Undercover Angels: Malachi's Battle
Elliot Dylan, 2009, year
CreateSpace
340 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781448672813
Summary
Malachi Stevens is your average teenage boy with a not so average problem. His best friend, Van, is being controlled by a demon. Malachi has his own problem with an angel, Patrick, telling him he needs to study his Bible more to help save Van.
But, maybe with some help from Patience and Rosaline, and divine intervention, he just might be able to save his friend, and learn a little something about himself along the way.
Finally, Christian fiction that combines the excitement of action novels with Biblical character building lessons woven into the story. Great for readers from middle schoolers through adults. (From the book.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—state of Kansas, USA
• Currently—lives in Kansas
Elliot is an novelist for Christian Youth. Elliot loves books and has always enjoyed writing. She feels a daily walk with God is important and wants to weave Bible studies into her books to encourage youth to read their Bibles and study God's Word daily.
Elliot is a college graduate with a digital imaging degree. She has two younger sisters who inspire her to write for youth.
When she's not writing her novels, she has a hobby creating art for her online comic-strip, "Subject to Change: College Woes," featuring spin-offs of her long-time friends who have gone off to Union and Southern Colleges, (without her!).
She also designs art for t-shirts and other products, featuring the crazy antics of the Subject to Change gang. (From the author's webpage.)
Book Reviews
The following reviews can be found on ElliotDylan.com:
I thought this novel was inspiring and thought-provoking. Undercover Angels put a desire in my heart to read more about what God calls us to do as Christians. Reading the author's thoughts about the armor of God gave me a new perspective on what kind of power God can have in our lives. This unique book shed a new light on my perspective of the spiritual realm. I was so impressed with the way the author describes the warfare between evil and good. Not only did this book open my mind to new ideas and opinions, but it also encour
Kayla Frishman
I believe this author is filling a much-needed niche that hasn't been filled—that of Christian teen action-adventure. It's not one of those typical teen Christian fiction romance novels. In fact it's not about romance at all. It's about a teen boy who finds out he has a guardian angel and becomes a champion for God. His friend is making poor decisions and he and his guardian angel help his friend out of the troubles he has gotten into. There is a girl who is the go-to person for answering Biblical questions, which help him to earn the armor of God.
Nannette Thacker
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss how Malachi has changed throughout the book, starting with how he was at the start and how he has become by the end.
2. Malachi and Van have had a pretty long relationship that has changed over time. Have you ever had a childhood friend change the way they treated you? In Malachi's situation with Van how would you have handled the change in the relationship?
3. Malachi was disbelieving at first about the whole Undercover Angel thing. How would you have reacted? What do you think God's qualifications might be for you to become a UA?
4. The first piece of armor Malachi received after the sword was the Shield of Faith. If you were a UA what piece of armor do you think you would get next based off of the different characteristics associated with each piece?
5. Malachi hates pastors because of what happened to his father. Is it right to hate a group of people because of a bad experience with one? Why or why not?
6. Rosaline has some pretty annoying brothers who are constantly getting in her way but she soon learns it’s just because they love her. If you have any siblings, how can you be nicer to them today and show them you care?
7. Malachi learned a lot about angels. Who are angels and what is their purpose?
8. Quite a few times Malachi lost his focus on God and his faith that He is stronger than Satan. How could Malachi have prevented this? Do you think God was mad at him for the times he messed up, why or why not?
9. During his time as a UA Malachi had to do a lot of studying of God's Word in order to grow in his strength as a UA. Why do you think this was important? Should we also as warriors for God strive to read the Bible too?
10. Malachi learned what the Bible says about hell. Did your perception of hell change based on the Bible lessons in the book?
11. At summer camp Patience retold the story of Jonah and the whale. How could you retell other stories from the Bible that might get people interested so they'd want to read the original?
12. Though he faltered a few times, Malachi never gave up on Van. If put in the same situation would you be able to do the same, why or why not?
(Questions provided courtesy of the author.)
The Husband's Secret
Liane Moriarty, 2013
Penguin Group USA
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399159343
Summary
At the heart of The Husband’s Secret is a letter that’s not meant to be read: My darling Cecilia, if you’re reading this, then I’ve died. . . .
Imagine that your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret—something with the potential to destroy not just the life you built together, but the lives of others as well. Imagine, then, that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive.
