Blogcritics Author: Vicki McCollum

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Interview with Suspense Author Robert Liparulo

Vicki McCollum — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 02:35:12 EDT

Robert Liparulo is an author you should know. His first two suspense thrillers Comes a Horseman and Germ, released in 2005 and 2006 respectively, have both been optioned for film. Deadfall, Liparulo’s third novel, is slated for a November release, and although book four is unfinished, he has already sold the film rights to Phoenix Pictures. I am pleased that he agreed to talk with me about his writing.Vicki: Your novels are dramatic and visual - they read like a screenplay; so it’s no surprise that both have been optioned for film. Are you pleased with how production is going, and are you involved with either screenplay? Liparulo: Mace Neufeld, who has produced all of Tom Clancy's movies, and General's Daughter, and a whole slew of successful films, is producing Comes a Horseman. They’re still trying to get a good script. They’ve rejected two scripts by two prominent scriptwriters, is my understanding. So, they're not at the casting stage yet. I have no idea who they have in mind. I did get a chance to talk with Mace about the script. I suggested another twist at the end, one that’s not in the book, and he seemed to really like it. Aside from that, I don’t have any input. I get to go to the premiers….I’m just biding my time and watching. Hollywood sometimes moves ten miles a minute, sometimes at a snail’s pace. Often, a lot of behind-the-scenes activity goes on, but it’s stuff that can’t be talked about publicly until contracts are signed and announcements made.Red Eagle Entertainment, a relatively new but well positioned production company, is making Germ. Right now, they have Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time in production. They're putting something like $100 million into it - nothing to sneeze at. They said they want to put Germ on the same track. I’m writing the screenplay, so I do have more input this time.But in Hollywood, scripts get polished and re-written all the time; I’m not expecting the movie to be exactly what I write. When the offers started coming in, I asked Morrell and a few other authors who had sold to Hollywood what I should do. Their advice was to take the money and run. They said it only hurts to try to influence how your stories will be interpreted on the screen. You gotta let it go. Except for the Germ screenplay, I've been able to do that. I'm comfortable that I've done my job and the movies will be what they will be. At the last meeting I had with them, which was just a few weeks ago, we talked about who in the film community has expressed interest, mostly which directors. I can’t say anything now, but if it goes the way it seems to be going, it’ll end up being pretty big, in terms of talent and its “presence” in theaters.Talk about your next book. What is its premise?For the next book, Deadfall, I intentionally veered away from the conspiratorial globetrotting chases that made up so much of Germ and Comes a Horseman. It’s more of an action/adventure/survival story, a la First Blood (Rambo) and Deliverance. It’s still a suspenseful thriller, as the first two are, but instead of the intrigue coming from a lot of twists and turns in the plot, it comes from the question, 'How in the world are these guys going to survive—or will they?' Several producers are looking at it now. I’m optimistic about its chances of getting sold and made. It’s actually more movie-like than my previous books.Do you have a title for book four? Who bought its film rights? It’s a political thriller. (Slated for release July 2008.) Mike Medavoy at Phoenix Pictures bought the rights. I just spoke to a big-name director the other day who wants to direct it. If he gets on board, it’ll elevate the project to a new level. I’m pretty excited by the early interest it’s generating.What comes next? Any titles or premises that you can talk about that are in the works - on the back burner?I’m working on the political thriller right now. The novel after that will be one of two I’ve got simmering in the back of my mind: a big high-concept story more akin to Horseman