TLC BOOK TOURS and REVIEW: A Far Piece to Canaan by Sam Halpern

Synopsis

A warm and nostalgic debut novel from an unexpected source: Sam Halpern, whose salty paternal wisdom made Justin Halpern's Sh*t My Dad Says a phenomenal bestseller.

Inspired by Sam Halpern's childhood in rural Kentucky, A Far Piece to Canaan tells the story of Samuel Zelinsky, a celebrated but troubled retired professor who reluctantly returns after his wife's death to visit a farm in the Kentucky hills where he lived as a child. The son of sharecroppers, Samuel has long since left that life behind-yet now must reconnect with long-buried memories in order to achieve peace.

Delving into the events of 1945, Sam recalls Fred Mulligan, the hired hand's bright and spirited ten-year-old son. Together with two neighbor boys, Samuel and Fred visit the Blue Hole, a legendary pool on the Kentucky River where the hill people believe an evil force lurks. The boys find the body of a dog, surrounded by twisted human footprints, and later discover a cave that offers other evidence that something terrible has transpired. Fearing that they'll be punished for their trespasses, the boys initiate a series of cover-ups and lies that eventually lead to a community disaster.

When the Zelinskys move from the farm, the two boys promise each other that if either of them ever needs help, the other will come to his aid, but after he moves to Indiana and is ridiculed because of his "hillbilly" background, Sam rejects his past.

Now, decades later, Sam is devastated to learn from a fellow classmate about Fred's tragic life story in the years that followed-and manages to make contact with his troubled granddaughter, Lisa June. Though at first she rejects his attempts to reach out to her, through persistence and patience Samuel finally manages to establish a connection, becoming a kind of surrogate grandfather to Lisa June-and finally achieving peace through his late return to Canaan land.

A tale of superstition, secrets, and heroism in the postwar South, A Far Piece to Canaan is the surprising and moving debut of a gifted storyteller.

Paperback, 400 pages
Expected publication: May 28th 2013 by Harper Perennial
ISBN 0062233165 (ISBN13: 9780062233165)


About the Author

I was unable to locate much info on him, other than the back of the book:

Sam Halpern is the legendary father of Justin Halpern, author of the phenomenal #1 New York Times bestseller Sh*t My Dad Says. A professor of nuclear medicine, he lives in southern California.


Friend the author on Facebook



My Thoughts

I was exhausted, and the monotonous sound of the commuter plane's engines irritated my already frayed nerves. My subconscious had been tracking the time and I knew I was nearing my destination.

Town/Environment:

This story takes place outside of Lexington on the Kentucky River, in bluegrass country.

Samuel, now a retired professor and widower, returns to the home of his youth in search of redemption and the best friend he's ever had. Raised the son of a sharecropper in Kentucky, this story follows Samuel's time in Harper's Corner, Kentucky. As a young boy, Samuel finds himself entrenched in a dangerous mystery that threatens the entire village, while he and his friends wonder whether they may be able to stop it. As a man, Samuel must come to terms with having abandoned his best friend, and with whether or not he could have made a difference.

I found this book to be a surprisingly sentimental read. Considering the author is also the originator of such hysterically crass and brutally honest statements as those shared by his son via Sh*t My Dad Says, I am amazed at how sweet and touching this story was, especially when being written by a self-described curmudgeon. If you are unfamiliar with the author, he is known for saying things like this to his son...

Engagement rings are pointless. Indians gave cows...Oh sorry, congrats on proposing. We good now? Can I finish my indian story?

I didn't say you were ugly. I said your girlfriend is better looking than you, and standing next to her, you look ugly.

A parent's only as good as their dumbest kid. If one wins a Nobel Prize but the other gets robbed by a hooker, you failed.

...only these are the cleanest quotes that I could find, since he is known for being pretty vulgar and crass (but hysterical and astute)!

