The Saturday Morning Post (No. 43)

 

I vaguely knew that Charlie Sykes was a rightwing AM radio talk show host for many years in Milwaukee, though I was neither an AM radio talk show, or rightwing type of fellow. More recently Sykes evolved into a Never Trumper, and critic of MAGA, and had aYouTube channel that came up on my feed. I watched a number of his YouTube segments, and in his last episode - I gather that he's now moved on to MSNBC - and in the course of thanking people, he thanked and named his novelist wife for proofreading his copy every morning. Curious about this novelist wife, I tracked her down on Amazon, and found that she has written a series of four, and soon to be five books set in Wisconsin's Door County - the peninsula or "thumb" of Wisconsin between Lake Michigan and Green Bay, and Washington Island - just north of the peninsula. Door County is the Cape Code of Wisconsin; a summer resort destination, with all the touristy things you expect, but with an old time flavor. I have fond memories of Door County, having spent weekends and several week long vacations up there in tourist houses on the lake shore. So, to make this long story short; I checked at our library and found that ebook copies of these novels were available, and put my name down for the first one, which followed in a few days.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

 

North of the Tension Line by J. F. Riordan  B-

If you take the stories of Molly Clavering, or D E Stevenson, send them 80 years into the future and across the pond to the middle west of America, you might well get North of the Tension Line. I am not quite sure what chic lit is, but I suppose this book would likely fall under that genre. The story concerns the adventures and romances of two 30 something year old single women, Fiona, an ex-reporter, now a freelance writer, and Elizabeth, the owner of an art gallery in Door County.

The story begins in the resort town of Ephraim on the "Busy Side" of Door County, which is to say the Green Bay side of the peninsula, where Fiona is living. We meet Roger, the coffee shop guy, and Elizabeth. During a day trip to Washington Island with Elizabeth and Rocco, Elizabeth's German shepherd, we see the sights of the island, one of which is a house that catches Fiona's attention. A few days later, she finds that the house is for sale, and proceeds to buy it on a bet that being a big city girl, she couldn't survive a winter on the little island of Washington Island. 

The rest of the story recounts Fiona's efforts to deal with the problems that arise from this rash decision, which include making repairs to the house, dealing with spiders, mice, and an unknown creature in the walls, as well as with a troublemaking goat that was given to her as a gift by Roger, plus a evil neighbor who wants to drive her out of the house, and getting to know the small town community of Washington Island, and winter in Wisconsin. A lot of things. There is also a second story line involving a romance between Elizabeth and Roger. 

I like these types of stories, though I had several minor issues with this one. Fiona's problems and adventures are played for lighthearted amusement, a stranger in a strange land sort of thing, but I didn't like the totally evil neighbor bit and all her problems with Robert, the goat, got old quickly. You need problems and antagonists, I guess, for a story, but perhaps these antagonists were a little over the top, and I felt that the story went on a mite too long.

The other thing I found interesting, is that Fiona as a freelance writer of non-fiction articles never seems to spend much of her time writing. And whatever she does write, it seems that all she needs is the internet, since she never travels anywhere to interview anyone, or investigate anything or any place. And yet, somehow, she has plenty of money, not just to buy a house on a whim, but spend it on single malt scotch, Italian shoes, and basically anything else she needs, without giving it much of a second thought. The only sacrifice she makes because of a lack of money is that she couldn't go home for Christmas. In short, in this story, being a freelance writer is nice work, if you can get it. However, knowing a little bit about how well freelance writing pays, or doesn't, I found her free spending lifestyle very hard to believe. But then, maybe what I was seeing is how many people live; they spend up to their credit card's limit and perhaps that was how she was living. Or maybe that's how the world can work in fiction.

So, all in all, not a bad story. I don't know if I'll go on to read more of her adventures, but I might, if, this summer, I find that I want to take an imaginary vacation to Door County.