November Book Review: a She Reads Pick

Man in the Blue Moon

by Michael Morris

published by Tyndale House Publishers

Michael Morris’s Southern historical, Man in the Blue Moon, paints a rich picture of small town Florida during the Great War. From influenza epidemics and corrupt local authorities to the prejudices of gossiping neighbors and the frenzy of traveling evangelicals, Morris’s tale of one woman’s struggle for her family land and reputation is rooted in vivid detail that will woo lovers of period fiction.

Ella Wallace is at the end of her strength: her opium-plied husband ran off, leaving her with three sons and a mountain of debt on her family property. When a windfall grandfather clock shows up at the port with her name on it, Ella hopes she can manage to keep above water at least till the end of the war. The government is hollering for pine and cypress, both prevalent on Ella’s land. If she has to, she can sell wood. But from the shipment case springs not a clock, but an unlikely young man with demons of his own and a strange talent that will soon have the neighbors buzzing and the sheriff, in the banker’s back pocket, knocking at her door—and shooting at it. When a preacher rides into town claiming her land as God’s sacred Eden, and when old family enemies track down her new clock-delivered field hand and confidant, Ella must dig deep to find the strength and dignity to protect the lives of her three sons, salvage her reputation, and move beyond the emotional toll of her husband’s failings.

Morris employs an authentic sense of claustrophobia in Man in the Blue Moon, derived in part by an enormous cast of point of view characters rivaling those of much longer books. There’s no telling whose perspective might next take center stage, or what new plot thread might suddenly uncoil from an already dense thicket of narrative jungle. Subplots between characters take the spotlight for short stints and then fade into the background throb of nosey neighbor gossip and interior monologue. Even the pacing of the main plot mimics the slow mundanity of rural Southern life.

In that respect, Morris certainly accomplishes a certain realism with structure and style, adding to a chorus of colloquialisms and pitch perfect dialects. His literary flare is evident in striking descriptions of the natural world, and his use of suspense—scene-by-scene—lends a nice sense of movement to otherwise rather stagnating chapters.

Thus, a reader hoping for a quick, mindless jaunt into story or, on the opposite end, one hoping for total immersion and escape might be advised to look elsewhere. Anyone with a hankering for emotional connection to character will find the book delivers little substance to that effect. The novel’s strengths lie primarily in its detail and adherence to historical period.

Overall, Man in the Blue Moon would have been well served by achieving a better balance of fictional elements.

In the mood for heartwarming fiction?  Mosey over to the She Reads Book Club. Each month a lesser-known new release takes a graceful swan dive into the spotlight. This month's selection is Man in the Blue Moon by Michael Morris.

October Book Review: a She Reads Pick

Blackberry Winter

by Sarah Jio

published by Plume, a member of Penguin Group

Engaging from the get-go, Sarah Jio’s Blackberry Winter is a delightful mystery, like an elegant, loose-weave scarf. Wrap up in its rich, warm fibers of plot and character and find yourself lost in its love story, walking the snow-strewn streets of Depression Era Seattle, and racing for the nearest modern-day Starbucks or Pike’s Place Market café to learn what will become of a missing boy, a broken marriage, and a family secret, hidden for decades by money and power.

Vera Ray is a 1933 poor working woman with a fiery will and a single wish—to take care of her three-year-old son, born of a Cinderella love that ended less than happily ever after. The week following her son’s disappearance, Vera’s only lead is still her boy’s discarded teddy bear, found in the snow outside their old apartment. Desperate, out of work, near starvation, Vera will do whatever it takes to find him, even if it costs her everything.

Almost a century later, in present day Seattle, reporter Claire Aldridge has a week to cover a rare “Blackberry Winter,” a later-season winter storm reminiscent of the one that blew through in 1933. Not much of a story, she thinks, but she hasn’t been on her game since her devastating loss a year ago, and now her marriage is falling apart. Digging for an angle, Claire uncovers the mystery of Vera Ray’s missing child—and discovers the truth of that story is closer to home than she could have imagined. It might be just what the doctor ordered to resuscitate her career, her marriage, and her spirit.

