This is a story about the political situation in Washington, the same old story of politicians with alternate objectives to their positions protecting those positions no matter what. Likewise all the civil servants down the line to the police detective, who is expected to solve a complicated serial murder case, while at the same time […]
“Long Live Phoenixes” by Jasmine Farrell
“Phoenixes” is the poetry of a young woman breaking free from the cocoon of her youth, rejecting while respecting the wisdom and desires of her family and background in favour of her independence. Her poems reveal glimpses of her past: sometimes gently, other times with less gentility, leading us to wonder whether there was a […]
“The Eden Chip” by Scott Cramer
This novel starts with an active, tense opening chapter using a literary device I am seeing too often lately but I won’t reveal it and spoil your fun. The action continues throughout the book, with a complicated plot that moves from shifting alliances and complex politics all the way to questioning reality. Cramer has […]
“Drake Peters Book 1: One Minute to Midnight” by Kingsley Benjamin
This book is a “British Public School Gone Magical” story in the Harry Potter tradition. It involves a gifted young man who is given the chance to study at a top-secret elite school for special students. The main conflicts in the book have to do with surviving the challenges of his first year there, while […]
“Assassins Of Riaz” by Michael Drakich
“Assassins” is Action Fantasy with a hefty dose of politics thrown in. It takes place in the independent trading city of Limos, Riaz, ruled by five merchant princes and kept in order by a rather mercenary magical Assassins Guild. To this city come representatives of several nearby kingdoms with the intent of holding a conference […]
“I Exist. Therefore I Am” by Shirani Rajapakse
This is a book of short stories chronicling the unremitting horror of being a woman in India. It is poetic, descriptive, and unrelenting in its portrayal of what life is like for the unlucky woman who is poor, unable to produce sons or widowed. Each separate story outlines one possible scenario where a happy person […]
“Rotten Magic” by Jeffrey Bardwell
Okay, how to put this. “Rotten Magic” is not a novel. According to the title of the Introduction, it is “Notes from the Artificer’s Guild.” A much more apt description. It is more like a series of short stories with chapters interspersed between each other. Likewise, the writing style comes at you just a bit […]
“The Realm of Beasts” by Angela J. Ford
I find this book very much like its cover: a beautiful medley of images, but so unrelated that I cannot quite understand the logic that places them together. It is ostensibly the story of a character with gaps in his memory who is trying to learn both his past and his present in a new […]
“Morgan le Fay: Children of This World” by Jo-Anne Blanco
In August I reviewed the first book in this series, “Small Things and Great,” and enjoyed it, so I was pleased to take a look at another work by this author. Unfortunately, I was not so impressed by the second book. Less is More Almost twice as long as the first book, this part of […]
“Queen Mary’s Daughter” by Emily-Jane Hills Orford
Today I am doing something I have never done before. I am writing a review of a book I did not finish. But this author has put a great deal of research, creativity, and toil into the project, and that deserves to be acknowledged. I was impressed with the main character of the story. She […]