Tag: ebook giveaway

Review: Duke City Hit by Max Austin + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
duke city hit by max austinFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: mystery, thriller
Series: Duke City Trilogy #2
Length: 183 pages
Publisher: Alibi (Random House)
Date Released: December 16, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

Max Austin takes readers back to Albuquerque for another action-packed thrill ride in Duke City Hit, as an elite assassin takes aim at—well, everyone.

According to Vic Walters, the secret to happiness is low overhead and few demands. Living rent-free in a modest bachelor pad behind his boss’s house, he has no debts, no entanglements, and no expensive relationships. He works just a few days a month, but his bank accounts keep growing.

Vic is a high-priced hitman with a legendary record of success. That is, until someone starts eliminating his marks before he can get to them . . . until his manager puts him in the middle of a vicious drug-cartel feud . . . and until a young man walks into his life with a big .45 and a startling revelation.

For Vic Walters, it’s time to step out of the shadows. Which means it’s killing time in Duke City.

My Review:

duke city split by steve brewerI picked up Duke City Hit because I enjoyed the first book in Austin’s Duke City Trilogy, Duke City Split (reviewed here). However, even though Duke City Hit is billed as the second in the series, it didn’t really feel like a second book. It reads as a stand-alone, and a bit different (although just as entertaining) as its predecessor.

Both books show the more mundane side of the criminal underworld in Albuquerque, NM, which really is nicknamed Duke City. The criminals in Split were a pair of well-practiced bank robbers who tried to keep under the radar. Their final spectacular failure is the plot of Duke City Split.

In Duke City Hit, we have the story of two family businesses who operate on the shady side of the street, although one doesn’t start out as a family business, mostly because Vic Walters doesn’t know he has a family.

Professional hit men generally don’t have family ties. But Vic is a native of Albuquerque, and he works for Lucky Penny Bail Bonds, even though he isn’t a bail bondsman any longer. For 30 years, Vic has been a contract killer, and the owner of the bail bond company is his business manager, just as her father was before her.

People contact Penny Randall when they want someone to disappear, and Vic makes it happen. He only takes contracts on men, and only on people that he is able to make himself believe that society would be better off without. No women, no children, and especially no one connected with Organized Crime.

He sets out to kill a scumbag named Harry Morino. He plans the job, and gets to Harry’s place to kill him, only to discover that someone has beat him to the punch. So to speak. At first, it just seems like easy money, until someone beats him to his next job, too.

Vic has either a stalker or a copycat. Or, as it turns out, a grown-up son who has come to finally meet his father, and learn the family business. Vic is a little too eager to spill the beans and take a fatherly interest in the young man who he did not know existed, but is definitely his boy.

Then he discovers that old Harry Morino was mobbed up to the eyebrows, and both Harry’s friends and his enemies want a piece of Vic. Or so it appears.

They say the truth will set you free. It might in Vic’s case, if it doesn’t get him killed first, along with his son.

Escape Rating B: While this isn’t as wild and crazy as Duke City Split, it does have some similarities without feeling like a sequel where you HAVE to read the first book.

Vic is a very quiet and successful operator. He’s had a long run as a contract hit man because he’s extremely careful and never flashy in the least. He also has a very good cover story in his association with Lucky Penny Bail Bonds. He says he’s just a paper-pusher, and people decide he’s boring. Of course he isn’t boring, but he is extremely controlled. It’s why he’s good at his job.

When Ryan shows up, Vic’s famous control slips. While he never knew he even had a child, finding Ryan as an adult, or Ryan finding him, strips away his focus. He feels like a father, even though he hasn’t been one until now.

To be fair, Ryan’s mother never told Vic she was pregnant, and Vic appears to have been upfront about his inability to make any long-term commitment. Ryan only discovers that Vic is his father after his mother dies. Once he sees Vic’s picture, the resemblance is way too strong to ignore.

Vic opens up to the young man, and finds that he wants to share his life and even his work. He knows that having Ryan as a partner is bad for the boy, but Ryan takes to the work like the proverbial duck to water. The two men need their connection to each other.

The drama in this story comes from the fallout from their first shared killing, that of not-so-poor Harry. While it was easy to figure out who betrayed whom, the way that the story played out was still fascinating, as was the way that Vic still manages to get the job done, even though it isn’t the job he thought it was.

In Duke City Hit, just as in the first book, the author does a good job of making the reader root for the bad guys, if only to preserve them from the worse guys.

~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Max Austin and TLC Book Tours are giving away a $25.00 Gift Card from the eBook Retailer of the Winner’s Choice + 1 Copy of DUKE CITY SPLIT by Max Austin
a Rafflecopter giveaway

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Vacant by Alex Hughes (+ a giveaway and a scavenger hunt)

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
vacant by alex hughesFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: urban fantasy
Series: Mindspace Investigations #4
Length: 347 pages
Publisher: Roc
Date Released: December 2, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Nothing ruins a romantic evening like a brawl with lowlifes—especially when one of them later turns up dead and my date, Detective Isabella Cherabino, is the #1 suspect. My history with the Atlanta PD on both sides of the law makes me an unreliable witness, so while Cherabino is suspended, I’m paying my bills by taking an FBI gig.

