Hopscotch by Steve Cushman

Hopscotch by Steve Cushman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hopscotch is a novel about people whose lives are centered around a hospital in a small city. These people include patients as well as their families and friends and also nurses, doctors, maintenance workers, management executives, and even a local news reporter, among others.

Hospitals are place that impact the lives of almost everyone and generally the impact ranges from unpleasant to tragic. At this hospital, however, something different occurs when someone draws a chalk hopscotch board on the sidewalk outside the entrance. This simple, childhood game causes people to respond in unusual and beautiful ways. People who wouldn't normally speak to each other, reach out. Others, who are suffering with difficult injuries or diseases, find moments to smile.

Hopscotch isn't a tearjerker or a story of unrealistic miracles. Instead it is a story of people finding peace and hope in something small. Reading Cushman's novel is an uplifting experience, one I can recommend wholeheartedly.

Steve Lindahl author of Motherless Soul, White Horse Regressions, Hopatcong Vision Quest, Under a Warped Cross, and Living in a Star's Light


View all my reviews

One Good Dog by Susan Wilson

One Good Dog by Susan  Wilson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In the novel One Good Dog, a man and a dog lift each other out of their desperate situations. Things were pretty bad for both of them.

The dog, Chance, is a pitbull, raised to fight. He's a champion, excellent at killing his opponents. He spent most of his younger days in training or locked in a cage in a dark basement.

The man, Adam, lost his mother then was put in foster care by his father. Now, as an adult, he has made his way up the corporate ladder by acting ruthless and cruel. He works for a cosmetic company where he defends experiments conducted on animals. He makes no friends at work and is only interested in wealth and status. One day his self centered attitude and memories of a tragedy from his past come together to push him toward a violent reaction. The result for Adam is serious legal problems and the loss of everything he values. This is where the book really gets going. Both Chance and Adam have hit bottom and need help.

All books where dogs are personified require some suspension of disbelief, but this one requires more than most. The readers have to accept that Chance thinks like a human. That's to be expected. In this novel, however, both Chance and Adam have to overcome their violent pasts. That is rare for both dogs and humans. But this is their story and I was pulling for them both.

I recommend this book for anyone who likes stories of redemption.

Steve Lindahl – author of Motherless Soul, White Horse Regressions, Hopatcong Vision Quest, and Under a Warped Cross


View all my reviews

Heartsick by Chelsea Cain

Heartsick by Chelsea Cain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Heartsick is the first book in Chelsea Cain's Archie Sheridan & Gretchen Lowell series. Archie is a Portland Oregon detective and Gretchen is the serial killer from his first case. Gretchen captured Archie and tortured him for ten days before turning herself in and turning him over to the authorities when he was near death.

I was expecting the woman who had tortured Archie to help with his current case, but she did very little of that. She was more of an addiction, like the pills were, the ones she offered him after she inflicted pain. Their relationship was a type of Stockholm Syndrome, like Patty Hearst, only worse, since she was kidnapped and possibly raped, but not brutalized the way Archie was.

So this novel had two stories going on, Archie dealing (or not dealing) with his issues and the current case he was trying to solve. This new mystery involved the murders of a series of high school girls. The two plots were connected in a few ways, mostly through a young reporter, Susan Ward, who was writing about Archie's issues while following his new case.

I liked the way Heartsick grabbed me and kept me reading. There were a few too many coincidences for me to give it five stars, but it's a good read for thriller fans who don't mind graphic violence.

Steve Lindahl – author of Motherless Soul, White Horse Regressions, Hopatcong Vision Quest, and Under a Warped Cross


View all my reviews