Category: Cape Cod

Blog Book Tour | “The Vineyard” by Michael Hurley

Posted Wednesday, 12 November, 2014 by jorielov , , 3 Comments

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The Vineyard by Michael Hurley

Published By: Ragbagger Press
Available Formats: Trade Paperback, E-book

Converse on Twitter via:#TheVineyard

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Acquired Book By: I was selected to be a tour stop on the “The Vineyard” virtual book tour through TLC Book Tours. I received a complimentary copy of the book direct from the author Michael Hurley, in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Note about the Cover Art Design:

Prior to receiving the novel for review, there was a discussion threaded through TLC Book Tours via Twitter on which cover art design we would vote for in regards to the cover art for this particular novel. I must confess, I didn’t quite understand why the woman underwater would make any sense to be used, as I voted for the cover that placed the image of a woman at the edge of the shore instead. At least, I believe that was the scene I opted to choose, as it was a bit ago since I cast my vote! It wasn’t until I opened up the first chapter of “The Vineyard” that I had realised the basis for the cover image is the fact one of the women in the story is contemplating ending her life; and of all the methods available to her it is drowning in the ocean that appeals to her the most. On this level, the feeling of overwhelming emotion and to be put within the vise of a life-altering choice between life and death; yes, the cover art makes a bit more sense. The title however, I do agree was slightly misleading if you did not realise it was the shortened name for “Martha’s Vineyard” in regards to where the story is set.

The author included a small bookmark with the original cover art on display, which was a green and blue colour theme with leaves of a vine between both colours which take up 50% of the space for the cover itself. Almost as if the leaves were an underlay and overlay at the same time. To me it clued in to a dimensional thread of narrative where what is not readily known or able to be seen becomes a puncture of emotional drama. Or perhaps I prefer ambient gestures in cover art sometimes as opposed to curious images that do not always feel they are a strong fit such as the woman underwater tipping her finger to the surface. It does paint a different image altogether when pondering the story itself.

Blog Book Tour | “The Vineyard” by Michael HurleyThe Vineyard
by Michael Hurley
Source: Author via TLC Book Tours

Ten years after college, three very different women reunite for a summer on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. As they come to grips with various challenges in their lives, their encounter with a reclusive fisherman threatens to change everything they believe about their world—and each other.

Genres: Literary Fiction



Places to find the book:

Published by Ragbagger Press

on 25th November, 2014

Format: Paperback

Pages: 384

About Michael Hurley

Michael Hurley and his wife Susan live near Charleston, South Carolina. Born and raised in Baltimore, Michael holds a degree in English from the University of Maryland and law from St. Louis University.
The Prodigal, Michael’s debut novel from Ragbagger Press, received the Somerset Prize for mainstream fiction and numerous accolades in the trade press, including Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, ForeWord Reviews, BookTrib, Chanticleer Reviews, and IndieReader. It is currently in development for a feature film by producer Diane Sillan Isaacs. Michael’s second novel, The Vineyard, is due to be released by Ragbagger Press in December 2014.
Michael’s first book, Letters from the Woods, is a collection of wilderness-themed essays published by Ragbagger Press in 2005. It was shortlisted for Book of the Year by ForeWord magazine. In 2009, Michael embarked on a two-year, 2,200 mile solo sailing voyage that ended with the loss of his 32-foot sloop, the Gypsy Moon, in the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti in 2012. That voyage and the experiences that inspired him to set sail became the subject of his memoir, Once Upon A Gypsy Moon, published in 2013 by Hachette Book Group.
When he is not writing, Michael enjoys reading and relaxing with Susan on the porch of their rambling, one-hundred-year-old house. His fondest pastimes are ocean sailing, playing piano and classical guitar, cooking, and keeping up with an energetic Irish terrier, Frodo Baggins.

