Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Memoir
Approximate word count: 8,000 words
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Author:
Shana Hammaker is the author of the Twelve Terrifying Tales for 2011 series, where a different short thriller is released each month. We have reviewed the first three of these. Follow Hammaker on Twitter.
Description:
At seventeen, Shana Hammaker was a street kid named Denise.
During the time she spent homeless, living on the streets of Santa Cruz, California, Denise experienced a rough and wild life. Longing for the comfort of home, she found it, in the dumpster at Pacific Cookie Company.
Appraisal:
There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. – Walter Wellesley “Red” Smith
Although an overused quote, to the point of becoming clichéd, anyone who has tried writing of any kind also recognizes its truth. It applies to almost any kind of writing. Red Smith was a sportswriter, which doesn’t seem that personal, yet all writing, even something as easy as a review, can still feel this way. It is one reason authors sometimes react emotionally when someone doesn’t like what they’ve written.
In The Cookie Dumpster, it feels like Shana Hammaker sat down at her new-fangled typewriter and opened an artery instead. She gives us a glimpse into the people and culture of the homeless, a situation most of us can barely imagine. Hammaker’s writing voice or tone seemed different from her fiction, somehow more personal. Maybe this is something I imagined, or possibly that she is telling her own story rather than acting as a go-between for her characters made the voice more authentic. In many ways, this is a story of contradictions, of highs and lows. It is a story of freedom from many of society’s norms and of slavery to the requirements of survival. Ultimately, it is a story of overcoming obstacles.
If The Cookie Dumpster has any faults, it is that I wanted more. The period covered starts and ends at logical and natural points for the story Hammaker wanted to tell. But I can’t help thinking there is a prequel and possibly a sequel with much different, although just as compelling, stories to tell.
Format/Typo Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: ***** Five stars
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Genre: Mystery/Romantic Suspense
Approximate word count: 75-80,000 words
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Author:
Former newspaper reporter Stacy Juba is the winner of over a dozen writing awards. She is the author of several books, including Sink or Swim, another romantic suspense novel available for your Kindle, and some children’s picture books. She also has multiple young adult novels slated for publication over the next year. For more, see the author's website.
Description:
Editorial assistant Kris Langley’s duties for the Fremont Daily News are all of the assignments the regular reporters don’t want- things like writing obituaries and putting together the daily Twenty-Five Years Ago Today column. When Kris reads about an unsolved murder that happened twenty-five years before, she decides to investigate.
Appraisal:
I thought the concept of solving an old murder, instigated by the research for the newspaper column, was original. The character of Kris shows a lot of initiative and follow-through for someone so young. Although some of her motivation is professional advancement, a piece of her back-story lends credibility to her continued resolve when the going gets tough and also gets the reader more invested in the story.
This book is a good mystery with a resolution that should come as a surprise. The secondary romance storyline enhances the mystery storyline and gives the book a little spice (although not with anything explicit that should keep anyone away). Twenty-Five Years Ago Today has everything I look for in a romantic suspense; a mystery that keeps me guessing, a romance storyline that ends well, and characters that I like enough to care about what happens to them.
Format/Typo Issues:
No typos. The copy I reviewed (obtained from Smashwords) did have some formatting issues with the spaces between words sporadically missing.
Rating: **** Four stars
Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Thriller
Approximate word count: 50-55,000 words
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Author:
William Esmont and his wife live in Tucson, Arizona with a menagerie of cats and dogs. He has two additional books currently available, Fire (Elements of the Undead) (Volume 1) and Self Arrest. For more, visit Esmont’s blog.
Description:
What happens when ex-CIA analyst Kurt Vetter detects something fishy about his brother Mike’s murder? Assisted by Amanda Carter, a hard-to-nail-down agent from his brother’s past, Vetter starts digging and uncovers the unexpected in this spy thriller. This is the first book of a planned series featuring Kurt and Amanda.
Appraisal:
Like most genre fiction, spy thrillers have their tried and true formulas, generally involving a conspiracy to uncover that left unchecked will mean, if not the end of the world, a disastrous outcome of some kind. Suspension of disbelief is required; is there any James Bond plot anyone truly believes could happen? I’m sure there are plot elements that push individual readers beyond what they’re willing to believe, but readers prone to object to this probably stay away from the genre.
Although spy thrillers are plot driven, my contention is that what differentiates one of the genre from another is how invested the reader gets in the main characters. If we care about them, we care about the story. The Patriot Paradox has three characters who are our potential heroes – Amanda Carter, and the brothers Kurt and Mike Vetter. Amanda is a riddle. We never learn much about her, and I only became invested in her because she was helping Kurt and appeared to be on his side. I suspect as we get to know her better in future books in the series this might change.
It is the two brothers whom we identify with and want to see succeed. It might seem strange that Mike, who is murdered in the first chapter, is a character we’re pulling for. However, Mike’s shadow is always present. His example is constantly pushing Kurt to succeed so that his death won’t have been in vain. This is something the reader will also want. The character of Kurt is a good person who has made mistakes and been through hell. His success is a kind of redemption we want him to achieve. Now I’m eager to see what is in store next for Kurt and Amanda.
FYI:
If you’re offended by the infamous word that starts with the sixth letter of the alphabet, be aware that you’ll find it here.
Format/Typo Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: **** Four stars
Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Thriller/Suspense
Approximate word count: 50-55,000 words
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Author:
Sarah L. Rose is the pen name of a former social worker and award-winning journalist. Rose lives in rural Oregon. This is her first novel. You can follow Rose on Twitter.
Description:
One Bad Mother is based on a real case the author encountered as a reporter.
Irwin Griggs is One Bad Mother. A dysfunctional childhood eventually led to a adult who is a drain on society. Irwin has killed more than once and has made a game of impregnating and leaving women whenever he has had the chance. Irwin believes he is the way he is because he grew up without his father and decides the way to atone for what he has done is to kidnap and raise the five children he has fathered.
