Writers enjoy having the power of God over their characters, but what if they also attract the forces of the devil? What if the power of life and death in a fiction translates into a ‘real’ existence, if some elements of the authors omnipresence on the page slips into physical life? The book is very much paranormal, some of a magical realism bend and some with a quasi-religious one. Through excepting the premise that many good versus evil, religious/paranormal boundaries collide in mystical ways one can enjoy the book. Most of us have little trouble suspending belief to enjoy a good yarn. I preferred to read this is the imagined world of a psychotic personality in total meltdown. This was easy given that the book is written in first person. I enjoyed this as a false reality from which we are supposed to hope the character voice, Alexa, will escape. I was a bit underwhelmed by the lengths Bell went to in exploring the threads of the story as it drew to the end, as for me the detail rather reduced the power of resolution. Climatic events, both in life and books, are best enjoyed without distracting reflections on the rationality of the mechanics.

     This book is well written, describing Alexa’s world in a way that easily paints strong scenes in one’s mind. As a writer, I can appreciate the mind games as Alexa the well-established, if quite famous, author, struggles to complete her trilogy. Some of the other characters, especially Margaret, her book editor, are very well-rounded. I may have enjoyed the book more with a few chapters written from the mind of Margaret, watching the mental breakdown of her number one selling author.

     This is the second book of Bell’s I have read. She is a very gifted writer who might achieve greater success with psychological thrillers without the distraction of paranormal elements. Provided, of course, she could find the discipline of scripting her stories without occasionally falling for the convenient escapes of the unrestrained supernatural.

     It should be obvious that I enjoyed this book more for the qualities of Bell’s descriptive writing than the story it tells. However, I am sure that those that relish the buy-in to the paranormal will find this to be a great read. There are plenty of original elements as well as standard themes of the paranormal and mystical realism genres. We have here a, ‘watch what you wish for’ morality tale. The allegorical foundations of the theme resonate throughout. The four stars rather than five isn’t a devaluation of the Bell’s work. Rather, it reflects my view that this book, despite all its qualities, didn’t do talent full justice.

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Today’s stop is for Stacey Brandon's & Karen Bell's Wreck. We will have info about the book and author, and a great excerpt from the book, plus a great giveaway. Make sure to check everything out and enter the giveaway. Happy Reading :) 

Kyle can have almost any woman he wants… except the one he wants most. If he falls for his boss’s daughter, it could be the biggest mistake of his life. He’s made more than his fair share. It would ruin his relationship with the man he considers almost a father, and besides, she deserves someone better than him anyway.

Kinleigh knows the minute she sees the bartender in her dad’s bar that they are meant to be together. She’s heard all about his good business head, how trustworthy he is, and how much potential he has… but learning he is also the hottest man she’s ever laid eyes on had cinched the deal. She might look sweet and innocent, but looks can be deceiving. She’ll do whatever it takes to show him they belong together.

Can they learn that trusting each other is the only way to find happiness?

Or will they let prejudices destroy their lives?

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Kinleigh stops the finger-tapping in order to cross her arms and glare at me. Her lips are in a tight pucker and her eyes are narrowed, but she is still adorable. I catch myself fixating on the smudge of lip gloss, fighting the urge to touch it. “Kinleigh…I…” Fuck. What the hell can I say that I didn’t already say last summer? “Are we still singing this song?” she asks. “My big, bad Daddy won’t approve? I’m too young for you? I deserve someone better than you? Blah, blah, blah… Try a new tune, Kyle. I’ve heard it all and I’m not impressed. This is my life, not my dad’s, and I get to choose the people in it. You are seven years older than me, but we’re both adults and it doesn’t matter. You have a steady job, a newly acquired college degree, and despite trying to act like you are so tough…you are one of the kindest and most generous men I’ve ever met. So quit whining and pushing me away!” Walking over to her, I stand close enough to touch. I can actually feel the warmth of her desire and anger and grit my teeth to hold back from closing that last final inch between us. Wanting her, always wanting her… but knowing it’s better this way, I pull my mouth into the familiar smirk I’ve perfected to hide what I don’t want people to see. Men read it as cocky and condescending. Women usually take it as a challenge and try even harder. But I know Kinleigh. It will piss her off. Now it’s time for the final touch. Licking my thumb, I finally wipe the lip gloss from her chin and watch her quick intake of breath. “I’m not pushing you away, babe. I’ll leave with you right now if that’s what you really want,” I whisper as I run my nose up the side of her cheek and breathe into her ear. “You will?” she whispers back. She wants to believe me. She wants to believe we are finally on the same page, but my expression is enough to create a ripple of skepticism. “Abso-fucking-lutely. We can go back to my place.” I run my hand lightly down her arm. “We can do every naughty little thing you ever dreamed about and some you’ve never even imagined.” “Oh…” I watch her pupils dilate as she swallows hard and her chest begins to rise and fall even faster. “We will have lots of fun.” She melts a little more. “But… if your dad finds out you decided to be one of my girls he will fire my ass. I happen to like my job. So you keep those pretty little lips sealed.” I place one finger over her lips to emphasize my point. “Got it, Princess?” I see when my words fully register. She jerks away from me in disgust. “One of your girls, Kyle?” she hisses. “Sure… if that’s what you want, Kinleigh,” I tell her. “I only accept willing participants.” She pulls away and turns her back to me. “Why are you doing this?” Every line of her posture betrays her pain. I want to take it all back. I want to apologize and beg forgiveness. I’m a complete asshole for trying to make her feel cheap and expendable, but I know it’s for the best. I’m going to see this through. One of us has to put an end to the ridiculous dream she has of us ever being something more to each other. “Doing what? I’m just giving you what you obviously want. We’ve messed around a few times but no more playing, Kinleigh. Let’s do this thing and get it out of our system so we can move on.” Slowly, she turns back to me. “Playing?” “I get it, okay? The spoiled princess that wants a hot night with the bad boy her parents wouldn’t approve of. Fine. I’ll be your little fantasy and enjoy the benefits of getting a piece of that fine ass.” She’s fast. I don’t see the slap coming but I sure as hell feel it. “You are an asshole, Kyle Taylor.” The low calm of her voice is worse than if she’d yelled. “Yes, I am,” I whisper to the now empty room.

