Turning Leaf Books has joined with Blackthorn Book Tours to launch a fast-paced review tour of The Speed Of Life, An Illustrated Novel by James Victor Jordan.
Some of the most passionate readers in the country have volunteered to participate in our tour and are in the final stages of reading the novel and writing their reviews!
Come back often and see what the latest reviewer has to say about The Speed Of Life, An Illustrated Novel, now on Amazon Kindle.
“it gets intense but I hold on tight.”
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up Speed of Life by James Victor Jordan. Reading the synopsis really didn’t prepare me for how intense this book really is! I’m still not sure how to classify it, but I will say that I now have a better grasp of dark fiction as a genre… sub genre?
The beginning has this hook- a woman’s nightmare – this violent crime against her spirals into a mother’s worst fear that her son has completely gone over the edge and conspired against her. Did her son do this horrible, unforgivable thing? She is refusing to believe it, but the evidence points right at him.
Right when I begin to think I know where we are at in the book and am really getting prepped for the legal battle to find out if he’s guilty or innocent, the scene and tone of the whole book spins me inside out and now I’m on a mystic Seminole journey… and it gets intense but I hold on tight. There were times where I thought I was lost only to find myself again within the pages of The Speed of Life. Definitely an unforgettable read!!
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Thank you for reading my novel and thanks for this insightful, thoughtful review. James
A Must Read
This book is so rich in detail and the descriptions of the settings are vivid. I enjoyed the diversity of experience, culture, science, family dynamics, etc. I also enjoyed how all the moving pieces, from going back and forth with each character’s part of the story, comes together, to make it all clear. The way the lives of the characters intertwine in this crime drama, you get suspense, mysticism and action, that all feels very genuine and real. 100% recommend.#booksofinstagram #bookclubofinsta #blackthornbooktours #JamesVictorJordan #James.V.Jordan #TheSpeedOfLife #Bookstagram #Bookstagrammer #CrimeFiction #Astrophysics
The Hard Hat Book Club
Celebrating Difficult and Dangerous Writing
“OK, so you’re a rocket scientist. That don’t impress me much” (Shania Twain)
“OK, so you’re a rocket scientist, a shaman, and a future Booker Winner. I guess I’m a little impressed” (De Gevallene)
I’m glad that I’m sufficiently bloody minded that having got such a bargain (paying just .99c for a kindle of this beautiful book!) I was determined to finish it even though it annoyed me quite a lot from the start.
It’s an impressively good book.
True, it seems rather too anxious to let you know this. The substance of the book is sandwiched between an introduction comprising several pages of adulation from important admirers and closing acknowledgments name-checking a raft of similar luminaries. Winners of literary awards. A nobel prize winning scientist. A whole slew of professors. OK. OK. Got it.
And the story itself pressed quite a few of my “irritation” buttons. Descriptions of fancy clothes : fictitious people in expensively branded textiles. (I don’t care). New-age metaphysics : native American mysticism portentously mashed up with quantum mechanics. (Very on trend. Still annoying). Books where the handful of working class characters are mainly criminals and everyone else has a fancy job title. (Well!)
But I glossed over that lot (yep, I’m the brave kind of woman who can cope with the squeak of chalk on blackboard and not even leave the room screaming). I did try for a while to skim the book, but I can’t pretend that worked. (If you skip two sentences you find that you’ve moved to a different point of view, in a scene happening decades earlier or later, with an entirely different set of people, and possibly in a different dimension, and it might or might not be critical to the plot.) So I got a grip and read it to the end, through a couple of days and a couple of nights.
What I found when I did so was an exquisite exploration of the interconnectedness of human experience, beneath the invisible surface of everything – our lives endlessly bound up with those of strangers. And a thoughtful, open-minded writer, intelligently exploring questions about free will, about the possibility of relationship if there is no free will, about consciousness, about where we have come from, where we are going. All the while building a clever crime story to a deeply satisfying denouement.
