Stevie Szabad, Author

Third month, 3^rd installment of Stevie’s Monthly Read and Review.

Back to finishing :

• Alan Furst, “Night Soldiers”. I won’t bore with repeating too much, (see 2025_February);, suffice to say I enjoyed this one. A rich, complicated story, excellent writing style. (I loved all the point-of-view changes among the cast as they circled our main character, the Bulgarian, Russian-trained, WW2-era spy.) Even a satisfying conclusion, which is never a guarantee with even the best books. I’ll probably read more from this author.

March is living up to its reputation for wild weather. Snowstorms started the month, (yay, in like a lion, so maybe out like a lamb?), and today heavy rains expected. As is the river flooding probably this year. Not yet, more reading time now!

Let’s try something about an author’s story,

• “The Writing Retreat” a novel, by Julia Bartz. I start knowing nothing about the book (I may have mentioned before that I rarely read back covers or reviews before reading a book – spoilers and expectations, I do not require.) I liked the cover, yes, I often pick a book by the cover, and of course the title. I myself became an author in retirement (see Michele’s books), and did attend a weekend writing retreat once. Once was enough, very intense with group meetings, writing exercises, group meals. Exhausting for the loner-work style I prefer, but still an experience. Now on to the book – I wonder how it will compare to my own experience? Certainly different from the previous historical spy novel – this one is contemporary, young people, trendy, horror, sexy (in that graphic way that is purposefully shocking.) A page-turner for sure.

The weather has turned spring-like, the snow is quickly dissipating. I saw geese returning to the nearby golf courses for the early greenery and melt-water. The river is still frozen over, but any day now will break up.

• I didn’t mean to go back to historical fiction WW2 (was just there a book before), but had just picked this freebie up from Bookbub and the Kindle was all charged up. “Enemies” by Kenneth Rosenberg. It’s based on a true story (which I prefer, yeah, yeah, truth is often stranger than fiction) about second generation German American teenagers/young men who get caught up in the world conflict via various life path choices. I’ve read a lot of this time of history from the Allies point of view, so getting into the German side, and more specifically, the American-German side was certainly surprising. Such an unknown (to me) story. That’s what reading does, teaches us things we never even thought about knowing! Not the greatest writing style, but for a freebie, not the worst I’ve put up with for a good story.

And that’s March it, in (and out! Snow and freezing rain!), like a lion. April forecast? We’ll see, both for weather and books.

See you next month. Try Michele’s Books.