“Tuk With A Red Scarf”

Now living in Chico, Judy Blishen Soto, “a Native American of the Ohlone tribe” made Paradise her home. She writes that she was “an entertainer, singer, songwriter…. I had over two hundred creative works, poems, short stories that I had written and were getting ready to publish, plus songs I had composed.” Everything was destroyed in the Camp Fire.

She started again, this time with a family story about their beloved black Lab. It really happened, she writes in an author’s note, and “none of the names or events in this story are fictitious.”

Designed for kids six through eight, “Tuk With A Red Scarf” ($10.95 in paperback from Austin Macauley Publishers; also for Amazon Kindle) is a delightful tale (ahem) of a dog who brought a little miracle to pass.

“It all started out to be a normal day, giving my husband and three children breakfast and seeing them off to school and work.” The family had two pooches, Scottish terrier Scotty, and Tuk with a red scarf. Weirdly, this morning only Scotty came to eat; the gate was open and Tuk was gone.

Soto waited until the children got home from school but no Tuk. So they piled in the car to drive to the pound, a half hour away, before “my husband got home from work… We had two and a half hours to look for Tuk and get back home to make dinner and pretend all was well.” 

They didn’t find Tuk, but, strangely, there was another black Lab--wearing a red scarf--named Leonard, who (sadly) was going to be put down the next day since he had not been claimed in weeks. 

“We could save this dog’s life. Children let’s decide, should we take Leonard home and maybe your dad won’t notice it’s not our Tuk with a red scarf?” You know the answer, and off they went with Lenny. “We still need to pray for Tuk,” Soto told her children, “that nothing happens to him and that God will keep him safe and bring him home soon.”

What comes next is one of those unexpected twists that no one would believe unless it actually happened.

“The Jumper: A Rick Rose Novel”

“Any idea what you call a dentist who gets caught drinking on the job? How about unemployed? That was me in 2019. Six months later, I graduated summa cum laude from an AA program, but my patients weren’t the least bit impressed. They’d already found other dentists.” 

But Rick Rose, the endearing creation of Chico novelist (and retired dentist) Mike Paull, is not lamenting. He’s become a forensic odontologist. “It looks good and sounds a lot better than unemployed. You see, for the last four years I’ve spent a lot of time in the morgue, working for Dr. Alexandra Keller, the chief medical examiner for the city and county of San Francisco.”

Now, in late 2023, the morgue contains the body of an unknown man who had, at 3:00 am one morning, jumped to his death from the Golden Gate bridge (alas, before the nets were installed). Yet it turns out that’s not exactly what killed him. So Rose is tasked with determining the identity of “The Jumper” ($15.95 in paperback from Amazon; also available in a Kindle edition).

Something under the victim’s tongue may be a clue. What Rose discovers leads to an oncologist, a maker of leather bags, the owner of an exclusive apartment complex, a taxi driver, and a bucketload of cash.

Rick, 40, lives alone, except for his feisty cat Einstein inherited from a failed marriage (though he and his ex are on somewhat friendly terms; she sells coffee from a truck he helped her buy). When he learns that Josie has been taken advantage of financially by a shyster, he resolves to track him down. Little does he realize the two seemingly disparate investigations will have international implications and put his life at risk.

Over the course of three novels (including “The Mouth Mechanic” and “The Head Case”), Paull gives readers a character worth cheering for, a man who can be a wee bit sarcastic as the occasion demands. But Rick Rose is good at what he does, and so is Paull. “The Jumper” propels readers from chapter to chapter until the very end but (one can hope) not the end of the Rick Rose series.

“Infidelity Rules—A Menu For Disaster: The Perils Of Loving Food, Wine, And Married Men”

The metaphorical valentines lay in tatters for Quinn, perhaps in her late thirties, who describes herself as “six-foot-tall in bare feet” with “dark, wavy red hair that tumbles down my back and refuses to be tamed.” 

Her fiancé had ditched her two days before the nuptials. Later, “I divorced after stupidly marrying a different man out of friendship, not love. I had married Chris because he was safe, not because I couldn’t fathom a life without him.”

Outwardly Quinn is a successful sommelier at Persimmon, an upscale restaurant in DC. “I love the magic that happens when a great glass of wine pairs perfectly with a dish. It’s lusty and romantic, the only goal sheer and immediate pleasure. It’s akin to the ideal relationship, fleeting but swoon-worthy, each bringing out the very best in the other. … and, if you get a lucky match, the combination will make you moan. I swear it will.”

