book review: The Ark by Boyd Morrison

Title: The Ark
Author: Boyd Morrison
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Canada, May 2010, paperback, 420 pages

ISBN-10: 1439198675
ISBN-13: 978-1439198674

From the opening scene of archeologist Dilara Kenner watching her friend Sam Watson slouch over dead mid-conversation in the food court at the Los Angeles airport, The Ark's author Boyd Morrison plunges us into a story filled with terror and intrigue. This debut novel spans only a few weeks but feels much longer as our heroes (Dilara and engineer Tyler Locke) jet from Newfoundland to Las Vegas, to Seattle, to Phoenix, to Miami, to Orcas Island, to Armenia. They are always in danger and working against incredible time constraints as they attempt to unravel and foil Sebastian Ulric and the Church of the Holy Waters’ deadly plan to wipe out civilization.

Plot is everything in this fast-paced thriller. Boyd distributes the tension peaks and valleys throughout to keep us turning pages till the end.

Characters, easily identified as on one side or the other, engage in numerous cat-and-mouse pursuits. Some of the more fantastic chases (a monster truck loose on the streets of Phoenix, motorcycles careening around the deck of a ship, good guys against bad in the bowels of a maze-like bunker) reminded me of action movie sequences. Boyd’s obvious comfort with setting these up, along with his clear descriptions of the action may be thanks to his work with Xbox Games Group. More than once I felt like I was in the middle of a video game – only to emerge at the next level with things getting even worse.

Something that amused me about the setting/plot combo were all the high tech gadgets that the characters had at their fingertips. Just when all seems lost, Tyler produces from his backpack a battery-operated strobe, GPS system linked with his laptop (which never seems to be out of juice), foldaway shovels, remote-controlled vehicles with laser mapping capabilities, hardhats with articulated viewfinders. In that way the book is a techie’s adventure in gadget paradise.

As successful as the story is at delivering an action-packed plot, it is unexceptional in delivering complex characters. Dilara and Tyler are the superwoman Barbie and superman Ken of the good guys, while Ulric, Petrova, and Cutter are evil personified. However, given the type of story this is, I wasn’t surprised or unduly disappointed. This cast of characters gets the job done, delivering lots of entertainment along the way which is the main thing.

The themes the story addresses are similarly slight. Boyd does have Tyler start coming to terms with his relationship with his father. And there is some discussion about faith versus science especially as it relates to Noah’s Ark, the finding of which was the lifetime quest of Dilara’s father, and a focal point in Boyd’s tale.

The two main characters become romantically involved, resulting in a few steamy love scenes (though they are probably tame when compared to similar scenes in some general market books of this type). There is also swearing – not overdone or gratuitous – but there is a lot of violence.

I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the Noah's Ark aspect of the book. To make it figure as part of the intrigue and treachery, Boyd has his characters twist the biblical Noah’s Ark story by questioning the integrity of its translation and the accuracy of its transference from one generation to the next. Though Boyd’s far-fetched premise about the ark serves his general market story well, it in no way offers new enlightenment about the actual Noah’s Ark, only fanciful speculation, complete with an archeological treasure-store and magical amulets.

As a whole, this “blistering paced” suspense thriller is quite an achievement as a debut. Lovers of action, suspense and, of course, high tech toys, will not want to miss it.

(Article first published as Book Review: The Ark by Boyd Morrison on Blogcritics.
I received The Ark as a gift from Simon & Schuster Canada for the purpose of writing a review.)

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The Ark is actually the third novel Boyd Morrison wrote.  He was having the usual trouble debut authors have finding anyone to publish his stories. He tells the fascinating tale of how his book got published to Scott Bukti in a Blogcritics interview. Here's an excerpt:

"Editors loved the premise, plot, and characters, but they didn't see how it would stand out in a crowded thriller market. So with Irene's (his agent) blessing, in 2009 I put all three books onto the Kindle store. I really had nothing to lose. This was just as the Kindle 2 was coming out, and Amazon started letting unpublished authors self-publish their books electronically on the Kindle.


I did no advertising or promotion, but readers on various web discussion forums picked up on the books and started recommending them. Within a month, The Ark was the number one techno thriller on the Kindle, and all three books were in the top five in multiple genres. Within three months, I sold 7,500 copies of my books, and by that time they were selling at the rate of 4,000 books per month."  Read entire...

