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Late last week I was going to do a post about this book I’ve been reading that has just blown me away. It was going to be part of my Friday Reads features, but then, well, life got in the way…
Reviewing a wonderful book on my blog today. All The Colors of the Dark is part mystery, part coming of age, part romance in the truest sense of romance and not sex, and part social commentary on family and community. One of the most engaging stories I've read in a long time. Check it out.
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#MondayReads: I'm revisiting two old favorites about writing and editing, both to refresh my mind and to pick up some quotes I want to share in future blog posts and articles.
Renni Browne and Dave King's Self-Editing for Fiction Writers is a bit dated and sometimes phrases its guidance more absolutely than necessary (I don't think the occasional "he thought" is fatal). But it's still a clearly written, broadly applicable introduction to the art and practice of making your words more good on the page. The concept of "action beats" in dialogue or R.U.E. ("resist the urge to explain") would be worth the price of admission alone. It's only 220 pages, not particularity dense (the chapter-ending exercises are double-spaced, and there's the occasional comic strip), but full of useful info.
Ron Carlson Writes a Story is even shorter, just 112 pages, including the full text of the short story in question. Carlson walks you through the process of writing it, offering lots of observations and subtle tips along the way. Regardless of whether Carlson's literary fiction is your kind of thing -- it's not quite my genre, and I would not make all the creative choices he did -- many of his process suggestions ring vividly true. "The writer is the person who stays in the room." "When in doubt, include things." "Too often characters act like agents sent in by the author to 'advance the story' and not like people with hopes and fears of their own." "There are times when I don't know how to make a story better, but I can make it colder. I rewrote once only for temperature."
#MondayReads Once again, I'm prioritizing library books that are due back in the next week or two.
Creation by Gore Vidal - Historical fiction about the half-Greek grandson of Zoroaster traveling the ancient world meeting Persian emperors, the Buddha, Confucius, and other figures alive in the ~400s BC. The pitch sounds philosophical, but there's also plenty of action, a cast of dozens that might grow to hundreds, etc. Engaging so far - I even went for the expanded edition, because Vidal's editors apparently forced him to cut some chapters and once he became a bestseller he was like "Screw that, I'm putting them back in." Love that for him (and since the chapters are about the protagonist's friendship with Xerxes, which seems like the emotional heart of the story, I'm inclined to agree with him!)
The Lesser Bohemians by Eimear McBride - The back cover copy pitches this as "an unlikely love story" in which a young Irish theater student and an older, established actor "are each forced to face up to the darkness in their pasts." So you see why I'm reading it. However, McBride writes as if she does not particularly care if you're willing nor able to read the book. Which is a deliberate choice made by a writer with command of her powers: this is a literary novel and one does not write sentences(?) like "In. Under the hot and dark. Waterfall pictures...Me to Flatmate passing the joint. The laugh of it all on this good night" by accident. Yes, the entire book is written like that. There are no quotation marks around dialogue, but it tends to stand out for the comparative completion and coherence. Am I going to read the whole thing? Of course I am. Am I going to love it? Probably, what I can grasp of it.
Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller - Historical fiction about a man with congenital analgesia (inability to feel pain) and becomes a surgeon traveling through 18th-century England and Russia. Lush with often grim details. Probably a good choice for fans of Patrick Süskind's Perfume (which I liked; I'm also picking up this one soon after my reread of Maria McCann's As Meat Loves Salt. Rich and disturbing historical novels, my beloveds!).
SECRET Revealed by L. Marie Adeline - Honestly, I get a kick out of every #MondayReads post where I'm laying out a mix of grim and/or literary novels and then I have a romance novel alongside them. Because I contain legions! And romance novels and erotica are good reading, too! I love the concept of the SECRET trilogy, which is an underground group of women getting together (with some lovely and helpful men) to help each other live out their erotic fantasies. The wish-fulfillment of that concept is especially lived out by Solange in this book, an accomplished news anchor who deserves some pampering. The other plotline, in which an established couple from previous books breaks up when the guy learns of his girlfriend's involvement in SECRET, is a bit more painful; I'd need to see a hell of a grovel to forgive that. As I said in an earlier post, this book has me thinking a lot about erotic fantasies, wish fulfillment, and femdom (in that "eager men appear to make your life easier and satisfy you sexually, no strings attached" is definitely one kind of femdom fantasy, though there's no explicit female-dominant kink in the books that I recall so far; some male-dominant of the service top flavor). TBH, I think this could have made a great shared universe for a collection of shorter stories or novellas from different authors who explore different flavors of the wish-fulfillment.
GOOD MORNING, LIKERS!!!
Starting the morning with #coffee and Darkened Soul...currently on sale at Amazon.co.uk!!!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Darkened-Soul-1-LaTorre-Mays-ebook/dp/B00Z67Q2EU
Book 1 in my #book series of Nosferatus, futuristic landscapes, and...passion...
Passion can make a person do some dark things. It can even tear a relationship apart.
That is the lesson that Daniel Westberg, a Nosferatu, learns in Darkened Soul, a futuristic vampire thriller that combines dark fantasy and horror with sci-fi trappings.
The year is 3053. The United States has become a series of futuristic city-states. Daniel and his companion Jared head to California for a little fun. California is not what it seems however. In California, Daniel encounters a face from his past…a face thought long dead and that makes him question everything, including his rock-solid relationship with Jared. Also, Daniel learns of Ursula, a woman with an agenda that will send Daniel to Europe and dreams of his past there. From London to 2048 Paris to California again, Ursula’s agenda reveals an ancient prophecy and pits Daniel against Jared and the truth of their existence.
#happymonday #MondayReads
I think posting this on Commonwealth Day might make me look like an ungrateful troll (it is able the Opium Wars from South Asian perspective), but I already picked it to read for March #mondayreads #historicalfiction #amreading #bookstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CpvjetNPecI/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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My next library book is a queer opera in space, Winter’s Orbit by #everinamaxwell #mondayreads #amreading #bookstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CpdowVWPqmw/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
After reading Severance by Ling Ma, I have been looking for more literary sci-if by Chinese or Chinese American authors. Time for little gods by Meng Jin, my #librarybook of the week #mondayreads #amreading #bookstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CpLrQr_PdJc/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
After reading a couple more recent mysteries by Ruth Ware, I went back to her debut! #mondayreads #amreading #bookstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/Co6Jt4ALjo1/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
