Book Review: "Love's Harvest"

Love's Harvest by Peggy J. Herring

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Oh dear. Where to start with this mess? First of all, even before I get to the writing itself, I have to mention that throughout this book, paragraphs end and begin in mid-sentence. Also, quotes seem to double as apostrophes. Doesn't anyone at Bella Books proof read?

Now then, the story. There actually is a kernel of a story here, but it is buried under a dung heap of terrible writing. I have read Herring several times before, and don't know what happened to her here; she is usually good for a reliable, if unspectacular, lesbian romance novel. This time, however, her characters are cardboard, the dialogue is wooden, the sex scenes are tepid and predictable, and the big climactic scene is more Three Stooges than suspense.

As if all that were not enough, Herring unerringly chooses to be vague when she should be specific. It never becomes clear exactly what one of the major characters does at her job. Oh, she reads files and makes calls, but it never gets any more detailed than that. That's just an example. The whole book is general and vague, more like an outline than a finished novel. But wait! There's more! Herring's word choices are comical at times. For example, her characters don't "think" something, they "reason". Over and over, she uses rather mechanical sounding language when plain language would be better. "A gentle kiss after a regular breathing pattern was restored" sounds like something from an engine manual.

It's awful. Don't read it. I can't believe she put her name to this nonsense.



View all my reviews

Ursa

A bear is no creature to be trifled with.
She's a ferocious mother,
out there in the piney woods, making something out of nothing,
top of the food chain,
taking out a hiker or two any time she wants.

Still, with all her talents,
she's got a fat ass and smells bad.
She sticks her snout in old rotten logs going after termites,
and when she vocalizes, 
she sounds like a old city bus.

So,
spray her with a little lavender.
Have you ever seen such a nonplussed look?
You can almost see the memories floating reluctantly up 
from the deeps of her big bad bruin brain,
reminding her of a time when she was young enough to think
that she might one day be pretty
or popular
or loved.

There was a time, indeed, 
when she could go up a tree as easy as a breeze in June,
and look out over everything from a height,
thinking she was just mighty special and fine.
Goldilocks had nothing on her,
and even though she could put away all the porridge in three counties,
she was still cute,
and young,
and full of herself.

These days,
--at least right up until you spritzed her--
she wanders the forest on ankles that ache every time it rains,
and a back that feels like a creaky bridge.
She looks behind her for her cub, only to recall
that he has gone off on his own long ago,
and has grown to twice her size.
Now, he leaves her a carcass from time to time,
looking after her instead of the other way around.

Oh well, now there will be a temporarily sweet-smelling bear out there,
rooting through the town dump for treasures, 
or breaking into somebody's car for Tostitos.
Maybe she'll get a wild hare and take a loping run at some hikers
just for old time's sake;
hidden in her goofy gait will be the girl cub of so many summers ago,
running just because she could,
because it felt good,
and there was the whole wide world to head into
top speed,
with nothing out there big enough or dumb enough to stop her.
______  

Managed Care

Do not be alarmed at the pace
our doctor plies his noble skills--
one potion cures, the other kills.

To heal is not a game, a race--
a dance between the grave and flesh
with partners green with rot, or fresh.

Accept the process and embrace--
the literature we gave you;
the surgery that can save you!

Depend on skill, dumb luck, or grace
negotiate another breath--
your enemy is not us, but Death!

The Reaper waits, or nears apace.
Patient in aspect and of mien--
takes possession or leaves unseen.
______

This is an invented form called a Constanza, which Real Toads has inflicted on me this morning. How do I hate this form? Let me count the ways: I hate that all the lines are four feet in length, making a sing-songy quality almost impossible to avoid. Over time, I have come to enjoy a lot of forms, but this one felt like trying to play tennis while wearing a straightjacket. (Some say I would look good in one!) Let's shed the jacket, and try this again...

Just a little bit longer, if you please.
Sit down. Read a magazine!
(They go back to 1983.)

The doctor is a very busy man.
He will do everything for you that he can.
Fill out this form.
Learn the French horn, try a language or get a college degree

while you wait.
From Mail Order State.

Come in, come on, stand on this scale!
Oh my goodness...
all we get are
skeletons and whales!

Any complaints?
Catarrh?
Were you hit by a car?
Put on this gown, then sit down.
The doctor will see you if you'll just shut your mouth,
sit here and wait through his rounds of golf.

Knock knock! Hello!
And how are we?!?
Oh yes. Oh my. Oh dear. I see.
I think we can dispense with dreary tests...
Have this prescription filled.
If it doesn't work, come back, we'll drill.

Pay up, pay now, pay through the nose!
Your co-pay is more, your coverage is less,
and all gone to receivership
of Mr. Death, our C.P.A.

Have a nice day!
_______

  

My wish for you

If I had just one wish for you,
it wouldn't be for anything stupid like money.

I would whisper you my wish,
until it refused to be denied.

My wish would be this:
A 1969 Pontiac GTO, 
black as your hair,
for you to drive, hella fast

with my tongue in your ear,
fuck yeah!
______

a selfish wish in 55 words for STWIASD  (and  G Man) from me!

 

Tar Baby

If I don't answer the phone, by all means,
keep calling until I pick up.
A light touch was never something you understood.

As my phone makes its missed-call chime again and again,
I think of something I haven't thought of in years.
Tar Baby didn't have to do anything but show up and sit there,
to drive Brer Rabbit nuts.
The more Brer Rabbit tried to fight,
the more stuck he got, as I recall.

The youngest in the house by a decade,
I was an ace scavenger.
One of my favorite things was the box of old 78's
that I could play on the big cabinet record player.
The radio part had never worked, that I could remember,
but how I loved to put a record on that soft old turntable
and set the needle down so I could listen.

