Tag: death

Categories
Books Fun Hops

The Cephalopod Coffeehouse #Review: My Father Didn’t Kill Himself #YA #book

The idea is simple: on the last Friday of each month, post about the best book you’ve finished over the past month while visiting other bloggers doing the same. In this way, we’ll all have the opportunity to share our thoughts with other enthusiastic readers. Please join us below.

So, the end of April came way faster than I was prepared for. Today, I’m prepping for the RavenCon and am feeling a bit jittery. I feel bad about not putting forth my best effort with this review so let me be clear now, this is not the full and complete review. I will be more thorough at a later time and post my complete review on Goodreads and Amazon (if they let me). Since I’m pretty much a member of the author’s, Russell Nohelty, unofficial fan club, I get a lot of his content in bulk and at discounted prices. I support almost all his Kickstarters and thus, that’s how I acquire his content whether digital or print. In any case, I’ll provide a brief review of this ebook below.

Title: My Father Didn’t Kill Himself
Author: Russell Nohelty
Genre: YA, Contemporary Fiction
Pages: 305
Reading Level: Adult
Content: R (adult content and situations, mature themes, drug and alcohol use, language, sexuality)

So first, I have issues reading YA in general so that’s not a reflection of the author’s ability to tell a story. I had trouble relating to teens with I was one, so reading about them is always a little difficult for me. With that said, this is a very hard book to read. Some of the subject matter is just painful, in an emotional way, but it’s good. Sometimes you have to be uncomfortable to really experience something that sticks with you. Overall, this is a good book I’d recommend to a select few I feel would really connect with it and benefit from it.

I give this book a 4.

If you’d like to obtain a copy of this book, try this link: Amazon

Please stop by and see what others have read 😀

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

Categories
Excerpts Fun Hops

Spectacular Settings #WEPFF Challenge No. 1 featuring All Souls Trilogy & Eternal Curse Series #amwriting #amreading

Since I’m new to this group and challenge I hope it’s okay to break the rules just a bit. For the first part of this challenge, I’m sharing a bit more than a paragraph and at the end I’ll offer my explanation. A scene with a spectacular setting that takes my breath away from, Shadow of Night: All Souls Trilogy Book 2 by Deborah Harkness.

From Amazon.com; click to shop.

“My attempts to reach the Old Lodge’s future from its past were unsuccessful. I focused on the look and smell of the place and saw the threads that bound Matthew and me to the house- brown and green and gold. But they slipped out of my fingers repeatedly.”

Obviously there is a sense of magic here-
time travel and colored threads connected to
locations future and past. There is also a sense
of searching or discovery.

“I tried for Set-Tours instead. The threads that linked us there were tinged with Matthew’s idiosyncratic blend of red and black shot through with silver. I imagined the house full of familiar faces-Sarah and Em, Ysabeau and Marthe, Marcus and Miriam, Sophie and Nathaniel. But I couldn’t reach that safe port either.”

I see the speaker, a woman, and her companion Matthew,
in a blur of colored threads passing by familiar places
that never quite come into focus. There is a dark element,
but it’s not menacing.

“…My fingers kept returning to the same strand in the warp and weft of time that was not silky and smooth but hard and rough. I inched along its twisting length and discovered that it was not a thread but a root connected to some unseen tree. With that realization I tripped, as over an invisible threshold, and fell into the keeping room of the Bishop House.”

In the midst of green and gold, red and black silky threads,
the speaker finds a brown, rough, and twisted
one that turns out to be a root; anchoring her to a place she
knows, the Bishop house, which already has
an old and rustic comfort to it, even though it’s not described.

There are so many elements at play in this passage, but the setting is key. They way she describes her effort to return to another time sets the tone of the action and events, which in turn sets the mood and atmosphere of her final destination. We don’t know exactly what the Bishop House is just from reading this passage, but we get a sense that it is a place more important and special to these characters than the others already mentioned.

~

For the second part of this challenge, I will share an excerpt from one of my published works which will be re-released soon. I chose this scene for two reasons. I think the setting is crucial to the action of the story and I feel it sets the tone for the overall story/book.  A scene with a hopefully spectacular setting that may take your breath away from, Eternal Curse: Battleground by Toi Thomas.

 

ECB coverI was almost in tears thinking about the first time I held his hand with the full understanding of the differences between boys and girls. I was innocent, but not naïve and very curious. I had just turned fifteen, he was about to turn nineteen, and his grandfather had just died. It seems that tragedy was our matchmaker. After Grandpa Leo’s funeral, he’d wandered off from the reception and everyone was looking for him. I remember finding him in the Secret Cave, an underground catacomb he, Sheldon, and I had found when I was much younger and smaller.

I remembered that Michael and Sheldon had gone off to explore, as boys like to do, and that I tagged along. At that time, Sheldon and Michael were close in age, at least physically, and I was the ten-year-old tag-along little sister. I stumbled into a crevice in the ground, but Michael caught me before I fell in. Even though I was small, Michael wasn’t much bigger than I was, so we both began to slip down into the hole. Sheldon leaped over Michael and pulled him back, bringing me up along the way. Then he jumped down into the hole and shouted back that we’d discovered a hidden cave.

