It is Friday, October 11, 2011. Paul Chambers has just been told he has terminal pancreatic cancer. Like so many others hearing this kind of news, he goes numb. His wife, Molly, passes out.

How could a merciful God do this to one of His precious children?

This is the remarkable story of how one man overcomes his initial thoughts that God has turned His back on him, and instead finds joy in a closer walk with Christ.

Author Patrick Day, in an excellent semi-autobiographical story laced with stunning visions and insights, delivers an incredibly meaningful lesson about how to experience “More of God” more of the time.

For Chambers, the lead character in this insightful book, the struggle to keep Christ — not himself — in control of his daily activities is an almost insurmountable obstacle. But, through being tuned to the Holy Spirit, he succeeds — most of the time.

He has ample help, from business partner Martin Swanson — a rock-solid Christian and supportive spiritual mentor — and from others, including his wife and children, and even his elderly next-door neighbor, Emily, who responds one chilly fall morning to Paul’s bitter declaration that “Life isn’t fair.”

“It’s not meant to be fair,” she says. “Life has never been fair if you look at it from the world’s viewpoint. I’ve chosen a different vantage point – not the world now but the world yet to be, where everything is fair.”

Paul Chambers takes the words to heart and renews once again the close spiritual relationship with the Lord he so desperately desires. But his on-going struggle with seeing things from his own vantage point continues to interfere with that relationship.

Along the way in this singular narrative, Paul has arresting visions that are both metaphorical and spiritually enervating. For example, one sweltering day, at the end of an exhausting run, a particularly vivid vision overtakes him:

“I am standing at the steering wheel of a large ship with hundreds of sailors watching me. I am the captain and stare straight ahead into a gray fog. A man surrounded by a bright light offers to steer the ship, but I say, ‘I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.'”

It is the revelation Paul needs to release control of his life — once again — to God. But the ongoing fight for dominance of his soul doesn’t stop there.

In trying to discern the divine mystery of the mixing of soul and spirit, the Holy Spirit gives him a new metaphor about the comingling of fresh water and salt water in an estuary — about being sometimes in the southern portion of the estuary (away from God), and sailing in the northern portion (closer to God).

His friend Ben helps him understand a critical point about staying near God: “The Holy Spirit is always with me, but I’m not always with Him.”

There is so much more in this absorbing narrative that can only be appreciated by reading it yourself. As Paul nears the end of his life, you will hear more uplifting metaphors, and your eyes will mist as his granddaughter wraps her arms around his legs at one of his lowest points and says, “I love you, Grampa.”

For this is much more than a dry theological examination of the Holy Spirit’s influence on our daily actions and emotions.

It is a superb and compelling story of hope and perseverance in the face of sometimes overwhelming adversity. And, above all, it is a witness to God’s eternal promise to never leave or forsake those who have chosen to be part of His family — whether they are walking right beside Him, or have strayed away.

Five-plus stars to Arm in Arm With the Holy Spirit. It’s an inspiring literary gift to anyone wanting to have a closer walk with God through the power of the Holy Spirit.

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All Father Steve Trimboli wants is for his Puerto Rican flock of immigrants to be able to worship in peace at the Brooklyn storefront that doubles as Our Lady of Siena Catholic Church.

But it’s 1956 and racial tension is running high in the borough. Suddenly, the door to the storefront is blown off and the entire structure burns to the ground. However, Father Steve isn’t one to take injustice lying down.

This intricately drawn and excellent novel about bigotry, mob activity, and fierce family loyalties tracks Father Steve from the Fifties to the present day, in a sweeping saga you won’t soon forget.

It’s a well-told tale about one man’s struggle to remain true to his vows and his faith amidst the swirling tides of church corruption and a childhood friend’s involvement in organized crime.

That friend, Tony LaMarca, has been set up to serve a prison sentence — about which he must remain mum — and his devoted wife Rosalie must carry on, despite conflicts with her mother about the man she married. Theirs is, like so many mother-daughter relationships, a troubled one.

“Her mother had been there before and done everything better. For every ounce of blood Teresa gave, five ounces flowed back.”

Nevertheless, Rosalie is there for her mother when the older woman tries to end her life in grief over a son who has been executed in prison for taking a policeman’s life.

By chance or fate, Father Steve and Rosalie both wind up at the country house of Al Rossi, a well-groomed syndicate Don responsible for Tony’s incarceration.

Rosalie is newly pregnant — a parting gift from Tony — and Father Steve has been banished by his superiors to the rural setting with a mandate to build a new church. But when Rosalie hears the news that Tony has been murdered in prison, she finds herself briefly in the arms of Father Steve, seeking more than solace.

The young clergyman is stricken by his decidedly un-pastoral reaction to the encounter and retreats to the new church worksite to live in a construction shed. While there, a brick comes through the window — a warning from the locals that his new parish is in peril before it begins.

