Monday, November 30, 2015

Twice Lucky

22859856
Synopsis:
Mackenzie “Mouse” James’s life is all about firefighting. Being a firefighter fills her waking hours, leaving her too tired to think, to socialize, or to put herself out there. A large part of Sarah Macarthur’s success as a doctor is due to the structure and control that she has established to help her cope when all the elements are thrown her way.



A chance encounter late one rainy night brings Mac’s and Sarah’s worlds together. As danger draws closer, they are tested in ways neither had ever imagined. Both must fight far more than fear—they will need to fight for the lives of those they love.

Review:
I found this to be book average finding both good and bad characteristics. I will start out with the aspects of the book that I found positive. The prose is descriptive and humorous. Also, the author is creative with her wording. It is innovative making Thomas deaf then providing a connection with sign language between him and Mac who knew sign language since her late brother was deaf and also tying in Nell the deaf dog. Another great aspect is how dedicated Mac is to her job as a firefighter likewise having an immense internal strength.


There are some things about the story that I found faulty. Both Mac and Sarah had not been in relationships for a long time. For Mac, that was due to a tragedy. For me, it did not seem right that they jumped into a full blown relationship so fast. Next the violence at the end was too much. It is incredibly overdone and very brutal. Overall this was not a bad book. It is just one of those reads that you read once and move on.

        
Thanks to Netgalley for letting me give an honest review

Saturday, November 21, 2015

The Time Chamber

25430760

SYNOPSIS:
This second book in the bestselling Time coloring series features the voyage of a fairy who, when the cuckoo clock chimes midnight, enters the human world. To the tiny fairy, everything seems enormous and magical, from the curtains to the chandelier to a mystical rowboat that takes her further into an inky adventure. With her, she packs her favorite items, which colorers can find throughout the book’s pages: an owl-feathered pen, a star-scented spray, a time tape measure…even the key to the time chamber itself!


REVIEW:
The Time Chamber gives coloring books a whole new essence. This is something magical for any age group if you enjoy coloring though it might just draw you in due to the beauty even if you don't. The amazing pictures you color revolve around a small story to help describe what is taking place in this fairie's world. A fairy who lives inside a cuckoo clock. It contains remarkably intricate drawings on high-quality cardstock pages. Due to the thickness of the pages it allows you to color with anything from markers to colored pencils. You will find it difficult to decide on which picture you enjoy the best, but I think How Do You Measure time & Dancing on the Thread is breathtaking. If you have no type of artistic talent like me this finally gives you one.  I found it is a little harder than some people might think. The only thing that I would change is to make the fairies ears pointy and give her little wings because to me that is what a fairy is. I cannot wait to get the first book.

"I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."


Like Family

27285237


Written by Paolo Giordano
Pages 146
On-sale: December 1st
ISBN: 9780525428763

SYNOPSIS:
"When a young married couple hire a middle-aged widow during the wife, Nora's, difficult pregnancy, they don't realize the dominating force she will become in their small family. Signora A--maid, nanny, and confidante--becomes the glue in their household, and over time, the steady and loving presence whose benign influence allows them to negotiate the complexities of married life. But the delicate fabric of the young family comes undone when Signora A is diagnosed with lung cancer. After she becomes too sick to work, both husband and wife feel the strain of her absence. Moving seamlessly between the past and present, Giordano weaves together the layers of Signora A's devotion and sacrifice--from her early experiences of love during a tragically short marriage, to her adoration of her new surrogate family. Highlighting the joy of youth and the fleeting nature of time with remarkable precision and lyricism, Paolo Giordano gives us a meditation on life, death, and the relationships we build in between. Like Family is not a simple love story; it's a story about love in its many forms, and how a capacity for love can give meaning to any existence, no matter how ordinary"
Review:
This author wrote an exquisitely beautiful book about love and family thereupon demonstrating throughout that random people who come into your life can become family. Likewise, exhibiting how love can change a person's feelings and behavior. Written from the viewpoint of Giordano inspired by his own personal experiences with his own Mrs. A despite the fact this book is considered a work of fiction. Mrs. A came into this family's life when Dora, the wife, was on bedrest due to complications with her pregnancy to help around the house, she fits in so well she stayed with them after Emanuele was born becoming a part of the family. A loving part of the family, but preferred this were done her way:

“Then let me into the kitchen to explain what does you should cook for dinner, how to reheat them so they wouldn't dry out and where to put the dirty pots and pans after work. “don't bother washing them, I'll do it tomorrow” she's always had at the beginning I disobeyed her, but when I saw that in the morning she redid the dishes I’d washed anyway, I gave into her command.”

