Oh, this held so much promise. I wanted to swoon, wanted to love this Gothic fantasy, a dark, and supernatural tale set in the 1800s. After all, this is the type of book I like to read during the cooler months, especially for Carl's RIP celebration. Unfortunately, this just didn't work for me, but McOmber's writing is so beautiful, I do plan to pick up his next book.

Set in the 1800s in England, Jane Silverlake's friend, Nathan, has disappeared under questionable circumstances, last seen with a cult led by a local mystic named Ariston Day. Jane's never had friends, and when she was young, she was fairly sequestered with an absent father and cold servants, destined to walk the heath and the grounds, until she met a spirited and independent young woman named Madeleine. Maddy and Jane became fast friends with Nathan, and their bond strengthened as they grew older, and soon Jane is comfortable to share her gift, one she always felt was a curse. Jane has the ability to feel, see, and hear the souls of objects that are man-made, which can be overwhelming in certain urban situations, but is hushed by nature. This gift simultaneously intrigues Nathan and horrifies Maddy, and Nathan's urge to learn more sets him on a path to potential destruction when he gets involved with Ariston Day's cult, resulting in his startling disappearance. Jane and Maddy begin their own investigation for Nathan, desperate to find him before he is hurt or worse, but the time to locate Nathan and save Jane from Ariston Day's threats becomes a rush of secret meetings, hidden journals, broken hearts, and supernatural elements.

The time period is represented incredibly well and, at times, it read as though it was written during the 1800s, which was refreshing. The White Forest contains such a delightfully eerie atmosphere and unique premise and setting, evocative descriptions and moments, that I was immediately pulled in. Sadly, several elements felt out of place for me, more so towards the latter half of the book, and I ended up quickly rushing through the last sixty pages. McOmber also inserts multiple flashbacks into the "current" narrative and within the same paragraph, which, without some break, became confusing. I wish a line break had been included to delineate easily for the eyes that the event occurred in the past. I wound up spending a good bit of time during all of the flashbacks reminding myself that it happened before Nathan's disappearance.

I also don't need to like a main character, or any character (i.e. Gone Girl) for me to love a book. Jane especially disappointed me and her excuse for why she treated her servants horribly seemed more of a hasty afterthought. Let me clarify: Her servants were so afraid of her, that as a child, Jane was kept locked in a room for hours at a time. It wouldn't bother me one bit if Jane treated them badly, but the explanation of the locked room seemed a last-minute insertion. The one remaining servant was absolutely terrified of Jane, so the biting comments came across as Jane being privileged and snooty, which was how she seemed most of the time. I can't share detailed thoughts on Nathan or Maddy since it might give events away, so suffice it to say it was frustrating Jane liked them at all. This book started off so wonderfully, but tapered off into a disjointed and distant story. The annoyance for the characters, jarring flashbacks and a bizarre ending, left me off kilter. My usual willing suspension of disbelief just didn't take over this time.

Just remember this...

I am only one reader in the vast sea of reading enthusiasts. If this book sounds interesting to you, I would encourage you to pick it up. No two readers are alike. The premise is unique, the writing beautiful, and if you want to see positive reviews, check out Barnes and Noble, Goodreads, and LibraryThing; there are more than enough examples of reviews by other readers who love this eloquent tale.

As I mentioned at the top of this post, because McOmber's writing is so especially beautiful, I will definitely pick up his next book. Check out the passage below.

Passage of Note

I can see the two of us on the day we journeyed toward Mother Damnable's cottage. We were like figures in an oil painting, nearly devoured by the blackish greens and golds of the Heath. The rolling landscape fell away toward the south where a smoky brown fog hung over London. I held my wrap against the chill breeze, following Nathan's sharp and sturdy figure along the sandy path through the fallow. The Heath was rife with brake ferns, furze, and ugly dwarf trees. Neither Hampstead Town nor St. Pancras was visible, and I felt adrift in the silence of nature. There were no objects - no clamor. Such absence should have provided solace, but instead I found it disturbing. (p.150)

Others said:

If I've missed your review, let me know and I will link to it here.

