Book Review

Once Upon a December Nightmare

By

Cherie Reich

Reviewed by Wayne L. White

A planned winter evening at the movies for four adventurous young adults takes an unexpected turn when their venue is sold out. On a lark, James takes his three female companions for a ride along a dark, single-lane gravel road in an unknown wilderness. Denise confides to Cassie that she and James had enjoyed traveling this trail and not to worry, it comes back out on the main road up ahead.

After seven miles along the rough trail, a fallen tree blocks the road and forces them to back up to a place wide enough to turn around. The carcases of four deer lying side by side along the road in the clearing brings the first touch of fright to the girls. James turns the truck around and starts back the way they came. The uneasiness in the girl's stomachs turns to fear when the truck's lights fail. With only the thin beam of a flashlight to penetrate the darkness, James is unable to find the problem. When he returns to the driver's seat, the truck won't start.

At this point, Ms. Reich turns up the terror as the girls realize they'll have to spend the night cramped in the cold truck or walk the seven miles of dark trail back to the highway. The only thing they can agree on is that―from their collective experience with horror movies―you never leave the group. Whatever they do, they must do together. They abandon the truck and press into the night.

Unrecognizable sounds punctuate the darkness, heightening the tension as something appears to be following them, getting closer as they move along.

Cherie is no newbie to the fantasy genre, but jeepers creepers! with Once Upon a December Nightmare, she brings new heights to her portfolio of scare tactics, keeping her readers feasting on their fingernails. This tale is not for bedtime reading if you want to “sleep tight.” Those won't be bedbugs biting in your nightmares.

Perhaps Ms. Reich's home in Catawba, Virginia, sandwiched between the Appalachian Trail and the Otherworlds, has embellished her life with vivid childhood memories―memories of journeys to places like Dragon's Tooth and Foxwick where the lines between fantasy and reality dim. Regardless, she's at it again, and tantalizingly so. Pick up a copy of Once Upon a December Nightmare and get yourself a good five-star read and a darkened closet full of nightmares for weeks thereafter. Chills guaranteed.

Book Review

Mad Max: Unintended Consequences

By

Betsy Ashton

Reviewed by Wayne L. White

Betsy Ashton's first novel portends well for her budding career as an author. From the start, Ms. Ashton engages the reader in the upper-class New York Sac's Fifth Avenue world of grandmothers who take pleasure in their station in life and the money that supports their material desires. But life has another role for Maxine Davies. An automobile accident puts her daughter Merry in the hospital with serious injuries and Max rushes to Richmond, Virginia and her daughter's bedside where she takes over her daughter's role in raising her two grandchildren, Emilie and Alex. A son-in-law whose work keeps him away from home for protracted periods complicates matters and Max immediately finds herself the sole caretaker of her precocious grandchildren―not so demanding, but ties Max to Richmond while she yearns for her friends and the concrete canyons of New York.

When Merry is finally released from the hospital, she is mentally incapable of tending to the needs of her children, leaving it all to Max who clearly states that she's done enough child raising for one lifetime. Meanwhile, Merry has developed a relationship with a plastic surgeon who has a mesmerizing hold on his patient and has taken control of Merry's life and decisions.

The delicious plot thickens at this point and I won't be a spoiler. But as I mentioned to Betsy, “My Kindle is about to explode. Someone is going to die!” Max and her grandchildren suddenly become the hunted and the hunters. You won't put it down, so don't plan to read it to calm your mind before sleep.

From a population of well-developed characters to the scenic background of New York and Richmond to the world of grandchildren with special abilities, Ms. Ashton adorns each passage with page-turning urgency. Mad Max: Unintended Consequences not only satisfies, but leaves the reader impatiently waiting for the next chapter in the life of five-star Mad Max.

Showering with Barbra

By

C. Neuroticus Absolutus

My oldest and dearest friend used to tell acquaintances that he “showered with Barbra Streisand every morning,” adding a chuckle and a mischievous smile that underscored his charming character.

