Summary:

From the day that Morgan Lee is born, her extraordinarily beautiful and withdrawn older brother, Ginx, is obsessed by her. As Aunt Lois recalls: "Ginx thought you belonged to him Morgan Lee. He would sit on our big couch right there in his sailor's suit and hold on to you for dear life . . . He didn't speak normal till he was five, then-bang-one day he's just talking away in complete sentences. But he wouldn't say, 'I.' He said 'we,' meaning you and him."


Inhabiting their own parallel world, the two communicate through a secret language and make-believe stories; when Morgan Lee begins to explore friendships beyond their closed circle, however, Ginx becomes increasingly disturbed. In luminous prose, Martha Witt explores the intense and private world inhabited by these siblings and the inevitable and necessary pain of their separation.

Review:

Broken as Things Are is by far the best book I’ve read all year! And normally I try to read three to four good size books a month, although books like Broken as Things Are might present a problem to that number. It’s not the kind of book you want to read fast. Think of it as your favorite food, and you only get a little bit. Savor.

The writing is superb, the dialog drips with a realism I’ve known all my life living in the South, and the descriptive use highlighting and paralleling the dysfunction and socially accepting is brought together in an unforgettable cast of three-dimensional characters a reader couldn’t possible forget.  

The characters were so unforgettable, especially the struggle between Ginx and Morgan-Lee, that it becomes the plot. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a writer weave something so beautifully by allowing the characters to drive the words with such a demanding force. Morgan Lee and the journey she had to take into womanhood and then Ginx, her brother, where her affection is questionable and solid. Ginx suffers from autism, and needs Morgan Lee, clings to her, but their journeys have different paths and then other characters drift onto these Southern Gothic roads making things interesting to say the least. 

I want to read more of Ms. Witt’s work! And being a North Carolina resident, I plan to recommend this book as a one for the list.

ARC giveaway: Midnight Blue Light Special by Seanan McGuire

Prize: One ARC of Midnight Blue Light Special, the second book in the InCryptid series by bestselling urban fantasy author Seanan McGuire.

To enter:

• Post about this contest and/or the book on your Tumblr/Twitter/blog/Facebook/social media outlet of choice. (Reblogging and retweeting counts!)
• Email a link to your post to giveaway at foxliterary dot com.
• That’s it!

Bonus entries: anyone who also becomes a new follower of this Tumblr and/or @dianafox on Twitter gets an extra entry for each. If you do this, please mention your Tumblr/Twitter user name and that you are a new follower in your email so I can count it!

The contest is open through Valentine’s Day, and the winner will be chosen at random on Friday, February 15th. I can only mail to the US and Canada at this time. Happy reblogging! 

Saving June is a must read!

I read the summary after the sample. The voice of Harper Scott drew me into the pages of this book. She was opinionated and misunderstood, and definitely the Bobbie Dylan, cigarette smoking chick to put you on the edge of your seat and leave a reader guessing.

She was the complete opposite of her sister, June, the one she didn’t save, physically. But this book isn’t about the physical, well it is a little. There is Jake Tolan, and believe me, he gives Harper’s Dylan image a real nice run, on the fun, interesting road to California.

There’s a lot to be learned in this young adult novel about the big issues of why someone that young might take their own life, but what I found more compelling wasn’t “why”, but the reasons to live and this book gives you plenty. I have to say I’m a sucker for lines like these…

“There is so much beauty in just existing. In being alive. I don’t want to miss a second.” Harper Scott, Saving June.

How can you not like a character like this? I would highly recommend this book to young adults and parents (like me) looking to understand them. With that said, I have a daughter, and if she did take off to California - she would be grounded for life.
Summary for Hannah Harrington's Saving June

Everyone's sorry. But no one can explain why.

Harper Scott's older sister, June, took her own life a week before high school graduation, leaving Harper devastated. So when her divorcing parents decide to split up June's ashes, Harper steals the urn and takes off cross-country with her best friend, Laney, to the one place June always dreamed of going—California.

Enter Jake Tolan, a boy with a bad attitude, a classic-rock obsession…and an unknown connection to June. When he insists on joining them, Harper's just desperate enough to let him. With his alternately charming and infuriating demeanor and his belief that music can see you through anything, he might be exactly what Harper needs. Except…Jake's keeping a secret that has the power to turn her life upside down—again.

 

Excellent Love Story!

