Chanticleer Book Reviews

Category: Reviews

Big Horse Woman: Shónge Tongà Wa’u by Barbara Salvatore – First Nations Historical Fiction, Coming of Age Historical Fiction, Magic Realism

A vivid, mystical tale of a young girl coming of age amidst her people, the Ponca, on the Great Plains, in the early 1800s. This prize-winning novel, Big Horse Woman by Barbara Salvatore, offers poetic imagery and a glimpse of the world seen through the eyes of a gentle healer and powerful seer.

Water Willow is born under a black willow tree, daughter of an enchanting songstress mother, a fearless hunter father, a “seed carrying” grandmother known for her understanding of curative plants, and a grandfather who carries the secret lore of bears. She will inherit properties of all of them. The child bears a visionary gift that will be articulated when she reaches four years of age, so clear then that the whole tribe gathers to listen: enemies are on the way, and all must flee to the yet undiscovered site of a big white sycamore tree. Once there, they find protection and nature’s abundance and can settle in their new home, Planting Creek.

As Water Willow grows, she continues to have visions, some of them too horrible to share.

She sees the inevitable slaughter of a young man who wishes to take her as his wife. Water Willow acquires the secrets of communication with animals, hones her hunting skills, and develops her knowledge for using particular plants for healing. Her name becomes Big Horse Woman when she rescues a colt drowning in a flash flood and tames him even as he grows to great size.

Maturity brings expanded inner sight, making her realize that wisdom can cause pain as well as prosperity.

Big Horse Woman’s people, now under the subtle sway of white men invading their homeland, bringing disease and discord, are less prepared to follow her wise message: “We will not grow tall corn or live long if war is what we seek.”

So Big Horse Woman will take to the wilderness with her Big Horse and her wolfish companion, Ears Up, becoming a loner and absorbing needed knowledge at each turn of her new-made path. Discovering a hidden bag of corn seed on the trail, she begins to realize they are close to their old home, and she must follow the clues as she moves on.

One remarkable feature of Salvatore’s authorship is the diligence, the undeniable effort she has made to create this story.

A lengthy segment following the tale gives a factual underpinning for the Ponca people’s history, language, and the many glowing images that infuse the narrative, a combination of prose and poetry appropriate to the magical universe inhabited in the heart of its heroine. When Water Willow brings home a scrap of beautifully decorated cloth found on the horns of a buffalo, she is unwittingly bringing smallpox to plague herself and her extended family, one of the eerie “legacies” of early white settlement of the West.

A gripping reference to a historically recorded shower of shooting stars on November 13, 1833, heralds the girl’s incarnation. Descriptions of the women’s cures drawn from their natural surroundings will be comfortably recognizable to anyone familiar with herbal remedies in the modern era. With these and other salient references, Salvatore shows her admirable devotion to her setting and her subject. Salvatore’s book is the first in what she has titled the Big Horse Series and will doubtless garner a wide readership for this work and its sequels.

Big Horse Woman won 1st Place in the CIBAs Laramie Book Awards for First Nations Historical Fiction and is one book we highly recommend!

November 11, 2022
REQUIEM For A QUEEN by Kaylin McFarren – Paranormal Suspense, Action & Adventure, Occult Fiction

To what lengths will a person go when ultimate power is within reach? Requiem For A Queen by Kaylin McFarren explores the depths of greed that propel a daughter to defy her father, the Devil himself.

Lucinda uses evil means to pursue an equally dark end, the crown of Hell. How can this woman be stopped, and an innocent child she’s stolen away be saved? Is there anyone willing to step forward, and muster the strength to stand up against the destructive battle between the Devil and his daughter?

Samara, a hybrid between angel and demon, can only save her abducted son by stepping into that battle.

Though she feels alone and powerless, Samara is determined. She refuses to reveal her location or seek help after escaping brutal imprisonment by the Devil, who raped her. Pregnant, and now in labor, Samara secretly delivers the Devil’s son and remains in hiding. Her baby is the most precious being to her; she’ll do anything to protect him, and she celebrates him as he grows. As she finds happiness, Samara becomes interested in an intriguing, handsome being who rescued her from drowning.