By some standards Layla Philips is One Bad Mother. Her child is in danger of being taken away by social services. Her childhood wasn’t much better than Irwin’s and this is often reflected in her choices. But Layla wants to keep and provide for her child and does the best she can, even if this means taking advantage of a well-to-do couple who want a child of their own.
Irwin quickly gathers his first four children, but when he comes for the fifth, Layla’s son Kurt, it doesn’t go as smoothly.
Appraisal:
The high level concept of this book, a father who attempts to kidnap his children, each conceived with a different woman, and runs into one mother who fights back, is based on a true story. Had I not known this, suspension of disbelief might have been difficult.
Layla, the mother who fights back, is not an especially sympathetic character in the beginning. Were it not for two things, I would have had a hard time investing emotionally in Layla’s plight. The first is that, although Layla makes what seem like bad decisions, they are the most viable choices available. That she makes choices based on the best way of meeting her goal of keeping and providing for her son Kurt is never in doubt. The other reason I was able to pull for Layla is that the other alternatives for her son Kurt – a foster home, living with Layla’s father, or Irwin successfully kidnapping him – were much worse. As the story progresses, Irwin becomes crazier while Layla learns to make better decisions. As the tension built, my emotional investment in Layla’s plight did too.
One Bad Mother’s weakness is also its strength. That the story and the protagonist are both so much different from what I’m accustomed to seeing in a thriller made it tougher to get invested in the story, but also resulted in a unique story. In the end, the positives of this far outweighed the negatives.
FYI:
The book contains a lot of adult language and some sexual situations.
Format/Typo Issues:
The book contains no significant issues with typos or other copy editing flaws. However, the version I reviewed (obtained from Amazon) had a formatting problem that sometimes caused what should have been hyphens (as in the word slip-ons) to display an incorrect character on my Kindle. This issue was sporadic, but happened enough to notice. If the book interests you, don’t let this minor issue keep you away.
Rating: **** Four stars
Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Satire
Approximate word count: 85-90,000 words
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Author:
Dr. Who fan Nick Griffiths largely supports himself as a journalist. Griffiths has written for many magazines and newspapers in the UK. He has several books available, including two inspired by his love of Dr. Who and the sequel to this book, Looking for Mrs. Dextrose. For more, visit the author’s website.
Description:
This is the story of Alexander Grey, who, after a less than thrilling childhood, turns into a not-very-motivated young adult. This changes when the object of his teenage lust, Suzy Goodenough, promises fulfillment of his fantasies. The catch is that he first must repeat the trip made in his favorite book, Harrison Dextroxe’s The Lost Incompetent: A Bible for the Inept Traveller, and do this in less time than it took to complete Dextrose’s original journey.
Appraisal:
In the Footsteps of Harrison Dextrose reminds me of William Goldman’s classic The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure. This comparison might seem tenuous, especially for anyone only familiar with the movie. Both contain portions of an imaginary book interspersed with contemporary tales from the narrator. Each has a story that is larger-than-life, at least in the eyes of the narrator when imagining the main character of the make-believe book. Last, both have a sense of humor. Newsweek described The Princess Bride as “nutball funny.” The same goes for Harrison Dextrose.
Taken too far, my comparison falls apart. The Princess Bride is fantasy. Harrison Dextrose isn’t, although it does largely happen in countries and among cultures that don’t actually exist. Maybe it could be called fanciful instead. Although Harrison Dextrose’s original trip was purported to have happened in the 1970s and Alexander’s ten years later, both feel as though they are happening much earlier and satirize accounts of explorers from long ago.
The humor is sometimes subtle; what would you make of a boat named the “Unsmoked Haddock” or someone who counted the bullets from a machine gun? There are sly pop cultural references- for example, a dwarf who expects Alexander to know the next line in a quote from The Blues Brothers movie or describing a ship as “held together by barnacles; if they joined a barnacle cult and committed mass suicide, we’d be left clinging to planks.”
Overall, I found In the Footsteps of Harrison Dextrose a fun and entertaining read. The mix of action-adventure and “nutball” humor might not be for everyone, but I enjoyed it.
FYI:
The author is from the UK and uses UK spelling and a ton (or maybe I should say tonne) of UK slang.
Despite using the word mink as the stand-in for many words, those easily offended by language should consider yourselves warned. (Given that Griffiths’ website has a Q&A where he answers that his favorite word is fuck, I would say he was very restrained in his book, although you’ll still find that word many times. I agree with his explanation- it is a very versatile word.)
Format/Typo Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: **** Four stars
Reviewed by: Corina
Genre: Technothriller
Approximate word count: 50-55,00 words
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Author:
Ian Hocking is a British writer and psychologist with an interest in experimental psycholinguistics. Déjà Vu was his first novel, which was well-received in 2005, when it was released in paperback, and it has recently been released for electronic readers. Hocking also wrote another novel with the same main character, Saskia Brandt, titled Flashback.
Description:
In the year 2023, David Proctor finds himself on the run from Saskia Brandt, European FIB operative. As he finds help from unexpected sources, Brandt is working to solve a different mystery altogether as she pursues Proctor; one that is of vital importance to her future.
Appraisal:
Déjà Vu is a science fiction novel set in the fairly near future, and it introduces technology that I can already see myself using and keeping in my pocket. I found the mechanical wonders a lot of fun, and I think the characters are well-drawn, as one might expect from a psychologist who writes novels. There were twists and turns, surprises and character shifts. On the whole, I found this a well-crafted, interesting tale of technology and hot pursuit.
The one drawback is that I found it relatively easy to put the book down. I did come back to it until I finished it, but I can’t say I read it in one sitting, which is one of my highest accolades. Don’t let that deter you if you love technothrillers. Give it a try!
