Firesong

A beautiful book~ a thrilling experience!

Firesong - Reviewed by Joan Hall Hovey

The thing I loved most about Firesong, aside from the exciting and gripping story itself, which opens with a terrifying tornado that traps the minister and his flock in their country church, is the author's voice. His very soul comes through his characters. You just know that Gus LeGarde is much like the author himself, with a love of family and community, a reverence for nature and God. And a passion for justice. I love this author and I love Gus LeGarde. All of Aaron Paul Lazar's characters are totally believable, and interesting. So fully drawn you feel you would know them if you met them on the street. His descriptions are so vivid, I'm sure I put on a couple of pounds as I followed Gus around the kitchen experiencing him prepare a meal for family and friends.
Firesong is an excellent mystery, with not a predictable moment. But it's more than that.
Many of the scenes portrayed in this novel, when Gus is not trying to escape a fire with his grandson, being shot at, struggling to make his way through dank and echoing underground tunnels, might have been captured on canvas by Norman Rockwell, Aaron Paul Lazar is such an artist. Except that he paints with words.
I highly recommended Firesong, and any other of Lazar's books. You won't be disappointed.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Good tale, good people, a good read all around.

Professor of Music Gus LeGarde, the central character in Firesong, is a man of many roles-devoted husband, father, grandfather, leader in his tiny, impoverished Methodist church, trusted friend of many. Gus has seen a bit of the world in past days, done his share of traveling, had some unusual experiences in a variety of places.

Now he's back where his real home and heart are, in his small town in New York's Genesee Valley. It would seem, at this time and in this place that means so much to him, Gus should be living a well-ordered, peace-filled life, tending his gardens and feeding his extended family from the bounty of his own efforts. But instead of peaceful days and quiet nights, Gus and the town experience a confluence of troubles the like of which it hasn't seen for many years. If ever.

Lazar's love for this part of the world radiates throughout his writing. Firesong is an unhurried novel, despite the growing number of crises Lazar sets up for this community. He takes the time necessary to make events real for the reader as they happen to Gus and his family and friends:

In a tornado, you can hear the howling of the wind, the sounds of glass breaking and walls collapsing; you can feel the terror of the trapped people wondering if they will survive.

In a forest fire, you can smell the smoke, hear the crackling of the flames as the fire leaps from treetop to treetop, getting ever closer.

In a cave, you can sense the dankness, the deep dark of the under-world, the strange sounds that may be strange creatures running about.

As water suddenly begins to flow and grows deeper around your ankles, you wonder frantically what it might be like to drown.

And this is by no means a complete list of the harrowing experiences set forth for Gus and others in the town. How does the Civil War underground railroad figure in all this? Why do native Americans, college kids, and environmentalists plan possibly dangerous protests? Why is the minister in a heroin-induced coma? Who is the person whose grave is opened by the tornado? Is there a room behind the fireplace in the LeGarde house?

Thus goes Gus's quiet summer. Instead of pleasant, easy-going days, he finds danger, challenge, painful revelations, ongoing problems that come to a head, all seemingly at once. Lazar, though, won't let Gus off the hook, won't give him easy solutions.

But he does provide solutions. Satisfying ones that make sense for Gus and the others who people this small town in the Genesee Valley. Lazar explains in his afterwords his personal relationship with that part of the country, and we know he'll never cause it any lasting harm.

There's lots of good stuff in this book, sweet, realistic family stuff, people stuff, that will give you a smile and touch your heart, as if these were real people (they are for the length of the novel). Gus's relationship with his grandson Johnny is a delight. Parents will likely recall their own children's infancy through Lazar's description of Gus's twin baby granddaughters, their teething, sniffles, attempts to walk, all the kinds of things babies do. Nice to feel a part of this family.

Read the book. Find out how it all ends. It's a nice story about nice people-I take that back, they're not all nice-but overall it's a good and satisfying read.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

An Enjoyable Read--Recommended

**** An enjoyable read. Recommended.

Review by Douglas Quinn, The Webb Sawyer Mysteries, The Ellis Family Thrillers, Cornelius The Orphan, Historical Fiction/Adventure, and the Adventures of Quinn Higgins: Boy Detective Children's Chapter Books.

The rural New York town of East Goodland is a quiet place where good people go about their daily lives. In preparation of the family meal, they peel potatoes and shuck corn on the back porch. Grandfathers chase fireflies with children, parents throw sticks with their dogs, visit neighbors, laugh, tell jokes and make love. Their children go on all night camp-overs up on the ridge. They attend Sunday service at their church and have meetings about raising money for a new organ.

