Book Report: Welcome to the Fallen Paradise

Welcome to the Fallen Paradise
by Dayne Sherman



From the back cover:

Baxter Parish, Louisiana, is a bloody place where family tradition is stronger than the law and pride more valuable than life. Thirty-year-old Jesse Tadlock returns home to claim his inheritance after a peaceful, if not dull, twelve-year Army hitch. With a steady job, a past love back in his life, and his own land, he thinkgs he's outlasted the legacy of violence that has hunted his family.
But the morning after his first night in his new home, a neighbor turns up at his door with a loaded rifle on his arm and a bloodthirsty pit bull in tow. Balem 'Cotton' Moxley says he was born in this house and he'll die there, or Jesse will.
With his Uncle Red pushing him to deal with the threat the old way--meeting fist with blade, bullet with bomb--at odds with his desire for a simple peace, Jesse must find a way to stand up and save his own, even if it means losing everything to the fires of pride.


First paragraphs:

Prologue

The sky was bold, the sun angry. The shade from the live oak was the only defense from the ten o'clock heat. My cousin Murphy Jr. was dead again. He'd died at least a half-dozen times before. He'd tried drinking rubbing alcohol for a dull buzz, Valium and Drano for immediate suicide, jumping from a tree into shallow water for a broken neck, riding bulls stoned, even knocking up Tank Johnson's fifteen-year-old daughter. He was saved every time, thanks to fervent prayer and modern medicine. But this one did the trick. Brakes failed on his Mustang convertible one night, coming down too fast over the Mississippi River Bridge in Baton Rouge. He never checked up. Went right underneath the tractor-trailer. Clipped his head from his neck like a shear pin splitting off a boat prop.

Book Report: A Life Without Consequences

A Life Without Consequences
by Stephen Elliot


From the back cover:

Paul is a ward of the court continually moved through the Chicago juvinile system. Paul tries to succeed in schools where children aren't taught to read. He tries to get straight in homes where drug abuse and violence are the norm and find affection in families where the children are constantly being moved and the gaurdians are paid six dollars an hour to look after kids they have no stake in or relation to.
A Life Without Consequences is the semi-autobiographical debut novel by Stephen Elliot.


First paragraphs:

I roll on the couch, silent like padded footsteps. A drity blue pillow softens my cheek. My mind is half white, half black. I roll in the couch, still asleep, still a child. The light from the window paints a pink haze under my eyelids. It's raining blows. Raining blows like so many moons on so many homeless nights, it's raining blows.

Book Report: The Dark River

The Dark River
by John Twelve Hawks


From the back cover:

Two brothers born into a race of Travelers--prophets able to journey to different realms of consciousness--have just discovered that their long lost father may still be alive. Gabriel, who could be humanity's savior, wants to protect him. Michael, however, wants to destroy his father and humanity's hope for freedom. As they race across the globe, their frantic search puts them on a collision course, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance.


First paragraph:

Prelude

Snowflakes began drifting down from the darkening sky as the members of New Harmony returned to their homes for dinner. The adults working on a retaining wall near the community center blew on their hands and talked about storm fronts, while the children cocked their heads backward, opened their mouths, and spun around trying to catch the ice crystals on their tongues.

Book Report: The Book of Joe

The Book of Joe
by Jonathan Tropper

From the back cover:

Right after high school, Joe Goffman left sleepy Bush Falls, Connecticut, and never looked back. Fifteen years later, he wrote a novel that savaged everyone in his hometown--then became a national bestseller and a huge hit movie. Of course, he never planned on going home again--until now...
Joe's father's had a stroke, so it's back to Bush Falls for the town's most famous pariah. Within hours of his arrival, Joe's return ignites a maelstrom of reactions: His brother avoids him; former classmates threaten to beat him up; and members of the book club just hurl their copies of Bush Falls at his house. But while Bush Falls may be less than thrilled to see Joe, it's becoming clear that Joe needed to see Bush Falls. As he walks the familiar streets, he revisits the terrible events of his senior year--1986--a year of passion, betrayal, and catastrophe from which he's never fully recovered. But after seventeen years of hiding from it, Joe is finally ready to face his past, and with the help of some old friends, he may actually learn something...if he manages to survive his homecoming.


First sentence:

Just a few scant months after my mother's suicide, I walked into the garage, looking for my baseball glove, and discovered Cindy Posner on her knees, animatedly performing fellatio on my older brother, Brad.

Book Report: Way of the Peaceful Warrior

Way of the Peaceful Warrior
by Dan Millman


From the back cover:
Despite his success, college student and world-champion athlete Dan Millman is haunted by a feeling that something is missing from his life. Awakened one night by dark dreams, he wanders into an all-night gas station. There he meets an old man named Socrates, and his world is changed forever. Guided by this eccentric old warrior and drawn to an elusive young woman named Joy, Dan begins a spiritual odyssey into realms of light and shadow, romance and mystery. His journey leads him toward a final confrontation that will deliver or destroy him.


First paragraph:

"Life begins," I thought, as I waved goodbye to Mom and Dad and pulled away from the curb in my reliable old Valiant, its faded white body stuffed with the belongings I'd packed for my first year at college. I felt strong, independent, ready for anything.

Book Report: The God of Animals

The God of Animals
by Aryn Kyle


From the back cover:

When her older sister runs away to marry a rodeo cowboy, twelve-year-old Alice Winston is left to bear the brunt of her family's troubles--a depressed, bedridden mother; a reticent, overworked father; and a run-down horse ranch in Desert Valley, Colorado. To make ends meet, the Winstons board the horses of rich neighbors, and as their lives become intertwined with the lives of their clients, Alice is drawn into an adult world of secrets and hard truths. She soon discovers that people--including herself--can be cruel, can lie and cheat, and every once in a while, can do something heartbreaking and selfless.


First paragraph:

Six months before Polly Cain drowned in the canal, my sister, Nona, ran off an married a cowboy. My father said there was a time when he would have been able to stop her, and I wasn't sure if he meant a time in our lives when she would have listened to him, or a time in history when the Desert Valley Sheriff's Posse would have been allowed to chase after her with torches and drag her back out to our house by her yellow hair. My father had been a member of the sheriff's posse since before I was born, and he said that the group was pretty much the same as the Masons, except without the virgin sacrifices. They paid dues, rode their horses in parades, and directed traffic at the rodeo where my sister met her cowboy. Only once in a great while were they called upon for a task of real importance, like clearing a fallen tree from a hunting trail, or pulling a dead girl out of the canal.