Upon retirement, I took up pen and joined myriad writers working on the Great American Novel. Under merciless critique, I endeavor to choose appropriate verbs and nouns to best described the object, emotions and actions of my protagonist and antagonist and to do so with an economy of words. In addition, my mentors incessantly warp my mind with the latest affectation of the pundits of the trade: “Don't tell, show.”

These things merged in my mind this year as I listened to Streisand rip through her hectic version of Jingle Bells, waiting for, begging for her to take a breath. The feverish musical arrangement beautifully reinforces the tone of the lyric, especially the verse, which begins with, “Dashing through the snow...”

You see? There it is! A single word: Dashing! I began to wonder if composer James Lord Pierpont realized in 1857, when he wrote the song, how precisely he captured the substance of the scene, the actions and emotions in that single word. I considered possible alternatives. Running through the snow? Sliding? Flying? Gliding? Racing? Sprinting? Crashing? No, those wouldn’t do. Dashing, the first word of the phrase, captures the essence of the entire song.

Dashing expresses exhilaration. Exuberance. It illustrates a youthful, reckless regard for life and limb. And fun. “Oh, what fun it is to ride. . .”

I’ve heard Jingle Bells hundreds of times, the first time over seventy years ago as a child in our living room, my father playing the piano, my mother singing along. But each Christmas season, it is always my old friend's remark that comes to mind each time I hear Barbra sing Jingle Bells. I remember his chuckle, the impish glint in his eye and the upturned corner of his mouth as he says, “I shower with Barbra Streisand every morning.”

Good Intentions

By

C. Neuroticus Absolutus

My desire to complete The Back Nine, my Work In Progress, by the end of fall was well intentioned. But grand designs collapse under the weight of the volumes of To-Do lists my wife - good woman that she is -  dreams up daily. I suspect that someday I'll get even by making her a character in one of my novels. Just kidding. Really!

I certainly am closer to reaching my goal of getting The Back Nine published but not quite yet. I have an edited (many times) total of 91,325 words. I did manage to get it under 90,000 words at one point. However, that was before I found two glaring mistakes that required considerable rewrite. My timeline had been constructed by a complete idiot. (What's the use of being anything at all if you're not at the top of your game, ergo, a complete idiot.)

The second problem I encountered is not so easy to admit. Not if I wish to maintain my wits. To wit: I was a half-wit. There! I've said it! In attempting to construct a plot worthy of an Edgar award, I outwitted myself. Salvaging my draft from the Recycle Bin (one of many such acts), correction of my unwitting stupidity required no less than three rewrites. My wife, love of my life, was witness to my cries of defeat in which, I suspect, she took great pleasure.

I take pleasure in announcing that I am ready to attempt translation of the manuscript to Mobipocket Creator and then to html. Whether these translations are accurate or not, a complete reading of the manuscript is again necessary to identify errors and purge them. I'm sure my bride will be there to hold my head and my hand.

With the holidays upon us, I will be lucky to find time to complete any more of this. Any incompatibility between programs will bring me to my knees, my head extended, tears in  my eyes, awaiting the fall of the editorial axe.

One additional project (besides Christmas and New Years) that remains before year's end is to get up all the multicolored, almost-microscopic glitters that have suddenly appeared on all my clothes, my hair, my dog, the furniture and the carpets throughout the house.

Perhaps the best I can do at this one remaining point in my sanity is to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and the Happiest of New Years!

Oh, and have a White Christmas!

           Snowman

                 By

C. Neuroticus Absolutus

 

Our snowman knocked

Upon our door.

I asked him what

He’d done that for.

“My feet are cold,

I do implore

A lump of coal

And nothing more.”

His great belly,

Round like a keg,

Hid any sign

Of foot or leg.

Was this a ruse,

Played on the old,

To get their goat?

Maybe their gold?

A bit of coal

To warm his toes

Would melt him down.

