After the release of her newest book Storm, Bonnie Calhoun gave Write-Read-Life some insights on the series.  We hope you enjoy the interview!  If you are more interested in Bonnie’s books, please see our Bonnie S. Calhoun page or visit her site directly at http://bonniescalhoun.com/

1. What an interesting series, where did the idea come from?

Thank you for that compliment. Part of the idea for Stone Braide Chronicles came from my resurgent love of dystopian literature and the timeless struggle of the human spirit to survive no matter the circumstances. And the second part of my idea is the end times scenario. I’m always wondering and imagining in what form the writings in the book of Revelation will come about and how much, if anything, people here in this country will have to do with it.

2. I enjoyed all of the characters but have a few favorites, Rylla, Selah, and Mari.  Which Characters did you enjoy writing the most?

All of my characters are my favorite…at the time I’m writing them (moms have to say that about all their kids J) But a real favorite was Mari because I made her whole world so unconventional, and I’d love to go back and explore that tree world as a series. Image living in a treehouse community lit up like a fairyland at night! LOL…my home is log, so I think I just have an affinity for trees.

 

4. Are there plans to continue the series in any way?

 

Surge and Storm are the last two stories in this present series. Surge is the FREE digital short story you should read between Lightning and Storm. It gives you a possible solution to a piece of the puzzle that you won’t know otherwise J While Storm ends this present story; it does give openings for revisits to other locations. Who knows what the future holds. I have a million stories in my head J If the series builds enough traction I may write more of them.

5. What made you set the scenes in the areas you did?

Hmmm, that is a very interesting question! I started out picking Dominion for the first story because I had first hand knowledge of the Dominion building, and Norfolk was a good distance from the present location of Mt. Weather which I turn into The Mountain. I wanted the image of the ruined ancient rollercoaster off the Boardwalk and aforeshadowing dome off in the ocean, so Atlantic City was the perfect location for the second book to start. And for the third book… LOL…locations were chosen for distance I wanted the characters to travel before an incident. I just let my fingers travel over Google Maps and then over the Amtrack route from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest which they traveled by a train run with a steam engine.

6. What was the hardest part of writing the series?

Ohhh! The hardest part of the series to write was the ending! I have so many other suitable adventures for Selah to travel while she explores her new abilities and finds new pitfalls and more evil enemies! And I picked up several locations like the forest city that I’d love to set whole series. Ohhhh, it was so hard to say goodbye but alas! Parting is such sweet sorrow. J

7. Were you influenced by any other books or writers when writing this?

No I wasn’t influenced while writing it but I was definitely influenced BEFORE I started writing it by the Hunger Games, the Divergent series, The Giver, and others. These series and their ensuing movies gave new definition to the direction of dystopian fiction and opened a whole Pandora’s box of “what if’s” for me to explore. I like the thought of triumph through extraordinary events and it’s especially compelling when it’s young people. It gives so much hope to the future no matter the timeframe or circumstances.

Author: Sabaa Tahir

Series: An Ember in the Ashes #2

Publisher: Razorbill

Release Date: August 30, 2016

Rating: 5 Stars

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

A stellar follow up to the amazing debut novel by Sabaa Tahir. A Torch Against the Night is not to be missed!

Now that Laia has freed Elias, they are on the run to stay alive and free Laia’s brother who is in Kauf prison. Being one of the Empire’s most secure and dangerous prisons, this is no easy task.  Elias has vowed to help Laia but it might cost him his own life.  Together they will have to fight their enemies at every turn, and they will not be playing fair.  They are going against Emperor Marcus, Elias’s mother, the Commandant, the Warden of Kauf, and Helene, Elias’s former best friend and the Empire’s new Blood Shrike.  Helen has the hardest mission of all, find them both and kill them.  If she doesn’t, she risks the lives of her family and possible her own.  There are those that don’t want to see her succeed and even put spies within her guard to thwart her every move.  They are all on a treacherous path and not everyone will make it out alive.

I don’t think anyone realized how popular An Ember in the Ashes would be when it came out.  That gives the debut of A Torch Against the Night a difficult task: be even better.  It is hard for a sequel like this to live up to the first.  I had to reread the first before starting this to make sure I remembered the story well enough to continue.  I’m glad I did because it made this one even better.  While An Ember in the Ashes went back and forth between Elias and Laia, A Torch Against the Night added the viewpoint of Helen.  This was done for obvious reasons.  With Elias and Laia together most of the time, we needed a viewpoint of what was going on with the rest of the characters.  This could have been done with several characters, Helen, Marcus, or even the Commandant.  I’m glad Tahir chose to go with Helen, she really carried her part of the story well.  The action picked up right where the first left off and didn’t let up till the very end, which is left open for the next in the series. (I’m assuming there will be more in this series, there MUST!)  The entire world was set up in the first book but here we see much more of it and in very interesting ways, especially with the introduction of the many different tribes.  There is so much more for us to find out with these characters and where they are headed.  I see this being as big of a hit, if not more, than the first.

