Smorgasbord Posts from My Archives – Book Reviews – #FamilySaga Claire Fullerton, #Fantasy Teagan Riordain Geneviene.

Welcome to the series where I will be sharing a selection of book reviews I have posted in the last few years. I would like to take the opportunity to showcase books that I have enjoyed and their authors and if you have not read the books, I hope it will encourage you to check them out.

The first review for 2018 is for Mourning Dove by Claire Fullerton, a family saga set in Memphis in the 1970s and 1980s, with a coming of age for a brother and sister dropped into the opulence and charm of Southern culture.

About the book

“An accurate and heart-wrenching picture of the sensibilities of the American South.” Kirkus Book Reviews

The heart has a home when it has an ally.

If Millie Crossan doesn’t know anything else, she knows this one truth simply because her brother Finley grew up beside her. Charismatic Finley, eighteen months her senior, becomes Millie’s guide when their mother Posey leaves their father and moves her children from Minnesota to Memphis shortly after Millie’s tenth birthday.

Memphis is a world foreign to Millie and Finley. This is the 1970s Memphis, the genteel world of their mother’s upbringing and vastly different from anything they’ve ever known. Here they are the outsiders. Here, they only have each other. And here, as the years fold over themselves, they mature in a manicured Southern culture where they learn firsthand that much of what glitters isn’t gold. Nuance, tradition, and Southern eccentrics flavor Millie and Finley’s world as they find their way to belonging.

But what hidden variables take their shared history to leave both brother and sister at such disparate ends?

My review for the book.

I am not sure that anyone who is not born into the opulent, and long cultivated upper echelons of Southern culture, would be able to slip into its charming, but strictly adhered to rules of engagement easily. Especially when you are on the cusp of your teen years and  brought up in the very different environment. As are Millie aged ten and her brother Finlay, who is eighteen months older.

“We had Minnesota accents, we were white as the driven snow, and we both had a painfully difficult time deciphering the Southern accent, which operates at lightening speed, and doesn’t feel the need for enunciation. Instead, it trips along the lines of implication.”

Posey comes from an affluent Southern family and was brought up in a sprawling stucco French Chateau which she left having met a charismatic and rich Yankee. Her marriage is over, and the wealth that she is accustomed to is gone; and she has little choice but to return to her family home in Memphis. She slips right back into society where she left off, as she takes over the running of the house, and with four years until an income will be available from her inherited trust fund, other means must be found.

The intricacies of the society that the two children find themselves inserted into, has little relation to the outside world. Steeped in tradition, long forged alliances, eccentricities and acceptable behaviour, stretching back through many generations. Little has changed, and that is the way it is orchestrated to remain. Clearly defined roles for males and females are perpetuated in the schooling that prepares the young to continue the status quo into the future, and non-conformity is frowned upon.  You will fit in or face exclusion.

This novel is about the relationship between a brother and sister and is written from Millie’s perspective, now 36 years old, as she revisits their childhood and teenage years. She is looking for answers and clues as to where her relationship with Finlay, which had been so solid and close, began to disconnect. Without a doubt for me one of elements that is crucial to this, is their mother, and Claire Fullerton has done a masterful job in creating her self-absorbed but somehow vulnerable character.

“My mother did not walk into a room, she sashayed, borne from the swivel of her twenty-four inch waist. Her name was Posey, and although there was a lot more to her that she ever let on, to all appearances, the name suited her perfectly.”

The story is not fast paced, flowing smoothly as it meanders through the lives of Posey, Millie and Finlay. You are drawn into their experiences, and you find yourself mentally bookmarking certain events and revelations, that explain how such a close bond became disconnected. I found myself engaging with the main characters early on, and I became emotionally attached to them all. Those of us with brothers and sisters can find parallels in our own relationships, especially those that might not be as close as they were when growing up.

Mourning Dove is elegantly written with a brilliantly descriptive language that has you immersed in this very exclusive and opulent society. I dare you not to read, and not come away with a distinctive drawl of lightening speed, without the need of enunciation!

