Exposing the Truth in HOUSE OF LIES

House of Lies by S.R.Claridge

Review by Justin Rentschler, RipeReviews

 

It is rare that a novel from an unknown author makes headlines right out of the gate, but House of Lies has done just that.  A short month after its early October 2012 release by Vanilla Heart publishing, House of Lies and author S.R.Claridge were featured on Fox4 News in Kansas City, Missouri.  (Watch the broadcast.) Claridge’s novel has also become a source of discussion on blog sites and global news venues.

Apparently the story written by Claridge pre-told the death of Bethany Leidlein Deaton, which occurred in Kansas City three weeks after the book’s release.  Fox4 News posed a question that seemed to be on everyone’s mind, “Does the author know more than she’s letting on?”

The book is about a religious cult group in the Kansas City area, one that is foundationally based in false prophecy.  The main character, a 29-year old woman named Skylar, embarks on a journey to rescue her sister, who is being groomed to become a leader, from the group named P3.  Claridge’s heroine proves that none of the cult group’s prophetic visions are real, and yet, ironically, the novel itself prophetically foretold of the upcoming Deaton murder.   (Google the Deaton murder for more information.)  An additional source of irony is the fact that Claridge’s sister is a leader in a group called the International House of Prayer, based in Kansas City, and touted by many to be a cult.  This brings us back to Fox4 New’s question:  “Does the author know more?”

Claridge has been vocal about her distaste for the International House of Prayer and has even called the group a “cult” on her blog.  (Claridge Blog.)  However, she told Fox4 News that House of Lies is fiction and, though her relationship with her sister may have inspired the novel, it was not written specifically about her sister or about any one cult group.  Claridge claims to have studied five groups with cult tendencies, but admits she has only received backlash from International House of Prayer members, and not from any of the other groups.  Why?  Because, and here’s another ironic element to this whole thing, Bethany Leidlein Deaton was a member of the International House of Prayer.  On her blog, Claridge has posted  some of the threatening letters she has received from International House of Prayer members who claim to be upset because the book doesn’t accurately depict their group.  Claridge’s response:  “The book is fiction.”

Now, onward to my review:

House of Lies is a unique animal.  It reminded me of The DaVinci Code, written by Dan Brown, and also a little bit of Grisham’s , The Pelican Brief.  While reading, there is an inescapable sense that the author has tapped into something dangerously real; and we can’t deny the fact that she may have done just that.  Our heroine is likeable but has a chip on her shoulder.  Her sister was spiritually ravished by P3 founder, Sagan, at a young age and groomed to become a leader in the P3 group, which became the driving factor behind Skylar’s in-depth study of P3.  Sidebar:  I enjoyed Claridge’s use of the name “Sagan” as it is close to the name “Satan.”  She incorporates play-on-words vernacular throughout, keeping the reader on their toes.

The book opens with a bang and we are immediately let in on a little secret, that something isn’t right in this group.  We get a glimpse of the physical manipulations even before our heroine becomes aware of said practices.  This was a nice touch because it allowed the reader to more easily connect with Skylar and her quest to rescue her sister,Tess. 

Along the way Claridge re-introduces two characters from her debut novel, No Easy Way, released in October 2010; Stephen Braznovich and his pseudo-assistant, ex-cop, Ernie James.  They are an unlikely duo, but make an effective crime-solving team.  I am hopeful Claridge will incorporate them into future novels as well.  A blossoming romance between Braznovich and our heroine adds a nice sexual tension to the story, while Ernie laces the plot with chain-smoking humor; all of which is needed to keep the intensity in balance.  Claridge has a knack for taking readers to the very edge, dangling them there and then doing something unexpected.    She is author of the Just Call Me Angel series, a mafia story set in present day Chicago.   I will be reviewing the series as a whole later this year.  But, in all of Claridge’s novels I’ve noticed that no character is safe, not even the hero or heroine.  Like the t.v. series, 24, Claridge will twist the plot in an instant and send readers reeling into the unknown.  Few authors are able to do this and still keep the story cohesive.  Claridge is one of them.

