Vector, a Modern Love Story

Today’s review is of the recently published novella, Vector, by author J.J. Brown. She has previously published a collection of short stories titled Death and the Dream, which I reviewed here. Vector is her debut novel.

Wealthy philanthropist playboy Michael Barnes has just returned from Johannesburg, South Africa. His physician, Dr. Emmanuel Victor drops in on him at his upscale EastVillage apartment on the eve of the soirée they will be attending, a benefit of The Barnes Foundation at the Waldorf. Dr. Victor is privately concerned with Michael’s ability to put in the required appearance and deliver the expected speech. We quickly learn that, though Michael appears normal to the casual observer, his health is in serious decline.

The story is further complicated by the unexpected arrival of Michael’s protégé: the girl in the golden coat, beautiful young opera student Eva Mascona, who is secretly infatuated with Michael. As naive as Michael is worldly, Eva believes Michael is not a cowardly man. But will that faith in him, and her obsession, prove to be her undoing?

Dressed in a beautiful purple gown pilfered from the stage wardrobe at her music school she follows Michael to the charity ball.

(Excerpt)

Eva slunk back behind a column to collect herself. She watched and waited. Her eyes burned and welled up with tears as she observed them, keeping herself concealed behind the curtains. Eva followed Michael’s every move. She was waiting. Watching, waiting, following. She wanted to intercept him alone. She had to see him alone. All other thoughts were consumed by one, that she had to have his attention tonight.

(Excerpt)

Eva didn’t notice where she herself was going, absorbed in the game of tracking him. She was in love. She had been in love with him for so long that tonight, she decided, was the one time she would not let him slip away form her. Tonight she was Musetta, and tonight, she thought, with the desperation of the obsessed, she could have anyone.

In a plot that echoes La Bohème, the very opera Eva is soon to perform in her stage debut, Vector explores the inequities of poverty, health care and the availability of medicine, alongside the modern day plagues of hepatitis C and AIDS.

Beautifully written and tightly plotted, Vector draws the reader in to the very real seeming world of the characters, and subtly notches up the tension as each vivid character is drawn inexorably toward their fate.

Word Count: 51,000 words

This writer’s strengths: subtlety, brevity, voice, characterization, and the ability to float effortlessly between characters points of view. This writer knows how to approach and tell story. She is strong on craft and spareness, vividly detailed description that supports the overall theme of the novel, and dialogue that sounds natural and is dusted liberally with interesting facts.

Who will like this book: Anyone who loves a seamless, tension laden story told in classic literary style. Readers who enjoy deeply investigated characterization.

Self published score: 97 out of 100. Vector contains a few editing mishaps: mainly the misuse of ‘lie’ where the word should be ‘lay’, a suit which was hung up during a scene, then later appears on the floor. The physical production of the paperback is very good: it is made of quality stuff and the glossy cover is interesting and feels nice in the hand. The layout and formatting are up to traditional standards. It’s available as a paperback or as an e-book.

Vector is a very entertaining, satisfying read, and I highly recommend it.

J.J. Brown was born in upstate New York and has worked in New York City for two decades as a scientist, author, educator and now publisher. Brown’s current author site and blog is http://www.jjbrownauthor.com  She studied writing with South African poet Dennis Brutus and genetics with Nobel Laureate Barbara McClintock, completing a PhD in Genetics on work at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories. The author has previously published in leading science journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Hepatology, and Genetics among others. Vector is her first published novel.

Vector may be purchased on Amazon.

Death and the Dream Review

Death and the Dream is author J.J. Brown’s first published short story collection. In 14 deliciously dark tales,  J.J. Brown minutely examines the kind of quiet, insidious horror that permeates our everyday lives. With Lovecraft-like creepiness Ms. Brown leads the reader into the darkest places of the human soul.

We meet a lost love, and perhaps a lost lovechild, in longing-infused Rabbit Nightmare, where we are led from a darkly dreamy East village bar jam session, to a midnight car ride out into the empty countryside directed by a ghostly passenger.

In Summer Off, a 10 year old, sent to stay in the countryside with an aunt, sets fire to a valley, for reasons even she cannot fathom.

Brooklyn Song gives a glimpse into the desperation of single mothers suffering both abandonment by their men, and the stultifying effects of the New York welfare system.

In Lab After Dark we watch as a young, driven, lab assistant inadvertently exposes herself, and perhaps others,  to radiation, all told with a kind of quiet simplicity that contributes to the reader’s unease.

