Blue Wolf Reviews

Tag: love

  • Everything is Beautiful

    Everything is Beautiful

    It was something little that caused all the fuss originally, something little like keeping the daily papers to re-read, just in case some vital piece of information was missed. This lead on to collecting things; bottles, ceramic birds, pots and anything that was colourful, pretty and could be recycled.

    It was this ‘recycling’ which in the end lead to freedom, which was really very interesting and complex as Amy Ashton’s world, the one she had rebuilt ever so very carefully, slowly fell to bits. This also began with a simple little thing; a broken yellow coffee cup, dropped when the new neighbours were moving in.

    Amy Ashton fell deeply in love with Tim when they were both young. She was an art student, he was the songwriter and guitarist in the band Squashed Pumpkins. Their love was strong, deep and monumental. Amy was an artist, Tim was a musician and her best friend since always, Chantel was there, part of the group, living life on the edge, until they both disappeared on the night Amy was due home from an artist’s workshop in Italy.

    Twelve years on there was still no solution to the mystery. After a beloved pot is shattered in the carefully ordered mess in her garden,  she discovers a ring, not any ring, the one she and Tim had looked at in an Antique shop one special day, she begins to think there is, as she has always believed, more to the missing persons, run away together scenario the Police believed happened.

    Richard and his two young boys have moved in next door and no matter how hard she tries to keep herself distant from these people who may damage all her beautiful things, they gently, and often traumatically, begin to inch into her life creating chaos but in doing so, slowly show her a pathway forward.

    Everything is Beautiful looks at the often strange and complex pathway carved out by grief, endings, beginnings and love, all of which when mixed together by Eleanor Ray, have resulted in a big hearted work of fiction that takes a box of things, Amy’s beloved  treasures, to eventually open the door to a rich new beginning.

    Heart-warming and delightful Everything is Beautiful is the epitome of a feel good book written with heart, understanding and a quirky sense of humour which captivates until the very last page.

  • Dog’s Best Friend: A Brief History of an Unbreakable Bond

    Dog’s Best Friend: A Brief History of an Unbreakable Bond

    Dogs are considered as man’s best friend and in this tell all exposé Dogs Best Friend from Simon Garfield, the dog lover expounds on so very much related to dogs from their very beginning, back well before time imaginable, or so it would seem, to the beloved fur babies of the modern world, in which we now all inhabit; dogs and all.

    He investigates the theory that dogs evolved from wolves early the book which is edifying as this is a subject that has caused much conjecture in scientific realms over many, many years. It would now appear that there is a slight but significant difference in the anatomy of wolves and dogs that make a difference, as in the temperament of the various breeds, but the evidence is still not totally conclusive.

    One thing that is conclusive is that dogs have been interacting with humans far longer than was ever considered, as proven in a series of rock art painting discovered in north- western Saudi Arabia that can be traced back to between 8000-6000BC.

    But onward in this fascinating book of all things relating to dogs, their fame, their infamy and how they have become the beloved of so many, replacing in many, many case children in modern families. Dogs have developed their own fame and fortune thanks to Instagram and many have simply become pampered pooches. Some even have cringe worthy titles which often, when heard out in public make humans wonder, let alone wonder what the poor long suffering dog really thinks!

    The other side to coin is many, many dogs have found the perfect place in life as guide dogs, companion dogs, detection dogs, working police dogs  and so much more as people finally began to understand the abilities of theses  intelligent creatures.  Captured in the pages are some heart-warming stories of dogs that have gone out and done wondrous things in the name of duty, courage and the love of their humans.

    Poets have lauded them, Prime Ministers and Presidents have loved them.  Winston Churchill’s dog, a small brown poodle called Rufus was upstaged by a British Bulldog, often sporting a union jack waistcoat, used in war time propaganda.  Hitler was often seen with a large German shepherd. George W.H. Bush and his wife Barbara’s beloved Millie was painted in portrait on the South Lawn of the White House: the Obama’s dogs Sunny and Bo where in such high demand for photo opportunities they had their own schedules.

