Category Archives: 5 Star Reviews
Building A Vibrant Community by Quint Studer @quint_studer
Truth Or Fiction? Reagan’s Redemption by Cate Beauman @CateBeauman
Interview & Review – Hunger Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff @AlexSokoloff
Southern Pulp Fiction – Tijuana Donkey Showdown by Adam Howe @Adam_G_Howe
Down The Rabbit Hole – Untamed by A G Howard @aghowardwrites
Review – Angel of Shadow by D H Nevins @dhnevins
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Monday Mini – Surgical by Geoffrey Germann #GeoffreyGermann
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I had reviewed the first book, Prepare, in this superhero series and loved it (see it here), so when Geoffrey Germann sent me Surgical, Book II, I was eager to read more about the superhero, Darren Kiel.
MY REVIEW
Terror from the opening pages.
Darren Kiel is a vigilante, a super hero. Who doesn’t love someone who works undercover saving those unable to save themselves, never needing or wanting credit or acknowledgement?
Darren is an introvert and has been alone for so long, he is craving interaction with another human. He works in disguise so only has fleeting contact and can never let anyone know who he really is. After 200 days a man could lose his mind.
Until…
He becomes part of a superhero, scifi team: Darren has the suit, Faye has the cloak, Walter is the brains and the means, Brigham is the gopher, and Ives is the techie, the inventor. The characters are unique individuals, well developed, flaws and all. I would love to be a part of their team.
It makes me wonder what super heroes are lurking in our world, invisible to us. Could it be your next door neighbor?
The technology is very realistic and who knows what the government keeps secret from us. Maybe some of it is being used today?
I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Surgical by Geoffrey Germann.
5 Stars
GOODREADS BLURB
The leader of a lynchpin Eastern Bloc nation has been increasingly erratic, belligerent, destabilizing the entire region. On the cusp of reversing the personal campaign that is destined to bring war, he is assassinated. His death comes with no warning, draws no blood, and leaves no trace; a puppet with its strings cut.
A new assassin, a new terrorist, can kill anyone, anywhere, anytime. He is undetectable, untraceable, unstoppable. He will bring governments, nations, and continents to their knees one leader at a time.
His next target is Walter Rocaena.
To fight this enemy Walter will need extraordinary help, but he hasn’t seen Darren Kiel in over a year. Can Walter find him in time and, even if he does, how can anyone stop an assassin that can kill with a thought without ever being near the target?
Even if it is possible, can they do it before civilization itself unravels?
Monsters Are Real!!! Bitter Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff @AlexSokoloff
OMG..Alexandra Sokoloff did it again in Bitter Moon, Book IV in the Huntress/FBI Thriller series.
MY REVIEW
I had received several books of this series and loved them so much, I binge read all three. So apt this book comes after the others. I think I got a lot more from it, because I am totally engrossed in how Cara came to be a vigilante.
In Bitter Moon, Cara relives her tragic past and it is brutal, horrifying, terrifying, and haunting. The insight into her motivation makes me see evil in its purest form. It’s no wonder she takes her revenge as a vigilante on all the users and abusers. The atrocities committed on defenseless children by family, friends, strangers, they need a guardian angel and Cara will fight to her dying breath for herself and for them.
Roarke has walked away from the FBI because of his conflicted feelings about her. He is lost, isolated, confused…As he tries to find answers for himself, Roarke tracks her past. He walks where she walked, meeting some people she knew, gaining insight. The nun simplified if for him, he is on a mission.
Can evil be drawn to a particular person? Can someone attract the bad through no fault of their own?
It is frightening and horrifying as I read of her past and know these things really happen, that the depravity of humans are going on right now. I am at a loss for words with an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness.
I love Cara and don’t know how she can have a happy ever after, but I so much want it for here. If any character I have ever read about deserves something good in her life, Cara does. She is dogged by evil, she never quits, never gives up, willing to take them out one by one.
She runs from IT, but IT follows here everywhere she goes.
Monsters are real!
Research? If half of what Alexandra Sokoloff has written about rape and trafficking, the women and children, throwaway kids, the predatory people out there is true, we should all be afraid. It may be easier to turn the other way, but you never know when EVIL might come for you.
I had wondered if there would be more, because the rest of Cara and Roarke’s story needs to be told, and I am so happy to know…there is.