Throughout this is a project of elusive fragility – through the beautiful, mystifyingly connected illustrations that punctuate each part of the book, through snatches of dialogue, through scenes that seem out of place, out of time. It is a book written as dreams are written – tangential, familiar, strange. A question from the book, that I copied down as I read it: “After all, what is consciousness if not a dialog between the past, the present, and the future? What are memories and dreams if not an expression of the speed of life?”
At that moment I was awe struck. I knew I loved this book.
It was a tough weekend though, with this guy pinning me down and making me read every word. Later I might decide that I had Stockholm Syndrome. In that case I’ll have to make do with being happy that I read the book before my friends did, since I rather predict that it’s heading for a Booker Prize. (Even if it’s only short listed, I’ll be one up on anyone who tries to bluff about it from the gush on Twitter. I hope my friends will be impressed.)
Everyone likes to impress occasionally.
Review by De Gevallene
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“If you have been on the hunt for a genre-defying crime read, I highly recommend this story.”
I went into this read completely blind. I was immediately submerged in a world of violence, conflicting versions of the truth, and a mother’s struggle to redeem her son.
When Estella is brutally raped and told that the attack was instigated by her son to appease his criminal cohorts, she refuses to believe it. She begins a harrowing quest to prove her son’s innocence.
This novel is a compelling exploration of the tenuous bonds between myth and reality. It exposes the flimsy barriers humanity erects against unwelcome revelations, and the subtle differences that influence our perception of events.
If you have been on the hunt for a genre-defying crime read, I highly recommend this story.
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Hello everyone! I just wanted to share this with everyone because this book was an amazing read. Below is a copy of my review and more information about what the story is about and about the author! Thank you to Blackthorn Books for the ARC and thank you to James Victor Jordan for this amazing book
#blackthornbooks #jamesvictorjordan #thespeedoflife #booktour
I received a copy of this book in exchange for a honest review.
The Speed of Life is one of those books that draws you in. There are definitely some trigger warnings for rape and sexual assault that need to be mentioned.
After Estelle, a federal prosecutor, is brutally beaten and raped during a home invasion her whole world is turned upside down. The perpetrator leaves a note stating that Andrew, Estelle’s son, sent him to do it. While Estelle is recovering from her injuries, she is served with a restraining order from Andrew so that he can protect his fifth amendment right to not self incriminate himself. This story has a lot of smaller stories that all circle back to this case. Through James Victor Jordan’s lyrical prose this story truly comes to life. The characters are truly dynamic and this story is a puzzle that piece by piece is put together in a truly spectacular way.
About The Speed of Life
What happens when a brutal crime threatens a mother’s love for her son?
An old Florida family and those in their orbit get caught in a torrent of passion, a deadly legal system, and the mythology of the Everglades, which runs as deep as this story does.
About James Victor Jordan
James Victor Jordan, a descendant of Eastern European shamans, writes fiction to explore justice, multiculturalism, spiritualism, and nature. His short stories have been widely published. He is an attorney holding a JD degree from UCLA and a Master of Professional Writing degree from the University of Southern California. He lives in Santa Monica, California with his best friends: Andrea, his wife and UC, their standard poodle.
Carly Rheilan‘s review
Oct 09, 2020
This is a unique and extraordinary book, cutting across mindsets as much as genres.
It can be read, just about, if you’re prepared to put the work in, as a crime thriller, a whodunit for the rape that slams through the early pages of this book. Sadly the violence and horror of that scene may make some readers stop there and decide the book is not for them, but press on if you can bear to, you will be repaid.
You may be better repaid if you think of it as a literary work, a meditation on consciousness and determinism. A physicist speculates about whether one could predict the future if one knew the trajectory of every object in space, every action and reaction in the infinite Newton’s cradle. A Seminole woman sees the future, as a child is born, locking into an inevitable prophesy. Throughout, the book traces the infinitely complex web of apparently unrelated actions and events, that underpin an eventual outcome. In the midst of such forces can anyone have free will?