    Beloved of most everyone, dogs and their humans create a unique bond that lasts until death, which when a beloved pet passes is often devastating in extreme, leaving behind a gap that is incredibly hard to fill.

    Dogs Best Friend is filed with love, awe and a huge amount of hilarity, often tongue-in-cheek, as the love felt by Simon Garfield for his beloved Labrador Ludo shines through and makes this absolutely perfect book for dog lovers everywhere.

    Not one to be read in a hurry, lest some important detail is missed, Dogs Best Friend is to be enjoyed with your best pal settled at your feet and a good glass of red to be enjoyed in a perfectly acceptable manner.

  • Memorial

    Memorial

    A romantic tale today, is so different to those of the past. Memorial is a modern-day love story set in Texas involving today’s people and their freedom and insight. Mike is a Japanese American and Benson is a Black American. They meet and fall in love. But no one lives in isolation, and there are families and friends to consider.

    The families of both men are broken. Benson’s father has been divorced by his mother and is slowly drinking himself into oblivion. Mike’s father, in Japan, has left his wife and is drifting. After Mike and Benson decide their relationship is serious, they move in together. They have been together for four years, but still Mike feels they should sleep around for fun.

    Benson is more serious and is horrified when Mike’s mother says she is coming to stay. Worse still, Mike decides to visit his father in Japan at that time. While he discovers his long-lost father, Benson gradually develops a relationship with Mitsuko, Mike’s mother. The messages from Mike and the complications at Benson’s workplace make this a tense period of discovery for each character. For each one must work out what is their true value in life, and how they achieve the integrity they seek.

    This is a romance that jars at times if your comfort zone is not for a bare modern day love story, warts and all. It is totally today’s world however.

  • The Night Letters

    The Night Letters

    Set in Afghanistan just as the Americans are leaving the war torn country, Australian doctor Sofia Raso sits in her window in the early morning light, watching as the local residents slowly emerge to attend prayers at the mosque. She knows everyone who lives in square and as the ancient prayers ring out across the city of Kabul, she shivers pulling her shawl closer to her body.

    The Night Letters is an evocative portrait of life in Afghanistan lived very much on a daily basis but steeped in the ancient traditions that go back many, many centuries and pays tribute to the strength and fortitude of the Afghani women as they learn, once again, to take their place in a society that still suffers from the rule of the Taliban and its forever ghostly presence in their lives.

    Sofia has lived in the  Chahaar Rahee Shaahir (Shaahir Square)for the past five years, working with her friend and mentor Dr Jabril Aziz, becoming the much loved Doctor for the women of the Square, as well as working with the women of the slum city Jamal Mina and valleys  of the Hindu Kush; training them as midwifes.

    When she takes up the cause of the disappearance of young four boys from Jamal Mina things begin to change in the Square with what seem to be Night Letters, delivered by the Taliban, or so it is thought by those who have received them. Sofia was told from the first day at Shaahir Square that she was to keep a low profile as she was a foreign woman working in a male dominated society, but the further she becomes embroiled with the missing boys, her time in this country she has loved with a great passion, becomes fraught with danger.

    Then there is Dr Daniel Abiteboul, a man met high in the mountains more than five years ago, a man who shared a night of unforgettable passion only to leave the next morning, returning as the member of the United Nations team arriving in Kabul to assess the medical needs of the Afghani’s in this time of change.

    Unforgettable characters grace the pages in a story that is graceful, powerful and bittersweet as every character forms an identity that touches the heart; Bahnaz, wife of Chief Wasim, head of the local Police, tart, unyielding and full of secrets held dear; Jabril, Sofia’s friend and mentor and the kindest soul in the Square. Inez, young beautiful and railing at life she is still made to live in a world rapidly changing, Iqbal the blind cobbler, Amhad the shopkeeper and Omar the Apothecary, also a man holding secrets dear, reminiscing on a life well lived but still, even in his older years filled with change and challenge.

