#bookreview – Page 47 – Rosepoint Publishing

Drowning in the Desert by Bernard Schopen – #BookReview – #murderthrillers

A Nevada Noir Novel (Western Literature and Fiction Series)

Book Blurb:

Norman “Fats” Rangle, an ex-deputy sheriff, operates a horse stabling and excursion business with his brother and sister-in-law on their family ranch in the small rural community of Blue Lake, a few hours outside of Las Vegas. But fate has other plans for him when, high on a southern Nevada mountain range, Fats discovers the wreckage of a plane that crashed two years earlier. Although he reports his find to the sheriff, he does not disclose that someone had already been to the crash site—evidence that Fats deliberately destroyed.

Soon, Fats is tracking back and forth between Las Vegas and Blue Lake in a search for a missing cousin, a briefcase full of cash, and finally, for a killer. Along the way, Fats also begins to understand that he’s searching for himself and his place in a rapidly changing West.

Angry and alienated, Fats distrusts everyone he meets, from sleaze-merchants and political power brokers to two women: one he wants to believe in, a retired judge; and one, a police sergeant, he can’t quite believe isn’t deceiving him. After all, in this Nevada, corruption is a given. Everybody lies. Much is uncertain—motives, loyalties, affections. But in Drowning in the Desert, one thing is certain: water is a precious resource that can both kill and be killed for.

His Review:

Norman “Fats” Rangle had been the sheriff in Pinenut County Nevada for over twenty years. The electorate is fickle, however, and although Fats had a very good record, a more attractive person was elected Pinenut County sheriff. He finds an old plane wreck in the mountains after a particularly warm spring and he reports it to the new sheriff. But this is Vegas. And it is Nevada.

Plans are quietly being made by a clique of people around Las Vegas to corner the water sources in the state. They are ruthless and will let nothing stand in their way.

There is missing money from the plane wreck and as evidence would have it later, perhaps a missing cousin. Someone suddenly shows up with funds to play the games.

Fats begins to suspect those he reported to might not be trusted. This is big business. Huge. It’s getting dangerous. Should he continue to look for his cousin or missing funds. Who will have his back?

The author writes an intriguing tale of the struggle for water in Nevada and the group that attempts to control the resource. There is never a dull moment in the storyline, it is fast-paced with gritty, determined characters. 4.5 stars – CE Williams

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Murder Thrillers, Literature & Fiction
Publisher: University of Nevada Press
ISBN-10: ‎ 1647791189
ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1647791186
ASIN: B0C7VFQ8QF
Print Length: 221 pages
Publication Date: August 22, 2023
Source: Publisher and NetGalley

Title Link(s):

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: Bernard Schopen received his degrees at the University of Washington and the University of Nevada, Reno. He held faculty positions at TMCC and at St. Anselm’s College in New Hampshire before returning to Reno to write and to teach. Since 1995 he has taught Core Humanities courses, and he is now a full-time lecturer in the program. He has taught thousands of students in all three courses, and trained other teachers in the program as well. He designed, and continues to teach, the online versions of all three CH courses for Extended Studies. In Spring 2007 he received the prestigious Alan Bible Teaching Excellence Award for the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Science. The prize augmented an earlier significant award: Schopen is an inductee into the Nevada Writers’ Hall of Fame, an honor recognizing his three Reno detective novels, The Big Silence, The Desert Look, and The Iris Deception, all now available from the University of Nevada Press. When not preparing his now award-winning lectures for Core Humanities, he is at work on another novel, this one set in London. [pic and bio courtesy Goodreads]

Enjoy Your Sunday

The Swiss Nurse by Mario Escobar – #Audiobook Review – #BiographicalFiction

Book Blurb:

Based on the true story of an astonishingly brave woman who saved hundreds of mothers and their children during the Spanish Civil War and World War II.

Elisabeth Eidenbenz left Switzerland in 1937 to aid children orphaned during the Spanish Civil War. Now, her work has led her to France, where she’s determined to provide expectant mothers and their unborn children a refuge amid one of the worst humanitarian crises of the twentieth century.