Shepherd’s Night follows a young, embattled couple who hit a dog while driving in a blizzard at night, and wind up in an unexpected place.

Mouse Chimera, one of my favorites, begins: It all started as a rational and well-planned experiment in a set of rational, well-planned experiments. Told in a calm voice that belies, and therefore heightens, the subtle insanity, we see the mind-jarring atrocities committed on the terrified denizens of a university lab—by a scientist who is becoming conscious of the wrongness of it all.

I look like I’m in a hospital, somewhere where we swear an oath of “first do no harm”. But no, that’s not what we do here. Here nothing could be farther from the truth. It all relates to the same concept in a circuitous way, if you have long enough to think about it, long enough to make up some kind of internal dialogue. I have that kind of time tonight. (Excerpt from Mouse Chimera.)

Mother’s Love is another favorite. The flat statement: “People fall down stairs sometimes and die,” is masterfully juxtaposed for maximum effect with the eerie questions: “Where’s Old Louise?”… “Greta, where’s your grandmother?” in this story of a small family divided from each other by the burden of caring for an elderly member suffering dementia.

In Spring Awakenings, a middle-aged man with a gun tucked beneath his jacket leaves his East village apartment with his young, callow female lover.

Told with skillful economy, Author J.J. Brown creates a sensual, visceral world for the reader, using literary prose that nevertheless reads as easy and natural as breathing. Writers will especially enjoy her unique and inspiring style. Fans of psychological horror will delight in the stripped-bare, starkly-illuminated worlds of her stories.

Spider egg cases on the window tremble then bounce on the window glass with the shock of the old wood door opening as it hits the wall. The shed floods with light. Three-year-old Luna, her long braid swaying, steps over the door step into the shed and pulls the door closed behind her. She is momentarily blind in the darkness. She lifts her shirt to cover her nose and filter out the strong acid smell left by raccoons and mice. The shed is a closed box, damp and dark as a coffin. (Excerpt from Way to Heaven.)

Something awful will surely happen today. (Excerpt from Death and the Dream.)

Indeed. And Ms. Brown will most likely notice it, and write something haunting and beautiful about it.

Death and the Dream, by J.J. Brown. I highly recommend it.

J.J. Brown was born in upstate New York and has worked in New York City for two decades as a scientist, author, educator and now publisher.  She studied writing with South African poet Dennis Brutus and genetics with Nobel Laureate Barbara McClintock, completing a PhD in Genetics on work at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories. The author has previously published in leading science journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Hepatology, and Genetics among others. Death and the Dream is the first fiction publication from author J.J. Brown, with a novel due out later this year.

You can find author J.J. Brown at her website.

You can find Death and the Dream at:

Barnes andNoble

Amazon

Apple

**Free preview of 20% of the Book** at: Smashwords

And the winner is!

 

Sara Grambusch

Sara is the lucky winner of a copy of Dancing in Heaven, a sister’s memoir, by Christine M. Grote.

Congratulations, Sara!!

Your copy is on its way!

Dancing in Heaven

Book Review and Giveaway

When I was quite young I remember wishing, or maybe even praying, that I could share my life with my sister Annie. In the innocence of my child’s worldview, I suggested to God that perhaps I could take Annie’s place every other week. We could trade places and then she could have the chance to ride a bike, roller skate down the sidewalk, climb trees, have friends, go to parties and do all the things I loved to do. (Quote from Dancing in Heaven)

When Christine Grote asked if I would read and review her memoir, Dancing in Heaven, I was hesitant. I don’t read memoirs typically…and the focus of this one was a younger sister who spent her entire life brain damaged and paralyzed. Would the book be depressing? Would it be maudlin? I knew Christine was self publishing…would the writing be horrendous? Would the layout be a nightmare of typos and random odd formatting? I recall that I wrote Christine back and asked her how many pages the memoir was—figuring if it was short, I could get through it, no matter what. She graciously wrote back that it wasn’t long, 179 pages, and lots of photos, so it could be read in an afternoon or two. “Okay,” I said, “I’ll do it.”

I’m so glad I did.

Not only is this self published, non-fiction book polished and perfect…it’s a gripping read.

