Saturday, September 28, 2013

Along Came Pauly by Chris Redding


Blurb:

A contemporary romance about a dog that brings two people together who don't want to be. She's a vegetarian veterinarian who needs cash for a no-kill shelter. He's the heir to a hot dog fortune who must give away money before he gains his inheritance. Sounds like a perfect match. It isn't.

Review:

Along Came Pauly was a pleasant read.  It’s been awhile since I’ve read a book that was strictly romance without mystery or humor thrown in.  Oh, of course there’s conflict.  You can’t write a book without it.  Daria lives her love of animals. She's a veterinarian and a vegetarian, and Paul’s the heir to a hot-dog fortune.  His father made his money by slaughtering animals
everything Daria fights against.  Not to mention Paul’s love of a good steak when it comes time to celebrate.  No, they are definitely not a perfect match.  But, we don’t exactly choose with whom we fall in love, and stranger things have happened.  Or have they?

For a nice, light read, grab Along Came Pauly.

Length:  166 Pages
Price:  $0.99

Thanks for visiting.  RIW

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Crumple Zone by Edith Parzefall


Blurb: 

Lara, a workaholic from Seattle, loses her job, drowns her frustrations in scotch, and books a trip to Chile. Instead of facing her messed up life, she escapes to South America and hooks up with a backpacker, whose bag of tricks conveniently distracts her. 

Hauling freight along the same route, trucker Enrique battles the loneliness of the Atacama Desert, imagining his wife by his side. If only she'd stop urging him to come home. With growing unease, he sets off on the return trip. When his path crosses Lara's, the impact knocks them both off their errant tracks to face unpleasant realities.

Review: 

I bought Crumple Zone on sale at MuseItUp Publishing, Inc., and I must say—Ms. Parzefall had me guessing all the way through the book as to how Enrique and Lara would meet.  I thought maybe she’d end up driving drunk and put him in the hospital, preventing him from getting home to his wife and sons.  The question was…where?

Chile is a long, thin country and according to Ms. Parzefall who has lived and traveled in South America, the Atacama Desert is something like five-hundred miles long, snaking along the sides of mountains above deep stone quarries and the Pacific Ocean.  I wondered if either Enrique or Lara might end up at the bottom of a quarry or in the sea.  Rick, the Australian back-packer Lara picked up, might have swept her off her feet and persuaded her to return to Australia with him where the people she encountered would at least speak a form of English and she wouldn’t have to look things up in her handy/dandy English/Spanish or vice/versa dictionary to communicate.

They even glimpse each other and interact briefly before they “meet” on the road.  But once they met, I still had questions that were not quite answered until the very end of the book—when Ms. Parzefall wanted me to know the full answers.  I was constantly speculating about what might be waiting around the corner, and much of the time I was wrong.  I highly recommend Crumple Zone.  If it kept me guessing, it’ll keep you guessing, too. 

Length:  225 Pages 
Price:  $5.50—As of 06-19-2013 this book is on sale at MuseItUp Publishing, Inc. for $0.99, a real bargain.  You can grab it at the link below. 

You’ll notice I always include the publisher’s buy link.  That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price from the publisher.  Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%.  When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left.  So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40.  If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading the file from your computer to your Kindle is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive.  Plug the USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your Kindle/Documents/Books directory.  I actually download my books using “Save As” to a “Books” file I created on my computer that’s sorted by my publisher, friends, and books “to review,” and then transfer them to my Kindle from there.  That way, if there’s a glitch with my Kindle, the books are on my computer.  Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement. 

Thanks for visiting.  RIW

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Ride for Rights by Tara Chevrestt



Blurb: 

In the summer of 1916 women do not have the right to vote, let alone be motorcycle dispatch riders. Two sisters, Angeline and Adelaide Hanson are determined to prove to the world that not only are women capable of riding motorbikes, but they can ride motorbikes across the United States. Alone.

From a dance hall in Chicago to a jail cell in Dodge City, love and trouble both follow Angeline and Adelaide on the dirt roads across the United States. The sisters shout their triumph from Pike’s Peak only to end up lost in the Salt Lake desert.

Will they make it to their goal of Los Angeles or will too many mishaps prevent them from reaching their destination and thus, hinder their desire to prove that women can do it? 


Review: 

I bought this book as a summer read for my granddaughter, but we could not load it onto her Kindle, as her USB port was messed up, so I ended up reading it, and I'm glad I did.  According to the foreword, written by Bob Van Buren, this book is based on the story of Augusta and Adeline Van Buren who actually made the arduous journey portrayed here.  Of course, this is a novel, so the Van Burens may not have faced exactly the same challenges as the Hanson sisters, but they did pave the way for many of the freedoms we women take for granted today.