The book's twin narratives are cleverly, if somewhat predictably, intertwined  Graceful prose is balanced against enjoyable dialogue. Ms. Jio’s Seattle is populated by disarming and sympathetic characters, whose chief failing, perhaps, lies in their having been cast in too perfect a shade of black or white—too good or too bad—to be perfectly believable.

But Ms. Jio’s cozy mystery doesn’t suffer too much from plot contrivance or coincidence, and on the whole, the story’s affect is quite pleasing. A quick read with a lot of heart, Blackberry Winter is the perfect pick for an autumn evening, as the nights grow longer and chillier. Bring out your steaming cocoa, pull up your comfy armchair, and prepare to disappear into the charming folds of this “mystery-slash-love story.”

In the mood for heartwarming fiction?  Mosey over to the She Reads Book Club. Each month a lesser-known new release takes a graceful swan dive into the spotlight. This month's selection is Blackberry Winter.

KENNING

Triangle light plays on carpet fibers
plays a dappled morning dance of still
shut blinds       and under
softly shut eyelids, a play
of kitty paws
                                                 purring


71 degrees. Feels like 68. Wind is
fair, rain unlikely, clear, clear sky
tells a story of Storm run off
with Heat,       left us
for another season
                                                 shifting


There in the boulder-buttoned wash
trot the merry javelina
tracks.       A yawning stretch,
front-n-center: the absence of sand.       And
under city-jaundiced clouds against changing
night: wordless, the practice of heartbeat
felt in fingers, absence felt
as fullness,       we knew
likely another shift
                                                  coming


Half in shadow, a snorting thump,
snout and hoof, then
a sudden stillness       full
on the path before you:
wind scent, wild scent, scent of
       sun
                                                 waking

and of clay and whiskered milk breath,
curious snuffle,       then kitty paws play dancing,
dabble in drawing a triangle of morning

light under eyelids.

                                                  somewhere, you know, it is raining
                                                  and somewhere not quite time

Book ReviewSeptember’s SheReads.orgPick-of-the-Month

If you’re ever in the mood for heartwarming women’s fiction, you might want to mosey over to the She Reads Book Club. Each month a lesser-known new release takes a graceful swan dive into the spotlight.

The Meryl Streep Movie Club

by Mia MarchGallery Books, a Division of Simon & Schuster

In The Meryl StreepMovie Club four women come together under one roof for the first time in years to remember the meaning of family and individual strength. After a tragic accident, matriarch Lolly must raise not only her own daughter Kat, but also her nieces Isabelle and June. Love can only go so far across the gulfs etched between these women by loss. Secrets cripple their relationships, and identities are forged not from within but from perceptions about others that may or may not be accurate.

When, grown and each facing choices that could alter their lives, they return to the inn where they grew up—full of regret and nostalgia, and tender moments, too—Isabelle, June, and Kat find they understand each other more than they ever imagined. They’ll need that understanding and newfound trust to see them through Lolly’s announcement. Already what they believed about their matriarch has changed radically: when they learn her secret—her part in the accident of so long ago—they must face their past in light of their own life choices.

We are the choices we have made, a line from one of the Meryl Streep movies they watch and discuss together each week, tumbles through Isabelle’s head. Weeks ago, she caught her husband cheating, but that shock isn’t nearly as surprising as realizing—after all these years—that she can choose what she really wants in life. That she deserves to follow after her heart.

June’s life took a wayward fork long ago in college. The love of her life now, her young son, still can’t fill that hollow longing inside her to find the boy’s father, to give her son a family. Her quest to fill that void spins her in and out of romance and ultimately leads her back home.

Dutiful daughter Kat, a baker with aspirations of touring Paris and of owning her own confectionery located in the bustle and energy of a city that isn’t her hometown, must weigh the comfort of easy love with the emotional necessity of realizing her dreams.

And Lolly, stern, proud, stronghold of the family, must learn to rely on her daughter and nieces, to let them inside her self-sufficient exterior, long enough to receive their forgiveness.

Although Mia March's plot twists and turns are often predictable, even cliché, her characters are full of life and longing and can, if you let them, touch your heart.