The Printed Page

Title: One Foot Wrong
Author/website: Sofie Laguna
208 pages (DNF @ page 14)
Publisher: Other Press
Publication date: July ’09
Genre: Fiction
This is a strange book. It will appeal to a select group of readers but unfortunately I can’t describe what group that would be. Maybe the group that reads quirky, off-the-wall books. My intention isn’t to belittle this author or her work but this really is a different sort of story.

A child is imprisoned in a house by her reclusive, religious parents. Hester Wakefield has never spoken to another child, nor seen the outside world. Her one possession is an illustrated children’s Bible, and its imagery forms the sole basis for her capacity to make poetic, real-life connections. Her companions at home are Cat, Spoon, Door, Handle, Broom, and Tree, and they all speak to her, sometimes telling her what to do. One day she takes a brave Alice in Wonderland trip into the forbidden outside, at the behest of Handle, and this overwhelming encounter with light and sky and sunshine is a marvel to her. From this moment on, Hester learns that there are some things she cannot tell her parents, and she keeps this secret to herself. Hester buries it among her other secrets, the ones that take place in the shadowy corners of her insular world, and she keeps them all locked inside her as they multiply and grow, waiting until she can find other ways to be free.

Title: Radium Halos
Author/website: Shelley Stout
298 pages (DNF @ page 148)
Publisher: GirleBooks.com (there is a print edition of this book coming soon)
Publication date: June ’09
Genre: Fiction
First off let me say this is a story that will appeal to a wide audience of readers. The reason I DNF’d Radium Halos is because I was expecting something different from this story. I was hoping that this story would focus a bit more on the Radium Girls and their lives rather than being a straight fictional story about a woman who just happened to be a radium dial painter for one summer. I never really connected with our narrator Helen nor did her issue loaded personal family story particularly hit a note with me. Radium Halos is getting good reviews at Amazon. For those of you would like to read Radium Halos please visit Radium Halos at GirleBooks. For a limited time, enter code SSRH20 at checkout for a 20% discount! Currently Radium Halos is only available in a pdf file format which you can download to your computer or any eBook reader that accepts pdf files. A print edition of this book is coming soon.

Radium Halos is a fictional story based on the true events of the Radium Girls: a group of female factory workers who, in the early 1920s, contracted radiation poisoning from painting luminous watch dials with radium paint. Our narrator is Helen Waterman, a 65-year-old mental patient who worked at the factory when she was 16. She tells us her story through flashbacks, slowly revealing her past, the loved ones she’s lost, and the dangerous secrets she’s kept all these years.

Here’s a highlight from Marcia’s Kindle Corner. This book has both print and, of course, Kindle editions. If you want to check out all the books I’m sampling/reading this month be sure and stop by the Corner.

Title: All the Pretty Girls (Kindle Edition link / Print Edition link)
Author/website: J.T. Ellison
File size: 325 KB/Print: 416 pages
Publication date: September ’08
Genre: Suspense/thriller
Sample size: Ch. 1-3
Price: $3.60
I’m always on the lookout for new suspense/thriller authors as I read a lot in this genre. All the Pretty Girls was J.T.’s debut novel and a decent book. It wasn’t a total gripping edge-of-your-seat suspense ride but it did pack a couple of surprises (deaths) that I didn’t see coming. Overall I give it an average rating but would be willing to read more this author.

the body of a young girl discovered by the side of a Nashville highway puts homicide detective Taylor Jackson and her lowdown boyfriend, FBI Agent John Baldwin, on the trail of the Southern Strangler, a playful, brutal killer who likes to carry his victims across state lines before murdering them and removing their hands. Before long, however, Taylor’s reassigned to the suspicious death of a prominent TV personality, leaving John struggling to keep ahead of the Strangler’s mounting body count. Meanwhile, Taylor is still recovering from a near-fatal neck injury earned in her last case and worrying over her own demons—not the least of which is John’s threat to marry her.