Book Review - Honor and Entropy - Arthur Spevak

Title:    Honor & Entropy

Author:  Arthur Spevak (Author), J.E. Rainey (Introduction)

Review:  Well this is a long…..long book.  The story is interesting and kept me reading, but I thought I would never get to the end.  The characters are multi-faceted and the story wraps you up tugging you along.  I did have to go back every so often to see what I missed….sometimes the transition from the past to the present was difficult to follow, but wow this story is amazing.  The story is simply a treasure hunt gone wrong…language problems, transportation problems, cannibal problems and more and more and more problems and then of course the families left at home.

Choppy language and transitions did make this a struggle to read at times, I think a bit better editing would do great things for this book.  The story is fantastic and cutting the telling parts for more showing would have made this tale flow better.  It took work to get this book finished, but I have to say that the ending and the journey are worth the time invested.  Of course editing could have the potential to make this book a bestseller or made for TV mini-series.

If you enjoy epic stories of war, loss, love and redemption and you have lots of time to read, then I think you will find this to your liking. 

Publisher:  Published 2011 by Lost Lobo Books

Copyright: 2011

Pages:  1133 pages 1272 KB

ISBN:    B005VTK20S

Quick Review: 4 Stars out of 5. 

Where Did I Get the Book:  Sent by the author for review.

Synopsis:  Telly Brensen longs for his father, missing since WWII, and despises his mother’s suitors; and when her priceless ring disappears, this ignites his long smoldering rage. He hunts down the ring, maiming the thug who has it; and even though this frees a man wrongfully imprisoned for taking it, he is prosecuted into choosing between the Marines or jail. His choice lands him in Vietnam, where he carries out an act of extraordinary valor. This time, though, a gunfight with a jealous NCO turns a Medal of Honor nomination into a dishonorable discharge. Four years later, with reasons to live fading fast, Telly gets a tip concerning his father. He tracks down old friend Arthur Spevak, solicits him for backup, and sets off alone…for Borneo.

Unknown to Telly, Spevak is a tormented soul in his own right. Once orphaned, a sense of worthlessness sabotages his every attempt at romance, and in desperation, he, too, joins the Marines. When sent to Vietnam, though, anger at the world for driving him to such measures will not abate, and he becomes a notorious rogue – until the death of a brave friend sends him home with new self-loathing. By the time Telly finds him, he is living on a Chinese mountainside, alone, aimless, and broke. Now since they never crossed paths in the war, each is ignorant of the other’s disgrace, and they make an awkward pact. Then Telly vanishes, and Spevak reluctantly picks up the trail, unaware of how far the journey will one day take him.

Other Reviews: Brian's Meandering Mind, Novel Reviews,  Self Publishing Review

Book Review - Stolen Prey - John Sandford

Title: Stolen Prey

Author: JohnSandford

Review:   Even for John Sandford and the entire Prey series, this book was violent.  People are killed in long torturous ways, and by people I mean families.  The saddest part of the whole horrendous crime is it is based in reality.  The author did not exaggerate.

The story opens up with the violent murder of a well to do family by a Mexican drug gang.  Given the viciousness of the crime Lucas and his cohorts are immediately brought in to solve this case before any more victims can pile up.  The most important message of this book is not to get involved in gangs, and especially do not try to cross them. These guys are not playing around when it comes to their business.  They have escalated the level of violence so high in Mexico now there isn’t a soft option when it comes to a response.

In classic police procedural fashion Davenport and crew slowly begin to uncover the facts of the case and through realistic action they slowly plod there way through the clues.  It is in these small steps that Sandford is a master of the genre; never taking giant leaps of logic to advance the plot.  The real genius of the series is how he managed to make such a hard guy like Lucas be so likable at the same time.

The only downside is the side plot involving Virgil Flowers, one of the detectives working for Davenport (and the star of his own book series too).  Davenport managed to get mugged at the ATM and he puts the f@#$ing Flowers on the case.  There is always an element of gallows humor in the books and usually it’s interwoven into the main story a little better.  With the graphically violent nature of the main story this plot was just too jarring and out of place.  I can appreciate what the author was going for but it wasn’t working for me.

Stolen Prey was a good book, and it is a fantastic series.  You can start anywhere, but if you are like me you will soon find yourself wanting to catch up with all 22 books.  It is American police procedural at its best.

Publisher: Putnam

ISBN: 978-0-399-15768-4

Copyright: 2012

Pages: 402

Quick Review: 4 stars out of 5

Why I Read It: I love crime fiction and it is based in my home state of Minnesota – what’s not to love.  Plus I have kept up with entire series (this is book 22).

