The Rhesus Factor by Sonny Whitelaw

Blurb:

In 2020, marine engineer Kristin Baker is trying to keep Asian fishing cartels from plundering the marine resources of the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu. But after meeting US Navy Commander Nicholas Page, Kristin discovers she is an unwitting pawn in the Exodus Project, a scheme devised by the Western world to protect its interests in the face of unstoppable climate change. But what neither knows is that a stealth virus has quietly become a global pandemic; one that health authorities cannot stop. For this virus hasn't emerged from an African jungle or a remote Chinese province, it's come from within our own DNA.

Review:

I avoid reading Stephen King, because horror stories give me nightmares. But I’m a sucker for men in Navy whites, so the innocuous cover of The Rhesus Factor sucked me in. Besides, I like a good thriller. However, as I read this book, I was all too aware of the plausibility of the future Ms. Whitelaw outlined—one my in which my grandchildren would be in their twenties and thirties, and my great-granddaughter would be starting high school.

As the book begins, Kristin Baker is on her way back to the island nation of Vanuatu from the United States with a sonar device that will help the tiny nation locate and identify trawlers from the Asian cartels fishing illegally in Vanuatu’s national waters, when her hotel is bombed by terrorists. She returns to the US to pick up another unit to replace the one destroyed in the bombing and meets US Navy Commander Nicholas Page, who informs her that he will accompany her back to Vanuatu not only to provide tech support, but security as well. As sparks fly between them, they dodge terrorist bombs, bullets, possible bio-warfare, and stuck zippers.

Meanwhile, we meet Nicholas’ childhood friends, the President, the Secretary of State and his wife, and the President’s Security Adviser. The sixth member of the childhood group was killed in a terrorist attack aimed at Nicholas, which he barely survived. We also meet the head of the Centers for Disease Control, and the Australian Prime Minister (with whom the President is good friends). And, for balance, we follow the life of a family in Maine to see how all of the elements in this book (global warming, antibiotic-resistant diseases, civil unrest, and of course, the Rhesus factor itself) are affecting average citizens.

The characters were engaging and the book kept me on the edge of my seat. I had difficulty putting it down—even to work, despite the fact it scared me half out of my wits, while making me glad I at least drive a Prius. Don’t get me wrong when you read the next paragraph—this is a highly entertaining book. But it is a cautionary tale, and many of the predictions in it are already happening.

I don’t just recommend The Rhesus Factor as a good read. It should be required reading in every school, for every politician, every businessman in a position to control industrial energy consumption, waste, or emissions, and every oil company employee. It should be a television movie shown on every channel at once. I don’t know how much of a chance we still have to save our planet, but we have to try. Because if we need to build another ark, you’d better believe there will be chaos and worse among those who are not chosen to enter.

Length:  372 Pages

Price:  $5.99

Buy Link:  http://musapublishing.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=6&products_id=712

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

Windy City Heat by Remi Hunter

 Blurb:

When one of Officer Gina Aletti's informants goes missing, Gina's search for him unwittingly exposes secrets within the Chicago Police Department that may cost her job, her newfound love, and even her life.

Chicago Police Department Tactical Officer Gina Aletti employs a maverick style of police work to get the job done—but in the end she always brings down the bad guys. Sparks fly between Gina and her new boss Lieutenant Sean O’Connor over rules, procedure, and ultimately over much more, but her record is beyond reproach. When Gina is arrested for taking money and providing protection to the very drug dealers she seems so passionate about bringing down, will the truth cost Gina her job, love, and ultimately her life?

Review:

Okay, I’m prejudiced.  I think Chicago is the most beautiful city in the world, so when I see a book cover with even part of the skyline on it, I’m hooked.  When work on the Marketing for Romance Writers Newsletter took me to the Musa Publishing website and I saw the cover and blurb for Windy City Heat, I had to read it.

They say we should write what we know.  Ms. Hunter obviously knows the Chicago Police Department, and Chicago’s Southwest Side.  She apparently has worked in an area of Chicago I have studiously avoided.  It’s not safe down there, and I salute her.  Our men and women in blue put themselves in harm’s way protecting the citizens of my beloved home town every day, and I thank them.

