Review: The Rainbow Man by P. B. Kane

Review by Shellie for The Rainbow Man by P. B. Kane

Shellie’s quick take:  An exciting young adult novel that has elements of horror, myth, and the paranormal.

Shellie’s description:  When fifteen year old Daniel finds a seemingly lifeless body on the shore of his island home, he feels that something is not right with the man John Dee (as the locals name him since he does not remember who he is). When the entire town appears to side with this newcomer and Daniel is treated as an acting-out teenager, things get a little sticky. Daniel decides it’s up to him save the town’s folk from this stranger - a man who is not as he appears to be.

With elements of horror and a mythological ending that’s a great surprise, this story will have readers sitting on the edge of their chair until the conclusion.

Shellie’s thoughts:  This is a terrific slowly escalating thriller that readers who love scary books will devour. I know I did. And it’s a perfect read to take in on one sitting. At 162 pages, for some readers it will only take a few hours. It’s a small and thin soft bound book with a cover that I think is exceptional and represents the story very well; which will also increase its appeal to younger readers. I would say that the author knows his craft, creating this “clean” literary thriller that will be just as great for teens as for adults.

It has a great setting that the reader will love – an island somewhere in the UK. It’s a small coastal town that helps create a feeling of being stranded, which is a key element in the story for Daniel as he is the only person to believe that the rainbow man is not who he leads everyone to believe.

Recommended for lovers of horror and books with paranormal or mythological twists. Also recommended to audio book listeners since it’s just as great of a book in its audio version, with its UK accented reader. Highly recommended at 4 stars.

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Page count: 162 | Genre: YA/Dark Fantasy/Paranormal Thriller/Supernatural/Adventure | Rocket Ride Books | November 15, 2013

If you’re interested, we have an exciting interview with P. B. Kane.

We are off and traveling to the UK so posting will be at a stand still for a bit under a month. But when we return I have some fun giveaways that I will be sharing with you.

Until then happy reading!

Guest Post: Anne Leonard “When I’m Not Writing”

We have a guest post from Anne Leonard author of Moth and Spark. For more information about the book read Shellie’s review for Moth and Spark - a romantic epic fantasy with dragons and magic.

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When I’m Not Writing

Everyone knows what authors do when they’re writing, right? They stare at screen or paper, periodically move their fingers, curse at the phone, snack, get on Twitter, pet their cats, snack, stare at screen or paper . . . For this post, I’m giving you a glimpse at the Secret Life of Writers – what do I do when I’m not writing?

Much of what I do is kind of obvious. I spend a lot of time reading and thinking about writing. I pick my kid up at school and make dinner if it’s my night. I talk to my husband and take walks. Sometimes we go to a movie or a museum. I rarely watch TV (we have neither cable nor reception, so the only TV I see is via Netflix), I’m not athletic, I don’t make a study of obscure languages or collect rocks.  

But when I’m not being a writer or a family member or leading my ordinary life, I travel with my camera. I’ve taken photographs for at least as long as I’ve been a writer, probably longer. My father, his brother, and their father all did photography, and my very first camera was a Brownie that I got when I was 7 or 8, handed down from one of them. I still have some of the pictures I took with that camera – a few of them are nicely composed, but from the vantage of a short person, so they look quite odd to adult eyes. I’ve gone through various cameras since, including a few point-and-shoots for things like parties where I didn’t care much about the actual quality of the photo, and now use a Canon EOS. (For photo geeks: I have two – an older Rebels Xsi and a somewhat newer 60D.)

Since I graduated from law school, I’ve gone off for a few days every year for a private retreat, wherein I went out and took pictures during the day and then wrote in the late afternoons and evenings. I’ve gone to Santa Fe, New Mexico; Joshua Tree National Park; Yosemite Valley and the Eastern Sierra; and Annapolis, Maryland. The year prior to that we took a family trip to northern Baja California. This is the first year I haven’t planned an expedition, because of all the business associated with the book release.

I take very few pictures of people. I like landscapes, buildings, and up-close shots of plants and insects. I pay attention to textures and to the play of shadows and light. I play around on Photoshop, but most of the pleasure I get is from the actual act of taking the picture. Photography has been criticized for causing people to worry so much about the picture that they forget about the experience the photo is recording, and I can understand how that’s true at times, but for me the act of framing the picture is an act of seeing what I would not otherwise see. I note the lines, the shapes, the colors. I watch the light.