Format/Typo Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: Four Stars ****
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Genre: Non-fiction/Politics
Approximate word count: 25-30,000 words
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Author:
As the winner of the 2008 Great American Think Off, Craig Allen tackled the question, “Does immigration strengthen or threaten the United States?” In that debate, Allen posited that the real problem was our inability to discuss the issue rationally. Allen has served in government on his city council as well as working with many city and county governments in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area.
Description:
In this book, Craig Allen puts forth ten (relatively) simple proposals for change, which he feels would be a good step forward in correcting what he sees as problems in how government currently functions (or malfunctions) in the United States .
Appraisal:
I was concerned about this book before I started reading. I assumed, incorrectly, that it would be espousing things that fall way to the right or well to the left of center politically. I worried that if it didn’t match my personal politics I wouldn’t be able to give it a fair chance. Since my politics are a mishmash of ideologies from a broad swath of the political spectrum, the odds of a match were slim. Although I have some glimmerings of where Craig Allen’s political beliefs fall and many of them wouldn’t match my own, it turns out his Ten Simple Things are the kind of things that aren’t obviously partisan; things that most people could potentially agree on regardless of ideology.
To give you an idea as to his mindset, here are a few quotes that should give you an idea:
There are lots of wonderful things about the United States; more than I can possibly list. But, it’s not perfect. I know that. You know that too. We probably don’t agree about exactly what isn’t perfect, but that’s not terribly important, at least not here.
That we can agree to disagree is one of the most wonderful things about this country … I’m seeking thinkers, not converts.
There are always problems and issues for us to confront. That’s called Life. Some we will never solve, but for the others the problem is that we’ve forgotten how to discuss our differences and reason our way to a potential solution.
Allen admits his ten things might not be the same as the list each of us would make. However, each are things that many people (dare I say most) would agree are problems. A few examples of the issues addressed are lack of leadership (politicians caring more about which party is perceived to win a “battle” than making the decision that is best for the country) and abolishment of the electoral college method of electing the president.
Many of his proposals seem like non-partisan common sense. While not everyone will agree with everything, the goal is to start the discussion, not end it.
While I agree with many of Allen’s suggestions, agreement doesn’t equal change. Although he terms these changes simple, they are only simple relative to other changes. Most require congressional action; some, constitutional amendments. In his conclusion, Allen acknowledges that making these changes requires many people putting pressure on their representatives to do so and that won’t happen without spreading the word. One way to do that is to recommend this book (consider this your recommendation). However, recommendations for action beyond that is where the book is weak. A Facebook page mentioned at the end of the book appears to be where the next steps (organization being the big one) could take place , but thus far, there is very little indication of that happening.
Format/Typo Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: **** Four stars
Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Fictional Autobiography
Approximate word count: 200,000+ words
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Author:
Linda Dark Horse is a red-headeded, full-blooded Lakota Indian. Her childhood and early adult years were spent in South Dakota, where she was a deputy sheriff until forced to retire after being injured in a shoot out. Neil Collins is her friend and co-writer. For more, visit her website.
Description:
The subtitle of this book, The Emotional, Spiritual, and Sexual Journey of a Modern Lakota Woman, is an excellent summary of its content.
Appraisal:
In our recent review of the memoir Right Now is Perfect, I theorized that most people had a memoir in them, but not many had a life consistently interesting enough to be able to pull off an engaging autobiography. I still think that is true, but obviously there are exceptions, and Linda Dark Horse is one. Although presented as a “fictional autobiography,” it appears this is due to legal reasons related to the police work Dark Horse and her husband have been involved in. I believe that while some portions might have required changes of names or minor twiddling with the facts, this doesn’t materially change the story even though it is not always strictly true.
Born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (one of the most poverty-ridden areas of the United States), Dark Horse’s life through young adulthood was spent in Sturgis, South Dakota, where her father was a Deputy Sheriff. Her social life as a Native American, living in a community where she was a minority, provides plenty of fodder for interesting stories. There are numerous things that have happened in Dark Horse’s life, many hinted at in the bio and subtitle, which made for a gripping read. Coming to terms with her bisexuality, her marriage and subsequent widowhood, her work in law enforcement, and the influence of her medicine man grandfather are some of the high points.
I found the writing style kept me interested in the story and I didn’t notice any significant issues with grammar. Unfortunately (and surprisingly, given the last statement), there were numerous issues with typos and incorrect words. Typos were the kind you’d expect to find and (hopefully) fix in your own writing: missing or extra letters (“of” instead of “off” or visa versa) and transposed letters. Wrong words were typically sound alike words with different meanings, “roll” instead of “role” and “isle” instead of “aisle” are two examples that occurred multiple times. I found most of these issues to be less jarring than in other books I’ve read with this kind of problem, although it was still enough to disrupt smooth reading. However, they were numerous enough to have a significant influence on my overall rating.
FYI:
Sexual content and some adult language. Were this a romance novel, I would recommend an age range of 17+.
Format/Typo Issues:
See discussion in the appraisal section.
Rating: *** Three stars
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Genre: Thriller/Suspense
Approximate word count: 95-100,000 words
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Author:
A former employee of high-tech manufacturers in Silicon Valley, Helen Hanson now lives in Texas with her husband and son. She’s lived from coast to coast, worked a variety of jobs, and even has a pilot’s license, but what makes me jealous is that she “saw the Clash at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium sometime in the eighties.” For more, visit the author’s website.
Description:
The CIA discovers that either they have a computer glitch or several agents have gone missing. What has happened isn’t clear, with other nefarious possibilities, some involving those investigating the incident, as alternative explanations.
After co-founding a successful technology company, Clint Masters has burnt out. So he jumps off the corporate merry-go-round. This lifestyle change and his girlfriend Beth are the perfect antidote to the corporate grind and his soon-to-be-ex wife. Then Beth disappears, and without regular kidney dialysis, she will die.