Months pass and a baby girl — Stephanie — arrives in the world. Rosalie has moved back to Brooklyn, and her mother has died, leaving her the house Rosalie grew up in. Meanwile, Father Steve has had his new flock in the sticks snatched from him by a less-than-benevolent bishop. With new resolve, however, and gritty determination, he heads off to his new assignment in The Tombs — NYC’s urban penitentiary.

So much more happens in this superb novel than can be recounted here. Your eyes will mist and you’ll gasp with surprise as events unfold over the next 50 years. You’ll go with Steve to Vietnam as an Army chaplain, and meet an endearing young soldier named Whizzer, who wants nothing more than to come home with a “chest full of medals.”

You’ll travel with Rosalie to Paris as she gets her fledgling dress design company — in partnership with Steve’s mother, Gloria — off to a successful start with style.

And, you will witness the Catholic Church’s shameful revelations — finally forced into the light after many years — about sexual relations between priests and altar boys. Steve, now a Monsignor in present day, plays a pivotal role in forcing the Church’s hand.

This is, ultimately, a sweeping story of tragedy and treachery, turmoil and, eventually, triumph, artfully woven together in the style of Sidney Sheldon. Its character-driven narrative will draw you deeply into the lives of the principal players and keep you turning pages to see what happens next.

Five stars to accomplished author Vincent Panettiere, who has penned a well-written, meticulously edited masterpiece. This will be a tough act to follow, but we look forward eagerly to his next novel.

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It’s the early 1960s. A nineteen-year-old college student from Illinois steps off a Greyhound bus in dusty, end-of-the road Avalon, Mississippi. He has been robbed in Memphis, jailed as a vagrant in Cleveland, Mississippi, and enters Kinder’s Store with a five-dollar bill in his pocket — all that remains of the three hundred given to him by his grandmother a week earlier.

It’s a poor start to his quest to learn the Delta Blues from legendary musician Mississippi John Hurt.

In this powerful, superbly written coming-of-age story, accomplished author Ed Baldwin pays lyrical homage to both grassroots guitar picking and the richly layered characters and small towns of the Deep South.

The aspiring musical artist Douglas Spencer III has foregone a career in thoracic medicine — due mainly to failing grades in comparative anatomy — and now he has settled into his summer job at Kinder’s Store. There, he meets lovely, freckled, Addie, the proprietor’s daughter. Her father Buck is recovering from a hospital stay, but he takes a shine to the painfully earnest new young man.

Adventures ensue. John boat fishing with Cooter and Billy Ray. Enjoying a drive-in double feature in the crowded comfort of a pickup bed packed with friends. Nailing a gospel duet with Addie in front of 50 rapt congregants at the rural Presbyterian Church. And, the highlight of his summer, a front porch concert at the store by blues legend Mississippi John Hurt.

There are other less pleasant instances. A confrontation with the Klan in front of the store one dark night. A long, backbreaking day of picking cotton that nets Doug a little over $6. And, Buck Kinder passes painfully into the next life, instructing that the store be liquidated. Doug complies.

Addie moves to a nearby town to begin junior college. Cooter is due to ship out to the Marines within days, And Doug is winding down his stay in Mississippi with a visit to a nearby black nightclub.

With the inimitable style and fine literary craftsmanship that marks this novel, the author describes the atmosphere inside the club when a classic bluesman from Chicago intros a crowd favorite with his signature howl:

“You could have heard that call across the highway without a microphone. Oh, and it came from the cotton fields and the chain gangs, and I saw the old steam locomotive with fire shooting out of the smokestack, and the whistle screaming through a rural Mississippi night.”

Doug goes on to achieve moderate success fronting a blues band in the rough and tumble nightclubs of Memphis and other less distinctive locales within driving distance in his classic VW bus. His musical expertise grows, grounded by the twelve-bar blues shuffle, and he sums up his love affair with the genre:

“The Delta Blues taste like sweat and cheap whiskey; smell like jail; sound best in a concrete block club with no windows, set back against the river where there’s no law after dark…Blues are the scream of pain.”

This is a piece of fiction reminiscent of some of John Irving’s most memorable work. The characters are finely drawn, the descriptions of place and time — the racially charged Sixties in the Deep South — are spot on, and the vulnerable experiences of a young man still searching for his life’s direction will ensure that you read until the last word.

Five stars to Sliding Delta. You won’t need to be a budding blues musician to appreciate it. But if you are, you’ll walk away enriched by the deep musical texture and detail that underlie this book’s singular story.

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In this superb collection of short stories, author Gary Anderson moves adroitly from one literary form to another, breathing extraordinary life into a rich array of protagonists and supporting players.

