Tag: book-reviews

Water in the Wilderness

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excerpt

Tyne did not know what to say. If Morley were here, he would know how to respond to Ruby’s outrageous suggestion. She lowered her head and mouthed a silent prayer. “Oh God, help me say the right things. Give me wisdom, Lord, because I’m scared. I’m scared for Morley because I don’t know what’s happened to him. And I’m scared for these children you have seen fit to bring into our lives. But God, I’m not ready for all this; too much has happened too fast. Please keep Morley safe and send him to me.”
She looked up to find Ruby staring at her. Tyne shook her head. “I can’t give you an answer, Ruby. You know I’ll have to talk to Morley about it.”
Ruby nodded. “Yeah, sure I know. But I also know I can’t take him back, Tyne. I’m just dreaming when I say he has to come home.” She burst into tears.
Tyne jumped to her feet. Crossing to the sofa, she sat down beside the distraught woman and put her arms around her. “Hush, it will be all right, I promise. We’ll work something out.”
In a few minutes Ruby dried her tears and stood up. “I have to see Ronald again before it’s time for my bus. I have to go home tonight.” At the door she turned with a half smile. “Thanks for listening.”
Tyne watched her leave, her thoughts in turmoil. Another promise … she had just made another promise that she didn’t know if she could keep. Her life was spinning out of control. She and Morley had been married for less than half a year when their world was rocked by that first promise she had made the night Lydia Conrad had come to the nurses’ station in Emblem Hospital. As a result of that brief encounter with her patient, she and Morley had known the joy of loving two small children; they had known panic when those children went missing; and they had known the heartache of losing their own unborn child.
And now, Morley was missing after going on a mission of mercy to find the children’s father and bring him to them.
What more do you want of us, God? Tyne cried in her heart. What more do you want us to do?

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562884

https://www.amazon.com/dp/192676319X

The Unquiet Land

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excerpt

“In what way is he different?” Padraig’s knees, as he sat on the wooden chair, touched Caitlin’s momentarily. He turned to one side and crossed his legs. “I can’t imagine Finn ever changing.”
He said this to reassure Caitlin, but his voice held little conviction. He recalled the wrinkles and the grizzled hair, the tired eyes and the wasted face. He remembered the bitterness that Finn could not hide on the night of the homecoming party and the violent anger on the day he ordered Padraig out of the house. And Padraig heard, as he had a thousand times, Finn’s deep voice saying, “I’m not only ailing, Padraig. The truth is, I’m dying.” He had lived more than a full year since then.
“Finn should have died a long time ago,” Dr Starkey told Padraig. “But that old warrior doesn’t know how to quit.” Sadly the doctor shook his head. “He won’t be fighting death much longer though. Not now. He’s taken too much punishment, Padraig. The referee’s about to stop the contest.”
“How much longer?” Padraig asked, instantly apprehensive.
“I am not the referee,” Dr Starkey replied. “By my watch the fight should already have ended. Personally I’d have stopped it long ago. As it is, I’d give Finn days now, rather than weeks. Certainly not another month. Even with treatment, if he’d ever agree to it. Which he won’t, of course.”
God won’t let him die yet, Padraig thought to himself, his apprehension mounting to panic. He can’t. I have to complete my mission first. I have to save Finn’s soul before God destroys his corrupt old body.
“My father is a sick man.” Caitlin’s voice brought Padraig back to the present. “I can sense it now. Perhaps it is something that has been going on for years, like the erosion of land by the sea. But lately it’s begun to show. And his personality is changing.”
“In what way is it changing, Caitlin?”
“I… I don’t rightly know, Padraig. I don’t know. Perhaps age has at last caught up with him. Perhaps he sees death coming and he’s frightened.”
“Do you really think so?”
Caitlin thought of the painting on the wall for a moment, her concentration fixed on the tallest of the three black crosses. “No,” she said slowly. “It’s something else.”
“Do you know what it is?”
Caitlin thought she did. “It’s as if he is being threatened and doesn’t know how to react.”