Appraisal:
3 Lies has several elements I found appealing. I’m a computer geek, so the portion involving the CIA’s computer issues was a natural fit. Clint, the protagonist, and his girlfriend Beth were both the kind of people I’d like to know, which helped pull me into the story and get me emotionally invested in the outcome. The contrast between Clint and his smarmy partner as well as the difference between Beth and Clint’s estranged wife made them look even better.
Another thing I liked was that the plot was involved, in that it had multiple threads that eventually came together, yet I didn’t have any difficulty keeping track of the different characters and threads. It takes talent for an author to keep a complex story with multiple things happening from becoming too difficult for the reader to keep everything straight.
None of this would matter were 3 Lies not a great story. The different story threads kept me guessing. Although it became apparent how they were related, how (or if) everything would resolve was never obvious, which maintained the suspense. Several twists near the end were big surprises and made the ending even more satisfying.
Format/Typo Issues:
A small number of typos and other errors.
Rating: ***** Five stars
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Genre: Literary Fiction
Approximate word count: 105-110,000 words
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Author:
Harry Ramble lives with his wife and two children in New Jersey. He has one other novel, Sex Offender Lives Here. For more, visit Harry’s website.
Description:
Nathan Huffnagle is turning forty-five and decides to give himself a birthday present. A final gift. He’s going to kill Randy Trent, his childhood nemesis, the person who, through his actions in high school, set Nathan up for failure in his future life. Then Nathan is going to kill himself.
Weeks later Nathan wakes up in the hospital, still alive. Visitors who appear to be angels tell him he can’t die until he completes some assignments. The End is Near is the alternating entries from two of Nathan’s “journals”; the first, essentially a long suicide note, the second, his current journal, documenting the assignments from the angels.
Appraisal:
There are two kinds of books in the world: those that entertain, and those that teach you something.
Okay, I lied, although I daresay many people believe this. A constant theme that keeps popping up in my reviews is that books intended to entertain can also teach us something – if we let them. Depending on the book, we might learn about history, science, politics, geography, or many other subjects, but most often it is about the human condition, whether helping us better understand ourselves or others.
Calling a book like this entertaining seems wrong. On the surface, it is serious, grappling with questions of life and death. Yet it is still entertaining. There is the suspense of how and why Nathan concluded that death was preferable to life. There is the mystery of how the book will end. Humor, often dark humor, is scattered throughout the book.
However, you can’t read the description of this book without reasonably concluding that if there are only two kinds of books, this must be one that teaches you something. It does. Although I hope none of you are contemplating murder or suicide, I daresay Nathan’s fictional experiences are best suited to teach you about yourself. Most of Nathan’s many faults are those we all have, just not to the extremes that he does. When you’re done reading The End is Near, hold up the mirror and see if you can’t learn something about personal responsibility and judging others, to name just two.
Format/Typo Issues:
No significant errors
Rating: **** Four stars
Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: YA/Paranormal
Approximate word count: 70-75,000 words
Availability
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Author:
Dr. Imogen Rose (she has a PhD in Immunology) has an addiction to Hermés. Her first book (not available for your Kindle) is a “look book” with Rose and her friends showing off fashions from their favorite designer. Since then, Rose has turned to paranormal fiction, with two series of Kindle bestsellers for Young Adults (the Portal Chronicles and Bonfire Chronicles) which have also proven to be popular with adults. For more, visit her website.
Description:
This is the fourth book in the Portal Chronicles series. PORTAL, EQUILIBRIUM, and QUANTUM are the first three.
Arizona Darley wakes up, eager to meet David at Starbucks before school, because she is sure he is going to ask her to “the Ball.” (If you’ve read the Portal Chronicles up to this point, you should spot the problem with this right away.) Crushed when David is a no-show, Arizona drives from the coffee shop to school where things take a strange turn.
Appraisal:
Each book of the Portal Chronicles has built on the prior book in two ways. First, the story world has gotten more complex. EQUILIBRIUM introduced the Wanderers (barely hinted at near the end of PORTALl). In QUANTUM, it was the introduction of the Sigmas. Both books added additional characters, each with their own agendas that influence the lives of the Arizonas (Darley and Stevens). Second, these changes complicate the life of Arizona (one, the other, or both) in some way. Complication equals conflict, and if all else is done right, also results in a good story.
In MOMENTUM, Imogen Rose doesn’t increase the complexity by introducing more paranormal beings or many new characters. But Arizona’s life does get more complicated, not to mention confusing. This confusion of Arizona’s, along with conflict from expected quarters in unexpected ways, should prove to be a spellbinding story for Portal Chronical fans. No matter how quickly Rose writes new books in this series, it is never fast enough for me.
FYI:
I would recommend starting with the first book of the series, PORTAL, and reading the full series before MOMENTUM. Although it might still be an enjoyable read, there is too much history from the prior books to completely understand the events in MOMENTUM without reading what came first.
Format/Typo Issues:
My review is based on a Beta copy that, by definition, is released previous to the final edit and proofreading. Although the author was notified of all errors I found and is believed to have corrected them, I can’t gauge whether there are any issues in this area in the published version.
Rating: ***** Five stars
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Genre: Non-fiction/Technology
Approximate word count: 105-110,000 words
Availability
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Author:
Oregonian William Van Winkle has over twenty years of involvement in the personal computer industry, the last fourteen as a journalist. For more, visit his blog.
Description:
For almost ten years William Van Winkle has interviewed some of the most influential people in science and technology for CPU (Computer Power User) Magazine. This book is a collection of twenty-five of those interviews, some old and some recent. Each also has additional information that catches up on what the interviewee has done since, updates some of the things discussed, or provides predictions or further insights from the interview subject. Two additional volumes are planned.
Appraisal:
Wow.
As someone who has been involved in technology my entire working life and who considers himself well read on many of these subjects, I was amazed at the breadth of topics covered and how much I learned. Van Winkle’s interviews even extracted new information from the interview subjects I thought I knew all about.