But to keep yourself from losing track, you might try to read it as a cultural saga – complex, spanning generations and timeframes and perspectives – a saga in which, no matter how the cultural backdrop changes, women hold the world together, and men – sons – disrupt it. Throughout this book, sons are problematic.
But however you read it, you do have to put the work in. The intricacy of this work is intriguing, and the writing is sometimes quite mesmerising, but you can easily miss a step. It jumps in time and place and person, forwards and backwards. And the author does warn you. The process of the book is described rather neatly in a passage very near the beginning, in which a judge reflects on the nature of a trial: “A trial is a jigsaw puzzle, she told the jurors. Each piece of the puzzle is a piece of evidence. There is no order in which the pieces of the puzzle must be assembled. But you can’t see the puzzle’s entire picture until you have all the pieces. When all the evidence is presented, you will have all the pieces of the puzzle. Then following my instructions, it will be your job to put the puzzle together. You can only reach a proper decision after you’ve seen the entire picture.”
And it will, indeed, be your job, dear reader. The author gives instructions, and throws all the pieces of the puzzle into the mix. But you have to put it all together. Enjoy.
message 1: by James – rated it 5 stars
Carly, thank for your this awesome review, for diving so deep and coming out on the other side wiser, I hope, and having been well entertained. Best, James Jordan
the_towering_tbr, Jessica
“Thank you so much to @blackthorntours for allowing me to be a part of the book tour for James Victor Jordan’s new novel, The Speed of Life.
The Speed of Life begins with a brutal rape that tears a family apart. The family drama and the mysteries surrounding it had me totally intrigued. But this isn’t just a family drama. The family involved is multicultural and diverse—Seminole, African American and Caucasian—and cultural practices play a huge role in the novel. There is also spirituality, astrophysics and the politics of the American legal system at play. And there are beautiful illustrations throughout the novel. The Speed of Life is unlike anything I’ve ever read and I would recommend it to anyone seeking a complex, intellectual take on a family drama.”
#booksofinstagram #bookclubofinsta #blackthornbooks #blackthornbooktours, #JamesVictorJordan, #James.V.Jordan, #TheSpeedOfLife, #Bookstagram, #Bookstagrammer, #CrimeFiction, #Shamanism, #the_towering_tbr
mrsbookburney , Niahm Burnett
“This is not my usual type of book, but I enjoyed reading it.”
“The book forms the views of the main characters, with other stories woven within it.
This book does contain a brutal crime, which may hold a trigger to some, but it also gives a factual insight in to the judicial system. I felt that each chapter was like a puzzles giving an insight to the relationships between the characters and how they fit together.
I undertook this review as part of a Blackthorn’s Book Tour. I purchased the book myself.”
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The Dark Side from the Inside- In the Dark Space
“Reading this mysterious book, I kept thinking of those elaborate monkey’s paw knots that my dad, an old naval man, used to make for me. As a child I would hold the huge knot in one hand, like a talisman, and with the other trace the cords round and round, trying to see how the different threads wove in, wove out, getting lost in the mystery of it… This book was like that.
I read a lot of crime books, and there’s a crime story here (that thread at least I managed to untangle by the end, to see how it fitted into the knot – I’d have been unhappy if I hadn’t managed that). And it’s a good crime story – at first it looks like a unitary one, a terrible crime against a female victim – but the mystery of that crime dives rapidly underground burrowing through the story and transforming into a mystery of other crimes, further, wider, money, diamonds, revenge… I liked that. I’d have been satisfied with that, on its own.