Even though this is not a very long read it is abundant with pertinent knowledge for life. Such as, knowing when to change a behavior that is holding you back in a relationship with someone you love, letting go of traditions that do not make you happy and starting new ones that do, fighting for a person you love but also knowing when you need to let them go. I learned an abundance regarding love, family, and loss from this book. I know for a fact that I will be rereading Like Family over again many times. I hope you will read this book too. Another quote to finish my review. This takes place after a wig is specially made for Mrs. A:

“In the frenzy we forgot to take the wooden dummy. I go back to retrieve it a few days later, by myself. I tell the same girl, “excuse me, but the lady lost her head.” She, however, does not smile, perhaps the joke is in bad taste... One afternoon I offer a  young colleague a ride home. He gets into the car, he looks up, puzzle. “And just what we are doing with this?” he asks. Then, giving me no time to explain, he bows to kiss her lipless face.”    

I would like to thank “Pamela Dorman Books” for letting me give an honest review


AUTHOR:
Paolo Giordano is a professional physicist and is currently working on a doctorate in particle physics. The Solitude of Prime Numbers, his first novel, took Italy by storm where it has sold over a million copies. It is being translated into twenty languages and has sold all over the world.

Book Blitz & GIVEAWAY


Before the Dawn by Lindsey Fairleigh & Lindsey Pogue
(The Ending #4)
Publication date: November 20th, 2015
Genres: New Adult, Post-Apocalyptic, Romance


Synopsis:
A year ago, the Virus killed off most people in the world. 

A year ago, strange things started happening to those who survived. Some of them transformed into something dark and sinister, while others evolved, becoming something more, something beyond human.

A year ago, Dani and Zoe were lost. They traversed the country to find one another, losing some of the people dearest to them along the way. They fought for their right to simply live, uncovered long-buried secrets, and discovered irreversible truths. And after everything Dani and Zoe have been through—even with the battle wounds that they bear—they’re still not safe.

It’s time for the struggling to end, for survivors to take back their lives, their families, their safety. It’s time to really begin to live, and to do that, they must wait for the first rays of dawn.


Excerpt - Zoe
For three hours, I’d been sitting at the dining room table, my sketchpad washed in the baleful color of late morning that shone through the narrow windows, overlooking what appeared to be a deserted farm. Everyone was hiding indoors, dehydrating food, wrenching, painting, and—in Annie’s case—playing with kitties, all sheltered from the sudden downpour.
Hearing the creak of the front door opening, I looked up. Tavis stepped inside, rain dripping off his coat as he leaned forward and peered into the dining room at me, his feet planted firmly on the welcome mat.
“Hey,” I said, folding my arms in front of me.
Tavis smiled, his warm, customary greeting. “Morning.” But even in his natural, easy air, there was something about the way he looked at me that made even the slightest linger of his gaze and the quickest glance seem like something more. I could’ve pried, could’ve peeked and prodded, but I was a little too hesitant to learn the reason.
“You seen our animal whisperer anywhere? We’ve got a horse with colic out here. We could use her Ability.” Tavis pointed to his head.
His facial expressions always made me laugh, and I couldn’t help but smile back at him as I glanced outside. Darker clouds approached quickly from the west. “She’s out with Jason,” I said, “foraging. Hopefully they’ll be home soon.”
“Ah, foraging,” he said with a wink. “Got it.” And then he was out the door, and I watched as he strode back toward the stable.
I took a sip of lukewarm coffee, settling back into work mode, and let out a sigh as I stared down at the start of my second blueprint of the day. I tapped my charcoal pencil on the tabletop and glanced between Jason’s hasty, ill-proportioned sketch and my own, hoping I was interpreting his floorplans for the new smokehouse accurately. I’d gotten quite good at looking past his scribbled letters and numbers, relying mostly on the arrows and the drawing itself to help me decipher the rest.
Footsteps creaking overhead and feminine laughter were followed by a muffled “You wish, buddy” that floated down the stairs of the otherwise silent house. No wonder Harper had been so anxious to rearrange the infirmary. Chris laughed again, a sound I’d been hearing more and more frequently over the months. My eyebrow rose of its own accord, and I reached for the mug beside my sketchpad. A contented smile splayed my lips as I appreciated the happy routine we’d all seemed to fall into, gloomy weather or no.
After draining the contents of my mug, I absently set it aside, deciding the beams in the smokehouse roof needed to be closer together if they were going to support the wide—
An ear-piercing cry rolled in with the distant rumble of thunder.
Eyes narrowed and heartbeat thrumming, I jumped to my feet and gazed through the window at the gravel drive. Opening my mind, I felt Dani’s desperation and anguish before I even saw her.
“—shot!” With hair matted from the rain and her clothes drenched, Dani sprinted clumsily up the driveway, her eyes wide with terror. “He’s been shot!