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My Review of The Vineyard:

Charlotte Harris a mother on a mission to save her daughter’s soul in death and to quell the anguish of her mother’s heart from the disillusionment her life became in the circumstances which catapulted her from a woman with a zest of life to one who was broken by the absurdity of regulations of the Catholic Church; at least to her mind and reason. Any mother grieving the loss of her deceased child would feel bound by angst out of spiteful rules that felt cruel and indifferent to the choices she had wanted to give her daughter; the baptismal blessing of a daughter whose mother wanted her to align on the side of Heaven was given a hard choice between accepting the limits of her faith and pursuing a route towards self-redemption. Her entire state of mind within the opening chapter hinges between sanity and the furrowing line of insanity — a sanction only Charlotte Harris could make a discernible ascertain as to which line she was living at that particular moment.

Charlotte received an invitation to the Vineyard which would single-handedly allow her to shape where her destiny was attempting to align her stars — Dory, the vagabond free-spirit friend of her youth encouraged her a Summery respite from the city to spend time with her by the ocean and hours filled to the brim with spontaneity. Dory was the type of friend who saw a friend spiraling into a well of depression and before it could be fully rotated into a sea of darkness, attempts to pull you out of your malaise. Dory’s family is old money as they say, a woman of means who lives an ordinary life (by her own justifications) but Charlotte is straight-up middle class with insecurities about her body image as much as the choices she made in life that feel unwarranted of declaring she lived life well.

Charlotte is a strong willed woman whose mission to greet her daughter in the in-between worlds of life and death blurred a bit whilst she attempted the unthinkable. In one figurative moment of where you could not back out of a course you struck out on, an intervention is given on behalf of what could have been Charlotte’s final hour. There is an immediate mystery surrounding how Charlotte is found bobbling offshore in a boat she doesn’t even remember taking out on her own as much as the identity of the person she’s convinced saved her life. Meanwhile, a third woman joins Dory and Charlotte; Turner who appears to be stuck in her own void whilst seizing an opportunity to promote Charlotte’s mysterious resurrection on her blog. The story not only goes viral but becomes the turning point for how their lives are suddenly stop drifting and start taking a trajectory that has merit of being explored.

Terminal illnesses play a central focus on the story – which I was a bit surprised to find but they are included at different integral parts of the novel. In regards to Charlotte’s daughter and in regards to the health of her beloved friend Dory; I generally steer clear of stories involving terminal illnesses due to the heavy weight of the yoke these stories affect on my mind and heart. However, I can say, that despite the heaviness of the subject they are treated with respect and consideration not only for the reader but for the characters who are living through the circumstances as revelations become known to them.

The issues started to arise for me after the mid-way point of the novel, where the entire foundation of where I felt this story was taking me ended up being shattered by a completely different story-line. Prior to my detachment with the novel and stopping to read it forthwith, I was perplexed by how the style and tone of the novel changed so suddenly. I had originally felt this about the writing style of the author:

Hurley has an incredible arc of characterising the level of depth a human can emote through life as much as internalise in an attempt to process what is perceived, felt, and layered into our unconscience. He knits into his story a level of uncanny perceptive intuition, where the details he describes are both perspicacious and viscerally accurate. His narrative prose gives this literary novel an elevation of tone, body, and attachment to the reader’s own ruminations to fall in step with the words he’s left behind for us to read off the printed page.

Yet at the point where I stopped reading his novel, I no longer felt the same. The transition from the first half to the second half of The Vineyard simply did not sit well with me. Especially as it explores the darker side of how vulnerable women can be taken advantage of, but the fact that the assault is attached to the priest was stepping a bit too far outside the lines of where I want to see a story shift forward. Prior to that moment, I appreciated the intuitiveness of his writing, but afterwards, I felt as though I wasted my time reading the built-up of emotional drama.