Angeline and Adelaide Hanson are proper young women who come from a wealthy family in New York.  Well, proper except that they're suffragists.  There's a war going on in Europe and despite President Wilson's protests that the United States intends to keep out of it, the sisters believe our country needs to be prepared to enter the skirmish.  Angeline sees a way to really serve, when a man at a National Preparedness Movement meeting proposes women ride motorbikes as dispatch couriers. They do so in Europe.  Why not in America?  As the men in the room pooh-pooh the suggestion, Angeline stands  up and makes a proposal of her own.  If a woman can ride a motorbike across America, wouldn't that prove she could serve as a dispatch courier?  Fortunately, their brother has just bought one, so she's able to start her riding lessons that day.  Thus begins the adventure.

Ride for Rights is a short book since it's aimed at the young adult audience, but the characters are fully drawn, engaging young women.  They're well-bred, but feisty and independent, fighting for what they believe in.  Along the way they encounter love and overcome hardship, working at various jobs to earn money for gas and accommodations.  In some places they're able to stay with relatives or acquaintances; in others their bed and board is less than stellar.  I couldn't put the book down.  It was a great read, and educational.  I highly recommend it for you, your daughters, and your granddaughters—whatever their ages. 

Length:  135 Pages 
Price:  $5.50 

You’ll notice I always include the publisher’s buy link.  That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price from the publisher.  Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%.  When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left.  So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40.  If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading the file from your computer to your Kindle is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive.  Plug the USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your Kindle/Documents/Books directory.  I actually download my books using “Save As” to a “Books” file I created on my computer that’s sorted by my publisher, friends, and books “to review,” and then transfer them to my Kindle from there.  That way, if there’s a glitch with my Kindle, the books are on my computer.  Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement. 

Thanks for visiting.  RIW

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Fight Princess by M. S. Kaye




Blurb:

Things aren’t what they seem. Don’t get involved.

Celisse is too headstrong to listen. Her best friend’s boyfriend is dead, and she does not heed Cullen’s warning, slipped to her in a note as he’s being arrested for the murder.

Cullen tries to keep Celisse out of danger and also tries to avoid her, both unsuccessfully. He can’t deny his feelings for her anymore, but he knows he can’t have her. If she ever discovered the truth about his past, she’d surely hate him.

While struggling with her intense feelings for Cullen, Celisse uses her skills as an ex-prosecutor to investigate, all while continuing to fight for Ogden, the organizer of an underground fight ring. She eventually realizes things are connected—the ring, Ogden, Cullen, the murder, and herself. She races to uncover the truth before she’s arrested or becomes the next victim—or perhaps, the next culprit.

Review:

This is a really unusual review, because I read this manuscript before it was a book.  It was submitted to the publisher for whom I edit under another title—one that didn’t appeal to me.  I made a huge mistake not reading it immediately, and Ms. Kaye signed with another publisher while I dithered.  I am still kicking myself for letting this gem escape.  Fortunately, my publisher understood.  It came in during MFRW “Newsletter week,” and that deadline took precedence over the “slush” pile.

I got about half-way through Fight Princess when I asked my publisher to contact Ms. Kaye and offer her a contract.  The characters were engaging, already fully fleshed out, and the plot had my attention.  I could see one or two newbie issues, but they weren’t major.  In fact, this raw manuscript was cleaner than many supposedly-edited books I’ve read of late.  Normally, when a publisher tells an editor a book has been signed elsewhere, we put it down and go on to the next project.  After all, these books come to us in raw manuscript form and we have to read them on our laptops.  No Kindle conversions here.  I could not put this one down.  I had to know how things turned out for Celisse and Cullen.  I had to know who did it.  Of course, I had a theory about who the real culprit was.  And I was completely wrong!  This newbie author totally fooled me!

I haven’t even seen the edited version, which has finally come out.  I highly recommend you grab it.  Don’t dither like I did.

Length:  399 Pages
Price:  $5.99

You’ll notice I always include the publisher’s buy link.  That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price from the publisher.  Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%.  When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left.  So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40.  If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading the file from your computer to your Kindle is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive.  Plug the USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your Kindle/Documents/Books directory.  I actually download my books using “Save As” to a “Books” file I created on my computer that’s sorted by my publisher, friends, and books “to review,” and then transfer them to my Kindle from there.  That way, if there’s a glitch with my Kindle, the books are on my computer.  Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Thanks for visiting.  RIW