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Lindsey Fairleigh
lives her life with one foot in a book—as long as that book transports her to a magical world or bends the rules of science. Her novels, from post-apocalyptic to time travel and historical fantasy, always offer up a hearty dose of unreality, along with plenty of adventure and romance. When she’s not working on her next novel, Lindsey spends her time reading and trying out new recipes in the kitchen. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her two very confused cats.
http://www.lindseyfairleigh.com/
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Lindsey Pogue
has always been a little creative. As a child she established a bug hospital on her elementary school soccer field, wrote her first YA manuscript in high school, and as an adult, expresses herself through writing. Her novels are inspired by her observations of the world around her—whether she’s traveling, people watching or hiking. When not plotting her next storyline or dreaming up new, brooding characters, Lindsey’s wrapped in blankets watching her favorite action flicks or going on road trips with her own leading man.             http://www.lindseypogue.com/

Friday, November 13, 2015

PARALYZED

27423786

Kennedy Stern has returned to campus after surviving an abduction, but old scars cut deep. Vivid flashbacks and terrifying dreams paralyze her, threatening to ruin her academic career and any chance she has at peace or happiness. This mental anguish, however, constitutes only a small fraction of her post-traumatic nightmare.
A partner in Kennedy’s kidnapping remains at large and will not stop until he has silenced her witness permanently. His violent resolve risks not only her life but the safety of anyone who tries to help.
Kennedy must engage in a deadly battle of the mind as she struggles to stay alive. While fighting on two fronts — one psychological and one physical — the question isn’t whether she’ll come out of the war stronger in the end.
The question is whether she’ll come out of it at all.
The newest release from inspirational suspense author, Alana Terry, who Christian Fiction has won awards from Women of Faith, Grace Awards, Readers' Favorite, and several others.
REVIEW:
This is not the first Alana Terry novel that I have read also including the first Kennedy Stern novel and have high regards for her writing. Paralyzed is a book you will pick up and keep saying just one more chapter until you have no more pages left to turn. Whereas, in some series you do not need to start with the first novel to gather the scheme of everything this is not one of them. Indeed, you need to read Unplanned before reading this book or a great deal of the plot will be hard to understand. Regarding the prose, it flowed effortlessly, allowing the reader a smooth reading experience contrary to the story jumping around losing the reader in pandemonium. The reader additionally gets to establish a deeper understanding of the major characters that have been a part of both books.

