Review of "Cherry Blossoms in the Storm"

by Mary Allen

After the death of the father, an Japanese American  family is forced to separate for financial reasons. Two sons are sent to live with an uncle in Japan while the youngest remains in America with their mother. By the time Pearl Harbor is bombed the oldest son has yet to return. The family finds their loyalty and patriotism questioned on both sides of the ocean and their faith is tested. 

Akira, the son in Japan, is in love with a beautiful young woman whom he may lose when her father arranges a marriage for her. Meanwhile, their attendance at forbidden Bible meetings puts them both in danger. As the war heats up and personal rivalries break out, his American citizenship makes him a target. Conscripted into the army will he survive? Will their love?

The second son and his wife consider themselves fully American despite being rounded up at gunpoint and treated as enemies. They are moved into an overcrowded internment camp where their family of five lives in a single horse stall with others. They seek peaceful, godly ways to change the terrible conditions in the internment and prove their loyalty to the country they love. Will his efforts cause his death?

The youngest rails against being imprisoned unjustly. He chooses a more volatile path to draw attention their desperate situation. After the heavy price he pays, will he ever throw off hatred and submit his life to Christ?

The story pulled me along. I wanted to know what happened to each of these characters. I was concerned whether the family would be reunited. Would healing and forgiveness?   

The experiences at Japanese internment camps in WWII was an eye-opener, even though I was aware of this piece of American history. "Cherry Blossoms in the Storm"  is a historical romance that will interest anyone who enjoys reading about that time period. However, I think the telling of a Japanese story puts a different twist on this era. I also believe that it would make great supplemental reading for history students as it displays a little known event of WWII in an understandable and interesting way.

Alternating chapters deal with the simultaneous stories. The Japanese culture, formal and polite, is felt in the cadence of the writing. The familiar American culture is also expressed. In fact, the dialogue of the youngest son held a relaxed, even cocky tone that is common to American teens.

Authors Robert and Gail Kaku are third generation Japanese. The story is not based on family experience, because the family chose not to reveal this painful part of their history. However, it is close to their hearts. While the story is one of  hope despite tragedy during WWII, the message of hope of Christ in any circumstance is universal and true. May that message touch every reader.

Falling in Love with Romance

I don’t bill myself as a romance writer, so it’s a little confounding that “Kiss and Tell – How to write a Romance” by Susan May Warren could seduce me into reading how to write better romance.

I knew there was a formula to it, but I didn’t really realize how knowledge of the different parts could strengthen other genres, such as sci-fi, fantasy, suspense, or my women’s fiction which often carries a romantic undercurrent or even a subplot with romantic relationship.

Many of the ingredients for a romance are quite expected. The boy must meet the girl. They each must be vulnerable to romance, even if, especially if, they don’t think they are ready. Specific reasons must exist that deem they belong together. Of course, that would all be rather uninteresting if something or someone didn’t also conspire to keep them apart. It only follows that situations happen that throw them together and create that desperately euphoric and confusing state of love, also known as wooing.

This is much like shifting the dry ingredients of a cake. (If you’re an action-oriented person insert: mixing the inert ingredients of an explosive formula.) What comes next is the delicate balance that stirs things up and makes things happen. Think eggs, water, oil and vanilla, if you’re going with the cake analogy. Things get gloppy and gooey and thick and yummy. (Action buffs, think nitrate oxide and detonators…)

Dialogue should sizzle with romantic tension. Romantic tension should lead to physical connection – no, not that, I’m talking about a kiss. Just enough to get a ten-year-old to cover the eyes and say, “Is there going to be a lot of kissing in this?” Immediately follow this with a big breakup that feels like the Titanic hitting the iceberg.

Finally, problems are resolved, healing takes place, the reason they belong together shines through like a sunbeam piercing storm clouds. Hear the music playing? A sigh and a sense of satisfaction should follow, if you’ve done it correctly. If not, you’re apt to say, “not as good as a Twinkie” or “Where’s the Pop-Bang? Why didn’t the earth move? Is that It?”

Just as sitting under an expert’s tutelage can teach you how to bake a better cake—and think how many, different kinds of cake there are—or train you to be the next McGyver, reading “Kiss and Tell” can help you craft a better romance, a better sci-fi, a better fantasy, a better women’s fiction. I highly recommend it.

