Shadow of the Swords: An epic novel of the crusades
by Kamran Pasha
Book Excerpt:
Prologue
By Kamran Pasha,
Author of Shadow of the Swords: A Novel of the Crusades
Sinai Desert -- AD 1174
The Cross burned red against the soldier's white tunic.
Red had always been her favorite color, the little girl thought. The color of roses. Of the sun as it set over the shores of the sea near her home. The color of her mother's hair.
Her mother.
The girl felt the steel talons of memory tearing at her heart. She had seen her mother's hair for the last time that morning, before it had been tucked away inside the modest head scarf that all good Jewish women wore in Cairo. She was too young herself to hide away her own dark locks, as the scarf would become obligatory only after her cycles began. In that, the Jews and Muslims of Egypt were of a common opinion. Although her breasts had begun to bud earlier that spring, the dark flow of menstrual blood had not yet arrived to welcome her into the fold of womanhood. She had always been impatient and had begun to pray to God that the blood would at last be released and her life would begin anew.
And today God had heard her, and granted her prayer in a way she could never have expected or wanted. For the blood that had flowed this morning was not her own, but of those whom she loved. And her life had truly begun anew in the chaos of screams and death.
They were supposed to have been safe. The coastline of Sinai was guarded by the Sultan's men. The handsome new Sultan who had swept into Cairo and overthrown its ailing king, ending the Shiite dynasty of the Fatimids and restoring Egypt to the fold of Sunni Islam. She should have been too young to understand these complex matters of state, but her father had always insisted that Jewish children should be well versed in the politics of the day. For it was the curse of her people that the changing winds of nations inevitably brought with them storms of tragedy and exile.
There had been many who had feared that the new Sultan would persecute the Jews for supporting the heretic kings who had ruled Egypt in defiance of the Caliph of Baghdad. But he had proven to be a wise man, and had reached out in friendship to the People of the Book. The Jews had found in the Sultan a patron and a protector, and her own uncle had been welcomed into the court as the ruler's personal physician.
How she wished her uncle had been with them today. Perhaps he could have saved them from the warriors of Christ who had descended on their caravan like locusts. Stanched the flow of blood from amputated limbs. Applied his special salves on the burns inflicted by flaming arrows. Maybe if he had been with them, the others would have lived.
But in her heart, the girl knew that it would have made no difference. Her uncle would have been slaughtered with the rest. And perhaps he would have been forced to endure the horror of watching his sister -- her mother -- be violated by the very monster that stalked her now.
The monster whose face was streaked in blood as bright as the Cross he bore upon his breast. In that, the girl could find some solace, some cruel satisfaction, for the blood belonged to the killer and not his victims. And it was she who had drawn it out. A tiny act of revenge, forever scarring the young man's once handsome features. Whenever he looked in the mirror, he would remember the cost of the horror he had inflicted on her family.
The warrior was coming closer to her hiding place, his broadsword held aloft, black with gore and entrails from the massacre he had unleashed. The girl pushed herself farther into the shadowy crevices of the cave. She could feel something crawling on her back. A spider, or perhaps a scorpion. For a moment she hoped it was the latter, and that its lethal sting would take her before the bloodied knight could finish what he had begun. Her loins still burned from his brutal attack, and she could smell the sickly odor of his seed drying on her thighs.
The soldier's bright eyes scanned the desert plain, like a wolf searching for a wounded lamb. Her footprints should have given her away. But the area was littered with camel tracks from another caravan that had passed the day before, and her markings were lost in the confusion of upturned earth. The red hills were rugged and lined with boulders large enough to hide a girl of her size. It would take hours to search through all the crags and crevices of this forsaken land.
He should have turned back and rejoined his men, who even now were dividing up the booty from the successful raid. The caravan had been headed to Damascus laden with bountiful items for trade -- gold and ivory from Abyssinia, beautiful woolen shawls woven by the Berber nomads to the west -- and the haul had made these murderers rich men. If her hunter had been wise, he would have forgotten a wayward little girl and focused his attention on securing his share of the wealth.
But she could see in his eyes no sign of wisdom. No sign of humanity. Just a darkness that terrified her more than the cruel sheen of his blade. It was a hatred so visceral, so pure in its ugliness, that he no longer looked like a man, but a demon that had escaped from deep within the bowels of Gehenna.
And the demon was almost upon her. She could hear him breathing, the air sounding like the hiss of a snake as it escaped his lungs. And for a second she imagined that she could even discern the terrible drum of his heart, thundering in its call for revenge.
His eyes fell upon the dark opening to the cave, the crevice covered in shadows from the heavy curtain of rocks all around. And she saw a smile cross his face, his teeth glistening in the harsh desert light.
And so the end had come. And yet somehow she felt no fear. In fact, she felt nothing at all. Her heart was empty of all emotion, and she could not even remember what it felt like to laugh or cry. All of that had been taken away from her in the horror of the attack, in watching her loved ones torn to shreds by men who saw themselves as the warriors of God. The same God that her own people believed had chosen them for a great destiny.
All the terrible stories her father had told her of her people's past had finally become real to her that day. The stories she had dismissed as tragic fables of the ancients were all true. In fact, they were the only truth for a people who had been singled out by a God that demanded a price for His love that was too great.
In that moment, as the bloodstained warrior moved closer to her tiny refuge, she hated God for choosing her people. For placing upon the Jews the curse of being special, a burden that brought with it nothing but sorrow and loss. It was because of her people that this foreigner with his pale skin and strange language even knew of the God of Abraham, and yet that knowledge had not made him a better man. Indeed, it had inflamed in him a righteous anger that brought only suffering into this world. Her people had taught mankind about God, and in return men only became devils in that God's name.
She wanted to curse God, to renounce Him even as he had renounced His own people, had expelled them from their homeland and left them to wander the world as the most hated of clans. And she would have done so, had she not seen it.
The necklace.
A simple stone of jade held in a silver clasp lined with sparkling beads. It had belonged to her mother, had been torn from her defiled body by this monster only an hour before. And he was wearing it around his neck like a savage trophy. At that instant, she wanted to leap out from the shadows and tear the necklace from around his throat. It would mean her death, but at least she would die holding this precious little trinket that her mother had loved so much.
The fire in her heart burned into a savage rage, and the girl curled her fingers into claws, ready to strike. She would put out this murderer's eyes with her tiny fingers, rip open his neck with her teeth like a lioness bringing down its prey. He was not a human being, and neither was she anymore. The savagery that the girl had witnessed today had ended any illusions about that. Despite the Torah's call for men to be better than the angels, the truth was all men were animals and would never be anything more. The God of her people had failed them, and now she would show Him what He had wrought.
She bent forward, her knees pressed to her chest, poised to spring as the soldier came closer to the cave. She had to move now, to leap out like a cheetah, to use the advantage of surprise to bring down her prey.
But as she prepared to move, she saw a small flash of light, like a star glittering on the man's chest. It was the necklace, the jade stone reflecting the sun in its desert fury. And then her eyes fell on the symbols carved on the jade. Four Hebrew letters -- Yod, He, Waw, He.
The Tetragrammaton.The sacred name of God.
The holy word, which could not be pronounced or spoken aloud, shimmered like an emerald against the warrior's white tunic. As she stared at those mysterious letters, the girl felt something strange happen to her. The fury that was within her subsided. And in its place, she felt a remarkable upwelling of peace and serenity. Gazing at the name of a God she no longer believed in, the girl found herself remembering all the gentle nights she had looked up at her mother as she sang them both softly to sleep. When the girl saw that necklace, that sacred stone, she suddenly felt safe again, as she had always felt resting in her mother's arms.
She leaned back, the tension in her body disappearing. The man could come inside, could take her body and her life, and ultimately it would make no difference. Her people would go on, and her name would be added as another sad yet beautiful note in her nation's song.
Strangely, considering her uncharitable feelings about the Deity, an old prayer entered her heart. She felt the words of the Shema coming to her lips, and she mouthed them silently.
Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
The wind rose and sand swirled outside, a curtain of dust rising between her and her enemy. A sandstorm was upon them, blotting out the light of the sun.
She closed her eyes, allowed herself to fall into the shadows, to let the dark embrace her. She did not know what world she would awaken to, or if indeed there was any world beyond this one that had reached its end. But she did not care.
In silence, there was peace.
* * *
The above is an excerpt from the book Shadow of the Swords: A Novel of the Crusades by Kamran Pasha. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.
Copyright © 2010 Kamran Pasha, author of Shadow of the Swords: A Novel of the Crusades
Author Bio:
Kamran Pasha was a writer and producer of the highly acclaimed television shows Sleeper Cell and The Bionic Woman. He was also a writer on NBC's Kings, a modern retelling of the biblical tale of King David. Born in Pakistan, he came to the United States at the age of three, growing up in Brooklyn, New York.
For more information please visit www.KamranPasha.com and follow the author on Twitter.
My Review:
I thought I would really enjoy this novel because it had a historical aspect to it but I was wrong. I found my self bored with it at times and I didnt really enjoy reading it. It may not have been the book for me but it may be a book that someone may like but I wouldnt recomend it.
I would like to thank FSB Media for giving me a chance to read and to review this novel.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Sixteen Brides
Sixteen Brides
by Stephanie Grace Whitson
This book was good. I liked the author's writting style alot. I also liked the fact that it was a historical fiction book.I would recomed this book I really enjoyed it!
I would like to thank Bethany House Publishers for giving me a chance to read and review this book!
by Stephanie Grace Whitson
This book was good. I liked the author's writting style alot. I also liked the fact that it was a historical fiction book.I would recomed this book I really enjoyed it!
I would like to thank Bethany House Publishers for giving me a chance to read and review this book!
The Glamour of Grammar
The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the magic and mystery of practical english
by Roy Peter Clark
This book was good. It was interesting and the author deals with a very boring subject and makes it fun. Its told in a very interesting tone as well. I learned alot from this book and I would reccomend it highly!
by Roy Peter Clark
This book was good. It was interesting and the author deals with a very boring subject and makes it fun. Its told in a very interesting tone as well. I learned alot from this book and I would reccomend it highly!
Saturday, August 28, 2010
John Belushi Is Dead
Today Im participating in a blog tour for the book John Belushi Is Dead by Kathy Charles.
Book Info:
(from Publisher Simon & Schuster)
IN THE END WE ALL FADE TO BLACK.
Pink-haired Hilda and oddball loner Benji are not your typical teenagers. Instead of going to parties or hanging out at the mall, they comb the city streets and suburban culs-de-sac of Los Angeles for sites of celebrity murder and suicide. Bound by their interest in the macabre, Hilda and Benji neglect their schoolwork and their social lives in favor of prowling the most notorious crime scenes in Hollywood history and collecting odd mementos of celebrity death.
Hilda and Benji's morbid pastime takes an unexpected turn when they meet Hank, the elderly, reclusive tenant of a dilapidated Echo Park apartment where a silent movie star once stabbed himself to death with a pair of scissors. Hilda feels a strange connection with Hank and comes to care deeply for her paranoid new friend as they watch old movies together and chat the sweltering afternoons away. But when Hank's downstairs neighbor Jake, a handsome screenwriter, inserts himself into the equation and begins to hint at Hank's terrible secrets, Hilda must decide what it is she's come to Echo Park searching for . . . and whether her fascination with death is worth missing out on life
Author Info:
(from Publisher Simon & Schuster)
works in the film industry and divides her time between Los Angelws and her hometown of Melbourne, Australia. John Belushi Is Dead is her first novel.
Book Except:
(from Publisher Simon & Schuster and written by Kathy Charles)
Chapter 1
1
WE HUNG OVER THE fence at the Ambassador Hotel, watching the demolition. Benji stood beside me taking photos with his digital camera, his mouth open in disbelief. He was determined to document every moment. As the bulldozers tore into the side of the hotel, the sound of crushing mortar made me feel sick. The Ambassador had a long, star-filled history. To us the building was a holy shrine, and watching its destruction was like watching a death.