Publisher: Touchstone, a division of Simon & Schuster

Release Date: 9/11/12

Pages: 303

FTC Disclosure: I checked this book out of my local Virginia Beach public library.

About the Author

Adam McOmber teaches creative writing at Columbia College Chicago and is the associate editor of the literary magazine Hotel Amerika. Stories from his collection This New & Poisonous Air have been nominated for two 2012 Pushcart Prizes.

Visit the author:

• On his website

This is another selection for Carl's RIP VII celebration. For other participants' reviews, please click here.

My, my. I admit I snobbishly scoffed when it first came out (although I do profess to love the original cover), but a recent perusal on an Audible.com sale swung my way with this Abe Lincoln story available and I thought I'd take a chance. I couldn't believe I would finish it quickly and love every second. I never should have bypassed this when it first came out.

When an unexpected and mysterious visitor arrives late one night, the fictional version of our real-life author, Seth Grahame-Smith is allowed to review the secret journals of Abraham Lincoln. Told in a combined historical discussion of studious research, along with Abraham Lincoln's personal diaries, the story of Lincoln learning the truth of vampires after his mother is killed is riveting and suspenseful, and just a teensy bit creepy. His vengeful motivation to rid the earth of the scourge of vampires is tempered by the reality of his vampire friend, Henry, who reminds him that Abe should in fact, "not treat them equally" as one is not the same as the next.

I was surprised by this adventurous tale. After the recent audio book flop I experienced, this picked up my mood considerably. I loved the connections of the real Lincoln moments in history with the tangled tale of vampire-hunting. Quite frankly, I can't wait to see the film.

If you're a hard-core Abraham Lincoln historian, then it goes without saying that you should just enjoy the story and not take it too seriously. It's a well-written and absorbing ride through Abe's life and while I'm no expert, the events that I was acquainted with seemed to ring nicely with the imaginative fiction tale set forth by the author.

This was fun, it was occasionally creepy with some good background music in between a chapter or two, and I was surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did. I'm looking forward to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies coming up soon in my audio library.

Audio Notes: The narrator, Scott Holst, was absolutely fantastic. I've never listened to his voice before, and while the change between the "author's" voice and Abraham Lincoln's wasn't that different, it worked for me and I had fun with the entire production. I'm interested to listen to more from him. Click here for the Audible.com sample.

Publisher: Hachette Audio
Release Date: 03/02/10
Audio Time: 10 hours, 18 minutes
Narrator: Scott Holst

About the Author

Seth Grahame-Smith is an American author of the best-selling books Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter which has been released into a film. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and son.

The radio was her lifeline, the games her life preserver. Without them to look forward to, she thought she would simply give up. (p.174)

Do you remember when you were a little kid, say around nine-years-old, and your dark bedroom was scary? With the covers up to just below your eyes, you'd listen to every creak or see the moonlight shift the shadows throughout the night and think that something was in there with you. Now imagine again that you're nine-years-old and you have this fear, but let's pretend you're not in your safe bedroom at home, but instead you're lost. Lost in the big, bad woods in northern New England that stretch for hundreds of miles and you cannot find your way out.

With one older brother, Peter, together they've moved with their mother into a new neighborhood after their parents recently divorced. Trisha and Peter only get to see their father every other weekend or so, and only then is when she can talk about baseball, and her love for her favorite baseball pitching closer, Tom Gordon. When they're not visiting their father, they attend their new school and visit a museum one weekend, the movies the next. Divorce is never easy, and their mother is trying to make things as much fun as possible to make the transition easier.

