrude.

Smugglers, double-dealing – What is Cordelia’s part in this?

Do her past tragedies have any connection with her current situation?

Is she one who knows too much, who steps into the shadows of her past knowingly, with intent to clear them all out? The story unfolds in layers of knowledge.

Love blooms, questions are answered, and the danger is eliminated and all problems are resolved.

This is a complex story, and it has a strong compass, both morally and from a storytelling standpoint. The characters are well drawn, the action kept me reading, and the flow of the story itself is engaging, apparopriate and enjoyable. There are moments of grace even for the villains, and they work very well.

From a ‘crafting’ standpoint, this was very well done. The pace was excellenr, and any ‘surprises’ had been set up from the beginning.

I am currendly reading the second of Ms. Ladd’s books set in Cornwell, and am enjoying it. I will be reviewing it when I am finished.

Five stars.

Humor, Grace and Cleverness


Review of A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book sounded interesting, the samples online flowed very well, and I thought it would be worth reading and, to enhance the experience, to read in a ‘hard copy’ rather than an electronic one. (I am one of those criminals who marks passages that I happen to like.) As it happens, I marked quite a few of them.

If you want crowds of villains and heroes and vivid love scenes, this is not for you. If you are hoping for a standard ‘spy’ novel, or a tale pf oppression and harshness and heroic resistance, you will be disappointed. This is the straightforward story of a man’s life under house arrest starting in 1922 and ending in 1954.

Count Alexander Rostov, the last of an aristocratic family, has been living under house arrest at a hotel in Moscow. At the beginning of the novel, he has been advised that he will be required to move to a much smaller set of rooms. This will entail discarding some items that he has treasured over the years. He takes this in stride, and the story follows the events in his life, as though you are an interested observer.

Deftly told, peopled with characters that you can understand, even if you don’t like them, featuring Rostov’s memories of long-ago events and his musings on life, people and chance, this book seems to move at the pace of a person’s life. It contains the totality of its main character, and the other characters that come into the story and linger before moving on, provide color and interest. You care for them.

Review: The Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley


The Shadowy HorsesThe Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Verity Gray, an archeologist, is invited to participate in a dig on the borders of Scotland, directed by a nearly legendary, though eccentric, archeologist, who believes he may have found the final resting pace of the lost Ninth Legion.

The characters include the leader of the dig, Verity’s former lover, a little boy who has psychic gifts, some of the local Scots (all presented beautifully) and a Roman officer who is known as ‘the Sentinel’. The little boy can see the Roman and speak with him. The others can only perceive changes in the temperature near them (view spoiler).

Kearsley does a very good job laying out the story, bringing it from the quiet beginning of Verity’s work at the site to its final crescendo and resolution. She also does a good job of following the activities of an archaeological dig in full operation. Characters are well handled, and you find yourself liking Verity, Dave, Robbie (the child) and the Sentinel. Loose ends are tied up satisfactorily, and while we don’t have proof that the Legio IX Hispana is actually there, the books ends with a strong impression.

I do have one or two quibbles. While British sang-froid (or, perhaps, UK sang-froid) is legendary, I have a little trouble believing that all of the staff at the dig stayed there after several events. Another issue is the title of the book. ‘The Shadowy Horses’ is taken from a poem by Yeats: He Bids His Beloved Be At Peace. He refers to them as ‘the horses of disaster’. The title works well, and the mental image is satisfying… except that there is nothing to correspond to them in the book except for the chapter headings: ‘first horse’ and ‘second horse’ and once or twice when Verity seems to hear horses in the night.

I enjoyed this book. The story balanced mystery, romance, memory and discovery very well. I cared about most of the characters, including the Sentinel. The flow of the narrative as compelling and yet not rushed. Things fall together at the end in the best of ways. Even the ‘shadowy horses’ have their moment.

I give The Shadowy Horses a full five stars. I liked it enough to purchase a hard cover copy for my shelf.