For the past year we had attended protest marches and signed online petitions. During that time the hotel had been used as a movie set and a cheap location for sci-fi and comic book conventions. But finally the decision had been made. The Ambassador had no future, and the demolition was to go ahead. Los Angeles is a town that exorcises its demons—cursed properties are seized and razed.
Benji and I revelled in the celebrity history of the Ambassador. In the golden days of Hollywood, the Oscars were held there. Marilyn Monroe lounged by the pool. In 1968, the allure of the Ambassador was tarnished forever when Senator Robert F. Kennedy delivered a heartfelt victory speech in the ballroom after winning the California primary, only to be gunned down as he tried to make his exit through the hotel pantry. Some people thought the CIA was in on it, but most believed that RFK was assassinated by a Palestinian immigrant with a beef against the Kennedys, just another run-of-the-mill nut job in a town full of them. I preferred the theory that the Palestinian was just a patsy, that he'd been hypnotized and ordered to kill the senator, like something out of The Manchurian Candidate. Benji said he had a piece of the floor from directly beneath RFK's head. He bought it off eBay from a seller who claimed to be one of the workers hired to tear the building down. Benji said the dark stain on the corner that looked like barbecue sauce was actually Kennedy's blood.
Our mission for the day was to remove something from the demolition site, this time with our own two hands. Benji had dressed in combat fatigues, convinced it would help him blend into the scenery. A couple of ex-cops in black T-shirts patrolled the perimeter, German shepherds on short leads trailing beside them. We looked for ways to get through the fence undetected but couldn't maneuver around the guards. After we'd stood around for an hour, hands in our pockets and staring through the chicken wire, one of the guards came over. He was wearing aviator sunglasses and had a gun in his holster.
"Can I help you kids with something?" he asked.
"Good morning, officer," Benji said politely, pointing at the crumbled ruins of the Ambassador. "Any chance we could come in and watch history unfold up close?"
The guard shook his head. "Private property," he said, tipping his head at a sign that read WARNING—DEATH. "Dangerous, too. Why, a piece of rock could come flying off one of those bulldozers and hit you—bam!—square in the eye." He threaded his thumbs through his belt, chewed his gum with the gusto of a cowboy, and stared into the sun like the sheriff of Deadwood. It was then I knew we would get what we needed.
"Can I make you a proposition?" Benji suggested. He removed a black, studded wallet from his back pocket, snapped it open, and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. The wallet rattled on its chain. Benji lived to negotiate.
"What do you mean, proposition?" the guard asked, adjusting his cap.
Benji handed him the bill: clean, crisp, and freshly minted.
The guard paused for a moment, then took the bill and examined it. He held it to the sun as if the light could confirm it was real. "What the hell is this all about?" he asked, looking around to make sure no one had seen the exchange.
A crane crashed through the ceiling of the hotel and a dust cloud made its way across the lot, shrouding everyone in dirt. Benji coughed and brushed dirt from his clothes. "We want some bricks," he said.
The guard stared at him. "Bricks?"
"Flooring, too, if you can find any. But bricks would be a good start."
The guard gazed out across the site, incredulous. His boss was sitting in the watch house taking a nap, feet hanging out the window.
"Make it twenty," he said, turning back and licking his lips.
Benji had been expecting this, too. He took another ten from his wallet and handed it over. He always carried many denominations, always started small. Once people knew what we were after they would jack up the price—capitalism at its finest.
"All right, then," the guard said, and grinned. He folded the bills and put them in his top pocket, then set off at a jog across the lot. Benji let out a high-pitched whistle and the guard turned around.
"Not that way," Benji yelled over the bulldozers and cranes. "That way."
He pointed toward where the ballroom had been, and the guard changed direction. A minute later he was running back, two whole bricks in his hands. He carried them against his chest, puffing and wheezing all the way. He dropped the bricks on the ground and started to cough.
"Careful," Benji complained. "I paid for those."
Just like you paid for the one off eBay, I thought. Only this time he could authenticate it.
The guard spat on the ground, then composed himself. It had obviously been some time since he'd been chasing criminals around the streets of LA.
"What the hell do you kids want those for, anyway?" he asked. "What's so special about a couple of bricks?"
Benji picked up the bricks and cradled one in each hand. He held the rough, red surface against his face and breathed in, then cast a victorious glance in my direction.
"Feel this," he said, handing the brick to the guard, who gave me a quizzical look.
"Take it," I said. "It won't bite."
He took the brick, sniffed it, weighed it in his hand, then handed it back to Benji. "It's a brick," he concluded.
Benji shook his head. "It's not just a brick. This piece of building, this element, is a living, breathing organism. This brick has witnessed some of the most amazing events in American history. It was there when Gone with the Wind received the Oscar for Best Picture. It watched Marilyn Monroe being photographed by the swimming pool. Perhaps it made up part of the room where Jean Harlow stayed, or Howard Hughes, or Nixon. Listen."
He held the brick up to his ear as if it were a shell. The air was suddenly still and the crash of demolition momentarily ceased.
"It's telling us its secrets," Benji said. "These pieces of building, they are part of history. They talk to us. They tell us stories. Robert Kennedy might have been our president if he hadn't died here, on this very site. And what do we do? We tear the place down, as if what happened here doesn't matter one bit. We just tear it down and forget it was ever there."
There was an explosion and rubble rained down. The guard jumped and spun around as if he'd seen a ghost. Benji took a plastic bag from his pocket. I took some newspaper from my backpack and handed it to him. He wrapped the bricks in the paper, lovingly folded down the edges, and placed them in the bag. The guard scratched his head.
"You kids are crazy," he said, and started to walk away.
Benji looked at me and smiled, pleased with himself.
"Did you have to freak that guy out?" I asked.
Benji laughed.
We walked back to his car. He put the bricks on the backseat.
"You wanna put seat belts on them, too?" I asked.
© 2010 Kathy Charles
My Review:
I thought this book was great! It was interesting and its never been done before which was very refeshing to me. I wasnt expecting that Hank would turn out to be what he turned out to be so I really liked the twist there. I also like how this has a lot of references to famous dead stars and other things in Pop Culture which I love keeping up with and studying pop culture. There were a few graphic parts in the book but other than those parts I enjoyed this book alot and I would highly recomend it!
Book Info:
(from Publisher Simon & Schuster)
IN THE END WE ALL FADE TO BLACK.
Pink-haired Hilda and oddball loner Benji are not your typical teenagers. Instead of going to parties or hanging out at the mall, they comb the city streets and suburban culs-de-sac of Los Angeles for sites of celebrity murder and suicide. Bound by their interest in the macabre, Hilda and Benji neglect their schoolwork and their social lives in favor of prowling the most notorious crime scenes in Hollywood history and collecting odd mementos of celebrity death.
Hilda and Benji's morbid pastime takes an unexpected turn when they meet Hank, the elderly, reclusive tenant of a dilapidated Echo Park apartment where a silent movie star once stabbed himself to death with a pair of scissors. Hilda feels a strange connection with Hank and comes to care deeply for her paranoid new friend as they watch old movies together and chat the sweltering afternoons away. But when Hank's downstairs neighbor Jake, a handsome screenwriter, inserts himself into the equation and begins to hint at Hank's terrible secrets, Hilda must decide what it is she's come to Echo Park searching for . . . and whether her fascination with death is worth missing out on life
Author Info:
(from Publisher Simon & Schuster)
works in the film industry and divides her time between Los Angelws and her hometown of Melbourne, Australia. John Belushi Is Dead is her first novel.
Book Except:
(from Publisher Simon & Schuster and written by Kathy Charles)
Chapter 1
1
WE HUNG OVER THE fence at the Ambassador Hotel, watching the demolition. Benji stood beside me taking photos with his digital camera, his mouth open in disbelief. He was determined to document every moment. As the bulldozers tore into the side of the hotel, the sound of crushing mortar made me feel sick. The Ambassador had a long, star-filled history. To us the building was a holy shrine, and watching its destruction was like watching a death.
For the past year we had attended protest marches and signed online petitions. During that time the hotel had been used as a movie set and a cheap location for sci-fi and comic book conventions. But finally the decision had been made. The Ambassador had no future, and the demolition was to go ahead. Los Angeles is a town that exorcises its demons—cursed properties are seized and razed.
Benji and I revelled in the celebrity history of the Ambassador. In the golden days of Hollywood, the Oscars were held there. Marilyn Monroe lounged by the pool. In 1968, the allure of the Ambassador was tarnished forever when Senator Robert F. Kennedy delivered a heartfelt victory speech in the ballroom after winning the California primary, only to be gunned down as he tried to make his exit through the hotel pantry. Some people thought the CIA was in on it, but most believed that RFK was assassinated by a Palestinian immigrant with a beef against the Kennedys, just another run-of-the-mill nut job in a town full of them. I preferred the theory that the Palestinian was just a patsy, that he'd been hypnotized and ordered to kill the senator, like something out of The Manchurian Candidate. Benji said he had a piece of the floor from directly beneath RFK's head. He bought it off eBay from a seller who claimed to be one of the workers hired to tear the building down. Benji said the dark stain on the corner that looked like barbecue sauce was actually Kennedy's blood.
Our mission for the day was to remove something from the demolition site, this time with our own two hands. Benji had dressed in combat fatigues, convinced it would help him blend into the scenery. A couple of ex-cops in black T-shirts patrolled the perimeter, German shepherds on short leads trailing beside them. We looked for ways to get through the fence undetected but couldn't maneuver around the guards. After we'd stood around for an hour, hands in our pockets and staring through the chicken wire, one of the guards came over. He was wearing aviator sunglasses and had a gun in his holster.
"Can I help you kids with something?" he asked.
"Good morning, officer," Benji said politely, pointing at the crumbled ruins of the Ambassador. "Any chance we could come in and watch history unfold up close?"
The guard shook his head. "Private property," he said, tipping his head at a sign that read WARNING—DEATH. "Dangerous, too. Why, a piece of rock could come flying off one of those bulldozers and hit you—bam!—square in the eye." He threaded his thumbs through his belt, chewed his gum with the gusto of a cowboy, and stared into the sun like the sheriff of Deadwood. It was then I knew we would get what we needed.
"Can I make you a proposition?" Benji suggested. He removed a black, studded wallet from his back pocket, snapped it open, and pulled out a ten-dollar bill. The wallet rattled on its chain. Benji lived to negotiate.
"What do you mean, proposition?" the guard asked, adjusting his cap.
Benji handed him the bill: clean, crisp, and freshly minted.
The guard paused for a moment, then took the bill and examined it. He held it to the sun as if the light could confirm it was real. "What the hell is this all about?" he asked, looking around to make sure no one had seen the exchange.
A crane crashed through the ceiling of the hotel and a dust cloud made its way across the lot, shrouding everyone in dirt. Benji coughed and brushed dirt from his clothes. "We want some bricks," he said.
The guard stared at him. "Bricks?"
"Flooring, too, if you can find any. But bricks would be a good start."
The guard gazed out across the site, incredulous. His boss was sitting in the watch house taking a nap, feet hanging out the window.
"Make it twenty," he said, turning back and licking his lips.
Benji had been expecting this, too. He took another ten from his wallet and handed it over. He always carried many denominations, always started small. Once people knew what we were after they would jack up the price—capitalism at its finest.
"All right, then," the guard said, and grinned. He folded the bills and put them in his top pocket, then set off at a jog across the lot. Benji let out a high-pitched whistle and the guard turned around.
"Not that way," Benji yelled over the bulldozers and cranes. "That way."
He pointed toward where the ballroom had been, and the guard changed direction. A minute later he was running back, two whole bricks in his hands. He carried them against his chest, puffing and wheezing all the way. He dropped the bricks on the ground and started to cough.