But inside the crime story there’s also a magical realist story about a family, transitioning across the generations from a shamanistic, native American past, into the current “scientific” world. Both worlds are presented as equally magical, violent and troubling, and a thread of a story about astrophysics links them. The magical purple light that is invariably a signifier of the violence of the shamanistic world – most shockingly and yet never really interrogated, the murder of a baby – seems to be echoed in the photons of black holes, disclosing terrible secrets about unsolved crimes in modernity. I never did completely untangle those threads, though I tried…
By preference I’m a left brain thinker: I like to take things apart and unpick their logic, and in another book I might have minded more that I couldn’t always do this. But the beautiful illustrations are important here: they speak to the right of your brain, and they bind the narratives together in ways that you understand differently. I’ve never seen pictures used like that in an adult book of fiction. It worked for me.
This isn’t a book you can read in one sitting, but it’s also not a book to pick up and put down in snatched moments between other things. It needs its own time. Maybe it’s a good book to read while you’re locked down or quarantined – some point in your life when you can focus on the interwoven narratives and forget about everything else.
I undertook this review as part of a Blackthorn’s Book Tour. I purchased the book myself.”
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My Cov Blog, Blogger
AD] “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
The Speed of Life Book Tour
What happens when a brutal crime threatens a mother’s love for her son?
An old Florida family and those in their orbit get caught in a torrent of passion, a deadly legal system, and the mythology of the Everglades, which runs as deep as this story does.
The Speed of Life explores multiple characters and their relationships. The story of the women, in particular, Hailey, Estella and Betty Mae, intrigued me with their complexities. The first chapter entitled #MeToo contains a harrowing event amongst the idyllic and vivid descriptions.
Alongside the reality of relationships, James Victor Jordan delves into the world of astrophysics and the court of law.
A friendship tested after the discovery of drugs, money laundering, funerals and so much more. There is so much in this debut novel.
I enjoyed the challenging vocabulary scattered throughout; teaching me as well as entertaining me.
James Victor Jordan, a descendant of Eastern European shamans, writes fiction to explore justice, multiculturalism, spiritualism, and nature.
#booksofinstagram #bookclubofinsta #blackthornbooks #blackthornbooktours, #JamesVictorJordan, #James.V.Jordan, #TheSpeedOfLife
Matthew Arnold Stern, Author of Amiga reviews The Speed Of Life, An Illustrated Novel:
“Estella Verus, a successful Federal prosecutor is brutally raped, and her son Andrew is accused of being behind it. What unfolds is a story with a richly developed and fascinating cast of characters, lush imagery, and clashes of beauty and brutality.
The Speed of Life is rooted in James Victor Jordan’s personal experiences as an attorney, tied with evocative depictions of Florida. The real appeal of this book are the sharp contrasts between scenes of luxury and poverty, Seminole shamanism and astrophysics, the beauty of the Florida Everglades and brutality both natural and manmade.
This rich and deep novel is one you’ll want to take slow to savor all the rich imagery, courtroom drama, and fascinating character and relationship studies. The Speed of Life is a brilliantly crafted courtroom drama and a mediation on the universe. This book will stay with you.”
anoveldestination
Abby, Blogger
Blogger
Over the last month, I’ve had a lot of 3-star reads, but I loved this book. I enjoyed every moment of when I sat down to read this book.
Despite being very original, The Speed of Life managed to incorporate some of my favorite elements from other books.
One of my favorite things about this book is the way the story moved.
The Speed of Life has all the traditional elements needed to make me intrigued by a story. There’s a clear plot and mystery from the beginning, and the pacing in this book is phenomenal. Even as more information was revealed to me, the characters and plot kept me wanting to turn the pages. I cared about the consequences for the different characters.
While The Speed of Life utilizes traditional storytelling elements to keep you reading, the plot in this book is far from the traditional chronological plot. This book weaves through different times, places, and character perspectives flawlessly. Despite jumping around a lot, the story has one central thread running throughout that makes the story feel coherent. It reminded me a lot of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad and Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, which are two very different books, but both exemplify how to utilize nontraditional story structures. I would add The Speed of Life to this category—the structure of this book just worked. It spoke to the character development and themes within this book.
Within the story, there are many complex themes.
