Running the Gamut

I've been at the cabin this week where internet is spotty and slow at best.  Nonexistent, at times.  "No longer connected..." is a hateful phrase.  But then, I'm busy with the the garden:  weeding and watering and fighting stinkbugs and grasshoppers and tomato horn-worms.  Trying to keep it organic is a chore!

I need to get a few more reviews marked off the list.

Letters from Skye  by Jessica Brockmole.  It is a shame in many ways that letter-writing is a dying art.  Even before email, the habit of ink to page had declined because of the ease of actually speaking to someone via phone--no waiting involved for a letter to wend its way through the vagaries of the postal system.  

Although completely unable to write a decent letter myself, I've always loved stories told through letters, as well as reading the letters saved from previous generations of my family and those wonderful literary letters written by famous people.

Letters from Skye is a story told through letters, although the voices of the letter-writers didn't feel genuine to me. The love story between Davy and Elspeth and their "knowledge" of one another based on their exchanged letters...is something that quite escaped me.  And if their love story seemed a little thin, maybe it was because the characters seemed a little thin, lacking in meat and bone.

Not a bad way to while away the hours, but insubstantial fare.  Great cover, though!

NetGalley/Random House, Ballantine.

Historical? Chic Lit?  2013.  Print version:  304 pages.

• ISBN-10: 0345542606
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The Suicide Shop by Jean Teule (trans. Sue Dyson) posits a world in which global warming and environmental devastation have left the populace so depressed that the Tuvache family feels good about their avocation as the current generation to operate a family business offering methods of suicide for every pocketbook.  

The Tuvaches go about their business satisfied that they are filling a necessary societal niche;  until the arrival of their third child, who upsets the apple cart in a big way.   Described as a quirky black comedy, I had difficulty maintaining interest despite the fact that the book is very, very short.


Gallic Books.
Black Comedy.  2013.  169 pages.

• ISBN-10: 1906040095

Under a Graveyard Sky by John Ringo is another post-apocalyptic zombie adventure.  Weak characters in an action-filled plot.  

Biggest problem:  a thirteen-year-old girl with no previous combat experience out-doing adult men with lots of experience in special forces and the marines, carting around 40-60 lbs. of equipment and being the best zombie killer.  EVER.  Hard to swallow that scenario.  

Oh, and the fact that the conclusion of Part I is like an inadvertent farce with adults going to dinner and a concert (and taking Faith (13) and Sophia (15) into a zombie-filled city where people are being killed and eaten with zest.  Yes, New York dining at its best.  Duh.  Go parents and Uncle Tommy!   
Naturally, they escape, make it to their boat and head for the high seas.  Part II all action.  Conclusion...none, to be continued.  Nope.

NetGalley/Baen Books.

Post-apocalyptic.  Sept. 2013.  Print version:  384 pages.

• ISBN-10: 1451639198