Precious Cargo: My Year Driving the Kids on School Bus 3077

CRAIG DAVIDSON

Stats for my copy: Trade paperback, Knopf Canada, 2016.

How acquired: Via Bookcrossing.

First line: I trudged across a field against a late-September wind that flattened my jacket against my chest.

My thoughts: Broke after some early success as a writer, Craig Davidson was desperate for any job that could provide some income. He had just applied for, and not gotten, a Lunch Supervisor position, when he found a flyer for bus drivers wanted. He called, and wound up driving a “short bus” with six special needs children.

I was a bit astounded at how easily he was hired to drive a school bus. I guess I just assumed that the drivers who pilot our kids around go through a rigorous screening process first. Of course, this is in Canada, and I live in the States (and in the interest of full disclosure, my kids only rode a bus for a few days of one semester and hated it so much I drove them after that), but maybe it's also that easy here.

It took me a little bit to get into the book. I guess I just wasn't that interested in the author's life before he began driving the bus. And at first the occasional excerpts from the “unpublished novel” irritated me and seemed pointless. But once Craig started his training it began to pick up for me, and as time went by the excerpts began to make more sense story wise.

And once the actual driving begins and Craig meets his charges, I was pretty riveted. I won't go into detail about each child and the challenges they faced, but his descriptions of them were vivid and thoughtful. As he gets to know the kids better, driving the bus becomes more than a job and his relationship with them becomes more than just being their bus driver. So it kind of puzzled me that when the school year ended, he just quit being a bus driver, and never really said why or what he was moving on to. Though I guess it started out as just a means to an end, to generate some income so he could afford to continue writing.

Regardless, this little peek into the lives of five extraordinary kids and their bus driver is heartwarming and feel good.

Goodreads synopsis: With his last novel, Cataract City, Craig Davidson established himself as one of our most talented novelists. But in his early thirties, before writing that novel and before his previous work, Rust and Bone, was made into an Oscar-nominated film, Davidson experienced a period of poverty, apparent failure and despair. In this new work of intimate, riveting and timely non-fiction, based loosely on a National Magazine Award-winning article he published in The Walrus, Davidson tells the story of one year in his life--a year during which he came to a new, mature understanding of his own life and his connection to others. Or, as Davidson would say, he became an adult.    
                                                                    
One morning in 2008, desperate and impoverished and living in a one-room basement apartment while trying unsuccessfully to write, Davidson plucked a flyer out of his mailbox that read, "Bus Drivers Wanted." That was the first step towards an unlikely new career: driving a school bus full of special-needs kids for a year. Armed only with a sense of humour akin to that of his charges, a creative approach to the challenge of driving a large, awkward vehicle while corralling a rowdy gang of kids, and surprising but unsentimental reserves of empathy, Davidson takes us along for the ride. He shows us how his evolving relationship with the kids on that bus, each of them struggling physically as well as emotionally and socially, slowly but surely changed his life along with the lives of the "precious cargo" in his care. This is the extraordinary story of that year and those relationships. It is also a moving, important and universal story about how we see and treat people with special needs in our society. 

The Poet Recusant (The Poet Series, Book Two)

STEPHANIE JO HARRIS

Stats for my copy: Paperback, Gatekeeper Press, 2018.

How acquired: Received from the publicist for review.

First line: Father Daniel shuffled across the kitchen to the note on the counter.

My thoughts: This book picks up shortly after the events of the first book. As with the first book, the writing was a bit stilted, a bit simplistic. In the first book I grew accustomed to it fairly quickly and stopped noticing it as much, but this time around it became a little tedious. Part of that may have been the plot. While Jack and Rebecca are vacationing in Italy, Rebecca is kidnapped by a mafia boss who is angry at Jack for refusing to do a job for him. He assures Jack of Rebecca's safe return once he finishes that job. We, and Rebecca, assume that job involves killing someone, but I never knew who, or else I missed that somewhere along the way. For most of the book, Jack is driving or walking around the city, spying on Don Dantori's men and trying to figure out where Rebecca is being held, while she is sitting on a couch in the Don's office, her wrists bound, and either being ignored or being toyed with. It all just dragged on and on and on. There are chapters that backtrack and show Jack staying with Father Daniel during that year before he finally sought out Rebecca, and I actually liked those parts of the story the best. Especially how Sister Bernadette was slowly won over by Jack and how devoted he was to the priest. Some of the scenes with Rebecca and the Don or his men also kept my interest, particularly her interactions with Harvey, who she and I both wanted to punch.

That's not to say I didn't like the book, because I did, but not nearly as much as the first book. And if there is a third book, I will definitely want to read it.

Also, I had to look up the word “recusant”, so in case, like me, you didn't know what it means, Google dictionary says “a person who refuses to submit to an authority or to comply with a regulation”. I like that.

