5 Stars for Killing Jenna Crane

Author: Lynnette Sofras
Published By:  Amazon Digital Services (self-published)
Reviewed By: Tara Fox Hall
Rating: 5

Summary:

This is not a story about a murder, but a dark journey inside a writer's mind. Commitment-shy Ellis Crawford, creator of the famous and highly successful Jenna Crane mystery series, finds his comfortable life swept away when he meets Emily, his perfect woman.

Despite his deepening love for Emily, Ellis finds himself haunted by painful memories of a previous love whose heart he broke, and begins to regret his past behavior. On top of that, Emily wants him to kill off his beloved heroine Jenna Crane - against fierce public opinion.

But life is too short for regrets and when his own rapidly spirals out of control, taking his reputation as an author with it, where will Ellis turn for help?

 

Tara's Thoughts:

It took me quite a while to read this book, but that’s not because the premise of this book wasn’t compelling. While the summary above might bring to mind Stephen King’s Misery, this book explores more of the angst of how it feels to kill off part of your soul than the scary level committed fans can rise to. An author’s creation, especially a character that has evolved over a series of books, takes on a life of its own; it becomes a close workmate to the author. So how do you murder a friend?

I liked the character of Ellis immensely, and I had to know what was going to happen to him. Ms. Sofras made him an author true to life with a wickedly dry sense of humor that had me smirking at most every page. Here is an excerpt to illustrate this:

He always started his talks by demolishing the dream and laying bare the harsh realities of the so-called success stories.  He carried a file of rejection letters, which he scattered around the room and ran a power point presentation depicting some of the most famous literary names in history and the numbers of rejections they received before fortune finally smiled on them - in some cases posthumously.

I will add I hope that the hate mail Ellis gets was fiction, as authors have enough to deal with just promoting and writing without that added albatross. But authors do channel emotions into their writing in amusing ways, as the below excerpt describes:

Ellis resisted the urge to throw the poker through the window.  Instead he went back to his desk and wrote a particularly brutal fight scene in which Jenna came narrowly close to having her brains kicked out by a particularly agile Lithuanian drugs baron, before he finally allowed her to get the upper hand and defeat the slimy villain.

Emily was less interesting at first (any woman described as a “perfect woman” tends to make my eyes glaze). I liked Chloe—and her charismatic cat, Ms. Minnivar—and wished that I had a male version myself to help me. J

Now to the plot: I loved the Christmas scene with Chloe’s wacky relatives that I could imagine completely. And by the breakup scene ¼ of the way through, I knew I was going to toss my list of things to do for the day and read the rest of the book instead. Here is an excerpt from that scene:

"Why now?"  Ellis demanded, watching her moving around collecting her belongings. "Because I'm tired of waiting for you to end it. We both know it's over between us, but you don't have the courage to tell me, so I'm sparing you the trouble."

"Not have the courage?  That's ridiculous."

"Then why don't you say so?" He glared at her, refusing the bait. "Well just remember it was your choice."

She reeled on him, her green eyes flashing in fury and before he knew it, had landed him a stinging slap across his left cheek. It was the last thing he expected from Chloe and for a brief moment he could do nothing but scowl at her in shock as he fought the urge to hit back.

I loved the awards ceremony scene; it had me snickering out loud. I loved Lou’s reaction to Elli’s decision to kill off Jeanna Crane, which made me laugh so hard I woke my dog.

Ellis’s “bad” review for his “other” writing under a pen name mortified me, as it was intended to. I loved the talk show scene…and on and on. This book was a series of great scenes, as the best books are. But the overarching theme of all actions—good and bad— having repercussions that are sometimes far more serious than anticipated. I confess that I saw the secret of this book coming early on, but that did not keep me from heartily enjoying it. And it had a wonderful ending that surprised me.

Overall opinion: Well worth putting off your to-do list to read it in one sitting! J So what are you waiting for?

Parents:

Language: a few swear words

Adult Content: “sweet” sex scenes, as in no description

Violence: none

Purchase Links:

Amazon Kindle
Amazon UK
Paperback




Author Links

Website
 

 

4.5 Stars for Serenya’s Song

By Mysti Parker
Genre: Romance/Fantasy
Review By: Susan Gesing


Serenya is a kind-hearted, warm woman who loves music, her stepfather, and her friends.  She is helpful and sweet.  She sings like an angel, plays the piano like a virtuoso, and is married to an Earl.  Sounds perfect doesn’t it?

Serenya is living her life as she is used to when she meets Jayden, an elf of musical talents and handsome to boot.  They bond instantly over their music.

In the meantime, her husband is treating her cruelly and trying with all his might to impregnate her.  He is unkind at best and horribly cruel at worst.  Serenya feels beholden to him and so she tries to keep her feelings for Jayden from developing.

Serenya starts to notice some unusual changes in herself.  She loathes her husband but craves his touch.  She has an insatiable need for raw meat and she even begins to have physical changes.

She is frightened and intimidated by her husband and saved by Jayden and the love they ultimately share.

