Acquired Book By: I have been hosting blog tours with Cedar Fort Publishing and Media for several years now, wherein their new blog tour publicist (Ms Sydney Anderson) also runs her own publicity touring company: Singing Librarian Book Tours (or SLB Tours for short!). I happily joined her team of book bloggers as a hostess in late Spring, 2018 wherein my first tours with her as a hostess began Summer, 2018. I appreciate reading INSPY literature and was happy to find these are most of the stories she is showcasing through SLB Tours! Most of her authors are published through Cedar Fort, though she does work with authors who are either Self-Published or Indie published through different publishers as well.
I received a complimentary copy of “to Walk in his Moccasins” direct from the publisher Bonneville Books (an imprint of Cedar Fort Inc.) in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
My main takeaways from reading “The Painting on the Pond”:
I admit, I struggled at first to get the rhythm of this novel – as the dialogue and the narrative were a bit on the raw side of delivery. I understood the gist of what Ms Koho was trying to impart to us – as she was attempting to set the scene and apply the layers of what drew the wider lens of suspense around this singular entrance of her lead character – for her artist was newly arrived in an awe-inspiring area of the country where his renewal in his creative pursuits is one-part inspired by his surroundings and one-part enabled by his change in locale (ie. having relocated from the city). However, having said that – a lot of the opening bridge is being told to us rather than enveloping us inside his head – into his thoughts and allowing us to see what is happening to him or rather still, what he is feeling through his emotions. A lot of start and stops, if you will, as I had to re-align how she began the story in order to get into sync with her writing.
Ms Koho has instilled a beautiful ghost story into the background of her novel – one which involves an old estate, a lost love and a woman who refused to give in to what life revealled. Her true strength is her convicting narrative – where you get to alight in her thoughts, seeing how she wants you to see her characters and it is the better half of the novel. She likes to enlarge your perception and get you to think about the different possibilities before she reveals what is truly going on.
Where she errors a bit is showing dialogue and conversation – something I admit, is one of the harder bits to writing, as being a writer myself, I’ve had my own struggles with both of these concepts, which is why I noticed the disconnections. It isn’t that she isn’t on the right track with the dialogue, it’s merely the fact the words don’t joss together correctly. The words feel a bit on the forced side of the ledger rather than the ease of a conversation you’d feel comfortable having aloud with a friend or acquaintance of your own. That’s the trick and proof in the pudding – how dialogue sounds aloud!
One thing Ms Koho relies a lot on is the presumption we’ll go along with believing the suspenseful bits – it’s hard to describe really – I read a lot of Mysteries, Suspense & Thriller stories – but I like the aspect about them where I feel lost inside the ambiance of where the writers are taking me. Where I don’t have it all sorted out, where the more ominous undertones are not as readily apparent as they could be – their more elusive and aloof. In this story, sometimes the suspense gets a bit blurry – there are pieces of clarity here and there, but other times, your being told quite a lot of what you’d rather see through the character’s eyes or experiences. Plus, not everything should feel a bit too neat and too tidy to where the illusion is lost.
-quoted from my review of The Painting on the Pond
to Walk in his Moccasins
Subtitle: sequel to The Painting on the Pond
by Sharon Lewis Koho
Source: Direct from publisher via SLB Tours
Betrayed in the rugged wilderness of Alaska, Jerry Stone has narrowly escaped death, thanks to a desperate rescue by his friends David Young and Rachel Duncan. Injured and in agony, he is flown to a hospital more than a thousand miles from home. However, his own suffering is soon forgotten as he comes to understand the meaning of true courage from a little Indian boy.
Laced with intrigue, adventure, love, and forgiveness, this powerful concluding sequel is a story of supreme loyalty and friendship.
Places to find the book:
ISBN: 9781555178789
Also by this author: The Painting on the Pond
Also in this series: The Painting on the Pond
Genres: Inspirational Fiction & Non-Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Suspense
Published by Bonneville Books
on 1st August, 2008
Format: Trade Paperback
Pages: 245
Published By: Bonneville Books (@BonnevilleBooks),
an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc (@CedarFort)
Available Formats: Paperback, Ebook
NOTE: Generally speaking, in my experience of reading stories published under the imprint of Bonneville Books, it means the story will be LDS Fiction – rooted in the Mormon faith, however, I did not find this to be the case in regards to the novel ‘The Painting on the Pond’. If anything, it was very lightly INSPY, in regards to the characters acknowledged their spirituality in gentle undertones throughout the content of the story – they prayed and they were open about their concerns, fears, etc but there wasn’t a moment where I would say this was ‘definitively LDS’ as other releases from Bonneville Books would have been as they focused more on the traditions of being Mormon.
The Painting on the Pond Series:
The Painting on the Pond is a prequel for To Walk in His Moccasins which makes me believe this series could in theory be a duology and completely contained within these two installments.
Converse via: #INSPY #Suspense & #RealisticFiction
About Sharon Lewis Koho
Sharon Lewis Koho grew up on a small ranch near the town of Inkom, Idaho. Her beloved father died when she was five years old, and she and her siblings were reared in humble circumstances by a hard-working and courageous mother.
In her youth, Sharon discovered she could create any world she wanted to visit, or any story she wanted to be a part of by climbing high in the trees bordering her cherished ranch. Daydreaming there amid songs of birds, rustling leaves and the babbling of the nearby creek, inspired many wonderful stories. Sharon married Bill Koho from Nampa, Idaho in 1967, and they were married thirty years until his death in 1997.