What I enjoyed tremendously about the book is the use of PTSD in the storyline. Is Kennedy being over distraught or is someone actually after her? What was real and when is her mind just playing tricks on her? is it both? A few parts confused me. One, when Kennedy and Reuben were on the stopped subway why run away from Reuben who could protect her instead she ran into the unknown darkness. Two, It was obvious she was having a panic attack when her chemistry final was beginning when she went to get water and thought she saw a man who might be after her, why not go back into the classroom full of other people instead of running aimlessly around campus? What also brought down the book for me the suspense lacked the intensity as the first book which, happens in a lot of series. I perceive the next Kennedy Stern Suspense Christian Suspense Novel will be exultant!
Thank you, Alana Terry, for letting me give an honest review
All proceeds between now and Thanksgiving will be donated to the Fold Family Ministries, a Christian home for at-risk teens!  


Tuesday, November 10, 2015

SUGAR SKULLS & BOOK GIVEAWAYS


Sugar Skulls by Glenn Dallas and Lisa Mantchev
Published by Skyscape
Publication date: November 10th 2015
Genres: Dystopia, New Adult, Science Fiction


Synopsis:
Welcome to Cyrene, a city where energy is currency and music is the lifeblood of its young citizens. Everyone lives on the grid, and the residents of the world’s largest playground are encouraged to pursue every physical and emotional pleasure imaginable.

Vee is the lead singer of the Sugar Skulls, an all-girl band that is Corporate’s newest pet project. Micah haunts the city like a ghost after an overdose of a deadly illegal street drug knocks him off the grid. When Micah and Vee forge an immediate, undeniable connection, their troubled worlds collide.

Trading concert stages for Cyrene’s rooftops and back alleys, they have to evade vicious thugs and Vee’s possessive manager as they unravel the mysteries connected to their dark pasts. And before the curtain falls, Micah and Vee will bring the city to its knees in their desperate bid for love, home, and a future together.


