My Dark Origins post today takes a look at Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford and the forced internment of Japanese Americans during WW2. Thanks for hosting Kaye Lynne Booth.
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is a historical novel written by Jamie Ford. The plot makes use of a dual timeline: one featuring Henry as a 12-year-old Chinese boy growing up during World War II and the other depicting Henry 44 years later as a widow with an adult son.
The storyline revolves around the friendship between Henry, the only son of immigrant Chinese parents living in Seattle, Washington, and Keiko, the daughter of a second-generation Japanese family. Henry and Keiko become friends as the only two Asian children at their elementary school. They are both bullied by their white peers, and they are both expected/forced to work as free labour in the school cafeteria dishing up meals and cleaning up in terms of their scholarships.
When Japan bombs Pearl Harbour and the USA enters the war, the anti-Japanese sentiment in America…
Yvette Prior’s new anthology, This is how we grow, in which I have a contribution, There’s No Return to Sender, is now available from Amazon. I am reblogging my own post on Robbie’s Inspiration about this special book aimed at uplifting others through providing perspective on life situations.
Stories have allowed human to transmit ideas, beliefs, and behaviors throughout history. The underlying premise of this book is that we can enhance growth and develop empathy byunderstanding the perspective of someone else.
Perspective refers to how we see and think about something as well as what we choose to focus on. Our perspective…
“A fast-paced hell ride of depravity…” ~ Kirkus Reviews
Carnivals, Cannibals, and Clowns. Oh My!
Wanna go for a ride?
Meet Jigglyspot, a five-foot tall half human half warlock carnival clown who spends his free time moonlighting as a drug dealing pimp and lackey for demonic entities who prey on the weak and vulnerable, casting their dark shadow across humanity through manipulation, and fear.
Jigglyspot was selected to serve as the event coordinator for 2019’s Summer Solstice Celebration at the prestigious Cannibal Café. A celebration that brings together both demon and human alike. But with less than two weeks before the celebration, Jigglyspot’s got so much to do and little time to do it. And the feds are hot on his tail. Between securing new recruits for demonic possession, choosing fresh bodies to slice and dice for dinner, and the fact that his girlfriend, Kera, is eating up most of his time, Jiggly’s at his wit’s end.
Hopefully, those demons appreciate all his sacrifices. Hopefully, but unlikely. Those demons can be hell to deal with. Jigglyspot knows; he’s been dealing with them for decades.
Will he rise above, or will tragedy and mayhem lead to dire discoveries poisoned with manipulation and betrayal that will ultimately destroy all Jigglyspot holds dear?
Discover Jigglyspot and his cast of clowns, killers, demons, and wretched fiends, in a novel like you’ve never experienced. Horror, mayhem, thrills, chills, fantasy, and spoils are waiting for your reading eyes with an escape into the underworld of mind control and human slavery.
Warning: This book contains scenes with profound psychological suffering, and graphically violent acts, behaviors, thoughts, deeds, and ridicule. No one has been spared, and no label is safe. Although we are proud to report, no animals were harmed during the writing of this novel, so that’s a good thing. Everyone else is fair game. After all, if you were a demon, what would you think of humanity?
Fans of Grady Hendrix, Catriona Ward, Clive Barker, and Stephen King will be captivated by this edge of your seat, eye-popping, wtf horror novel that is certain to be your next addictive read. As they say, you don’t just read Jigglyspot… You DEVOUR Jigglyspot!
My review
I reviewed this book in my capacity as a member of Rosie’s Book Review Team. If you would like your book reviewed, you can contact Rosie Amber here: http://rosieamber.wordpress.com/.
Right up front I have to say that this book contains very graphic and disturbing scenes of violence and murder. Some of the concepts like cannibalism of babies and children are horrifying and will upset sensitive readers.
That being said, people who enjoy clever horror will enjoy this book. Jigglyspot is a demon with very little respect for the intelligence of humans. This contempt for humanity by Jiggly and his compatriots, reduces the value of humanity to fair game as a source of food and other entertainment.
The organization of dark alien and mythical beings that Jiggly belongs to is determined to take over earth and completely subjugate its population. Of course, there are many humans that rise above Jiggly’s belief in humanities zero intellect and this proves to be his downfall as he underestimates people.
I found the beginning slow and the build up seemed to be scene after scene of disturbing and bloody violence. I almost DNF’d the book because it was a bit to much . At about 100 pages in, the story accelerated and the plot started to reveal itself. The booked picked up quickly and was very interesting and well written.
I enjoyed that character of Tyler who proved to be a real survivor. Unexpectedly, he was also incredibly loyal to his friends and determined to save them and not just himself. His story is unveiled as the book progresses and some of Tyler’s earlier actions make more sense.
Cassandra was also a wonderful character. Determined and hardy, I thought she was the real hero of the book.
For people who enjoy clever horror and are not sensitive to graphic violence, this book has an excellent plot and is a good read.
Welcome to Thursday Doors! This is a weekly challenge for people who love doors and architecture to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos, drawings, or other images or stories from around the world. If you’d like to join us, simply create your own Thursday Doors post each (or any) week and then share a link to your post in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time). If you like, you can add our badge to your post.
Garage door to the Sea Rescue Station in St LuciaDoor to the boat. We went on an estuary adventure to see hippos and crocsMy drawing in watercolour pencil of a hippoA hippo ‘feeding’ on the bank. She was more sleeping than feeding
The two pictures above are of a group of hippos snoozing on the bank of the estuary.