It is without question that House of Lies carries truth, but how much and about whom is unknown and I predict it will remain that way.  Several on-line articles have alluded to the fact that Claridge isn’t talking. House of Lies isn’t so much a book about a religious sect, but how the P3 group hides their political agenda beneath a pseudo-evangelical veil.  Its tentacles reach into the upper echelon of the United States government and into the global economy.  Readers don’t know who to trust and neither does the heroine who finds herself trapped between a group of local, revenge-seeking vigilantes and Braznovich, whose motives are unclear.  The plot explodes mid-way through the book and then in Claridge-fashion, the author takes everything apart to put it back together in a new light. 

The ending is absurdly frustrating to the reader who must wait for the sequel, but well-prosed with another Claridge play-on-words.  She’s created an underground movement, responsible for tracking the activities of cult groups in the United States, called Defense Against Religious Cults or D.A.R.C.  Skylar, Braznovich and a handful of others are taken to this underground security facility for safety.  The last line of the book:  “… they would all have to remain in the DARC.”

House of Lies is a difficult book to summarize because so much of the plot cannot be given away.  Each step in the story is relevant to a future development and so a scathe overview is impossible without giving away too much.  For the avid suspense reader or those that enjoy political thrillers, this book should be on your list.  If you’re looking for a pure romance novel, you’re not going to find it in House of Lies or in any of Claridge’s books to date.  If you want action, tension, humor, and unbridled suspense, Claridge is for you.

House of Lies:  5 Stars

by Justin Rentschler, RipeReviews

The Many Deaths of the Black Company

Glen Cook: The Many Deaths of the Black Company (Water Sleeps, Soldiers Live )

By Robert M. Tilendis, on December 21st, 2010

If you stop think about it, it’s rather remarkable that a living writer of speculative fiction finds himself with reissues of seemingly all of his earlier works hitting the market while he’s working on new ones. I think it says something about the popularity of Glen Cook’s writing that not one but two publishers have undertaken just that. (Happily, they’re divvying up the spoils, as it were.) In this case, Tor has published the final two books (to date, and more on that later) of Cook’s Annals of the Black Company as The Many Deaths of the Black Company in a handsome omnibus edition.
Water Sleeps finds the Black Company in hiding in Taglios, now ruled by the Radisha Drah and the Protector — none other than our old friend, Soulcatcher. The Company is now under the joint command, such as it is, of Sleepy and Sahra, who spend their time as subversively as possible — mostly involving politically charged graffiti, with the occasional targeted assassination or kidnapping thrown in to keep people on their toes — while preparing to rescue the Captured. You see, what they know and no one else does — except that Soulcatcher may suspect it — is that the Captured are alive, frozen in time in a cave below the nameless fortress at the center of the Glittering Plain. They know this because Murgen, whose propensity for wandering around outside his body is well-established at this point, comes to visit his wife, Sahra. Actually, she is able to summon him, with some difficulty — he often seems rather distracted.

And throw Narayan Singh and the Daughter of Night into the mix, too — they’re hiding out in the thieves’ quarter, and everyone is looking for them. The dark goddess Kina is certainly not out of play.

Due to the success of their subversion, the Company has to beat it out of Taglios. But that means they’re on their way to rescue the Captured.

In Soldiers Live, the Company has recovered Croaker, Lady, Murgen, Thai Dei, the Prabrindrah Drah — in fact, most of those who were captured. (Some didn’t make it — stasis isn’t foolproof.) (And before you start yelling about spoilers, what did you think was going to happen?) Sleepy is now the Captain, Goblin is lost, One-Eye is nearing the end, but Tobo, son of Murgen and Sahra, has proven to be a gifted and powerful wizard, with a stable of tame Shadows of his own, and the Company has arrived at what should have been Khatovar, but isn’t — at least, not any more. The inhabitants of “The Land of Nameless Shadows” aren’t out to get the Company, but they’re not particularly welcoming, either. The Company doesn’t really care — it has a score to settle back in Taglios, and now it knows how to travel the Glittering Stones safely. And now they have the help of the demon Shivetya, the Guardian who sits in the fortress at the center of the plain.