Serenya interested me from the beginning.  I liked that she was helpful to her father and loyal to her friend, Lilly.  Even though she was stifling her dreams to be a good wife, I found that believable.  I liked how she found the strength within herself.

Her husband, Sebastion, was an interesting fellow too.  Sometimes, you thought he loved  Serenya so much and other times, you hated him for his cruelty.

Jayden was the typical hero, a concept I always enjoy.

The supporting cast of characters were believable and all played an important part.  They embodied the support group we all need in this life.

There were a lot of unexpected turns in the story which I found intriguing.  There were just the right amount of surprises to keep the reader engaged.

The love scenes were handled subtly and the culminating fight scene was incredible.

I did find the time period a little confusing.  Was it in days of yore or in the present and just in a universe that developed differently? To be fair, I didn’t read her first book about Tallenmare.

If you enjoy fantasy, I highly recommend Serenya’s Song.

Purchase Links:

Melange Books
Amazon Kindle
Barnes and Noble
Paperback

Author Links

Blog

5 Stars for Waiting for Dusk

Author: Nancy Pennick
Reviewed By: Tara Fox Hall


Summary:

Read a book.
Fall asleep.
Meet a boy.
Is it real or just a dream?
Katie’s everyday life suddenly turns exciting when she travels back in time and meets the boy of her dreams. Thinking of nothing else, willing to leave the real world behind, she’s determined to find out if it’s all a dream or not. Returning again and again, Katie almost has her answers until one day her precious book goes missing.

Tara's Thoughts:

I liked Katie right off, maybe because I also felt a little bored doing website maintenance on my own sites and also had turned to a book to escape my doldrums. I’m happy to report Waiting For Dusk didn’t disappoint, though all the talk of western skies and riding did make me long for a horseback ride.

What I liked: Katie/Kathryn/Kate was very realistic and no-nonsense, but also came off exactly as a young adult with all good points and flaws, not as a false young adult that is too perfectly mature or too wildly immature to be realistic. I was already hoping for her to have a happy ending with her dream boy Drew by the 3rd chapter. Other characters like Kate’s mother and her friends Lindsey, Ty from her real life, and fellow serving girls Lucinda, Anna and Ruthie from her dream world were well drawn and believable. Drew was perfectly romantic and I savored all the scenes with him in them.

This book was easy to read, something you want to see in a YA book. Scenes and characters were described well and concisely. Chapters were a little shorter than average, but not too short. While the book is not like the suspense I usually read, I was eager to see where the story was going enough that the few chapters I meant to read to begin the book turned into the first 12 chapters before I tore myself away. By page 92, I was hoping Katie would burn the book in her dream, as that seems to be how she’d be allowed to stay in her dreamworld. And then I finished the book the same day I began it because I couldn’t stand now knowing what was going to happen.

Not to my liking: 

It is emphasized in this book that the girls chosen to work in the resort in 1920s had to be “of good moral character.” Yet the couple overseeing them think that it’s fine for Kate to go off unchaperoned with Drew for several hours only a few days after she met him. That seemed a little unlikely for 1920-something.

There is a certified stalker in the book in the form of a love interest for Katie. At first her actions—or non-action—regarding him is understandable, as she’s busy with her dream life and not thinking clearly about her actions in the real world. But even after multiple serious events with this person, Katie keeps putting herself right back in new dangerous situations with him. While it’s certainly possible a teen of today would do this for the various reasons Katie does, it bothers me for personal reasons that she is so oblivious that she’s in real jeopardy.

Katie’s parents seem to be clueless about what their role is regarding protecting their daughter, as they seem much more worried about her desire for her dreams than about her stalker in real life, though its true Katie keeps covering the truth of how this boy is obsessed with her, another point I didn’t quite understand

The ending was wonderful, but I wanted to wallow in the sheer joy of the moment, and it was over too quickly for me. ARGH!

Overall opinion: 

An excellent start to a series I will be sticking with to its conclusion…and I need an ARC of book #2 NOW, please.

Parents:
Language: a few swear words
Adult Content: hinted at, but remains at the teen level
Violence: none



Purchase Links

Fire and Ice/Melange Books
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

Author Links:

Blog
Facebook
Goodreads
 

5 stars for Twisted Vengeance by Jeff Bennington

Summary:

Detective Rick Burns is far from normal. He's smart, and he has a keen eye, but he's tormented from his past. After a series of personal tragedies, the pain that Rick has held inside is about to spill out in dramatic fashion.

Rick's wife left him after the death of their son, he's in love with the one woman he can't have, and he's investigating a slew of unsolved, gruesome murders. When a creepy boy begins "haunting" the detective, his life starts spinning out of control. He doesn't know if he's seeing things, going crazy, or if he's the killer.

But the boy knows. He's knows Rick. And he knows the maniacal serial killer who's preying on domestic abusers. In an attempt to unearth the murderer, the boy ushers Rick into a terrifying chase where reality and the supernatural are blurred, nearly costing him his life, his love, and his reputation.

The question is, will Rick finally find the peace he's been looking for, or does fate have something else in store for the detective?

