Category: Books



Rowena and the Dark Lord
Rowena and the Dark Lord by Melodie Campbell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This review will be for ASIN: B00CIZZS70

Disclaimer: I was gifted this Kindle book for an honest review by the author. Thank you!!

I love the Rowena books! This is the second one. The first was Rowena Through the Wall. And the magic is that the wall at the back of the classroom that Rowena teaches in, leads to another land far less advanced in culture than 2013 Arizona. It is a land where magic can still be used. And women are nonexistent due to a curse. So when Rowena appears the men fall over themselves to own her.

But this review is for book two. Rowena is now pregnant with one of the men’s baby. She is able to use magic in this faraway land but finds she must visit Arizona once in a while. Due to things that happened in the previous book, Rowena is blessed and cursed to have even more modern people involved in this wall travel. Whew!

I love how Melodie Campbell is able to make both worlds seem very real. I love the characters and animals that are part of Rowena’s life on either side of the wall. And the plot is spot on. So exciting!

Book two doesn’t leave you with a cliffhanger, but there is a chapter for book three at the end of book two. Darn! Now I can’t wait to read that one! Great job, Ms. Campbell!

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Review: World After


World After
World After by Susan Ee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was another book to keep me up until 3 in the morning. This series is so exciting! It involves so much action that from the beginning, in book one, until now the end of book two, one is caught up in the story. Susan Ee’s writing keeps you captured in her world.

It was so long ago that I read the first book that I was a little worried that I would have to go back and read book one again to remember all that had happened but Ms. Ee does a marvelous job reacquainting the reader with ‘World Before’and ‘World During’ that it all flows quite well as we step into ‘World After’.

Book one had us meeting Penryn, her little crippled sister, and their mentally ill mother. The world was hard enough for poor Penryn to live in then the Angels and Demons decided to cause the apocalypse. Survival was the theme in both of these books. But there is a minor (?) romance between Penryn and an angel.

This book continues the survival, fighting, and romance. Penryn is quite the character and struggles to help her family and the other humans to survive. She learns to use the angel’s sword and tries to save everyone. She is quite spunky and able to hold her own no matter what.

I was about a third of the way in the Kindle version of the book when I realized that I had the Audible version of the book that I had purchased a while back. I must admit that the narrator, Caitlin Davies, was able to read the story exactly how I had been hearing it in my head. What is nice about having the audio version is you get to hear how the names should be pronounced. In this case I had been calling Raffe ‘RAF’ with a long ‘A’ sound and silent ‘e’. Apparently it is ‘Rawffa’. Sounds a lot better the right way, I must admit!

Though almost all threads have been tied up, and the ending is sweet, there is enough to let me know there will be more. Yay! I do really enjoy this series. Oh, and those who don’t believe in angels demons or the bible will still enjoy this series as a fantasy. I recommend it to all for a fun adventure.

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Damnation Marked
Damnation Marked by S.M. Reine
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’ve done it again! Grrrr! Ever get done with one book in a series and without stopping to do a review, jump right in and read the next book? Well, that’s what I did. Now I am 80% into book five and I can’t remember book four. But that should give you a bit of an idea about how well I liked the book. I couldn’t wait to see what would happen to the characters.

This book didn’t end with a cliffhanger, by the way. One could very well let it go and read the next book when they can. But Reno and Tahoe were left in a big mess. I am afraid to go downtown now as I am sure I will see it all apocalyptic and ruined! That is the fun of these books for me. The author has included landmarks around here and has hell take over. And it is during the snows so reading it in the right season helps to add to the allure.

Elise, the main character is a strong person often too strong for her own good but we do get to see her insecurities and weaknesses. She has a good support system around her but often chooses the role as protector rather than put her friends/family in the way of danger. She’s sassy and fun.

The problem I had with this book is the same I had with the last one, the jumping back and forth in time. If you read on the Kindle, especially using text-to-speech the sections go by and it is easy to get lost. I think asterisks would help to signify a new point of view or scene, especially when many of the sections contain the same people just earlier or much later.

