Review: The Double-Edged Sword by F Michele Ramsey

 

Genre: Romance/Historical/Politics

Description:

A young ‘halfie’ (half Egyptian and half French) girl from a wealthy Cairene family is living the good life. Her gorgeous boyfriend has proposed, her family likes him. She can afford to follow her dream of becoming an actress while working as a hostess in the executive lounge of a local airline. But as soon as Farah’s perfect life has been laid before us, it is thoroughly disassembled. At first she can make no headway against the winds of fate, but gradually over the ensuing decade she grows into a person of worth.

Author:

The author’s background is much like Farah’s, as she is of Irish and Egyptian descent. She was living in the region during the period covered by the book and knows whereof she writes.

She earned a BA in English and Comparative Literature from the American University in Cairo before pursuing a Master’s Degree in Education at George Mason University in the U.S.

Following the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon, she went on to obtain an Executive Master’s at the Lebanese University in Beirut, focusing on Psychosocial Animation in War-torn Societies.

Her career spanned over a decade with the United Nations, leading her to reside in various locations. During the First Gulf War in 1991, while Iraq occupied Kuwait, she was situated in Jordan. Then, between 1995 and 1999, Ramsey resided in Gaza and the West Bank. Some of the incidents she witnessed while living there are detailed in this book. 

Appraisal:

This is a fascinating book.

The plot is slight, on the face of it. Spoiler alert: Farah loves three men through the ten year span of the book and they all betray her in one way or another. I think you’ll be glad of the spoiler, however, as I kept on waiting (for most of this book’s 400 or so pages) for The Big Reveal. And there never is one. There are a few vague hints dropped as to what may be going on. I clung to them. The author treats the quotidian in very much the same way as she treats the above-mentioned betrayals, and descriptions of squalor and violence. So one is never sure what is important, or what is going to be important. But despite this, a large portion of the book is very important indeed.

The reason is because it deals with the Middle East. You may already have your opinions on the Middle East, you may prefer to ignore it and hope it goes away. (Another spoiler alert: unlikely.) But if you ever wanted to know what drives the conflict between Muslim and Jew in that arena of eye for an eye violence, this is the book which will tell you what you need to know – and all wrapped up in a reasonably easy read which is, on the surface, simply the story of a shallow young woman growing up.

There are problems: there is a huge cast of characters, who move around the Middle East in general, Jordan (Amman) and Israel (Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories) in particular; also Cyprus, Paris and Washington DC (fortunately it is simple to look up who is who and where they currently are to remind yourself on a Kindle). I confess I never understood how the title applied to the book.

Furthermore, the book is set in the decade 1985-1995. So it can feel a bit remote from the present day. However, rather little in the Middle East has changed in the ensuing 30 years, and anything that has changed has not changed for the better. The still intractable problems are laid out here for the reader by an author who really understands what they are. By the time reports reach us in the UK and US they have usually been spun so that the reportage takes a side. That is not the case here. All sides (and there are certainly more than two) have a voice. Of course, much that underpins the ongoing disastrous relationship between Israelis and Palestinians isn’t reported outside the country at all. In this book we see much of that. Farah is a camera. Some of what she sees may shock you.

In her Afterword Ramsey explains that she abandoned this project some twenty years ago and was persuaded by friends to revive it. I’m glad she did – it was a project well worth her time and I hope it gets the wide readership it deserves.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

Rather a lot of missed typos which are real words but unhelpful in context, and thus may mislead the reader.

Rating: *** Three Stars

Reviewed by: Judi Moore

Approximate word count: 105-110,000 words

Review: Intelligence Was Never Alone by Juan Carlos Rodríguez Barreno

 

Genre: Non-Fiction

Description:

“In 2026 a student asks his math teacher a simple question: Why should I keep learning to solve equations if an app can do it in two seconds?

That question stayed with Juan Carlos Rodríguez Barreno. After nearly twenty years teaching mathematics, physics and chemistry, he realized the student was not really asking about equations. He was asking what it means to know something when machines can already calculate, write, translate and reason faster than we can.

Intelligence Was Never Alone is the answer to that question — told through the long history of human tools.

From the first carved stone that extended the strength of the hand, to writing, the printing press, the calculator, the internet and now generative AI, every major tool has sparked the same fear: this time we will stop thinking. Plato worried that writing would destroy memory. Educators in the 1980s feared calculators would end mathematical understanding. Critics of the internet warned that knowledge itself would become superfluous.

