West of Mars\' Rocks \'n Reads

When I first came across Tamar Yellin’s debut novel, The Genizah at the House of Shepher, I was totally jazzed by its storyline: A woman comes across a spot in the family house that’s chock full of dead papers and important scrolls and other ephemera that takes the main character, Shulamit, on a journey through four generations of her family’s history.

There was so much potential in this concept…

My book club and I met last night to discuss how the story played out. I had grown a bit nervous, hearing from other book bloggers that we’d either love it or hate it. Those sorts of emotionally-evocative books may be a prize for us writers, but as the head of my book club, I’ve grown wary of them. There’s been more than one night that was described as “Us versus Susan.”

Most interestingly, none of us hated the book. We didn’t love the book.

We were completely befuddled by it.

In the end, we decided it hadn’t lived up to its promise. It read like a series of short stories that didn’t add up to a whole. That subplots were thrown in for no reason we could see. That the early pages, with its tales of Shalom Shepher and his wife with her pickles, were the best part of the book.

What was the point? The mission? Who walked off with the Codex, and how? If there were such good sparks between Shulamit and Gideon, were they distant enough cousins for this to grow? What happened with Shulamit, who seemed so unanchored, after this?

Lots of questions. No answers.

Best of all, though, no regrets for having read the book (which we’ve had in the past). Just a general disappointment we didn’t get it.

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If you’ve reviewed this book, let me know. I’d be glad to link to it, and/or discuss it in the comments. Maybe you caught something we, collectively, missed.

Karina Bliss’ What the Librarian Did is one of those books EVERYONE is talking about right now. It’s getting quite a bit of positive buzz. That was enough to pique my interest. But then something else popped up and I had to read this book.

The male hero is a rock star. Therefore, I had to pick up a copy via PaperbackSwap.com and see if this rock star dude meets MY standards. Does What The Librarian Did qualify for inclusion my list of Best Rock Books?

Devin does earn his spot… and he doesn’t.

For starters, let’s talk about the book. I like the triangle here. There’s more than just a rock star and a librarian, cliched opposites fighting their attraction to each other. There’s a son who doesn’t know he’s met his mother, and a mother who’s not sure how to tell him. Or how to act around him. Or… well, pretty much everything. Rachel has a real challenge put in front of her, and it’s a personal, introspective one. I like this twist. It potentially allows for some serious personal growth.

This subplot rules the plot. Heck, it’s the reason for the title. I like Mark, the son who found out only recently that he’d been put up for adoption at birth. I wish he’d been a bit more rounded out and a bit more real, but … what can you do in 300 pages? He does serve as a nice buffer for Rachel and Devin, and he more than earns his spot in the story. I like how he reacts to hearing the news of his parentage. How he gets two truths but still doesn’t understand the how or why of it. It is very real.

I had a few quibbles with Rachel, our librarian. I’d have liked to get to know her better; she’s got a mountain bike and she quite self-consciously refers to it (threatening to shove it up parts of Devin’s quite experienced anatomy), but I never see her as the mountain bike type. (I say this as a mountain bike owner, myself, even if I’m not one who’s first in line for the singletrack.) A mountain bike conveys a sense of adventure, a seeking of danger, and a confidence that your wheels can handle it all. Rachel never onces gives off this sort of vibe. At most, she bucks trends and wears vintage clothes that seem more frumpy and frilly than the left-of-center expectation opened up by that bike.

Now, here’s the real thing about the mountain bike: I’m grousing on it so much because it just doesn’t fit. Contradictions in a character make a character come alive, my writing professors often said. But this contradiction seems more planted by the author than demanded by the character. (All you writers will immediately get what I mean. You readers, when you read this book, think about it and you’ll get it, too.)

Back to Rachel: I have one big issue with her, and that’s that she’s shut off. We never get to see her open up, how Devin brings out the best in her and inspires her to take a chance. This is sad. We’re told about some changes, but … we don’t get to experience them with her. It creates a distance and since we don’t get to see it, when the final scene happens and Rachel takes a HUGE chance that leads to her happily ever after, it seems out of character. We need to see her take other chances along the way (and no, I don’t think riding on Devin’s motorcycle is an example of her doing exactly that. She’s too matter-of-fact about it for me to believe she’s stretching herself.).

