#DrowningintheDesert – Rosepoint Publishing

Rosepoint Reviews – July Recap – Wild Weather and Scorching Temps

Rosepoint Reviews - July Recap

July in the upper Midwest is a volatile month with sudden, violent thunderstorms or tornadoes or highs in the low seventies with a cool breeze. You can’t accuse the area of boring weather. Still, I shouldn’t be grousing as with the sudden drenching rains and warm to hot days, the lawn has gone nuts—you can almost literally watch grass grow here—and my garden is loving it. Well, my sugar snap peas didn’t love it so much.

Late start with the garden, slow spring, and just now beginning to get some tomatoes trying to ripen. The baby deer are beginning to venture out—still have their spots. They look sweet until they get into my garden—squash being the current favorite. The CE is happy about that though.
Fawns with spots

We are trying to get in some steps, got the bikes all pumped up—and walking or riding any semi-cool mornings we can get. Still we managed fourteen books in July. These are mostly from NetGalley and also my local library with both audiobooks and digital. (As always, links below are to my reviews that include purchase info.)

Rosepoint Reviews - July Recap
Drowning in the Desert by Bernard Schopen (CE review)
The Night We Burned by S F Kosa
The Last to Vanish by Megan Miranda (audiobook)
Splinter by Paul McHugh (CE review)
Trotting Into Trouble by Amber Camp
How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix (audiobook)
The Last Ranger by Peter Heller (CE review)
Home at Night by Paula Munier
The Wrong Victim by Allison Brennan (audiobook)
Night Owl by Andrew Mayne (CE review)
Some of Us Are Looking by Carlene O’Connor
Unwrapped by Lynda McDaniel
All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers (audiobook)
The Cove by Gregg Dunnett (CE review)

These included historical fiction, literary fiction, psychological fiction, cozy mysteries, and thrillers.

Favorite Book of the Month

I was gifted two ARCs from favorite authors in July, one being Unwrapped by Lynda McDaniel and the other, Some of Us Are Looking by Carlene O’Connor, both of which earned my five stars. I really like that slightly darker turn in Ms O’Connor’s Irish mysteries and Unwrapped proved to have a sweet Hallmark type of ending–timed perfectly for the Christmas season. The CE also had a couple he particularly enjoyed, one for the sense of humor (The Last Ranger) and another because of that totally off-the-wall wallop of a surprise ending (The Cove). There were several others hovering in the 4.5 star range for both of us–it was one of those great reading months. But in the end, I’ll have to go with–

Book of the Month for July—Unwrapped.

My Reading Challenges page… I have 88 books of a goal of 145 in Goodreads (one book ahead of schedule) and still riding at a 97% feedback ratio in NetGalley. As always, I’m struggling to keep up with the rest. *Sigh* Maybe after the summer months…

First the death of the Instagram feed—then Musk messed with Twitter—and there went that feed. I’d boycott that stupid “X” but need to Twitter away my reviews. Is anyone getting around this (other than adding another job to the post) so they can show both feeds on their blog? All I’ve got now are the blank spaces where those feeds used to show up in my right column. Any suggestions, help, or ideas? I’d welcome them all!

Welcome to my new subscribers and thank you, as always, to those who read and comment. I love hearing from you!

k-luv-u-bye

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]