Pressed Pennies by Steven Manchester

Genre: Adult, Contemporary Fiction
Source: I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

The main characters of this story are Abby and Rick and Abby's daughter Paige. At one time Abby and Rick were real close. When Rick moved things changed. Each of them married and then divorced. Abby was married to an abusive alcoholic. Rick was married to a woman who was very distant. His marriage was going no where. The other characters in the story are childhood friends that they have all reconnected with. This is not a feel good story.  There are deaths and decisions to be made around every corner.

I definitely understood where Abby was coming from when it came to Paige. When you have a dysfunctional marriage and you split the one thing you want to do is protect your children.  I knew the game Paige was playing. She wanted her dad to show how much he loved her so she overlooked his issues. This is where I can say "been there done that". My daughter was Paige in many ways.  She liked her new step-dad yet she constantly compared him to her biological dad in the hopes of getting a reaction from her biological dad. Paige made Ricks life so much more difficult. He hung in there for her because he truly loved her as much as he loved her mother.

This book is full of hope. Hope for the future that things can be made good again. Hope that you can recapture some of your youth.  All in all this was a very good book and one I would recommend.

The Sacrifist by T. Mason Gilbert

Genre: Adult, Adventure/Paranormal
Source: I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

From Goodreads:
Sir Randolph Barrington hires a mountaineer to look for his son who has disappeared, leaving nothing but a lot of blood in the snow on Mt. Kangchenjunga, the third tallest mountain in the world. Was it the fabled yeti? Any witnesses aren't talking. Torleif Günner, who guided the expedition in which Rand disappeared, meets with Dane "Lake" Nielsen and forwards Sir Randolph's terms. Dane has been hiding out at his ranch in Leadville, Colorado since an avalanche accident, but money talks.

Dane and Torleif organize an expedition to find Rand's remains. Before Dane leaves, he receives a strange call from a woman warning him not to go. Meanwhile, the High Lama of a monastery near Kangchenjunga sends his emissary, the Sacrifist, to the Sherpa guide who is heading up the crew used by Dane. The guide agrees to take the Sacrifist along, disguised as a porter for the expedition, but has no idea what the Sacrifist's intentions are. Is he a monk? He doesn't look like one. Besides these competing factions, Sir Randolph has also hired the TV show host of 'Big Game, Big Times' to look for the animal who attacked his son. 

Will Rand or his remains be found? Who will find the beast first? Who will die?

My Thoughts:
The author did an excellent job of showing the different cultures and beliefs. The descriptions were so good you felt like you were on the mountain with the sherpas. As well as being read for entertaiment the book provides a lot of information about mountain climbing and the beliefs of those who live in the area. The story line progresses at a pace that keeps you turning the pages. You really don't want to put the book down for any reason. For that reason I recommend it to those who love adventure with a touch of the paranormal.

Author Bio:

T. Mason Gilbert is a humorist by nature, but his past is not checered. It is more of a chessboard full of strange strategies that worked for him. Before writing novels hehad written jokes for other stand-up comedians, screenplays, and sitcoms. At one time, he was a sidekick for a well-known DJ doing impressions on Los Angeles radio and also did voiceovers for Premier Radio Network. He was a finalist for the ne Mickey Mouse voice in 2009.

His first novel. "The Sacrifist" is an adventure about the hunt for a yeti that is killing climbers in the Himalaya. His second nove, "Poker, Poker: An Erotic Sex Comedy" was written during NaoWriMo 2014 and will be availabe in April of 2015 and published under the pen name of Matt Broseling.

He lives with his wife of 36 years in Orange County, California.

Where you can find him:

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Bitter Bronx by Jerome Charyn

Genre: Short Stories
Source: I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

From Goodreads:
In Bitter Bronx, one of our most gifted and original novelists depicts a world before and after modern urban renewal destroyed the gritty sanctity of a land made famous by Ruth, Gehrig, and Joltin' Joe.

Bitter Bronx is suffused with the texture and nostalgia of a lost time and place, combining a keen eye for detail with Jerome Charyn's lived experience. These stories are informed by a childhood growing up near that middle-class mecca, the Grand Concourse; falling in love with three voluptuous librarians at a public library in the Lower Depths of the South Bronx; and eating at Mafia-owned restaurants along Arthur Avenue's restaurant row, amid a "land of deprivation…where fathers trundled home…with a monumental sadness on their shoulders."

In "Lorelei," a lonely hearts grifter returns home and finds his childhood sweetheart still living in the same apartment house on the Concourse; in "Archy and Mehitabel" a high school romance blossoms around a newspaper comic strip; in "Major Leaguer" a former New York Yankee confronts both a gang of drug dealers and the wreckage that Robert Moses wrought in his old neighborhood; and in three interconnected stories—"Silk & Silk," "Little Sister," and "Marla"—Marla Silk, a successful Manhattan attorney, discovers her father's past in the Bronx and a mysterious younger sister who was hidden from her, kept in a fancy rest home near the Botanical Garden. In these stories and others, the past and present tumble together in Charyn's singular and distinctly "New York prose, street-smart, sly, and full of lurches" (John Leonard, New York Times).

Throughout it all looms the "master builder" Robert Moses, a man who believed he could "save" the Bronx by building a highway through it, dynamiting whole neighborhoods in the process. Bitter Bronx stands as both a fictional eulogy for the people and places paved over by Moses' expressway and an affirmation of Charyn's "brilliant imagination" (Elizabeth Taylor, Chicago Tribune).

My Thoughts:
This was a tough one for me to read.  Had I grown up in the Bronx, or lived in New York where I was more familiar with its history, I might have made better connections to this book. Instead I felt disconnected. I was able to get a sense of what life in the Bronx was like and the changes it went through after Robert Moses split it in two.  I have to agree that the changes were not for the best. I know my first husband came from the Bronx and his parents would talk about their reasoning for living was how bad it had grown and how gang filled it had become.  His writing was wonderful to read. It made me long to see the Bronx before the expressway went through cutting areas in half. It almost reminded me of the Berlin Wall that cut off the two sides.  Each side grew in a different way and at a different rate.  Sometimes the things we do in the name of progress have the opposite effect. The division created is one that has been a struggle for years and will continue for many more to come.  This was an honest look at what once was, what it is now and hopefully a glimpse into what it may become one day.


About the Author

Jerome Charyn's stories have appeared in The Atlantic, The Paris Review, The American Scholar, Epoch, Narrative, Ellery Queen, and other magazines. His most recent novel is I Am Abraham. He lived for many years in Paris and currently resides in Manhattan.

You can find him on:

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New York Times Review