On a clear day, Trisha, Peter, and their mother go on a new venture and take a hike through the woods. With a few supplies and food for the day, they begin their trek. It's only when her mom and Peter are in yet another argument about the change in schools that Trisha decides to slip off the trail to use the bathroom. Without telling either of them where she's going, she steps off the path and makes her way  further into the woods to find a private spot where no one can see her. When she tries to return to the path, she realizes she's turned around and doesn't know where to go. With a fateful step in the wrong direction, she gets immediately lost and begins a journey that will make her grow up much, much too soon. Carrying her meager supplies and a small Walkman that brings her the Red Sox games on AM stations, Trisha's coming-of-age tale with thoughts of her family, the divorce, baseball, and survival, is heart-breaking. I was absorbed in this story and cheered for Trisha, hoping that she would somehow make it out and be back home with her family. I was struck yet again by how Stephen King can just tell a story and make it feel so real.

And there's just something about the way Stephen King writes about kids that makes you feel like you're always choking back tears.

I loved everything about this story. While I missed how Stephen King brings the back story of minor characters into the mix of it all, I was completely okay with that because the overall story is so refreshingly different than what he's done before in the books I've read this year. The story of a nine-year-old relying on herself to survive, battling the elements and her own inner doubt, coming to terms with divorce and the change in seeing her father consistently because of it, her love of the Red Sox and particularly Tom Gordon, was all incredibly genuine and touching. When Trisha listens to the Red Sox games on the radio, my heart broke, and when she began to see visions of Tom Gordon accompanying her through the woods in his baseball uniform, it broke a little bit more.

This is one of Stephen King's books that seem to pit fans on one side of the fence or the other. A quick scan through the StephenKing.com fan forum reflects this polarization and a lot of it seems to come down to whether or not it's good because it does, or doesn't, include a strong supernatural element. Granted, there was just enough to cut your teeth on, but this was not a horror story at all; rather, it's a story of a little kid's survival through the woods of New England all on her own. With her limited knowledge of things that you can eat in the wild, she makes a lot of good choices and some bad ones. Some fans feel Trisha acted a lot older for her age, but I honestly didn't think so. I felt like it was a good representation of the body and mind willing itself to survive, fighting death no matter what, and I could completely believe that a nine-year-old who might be lost in the woods during the summer might be able to make it through, and I was hoping for it. It didn't seem like such high-falutin' nonsense to me. Her thoughts were "young-like," especially her own chatter to herself when she needed to hear a voice. Even if she was talking to the reassuring image of Tom Gordon in his Red Sox baseball uniform. It all fit just right.

If anyone read Lisey's Story, part of me thinks that maybe Trisha got lost in the land of Boo'ya Moon.

Final Thoughts? In comparison to Stephen King's chunkster books, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a quick read at 219 pages and is daggone good. It would be a good selection for those who want to try Stephen King but don't want to start out with his books that include supernatural elements.

Image credit

Tom Gordon was the Red Sox closer for a few seasons, and man, he was good. Pitching with the likes of Derek Lowe and Tim Wakefield, it was Tom Gordon who was brought in at the end to seal the deal, his famous finger-pointing to the sky acknowledging the one above for the win. Trisha's fan reverence of Tom Gordon centers around his consistent talent and his incredibly calm demeanor as he looks in to the catcher, Jason Varitek, for the signal, swirling the ball behind his back before his wind-up. It's this strength in "stillness" before the pitch Trisha's always admired and what she now needs to rely on within herself in order to do everything she can to make her way out of the woods.

Publisher: Scribner
Release Date: 1999
Pages: 219

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is now also a pop-up children's book and was being discussed for a film adaptation, but looks like talks on it have stalled.

About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty novels, including The Stand, The Dark Tower series, It, The Shining, oh...what more can be written that one doesn't already know. So here you go, click here to visit this wicked cool author's official website.

The Stephen King Project. My education (and others') continues! The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is another selection for the challenge Kathleen and I are hosting. The site can be found (with other participants' reviews) here.