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562888

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763203

In the Quiet After Slaughter

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excerpt

The group visited a cultural village. They were greeted by locals
wearing heritage garb and playing traditional instruments. Theirs
was not the only vacationing group in attendance. Her travel companions
tallied the number of languages overheard in the gift shop.
Harold was hungover, Winnie exhausted. She felt the ground
rotate beneath her feet. That morning they took turns using the bathroom.
– Are you feeling all right? Karen asked her. They’d been ushered
into an uncovered grandstand and left to dehydrate.
– I know it can be a little overwhelming the first time.
– Better keep an eye on Harold, Winnie said. His ancestors were
Norwegian.
A translation was read aloud about the importance of the dance.
All Winnie remembered of it, she told the gals back home, was that
the jig had been enacted for thousands of years. The steps told a
story. Through a slit in the curtains she could see the performers
extinguishing cigarettes and changing out of their western clothes.
It surprised her to learn that in this troubled land much was made
of longevity. Repetition seemed sacrosanct; the past, one’s forefathers,
were worshipped like deities. As the dancers stomped across
the stage she considered how different it was from the true north
strong and free, where there was a 12-step program for every misfortune,
where one was encouraged to forget, to move on, let go. To
erase people and things as though they’d never existed.
And stitch quilts.
Their last night she decided to say something. She’d promised herself
she wouldn’t, but she couldn’t help herself. Days she neglected
to take her prescription, Winnie was quick to boil.
– I thought, she said to Harold, we’d do something together.
We’re going home tomorrow.
He sulked through dinner and complained afterwards of heartburn.
It disappeared when Phil came by.
She decided not to wait up or visit Donna’s room, where some of
the others would be comparing what they believed were bargains…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562874

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897971

In Turbulent Times

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excerpt

Those who went to the house swore it had never been cleaned since Maggie’s mother was alive. It seemed that Maggie lived, ate, slept and washed in only one room. All the other rooms were packed to overflowing with the accumulated belongings and unsorted junk of at least two generations of Potters. In several corners in the house stood unemptied buckets of Maggie’s excrement and urine which neighbours said she used as fertiliser in her garden. Even more remarkable were the envelopes and canisters and small cardboard boxes filled with money—more than four thousand pounds in all—that passed to a man in the city, a nephew, it was said, who had never ever been to see his aunt in all the years that anyone in the village could remember. Old Rachel Dunn, Willy’s arthritic mother, was still alive in a nursing home in Ardross, a helpless cripple, clinging tenaciously to life at the age of eighty-seven.
Into Maggie Potter’s ill-starred house Liam and Nora moved in the first week of January 1943 when all the country could talk about was the rout of the German forces at Stalingrad. But Nora’s mind dwelled not on the frozen snows of Russia nor on the hot desert sands, where Tom Carney was fighting, but on the treacherous waters of the North Atlantic where the German submarine wolf-packs prowled: grim, determined, unseen predators of the convoys from America. Joe Carney was among the prey, and Nora feared for his life. She wrote to him almost every week, giving him all the gossip from the village and keeping to herself her misery and her cherished memories.
They’ve actually made a good job of fixing up the house and painting and decorating it. I never thought that Maggie Potter’s place could look so clean and trim. Even the outside walls have been whitewashed and the doors and window frames painted the usual dark green. As in the old schoolhouse, we have a kitchen and a scullery and a sitting room downstairs, two bedrooms and a box room upstairs, and a view of the sea from the back. The sea is pale blue and grey today and sparkling where the sun is shining on it. I used to love the sea but now I hate it for separating us and threatening you with so much danger. And yet I still love to walk along the shore and watch the endless convoy of waves reach the rocks and shingle and break there and whisper to me with their parting breath that they have seen your ship on their way across the ocean and that you are well and send your love.
Later that day, for the first time since she had written to Joe to tell him of her pending marriage to Liam Dooley, Nora mentioned in her letter that she was unhappy.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562904