On the writing style of Michael Hurley:

Although I grew up in an industry akin and adjacent to the life of a medical examiner, the way in which Hurley chooses to describe the desperate act of a mother resolute in her belief that committing suicide is the only way in which to free her child and herself in oblique harmony can only be taken straight from an medical examiner’s journal of cases. Yet even within the framework of how the act could theoretically be carried through, he gives his character a pause to allow reason and the humanistic desire of holding onto life a chance to breathe. He gives Charlotte the window of exploring the depths of her soul and the gutting reality of a mother who has lost her child; allowing her the time to sort through her emotional heart and her soul wrenched memories of gutting grief.

Having the fisherman who gives Charlotte the shrimp in the beginning a scant view of the note Charlotte intended to leave behind for Dory to find was a nice eclipse of tide. It gave Charlotte a crimson flush of embarrassment yes, but it also alerted her mind to realise she was in a deeply wrought depression. A stop-start of realisation of where her act could lead and how it would affect everyone in her wake of sudden death.

Fly in the Ointment:

At first the inclusions of stronger choices of words was intermittent and infrequent, but by the time I reached the middle of the novel, they became a bit more repetitive and inclusive. They are still not the main focal point of the tone or voice of the novel itself, as they are included in moments of high tension and/or emotional disbelief. However, I will always contend I can read a novel without any vulgarity within its pages and still perceive the eclipse of the emotional turbulence all the same.

I do have issues with stories that involve impropriety between spiritual leaders and their flock; as it simply isn’t a story-line I would normally walk into blind. I originally felt this was a story rooted in sisterhood friendships and a life affirmative jaunt of a Summer where they would renew their spirits whilst celebrating their friendship. What I received instead is a darkening cloud of a drama leading me into a story I felt I hadn’t signed up to read. If that one thread of narrative had been removed, it would have told a completely different story. One that I might have wanted to finish reading.

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This blog tour stop was courtesy of TLC Book Tours:
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TLC Book Tours | Tour Host

See what I am hosting next by stopping by my Bookish Events page!

I created a list on Riffle to share the books that I simply could not become attached to as a reader myself, but stories which would benefit a reader to find them, and appreciate them for what each writer gave to their story. For me, the reason I included The Vineyard is because I did not feel it appropriate to explore the infidelity and impropriety of a priest nor to have such an illicit disconnect from the opening first half of the novel tot he middle portion. Therefore, this is now listed on my Riffle List entitled: Stories Seeking Love from Readers.

{SOURCES: Cover art of “The Vineyard”, author photograph, author biography, book synopsis and the tour badge were all provided by TLC Book Tours and used with permission. Blog Tour badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination.}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2014.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

  • Go Indie
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Posted Wednesday, 12 November, 2014 by jorielov in Balance of Faith whilst Living, Blog Tour Host, Cancer Scare, Cape Cod, Catholicism, Clever Turns of Phrase, Death, Sorrow, and Loss, Diet Weight & Body Image, Disillusionment in Marriage, Divorce & Martial Strife, Family Drama, Fly in the Ointment, Go Indie, Grief & Anguish of Guilt, Indie Author, Life of Thirty-Somethings, Life Shift, Light vs Dark, Literary Fiction, Mental Health, Modern Day, Mother-Daughter Relationships, Near-Death Experience, Passionate Researcher, Reading Challenges, Realistic Fiction, Self-Harm Practices, Terminal Illness &/or Cancer, TLC Book Tours, Vulgarity in Literature, Women's Fiction, Women's Health, Wordsmiths & Palettes of Sage, Writing Style & Voice

+Blog Book Tour+ A Matter of Mercy by Lynne Hugo

Posted Tuesday, 30 September, 2014 by jorielov , , 1 Comment

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A Matter of Mercy by Lynne Hugo
Published By: Blank Slate Press (@blankslatepress) | Blog
Official Author Websites:  Site | @LynneHugo| GoodReads | Facebook
Available Formats: Trade Paper

Converse via: #AMatterOfMercy

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Acquired Book By:

I was selected to be a tour stop on the “A Matter of Mercy” virtual book tour through TLC Book Tours. I received a complimentary ARC copy of the book direct from the publisher Blank Slate Press, in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

+Blog Book Tour+ A Matter of Mercy by Lynne HugoA Matter of Mercy
by Lynne Hugo
Source: Direct from Publisher

Caroline Marcum thought she’d escaped the great mistake of her life by leaving Wellfleet harbor, but is forced to face it when she returns, reluctantly, to care for her dying mother. Ridley Neal put his past-and his prison term-behind him to return home to take over his father’s oyster and clam beds. Casual acquaintances long ago, when a nor’easter hits the coast, Rid and Caroline’s lives intersect once again. When Rid and two other sea farmers are sued by the wealthy owners of vacation homes who want to shut them down, and Caroline accidentally meets the person she most wronged, they each must learn to trust-and love.

Inspired by a 1996 lawsuit, A Matter of Mercy is a riveting novel about treasuring the traditional way of life in the shallows of beautiful Cape Cod bay by discovering where forgiveness ends. And where it begins.

Genres: Contemporary (Modern) Fiction (post 1945)



Places to find the book:

Published by Blank Slate Press

on 1st August, 2014

Pages: 278

Author Biography:

Lynne Hugo

Lynne Hugo is a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship recipient who has also received grants from the Ohio Arts Council and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. She has published five previous novels, one of which became a Lifetime Original Movie of the Month, two books of poetry, and a children’s book. Her memoir, Where The Trail Grows Faint, won the Riverteeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize. Born and educated in New England, she and her husband currently live in Ohio with a yellow Lab feared by squirrels in a three state area.

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My Review of A Matter of Mercy:

The pull of narrative evoking out of the initial chapters of A Matter of Mercy propell the reader into a haunting ether-world between reality and the expanse of the next life past the one we walk on Earth. The emotional tug of understanding a daughter is on the precipice of saying good-bye to her mother, whose walk is ending through cancer is magnified by the subtlety of the setting being as serene and calm as a whisper of hope. You walk straight into the anguish of near-loss, ebbing out of the shadows of a recovered life being lived first by the daughter and then by an unknown secondary character who alights unexpectedly across the page during a random visit to the beach. You gather a foreboding sense there is an enriched history within the pages of the novel – stemming out of the place it is set as much as the characters who occupy it’s heart.

Although I had known the story was etched out of a daughter watching over her dying mother’s last days, reading the emotional taut passages choked my mind with the despair and the distraught feelings Caroline was facing as she tried to be brave in the face of uncertainty. There is no guideline to follow when your loved one is terminally ill and her character is writ with realistic truth of how a daughter musters the strength to deal with the routine of caregiving and the fleeting worry of unspoken conversations which emerge out of the fog of morphine.

Whilst reading about the tenacity the shell fishermen curate out of the angst of breathing a living out of a gamble against stacked odds made me re-value the delicacy of seafood; wild, caught, and captured by those whose belief in their trade outweigh the logic of the tides. A living brokered against the will to survive on less than a living wage whilst building their harvest is the measure of true grit and true iron spirit of survival. I was quite impressed with the interworkings of the way in which all of this takes place just offshore and away from land and sand. An entire world of a hard-won livelihood barely known to those outside the place in which the world exists.

I struggled to put my finger on the tone of the novel – the elusive narrative tone guiding the story forward at first felt like reading a realistic interlude of one woman’s story being interrupted through grief. On the opposite hand it felt like a grueling realistic quick-paced exploit of a law pervading through the hardworking men and women who lived off the grants for fishing off the shores where private land owners were attempting to upsurge their claims. I am normally not one who appreciates blatant and raw narratives, and although there were elements within this story I could appreciate and alight inside, there were full chapters where I had wished the roughness was polished out a bit more.