This all plays out in my writing, of course. I use precise details in my descriptions, and this comes from having trained my eye to see the small things: the pollen on the bee’s back, the raindrops in a cobweb, the smear of rust on an old lock. My scenes often have descriptions of the light: the way it falls, the color, the sharpness and brightness, and so on. I can imagine things with photographic detail because I look at the world that way.

It also plays out in specifics at times; the final scenes in the mountains in Moth and Spark were written directly after the Yosemite trip, when I saw the granite, volcano remnants, and cliffs of the Sierra Nevada. Looking at those mountains and photographing them not only helped me describe the details of the mountains scenes but also gave my mind an imaginative jolt that it needed for the last stretch.

In some ways, writing fiction is like taking a picture – there’s all this stuff in my head jostling for attention, and I have to focus on some of it to the exclusion of other things. It has to be framed properly. Rewriting a scene can be like zooming in or out. When I’m done with a draft, there are a lot of superfluous or too-similar shots that need to be excised before being presented to an audience. Writing and taking pictures are by no means identical creative acts, but for me they engage usefully with each other. So in that sense, even when I’m not writing, I am.

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Pictures: Top - Sierra Nevada mountains with Tenaya Lake in foreground, view from Olmsted Point, California. Bottom - Frost on a railing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Anne Leonard lives in Northern California. She has degrees from St. John’s College, the University of Pittsburgh, Kent State University, and University of California-Hastings College of Law. MOTH AND SPARK is her first novel.

For more about the author see a Q&A with Anne Leonard courtesy of the publisher.

Guest Post: Deborah Crombie author of The Sound of Broken Glass

We have a guest post from author Deborah Crombie who has recently published her book The Sound of Broken Glass in its paperback format.

A Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James novel, it’s a crime fiction set in London.

As an American writer writing about the English, I was curious about how she managed it - since US culture and language is surprisingly different from the UK. ( I know from my numerous trips to England with my Brit husband John, and the inevitable culture shock that I experienced.)

She answers my question below.

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Readers are always curious as to how an American writes about England, and the English. I have an advantage in that I've lived in both England and Scotland. But I fell in love with Britain long before I lived there--in fact, it was the other way around. (Or the other way round, in Brit speak.) I've never been able to explain just how this dream of Britain crept its way into my subconscious. I can't remember a time when I wasn't fascinated by British books and stories and history, although I can cite some influences, in retrospect. Many of them were an ideal Britain translated into fantasy; C.S. Lewis's Narnia, Tolkien's Middle Earth, Alan Garner's haunting Cheshire, T.H. White's wild Avalon. Then came the immersion in Christie and Sayers and Allingham, the Britain of the Golden Age mystery. And how could I leave out Holmes? There were English sagas, Delederfield and Winston Graham. Then James Herriott's Yorkshire. And wonderful romantic suspense by writers like Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt.

I'm sure I can blame a good bit on public television, too, as Masterpiece Theater and British comedies and even Doctor Who introduced America to language and culture that was similar enough to seem familiar but different enough to be enchanting. When I visited England for the first time in my early twenties, the stage was already set. I'm still surprised, years later, by the sense of identification I felt. Homecoming. Weird and wonderful and scary all at once.

Living there a few years after that first visit, I found things often not nearly as cozy and romantic as the Britain of my imagination, but somehow that didn't change my attachment. If anything, living with Britain-unvarnished made the feeling stronger. When I came back to live in the US I longed for Britain with a physical ache, a sort of psychic missing limb syndrome. So I wrote the first Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James novel out of homesickness, and out of a desire to use the patterns of language I heard in my head. (Writers have an excuse for hearing voices...)

I placed my detectives in London, with jobs at Scotland Yard, so that I could send them to the settings in more rural Britain that so fascinated me. But a funny thing happened. I fell in love with London just as passionately, maybe even more so, than with that other England. London is a country in itself--there is always something new to learn, to do, to see.

So that's the history of how an American came to write British. How does it work now, this writing from a distance thing?  I go to England a couple of times a year. I almost always spend time in London, and if a story takes me (and my characters) out of London, I go there, too. When I stay in London I let (Brit speak) a flat, so that I can walk the neighborhood and go to the shops and pubs and supermarkets, and do all the everyday things that my characters do. I watch a lot of British television, because you see (and learn) things there that you never see in the US. I go out with English friends and do all the ordinary things that people do--it is in an odd way a separate life.

When I'm not in the UK, I keep up with British newspapers and telly and films and, of course, books. The Internet has been a huge research blessing (can I say how much I love Google Maps?) It has made it so much easier to be virtually if not physically there.

And I am still, always, when I am not in Britain, a little homesick, and that keeps the stories going in my head.

