See How Small
Scott Blackwood, 2015
Little, Brown and Company
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316373807
Summary
A riveting novel about the aftermath of a brutal murder of three teenage girls.
One late autumn evening in a Texas town, two strangers walk into an ice cream shop shortly before closing time. They bind up the three teenage girls who are working the counter, set fire to the shop, and disappear.
See How Small tells the stories of the survivors—family, witnesses, and suspects—who must endure in the wake of atrocity. Justice remains elusive in their world, human connection tenuous.
Hovering above the aftermath of their deaths are the three girls. They watch over the town and make occasional visitations, trying to connect with and prod to life those they left behind. "See how small a thing it is that keeps us apart," they say.
A master of compression and lyrical precision, Scott Blackwood has surpassed himself with this haunting, beautiful, and enormously powerful new novel. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1965
• Where—El Dorado, Arkansas, USA
• Raised—Tennessee, Oklahoma, Texas
• Education—University of Texas; Texas State University
• Awards—Whiting Writers’ Award
• Currently—lives in Chicago, Illinois
Scott Blackwood is the author of the 2015 novel See How Small and the 2009 novel We Agreed to Meet Just Here, which won a 2011 Whiting Writers’ Award, the AWP Prize for the Novel, The Texas Institute of Letters Award for best work of fiction, and was a finalist for the Pen Center USA Award in fiction.
His fiction has appeared in American Short Fiction, Gettysburg Review, Boston Review, Southwest Review, Chicago Tribune Printer’s Row Journal, and New York Times. It has been anthologized in Janet Burroway’s Imaginative Writing.
His two narrative nonfiction books, The Rise and Fall of Paramont Records, Volumes I & II—produced by Jack White—tell the curious tale of a white-owned "Race record" label that began in a Wisconsin chair factory and changed American popular music forever. Scott has been individually nominated for a 2015 Grammy Award for Volume I and featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition, Sound Opinions, and in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone and elsewhere. A former Dobie Paisano Fellow and long-time resident of Austin, Texas, Scott now lives in Chicago and teaches fiction writing in the MFA Creative Writing Program at Southern Illinois University. (Adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Blackwood's portraits of all these characters are surprising and compassionate. Not a single sentence in See How Small is maudlin or overwrought.... It's not an easy book to read....descriptions of the emotional torture their families go through, however, are beyond heartbreaking.... It's a kind of paradox that Blackwood explores with compassionate eyes, beautifully poetic writing and artistic fearlessness. See How Small is a brutal, necessary and near perfect novel.
Michael Schaub - NPR
Mr. Blackwood has a way of writing where you feel like you’re constantly trying to catch up, be privy to what’s really making this story tick. While this style can be an asset, especially when leading a reader through a maze of intrigue, it can also be frustrating.... But the novel is not without its thoughtful statements brimming with stories wanting to be told.... See How Small is not for the faint of heart and has very little happiness or hope.... [It] raises questions about whether the real victims of a tragedy aren’t those that die but those forced to live.
Megan McLachlan - Pittsburgh Post Gazette
(Starred review.) [A] genre-defying novel of powerful emotion, intrigue, and truth. From the opening pages, which artfully skirt from past to present.... [B]ased on a similar, still-unsolved 1991 case in Austin, Tex., Blackwood explores the effects of senseless crime on an innocent, tightly knit community, using deft prose to mine the essence of human grief and compassion.
Publishers Weekly
The novel has much to say about the mysteries of the human psyche, the far-reaching effects of violence, and the disparate ways grief works on people.
Booklist
Similar on the surface to Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, this lyrical, abstract, and less sentimental novel by Blackwood about murdered teenage girls observing the living will probably not appeal to as wide an audience but may haunt literary fiction readers long after the unsettling ending. —Laurie Cavanaugh, Holmes P.L., Halifax, MA
Library Journal
The novel is strikingly creepy, if a bit affected—the brevity of the chapters and gauzy prose have a lyrical effect but also make the story feel diffuse, with no one peculiar, uncanny moment given the chance to build up a head of steam. Blackwood is an excellent stylist, though in the name of unconventionality, the reader lacks a few narrative toeholds.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
Sweetland
Michael Crummey, 2015
Liveright Publishing
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780871407900
Summary
The epic tale of an endangered Newfoundland community and the struggles of one man determined to resist its extinction.
The scarcely populated town of Sweetland rests on the shore of a remote Canadian island. Its slow decline finally reaches a head when the mainland government offers each islander a generous resettlement package—the sole stipulation being that everyone must leave.