Desperate to escape the invasion of Franco’s Fascist troops, Isabel Dueñas becomes one of many Spanish patriots fleeing their country. She leaves behind her husband as he fights for democracy, and she seeks asylum in a refugee camp across the border in France. Without adequate shelter, clean drinking water, or medical care, Isabel’s future looks bleak—until she meets Elisabeth.

When Germany invades Poland, an avalanche of humanity sweeps into France. In the cascade of crises that follow, Isabel and Elisabeth learn the cost and the unexpected joy of sacrifice.

Based on the true stories of refugees and the woman who risked everything to save them, The Swiss Nurse shares a message of love and strength amid one of history’s often overlooked conflicts.

My Review:

Okay, I confess. I chose this audiobook solely because I was looking for more narrated by Saskia Maarleveld. The author though is a new one for me.

Seems I’ve gotten into amazing women who were largely unsung heroes of the first or second world war, narrated by the Maarleveld, as she is fluent in various languages. They beautifully roll off her tongue adding nuance and spice to the narrative.

The plot line closely chronicles the heroic efforts of Elisabeth Eidenbenz in both the Spanish Civil War and World War Two to create a maternity hospital for the many refugees pouring into France.

The storyline is told in alternating POVs, one of whom is main character Eidenbenz who left Spain with a group of children and is desperately seeking a location to house them in France. Internment camps had been set up but in filthy conditions with overflows of women and children living on the beaches, no clean water, shelter, or sanity conditions. Her odyssey with the children extends into hiding and helping Jewish women to birth their babies safely as the conflict widens. She is constantly fighting for a safe setting and donations for expenses.

Isabel Duenas fled Barcelona leaving her husband, Peter Davis, an American, still helping with the fight. They planned to meet in France. From the time he left Spain to join her in France, however, they confronted one obstacle only to confront the next as he continued to try and get him and Isabel home to America while facing the escalating war in the European theatre and looking like their escape would be impossible.

The Germans’ invasion of France made the conditions ever more treacherous, for both Isabel and Peter. In the meatime, Elizabeth and her hubby (a doctor) have managed to reconnect and begin working together.

In the meantime, they meet numerous support characters who serve to paint the desperate picture of wartime France with contributions; the refugees, conditions, and death and each lose friends to starvation, disease, or violence.

It’s much the same story I’ve read and/or listened to before each penned with drama, sympathy, and heartbreaking history. Even with Ms Maarleveld’s narration, I did not find this quite as engulfing or blistering as some she has narrated before. While it was not slow per se, I just didn’t seem to engage quite as completely with the characters as expected. There was repetition of conditions, brutality, senseless death as if to drive the point home, but instead seemed to dull the pace somewhat.

With all the struggles, few triumphs or wins, the conclusion proved satisfying and pulled any loose strings together. As many times as we have proven “war is hell,” it still manages to find a new avenue to exploit.

I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Book Details:

Genre: WWII Historical Fiction, War & Military Fiction, Biographical Fiction
Publisher: Harper Muse
ASIN: B0B6238TZ7
Listening Length: 7 hrs 55 mins
Narrator: Saskia Maarleveld
Publication Date: April 18, 2023
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: The Swiss Nurse [Amazon]
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

Rosepoint Publishing: Four stars

The Author: Mario Escobar has a master’s degree in modern history and has written numerous books and articles that delve into the depths of church history, the struggle of sectarian groups, and the discovery and colonization of the Americas. Escobar, who makes his home in Madrid, Spain, is passionate about history and its mysteries.

www.marioescobar.es

The Narrator: Saskia Maarleveld is an experienced audiobook narrator and voice-over actress based in New York City. Raised in New Zealand and France, she is highly skilled with accents and dialects, and many of her books have been narrated entirely in accents other than her own. In addition to audiobooks, Saskia’s voice can be heard in animation, video games, and commercials. She attributes her love and understanding of reading books aloud to coming from a large family where audiobooks were the only way to get through car rides without fighting! Visit saskiamaarleveld.com to learn more.

Rosepoint Publishing

The Caretaker by Ron Rash – #BookReview – #TuesdayBookBlog

Rosepoint Rating: Five Stars

Book Blurb:

Told against the backdrop of the Korean War as a small Appalachian town sends its sons to battle, The Caretaker by award-winning author Ron Rash (“One of the great American authors at work today” —The New York Times) is a breathtaking love story and a searing examination of the acts we seek to justify in the name of duty, family, honor, and love.