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763270

Savages and Beasts

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excerpt

his wife of eighteen years got pissed right off and left him; she
filed for a divorce which was issued with no contention at further
financial loss for Mr. Wilson, who moved to a shabby apartment
and he even had to sell his truck to pay off some of his debt.
These days Mr. Wilson finds enough satisfaction in his
present work since it pays him some money, which along with
the government assistance on which he also relies gives him just
enough to support himself. Today though his mind ran to his
ex-wife, who he found out was cheating on him long before the
downturn of the real estate market and that recollection truly
pissed him off to the point that he saw women as nothing but gold
diggers. His mind bothered him a lot lately, when he recalled the
last years with Ariel, his ex-wife who he could simply kill if he
would get the chance.
His angry eyes fell on a young man who responded to the
name Lucas, an Indian youth, who by handling his handsaw the
wrong way he misplaced a cut on the piece of wood he was working
and this was something Mr. Wilson couldn’t tolerate. He
clenched his teeth, grabbed the ruined piece of the plank from
Lucas’ hands and struck the back of the unfortunate young man
with such force that made the boy scream in pain and run away
from his teacher who was still holding the instrument of pain
ready to reapply it on the back of the youth.
“You stupid dog, you ruined your wood,” the teacher
yelled on the top of his lungs while Lucas, being in extreme pain,
kept on yelling and cursing in his language something his teacher
couldn’t understand and which made him angrier. The boy’s fists
tightened and he ran against his teacher when Marcus, who had
witnessed everything as all other boys had, stood in the middle
between the angry student and the scared teacher and upon hugging
Lucas, he whispered to him,

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763602

Jazz with Ella

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excerpt

Was he not getting on this very plane to Moscow looking like one of the foreign tourists and wearing a handsome leather jacket? On the other hand, what if they had tricked him into doing something illegal? The authorities could revoke all his travel privileges. Normally, he wouldn’t have any qualms about sidestepping the authorities but it was just so important that he go to Moscow right now.
All these thoughts and more passed through Sergei Ivanovich’s brain as the group from Canada traipsed slowly across the tarmac.
★
“The first thing I’m doing when we reach the hotel is to find a telegraph office and send a message to Volodya,” said Jennifer, seated behind David and Maria on the tour bus, her chin hanging over the headrest. The teacher-student wall had completely crumbled; they were her friends. She was grateful for their help.
“I thought you’d already done that,” answered David. Maria’s head was nodding, more concerned with sleep than planning. “You mean you didn’t wire him from Kazan?”
“No. You saw how Chopyk dogged us the whole time, plus I couldn’t confirm anything. What if, all of a sudden, they’d decided to take us out of the country through Kiev instead of Moscow? You know there’s no logic to the itinerary.”
“It’s always Moscow. I told you that,” David said. “We’re here for less than two days. That’s not long enough to get Volodya from Leningrad and up to speed.”
“There’s the rest of today…”
“Oh, no, not at all,” interrupted Maria suddenly, her eyes still closed. “According to Natasha we have an action-packed evening ahead.” She looked around quickly as if expecting their tour guide to hear her name. But while the group had been given a late lunch in the airport dining room, Natasha had gone on ahead to make arrangements and would meet them at the hotel. “After check-in, we’re to squeeze in dinner and some of us have tickets for the ballet. And remember when we were in Moscow last time you said that the juniors would be having a last lesson here and maybe taking a guided tour of St. Basil’s Cathedral?”
David’s grin waned. Jennifer sighed.There was another thought nagging at her.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562892