There are so many great quotes, that I had to share a few of them.
“Look too long into the abyss and the abyss looks back into you.”
“Fear the wolf, or be the wolf.”
“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” John Stuart Millshad
Alexandra Sokoloff had me wound so tight, I felt like I would explode. My emotions were all over the place and I did breathe a sigh of relief…and regret…when I was done. The characters have captured my heart and I miss them as soon as I close the ‘cover’. Stay safe everyone, I’ll be back.
I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Bitter Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff and these novels will be sitting on my reread shelf!!!!
5 Stars
GOODREADS BLURB
FBI agent Matthew Roarke has been on leave, and in seclusion, since the capture of mass killer Cara Lindstrom—the victim turned avenger who preys on predators. Torn between devotion to the law and a powerful attraction to Cara and her lethal brand of justice, Roarke has retreated from both to search his soul. But Cara’s escape from custody and a police detective’s cryptic challenge soon draw him out of exile—into the California desert and deep into Cara’s past—to probe an unsolved murder that could be the key to her long and deadly career.
Following young Cara’s trail, Roarke uncovers a horrifying attack on a schoolgirl, the shocking suicide of another, and a human monster stalking Cara’s old high school. Separated by sixteen years, crossing paths in the present and past, Roarke and fourteen-year-old Cara must race to find and stop the sadistic sexual predator before more young women are brutalized.
ABOUT ALEXANDRA SOKOLOFF
I’m the Thriller Award-winning and Bram Stoker and Anthony Award-nominated author of the Amazon bestselling crime and supernatural thrillers The Harrowing, The Price, Book of Shadows, The Unseen, The Space Between, and the new Thriller Award- nominated Huntress/FBI thriller series: Huntress Moon, Blood Moon, Cold Moon. Bitter Moon, Hunger Moon. The New York Times Book Review has called me “a daughter of Mary Shelley” and my novels “some of the most original and freshly unnerving work in the genre.”
I’m a California native and a graduate of U.C. Berkeley, where I majored in theater and minored in everything that Berkeley has a reputation for. After college I moved to Los Angeles, where I’ve made an interesting living doing novel adaptations and selling original thriller scripts to various Hollywood studios.
In my stories I like to cross the possibility of the supernatural with very real life explanations for any strangeness going on, and base the action squarely in fact. THE UNSEEN is based on real paranormal research conducted at the Duke University parapsychology lab, and BOOK OF SHADOWS teams a Boston homicide detective and a practicing Salem witch in a race to solve what may be a Satanic killing. THE SPACE BETWEEN, is an edgy supernatural YA about a troubled high school girl who is having dreams of a terrible massacre at her school, and becomes convinced that she can prevent the shooting if she can unravel the dream.
I also have written paranormal romance (THE SHIFTERS, KEEPER OF THE SHADOWS) and the non-fiction workbooks SCREENWRITING TRICKS FOR AUTHORS and WRITING LOVE, based on my internationally acclaimed workshops and blog (http://screenwritingtricks.com)
I live in Los Angeles and in Scotland, with Scottish crime author Craig Robertson.
When I’m not writing I dance: jazz, ballet, salsa, Lindy, swing – I do it all, every chance I get.
Website / Twitter / Facebook / Pinterest
MY REVIEW LINKS FOR ALEXANDRA SOKOLOF
I love these gorgeous covers.
Monday Mini – Strange The Dreamer by Laini Taylor @lainitaylor
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I was so excited when I found I had won a hard copy of Strange The Dreamer by Laini Taylor.
I love the gorgeous cover. How about you?
MY REVIEW
I was awed and amazed with the excellent world building and the romance that crosses all barriers. The characters are richly developed and complex, each one vital to the story in their own way. I loved everything about this unputdownable fantasy, so I will warn you to start Strange The Dreamer on the weekend, lock all the doors, pull the curtains, and put up the DO NOT DISTURB sign. My only complaint…There is another book and you will need to read it to get all the answers.
“Life won’t just happen to you, boy,” he said. “You have to happen to it.”
I was super excited that I won a copy of Strange The Dreamer by Laini Taylor.
5 Stars
GOODREADS BLURB
The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around—and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever.
What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving?
laini. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?
Welcome to Weep.