Now. Devin. Our rocker. Yeah, I can buy a guy who’s about to literally drink himself to death who wakes up and realizes not only does he need to sober up, he could benefit from being a student. I can buy a rock star who moves halfway around the world to take care of his mom.

Know what I’m missing here? A difficulty adapting to this new, not-outrageous world he’s been forced into. Chagrin over his past antics. Mistakes made as he tries to fit in — real mistakes, like where he can’t figure out why he has to pay for food in the cafeteria; it’s not provided by catering and paid for by the tour manager. He adapts too easily. He’s not a fish out of water, and he should be.

I found myself longing for a hint of where he wants his life to go now that he’s been forced into this change. It’s not something he chose, not if he wants to stay alive. So where’s his mixed emotions? Where’s the longing to make music again? To be on that stage, under those lights? For the gritty side of the life? For the glamour? Like Rachel, he’s on a very even keel. Maybe too even.

But, again, we have that 300 page issue. You can only do so much and ultimately, this is a romance, not some of my beloved rock and roll fiction.

I have a question, too. We’re told Devin was sixteen when he joined his brother’s band. Did he graduate high school? If not, how’d he get into college? Yes, he gave the school a boatload of money, but was that enough to get them to overlook the small matter of an unearned diploma?

And then there’s Zander, his big brother, the stereotypic prick. Nope. I didn’t buy him for an instant, even though I’ve met his type more than a few times. I especially didn’t buy the bit about the jobs. I don’t mean the job he tries to strong-arm Devin into. The other one. It’s a nice gesture, but you know what? I don’t buy it. It’s too convenient — and too much of a break from the stereotypic character we’re shown. Again, this is an instance where contradiction seems forced.

You’ll have to read the book to see what jobs I’m talking about. I’m trying really hard not to spoil things.

Or am I? I mean, I said I liked this book, and now I’ve popped up with a whole slew of complaints.

What it gets down to, you see, is this book is packed full of the fun of a romance. No matter how you try to spin it, a good chase is a good chase, and both Rachel and Devin have deliciously wicked tongues and quick comebacks. Plus, I really got the sense that author Bliss knows her romance-writing stuff. She’s smart. It shows. I appreciate that. And I love the idea of the dragon tattoo on Devin’s arm, its tongue licking his knuckle… What an image. What a concept. I wish it had gotten more play.

Sort of like that mountain bike of Rachel’s.

Overall, yeah. I’d suggest you ought to read this book. But how I rank it as Rock and Roll Fiction? It falls a bit short of my standard — but then again, my standard is freaking high.

Read it. Set your own standard.

**The buy link in the book’s title will take you to Powells.com. Any purchase you make yields me a few pennies. Once those pennies add up, I’ll give a book away to you dedicated readers.

It began, on my part, as a joke. One of my Win a Book authors, TJ Bennett, was Tweeting about how she’d managed to come in under budget on her Christmas shopping list. I pulled a Trevor and said, “Oh, honey. All you needed to get me was a copy of your latest book!”

Truly, TJ wasn’t going to send ME a present. We both knew it.

But she seized on the idea and very soon, there was a copy of her sophomore novel, The Promise, waiting for me to slide it out of my PO Box.

So when I needed something to read before starting my latest book club book, I picked up The Promise.

Holy smoke, why aren’t more people talking about TJ Bennett? Why aren’t more people reading TJ Bennett?

In The Promise, she’s got not one couple finding their way toward love. Nope. One’s not good enough. TJ gives us TWO. That means she’s got four characters to juggle: Alonsa and Gunter, and Fritz and Ines. She does it well, using the Fritz/Ines relationship as a subplot. It also provides a nice subtextual contrast for Alonsa and Gunter, too.

As usual, I’m not going to say much about the plot. Gunter’s got it for Alonsa. She returns the feeling, but is worried about a curse placed on her back in the days when she was young and stupid (not to mention impetuous). And while there’s much about Alonsa we don’t know — or that I missed — she seems to have grown up very well, even if she’s filled with fear.

You can’t blame the poor woman. Even before she begins hanging around the soldier camps, she’s seen more death than any one person ought to.

Her story is one of overcoming fear. Of choosing to love.