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246

The Unquiet Land

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a while, but we don’t get along all that well. She’s a straitlaced Puritan like many here in the village. And I hate Belfast, don’t you? There’s a brother and his wife in Liverpool, but I’m never going to England. I have a good friend in Derry. You know her. Molly McEvoy. Her husband was killed last year. She has often said that she and I should live together.”
“Derry’s not much improvement on Belfast,” Finn pointed out.
“No,” said Mother Ross, “but it might have to do. I don’t have a great deal of choice.”
“Come home with me, Jinnie,” Finn said impulsively. “I need someone to look after the twins. They’re nearly six years old now, and Una Slattery’s finding them too much of a handful with four children of her own. Caitlin’s a self-willed little imp who needs some of the wildness spanked out of her. Hard to believe they’re sisters, let alone twins. My house is comfortable, and there’s plenty of room. Come on. I’ll take you up there right away. I’ve the pony and trap on the road beyond.”
That was twenty years ago—twenty-one come June—and Mother Ross had lived in Finn MacLir’s house ever since. Six months after moving in as the keeper of his house and the childminder of his two young daughters, six months of slander-scandaled tongue-wagging in the village of Corrymore, Mother Ross became the second wife of Finn MacLir. Arthur Hamilton, as justice of the peace, married them in the dining room of the large, stone house. A party began on that first Friday in December, 1898, that people still talked about two decades later. And the first Friday of every month since then, whenever he was home, Finn and his friends met to celebrate yet again the night he married the widow, Sinead O’Neill, otherwise known as Mother Ross. Though she was Mrs Finn MacLir by law, she was, and remained, Mother Ross by custom. Even Caitlin never stopped calling her by the only name she had ever known her by.
“My mother was Annie Hogan before she married Jimmy Ross,” Mother Ross once related to Caitlin. “She was the midwife here in Corrymore for many years. I was the youngest of her seven children and I used to help her at the birthing. I was with her that terrible night when you and Nora were born, Caitlin. When the arthritis crippled my mother’s fingers, I took her place. I never had any children of my own.” A sad, faraway look had come into her eyes. “I was pregnant when my husband was drowned at sea, and I lost the baby in a miscarriage. I survived on my own after Jimmy’s death using midwifery skills learned at my mother’s side. I not only took

over her job, I was given her name at the same time. Mother Ross. It has stuck to me ever since.”

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562888

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763203

Still Waters

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excerpt

continuing negative press.”
Tyne smiled knowingly as she sat down. “Then I take it Dad hasn’t
changed his mind about a hospital in Emblem.”
“Not one iota. If anything, he’s more adamant than ever.”
“You … you said you saw Morley at a society meeting. Is he taking
an active part then?”
Millie chuckled. “Very active. He’s been elected chairman of the
promotions committee so he’s responsible for making us all get out
and put the idea across to the public.”
“Oh my ….”
“I shouldn’t say this but I’m sure that’s one of the reasons your dad
is digging in his heels about it.”
Tyne’s eyes widened. “Because of Morley?”
Millie shrugged. “He’s still afraid the two of you will get back together.
So, on that principle, he can’t abide Morley Cresswell. And
that is Jeff Milligan’s loss,” she added with conviction.
And mine, Tyne thought. If things had been different, Morley and
I would still be together, probably planning our wedding. Now wait,
Tyne, were you willing to give up your faith for him? Were you willing
to make sacrifices for him?
No, she thought, I’m afraid I was not. So it wasn’t all Dad’s fault
after all.
Millie put her cup on the coffee table and looked into her niece’s
face. “I hate to see you unhappy, darling.”
“But I’m not unhappy, Aunt Millie.”
“No? Well, I’m glad. I should probably have said that I hate to see
you still grieving over Morley. It seems a hard thing for you now, but
I’d like you to consider what Joseph told his brothers years after they
sold him into slavery in Egypt – ‘God meant it unto good.’ The Lord
has a plan for you too, Tyne honey. Just trust. And I’ll never stop
praying for you.”
With sobs suddenly choking her, Tyne scrambled to her feet and
fell into Aunt Millie’s comforting embrace.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763068