Once upon a time, these two hookers became best friends…

Stacey Brandon and Karen Bell both live in the same small Texas town on the Gulf Coast, are happily married and the proud Moms of awesome kids. Stacey owns and runs a photography studio and Karen designs and sews her own children’s clothing line. They met over fifteen years ago when they decided to turn one large professional space into a single home for both businesses.

Well, that’s all the boring facts expected to be included in an “about the author” page, right? The reality is so much more fun. Stacey and Karen and their families spend holidays together, travel together… and generally turn every situation into something crazy and chaotic. They are both fluent in English, Sarcasm and Profanity and have decided the irrefutable proof of their best friend status is how often people assume they are “together” when in public. The poor husbands are good sports about it… and might even encourage this misconception at times for sheer entertainment value.

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First off, let me say that I didn't much like the book and certainly not the main character. That doesn't mean this isn't a good read, this is.

The mix of not quite literary, not quite paranormal and at times over romantic wasn't my cup of tea. That may be in part because I am a male reader. I hasten to add that I found no hardship in reading every word, and in piecing together every loopback in the chronological progress. I enjoyed the long prose, the well worked descriptions, the first person narrative and the deep and convoluted analysis of main character as writer. A lot of the book reads like classic memoir. I like the way Bell so well conveyed the characters confusions through the slow construction of the plot, almost like building a house jumping between bricklaying on different floors in total defiance of gravity.

Those that are expecting a classic paranormal read will be disappointed, because the abnormal never really rises far beyond what might be interpreted as purely machinations of an intoxicated mind, often the toxin being romance itself.

Those that like modern crisp plot in a sharp journalistic Hemingwayesk style will be annoyed. This is a book for those that enjoy deeply painted pictures and can stand lumps of plot diversion that allow the author to develop the grain of the picture rather than its total image. I didn't find the prose leaning to the 'purple' to be any problem. In fact I loved the well studied textures. What did annoy me was the padding with hardly relevant lists and references to film and literary history. Even if I wanted to wade through lists of media classics drawn from diverse dramatic arts it wouldn't be in the middle of a fiction novel. They weren't even marginally necessary to the conveyance of the plots drama and no one will convince me that anyone strung-out individual analyses information in that way.

This is a book centred completely on the mind of the character as guide and director, which means that we only tend to see support characters as one dimensional. The dimension they are usually seen in by the first person's eyes. However, the other players were eventually painted well enough, being shown in greater depth not so much when the plot begged it; but rather more naturally, when the first person narrator became truly aware. But then that is a truth of life, we do tend to see characters as 'flat' personalities, as predictably animated instillations rather than as the rounded people they really are. Of course, people are never simple, but they can still be one dimensional to use even after a long time known. That actually is the whole point of the book, the central theme, being the rigid views that romantic love, social expectation and immediate impression bring. In this clever book we are led through that, even possibly nudged to recognise that flaws in our own observations. People are rarely even close to the masks we first paint and we suffer if we play to the single dimensions others have of us.

Will I read any more of Bell's works? Possibly not, but that is a matter of my taste not the books artistic merits.

