I must apologize in advance: I love The Passage so much that I have no words. I’ll do my best, though, because I want all of you to put this on your wishlist, pre-order it, and/or sell your first born child to get it. I DO NOT KID. What is your child good for if not for trading for books?

How do you describe a book that’s 784 pages? Obviously, it’s epic, but there’s so much more. First, to give you an idea of how it starts off, the United States government has heard rumors of vampires in the jungles of Bolivia and sends a team down there to investigate. There is an experiment going on that will hopefully cure all the sicknesses in the world, and while it might not get rid of death, it will stave it off for a very long time. In doing their experiments, the US government lets loose 12 vampires, who, once they get loose, go on a killing rampage. It’s not long before the whole country is either dead or infected with vampirism.

But the vampires aren’t called vampires, they’re called jumps and flyers because of their ability to leap great distances.

Most of the book takes place 90+ years in the future, when there’s only a few humans remaining, as far as we know. There’s some humans left in a fortress-like location in the San Jacinto Mountains. They’ve been able to live in this walled city (if it can be called a city) because of their high walls and lights that come on at night that keep the flyers out. They’ve been there for 90+ years, though, and the lights don’t have much life left. The batteries they’re running on weren’t meant to last this long, so they need to do something before their lights go out and the flyers come in, hungry and looking for fresh blood.

Obviously this book is long. And when you start reading, you’ll understand why. Cronin likes to explain and describe and really “set the stage”. Cronin can drop the reader in a place and time that doesn’t even exist and have them freaking out that they don’t know how to build a radio. THAT is talent. And it. is. awesome.

Like I said, the book is Big and Cronin describes a lot (characters’ history, the setting, etc), but what you don’t know right away is that nothing Cronin tells you is superfluous. Everything comes full circle, and Cronin will bring up tiny details that you thought were inconsequential. I often praise an author for telling a story with as few words as possible, but I’m going to now praise Cronin for completely immersing his reader in the world he’s created.

Cronin makes this future world so believable, so realistic, that I called up the radio guys in my department, all freaked out and insisting that I wanted to learn how to build my own radio. If the world comes to an end, radios and those who know how to use them will be invaluable. So this year I want to not only learn how to use a ham radio, but I want to learn to build one on my own. That’s how real this story was.

I would compare The Passage to The Lord of the Rings trilogy because this is an epic book with an adventure that takes the characters on a long journey, and readers will get sucked into this world just like they got sucked into The Lord of the Rings.

I fear that by mentioning vampires, anyone who isn’t in to that or is all, Oh, vampires *yawn*, won’t pick this up. Don’t be that guy. Don’t be that guy that doesn’t get their mitts on this book immediately because there’s ‘hype’. Don’t be that guy who doesn’t read this because it’s such a tome. Don’t be that guy!

I really really hate that my thoughts are not doing The Passage justice. Oftentimes it’s easier to say what doesn’t work rather than what does work, and that’s the dilemma I have here. Everything works in this book. I suggest you pre-order this book NOW.

Rating: 100 out of 100

(I know I don’t normally post reviews before a book is out, but sometimes I think it’s necessary so you can be prepared. I’m thinking of you, man!)

Here’s the website for The Passage.

And here’s an even better website where you can track the spread of the outbreak, if you’re on Twitter you can find out the likelihood that you’ll get infected (I have a 66% chance, though the program doesn’t know I live in California, but if you’ve read the book, you’ll know that living in California is better than most places!), and do other fun stuff: Find Subject Zero.

Two hours ago I got back from attending the LA Times Festival of Books and I want to tell you all about it before I forget it all. Because apparently the fact that I jokingly say I have the memory of a goldfish is totally true (apparently it’s a myth that goldfish have a 3 second memory, but I’m all about selective belief, so I’m going to believe, for purposes of my story, that goldfish have a 3 second memory).

(I had actually forgotten a really fun night last year during the LA Times Festival of Books when I hung out with Jill, Amy, and Natasha. Seriously.)

I forgot to grab my camera before I left for Southern California which is a 7 hour drive from where I am. I thought about getting a disposable camera but decided that no pictures aren’t the end of the world.

The festival started off, for me, with one of the best, if not The Best, panel of the weekend: Fiction: Life Stories, moderated by David Kipen, who I ended up loving to fangirl proportions (see picture below) for his enthusiasm and preparation and general awesomeness.

To be fair, Kipen had quite the panel with Paul Harding (Pulitzer Prize winning author of Tinkers), Colson Whitehead, and Rafael Yglesias. I ended up buying both Whitehead’s Sag Harbor and Yglesias’ A Happy Marriage. The panel was quite entertaining with Colson’s humor, Harding’s self-deprecating manner, and Yglesias’ fascinating story about how he ended up writing A Happy Marriage (he wanted to write a book about the ups and downs of a long-term marriage, but he knew he would want to include many of his personal experiences, and a couple of years after his wife passed away, he realized he had that opportunity). I’d wanted to get Harding to sign my copy of Tinkers, but I left the freaking book at home. Gah.