In Turbulent Times

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Then Liam was still. With a low moan his body relaxed, and she felt the full weight of it pressing on her. For a moment he lay upon her with his chin on her shoulder. Then he pulled himself away and rolled over on to his back with a sigh. Nora winced at the hurt of his withdrawal and burst into tears.
҂
Liam Dooley sat in his armchair by the fire reading an old, leather-bound copy of The Confessions of Saint Augustine that was old even when his grandfather bought it in Smithfield Market in Belfast many years before.
‘Grandda, if I was to ask you to name the book that most influenced you,’ Liam had once asked of the old man, ‘which one would you choose?’
‘The Confessions of St. Augustine,’ Grandfather Owen Dooley had replied with no hesitation. ‘That book gave me a whole new way to think about God and religion. It took me deep into the meaning of life, and continues to do so. He’s been the most influential thinker that I’ve ever read. I have an old copy in the bookcase there. Read it as often as you can. And when I die, I want you to have it and cherish it.’
When his grandfather died the book had indeed passed to Liam, the only physical keepsake Liam had of the old man whom he had venerated for as long as he could remember. Often he felt that his grandfather watched over him from Heaven, that everything he did had to be good because his grandfather was always there, watching. Liam’s great fear was that his grandfather could read his thoughts too. But he calmed himself by arguing that his grandfather would understand the often lustful thoughts of a young, single man. As long as Liam kept his lust on a tight leash his grandfather would appreciate the struggle and commend him on its victory. Only once had he surrendered; and since the day of his lapse with Nora Carrick he had taken to praying not to God, not to the Virgin, not to St Francis, but to his grandfather, asking his grandfather to forgive the humiliation he had caused him in the sight of God and begging the old man to intercede for him with the blessed saints, with God Himself.
‘I’m not like Padraig,’ Liam argued with the spirit of his grandfather. ‘I am not a priest. I have taken no vow of celibacy. Nora is an adult woman. She came to me of her own free will. Pressed her body against mine. I could not have done what I did otherwise. You know that. I would never touch a woman unless she encouraged me. And Nora encouraged me. It was she who suggested going to bed. She wanted to have sex with me.’
Liam looked up from his book. The fire was low.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763270

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562904

Jazz With Ella

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excerpt

and pedal off. As soon as Tanya strolled in the other direction, Paul and Vera emerged from the bushes.
“We must go in and see.” Vera dragged him to the rickety building.
“We don’t need to,” he demurred.
“You think I am a spy, but it is good to have this information. It is good to know about our government officials. It can help us.”
“And I thought you would be a good communist,” said Paul.
She stopped in the path and stared at him. “But I am being a good communist. I am.”
She darted away into the boathouse and Paul followed to find her casting about widely at this love nest as if she would find something incriminating that she could take away.
★
The home of Fyodor Shukshin was set half a mile down a winding dirt path that branched off the main regional road. It was a dark, old, wooden house with some remnants of the original gingerbread still clinging to the eaves, though it had long needed paint and repair. At the gate stood a cement well covered with a sloping roof and this had been kept in trim condition. The front yard was a small patch of dirt with signs of thorough grazing by chickens now gone to roost. Although the light was waning, Paul could see that the surrounding fields were covered in growth: beet greens and carrot tops showed on one side, bright green potato plants on the other. They entered the house through a groaning, battered door and Vera greeted her father.
Vera’s sudden return to the farm even with a stranger in tow bothered Fyodor Shukshin not one bit. Apparently she was in the habit of dropping in at home at any opportunity in her work schedule.
“So it’s you,” he snorted. “Come from across the Volga.”
“Some day I’ll go much farther away than Toglyatti,” she said, smiling at her father fondly, then turning to Paul. “Meanwhile, I like to visit here.”
Her father returned the smile a bit cynically. “Of course, when you can get fresh vegetables here—and sell them for a profit—why wouldn’t you like to visit your old father?”
She grinned, searched through the cupboards and served pickles in a bowl accompanied by slices of heavy black bread. At first Vera’s father appeared delighted to meet the foreigner.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246