Goodreads synopsis: “Rebecca?”

Jack walked to the bathroom and looked around. Scrawled onto the back of the bathroom door in soft pink lipstick were two things; ‘PD’ and a heart. Rebecca was gone.

He could tell by the room there had been no fight. She would go willingly with the police. Probably even quickly, hoping they would be gone before he returned. Expecting them, understanding why they were there, and seeing no cause to disagree she would have complied.

Except it wasn’t the police. It couldn’t be. The police would have waited for him.

Whoever had taken Rebecca wanted her alone; wanted her away from him. That meant only two possibilities; leverage or … punishment.

Jack Shelley returns in the second ruthless installment of The Poet Series by Stephanie Harris; and he’s been invited to kneel at the throne of the King.

Relentless and unforgiving, Recusant will leave readers decidedly uncomfortable, and begging for the next installment in the series.

Into the Jungle

ERICA FERENCIK

Stats for my copy: egalley, Simon & Schuster, 2019.

How acquired: Received from the publisher via NetGalley for review.

My thoughts: I loved THE RIVER AT NIGHT, by this same author, so much that when I saw this on NetGalley I immediately requested it without even bothering to read the synopsis.

This book could be subtitled Everything You Never Thought You Wanted to Know About the Amazon Jungle. Talk about harsh living. I can't imagine I would last even a week in the conditions that Lily and Omar lived in.

Omar is a native Amazonian. Lily is an American who has recently aged out of the foster care system and is living in Bolivia, working in a hostel for room and board with two other young girls. She has a meet cute with Omar one night and falls in love. When tragedy strikes the small village of Ayachero, where Omar is from, Lily travels home with him. She's not particularly welcomed by most of the villagers. Omar's mother in particular does not care for her at all.

From there we get an eye-opening look at daily life in the jungle, where a majority of a person's time is spent just surviving. The descriptions of the jungle and the myriad plants and creatures found there are evocative. Lily is an incredibly strong protagonist. Growing up in the foster care system hardened her, but Omar gets past all her defenses and sweeps her into a quick moving romance. You know it had to be true love if she's happy making a home in a remote village where the heat can be oppressive and the work is never ending. 

I very much liked both Lily and Omar. Told in first person POV, we get to know Lily very well. It's a great character study, with plenty of action thrown in. The secondary characters, seen through Lily's eyes, are also well written, from villagers to missionaries to evil poachers to an amusing river pilot named For God's Sake. They are all quite vivid.

And then along with all the hardships to overcome there's heart breaking tragedy. I can't imagine wanting to ever visit the Amazon, but I am quite interested in reading more about life there. I look forward to whatever Ms. Ferencik comes up with next!

Goodreads synopsis: Lily Bushwold thought she’d found the antidote to endless foster care and group homes: a teaching job in Cochabamba, Bolivia. As soon as she could steal enough cash for the plane, she was on it.

When the gig falls through and Lily stays in Bolivia, she finds bonding with other broke, rudderless girls at the local hostel isn’t the life she wants either. Tired of hustling and already world-weary, crazy love finds her in the form she least expected: Omar, a savvy, handsome local man who’d abandoned his life as a hunter in Ayachero—a remote jungle village—to try his hand at city life.

When Omar learns that a jaguar has killed his four-year-old nephew in Ayachero, he gives Lily a choice: Stay alone in the unforgiving city, or travel to the last in a string of ever-more-isolated river towns in the jungles of Bolivia. Thirty-foot anaconda? Puppy-sized spiders? Vengeful shamans with unspeakable powers? Love-struck Lily is oblivious. She follows Omar to this ruthless new world of lawless poachers, bullheaded missionaries, and desperate indigenous tribes driven to the brink of extinction. To survive, Lily must navigate the jungle--its wonders as well as its terrors—using only her wits and resilience.

The Poet (The Poet Series, Book One)

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS INFORMATION THAT SOME MAY CONSIDER SPOILERS.

STEPHANIE JO HARRIS

Stats for my copy: Paperback, Gatekeeper Press, 2018.

How acquired: Received from the Publicist for review.

My thoughts: I occasionally get emails from some random author or publicist or the like, offering a book for review. I used to accept every request, but some of those books I ended up DNFing. They're often independently published, not always well written, and I would think to myself uh huh, there's a reason emails are being sent out to try to drum up some interest. But some of those books do sound interesting, such as this one and it's sequel. And the publicist was offering hard copies over digital, which I so much prefer. So I took a chance and accepted the offer.

I was a bit smitten as soon as I opened the package that came in the mail. They aren't the standard mass market size, being a bit larger, but smaller than the standard trade paperback. I liked the size, and the feel of the cover, but initially I set them aside to finish the book I was already in the middle of. I finally picked up this one, the first book, two nights ago.

