Indigo Lakeshore Book Club Reads: Rush Home Road

Best book I read in 2012, hands down!!!!

 

STOP what you are doing and go get a copy of this book.  Go, go now!  I’ll wait.

 

Okay, the best thing you can do for yourself is to READ THIS BOOK!  And I’m about to tell you why:

 

I love, love, love local books.  And living in a small town, they’re hard to come by.  Most CanLit books are set in Toronto, or Montreal, or on the Prairie or places other than Southwestern Ontario, so when I come across a book that is set in my neck of the woods, particularly one that’s as well written as Rush Home Road, I’m simply over the moon! 

 

Little Sharla Cody, at five years of age, has not had an enviable life.  She and her mother live in a trailer park along with her mother’s numerous boyfriends.  When the boyfriend du jour wants to be rid of Sharla, her mother goes trailer to trailer looking for someone to take in her child “just for the summer.”  Seventy-year-old Addy Shadd agrees, and ends up becoming a surrogate mother to young Sharla, teaching her not only about life, but about love.

 

The story of Rush Home Road is really Addy’s story, as through the flashbacks of an aging woman, we learn about her life, the men she loved and lost, and the children she bore and also lost.  It’s a story that travels from Rusholme, a small town in Southern Ontario that was settled by black slaves fleeing the South, to rum runners in Sandwich, across the river to a small community in Detroit, Michigan, and back to the city Addy finally calls home, Chatham Ontario.  Resplendent with small town life and charm, Rush Home Road will keep you captivated from word one until you turn the final page and bid this wonderful woman adieu.

 

I loved Lori Lansens book so much, I promptly took her next two, The Girls and The Wife’s Tale, out of the library.  I cannot wait to read them over Christmas break!  Rush Home Road is a book I very highly recommend.

 

What my fellow book clubbers had to say:

 

I wish I could tell you, but I ended up missing the December meeting.  I can say that the buzz leading up to the meeting was full of love for this book.  Comments on social media posted by fellow clubbers all had good things to say about this book and the general consensus was everyone loved it as much as I did.

 

Till next time, go read this book!!

L

The Casual Vacancy, the new novel by J. K. Rowling

JK Rowling’s new adult novel, The Casual Vacancy is quite a departure from the Harry Potter series.  Pagford is no magical, mythical town, and its inhabitants aren’t wizards, or witches, or muggles, although they are every day, ordinary humans like you and I.  For me, as a huge fan of Coronation Street, this was a great book to read.  Set in the small English town of Pagford, we are introduced to a wide range of characters that occupy various levels of the social strata.  And, like Coronation Street, there is plenty of drama to be had in their lives.  Departing from the soap, however, The Casual Vacancy focuses more on the dark sides of humanity and misses the mark when it comes to showcasing quirky small town characters

 

A casual vacancy opens up with the sudden death of a council member, prompting several members of the community to put names forward, all with their own reasons for wanting to be on town council.  There is Colin “Cubby” Wall, the school principal and best friend of Barry Fairbrother the newly deceased.  He has aspirations of picking up where his friend left off, and ensuring Barry’s dreams for the town of Pagford come true, a lasting legacy if you will.  Unfortunately, Cubby has a dark, dirty secret he’s petrified will come out under scrutiny of council elections.

 

Then there is Simon Price, abusive husband and father who is sure Barry was receiving kickbacks for his work on the town council, and wants his share of the pie.  His dirty, money scheming secrets are the first to air in public.

 

Chair of town council, and Pagford mayor (had the town ever been incorporated), Howard Mollison has his own ideas about who should fill the suddenly vacant seat, and they all rest with his son and heir, Miles, someone who will tow the line and vote as daddy would have him.

 

What’s at stake is The Fields, an underprivileged neighbourhood on Pagford Parish property that was acquired many years ago by neighbouring Yarvil and who some Padfordians feel should no longer be the financial responsibility or burden of the good citizens of Pagford.  Returning the property and its people and all their problems to Yarvil is the goal of Howard Mollison and his supporters, who were adamantly opposed by the deceased, and now you have the gist of the novel.

 

Added to the local political shenanigans are the teenage children of Pagford and The Fields and their own individual problems:  one has a drug addict for a mother, another cuts herself because of her mother’s neglect, another suffers verbal and physical abuse from his father on a regular basis, while another who seemingly has the perfect family home, is slowly turning into a sociopath.

 

The dark underbelly of life in Pagford is exposed with all its seediness.  This is no uplifting novel, but rather a dark and interesting read about human nature at its most raw.

 

The Casual Vacancy will not appeal to all, but it is well worth reading.

 

Till next time, happy reading!

