Monday, January 31st, 2011
The husband’s Color Nook is now MY Kindle!
Archive for January, 2011
Sunday, January 30th, 2011
We have nine broccoli plants and all but two finally have fruit, er, vegetables!
Saturday, January 29th, 2011
Have I mentioned my love for Texas valley grapefruit?
Friday, January 28th, 2011
I have a perfectly good desk with a big 21″ monitor in the office I share with the husband, but I’ve taken to spreading out across #1 Girl’s desk that’s “stored” in the dining room while she’s living here.
Friday, January 28th, 2011
On a cold morning in January, 1856, Evelyn Atherton’s Knickerbocker husband is found murdered. Having “married up” into New York society, Evie instantly becomes the prime suspect. To clear her name, she must retrace her steps; it is a dangerous journey that takes her deep into the strange world of spiritualists and séances, and ultimately to a man who had great influence over her husband: the renowned, charismatic medium, Michel Jourdain. Evie’s working class instincts tell her that the smooth-talking Jourdain is less of a mystic and more of a charlatan—and she vows to expose him.But getting close to the enigmatic Jourdain means embracing a seductive and hypnotic world where the clues to her husband’s murder come only from the dead. Quickly embroiled in a perilous game where she is equal player and pawn, predator and victim, Evie finds there is no one to trust, perhaps not even herself. And as the law and society join ranks to condemn her, Evie must race to uncover the ghosts of her past—and to find answers in a world she knows can’t possibly be real….
I chose this book for my reading challenge because it was originally published in 2008 and was already on my iPod, and because I needed a female author since I’d just finished a book by a male author. I bought it and read it on my Kindle app.
The day I began reading this book I posted to Twitter:
Sometimes you start reading a book and the language and voice is so gorgeous the world slips away.
To be blunt, there are not a lot of authors who do this for me, but Megan Chance is one. She’s one I wish wrote faster, so I could selfishly gobble up more of her books, but instead I anxiously await word of new works because I know the time it takes her is the reason her books sweep me away. I finished this one on Sunday and am still caught up in the world of Evie and Michel and 1856 New York. That is Megan’s skill.
I know my “reviews” read as if written by an author, but that’s what I am. I was a reader first, as authors are, but having been a published pro now for eighteen years, it’s impossible for me to look at any work of fiction without seeing it, reading it as an author. And it’s why I love picking up a book that teaches me something, that makes me aware of what my own work is missing. THE SPIRITUALIST did that for me.
There is a saying that the husband quotes to me when we talk plot. (And, yes, he’s my plotting partner, and is the best one ever.) It’s a saying I forget, or maybe, mistakenly, haven’t considered important since I write character driven stories. Know what? ::shaking head:: Doesn’t matter. Plot driven, character driven, big books, small books. This should apply to all. I found the quote on Paperback Writer’s blog:
In Craft & Technique, one of Paul Raymond Martin’s little writing instruction books that I keep pushing on other writers, he said something that simplified the whole business of plotting beautifully:
“There are three elements to every plot: Get your character up a tree. Put tigers under the tree. Get your character out of the tree.”
I don’t know if Martin is the original author of the words, or if he grabbed the concept out of the ether and refined it in his book, but I don’t surround my trees with tigers often enough. I may get my characters up there, cause them problems, but I don’t add in the big element of danger. And even character driven stories need that danger.
Because I read this book on my Kindle, I didn’t have the back cover copy to know that Evie was going to become the “prime suspect” in her husband’s murder. The moment she did, the flaws in my own writing lit up like neon signs. I actually went to the husband and said as much, and he gave me the all-knowing smirk he does well. *G*
What I loved best about this book: I did NOT know who to root for. I did NOT know who was good and who was evil. I guessed the murdered husband’s secret early on, but that was it. I thought I knew this or that, and in some cases got it right, but the big reveal came at me with a WOW. The twists and turns caught me off guard.
Because I write, I can often see how an author broadcasts what’s to come. It’s a tough skill to master, not making those dropped hints obvious, but planting them so the reader can later go, “A-ha!” In THE SPIRITUALIST, Megan has done so and brilliantly. Tiny tidbits of information that seem incredibly innocuous (i.e., conversations with friends at soirees) come back to bite Evie big time. And I loved it. LOVED it.
The entire book is a lesson in subtlety. AND … it is SEXY! Woot! Publishers Weekly called it “an erotically charged chiller.” The setting and world of early New York City is mesmerizing. The details of society, the influence of the “upper ten” over the police, the actual power those in society had over everything. What a time to have lived, and can’t say I would’ve wanted to, if not one of the privileged. If you ever saw the movie The Gangs of New York (which I also love), this is the same time period.
A big recommended thumbs up to this one (in case you couldn’t tell)!
Wednesday, January 26th, 2011