Fierce and enigmatic Moses Sweetland, whose ancestors founded the village, is the only one to refuse. As he watches his neighbors abandon the island, he recalls the town’s rugged history and its eccentric cast of characters. Evoking The Shipping News, Michael Crummey—one of Canada’s finest novelists—conjures up the mythical, sublime world of Sweetland’s past amid a stormbattered landscape haunted by local lore.
As in his critically acclaimed novel Galore, Crummey masterfully weaves together past and present, creating in Sweetland a spectacular portrait of one man’s battle to survive as his environment vanishes around him. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 18, 1965
• Where—Buchans, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
• Raised—Wabush, Labrador
• Education—B.A., Memorial University (Newfoundland); M.A., Queens University (Ontario)
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in St. John, Newfoundland and Labrador
Michael Crummeyis a Canadian poet and writer. His fourth novel, Sweetland, was published in 2015.
Born in Buchans, Newfoundland and Labrador, Crummey grew up there and in Wabush, Labrador, where he moved with his family in the late 1970s.
He began to write poetry while studying at Memorial University in St. John's, where he received a B.A. in English in 1987. He completed a M.A. at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, in 1988, then dropped out of the Ph.D. program to pursue his writing career. Crummey returned to St. John's in 2001.
Writing and awards
Since first winning Memorial University's Gregory J. Power Poetry Contest in 1986, Crummey has continued to receive accolades for his poetry and prose.
♦ In 1994, he became the first winner of the Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award for young unpublished writers.
♦ Arguments with Gravity (1996), his first volume pof poetry, won the Writer's Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador Book Award for Poetry.
♦ Hard Light (1998), his second collection, was nominated for the Milton Acorn People's Poetry Award in 1999. 1998 also saw the publication
♦ A 1998 collection of short stories, Flesh and Blood, won Crummey a nomination for the Journey Prize.
♦ Crummey's debut novel, River Thieves (2001) became a Canadian bestseller, winning the Thomas Head Raddall Award, the Winterset Award for Excellence in Newfoundland Writing, and the Atlantic Independent Booksellers' Choice Award. It was also shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the Books in Canada First Novel Award, and was long-listed for the IMPAC Award.
♦ His second novel, The Wreckage (2005), was longlisted for the 2007 IMPAC Award.
♦ His third novel Galore (2009) shortlisted for the 2011 IMPAC Award.
Crummey's writing often draws on the history and landscape of Newfoundland and Labrador. The poems and prose in Hard Light are inspired by the stories of his father and other relatives, and the short stories in Flesh and Blood take place in the fictional mining community of Black Rock, which strongly resembles Buchans.
Crummey's novels in particular can be described as historical fiction. River Thieves details the contact and conflict between European settlers and the last of the Beothuk in the early 19th century, including the capture of Demasduwit. The Wreckage tells the story of young Newfoundland soldier Wish Fury and his beloved Sadie Parsons during and after World War II.
Crummey also research and wrote the 2014 National Film Board of Canada multimedia short film 54 Hours on the 1914 Newfoundland Sealing Disaster, co-directed by Paton Francis and Bruce Alcock. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/25/2015.)
Book Reviews
Impetuous and imperious, Moses Sweetland is an extraordinary, beautifully realized character, and the supporting cast—including Queenie Coffin, a chain-smoking romance-novel addict who hasn’t left her house in four decades; and the feral Priddle brothers, "Irish twins" born 10 months apart—are scarcely less so. But Sweetland, Crummey’s finest novel yet, reaches its mythic and mesmerizing heights only after the others depart, leaving Moses—a Newfoundland Robinson Crusoe who even encounters a Friday-like dog—alone on his eponymous island, bracing for a bitter winter both seasonal and personal.
Macleans
(Starred review.) Sweetland is both a place—a small island off Newfoundland—and a person—Moses Sweetland—and both have seen better times. The provincial government is offering resettlement money to Sweetland residents, but only if everyone agrees to leave.... Crummey.... [concludes] the book in a way that recalls Aristotle’s maxim from the Poetics: the best endings find a way to be both surprising and inevitable.
