Reggie Reads: August 2015

Illinois State is proud to be able to acknowledge the work of graduates who are successful authors.

If you’ve written a book that has been released by a publishing house within the past decade, submit it for review by Professor Emerita of English JoAnna Stephens Mink ’73, M.S. ’75, D.A. ’85.

All books authored by alums will be added to a collection of work by other graduates on display in the Alumni Center. Autographed copies are especially appreciated.

Please send your book to Illinois State editor Susan Blystone at Illinois State Alumni Center, 1101 N. Main Street, Normal, IL 61790. Inquiries can be sent to sjblyst@IllinoisState.edu.

False Tongues: A Callie Anson Mystery

By Kate Charles. Scottsdale, AZ: Poisoned Pen Press, 2015. 348pp.

Summary: Fans of Deep Waters, published in 2009 and previously reviewed by Reggie Reads, have waited a long time for the fourth installment in Kate Charles’ popular mystery series featuring Callie Anson. But our patience is rewarded by False Tongues, published simultaneously in the UK and US. It continues Callie’s story with only a very short gap of a few weeks in her own timeline.

The novel opens as Callie is off to the reunion and deacons’ workshop one year after leaving Archbishop Temple House, her old theological college in Cambridge. Springtime in Cambridge is beautiful, but Callie cannot appreciate the daffodils and punting because Adam, her ex-fiancé and the man who dumped her a year ago, is there. And though Callie is positive she loves Mark (Marco), to whom she’s recently become engaged, she can’t help but wonder whether this relationship is doomed too. In many ways, this workshop is a crossroads occasion for Callie.

Back home in Callie’s London parish, the body of fifteen-year-old Sebastian is discovered on Paddington Green. Detective Inspector Neville Stewart take the lead in trying to solve this crime, for which he has almost no obvious clues. Subplots involving secrets harbored by Jane Stanford (wife of Vicar Brian, Callie’s boss) and Margaret Phillips (Principal of Archbishop Temple House) reinforce the book’s theme, that everyone has secrets.

Mark’s role as Family Liaison Officer provides a bridge between Callie’s angst in Cambridge and Nelville’s search for the perpetrator of this horrendous crime. Both storylines are interesting and told with Charles’ superb style, but about half-way through False Tongues, this reader wondered where—and when—the two main plot lines will intersect.

Callie’s doubts are about herself. She hasn’t really come to terms with why Adam broke their engagement and the fact that he is newly married doesn’t help. Assignment to her old room during the week-long workshop underscores for Callie how much she has (and has not) changed in the past year. Mark, too, is insecure because Callie is the first woman he’s been serious about. He wonders if his Italian relatives will accept her into la famiglia.

Kate Charles’ mysteries focus more on character than whiz-bang incidents to advance a plot. Her characters are finely drawn, and though her novels are well-plotted, this is her strong suit. (Disclosure: Your reviewer is a personal friend of Kate Charles.) Love links the main plots and subplots of False Tongues. A connecting motif is that the minor characters are, also, at a crossroads in their lives.

About the author: Carol Fosher Chase ’72 has earned the epithet The Queen of Clerical Crime as her pseudonym Kate Charles. She is a former chairman of the Crime Writers’ Association and the Barbara Pym Society. A member of the prestigious Detection Club, Charles is also co-organizer of the annual St. Hilda’s Crime and Mystery Conference in Oxford. In 2012, the 18th year of the St Hilda’s Conference, she received the George N. Dove Award in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the serious study of mystery and crime fiction. She and her husband live in Ludlow, UK.

Small Forces

By Mike Conver. Xlibris LLC, 2014. 310pp.

Summary: Mike Conver’s self-published Small Forces defies easy categorization. Is it a novel? A memoir? And since neither the dust jacket nor author’s note gives any clues, readers may turn to the Book Summary, which is quoted here.

“A very bright twelve-year-old boy, who has trouble reading, is placed full-time in a special needs class when he graduates from the lower grades to the junior high. He misses the classmates with whom he was mainstreamed in the past. He is also worried about his big brother who is his hero and may be into drugs.

“A junior high teacher recognizes the boy’s ability and, against the principal’s orders, has the student attend his regular division class. The principal accuses the teacher of molesting the boy and moves to have him fired. /p/ The high school-age brother of the student tries to help a friend who is in trouble with a drug pusher. The drug dealer abducts both boys, and the teacher and little brother try to rescue the older boys.

“As the story progresses, we see a Vietnam War vet who was dishonorably discharged and is building a drug selling network. There is a teacher, recently divorced, who is dedicated to his profession and the kids he teaches, and a principal who’s [sic] only concern is not to rock the boat until he retires. There are adults who are trying to rebuild lives and children who help each other through the rough times following divorce.