M
She looks straight at me. Gazes at me. Gazes through me.
The first note slips past her lips. It rolls over the crowd, and they’re instantly hers, already amped and soaring higher. There’s nothing quite like popping your Cyrene cherry, and a hundred newbies are experiencing it all around me as their nanotech processes the music, the drugs, the booze.
I miss that.
So it damn near knocks me on my ass when her words smash into me, and inside I unfold, like flesh-and-blood origami. Hands numb, mouth dry, blood on fire. I just stand there, rigid, muscles refusing to respond. Can’t move. Gotta move. Too exposed here. But her voice runs through my veins like napalm.
For a moment, a long moment, an eternity of a moment, I’m lost. This . . . this is impossible. Flutters and tingles and frissons long absent, jolting me as dormant synaptic pathways are jarred back into service. If strings ran up my spine, she just plucked the high E, a fierce vibration that shakes me to my core.
She looks away, and quakes subside into mere tremors. I close my eyes, welcoming new sine waves of sensation for three sharp breaths, then open them again, back in control. Propping myself up against the bar, I abandon my drink to process the last few seconds.
All these months, there’s been nothing. But just now? I felt it. I feel it. I pulse with life, lightning dancing across my skin as she batters the crowd with furious verses.
But I’m stuck on that first gasp.
One note. One word. She laid me low and resurrected me in one fell swoop.
Who is this girl?
V
Wrapping the microphone cord around my hand, I really lay into the lyrics, jacking straight into the brains of the audience. The boys and girls slosh around the pit like iridescent-foamed water in a dirty fish tank.
Except for the guy. The guy at the bar with the piercing gaze and the messy hair and the look of a lost soul. I’m too far away to see the color of his eyes, and he isn’t wearing anything worth noticing. Not the sharp edges of clothes fresh off the rack. Not the silver glint of a dozen facial piercings. None of the writhing subdermal implants or interchangeable magnetic tattoos that are the latest trends to hit hard and fast. At least, not any I can see from my vantage point. Black shirt and jeans that help him fade into the background. Dark blond, lacking all the bleach and color of anyone who spends any time in the sun or a salon. Even leaning back, every line of his body indicates a readiness to bolt.
I force my attention back to the pit, determined not to spare him another thought.
Just another gig, Vee. Just another audience. Get through the song, already.
M
Need to move. Need to run. Should run. Should get out of here.
It takes supreme effort to tear my attention away from her long enough to acknowledge her partners in crime. Treble summons entire orchestras and metal bands from her laptop and synth with a few frenzied keystrokes. Trouble snarls with hungry delight as she channels torrents of sound with a pair of haptic gloves, manipulating the very notes midstream like an angry sorceress as holographic turntables whirl in the foreground.
But front and center, there’s Her. She’s a creature of myth, with Her siren song and Her banshee wail. The set’s barely begun, but the hive’s heart and my heart both beat to Her drum.
Our eyes finally meet again, and I’m thrown back into a surging sea. When that first note hit, I was a drowning man finally breaking the surface. This time, the current simply takes me.
Outside, I betray nothing. Cucumber-cool and casual, even as Her eyes narrow and Her gaze bores into me. My crippled nervous system allows little else to show. But inside, I’m a being of crystal, oscillating in perfect harmony.
Running is the last thing on my mind now.
V
I should call a bouncer and have him ejected. Injected. Hauled off for a diagnostic and a thorough probing. There’s something not right. Not right with him. Not right with the way he looks at me or the way the song pours into him like water into the desert.
I force myself to look away, to push through the next song. If it’s not working for him, he’ll leave, right? He’ll go register a complaint with the main office, and they’ll roll up to the Loft and ask a lot of questions that boil down to the same freaking one I have:
Why isn’t he responding to the music?
Approaching the end of the set, the lyrics get rough around the edges, liable to rip if I lean into them any more than I already am. Everyone below me is frantic, writhing. Thrum output’s still on the rise as the lasers scan the crowd, gather up the ambient energy and funnel it away. Neat, clean, efficient—and why we’re all here.
Except for the guy leaning against the bar. Separate from the others. Motionless. Gaze latched on me like he’s dying and I have the cure in my pocket.
That’s when I realize he’s responding, all right. Just not the way I expected.
Fuck the grid. I’m the one with the power right now.
M
The mood is shifting. The air is thick with it, the crowd buzzing and overstimulated, neurons firing and misfiring as the hive responds to Her rage, and She unleashes it. I swear, the ground trembles with thumping bass lines. She just might bring Hellcat Maggie’s down around us.
Now Her eyes won’t leave mine. She’s no longer the eye of the storm; She’s the storm itself, pounding the crowd and sweeping them along with Her.
V
I’m pushing it. I can feel the stress building in the new thrum-collectors like a force field against my bare arms, my throat, my lips. It’s too much for this crowd, too, their fresh nanotech already blitzed out and buzzing. I should dial it back. Get backstage. Take a handful of pills. Chill the fuck out.
It’s been a year since the last blowout, the last blackout. Three hundred and sixty-five days of uninterrupted consciousness flushed down the toilet for the sake of some asshole staring at me from the bar.
I twist the microphone out of the stand and launch into something new. To hell with the set list. To hell with Corporate-approved garbage. I find words that have been bouncing around in my head for so long that I can spit them out now, perfect and round. “It’s all just screams and whispers, just prettied-up and dyed. Your fuck-façade all faded, a tarnished future bride . . .”
Somewhere behind me, Jax loses her shit.
“What the hell are you doing?” she shouts over the thumping rhythm that’s our artificial heartbeat. “Break time! Sasha’s gonna wet ’em, and I need a hit of silvertip!”
Despite the protest, she turns up every dial and pushes up every slide, fingers moving over the touchscreens with brutal efficiency. Sasha’s already pulling in chants from sixteenth-century monasteries and screams recorded in hospital waiting rooms. I can feel the fluid in my inner ears pulsing.
I’m going to get a reaction out of our silent onlooker, even if I fall headfirst into a blackout.
So I let him have it, all the words and the anger and betrayal and despair I hold in my hummingbird heart. The rest of the crowd moans and sways, crashing into each other, molecules colliding. Hellcat Maggie shouts something at Sasha, then tries the headset, but all I get from my earpiece is crackling feedback that drives me hard into the next verse.
I lock eyes with the stranger, vomiting up all my dark, dirty guts for him to see. Below me, the flotsam holds itself upright. If these people were pleasantly giddy before, now they’re stumbling drunk. A few fall and are dragged to the side by security. A couple kisses so hard that blood trickles from the corners of their mouths. A threesome in the back crashes into an alcove, tearing the velvet curtains from their brass rod.
I can’t stop myself now. I close out the set with a crescendo that drives everyone and everything off a cliff and into glorious sonic freefall.

