Genre: Speculative Fiction/Horror/Short Story
Approximate word count: 45-50,000 words
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Author:
An avid outdoorsman, Daniel Powell takes advantage of the natural wonders of Northeast Florida, where he lives with his family. Powell teaches at a small college in the same area. In addition to this collection, he has a novel, An Autumn Harvest, and a dystopian thriller, Survival, available. For more, visit Powell’s blog.
Description:
Fourteen short stories that could be pegged to a variety of genres. What each has in common is that they are dark and (thankfully) not true. At least not yet.
Appraisal:
The stories in These Strange Worlds are varied. They are all speculative fiction, since they take place in a world that doesn’t currently exist, but some are horror or something else. Each has a dark side, yet some also have humorous moments. What they all have in common is Powell’s ability to draw you into a new, strange world he’s imagined and force you to care about the characters he’s created.
My favorite story is Raising Tom Chambers. From the title, I wondered what, if anything, this story had to do with the former NBA star and I was amused when I found out. This story also says a lot about the human condition – how we need companionship, and how far we might go to meet that need.
Format/Typo Issues:
No significant typo or proofreading issues. No active table of contents, which makes it difficult to jump to any specific story if desired.
Rating: **** Four stars
Genre: Literary Fiction
Approximate word count: 100-105,000 words
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Author:
A writer and photographer, Caryn Rose writes about baseball and music. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her boyfriend and Jackie Wilson, her cat. For more, visit her website.
Description:
The email said, “Joey Ramone is dead.”
At thirty-seven, Lisa Simon is still passionate about music. When one of her teenage heroes dies, she re-evaluates the direction her life is headed.
Appraisal:
B-Sides and Broken Hearts should have universal appeal for its main story line, with the protagonist, Lisa, faced with a major life decision, and forced to decide what is important to her. While the specifics may be different, the struggle is one most of us have faced.
However, for me, the most significant message is the power of music. If you’re like me, there are songs that can lift you up and those that will put you into a funk, while others take you back to a specific time, place, or person. An idea epitomized midway through the book by this paragraph.
How can this happen? How can a song that meant so much to me when I first heard it at fourteen, a song about dreams and hope, suddenly mean just as much right now, suddenly the words apply exactly to my life twenty-two years later? And how can it affect me in the same way, how can it lift me up, transport me, elevate me, inspire me, give me meaning and, well, hope?
On her website Rose says her goal was to “write the woman’s version of High Fidelity.” (A book by Nick Hornby, later made into a movie starring John Cusack.) Rose said she, “wanted to read a book where a woman could like music as much as a guy and not be called a groupie or be told that she sure knew a lot about music for a girl.” I think she did it. Rose knows a lot about music for anyone, regardless of gender, and this knowledge permeates the pages of B-Sides and Broken Hearts. The music geek will love this book for that reason as it smoothly integrates mentions of songs and bands from big (The Rolling Stones) to relatively obscure (I’ve heard of Eddie Spaghetti and his band, The Supersuckers, have you?) If you’re not a music fan, B-Sides and Broken Hearts is still a good story, but if you are, it is a can’t miss.
FYI:
Some adult language. Limited and mild sexual situations.
Format/Typo Issues:
A small number of typos and other proofreading issues.
Rating: ***** Five stars
Genre: Mystery/Romantic Suspense
Approximate word count: 55-60,000 words
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Author:
Nancy Brophy lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband, two dogs, and forty chickens. She says she writes what she loves to read, books with “a strong man who believes he’s in charge until he meets a feisty female who’s not taking a backseat to anybody.” This is her fourth novel. For more, visit Brophy’s website.
Description:
Zack Pritchard is a Navy SEAL, home on leave for his sister’s wedding with one goal: avoid Chloe, his brother’s girlfriend, who has fueled his fantasies since the first time he saw her. Zack finds more than he bargained for as his dysfunctional family experiences several crises and that plan to avoid Chloe doesn’t work out at all.
Appraisal:
I’ve experienced this too much lately, although I’m chalking it up to the way apparent patterns happen in samples that are completely random. In this case, I’ve had a spate of books with serious copyediting problems. While they vary, many of the stories were good, with no serious problems that I saw. That was the case here.
The Wrong Brother is a romantic suspense with elements of a few other genres. You’ll see a little police procedural and one scene that could have come from an action adventure. The main characters are fun, with a man who thinks he is in charge and a woman who knows she is. The plot includes intrigue, mystery, dealing with a dysfunctional family, and uncovering a villain whose identity I would have never guessed.
If you’re tolerant of copyediting errors (I found one every three to four pages) and like romantic suspense, this book has a lot to offer. If a typo, whether a misspelling, missing or extra word, or homonym error, is going to throw you out of the story, this isn’t the book for you.
FYI:
Some adult situations and one instance of a word some people get bent out of shape over.