Which just goes to show, there is hope for writers even in this brave new world of publishing house downsizing, online bookstores and e-readers.

book review: Beguiled by Deeanne Gist and J. Mark Bertrand

Title: Beguiled
Author: Deeanne Gist and J. Mark Bertrand
Publisher: Bethany House, February 2010, Paperback, 336 pages
ISBN-10: 0764206281
ISBN-13: 978-0764206283

Rylee Monroe loves her job as a dog-nanny and -walker for the residents of the Charleston neighborhood that’s on the right side of the tracks. But what really keeps her going is the fact that her grandma, Nonie, the person she loves most in all the world, needs her and her dog-sitting income.

Logan Woods’ job on the newspaper’s crime beat is perfect for feeding his real passion – writing his first book of true crime stories. But so far the pièce de résistance — the Robin Hood Burglar — has eluded him. Meeting Rylee and hanging around with her helps in that department. She and that burglar seem to run with the same crowd. He has to make some hard choices, though, when detective Nate Campbell suspects her of the crime. It’s a good thing Rylee’s godfather and his dashing son are lawyers and seem eager to help.

In Beguiled Deeanne Gist and J. Mark Bertrand have collaborated on a fictional tale that lives up to both of its monikers. It’s a hearty main course of suspense served up with a generous side of gooey romance (or maybe it’s really the other way around).

I was prepared to dislike the characters – especially the main female. Rylee is just too pretty, smart, and the embodiment of everything trendy and hip (she runs all these designer dogs on inline skates, for crying out loud). But somewhere in the early going, I started liking her. The book became compelling after that.

Though the story is a romance of the emotional x-ray variety (with lots of potential for nausea as we get many moment-by-moment accounts of how he affects her, she him) some of those first-love encounters of the book were epiphanies that gave their relationship a sense of authenticity – this scene describing their feelings after an early date, for example:

“They had crossed out of clearly defined territory into the shadowland of … something else.

[…] The easy camaraderie of their lunch conversation was gone, replaced by acute awkwardness. Giddy constraint. Happy with the new development but afraid to stay too long in each other’s presence. They both needed to retreat so they could ponder what had just happened.” p. 132

Gist and Bertrand’s writing style is brisk. Taking little time for description and backstory, the authors plunge us, scene after scene, into full-strength action. The dialogue is smart, realistic, and captures these 20-somethings in living audio.

Thematically the book is pretty light. Both Rylee and Logan come from backgrounds of Christian faith and their scrapes with danger test the strength of their beliefs, but not to any earth-shattering degree. Rylee has issues with the past and these threaten her relationship with any many who would get too close. Of course underlying the story is the idea that romantic love will triumph. Can it – even to the tune of challenging Logan’s six-figure book deal?

All in all, Beguiled was a pretty decent read – and fast too. The suspense elements made it hard for me to put down. Let’s hope Gist and Bertrand decide to collaborate on more tension-filled escapades in the future.

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Available now at your favorite bookseller from Baker Publishing Group. I received this book from the Graf-Martin agency for the purpose of writing a review. The opinions expressed are my own.
 
From Amazon.ca



From Amazon.com



Deeanne and Mark talk about co-writing Beguiled

book review: Exposure by Brandilyn Collins

Title: Exposure
Author: Brandilyn Collins
Publisher: Zondervan, June 2009, Paperback - 272 pages.
ISBN-10: 0310276438
ISBN-13: 978-0310276432

Kaycee Raye thinks she has forever rid herself of the paralyzing fear that someone is watching her. But then, after spinning out dozens of therapeutic and fear-conquering “Who’s There” columns, her best friend’s biggest nightmare comes true. That’s all it takes to bring her own anxieties back to malevolent life. Now it seems that even the walls of her once-snug home have sprouted eyes. It doesn’t help that other creepy things are happening too - cameras flashing pictures of her when no one is around, mysterious images appearing on her computer…

But before this heroine of Brandilyn Collins’ latest suspense thriller Exposure can enlist the help of the police, Hannah, her dead friend’s nine-year-old daughter, goes missing. Could the danger she feels be linked with Hannah’s disappearance? Or maybe, as everyone seems to think, her mind is just playing tricks on her.

Interspersed between the chapters about stalker-obsessed Kaycee and the search for Hannah is the tale of Martin Giordano, his wife Lorraine and their daughter Tammy. The eventual weaving together of these two story threads is a feat of plotting that does Collins proud in the clever department.

Though plot is the story’s strength, Kaycee is a nicely developed character with whom it is easy to identify and sympathize. Martin and Lorraine are also interesting. I especially enjoyed the bit characters Nico and Bear for their pure villainy.

The book is written with true suspense finesse, has lots of nasty surprises, and contains an abundance of pounding heartbeat, sweaty palm and adrenaline-producing passages. (Poor Kaycee - what she has to endure to give us these vicarious thrills and shivers!) I found Collins’ writing style so suited this genre, I lost all awareness of it as I was swept along by the story.