It’s 1951 in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Blackburn Gant, his life irrevocably altered by a childhood case of polio, seems condemned to spend his life among the dead as the sole caretaker of a hilltop cemetery. It suits his withdrawn personality, and the inexplicable occurrences that happen from time to time rattle him less than interaction with the living. But when his best and only friend, the kind but impulsive Jacob Hampton, is conscripted to serve overseas, Blackburn is charged with caring for Jacob’s wife, Naomi, as well.

Sixteen-year-old Naomi Clarke is an outcast in Blowing Rock, an outsider, poor and uneducated, who works as a seasonal maid in the town’s most elegant hotel. When Naomi eloped with Jacob a few months after her arrival, the marriage scandalized the community, most of all his wealthy parents who disinherited him. Shunned by the townsfolk for their differences and equally fearful that Jacob may never come home, Blackburn and Naomi grow closer and closer until a shattering development derails numerous lives.

A tender examination of male friendship and rivalry as well as a riveting, page-turning novel of familial devotion, The Caretaker brilliantly depicts the human capacity for delusion and destruction all too often justified as acts of love.

My Review:

Blackburn is not your average protagonist. His mind is fine. It’s his body that isn’t, so he’s found solace in the relative peace of the cemetery that he oversees. He does have one good friend. Jacob Hampton doesn’t notice his physical differences. They are simpatico. Understand and trust each other. So much so that when Jacob is drafted, he leaves the care of his young wife to Blackburn, who takes that care very seriously.

The problem is the townspeople, who have likewise shunned the child, now wife, of the prominent son of wealthy parents who promptly thought Jacob lost his mind. Their efforts to separate the two are solidly rebuked. She’s an outcast, poor, uneducated, and ignorant. But she, too, has no problem with Blackburn.

I have to admit, I was slow in engaging with the teenager who captures Jacob’s heart. Jacob is expected to take over the business his parents have painstakingly nurtured until the success has made them very comfortable. He is bored stiff with that notion and has other ideas which serve to alienate him and his parents anyway–and marrying Naomi only widens the rift.

Jacob is an empathetic character. He is not as well developed as Blackburn, but still your heart goes out to him. It is with some trepidation then that Blackburn and Naomi form a bond–one that Naomi stupidly flaunts–further alienating the townspeople. The characters, including most support characters, are vivid, fleshed, and so easy to visualize.

It is beginning to look like Jacob may not return from overseas. Blackburn begins to relax a bit with his charge, a sensitive change that Naomi, pregnant with Jacob’s child welcomes. My heart is breaking for the road this plot is apparently taking and I begin urging the writer to say it isn’t so.

Jacob’s parents love him so much, they are willing to do anything to gain their son back if only he returns safely. It’s almost despicable. I kept thinking they’d soften. But what happens in conclusion is crushing, realistic. It leaves the reader stunned into acquiescence. And silence.

The prose is handled delicately, beautifully, and often in this literary narrative. The writing style is haunting and thought-provoking.

“Learning people were so much more than you thought, wasn’t that also part of no longer being a child?”

I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the author and publisher through @NetGalley that in no way influenced this review. These are my honest thoughts.

Book Details:

Genre: Small Town & Rural Fiction, US Historical Fiction, Historical Literary Fiction
Publisher: Doubleday
ASIN: B0BR4YJ97Q
Print Length: 272 pages
Publication Date: September 26, 2023
Source: Publisher and NetGalley

Title Link(s):

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: Ron Rash is the author of the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Finalist and New York Times bestselling novel, Serena, in addition to three other prizewinning novels, One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River, and The World Made Straight; three collections of poems; and four collections of stories, among them Burning Bright, which won the 2010 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and Chrmistry and Other Stories, which was a finalist for the 2007 PEN/Faulkner Award. Twice the recipient of the O.Henry Prize, he teaches at Western Carolina University.