Format/Typo Issues:
A large number of typos and other proofreading errors.
Rating: *** Three stars
Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Approximate word count: 85-90,000 words
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Author:
Born in small town Texas, Gregory Allen grew up in a suburb of Dallas where he first became interested in theatre as a teen, writing three musicals, all produced on stage while still in high school. Leaving Texas, Allen went to New York to study acting and has written, acted in, directed, and produced several musicals. He currently lives with his partner in New Jersey where he manages a college art center. Allen has written one other novel, Proud Pants. For more, visit the author’s website.
Description:
The story of two brothers who grew up in small town Tennessee: Jacob, a liberal gay man, and Noah, a southern conservative.
Appraisal:
I have a belief that the best way of explaining almost anything is through contrast. It’s like this, but not like that. This is why my reviews overuse words like but, yet, and however. Well With My Soul is a story of contrasts, which lead the reader to a better understanding of many facets of the human condition. Contrast figures into the time the book takes place, from the hedonistic late ‘70s into the conservative Reagan years, and the geography, from a small, backwoods southern town to New York, the center of the universe.
Most important of all is the contrast between the two brothers who are the dual narrators and protagonists. Through these contrasts, Well With My Soul gives plenty of opportunity to consider such subjects as religion and family, but its most powerful message is to be true to who you are.
FYI:
Contains a small amount of adult language and some sexual situations.
Format/Typo Issues:
A small number of typos and other proofreading issues.
Rating: **** Four stars
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Approximate word count: 50-55,000 words
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Author:
A freelance writer, Catherine Durkin Robinson has written columns and articles for several magazines and newspapers including The Tampa Tribune, The Washington Post, and Creative Loafing. She has one other novel, Learning Curves. For more, visit Robinson’s website.
Description:
After fatally shooting her abusive father in the head in her teens, Olivia realized she had a talent that could also make the world a better place. She is making a living, ridding the world of men like her father, but when Max, her longtime love, proposes marriage, Olivia is faced with a choice.
Appraisal:
While some fiction takes a look at domestic abuse from a realistic viewpoint, Olivia’s Kiss goes beyond that. In the protagonist, Olivia, we have someone bigger than life. A character not unlike a paid killer we might find in a thriller. She’s a serial killer, but also a hero, built on a Robin Hood archetype of a character doing what is considered bad by some standards with a good result.
But more than domestic abuse and a Robin Hood story, Olivia’s Kiss is a story about making choices. How most decisions have tradeoffs. How a path taken early can set a direction that will become harder and harder to change. With a combination of excitement, do-gooding, and introspection, Olivia takes the reader on a unique journey.
FYI:
Contains adult language and some mild sexual situations.
Format/Typo Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: **** Four stars
Genre: Literary/Humor
Approximate word count: 95-100,000 words
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Author:
Jay Barry’s literary leanings turned entrepreneurial at an early age when he went door-to-door selling the comic books he had written and illustrated. He is currently working on his next novel. For more, see Barry’s website.
Description:
Summoned from Las Vegas, where he teaches college English, to the headquarters of the Great Basin Student Loan association to explain some irregularities, Dr. Don Vendicarsi and graduate student Quentin Mann set off on motorcycles through the Nevada desert in a tale reminiscent of many literary road trip adventures.
Appraisal:
Throttling the Bard both embraces and pokes good-natured fun at literature and academia. For example, English Professor Don Vendicarsi, one of the two main characters, never goes anywhere without his red pen and will edit anything, anywhere. Even on the wall of the men’s room.
He zipped his pants, then pulled out his red pen and circled the phrase that read, “For a good time call,” and wrote above it, “cliché. ‘ Good time’ is vague. Try something fresh, something new, i.e. for an eternity spent in the safe and non-judging arms of an inanimate blow-up doll call….”
Quentin Mann, the other main character, is a graduate student who, when he is nervous or uncertain about a situation, imagines a narration of the scene in his head where, in the guise of a character he calls “tall, dark, and handsome,” he gets through the situation.
There are references to classic literature throughout, with Shakespeare, Chaucer, Cervantes, and others making cameos. If your reading diet doesn’t include these, don’t be put off by that. I scanned the bibliography at the end and found I’ve read only one of the books listed, yet never felt I wasn’t getting the references. Barry gives the reader enough context to do so without, plus many of these books are those that most reasonably literate readers are likely to have a clue about, even if they’ve never read them. For example, I know Don Quixote was prone to “tilting at windmills,” even though I haven’t read Cervantes’ classic. Those who have actually read the book might notice subtleties I didn’t, but not doing so will not prevent enjoying the book.
Throttling the Bard has all the adventure you’d expect of a road trip tale. This is enhanced by the protagonist’s travels through an area with lots of, by most standards, strange people and places. Vendicarsi and Quentin encounter book-burning religious cults, legal brothels, and put in an appearance at The Burning Man festival in this trip off the beaten path through the heart of Nevada. I found Throttling the Bard a smart and literate read that still had me rolling on the floor.
