Category: Reviews



Ethereal Fury
Ethereal Fury by Jessica O’Gorek
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Disclaimer: I was given this Kindle ebook by the author for an honest review.

This book took me longer than it should have to read. It started out with strong pro-Earth promise. I was willing to see what was going to happen to this soul that hurt the planet so deeply. I love the fact that Earth spoke and had her own entity.

Ms. O’Gorek’s writing and characters were awesome! Even the demons seem to have depth. That would have rated five stars. BUT I am not Catholic, nor do I hold to their priests being holy. I think that on a whole religion and particularly the Catholic church has caused more damage than a million demons could. And to watch these main characters put up with the restraint imposed upon them by the church was more than painful. And what does all this have to to with the oil in the other side of the planet? The book never addressed that again. In my mind that lowered the rating to three stars. So I averaged it out in my system to a 3.5 and rounded up.

Oh, and my worst possible complaint: cliffhanger! If it left me with more of a feeling about where the series is going. If it left me with a few tied up loose ends. Either of those would have helped me want to read the next book. A suggestion that might help is the first chapter of the next book or s blurb that entices the reader to look further into this story.

A note: Since I read using my tablet or fire on occasion, I found the font brightness changing from dim to bright and back again. It wasn’t my settings. I was forced to use my 2nd generation Kindle and used text-to-speech to get through. I don’t know if this font this is an issue that can be addressed easily, but for some of us with weaker eyes, that is nearly a deal breaker. Luckily I do use tts a lot so I could still flow with the story.

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Review: Vitality


Vitality
Vitality by M.A. George
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Want a light read that is fun and full of adventures? This series offers all that. As I said in my review of the previous book, this is a combination of sci-fi/fantasy/YA/Romance.

I love the characters and their talents. What I still have a problem with is that the main character only uses hers to get herself in trouble. She is immature for 118, she’s immature for 18. And the constant fainting is just annoying. At least the author has the character and her friends acknowledge this trait. What is even more annoying is that this is supposed to be a person that is a doctor and scientist. She has gone through all that schooling and has dealt with people going back to Churchill. She is long past teen tantrums. As for her taking chances, that might be less too with maturity. Not that she has any of the horrid aches and pains or fragileness of old age, but just an ability to foresee who she is putting at risk by her actions should be called to mind.

Even so, when you let all that go, this is a fun read. I loved all three books in the series, Proximity, Relativity and this one Vitality. I think even late grade school students would enjoy this. I would have read and enjoyed it had it been around for me in fifth or sixth grades. There is very little science, it is merely alluded to with space travel and other innovations. The talents these aliens possess are more what feels fantasy. Oh, and there is one human from Earth. How I wish he would have been more involved.

Oh, the romance! Not my thing. Have at it girls! In fact, that is why I don’t think guys will like this so much. Still, it was a nice book to escape into.

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Review: Relativity


Relativity
Relativity by M.A. George
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What if there was a marriage of fantasy/sci-fi/romance/YA? What would it look like? Look no more. It’s here. Written from the aliens’ point of view, the ones in love, future King and Queen of a planet, not Earth. Earth is where the main characters lived in secret hiding from the bad guys from their own planet. But that was the last book, book 1. In this one, we get the space travel and battles. And love…

For me that was the part I didn’t like. The gooey-eyed lovy-doviness of it all. Though the main character is 118 years old she acts as a pouty, immature 16 year old. Luckily the man (alien) of her dreams is more mature. I’m so glad there is a lot more story around this young adult(?) fiction. Oh, and I hate when the main character is knocked unconscious and is weak and puny. Ugh! When I was a teen I would have read this and passed it to my romance-crazy friend. Heinlein this wasn’t. Still I assume that young girls who have stars in their eyes would like it.

Space travel and the fantasy parts of finding talents the characters didn’t know they had, that’s what I love!. In spite of what I didn’t like, I found that Ms. George writes a well and tells a unique tale. And I almost forgot to write this as I had already started reading book 3. It has hooked me in spite of myself!

