Category Archives: book reviews

Samantha Charles guest blogs on her novel REDEMPTION

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We get many review requests from regional authors, and as a bookstore and book blog want to support all forms of publishing and creativity in today’s strange marketplace. (Read: the stigma of self-publishing is dead; everybody likes a good story; huzzah for regional authors.) Offering a guest blog rather than a review seems the simplest way to give that support.

Meet Samantha Charles, whose book REDEMPTION came out recently from Black Rose Publishing, who in her own words explains:charles

Redemption is a work of contemporary women’s fiction inspired by the courage of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and infused with the elements of mystery and romance found in the works of Sandra Brown. The quaint hospitable charm of the setting gives the work a distinctive southern voice, yet the timbre lacks the cultured polish of the Low Country cadence found in Anne River Siddons work.

Like my protagonist Lindy, I grew up as a Southern minister’s daughter in a slow-paced coal mining community in Virginia. Lindy and I have had similar experiences. Stephen King once said, “Fiction is the truth inside the lie.” You could say Lindy and I share many truths.

Throughout all the plot twists and changes, the ending of Redemption never deviated from my original version. Once the story reached a natural conclusion to the action, I simply stopped writing.

After several years spent in creative Heaven, and a few more spent in the fires of editing Hell, Redemption has become a piece of fiction that I am proud to share with you. I sincerely hope that you all enjoy your time in Parson’s Gap. Thank you for the opportunity to introduce myself to your readers. I am grateful for the time you’ve all invested in learning more about me, and my work.

Samantha Charles is a native of the Southeastern United States. As a writer, she enjoys sharing the rich, diverse, and sometimes dark, traditional heritage of the Appalachian Mountains. Samantha’s debut novel Redemption is the first of a series set in Parson’s Gap; a small coal-mining community inspired by the people and places she grew to love as a child. Her work explores the social and cultural issues, both good and bad, that permeate the southern region she calls home. When she is not busy creating new worlds, she teaches English at a local college. Currently, she is hard at work on Salvation, the sequel to Redemption.

For more information on Black Rose, you can visit their website at www.blackrosewriting.org or the AW author forum: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97741

The Monday Book: THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY

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by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

book gurnseyAs a rule I don’t like books that are written in letter form, but this is one of my favorite novels ever. Perhaps because it was written by two authors, they were able to give the various writers of the letters (and diary bits and telegrams, etc.) such varying voices and characters that they form a wonderful comprehensive picture of a community under stress–nice guys, mean people, weirdos, and all.

The book is about the German Occupation of Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands. It’s not something that has a lot of literature to it, perhaps because “A Model Occupation” (as a non-fiction book about the same subject is titled) can be embarrassing in politics. But the writing of this aunt-niece combo is just lovely. Poignant, gentle, understated elegance meets raucous humor.

The characters are believable, the situations drawn from real events. Terrible things lie next to sweetness and fun–like the letter from Micah Daniels to Juliet Ashton, dated 15 May 1946, in which he recounts “for your book” (Miss Ashton is working on a post-war history) when the Vega Red Cross ship brought the starving islanders food, and the starving German soldiers actually gave it to them–then one soldier stole an islanders’ cat and ate it.

That kind of thing.

The stories are intense, and so very human. In fact, although I suspect the late Ms. Shaffer would roll in her grave to hear this, Potato Peel reminds me of World War Z (the oral history of the Zombie Wars). They have the same straightforward storytelling, the same delivery technique (recordings versus letters, though) and the same darkness-and-light amalgamation. They’re too normal not to be believed, even as they describe one of the most horrific times in history, and one of the most horrific (and unbelievable) apocalyptic scenarios. Maybe that’s why World War Z is more popular – it didn’t happen. Many things like this in Potato Peel did. You can read about the historic research Shaffer did, and how she got interested in the Channel Islands in the first place, with a simple Google search, if you want to.

But I’d recommend reading the book first. It’s a great read, and very thought-provoking.