History shows a different pattern. Tools rarely eliminate intelligence. They move it. They free mental energy for new problems while quietly atrophying old skills. They redistribute power, create new inequalities, and force every generation to decide what still deserves to be done by hand.

This book does not tell you to embrace AI uncritically or to reject it in panic. It simply places the current debate inside a much older story and asks the only question that has always mattered:

What part of thinking are we willing to keep doing ourselves once a machine can do the rest?

Drawing on philosophy, cognitive science, the history of technology and two decades of classroom experience, Rodríguez Barreno offers a clear-eyed, non-dogmatic guide for teachers, parents, students and anyone trying to live thoughtfully in an age of powerful tools.

Because intelligence was never alone. And the real question was never what the machine can do. It was always what kind of human beings we want to remain.”

Author:

Juan Carlos Rodríguez Barreno is a science and mathematics teacher with over 30 years of experience in education.

Appraisal:

This is the second book I’ve read recently that discussed AI, a subject that is getting a lot of attention in many forums recently. The first book was more basic, explaining the basics of AI, what it was, and to some degree how it is implemented. This book looks at this new tool from a slightly different angle.

Those of a certain age will remember doing math programs using paper and pencil because that was the only way available to us to figure out our bank balance or the like. Then calculators showed up, first as standalone devices and eventually as apps on our computer and then on our phones. That teacher in the early days of calculators who discouraged us using them because we wouldn’t have a calculator in our pocket when we needed to add something in our daily life turned out to be wrong.

What this book does is take a look at AI, how it might serve to make humans more capable, giving us tools to do some things and in the process freeing up our brains and creativity to accomplish even more than we can today, but also warns us about the guardrails we need to keep in place to validate results and prevent life from becoming a bad dystopian science fiction story. It gets into the detail enough to be a good introduction and help an average person get a good handle on the pros, cons, and valid concerns regarding AI without getting so deep into specialized technical matters that only an expert would understand.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 35-40,000 words

Review: The Hours We Never Entered by Ajesh Chacko

 

Genre: Psychological/Literary Fiction

Description:

““Nineteen seconds. That was all Lucy left behind.”

When Tom Kerr loses his sister without warning, the life he had carefully kept moving begins to come apart.

There are meetings he can no longer pretend matter. A relationship he has spent too long postponing. A blue mug carrying more history than an ordinary object should. And one final voice message from Lucy—nineteen seconds of an ordinary life that has suddenly become unreachable.

Tom leaves the city for Bellwether, a weather-beaten coastal town where nobody knows the person he was supposed to be. There, among rough seas, an ageing dog named Finn, unexpected friendships and long stretches of silence, he begins to notice something he has spent years avoiding:

how rarely he has actually been present for his own life.

But grief is not a doorway that closes neatly behind us. And returning to life may demand something harder than escaping it.

The Hours We Never Entered is an intimate literary novella about grief, love, consciousness and the ordinary moments we keep postponing—a story for anyone who has ever wondered how much of life passes while we are waiting to begin living.”

Author:

“Ajesh Chacko writes emotionally driven fiction about memory, loss, relationships and the truths people carry quietly through ordinary life. His work combines psychological tension with intimate human stories, exploring the moments that can change the way we understand ourselves and the people closest to us.”

Appraisal:

If this book doesn’t get you thinking about life and its priorities, you must either have your priorities nailed down and know it (possible, I suppose), or you need to read it again because you weren’t paying attention (the most likely reason, IMO). If you’ve ever unexpectedly had a close friend or family member pass away, you’ll understand the struggle Tom, the protagonist of this story goes through when his sister tries to call him, leaves a message, and then she passes away minutes later. It’s a short read, but a good one.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 15-20,000 words

Review: The Reasonable Prudent Man by Peter J. Stavros

 

Genre: Legal Thriller

Description:

“The law asks what a reasonable, prudent man would do. It never warns you how few of them you’ll meet.

He never wanted to be a lawyer. But the debt was mounting and nothing else had stuck, and law school was the last ripcord left to pull — so Christian pulled it, graduating at the top of a class he couldn’t stand, straight into a profession that promised to finally make him someone.