#TuesdayBookblog banner

A Sagebrush Soul by John Isaac Jones – #BookReview – #biographicalfiction

A Biographical Novel of Mark Twain (Great American Authors Series Book 2)

Rosepoint Publishing: Five Stars

Book Blurb:

John Isaac Jones’s new biographical novel on Samuel Langhorne Clemens, A/K/A Mark Twain, brings the fascinating life of America’s most famous humorist to you in vivid, captivating detail.

His time – 1840s-1910 America. Westward movement begins; the trail of tears; telegraph is invented; California gold rush; War between the States; Lincoln assassinated; the golden spike; Custer massacred; invention of electric light, the telephone and the automobile; the Spanish American war; the tumultuous presidency of Teddy Roosevelt; events leading to WWI.

His loves – His strait-laced, highly-religious mother Jane who vowed he was “born to be hanged!”; Laura Hawkins, his childhood sweetheart whom he was unable to commit to; Ina Coolbrith, the beautiful California poetess and lover who vowed to hold him; his beloved wife Olivia who urged him to become “a serious writer;” his oldest daughter Susan whom he worshipped from the day she was born until the day of her death.

His genius – Samuel Langhorne Clemens, news reporter, steamboat pilot, gold miner, lecturer, world-traveler, adventurer, author of the classic Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn books; the first man to circumnavigate the world on a steamship; singlehandedly invented the travelogue genre when he wrote Innocents Abroad; later books, including A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Roughing it, Life of the Mississippi and the short story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, earned him the title “The father of American literature.”

His Review:

Growing up along the Mississippi River, Samuel Clemens was always getting into mischief. He and a boyhood friend, Tom Blankenship, are always having problems. Finally, Sam’s parents determine that Tom is leading their son down the road of perdition and forbid him to have any further contact with him. This relationship was the basis for the character Huckleberry Finn.

Sam’s boyhood town, Hannibal, Missouri, is located on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River. The town is a major port city and with deep water is able to take in many of the steamboats that ply the river. Sam falls in love with the idea of becoming a steamboat captain and sailing the route between New Orleans and Hannibal.

But he becomes a newspaper reporter and decides to head west to broaden his experience. He is swept up in the search for gold and he and a couple other guys search for the elusive metal near Carson City, NV and then the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The three manage to eke out $8.00 per day after grueling twelve-hour days and decide this is not for them. They take their hard-earned savings and try to double it in San Francisco.

Sam marries a young lady and they decide to move and live back east. Life gives him many harsh lessons including losing his daughters and ultimately his wife. Life is not easy for Samuel Clemens and his alternate ego, Mark Twain, who with an abundance of life experience to write about, then becomes a great traveling orator and humorist. This book, however, reveals the difficult life that this American legend lived and the many tragedies that he experienced. 5 stars – CE Williams

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book.

Book Details:

Genre: Historical Biographical Fiction, Biographical Fiction, Biographical Historical Fiction
Publisher: John Isaac Jones (1^st Edition)
ASIN: B0C55VKF7N
Print Length: 506 pages
Publication Date: May 12, 2023
Source: Publisher and NetGalley

Title Link(s):

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: John Isaac Jones is a retired journalist and novelist currently living and writing at Merritt Island, Florida. For more than thirty years, “John I.,” as he prefers to be called, was a reporter for media outlets throughout the world. These included local newspapers in my native Alabama, The National Enquirer, News of the World in London, the Sydney Morning Herald, and NBC television. His latest book, A Quiet Madness, is a work of historical fiction about the life of Edgar Allan Poe, author of the short story classics, The Tell-tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado. Jones is the author of ten novels, two short story collections and five novellas. You can find “John I.” on his website, johnisaacjones.com, or on Facebook at author john Isaac Jones.

Have a Great Sunday

Should the Tent Be Burning Like That? by Bill Heavey – a #BookReview – Atlantic Monthly Press

It’s that time of year when people are getting out and resuming favorite outdoor activities from hunting to fishing and just plain laid-back camping in the pristine wilderness where 3,000 other people are doing the same. I thought it was time to bring this post back from 2017 in case you might have missed it the first go-round.

Enjoy!