Little Orley,
Song Of The South,
and all the others left behind by children no longer children,
could fill an afternoon for me, 
and I loved nothing better than to sing along! And dance!

Along you'd come, saying here, take some of this.
It's good for you.
Pretty soon I couldn't stay awake,
asleep among my records on the floor.
I didn't know then, about codeine,
but it sure could shut a kid up for a few hours, I bet.

Once, I woke up around dinner time to find my dad sitting by the bed,
watching me, looking worried.
Overdosed me, didn't you?
Didn't count on me still being out when he got home.
There was no more take-this-its-good-for-you after that.

The chime on my phone goes off again.
Missed call.
You'd like me to talk to you now, now that I'm out of reach,
but it's too late, Tar Baby--
I learned the way to stay unstuck
is to give you a wide berth,
stay alert,
and sing for myself if I damn well want to.
______ 

for Kerry's flashback moment at Real Toads

Happy Birthday, "99" !

As a little kid, I wanted to be Agent 99. I think I still do! Happy birthday to Barbara Feldon.

Here's The Thing...

Here's the thing about plans--
it's okay to make them,
but don't think making them makes them happen.
(I'm gonna lay my hand on your arm and lean close,
lower my voice...)
Honey, believe me, I know.
(pat pat)

Yup, there I was, in a chair on the patio,
lost in an article called "Forget About Frizz!"
and keeping my dog company,
when these workmen--
they were supposed to be workmen--
ditched their ladders and came over from the neighbor's yard.

They walked all easy and boneless-like,
thumbs hitched in their jeans,
grinning like they knew a good joke.
Look, these were white guys with a van with a name on the side--
how was I supposed to know it wasn't theirs?
How was I supposed to know they were criminals?
How was I supposed to know the trunk of their car would be so dinky
and smell so stale?

Have you ever come out of some coffee bar, walked a block,
running your mouth to a girlfriend and then realized your bag was still under your chair back at Java Jim's?
It's a real bad sinking feeling.
I got that feeling and then some, while I was folded up, gagged,
on the wrong side of these dudes' tail lights.

Somebody better take care of my dog.

So anyway,
(leaning back now, but still confiding. 
Listen to this shit, girl, you never know!)
they took me to some bungalow safe house they had,
where there were two other girls,
Kimberly and Siobhan. 
They did dishes and laid around watching Wheel of Fortune.
They'd been there a long time and hardly talked at all.

So I looked around,
got the lay of the land.
These three dudes, they weren't exactly Murder Incorporated.
What did they want with me?
I decided right then that I would go all Patty Hearst.
Oh, that's a funny joke. God, that's funny--
Cool story, bro--
You look good with that stubble crap on your face--
and so on, till I wanted to throw up.

They started to relax around me, or at least two of them did.
One had nice teeth lost in that stupid face of his,
like he lifted a movie star's smile and then left it in the shed for a year.
The second was skinny, always snorting something,
never wore a shirt,
like his ribs were a permanent display at the Witte.
I called him Skeletor,
the other one Charlie McCarthy.

Not to their faces.

The third dude was mean, he didn't give a damn about anybody,
and bossed the other two around like kicked dogs.
I called him Aztec cos he had no heart.
So the days went by,
(do you want some Diet Coke or something?
a Greek yogurt maybe?)
and I kept worrying about my dog.
I said so once, and Charlie McCarthy said, "Oh he's okay"
and told me he'd seen him and he was fine.
I believed him. It was only later that it occurred to me 
that he could be lying through his pretty teeth 
just to keep me manageable.

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb got so they hardly watched me at all.
Aztec, he was different,
he looked at me with this cold suspicious look,
like I was a grenade, or pregnant, or something.
As for the Doublemint Twins, Kimberly and Siobhan,
they were hopeless.
Skeletor would mumble "C'mon" to one of them and off they'd go,
into the bedroom.
Later, they'd amble out, looking like they'd spent the night in a bus station.
(What did you ask me, honey?
Did I...? 
Hey, do you want to try some of that Diet Coke with lime?
It's really good.)

One day while Aztec was out behind the house,
molesting the engine of the car I'd come here in,
Dumb & Dumber left me sitting on the door-end of the ratty brown couch they had.
The Doublemint Twins were watching some shit on tv,
like they'd been lobotomized,
and the screen door was all that stood between me and a run for it.
Skeletor went off to look for his cache of lost shirts,
and Charlie McCarthy kept telling me stupid jokes like he'd never stop.
Ha ha, yeah, too funny, shut the fuck up already I kept thinking at him.
Finally, he turned his back.
Finally.

I was on my feet as fast as a speed freak debutante that's asked to dance.
Kimberly and Siobhan turned their heads, all slow mo,
and Siobhan moved her mouth a bit.
"Shhh, shut up!" I mouthed, slipping through the unlocked screen door and out.
Man, can I run in bare feet. 
Gone like summer I was, over the grass and on down to the street,
off like a prom dress and then some.
I looked back--
Charlie McCarthy had just come out, and even from a quarter mile
I could see that he looked hurt.  
Betrayed. 
Now who's the sucker?

Well, they chased me.
First Charlie McCarthy jogged after me like a broken Tonka toy,
then they got a clue and went for the car,
but I guess Aztec didn't have it running right yet.
Later, I saw it cruising up and down near my house, 
but by that time I was back here sitting on the bedroom floor,
peeking out the window,
with my arms around my dog, who was hungry and confused but all right.
They shouldn't have come back,
cos the cops arrested them p.d.q.
Dumb, that's what they were, and that's what I had counted on.

(So do you like that lime Coke?)
Smile smile.
I can tell you really didn't like it,
hug hug kiss
and that you don't believe a word of what I said.
Buh bye! Yes, soon, for sure!
C'mon, Bosco,
who needs her anyway?
_____