FYI:
Some adult language and situations.
Format/Typo Issues:
A small number of typos and other proofing errors. The most frequent are extra/missing words and a problem with the homophones past and passed.
Rating: **** Four stars
Reviewed by: JA Gill
Genre: YA Horror
Approximate word count: 50-55,000 words
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Six Moon Summer is the first installment in SM Reine’s Seasons of the Moon series. Reine resides with her husband, child and many black pets in sunny Las Vegas. You can follow SM Reine on Twitter @smreine and visit her website to watch the latest book trailer.
Description:
When Rylie’s dad insists she spend the summer at camp to get out of the city and run wild through the woods, and maybe make new friends, she begrudgingly goes but she doesn’t have to like it. That is until she meets a boy with a dark secret. Maybe he’ll understand what she’s going through…and what she’s growing into.
Appraisal:
Blame it on “Pop Americana,” but it is impossible to not worry while reading YA dark fantasy whether what you’re reading will be the “new Twilight.” On level, the concern seems to be just as inescapable for the writer, and suddenly the question changes from expectation to one of intention.
Certainly, werewolves can be just as awkward and self-conscious (the snarly, shaggy werewolf better represents this state of affairs than any Dorian Gray of a bloodsucker). Fans of Stephanie Meyer will in turn recognize the main character’s oft-stated wish to be normal while concurrently reveling in the curse of superhuman powers. Falling head over heels for a sexless Adonis hardly needs mentioning.
So while there are many origin myths of the werewolf ready for metaphorical repurposing, Six Moon Summer is a furrier, slightly more brutal, less plodding Twilight. When raging hormones slam into societies firm yet vague mores, in novels as so often in life, biology wins, except in popular fiction promiscuity gets reimagined away from STDs and unplanned pregnancies into something more manageable and less icky: violence and gore.
For that matter, where boys and girls are forced segregated at a summer camp, can it end any other way than in senseless killing?
While it makes perfect genre sense, the view that a society that sexually represses its teens risks turning them into blood-thirsty monsters is no less cynical of its target audience.
Format/Typo Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: ** Two stars
Instead of a review today we invite you to visit the A Moose Walked into a Bar blog where BigAl is the guest blogger.
For those not familiar with this blog, it is hosted by three Indie authors - Barbara Silkstone, L.C. Evans, and Karen Cantwell. Each Wednesday one of these three or a guest tells a story that is supposed to be both funny and true. Past guests have included Sibel Hodge, Suzanne Tyrpak (both authors we've reviewed here), and the first Indie author to sell over a million Kindle copies of his books, John Locke. Why they asked BigAl if he'd like to be a guest blogger is unclear, but it did teach him a good lesson. There is reason these people are successful novelists, and he will never be. Read BigAl's Guest Post, and you'll understand too.
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Approximate word count: 75-80,000 words
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Author:
Raven West is the author of another novel, First Class Male. Under the pen name Firebird, she also has a collection of erotica short stories, Journey to Dimension Nine. For more, visit West’s website.
Description:
Jenny Reed has it all. She is the DJ on the top rated morning radio show in Los Angeles. Brian, her boss, is also her lover and has a wife that prevents him from getting too serious – exactly the way Jenny wants it. A strong willed native of New York, Jenny has the left coast under control. At least she does until the day Johnny King enters her life. Johnny is going to be her co-host, which is bad enough, but he’s also the brother of Brian’s wife. That is only the beginning.
Appraisal:
I liked Jenny, the lead character in Red Wine for Breakfast, although at first I questioned the affair she was having with her boss. Other than this, she seemed like a strong woman and, with a top rated radio show, appeared to be in control. As another character tells her in the book, “How fifties, Jen. Hasn’t the feminist movement taught you girls anything? You don’t have to sleep with the boss anymore.” But as I got to know Jenny more this became less of a sticking point. The setting and story, at least at a high level, was good. The suspense in this romantic suspense, which comes from a few happenings at the station, which I won’t spoil, fit the story well. The romance is well done. At a high level, everything worked.
But the devil is in the details, and this book fell short in that area. A large number of typo and proofreading errors, each minor but in large numbers, were a problem. There were also issues of continuity and consistency. For example, two characters are sitting at the bar in the watering hole across from the radio station. Another character comes in the door and walks up to their table. How they moved from the bar to a table is unclear and doesn’t fit what was happening.
Another example is that one character who had appeared to be sensitive and caring turned into a grade-A asshole. Although there had been a change in his situation, this was too drastic a change in too short a time to be credible.
At another point, there was talk of the Los Angeles radio market as if there were many larger markets, saying other station owners had tempted Jenny, “with bigger salary, bigger markets, better benefits.” This struck me as strange at the time, thinking there couldn’t be many “bigger markets” with which they could tempt her. It turns out New York is the only one.
