Clean Reading Recommendations

I obviously can't read every book ever published, so I've started asking other people if they've read any "clean" books recently. ("Clean" meaning no to minimal cussing and no explicit sex scenes.)

This week, I'm featuring fantasy books reviewed by Kristen at Fantasy Cafe. She said the following fantasy books are clean reading.

(Click on the titles to go to her reviews. I included snippets from her reviews.)

Dreamdark: Blackbringer by Laini Taylor (YA traditional fantasy; enchanting, the writing is lovely)

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. (YA dark fantasy; fantastic storytelling containing both humor and seriousness, fantasy and reality)

Mercedes Thompson series (Moon Called; Blood Bound; Iron Kissed) by Patricia Briggs. (Dark fantasy; Swear words mentioned, but not actually said. [i.e. the 'he swore' style]. There was a rape scene in one book but it was not at all graphic. [Kristen] actually had to read it twice because it was not described in any real detail and at first [she] thought it was only an attempted rape.)

The King Raven trilogy by Stephen Lawhead. (historical fiction/fantasy; entertaining)

Thank you, Kristen, for taking the time to send me this information.


Patricia Briggs' earlier books aren't dark like her current ones. In fact, they contain well-honed, but playful, humor. They are also clean. Some of my favorite books are When Demons Walk and Steal the Dragon and Masques by Patricia Briggs. Someday, I might post a review of these three books on Genre Reviews.

Author Quirks: Diane Noble

Next up is Diane Noble, author of The Veil. I asked her:

What's a quirky or little-known fact about yourself, your writing, and/or one of your novels? (For example, you can tell us about a non-standard pet you have, an unusual way you do your writing, a strange real life incident that inspired a scene in one of your novels, or so on.)


Diane Noble's answer:

A little known fact is that my characters become so real to me when I'm writing that I often cry (for their joys and/or sorrows) when I'm working on an emotional scene.

While writing The Veil, the closer I got to the climatic scene at Mountain Meadows the more difficult I knew it would be to write. So I kept adding more scenes to avoid what I knew, historically, had to happen. I had "lived" with the characters so long, they were as familiar as members of my own family. Each day, my historian hubby (who'd been with me while doing research Utah and at the Mountain Meadows site), would come to the door of my office, and ask, "Are you there yet?" I would shake my head and keep typing. One day he came to the door and found me sobbing as I typed. He said softly, "You're there," walked across the room, and put his arm around my shoulders as I continued to write the scene. I glanced up after a moment and saw that he was crying too.

Thank you, Ms. Noble, for telling us how writing touches your life.

Clean Reading Recommendations

I obviously can't read every book ever published, so I've started asking other people if they've read any "clean" books recently. This week, I'm featuring fantasy books reviewed by Tia Nevitt at Fantasy Debut. She said the following fantasy books are clean reading.

(Click on the titles to go to her reviews. I included snippets from her reviews.)


Lamentation by Ken Scholes (excellent steampunk fantasy)

Clockwork Heart by by Dru Pagliassotti (steampunk set not-on-earth, a treat to read)

Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V. S. Redick (traditional fantasy, filled with wonder)

The Crown Conspiracy by Michael J. Sullivan (traditional fantasy, highly entertaining)


Thank you, Tia Nevitt, for taking the time to send me this information.

The Veil by Diane Noble

The Veil by Diane Noble Trade Paperback: 380 pages Publisher: Waterbrook Press First Released: 1998 Author Website

Source: Review copy from publisher

Back Cover Description:
A shroud of secrecy cloaks a new nineteenth-century sect known simply as the Saints. But that veil is about to be drawn away. Amidst the majestic beauty of 1857 Utah, the members of one secluded religious group claim to want nothing more than to practice their beliefs without persecution. Yet among them are many who engage in secret vows and brutal acts of atonement...all in the name of God.

But one young woman, Hannah McClary, dares to question the truth behind the shroud. Soon Hannah and the young man she loves–Lucas Knight, who has been trained from childhood to kill on behalf of the Church–find themselves fighting for their very lives.

As a group of unwary pioneer families marches into Utah toward a tragic confrontation with the Saints at a place called Mountain Meadows, Hannah and Lucas are thrust into the most difficult conflict of all–a battle for truth and justice–even as they are learning for the first time about unconditional love, acceptance, and forgiveness.


Review:
The Veil is a very well-written Christian historical novel with some romantic elements. The main characters are caught up in historic events during their childhood and into their young adult years which climax at the Mountain Meadow massacre in Utah in 1857.

The description was vivid, bringing the world alive in my imagination without slowing the pacing. The historical detail was nice and added to the feel of the book. The tension was built nicely throughout the story.

There was a strong religious element to this book (of both traditional Christianity and Mormonism). Since there were several short sermons and a number of discussions about what was taught, I suppose you could call sections of the story "preachy" though I never felt it was heavy-handed.

The characters were all complex and interesting. Some Mormon characters behaved compassionately and others brutally just as some non-Mormon characters behaved compassionately and others brutally. This is not a "all Mormons are bad" book.