Cecilia Fitzpatrick has achieved it all—she’s an incredibly successful businesswoman, a pillar of her small community, and a devoted wife and mother. Her life is as orderly and spotless as her home. But that letter is about to change everything, and not just for her: Rachel and Tess barely know Cecilia—or each other—but they too are about to feel the earth-shattering repercussions of her husband’s secret.
Acclaimed author Liane Moriarty has written a gripping, thought-provoking novel about how well it is really possible to know our spouses—and, ultimately, ourselves. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 1966
• Where—Sydney, Australia
• Education—M.A., Macquarie University
• Currently—lives in Sydney
Liane Moriarty is an Australian author and sister of author Jaclyn Moriarty. In its review of her 2013 novel, The Husband's Secret, she was referred to as "an edgier, more provocative and bolder successor to Maeve Binchy" by Kirkus Reviews.
Moriarty began work in advertising and marketing at a legal publishing company. She then ran her own company for a while before taking work as a freelance advertising copywriter. In 2004, after obtaining a Master's degree at Macquarie University in Sydney, her first novel Three Wishes, written as part of the degree, was published.
She is now the author of several other novels, including The Last Anniversary (2006) and What Alice Forgot (2010), The Hypnotist's Love Story (2011), and The Husband's Secret (2013). She is also the author of the Nicola Berry series for children.
Moriarty lives in Sydney with her husband and two children. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/5/2013.)
Book Reviews
Liane Moriarty (What Alice Forgot) is far more than the skillful writer of potboilers.... Amid three intertwined story lines and terrific plot twists, Moriarty presents a nuanced and moving portrait of the meaning of love, both marital and familial, and how life can hinge on a misunderstanding or a decision made in haste. The Husband's Secret is so good, you won't be able to keep it to yourself.
USA Today
A novel that’s perfect for vacation reading: There’s humor, suspense, a circle of appealing women whose dilemma intersect with Cecilia’s and enough food for thought to keep you from feeling empty afterward.
People
The Husband's Secret is a smart, thoughtful read...[a] lip-smacking and intelligently written novel.
Entertainment Weekly
Australian author Moriarty...puts three women in an impossible situation and doesn’t cut them any slack. Cecilia Fitzpatrick...finds a letter from her husband...to be opened only in the event of his death. She opens it anyway, and everything she believed is thrown into doubt.... [A] page-turner...Moriarty’s novel challenges the reader as well as her characters, but in the best possible way.
Publishers Weekly
A secret from her husband's past is about to bring [Celia's] perfectly sculpted world crumbling down.... Moriarty shows how Cecilia struggles to live her life as she did before the secret burdened her marriage—like those Berliners who attempted normalcy after the infamous wall went up/came down.... Verdict: Moriarty examines the ease with which darkness can spread into relationships...leaving the reader wondering what will happen next. —Brooke Bolton, North Manchester P.L., IN
Library Journal
At first, this reviewer wanted to warn readers not to be taken in by the light tone of Liane Moriarty's The Husband's Secret. On second thought, maybe readers should let this rather crafty novelist's deceptive breeziness and humor sweep them along. It makes the shocks just that much more deliciously nasty, including the gob-smacking twist in the epilogue.
Bookpage
There are more than enough secrets to go around in the intertwining lives of three women connected to a Catholic elementary school in Sidney.... As the women confront the past and make hard decisions about their futures...their fates collide in unexpected ways. Moriarty may be an edgier, more provocative and bolder successor to Maeve Binchy. There is real darkness here, but it is offset by the author's natural wit—she weaves in the Pandora myth and a history of the Berlin Wall—and irrepressible goodwill toward her characters.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. When Cecilia finds the letter addressed to her from her husband, "To be opened only in the event of my death," she is tormented by the ethics of opening it. Do you agree with her ultimate decision? What would you have done?
2. Consider the title The Husband's Secret. Several characters in the book have secrets they hold on to that they eventually reveal. Felicity and Will share the secret of their affair to Tess; John-Paul guards his secret from Cecilia until he is forced to admit it. What are the ramifications of their secrets? Is secrecy is ever warranted and justifiable?
3. Tess has suffered her whole life from crippling social anxiety. How has this made everyday situations a challenge for her? Why has she never confronted her problem? Why doesn't she tell anyone about it?
4. The Berlin Wall is referred to throughout the novel as Esther works on her school project. And in fact, we learn that Cecilia met John-Paul on the day the Wall finally came down. What does the Wall signify in the book?
