Tales From The Book Dragon

Good Sunday, My Fellow Book Dragons, I hope you have enjoyed a restful day. The Gem I bring to you this evening comes to us from Down Under – the Australian Author and Poet, Gus Henderson’s book, The Wounded Sinner.

The story takes place over four days in the life of small group of people. Matthew, Jeanie, their tween daughter, Jaylene, Matthew’s terminally ill father, Archie, and Vince – a nice bloke who picks Matthew up on the roadside when his car breaks down.

In the heat of an Australian Summer we see a search for roots, hope, answers and the struggle to survive. Nothing is easy and nothing is simple. This story is the story of every man and woman who had cared for a dieing parent. Loved a spouse more than life’s breath itself. Every adult child who needed answers to their roots. Every child fighting to come of age in poverty and strife.

The characters are raw and as real as they come, the settings are without fancy dress, no crystal goblets here, only beer bottles and dusty heat, air conditioning that rarely works, wondering where the money for the next bill will come from or where to get the car fixed. But….there is something else. There is Faith. It’s simple, and it’s raw, and it’s beautiful. It’s in the child Jaylene, it’s in Vince who holds to his childhood teachings.

And it holds hope for the future..get this book, and read it. You won’t be sorry, but keep your tissues handy.

I received a copy of the Wounded Sinner from Magabala Books Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

Good Evening, My Dears, This evening’s Gem is not one, but two lovely books to give your Nestlings or Grandnestlings.

A.A. Milne’s lovely books of poetry: When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six. My own Book Dragon, when she was a small Nestling, loved these poems. Her favorite being The Dormouse and The Doctor. Here is an excerpt “There once was a Dormouse who lived in a bed
Of delphiniums (blue) and geraniums (red),
And all the day long he’d a wonderful view
Of geraniums (red) and delphiniums (blue).“

Night after night she requested this poem, her hazel eyes sparkling. She loved the cadence, the illustrations, and she loved reading them to her stuffed animals as well.

Introduce your Nestlings to the poems that enthralled Christopher Robin all those decades ago and discover for yourself the wonder they instill!

Happy Friday, My Fellow Book Dragons…I’m going to dive right in on tonight’s Gem because it is a Thriller rare and true…and it starts with a letter from a father to his son…”…But regardless, we can’t talk to each other, which means I’ll have to write it all down. Mister Night. The boy in the floor. The butterflies. The little girl with the strange dress. And the Whisper Man, of course. It’s not going to be easy, and I need to start with an apology. Because over the years I’ve told you many times that there are no such thing as monsters. I’m sorry that I lied.”

With a beginning like that Alex North grabs you and pulls you into the Whisper Man. He takes you along the streets of Featherbank and even though there are times you put the book down and try to walk away you can’t.. because the Whisper Man is there..or the boy or something sinister or desperate and you have to know who and why and how will all this end.

I couldn’t put this down for long…I made a pot of tea, one of coffee, and came back and finished it off. All the time feeling like something was staring at me.

Celadon was kind enough to allow me a sneak peek in exchange for an honest review. This is as honest as it gets. I loved it. I found myself holding my breath more than once. I haven’t found myself this wrapped up in a Thriller since Silence of the Lambs.

Spooky, then frightening and then it terrifies..the trifecta..as though Straub, Christie and Harris had their DNA mixed to create the Fantastic Mr. North. I expect this isn’t the last we heard from him, my Friends…pre-order it now on Amazon or your favorite book seller as it becomes available August 20th, because these will go like Knights without Armour ..quickly ..

Good Thursday Evening, My Dears, I bring you a Gem to help you travel back in time to a place few would wish to revisit and yet, for it’s time, it was considered progress when compared with places like Bedlam or some other infamous institution..I give you Sonoma State Hospital in California via Ed Davis’s In All Things.

Ed takes us on a fictionalized journey of his time as a Psychiatric Technician there in the year 1970, a place Jack London immortalized in a short story fifty plus years before called “The Drooling Ward”.