I’ve been hired to play telepathic bodyguard for Tommy, the ten-year-old son of a superior court judge in Savannah presiding over the murder trial of a mob-connected mogul. After an attempt on the kid’s life, the Feds believe he’s been targeted by the businessman’s “associates.”

Turns out, Tommy’s a nascent telepath, so I’m trying to help him get a handle on his Ability. But it doesn’t take a mind reader to see that there’s something going on with this kid’s parents that’s stressing him out more than a death threat…

My Review:

Alex Hughes’ Mindspace Investigations is a series that absolutely requires starting at the very beginning. (This seems to be my week for that.) If the idea of an urban fantasy series that reads like a marvelously twisted cross between Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files and J.D. Robb’s In Death series, you’ve come to the right place.

Just start clean with the first book in the series, Clean (reviewed here). The following titles in the series are Sharp (reviewed here) and Marked (reviewed at The Book Pushers) It is SO worth it, and also necessary to help figure out the roots of the case in Vacant.

Like so many of the titles in this series, that word, Vacant, is a multiple entendre. It refers to Isabella Cherabino’s career, Adam Ward’s ethics, and the office they come to at the end of the story. Possibly also to any threads of a future that Adam might have, but we’ll see.

The cases that Adam and Isabella have to solve in the present are very much tied in with a larger conspiracy that they uncovered in the earlier stories. But even though that possibility is fairly clear to the reader, it is only a vague hint on the horizon for Adam, and not at all on Isabella’s radar.

This is the first time that they solve a case completely separately. It is also the first time that Adam is away from DeKalb County and operating entirely on his own and without training wheels or a support network. He’s on his own for the first time after his descent into addiction and in his long hard climb back to sobriety.

That separation nearly wrecks his extremely slowly developing relationship with Isabella Cherabino. More importantly, it nearly wrecks him. But he comes out stronger for it, albeit with a few more broken places. The difference is that he is not filling those broken places in with drugs. At least not today.

Isabella is charged with police brutality, and becomes the county’s poster child for non-tolerance of such a crime. The only problem is that she didn’t do it, and both the evidence and the hearing are rigged. The question that is asked throughout the story, and only answered by the end, is that of the rigger.

Adam is off in Savannah, chasing down a precognitive vision with the help of the FBI, although they consider that he is helping them. A child will die if Adam can’t figure out how to subvert the vision before it is too late. In order to derail the vision, he also needs to figure out what a judge in a high-profile case is hiding, and who benefits from killing her child.

And what does any of this have to do with actions in Adam’s past? In the end, it is all about him. And not in a good way. Saving that kid may not fix any of the other things that Adam has broken, but it will be enough to make today worthwhile. It gives him yet one more reason to remain clean.

But some of his screwups still catch up with him. Payment will be demanded, but not all of it today.

Escape Rating A: The world of Mindspace Investigations is a very dark and gritty one. While it seems that things are getting better after the chaos of the Tech Wars, it’s going to be a long, hard time until society gets back to where it is in our now. The levels of pollution in the air and water are a factor that Adam is constantly aware of on his trip to Savannah, and so are we.

What is different about this case is that Adam is operating completely solo. While the series has been told from his first-person perspective from the very beginning, we are always aware of Adam’s nearby support group; especially his police partner Isabella Cherabino and his NA sponsor Swartz.

In Savannah Adam is forced to work with an FBI team that he has never met, and one that resents the need to bring in an unknown teep on an emergency basis when theirs is injured. Adam is there to save a 10-year-old boy’s life, and the FBI team is there to prevent a second kidnapping attempt on that same boy.

Adam is also there because the Telepath Guild is yanking his chain, but that’s nothing new. One of the ongoing themes of the series is that Adam wants to distance himself as much as possible from the Telepath Guild, but he keeps getting sucked back in. It is very convenient for everyone, the police, the FBI, the Guild themselves, to have a telepath whose loyalties seem somewhat fluid.

They aren’t, and that’s what keeps getting him into trouble. Although in this story that same sense of loyalty also keeps him out of trouble. Just a bit.

Adam is forced to make a choice. Actually, he’s forced to make a lot of choices, and they are all choices between bad and less bad. He never really gets to choose between bad and good. He’s come a long way from the drug user he remembers being. He makes the best choices he can, and then lives with the consequences, knowingly.

In addition to the harrowing case that Adam is investigating, what we see is him learning to stand on his own again. The question, as always, is for how long.

While the events in this particular story had a lot to do with previous cases, there was also a sense that the events in this book have pushed the story into a different direction. After the bombshell at the end, I’m on pins and needles waiting to see what happens next.

Reviewer’s note: When I began this series, part of the fun for me was that I used to live in the Atlanta metro area where this series is set. As I write this, I am moving back to the Atlanta area. It made reading about the places involved that much more fascinating for me. I could see it, I have seen it, and I’m going to see it again.

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY AND SCAVENGER HUNT~~~~~~

Alex is giving away an ebook copy of the winner’s choice of one Mindspace Investigations novel (INT). To enter, use the Rafflecopter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Alex is also conducting a scavenger hunt based on the game CLUE. Here is the clue for this stop on the blog tour:

AlleyClue

So you can cross this clue off your checklist. For more details on how you can use this clue to get the grand prize of a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble, a signed copy of Marked, and a character from a future book named after him/her., visit this page that explains the contest and tells you where to find the other clues.

