Book Review: Perigee Moon – by Lynn Schneider

When I started doing reviews, I only wanted to get the word out about the quality indie books I found. It was a natural that I would read our fellow Boomers and Books stories, but I did not intend to review every one of them. What a delight then, when I opened a book by the last of our author members I had not read and knew from the first paragraph I would enjoy it.

In Perigee Moon, our hero, Luke, is just the sort of decent, likeable guy who should end up married to a nice girl and they have a nice family and live happily ever after. He should do that, but he doesn’t. Instead a girl who is not very nice gets her hooks into him and won’t let go. She uses her feminine wiles to catch him up in her dream, tricking him into marriage. Her dream becomes his nightmare and he finds himself at middle age wondering how it is he has allowed himself to come so far away from who he is.

Having not led a conventional life with just one job or one career for thirty or so years, I have often admired those who can do that. This book makes me glad of my choices, well chronicling a nice guy plodding along and doing the jobs expected of him, producing three kids and a dog, a job in IT he no longer cares for, and a dead marriage.

Luke begins escaping by taking up astronomy. He buys a telescope, walking late at night, gazing at the moon and stars and somehow finding meaning in them. One night he decides to stay up and watch a Perigee moon. A Perigee full moon appears much bigger than a normal full moon and this is a Supermoon, an irregular phenomenon with occasionally over a decade between occurrences. He asks his wife to join him, knowing she would not but hoping for it anyway.

That night something changes in Luke and he resolves it is time to end the marriage. But as much as the reader is cheering him on and would like to see him take immediate action, indeed sometimes shouts at him to grow a pair already, he determines he will wait until his youngest daughter leaves home. He begins studying the deep philosophical questions and that gets him through the remaining years.

When the break does finally come, Luke goes on for a while in his dead-end job until one day he finally snaps and just packs up and leaves. He falls into a new job which keeps him outside and working with his hands and slowly he begins to pick up the pieces of his life.

Throughout the book, Luke has been thinking back to a girl from school named Abby he once had a crush on; star-crossed lovers who seem always destined to be apart. He finally meets up with her at a school reunion and discovers the spark is still there. But his ex has broken up with her latest fling, and his precious youngest daughter has always harbored thoughts of her parents reuniting. She encourages the ex to reunite with Luke. Luke is conflicted.

You will have to read the book (and I highly recommend you do), to discover if Luke finally ‘grows a pair’, or will he drift back into old habits because he wants to please his daughter and it would be the easy thing to do…

The author has a unique writing style all her own which I rather enjoyed. The first half of the book plods along, paralleling the pace of the first half of Luke’s life, and is written in third person, past tense. The last half flows smoothly into third person, present tense. This artifice worked very well for the story.

This is the second book in a row I read which was written by a woman with a male lead, not an easy feat but well done in both cases. Kudos to the author.

All in all a satisfying coming-of-middle-age Boomer book which would be enjoyed by all ages.

Review: I.O.U. Sex – by Sandra Nachlinger and Sandra Allen

 What fun! Two good friends from school writing a book together about three good friends from school who are all at a crossroads in their lives and cook up a zany idea to look up their old boyfriends.

The title suggests a good ole sex-filled Chick Lit story.

There is alcohol, sex and romance involved. But this book is so much more than that. It is a story about the lives of three aging women. Each of them must face something within themselves that is holding them back from moving forward in some way.

The story is written seamlessly, not an easy feat. Our three main characters are likeable and fully fleshed out, and the secondary characters too are nicely developed. Dialogue is good; I loved all the ‘southern speak’ and the attendant little sayings. These people are real and believable; they are feisty and flawed, reserved and determined, lonely and primed. The guys are white knights in a steadfast, empowering way. The road is bumpy but conflicts are resolved with mutual strength.

The pace is perfect, picking up about half way into the story, with just the right light touch. To add to the fun, two of the friends pull off a caper on an old boyfriend who has turned out less than reputable.

Lately, I have found a few novels that are fun and romantic but not the pieces of fluff we have come to associate with romances. Look out, twenty-somethings, I believe we Boomers have invented an entirely new romance genre. I want more, and I bet you will too…

Sort of a Review

Deciding whether or not to review Poetic Justice by Alicia Rasley was a real dilemma because what I wanted to say was more about me and my reading tastes than it was about the book.  Our reviews on this blog are very personalized and is, I believe, one of their strong points.  But this time I’ve probably managed to cross the line and make it too personal; there’s way too much about me and not enough about the book.  Nevertheless, I’m still going to call it a review, so just think of it as a badly written review of a good book.