    The Night Letters looks with acceptance at the lives and traditions of Afghanistan through the lens of yet another change in a country that has seen endless change, portraying the real strength of the women emerging from oppression, the love of the Afghani for their traditions and colourful history, while pressing the point that nothing in this world is new, nothing is old, and life goes on regardless of the external forces at play.

  • Honeybee

    Honeybee

    Two lives meet; one young, one old, both facing what they consider the inevitable choice of their final moments alive; a last cigarette, a climb over the rails. Their eyes meet, their fates collide and out of the darkness of despair an unlikely friendship is formed; Vic, a man realising that life has little left for his final years, Sam, struggling to cope in a dysfunctional and abusive family, coming together to save each other.

    Honeybee explores the depth of human pain, suffering and resilience with these two memorable characters as they both come to realise that with faith and friendship all things are achievable, but this does not come without pushing boundaries to the very edge as Sam explores his sexuality and Vic comes to realise that life can once again be filled with meaning.

    Compassionate and rich in the telling Honeybee is based on a family experience where Silvey’s Brother and Sister-in-law came across a transgender teen standing on the other side of the bridge railing, an occurrence that stayed with Silvey and gave birth to further exploring the world of teens facing ‘dysphoria’.

    Sam is fourteen and facing the fact that he is transgender in a family that considers it time for him to man-up, to be a bloke; alcoholism and violence form the background of his days, a world where kindness is non-existent.  When he meets Aggie, Vic’s neighbour and Peter he begins to understand there are choices to be made about how he lives his life and while he does not always choose the right pathway, he feels accepted for the first time for he who is, not Sam but Victoria.

    Throughout the story filled with a myriad of often hair raising events, a gloriously unforgettable night at a drag show, Victoria’s mother is a tether to a past best forgotten or at least left behind, but acts as a silent witness to the devastation that can be caused in young lives by dependent and troubled parents.

    Moving, emotional, funny and wry at times the heartbeat of Honeybee is resilience, courage and strength while shining a light on the very real issues of sexuality, mental health and compassion. Easy to read in one sense and yet confrontational in another, Honeybee is a novel of our times and one to be remembered long after the heart wrenching final page is read.

     

  • 16670

    16670

    ‘There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’, is a well-known quotation from the Bible and the perfect place to begin a review on an album from Matthew Mayer, dedicated to a remarkable man who did indeed lay down his life for a friend in the horror that was Auschwitz in the war years of 1941.

    This man was Rajmund Maximillian Kolbe whose story haunted Mayer to the effect that he eventually travelled, in 2015, to Poland to walk where this man, a Conceptual Franciscan Friar and Polish Catholic Priest, had lived his life.

    16670 was Kolbe’s number, this album is dedicated to his selfless love for mankind. In his notes on the album Mayer says he was drawn to creating the musical version of Kolbe’s story by something bigger than himself, to telling his story through the wonderful medium of music.

    The backstory to the creation of this deeply moving work was unknown until the time came to write the review. On the first, second and third listening, nothing but beauty, elegance and peace coupled with a wonderful sense of comfort, and relaxation was apparent; the perfect end to a busy day. To discover the reason, the meaning behind the compositions is not at all surprising in the light of the words from Mayer, saying he was drawn to create the work by something far bigger than himself.

    Perhaps the parallel can be drawn that in this time of global distress, stories such as Kolbe’s need to be remembered to shine a light of hope for the future into a wold that for many is filled with fear and hopeless confusion. How better to do this than with the healing gift of music.

    16670 is a deep dark piece, simple and yet dramatic, which flows into a more relaxed, and yet somehow more sombre  piece Glasses, as the image of glasses conjures up the famous photograph of a pile of glasses found in the death camps of Germany at the end of the war.

    As the work unfolds the titles capture the journey not just of the music, but of the emotions felt by many, then and in present times, facing the certainty of what was feared most, accepting the final outcome whatever it may be. Kid Rajmund concludes an intimate collection with what could easily be considered as an exquisite requiem.

