The Lion Trees by Owen Thomas Part One: Unraveling

I've been an avid reader for well over thirty five years.  I've been a reviewer for over a dozen.  I've been bombarded by today's cookie cutter story assembly and I despise it.  There are times when I just don't think I can take another pre-fab book.  Then, someone like Owen Thomas comes along and reminds me what the book world CAN offer, what a story CAN be.  It reminds me of the reason I fell in love with reading in the first place and what a magical world the art of storytelling is.

I'll admit, this book is intimidating.  The first book is over 800 pages.  It's massive.  Book two appears to be about the same length.  Given the size of the books alone, you expect  them to be dry and filled with all sorts of nonsensical and superfluous information.  You expect chapters of lifeless stage settings and dull noticings of the author.  You expect to pick up the book and have them give you every detail down to the crack in the floor that has nothing to do with anything.  What I found instead is a mesmerizing tale.  Thomas lets the scene set itself and only gives you the necessary information.  You're allowed to fill all the colorful gaps in yourself and actually use your mind.  Instead of finding a dull, brittle book filled with annoying redirection from the story, I found myself immersed in a world that ended all too quickly.

We find the story beginning with Tilly Johns, a famous actress.  But the story isn't really about her.  Not really.  Each chapter is told from the perspective of either her or one of her family members.  There is Tilly, her brother David and her parents.  Then there's Ben.  Ben is the baby of the family and a Downs Syndrome child.  Each of the people in this family unit are struggling with their own identities and reasons for being.  Each has been cast in a role and they struggle with not only where they are and who they are, but whether they intend to stay in that role.  If not, is escape possible?

This book is definitely not for the light reader or the non-thinker.  It's the best book I've read  this year, which is saying something considering I had a brand spanking new Maguire in my hands this year.  However, if I were going to write a book myself, I would want it to be something that changed the world of the person holding it, and this book does that exceedingly well.  While traveling through the individual lives of each family member, you'll find yourself questioning your own life and finding new truths that you didn't even know existed.  But it's not all about that either.  You'll also be entertained and lost in the world of the Johns family.  You'll find yourself anxious to know where the story is leading and what sort of exciting journey you're being led on in order to get there.  That's not even to mention the surprising use of the English language that Thomas has mastered.  Don't get me wrong, editing could have been a little more smooth, but the way that he composes words alone will find you lost in the beauty of Thomas' world.

Destruction by Sharon Bayliss

David Vandergraff wants to be a good man.  He goes to church every Sunday, keeps his lawn trim and green, and loves his wife and kids more than anything.

Unfortunately, being a dark wizard isn't a choice.

Eleven years ago, David's secret second family went missing.  When his two lost children are finally found, he learns they suffered years of unthinkable abuse.  Ready to make things right, David brings the kids home even though it could mean losing the wife he can't imagine living without.

Keeping his life together becomes harder when the new children claim to be dark wizards.  David believes they use this fantasy to cope with their trauma.  Until, David's wife admits a secret of her own-she is a dark wizard too, as is David, and all of their children.

Now, David must parent two hurting children from a dark world he doesn't understand and keep his family from falling apart.  All while dealing with the realization that everyone he loves, including himself, may be evil.

Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first.  The magic.  It wasn't poorly written or even poorly researched.  Everything seemed to be pretty sound.  The problem I had was that it's overdone and I really wish it had been a bit more original.  It takes up such a huge part of the story and there are just so many things that could have been done with it, that I felt like it was just tossed in there instead of being the true meat of the story it could have been.

Actually, this was a pretty fascinating 'what if' story.  What if you had an affair and children and then they disappeared and suddenly reappeared years later?  What if you didn't have the courage to tell your wife, but you still needed to be there for your children?  Not just from Dave's perspective, but from the entire family's,  not to mention the poor children.  Not only did Bayliss run the gamut of possibilities, but she did so while exposing some pretty serious character studies.

The most fascinating part for me was just how much I despised one of the main characters.  We have bad people and good people and bad people who think they're good and good people who think they're bad.  Those that we know are 'bad', honestly, they sort of faded into the background for me.  It sucked that they weren't nice people, but they didn't really have any impact on me.  Dave, the main character, means well, but he's such a coward that I found myself having a hard time really caring about him either.  His wife, however.  Wow!  My jaw dropped several times at her.  I hate her with a fierce intensity that I worried would set my Kindle aflame.  She is so evil and horrible that I found myself ashamed to be a woman.

This is the first book in a series and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next.  I feel like this one did a great job of putting the 'family' into perspective for future adventures/mysteries.

Minstrel's Gambit by Nance Bulow Morgan

By Ed

Minstrels' Gambit is the first in the Minstrel's Tale Mysteries Series.  Saeede knew that Behlanna was not going to be a good city.  She knew it the moment she saw the dark tower looming over the sleek dark wall.  She and her partner Andreas needed to rest after a long journey.  They would stay long enough to rest and perhaps play a tune or two for the locals but then they would be off again to more pleasant surroundings.  Upon their arrival in the city the two tired friends; minstrels and adventurers, are soon caught up in a murder investigation and find that they are the prime suspects!

Their investigation leads them to discover that an ancient riddle is at the center of their problem.  Evil forces are at play against them and they must solve the riddle, and foil the unleashing of evil upon the world, to clear their names.

The keys to the riddles are hidden within four musical scores.  As adventurers they must retrieve the scores from their protections within the elements.  As minstrels they must decipher the keys hidden within the scores.

Thrust into an epic adventure, the friends learn how deep and unwavering is their friendship-how deep and unwavering is their skills with sword, music, and magic.

Minstrels' Gambit is Bulow Morgan's second novel.  Sprung from the setting of her first novel Legend Destiny.  This epic adventure attests to her story telling ability.  The reader will be hooked from the very beginning of this gorgeous adventure.  (taken from Amazon description)

At first glance, this book looks like either a paint by number picture, or the box to an 8 bit video game, and it was about as much fun reading this book as the code for one.  And this book is looooong, and I don't just mean many pages.  Sentences and paragraphs blur into each other.  Though the book only has ten chapters, it's still 453 pages long!  It was like trying to read the credits at the end of a movie, just no break.

The title of the series, A Minstrels' Tale Mystery, I found to be grossly misstated, as they solved the whodunit before the third chapter.  I wasn't expecting CSI Dungeons and Dragons,but save the big reveal for the last couple of chapters!

The author is way too descriptive.  I don't need to be told about every inch of every building they come across.  As for the minstrels themselves, I call BS on their relationship.  In such a setting, fraught with danger, where lives are often short enough as it is, there would be no time for Ye Olde Friend Zone.

While I did appreciate some of the humor, and slight modernization of the writing style, there's some terminology that just does not fit in a fantasy setting.  She even misnamed a common mythical creature.  What she describes as having an eagle's head with a lion's body is actually a griffin, not a hippogriff.

Over all, this book was a pain.  She should either switch to modern time writing or do a little more research into how fantasy is written.  I, for one, will not be finishing this series.

Note from Shawn:  We did have two other reviewers who attempted to read the book, but were unable to enjoy it as well, to the point that they did not finish it.

The Surrogates by Consuella Harris

By April

The deaths of two prominent businessmen on the same day of heart attacks is at first declared to be of natural causes.  No investigation happens until a former law clerk hires an investigator to check into those murders, and the connection to the Lake Shore Parenting Group.

Three women became surrogate mothers through this group and their children were adopted by five couples.  Once the information about their births is revealed to them, it sets in motion events none had anticipated.

The investigation into these families, their lives, and those behind the events changes everything they believe.  Yet, there is still a murderer on the loose, unless the intrepid investigator can bring that person to justice.  (taken from the back of the book)

I really enjoyed reading this book.  It made me feel like I was the one telling the story.  As someone who has had difficulty conceiving, this topic really interested me.  I got so wrapped up in each woman's story that I forgot that the book was a mystery.  I loved how the author told each woman's story and made you feel the way each one felt upon making her decision, for whatever reason.  I did not see the twist in the story coming that caused the two men to die.  I remember audibly gasping when I discovered what the motive was and who did it.  I felt connected with each of these women, families, and the surrogate children.  It just showed me how ultimately powerful greed can truly be.

The Horse That Haunts My Heart by Deborah Smith Parker

By April

Set against the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains, Deborah Smith Parker's coming of age memoir takes place in the 1950's during three transformative summers she spent on a horse ranch.  As a young girl growing up in the Midwest, she longed for the life of a cowboy, but the closest she could get was to watch TV Westerns and play with a toy ranch set while other girls played with dolls.  Finally, when her parents allowed her to go west to live her dream, she met her first love-a horse nick-named Tank.

She spent her summers riding, wrangling, and sleeping out under the stars while her extraordinary relationship with Tank developed, shaped by the poignancy, hilarity and drama that tested relationships undergo.  (taken from the back of the book)

This book made me smile and remember growing up riding as a child myself.  I learned some cowboy language that I didn't know.  I also learned different kinds of tack and different names for horse colors.  Seeing how Deborah felt about horses made this a very uplifting and heart-felt story until the huge twist at the end.  Even though Deborah didn't like Tank in the beginning, she soon realized that she could count on him to protect her and was glad that she had such a wonderful friend the length of the time that she did.