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Let me start by saying Karen S. Bell is obviously a very intelligent person.. and she knows it and embraces it and expects everyone else to recognize it too because, well it is obvious she is not just confident, she is convinced.. It’s also quite obvious from the voice she uses from her protagonist. Personally after finally finishing this book, which I had to stop myself from skimming past the purple prose so I could honestly write this review (that and I would have been done in 30 minutes if I did), I wanted to drink 5-liters of wine, black out and forget I had read it. Damn it.. I promised I would not be one of those reviewers, but this is really hard. Seriously, I am trying not to be mean, but the thing is? It really is the perfect example of purple prose (and this is not a good thing). Let’s try this again.

Sunspots, if you like a story which is full of itself, whose characters are stereotyped from the tippy top of the heels of her Milanos and descriptions are tell.. tell… throw a bunch of $25 dollar words in to prove just how smart you are but never show what you are trying to show. Where the magic that is the Aurora Borealis (and believe me, honey I know, I am an Alaskan) is.. umm wrapped up in TIEDDIE (we will cover that little SP issue in a bit). If you like an author who uses those big words to make it balloon out into a full length novel. If you are looking for a story with .. umm wait what was this about? Oh gods I give up, if she gave up trying to be so bloody flowery and put more effort into showing (this doesn’t mean showing off) and not telling it may just have been a novella around 10-15K but at least it would have been a story and not, whatever this was! It would have been so much more tolerable, probably really enjoyable and it would have been a much better experience if it were. The repetitive style also seemed like an attempt to be allegorical without really understanding allegory, basing the use of her poem at the beginning, I maybe assuming too much here, but the use of the poem throughout the novel leads me to believe this is the case.

As it was, I wasted an afternoon reading it and yet I still keep giggling a little bit inside when I think of some of the things I read. I was struck with the evocation of smugness which screamed from between these ballooned lines. So when I got to the third chapter and it starts with “One can never be, and should never be, smug about life.” I spit my drink out and thought holy shit… yep, that’s about all I could do. After this, the protagonist when not whining) was all of a sudden barreling through this myriad of name dropping, pop-culture, mish-mash something or other with .. again I am just still at a loss for words.

I was insulted on the extreme pompous tone, the cliche and generalized characterizations and extreme stereotyping of her characters. I also loath when the characters are constantly harping on with name brands they are wearing. I am reminded of the class I took from Bram Stoker award winning editor Michael Knost who says “Remember when writing a description, the rule of WGAS (who gives a shit.” If you are going to write it, does it really matter. Does it matter that Frodo has green eyess? No, who gives a shit, SHOW It don’t tell it. What brand of shoes she wore, or purse she had, etc,  did not really matter in this story, it just did not fit!! And.. MAGICAL REALISM, don’t claim to be a story within the genre of magical realism just because there is a bit of magic in it. The tone is passionate and as I said above, has magical aspects, but that does not make it magical realism. This is as much a book that falls in the realm of magical realism as the last zombie book I read. Sorry, that is base fact. It has qualities of paranormal and magical feelings, a touch of the unknown and again passion but, not magical realism.

I know folks like books like this! And sometimes there is something to be said about ones writing of purple prose. It is a style which can be done well and successfully. Dickens did it and did it well. Vladimir Nabokov is another author who not only studied romantic styles of language but again did it well, like Tolstoy who successfully pulled it off and many contemporary writers have made and make it work. But, if you cannot even spell tieddie right and yet the protag is constantly talking about her parents hippie lifestyle .. ummmm, hello? Then in next breath how she bought some name brand shoes which takes a few paragraphs to pontificate about and doing the whole obnoxious swoon…

Yet with all this passion there was still no depth, nothing and I still never really figured out what the hell this was about. Sure I know the story was about loss, her prologue was pretty nice. I did finally manage to figure it out.. I think, but I kept thinking.. THE POINT, what the hell is the point? The synopsis promises us a journey through her grief, not the showing off vocabulary!!! ARGH.. again sorry, sorry sorry I am really trying here!!!

This was suppose to be this magical journey, this window into grief and coping… I think? One may want to make sure you know how to spell important words, use a comma or semi-colon correctly and understand what run-on sentences are. (I certainly do and am OK with writing a blog post with run-ons however…) Or you insist on using tee shirt instead of t-shirt and your grammar is worse than mine in some places (yes some because it was not consistent at all). At least I know, can admit and be humble enough to admit my grammar blows? The book is in hardcore need of a very tight line-edit. Maybe I am off-base here but if it takes me out of the book it is probably worse that it is.

You would think someone who is obviously as intelligent as this author is and who is as passionate as she is she would want it to be perfect, self-published or not.  Finding the magic in everything she observes is great, but she may want to find something other than contemporary romance to express it with because this book fell flat on it’s face.

I do want to say some positive things here though. I thought the prologue shows promise and I liked the structure of the book, yep I did. I loved how she took a poem, one of hers … of course *wink* and she used the lines for the titles of her chapters. I liked that and thought it was clever and I am sure Ms. Bell does too *wink*.