Evelyn dear Fender

Isn’t believing you have a chance, even when you don’t, better than knowing you don’t when you don’t?

Evelyn Hatfield sets out to be the first to reach the mythological land of Methania. But before her epic journey can begin, she must first suffer high school jealousies, the apathy of conformity, and a pair of clueless parents--all while learning to sail.

Through chance, and a few innocent manipulations and half-truths, Evelyn finally sets sail for the distant horizon where she and her stowaway monkey, Bobo, do battle with their most fearsome enemy, the weather... and lose. Shipwrecked on a tiny island, 4,000 miles from home, she meets Fender Spigot, an equally shipwrecked explorer from Methania who, having never heard a language other than his own, gibber-jabbers his way into her heart.

Regardless of their communication issues, they manage to help each other escape the island—Evelyn, sailing east, and Fender, west—only to discover that absence makes the heart grow fonder. But how can they, again, find each other with such a monstrous ocean and a thousand misunderstandings between them?

*May Contain Spoilers*

Evelyn dear Fender, by Rodney Jones, is a novel of discovery, symmetry, and adventure. This novel takes place either in the future or on a planet similar to ours. Evelyn has heard stories all her life about explorers who tried to reach Methania, a fabled continent, never to be heard from again. Her dream: She wants to be the first explorer to find it and return. 

First off, the way this book is written is funny in itself. The language used is similar to how we use it, but there are some obvious differences right away. Words have evolved further and it takes a few chapters to get used to the substitutions Jones has made. Evelyn is the main character and when readers first see her, she's a young dreamer. As a few years pass, Evelyn becomes an intelligent, hopeful, courageous girl who suddenly remembers that she wanted to sail across the world. Readers will be able to relate their dream to Evelyn's and make a connection with her. They'll see how much Evelyn wants this to happen that she's willing to do anything for it, even commit herself to a deep denial that nothing could *really* go wrong. 

When Evelyn crashes into an island, after a big storm, Fender is formally introduced. Fender is from the opposite side of the world and speaks a very different language (same words, different meanings) than Evelyn. Of course, they both think the other is insane, at first. It's very interesting how Jones wrote this new language and included parenthetical translations for his readers. The words and translations give humor to a dire situation. Fender is sweet, brave, helpful, and even gets a chance to be heroic. As the two communicate, trying to escape the island, Evelyn and Fender fall in love. They both think that they need to return to the respective families, and not to spoil the end but they don't. :) 

With both characters so likeable it's easy to enjoy this fun, adventurous novel. I only really had one problem with it. On the way back from the island, Evelyn runs out of food and is slowly starving. I know this gives the book a sense of urgency and fear, but all I could think was 'She should have brought a fishing pole.' 

However, the main thing I want to discuss is the symmetry of the world. There's a map at the beginning of the book that helps but it's described as two continents with an "entwine" or "eye" in the middle. And each citizen on one continent has a soul mate on the opposite. Rodney Jones gave the story a good creative spin when he came up with this idea. Very unique and interesting. And readers will notice it as Evelyn and Fender are described similarly and their outlooks on life align. Evelyn dear Fender was such a fun novel to read full of interesting language and dangerous adventure. 

Rating: 4.5/5 Cups

Check out these novels also by Rodney Jones:

     

Teaser Tuesday (227)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm/Books and a Beat. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers



Evelyn dear Fender (Kindle 51%)
   - Rodney Jones

What's eating me is the realization, that once I cross the halfway mark, I will not have enough food to get home--it's all or nothing from there. The extraordinary intuition, which got me this far, is nowhere to be found now that the stakes have been raised.

Today, Laura T, winner of the Diary of a Haunting Giveaway last week, is featuring the book on her Teaser Tuesday! Check it out here! 

What's Next, Wednesday (18)

•  To play along share a book you've been looking forward to reading, whether it's new or has been on your reading list for a while.

I'm looking forward to...

Evelyn dear Fender by Rodney Jones. I've read a few books by Jones and haven't been disappointed. He steps away from his usual time travel genre to journey to a mythical land. Evelyn dreams of finding Methania and sets off on a sailing adventure to succeed. Instead she finds herself wrecked on an island with Fender, who speaks a different language.

All the Butterflies in the World - Blog Tour

Synopsis
With her senior year looming, Tess McKinnon has two goals: hanging out with her best friend, Liz, and avoiding her judgmental, alcoholic mother. Then yummy John Bartley arrives—to tell Mrs. McKinnon that her daughter is dead. Distinctly still alive, Tess is baffled by John’s tales of 1800s time travel, rewritten lives, and love. She knows she’s never seen him before, but her feelings refuse to be denied.

When Tess and John discover an aged newspaper clipping that indicates John’s uncle was hanged for Tess’s murder in 1875, John decides to return to his time to save his uncle’s life, but when Tess checks the article after John’s departure, she is horrified to discover that John has been hanged instead.

Armed with determination and modern ingenuity, Tess must abandon her past and risk her future for a chance to catch her own killer and find her first love for the second time.









Review
After The Sun, the Moon, and Maybe the Trains left readers filled with melancholy and heartbreak, we hoped that wouldn't be the end for our friends John and Tess. All the Butterflies in the World open with John traveling to Tess's Mom's house to deliver the bad news: Tess is dead. But somehow, when John traveled to the year 2009, he arrived earlier than the previous trip. And Tess is alive.

John and Tess are both wonderful characters, and they share the role of main character perfectly. John is the most polite and respectful young man that anyone would expect to come out of 1875. While Tess is the loud and somewhat inappropriate yet strong and brave young woman that she has to be. Readers will enjoy the humor that emits from John and Tess, while also noticing their slow fall into love. While the first book did create initial bonds between readers and our two main characters, this book takes it a step further. Because John travels to an earlier time in 2009, Tess doesn't remember him and thus their relationship restarts at the beginning. Readers witness John's struggle to convince Tess that what he says is the truth, trying, at the same time, to keep from scaring her.

