Myself and one of my other reviewers read this over the last two days. If you are interested in finding out why I rated this with half a star, have at it... find out why the goats have the right idea and why I am TAKING ONE FOR THE TEAM (review)

BTW the author THREATENED to sue me so the goat image got taken down... 

I TOOK ONE FOR THE TEAM! - review on CABIN GODDESS AMAZON

Belw is the what now is on my blog!

"Avoir des relations sexuelles avec moi en cours d'exécution ...."

Since I have been threatened with a lawsuit from the author of "NOTHING IN PARTCULAR" by Kate LeDonne because her book cover and her author image are copyright protected and she was not happy with the review. After much talk and consideration and since I cannot afford a lawyer to fight the bogus charge with my own countersuit of libel, I will remove it from my website. This was never a smear campaign or a form of bullying or anything. It was a review of a book I purchased and I felt was not just poorly written but also irresponsible on many different levels. You will have to read about the book on Amazon and read the sample there also.  Apparently I only can review a book and give it a good review (4 or 5 stars) *insert sarcasm*. I cannot be critical without consequences and as yesterday showed these are not just over the top ridiculous but out of control. They also have caused The Hus to be involved. (see his post). I have to say, with my last critical review the author did not say a word, she was blown away but she never said ONE negative word about it. So I am taking this review down. Sorry guys. If you are interested go to Amazon, she cannot threaten my review there with any consequences being had from me.

READ MY REVIEW ON AMAZON

AUTHORS -these written reviews are for readers NOT you. I took several hours to read this book and write my review. I asked friends for advice because I was thinking maybe I was not reading it right. I did not slander an individual. I was reading and critiquing a piece of writing. If you don't want that, don't publish your work. I am sorry she felt I was being mean with the goats but I use my goats to promote EVERY review I do. Every book I review I treat with the same respect. Graphics are all hand done by me, authors bio and book buy links, EVERYTHING is the same. I try to make the post pretty. I post my tweets, I am a member of Triberr and I have over 8K combined  email and RSS feed followers not to mention almost 5K on Cabin Goddesses Facebook page and over 6K twitter followers. ALL ORGANIC. You guys read me because you like to hear what I have to say, apparently.

Thank you for all your support.

For the record. I did not get this book for a tour, I did not work to create havoc. I wrote this, SLAVED over the review, sent my tweets out and went to bed. I woke up to find out she had been contacting those who auto-tweet me via Triberr and to others who retweeted me being attacked online. I do not know this woman. I am not taking this review down because she threatened me. She only wins from it being taken off my site, from deleting all my tweets from getting any more exposure from me and my readers. I am taking it down because it has caused people I care about problems which is unfair to them to suffer because I wrote a review an author did not like. Again it was not personal. I never set out to smear anyone, to even fathom that little piece of libel has me shaking my head. To the authors who shared this I appreciate it and I am sorry I caused you any problems. I always am honest. But after careful consideration and the words of Geoff, I am only leaving up the link to Amazon's review (which is the same here) Leanne's can also be found there. It is always OK to post my own opinion. You guys wonder why there are are problems in the Indie world? Look no further. Yesterdays fiasco was a prime example.

I love you all... and as for the goats???

…and sometimes it isn’t

I could not resist using the line, yes I make myself giggle, but this week has been one of the most difficult of my life in a long time. I think perhaps I will write about it later but today I want to share Lakebridge: Autumn, a book which is part of the series which is near and dear to my heart. 

I am always leery when reviewing books by authors I end up becoming close friends with. I was one of the lucky ones who got spoon fed the chapters before the final draft and in the end I let the last few just sit in my inbox because I did not want to ruin the full book experience. After my reviews of Lakebridge: Spring and Lakebridge: Summer, I am hard pressed to top the complex deconstruction of that with this new installment of the horror series from Natasha. To simply say it will scare your pants off is doing Autumn an injustice. To say go read it, is just strong-arming those who trust me (but GO READ IT). What I will say is this is the best in the series and has secured itself in what hopefully will become a cult classic in the area of horror.