and Germ; or the first in a sniper trilogy I’ve been planning for a while. The sniper story is more intimate, but I truly like it a lot. The main character was introduced in Kill Zone, the short story that appeared in James Patterson’s anthology called Thriller.As a journalist, you’ve published in a wide range of interest-specific magazines. Where did all the ideas for articles come from? I majored in creative writing at Weber State University. I never wanted to be or imagined myself as a journalist. But when I got married shortly out of college, I followed the money; at the time, that meant freelancing magazine articles and newspaper stories…. I’m curious about everything, as writers should be…. Over time, the things that really interested me started to become apparent: military and police operations, travel… relationships, not just romantic relationships, but father/child, siblings, friends… Novel writing is where my heart is. It’s what I was designed to do, so when I could focus solely on writing novels, I let all of the magazine writing go.How has your journalism experience contributed to the novels?As an investigative reporter, I learned how to research well, and I got over the fear of picking up the phone and calling someone in authority when I needed some information. These skills helped when I started researching Comes a Horseman. I wanted to be as factual as possible, to give the fictional side of the story a strong foundation in fact.As a magazine writer, I learned to be economical with words, to write tightly and make sure few words said a lot. So, everything I needed to be a good journalist translated very well into fiction.How did you make the transition to creative writing?Like most freelancers, I had written just about everything: articles, brochures, film scripts - and a series of short radio shows for kids. A friend of mine let me know that Tommy Nelson was looking for writers for a series of kids’ novels. I contacted the editor and sent her some samples. Nelson ended up not doing the series. A while later the editor called up and said she’d liked my samples, and had I ever considered novels for adults? I had just spent the past six months working on a spec manuscript -- about a third of what became Comes a Horseman -- sent her that. Nelson (WestBow) bought it and here we are.Your novels are plot-driven thrillers, yet you pay a lot of attention to character development. Your female characters are intelligent and capable. In Horseman and Germ, women are lead characters, federal field agents, not “desk-jockeys” in an office somewhere. Why do you create women characters that are strong and admirable?Well, aside from believing that women are very capable, I don’t know. I think it has less to do with creating admirable female characters than with creating admirable human characters. I want my protagonists to reflect the qualities of God, even if they don’t realize those characteristics come from Him. I’m not into the anti-hero stories where the very person we as readers are supposed to admire is pretty much a scumbag. I’m not saying that admirable people don’t have flaws — my protagonists have plenty — I just think that at their core, under the flaws, they’re decent people with hero-like traits.Your women characters, like Julia in Germ, don’t have any qualms about killing bad guys. But in both novels, a lead male character struggles with doing just that. Why this difference in their abilities to stop blatantly evil men?Maybe just because in the majority of fiction male protagonists seem to either have all the fun or do all the dirty work. Plus, women in fiction often come off as being nurturing at the expense of being decisive. But in my experience, women are extremely decisive. Being able to make that choice to kill is something I think they can do, maybe even better than men can because of that decisiveness.Your characters aren’t simmered in erotica nor their dialogue peppered with offensive language. Has omitting these elements from your writing affected its appeal to a wider audience? I haven’t had anyone comment on that. Many very good writers use offensive language only sparingly - Lee Child, David Morrell, Thomas Perry. And because the suspense/thriller genre is fast-paced, in