Birth In Suburbia

Drawing on her 18 years of midwifery experience, Falaki manages to craft a moving novel about three pregnant women, their relationships with each other, their friends and family, and their unborn children.

Birth in Suburbia is filled with information about pregnancy and labour, but the story drives the novel so well that it never feels like a data-laden textbook on pregnancy. Each pregnancy and labour is very different and well-described: a caesarean section, a natural home birth, and an uncomplicated hospital delivery in an alternative position.

Under Falaki’s careful pen, Birth in Suburbia plays out like a quick-witted, more mature episode of Sex and the City, except in this episode the characters are British ... and pregnant. With witty banter and emotional relationships, readers will find themselves quickly drawn into the story.

Expectant mothers may well find plenty of information on what to expect by reading this entertaining novel.


Birth in Suburbia is very close to good, but the huge number of careless errors it contains do not work in its favour.

Some paragraphs are indented while others are not; punctuation marks are often omitted; words are wrapped in quotation-marks for no apparent reason; and random capitalisations pepper the clumsy, cliché-ridden text.

It's a shame, as despite all the errors this book has real potential to engage. I have dipped into the text in several different places now and think it shows great promise: but because it needs such a thorough revision and a proper edit, I read just four pages before finding my fifteen problems. I wish I could have read further for this review.

Of Dreams And Realities

Of Dreams and Realities is a splendid new collection of poems that proves insightful in its reach and elemental in its grasp. This collection is industrious and sly—a bit of hardworking magic in the everyday subtleties of life.

Frank Louis Johnson's poetry is ironic, charming, and sincere. It contextualizes dreams and realities against the broad canvas of reverie and aspiration. His is a veracious world, delightful, authentic and inspired—his poetry sees the glass half full, not half empty, with verses that rhyme and make merry no matter how dark the day or hour. Timeless in their scope, the poems of this, his second full-length collection, are pure inspiration.


I suspected that Of Dreams and Realities was going to be bad when I read the back cover copy: it's nebulous and full of hyperbole and while it does point out that the book is a collection of rhyming poetry, it tells the reader nothing else. Consequently, it fails in its purpose, which is to sell the book to potential readers.

And then I came to the poetry. I found random capitalisations, sloppy punctuation, and all sorts of inversions and clichés. Several of the rhymes didn't actually rhyme; and the concept of meter is abused in every way imaginable. I found my fifteenth problem with the text on the first line of page three (out of just thirty-nine pages) and if I do read any more of this book it will be due to my compulsive case of editorial voyeurism, and not because of my appreciation of the poetry it contains.

The Whittaker Family Reunion

We were introduced to the Whittaker family in Of Dreams and Nightmares. The Whittaker Family Reunion takes readers back to 1881 and the family is reunited once again. Martha and Jeremy await the arrival of their two sons, Abraham from Mississippi and Ezekiel, from England. The third son Isaac lives near St. Louis And is anxious to see his brothers again. Daughter Anna is spoiled and nothing but trouble. Abraham arrives with a woman, much to the family's surprise. Ezekiel makes a narrow escape in England. Will the reunion be a happy one? Who will leave St Louis in disgrace? Will Martha get to spend time with her entire family before tragedy strikes? The reunion is shadowed by another man, one seeking revenge; will he get what he wants? Will he kill one or all of them?


Oh, dear.

The Whittaker Family Reunion has a clunky text which is confusing, and full of punctuation errors. There are a few issues with perception (pelicans flying across the sun do not “silhouette the sun", they are silhouetted against it); the grammar is sometimes very strangely skewed; and the dialogue from the non-white character is an embarrassing pastiche. I read just one page, I'm afraid.

Gambling For Good Mail

Take a romp through contemporary Southern California culture—self-help groups, weird addictions, drive-in religion, romance novel contest, time-share sales, serial marriages, chiropractic manipulations, and stuffed pets—all shadowed by an unusual and tragic love story.

A Connecticut transplant in King Disney's Court, Felicia Wood gambles for good mail that comes from catalogue orders. She runs from memories and skims the surface of life, cluttering her home with bonus gifts. "Sometimes I think I should think," Felicia says, "But now is not the time," and she plunges in. So should you.


In Gambling for Good Mail, Evelyn Cole has written a book with real potential. But it has are several problems: there's a bitty feel to the text, and quite a few typos (including several missing closing quote-marks); but, judging by the portion that I read, the problems are nothing a strong line-edit couldn't fix and many could be resolved by a decent copy-editor.

The front cover is okay, but not great; I think that the title could be improved; the author photo isn't the best I've seen and the back cover copy is absolutely dire. But Felicia is a very engaging main character and the writer's warm and funny tone and make this book very accessible and easy to read. I've not read right to the end so it's quite possible that the plot falls to pieces along the way, or the tone fails at some point: but the writing is significantly better than competent and had it been polished some more, I think it would have had real potential for being taken on by a mainstream romance line. As it is, I read fifty-five pages out of four hundred and twenty-six, and thoroughly enjoyed them all.

Legs Talk

Legs Talk

A hilarious illustrated account of a love/hate relationship. Legs Talk is a whimsical tale starring a witty pair of female legs. Chatty legs are depicted with attitude and swagger. Straight-shooting and in your face, these legs sure can kick. Take this play-ful ride on the bumpy road of romance. You'll be glad you did.


Remember how I don't review picture-books here? Well, this is a picture-book.

Legs Talk: A Modern Girl's Dating Tale should have delighted me: I love quirky, small-format books which take a new angle, as this one definitely does: but when a book has so little text there is no excuse for the clunkiness that is apparent here. The punctuation errors show up even more clearly; and there has to be a strong plot-line, which this book simply doesn't have.

It is unforgivable for so many of the photos (on which the whole book depends) to be out of focus.

This book is attempting to achieve what the delightful Love, Loss and What I Wore did: only it doesn't come close, and while it's attractive at first viewing it fails quite spectacularly to live up to its first impression. Because of its short length I read it to the end, but still cannot recommend it.