"Careful," Benji complained. "I paid for those."
Just like you paid for the one off eBay, I thought. Only this time he could authenticate it.
The guard spat on the ground, then composed himself. It had obviously been some time since he'd been chasing criminals around the streets of LA.
"What the hell do you kids want those for, anyway?" he asked. "What's so special about a couple of bricks?"
Benji picked up the bricks and cradled one in each hand. He held the rough, red surface against his face and breathed in, then cast a victorious glance in my direction.
"Feel this," he said, handing the brick to the guard, who gave me a quizzical look.
"Take it," I said. "It won't bite."
He took the brick, sniffed it, weighed it in his hand, then handed it back to Benji. "It's a brick," he concluded.
Benji shook his head. "It's not just a brick. This piece of building, this element, is a living, breathing organism. This brick has witnessed some of the most amazing events in American history. It was there when Gone with the Wind received the Oscar for Best Picture. It watched Marilyn Monroe being photographed by the swimming pool. Perhaps it made up part of the room where Jean Harlow stayed, or Howard Hughes, or Nixon. Listen."
He held the brick up to his ear as if it were a shell. The air was suddenly still and the crash of demolition momentarily ceased.
"It's telling us its secrets," Benji said. "These pieces of building, they are part of history. They talk to us. They tell us stories. Robert Kennedy might have been our president if he hadn't died here, on this very site. And what do we do? We tear the place down, as if what happened here doesn't matter one bit. We just tear it down and forget it was ever there."
There was an explosion and rubble rained down. The guard jumped and spun around as if he'd seen a ghost. Benji took a plastic bag from his pocket. I took some newspaper from my backpack and handed it to him. He wrapped the bricks in the paper, lovingly folded down the edges, and placed them in the bag. The guard scratched his head.
"You kids are crazy," he said, and started to walk away.
Benji looked at me and smiled, pleased with himself.
"Did you have to freak that guy out?" I asked.
Benji laughed.
We walked back to his car. He put the bricks on the backseat.
"You wanna put seat belts on them, too?" I asked.
© 2010 Kathy Charles
My Review:
I thought this book was great! It was interesting and its never been done before which was very refeshing to me. I wasnt expecting that Hank would turn out to be what he turned out to be so I really liked the twist there. I also like how this has a lot of references to famous dead stars and other things in Pop Culture which I love keeping up with and studying pop culture. There were a few graphic parts in the book but other than those parts I enjoyed this book alot and I would highly recomend it!
The Devil Wears Plaid
Today I am Participating in a blog tour for the book The Devil Wears Plaid by Teresa Medeiros.
Book Info:
(from Publisher Simon & Schuster)
Passion sparks in USA Today and New York Times bestselling author Teresa Medeiros's irresistibly tempting new romance after a sexy
Highlander kidnaps his rival's spirited English bride Emmaline Marlowe is about to wed the extremely powerful laird of the Hepburn clan to save her father from debtor's prison when ruffian Jamie Sinclair bursts into the abbey on a magnificent black horse and abducts her in one strong swoop. Though he is Hepburn's sworn enemy, Emma's mysterious captor is everything her bridegroom is not—handsome, virile, dangerous . . . and a perilous temptation for her yearning heart.
Jamie expects Emma to be some milksop English miss, not a fiery, defiant beauty whose irresistible charms will tempt him at every turn. But he cannot allow either one of them to forget he is her enemy and she his pawn in the deadly Highland feud between the clans. So why does he still want her so badly for himself? Stealing his enemy's bride was simple, but can he claim her innocence without losing his heart?
Author Info:
(from Publisher Simon & Schuster)
New York Times bestseller Teresa Medeiros wrote her first novel at the age of twenty-one, introducing readers to one of the most beloved and versatile voices in romantic fiction. She has appeared on every national bestseller list, including the New York Times, USA Today and Publishers Weekly lists. She currently has over seven million books in print and is published in over seventeen languages.
She was chosen one of the "Top Ten Favorite Romance Authors" by Affaire de Coeur magazine and won the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award for "Best Historical Love and Laughter". She is a seven-time Rita finalist, two-time PRISM winner, and two-time recipient of the Waldenbooks Award for bestselling fiction. Her May 2002 release, A KISS TO REMEMBER, was chosen as one of the "Top 10 Romances of the Year" by Booklist magazine, the official publication of the American Library Association, while ONE NIGHT OF SCANDAL, her August 2003 release, won the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award for Best Historical Romance of 2003.
Teresa is a charter member of the Romance Writers of America Honor Roll, Kentucky Romance Writers, and Novelists, Inc. She lives in Kentucky with her husband and her cats Willow and Buffy the Mouse Slayer.
My review:
I thought this book was ok. I liked the fact that it was a historical romance because I like history alot. I think this book was well written to. Its a fun read and I would recomend it.
Book Info:
(from Publisher Simon & Schuster)
Passion sparks in USA Today and New York Times bestselling author Teresa Medeiros's irresistibly tempting new romance after a sexy
Highlander kidnaps his rival's spirited English bride Emmaline Marlowe is about to wed the extremely powerful laird of the Hepburn clan to save her father from debtor's prison when ruffian Jamie Sinclair bursts into the abbey on a magnificent black horse and abducts her in one strong swoop. Though he is Hepburn's sworn enemy, Emma's mysterious captor is everything her bridegroom is not—handsome, virile, dangerous . . . and a perilous temptation for her yearning heart.
Jamie expects Emma to be some milksop English miss, not a fiery, defiant beauty whose irresistible charms will tempt him at every turn. But he cannot allow either one of them to forget he is her enemy and she his pawn in the deadly Highland feud between the clans. So why does he still want her so badly for himself? Stealing his enemy's bride was simple, but can he claim her innocence without losing his heart?
Author Info:
(from Publisher Simon & Schuster)
New York Times bestseller Teresa Medeiros wrote her first novel at the age of twenty-one, introducing readers to one of the most beloved and versatile voices in romantic fiction. She has appeared on every national bestseller list, including the New York Times, USA Today and Publishers Weekly lists. She currently has over seven million books in print and is published in over seventeen languages.
She was chosen one of the "Top Ten Favorite Romance Authors" by Affaire de Coeur magazine and won the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award for "Best Historical Love and Laughter". She is a seven-time Rita finalist, two-time PRISM winner, and two-time recipient of the Waldenbooks Award for bestselling fiction. Her May 2002 release, A KISS TO REMEMBER, was chosen as one of the "Top 10 Romances of the Year" by Booklist magazine, the official publication of the American Library Association, while ONE NIGHT OF SCANDAL, her August 2003 release, won the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award for Best Historical Romance of 2003.
Teresa is a charter member of the Romance Writers of America Honor Roll, Kentucky Romance Writers, and Novelists, Inc. She lives in Kentucky with her husband and her cats Willow and Buffy the Mouse Slayer.
My review:
I thought this book was ok. I liked the fact that it was a historical romance because I like history alot. I think this book was well written to. Its a fun read and I would recomend it.
Monday, August 23, 2010
The California Roll
The California Roll
by John Vorhaus
I didnt like this book it just wasnt for me. It did have its funny moments at times but other than that I didnt enjoy it. I would not recomend this book.
I would like to thank crown publishing for the chance to read and review this book because I won it through their Read it Forward Program.
by John Vorhaus
I didnt like this book it just wasnt for me. It did have its funny moments at times but other than that I didnt enjoy it. I would not recomend this book.
I would like to thank crown publishing for the chance to read and review this book because I won it through their Read it Forward Program.
The Disappearing Spoon
The Disappering Spoon and other true tales of madness, love and the history of the world from the Periodic table of elements.
by Sam Kean
Im not a science person but when I say this book I thought it would be really good, fun, and interesting but I was disappointed. This book was so boring I almost couldnt finnish it but I got through it. Some of the stuff they talked about in it seemed to have gone way over my head. If you're a science person you may love this book but otherwise I dont think I would recomend it.
by Sam Kean
Im not a science person but when I say this book I thought it would be really good, fun, and interesting but I was disappointed. This book was so boring I almost couldnt finnish it but I got through it. Some of the stuff they talked about in it seemed to have gone way over my head. If you're a science person you may love this book but otherwise I dont think I would recomend it.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Captured by Desire
Today I am participating in a blog tour for Captured by Desire by Kira Morgan. Kira will be participating in a Q&A with me so I would like to thank her for that and also welcome her to my blog!
Book Info:
(from Publisher Grand Central Publishing)
In 16th century Scotland, young Miss Florie Gilder runs away from her drunken foster father to find her real father and her noble heritage. Along the way, she is accused of theft, becomes a fugitive hiding in a forest, and is accidentally wounded by a handsome local huntsman. The huntsman--a Robin-Hood figure who poaches wild game from the landowner's estate to feed the starving poor--carries the beautiful maiden to a church where she is guaranteed 40 days of sanctuary from the law. During that time, he learns her true story, falls in love with her, and helps her in her quest, at the risk of his own life.
Author Info:
(from publisher Grand Central Publishing)
Kira Morgan is a third-generation California girl who is an avid traveler, the wife of a rock star, the mother of two fascinating children, and the beloved master of a pug named Worf.
Q&A:
Q. How do you come up with the names for your characters?
I always consult lists of historically authentic names. Unfortunately, I sometimes wind up with "interesting" choices like Wulfhilda and Hosebert (apologies to anyone out there named Wulfhilda or Hosebert), so I try them out until I find one pleasing to the ear, leaving the uglier names for the villains. For minor characters, I often use the names of supportive fans or family as small tributes. And once in a while, if a hero or heroine isn't quite working, I'll give them a name change that will suddenly make the character blossom.
> Q. I like the cover of this book! Who came up with it/ what part did you
> have in creating it?
Although I was consulted for approval of the cover, most of the credit goes to my publisher and the art department. One of the changes that was made early on was the addition of tartan to the spine, which gives the book a distinctly Scottish feel. I contributed the gold vermeil necklace the heroine is wearing, and if you'd like a chance to win it, sign up at my website at www.glynnis.net/kiramorgan -- I'm giving one away each month!
Kira
My Review:
I thought this book was good. It was a well written historical romance. I think because it was a historical romance is one of the reasons why I enjoyed reading this novel so much. It is a fun and interesting book that I recomend as a good read for anyone.
Book Info:
(from Publisher Grand Central Publishing)
In 16th century Scotland, young Miss Florie Gilder runs away from her drunken foster father to find her real father and her noble heritage. Along the way, she is accused of theft, becomes a fugitive hiding in a forest, and is accidentally wounded by a handsome local huntsman. The huntsman--a Robin-Hood figure who poaches wild game from the landowner's estate to feed the starving poor--carries the beautiful maiden to a church where she is guaranteed 40 days of sanctuary from the law. During that time, he learns her true story, falls in love with her, and helps her in her quest, at the risk of his own life.
Author Info:
(from publisher Grand Central Publishing)
Kira Morgan is a third-generation California girl who is an avid traveler, the wife of a rock star, the mother of two fascinating children, and the beloved master of a pug named Worf.
Q&A:
Q. How do you come up with the names for your characters?
I always consult lists of historically authentic names. Unfortunately, I sometimes wind up with "interesting" choices like Wulfhilda and Hosebert (apologies to anyone out there named Wulfhilda or Hosebert), so I try them out until I find one pleasing to the ear, leaving the uglier names for the villains. For minor characters, I often use the names of supportive fans or family as small tributes. And once in a while, if a hero or heroine isn't quite working, I'll give them a name change that will suddenly make the character blossom.
> Q. I like the cover of this book! Who came up with it/ what part did you
> have in creating it?
