Category Archives: Short Stories

Giveaway Shahrazad's Gift

Shahrazad’s Gift by Gretchen McCullough – Review & Giveaway

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BNR Shaharazad's Gift

 

About the Book, Shahrazad’s Gift Cover Shahrazad's Gift

  • Genre: Contemporary Fiction / Linked Short Stories / Humor
  • Publisher: Cune Press
  • Date of Publication: February 20, 2024
  • Number of Pages: 198 pages
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Shahrazad’s Gift is a collection of linked short stories set in contemporary Cairo—magical, absurd and humorous. The author focuses on the off-beat, little-known stories, far from CNN news: a Swedish belly dancer who taps into the Oriental fantasies of her clientele; a Japanese woman studying Arabic, driven mad by the noise and chaos of the city; a frustrated Egyptian housewife who becomes obsessed by the activities of her Western gay neighbor; an American journalist who covered the civil war in Beirut who finds friendship with her Egyptian dentist. We also meet the two protagonists of McCullough’s Confessions of a Knight Errant, before their escapades in that story.

 

These stories are told in the tradition of A Thousand and One Nights.

Buy, read, and discuss this book:

Purchase Link | Goodreads

About the Author, Gretchen McCullough Author Photo Gretchen

Gretchen McCullough was raised in Harlingen Texas. After graduating from Brown University in 1984, she taught in Egypt, Turkey, and Japan. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama and was awarded a teaching Fulbright to Syria from 1997-1999. Her stories, essays and reviews have appeared in The Barcelona Review, Archipelago, National Public Radio, Story South, Guernica, The Common, The Millions, and the LA Review of Books. Translations in English and Arabic have been published in: Nizwa, Banipal, Brooklyn Rail in Translation, World Literature Today and Washington Square Review with Mohamed Metwalli. Her bi-lingual book of short stories in English and Arabic, Three Stories From Cairo, translated with Mohamed Metwalli, was published in July 2011 by AFAQ Publishing House, Cairo. A collection of short stories about expatriate life in Cairo, Shahrazad’s Tooth, was also published by AFAQ in 2013. Currently, she is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Rhetoric and Composition at the American University in Cairo.

Connect with Gretchen:

Website | Goodreads | American University Faculty Webpage

My Thoughts MelissaBartell - photo

This book is a collection of short stories set in Cairo. While there is some intersection of the characters, for the most part, each story stands alone.

 

In these different narratives, author Gretchen McCullough has given us a glimpse of the city from the perspectives of American, British,  and Japanese ex-pats and locals alike. Each story shows the struggles of cultural differences while also delving into the individual struggles of the characters. Queenie is a costume designer with a rocky past. Joe is terminally ill. Keiko is certain she is hearing noises from the empty flat upstairs. Hoda is obsessed with her neighbor and his sexual escapades, using voyeurism as an escape from a depressing and distressing marriage and family.

 

A couple of the stories very specifically referenced the events of September 11, 2001 and how the mostly American ex-pats living in Egypt reacted – some became paranoid, others became news junkies. Similarly represented were responses to the protests in that county several years later.

 

Every story features dimensional, well-drawn characters, all of whom are supremely human and flawed. Author McCullough is a deft hand with description but also excelled with dialogue, making the background and history of each character very clear.

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While I appreciated this collection of stories for it’s homage to A Thousand and One Nights  and the incredible craft of the author, it was a challenging read for me because I found so many of the characters unlikeable that I just couldn’t relate to their stories very well. Still, good writing provokes a reaction, even if that reaction is to hope you never, ever, meet any of these people in real life.

 

Of all the stories, the one I found most fascinating was “The Charm” which depicts the deterioration of Dr. Sheri as seen by her cleaning woman, Zeinab. It’s a gradual spiraling out of control and a fantastic portrait of anxiety, paranoia, and other mental illness.

 

I also really appreciated “Tiger” about an American visiting “the Pyramids” after losing their job as a teaching assistant in Mississippi.

 

Overall, Shahrazad’s Gift is a collection of candid portrayals and gritty situations as well as an exploration of what it is to be “other.”

 

Goes well with: mint tea and honey cakes.

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Two winners receive paperbacks

One winner receives the eBook of Shahrazad’s Gift

(US only; ends midnight, CDT, 4/12/24)

 

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Visit the Other Great Blogs on This Tour

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04/02/24 Rox Burkey Blog Excerpt
04/02/24 Hall Ways Blog Notable Quotables
04/03/24 StoreyBook Reviews Guest Post
04/03/24 LSBBT Blog BONUS Stop
04/04/24 Boys’ Mom Reads Review
04/05/24 Bibliotica Review
04/06/24 Rebecca R. Cahill, Author Author Interview
04/07/24 The Page Unbound Review
04/08/24 The Plain-Spoken Pen Review
04/09/24 It’s Not All Gravy Excerpt
04/10/24 Carpe Diem Chronicles Review
04/11/24 The Real World According to Sam Review

 

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Gwendolyn Greene

Review: Gwendolyn Greene and the Moondog Coronation Ball of 1957 by Kevin P. Keating