That joy is torn apart the day her son disappears. Lucinda has found him and decides to eliminate the only other living heir to their father’s throne.

Samara has now lost all she loves. She cannot seek help from her own family, or the Devil will execute his threats against them. So, she begins an anguished search alone, but Lucinda is devious and cunning, keeping a step ahead of her.

Samara has a terrible decision to make. Will she return to the Devil, seeking his help to find their son? What life will that leave for them both? Or, as a half-demon herself, she could try to stoke her powers, in defense of her family. Can she find her son and win him back before he is destroyed? Or will he manage to break free on his own?

Author Kaylin McFarren has created an emotional clash of wills in this third installment of the Gehenna series.

In this book, the three fervent opponents fight to win regardless of the consequences. They utilize every weapon available, unwilling to back down, in this incredible fight to discover the true value of family devotion and personal redemption. The reader is thrust into the midst of a page-turning journey, examining the darkest crevices of the nature of evil, particularly in the Devil’s actions.

Yet, Samara is part demon, and Lucinda is the Devil’s daughter. Both women struggle with their emotions, and their choices to act on the powers available to them. McFarren artfully creates a Lucifer who struggles as well, in his case, against glimpses of sweeter desires that do not fit his devilish and demonic self. These characters do not fight only external foes, but also internal forces, creating a compelling story of good versus evil that springs from within as well as from without.

November 9, 2022
CERTIFIED by Roger Wilson-Crane – Family & Relationships, Humor, Modern Life

Certified by Roger Wilson-Crane is a multi-award-winning comedy-drama, following one man down three sharp turns in his life trajectory.

Based on real-life events, Certified shows the narrator’s birth, marriage, and death, three of the most significant milestones in human life. The book is divided into three sections.

“One Unexpected Birth” explores his flawed string of relationships until he meets Dawn, the love of his life. However, a woman from the past makes a comeback, threatening to shatter his newly found happiness.

“One Hapless Wedding” careens about his well-planned wedding in Puglia, Italy, which is trampled by Justin Timberlake who wants the same venue. “One Bizarre Death”, on the other hand, follows the loss of the narrator’s loved one and the pain and confusion that surrounds an unexpected death. Certified is full of humor, heart, and unexpected gems that one might find in a trunk of well-lived memories.

A work of depth, this story is carefully wrought with nuance and wisdom, serving up a worthy exploration of the human imperfections in our contemporary world.

With honesty and sensitivity, Author Crane makes this chronicle of a man’s choices inviting and restorative. Even with our best efforts and good support, the myriad attachments we develop over a lifetime, to desires, expectations, people, possessions, and ideas, all keep circling back to clutter the pathway and entangle us. Crane’s novel manages to give an empathic portrait of the struggle to break free and find peace.

Backstory weaves naturally with the narrator’s present life, making the plot easy to follow and understand. Dialogue and prose are well-balanced, working together to show the emotional depth of the characters. The most striking aspect of Certified is the quality of writing, which is original, fresh, and unique. Every word counts throughout the protagonist’s thoughts, emotions, and opinions on life.

With its stellar prose, the text introduces new characters along the way who are equally fleshed out.

Certified emphasizes the impact of small, seemingly insignificant moments on its characters, showing their capacity to change people and the world around them.

It takes natural talent for an author to make a fictional narrative appear to be a real-life story. Crane offers readers this rare experience, prompting readers to see themselves in the story. Themes of hope, heartbreak, loss, love, and change flow seamlessly, leaving no cliffhangers as they propel toward the end.

Overall, this is a tightly woven and intelligent comedy-drama that, despite its length, is compelling enough to binge-read in the course of a weekend. Comedy fans will enjoy Certified by Roger Wilson-Crane along with the heartfelt lessons that it imparts.

Certified by Roger Wilson-Crane won Grand Prize in the 2021 CIBA Mark Twain Awards for Humor and Satire Fiction.

November 7, 2022
THE VINES by Shelley Nolden – Medical Mystery, Suspense, Historical Fiction

Shelley Nolden’s debut novel, The Vines, embraces multiple genres as it chills, fascinates, and horrifies, from historical and magical realism to fantasy and horror.