Over the course of eighty thousand words, the little things added up to a big problem.
FYI:
Some adult themes and language.
Format/Typo Issues:
There were formatting issues, with fonts changing for no apparent reason and missing spaces between words and sentences. The latter, while possibly a typo, is often related to a problem in the conversion process from a word processing document to an e-book. My review copy was from Smashwords, which might not be representative of what would be found at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
In addition to the formatting issues, there were a large number of typos and proofreading issues, the most common being missing words, typically articles and prepositions.
Rating: ** Two star
Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Suspense/Literary Fiction
Approximate word count: 70-75,000 words
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Author:
The author of one other novel, A Matrix of Angels, <link our review> Christopher Conlon lives in Maryland. He has written numerous short stories and poetry collections. Conlon also edits books, most notably the Bram Stoker Award-winning He Is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson. For more, visit Conlon’s website.
Description:
Reed Waters is a non-descript middle-aged man with some skeletons in his closet. Teenager Mauri Dyson is a runaway who does what she must to survive with secrets of her own. What happens when they meet and each discovers the secrets of the other?
Appraisal:
If the two novels I’ve read written by Christopher Conlon, this one and A Matrix of Angels, are any indication, he likes characters who had childhood experiences that have haunted them as adults. While not exactly the same, it appears from the description of Conlon’s book of poetry, Starkweather Dreams, that it is told from the viewpoint of serial killer Charles Starkweather, and delves into the same psychological neighborhood.
If done right, this combination is the recipe for an intense, satisfying story. The conflict in such a tale comes from the character’s own mind as they attempt working out their issues. In this instance, the fact that the path one character is taking to accomplish this is on a collision course to disrupt that of the other, adds additional conflict. I love stories where it doesn’t appear that there is a way for characters we identify with to all meet their apparent goals. This makes the story unpredictable and keeps us interested. Will one of the characters realize their goal is wrong and change it? Or maybe the happy ending we’re hoping for isn’t in the cards. The only way to find out is to read to the end. With Midnight on Mourn Street, Christopher Conlon gives us one of those intense, satisfying stories, done right.
FYI:
Some adult language and content.
Format/Typo Issues:
A small number of typos and other proofing errors.
Rating: ***** Five stars
Genre: Non-Fiction
Approximate word count: 65-70,000 words
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A small town undertaker by day, Byron Starr’s “writing hobby” has covered a lot of ground in just three books. His first book, Flatheads, a collection of fictional short stories, had just come out when the space shuttle Columbia fell apart on re-entry with pieces falling all over the piney woods of East Texas, where Starr lives. This book chronicles the recovery efforts after that disaster. Starr has since returned to fiction, publishing his first novel, Ace Hawkins and the Wrath of Santa Claus. For more, visit Starr’s website.
Description:
This is the story of the search and recovery effort following the Columbia shuttle disaster in 2003. As an undertaker at the family owned funeral home, Starr was involved in recovering the bodies of all seven astronauts that were on the Columbia. Although aided by Starr’s involvement, Finding Heroes isn’t only his story, but the story of many involved in that effort.
Appraisal:
This is the kind of book that I have a hard time picturing someone wandering the bookstore or library looking for without a very specific goal, whether it is learning more about the Columbia disaster or something broader like volunteerism or how people react in disasters. Yet I’ve stumbled upon books like this, thought they looked interesting, and curiosity was enough to prompt me to try them. Sometimes what you’ll get from them is the slant or overriding theme the author was aiming for- in this case, how people pull together in catastrophic circumstances- and other times it might be something entirely different.
Near the beginning of the book, Starr described his area of Texas as “some of the harshest terrain in the country.” I looked at the mountains outside my window and said, “Who does he think he’s kidding?” From my drives through this area, I know it is relatively flat, but didn’t consider the difficulty in attempting to search every square foot over a large area through thick vegetation and a hot, humid climate. By the end of the book, I understood that there are different kinds of harsh. Managing the volunteers who come and go and coordinating the many government agencies involved in different aspects of the effort required putting together an ad hoc management structure that was in continual flux. Some government agencies have experience with this for such things as fighting forest fires or reacting to certain kinds of natural disasters, but there is no blueprint for something unprecedented, like the Columbia disaster. In the case of Finding Heroes, I got the point the author was aiming for, that ordinary people rise to the occasion and put forth heroic efforts at times like this, but also found myself in awe of the logistics involved in an operation like this one.
Format/Typo Issues:
A small number of typos and other proofing errors.
Rating: **** Four stars
Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Thriller/Suspense
Approximate word count: 80-85,000 words
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Author:
A former track and field athlete, sprinter Russell Brooks lives in Montreal, Canada. For more, visit his website.