Publishers Weekly
Winner of the Commonwealth Prize for Canada, Crummey sets his new work on a sparsely populated Canadian island. Now the government has offered to resettle folks from the island's one town, Sweetland, provided that everyone agrees to leave. The holdout is Moses Sweetland, whose ancestors settled the town.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) On the small fictional island of Sweetland, just south of Newfoundland, a former lighthouse keeper becomes the last man standing when he refuses to accept a government resettlement package—much to everyone's exasperation.... Through its crusty protagonist, Crummey's shrewd, absorbing novel tells us how rich a life can be, even when experienced in the narrowest of physical confines.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
Her
Harriet Lane, 2015
Litte, Brown and Company
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316369879
Summary
You don't remember her—but she remembers you.
Two different women; two different worlds. On the face of it, Emma and Nina have very little in common. Isolated and exhausted by early motherhood, Emma finds her confidence is fading fast. Nina is sophisticated and assured, a successful artist who seems to have it all under control.
And yet, when the two women meet, they are irresistibly drawn to each other. As the friendship develops, as Emma gratefully invites Nina into her life, it emerges that someone is playing games-and the stakes could not be higher.
What, exactly, does Nina see in Emma? What does she want? And how far will she go in pursuit of it?
A gripping novel about friendship and identity, about the wild hopes and worst fears of parenthood, about the small and easily forgotten moments that come to define a life, Her is unputdownable—compelling and hauntingly discomfiting. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Harriet Lane is the British author of Alys, Always (2012) and Her (2015). Previously, she worked as an editor and staff writer at Tatler and the Observer. She also has written for the Guardian, Telegraph and Vogue. After an autoimmune disorder began to impair her eyesight, Lane gave up her full-time career in journalism and eventually took up fiction writing. She lives in north London. (Adapted fom the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The action in this icicle-sharp British chiller kicks in with an act of civic kindness: A stranger returns a dropped wallet to its owner. Unbeknown to the grateful recipient, an overwhelmed homemaker and toddler’s mom named Emma, the wallet was not in fact mislaid. What’s more, Emma shares a distant history with the well-heeled and effortlessly urbane good Samaritan, Nina, which apparently only Nina recalls..... This is psychological bait-and-switchery to put on the shelf alongside Patricia Highsmith and Georges Simenon.
Jan Stuart - New York Times Book Review
A small jewel of a suspense novel.
Sherryl Connelly - New York Daily News
Lane does motherhood noir-the noir of nurseries with nightlights and tense twilit bedrooms-as well as anybody.
Marion Winik - Newsday
Keeps the reader perpetually on edge.
Kevin Nance - Chicago Tribune
Harriet Lane is a fantastic writer.... Her thrives in its psychological investigations. The cost of the past, the way we tell stories, and the fascinating power dynamics, resentments, memories and fleeting hopes of these women as they negotiate their lives is wonderfully executed.
Jennifer Gilmore - Los Angeles Times
Her takes a deep dive into the nature of domesticity and asks what womanhood and motherhood mean to the modern woman. What is demanded of them? What do they want for themselves? How does female friendship come into the fore?
Brooke Wylie - San Francisco Examiner
A thrilling, chilling tale.... Lane's keen eye for the intricacies of female relationships - the confidences and competition that so often co-exist in them, for better and worse - extends to the mother-daughter bond, as complicated here as it is inextricable.... The final, heart-stopping sequence in HER juxtaposes a mother's love and fear with a daughter's displaced sense of betrayal and rage. What binds Nina and Emma in the end is desperation, a quality that pulses just beneath Lane's measured, nuanced writing until it slaps us—as it does Emma—in the face, leaving us breathless.
Elysa Gardner - USA Today
[Harriet Lane's] cornered the market when it comes to unassuming but distinctly dangerous, creepy female protagonists….As seductive as it is chilling, Her is quality literary fiction meets psychological thriller.
Guardian (UK)
A taught revenge drama….the endgame, when it comes, is shattering.
Independent (UK)
Lane's writing is always careful and elegant, loaded with significance and often beautiful. Lane follows her debut, Alys, Always, with a gracefully written psychological thriller about friendship wielded as a weapon.
Telegraph (UK)
If you're looking to jump-start the year with a page-turner, Her is your book.
Megan Angelo - Glamour
Affluent artist Nina Bremner glimpses a lovely but disheveled pregnant woman shopping with a toddler one day and experiences a shock of recognition. She once knew Emma Nash—and her hatred for the other woman simmers, though it’s not clear why.... [S]ubtle, deliberate, chillingly effective, and hauntingly sad.
