by Tyler Roberts ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 20, 2012
Morals and bullets fly in this cranky action thriller.
In Roberts’ post-apocalyptic debut, the Lang family survives in a disintegrating United States occupied by the Chinese military.
The year 2016 sees America crumbling. With the Bill of Rights suspended, aerial drones target citizens by presidential order. Consumerism and debt have ruined the economy, while college graduates don’t know the meaning of self-sufficiency. What better time for the Chinese to invade and collect their due? When it happens, everyone is caught unawares except Cliffson Lang, his wife, Jean, and their friend Monk. Living in Oregon, they farm their own produce and raise chickens. They work hard (as do their sons, Zach and Dustin Lang), surviving within their means. They aren’t affected when the government cuts aid programs (to repay the Chinese) and rioters start destroying cities around the country. But shortly thereafter, the Chinese set off nuclear bombs in Washington, D.C., San Diego and Dallas. The invaders then begin collecting gold and silver from traumatized Americans nationwide. Monk and the Langs keep their spirits up, staying informed via ham radio about militia resistance to the Chinese and the carnage created by roving gangs. Debut author Roberts convincingly brings this hellish future to life. He begins the novel with frequent, sumptuous depictions of nature: “Scattered gray clouds rode across the sky on a chill zephyr born of winter, while a cool breeze played hide and seek throughout last year’s raspberry canes.” Such beauty allows the full weight of later atrocities to hit the reader: “Disfigured by Dustin’s shotgun blasts, the bodies left behind dark stains and chunks of flesh on the grass.” But between the peace and violence, there’s an endless barrage of political proselytizing. Roberts uses Cliffson to not only complain about modernity and its corrupting influence, but to vilify anyone who doesn’t share his mindset: “A brilliant spring sun was out and so were the witless, faddish people always there to chase the latest trend—each of them as brain dead as the next, Cliffson thought.” If readers can accept that, a solid action narrative awaits.
Morals and bullets fly in this cranky action thriller.Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2012
ISBN: 978-1475966800
Page Count: 492
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Susan Count ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
A short, simple, and sweet tale about two friends and a horse.
A novel tells the story of two spirited girls who set out to save a lame foal in 1952.
Mary, age 12, lacks muscle control of her legs and must use a wheelchair. Her life is constantly interrupted by trips with her widower father to assorted doctors, all of whom have failed to help her. Mary tolerates the treatments, hoping to one day walk unassisted, but her true passion involves horses. Possessing a library filled with horse books, she loves watching and drawing the animals at a neighboring farm. She longs to own one herself. But her father, overprotective due to her disability and his own lingering grief over Mary’s dead mother, makes her keep her distance. Mary befriends Laura, the emotionally neglected daughter of the wealthy neighboring farm owners, and the two share secret buggy rides. Both girls are attracted to Illusion, a beautiful red bay filly on the farm. Mary learns that Illusion is to be put down by a veterinarian because of a lame leg. Horrified, she decides to talk to the barn manager about the horse (“Isn’t it okay for her to live even if she’s not perfect? I think she deserves a chance”). Soon, Mary and Laura attempt to raise money to save Illusion. At the same time, Mary begins to gain control of her legs thanks to water therapy and secret therapeutic riding with Laura. There is indeed a great deal of poignancy in a story of a girl with a disability fighting to defend the intrinsic value of a lame animal. But this book, the first installment of the Dream Horse Adventure Series, would be twice as touching if Mary interacted with Illusion more. In the tale’s opening, she watches the foal from afar, but she actually spends very little time with the filly she tries so hard to protect. This turns out to be a strange development given the degree to which the narrative relies on her devotion. Count (Selah’s Sweet Dream, 2015) draws Mary and Laura in broad but believable strokes, defined mainly by their unrelenting pluckiness in the face of adversity. While the work tackles disability, death, and grief, Mary’s and Laura’s environments are so idyllic and their optimism and perseverance so remarkable that the story retains an aura of uncomplicated gentleness throughout.
A short, simple, and sweet tale about two friends and a horse.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Hastings Creations Group
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Katie Keridan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 2, 2018
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.
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Keridan’s poetry testifies to the pain of love and loss—and to the possibility of healing in the aftermath.
The literary critic Geoffrey Hartman once wrote that literature—and poetry, in particular—can help us “read the wound” of trauma. That is, it can allow one to express and explain one’s deepest hurts when everyday language fails. Keridan appears to have a similar understanding of poetry. She writes in “Foreword,” the opening work of her debut collection, that “pain frequently uses words as an escape route / (oh, how I know).” Many words—and a great deal of pain—escape in this volume, but the result is healing: “the ending is happy / the beginning was horrific / so let’s start there.” The book, then, tracks the process of recovery in the wake of suffering, and often, this suffering is brought on by romantic relationships gone wrong. An early untitled poem opens, “I die a little / taking pieces of me to feed the fire / that keeps him warm / you don’t notice that it’s a slow death / when you’re disappearing little by little.” The author’s imagery here—of the self fueling the dying fire of love—is simultaneously subtle and wrenching. But the poem’s message, amplified elsewhere in the book, is clear: We go wrong if we destructively give ourselves over to others, and healing comes only when we turn our energies back to our own good. Later poems, therefore, reveal that self-definition often equals strength. The process is painful but salutary; when “you’re left unprotected / surrounded by chaos with nothing you / can depend on / except yourself / and that’s when you gather the pieces / of the life you lost / and use them to build the life you want.” The “life you want” is an elusive goal, and the author knows that the path to self-definition is fraught with peril—but her collection may give strength to those who walk it.
Therapeutic, moving verse from a promising new talent.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-72770-538-6
Page Count: 196
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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