View all my reviews

Catching the Echoes – An observation About Love, Loss and Memory


I have owned Burmese cats for years, starting in 1980.  They are a lively, affectionate, intuitive and very smart breed.  Burmese originated in and around Thailand and Myanmar, and spent centuries hanging around people – generally in temples.

Merlin and Morgan
My first two Burmese cats were a pair of brothers named Merlin and Morgan. They were supposed to live to their mid-twenties. Or so I thought. I did wake up when they were fifteen and realized that they were old, but they were with me, they were fairly healthy, though the one boy’s kidneys were iffy, and we would all continue as we were, unchanging. Or so I thought.  The first one died in my arms of a heart attack on August 28, 1996.  I was stunned.  His brother died one month later to the day of kidney failure secondary to a severe hantavirus that his old body survived, but which threw him into a decline. I hadn’t wanted him to go, but I had realized that I was fighting against his best good, and I told him that I wouldn’t insist on his living and would let him go if that was what he wanted.  It was.
Merlin
There is no ‘back to the drawing board’ when love has touched you.  Whether you believe in forever or not, the very fact that your life has intersected and run together with another’s has changed you. You are not the person you were before you came to love the one who has departed. You have an altered perspective, you have a part of you that grew in response to that other one. You have a way you would respond to the other’s voice, jokes, antics, love. You can’t go back to what you were before you loved the other.
But life does go on, and grief must be dealt with and resolved in one way or another. I didn’t expect to ‘replace’ my boys, but I needed to have pets in their places, so Boomer and BJ came to me. Boomer is a Burmese. BJ’s father was a Burmese (a particularly nice one!), so though he’s a Bombay and black, he looks, through the face, like my first Burmese. That is when I encountered the echoes. 
Dad
I started catching hints, sometimes faint, sometimes very strong, of my old boys.  A way one of the kittens reacted to being stroked. A way of tilting the head.  Finding one curled up on a pillow and raising its head to blink at me in a familiar way.  The sound of a voice.  It was not as though the lost ones had come back as those two kittens, but as though, somehow, I was given back the part of me that had loved them. As though I had been given a chance to re-live their kittenhood, to revisit memories I had forgotten in the rush of the years, to have the hurts, the sad memories somehow smoothed away, and the memories of the young, strong, lively ones returned to me, fresh and clear, unspoiled.

I have experienced this with all lost loves, memories that touch my shoulder and remind me that love still exists in me.  I recently opened a book and found a folded slip of paper with a note from my father saying that he believed in me, and enclosing a check to ‘keep the wolves from the door’.  Driving through Vermont one autumn afternoon, seeing a hillside with a familiar slant behind a yellow house…  My grandparents’ old house, which they sold decades ago, now repainted.  Landmarks had changed, but I remembered.

Those memories, touching our experiences, are a part of us, a reminder.   Something to be embraced.

IWSG for January, 2018 – Plans and Dreams


This is the January entry for The Insecure Writer’s Support Group Blog Hop.


The hop takes place on the first Wednesday of every month.  All are welcome to sign up and participate, and visit the blogs of the other participants.  


The co-hosts for the January 3 posting of the IWSG are Tyrean Martinson, Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor, Megan Morgan, Jennifer Lane, and Rachna Chhabria Go visit their blogs!

The question for January’s blog hop is: 

What steps have you taken or plan to take to put a schedule in place for your writing and publishing?

Tempus Fugit…if you haven’t noticed.
Speaking as a writer who had not written anything substantive or published anything at all in three years for a lot of very good reasons (there: I’ve said it!), even thinking of writing was a step in the right direction. But that was only the first step. 


I read a man’s blog where he mentioned an app that reminded him to write 1,000 words per day. It was on his iPhone, he couldn’t avoid seeing it, and it was a nice reminder for him. I sat back, blinking. That was what I needed! A reminder, rather like getting jabbed in the ribs with a thumb, rather than a rather muzzy, wistful ‘Gee, I should really be writing…’ thought I.

I went hunting for the app and discovered that it is an older one and unavailable right now. Apparently it is not mainstream and is undergoing an overhaul.