Where I Obtained the Book: At my local library

Synopsis:  Lucas Davenport has seen many terrible murder scenes. This is one of the worst. In the small Minnesota town of Wayzata, an entire family has been killed—husband, wife, two daughters, dogs.

There’s something about the scene that pokes at Lucas’s cop instincts—it looks an awful lot like the kind of scorched-earth retribution he’s seen in drug killings sometimes. But this is a seriously upscale town, and the husband was an executive vice president at a big bank. It just doesn’t seem to fit.

Until it does. And where it leads Lucas will take him into the darkest nightmare of his life.

 

Author Biography:     John Sandford was born John Camp on February 23, 1944, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He attended the public schools in Cedar Rapids, graduating from Washington High School in 1962. He then spent four years at the University of Iowa, graduating with a bachelor's degree in American Studies in 1966. In 1966, he married Susan Lee Jones of Cedar Rapids, a fellow student at the University of Iowa. He was in the U.S. Army from 1966-68, worked as a reporter for the Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian from 1968-1970, and went back to the University of Iowa from 1970-1971, where he received a master's degree in journalism. He was a reporter for The Miami Herald from 1971-78, and then a reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer-Press from 1978-1990; in 1980, he was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, and he won the Pulitzer in 1986 for a series of stories about a midwestern farm crisis. From 1990 to the present he has written thriller novels. He's also the author of two non-fiction books, one on plastic surgery and one on art. He is the principal financial backer of a major archeological project in the Jordan Valley of Israel, with a website at www.rehov.org In addition to archaeology, he is deeply interested in art (painting) and photography. He both hunts and fishes. He has two children, Roswell and Emily, and one grandson, Benjamin. His wife, Susan, died of metastasized breast cancer in May, 2007, and is greatly missed.

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Book Review - Midnight Cravings - Joelle Sterling

Title: Midnight Cravings

Author: JoelleSterling

Review:  To start I want everyone to know that I don’t have many good things to say about this book…I hate when that happens, but it has with this book...so if you like this author or this book then quit reading now.  Also I may give away something’s, I will try not to.

This book read like a novelization of a B-movie.  Little lead in to who the characters were or what they were doing in the book.  Lots of sudden realizations and action, that seemed so out of place when combined with the inner dialogue the characters are musing most of the time.  A movie yes, the pace is fast and moves from one scene to the next rapidly, but a book is a bit slower and more interesting with greater character development and story line.  This book was fast paced, yet confusing with how fast it moved from one thing to the next.  The transitions were unclear and I had to stop and go back several times to see what I had missed…most of the time nothing.

I’ve read paranormal teen romance and enjoyed it…several books for that matter…but this book was bad.  Bad writing, bad transition, bad story line, bad….just about everything, one good thing was getting to the end.  The ending was so abrupt that with all the build up to the really bad guys and boom…..BOOM it was over and so fast that I was lost and reread that section to be sure I really understood what had just happened.  I think the author took too little time on this book and that doesn’t bode well for the rest of the series, in my opinion that is.

If you like paranormal teen romances then try Amanda Hocking, Victoria Roth or Cassandra Clare.  This series needs work and hope the editor does a better job of keeping the pace even and level in the next book.

Publisher: Expected publication: October 9th 2012 by Strebor Books

ISBN:  9781593094195

Copyright: 2012

Pages: 288

Quick Review: 1 stars out of 5

Where I Obtained the Book: Sent to me by the publisher for review.

Synopsis:  The first book in a new trilogy is a supernatural fest with teenage witches, vampires, and zombies in an urban setting.

With her acne under control, the braces off, and a new haircut, Holland Manning has discarded the nerdy girl image for a bold and edgy look. This is the year that she’s finally going to snag her long-time crush, football star Jarrett Sloan. But being realistic, how can a bookworm like Holland compete for Jarrett’s attention when Chaela Vasquez, his uber-gorgeous ex-girlfriend, is going full throttle to get him back?

Holland’s mom claims to be a witch, but her spells go awry and sometimes even backfire. Holland warily asks her mother to cast a love spell on Jarrett, and not surprisingly, the spell doesn’t work. But something strange is happening at home. Night after night, Holland awakens to flitting shadows outside of her bedroom window and eerie whispers, causing her to suspect that her mother may have mistakenly opened a pathway that unleashed something unspeakably sinister.