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ARENA ONE: SLAVERUNNERS
ARENA ONE: SLAVERUNNERS by Morgan Rice
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Oh, I am so mad!!!!! I hate when this happens. I’m trying to clean up on books that have been sitting around for a long time. In this case, it was a Smashwords freebie. I know, what did I want for free? Nowhere did the ebook announce that it was a sample. I was reading along with the text-to-speech going. The indicator said I would finish this book in an hour. I thought it was a short story and I could free up a tiny amount of space if I read it. An hour later was an actual cliffhanger with the advertisement to get the real book on Amazon, Kobo, etc. So grumbling I clicked on the URL and saw that the real thing was actually FREE. Had it cost anything I would have backed away. But then the Amazon ad came up that I could get the Audible version for only $1.99. So I got it.

So far I kind of like the main character. I find it impossible that she and her sister had lived alone for so long and her not know how to hunt and fish. What have they been living off of? Then there is a tree that falls over from pushing it with her knife edge. TOO many impossible things. If she hadn’t ridden on the motor bike for a long time, what makes her think she can drive it at such horrendous speeds? Okay, I know, I should have suspended disbelieve and just enjoyed it as a tale.

I think I will let this one go at one star for now, let some time go by and come back in with the narrator helping me.

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The Witch Sea
The Witch Sea by Sarah Diemer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Talk about overdoing it. I picked up the free version on Smashwords.com. Then forgot I had it and picked up the free one on Amazon! By the way, it is still free on both sites.

This was a short but sweet book. I loved the characters Nor, the sea person, and Meriel, the witch. Though there is a brief romantic tryst between the characters, it didn’t overpower the story. I liked that for the quick read.

I loved how both characters came together to understand they could help each other as they were both prisoners of their respective dwellings. I loved the descriptions of sea and surf.

Short stories are not my thing. They always make me want to know more about the characters, and learn what happens next. I love knowing people in my real life in a deeper way. I want to know what they think, what makes them tick. I am very bad at social small talk. So I think that is why short stories don’t appeal to me. Sorry.

Anyway, if you are so inclined, check out this sweet story.

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The Well of Loneliness
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked up this ebook through this website:
https://www.free-ebooks.net/ebook/The-Well-of-loneliness And yes, it was free. It was quite a while ago so I had to do some searching to figure out where it came from.

This book was very relatable. If you have ever felt like you didn’t belong to the norm for whatever reason, you understand the loneliness of the main character. Parents set you up? Check. Parents, relatives and friends find you weird? Check. All those feelings are beautifully, nearly poetically spelled out.

With the flavor of pre-WWI English, similar to Jane Austin the main character looks for love and feel quite unlovable. She learned that she doesn’t go for men but rather for women. The word ‘lesbian’ isn’t used. Gay refers to the tablecloth. In a time when all of this was far less accepted as it is now, one finds that we haven’t come as long a way as we may hope.

This story is anguishing and sad. It made my blood boil. It was tender. There are times when the tears are so close. BUT it was dreadfully boring at times. I read it on my Tablet using Moon Reader Pro so it could read to me. I tried very hard to read while listening, but there were times I got so distracted that I realized that whole chapters had whizzed on by.

Some consider this a classic and it does have that feel about it. It’s worth reading so that you can say you did. Maybe, if a read person narrated it it would keep my interest all the way through. I wonder if it has ever been made into a movie? I think it could be done quite well. The author gave many descriptions of gardens and lakes. It could be visually delicious!

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The Girl in the Green Raincoat
The Girl in the Green Raincoat by Laura Lippman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the mystery book. I do not know how it came into my hands. It just appeared. I had let it sit on the shelf for a while and then finally decided that I could try with very good lighting and short reading times, that I could read it.For someone with good eyesight this may actually be a short read. But for me it took longer. I liked that the spaces between lines made it easier than most paperbacks. In fact, this is the perfect book for a summer read, or plane ride.

