Summertime, time to work?

It’s been a while since I actually wrote a blog post that wasn’t a rehash of something I wanted to remember or a book review.  Don’t be discouraged.  The book reviews were to get me to focus on structure and the elements of writing in books… instead of just zipping through them for pleasure.  I don’t intend to make it the focus of the blog, but I do think it’s interesting to read from the point of view that I need to say more than “I liked it” or “I hated it.”

As August approaches, Houston continues to do its Hot thing.  I had the pleasure of being in Southwest Michigan last week and lost touch with that reality when the days didn’t get over 80 and the nights were in the 50s.  Such civilized weather!  It had us out planting flowers, walking in the woods, and cuddling in blankets to watch movies late into the night.  Nights so dark and star studded that we felt we had fallen into the velvet of another world. 

Home though, we are in what my midwestern heart considers the dead of winter, (dangerous to be outside and not fun) or summer if you must. Too hot to do anything of substance outside.  Time to stay hunkered into the A/C and clean closets and think about selling the now way too big house.  And time to read and write, which feels so totally indulgent to me.

I’ve joined a couple of writing groups to try to spur myself into more serious application of my time.  I am tired of work shopping stories written years ago, so it is time to write new ones.  I have lines or titles or images that have been whispering this summer, if I can manage to coax them in to fully realized narratives, I’ll try. 

For now, perhaps a photograph as a placeholder.

Another winner by Paula McClain: Circling the Sun

Circling the Sun

By Paula McClain

The beginning of this book, with Beryl Markham taking off for the first transatlantic flight from England to the United States, with her engine failing and her plane hurtling through the air, made me think. Oh. Another tragic book of life lost, of early flight.

I was wrong.  Circling the Sun flies not only on those frightening, early flights but also through the life of this extraordinary woman.  Her story begins in colonial Kenya in 1920, when Africa was untouched and unsullied.  We learn of Beryl as the child left behind, the daughter chosen to stay with her father as he tries his hand at farming and, his specialty, training thoroughbreds. Beryl runs wild in the jungle and learns the ways of the Kip tribe, to hunt, to respect the land, to respect the creatures. 

She grows into a beautiful young woman whose passion for life leads her into the inner circle of Ex-pats living in Africa.  Her love of the continent, the horses, and the people who love it, especially the one who is completely out of her reach, with her mesmerizes the reader into a longing for a simple harshness that only true pioneers can understand.  McClain exceeds her work in The Paris Wife with the telling of this remarkable woman’s triumphs and tragedies.  The first person accounting lets her readers fly with Beryl.  I highly recommend Circling the Sun.  Especially if you want to know how that transatlantic flight comes out.

I received this book from NetGalley for this review.

Shallow water for Beach readers

 

I Take You

By Eliza Kennedy

Lily Wilder is the image of a young, beautiful, successful New York Lawyer, gallivanting through cases, and men, including her senior partner, with such energy and verve that her approach to work, alcohol and men is the norm.  It is only when she decides to marry handsome archeologist Will that the assumption is brought into question.  Can she really settle down, and limit herself to one man?

The questions are explored as Lily spends the week before her wedding with family and friends.  Her bridesmaids and her unconventional collection of mother/stepmothers/grandmother try to convince Lily that she should call off the wedding, each for her own reasons.  Lily’s father, who has married each of the three powerful women, and divorced them as one casts off last season’s coat, complicates Lily’s decisions by giving her a glimpse of where her appetites originated, and what the future may hold for her. 

The quest to discover if she should or should not marry Will plays in counterpoint to Lily’s work on a high profile case for her law firm, for which she is unqualified and poorly prepared.  The reader will continue to turn the pages to see if Lily implodes both personally and professionally, or if by some miracle, everything will indeed work out.

The book is well written, especially the characters, and is sprinkled both with humorous situations and clever turns of phrase.  Lily’s grandmother is delightful and one of the only seemingly honest characters in the book.  It falls down a bit on emotional depth… Lily is so flighty it is hard to take her seriously when she asks the big question: should she marry Will.  It could have delved deeper into the issue of sexual expectations for both genders; instead, Will lectures Lily, and thus the reader, on historical and sociological implications.  At this point, I just want these characters to feel something…even if it is heartbreak.  Perhaps it is the one week timeline that the book limits itself to, but everything feels as though it happens too fast.  The way Lily’s life is portrayed gives the same impression, and you just want to tell her to slow down.

A great beach read, but don’t expect to ponder it long!

More info about I Take You at lilywilder.com.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.