When John goes back into the past to try to set a few things right, all of a sudden his life is on the line. Charged with Tess's murder, John spends countless days in jail praying for a miracle and filled with regret at leaving Tess. Meanwhile, in the 2009, historical documents suddenly change, telling Tess what happens. Though thinking she may have jumped off the deep end, Tess refuses to let John die. Readers will love Tess's problem-solving attitude and understand her fear. The actions that both main characters take are respectable and solidify the bond formed with the readers.

The plot of All the Butterflies in the World is filled with humor, excitement, and surprise. John and Tess reconnect in 2009, a few days before the first book takes place. After the initial shock of Tess being alive and well, John tries to rekindle their friendship. In an attempt to let him prove his claims, Tess takes John to a museum where they learn of his family's fate. And the rest is trying to change history. Readers who enjoy a sweet love story and time travel conundrums will absolutely adore this sequel. I think the best part of the book was the subtle claim that everything had worked out the way it was meant to.

Rating: 4.5/5 Cups

Meet the Author
While a past resident of Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Florida, New York, and Vermont, Rodney now resides in Richmond, Indiana, where he whiles away his days pecking at a laptop, riding his ten-speed up the Cardinal Greenway, taking long walks with his daughter, or backpacking and wilderness camping.

His list of past occupations reads like his list of past residences, though his life-long ambition was to be an artist until he discovered a latent affinity for writing.

“In art,” Rodney says, “I was constantly being asked to explain images constructed from a palette of emotions and ideas, which usually required complex narratives to convey their meaning, if there even was a meaning. In writing, the words are creating the images, images are telling a story, the story is evoking feelings. I like it. There’s nothing to explain.”


Rodney’s interests include: art, science, politics, whiskey and chocolate, music (collecting vinyl records), gardening, and travel.

All the Butterflies in the World Available at:

Amazon/Barnes & Noble/Google Play

Begin Tess and John's story in:

The Sun, the Moon, and Maybe the Trains 

Giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Teaser Tuesday (144)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers



All the Butterflies in the World (Kindle 2%)
   - Rodney Jones

I had naturally assumed that time travel would be like any other kind of travel, everything neat and linear, point C arriving after point B, and point B after point A. But after all I'd been through, I decided maybe it was time to loosen my grip on reason.

The Sun, the Moon, and Maybe the Trains - Blog Tour

Welcome to The Coffee Pot's first ever Blog Tour featuring the new novel by Rodney Jones: The Sun, the Moon, and Maybe the Trains.

Synopsis:
What would it take to convince you that the woods you just left is a hundred and forty-four years distant from the one you entered?

Ten years have passed since the Civil War broke up John Bartley’s family. Living with his aunt and uncle in the tiny village of Greendale, Vermont, isn’t filled with excitement for a seventeen-year-old. Until John walks into the woods one day and stumbles into 2009… Fortunately, he chances upon the outspoken Tess McKinnon. To earn her trust, he must first convince her that he is neither a lunatic nor a liar. The proof he needs is buried at the end of a mountain road, where the ruins of Greendale lie just beneath a layer of dead leaves and moss.

What became of his home? Why is there no record of its existence?

Review:

Rodney Jones explores the concept of accidental time travel with his book, The Sun, the Moon, and Maybe the Trains. I found this novel different from other time travel novels because it focuses on John, a boy from  1875, coming to 2009, a not so distant past for the reader. Most time travel books seem to focus on the far future or the present, not two different pasts that readers are already enlightened about. 

John, the main character, is so easy to like, readers will be more than eager to finish his story. He's quite modest (which is highly entertaining!), overly polite, and simply sweet. I loved how Jones wrote the interactions of John and Tess (young lady from 2009). The dialogue and prose had me laughing out loud. 

Tess is an absolutely hilarious character. She's incredibly outspoken and the first to make an inappropriate joke, but also caring, kind, and helpful. Readers will enjoy her easy nature and comical personality. They will bond with her based on her familial situation and caring nature. 

The plot of Jones' novel was a bit elusive at first, the main question asking how John had traveled to 2009. This preceding the next inquiry: why? Though it seemed the main goal of the novel was to return him to 1875, it appears very quickly that isn't the case. This is where the novel really picked up and suddenly, Tess is in 1875 trying to warn John about what's going to happen in his small town. The ending came so quickly after that; I could not stop reading until the final word. 

Jones did an amazing job at creating this gripping novel while staying true to both 1875 and 2009. The Sun, the Moon, and Maybe the Trains is a seemingly accurate and realistic time travel novel that brings two pasts together. I highly recommend this book to all readers, especially young adult fiction lovers.

Rating: 4/5 cups

Giveaway:
Hosted by Red Adept Publishing

a Rafflecopter giveaway

WWW Wednesday (22)

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?

• What did you recently finish reading?

• What do you think you’ll read next?

01. Currently Reading:
Alone by Seanpaul Thomas. A novel about a young man who wakes up in some sort of facility with no memory of who he is or where. So far very intriguing!

02. Recently Finished:
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. A novel studying how the world would change if all humans disappeared from earth. Difficult read but definitely rewarding.

03. Reading Next:
Either The Sun, The Moon, and Maybe the Trains by Rodney Jones or Conquer Clutter by Ava Conner. Haven't decided which one to read yet and if I have time to squeeze in one more review before the Blog Tour for the Jones book. =)

What have you been reading lately?