International Review of Books - Winter Edition by BooksGoSocial

DEC 2018

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International Review of books magazine Executive Editor - Laurence O’Bryan Editor-in-Chief - Tanja Slijepčević Reviews Editor - Kathy Denver Graphic Designer - Mirna Gilman Ranogajec

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Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s letter You are very welcome to our International Review of Books magazine! Hey readers and authors! The International Review of Books came into existence half-way through the month of September and boy have we hit the ground running. To those of you who have used our services, thank you. Our reviewers have enjoyed reading your awesome work and I have loved playing my part in helping you gain your editorial review. For those of you who are only hearing of our service let me explain the concept. We offer our reviewers up to help you gain an editorial review. What is an editorial review?

This is a review for you to use on your Amazon Author Central page. This is not a fan review, this is a professional review given by one of our experienced reviewers (many of which are known bloggers or Amazon Top Reviewers). The reviews are offered in three tiers: A short review/blurb (usually 2-3 sentences in length). A review of up to 250 words along with a Âź page advert in this very magazine. A review of 250+ words along with a Â˝ page advert in this magazine. You can see examples Included throughout this edition. Amazing books and reviews from our brilliant team at The International Review of Books. We review many genres.. Kathy Denver, Reviews Editor International Review of Books Magazine

This was a good historical romance. The main character is developed well enough that you care about what happens to her.

A rip roaring teen or YA fantasy adventure that pushes three friends to the limit, as they try and follow each of their quests to their heart’s desire.

The story ﬂows well, and the captions with the date help show the passage of time. The descriptions are vivid and do not overwhelm the story or slow it down. I enjoyed the book.

Power corrupts, and we are left wondering if Roland will fall into savagery or rise to glory with his new and unbeatable power. A simple and fun read.

The title itself is not only a list of items shoplifted but also recalls a more historical sense of bondage. The novella reads almost like a ﬂashback confession on a police drama. The author includes more details that would usually appear in a simple recollection and manages to describe a crime that was committed out of compassion. The story carries several morals and complexities that may take more than a simple reading to ﬁnd.

With Emma Cabezas being the only narrator in the book, it’s a little bit harder to see other characters’ points of view. The reader can empathize as she makes her way through her long and uncertain journey, hope and relief are felt at the end. The plot has a steady pace, a moving read that touches on a relevant topic.

Stunning color photographs add just the right touch of artistic value to this practical guide book to easy fruits and berries that every gardener should know about. Each of the 12 plants highlighted is given due consideration including a simple recipe to make the most of your harvest.

In her endeavor to inspire the younger generations, Christine Horner uses the ideals of previous generations to spread the ideals of unity, equality, and mindful leadership. Of course, there is more than just time that separates the generations. Technology has changed the size, deﬁnition, and diversity of “community.”

I found the explanations to be both instructive and entertaining.

With sinister forces busily at work, farming had proven to be a deadly business for the panic-stricken town of River’s Edge. A lethal blow had struck one of its leading citizens. There’s a murderer on the loose and its unknown who might be next. The killing won’t stop until all loose ends are tied.

The stories,are enjoyable especially for any fans of racing and travelling. the relationships experience all the twists, turns and jarring stops of a real rally, racing towards their happily ever afters. “Live for now, let go of all those silly ways that have bound you…”

Everyday Enchantments is full of delightful slices of life in the southwest. Everything is worthy of wonder and contemplation, from a double yoked egg and chorizo breakfast to a wellworn book recently redisocovered. Each and every reﬂection contained in this book is best savored curled up by the ﬁre under grandma’s knitted quilt, one memory at at time.

The focus of the book is on how you should begin with an idea and then transform it into reality using various techniques instead of only building castles in the sky. The author focuses on a few practical examples to transform the ideas into reality and also focuses on visualization and other techniques like EFT.

Broken Branches, though short, is a gut-wrenching family drama that hits you deep in your core and finds a place to live in your heart. After the death of her grandmother, Sara sets out to find out who her father is. All anyone would ever tell her was that he was dead and to leave it alone. When the web of truth starts to unravel around her, Sara finds herself hanging from a thread and questioning everything she ever thought she knew about herself.

McFarland takes you on a rollicking journey with 1950s style whodunit capers that feature The Thin Mann (T.T. Mann), a private detective who stands six feet tall and weighs a mere twenty-two pounds. Surrounded by a colorful cast of characters, T.T. follows the clues and takes you along for the journey. Will he get his man?

An accidental shooting, a teenager’s death, and the resulting trial lead to some astounding results. Alexandr Bazenov only wanted to protect his property from thieves. Instead, his murder trial raises questions from Russian law students on the bias of the judge, laws concerning private property, and the realization that there might be a deeper agenda – one that concerns all citizens. Fabulous and enthralling from start to ﬁnish!

Like the Mr. Ness in the “Downward Spiral of the Disenfranchised Consumer”, I found myself savoring each story in this eclectic collection, then wanting more. Oram touches on a wide range of concepts here, each intricately engaging and thought provoking on its own. The power of human touch. The process of the scam – desperation, deception and snake oil in a ragged dystopian landscape. Need versus want. Familiarity. Contempt. Continual anxiety. Disposability. Even gender identity.

This book was a great read full of suspense and intrigue that kept me up late at night. A dangerous killer is hiding among the beauty of the wilderness awaiting his next victim. Coping with her own personal losses, Samantha’s determination to ﬁnd the killer puts her in more than one dangerous situation. I would deﬁnitely recommend this book to anyone who likes a good mystery.

The book is ﬁlled with good action sequences that helped support the plot. The description of the various setting in the story is also very detailed and helped set the mood for the novel. In addition, there were various characters, in addition to the main character, Harry, who were unique and had a lot of potential to be interesting.

An epic story of family and contrasts. Twenty years after England abolishes slavery, one sister marries a rice plantation owner in South Carolina. Another marries a reporter who joins the family in the south. Slavery and Empire contrast each other as well as race and acceptance, cruelty and benevolence. The English view of the antebellum south presents an outsider’s perspective of America’s peculiar institution as well as other challenges and dangers of nineteenth-century life.

Strap yourself in for the ride of your life on the Mothership! Leave behind all preconceived notions of how you thought your life should be lived and be prepared to take notes along the journey. Jerry challenges and encourages us to love ourselves as we love others, live our dreams and help others to realize their own dreams and follow their passions.

Wow! The Stronghold had me from page 1. The author’s voice is easy to fall into and I was happily lost in the well executed story. Each character, speciﬁcally the main character, was spot on and believable, bringing the story full circle to an excellent ending. I loved everything about The Stronghold and will be looking for more novels from Sebastian Bendix. Deﬁnitely recommend picking this one up, especially if you love action, adventure, and a huge rush of adrenaline. Five giant glowing stars!

Aled is an Absolutist who believes in Absolute truth and has the proof of Gods existence, Grey is a Liberalist who believes in free will. There is a War between the two factions leading the world into a dystopia. Quantum Confessions is an original, thought-provoking tale.

Meridian Chronicles: The Black Widow Curse and The Coven was a good book. The story is character and action driven, and the characters are well developed.

Former DEA agent Hardin Steel is now the duly elected sheriff of Cameron County, Texas. Life along the Rio Grande is good. His two ex-wives are behaving, his girlfriend is beautiful, owns a condo on South Padre Island, and is helping him win—most of the time—his battle with booze. But then the Ochoa Cartel shoots down a DEA Blackhawk helicopter using a US-made Stinger missile, the wife of a corrupt judge dies in a mysterious accident, and Steel’s friend, Dennis Deleon, is found murdered on his ﬁshing boat—his privates impaled on a large ﬁsh hook.

