‘The Mill River Recluse’ by Darcie Chan
October 28, 2011 at 12:21 pm by Enigma - Leave a Comment
The Mill River Recluse by Darcie Chan is a beautifully crafted story of how one reclusive woman’s past continues to affect the lives of those around her in ways that they would never have expected, with an unlikely host of characters coming together to find friendship and unexpected love.
‘Carry Yourself Back to Me’ by Deborah Reed
October 26, 2011 at 11:22 am by Enigma - Leave a Comment
Carry Yourself Back to Me by Deborah Reed is a beautiful story of family, love, loss and redemption. Just when it seems like Annie Walsh, a singer-songwriter who hasn’t picked up her guitar ever since her boyfriend left her for the woman with whom he’d been having an affair, has nothing left to loose, her [...]
‘Tiger’s Curse’ by Colleen Houck
October 24, 2011 at 1:52 pm by Enigma - Leave a Comment
If you enjoyed Twilight, you’re guaranteed to enjoy the Tiger’s Curse series by Colleen Houck. Blending traditional Indian folklore with a modern twist, Houck crafts a compelling series focused around one girl’s attempts to end a centuries-old curse. Kelsey Hayes, an ordinary American girl whose parents died several years ago, finds more than she bargained [...]
Christian Cantrell–The Best Sci-Fi Author You’ve Never Heard Of
October 13, 2011 at 3:11 pm by Enigma - Leave a Comment
Recently, due to budgetary constraints, I have been spending a lot of time perusing the plethora of 99 cent self-published books in the Amazon Kindle store. Sadly, I’ve discovered that most of them aren’t worth the money. I was quite pleased to discover one exception to this rule: anything written by Christian Cantrell. To date, [...]
A Review of “Eyes of Silver, Eyes of Gold” by Ellen O’Connell
October 3, 2011 at 9:00 am by Enigma - Leave a Comment
Eyes of Silver, Eyes of Gold is a historical romance novel based in Colorado during the 1880s. Even though they live in the same town, Cord Bennett and Anne Wells come from different worlds—the former, a half-Native American son of a wealthy rancher who has since fallen out with his family and is treated as [...]
A Review of ‘Never Let Me Go’ by Kazuo Ishiguro
September 29, 2011 at 10:00 am by Enigma - Leave a Comment
Never Let Me Go is a stunning and thought-provoking novel by Kazuo Ishiquro set in an alternate reality that revolves around the lives of three friends: Ruth, Kathy and Tommy. It is told from Kathy’s point of view, and follows the main characters, first when they are students at an exclusive boarding school, to adulthood. [...]
A Review of ‘The Book Thief’ by Markus Zusak
September 26, 2011 at 6:00 am by Enigma - Leave a Comment
The Book Thief is a marvelous novel detailing a girl’s, Liesel Meminger’s, experiences growing up in Germany just prior to and during World War II. It is narrated by Death, who in Markus Zusak’s skillful hands becomes a sympathetic figure, as he relates, among other things, the death of Liesel’s brother and the loss of [...]
Bristol Palin, Levi Johnston and the Airing of Dirty Laundry
September 25, 2011 at 8:00 am by Enigma - Leave a Comment
In the latest round of the seemingly endless mudslinging contest to which the Palins and their one-time sycophants have descended, Levi Johnston, in his upcoming autobiography Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin’s Crosshairs, rebuts Bristol Palin’s accusation in her autobiography, Not Afraid of Life: My Journey so Far, that their first sexual [...]
A Review of ‘All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost’ by Lan Samantha Chang
September 23, 2011 at 10:08 am by Enigma - Leave a Comment
I was not a fan of this novel. The story centers around two-would be poets, Bernard Sauvet and Roman Morris. The novel itself is written from Roman’s perspective. This may have contributed to my dislike of the novel, as Roman is an overly self-interested and self-absorbed character who seems incapable of developing genuinely reciprocal relationships [...]
How to Avoid Lawsuits for the Invasion of Privacy as a Novelist
September 20, 2011 at 10:00 am by Enigma - Leave a Comment
You might be surprised to learn that novelists can be sued for the invasion of privacy despite the disclaimer found at the beginning of almost any novel: “This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between the characters and real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and is not intended by the author.” What is [...]
A Review of Eileen Goudge’s ‘Once in a Blue Moon’
September 17, 2011 at 9:30 am by Enigma - Leave a Comment
Once in a Blue Moon details the reunion of two sisters separated during childhood by their mother’s incarceration and death, two sisters who have led very different lives—one, a recovering drug-addict struggling to regain custody of her little girl, and the other a bookstore owner who faces losing her home and business due to a [...]
A Review of ‘Gift from the Sea’ by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
September 15, 2011 at 10:26 am by Enigma - Leave a Comment
Gift from the Sea is a beautifully crafted memoir by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. As opposed to more traditional formats for either memoirs or autobiographies, Gift from the Sea takes the form of a series of essays in which Mrs. Lindbergh relates her own personal experiences and reflections to the shape of various shells that she [...]
Are Children’s Books Too Dark For Children?
September 14, 2011 at 3:55 pm by Enigma - Leave a Comment
After a quick perusal through popular children’s literature, you, as a parent, may come to the conclusion that children’s books are too dark for children. Case in point—The Hunger Games, an extremely popular children’s series that is marketed to children aged twelve and up, involves a Gladiatorial-style game in which the last child left standing [...]
Book Review: Sister by Rosamund Lupton
June 14, 2011 at 7:00 am by TinaMus - Leave a Comment
If you happen to be lucky enough to be on vacation next week, or the whole summer for that matter (jealous), then you might need a few books to include in your beach bag. Who wants to go and sit on the beach with nothing to do but sit there and…tan. OK, still bitter about [...]
Let’s Go Camping: RV Centennial Cookbook
A long overdue, four day weekend is coming up. Lots of people will head for the mountains, the woods, the lake, the hills or wherever they go when they need an escape. Getting away will mean cooking – sometimes over a campfire or in another vehicle, which might or might not be in an RV. To [...]