Follow along, for example, as we trace the hilarious trail of an unfortunate Stableboy’s boy from his lowly beginning in 1751, through his ascension to Footman, and thus, in due time, to his tragic appointment with the sharpened blade of a patiently waiting guillotine.

How came this poor lad to his date with death?

It is a tale worthy of a Dickens novel, and peopled with characters both grand and base, told from the point of view of the hapless Ernst Seyfort, whose choice turns of phrase give the narrative a colorful depth:

“I should rather sleep at the hooves of a peasant jackass inflicted with a sour gastric zephyr than be so idleheaded as to try to deceive you.”

In the end, it is his angelic sister who unwittingly bears the blame for young Ernst’s ignominious fate. But how and why? This is storytelling at its finest, and it is but the opening chapter of the book.

Another chapter relates the curious circumstances surrounding a self-styled prophet from Vermont who happens upon some golden plates, wrought, supposedly by the hand of God.

The prophet’s name is Joseph — but not Smith, as you might be guessing. However, in most every other detail of this preacher’s rise to modest local fame, the resemblance is remarkable.

This Joseph — whose last name is Vasser — has his devoted wife Emma write down his translation of the golden plates’ inscription, then proceeds to sell printed copies. He calls it “Bible2.”

One day, he receives a “commandment” from God to take a second wife — which he does with great alacrity.

Trouble is, she’s the sixteen-year-old daughter of one of his flock and the wheels of vengeance are set in motion. Joseph feigns perplexion. “God (is) not without His seeming contradictions,” he declaims. “Anyone who works closely with the Almighty must come to terms with this fact sooner or later.”

It’s a cunningly wrought story that skewers the notion that a now-mighty religious sect sprang from noble and deified roots. In the end, this Joseph — who writes rough drafts of his divinely inspired manifesto in laboriously crossed out and sometimes obscene phrases — pays a pretty price for his philandering.

And then there is the choice chapter about Ray Vic, Performance Artist, who is lately enjoying fleeting fame by pureeing small animals in a blender, then drinking the resultant cocktail of gelatinous goo.

His long-term affair with his secretary — whom he regularly fires, then rehires — and a problematic relationship with his absentee — and now dead — father set the backdrop for this excellent contribution to the book.

Using a combination of traditional narrative and decidedly nontraditional intercuts of freeform fiction, the author moves this story quickly to a shocking denouement. It is at once the most disturbing — and brilliant — chapter in the collection.

There is good writing in plenty throughout the book:

“His features are soft and round, pleasant if not quite striking: a long, straight nose, plump pink lips, eyes as green as the liqueur that sits before him.”

And,

“Canst you not see-eth that I’m more nervous than a yearling on castration day?”

And,

“His eyes—two blank blue sparrow eggs, each in its own overwrought nest of hair— were at the same time wrathful and hopeful.”

The tales are all loosely connected to an Amazonian toad licker named John Ramos, who, at the beginning of the book, weeps at the birth of his only son.

And so, from stableboy Ernst Seyfert, to French playwright Georges d’Aubigné, to would-be prophet Joseph Vasser, to Jesus the Dog-faced Boy, to an Amazon explorer simply named Planke, to performance artist Vic Ray, and, finally, to an erudite chimpanzee named Reggie, this shadow of impending doom drives each singular story.

We are thus left to ponder the author’s question, laid out in the book’s description: are we truly more animal than human? Each reader must judge for him or herself, as the singular characters and situations recounted in the book bring ample evidence to support either side of the argument.

Five-plus stars to Animal Magnet. It is by far the most imaginative — and thoroughly engaging — work of fiction I’ve read this year.

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Mystery looms right off the bat in this excellent fourth novel in the Orfeo Saga, as Orfeo is kidnapped and stowed aboard a full-sailed, deep-hulled ship of indeterminate origin.

His wife, the beautiful and strong-willed Clarice, is baffled by the abduction, as is his good friend Daryush, who sets sail in search of Orfeo. He is accompanied by Semira, his wife.

“They stood for us at our wedding,” she insists, with the full force of her determination. “If it were not for them, we would not be here.”

Strong indeed are the bonds between Orfeo and his friends, including his old mentor Zurga, who prowls the harbor of the ancient Egyptian city of Tanis, looking for the elusive vessel.

While in Egypt, Zurga — also called by some “The Last Wanderer” — heals the mother of King Thutmosis and samples one of the goods traded by those aboard the mystery ship: a white, powdery substance that, when smoked, brings on feelings of euphoria. Today we know it as cocaine.

Interesting as that is, however, Zurga finds out very little from the king about the ship and its exotic crew. So, he travels on, carrying with him the hope that he will not have to cross the fearsome “Great Sea” to find Orfeo.