5. Grief is a major theme in the novel, and many of the characters have suffered as a result of their losses. How has grief affected Rachel? Rob? Tess? John-Paul? How do they each cope? In what ways have their lives have been irrevocably altered as a result of their grieving? Do you think people can fully stop grieving and move on with their lives?
6. The concept of guilt also plays a major role in the novel. Rachel feels that because of a brief flirtation with Toby Murphy she was absent when Janie died. John-Paul continues to sacrifice things that he loves, out of guilt for what he did to Janie. It seems that these characters have never been able to recover from the feelings of guilt caused by their actions. Yet at the same time, other characters in the book do not appear to feel guilt in the same way. Consider Felicity and Will. Do they have remorse for their affair? And does Tess regret her fling with Connor? What determines how guilty one feels-is it the situation, or is it determined by the individual's character?
7. Tess and Felicity have a history of making snide comments about other people. Tess realizes this only once she is out of the comfort zone she's shared with Felicity for so many years. How has such negative energy affected her relationships with others? Do you think she and Felicity are actually cruel, or is there another reason for their unkind behavior?
8. Ethics and morals are important themes in the book. Discuss how John-Paul, Cecilia, Tess, Will, and Rachel have each done something they would not have thought possible. Have you ever acted in a way that seems entirely out of character? How did you feel? Does love cause people to do things they wouldn't normally do?
9. Consider the notion of betrayal in this book. Which characters have betrayed someone they love? Are their acts of betrayal premeditated, or are they unplanned decisions that become regrettable actions? When one person betrays another, can that person be forgiven? Or is the damage irreparable?
10. The novel is narrated in third-person and in past tense. Given the intense focus on three women, why did the author choose to tell the story from this point of view? How does this perspective add a sense of mystery and foreboding?
11. Cecilia has been married to John-Paul for fifteen years and has three children with him. Until she opens his letter, she seems to trust him and believe him to be the wonderful husband and father she's always thought him to be. But when she discovers his terrible, sinful secret, she begins to question him. How well can one know one's spouse? Is it possible to ever completely know another person?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Dandelion Wine
Ray Bradbury, 1957
Random House
239 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780553277531
Summary
The summer of '28 was a vintage season for a growing boy. A summer of green apple trees, mowed lawns, and new sneakers. Of half-burnt firecrackers, of gathering dandelions, of Grandma's belly-busting dinner.
It was a summer of sorrows and marvels and gold-fuzzed bees. A magical, timeless summer in the life of a twelve-year-old boy named Douglas Spaulding—remembered forever by the incomparable Ray Bradbury. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Aka—Leonard Douglas, William Elliott, Douglas Spaulding, Leonard Spaulding
• Birth—August 22, 1920
• Where—Waukegan, Illinois USA
• Death—June 5, 2012
• Where—Los Angeles, California
• Education—schools in Waukega and Los Angeles
• Awards—(see below)
Ray Bradbury was one of those rare individuals whose writing changed the way people think. His more than 500 published works—short stories, novels, plays, screenplays, television scripts, and verse—exemplify the American imagination at its most creative.
Once read, his words are never forgotten. His best-known and most beloved books—The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451, and Something Wicked This Way Comes—are masterworks that readers carry with them over a lifetime. His timeless, constant appeal to audiences young and old has proven him to be one of the truly classic authors of the 20th Century—and the 21st.
Ray Bradbury's work has been included in several Best American Short Story collections. He won countless awards and honors for his work (see below).
On the occasion of his 80th birthday in August 2000, Bradbury said, "The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me. The feeling I have every day is very much the same as it was when I was twelve. In any event, here I am, eighty years old, feeling no different, full of a great sense of joy, and glad for the long life that has been allowed me. I have good plans for the next ten or twenty years, and I hope you'll come along.
Awards
1947 & 1948 - O. Henry Memorial Awards
1954 - Benjamin Franklin Award
1977 - World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award
1980 - World Science Fiction Convention Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy
1988 - National Book Foundation Medal
1989 - Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Master
1989 - Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award
1999 - Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame induction
2000 - National Book Foundation Medal
2002 - Hollywood Walk of Fame star
2004 - National Medal of Arts
2007 - Sir Arthur Clarke Special Award
2007 - French Commandeur Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Medal
Extras
From a 2003 Barnes and Noble interview:
• I spent three years standing on a street corner, selling newspapers, making ten dollars a week. I did that job every day for three hours and the rest of the time I wrote because I was in love with writing. The answer to all writing, to any career for that matter, is love.