This is a story that aches with raw emotional tides of upturnt lives and washes out against the backdrop of two lives coming together from opposite backgrounds. The sincerity of their relationship felt stilted to me, as if they were simply being together out of necessity rather than any sort of honest attraction or mirth of reconciling their past. I felt myself pulled in and out of the story as it  proceeded to shift forward as I couldn’t find an anchor to keep me rooted in caring about how their lives were either going to continue to spiral out of control or find a bearing to make things right for once in their lives. I think it would be best for a reader to pick this novel up who appreciates stories that are more brutal in honesty and raw in intensity; whereas I appreciate stories that are rounded out a bit more and where the climax doesn’t feel as overpowering.

A direct appreciation for dedicated research & how a writer enhances their story:

Lynne Hugo deserves to be commended for the level of research she conducted to breathe authenticity into A Matter of Mercy, as even without a direct point of reference to clarify a few images wrought out of the trade of shellfishing, what I was able to grasp was the hardened life of those who walked the shores hoping their traps would yield a harvest they could live on. The certainty of how the imbalance of variables they cannot control ultimately wreck their fates was even more wrenching than realising how much joy they have in their work. Farmers of all backgrounds (by sea or land) are at the mercy of nature and the endurable buoyancy of trust and belief in what their able to harvest out of their endurance. It is a novel which breeches past the plate of where their toils end and humanises the reality of where the delicacies are procured.

Fly in the Ointment:

There was an undercurrent of abrasive language edging around the dialogue of the story, a bit intermittent and a bit unexpected in where it alighted in the thread of the narrative itself, but a presence that I cannot say added to the story itself but rather was inserted here or there. The only time I felt it might have relevancy is when Caroline’s mother started to use certain expressions in her conversations with her daughter – but rather than blame it on her terminal illness, it was blamed on a divorce. I had heard that sometimes people can change their personalities due to medications and due to life altering illnesses, so for me that felt more apparent of why she suddenly changed her spots for language rather than merely living a life alone without her husband.

I felt the entire arc of the story was hinged by two lost souls who were attempting to repair the damage they wrought out of bad choices and the sins of wrongs they could never fully find forgiveness for as the aftereffects ran too deep. What I hadn’t sorted out is why their emotional baggage was dispersed with a bit of recklessness and without a consequence or an emotional response. When Caroline first started to tell Rid for instance how she caused the fatality which took the life of a child, I found his sudden exit out of the scene and out of the conversation a bit circumvent and convenient. I was expecting an emotional response not a grab my clothes and leave without any hint of what his reaction could have been; as if she hadn’t spoken anything gutting at all.

I also had a small issue with Rid’s name itself – Rid I am sure makes sense to some who read this story, but for me, it felt like an annoyance, as though he had half a name rather than full name? Short for Ridley I must say I preferred the fullness of his name over the shortened nickname.

This blog tour stop was courtesy of TLC Book Tours:

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I positively *love!* comments in the threads below each of my posts, and happily CommentLuv only requires Email to leave a note for me! Kindly know that I appreciate each thought you want to share with me and all the posts on my blog are open to new comments & commentary! Short or long, I appreciate the time you spent to leave behind a note of your visit! Return again soon! 

{SOURCES: Cover art of “A Matter of Mercy”, author photograph, author biography, book synopsis and the tour badge were all provided by TLC Book Tours and used with permission. Blog Tour badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. Bookish Events badge created by Jorie in Canva. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination.}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2014.

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Posted Tuesday, 30 September, 2014 by jorielov in 20th Century, Aquaculture, ARC | Galley Copy, Based on an Actual Event &/or Court Case, Blog Tour Host, Cape Cod, Death, Sorrow, and Loss, Fly in the Ointment, Geographically Specific, Grief & Anguish of Guilt, Indie Author, Life Shift, Literary Fiction, Modern Day, Realistic Fiction, Terminal Illness &/or Cancer, TLC Book Tours, Vulgarity in Literature, Women's Health