Author: D.M. Pulley

Publisher: Lake Union

Release Date: August 23, 2016

Rating: 4 Stars

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

Very good historical account of 1952 Detroit and rural Michigan seen through the eyes of a young boy!

Nine year old Jasper Leary has just been abandoned at his uncle’s farm by his mother. Sure she has left him here before, but she was full of deception today.  She just said they would visit for the day, but then she had a suitcase packed and everything.  Jasper doesn’t know when he will see her again, so he tries to fall in line with his older cousin on the farm.  Only problem is that he really misses his mom.  When he discovers the old family house still has his mom’s childhood diary in it, he knows he must try to find her.  Only problem is, so does everyone else it seems.  Even a Detroit detective has shown up asking questions about her and where she is.  After his father comes to pick him up and take him home, he stays with a neighbor and things happen in his apartment.  In an attempt to get away, he ends up at some places a kid should never be, including a peep show and alone on a bus back to his uncle’s farm.  Somehow, his mother is involved with the neighboring Indian reservation.  There is death, destruction, and drug trafficking, but what does Jasper’s mother have to do with it?

I was quite surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. The whole book is told from Jasper’s viewpoint and Pulley does a great job of having this read like a nine year olds mind.  And the trip down memory lane to 1952 was really fun too.  It was a different time and she did a great job of showcasing the back streets of Detroit as well.

There is some disturbing material throughout the book, but it is really just how it is. It’s not a shock and awe that the author is trying to go for, it is just what could honestly happen to a lone nine year old boy.  And all of the sexual taboo mentioned and portrayed throughout is not understood by Jasper.  So, while the reader understands what is going on (and likely cringing) Jasper is just as confused as ever and never really gets to a point that he does understand.  So, very well played out by Pulley.

Even so, I would not recommend this book for YA audiences. Likely that this book could be picked up by a university class at some point for a required reading.

I received a complimentary copy of this book through the TLC Book Tours. The views and opinions expressed throughout are mine.

Author: Jenni Fagan

Publisher: Hogarth

Release Date: July 19, 2016

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

Dark, slightly depressing, slightly funny, mostly interesting, and very, very debatable.

Dylan McRae has just inherited his family’s cinema in the London Soho district. Only problem is, it is completely in debt and there is no way that he can save it.  Having lost his grandmother and then his mother six months later, he decides to take their ashes from London back to his gran’s homeland of Scotland to scatter them in the northern islands.  He will have to wait until the spring as it is November 2020 and with the jet stream cooling off, the temperatures have plummeted to below zero.  Forecasters are saying this will be the worst winter in history and a new ice age is upon us.  So, Dylan goes to stay at a caravan his mother purchased.  Upon arriving at the caravan park, he begins to meet his neighbors.  The first is a young girl named Stella and her mother Constance.  Stella was a boy named Cael until just over a year ago when she let everyone know she was being called by the wrong name and associated with the wrong gender.  Constance is a prepper who has been getting ready for a winter like this her whole life.  In the region of Clachan Fells, winters often get gray and stay that way.  Can the new relationship between the three of them see it through the winter?  Or will the new ice age take their identities?

The Sunlight Pilgrims is definitely a different read than what I have had so far this year.  I thought it was going to be more about prepping for a doomsday scenario, similar to several other books out there, but it was really more just about the lives of two people during a snapshot of time that happens to be during a doomsday scenario.  The main character of the book is Dylan.  The reader follows his life from the time after his mum had died in October 2020 to the end of March in 2021.  There is a little history that is brought in from time to time that deals with his family tree and connection to Constance and Stella, but it is mainly about his current actions.  The other main character is Stella.  There is some history with her that we don’t really get to know fully.  There was an event after her gender crisis that really shaped her personality that is mentioned but overall details are not really given.  I would have like to have delved a little further into that, but even so her point of view was probably the most interesting.

There is a significant amount of foul language in this book as well as the afore mentioned issue of gender identity crisis. There are likely several people who will find this book could be written in today’s time frame.  Fagan did a great job of portraying Stella’s emotions as a teenage girl even though she is still genetically a boy.  Made for a different spin in the main books that I’ve read this year.