What it makes him, first, is a young man adrift between two Kentuckys. In a fog-smothered Appalachian town, a cigar-smoking judge shows him that the law runs on common sense, not citations, and a landlocked surfer named Jesse shows him something harder to name. Then the big firm calls. Christian trades the quiet for Fentz — its kill-or-be-killed corridors, a charismatic partner who takes him under his wing, and a woman he can’t decide whether to trust. By the time he understands the game being played around him, he’s the one left holding the blame.”

Author:

An attorney, former reporter as well as being a playwright and author with several books to his credit, Peter J. Stravos lives in Kentucky. For more, visit his website.

Appraisal:

I’ve always been a fan of legal thrillers, think John Grisham and the like. This one was a good read and appealed for many of the same reasons. But this is also not like a typical legal thriller in many ways. In some ways you could almost view it as a coming-of-age story for an attorney who thinks he knows what he wants when he decides to become a lawyer, which is a career in what he calls “BigLaw.” To be fair, that’s not really what he wants, but it is what he decides is something he can do that will give him what he’s looking for from life, so he goes for it. How that works out is a little up and down with some positives and some things that, if you’re paying attention, might be concerning. How it all works out is an adventure I enjoyed experiencing vicariously.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Some adult language and mild adult situations.

Format/Typo Issues:

Review is based on an advance reviewer copy so I can’t gauge the final product in this area.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 95-100,000 words

Reprise Review: Rebellion Reborn by Brian S. Leon

 

Genre: Urban Fantasy/Mythology/Contemporary Fiction

Description:

“Millennia ago, beings we call angels were tasked with watching over humankind in its infancy. Rather than protect humans, these Watchers decided to subjugate them instead, beginning a rebellion that would rock both Heaven and Earth. Defeated, the most powerful of the Watchers were imprisoned for eternity, while the weaker ones were condemned to live out their existence on Earth, relegated to the shadows that now occupy human myths and legends.

Until one of the Watchers escapes.

Immortal protector of humanity and one-time hero of the Trojan War, Diomedes—better known as Steve Dore these days—is horrified to discover that what human authorities think is a mentally unstable cannibalistic murderer is actually a gateway to something ancient and apocalyptic. Racing against a cosmic timetable, Diomedes is drawn into a dark and sinister underworld in a desperate attempt to stop another uprising.

But stopping this enemy may cost him far more than his life. Some grudges never die.”

Author:

“Brian S. Leon is truly a jack of all trades and a master of none. He writes just to do something with all the useless degrees and skills he’s accumulated over the years. Most of them have no practical application in civilized society, anyway. His interests include mythology and fishing, in pursuit of which he has explored jungles and museums, oceans and seas all over the world.

His credentials include an undergraduate degree from the University of Miami and a master’s degree from San Diego State University, plus extensive postgraduate work in evolutionary biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he studied animals most people aren’t even aware exist and theories no one really cares about anyway… Brian currently resides in San Diego, California.”

Learn more at Brian's website, or follow his series page on Facebook.

Appraisal:

Rebellion Reborn begins by recounting events from a century earlier when Diomedes first encounters an evil Watcher who has escaped his prison. This evil manifests as a huge black shadow who kills randomly. We are also introduced to the heavenly crusaders who are sent to assist Diomedes. At that time all they managed to do was send the shadow scrambling into hiding.

Now one hundred years later this evil has a grand plan to release all the Watchers so they can rule our world again, without any pesky angles around to interfere. He has managed to organize lesser demons, succubae and higher functioning vampires, to collect humans to become vessels. They have utilized elite BDSM clubs to find suitable subjects. When the Department of Homeland Security gets involved Sarah goes undercover to infiltrate their operation to learn their plans. Steve Dore is against her joining the sting, but one of the reasons he loves her is because she is strong willed and independent. All pretenses between Sarah and Steve Dore have been thrown to the wayside. 

The story arc is well written and the descriptive prose puts the reader near all the action. There are plenty of twists to keep the tension at an unrelenting level until the end. Now I need the next book by, like, tomorrow, okay? I’m not really happy with the ending, but it is more of a personal thing, because I can’t really see where things are going to go now. I’m probably more upset with myself because I felt like I knew Steve Dore better, and that may be the answer. I do know Steve Dore, but I don’t know Diomedes as well as I thought I did.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Rebellion Reborn is book 3 in Brian S. Leon’s, The Metis Files. Adult themes and language. If you are sensitive to either of these, this book may not be for you.