The author created a cast of very likable characters. The main character, Samuel Zelinsky, is a sweet boy-- conscientious, respectful and thoughtful. His best friend Fred is likewise a good boy, but shoulders the weight of the world and often has a difficult time managing his depression. But he's a very brave and spirited boy. Likewise I became very fond of their friend Lonnie, who comes from an abusive home and therefore has become tough as nails on the surface (although underneath it all, he is just as sweet as Samuel and Fred).

The speech pattern used among the boys can be difficult to adjust to. The characters speak in the dialect of the Kentucky hills, saying things like "wudn't" (wasn't), "hit's" (it is), and "bob warr'll cut ye" (barbed wire will cut you), which I was able to sort out. But I found myself at a loss with "hun'ney". It looks like "honey", but the one boy Fred would use it often with Samuel, and it seems odd that young Kentucky boys would refer to one another as "Honey". So that one has me stumped!

I have discovered over the last year that I am quite fond of southern literature. There is a richness and depth to the characters that is captivating, and having grown up in the south, a certain familiarity. This book did not disappoint!

I absolutely love the cover! It was what first caught my eye, and then the title, and then the author’s name and claim to fame was the final clincher that sold me. The cover is a little reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell painting.

Unfortunately my ARC copy began to fall apart within the first 10 pages, shedding pages like a winter coat, but stopped after 40-50 pages in. I’m hoping that this was just the binding used for the ARC, and not the binding used for the actual released edition. I’m sure they’ll figure out the issue before the paperback is released.

My final word: This story continually reminded me of Stephen King's Stand By Me. The friendships that exist amongst a group of boys, the setting, the sense of innocence lost. I love Stand By Me, so I mean the comparison in the best way possible. Samuel, Fred and Lonnie all became characters that I truly cared about. The storyline kept me guessing, there were lots of other colorful characters on the periphery, and ultimately the story was just plain charming.

My thanks to TLC Book Tours for allowing me to be part of this book tour.

Check out the master schedule on their website:

Tuesday, May 28th: Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World
Wednesday, May 29th: A Patchwork of Books
Thursday, May 30th: SusieBookworm
Monday, June 3rd: bookchickdi
Tuesday, June 4th: Sharon’s Garden of Book Reviews
Wednesday, June 5th: A Bookworm’s World
Thursday, June 6th: No More Grumpy Bookseller
Tuesday, June 11th: BookNAround
Monday, June 17th: Tiffany’s Bookshelf
Friday, June 28th: As I turn the pages


Buy Now:

Barnes and Noble
Amazon


Cover: A+
Writing Style: B+
Characters: A
Storyline/Plot: A-
Interest/Uniqueness: A-

My Rating:

Disclosure:

I received a copy of this book to review through TLC Book Tours, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel.

REVIEW: All Different Kinds of Free by Jessica McCann

Synopsis

A free woman of color in the 1830s, Margaret Morgan lived a life full of promise. One frigid night in Pennsylvania, that changed forever. They tore her family apart. They put her in chains. They never expected her to fight back. 


In 1837, Margaret Morgan was kidnapped from her home in Pennsylvania and sold into slavery. The state of Pennsylvania charged her kidnapper with the crime, but the conviction was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. It was the first time a major branch of the federal government had made a pro-slavery stand, and the ruling in Prigg v. Pennsylvania sewed the bitter seeds of the states' rights battle that eventually would lead to the Civil War. 

Yet, the heart of this story is not a historic Supreme Court ruling. It is the remarkable, unforgettable Margaret Morgan. Her life would never be the same. Her family had been torn apart. Uncaring forces abused her body and her heart. But she refused to give up, refused to stop fighting, refused to allow her soul to be enslaved.

Paperback, 274 pages
Published April 2nd 2011 by Bell Bridge Books
ISBN 1611940052 (ISBN13: 9781611940053)


About the Author
re-posted from her website

I write. I live in the metro Phoenix area with my husband, two children and two dogs. And I write.

All Different Kinds of Free, my award-winning historical debut novel, was published April 2011 by Bell Bridge Books.