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About the Book, Gwendolyn Greene and the Moondog Coronation Ball of 1957 Gwendolyn Greene

  • Publication date: ‎ April 25, 2023
  • Pages Count: 56 pages
Giveaway Things Get Ugly

Book Review and Giveaway: Things Get Ugly by Joe R. Lansdale

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BNR Things Get Ugly

 

About the book, Things Get Ugly: The Best Crime Stories of Joe R. Lansdale Cover Things Get Ugly

  • Crime Fiction / Mystery / Short Stories
  • Publisher: Tachyon Publications
  • Date of Publication: August 15, 2023
  • Number of Pages: 352 pages
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Edgar Award winner Joe R. Lansdale (the Hap and Leonard series) returns to the piney, dangerous woods of East Texas. In this career retrospective of his best crime stories, Lansdale shows exactly why critics continue to compare him to Elmore Leonard, Donald Westlake, Flannery O’Connor, and William Faulkner.

  • In the 1950s, a young small-town projectionist mixes it up with a violent gang.
  • When Mr. Bear is not alerting us to the dangers of forest fires, he lives a life of debauchery and murder.
  • A brother and sister travel to Oklahoma to recover the dead body of their uncle.
  • A lonely man engages in dubious acts while pining for his rubber duckie.

In this collection of nineteen unforgettable crime tales, Joe R. Lansdale brings his legendary mojo and witty grit to harrowing heists, revenge, homicide, and mayhem. No matter how they begin, things are bound to get ugly—and fast.

Praise for this book:

“A terrifically gifted storyteller.” -– Washington Post Book Review  

“One of the best crime writers in the business.” — Ace Atkins, New York Times bestselling author of The Revelators  

“While Lansdale’s work is as varied as the regions of Texas, there is one common link through it all: his brilliant storytelling.” –- Grimdark Magazine

Buy, read, and discuss this book:

Tachyon Publications│Signed & Personalized | Goodreads

About the author, Joe R. Lansdale Author Photo Lansdale

Joe R. Lansdale (Savage Season, The Donut Legion) is the internationally bestselling author of more than fifty novels, including the popular, long-running Hap and Leonard novels. Many of his cult classics have been adapted for television and film, most famously the films Bubba Ho-Tep and Cold in July and the Hap and Leonard series on Sundance TV and Netflix. Lansdale has written numerous screenplays and teleplays, including for the iconic Batman: The Animated Series. He has won an Edgar Award for The Bottoms and ten Stoker Awards, and he has been designated a World Horror Grandmaster. Lansdale, like many of his characters, lives in East Texas, with his wife, Karen.

Connect with Joe:

Website | Instagram | Facebook  | Twitter | Amazon | Goodreads | Bookbub

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My Thoughts MissMeliss - 2023

In the second introduction to this collection of short stories, Things Get Ugly, the author, Joe Lansdale, states that he doesn’t use trigger warnings, which I appreciated, though I’d argue that that is a form of trigger warning. Still, if you haven’t read any of Lansdale’s previous work (I haven’t), you should know that his use of coarse language, rough sex, and extreme violence makes Stephen King’s work seem PG-13. So, yes, these stories are gritty, earthy, violent. They combine horror, noir, and pulp-fiction. They will push you to the edge of your comfort zone, and leave you feeling a little squeamish. But good writing and good storytelling should provoke a reaction.

They are also BRILLIANT. Lansdale’s writing is vivid and visceral. Even when I was confronted by content I would not typically choose (the first entry in this collection, “The Steel Valentine” would require an entire page of entries at Does the Dog Die, if it were included there), I could not stop reading. The characters leap off the page, capture you in a strangle-hold, and do not let go until you’ve finished their story.

For the most part, these are not people I’d want to meet, but the stories are quirky, original, and interesting. Sure, some of them, like the afore-mentioned “The Steel Valentine” feel like the violence is almost gratuitous, but then there’s “The Ears,” which is the kind of Hitchcock -meets-O. Henry thriller that I love, and “Billie Sue,” which manages to be poignant in places. “Santa at the Cafe” is perfectly layered, and truly funny, while “Dead Sister,” is a truly unique take on ghouls (and may I take a moment to applaud the author for understanding the ghouls and zombies are totally different things?) .  And then there’s “Mr Bear,” which introduces us to a side of Smokey Bear (yes, that Smokey Bear) that I almost wish I could un-read, except that as dark and twisted as it is, it’s also perfect.

Things Get Ugly includes nineteen stories in all, each with a short introduction from the author. I’m not going to review every one of them. They may not be everyone’s cup of tea – or fifth of gin – but they’re definitely worth the time spent reading, and you can tell that the author put care into every word. The beauty of short story anthologies is that you can read one, skip around in the book, or even keep it for bathroom reading (though if you’re like me, your feet will fall asleep if you do that).

Goes well with: A juicy steak and a glass of Scotch.