He’d come unfroze!

“My dear good sir,

I see your pain.

But give me time

And I’ll explain.

“A fire will warm you

Through and through

But melt you down

And that won’t do!

“I’ve come to like

Seeing you outside.

The sight of you

Fills me with pride.

“The old top hat

Upon your head

Was once my Dad’s

And he’s now dead.

“The scarf you wear

My brother wore

Before he left

To die in war.

“The broom you hold,

Scrub pail of brass,

My mother used

Years ’fore she passed.

“I’ve adorned you with

Things near my heart

My kids must learn

’Fore I depart.

“Things like courage,

Grace and charity,

Faith, love, hope,

Generosity.

“But come into my home

By the Yule log’s light.

I can’t let you suffer.

It’s really cold tonight.”

We sat and talked

For hours on end

About good and evil,

The hearts of men.

A happier snowman

I’ve never seen.

His constant smile

Dripped, glistening.

I mopped and wrung

Him out with a tear.

Maybe I’ll see him

Again next year.

Editing

By

C. Neuroticus Absolutus

O pretty words!

My best of words!

I fought with all my might.

  O pretty words!

The best of words!

I swept them out of sight.

O pretty words!

The best of words!

I cried throughout the night.

O pretty words!

My morning words!

I find that I was right.

You Guys Are Gonna Love This

By

C. Neuroticus Absolutus

I cringe each time my wife and I enter a restaurant and the hostess says, “Hi, you guys. How many in your party?” Aaughhhh! Then the server (politically correct for waiter or waitress) says, “How you guys doing?” Forget that missing verb. It’s the you guys that agravates me.

Try as I may, try as I might, I can't remember which grade I was in or the teacher's name, but I do remember what she taught us.

Recall the chart in your English workbook that asked you to fill in the plurals of these five pronouns?

1^st Person Singular:  I  1^st Person Plural: ______

2^nd Per. Sing: You        2nd Person Plural: ____

3^rd Per.Sing: He/she/it  3rd Person Plural: ____

            You could have answered the First Person Plural with: me and her, or him and me, as in, “Me and her go to school.” Or as in, “Him and me study English.” While understandable, those would be wrong. Correct answer? We. “We go to school,” and, “We study English.”

The Second Person Plural is tricky, I admit. Since I spent a large part of my childhood growing up in Florida, I was often confronted by the various attempts of my young southern brethren to solve this puzzle. The most common usage was y'all, a contraction of you and all. The problem is, y'all must certainly express First Person Singular because the plural of y'all is all y'all. I hope I didn't confuse all y'all.

Another contender for Second Person Plural is you guys. Guy and guys have a friendly Southern feeling about them. One day, as a newcomer to 1940s Florida, I recollect trying to ingratiate myself with the boys in my third grade class. I plopped myself down at a table, opened the paper bag lunch I’d toted to school, looked around and said, “You guys sure do like yer grits.” Well, I got my ass kicked during the next recess period. Several times.  And I distinctly remember the phrase, “All y'all damn Yankees need to go back up north where you come from.”

Well, if you're still with me, the correct answer for Second Person Plural is: (ta-dah) You. Singular and plural: Unadorned you.

            A giant leap for mankind is required for this next sojourn into proper pronoun usage. He/she/it are not pluralize as hes/shes/its by simply affixing an S as we do with nouns such as cow/cows, pig/pigs and aardvark/aardvarks. No, the answer is not yourn either, which is the Southern variation for the possessive pronoun your. I remember a quip from the Red Skelton radio days when someone said, “You can call me Pee Pee cause I’m all yourn.” Anyway, the correct answer for Third Person Plural is they.

For this egregious trip into the past, I’ll ignore gender and possessive pronouns and the archaic pronoun forms. It was hard enough getting this far.

As for you guys, I keep threatening to cut my tips to servers if they even breathe the word guy or any variation thereof. You guys can thank my wife for my continuing generosity.