• I have been inspired by libraries and the magic they contain and the people that they represent.
• I hate all politics. I don't like either political party. One should not belong to them—one should be an individual, standing in the middle. Anyone that belongs to a party stops thinking.
• When asked what books most influenced his life or career as a writer—this is what he said:
The John Carter, Warlord of Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, which entered my life when I was ten and caused me to go out on the lawns of summer, put up my hands, and ask for Mars to take me home. Within a short time I began to write and have continued that process ever since, all because of Mr. Burroughs.
Book Reviews
[A] rich, lyrical portrait of a small town.... The summer is seen through the 12-year-old Douglas Spaulding...[who] awakes to the possibilities of life and to the inevitability of death—and lives through it with his innocence, if not all his illusions, intact. It is a summer of "rites and ceremonies," of "discoveries and revelations." ... Sound sentimental? Of course it is—but joyously so, and dappled with the skepticism of children.... "The sun didn't rise," writes the author. "It overflowed." And so does this warm embracing play. (Based on the 1975 stage play.)
Mel Gussow - New York Times (2/8/1975)
Bradbury's 1957 semi-autobiographical novel, after which a crater on the moon is named, captures the very heart and soul of childhood, from terror of the dark to the delight of running in new sneakers. —Theresa Connors, Arkansas Tech Univ. Lib., Russellville
Library Journal
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)
1. What does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to Douglas? To you, personally? Do you remember when you first became aware, or conscious, that you were alive?
2. Dandelion Wine is peopled with characters of various pages, from boyhood through old age. How does life, and all of its meanings and imperatives, differ from age to age in the book? How about in your own experiences: how has your understanding of life changed from the time you were a young child up to whatever age you are now?
3. If one feels life intensely, does one also fear death intensely as Douglas does? How about you: if you fall in love with life, is it possible to come an acceptance of your own death? How does Colonel Freeleigh approach his death? Great-grandma Spaulding tells Douglas that "no person ever died that had a family." What does she mean?
4. By the book's end, how does Douglas gain acceptance of both life and death? What lessons does he learn? What lessons might you have taken away from this book?
5. Talk about the title of Bradbury's book. What is the significance of dandelion wine...and of dandelions themselves? Consider that the dandelion is a lowly weed, that it dies but returns to life each spring, and that it disperses its seeds over wide distances.
6. What role does magic play in this work? What about in real life: Do you believe that the ordinary, mundane part of life holds a kind of magic? What comprises "magic" in life for Douglas, the people of Greenville...and for you?
7. Talk about the machines in the story. How do they function symbolically? Consider the Green Machine, the Happiness Machine, the trolley, and the lawn mower. Do machines enhance life by adding to its magic? Or do machines detract from life?
8. Why is memory so prominent in this work? Can the past exist without access to memory?
9. The ravine is an important setting in the book. What does it mean to the boys? What does it mean to the community? Think about the ravine as wonder, wildness, freedom, the unknown, danger...or all of those things. Was there such a place when you were growing up?
10. What parts of the book do you find humorous? Which parts do you find akin to your own childhood?
11. Does Dandelion Wine portray an idealized childhood? Or a realistic one?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Night Film
Marisha Pessl, 2013
Random House
640 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812979787
Summary
On a damp October night, beautiful young Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Though her death is ruled a suicide, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise.
As he probes the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley’s life and death, McGrath comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father: the legendary, reclusive cult-horror-film director Stanislas Cordova—a man who hasn’t been seen in public for more than thirty years.
For McGrath, another death connected to this seemingly cursed family dynasty seems more than just a coincidence. Though much has been written about Cordova’s dark and unsettling films, very little is known about the man himself.
Driven by revenge, curiosity, and a need for the truth, McGrath, with the aid of two strangers, is drawn deeper and deeper into Cordova’s eerie, hypnotic world.
The last time he got close to exposing the director, McGrath lost his marriage and his career. This time he might lose even more.
Night Film, the gorgeously written, spellbinding new novel by the dazzlingly inventive Marisha Pessl, will hold you in suspense until you turn the final page. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 26, 1977
• Where—near Detroit, Michigan, USA
• Raised—Asheville, North Carolina
• Education—B.A., Barnard College (Columbia University)
• Currently—New York, New York
Marisha Pessl is an American writer best known for her debut novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, published in 2006. Her second novel, Night Film, came out in 2013.