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THREE WINNERS:

Each receives print copies of

Things Get Ugly & Born for Trouble

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08/08/23 Bibliotica Review
08/08/23 Hall Ways Blog Excerpt
08/09/23 The Clueless Gent Review
08/09/23 LSBBT Blog BONUS Stop
08/10/23 The Book’s Delight Review
08/11/23 Forgotten Winds Review
08/12/23 Jennie Reads Review
08/13/23 The Real World According to Sam Review
08/14/23 It’s Not All Gravy Review
08/15/23 StoreyBook Reviews Review
08/15/23 Chapter Break Book Blog Excerpt
08/16/23 Rox Burkey Blog Review
08/17/23 Boys’ Mom Reads Review

 

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Review and Giveaway: Pictures of the Shark, by Thomas H. McNeely

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BNR Pictures of the Shark

 

About the book, Pictures of the Shark

  • Short Stories / Southern Fiction / Coming of Age
  • Publisher: Texas Review Press
  • Date of Publication: July 12, 2022
  • Number of Pages: 205 pages
  • Scroll down for Giveaway!

Cover Pictures of the SharkA sudden snowfall in Houston reveals family secrets. A trip to Universal Studios to snap a picture of the shark from Jaws becomes a battle of wills between father and son. A midnight séance and the ghost of Janis Joplin conjure the mysteries of sex. A young boy’s pilgrimage to see Elvis Presley becomes a moment of transformation. A young woman discovers the responsibilities of talent and freedom.

Pictures of the Shark, by Houston native and Dobie Paisano award-winning author Thomas H. McNeely, traces a young man’s coming of age and falling apart. From the rough and tumble of Houston’s early seventies East End to the post-punk Texas bohemia of late eighties Austin, this novel in stories examines what happens when childhood trauma haunts adult lives.

PRAISE FOR PICTURES OF THE SHARK:

  •  “McNeely’s brilliant stories are filled with delicious menace and heartbreaking hope.” – Pamela Painter, author of What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers and Fabrications: New and Selected Stories
  • “In these gorgeously crafted interlinked stories, Thomas McNeely demonstrates once again an uncanny ability to illuminate the darkest emotional corners of his characters with a vision that is as tender and compassionate as it is unflinching.” – Antonio Ruiz-Camacho, author of Barefoot Dogs
  • “With masterful prose, McNeely draws you down into emotional depths where your ambivalence and confusion show you at your most profoundly human. These stories hook you quickly and deeply and keep you even after they end. – C.W. Smith, author of Steplings, Buffalo Nickel, and Understanding Women

Buy, read, and discuss this book:

Purchase | Goodreads

 

About the author, Thomas H. McNeely

Author Photo McNeelyThomas H. McNeely is an Eastside Houston native. He has published short stories and nonfiction in The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, Ploughshares, and many other magazines and anthologies, including Best American Mystery Stories and Algonquin Books’ Best of the South. His stories have been shortlisted for the Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories, and O. Henry Award anthologies. He has received National Endowment for the Arts, Wallace Stegner, and MacDowell Colony fellowships for his fiction. His first book, Ghost Horse, won the Gival Press Novel Award and was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize in Writing. He currently teaches in the Stanford Online Writing Studio and at Emerson College, Boston.

Connect with Thomas:

WEBSITE  |  FACEBOOK  |  TWITTER | AMAZON  | GOODREADS

Connect with Texas Review Press

WEBSITE | FACEBOOK  |  TWITTER

My Thoughts

MissMelissI love short stories. I mean, I love novels and biographies, but it takes a special kind of talent to tell a complete story in a relatively few words. In his eight-story collection, Pictures of the Shark, Thomas H. McNeely shows that he has a great amount of talent, and is using it wisely.

To be honest, he had me at the word “scraggly,” used to describe someone’s beard. I use that word, but most people I know (and most people I read) do not, so when I saw that word in the opening story, “Snow, Houston, 1974,” I knew that I would love the language this author uses, and I was not wrong. His stories are somber, even dark, but his prose rises from the page, and grabs you by the wrists demanding that you pay attention.

I found myself shivering when six year old Buddy Turner experiences his first snow in 1974. Having lived through two extreme winter storms in Texas (Dallas county, in my case, but still rare) I was hit in the gut with the description of the aftermath:

“Now, the weatherman reported gas fires and burst water mains and houses whose roofs had caved in. Some neighborhoods, he said, were without electricity or telephones. Buddy began to worry about Grandma Liddy. Grandma Liddy and he made plans to buy a cassette recorder with cigarette coupons, to write President Nixon and ask him why he lied, to build a miniature city out of matchboxes and toilet paper rolls. They had already started the city, chalking streets on the threadbare carpet in his mother’s old room.”

It’s simple language, matter of fact, and almost Hemingway-esque at times, but it’s effective.

In addition to McNeely’s use of language, I also appreciated his ability to find and convey the emotional tone of every piece. The early stories in Buddy’s life (though not necessarily in the book, as it jumps around in time a little) have threads of hope running through them. The stories where Buddy is older and disillusioned feel darker and have a bitter quality. The pieces where we see Buddy as a young man are laden with sadness and wasted possibilities. And yet, not a single story was dull or made me want to skim it. Rather, I was riveted. “Hester,” especially, had me fascinated because it’s really the only story where we have another perspective, and see Buddy through another person’s eyes.