One thing all three authors have in common is that not a lot happens in any of their books, so they all talked about what it’s like to keep a story interesting when nothing is really happening. Whitehead has the gift of humor, though his humor is subtle and easy to miss in Sag Harbor.

I think everyone, from the panelists to the audience, was jealous of Yglesias because his first book was published when he was 17, and he’s been writing ever since. He makes the art of getting published look like child’s play, while Harding relayed how Tinkers was rejected over and over.

I made a point to go to the Fiction: Writing the Fantastic panel because *coughLevGrossmancough* was on that panel. I don’t want Mr. Grossman to know what a freaking huge crazy fan I am, though I DID accost him after the panel and told him what a freaking huge crazy fan I am, but I don’t want him to find me just in case he Google Alerts his name.

(I read all his reviews and even watch these podcasts he does with this other dude about technology. I love it because he is such a nerd about technology. But I have to admit I picked up his book *coughTheMagicianscough* and read 78 pages then abandoned it. So when I accosted him I made sure not to lie and I said, “I love almost everything you’ve written.”)

The Writing the Fantastic panel largely went over my head because the moderator asked such involved and convoluted questions, but I was able to catch when Grossman, talking about his upbringing (lived in the suburbs, middle class, video game geek), said that he realized one day that his history is just that he’s a HUGE NERD.

To round off Saturday, I saw Michael Silverblatt interview Yann Martel, author of The Life of Pi and Beatrice & Virgil, which is his latest. I loved the interview and thought Martel provided some great insights into writing and reading, though I found him rather aloof when I had him sign my copy of Beatrice & Virgil. One of the audience members asked Martel if his use of animals, with their general lack of gender in literature, was purposeful. Martel denied that, but the question really made him think.

(I know I should have more specifics about what was said, but I didn’t have my notebook with me and, well, I’m lame. Sorry.)

When the festival was over, I almost lost my car. I was hobbling around in shoes that were comfortable for the first, oh, 6 hours, but at this point, around 5:30pm, I was ready to gnaw off my feet at the ankles because surely that would have been less painful. The reason I almost lost my car was because when I arrived at UCLA, I didn’t know where the hell I was going so I just pulled into a garage. I was stoked when I realized how close I was to the actual festival, but I only wrote down P3 East, which is what the sign said in the garage where I parked. Little did I know that UCLA has 12 parking garages, numbered P1-P12, and P3 was merely referring to the level I was on. MY CAR COULD HAVE BEEN ANYWHERE. After hobbling around for 30 minutes, I was starting to panic because a quick assessment of the position of the sun (using my fingers as a guide) showed I had an hour and a half to find my car. With a campus the size of UCLA, I figured I better HURRY THE HELL UP. I ended up finding my car directly across from where I was having my melt down.

After my car fiasco, I met up with some really inspiring and amazing bookish folk. While enjoying drinks with my new friends, I spotted *coughLevGrossmancough*! Are you starting to see a theme? I was able to stalk that guy all weekend.

The panels I saw on Sunday were largely ho hum (though I did tweet quite a bit from the Publishing: The Editors Speak Out panel, but that’s because it was a fairly straightforward panel). The one panel that was amazing was Fiction: Unstoppable Voices, with Susan Straight as the moderator. One of the panelists, Maile (pronounced like Miley) Meloy, author of Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It, I was particularly excited to see because I’ve been meaning to read her book for a few months now. When the panelists were asked advice on how to make yourself write, Jane Smiley replied with something along the lines of, “Have lots of kids and lots of horses so that when you do get a chance to write, you take it.”

I almost forgot that the panel The Art of the Critic was particularly exciting because *coughLevGrossmancough* ended up being added to the panel at the last minute. He really took that panel to another level, because I didn’t think David Ulin was a particularly good moderator. Grossman talked about how reviewers are in the business of entertaining people, and ultimately reviewers are writing for the reader, not the writer.

I was surprised to see that *coughLevGrossmancough* doesn’t write negative reviews anymore because I didn’t think his review of Beatrice & Virgil was particularly complimentary. In fact, I got the distinct impression he didn’t like it. I’ll never know, though, because I ended up rushing from this panel so I could go meet Jen from Jen’s Book Thoughts.

I was really stoked to hook up with Jen, even though we only were together for 30 minutes tops. In that 30 minutes, she managed to get me to buy:

I hate to paint Jen as this crazy amazing book pusher (which, is really not a lie. I know she’s never steered me wrong on a book, and I know she’s wracking up quite the body count of bloggers to whom she’s all, If you liked this, you’ll like that. I feel like a junkie around her. “TELL ME WHAT TO BUY!”), because it’s not like I didn’t totally fuel my own habit myself:

Not too bad, huh?

