Sugar is Sweet, Carrie Green (4.5 stars)

From Amazon:  PLAYING FOR KEEPS--Sometimes a mother/daughter bond can be so close that it kills.

LOVED--Being loved is sometimes a fairy tale, sometimes, a nightmare. It all depends on who falls in love with you.

CHRISTMAS IN STRIPES--An ex-con spends his first holiday back home with his family and realizes that you can never go home again.

Sugar is Sweet is a collection of short stories written by Carrie Green. I first met Carrie during a Gratitude Blog Hop through the World Literary Café, then known as the WoMen’s Literary Café. She guest posted on my Depression Cookies blog: Thank You, Stephen King. Carrie was lovely and helpful, but more than that, she encouraged me to try the horror genre and to read Stephen King specifically.

Thanks to Carrie I read Stephen King’s On Writing, find the post here, and joined the Stephen King Project. Just recently, I read two of her short story collections, starting with Sugar is Sweet. There are three stories in the collection: Playing for Keeps, Loved, and Christmas in Stripes.

The short story collection starts with Playing for Keeps, an eerie and unsettling story about Dawn, a little girl with an abusive mother. I cringed most of the tale, realizing what a delicate relationships mothers and daughters have and how easily a mother can use that bond to an unfair advantage. My heart broke while I was internally screaming at the story, hoping Dawn could hear me and have courage. (I’m praying for a cushion for her journey’s end.)

 
Then, we move into Loved. “Had he died and gone to Hell?” I was wondering right along with Nick Goggin, completely absorbed with all the questions and fears he was facing. I was being pulled with him. This story explores more family issues, gives us more eerie feelings, and offers us another memorable character.
 
And finally, there’s Christmas in Stripes. The title alone hooked me. Douglas Kuznar, an ex-con who feels the weight of his stripes, is heading to his family’s house for Christmas dinner for the first time since his release. My favorite story in this collection, I was impressed with how much rich family history the author squeezed into so few pages.
 
What I love about this collection is that Ms. Green mines the depths of relationships. She plays with our sense of fear in the everyday instead of terrifying aliens or vampires, knowing sometimes the most troubling stories are the ones that can be true.
 
Each story leaves you wanting more, needing more. The suspense builds at a steady pace, and the author manages to successfully develop meaningful characters in a few words. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this collection, and the 4.5 star rating is a reflection of liking Roses are Red (5 stars) even more. My review for Roses are Red will be available Tuesday, February 21.
 
Many thanks to Ms. Green for encouraging me to give horror a chance. She was right, there’s so much more to it than meets the eye, as she so expertly demonstrated in her two short story collections.

Rating: 4.5 stars

For more about Carrie Green and her books, please visit her Amazon Author page.

When’s the last time you tried, and loved, something new in the world of books?

Night Sounds, Pam Young (3 stars)

From Amazon:  Night Sounds is a story about relationships, good and bad, including marriage and friendship. Similar to John Sayles's book, The Return of the Secaucus Seven, (on which the film, The Big Chill, was based), it is a story about what happens when former college friends reunite--in this case, at a wedding instead of a funeral. Claire, Mollie, Michael and Samantha were housemates who pledged friendship "as long as the grass grows and the river flows." Naturally, when Samantha needs them the most, she'll be enfolded in their love and understanding, because family and friends are supposed to accept, understand, and help. Right?

To outsiders, Samantha’s life is enviable. She has a handsome husband, Jim, and a successful career as a Professor of Psychology and author. But everything is not as it seems. Samantha’s success hides a very dark personal life.

She needs her dear friends now more than ever. Samantha describes her friends, “they represented her hope—for the day she would accept the challenge of her most difficult and certainly most dangerous goal, to leave Jim forever.” Claire, Jessica, Mollie, and Michael are all battling problems of their own. Can they come together and mend their lives?

I commend the author, Pam Young, for exploring the dark depths of physical and mental abuse. There are no easy answers for the victims, and Young proves this through the characters’ choices and corresponding consequences.

Unfortunately, the author tried to capture too many characters’ backstories and the story lost its rhythm. I focused on Samantha, because I wanted her to escape and felt an early connection to her character, but she kept making one bad decision after another. I started to care less and less with each self-defeating action she took.

I don’t pretend to understand how people react to severe mental and physical abuse, but I found myself questioning a lot of these characters’ decisions. And these supposedly lifelong friends seemed to bring out the worst in each other.

Night Sounds is an interesting take on the journey from abuse to self-acceptance, but it lost me somewhere along the path.

Rating: 3 stars

Note: My initial thought was 2.5 stars, but I rounded up because the author took on such difficult material.

I received this book free of charge as part of the WoMen's Literary Cafe Review team.

Shades of Gray, Andy Holloman (5 stars)

From Amazon:  How far would you go to save your child's life? Could you break the law? What if your travel business was suddenly in danger of going under because of 9/11? A single father decides to partner up with woman from the opposite side of the tracks. Can their partnership deliver the cash they BOTH desperately need? Could they fall in love? And will they survive to see the Summer of 2002?

Shades of Gray, the debut novel from Andy Holloman, examines the depths of a father’s love and the ramifications of desperate choices. John Manning and his daughter, Lucy, are driving home from a nice evening out when their car’s brakes malfunction. What initially seems like bad luck turns into a much darker story.

John hasn’t had it easy. When his wife leaves, his whole world revolves around Lucy. His successful business, a travel agency, is hit hard by the events of September 11, 2001. Then, he finds out his daughter has a rare kidney disease and will need a kidney transplant.

Desperation and fear drive John to extreme limits to save his daughter, especially after a fateful meeting with a former client, Wanda. Wanda loves her daughter and has found a way out of her own personal hell, a way paved with good intentions but criminal actions.

Every action draws the pair deeper into an intricate web of deceit and danger. The reader is compelled to turn each page, but not just to find out what happens next. There’s also an emotional connection to the characters. The twists and turns lead to an unexpected and heartbreaking conclusion.

Shades of a Gray is a must read for anyone who enjoys a captivating thrill ride with emotional investment.

Fun note: I’m from North Carolina, so I thoroughly enjoyed the NC references throughout.

Rating: A very enthusiastic 5 stars.

For more information, please visit the author’swebsite.

Disclaimer: I received this novel as an ARC in exchange for an honest review. A good review was not guaranteed or asked for. My opinions are my own.

*****

What’s even better than a 5-star book? A 5-star book for 99 cents. December 13 through December 15, the WoMen’s Literary Café is hosting a Mystery & Christian Fiction Book Launch and 99 Cent Book Event featuring this novel and many others. 

For more information, please click the picture below.