My reporting and creative nonfiction has appeared in a variety of magazines, including Business Week, The Writer, Phoenix, Raising Arizona Kids and ASU Research to name a few. Many corporations, universities and nonprofit organizations also tap me to write and edit dynamic communications materials.

Check out the author's website
Follow the author on Twitter
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My Thoughts

Mama always told me bad things happen on Wednesdays, 'cause it's the middle of the week and the Lord just ain't looking then. I never really understood what she meant by that, because I thought the Lord was always supposed to be looking. But her explanation still consoled me when the goats got into the saltbox and Mr. Ashmore took the switch to me for it, or when my stomach was growling at night because rabbits had gobbled up our small garden and all we had to eat that summer was Johnnycakes.

Town/Environment:

It was hard to pick a place to highlight, as this book took place in areas across Pennsylvania, Maryland and South Carolina, and a very central scene to the story even took place at the Supreme Court in Washington D.C. However Margaret grew up as a young girl on the Ashmore place in Maryland, and Mr. Ashmore built a water mill where her father worked, and I liked this picture.

By Gabor Eszes (UED77) (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Margaret grew up as a free black woman in the south, born to two slaves who were freed by their owner before she was born. She marries an ex-slave who is now free, and they move north, settle their own homestead and have a few kids. They have a wonderful life together. Then Margaret is kidnapped by a man sent by her parents' previous owner, who claims that she is a runaway slave.

Based on real historical characters, this is one of those absorbing stories that can keep you on the edge of your seat, wondering what will happen to Margaret and her children.

The author reveals at the end of the book how this book came about.

The references you will find to Prigg v. Pennsylvania in history books are typically brief and lack details about the people involved. They generally emphasize that its controversial ruling fanned the early sparks of contention that eventually led to the Civil War. The history books will have you believe that is why the story of Prigg v. Pennsylvania is important.

Yet, from the moment I first learned of Prigg v. Pennsylvania, I believed the story was important because it began with Margaret-- with one woman's fight, against all odds, to hold her family together.

According to the published Supreme Court opinion for Prigg v. Pennsylvania, Margaret Morgan escaped a life of slavery in Maryland when she fled to Pennsylvania in 1832. She lived there several years before being abducted by Edward prigg and returned, along with her children, to her owner Margaret Ashmore. Prigg was brought up on charges for violating the Pennsylvania Personal Liberty Law, which had been created to protect free blacks from kidnapping.

According to several other public records, however, Margaret had lived her entire life as a free woman. The court opinion failed to note that she had married a free black man from Pennsylvania many years before she left Maryland and that she had not been listed on John Ashmore's deed of property at the time of his death. Margaret was not itemized as part of the inheritance to his widow or to his daughter, as was all his other property. In fact, in the 1830 U.S. census, she, her husband and their children were recorded as "free blacks" by the county sheriff.

Little else is known about Margaret, other than the fact that she lost the case against Pennsylvania that concerned her. This book speculates about how her life may have gone.

Margaret is a strong woman, living a blessed life with her husband and children, when Edward Prigg forcibly takes her and her children from her home and returns her to the widow of the man who once owned her parents.

I really enjoyed this story, although there were a few characters that seemed to have been inserted into the story for no real purpose, such as the character of Rose McFarland. She was a spirited and intelligent young woman that I would have been interested in getting to know better, but instead she was introduced briefly and then disappeared from the story again. It left me wondering why make a character so intriguing and likable just to have her be a momentary distraction?

My final word: Simple and unadorned, this hard-hitting story will leave you rooting for Margaret and her family, hoping against hope that she regains the freedom stolen from her. If you like fictional stories about slavery and the struggle to overcome, pick up this book!

Buy Now:

Amazon
Barnes and Noble


Cover: B
Writing Style: B+
Characters: B+
Storyline/Plot: A-
Interest/Uniqueness: A-

My Rating:

Disclosure:

I received a copy of this book to review through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel.