    16670 tells a poignantly beautiful, emotional story, one into which Mayer has poured his heart and soul; an album of rare delicacy, intimate and graceful to the final note. Not All Hero’s Wear Capes is the final line on the Press Release; we have all been discovering this in our extraordinary year of 2020, to be so very, very true.

     

  • The Book of Longings

    The Book of Longings

    Reading this incredible story from a male perspective was far more than interesting, it was amazing, and informative reflecting on a small segment of history not already contemplated.  Although I have no fixed ideas of Christianity, and therefore read it as a work set in the times of an ever more powerful Rome, The Book of Longings, which while it took some time to read, was evocative and informative, looking at the life of women in a time when to sell them off was considered the right of the father, regardless of their standing in society.

    It is considered there was a time when Jesus was just an ordinary person going about his craft as a carpenter and stone mason; one of a number of children in the family of Joseph of Arimathea and his wife Mary.

    The Book of Longings is a love story based on the premises, which some scholars consider was Jesus’ life before he became a powerful, charismatic leader of the people. Some consider Jesus did indeed marry and may have had children, therefore this story told by Ana, the wife of Jesus, could have some serious historical merits, but otherwise is simply a formidable, fictitious, historic love affair.

    Ana, born into a wealthy family was soon to discover that her sheltered life was little different to many other daughters, in that she was to be married to a man much her senior for her father’s ambition. A chance meeting with a young carpenter called Jesus and his passionate ideas are intoxicating to the protected young girl.

    A simple love story, or maybe the lament of a young woman much in love with a man who was on a powerful course with destiny, a man who was to change the beliefs of so many with his ideas, Ana comes across as a power in her own right, and although it may seem that her character could be  little to modern for the times, who is say this may be incorrect, as those long gone days are not well recorded through history from a  female perspective, as women were considered more as chattles, rather than people in their own right; there, but not there.

    Perhaps, to thoroughly enjoy this book it is best to park pre-conceived ideas firmly to one side, before beginning a journey that just may have been as incredible as Sue Monk Kidd has portrayed

  • Fairy Sparkles: My Journey With Angels, Fairies, Nature and Spiritual Enlightenment.

    Fairy Sparkles: My Journey With Angels, Fairies, Nature and Spiritual Enlightenment.

    In these very challenging times in which we all find ourselves having to rethink how we go about living our lives; there are many people who look for answers to what seem to be unanswerable questions, make changes in their lives they have wanted to make for some time. They simply need to feel that there is something else there for them and do notice that at times, a helping hand is available or a calming presence is felt in their journey of self-discovery.

    Sarah Rajkotwala has in Fairy Sparkles her follow on from The Year of Talking to Plants, offered an alternative way to look at what is there for everyone to discover in the psychic world.  For many people discovering the psychic element in us all and becoming comfortable with this extra dimension takes some doing, but with many, as it was in her case, this unfolding comes gradually, but is no less important for talking time to make its presence felt in everyday life.

    With Fairy Sparkles, she draws on her personal journey and discoveries to provide a handbook to help begin your own journey of discovery; a journey that will help you create and understand the many small and large miracles that are part of everyday life, how to recognise them and use them to create a greater good for yourself and those around you.

    One of the many lovely segments discusses the beauty of rainbows, how they not only fill you with joy and hope when seen but also the importance of their consciousness; how many times has a rainbow been seen when times have been at there darkest or spirits have been at the lowest ebb, to offer light, hope and a little magic in life. Everyone who has ever seen a rainbow has felt the wonder of this flamboyant structure of colour placed against gloomy skies.

    Listening to our hearts and looking for the gifts within the situation are just two of the many topics discussed with occasionally an Angelic word added to help with comfort and understanding when required.

    An excellent section on chakra’s is recommended to be read as a stand-alone section, but as with the entire contents of the book, it can be read in context of the overall intent or simply used to dip into as and when required to further understand the beauty of unconditional love, as well as garnering Fairy Sparkles in your life.