Just when you think Cook can’t get any better, he boots it up a notch or two. Let me put it this way: I had read Water Sleeps, but had never laid hands on a copy of Soldiers Live before, so of course I read that one first — and then very happily settled into read the first for about the sixth time (at least — after a while, you lose count).
Let’s talk first about style, since that’s such an important element of Cook’s writing. Sleepy narrates Water Sleeps, and her personality comes through vividly. It’s another illustration of my contention that Cook’s narrative style is largely a function of character — and it’s not by chance, I think, that most of his novels are told in the first person. We get another taste of this in Soldiers Live, when Croaker once again takes over the narration — and if anything, Croaker has gotten more cryptic and close-mouthed than ever.

The stories are multi-layered, complex, and, of course, there’s always a wild card in there somewhere. As it happens, Soldiers Live ends with a mind-bending plot twist, a raft of new characters, and a wide-open field for the next installment. And I’m not going to tell you about that — read it yourself.

(Tor, 2009 [Water Sleeps orig. 1999, Soldiers Live orig. 2000])

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

By ManofLaBook
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is a dystopian novel written for young adults (YA). Even though the main audience targeted, the book has struck chords with parents as well and has been a best seller since it came out.

North America has been destroyed and is now run by the powerful Capital and is divided into 12 districts (district 13 has been destroyed due to a rebellion). In district 12 ace hunter Katniss Everdeen, a 16 year old girl, carves out a meager existence for herself, her younger sister Prim and their widowed mother. In order to keep the 12 districts aware of who runs the county, the Capital arranges a game to the death each year in an elaborate arena. Each district holds a drawing of one boy and one girl to go as tributes. When her sister is picked, Katniss exercises her option to volunteer for the games. Along with Katniss comes also Peeta, the baker’s son, who grew up with her.

Katniss and Peeta must fend for themselves against natural elements, the Gamemakers and the other contestants whose only option is to kill or be killed.
I’ll admit it, I read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins because my wife did and I didn't… we can’t have that now.

Can we?

I can certainly see why the book was such a hit. The novel struck many chords and many themes (teenage anguish, love, work, poverty and more), was an easy and quick read, as well as full of action.

Ms. Collins built a fantastical and believable world where the United States is no more and instead the country is now called Panem which is run from “The Capital” and divided into 12 districts. The story progresses quickly and fluently with well defined characters who have lame names. Don’t tell me that the baker’s son is named Peeta (Pita) by accident.

I can certainly understand how the YA crowd fell head over heels for this novel.
For me though, and I understand perfectly well I’m not the target audience, the love triangle was cliché, but I loved the violence and speed of this novel. The constant suspense kept me turning page after page as, I assume, most of those who read the book. Once I got over my name prejudice, I even liked the protagonist – a bow and arrow wielding female Wilhelm Tell, how can you not like her?

Ms. Collins’ prose is efficient in a no-nonsense style filled with humor which causes the book to become addictive. Like any good story, you are immersed in the universe built around you, yet you know it is not real but you can’t stop reading.

That being said, there were some aspects of the book which were too convenient, when Katniss babysits Peeta in the second half of the book, the stuff she needs floats down from the sky. That might be passable for the intended audience, but not for me. Also the ending was a bit disappointing. I especially disliked the mutated werewolves but, since this is part of an extremely successful trilogy and the audience certainly stuck around to find out what happens – who am I to say anything?

Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L.James

By Joe Bryant

Okay I caved and actually read this book. Have you heard the expression 'curiosity killed the cat'?

Where do I start? Fifty shades of mental illness. How on earth this guy ever got around to making $100,000.00 an hour is a miracle. He spends hours training. I mean let's be real here. You need to be in shape to be able to smack the arse off a petite, whiny virgin, if you really want to make her run for the hills. Christian with the grey eyes. How many ways are there to describe grey eyes? A lot it seems. There's grey, intensely grey, dark and grey, serious and grey, super grey. Need I go on?


