Book Review: Each Thing Touches

Each Thing Touches. Marc Frazier. Glass Lyre Press, May 27, 2015, Trade Paperback, 106 pages.

Reviewed by Elizabeth Melvin. 

Each Thing Touches is the second poetry collection from Illinois Arts Council Award winner Marc Frazier. Readers who enjoyed his first collection, The Way Here, will find the same strength of voice and resonating imagery carry thorough his new collection of poetry. This new book collects story moments that capture movement from one state of being into another. Sometimes the two states converge, demonstrating the keen edge where the mundane meets the spiritual.

There are poems like The Crows, where youth crumbles to reveal wisdom. Other poems, such as My Sister’s Keeper, demonstrate the guilt of loss and fire of grief. The poem narratives range in age and gender, demonstrating Frazier’s uncanny emotional intellect. Covering a distance from the Midwest to Japan, through farms and cities, the physical landscape becomes a shadow to the incandescent emotions of the poems. The movement of place from one poem to another maintains a feeling of subtle yet seismic shifts within the poetic narrative.

Appropriate to the title, Each Thing Touches, feelings and moments connect creating a current of energy that follows through life even when we feel still. This collection is a captivating work that connects the reader to these energy currents through imagery often focused on the body, as in Chicago Hands, and through succinct language. There are sparks of dire imagery and sound such as in Something Happened. The Weight of Each Word is especially powerful because it evokes the helplessness of past tense. We call this “processing” now, but we used to call it coping or acceptance, the human equivalent of making sense of the data.

As in his first collection, Frazier is deeply in tune with the natural world. Much of the millennial computer-based language is absent and so each poem is an encapsulation of humanity with a natural pulse. However, there is nothing antiquated about this work. He is a present-day narrator communicating with elemental modern language.

My favorite way to approach the collection was to read a single poem in the morning and, like a meditation, revisit it throughout the day, letting it resonate. The poems are at once intimate and close, creating a feeling of shared experience and comfort. Overall, the collection is an entirely satisfying experience of our modern lives as we move from one moment to the next, even to our last.

Book Review: The Damnable Legacy

The Damnable Legacy. G. Elizabeth Kretchmer. Seattle, WA: Booktrope, July 25, 2015, Trade Paperback and Kindle, 347 pages.

Reviewed by Michelle M. Burwell.

Just before Beth Mahoney dies of cancer, she makes a connection between two otherwise disparate people and orchestrates a plan to bring them together. Lynn Van Swol is a world-class mountain climber; she has an unshakeable determination to climb seven mountain peaks as a homage to the daughter she gave up for adoption thirty years earlier. Frankie Rizzoni is a troubled teenager living a somewhat transient life with her troubled mother, who is Lynn Van Swol’s biological daughter. In her debut novel, G. Elizabeth Kretchmer weaves a complex narrative of two characters: Lynn who is ostensibly perfect and Frankie who is outwardly tormented. However, both characters toil with their own inner demons. Beth, the book’s narrator, is dead, and can only watch from the afterlife as her plan to bring the two together unfolds, and then unravels.

Lynn is a determined and accomplished woman. She has achieved nearly everything she set out to do in life. Now she is about to climb Denali, her seventh and final peak. Unbeknownst to Lynn, her granddaughter, Frankie, is merely looking for a sense of normalcy but she has problems. She is a self-cutter and runs away from her mother. After discovering the connection between Lynn and Frankie, Beth thinks Frankie would be happier with her grandmother, Lynn, and devises a plan that will culminate on Denali.

The climb on Denali is treacherous and the weather is deadly. The climbers on the expedition seem to be buckling under all the pressure and their character flaws are unveiled. Meanwhile, runaway Frankie is bouncing around the country trying to shake free of her mother. Throughout all of this, our narrator, Beth, is only able to look on as the trajectory of Lynn and Frankie’s lives change. As Lynn and Frankie’s authentic selves become known to her, Beth begins to doubt her plan and whether Lynn and Frankie might actually be a good fit after all.

The plot twists and turns, and just when you think it is all about to come together, things completely fall apart. Kretchmer forces the reader to confront what success actually means, what constitutes success, and how far the reader would go to achieve a goal—that might end in death.

Kretchmer creates an intricate plot that combines adventure and suspense into a story that feels wholly original and unique. The story is dense and fast moving but easy to follow. There were a few brief lulls in the story when the characters feel too predictable, but just when the reader thinks the characters are too clichéd or the story is too coincidental, the author sends the characters into predicaments where not everyone comes out on top. I was intrigued by the narration from the afterlife. Kretchmer made me question what it means to be alive (and what it means to be dead).

I would recommend Damnable Legacy to all readers. However, those readers who have toiled over love, adoption, perfection, teenage angst, or the impulse to just run away from it all, will find the novel especially relatable. The icy, windy, and snowy setting on Denali makes Damnable Legacy the perfect book-by-the-fire read.

Kretchmer has an MFA in writing from Pacific University and The Damnable Legacy is her first novel. Kretchmer has published work in the New York Times, High Desert Journal, Silk Road Review and more. I am excited to see where she goes from here.

Book Review: Heaven's Forgotten

Heaven’s Forgotten. Branden Johnson. European Geeks Publishing, October 12, 2015, Trade Paperback and Kindle, 380 pages.

Reviewed by Hallie Koontz.

Angels don’t necessarily belong in Heaven in Heaven’s Forgotten, Branden Johnson’s down-to-earth urban fantasy in which angels, well, come down to earth.

The first of these angels that the author introduces us to is Michael, just one of several “Fallen” who have made Earth their home, by choice or not. What begins as a tale of revenge becomes something much more dangerous when Michael discovers that the woman he is hunting down has a four-year-old daughter, his four-year-old daughter, who is a half-Angel, a Nephilim.        