The writing felt a little stilted, a little mechanical, almost a little distant from it's subject matter. Almost too much narration of each character's movements. But it only took a couple of chapters to start getting into the particular rhythm. One thing that really helps me connect with a character is likability. Wait, two things. And relatability. If I really like a character, and can relate to him or her, I enjoy his or her story more. I didn't relate to Rebecca at all, and while she seemed nice enough I still felt a little distanced from her. We're told quite a bit about her without really getting inside her head. Same with Jack, but with him it seemed more inevitable. As if the author intended me to feel that way about him. Of course, Jack brought up conflicting feelings. Is he a good guy? Is a bad guy, a villain? Can he be both? And then we meet William, and it didn't take much of a leap to figure out who he really was.

All that, and yet the book is imminently readable. 206 pages, which I read in two sittings. The night I first picked it up, I literally read a hundred pages before going to sleep. And then I finished it the next night.

Rebecca meets Jack at a resort, where she is spending her vacation. Alone, because her long time boyfriend bailed on the trip. She's having some quality “me time”, and thinking about their non-relationship. She meets Jack on her last night there, and is quickly drawn to him while being just a little nervous and frightened of him. But before things go very far, he has to leave for awhile. And then all hell breaks loose as men with guns take Rebecca and her fellow vacationers hostage.

It gets a bit violent. At one point Rebecca is in pretty serious danger, fighting for her life, and Jack is skulking around outside, and I kept thinking he was going to burst in and save her at the last moment, but he didn't. She saved herself, and it was freaking awesome. They did meet up shortly after, and he took care of her, took control, cleaned and bandaged her wounds. A johnny-come-lately hero, who did get a second chance to rescue her before the night was over.

Akin to classic film noir, this book was compelling and unputdownable, and I need to end this review so I can go start reading the second book.

Goodreads synopsis: When Rebecca Paige decides to vacation alone at an established resort in the woods, it's a welcome break from her position as the administrator of a psychiatric hospital. Little does she know, the Poet is also visiting this peaceful hideaway, and his motivation is far more sinister.

On the last day of her trip, Rebecca has an unusual encounter with Jack Shelley, the man in the cabin next door. After he leaves, men with guns suddenly descend on the resort and take Rebecca and the other guests hostage. Rebecca is accustomed to dangerous situations at work, but can that help her escape multiple-armed assailants?

Who are these men? What do they want? How are they connected to the man next door?

Who is the Poet? 

Love-Lines

SHERI LANGER

Stats for my copy: .pdf, Red Adept Publishing, 2019.

How acquired: Received from Absolute Entertainment for review.

My thoughts: While I was reading this book I kept thinking it would make a great rom-com movie. While it wasn't laugh out loud funny, it was quite amusing. Fordham is a divorced mother raising her young daughter, Whitty, with the help of her own mother, Dorie, who lives with her. Whitty is ten, if I remember correctly, and a bit precocious, which happily was never pushed into plot moppet territory. Fordham dates but like so many women out there, she's not having any luck finding The One. She had The One in high school, who became The One That Got Away. And then later she married another The One, who turned out to be The Wrong One.

So now suddenly two men come into her life. First she meets David, the new principal at Whitty's school. And while she's attracted to him, he's already pretty chummy with Whitty's substitute teacher. Then she runs into her high school sweetheart, Aaron, and since said substitute teacher is hanging off David's arm half the time she sees him, she turns her attention to Aaron and rekindling their lost love.

The book is a light read with some deepness at it's core, if that makes sense. It's told in third person from Fordham's POV, so we spend a lot of time inside her head, privy to her thoughts and feelings, which is my favorite narrative device. At times it's a comedy of errors, with one thing after another going wrong for Fordham. Not far in I thought this is going to be a three star, maybe three and a half. But somewhere along the way I became very vested in Fordham's life, not to mention quite enamored of one of those two men, and I was very happy with the way the book ended. 

From what I found when I looked up the author, her first book was a YA, which I don't read much of, but I'll have to keep an eye out for her next novel.

Goodreads synopsis: What if you could find the love of your life just by reading between the lines? Single mom Fordham Price is juggling her job at a small publisher, her precocious ten-year-old daughter, and her feisty mother. She wants to find time for men, but after a series of dating disasters, her relationship status is still stuck at single. As if her macchiato lite wasn’t already overflowing, a co-worker gets pregnant, and Fordham is expected to step in and deliver the company’s latest reality read from the Flowers from the Heart series. She must now supplement her own romantic misadventures with tales of cynical cat-ladies, identical-twin husbands, spunky monks, and countless other web-crawlers. As she wades through the submissions, she finds one from a widower whose story gives her tingles in all the places she forgot existed. His words draw her in until she finds herself daydreaming about him more than she’d care to admit. Could she have a love like that, or will her romantic fate be forever bound to her philandering ex-husband?