Though this book appears to be mostly a children's book, we consider it more of a young adult book due to the 'adult nature' of one of the happenings in the book.

Welcome to Our Tailgating Party!

We've got nine different bloggers with nine different projects to make this the most fun year yet!

Everyone loves tailgating!  Food!  Football!  Friends!  It doesn't get much better than that!

Make sure you stop by each site and check out the entire party!

Karen at Bakinginatornado: A recipe for Kielbasa and vegetables marinated, skewered, grilled and served on a roll.

Stacy at Stacey Sews and Schools:  Sewn fleece headband/earmuffs in favorite team colors

Eileen at Eileen's Perpetually busy: A seat cushion with built-in handle for carrying ease.

Robin at Someone Else's Genius: Book review on The System:  The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football

Diane at Canning and Cooking at Home:  Using up all of your green garden tomatoes into a wonderful relish

Shellybean at Follow Me Home: Simple tutorial on making 'to-do' bags for kids

Lydia at Cluttered Genius: Make a garland for your tailgate or mantel out of products you already have in your house

Melissa at Home on Deranged:  Use technology and cool gadgets to ensure you are master of tailgating time


We're going to show you how to make SnapCaps!  They're super quick and easy and I'm going to give you several shortcuts so that you can toss these together quickly!  You'll be able to make it in time for Sunday's game!

For me, the only downside to tailgating is that I don't like the cold!  I'm a total cold wussy!  It's just not my thing!  Also, I tend to be a little picky about what I wear.  These hats can be made to be cute or manly and they're so versatile!  Each one can be made in the colors you prefer and then embellished with thought bubbles.  Then in the large thought bubble, you can switch out pictures to show everyone what's on your mind!  We chose our smiley face because we're super happy right now!  You can put in your favorite team's name, a hot dog, a drink, or whatever happens to be on your mind!  Since they thoughts don't take up much space, they're easy to stow in a bag or pocket and swap out as you'd like.  These are a great conversation starter, or, they can just let people know you're unhappy and they should back off!

Making your SnapCap:

I'm going to be showing you several time-savers here.  If you can crochet, and choose to, you'll find the pattern listed below.  It's a beginner's pattern and quite easy.  You can swap out colors for a striped effect or simply make it all in your teams favorite color.  For those of you who want something a little quicker, grab any old soft hat you want!  Knits and crochets work best because they're easiest to sew through.

We used Red Heart Pattern LW2730.  Though this shows a young girl's hat, the instructions actually make an adult size.  We also left off the cuff, because we can!

Next, we'll start our thought bubbles.  We did three different sizes and then the largest one.

Smallest:
Ch 2
6 single crochet in first loop.
Fasten off and weave in ends.

Next Smallest:
Ch 3
9 half-double crochet in first loop.
Fasten off and weave in ends.

Next to Largest:
Ch 4
9 double crochet in first loop.
Fast off and weave in ends.

Large Thought Bubble:
Ch 6
Row One:
In fourth chain from hook:  3 double crochet
In next chain: 1 double crochet
In last chain: 7 double crochet
(continuing around bottom) In next chain:  1 double crochet
In beginning chain: 3 double crochet, join to first stitch

Second row:
Ch 3
2 double crochet in next stitch
Next stitch: half-double crochet, single crochet
Next stitch: half-double crochet, double crochet
Next stitch: 2 double crochet
Repeat around 5 times
Next stitch:  half-double crochet, single crochet
Next stitch: 2 double crochet
Next stitch: half-double crochet, single crochet
Fasten off and weave in ends.

Now position your thought bubbles onto your hat and pin them in place.  Next, simply stitch them where you want them.  Most of your SnapCap is finished! All that's left are the embellishments!

The snaps can be purchased for a few dollars at your local store, but most likely you have a few laying in your sewing box already.  You can design your own embellishments through crochet, knit, or sewing.  I've found the easiest thing to do is to go to my local store and purchase small 'patches'.  They come in a great variety and you can usually get them on clearance.

Sew one side of the snap onto your largest thought bubble, right in the center.  Next, sew the opposite side onto your embellishment.  It's that simple!  Simply use the same side of the snap and sew it onto all of your embellishments and you can swap them out within a matter of seconds!

We've actually had a lot of fun with these!  We set up an experiment had teenagers use these as their sole communication and it was hysterical!

Now go make yours and make a huge splash at your tailgating party!!

Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell Inserts Giveaway

If you know who Boris and Julie are, then you know how freakin' sweet this giveaway opportunity is!!

If you don't know who Boris and Julie are, you may not be all that interested, until you go look at their work.

They're giving away ten limited edition art prints!  I've been a fan of their work for years and I'm definitely entering!

Go here to check it out!!



You must be 18 to enter and the last entry will be accepted on October 8th.