As a Nephilim, young Penelope is a target for those who wish to abuse her powers for their own good. The action is fun and engaging—running from danger, seeking help, and hiding out—but never overwhelming. Johnson finds ways to calm things down in the interim, and although there are times the book can stall, it is certainly never boring. On the whole, the balance between action and exposition, between plot and character, is excellent, and there are new developments and discoveries around the corner of every page.

Johnson doesn’t sacrifice depth or nuance for entertainment value, delivering an ensemble cast of characters each of whom has an active role. One of Johnson’s tricks to keep up the novel’s quick, lively pace is to switch points of view between chapters, and every character harbors a unique perspective, experience, and motive. Everyone needs something different: Moira wants to save her daughter, and Michael seeks both revenge and atonement. The desire to be loved mingles with that to be feared, and pasts are fled and then faced. The characters, all undergoing their own separate struggles, are just trying to do their best in a situation that seems quite hopeless. It is impossible to be bored with so many varied and dimensional characters whose layers of backstory and motivation are constantly being peeled away. In fact, some of their histories deserve more time and exploration than the book gives them. Michael and Moira’s relationship, in particular, is a fascinating dynamic that would benefit even more from a fuller backstory.

The mythology, an important aspect of any fantasy novel, works similarly. What Johnson creates, adds, and redefines about the ‘rules’ of angels to create a new mythology is interesting and makes for a good fantasy read. However, much of this information is intentionally murky. While this makes sense in the context of the story, considering that much of the information comes from unclear memories and is sometimes intentionally withheld by other characters, from a reading standpoint the lack of detail can become frustrating. The mythology simply deserves more detail, more time, and more consideration, sometimes even from the characters themselves, who do not ask nearly enough questions. Regardless, the world Johnson has created—its conflicts and its characters—are captivating.

When all the separate elements Johnson has so adeptly crafted are merged together, the result is an engaging dark fantasy that makes for a pleasant read, boasting action, alluring characters, and captivating language. Heaven’s Forgotten is a very strong debut from a writer I am sure we’ll be hearing more of in the future.

Book Review: Wicked Wind

Wicked Wind. Sharon Kay. Self published, January 20, 2014, Trade Paperback and Kindle, 312 pages.

Reviewed by Jessica Cage.

Sharon Kay, an award-winning author who lives in the Chicago area, brings us a new world with her Lash demons and mythical creatures. She does an amazing job of incorporating the city of Chicago, both good and bad, into her storyline. The attention to details and character development of this book are well thought out and beautifully written. It is so refreshing to read about women who are kicking tail and taking names. Nicole and her sister decided to do just that as they hit the streets in some of the toughest areas to use their special abilities to fight crime and protect those who cannot protect themselves.

The beginning reads a bit slow, but the story does pick up, and steam up as well. I was not prepared for the level of steam, but I’m not complaining about it either. The relationship between Nicole, our heroine, and Gunnar, her hunky demon suitor, is complicated and sexy. Gunnar has so much darkness in his past that watching him come out of it into a world of love and happiness is both uplifting and heartbreaking because you just know that something will come to threaten his transition. I personally loved Gunnar. He is strong yet gentle and is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure Nicole is safe. He struggles with the idea that her power allows her to protect herself but eventually accepts it and enjoys watching her come into her own.

I did have an issue with the transition between perspectives, as there seemed to be no real indication of when the storyline would shift to focus on another character. In those instances, I found myself re-reading previous paragraphs to find my place. I did love that I was able to get insight into other characters and background on who they were and how they came to be. It made me really care about them.

Overall, I would say that Wicked Wind is a great pick for anyone who is looking for a steamy paranormal book that provides an awesome storyline.

Book Review: Anomaly Flats

Anomaly Flats. Clayton Smith. Dapper Press, October 22, 2015, Trade Paperback and Kindle, 268 pages.

Reviewed by Andrew Reynolds.

I admit that, prior to this review, I had never read any of Clayton Smith's works. After reading his most recent novel, I find myself wondering if I have made a major error.

Were you a fan of Weird Tales or are you someone who has all the episodes of One Step Beyond in your DVD/TiVo collection? Remember how there was always some strange event, object, or location that served as the central focus of the story? Well, pile all those strange, odd, dangerous, and destructive things in one place and you get an idea of what the day-to-day reality of “Anomaly Flats” is like.

Anomaly Flats is the fictional town in Missouri where Clayton Smith's hero, Mallory, lands as she attempts to escape her past and make a new beginning. But this town is not a place for new beings. Mallory is stranded when her car breaks down shortly after arriving in town. She soon finds that in Anomaly Flats, the bizarre is the stuff of everyday life. She encounters natives who range from hostile to the outright strange. She meets and befriends Lewis, a scientist who came to town years before to study it's strangeness after receiving an invitation he had somehow written to himself. He, in turn, shows her just how strange the town truly is. Metallic rain, streams filled with plasma that induces spontaneous mutations, a patch of Mars somehow transported to the surface of the Earth . . . all that and more make Anomaly Flats a place where one wrong move can lead to death or worse. If all that weren’t enough, a prank Mallory plays on Lewis results in them coming into conflict with an ancient evil that resides in the local Walmart.

Overall, Anomaly Flats is a satisfying read, the sort of book you don't mind sitting down with while letting your mind wander. It has a few problems, including a plot that can go from full-speed-ahead to idle within a page and an opening scene involving a bridge collapse that could have benefited from a quick consultation of a basic civil engineering text, but they aren't enough to detract from your reading enjoyment.