Jenn's Bookshelves

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (October 13, 2009)
• ISBN-10: 0061768251
• Source: Publisher

Publisher’s Summary:

In southern Greece in 2004, a close-knit group of archaeologists searches for the buried traces of a formidable ancient power. A student running from a failed marriage and family, Ben Mercer is a latecomer to their ranks, drawn to the charisma of the group’s members—to the double-edged friendship of Jason, the unsettling beauty of Natsuko and Eleschen, and the menace of Max and Eberhard. But Ben is far too eager to join the excavation project, and there is more to the group’s dangerous games and dynamic than he understands. And there are things that should always remain hidden.

A novel of astonishing grace and power from award-winning author Tobias Hill, The Hidden brilliantly explores the secrets we keep, the ties that bind us, and the true cost of fulfilling our desires.

My review:

I really REALLY wanted to enjoy this book.  Really, I did.  But it just didn’t happen for me.  It’s categorized as a thriller, one of my favorite genres, but I hardly found it to meet the criteria.  Perhaps it should have been advertised as historic literary fiction instead?

I have to compliment the author on the amount of research that must have gone in to writing this.  Throughout the book, there are numerous “flashbacks” to Sparta and Ancient Greece.  Although, I couldn’t quite pinpoint how these “flashbacks” related to the rest of the story.

The formatting of the book was also difficult. The chapters are quite lengthy and other than a slight indent, the paragraphs aren’t broken up at all.  Conversations are indicated by a hyphen (-) instead of quotes so it makes the entire book a bit difficult to read.  This disjointedness prevented me from really connecting with the characters. 

Ultimately, I determined that quite possibly I’m not the intended reader for this book.  It is quite literary, and you really have to dig down through the surface to truly get the meat of the story.  I am a fan of literary fiction and do read a great deal of it. Perhaps I didn’t dig deep enough? It’s possible.  But how much effort must one put into a book to find the core of the story? How much effort should a reader put into a book before giving up? I read the book cover-to-cover.  I put in a tremendous amount of effort to enjoying this book.  Unfortunately, it just didn’t happen.

Thank you to the publisher and TLC Book Tours for providing me the opportunity to review this book.

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Avon A; 1 edition (June 23, 2009)
• ISBN-10: 0061547786
• Source: Publisher

Anna O’Shea has just returned from a trip to London, a getaway after going through a divorce five months before. The divorce was a painful one; after years of miscarriages, her husband told Anna that he was leaving her for someone else.  His mistress was able to give him something Anna was unable–a child.

Immediately upon her return, she learns her brother, Patrick, has been in a severe automobile accident.

Before she is able to unpack from her Ireland trip, Anna makes her way to the hospital to see her brother.  Her mother, Alice, was already there.  Patrick sustained severe head injuries and his fate is undetermined. Anna’s brother then drops another bomb: Patrick was on the way to pick up his teenage son, Joseph, from jail when he got into the accident.  Joseph was arrested after stealing a car with a friend.

Anna is asked to pick up her nephew, who is in a jail approximately five hours away.  She does so, grudgingly.  She’d rather stay by her brother’s side until he regains consciousness.

Anna picks up Joseph and returns to her home to get some rest. She’s exhausted, so she quickly succumbs to sleep.  She’s awoken to the sound of the zipper on her suitcase. She finds Joseph holding an object in his hand.  She grabs on to the item, and the both of them are sucked into what Anna believes is a tornado or some other catastrophic event.

Anna awakes on a beach, her body riddled with injures from the sea, including a long gash that extends from her knee to her ankle.  She hovers in and out of consciousness.  She is soon rescued and is taken to a small village to recover. Anna soon realizes that something is amiss.  Her rescuers use primitive methods (leeches!) for healing her leg injury.  When she asks the date her suspicions are confirmed: It is September 1844.  Joseph is no where in sight.

Joseph awakes on a bed made of corn husks.  His rescuers have brought him to a local manor.  He heals relatively quickly and soon begins exploring the manor in which he currently resides. His memories of his father’s accident are faint and fading quickly.