Title: Should the Tent Be Burning Like That? A Professional Amateur’s Guide to the Outdoors by Bill Heavey

Genre: Currently #171 on Amazon Best Sellers Rank in Books, Spots & Outdoors, Miscellaneous, Essays, and

#1136 in Books, Humor & Entertainment, Humor, Essays

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press

Publication Date: To be published December 5, 2017

Source: Atlantic Monthly Press and NetGalley

Title and Cover: Should the Tent Be Burning Like That? – VERY neat cover in keeping with his brand.

I am not a reader of Field and Stream magazine where this author has been a featured writer for more than 20 years. Should the Tent Be Burning Like That by Bill Heavey is a compilation of columns or articles he has written for various publications during the last several decades. The book explores more than an erudite knowledge of his subject.

The amazing thing here is the manner of speaking, the sense of humor, and the down-home self-deprecating, ah shucks pattern in which he delivers his collection of little stories.

Continue reading “Should the Tent Be Burning Like That? by Bill Heavey – a #BookReview – Atlantic Monthly Press”

Hard Country by Reavis Z Wortham – #BookReview – #crimethriller

Book Blurb:

There is no peace in the hard country

Tucker Snow is as tough as they come, hardened by decades working as an undercover narcotics agent for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Through special dispensation from the governor, he and his brother Harley cut a wide swath through the criminal element of Northeast Texas. But tragedy comes calling after taking a dream job as a special ranger with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, when Tucker’s wife and toddler are killed in a horrific traffic accident caused by a drug addled felon. Close to breaking, Tucker sets his badge aside to move his surviving teenage daughter outside of Ganther Bluff, a quiet town with enough room for them to mourn their unexpected loss.

But peace doesn’t last long for a man like Tucker Snow. Instead of settling into small-town life to heal from such an unimaginable loss, a fresh kind of hell hits them with full force.

Crimes and secrets strangle this rural community, and when a new form of meth with the street name of gravel gets too close to home, it’s enough for Tucker to put his badge back on and call Harley for help. The town will ultimately be better off with him as a resident lawman, but this unforgiving landscape will threaten everything Tucker holds dear.

His Review:

Illegal drugs have hit every population in the world. Texas is no different and the law enforcement personnel in that state are charged with helping curb the epidemic. Riches can be made in drug dealing, however, and their primary goal is becoming rich. Human life means nothing to them.

Tucker and Harley Snow are agents swept up in trying to protect the public from these criminals. A new product enters the market with terrible social consequences, but dealers and distributors will kill to maintain their territory and income.

Tucker bought a beautiful spread in the panhandle and is settling in for a well-earned retirement. Since his wife and son were killed in a tragic car accident, he is left with his daughter Chloe on the ranch. His neighbor lives in a ratty mobile home and seems to have a very profitable business. He is not about to allow this lawman to come into his territory and destroy his enterprise.

This book is very well written and harkens back to some of the old Zane Grey’s westerns. The action is fast moving and at times very descriptive. The battle to control the effects on the American public of easily accessible drugs is similar to the wild west of a century earlier. Read and enjoy for there is never a dull moment. 4.5 stars – CE Williams

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Murder, Police Procedurals, Crime Thrillers, Westerns
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
ASIN: B0BK2KDJYS
Print Length: (paperback) 400 pages
Publication Date: August 1, 2023
Source: Publisher and NetGalley

Title Link(s):

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: As a boy, award-winning writer, Reavis Z. Wortham hunted and fished the river bottoms near Chicota, Texas, the inspiration for the fictional setting for The Rock Hole and The Red River Mystery Series. He was born in Paris, Texas, but lived in Dallas. “We grew up in the city and went to school there, but every Friday evening my parents put us in the car and made the 120-mile drive to Chicota, where we truly lived at my grandparents’ place in the country until Sunday evening, when we came back to the city. Our real home was that little scratch farm in Lamar County.”

Author Reavis Z. Wortham’s first novel, The Rock Hole, is described by Kirkus Reviews as “an unpretentious gem written to the hilt and harrowing in its unpredictability.” Kirkus also listed it as one of the “Top 12 Mysteries of 2011.”

