Friday 29 May 2015

May I Sit On Your Towel - Edward and Elizabeth Morris



                May I Sit on Your Towel is a jointly written autobiography about the lives of Edward and Elizabeth Morris. Now in their eighties, these soulmates met after the war, he a young soldier and she the daughter of the mayor. He introduced himself by asking if he could sit on her towel and asked her to marry him by the second date. Today, there isn’t a woman alive who would go off with someone who claimed to have called her mother looking for one of the daughters, any daughter, of Patrick Maher. That alone just screams serial killer. However, this was a more innocent time, long before women carried pepper spray as a part of the normal contents of their purses. Edward and Elizabeth fell in love and lived a life most people can only dream about. I didn’t always like some of the things they did but the book is really interesting. Taking turns in narration, Edward and Elizabeth tell stories about their lives both before and after they meet. The writing is not always smooth and often seems like they just jotted down their thoughts as they came to them but after I got used to the style I quite enjoyed it. I loved reading about what life was like years ago and how much houses and groceries cost back then was fascinating. The stories about their life on an island were interesting and how they lived such a simple life style is truly amazing. They wrote this book so that their grandchildren will have an account of their grandparents’ life and I think they will truly enjoy it. The digital book formatted to my ereader quite well. The cover is rather boring but the title will grab a reader’s attention.

Friday 15 May 2015

A Sticky Business and Other Short Stories - Mel King



                A Sticky Business and Short Stories raises the age-old question about why, if God exists, do good people often get treated horribly and bad people end up successful. To study this question, the author uses fictional characters and a factual event, that of the molasses disaster in 1919 where a huge vat of molasses in Boston basically exploded, injuring and killing many citizens. I had never heard of this tragedy so I found reading about it to be very interesting. Mr. King gives a realistic voice to all of the characters and I really enjoyed his style of writing. In this story, A Sticky Business, Father Peligrino, a young priest, spends his life trying to figure out why some innocent people died, such as a little girl gathering wood, yet a mob boss survived by what some would call a miracle. It affects Father Peligrino’s faith as he tries to find the answer to his question. Some of the characters are real and Mr. King does an excellent job bringing them to life. He explains all sides of the debate about whether God exists and if there is something after we die and does a pretty good job of being unbiased and waits until the end to give his opinion on the subject. Following this story are more short stories centered on the same subject as the first one. I enjoyed reading the opinions given throughout the stories and it certainly did make me think, although it didn’t shake my faith. As read on my ereader, it formatted well and the cover was beautiful and grabbed my attention. This is definitely worth reading.

Mr. L.T. - James Montgomery



                Mr. L.T. is an erotic short story about a woman’s fantasy that she’s had her whole life about having erotic relations with Mr. L.T., the uncle of her childhood friend who she met while staying with her aunt in Mississippi one summer. Mr. L.T. happens to be black which adds to her lifelong fantasy. Due to the fact that this is a very short story, approximately thirty-one pages on my ereader, the fantasies are very lightly touched upon until the very end. I essentially liked the bones of the story. The writing is good and the characters are as interesting as they can be in only these few number of pages. The problem is that it needs to be longer. The story is entertaining enough that it would make a great erotic novel by expanding the fantasies and delving deeper into the characters. Essentially, the story left me wanting more and feeling a bit let down when I reached the end. I wanted more from the two characters finally coming together after all of the build-up. I read this on my ereader and it formatted well. The cover was steamy and enticing. Overall, I enjoyed it, just wanted it to be longer.