Additionally, as an adult, it’s obvious that the books’ photos are somewhat taken out of context, since the foxes don’t really come that close to the other animals. But I think a child would enjoy the book, and I’ll have no problem passing my copy to my nieces and nephews. They’d enjoy the photos and might even learn a few animal facts in the process.

I give this book 5 stars because the photos themselves are just stunning. The storyline is more of an afterthought.

Click here to buy Adventures of Rusty & Ginger Fox from Amazon and view excerpts
Click here to view the author’s website.

Disclaimer: I received a free review copy of Adventures of Rusty & Ginger Fox. My reviews are not influenced by receiving free review copies, nor am I compensated any other way for reviewing books. I may provide affiliate links where books can be purchased, but I do this of my own volition.

***

I have to admit I felt slightly annoyed right from the start when I read Evil Angel. That annoyance became outright irritation by the middle and end of the book. So much so that I complained about the book to my husband and mother-in-law afterwards! But first I’ll tell you what I liked about the book. I enjoyed the main plot: Terri, a mentally disturbed young woman marries her “dream guy” and has a child with him, only to drive him away with her emotional instability. She attempts to win him back by exacting revenge on anyone she thinks is standing in the way of her true love. We watch as she slowly spirals deeper and deeper into vengeful insanity. Watching her
self-destruction was fascinating.

Larson’s writing style is generally good, suspenseful, with some pretty phrases here and there. That said, what annoyed me from the start was the lack of proofreading and editing. I can overlook a typo or two, especially in an ebook, but not mid-sentence revisions and repeated sentences. And not starting in the very first paragraph of the novel! But even that wouldn’t have bothered me if the characters had been more likable. There’s Jack, who has been on the receiving end of his wife’s violence, seen her attempt suicide (apparently more than once), knows that she isn’t seeing her psychiatrist as she claims, and
yet he sees no problem leaving his baby daughter alone with her. Especially so he can get away to ski for a few days and clear his head. Selfish much? And though he now sees the foolishness of having jumped into the relationship with Terri after his first marriage abruptly ended, he doesn’t see the irony of now jumping into a sexcapade with instant ski buddy Hillary the day after he leaves Terri.

For her part, Hillary starts out as a sensible, sympathetic character. Still grieving over the death of her long-term boyfriend, we see her stand up to a bullying dad at the ski resort, and learn she’s a social worker who helps abused children and women. But within hours of meeting Jack she’s willing to throw out all sensibility in order to bed him. Never mind he’s married with a baby. When said wife and baby show up in town, this would be a cue for Hillary to quietly bow out, but she still pursues the relationship. But the “jump the shark” moment for me was when Hillary is attacked and beaten. Does she call the police the first chance she gets? Does she warn others who may soon
be in the path of her attacker? No, she decides to just go home and forget all about it. If she’d had a history of abuse, her reaction could be understood. But this is the first time she’s ever been smacked around, and that, combined with her career fighting for victims of abuse, makes her reaction totally unbelievable.

One last annoyance was when Jack is in the emergency room after a minor accident. A nurse brings him and Hillary bowls of onion soup, French bread, and tapioca. I had to roll my eyes. First, no one is served food in an emergency room, let alone both the patient and his visitor! And onion soup and French bread? In a hospital? You’ve got to be kidding me. The tapicoca I can believe, though green Jell-O would’ve been spot-on.

With a little revamping, I could’ve given Evil Angel 4 stars, but as it is I have to give it 2.

Click Here to buy Evil Angel from Amazon
Click here to buy Evil Angel from Fictionwise. Includes Chapter 1 excerpt.
Click here to read Chapter 3 excerpt

Disclaimer: I received a PDF review copy of Evil Angel. My reviews are not influenced by receiving free review copies, nor am I compensated any other way for reviewing books. I may provide affiliate links where books can be purchased, but I do this of my own volition.

***

Julia Stone’s locked door is unlocked. Wood blocks spelling out her nickname are on her coffee table. Her digital clock is stuck on the same time; 4:06. Her shut window is wide open. Eyes stare at her from the darkness outside. Someone is obviously trying to gaslight her. Or maybe she’s just crazy. After years of therapy, Julia is having trouble distinguishing between what’s real and what isn’t. And she doesn’t know whom to trust. Her therapist who’s trying to help rid her of panic attacks? The local handyman who keeps showing up at her door? Her long-time boyfriend who is anxious to get married? Her nosy old neighbor? Or are they all just creeps like the nameless, faceless entities she conjures in her mind?