And so begins Anna’s desperate search for Joseph.  While on her search, she soon realizes that her leap through time is her destiny.  Her family’s fate is dependent upon her…

Sheehan has done an outstanding job of combining rich,multifaceted characters and a compelling storyline.  Fans of historical fiction, particularly Irish history, will be fascinated by this book.  Sheehan’s writing is incredibly descriptive; you can’t help but be pulled in.  The underlying issues of infertility and family issues add depth to the storyline. My only complaint would be the references to the dog.  The paperback has an image of a dog clearly displayed on the cover, and the line “A magical tale of hope, second chances…and a not-so-little dog.”  At first glance, it appears the book is about this dog. While the dog does play a fairly key role in the novel, I think it’s a little  misleading to readers to give that much attention to a seemingly minor character.  But this is really the only complaint I have with this book!  If you can see past this, as I could ultimately, then I highly recommend that you read this book!

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for giving me the opportunity to review this book.

Check out the other stops on this tour:

Tuesday, December 1st: The Tome Traveller

Wednesday, December 2nd: Bloggin’ ’bout Books

Want to hear more about Jacqueline Sheehan? Be sure to listen to her interview with Book Club Girl!

Now on to the giveaway!  The publisher has provided me with five copies of the book to give away.  To enter, please follow this link and submit the form. Winners will be announced on Monday, December 7th. US and Canadian residents only.  Books will be sent directly from the publisher.

Sixteen-year-old Bethany Krall is a patient at Oxsmith Adolescent Secure Psychiatric Hospital.  She was committed two years ago after brutally murdering her mother.  Bethany’s last psychologist was forced to take a mysterious health-related leave of absence.  She has been reassigned to Gabrielle Fox, a wheelchair-bound art therapist.

Bethany claims to have the ability to predict natural disasters.  These visions occur immediately following electo-convulsive therapy.  Bethany’s claims have been ignored up until now.  Gabrielle begins to make note of some of the predictions and when a few come true, she feels the need to report it to someone.  When Bethany begins seeing visions of “the end”, Gabrielle knows she has little time to act.

Gabrielle meets Frazer Melville, renowned physicist, and mentions Bethany’s “gift” to him.  She is desperate to understand the likelihood of such natural disasters occuring.  At first, like the others, Frazer is skeptical.  But a devastating disaster occurs and he can’t help but be convinced.   In a strange turn of events, Gabrielle and Frazer start a romantic relationship. 

Gabrielle and Frazer are eventually able to convince experts of Bethany’s ability.  They form a team and quickly determine the impending cause of the end, a natural disaster so catastrophic it will have world-wide repercussions.  But will they be able to stop it? And if they can’t,  how can they save themselves?

Jensen does an outstanding job with this apocalyptic thriller. Bethany’s character is so brute and abusive,  yet I felt sympathy for her.  She is obviously unable to control her “power” and is forced to be a victim to her “disease.”  Gabrielle certainly has her own demons to contend with.  She’s still healing, physically and mentally, from the car-accident that took away her mobility.  As the first person narrator, Gabrielle’s character is the one with the most depth.

My only complaint would be the tempo of the book.  There was a bit of a lull in the middle of the book and I’m afraid this may dissuade some readers from completing it.  The middle segment of the book isn’t fluff, though.  It provides the reader with information that adds definition to each of the characters and delves a bit more into Bethany’s history. The ending does not dissappoint and definitely suggests a sequel.

I should also note that while the title refers to a Christian/Biblical theme, I would not label this as Christian fiction.  Religion is definitely an underlying theme but is not at all pervasive.

Also be warned that this book will haunt you for some time. It is a cautionary tale about what could happen to civilization if we are not careful about how we treat our planet. I literally could not get this book out of my mind after completing it.  I dreamed about it, I think of it several times throughout the day.  So, I do suggest that you pick up and read it, but be prepared for a lasting relationship!