After some searching, I found a similar one for iTunes: Momentum Habit Tracker.  



I have set it to remind me to (1) write 1,000 words per day; (2) READ (amazing how you can stagnate if you don’t read other peoples’ work…), and SCOOP (my cats’ litter box).  Hey, what’s good for writing is good for cleaning.  It also offers to ‘discuss’ any issues with you.  I haven’t taken it up on that offer just yet, since I am not sure how to address  my iPhone.  I’m sure I will learn.

So far, so good.  I get pinged around 8pm if I haven’t set up my writing time.  Or reading time, or scooping time.  I’ve enjoyed getting reacquainted with other writers like Georgette Heyer and Tolkien.

Once writing, I have to keep up with it.  There is a nice (?) little app called ‘Write or Die’ (by Dr. Wicked), which I encountered during NaNoWriMo:

Write or Die by Dr. Wicked
This is the dashboard.  You set the time (in this case, 60 minutes) and the output (1,515 words in this case – attainable).  You can select the screen background – white works for me – and any deterrents or incentives that will keep your nose to the grindstone.

There are levels of motivation,  including one where the program starts erasing what you have written if you don’t write fast enough to suit it.  This was a little too harsh for me, so I selected different motivations and rewards. 



If a certain amount of time passes with no output (I selected two minutes), an alarm sounds and I am treated, so to speak, with an alarming image – in this case, it is Grumpy Cat, superimposed on my typing and scowling at me.  It is hard to be alarmed and buckle down to slave at the keyboard while laughing like a fool, but it does help.  The beep is more effective than Grumpy Cat’s scowl, but the grin is helpful at any rate.



If you manage to meet your goal, you are treated to a rewarding image.  I chose a cute puppy wearing a birthday hat, which appears behind the text that I have typed after I have reached my goal.  If I am cooking along at a great rate, it is a little startling to see that I am scattering text over the face of a cute puppy in a party hat, but it makes me laugh and continue typing.

Have I written every day?  Well, no.  But I’m reading more and writing more and thinking more and jotting more, and the cause of the blockage, a combination of work, eldercare, health issues and exhaustion, is now beginning to crumble.  The momentum is back, and while it may be a bit of a struggle, I am going to commit to having my most urgent WIP, an eagerly awaited (by my readers, at least) installment in my Egyptian series, in a state to be published by September.  I can do it.  Besides, I don’t want to have Grumpy Cat mad at me.  

I know that cat is SOMEWHERE!

How about yourself?  Do you need to do something to get going?  It’s a common problem, and not just with writing.

Read the other entries in this hop and see what they say – I will be reading them, too!

I Quit! (Or do I?)




Today is the first Wednesday of the month, which is the date that the Insecure Writer’s Support Group holds its monthly blog hop.

If you haven’t heard of the IWSG, you need to look into it:



 Purpose:
To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds.  It’s a good place to go to for advice, reassurance and a lot of enjoyment.




Today’s question is:

Did you ever say “I quit”? 
If so, what happened to make you come back to writing?

This month’s co-hosts are:

JH Moncrieff, Madeline Mora-Summonte, Jen Chandler, Megan Morgan, and Heather Gardner  

Go visit their pages!

So…  Have I ever decided to quit writing?  

No, I can’t say that I  have.  I  have been discouraged, I have wanted to burn whatever story I was working on, and call various people idiots for various reasons, but I haven’t decided to quit.  How can I?  I’m a writer.

…But I have trickled to a near-halt.  Inertia.  I wrote about it, obliquely, here and here.  I’ve been in dry spots, as you see.  Sometimes they seem to stretch on forever, and you wonder if they will ever stop.

I am in one right now. I haven’t published anything new in three years.  I have followers, people have read my work, but I haven’t put anything out.  Sales are falling off.  