Lauren Oliver, Young Adult author of the best-selling books Delirium and Before I Fall, has taken the middle grade reading world by storm with the newly released Liesl & Po, a story of adventure, ghosts, family, and friends. With a gorgeous raised cover and deckle-edged pages, along with beautiful illustrations by Kei Acedera, it's a work of art and obvious to fans that Lauren Oliver's new venture won't be her last.

Locked in the attic by her stepmother for months while her father is sick, Liesl keeps herself company by drawing pictures by her window. When her father dies, she gives up her drawing completely, but before a week has gone by, Po and Bundle show up in the attic. Liesl's not sure if Po is a boy or a girl, and if Bundle is a cat or a dog. One thing she's certain of: They are most definitely ghosts.

In exchange for Liesl to begin drawing again, Po will try to find her father on the Other Side and pass the message that Liesl loves him. And while Po does find her father, it's the message that has to be delivered back to Liesl that is even more important: He wants to go to the willow tree. Immediately, she knows it's their old house he's talking about, so she escapes from her attic to take her father's ashes there. Little does she know that the box she thought was carrying her father's ashes is actually carrying powerful magic  and the little mix-up was because of Will, a boy Liesl meets after her escape. Together with the ghosts Po and Bundle, they begin the journey back to Liesl's old house to help put her father to rest, encountering one adventure after another along the way.

I won this Advanced Reader's Edition from the author's blog a few months ago and can't believe I didn't read it sooner. Let's face it, Lauren Oliver is a fabulous writer and this example of her work is no different. Set in an unknown city in a world that hasn't seen the sun in over five years, the story has a successful and beautiful mix of magic, humor, ghosts, family, and friendship. With descriptions evoking a sense of loneliness and sadness, combined with gorgeous illustrations, Liesl, Po, Bundle, and Will are at the heart of a very sad, but hopeful and sweet children's story.

Since I didn't read it right away, I sent it to my nine-year-old niece, "E." Even though I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it to middle grade children and older, why listen to me? Take it from my niece, "E," who wrote the below answers herself.

______________________________

An Interview with "E" and her thoughts on Liesl & Po

About the interviewee: "E" is nine-years-old and lives... somewhere in the world. She likes her dog, her guinea pig, school, ballet, and gymnastics. She reads all the time, too. She likes books that are about magic and history.

Question: What's your favorite part of the book?
E's Answer: When Liesl gets Po to help her escape from the attic when they bring her breakfast up! The maid thinks it's creepy when she has to go into the attic. And instead of her just sleeping in her bed she is sitting straight up and Liesl is like hello, and then the ghostly figure pops up and says boo! The maid is very frightened and Liesl and Po get to sneak out of the room and escape.

Question: What did you think of the illustrations?
E's Answer: I really liked the illustrations and it was all in black and white but it should be because their world has no color anyway! And one of the illustrations I liked a lot because it showed Po and Bundle and you really got the idea of what they looked like in their shadow form.

Question: Who is your favorite character?
E's Answer: My favorite character is Po. I like how he sometimes will have a different perspective than Liesl. Liesl will think something and then Po will think differently about it and I also like how Po communicates with Bundle without even speaking out loud.

Question: Would you read another book by this author?
E's Answer: Yes!!

______________________________

About the Author

Lauren Oliver was previously an editorial assistant at a publishing company in New York. A graduate of the University of Chicago and the MFA program at New York University, she is now a full-time writer and lives in Brooklyn, New York. Before I Fall is her first novel and Delirium is her second. Liesl & Po is her first middle grade story.

Visit the author's website by clicking here.

Visit the author on Facebook by clicking here.

Follow her on Twitter by clicking here.

Follow her on her blog by clicking here.

Kid Konnection is a weekly feature hosted by Booking Mama. I'm posting a little early for my first time participating in this meme, so click here to see more of this week's suggestions for children's books (YA, middle grade, or picture) from participating bloggers.