Description:
CIA operative Ridley Fox uncovers plans to unleash “Pandora,” a deadly microbe, in the worst act of bioterrorism the world has ever seen. Will he succeed in stopping those behind this?
Appraisal:
The thriller genre is one where the characters, both heroes and villains, tend to be larger than life, with plots that are over-the-top, at least when compared with the real world. Yet readers are trained to suspend their disbelief and are rewarded with a few hours of vicarious adventure and an escape from the real world. Pandora’s Succession fits this formula well, with a clever, complex plot and ever-increasing tension. The character of Ridley Fox is a larger than life hero, yet has enough human foibles and emotions for us to like and identify with him.
Unfortunately, Pandora’s Succession also suffers from the too common problem of insufficient copyediting. There are too many instances of typos, incorrect or missing words, and occasional clunky sentences. The big picture is good, but lack of attention to the nitty details dilutes the impact. Thriller fans with a high tolerance for mentally tripping over sentences should give Pandora’s Succession a try.
FYI:
Uses Canadian spelling conventions.
Format/Typo Issues:
A large number of typos and proofing errors.
Rating: *** Three stars
Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Approximate word count: 130-135,000 words
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Author:
A resident of the UK, Russell Cruse also has a novella, The Circling Song, available from Amazon for your Kindle. For more, visit the author’s website.
Description:
A series of deaths among the students at St. Wilfred’s School starts looking less like the obvious, accidents and suicides, and more like a serial killer with an agenda. David Benedict, a teacher at the school, and local journalist Rebecca Daley combine forces to investigate.
Appraisal:
This is a good enough story with a mystery to solve and a plot complex enough to keep the reader guessing along with an intense ending. However, what could have been a decent read suffered due to some miscues in the execution. Relatively minor were some format and proofreading errors. A bigger problem was portions of the story that were misleading or contradicted what had come before. There were enough of these, many minor and one major, to kill a story full of potential. I’ll give two examples, one minor plus the major one, in vague terms so the story won’t be spoiled for those who want to decide on their own.
The minor example involves some Swiss bank accounts. At a point in the story where several months went by without much happening, there was a section of narrative that talked about what little did happen over that period. One of the lines seemed to imply that the authorities looked at these accounts. “The Swiss banking system did its thing, and no-one knew what the accounts contained, nor even if they had ever been drawn on.” Yet a plot point shortly after depends on knowledge of these accounts being limited to a few people, none of them anyone in authority. Re-reading the quoted sentence, it is vague and open to several interpretations, one of which is “nothing happened”; in retrospect, the correct interpretation. In the context of the paragraph where the sentence is found, telling what did happen over the time covered, this was misleading, at best. Not mentioning these bank accounts at all would be a better way to show nothing happening.
The major example happens at a chapter end, just as the story starts rapidly building toward its climax. The narration again implies that something major will happen to one of the characters (what, I won’t say). When I read it, I made a note asking, “Why is he telling us this is going to happen?” It struck me at the time as ham-handed foreshadowing. When what was implied didn’t happen, at least not in this book, it felt like the narrator was lying to the reader. It occurred to me that the author might have been using what is called an “unreliable narrator,” on purpose. If so, the reason for doing so in the context of this story totally escapes me.
FYI:
Uses UK spelling conventions and slang.
Format/Typo Issues:
Head Count had a large number of what I perceived as typos and other proofing errors. A large number of these were not including what I’ll call “little words,” articles, prepositions, and such, where it felt like they belonged and were needed. This is a tendency I’ve seen in many authors from the UK; however, when I’ve seen this before, the “missing” words didn’t usually trip me up in my reading as much as happened with Head Count and, in most cases, the words didn’t seem required. A couple of examples with what I think was missing are, “The weather was, if anything, worse [than] it had been the day before …” and “She says you planned [to] let her drop …” Excluding these situations, Head Count still had a small number of typos and proofing errors.
The copy of the book I had (a Kindle format from Smashwords) had a widespread formatting problem with the font size changing. I believe this might be caused by designating a specific font size in the problem sections rather than using the default size, which can be set by the individual reader. This issue happened with entire chapters as well as random sections and even random words.
Rating: ** Two stars
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Approximate word count: 55-60,000 words
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Author:
Sophia Martin lives with her husband in the mountains of Northern California. She has another novel (The River and the Roses) and a short story (Veronica in Paris) which are also available for your favorite e-reader. She says that for some reason her stories always have a ghost. This one is no exception. For more, visit Martin’s blog.
Description:
After her abusive brother-in-law puts Louise in the hospital, she flees with her sister Marie, a nephew, and two nieces.
Appraisal:
It would be easy to second-guess some of the decisions made by the characters in Broken Ones. For example, choosing to flee, rather than seeking help from law enforcement and taking refuge at a shelter for victims of abuse. However, the reasons provided were compelling enough to convince me. As in many books (and real life), a few questionable decisions can snowball, which is what happens here.