Although I was consulted for approval of the cover, most of the credit goes to my publisher and the art department. One of the changes that was made early on was the addition of tartan to the spine, which gives the book a distinctly Scottish feel. I contributed the gold vermeil necklace the heroine is wearing, and if you'd like a chance to win it, sign up at my website at www.glynnis.net/kiramorgan -- I'm giving one away each month!
Kira
My Review:
I thought this book was good. It was a well written historical romance. I think because it was a historical romance is one of the reasons why I enjoyed reading this novel so much. It is a fun and interesting book that I recomend as a good read for anyone.
Friday, August 20, 2010
The Body Shop
The Body Shop: parties, pills, and pumping iron- or my life in the age of muscle
by Paul Solotaroff
This memoir was really good. The book is very witty and very interesting at times. I really enjoyed reading this book. I think the author is a really good writer and I thought this book was unique because its written about a time that other people havent written about yet. This is also just a fun book to read and I highly recomend it.
by Paul Solotaroff
This memoir was really good. The book is very witty and very interesting at times. I really enjoyed reading this book. I think the author is a really good writer and I thought this book was unique because its written about a time that other people havent written about yet. This is also just a fun book to read and I highly recomend it.
Scent of the Missing
Today I am writting a review for Scent of The Missing: Love & Partnership with a Search-and-Rescue Dog
by Susannah Charleson but I also recieved a book excerpt and an article by the author that I was given permission to post on my blog so I hope you all enjoy them!
Book excerpt:
Gone
By Susannah Charleson,
Author of Scent of the Missing: Love & Partnership with a Search-and-Rescue Dog
In the long light of early morning, Hunter circles what remains of a burned house, his nose low and brow furrowed. The night's thick air has begun to lift, and the German Shepherd's movement catches the emerging sun. He is a shining thing against the black of scorched brick, burned timber, and a nearby tree charred leafless. Hunter inspects the tree: half-fallen, tilting south away from where the fire was, its birds long gone. Quiet here. I can hear his footpads in the wizened grass, the occasional scrape of his nails across debris. The dog moves along the rubble in his characteristic half-crouch, intense and communicative, while his handler, Max, watches.
Hunter rounds the house twice, crosses cautiously through a clear space in the burned pile, and returns to Max with a huff of finality. Nothing, he seems to say. Hunter is not young. There are little flecks of gray about his dark eyes and muzzle, and his body has begun to fail his willing heart, but he knows his job, and he is a proud boy doing it. He leans into his handler and huffs again. Max rubs his ears and turns away.
"She's not in the house," I murmur into the radio, where a colleague and a sheriff's deputy wait for word from us.
"Let's go," says Max to Hunter.
We move on, our tracks dark across the ash, Hunter leading us forward into a field that lies behind the house. Here we have to work a little harder across the uneven terrain. Max, a career firefighter used to unstable spaces, manages the unseen critter holes and slick grass better than I do. Hunter cleaves an easy path. Our passage disturbs the field mice, which move in such a body the ground itself appears to shiver.
Wide sweeps across the field, back and forth across the wind, Hunter and Max and I (the assistant in trail) continuing to search for some sign of the missing girl. Hunter is an experienced search dog with years of disaster work and many single-victim searches behind him. He moves confidently but not heedlessly, and at the base of a low ridge crowned by a stand of trees, he pauses, head up a long moment, mouth open. His panting stops.
Max stops, watches. I stand where I last stepped.
And then Hunter is off, scrambling up the ridge with us behind him, crashing through the trees. We hear a surprised shout, and scuffling, and when we get to where he is, we see two men stumble away from the dog. One is yelping a little, has barked his shin on a battered dinette chair he's tripped over. The other hauls him forward by the elbow, and they disappear into the surrounding brush.
A third man has more difficulty. He is elderly and not as fast.
He has been lying on a bare set of box springs set flat beneath the canopy of trees, and when he rises the worn cloth of his trousers catches on the coils. We hear rending fabric as he jerks free. He runs in a different direction from the other two -- not their companion, I think -- and a few yards away he stops and turns to peek through the scrub at us, as though aware the dog is not fierce and we aren't in pursuit.
Our search has disturbed a small tent city, and as we work our way through the reclaimed box springs and three-legged coffee tables and mouse-eaten recliners that have become a sort of home for its inhabitants, the third man watches our progress from the edge of the brush. This is a well-lived space, but there is nothing of the missing girl here. Charged on this search to find any human scent in the area, living or dead, Hunter has done what he is supposed to do. But he watches our response. From where I stand, it is clear Hunter knows what we've found is not what we seek, and that what we seek isn't here. He gazes at Max, reading him, his eyebrows working, stands poised for the "Find more" command.
"Sector clear," I say into the radio after a signal from Max. I mention the tent city and its inhabitants and learn it is not a surprise.
"Good boy," says Max. Hunter's stance relaxes.
As we move away, the third man gains confidence. He steps a little forward, watching Hunter go. He is barefoot and shirtless. "Dog, dog, dog," he says voicelessly, as though he shapes the word but cannot make the sound of it. "Dog," he rasps again, and smiles wide, and claps his hands.
Saturday night in a strange town five hundred miles from home. I am sitting in a bar clearly tacked on to our motel as an afterthought. The clientele here are jammed against one another in the gloom, all elbows and ball caps bent down to their drinks -- more tired than social. At the nearby pool table, a man makes his shot, trash talks his opponent, and turns to order another beer without having to take more than four steps to get it. This looks like standard procedure. The empty bottles stack up on a nearby shelf that droops from screws half pulled out of the wall. Two men dominate the table while others watch. The shots get a little wild, the trash talk sloppier.
A half-hour ago, when I walked in with a handful of teammates, every head in the bar briefly turned to regard us, then turned away in perfect synchronization, their eyes meeting and their heads bobbing a nod. We are strangers and out of uniform, but they know who we are and why we are here, and besides, they've seen a lot of strangers lately. Now, at the end of the second week of search for a missing local girl, they leave us alone. We find a table, plop down without discussion, and a waitress comes out to take our orders. She calls several of us "honey" and presses a hand to the shoulder of one of us as she turns away.
Either the town hasn't passed a smoking ordinance, or here at the city limits this place has conveniently ignored the law. We sit beneath a stratus layer of cigarette smoke that curls above us like an atmosphere of drowsy snakes, tinged blue and red and green by the neon signs over the bar. Beside the door, I see a flyer for the missing girl. Her face hovers beneath the smoke. She appears uneasy even in this photograph taken years ago, her smile tentative and her blond, feathered bangs sprayed close as a helmet, her dark eyes tight at the edges, like this picture was something to be survived.
I have looked at her face all day. On telephone poles, in the hands of local volunteers, over the shoulder of a big-city newscaster at noon, six, and ten o'clock. She is the ongoing local headline. She's the girl no one really knew before her disappearance, and now she's the girl eager eyewitnesses claim to have known all their lives. It's hard to tell what's real and what isn't, but for the most part that's not our job. We go where law enforcement directs us. We run behind search dogs who will tell us their own truths in any given area: never here, was here, hers, not hers, blood, hair, bone, here, here, here.
We humans aren't talking about the search, our first day at work in this town. Inappropriate discussion in a public place, and we are exhausted with it anyway. Though today's bystanders seemed to think we could take our dogs to Main Street and race them outward across all points of the compass -- first dog to the victim wins -- canine search-and-rescue doesn't work that way. Assigned to locations chosen by law enforcement, we work methodically, dividing a region into sectors to be searched by individual dog-and-handler teams. It's a meticulous process, but trained dogs can quickly clear a large area it would take humans days to definitively search.
Even so, we could be here for weeks. We already feel the trackless absence of this girl. Her hometown is small, but its outlying population is widespread, and there are places to hide a living woman or the remains of a dead one that cross lines into other states. Today we were sent to clear more "hot spots" -- places where bodies have been dumped before. Shrouded, ugly areas they were too, scarred from previous events, but not this girl, this time. All day the dogs have been telling us: Not here. Not here. Not here.
I look at her photograph again. A big guy shifting on his stool blocks the ambient light from the bar, causing the girl's face to purple beneath the neon and the whites of her eyes to swallow the irises. Her gaze no longer connects. It's a condition that was true of her in life, some say. She has a history of scuttling head down, of sitting at the back of the class, never speaking unless spoken to, and even then as briefly as possible. She sounds uncertain on her voicemail greeting, enunciating her name with a rising inflection that suggests she isn't quite sure of it.
We hear fragments. The cumulative description adds up to a girl who began inching away from this town six years earlier, who saved her allowance and bought a junky car simply to have her first job at a truck stop in another town fifteen miles up the road, who saved her paychecks to buy a used laptop, and who had begun recreating herself in variations all across the Web. No judgment, says a neighbor. An accident waiting to happen, says one interviewee. Authorities suggest she might be a runaway if it weren't for the methodical, calculated nature of her young choices. She might be a runaway if it weren't for her purse, cell phone, keys, car, and laptop left behind at her grandmother's house, the last place she was seen alive.
We're told she has a tattoo, inked by a trucker where she worked: a butterfly with the letter K on her left wrist. The tattoo is in honor of an online friend, Katie, who had slashed her own wrists in a successful suicide -- or so it was rumored, until Katie returned to a chat room a month later with a new location, new name, new boyfriend, holding up her woundless wrists for photographs, laughing at the duped online friends who thought they knew her, who had responded to her loss with depression, Paxil, and new tattoos in her honor. April Fools, all.
Did our girl admire her, forgive her? I wonder. Is this a copycat drama?
I turn away from her photograph. She's not my daughter, but I feel a mother's impulse to push the bangs from her eyes, the rescuer's urge to put two fingertips to her carotid to check for a pulse.
We're a quiet group, tight and preoccupied. Still wired from the day's search, we lean forward over our food, weight on the balls of our feet with our heels lifted, as though we'll push up at any moment to go back to work. Unlikely. We're stood down for the night and have an early call in the morning. It always takes a while to let go enough to sleep, especially as a search presses forward over days and investigators' verbs begin to change from she is to she was. That little shift in tense is enough to keep us awake all night, revisiting the day's barns, ravines, burned houses, tent cities, and trailer parks, triple-checking ourselves against the signals from the dogs. To say this girl haunts us is to overdramatize. But we all mull choices made in the field long after we should be sleeping. I stab at my coleslaw and wonder when one of us will finally relax into the back of a chair.
In time, Terry, a canine handler, leans over to say to me, "Hey. I hear you're going to work a dog." The others look up.
"Yes,"' I say. The word feels huge as a wedding vow.
I've been on the search-and-rescue (SAR) team for a while now, running beside certified dogs and their handlers, working as a field assistant responsible for navigation, radio communication, medical assessment, and other pragmatics of a working canine search team. After three years, I'm senior enough to have earned the next open slot to train and run beside a search dog. I am excited about this, but a little nervous too. Having run with more than a dozen breeds and their handlers, having searched night into day for the living, and having knelt over the dead, I'm aware how serious a proposition bringing a new dog to the team is. Working search is not a hobby or a Sunday pastime.
''What breed you thinking of running?" he asks. He handles a Border Collie, a high-drive, obsessive-compulsive boy who is good all around, but particularly good searching on water.
"I'm not sure. Maybe a Border Collie. Maybe an Aussie. Or maybe a Gol . . ."
"You give any thought to a Golden Retriever?"
I nod, and he tells me about his former Golden, Casey, a good dog with a lot of smarts and a lot of soul and a nose that never stopped. A good dog that died, too soon, of cancer. Though my colleague is not one who generally talks at length, his description is detailed. I see the shape of his Golden boy emerge. A sturdy fellow with a nice face and a wide grin -- funny, perceptive, and compassionate. My teammate speaks, and his voice constricts. This dog has been dead for more than five years. Terry's love for the animal had been too raw at the time he began training his own search canine, and he couldn't go with a Golden. Listening to him now, I'm aware it's an open wound. Toughened by years as a homicide detective, he is still not in shape to have another Golden, he says, but he's safe enough recommending one to me.