[truncated]

Reavis also penned Doreen’s 24 HR Eat Gas Now Café. More than 2,500 newspaper and magazine articles bear the byline of this award-winning Texas writer. The Rock Hole was a finalist in the prestigious Benjamin Franklin Award presented by the Independent Book Publishers Association, is a member of Mystery Writers of America, the Writers’ League of Texas, International Association of Crime Writers (North American Branch), and International Thriller Writers.

He lives with his wife, Shana, in northeast Texas.

Enjoy Your Sunday

Overkill by Sandra Brown – #AudiobookReview – #ThrowbackThursday

Book Blurb:

#1 New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown delivers a riveting thriller where a conflict of conscience for a former football star and an ambitious state prosecutor swiftly intensifies into a fight for their lives.

Former Super Bowl MVP quarterback Zach Bridger hasn’t seen his ex-wife, Rebecca Pratt, for some time—not since their volatile marriage imploded—so he’s shocked to receive a life-altering call about her. Rebecca has been placed on life support after a violent assault, and he—despite their divorce—has medical power-of-attorney. Zach is asked to make an impossible choice: keep her on life support or take her off of it. Buckling under the weight of the responsibility and the glare of public scrutiny, Zach ultimately walks away, letting Rebecca’s parents have the final say.

Four years later, Rebecca’s attacker, Eban—the scion of a wealthy family in Atlanta—gets an early release from prison. The ludicrous miscarriage of justice reeks of favoritism, and Kate Lennon, a brilliant state prosecutor, is determined to put him back behind bars. Rebecca’s parents have kept her alive all these years, but if her condition were to change—if she were to die—Eban could be retried on a new charge: murder.

It isn’t lost on Zach that in order for Eban to be charged with Rebecca’s murder, Zach must actually be the one to kill her. He rejects Kate’s legal standpoint but can’t resist their ill-timed attraction to each other. Eban, having realized the jeopardy he’s in, plots to make certain that neither Zach nor Kate lives to see the death of Rebecca—and the end of his freedom.

My Review:

Have you ever found yourself requesting the same book? Or attracted by the cover and blurb, loaned the audiobook from the library a year later? I’ve done so, more than once. This time, however, it was a book from NetGalley requested last year that the CE read and reviewed. It wasn’t until I began preparing for this review that I ran across his review, a shortened version included below. We were fairly close in agreement with this one.

Zach Bridger was apparently a Super Bowl quarterback of some renown, as he was often recognized. His marriage to Rebecca was a short, unhappy one. She ended up on life support with what appeared to be Zach’s responsibility as her father could not, would not “pull the plug.”

First, a former star quarterback was a bit difficult for me to find fully engaging, although I did appreciate his philosophy regarding Rebecca. Kate Lennon has a stake in seeing that Eban should still be held accountable after his release. She is smart, driven, and effective in her role as a state prosecutor. Of course, Zach and Rebecca will become romantically involved.

“She placed her hand on his chest, ‘Thank you for saving by life.’ ‘Thank you for coming into mine.’” [Zach]

I thought the age-old struggle of the “right thing” to do was handled well, including both points of view but for me, the middle of the narrative sagged a bit going into the conclusion. What finally ticked up the interest was that little zinger in the end.

Love those twists you don’t see coming and this one caught me by surprise. The philosophy of the situation ended in a stalemate—but it’s that end run with the legalese that provides the satisfying ending.

I downloaded a copy of this audiobook with narration by Kyf Brewer from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts. 4 stars

Book Details:

Genre: Crime Fiction, Contemporary Romance, Suspense
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ASIN: B09WTLHHVK
Listening Length: 10 hrs 10 mins
Narrator: Kyf Brewer
Publication Date: August 16, 2022
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: Overkill [Amazon]

His Review:

[redacted] Rebecca Pratt Bridger is confined to a hospital bed. She has very little brain activity and for all practical purposes is a vegetable. Her ex-husband, Zack Bridger, has been designated her legal guardian and the one who can tell them to disconnect the life-saving devices.

Rebecca found her husband intolerable soon after the marriage and began to sleep around. One of those times she chose a man who liked to choke the woman while having sex. She didn’t come to again.

The man who caused Rebecca to be in the coma is out of prison after four years. Eban has been spoiled his whole life. He is a person with no scruples or remorse.