London’s story is available again..his ranch abutted the hospital and it’s worth reading to compare life at the hospital in 1914 to life in 1970 – and it’s Jack London!

Of course, Sonoma is closed now, as most of the old institutions are, but Davis brings up some excellent points about progress and states of mind. And I have one. We can shut down big institutions all day, but my Scaly Sweethearts, my Ravishing Readers, does it do any good, if the institution is still in our heart and mind?

Good Evening, Fellow Book Dragons, Hope this finds you winging your way through this week. Your gem for this evening is a magical book that allows you to be an eyewitness to history.

Letters, diaries, court records and more first hand accounts of the Black Death, Pompeii, a Viking Funeral, trials of Child Labor all the way to the Space Shuttle Disaster.

If you love trivia, history, oddities, little peeks into the past,you will definitely want to add this treasure to your chest.

Until next time.. I remain yours, BD

I purchased this book myself.

I’m sorry my Book Dragons..but this Dragon is dragging…there will be no review today..see you tomorrow..

Happy Monday, My Fellow Book Dragons, Today I bring you a Gem that twists and turns through the sidewalks of old New York. Charles Belfour’s House of Theives is a wonderful romp through the grand homes of the Astor’s, The Cooke’s, the creme de la creme of turn of the century New York Society.

Breaking a rule can get you shunned, ruin you for life and Belfour plants you there in the form of the Cook family, distant relatives of Caroline Astor, the Grand Dame of the day.

The Cooks get involved with a sadistic but gentlemanly gang leader, Kent the Gent because of the eldest son George’s nasty gambling habit and the rest is a wilder ride than a Coney Island Fun House.

Get this book today ..and take a ride through the murder, mystery and mayhem of Old New York.. you’ve never had so much fun.

I received this book for free from my local library’s Summer Reading Program.

Blessed Sunday, My Fellow Bookish Ones… Today’s Gem is a truly wonderful tale of hope, faith and charity. A tale of waiting on God in His infinite wisdom and timing no matter how hard and how much we want to hurry Him along.

First we meet Rachel and George, a hard working young couple in the 1960’s and their little baby, Emily. Life is pretty sweet, except for a rough relationship with George’s mother.

Then along comes Vicki and Murph, attendants at an open air rock concert behind Rachel and George’s house. Vicki pining for her still born baby and Murph trying to fit back into society after losing an arm in Vietnam.

On the last night of the concert happenings arise that bring these five together with dire consequences that only God, Himself can sort out…

If you are looking for a story that runs the emotional gamut and leaves your heart full..Emily, Gone is for you. Available now on Amazon.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

Good Evening, My Fellow Book Dragons, Our fare this evening is a sort of cross between a dystopian and a fairy tale. Angela Castillo’s Toby the Trilby is a sort of boy invented in an underground cave by 6 elderly scientists. He has cat ears and a cat tail and has kept them company and they have acted as sorts of grandparents.

Toby, near his 12th birthday begins wonder if he has a soul, and so goes on an adventure..soul searching, if you will. It is here his adventure begins.

The story is rather slow and I had a hard time engaging my grandnestlings, the youngest of whom is nine. I gave this three flames.

Until tomorrow, stay cool in this terrible heat…yours..The Book Dragon

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

Good Evening, my Gem Hunters, We have arrived at Friday. I hope the week was not too unkind. For this evening, I have for you an unusual offering from an international Author at North Pole Press, Joe Moore. He brings us a What If story of freakish delight.

If you loved Hitchcock’s The Birds but wondered about what happened after, this is the book for you. Revenge of the Birds is based on the premise that the birds had a form of Avian Rabies and that caused the attacks…it’s now up to science to develop a vaccine and quickly to stop another outbreak.

Will they? Won’t they? Can they? That’s up to you to find out. Until tomorrow, I remain, your humble Book Dragon.