Gina Aletti’s a good cop, if a bit headstrong.  She first meets her new Lieutenant, Sean O’Connor after chasing an armed suspect into a project building without back-up, a procedural taboo, and her first words to him are something like, “Hey, back off, buddy!  That’s my collar!”  He promptly writes her up, and they’re off to a rather negative start, despite the sparks flying between them.  Her next faux-pas comes as the result of a promise she makes to an informant and his mother.  Despite orders to stay on the north end of their district, Gina strays into the south end, where her informant lives.  Her team is supposed to stay in Ganster Disciple territory, but Gina keeps straying into Latin Kings’ territory, where she doesn’t just get into trouble with Sean, she gets into trouble with the District Commander, Bill O’Leary and the King’s themselves.  Things heat up when people start trying to kill her.

Ms. Hunter kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the book, even though I figured out who did it fairly early in the book.  But again, that’s me.  You may not realize it as soon as I did.  Still, it was fun reading how they brought the bad guys down.

My only problems with the book were somewhat stilted dialog, and a lack of hyphens.  Ms. Hunter needs to learn about adjectival and adverbial phrases, which need to be hyphenated, and she needs to run lines with someone.  The cops I know are more likely to say, “You’re gonna go down for this,” than “You’re going to…”  What struck me as downright funny was, Ms. Hunter has the gang-bangers’ slang down pat, but then the cops would speak more formally.

This book was not self-published.  Her editor at Musa Publishing should have caught these problems.  In fact, this was the second book I’ve read from Musa, and both books had similar editing problems.  It’s a shame when authors suffer from the deficiencies of their publishers.

Otherwise, I highly recommend Windy City Heat—especially if you grew up in Chicago.  I may be a Northwest Sider, but I know where Kedzie and Pulaski are.  I went to Girl Scouts a block off Pulaski, and I worked for Ma Bell (before the phone company broke up) two blocks from Kedzie.  It’s so cool to read familiar street names in a book.

Length:  181 Pages

Price:  $5.99

Buy Link:  http://musapublishing.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=681

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

Always a Bridesmaid by Jana Richards

Blurb:

Dani Dipietro has always considered herself an ugly duckling in a family of swans. She's the bridesmaid her friends count on, but never the woman any man wants for his bride. So she plays the funny girl and guards her emotions, and her secrets, closely.

When Zach Morrison was dumped at his wedding, Dani was there to help him through the humiliation. A year later they meet again and once more Zach needs her help. To fend off the unwanted attentions of his former fiancé, he asks Dani to pretend to be his girlfriend. They play their roles a little too well, and make believe turns into reality. But their relationship comes crashing down around them when Zach's trust issues cause him to accuse Dani of cheating. Telling the truth means Dani would have to betray a friend, something she would never do. But keeping secrets means she may be destined to remain a bridesmaid forever.

Review:

Part of me really related to Dani Dipietro in Always a Bridesmaid, having been overweight much of my life.  Fortunately, I never had to endure a weekend like the one in which Dani finds herself trapped, pretending to be the girlfriend of a man with whom she’s in love so he can try to avoid his former fiancé—who wants him back.  At first things go well and Zach Morrison seems to be falling for the new, svelte Dani.  But then he suddenly changes.  She doesn’t know he saw her hugging another man in the solarium and thought she was cheating on him.  When she realizes what he saw, she can’t explain.  She gave her word to her friend that she would keep his secret, and she’s an honest and loyal friend, even though it means losing Zach.

Always a Bridesmaid took me through a gamut of emotions from laughing in sympathy when Dani’s too-tight bridesmaids dress split while she tried to retrieve a lady’s purse from under the pew and was discovered by Zach after his fiancé, her college friend, left him at the altar, to crying with her when he believes he’s betrayed her.  For a fun, cozy read, curl up with Always a Bridesmaid.

