SpeakEasy

       

Review of SpeakEasy by Lissa Staley

Overview from www.barnesandnoble.com: It’s a chick-lit mystery with some history, written collaboratively by over 20 local authors as part of the community novel project of the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library. In modern-day Kansas, Ronni Long interviews 108 year old Julia, who doubts all the adventures of her long life should be revisited. As the mystery unfolds, Julia’s secrets and Ronni’s lies put both women in danger.

My Review:

This story is easily a first for me both as a reviewer and a reader. The story has multiple authors. A separate author for each chapter in fact. And when I read that (about the different authors) along with the premise of the story, I knew I just had to try this one out.

The premise I alluded to earlier center’s around the lives of two of our main characters: Ronni and Julia. Ronni is a graduate anthropology student writing her dissertation about the Prohibition Era in Topeka when she finds out about Julia Stanford.

Julia is 106 years old, I think (I don’t remember the exact age right now but it is a few years over a hundred), and has worked in a well-known speakeasy of the time called Mike’s Mirage. At the start of our story she quietly resides in a local nursing home where Ronni hopes to interview her for her project.

Of course there are several things that conspire to keep that from happening, the first of which is car trouble. But Ronni quickly finds a ride only to encounter more problems. As we are drawn into the story we find out that no one is what they seem. Nearly everyone has something to hide. We go along for the ride to find out what and why.

The positives on this one are first and foremost the premise and the story. Who doesn’t love a good mystery combined with historical fiction?

The characters are great too. Well most of them anyway. The secrets we later find out about the guys in Pete’s band and Charles as well as Pete’s grandfather seems to stretch credibility. I can understand the main characters having secret lives but in this story practically everyone has a secret and that was a little hard for me to swallow.

Also, narrative voice does seem to suffer a bit from having multiple authors. And some of the continuity isn’t there. In one of the first chapters we see that despite having spent time in the auto shop, Ronni’s car still doesn’t work quite right but then in the next chapter she is seen driving it back to Julia’a with no problems or explanations. It just doesn’t make sense.

Some of the characters even seem to speak differently from one chapter to the next. I realize that they all have something that they are trying to hide so they might act differently from one scene to the next but somehow it just didn’t fit together the way it should.

On the plus side, it was valuable lesson for me that the proverbial “they” are right when they say you can usually distinguish one author’s voice from another, even when they are trying to imitate someone else. I noticed a difference in tone from one author to another in most cases even if they didn’t all stand out like a sore thumb.

Still, I am recommending this book as a good read. It is interesting and worth the time.

A White Wind Blew

 

 

Review of A White Wind Blew by James Markert

Overview from www.bn.com:

When the body fails, you've got two choices.
Send a doctor in, or send a prayer up.
And if neither works?

You'll find Dr. Wolfgang Pike at his piano.

Music has always been Wolfgang's refuge. It's betraying him now, as he struggles to compose a requiem for his late wife, but surely the right ending will come to him. Certainly it'll come more quickly than a cure for his patients up at Waverly Hills, the tuberculosis hospital, where nearly a body an hour leaves in a coffin. Wolfgang can't seem to save anyone these days, least of all himself.

Sometimes we just need to know we're not the only ones in the fight. A former concert pianist checks in, triggering something deep inside Wolfgang, and spreading from patient to patient. Soon Wolfgang finds himself in the center of an orchestra that won't give up, with music that won't stop. A White Wind Blew delivers a sweeping crescendo of hope in a time of despair, raising compelling questions about faith and confession, music and medicine,and the undying force of love.

My Review:

This is a sad but beautiful story. Mostly sad though. Our main character, Wolfgang Pike, is both doctor and future priest but that was years ago. He has yet to finish his seminary training and is only about half-way through. His training was interrupted by a marriage that ended in the tragic death of his wife. When she died, Wolfgang vows to resume his studies, thinking that he can never love again.

In the meantime he becomes a doctor and gets a job at Waverly Hills, a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients. It is the 1920's  and the preferred treatment seems to consist most of sun therapy, that is the patient is basically told to sunbathe in hopes that it will reduce the effects of the disease.

A few patients do seem to get better and they eventually make "the Walk" that shows that they are strong enough to leave the place. Those patients still have an uphill battle when they go out in the world among the healthy. But some of them come back to help others.

Wolfgang tells himself and the priests at the seminary that he is only staying at Waverly because he is needed there. TB has made a resurgence in the area and he wants to help but three years go by. Three years and he is showing no signs of leaving. And he seems to be falling in love again though he doesn't want to admit it to anyone, let alone himself.

And there is the music. Wolfgang loves it, was raised on it. He will play to any patient at the hospital that asks it of him. And it seems to be working. Many of them are getting better.

When he finds some musicians and singers among the patients, he decides to start an "orchestra." I put that in quotation marks because he only has three real instruments playing in this "orchestra."
Some don't like Wolfgang's orchestra but in particular they don't like the fact that he has invited some patients from the "colored" sanatorium down the hill to join with the whites. Some amateur clansmen will do anything to stop him, even killing those involved if necessary. They also don't like the fact that Wolfgang is Catholic.

And now for the negatives. There are a few sexual scenes as well as some language but I didn't find it that it overpowered the plot. I think the story might be a bit too sad for some but it wasn't nearly as depressing as some of the books I reviewed in the past. At least there is a positive overall tone at the end so I didn't find it to be too much of a downer.

So in summary, I guess, I liked though it might now be one of my favorites. Still I think I feel comfortable in recommending it to a friend or anyone else looking for some thought-provoking historical fiction.