L

Beautiful Sacrifice – Elizabeth Lowell

I have been in love with Elizabeth Lowell since I was a teen and first picked up one of her Avon historical romances.  From the very first word, I was mad to read more of her work, and between the Avons and the Harlequins, she kept me in rapture.  These were not your typical romance novels.  They were beautifully written, with well-thought-out metaphors, breathtaking descriptions of the vastness of various American landscapes, but mostly Colorado and New Mexico.  As the 80s rolled into the 90s, her books evolved into romantic suspense, and I learned more than I needed to about the jewel trade in China and Australia, the drug and gun trade between the US-Mexican border, and more.  All of which were fascinating reads, with the romance between two strong, intelligent people front and center.  The stories and the writing were clearly a cut above the typical romance, and I was beyond enamored.  I have continued to buy and devour all of her books, right up to the present day, and they, until recently, failed to disappoint.

 

Until recently.  Those two innocuous words that say so much.  Beautiful Sacrifice is Lowell’s latest publication and one of the biggest disappointments I have experienced in reading a treasured author.  First, the book jumps on the December 21, 2012 bandwagon, with the Mayan prediction that the world is about to come to an end.  To give Lowell her due, she’s done her research, and she does a decent job of debunking the myth surrounding this latest “end of the world” date.  The Mayan calendar has had many “end of the world” dates over the centuries, and rather than meaning the world will literally come to an end, it merely means that the existing period in Mayan culture will end, and the Mayan’s will embark on a new era, when ruling gods will change and life for the Mayan’s will be either good or bad, depending on the fortunes coming forth as the days, months and years progress. 

 

While the details of Mayan religion and culture made this book an interesting read, it was lacking in so much more.  What I’ve always loved about Lowell is her richness in detail, in characterization, in heady emotional connections, and stellar writing.  Nearly all of which have been lacking in her latest publication endeavours.  Particularly, Beautiful Sacrifice read very much like an earlier book of hers, so much so, that the entire time I was reading it, I kept thinking to myself: “I’ve read this before, I’m sure I’ve read this before.”  And as I own nearly every book she’s written, I can verify, unfortunately, it was a new book, if it did read like a heavily recycled one.  Perhaps it is time for Lowell to take a break from churning out formulaic books for a while, just until a new, fresh idea comes to mind, one that she can write with all the style and care she put into her earlier work.

 

Till next time, happy reading!

L

Indigo Lakeshore Book Club Reads: The Sultan’s Wife

Jane Johnson’s The Sultan’s Wife was our pick for November and I must confess, I had only just started reading the book by the time we met up, so didn’t have much to contribute to the discussion, but I enjoyed listening to others’ opinions.  We were a mixed bag of read, not-read, and only partially read members that night.  Some liked the book, but would probably not read anything else by this author.  Many liked the historical detail as the book is set in Morocco in the late 1600s, as well, getting introduced to another culture.  I for one, had not enjoyed the first 100 pages of the book, not at least until the main female character, the “Sultan’s Wife” of the title, appeared.  I continued to read the book after the meeting, though it wasn’t a page-turner for me.  Overall, I found it to be an alright read, but not one I’d readily recommend.

 

What the book is about:  The story begins with Nus-Nus, a slave and eunuch in the Sultan’s court.  Nus-Nus is the Sultan’s chief scribe, in charge of the “couching” book (the book that chronicles every bed partner of the Sultan and tracks the births of his progeny).  This exalted position in the Sultan’s household leaves Nus-Nus vulnerable to attack by the Sultan’s enemies and those in the court who conspire and intrigue behind the Sultan’s.  As the first book ends, Nus-Nus is arrested for the murder of a souk merchant. 

 

I wasn’t enamored with Nus-Nus, or his story, or the details of the Sultan, who, based on a real life figure, is insane and incredibly violent.  Details of Morocco in the 1600s, while historically accurate, didn’t appeal much to me either.  I’m not that much of a history buff, much preferring to read about British history than anything else. Usually though, if the story’s good and the writing worthy, I can get excited about any book.  This one just wasn’t up to snuff.

 

Anyway, Book Two started with Alys Swann, a young English woman returning to England from the Netherlands to marry her fiancé when her ship is stopped and boarded by Turks.  She along with the other women on the ship are taken into captivity, and owing to her blond hair, blue eyes, and porcelain skin, is sent to the Sultan’s harem.  The Sultan quickly becomes captivated by her, setting up a dangerous rivalry between Alys and his first wife, Zidana.  Nus-Nus, released from prison with the sole purpose of converting Alys to Islam, also falls under her spell and conspires to protect her at all costs.

 

What transpires is a rather interesting tale of court intrigue that travels from the shores of Morocco to the court of the English king as Nus-Nus risks everything for the woman he loves.

 

Alys was a very interesting character, and I quite enjoyed her story as it started to unfold, but it soon became apparent that she was being used as a stock character, and she quickly fell by the wayside as the story progressed.  The real thrust of the book was Nus-Nus, and his yearnings for a life beyond the Sultan’s palace, which was unfortunate for this reader, because I found it took most of the book before I started to identify with him, let alone want to read more of his story.

 

Till next time, happy reading!

L