“You will like and admire some of these people. You will want to strangle others. Many of them you will recognize.”

About the author: Mike Conver, M.S. ’78, Ph.D. ’84, was a counselor for special needs children, a principal, and retired after many years as a school superintendent. He served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War. Conver lives in Cadiz, Kentucky, where he is active in the Rotary Club and volunteers as a tutor for first graders at the local primary school.

Almost Crimson: A Novel

By Dasha Kelly. Chicago: Curbside Splendor, 2015. 286pp.

Summary: Dasha Kelly’s Almost Crimson opens with a scene that will be familiar to some. CeCe, who works at a management consulting firm, tries to ignore the buzzing on her hip while her boss and small team of co-workers confer (what her boss calls a flash-forward) in the middle of their office suite. She knows it will be her mother buzzing. Indeed, as CeCe tells Misha a short time later, “If green yarn will keep her off the ledge this week, then I need to get the woman green yarn. Everybody wins.” Only Misha laughs.

In a flashback, we realize that CeCe has taken care of her mother from a very young age. “CeCe couldn’t remember when her mother became too weak to carry anything but tears. … The Sad made her mother cry all the time.” Consequently, young CeCe is the one who remembers to empty the mailbox, buy more toilet paper, wash the clothes, wipe the dishes—and arrange her “small troop of dolls into their corner each night.” Her mother’s density fills the house.

Now a young woman, CeCe stifles her aspirations and takes care of her mother. Still, CeCe has dreams. Almost Crimson explores her struggle to live on her own terms while being a dutiful daughter. How much is enough, CeCe wonders and Kelly examines.

Kelly’s first novel engages the reader with CeCe’s dilemma through prose that is, at times, lyrical. For instance, towards the end of the novel, CeCe and her mother are eating together: “I’m twenty-eight,” says CeCe, “and this is the first time you and I have gone to a restaurant.” CeCe’s mother curled the edges of her mouth, less of a smile and more of a nod. Evolution, they knew, was not a speedy affair. … Like unfaithful lovers, CeCe and her mother gazed at one another as silent accusations passed” (258).

About the author: Dasha Jones Kelly ’91 has performed in the U.S. and Canada as a spoken word artist. She is an alumna of the Squaw Valley Writers Community and founder of Still Waters Collective, an arts education and community-building initiative. Kelly has taught and performed in Botswana, Africa. She lives in Milwaukee. Almost Crimson is her fourth book.

A Life Like Mine

By Jorie Saldanha. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015. 220pp.

A Lifetime of Passion: A Poetry Collection

By Jorie Saldanha. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015. 46pp.

Summary: A Life Like Mine, Jorie Saldanha’s self-published novel, is geared toward teen girls. In response to a reviewer’s question, Saldanha says she wrote A Life Like Mine “based upon my high school experiences, with some fiction mixed in. My goal was to write something that was just good clean fun. As I noticed that all young adult novels that I wanted to read were about super serious topics such as depression, suicide, etc., I wanted something that was light and fun, so I wrote what I would have wanted to read” (Goodreads.com).

Her persona explains in the Prologue, “Let me just reflect on the thought that when parents always say, ‘I was there, I know what you’re going through,’ I scare myself silly thinking that someday I may be that pathetic excuse for a mentor that has as good a chance to understanding me as Bill Clinton has to being the most popular president ever. Okay…yes I’m a little cynical and sarcastic, but I’m in the middle of enduring my teen years. Humor me.”

Smart, sassy, and out-spoken Ashley Benson likes to call things as she sees them amid football games, study hall, and lunch hour. When an opportunity to get back at her superficial, cheerleader rival Lena Bobbins presents itself, who is Ashley to ignore it? One harmless prank quickly escalates to an all-out war as Ashley and Lena continually battle to come out on top, leading Ashley towards love as well as the principal’s office.

The large type font allows easy reading, and the extended dialogues, interspersed by emails, quickly advance the plot of A Life Like Mine.

Saldanha’s chapbook, A Lifetime of Passion, also self-published, is a collection of short poems that convey personal and universal emotions. Some are shaped poems, a poem constructed so that its printed form suggests the subject matter or underscores the theme. There is space for only one example from Saldanha’s collection:

The sun will never fade

The wind will always blow

The trees will never die

The moon will always glow

The light will never leave

The flower will always grow

…As long as I’m with you…

About the Author: Jordan Kimmel Saldanha ’08 was born and raised in Crystal Lake. She has a journalism degree from ISU and a master’s degree in project management from Keller Graduate School of Management. Saldanha works for an online university in Addison and resides in Hoffman Estates with her husband, Alistar Saldanha ’08, whom she met at ISU.