“The Burning Battle: The King’s Frog Hunter Book 3”

The kingdom of Ameram, including its aging monarch, King Ahmbin, and his only child, Ekala Oleen, heir to the throne, is under siege. An evil force is at work in Ameram manifesting in the disfigured Baskin who wants nothing more than to rule from Ahmbin’s Castle Ambermal.

Baskin will stop at nothing to twist the many peoples of the kingdom and beyond to do his will. Only a small group of compatriots loyal to Ekala can offer a defense. They must try to untwist the twisted and fight with near-living swords against an enemy spawning deadly worm-snakes.

One such friend is the King’s Frog Hunter, Thalmus, “guardian of the Prophecy of Ameram” which predicts the rise of Ekala Oleen. (In Ameram, frogs are human-sized and plenty mean, but their legs are a delicacy.) 

Former Paradise resident Ken Young, now living with his wife Cindy in Idaho, brings his epic sword-and-sorcery trilogy to a conclusion in “The Burning Battle: The King’s Frog Hunter Book 3” ($18.25 in paperback, kingsfroghunter.com; also for Amazon Kindle). Book One, “The King’s Frog Hunter,” introduces Thalmus; Book Two, “Shadows Of War,” shows the Prophecy includes Boschina, the Stone Cutter’s daughter, whose father, Veracitas, carves the truth.

With cover and maps drawn by the inimitable Steve Ferchaud of Chico, and profiles of persons, animals, and locations included, the book takes Thalmus, Boschina, and others, through seemingly unending skirmishes. As Thalmus says, “There is a source stirring in the depths of Ameram that is driving this upheaval. We have felt its presence, experienced its wrath, but we have yet to find it.”

But find it they will. As battles rage in the North and South Fords of Ameram, Baskin seems always just beyond their grasp and Captain Kali, with her forces weakened, threatens to give up. But Thalmus encourages her. “There is always a way. Sometimes the answer is hidden from our sight until we venture forward.”

Then, in the most unlikely of places, the showdown with Baskin begins. A city is in flames, and the evil threatens to engulf all that is good. But for this deeply imagined story, the end, blessedly, is not yet.

“Eve And Me: The Shadow That Spans 3000 Years”

“Throughout our long history on this planet,” writes Karen Gilden in a book-length exploration of women’s history, “men and women have sought to make life easier for themselves and for the ones they loved. There is evidence that early men and women lived together happily without either being dominant.”

Then, she says, the story takes a turn: “But whenever land was procured, when trade became a way of bettering yourself, when couples were divided in their efforts, equity was lost. And slowly but inevitably the idea of power over others evolved, and centuries passed. Women were no longer equal partners in life but were subject to laws that, in some places, reduced them to little more than slaves.”

Gilden was born in Chico, attended public school in Willows, and in 1959, when she graduated from high school, enrolled at Chico State. Though a music major, she found she was more interested in travel and writing. She and husband Ray lived in France, Turkey, and Oregon (where she now resides) during their 53 years of marriage. He was a feminist before the word became popular, “a kind, intelligent, courageous man who spent much of his time in determined activism” before he passed away in 2018.

Gilden combines historical vignettes throughout the ages with a memoir of awakening to feminism in “Eve And Me: The Shadow That Spans 3000 Years” ($18.50 in paperback from Artha One Publishing). The shadow is what she calls “the mythology of Eve,” who, beguiled by the serpent in Genesis, must come under male authority. “Misogyny,” she writes, “has never needed an excuse to stick its ugly snout into women’s business….” Religious and cultural institutions have embedded the “fear and hatred of women.”

She writes of women who have made their own rules, and that gives her hope. “Eve broke the rules and paid the price” but “those cracked and disregarded rules, like broken windows, let in unfiltered light.” In the various waves of feminism in her lifetime, the shadow, here and there, is being dispelled by “light that I believe is waiting for us, but in a future only men and women together can create.” 

“Seeing Daylight”

Reno-based upper middle-grade novelist Suzanne Morgan Williams (suzannemorganwilliams.com) has fond memories of Redding, where her husband proposed, and of visiting her great aunt in Oroville. In “Bull Rider” she introduces readers to Ben O’Mara, newly returned from fighting in Iraq, and his younger brother Cam, who tackles a big bull named Ugly.

Now, in a sequel, Williams focuses on Ben, 19. Suffering from TBI (traumatic brain injury) and PTSD, his return to his parents’ ranch in Salt Lick, Nevada is not going well. “Seeing Daylight” ($15.99 in paperback, independently published; also for Amazon Kindle) is a deeply researched story of the interior life of a wounded warrior, and how organizations that provide service dogs to disabled vets can bring them back from the brink.

It’s also the story of Molly, 17 (about to turn 18) who lives with her mom in Winnemucca. She wants to train a dog for Canine Heroes, like her mother does, but her mother pooh-poohs the idea. In contrast to Ben’s tight-knit, supportive family, Molly’s is somewhat frayed.

Ben and Molly narrate their alternating chapters, and at first it seems they are unlikely ever to cross paths. But when Ben is pressed to seek therapy after screaming nightmares that scare his younger sister, and uncontrollable flashbacks to the IED explosion and aftermath (an Iraqi child dragged him to safety), Molly meets Ben (whom she had more than admired in high school) and works on training a shelter dog for Ben. She calls him Roger.

After the explosion, Ben tells us, “the field docs shot me up with drugs that dropped me into a medical coma. Time dissolved. And after they amputated my lower arm and repaired by head and the traumatic brain injury started to heal, I had to learn to talk again, to walk, all that…. a sadness is pooling in my chest, drowning me, and I can’t put my finger on exactly why.”

A shooting incident in which Molly is wounded threatens to undo a budding romance. Yet Ben’s transformation is not yet over, and readers will be riveted by what the human spirit can accomplish given a big hearted dog and the love of a feisty young woman.

“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?