The story gives us a glimpse inside the world of domestic violence and its fallout. The psychological implications of this – how it impacts decision making and the way people touched by this relate to the world around them – is something many of us have observed, but find hard to understand. Putting us in the middle through fiction might help our understanding. I’d certainly rather experience this vicariously than actually .
FYI:
Some adult language.
Format/Typo Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: **** Four stars
Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Humor/Satire
Approximate word count: 50-55,000 words
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Author:
A college teacher and textbook editor, Douglas Texter prefers humor in his own writing. His work has appeared in The Door and Amityville House of Pancakes.
Description:
An anti-self-help book, subtitled 12 Steps Away from Self-Esteem and Toward a Better World.
Appraisal:
You’re Not Very Important skewers self-help books and many of the people and organizations that purport to help make you a better, happier person. Most chapters are organized with an explanation of a particular quality encouraged by many self-improvement gurus with some stories demonstrating why this quality is bad. This is followed by a table of examples where a well known person has done as suggested and the negative consequences. The chapter ends with a list of specific items for you not to do to avoid the negative repercussions.
For example, many self-help books advise making a plan. Texter tells a story of a textbook salesperson who wanted to convince a community college to choose the book represented by her company. She makes a plan that starts with lying about how good her company’s book is and ends with cutting the brake cable on the competing sales representative’s car. Good plan. Needless to say, the ending wasn’t pretty. There is then a table with examples of “to-do” lists and their consequences. One sample list from a date in 1492 for Christopher Columbus includes saying hi to the nice short guy on the beach, which resulted in Native Americans being exposed to European diseases and twenty million deaths, and offering a ride on a boat to another short guy which started the slave trade in North America.
I found You’re Not Important to be quite funny. Most of the jokes, references, and absurd logic leading to the conclusion that a particular self-help technique was bad had the desired effect of getting a laugh or tickling my funny bone. Some of the references might be obscure for all but the older reader (40-50 and up), but I don’t think there are enough of these to ruin the book for anyone since no one will understand every reference. (An example that might be obscure for younger readers is a reference to George Wallace, not the comedian, but the right-wing politician who was the Governor of Alabama and onetime candidate for President of the United States.) If you’d like a book to lighten things up and serve as an antidote for a fast track life, this is what you’re looking for.
Format/Typo Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: **** Four stars
Genre: Mystery
Approximate word count: 85-90,000 words
Availability
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Author:
The son of a police detective, RJ McDonnell grew up watching TV detective shows with his father, who critiqued the stories for believability. (This is something McDonnell has in common with Jason Duffy, the protagonist of his mystery series.) A working musician during his college years, McDonnell has since worked as a professional writer, including as a columnist for two San Diego publications and a comedy skit writer for a local TV show. For more, visit the author’s website.
Description:
The third book in the Rock & Roll Mysteries series with Jason Duffy, rock musician turned private investigator, as the protagonist.
A religious fanatic serial killer believes that God rewards the most righteous with the most money. He also believes that rock music is evil and tries to shut down the concert industry by killing concertgoers.
Appraisal:
I’m a sucker for fiction that integrates my hobbies or interests into the story. (I know, many of you are under the impression I don’t have enough free time to do anything except read. Not true, although close.) I recently reviewed a book with a poker theme that was especially fun to read for that reason. Today’s book integrates my long time interest in music.
The mystery plot is solid although the premise of rock and roll being the “devil’s music” is as old as rock and roll and the religious fanatic as serial killer has been done to death. Although I can’t think of one off the top of my head, I’d be amazed if combining the two hasn’t been done before too. None of this mattered to me. A completely new story idea doesn’t exist. What does matter is whether McDonnell added his own spin to keep me engrossed and entertained. This he did, with humor and fun, eccentric characters.
Jason Duffy, the lead character in this series, has a unique history as a musician and working with outpatient mental health patients prior to becoming a private investigator. He also has a sense of humor that keeps the reader entertained during the inevitable points in the story that are less tense or action packed. Jason alone might be enough. However, there are a slew of secondary characters who are fun and quirky as well. Many of these I’d guess are, or will be, recurring in the series. Duffy’s two employees are both former mental health clients. Jeannine, the assistant and researcher with a touch of OCD, and the tech-savvy Cory who suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome, act as foils for Duffy’s humor and add plenty of their own. Duffy’s retired cop dad and mother along with his girlfriend Kelly all put Duffy in situations that are good for laughs. Bernie Liebowitz (the owner of Duffy’s favorite music club and frequent confidante) was another of my favorites. I’ve read books that made me laugh out loud before, but never a mystery that did it like this one. Now I’m going to backtrack to the first two books of the series.
FYI:
Some adult language.
Although part of a series, this book works well as a standalone. Duffy’s back-story is covered in enough detail that I never felt there was something I was missing and needed from the earlier installments.