This is my sixth selection for Stainless Steel Droppings' hosting of the RIP Challenge VI. You can read more RIP reviews from other participants by clicking here.

To be honest, I was pulled in by the book cover.  It's haunting and spooky, and with the premise of a young bride in Oklahoma being given a stately mansion by her rich and snobby in-laws as a wedding gift, the site of a mass murder thirty-some years before, it was right up my alley.  Sadly, I just couldn't get into this book at all, and for one very specific reason.

Quick overview:  The first few pages were extracts from the news about a mass murder of an entire family (father, mother, children) which happened in 1975 in the Willet home, and the horrible crime was committed by the mother.  Another news excerpt identified that two boys in 1986, had gone to the now-abandoned home, and for whatever reason, ended up in the empty pool, falling from the tree branches above. One boy broke both his legs.  The other boy died.  The boy who survived never spoke about what happened.

Fast forward to today.  Leann is a seventeen-year-old girl, and the self-proclaimed "prettiest girl in Dalton, Oklahoma."  She's getting married to George Willet, whose family is the richest in town and owns the house that everything happened in -- and her brother was the boy who had died back in 1986.  Not the easiest of situations to be in.

What an intriguing and spooky idea.  I was excited to begin reading this, but within the first few pages I was struggling. Although a quick read, the book is told from Leann's perspective. The issue that I had with it is that not just the dialogue, but the narrative itself, is written in a very casual voice, which is fine except that one may consider it to be a very stereotypical Southern-style voice and dialect.  And not just through conversations, but throughout the entire book. Which, while I enjoy reading books set in that region, or reading character dialogue that is structured that way, I found it increasingly difficult to read a book in which every sentence is structured in this manner.  And one thing I couldn't figure out - I wasn't sure why every time a character spoke, their dialogue was always in italics?

Here's an example of the narrative:

Daddy says that they is arranged that way so's the Willets' men can keel over on the golf course and be buried two yards away in sight of the greens, and also so "that those cheap bastards only have to employ one poor groundskeeper for everything."  (p.23)

There is a ghost story underneath it all, and there is quite a bit of humor.  Unfortunately, I just don't think I was the right audience for this.  I would have preferred the casual tone to be strictly in the characters' conversations, rather than in the narrative, in order to be able to enjoy the overall humor in the book, and especially the ghost story.

I want to thank Crazy Book Tours for giving me the opportunity to read this book.  In no way do I want to diminish any attempt for the uniquely told story or to hurt anyone's feelings -- this is my opinion only, and I know that there are others out there who will prefer this writing style much more.

Happy Reading,
Coffee and a Book Chick

I'm thinking about a very good friend of mine who lost her wonderful father this weekend.  This post is dedicated to him, and to all those who leave too early, including my mother.

I fell asleep on the floor in my mother's sewing room the night before her memorial.  Sometime during the night, as I crafted the words to speak at her service, I must have rested my head on the pillow I had placed on the floor, vaguely hearing the rumblings of family and neighbors preparing for the next day.  When I woke up early the next morning, I couldn't see, and I pushed myself up, slow panic creeping over me as I ran my fingers over the carpet, searching for my glasses.  Somehow, they must have fallen off, and I didn't want to stand and then step on them.  Frustrated, unable to locate my glasses, I sat up, squinting my eyes and turning my head, hoping that I'd be able to visualize an outline of them reflecting from the morning sunlight.  Nothing.


My mother passed away at 7:43 in the morning on Mother's Day, 2004.  The drive back to Baltimore that day seemed unreal, passing by street vendor after street vendor selling red roses for the day.  Sun was bright.  Car was stifling.  Sleep was behind my eyes after driving 6 hours with my sister to get to my mother and be with her one last time.