Nolden has melded fanaticism, medical anomalies, and the frailties of human behavior together with a historic setting, creating a narrative Kudzu vine that grows rapidly and spares nothing in its path. This particular vine consists of two main branches that intertwine, bridging time and linking parallel realities, one past, one present.

The Gettler men of Long Island, New York have shepherded a secret medical research project for generations, with the exception of Finn, the youngest man in the family.

Beginning with Otto, Finn’s great-grandfather, who worked at the Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island at the turn of the 20th century, this family has been consumed by unanswered medical questions about universal conditions that impact the human race.

Years after Otto’s death, the Riverside Hospital was ultimately closed, leaving North Brother abandoned, subject to the ravages of rats, birds, and vines. However, Finn’s father and grandfather secretly continued Otto’s research at the now crumbling, empty medical facility.

Although aware of their secret research, Finn had always been excluded from the details, despite his curiosity. What exactly were they doing? And why?

In 2007, the 28-year-old Finn clandestinely crosses the East River to North Brother. Instead of learning about his family’s secret research, he encounters an unfriendly, mysterious woman, her body scarred from previous physical abuse, yet fit and strong, bathing in one of the abandoned buildings.

More than a century ago in February 1903, Coraline McSorley, Cora to most, is infected with typhus and quarantined at Riverside Hospital, New York City’s most notorious pesthouse.

The ensuing story skips back and forth in time, slowly revealing itself through flashbacks, real-time, and places in between. As it grows, The Vines becomes more engaging. Nolden utilizes historical people, places, and events associated with North Brother Island to create a story in which Cora, along with the island itself, are sympathetic characters irrevocably tied to a family whose fanatical, convoluted curiosities dominate every aspect of their lives.

Several chapters into the book, the hook is set deep, pulling the reader in close and holding them there.

The Vines offers readers a mystery to be unraveled, connecting dots back and forth in time as the pace and action increase. Rather than ending with a conclusive resolution, The Vines leaves questions for the reader to ponder, matching the curiosity of the story’s characters.

Readers pulled into this mystery will be glad to find another baited hook dangling just beyond the gateway to the future, as Nolden suggests a sequel is in the works.

The Vines by Shelley Nolden won Grand Prize in the 2021 CIBA CLUE Awards for Suspense and Thriller Mysteries.

November 4, 2022
A PORTION OF MALICE by Lloyd Jeffries – Paranormal, Christian Thriller, Action, Suspense

God visits a punishment of immortality on three men in Lloyd Jeffries’ A Portion of Malice, the first in the Ages of Malice series. The leader of these immortals, Cain the first murderer, seeks to even the scales by taking all of God’s children away from Him.

In the modern day, Emery, a renowned journalist fallen on personal tragedy, was planning suicide before the immortal Roman Longinus found him. Longinus brings him to meet Thaddeus Drake, a man with the uncanny ability to make peace between warring nations. Drake reveals himself to be the biblical Cain and offers Emery all the money and luxury he could ever need if he simply tells Cain’s story. Emery agrees, and upon seeing the terrible mark on Cain’s hand, can’t deny the truth of his immortality.

Cain and Longinus introduce Emery to their fellow immortal, Igneus. While Emery learns more about these strange men and how Jesus rejected Cain’s begging for forgiveness, earning his eternal rage, he becomes pulled into their far-reaching conspiracy. Cain and his companions long ago formed the secret organization X’Chasei, and over two millennia have become the undisputed masters of the world. However, Cain is not content with this power alone, and as he begins to enact the prophecies of Revelations, Emery realizes how dangerous these people truly are.

The plots of X’Chasei catch Emery in a whirlwind of power, implication, and scripture.

While Cain holds a deep hatred for God, he also understands Him far better than anyone else could; he has walked with God, has heard His voice, and knows the true extent of His word. John the Apostle was also made immortal, given a sacred task by Jesus, and in retribution, Cain exiled him to Patmos and stole a record of divine visions given to John. Cain remains a mysterious figure throughout the story, keeping Emery guessing as to his true plans, and whether there could be any way to stop him.

Longinus and Igneus serve Cain’s plot, though both Emery and the reader only get to see the final, disconnected steps of it. This story becomes a mystery of biblical proportions, with disparate plotlines winding together for the climax.

