The Foreign Service Journal, November 2015

46 NOVEMBER 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Undertow: A Novella and Six Stories Patricia Lee Sharpe, CreateSpace, 2014, $7.95/paperback, 184 pages. Patricia Lee Sharpe’s experiences as a pub- lic diplomacy officer in the Foreign Service inspired Undertow —a fictional collection of stories ripe with adventure and featur- ing a cast of personalities. In the title novella, a disillusioned young diplomat seeks solace on Bar Beach, when she encoun- ters a more dangerous situation than either she or her col- leagues could imagine. A Javanese woman seeks to be liberated in “Yati’s Escape,” and a honeymoon in Seville turns sour in “The Honeymoon is Over.” “Blue Sheep” trails an Arizona trekker losing hope while tackling the Himalayan terrain, and “Play it, Suresh” tells of a visiting scholar kidnapped by rebels in West Bengal. Finally, “Immersion” concludes the book with a tale of a wintery bap- tism in Soviet Moscow that ignites one writer’s creativity. Sharpe offers an easily readable compilation that takes read- ers around the world with rich prose that is full of insight and wit. Patricia Lee Sharpe is a journalist, teacher and retired FSO who served in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean for 23 years. She has published several volumes of poetry and fiction for which she won the 2002 Southwest Poetry Center’s Discovery Prize and the 2008 New Mexican’s Poetry Prize. She is a contributor to and co-founder of the foreign affairs blog WhirledView . Driving Under the Influence: Two Novellas and a Story Patricia Lee Sharpe, CreateSpace, 2014, $7.50/paperback; $2.99/Kindle, 176 pages. In Driving Under the Influence, Patricia Lee Sharpe presents a humorous look at modern life in northern New Mexico with three fic- tional mini-stories. The collection entertains with witty commentary on the realities of everyday routines, while also touching on life’s more serious moments. The title novella, “Driving Under the Influence,” follows five very different 60-something female friends who navigate a spectrum of crises including romances (or lack thereof), spou- sal abuse, widowhood, coronaries, sexual reorientation, auto accidents and pushy children. “Dangling Woman” introduces Penelope Strong, who is about to be charged for her husband’s murder following a freak accident on a ski left. Family drama and politics intertwine, fur- ther complicating the situation: Penelope’s own daughter is out to punish her and the district attorney is running for Congress— a high-profile trial could be a prime publicity opportunity for him. Lastly, in “Senior Moments” the narrator describes caring for her five-year-old grandson for an extended period. She recalls the notoriously distressing memory lapses that come in older age—forgetting or confusing names, for example—and reframes them in a positive, even joyous way. Who Is Mr. Plutin? Rebecca Strong, Curiosity Quills Press, 2015, $16.99/paperback; $4.99/Kindle, 314 pages. From what Vika Serkova can remember, she is an American living in New York. But somehow she woke up one fine morning to find that she is married to an elite under- cover Russian spy, lives in St. Petersburg and possesses a closet of designer stilettos and a fridge full of caviar and champagne. It is a glamorous new life, but… Gradually Vika learns that she is on a secret assignment for the Russian president that sets her against her husband in a conspiracy big enough to get them all killed. To save herself and her family, Vika needs to fool them into defecting. Plot twists abound, as she must decide how far she’s willing to go to navigate dangerous situations in a city where “chances in life are only as good as the car you drive, the clothes you wear and the people you stay away from.” This is an intriguing read. “Here is a heroine somewhat like the rest of us, who blunders around, tries her hardest, and is stunned at the way her life has turned out,” reads a review from Wandering Educators . Rebecca Strong is the pen name of an FS spouse who has spent the past 15 years in South America and Europe. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times , The Washington Post , The Wall Street Journal , The Jewish Daily Forward and The Christian Science Monitor , among other publications.