Hooking Up / Jessica Degarmo

Reviewed by: ?wazithinkin

Genre: Women's Fiction/Romance

Approximate word count: 50-55,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: YES

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Author:

Jessica Degarmo lives in rural Pennsylvania with her husband, children, and a family of dogs. “When she is not writing, she is an insurance agent, the lead singer in a classic rock band, a country music DJ and an avid collector of gemstones.” Degarmo has several books available on Amazon. For more information check out her website.

Description:

Caitlin Edison was raised by an unloving grandmother after the death of her parents when she was ten years-old. At twenty eight, Caitlin is dumped by Michael, her live-in boyfriend, who has been her rock of stability for ten years. Being miserable and devastated Caitlin takes the advice of her gal-pals to try ‘hooking up’ with a one-night stand to raise her self esteem. How in the world did she find the only guy in town looking for a relationship?

Appraisal:

This story was told though the eyes of Caitlin. She has a successful career as a pediatric physical therapist, but is truly an emotional mess. I thought the story started out strong. The hook-up was entertaining, but as the story goes on we start seeing Caitlin’s problems are more than just emotional insecurities. Caitlin has a hard journey in coming to terms with her past and the story gets tedious and repetitive.

I really felt like Ryan was going to pull Caitlin her through her crisis, they seemed to have a great chemistry together. Then he does an about face and leaves over a misinterpretation of events when Michael comes to visit Caitlin. Really? After breaking through her defenses and pledging his devotion to her? It seemed completely out of character for him at the time. It would have been nice to have his character more developed so we could have understood his motives.

This situation did force Caitlin to become more emotionally independent and she did end up a stronger person, but I didn’t feel like we got to see that process. She just all of a sudden started having a more mature, well-balanced outlook on life. This is where the story fell flat for me and I felt unsatisfied. I want to experience how this growth happens.

The story has a lot of unique elements and twists that didn’t mesh together as seamlessly as they should, although this did not keep me from appreciating the overall story. Perhaps a good content editor could help the flow of the story and pare down some of the excesses. I think it would be à propos to end this review by saying that I found the ending rather abrupt.

FYI:

This book contains adult language and situations that may be offensive to some.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: *** Three stars

The Enemy We Know / Donna White Glaser

Reviewed by: Keith Nixon

Genre: Mystery

Approximate word count:  85-90,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: YES

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Author:

Donna White Glaser is a psychotherapist and lives in northwestern Wisconsin with her husband. The Enemy We Know is the first in the series of the Letty Whittaker Mysteries.

You can learn more about the author via her website.

Description:

Letty Whittaker, a psychotherapist, is threatened in her office by a drunk, deranged patient, Wayne, who is angry with Letty for trying to persuade his girlfriend to get out of their abusive relationship. Wayne then subjects Letty to increasing and varied harassment as he blames her for the predicaments in his personal life.

Letty, however, has a secret herself. She is a reforming alcoholic and she struggles to keep this from her employers whilst undergoing the twelve-step programme. She’s also in a strange, unrequited relationship with her boyfriend Robert, a reforming alcoholic himself.

Then Wayne ends up dead and Letty is immediately a suspect. However, the harassment continues unabated and Letty has to work out who’s really after her.

Appraisal:

I enjoyed this story. It is very well written, well plotted, and the characters vivid and imaginative. Letty herself is one damaged and conflicted lady, she had a challenging life even before Wayne showed up - an alcoholic with suggestions of a difficult upbringing, she can only bring herself to sleep with men when she’s drunk. She has a boyfriend she’s not close to and finds herself attracted to her boss.

It took a few chapters to really draw me in (despite the immediate tension created by Wayne’s attack) in part because there are a large number of characters to get to know and the alcohol reform programme and AA meetings are heavily illustrated. Some trimming of the detail here would have picked up the pace of the plot, I feel.

On the other hand the tension created by Glaser’s description of Wayne’s ratcheting up of the harassment, offset by the lack of belief in her story by the police and her employer was very well done, stirring ‘that’s not fair’ emotions within me. Wayne and Robert’s murders were good twists although it did reduce the number of potential suspects and the guilty party was not a total surprise, but nevertheless the conclusion was well written with a lot of stress and more difficulties for Letty – I feel sorry for her.