Christine uses a format for telling Annie’s story that I found fascinating. She begins with the phone call that alerts her that her sister Annie, now in her 50s, is not likely to live much longer. Christine intersperses the drama of Annie’s physical decline with remembrances of Annie’s life in such a way that, as the reader gets to know Annie, the release of her approaching death becomes something both dreaded and longed for, right along with the author. This back and forth between the past and present creates just the right balance and atmosphere.

Born only a short year after Christine, Annie is at first thought to be a ‘normal’ baby. It’s not until she’s fourteen months old that her parents become concerned that something isn’t quite right. They take her to specialists, who subsequently do a (now antiquated and obsolete) PEG test on Annie, which reveals brain damage. The compounding tragedy is that after the test Annie is left with lifelong stroke-like paralysis to her left side, and seizures.

Christine’s prose is straightforward and never intrusive. She has a knack for picking out the telling detail: the worn patch of carpet beside Annie’s bed where her parents stand to visit and care for their daughter; Annie’s mighty right arm and hand, and the sometimes hilarious, occasionally dire trouble she causes with them (once even resulting in Annie’s own leg being broken in a tumble down some basement stairs).

Dancing in Heaven is an intimate glimpse into the life of a family dealing with a situation that most never have to navigate. The devotion of Annie’s parents is an understated theme that runs like a bright thread throughout the story. Annie is included on camping trips and day outings to the beach. She is an essential part of this family. By the end of the book the reader sees she is, in fact, a kind of hub. A smiling talisman.

I think Christine Grote succeeded in her childhood wish: to give part of her life to her little sister. This beautifully written memoir took love and life to write, and its warmth and honesty will win Annie many new friends.

Dancing in Heaven. I highly recommend it.

If you would like a chance to win a copy of Dancing in Heaven, simply leave a comment below.  Drawing will be held on Monday, November 14^th!

Christine M. Grote earned a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Dayton, Ohio, in 1979. After working for several years in product development at Procter and Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio, she became a full-time homemaker as she raised three sons and a daughter. In 1999, Christine returned to school at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, Ohio, earning a bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in Written Communications in 2007. Christine lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband and their dog Arthur. She enjoys gardening, reading, traveling, and writing primarily nonfiction, human-interest stories.

Author website: christinemgrote.com  Twitter: @cmsmith57  Facebook – Christine M Grote

Dancing in Heaven is available at:

Amazon.com (print and Kindle)

B&N (print and Nook)

Createspace (print)

Smashwords (multiple ebooks) 

Skinny

A Book Review

I first heard of this book on Nina Badzin’s blog. I was intrigued by the voice of its author, Diana Spechler, who was being interviewed, and I enjoyed her replies and banter. So I was delighted when she asked me if I’d like to have a copy for review.

Skinny, by Diana Spechler

 Gray believes her behavior toward her obese father had a hand in causing his death. Their relationship was strained by her father’s refusal to accept her live-in boyfriend, Mikey, a comedian who the lawyerly father felt was not good enough for his daughter. Mikey is also not Jewish. And Gray’s father had become obsessed with religion, and a particular Rabbi’s counsel. Perhaps to thumb her nose at her father, or perhaps because she just likes the job, and is good at it, Gray becomes her boyfriend’s booker for his comedy act. Something she works hard and excels at. It leads her into the seedy night world of New York comedy clubs. Then her father dies, and the guilt sets in. She begins eating. 

            As long as the binge lasted I rarely answered my phone. I blew through deadlines. I attended no parties. I was busy. I was sick. I was consumed and consuming and unfit for public consumption. The things that normally moved me—were muted by the deafening call of ice cream and stuffed wontons and Cracker Jacks. The world would have to wait, or else trample me like a panicked crowd.

Gray gains weight. (The scenes of binge eating are disturbingly graphic, sensory and nauseating.) She pushes Mikey away.

As executor of her father’s estate Gray finds out about a secret life her father had: one involving another woman, and another daughter. Like any daughter would, she looks this other girl up online; peers into this other’s world, and tries to deduce what she can about her dead father’s relationship with her. Did her father love this other girl, cryptically named Eden, more than herself?

In an attempt to find out more and get to know her half sister, Gray gets a job as camp counselor at the bogus ‘fat camp’ for teens where Eden is enrolled. Gray packs everything she owns into the old car she inherited from her father and leaves New York, and Mikey, behind.

I won’t tell you the rest, since I don’t like reviews that give away the plot. But I will tell you the camp Diana creates is chock full of colorful characters who will draw you into their fears, and dreams. And, in a satisfying and touching twist of plot, Eden turns out to be something both more, and less, than Gray expects.