The Skull Ring is a psychological thriller, one that had me hooked from beginning to end. In fact, I stayed up till 2:00 a.m. reading the last six chapters because I just couldn’t put it down! I particularly liked Julia Stone; she keeps fighting to maintain her sanity, and rather than act like a helpless victim, she uses her background as a reporter to investigate her own past. She’s determined to overcome her panic attacks through therapy rather than drugs, and once she realizes the true character of someone she trusted, she doesn’t hesitate in rejecting him. She has moments of wanting to give in and give up, but she doesn’t. She keeps trying to overcome whatever obstacles are holding her back, whether they be real or imagined.

The Skull Ringis well written, highly suspenseful, and avoids being preachy despite its religious undertones. The ending was fairly satisfying, because I totally believed the methods and motives of some characters; for instance, the sheriff and the therapist. They had vastly different outlooks on how they wanted this story to end, but I believed them both. I liked the idea of a “long con” being played, and I like the idea of one (or more) fanatical true believers in a cult. But I don’t buy big decades-long conspiracies, especially one that leaves mutilated bodies in its wake. No one notices a pattern? Really? I won’t go into any more detail because I want to avoid spoilers. But I was a bit disappointed in some of the concluding reveals.

I also felt a few loose ends were left hanging, such as Julia’s aversion to a barn near her childhood home. She has a horryfiing memory while in the barn, but it’s never clearly explained how she came to have that particular memory. We’re left to our own conclusions about it, but I prefer things more clearly spelled out at the end, especially when the story has us constantly guessing between the reality and fantasy of the main character’s experiences. We also never find out specifically what happened to Julia’s father–we pretty much know what, just not the how and where. I would like to have known. Morbid curiosity, I suppose. And how the heck do you get a digital clock to stay stuck on the same numbers?

But despite my complaints here, I did enjoy the story overall and look forward to reading more from Scott Nicholson. Be sure to read my interview with him.

Click here to buy the paperback or Kindle version.from Amazon
Click here to buy the PDF version from DriveThruHorror.com (Read part of the 1st chapter for free)
Click here to buy all other versions from Smashwords.com (Read Chapters 1 – 3 for free)
Click here to visit the Author’s website
Click here to buy a signed trade paperback

No Date for Gomez! is a prequel novella to the No Hope for Gomez! series. It is a complete and stand-alone story. No Hope for Gomez! is now available from Amazon.
Price: Free
Author Bio: Graham Parke is responsible for a number of technical publications and has recently patented a self-folding map. He has been described as both a humanitarian and a pathological liar. Convincing evidence to support either allegation has yet to be produced.

No Hope for Gomez! is Graham’s fiction debut. You can visit his website at www.grahamparke.com.

***

When Graham Parke sent me an email requesting a review of No Date for Gomez!, my initial inclination was to turn him down. The description of his novella didn’t quite appeal to me, and neither did the cover. (I know, I know, don’t judge a digital book by its cover*.) But since I like to give authors a chance to win me over, I looked to see if by chance there was a preview of the first chapter to read. (I like to read a snippet of any book before I pass final judgment.) To my surprise, the entire ebook was a freebie! I downloaded the PDF version, figuring I’d read the first few paragraphs, hate them, and thus feel no guilt in sending a kindly rejection email.

But the first sentence got me interested, so I read more, then a little more, and by the time I finished the first chapter–a mere 2½ pages later–I was hopelessly hooked. I had planned to do some productive work on the computer (paying bills, working on taxes, etc.), but instead I spent the next hour or so reading the entire story, smiling and laughing practically the entire time. No Date for Gomez!is absolutely hilarious.

Gomez is a nerdy, nice guy (sort of like Peter Parker at the beginning of Spider-Man, before he gets his spidey superpowers) who is completely clueless when it comes to people of the female persuasion. He falls for the beautiful new girl in his building, Gretchen, and immediately tries to come up with schemes to get her to go out with him. His priority is to show her how cool he is, so that when he gets around to asking her out, she’ll say yes. Unfortunately, he becomes tongue-tied whenever he runs into her, so their conversations typically go something like this:

I could remember talking to people. Knowing the kinds of things one said in polite conversation. I could remember making people think and laugh. But, at that very moment, I couldn’t put my finger on any of the words one might use when running into a fellow human being in a hallway.