FYI:

Nothing of relevance.

Format/Typo Issues:

None.

Rating: **** Four stars

Godmachine-Jack Thompson

Reviewed by: Pete Barber

Genre: Science Fiction

Approximate word count: 40,000-45,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: NO

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Author:

Jack has published seven stories and a book of poems.

Description:

A strange box is discovered on Mars, obviously made by an intelligent species. A crew is sent to retrieve said artifact, and on their way home, they crack the code on some discs found inside and learn that the box originated on the planet Plixon, sent by a computer intelligent know on that planet as the Godmachine.

Appraisal:

This is a fast and easy read. The premise is a little worn (Matrix, 1984, or more closely-This Perfect Day—a personal favorite), but that’s OK, the writing kept me engaged. I did have issues with suspension of disbelief on a few occasions (plot holes, not black holes, but pretty big ones). But overall I recommend this to a sci-fi enthusiast looking to while away time on a boring flight, or as a beach read where you don’t want to tax the brain too much and yet need enough stimulation to keep the pages turning, or if you’re laid up in bed with the flu (like I am!). Without the plot gaffs, this would rank four stars. If you’re a forgiving type, try it out.

Format/Typo Issues:

Too few to mention.

Rating: *** Three stars

Sad Jingo / Ron Dionne

Reviewed by: Keith Nixon

Genre: Noir

Approximate word count: 60,000-65,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: YES

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Author:

Ron Dionne is 52 and lives in Chappaqua. He has previously had a number of short stories published in magazines.

Description:

Jingo Dalhousie is a troubled wannabe musician who works as a janitor in his cousin’s New York jazz club. He finds his unusual name in a highly successful debut novel and feels driven to track the author down and discover why. However, the author has a secret she’s desperate to keep.

Appraisal:

Sad Jingo opens with the protagonist, Jingo Dalhousie, being given a book that, mysteriously, has his name in it. Jingo cannot understand why and decides to track down debut author, Diana Medeiros. By night, he works as a janitor in a club surrounded by jazz musicians, something he aspires to be. The club is owned by his cousin, Harold. By day, he lives in a small flat, attempting to write and play music.

Jingo first goes to Diana’s publishers and then to a signing. There is a huge queue to see Diana, the book is a smash hit. Jingo finally gets to the front and questions her. Diana has no idea who he is and Jingo gets thrown out of the store without any answers. It’s worth saying that to reach this point in the plot I had to plough through 25% of the book – 15,000 words…

The focus then shifts to Diana. We learn she used to be a patient at a mental hospital and perhaps she knew Jingo there? But she cannot remember. Jingo for his own part continues to be obsessed with Diana. He appears at a reading and has a brief conversation with her before being beaten up by a guard and ends up in hospital.

Despite Diana’s reservations, she meets Jingo again and he plays for her in the club, the one time he manages to string together a decent piece of music. But Harold loses control of the business and Jingo is out of a job.

As Diana gets closer to Jingo (primarily because her problem mirrors his) she begins to admit her terrible secret is catching up with her.

If the above sounds a less than exciting summary, I apologise but there was little to get animated about in Sad Jingo. Where to begin? Well, there’s a mass of bland characters, some described, some not (it took me several thousand words to realise Jingo is a man in his sixties, well I think he is). Many of these featureless characters have ridiculous names which are used repeatedly, and often in full, instead of ‘he’ or ‘she’ making the reading a challenge. Jingo and Diana take turns in engaging in long periods of introspective internal dialogue supposedly to help us understand them better. However, this meant it took 25% of the book to achieve three key activities, as I mentioned.

In the early chapters there’s excessive use of punctuation interrupting what little plot flow there is (I was shocked to read an acknowledgement to a copy editor). Some paragraphs are a page or more long and the formatting is not great.

There are other problems – past and present tense are mixed together in the same paragraph on several occasions. The dialogue is often white noise and generally meaningless, dull and barely moves the tale along, like listening to clucking hens. Sentences are regularly horribly mangled with repeated usage of the same word – just two examples comprise:

‘…author of a book about her book but had not read the book.’

‘…what’s wrong with that, what’s wrong with that Harold, tell me a single thing that’s wrong with that?’

In the final chapter Jingo learns Diana has killed herself and, after 62,000 words, I felt like following her…

FYI:

Infrequent strong language.

Format/Typo Issues:

Several formatting issues and typos. Many punctuation problems.

Rating: * One star

Crossroads (Crossroads Academy #1) / J.J. Bonds

Reviewed by: ?wazithinkin

Genre: Paranormal/ Young Adult

Approximate word count: 80-85,000 words

Availability   

Kindle US: YES UK: YES Nook: YES Smashwords: YES Paper: YES

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Author:

J.J. Bonds is a shameless, self-professed bookaholic who is loud, talks too fast, waves her arms around when she speaks, and has “a closet that is positively overflowing with shoes.” She is also an Indie author who writes Young Adult Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy. Her debut novel is Crossroads and she lives in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with her husband, daughter, and two dogs. You can learn more about her at her web site.

Description:

Katia is the sole heir to the single most powerful vampire on the Council, her Great Uncle Aldo Lescinka, who has just enrolled her in the preeminent Crossroads Academy nestled in the Green Mountains of Vermont. With her mysterious past, she has no desire to fit in or make friends. She and Aldo were both hoping her nightmares would fade once she arrived at Crossroads from Romania, but they are changing, growing more frightening, and more frequent. When bodies start showing up around the town of Rutland the whole Academy becomes concerned about exposure and Katia becomes entangled in a web of danger and deceit. Nothing could have prepared her for what she finds here.

Appraisal:

Crossroads is an academy boarding school for vampires only. J. J. Bonds has taken great care to reinvent her vampires and their hierarchy in a unique way that I found refreshing. Her vampires actually procreate and it seems the young do not turn until adolescence, where their vampire selves awaken with a ravaging hunger. There is also a blood disease, known as otrava de sange, which threatens to wipe out the born vampires.

The story is told in first person through the eyes of Katia, but she holds her secret past very close so we are not privy to the whole story. She makes a good heroine; she is self confident, assertive, and witty. As the Prologue opens we are thrust into one of Katia’s nightmares, it is engrossing and leaves us with questions that are not answered until the very end. Even Katia does not fully understand what has transpired in the past as Aldo is keeping the whole truth from her. Despite J. J. Bonds wonderful and engrossing prose the secrets that Katia keeps from us readers is frustrating. It keeps us from fully engaging and becoming Katia. I felt cheated by this stylistic choice.

Otherwise the story is pretty typical high school foibles and the conversations and tensions are realistic. Katia is a dedicated student and wants to do well in all areas. One of her areas of study is Martial Arts. I enjoyed her interactions with Nikolai Petrov , an upper classman and teacher’s assistant in her Martial Arts class, who offers Katia one on one training with her fighting and weapons skills. It is clear that a romantic relationship is developing with him, despite Katia’s resistance. I enjoyed this story and felt like Katia’s secrets from us held the story back because Aldo’s reveal at the end was very satisfying. It will be interesting to see how the rest of this series develops now that we know and understand her on a deeper level.

Format/Typo Issues:

I found no significant errors or issues.

Rating: **** Four stars

Tangent / Mike Pomery

Reviewed by: Pete Barber

Genre: Science Fiction

Approximate word count: 45,000-50,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: YES

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Author:

Mike Pomery lives in Australia. Tangent is his first published work.

Description:

Set in 2051, a future world where humanity’s every material need is supplied by advanced technology, and all human indulgences such as drinking, smoking, driving, even reading books are forbidden--a boring world. Sixty-five-year-olds are subject to compulsory synthetic upgrade, which offers eternal youth but comes at the price of losing one’s sense of humanity. Upgraded humans are shipped off into the stars to do menial labor for the governing organization.

Alan Febras dreads this fate, and when he is offered an alternative—to shift into a parallel universe and be reborn as ‘himself’ again, younger, and living in a free world—he takes the chance.

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Appraisal:

What’s not to like about this premise? “Old Man’s War” meets “Back to the Future.”

The making of Alan’s decision was compelling reading—after all, this was a one-way ticket (Alan’s body would be incinerated after he went into the parallel universe), and there was no way to guarantee that the shift worked—no peephole into the other universe was available. The author had me hooked: would I risk a chance of doing it all over again (but with all my life’s knowledge retained?) or would I take the soft option of guaranteed continued life as a human version of myself that didn’t feel quite ‘alive’?

Well, Alan chooses to take a risk, and I enjoyed going along for the ride

Dropped back into his ‘old’ life in 2012, he is determined not to waste time again. Not to make the same mistakes of working too much and neglecting his beautiful wife.

The author had me fully engaged with Alan’s reinvented self. He made superb observations about how modern life separates us from the ‘real’ world, and nature, and our souls. He had me promising myself to take a walk in the woods the next day (I did), and buy my wife some flowers (that too)--because, wasn’t I guilty of the same neglect?

But then, inexplicably, the story spiraled down some kind of rabbit hole that I simply didn’t understand. Alan discards the determination to hold onto his new life—to do it better this time around. He dismisses the reasons the author had so beautifully laid out for taking this great risk and for changing how he lives his second chance. And for the last third of the story, I couldn’t for the life of me fathom what the heck was going on. I started to skip reading large sections of (what appeared to me) gratuitous internal thinking and incomprehensible dream sequences.

And then it ended. Oh, well—great premise, incompletely realized.

Format/Typo Issues:

English (Australian) spelling. A few typos, but nothing to distract the reader.

Rating: *** Three stars

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Immortalis Series / Katie Salidas

Reviewed by: ?wazithinkin

Genre: Paranormal Romance/ Urban Fantasy

Approximate word count:

Immortalis Carpe Noctem:  80-85,000 words 

Hunters and Prey: 70-75,000 words

Availability

Imortalis Carpe Noctem   

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: YES  Smashwords: YES  Paper: YES

Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Hunters and Prey

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: YES  Smashwords: YES  Paper: YES

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Author:

Katie Salidas resides in Las Vegas; she is a mother, a wife, and an author. She has several successful self-published titles; there are four books so far in her Immortalis series. Writing books is her passion and she hopes that her passion will bring you hours of entertainment.

This excerpt from her Amazon author page made me laugh.

“Katie Salidas is a Super Woman! Endowed with special powers and abilities, beyond those of mortal women, She can get the munchkin off to gymnastics, cheerleading, Girl Scouts, and swim lessons. She can put hot food on the table for dinner while assisting with homework, baths, and bedtime... And, She still finds the time to keep the hubby happy (nudge nudge wink wink). She can do all of this and still have time to write.

And if you can believe all of those lies, there is some beautiful swamp land in Florida for sale...”

To learn more you can visit her website or her blog.

Description:

Immortalis Carpe Noctem is the first book in a new series of dark and sexy vampire stories set in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. Newbie vampire Alyssa never asked for this life, but now it's all she has. The twenty-five year old is rescued from death after a brutal attack by an unlikely hero, Lysander, a cold and aloof vampire.  She's barely cut her teeth before she becomes a target of Lysander’s estranged mate Kallisto, who considers herself Queen of the Vampires.

By saving Alyssa, he unwittingly thrust her into a dark world filled with blood lust and thousand-year old vendettas. Now, she must find the strength to accept her terrifying new reality or die by the hands of Lysander's enemies. 

Hunters and Prey is book two in the series. ‘Rule number one: humans and vampires don't co-exist. One is the hunter and one is the prey. Simple, right? Not for newly-turned vampire Alyssa.’ 

Alyssa finds she’s done more than just broken vampire law reconnecting with her human best friend, Fallon. In a surprise confrontation with Santino Vitale, the Acta Sanctorum's most fearsome hunter, Alyssa and Fallon become unwitting pawns of a new enemy. The Peregrinus Clan tentatively join forces with Santino in a precarious truce to battle the Acta Sanctorum's new army of hybrid creations ‘the Frenzy Soldiers’.

