Torment by Iona Blair, published by Club Lighthouse Publishing, ISBN # 978-1-897532-96-6
Official book blurb: "Amidst the dangers of war torn Afghanistan, an army officer finds himself irresistably drawn to another soldier. The forbidden attraction shakes him to the core and plunges him into bitter inner conflict.
"But the battle against these new and disturbing desires is not the only war he must fight. A patrol goes missing, under suspicious circumstances, while on routine surveillance. The subsequent media interest, and the shocking truth as it unfolds, challenges his belief system and rocks the comfortable world he grew up in."
Pagan Spirits review:
Lt. Jay Sutherland, a Canadian stationed in Afghanistan, has a serious problem. He has a perfectly loving wife, Kerry, at home in Vancouver...but he can't stop thinking about a fellow soldier, Darren. Not just thinking about him, but having steamy sexual fantasies about him, though he's never thought sexually about a man before. Darren reciprocates his feelings, and they have a brief but torrid affair.
The army sends him to Cyprus to decompress on his way home to Canada, and Jay has sex with a female prostitute to get his mind off Darren. He barely has time to put his pants back on, though, before learning that Darren and the rest of his patrol have gone missing. He goes back to Afghanistan, where he and his men find the patrol trapped in a mountain rock slide, moments away from death.
When he does return to Vancouver, Jay becomes the living embodiment of torment. He can't decide if he's gay, straight or bisexual. He doesn't want his wife to find out about what he's done...and, not only can he not keep his mind off Darren, wild rumors are beginning to swirl in public about what happened to the lost patrol.
Up to this point, this had been a decent novel of forbidden lust under extreme circumstances. About two thirds of the way into the story, though, I lost all sympathy for Jay as a character. He goes to a strip club in an attempt to get his mind off Darren. Though he justifies his actions to himself, Jay rapes one of the dancers. He then fixates on the woman as the cause of all his troubles, taking a drastic step to keep her out of his life. After Jay's violent actions, I no longer cared whether Jay decided to stay with his wife or run off with Darren. After the violence, I no longer enjoyed the book.
This book may be well-written for what it is, but the sexual violence and the main character's rationalization of it made me unable to give it more than two stars. War is hell, and this may well be a realistic depiction of what a soldier goes through when he or she returns from a traumatic experience. This reviewer is not a soldier, though, and doesn't wish to be traumatized by her reading.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Happy Candlemas/Imbolc/Brigit's Day/Groundhog Day!
Happy…um, well, today is at least four different things. In the United States, popular culture celebrates today as Groundhog Day. The famous rodent known to his friends as P. Phil emerges from his burrow. If he sees his shadow, we have six more weeks of awful Northern Hemisphere winter weather. In my Midwestern U.S. home, that means snow, ice, freezing temperatures and gray skies. Six weeks takes us almost all the way up to the spring equinox on Saturday, March 20th. If P. Phil doesn’t see his shadow, we get early spring-like weather, and we may actually see the sun again before April. At least, that’s what popular legend claims. In reality, I’ll probably be wearing long sleeves until mid-June.
On the Pagan calendar, today is Imbolc. “Imbolc,” I’m told, comes from the Gaelic for “in belly,” meaning the sheep are breeding and the ewes are getting lambs in their bellies. Imbolc is a hopeful day, when we look forward to the rebirth of spring even in the midst of the gloom of winter. Traditionally, yellow and white are the colors of Imbolc, worn to invoke the promise of spring sunshine. Another Imbolc tradition is lighting candles, another symbol of the lengthening days and shrinking darkness.
White is also worn by Pagans and Wiccans celebrating Brigit’s Day. Brigit (also spelled Brigid or Brighid) was one of the most important of the ancient Irish deities. She was the goddess of blacksmiths, associated with fire. She was also patroness of music, poetry, and all the arts. She was also responsible for making the crops come up in the spring. Brigit rode through the Irish countryside on a white cow with red ears, and its milk had magical healing powers. Brigit was basically your life-giving, life-sustaining mother goddess, akin to Demeter in Greek mythology.
In ancient times, the priestesses of Brigit kept themselves ritually pure to attend Brigit’s sacred fire. Her fire temple was, and still is, located in the Irish town of Kildare, south of Dublin. The name “Kildare” comes from the Gaelic for “church of the oak,“ and there was an ancient oak tree near the fire temple where Brigit was worshipped.