The theme of fear dominates this tale, fleshing out how its presence tricks, debilitates, paralyzes, poisons and spreads. Kaycee’s faith in God often helps to calm her inner frenzy, but it doesn’t provide any kind of miraculous cure – something that would have felt like a cheating kind of solution anyway. Instead, her “Who’s There” column at the end of the book speaks of the long-range project that conquering deep-rooted fears is for most people, and the part that God plays in it:

“So Here I am. What truth did I learn? Fear is everywhere. But that is only half the story. The other half?

God is bigger than fear.

Once upon a time I longed for a magic wand to make me all better. There isn’t one. Day to day I still struggle ... But a few nights ago I was gazing at the full moon, and an amazing thought occurred to me. God hung it. That’s a lot of power. If he could do that, why in the world did I fail to believe he could help me overcome my little problems?” (page 260).

For a swift read of seatbelt suspense, air-bagged by comforting and eternal truths, Brandilyn Collins’ Exposure is a good choice.

Read a sample.

scary

Twilight zone

While others line up to ride the roller coaster, even the thought of it brings cold sweat to my palms. No thanks!

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Thursday Challenge

Next week: ORANGE (Fruit, Vegetables, Flowers, Leaves, Signs, Sunsets,...)

book review - The Heir

Title: The Heir
Author: Paul Robertson
Publisher: Bethany House
Genre: Fiction / Suspense
ISBN: 076420324x




“I couldn’t take my eyes off the casket,” begins Paul Robertson’s debut novel The Heir. “It was expensive and it glowed, resting among the candles and the heaps of flowers. It so perfectly expressed the man inside.”

Death and the man inside (Melvin, the emotionally distant father of Jason Boyer, the "I" of the book) are two elements Robertson uses, along with a school of shark advisors, politicians and journalists, an awed-by-riches wife and younger brother, a charitable family foundation, and a cynical yet idealistic main character to weave this suspense thriller about money, power, corruption, murder and hope.

The white-knuckle plot was a highlight for me. Jason’s chagrin at finding out he’s the main benefactor of his father’s millions soon turns to acceptance. Fred, his father’s right-hand man, pressures him to be quick about filling the power void left by the death of influential Melvin. Then police start snooping around and insinuating that Melvin’s death may not have been an accident after all. There’s another murder. And in just a few weeks Jason has trouble recognizing the person he’s become.

The stakes of keeping all that wealth versus divesting himself of it are high and only raised by the power of the people he will alienate if he does what his gut is telling him to do. Not to speak of how his shopaholic wife Katie will react.

Jason on the lam near the end taxed my credulity, however. He was badly hurt, without food and water, yet like some bionic creation, always had enough in him for yet another chase, yet another showdown. Altogether though, the piling on of trouble and the fact that the reader knows only as much as Jason does, makes for a riveting read.

Robertson’s lean and witty writing style fits the plot well. The story is told in first person through Jason’s intelligent persona and delivered with enough literary razzle dazzle to make it appeal to not only the plot addict but the word junkie as well. For example, note these thoughts of Jason, near the book’s beginning:

Melvin. The name of the deceased hovered in the air for a moment like cigarette smoke, and Nathan Kern’s name was the smell of stale beer that went with it so well.

Later Jason is about to enter an elevator with the corpulent Fred:

Being in an elevator that was trying to lift Fred Spellman to the top of a forty-two-story building also seemed risky, but I saw no other choice. We entered that little room, its door closed on us, and with a mighty effort it began its labor.

"Do you realize the gravity of the situation?" Fred asked.

That was exactly what I was thinking about except that Fred meant Wilcox.

The book didn’t leave me with any memorable favorites in the character department, however. In fact I didn’t much like any of the characters -- including Jason — at the beginning. He grew on me so that in the end, I saw past his egocentricity and his brooding, impetuous personality to the little boy who wanted, above everything else, to have a connection with his dad. Eric, the younger brother, also gained a measure of self-knowledge. I felt the most ambivalent about Jason’s wife Katie who, though beautiful and kind, came across, finally, as shallow.

The themes touched on in this whodunit were somber. Throughout the book Jason wrestles with existential questions like “Why am I here,” and “What is the purpose of my life?” Another of the book’s preoccupations was how money and power affect people. Jason’s search for a connection with his father puts the focus on father-son relationships. Hope and a faith in God are also intimated by Pamela, Jason’s motherly secretary. The sum total is a story that is more than just a light read.

All that to say that when you’re looking for a book to take to the beach or cottage this summer, consider The Heir. But don’t take it alone. Because you’ll finish it way sooner than you wish you had.

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Bonus: Read the complete first chapter of The Heir here.