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Lisa Mantchev is the acclaimed author of Ticker and the Théâtre Illuminata series, which includes Eyes Like Stars, nominated for a Mythopoeic Award and the Andre Norton Award. She has also published numerous short stories in magazines, including Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, Weird Tales, and Fantasy. She lives on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State with her husband, children, and horde of furry animals. http://lisamantchev.com/
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When not working on puzzles for Penny Press or writing about them for PuzzleNation, Glenn Dallas is an author of short stories and at least half of one novel. After appearing in the acknowledgments of several outstanding novels, he looks forward to returning the favor in the future.

Monday, November 9, 2015

DOC'S CODICIL by GARY F. JONES

Book Description: 
When Wisconsin veterinarian Doc dies, his family learns that to

inherit his fortune, they must decipher the cryptic codicil he added to
his will—“Take Doofus squirrel-fishing”—and they can only do that by
talking to Doc’s friends, reading the memoir Doc wrote of a Christmas
season decades earlier, searching through Doc’s correspondence, and
discovering clues around them. Humor abounds as this mismatched lot
tries to find time in their hectic lives to work together to solve the
puzzle. In the end, will they
realize that fortune comes in many guises?



Doc’s
Codicil is a mystery told with gentle humor. It tells the story of a
veterinarian who teaches his heirs a lesson from the grave.

Purchase on Amazon.   

REVIEW:
It has been a long time since I read a book that made me laugh as hard as this one did. Slap-stick comedy plays a big role in the plot as does riddles and mystery. The plot jumps back and forth between 1987-88 and 2014 and this is not hard to follow as the plot flows perfectly throughout the book. There are a lot of characters involved in the story making it slightly difficult in the beginning to keep track of who everyone is yet I found everyone falls into place after a couple chapters. This is because the story revolves around a large family with many friends. Whereas, the book has a great sense of humor it also makes you think about your life and the dreams and ideas you have for it. What would you risk to follow through on an idea that keeps nagging at you? You know what I mean that little voice in your head that keeps telling you to take a chance. I would like to tell you a little bit about my favorite part, but there are too many. This is no doubt a great read for anyone. I would hands down, take Doofus squirrel-fishing!

I would like to thank the author for letting me give an honest review
  


About the Author: 

It seems my life has been a testament to questionable decisions and
lost opportunities. However, my wife of 39 years says she knows of
nothing in the record to justify such unfettered optimism.



I am a member of the last generation of rural veterinarians who
remember working with cows that had names and personalities and dairymen
who worked in the barn with their families. I’m also part of the first
wave of the Baby Boomers, crusty codgers who are writing their wills and
grousing about kids who don’t pay attention to what old men say, and
can even be damned condescending at times.



I was raised on a dairy farm in West-central Wisconsin and exhibited
Holstein cattle and Clydesdale horses from the time I was ten-years-old
until I graduated from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Michigan
State in 1969. I practiced veterinary medicine on Wisconsin dairy farms
until 1988, when my wife and I packed up our four children and I entered
graduate school at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul.

I developed the first ante-mortem diagnostic test for proliferative
enteritis, a diarrheal disease of swine caused by Lawsonia
intracellularis. The test is now the standard diagnostic test for the
disease. With adoption of the test, it was also found that L.
intracellularis is the most common cause of post-weaning diarrhea in
horses.



After 19 years of work on the research and development of bovine and
swine vaccines, I am retired. I’m using the scraps of what I can
remember to spin stories of a family and veterinary practice, stories
that could almost be true. Some of the true stories that didn’t make it
into my books can be found on this website.



My first novel, Doc’s Codicil, will be published in October 2015. I have two published short stories: Valentine, published in Straightjacket, the 2012 spring issue, and The Attempted Armed Deposit, in the 2009 California Writers Club Chap Book. http://garyfjones.com/