Sunday, January 27, 2013

At What Price? by P.A. Estelle



Katherine Gardner is awakened at 6:30 in the morning by a call from a strange woman who claims to have her granddaughter, Rio. This woman is calling the police if Katherine doesn’t make arrangements for somebody to pick up this little girl.

Katherine is a fifty-six year old woman and all alone since her husband died over three years ago. Her life takes a dramatic turn when six-year old Rio comes to stay with her. Rio is a scared little girl whose life is filled with uncertainty and fear.

In her grandmother, Rio finds a safe haven and an unconditional love that she has never known in her six short years, and Katherine has found a love to fill the void that has been absent for way too long.


I bought this book because of a mediocre review the author received.  I wanted to see for myself why the reviewer so hated Katherine’s daughter.  The reviewer obviously has never dealt with an addict.  The disease of addiction runs in my family.  My mother was an alcoholic, my sister is a recovering alcoholic, I’m a recovering food addict, and my daughter was addicted to meth.  The Coles County, Illinois Sherriff’s Department saved her life when they busted her.  She lost custody of her children to her ex-husband who, frankly, got her hooked on drugs and has only gotten clean and sober within the last couple of years.  I’m happy to report that my daughter has been clean for over a decade and is a wonderful mother.  It hurt me to leave her sitting in jail when they busted her, but even if I had the money to help her, I would not have done so.  By that time, I’d spent enough years in Twelve Step Programs to know she had to stay there for her own good.

At What Price? is the story of a mother who did not have the kind of support group or experience with addiction I had when she had to deal with her daughter, Lacey’s disease.  Nor did Lacey go straight when she finally got busted.  Lacey had reached the point in her disease where the drugs meant more to her than even her child.  And Rio knew that.  Rio also knew how much her grandmother, Katherine loved her.  This is a very short, powerful story of love, addiction, how it can ravage part of a family, and forge another part.

I suggest you read At What Price?  And keep in mind that Lacey is a very sick girl who could get well.  My mother died of the disease of alcoholism.  My sister has thirty years of sobriety, I’m coming up on three years of abstinence, and my daughter has over a decade clean.  I’m lucky.  It’s heartbreaking to watch your child struggle with this disease.  But it’s wonderful to watch her recover.

Length:  37 Pages
Price:  $0.99


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 royalties 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.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Killer Ratings by Lisa Seidman




Los Angeles is no stranger to glamor, celebrity—and murder. When Susan Kaplan moves to L.A. to become a TV writer, she's thrilled to be hired as a writers' assistant on the well-regarded but low-rated TV series Babbitt & Brooks. The last thing she expects, however, is that she'd find herself working for the beautiful yet seriously neurotic Rebecca Saunders, the show's less-than-competent associate producer who may or may not have gotten the job by sleeping with Babbitt & Brooks' demanding creator and executive producer, Ray Goldfarb.

And Susan definitely doesn't expect to find murdered Rebecca's body in her office at the studio early one morning. When the police learn that Rebecca torpedoed Susan's writing career shortly before her death, Susan becomes their number one suspect. Determined to prove her innocence and find the murderer, Susan discovers that all her colleagues have secrets they would kill to protect. From producers to writers to stars, it seems that the hopes and dreams of nearly everyone associated with the show were being threatened by Rebecca.

Despite the danger to her own life, Susan remains determined to find Rebecca's killer and in the process unmasks the dirty little secrets behind the making of a prime-time television series. She learns that real life behind the camera is far more dramatic than the fictional one in front of it.


I’m a lapsed member of Mensa.  I can’t afford the dues right now, but I still qualify for membership.  And I’m a writer.  So I can usually predict how a book is going to end, and when I read or watch a mystery, I usually figure out who did it fairly early on.  Not so here.  Ms. Seidman kept me guessing until the very end.

I rarely call a plot predictable because what’s predictable to me may not be so to a normal reader.  When I was editing I drove one of my authors nuts.  We were working chapter by chapter and when one ended with a rustle in the grass I asked in my e-mail if it was a cottonmouth or a copperhead, and how far away the hero was.  She replied, “It’s a cottonmouth, and you weren’t supposed to know that yet!”  Well, the girl was in tall grass in Mississippi, and it was too early in the book for her to get caught by the bad guys.  That’s how I would have written it.  But I digress.

The first murder victim seemed so deliciously evil, everyone had motive and opportunity to kill her.  There was even a pesky extra calling to see if anyone had written him into any future scripts for the show Could he be the killer who came out of left field and did it?  I won’t tell.  Buy the book and find out for yourself.

Length:  258 Pages
Price:  $4.99

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Zach’s Amazing Dream Machine by Pat Dale




Zach Mason, a precocious seventh grader who idolizes his grandfather Gentry, writes short stories for his English teacher but gets into trouble by insisting they’re true.

Enrolled in preliminary college classes, Zach puts his brain to work to convince his teacher and classmates he’s telling the truth. The result is Zach’s dream machine. After contending with pal Wally, nemesis Kenneth, and sister Liz, Zach learns something about life when his scheme goes awry. He’s up to his eyebrows warding off one intrigue after another, including a sneaky science teacher who tries to steal it.


This really is more of a memorial than a review, not that the story didn’t earn five roses on its own merit.  Dale Thompson wrote as Pat Dale.  A couple of years ago, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and told the condition was terminal.  Neither Dale nor his wife accepted that prognosis and they sought a second opinion.  They fought the disease together using both traditional and non-traditional, holistic methods, and Dale beat the disease.  At Thanksgiving of this year his doctors declared him cancer free, and Dale felt well enough to start writing full-time again.  A battle like that, however, takes its toll on one’s body.  A week ago, Dale’s wife came home after running some errands and found him collapsed on the floor.  He had a massive heart attack.  The paramedics were unable to revive him.

Now, to Zach’s Amazing Dream Machine…  Zach creates his machine to prove that his grandfather’s stories are real.  The machine truly is amazing in that it records people’s thoughts and plays back the videos as sharply as though one was there.  To Zach, however, the machine is a failure.  It does not prove the veracity of anything.  It records his best friend’s dream of beating Michael Jordan in a one-on-one game of basketball.  It reveals an embarrassing triad of unrequited love among the teachers at his school, and it reveals his dreams of the stories his grandfather told him, proving that his grandfather is a great storyteller, but not that the stories are true.  Everyone knows Zach’s best friend has never beaten MJ in a game of horse.  Nor has the chemistry teacher hooked up with either the gym or English teachers.  Well, the English teacher knows she hasn’t gotten anywhere with the Chemistry teacher and she’s the one who is accusing Zach of making up the stories about his grandfather.  Now she knows why she hasn’t gotten anywhere with her colleague, darn it.

Zach’s Amazing Dream Machine is a Young Adult book, and maybe I’m young at heart, because it hooked me on the first page and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  But then, I enjoyed all of Robert A. Heinlein's YA stories and I read them as an adult, as well.  We’ve lost a great talent.  Rest in peace, Dale.

Length:  @ 76 Pages
Price:  $3.50


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, January 6, 2013

Mad Dog House by Mark Rubinstein




Roddy Dolan, a successful suburban surgeon, long ago left behind his past--one that nearly landed him in jail at 17. When he's approached by an old friend about becoming a silent partner in a Manhattan steakhouse, he's understandably wary. So he consults with his lifelong blood brother, Danny Burns.

Danny's convinced this "vanity project" is the perfect trophy to illustrate how far they've traveled. Certain he's buried his checkered past, Roddy joins in this venture with serious reservations. Danny is quickly sucked into the high-energy glitz of the restaurant, but Roddy is suspicious.

Amidst the glitter of New York's nightlife, amongst Mafia honchos and Russian thugs, events spin out of control and the lives Roddy and Danny knew are over. Hidden shady dealings drag them and their families into life-threatening terrain. Struggling with a monster he thought he'd buried, Roddy must make momentous choices, and none are good. But he has a daring plan…


Mad Dog House was an engaging book about a young man who turns his life around and becomes a surgeon.  He rises from the streets of Brooklyn to the Operating Room and suburbs of Westchester County thanks to his best friend, Danny’s mother asking his teachers to intervene when he’s arrested for grand larceny, and a judge who pays attention to the adults who believe he can be redeemed and offers him the chance to serve in the military.  And then, twenty years later, he and Danny invest in a restaurant with a buddy who shows up out of their past and find themselves mired in the same old muck—only worse—the adult version.  Somehow they have to extricate themselves

The characters are well-drawn, the dialog is real and not stilted (yay!) and the action is well-paced.  Even though the version I read was seriously corrupted and made me crazy with capitalization issues that made me wonder if Mr. Rubinstein was aiming for stream-of-consciousness but not quite getting there, toward the end I actually forgot about the problems and devoured the book.  I’m grateful I was able to get my hands on an uncorrupted version and see this man’s writing as it should be seen.

Length:  328 Pages
Price: 
Kindle:  $2.99
Paperback:  $11.84

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.