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books

In a Heartbeat by Loretta Ellsworth

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A half an inch changed Eagan’s life, but a half an inch saved Amelia’s.

In a Heartbeat by Loretta Ellsworth tells us the interwoven stories of two girls whose lives change in a matter of microseconds. Told through alternating perspectives and time frames, we learn about the horrible heart condition that has impacted Amelia’s life forever and about the passion for ice skating that ultimately takes Eagan’s life.

Ellsworth’s prose is lovely and fluid, and she offers us unique insights into the lives of two very different characters. Eagan’s passion for ice skating is well-delivered, as is her rocky relationship with her mother. Postmortem, we see Eagan interact with her present self in the afterlife and her past life on Earth. The dual perspective helps push the plot forward, and I quite enjoyed the person that Eagan runs into while in the afterlife. I don’t think it’s ever made explicit who Miki is, but as a reader, I picked up on that quickly and found it a nice touch.

As for Amelia, her story is told entirely from the present perspective. I must admit to never feeling much connected to her, as I found she didn’t seem to have many interests or passions in the manner that Eagan did. She’d been sick for a long time, but that didn’t seem to me enough to make her a fully realized character. Near the end of the story, Amelia chooses to take a trip from Minneapolis to Milwaukee with a guy she met at the hospital, and for me, this entire sequence didn’t make sense to who I thought Amelia was. A little further growth in her would have helped me feel more attached to her.

This is a book for fans of medical stories. You know who you are, and you know exactly who you can sell this title to if you’re not a fan yourself. The pacing is well-done, though I did find the time shift a bit jarring the first time it happened in Eagan’s story, but once that hurdle is jumped, it moves smoothly. This is one you can hand as easily to a 13-year-old as to a 18-year-old, though some older readers might find some of the situations unrealistic. There are few, if any, language or situational concerns.

One comment I need to make: has anyone else noticed a trend in YA lit to tell the end of the story in the first chapter? I can’t seem to place titles this second, but it seems to me more and more stories are throwing out the ending from the beginning and then telling the story backwards. It irritates me as a reader, since it never allows me the chance to figure out what’s going to happen. I knew from page 2 how this would progress. This stylistic choice feels like I’m being talked down to, like I might not pick up the thrust of the story if it weren’t told to me from the beginning.

On the whole, In a Heartbeat is a good book, and it will have appeal. For me, though, I never quite engaged enough nor did I find myself feeling satisfied at the end.

Ripley’s Enter if you Dare

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I’m in Las Vegas this week — the second time I’ve been to the land of the unique and strange and downright fantastic. So, I thought I’d leave you with some field notes on Ripley’s newest addition to their family of books: Ripley’s Enter if You Dare. I was able to give a length review last year here, so check that out if you want a little more about the Ripley’s titles.

Full color photos are of stand out note in this book that is filled to the brim with facts and figures covering everything from the amazing human body to incredible feats to weather to animals. This is a book that begs you to browse and browse and browse again. But not only that, this is a book that will have some reading every word straight through, as it is that interesting and engaging.

Did you know the world’s heaviest cat weighs in at 22 pounds? I kind of find that lower that I’d imagine, seeing one of my cats is himself 15 pounds. Check out this photo:

Doesn’t he look a heck of a lot bigger than just 22 pounds? Yikes! Don’t worry, the book says he was told to be put on a kitty diet.

What I like about the Ripley’s books is that they celebrate, rather than lampoon, oddities. Back in the day, people with long fingernails, bigger girths, or very strange hairy spots were circus freaks. In these books, they’re celebrated: they are unique and interesting to learn about, choosing to put themselves out there (for the most part — some are nameless statistics, which I find as respectful since it provides anonymity). I quite enjoyed digging through the parts about the circus in this volume because I live in the 19th Century Circus Capital of the World (complete with buried elephant under one of our lakes). Readers will be enthralled with the double page spread, too, about vampires, the shortest teenager around, and more.

The use of the double page spread is effective and exciting. Again, can I emphasize that when I was a kid, these books weren’t in full color like this?

How cool is that?

Ripley’s Enter If You Dare has wide appeal, and it will have special appeal to tween and teen boys, who love non-fiction. These books fly off the shelf at my library, and I suspect that this addition will do the same. The facts are new and fresh, not rehashed information with new pictures. These are the sorts of books that are not only fascinating, but they are appealing across generations. This is the kind of book parents can sit down with their kids and browse through and talk about.

