Perfect Game by Fred Bowen

From Goodreads 

Image Courtesy of Goodreads

Isaac is a perfectionist. This extends to everything in his life, but especially his love for baseball. He dreams of pitching a perfect game 18 batters, all out and of earning a spot on the summer travel team. But Isaac hasn’t learned to handle it when things go wrong. After his latest meltdown, his coach asks him to help out with a Unified Basketball team  where intellectually challenged kids and mainstream kids, all play together.

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How (Really) to Work Like a Writer

Hi, it’s Margaret here, over from Steam Trains and Ghosts. I’m doing a guest post today on the writerly life.

So there was this amusing blog post the other day about writers’ poor working habits. Okay, so the post’s just a joke about some clichés of the writerly life, but it contains some pretty good advice on how to be a professional writer. Just make sure to do the exact opposite of what it says.

Here’s how you should really work like a writer:

1. You ain’t no tortured genius. No, really, you’re not. If you think you are and the rest of the world just doesn’t understand, you’re just pitching a hissy fit. No.

My point is not to insult every single person who reads this blog. The corollary to #1 is:

2. You are not a tortured genius. What you are is you’re the proprietor of a small business. And all the responsibility that that entails. You’ve got to find the work, maintain relationships with clients, and if your work starts to sell, you’ll have to pay estimated quarterly taxes. Sit down and write something or else you will have nothing to sell.

3. Small businesses are massively unprofitable to start out with. Being a professional writer takes patience. Lots of it. I’m not exactly a big-name writer, but I’ve got data on my own experience, so I’ll share it here. I’ve been writing seriously for about 13 years, and in that time, I’ve earned about $300 for it. The vast majority of that was from the past year. You’ll spend most of your first years writing getting good at it, then you’ll start to earn money.

4. Be professional. Because it’s a business. This is the age of the Internet. If you submit a short story to an e-zine and then badmouth the editor behind his back, he will find out. And will that e-zine ever want to buy from you again?

5. There’s still no guarantee of success. Though being persistent and being good at writing sure help.

The Show by John Heldt

The Show by John Heldt(Cover picture courtesy of John Heldt.)

Seattle, 1941. Grace Vandenberg, 21, is having a bad day. Minutes after Pearl Harbor is attacked, she learns that her boyfriend is a time traveler from 2000 who has abandoned her for a future he insists they cannot share. Determined to save their love, she follows him into the new century. But just when happiness is within her grasp, she accidentally enters a second time portal and exits in 1918. Distraught and heartbroken, Grace starts a new life in the age of Woodrow Wilson, silent movies, and the Spanish flu. She meets her parents as young, single adults and befriends a handsome, wounded Army captain just back from the war. In THE SHOW, the sequel to THE MINE, Grace finds love and friendship in the ashes of tragedy as she endures the trial of her life.

[Full disclosure: John Heldt sent me a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.]

I’m so glad that John Heldt decided to return to the story of The Mine to continue where he left off.  Only this time, we get to see things from Grace’s point of view and learn how she found her way back to Joel when he fled back to his own time.  Then, just when everything seems to be going well, tragedy strikes and Grace is thrust back into 1918.  This is where things get interesting character-wise because we learn just how resourceful and intelligent Grace really is as she struggles to cope in another new time.  We also learn a little more about how the time travel portals work, although John Heldt never gets into the scientific details.  But that doesn’t bother me one bit because the Northwest Passage Series is meant to explore the effects of time travel on people, not how time travel is accomplished.

The plot isn’t what I would call fast-paced until the last 30 pages, but John Heldt’s writing style is so nice that it didn’t bother me at all.  Grace drives the plot forward with her actions rather than just reacting to events and it makes for a much more human novel.  We feel her anguish at leaving the love of her life and her two children behind, experience her struggle to adapt to a completely different time and feel her confusion about the handsome war hero John Walker.  The secondary characters aren’t just two dimensional either; they all have distinct personalities, backstories and react to Grace differently.

The ending felt rather rushed after the steady pace of the first 150 pages, but I suppose it reflects the desperation Grace began to feel as her ability to go back to 2000 was about to be cut off.  Still, The Show was a great addition to the story of The Mine and I look forward to reading the rest of the Northwest Passage series.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

Amazon*

*Only available as a Kindle ebook.

Travelling (Again)

Well folks, I’m off travelling again!  I know, I know: I’m barely home for two weeks and I’m hopping a plane again.  No, this time I’m not going to Costa Rica.  I’m back in Ottawa again for a week.

Once again I’ve scheduled enough reviews, articles and guest posters to fill up the time I’ll be gone.  Thanks to both Savindi from The Streetlight Reader and Margaret from Steam Trains and Ghosts, I only had to schedule five posts in advance.  The quality of content will not be affected and I’m taking my laptop along to respond to your comments once or twice a day.  However, I’m going to be very busy so please don’t be offended if I don’t respond right away.  I’m not ignoring you.

Also: expect a new books post.  I just can’t resist the siren song that calls forth from every book store I pass when I travel.

Kaiulani: The People’s Princess by Ellen Emerson White

Kaiulani; The People's Princess by Ellen Emerson White(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)

May 6, 1889

At Iolani Palace, Father and I met with Papa Moi and Mama Moi in the throne room.  Papa Moi was solemn, as he reminded me that it will be my responsibility to do as well as possible, and in that way, further the hopes of our nation.  I was glad that I have never admitted to him how fearful I am about leaving.  I think he would find that petty, as I go off not for myself, but for all of the Hawaiians I will someday lead.

“I will not fail, Papa, will I?”  I asked Father, once we were on the way back to Ainahau.

“It is not even as possiblility,” he said, his voice full of confidence.

I wish that I could feel that same confidence.

After reading The People’s Princess, Kaiulani has definitely joined the ranks of my favourite women in The Royal Diaries.  She’s strong, smart and actually has situational awareness, something many other princesses in the series seem to lack.  Not only that, but there are actually reasons for Ellen Emerson White’s decision to make the narrative cover 4 years.  Covering 4 years in a little over 200 pages is difficult, but the novel never jumps around and you know what is going on.

Kaiulani is an incredible character who fights in whatever ways she knows how in order to keep her country from being annexed by the United States.  Of course with the hindsight of history we know that she fails, but her trip to the U.S. to convince the Americans otherwise is fascinating.  The way she writes in her diary is very different than the way she presents herself to the public, which is another surprising bonus in tween fiction.  Kaiulani is mature and completely aware of her position, making this an interesting read, to say the least.

I wouldn’t call the plot fast-paced, but it’s certainly not boring either.  Once again, I can’t exactly vouch for the historical accuracy of The People’s Princess (especially since I didn’t even know her name before I started the book), but it certainly feels like Ellen Emerson White did more than her fair share of research.  According to the Historical Note, she didn’t change much, so I’m assuming everything’s accurate as it can be.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

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