Congratulations To Rosalie Warren!

I was more than a little pleased when Rosalie Warren, the author of Charity's Child, emailed me to thank me for the review I’d written here about her book. It was clear that she had thought about my comments, understood them, and had gone on to apply them to the rest of her book. I had no doubt that her writing would improve as a result of her positive attitude and I wasn't surprised when I subsequently learned that she has a novel called Low Tide, Lunan Bay being published today by a good mainstream publisher, Robert Hale. I shall buy myself a copy with a great big smile on my face. The best of luck with Low Tide, Rosalie: and thanks for being such a good sport.

Collision of Angels: Michael Carver

When Tony Campbell accepts his father-in-law's invitation to chat, he braces himself for yet another of Silas Jackson's ambitious business schemes. But even in his wildest imagination, Tony couldn't have prepared himself for what Silas proposes this time: a run for the United States presidency. In the wake of recent controversial elections, Silas and his colleagues fear America is being run by the few and has turned its back on God. Their remedy: attempt to put a man of faith into the White House. This crusade proves to be the ultimate challenge however, and Tony finds himself facing his greatest test of faith ever. What appears to be a battle between church and state in the human realm is gradually revealed to have far higher stakes --- with ramifications that echo throughout eternity. People on both sides of the aisle will recognise intriguing arguments in this novel and will doubtlessly be waiting for Collision of Angels to continue.


Collision of Angels has it all—if you're looking for the mistakes that new writers make.

I found clichés (including several in the back cover copy), confusing constructions, and point-of-view switches so frequent and so swift that at times I found it impossible to work out which character's head I was meant to be in, even with repeated re-readings. Then there was the repeated use of exposition; and the chapter which begins with the words "six months later" then on the following page abruptly switches to a story which happened "nearly twenty years ago". While it's fine to time-slip on occasion, it has to be done a little more carefully than that.

Add to all of that character who sometimes has a severe stammer, but who can sometimes speak more fluently than I can, and it's no wonder that I read just six of the 428 pages that this overlong book contains.

"We'll Always Be Pals": Tom McManus

"We'll Always Be Pals" are the last words my father said to me before he died. The youngest of his six children, he taught me everything there is to know about how to be a man in this world. He should know, after the life he lived. Born in 1920, Gene McManus witnessed some of the most historic events in our country's history. A product of the Great Depression, he was a football star, a boxer, and a B-24 Liberator pilot and POW during World War II.

My story is a small one. Out of football for two full seasons after a glorified college career, I had left my football dreams behind me until I got a call out of the clear blue sky. The man who taught me how to play the game was all the inspiration I ever needed to realise a life long held dream.

"We'll Always Be Pals" is ultimately the story of a father and son who were fifty years apart in age yet ended up best of friends.


"We'll Always Be Pals": The Last Words of a Dying Father and a True Hero! is part memoir, part biography, as Tom McManus tells both his life story and his father's. It's a potentially touching story—McManus’s brief career in pro-football was hampered by injury, and his father was a prisoner of war—but I'm afraid that it didn't engage me. The writing is clunky and pedestrian, I found several sentences which didn't quite make sense, there were a few oddly-capitalised words and a whole rash of extraneous commas. I read just eleven pages of text out of a total of 281 pages in order to find my fifteen errors, and wish that this story had been more strongly told.

Memoirs Of A Fortune Teller: Gary Turcotte

SOMETIMES YOU'RE BETTER OFF NOT KNOWING YOUR FUTURE

Mary Ann was a traveling fortune teller. She knew everyone's future, but her own. She left this journal with many disturbing readings.


This novel has a central character who has the potential to be very interesting: she's a fortune-teller who can see a person's future when she touches their hands.

Sadly that character wasn't used to great advantage in the few pages that I managed to read. The writing was very wooden, confused and abrupt: while I do like a spare style I also like a book to read as though it's complete, and this one read as though it was no more than an extended synopsis for a larger piece—it's very staccato and bare. And from what I could tell by skimming through it (the back cover copy is quoted in full above, and as you can see it provided me with very little information) this book has very little in the way of plot: it appears to be nothing more than a collection of anecdotes which centre around this particular fortune-teller.

This was a very disappointing book, and I only read eight pages of its text before I'd found my full quota of problems with it.

Ralphina, the Roly-Poly: Claudia Chandler

Ralphina, the roly-poly is sad because she gets lonely in her garden and wants a friend to play with. But she is so small that nobody seems to notice her. With her mommy's encouragement, Ralphina digs up a clever solution to her loneliness and in the process learns that she has a lot to offer in friendship. (Did you notice the little play on words there? Get it . . . digs . . . garden? Ha!). Discover how friendship can make your world blossom in all the colors of the rainbow, and also learn stuff that I am willing to venture you don't know about these adorable little garden dwellers.


I do not want to be sent picture books. I make it clear that I don't review them, so by sending me Ralphina, the Roly-Poly to review the author already has a strike against her. Nevertheless, here it is in my hands, so I will offer my opinion.

While the press release which accompanied this book states that it was "written to appeal to preschoolers and early readers", I have not yet found a child in that age-group which finds it attractive, despite taking the book to an infant school and showing it around.

Nothing in this book is quite good enough: there are a few errors in punctuation on the back cover copy and inside this book; the illustrations are fuzzy, and often unattractive; and Ralphina is a particularly unappealing heroine.

The story is predictable and unengaging, and the list of roly-poly-related facts at the end of the book was impossible for either of my sons to read: my eight-year-old, who is dyslexic, was defeated by the fancy fonts which were used while my 13-year-old, who is colour-blind, found that the multicoloured background overwhelmed the words that were printed on it. And it retails at a stonking $24.95, far more than mainstream books of this type: who is going to pay so much for a book of such inferior content?

This is another self-published book to be avoided, I'm afraid.