Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

Books and blogs

From Stranger to Family: That’s My Favorite Theme

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This is site is called Shepard: Discover the Best Books. I have only just learned of it.

They asked if I would like to share my favorite books, and I jumped at the chance. What a great way to find books written with the ideas you most like to see in what you read!

How does it know what the best books are for topics, such as dragons, family, Christian themes, ect.?

Authors answer the question when they list their favorite books that fit a specific topic. But not just any topic, but one they most enjoy and even prefer to make an important feature of their own books.

The books shown above are my favorite books for when strangers become the best kind of family.

Follow this link to read my reasons for liking these books so much. While you’re there, use the search feature to look for your favorite themes and topics. You might just find some new favorites to add to your own.

Here’s one that I found interesting: The Best Books with Dragon-Human bonds in it.

Search Tip: enter a broad topic, such as dragons or mystery or loss. A list will come up for you to select from.

Book Review: The Spirit Child by Alison Naomi Holt

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Holt’s The Spirit Child is the first installment of a series of books that twist Native American spirit guides with feudal manors, strong female characters and realms in degrees of spiritual growth and power.  The storyline includes the involvement of actual walking, talking, and occasionally sarcastic guides in the form of owls, wolves, panthers, badgers, etc., working to maneuver the few spiritually awake humans to safety and teach them to negotiate an increasingly dangerous world due to a darker group of powerful animal spirits.

That sounds a bit like a mishmash of ideas, but it’s a mix that had it an aroma would be described as delicious.  Bree Makena, Duchess of Danforth, is the main character, and she is ripe for change.  Heartbroken and determined to be alone and disconnected from society, she is ready to do battle with the first annoying individual she meets, but she is unwilling to watch a girl child be sold into slavery and certainly raped if no one steps in. Makena steps in, and life changes from that moment on.  The child turns out to be capable of seeing any spirit guide, not just her own, but she is as flawed and broken as Makena. The two travel more than just the rough territory of the lands they call home (or want to call home) as they deal with the fear and denial which keeps them from recognizing their guides and learning how to become part of society in ways they have yet to find appealing or even safe.

Makena and the child Kaiti have to not only figure out how to belong to each other but also how to belong to their spirit guides who are not in the least bit uncertain about how things should be going if only those stubborn humans would stop fighting their destinies.  Other characters also carry the story well, from long time friends, healer Becca and bathhouse owner Maura, to tribal leaders and royal families.  There are strong male characters as well and tribal elders who bring depth and meaning to much of the difficulties Makena and Kaiti face. Timur, Makena’s dead husband, as the story progresses, is easy to accept as a person Makena might find impossible to face life without.  It is inevitable that one will get attached to several of the individuals Holt breathes into life in her writing as the reader steps smoothly in and out of the thoughts and concerns of a variety of supporting characters as well as the two main characters.

Arriving at the end of this book is a lot like it is in real life: few things are wrapped up in tidy bunches; much is left that needs to play out, and the trouble that was on the horizon is still lurking out there.  The difference is Makena has grown out of some of her troubles which is good because there are several more difficulties building up she is going to have to face if she wants to maintain life’s new vision and new hope.

I enjoyed this book and view it as one I will probably reread, especially while I wait for the next book in the series to come out.  My main rule is if I anticipate reading a book again, its worth five stars.

Quick list of the books I have recommended on my blog

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I have posted about many of the books I consider useful.  So this post is sort of a gathering of those posts in one place.  Now you don’t have to search about for them.

Grammar and revision:
Eats, Shoots and Leaves

A Writer’s Reference
Spell Friendly Dictionaries

Creative inspiration:
A Writer’s Book of Days
Lu Chi’s Wen Fu
Lu Chi’s Wen Fu 2
The Worst Case Scenario 

Good books to read:
The Catcher in the Rye
Tale of Two Cities
You’ve Got to Read This

Sometimes the liars reveal the most truth: Holden Caulfield, Salinger’s Monster

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I recently started rereading Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye.  Even though I know where Holden Caulfield is in his journey of self-deception and punishment, I still get caught up with the slow reveal of his anger.  Salinger in the first three sentences tells the reader exactly where Caulfield is and how he has yet to find balance. Still, I find myself walking along beside this struggling character, listening to what he hates in his effort to avoid what he loves.  That ongoing chatter the first person narrative provides that begins so truly as teenage angst before it begins its slow, slick slide into, well read and see for yourself.

Every writer should read it for the lesson alone of how to create a character that tells all while he thinks he has hidden all his best secrets, the quintessential unreliable narrator.  Every reader over the age of 15 should read this book.  It’s makes one grin at first hearing him say all the things every polite individual wishes he could belt out so unconsciously and honestly.  Somewhere along the line, the reader comes to a realization: Holden is not chatting at length for every teenager who wishes he could speak his mind so easily, but for his own salvation, his own need to divorce himself from his shortcomings, his desire for forgiveness, presumably from the reader, but in reality from himself.  Reader or writer, read it, read it more than once.

Writers need to be readers: suggested read

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You’ve Got To Read This is an anthology supplying short stories that are the favorite reads of some of the finest writers of the 20th century.  Every writer should be reading, especially the most exemplary works of well-written prose.  “Goodbye, My Brother” by John Cheever is one of my favorites due to the family dynamics it portrays with simple, straightforward narration, and it is introduced by Allan Gurganus.

This book, though not a recent publication, is a great start for the writers looking to learn by reading.  The short introductions given by the author that selected each piece adds to the reading of each work.  Not only do I get to read a great short story, but I also get to understood what drew the accomplished writer to be moved by the work and name it as one of his or her favorites.

So track down this text and sit down for that occasional short read that you can examine both for the writing skill itself as well as for what  an establish writer might find worthwhile in it.

As said in Lu Chi’s Wen Fu, “When cutting an axe handle with an axe,
surely the model is at hand.”

In Times Passed: under reconstruction

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I thought I should mention that I have pulled my first book (In Times Passed) from publication because I feel it needs redrafting.  Certainly, I did not have it in mind to publish my book and then remove it, but as time went by, I began to feel that the whole story was not there.  So, as noted on my Books & Projects page, it is back in edit, under remodel, reconstruction, etc.

A fellow author agreed that sometimes this is necessary, and she encouraged me to feel good about my choice.  She found herself making a similar decision some time back regarding one of her books.  Like me, she wanted her work to be at its best.  So the first in my series of Students of Jump books is on temporary hold.  Likely, the second in the series will hit publication shortly after this first gets back on the e-book shelf.