Format/Typo Issues:
A small number of typos. Also, uses the name of an actual rock musician, but gets the last name incorrect.
Rating: **** Four stars
Genre: Humor/Science Fiction/Satire/Short Story
Approximate word count: 15-20,000 words
Availability
Kindle US: YES UK: YES Nook: YES Smashwords: YES Paper: YES
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Author:
Growing up in San Angelo, Texas, Lucy Snyder longed to live somewhere with four seasons. This wish was fulfilled, as she now lives with her husband in Ohio. Also available from Snyder for your favorite e-reader are three novels, another short story collection, Sparks and Shadows, and Chimeric Machines, a collection of poetry that won the 2009 Bram Stoker Award: Superior Achievement in Poetry. For more, visit Snyder’s website.
Description:
A collection of humorous short stories or essays, with a technological or science fiction slant. Some have appeared elsewhere, including the title story, which was the most popular ever to appear in the science fiction magazine Strange Horizons.
Appraisal:
Although each of the short stories or essays in Installing Linux stands alone, you’ll find a few common themes. Most touch on technology. Many have mythical creatures: zombies, fairies, trolls, and such. Some may have a dark side, but all are humorous, with many satirizing something or someone in the process.
The title story gives directions for installing the Linux operating system on a badger. When you’re done you’ll have a zombie badger that can be operated like a robot. Doesn’t that sound like fun? This piece satirizes computer installation manuals.
Multiple stories imagine a future where reanimated corpses or zombies provide a cheap workforce for corporations. This example passage is the response of the owner of a fast food restaurant, addressing concerns that his “zombloyees” (zombie employees) present a health risk, and clearly satirizes a typical corporate spokesperson putting a positive spin on a situation for good public relations:
There's still this perception that they're these oozing corpses dropping parts everywhere, but that's completely outdated. When properly plasticized, our zombloyees are cleaner than our regular employees – all you do is wipe them down with orange cleaner every shift to get the grease residue off.
Of course this brave new world isn’t good for everyone. We also get to meet the IT employee injured while trying to exterminate trolls from his company’s computer network and the unemployed worker who masquerades as a zombie to get a low paying job in a call center. Overall, I found Installing Linux to be a quick (just shy of 20,000 words) and fun read.
FYI:
Some adult language.
Format/Typo Issues:
No significant errors.
Rating: **** Four stars
Genre: Christian Fiction
Approximate word count: 110-115,000 words
Availability
Kindle US: YES UK: YES Nook: YES Smashwords: NO Paper: YES
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Author:
A popular speaker and blogger, Bob Rice teaches on a variety of religious subjects at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, where he lives with his wife and six kids. For more, visit the author’s website.
Description:
A retelling of the life of Jesus, based on The Bible, through the eyes of Jesus’ apostle, Simon (later known as Peter).
Appraisal:
In the email submitting this book for review, the author mentioned that we didn’t have any Christian Fiction at that time and made the following point:
My hope is that the book stands on its own no matter what faith background you have. A good story is a good story.
I think this is called an act of faith.
In light of this, it seems fair that I give a disclaimer before my review. Although raised in an extremely religious environment, as an adult I developed issues with all organized religion. If forced to claim membership in any religious organization, it would be the pseudo-religious Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Although I’m the first to concede that religions are a positive force in providing people with a moral and ethical framework in which to live their lives, there are other ways to do that. In my observation, religion also has a downside that frequently includes war and hatemongering. However, I also believe everyone has the right to practice their religious beliefs, as long as doing so doesn’t negatively impact anyone else. I also have a tremendous amount of respect for those who follow their beliefs, insofar as they are positive.
I’ll start with the obvious. If I was able to separate this story from its origins, the genre would be something different, maybe supernatural or paranormal. But making that separation isn’t realistic for me. I doubt it is for many people. The tale, at a high level, is set in stone. Most people will know much of the story, including how it ends. (Jesus dies, for those who don’t know.)
However, Rice’s purpose appears to be two-fold. First, telling the story from a new perspective, that of Peter. Looking at anything from a different point of view can provide new insights. Second, to make the story more accessible without oversimplifying like some of the bible storybooks for children tend to do. I thought he succeeded with both of these. The language is modernized, making it much easier to read. I did laugh when one character told another that “I’ve got your back,” but mostly the language was easy to read, modern, without being slang filled. By arranging the story chronologically, it is much easier to follow.
I’m sure there are spots some biblical scholars would nitpick. I don’t know where those would be, but I have faith that they are there. It would depend on the scholar. Rice freely admits in the afterword that in a few instances he played fast and loose with chronology. He sometimes fills in gaps for a more complete story and in many cases different biblical accounts of the same incident are contradictory. Also, biblical scholars and different Christian denominations can’t agree on all the specifics. However, the big picture, I think Rice got. For believers or the curious who find reading the bible hard going, Between the Savior and the Sea is an excellent compromise. For those who have read The Bible, the new viewpoint and easier reading might be something you’d be interested in reading. For non-believers, decide for yourself. After all, some say this is The Greatest Story Ever Told. For those who haven’t read it yet, sorry about the spoiler.