Speaking of people, Buddy, his mother (Margot) and his father (Jimmy) are the central characters, and each one is interesting on their own. Buddy, of course, is the boy whose family is unhappy, and who seems to know too much and not enough, afraid of becoming his father, but also so close to doing so. Everything I learned about Margot made we wish for a collection from her perspective – her youth and young womanhood. Jimmy is a perfect tragic figure, and some of the scenes, where he seems about to resort to violence, but doesn’t, had me flashing back to my own memories of an abusive partner my mother once had.

In fact, the only reason I didn’t read all eight of these stories in one sitting was that the emotions were so vivid and plausible that I had to step away.

In the beginning of his book, Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy wrote, “All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” In Pictures of the Shark, Thomas H. McNeely has given us a visceral look at an extremely unhappy family, and shown us how that unhappiness echoes through all their lives. This is made most evident in the final entry in this collection, “Little Deaths:”

“I’d come to the University as a National Merit Scholar, but now lived off my mother’s credit card. I never visited my mother, because she reminded me both of my rotten childhood and my receding promise: my AP classes, my high school English honors, the expectation even by my family that I would become a writer.”

Buddy Turner may never have become a successful author (or maybe he did, that’s for another collection) but his creator, Thomas H. McNeely has given us a masterpiece in gray tones and grim feelings.

Goes well with: black coffee and anisette toast.

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FOUR WINNERS! 

2 winners: autographed copy of Pictures of the Shark
2 winners: autographed copy of Pictures of the Shark

+ editorial critique of an excerpt (up to 20 pages) from an unpublished short story or novel.
(US only; ends midnight, CDT, 7/15/2022)

 

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Visit the Other Great Blogs on this Tour

CLICK TO VISIT THE LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE TOUR PAGE FOR DIRECT LINKS TO EACH POST ON THIS TOUR, UPDATED DAILY, or visit the blogs directly:

7/5/22 Excerpt Shelf Life Blog
7/5/22 BONUS Promo Hall Ways Blog
7/6/22 Review Boys’ Mom Reads
7/6/22 BONUS Promo LSBBT Blog
7/7/22 Guest Post All the Ups and Downs
7/8/22 Review Bibliotica
7/9/22 Excerpt StoreyBook Reviews
7/10/22 Playlist Forgotten Winds
7/11/22 Review Jennie Reads
7/12/22 Author Interview Rox Burkey Blog
7/13/22 Review Reading by Moonlight
7/14/22 Review The Book’s Delight

 

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Shapeshifting

Review: Shapeshifting by Michelle Ross

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ShapeshiftingAbout the book: Shapeshifting: Stories

  • Publisher: Stillhouse Press
  • Paperback: 232 pages

The fourteen spellbinding stories in Michelle Ross’s second collection invite readers into the shadows of social-media perfectionism and the relentless cult of motherhood. A recovering alcoholic navigates the social landscape of a toddler playdate; a mother of two camps out in a van to secure her son’s spot at a prestigious kindergarten; a young girl forces her friends to play an elaborate, unwinnable game. With unflinching honesty and vivid, lyric prose, Ross explores the familial ties that bind us together-or, sometimes, tear us apart.

Buy, read, and discuss this book:

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Books-a-Million | Goodreads

About the author, Michelle Ross

Michelle Ross is the author of three story collections, There’s So Much They Haven’t Told You, winner of the 2016 Moon City Press Short Fiction Award and Finalist for the 2017 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award for Short Stories, Shapeshifting, winner of the Stillhouse Press Short Story Award (forthcoming in 2021), and They Kept Running, winner of the 2021 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction (forthcoming in Spring 2022). Her fiction has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Colorado Review, The Common, Epiphany, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, TriQuarterly, Witness, and other venues. Her fiction has been selected for Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and the Wigleaf Top 50, among other anthologies. She is fiction editor of Atticus Review and was a consulting editor for the 2018 Best Small Fictions anthology. A native of Texas, she received her B.A. from Emory University and her M.F.A and M.A. from Indiana University. She currently lives in Tucson, Arizona, with her husband and son.

Connect with Michelle:

Website

My Thoughts

Melissa A. BartellMichelle Ross’s collection of short stories, Shapeshifting, is a haunting, provocative anthology focusing on motherhood and womanhood, and how the two are intertwined.

These  fourteen stories are not shiny, fluffy, stories about how becoming a mother is the be-all and end-all of life. Rather they are  often hilarious, sometimes dark glimpses at the struggle to retain oneself within the context of being responsible for another human being.

Rather than the retouched moms and tots we see on Instagram, these stories show a mother sleeping in a van with her still-nursing baby to get her other child into the right school, while her husband can’t even feed said child dinner because he’s busy running parenting support groups and offering advice. Ross also shows us a mother separated from her adult daughter and the bitter, skewed images each has of the other, and the collection goes on – different mothers, different stages of motherhood, all flawed and dimensional and real. All individual women.

What I loved about Ross’s writing, in addition to her brutal clarity, was the detail she put in each story – the way mothers will extend their arms to keep their children safe in their plane or car seats, even though they have seat belts – something my own mother still does when we’re in a car together even though I’m now fifty-one.