The only negative I found was the propensity of some of the interviewees to use acronyms and jargon in their answers. Obviously, Van Winkle couldn’t control how his subjects answered the questions. Given the breadth of subjects discussed, many readers may find a section on a subject they’re interested in requires additional research to translate the jargon. However, most sections should be understandable to the majority of readers with a basic knowledge of computers and the internet.
There were three sections of particular interest to avid readers of e-books. The interviews with Mark Coker, the founder of the e-book distribution company Smashwords, and Bob Young, co-founder of Red Hat (a software company) and (more important for us) founder of LuLu Publishing, give their thoughts on publishing and e-books. I also thought the 2003 interview with Esther Dyson (the “First Lady of the Internet”) was especially interesting when she was talking about the music industry and its difficulties at the time. Her comments seem to apply to the publishing industry today.
Format/Typo Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: **** Four stars
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Genre: Chick Lit/Romantic Suspense
Approximate word count: 65-70,000 words
Availability
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Author:
A native of Ohio, after college Dee DeTarsio fled for warmer climes, first as a TV news producer in Tucson, Arizona. She now lives in San Diego with her husband and two children, where she has worked as a producer/writer at SeaWorld and on an NBC comedy/variety show. For more, visit her website.
Description:
Julie Fraser is the “least adventurous person she knows.” One day, she throws caution to the wind and flies to Costa Rica to surprise her husband, who is there on a business trip. After catching her husband in flagrante delicto, she accidentally steals an ancient artifact that might hold the secret to global warming, and gets lost in the jungle. This isn’t what Julie expected at all.
Appraisal:
A typical chick lit plot device is to thrust the protagonist into an unexpected situation where she is out of her comfort zone. She’ll then make a series of questionable decisions, which make her situation increasingly worse. Although flustered, she never gives up, and eventually stumbles on a way out of the situation and finds a way of meeting whatever goal initially prompted her down this road. It’s a pattern that works well.
In many ways, the plot of The Scent of Jade fits this formula. However, it is atypical in the kind of challenges the protagonist Julie encounters. These challenges are often much more physical, giving the book an action-adventure flavor, and the jade artifact adds a hint of mystery to the story.
I’ll consider a book a solid or competent effort if the story is told well and doesn’t suffer from obvious technical flaws. What it takes to elevate it above that level varies. It might be a story that pushes the right buttons. Sometimes it is a unique twist on a typical formula. This book gets partially there on that basis. What pushed it over the top were clever descriptions that made me say, this is why she is the author and I’m just the reviewer. For example, when DeTarsio described a rainstorm “as if a Paul-Bunyan-sized cabana boy was throwing swimming-pool-sized buckets of water at the house.” Another was when Julie’s narration said, “my heart stopped mid-pump while my flight instinct kicked in and kicked my fight instinct’s ass.” Clever, smart, and funny all in one line. For that matter, clever, smart, and funny describes all of The Scent of Jade.
Format/Typo Issues:
A small number of typos.
Rating: ***** Five stars
Reviewed by: JA Gill
Genre: Sci-Fi/Romance
Approximate word count: 140-145,000 words
Availability
Kindle US: YES UK: YES Nook: YES Smashwords: YES Paper: NO
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Author:
Carmen Webster Buxton is a science fiction novelist. She lives in Maryland with her husband and daughter. This is her first Kindle book—the sequel No Safe Haven is also available as an e-book. A third novel is coming soon. For more, visit the author’s website.
Description:
Set in a far-distant future, The Sixth Discipline, is both a teen romance and bottom-up world-building science fiction novel.
Appraisal:
A few percentage points into the e-book rugged beauty Ran-Del, a noble savage (Dryden’s not Dickens’) is kidnapped while hunting and awakens to the horrors of climate-controlled interiors, artificial lighting, hot showers, and other materialist trappings. His captors, though amiable, are city-dwellers and come armed with technology with which to zap Ran-Del whenever he tries to flee.
Without bow and arrow, his only defense is the Disciplines; the sixth Discipline from the title refers to the highest state in which the practitioner slows the heart rate to nothing. Yet “death be not proud” young Ran-Del! The warrior has more to learn about honor and especially other’s expectations, as the kidnapper Stefan Hayden’s Machiavellian plan needs Ran-Del alive.
Enter headstrong, spoiled daddy’s girl, Francesca, fretting over whom to marry among a rogues’ gallery of bachelors maneuvering for the family fortune; that is until an exotic present wrapped in restraints is placed at her feet. It is perhaps enough to remember The Sixth Discipline is a romance novel and let inquiries into the Stockholm Syndrome be.
Fans of Gone with the Wind will notice some of Scarlett O’Hara in Francesca. Sole heiress to the Hayden estate, Carmen Webster Buxton’s protagonist works within the southern belle archetype while rebelling against it with sexual profligacy, independence, and emotional outbursts.
Crises and a power-struggle among the baronies has the inexperienced baroness desperately struggling for the means with which to safeguard the family legacy as well as her life from enemies both within and outside the Hayden compound’s protective force-field. Can she learn to trust an outsider with her heart and wealth? Or will neighboring cartels bid successfully for an overthrow through either marriage or assassination?
The prose-style in The Sixth Discipline is competent, clear, and bland. Those familiar with the Twilight saga and the early Harry Potter books will recognize the same poverty in language against the investment in plot (The Sixth Discipline is the start of a series as well).
As a side note, it is impossible not to notice—and appreciate—an author’s wink when the illiterate Ran-Del comments on the aesthetic superiority of the printed over the electronic book.
Format/Typo Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: *** Three stars
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Genre: Short story
Approximate word count: 40-45,000 words
Availability
Kindle US: YES UK: YES Nook: NO Smashwords: NO Paper: NO
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Description:
This short story collection is the result of a contest held by Red Adept Reviews. The only requirement was that each story had to have a “twist or surprise” at the end.