Diana Spechler’s prose is often surprising and fun, with literary flavors and savory bits sprinkled lavishly throughout. Her characters are fleshy and fully rounded.

All in all Skinny was a delicious read, and I recommend it.

Queen Defiant Review and Interview with Author Anne O’Brien

Anne O’Brien’s historical novel Queen Defiant whisks the reader into the world of one of history’s most fascinating and influential women. Married off at just 16 to Louis, monk-king of France, Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, must endure a cold and lonely existence in the primitive citadel on the Ile de la Cite. As queen of France life should be wonderful. But it’s not. Vibrant, educated, and used to the lush culture of Aquitaine, Eleanor cannot resign herself to the harsh, colorless life of Paris in the 12^th century. Her husband would rather spend his days, and nights, on his knees before the altar of Notre Dame, and the clergy who surround him dislike the new queen.

Eleanor does battle for control of her destiny with zealot Bishops and a Pope, she follows her husband on a crusade that ends in ignominy,  and fights off the wily machinations of a malicious eunuch, Thierry Galeran, who plots to keep her isolated and powerless. Eleanor perseveres through fifteen years of marriage with a man who rarely touches her, and then only out of duty and a desire for an heir for France.

Eleanor’s search for love and a man worthy of her leads her into two reckless love affairs. There she finds physical fulfillment, but no rescue from her predicament.

Eleanor’s quest for personal freedom eventually allies her with a man eleven years younger than herself: Henry Plantagenet, the nineteen year old Duke of Normandy and future King of England. Leaving behind her two little daughters by Louis, Eleanor obtains her longed-for annulment and flees Paris.

While her life with the remarkable and passionate Henry offers an end to her longing for a husband who desires her, we are left knowing this union will have its own challenges.

Ms. O’Brien’s prose is smooth and uncomplicated. Her characters’ speech is not overburdened with archaic expressions, yet still evokes the time period. She has obviously done a good deal of research and it makes this story pleasurable to someone like myself, who loves all things medieval.

I very much enjoyed reading this novel, and recommend it.

Below is my interview with the author.

Author Anne O'Brien

How long have you been writing historical fiction and how did you decide upon that genre?

I started writing seriously eight years ago.  I had tried my hand at short stories but decided that I should go for a full length novel.  I wrote historical romances for Harlequin Mills and Boon – ten in all, ranging through medieval, to English Civil War and Restoration, and Regency – but my ambition was to explore the personalities who had lived and shaped our history.  And so when I came across Anne Neville, wife of Richard III, I realized that I knew very little about her and decided to investigate.  This became her story in The Virgin Widow. 

And why history?  I cannot recall a time when I did not enjoy history, either reading it or visiting historic sites.  My academic qualifications are in history and I taught history in my previous professional life.  It seemed an obvious choice to me because the past can be so vivid with such marvelous characters and events to feed the imagination.  I have never regretted it.

Do you do your own historical research?

Yes, most definitely.  It is part of the enjoyment of the whole process, discovering the hidden corners of a character’s life as well as the general sweep of the time in which she lived.  I enjoy how new discoveries open up different possibilities in the plot, sometimes taking me in a direction I had not at first seen.  And when all the pieces fit together, it can be incredibly satisfying.

I use the internet – and increasingly so as more articles and documents are available, but I enjoy books far more.  I am a curling-up-with-a-book type.  I live near Hay on Wye, the book town on the Welsh border.  It is a splendid place for browsing and picking up books that add something extra or give a different slant on what I am writing.  The problem of course of doing my own research is that when I lose a reference, or can’t remember where I noted down a particularly vital event, I have to find it myself.  It can be very time consuming and infuriating – and I have only myself to blame for being careless in the first place!

How did you meet your agent?

I met my agent through the pages of the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook.  When I had completed The Virgin Widow I followed that pattern of many aspiring authors and sent out the first three chapters to agents who might be interested in the historical genre.  It was a lengthy and nerve-racking experience and I, like many others, had to be prepared to accept rejection.  It is all character very forming!  And such a very long process.  But eventually, success.  My agent Jane Judd liked my work and asked to see the whole novel – and the rest is history!  She has been an invaluable friend and counselor ever since.

What made you want to write about Eleanor?

