Chanticleer Book Reviews

Category: Reviews

RAVENS ROOST by Maggie Bates – Children’s Nature Books, Illustrated Books, Children’s Friendship Books

Maggie Bates’s Ravens Roost is a Children’s book that explores the illustrated nighttime adventures of a woman with her friend, a small frog.

This story teaches children how to be curious about forest animals, even in the middle of a wind storm. Bates is new to writing Children’s books, and cares deeply for the natural world. Her rapport with animals likely inspired her debut tale.

Ravens Roost begins with a frog sitting on a roof, wondering where ravens go at night. The woman who lives in the house decides to help the frog follow his curiosity on an adventure. First, she climbs up a tree to watch ravens soar overhead. She admires the moon and notices the birds perching in her favorite tree. She climbs down and starts her trek along a forest path as night falls and the wind picks up. The woman tucks her frog friend into her pocket for safety. Along their journey, the frog and the woman share a special friendship.

The pair get trapped in the storm and the woman feels lost about where the ravens have gone.

Illustrations of the storm, the face of the wind, and the swirling background add depth and complexity to a pivotal part in the story. These images bring the story to life and sweep the reader up in their tale.

Ravens Roost is imaginative and observant of the world, making it a good choice for building vocabulary with a youngster.

This story’s lessons come in elegant prose. After reading of the author’s love and respect for nature at the end of the book, the parallels between the lead character and the author become apparent. Some beautiful ideas from Ravens Roost are realized by letting the wind carry us away, admiring numerous ravens on a perch, or protecting a frog from harm during a storm. Maggie Bates teaches children to be curious about animals, and the world we share with them.

Although the woman and frog are different in many ways, their ability to coexist is a valuable lesson.

In the end, if we do not stop to admire the natural beauty that surrounds us, we are overlooking unlikely friendships that may form, such as a woman with a frog. Bates reminds us that nature is a sacred space in her debut tale, and this story is paramount to us appreciating nature at any age.

July 1, 2022
MORAL FIBRE: A Bomber Pilot’s Story by Helena P. Schrader – Historical Fiction, WWII, Historical Aviation

In Moral Fibre: A Bomber Pilot’s Story, Helena P. Schrader takes readers to 1943 England, where deeply held values of honor and bravery mingle with the importance of one’s place in society. It was a time and place where failures of the former could shatter the latter and change a man’s life forever.

Within this psychological landscape, the reader is led to wonder, in the case of RAF pilot Christopher “Kit” Moran, will the war break him?

With thirty-six missions under his belt and as a decorated veteran, Kit suddenly refuses to fly another mission. Although a shock to everyone who knows him, Kit has his reasons. The new assignment comes less than one day on solid ground and two hours of sleep since returning from his most recent bombing sortie over Berlin. In itself a harrowing experience, the mission ended with his best friend, the plane’s skipper, being mortally injured and ultimately dying. The RAF hierarch deems Kit LMF (Lacking Moral Fibre) – a term introduced in 1940 to address those who refused to fly without having a verifiable medical reason. He is sent to a diagnostic center and examined by a psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist understands. Kit is not insane nor lacking in moral fibre. He was simply “wiped out.”

So Kit is declared capable and fit for duty and given the opportunity to train as a pilot. This outcome was a far cry from what he, an experienced flight engineer, expected after the incident that sent his career off track.

The novel really takes off in 1944 when, after completing pilot training in South Africa, Kit returns to England for the final stages of training and ultimately a return to operations. Now he must put his experience and training into practice while sublimating his lingering self-doubt and anxiety about his own resilience. Should he fail, people will die, and his dreams will die with him.

What ensues takes the reader into the English psyche of that time, tapping the depths of human emotions, holding them up to the light, and revealing their concomitant beauty and ugliness in times of fear and crises.

Before the war is over for Kit, he finds his inner strength, finds love, and learns the true meaning of sacrifice.

Meticulously researched and skillfully written, Schrader’s Moral Fibre steps off the pages and comes to life. Her nuanced characters and authentic dialogue also provide a glimpse of Britain’s stratified class-conscious culture during the WWII era.

Schrader picks a critical period during WWII for the setting and, in so doing, educates today’s readers about the horrors of a war that was and what it takes to save a nation – and perhaps the free world.

In Moral Fibre: A Bomber Pilot’s Story, Helena P. Schrader again reaffirms George Santanya’s position, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

June 29, 2022
The GREEN REMAINS: Book 2 of the Nora Tierney English Mysteries by M.K. Graff – British Cozy Mysteries, Women Sleuths, Romance

American editor and author Nora Tierney has a lot going on, from a book deal and pregnancy to stumbling on the site of a high-profile murder, in M.K. Graff’s mystery novel, The Green Remains.

After winning a contest for a three-book deal, Nora and her artist are proofreading her first novel while she is researching for the next installment. Add to this that Nora is also almost nine months pregnant with her dead boyfriend’s baby, and she should have enough to keep her busy.

As a temporary resident of Ramsey Lodge, the ancestral home of her novel’s artist Simon Ramsey, Nora enjoys the beautiful scenery of Bowness-on-Windermere, a Cumbrian village on the shore of England’s largest lake while attempting to find a name for her son. It doesn’t hurt that Simon and his sister Kate pamper her and want her to live with them at least as long as she and Simon are collaborating and by all means, until the baby is born.

However, Nora’s idyllic rest is interrupted when she stumbles upon the dead body of Keith Clarendon, the only son of prominent citizens Sommer and Antonia. When the medical examiner deems Keith’s death murder via rare poison, Detective Ian Travers, Kate’s fiancé, finds himself in the awkward position of questioning Simon’s possible involvement. However, the small community is again rocked by murder when two local drunkards are also found dead with signs of the same poison. Nora is determined to prove Simon’s innocence, but each day she draws closer to her due date and as she conducts her clandestine investigation, each clue takes her closer to the killer.

The romantic relationships in the novel present an interesting contrast.

In the first book in the series, Nora loses her fiancé, Paul, in a plane crash, but she had already “lost” him. She had allowed herself to ignore the negativity in their relationship. In hindsight, she knows she refused to see who her fiancé had truly been. When Kate suggests naming the child after Paul, the true feelings Nora had suppressed rise to the surface. She knows with certainty she could never name the child after his father. She suspects Paul himself had fallen out of love with her, but like her, couldn’t bring himself to break off their engagement.

Nora and Simon are another contrasting couple. In the previous novel, Simon saved Nora from certain death in Oxford while she investigated the accusations of murder made again her friend Val. They also shared a brief physical interlude there as well, and he is the artist for her children’s novels. Her need to clear Simon’s name is both obligatory and emotional. He and Kate have helped Nora in numerous ways, providing support and comfort. They attend birthing classes with her and give her a home at Ramsey Lodge. They paint her future son’s room and put together his crib.

Simon loves Nora and desires more than she is willing to provide.

She chooses to keep their current relationship platonic but often questions that choice. In short, Nora’s torn between her feelings for Simon and for the Oxford detective, Declan Barnes, who worked closely with her on a previous investigation.

Whenever she thinks about Declan, she experiences all of the “new-love” emotions, excitement, trepidation, and uncertainty. However, she simultaneously cannot stop the surge of jealousy she feels when Maeve, a manager at the hotel, flirts with Simon. Nora knows she has no right to these emotions but still cannot stop herself. Simon means security, a real family, while Declan represents passion and desire.

A theme many readers will find familiar is the anxiety of parenthood.

After learning of Paul’s death, Nora soon discovers she’s pregnant. She chose to keep her child and raise him on her own, a gutsy decision that she often questions. Her mind often fills with uncertainty. Nora’s mother lives in Connecticut, and her father drowned years ago when she was a teenager. She carries the burden of guilt over his death because she had turned down his invitation to join him.

The ghost of parenting haunts Nora because she wants to live up to the memory of what a wonderful parent her father truly was. She understands that saying you are going to be a good parent doesn’t really deliver the proof of actually being one. In the meantime, she must face the tragedy of Keith’s death and the grief of his loving parents. The strength of their loss, in a strange way, highlights her desire to be a loving parent.

Facing the death of her only child, Antonia mentally implodes. The loss feels monumental to Nora, and she questions her involvement in the investigation since death seems to surround her pregnancy. She sees how fragile life truly is and how having a partner makes that life more bearable, which in turn makes her wonder how she’ll ever be parent enough for her son when she can’t even choose a name or keep herself out of trouble.

The Green Remains by M.K. Graff won 1st Place in the 2014 CIBA M&M Book Awards for Cozy Mysteries.

June 27, 2022
EDGE: Turning Adversity into Advantage by Laura Huang – Business Motivation, Success Self-Help, Personal Transformation

Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage by Laura Huang is a valuable mixture of business strategy, science, and examples, all directed to help readers develop their unique skills and strengths.

Author Laura Huang takes readers through her own journey to becoming an award-winning Harvard Business School professor. Along with real-world examples of both successful entrepreneurs and up-and-coming business students, she lays out a four-part guide on how to create your personal edge.

Creating your own edge is essential to getting ahead in life no matter who someone is or where they come from. Huang herself is a child of immigrants and was one of a few female engineering students at her university. She had to navigate her own specific challenges, figuring out what worked for her and what did not.

Instead of being in business to invent or promote the next big thing, Huang is in the business world for its rich research opportunities.

In Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage, Huang will take readers through her process: Enrich, Delight, Guide, and put in Effort, to create their special edge. Huang reiterates throughout her book that anyone can have an edge; they can use who they are and whatever adversity they have faced to their advantage in not just business, but in their everyday life.

Huang uses her research expertise to give relevant sociological, philosophical, and business contexts to each section of the book.

Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage is not about gaming the system to get ahead in business, and Huang stresses that there is not one method to follow. She presents her research and gives examples of how to gain an edge in ways that can create new opportunities for you.

Along with all the examples and stories, this book follows its own advice to Enrich, Delight, Guide, and put in the Effort. Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage is at the same time enlightening, engaging, and truly a wake-up call to take charge of the growth of your life.

Edge: Turning Adversity into Advantage won Grand Prize in the 2020 CIBA Harvey Chute Book Awards for Business & Enterprise Non-Fiction.

June 22, 2022
CONTEMPT Of COURT by Ken Malovos – Legal Thriller, Courtroom Procedural, Family

What happens when a judge orders you, an attorney, to do something that you cannot possibly do without putting yourself in even greater legal jeopardy? What happens when you’re threatened with contempt of court for failing to follow the judge’s demand? That’s the crux of the legal issue faced by Sacramento trial attorney Mike Zorich in Contempt of Court, the first novel in writer Ken Malovos’ series about the Sacramento, Calif. lawyer.

The threat of contempt is only one piece of the troubles that surround Zorich. He’s mugged, his home is broken into, his computer is stolen, a stranger tries deliberately to run him off the road, and even more weighs on his shoulders.

Why is this happening to him? And could all these issues be related? Is this punishment by a former client for unsuccessfully defending him when he was a legal defender? Maybe someone in a current civil case he’s representing has strong enough reasons to want him harassed. And why does the judge in that complex case present him with an impossible issue: to hand over documents that another judge in the same case has ordered to be kept under seal or face contempt of court, including jail time?

This is a good novel for readers who enjoy legal fiction told with a a deep dive into the law.

Contempt of Court offers an intimate view of the everyday world of a working attorney. Readers get an insider’s glimpse of Zorich’s law practice as well as how he as an attorney works with a colleague who is defending him. One of the strongest parts of the book is Zorich’s recollection of how he dismantled a hostile witness in court through skillful interrogation. It’s a close-up look of how an attorney operates in court that is not often given enough time in TV shows and other legal dramatizations.

Zorich is an emotionally compelling protagonist, struggling as he copes with the loss of his late wife to cancer, his relationship with his college-age son, and with a girlfriend who must walk the difficult line of being the new woman in his life after his tragic loss. But primarily this is a book about the practice of law and how those who serve learn how to abide by and pervert the causes of justice.

Contempt of Court by Ken Malovos won 1st Place in the 2014 CIBA M&M Awards for Cozy and Not-So-Cozy Mystery Novels.

June 20, 2022
ELI’S REDEMPTION by Paul Attaway – Financial Thrillers, Small Town Mysteries, Suspense

When Eli Atkin’s mother betrays him in his girlfriend’s murder trial, he has no choice but to flee his home. He must find a way to survive, ultimately clear his name, and emerge transformed in Paul Attaway’s novel, Eli’s Redemption.

When life corners you, what choice do you have? On the brink of his high school graduation and a potential major league baseball career, Eli Atkins is framed for the brutal murder of his beloved girlfriend. His alibi hinges on the honest testimony of his mother, but instead she shocks him with a cruel, ruthless lie. Devastated and terrified, Eli takes his chance and runs away, fast. Alone, grieving, and confused, where can this troubled young man turn? He has to fight for his freedom and reputation, despite the impacts on others’ lives.

In the first book of the series, Blood in the Low Country, Eli escapes dangerous accusations, and the warrant for his arrest. We never learn where he goes, until now.

The thrilling tale behind that mystery mixes aspirations of hope with a dire tension. Once again the unknown may swoop in and create circumstances that will bury Eli forever. At the risk of facing arrest themselves for helping an escaping suspect charged with murder, surprising people step in for the sake of their friend. Eli makes it safely to the Caribbean. He hides from his old life and the law that pursues him, assuming a new identity. Though he escapes, he also leaves behind everything he loved. Eli grieves the loss of his girlfriend, his family, and the future he had planned for himself. All that has dissolved into thin air.

Anxious for the efforts of his friends back home to prove his innocence, Eli waits. Weeks turn into months and then years.

While others work on his behalf, digging up clues and following leads, the rhythm of life in the Caribbean captivates Eli. He discovers some joy in his work, in those people around him, and in new interests. The devoted baseball player tries his hand at a new game, golf. He develops enviable expertise. When he least expects to, he meets someone special, and irresistible. Cautiously, he even opens the door to the possibility of a new love.

Similar to the game of golf, life sometimes leaves players out of bounds, or deep in a sand trap. Not everyone wins with a hole in one. Eli finds delights in the Caribbean, but also dangers. When he has the chance to clear his name and reconcile with his old life, will he be tripped up again by the deceptions of his new life? Is Eli’s Redemption just one more broken dream? He fears that may be par for the course for his future. And yet, Eli drives forward and finds out.

Author Paul Attaway satisfies readers’ curiosity about Eli’s escape and his experiences as he grows from a scared teenager into an exiled man.

Artistically, the author paints the picture of this young man’s emotional journey. Along with Eli, the reader cringes with fears, thrills at joys, grieves at loss, and is surprised by new trouble and danger. Tension builds, keeping our interest and concern as Eli, and those around him, are tested by trials and tribulations. While we follow Eli’s adventures, we’re also treated to glimpses into the lives of those he left behind. How can they move forward without Eli, immersed in all the secrets that drove him away? Readers will be in Eli’s corner when he finally returns home and faces his ultimate test, his family. Reconciliation is easier said than done.

June 17, 2022
SOMETIMES WHEN I’M BORED by Deborah Serani, Psy.D – Children’s Activity Books, Children’s Development Books, Picture Books

Deborah Serani’s Sometimes When I’m Bored is a colorful children’s book that highlights the challenges of being bored as a child in an inquisitive and reflective way. It also teaches children how to navigate this complex emotion. Dr. Serani is also an award-winning psychologist in practice for over thirty years.

The story starts with a little boy explaining how when he feels bored, that “nothing feels fun.” He gives examples (staring out the window, not preferring his toys, completing multiple readings of all his books) of his complex feelings in the story opening, which are relatable as both a child and an adult. He decides to ask his mother for suggestions on how to cure his reluctance to do all his usual and familiar hobbies. The two share a relationship that is bridged by easy-to-understand language.

Momma reminds him that he could see his feelings of boredom as meaning that “something special is waiting” for him. His well-meaning and good-natured mother provides numerous suggestions to her son. The boy starts spending time resting with his father, or writing a letter to a loved one and following his curiosity. These tender moments are beautiful, the bond the two share is sweet and loving. Kyra Teis’ illustrations are full of vibrant color, with double page spreads showing texture and closeness in the characters.

Sometimes When I’m Bored flows naturally and effortlessly while touching on the challenges of feeling bored as a child and as an adult.

Boredom, although at times can feel inconvenient or inappropriate, teaches us all to use our curiosity and openness. We must, like the little boy in Sometimes When I’m Bored, learn and take the advice from those around us to help nurture these new habits in wonder.

Moreover, if we do not honor our disinterested feelings, we are unable to grow as individuals. Serani teaches children about this lesson in her lovely book and this book, like the others in the Sometimes When series, give a safe space for all to articulate their thoughts without judgement and only in awe.

June 16, 2022
The BOY WHO WROTE POETRY by Judy Taylor – Poetry, Family Memoirs, Artist Biographies

The Boy Who Wrote Poetry is a heartwarming and inspirational work about Mark Ford, a promising young poet and writer who died a tragic and premature death at the age of eighteen. This collection is the poetry he left behind.

Judy Taylor, Mark’s sister and the author of the book, tells the story of her brother’s short life and their family, the circumstances in which he grew up, and how he began to express his creativity at a very young age. The examples of Mark’s poetry and general writings that the author presents are remarkable and moving. Considering the tender age at which Mark wrote the poetry, the sophistication and insight revealed in the work are astonishing.

Despite the sometimes perplexing narration and lack of photograph captions, leading to confusion about who’s who in the images presented, the pictures of the family growing throughout the years give a touching clue to the close-knit family and the seven children, of whom Mark was the eldest and the author, his sister Judy, was the youngest. The photos, even without clarity on which child is which (the glasses at least make clear which is Mark Ford), make for warm reminiscences and give a clue to how the young poet lived and grew.

What is of particular note is the degree to which the self-awareness is evident in Mark’s work. “Please excuse the misspelled words,” he requests in the introduction to a collection of his poetry. “It was meaning, not grammar I strove (and am still striving) for.”

There are glimpses of what kind of storyteller that Mark would have developed into with offerings like “What do you use/To keep out the night? Try to conceal/Your delicate fright. Don’t call for help/For nothing is worse/Than wounded dignity/Innerness unhorsed.” A little trepidation, a little humor.

Mark, according to the author, went through phases including fantasy (in particular The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien) and Bob Dylan’s work, and produced imagery that reflects the prose of the time:

What changes in a day?
What makes the sky so grey?
What takes the wind and makes it so alone?
What breaks the earth and scatters senseless stone?
On the horizon, the bare brown
Horizon, glowing with the last of life,
Glowing with the last of life.
What changes in a week?
What makes it easier to speak
The words I should have said but could not say
And now that day has joined the past days
Littered in a pile.
A useless pile of days.
A useless pile of days.
A lightning tears the sky in two.
Another moment it is through
And sky is whole.
Beating down your wincing brow
The rains betray your wisdom now.
Alone the storm.
You, your trials, disappear
For who will equal or compare
Its tear-born ire?
The weeping storm screams out aloud.
Its tears are naked, bare and proud,
Anew for each departed leaf.
The sky lays down and cries its grief.

Not only that, more than a bit of insight amid the darkness, in his final poem before his death:

Guilt drops hawklike on suspecting man
And plummets toward his silent, secret sin.
The soul is pierced in vain; no talon can
Remove the stain when it is held within.
The grace of God, when sought, can dull
The beak and claws of guilt. A man can pray
And ease the burden in a heart too full
To bear, although the pangs of failure stay;
For God is God above us all and draws
Us up to Him, but man is man and shall
Persist in needing comrades in the pause
Between the ultimate rise and the ultimate fall.
God’s gifts uplift, but cannot be compared
In saving strength to sadness equally shared.

Mark Ford’s poetry and creative writing, the focus of the piece, were truly outstanding, and his early demise heartbreaking.

June 13, 2022
SCROOGE and CRATCHIT DETECTIVES: The Dark Malevolence by Curt Locklear – Victorian Mystery, Victorian Cozy, Holiday Fiction
Curt Locklear’s The Dark Malevolence, book 2 in the Scrooge and Cratchit: Detectives series is an immersive Victorian murder mystery that sets readers firmly in the era alongside two of our favorite characters from the most famous novelist of its time, Charles Dickens.

Once again Locklear hits the high notes of Dickens and Doyle as he paints good old London town in the days before electricity and public sanitation. We follow our heroes, Scrooge, Cratchit, and Lockie, as they put their talents to work to solve not one, but four mysteries.

With a cast straight out of the classics, Locklear references Shakespeare as well as developing his “something is afoot” mystery. Upon taking the case of Mrs. Evangeline Peabody’s missing husband, the mystery soon becomes a murder case. The husband is found dead and a local police officer, or “Metropolitan,” is found mauled to death. Mystery-one leads to murders one and two, and each event leads readers to another crime, another suspect, and another victim.

He does not shy away from the economic classes fraught with double standards, scandals, and social injustice. The story unfolds in upholding the Victorian penchant for complicated plots and stories and along with timeless investigative techniques as used by Sherlock Holmes. A compelling combination for lovers of classic mysteries.

The historical period comes to life under the author’s deft crafting, and his characters fill the pages with high-stakes chases, shootouts, brawls, and mad dashes to safety.

Lockie uses skills from his former life along with his knowledge of the criminal mind to help uncover leads his upstanding colleagues wouldn’t even recognize. Scrooge, a man trying to mend his uncharitable ways, uses his quick wit and abilities to judge character as they pursue one lead after another, and Cratchit uses his benevolent nature to bring all the talents together to help solve the crimes.

Locklear introduces complication after complication and with it come characters from Grimm’s fairytales, namely Snow, alluding to Snow White, and her seduction and disappearance from her home with a family of little people who will do everything in their power to save her.

Buckle up – there’s more!

Add in a crime ring and new medical technology for Victorian times, and you have the elements for the darkly compelling work. Locklear creates a sinister world where evil reigns in the back streets and alleys, and the success of our heroes is uncertain.

Locklear has done his research and the glossary of terms at the end of the book comes in handy for the language and terms used by the characters. The mystery builds and builds even as one murder is solved, and another begins.

Shining a light on issues of the time, such as human trafficking, illegal human experimentation, and hypnotism – a very popular medium for the Victorian era – Locklear kept this reader immersed and turning the pages of this well-crafted murder novel.

The characters become embroiled in and expose these issues. At times we cringe, but Locklear always holds out hope and optimism, even when Cratchit is afraid to sleep, and Scrooge dreads the wee hours of the night when Marley pays his visits.

The complex subplots create tension and intrigue as we follow our heroes through the dark seamy alleys and warehouses of London to solve murder and mystery.

The historical aspects lend a wonderful period flare, and the suspense and plot twists keep the tension high from beginning to end. Locklear’s Victorian mystery, a four caper in one book, has Lockie, Scrooge, and Cratchit rushing to solve each murder and put bad guys behind bars, but can they catch them all? The Dark Malevolence is a page-turner extraordinaire, a captivating read from beginning to end, and one we highly recommend.
June 10, 2022
HEALING OUT LOUD: How to Embrace God’s Love When You Don’t Like Yourself by Sandi Brown & Michelle Caulk, PhD, LPC – Christian Counseling, Memoirs, Friendship

Two writers – friends, and former counselor and client – combine forces to create Healing Out Loud, a dynamic book aimed at understanding and overcoming the deficits that life hands us.

Sandi Brown, a radio personality with more grit than she realizes, seeks professional help. Michelle Caulk’s therapeutic methodology perfectly suits this case. The two offer examples of wishing for and finding true mental health through the development of a remarkable communicative relationship.

Each chapter of the pair’s psychological explorations begins with a memory from Sandi, accompanied by her expanded view of incidents from childhood and beyond. These ruminations are then matched by counselor Michelle’s personal grasp of Sandi’s specific dilemmas, and well-constructed guidelines for a healing process that readers can incorporate into their own lives. Sandi, grappling with low self-esteem, was traumatized as a child when her father left her mother and brother, loudly and finally, with no explanation.

This was followed by her mother’s marriage to a gruff and unloving stepfather who abused the little girl starting when she was six.

As Sandi opens up to Michelle about this period of her life, she remembers once refusing to properly excuse herself from the supper table, simply sitting there for a protracted period in silent defiance. To this, Michelle declares that Sandi was “a fighter,” and this becomes a working theme in their therapy sessions as Sandi’s emotional grasp expands.

She begins to realize she can confront and overcome her long held shame; she has a voice and she is loved, not only by those in her current life, but by God, who has a plan for her success. At each stage of her self-discovery, Sandi is offered another step in “The Unpacking Process with Dr. Michelle.” The day Sandi buys make-up is a notable turning point, since previously she considered herself too unattractive to draw undue attention to her features.

Sandi and Michelle, whose relationship gradually enters the realm of friendship as both reveal their deepest aspirations, have constructed this vibrant manual to help others take on the task of self-healing.

Part of the process, as is made clear in a variety of ways, is to speak out and invite others to share their own inner doubts and fears. The writing is both educated and plain, emphasizing their shared drive for outreach and their common Christian outlook. Useful metaphors include taking the plunge off a high diving board, throwing unwanted feelings off a bridge, and Sandi’s youthful memory – expanded now to include her greater understanding – of being a kite, learning to fly past her problems, accept life’s inevitable scars, and share her experiences with other battered flyers.

Healing Out Loud is a most unusual literary experiment that combines a woman’s need to find a better path and greater fortitude, and another woman’s wish to help her see that the positive qualities she seeks already dwell within her. The resulting work has the power to evoke threads of memory and longing for improvement among its readers and can doubtless serve in both individual and group contexts.

June 8, 2022