It’s a great message, and it’s subtly done. This could have been terribly heavy-handed, preachy… all sorts of awful things. But it’s not. TJ, girl, you got it going. You make your characters talk to each other, they don’t fall into the deception trap, they face their problems, no matter how scary. And oh, the things they do for each other. These people will give their all for their partner — it’s not just the women who go to lengths for the men. Nope, there’s a lot of equality here. These people give all of themselves, and in return, they are given all of their partner.

Ahh, this is my idea of how real life ought to be.

So, yeah. TJ Bennett. A total hidden gem who’s going to be a huge romance industry one day. Mark my words.

** Just a small reminder: if you use the link to Powells.com and buy something — anything! — I’ll get a few pennies, which will add up one day and I’ll be able to afford to give a book away to you guys.

When Lisa Marie Wilkinson sent me a copy of her first book, Fire at Midnight, it was to thank me for the posts I’d made for her at Win a Book. This happens not often enough; authors sending books to me and Bridget to say thanks. We’ve read some great stuff, and (rarely) some not-so-great stuff. And we’ve appreciated the chance to experience it all.

Fire at Midnight was a standout for me. I loved the way Lisa Marie (Yep, we’re on a first-name basis) was able to take her plot to the point of cliche, only to pull it back from the (sometimes literal) precipice and spin off in a new, unexpected direction. I loved the plucky heroine and the complexity of the deceptions, the illusions, the way things folded over on themselves and unfolded in such surprising ways.

I told Lisa Marie that. Well, I gushed to her. And then, she read a piece I’d written for the Meet and Greet — and declared us Soul Sisters. (Yes, that link will take you right to it.)

If that wasn’t flattering (and encouraging) enough, she sent me one of the first, precious galley copies of her upcoming release, Stolen Promise. She valued my opinion, she said. I swooned.

I was promptly hooked at the first line: If she ran away again, her father would beat her.

Because you know she — whoever she is — is going to run away. Despite the risk, which is pretty great. I mean, we’re not talking about a spanking here, boys and girls. We’re talking serious beating, for committing a serious offense. And yes, we know all that from the first line.

Just like that, we’re off with Jade, a young Gypsy woman who’s running from a marriage to a man she knows deep in her gut is an abuser. We readers can’t help but sympathize with her fears — and her fears aren’t entirely self-centered, either. She’s got a sister to look out for, to worry about.

There’s more, too: as a Roma, she’s got the bigger picture to think about. Keeping the society alive. Her role within that drama.

Enter our first deception — and I haven’t talked to Lisa Marie about this theme she keeps returning to, which is this matter of mistaken identity and the need everyone in her books has to lie — in the form of a man named Evan. We readers can figure out pretty quickly that he’s the man who her father promises her to in lieu of the abusive Dimitri, but Jade? Nope. She’s too frantic, too worried about what will lie ahead. We can believe in her clouded vision; she’s focused on what’ll happen when Evan returns her to her Roma society.

Plenty lies ahead even before they reunite with the Gypsies, not just for Jade but for her sister, the fittingly-named Liberina and for Evan, too. More deceptions and misunderstandings. And an unmistakable pull between Jade and Evan.

Oh, yes, I get what’s going on between them. It echoes my own life, even the parts that aren’t romance novel-ish.

Jade and Evan, on the other hand, are all romance novel. These two need to find a way to meld their individual needs with the pull of society. They need to know how to fit into various societies, none of which will be particularly welcoming to two such as them. Too White and European to fit with the Gypsies, not White and American enough for the people who socialize at Evan’s Southern Plantation. Or are they?

I don’t just get the strength of the attraction — if one can call it a mere attraction, as it definitely goes deeper than that — I get Jade, too. She’s the sort of heroine I’d be, willing to mortgage her pride in order to get her sister away from a life with Dimitri — a life this heinous man has threatened to make miserable. And short. You know what I mean. You do.

There’s a darkness to this book that Fire at Midnight lacked.

Now, of course it’s not so dark that there’s not the Happily Ever After. I mean, hello? This is a romance after all. The fun in a romance novel lies in the way the characters navigate the obstacles thrown in front of them. It’s the thrill of the chase, on many levels, and in Stolen Promise, Lisa Marie gives us many levels, indeed.

Yep, I’m a fangirl. Expect to hear more about Lisa Marie Wilkinson. She’s proven in both of her first two novels that she’s a force to be reckoned with in the romance world.

I can’t wait to watch her grow and improve. ‘Cause as she improves, the world had better look out. She’s damn good now.