Angel of Wrath by Bill Myers

"Molly? Where is my Molly?"

Title: Angel of Wrath
Author: Bill Myers
ISBN: 9780446698009
Publisher: Faith Words/2009
pages: 316

Charlie Madison, an ex-special Ops agent, Lisa, a ex FBI agent and Jazmin, Chalie's 13 year old deaf niece get somehow embroiled in finding out a serial killer, who is killing all those who he thinks are unforgiving 'Sinners'.

A few teens are indulging in Satanic practices in the deeep mountains. They want Jesus and Satan to come together. And uknowing release a terrifyingly unknown entity in to the world. That creature known as Mothman, attacks its victim via memories. When the serial killer and the creature come together, all hell is broken lose.

It becomes imperative for Charlie, Lisa and Jaz to get into the bottom of all this. Lisa's father too is one of the marked victim, as is Lisa herself. Her brother Thomas, is taken as one of the suspects.

It is the the eternal tale of Goodness versus Evil. And sometimes the line between the two gets smudged. It might have been pegged as Christian fiction but I think it works well as a fantasy novel. YA readers will like it, if they don't think much of the Christian elements. Being a good human being is more important than following any religion, and its dictates religiously. Thats what I infer from what I read.

It was released on 8th April, the day I started reading the ARC, which I won in a giveaway!

BTT: Juggling books

Some people read one book at a time. Some people have a number of them on the go at any given time, perhaps a reading in bed book, a breakfast table book, a bathroom book, and so on, which leads me to…

1) Are you currently reading more than one book?

Yes, I am reading more than one book. I always do.

2) If so, how many books are you currently reading?

Six, as of now. Angel of Wrath by Bill Myers. Beloved by Toni Morrison. Walking Through Walls by Philip Smith. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Selected Poems by Robert Lowell. Also re-reading Catch 22.

3) Is this normal for you?

Yes, it is normal for me. I am always reading 3 to 4 books at a time. That way I pick up the one I want to read, according to my mood. I can keep track of all the stories. However, that is not true for movies I watch. I forget which is which!

4) Where do you keep your current reads?

Most of the times, near my PC. That is most accessible place for me. Sometimes, if I read in bed, I keep it there under my pillow, the one I am reading before sleeping. The one I finish, I take it back to its place on my shelf and pick another book in its place.

Six Seconds by Rick Mofina

Blue Rose Creek, California Maggie Conlin left her home believing a lie. She believed that her life was normal again.

Title: Six Seconds
Author: Rick Mofina
ISBN: 9780778326120
Publisher: Mira/2009 Pages: 469

This year I have been reading a lot of crime fiction. Six Seconds too belongs somewhat to that genre. It is more a novel on terrorists and terror attacks, Jihadists and all. The issue which is very contemporary. When I requested for an ARC of the book, Rick Mofina was kind enough to send me one.

When Maggie goes to pick her son from school for a soccer match, she finds out that Jake her husband had picked him and vanished without a trace. Maggie runs from pillar to post but with no avail.

A nurse Samara, has been raped and has lost her husband and Son in Iraq to merciless American soldiers. She vows revenge on them. To achieve that she gets involved with truck driver, who used to do Iraq rounds.

Daniel Graham who belongs to Royal Canadian Mountain Police is trying to forget his sadness over his wife's death by pulling the trigger on himself near Faust river, when he is somehow compelled to watch out for rescue operations. He does manage to get hold of a little girl who dies in his arms, after uttering a few words. He feels so guilty and has to find out what happened to the Canadian family who seem to have been drowned.

All three events seem disconnected, yet there is something which is common for all. Graham's search leads him to a school in Montana where the Pope is supposed to visit. Although Graham is told to give up his search, he has to go on. And thus he unravels a plot to kill the Pope, all in six seconds. However, no one knows how as no weapon, nothing is detected.

In the backdrop of todays terrorism, this novel feels as if it is real and feasible. And it keeps us hooked too. The leader of the terrorist group remains unseen and faceless. This makes it very scary too. Isn't it what is happening today? Mofina sure knows how to write a crime fiction, or should I call it terrorism fiction? I wouldn't call the prose great but who really thinks about that while reading a fast paced crime thriller.