And the breed has much to recommend it for search work: drive, stability, commitment to working with a human, congeniality, and nose. I already have other dogs and cats, and for reasons of amicability at home, as well, I'm also drawn to the idea of a Golden.
We speak of other search-and-rescue Golden Retrievers: iconic, much-photographed Riley traveling aloft in the Stokes basket across the debris of the World Trade Center and diligent Aspen supporting her exhausted handler as he presses his face to her back following a search of the collapsed Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. This fine breed figures in virtually every aspect of search. Snow dogs, bomb dogs, drug dogs, arson dogs too.
"Got to love a retriever," says Johnny, a Lab man himself, and then he chuckles. "But, girl, no matter what kind of puppy, there's gonna be some housebreaking and chewed shoes in your future."
"And sleepless nights," says Ellen.
"And poop," adds Terry wryly, a cautionary finger up. "These high-drive dogs. All that adrenaline. When a puppy starts working, you just wouldn't believe the poo . . ."
I push away my coleslaw.
Leaning back in their chairs at last, the whole group seems pleased about my coming duress. They exchange young SAR dog stories, not one of them featuring angelic puppies poised for greatness. There's disaster in every punch line -- "the neighbor's TV made him howl" . . . "ate right through the drywall" . . . and "then her parrot learned to bark." I look at the team trainer dubiously.
"This is good," says Fleta, rubbing her forehead. " A new pup-in-training always gives the whole team a boost." Her eyes are tired, but she grins as she lifts her glass in salute.
On any given day in America, there are as many as one hundred thousand active missing persons cases. A large percentage of these cases go unresolved. At the same time, the recovered and unidentified remains of some forty thousand people are held by medical examiners across the country. As a search-and-rescue worker in the field, I am caught by those numbers -- they equal the population of a small city. I'm aware that we run dogs in the thin air between possibility of life and probability of death, and that while we search for a single girl whose weathered flyers have already begun to fade, there are thousands of others actively being searched. Or not. Knowing how many people are involved on the search for this young woman, I cannot imagine the number of investigators, grid walkers, pilots, ATVs, equestrian units, dog teams, and forensic experts of every kind needed to resolve all the others. I suspect geography, marginalization, and limited resources mean quite a few of the missing are short-term questions that go unanswered -- or are never raised at all.
Our small-town girl disappeared in a slow news period. I wonder how much time she's got before funds run out, new local troubles arise, and she is crowded from the docket to take her place in local lore. The margin between SEARCH CONTINUES FOR MISSING TEEN and UNIDENTIFIED REMAINS UNCOVERED IN STATE PARK ten years from now seems narrow.
Time and numbers make me urgent. I cannot train my new dog too soon.
The above is an excerpt from the book Scent of the Missing: Love & Partnership with a Search-and-Rescue Dog by Susannah Charleson. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.
Copyright © 2010 Susannah Charleson, author of Scent of the Missing: Love & Partnership with a Search-and-Rescue Dog
Author Bio
Susannah Charleson, author of Scent of the Missing: Love & Partnership with a Search-and-Rescue Dog, works as a handler with her partner, a Golden Retriever named Puzzle, for the Metro Area Rescue K9 unit in Dallas, Texas, a volunteer canine search-and-rescue (SAR) team responding to local, state, and national search and recovery cases. She also serves as the team's public information officer and gives lectures across the country about SAR. A flight instructor who previously flew disaster searches, Susannah is also an experienced television and radio broadcaster. She and Puzzle share their home with six other dogs, four cats, and a fish named Sound Bite.
Article written by author
Five Communication Lessons from a Search and Rescue Dog
by Susannah Charleson
Author of: Scent of the Missing: Love & Partnership with a Search-and-Rescue Dog
She does not speak English, and I do not speak dog. And yet somehow six years into my partnership with Puzzle, a golden retriever and certified search-and-rescue K9, we have forged a common language. We need it in the search field. Our working life together is framed by loss and urgency—a person missing, time passing, a family and community desperate for answers. And so Puzzle and I enter the hard spaces where a lost person might be, and I give my dog a command, and off she goes into the thick of it, independent and ahead of me, ready to communicate back what she knows. It’s my job to translate her and move all of us closer to a rescue.
Having run beside many other dogs and handlers before I met the puppy who would become my partner, I knew this kind of collaboration existed, this necessary dialogue. What I didn’t realize is how my work with Puzzle in the search field would improve my communication with other humans, too.
Here are some of the lessons offered by a working search dog in the dark.
1. Avoid Hasty Conclusions.
Experience is the best teacher, we’re told, but sometimes past experience can be misleading. While it’s easy to judge from the obvious and frame people, places and events by things we’ve seen before, such grab-and-go thinking can cause us to overlook important differences, to miss what we don’t expect, and to stereotype others. Search dogs don’t work with these kinds of preconceptions. Every new situation is taken on its own terms, the obvious and the subtle alike. The dogs operate on what’s real and present to them right now: scent/no scent, here/not here. They don’t read lost person behavior studies. They don’t assume anything is a given. Anything can be possible—and frequently is. From the dogs I’ve learned the value of keeping a fresh perspective.
2. Find A Better Way to Say Things That Are Unclear.
Search dogs and handlers train for reliable communication about important issues in the search field, whether unstable terrain, a snake on the move, or the presence of human scent rising from the rubble. Ideally, the handler can see and hear the dog, and the signals are clear between them. But search partners have to communicate even when conditions aren’t ideal. If Puzzle has scent she cannot get to, and I don’t respond to her known signals, she will whine into the brush she can’t penetrate, or paw at the door that separates her from the scent, or run to another part of the ravine and try to lead us in that way. She knows her job is to identify human scent and find its source, and she also knows when she has sent a message I haven’t acknowledged. She is willing to communicate another way if she has to – with voice or action or both.
That search dog tenacity instructs me. When ideas are important between humans and our common language fails, frustration can cause us to blame the other person for “not understanding” or to give up the message entirely. Neither action makes the important idea go away, and the resulting silence between us can cause harm. I never expected to take lessons on being clear from a canine, but the search dogs’ willingness to try again, to communicate difficult information in different ways is a good one to learn.
3. Ask For Help When You Need It.
Search dogs are a hard-charging, confident lot. They are motivated, they are fast, and many of them are extraordinarily good at what they do. That said, the most experienced search canines seem to understand that their human partners are not only there to decode, but also to help when needed. Puzzle as a search-pup-in-training loved wilderness work, but in her youth and inexperience would try to plough through heavy brush unassisted. The cuts and stings didn’t seem to bother her, but when she became thoroughly entangled in thorns and vines, she would struggle until half-exhausted, trying to free herself – sometimes struggling more when I headed into the tangle to help her! As she matured, Puzzle learned that the best way to get free was to freeze where she was and communicate with a particular whine and a funny, tight little sway of tail, as though to say she sure was stuck, but happily expected I could fix it. And I could. And we were off again.
Perhaps there’s such a thing as being too self-sufficient. Asking for help when we need it may get us to a common goal faster – and get us there together.
4. Practice Trust.
Search old-timers say that one of the hardest things for new handlers to learn is how to trust the dog. There’s a certain leap of faith we have to make in the dark behind a creature that has gifts we don’t share. We learn to trust the dog across the hundreds of increasingly-difficult test searches we do in training together, but it’s sometimes tempting to give in to doubt and try to take over. Not a good idea. We simply can’t smell what dogs can, and we certainly can’t search a large area as quickly with our other senses. We have to believe in their ability with scent we cannot see.
Similarly, it takes discipline for humans to trust each other in so many contexts, even when relationships have established, skills are known, and trust has been earned. What is it that makes us doubt? Need or impatience that exceeds our fragile faith in one another? Past experience? There’s no quick diagnosis for why some people struggle with trust and no quick fix for the problem, either. I do know that the discipline of trust behind my search dog, whose talents of nose are proven, was something I had to learn. And it’s led me to practice trust in others, to not think I have to do it all or believe I’m the only one who can do it in the first place.
5. Forgive Quickly and Move On.
In their own way, search dogs demonstrate forgiveness. And we partners are grateful for it. Trainers say that the dogs catch on to the whole process of finding people more quickly than we do. It doesn’t take much for them to learn that we need them to find human scent –and not other animals, dropped hamburgers, or unspecified gook. But on the other side, humans have much to learn about their canine partners and how scent works in heat and in cold, in wilderness with variable wind or in rubble with no wind at all.
And so we make mistakes in the training field. The dogs may have the scent, and we may miss it or dismiss them altogether. We learn from such errors, and we head back into training sectors wiser. Generally the dogs, with their gift of being present, stay enthusiastic about the next training search, and the next, and the next as we progress with them toward certification. They let our past mistakes beside them go. A limitation of intelligence or an inherent graciousness? I don’t think it matters. The search dogs’ example reminds me of all the ways I’m less forgiving of my human counterparts and of myself. Inevitably, such grudge-holding separates us from one another, slows us down. A little less memory, a little more generosity of spirit may make the difference.
With such personable, responsive creatures beside us, it’s easy to anthropomorphize the dog. “Man’s best friend is almost human,” some say. But I value them for the reverse, for all the good that’s in their essential dogness. They are not human, and I am not a dog, but our relationship changes both of us. And I come away from it better, I hope—better to my two- and four-footed companions alike.
My Review:
I love dogs so when I saw this book I thought it would be a great read and I would really enjoy it but I was somewhat wrong. Parts of this book were ok but there part of this book I also thought were really boring. I think she did a good job writting this book but I think there was too much back story on the cases and I wish we could have read more about there relationship and about what Puzzle (thats the dogs name) does. I think that I would still recomend this book however.
I would like to thank Julie Harabedian form FSB Media for giving me the chance to review this book and also for providing me the article and the exceprt to post on my blog!
by Susannah Charleson but I also recieved a book excerpt and an article by the author that I was given permission to post on my blog so I hope you all enjoy them!
Book excerpt:
Gone
By Susannah Charleson,
Author of Scent of the Missing: Love & Partnership with a Search-and-Rescue Dog
In the long light of early morning, Hunter circles what remains of a burned house, his nose low and brow furrowed. The night's thick air has begun to lift, and the German Shepherd's movement catches the emerging sun. He is a shining thing against the black of scorched brick, burned timber, and a nearby tree charred leafless. Hunter inspects the tree: half-fallen, tilting south away from where the fire was, its birds long gone. Quiet here. I can hear his footpads in the wizened grass, the occasional scrape of his nails across debris. The dog moves along the rubble in his characteristic half-crouch, intense and communicative, while his handler, Max, watches.
Hunter rounds the house twice, crosses cautiously through a clear space in the burned pile, and returns to Max with a huff of finality. Nothing, he seems to say. Hunter is not young. There are little flecks of gray about his dark eyes and muzzle, and his body has begun to fail his willing heart, but he knows his job, and he is a proud boy doing it. He leans into his handler and huffs again. Max rubs his ears and turns away.
"She's not in the house," I murmur into the radio, where a colleague and a sheriff's deputy wait for word from us.
"Let's go," says Max to Hunter.
We move on, our tracks dark across the ash, Hunter leading us forward into a field that lies behind the house. Here we have to work a little harder across the uneven terrain. Max, a career firefighter used to unstable spaces, manages the unseen critter holes and slick grass better than I do. Hunter cleaves an easy path. Our passage disturbs the field mice, which move in such a body the ground itself appears to shiver.
Wide sweeps across the field, back and forth across the wind, Hunter and Max and I (the assistant in trail) continuing to search for some sign of the missing girl. Hunter is an experienced search dog with years of disaster work and many single-victim searches behind him. He moves confidently but not heedlessly, and at the base of a low ridge crowned by a stand of trees, he pauses, head up a long moment, mouth open. His panting stops.