Gretchen smiled and said, “Hi!”

Which was one of the words one might use.

“How are you doing today?”

Which, I now recalled, was a bunch of others.

Gomez soon becomes convinced Gretchen is annoyed with him, which turns out to be true, but not for the reasons he imagines. My only confusion after finishing the novella was that the dark secret Gretchen is hiding isn’t revealed or even hinted at. When I asked Parke about that, he said that there is more to come. I can’t wait!

No Date for Gomez! is the most fun read I’ve had in a long time. Do yourself a favor; turn off the depressing news, skip the latest episode of Lost, and read this instead. It’ll put you in a better mood.

Click here to download No Date for Gomez!
Click here to visit Graham Parke’s website
Click here for a chance to receive a free signed, printed copy of No Date for Gomez!

*Update: Parke provided a new cover that I like better; that’s the one posted here. 

***

Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart isn’t your typical paperback romance, and for this reason alone I loved it. First of all, the heroine, Claire Prescott, isn’t perfect. Through the course of the novel she realizes her own frailties and flaws and by the end of the book she has made steps towards becoming a better person. She doesn’t blame everyone else for her problems. She learns that having a dashing “Mr. Darcy” sweep her off her feet doesn’t heal all hurts, nor does it rescue her from the realities of life. Her character’s motives and actions rang true for me, and it was refreshing to read a romance that didn’t espouse the notion that all a woman needs is a rich, handsome guy to magically wave away her neurosis by marrying her.

The secondary storyline, that of Claire meeting a slightly daft elderly woman, Harriet Dalrymple, whose greatest secret is ownership of the original First Impressions manuscript (which was destroyed after Jane Austen reworked it into Pride and Prejudice), was a delightful twist in the story. Pattillo imagines how the original plot may have differed from the story we all know, and treats us to her version. I was just as interested as Claire in reading the scraps of manuscript pages doled out to her over the course of a week’s time. For me it was a fun diversion from the main story; for laire it helped provide insight into how her life got off track and the motivation to correct it.

Amidst Claire trying to help Harriet with the secret manuscript and becoming ever more attracted to the dashing James Beaufort, her boyfriend unexpectedly shows up, threatening to ruin the little house of cards she’s built for herself during her week-long excursion in Oxford. Claire has to figure out what to do with an angry boyfriend when she’s got a chance to snag a Mr. Darcy of her own. I was completely satisfied at her solution—and the conclusion of the novel itself.

Overall, Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart is a fun and breezy read. I loved the humor and the light-hearted tone. The only thing I didn’t like is that due to my schedule I could read it only in bits and pieces over the course of a month. I hated having to put it down to attend to more pressing matters–I felt like Claire having to wait for the forgetful Harriet to find another section of the First Impressions manuscript! I recommend this book, especially if you’re tired of reading the same old retread romances.

Click here to order Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart
Click here to visit Beth Pattillo’s website

***

I totally related to Suze Hall. She’s a forty something, graying, slightly overweight, associate editor who has the boss from hell. I fit that physical description, and though I had a different job title, I’ve had a female boss almost as nasty as Wanda Walsh. I empathized with Suze as she dealt with the kind of office politics I left behind four years ago. Her family struggles were also totally believable–how to become a career woman while still staying connected to her children’s lives, and how to understand her husband’s desire to temporarily leave her just when her old boyfriend shows up after twenty years. Her reactions are at once contradictory and authentic. When she tells a big lie at work that only her old boyfriend can rectify, we feel her dread as everything spirals out of control.

I loved the humor Bell brought to her writing–and her character’s personality. In the beginning of the book, Suze muses,

I have come to understand that the big questions such as, What is my purpose in life? and Why am I here? converge with the little questions like, Where is my other shoe? and When will pot roast go on sale? Big questions, little questions, big thoughts, little thoughts, even famous people have them. So we’re not so different.

Except for the limos.