which the characters are under life-and-death pressure to accomplish some great feat within a set time, there’s often not much chance for them to have romantic flings. When they do, it seems forced and unreal, at least for me. Stephen King didn’t write a sex scene until Gerald’s Game, which was a decade into his career, and it was to show critics that he could pull it off. So there’s not a great difference between what I’m leaving out and what’s left out of most suspense/thriller fiction anyway. Of course there are exceptions - Chuck Palahniuk and Leonard Elmore come to mind. But most readers realize that’s their style, not the epitome of what this genre should be.In the prologue of Comes A Horseman you describe the antagonist Luco Scaramuzzi’s weapon as 'a China Type 64 with its subsonic 7.65mm bullets'; and Luco is trained in the finer points of assassination, like in his need for “a moist washcloth in a Ziploc baggie because perspiration in your eyes is a disadvantage you can avoid.” How do you research details like these? My experience in journalism taught me to research well and deeply. It’s often what you find just beyond where others would have stopped that turns out to be the gem that gets readers excited about your stories. I read voraciously. I subscribe to about two dozen magazines. I clip interesting articles. I go to specialty bookstores and publishers, like Paladin Press, which carries reprints of federal agent handbooks and things like that. I call experts to chat about what my characters are up to and what they need to fulfill the objective of the scene. In the case of the China Type 64, for example, I found it mentioned in a book about spies. I called my friend, Larry Hama. He’s a writer for Wolverine, X-Men and G.I. Joe comics, and he’s encyclopedic about firearms. He helped me through the details.Luco Scaramuzzi is a dark character - he’s either a well-positioned thug or the Anti-Christ. In what way does your perception of the Anti-Christ color Luco’s character? There is no shortage of literature on what people think the Antichrist will look like and be like. For example, handsome and charismatic, because he charms so many people. After a while, I got the picture of George Clooney. Now that’s one charismatic guy. Then I started thinking, what if George Clooney wasn’t a celebrity, but a hustler, someone who used his charisma to swindle and rob and cheat. That’s Luco.Can you offer advice to new Christian writers about how to widen their appeal to secular, as well as religious readers? That’s a tough question for me because I never adjusted my writing for the purpose of appealing to one market segment or another. I honestly write what I would write regardless of readers, publishers and markets. I trust that I’m right where God wants me to be. I write what I want to read, and I think that’s key. I’ve read general market suspense fiction since I was a kid. As an adult, I’m offended by graphic sex scenes and heroes who are very un-heroic. I wanted all the suspense and action and technical stuff, but without those offensive elements. That’s what I wrote, and it’s what I would write if I were writing for Random House. There’s a place for the kind of fiction that I’d call more traditionally Christian. I don’t think people ought to change what’s in their hearts to write, regardless of how much that may limit their appeal. Write what God wants you to write. Then you’ll be in your sweet spot and write so well your stories will transcend markets. You interact with your readers through your website. Is an internet presence a necessity for novelists? I believe it’s absolutely necessary to have an internet presence. Today’s readers are sophisticated. They want more information about a writer and his work than you can fit on a postcard or in an ad. If you can direct them to a website that has reams of information, you’ve kept the marketing piece simple and attractive, and you are still able to satisfy our society’s insatiable desire to know more. Even if the website is graphically simple, get one. It doesn’t have to break your bank. My first website was designed and hosted by the Author’s Guide — I was a member — for something like fifty bucks.You can read more at robertliparulo.com.