The writing style is focused on the character’s actions, without external minutiae slowing the story. As a result, the story ﬂowed quickly and effortlessly, making it hard to put down.

This was a fast-paced, suspenseful read with some unexpected twists and turns. The characters have plenty of peculiar personality traits, “tough-guy”-attitude and dead-pan humor. It is impossible not to take an instant liking to them, even if they’re not always on the right side of the law. The story has a certain “Wild West” feel to it. Life is never quiet for former DEAagent Hardin Steel. An old enemy resurfaces and, having acquired a dangerous weapon, is ready to bring havoc onto his part of the world. Steel and his hardcore buddies end up right in the middle of it all. When the enemy’s grasp is much longer than anticipated, they must ally themselves with some very unexpected people. Will they be able to take out the terrorists in time?

A fresh start. That was what Becca hoped the move from New York to Redemption, Wisconsin would be for her troubled family. A way to get her crumbling marriage back on track, and to bond with her difﬁcult 16-year-old stepdaughter.

What is it like to be born fully awake while most of the world lies fast asleep? To grow up in a world where you know people’s thoughts and true intentions, while what comes out of their mouths is the complete opposite?

A new marriage, a new home, a chance for a new start. Rebecca is off to the house she had inherited, with her husband of nine months, Stefan and his teenage daughter, Chrissy. Rebecca’s Aunt Charlie had left her the house and the plan was to move to the house in Redemption, clean and ﬁx it up, then sell it so they could get back to their idyllic life in New York City as quickly as possible. There was only one little problem. This was the house where Rebecca spent her summers as a child, and the last one she spent here? She has no memory of it, except that she almost died.

Have you ever wondered how to keep living in this world with the knowledge that what you touch, see, and hear is a mere shadow of the truth? Have you ever wondered how to walk with your feet on the earth while your heart flies in the heavens? If yes, you will feel connected to the spiritual awakening of Nalini in Walk A (new) Way. The author shares stories of her life as an incarnate walking through the ups and downs of her life: She explores this sensation, this awareness the first time she knew she had become a new person; the fear, the trepidation she felt when she knew she had to step out of her comfort zone and break all the ties to see things in their true light; the feeling of deep contentment as she gets close to knowing who she really is after escaping the illusions that has blinded her earlier; the feelings of oneness, of being connected to everyone and everything, the final awakening.

As Stefan heads back to NY to try to save his ﬂoundering law practice, Rebecca tries to clean up the house. When she runs into former friends, no one can tell her what happened that fateful night, not even her former love Daniel, who is now a town police ofﬁcer who is determined to question her about that night, which ended with the death of Jessica, one of their dearest friends. She won’t tell him that she’s lost her memory, but as strange things start to happen at the house to both her and Chrissy, she questions the wisdom of her choices and if she is once again losing her mind.

Do you have concerns about your online safety and privacy? Do you want to protect your online transactions efﬁciently?

Sometimes the tide sweeps us into a fog where dark forces are at work… All of a sudden evil and good become blurred… Powerless and defenseless, we swim toward it, and wonder if we’re going mad.

You’re not alone.

Owl Manor is a wonderful example of Regency style Gothic horror, heavy on the tropes of the genre, but still telling a taut and masterful story.

Computer security is an evolving science. It has come a long way from merely not sharing ﬂoppy disks with free games, however, those wishing to gain access to your computer use the same concept of free stuff. From “click bait” mixed into news stories to pop up ads, the internet is ﬁlled with traps and pitfalls. Millery guides the reader to the safe use of the internet.

The heroine is a mix of a modern feminist in thought, trapped in an age where women are commodities, and a naive young woman that so often features in these gothic novels. It sounds jarring but provides modern readers a reason to root for our young Eva as she pits herself against Owl Manor and the secrets within.

The book design is compartmentalized into different sections that can stand alone almost like individual lessons. This also presents the repeating of critical points from other sections when reading from beginning to end. The key points repetition is also useful in instilling them in the reader’s online habits. Even the most careful internet user can experience malicious intrusions.

There are all the right ingredients for a gothic novel - a large sweeping manor house, the spirits of murdered young women, a dark and foreboding man, and our heroine, plunged into the middle of all this in a mix of fate and poor life choices; which lead to some comical moments when read with a modern viewpoint, but make perfect sense within the body of the novel.

Auckland at the turn of the century. A city on the cusp of change. Isobel, a settler of ten years, waits for her sister to cross the ocean to join her. Separated by distance, disappointments and secrets, the women reunite in a land where the rules of home do not apply. Women push for the vote and the land offers opportunity and a future for those brave enough to take it. But some secrets run too deep, some changes too shocking to embrace.

1930s Hollywood wasn’t just moving picture stars and backlots. It was also a petri dish crawling with crime. Power breeding corruption, wealth motivating robbery, and revenge leading to murder. In these three tales, Private Investigator, Tom Logan uses his brains, ﬁsts, and caustic wit, to ﬁrst, take on a mysterious organization called ‘The Syndicate,’ which is usurping territory from other mobs and has placed a target on him, and the female witness he’s protecting.

Beyond the Bay by Rebecca Burns is a novel set in New Zealand at the end of the 19th century at a time when the country was teeming with emigrants seeking the promise of a better life for themselves. Burns’ descriptive language paints a vivid picture of the sights, sounds and smells of a city bursting at the seams.

“Murder Will Out” is a collection of short stories that take the reader through Logan’s ﬁrst year as a PI. In the process they also take you back to the near mythical, good old, bad old days of classic L.A.: a city where the liquor is bootleg, the jazz is hot, and public transportation still works.

When her sister arrives from England to join her in this new land, Isobel must face the realization that after ten years of disappointment and hardship, Auckland has not provided the life she had portrayed in her letters back home. But time and distance have wrought changes on both of the sisters. Isobel soon discovers that she is not the only one with secrets.

The title piece, ‘Murder Will Out’, is a twisting tale through the underbelly of police corruption, where yesterday’s friend may be today’s assassin. When his best friend on the force is reported murdered, a heartbroken Logan has to keep himself and the one remaining witness – a young Chinese girl with a wrenching past – alive. Trouble is, the very cops who should be protecting her may be the killers.

Elle Burton is an ordinary kid...or so she thinks. On her tenth birthday, she encounters Eunie Mae, a tiny, fairylike being who comes from a world called Fiori. Other than some children under the age of eight, the only human beings who can see Fiorins are guides— people who have been chosen to help protect the children of Earth.

In Read to Succeed learn that there are countless beneﬁts to reading including idea generation, longevity, and increased mental functions among many others. Developing a reading habit that will open you up to new ideas is easy to start and by reading this book, you will learn how to develop a reading habit that will last. The book recounts the reading habits of our Founding Fathers. In addition, it shares the reading plans of well-known successful business leaders such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Oprah Winfrey. These pillars of our society all have similar reading habits.

Elle Burton and the Reﬂective Portals is about a 10-year-old girl name Elle whose life drastically changes. Elle has several life-altering events within hours of each other on her 10th birthday. She meets a Fiorin named Eunie May and learns she is a guide, a person destined to help Fiorins and to help children throughout her life.

The book “Read To Succeed” by Stan Skrabut shows the remarkable passion of a man who is a voracious reader and learner. A man who, from childhood, has beneﬁted tremendously from books like only an ardent student could from a trustworthy mentor. It is no wonder why he now desires to share his love of reading so that other people’s lives may also be transformed by the powerful habit of reading.

