The Cask of Amontillado: Halloween 1

Halloween, 2015: Day 1

I like to celebrate Halloween. A lot. Starting on the first day of October, in fact. My desk at work is already decorated and I'm considering my costume options (I'm thinking Shriner).

In preparation for this festive day, I will cram my blog with as much creepy fun as I can. I'll be reviewing and posting about all the atmospheric and unsettling books and stories I can think of. What better way to start off than with the master himself, Edgar Allan Poe?

Click here for one of my personal favorites--The Cask of Amontillado. Check out the rest of PoeStories.com for more stories and poems by the original emo kid as well as biographical information and a list of the delicious and eccentric words he used.

Depraved Heart-Excerpt

I just read an excerpt of Patricia Cornwell's new Kay Scarpetta novel, Depraved Heart (isn't that just the best title?) and it was great. I have read several of Patricia Cornwell's books and always enjoy them.

If you're interested in reading the first three chapters, they are here. I love the part in chapter 1 where she says "A select few of us come into this world not bothered by gruesomeness." Having studied to be an embalmer, I can identify with this statement.  There are just some people who don't mind being close to death and these are the ones on whom we depend to care for our dead and sometimes find their killers.  Scarpetta represents this group perfectly.

There will hopefully be more posts about this book as I am trying to snag an advance copy.  Stay tuned.

The Witch of Lime Street

There's an upcoming book for readers interested in things that go bump in the night, or at least things that go bump under seance tables.

The Witch of Lime Street, by David Jaher, is the true story of "Margery" and her attempt to become the first scientifically approved medium. In the course of her hundreds of seances and trials with the panel of judges assigned to test her, she became a household name to Americans and Brits alike. Houdini tested her as well and found her personally charming but undeniably a charlatan. But even after rigorous examination and numerous battles between her admirers and detractors, the answer to why she did what she did (and more importantly how the heck she did it) is as hard to pin down as the ectoplasm she produced.

Jaher's book is enormously entertaining and opens the door to a time in our country's history when a Ouija Board seemed like the answer to many questions. I received a free advance copy of The Witch of Lime Street from LibraryThing. My full review will follow shortly.

Spring is here!

I'm so glad it's Spring. I can wear bright colors, short skirts, and cute shoes. No longer do I go to work as am amorphous blob of wool, slacks, and boots.

Yesterday I was walking on our local greenway and saw the greatest thing. This woman was walking her dog while reading a book. I don't know if she actually walks and reads simultaneously, but when I came across her, her little dog was sniffing at the edge of the trail and the woman was standing there READING.

I didn't say anything to her beyond hello, but it felt like meeting a secret friend. A friend who doesn't know you exist. That sounds stalkery. But it made me feel slightly less alone in my own tendency to read at stoplights.

So yay for Spring, bringer of cute outfits, pollen, and crazy readers.

The Boy Who Didn't Die...No, Not Harry Potter

Yesterday I found out that Alex Malarkey (heck of a last name) has issued a statement that his memoir, The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, is completely made up. As a young boy, Alex was in a devastating car crash with his father and is paralyzed to this day. Now, as a sixteen-year-old, he admits that his story about visiting heaven and meeting Jesus during his time in a coma is fictitious. The coma and accident were real, just not the journey.

This does not come as a total shock, but I'm a bit disappointed because I read Alex's book and while I did find it hard to believe, it was certainly spiritually uplifting. If nothing else, I felt it to be the story of a boy whose faith strengthened his family during a horrific time.

But now Alex says guilt has driven him to make this new message heard. He fabricated his lies because he wanted attention and boy did he get it. The book is a bestseller, but the Christian publisher who put it out is pulling it now that the truth is public. The waters are a little murky as to how long they have known about Alex's change of heart. His mother says the family has been trying to tell people for years that the book is not what it seems.

The Malarkey family still has faith and Alex was brave to set the record straight. In his public statement, he urges people to read the Bible and trust in it rather than seeking proof from stories like his. Some will see this new development in his story as evidence that God and Heaven are not real, but neither the book nor its subsequent exposure as fiction should have an effect on anyone who truly has faith.

If I tell everyone I saw an albino deer in my yard and later admit I made it up, that doesn't mean albino deer don't exist.