When the local people converted to Christianity, nuns took over the job of attending the fire temple, and Brigit was made a saint. The historical St. Brigit is said to have founded a convent and an abbey for monks in the late 400s, and today there is a magnificent cathedral in Kildare in Brigit’s honor. Its carvings are great works of art. Among the realistic carvings of bishops who are buried there, there is also a fine carving of a dragon…perhaps representing the Pagan religion, which never completely died out in Kildare.
On the Christian calendar, Imbolc and Brigit Day became Candlemas. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Catholic Church celebrates Candlemas as the day Mary the mother of Jesus took her son to the Temple of Jerusalem and offered a sacrifice so she could be considered ritually clean after giving birth, according to the ancient Jewish law. February 2nd is forty days after Christmas on the Roman calendar.
Candlemas was celebrated with a mass in which the church’s yearly supply of beeswax candles were blessed and carried in a procession while hymns were sung to Mary. Thus, Catholicism retained the Celtic customs of lighting candles and venerating a mother-goddess-archetype. The light from the candles is said to represent the guiding light of Jesus.
Whether you’re calling it Candlemas, Brigit’s Day, Imbolc, or Groundhog Day, have a good Y Mis Bach (Welsh for February). Now, please click this link to enjoy some sacred music about a candle kept burning in the window.
On the Pagan calendar, today is Imbolc. “Imbolc,” I’m told, comes from the Gaelic for “in belly,” meaning the sheep are breeding and the ewes are getting lambs in their bellies. Imbolc is a hopeful day, when we look forward to the rebirth of spring even in the midst of the gloom of winter. Traditionally, yellow and white are the colors of Imbolc, worn to invoke the promise of spring sunshine. Another Imbolc tradition is lighting candles, another symbol of the lengthening days and shrinking darkness.
White is also worn by Pagans and Wiccans celebrating Brigit’s Day. Brigit (also spelled Brigid or Brighid) was one of the most important of the ancient Irish deities. She was the goddess of blacksmiths, associated with fire. She was also patroness of music, poetry, and all the arts. She was also responsible for making the crops come up in the spring. Brigit rode through the Irish countryside on a white cow with red ears, and its milk had magical healing powers. Brigit was basically your life-giving, life-sustaining mother goddess, akin to Demeter in Greek mythology.
In ancient times, the priestesses of Brigit kept themselves ritually pure to attend Brigit’s sacred fire. Her fire temple was, and still is, located in the Irish town of Kildare, south of Dublin. The name “Kildare” comes from the Gaelic for “church of the oak,“ and there was an ancient oak tree near the fire temple where Brigit was worshipped.
When the local people converted to Christianity, nuns took over the job of attending the fire temple, and Brigit was made a saint. The historical St. Brigit is said to have founded a convent and an abbey for monks in the late 400s, and today there is a magnificent cathedral in Kildare in Brigit’s honor. Its carvings are great works of art. Among the realistic carvings of bishops who are buried there, there is also a fine carving of a dragon…perhaps representing the Pagan religion, which never completely died out in Kildare.
On the Christian calendar, Imbolc and Brigit Day became Candlemas. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Catholic Church celebrates Candlemas as the day Mary the mother of Jesus took her son to the Temple of Jerusalem and offered a sacrifice so she could be considered ritually clean after giving birth, according to the ancient Jewish law. February 2nd is forty days after Christmas on the Roman calendar.
Candlemas was celebrated with a mass in which the church’s yearly supply of beeswax candles were blessed and carried in a procession while hymns were sung to Mary. Thus, Catholicism retained the Celtic customs of lighting candles and venerating a mother-goddess-archetype. The light from the candles is said to represent the guiding light of Jesus.
Whether you’re calling it Candlemas, Brigit’s Day, Imbolc, or Groundhog Day, have a good Y Mis Bach (Welsh for February). Now, please click this link to enjoy some sacred music about a candle kept burning in the window.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Abstract Murder: The Haunted World of Andie Lee Eames
Happy February! In the Welsh language, February is called "y mis bach," or "the little month," because it only has 28 days. OK, so I'm Irish, not Welsh, but we're all Celtic peoples.
So check this out: two cool websites from Andie Lee Eames. One is Andie Lee's author website. Andie Lee says, "This isn't your typical author's website which are pretty boring (no offense to anyone) I just wanted to give the reader total immersion in the words that I've written."
Want more? Check out Andie Lee's author's page. "My author's page is an expression of the things that cloud my mind colliding like cosmic cymbals. It is designed so that the reader is totally immersed in the experience of what they're reading, seeing and hearing," is how Andie Lee explained it to me.
Andie Lee Eames is the author of Abstract Murder. Read an excerpt and watch the video trailer here. I hope you enjoy it.
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