Motherhood is often called a transformative experience. Ross’s stories look at the truth of those transformations, these shifting shapes of our bodies, our minds, and our souls and reveal the parts we think, but don’t share. They are compelling mirrors of the lives of women.

Goes well with: hot coffee, a cinnamon pastry, and twenty minutes of solitude.

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Giveaway A Wall of Bright Dead Feathers

Review & Giveaway: A Wall of Bright Dead Feathers by Babette Fraser Hale

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BNR A Wall of Bright Dead Feathers

About the book, A Wall of Bright Dead Feathers

  • Publisher: Winedale Publishing
  • Pages: 216
  • Pub Date: March 1st, 2021
  • Categories: Short Stories / Literary Fiction
  • Scroll for Giveaway!

Cover A Wall of Bright Dead feathersEach of the flawed, fully human characters we meet in these twelve stories faces a moment of life-altering transformation. Most are newcomers to the scenic, rolling countryside of central Texas whose charms they romanticize, even as the troubles they hoped to leave behind persist.

A young pianist struggles to keep her emotionally fragile boyfriend alive; a displaced New Yorker’s ambivalence with guns results in two fractured families; an oil man gambles on his estranged daughter’s integrity. The complicated history of this German-Czech region, where the stories are set, anchors the experience of two young artists who make a costly decision in 1862.

In graceful and precise, often lyrical, prose, Fraser Hale immerses us in lives whose superficial privilege provides no real protection against the unexpected.

* * *

When women are alone, unencumbered and unbeholden to anyone, they engage in intense internal reflection and show reverence for nature—and during these scenes, Hale’s language is luminescent (Kirkus Reviews).

Praise for this book:

“Hale shows a great respect for her characters and for the difficulty of their deceptively ordered existence, as well as for the problems they suffer because so much cannot be spoken.” — Francine Prose, on “Silences”

“A vivid set of tales about connection to other people and to the natural world…Hale’s lovely prose shows a keen eye for detail…” – Kirkus Reviews

Buy, read, and discuss this book:

Amazon | Brazos Bookstore | Winedale Publishing | Goodreads

About the author, Babette Fraser Hale

Author Pic G. HaleBabette Fraser Hale’s fiction has won the Meyerson Award from Southwest Review, a creative artist award from the Cultural Arts Council of Houston, and been recognized among the “other distinguished stories” in Best American Short Stories, 2015. Her story “Drouth” is part of the New York Public Library’s digital collection. Her nonfiction has appeared in Texas Monthly, Houston City, and the Houston Chronicle. She writes a personal essay column for the Fayette County Record.

Connect with Babette

Website | Facebook | Blog

My Thoughts

Melissa A. BartellI love short stories. They really show off an author’s range and adaptability, and when they work, they sing in ways that novels don’t. This collection, A Wall of Bright Dead Feathers, sings in many ways.

Most obvious is the author’s use of language. Kirkus reviews calls it both “precise” and “lyrical” and those are words, I too, would use to describe Fraser Hale’s writing style. She doesn’t just give you text, she wraps her words around you like a cloak and lets you steep in them, experiencing different characters and scenarios.

In this collection, while there was no real connection between the different characters all of the stories included people who were new to Texas, and that choice let  Fraser Hale’s writing really shine, because she made Texas itself if not a character, certainly more than a setting, and just as the author’s dialogue was perfect for the various times depicted, so, too, was her vivid description, from the house in the very first story in this book, on through the rest of the tales.

What I appreciated about A Wall of Bright Dead Feathers is that while the stories varied in length, none felt over-long or too short. Some were deeper than others, some were lighter, most involved strong women facing problems, whether they solved them or not, and there is no wrong note in this symphony of stories. If I had to pick a favor, it would be the fourth story in the book – “Silences,” which juxtaposes a mother’s day-to-day life with a husband who isn’t that great, with her son who is adjusting to country life in less healthy ways than she’d like.  It opens with a description of  morning and “the hum and chortle of birds” and closes with an abrupt, horrific twist, and in between those two things is a perfect example of how seemingly mundane activities can be made fascinating by a writer with talent and skill.

Overall, this is a collection of short stories to savor, the kind that makes you want to fill a bathtub with bubbles, and bring a mug of tea or glass of wine into it with you, while you soak and read.

Goes well with: Black Forest ham, Havarti cheese, olives, and a glass of Topo Chico with lime.

