Serials and Scenarios ~ A Slow Burn ~ Mary DeMuth Reviewed

This week, the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
A Slow Burn
Zondervan (October 1, 2009)
by
Mary DeMuth


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mary E. DeMuth is an expert in Pioneer Parenting. She enables Christian parents to navigate our changing culture when their families left no good faith examples to follow.

Her parenting books include Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture (Harvest House, 2007), Building the Christian Family You Never Had (WaterBrook, 2006), and Ordinary Mom, Extraordinary God (Harvest House, 2005).

Mary also inspires people to face their trials through her real-to-life novels, Watching The Tree Limbs
(nominated for a Christy Award) and Wishing On Dandelions (NavPress, 2006).

Mary has spoken at Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference, the ACFW Conference, the Colorado Christian Writers Conference, and at various churches and church planting ministries. She's also taught in Germany, Austria, Monaco, Italy, France, and the United States. Mary and her husband, Patrick, reside in Texas with their three children. They recently returned from breaking new spiritual ground in Southern France, and planting a church.



ABOUT THE BOOK


She touched Daisy’s shoulder. So cold. So hard. So unlike Daisy.

Yet so much like herself it made Emory shudder.

Burying her grief, Emory Chance is determined to find her daughter Daisy’s murderer—a man she saw in a flicker of a vision. But when the investigation hits every dead end, her despair escalates. As questions surrounding Daisy’s death continue to mount, Emory’s safety is shattered by the pursuit of a stranger, and she can’t shake the sickening fear that her own choices contributed to Daisy’s disappearance. Will she ever experience the peace her heart longs for?

The second book in the Defiance, Texas Trilogy, this suspenseful novel is about courageous love, the burden of regret, and bonds that never break. It is about the beauty and the pain of telling the truth. Most of all, it is about the power of forgiveness and what remains when shame no longer holds us captive.


Watch the video:



If you would like to read the first chapter of A Slow Burn, go HERE

My Review:

Emory Chance was a tragic character in last year's Daisy Chain. In Slow Burn, the story of Emory's loss and failures, she becomes even more tragic. Though Jed Pepper was a character who made my heart ache, Emory was one who frustrated and challenged me.
Mary DeMuth creates characters who behave in awful and ugly ways yet as she reveals the deepest, ugliest parts and pieces of them, she manages to do so with grace so that I found myself filled with pity for Emory and hoping that she'd escape from her emotional prisons.

The subject matter covered includes abuse, negligence, drug abuse, immorality and sensitive readers should consider that this is not your traditional Christian fiction.

At the end of A Slow Burn there is still the mystery of what happened to Daisy and who did it? I am compelled to finish this trilogy as I feel the need for closure and I want to read Ousie's story. I'm hoping that the Pepper family finds much grace and healing and that Emory finds complete and total peace.

DeMuth writes in a literary voice that sometimes crackles with intensity and sometimes oozes molasses-slow emotion into the storyline. Folks who don't care for introspective and deep fiction and the slowness that results may not find the series to their liking. I think people struggling with issues of faith and failures might find some hope and healing within the story of these very broken people and the God who loves them.

Serials and Scenarios ~ Daisy Chain

• Smallest
• Small
• Normal
• Large
• Largest

First Chapter is a must read. Click here. Visit Mary. Click on the bookcover to read more.



Mary has visited the Dregs...click here to read more.

About the book:

The abrupt disappearance of young Daisy Chance from a small Texas town in 1973 spins three lives out of control—Jed, whose guilt over not protecting his friend Daisy strangles him; Emory Chance, who blames her own choices for her daughter’s demise; and Ouisie Pepper, who is plagued by headaches while pierced by the shattered pieces of a family in crisis.

In this first book in the Defiance, Texas Trilogy, fourteen-year-old Jed Pepper has a sickening secret: He’s convinced it’s his fault his best friend Daisy went missing. Jed’s pain sends him on a quest for answers to mysteries woven through the fabric of his own life and the lives of the families of Defiance, Texas. When he finally confronts the terrible truths he’s been denying all his life, Jed must choose between rebellion and love, anger and freedom.