Even as he orchestrates murder and revolts to get his way, Cain remains a sympathetic character. His companions share that humanity, making a fascinating cast of villains.

For millennia, Cain wandered the Earth as a vagabond, unable to settle in any one place, with the guilt of his brother’s death hanging around his neck. Even so, he sought forgiveness from the son of God. When he’s rebuked, the reader sees the extent of his despair, his suffering, and even some truth to his claim that “God prefers blood.” His fury mingles with a deep longing, a loneliness that defines him. While, two thousand years later, he rejects the idea of God’s forgiveness, he desperately wishes to make amends to his brother Abel.

While Longinus enjoys his place of power over the mortals of this world, he cows to Cain, showing a hint of vulnerability even as he kills for the sake of X’Chasei. However, Igneus is the only one of them who truly connects with Emery. Smaller and prone to fear, Igneus has spent his eternity dwelling on the cruelty he’s surrounded by and finds a kindred spirit in this mortal man brought into their circle.

Author Lloyd Jeffries offers beautiful and painful descriptions of both the modern world and biblical times.

The characters’ emotions become palpable, and they speak to each other with weight behind their words. The climax could have delivered more completely on the themes of Cain’s story, but A Portion of Malice holds a strong tension that will keep readers excited to follow all of these people – mortal and immortal – to the next part of this imaginative series.

November 2, 2022
TWISTED by Steve Mullaney – Psychological Thriller, Internet Crime, Horror

In Twisted, Steve Mullaney gives readers a tale of fear, cruelty, and perversion, involving those who lurk in the darkest corners of the internet.

Readers are first introduced to Derek, a man who roofies women in order to record his sexual activities with them for profit on the dark web. He runs a complete operation to peddle his illegal media, including ways to cover his identity and launder the money as well as maximize his profits through technical skills and better equipment to up his production quality.

Meanwhile, Ned, a philandering family man, gets an offer to work remotely for three weeks each month away from his family. At his new job, he gives in to temptation and starts a romantic relationship with a woman named Gina. This relationship will lead him to cross paths with Derek, and become entwined in his horrific world.

Mullaney explores themes of depravity and assault, and the consequences of such activities through the eyes of both victims and offenders. Readers walk through the systems of rationalization that even the vilest characters assemble to justify their actions.

Ned, the character who holds the point of view for most of the story, starts as a narcissist who cares for no one but himself. His self-centered ways are put to the test when their consequences fester to the point where he must deal with them whether he wants to or not.

Mullaney does a great job painting a grim picture of how business in the dark web functions, as well as providing believable details of how a man can hide the fact that he has a family and kids in another state while dating single women. At times, the details can feel gratuitous, but they add a strong sense of realism that heightens the horror aspect of this story.

Overall, Twisted will give readers a feeling of grime, leaving them to wonder if and how characters like Ned will pay for their actions.

Anyone looking for a trip along the darker wires of the web will find just that in the pages of Twisted. Mullaney has penned a delightfully ‘twisted’ thriller with serious bite that will drive readers page by page to the end.

October 28, 2022
AFTER The RISING And BEFORE The FALL by Orna Ross – Historical Fiction, Irish Civil War, Family Saga

Award-winning Irish author Orna Ross has created a volume comprising the first two novels of The Irish Trilogy, drawing from her Irish birth and upbringing for a special grasp of the country’s history, how its wars and political strivings have affected its people directly, personally, over multiple generations.

Her two books take on a span of time rooted in the early 1920s and delve deeply into the interlocking fate of the extended family and ancestry of Jo Devereux. Jo, the book’s central narrator, leaves Ireland in her twenties, only returning in her forties in 1995 when she learns that her mother is near death.

The journey back will draw her into the family’s complex relationships, and reacquaint her with Rory, her former, and perhaps only, true love.

Reading through old family papers, Jo will find out more about her mother, her grandmother, and some of the men from her past. These family secrets are compelling and often painful, driving Jo to discover more, eventually uncovering a murder with people she knew and cared for possibly at its center.