Contributor to Blogcritics Magazine, Infuzemag.com, MidWest Book Review, Christian Library Journal, and my blog.

Book Round Up: Another Great Stack

Vicki McCollum — Thu, 5 Apr 2007 10:21:00 EDT

Non-Fiction Parenting and Self-Help The Mom I Want to Be: Rising Above Your Past To Give Your Kids a Great Future by T. Suzanne Eller. Eller and mom share their mother/daughter story. It is a story of abuse and neglect, mental illness and healing, and courageous love and forgiveness. In Eller’s words, “I hope that this book will help all of us to scrape away ‘churchianity’ to discover answers to questions [like] ‘Do I know how to trust God when life is unfair?’” Harvest House, 2006.The Latest in Inspirational FictionLiterary Fiction The Spirit of Sweetgrass by Nicole Seitz. Reminiscent of Eudora Welty’s voice and characterization in The Worn Path, and Why I live at the P.O., Seitz’s first novel, The Spirit of Sweetgrass, is delightful. Thomas Nelson, 2007. Historical Fiction Lightning and Lace by DiAnn Mills. This is a thriller/romance novel set in the late 1890s. Lace concludes Mills Texas Legacy series. A young pastor fresh from losing his last parish over a scandal relocates to a small Texas town to replace the retiring pastor. His introduction begins with breaking up a fistfight between two grade-school boys, one of whom is the troubled grandson of the retiring pastor and the manipulative son of a young widow. Barbour, 2007. The Scarlet Trefoil by L. A. Kelly. Best known to her historical fiction fans as Leisha Kelly, Trefoil concludes the Tahn Dorn series in a beautifully written love story set in the middle ages. Revell, 2007. Contemporary Fiction Wishing On Dandelions by Mary E. DeMuth. This is a beautifully written novel about the taboo subject of childhood sexual abuse. DeMuth draws on her own experience of childhood abuse to demonstrate the victim’s internalized sense of shame and need for penance, and that if it is not dealt with in love and by God’s grace, it can lead to a life of endless, self-inflicted abuse. Wishing on Dandelions follows Watching the Tree Limbs, the novel that introduces nine-year-old Mara, who is afraid to tell about “the biggest criminal of all.” In Dandelions, Mara is now 17-years-old and has changed her name to Maranatha to leave behind bitter childhood memories. Navpress, 2006.Sunrise by Karen Kingsbury. This is the first novel in her new Sunrise Series. It is a story of secrecy, alcoholism, and new beginnings and takes place in a present day, exotic beach setting. Kingsbury is a New York Times bestselling author of Inspirational Fiction. Summer Sunrise, the second novel in this series, will be released July 2007. Tyndale House, 2007.Remember to Forget by Deborah Raney. This is based on the question “What if you could leave the past behind and begin your life all over again?” Maggie Anderson’s car has been hijacked with her in it. She is left alive and unharmed. She takes the opportunity to leave behind her unhappy life in an abusive relationship to begin again. Howard, 2007.Balancing Act by Kimberly Stuart. High school teacher and new mom, Heidi Elliott finds that despite the capable women pictured in National Geographic articles touting that “women had done it (pregnancy, childbirth and life management) for centuries, the whole experience nearly killed” her. Now, juggling the demands of work and caring for a baby along with her suspicions that her husband is spending too much time with an attractive, wealthy client, Heidi discovers how to handle life with love and laughter. Navpress, 2006.A Sister’s Secret by Wanda E. Brunstetter. A prodigal daughter returns to her Amish community in this beautiful story of love, forgiveness, and forgetfulness. Brunstetter has been told her romance novels are passed “from buggy to buggy” in the Amish community. My mother-in-law and her friends also enjoy passing Brunstetter’s novels to each other. Barbour, 2007. Orchard of Hope by Ann H. Gabhart. The sequel to The Scent of Lilacs, Gabhart’s newest novel traces the tangled lines of friendship and racism, and love and forgiveness in small town Kentucky in the 1960s. Fleming H. Revell, 2007.Mystery/Romance Death, Deceit, and Some Smooth Jazz:An Amanda Bell Brown Mystery by Claudia Mair Burney, 2007. Amanda Bell Brown’s biological clock is winding down. She has broken up with Rocky, her pastor. “Don’t judge me for that,” says Bell, “I’ve got plenty of real issues for you to choose from.” She meets a new man, but unfortunately he may have murdered his ex-wife. Burney’s brand of mystery/romance is sheer reading enjoyment. Navpress, 2007. Thrillers Scimitar’s Edge by Marvin Olasky. A riveting plot combines international intrigue with the “realities of sex, violence, and religious challenge in today’s world.” B&H, 2006. The Heir by Paul Robertson. Jason Boyer just inherited his father’s crooked money and corrupt political power. Boyer simply wants to be a ‘better man” than his father, but it may cost him his life. Baker, 2007. Germ by Robert Liparulo. Liparulo is also the author of my favorite thriller, Comes A Horseman. Germ is a fast-paced, plot driven novel about a German scientist turned terrorist who is out for revenge through his unique ability to wage germ warfare. Liparulo’s plots are well developed and his characters are believable and likeable. Movies for both novels are in the works. Liparulo is currently writing his third thriller. West-Bow, 2006.

Contributor to Blogcritics Magazine, Infuzemag.com, MidWest Book Review, Christian Library Journal, and my blog.