Giveaway

TWO WINNERS each receive a signed bookplate

+ $20 Brazos Bookstore Gift Card to buy the book

 (US only. Ends midnight, CDT, 4/2/2021)

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Visit the Other Great Blogs on This Tour

Click to visit the Lone Star Literary Life Tour Page for direct links to each post on this tour, updated daily, or visit the blogs directly:

3/23/21 Author Video The Page Unbound
3/23/21 Excerpt Texas Book Lover
3/24/21 Review Book Bustle
3/24/21 BONUS Promo LSBBT Blog
3/25/21 Review Rainy Days with Amanda
3/25/21 Author Interview Chapter Break Book Blog
3/26/21 Review Missus Gonzo
3/27/21 Excerpt All the Ups and Downs
3/28/21 Guest Post The Clueless Gent
3/29/21 Review StoreyBook Reviews
3/29/21 Author Interview Hall Ways Blog
3/30/21 Review Reading by Moonlight
3/31/21 Review Bibliotica
3/31/21 Guest Post Librariel Book Adventures
4/1/21 Review It’s Not All Gravy
4/1/21 Review Forgotten Winds

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Giveaway El Paso RFGS

Review: The El Paso Red Flame Gas Station and Other Stories, by J. Reeder Archuleta – with Giveaway

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El Paso Red Flame Gas Station

About the book, The El Paso Red Flame Gas Station and Other Stories

El Paso Red Flame Gas Station

  • Genre: Fiction /Short Stories / Coming of Age
  • Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing, LLC
  • Date of Publication: December 8, 2017
  • Number of Pages: 132

These short stories are about coming of age in rural far West Texas.  The stories are about the people who have come to stay in a remote part of Texas with a climate that can be harsh and unpredictable and that is demanding and unforgiving.  The stories are told through the eyes of Josh, a young boy, who finds himself alone in a small farm and ranch community and who realizes that he will have to make his own way in this place.  Along the way he meets a group of characters with different takes on life.  Some try to help shield him from the chaos of the world, some try to add more chaos. But all of them, in their own distinct way, through jobs, advice, or actions, play a part in his life.

Praise for The El Paso Red Flame Gas Station:

“Punchy, plainspoken dialogue…colorful and charismatic characters…The result is an atmospheric Texas…reminiscent of Larry McMurtry’s “The Last Picture Show.” — Kirkus Reviews

“The universality of Josh’s journey gives it a timeless quality…a rich tapestry…The stories are conveyed in lean, elegant prose reminiscent of Annie Proulx and Cormac McCarthy” — Blue Ink Review

“Archuleta’s collection offers poignant and hopeful stories of determination in the face of need. Thoroughly engaging…narrated with passion and eloquence…” — The Clarion Review       

Buy, read, and discuss The El Paso Red Flame Gas Station:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About the author, J. Reeder Archuleta J Reeder Archuleta

The author was raised in far West Texas and five generations of his family are in their final resting place there.  His great-grandfather is buried in Concordia Cemetery in El Paso within spitting distance of the grave of John Wesley Hardin.

Connect with J. Reeder:

Website | Amazon Author Page

My Thoughts

I love short stories. I love how much talent and skill it takes to tell a whole story in a relatively few words. I love the way they force writers to distill their ideas to the most important, the most vivid, the most visceral.

This collection of short stories by J. Reeder Archuleta, The El Paso Red Flame Gas Station and Other Stories, is one of the best representatives of this art that I’ve seen from a contemporary author. Archuleta is specific with regard to detail – brands of whisky, kinds of beer, types of toys. His use of language is earthy and real, as gritty as the air during a windstorm on the plains. His dialogue makes you really see his characters.

I liked the way the young boy Josh, whom we meet in the first selection in this book, becomes the POV character, the thread that ties all the stories together. From the first time we see him, scared and young, being pulled away from the life he knows by is desperate mother, through the entire collection, we seem grow and change, and yet, because this isn’t a novel, it’s possible that he isn’t exactly the same Josh, that rather, he’s reflections of the original, each incarnation slightly different from the previous and the next.

I’ve lived in Texas for nearly fourteen years, the longest I’ve lived anywhere, but I don’t really know Texas. There’s so much of it I haven’t seen, certainly, except for when we drove through to Dallas from California, I’ve never experienced West Texas, and yet, from time spent in Colorado as a child, and South Dakota as a young wife, I feel a kind of kinship with the landscape Archuleta describes.

I went into this book afraid I might be turned off, and was surprised to find that I really connected with the easy storytelling and honest portrayals of real-seeming people.

Archuleta is a modern Hemingway. A Texas treasure. And these stories? They should be shared as far and wide as possible.

Goes well with: barbecued brisket and cold beer.

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Visit the other great blogs on this tour

4/17/18 Promo The Page Unbound
4/17/18 Bonus Post Hall Ways Blog
4/18/18 Review Books and Broomsticks
4/19/18 Author Interview Texas Book Lover
4/20/18 Review Forgotten Winds
4/21/18 Excerpt Book Fidelity
4/22/18 Promo The Love of a Bibliophile
4/23/18 Review StoreyBook Reviews
4/24/18 Notable Quotable The Clueless Gent
4/25/18 Character Interview That’s What She’s Reading
4/26/18 Review Bibliotica

 

Concepcion and the Baby Brokers

Review: Concepción and the Baby Brokers by Deborah Clarman

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About the book, Concepción and the Baby Brokers Concepcion and the Baby Brokers

• Paperback: 236 pages
• Publisher: Rain Mountain Press; First edition (March 15, 2017)

In nine thematically linked stories set largely in Guatemala, Concepción and the Baby Brokers brings to life characters struggling with universal emotions and dilemmas in a place unfamiliar to most Americans. From the close-knit community of Todos Santos to the teeming danger of Guatemala City, to a meat-packing plant in Michigan and the gardens of Washington DC, Deborah Clearman shows us the human cost of international adoption, drug trafficking, and immigration.