Later we made a rope ladder and tied it down to some nearby trees, to be used as a safe entrance to our new secret hiding place. We would go there to play for hours at a time, and sometimes we’d go so we could hide from the adults whenever we needed to. It was Sheldon who suggested that’s where he’d probably be after Leo’s funeral, but he wasn’t interested in going to look for him. I decided to go into the wilderness on my own to find Michael. For some reason, I knew he needed me, but I didn’t know why. Looking back on it now, I think maybe Sheldon thought the same and that’s why he didn’t want to go.

Eternal Curse: BATTLEGROUND © 2015 Toinette Thomas

Be sure to check out the other entries in this challenge and be dazzled by spectacular settings.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

Categories
Author Insights EC: Giovanni's Angel Excerpts

Author Insights 12: Topics vs. Themes (part 3)

authorinsight

Topic: 1a subject of conversation or discussion

Theme: 2a unifying or dominant idea, motif, etc., as in a work of art

The Three Major Themes of Eternal Curse

Purpose | Discovery | Faith

Faith

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe. ~Voltaire

The first thing I want people to understand about the importance of faith is that faith and religion are not the same thing. Granted, a lot of the time when people discuss faith it’s usually directed toward faith in a particular belief system or religion, but you can or cannot have faith in anything. In Eternal Curse, I touch on many facets of faith.

So before I really get into the basic faith themes in this book, let me tell you what tests the faith of my characters. Dealing with such issues as death, solitude, and the existence of angels, demons, and others stretched the limits of what my character are willing to believe in.

Most people agree with the old saying that states that nothing in life is as absolute as “death and taxes”, but what if you experienced something that made you question the finality of death. What if death wasn’t coming for you, ever? Is Eternal life on Earth all that it’s cracked up to be? And what about an afterlife; would you want another life after death, bad or good?

Solitude can be experienced in so many ways and at varying levels. Giovanni feels that his solitude has left him with little faith in humanity. If you have no faith in someone or something, is it worth pursuing, worth preserving, worth dying for trying to save?

So, now it’s time to talk about faith.

Faith in one’s self– In Eternal Curse, the characters have some insecurities to overcome. While Mira is confident in her strengths and knows just how much she is capable of, she never stops to consider that there might be something completely different for her to do with her life. Giovanni on the other hand is obviously endowed with great power, but because he has no faith in his ability to be and do good, he hides away and does nothing.

I think Mira suffers from minor displaced faith in herself. She has so much faith in what she’s currently good at that she can’t see the other options and things presenting themselves around her. I think Giovanni suffers from a complete lack of faith in his goodness. He only sees the odd and the bad.

Faith in something or a purpose bigger than your needs and wants– It happens all the time, though we don’t always know about, but people discover causes worth pursing and go after them. I know that in the US it’s hard for people to look outside of themselves to see something greater because our culture focuses on individuality (not that that’s bad). It may not be front and center in our culture, but all kinds of people are putting faith in something bigger than themselves right now. People are giving to charities even though their money is tight because they have faith that that need is greater than their situation and that their donation will make a difference. People are volunteering time, people are writing books and songs, people running and hiding or coming out and standing up, people are risking their lives because they have faith in something bigger than themselves.

Faith in a being, power, or force beyond you– This is where the question of religion comes in. Most people believe in something even if it’s not a religion. While some people put their faith in a god or gods, others put their faith in science, or nature, or fate, or politics, or what have you. Even with my own personal beliefs, I respect people for believing in something, even if I don’t agree with it. I think it’s sad when someone doesn’t believe in anything.

*Disclaimer- There is currently debate about whether my book is strongly religious. Though it is a work of fiction and is a paranormal romance, it does have a monotheistic faith-based approach to concept of angels and demons. The current consensus seems to be that though the book weighs heavy with religious ties it remains fresh, thought provoking, and entertaining. It is more figurative than literal and more inquisitive than informative.*

That’s all for my contemplation on theme and topic. Thank you for sharing this experience with me and please enjoy this excerpt from Eternal Curse: Giovanni’s Angel.

~

Cover

“So, I take it you had an especially rough day today,” said Abraham in a questioning tone.

Mira shrugged her shoulders and slowly turned around and gave a sigh. “This isn’t what I was expecting,” said Mira, beginning to pace again. “Tell the truth, Abraham. Is there really something special here or am I just wasting my time?”

Abraham answered swiftly, “You’re asking the wrong person, my dear. That is why you are so upset. I can’t tell you if Giovanni is special, you have to decide that for yourself. Besides, you’ve been running all of these tests, surely you’ve learned something by now.”

Mira paused in thought before she puffed out her breath and responded, “The computer is compiling all of the information into a single, easy-to-read report. I’ll print it out in the morning and then…well then I’ll know.”

“What will you know?” asked Abraham.

“The truth!” she snapped back at Abraham before realizing it. She took two steps back and sighed again. “I’m sorry, Abraham. I shouldn’t be taking my frustrations out on you.”

Abraham moved closer to Mira; he reached up and touched her shoulder. “You didn’t know about me when you headed out to come here, and yet here I am. I existed before you knew I did. You came here with hope,” he said, removing his hand from her shoulder. “Find that hope again. If you’re really concerned about being so frustrated, maybe you could try to have a little faith in something you don’t know and can’t see or feel.”Mira was left standing there speechless as Abraham began to roll away. He was already at the backdoor of the house when he stopped for a moment to say one final thing. “You know, you and Giovanni are a lot alike in that way… Neither of you seem to have much faith.”

Eternal Curse: Giovanni’s Angel Copyright © 2013 Toinette Thomas

A new edition of this book is now available.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords