Guest Post: Author Jodie Esch

Thanks so much Leanne for inviting me to join your blog today. I’m thrilled to be here.

(Thank you for visiting. It's my pleasure to be your host.)

My Books

I’m writing books for Young Adults –Best Friends Forever-The Girlfriends Series

Buy this book

 Little White Lies

Eighth grader Rachel Scott finally has the perfect boyfriend. He’s good-looking, athletic and wealthy. The only problem is he doesn’t actually exist. Rachel’s escape into her fantasy world worries her parents and they insist she meet with the school counselor. Frustrated with her life and without her best friend’s approval, Rachel heads down a dangerous path, looking for love in all the wrong places.

Buy this book

Little White Pills

Tenth grader Steph Baxter has it all, perfect looks, perfect grades and a perfect life. She’s a model high school student and a member of the cheerleading squad. But in her quest for excellence she takes risks. Soon her simple solution becomes a complex problem. Follow Steph and her best friend Rachel as they cope with Steph’s unexpected journey. Can Steph find support before it’s too late?

Both novels are available on Amazon.ca or Amazon.com downloadable to your Kindle. Or using a free Kindle app downloadable to your computer or any other e-reader. Less than a latte.

Jodie's most recent book...

Buy this book

Rachel and her best friend Steph are spending the summer as junior counselors working at a camp in Vermont. But Rachel’s on a mission.

 What’s a girl supposed to do when she needs a new boyfriend? Enlist the help of a tarot reader, trust the cards and embrace the journey. Spiral into an adventure filled with startling revelations, where nothing is as it appears – and a mysterious, scarred young man’s talents seem almost magical.

My Backstory

I was the eldest of three children in an Air Force family. We moved constantly. I attended schools in Prince Edward Island, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. My brave mother was always searching for a new set of curtains. And I was always decorating a different bedroom.

After completing elementary teacher training in Montreal, I taught in Quebec, the Northwest Territories and British Columbia. Whew! So many schools. So many kids.

I wanted to write but didn’t have any time until I retired from the land of teaching and school administration. Finally, I dipped my toes in the waters of romance, romantic suspense and women’s fiction, searching for my voice. A number of manuscripts later, I hope that I found it in the world of teens.

 Teen-land is theatrical, humorous, sad and happy. Every emotion you can imagine is woven into one tangled ball. The complexity and the challenges that teens face attracted me to their stories.

 Even though the themes I’ve chosen are serious, I have a main character Rachel who has a quirky sense of humor. Her ability to laugh at herself carries the reader through the grim times. 

What keeps me going?

I’m a big-time reader and collector of books. I have baskets of books tucked away throughout my house. My ‘to-be-read’ pile is rather large. I’m the kind of person who reads in grocery stores, gas station line-ups, waiting rooms etc. I adore reading.

 Excellent writing leaves me shaken and in awe of the skills of the author. I will re-read favorite books to re-gain that special feeling. So when I’m not writing, I’m reading.

 Reading and working at the computer can create a rather lumpy life-style, so in order not to weigh mega pounds –I look after my garden and clean up after our alpacas.

Congratulations, Jodie, on the release of your most recent book...

Buy this book

Rachel and her best friend Steph are spending the summer as junior counselors working at a camp in Vermont. But Rachel’s on a mission.

 What’s a girl supposed to do when she needs a new boyfriend? Enlist the help of a tarot reader, trust the cards and embrace the journey. Spiral into an adventure filled with startling revelations, where nothing is as it appears – and a mysterious, scarred young man’s talents seem almost magical.

I can be found at 

http://www.JodieEsch.com

http://bit.ly/JodieEschAmazonAuthorPage

http://www.twitter.com/JodieEsch

http://www.facebook.com/JodieEsch  

Please drop by and say ‘Hi’. 

Book Review: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Buy this book

I read slowly and because of this I seldom read books longer than 300 pages but on August 30th I undertook a challenge -- to read a book double this length. I left a trail of notes...

'[W]hen you handle books all day long every new one is a friend and a temptation.' (p. 12)

The Historian's old-fashioned charm captured me and I was helpless to do anything but continue to read. It was raining which added an atmospheric note to the experience.

Circles within circles within circles. We are told the story by the daughter, who in turn is told the story by her father, who in turn is told the story by his professor.

I continue to be intrigued by The Historian. I like how Kostova inspires the reader to invent her own answers to questions:  Why does the father have such a strange reaction to the matre d's story? What story is worse than the one being told -- and why? Has the father become a victim of the curse? Is the father a vampire? My creative mind gambles ahead in the rich, green meadow Kostova has led me to. Oh, if only I had all day to read.

Elizabeth Kostova skillfully weaves the threads of these stories around and around each other, like weaving a tapestry. She creates such a complicated design but the reader never gets lost -- always sees the pattern.

'It is a fact that we historians are interested in what is partly a reflection of ourselves perhaps a part of ourselves we would rather not examine except through the medium of scholarship; it is also true that as we steep ourselves in our interests, they become more and more a part of us.' (p. 250)

These vampires don't shimmer in the sunlight -- they lurk in the shadows. They aren't romantic but the embodiment of evil. Bram Stoker would be very pleased with Elizabeth Kostova's dark, mysterious tale.

Elizabeth Kostova has filled my mind with her tale and I'm finding it hard to sleep for fear of a dark figure lurking in the shadows. Yet I read on...

The professor had returned and we, the reader, dance from father to daughter as we travel ever nearer to Dracula.

I really enjoy how Elizabeth Kostova drops clues like petals along the path. If the reader isn't careful the petal will be overlooked, mistaken for just another blade of grass.

One member of the family is chosen to receive a dragon tattoo. What tattoo (talkative, secretive, demonstrative) do we receive from our family? Who is tattooed? Who isn't? Why?

'I'm on a quest of sorts, an historian's hunt for Dracula -- not Count Dracula of the romantic stage, but a real Dracula -- Drakulya -- Vlad III, a fifteenth-century tyrant who lived in Transylvania and Wallacia and dedicated himself to keeping the Ottoman Empire out of his land as long as possible.' (p. 391)

Male-female, we are mammals, primitive, uncivilized, wild, untamed, driven by desire, uncontrollable, capable of the unthinkable...evil? 

We bear the mark but must we do the deed?

The love of a mother for a child--and what would cause her to leave?

I wonder if Elizabeth Kostova is Hungarian or...Romanian? From what sense of cultural knowledge is this tale drawn?


'I would return to you immediately, but I know that if I do, the same thing will happen. I will feel my uncleanness,...I will feel the horror of it...How can I be near you knowing that I am tainted? What right do I have to touch your smooth cheek?' (p. 564 - 565)

What would make a parent feel this way about his child? Where would he go for comfort?
A father fearing that he will physically abuse his child may enlist to kill the 'enemy'.

'If there is any good in life, in history, in my own past, I invoke it now. I invoke it with all the passion with which I have lived.' (p. 621)

Would Dracula truly see himself as evil or would he justify his actions? Does anyone ever see himself as evil?

Within a book lies a trail of a book to a book.

No book is flawless. I felt that the last chapter was not written with as much care as the prior ones. So I wonder, did the author lose interest, did an editor instruct her to cut words, or did she simply have trouble finding the end? For me, it seems rushed--a lot of telling very little showing.

Regardless, The Historian was a titillating, captivating read. This book has me searching my bookshelves for the next read, something like it...horror...it must be, horror. My teeth long to sink into the flesh of the genre; taste another author's blood...