Pessl was born in Clarkston, Michigan, to Klaus, an Austrian engineer for General Motors, and Anne, an American homemaker. Pessl's parents divorced when she was three, and she moved to Asheville, North Carolina with her mother and sister.
Pessl had an intellectually stimulating upbringing, recalling that her mother read "a fair chunk of the Western canon out loud" to her and her sister before bed, and entered her in lessons for riding, painting, jazz, and French. She started high school at the Asheville School, a private, co-educational boarding school, but graduated from Asheville High School in 1995. She attended Northwestern University for two years before transferring to Barnard College, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in English Literature.
After graduating, Pessl worked as a financial consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, while writing in her free time. After two failed attempts at novels, she began writing a third in 2001 about the relationship between a daughter and her controlling, charismatic father. She completed the novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, in 2004 and it was published in 2006 to "almost universally positive" reviews, translated into thirty languages, and eventually becoming a New York Times Best Seller.
Pessl's second novel, Night Film, a psychological literary thriller, was published in 2013 to mixed reviews. Janet Maslin of the New York Times suspected it "was more exciting to write than to read," while Kirkus referred to it as "an inventive—if brooding, strange and creepy—adventure in literary terror."
Pessl married Nic Caiano, a hedge fund manager, in 2003, and they lived in New York City. Pessl and Caiano divorced in 2009.
Pessl was also a contributing musician to The Pierces' third studio album, Thirteen Tales of Love and Revenge, released in 2007. She is credited in the liner notes as having played the French horn on track 9 titled "The Power Of..." (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/18/2013.)
Book Reviews
There is a haunting suspicion running all through Night Film: that this book was more exciting to write than to read, and that Ms. Pessl reveled too contentedly in the universe she created. On the rare occasions when she calls attention to double meanings or bits of wordplay, they fall terribly flat.... But Night Film is content to deliver small, self-satisfied rewards. Ms. Pessl seems to take it as a given that this book, like its absent genius, warrants fascination. Where’s the evidence? Not on the page.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
No one can accuse Marisha Pessl of unfamiliarity with the tools of the modern thriller. With pages of faked-up old photos, invented Web sites and satellite maps, Night Film...asserts itself as a multimedia presentation more than an old-fashioned book. There are over a hundred chapters, most of the James Patterson two-page variety, a technique that adds a giddy accelerant to Pessl’s already zippy pacing.... Pessl is capable of fine prose, so her willingness to serve up “Hardy Boys” nuggets like these suggests she’s willfully dumbing herself down. Still and all, Night Film has been precision-engineered to be read at high velocity, and its energy would be the envy of any summer blockbuster. Your average writer of thrillers should lust for Pessl’s deft touch with character.
Joe Hill - New York Times Book Review
[T[wisted and intelligent.... The “night films” of Stanislas Cordova have a cult following: ...to see his work is to “leave your old self behind, walk through hell, and be reborn.” Ashley Cordova is his enigmatic daughter...[who] apparently commits suicide at 24. Scott McGrath is a reporter...can’t resist his need to uncover the real story of Ashley’s death.... Pessl does wonderful work giving the hard-headed Scott reason to question the cause of Ashley’s death, and readers will be torn between logic and magic.
Publishers Weekly
Expands from a seemingly straightforward mystery into a multifaceted, densely byzantine exploration of much larger issues.... Into this mazelike world of dead ends and false leads, [reporter Scott] McGrath ventures with his two, much younger helpers, Nora and Hopper, brilliantly portrayed Holmesian "irregulars" who may finally understand more about Ashley than their mentor, whose linear approach to fact finding might miss the point entirely.
Booklist
An inventive—if brooding, strange and creepy—adventure in literary terror.... Pessl hits the scary ground running....when [filmmaker Stanislas Cordova's] daughter is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in Chinatown. Scott McGrath, reporter on the way to being washed-up, finds cause for salvation of a kind in the poor young woman’s demise.... A touch too coyly postmodern at times, but a worthwhile entertainment all the same
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Professor Wolfgang Beckman accuses Scott of having “no respect for the murk. For the blackly unexplained. The un-nail downable.” How does Scott’s perspective on mystery and the “blackly unexplained” change over the course of the novel?