Format/Typo Issues:
Contained a moderate number of typos and other proofing errors.
Rating: **** Four stars
Genre: Suspense
Approximate word count: 70-75,000 words
Availability
Kindle US: YES UK: YES Nook: YES Smashwords: YES Paper: YES
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Author:
The daughter of an English teacher and a minister, Melinda Clayton became a psychotherapist and an author. She has worked as an advocate for abused women, children, and those with developmental disabilities. However, she says her biggest accomplishment is her children, who are “amazing, cool, fun little people.” She has another book available, Appalachian Justice. For more, visit her blog.
Description:
We first met Jessie in Appalachian Justice. Now a successful Hollywood film producer, she has helped establish a wilderness retreat on top of Crutcher Mountain. When a series of strange events happens at the retreat, Jessie returns to West Virginia and finds more than she expected.
Appraisal:
When I discovered that Melinda Clayton had written a sequel to Appalachian Justice, I wondered where the story might go. That it would center on Jessie, the main supporting character from Appalachian Justice, seemed a reasonable guess, but I couldn’t imagine what the strong emotional hooks that were present in the first book might be. It turns out that the struggle Jessie has in Return to Crutcher Mountain is much different from what she and Billy May experienced previously. The sequel is not even of the same genre, with the follow up being suspense instead of contemporary fiction, like the original.
I found that a suspense novel could still pack some emotional punch. As Jessie deals with issues from her past and works to find the cause of the strange happenings at the wilderness retreat, the site of her childhood home, she experiences plenty of emotional upheaval. Then, when the book hits its climax and the mystery of what has been going on is uncovered, Jessie finds something she never dreamed, and Clayton delivers another emotional knockout. While significantly different from Appalachian Justice, Clayton still tells a great story.
FYI:
While I would advise reading Appalachian Justice first (it is an excellent book), reading this one as a standalone should be okay. The downside is that reading this first might be a spoiler for some of what happens in the prior book.
Format/Typo Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: **** Four stars
Genre: Thriller
Approximate word count: 75-80,000 words
Availability
Kindle US: YES UK: YES Nook: YES Smashwords: YES Paper: YES
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Author:
Tommie Lyn lives with her husband in the Florida panhandle, the setting for three of her seven novels, including this one. Her books span multiple genres, including supernatural, historical, and thriller/mystery/suspense. For more, including several short stories, visit Lyn’s website.
Description:
When spoiled rich girl Shelley Goodnight stumbles upon a corpse while camping with friends, it is only the start of her involvement in a nightmare involving a hit man and political corruption.
Appraisal:
I found much to like about … And Night Falls, and a few things that didn’t quite work out for me. The prologue set the stage well and drew me into the story. However, when I started chapter one, where we first meet the protagonist, twenty-something Shelly Goodnight, something felt off, although I wasn’t sure what. In this section, Shelly, who has lived with her parents in the nine months since her divorce, is telling her Mother that she wants to “stand on her own two feet” and her first step is going to be moving into her own apartment. It isn’t that her claim lacks in sincerity. That is true, but intended. I don’t think it was anything in the author’s writing style. Whatever it was, I quickly got past it and was drawn back into the story.
However, I did find later instances where Shelly’s actions didn’t ring true. The most egregious was a situation where she pulled out a pen and paper and began writing down notes about the situation she’d found herself in. That part was mostly credible, but then it evolved into an exercise in free association that seemed unrealistic, not just for this character, but also for most people. It was also a crucial point in the story, where Shelly makes some mental connections and realizes a few things that enable her (and the story) to flow to the logical conclusion.
The ending was mostly satisfying. Each of the different story threads were tied off in an acceptable fashion, with two exceptions. One involved possible repercussions to Shelly’s father. This was left vague, with Shelly concluding that whatever happened would be alright. This felt too wish-washy and, for Shelly to conclude anything without having a better idea of what might happen, it was hard to believe she would know how she felt. The other loose end is related to a subsidiary character who was apparently a red herring. I shouldn’t say anything more about this, but can say the explanation, while implied, created new questions.
Despite some sticking points, I was able to get back into the story each time. My suspension of disbelief was temporarily shaken, but never permanently shattered. With the exception of these bumps in the road, the story was quite good. Different sub-threads are woven together in such a way that I could see how they related, but enough was held back to give the reader plenty of new discoveries to make as the story reaches its climax.
Format/Typo Issues:
There were a small number of typos and proofing errors. These were generally missing articles (the, a). There were also a number of unneeded hyphens I suspect were inserted as line breaks for a printed version, but are not appropriate for an e-book.
Rating: *** Three stars