Appraisal:

Immortalis Carpe Noctem:

The author wastes no time setting up this vampire story. I consider Alyssa’s journey a coming of age vampire story as she learns what it is like to live as a vampire and accept it as her new way of life. The story is in a first person POV, so we get to know her character very well. She is headstrong and doesn’t like to be under Lysander’s constant control and supervision, so there are plenty of conflicts between the two. Lysander is truly trying to teach and protect her from herself and enemies. Not only is his estranged mate after her there are a group of vampire hunters, the Acta Sanctorum, with a very interesting and unique history that have just been spotted in Las Vegas. The plot is exciting and well paced with plenty of character development, action, sexual tension, and yes, foreplay.

Since I read the stories out of order and read Moonlight first, I wanted to learn more about Fallon and Alyssa’s relationship plus how the werewolves and vampires connected in this series. We didn’t really get to meet Fallon or the werewolves in this story, so I felt compelled to continue to Hunters and Prey, book two in the series.

Hunters and Prey:

Trouble seems to find Alyssa every direction she turns and her priorities are confused, muddled and chaotic. I am not sure whether it is immaturity, stubbornness or her humanness that is the problem. I suspect it is a bit of all these things. She is flawed and I find that both endearing and frustrating at the same time. Lysander is one very patient vampire, I am glad he feels like he has found his mate with Alyssa. He certainly has his hands full and I have enjoyed watching their relationship develop.

The plot has good pacing and I found the story line unique. There is a lot of action with some unexpected turns and several bloody battle scenes. Although, we didn’t meet any werewolves in this book, Alyssa and Fallon now know of their existence. I am intrigued enough to continue this series. 

FYI:

Contains adult language and situations.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant errors.

.Rating: **** Four Stars

Dinner at Deadman’s / C.J. West

Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Mystery

Approximate word count: 90-95,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: NO  Smashwords: NO  Paper: YES

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Author:

“C.J. West is the author of seven suspense novels including The End of Marking Time and Sin and Vengeance, which was optioned into development for film by Beantown Productions, LLC (screenplay by Marla Cukor). “

For more, visit C.J.’s blog or his website.

Description:

“Lorado Martin has loved junk since his grandparents took him bottle digging in the backwoods of New England when he was a boy. The search for antiques and collectibles led him to a unique hobby: digging through the estates of the newly deceased, arranging the sale of goods for the heirs, and keeping the leftovers for himself.

To make a living, he builds and maintains housing for recovering addicts and along the way he’s employed a number of his clients. The men wrestle with the siren call of drugs and teach Lorado about the difficult struggle to stay clean one day at a time.

When these two worlds come together, Lorado learns that not every elderly person dies of natural causes and that some estates are sold to benefit a killer. His latest project hits close to home. A woman he’s known since childhood haunts him from a fresh grave. Her grandson, an affable addict who has fallen off the wagon, stands to inherit a considerable sum whether he deserves it or not.”

Appraisal:

Although Dinner at Deadman’s is a mystery, with all the components of a good one — plenty of viable suspects and a storyline that keeps you guessing as the clues are uncovered — what stood out for me were the characters. All of them are, in a word, characters. The major characters all have their own unique personalities and quirks that shine through and make them real. It appears that this might be the first of a series and, if my guess is right, it bodes well.

The protagonist, Lorado Martin, might be the quirkiest of them all. Lorado is a mountain of a man (which is a nice way of saying he’s both tall and could stand to lose a few pounds) who everyone recognizes from his trademark cowboy hat which wouldn’t set him apart in Fort Worth, but sure does in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Reading Dinner at Deadman’s on the heels of a contentious political season in the U.S. in which I spent way too much time pigeonholing everyone as liberal or conservative, Lorado seemed to be suffering from bipolar political disorder. His major source of income — refurbishing rundown buildings in marginal areas of town, financed by government grants, which are used for subsidized public housing, halfway houses, and other services for society’s downtrodden — shows his do-gooder liberal side. That he does this by hiring hopefully reformed drug addicts, even though that ends up making him less money, only reinforces that perception. However, his more conservative side views his do-gooding as a lost cause, helping people who he often sees as society’s moochers and takers. This struggle within Lorado’s mind, which is something he’s well aware of, adds depth to his character and also makes him a touch unpredictable, which I think is a good thing in a mystery. Hopefully we’ll see more books with Lorado in the future.

FYI:

Some adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues

Rating: ***** Five stars