BOOK REVIEW: Hadassah; One Night With the King

The Old Testament story of Esther, Queen of Persia, has always fascinated little girls. This is a true- life princess who saved her people because the king loved her. How more romantic can a story be?

Tommy Tenney has used Esther’s life as the subject for his first novel, HADASSAH; ONE NIGHT WITH THE KING. Although the author may have taken some liberties with history, the message that Esther exemplifies is clear.

In Babylon around 492 B.C., Hadassah, a very young child, witnesses her parents’ murder at the hands of the Agagites. The leaders of this militant group have felt their duty to be the elimination of all Jews in the land. She is rescued by her Uncle Mordecai and the two of them move to Persia. In Persia, Hadassah lives a very isolated life, keeping her Jewish heritage a secret.

Upon the death of the queen, King Xeres sends for the most beautiful young maidens in the land to be groomed for one night with him. From this group the new queen will be selected. Among this group of young women is Hadassah. Knowing that she has to keep the fact that she is a Jew a secret, she gives her name as “Star”, for the Star of David that her mother had given her the day before the massacre.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Every royal court must have been full of plots, intrigues, good guys and bad guys. Author Tenney has added some characters and embellished history somewhat to make a very touching story of a young girl who played a big part in the chronicles of the Jewish people.

The descriptions of life, in and out of the royal palace, were well done. The contrast between the poverty of the people and the excesses of the court was vivid. The power of the king was absolute making Esther’s act of bravery a strong statement of her faith. She literally put her life at risk.

HADASSAH; ONE NIGHT WITH THE KING is a simple story, one that we are familiar with, but Tommy Tenney has made it one of suspense and filled it with interesting characters.

BOOK REVIEW: The Mailman

I may never check my mail again after reading Bentley Little’s book THE MAILMAN. Bentley Little has been the recipient of the Bram Stoker Award and he has my vote for capturing the sense of the macabre as well as any author that I have read.

The residents of a tiny town in Arizona liked the man who delivered their mail; he was friendly and punctual. His suicide was a complete shock.

Very quickly a new mailman was hired and the nature of the mail changed. At first everyone was delighted. The bills and junk mail are no longer in the mailboxes. Now letters are coming from long-lost friends; sweepstakes are being won. Now the mail has become an adventure of only good things.

Soon the once anticipated mail becomes something to fear. Letters full of hate, accusations, and ugly, gruesome pictures start to arrive. Then the killings begin.

English teacher Doug Albin had been ready to spend the summer reading and doing some chores that his wife had been waiting for him to get done around their rural home. His son was just glad that school was over for the summer. He and his friend had built this terrific fort in the back yard and they were going to spend most of their time in it. The new mailman had different ideas for the three of them as well as for the town.

Little does everything right in building the horror of this story. The Albin family is a typical family, nice, but not perfect. The town is small enough that people know the good and the not-so-good about each other. Everything starts so peaceful and then small things start to happen. At first there are sensible explanations, but the author then takes the reader into the horrific unexplainable.

THE MAILMAN gives a new meaning to the expression “going postal”.

BOOK REVIEW: A Song of Fire and Ice, Book 1: A Game of Thrones

Reading a book a week for this blog is not as difficult as one might think. In fact, it is a perfect excuse to sit around with book in hand and it feeds my addiction to accumulate more books. I do alright with the schedule until something like George R. R. Martin’s series A Song of Fire and Ice comes along. This is not a series
I will get through quickly.

I just finished Book One, A GAME OF THRONES and there is no way that I will not finish this story. As in any series of this scope, the cast of characters is large and it takes a while to get each one in my mind, plus several plots have to be started. These two factors mean that a time commitment is required.

Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, lives in the cold North with his wife Catelyn, their five children, his ward, and his bastard son. Their life is simple enough, dealing with the everyday existence in a remote land.

The story starts with the arrival of Robert Baratheon at Winterfell. Robert is now king of the land, but has been Eddard’s best friend since they were boys. Traveling with Robert is his wife Queen Cersei, her twin brother Ser Jaime, her brother, the dwarf Tyron, and her children.

Robert asks Eddard to return to the capital as his Hand, the person in charge of everything that the king demands and, reluctantly, Eddard agrees. Leaving his wife behind with their three sons, Eddard, along with his two young daughters, arrives at the King’s Court and quickly becomes embroiled in the Court’s politics.