     

  • Broken Rules and Other Stories

    Broken Rules and Other Stories

    A series of short and not so short stories make up this composite work from author Barry Lee Thompson in Broken Rules and Other Stories, capturing the often cold, callous world of homosexuality; the emotionally challenging journey of young men venturing into the world of clandestine meetings.

    Thomas has a gift for capturing people in their surroundings, whether it is leaning against a wall in the hope of meeting with a visitor to the school, seeking fulfillment in a chance meeting, or the almost sad inevitability of gathering spaces visited by men for the purpose of sex.

    Nuance, textures, sadness, the cruelty of life for marginalised people is delicately and clearly created with characters that, because of their marginalisation, their unfolding of their sexuality, remain in the psyche.

    Many of the short stories have been published previously as stand-alone pieces. The Americans is longer than most; receiving a special commendation from the Manchester Fiction Prize in 2009 it tells the story of a young boy fixated on a family of Americans staying at the Avenham, a family run hotel in Bournemouth.  Told with a sparsity of words, a limiting of names, summer love unfolds filled with desire but also a sense of sadness as the summer and the love affair draws to its inevitable conclusion.

    Captivating in its sparsity Broken Rules once again uses carefully selected language to paint a scene as intricate as a drawn breath, delicate and lightly balanced between the flouting of convention and the unrelenting rules of society.

    Throughout the collection, the skilled use of words makes a subject seldom written about in such a manner, form into the reality of the ordinary in a world inhabited by those already marginalised by their location, birth or family circumstances.  The hard working tough people who live in ‘working class’ areas of Britain are represented time and time again, in a world where  to be different is to set yourself outside the norm or standards of that society.

    Strange though it may seem, the elegance of Thompson’s words are strangely comforting, in a most unusual read, which will either be enjoyed for the immense skill and word craft of Barry Lee Thompson as he portrays a side of society seldom seen, or placed to one side, to be read another  time.

  • The McCalister Legacy

    The McCalister Legacy

    The old saying ‘Never look back’ is true in Berry McCalister’s case. Looking back brings nothing but immense sorrow laced with sadness and although the tragedy that saw her parent and grandparents killed in what appeared to be a murder suicide occurred many years ago, there are still many questions that may never, ever find an answer.

    The family property needs to be either sold or renovated, so Berry McCalister decides to return to Harlington for one last look, which she hopes will help her and her siblings come to the right decision. Jess and Tom are all for the sale of their parents property but  Berry wants to make sure it is the right thing to do and that perhaps returning will help settle a few of the ghosts that still haunt her from time to time.

    Arriving in Harlington she heads out to the house and is overwhelmed by the emotions of the past, so much so that she makes the decision to stop in town for a little longer, taking a room at a lovely B&B in town.

    Well established big land holders the Tarant’s hold the land on the neighbouring property, Tarantale Downs, a noted horse stud. The Tarant’s had once been close to Berry’s family; Nate was Berry’s childhood crush. When he notices a small red car parked outside the old McCalister property he stops to find out what is going on, surprised to see Berry at the property.

    Decisions need to be made for the future and very slowly Berry comes to the conclusion that the house needs to be restored, and ghosts need to be set free before they can move on with their lives. This decision sets off a train of events which will shatter the myths held about a rich gold vein somewhere on the McCalister property and reveal the truth about her parents and grandparents deaths.

    Can she and Nate build on the tragedy of the past, take a chance on building a future together and accept that sometimes, looking back is the only way to be able to move forward.

    Nicole Hurley-Moore has once again created a wonderful, rich tale in The McCalister Legacy with Berry confronting the devastation of tragedy, the very real desire to discover the truth and the healing power of love to be able to accept the past and begin to build a new future with the love of her life, Nate.

    The McCalister Legacy is heart-warming, captivating and absolutely perfect for a cold, wet, winters day snuggled up in front of the fire.