Elle faces the death of a loved one, bullying, abuse, abduction, sickness of a loved one and adults taking advantage of others. The story is relevant to issues that today’s children face and written in a way that could allow parents to initiate discussions with their children about what they are dealing with. The author also has a discussion sheet that can be used by parents to help them through these discussions with their children. Elle shows kindness and compassion to all, even those who don’t seem like they deserve it. With the help of the magical beings, Elle learns that people react to things in different ways, and just because someone is being cruel, it doesn’t mean that they are evil or truly unkind.

A bookworm like me can deﬁnitely relate to many of the experiences he shared in the book like how, as a child, he entered the library as though it were a magical place. I can also relate to how he learned programming language that supported his work through reading. Books are indeed not only mentors but friends who can help us in many ways if we only give them the time and allow them to accompany us. 15

Chanterelles garnished with cream and mayhem.

All it takes is one mistake. For Jimmy Paccini, savvy and cool-headed, it was joining the Brooklyn mob, the easy way out of a nowhere life that for arranging the execution of the head of a rival crime family rewarded him with a quarter-century of hard time. For Milena Cossutta, sexy and smart, it was selling out her dreams to marry a handsome but hot-headed made man, Vinnie DeNunzio, which left her on the run from the feds in Sicily, a stranger in a strange land. And sometimes the mistake is crazy, forbidden love like the one between Jimmy and Milena.

Ta n t a l i z i n g … alluring…satisfyingly luscious Women’s Fiction—San Francisco Book Review

Cooking a sumptuous meal is an act of love. An act of grace. An art and passion Gina inherits from her grandfather —a French chef felled by a robber’s bullet. This is a book that builds up in slow stages and is told from the ﬁrst-person point of view. The prologue entices the reader to keep turning the pages to ﬁnd out what happened to the protagonist. The main genre of this novel is chick lit, though there is an underlying theme of suspense and mystery, with romance being the main background theme.

I loved this book! It’s a great crime novel and I particularly enjoy the main character, Jimmy. For me, this book is all about him, what he has done and what he will do. In this novel, the author has put perfectly into place aspects of the criminal world of New-York with the language, the different families, the criminal activities and the reality of it, from what I know, I’m no expert, but it looked very real to me while I was reading it.

The narrator is someone who is to the point but also does a lot of internal thinking which is evident throughout the writing.

I also liked how Jimmy lives and reacts after he was released from prison. The desire for liberty and the little pleasure of life that takes a much bigger importance. Again, this looks real and was really well described. The balance between present and past create a good rhythm because, at the same time, we want to know what he did to go to prison and also what he will do now that he is out, and because we care for him, we really want to know and we read faster and faster.

Since this book builds up in stages, I mistakenly thought at ﬁrst that this book lacked a little bit, but once the narrator starts engaging the characters and environment outside her workplace and her ﬂat; things start to become more interesting and the story became fuller.

Neither ﬁsh nor fowl, every immigrant threads the needle between being one of “us” versus one of “them.” The plot is both a fantasy and an exercise in exploring ways in which recent African immigrants and African-Americans recognize and embrace each other’s cultural differences.

Evie D’Arico is just like any other 67-year-old retiree until a sudden stroke puts her life in jeopardy, and catapults her soul through multiple lifetimes. After drifting through a space where time has no meaning, Evie awakens to ﬁnd herself in the body and mind of someone else. She realizes she is experiencing her soul’s past life on Earth as Astara, a young girl who lived during the Mesolithic Era of human prehistory.

The African Piper of Harlem is a novella about African-American people in Harlem, New York. The story starts with Ola, whose parents moved to Harlem from Nigeria, and her children - twins Bilal and Nawaal - who are being bullied at school. At her wit’s end, she doesn’t know how to make her life as a single parent work for her children, so she goes to Grandpa Abram for advice. There, as if summoned by magic, a mysterious stranger who calls herself Abekepi appears with an apparent solution to Ola’s troubles. Could this be what she needs for her story to have a happy ending?

Returning Souls, a debut novel by Ernestine B. Colombo, explores the life (or should I say lives) of a woman named Evelyn. Through a series of flashbacks, Evelyn sees the moments of life that defined her, for good and for bad. Included in these flashbacks is the realization that Evelyn’s current life is actually an iteration and that she once existed thousands of years before as the fierce and self-assured huntress Astara. The final product is a story grounded in realistic and relatable life moments. Moving seamlessly through the alternating voices, Colombo invites readers on a journey of reflection. Returning Souls is a refreshing book, especially for readers who are finding the often used formulas for fiction books to be stale. That isn’t to say that this is an easy read. Many of the flashbacks include scenes depicting life’s most challenging moments, including death, loss, and feelings of helplessness.

Each chapter looks at a different person, giving us a glimpse of their struggles, their thoughts, as well as their feelings, building a brief but realistic picture of their world and how they relate to the main characters in this story. The novella managed to build characters and tell a deep and meaningful story over just 50 pages.

Do the vast amounts of information and technology available hold humans hostage? Does analog communication create a vulnerability?

On his 50th birthday, recently divorced male model Dane Vanderbrouk is struck by a peculiar afﬂiction: if he remains still for too long, he falls back in time. If he moves too fast, he’ll travel forward.

The political climate in the world is unnerving. North Korea is running missile tests, but where are they getting their deadly supplies?

Pursued relentlessly by an assassin from the future through the narrow streets of Amsterdam, Dane is thrust into a war where shaping the future means changing the past. But changing history is difﬁcult business for a time traveler. Every jump in time erases every previous action.

The Enigma Dragon: A CATS Tale is the ninth book in the Enigma techno-thrillers series. Cyber Assassin Technology Services (CATS) team tracks Analog Information Mules (AIM‘s) working for ePETRO - a global energy company engaged in trading with Muslim terrorists and North Korean government. The hunt takes place worldwide across four continents and twelve cities.

Time Phantom: Amsterdam is the first book in Randy Anderson’s Time Phantom series. On his 50th birthday, Dane Vanderbrouk is in Amsterdam mulling over his recent divorce, when his life takes a drastic turn. He’s thrust into a reality of time travel, where the direction and time he travels is determined by his movements. While struggling to determine what exactly he is, and fleeing from an assassin sent from a mysterious agency that exists far in the future, Dane finds himself on a mission to alter the future by changing the past. But he soon discovers that it’s much more complicated than anyone realized, and some of those he trusted aren’t what they seemed.

As the plot thickens, some recurring CATS members vanish. Remaining ones must stop ePETRO’s schemes and save their teammates. Protagonists deal not only with a nefarious and powerful enemy but also with their past traumas and personal challenges. This book has an Interesting and eclectic cast of characters, each handling dangerous work and personal crises in a unique way, is one of the novel‘ main strengths. The clash of digital and analogue communication and their application to resolve the conﬂict felt fresh.

Time Phantom: Amsterdam is an exciting and dramatic opening to Anderson’s Time Phantom series. With a refreshingly unique take on time travel, Anderson engages the reader from the ﬁrst page and pulls them into a world of multiple realities, exceptional characters, and a suspenseful plot that refuses to let go.

A Cinderella story to melt anyone’s heart.

Police agent Stefan Lattanzis never expected his planet to become a battleﬁeld, nor Earth for that matter. But when scientists from Paludis share a t e c h n o l og i c a l breakthrough with Earth authorities, peace escalates to the brink of war in a hurry. It doesn’t help that the local aliens have a dangerous and mystifying agenda of their own. Meanwhile, a desperate human cult has its own plans to exploit the powerful new technology…

Living with the demands of her mother and brother, Bella hasn’t known genuine love since the death of her father. Against his sister’s advice and constant meddling, The Duke of Starthberg is willing to risk his title to ﬁnd true love, a thing his sister insists doesn’t exist. A visit from a charming masked woman during Gretna’s annual gala, which includes a masked ball courtesy of his sister, may have proven the Duke right. But as the clock strikes midnight, the lass in question disappears. Only her mask is left behind.

