Agent in Training by Jerri Drennen

On the outside Shiloh Templar appears rigid as steel. But inside she's fighting to keep everything together. Not only has she stepped into a minefield of controversy at work, she's dealing with her father's debilitating disease and a past in Seattle she wants to forget. Week one as the new director, she’s forced to cut staff. The smart-mouthed, much-too-young and sexy Nicholas Trent's position is on the chopping block. Yet, rather than accepting his fate, the man blackmails her.

Nicolas Trent joined the Department of National Security solely for his mother's benefit in an attempt to follow in his dead father's footsteps. He never planned to stay. But when the company's new director, a fiery red-head nicknamed Old Iron Maiden makes it clear he's not DNS material and will probably be released from duty, Nick has a change of heart. He'll resort to any means to keep his job, even threatening to file a sexual harassment suit against the director for walking in on him in the men's shower room while he was naked. What he doesn't take into account is the strong, undeniable attraction that could cost him what he's held on to so tightly.

When a threat and two attempts on Shiloh's life are made, the company insists she have an agent by her side. She's forced to turn to the one man she thinks doesn't belong at the department. Now, not only is she in danger of losing her life, after a night in his arms, she's afraid of losing her heart.

No, it’s not a mistake.  I gave this book zero roses.  I found myself yelling at my Kindle throughout Agent in Training.  One should not have to suspend disbelief when reading a contemporary suspense romance.  Shall I list the things in this book I could not believe?

First:  A professional woman who directs a national agency would be able to keep her hands off the men who work under her supervision no matter how hot they are.  Especially ones ten years her junior.  And she would never walk into the men’s locker room in the first place.

Second:  If said woman’s life were in danger, she would be protected by a team of agents at all times, and that team would include women.  She would not be protected by just one man at a time.

Third:  A person trained by the CIA would know better than to stand in front of a window when her life was threatened, and anyway, the windows in the office of the director of a major government agency would probably be bullet-proof.

Overall, I would expect a woman in Shiloh’s position to be a whole heck of a lot stronger than she is.  How did a wimp like her even make it through CIA's "Farm" let alone rise to the top of an organization that supposedly defends this country?  I love Tom Clancy’s early books.  Mary Pat Foley, Shiloh is not.

Shall I continue?  This book was full of glaring glitches such as this.  The only reason I read the whole thing is that I made a vow never to review a book I had not read in its entirety.  Sometimes, that vow is difficult to keep.  Once again, the downside of having a Kindle is that you can’t fling it across the room when you’re reading a truly bad book.  If you have half a brain, stay away from this one.

Length:  168 Excruciating Pages

Price:  Don't waste your money.

Buy Link: I really mean it.  Don't waste your money.

NOTE UPCOMING BLOG FORMATTING CHANGE:

In the past if you clicked on the cover art in the right column, a link took you to the book’s buy page.  In 2013, I plan to change the links so they take you to the book’s review on this site.  The buy links are always included in my reviews.  That way, if you’ve missed one and the cover looks intriguing, you can see what I said about it and still follow the buy link in the review.  Thanks for visiting.  RIW.

Exiled: Winter’s Curse Book Two of the Chronicle of Caleath by Rosalie Skinner

Alone, Caleath rides south to kill the Tarack queen in her dormant colony, and thus, ensure the safety of the people. His ‘kill or be killed’ mission is not altruistic. Although he justifies his motive, saving the people, gaining his own freedom and acceptance, deep within his soul he battles a yearning for Tarack stim crystal. However, a small child's plea for help dissolves Caleath's simple plan.

His new quest takes him on a desperate path traversed by bandits, dragons, bloody battles, danger, and death. No longer is Caleath alone.

Meanwhile Nasith travels south with Lachlan, Gwilt, and a band of soldiers prepared for the battle with the Tarack. As they travel, Gwilt voices his concern about the malevolence surrounding a newcomer to the group. Convinced his doubts have fallen on deaf ears, he remains alert and wary. His attitude leads to a confrontation from which neither he nor Nasith emerge unscathed.

Winter allows the people of Allorn time to prepare, while other nefarious schemes rise to destroy them.

Winter’s Curse picks up where Autumn’s Peril left off.  Like The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Caleath reads as though Ms. Skinner wrote the whole story as one long book.  Yet, each volume can stand on its own.  There is enough exposition and back-story in each book so a person can catch up on what went before without bogging down the action of the current story.  That is a sign of masterful storytelling.

In addition to the cast of characters we met in Book One, new people appear in Winter’s Curse to join the fray, or to detour Caleath, Gwilt and Nasith from their quest.  They prepare for the battle against the Tarak, but they also encounter new challenges and face a few other battles along the way, while we explore more of the incredible world Ms. Skinner has created for us.  Series writing is not easy.  The second book is not always as good as the first.  In this case, it is.  I look forward to reading the next installment, and I encourage you to join me.

Length:  202 Pages

Price:  $5.95

Buy Link:  http://museituppublishing.com/bookstore2/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage-ask.tpl&product_id=228&category_id=2&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1

NOTE UPCOMING BLOG FORMATTING CHANGE:

In the past if you clicked on the cover art in the right column, a link took you to the book’s buy page.  In 2013, I plan to change the links so they take you to the book’s review on this site.  The buy links are always included in my reviews.  That way, if you’ve missed one and the cover looks intriguing, you can see what I said about it and still follow the buy link in the review.  Thanks for visiting.  RIW.