The best part of the festival was seeing so many people excited about books. It doesn’t matter if these folks read a book a month, a book a year, or 500 books a year. They all made a point to be at a festival that focused purely on books. Reading is such a solitary experience, and to feel the excitement from all these folks was really amazing. It made me excited to be a reader.

Here’s some other LATFOB recaps (more will be added as more become available):

• Thea
• Amy
• Mark
• Florinda
• Ti
• Leah

Edited to add: If you didn’t get your question answered or have follow-up questions, Kelly has started a thread on her own blog so she can answer those questions for you!

Hi, Readers!

Tonight I’m excited and privileged to welcome Kelly O’Connor McNees, author of The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, to our Reading Series discussion. She will be here “live” participating in our discussion and answering questions at 6 pm PST (9 pm EST) in the comments section of this post.

The conversation got going in this post, where I posed some discussion questions for everyone and asked for questions for Kelly.

I’ve been gathering your questions for Kelly and, of course, would welcome more. Here’s what we have so far.

Pat from Mille Fiori Favoriti asks:

I am curious as to why Kelly weaves the thread of Walt Whitman’s “Leaves Of Grass” throughout her novel from time to time?  Was there meant to be any special innuendo or reason behind that other than literary reference?

Also, was the loss that summer of  Louisa’s sister Anna’s almost fiancee fictional, or did that really happen?

Did both sisters actually leave the Alcott family at the end of that summer and go off to different places?

Susan Gregg Gilmore, author of Looking For Salvation at the Dairy Queen, asks:

I immediately fell into step with the March sisters.  And even though these women have been in our collective memories for generations now, this story felt wonderfully modern and contemporary.  When you read Little Women as a young girl, Kelly (which I’m assuming you must have done!), did you feel somehow dissatisfied with their story or did you just need more?  Specifically, when did you begin to question what life for the Alcott women must have really been like?  And is Jo’s struggle to find her place in the world one that is familiar to you?

I thought Bronson and Emerson’s exchange in the beginning of the book was beautifully done.  That one conversation shed so much light on the visionary (but far from practical man) that Bronson was and what it must have been like to have lived with him.   What do you personally think of the man and his affect on Louisa as a grown woman — I guess what I’m wondering, at the risk of sounding like Dr. Phil, is if his inability to provide some of the most basic needs for his wife and daughters in some way left the albeit very independent Louisa wary of entering into a lifelong relationship with any man?  And just out of curiosity, were you affected by Geraldine Brooks’s portrayal of the March patriarch?

You will be asked this many times in the months to come, but I must know what you’re planning to treat us with next!

From Lisa at Books on the Brain:

Dear Kelly,

Congratulations on your book!  I thought it was wonderful and thoroughly enjoyed it.

In reading the Author’s Note at the back of the book, it seems as if Louisa herself helped you take the leap into becoming a full time writer and writing this novel.  Can you tell us a little about what it felt like to make that decision?

You immersed yourself in this historical figure while doing your research and during the writing process.  Now that the book is finished and you’re not reading or writing about Louisa every day, do you miss her?

Have you decided yet what you’ll work on next (and if so, can you tell us about it)?  Do you think you’ll base your next novel on a real person?

Lisa at Lit and Life asks:

While the Alcott girls in “Lost Summer” are not entirely mirror images of the March girls, they certainly hold very true to those characters.  Did your research into Alcott lead you to believe that the Alcott girls were that accurately reflected in “Little Women” or did you mold them that way to create a blend between the reality of the Alcotts and the characters that are so beloved?

Ti from Book Chatter is curious:

We all know how challenging it was for Alcott, as a woman, to make a name for herself but I’d like to know what challenges you faced in getting this novel written. For instance, did you receive any pressure to change the ending of Lost Summer?

Besides Little Women, what other novels influenced you in the writing of TLSOLMA?

Just for fun, which character did you identify with the most?

Jennifer from Literate Housewife asks:

Clearly a lot of research went into this novel.  What was the most surprising thing you discovered about Louisa May Alcott along the way?

Margot from Joyfully Retired asks:

I loved your account in the back of the book about how you came to be interested in Louisa May Alcott. How long did all of it take, from that first library book to finding a publisher to print your book?

The character of Bronson Alcott was so well-developed. How much of that is fact and how much is fiction. Were there lots of documents about Mr. Alcott?

Is there another historical figure, literary or otherwise, that you are working on for a future novel and will it be so thoroughly researched?

Come by tonight at 6 pm PST (9 pm EST) to say hi to Kelly and see how she answers our questions!  Hope to see you then!