In the distant future mankind has been able to venture into distant space by virtue of wormholes in space-time. Earth eventually colonizes a planet, which they name Paludis. Over time, the planet’s indigenous people are corralled on an island, and since their deity, Garn, is an ocean dweller, the Muskans (as they call themselves) cannot enter water and are essentially trapped. For years, the planet’s main production of bauxite has been serving them well but is on the decline. However, the discovery of another natural resource offers the Paludis’ earth dwellers another source of income. This, coupled with a rouge Muskan, missing people, an unborn child, the Paludis Police, and an ancient discovery threatens to disrupt the entire planet with a war between Paludis and Earth. The text is written well, although there are a few word choices that don’t seem to ﬁt, but they are few in number and have no bearing on the overall story. Some readers, however, would do well to keep a dictionary close by.

In his quest, to ﬁnd the beauty behind the mask, he meets and falls in love with Bella, the owner of another Husky stud. Unbeknown to him that the two women may be one lass, the duke must choose the one he loves the most. Yet, Bella’s mother has her own set of wicked plans. Can Bella break free to claim her man, or will her mother destroy all of her happiness? Now has a gold quality mark.

South Africa, 1899... Richard’s in trouble. He’s wounded, concussed and has a large bandage around his head; he’s also a prisoner and surrounded by scowling, scruffy, heavily armed men.

Lorcan Travis yearns for adventure, away from his quiet life on the family farm in rural Ireland. He joins the British Army, and after a traumatic voyage to North America, he ﬁnds all the action and adventure he could ever imagine, as he faces the cruelty and savagery of the Native Americans and the clash of armies in the rugged and wild country he has to operate in.

Rachel is intelligent, cultured and charming, but things are not what they seem. FORGIVEN can be forgiven for keeping me up late when I was suffering from the stomach ﬂu. For this compelling historical ﬁction novel, set in the era of the Boer War, tells the impossibly romantic story of Richard Wilson and Rachael Purdue over the course of one year starting in 1899.

After reading this amazing novel, Broken Sword, I have no other option other than to label this very talented author, Phil Tomkins, as a Master Storyteller. The telling of the life and adventure of a young Irish lad named Lorcan Travis from a farm in a little place in Ireland takes the reader ﬁrmly by the hand and while holding tightly brings them along on his, at times, harrowing journey.

The initial setting is New Zealand, which anyone in their right mind would want to visit, hence a sense of being drawn right into the exotic story. Shortly after Richard leaves to ﬁght in the South African Boer War, about which I knew little except for Churchill’s heroic exploits as a captured war correspondent who escapes and becomes a British war hero, setting the stage for a life writ large on the Empire’s political stage.

From the moment he leaves his quiet rural life and joins the British Army, Lorcan’s life is ﬂipped on its head. From the simple life on his family farm to that of a soldier, a controlled implement of war. Lorcan is catapulted into a startling world of The Americas and its portrayed savage natives as both clash in this exciting and at times bloody New World.

The author has a cinematic writing style that gives you a sense of being right there in the middle of battle. The opening scenes in which bullets buzz instill the fear of war as compellingly as any such descriptions I’ve ever read.

A chilling tale of loss, tragedy, psychic warfare, and eternal love.

”The Jerusalem syndrome: a Spanish teenager decides to reveal a false secret to his closest friend and tells him he is a Jew. To his surprise his friend reacts with “I knew it!” as if this was the most well known secret in the world.

Amber Macklin’s world is cruelly shattered when she loses her baby girl three months after her husband’s sudden death. Her cousin, Bryce, comes to her rescue, moving her into his home for fear she will kill herself from the grief.

In a matter of hours the whole school calls him the Jew. No denial or acceptance that he told a lie will change his nickname. This lie will lead him to be a respected writer till he ﬁnally writes an historical novel about the Jews. This novel is his ﬁrst one to be translated and to his surprise it is translated into Hebrew.

Tough Karma – A Race Against Time took my preconceived idea and previous experience of Paranormal Romance, rolled it into a tight little ball and slam dunked it in the bin of ‘old experiences’. There was no sign of the usual werewolves or vampires, nor was there cuteness of fairy’s or the ﬁre breath and scale hides of dragons. Instead, upon turning each page, I was opened to a whole new world of paranormal romance story concept and telling.

The novel gets him invited to a strange writer’s festival in Jerusalem, where he meets an old, half senile woman, who looked like his recently deceased mother, and who is convinced that he is her son, who disappeared in the Lebanon War. He will also meet Charly, a Jewish-Moroccan Israeli writer, suffering from chronic discrimination who is doing his ﬁrst steps writing a novel about Lucena in Spanish, his mother tongue, half forgotten in order to write in Hebrew. Jerusalem is at the center of Andalusian in Jerusalem, a short but intense novel where Madrid meets Jerusalem and the Jewish world becomes more fantastic than the novels of the writers who try to describe it.

The author expertly brought the characters of Amber and Bryce to life. So much so I felt myself dabbing away tears for fear of mocking from my partner that I would do something as ‘mushy’ as cry at a story in a book, and a Paranormal Romance one at that. But that is exactly what I did on a few occasions as I read the exceptional story of Amber’s loss, not just of her husband but her child too.

In their daily struggle for survival, Iraqi Kurdish scavengers uncover a cache of chemical weapons. They offer the weapons to Kurdish rebels in Turkey and Syria to assist in their quest to free an imprisoned leader and create a uniﬁed homeland. After receiving a tip from an unlikely source, the newly formed Special Operations Bedlam team is called to arms. Can the team recover the weapons before it’s too late?

Texas, 1853. Thir teen-yearold Nigel Blackthorn is the spoiled son of a Protestant preacher. But when his missionary family is the victim of a brutal Comanche attack, his easy childhood crumbles in an instant. While he narrowly escapes the slaughter that claimed his loved ones, the preacher’s son ﬁnds himself alone and struggling to survive on the wild frontier. The idea and the plot of the book is good. It is that of adventure stories that teenagers of my generation used to read and swallow whole in a day. A boy lost his parents to Indians attack in the middle of American prairie. He is picked up by travelling French merchant. This merchant becomes a surrogate father to the boy and teaches him everything. He teaches him every day, all day, through every little thing he does. Then, an Indian tribe teaches the boy ‘life truths’. The boy grows up. Nigel Blackthorn is being apprenticed into the wild world of humans, be it English, French, Spanish or Indians.

“The Kurdish Connection—a compelling read. A story of friendship, danger and intrigue.”—Ann Everett, Amazon Best Selling Author. “... Randall’s authentic voice adds a powerful push to keep a reader turning the pages.” —Janet Taylor-Perry, author of The Raiford Chronicles, The Legend of Draconis Saga, and April Chastain Intrigues. “Topical - Engaging - Intriguing – Powerful ... A real page turner.”— Rikon Gaites, author of Mummy’s Little Soldier and Darius Odenkirk.

The novel gives various perspective: of Nigel Blackthorn himself, his French guardian and various characters we meet along the way. The story of American prairies being told through French merchant’s perspective is a very unusual angle for me. It is a very interesting choice and solution by the author.

“... Randall Krzak brings his wealth of experience living in this troubled part of the world and his military knowledge to bear in this exciting story...”— John L. DeBoer, author of When the Reaper Comes.