Daisy Chain is an achingly beautiful southern coming-of-age story crafted by a bright new literary talent. It offers a haunting yet hopeful backdrop for human depravity and beauty, for terrible secrets and God’s surprising redemption.


My Review:

Mary DeMuth's Daisy Chain transported me to Defiance,Texas, dropped me into the mid '70's and immersed me in the home of a wounded family. Jed is fourteen and has just lost his best friend and future wife. It's his fault, because he's weak and selfish and he wouldn't walk the little spitfire home because if he did, his daddy would be upset. And when daddy is upset bad things happen. Daddy is a preacher. Jed can't quite bring himself to stand up to daddy to protect his precious sister and his sickly, broken mom -- a mom who writes messages of love, encouragement, and sorrow on flower petals and leaves them by Jed's bed.

Jed's whole world is inside out and upside down. The town is holding its breath because Daisy is missing. And heaven is brass because God isn't listening to Jed, and apparently doesn't care to.

If this little sliver of drama turns you inside out and upside down you may not want to read this book. But if you are one who claims To Kill a Mockingbird or Peace Like a River as one of your favorite novels, you really owe it to yourself to look further into Daisy Chain. Tom Morrisey, Lisa Samson, Claudia Mair Burney, Charles Martin and W.Dale Cramer fans need to look in Mary DeMuth's direction as well.

This is a novel that will haunt me for weeks and months, probably landing on my 2009 favorite list. The characters are deep and rich, complex and challenging. The story is gut wrenching and awful, and beautiful and full of the power of love and faith and Jesus. I can't imagine anyone not being horrified and then blessed as this novel opens and blooms, bleeds, withers and fades. Technically, the only complaint I had was just a few moments of transition between the adult Jed and the younger versions of Jed, and a brief incident where a scene's timing didn't quite jive in my mind. And those issues are only because I read so many books for review and can't just get lost in pages and not look for flaws that might impede a reader's experience.

I so appreciated the depth of truth and faith in this novel. Daisy Chain could be a very tough book for some readers. Child endangerment, abuse, anger, bigotry, religious bullying, drinking and hints of sexual scandal are not buried under a layer of pristine Sunday-best white gloves. I do recommend Daisy Chain to anyone who hungers for honest fiction that doesn't leave one weeping over the hopelessness of a story without redemption and grace.

Serials and Scenarios - Color My World - Mary DeMuth

Mary really sums up color week nicely. Methinks I couldn't have created a better, more appropriate quote.

Mary, the fact that you are on my wavelength should frighten you. Or did you just want to save the world from another poem?

For the record...I still feel a poem coming on.


What crayon in the box describes you on a good day? Bad day? Which one do you aspire to be?

"Good day: periwinkle. I just love that color. It's the color of the sky in France. Bad day: plain old black because that reflects my mood. I want to be sunshine yellow."

I don't know about the rest of you, but French periwinkle skies are tempting. Especially if one could score a cute compact car in a sunny shade of yellow.

Mary has a new release ... check out her links ... click on her link below and you can read her first chapter.

God says I love you in many ways, some of which are hard to hear

Maranatha needs to hear God’s voice. At seventeen, Natha admittedly has some trust issues. Though the abuse by a neighbor boy has stopped, Natha is anything but healed. Now her best friend has left for college, the trials of dating have begun, and God, ever since he spoke to her underneath the pecan tree years ago, has remained elusive. So when brash Georgeanne Peach blows in to take over the only place that’s ever felt like home, leaving a trail of peach fabric swatches and cloying perfume, it’s easy to understand how something like a little ol’ tornado might not be a big deal. Like every teenager, Natha tries to sort out the confusing layers of love—of friends, of family, of suitors, and, desperately, of God. Natha struggles to find herself before she gives in to the shadow of a girl she used to be in this moving follow-up to the critically praised Watching the Tree Limbs.

http://www.relevantprose.com/Adobe/WishingOnDandelions.pdf (This is the first chapter of the book!)