Read the reviews and buy the book: Amazon US – and: Amazon UK

Claire Fullerton hails from Memphis, TN. and now lives in Malibu, CA. with her husband and 3 German shepherds. She is the author of Mourning Dove, a coming of age, Southern family saga set in 1970’s Memphis. Mourning Dove is a five-time award winner, including the Literary Classics Words on Wings for Book of the Year, and the Ippy Award silver medal in regional fiction ( Southeast.) Claire is also the author of Dancing to an Irish Reel, a Kindle Book Review and Readers’ Favorite award winner that is set on the west coast of Ireland, where she once lived. Claire’s first novel is a paranormal mystery set in two time periods titled, A Portal in Time, set in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

She is a contributor to the book, A Southern Season with her novella, Through an Autumn Window, set at a Memphis funeral ( because something always goes wrong at a Southern funeral.) Little Tea is Claire’s 4th novel and is set in the Deep South. It is the story of the bonds of female friendship, healing the past, and outdated racial relations. Little Tea is the August selection of the Pulpwood Queens, a Faulkner Society finalist in the William Wisdom international competition, and on the long list of the Chanticleer Review’s Somerset award. She is represented by Julie Gwinn of the Seymour Literary.

Also by Claire Fullerton

Claire Fullerton, Buy: Amazon US – and: Amazon UK – Follow Claire on : Goodreads – website: Claire Fullerton – Twitter: @Cfullerton3

Now time for a little fantasy from Teagan Riordain Geneviene. A lovely story of about glowing pigs and a prequel to Atonement, Tennessee.

About The Glowing Pigs – Snort Stories of Atonement, Tennessee – A short book long on characters….

These snort stories are part of the “universe” of the urban fantasy town created by author Teagan Ríordáin Geneviene ― Atonement, Tennessee. They continue the adventures of the otherworldly pigs and the residents of the quirky town.

Like some of the other Atonement characters, the otherworldly glowing pigs were loosely inspired by the ancient myth of Gwydion fab Don. The pig-tales snuffle alongside the novels

Atonement, Tennessee and Atonement in Bloom at various points in the time-line.

The first snort (“Robin’s Great Chase”) is a prequel to all the Atonement stories. The story-line comes into play in the next novel, Atonement in Bloom, where the glowing pigs snuffle, snort, and grunt into action.

The glowing pigs are one small part of the quirky, supernatural town of Atonement, TN. However, they are the most likely to steal your heart.

My review for The Glowing Pigs.

This book is a short but delightful appetizer and prequel to Atonement, Tennessee. We get to meet Deme and Honeybell, two of the glowing pigs who live in the woods around Atonement. Their mistress is the beautiful Goewin, whose very sight, had the younger version of Robin Warden smitten for life. These mischievous little pigs… and I hold Deme entirely responsible as the ring leader, are always up for adventure, and over six stories we get to enjoy their escapades.

We also get to meet some of the main characters from Atonement, and discover their reasons for coming to this special town. Including the much younger Marge Tipton who becomes the local diner owner in the novel.

As a bonus Teagan Geneviene shares a story from her sequel, Atonement in Bloom, out later this year. When Glowing Pigs Fly is in honour of National Pig Day, when the little glowing creatures get to play with humans officially, rather than the sneaky visitations by Deme and Honeybell the rest of the year.

Children and adults alike would enjoy this sweet collection of stories.

Read the reviews and buy the book: Amazon US – And on Amazon UK: Amazon UK

Teagan Ríordáin Geneviene lives in a “high desert” town in the Southwest of the USA.

Teagan had always devoured fantasy novels of every type. Then one day there was no new book readily at hand for reading — so she decided to write one. And she hasn’t stopped writing since.

Her work is colored by her experiences from living in the southern states and the southwest. Teagan most often writes in the fantasy genre, but she also writes cozy mysteries. Whether it’s a 1920s mystery, a steampunk adventure, or urban fantasy, her stories have a strong element of whimsy. There are no *extremes* in violence, sex, or profanity.

Her blog “Teagan’s Books” contains serial stories written according to “things” from viewers. Teagan’s Books

Major influences include Agatha Christie, Terry Brooks, David Eddings, Robert Jordan, and Charlaine Harris.

A selection of other books by Teagan

Teagan Geneviene – Buy: Amazon US – and : Amazon UK – Blog: Teagan’s Books – Goodreads:Goodreads – Twitter: @teagangeneviene

 

Thank you for dropping in today and I hope you have found some books to take away with you.. thanks Sally.