A Cup of Tears, the opening novella, reveals a third-world baby farm, seen through the eyes of a desperate wet nurse, a baby broker, and an American adoptive mother. In “The Race” a young man returns to his native village to ride in a disastrous horse race. “English Lessons” tells of a Guatemalan immigrant in Washington DC who learns more than English from a public library volunteer. A teenage girl tries to trap her professor into marriage in “Saints and Sinners.”

With searing humanity, Clearman exposes the consequences of American exceptionalism, and the daily magic and peril that inform and shape ordinary lives.

Buy, read, and discuss Concepción and the Baby Brokers:

Rain Mountain Press | Amazon | Goodreads

About the author, Deborah Clearman Deborah-Clearman-AP-Photo-credit-Douglas-Chadwick

Deborah Clearman is the author of a novel Todos Santos, from Black Lawrence Press. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous literary journals. She is the former Program Director for NY Writers Coalition, and she teaches creative writing in such nontraditional venues as senior centers, public housing projects, and the jail for women on Rikers Island. She lives in New York City and Guatemala.

Connect with Deborah:

Website

My Thoughts Melissa A. Bartell

I approached this book with some trepidation because I knew the subject would be both gritty and dark. I wasn’t wrong: it is both of those things. It’s also powerfully moving, heartbreaking, and something I feel should be required reading in women’s studies and contemporary literature courses throughout the Western world.

Rather than taking the stories individually – because this book is really a novella with supporting side stories – my thoughts are on the collection as a whole. Clearman, who lives in Guatemala part of the time, writes with the intimate familiarity that only comes from being steeped in a culture. I don’t want to say that I enjoyed her work, because these stories aren’t escapist fiction or light reading, but I appreciated the strong characters – mostly female – she created.

It surprised me, actually, that the baby brokers were predominantly women. There’s a sense of betrayal that comes when women work against each other, though perhaps that’s a cultural bias of mine – I was privileged to grow up in a supportive, feminist environment where women were encouraged – are encouraged – to support each other.

The women in these stories, however were a mixture of all types of people – some incredibly sympathetic, apparently believing they were saving babies, and some were ruthless, only involved in the baby trade for the money. Some were victims of circumstance, others the engineers of their own fate.

While there were male characters in all of the stories, it is the women that really stood out for me. I think it makes sense, though, that so many of the main characters were female – it provides a perspective that men just don’t have.

Well written and incredibly compelling, this collection of stories, Concepción and the Baby Brokers is a must-read.

Goes well with a bean and cheese burrito and whatever beer you like.

Tour Stops TLC Book Tours

Monday, April 10th: A Bookish Affair

Wednesday, April 19th: Eliot’s Eats

Monday, April 24th: From the TBR Pile

Thursday, April 27th: Savvy Verse & Wit

Monday, May 8th: Lit and Life

Tuesday, May 9th: Bibliotica

Monday, May 15th: Bookish Way of Life

Thursday, May 18th: 5 Minutes For Books

Monday, May 22nd: Bibliophiliac

Tuesday, May 23rd: Kahakai Kitchen

By the Wayside

Review: By the Wayside, by Anne Leigh Parrish

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About the book, By the Wayside By the Wayside

  • Paperback: 246 pages
  • Publisher: Unsolicited Press (January 31, 2017)

Marvelous. Honest. Generous. From the first story to the last, “By the Wayside” catches your attention and demands that you give into its every whirl. Each character unfolds with a precision that will have you wondering how Parrish managed to create such real-to-the-bones people within a world that captivates you with ease.

Buy, read, and discuss By the Wayside:

Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About the author, Anne Leigh Parrish Anne Leigh Parrish

Anne Leigh Parrish is the author of All the Roads That Lead From Home, stories (Press 53, 2011); Our Love Could Light The World, stories (She Writes Press, 2013); and What Is Found, What Is Lost, a novel (She Writes Press, 2014). Her new novel, Women Within, is forthcoming from Black Rose Writing in September 2017.

Connect with Anne:

Website | Facebook | Twitter

My Thoughts Melissa A. Bartell

I love short stories.

As a writer, I love the way short stories give you the freedom to experiment with different styles of writing – voice, narrative style, POV, genre. In this way, short stories are like play.

As a reader, I enjoy seeing what individual writers do with various literary forms, but I also appreciate pieces that are short enough to read in one sitting – one cup of tea, one good soak in the bathtub.

The stories in By the Wayside include all the things I appreciate as a reader. Deft use of language, clever turns of dialogue, interesting characters. I particularly enjoyed “How She Was Found” and “Artichokes,” but the rest of the collection was equally compelling, sometimes sad, often poignant.

I enjoyed the different characters author Parrish let us meet, by the different lifestyles we were able to glimpse. In addition, I found that Ms. Parrish is incredibly adept at subtly twisting expectations. In “The Professor,” the young girl is NOT seduced, for example.