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.

Kiss Shot by Collin Kelley

Award-winning author Collin Kelley ("Conquering Venus" and "Remain in Light") explores his Southern roots with this collection of four short stories set in the town of Cottonwood, Georgia. In "How Fanny Got Her House," a devoted maid recalls the hijinks surrounding her employer's death from a brain tumor, while a teenage boy comes to terms with his sexuality during an unexpected game of pool in the title story, "Kiss Shot." A woman escaping an abusive relationship arrives in New Orleans during a rain storm and wanders into the famed "Clover Grill" on Bourbon Street, and "I Got A Name" follows the trials and tribulations of an overweight woman looking for love at a community theater company.

This is the second book by Collin Kelley that I’ve reviewed.  Mr. Kelley’s characters are complex and his stories are frequently deep and thought provoking, as are a couple of the stories in this book.  “How Fannie Got Her House,” however, is fun.  Yes, it’s an indictment of the Jim Crow South, but in a delightful way.  The story I found most poignant was “I Got a Name.”  I rather resemble the woman in the story, in that I joined a community theatre group when I weighed three-hundred pounds.  Fortunately, I wasn’t looking for love.  I simply was looking for fun and an outlet for my creative energy.  However, I ran into similar weight prejudice from some of the members of the group.  At three hundred pounds, who did I think I was, thinking I could act?  The woman in Mr. Kelley’s story doesn’t even try to act.  Yet she experiences similar prejudice.  There’s no chance for the fat lady to sing in this story.  I was a caroler in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” thanks to my ability to harmonize by ear and to provide my own Victorian-style XXXX-L cape.

But, I digress.  Once again, Mr. Kelley has written a great book.  I read it at the mall while my granddaughter was shopping.  Yup—all four stories.

Length:  @ 57 Pages

Price:  $0.99

Buy Link:  http://www.amazon.com/Kiss-Shot-Stories-ebook/dp/B0092WI3QU/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352149522&sr=1-1&keywords=Kiss+Shot+Collin+Kelley

NOTE UPCOMING BLOG FORMATTING CHANGE:

In the past if you clicked on the cover art in the right column, a link took you to the book’s buy page.  In 2013, I plan to change the links so they take you to the book’s review on this site.  The buy links are always included in my reviews.  That way, if you’ve missed one and the cover looks intriguing, you can see what I said about it and still follow the buy link in the review.  Thanks for visiting.  RIW.

Dianne’s Dilemma by John Russo

Single and nearing thirty-six, Dianne Evans, computer specialist for the US Justice Department, is a compulsive perfectionist. Discovering missing material from one of the files she was transposing into the department’s new database, she was reluctant to bring it to the attention of Sam Goldman, her new supervisor, and with good reason. She had recently been transferred to Justice from IRS after she insisted that there was an inaccuracy in the new IRS auditing program she had been working on. Her IRS supervisor had disagreed and, rather than put up with Dianne’s insistence that the program was flawed, arranged to have Dianne, whom she considered to be a troublemaker, transferred with excellent references to the Justice Department where they desperately needed programmers with high security clearance.

Sam Goldman, Dianne’s new supervisor, was happy to get her. Approaching retirement, Sam felt the transposing of Justice’s files into the new database would be the largest assignment of his career, and most likely the last. Dianne’s obsession with accuracy could only benefit the program.

Partway into the transposition, Dianne discovered an empty file with the heading “M. Brutus.” She tried unsuccessfully to ignore it and continue, but she couldn’t let go. How could she proceed when she was responsible for the work? It had to be accurate. Gathering up the sections of the material she was copying that had omissions, she went directly to Goldman’s office. When she pointed out the file with the missing data, he recognized that it was an active WITSEC (Witness Security Program) file. This was the beginning of Dianne’s dilemma and the dangerous consequences that caused a threat to her life and the start of a lasting romance.

I love a good mystery.  This book was a bit like Columbo.  You knew from the beginning who was stalking Dianne over this file, but you didn’t know exactly why this file caused such a flap until the end.  Nor did you know whether she would survive.  After all…curiosity killed the cat.  On the other hand, to pull out all the adages, cats have nine lives, and Dianne starts to seem awfully cat-like toward the end of the book when she survives more than one attempt on her life.

Dianne’s Dilemma was a pretty good read and it did keep me turning the pages, but I also tended to yell at her stalker.  Which part of harassing the woman kept her on the case did he not get?  Every time she decided to let it go and move on, he did something else to her or someone around her that made her mad, caused her to think something else must be going on, and dig deeper.  If he’d just left her alone, she would have turned the thing over to her boss and dropped it.  But then, I guess Mr. Russo wouldn’t have had a book.  Again, it didn’t stop me from yelling at my Kindle.

Length:  168 Pages

Price:  $5.50

Buy Link:  https://museituppublishing.com/bookstore2/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=573&category_id=231&manufacturer_id=9&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1

NOTE UPCOMING BLOG FORMATTING CHANGE:

In the past if you clicked on the cover art in the right column, a link took you to the book’s buy page.  In 2013, I plan to change the links so they take you to the book’s review on this site.  The buy links are always included in my reviews.  That way, if you’ve missed one and the cover looks intriguing, you can see what I said about it and still follow the buy link in the review.  Thanks for visiting.  RIW.

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.