Max stops, watches. I stand where I last stepped.
And then Hunter is off, scrambling up the ridge with us behind him, crashing through the trees. We hear a surprised shout, and scuffling, and when we get to where he is, we see two men stumble away from the dog. One is yelping a little, has barked his shin on a battered dinette chair he's tripped over. The other hauls him forward by the elbow, and they disappear into the surrounding brush.
A third man has more difficulty. He is elderly and not as fast.
He has been lying on a bare set of box springs set flat beneath the canopy of trees, and when he rises the worn cloth of his trousers catches on the coils. We hear rending fabric as he jerks free. He runs in a different direction from the other two -- not their companion, I think -- and a few yards away he stops and turns to peek through the scrub at us, as though aware the dog is not fierce and we aren't in pursuit.
Our search has disturbed a small tent city, and as we work our way through the reclaimed box springs and three-legged coffee tables and mouse-eaten recliners that have become a sort of home for its inhabitants, the third man watches our progress from the edge of the brush. This is a well-lived space, but there is nothing of the missing girl here. Charged on this search to find any human scent in the area, living or dead, Hunter has done what he is supposed to do. But he watches our response. From where I stand, it is clear Hunter knows what we've found is not what we seek, and that what we seek isn't here. He gazes at Max, reading him, his eyebrows working, stands poised for the "Find more" command.
"Sector clear," I say into the radio after a signal from Max. I mention the tent city and its inhabitants and learn it is not a surprise.
"Good boy," says Max. Hunter's stance relaxes.
As we move away, the third man gains confidence. He steps a little forward, watching Hunter go. He is barefoot and shirtless. "Dog, dog, dog," he says voicelessly, as though he shapes the word but cannot make the sound of it. "Dog," he rasps again, and smiles wide, and claps his hands.
Saturday night in a strange town five hundred miles from home. I am sitting in a bar clearly tacked on to our motel as an afterthought. The clientele here are jammed against one another in the gloom, all elbows and ball caps bent down to their drinks -- more tired than social. At the nearby pool table, a man makes his shot, trash talks his opponent, and turns to order another beer without having to take more than four steps to get it. This looks like standard procedure. The empty bottles stack up on a nearby shelf that droops from screws half pulled out of the wall. Two men dominate the table while others watch. The shots get a little wild, the trash talk sloppier.
A half-hour ago, when I walked in with a handful of teammates, every head in the bar briefly turned to regard us, then turned away in perfect synchronization, their eyes meeting and their heads bobbing a nod. We are strangers and out of uniform, but they know who we are and why we are here, and besides, they've seen a lot of strangers lately. Now, at the end of the second week of search for a missing local girl, they leave us alone. We find a table, plop down without discussion, and a waitress comes out to take our orders. She calls several of us "honey" and presses a hand to the shoulder of one of us as she turns away.
Either the town hasn't passed a smoking ordinance, or here at the city limits this place has conveniently ignored the law. We sit beneath a stratus layer of cigarette smoke that curls above us like an atmosphere of drowsy snakes, tinged blue and red and green by the neon signs over the bar. Beside the door, I see a flyer for the missing girl. Her face hovers beneath the smoke. She appears uneasy even in this photograph taken years ago, her smile tentative and her blond, feathered bangs sprayed close as a helmet, her dark eyes tight at the edges, like this picture was something to be survived.
I have looked at her face all day. On telephone poles, in the hands of local volunteers, over the shoulder of a big-city newscaster at noon, six, and ten o'clock. She is the ongoing local headline. She's the girl no one really knew before her disappearance, and now she's the girl eager eyewitnesses claim to have known all their lives. It's hard to tell what's real and what isn't, but for the most part that's not our job. We go where law enforcement directs us. We run behind search dogs who will tell us their own truths in any given area: never here, was here, hers, not hers, blood, hair, bone, here, here, here.
We humans aren't talking about the search, our first day at work in this town. Inappropriate discussion in a public place, and we are exhausted with it anyway. Though today's bystanders seemed to think we could take our dogs to Main Street and race them outward across all points of the compass -- first dog to the victim wins -- canine search-and-rescue doesn't work that way. Assigned to locations chosen by law enforcement, we work methodically, dividing a region into sectors to be searched by individual dog-and-handler teams. It's a meticulous process, but trained dogs can quickly clear a large area it would take humans days to definitively search.
Even so, we could be here for weeks. We already feel the trackless absence of this girl. Her hometown is small, but its outlying population is widespread, and there are places to hide a living woman or the remains of a dead one that cross lines into other states. Today we were sent to clear more "hot spots" -- places where bodies have been dumped before. Shrouded, ugly areas they were too, scarred from previous events, but not this girl, this time. All day the dogs have been telling us: Not here. Not here. Not here.
I look at her photograph again. A big guy shifting on his stool blocks the ambient light from the bar, causing the girl's face to purple beneath the neon and the whites of her eyes to swallow the irises. Her gaze no longer connects. It's a condition that was true of her in life, some say. She has a history of scuttling head down, of sitting at the back of the class, never speaking unless spoken to, and even then as briefly as possible. She sounds uncertain on her voicemail greeting, enunciating her name with a rising inflection that suggests she isn't quite sure of it.
We hear fragments. The cumulative description adds up to a girl who began inching away from this town six years earlier, who saved her allowance and bought a junky car simply to have her first job at a truck stop in another town fifteen miles up the road, who saved her paychecks to buy a used laptop, and who had begun recreating herself in variations all across the Web. No judgment, says a neighbor. An accident waiting to happen, says one interviewee. Authorities suggest she might be a runaway if it weren't for the methodical, calculated nature of her young choices. She might be a runaway if it weren't for her purse, cell phone, keys, car, and laptop left behind at her grandmother's house, the last place she was seen alive.
We're told she has a tattoo, inked by a trucker where she worked: a butterfly with the letter K on her left wrist. The tattoo is in honor of an online friend, Katie, who had slashed her own wrists in a successful suicide -- or so it was rumored, until Katie returned to a chat room a month later with a new location, new name, new boyfriend, holding up her woundless wrists for photographs, laughing at the duped online friends who thought they knew her, who had responded to her loss with depression, Paxil, and new tattoos in her honor. April Fools, all.
Did our girl admire her, forgive her? I wonder. Is this a copycat drama?
I turn away from her photograph. She's not my daughter, but I feel a mother's impulse to push the bangs from her eyes, the rescuer's urge to put two fingertips to her carotid to check for a pulse.
We're a quiet group, tight and preoccupied. Still wired from the day's search, we lean forward over our food, weight on the balls of our feet with our heels lifted, as though we'll push up at any moment to go back to work. Unlikely. We're stood down for the night and have an early call in the morning. It always takes a while to let go enough to sleep, especially as a search presses forward over days and investigators' verbs begin to change from she is to she was. That little shift in tense is enough to keep us awake all night, revisiting the day's barns, ravines, burned houses, tent cities, and trailer parks, triple-checking ourselves against the signals from the dogs. To say this girl haunts us is to overdramatize. But we all mull choices made in the field long after we should be sleeping. I stab at my coleslaw and wonder when one of us will finally relax into the back of a chair.
In time, Terry, a canine handler, leans over to say to me, "Hey. I hear you're going to work a dog." The others look up.
"Yes,"' I say. The word feels huge as a wedding vow.
I've been on the search-and-rescue (SAR) team for a while now, running beside certified dogs and their handlers, working as a field assistant responsible for navigation, radio communication, medical assessment, and other pragmatics of a working canine search team. After three years, I'm senior enough to have earned the next open slot to train and run beside a search dog. I am excited about this, but a little nervous too. Having run with more than a dozen breeds and their handlers, having searched night into day for the living, and having knelt over the dead, I'm aware how serious a proposition bringing a new dog to the team is. Working search is not a hobby or a Sunday pastime.
''What breed you thinking of running?" he asks. He handles a Border Collie, a high-drive, obsessive-compulsive boy who is good all around, but particularly good searching on water.
"I'm not sure. Maybe a Border Collie. Maybe an Aussie. Or maybe a Gol . . ."
"You give any thought to a Golden Retriever?"
I nod, and he tells me about his former Golden, Casey, a good dog with a lot of smarts and a lot of soul and a nose that never stopped. A good dog that died, too soon, of cancer. Though my colleague is not one who generally talks at length, his description is detailed. I see the shape of his Golden boy emerge. A sturdy fellow with a nice face and a wide grin -- funny, perceptive, and compassionate. My teammate speaks, and his voice constricts. This dog has been dead for more than five years. Terry's love for the animal had been too raw at the time he began training his own search canine, and he couldn't go with a Golden. Listening to him now, I'm aware it's an open wound. Toughened by years as a homicide detective, he is still not in shape to have another Golden, he says, but he's safe enough recommending one to me.
And the breed has much to recommend it for search work: drive, stability, commitment to working with a human, congeniality, and nose. I already have other dogs and cats, and for reasons of amicability at home, as well, I'm also drawn to the idea of a Golden.
We speak of other search-and-rescue Golden Retrievers: iconic, much-photographed Riley traveling aloft in the Stokes basket across the debris of the World Trade Center and diligent Aspen supporting her exhausted handler as he presses his face to her back following a search of the collapsed Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. This fine breed figures in virtually every aspect of search. Snow dogs, bomb dogs, drug dogs, arson dogs too.
"Got to love a retriever," says Johnny, a Lab man himself, and then he chuckles. "But, girl, no matter what kind of puppy, there's gonna be some housebreaking and chewed shoes in your future."
"And sleepless nights," says Ellen.
"And poop," adds Terry wryly, a cautionary finger up. "These high-drive dogs. All that adrenaline. When a puppy starts working, you just wouldn't believe the poo . . ."
I push away my coleslaw.
Leaning back in their chairs at last, the whole group seems pleased about my coming duress. They exchange young SAR dog stories, not one of them featuring angelic puppies poised for greatness. There's disaster in every punch line -- "the neighbor's TV made him howl" . . . "ate right through the drywall" . . . and "then her parrot learned to bark." I look at the team trainer dubiously.
"This is good," says Fleta, rubbing her forehead. " A new pup-in-training always gives the whole team a boost." Her eyes are tired, but she grins as she lifts her glass in salute.
On any given day in America, there are as many as one hundred thousand active missing persons cases. A large percentage of these cases go unresolved. At the same time, the recovered and unidentified remains of some forty thousand people are held by medical examiners across the country. As a search-and-rescue worker in the field, I am caught by those numbers -- they equal the population of a small city. I'm aware that we run dogs in the thin air between possibility of life and probability of death, and that while we search for a single girl whose weathered flyers have already begun to fade, there are thousands of others actively being searched. Or not. Knowing how many people are involved on the search for this young woman, I cannot imagine the number of investigators, grid walkers, pilots, ATVs, equestrian units, dog teams, and forensic experts of every kind needed to resolve all the others. I suspect geography, marginalization, and limited resources mean quite a few of the missing are short-term questions that go unanswered -- or are never raised at all.
Our small-town girl disappeared in a slow news period. I wonder how much time she's got before funds run out, new local troubles arise, and she is crowded from the docket to take her place in local lore. The margin between SEARCH CONTINUES FOR MISSING TEEN and UNIDENTIFIED REMAINS UNCOVERED IN STATE PARK ten years from now seems narrow.
Time and numbers make me urgent. I cannot train my new dog too soon.
The above is an excerpt from the book Scent of the Missing: Love & Partnership with a Search-and-Rescue Dog by Susannah Charleson. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.