For the most part, I think James Victor Jordan manages these themes well. I especially enjoyed the focus on Seminole culture and shamanism in the book. However, the book often has lengthy digressions, providing commentary on the themes in the book. I felt these digressions usually detracted from the story, rather than enhanced the story. I wish James Victor Jordan had let the story speak for itself more because the story alone is so compelling and efficient at sharing its message.
These digressions are also the only reasons the book isn’t a 5-star read for me. While I enjoyed the writing style in this book overall, these digressions took me out of the story.
The setting felt real.
“Your story feels real,” is something that is said in my creative writing classes a lot. For me, it means that the details are so specific that it’s hard to imagine they are made up—it seems like this story could happen in real life. I’m usually not a fan of scenic descriptions, but I loved the way the Everglades were described in this book. It reminded me a lot of Florida by Lauren Groff. Beyond the Everglades, other scenic descriptions were just as gorgeous.
Another reason I loved the setting in this book is that the setting almost always served a purpose. There were a few sentences where I thought the scenic descriptions didn’t add much to the mood of the story. However, overall, James Victor Jordan does a fantastic job of using setting to heighten character emotions and establish the mood of scenes.
Conclusion
I highly recommend this book. If you enjoy crime fiction and legal thrillers, this book has the tried-and-true story elements you’ll love, but it also delivers so much more. The language in this book is graceful, and the shape of the story is original. The themes in this book will also leave you thinking long after you’ve finished it, which is one of my favorite parts about reading.
Final Rating: 4/5 Stars
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rozierreadsandwine
Blogger
Blogger
“What are memories and dreams if not an expression of the speed of life.”
This book has lots of complex layers so be ready!
It feels at first like there are several stories going on in this book but just be patient and you will see how everything connects.
The book is mostly set in South Florida and intertwines a horrific rape with the metaphysical world, shamanism, and old high school friends that are interconnected through love and deceit.
The book begins when Estella, an attorney, sustains a brutal attack and her son, Andrew, is arrested as having set his mother up for the attack. We then move to an interesting history of Estella’s past and her family. The book then becomes almost for me a legal thriller as old high school friends are involved in one way or another in an accused money laundering scheme.
I think it’s important to focus on the chapter about the characters when they are in high school because those characters are integral to the story.
There is also a portion of the story that takes place in California and focuses on Georges. This part delves into the Sudan and Jewish culture and hate. Abe, a 24 year old, takes part in this section and it’s very powerful and interesting.
When you read this book, the details are important so don’t overlook them. My impression of the characters are for the most part that everyone in this story has high levels of education which I think should be recognized.
There are beautiful illustrations throughout the book.
An interesting and thought provoking novel!
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Thank you for this thoughtful, terrific review. James
Dear Readers,Today is my stop in the blog tour organized by Black ThornTours. This is my first blog tour with them and I must say that they are a wonderfully professional. It’s absolutely gratifying to be a part of their Blog Tour. (I have their next Blog Tour lined up and I am so thrilled.)
Estella Verus – A whole Attorney in South Florida, but part seminole, black and white. Apart from being a professional she is also a mother. Andrew is her teenage son who is convicted for possession of substance.
One night, Estella’a home is invaded and she is physically abused mercilessly. The perp has left a note to her stating that her son has sent him to her house. Apart from substance possession, Andrew is now charged with his. His crime level just notched up and there is no way for Estella to meet him and understand as to what is happening. There are restraining orders and she feels hopeless.
Thus begins the Speed of Life which has multiple plots and narrators.
Is Andrew a real convict?
Is Estella going to prove her son’s innocence?
How do we know what is real and what is not?
Rating – 4/5 Stars
Recommendation – High
Conclusion,
This thriller book is divided into seven parts, but the central plot is the mother’s quest for search of truth about her convicted son. Is it the truth or not is what Estella needs to ascertain. This read also gives us an Astrophysics angle and an exploration beyond law.
Trigger Warning – Deals with physical abuse.
P.S – Thank You Black Thorn Tours for organizing and inviting me to be a part of this magnificent blog tour. Thank You for providing me with an ecopy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Lots of love,
mrsswiftnib
#Stayhungrystaybookish#thespeedoflife #thrillerbooks
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👁🐍🌪👁NEW REVIEW👁🌪🐍👁
Thank You @blackthorntours @james.v.jordan #turningleafbook For This Mind Bending ARC Astrophysical Thriller On Sale Now!!!
⭐⭐⭐⭐4 Stars⭐⭐⭐⭐
Review Posted on Goodreads & Amazon
The Speed of Life: An Illustrated Novel by James Victor Jordan is truly like no other novel I have experienced in my life. It is part thriller, court drama, family drama with some theoretical astrophysics and Shaman beliefs thrown into the mix.
Broken into seven parts the central story is heartbreakingly about federal prosecutor Estella who is the victim of an horrendous home invasion where she is brutally beaten and raped by her assailant. He leaves a note at the crime scene that her son Andrew sent him to commit this unspeakable crime. Andrew is arrested and Estella cannot even speak to him because his lawyer has issued a restraining order against her to protect his rights. She needs to hear the truth from him but will have to put the pieces together herself on how and why her and her son ended up in this living nightmare.
Just this premise would be enough for me to read this book but the author remarkably manages to apply laws of astrophysics and mysticism to demonstrate the human journey through life’s pains and joys.
The writing is so precise and descriptive but yet there is almost a lyrical tone to it. I admit that I was confused at times and had to re read passages and look up definitions now and then but I would not have wanted to miss the experience of all this story has to offer not just as a thriller but as a lesson on the connectivity we all have to one another.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.
🙏🙏🙏🙏PRAYERS🙏🙏🙏🙏
Mom (81 yrs old) is in the hospital.
🙏🙏🙏🙏PRAYERS🙏🙏🙏🙏
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“The writing is fantastic, with some genuinely stunning descriptions”
This was a difficult review to write, in part because The Speed of Life is a difficult book to define as it is a novel that touches on many different aspects. However, at its heart, it is a legal thriller about a crime and everything that spirals around that, from what lead to that moment, to the aftermath and fallout. It is also, unfortunately, a book that I struggled to connect with, something which is certainly more personal than anything else, because this is a beautiful book. The writing is fantastic, with some genuinely stunning descriptions paired with the illustrations done in with Eric Savage and Lorraine Hall.
“After all, what is consciousness if not a dialog between the past, the present, and the future? What are memories and dreams if not an expression of the speed of life?”
This quote is quite an apt representation of what this book is, and there was a dreamlike quality to the book which kept me reading to the end, even with my own complicated feelings about the book. The Speed of Life is one of those books that grabs hold of you, and makes you think about far more than just the clever, twisting crime story in the centre, but about questions of family and justice, past and present. It is a brilliant, multi-layered story, and I can see why many people have loved it.
I think perhaps for me the disconnect came through the characters, because this is a fast-paced story, with multiple POVs and time jumps. Which has the potential to make for a very confusing story, but in this case is woven together to make a coherent story that moves back and forth through time. However, it did feel as though as I was never able to truly make a connection with the characters, and with the jumps, you couldn’t take your eyes off the page long enough to make sense of what you did have because otherwise, you would lose the flow or an essential thread of the story. That said, I did feel that each of the pov characters had a strong, individual voice, and you could always tell who you were following.
This is not an easy read, with a brutal crime (tw: rape) and a complicated, interweaving of POVs and timelines. Still, I would recommend for anyone who wants something different from your usual crime thriller—a beautiful book, a strong debut, and one that many will fall in love with.
If you’ve read it or read in the future, please feel free to shout at me about this fantastic book.
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Dark Elements “as engaging as it is dynamic”
We give The Speed of Life a score of 3.25 Bones. A good start for a debut author that has plenty of room to grow.