Mary E. DeMuth
Christ Follower. Novelist. Freelance Writer.
Author: Building the Christian Family You Never Had
Watching the Tree Limbs
Wishing on Dandelions
http://www.relevantblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.pioneerparenting.blogspot.com/
http://www.relevantprose.com/

Serials and Scenarios - Change-Ups - Mary DeMuth

I thought today was an appropriate day to share Mary's thoughts. Thanks, Mary.


If you could change something in any novel, what would you change about it and why?

I would change the horrific dialogue in the DaVinci Code. Here’s something I wrote about it:

Living in France, where the DaVinci Code is THE thing, I needed to know what all the hubbub was about.

So, I read it.

Here’s my take.

The first part of the book was suspenseful and had a unique premise, but halfway through I got very bogged down. My big beef (besides the fact that Brown needed my editor-who would have hung me out to dry for some of his lapses) was his terrible use of dialogue, particularly when the main characters are chatting in the library. He uses something called Author Convenience: telling readers information through narrative or dialogue that sounds preachy or didactic.

Here’s my take on the way he uses Authorial Convenience. (This is not from his book, just my tongue and cheek rendition):

“Hmm, tell me, what Jesus really Mary Magdalene’s husband?”

“Well, yes,” the kindly professor pulled a book off the shelf. “It’s been my life’s work. You see, I’m an EXPERT, so you must listen to me.” He leafed through some pages of the rather large book. “It says it right here on page 459 of Why Everyone Knows Mary and Jesus Were an Item. George Longwind, distinguished professor of Heresy at Norbridge asserts that Jesus and the Divine Feminine had to be one. And that for God to truly redeem mankind, Jesus had to have offspring.”

“No kidding? It says that in the book?”

“Yes, and if you turn to page 985, you’ll be assured this view is widely held by Leprechauns.”

“I don’t believe in Leprechauns.”

“Well, you should, because according to my research, Leprechauns invaded Ireland and invented the potato. It’s right here on page 25 of Why We Can Thank the Leprechauns that Ireland is Green.”

“I don’t believe in Ireland.”

“That’s illogical. You need to study Anselm’s ontological argument, and then you’d understand everything. Just like me.”

“Um, well, do you have a bologna sandwich?”

“I do. But first let me tell you about the origin in bologna.”

OK, so I’m a bit weird, but you get the idea. Dialogue should not be used to parrot information back and forth. The only time you would write dialogue that way is if your character were off-the-charts prideful and wanted to boast of everything he knew. Find other ways to get large pieces of information to your reader.

Bio:

Mary E. DeMuth has been crafting prose since 1992, first as a newsletter editor, then as a freelance writer, followed by a fiction and nonfiction author. Mary’s articles have appeared in Marriage Partnership, In Touch, HomeLife, Discipleship Journal, Pray!, Bon Appetit, Kindred Spirit, P31 Woman, and Hearts at Home. For two years she penned a lifestyle column for Star Community Newspapers in Dallas (circulation 100,000). Mary’s books include Ordinary Mom, Extraordinary God (Harvest House, 2005), Sister Freaks (Time Warner, 2005, one of four contributing authors, Editor Rebecca St. James), Building the Christian Family You Never Had (WaterBrook, 2006), Watching the Tree Limbs, and Wishing on Dandelions (NavPress, both novels releasing in 2006). In 2003, she won the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference’s Pacesetter Award. Mary loves to speak about the art and craft of writing as well as the redemptive hand of God in impossible situations. She’s spoken in Munich, Vienna, Amsterdam, Portland, Dallas, Seattle, Florence, Monaco and San Jose. A thirty-nine-year-old mother of three, Mary lives with her husband Patrick in the South of France. Together with two other families, they are planting a church.

Mary E. DeMuth
Christ Follower. Novelist. Freelance Writer.
Author: Building the Christian Family You Never Had
and Watching the Tree Limbs: A Novel
Blog. Website.

Serials and Scenarios - Change-Ups - Gina Holmes

I’ve been reading a lot of fiction lately. Some of it has been stellar, other titles okay to good.