As I have mentioned in the past, horror for me is not just a genre. However in our reading world today everything needs to be in it’s own special box and it is a specific genre which is one of the most popular across most forms of media/entertainment. We as a society need more and more to get our heart racing, unfortunately some writers and film makers feel the need to just shock us instead of challenge us on a deeper level, as the masters in the past have. Horror books would be more about the psychological aspects of fear instead of being lazy and showing us gore. If you have noticed the only books within horror I have been reviewing lately are zombie books because let’s face it, those at least are not really about the gore, and the zombies are not the monsters in the book but part of the landscape. The real monsters are within the people. Troop does the same thing, except…. but I don’t want to compare her to zombie reads, her books are literary fiction, as is “complex, literate, multilayered novels that wrestle with universal dilemmas”.[Sarrick 2005, page 32]. Lakebridge: Autumn is not a book you can breeze through and skim in areas. Jump into the book and discover the other monsters some with form and some with no form. It is up to you to discern and separate them and at times let them take over.

There is a movie I have watched over and over again, FOUR ROOMS unlike many people what I find intriguing about this movie is that though each “episode” within each room is setting us up for the finale. You can read each of them by themselves, but you will miss the thread that holds the books together (yes there is another book coming… and I will apologize to you ahead of time for what I will be posting…). Lakebridge: Spring is setting it up, giving us just a tiny taste of the kind of writer she is. Lakebridge: Summer allows us to feel almost safe but still tasting a bit of grit … Lakebridge: Autumn? Oh holy crap make sure you are not on anything because otherwise you will be questioning a few things and have one of those bizarre conversations with the cat because everyone is thrown on one of those carnival rides which spin you around and around and around..and darkness falls because.. well

(I warned you guys!)

Perhaps one of Troop’s strongest talents going for her is character development. By now readers of the other two in the series are majorly invested in some of the main characters, especially Gil. Who would have thought this one-armed man who was building toy trebuchets to take out his tiny covered bridges while selling Birch Beer to extremely tall women who are passing through on their way to Vermont, that is if they can resist the pull of the bridge and not heed the warnings of a lone moose… Oh the Moose…( hmmm maybe the moose is the MacGuffin..)

Her characters, even the ones which are at the beginning of each book (see excerpt) all solid. We are completely entranced by even the mention of some weird lady living in a cabin in the woods with some obsession about bacon (who the hell inspired this I have no clue.. hmm). The funny thing is, well the humour! It is chuck full of it. Talk about a story device (and there are a plenty within the book). She builds up all these characters, some as simple as the hermit in the woods, some as complex as Gil. No matter what we are heavily invested in each and every one so when Troop does what she does to a few of them, well let’s face it we are shocked, we feel and we weep or we go… WTF now what??? We all want to have certain folks make it… but this is a horror story, and when I saw this is going to go boom I thought I understood it… then it ended and things started to crumble and a door opened in my mind (not just in the end of the book but several times throughout) I went …

But what about the sandwich? I mean if a bridge is not just a bridge, and a sandwich is… or is it? Or is the sandwich not a sandwich but a bridge or… help! Seriously, perhaps the bologna sandwich is the MacGuffin! Hmmmmm… well, you never know till you read it!

Eleanor stole my heart from the minute I began reading the book. Just this morning I was dealing with the brooding daughter who when growing up pulled the hoodies over her head, wore dull colors and just did not want to be seen. If she is noticed she is bullied and even if she is not she is sneered and laughed at. Funny I was dealing with my daughter this morning who started off her high school career like this. Growing up pulled the hoodies over her head and her bangs in her face, wore dull colors and just did not want to be seen. If she is noticed she is bullied and because she was thought to have an extreme learning disability even some teachers would bully her.  This is how Eleanor deals with it, but for more than your typical teenage reasons.

There are a lot of things this book can be said to be about. Above all I argue this books main theme is love, but again it is about so much more. As with many well written pieces of literary fiction, all aspects are well balanced and everything in it has a reason to be there. I will argue with many who have read Eleanor, including the author, that she is a monster. Again, for those of us who have read it, yes she calls herself one and technically… well I don’t want to be specific here.

