A book review now, what's next?

This was my assignment in my professional writing class last week. Let me know what you think. I love feedback.

Take the Monkeys and Run

Reviewed by Tammy Stathelson

Take the Monkeys and Run – A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery, a 2010 Amazon Kindle Bestseller and semi-finalist in the Amazon 2009 Breakthrough Novel Contest, is the first book by Karen Cantwell in an ongoing series about a small town Virginia housewife who has a penchant for finding trouble or rather trouble finding her.

Barbara Marr, or Barb as she is affectionately called by friends, normally spends her time at PTA meetings, but lately has stumbled onto a mystery that is set to rock her quiet, nothing-ever-happens-here community.  Barb leads the average life of a forty-five year-old mother with three daughters. Her husband, Howard, who recently announced he needed time to think things over and then walked out on his family continues to maintain a presence throughout the story. Barb is often aggravated and intimidated by her overbearing mother who shows up without invitation or announcement. Her closest friends, constant companions, and partners in mystery solving are her neighbors, Peggy and Roz. The only thing out of the ordinary and probably the most interesting thing that has happened in Rustic Woods, Virginia is the monkeys that seem to be multiplying swinging from the trees in Barbara Marr’s front yard.

The book begins by immediately thrusting readers into the action by opening with Barb wandering around in the dark with her faithful cat, Indiana Jones, investigating a loud truck, which has pulled up in the middle of the night at a house next door that has been vacant for 29 years. She is chased back to her warm, safe home by men yelling and a half-animal, half-human type scream. The next day when the monkeys appear she decides maybe the “House of Many Bones”, as she calls it because she believes any house that has stayed vacant that long must have many skeletons hidden inside, needs to be checked out.

Excitement ensues on a larger scale after Barb looks through the basement window of the “House of Many Bones” where she sees a light shining during the loud exchange between men and monkeys to find a lifeless, decomposing head. From that point on, the plot twists and turns magnificently, leaving page turning cliffhangers and questions at the end of each chapter.

This hybrid comedy-mystery is told as a hilariously pure flight of fancy that could only happen in a housewife’s imagination. Cantwell creates a fictitious world that is colorfully furnished in the everyday while taking readers on a romp with outlandish mafia style bad guys – with a conscious no less, movie star handsome hunks, and a delightful entourage of equally clueless and hilarious friends.

Take the Monkeys and Run is loaded with references to movies including, Woody Allen’s Take the Money and Run, old television programs as well as those getting older actors. While these references cause the book to be dated, in the future that could add to its charm. It is very appealing to those getting close to being called middle-aged readers who spend their days in the real world and are looking for a witty and welcome escape.

Karen Cantwell’s Barbara Marr Murder Mystery Series is bound to be a delight for readers who enjoy reading for pleasure and simply for the fun of it!

Take the Monkeys and Run can be purchased at these online retailers:

Amazon – Barnes and Noble – Kobo – iTunes/iBooks – Google Play – Audible Audiobooks

Take the Monkeys and Run

Karen Cantwell

Copyright 2010

Fourth Kindle Edition: 2014

Creative Non-fiction: Medieval Sword Fighting 101 - Only the ages have been changed to protect the innocent!

Bored with life I enrolled in a Medieval Sword Fighting Class offered by Jacksonville State Community College on Tuesday and Thursday nights for three weeks. I am a 45-year-old housewife and this was not my ordinary activity, but I was in a rut and I needed to break out!

It was late fall and as anybody who has been in the south this time of year knows it is hard for a cold front to penetrate that Mason-Dixon Line and knock the heat out of Alabama before December, but this year was different. Maybe Alabama was bored too because it was stepping out of character just like me. It was cold, bitterly cold in our tender foot minds, when I drove the dark and curvy road to the campus.

The information flyer had said the class met in the gym so I followed signs directing me there, but once inside there were no more signs and that gym was overflowing with people of all shapes and sizes, all younger than me. I had never been in a gym this large before. There were stairs leading to an upper level. What does a gym need with an upstairs? This question would soon be answered.

I asked a young man in a hurry if he knew where the medieval sword fighting class was taking place. He looked confused, but luckily for me another young man overheard and with a big smile said, “Follow me Ma’am!”

Turned out Joey who had found me wandering around was teaching this class for the first time. I could not believe he was the teacher, he looked about 14-years-old. He had a friendly smile and a firm handshake which took me by surprise, not the firmness but the handshake.

He led me upstairs, showed me the locker rooms as we passed by, and into a long, narrow room which turned out to be a batting cage. I had never seen a batting cage in a gym. Joey chatted excitedly during our short tour telling me how happy he was that I had shown up. He told me nobody else was there yet, but he was expecting fifteen others for the class.

Joey, who turned out to be called left-handed Joey because there was another Joey helping teach the class known as right-handed Joey, introduced me to Star who looked like the original Goth Girl. She had on tight black pants, a blousy, black top, and black boots that came up to her knees. She had a black star drawn around her right eye which I was never sure whether it was drawn on with marker or a real tattoo. She was a very pretty, young girl who was there “just because”. It was obvious she liked all the young men teaching the class.

The atmosphere turned to one of a carnival when Left handed Joey held up his hands, calling for attention, and said, “Ladies and Gentlemen”. It would not have surprised me if he had said, “I call your attention to the center ring”, but instead he asked us to please take a seat on the floor.

The same old, gray, smelly mats like the ones we had used for tumbling in high school gym class were where he signaled for us to sit. This scent combined with Star’s perfume and the overall sweaty gym atmosphere turned my stomach or maybe it was the case of nerves that had suddenly come to my attention when I noticed that everyone here was at least twenty years younger than me.

Joey, left or right-handed I can’t remember, told us that we would start by putting on a metal helmet and allowing one of the teachers to hit us in the head with a wooden sword. He said this was absolutely necessary before we could begin fighting.

As I put the helmet on my head it struck me that maybe I should have picked a different activity to get out of my rut. I didn’t have time to think this way for long because as soon as that helmet was in place “Bam!” My head was vibrating like Daffy Duck’s when Bugs Bunny hit him in the head with symbols at the orchestra.

“Good Lord!”

Everyone laughed. They all took their turn and then class ended. Joey thanked us all for coming and encouraged me to come back on Thursday night. I knew why he was singling me out it was because I was the oldest. I went home and struggled for two days about whether or not to go back, but in the end I decided to play this out until the end and so I returned.

I was surprised to find that I was one of only three people to come back. All four of us were the older ones in the class, but I was the oldest. I would have felt bad for Joey, but we had all paid our money up front, so it didn’t matter if the kids couldn’t hang with the older generation, the class went on without them. 

The one and only battle that I fought, I won. I didn’t get hit in the head again. The next time I feel a rut coming on, I think I’ll fight the urge and go bake some cookies.