By The Wayside is a collection of stories worth reading. Keep it in your bathroom or on your nightstand and savor the tales, one at a time. You won’t be sorry.

Anne Leigh Parrish’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS: TLC Book Tours - By the Wayside

Monday, April 3rd: Dwell in Possibility

Wednesday, April 5th: Patricia’s Wisdom

Thursday, April 6th: Lit and Life – author guest post

Monday, April 10th: Bibliotica

Wednesday, April 12th: Mama Vicky Says

Thursday, April 13th: Bibliophiliac

Monday, April 17th: Books ‘n Tea

Wednesday, April 19th: Susan Peterson

Thursday, April 20th: Dreaming Big

Monday, April 24th: BookNAround

Tuesday, April 25th: Bookchickdi

Wednesday, April 26th: Maureen Downing

Thursday, April 27th: Lovely Bookshelf on the Wall

Monday, May 1st: 100 Pages a Day – author guest post

Wednesday, May 3rd: Good Girl Gone Redneck

Thursday, May 4th: Seaside Booknook

Friday, May 5th: Readaholic Zone

Like Family - Postcard

Buzz! They Were Like Family to Me, by Helen Maryles Shankman

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Like Family - Postcard

Critically praised, beloved by readers, In the Land of Armadillos has an evocative new cover and title, They Were Like Family to Me. Now in Paperback! Available October 4.
1942. With the Nazi Party at the height of its power, the occupying army empties Poland’s towns and cities of their Jewish citizens. As neighbor turns on neighbor and survival often demands unthinkable choices, Poland has become a moral quagmire—a place of shifting truths and blinding ambiguities.

Blending folklore and fact, Helen Maryles Shankman shows us the people of Wlodawa, a remote Polish town. We meet a cold-blooded SS officer dedicated to rescuing the Jewish creator of his son’s favorite picture book; a Messiah who appears in a little boy’s bedroom to announce that he is quitting; a young Jewish girl who is hidden by the town’s most outspoken anti-Semite—and his talking dog. And walking among these tales are two unforgettable figures: silver-tongued Willy Reinhart, commandant of the forced labor camp who has grand schemes to protect “his” Jews, and Soroka, the Jewish saddlemaker, struggling to survive.

Channeling the mythic magic of classic storytellers like Sholem Aleichem and Isaac Bashevis Singer and the psychological acuity of modern-day masters like Nicole Krauss and Nathan Englander, They Were Like Family to Me is a testament to the persistence of humanity in the most inhuman conditions.

“One of the most original and consistently captivating short story collections to have appeared in recent years…(They Were Like Family to Me) is a singularly inventive collection of chilling stark realism enhanced by the hallucinatory ingredient of top-drawer magical realism, interrogating the value of art, storytelling, and dreams in a time of peril and presenting hard truths with wisdom, magic, and grace.” —Jewish Book Council

“Moving and unsettling…Like Joyce’s Dubliners, this book circles the same streets and encounters the same people as it depicts the horrors of Germany’s invasion of Poland through the microcosm of one village…Shankman’s prose is inventive and taut… A deeply humane demonstration of wringing art from catastrophe.” —Kirkus Reviews

“…by turns forthright and tender, oblique and intimate, brutal and ethereal…Though each story stands beautifully on its own, it is the completed tapestry of interwoven details that finally reveals the entire picture and provides the full emotional depth of the collected stories…The author’s greatest accomplishment is in leaving the horror to speak for itself, and instead giving voice to the enchantment.” —Historical Novel Society

More about They Were Like Family to Me They Were Like Family to Me

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Scribner; Reprint edition (October 4, 2016)

1942. With the Nazi Party at the height of its monstrous power, Hitler’s SS fires up the new crematorium at Auschwitz and the occupying army empties Poland’s towns and cities of their Jewish citizens. As neighbor turns on neighbor and survival depends on unthinkable choices, Poland has become a moral quagmire, a place of shifting truths and blinding ambiguities.

“Filled with rich attention to the details of flora and fauna and insightful descriptions of the nuances of rural and small-town life” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). Helen Maryles Shankman shows us the people of Wlodawa, a remote Polish town at a crossroads: we meet an SS officer dedicated to rescuing the creator of his son’s favorite picture book; a Messiah who announces that he is quitting; a Jewish girl who is hidden by an outspoken anti-Semite—and his talking dog. And walking among these tales are the enigmatic Willy Reinhart, Commandant of the forced labor camp who has grand schemes to protect “his” Jews, and Soroka, the Jewish saddlemaker and his family, struggling to survive.

Buy, read, and discuss:

Amazon | Books a Million | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Helen Maryles Shankman Helen Maryles Shankman

Helen Maryles Shankman’s stories have been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes. She was a finalist in Narrative Magazine’s Story Contest and earned an Honorable Mention in Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers competition. Her stories have appeared in The Kenyon Review, Gargoyle, Cream City Review, 2 Bridges Review, Grift, Jewishfiction.net, and other publications. She is the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Color of Light and the story collection They Were Like Family to Me. She lives in New Jersey, with her husband and four children.

Connect with Helen:

Website | Twitter | Pinterest | Goodreads

 

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