Book Review: Pleasant Valley Lost

A Real Life Lost Horizon (5 stars)

I enjoyed reading Joseph J. Swope's poignant and bittersweet 'Pleasant Valley Lost'. The small daily triumphs and the relentless eventual tragedy that overcomes the extended Swope family (and all of Pleasant Valley) is richly portrayed here. They became like a second family as I read this – parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, and shopkeepers take their place around the reader as they swirl around the story’s narrator, young Eddy Swope. This first person voice works very well. By seeing this family farm and community through the eyes of an adolescent we experience its innocence, and the loss becomes more poignant. As the narrator becomes a young adult the language shifts a bit, and we then see the tragedy through Eddy's eyes as an adult. 

This story summoned memories of my own early years, suggesting by gentle example how to live with loss. It becomes much more than a story about the coming of a dam and its effect on a community.

Many of the characters have only a single characterizing trait, thus bordering at times on caricature, perhaps of necessity due to the vast number of characters. One solution is to foreground fewer characters, and invest each with several key traits. 

That said, the writer succeeds in bringing virtually everyone into the foreground of this portrait. Perhaps that's why it feels like a saga covering decades when in fact the key action covers about five years. The story leaps ahead to show what happens in the lives of all the characters. It’s harrowing, poignant, and life-affirming. It’s been years since I read such a wonderful family saga.

From the Book Description:

Set amid the turbulent times of the late 1960s, Pleasant Valley Lost chronicles the last days of a family dairy farm condemned to destruction by a federal dam project. As the family struggles to find a new home and build their future, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers moves into Pleasant Valley, ruthlessly destroying a community and its history.

'Pleasant Valley Lost' is based on the true story surrounding the author's childhood farm. Originally part of the estate of Pennsylvania's fifth governor, the farm had been in the Swope family since 1939 and was located in one of the most fertile areas of the region.

Pleasant Valley Lost also recounts the family's long-suffering devotion to baseball and the Philadelphia Phillies. Following many years of losing seasons, the Phillies finally provided cause for celebration when they claimed their first World Series title in 1980.

Today, Pleasant Valley and the Swope farm are submerged under the Blue Marsh Dam.

Book Review: 'Dusgadh Essence of Life'

A Chilling Supernatural Horror (4 stars)

In this first book in Margaret A. Daly's 'Awakening' series not only does the story’s hero, Ember, face a horrific series of attacks, she faces a worse series of revelations about her real identity. As the story is told in the first person, we learn each emerging truth as Ember does. For her and us nothing is what it seemed. This layering of violence, emotion, and a deeply compromised reality makes this a compelling dive into the supernatural. 

Our engagement with Ember would have been stronger if Act 1 had been given over to her earlier normal life. We’re thrown immediately into her struggle against occult surprises at every turn. By seeing and sympathizing with her as a normal young woman we’d have felt even deeper the onslaught of occult forces. 

That aside, the portrait of ruthless evil in the book is very powerful. It overwhelms, exploits, and physically and emotionally ransacks its victims. This is very convincingly and chillingly portrayed. I was very drawn into seeing how Ember would fare against such horrific treatment. 

From the Book Description:

Ember Malloch has no idea her life is about to get turned upside down. Besides the fact that she sees the dead on occasion, she lives an ordinary mundane life. 

Her sister warned her not to provoke the spirits, but Ember has a mind of her own and she defies Becky at every turn. Now, her life as she knows it will be changed forever, as an unbridled strength is unleashed upon her. She will have an awakening like no other as she learns her past, and discovers who she is.

Book Review: Silvia Villalobos' 'Stranger or Friend'

A Compelling Mystery Thriller (5 stars)

Part murder mystery, part psychological suspense, ‘Stranger or Friend’ is a well-told story of one woman’s struggle to make sense of the forces arrayed against her. The mystery begins when her best friend is murdered not long before Zoe’s return to her Wyoming hometown. 

The psychological element is Zoe’s journey back to the place and forces that molded her into the woman she’s become. The stranger or friend of the title refers in part to the identity of Lori’s murderer, but also to how she came to be a stranger to herself, and to those around her.

The only caveat in the novel is that in her search for answers Zoe follows up on a few too many leads, and some in too much detail. The Act 3 climax brings the mystery to a satisfying resolution, but it too would be stronger if events were accelerated.

That aside, the writing effectively evokes a dark, slightly off-balance tone of menace, confusion, and distrust. This tone is present in her discomfort in the too-open Wyoming landscape, in the friends and strangers living there, and especially in the crime that turns her life upside-down. The many varied characters are all clearly drawn; they speak and act differently, revealing something of their personality. 

‘Stranger or Friend’ makes for an exceptional and entertaining read. It brings you a hero you’ll care about, and tells a story that will keep you guessing until the end.

From the Book Description:

L.A. lawyer Zoe Sinclair finds her Wyoming hometown reeling from the murder of its most popular resident: her best friend, Lori. Not less unnerving are the strange cries coming from the woods. The lawyer inside the woman is prompted into action, but she meets resistance from a town wary of outsiders. 

When a second body is found and Zoe is threatened, the case turns personal. Under pressure from the sheriff to leave the probing to the police, and taunted by the killer’s subtle messages, Zoe finds herself trapped in a game of hunter and prey.