Fast forward several chapters. Asok, high priest of the Quetzalcoatl cult in Ixtlan, cannot believe his good luck. A golden-haired god long-foretold has arrived just in time to help him bilk the superstitious populace into parting with their hard-earned gold, just for a peek at Orfeo, who remains bemused by his predicament, mistaken as the storied man-deity.

Then, just as the Ixtlans — the native people holding Orfeo — and the rival nation Nastases are preparing for war, Clarice and all her friends swoop in to rescue him. But wait! Whose ship is burning in the harbor? Alas, it is the getaway boat, and Orfeo and his mates must now make ready to fight for their lives.

This splendid sequel to Zurga’s Fire spares no swashbuckling as Orfeo and his intrepid trio of B.C. buds are drawn into a fierce fight for freedom. The first half of the book ends on a bittersweet note, however, and we are thrust quickly into the second half, which could easily stand on its own.

Suffice to say, Orfeo, Clarice, Daryush, and Semira become hard-pressed in their respective homelands, defending themselves from armed aggressors and deranged demigods, such as deadly, yet strangely comical Hellion, who challenges Daryush to a fatal test of skill and strength. And, there’s the Spartan King Iraju, who tries to defy Daryush in an impenetrable stone tower. Are they successful?

You’ll need to purchase this five-star historical thriller to find out. Congratulations are in order to author Murray Lee Eiland, Jr., for his meticulous research and superb storytelling skills.

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Heads swivel and catcalls rain down as the sultry redhead — call her “Kali” — sashays down a crowded Manhattan boulevard. Trailing discreetly behind is another young woman who is carefully documenting every stare and every come-on.

This is not New York street theatre. It’s the fascinating, touching, often funny and utterly revealing story of one woman’s outrageous attempt at coping with lifelong introversion and bipolar disorder.

Author Stacy Harshman goes over the top in this smart, candid account of how she ordered four different wigs and, following a carefully thought-out schedule, cruised the city’s various locales, seeking to determine if, in fact, blondes — as well as brunettes and redheads– truly have more fun.

Stacy advertises on Craigslist for a companion to keep track of the social experiment. Good-natured Bonnie applies and quickly falls in with the quirky assignment. She shadows Stacy through tony restaurants and chic nightspots, recording the extraordinary number of head turns and tongue-tied would-be suitors. It’s only week one, and she is ravishing in the luxuriant red wig, and relishing the amount of attention — so diametrically different from reactions to her real persona.

“Bonnie noted several wistful looks from women with ‘unfortunate hair,’ ” Stacy writes. “I sympathized. For most of my life, I’d looked longingly at women with Kali-like hair, and I had secretly or openly hated them. Now, I indulged in feeling superior.”

But Stacy must constantly fight nearly overwhelming panic attacks in between these sessions of smugness. Her therapist, after initially wrinkling his nose at the “experiment,” finally endorses the unusual scheme.

“This is good,” the therapist opines. “You’re doing this because you need to learn something about yourself.”

Indeed, Stacy elevates soul-searching to a whole new level by conducting the outré exercise. We learn much about the painful reasons for it — and her — in the process. Often, her recollections about life as an untreated bipolar six years earlier, and her barely successful attempts to cope with the disorder bring stabs of sympathy and heartrending resonance to her plight.

Week Two showcases a black, Morticia Addams-style wig and Stacy’s popularity plummets. Her Goth-like appearance serves only to depress her, and she quiickly retreats into herself.

“As we spent the hours strolling around and drinking coffee, I felt increasingly lonely, and my foghorn of existential angst was becoming too loud to ignore.”

Week Three and Stacy is back in business as a blonde bombshell hottie. But a tentative sexual romp with boyfriend Tim, while wearing Victoria’s Secret garters and fishnet stockings, quickly goes south when Tim hides under a protective shield of sheets up to his chin. The blonde chapter of Stacy’s experiment is officially logged as a nonevent.

Week Four finds Stacy stalking a “Hot or Not” man on the Internet, eventually agreeing to meet him for drinks in her newest persona as a raven-haired brunette. After a couple of fortifying gin and tonics, she confesses her past unpredictability and the evening ends on a bittersweet note. But an earlier vignette involving stuck zippers and wardrobe malfunctions in Times Square is hilarious.

Week Five is all about Stacy facing the world in her real hair — no wigs to hide behind. How does it turn out? You’ll just have to buy the book and find out. Revealing the final scores on which hairdo turned the most heads in this space would suspend the mystery — and the outright fun of reading this delightful memoir.

Five-plus stars to Crowning Glory, an incredibly well-written and painfully honest account of a courageous young lady with tons of self-deprecating humor and wry insights. She will make you laugh and cry in equal measure.

This new author has a wonderful way with her writing style and keen insights. We hope many other books — on just about any topic she chooses — will be forthcoming.

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