Book Review: The Watchers by Mark Andrew Olsen

Vicki McCollum — Thu, 8 Mar 2007 18:14:14 EST

Suspense novelist Mark Andrew Olsen's latest book, The Watchers, is an excellent read. A spiritual-thriller-suspense novel, his blunt-force writing grabs your attention. In the opening scene, the narrator’s detached, emotionless voice describes a murder scene that manages to grow in its brutality through his matter-of-fact description:Pacific Palisades, California—MidnightThe blue flickers of her television danced across the housekeeper’s unmoving pupils. She neither budged a muscle, nor leveled the odd tilt of her head, nor wiped the crimson trickles crisscrossing her neck, nor rose from the stain darkening the sofa cushions beneath her. Nor did she notice that, twenty feet away, a man gripping the weapon of her murder had now reached the bedroom door of her pequena angelica. Her angelic one….. No, deep in the final tremors of her death, the housekeeper did not hear her assailant turn the bedroom’s door handle or see him enter the room. Nor did she scream when he took two padded strides into shadow.Olsen uses this detached voice to describe all the murders executed by the Order of the Scythe, “fulfilling one of earth’s most necessary and neglected functions - the recycling of an inferior being, culling the herd.”The hit-men are ex-Delta Force and ex-CIA/NSA black ops men who receive orders targeting bad guys like “African warlords and Balkan drug traffickers.” They cull the world of infamous mass murderers like Serbian general, Radovan Mladov, “imprisoned in the Netherlands World Court Detention Facility — and reminiscent of Slobodan Milosevic, who was indicted by the UN and extradited to the The Hague where he died of a heart attack.Mladov’s murderer, Dylan Hatfield, started out killing mule deer as a child on his grandmother’s Montana farm. At age 18, the army assigned him to Special Forces’ “solo sanctions” in Afghanistan, Columbia, and Somalia as a “human trigger already pulled.” Now, he trusts in decades-old relationships, receiving orders far from the fringes of national security, and from men whose identities he barely knows. At least his targets are indisputably scumbags - or so he reasons with himself.Until now, that is. Dylan’s new target is Abby Sherman, “a beautiful young girl who’s dying of a rare infection.” Abby, who survives the assassination attempt that kills her caretaker housekeeper, describes herself on her blog as “just your basic, young, messed-up California beach girl.” However, she says she is about to post “some pretty bizarre stuff,” and “Maybe if you’re a true mystic, you can IM me, tell me what’s going on.” Abby discovers that the “bizarre stuff” is something she has in common with her mother, a woman who disappeared when Abby was eight. Gladys, a nurse at the hospital treating Abby, tells her she’s “got the Sight;” and that in Gladys’ family, stories about women “with the Sight” go back to slavery days; but she has “never heard of it coming to a white person before.”Olsen’s writing is intense. His plots are multi-layered, his characters believable — even his other world-angels and demons, which (thankfully) aren’t among the novel’s main characters. The real demons in this book are men — but men who’ve sold themselves to Satan. Olsen is among the best of the spiritual-thriller-suspense writers. The genre has come a long way from the days of “spiritual warfare’ presented in Frank Peretti’s first novel, This Present Darkness. I recommend The Watchers.Olsen has written three other novels The Hadassah Covenant, with Tommy Tenney, Rescued, and The Assignment, published by Bethany House. His novel The Hadassah Covenant became the film One Night with the King, (PG) featuring Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif, produced by 20th Century Fox. Its Amazon sales ranks is 56th in DVD sales. You can view the video trailer.

Contributor to Blogcritics Magazine, Infuzemag.com, MidWest Book Review, Christian Library Journal, and my blog.