When I was younger, I mostly read romances, with my favorite being Regency romances.  This genre goes all the way back to Jane Austen, who wrote about ordinary people dealing with everyday life and relationships in the early 1800s in England.  Although her books became classics, the genre was popularized by Georgette Heyer, who updated the style enough to appeal to a much broader audience.  The main thing these two authors had in common, besides the setting and time period, was neither one wrote what I consider to be “regular romances.”  Although there were “romantic” elements in their stories, there was always so much more to them.  In fact, some of them, especially Georgette Heyer’s books, have so much plot going on that you could remove the romantic relationship entirely and still have a darn good story.

The publishing industry took note of this new popularity and jumped on the Regency bandwagon, unfortunately turning them into more traditional romances, with the main focus of the story being on the romantic relationship.  Plot became almost inconsequential as the stories focused more and more on the attraction between the hero and heroine.  For a while, I didn’t mind this because I was reading romances for the relationship story and for the “happily ever after” ending.

But now that’s not enough.  I want a real story to follow with something actually happening and with the relationship story in a supporting role.  So I hardly ever read romances any more.  But even though I now primarily read nonfiction, I do still fall back on romances when I’m in the mood for light reading because I haven’t found a new fiction genre to replace them.

That finally brings me to Alicia Rasley’s book, the full title being Poetic Justice, a Traditional Regency Romance (Regency Escapades).  It starts out, not in England, but in Greece where the hero (and I use that term loosely since he’s in the process of bilking a nun) is at a convent purchasing a valuable old religious book at a bargain price.  What makes this acquisition an even bigger coup for him is that he just barely beats out his rival from the Vatican, who was also on his way to buy the book.  My immediate reaction, after only a few pages, was this was definitely not a “traditional Regency romance” as the title claims.  But upon reflection, I have to modify that opinion.  It’s not like the Regency romances that I have become accustomed to reading.  This book is far more similar to the stories that Georgette Heyer wrote.  It has a plot.

My quibble is with calling it a romance.  If that’s what you’re looking for, you’re liable to be disappointed.  The flaws of both the hero and heroine in Poetic Justice go beyond the usual superficial pseudo-flaws, such as “steely eyes” or the ever popular “mouth that’s a little too wide for classical beauty.”  Their flaws are deeply rooted in their motivations and behavior.  And their strongest passions are reserved for books, of all things, not for each other.  Sure, the story has a typical romance ending, but it’s one that makes sense.  It’s completely believable that these two odd ducks, who don’t really fit in with the world they live in and who share a similar passion for old books, really will live happily ever after—in their own odd duck way. 

Another aspect of Poetic Justice that sets it apart is the way Alicia Rasley used historical events and details in it.  The complicated plot made it necessary for there to be a lot of information about old books, antiques, art, and the time period.  I have a bad habit of skimming over those kinds of details and descriptions, retaining only enough to follow the plot.  So it wasn’t until about halfway through this book when I became aware of how well she was using details to create a real feel for the time and place.

It happened when the hero and heroine were sneaking through the backstreets and alleys of London in the middle of the night.  The hero stops because there is a very dead, decaying dog in their path.  Instead of jumping over it as he probably would have done if he had been alone, he uses a stick to push it out of the way so that the heroine can pass by without brushing it, since it might be diseased.  (If that isn’t true gallantry, I don’t what is.)  The incident was so unexpected and vivid, it temporarily shook me out of the story and awakened the writer in me.  I was suddenly aware that the details had been so well done that even with my tendency to skim I had still been skulking right along with the two of them, seeing, hearing, and smelling everything they encountered.

After that, I was more conscious of just how well historical information and details were slipped into the story to support the plot and to give the reader a real sense of place.  Well, maybe not that conscious of it because I quickly got back into the story, but it was there in the back of my mind.  And I was so impressed by it that after I finished the book, I emailed Alicia and asked her if she would write a guest post for us about writing historical fiction.  I’m very happy to report that she agreed to do it.  So look for her post on Wednesday, June 27.

P.S.  I also recommend Gwen’s Ghost, a paranormal Regency, by Alicia Rasley and Lynn Kerstan, which not only has an interesting plot to follow but also does a great job of portraying character evolution in the hero.  He gradually changes during the course of the story in a very logical and convincing way.