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About Deborah Crombie’s stand alone book The Sound of Breaking Glass (#15 Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James):

In the past . . .  On a blisteringly hot August afternoon in Crystal Palace, once home to the tragically destroyed Great Exhibition, a solitary thirteen-year-old boy meets his next-door neighbor, a recently widowed young teacher hoping to make a new start in the tight-knit South London community. Drawn together by loneliness, the unlikely pair forms a deep connection that ends in a shattering act of betrayal.

In the present . . . On a cold January morning in London, Detective Inspector Gemma James is back on the job now that her husband, Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid, is at home to care for their three-year-old foster daughter. Assigned to lead a Murder Investigation Team in South London, she's assisted by her trusted colleague, newly promoted Detective Sergeant Melody Talbot. Their first case: a crime scene at a seedy hotel in Crystal Palace. The victim: a well-respected barrister, found naked, trussed, and apparently strangled. Is it an unsavory accident or murder? In either case, he was not alone, and Gemma's team must find his companion—a search that takes them into unexpected corners and forces them to contemplate unsettling truths about the weaknesses and passions that lead to murder. Ultimately, they will begin to question everything they think they know about their world and those they trust most.

William Morrow | February 25, 2014 (first published 2/19/2013) | Trade Paperback | 384 pages

About the author: Deborah Crombie is the author of 15 novels featuring Scotland Yard Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Detective Inspector Gemma James. The 16th Kincaid/James novel, To Dwell in Darkness, will be released by William Morrow in September, 2014.

Crombie lives in McKinney, Texas with her husband, two German Shepherd Dogs, and two cats. She travels to Britain frequently to research her books. http://www.deborahcrombie.com/

Excerpt and Giveaway: Books by Peter Robinson

Excerpt for the stand alone Watching the Dark: An Inspector Banks Novel (#20) and a Rafflecopter giveaway for Before the Poison both by Peter Robinson.

The books are international crime fiction set in England.

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Excerpt:  There was something about Bach that suited the early morning perfectly, DCI Alan Banks thought, as he drove out of Gratly towards the St Peter’s Police Convalescence and Treatment Centre, four miles north of Eastvale, shortly after dawn that morning. He needed something to wake him up and keep his attention engaged, get the old grey cells buzzing, but nothing too loud, nothing too jarring or emotionally taxing. Alina Ibragimova’s CD of Bach’s sonatas and partitas for violin was just right. Bach both soothed and stimulated the mind at once.

Banks knew St Peter’s. He had visited Annie Cabbot there several times during her recent convalescence. Just a few short months ago he had seen her in tears trying to walk on crutches, and now she was due back at work on Monday. He was looking forward to that; life had been dull for the past while without her.

He took the first exit from the roundabout and drove alongside the wall for about a hundred yards before arriving at the arched entrance and turning left on the tarmac drive. There was no gate or gatehouse, but the first officers to arrive on the scene had quite rightly taped off the area. A young PC waved Banks down to check his ID and note his name and time of entry on a clipboard before lifting the tape and letting him through.

Driving up to the car park was like arriving at a luxury spa hotel, Banks had always thought when he visited Annie. It was no different today. St Peter’s presented a broad south-facing facade at the top of the rise that led down to the lake and surrounding woods. Designed by a firm of Leeds architects, with Vanburgh in mind, and built of local stone in the late nineteenth century, it was three stories high, had a flagged portico, complete with simple Doric columns at the front, and two wings, east and west. Though not so extensive as some other local examples, the grounds were landscaped very much in the style and spirit of Capability Brown, with the lake and woods and rolling lawns. There was even a folly. To the west, beyond the trees and lawns, the outlines of Swainsdale’s hills and fells could be seen, forming a backdrop of what the Japanese called borrowed scenery, which merged nature with art.

The forensic team had got there before Banks, which seemed odd until he remembered that a detective inspector had made the initial call. Kitted out in disposable white coveralls, they were already going about their business. The crime-scene photographer, Peter Darby, was at work with his battered old Nikon SLR and his ultra-modern digital video recorder. Most SOCOs – or CSIs, as they now liked to be called – also took their own digital photos and videos when they searched a scene, but though Peter Darby accepted the use of video, he shunned digital photography as being far too susceptible to tampering and error. It made him a bit of a dinosaur, and one or two of the younger techies cracked jokes behind his back. He could counter by boasting that he had never had any problems with his evidence in court, and he had never lost an image because of computer problems.