For two decades Tyler Gibbons has been keeping a secret from his family. At the tender age of sixteen, Tyler embarks on a student exchange program. Sent to the Andean city of Ambato, Ecuador, he ﬁnds daily adventure as he tries to ﬁt in at school, connect with his host family, and navigate through a world of beaches, volcanoes, and jungles. But tucked deep inside this year are events so profound, so unexpected, they forever shape the man he will become.

Schizophrenia: A long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation. -Oxford Dictionary. I’d like to say I just have a big imagination, but at the age of 23 I was diagnosed with this illness.

Imaginary Things (Inside the Mind of a Schizophrenic) is a first-hand narrative by Michael Nicholas telling of the his experience of how life changed as the result of a diagnosis of a serious mental illness. The book provides a brief account of what the first experience of a psychiatric episode is like and provides a brief synopsis of what is encountered by the author consequentially with admission to a psychiatric ward. The book provides for perspective of the aspects of the experience of the young persons changing internal landscape and first hand lived history of encountering a mental health diagnosis, the side-effects of medication, the importance of support in recovery, the eventual strength found in spiritual guidance.

Careful by Randy Anderson is a well crafted piece that highlights the fragility of life and family. The story begins by unbalancing the main character, Tyler, a forty-ish year old, single man having to deal with an unknown issue involving his mother’s health. The description of the trip through the snowstorm and the attention to detail within the hospital puts the reader into slow motion as if they are experiencing the panic or stress as well. This technique defines Tyler’s character within the first sentences by placing the reader in Tyler’s shoes and playing on the reader’s feelings. This made it easy to identify with the character. Tyler arrives at the hospital to find his mother in a room and unsure about what is happening to her. His mother, the other main character, uses her situation to uncover information about her son’s year abroad, and what changed him. This is where the story jumps from the present to the past to begin the unwrapping of Tyler’s year abroad in Ecuador, the real meat of the story.

The thought process of the protagonist as he goes through a schizophrenic episode is extremely well explained and quite harrowing. As a reader it emphasised how little we know about what is going on in peoples minds and why they do the things they do.

This book is a step-by-step guide with sixty-eight colour images and illustrations showing you how to age gracefully, no matter what age or gender you are.

Sierra Andrews has one hard and fast rule: Never fall in love. Because history has taught her that no attachments equal zero heartache. If she only could suppress this pesky suspicion that perhaps there is someone she could trust. Thankfully she’s a realist, which means a relationship with Matt Howard would only end in disaster. Why?

There is one thing that all of us on this earth cannot escape from, and that is to go through the normal aging process. But through correct practices, we can slow down the aging process from the inside to the outside of our bodies. All that’s required is determination and the knowledge on how to do it.

He’s a rat-bastard.He’s her roommate. He’s her best friend. Or he was her best friend until he decided to bump uglies with his advisor. Now Sierra and Matt can’t seem to get along, and their friends can’t handle the tension between them.

How to look and feel younger is the book you need to take better care of yourself and to know it’s not too late to change things up. This non ﬁction educational book allows you to explore tricks and tips on how to take care of your skin, eat for not only health but youthfulness and beauty and even gives you some natural recipes to help address problem areas on your skin.

Portrait by Lily Kay is a pretty decent romance novel. It has all the things readers like to see - a strong friendship unit, with characters that support and challenge the protagonists, a will-they-won’t-they dance between the potential lovers, and two protagonists that are put into a situation where the emotional intensity and forced closeness makes strong feelings develop.

I learned natural cleansing and moistorizing tips. Readers will learn it’s important to cleanse and moistorize their face twice a day and to use sunscreen often not just in the warm weather months.

Sierra is a student, rooming with Matt, and a few of her friends. She has issues with men, and is being particularly cruel to Matt, who had recently gotten into a purely physical relationship.

I really enjoyed how this book was set up, easy to navigate, understand and the subject matter was for all ages and genders. Everyone can learn to take better care of their skin from this book. 24

Enter the dark world of a beautiful killer with a young would-be reporter.

Hayley Bi believes that sharing life experiences and what is beyond our consciousness can be powerful and healing not just for her, but also for others who may have a desire to do the same.

A desperate Kelly Prescott—whose best friend is her car—gambles her career, relationship, and her last dime to investigate an admitted serial killer with an agenda. With two weeks to go before the execution, Kelly struggles to tease out the book that saves her career, while caught between the competing interests of the killer, the authorities, and parties unknown.

In a collection of true stories, Bi begins by sharing several supernatural childhood experiences that included learning her sister was possessed and given away, using a Ouija board to communicate with the dead, camping in a haunted area in Hong Kong, and gradually realizing she had been gifted with a sixth sense.

This quote, often wrongly attributed to Albert Einstein, might have served as the inspiration for this book. Kelly Prescott is pretty and ﬁt but doesn’t really do anything with it. The only child of presumably fairly bland elementary school teachers who raised a fairly bland daughter. Kelly is also an aspiring journalist with one truly remarkable story to her name, a proﬁle of a convicted murderer.

My Supernatural Encounter with the Orange Being by Hayley Bi is a proliﬁc portrayal of her journey of life events as a girl in Hong Kong and as a young woman at ﬁrst and a mother of two later in Canada. Along with her supernatural encounters with other beings at various stages of her life, Hayley Bi explores her relationships including those with her immediate family and her romantic partners in this quick read.

She seems to desperately want to be the person who ﬁnds herself in places no one has ever been before but can’t stop following the crowd that limits her. Kelly’s one remarkable story brings her to the attention of death row inmate Janelle Evers, “Eve,” who wants Kelly to write her story in the remaining two weeks before her execution. Eve is Kelly’s polar opposite; even in a prison jumpsuit, she looks beautiful and in control. She walks alone.

The book starts with how the author came to write about her supernatural experiences. Though the beginning gives the impression of a memoir strictly exploring the supernatural phenomenon, readers soon learn that the book is way more than that; it is an exploration of family relations, different cultures, and how religion plays a pivotal role in shaping a person’s spiritual well-being.

Have you ever faced a challenging life experience? Did you ever struggle to shift from a state of anxiety to a feeling of love and gratitude?

The Warramunga’s Aftermath of War encapsulates the investigation into the post-war activities of a major criminal organisation with tentacles to the USA, Australia and South East Asia. When a fishing boat is discovered in distress in rough seas northwest of Darwin in late 1945, former army officer, Jamie Munro, and educated half-caste Warramunga aborigine, Jack “Jacko” O’Brien, who head the CIS in Darwin, are called on to investigate child smuggling operations financed by a shadowy ring of wealthy paedophiles.

This evocative and inspirational book will empower you to make positive changes in your life. Through one of my life’s greatest challenges I lost connection to a deep part in me. I found myself fully aware while the surgeon cut into me. I experienced symptoms of PTSD and postpartum depression as a result of the trauma I suffered.

Greg Kater’s second book in the Warramunga series does not disappoint. For those seeking a realistic 1940s Action- Adventure novel, this is it. The story reads like a period movie ﬁlled with thrills and characters the reader will want to know. Jamie and Jacko are home from the war and working for the Australian Commonwealth Investigative Service. The war’s end, however, does not mean peace and quiet for those who have survived. There are still war crimes to prosecute, and as Jamie and Jacko discover there, others are willing to take advantage of the chaos that war has brought. Jamie, Jacko and their new allies discover an international child kidnapping/pedophile ring and seek to put a stop to it. Offsetting this appalling crime, Kater manages to capture the setting of and culture of the Philippines in an exceptional way. Very well written to the point that one would think Kater was a ﬁrst-hand witness to the events.