Discovering her own powers of sorcery that have been lying dormant, Holland sets off on a dangerous mission to vanquish the nest of teenage vampires that are picking off the students at her school, one by one.

 

Author Biography:     Joelle Sterling is the author of Midnight Cravings, the first in a trilogy. Her next novel in the series is Forbidden Feast. She lives in Philadelphia.  Pen name for Allison Hobbs.

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Book Review - Redemption on the River - Loren DeShon

Title: Redemption on the River

Author: LorenDeShon

Review:   I picked this book up to give it a look and got absorbed in the story.  I loved the characters and with the opening line you can’t helped but wonder what went wrong.  The main character Silas needs to get away from home and find himself.  He travels down the river meeting new and interesting characters along the way that shape him as a man.  The people he meets leave a deep impression on him and how he sees the world in general.   The ending brought a few tears to my eyes and I’m pleased with the ending.  Read the book and you will understand that statement better.

I enjoyed this book, but felt that the part on the boat with the gamblers went on a bit long for my taste.  I think a few sections could have been shorter and yet the reader would still have understood what was happening and why.  I did enjoy the part where we got to meet all the people he met along the way and I wouldn’t leave any of them out…I would just shorten a few parts to make the book tighter.

This is a great story of redemption and growing up.  Silas grew-up with his many adventures along the river and he met who he was supposed to meet.   I liked that the characters all added something to the story and carried the main plot forward for the reader.  If you enjoy historical books, coming of age, and adventure you will enjoy this book.  The author did a great job with the writing and the story telling.  This is a story worth reading and thinking about.  Check it out….you won’t be disappointed.

Publisher: Published July 2012 by Loren DeShon

ISBN: 9780985925901

Copyright: 2012

Pages: 390  Kindle Edition

Quick Review: 4 stars out of 5

Why I Read It: Sent by the author for review.

Synopsis:  Silas Jacobson pulled a trigger, killed his father, and ended up months later face down in Memphis mud, trying to forget the girl who betrayed him.

Silas buries his father on the farm, his guilt in himself and leaves home seeking to forget past mistakes. He travels on Mississippi steamboats and meets his best friend in a brawl, his worst enemy in a cathouse, and a mentor and lover at a New Orleans faro table. Fighting, fornicating, and cheating at cards are a grand time, but there's another woman, a girl on a mission of her own, who saves his life and offers the opportunity to redeem himself.

Silas staggers out of the mud to go to her, but he finds that she's deceived him from the start. He'll risk his neck for her—he owes her that much—but love is no longer possible. His shot at redemption comes down to his conscience, the two women, a poker game, and the turn of a card.

Redemption on the River is historical fiction set along the Mississippi River in 1848.

Author Biography:     An airline pilot who finally (!) published his historical fiction novel Redemption on the River.

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Study after study confirms that career development is the single most powerful tool managers have for driving retention, engagement, productivity, and results. Nevertheless, it’s frequently back-burnered. When asked why, managers say the number one reason is that they just don’t have time—for the meetings, the forms, the administrative hoops.

But there’s a better way. And it’s surprisingly simple: frequent short conversations with employees about their career goals and options integrated seamlessly into the normal course of business. Beverly Kaye, coauthor of the bestselling Love ’Em or Lose ’Em, and Julie Winkle Giulioni identify three broad types of conversations that will increase employees’ awareness of their strengths, weaknesses, and interests; point out where their organization and their industry are headed; and help them pull all of that together to design their own up-to-the-minute, personalized career plans.

Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go is filled with practical tips, guidelines, and templates, as well as nearly a hundred suggested conversation questions.

Professional success, more often than not, means becoming a manager. Yet nobody prepared you for having to deal with messy tidbits like emotions, conflicts, and personalities—all while achieving ever-greater goals and meeting ever-looming deadlines. Not exactly what you had in mind, is it?

Don’t panic. Devora Zack has the tools to help you succeed and even thrive as a manager. Drawing on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Zack introduces two primary management styles—thinkers and feelers—and guides you in developing a management style that fits who you really are.

She takes you through a host of potentially difficult situations, showing how this new way of understanding yourself and others makes managing less of a stumble in the dark and more of a walk in the park. Her enlightening examples, helpful exercises, and lifesaving tips make this book the new go-to guide for all those managers looking to love their jobs again.
From debut author Douglas Nicholas comes a haunting story of love, murder, and sorcery. During the thirteenth century in northwest England, in one of the coldest winters in living memory, a formidable yet charming Irish healer, Molly, and the troupe she leads are driving their three wagons, hoping to cross the Pennine Mountains before the heavy snows set in. Molly, her lover Jack, granddaughter Nemain, and young apprentice Hob become aware that they are being stalked by something terrible. The refuge they seek in a monastery, then an inn, and finally a Norman castle proves to be an illusion. As danger continues to rise, it becomes clear that the creature must be faced and defeated—or else they will all surely die. It is then that Hob discovers how much more there is to his adopted family than he had realized.