A panel of three judges picked the winner based on “the potency of the twist and the writing style.” Seven winners were selected (first through fourth place, plus three honorable mentions). The featured authors are a diverse selection of indie and small press authors, many of whom have novels or short stories available for your Kindle or other eReader. Looking at our large backlog of books for review, I can safely predict you’ll be hearing more about many of them here in the future. Additionally, author C.S. Marks, who was one of the contest sponsors, provided a story for the collection, as did Lynn “Red Adept” O’Dell.
Here are the story titles, authors, and brief descriptions of each:
Building God by Jessica Billings: A machine predicts the future of mankind.
Should Have Seen It Coming by Brendan Carroll: A man's wife leaves him unexpectedly.
Granny Theft Auto by T.L. Haddix: A klepto-grandma steals a police car.
The Unbroken Mirror by C.S. Marks: A prelude to the Alterra series
Fired by Lynn O’Dell: Getting fired has its repercussions.
42jorie by John Philpin: A man meets a special woman online.
Leo’s Wife by Patrica Sierra: A bigamist’s wife is confronted after his death.
Traditions by Michael Sullivan: A young girl embarks on a journey to fight a dragon.
A Long, Lonely Time by J.R. Tomlin: A woman finds a very special door in her attic.
Appraisal:
Short story anthologies are problematic for a reviewer. Some choose to break the collection down into the component parts, and do a mini-review of each individual story. Given my analytical bent, I’m surprised I didn’t take this approach. Instead, the process I’ve fallen into is the same way I used to review music – reviewing the entire work rather than the pieces. I’ll focus on some of the specifics as examples, but for the majority of the review, look for the overriding or unifying theme.
As you should expect from a collection put together by skimming the cream from a large number of contenders, the stories here are consistently good. They cover many genres: Speculative fiction, mystery, fantasy, horror, and contemporary fiction. The surprise endings make them all entertaining as the master storytellers set you up and then throw a curve, catching you off guard.
If forced to pick favorites among these stories I’d choose three. Building God for the questions it raises about free will, religion, and science. 42jorie, because of its exploration of the interaction between cyberspace and the real world, is one I find both entertaining and timely. Last, Granny Theft Auto, which I think says something interesting about humans, both the way we think and the strange ways we have of getting from point A to point B. The fact that my personal favorites are not the top three as chosen by the judges shows what a strong collection this is and how small the difference in quality from story to story. They’re all winners.
FYI:
For those not previously familiar with Red Adept Reviews, now would be a good time to visit and explore.
Format/Typo Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: ***** Five stars
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Genre: Contemporary Fiction/Thriller
Approximate word count: 115-120,000 words
Availability
Kindle US: YES UK: YES Nook: NO Smashwords: NO Paper: YES
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Author:
Canadian Wayne Purdy is a transit operator by day. A Juniper Through the Cracks is his first novel with his second, Furry, on schedule for a planned release this summer. For more, visit his Facebook page.
Description:
A middle-aged family man and small business owner, Ambrose Vidal could be the average man-on-the-street. Plucked from the street in an Islamic terrorist plot and slated for execution, Ambrose reflects on his life.
Appraisal:
A Juniper Through the Cracks is like an Oreo cookie. It is a hard-edged, tasty thriller, sandwiching a middle that is vastly different. Each section, while okay by itself, comes together to make a whole that is much more tasty than any of the parts. I’m not going to say much about the thriller portion except that the beginning whets your appetite and the conclusion is both satisfactory and sensible when you get there.
The middle portion is the meat of the book. It is an excellent coming-of-age story with some unique characters. Many of these characters feel like a stereotype when you first meet them. The big-man-on-campus-sports-star, the junkie, and the psychic are characters we’ve seen before. You’ve probably seen the bullied kid, cantankerous grandfather, and older woman, too. With each of these characters, Purdy has taken the stereotype and added more depth to each. In the end, your feelings about each change as you understand them better.
Although there are several different story threads that run through the middle of the book, Ambrose and his mother learning to deal with death being the most serious, this portion feels more character driven than plot driven. Yet when you reach the end, you find that many of those threads were positioning the characters for the conclusion.
A Juniper Through the Cracks isn’t an obvious title. It comes from a scene in the book that you’ll recognize when you come to it. The juniper is a symbol for surviving in the face of adversity, the overriding theme of both portions of the book.
FYI:
The author is Canadian and the story takes place in Canada. Obviously, spelling and slang are also Canadian.
Format/Typo Issues:
A small number of errors.
Rating: **** Four star
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Genre: Memoir/Travel Narrative
Approximate word count: 40-45,000 words
Availability
Kindle US: YES UK: YES Nook: YES Smashwords: YES Paper: YES
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Author:
While earning a living in Information Technology, Carol Ryan traveled extensively between assignments to satisfy her true passions of anthropology and travel. One of these trips in the early 1970s took her from Western Europe across Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nepal and included meeting the Dalai Lama. Another extended trip, sailing across the South Pacific in a 36-foot yacht, is a large portion of this memoir, her first book. For more, visit the author’s website.
Description:
Quit your job and sail off into the sunset with your new romantic interest. What could go wrong?
Appraisal:
We’ve all heard the old saw that “everyone has a book in them.” I’m going to make the assertion that almost everyone has a memoir in them that many people would enjoy reading. An autobiography would have too many boring parts, unless they’re famous or have led a life more exciting than most. But since the memoir is a focused autobiography, anyone who has had uncommon or interesting experiences has that memoir in them. Whether they have the skill or desire to write a memoir is another question. Carol Ryan has the needed skills.
A large part of Right Now Is Perfect is a travel narrative. Quitting work and sailing the South Pacific isn’t something I’ll ever do, but I can do it vicariously this way. In the last travel narrative we reviewed, I made the claim that there were two types of travel narratives, one largely positive, emphasizing the adventure, and the other, focusing on the negative in a humorous way. Right Now Is Perfect makes a liar out of me, at least if we file this in the travel section, which I suspect a bookstore would. It has positive adventure, but also plenty of challenges, most of them not humorous.
But Right Now is Perfect is much more than a travel narrative. It is a memoir with adventure and romance. Ryan experiences adversities to overcome and plans gone awry. It is also a story of learning to live life to the fullest and making the most of what life brings, whether good or bad.
FYI:
As a quick semi-related tangent, for those who think quitting work and travelling the world by sailboat sounds like something fun to do, I highly recommend following the blog Write on the Water. This blog is co-written by a rotation of nine authors; most of them either live on a boat or have in the past.
Format/Typo Issues:
No significant issues
Rating: **** Four stars
Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Humor/Cooking
Approximate word count: 30-35,000 words
Availability
Kindle US: YES UK: YES Nook: No Smashwords: NO Paper: No
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Author:
Pete Christensen is a broadcaster and professional standup comedian. He is also the author of Musical Chairs: Bandstand Exposed. For more, visit his website.
Description:
The subtitle is, The world’s first comedy cookbook. Aimed at anyone who has “gotten a vacuum cleaner for Christmas” as a revenge gift for their man. The book includes forty-eight recipes simple enough for the Neanderthal in your life.
Appraisal:
This book is intended to be a cookbook, of sorts, with recipes easy enough for a man who doesn’t know his broiler from his double-boiler. Spice it up with comedy and some man talk; it should hold his attention even longer. It is a novel concept that theoretically should be a good fit for the right audience.
Theory doesn’t always fit reality. The comedic portion of the book is mostly good. Comedy is often caricature and Christensen implies a cluelessness in the kitchen that most men will read, feel superior, and laugh. Some jokes are reused or overdone – the first time we’re told if we see smoke or the smoke alarm goes off it is past time to remove our creation from the oven it is funny. By the fourth variation on this same theme, the joke has lost its punch.
The actual recipes are appropriate for the target audience. Most are relatively easy to prepare. A typical recipe in a more traditional cookbook would start with a list of ingredients followed by a narrative with instructions for preparation. At least one recipe flip-flopped the narrative and ingredients, but mostly they stick to the traditional form. The narrative is interspersed with jokes, wisecracks, and other comedic material. (Refer to the smoke joke above.) This livens up what would be dry reading and should get a laugh or two out of the cook. Sometimes I think this narrative got in the way of making sure the directions were complete and consistent. For example, the Chicken Kiev recipe lists 8-10 ounces of Muenster cheese as an ingredient, but the directions don’t mention using it in preparing the dish. The Chicken Kiev instructions also caution against cutting raw chicken on a wooden cutting board because of the danger of salmonella poisoning, which is a good reminder or, given the assumed skill level of the cook, probably educational. However, another recipe uses raw egg in a smoothie with no mention of the same risk.
Despite some issues with the recipes, a semi-competent cook should be able to follow them well enough. Most adult men should reach semi-competent if they stretch. Where The Roughcut Cookbook really went astray was in two other areas.
One of these was editing. Typos and wrong words are common. Often these are similar words, the dreaded your, you’re problem or the archaic word fain, that would mean “eagerly” if anyone still used it, instead of feign, which means “faking it.” It also seemed that commas were sometimes misused or, even worse, sentences were split into two. For example, does the sentence, “When you mix the butter with the flour” make sense? It didn’t to me until I read the next sentence, “Handle it as carefully as when you do electrical work (without turning off the power first).”
My other complaint is the repeated mention of sustainable fisheries. (If this term means nothing to you, Google knows, or see the FYI section.) It seemed like every time a recipe called for fish there was a tangent discussing this subject. I’m not questioning the seriousness of the problem or what the author says on the subject. I am questioning bringing a serious issue like this up as often as it was in a book that is supposed to be a light-hearted cooking comedy.
FYI:
If you’re not familiar with the issue of sustainable fisheries and want to know more you can start with this Wikipedia article or even this novel.
Format/Typo Issues:
A large number of typos and editing problems. I know the Kindle compatible format I received is not an exact duplicate of what is available from Amazon because that version has pictures. However, I believe the text should be the same.
Rating: ** Two stars
Reviewed by: Big Al
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Approximate word count: 65-70,000 words
Availability
Kindle US: YES UK: YES Nook: YES Smashwords: YES Paper: NO
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Author:
Norah Wilson lives in New Brunswick, Canada, with her husband, two kids, and dog. She was a finalist for the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart Award three years in a row (2001-2003). Wilson has six other books, including two additional books in the Serve and Protect series (of which Guarding Suzannah is the first).
Description:
When criminal defense attorney Suzannah Phelps realizes she’s being stalked, she suspects it is one of the police officers she has torn to shreds on the witness stand. Police detective John “Quigg” Quigley finds out about Suzannah’s stalker and insists that if she won’t make an official report, he is going to protect her.
Appraisal:
Say “romantic suspense” and some people will think a romance book with a small mystery, thriller, or suspense subplot. When I finished Guarding Suzannah, I wondered why the author considered it romantic suspense when it didn’t seem that much different than many thrillers or suspense novels I’ve read. As I always do, I ran to Google for some research.
As I’ve found with most genres, different people have different opinions about what it takes to fit into a particular category. Some believe any romance with a touch of suspense is enough, while other people think the suspense portion of a romantic suspense should get as much attention in a story as the romance portion, close to a fifty-fifty split like I found in Guarding Suzannah. A reader who would never read a romance novel, but would read a suspense novel that has a romance as a major subplot shouldn’t shy away from this book.
I enjoyed this combination. The suspense portion kept me guessing with plenty of potential culprits and enough directions for the story to take so it wasn’t predictable. The romance portion was predictable in the way a pure romance is; I thought I knew where they would end up in the end. How they would get there, what obstacles would be thrown in their way, and how they would get past them were not.
I thoroughly enjoyed Guarding Suzannah and plan on reading the other books in Wilson’s Serve and Protect series. The only negatives I found were technical issues described in the Format/Typo section.
FYI:
The author is from Canada and the story takes place there. Appropriately, spelling and slang is also Canadian.
Format/Typo Issues:
This book had more typos than I like to see and would have benefited by another copy edit, although the individual issues I saw were minor.
The book also had two formatting problems that were somewhat irritating. One of these was sporadic instances of two words with no space between them. There were also random font changes between two fonts (always at paragraph boundaries).
My copy of this book was from Smashwords. Those who get it from other sources might not have the same formatting problems I found. (Edit 7/13/2011: Note comment from author regarding formatting issues being fixed below.)
Rating: **** Four stars
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Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Approximate word count: 95-100,000 words
Availability
Kindle US: YES UK: YES Nook: YES Smashwords: YES Paper: NO
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Author:
After leaving university, Chris Wimpress worked as a BBC news journalist for ten years. He currently lives in East London, where he writes about politics and policy. Joe is Online is his first novel.
Description:
Joseph Brady is a misfit. He’s the brightest kid in his school, but also the worst behaved. At the young age of eleven, Joe gets an early start in computer crime. Over the next twenty years, his excesses escalate.
Appraisal:
I’m a sucker for a story that takes place largely in cyberspace like Joe is Online. Most of us have seen examples of how online behavior differs from the “real world.” The internet has revolutionized the way people socialize and interact, making it possible to have “friends” you’ve never met on the other side of the world – friends you interact with more than your next door neighbor. This social change has given rise to two issues that seem to contradict each other. We don’t always truly know who we’re dealing with online (“on the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”) yet the internet also makes invading your privacy easy. The intersection of cyberspace and real life provides a lot of opportunity for authors and their stories.
Joe is Online is a story told entirely through a series of emails, chat transcripts, blog posts, web pages, and diary entries stored as word processing documents. This is different, but could easily have turned into a very dry read. Wimpress saves the book from this by cheating a little on what I see as the concept (having everything be an artifact of online interaction). In the “diary entries,” which aren’t online artifacts, the various characters relate what happened to them in much greater detail than a diarist would typically use. These diary entries even include extensive dialog, which is limited in the other kinds of entries.
The story begins in the mid-1990s and doesn’t end until 2020. The technology depicted doesn’t advance much beyond what is currently available, definitely not at the speed it has over the last several years. This didn’t feel unnatural, but it could for some readers.
The presentation is also a gimmick. It helps the story along, but the story still has to be good enough to stand on its own. I believe it does. The character of Joe, a social misfit who is a whiz with computers, is familiar and believable. Some suspension of belief might be required, although given the stories of what young computer hackers have actually done, not that much.
Since the title mentions Joe, you might expect the story is about him as well. It is, however Joe is not the protagonist, at least as I usually view the definition. Penelope Hunt is the main character the reader will empathize with and be rooting for, while Joe is the antagonist, the character that “opposes” Penelope.
Penelope’s story is more normal than Joe’s. We follow her through university, where she studies International Relations, and eventually to Scotland for her PhD, specializing in the study of terrorism. As Joe’s crimes escalate, his and Penelope’s paths cross in cyberspace. When the timeline of Joe is Online progresses into the future, we enter the realm of speculative fiction, as Wimpress builds on the themes of cyberspace, cults, and terrorism, theorizing what the future might hold were someone to combine the worst of each of these areas.
FYI:
A note at the beginning suggests using the second smallest font size on a Kindle for best readability. This insures formatting of emails, chats, and such flow naturally. If there is a reason why reading in this font size will be an issue, you might find reading difficult. Download a sample and experiment before making the purchase commitment.
The author is from the UK. He uses UK spelling and expressions.
The book has strong language and adult themes that may not be suitable for those 17 and under.
Format/Typo Issues:
There are a small number of spelling errors obviously done on purpose. (How many of us have spelling errors in our emails?) Excluding those, there are no significant issues.
Rating: **** Four stars
Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Thriller
Approximate word count: 70-75,000 words
Availability
Kindle US: YES UK: YES Nook: YES Smashwords: YES Paper: YES
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Author:
Unlike many authors, information about Steve Silkin is skimpy. The only biographical information I found on the major book sites was this blurb on Smashwords:
Steve Silkin was born in New York, grew up in Los Angeles, then traveled across Europe. He once escaped arrest for trespassing at a skyscraper under construction by fleeing from the LAPD on his bicycle.
A little digging uncovered that Silkin is currently a newspaper reporter and editor in Southern California. He also has a seldom-updated blog.
Description:
Drug dealer Jace Kingman is approached by a member of a congressman-wannabe’s staff for help fixing in the election. A disgraced policeman, Dan Vienna, sees an opportunity for a big score through extortion.
Appraisal:
They have a saying in Chicago, “vote early and vote often.” Whether voter fraud is a significant issue in the United States is a highly contested issue with no statistics, but frequent allegations. Google voter fraud statistics if you’re interested. I thought the plot of this book, a conspiracy to fix an election by paying people to vote in place of now-dead, but still registered voters, made for a clever political thriller. The idea isn’t overused and seems plausible.
Generally, I found the story entertaining and thought it flowed well. However, there was one glaring exception. This was the introduction of some back-story about the childhood of one of the other major secondary characters, ex-policeman Dan Vienna. It is back-story needed to move one of the plot sub threads to conclusion, but involved taking a long tangent in the middle of a scene, disrupting the flow of the story. As done, it also seemed too convenient. Giving us all or most of this back-story throughout the book would have worked better. That way, when needed, it would have seemed more natural and not required disrupting the narrative.
The main character, Jace Kingman, is a drug dealer who, in the beginning, is also a user, of both drugs and people. Disliking Jace would be easy except he realizes early in the book that he needs to change, which makes him more sympathetic. He falls into the voter fraud conspiracy without fully realizing he’s trading one problem for another until it is too late. Whether Jace can turn his life around, despite the situation he finds himself in, is the crux of the story.
Format/Typo Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: **** Four stars
