Lenora's Book Reviews

The Goring Collection
by Tom Barnes

Shell Originals as Copies

 Some readers may have forgotten or never knew that Hermann Goring, Hitler's ruthless second in command, was in charge of looting and hiding thousands of museum paintings created by some of Europe's most famous artists and some whose work would become more valuable during proceeding decades. They have become known as The Goring Collection. Hundreds of these paintings are still missing today.

Tom Barnes has written a well researched, exciting story initiated by a stolen painting. Jacob Meyers saw his father's Pissarro among the paintings at The Old World Auction House in Manhattan. When he starts asking questions, the painting disappears. Since Meyers owns an intelligence agency, he immediately alerts Interpol . Two paintings, a Manet and a Cezanne sold as copies by an international cartel in Berlin show up at the Berghoff Gallery in Chicago. Meyers's agency investigates this con game of the cartel from a mansion in the state of Georgia across the country to a notorious odds maker in Las Vegas. The action and excitement of the story are propelled by the characters in the agency who are tracking the stolen paintings. Their intriguing personalities and working relationships make you hope the author writes a sequel to allow them to solve more international mysteries. Available on Amazon.com

Review by Lenora Smalley, poet,writer

Winds of Time
By Elaine Shevin
Reviewed by Maureen Musemeci

Summoned home to the reservation, college student White Swan must find a way to solve the solution to a deadly virus that is killing her people.   How did the virus get on the reservation and why does it only select her people?  What is the mysterious cause of the sickness that comes to steal away the lives of the people whom she loves?  Surrounded by ancient customs and modern ways White Swan must tread an uneasy path.  Arrested and accused of witchcraft White Swan must also choose between two loves in her life, “Ray” the tribe’s healer, a holy medicine man who clings to the old ways or “Tim” the brash and handsome young jack of all trades who comes to her rescue when death threatens in the desert.

Elaine Shevin captures the youthful spirit and dichotomy of a modern young Indian girl trying to cope with love of her ancestral tradition and the longing to bring the best of the White Man’s education to rescue her people.  Moving through the pages of “The Winds of Time” we come to know and care about the people of the “Kayatma” tribe in Arizona.  We read of their legends of Sky Father, Wise Spider Woman and Warrior White Painted Woman.

White Swan is atypical of her tribe, a complex well-drawn character who takes the reader on a courageous journey of spiritual visions and daring, to solve a murder and a medical mystery.

“Winds of Time” is Ms. Shevin’s first book.   I predict it will not be her last.

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Lenora says, "I liked this book. It was well written and well researched and interesting."
Purchase it at www.HazelSt.com.

Paranoid?  Who Me?
Humor Humor Everywhere
By Erica Stux
Reviewed by Lenora Smalley

Erica Stux has a new book whose title immediately gives readers an idea they have found a funny and entertaining collection. In a style reminiscent of the late Irma Bombeck Erica writes about events and relationships which confront us all. There are entries with intriguing titles such as The Care and Feeding of Dishwashers, Hair Do’s and Don’t, New Math for the Family, Let Me Have My Attention, and an especially humorous tirade on Phantoms in My Fridge.  We have dibs, dabs, little jars or packages hiding in niches and corners in our refrigerator. I loved Erica’s comment, “There could be a jar in one of those niches containing, for all I know, a hitherto unknown  Dead Sea Scroll.” She writes about many things we all know to be true. How major appliances such as dishwashers and washing machines almost always break down on weekends, especially long holiday weekends. How stoves usually quit on Christmas or New Years Eve. She extols the virtues of a good plumber or handyman saying we should hang on to them because they are “worth their weight in drill bits.”

I laughed reading the episode, The Dinner Party I’d Like to Forget. It was one of those times when anything that could go wrong did, including spilling a drink on a guest and having the coffee pot blow a fuse crashing the party into temporary darkness. She writes about events that make us want to laugh or cry, but makes us laugh and helps us see the funny side. Read this book and next time the groceries fall out of the bag onto the sidewalk or the ice cream scoop drops off the cone, remember Humor Humor is Everywhere.


Who Me? Paranoid?

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
by Lisa See
A Review by Carolyn See

"Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" sounds like a girlie book, but it's about the human condition.  I can't even describe it.  When I finished reading it, I just THOUGHT, for something like an hour, about what it means to be alive.  My younger daughter fell over sobbing at about page 34. It's strong and brave and beautiful.  I'm not asking you to buy it or even read it, just know it's out there in the universe, and it will make the universe better.  But if you're in the vicinity of one of her readings, drop by and say hi.  I think she's a little nervous; she's created something like a genie that just came out of the bottle with a very big whoosh, and it's certainly never going back in.

Lily is haunted by memories?of who she once was, and of a person, long gone, who definned her existence. She has nothing but time now, as she recounts the tale of Snow Flower, and asks the gods for forgiveness. . . .

In nineteenth-century China, at a time when wives and daughters were foot-bound and lived in almost total seclusion, the women in one remote Hunan county developed their own secret code for communication: nu shu ("women's writing"). Some girls were paired with laotongs, "old sames" in emotional matches that lasted throughout their lives. They painted letters on fans, embroidered messages on handkerchiefs, and composed stories, thereby reaching out of seclusion to share their hopes, dreams, and accomplishments.

With the arrival of a silk fan on which Snow Flower has composed Lily a poem of introduction in nu shu, their friendship is sealed and they become "old sames" at the tender age of seven. As the years pass, through famine and rebellion, they reflect upon their arranged marriages, loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood. Through it all, the two find solace, developing a bond that keeps their spirits alive. But when a misunderstanding arises between them, their lifelong friendship suddenly threatens to be torn apart.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a brilliantly realistic journey back to an era of Chinese history that is as sorrowful as it is deeply moving. With the period detail and deep resonance of Memoirs of a Geisha, this lyrical and emotionally charged novel delves into one of the most mysterious relationships of all time: female friendship.

To read more about Lisa See's new book or find out where she will be appearing next, go to
http://www.lisasee.com/