An intoxicating blend of fantasy and mythology, Something Red presents an enchanting world full of mysterious and fascinating characters— shapeshifters, sorceresses, warrior monks, and knights—where no one is safe from the terrible being that lurks in the darkness. In this extraordinary, fantastical world, nothing is as it seems, and the journey for survival is as magical as it is perilous.
They were teachers, students, chemists, writers, and housewives; a singer at the Paris Opera, a midwife, a dental surgeon. They distributed anti-Nazi leaflets, printed subversive newspapers, hid resisters, secreted Jews to safety, transported weapons, and conveyed clandestine messages. The youngest was a schoolgirl of fifteen who scrawled "V" for victory on the walls of her lycée; the eldest, a farmer's wife in her sixties who harbored escaped Allied airmen. Strangers to each other, hailing from villages and cities from across France, these brave women were united in hatred and defiance of their Nazi occupiers.

Eventually, the Gestapo hunted down 230 of these women and imprisoned them in a fort outside Paris. Separated from home and loved ones, these disparate individuals turned to one another, their common experience conquering divisions of age, education, profession, and class, as they found solace and strength in their deep affection and camaraderie.

In January 1943, they were sent to their final destination: Auschwitz. Only forty-nine would return to France.

A Train in Winter draws on interviews with these women and their families; German, French, and Polish archives; and documents held by World War II resistance organizations to uncover a dark chapter of history that offers an inspiring portrait of ordinary people, of bravery and survival—and of the remarkable, enduring power of female friendship.

Three Page-Turning Novels in One Volume! 

Where Yesterday Lives 

Ellen Barrett is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist with an uncertain marriage, a forgotten faith, and haunting memories of her picturesque hometown and the love she left behind. The eldest of five siblings, she longs for the time, long ago, when they were a happy family. Now Ellen’s beloved father is dead, and she returns to her childhood home to make peace–with the people who still live there, with the losses and changes that time has wrought, and with the future God has set before her. 

When Joy Came to Stay 

Maggie Stovall is one of the golden people. She has it all together...at least on the surface. Ben Stovall is a godly husband and successful attorney. He has no idea of the darkness about to overtake his life. Amanda Joy is a child of society–abused, broken, thrown away. But her trust in God is still alive. When Joy Came to Stay is the heart-wrenching story of one woman’s descent into the shadows of depression, her husband’s search for understanding, and a precious child’s unwavering faith. 

On Every Side 

Faith Evans is an up-and-coming newscaster, a woman of honor and integrity who must take a stand against the one man she never imagined would be her enemy. A beloved, hundred-year-old statue of Jesus stands in a small-town park–but some say it’s a clear violation of separation of church and state that must come down. Jordan Riley is a powerful attorney fighting for human rights and against God, but still reckoning with bitter boyhood losses. Amid political intrigue, social injustice, and personal conflicts, will love be enough when the battle rages on every side? 
A wicked comedy about the perils of making your dreams come true

Quirky, clever, cubicle-bound Jennifer Johnson is desperate. Everyone around her is getting married, while she's still single and stuck writing ad copy about men's dress socks.

Her life hits crisis level, launching her into a humiliating and painfully hilarious quest to find Prince Charming at any cost. This includes agonizing online dates, diet-clinic cults, drag-queen fights, and a debilitating addiction to Cinnabon icing. When she meets handsome, wealthy Brad Keller, she wonders if he's the answer to all her dreams, or is he just too good to be true?

Darkly funny and outrageously honest, McElhatton's wit shines in this no-holds-barred cautionary tale about getting what you want--and how it can be the worst thing for you.
Bonnie and Clyde, they thought. And what’s-his-name, the sidekick. Three teenagers with dead-end lives, and chips on their shoulders, and guns.

The first person they killed was a highway patrolman. The second was a woman during a robbery. Then, hell, why not keep on going? As their crime spree cuts a swath through rural Minnesota, some of it captured on the killers’ cell phones and sent to a local television station, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator Virgil Flowers joins the growing army of cops trying to run them down. But even he doesn’t realize what’s about to happen next.