Bettie Sharp’s Novella, EMBER is one of the best fairy tale retellings I’ve read. It keeps all of the original elements of the original Cinderella story and gives it a tantalizing magic in exchange for the former springtime grace and lace. This is not a story for little girls, this is an adult story. It’s still about true love, but more real love, hard to obtain love and harder to keep love once you get your hands on it.

Prince Charming is charming to everyone who meets him, except Ember who guards herself from him. She is the one person he can’t have and the one person he wants. Of course, she would rather cut out her soul. Ember’s actions in guarding herself are extreme, and these actions immediately made me like her. She’s a strong character, and not at all the Cinderella type I remember. She doesn’t wait on things to happen to her like Fairy Godmothers, and glass slippers. No, this Cinder Girl has a plan of her own. I love it! But I don’t want to discount Prince Charming’s strength of character.

He’s more than just a handsome face – really the thing that’s so beautiful about him isn’t his charm at all, go figure that one. This leaves the step sisters and mother, Sharpe does a witch’s curse on them, and those so called wicked wenches from before are nothing like you remember. I read this in two days, and plan to read everything Bettie Sharpe puts out, that’s how much I like EMBER. I highly recommend it and will have it on a must give list for Christmas.

Bettie Sharp’s Novella, EMBER is one of the best fairy tale retellings I’ve read. It keeps all of the original elements of the original Cinderella story and gives it a tantalizing magic in exchange for the former springtime grace and lace. This is not a story for little girls, this is an adult story. It’s still about true love, but more real love, hard to obtain love and harder to keep love once you get your hands on it.

Prince Charming is charming to everyone who meets him, except Ember who guards herself from him. She is the one person he can’t have and the one person he wants. Of course, she would rather cut out her soul. Ember’s actions in guarding herself are extreme, and these actions immediately made me like her. She’s a strong character, and not at all the Cinderella type I remember. She doesn’t wait on things to happen to her like Fairy Godmothers, and glass slippers. No, this Cinder Girl has a plan of her own. I love it! But I don’t want to discount Prince Charming’s strength of character.

He’s more than just a handsome face – really the thing that’s so beautiful about him isn’t his charm at all, go figure that one. This leaves the step sisters and mother, Sharpe does a witch’s curse on them, and those so called wicked wenches from before are nothing like you remember. I read this in two days, and plan to read everything Bettie Sharpe puts out, that’s how much I like EMBER. I highly recommend it and will have it on a must give list for Christmas.

Must Read Dark Inside by Jeyn Roberts

Jeyn Roberts is one of my favorite young adult writers, because her story Dark Inside is still inside my head and I read it two months ago. The concepts are large and foreboding and they question the frailty of goodness in mankind shuddering at an apocalyptic war. It’s very Cormac McCarthy, but more for the young adult world, so that they can dive right in and later expand into larger ideas of their own when it comes to human goodness.

In Dark Inside the end happens and four young people have to wrestle with evil outside and inside their skin. If they don’t, they become like the rest of humanity. The bleak descriptives of nothingness first drew me into this book, but the characters kept me in the pages. All of them were well-thought-out and one of them bordered on turning to the darkness of evil. In a book with four different perspectives, it is difficult to make a reader feel for your characters as quickly as Roberts made me feel for hers, but she did it. I fell for each one of her characters, Mason, Clementine, Aries, and Michael. And in addition, there was a mystery character named nothing who only kept me intrigued with the other four.

This person had short pieces and he or she seemed to know more about why everything happened as it did. I wasn’t attached to this person in the same way as the other four, but he/she did add to the other four, and certainly added to the mystery of the overall book. By the way, Clementine was my favorite character. She surprised me the most in the book. However, Michael did something not unusual to human nature, but certainly not exactly Clark Kent. I liked that plot move by Roberts. The move Michael made in it still clings to my mind’s memory like a freaking nightmare. It makes it worth reading, if nothing else but to ponder – what would you do?

            On the subject of plot, Roberts did a fantastic job everything moved together in the same way as say streams moving towards the same ocean. A little cliché’ sorry folks, but her book really came together at the end. It also left some loose strands, just enough to make me very intrigued to read book two, Rage Within. It’s out now, and I plan to read it, just as soon as I can afford to be addicted to yet another good book.

 

Great descriptives!

"...his head down, eyes popped, neck stretched like a rubber chicken's... "You sure this is the right guy?"
The quote comes from "The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living," and maybe one of the best books I've to read all year. I don't know yet. So far, it's a book to savor and I'm taking my time, like that first cup of coffee in the morning. This book reminds me of why I love words.