Not all births are the emotionally poignant experiences you might hope for. Sometimes, due to circumstances out of anyone’s control, giving birth can be a traumatic, painful experience. Lisa Burke had such a birth. It wasn’t at all like she had envisioned. It wasn’t at all like the birth of her other children. That trauma took years to overcome. But overcome it she did. Dealing with the anxiety, panic attacks, depression, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder occasioned by the traumatic birth experience, was not an overnight ﬁx. Slowly, over the course of several years, she reclaimed her life using a series of positive life skills and selfcare practices that she includes in the book with the hopes of helping other women who have experienced similar trauma.

Sarah Downing, an art conservationist, is just trying to get through her life with as little drama as possible. She had enough in her former life with her abusive ex-husband who was working for the mob. Now, with her new life in Kingston, Ontario given to her by the American Witness Protection Program, she thinks she has finally found some peace. But then a copy of a Caravaggio comes across her easel that she thinks might actually be an original and along with it, an intriguing man named Simon. When she tells her bosses that she thinks it might be an original, they tell her not to worry about it, but when Sarah finds a second copy, she begins to suspect the director of the museum and her boss, Veronica, is trying to sell the original and give Simon back the fake. So what does Sarah do? She grabs the painting and runs. And she has to run far because as it turns out, her ex-husband has just gotten out of prison and is hellbent on finding her. What happens after that is a race to get the painting to Simon, all while hiding from the numerous people trying to find and possibly kill her!

What would you do if you discovered a lost masterpiece worth millions, which a curator will kill to keep hidden? Sarah Downing, an art conservator, hiding in witness protection, identiﬁes a lost masterpiece by Caravaggio. History says it burned in WWII Berlin, but here it is, on her easel.

Painting of Sorrow is a suspenseful wild ride. Following Sarah as she runs from her ex-husband and the other people who end up wanting to get to her makes for an action-packed read and the ultimate page-turner. While the book did start off a little slow and could have shown a little more to the reader rather than just telling us, once Sarah grabs the painting, the pace picks up really quick and has you wondering what happens next.

Soon she is ﬁghting to save the painting and herself. Someone has betrayed Sarah—an agent, a friend? Whoever it was, her ex-husband Jimmy is standing on her street, outside her house, waiting.

‘Last Seen’ is one of those wonderful books that envelope the reader in a world both alien and heart-wrenchingly familiar. When vibrant, young reporter Kimi Benally disappears into a Wyoming winter, her therapist Dr Pepper Hunter – along with everyone else who knows Kimi – clutches at the hope she’s only vanished into one of her dissociation spells. Kimi has a history of dissociative episodes; more than once she’s blanked out for hours or days, only to ‘awaken’ in a strange place with no idea how she got there. When the days begin to pile up without Kimi’s return, hope turns to desperation. There’s a serial rapist on the loose in the area, and Kimi fits the profile of the kind of girl the rapist attacks. Worse, Kimi has spoken of a sense of being followed. So far, Dr. Hunt knows, he hasn’t killed any of his victims. Only she also knows that sex offenders grow increasingly violent in their attacks. Somehow, she has to find Kimi before her patient becomes the first of the criminal’s victims to die.

Psychologist and police consultant Dr. Pepper Hunt, struggling to deal with the murder of her husband, leaves the private practice they shared and relocates to Wyoming. There, in the stark landscape of the high desert, there is nothing to remind her of everything she lost and left behind. Then her new patient, Kimi Benally, goes missing in a Wyoming blizzard after her last therapy session—making Pepper the last person to see her. She knows the secrets Kimi shared in therapy hold clues to her mysterious disappearance, and she joins forces with Detective Beau Antelope to try to discover what’s happened to her. But as she follows the trail of Kimi’s obsession with the past, Pepper begins to fear the worst for her missing patient—and her own haunted memories surface.

Yet Doucette doesn’t rely on unrelenting action and Hollywood style shoot ‘em outs. Rather than rack up the gore and body count, the author focuses on the impact of a single human life. Shifting from view point to view point, the story weaves the reactions and fears of the people in Kimi’s life into a pattern of love, hate and fear as intricate as a Navajo rug. This isn’t a story that will have you cringing in your chair; it’s much better than that. This is a story that will wrap you not just in the bone-shaking cold of a Wyoming blizzard, but the many forms of love that comprise each human life.

The Kings´ Assassin is a compelling story that promises all the perks of epic fantasy delivered as the pages turn. It lures the reader into the jungle of a very complex magical world, built up with attention to detail and aim for perfection. Layers upon layers are unraveled as the story develops, letting scrambled puzzle pieces come together and slowly paint distinctive patterns. The author´s mastery shows in the realistic feel of the landscapes, intricate and dangerous politic machinations, spellbinding magical abilities available at the ﬁngertips of the masters, and diverse characters representing all that a good fantasy book should contain. The ancient, eternal ﬁght of good versus evil is interwoven into any of the plotlines, regardless whose path we follow at the moment. Switching the focus from one city or landscape where major events take place to another, where a different character leads his or her own battles, tension is gradually built over the chapters, and as the story proceeds, it escalates together with the pace of development, level of action, and deepening understanding of the complexity. Aligning and dividing the characters as the relationships change and grow adds emotional charge to the story, with subtle hints of romance in the second half of the book. Strong characters crystallize and uncover the traitors hiding behind dark magic, as secrets start to resurface. With a strong element of surprise appearing sometimes in truly unexpected places, balance between dialogues and narrative parts, and intriguing opening at the end of this book, the decision to read the story grants a very good reading experience.

The Kings Assassin follows the exploits of Sillik, a master of the seven laws of magic and a warrior. Complying with a telepathic summon from his father the king, Sillik returns to his home, the city of Illicia. The city is home to the survivors of the last demon war and sworn followers of the seven gods of law. Illicia was built in a vast desert called the Weeping Wastes to protect and isolate it during the early years of the citys existence. The city now possesses great wealth and has exerted military and political inﬂuence over the known world for thousands of years. Trade routes, through the desert, to Illicia are strictly controlled to protect the city. Upon his return, Sillik learns that assassins have killed his father and his older brothers.

This book can be seen as an indispensable resource for gay men who are married to women and want to be their authentic selves. The writing is comprehensive and informative. There are many scenarios that are thoroughly explored that would give the reader a deeper understanding of what they can expect if they decide to come out to family, friends, and the world at large. The book is authentic in that it does not offer a rose-colored view. It offers a real-life view where things go well and offers insight into when things do not go well. The book discusses the various people one may choose to come out to and the recommended order of who to tell ﬁrst, second, third, and so on. Additionally, for the gay man who doesn’t have a lot of experience with gay culture, there is a wealth of information that is given that allows them to realize all that is out there to explore, and all the different types of gay personalities that they can come across.

“Married Men Coming Out” enables a man to come to terms with the issues surrounding his coming out, reduce and alleviate some of his fears, and give him the strength and courage to become not only a role model for others, but a pioneer and an educator. “The greatest gift you can give anyone is the truest essence of yourself.”

As well as the simple fact that people are people no matter where they fall in the spectrum of straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, etc. This means that the same issues and problems that the straight community has will also happen within the gay community – friendship, love, hate, bigotry, loss, fear, and kindness to name a few.

The purpose of this book is not to provide reasons for or against homosexuality. It is, though, a guidebook for those who, having lived a heterosexual lifestyle, realize that they’ve made a mistake in denying and suppressing their true identity — that of being attracted to members of their own sex — and now realize that being married and even having children, they can no longer live a double life. They need to be who and what they are: gay.

This book is a valuable resource for not only the gay man to live his authentic life, but also for others to see the struggles, fears, and adversity that can happen from coming into your own, deciding to live your true life, and wanting to be honestly happy in your own skin.

This book, though not being tagged as a thriller, was overﬂowing with suspense and kept me on the edge of my seat. It also made me pull my hair in frustration, since I couldn’t ﬁgure out who the killer was! It is an entertaining read, with endearing characters, an ingenious plot, and a massive character development for the main character. Somehow, recovering alcoholic Lillian Dove always manages to get tangled up in every bad thing that happens in small town Frytown. This time a man is stabbed, his wife killed, and his daughter gone missing. Will she, and the police, be able to solve this Christmas murder case? I didn’t have any particular expectations when starting this book, but I did absolutely not expect it to begin with Lillian’s stolen Christmas tree! It was a fun way to start this book, maybe even hilarious, and I would never have predicted the impact it would have on the rest of the story.

Outré, Award WInner of MidWest Book Festival 2016 and Clue Award, YA Suspense Murder, Betrayal, Love Gone Wrong

Let her go is the third installment in this series and despite not having read the two earlier books, I couldn’t help but be charmed by Lillian and the people around her. The character interactions are sometimes tremendously entertaining, especially when it is Lillian vs. Detective Leveque or her mother. There is a lot of unresolved, emotional problems between Lillian and her mother, problems Lillian must face before it is too late. Also, one cannot help but notice the underlying tension between Lillian and Leveque, despite them claiming to dislike each other. And just to make it a bit more interesting, a not wholly ended affair with the Chief of Police is thrown into the mix.

Dr. Conrad’s family is attacked. His wife is murdered. He and his son are seriously injured. Teenage daughter, Peyton, is missing. Lillian Dove needs to ﬁnd Peyton Conrad to set the minds of Frytown at ease. Book 3 of the Lillian Dove Series offers readers another page-turning romp of suspense as Lillian is pulled into another one of the Frytown Police Department criminal cases.

Billy Houston Rags to Riches takes you on a colorful journey involving exotic locations and larger than life personalities. The largest personality is Billy himself. A self-described serial entrepreneur, Billy offers a glimpse into the workings of his ever-active mind always on the lookout for the “next big thing.” He usually finds it! We meet his merry band of men: Chook Burns, Roger “the Dodger” Freeman, and Pat Gabriel as Billy talks about his upbringing. The story weaves a tale of an entrepreneurial mind going all the way back to high school. As the businesses come and go the reader is given a better understanding of the bonds between friends, the business acumen needed to be successful, and what happens when you try to take more than your fair share of the pie. The story shows the wealth to be reaped from successful business and the more sinister side when backdoor deals are made, and criminal alliances are formed. The writing is detailed in a way that makes you feel like you are there in the moment. As you are reading, you are trying to follow the clues to see if you can figure out how everyone came to be in the situation they are in.

Billy Houston arrived in Santa Monica, California as a fourteen-year-old schoolboy from Australia, the Land Down Under. Within nine years he’d been expelled from school, had his face rebuilt from a horriﬁc car accident, and been held at gun point in an armed hold up in a LA bar. Billy hit the bottle, got mixed up in drugs and dropped out of college. He was a lost soul. But despite his tough beginnings, Billy becomes an incredibly successful multi-millionaire American businessman eventually listing his company on the New York Stock Exchange.

It’s an engaging read that’s hard to put down. It’s a good lesson in business practice as well (both good and bad events that can happen during the course of business.) You are left wondering how successful Billy’s latest business venture will be, but in the back of your mind, you already know.

Until his ultimate breakdown.

There is many different types of science-fiction read, this one is not one of alien monster and big giant spaceship so if you’re looking for that, you might pass. In fact, I hardly even consider it a science-fiction book, being so close to reality and having very few elements of what, for me, makes science-fiction what it is. That being said, this is a well build book! First of all, this is the tenth book of the Enigma Series, which I never read any before, I don’t know how much link there’re between each of them, but for the storyline, I wasn’t out of place and could easily follow it, but I find that the characters were a bit generic, not unique and mostly interchangeable, maybe that’s a point I would reconsider reading the previous one, but for this particular book, I think that the development of characters is probably the lowest element of all. That being said, this book brings you in a very political-economical complex intrigue, with some technological elements (that’s is why I wasn’t sure it really belong in science-fiction…), but the story is very well put into place, like I said, complex, lot of characters, many different settings and time, an intrigue that plays on an international level, etc. but the authors find a way to keep it going on track for the entire book and that’s good work. The writing was good but I would say a bit dry (in French we call it «une écriture sèche») not sure is dry is appropriate in English, but I mean a writing that is more factual then poetic, not a bad or a good point, can be both, it depends on your personal preferences! So, not a big win for me (personal taste) because of all this economical part of it, but if you love complex intrigue, have an interest in economy and crypto-currency (which by the way is very original, we don’t see many books on that subject), this might be a good pick!

The world is almost ready for fiat currency to be replaced by a superior digital currency. The trouble is, which one and who will own it? The R-Group is back and trying to guide the players to a safe destination in the complex world of cryptocurrency. The Global Bank has tasked Tonya to find and hire a cryptologist to create a new global cryptocurrency, though sometimes it seems she may not be up to the task. Along the way it appears she is the one getting played. The cynical hack-and-slash cryptocurrency swindlers, Matthias and Dutch, are jumping from country to country, trying to peddle their new cryptocurrency as a savior for economically flailing countries. Next on their hit list is Venezuela, where the failing economy is desperate for a solution.

If this book were a movie, it would deﬁnitely be a thriller! A compelling narrative that would grip both your heart and your soul, it would evoke in you the deepest emotions as well as the most disturbing questions about what makes and what could ever possibly unmake the humanity of a person. The title of the story says it all: “At Least He Wasn’t Hitting You”. It’s as though the very consolation that can ever be offered is also the most ironic statement of them all. When a woman marries a man who verbally abuses her, berates her and destroys every inch of her self-worth, damaging her for the rest of her life, what could possibly be there at all to ﬁnd consolation in?

Within intimate relationships, abuse is the furthest thing from one’s mind.

As the unnamed heroine of the story says herself, “It is different when scars are invisible. The damage is within.” And quite often, the inner damage is more difficult to heal. It is in this very difficulty that we see the true courage of the heroine here, of the woman who was able to overcome her fears so she can finally escape from the horrendous relationship she had for ten years.

After meeting the man of her dreams and saying, “I do,” one woman realizes her lover’s modus operandi is to gain ultimate power and control over her life by utilizing malicious patterns of verbal, emotional, ﬁnancial and psychological abuse.

Some people may then ask, “What took her so long? Why did she stay that long in a relationship that bad?” Here is where we ﬁnd wisdom in trying to search for answers, and in truth, there are no easy answers. What we are given is the truth that it isn’t easy trying to liberate oneself from such an abusive relationship. It isn’t easy because people adapt and the most terrifying things don’t happen all at once. Some catastrophes indeed happen gradually until it’s almost too late to escape from them.

In this gripping, unsettling personal memoir, the ﬁght for survival while enduring unfathomable trauma becomes a do-or-die situation.

Kyle Waller’s Ward depicts a vivid portrait of a war-torn society near collapse and hemorrhaging of violence and cruelty. Crimes against the State are punishable by death or exile to the city-turned-jail of Sacramento, California. Within the sequestered steel walls, alliances form for protection, food, and power. Clouded emotions blanket the horrors against humanity. The instinct for survival squashes societal norms and decency. The intensity of action and mayhem is unrelenting. The Ward is a city monitored by brutal force and the internal struggle to survive.

Up The River? Or Down In The Dirt?