WriteTimePromoBanner1

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Guest Post by Author Sonya Clark + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Giveaways

Today I would like to welcome back Sonya Clark, who recently published the third entry in the Magic Born series, Firewall (reviewed here). If you like dystopian fiction with a romantic and scientific twist, the Magic Born series, starting with Trancehack (reviewed here), is absolutely awesome.

Silver Wheels and spoilers
by Sonya Clark

firewall by sonya clarkIt’s really hard to talk about some of my favorite things about Firewall without giving away spoilers, but I’m going to try. In Trancehack, the first Magic Born book, witch Calla Vesper is shown stealing a little WI-FI from an arcade. She uses it to trancehack, a type of magic that uses astral projection to enter cyberspace. In the next book, Witchlight, I introduced a new game popular at the arcade, called Silver Wheels. In Firewall, the creator of the game is introduced as a secondary character.

Here’s a little about the game itself: Silver Wheels is set in a futuristic oppressive dystopian world. The name comes from the main character of the game, an anonymous champion of hacktivists and free-information advocates. Silver Wheels is seen in gameplay speeding around on a super-fast motorcycle, wearing a mirrorball helmet. As tensions rise in New Corinth and protests become a weekly event, the character of Silver Wheels becomes a symbol to the Normals who want the Magic Laws that take their magic-capable children away from them. And the witches trapped inside the zone known as FreakTown are happy to spell random objects to turn into witchlight versions of Silver Wheels, to be tossed into the streets during the protests.

trancehack by sonya clarkNow for a little about Silver Wheels, the character: By the time Firewall starts, fugitive witch Tuyet Caron, who works for the Magic Born underground, has been in contact with the game’s creator for some time. She refers to him as Silver Wheels. He also helps the underground, working within cyberspace to find information, monitor Normal communications, facilitate Magic Born communications between zones, and anything else he can do. And he does it from within cyberspace because that’s where he exists. Silver Wheels is a witch who has permanently trancehacked.

I’d love to talk about the reasons for this, but it’s a spoiler. His real identity is confirmed in my favorite scene in the book, which I can’t post as an excerpt because it’s a spoiler. Darn spoilers! It’s frustrating to not be able to talk about certain aspects of a book because of spoilers, but worth it in the long run so that readers make those discoveries on their own.

About Sonya Clark
Sonya Clark grew up a military brat and now lives in Tennessee with her husband and daughter. She writes urban fantasy and paranormal romance with a heavy helping of magic and lots of music for inspiration.

To learn more about Sonya, visit her website.

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Sonya is giving away an ebook copy of the winner’s choice of any book in the Magic Born series! To enter, use the Rafflecopter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: The Red Book of Primrose House by Marty Wingate + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
red book of primrose house by marty wingateFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Cozy mystery
Series: Potting Shed Mystery, #2
Length: 274 pages
Publisher: Alibi
Date Released: November 4, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

Pru Parke has her dream job: head gardener at an eighteenth-century manor house in Sussex. The landscape for Primrose House was laid out in 1806 by renowned designer Humphry Repton in one of his meticulously illustrated Red Books, and the new owners want Pru to restore the estate to its former glory—quickly, as they’re planning to showcase it in less than a year at a summer party.

But life gets in the way of the best laid plans: When not being happily distracted by the romantic attentions of the handsome Inspector Christopher Pearse, Pru is digging into the mystery of her own British roots. Still, she manages to make considerable progress on the vast grounds—until vandals wreak havoc on each of her projects. Then, to her horror, one of her workers is found murdered among the yews. The police have a suspect, but Pru is certain they’re wrong. Once again, Pru finds herself entangled in a thicket of evil intentions—and her, without a hatchet.

My Review:

garden plot by marty wingateIn this followup to the delightful The Garden Plot (reviewed here) American gardener Pru Parke is once again on the trail of a murderer while handling the restoration of a traditional English garden. While her garden labors end in success, just as in the first book, she also turns up a series of corpses, and sticks her amateur investigative nose into solving the crimes.

But this time, while she is still the bane of the local police department’s existence, her new lover is in the soup right along with her. In the first book, Pru falls in love with London CID Inspector Christopher Pearse. At Primrose House, out in the countryside, Christopher also finds himself on the outside of the case. As much as he wants to protect Pru, the local CID wants him to keep his nose out of their business. Especially since Inspector Tatt and Christopher have butted heads before.

Just as in The Garden Plot, this is really Pru’s case. The police, including Christopher, can either help or hinder her, but they can’t stop her from getting to the bottom of what becomes a series of crimes, including murder.

Portrait of Humphry Repton
Portrait of Humphry Repton

Interspersed with the increasing crime wave in the village is Pru’s restoration work on the garden at Primrose House. She’s following a plan laid down by master gardener Humphry Repton in the 18th century, when the house was new. (Repton really existed, and left his famous “Red Books” at the gardens he designed all over England)

Pru starts out her task believing that she’s found her dream job, only to have it turn into one nightmare after another. Her work is vandalized, one of her assistants is murdered, and two of the others are framed for his death. The local police are desperate to find the killer, and grasp at straws left by the unseen perpetrator to put others in the frame and waste their resources, while Pru tries to keep them on track, and Christopher tries to keep her from walking straight into danger.