The author captured the essence of a narcissist who has no regard for other individuals. It kept me engaged expecting something would happen to Eban. 4.5 stars – CE Williams

Did you read this one last year too?

The Author: Sandra Brown is the author of more than sixty New York Times bestsellers, including STING (2016), FRICTION (2015), MEAN STREAK (2014), DEADLINE (2013), LOW PRESSURE (2012), LETHAL (2011), and the critically acclaimed RAINWATER (2010).

Brown began her writing career in 1981 and since then has published over seventy novels, bringing the number of copies of her books in print worldwide to upwards of eighty million. Her work has been translated into thirty-three languages.

Brown recently was given an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Texas Christian University. She was named Thriller Master for 2008, the top award given by the International Thriller Writer’s Association. Other awards and commendations include the 2007 Texas Medal of Arts Award for Literature and the Romance Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Narrator: Kyf Brewer, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, is an actor known for Serial Mom, Stop, Record, and Fallen Arches.

The CE and I

Mainely Wicked by Matt Cost – #BookReview – Witch & Wizard Mysteries

A Goff Langdon Mainely Mystery Book

Book Blurb:

Langdon is hired to find a man who answered a classified ad and then disappeared into thin air. And then a second person vanishes. What starts as a couple of simple missing-person cases quickly spirals into a diabolical world of witches, wiccans, and wendigos.

“You ever hear of the Church of Satan?” Jewell asked. There was silence around the fire. The flames danced and flickered, casting shadows in the dark May night. Langdon took the bottle from Richam and poured himself another…

Bart, the dour but poetic cop, is back, even if demoted to a blue uniform. The dapper lawyer, Jimmy 4 by Four, is up to his regular philandering ways. Richam is hiding a secret from Jewell, and Chabal makes a new friend… And then goes missing.

What is going to happen during the Super Flower Blood Moon and who is the Wendigo? This time, Langdon might be too late to solve these mysteries before the blood flows…

His Review:

Langdon’s sidekick, Annie, is missing and he is intent on finding her. His investigation turns up a devil worship group call Wendigo. The group gathers young women for his sustenance.

Langdon is intent upon getting Annie back but is thwarted by the Devil’s followers.

Chabal accompanies Langdon on this quest. Investigating the “Wendigo Grotto of Satan” is pretty freaky. Can this intrepid duo find Annie in time?

This story is well out of my comfort zone and I found it distressing. Apparently a nod to the 600,000 who go missing every year, there were scenes and descriptions of practice that I found difficult to read. Devil worship is simply not my thing.

An unusual departure from the books I’ve read by this author before, this will be a one-off for me. You may enjoy it if you are a fan of the genre or familiar with the legend of the Wendigo. C E Williams 3.5 stars – CE Williams

I previously read Velma Gone Awry, a historical mystery, which was engaging and entertaining and I greatly enjoyed.

Many thanks to the author for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book.

Rosepoint Publishing: Three point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Witch & Wizard Mysteries, Private Investigator Mysteries
Publisher: Encircle Publications
ASIN: B0C4D86219
Print Length: 301 pages
Publication Date: August 9, 2023
Source: Author

Title Link(s):

Amazon | Barnes & Noble

The Author: Matt Cost was a history major at Trinity College. He owned a mystery bookstore, a video store, and a gym, before serving a ten-year sentence as a junior high school teacher. In 2014 he was released and began writing. And that’s what he does. He writes histories and mysteries.

Cost has published four books in the Mainely Mystery series, with the fifth, “Mainely Wicked”, due out in August of 2023. He has also published four books in the Clay Wolfe Trap series, with the fifth, “Pirate Trap”, due out in December of 2023.

For historical novels, Cost has published “At Every Hazard” and its sequel, “Love in a Time of Hate”, as well as “I am Cuba”. In April of 2023, Cost will combine his love of histories and mysteries into a historical PI mystery set in 1923 Brooklyn, “Velma Gone Awry”.

Cost now lives in Brunswick, Maine, with his wife, Harper. There are four grown children: Brittany, Pearson, Miranda, and Ryan. A chocolate Lab and a basset hound round out the mix. He now spends his days at the computer, writing.

Have a Great Sunday