A badly beaten Tango Primary Five (Calexio) crawls past the steel walls of the city prison into a life that becomes as blurry as the indiscernible ash-covered city. He reunites with The Angel of Death (Vioson) and their affection wages over the horrors of battle. Man is no longer man. Woman is no longer woman.

Summary Execution has become the preferred fate in a place where even angels fear to tread. Those unwise who elected for prison or are deemed unworthy of a quick death are condemned to The Ward, the former capital-city-converted-city-prison of Sacramento, California.

Ward by Kyle Waller is a high-intensity action adventure that questions the innate fragments of humanity that exist beyond force. Waller coasts through the depths of mental darkness and delivers the internal fortitude to survive death’s grasp.

Among the Grim Reapers coming in the forms of smiling rib cages and riding out the eleventh-hour, cannibal-afﬂicted Vikings, a Roman-inspired death cult, and a paranoid Maﬁa Syndicate, wage an ever cascading campaign of annihilation against one another.

The plot of Layers of Deception is well developed and follows the typical story arc; there is plenty of tension right from the opening chapter through to the last sentence. The reader is kept on pins and needles throughout the story wondering what the ruthless bad guys are going to do next – will it be a bomb, a hidden camera, more bribes, food poisoning, an illicit sexual encounter, blackmail, a rape, a murder, a cyber-crime? Truly the antagonists of this novel know no bounds! The reader’s emotions are in constant disarray throughout the story as James allows us to feel hope, despair, fear, suspense, disappointment, grief and apprehension.

Layers of Deception is a fastpaced international crime thriller ﬁlled with twists, turns and intrigue exposing conﬂicts between brothers, religion, gender, love, risk and greed.

There are several climacteric scenes in the novel – most involving the death, or demoralization, of one of the protagonists – but the real turning point is the shoot-out which is written with such skill and ﬁnesse that one can imagine the smell of cordite and blood amid absolute chaos.

Set in Malaysia and the UK, software business entrepreneur STEVE ROUSSOS struggles to safeguard his colleagues and family when evidence comes to light that exposes criminal activities on the dark net.

The ﬂow of Layers of Deception was mostly smooth. James relied heavily on dialogue to keep the action moving yet the speech patterns often became stilted. It may help if the direct exchange of dialogue was interspersed with descriptors of the character’s voice or actions, instead of simply exchanging sentences with one another.

The thriller draws on the author’s many years experience of doing business in Asia.

This reviewer was immediately drawn into the story by the opening car bomb scene. The technique of repeating it at the chronological point of the story in which it occurred was very clever.

Cry Eden is the third book in a series about the tumultuous years after the foundation of the State of Israel. This particular segment focuses on the international events leading up to and including the Yom Kipper War in 1973. The historical facts, including conversations between heads of states, are interspersed with the story of Noah Greenspan, a wealthy Jew, his Palestinian wife Alexandra Salaman, a journalist, and their 5-year old son Amos. I was instantly captivated by the narrative. Enough of the back story about the fictional characters was included in this book that even though I hadn’t read the first two books in the series, I was able to understand exactly what was going on, who the characters were, and something about their complex relationships. I finished the book intrigued enough to search out the prior stories to add to my library.

Against the backdrop of war in the Middle East, CRY EDEN continues the saga of Noah Greenspan, a young and successful Jewish businessman, and his Palestinian-American wife, Alexandra Salaman, a rising-star journalist in Washington, DC. Rich in historical detail, Cry Eden is a story about the power of love challenged by the stresses and tensions of age-old animosities. War, economic crisis in America, and terrorists plotting unspeakable revenge against Alexandra all converge in this page-turner of historical ﬁction.

It was obvious that meticulous research had been done, not only to present the facts clearly and concisely but also to give both historical and ﬁctional characters life and breath. Names that I remember from watching the news as a child, Golda Meir, Henry Kissinger, Anwar Sadat, became active pawns in this international game of chess over an area in the Middle East that is still rife with conﬂict. Although I knew that the United States has always been supportive of the Israeli government, it was interesting for me to learn from the excerpted conversations, exactly how much the US invested in militarizing the zone because of the Yom Kipper War.

“Cry Eden,” a riveting read, was preceded by “The Eden Legacy” and “Heirs of Eden,” and concludes the Eden trilogy.

The title of this book says it all. “Shattered Dreams and Broken Hearts” is a memoir about the life of a young man cut short because of drugs. The book author, Sylvia Abolis Mennear, is a mother who struggles with the grief of losing a son, and whose life after his death, will never be the same again. Educational, moving and genuine, it is an eye-opening account of what drug addicts and their loved ones go through in their ﬁght against addiction. It shows us how lives are stolen and often lost due to drugs. It enables parents and family members to see that substance abuse can happen to anyone, even to those we thought are not vulnerable enough to be victimized.

This book will help parents and families understand how bad these opioids really are, and what signs to look for. The stigma and preconception of drug abuse is wrong - our kids are very smart and talented, with their whole lives ahead or them. Our son Aaron James was a beautiful, bright 30 year old with so many dreams, so many desires. He had a wonderful girlfriend, an adorable pooch, and a family that loved him and had such high hopes for him. His friends adored him. He would have had a fantastic life - if not for his accident in January 2014, after which he became addicted to prescription painkillers.That day was the beginning of the end for not only Aaron, but everyone who loved him. He died unexpectedly to the KILLER FENTANYL.

Through research and personal experience, the author makes a clear list of typical behavior that should warn us of possible drug addiction. It urges us to be vigilant. In a society where we are surrounded by people who can so easily inﬂuence our loved ones into taking drugs, ours should be a never tiring task to be watchful and to be pro-active. To act before everything is too late is a lesson the reader should quickly acquire as one reads through the book. The book also stresses the kind of help needed by those who have already fallen into substance abuse. The stigma, which so often isolates the drug addict and keeps him from receiving the assistance he needs should be fought. Instead of judgment, there must be helpful information. Instead of blame, there should be a cooperative approach towards recovery.

Unbalanced by Courtney Shepard is an action packed paranormal romance that delivers a stuffed full reading experience. It follows four sisters, who are the physical manifestation of the four elements, as they are reincarnated time and time again, to the present day. We see the four sisters, each alone and believing themselves alone in the world, struggling with the sudden knowledge that they not only are quadruplets, but also that they are hunted by a mysterious Order that wants only to kill them - and the men they most click with, are members of this Order.

Every generation four sisters with power over earth, air, fire, and water are born to fight against a fanatical, secret faith. The Order exists only to sacrifice the sisters for their power. With each success their strength and control grows. They have never failed, for their rule depends on it.

Unbalanced is easy reading, and written for the YA audience that enjoys a coming of age novel with strong female leads that are unafraid of hurting and killing those that would kill them. The dynamic between the sisters once they find each other is strong, and this, the first book in a series, outlines the major plot arcs with both the potential for romance and the overlying mystery of the Order to be developed and fleshed out in further episodes.

The sisters, separated at birth, are unaware of what hunts them...but they are coming.

I found this fun to read, very typical of the genre, but deﬁnitely a good choice for those that like paranormal romance.

A handsome stranger discovers Asha in hiding, and swears allegiance to her cause. She falls for him; though he is not who he says he is. Betrayed and imprisoned inside the Order, Asha is without her power for the ﬁrst time in her life.

The four sisters are meant to be manifestations of the elements, and their characters and also physical appearance reflect that. Asha, our fire woman, is strong and quick tempered, quick to defend her friends and equally quick to annihilate her enemies. The first book tends to deal more with Asha, and I expect the further books would focus more on the other sisters.