But of course she does anyway, and only discovers “who done it” by nearly being done herself!.

Escape Rating B+: This story has three plot threads, and they all come together at the end for a very satisfying, if somewhat hair-raising, conclusion.

I say hair-raising because Pru does put herself in jeopardy on a fairly regular basis, and in the denouement of this story, her tendency to leap before she looks is nearly deadly. Again.

But about those three stories. One is the relatively straightforward tale of Pru’s task to restore or refurbish the Primrose House garden to a state that, while not following Repton’s Red Book religiously, will at least keep to the spirit of the famous gardener’s original plan. This effort is compromised both by the unfortunate tendency of Pru’s assistants to either get jailed or killed, as well as the vandal who continues to destroy her work in progress. Amid these serious difficulties, Pru is also bedeviled by her slightly flakey employer’s succesion of grandiose and absurd suggestions for the garden.

Pru is also in the middle of a crime wave (this seems normal for her).It’s not just that someone is vandalizing the garden (and it’s fairly obvious who) but one of her assistants is murdered, in the garden, and the local police are looking for a too easy solution. Pru’s search for the real killer turns up motives aplenty, as well as a nasty case of domestic violence that has been covered up. But of course Pru keeps digging.

The most interesting part of the story is Pru’s personal quest. She came to England to see if her late mother left any family behind. The all-too-real skeleton in her family closet turns around everything that Pru every believed about herself and her family. Coming to terms with her new reality is a major distraction.

And through it all, her relationship with Christopher keeps going two steps forward and one step back.The issues of a mature couple who already have established lives when they meet seriously complicates the future of their relationship. Navigating those occasionally muddy waters keeps this part of the story interesting.

I enjoyed The Red Book of Primrose House as much, or maybe more, for the way it developed and dealt with the relationships involved as for the murder mystery. I’m looking forward to seeing what trouble Pru gets into next.

~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Marty is kindly giving away a $25 gift card to the ebook retailer of the winner’s choice plus a copy of The Garden Plot To enter, use the Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Guest Post by Author Jeffe Kennedy on Ebooks and Libraries + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Giveaways> Guest Posts

My featured guest for today is Jeffe Kennedy, the author of the marvelous fantasy romance series, Covenant of Thorns. The series concludes with today’s featured review book, Rogue’s Paradise, which answers so many of the questions that series fans have been waiting for.

In her guest post, Jeffe talks about one of the subjects near and dear to my heart, getting ebooks into libraries.

Rogues Paradise Button 300 x 225

I love that Reading Reality focuses on ebooks and ebook integration into libraries. This is partly because libraries and librarians have always been such a huge part of my life as a reader. As a writer, too, which is less visible to me. But more and more, librarians come up to me at events and tell me how my ebooks are in their collections and I should know how often they’re checked out and how their patrons just love, love, love them! I’m glad they tell me, because otherwise I have no way of knowing that.

I also appreciate that Marlene is dedicated to bringing ebooks into libraries, especially genre books, because I strongly feel that, without Carina and their willingness to take a chance on my digital series, A Covenant of Thorns, then these books might never have seen the light of day. That’s the terrific thing about ebook publishers—they’ve allowed books that don’t neatly fit into genre categories to have a chance.

rogues pawn goodreadsWhen I started Rogue’s Pawn,, I had no idea that I was writing a story that would “fall into the cracks between genres.” My tale of a modern woman, a professor of neuroscience who passes through a magical gate at Devils Tower and ends up in Faerie—exactly as in the tales of old—would maybe be an urban fantasy. Only with more romance. And sexier.

Okay, like many newbie writers, I had no idea what I was doing. I understood my story, but not how the marketplace worked.

Since I first started shopping that book—to praise for the writing and imagination, followed by rejection for marketability—the market has changed. Carina called it Fantasy Romance and now there’s lots more of those books out there. The Covenant of Thorns trilogy doesn’t sit squarely in Fantasy Romance, but it gets to be in the club still. More, the books have found readers and I’ve gotten to write others.

All because people embraced ebooks and the windows they open.

I couldn’t be more thrilled!

Jeffe KennedyJeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author with a writing career that spans decades. Her works include non-fiction, poetry, short fiction, and novels. She has been a Ucross Foundation Fellow, received the Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship for Poetry, and was awarded a Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award. Her essays have appeared in many publications, including Redbook. Her most recent works include a number of fiction series: the fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of Thorns; the contemporary BDSM novellas of the Facets of Passion, and an erotic contemporary serial novel, Master of the Opera, which released beginning January 2, 2014. A fourth series, the fantasy trilogy The Twelve Kingdoms, hit the shelves starting in May 2014 and a fifth, the highly anticipated erotic romance trilogy, Falling Under, will release starting in July.

She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with two Maine coon cats, plentiful free-range lizards and a very handsome Doctor of Oriental Medicine.

Jeffe can be found online at her website: JeffeKennedy.com, every Sunday at the popular Word Whores blog, on Facebook, and pretty much constantly on Twitter @jeffekennedy. She is represented by Foreword Literary.