Bell writes well, capturing the clever, mundane, and sometimes random thoughts running through Suze’s mind perfectly. During a romantic escapade, the writing suddenly turns more and more florid, which at first confused me, until I realized the reason for the purple prose, and loved the jest. The ending is satisfying, though I would have liked an epilogue to let us know if everything turns out where it seems it’s headed. The ending is also preceded with an essay written by the character which seems too much like a “moral to the story.” Although I liked the essay itself, it seemed too long and I soon wanted to get back to the real story.

But overall, Walking With Elephants was a fun read, and I recommend it.

Buy Walking With Elephants (pdf)
Buy Walking With Elephants (lit)
Read the first chapter
Karen S. Bell’s website

***

I loved Donna VanLiere’s autobiography Finding Grace and so I was excited when I got the opportunity to read and review The Christmas Secret. I hadn’t read any of VanLiere’s Christmas series, though I did see the movie version of The Christmas Shoes (and of course, heard the song.) Since Finding Grace was an almost perfectly
written book, I looked forward to reading VanLiere’s fiction. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with The Christmas Secret. Not so much with the storyline; I enjoyed that. Most of my disappointment was due to the writing itself. I think a little more editing was in order.

The book begins with a prologue in which the protagonist, Christine, recalls a particular
Christmas in her childhood, and how her adult life since then had been spent stumbling around without any direction or goal. “I got to the point in my life where I was so tired of waiting and wanted to know that my life was not just leading anywhere but somewhere,” she tells us. Christine ends the prologue by stating that with help, “I discovered the gift.” This was similar to the theme of Finding Grace, so I was drawn right into the story. But the first chapter gave me troubles. It’s subtitled “November – One Year Earlier,” which I took to mean a year earlier in Christine’s childhood, since the prologue takes place then. But no, it means a year earlier than her discovering the “gift” which is summed up in the epilogue at the end of the book. At any rate it took me three paragraphs into the chapter when Christine’s five-year-old daughter enters the scene to realize the storyline has jumped to Christine as an adult. The subtitle should have been eliminated altogether; it was unnecessary and just caused confusion.

Later in the same chapter, Christine has a flashback of a conversation with her mother. Again, this transition was a bit confusing. I think the section should have been broken with an extra line of space to better delineate that it’s a flashback instead of mashing
it between the scenes taking place in the present.

But by far the most irksome thing of the novel to me was the choice to switch from Christine’s first-person point of view to other characters’ third-person point of view. I suppose I’ve read novels before that do this, but I found it quite jarring. I would have preferred Christine’s POV to be in third-person to match with the rest of the characters.

VanLiere choses not to name the town in which the story takes place (or at least, I never saw a name), so when Christine tells us, “When Brad found a job here my mother seemed angry,” my first thought was where’s “here”? The restaurant Christine is working in when she relates this to us? The town? The state? My confusion could have been avoided by simply replacing “here” with “in this town” or by simply giving the town a name.

Some of the writing gave me a chuckle, such as this sentence: “‘Everyone clocks in here,’ she said, pushing open the door to an empty room filled with vending machines and three small round tables with chairs.” (An “empty” room shouldn’t be “filled” with anything but air.) I’m not saying the writing was bad, it just needed a little more polishing/editing.

And one last complaint. One thing about Christine’s character that bothered me no end was the fact that she refuses to allow her ex-husband visitation with their children because he hasn’t paid child support. This is the only reason she continually refuses contact. I find this vindictive and petty. Of course he should be paying child support and is a deadbeat not to. Yes, he’s a jerk to her and pulls nasty stunts of his own to get even. However, he is not abusive or dangerous to her or the children, so there’s no reason she should cut off contact between them. And since she’s desperate for a babysitter, refusing to allow him to care for the children is plain silly. She doesn’t even allow the children to know he stops by to see them. Severing their relationship with him over money is selfish. He is their father and a continuing relationship with them should be encouraged, not used as a weapon. (Besides, he’s more likely to pay up if he actually gets to see his kids.) None of the characters point this out to her; in fact they aid her in keeping the ex away from the children. Disgusting. (Okay, enough of my soapbox.)