Christian is obsessed with Ana eating. It's a little creepy. He even puts it in the contract she must sign. Oh yes. Ana has to sign a contract of what she will and won't do. Foods she is allowed are listed in Appendix Four. And no snacking between meals, please.


As for Ana. She 'rolls her eyes' 25 times throughout the book. A little dangerous doing that, as Christian thinks that is an over the knee spanking offence. Then there is Ana's inner goddess, who glares, is thrilled, dances, nods, jumps, stops jumping, glows, is surprised, is pleased, is not pleased, smacks her lips, does back flips, bounces, wakes, pleads, stares open mouthed, prostrates herself, spins, has a do not disturb sign on her door, is beside herself, grins, pouts, scowls, basks, gazes, swoons, is hopeful, and she also drove me to drink.


Repetition, repetition, repetition. Using my kindle search tool I discovered that Ana flushes exactly 100 times. There's actually a whole lot of religion in the book. 39 holy shits, 30 holy craps and 18 holy fucks.


There is so much wrong with this book I don't really know where to start the criticism. Although I could start with the fact the main character is a girl with silver balls in her vagina getting spanked and seemingly enjoying herself, who squirms under people's gazes and says jeez 81 times. This same girl spends her time hooking up with an Adonis who has a red room of pain, won't let anyone touch certain areas of his body and wants to turn this little virgin in to his own personal submissive.


Let me warn you. It is a wasted couple of hours that you will NEVER get back. I actually finished it because I wanted--I don't know what I wanted. Maybe to be able to say I'd been to literary hell and back. These are two of the most annoying characters I have ever come across. Seriously, don't waste your time. I'd rather have gone to the dentist.


Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/blogcritics/article/Book-Review-Fifty-Shades-of-Grey-by-E-L-James-3883301.php#ixzz2BW4LYw5q

Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer

The Twillight Saga - A non professional review

By TCherokee

 

The only reason I decided to read the Twillight saga, even though it is a book clearly geared towards the female audience, is because it was recently made into a motion picture and I like reading the books before I watch the film.
At the heart of it, Twilight is a story of forbidden love, this fact is reinfoced by the image of an apple on the cover of the first book. The story revolves around Bella, a self sacrificing young girl with a penchant for getting into dangerous situations and being clumsy. Bella moves to Forks to be with her dad, because she wanted to give her mum and her new boyfriend some space (told you she was self sacrificing). While in Forks, she meets and falls in love with a vampire (Edward Cullen) and as if that was not bad enough, she also becomes friends with a werewolf (Jacob Black who we find out in the final book "Breaking Dawn" was actually a shape shifter and not a proper werewolf).

The Cullen family, of which Edward is a part, are a family of vampires who have decided not too drink human blood and instead feed on animal blood, jokingly referring to themselves as vegetarians. Edward, who also falls in love with Bella, has to learn to balance the his desire for her blood with his desire for her; a job not made easier by the fact that Bella seems to seemingly have no regard whatsoever for her own safety.

There is some debate as to the morality and appropriateness of the book. Some reviewers believe the book teaches abstinence as Edward insists on no sex till they are married. While others feel their young daughters should not be reading books about love affairs between vampires and humans, and no matter how 'good' Edward might be, he is inherently evil by nature.

In my humble opinion, I feel that reviewers that are debating the morality of a girl dating a vampire are all being pretty narrow minded and should all get over themselves. It is a fantasy fiction book for heavens sake and I am pretty sure the books fan base know this as well. In my opinion, what makes the book a must read is the fact that is a story of a love that is not meant to work out. Everything seems to be working against them from the start; Edward being a vampire, Bella being a human, Bella's best friend being the mortal enemy of vampires.... yet inspite of all this, they still find a way to make it work. Maybe it is the hopeless romantic in me this appeals to, but it does, so there you go.

Stephanie Meyer has succeeded in created gripping characters that you can identify with, even if it is just silently cringing and some of the situations that Bella always seems to get herself into. Anyone who has had their heart broken will be able to identify with the destructive spiral Bella fell into in book 2 when Edward left. Stephanie Meyer also seems to have mastered the knack of suspense and once the series gets going, you will be hard pressed to put it down.