To learn about Jeffe, visit her website or blog or follow her on Facebook or Twitter.

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Because I enjoyed the Covenant of Thorns series so much, I want to give some lucky reader the chance to enjoy it too. So, the prize is the winner’s choice of Rogue’s Pawn, Rogue’s Possession or Rogue’s Paradise. These are all ebook only, so anyone can win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Ryder by Nick Pengelley + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
ryder by nick pengelleyFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: suspense
Series: Ryder, #1
Length: 293 pages
Publisher: Alibi
Date Released: September 30, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

Ayesha Ryder bears the scars of strife in the Middle East. Now her past is catching up to her as she races to unravel a mystery that spans centuries—and threatens to change the course of history.

As Israeli and Palestinian leaders prepare to make a joint announcement at the Tower of London, an influential scholar is tortured and murdered in his well-appointed home in St. John’s Wood. Academic researcher Ayesha Ryder believes the killing is no coincidence. Sir Evelyn Montagu had unearthed shocking revelations about T. E. Lawrence—the famed Lawrence of Arabia. Could Montagu have been targeted because of his discoveries?

Ryder’s search for answers takes her back to her old life in the Middle East and into a lion’s den of killers and traitors. As she draws the attention of agents from both sides of the conflict, including detectives from Scotland Yard and MI5, Ryder stumbles deeper into Lawrence’s secrets, an astounding case of royal blackmail, even the search for the Bible’s lost Ark of the Covenant.

Every step of the way, the endgame grows more terrifying. But when an attack rocks London, the real players show their hand—and Ayesha Ryder is left holding the final piece of the puzzle.

My Review:

This wild ride of an adventure story features a female combination of Lara Croft and Indiana Jones in a story that bears a marvelous resemblance to The Da Vinci Code, only with much better pacing and an edge-of-your-seat thrill-a-minute narrative.

In other words, I loved this book.

Ayesha Ryder isn’t quite Indy or Lara, but there’s certainly some resemblance. Including that Ayesha is chasing one of the same relics that Indy chased. In just as much danger but with slightly less success. At least so far.

160px-T.E.Lawrence,_the_mystery_man_of_ArabiaWhat Ayesha is really chasing is something left behind by T.E. Lawrence (yes, Lawrence of Arabia). Lawrence had documentation for a secret that the English monarchy will still kill to keep quiet. But more important than that, he left behind a secret treaty between Israel and Palestine that would have changed the face of the Middle East. If he hadn’t been murdered and the document suppressed.

In the 21st century, the current Israeli and Palestinian leaders are attempting to recreate Lawrence’s plans, without any firm proof that those plans existed. They both belief in peace so much that they are willing to put their lives on the line for it.

And there are plenty of forces on all sides willing to take those lives to keep them from redrawing the map.

Ayesha, a former refugee from Palestine, a world-reknowned expert on the Middle East and a former member of the Palestinian Fedayeen, finds herself on the run when her ex-lover is tortured and murdered to keep Lawrence’s papers from seeing the light of day.

She is chased through London by both MI5, determined to keep the monarchy’s secrets,  and Shamir, an Israeli organization dedicated to preventing the peace at all costs. While she is on the run, she is also running down the trail of clues that will finally lead to Lawrence’s papers. They may also lead to her death.

And possibly the death of the hope of peace for another generation.

Escape Rating A: While the stakes in the story are incredibly high, the story itself is amazingly fun!

Ayesha is on the hunt for documents that may or may not exist, and on the run for her life at the same time. She is never sure who she can trust, or what the old trail will lead her to.

Part of the fun of the story was following in T.E. Lawrence’s footsteps. Probably everyone has watched the movie at some point, so the history is familiar, and yet the implications of it have impacts echoing to today.

Ayesha is an amazing heroine. While I compared her at the beginning to Lara Croft, that isn’t strictly true, but it is close. Ayesha gets beaten, tortured and shot, but she always gets up and keeps going forward. She starts out the story grief-stricken, but her mind never stops searching for the answers.

Ryder american treasure by nick pengelleyThere are three threads to this tale; Ayesha’s hunt for Lawrence’s paperwork, the conference that is supposed to announce a new peace accord, and the increasingly violent and desperate attempts to stop that announcement. When everything comes together at the end, it’s a serious WOW!

I can’t wait for the next book in this series; Ryder: American Treasure. There is still a LOT of justice to be done.

 

 

~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Nick is kindly giving away a $25.00 gift card to the ebook retailer of your choice as well as a copy of Ryder! To enter, use the Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Beyond Coincidence by Jacquie Underdown + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
beyond coincidence by jacquie underdownFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: paranormal romance
Length: 239 pages
Publisher: Escape Publishing
Date Released: September 1, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

In 2008, 250 Australian and British soldiers are uncovered in a mass grave in Fromelles, France, lost since the Great War. One soldier, bearing wounds of war so deep it scarred his soul, cannot be laid to rest just yet.

When Lucy bumps into the achingly sad soldier during a trip to France, she doesn’t, at first glance, realise what he is – a ghost who desperately needs her help. Lucy can’t turn away from someone who needs her, even someone non-corporeal, and they travel back together to Australia in search of answers and, hopefully, some peace.