Book Review: The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish by Elise Blackwell

Vicki McCollum — Mon, 5 Mar 2007 19:05:52 EST

While Hurricane Katrina’s baleful eye bores down on the Gulf Coast and newscasters call for mass evacuation, predicting inundation of New Orleans, time pauses for Louis Proby. Perceiving the irony of fate, Louis remembers another calamity: the 1927 flood when “men with money and the power to change things” persuaded Louisiana’s governor to order the levee protecting his home town, Cypress Parish, dynamited to save New Orleans.The weather reports fade to the background as Louis opens a binder containing his research of Cypress Parish’s natural history. He recalls his youthful innocence and idealism, and their loss before his 17th birthday — all part of life before the flood. But, mostly Louis remembers loving Nanette Lancon.Blackwell’s literary novel, The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish, is based on fact. She credits John M. Barry’s Rising Tide, and her grandfather’s unpublished memoirs as history sources for her narrative that examines the poor and powerless of Cypress Parish pitted against the rich and powerful of New Orleans at the approach of impending disaster. “If you want to understand how something works… threaten that society… and its true nature will reveal itself,” writes Barry. That hypothesis is the core of Blackwell’s Cypress Parish. Louis Proby narrates a dismal reality of people living in dirt poverty compounded by instinctive shame in "where they came from.” He tells of “men whose names mattered before the flood” inviting him to their world of money and power; a world of uneducated men wise in wisdom gained from experience; and a world of racism and hard-won friendship. He tells of his family and the parish people whose lives were changed forever — disrupted by the flood.Blackwell’s literary gift lies in her ability to create a sense of place that comes from growing up “south of south” in Louisiana. Louis explains, “Who I am remains intimately gnarled with where I came from.” He sees himself and the land as one, “marked by the conditions where the tree was grown.” Elise Blackwell’s writing is steeped in the same rich soil.The cypress tree symbolizes the parish and Blackwell’s themes of loss, destruction and life disrupted by man’s short-sighted intervention. Louis says: "The most important thing I had written, I understood, was that the bald cypress could live three-thousand years. It takes more than a century for a cypress tree to mature enough to produce good lumber; today cypress is mostly harvested young and sold as mulch."Blackwell’s characters are hauntingly memorable. They change the way trees change that have endured the onslaught of decades of harsh weather — change that scars more than grows; but, perhaps on a deeper level survival is growth. Louis is like the Cypress tree, he survives. Now on the eve of Hurricane Katrina at age 95, he remembers his unfinished life in Cypress Parish, and he regrets that he didn’t say good-bye to Nanette.Aside from the sheer enjoyment of reading Blackwell’s writing, I grew in my understanding of humanity through Cypress Parish. I recommend it highly.You can read original reporting of the 1927 Flood at Time Archives and experience original voices and graphics of the flood at PBS Fatal Flood of 1927. You can also listen to Unbridled Aloud Podcasts.On writing "The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish," Blackwell said:My fictional Cypress Parish is a combination of St. Bernard Parish (where the 1927 levee breech occured), Livingston Parish (where my grandfather grew up) and Vermillion Parish (where my grandfather wooed my grandmother away from a house of pretty French sisters). When I was a kid, my grandfather saw that I liked to write and offered to pay me a dollar a story. When I became too prolific for his wallet, he told me to keep writing but not for money. Late in his life, he picked up a pen of his own and started chronicling his years growing up in rural Louisiana as well as his later experiences in war, study, and life. He did this not with an eye toward publication but so that his grandchildren would know him better, would know more family history. He gave us the new chapters every Christmas, the white copy-shop boxes sitting under the tree with our other presents. He wrote these memoirs on a cypress desk and under a lumber company map of the parish where he grew up. It would take me a long time to get around to this material, but the image stayed with me. I knew from the start that desk and map would sneak into the novel.Blackwell's debut novel is Hunger. She is on the English faculty at The University of South Carolina.

Contributor to Blogcritics Magazine, Infuzemag.com, MidWest Book Review, Christian Library Journal, and my blog.