Publishers Weekly
On the surface, Nina Bremner's life seems enviable.... But her ease is set disrupted when she recognizes a woman she knew as a teenager on her street.... [T]he overall creepy factor is high—a tense read for fans of the intellectual psychological thriller. —Devon Thomas, Chelsea, MI
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [T]aut, fraught tale..... With chilling precision, Lane narrates the re-entwining of...two women's lives through domestic details. Afternoon teas, disastrous shopping trips, cluttered homes and even well-populated playgrounds begin to seep with danger.... A domestic thriller of the first order.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our generic mystery questions.)
GENERIC QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers
1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they more one-dimensional heroes and villains?
2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you, the reader, begin to piece together what happened?
3. Good crime writers are skillful at hiding clues in plain sight. How well does the author hide the clues in this work?
4. Does the author use red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray?
5. Talk about plot's twists & turns—those surprising developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense? Are they plausible? Or do the twists & turns feel forced and preposterous—inserted only to extend the story.
6. Does the author ratchet up the story's suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? How does the author build suspense?
7. What about the ending—is it satisfying? Is it probable or believable? Does it grow out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 2). Or does the ending come out of the blue? Does it feel forced...tacked-on...or a cop-out? Or perhaps it's too predictable. Can you envision a better, or different, ending?
8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?
9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?
(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
top of page (summary)
The Magician's Lie
Greer Macallister, 2015
Sourcebooks
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781402298684
Summary
The Amazing Arden is the most famous female illusionist of her day, renowned for her notorious trick of sawing a man in half on stage.
One night in Waterloo, Iowa, with young policeman Virgil Holt watching from the audience, she swaps her trademark saw for a fire ax. Is it a new version of the illusion, or an all-too-real murder? When Arden's husband is found lifeless beneath the stage later that night, the answer seems clear.
But when Virgil happens upon the fleeing magician and takes her into custody, she has a very different story to tell. Even handcuffed and alone, Arden is far from powerless-and what she reveals is as unbelievable as it is spellbinding.
Over the course of one eerie night, Virgil must decide whether to turn Arden in or set her free... and it will take all he has to see through the smoke and mirrors. (From the publisher.)
ABA Indie Next Selection for January 2015
January 2015 Midwest Connections Pick
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Midwest, USA
• Education—M.F.A., American University
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City
Raised in the Midwest, Greer Macallister is a poet, short story writer, playwright and novelist whose work has appeared in publications such as The North American Review, The Missouri Review, and The Messenger. Her plays have been performed at American University, where she earned her MFA in Creative Writing. She lives with her family in Brooklyn. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Smart and intricately plotted... a richly imagined thriller.
People
More bewitching than a crackling fire.
Oprah.com
The ride MacAllister takes us on is a grand one. She describes what it’s like to call a boxcar home for 11 months of the year as part of a traveling show. Her descriptions of the Biltmore Estate (vast and elegant) and old New York (stinky, noisy and crowded) are lush and evocative. At the end, you might find yourself rooting for the story so much, you’ll make your own disbelief disappear
Dallas Morning News
Macallister is as much of a magician as her subject, misdirecting and enchanting while ultimately leaving her audience satisfied with a grand finale.
Columbus Dispatch
And for its next trick, the novel The Magician’s Lie by Greer Macallister just might become a hit.
Christian Science Monitor
Readers may well compare Greer's novel to The Night Circus, as it revolves around the mysterious world of magic and illusions... the story is spun like a bard's hypnotic tale. By the end, the reader is left wondering what is real and what is illusion.
Romantic Times
(Starred review.) This well-paced, evocative, and adventurous historical novel from Macallister, a poet and short story writer, chronicles the career of America’s preeminent female stage illusionist at the turn of the 20th century, who, as the Amazing Arden, created the lurid, controversial stage act known as the Halved Man. ... [R]ollicking...top-notch novel.
Publishers Weekly
What happens when a magician's illusion becomes real?... Macallister...has created a captivating world of enchantment and mystery that readers will be loath to leave.... [E]xotic settings (circus, magic show) are more of a backdrop for a larger story in both cases than an integral part of the plot. —Elisabeth Clark, West Florida P.L., Pensacola
Library Journal
Combined, the two points of view reveal magic and illusion, romance and lost loves, murder and intrigue, and Macallister captures the whimsy and wonder of the traveling magic shows of the 20th century with stunning detail.
Shelf Awareness
Greer Macallister's haunting first novel is a compelling mystery.... [her] painstaking descriptions of the costumes, technique and trickery involved in Ada’s work as an illusionist are unparalleled.