2. Nora asks Scott, “How much evidence do you need before you wonder if it just might be real?” Do you think Scott’s skepticism is a mark of pride, as well as rationality, as Nora suggests? Why does he wish to believe in the curse after his conversation with Inez Gallo? How ready were you to believe in the curse?
3. Scott is relentless in his pursuit of the truth about Cordova. How far would you have gone, in his situation? Is there a point at which you would have stopped pursuing the truth?
4. Cordova’s films were filled with such horror and violence that, in many cases, they were banned from theaters. What is your perspective on violence—its role and its effects—in movies today?
5. Cordova’s philosophy is in many ways antithetical to our modern world, where transparency, over-sharing and social media are the norm. Did you feel drawn to Cordova’s philosophy, or repelled, or both? Why?
6. Discuss how Scott advertently or inadvertently involved his daughter Samantha in his investigation. What did you think of the role she wound up playing, in his discovery?
7. How does your perception of Scott change, from the beginning to the end of the novel?
8. What did you think of the evolution of Nora and Scott’s relationship?
9. Both Scott and Nora reflect on the power of memory and story to alter the way we relate to our experiences. Scott says: “It was never the act itself but our own understanding of it that defeated us, over and over again.” Nora says: “The bad things that happen to you don’t have to mean anything at all.” Do you agree?
10. Beckman says “Every one of us has our box, a dark chamber stowing the thing that lanced our heart.” Consider Nora, Hopper, Ashley, Cordova, and Scott. What do their boxes contain, and in what ways do these secrets motivate them? Imprison them?
11. What do you think helped Hopper come to peace with Ashley’s memory?
12. New York City is just as much a character in the novel as any one person. How does your personal experience of, or relationship with, the city affect your reading?
13. How did the visual elements throughout the book enhance or impact your reading experience?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Painted Horses
Malcolm Brooks, 2014
Grove/Atlantic
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802121646
Summary
In the mid-1950s, America was flush with prosperity and saw an unbroken line of progress clear to the horizon, while the West was still very much wild.
In this ambitious, incandescent debut, Malcolm Brooks animates that time and untamed landscape, in a tale of the modern and the ancient, of love and fate, and of heritage threatened by progress. Catherine Lemay is a young archaeologist on her way to Montana, with a huge task before her—a canyon “as deep as the devil’s own appetites.” Working ahead of a major dam project, she has one summer to prove nothing of historical value will be lost in the flood. From the moment she arrives, nothing is familiar—the vastness of the canyon itself mocks the contained, artifact-rich digs in post-Blitz London where she cut her teeth.
And then there’s John H, a former mustanger and veteran of the U.S. Army’s last mounted cavalry campaign, living a fugitive life in the canyon. John H inspires Catherine to see beauty in the stark landscape, and her heart opens to more than just the vanished past.
Painted Horses sends a dauntless young woman on a heroic quest, sings a love song to the horseman’s vanishing way of life, and reminds us that love and ambition, tradition and the future, often make strange bedfellows. It establishes Malcolm Brooks as an extraordinary new talent. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Malcolm Brooks was raised in the rural foothills of the California Sierras and grew up around Gold Rush and Native American artifacts. A carpenter by trade, he has lived in Montana for most of two decades. His writing has appeared in Gray's Sporting Journal, Outside, Sports Afield, and Montana Quarterly, among others. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Brooks’s debut captures the grandeur of the American West. Catherine Lemay...goes to Montana in the 1950s as a young archeologist to survey a valley for signs of native habitation.... [Her] findings threaten the balance of money and power in the community, follows a predicable course. But on the whole, this is a debut that captures a spirit of a place.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Brooks delivers an authentic story, examining in gripping, page-turning prose what it means to live in the West.... An outstanding debut novel that will linger in the reader’s mind. —Donna Bettencourt
Library Journal
Set in an American West of the 1950s but carrying vestiges of the nineteenth century.... The book loses some credibility as it develops more contemporary plot elements, but its vividly drawn atmosphere and strong characters will keep the reader engaged. —Mark Levine
Booklist
A mid-1950s oater that wants to comeover all cowboy and sensitive at the same time....There's some fine writing here, especially when it comes to horses and the material culture that surrounds them, and when it comes to Western landscapes, too, for Brooks knows that in good Western writing, the land is always a character. There's also some overwriting....
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.)