So each of these annoyances kept me from really enjoying the book at first. However, after 80 or 90 pages (and a day or so break from reading it) I really started getting into the story. I liked the characters, enjoyed the multiple storylines and how they interconnected, found the romance appealing, guessed most of the twists beforehand (which didn’t diminish their reveals) and didn’t get tripped up with any more of the writing. Most of the mysteries are resolved at the end, and I felt satisfied after the book was finished. It’s possible I’d read the book again, and I am still definitely interested in reading VanLiere’s previous Christmas books. And I plan to watch the movie versions of the books on LMN. Overall, I’d give the book a solid ”B” grade. Well done, with plenty room for improvement.

For more information about Donna VanLiere and her books, visit http://www.donnavanliere.com.
About The Christmas Secret: http://donnavanliere.com/books.html#tcsec
To order The Christmas Secret, click here.
About Donna VanLiere: http://donnavanliere.com/bio.html
Previous Books: http://donnavanliere.com/books.html
Videos/Trailers: http://donnavanliere.com/video.html
For Book Clubs: http://donnavanliere.com/bookclubs.html

He is able to survive in the wilderness, but upon his arrival back to civilization, no one believes his story. They assume he is one of the terrorists that hijacked the airplane, so Young escapes to Las Vegas to determine why he was targeted and who was responsible for his ordeal. He lives as a street person and meets four people who believe his story: a sociopath, a prostitute, an alcoholic doctor and a pickpocket.

These people become his allies. They travel with him to the east coast and then to Europe. As Young continues his investigation, he discovers abuses on the part of his employer that could result in mortal danger for innumerable innocent patients. He must act quickly to expose the danger by staying one step ahead of the unknown criminals who are closing in on him and his allies.

Price: $18.95 (paperback)
Author Bio: Author of Unwanted
Inheritance, Robert B. Bolin practiced oncology in a small northwestern town in the United States for more than twenty-one years and has written several medical articles. He currently lives in eastern Oregon.

***

As a thriller, The Broken Parachute Man suffers from an identity crisis: it starts out
with a bang, but soon veers into a wilderness survival guide, then a gritty life-on-the-streets drama before settling into a detective story wrapped around a lesson
on pharmaceutical drug research and development. But in the end I liked it as a coming-of-middle-age character study.

Clyde Young is a middle-aged, middle-management type with average looks. He’s a bit
frightened of the world, unsure of himself, and is hopelessly stuck in a dull, predictable life. Getting thrown out of an airplane by terrorists is probably the best thing that could have happened to him. He survives a hard winter stranded in the mountains, learns to live on the streets, and finally pushes to discover why he of all people was targeted for elimination by a pharmaceutical company. He doesn’t instantly transform into a rough, self-assured man, but as he perseveres through each small victory, he slowly comes to realize his own strength of will. The Broken Parachute Man isn’t the best thriller I’ve read; it rarely gets you on the edge of your seat with nail-biting action, but I really liked Clyde, and rooted for him throughout the book. He was like the tortoise in Aesop’s fable; each plodding step bringing him closer to solving the mystery that started with a shove out of a plane.

The book starts out as a thriller, what with Clyde getting pushed out of an airplane and landing in the mountains and all. However, he doesn’t get rescued right away. Instead, he has to survive several months in the wilderness. This part of the story doesn’t fit the “thriller” genre, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. After he gets rescued, he ends up homeless in Las Vegas, and we see him developing friendships with other homeless
characters and learning to live in a different type of wilderness: the streets. Again, not a thriller, but it works as a drama of sorts. Finally, Clyde decides to start investigating the company he worked for, and he slowly solves the mystery, which includes an overly  complicated explanation of drug formulation. At one point near the end, Clyde says, “I think I can see the players, but the plot is too complex for me.” That’s about how I felt; there were several “bad guys” each with multifarious motives. Keeping it all straight took a bit more concentration than I prefer. The author apparently thought so too, because after the main mystery is solved, he has the characters explain the plot in detail to each other to make sure we, the readers, understand who did what and why.

The Broken Parachute Man is filled with memorable characters, though I had trouble
telling the difference between two of them: Dan and George, Clyde’s homeless buddies. I blame this on myself rather than the author, however, because he infused both
characters with their own quirks and disparate personalities. I don’t know why I couldn’t keep them straight; perhaps because both were introduced at about the same time and have rather nondescript names. The rest of the characters were quite clear in my mind, and all were fleshed out.