Edited to add: If you didn’t get your question answered or have follow-up questions, Kelly has started a thread on her own blog so she can answer those questions for you!

I’ve been wanting to read The Tunnels by Michelle Gagnon ever since I read both The Gatekeeper and Boneyard. The impetus came when Jen from Jen’s Book Thoughts conceived of Detectives Around the World and asked if I would participate. The first detective that came to mind was Gagnon’s FBI Special Agent Kelly Jones, and I quickly told Jen that I claimed Kelly Jones as my detective.

You know how sometimes you read an author’s second or third or fourth book, then go back and try to read one of their earlier books only to find that the first or earlier books aren’t as top notch? This totally wasn’t the case here! I loved The Gatekeeper and Boneyard so much that her first book had a lot to live up to as far as I was concerned, but live up it did!

Gagnon writes fantastic crime fiction. A pet peeve of mine is when the author gives you the name of the killer about half way through. When I’m reading crime fiction, I DON’T WANT TO BE TOLD WHODUNNIT. I want to guess, I want to bite my fingernails, I want to be unsure of who it could be. As soon as I have a name, I have no doubt when the detective has found their man. It takes away a lot of suspense when I know the killer’s name! Obvs, Gagnon didn’t give me the killer’s name until the end.

Since The Tunnels is Gagnon’s first novel, we meet FBI Special Agent Kelly Jones for the first time (who is in both Boneyard and The Gatekeeper) at a New England college investigating two murders that seem ritualistic. It becomes apparent that the killer is going to kill more girls, so Jones and her partner Morrow must do the impossible and find the killer before he kills more girls. Even better, there’s dark, ancient pagan rituals that make the killer that much crazier!

When I first bought this book, I was a little disappointed at the page count. The Tunnels, coming in at 304 pages, isn’t particularly long or short, it’s just that I love Gagnon’s stories so much, I was worried I’d feel the plot was rushed, but I didn’t feel that way at all. In fact, I thought it was perfect. One thing that annoyed me about another crime fiction I read recently was the lack of suspects. I mean, don’t detectives have to go through a fair amount of suspects? I want alibis and shifty people! And I got alibis and shifty people in The Tunnels!

So if you don’t understand what I’m trying to say, let me say it simpler: I LOVED THE TUNNELS.

Please make sure and check out all the fun Detectives Around the World posts happening this week!

Rating: 90 out of 100

Michelle Gagnon’s website.

Michelle also blogs at The Kill Zone on Thursday.

Book source: I bought this book myself.

During the month of April, quite a few of us are reading or have read The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O’Connor McNees. This is a lovely imagined novel about Louisa May Alcott about where her inspiration for Jo and Laurie may have come from.

I’m giddy with excitement to have Kelly here in real time answering any questions you might have on Wednesday, April 14th at 6:00pm PT.  If you’ve read The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, or are curious about it, please mark your calendars and join us as we discuss the book with Kelly! If you have questions for Kelly, please email them to me at trish@heyladydotcom. I’ll be gathering questions for the author in anticipation of her appearance next Wednesday!

Here is a synopsis of the book, followed by a few discussion questions:

In the summer of 1855, Walt Whitman’s controversial Leaves of Grass has just been released, and the notion of making a living as a writer is still a far-off dream for Louisa. She is twenty-two years old, vivacious, and bursting with a desire to be free of her family and societal constraints so she can do what she loves the most—write. The Alcott family, destitute, as usual, moves to a generous uncle’s empty house in Walpole, New Hampshire, for the summer. Here, a striking but pensive Louisa meets the fictional Joseph Singer. Louisa is initially unimpressed by Joseph’s charms. But just as Louisa begins to open her heart, she learns that Joseph may not be free to give his away. Their newfound love carries a steep price, and Louisa fears she may pay with the independence she has fought so hard to protect.

Readers! Let’s get the discussion started! These are just a few questions to get you thinking…you don’t have to answer them all. Please feel free to add your own questions, and respond to each other’s answers, too.

1. What was your overall view of the book?  Did you enjoy it?  Was it what you expected?

2. What kind of details did the author provide that you felt added to the historical authenticity of the book?

3. Before you read this book, is this even remotely similar to what you imagined Louisa May Alcott’s life as being?

4. How did you feel about Louisa’s father? How did you feel about Louisa’s mother?

5. Do you think Louisa’s father played any role in her not wanting to get married?

6. Did you agree with Louisa that it wouldn’t have been possible to have both love and freedom?

7. What do you think the author’s message was?

8. Was the ending what you imagined and/or what you hoped for?

9. Did reading The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott make you want to reread Little Women, or perhaps pick it up for the first time?

I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott. Thanks for participating in the read along!  And don’t forget to join us on April 14th for our discussion with Kelly!