Tag Archive: Reviews



The Selkie Spell
The Selkie Spell by Sophie Moss
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a gripping story. It started out with the fable about the selkie who lost her skin. We’ve all heard the tales. The author tells it well and blends in her story seamlessly. I enjoyed traveling to this island and feeling, in some way, like I was there, enjoying the sea breeze, smelling the salt, and roses. Sure, I had to suspend disbelief at times, but when reality was introduced, I found myself drowning in the starkness of it all.

There may be triggers for those that have been abused in their lifetimes, just a warning. But I think this was a good way to help with awareness of spousal abuse. It breaks the fallacy that it only happens in lower-class families. The book addresses the deterioration of self-esteem and building of self-doubt. But it doesn’t leave you feeling helpless. The story builds empowerment as the main character learns to trust again, in herself and others. And all this takes place with the beauty of Ireland all around.

I would suggest that this be for mature audiences as there is the above subject matter and a very hot sex scene or two. It is part of the story. If you feel that is something you don’t like to read, skip it and enjoy the story otherwise. It does leave you feeling good with all the threads tied up at the end. I want to read the next book. Luckily I already had it, but I didn’t feel I was left on a cliffhanger. I just want to know what happens next.

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Paint Stop Boom
Paint Stop Boom by Anna Sarelas
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Are you looking for something different? THIS is it! I don’t even know where to start with this book. I have had this on my to-read shelf for a couple years. To be honest the picture of a bomb on the cover kept me from reading it. Then, somehow, I had it mixed up with another book with a similar title that I had read a few pages and decided it wasn’t for me at the time. So… I have been trying to go through my lists and finding the oldest books recommended by authors. I know. My bad! But I would like to catch up with newer read-for-review books.

Can you tell I am putting off talking about this book? I still have no idea what to say about it. I finished it last night with enough time to start my next read. I couldn’t stay with the thoughts of this review no matter how hard I tried.

Impression: My shoulderblades and arms hurt from reading this book. If you read it it might affect you that way.

You have to put realism on the shelf with this one. There ya go, let it go. That done, I liked the characters, a lot. I grew to love them all, faults and all. Anna Sarelas had a way of writing that kept me reading, kept me caring. I loved her poetic flair. All my senses were involved engaging emotions most books don’t go near.

YET… I still couldn’t love it. Not sure who would. As a writer, I feel richer from reading this book, again, for the good and the bad. There were editing issues here and there, not enough to interrupt the read. Prose that made me sit up and notice. Prose that made me wish I could write like that. I probably won’t forget this book. Yet, I can only say I liked it. I didn’t love it. I challenge you all to read it to see what you think.

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Review: Released


Released
Released by Megan Duncan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Enough with the demons! That I feel this way is not the fault of the author, Megan Duncan. In fact, had I read this way back in April 2011, I might not have had demon overdose. But way back then, I don’t think I could have handled the blood and guts and smells this book evoked.

The overdose that I’ve acquired isn’t just in ugly demons. I am done with Young Adult books with girls that start strong but then fall in love and start getting hurt or fainting or crying. Oh, and the moody-angst! Had it up to here! Again, not the author’s fault. Her’s was probably one of the first of these genres.

When the teens leave their home at the beginning, I wondered why. Sure there were ugly demons that had killed everyone they knew, but if they are tough enough to move on, aren’t they tough enough, smart enough to kill the demons where they were?

Then, when the kids visit this elderly man, I wondered how he was doing so well and why not stay and pick his brain about how he was doing this alone. But they choose to leave. Well, that is typical teen behavior, it’s all about the indestructible teen on an adventure.

Okay, what did I like? I obviously cared or I wouldn’t have given the book three stars. In spite of myself, I loved the characters, especially the siblings, Abby and Carter. They made a good team and had a lot of smarts on their own. I loved the immediacy of the author’s writing. She kept me engaged in the story even when I wanted to stop due to the gruesomeness of the demon hounds. Oh, and I love the cover! That’s the Abby I want to know and love!

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Tears and Triumphs of a New Author
Tears and Triumphs of a New Author by Robert Thornhill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is for Kindle version ASIN B008ED36EC

Thank you, Robert Thornhill, for letting me read your book. I am so glad you had the giveaway day so that I could see the road ahead.

Mr. Thornhill has invited the readers in to view his life as a budding author. He tells how at the young age of 66 and retired, he found writing to be his passion, one he never knew he had. How this guy wrote so much and stayed so passionate about his subject matter and used just a finger and a thumb to typed two series plus this book, is absolutely amazing!

Since I have been on the road of writing through 11 books of my own, I understood that passion. But I must admit that I am a bit envious in that I don’t have a perfectionist wife to read my stories and get them to the next level. Still, I gleaned a lot of good ideas and feel more ready to start on the next steps.

I think all new authors would do well to read this personal account of the rollercoaster ride to publication. Robert never gives the opinion that he knows better than the rest of us. This is merely the paths he took and the lessons he learned. I found that refreshing.

AND this book got me curious enough to order his first book and see what its like. I’ve got to admit to loving the title.

My only problem with the book is the repetition. There were parts of his story that got repeated a few times. Being in the editing mode, I see that it can happen very easily. Hopefully, he and his editor/wife can look at that. From what I hear it is fairly easy to go into the Kindle versions and fix things.

Regardless, I will be sharing this book with writer friends of mine. We all need the kick in the butt to get to the next level like Mr. Robert Thornhill. Even this 64 year old youngin’!

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Power of Vitamin D
Power of Vitamin D by Sarfraz Zaidi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is, I think, the third book on the importance of Vitamin D in our lives that I’ve read recently. And I have to say this was the best written of them all. Though not as personable as the others, the design with the references at the end of each chapter, made it so much easier to get through. I could use the text-to-speech to save my eyes the strain and merely turn that feature off to page down to the next chapter without hearing long streams of numbers, dates, and names.

This was probably the most conservative of the books. Doctor Sarfraz Zaidi tended to recommend far less Vitamin D than the other authors had. He did admit, though, that there were very few studies of actual Vitamin D toxicity from overdose, which reflected what I read in the other ebooks about the subject. This would be a great book to start with in researching this important vitamin. It really isn’t a vitamin, but a hormone that we are globally deficient in.

On a personal note, one doctor told me I was deficient. The next doctor told me I was too high in Vitamin D. So I feel I have first-hand experience with the lack of knowledge that the medical world has. So I have taken the advice of all three books in upping my supplementation of D. I believe that my experience with ‘fibromyalgia’ is merely my deficiency of Vitamin D. As soon as I can I will have a better view of whether or not this is true. I am being cautious and not taking nearly what was recommended in the other two books. The only variable that concerns me is Summer. I always feel better in the Summer. Hopefully, by next Winter, I will have caught up on the vitamin. Maybe next year I won’t be stuck in bed all the time.

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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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