Still, this is a fun series, and I feel I must continue reading until I catch up with Sara’s stories. What an imagination!

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Shadow of the Sun
Shadow of the Sun by Laura Kreitzer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Three stars means I liked this book. Was it a favorite? Sorry, no. It had a lot of interesting ideas that were unique, but the follow-through wasn’t there, unless, of course that comes in book two or three.

I liked that the main character was a well-educated lady with lots of smarts. At first, though, I didn’t much like her as she was snotty to her helper. Later that falls by the wayside as the character development reveals someone who does have a heart.

There was a lot of repetition of feelings and information. And it wasn’t long before this genius person, the strong person becomes the fainter, the whiner. And worst of all she becomes the boy-crazy teen. That was too bad as I wanted to like her.

Though fairly well-written, the Tablet/Fire version of this book was hard to read as the font was too light. Thank goodness I was able to read it on my Second Generation Kindle with text-to-speech. I did notice that my edition of the book is no longer available, but there is still a free version for Kindle at the moment. Maybe the font issue has been dealt with. Try it. Maybe you will like it better than I did.

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Review: Striking Mars


Striking Mars
Striking Mars by Cidney Swanson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was the best sci-fi series I have ever read. Lots of space travel and well researched situations to keep the reader engaged. Check out my reviews on the previous four books to feel my glow. I am so excited that there is going to be yet one more book that I totally turned ‘Fan Girl’. As soon as I finished reading this book last night I wrote to the author to gush and beg for the next one. Gosh, I can’t wait to read six. It is supposed to be out this Spring, yet another reason I want Winter to LEAVE!

Once again, I am so impressed with the main character Jess and her autistic (?) hacker brother, Ethan. There is a lot of enjoying time on Mars through the family left there, time on Earth, and even time on the Moon. It was just so much fun!

Please do yourself a favor and grab the triology for $2.99 Then enjoy a great adventure. Then follow up with the science links that Ms. Swanson puts in the back of the book. It is worth every penny!

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Review: Mars Burning


Mars Burning
Mars Burning by Cidney Swanson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a hard review to write. Why? Because I have to take time out of the next book in the series to write it. I absolutely love this series! It is the most satisfying science fiction that I have read in my entire life! I don’t want it to end! In my 64 years, I have read a lot of sci-fi. Much of it made me want to be an astronaut. But almost all of it was written by males with male main characters. That didn’t stop me from reading it. Had this been my reading diet as a young person I might have pushed myself beyond my bad math skills to aim for that dream. Fly to Mars and be a Martian citizen.

What I like most about this series is what I liked of Asimov’s books. The research is there. Cidney Swanson does one better, she gives the reader the opportunity to follow suggested links at the end of the book to learn about Mars, NASA, and other wonderful sciencey goodness.

But don’t get hung-up on the science. Ms. Swanson creates strong characters and builds believable worlds. Jess, the spit-fire pilot and her brother Ethan, a savant hacker, are flying to Earth, back, and beyond to save their home-world of Mars. The depth of characters and their relationships astounds me.

I could go on and on but book five is calling me. Please, if you get the chance, read the Saving Mars series. I think the trilogy is still $.99. Enjoy!

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A Story of River
A Story of River by Lana Axe
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I am one of the few people that finds Lord of the Rings to be the most boring, male chauvinist books around. So I have to say, that if you like LotR you might like this. I found myself wanting to read other books. I had a hard time liking any of the characters. The one I did like? Well, I think the author didn’t know what to do with that character. Too bad. She was the only female that wasn’t arm candy.

The last few chapters of the book were engaging but had I not felt I needed to read this, I wouldn’t have gotten that far. I hate to give such a mediocre review. It was free for an honest review so I felt I should. But like I said above, there are a lot of male nerds and geeks that would love this and want it to be a video game they could play in their mother’s basement. Bad Dar, snark much?

Oh, I did like the dryads and River, too bad the story didn’t surround those instead of evil and war. Meh.

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Review: Sacerdos


Sacerdos
Sacerdos by Elizabeth Amisu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Elizabeth Amisu has created a new world, similar to our own, but futuristic while encompassing old world beliefs.