However, I strongly suspect most Mormons wouldn't enjoy reading this book since several of the Mormon characters questioned Brigham Young's teachings on multiple marriages, blood atonement, and a few other things. It's clear, though, that the author carefully researched the events and stuck to historical information closely. For example, many quotes that were attributed to Brigham Young and other Mormon leaders in The Veil were taken from actual sermons and writings.

A sex scene was implied (within a marriage). There was no bad language. I'd rate this novel as very good, clean reading. I would recommend it to anyone who's interested in this period of Mormon history or who likes wagon train stories.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Chapter One
Wolf Pen Creek, Kentucky
September 1846

Ten-year-old Hannah McClary crept along the trace leading from the creek to the crest of Pine Mountain. Farther on, the trail wound into the lavender hills, through the pass, and far beyond where the eye could see, to Kentucky's tall silver grass country.

With every step Hannah looked for evidence that her brother Mattie had taken this path when he disappeared. She stopped, brushed her hair back from her face, and inspected the broken twig of a mountain laurel, turning it in her fingers. He'd gone looking for some old Daniel Boone trail, she was sure. Hannah figured her brother left Indian signs for her to follow, just as he had done in play when she was but a wee tike.

Hannah examined the bent twig for shreds of buckskin, perhaps caught as Mattie hurried by. But there were none. She frowned, turning the tender shoot in her hand. It was a recent break, maybe caused by a lone Cherokee hunter, or maybe Mattie. She moved farther up the trace, deeper into the dark forest of birches, oaks, hickories, and maples.

Her brother had always said he would take her with him when he left--that was the part about his leaving that saddened her the most. Her other six siblings were mostly sullen, like their pa, or unnaturally quiet. Since their ma died, only Mattie seemed to have the same curiosity for life that Hannah had. He was her protector, her champion, just like knights of old they read about in the primers and fairy-tale books some distant cousin had sent from Virginia. And he told her stories he'd heard from their Irish grandma'am. Stories about God and his care for them all. Mattie said he knew for certain that Hannah was someone special in the eyes of her Creator.

Mattie had taught himself to read and write, then he'd taught Hannah as well, opening a world of notions and longings to them both. The rest of the family, with the exception of their ma, couldn't be bothered with book-learning. The others mocked them, calling Mattie and Hannah dreamers, scoffing at the very word.

But now Mattie had left without Hannah, without a hint telling her where he was going. And every day when her chores were done, Hannah searched for his trail, thinking surely he meant for her to follow.

Author Quirks: Jeanette Windle

Next up is Jeanette Windle, author of Veiled Freedom. I asked her:

What's a quirky or little-known fact about yourself, your writing, and/or one of your novels? (For example, you can tell us about a non-standard pet you have, an unusual way you do your writing, a strange real life incident that inspired a scene in one of your novels, or so on.)


Jeanette Windle's answer:

The advance copies of CrossFire, my first adult political/suspense novel set in the U.S./Bolivia counternarcotics war, had just arrived in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where my husband and I served as missionaries and he pastored the International Church. I was enjoying a celebratory lunch at one of the city’s finer restaurants with the American consul, regional heads of World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, and other non-profit personnel when we were joined by an eager and somewhat distraught young woman. She was American, early twenties, a veterinarian grad student working as a volunteer with Bolivia’s endangered species program. Animals seized from poachers or brought in with injuries were treated, then released back into the wild. If rehabilitation was not possible, such animals would end up in the Santa Cruz zoo for an exhibit or breeding program.

Our young volunteer wanted advice from the more experienced expatriates sitting around the table. Something strange was happening in her program. Valuable animals were disappearing, all high-demand specimens for the rare animal black market and too many to dismiss as coincidence. Now she’d come into the city to bring a female jaguarundi into the zoo, its leg injury proscribing rehabilitation, but perfect for the breeding program. But when she’d returned that morning to check on it, the rare jungle cat was gone. No one would admit to who had given orders for its removal.

She shook her head in bewilderment. Local colleagues on her non-profit organization’s payroll had access. But surely their passion for the environment would never permit such criminal behavior. Glancing around the crowded, upper-class eatery, she lowered her voice to barely above a whisper. She wasn’t so sure about the zoo’s director or the local Minister of Environment, both powerful political figures whose mansions in the city’s most elite neighborhood certainly didn’t come from their government salary.

Duh! was our mental response. Anyone who’d been any time at all in Bolivia knew how corrupt its government systems were at all levels, the flood of expatriate non-profits simply offering new pockets from which to build one’s own personal fortune. The guilty could be zoo director, minister, colleagues or most likely all of the above. Definitely not coincidence.

And now she presented her dilemma. Should she go to the police and demand an investigation? Or perhaps, with kind understanding and lack of a judgmental attitude, she should go to these men herself. Explain to them just how important these animals were to Bolivia’s eco-system. Plead with them to abstain from any further depredation of their country’s wildlife. Which option did we at the table feel she should pursue?

