The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Lovely Bones: the bestselling novel by Alice Sebold
In her novel The Lovely Bones, author Alice Sebold takes a shocking and upsetting theme - the rape and murder of a child, and from this dark background weaves a poignant, thought provoking and uplifting tale of enduring love, acceptance and redemption. Based on her own real-life experience of rape, Alice Sebold uses her traumatic experience to approach an uncomfortable subject with both frankness and sensitivity. The Lovely Bones is a coming of age story with a difference...the person "comi...

Popular World Detective Fiction Characters
Elementary My Dear Watson
Most of us are familiar with Sherlock Holmes and his modern cousin James Bond. However, Detective Fiction is pretty popular outside of the US and UK as well. Do names like Precious Ramotswe and Inspector Chen ring a bell in your ears, would you like to know about them? If yes, read on and become familiar with some of these famous fiction Detective Characters. You are welcome to suggest names to be included in the lens. Just leave a comment in the guest book. Image From ~ Amazon.com

Galway Bay Book Discussion
An OnlineDiscussion of Galway Bay by Mary Pat Kelly
This book, Galway Bay by Mary Pat Kelly, is one of my favorites of all time. Written as a family saga about the Irish potato famine, the first half of the book is about family life in Ireland in the mid-1800's. The second half is about the family's journey to America, ending as the Chicago Worlds Fair is taking place in 1893. The author, Mary Pat Kelly, is working on a sequel that follows the family from this point forward. This book is perfect for discussion with a group and on this page y...

The Lost Garden - Book Review
The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys
The Lost Garden is a short novel, just 212 pages in the paperback edition but it is beautiful. The author, Helen Humphreys, writes in lyrical prose but without a hint of pretentiousness. She doesn't let the beauty of the writing get in the way of the story telling. In fact, the style of the writing adds to the emotions and atmosphere of the novel. She describes the feelings of the narrator with precision whether it is trepidation, happiness or loneliness. I recommend this novel most highly ...

Misanthropy, Solitude, Fiction and the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything
Introducing a New Literary Genre: Misanthropic Peace Lit
I am conducting a bit of an experiment here to see if there is any demand for not only pretty 'black' short stories and literature in general (which has always being around anyway - think noir and hard boiled stuff), but also to see if there is any demand for non-conflict, or at least low conflict, literature. I have grown tired of the attitude that all fiction has to be based around conflict and that means creating some literary Colosseum where two protagonists have to fight to the death fo...

Squidpunk - Literature of the Cephalopod
Enter the World of Squidpunk
Come celebrate the literature of the cephalopod! Short stories and poetry about our tentacled friends. Squidpunk is a mashup of science fiction, horror, and squid (or octopus, or cuttlefish, as long as it's a tentacled creature of the order cephalopoda).

Casca
The Eternal mercenary
Created by author Barry Sadler, this adventure series follows Roman Legionnaire, Casca Rufio Longinus, who is cursed by Jesus Christ as he hangs dying on the cross at Gulgotha. As a result of Jesus's curse, Casca becomes immortal and is destined to wander the earth until the time comes when he again sees Jesus. OK, now that's a weird premise for a series of paperback books but man are these good books! If you are a fan of the Destroyer series by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy or the western...

The Invisible Match | Short Story | Victorian Romance | by Frank M. Bicknell
The Invisible Match ~ A Victorian Romance Short Story by Frank M. Bicknell
"Was she falling in love with him, or still more alarming thought, had the fall been already accomplished? She tried to gauge the strength of inclination toward him by recalling some of the half-forgotten love affairs of her younger days. She found such a standard of measurement almost useless. She had been scarce more than a child then, whereas she was now a fully developed woman and capable of a depth of feeling quite impossible in former years. Compared with her young maiden fancies the em...

Tales of Fiction: Feeding
Tales of Fiction
This "Tales of Fiction" release is third in the series, but it isn't so much a story, as a poem of sorts. When I was a child, the dark of my room was frightening; my mind would conjure up things it had no right to conjure - would create creatures of the dark, that waited until I was asleep to pounce. Most children have these frights at some point or other - the boogeyman in the closet, the wolf at the window, the monster under the bed - I don't remember being afraid of the closet or under my ...

3 Amazing Reads in Literary Fiction
Feed your fiction addiction
Do you enjoy complex characters and traveling to others times and places? If so, these novels may be perfect for you - unless you've already read them, of course. I have written a few short stories, so I have a great appreciation for writers who put believable characters and plots down in such a way that people want to keep turning 200 or more pages. It's quite an accomplishment. Of course, we readers are important too. Without us, no author would write a best seller! Some people tend to do...