A quick question crept through my subconscious that morning of the memorial, how will I read my eulogy without my glasses?  I put my hands flat on either side of me, determined to push myself up and find them, when my left hand slid slightly beneath the stuffed chair, and my fingers brushed over something metallic.  I drew my hand back, then slowly ran my hands, feeling the familiarity and the relief of my glasses.  Neatly folded, placed underneath the stuffed chair, out of reach of my clumsy feet clomping all over the room, which I tend to do when I just wake up.  I probably put them there, sometime in the middle of my sleep-induced tears and crumpling of paper.  I must have.  I must have slipped them off, folded them up properly and made sure to stick them the furthest place under the chair that I possibly could.  I must have.  My mother certainly couldn't have helped guide me to put them away, just as she always had as I was growing up...

So shortly after my mother passed away, though, I was doubting, then believing everything.  During her time in the hospital, after she succumbed from one infection to another following a successful heart transplant, I began to wonder if maybe I was beginning to get a little loopy, or if I was starting to really and actually...believe the things I secretly always thought were usually a part of..fiction.  I wondered if it was the hospital drugs that made my mother somehow sense a little girl by her bed who caressed her hand and tell her she would be okay.  And was it a sleepy morning dream when an old man told my mother things weren't ready just yet?  Both times, It was only me in the room, in the uncomfortable hospital chair by her bed.  Maybe, was it possible, that she was...in between?  I didn't dare acknowledge it, didn't dare speak it, even though it crept up my back and tingled at the back of my neck.  My sister was much more accepting of this, but I was simply afraid.  In between our world, and the next.  I was mad, too, feeling injustice at how young she was, at only sixty short years.  What I do know now, and remember with a sharp intensity, was what everything felt like at that time and for that first year after she passed, which seemed to prick my inner compass when I least expected it, to remind me more assuredly to believe that there was something...afterwards.


It could just be coincidence that different radio stations began to play one specific song that was reminding me of my mother.  Weird, though, since the song was more than a few years old, and no longer really popular.  Maybe it's coincidence that I started to notice things more because I was so sensitive, or to sound kooky, could I be so sensitive now and in tune to an afterlife because someone I loved had just left?

The book, Final Gifts, helped me after she left.  Written by two hospice nurses, Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley, who began to see a trend in their patients who were getting closer and closer to leaving this life to go the next, they found a startling consistency.  Patients oftentimes began to experience and see things that no one else in the room would see, and they believed that they would ultimately make the choice of when they would move on.  Doctors would write it off to the multitude and variety of drugs coursing through the patient's body, but these two women with 20 yeas of experience, felt that they were bearing witness to something different.  Through them, I began to understand how my mother expressed her comfort and her hope in those beautiful moments when she was walking between two worlds.  My faith in this reassured me and helped me to understand all of the undoubtedly weird, unnerving, and most definitely fun, moments when I knew that my mother was with me, and I knew that she was communicating with me.  I felt comforted by this and each page reminded me that no matter how terrible the moment is when your loved one leaves, they unquestionably pass to a different world, where pain isn't felt, and they have left behind their heavy and sick bodies to move into a world that is full with peace.


Remember everything around you when your loved one passes.  Do everything you can to remember the dreams that you have, write them down to help you always remember.  This is their way to communicate, to tell you that they are good, all is well.  When my mother's best friend, Sonia, was in a hospice three years later, my sister and I sat by her bed, the room suddenly became unnaturally quiet.  Throughout the quiet of the still room, the small radio by the bed somehow seemed to be getting just a little bit louder, unseen fingers gently turning the knob.  My mother's song began to play in that room at that exact time.  I don't believe at all in coincidence. She was there, in that room, readying her best friend for the journey to the next world.

I have only slipped away into the next room, I am I and you are you.  Whatever we were to each other, that we still are.  Call me by my old familiar name.  Speak to me in the easy way which you always used.  Play, smile, think of me. All is well. ~Henry Scott Holland

Dedicated to all who have passed and to all who remain to remember the journey.

Please visit www.graceprotzman.com or www.digitalgraces.com for artistic images.