Upon looking back at my previous review of this book, which you can read here, I was pretty skeptical at the time. I think my original feelings about the book were mostly driven by the fact that Alex was so young and so many people were swallowing his story wholesale. Turns out I have pretty good sense sometimes.

Impossible Odds

Impossible Odds: The Kidnapping of Jessica Buchanan and her Dramatic Rescue by SEAL Team Six is exciting, touching, and nerve-wracking. There are no surprises since the title tells you the entire plot, but I still found myself on the edge of my seat a couple of times as Jessica's story unfolded.

It's not an outstanding book, but it's the first book of its kind I've read since I'm not interested in African politics or terrorism. And usually, when I hear about a journalist or tourist who gets kidnapped in one of these dangerous regions, I want to ask them why they were in such a stupid situation to begin with. I have a preconception that journalists who try to infiltrate groups or areas where they are likely to be harmed are doing it for the glory of getting a remarkable story, not necessarily altruistically attempting to bring injustice to light. And don't even get me started on the tourists. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

But Jessica was neither a journalist nor a tourist when she was taken captive. She was in Africa to help children--specifically to educate them about landmine safety. And she knew the dangers she faced. She was happily married and trying to start a family when a fairly routine meeting for her job took her close to a very dangerous region. She was hesitant to attend the meeting, but her security assured her that everything would be fine. Like so many of us, Jessica ignored a gut feeling that something was wrong. Instead of making a fuss and backing out, she went with the flow and didn't speak up about her misgivings. She and a coworker were taken hostage on the way back from the meeting and her nightmare began.

The bulk of the book is an almost day by day account of Jessica's experiences during her captivity. Like I said, there are no surprises in the story. But it's worth reading if you have any interest in what a person goes through during such an ordeal and how they can come out the other side intact. For more information, visit Jessica's website.

Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle

So, this is a book I was not particularly looking forward to reading. The title and the cover just scream whacky Southern female humor. You know, the kind of book where people are shocked by 87 year-old Grammy who drinks white wine (I feel a stage whisper coming on) before noon. Or where all the girls have a three letter middle name that must be included every time their first name is said.

All this is to say that I was expecting Jenny Sue, Betty Lou, Bixie Lee, and Grammy Joe to go on a road trip and end up sitting on their front porch after learning valuable life lessons and watch the sun come up while sipping white wine and painting magnolia leaves on each others' toenails. The forlorn menfolk look on and shake their heads saying, "Gee golly, now who's gonna fix us our biscuits?" Or something.

Chimes turned out to be a really good book. And as someone who routinely judges a book by its cover, I can say I was very wrong about this one. It is funny and well written. The characters are indeed whacky and Southern, but they are three-dimensional. I didn't cringe once. Because Susan Reinhardt knows how to let her characters get crazy and over the top without for one second making them unbelievable.

It's good enough that my favorite character was named Aunt Weepie. Is that not the most ridiculous name ever? And I still liked her!

The main character is named Prudy and she is far from being the empty soap bubble of a Southern female character I dreaded so much. She is a victim of domestic violence who realizes that many people blame her for her husband's actions, or at least for being stupid enough to marry him in the first place. Prudy, or Dee, as she wants to be called after her "near-murder" is determined to find a job and some independence. She knows her two young children need her to drag herself out of bed everyday and make things normal for them. Prudy/Dee is left scarred and depressed after her husband hits her with his church van and stabs her with a screwdriver. Her story is horrific and unbelievable, but she is based on a woman Reinhardt once met.

The Author's Note says, "The premise of the novel arose from an incident in which a woman was mowed down by a church van driven by her crazed preacher husband...near my hometown of Asheville, North Carolina." Reinhardt doesn't remember the woman's name. Is it odd that she didn't track her down or at least research her story for the novel? Or did she avoid learning any more about the real story behind her character's life so that she could focus on fashioning her own fiction? If I knew where I wanted my story to go and thought the real life events would take me off my chosen path, I'd probably avoid them too.

A couple more fun facts about this book: Reinhardt admits that the photo on the front cover may, in fact, be of her; and the novel opens with a quote from Julia Sugarbaker from Designing Women. What more can you ask for?