Saturday, January 25, 2014

Awakening & Possession by Catrina Burgess



  

 Awakening Blurb:

At seventeen Colina began her training to be a healer, and now she is expected to start wielding the magic that goes along with her calling. But then tragedy hits and the young healer finds herself on the run for her life. Her only hope of survival is to convince one of the members of the death dealer guild to take her in and to train her in the dark arts, but to become one of the dark wizards she must survive three trials. The trials are difficult and dangerous—she will have to court death itself, suffer the possession of another, and if she makes it to the third ritual, she'll have to do the unthinkable. Can she survive the horrific trials long enough to gain the dark power? And if she does, what will she become?

To get this dark power she must first convince Luke, a boy about her own age, to take her through the trials. He's only a novice himself in the dark arts. He is reluctant to help the young healer, but he soon finds himself entangled in the same web of danger. The death dealers are on the very top of the magic food chain, their magic is the most powerful of all the clans and guilds—for they have the power to not only see and communicate with the dead, but they can bind the spirits to do their bidding. They wield banshees, tortured souls that can harm and even kill. Luke soon realizes he is not just risking his life—he is also risking his heart, for the young wizard is falling hard for a girl with too many secrets. Can he help Colina find her way to the dark powers?

Possession Blurb:

Seventeen year old Colina Campbell has betrayed her healer upbringing. In the name of survival and revenge, she had no choice but to seek the ways of the Death Dealers. She has gone through the Dark Rituals and the Awakening has taken place. There is no going back. She thought the worst was behind her, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. Now she must use her wits again to survive. She’s willing to risk her life and to do whatever it takes to bring back her lost love.

Review:


Awakening:  After witnessing the horrific deaths of her family, Colina a seventeen year-old girl who recently started her healer training, turns to a death dealer for help to find and punish the people who killed them.  Becoming a death dealer will make her a pariah among her own people, but she’s desperate.  Unfortunately, the only death dealers she finds are Luke, a boy her own age, and his younger sister, Darla.  Luke has been trained as a death dealer, but he’s not that experienced.  He’s not sure he’s strong enough yet to train someone on his own.  But the people who killed Darla’s family are still after her.  There’s no time to wait two weeks for their family to return from the retreat they’re attending.

Luke agrees to train Colina, and she undergoes the three trials, but her Awakening brings powers neither anticipated.  In fact, she manifests powers no one has seen before—something that leaves us with a cliff-hanger ending, which I hate.

Possession:  Colina awakens in a padded room with no memory of who she is, or how she got there.  She is in an insane asylum and has been given electric shock therapy. Eventually her memory returns and she realizes she’s there trying to save Luke, who is also there.  But there’s a murderer possessing someone in the asylum, and Colina doesn’t know who.  It could be someone she cares about.  It could even be Luke.  They plan to escape, but she has to find out who the murderer is possessing before they leave.  She couldn’t forgive herself if she turned him loose on the world.  Again, the book ends with a cliff-hanger, one of my pet peeves.

Colina is a strong young lady who overcomes a myriad of obstacles.  She’s not co-dependent on any sparkly vampires or overly-buff werewolves.  She’s really a good role model for modern young girls, and I would have liked to have given these books a higher rating.  But, again—even though they’re part of a series, I believe books should be written to stand alone.  Awakening is a bit better than Possession.  It hints that there’s another book at the end.  If you’re willing to accept the story as it is, you don’t necessarily have to read Possession.  But if you want a happily-ever-after ending, you do.  And you won’t find it at the end of Possession, either.  There’s at least one more book to be read, coming out sometime this year.  It’s because Colina is a strong character and these books are engaging and fast-paced that I’m giving them roses and not thorns.

If you don’t mind cliff-hangers, these books are quite good.

Awakening Length:  257 Pages
Awakening Price:  $0.99

Possession Length:  287 Pages
Possession Price:  $2.99

Thanks for visiting. RIW

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Pranksgiving by Elle Druskin



Blurb:

Kidnapped! Or is that birdnapped? Someone in Liberty Heights snatched Jerome, star of the Ledbetter Turkey commercials. Who? Why? Holding Jerome for ransom? Cutting Thanksgiving dinner costs? Join the hunt for Jerome and celebrate Thanksgiving—Liberty Heights style!

Review:

Since Pranksgiving is a short-story, Ms. Druskin did not bring any new residents to Liberty Heights, unless you count Jerome, the celebrity turkey.  And he lives about twenty miles out of town, so I’m not sure he counts, even though his owner, Elmer Ledbetter is a client of Haley Marx’s public relations firm. And who kidnapped him isn’t exactly a mystery, either, since we’re treated to a hysterical account of the crime.  The fun is in chasing down the bird when he escapes from his captors.  Half the town is after him for various reasons.

Haley wants to catch Jerome to appease her client, so she goes in one direction while Jake, her husband, goes in another, and she enlists their best friends, Dana and voice-over genius Hank Axelrod as well.  The birdnappers want him back for the same reason they stole him in the first place:  Mr. Ledbetter announced Jerome was doing his last commercial for the turkey farm, and they feared Jerome would be the Ledbetter’s Thanksgiving entrée this year.  Not only are they trying to retrieve him, but they post news of his imminent demise and a grass-roots “Save Jerome” organization shows up to protest.  Ledbetter posts a reward, and other people start hunting Jerome in hopes of earning the money.  Thanksgiving is nigh and Liberty Heights is in chaos, as usual.  Could romance be in the air as well?  Maybe.  All things are possible in Liberty Heights.