Photo credit: Elizabeth Gorman

Please welcome Robert Greer, author of Spoon, as he discusses his vision for the novel.

My novel Spoon is as much a coming-of-age novel about a nineteen-year-old rancher’s son, TJ Darley, as it is about a mysterious loner’s clairvoyance and the changing landscape of the ranching community in the modern West. In the novel, loner Arcus Witherspoon, aka Spoon, befriends a Montana ranching family down on their luck. He helps the Darleys struggle against an attempt by a coal company to take over their land and along the way also guides their son toward manhood. Although the novel is best defined as a literary piece, I set Spoon in motion with an element of suspense. Perhaps, I suspect, because my skills as a writer hover around that sensibility. In a sense, I hoped to combine two things I have been trying to master for years into a single form: a novel of suspense and a literary novel. In Spoon, I paint a picture of a loner. A half-Indian, half-black cowboy adrift in the West, searching for his family roots. Spoon is a man who, it turns out, has the tenacity and wisdom to help others during his journey. The novel is not a Western in the genre sense of the word, but it is certainly a novel of the West and, as such, I have tried to make the story take in the broad western panorama that I suspect many people have in their minds when they think of the West. I imagine that there is a little bit of Arcus Witherspoon in me since I own a working cattle ranch in Wyoming and I admit up front that there is also some plot-related bias toward a rancher’s perspective in the book. In the end, however, as with all novels, the book is about people and characters, and they are ultimately the ones who navigate readers down any storytelling road.

Thank you, Robert, for taking the time to stop by.  For more information about Greer and his other pieces of fiction, please visit his Web site.

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing (October 1, 2009)
• ISBN-10: 1555916899
• Source: Publisher

Young TJ Darley was driving down a Montana highway when he sees a hitchhiker.  The man, half Indian and half Black, wore an expensive hat but no boots.  TJ slows down and picks him up. The man introduces himself as Arcus Witherspoon, or Spoon for short. He’s on a mission to discover his family roots.

When TJ and Spoon arrive at the Darley family farm, TJ convinces his father to give Spoon a job.  The Darley’s have been struggling to keep the farm running and and desperately need the extra help.

Spoon soon reveals  he is clairvoyant. Despite the obsurdity of the claim, for some reason TJ believes him.  Spoon predicts trouble for the Darley’s farm.  A drought is on the way.  Meanwhile,  family continues to get pressured by Acosta Energy, a coal company who wants to destroy the land by mining. Spoon and the Darley family family stand their ground, a decision that soon becomes life endangering.

Spoon continues his struggle to find his roots.  At the same time, TJ is desperately attempting to find himself as well.  His parents have planned for him to attend college and leave the farm, but is this really what he wants?  Spoon ultimately turns out to be a story of growth and discovery for both of these characters.

Greer has created a very compelling character driven novel of the American West  that intoxicates the reader with it’s very detailed and descriptive text. I’m typically not a fan of this type of fiction, but something about Spoon’s character pulled me in. Spoon was a very dynamic character with several layers of complexity. I wanted to learn more about this man, and Greer slowly reveals that throughout the novel.  That is my only complaint, I wish the pace was a bit faster.   In the end, I recommend this book to any fan of character driven novels or those about modern day American West.

About the Author:

Robert Greer is author of the popular CJ Floyd mystery series: The Devil’s Hatband, The Devil’s Red Nickel, The Devil’s Backbone, Resurrecting Langston Blue, The Fourth Perspective, The Mongoose Deception, and
Blackbird, Farewell, as well as two medical thrillers and a short-story collection entitled Isolation and Other Stories. He is a practicing pathologist and professor of medicine at the University of Colorado, and he owns a cattle ranch in Wyoming. Please visit his author website, www.robertgreerbooks.com.

On to the giveaway!  I have five copies of Spoon available!  To enter, answer the following question: Who is your favorite book character?

For extra entries, blog or tweet about it, but be sure to include a link to your post or tweet!  Contest will end next Friday, October 23rd.  US and Canadian residents, only.  No P.O. Boxes.