REVIEW: Edge of Dark Water by Joe R. Lansdale

Synopsis

Mark Twain meets classic Stephen King--a bold new direction for widely acclaimed Edgar Award winner Joe R. Lansdale.

May Lynn was once a pretty girl who dreamed of becoming a Hollywood star. Now she's dead, her body dredged up from the Sabine River.

Sue Ellen, May Lynn's strong-willed teenage friend, sets out to dig up May Lynn's body, burn it to ash, and take those ashes to Hollywood to spread around. If May Lynn can't become a star, then at least her ashes will end up in the land of her dreams.

Along with her friends Terry and Jinx and her alcoholic mother, Sue Ellen steals a raft and heads downriver to carry May Lynn's remains to Hollywood.

Only problem is, Sue Ellen has some stolen money that her enemies will do anything to get back. And what looks like a prime opportunity to escape from a worthless life will instead lead to disastrous consequences. In the end, Sue Ellen will learn a harsh lesson on just how hard growing up can really be.

Hardcover, 292 pages
Published March 25th 2012 by Little, Brown and Company
ISBN 0316188433 (ISBN13: 9780316188432)


About the Author
from his website

Champion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over thirty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in eighteen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His novella Bubba Hotep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" was adapted to film for Showtime's "Masters of Horror." He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.  

Follow Joe on Twitter
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Check out this interview with Joe by another of my favorite authors Robert McCammon
And this interview from Mulholland Books


My Thoughts

That summer, Daddy went from telephoning and dynamiting fish to poisoning them with green walnuts.

Town/Location:

The story takes place in a small town near Gladewater, Texas.

This story is narrated by Sue Ellen, a young girl living in poverty in a small southern town during the Depression. A local girl is found dead, and Sue Ellen and her friends are joined by Sue Ellen's mother as they head out to take the ashes of the young wannabe starlet to her ultimate goal of Hollywood.

Of all of the characters, I think my favorite was probably Jinx. I loved her honesty and found it refreshing. Any scene with Jinx I could see clearly in my head, as Jinx was so colorful and full of life-- a mouthy little firecracker!

At times this book made me feel somewhat depressed, but a lot of the time it made me smile with the quaint colloquialisms and honest remarks. And once it actually made me shiver, as a few parts of the story were particularly creepy.

A mysterious and dangerous character by the name of Skunk is introduced partway through the story, and this character was presented in such a creepy way that I actually felt a shiver go through me at one point, which is not easy to do. I do not creep-out easily!

Part psychological thriller, part pure entertainment, and part cautionary tale, this story held my attention throughout. While not a roaring ride, it kept a nice steady pace, and it kept me guessing.

I loved the author's writing style. Shocking, honest, horrifying, and brutal. I can't wait to read more.

Mama smiled at me as I sat down in a stuffed chair by the bed. The chair smelled damp and old, like a wet grandma. (p. 56)

“I know. I wear my mistakes like a coat, only it’s heavier,” Mama said. (p. 110)

She touched my hand, and then was quiet. I snuggled in close. I felt like a sad old dog that had finally been petted. (p. 112)

“She’s still a human being,” Mama said. “God makes all human beings, no matter who they are.”

“Well, he needs him a better mold,’ Jinx said, ‘cause some of these he’s making ain’t worth the waste of material.” (p. 241)

I was not a real fan of the book cover. Branches in the foreground, hazy background with a glimpse of the sun. The font looks as if it is smeared by water. I think it is somewhat clever, but it just doesn’t appeal to me. However my male friend absolutely loved the cover! So maybe it’s a guy/girl thing...

My final word: Author Joe Lansdale has found a fast fan in me. Honest and genuine writing, quirky southern prose, refreshing characters, and shocking subject matter coalesce into one of the best books I've read thus far this year, and has left me hungering for more!

Cover: 6.5/10
Writing Style: 9/10
Characters: 8.5/10
Storyline/Plot: 9/10
Interest/Uniqueness: 9/10

My Rating: 9 out of 10


Disclosure:

I received a copy of this e-book to review from Little, Brown and Company, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel.