Broken, by Susan Helene Gottfried

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Broken Susan GottfriedIf you ever wondered what goes on backstage after a rock concert, then you’ll enjoy this short story.

 Ms. Gottfried puts you into the head of the only female band member of the fictional Ice Cubes in Hell, dealing with the drama between bandmates, the tour manager, and the ever-present groupies. This story gives fascinating look at that unique relationship and how T, the narrator, deals with a coked-up and paranoid band member. While maintaining a occasional intimate relationship with another.

 

Readers squeamish about foul language and sexual situations will find this story difficult to read. If you aren’t bothered by those things, you’ll love how the author puts you deep into T’s head without softening her outlook of what’s going on around her.

T is not a soft cuddly type, but I enjoyed how she was portrayed. No doubt an only woman traveling with men who are constantly pawed at by would have to harden their outlook on the opposite sex and put up with groupies feeling her clothes and boots where theirs for the taking.

I’d recommend this story for those looking for a fun, quick read.

Cover Reveal, Calamity

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Calamity - FullRes 6 x 9I’m pleased to reveal the cover of my next airline thriller, Calamity. The amazing David C. Cassidy took my vague suggestions and worked them into this eyebrow-raising, smile-inducing cover.

 I’ve sent the manuscript off to be edited by Susan H. Gottfried, the editor of my previous novels. I look forward to seeing the magic she works. I’ll post the first chapter of the novel after I get the manuscript back from her.

 

Cassidy Jones and the Luminous

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Cassidy Jones and the LuminousBefore you begin reading this engaging novel, set some time aside before you turn the first page. If you don’t, you’ll be late for work or school, forget to meet friends, or wish you hadn’t stayed up so late the next day.

 Elise Stokes has an amazing ability to put the reader into the mind of a fifteen-year-old young woman who just so happens to have superpowers. The character, Cassidy Jones, with the exception of the superpowers, is the kind of daughter all parents would cherish, or teenagers wished they had as a friend. She doesn’t swear, or deliberately get in trouble. But having her extraordinary gifts and using them to rid her hometown of Seattle of villains often puts her in the crosshairs of nasty people.

 What I love about this book and the series in general, is how the ordinary life of a teenager is portrayed while Cassidy works with her genius neighbor and best friend Emery to keep Seattle safe. The interaction with the students in school who consider themselves so above Cassidy made me feel I was back in high school. Cassidy’s interaction with her family and friends evoked many smiles. The action scenes are fast paced and you’ll want to reread to savor how well written they are.

 Although classified as a young adult book, readers of that age or older will thoroughly enjoy reading Cassidy’s latest adventure. I look forward to reading the next in the series.

 

Sanctioned Kill by C. R. Haitt

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Sanctioned Kill CR HiattThis story moves at a rapid pace, slowing down long enough for the reader to catch their breath, before plunging headlong into more action. The main character, Kyra Ray, is fleshed out so the reader comes to understand what makes her tick, yet is a bit of a mystery so they need to keep reading to learn more about her. One of the villains also garnered some sympathy from this reviewer.

The fight scenes are vivid without unnecessary detail allowing the reader to fill the scene with their imagination. Kyra Ray is one bad-ass chick.

I sped through the story in a couple of days and I hope Kyra and company will be developed into a series as Sanctioned Kill ends with that possibility.

I highly recommend this novel to lovers of military espionage.

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I enjoyed reading this novel. Ms. Woods wrote a compelling story that engaged me from the beginning and didn’t let up. The characters were interesting and fleshed out throughout the book so that I came to love and cheer them on, or hate them.

The Devil of Light Gae-Lynn WoodsThe plot, set in a small Texas town with some strange murders taking place, was intriguing. Throughout the book I hoped the protagonist, Cass Elliott, and her fellow police officers would discover who was doing the evil deeds they investigated. Ms. Woods used enough detail in setting scenes that I could easily visualize them without long paragraphs of scene building.

The other thing I found satisfying was very little backstory. There is just enough for the reader to know there is more to the main characters that drives them, or has given them their point of view, without pages of backstory. You learn most of the characters past through conversation with other characters which makes for a more interesting read.

If I had something bad to say about the story, it is the abrupt ending. It comes to a satisfying conclusion, leaving the following novel, Avengers of Blood, to pick up where The Devil of Light left off. But it left many questions that I would’ve liked to have seen answered. This was probably Ms. Wood’s intention as I feel how Cass Elliott answers those questions will be quite involved and will make this reviewer read the sequel soon.

I would recommend this novel to anyone looking for a good mystery revolving around cult-like activity.

 

The Hot Box 8 Thrillers Bundled Together

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SIZZLING THRILLER HOT BOX RELEASE:

8 SIZZLING THRILLERS FROM 8 BEST-SELLING AUTHORS

Get Yours Today

Amazon

Smashwords (99c)

Goodreads

It is my pleasure to host the release of The Hot Box. A bundled book containing eight thriller authors at an incredibly low price. A couple of these authors I have read and highly recommend. The others I can’t wait to read their offerings in this bundle. Below are the list of authors and a blurb for their story.

Fade to Black by Steven BannisterSteven Bannister – Fade to Black – Allie St Clair is young and brilliant and today she’s been promoted to Detective Chief Inspector at New Scotland Yard. But the time for celebration is short. Something is wrong in rain-swept London. Very wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

The Cortes Enigma Jonn Paul DavisJohn Paul Davis – The Cortes Enigma –1581: It appeared in the west as the sun was setting, a distant silhouette like a fire on the water. Twelve hours later it appeared again, this time much closer to the mainland. Who was on board or where they came from remained a mystery. No trace of the vessel was ever found.
 