Book Review Round-Up: From Unnatural History to Sacred Causes

Vicki McCollum — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 13:11:28 EST

The stack of great books on my nightstand... The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish is an excellent literary novel written by Elise Blackwell, creative writing teacher at the University of South Carolina. She writes beautifully, despite her subject: the 1926 flooding of neighboring parishes to save New Orleans. Naturally, you can't forget the recent Gulf disaster while reading the novel. A major theme throughout the novel: History repeats itself, if we refuse to learn from it. Wedgewood Grey: The Black or White Chronicles, Book Two, Exciting new Christian thriller by John Aubrey Anderson. One bleak night, in the middle of a wet April in a 1960s Mississippi community, evil is aroused. In the dark stillness of midnight, an innocent black woman is attacked by a mob of white men. Mose confronts the men from behind his twelve-gauge shotgun, and people die. You'll be swept in by Anderson's rich and descriptive style.Secrets From Lulu's Cafe: Desperate Pastors' Wives by Ginger Kolbaba and Christy Scannell. The title is a little off-putting, but this book has more depth than its cover betrays. It's a very honest portrayal of the difficulties pastors' wives have dealing with the problems of life: except, that the rest of us, the non-pastors' wives, expect -- no, we demand! -- that they be perfect. No mistakes allowed, and "she'd better speak to me first!"The Watchers by Mark Anderson Olsen, bestselling author of The Assignment. This is an excellent spiritual thriller. It has the high-stakes suspense similar to the Left Behind series, but the writing is excellent. I love the opening passage that describes a murder scene through the unusual perspective of a freshly (but bloodied) murdered woman! The blue flickers of her television danced across the housekeeper's unmoving pupils. She never budged a muscle, nor leveled the odd tilt of her head, nor wiped the crimson trickles crisscrossing her neck, nor rose from the stain darkening the sofa cushions beneath her. Nor did she notice that, twenty feet away, a man gripping the weapon of her murder had now reached the bedroom door of her angelic one... No, deep in the final tremors of her death, the housekeeper did not hear her assailant turn the bedroom's door handle or seem him enter the room. Nor did she scream when he took two padded strides into shadow.It gets much more intense after that. I can't wait to get back to it.Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics, From the Great War to the War on Terror by Michael Burleigh: An excellent social history detailing how religion can be usurped and camouflaged by politics. A tantalizing thought: The 1960s era brought to the forefront "forces that seemed to be turning Europe into a post-Christian desert, in which 'wisdom' would be represented by the lyrics of John Lennon."

Contributor to Blogcritics Magazine, Infuzemag.com, MidWest Book Review, Christian Library Journal, and my blog.

Book Review: Give Me Liberty by L. M. Elliott

Vicki McCollum — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 04:21:55 EST

Nathaniel Dunn, an 11-year-old boy, arrives in America to find a New World filled with hardship and loss. His mother dies of ship fever, and his father abandons him, selling himself and Nathaniel into indentured service to pay their passage. On a Virginia plantation where he serves, Nathaniel gains a friend - Moses, an African slave. Moses looks after Nathaniel, and Nathaniel teaches Moses the alphabet. The plantation master declares bankruptcy and sells everything, separating Nathaniel and Moses.A blacksmith buys Nathaniel’s contract at auction, then loses his temper and beats Nathaniel. Basil Wilkinson, a school teacher, takes pity on Nathaniel, and sells valuable books to scrape together enough money to outbid the blacksmith for Nathaniel’s contract. In return, Nathaniel offers Basil his grandfather’s German flute, but Basil teaches him to play it. Nathaniel goes to Williamsburg to live with Basil. He begins an apprenticeship to a Williamsburg carriage house where he meets Ben, a young idealist. Conflict develops quickly and the reader roots for Nathaniel and his friends as the carriage shop becomes caught up in opposing Loyalist and Patriot sympathies. An historical novel written for grades four through middle school, Give Me Liberty is an excellent supplement to social studies curriculum, adding rich detail of daily life in Colonial America. Elliott captures the struggle of the era through her portrayal of common people living out their lives in a period of social upheaval.Elliott's characters display a strong sense of loyalty mixed with desire for self-determination. Nathaniel questions whether the revolution fueled by Patrick Henry’s words, “Give me liberty or give me death,” will apply to slaves like Moses: “If Moses is fighting for the British to secure his liberty, something wasn’t right with the patriot cause.” Her style is fun to read and filled with delightful descriptions such as this of Basil: “He was an angular, older man, all elbows and knees it seemed, like a grasshopper…., and his eyebrows were hairy and a bit wild, sticking almost straight up.” Readers who’ve had the pleasure to know Latin teachers can easily imagine Basil’s mixture of humility and wit. As an added bonus, Elliott includes period English lyrics “borrowed” by the Colonist’s and reworded as Patriot songs. In a touch of irony, Ben, a zealot — but a poor student — is wounded before he’s called to fight. Through Basil, he learns the value of words to support the cause, while Nathaniel — a good student — decides to fight alongside Basil as Patriots. Ben says to Nathaniel: "You’re stronger than you think, Nat; I’ve learned that steady men make better leaders.” Give Me Liberty raises important issues for classroom and home school discussions. Neighbors, good and honest people, find themselves on opposing sides of the Revolutionary War; and many question the morality of slavery’s continued existence in colonies fighting for liberty. Guided by Basil, Nathaniel and Ben grow in wisdom and character, each adopting for himself Thomas Jefferson’s vision of the inherent “nobility of common man.” L. M. Elliott has also written two Young Adult historical novels, Annie, Between the States, and Under a War-Torn Sky.