Mary Allen stays busy training her “big galoot” GWP when she isn’t writing and selling poetry, performing at Arts in the Park, producing press releases, blogging on Hoosier Ink and The Barn Door, chasing a three-year-old Grand, developing devotionals on Face Book Poet And Writer Mary Allen or dreaming up catchy future titles such as “Diary of a Late-life Curmudgeon”. 

Until next month,

                                            Mary Allen

Dee Henderson's Undetected

                                                          By Kelly Bridgewater

As a young girl, I gravitated toward mysteries as my chosen genre. Yes, I owned every Baby-sitter Club and  Sweet Valley High or University book when they came out. But the mystery books in both of their series where my favorite. Going to the library during the summer for their summer reading program was an hour bike ride away from my house. My mother would load all three of us children up on our bikes around nine o’clock once the chores were done, and we would head to the library. I devoured every single Nancy Drew (there were only 60 when I was reading them) and Encyclopedia Brown book. Returning home, we stopped at White Castles for lunch and pedaled the rest of the way home. Arriving at home, I would lie on the floor and absorb the words Carolyn Keene wrote on the page. Usually by the end of the day, I would have one of the books done. By the end of the week, I would need to return to the library to check out more books because I already finished what I read.

            This love of mysteries expanded to my adult life. Working at Light and Life Christian Bookstore right out of high school, I became more knowledgeable about Christian authors besides C.S. Lewis, Robin Jones Gunn, Max Lucado, and the Left Behind Series. While working the late shift at work, the bookstore wasn’t as busy, so we were allowed to read books while there were no customers around. One of my fellow employees was reading a book with an interesting cover. It turned out to be The Healer by Dee Henderson. It had just come out, and he was totally invested in the plot line. Up until that point in my reading life, I didn’t know there were Christian authors who wrote in the suspense genre. Another perk of working at the bookstore, we could check out any book on the shelf, read it, and then return it. Being curious, I checked out The Negotiator by Dee Henderson. My love of Christian romantic suspense blossomed. Within a week, I tore through every single book by Dee Henderson. Still today, I recommend all her books to anyone wanting a new book.

With the release of Dee Henderson’s new book, Undetected, I’m excited to tear into the plot poured on to the page. Unfortunately, after finishing the 476 page plot, I wasn’t as impressed as I was with her O’Malley’s series. This book would be better categorized as contemporary romance than a romantic suspense. Being a writer of romantic suspense, I have studied authors such as Dee Henderson, Kathy Herman, Colleen Coble, Brandilyn Collins, etc to learn the craft. There is NO suspense in the entire book. The plot revolves around the budding relationship between Commander Mark Bishop and Gina Gray. A suspenseful moment occurs during the black moment, but nothing happens to put either of the hero or the heroine’s life at stake.

          As a writer, one of the first things told not to do in a story was to bore the reader with back-story or technical jargon or the author will lose the reader. The first 100 pages are basically filled with submarine and sonar vernacular. I, however, flipped the pages skimming for dialogue to show some action happening on the page. Because of this problem, the story that didn’t center around the romance of Mark and Gina dragged and had me skimming through the story.  

        Dee Henderson did a good job at developing their relationship slowly like a real relationship would happen. But one of other problems I had with the plot was the idea of Mark Bishop and Daniel, a fellow sonar Navy man, who was interested in Gina. Mark and Daniel have a few discussions about their joint interest in Gina. Mark and Daniel talked about Gina in a polite and non-argumentive way, which I found really, really unrealistic. I, personally, would have enjoyed seeing Mark and Daniel argue with each other about who would earn Gina’s heart and, ultimately, her hand in marriage.

      In my opinion, the book should delete the first 100 pages, and be labeled as a contemporary romance with more heat between Daniel and Mark Bishop as they fight to prove themselves worthy of Gina.

If you have read the book, do you agree with my review or did other plot points bother you?

Kelly Bridgewater holds a B.S. in English and a M.A. in Writing from Indiana State University on the completion of a creative thesis titled Fleeting Impressions, which consisted of six original short stories. She has been published in the Indiana State University Literary Journal, Allusions, with her stories titled “Moving On” and “Life Changing Second.” In fall 2011, she presented her essay, Northanger Abbey: Structurally a Gothic Novel, at the Midwestern American Society of 18^th Century Studies Conference. Kelly’s writing explores the ideas of good prevailing over evil in suspense. Kelly and her husband reside with their three boys and two dogs.