Copyright © 2010 Susannah Charleson, author of Scent of the Missing: Love & Partnership with a Search-and-Rescue Dog
Author Bio
Susannah Charleson, author of Scent of the Missing: Love & Partnership with a Search-and-Rescue Dog, works as a handler with her partner, a Golden Retriever named Puzzle, for the Metro Area Rescue K9 unit in Dallas, Texas, a volunteer canine search-and-rescue (SAR) team responding to local, state, and national search and recovery cases. She also serves as the team's public information officer and gives lectures across the country about SAR. A flight instructor who previously flew disaster searches, Susannah is also an experienced television and radio broadcaster. She and Puzzle share their home with six other dogs, four cats, and a fish named Sound Bite.
Article written by author
Five Communication Lessons from a Search and Rescue Dog
by Susannah Charleson
Author of: Scent of the Missing: Love & Partnership with a Search-and-Rescue Dog
She does not speak English, and I do not speak dog. And yet somehow six years into my partnership with Puzzle, a golden retriever and certified search-and-rescue K9, we have forged a common language. We need it in the search field. Our working life together is framed by loss and urgency—a person missing, time passing, a family and community desperate for answers. And so Puzzle and I enter the hard spaces where a lost person might be, and I give my dog a command, and off she goes into the thick of it, independent and ahead of me, ready to communicate back what she knows. It’s my job to translate her and move all of us closer to a rescue.
Having run beside many other dogs and handlers before I met the puppy who would become my partner, I knew this kind of collaboration existed, this necessary dialogue. What I didn’t realize is how my work with Puzzle in the search field would improve my communication with other humans, too.
Here are some of the lessons offered by a working search dog in the dark.
1. Avoid Hasty Conclusions.
Experience is the best teacher, we’re told, but sometimes past experience can be misleading. While it’s easy to judge from the obvious and frame people, places and events by things we’ve seen before, such grab-and-go thinking can cause us to overlook important differences, to miss what we don’t expect, and to stereotype others. Search dogs don’t work with these kinds of preconceptions. Every new situation is taken on its own terms, the obvious and the subtle alike. The dogs operate on what’s real and present to them right now: scent/no scent, here/not here. They don’t read lost person behavior studies. They don’t assume anything is a given. Anything can be possible—and frequently is. From the dogs I’ve learned the value of keeping a fresh perspective.
2. Find A Better Way to Say Things That Are Unclear.
Search dogs and handlers train for reliable communication about important issues in the search field, whether unstable terrain, a snake on the move, or the presence of human scent rising from the rubble. Ideally, the handler can see and hear the dog, and the signals are clear between them. But search partners have to communicate even when conditions aren’t ideal. If Puzzle has scent she cannot get to, and I don’t respond to her known signals, she will whine into the brush she can’t penetrate, or paw at the door that separates her from the scent, or run to another part of the ravine and try to lead us in that way. She knows her job is to identify human scent and find its source, and she also knows when she has sent a message I haven’t acknowledged. She is willing to communicate another way if she has to – with voice or action or both.
That search dog tenacity instructs me. When ideas are important between humans and our common language fails, frustration can cause us to blame the other person for “not understanding” or to give up the message entirely. Neither action makes the important idea go away, and the resulting silence between us can cause harm. I never expected to take lessons on being clear from a canine, but the search dogs’ willingness to try again, to communicate difficult information in different ways is a good one to learn.
3. Ask For Help When You Need It.
Search dogs are a hard-charging, confident lot. They are motivated, they are fast, and many of them are extraordinarily good at what they do. That said, the most experienced search canines seem to understand that their human partners are not only there to decode, but also to help when needed. Puzzle as a search-pup-in-training loved wilderness work, but in her youth and inexperience would try to plough through heavy brush unassisted. The cuts and stings didn’t seem to bother her, but when she became thoroughly entangled in thorns and vines, she would struggle until half-exhausted, trying to free herself – sometimes struggling more when I headed into the tangle to help her! As she matured, Puzzle learned that the best way to get free was to freeze where she was and communicate with a particular whine and a funny, tight little sway of tail, as though to say she sure was stuck, but happily expected I could fix it. And I could. And we were off again.
Perhaps there’s such a thing as being too self-sufficient. Asking for help when we need it may get us to a common goal faster – and get us there together.
4. Practice Trust.
Search old-timers say that one of the hardest things for new handlers to learn is how to trust the dog. There’s a certain leap of faith we have to make in the dark behind a creature that has gifts we don’t share. We learn to trust the dog across the hundreds of increasingly-difficult test searches we do in training together, but it’s sometimes tempting to give in to doubt and try to take over. Not a good idea. We simply can’t smell what dogs can, and we certainly can’t search a large area as quickly with our other senses. We have to believe in their ability with scent we cannot see.
Similarly, it takes discipline for humans to trust each other in so many contexts, even when relationships have established, skills are known, and trust has been earned. What is it that makes us doubt? Need or impatience that exceeds our fragile faith in one another? Past experience? There’s no quick diagnosis for why some people struggle with trust and no quick fix for the problem, either. I do know that the discipline of trust behind my search dog, whose talents of nose are proven, was something I had to learn. And it’s led me to practice trust in others, to not think I have to do it all or believe I’m the only one who can do it in the first place.
5. Forgive Quickly and Move On.
In their own way, search dogs demonstrate forgiveness. And we partners are grateful for it. Trainers say that the dogs catch on to the whole process of finding people more quickly than we do. It doesn’t take much for them to learn that we need them to find human scent –and not other animals, dropped hamburgers, or unspecified gook. But on the other side, humans have much to learn about their canine partners and how scent works in heat and in cold, in wilderness with variable wind or in rubble with no wind at all.
And so we make mistakes in the training field. The dogs may have the scent, and we may miss it or dismiss them altogether. We learn from such errors, and we head back into training sectors wiser. Generally the dogs, with their gift of being present, stay enthusiastic about the next training search, and the next, and the next as we progress with them toward certification. They let our past mistakes beside them go. A limitation of intelligence or an inherent graciousness? I don’t think it matters. The search dogs’ example reminds me of all the ways I’m less forgiving of my human counterparts and of myself. Inevitably, such grudge-holding separates us from one another, slows us down. A little less memory, a little more generosity of spirit may make the difference.
With such personable, responsive creatures beside us, it’s easy to anthropomorphize the dog. “Man’s best friend is almost human,” some say. But I value them for the reverse, for all the good that’s in their essential dogness. They are not human, and I am not a dog, but our relationship changes both of us. And I come away from it better, I hope—better to my two- and four-footed companions alike.
My Review:
I love dogs so when I saw this book I thought it would be a great read and I would really enjoy it but I was somewhat wrong. Parts of this book were ok but there part of this book I also thought were really boring. I think she did a good job writting this book but I think there was too much back story on the cases and I wish we could have read more about there relationship and about what Puzzle (thats the dogs name) does. I think that I would still recomend this book however.
I would like to thank Julie Harabedian form FSB Media for giving me the chance to review this book and also for providing me the article and the exceprt to post on my blog!
Q&A with Dee Davis
Here is a Q&A I recently had with Dee Davis author of Desperate Deeds
Q&A:
Q. If you had to pick which book (Dark Deceptions, Dangerous Desires, or Desperate Deeds) was your favorite one to write and why?
That’s like asking which of my children I love best. Not possible to say. But there are parts of each book that I especially enjoyed writing. In Dark Deceptions it was the climbing sequence in Cyprus because I have vertigo and so can only climb in my imagination. And also the opening scene with Annie and Nash because it’s a chance to see who they were before life intervened and changed the game. And in Dangerous Desires the scenes surrounding the waterfall incident, particularly with Madeline and Drake and the puma. Madeline is such a strong woman, and it’s here, that she finally drops her guard (at least for a moment). And with Desperate Deeds—I think Tyler’s scenes dealing with her father. Often I find my life spills over into my characters in interesting ways. And living through Tyler’s ordeal, was cathartic for me in some indefinable way. Although the initial meeting with Owen and Tyler was fun, too. (And there, it was my love of Bailey’s Irish Cream that stirred the imagination.)
Q. How did you come up with the title for this book?
Actually all the credit for this title goes to Amy Pierpont and Alex Logan at Grand Central. It is a great title. And I think it speaks to the extremes A-Tac has to go to when searching for the both the mole and the nuclear bomb, especially the ending scenes and Owen and Tyler’s ultimate decisions at the church. That moment of commitment—to each other as much as to the task at hand.
Q&A:
Q. If you had to pick which book (Dark Deceptions, Dangerous Desires, or Desperate Deeds) was your favorite one to write and why?
That’s like asking which of my children I love best. Not possible to say. But there are parts of each book that I especially enjoyed writing. In Dark Deceptions it was the climbing sequence in Cyprus because I have vertigo and so can only climb in my imagination. And also the opening scene with Annie and Nash because it’s a chance to see who they were before life intervened and changed the game. And in Dangerous Desires the scenes surrounding the waterfall incident, particularly with Madeline and Drake and the puma. Madeline is such a strong woman, and it’s here, that she finally drops her guard (at least for a moment). And with Desperate Deeds—I think Tyler’s scenes dealing with her father. Often I find my life spills over into my characters in interesting ways. And living through Tyler’s ordeal, was cathartic for me in some indefinable way. Although the initial meeting with Owen and Tyler was fun, too. (And there, it was my love of Bailey’s Irish Cream that stirred the imagination.)
Q. How did you come up with the title for this book?
Actually all the credit for this title goes to Amy Pierpont and Alex Logan at Grand Central. It is a great title. And I think it speaks to the extremes A-Tac has to go to when searching for the both the mole and the nuclear bomb, especially the ending scenes and Owen and Tyler’s ultimate decisions at the church. That moment of commitment—to each other as much as to the task at hand.
Ah-CHOO!
Ah-CHOO!: The uncommon life of your common cold
by Jenifer Ackerman
This book was ok. The author is a good writer and has a unique writting style, she actually was able to write about something that is concidered a very boring topic and made it somewhat interesting. This book was not a bad read but I wont say I enjoyed it. I would recomend it but only to people who think they would be interested in reading about something like this.
by Jenifer Ackerman
This book was ok. The author is a good writer and has a unique writting style, she actually was able to write about something that is concidered a very boring topic and made it somewhat interesting. This book was not a bad read but I wont say I enjoyed it. I would recomend it but only to people who think they would be interested in reading about something like this.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Wicked Intentions
Wicked Intentions
(Book 1 in the Maiden Lane Series)
by Elizabeth Hoyt
This book was very well written and I liked the little intros at the begining of each chapters. I think I enjoyed this book alot because it was a historical romance. I recomend this book highly.
(Book 1 in the Maiden Lane Series)
by Elizabeth Hoyt
This book was very well written and I liked the little intros at the begining of each chapters. I think I enjoyed this book alot because it was a historical romance. I recomend this book highly.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
In Free Fall
In Free Fall
by Juli Zeh
I am always eager to read different kinds of books so when I heard this book was written by a german author I thought I would try it out.I was very disapointed in this book it just wasnt my style I think it might have even gone a little over my head at times. So I did not enjoy reading this book and I dont think I would recomend it.
by Juli Zeh
I am always eager to read different kinds of books so when I heard this book was written by a german author I thought I would try it out.I was very disapointed in this book it just wasnt my style I think it might have even gone a little over my head at times. So I did not enjoy reading this book and I dont think I would recomend it.
Damaged
Damanged
by Alex Kava
hmm... what to say about this book? I didnt like it but it wasnt completely terrible. It might be for someone else but the book wasnt for me. I would not recomend this book.
by Alex Kava
hmm... what to say about this book? I didnt like it but it wasnt completely terrible. It might be for someone else but the book wasnt for me. I would not recomend this book.
April & Oliver
April & Oliver
by Tess Callahan
I loved this book! The characters were very good and very well developed and I really cared about alot of them. I expecialy liked April and Oliver they were two very good main characters. This book was kind of long (326 pages) but it was a very enjoyable read! I know I will be reading this book again in the furture and I highly recomend it!
by Tess Callahan
I loved this book! The characters were very good and very well developed and I really cared about alot of them. I expecialy liked April and Oliver they were two very good main characters. This book was kind of long (326 pages) but it was a very enjoyable read! I know I will be reading this book again in the furture and I highly recomend it!
