Catharsis by Indie Author Jonathan Face

Indie Author Jonathan Face delivers a suspenseful, mysteriously, unfolding tale of a condemned town. As the story slowly progresses, the reader is left with a feeling of dread, a feeling that something bad is going to happen in Spring City. The inhabitants of this small town seem like good enough people, but they all have secrets. Unfortunately, you can't hide your secrets from unknown forces hell bent on bringing justice upon town's occupants.

Throughout the story, you learn a little bit about each character until you have a picture in your head that leaves you knowing that this isn't a good person, despite the warm and fuzzy facade.  Jonathan Face does a good job building the characters into real people, giving away only a little about their pasts.

As a snow storm moves through the town, the inhabitants bear down for a bad storm. Slowly, things draw the residents out (or for some, into their homes) to their deaths. The innocent are pulled away to be saved.

Jonathan Face's writing style is enjoyable to read, and the book was pretty well edited and proofed. The only annoyance that I found was the use of the word 'presently'. Of course, this is only my opinion, if you say that someone did something, I assume that, in the story, they are doing it then. I don't need to know that 'Presently, he walked down the street' or whatever action was taken. In this instance, the story was in the past tense, so no one actually did anything presently. There, my rant is done.

There were a few, I won't call them plot holes, but a few places where I wanted to know more information about the characters. For instance, we get to know the town librarian Kathy. She has a tainted past and moves to Spring City to hide and probably escape consequences. I have no idea what she did, but I want to know. At one point in the story, near the end, she is almost forced to tell her story to another deranged citizen, but their chat is interrupted and Kathy's story is never told. I'm still left wondering what she did.

Overall, an excellent, suspenseful, compelling story. I'll be on the lookout for more novels by Jonathan Face.

Right now, Catharsis is free for Nook and Kindle.

Olivia...and the Missing Toy - For the Nookcolor

I resisted the urge to buy this Olivia book for my daughter...but finally, she won.  She loves Olivia.  I was concerned that this was yet another one of Nickelodeon's books based on the television show, but quickly realized that it is, in fact, an Olivia book by the original author, Ian Falconer.  Phew, what a relief.

Let me start with the book itself, and then move into the format for the Nookcolor, which I am really excited about.  The book is done well, as all of the Olivia books are.

In the beginning of the story, Olivia has a soccer game and asks her mother to make her a new uniform for the game because she doesn't like her green uniform (this actually comes up in the show as well).  While she is waiting for her mother to finish the uniform, she gets bored and plays with her toys.  When her mother finally finishes the uniform, Olivia realizes that her best toy is lost.

While obsessing over her lost toy, Olivia accuses both of her brothers of taking her toy, asking them, "WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY TOY?"  I really like that in the book, Olivia refers to both of her brothers as "brothers."  This is not the case in the show, and I can't vouch for all of the books, but in the show, she refers to the baby as her brother, and Ian as her little bother.  I really dislike this.  Children are good enough at being mean spirited toward one another, I don't think they need help learning ways to hurt each other.

Olivia gets carried away with her imagination, and starts to hear scary noises and pictures herself carrying candles around looking for what is making this horrible noise.  The pictures in the book become dark and shadowed and Olivia soon finds the source of this noise.  Perry, the dog, has taken Olivia's best toy and chewed it into pieces.

Olivia runs to her parents with the pieces of her favorite toy in tow.  As she shows them what has happened, her mother tries to comfort her, and her father (staying true to daddies everywhere) tries to fix it for her, offering to take her to buy the best toy in the world.

I adore the illustration on the next page, Olivia displays her gratitude by saying, "Oh, thank you, Daddy.  I love you more than anyone."  Olivia's mother has a grim, annoyed look on her face as Daddy soaks up the love, and she is still standing there feeding the baby while the baby gets food all over the place.  This picture says it all.

Olivia decides that even though she is going to get that new toy, its best to fix her old toy since it is her "best toy."  She sews him back up before bed, and then picks out bedtime stories that do not involve dogs.  However, on the last page, Olivia has decided to forgive Perry and the picture shows Olivia in bed asleep with her toy and Perry on either side of her.

This book on the Nookcolor is excellent.  You can either have the story read to you, or you can read it yourself.  I almost didn't click "Read to me," but my daughter insisted.  Wow, was I impressed!  The audio included music for dramatic effect and the narrator's voice at first grated on my nerves, but after listening for a few minutes, I enjoyed the storytelling time.  My daughter was so engrossed that she forgot that she was supposed to turn pages, and I had to either remind her or do it for her.

I must say, I was impressed with this book all around.  I didn't particularly like spending the money on it, I thought it was over priced, but the dramatic effect of the music and reading was worth a few extra bucks.  I'm sure I will be purchasing more Olivia books in the future.