The book, however, contains a most egregious error for a thriller/mystery: the character Dan asserts that another character couldn’t have been responsible for a particular criminal attack because that character was already in jail. This claim didn’t sound right when I read it, so I immediately went back and read the previous chapters and discovered the criminal attack happened a full four days prior to the arrest.
Oops. Looks like the storyline was too complex for even the author to keep straight.

But the one thing about The Broken Parachute Man that really irritated me was the
author’s choice to periodically speak directly to the reader throughout the first several chapters. The moment Clyde gets a parachute strapped to him and shoved out the
plane, the author interjects the story with this: “At this time, I’m sure you, the reader, are questioning the story and wondering if I’m confabulating.” Huh? I’m in the middle of one of the most exciting moments in the book and the author yanks me out to tell me what I’m thinking? Later when Clyde wakes to discover he has survived the fall out of the plane, the author asserts, “Now, if I was a reasonable reader, at this point, I would scoff at the whole story.” Once again I’m pulled out of the adventure and told to question the validity of the events. Um, I’m reading a fiction book here. The suspension of disbelief is a given. Don’t jump in and tell me I shouldn’t trust every word. Did Tolkien constantly interrupt his readers to say, “I’m sure you’re having trouble believing in the existence of hobbits.” Or “As a reasonable reader, you’re probably scoffing at the idea of a magical ring.” Absolutely not. When I’m reading Lord of the Rings I totally believe in hobbits, elves, wizards and powerfully evil rings. Thankfully the author quit jumping in with unwanted opinions after the first few chapters.

Overall, The Broken Parachute Man is a lousy thriller, but the characters were so lively
and sympathetic, I didn’t much care that the plot was a convoluted, slow-paced mess. I’m unlikely to read it again, but I’m don’t feel cheated for having read it once. Experiencing Clyde Young’s transformation into a hopeful, confidant individual was worth it.

Buy The Broken Parachute Man: A Novel of Medical Intrigue
Visit the authors website at http://www.robertbolin.com

A Worthy Legacy has won the following awards: Silver Award in the Inspirational/Spiritual Category of The Young Voices Foundation’s 2009 Young Voices Award, Second position in the Inspirational/Spiritual Category of the 2008 Reader Views Literary Award, Second position in the Young Adult Non-fiction category of the 2008 Reader Views Literary Award, and Top Book Awards by Black Pearls Magazine sponsored by EDC Creations.

Price: $13.95 (paperback)
Author Bio: Tomi (aka Ibitomilade) Akinyanmi discovered her enthusiasm for writing at an early age, and has been writing for over twenty years. Though poetry is her first love, Tomi was inspired by personal experiences to create A Worthy Legacy as her first book.

Her works include Voices in the Wind winner of the inaugural Voices Anthology Contest sponsored by The Voices Anthology Network. Some of her poems have also appeared in Free Focus, Northern Stars and Soul Fountain as well as online on poetry websites.

***

In the eloquently written A Worthy Legacy, a granddaughter hurries home to her Nigerian village to gather with family as her grandfather lays dying. Although technically a work of fiction, the words of wisdom conveyed by the grandfather in the story are based on years of conversations the author had with her own father before his sudden death due to a car accident. She wrote A Worthy Legacy as a loving tribute to him, preserving his memory and the impact his teachings had on her life.

Akinyanmi sketches out the story’s setting, letting us feel the scorching sun and hot winds of the Nigerian village, but doesn’t dwell on the scenery. Characters are named but not fleshed out; their backgrounds and personalities remain untold. Instead, the focus is on the parting words and writings of the grandfather. At barely 101 pages, A Worthy Legacy promises to be a quick read, but the truths presented by the grandfather necessitate a slower pace to truly appreciate the insights imparted.

A Worthy Legacy should be viewed not so much as a novel, but as a book of poetry, quotations, and age-old wisdom. Much of the book reminded me of the Biblical Proverbs; filled with advice and admonitions from someone who’s lived and learned it the hard way–and who hopes subsequent generations heed the guidance.

Read Akinyanmi’s comments about getting A Worthy Legacy published.

Learn more about A Worthy Legacy and Tomi Akinyanmi.
Buy A Worthy Legacy here.
Check out the book trailer on Youtube

eBook Reviews Online is just one stop on Tomi Akinyanmi’s blog tour!
Visit the other sites of the tour here: