Fiction Reviews 2002
Fiction Reviews 2001

Vol. 2, Issue 1, January 2002

ELLI: COMING OF AGE IN THE HOLOCAUST
by Livia E. Bitton Jackson
Reviewed by Milli Thornton

I recently watched the latest Anne Frank movie on video where Ben Kingsley plays Anne’s father. This reminded me about the most memorable book I’ve ever read on the Jewish tragedy of the holocaust, written by a survivor of Auschwitz and Dachau.

Elli’s story parallels Anne Frank’s in some ways. In the spring of 1944, Elli and her Hungarian family still knew freedom. Elli was thirteen with the typical crushes on boys we all remember from that age. Then the S.S. came and Elli, with her blonde braids, escaped the gas chamber only to become slave labor for the Third Reich.

How Elli ever summoned the courage to write this book should inspire all of us to keep going through our struggles with fear of writing. Elli witnessed and lived atrocities and cruelties beyond what I’d ever read in any other book on the holocaust. That she somehow gathered herself together enough [at a much later age] to dredge up and share these memories with the world is a sheer act of bravery and love.

This book is definitely not light bed-time reading, but survivors of the holocaust [and other tragedies in human history] inspire our readership and respect.

Purchase Elli: Coming of Age In The Holocaust

CREWEL LYE by Piers Anthony
Reviewed by Jennifer Turner

When I read this book it was the first in the Xanth series; a string of fantasy books with one common, delightful thread—puns! From the Headstone that takes on the “head” of whatever is buried before it, to the flying baseball with bat wings that is a “baseball bat,” this book is packed with such plays on words.

As we follow Jordan on a quest to gather his bones and discover his history, we learn that he has been betrayed by a cruel lie, and his only hope to recover his once valiant status as a heroic knight is to gain the aid of a five-year-old girl named Ivy. Jordan’s talent is the ability to recover from any injury, as long as his body parts (or bones) are close enough together. But to unravel the mystery of where his bones are, they must first watch his past on a magical tapestry.

There are many novels in this series, but this will always be my favorite and has remained on my favorites shelf for over 15 years. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

Purchase Crewel Lye

Vol. 2, Issue 2, February 2002

THE STONE OF CHASTITY by Margery Sharp
Reviewed by Jennifer Turner

Margery Sharp delivers an hilarious tale of a tiny English village that is set on its ear when Professor Pounce tries to impress his colleagues. The Professor proposes to do this by introducing the “simple” people to the story of The Stone of Chastity. One escapade after another follows this well-intended but disastrous plan.

Will the women-folk of Gillenham show their true colors when crossing the slippery rock? And what of Carmen . . . the beautiful, charming, yet wild girl who has captured Professor Pounce’s eye? As the day of discovery approaches, gossip runs rampant over who will fall and who will be proven pure.

Margery Sharp is truly an author every writer should read. Her prose is not just clean, it’s brilliant. She wrote over a dozen novels and was generous with her thoughts on life and writing.

Purchase The Stone of Chastity

TO DISCOVER more about this terrific author and gain insight on how to write more humor into your own work, visit this discussion with Margery Sharp.

VOLK by Piers Anthony
Reviewed by Milli Thornton

“Not all Nazis were evil, and the Allies also kept death camps.”

Readers who are familiar with Piers Anthony’s fantasy series, Xanth, may be surprised to learn that Piers has written a serious novel rooted in real-life contentious issues.

Quality is a pacifist Quaker woman engaged to all-American college boy, Lane Dowling, when she meets his friend, Ernst Best, at the beginning of World War II. Quality ends up deep in the German war zone, hiding as Ernst’s lover and suffering cataclysms in her deepest beliefs. Piers Anthony not only makes this storyline plausible, he tells the tale with a haunting lack of sentimentality; leaving the reader reeling over the black and white truths we so often associate with the Nazis and the Allies.

Piers Anthony lived in Europe as a child, was deported in 1940, and raised a Quaker in the United States.

Purchase Volk

Vol. 2, Issue 3, March 2002

THE PRIZE by Julie Garwood
Reviewed by Jenny Turner

I am a huge fan of Julie Garwood's, and this is the book that started it all! The first time I read it, I fell in love and later, when Garwood had a lag between books (only because I read them voraciously!) I began to write my own tales to fill that gap.
THE PRIZE is a marvelously funny romance overflowing with action and suspense. After defeating three Norman soldiers sent to capture her and her home, William the Conqueror sends Royce, a warrior with a fierce demeanor (but a chivalrous and tender heart) to retrieve the Saxon beauty, Nicholaa. Caught between allegiances and passion for one another, their love grows in the dark shadow of treachery and blood. THE PRIZE is a fast-paced entertaining read that made me a die-hard Garwood fan. Highly recommended!

At rjjulia.com type in these keywords: The Prize Julie Garwood (anything less will turn up 440 choices!)

THE HUNT CLUB by Bret Lott
Reviewed by Milli Thornton

I usually don't go for novels about murder, unless they come highly recommended by someone with reading tastes not unlike my own. When my sister, Catherine, recommended this book, I sat up and took notice. Huger Dillard (a French name, which is pronounced YOU-gee) is the fifteen-year-old who narrates this story of murder, betrayal and family secrets. Despite things he doesn't understand, Huger's heart is intertwined with the life and fate of 'Unc,' Uncle Leland, made blind by a household accident. The accident was all the more dreadful because Unc lost his wife in the fire. But that's only the beginning of the dark secrets and tragedies that unravel slowly in this book. Slowly, because you feel every breath that the characters take--but quickly, also, because you'll read like a speed reader just to find out whether the main characters survive what is happening to them . . . not only in body, but in heart and spirit.

Purchase The Hunt Club

Vol. 2, Issue 4, April 2002

HER DAUGHTER'S EYES by Jessica Barksdale Inclan Reviewed by Milli Thornton

Can seventeen-year-old Kate and her sister, Tyler, keep a teenage pregnancy secret? What a preposterous question! Any mother would notice instantly the minute her daughter started to "show." But these girls--one being catapulted into womanhood by her swelling tummy --have lost their mother. And their father is so lost after the death of his wife, he practically abandons them to their own fate. The tense atmosphere increases on each page as you are taken into the mind and heart of Kate Phillips. Who is the father of the baby? The reader finds out just as the pace becomes even more cataclysmic for Kate and Tyler. When the baby is born, she is named for someone special.

Purchase Her Daughter's Eyes

MYSTERY WALK by Robert R. McCammon
Reviewed by Jennifer Turner

Robert R. McCammon creates a stunning character with Billy Creekmore, son of Ramona Creekmore, a one-quarter Choctaw native with the gift of second sight. Billy has inherited this terrible vision from his mother and sets out on a quest to discover his own soul. We are pulled into more intrigue as Wayne Falconer emerges as a character driven by the evil deeds of his father and pitted against Billy in a deadly battle of wills. Billy travels across the U.S., freeing the trapped and tortured souls of those the Shape Changer feeds upon. In the dark Alabama forest, in a burned-out Chicago Hotel, on an amuse- ment park ride, Billy tries to save the ghosts that will never let him rest until they can find peace. Haunted by dreams of an eagle of smoke locked in combat with a snake of fire, Billy presses onward. In a Mexican desert, Wayne must see the true path to light and lend his own force to Billy's as they enter the final showdown with the Shape Changer. A fast-paced, exciting read filled with diverse characters and told with seamless expertise, this book will keep the candle burning until the wee hours of the morning.

Purchase Mystery Walk

Vol. 2, Issue 5, May 2002

THE HEART OF A WITCH by Judith Hawkes
Reviewed by Jennifer Turner

Kip and Shelley Davies are twins. They live across the street from the Victorian inn, and as most children do, they sense a strangeness about the place. Their own family is boringly normal, and as the years pass, they feel the pull to discover the truth about the looming estate. Under the pretense of summer jobs, they find employment as wait staff, under the watchful, enigmatic owner. Kip, the more adventurous of the two, is the first to uncover the coven of witches and the magic that flows through the grounds. Sensing a much more sinister motive within the members of the coven, Shelley balks at joining, but eventually acquiesces out worry for her brother, and a morbid curiosity she cannot fight. As they become apprentices to the ancient craft and willing participants in its rituals, they begin to realize they are trapped in a dream world in which they might never escape.

Judith Hawkes tackles this tale of a coven housed in a Victorian inn with a special blend of first and third person narrative. The first-person narrative brought me closer to the heroine, and the third person narrative showed me the full compass of all she experienced. A delicate balance, but one Hawkes pulls off with dexterity.

Purchase The Heart of a Witch

A PLACE TO STAND by Jimmy Santiago Baca
Reviewed by Milli Thornton

Jimmy Santiago Baca is the recipient of major awards for his raw and emotional poetry. These awards are more special than the average literary awards, for they have been earned by a man whose literacy was hard won. After his parents abandoned him, he grew up in orphanages and detention centers. Jimmy landed himself in a maximum-security prison for selling drugs, with a no-parole sentence of five to ten years. His account of prison life makes prison movies look civilized. It is also the account of how Jimmy fought for the privilege to teach himself how to read--and then to write, by corresponding with Harry, a Christian man on the outside, and by writing poems for other cons in exchange for books. A PLACE TO STAND is a memoir of Jimmy's childhood, his career selling drugs, and his time in prison. The epilogue tells the shocking tale of his mother's death. This is not a pretty history, but it's an inspiration to all writers and a testimony to the human spirit. Visit Jimmy's website to buy the book and to read about his work with at-risk teenagers as founder of Black Mesa Enterprises.

Purchase A Place to Stand

Vol. 2, Issue 6, June 2002

THE EXORCIST by William Blatty
Reviewed by Jennifer Turner

Although most of us have seen (or heard of) the movie based on this novel, the book is an entirely different experience. Blatty writes in a style that is both engaging and fascinating. He uses prose in a unique way to give readers the feeling of sitting around a spooky campfire, listening to an ancient man relate the tale. For aspiring authors, or for anyone who's interested in the diversity inherent in voice and style, I recommend reading this book for the sheer intrigue. Blatty's pace and pattern are vastly different from anything else I've ever read.

Purchase The Exorcist

Vol. 2, Issue 7, July 2002

INTENSITY by Dean Koontz
Reviewed by Jennifer Turner

INTENSITY is just as suspenseful as its name implies. There is a serial killer on the loose, and he's headed for Napa Valley. After murdering a family (save for the young daughter he plans on taking with him), he leaves. But he's unaware of a heroic young woman, Chyna, who happened to be visiting her best friend's family.

The twists and turns of this book will have you holding your breath until the very end. Will Chyna be able to rescue her friend? And in so doing, will she sacrifice her own life? How will her experiences with a murderous stepfather and an insane mother help her get through the next 24 hours? Not so much a typical horror novel, this story delves into the complicated, and often more frightening, alleys and caves of the human psyche. An excellent book--but don't plan on getting much sleep if you begin reading it at bed time.

Purchase Intensity

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