Step out of your comfort zone

Have an adventure without leaving your home. Step out of your comfort zone and experiment by jumping genres. For years, I read the sos, same old stuff. One year it was all spies, another it was histories, each year of my life was stuffed with books in a single genre. I was afraid to try something new. Then I discovered indies and all they had to offer. It made me feel daring and dangerous. They made me step out of my safe and boring place, one book at a time.

Now I swing through Amazon, grabbing books I would never have browsed. I feel dangerous, as though I am willing to try anything. Sometimes it’s a dud, other times, I’ve discovered new authors than make me think, even if I didn’t enjoy the book.

Here are some of my summer discoveries, both indie and traditional.

The Ninth Hour: A Novel

by Alice McDermott

Stunning and beautifully written, this is a book about our connection to each other. Nothing in life is random. Each step, each action links people to other people and consequences reverberate to shape lives.

Annie’s husband carefully and methodically kills himself, leaving her a widow. He doesn’t care she will be an outcast in the community, and he will be buried in unconsecrated ground. Annie is late in her pregnancy and will soon be left penniless.

St. Savior, a local nun, ably takes control of the situation propelling both Annie as well as her unborn daughter to their new future. She provides a job that will secure Annie and help raise her child with the devoted sisters of the convent.

The sisters are the threads that hold the Brooklyn community together. They selflessly and tirelessly protect and take care of the poor and neglected parishioners. Each person in the storyline is connected by a delicate strand, the cause, and effect of their actions spilling over to affect other people in their orbit, putting them on a collision course with fate.

The novel is filled with terrific snippets of life in the convent. McDermott gives each one of the selfless nuns, as well as a host of others characters, weird and fascinating personalities. They come alive jumping off the pages with an unexpected and bizarre twist at the end.

In the Bible, Jesus died in the Ninth hour, changing the world as He knew it, so does the ninth hour keep occurring, shifting lives and affecting the destinies of the people in the book.

Asymmetry: A Novel

by Lisa Halliday

A thinking book. Beautiful prose hooks the reader in the first chapter then ends abruptly with a seemingly unrelated story about detention in Heathrow airport.

Still well-written- it’s hard to get invested in characters that appear strung together. The last chapter lost both me and the additional stars. I grew to hate the pompous writer in the book. It wasn’t until a discussion group that I got the full intention of the author. The only way I can describe this book is passive-aggressive. I would have enjoyed the whole story of the December-May, Eliza Doolittle romance rather than the suggestion through three unrelated short-stories. This is the time when the idea of show- don’t tell may get lost in translation. Either way- it was thoughtfully and precisely written.

The Last Midwife: A Novel

by Sandra Dallas

Sandra Dallas writes about the women who won the west. She relates the stories of the people of the plains, the settlers who built homes on the raw land, every day a fight for survival. Their stories are sometimes not pretty, yet she imbues their tales with courage, loyalty, and friendship- making their histories vibrant as the colorful, prairie sunrise.

Accused of a heinous crime, Gracy, the local midwife must choose between her honor or try to save herself by revealing the dark secrets of the community where she lives. Her wiliness to sacrifice her own freedom reflects the tightness of the sisterhood where she resides.

I love Sandra Dallas’s books. They paint a detailed and three-dimensional portrait of frontier life. The deep-rooted relationships create a network of sisters who share their secrets knowing they are in safe hands.

The story meanders through the town, touching down to include different threads, that seem almost unrelated, but slowly the story weaves its way back to a combustible conclusion. You may think you know where the author is going, and you may think it’s predictable. I thought I did too and was surprised with the Dallas twist.

Creative Ink, Flashy Fiction: Flash Fiction Anthology — Book 2 (Flash Fiction Anthologies)

by Theodore Jerome Cohen

Seventy-three pictures in Ted Cohen’s capable hands leads to hours of entertainment. They are diverse- provocative, poignant, or hilarious. Each story is a riot of feelings, small stories that tug alternately at your heart or your funny bone. Sometimes they contain famous people like Einstein, Sinatra, or Capone, other times, it the everyday people, the ones stranded in the dust bowl or with the enemy on the other side of the hedge. No matter, each is a careful slice of life to be savored in the richness of Cohen’s prose and enjoyed over and over again.

The Immortalists

by Chloe Benjamin

Captivating and poetical, The Immortalists is a page-turning family saga that is an addicting read.

Set in 1969, the four Gold siblings share an encounter with a fortune teller who informs them not of the successes in their future, but rather the date of their death. The information coupled with the sudden death of their father, implodes the family, fracturing their lives and sending them like shrapnel on a voyage to their destinies. After they separate, the book delves into the story of each of the children, and the reader is dragged along with the characters where the knowledge of their ‘death day’ shapes their lives.

For Simon, knowing he will die young makes him reckless, Klara runs to her future with certainty, Daniel denies it as superstition, and for Varya the information twists her mind becoming an obsession and life’s work.

Each one of the Gold’s paths is shaped, the looming date influencing life’s decision, leaving the reader wondering if their actions and life choices will design their fate. Moving and well-writing Benjamin grabs the reader from the first page, to be propelled along with the siblings in their headlong dash to the finish, with the same sense of fatalism yet curious if the curse of certain death can be replaced with a different outcome.

Dorothea’s Advice for the Lovelorn

by Cherie Mitchell

Dorothea’s Advice for the Lovelorn by Cherie Mitchell is a charming, light romantic comedy.

Dorothea is two weeks away from having to pay her rent and has lost her job. She must get employed quickly.

A friend suggests she try out for the Agony Aunts- an advice column with a local paper. Her own love life is a mess, and she doesn’t feel qualified for the job. She uses her close relationship with her wise and unwitting Nona in Italy to answer the queries, pretending the questions are for herself.

Dorothea’s success causes her to get inundated with letters, and she learns both family secrets as well as how to find love for herself. Quick read both endears and delights.

SHOT DOWN: The true story of pilot Howard Snyder and the crew of the B-17 Susan Ruth

by Steve Synder

Meticulous and endearing tribute to the crew of the B17 Flying Fortress, the Susan Ruth during World War II.

Compiled by letters and records left behind, author Steven Snyder, son of the pilot, Howard Synder, recounts the exploits of the crew from their family background, to training to the fiery crash that caused them to parachute and survive in enemy territory.

In a clear and crisp voice, Synder describes both his father and the world he lived in. The budding romance with his mother, courtship and finally marriage is tenderly told through personal letters that paint a vivid picture of their relationship. Training, deployment to England and the grueling and dangerous conditions are described in harrowing details.

This is how we should learn about war, through the eyes of those who sacrifice so much to keep others safe. The book tells of their insecurities and fears, the heartache from being away from loved ones, missing births and other milestones in the home front.

I loved this band of brothers, their camaraderie, and courage, and when I read the parts of the outcome, the unfair vagary of fate, I was saddened by the wastefulness of war.

Heartbreaking and poignant, families and wives at home showed equal bravery and support. This was a memoir, a love letter from a son to his father, honoring him for his quiet dignity and courage. It is a wonderful snapshot of people performing admirably under the worst of conditions, where some gave everything they had to give.