I have a number of works in progress.  The second book in my Orphan’s Tale series is nearly complete.  It was delayed, in part, by a plot revelation that required an internal rewrite. But it is nearly finished…and I haven’t touched it in a year.  I have a fable, a ‘short’ (say, 45,000 words) that is nearly done. Nearly.  There are several stories in my Memphis Cycle that were coming along.

So what happened?

Life.  Eldercare issues.  Work issues.  Money issues.  (It costs me nothing to write, thank goodness).  And I have been very tired.  Very tired.  It’s hard.

A friend told me of a time that she was discouraged.  She was at a show, and was talking with the man who had been mentoring her.  She recounted children problems, worries about her husband’s job, illness, disappointment.  It was all so hard, she said.  Her mentor, who had been busy jotting notes about the things that were going on at the show, said without looking up, “Quitting is easy.” 

My friend stopped speaking.  Quitting is easy.  But it was not an option those ten years ago.  She moved past that point and is doing well.

As for me, quitting is easy, I suppose.  Except that I can’t quit.  I am a writer.  I write stories.  I have stories to write.  I can’t go back.  I don’t want to.  And I have been through this before and may well go through it again, all things being equal.  I’ll survive.

So…  What can I do to get out of this particular situation?

I can wake up.  My job issues are behind me, along with that job.  I will set my timer for, say, half an hour.  And during that half hour I will write.  At my desk.  On my laptop.  No internet.  Just write.

Sales are down?  I’ll finish the various books, half an hour at a time, and get them out there.  

Writing doesn’t need to be lonely: I have begun to participate in writing activities.  Joined groups (including rejoining IWSG).  Maybe go on a retreat.

And I will get more sleep.  That’s more important than I realized.

The blog hop is here.  Check it out!




In Memoriam: Pets


We call them ‘pets’, and we pamper them and fuss over them and sometimes think that they are in some way a status symbol. 


They love us unconditionally (though perhaps even more deeply when food is involved) and ask in return only that we be their Alpha dogs or -cats and provide them comfort, protection and affection.


In almost all cases, we are the gainers.


The worst thing about them is that they have such heartbreakingly short lives, and the puppy or kitten that rolled across the floor and hurried clumsily to you is suddenly the white-muzzled dog who lifts cloudy eyes to you and thumps his tail on the floor.


Dogs or cats?  I have both.  They both give love.


And they both die too soon.


Last night I bade farewell to a boy I have owned and loved and laughed at for nine years.  It was hard, but he was surrounded by those who loved him as he slipped away.

You never get used to it, but truly, it is a small return for the unquestioning, generous love they give us.

IWSG October 5, 2016: Getting started


Today is IWSG day. Come join Alex J. Cavanaugh and all the other writers who support each other, make us all smile and think in this monthly hop. No one is mocked or sneered at. All are welcome. We have all been there.

 Please be sure to visit our host Alex J Cavanaugh, and this month’s co-hosts: Beverly Stowe, Megan Morgan, Viola Fury, Madeline Mora, Angela Wooledridge, and Susan Gourley.

The twitter hashtag is #IWSG

Visit the website and look around: http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/
This month’s question is:  

When do you know your story is ready?

My answer is that it is never ready.  Or, at least I *think* it is never ready.  I was just reading one of my published books, one that I am really happy with, that expressed what I wanted to express and told, I thought, a good story.  The fact that it features two of my absolute favorite characters is an added treat.

I opened the paperback copy I had printed for myself, read a section and thought, “You know, it would work better if I expanded the various contractions and changed a couple words.”

I had to put on the brakes, hard, and admit that the story is set.  Too much fiddling makes the story stale.  (This does not mean that I won’t fix the odd mistake that I find).  

And now, I am going to reveal what insecurity has me by the throat at the moment:

It has been too long since I published.

…or, come to that, since I wrote anything really new.

The Memphis Cycle


I have a series of books set in New Kingdom Egypt (think Ramesses the Great) with a great many stories that can come off that.  I have my notes: the stories just need to be written.  