 

 

 

 

Never Released Before:

Sanctioned Kill CR HiattC R Hiatt – Sanctioned Kill –Destined for Danger. Sanctioned to Kill. Hot on the trail of an international weapons ring, covert agent Kyra Ray finds herself caught in the cross-hairs of a ruthless arms dealer in the perilous mountains of war-torn Afghanistan. Closing in, the mission takes an unexpected and near-deadly turn in the high-stakes drama of New York City, where Kyra is mysteriously spared by an assassin sent to kill her. Retrained as an assassin and given strict orders to take him down, Kyra becomes trapped in a game of cat-and-mouse that will put her life on the line and her directive to the test—her sanction to kill.
 

 

The Disavowed David LeadbeaterDavid Leadbeater – The Razor’s Edge –Trent, Silk and Radford are the Razor’s Edge and the best spy team in the business – until the government they toiled, served and bled for, disavowed them.

 

 

 

 

 

Race Amazon Andy LucasAndy Lucas – Race Amazon –James Pace, ex-RAF helicopter pilot and amateur cameraman, is still trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his life when a child’s bullet nearly kills him.

 

 

 

 

 

Dead Reckoning Karen PerkinsKaren Perkins – Dead Reckoning –A historical adventure of piracy, love and revenge in the Caribbean in the seventeenth century.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heron Park C. K. RaggioC K Raggio – Heron Park –A small Long Island town erupts in a panic when a woman and her dog are found savagely murdered on a popular hiking trail.

 

 

 

 

 

Wild Child Mike WellsMike Wells – Wild Child –A fast, suspenseful thriller with an ending that you’ll never see coming.

 

Tracon, by Paul McElroy

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ImageBeing an airline pilot, I enjoyed reading this book. Mr. McElroy is not an air traffic controller, but it seems he did his research and got the details correct without taking the reader to air traffic controller school. I’ve often wondered what life on the other end of the two-way transmission I often take for granted is like and got a firsthand glimpse of that life.

 

As an author of airline thrillers, I loved the plot in this story, and a bit envious it has been used. It’ll make the reader feel the possibility of something similar having happened when the story takes place — more than a decade ago – might’ve happened.

 

But a great plot is no good without believable characters to carry the story, which was not a problem with this novel. I cared for the characters, hated a couple, and shook my head at a few.

 

The story moved forward at a moderate pace without lagging by stopping to tell backstory. What backstory is told is told in conversation which makes learning about the character more realistic. If I had a dislike it was the author’s choice to change character points of view within a chapter or section numerous times; a personal grip of mine

 

Overall, I recommend this story.

 

 

 

Scott Bury’s, Army of Worn Soles

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Army of Worn SolesI’m pleased to be part of a group promoting author Scott Bury’s new novel, Army of Worn Soles. I look forward to reading it when it is released. Here’s Scott’s blurb:

1941: Their retreat across Ukraine wore their boots out—and they kept going.

Three months after drafting him, the Soviet Red Army throws Maurice Bury, along with millions of other under-trained men, against the juggernaut of Nazi Germany’s Operation Barbarossa, the assault on the USSR.

This true story is unique in English: the personal account of a Canadian man conscripted into the Red Army, facing the of the biggest invasion in the history of warfare.

Army of Worn Soles launches June 22 on Amazon. Visit the author’s blog, Written Words, for more info and to pre-order.

The Eden Plague, by David VanDyke

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ImageTo be honest, I had heard of this novel some time ago and put off reading it. I regret that now. I’m not a huge Sci-fi reader, which is what this book is categorized, and the guy with an assault rifle wearing a gas mask on the cover made me think it would be a novel about an evil plague that people have to wander around shooting the infected with little emotional connection to the characters. Boy was I wrong.

 

There is a plague, but not like I imagined. There is shooting, again not as I imagined.

 

The fact that Mr. VanDyke has served in combat zones around the world shows in the details of the characters actions, and emotions. The story is written in such a way I never doubted the actions a character would take in clearing a house with hostiles inside were what the same ones our soldiers in Afghanistan are using. The thoughts going through a characters head, which the author does an excellent job of putting us in the characters head, would be those going through our shoulders minds. Yet the story does bog down while procedures are explained.

 

The plague is not the ones in other novels. High five to Mr. VanDyke for coming up with the concept for this pestilence. I have no doubt if such a virus were developed, the chaos that ensues in the novel would be as likely.

 

If there was a negative to the novel, it ends with the outcome of the characters I came to know and love unsure. It does ends in a satisfying way, but here again the author made me want to read the following four novels in the series.

 

 

 

 

 

The Brutus Conspirace, Novel Review

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ImageReaders who love mysteries involving powerful groups that influence the courts and governments will love this story. Add some solid writing surrounding legal antics and aviation with authentic details and you have a pager turner of a novel.

 

Mr. Lane followed the ole adage to write what you know. Being a lawyer and a pilot allowed him to write an engaging story I read in a couple of days. The stories pace is rapid.

 

The only reason I didn’t give the novel a five star rating is for a couple of reasons. Although the characters are believable, I wasn’t as emotionally attached to them as I would’ve liked. That is an aspect of writing that is difficult to do well, but I don’t doubt Mr. Lane will learn this craft in his future stories. There was also some repetition in the stories details I feel were unnecessary.

 

Overall I enjoyed the story and look forward to reading more of Mr. Lane’s books.