I’m running out of good things to say about this series.  These people, while slightly screwy and wacky have become good friends.  Actually, they’re pretty normal compared to most of my real-life friends.  And they live in a town that’s almost as magical as Hogwarts considering the fact that when you enter the town limits, something warm and wonderful happens to you and you suddenly find it normal to have a huge deaf dog hanging around the Chinese restaurant, or a French-speaking parrot quoting Victor Hugo, the local doctor riding around town in full cowboy togs, or the candle-shop owner consulting with her psychic beagle, or a group of ladies taking over the local fire house for pole-dance classes.  I always feel a little sad when I finish a book or short story in the Liberty Heights series.  The vacation is over and I have to go home.  Back to the real world where not all of the books I review and edit are as funny and warm or well-written.  Oh, did I forget to say it?  Even though Thanksgiving is over, buy Pranksgiving.  You can always use a good laugh session!

Length:  95 Pages
Price:  $2.00

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, January 11, 2014

All in the Mind by Jenny Twist





Blurb:

Tilly is part of an experiment working on a cure for Alzheimer's disease. She and most of the other patients taking part in the experiment seem to make a full recovery, but there is a strange side effect. Tilly and her fellow experimental subjects appear to be getting younger. Can the same experiment be repeated for Tilly's beloved husband so that he can recover from a stroke? Tilly thinks it can and she will move heaven and earth to make sure it happens.

Review:

Tilly is a young nurse who lives in the East End of London during the Blitz.  One day on her way home from work, the sirens go off.  A bomb warden herds her into a tube station, and when she emerges after the attack, she finds the block on which she lives demolished.  Her parents dead, her home a bombed-out shell, Tilly has nothing but the uniform she wore to work that day.  She moves into the Nurse’s Residence until she meets and marries Johnny Thompson, son and heir of industrialist James Thompson.  Their courtship and wedding are idyllic, until she awakens in an unfamiliar room, and learns she’s almost eighty years old, she’s suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for the past seven years, and her beloved Johnny has been a patient in the same hospital for the past six months since he suffered a stroke.  Tilly is awake and lucid due to an experiment.  She’s been immersed in the past for the last several months.  Everything around her has been arranged to look like it was 1945 again.  The nurses and doctors have worn period clothing and styled their hair and make-up in forties styles and forties music has been piped into their rooms.

When she visits her beloved Johnny in another part of the hospital, Tilly is appalled at his lack of progress in recovering from his stroke.  When participants in her own experiment start physically getting younger, Tilly becomes convinced Johnny will recover more quickly if he receives the same treatment, and she has the determination and the means to implement her plan.

All in the Mind is a fascinating look at the incredible capacity of the human mind, especially when it is fueled with determination and love.  Tilly’s story is that of a semi-modern Cinderella as she rises from the ashes of her parents’ burnt-out East End home to marry the heir of a wealthy family, beating out a slew of money-hungry debutantes (many of them titled).  The characters are compelling and the book pulls you in and keeps your attention right through to the surprising end.  I highly recommend this warm and wonderful book.

Length:  176 Pages
Prices:
Paperback:  $11.66
Kindle:  $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

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Lust, Book One of Lust, Money and Murder by Mike Wells



Blurb:

This book begins with a young and naive Elaine Brogan as she initially pursues her dream of a career as a photomodel. After becoming entangled with a sleazy modeling agency, she decides to become a Secret Service agent, struggling through the arduous training academy. After her first disastrous assignment, she is transferred to Bulgaria. There, she meets Nick LaGrange, the love of her life.

Review:

I received this book in return for an honest review.  Beware what you ask for.

Lust, Book One of Lust, Money and Murder is approximately 106 pages long, and is the first book in a trilogy.  Elaine Brogan was an engaging character and the subject of counterfeiting was either well-researched or one with which Mr. Wells was very familiar from his day-job.  The book was fast-paced and kept me on the edge of my seat, but there were continuity and grammar issues, info dumps and point-of-view jumps that I found very off-putting and distracting.  I know what free-lance editors cost, but they make the difference between a polished, professional book, and the kind of amateurish presentation that gives independent publishing a bad name.

Finally, these pieces should not have been published as a series.  Three hundred pages is not a long book.  Most of the big publishers won’t look at a manuscript of fewer than a hundred thousand words and that runs about three hundred pages.  When writing a series, each book should be able to stand on its own.  Look at Patterson’s Alex Cross books or Clancy’s Jack Ryan books, any of the Kellerman’s series (Jonathan, Faye or their son Jesse’s), or Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden Files.  You can pick up any one of those books and they stand on their own.  You can read one or all in each series.  Yes, The Hunt for Red October made me want to see more of Jack Ryan.  Storm Front made me want more of Harry Dresden.  But each book had a beginning, middle and end.  Lust does not have an end.  It just stops at the beginning of Money.  That makes me crazy and makes me feel manipulated.  It’s not like this book would have been a couple thousand pages and needed to be split into manageable pieces like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (which was originally written as one book, but was split in three by the publisher).  If you still want to read this book, buy the bundle and read the trilogy as one book.  Otherwise, you’ll be stuck with only part of the story.

Length:  106 Pages
Price:  $2.99

Thanks for visiting. RIW