Aspirational vs. Actual

My writing class has been sharing lists of books they recommend and I am humbled. I've read some of them, heard of others, and am clueless regards many. And there are some that I dipped into and abandoned--like Cloud Atlas.

I should be challenging myself with some of these aspirational choices. Alas, now in Covid times, I'm increasingly turning to comfort reading or re-reading. I picked up Julia Spencer-Fleming's In the Bleak Midwinter as one of those re-read's. I remembered enjoying the book with the complicated relationship between the female Episcopal priest and the very (almost) happily marries Chief of Police of the small upstate New York town.  Sounds like a cozy but this series is a good bit grittier than that. Instead of teashops, knitting, or crafts of some kind, there's a good bit about social problems--PTSD, meth, homophobia, addiction . . .

I knew I'd read others is the series--some were on my shelves-- and I even blogged about one HERE--but not all and it seemed a good moment to dive into another time and place. Immersion reading, as it were. Plunging into this other world, I raced through all nine books in record time and was bereft to find that the ninth was published earlier this year--leaving no hope of a tenth any time soon.

Spencer-Fleming is a master at complicated plots and (dammit) cliff-hanger endings. She is also skilled at making the reader care about the all too human characters in the small town of Miller's Kill. Just when you think one problematic relationship is sorted out, BANG! life, criminal enterprise, and human frailty intervene.

Arrgh! I am well and truly repaid for ending In a Dark Season with a cliff hanger. Waiting for book ten  . . .

 

One Was A Soldier

 I've just read an amazing book.  Julia Spencer-Fleming's One Was a Soldier is one of the most enthralling novels I've read in quite some time. And as most of you know, I perused about five hundred mysteries last year.

Spencer-Fleming's award-winning series, set in a small town in New York state tells the story of the tangled relationship between  Clare Fergusson, an Episcopal priest, and Russ Van Alstyne, the town's police chief.  One Was a Soldier, though the seventh in the series, could be a standalone, so seamlessly does Spencer-Fleming weave in the back story. 

I was particularly interested in this book because it deals with the long awaited marriage of the two main characters -- the same premise  as in my forthcoming Under the Skin.  It seems as though everything is set for happily ever after and then . . . complications ensue.

Yes, there's a mystery -- a well-plotted conundrum with a satisfying resolution -- but this book is so much more than a simple whodunnit. It's an finely rendered examination of the heart-breaking and timely topic of America's wounded warriors -- the men and women who have been and are still returning from active service, broken in body, mind, and spirit but afraid to ask for help.

And it's the deeply moving and quite passionate story of the love between Russ and Clare -- two flawed but ultimately honorable human beings.  And that's what kept me reading -- stopping only for dinner and abandoning all other intentions till I got to the end. 

Can you tell I love this book? Such real and likable characters, such wonderful, sensitive, intelligent writing! Highly, highly recommended.  

(See below on ordering a free ebook with an excerpt containing a surprisingly hot scene between a priest and a police chief in a rapidly moving vehicle.)

(You don't own an ebook reader? You can go to Amazon and download a free Kindle for your computer.)

One Was a Soldier is so good that I would suggest starting with it rather than going back and reading the series from the beginning. I suspect however, after reading it, you'll want more and be eager to know how it all began ...

The book's not on sale till April 12, though it's available for preorder now.  I asked Julia for an advance copy - and she has offered to send advance copies to 2  winners of  a drawing here on my blog. 

So if you'd like to be entered, just say so when you comment -- or send me an email (vicki_laneATmtnareaDOTnet).  I'll wait a few days before drawing two names. Check back on  April 3.  If you're a winner, I'll need your snail mail address.

And the winners are....Mamabug and Shirley! (Sounds like a sitcom.)  I'll be in touch!

If you're not a winner of this little drawing, there are some consolations below.

There is a 2.99 e -book of In The Bleak Midwinter (book 1 in the series) available.

There is a FREE e-book of excerpts, extra content and letters from the war zone, available at Amazon, B&N and Sony.  (This is where the hot scene in the truck is!)

And there's more about the books and the author at www.juliaspencerfleming.com.

Really, I think that a lot of you will thank me for this introduction, if you didn't already know this series.