Rating System:
0 Bones — Keep this one buried 1 Bone — Perfect for creating a cursed item 2 Bones — Borrow for Your Halloween Festivities 3 Bones — A Good Addition to Your Library 4 Bones — Worth a bit of grave robbing 5 Bones — Impulse Buy Approved
“The Speed of Life proves itself to be a fast-paced tour de force weaving together a tough legal battle, a murderous crime, and the unflinching love of a mother for her son. Set between the Florida Everglades and the California coast, this book is as engaging as it is dynamic.
Overall Impressions
I will admit, it took me a few tries to get through this book. It was unlike any story that I was used to reading, let alone reviewing. But it certainly was a nice change of pace.
Good points were many when it came to this book, and the author will most likely become a master storyteller over time. The characters were well flushed out and memorable, the settings breathed with a life of their own, and the author’s insight into legal courtroom action and shamanism is almost unmatched.
Unfortunately the one downside that I found was the style of writing. Writing in a multiple POV format is difficult to do, and the author doesn’t quite measure up to the challenge, in my opinion. The early chapters read like disjointed short stories, and the later chapters read like a tangle of threads, trying to come together by themselves into a quilt. There is little continuity between the different parts. In all honesty, the story would have been more powerful, and more memorable if only one or two characters or story lines were followed. But that is only my opinion.”
Thank you all for your reviews! To Dark Elements: Each chapter is told from a single POV because as in a trial, a percipient witness can only testify based upon personal knowledge. We don’t hear from the defendant, as in a criminal trial, until the end. Following the defendant’s testimony, we have his lawyers closing argument. The structure is a montage, which has substantial literary precedent. CLOUD ATLAS comes to mind. Willkie Collins MOONGLOW.
Thanks again so very much for the review. Best, James
So many characters, so much jumping around! Where am I? Who is this? Have I met them before? What are they doing in this story? What year is it supposed to be now? The characters flit in and there are an awful lot of them, some who appear only once, in intense detail (though I couldn’t always see why they were included) and others who kept resurfacing, perhaps ten years younger or twenty older than the last time I met them, in scenes whose significance I couldn’t fathom.
I wished that the author had included a duffers’ guide listing all the characters, with a sentence of aide memoire about each. But judging from the VIPs whose reviews are quoted at the beginning, I don’t think he was writing for duffers…
So I’m not going to award stars to this book, because I don’t think it’s for me to do so.
I just want to give it a shout out for two reasons.
First for the beautiful descriptions of the natural world – I really enjoyed these, and I didn’t care how they fitted in the story. At moments I was transported quite out of myself and into the Everglades. In color. Nice. Thank you for that Mr Jordan.
Second for the amazing pictures – also in colour – beautiful, funny and mysterious. I spent half an hour the other day, taking a break, just looking at each of them and thinking how delicious it would be to do them as tattoos. On the author, maybe. I quite got into that reverie. Thank you for that, artists ERIC SAVAGE https://savagecreative.com/ and LORRAINE HALL. (I put the artists’ name in capitals because although the book trumpets itself as ‘an illustrated novel’ so the pictures are presumably important, the author does not seem keen to share his limelight, and the illustrators’ names are as hidden as can legally be got away with. The author hasn’t even included them in his acknowledgements!)
Didn’t get it, sorry, but I hope you do. And even without getting it, I got some pleasure from it.
Hi Anastasia, First of all, thank you for your compliments and your plug of my web site. Now, allow me to answer your question about not mentioning the names of the Illustrators for The Speed Of Life, An Illustrated Novel by James Victor Jordan. I asked James not to list me as the Illustrator for his novel. Lorraine Hall had originally started the illustrations for the book, but could not finish for personal reasons. I took over and did the cover, and Chapters and 1, 3. The other Chapters I took over and made adjustments to Lorraine’s Illustrations. So you see, it’s complicated. I didn’t want to take credit for Lorraine’s beginnings. Thank you for your review!
