Reviews of Brambleman

Great fun read, but it has been some time since I read it. I do recall how it went, but I forgot to do a review.

I thoroughly enjoyed the main character and his interactions with the other characters. The story is inter-woven with the believable and unbelievable so well you feel the emotion of it all. History is not my favorite subject matter, so I bogged down in those chapters. I feel the prologue is not the best representation of this novel and encourage others like myself to push through it. It does pick up in the first chapter and is well worth reading.

Got this book from LTMG and found it to be one of the better gets from this group. I enjoyed the historical fiction aspect of it and the delayed determination of the main character to complete his task despite mounting odds against.
I was born in the early 60's and though I wasn't completely aware of it then, I am still stunned thinking back on the amount of discrimination still going on then. I was unaware of the historical happenings that are at the center of this novel but was moved by them.
I do think the supernatural elements made for amusing asides but felt the novel would easily have been as good without them as more of a straight character investigative story. Recommended.

There is a lot to talk about today folks, so buckle your seat belts and fasten your helmet. We have Jonathan Grant's Brambleman. I seem to love these books that are hard to sum up in a paragraph. Let's give this a go then, shall we?

Charlie is kicked out of his house by his wife--who was just looking for any excuse, really. Looking like a homeless person wearing goggles (read the book!), a celestial being picks him up and delivers him to the home of Thurwood Talton. He was a scholar who died while working on a book focusing on the history of Forsyth County, Georgia where the largest mass exodus of African-Americans occurred in 1912 following a slew of lynchings that was preceded by the rape and murder of a young white woman by a black man. Odd things happen to Charlie, who is charged with bringing Talton's book to production, not the least of which include attempted murder on his head more than once as he works on this book, and if I told you anymore I would give away so much.

I have listed this book under the category "Zombies and Monsters" because a lot of these characters are exactly that albeit still (mostly) human. I absolutely loved the historical aspect of this novel, particularly tying in the history of Forsyth County. Full disclosure: I grew up on the Forsyth County line and am very familiar with the history of this storied place. You might remember that Oprah paid a visit to the place in 1987, the same year as Hosea Williams's marches in the county to bring international attention to lack of color (and the presence of the KKK and other such things) in the county. If you are not familiar, a simple Google search will catch you up right quick.

As I was saying, I love the integration (pun unintended) of history into this novel. Be forewarned that this book is a commitment--it is lengthy but it is highly addicting. It could easily be split into a trilogy although I am happy that it wasn't as it gave me something meaty into which to sink my teeth. I found the characters to be well-developed and they were half of the story--Charlie married into a Forsyth County family that goes waaaaay back and is a huge part of this story he is destined to write.

And so, in conclusion, this book kept me up at night trying to get to just the next chapter. I mean the next one. Well, maybe one more. You see where this is going? It's an addiction, but a healthy one. Pick up this title on Smashwords or on Amazon. I would highly recommend the Kindle version because that's how I roll.

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The book was personally a little too unreal for me with Charlie getting shot at and beat up all the time. I also struggled with the concept of "Trouble" and what he really was. Was he working for God or the Devil? If it was for God, I had a hard time with Trouble calling Romy (a child) a whore.

Otherwise, I liked how the author ended up tying his two stories together even though it seemed to drag on at times.

Even though this is not the normal type of book I read, I found it to be a page turner and stayed up a few nights pretty late because I couldn't put it down. I would recommend it to a friend anytime. Now on to read Chain Gang Elementary.

This author really puts his main character through a lot in this story. Those are really the best type fo reads, you really don't know how they are going to make it out ok.
Charlie is down on his luck being called a failure in life by his wife and kicked out of the house. A man by the name of Trouble-literally, offers him a deal that sounds too good to be true, finish a book that was left unfinished by a professor.
As Charlie delves deeper into the events that occurred in the book, he focuses on a family farm and historical events that have a not so good past including slavery, civil rights and the especially interesting fact that the story seems to hit a little close to home when he finds a connection to his wife's family.
I think this is a book that fans of John Grisham and Michael Connelly would enjoy. The mix of a flawed main character that not only has to work his way through his own problems but also a mystery and putting himself in danger, as well as deeper look into the darker side of America's history.
There is a great mixture of characters and the unraveling of the plot was perfect. It has some uplifting points unveiled through all the darker events that Charlie must find his way through.

Although very different stories I see similarities between this and JG’s first novel ‘The Chain Gang Elementary’. The protagonists in each book are men in failing marriages who work from home and look after their children while earning considerably less money than each of their ‘power hungry’ ’money loving’ wives; who by the way also share a feeling of boredom and intolerance towards their inadequate husbands. Both books have a conscientious lead character who is far from perfect and a plot that has an anti-racist theme, an issue I feel must be close to the authors heart or locality.

This is a very well written novel with a varied vocabulary and structured prose, clearly Mr. Grant has the skill required to construct a sentence and write a good story with a complicated plot and a diverse set of characters. I was intrigued by ‘Trouble and Romy, they were both characters that I had to think and wonder about, and hadn’t expected to find in this book. overall I found Brambleman to be and interesting and informative read.

Copy supplied for review.