For me, this is a book about the coming of age of a young woman whom the author has chosen as not just someone who is his daughter at heart (as mentioned above) but who’s unassuming because she works at it; who lives in the shadows of her own fears and on the edge of society (literally and figuratively). The only person she truly can trust is her surrogate mother Tabitha, who has her own darkness to deal with as she races against the time terminal cancer has given her to prepare Eleanor for… well, you will have to read to see. But when her own childhood friend moves back to town, she now must face having having the responsibility as well as the joy of the  friendship again and all that it entails, including social circles.

Eleanor never feels safe. Not safe from the state, because of mother’s health and their dependence on state aid; not safe in school, in case her peers or teachers notice the otherness she knows and perceives a bit too much inside her; not safe to really be the teenager she is now. The themes throughout this book are so intermingled with ribbons of darkness and light I felt like a whirling dervish with all the emotions it evoked: all those feelings from growing up as an odd duck and my feelings now as an adult. The aspect of “monster” is not just one literally but metaphorically**. Many times, at least for me, to show just how non-monstrous the monster is… ( yes, say that 10 times fast!).

With each turn of the page (or flick of the finger) the story unfolds and shines a bit more light into the mystery. Just when we think we know what is going on, we are given more info to realize there is even more to it and we maybe wrong. If this was a mystery book, my review would be based on keeping me in the dark during my rating decision. I was approximately at 90% before I had a complete handle on just exactly what everything was, and even then, the end surprised me.

The themes were pretty focused and having to do with love on so many levels. Ones of balance, familial, passion, self-love, first love, and in the end, even sacrificial love. With the First Nation mythological aspects so gently and eloquently layered within and the fact it is a coming-of-age story with plans to grow with your young adult readers ages as a series, you would think there maybe a few problem areas to weave within, but this was not the case. As I have argued in the past, young adults who read aren’t stupid. They desire books who treat them with respect. They want not just need this type of book. Johnny Worthen blended the conventions and tropes of the paranormal, coming-of-age, mythological and created such a powerful message young adults crave and adults need reminding of, Eleanor, The Unseen, cannot help but be impactful.

I recommend Eleanor to anyone. Don’t stop at the first chapter; I promise it will make sense. Such a clean, tight, well balanced, beautiful read. Anyone who wants a book that makes them feel… everything, or just a book to keep them excited to turn each and every page need to add Eleanor to your “Must Read” list!

Anyone interested in reading a stellar bonus content plus a recipe which I dedicate to all the unseen summer girls, check out the full review on Cabin Goddess!

A compassionate goodbye, a tribute to his father and a story which many of its readers will find themselves flooded with their own memories of loved ones who are no longer with them. I grew up on the beach, some of the things mentioned within this piece of literary fiction mean something to me on that relatable level. I know I won’t be able to read the next book in my pile as planned starting tomorrow because frankly it would be unfair, it is a zombie book after all. I believe I will wait so I can dream haunting dreams of wave people and perhaps my grandfather will come to me on the beach in my dreams.

This novella is a darkly beautiful journey granting all who read a coveted backstage pass to . Hidden like flotsam on the edge of its pages the allegorical dark lines of this piece. The protagonist a son whose father is about to die of pancreatic cancer asking his son to do something which, as he does, we’re graced with being able to go with him. Neither the son nor the father’s names are given, the only name is Dawn, his father’s nurse. I will note here, for those who choose to pick this book up, this is completely intentional in my not so humble opinion. As I sit here hours after finishing the afternoon read I still keep tearing up and remember my loss and the journey to get to my beach. Such a powerful story device.

I am so very glad I choose to review this instead of interview him or something else for this tour stop. The story will haunt me, not like a horror novel but a novel of a related experience told in this embracing fashion. Thank you for gifting your readers a peek into your own, Joseph.

I highly recommend this novella which all ways to obtain it for your own reading pleasure are below in the book information. One more thing, and it is a very important thing I think:

The author will be donating a portion of the proceeds from this book to the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research.