This chance meeting and unexplainable relationship sets into motion a chain-reaction of delicate coincidences that affect the intertwined lives of family, friends, and lovers in unexpected, beautiful ways.

My Review:

Beyond Coincidence is a romance that requires that the reader throw their willing suspension of disbelief out the window, but the history behind the love story is based on actual events.

Let’s just say that the author has taken an extremely romantic perspective on a project that is both sad and moving, and uses the romance to personalize something important.

Fromelles6_460x306pxThe genesis of everything lies in the Battle of Fromelles, which took place in France in World War I. Fromelles wasn’t merely a disaster for the Allies, it was also one of the most costly battles in history for the Australian Army. Over 5,500 men were killed in 24 hours of fighting.

In 2008, a mass grave was found near Fromelles, containing the unidentified bodies of 250 of those Australian losses. In the intervening years, a project has been mounted to identify those remains and create closure for the families.

Beyond Coincidence is a romanticized, in some ways paranormally romanticized, story about the identification of the remains of one particular soldier.

Lucy sees the ghost of a man, in a WWI Australian Army uniform, visiting the gravesite in Fromelles. At first, she thinks he’s a reenactor. When he keeps turning up, she decides he’s a stalker. It’s only when he materializes in her car that she finally starts accepting that he’s a ghost.

Freddy Ormon is one of the unidentified soldiers from the battle. He convinces Lucy that he won’t be able to rest until his grave is properly marked and his remains are identified. He has no idea how this is supposed to happen, just that it has to happen and that there is a greater plan that has chosen Lucy as the one to bring it about.

So Lucy sets out on a quest to find Freddy’s possible descendants. He knows that his wife was pregnant when he left Australia, so it is possible that there is a great-grandson or granddaughter back home. Lucy just has to find him, or her.

Lucy heads back home, and hunts down Nate Ormon, Freddy’s great-grandson. Both Lucy and Nate are at career and romantic loose-ends, so when Freddy serves as unintentional matchmaker, they click. Nate even looks like Freddy, which is not a hardship for Lucy. She’s quite fond of her “friendly ghost”.

In spite of some ham-fisted interference from Lucy’s suddenly violent ex, Nate and Lucy discover that they have a lot in common beyond Nate’s interfering ancestor. But they have some deep-seated fears that almost drive them apart.

The story ends with the promise of one of the sweetest but most surprising second-chances at love that I’ve read in quite a while.

Escape Rating B: Although this is Lucy and Nate’s love story, Freddy feels like the most memorable character in the book. He is so confused by what has happened to him, and so frustrated at his inability to act for himself.

His grief over the death of his wife is fresh and new. She lived decades without him, but he’s just now confronted with both her death and that of the child he never got to see. The world is so different from what he knew.

At the same time, his interactions with Lucy are quite funny. Not because he doesn’t know the 21st century, but the way he adapts surprises and dellights her. You can see them becoming friends, no matter how unusual that friendship might be.

There’s a sense that Freddy is Lucy’s guardian angel in some way. He looks out for her, and he’s also pushing her life into a different but better track than she would have found on her own. Lucy and Nate do not “meet cute” and without a push, she probably would never have seen him again.

Freddy, or someone above him, are also manipulating events for their own ends. “This has all happened before and it will all happen again” as they say. And the set up between Lucy and Nate does feel contrived. As much as I liked Freddy as a character, I had to swallow my logic in order to enjoy the story.

But I certainly did enjoy it quite a bit. It’s sweet and romantic, and I loved the history angle.

~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Jacquie is kindly giving a $30 gift card for Amazon! To enter, use the Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: The Forever Man by Pierre Ouellette + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Book Giveaway> book reviews> Giveaways
forever man by pierre ouelletteFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Science fiction; thriller
Length: 316 pages
Publisher: Alibi
Date Released: July 8, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

Portland, Oregon, was once a beacon of promise and prosperity. Now it’s the epicenter of a world gone wrong, its streets overrun by victims and hustlers, drifters and gangsters. Lowly contract cop Lane Anslow struggles to keep afloat—and to watch out for his brilliant but bipolar brother, Johnny, a medical researcher. Lane soon discovers that Johnny is part of an experiment veiled in extraordinary secrecy. But he has no idea who’s behind it, how astronomical the stakes are, or how many lives might be destroyed to make it a reality.

Now Johnny’s gone missing. To find him, Lane follows a twisting trail into a billionaire’s hilltop urban fortress, a politician’s inner circle, a prison set in an aircraft graveyard, and a highly guarded community where people appear to be half their biological age. Hunted by dueling enemies, Lane meets a beautiful and enigmatic woman at the center of a vast web of political and criminal intrigue. And behind it all is a sinister, desperate race to claim the biggest scientific prize of all: eternal life.

My Review:

The Forever Man combines two well-used science fiction plots into a single story that never quite jelled for me. The individual parts were both potentially interesting, but the whole doesn’t do either one of them justice.

The story takes place in a near-future dystopia. A future so near that the protagonist still remembers the pre-rotten past, meaning now. It’s a future where the 1% has retreated into their gated communities as the rest of us barely get by. The social contract has completely broken down, everything is privatized, and both pensions and social security for the middle class are ideals that have long since died.

In the history of this future, a terrorist attack in the American Heartland killed off the last of the constitutional protections against very nearly everything. Think the Patriot Act on steroids and with clones, and you’ll get some idea of the background.

Part of this background is that police services have been privatized and have turned into contract services. Only the rich can afford to have crimes against them even investigated, and the cops who do the investigations are effectively mercenaries.

Our protagonist is a contract cop in a degraded version of Portland, Oregon who has just lost his contract because at 45, he’s just not as fast as he used to be. There are no jobs, and unemployment and homelessness are widespread.

Of course, as an ex-cop, Lane Anslow can contract himself out to one of the gangs that have taken over most of the city. And he might have to, just to keep himself off the streets.

But it all goes pear-shaped (even more than it is already) when his scientist brother disappears in the middle of a giant plot to allow one extremely old and incredibly rich man to live forever. At any cost.

Escape Rating C+: The near-future scenario is not merely frightening, but all too plausible. I would have loved to have seen a story that addressed the way that the country had gone to hell in a handcart, how it got there, and the way that one person (or a group) was trying to survive or make things better.

However, what we have is the conspiracy plot about a rich man who has bought a scientific method of immortality, and the ways he protects himself and pays off his enemies in order to achieve his goals. His ruthlessness and extreme inhumanity made Zed seem a bit of a caricature. The plots and cover-ups that he creates to maintain his secret could take place in our current world; the dystopia wasn’t needed.

Lane doesn’t start out looking for the immortality plot, he begins by hunting for his brilliant but feckless brother. He’s also a bit one-dimensional, the mostly straight cop who will do anything or investigate anywhere to save a doomed loved one. But I didn’t feel for him; he seemed like a device rather than a fully-fleshed out character.

The story explores lots of cool ideas, not just the dystopia, but also the way that society has and mostly hasn’t, coped with the problem. The political machinations were particularly fascinating. I just wish it had tied together a bit more.

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Pierre is giving away a copy of The Forever Man and a $25 giftcard to the ebook retailer of your choice. To enter, use the Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Blade of the Samurai by Susan Spann + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
blade of the samurai by susan spannFormat read: ebook provided by Edelweiss
Formats available: ebook, hardcover
Genre: Historical mystery
Series: Shinobi Mysteries, #2
Length: 304 pages
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Date Released: July 15, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

June, 1565: Master ninja Hiro Hattori receives a pre-dawn visit from Kazu, a fellow shinobi working undercover at the shogunate. Hours before, the shogun’’s cousin, Saburo, was stabbed to death in the shogun’s palace. The murder weapon: Kazu’s personal dagger. Kazu says he’s innocent, and begs for Hiro’s help, but his story gives Hiro reason to doubt the young shinobi’s claims.

When the shogun summons Hiro and Father Mateo, the Portuguese Jesuit priest under Hiro’s protection, to find the killer, Hiro finds himself forced to choose between friendship and personal honor.

The investigation reveals a plot to assassinate the shogun and overthrow the ruling Ashikaga clan. With Lord Oda’s enemy forces approaching Kyoto, and the murderer poised to strike again, Hiro must use his assassin’s skills to reveal the killer’s identity and protect the shogun at any cost. Kazu, now trapped in the city, still refuses to explain his whereabouts at the time of the murder. But a suspicious shogunate maid, Saburo’s wife, and the shogun’s stable master also had reasons to want Saburo dead. With the shogun demanding the murderer’s head before Lord Oda reaches the city, Hiro and Father Mateo must produce the killer in time . . . or die in his place.

My Review:

Blade of the Samurai takes place one year after the successful conclusion of the case that marked the opening book in this terrific series, Claws of the Cat (reviewed here).

claws of the cat by susan spannJust like Claws of the Cat, the mystery in Blade of the Samurai is steeped in Japanese politics and culture. At the same time, the possible suspects for the murder include many whose motives are purely personal.

It is up to the shinobi Hiro to determine the real killer. In this case, he is drawn into the mystery because his fellow shinobi, Kazu, a secret informer planted within the shogunate itself, may be the killer. Or he may just have been a young idiot.

Hiro must find the true killer in order to keep his, and Kazu’s, secrets. But he fears that Kazu is lying to him, and that he is the murderer after all. For the sake of his own honor, Hiro must determine the truth.

It is possible that the murder is part of a plot to overthrow the shogun. It is also possible that the victim’s lover murdered him, or that his wife murdered him for threatening to divorce her. Even more confusing for Hiro, it is entirely possible that the man was murdered because he was an unpleasant, privileged asshat that made certain that everyone near him hated him.

There are many too many possible suspects. The field narrows when they start dying in suspicious circumstances. Hiro is certain that a string of supposed suicides among people who have information for his investigation is well beyond the range of coincidence.

Hiro wants Kazu to be innocent, or at least as innocent as their mutual profession allows them to be. But the longer Kazu refuses to admit where he was on the night of the initial murder, the guiltier he looks. And Kazu is guilty, but not of this crime. Just of being a young idiot.

It is astonishing to discover that Hiro is only 25, and that his friend Kazu is merely 20. But Kazu’s actions make much more sense in light of his age.

Kazu is not the only person covering up the truth in this case. The maid who discovered the body has almost as many faces as the two shinobi.