A Walk to the Hills of the Dreamtime by James Vance Marshall

Title: A Walk to the Hills of the Dreamtime
Author: James Vance Marshall
ISBN: 0688010091
Publisher: William Morrow/1970
Pages: 160

Two children, Sarah, 14, and her brother Joey, 11 are lost in the deserts of outback Australia. They are looking out at ways of survival. A tribe of Aborigines arrive out of nowhere and just take those children into their protection. The children have been brought up in a missinary and have been taught to be good Christians. And the Aborigines follow the faith they have been following from time immemorial.

Nature shows its perils yet the children nor the Aborigines give up hope, following, invoking God in their own ways. The cultures might be divided but hope remains same.

Sarah discovers that cultural differences are not what they seem. Both have the same ends. Both teach love, hope, belief. How can a different faith be wrong? That gives her power to save the people. She also teaches love to everyone who has been in touch with her.

If only we understood this, our world would be better place to live. That no religion is above the others. And all religion teach love. This fable may seem simple but gives us a profound message.

Waiting for Willa by Dorothy Eden

Title: Waiting for Will
Author: Dorothy Eden
ISBN: 0449231879
Publisher: Fawcett/1970


When Grace receives the letter, it is postmarked Stockholm. Seems like a normal note from Grace’s cousin Willa about nothing in particular. But for the signature. It is signed Wilhelmina, the name Willa hates. This is their secret code for help if ever Willa got into trouble. Grace Asherton, an attractive young novelist, is a sane person not one to give in to hysterics. But when she arrives in Stockholm and discovers her cousin has vanished, she is a bit alarmed especially by the strange behaviour of Willa’s so called friends.

It seems that Willa was pregnant and had run off to marry someone named Gustav. This Gustav is very difficult to trace. Everyone tells her that Willa was an impulsive person who would do just that. Grace does not believe anyone. She starts questioning. Again she receives another note signed Wilhelmina, which makes her more resolute to find the truth. More she gets into it, more it gets murkier. Everyone around her wishes for her to forget it and let go. But Grace is in no mood to give up the search for her cousin. On her neighbour, Polson's behest, Grace masquerades as Willa and watches the drama unfold....

This story has a gothic touch. At night one can feel the loneliness that Willa and now Grace face at her home. Grace does get into the bottom of all this but with some tragedy but she also finds love where she had not expected. The story holds interest right from the beginning. One can feel the atmosphere right away that something is not right. Each of the character feels strange and are involved in protecting each other. And no one is ready to reveal anything about Gustav. The mystery does hold till the end and the writing is good too.

Short Story: Year of the Dog by Casey Kait

Meili met us at the door of the restaurant. She kissed my head as my father and I entered, and when he wasn’t looking, she slipped me a thin, red envelope.

Year of the Dog by Casey Kait is the 14th short story in Fifty-Two Stories.

The story has been told in the voice of a thirteen year-old girl. She and her father, Peter, are dining with Meili and her sons, Sammy and little Pete. Her mother is not there with them as she has a migraine. Meili's husband too is working late. The story starts with the girl thinking how much she likes Meili, who considers her like her own daughter. Meili is always giving her presents. This time she slips in twenty dollars in that thin, red envelope.

Sammy, 13, is morose throughtout the meal but little Pete, 9, is eager to talk about Tennis with her father. The girl is not too happy the way her father is monopilising the younger boy. They finish the meal and come out into the streets which are crowded. It is the Year of the Dog and one can hear cymbals playing and see the head of the Dragon moving with it in tune.

Sammy walks ahead, the girl is with little Pete, Meili and her father are behind. They buy titbits in the noisy, crowded streets and the girl in none too pleased to see her Father and Meili holding hands. At one point, Meili throws a tantrum and her father holds her again after she calms down. Sammy too has seen all this and says he hates his mother. The girl spend the twenty dollars given by Meili, to buy a toy drum for little Pete. She doesn't wish to have anything from Meili again. When Peter and Meili join the children, the girl refuses to shake hands with Meili and walks to their car with her father and starts crying..

