August Book Roundup
I read fewer books this month, mainly because I was reading the nonfiction ones slowly, savoring the material and making notes. But the fiction I read I had real fun with. If you like twisty, character-driven mysteries, Lucy Foley is the author for you.
And two of the nonfiction books this month are outstanding: Rachel Rodgers’ We Should All Be Millionaires and Jennie Nash’s Blueprint for a Book. If you’re a woman interested in making serious money or a writer looking for a way to cut that first draft time in half, read on to find out more.
Fiction
Where Dreams Descend – Janella Angeles. I really wanted to like this one. It has a fiery heroine, romance, magic… but somehow, it didn’t grab me the way I thought it would. I’ve been trying to figure out why. On paper, all the elements are there. An interesting and unusual setting, a mystery, strong characters. Partly I think it’s that once the heroine, Kallia, leaves the mansion/club in the middle of the dire woods to go to the city, we leave the Master behind, and although we get glimpses of him from then on, we never get any hint of who he really is and why he (and his father) kept her there. We don’t ever know what’s really going on in the city (who is attacking the magicians and why they can’t leave). There are many tantalizing hints, but nothing is ever resolved, since the book is part of a duology. It’s fine to leave us hanging but I think it was a mistake to have no resolutions at all. For me, it would have been stronger had the story arc resolved into something where Kallia and the others thought they had triumphed – only to figure out in the final pages that such was absolutely not the case. Instead by the end I felt a little bored and frustrated. In addition, there is a lot of exposition, and too many of the characters are one-dimensional. A book of great promise that really just fell flat for me.
The Hunting Party – Lucy Foley. I tore through this one in two sittings. It’s a “closed room” mystery, set at a veryremote lodge in Scotland, where all of the guests and workers have secrets (of course). It’s told in alternating points of view from a few of the women, and only one of the men. It also goes back and forth between the time the body is found and the days leading up to that, until the two timelines converge. You’re not even sure who the victim is until the end, although I was pretty sure I knew early on – and I got a teeny bit annoyed at the withholding. But well-written, suspenseful, and atmospheric. Great for mystery fans.
The Guest List – Lucy Foley. Another mystery by the same author, along the same lines – eerie, isolated place, guests/suspects trapped together with a web of backstory gradually connecting them, not knowing who the victim is until the end… this one plays with a bigger cast, though, as it takes place at an upscale wedding on a tiny island off the coast of Ireland. We still get five point of view characters – well, six actually, but to tell who would give it away. The rest of the characters largely fade into a faceless mob, but the point of view ones are sharply drawn. We understand these people and why they have done the things they have – and might do. The challenge is, it’s hard to believe any of them is a murderer. The twist at the end is satisfying, though, in the sense of “justice is served, albeit in a strange way.” Once again, I read this one in two sittings. I want to go back and read both of these at a slower pace to see just how she builds up tension, suspense, and character – great work for any mystery writer to read as a writer.
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires – Grady Hendrix. By turns hilarious and horrifying (I was squirming in my seat going “No no no no…”) I thought this would be a light read. It is, in one sense, but it has deeper layers, in terms of observations on race, class, and gender, as well as relations between husbands and wives, mothers and children, and friends. It’s also a nod to the 90s, which to my surprise is now “historical” fiction. Not all the characters are drawn with complexity, but the story mostly follows Patricia Campbell, a housewife whose everyday life is turned upside down when stranger James Harris comes to town. The horror here isn’t just the gory kind (though that’s there too) but the psychological horror of feeling absolutely alone, feeling like a stranger among family and people you think are your friends. Another one I ripped through in just a couple of sittings.
Nonfiction
We Should All Be Millionaires – Rachel Rodgers. Rachel is the owner of Hello7, and host of the fantastic Hello7 podcast. She is all about women owning their value and making bank, to the tune of, yes, one million dollars. Her book is a kick in the pants to women everywhere (especially Black and other marginalized women) to overcome the psychological conditioning that limits ability to believe they can build real wealth. Her book is a combination of her personal story as well as actionable things women can do in order to go from money-stressed to money-making. I love it because she is one of the rare one to address issues particular to women – the psychological and institutional barriers, plus the reality that women are doing the majority of the emotional labor as well as house and childcare. From buying back your time through strategic outsourcing to creating money-making challenges that push you beyond your comfort zone, this book will get you thinking about how you can implement her strategies to start earning more money today.
Blueprint for a Book: Build Your Novel from the Inside Out – Jennie Nash. The Blueprint is the method Jennie teaches all her coaches (including me) to use with their clients – because it works. She’s seen it again and again in her twenty years of coaching. It’s a simple strategy for learning as much as you can and developing the backbone of your book before your start to write. Now she’s written a book so every writer can benefit, whether or not they can afford a coach. It’s a 14-step process to understand your novel in a very deep way, giving you a flexible structure to work from as you write. I’ve used it in my own work to cut drafting time in half. I think that any part of it you use will be beneficial, whether you are a classic plotter or pantser.
Discovering Your Soul Mission: New Rules for a New Age - Linda and Michael Brady. I became intrigued by the idea of karmic astrology - the idea that our present lives are guided as much by past lives and future growth as the traditional astrological readings - as a result of a conversation I had on a recent vacation. This book is a very readable introduction to the subject. While it didn’t really resonate with me personally, it gave me all kinds of character ideas, because it speaks of lives as arcs, from the patterns we are trying to grow away from (that have been developed over many lifetimes) to the new ways of being we need to develop to grow fully as human beings. Looked at in this way, it gives lots of possibilities for developing characters, since there are descriptions of the meanings of the various combinations of signs and planets, the nodes, and influences of each. You don’t have to believe in astrology to think of this way of creating nuanced character development. It even gives exercises in thinking about how these might have played out in past lives that could be excellent writing exercises for developing interesting characters.