That fairly well describes what she’s looking for in men. “I don’t date single men anymore. I have affairs with married men instead. But I never, ever play with men in happy marriages. … I like my flings. Nothing but freedom and great sex. Love just gets in the way.” 

But when Marcus, Hollywood hunk material married to a woman who has grown distant, enters Quinn’s life, readers might guess that though she wants a fling, she will have to make a life-defining choice of whether to fling him away.

“Infidelity Rules—A Menu For Disaster: The Perils Of Loving Food, Wine, And Married Men” ($17.95 in paperback from Black Rose Writing; also for Amazon Kindle) is by Joelle Babula (Joelle Butler), Chico State grad, former captain of the Chico State women’s basketball team and Orion managing editor.

“I know I wanted a married man,” Quinn tells us, “and I’m trying to squash that nagging feeling in my gut that I’m getting too involved. That my lust is evolving into something more. Something I may not be able to easily shimmy out of.” All the shimmying makes for an upbeat romp—paired with a great glass of wine.

“The Oxford Handbook Of The Philosophy Of Love”

What is this thing called love, especially romantic love? Pure emotion? Some forty contemporary philosophers contribute their thoughts in “The Oxford Handbook Of The Philosophy Of Love” ($150 in hardcover from Oxford University Press; also for Amazon Kindle), edited by Christopher Grau and Aaron Smuts.

Though the work is designed for specialists in the area, the writing is accessible to those who want to hear some reasoning about what at times seems so unreasonable. While poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,” some of the essays in the book ask not how, but why. Is love, can love be, reasonable?

It doesn’t seem the case that we can reason ourselves into romantically loving another. Yet, if we do love another, we can give reasons why—at least according to Hallmark. Here’s a Valentine for her: “You give me so much to love—your kindness, our closeness, the way you put our family first.” For him: “I can count on you to be right beside me with your strength and support. That feeling of being loved is one of the best things in my life.”

Troy Jollimore, the Chair of the Chico State Philosophy Department, tries to sort things out in a key essay, “Love As ‘Something In Between,’” which focuses on romantic love. “Even when falling in love surprises us,” he writes, “it is rarely if ever experienced as a purely brute and unintelligible psychological happening.” In fact, “nearly everyone can identify something they find lovable or attractive in their beloveds.”

Jollimore admits that “talking about having reasons for loving may strike us as cold, excessively rationalistic, or unromantic. We must allow that love is not entirely a matter of reasons….” It’s not that reasons drive our feelings, but rather that our feelings can, well, be reasonable: “That an emotion is spontaneous, immediate, or unpremeditated need not imply that it is not at the same time appropriate, fitting, and justified.”

The bottom line: “love is partly guided by and responsive to reasons. It is not an entirely rational phenomenon, but something in between.” 

Could Hallmark be on to something after all?

“The New Freedom Warriors: Children Of Heremone, Book 2”

Former longtime Chicoan David Dirks, now living in Brentwood with Karen, his wife of 55 years, is imagining a world somewhat like our own but where spiritual warfare takes center stage. The first book in the “Children Of Heremone” series, “The Redemption Of Elijah Kidd Kane,” finds young Elijah under the sway of one Grant Humphreys Harvard, president of the Harvard-Westwood Academy for the Gifted, located in the southern hills of Ojai Valley.

Sent by president Harvard to nurture a science and technology center in Botswana, under the guidance of a mysterious and evil spiritual force called the Keeper, Elijah is brought into the true Light of the Almighty One by Esi Ada Ogolla, a young Botswanan girl gifted with spiritual insight. Together they must confront the malevolent god Heremone and Heremone’s proxy, Sir Bitrus Bitrus Ghirmai, the Interior Minister of Botswana.

Through the mysterious “Spirit of Mars” Ghirmai has provided free, unlimited electricity to Botswana as he lusts to put the country under his sway. Though popular with the people, he “secretly specialized in a massive program of adoption and kidnapping of children and teenagers for sex trafficking.” With Esi (“the Almighty’s anointed warrior”) and her parents, and later a couple of wavering friends, Elijah hopes their small group can defeat Ghirmai and combat sex trafficking, one person at a time.

“The New Freedom Warriors: Children Of Heremone, Book 2” ($12.95 in paperback, independently published through Resurgam Books; also for Amazon Kindle) tells the harrowing tale of spiritual warfare on multiple fronts.