Following along in Hiro’s footsteps is a fascinating pleasure. In this particular case, while his uncovering of the killer is absorbing, even more fascinating is the aftermath. The secrets revealed at the end change our perceptions of the case and the investigators.

Blade of the Samurai is historical mystery as it should be done.

Escape Rating A+: As much as I loved this, I still want the story of Hiro and Mateo’s first meeting, or Hiro’s assignment to Mateo’s case. Whatever happened there must be fascinating, as well as revelatory.

But this case kept me on the edge of my seat. There are so many possible motives for the crime, and Hiro is trapped in the investigation. Not just because Kazu is a comrade, but also because Mateo is attacked during the investigation and is too injured to leave Kyoto. Hiro can’t get out of solving the crime, in the hopes that the answer will provide a respite for the growing political tension.

He’s almost half right.

Unlike so many mysteries, there are actually two plots, and the coincidence does work. Hiro solves what he can, but some things are beyond his ability to solve, as one plot uses the other as cover. It doesn’t feel like two half-baked ideas in search of a story, these two separate strings tie together in a way that makes sense.

We also learn more about Hiro, his abilities and his philosophy, and the relationship between himself and Mateo. Their friendship surprises him, and makes his job more difficult. It also provides Hiro with a vulnerability that shinobi are not supposed to have. Yet, it provides the motivation for his crime solving.

One of the things I’m most looking forward to in the series is their evolving relationship. Mateo is often our viewpoint for how things differ from the Western history and perspective that we are more familiar with. At the same time, he is trying to adapt to the culture around him. We, and Hiro, often can’t tell whether Mateo is using his foreign-ness to ask rude questions, or whether he honestly doesn’t know.

The ending of this story was a surprise, in a good way. While the plots were wrapped up and the motives for the perpetrators revealed, it was the aftermath that stuck in the mind. Not just for its revelations, for also for the way that it went outside the code, yet still remained true to the setting.

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Susan is giving away a copy of Blade of the Samurai (print or ebook, winner’s choice; U.S. and Canada)! To enter, use the Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Guest Post by Author Sonya Clark + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> Giveaways

witchlight by sonya clarkMy special guest today is Sonya Clark, author of the absolutely marvelous Trancehack (reviewed here) and today’s review book Witchlight. I fell in love with the world of the Magic Born that Sonya introduced in Trancehack, so I was over the moon when she agreed to let us in on a few of the secrets behind her world creation. (I wouldn’t want to live on either side of her dystopia, but the way she put it together is awesome).

I can’t wait for book 3 (I’m so glad there is one!!!) In the meantime, this should help tide me over. A bit.

Behind the Magic Born World
by Sonya Clark

The world-building for the Magic Born series is drawn from a lot of different inspirations and ideas. The backstory includes a bit of alternate history: in the early aught’s, hacktivists discover documents proving that the US and other governments know about the existence of magic and use witchcraft in secret. (Remember all the Wikileaks document dumps of several years ago? Yeah, that.) The revelation is shocking the world over, but in some countries the fear of magic and witches leads to violence. The US government passes the Magic Laws which essentially strip the Magic Born of all rights of citizenship and forces them to live in urban reservations. This calms the fearful Normal populace and stops the bloodshed, for the most part.

trancehack by sonya clarkBut it comes at a price: infants undergo DNA testing, and if found to have magic in the blood, they are sent to live in the zones. This begins a breakdown in families that threatens the underpinnings of society. By the time the series starts, single-child families are the norm and many of the younger generation don’t want to have children at all. Hearkening back to our Civil War history, there is a new underground railroad. This time, it helps both Magic Born and Normals who want to flee the oppressive laws and find refuge in more open countries.

In this alternate history backstory, the US is not the only country to react this way, but it is one of few. Most of the world adapts to having magic out in the open. Eventually, economic sanctions are put in place against those nations that deny witches human rights. By the time the series starts, those sanctions have been in place so long that the economy is in pretty much permanent recession, with no hope of improving.

What did I base this on? A number of things. I read about Native American reservations and South African apartheid. I also drew a little from personal experience. My father is retired military and we lived in Frankfurt, Germany when the Berlin Wall fell. After the borders opened, East Germans became a regular sight in Frankfurt. You could easily tell them apart from their West German counterparts. East Germany and the other Soviet Bloc nations had been living under horrible repression and incredibly restricted economic conditions. Several decades of that took a huge toll, but that kind of authoritarianism proved ultimately unsustainable. Seeing East Germans discover life in the open, free West made for some lasting memories. So did seeing the result of placing ideology above reality, choosing fear instead of facing change.

There’s not a literal version of the Berlin Wall in Witchlight, but this is definitely the book where life gets tougher for the Magic Born. I don’t want to give away too much spoilery information, but I will say this: it is a romance novel, and it is the middle book of a dystopian trilogy. Make of that what you will. 🙂

About Sonya Clark
Sonya Clark grew up a military brat and now lives in Tennessee with her husband and daughter. She writes urban fantasy and paranormal romance with a heavy helping of magic and lot of music for inspiration. Learn more at http://www.sonyaclark.net and sign up for her new releases announcement list at http://eepurl.com/bT3NL. Find her on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Sonya is kindly giving away a digital copy of Witchlight. To enter, use the Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway