Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: 5 Star Book Review

  • Tree Soldier by J.L.Oakley – Historical Fiction, FDR Era Work Camp, Pacific Northwest

    Tree Soldier by J.L.Oakley – Historical Fiction, FDR Era Work Camp, Pacific Northwest

    In this action-packed, emotionally charged historical novel titled Tree Soldier, J.L. Oakley takes us back to the era of the Great Depression. With millions of Americans unemployed, President Franklin D. Roosevelt devised a New Deal work relief program called the Civilian Conservation Corps.

    Some three million unmarried young men went to work in CCC camps across America—building roads and bridges, establishing flood control, and replanting depleted forests. Of the men’s $30 monthly paychecks, $25 was sent to help their desperately poor families.

    Oakley skillfully weaves this history into a suspense-building story of love, forgiveness, and redemption. The story commences with the arrival in 1935 of a new squad of “Tree Soldiers” at Camp Kulshan, a CCC forestry camp in the rugged North Cascades, near the little village of Frazier, Washington.

    While most of the new recruits are sort of rough teenagers from urban New Jersey and New York, our protagonist is a college student who left school and his farm home in eastern Pennsylvania to join up.  The strong and handsome John Parker Hardesty has more than a paycheck on his mind, however. The pensive young man, who sometimes seeks solitude in the forest, is trying to escape his nightmare memories of two tragic events in his life. His fellow recruits nonetheless respect the polite, clean-cut, Park who can also hold his own in the physically competitive proving ground environment of camp life. Many of the new recruits seek out his company, especially a wiry, 18-year-old Italian kid named Mario Spinelli, who takes the upper bunk above Park. Before long Park becomes the squad’s “straw boss.”

    Camp Kulshan is no fun summer camp. The physical training is tough, camp chores are boring, and not all the Tree Soldiers are easy to get along with. The boys of “Joisey Squad” (from the Jersey accents of several) are dubbed “foreigners” and suffer some rough hazing. However, camp life is not all work and no play. The people of Frazier appreciate the camp’s contribution to the community and in friendship arrange baseball games and picnics. The Tree Soldiers reciprocate with a dance in the mess hall. Boys meet girls, sparking romance, but also jealousy. Park is drawn to the dance floor by a pretty, auburn-haired young woman, Kate Alford. He breaks in on an arrogant, self-serving camp officer, David Callister, who has his eyes possessively on Kate. As Park takes Kate in his arms, Callister stalks off the floor.

    As the story’s pace increases, so does the emotion it evokes. Suspense builds as reputations are undermined, treachery and deceit threaten lives on the verge of redemption, while storms brew and forest fires erupt. Oakley’s characters come to life as their respective roles are defined with the drama of trials and tests of wills, and determination builds. Love blossoms, but not without thorns. Friendships are solidified, and trust and support are developed in the face of duplicity and enmity. In the final pages of this compelling book, Oakley introduces one more human trait, one she saw fit to include in its title—forgiveness.

    J.L. Oakley’s Tree Soldier will draw you in and keep you turning the pages.  Tree Soldier won Chanticleer Book Reviews Blue Ribbon Award of Grand Prize in our Published Novels Contest 2012 earning it a coveted CBR star.

  • Murder One by Robert Dugoni

    Murder One by Robert Dugoni

    In Murder One, lawyer turned novelist, Robert Dugoni has conjured up an intense page-turner that deftly mixes drama, mystery and suspense that will keep you guessing until its final pages.  Dugoni’s vivid characters in his novel are marvelously believable, as are the Seattle locales that are described. (more…)

  • The Winter Olympics: An Insider’s Guide to the Legends, Lore, and the Games by Ron C. Judd

    The Winter Olympics: An Insider’s Guide to the Legends, Lore, and the Games by Ron C. Judd

    Flashbacks, gruesome accounts, victories relived, analysis, and competitors’ profiles of the Winter Olympics are revealed in Ron C. Judd’s captivating compendium titled The Winter Olympics: An Insider’s Guide to the Legends, Lore, and the Games.

    Judd doesn’t just report the scores, the times, the winners and the losers. He relays the human drama that unfolds during the Games—the glorious victories and, yes, the gut-wrenching agonies—the very stuff that becomes tomorrow’s lore and legends.

    Ron C. Judd is like a Joseph Campbell of the Olympic Games. He writes of transcendent experiences, of impossible feats, and, he says, “of moments that are beyond description.”  But describing these moments is exactly what he does. Judd deftly captures and vividly relates the escalation of emotions, the split-second moments that separate the winners from the losers after decades of day-in and day-out grueling training, the sweaty reality of the Olympics along with the heady glory and magic he has witnessed and experienced first-hand.

    The guide covers the history and beginnings of the Winter Games and the athletes who compete in them. Judd, a self-professed “ring-head” has been covering the Olympics as a journalist since the Nagano Games in 1998. He has been following the Games since he was in high school, which was when the 1980 Olympics took place in Lake Placid, New York.

    Your interests about sport categories such as Curling will be piqued. Thanks to this entertaining guide, I finally understand how it is played and scored. And why it is an Olympic Winter Game. Judd also reveals tantalizing tidbits such as who are sex symbols of Curling. Yes, Curling has its idols too.

    Discover the fun facts and interesting anecdotes of the Winter Games as Judd guides you through the intricacies of rules and strategies of sports such as cross-country skiing and Nordic combined competitions. Finding out how the first biathlon races got started (Hint: It has something to do with caribou.) is just one of the reasons why this book is such a fun and entertaining guide. It goes beyond the basics of regulations and scoring.

    Judd addresses the age old debate that takes place mostly in pubs: The question of whether figure skating is a sport or an art. He describes how the Figure Skating competitions are judged or rather how they are supposedly judged.  After reading his tome, you will agree with Judd that figure skating is not for the meek or the weak.

    On that note, I was intrigued to see if he had anything to say about that Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan debacle. He does. You, too, can read about the rest of the story in The Winter Olympics. 

    Judd treats his readers to the true insider’s account of “the agony of defeat” film footage.  You know—the one that was shown over and over—on the opening of ABC’s Wide World of Sports program for what must seem like an eternity to the poor guy who was filmed crashing while ski jumping. And why did we as an audience watch him crash over and over? Because as Judd writes ever so eloquently: “He is us, and we are him…” in victory and in defeat.

    The action-packed full-colored photographs that permeate The Winter Games are enough of a reason to purchase it just to have on your coffee table.  However, it is an authoritative and intelligently written reference guide about the Winter Games.  Judd continuously acknowledges that he is one fortunate guy to have witnessed firsthand history in the making. He never tires of the Games. And neither do the fans. This book is the superlative guide to the Winter Games.

    It is Judd’s insider, behind-the-scenes stories of intrigue  that entertain and educate us.  The lore and legends that he has gleaned from his years as a dedicated “ring-head” journalist, along with his effusive admiration of the dedicated athletes who compete, earns The Winter Olympics: An Insider’s Guide to the Legends, the Lore, and the Games a gold medal.