Yep, all is quiet until a town official, along with thousands of dollars, goes missing; until a rogue tornado hits the church and tears up the church cemetery, exposing a body in a shallow grave; until the local salt mine gets shut down because of unsafe mining practices; until bad people in mysterious vans are running amok on the back roads of the county; until a local Indian tribe creates trouble over an ancient Indian burial ground, until dangerous drug dealers escape from a nearby prison....

In the middle of it all is professor Gus LeGarde, the one person who everyone in town trusts to gather information and sort out problems. The only trouble is, the problems just keep coming, not only overwhelming LeGarde, but the town's small law enforcement contingent. Are all of these isolated events in some way related and, if so, how? It is up to Gus LeGarde to sort it all out. To complicate matters further, the professor discovers a family secret that indirectly has some bearing on the solution to his investigation.

Author Aaron Paul Lazar has created an entertaining tale of mystery and suspense with a cast of interesting characters who fight through their troubles until their town of East Goodland is, once again, the quiet and peaceful place they all love.

FireSong by Aaron Paul Lazar was an enjoyable read. Recommended.

Beautiful and captivating , Aaron a genius who possesses the true gift of intriguing expressions.

As a first time reader of LeGarde Mysteries I was very excited to read FIRESONG. I can tell you I was my interest was immediately drawn in the first couple pages and I was hooked. Aaron shares deep emotion in his writing and his unique characters are brought to life right before your eyes. The story takes place in the Genesee Valley a countryside in upstate New York. It's sheer beauty comes alive and you feel as if you are right in the valley with the main character Gus and his family. Gus is a gentle, affectionate, caring and devoted husband who is always ready to lend a hand and gives himself completely and fully to his family. However this picturesque quaint family life Gus leads is not without chaos and you soon learn there is a dark past. Although I would love to go back and read the past books in this series after reading FIRESONG I am more excited to find out what Aaron brings to the table next. Aaron has a smooth writing style that keeps you entertained while maintaining a comfortable balance with his narrative and characters. There is no predictability in his stories and before you know it you find yourself immersed in unforeseen tragedy, upheaval with little historic surprises thrown into the mix. Engaging and endearing FIRESONG will move you and Aaron writing style will place you under a spell only leaving you longing for more.

Beautiful and captivating , Aaron a genius who possesses the true gift of intriguing expressions.

As a first time reader of LeGarde Mysteries I was very excited to read FIRESONG. I can tell you I was my interest was immediately drawn in the first couple pages and I was hooked. Aaron shares deep emotion in his writing and his unique characters are brought to life right before your eyes. The story takes place in the Genesee Valley a countryside in upstate New York. It's sheer beauty comes alive and you feel as if you are right in the valley with the main character Gus and his family. Gus is a gentle, affectionate, caring and devoted husband who is always ready to lend a hand and gives himself completely and fully to his family. However this picturesque quaint family life Gus leads is not without chaos and you soon learn there is a dark past. Although I would love to go back and read the past books in this series after reading FIRESONG I am more excited to find out what Aaron brings to the table next. Aaron has a smooth writing style that keeps you entertained while maintaining a comfortable balance with his narrative and characters. There is no predictability in his stories and before you know it you find yourself immersed in unforeseen traged, upheaval and little historic surprises thrown into the mix. Engaging and endearing FIRESONG will move you and Aaron writing style will place you under a spell only leaving you longing for more.

The Hills Have Eyes!

Date: 5/3/11
Title: FireSong
Author: Aaron Paul Lazar
ISBN 10:
ISBN 13:
ASIN: B004VF698W/Kindle Edtion
OTHER:
Pages: 287
Publisher: Twilight Times Books
Cover: ARC e-book
Reviewer: Yolanda M. Johnson-Bryant - Literary Wonders!
Rating: 5 Stars

The fifth installment of the Gus LeGArde Mystery series, FireSong by Aaron Paul Lazar, is a great mystery title. After reading FireSong, I hate that I hadn't read the first four books in the series: Double Forte', Updated, Tremolo: Cry of the Loon and Mazurka.

Set in a small town in the Genesee Valley of New York, Gus and Camille attend a normal Sunday morning at their small church, when a tornado sweeps across the valley. The disastrous twister uncovers secrets of the living and the dead.

Something is going on the valley and it isn't legal. After a demonstration to prevent development of an old Indian burial ground is launched, things start to happen and someone wants a few of the town's citizens silenced; permanently.

After reading over historical documents, Gus and Camille find that their home may have been used as a stop along the famous Underground Railroad. Further digging reveals history, secrets and unanswered questions.
I didn't think I would like this book upon first starting it, but as I got further along, I really enjoyed this title. I only wish that Mr. Lazar could have developed the story of the burial ground, or, perhaps he will in another installment of this mystery series.

This book doesn't disappoint where action and page turners are concerned. My curiosity will have me reading the first two books in this exciting series.