If you haven’t read one of these titles in a while, I urge you to pick one up. You’ll be pleasantly surprised how readable, browsable, and bright they have become. And yes, I totally have seen some of these people in my trip, thank you very much city of lights!

Books catching my eye

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I want to try out a new feature. We all know about “Waiting on Wednesday” for books that aren’t out yet but look interesting and about “In My Mailbox,” which features books received or purchased in the past week. But here’s something I haven’t seen: books that catch my eye. I don’t think it’ll be a super regular feature, but it will highlight exactly what it says — books I’ve run across that have been catching my eye and I’ll pick up to read soon. They’ll be a mix of genres, styles, formats, and ages. Maybe they’ll catch your eyes, too.

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore: This one’s catching my eye as it’s set in the Midwest in a college town. Tessa’s a clumsy college student who takes on a job as a nanny and learns to overcome her own naivety in what is billed as a dark but witty book.

What Americans Really Want . . . Really by Frank Luntz: I love non-fiction, especially non-fiction with a sociological bent. This one promises to explore what Americans want out of their lives and their government, and seeing that it was written and published during the recession, it should make for an enlightening read. I wonder how different it is from what would have been published even 5 years ago.

Interstate 69: The Unfinished History of the Last Great American Highway by Matt Dellinger: I love American cultural history, and I love books about travel, roadways, and movement within America. Seeing as I’ve traveled I-69 before, as well as lived in an area of Texas not far from the proposed continuation of this interstate, I’m fascinated to find out more. I’ve read a history of Highway 20, Bill Bryson’s travel memoirs, and other similar books, so this one falls perfectly into the “books Kelly will devour” category.

Neighborhood Watch by Cammie McGovern: A murderer of a librarian is released from prison in this literary suspense. It sounds like a perfect blend of drama ala Little Children by Tom Perrota and thriller ala Harlan Coben. Sign me up!
At Home by Bill Bryson: I love Bryson’s humor, and this book will likely be both poignant and hilarious. It’s a look at the private space and how it impacts people. A nice companion, I’d think, to Ray Oldenberg’s The Great Good Place, which explores public space.

What’s been catching your eye lately? Share in the comments — give me more to look for!

Manifest by Artist Arthur

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Paranormal and supernatural books are the ones I struggle with the most. I have a hard time with some fantasy titles, too. For me, falling into a completely different worlds — ones with rules that don’t work likes ours — is hard. I like my fiction quite real, maybe even a little magical, and the paranormal/supernatural world is hard for me to connect with. But for many readers, as we know, this is ideal reading: slipping away from our world is what they crave, and I have to say, I’m a little envious of that!

Manifest, by Artist Arthur, is a the first in a new Harlequin Teen paranormal series. Krystal Bentley is new in town: after a bitter divorce between her mom and dad, she was ripped from her home in New York City and forced to move to boring Lincoln, Connecticut. She’s angry and frustrated, and she has a lot of pent up frustration toward her mother and soon-to-be stepfather. But that’s not all that causes her to be angry and frustrated. Quite the contrary — it’s the fact that she’s perhaps found the ideal guy to be with. . . but he’s not real. No, he’s a voice she hears in her head and a voice that asks her to avenge his death since he cannot do it himself.

But why Krystal? What does she have that sets her apart from those who have lived in Lincoln forever and know the back story of Ricky’s death? It’s the glowing array of freckles that form an “M” on her neck, and it’s not long before she discovers two others at Lincoln with this distinguishable marking, too: Sasha and Jake. But they don’t hear voices like she does. Sasha can make herself disappear and Jake can move things with a little mental concentration. And when they come together, things happen. Strange things, that is.

Manifest begins with an interesting premise, and while I think that further volumes in this series will give the readers more to work with, I felt a little let down as a reader. I never got to know what brought these three together as well as I’d like to, beyond a chilling message from Jake’s senile grandfather that mentioned the mutual births of the trio’s mothers during a rough storm. Krystal tries to unravel the mystery but never quite does so in this volume.

Further, I was left wanting to know a heck of a lot more about Ricky and why he sought out Krystal. We never get a resolution (as we wouldn’t in the first novel of a series) but I felt like I didn’t get enough back story to fall completely into the book.

Krystal, as annoying as she is, is a memorable character. She has a lot of bitterness and resentment — sometimes justifiable and sometimes not — but it makes her believable and real to teenagers, I think. She won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but she will be the perfect manifestation of feelings and actions for many readers. Likewise, Krystal is of mixed race, which added flavor to the story, too, and again, this will resonate with many readers. I don’t think there are enough non-white leads in teen books as it is and even less-so in paranormal titles…especially playing the good role!