My worst reading experience was years ago. I don’t remember the author or the title of the novel, but it was a best-seller and about a divorced couple who wound their way back toward each other. I invested hours into that book and the lives of the characters. It ended hideously with one of main characters sudden death. I hated that I invested my heart in the book, with not only an unsatisfying ending, but a depressing ending.

Read on….I asked others their thoughts on what they might change about a novel.

If you could change something in any novel, what would you change about it and why?

We're getting on dangerous territory. I better pick someone I don't know. Let's see. I loved Dean Koontz's, Door to December. It was a fantastic book but I remember being disappointed with the ending. It felt like he slapped one on in a hurry to get it turned in. I would have liked for a little more thought to that otherwise great book.

Gina Holmes runs the popular fiction writer's blog, Novel Journey and assists with sister site, Novel Reviews. She has interviewed many of today's greatest authors from Ted Dekker to Karen Kingsbury to Walter Wangerin Jr. She is wife, mother, writer, blogger and Registered Nurse. She is currently working on her third suspense novel. www.noveljourney.blogspot.com www.novelreviews.blogspot.com

Tomorrow Mary DeMuth will share her timely comments.

Serials and Scenarios – Mary and Susan - Swirling Leaves

Happy May Day – the legal ring and run holiday. Not that I know anything about ringing and running.

I asked some authors to add to a couple of story starters (a sentence or two – for the non-writers in the group). Today I want to share two.

Susan Meissner and Mary DeMuth added to the same starter and took it different directions.

I love how creative people think.

I suppose since I focus on dregs, I should come up with some random numbers and give them to mathematics genius (genei? What’s plural for genius?) It’s not fair to leave the logical out, right? Can’t do it… breaking out in…cold sweat. Must stop…thinking about it…now.
Stay tuned…likely for a really long time. Math free site folks.


My story starter is in red italics and their comments are in bold blue.

Susan:
Swirling leaves riding the icy wind, danced up Liesel's skirt. The leaves weren’t the only things stirred up by the breeze which now carried the cloying scent of death.
The tattered pages of the manuscript that lay at the dead man’s feet began to fly about the barn floor. She reached down to grab at them, but a gust of wind snatched them away from her grasp. She ran back to the huge wooden doors, forced her body against them and closed them shut and the papers and leaves settled to the ground in a hush. Liesel knelt down to gingerly peel away a yellowed piece of paper that had plastered itself to her ankle. She carefully turned it over. The printing was smudged in places but she could still make it out. Which meant anyone else could, too, were they to look at it. She grabbed the other pages at her feet, crumpling them into a wad. They would burn quicker that way.
http://susanmeissner.com/

Mary:
Swirling leaves riding the icy wind, danced up Liesel's skirt. The leaves weren’t the only things stirred up by the breeze which now carried the cloying scent of death.
She felt the gun under her skirt, caressed its long handle tucked into her nylons. “That terrible Rolf,” she whispered to herself. “How dare he turn in the Von Trapp family.” She turned the corner. In perfect formation, Rolf stood in the front row of the Young Nazi Brigade, three from the left. She had a perfect shot.
Mary E. DeMuth Blog. Website.

Serials and Scenarios – Deb Raney/Mary DeMuth – Wait a Minute…..

I hope this whole Character, plot, prose thing isn’t going to turn into some sort of literary cat fight. Paper cuts are the worst.

Deb Raney chimes in with her thoughts...

Character, plot or prose? Which grabs you by the heart? Why?

Definitely character! You can write the most exciting, page-turning scene in the world, but if I don’t care about WHO it’s happening to, I’m not going to finish the book.

Visit Deb’s Plog @ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0373785623/sr=8-3/qid=1144348398/ref=pd_bbs_3/102-7286102-5764904?%5Fencoding=UTF8
Or her Blog @ http://deborahraney.blogspot.com/

June 2006 marks the 10th anniversary of Deb’s first novel’s first release. An updated version of A Vow to Cherish will be reissued by Steeple Hill in June. Read a review of the anniversary release of A Vow to Cherish @
http://novelreviews.blogspot.com/2006/04/deborah-raneys-vow-to-cherishreviewed.html

and Mary DeMuth echoes Deb’s sentiment:

Character, plot or prose? Which grabs you by the heart? Why?