It was fun, even though there was murder involved. At least the blood and gore was kept to a minimum. As the author points out it was fashioned from the movie, Rear Window. One of the few Hitchcock movies that didn’t leave me shaking.

The characters were believable and likable. The stories within the story were all great asides without taking over and took me in. All in all, a fun short read (well not for me, but you know what I mean).

Because no one claimed the book I registered it on BookCrossing.com
BCID: 393-12573558

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Vitamin D Revolution
Vitamin D Revolution by Soram Khalsa
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Though I loved the information I picked up from this book, I found it boring and repetitive. The information I really wanted was tucked into the last few pages, yet by then I think I had figured it out. Like many non-fiction books, this one followed the method of telling us there’s a problem, why we have the problem, and what research has been done. The problem was repeated over and over.

On the other hand, my personal experience with my doctors has made me more than curious about this vitamin. One doctor told me that I was vitamin D deficient. The next doctor told me I was too high in this vitamin, that it was toxic. This book proves that it is nearly impossible to have toxic amounts of D. That our bodies use this vitamin completely. And it seems that I have all the symptoms of adult rickets. Those are the symptoms of fibromyalgia, at least my experience of it. And I am now taking the amount of vitamin D that the first doctor advised me to take. I will follow through and get tested soon. And I will continue to research this and other methods to find my health again.

I would love to hear from others who have read this book or followed the higher vitamin D intake and find out how well it works for them. I do think people who are having health issues and those who would want to keep themselves healthy would find this book informational, at least.

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Lost in Prophecy
Lost in Prophecy by S.M. Reine
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, at least I didn’t finish this after midnight! This is non-stop action from beginning to end. I find myself panting a little from all the running, and fighting.

In fact, it is all that fighting that I found overwhelming. Though I love Elise Cavanaugh, I agree more with the pacifist, Rylie. Surely our kind of book would be boring with everyone just getting along. And, no doubt, this is the story the characters fed to the inkster, S.M. Reine. But, oh, my gosh! Can’t I breathe a moment?

Once again, I longed for a character list as some folks are brought back that I couldn’t place until they are explained in answer to others’ questions. Still once I knew who they were I could understand why they were there.

This book left me feeling the cliffhanger. Maybe with all the books that came before, I could have handled it with some grace, but I have to wait until summer to find out what happens.

I have the first book of the next series lined up, but I am a little concerned that I need to finish the Ascension series before jumping into Preternatural Affairs. This has been a fun bunch of books to read. I love Sara’s writing, very strong and in the moment.

Though this ARC was given to me for an honest review, I found very few problems. In fact, if there were errors I didn’t notice as the story kept me going. Can’t wait for summer!

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Caged in Bone
Caged in Bone by S.M. Reine
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Whew! Another 3:30 morning for sleep. Today I slept until nearly 3:00 in the afternoon. Caged in Bone was so stimulating that I just couldn’t go to sleep even when I finished reading it. Sure we were left in a safe spot having a few threads tied up. But you could tell there was more. Luckily, I was too tired to see if I had the next book ready so I didn’t start reading it yet. I am itchy to get started on it, though.

Have I mentioned that I love Elise Cavanough? After this many books with her as the main character, I nearly think of her as real. Heck, she did live in Reno for quite a while; she could have been a neighbor. **wink**

This book is a continuation of the stories before, saving Heaven (Shamain), trying to resurrect someone we love (sorry, Spoilers!) all the while each character fighting their own personal demons, real and imagined. The book grabs you and won’t let go.

By the way, disclaimer: I was given this book by the author for an honest review. So I say, those five stars and my review are fully an honest reaction to a fantastic book in a fantastic series of serieses (is that a word?).

Please read these books. Starting with Seasons of the Moon series, then Cain Chronicles, then Descension and Ascension (which I think I am nearing the end) then the newest one is the Preternatural Affairs series. I can’t wait!

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