Even though a large portion of this book is devoted to Stella and she is a youth, this is not what I would consider a YA genre novel. I wouldn’t recommend it until university age.

I received a complimentary copy of this book through the Penguin Random House blog program. The views and opinions expressed throughout are mine.

Author: Carrie Stuart Parks

Series: Gwen Marcey Novel #3

Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Release Date: August 2, 2016

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

Snakes! Why did it have to be about snakes?

Forensic artist Gwen Marcey has just taken on a case in Pikeville, Kentucky to help sketch a composite of a serial rapist. However, upon arriving in Kentucky, which is vastly different than her native Montana, she is quickly brought in to see a murder victim who has been found recently.  There is very little left of his face, but he appears to have been a victim of a snakebite.  She is then taken to the rape victim, who appears to not want to be bothered at the moment.  The next day she is gone.  Frustrated, she works on her sketch of the deceased man and the police successfully determine who he is.  But then strange things start to happen to her.  She’s almost run over by a black pickup truck.  She gets a threatening phone call telling her to leave.  Then a timber rattlesnake shows up in her hotel bed.  The sheriff then moves her to a friend’s home.  The sprawling summer estate of a politician houses more than just her.  In fact, it might even house a killer and a rapist.  Can Gwen solve the crimes before it is too late?

This was my first Gwen Marcey story, but I was impressed. There was some back history that I didn’t know about, but it didn’t hinder the story for a moment.  In fact, it made me want to go back to see what I had missed.  This book can easily be a standalone novel, so don’t let the fact that it is a third in a series stop you from giving it a try.

This is a story of a strong female lead character that often feels weak, as many people can surely relate. However, she finds the strength to persevere through her trials with God’s help.  She also makes a great connection with her estranged daughter during this book, which leads me to believe that there is some drama between the two characters in the previous two books.

The suspense was really good throughout the book. Early on, I thought I had it figured out.  In truth, I had half of it figured out, but not the way I had thought.  She definitely had a really good twist there at the end that I didn’t see coming.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Harper Collins in exchange for an honest and thorough review. The views and opinions expressed within are my own.

Author: Christine Hale

Publisher: Apprentice House Press

Release Date: July 1, 2016

Reviewer: Jennifer Roman

Written in four parts, A Piece of Sky, a Grain of Rice talks about Christine Hale’s struggle to have fulfilling relationships in her life.  A “surprise” baby with eight years separating her from her next sibling, Christine feels pressure from her demanding mother to be the best at everything.  Her mother equates performance with love, and Christine works hard to earn her mother’s love.  Her father disappears to work or to his basement refuge, so she doesn’t really have a relationship with him.  In her later years, she marries as a teen to escape her parents’ control.  She later has children with a different husband and realizes she is in no shape to care for them properly, so she gives custody to their father.  This in turn causes hurt feelings with her children, and she spends a great deal of time reestablishing a relationship with them while caring for her terminally ill new partner.

Having grown up in an emotionally abusive home with older parents who are starting to feel the effects of illness and aging, Christine has to figure out her own way so that she can lead a happy, healthy life.  She studies Buddhism and works with a sage teacher who sends her on retreats so she can learn in quiet solitude.  She furthers her education and creates new relationships with her aging and ailing parents and her adult children.  Things don’t always go right and they are not always easy, but eventually she comes to a peace that leaves her satisfied in how her life moves along.

This book is written in four different parts that describe different parts of her life, and oftentimes it takes a little while to figure out what that time is.  She uses the term “You” frequently to describe specific people or events that influence her, whether good or bad.  The prose is fresh and direct, even coarse at times, as she describes the less savory people and events that made her who she is today.  She shows in her writing how she has risen above the negative in order to accept and hold on to the positive, and it’s clear in her narrative what is good and what is not.

I really enjoyed Christine Hale’s story of how she made something of a difficult life and used Buddhist teachings to do so.  She highlights the struggles without claiming to be the victim; instead, she takes ownership of her situation and makes it better.  She admits to her faults and bares her soul when necessary.  Reading her book, I definitely got to know her better and found a vulnerable person who can inspire and teach her readers.  Some of this book deals with difficult subjects such as spousal rape and emotional abuse, so for this reason I recommend it for mature readers.  Anyone looking for an insightful look into a person’s emergence from modest and abusive beginnings will find this book to be engaging and hopeful.

I received a complimentary copy of this book through TLC book tours in exchange for an honest and thorough review.  The views and opinions expressed within are my own.