She is the proud mother of six children. Although she is a Licensed Practical Nurse by profession, she has had much more experience in creating and telling stories. Her favorite thing to do is to spend time with her children and grandchildren. She also enjoys visiting, traveling, camping, reading, writing, swimming, and any adventurous idea that pops into her head.
my review of to walk in his moccasins:
After I finished reading the first installment of this series, I will be honest – I wasn’t sure what to expect when I went to read the second half of this duology, as the first one left me feeling conflicted all the way round. There were portions of the story I enjoyed but overall, I felt it fell a bit flat, where I was more removed from the characters than I ought to have been and where the story itself didn’t linger on the edges of my heart but rather was one which irked me a bit to sort out the rhythm. As soon as I opened this novel, the Prologue paints a happy-go-lucky picture of a loving couple on the verge of getting married – less than two pages later, the story takes an about-face right turn and lands the lead character (Jerry) in the trauma ward of a hospital due to major traumatic injuries sustained in a way we can only speculate over as those details are not readily disclosed.
Despite the uncomfortable opening to this novel, one thing which Ms Koho excelled at showing is what a person goes through from point of trauma on scene to being air lifted out to the hospital and finally being treated by a rotation of doctors and nurses. You had a flicker of this appreciation in The Painting on the Pond but it has resumed with such acute descriptive details within to Walk in his Moccasins there isn’t too much left for your imagination. I was once again finding myself wondering if I should brace for medical bits which might feel a bit too heavy to shift through but relaxed finding Jerry’s temper was more substantial than the grittier details which were omitted.
The interesting bit to note is in the first half of this duology featured David who was injured and Jerry was left bereft for not knowing what to do to help his friend and now the roles are reversed though slightly worse really if you consider he’s lost his fiancé! I had wondered where the story-line would pick up the threads of the last novel and now I know: the lost mine is what is centered and focused upon now – sorting out where it was located in order to re-claim what was rightfully the heirs inheritance. What I was missing of course, was the expedition to find the lost claim, of sorting out where the cave was located – as instead, true to the nature of how Ms Koho writes, she relayed the information to us vs. allowing us to feel as if we’ve experienced the discovery ourselves. In fact, everything was wrapped up so neat and tight on this end of the suspense of the series, I found myself less drawn to finishing reading to Walk in his Moccasins as the plot felt too unbelievable now.
I gave her the benefit of the doubt throughout The Painting on the Pond, even after the plot became predictable but the second time around?! To find the same issues tracking through this story-line and the same issues of feeling as if I could predict the actions of the characters before their revealling those actions to me felt more tedious to muddle through than any other story I’ve previously tackled because it takes the joy out of it. Part of the allure of reading for me is being caught up in the character’s journey – of finding traction with their own footprints and feeling as if I’ve exchanged my life for theirs for the moments I have to spend with them. I want to feel as if I’ve lived a different life – having everything ironed out for me is short-changing the reason why I read.
The main thread of interest is also noting how Alaska is still very much a raw and wild place to visit – where medical emergencies are compounded by the fact air rescue has to travel miles upon miles to reach the victims after which all thrive on prayer thereafter til a hospital is reached. Of all the states, Alaska has the least amount of trauma and stroke centers as well as an extreme shortage of hospitals. Most of the residents have to rely on travelling doctors, specialists, nurses or even midwifes in order to make it through the everyday medical needs they have outside of the men and women who fly the helios to transport them to the major cities of Fairbanks and Anchorage who house the medical communities.This isn’t known as the last territory of undiscovered terrain for nothing! You have to be strong in both spirit and mind in order to overcome the hurdles you could face whilst living there!
I still felt like this novel had the same pacing issues as the first one – where there were moments of clarity within the narrative and then, it would shift back to teetering off a bit at a slower pace to where you hoped someone or something would intervene to knit it back together on the track it should be focusing on instead. Also, of note is how Ms Koho falls back on ‘telling’ the story to you rather than letting you experience it as the characters go through the motions. This is a rather frustrating part of the series, as it leads you to piecing together the puzzles of what is being left unsaid far ahead of what is warranted. In some regards, it opens up a plot which can easily be guessed without feeling as if you have a surprise awaiting you in the final chapters.
Where it turnt a bit more interesting (at least for me) is when it was introduced Rachel is a biracial character – of both Caucasian and Native American ancestry. I had a feeling there was going to be an introduction somewhere along the way for this to shift from one culture to another, but I hadn’t expected it to be through the character of Rachel. Quite obvious, she is the sister to the brother who ran off with Jerry’s ex-fiancé; rather than having them share a ‘meet-cute’ situation at the hospital as she’s a qualified nurse, it was written towards the fact they were already known to each other and Rachel played a part in his survival of his accident (which still hasn’t been fully disclosed).
Shortly after this revelation, my mind couldn’t stay tethered to the story – more tells were given, less suspense was held back from the reader’s point of view and overall, if your filling in the blanks of what could happen to each of the characters, you’ve reached the point you simply need to put the book down. I tried to see past the errors and the difficulties of alighting through an awkwardly paced story, but in the end, it was the predictability of the plot, the under-developed characters and the lack of emotional connection to any of the characters which left this as a DNF for me rather than an enjoyable second reading.
This Blog Tour Stop is courtesy of SLB Tours and Cedar Fort, Inc:
Follow the Virtual Road Map
by visiting the blog tour route:
especially as this is a tour offering the chance to win copies of the books
I look forward to reading your thoughts & commentary! Especially if you read the book or were thinking you might be inclined to read it. I appreciate hearing different points of view especially amongst readers who picked up the same story to read.
{SOURCES: Book cover of “The Painting on the Pond” & “To Walk in His Moccasins”, synopsis for “The Painting on the Pond”, the blog tour banner and SLB Tours badge were all provided by SLB Tours and used with permission. Post dividers badge by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets were embedded due to codes provided by Twitter. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: Book Review Banner using Unsplash.com (Creative Commons Zero) Photography by Frank McKenna and the Comment Box Banner.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2018.
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