Meanwhile, in another part of the world, Prince Visery is the last of the old rulers of the land. Visery has been reduced to being known as the Beggar King and is obsessed with regaining his kingdom. With him is his thirteen year old sister, Princess Daenery. On the promise of help to regain what he feels is his heritage, Visery sells Daenery to the barbaric Khal Drogo. Thus, her story begins.

Now that I am more or less sure of the main cast of characters and have grown rather fond of some of them, I am ready for Book Two, A Clash of Kings. Already several favorites have been killed off, so there is no way I will not find out what happens next. In addition, we are in the middle of a bloody war. Stay tuned!

BOOK REVIEW: Son

The Giver, Gathering Blue, Messenger, and now, SON. SON brings to conclusion the series that Lois Lowry started with The Giver and firmly establishes her high on my list of “must read authors”.

SON begins in the community that opened The Giver. This society is tightly regimented. The community provides all of the basic needs of the people, assigns the proper job, proper spouse, and the proper two children, one boy and one girl, and oversees all activities. There is no need that is not met. Well, maybe some emotional ones, but a little pill takes care of them.

Claire had been assigned to be a Vessel. Vessels are the healthy young girls who have been selected to be the birth mothers of the children in the village. From the moment of birth these babies are taken to nurseries where they are cared for until they are old enough to be put with a couple who has been judged ready to have a child.

Something goes wrong with Claire’s delivery and she is reassigned to work in the fish hatchery. She has been told to forget that she had a child, but her maternal feelings are too strong to ignore. When she learns that her son has been taken out of the community she has to try to find him.

Her travels take her to an isolated fishing village along the ocean where she finds life very different from the community where she was raised. While there the hard work, the climate, and the people help Claire to develop strength to continue the search for her son.

This moving story could stand on its own, but having read the three earlier books certainly gives it a richness that makes it very special. The author is clever in working in background material from the first books and I never was confused about what had happened in the past. There were times that I stopped and smiled over a memory about an earlier character. (Mattie in Messenger had made me cry and so when he is mentioned toward the end of the book it brought back very tender feelings).

The Giver was The County Reads selection several years ago and was received with great success. If you have read the first three in in this beautiful series, you will no doubt have been as excited as I was to hear that Lowry had written Claire’s story. If you are one of the few who have not discovered these four books, you owe it to yourself to meet Claire, her son, Jonas, Kira, and, of course, Mattie.

Lois Lowry richly deserves all of her literary acclaim. This is an author to be savored at any age and The Giver, along with its sequels is the main reason to add her to your “must read author” list.

BOOK REVIEW: The Accident

Because I usually take a tote bag of books with me on vacation and because this year we would be traveling by train, not van, my husband decided that I needed an e- reader of some type. Considering that we cannot program the television without help, this was a challenge. Jennifer, the librarian at the Centre County Library, came to my rescue but with the condition that she could “surprise” me with the book title. The result is that I have a new author to explore. THE ACCIDENT by Linwood Barclay is a suspense novel dealing with ordinary people; people who could be your next door neighbors living lives that could be our own.

Glen, his wife Sheila, and their daughter Kelly are getting ready for their day. Glen is worried about the economy and what it is doing to his construction business. His company is small and his employees have been with the company since his dad was alive. He would not want to cut back his staff. Sheila hints that she may have found a way to bring in some extra cash and all three leave to begin the day.

Later in the morning, Glen gets word that Sheila, along with two other people, was killed in a car accident. The police found that Sheila’s blood alcohol level to be extremely high and a bottle of vodka was on the seat beside her. Glen cannot convince the authorities, Kelly’s classmates, or the neighbors that Sheila rarely drank and could not stand the taste of vodka.

The next person found dead is Ann, the mother of Kelly’s best friend, and Kelly may have overheard a conversation while visiting that could put her in danger also. One of the things that the two mothers had in common was that they had been involved with home parties featuring “designer” purses.

The basic plot to this story deals with designer knock-offs and was interesting by itself. (It did make me feel guilty for the “Prada” purse that I just bought at a thrift store.) My problem was that the sub-plots did not always flow smoothly. I want some clues along the way to prepare me for the surprises. Ironically, I had the really bad guy figured out early in the book, but wanted some hints as to some of the other revelations. I will say that Barclay did a good job of tying up the loose ends in the last chapter; it just felt a little too smooth. This is not to say that I will not give him another try.