Elijah’s friend, James Darwin Carter, arrives in Botswana to carry out the Keeper’s sinister mission, but Esi’s father intervenes and guides “James through a detailed study of the ancient text and the redemption story.” He is set free. “Thokato—love—had freed him from the destruction of his soul.”

But James’ new spiritual roots do not go deep, and he proves an unstable ally. Elijah tries to get James to understand that “Ghirmai follows a different god, one perhaps more powerful than Keeper.” 

Then, when Esi is taken by Ghirmai, all seems lost. Will the darkness be overcome? The next volume will tell the tale.

“Whispers Of The Wild: A Collection Of Poems”

Chico author and artist Meghan Irene Turner finds “nature is not a backdrop, but a living presence, a spiritual companion, a mirror reflecting our own journey.” 

In “Whispers Of The Wild: A Collection Of Poems” ($3.83 in paperback, independently published) she adds in the Introduction that “There is a voice that speaks beneath the hum of our daily lives. It rises from the hush of forests, the ripple of rivers, the soft tread of deer through morning…. May these words … remind you that life, in all its forms, is sacred. And that when we slow down and listen, the world speaks in poetry.”

Human folly is revealed when the poet says “Good Morning, World” “even though I am scared./ even though bombs fell over Ukraine,/ and over the Palestinians last night./ even though the dollar,/ isn’t enough anymore…./ even though the day that chases/ the light is uncertain,/ I say,// ‘good morning, world.’”

In “Revisiting A Vision,” the whole earth reels from human depredation. “Cook your favored meal./ Labor over every grain, dice, and stir./ Then, toss it on the dirt./ Watch the dust play in the flavor you cannot taste.// … This,/ is what climate change feels like/ when the matrix burns away.”

And yet there is “Each Day. A Celebration”: “Each and every cell of you,/ and of me,/ is life./ We will celebrate this.// … Learning to love,/ exposed and bare,/ choice given to surrender./ We will celebrate this.// Time given in breath,/ measured by memory,/ and this moment, right now./ We will celebrate this.”

Winter brings “Entanglement”: “Winter sky,/ I am in love with you./ As if,/ you are my lover.// Because,/ my lover is you,// The big chill of night air,/ I love./ Because, it reminds my skin to be alive// … Your washed skies,/ those are my lover’s eyes/ gazing at my day.”

Love requires “Optimism”: “Don’t tell me that the butterflies are dying,/ or that the sky rains weapons.// … Don’t tell me any of this./ Because I already know.// Now tell me,/ all of the ways you love the world,/ and all of the things you do to show it.”

“Dream Sweet: A Lyrical Bedtime Story”

Natalie Borer grew up in Grass Valley, attended Chico State, then became a high school English teacher and a “Substacker, Swiftie, wife, and mother of three” and now an author of a lullaby book. 

She and her family live in Corning; she writes me she was inspired by “my love of storytelling ever since I was little. I have memories of elementary school projects where, as a class, we would write a book and each have a page to illustrate. I had always wanted to be a teacher when I grew up, and only one day did I waver from this when I said out loud, ‘Maybe I'll be an author instead of a teacher,’ and my teacher responded with, ‘Why not be both?’”

“Dream Sweet: A Lyrical Bedtime Story” ($11.99 in paperback, independently published; also for Amazon Kindle), for babies and young children, celebrates seasons and special occasions with charming full-page illustrations from QBN Studios. She “decided that for my debut I'd go with a bedtime lullaby poem that I wrote, which stems from my experiences in early parenthood that I've gotten to relive and reinvent from my childhood. This lullaby commemorates these early years from my childhood combined with my children's.”

The book of dreams is about to open: “It’s time for bed now, little one. Settle in close, cozy, and snug./ As the sky turns from day to night, let the moon shine and the stars burn bright./ Now rest your head and your tired, little feet, wishing your dreams are nothing but sweet.”

How sweet? For the three children in the book, “Sweet as hot cocoa and Christmas tree hunting, Santa Claus, cookies, and present wrapping./ Sweet as fireworks and ‘Happy New Year!’ Banging pots and pans, loudly we cheer./ … Sweet as the kiss of a cute butterfly, and the sight of the first star in the sky./ … Sweet like the glow of your golden night light, your feathery pillow feeling just right.”

“I am so fulfilled by this stage of early parenthood,” she notes in the book, “seeing their faces bewildered and their starry eyes full of wonder over the simplest of things.”

G’night!