Length:  181 Pages

Price:  $6.99

Buy Link:  http://www.uncialpress.com/Always-a-Bridesmaid.html

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

Killer by Jonathan Kellerman

 

Blurb:

The City of Angels has more than its share of psychopaths, and no one recognizes that more acutely than the brilliant psychologist and police consultant, Dr. Alex Delaware. Despite that, Constance Sykes, a sophisticated, successful physician, hardly seems like someone Alex needs to fear. Then, at the behest of the court, he becomes embroiled in a bizarre child-custody dispute initiated by Connie against her sister and begins to realize that there is much about the siblings he has failed to comprehend. And when the court battle between the Sykes sisters erupts into cold, calculating murder and a rapidly growing number of victims, Alex knows he’s been snared in a toxic web of pathology.

Nothing would please Alex more than to be free of the ugly spectacle known as Sykes v. Sykes. But then the little girl at the center of the vicious dispute disappears, and Alex knows he must work with longtime-friend Detective Milo Sturgis, braving an obstacle course of Hollywood washouts, gangbangers, and self-serving jurists in order to save an innocent life.

Review:

I normally don’t review best-sellers like Killer, because they don’t need a boost in sales from reviewers like me, but when you pull a book off the Net Galley website, you’re required to review it. Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware books are among the books I would recommend to new authors who want to write series. I believe I first picked up a book somewhere in the middle and then went back to the beginning—not because I felt I’d missed anything, but because I liked it. I read every book in the series and then waited for each book to come out until I got too busy with my own books, editing jobs, my review site, and the Marketing for Romance Writers Newsletter to read much for pleasure. I’m not sure how many Delaware books I’ve missed, but when I picked up Killer, it didn’t matter. Each book stands on its own as books in a series should.

What can I say about a master storyteller who just gets better with each book he writes? Mr. Kellerman drew me back into Dr. Delaware’s life on the first page of Killer, and kept me on the edge of my seat through the whole book. It was so nice to revisit Alex, Milo, Alex’s girlfriend Robin, and their French bulldog, Blanche. And I can’t believe I’m saying this two weeks in a row, but I didn’t know who did it until Mr. Kellerman revealed it. I usually figure these things out at least half way through, but he threw in enough red-herrings that I truly did not know who the Killer was.

Length:  353 Pages

Prices:

Print (Hardcover):  $28.00

Print (Paperback Lg. Print):  $28.00

Kindle:  $12.99

Audible (Unabridged):  $26.95

Buy Link:  http://www.amazon.com/Killer-Delaware-Novel-Jonathan-Kellerman-ebook/dp/B00EMX9QQA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1393703709&sr=1-1&keywords=killer+jonathan+kellerman

Thanks for visiting. RIW

Entangled Minds by Roseanne Dowell

Blurb:

Strange, realistic visions and dreams invade Rebecca Brennan’s mind. When she experiences someone’s pain, she’s determined to find out who shares her mind. Her search leads to a small town filled with Victorian homes and interesting people and puts her life in danger.

Review:

Rebecca Brennan wakes up screaming, “No!” and then feels a burning pain in her shoulder and something warm and wet running down her arm. Has she been shot? No, but someone has—someone whose feelings she’s been sharing for the past few years, someone with whom her mind appears to be linked. He lives in a small town filled with Victorian homes and she thinks he must be a cop. At least she hopes she's linked to a cop and not a criminal.  She decides she has to find him, because whoever wounded him isn’t finished.

Hooking a reader on the first page is an important tool for a writer, and Ms. Dowell really pulls you in with Becca’s rude awakening in Entangled Minds. Is she linked to a cop? A civilian? Or a killer? Or is she linked to both the shooting victim and the shooter? You’ll have to read the book to find out, because it’s too good to give away any of the plot, except to say Rebecca searches for the town in which this mystery takes place and finds it full of Victorian homes, quirky people, and plenty of suspects—enough to keep even me guessing until the very end. I really did not have the perpetrator anywhere on my list of suspects! If you’ve read my reviews, you know how difficult I usually am to fool. Brava Ms. Dowell.

Length: 136 Pages

Price: $2.99

Buy Link: http://www.amazon.com/Entangled-Minds-Roseanne-Dowell-ebook/dp/B00H8XP5IY/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1393700024&sr=1-3&keywords=entangled+minds

Thanks for visiting. RIW