The Crocodile Fable


I have a short piece, a fable about a crocodile, that is nearly finished.  I just have to finish it:
The Orphan’s Tale #1
The Orphan’s Tale #2






I have a series set in 1830’s Paris with one completed, another nearly completed and the final one well underway.
I have other stories in varying stages of being outlined…

But I have published nothing in over three years.

Why?  Well, my father died in 2012.  That was a terrible blow. My delightful mother’s health took a downward spiral.  She had been caring for my father and now she was dealing with her own issues.  She needed surgery, she needed to be moved to a better place.  And she was far away from her family.

Work issues, travel issues (my mother lives 250 miles away) money issues.  I was, and am, very tired.   But I can feel things moving, stirring.  I have ideas.

…and I received some notes from readers:

I really enjoy your Memphis Cycle stories.  I have all of them in paperback.  I know you have one in the works: is it coming out soon?

I replied, and they replied enthusiastically. It made me smile.  And it started me thinking. 

It could be done.  The fable is about 40,000 words, the cover is finished.  I have some ‘shorts’ on the Egyptian stories that could be put together.  Something to please those kind people who wrote me and follow me.

I have some vignettes from the Paris story that I could put out.  Something to read.

Ramesses the Great never looked better…
And, things having eased up a little, I can set the Paris story aside for a bit to let the edits sink in.  I could take up some kind friends on their beta-read offers and put the manuscript out for review.

…and I could get to work on the full length novel that fits after the second book of The Memphis cycle.  Heck, I have a cover:

…errrrr….  Maybe I need to work on that…

(You aren’t down for the count if you can find something to laugh about, you know…)


Check out the posts on this hop.  Read, comment, enjoy.  I’ll be doing the same this evening.


Where were you when the world stopped turning…?


Today is the fifteenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.  I saw a headline that likened the day to ‘History Just Like Pearl Harbor.’

 Well, that is certainly true.  It was history, just as our births, deaths, celebrations and actions are history.  And yet, for all the significance of our day to day activities, 9/11 somehow stands out as an especial time in history.

  • It was the day people realized that their ‘homeland’ was not immune from attack.
  • It was the day people learned of needs and incidents far greater than their own daily heartaches and activities.
  • It was the day that we learned what it is to be truly helpless.
  • And it was the day that we learned that we could survive, and that heroes really existed.

Russian ‘Tears of Grief’ memorial

(It was also a day I learned that some people are too stupid to live and need to be devoutly ignored:

 A woman from Canada on a message board:

 Americans need to think, sincerely and without offense, what they did to cause this attack.’
I don’t generally get nasty in public.  You don’t put out there on Facebook or message boards things that you wouldn’t want printed on the pages of the great newspapers of the world.  But my response that time reduced the poster to tears.  And I don’t regret a word.)

 I heard the tales of heroism, of the firefighters and rescue workers toiling up the stairs in the Towers against the tide of fleeing people.  Going ever upward to serve and protect and rescue.  Giving their lives.

 I never saw the footage of the plane striking the towers.  I missed it, somehow  In later years I decided not to seek it out.

 Some months after the attack, I was talking with my father, a veteran of World War II, Korea and Vietnam.  I was saying how humbled I was by the heroism we saw on 9/11. 

 Dad frowned thoughtfully.  “We saw heroes,” he said.  “They were everywhere that day, and after.  The people lining up to give blood, to help however they could…  But, you know, if I had to say who the real heroes were that day…”

 He fell silent.

 “The police and rescue workers?” I suggested.

 Dad shook his head.  “They were heroic,” he said.  “But you know, that was the purpose for which they pledged their lives.  To serve, protect, fight if necessary…  And they did it beautifully.  But those people on the plane in Pennsylvania, possibly headed for the U.S. Capitol…  They were everyday folk with the backgrounds they had, caught up in a situation.  And they took action. They were true heroes.”

 Maybe so.   Probably so.  Everyone seemed to step beyond their own needs and turn to others’ needs…

 It was a day to remember.  One that should not be forgotten or belittled, any more than the other great watersheds of history.

 Where were you then?