Reviewer Sandra Shwayder Sanchez: Sandra is
a retired attorney and co-founder of a small non-profit publishing
collective: The Wessex Collective with whom she has published two short fiction collections
(A Mile in These Shoes and Three Novellas) and one
novel, Stillbird.
Her most recent novel, The Secret of A Long Journey is soon to be released by Floricanto Press in April 2012 and her first novel, The Nun, originally published by Plain View Press in 1992 is being reissued in a 2nd Edition with additional material by PVP in March 2012.
Author: Sarah Leamy
Publisher: Strategic Book Group
ISBN: 978-1-61204-684-6
Click Here To Purchase Lucky Shot: a novel of sex, death, and photography
Author: Sarah Leamy
Publisher: Strategic Book Group
ISBN: 978-1-61204-684-6
After reviewing Sarah Leamy’s book When No One is Looking for Bookpleasures.com last spring I was very eager to read her new book, Lucky Shot, a Novel of Sex, Death and Photography. I was not disappointed. It is said that a picture is a worth a thousand words and in this novel, the protagonist is a photographer (click). Leamy’s prose is lean, almost stacatto at times, and creates a series of pictures in the mind’s eye of readers. What another writer might need thousands of words to describe, she can describe vividly in far fewer words. Reading her fiction is like viewing a film, you hear the voices, see the facial expressions and body language and feel each character. The style swings along in an easy, engaging rythym, and as a reader I feel like I’m dancing along with the characters to my favorite music.
An important theme in this
novel is the right of patients to make end of life decisions and of
course the importance of making sure there is someone to implement
the patient’s desires if and when the patient can no longer express
those desires. The author handles this situation in a loving but
matter of fact tone, that does not seek to overdramatize (because she
knows that is not necessary) this most serious and inevitable part of
life: its end.
Just like Joey in When No One is Looking, Lucky Phillips in Lucky Shot has difficult childhood memories to deal with in order to live joyfully, and just like Joey, Lucky manages to do exactly that.These characters emerge from difficult journeys triumphant and ready to face the next phase of their lives and the reader emerges feeling privileged to have been invited along on the journey and eager to continue the next phase of it. Not surprisingly, I am really looking forward to reading the sequel to this book, Lucky Find, Looking for Family in Far Off Places, wherein Lucky will search for the sister he didn’t even know he had. Lucky Find is due out in 2012 and you can read more about it and author Sarah Leamy on her website.
I think perhaps the author creates her characters as a lens to learn about life herself. In any case, the reader is enlightened as well as entertained by these insightful shots of people(and a very cool dog) showing vulnerability, fear, love, generosity and joy.