Monday, November 5, 2012

Review: Poughkeepsie by Debra Anastasia

Poughkeepsie by Debra Anastasia
Published November 22nd 2011 by Omnific Publishing
Purchase: Amazon
About the book

He counts her smiles every day and night at the train station. And morning and evening, the beautiful commuter acknowledges him—just like she does everyone else on the platform. But Blake Hartt is not like the others . . . he’s homeless. Memories of a broken childhood have robbed him of peace and twisted delusions into his soul. He stays secluded from the sun, sure the world would run from him in the harsh light of day.

Each day, Livia McHugh smiles politely and acknowledges her fellow commuters as she waits for the train to the city. She dismisses this kindness as nothing special, just like her. She’s the same as a million other girls—certainly no one to be cherished. But special or not, she smiles every day, never imagining that someone would rely on the simple gesture as if it were air to breathe.

When the moment comes that Livia must do more than smile, without hesitation she steps into the fray to defend the homeless man. And she's surprised to discover an inexplicable connection with her new friend. After danger subsides, their smiles become conversation. Their words usher in a friendship, which awakens something in each of them. But it’s not long before their bond must prove its strength. Entanglements from the past challenge both their love and their lives.

Blake’s heart beats for Livia’s, even if her hands have to keep its rhythm. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love never fails. Love never fails, right?

In an interwoven tale of unlikely loves and relationships forged by fire, Debra Anastasia takes readers into the darkest corners of human existence, only to show them the radiant power of pure adoration and true sacrifice. Complicated families and confused souls find their way to light in this novel, which manages to be racy, profane, funny, and reverent all at once.

My Thoughts
"Us being in the same atmosphere is either a great cosmic catastrophe or the most serendipitous rendezvous."

"... you make the rest of the beautiful things in this world cry for even trying at all. You make it hard for me to breathe."

Wow! What a fantastic story!

It’s books like Poughkeepsie that make me rethink who really owns the publishing stage now-a-days. There seems to be more and more hidden gems either being self-published or picked up by the smaller houses that are starting to cause a major shift in the reading world. I’ll be honest, I’ve never heard of Omnific Publishing and still after reading this awesome book, don’t know much about them, but what I will tell you, it’s stories like this that give more credibility in my opinion to those authors that choose (either by default or otherwise) to go the non-traditional route in getting their works out to readers. I’m more inclined now, than I’ve ever been, to try a book that doesn’t have the big marketing dollars and well known publishing machines behind them. Great job Debra Anastasia for proving to readers such as myself that awesome stories don’t need to be branded with the likes of The Publisher Elite to show it’s a story worth my attention.

Well, now that I've got that out of the way, let me tell you a little bit about what I experienced in this pretty awesome book.

In Poughkeepsie you take a journey with a cast of characters that equally resonated to me through their unique voices and command of their stage. These six main characters are so well defined by their presence, and each of them made such an impact with me that I couldn’t stop but listen to their story and feel their emotions.

We get to meet three brothers, including Blake (the homeless musician), Beckett (the gangster), and Cole (the priest’s assistant) that grew up together in the foster care system. These three brothers are both banded and branded (by a symbolic tattoo) in their commitment to each other, as evidence in the book cover, where you’ll notice the arm is a tattoo of a music symbol, a knife and a cross. Each of those represents what the brothers mean to each other and what they’re willing to do for their survival. There’s so much symbolism in this book that I actually waited a couple of days to write this review so it could all sink in. It was awesome to experience what these brothers meant to one another. Beckett has spent his years after leaving the foster system making the world safer for Blake and Cole by means of force and power as a gang leader, Cole is in constant struggle for their ‘salvation’ as they had to commit some crimes in the name of survival, and Blake the main protag of this novel strives to bring hope through his music so his brothers can stop and reflect the beauty that’s hidden in the world they live.

When the story commences, we meet Livia who is special in her own right as she takes the time to do something that many of us would never think twice to consider. She stops and smiles at a homeless guy and gives him the time of day. Now mind you, I'm probably hesitant do that, but I can’t help but consider how that can change someone's day if you took the time to acknowledge them and not look through them. It can be just any ordinary person that crosses our path on a daily basis. What would that mean to someone to have you smile at them and offer a kind word? Would it pick up someone’s spirits? Change the outlook of their day? Well for Blake, it changed his life and alongside Livia’s as well.

There was so much happening in this story, that for the first 100 pages I was having a hard time wrapping my arms around everything, but there was a moment of revelation that occurred where everything started to make sense and there was no way in hell I wasn’t going to see this journey to the finish line.

The language in this novel is sharp and at times shocking, especially when Beckett and Kyle enter the scene. The stuff that came out of their mouth had me both cringing and guffawing at the same time. I’m prone of the first, but seldom the latter and when done simultaneously, you know I’m being entertained.

Poughkeepsie is unique, powerful and profound all in one punch. If you doubt my opinion, take a look at some of the current reviews and my fellow readers/reviewers of this book can further attest to the impact of this story. Well done Debra Anastasia. You caught my attention... hard...

5 Suns

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