Format/Typo Issues:

No issues.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: ?wazithinkin

Approximate word count: 105-110,000 words

Review: What the Hell Is AI? by Abhishek C George

 

Genre: Non-Fiction

Description:

“You hear the word AI a hundred times a day now. Your boss mentions it in meetings as if everyone already understands. Your friends nod along when somebody talks about ‘models’ and ‘agents’ and ‘context windows,’ and you sit there nodding too, pretending you understand.

You don't. And most of the people nodding along with you don't either.

This is a short book for the rest of us — anyone who has spent the last few years feeling like the world quietly took a class you didn't sign up for.

It starts at the beginning. Not the beginning of artificial intelligence — the beginning of computers, because AI doesn't make sense until you understand what's underneath. You'll learn what a computer actually is. How it makes pictures and sounds out of nothing but electricity and switches. How the internet really works. How software has worked for the last seventy years, and what just changed.

Only then does the book get to AI itself, and the surprisingly simple idea at the heart of it: AI is the moment the computer finally learns to listen to humans, in human language.

No jargon. No hype. No lectures about the future of humanity. Just a plain story, told by someone who has watched a lot of smart people get confused by this and decided the bad explanations were the problem, not the subject matter.

By the end, you'll be able to hear a sentence like ‘the model has a 200k context window and uses tools through an agent loop’ and have a real mental picture of what it means.

You can stop nodding along.”

Author:

Information about the author is skimpy, but from a bit of internet stalking it appears that he is a Singapore based businessperson with experience in a variety of areas.

Appraisal:

I found this to be a quick and enlightening read to understand Artificial Intelligence. It starts by describing in simple terms that an average layperson should be able to understand how computers work and have evolved over the years. Understanding older computers and the evolution over time gives proper context and a good foundation for the things that are changing with AI. As a person who worked in the computer field several decades spanning much of this foundational time the author discusses, I found his explanation to be correct, but written at a high level in a way that a person without an understanding of the inner workings of a computer could get. The explanation of artificial intelligence, the benefits, the legitimate concerns, and the things to be aware of were also well done. If you’re looking for a way to quickly reach a high-level understanding of this technology, this book is an excellent resource to do that. It also makes a case for the positives of AI, but doesn’t deny the need for some caution as well.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 15-20,000 words

Review: Between You Me, and the Fence Post by Hunter Snow

 

Genre: Women’s Fiction/Psychological Suspense

Description:

“A poignant, emotionally honest story about love, addiction, and the quiet bravery it takes to choose yourself.

Actress Claire Davis has spent her life pretending—on screen and off. When she meets Reed Hart, the charismatic frontman of a once-popular band, she believes she’s found something real.

But Reed is addicted to more than fame. And loving him means living in the space between who he is and who he swears he’ll become.

Claire waits. She hopes. She tries to save him. When Reed finally seeks help, she thinks it’s their turning point.

Instead, it’s her wake-up call.”

Author:

“Hunter Snow survived (just barely) a wild ride through the music industry and now channels those experiences into writing rock-and-roll stories from her home in the Pacific Northwest. Any resemblance to actual people, events, or places is purely coincidental—mostly.”

For more, check out her website.

Appraisal:

I read Hunter Snow’s first two books and loved them. They could both be described as romantic comedies. They also both had protagonists that were involved in the music business which is something that makes a book likely to draw me in too. This book has neither of those with the only music business tie being the protagonist’s love interest who was once in a big-name band, but more of a has been now. The romance in this isn’t romantic comedy either. And yet I think I might have enjoyed this book even more than the first few. Actually, enjoy might not be the right word. But I was engrossed every step of the way. The protagonist, Claire, goes through experiences involving an on again/off again romance that is very intense, that drew me in like a good book does, had me wondering how it was all going to shake out in the long run, not being sure what the end of the story might hold. The author anticipated that readers might be surprised at how the story resolves and starts the book off with two things, a note saying “To everyone who is about to read this book, I apologize in advance.” The other, a long list of trigger warnings. If a story with characters dealing with mental health struggles or emotional abuse or consuming … no, make that over consuming … alcohol is going to be an issue for you, this isn’t the book for you. But if you’re looking for an intense read, this might be exactly what you’re looking for.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Besides plenty of adult language and adult content it has oodles of mental health struggles from characters that might be triggering to some.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 95-100,000 words

Review: Control Room: Never a Day Off by Bo Park

 

Genre: Literary Satire/Magical Realism/Humor

Description:

“Running a country is hard. Running a human body is worse.