This story started with good vibes between Meili and the girl. She says she is fond of Meili but at the end, she hates Meili. She shows her displeasure by refusing to shake hands. She does not make a scene or anything but does it with quiet dignity. Her father understands her turmoil and lets her cry. The reader too likes Meili in the beginning but somehow that diminishes towards the end. The girl has not expected Meili and Peter to have feelings for each other. She hates the very thought of Meili taking her mother's place. And so does the reader.

It is a story which is all too common. And that makes it very readable.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Posting the senryu first, as a short review for Weekly Geeks:


in the red tent
womanhood is celebrated-
which genesis ignored

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We have been lost to each other for so long. My name means nothing to you. My memory is dust.


Title: The Red Tent
Author: Anita Diamant
ISBN: 0312195516
Publisher: Picador/1997
Pages: 321

The Red Tent is a story told in the voice of Dinah, daughter of Jacob and Leah. Jacob had twelve sons but only one daughter. Dinah was loved by all her four mothers: Leah, Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah. She had different equations with all of them. All the four told her about themselves and their experiences, right from her childhood. She was not left out of anything.

The Red Tent represents the tent belonging exculsively to women, who go there once a month for about three days to menstruate, where they deliver their children, where they tell stories and sing. The differences between the women is left outside and inside the tent they experience spirituality, which is not separate from the physical world. For them, everything is holy, dreams show the future. The bodily rhythms of the women is attuned to the rhythm of the Earth and they feel so much near to spiritual insights. Prophecy, interpretation of dreams, clairvoyance are not something to laugh about but to experience. Inside that red tent, women are very powerful.

Men are not aware of what happens in there, going about in their crude ways. They don't understand the spiritual aspect of it.

Told from Dinah's point of view, she fell in love with a Shechemite. And her brothers did not like it. They said she was raped and had to be avenged. Hungering for power, her brothers Simeon and Levi attacked the Shechemites while they were recovering from circumcision which the Jacobites had ordered for all the Shechemites as part of the bride price. This treachery forced Dinah to curse her brothers and she escaped to egypt with her mother-in-law. After giving birth to a son in this new place, she becomes a midwife, that skill she had learnt from one of her mothers, Rachel.

The Red Tent speaks of the power of Woman, even those who don't have a voice. With good prose, Diamant makes it feasible. It might be a work of fiction but if Dinah had been given a voice in the Bible, she would told it this way. The Red Tent celebrates woman.

Weekly Geeks: Tangled in Wistaria by J. Andrew Lockhart

Title: Tangled in Wisteria
Author: J. Andrew Lockhart
ISBN: 978-1-60247-852-7
Publisher: Tate Publishing & Enterprises/2007
Pages: 108

J. Andrew Lockhart is blogger poet. He lives in Van Buren, Arkansas, United States. He writes Haiku, senryu, Haiga, Haibun and Tanka. He was kind enough to send me his book Tangled in Wisteria, which contains haiku, senryu and tanka. I have been reading him for some time now, on his blog.

Andrew was an attorney when tragedy struck. In 1996 he had an intracerebral hemorragic stroke at the age of 30. He rose out of it all and became a music teacher. In his introduction, he writes that music and writing were sidelined and he went to law school.

He came back to writing. Reading his verses one can observe the beauty of nature, find greatness in mundane things and see love in a new light. Those short verses of his are loaded with so much meaning. You an see them in simplicity or the complexities....whatever way you choose to. Those contain nuggets about life and much more.

Here I quote a few of his verses:

"looking up
at the oak tree, planted
when i was young-----
there is no need
for a mirror"
~~~~~~~~~~~~
"although you are
so far away from me
i feel your presence
in the cool summer night
as flowers rest"
~~~~~~~~~~~~
"buying a pack
of firerackers
made in china"
~~~~~~~~~~~~
"brick after brick
after brick after brick---
hidden thoughts"
~~~~~~~~~~~~

This book has four parts----spring, summer, autumn and winter. I read it at one go. But I am going to come back again and again. The best part is my mom picked it up and did not put it own until she finished.