Friday, August 6, 2010
Deadly Fear
Today I am participating in a blog tour for the book Deadly Fear by Cynthia Eden. Cynthia will also be answering some questions for me so I would like to thank her for that!
Book Info:
(from the publisher Grand central publishing)
TWO BRILLIANT AGENTS
FBI Special Agent Monica Davenport has made a career out of profiling serial killers. But getting inside the twisted minds of the cruel and the sadistic has taken its toll: She's walled herself off from the world. Yet Monica can't ignore fellow agent Luke Dante, the only man who ever broke through her defenses.
ONE DREAM TEAM
Luke has the unique ability to put victims at ease . . . professionally, he and Monica made a perfect team. Now they're reunited to catch a murderer who uses his victims' deepest, darkest fears for sport - but their investigative skills aren't enough. Luke and Monica will have to face the secrets from their past, the ones that terrify them the most, if they are to have a future together.
But can they catch a killer whose weapon is . . .
DEADLY FEAR
Author Info:
(from Publisher Grand Central Publishing)
Cynthia Eden also writes tales of paranormal suspense and erotic romance for Kensington Brava, Avon Red, and Red Sage. In college, she majored in Communication and Sociology, graduating summa cum laude and spending many hours working on the campus paper. She soon decided writing fiction was much more fun than just sticking to the facts. Later, as she traveled the long and bumpy road to romance publication, Cynthia was employed as a teacher and a college counselor. She is a member of the Gulf Coast Chapter of the RWA and Mensa.
Q&A:
Q. What Inspired you to write this story?
Fear. :-) That may sound simple, but fear was the total motivator for DEADLY FEAR. I wanted to explore the fears that people have, and as the story developed in my mind, I realized that I needed my killer to be a man who turned his victims' worst fears into reality. Once I had my killer, then I created the agents in the SSD (my fictional Serial Services Division in the FBI) to track him down.
Q. How do you come up with your characters?
When I build a new character, I like to start by creating that person's past. With Monica Davenport (the heroine of Deadly Fear), I knew that her past would be integral to the story development. So I made sure that I started with her character, and I developed her from a teenager up to her present age. I designed a character sketch so that I could fully understand her. Luke Dante's character emerged in response to Monica. In many ways, he's her opposite. Sometimes, opposites can be perfect matches, and I sure hope readers feel that is the case with Luke and Monica!
Thanks so much for interviewing me!
Cynthia Eden
www.cynthiaeden.com
I'LL BE SLAYING YOU--Available now from Kensington Brava
DEADLY FEAR--Available now from Grand Central Publishing (Forever)
My Review:
I didnt really enjoy this book Romantic Suspence book are really not my genre (and I know I have said this before but I try to give every book a chance). The author is a good writer other then that I dont really know what to say about this book. It may be a book that someone else may like but personaly I wouldnt recomend it.
Book Info:
(from the publisher Grand central publishing)
TWO BRILLIANT AGENTS
FBI Special Agent Monica Davenport has made a career out of profiling serial killers. But getting inside the twisted minds of the cruel and the sadistic has taken its toll: She's walled herself off from the world. Yet Monica can't ignore fellow agent Luke Dante, the only man who ever broke through her defenses.
ONE DREAM TEAM
Luke has the unique ability to put victims at ease . . . professionally, he and Monica made a perfect team. Now they're reunited to catch a murderer who uses his victims' deepest, darkest fears for sport - but their investigative skills aren't enough. Luke and Monica will have to face the secrets from their past, the ones that terrify them the most, if they are to have a future together.
But can they catch a killer whose weapon is . . .
DEADLY FEAR
Author Info:
(from Publisher Grand Central Publishing)
Cynthia Eden also writes tales of paranormal suspense and erotic romance for Kensington Brava, Avon Red, and Red Sage. In college, she majored in Communication and Sociology, graduating summa cum laude and spending many hours working on the campus paper. She soon decided writing fiction was much more fun than just sticking to the facts. Later, as she traveled the long and bumpy road to romance publication, Cynthia was employed as a teacher and a college counselor. She is a member of the Gulf Coast Chapter of the RWA and Mensa.
Q&A:
Q. What Inspired you to write this story?
Fear. :-) That may sound simple, but fear was the total motivator for DEADLY FEAR. I wanted to explore the fears that people have, and as the story developed in my mind, I realized that I needed my killer to be a man who turned his victims' worst fears into reality. Once I had my killer, then I created the agents in the SSD (my fictional Serial Services Division in the FBI) to track him down.
Q. How do you come up with your characters?
When I build a new character, I like to start by creating that person's past. With Monica Davenport (the heroine of Deadly Fear), I knew that her past would be integral to the story development. So I made sure that I started with her character, and I developed her from a teenager up to her present age. I designed a character sketch so that I could fully understand her. Luke Dante's character emerged in response to Monica. In many ways, he's her opposite. Sometimes, opposites can be perfect matches, and I sure hope readers feel that is the case with Luke and Monica!
Thanks so much for interviewing me!
Cynthia Eden
www.cynthiaeden.com
I'LL BE SLAYING YOU--Available now from Kensington Brava
DEADLY FEAR--Available now from Grand Central Publishing (Forever)
My Review:
I didnt really enjoy this book Romantic Suspence book are really not my genre (and I know I have said this before but I try to give every book a chance). The author is a good writer other then that I dont really know what to say about this book. It may be a book that someone else may like but personaly I wouldnt recomend it.
The Recessionistas
The Recessionistas
by Alexandra Lebenthal
This book was ok. The authors writing style was very good. I like the characters names alot they were very unique/creative and I liked the ending of the story (which I'm not giving away) but I think overall I just couldnt relate to these characters and thats why I say this book was just ok. I think I would recomend this book.
by Alexandra Lebenthal
This book was ok. The authors writing style was very good. I like the characters names alot they were very unique/creative and I liked the ending of the story (which I'm not giving away) but I think overall I just couldnt relate to these characters and thats why I say this book was just ok. I think I would recomend this book.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Vivan Rising
Today Im particpating in a blog tour for the book Vivan Rising by Daniella Brodsky.
Book Info:
(form Publisher Simon & Schuster)
Vivian Sklar has always depended on her wise and feisty grandmother—not just because Grams raised her after Viv's mother took off twenty years ago, but because she seemed to have life all figured out. So when Grams dies, Viv feels completely alone. Everything she once knew seems unfamiliar and unwelcoming—until she finds hope in a most unlikely place: the cluttered second-story walk-up of an alarmingly perceptive astrologer. Viv thinks horoscopes are about as reliable as fortune cookies, but when Kavia's first reading dissuades her from taking a train that later crashes, she's hooked.
Under Kavia's guidance, Viv begins to process her grief and rebalance her life. She faces her mother, gets her career back on track, and even shares some meaningful moments with Len, her handsome new neighbor. Every prediction seems to speak directly to Viv's life, and so far, the stars haven't steered her wrong. Then the stars tell Viv that the bond she has forged with the insightful yet guarded Len isn't meant to last. Len has become her greatest source of security and comfort, but just as she settles into his arms—and into his heart—Kavia insists that a relationship with him is dangerous. Now Viv faces a choice: should she follow the path that's been written in the stars, or trust herself to write her own story?
Witty and honest, Daniella Brodsky's charming new novel is a powerful tale of moving on, letting go, and keeping the faith—in any form it happens to take.
Author Info:
(from Publisher Simon & Schuster)
In addition to VIVIAN RISING, Daniella Brodsky is the author of THE VELVET ROPE DIARIES, PRINCESS OF PARK AVENUE, and DIARY OF A WORKING GIRL, which has been made into a movie on the ABC Family network starring Hilary Duff. Brodsky is also the creator and author of the GIRL'S GUIDE TO NEW YORK NIGHTLIFE series. She has been featured on Good Day New York, the WB Morning News, NPR radio, and in the New York Times, the New York Post and the Hartford Courant. She teaches the craft of fiction writing at The Australian National University's CCE program, and has led discussions about writing at libraries, bookstores and schools in the U.S.. A native New Yorker, Brodsky lives in Canberra, Australia with her husband, where she is writing two new women's fiction novels and a Canberra-based thriller while exploring the art and craft of fiction and the wonder of libraries. Visit her at http://www.daniellabrodsky.com/.
My Review:
I thought this book was good. It was very charming and very witty. I could relate to Vivan in alot of ways so I liked her alot. The plot of this book I thought was also creative and I have never read or heard of this author before but I think I will be read more of her books! I highly recomend this novel.
Book Info:
(form Publisher Simon & Schuster)
Vivian Sklar has always depended on her wise and feisty grandmother—not just because Grams raised her after Viv's mother took off twenty years ago, but because she seemed to have life all figured out. So when Grams dies, Viv feels completely alone. Everything she once knew seems unfamiliar and unwelcoming—until she finds hope in a most unlikely place: the cluttered second-story walk-up of an alarmingly perceptive astrologer. Viv thinks horoscopes are about as reliable as fortune cookies, but when Kavia's first reading dissuades her from taking a train that later crashes, she's hooked.
Under Kavia's guidance, Viv begins to process her grief and rebalance her life. She faces her mother, gets her career back on track, and even shares some meaningful moments with Len, her handsome new neighbor. Every prediction seems to speak directly to Viv's life, and so far, the stars haven't steered her wrong. Then the stars tell Viv that the bond she has forged with the insightful yet guarded Len isn't meant to last. Len has become her greatest source of security and comfort, but just as she settles into his arms—and into his heart—Kavia insists that a relationship with him is dangerous. Now Viv faces a choice: should she follow the path that's been written in the stars, or trust herself to write her own story?
Witty and honest, Daniella Brodsky's charming new novel is a powerful tale of moving on, letting go, and keeping the faith—in any form it happens to take.
Author Info:
(from Publisher Simon & Schuster)
In addition to VIVIAN RISING, Daniella Brodsky is the author of THE VELVET ROPE DIARIES, PRINCESS OF PARK AVENUE, and DIARY OF A WORKING GIRL, which has been made into a movie on the ABC Family network starring Hilary Duff. Brodsky is also the creator and author of the GIRL'S GUIDE TO NEW YORK NIGHTLIFE series. She has been featured on Good Day New York, the WB Morning News, NPR radio, and in the New York Times, the New York Post and the Hartford Courant. She teaches the craft of fiction writing at The Australian National University's CCE program, and has led discussions about writing at libraries, bookstores and schools in the U.S.. A native New Yorker, Brodsky lives in Canberra, Australia with her husband, where she is writing two new women's fiction novels and a Canberra-based thriller while exploring the art and craft of fiction and the wonder of libraries. Visit her at http://www.daniellabrodsky.com/.
My Review:
I thought this book was good. It was very charming and very witty. I could relate to Vivan in alot of ways so I liked her alot. The plot of this book I thought was also creative and I have never read or heard of this author before but I think I will be read more of her books! I highly recomend this novel.
Monday, August 2, 2010
It Happened One Night
It Happened one night
by Lisa Dale
This was a good book. It was a nice contempary romance novel perfect for summer reading! Contempary is not really one of my favorite genres of romance novels but like I said this one was good. This author is a very good writer and I would really like to read more of her stuff! I like the characters alot expecially Lana and Eli (the two main characters). If you really like contempary romance or even if you dont I would recomend this book its worth the read.
by Lisa Dale
This was a good book. It was a nice contempary romance novel perfect for summer reading! Contempary is not really one of my favorite genres of romance novels but like I said this one was good. This author is a very good writer and I would really like to read more of her stuff! I like the characters alot expecially Lana and Eli (the two main characters). If you really like contempary romance or even if you dont I would recomend this book its worth the read.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)