I discovered Eleanor, many years ago when I first came across The Passionate Brood by Margaret Campbell Barnes.  It is a splendid novel of the Plantagenet family, focusing particularly on Richard the Lionheart and the mythical character of Robin Hood, but Eleanor made a striking appearance in it.  I loved the book, and this Plantagenet family had me enthralled for weeks.  I was delighted when it was reissued recently.  I read it again and discovered that it had the same charm as I had remembered.

And then I crossed Eleanor’s path again in the classic film Lion in Winter (1968), with Katherine Hepburn playing a magnificently aging Eleanor opposite an idiosyncratic Peter O’Toole as Henry.  They portray a stormy, volatile couple, unable to live together in peace in the final years of their marriage.  When I think of Eleanor as she was in later life, I still see and hear Katharine in that role.  The costume was excellent, and the atmosphere of those turbulent times in the twelfth century was very powerful.  I was hooked.

The idea for a novel about Eleanor did not come until two years ago – 2009 – when Eleanor’s early adventures were so compelling that I felt I must write about them.

What did you find out about Eleanor that was unexpected?

I think it was the scale of the opposition to Eleanor that surprised me. The Frankish court had always made derogatory comments about the Aquitainians, finding them louche and ‘better feeders than fighters’ but Eleanor’s frivolous nature and appearance, and her dabbling in politics, earned her condemnation on a far more personal level from Louis’ minister Abbot Suger and from the church in the form of the saintly Bernard of Clairvaux.  On crusade, her reputation was irreparably ruined when blame for the French losses was placed at her door.  The vicious rumors about her conduct and private life were many and long lasting. 

It struck me that Eleanor must have had remarkable spirit and self-belief not to be affected by this chorus of antagonism.  And yet from all we can discover she held her head high and overcame it all.  For a woman living in the twelfth century, even a woman of noble birth, she was truly impressive.

What book of yours is your favorite?

A difficult one!  I have a very soft spot for Anne Neville because she was the first character I researched and wrote about in depth.  I think she will always remain very close to my heart.  But Eleanor is the one who spoke most loudly to me when I was writing Queen Defiant.  Her character was well formed from the very beginning, and I felt that she drove my writing through to the end.  I think she is my favorite character simply because she is so full of vitality, and perhaps will always be.  Perhaps until my next heroine comes along …

What are you working on now?

My next novel for release in 2012 is already complete and with my editors at NAL.  It is The King’s Concubine.  The ‘heroine’ is Alice Perrers, the notorious mistress of King Edward III, of whom we know very few actual facts, only what was said about her in her lifetime.  I felt an urge to write about her because she has such a bad press from her contemporaries and I thought that no one could be quite as thoroughly bad as she was painted.  Her critics, of course, were all men who resented her pre-eminence, so that encouraged me even more.  I thought I should give Alice the opportunity to speak out and put her own side to the story.  Not that she was whiter than snow.  Alice proved to be a heroine not in the usual mode.  I found it a challenging experience, but a fascinating one.

I am now taking my first steps into the life of Katherine de Valois, the wife of King Henry V.  She is very different from my previous heroines, experiencing a life of both tragedy and happiness.  I am enjoying discovering about her, and I do not think that she was as lacking in spirit or intelligence as she has sometimes been portrayed.  Early days yet.

What are you reading now?

I am reading an early copy, for endorsement, of the debut historical novel The Sister Queens by Sophie Perinot which will be released by NAL next year.  I knew very little about the two sisters, Eleanor and Marguerite of Provence, who became Queens of England and France.   I am finding it most enjoyable as it opens a window into life and politics in the two courts in the 13^th century.  It is certainly a novel to look out for.

Tell us something about yourself that no one knows.

Oh dear!  Is this baring my soul? 

I am something of a control freak when it comes to writing.  I like lists which I can check off as I have completed tasks I have set myself.  I have to get up early, when all is calm and quiet, and deal with admin and emails, and social media.  Then I can concentrate and enjoy getting down to writing.  If something interrupts my early morning planning, I am not happy!  I enjoy holidays of course when I am not writing and can relax – without any lists at all! – but otherwise I am a lost cause.  I accept that I have to be organized – and it works for me.

This ‘control freakiness’ is not something I usually admit to – and now all your readers know!

If you would like to purchase Queen Defiant simply click on the photo of the cover in the sidebar.

If you’d like to become a fan of Anne O’Brien she can be found on Facebook and on Twitter.