Each page contains a haiku or a senryu and a tanka. Those verses touch the soul and illuminate it. I am very glad I read it and also that I read him everyday on his blog. Please do check him out.

the nine planets by Edward Riche

Title: the nine planets

Author: Edward Riche
ISBN: 0670044563
Publisher: Viking Canada/2004
Pages: 302

Give a brief summary of the book:

Marty Devereaux is the vice-principal of The Read Pines, which is an exclusive private school but in a remote part of Newfoundland. Mart wishes for it it to be well known. The Principal of the school is involved in a ecological crusade which kind of alienates those interested in investing in the school to take education globally. Also Marty is involved with the music teacher Sophie. However, his foolishness drives a wedge between them. On top of that, Marty is asked to look over Cathy, his niece, who does not think much about him. She is a quiet teenager, who lives in a world of her own. But their paths are always crossing.

Likes:

As a teacher, I liked the interaction of Marty with the teachers, students and parents. He is detached and keeps his cool. He is obssessed with global marketing of education for The Red Pines. He wants it to be well known. There is wit and humour at every step which sustains the reader when the novel gets a bit heavy. Marty is not vey close to his brother, Rex, sister-in-law meredith and niece Cathy but he is kind of always there when they need him.

Dislikes:

The book drags in the middle. I found it repetitive at places. I had to skip a few pages.

Additional Thoughts:

Despite the wit and humour, it is not a light read. It covers relevant issues, reflective of our society. It is satire on the whole system, be it family, love, letters, or education. There are poignant moments too which brings us closer to the main characters. I recommend this book for all those teachers, educators and parents. Students too. Not for those who like books with happy endings.

The Farwalker's Quest by Joni Sensel

Zeke's tree would not speak to him.

"Are you sure you've got the right tree?" Ariel asked when he told her. "Maybe you've been hearing another one nearby that got tired of the confusion and gave up."

Title: The Farwalker's Quest
Author: Joni Sensel
ISBN: 9781599902722
Publisher: Bloomsbury Children's books/2009
Pages: 387

Zeke and Ariel, twelve years old are out chasing polliwogs in the creek in their lunchtime. That's when Zeke discovers that his tree won't talk to him. Ariel, who was never one cowed down by anything goes back to the tree to force it to speak to Zeke. Thats when they discover a dart with 13 weird symbols. They recognise a few of the symbols for each of the trades it represents but the last one is unfathomable.

Namingfest is three days away, on Apirl first where one can know what trade one wants to apprentice for. Ariel is the daughter of a Healtouch, and wishes to be one as she recognises medicinal plants and has a healiing touch. Zeke is the son of a tree-singer and wishes to be one himself.

That particular dart is given to the Storian of the village for safe-keeping but two finders turn up to claim it. They also want to take away Ariel along with them, recognising her for what she is, but they are not keen to reveal it to her as yet. Ariel fails her namingfest and wishes to be away too. Luna, Ariel's mother is not keen to send her daughter with two strangers to a far away place.

Scarl and Elbert steal Ariel away and kill her mother. They keep her tied and trussed up, taking her to some unknown place. Soon after Zeke follows and rescues her. Both bolt from the captives, finding new adventures on their way. Somehow Ariel knows exactly where to go and Zeke finds that rocks speak to him. It turns out that Ariel is a Farwalker.

Scarl and Elbert catch up with them and Scarl turns out to a protector of the children. They undergo the path of the dart, wanting to find out the Vault that is somehow mentioned in it. When they do, it is a revelation for the children and Scarl too. The treasure is not of Gold but wisdom, the art of living, which was lost in the disease which swept the Earth blinding everyone. People found their eyes-sight but lost everything else.

Despite the violence, I liked the book. The fantasy element is more like in the dreams or as an ESP. This makes it more realistic. Some questions are left unanswered. Maybe, Sensel wants to write sequels. It sure makes a good read for 11-13 years olds. My ARC goes to my 12 year old nephew.

Also reviewed by

CB James