Deep inside you—or someone very much like you—the Brain clocks in every morning to run a very small, very noisy nation.

They call him the Boss.

The Stomach files complaints. The Liver pulls unpaid overtime. The Bladder calls emergency sessions at the worst possible moments. And the guileless Heart hasn't taken a day off in years.

The departments have questions. So many questions.

The Boss has an answer for every one of them.

Except one.

Control Room: Never a Day Off— everyday life, as seen from inside your own body.”

Author:

Bo Park is a South Korean author. Prior to this book he wrote a six book science fiction series.

Appraisal:

This is a clever book. Just imagine your brain (aka “the control room”) as the boss of a bunch of employees who are all on a team to run the system (aka “your body”). In a way, that’s the reality. But if you’ve ever been the boss you know that being the boss isn’t as great as some people think it is and that comes through here in an amusing and clever way that had me laughing, but also got me thinking.

The author of the book is South Korean and throws a few South Korean terms in occasionally where I had no clue what they meant. However, I was able to understand well enough from the context to get the point in most instances and there is a glossary that defines these words if you need to refer to it, so if the story appeals otherwise this shouldn’t be a deal breaker.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 45-50,000 words

Review: Final Dawn by DV Berkom

 

Genre: Thriller

Description:

“When a messianic terrorist puts a target on the federal justice system, elite operator Mackenzie ‘Mac’ Reynolds is all that stands between order and total chaos.

Mac Reynolds knows how to read a room, spot a threat, and keep a client alive. What she doesn’t know is how to protect a federal judge when a domestic terror campaign begins and every layer of security starts to crack.

Victor Hale has activated sleeper cells, breached government networks, and turned the Pacific Northwest into a blood-soaked battlefield. But for Mac, the nightmare becomes deeply personal when her mentor and her father suddenly vanish—straight into Hale’s trap.”

Author:

“DV Berkom is the USA Today bestselling author of action-packed, riveting adventure and crime thrillers. Known for creating resilient, kick-ass female characters and page-turning plots, her love of the genre stems from a lifelong addiction to reading spy novels, action/adventure stories, and thrillers.”

For more, visit her website.

Appraisal:

If you’ve read the first two books in this series then you know what the protagonist of the trilogy, Mackenzie Reynolds, Mac for short, is up against and the stakes. If she doesn’t stop Victor Hale and his minions it won’t be good for anyone, no matter what some of his followers are deluded enough to think. Not to mention the much more personal things at stake with her father being at extreme risk. I wasn’t sure how this was going to shake out which kept me turning pages, eager to see how it worked out. Long time DV Berkom fans are going to have an unanticipated character show up to help out, which just made this that much better for me. As always with DV Berkom’s books, we’ve got strong female characters with an extremely engaging story.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

This is the end of a trilogy. While you could probably follow the story in this book without having read the first two books in the trilogy, to get a full sense of this book I’d advise not doing that, instead reading all three books in order.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 80-85,000 words

Reprise Review: The Field Where I Died by Melissa Bowersock

 

Genre: Historical

Description:

“Devon Muir has always been fascinated with the Civil War. When he discovers that his fourth great-grandfather fought at pivotal battles like Antietam and Gettysburg, he is compelled to follow in his ancestor’s footsteps and experience the battlefields on his own. What he doesn’t count on is dreaming about a battle every night—and being killed every time. Now his exploration of battlefields becomes a different kind of quest as he struggles to understand who is the soldier he becomes in his dream, and who is the woman whose face he sees as he lays dying.”

Author:

“Melissa Bowersock is an eclectic, award-winning author who writes in a variety of fiction and non-fiction genres: biography, contemporary, western, action, romance, fantasy, paranormal and spiritual. She has been both traditionally and independently published and is a regular contributor to the superblog Indies Unlimited. She lives in a small community in northern Arizona with her husband and an Airedale terrier. She also writes under the pen name Amber Flame.”

Appraisal:

A story with an interesting and unique mix of contemporary, historical, and supernatural genres. (It might feel a bit like time-travel figures in this as well.) This was a quick, fast moving, and entertaining read. I liked the characters, both the protagonist Devin, and the other supporting cast. Where the story was going was never clear as the mystery of why Devin was dreaming what he did every night slowly unfolded. If the story appeals at all, this is well worth your time.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

A small amount of adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

My review is based on a pre-release copy and I’m unable to judge the final product in this area.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 35-40,000 words