BookPage
A female illusionist is questioned about a murder in Macallister's debut, set at the turn of the 20th century.... Macallister makes a concerted effort to ensure historical accuracy, but her prose is labored and lacks intensity.Nevertheless, devotees of illusion may enjoy the story based on the author's detailed focus on early costumes, movement and techniques.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The action of The Magician's Lie alternates between a single night in 1905, with Arden imprisoned by Officer Holt, and the story of her life that Arden is telling him, which ranges over a number of years. Did you find one storyline more intriguing than the other? Were you eager to get back to one or the other?
2. As the novel opens, Virgil Holt has just received the bad news that the doctor won’t operate on the bullet lodged near his spine. How does this affect his actions? Do you think he would have behaved differently if he were uninjured?
3. “The law is perfect. The men in charge of executing it are not.” Officer Holt decides early on that if Arden is innocent, it’s his responsibility to free her instead of turning her in, since the courts can’t be trusted to determine guilt or innocence. Do you believe this? Do you think he should have turned her in either way?
4. Before her mother runs away with Victor Turner, Arden lives in splendor at her grandparents’ mansion in Philadelphia, but is raised mostly by tutors and household servants. Do you think she would have been better off if her mother hadn’t taken her along to Tennessee?
5. After Ray breaks Arden’s leg, preventing her from dancing for Madama Bonfanti and having the chance to enter ballet school, she says, “There were so many what-ifs.” What do you think would have happened if he hadn’t done this?
6. Misunderstandings and difficulties arise from Arden’s differences of opinion with other characters, but she also has a great deal in common with some of the same people. Who else in the book is most like her? Her mother? Ray? Clyde? Adelaide? Who is she least like?
7. When Arden confesses that Ray has hurt her, her mother tells her, “You must be mistaken…we all depend on that boy’s father, for our lives, for everything…I think you know Ray won’t be the one he’ll punish. We will all suffer instead.” Do you feel Arden’s mother bears some responsibility for what happened to Arden at Ray’s hands? Should she have spoken up, even though it could have endangered their family’s well-being?
8. Fleeing Tennessee for Biltmore is a huge, pivotal moment in Arden’s life. Do you think it was the right choice? Should she have stayed with her family and tried to find another way to fight Ray?
9. In a key scene, the master of Biltmore tells Arden, “We all have agency,” and she later repeats it to Holt. What does this quote mean to you? Do you think it applies to your own life, and if so, how?
10. Arden is surprised that Holt easily believes in magic. Did this surprise you as well? Did you believe from the beginning that the disappearance of the bruise on Arden’s throat was magical, or did you suspect some sort of trick?
11. Ray pursues Arden for years, eventually finding her, first in Chicago and then again in Savannah. “My God, Ada, I’ve missed you so much. You’re my other half. The only one like me. I haven’t felt complete without you.” Why do you think he was so obsessed with her?
12. During their romance at Biltmore, Clyde is a slightly shadowy figure, and Arden learns that he’s not entirely trustworthy during their trip up the coast. Is Arden right to distrust him when they meet again years later? How hard is it to re-evaluate your relationship with someone you’ve known for a long time?
13. Arden is suspicious of rich people at several points in the book, and feels she can only fit in at Biltmore as a servant. Yet she was raised in wealth by her grandparents. Why do you feel she identifies so strongly with the life she led starting at age 12 instead of her life before that?
14. Adelaide Herrmann isn’t close to the people who work for her, except for Arden. Why does Adelaide choose Arden as her protégé?
15. Adelaide Herrmann is a huge success as a female magician. Yet she maintains emotional distance from everyone who works for her, except for her protégé Arden. Does she seem satisfied with her life, up until the ill-fated Second Sight act? Does she seem satisfied after her retirement, when Arden visits her many years later?
16. Virgil is convinced that he was his wife’s second choice, after her childhood love Mose married another girl. Do you think this prevents him from being honest with her about his fears and hopes?
17. Arden’s near-death experience at the Iroquois Theatre, including her unhappy reunion with Ray, frightens her deeply. Yet she doesn’t share the full extent of her feelings, or the truth of what happened, with Clyde. Why do you think she keeps this from him? Does it contribute to their problems later in the story?
18. Arden’s illusions, such as the “Fair Shake,” comment on gender relations in a time when that would have been very controversial. How would the same illusions be received today? Do you think a woman cutting a man in half on stage would still be shocking to some audiences?