Contributor to Blogcritics Magazine, Infuzemag.com, MidWest Book Review, Christian Library Journal, and my blog.

Book Review: The Freedom of the Soul by Tracey Bateman

Vicki McCollum — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 02:40:24 EST

The Freedom of the Soul is Tracey Bateman’s second book in the Penbrook Diaries. It follows The Color of the Soul, which introduces the series’ characters. Color tells the story of a black newspaper reporter, Andy Carmichael, and his struggle to lead a life of hope and dignity, while safeguarding his young family from the inhumanities foisted on black families living in pre-Civil Rights Georgia. In The Freedom of the Soul, Bateman probes the dynamics of human relationships between black and white Georgia, during the height of Jim Crow excesses. Carmichael returns to Oak Junction to cover the trial of a powerful state senator’s son, Sam Dane, Jr. Dane is accused of ordering the Klan-murder of an interracial couple; the young woman was Carmichael’s niece. Underscoring these incendiary events, all characters are acutely mindful of the familial ties between the Carmichaels and Danes: Sen. Dane is Andy Carmichael’s biological father. One hundred years after freedom, black and white descendents of Penbrook plantation have inherited the consequences of their ancestors’ selfish passions — as well as their sacrificial love — woven between the barriers of slavery, fear, and racial hatred. Meanwhile, out in Oregon, Shea Penbrook attends her grandfather’s funeral. Alone, she returns to the dilapidated farm house she’d shared with him - her last living relative. While rummaging through boxes in the attic, Shea discovers her family’s secret, buried for more than a 100 years in the pages of diaries written at Penbrook plantation by her great-great-grandfather. She decides to return to Georgia in search of love, family, and acceptance. Tracey Bateman is more than an historical romance novelist. She tackles honestly the uncomfortable issue of race relations of the recent past, relations that in some communities may not be the past at all. Bateman writes about the harsh judgment experienced by those who dared to cross society's racial taboos, judgment meted out by those who categorize human hearts along racial lines.Bateman weaves her story seamlessly, as characters in the 1840s live out their lives on the pages of Freedom, alongside but never intruding, as the 1940s characters describe the awful price exacted on innocent lives for the sins of selfish, hate-filled men and women. On a lighter note, Bateman hooked me with her "Dear Readers" introduction letter to Freedom, where she tells of an ancestor who ran away to Mexico to marry a young slave woman who'd nursed him back to health. Readers, like me, who enjoy historical romance novels written from a Christian perspective will love the Penbrook Diaries. I highly recommend both novels.

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