Underpinning the drama among her closest and most cherished people is her growing understanding of her home country. Ireland’s war for independence from England has always found most emphasis in its popular lore, but the far-less publicized conflict that followed, the Civil War, may have killed more people than the one that preceded it and lingers even today in bitter memory.

Jo will have to absorb all of these revelations about her forebears while she copes with the ever-changing modern culture in her new home of San Francisco.

The insider’s gaze at 1960s gay culture and feminism are significant sidebars in both past and present portions of Ross’s vibrant and varied narrative. The book ends with Jo contemplating her future, with some crucial questions yet unanswered, begging a sequel.

Ross is a highly practiced wordsmith; this series has already garnered recognition, awards, and the attention of the media.

She is able to mix, match and contrast evocative elements of romance, warfare, women’s rights, men’s feelings, historical nuance, and human-scale humor (especially highlighting that aspect of the Irish conversational flow), all in their appropriate historical niches, developed deftly to keep her story in full motion. This is a book for dedicated readers of any age or clime and will have them waiting attentively for the final installment.

After the Rising by Orna Ross won Grand Prize in the 2021 CIBA Goethe Awards for post-1750s Historical Fiction.

October 26, 2022
IN The UNDERWOOD by Kourtney Spadoni – Graphic Novels, Mental Health, Coming of Age Memoirs

In the Underwood by Kourtney Spadoni is a memoir in graphic novel form, a thoughtful and gentle story about a young girl struggling with mental health issues, and learning how to keep them at bay as she grows up.

What if Alice’s adventures in the strange and fabulous Wonderland were the result of a mental health crisis instead of a story? In the Underwood draws metaphors inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and evokes the mood of Robert Frost’s classic poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

Author Spadoni relates with a simple narrative and delicate art style how as a child she was prone to severe bouts of anxiety, leading to her crying uncontrollably in her classes and avoiding other children in social situations.

She describes episodes in which she withdraws and attempts to hide within herself. A cat, in Wonderland and in real life, appears and acts as an occasional guide through the fantasy land, where a mad queen in red tells her over and over again that she’s not good enough, that she’s weak, before she eventually learns to stand up to the queen.

Ultimately, she manages to tell herself that despite her fears, “it’s not the end of the world.” This phrase becomes her personal talisman. Through her ups and downs, she steps forward and through the darkness before coming out on the other side, addressing her fears and eventually conquering them.

In the long run, Spadoni comes out of her shell, gains friends, develops a group with whom to share similar interests, and learns how to control and deal with the anxiety that overwhelmed her when she was younger.

However, later on, depression comes for a visit, and she has to step up for another fight—a fight she is now better equipped to win.

The art and coloring of In the Underwood match the mood of the work, and like the Frost poem, they conjure the depth and even the darkness and stillness of the night. The words themselves seem to swirl in a mist, sometimes vivid and sometimes faint, reflecting the author’s mind, both when it’s at its lowest and darkest and when it’s at its strongest.

Kourtney Spadoni’s tale about battling mental illness as a youngster, told in vibrant graphic novel form, is a winning combination and should be a go-to for young people in crisis.

In the Underwood by Kourtney Spadoni won First Place in the 2021 CIBA Shorts Awards in the Graphic Stories category.

October 14, 2022
SEEING GLORY: A Novel of Family Strife, Faith & the American Civil War by Bruce Gardner- Christian Historical Fiction, Civil War, American Slavery

Seeing Glory by Bruce Gardner is a sweeping, thought-provoking Christian historical novel of the American Civil War. The novel portrays the critical roles of family ties and religious faith in shaping personal attitudes and actions towards the horrors of slavery and the war itself.

Spanning the era from the famous abolitionist John Brown’s Pottawatomie Massacre in 1856 through the end of the war nine years later, Seeing Glory focuses on the gut-wrenching conflicts over slavery and the southern way of life faced by David, Emma, and Catherine Hodge, fictional siblings, raised on a wealthy plantation in Virginia.

David returns home from a prestigious northern college filled with radical new perspectives. He challenges his father’s and his southern church’s assurances that the Bible says slavery is approved by God. When David calls out the truth as he now sees it, he ignites a firestorm that tears him away from his family at the beginning of the Civil War, sparking huge changes in their individual destinies. Soon after meeting Abel Bowman—an ardent abolitionist and follower of John Brown—David moves north to Ohio and becomes an embedded war reporter with Abel’s Union army regiment. Mutual zeal for the abolitionist cause abounds, but will it help or hinder the two men’s endurance of horrific battlefield violence and scandalous personal accusation?

Devastated by David’s departure from the plantation, his younger sister Emma is torn between the realities of slavery and her Christian faith. Unable to bear the cruelty that she sees her family’s slaves being subjected to, Emma flees north with her maidservant Sallie, one seeking freedom, the other seeking purpose.

Meanwhile, the elder Hodge daughter, Catherine, strives to be the perfect southern plantation mistress after her mother’s death. After marrying a Confederate officer, she is forced to manage both her ailing father’s and her 0wn plantation once her husband is off to war. The pressure of her siblings’ abandonment weighs on her as the war creeps closer, threatening to destroy everything she’s worked for.

Christian beliefs were a big part of the historical abolitionist movement. In Seeing Glory, each of the Hodge siblings and Abel Bowman face their own personal issues of faith, privilege, and forgiveness. It is through the lens of faith that these engaging characters discover their unique paths for surviving the war and supporting the abolition of slavery in the United States. On their journeys, they become involved in many historical events, interacting with famous people like Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and Angelina Grimké—a former plantation daughter from South Carolina who eventually became a nationally known abolitionist, journalist, teacher, and women’s rights advocate.

Although Seeing Glory falls within the Christian Historical fiction genre, Gardner doesn’t shy away from describing how the Bible was too often used by southern politicians, pastors, and churches to justify slavery—but on the other hand how ardent commitment to a “glorious cause” like abolition could at times be taken too far. Likewise, Gardner doesn’t downplay the brutality of slavery nor the destruction and devastation of the Civil War, though his novel is not excessively gruesome or overly explicit in its descriptions.

Fans of historical fiction will appreciate the compelling mix of fictional and historical characters woven through the emotion-packed saga of Seeing Glory, eager to discover what will happen next. Highly recommended!

October 10, 2022
JUS BREATHE by B. Lynn Carter – Black Historical Fiction, 1960s Historical Fiction, Family Life Fiction

A young woman strives to survive without a home, even as she must fight herself and her instincts, in Jus Breathe by B. Lynn Carter.

“It’s more like I walked away,” I said, fractured memories of the day I left surging into my mind. “My mother married herself a husband. It’s like the tale of the evil stepfather, I guess.” The words were spilling out. “On the first day that we moved in with him, he almost broke my jaw. So I left. She had to let me; you know – the survival thing. She knew. We both knew.”

In New York City during the tempestuous 1960s, Dawn flees an abusive family situation after her father leaves the family and her mother remarries. Determined to stay in education, she couch-surfs with friends and explores her contacts through school. Dawn manages to live and even graduate. With the help of sympathetic teachers and a social worker who believes in her, she goes to college. Dawn finds friends and boyfriends and makes her own way toward adulthood.

And then her life goes awry again, though this time, she has a harder time choosing whether to run.

An overwhelming and toxic relationship with handsome Danny, a low-level drug dealer with ambitions, has Dawn making mistakes and second-guessing her plans, a journey made more complex with an accidental pregnancy. Throughout her young life, she’s had a term, “leaving time,” a point wherever she is and whomever she is with that indicates she has to gather her belongings and find a new situation. With a new life to take care of, Dawn finds that Danny ignores her own ambitions. Is it leaving time?

Despite the obstacles that she encounters on her journey toward adulthood, Dawn establishes her goals and works toward them, even though at times she seems to work against her best interests.

Dawn’s struggles to get through school and become an adult are harrowing and draw the reader to experience those struggles with her.

She remains relatable, with complicated reasons for the decisions she makes. Dawn’s world – specifically, her friends, her foes, and the people around her – are fully fleshed out, and the mysteries and surprises that she encounters, both pleasant and unpleasant, all work toward helping her grow into her own power.

Author B. Lynn Carter’s tale about a young woman growing up in a time of social unrest in a city in turmoil is heartwarming and thought-provoking, giving a glimpse into the trials and tribulations of young adulthood.

October 10, 2022