This is my short of the hippos snoozing on the bank:
The hippos started to wake up and head for the water:
Matriarch
Matriarch lumbers
Down the graded embankment
Evacuates dung
To mark her territory
Don’t impede her free passage
This is my short that goes with this poem of a hippo spraying dung:
My video of a hippo entering the water in the estuary:
This week for Tanka Tuesday, Colleen has introduced a new syllabic poetry form called imayo.
The imayo is comprised of four 12-syllable lines. Each line is divided into a 7-syllable and a 5-syllable section, with a hard pause (or caesura) in between. The pause will generally be represented by a comma, semi-colon, or similar punctuation.
4 lines (8 lines permissible)
12 syllables per line divided as 7-5
make a pause space between the 7 and 5 syllables
use comma, caesura or kireji (cutting word) as the pause
no rhymes
no meter
no end of line pauses – the whole should flow together as though one long sentence
The Imayo is a literal poem so do not use symbolism, allegory etc.
I used a caesura. According to Wikipedia: “A caesura (/siˈzjʊərə/, pl. caesuras or caesurae; Latin for “cutting“), also written cæsura and cesura, is a metrical pause or break in a verse where one phrase ends and another phrase begins. It may be expressed by a comma (,), a tick (✓), or two lines, either slashed (//) or upright (||). In time value, this break may vary between the slightest perception of silence all the way up to a full pause.“
Her challenge is to write an imayo poem using the theme of bird.
Terri’s Sunday Stills challenge this week is anything small. While we were again in St Lucia, we went on a 2 hour early morning bird walk. These are a few of the bird pictures I took.
HornbillKingfisherWeavers
More bird pictures taken in the Babanango Game Reserve
St Lucia was the third stop on our recent wildlife viewing vacation. I am featuring it as my first Thursday Doors post because I want to share some wonderful orchids I discovered growing in the garden of the Lodge Afrique. We had two rooms at the lodge and they were lovely and comfortable. The beautiful garden setting was an added bonus. You can join in Thursday Doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2023/07/13/more-from-iowa/
The small town of St Lucia in KwaZulu-Natal is a hub for the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. The park and estuary are home to 1,200 Nile crocodiles and 800 hippos. It is the best place in South Africa to view hippos in their natural habitat. You will have to wait until next week to see the croc and hippo pictures.
Entrance to Lodge AfriqueThis was our room with a large sliding glass doorThis is the view from the reception front door through the reception and into the garden. I sat on the verandah and did some drawing on two afternoons.
The garden of the lodge was lovely. These are a few of the orchids I discovered in the garden:
My blogging friend, Marilyn from Serendipity: Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth blog, shares beautiful pictures of her orchids and other flowers as well as pictures of the natural environment and birds. You can find her most recent nature post here: https://teepee12.com/2023/07/14/nature-in-black/
I am still away but we are now in a place that has better signal and wifi so I am able to write a post and read a few too. I didn’t want to miss Cee’s Back of one any item challenge and as I only have my work computer, I had to chose pictures from the current trip. I found a few good ones of animals from the back.
Giraffe from the back. This giraffe has a darker coat that average which was quite interesting. The flowers on the side of the picture are aloe vera.This is a grey heron from the backRear end of a white rhinoThis is a reed buck from the backThis is a crested guinea fowl. They are quite rare so it was a lucky sighting
Ash signs are free thinkers. They are imaginative, intuitive, and naturally artistic. This sign has a tendency to be moody and withdrawn at times, but that’s only because your inner landscape is in constant motion. You are in touch with your muse and are easily inspired by nature. Likewise, you inspire all that you associate with and people seek you out for your enchanting personality. You have a strong interest in art, writing (especially poetry), science, and theology (spiritual matters). You are in a constant state of self-renewal and rarely place value on what others think of you. Ash signs partner well with Willow and Reed signs.
This week, I’ve rolled a few challenges together again as Thursday Doors and CFFC go well together. I have a slightly different agenda for Sunday Stills but it is flora and the other two are fauna so it goes in my head.
The doors below for Dan’s Thursday Doors challenge, are from our trip to Welgevonden Private Game Reserve in December. We stayed at a game lodge called Nedile and these are doors from the lodge. You can join in Thursday Doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2023/06/29/independence-doors/
Door leading out of the libraryDoor into the bathroom taken from outside through the windowDoor from the patio of our unit
This is the Van Gogh Sunflower Field cake I made for my husband’s 50th birthday. Each sunflower took between 5 and 6 hours to make as each petal is individually wired and attached to the centre of the flower. I designed the petals and cut them out of green fondant. I then coloured them with green and yellow powdered food colouring. The background is my joke – it is a Van Gogh Sunflower Field cake with a Starry Fish background.This is the cake with the candles lit. This is my sunflower field done with oil pastels.
My favourite poem in my poetry book, Lion Scream, is called The Romance of the Sunflowers. You can listen to it here:
Lastly, this is my final poem for Freya Pickard’s Pure Haiku challenge. The theme was white orchids on a black background:
Given the recent news about the Titanic and the implosion of the Titan submarine, I decided to discuss the novel, The Second Mrs Astor, for my July Dark Origins post. I have considered high society in the late 1800s and early 1900s and the sinking of the Titanic. Thanks for hosting, Kaye Lynne Booth.
The Second Mrs Astor is a work of historical fiction by Shana Abe. It depicts the romance between the hugely wealthy John Jacob Astor IV and his second and very young wife, Madeleine Force Astor.
There are two aspects to this extraordinarily fine piece of fictionalised history that caught my attention: the snotty and superior attitudes of New York society created by John Astor IV’s mother, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, and the sinking of the Titanic which claimed the lives of John Astor IV, his valet, and his dog, Kitty. Madeleine Force Astor…
roberta-writes.com 