The Book Cove

In 1868, Jack Renton, a teenage Scots sailor, was shanghaied in San Francisco. In 1876, he was rescued from captivity on the Pacific island of Malaita, home to a fearsome tribe of headhunters. After the rescue, in a sensational best-selling memoir, Renton recounted his eight-year adventure: how he jumped ship and drifted two thousand miles in an open whaleboat to the Solomon Islands, came ashore at Malaita, was stripped of his clothes, possessions and his very identity, but lived to serve the island’s tribal chief Kabou eventually as his most trusted adviser. For all the authenticity and riveting detail, however, it turns out that Renton’s chronicle glossed over key events that made him the man that Kabou said he loved, "as my first-born son." Mining the oral history passed down in detail from generations of Malaitans, documentary filmmaker Nigel Randell has pieced together a more complete and grislier account of Renton’s experience—as a man forced to assimilate in order to...

The year is 1964 and Carl Gordon is an ill-prepared New York Assistant U.S. Attorney who has lied his way into a transfer to Stockville, Alabama, where he is supposed to monitor and enforce the Civil Rights Act. In a matter of days, the Ku Klux Klan takes aim at him, the outside agitator. Although scrambling just to protect himself and his 12-year-old son, Carl agrees to represent Oleatha Geary, a black family matriarch who has, through a series of unlikely events, inherited a splendid mansion in an all-white, race-restricted neighborhood. At the same time, a forbidden romance between Carl and Oleatha’s daughter, Lenore, shocks everyone, black and white. Within a few weeks, Carl and Oleatha are engulfed in litigation that turns deadly, as Stockville’s white political establishment is hell-bent on keeping segregation alive. Purchase at Amazon  or Barnes and Noble About the author A former reporter for The Detroit News and Los Angeles Herald Examiner and a syndicated colu...

Clara Dahl, an educated and upstanding minister's daughter, returns to her childhood home in Norway after several years abroad. She’s excited to reconnect with her lifelong friend, Bess and to spend some time becoming reacquainted with the townsfolks. But before long, Clara realizes her sleepy, little, picturesque corner of the world has been invaded by evil. The year is 1660, a time in history when women—especially poor women—were tried and executed for witchcraft. When an English witch-hunter arrives in Clara’s seaside village home, she watches in horror as the townsfolk not only welcome him but begin to work with him. As neighbor turns against neighbor, Clara finds herself drawn into the fray, forced to do what she can to protect her friends and others she cares about. Clara struggles against the witch-hunter’s influence, speaking out against his unjust treatment of those accused of witch-craft as he plays on other peoples’ superstitious and religious beliefs. She is appalle...

Brooklyn on Fire I enjoy a book with a plucky heroine, even more so in historical novels than contemporary ones. Spunk is easy to come by in the modern world where nobody blinks at a woman with a nontraditional career. Not so much in 1890 when society relegated all females to second-class status with only a minuscule chance of escaping the dictates of rigid class structure. The heroine, Mary Handley, is a nice fictional addition. Sacked from the police force for her less than condescending attitude, Mary works in a bookstore and sets up a consulting private detective business on the side. Readers should note Brooklyn on Fire is the second book in the Mary Handley series, but works as a stand-alone story. I didn’t read book one and had no trouble following the plot. Levy makes enough references to Mary’s earlier exploits so that her family and relationship with the Brooklyn Police Department are easily understood in context. In Brooklyn on Fire , a woman hires Mary to look into...

(Blurb): A maltreated orphan in the land of the Old Coast in Ghana overcame the ordeals in this, unpredictable world when the American missionary, Reverend Matthew Mac-White Blackteng, used the collar on his neck as the method of intervention. The untimely call of Rev. M.W. Blackteng by the Father in heaven was the beginning of rising pains to be yet unraveled… Review:  Honestly, you guys, I did not finish this book. I found that there were too many times where I had to ask myself “who is this character, again?” There were also times where I did not understand what the characters were saying and this book really struggled to hold my attention. However, I did like that the author did include his honest thoughts in what I believe is his memoir; some of them are thought provoking and memorable. I also liked that the author included some of his native (I believe) language in the book. Rating: DNF