Character. Character is what makes me want to turn the page. I can read a rip-roaring plot, but if I don’t care about the character, I’ll put it down.

You remember Mary -

Mary E. DeMuth
Christ Follower. Novelist. Freelance Writer.
Author: Building the Christian Family You Never Had
and Watching the Tree Limbs: A Novel
Blog. Website.

Oooh, ze plot thickens....

Serials and Scenarios – Mary DeMuth's Perfect Mix-Up Author/Book

Hello all. I promised to mix things up now and again. Today I begin the process of sharing some non-interview questions and answers.



First, I'll introduce Mary. Mary makes this blog international. I'm going to use that term quite a bit. I believe it will end up being ad nauseum, but we’ll see.


Mary lives in France. I took three years of French in high school. I considered myself pretty multicultural. But one day, while I sorted clothes in the store where I was gainfully employed, two ladies wandered in. One lady mentioned the other was visiting from France and needed some shorts. I steered her to the spot where we corralled the shorts, and the French speaking woman asked me a question. In French. The language I studied for three years. I'm sure I played the Stupid Americano part well. I shrugged and hemmed and hawed. She made a few more beautiful sounding comments that were probably hideous insults, and I didn't understand a word. Finally, she found a pair that worked for her, and I rang her up. As I closed the register drawer, something came to me, a word, a French word. I stood a little taller and blurted, "Merci!"

The laughter filled the store and rang through the mall. An hour later, I would have sworn I still heard it. So needless to say, it thrills me to have Mary make me international. I just hope she won't ask me to speak French.

Okay – on with the program of the day…… the non-interview questions explanation.
I thought and thought and thought some more until a few odd questions or story starter sentences eked out and popped up on my computer screen.

Then I shared those questions/sentences with some writer buddies and acquaintances who said they’d play along. My question will be in red and italics, the answer in bold blue.

Perfect compilation author. Title of the best-selling novel? A tag line, too?
My example:

Author: Stephen Grisham
Book Title: "So Sue It."
Back Cover Grabber: No one recognized him, but he knew them all - every wart and blemish. Class-action in reverse, time for the settlement.

-------------Mary's Great Mix-it-up Novel Idea ----------------
Author: Jan Crichton.
Book Title: A Pox on Mitford.
Back Cover Grabber: Father Tim has a secret he’s told no one. He’s created a deadly weapons-grade virus—and his first victims? Mitford citizens.


Mary E. DeMuth
Christ Follower. Novelist. Freelance Writer.
Author: Building the Christian Family You Never Had
and Watching the Tree Limbs: A Novel
Blog. Website.



Bio:

Mary E. DeMuth has been crafting prose since 1992, first as a newsletter editor, then as a freelance writer, followed by a fiction and nonfiction author. Mary’s articles have appeared in Marriage Partnership, In Touch, HomeLife, Discipleship Journal, Pray!, Bon Appetit, Kindred Spirit, P31 Woman, and Hearts at Home. For two years she penned a lifestyle column for Star Community Newspapers in Dallas (circulation 100,000). Mary’s books include Ordinary Mom, Extraordinary God (Harvest House, 2005), Sister Freaks (Time Warner, 2005, one of four contributing authors, Editor Rebecca St. James), Building the Christian Family You Never Had (WaterBrook, 2006), Watching the Tree Limbs, and Wishing on Dandelions (NavPress, both novels releasing in 2006). In 2003, she won the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference’s Pacesetter Award. Mary loves to speak about the art and craft of writing as well as the redemptive hand of God in impossible situations. She’s spoken in Munich, Vienna, Amsterdam, Portland, Dallas, Seattle, Florence, Monaco and San Jose. A thirty-nine-year-old mother of three, Mary lives with her husband Patrick in the South of France. Together with two other families, they are planting a church.