None of the above, we unanimously assured her. But when an acquaintance called her away, we exchanged our mutual dismay. Were non-profits really letting volunteers that green and naive out on their own without a babysitter? As to what she should do, we were also in unanimous agreement. Keep her mouth shut and accept the loss of an occasional endangered animal as the cost of doing business in Bolivia. Or go back to the United States before an embassy alert informed us she’d been found floating in some local river with her throat cut. Corrupt and wealthy Bolivian politicians didn’t take kindly to being lectured on changing their ways by young and female expatriate volunteers.

My husband and I with our four children left Bolivia that same week to Miami, where we worked throughout Latin America for the next five years before, so I never saw the young woman again nor was able to follow up on her. But I wondered often over the years if she’d survived her own naiveté to make it back home alive. And since I never found out the end of her story, I chose to write it myself. Fast-forward several political/suspense novels to my first Tyndale House Publishers title, Betrayed, released March, 2008. Anthropologist Vicki Andrews is researching Guatemala’s “garbage people” when she stumbles across a human body. Curiosity turns to horror as she uncovers no stranger, but an American environmentalist—Vicki’s only sister, Holly.

Read Betrayed, and you will meet that earnest young veterinarian volunteer, right down to the sunburned, round features and actual conversation around that table as well as my own dismayed reactions played out in the mind of protagonist Vicki Andrews. Holly is just one of the many characters who have wandered out of real-life encounters into the pages of my books. A jungle village chief facing off with a condescending female environmentalist (The DMZ). A good-looking and arrogant drug lord heir racing around town in his red Ferrari (CrossFire). A nasty coca-growers union leader I killed off in print to cheers from DEA friends who’d longed to arrest him without ever dreaming the man would weasel his way into his nation’s presidency (FireStorm). A supercilious six-foot-four Special Agent in Charge determined to intimidate a five-one female civilian-me! (The DMZ).

My motto as a writer when eccentric, annoying or even nasty people cross one’s path is simple and effective. Don’t get irritated or even. Just write them into your next book!

Thank you, Ms. Windle, for telling us a bit about where you get your story ideas and characters.

The Silver Sword by Angela Elwell Hunt

The Silver Sword by Angela Elwell Hunt Trade Paperback: 403 pages Publisher: Waterbrook Press First Released: 1997 Author Website

Source: Review copy from publisher

Back Cover Description:
The auburn-haired O'Connor women share a bond far deeper than their striking physical appearance. These courageous, high-spirited women all push against societal limits.

Anika of Prague is one of these women. After the death of her parents at the hands of church men and corrupt nobles, Anika vows vengeance. Seeking safety from her enemies, Anika dons the most unlikely disguise imaginable for a young woman of the fifteenth century: a coat of armor. At the castle of Lord John of Chlum, she joins the knights who are protecting John Hus and advancing religious reformation among the churches of Bohemia. But though she now has the skill to kill, will she have her chance for vengeance? And will she take it, despite the cost?


Review:
This Christian historical romance novel is a good, light read. At times, I felt that the story was more about John Hus than Anika since Anika played a very minor role during those sections. Since Hus was a preacher and Anika avidly listens to his sermons and acts as a scribe to help spread his teachings, the story is almost by definition "preachy." Hus' views on the problems with the Catholic church and on the corruption present in the church at that time might turn off Catholic readers.

While, to my knowledge, the information about Hus was accurate, there were a myriad of little details wrong with the "knightly" aspects of the story. I had trouble getting into the story because of these problems. I also couldn't understand why Anika has a burning desire to kill one man responsible for her father's death and yet she's horrified by the idea of killing the other man responsible (who also wants to rape her). Also, Anika is described as so beautiful and girlish (based on comments by friends to her father and by the lustful noble's son) and yet the moment she needs to fit in as a squire, she's described as boyish in figure and no male questions her disguise. But I'm guessing these things won't bother most readers.

The characters were likable, the heroine spirited, and the plot enjoyable, especially if you're interested in the reformation. There was no sex or cussing. Overall, it was "good, clean fun."


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Chapter One
"Mama?" Anika was six again, small and helpless, alone in the upstairs room of an inn outside Prague. Father had gone out to the stable to meet with a man who had promised to find them a horse. Anika moved through the musty chamber. It felt like pushing aside curtains of black velvet, perfumed with the odors of unwashed bodies and the scent of sour hay. In the silence of the darkened chamber she felt her mouth go dry as fear rushed in. "Mama?"

"Hush, love, I'm here." The straw mattress rustled in the dark, then Mother's warm hand found its way to Anika's elbow and pulled her down onto the mattress beside her. Anika curled against her mother and hugged her knees, blinking as her night eyes adjusted to the dim light. Two other women slept on the far side of the room, the heavy sounds of their breathing blending with the snores of the innkeeper's dogs. The two huge mastiffs slept near the door, alert to any newcomer.

And the winner is...

Wow, we had more people than ever enter the contest for a copy of "The Vanishing Sculptor" by Donita K. Paul. Using a random number generator and numbering the entrants in the order I received them, the winner is:

@1stephzen

who entered via Twitter. Congratulations! I'll be contacting you for your address.

For those who didn't win, you can always join in the fun by buying a copy of this book at your favorite bookstore.