However, sometimes having Bella describe everything that makes Edward perfect can get tedious after a while and it takes the first book a while to get started. Despite all this, it is still a good book and I will heartily recommend it.

The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown

Signs for the times

Mark Lawson finds that nothing is left to chance in Dan Brown's ludicrous but gripping bestseller, The Da Vinci Code.

The conspiracy thriller, it can be argued, is the purest kind of bestseller. The premise of such books is that there's no such thing as a random happening; meanwhile, though bestsellers aren't exactly conspiracies, most huge publishing successes can be traced back to a web of connected events, so that form and content collide to an unusual degree.

For example, Peter Benchley's Jaws was probably a good enough story to find readers at any time, but became a mid-70s sensation because the implications of the plot - horrible, sudden death in a holiday resort - reflected the neuroses of an affluent American generation enduring both a cold war and an oil war. Helen Fielding spotted that young unmarrieds were a social grouping without a literature; Allison Pearson noticed the same gap for working mums.
 
And coming up to two years after September 11, 2001 - roughly the time it takes conventional fiction publishing to respond to cultural shifts - what did we find unstoppably atop the American fiction charts? Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, 450 pages of irritatingly gripping tosh, offers terrified and vengeful Americans a hidden pattern in the world's confusions.
 
When bad things happen, Brown reassures us, it is probably because of the machinations of a 1,000-year-old secret society which is quietly running the world, though often in conflict with another hidden organisation. There are probably a couple of verses in Nostradamus predicting the triumph of The Da Vinci Code: "As the painted French woman smiles/The Brown man will top the heap", or something similar. Certainly, the novel's success can be attributed to those who read Nostradamus and believe that the smoke from the blazing twin towers formed the face of the devil or Osama bin Laden.
 
What happens in The Da Vinci Code is ... alert readers will have noticed a delay in getting round to plot summary, but it takes time to force the face straight. Anyway, my lips are now level, so let's go. Art expert Jacques Sauniere is discovered murdered in the Louvre, having somehow found the strength in his last haemorrhaging moments to arrange his body in the shape of a famous artwork and leave a series of codes around the building.
 
These altruistic clues are interpreted by Robert Langdon, an American "professor of religious symbology" who, by chance, is visiting Paris, and Sophie Neveu, a French "cryptologist" who is the granddaughter of the artistic cadaver in the Louvre.
As they joust with authorial research - about the divine proportion in nature and the possibility that the Mona Lisa is a painting of Leonardo himself in drag - a thug from the secretive Catholic organisation Opus Dei, under orders from a sinister bishop, is also trying to understand the meaning of the imaginative corpse in the museum.
It all seems to be connected with the Priory of Sion, a secret society. Reading a book of this kind is rather like going to the doctor for the results of tests. You desperately want to know the outcome but have a sickening feeling about what it might prove to be. In this case, the answer was as bad as I'd feared.
 
Recently, crime and thriller fiction has been increasingly easy to defend against literary snobs at the level of the sentence. Not here. Brown keeps lugging in nuggets from his library: "Nowadays, few people realised that the four-year schedule of modern Olympic Games still followed the cycles of Venus." Otherwise, he favours clunking, one-line plot-quickeners: "Andorra, he thought, feeling his muscles tighten." French characters speak in American, while occasionally throwing in a "précisement" to flap their passport at us.
 
Criticism won't hurt Brown, who can probably now buy an island with his royalties and a second one with the film rights. The author has, though, recently found himself on the end of an unwanted conspiracy theory: another writer has accused him of plagiarism. In strongly denying this, Brown employed a striking defence: that the points of overlap were clichés which were part of the genre of the thriller and therefore belonged to no one writer.
 
This admission of unoriginality may further anger readers and writers annoyed by seeing something as preposterous and sloppy (one terrible howler involves the European passport system) as The Da Vinci Code on its way to selling millions. But the success of this book is due not to the writing but to post-9/11 therapy. It tells so many Americans what they want to hear: that everything is meant. In doing so, Brown has cracked the bestseller code.