DI Lorraine Jenson stood with two other people about five or six yards away from the body, a lone, hunched figure resting her weight on a crutch by the water’s edge and jotting in her notebook. Banks knew her slightly from a case he had worked a few months ago that crossed the border into Humberside, where she worked. Not long ago, he had heard, she had a run in with a couple of drug-dealers in a tower block, which ended with her falling from a second-floor balcony. She had sustained multiple fractures of her left leg, but after surgery, the cast and physio, she would be back at work soon enough.

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William Morrow Paperbacks | 2/25/2014 | Trade PB | Pages: 384 | WATCHING THE DARK is available now at Amazon | B&N | IndieBound

About Watching the Dark: New York Times bestselling author Peter Robinson brings back Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his colleague DI Annie Cabbot in a case riddled with corruption

A decorated policeman is murdered on the tranquil grounds of the St. Peter's Police Treatment Centre, shot through the heart with a crossbow arrow, and compromising photographs are discovered in his room. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks is well aware that he must handle the highly sensitive and dangerously explosive investigation with the utmost discretion. And as he digs deeper, he discovers that the murder may be linked to an unsolved missing persons case from six years earlier and the current crime may involve crooked cops.

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Rafflecopter giveaway for Before the Poison.

About the book: Quietly reeling from the death of his beloved wife, Chris Lowndes decides to return to the Yorkshire Dales after twenty-five successful years spent in Hollywood composing film scores. He purchases Kilnsgate House, a charming old mansion deep in the country, but something about the place disturbs him. His unease intensifies when he learns Kilnsgate was once the scene of a sensational murder. More than fifty years earlier, prominent doctor Ernest Arthur Fox was poisoned there, allegedly by his beautiful and much younger wife, Grace, who was subsequently tried, condemned, and hanged for the crime.

His curiosity piqued, Chris decides to investigate, and the more he discovers, the more convinced he becomes of Grace's innocence. Despite warnings to leave it be, his quest for the truth is soon leading him through dark shadows of the past . . . and into a strange web of secrets that lie perilously close to the present.

William Morrow Paperbacks | 1/2/2013 | Trade PB | Pages: 368

This is my first Rafflecopter giveaway so I have my fingers crossed that this works without too much trouble. Fingers crossed!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: The Darkness and the Deep by Aline Templeton

Review by Shellie for The Darkness and the Deep (A DI Fleming Thriller #2) by Aline Templeton

Shellie’s quick take:  The second in an atmospheric murder mystery set on the coast of rural Scotland. It has a strong female lead and can be read as a standalone. I would, however, recommend reading the first in the series- Cold in the Earth - since it adds character depth.

Shellie’s description:  Set in a farming and seaside community in Scotland, Detective Inspector Marjory Fleming and her family have almost overcome the devastating foot and mouth incident which occurred in the first and previous novel of this series, Cold in the Earth. When the community's local rescue boat with its three volunteers crashes on the rocks during a messy storm, it takes all the lives on board. The community is once again devastated. Things become more complicated when another detective determines that the boat was perhaps led into the wrong harbor (a rocky and dangerous bay that is off limits to boats) determining that it may have been planned. It turns what was thought to be a horrible accident into a murder investigation.

Then another life is taken and it becomes apparent that a serial murderer is on the loose. With a variety of suspects it takes the entire local police team to figure out who the unlikely killer is.

Shellie’s thoughts:  After reading this second in the series, I’ve decided that I liked this novel enough that I will attempt to read the other 5 books in the series. It has a variety of great elements that I think are entertaining - a strong female lead, excellent setting, a variety of interesting supporting characters, psychological insight into a criminal mind, a twisty plot, and intelligent writing that flows - excepting the Scottish colloquialisms, which can be interesting, charming, or impossible to understand for an American (not necessarily a bad thing!)

And even though the first book in the series was somewhat predictable, The Darkness and the Deep is not, which is important in a mystery. It does have the psychological profiling which was used in the first book, as well as its in-depth character development. My favorite part is it’s such a great setting for a vicarious trip to rural Scotland.

Like the first novel in the series, I dug right in and kept on reading until I was finished, which says a lot. Since this second book is an enjoyable page turner too, I will now consider the series a go-to book when looking for a guaranteed pleasurable read. And what a great deal. Witness Impulse is re-publishing this mystery series in ebook format for an amazing price of $2.99 - otherwise this series would not be available in the US. If you enjoy international crime fiction this is an excellent option. I’m rating the book 4 stars.

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Witness Impulse (Harper Collins) | 1/7/2014 | eBook | $2.99 | First published in the UK in 2006

You can read my review of Cold in the Earth, the first in the series by clicking on this text.