I wouldn’t call Sacerdos a sci-fi but it feels like it at times. Mystery, though? Not cloak and dagger, gum-shoe type. What I have come away from this first book with, is the mysteries are the questions about this world and the main character, Caelara Lessien Teneo’s life and new found abilities. On that line, I would call this a fantasy. It is similar yet different from other young-adult fantasies I have read.

Before I get into the nitty-gritties, I do think young-adults who love fantasy will love this book. When it becomes available again, I think many of my issues will have been resolved. I may have become jaded on the YA fantasy genre. Please take that into account. Do notice that I did still give the book four stars. Much of that was for world and character development. Well done!

There were many errors, typos, etc. But the story held true no matter what; it kept me reading. There were many boring parts that had me questioning which book I should be reading instead. But again, I had grown to care about the main character enough so that I wanted to see what would happen next. There was war, and bullies. If you think it is bad going to one school with bullies you are snatched away for a time of R&R to another, colder school with wool blankets and more bullies. And more war. All that fighting wore on me. And though the book didn’t end on a true cliffhanger, I made sure that the next book is ready for me when I can read it. So, um, yeah. Almost excellent.

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The Descent Series: Vol.1
The Descent Series: Vol.1 by S.M. Reine
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sometimes when you read something that doesn’t work, you have to put it aside and come back with fresh eyes. That is what I had to do with this series. The first time I tried to read it I found myself getting messed up with the dates and years. This is where a tree book would have solved my problem quickly. But with the Kindle flipping through pages to see the beginnings of each chapter messes with the ability to sync between apps. So I let it go and started this again a couple days ago. I still had that date issue but plowed on through and–wow! I was glad I did! Turns out that things resolve themselves so that you can figure out if it is in the past or present moment. So don’t worry about it.

Okay. If anyone knows me, they know I am not into werewolves, angels and demons, etc. Nightmare stuff for me. So, take it from me, that S.M. Reine can tell a story that will keep you focused on nothing else but her story. Yeah, there is a lot of blood and guts, and all the above. Yet the characters she has inhabiting my world (yeah, Reno!) are likable and flawed. There is enough faith in these characters to know that the good guys win and make it a better place to live.

Did I mention Reno? Ms. Reine placed her story in my city and I could picture everywhere than she mentions in this book. I have to admit that I will keep on the lookout for zombies and giant spiders near the university. And watch out for demons here, everyone!

The pictures I see of the author make her look like she’s twelve, but she is a fantastic writer. Not a word is wasted, every word moves the story and you just can’t wait to see what her young mind can make real next. You would think I would understand how it is she writes so well with as many of hers books that I’ve read, but I am more amazed with each book.

For those of you just getting started I’d read the Seasons of the Moon series first and then move into the Cain Chronicles then you can do the side step into the Descent Series. I still have a couple more of those and then there is the Ascension series. I plan to read them all. I can’t get enough of this author’s words and worlds. Well done!

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Review: Submerged


Submerged
Submerged by Cheryl Kaye Tardif
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a ride! Submerged was like the scariest roller-coaster ride. You swear as you stand in line, that you might not even get on. You might turn around and watch everyone else ride. You read the warning signs about bad backs and weak hearts. But you like the author. You like her writing. Kind of like watching your friends get on the ride for the umpteenth time and egging you on. So you get on the ride and make sure the safety bar is down tight. You take a deep breath and hope you don’t barf, or get barfed on.

As usual, with a Cheryl Kaye Tardif novel, you know that there will be realistic situations with a cloud of mystery and macabre. There are lessons to be learned, like how to use the ResQme tool. I was fortunate to win one in a Submerged contest. I hope I never have to use it, but I feel a little safer by having it.

There are so many layers of story in this book. There is romance and terror, divorce and humor and in the middle of that there is family love and addictions. And even though it has some scary moments, I found that the author kept it from bogging down in the terrors. I doubt it will give me nightmares. But I will remember this book for a long, long time. I may even reread it someday. I highly recommend any of Ms. Tardif’s novels, but this may be her best yet.

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