Time. And Time Again.

I love it when an author is not afraid to let her sense of humor shine through the pages of her novel. It's a rare treat when this happens and often makes for a more enjoyable read.

Such is the case with The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway. In this, her first novel, Bee playfully romps with us through time as her characters leap from one century to another; fight forces of evil that wish to control the past, present, and future; fall in love; and face the enigma of (wo)man's quest for power, money, and ultimate control. If you're thinking this novel has the best of most, if not all literary genres, you are right. 

I read this historical, mystery, fantasy, sci-fi cum bodice-ripper novel a week or so ago and wrote a review of it that is now posted at www.authorexposure.com. Please take the, um, time (pun intended) to follow the link to get a glimpse of what should be a future runaway best seller.  

Beckoning Beacon

I have always been enamored of lighthouses. When I was a child, when we vacationed at the Jersey Shore, my father and I would drive down to Cape May Point where we climbed the spiraling staircase to the top of the lighthouse to scan out across the vast Atlantic Ocean trying to spot ships far out at sea.

The lighthouse, by then, was no longer in operation, but it and the small keeper's house next to was a maritime museum, as it still is today. But on the tippy-top holding tight to my father's arm with one hand and the iron railing surrounding the large, unlit lamp with the other, feeling the wind and salty spray against my cheeks, I could still feel a sense of adventure. And wonder.

Most of our nation's lighthouses are unmanned today; their lights are electronic and automatically run by computers inland. But imagine a hundred years or so ago when they were maintained by humans. What would the life of a lonely lighthouse keeper and, perhaps, his family have been like? Often separated from civilization for months at a time by miles and miles of water and/or uninhabitable coastline, how did they sustain themselves? What stories could be told about them? What mysteries may lay along the shoreline from whose deadly shoals and rocks they warned ships away?

The aura, mystery, and mystique of keeping a lighthouse is brought back to life in vivid color by Christina Schwarz whose fourth novel, The Edge of the Earth , was published last month. I was fortunate enough to be sent a copy of it by the publisher through the auspices of www.authorexposure.com and was thoroughly enchantingly mesmerized for day and a half reading it.

Follow the link above and read my review of this stunningly refreshing historical novel. I warrant that you'll want to pick up a copy and read it this weekend.

To Tell the Truth

Frankl(y)in Speaking

Way back in eighth grade, we read the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. The assignment was supposed to enlighten our young minds with what it meant to be a colonial statesman and an American patriot. It was full of his accomplishments as a politician, both here and abroad in the courts of England and France, and as a prolific inventor.

What it didn't portray—and, granted it was his autobiography, so Franklin had every right to omit much of it—the details of his private life. For example, he was a prolific womanizer. Deborah Read was his common-law wife who had been married before. He had a mistress at a very early adult age, who bore him a bastard son that he and Deborah raised.

Sure, you can read all about him on Wikipedia, as well as other sites on the internet, but the sometimes sordid facts and character analysis—what sort of man was Franklin, really?—do not come through as true and as real-to-life as in the fictionalized version of his personal, ahem, affairs, Benjamin Franklin's Bastard by Sally Cabot. This sure-to-be a best-seller, by the way, was just released today.

I had the privilege of reading an advanced electronic copy of this enlightening historical novel last month and was amazed at the author's attention to detail while relating up-to-now little known (at least to me) facts about one of the most famous founders of our country. He did a whole lot more than fly a kite to learn about electricity and start our first library system!

Please read my review on www.authorexposure.com, then take time to read the book. It is, indeed, an eye-opener.