19. When Clyde asks her to marry him, Arden refuses, telling herself, “It was a trap…We were too strong-willed to be locked together in marriage, a permanent institution. If we tried to hold each other too close, it could destroy us.” Did you believe this reasoning? What other reasons would she have to accept or refuse his offer of marriage?
20. “I let him damage me and try to heal that damage, with his delusions of magic. I talk a good game about risk, but when it all came down to it, I chose something awful and safe.” When Ray threatens Clyde, Arden gives up, and allows him to hurt her and essentially keep her captive. Did you feel she had other options? If so, what should she have done instead?
21. Arden claims that “in different circumstances, she might have liked Officer Virgil Holt, and he might have liked her.” Do you think this is true? What about their interactions makes it seem more or less likely?
22. Arden isn’t guilty of the murder of Ray, but she did cut his throat in Chicago, and she tells Holt she was “ready to kill him” before Clyde did so. In your mind, does this compromise her claims of innocence?
23. As the book ends, Holt has resolved to begin living his life anew, without letting his fear of death get in the way. Do you feel he has been profoundly changed by his experience with Arden? Or do you think these resolutions will fade in the harsh light of day?
24. Where do you think Arden and Clyde’s story might go from the ending onward?
25. Whether or not Arden is telling Officer Holt the truth is a key question throughout the book. When did you most believe her? Were there times where you were sure she was lying?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Short Life of Sparrows
Emm Cole, 2014
Self-published
430 pp.
AISN: B00NGR7NDQ
Summary
Beneath the light of a full moon, the Nightbloods and Seers are dancing. They are dancing as they await another Awakening, a dream that defines every witch's destiny. It doesn't matter that the coven is cheering and anticipating her turn into womanhood, because Calli doesn't want any of it.
She doesn't want to see the face of the hired hand Isaiah, nor does she desire the pursuits of a very determined Nightblood as she runs from a future with the Ordinary help. She knows that regardless of whether she taps into forbidden magic or not, an Awakening is rumored to hold ultimate power over the Seer who dreams it.
While the other Seers her age are given to their parties, their enchantments, and the lust of Nightblood suitors, Calli must choose how she'll endure the worst of her visions. There may be a way to survive her sleep, but she's not sure she can defeat the truth that will find her when she's wide awake.
Does real love even stand a chance against the darkest of magic?
Author Bio
Emm Cole is the author of the Dark Fantasy novel, The Short Life of Sparrows, as well as the Young Adult Fantasy series, Mermina. She lives with her husband and two spunky children. When she’s not writing, she is often highlighting favorite passages in books.
Her funky imagination tends to be equal parts whimsically pretty and morbidly sinister. Emm believes that every new story she writes should challenge the limits of her creativity further than the last one, and she plans to keep developing unique magical realms, one book at a time.
According to Emm, authors Laini Taylor, Maggie Stiefvater, and John Green are pen-wielding super heroes. Don’t share your Sour Patch Kids or Swedish Fish with her, because she’ll eat them all. Emm is a fan of everything supernatural and finds that drama in stories is always more entertaining than the real kind.
She also enjoys thought-provoking art and is an admitted TV series junkie who has The Vampire Diaries and Friday Night Lights memorized. If a pop culture reference wasn’t acknowledged on Gilmore Girls, she probably finds it irrelevant. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
(For more extensive reviews, see Amazon Customer Reviews.)
The message is profound. The prose enrapturing. And the journey...unforgettable.
Tiana Dalichov, Author of Poison
I'm a huge fan of building relationships, not wham-insta-love. The Short Life of Sparrows has meaningful relationships in spades. Not just between the love interests, but in the relationships of the secondary characters as well.
Sara Mack, author of The Guardian Trilogy
Discussion Questions
1. By the end, most of the characters have all in some way told a lie of their own that has led to some severe consequences. Which characters do you believe were justified in their secrets? Or do you think they were all wrong to hide their secrets from each other?
2. A lot of the secondary characters evolve from who we believe them to be in the first chapters. Who would you say is the most surprising during the course of the story? Why?
3. Do you think if Lil had chosen differently in the past that it would have changed anything for the better?
4. Which scene stands out to you most in The Short Life of Sparrows? And why?
5. Which relationship, romantic or not, did you feel most connected to?
6. Who was the most selfish of the bunch and why? The most selfless, and why?
7. Which character did you resonate with most? The least?
(Questions written and donated to LitLovers by Marie from Utah.)