Although Manifest didn’t live up to my expectations, this is a good book to hand to your readers of the other titles in Harlequin Teen’s paranormal lines (Rachel Vincent’s “Soul Screamers” series or Gena Showalter’s “Intertwined” series). I think as this series progresses, it’ll draw in more readers as we learn the back stories of not only Krystal, but her kindred spirits in Jake and Sasha. Oh, and that pesky ghost Ricky. This is a fast read, as readers are plunked into the story immediately and we find strange things happening right away.

A Cover Retrospective: Vivian Vande Velde

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Vivian Vande Velde. She’s an author that I never heard of before beginning my job, but now I’ve seen her popping up more and more. She’s written a variety of books, but a number of them are known for their horror or creep factor, and she’s also been writing strong fantasy for quite a while. Her newest, Cloaked in Red, comes out in October and is a series of short stories playing off “Little Red Riding Hood.”

Vande Velde’s been publishing for a couple of decades now, so why don’t we take a little walk down cover-memory lane?

1985 brought us A Hidden Magic. It’s a bit dated, but I still see the fantasy elements to this one being easily sellable today.

Dragon’s Bait came out in 1992. Again, it’s a bit dated, but I suspect that the dragon is always appealing. But is that a guy or a girl on the cover? Does it matter? Here are a couple other takes of this one:

I like the original, as well as the one on the left. The one on the right looks a little too bare for me.

Companions of the Night came to us in 1995. I think the girl on the cover looks like she might have some other issues — she’s a little too pasty looking. Maybe she’s one of the companions? Here’s a few variations of this cover, too:

I think I like the middle best! It reminds me a bit of Drew Barrymore ala E.T. The other two are straight up creepy.

This one gives me the chills a little, and I don’t think it’s from the ghostly creature — I mean, why is that kid wearing a red beanie? Alas, A Coming Evil (which I suppose doesn’t refer to the painful monochromatic outfit) came to us in 1998. Let me tell you how relieved I am to offer this, though:


This title has to do with the Nazis, so I like that that element is more present. Also, the main character is a girl. Monochrome man on top doesn’t fit that image for me (and totally unrelated, but this character meets a ghost named Lisette — the same name of the ghost Rebecca meets in Paula Morris’s Ruined. Now I must investigate this name in relation to spirits!).

In 1999, we were reminded that we should Never Trust a Dead Man. The trend I kind of see in all of her covers — and perhaps it’s a factor of the times — is that they are geared to younger readers. I actually don’t mind this cover at all, save for the bit dated font. I like that it’s a boy on the lead, and he’s not a hunky beefcake. He’s normal. I do like the coloring (orange! foreboding!) in this re-cover:

I like his sullen, sullen eyes. Kind of.

Now if this isn’t reminiscent of a well-known Caroline B. Cooney title, I don’t know what is:

This whole “holding something in our hands” trend has been going on for a while, it seems. I don’t particularly like how tiny the photo is in comparison to the massive hands in this one. I mean, would anyone REALLY hold a photo like that? Do people have photos that tiny in comparison to their hands? Maybe I have small hands. Alison, Who Went Away came to us in 2001.


Heir Apparent, published in 2002, might be Vande Velde’s most well-known novel. I love this cover: it’s clearly a fantasy and the colors and design make it quite timeless. The only other cover I’ve seen for it is a slightly modified one:

Both work for me.

Witch Dreams came to us in 2005. This cover works for me, too. I like that the girl isn’t a typically pretty girl and there’s enough going on to make it clear to a reader this is a fantasy setting. The half coin adds a bit of a mystery element, as well.

This might be one of my favorite covers, period. Remembering Raquel, published in 2007, has no problem standing out on a shelf. The red, black, and white elements work well and there’s intrigue built in. There are few all red covers to compete with this one. My only qualm is that I don’t have an idea of the genre of this title — something most of Vande Velde’s other titles have had easily in their cover art.

1997 brought us one of Vande Velde’s short story collections, Curses, Inc. Can I just tell you how amazing the old school computer is? The black cat? The witch? I love this cover, though without doubt, the computer dates this book. Never fear. It’s been redone:

There’s still a computer, but it’s definitely not as dated. Fear is apparent. Technology’s a scary, scary thing.

Finally, let me leave you with the cover for Cloaked in Red. As much as I am against people-on-covers, this one works quite well:

The only downside is when I have a patron come asking for the book with a girl in a red cloak, this won’t be my first thought. These will be.