Review

Good fiction contains conflict, suspense, and tension. Jeff Bennington’s novel, “Twisted Vengeance” has all three with a touch of the supernatural. I read it in a day and a half.

The novel begins with a Detective Rick Burns and a murder, a bloody mess without any real evidence.

            “Rick rolled his eyes and shook his head. He knew what Pete meant. Rick had been assigned to all the recently unsolved cases. It’s not that he didn’t find every shred of evidence. There just wasn’t anything to go on. Rick’s peers started calling him the ghost detective because the perpetrators seemed to vanish into thin air like a morning mist.”

This particular paragraph from the book is important, because a creepy boy begins haunting the ‘ghost detective’ soon after, leading him to important clues raising the stakes and tension.

            “The figure stood stock-still, his skin pale white, his eyes encircled with swollen black flesh. The boy stared through the glass, holding a dazed and deathly grin. He stared at Rick, the detective’s heart escalating. Blood pounded through his veins, rhythmically increasing the tension one vascular throb at a time.”

At this point, being a huge fan of the supernatural, Bennington had me. The boy only gets creepier. The scenes of madness and mayhem the ghostly child leads the detective through blow the reader away leaving you somewhere between old “Exorcist” movies and a more recent one, “The Sixth Sense.”

In the beginning, Burns fights the supernatural. He’s a logical cop, of course.

            “The tension in his mind beat him down, testing his belief system based on a bet, a simple game.

            ‘Burns,’ he said to himself as he started his Pontiac. ‘You know what you saw. You’re not crazy. Not yet, anyway.”

But as the story progresses and gets crazier, so does our detective. Burns has other romantic conflicts in the story that involve a promise he made to his dead cop brother. This is Rick talking to Stella, the woman he figures he can never really be with, but who he so desperately loves. It reminds me a bit of Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca”.  The dialogue is endearing. It shows a guy that can’t quite get the words right around the ‘right’ woman.

            “Maybe one of these days I’ll get hell out of this city and get a place in the country, and you – you can come with me. We’ll get a farm and…never mind.”

Once fiction has three things established, conflict, suspense, and tension it becomes good fiction, after that your story is complete, and this one has one heck of a twist at the end. I highly recommend “Twisted Vengeance.”

Jeff Bennington is the author of Reunion, Twisted Vengeance & Creepy

His books can be found at Amazon.com

Blogger at The Writing Bomb, www.thewritingbomb.blogspot.com/

Founder of The Kindle Book Review, www.thekindlebookreview.blogspot.com/

“Twisted Vengeance” is a murder mystery with a paranormal twist.

4 Stars for Pipeline

 
Author: Chris Carrolli
Published By: Melange Books
Reviewed By: Tara Fox Hall
Rating: 4

Summary:

Tracy Kimball is awakened one night by a voice emanating from the television static. She recognizes the voice--her fiancé, David, who was killed in car accident, an accident of which she survived. Plagued by a series of paranormal occurrences, Tracy enlists the aid of a local paranormal investigative team, who discovers that Tracy is not being haunted, she's being warned. A race to save her ensues, leading to the final climactic ending.

Tara's Thoughts:


Reminiscent of “White Noise”

This book is very short. I’d received a print version, and it was ultra-thin (115 pages). I make note of this as some readers are bound to get to the last page and wonder where the rest of the story is. So go into this with the idea that you’re reading a long novella. This is also book one of a series, so expect that at the end, you’re going to have more questions than answers.

From the write up, the story seemed to be something akin to the movie “White Noise”—a movie I enjoyed even as it scared me—which is why I agreed to review. But I am not gung ho for paranormal investigations, either fiction movies like “Paranormal Activity” or reality shows such as “Ghost Hunters.”

Good Points: I was already teary by page 5, as it was easy to identify with the heroine Tracy, especially as my husband also calls me his “Princess.” Her pursuit of the truth—is David contacting her, of if so, out of love or warning?—kept me eager to see where the story was going. I enjoyed Tracy’s battle with alcohol as all this ghostly drama is unfolding, which was sympathetic and well done. If I’d been dealing with all of this, I might have reached for a glass of wine, too. Here is a short passage as an example:

The reddish aura that surrounded the specter began to change, becoming brighter and stronger in luminescence, then pulsating to the rhythm of the humming noise that grew louder. Leah watched the aura morph into a golden hue and form a glowing ring around the specter, than it flared another hot-white flash of light. Gasps escaped those assembled as the ghostly intruder became visible to all.

The paranormal investigators were very well done. Everything to do with them from their tools to procedures seemed authentic and well researched. I particularly liked this short passage about souls:


“You have to understand,” he said. “We are not bodies with souls, Tracy. We are souls with bodies.”

Of where the real end of life is and what happens after is a major point of this book. For being as short as the book was, it made me think a lot about the subject.

Faults: In parts, this book was overwritten. While I liked the metaphors, after a while they detracted a bit from the story and slowed the action. Here is an example:

Her world had become a bittersweet nightmare in a matter of only three days, and her crying eyes pleaded in distress to the four faces that tried to comfort her. The most disturbing thoughts invaded her mind like an angry army crashing the walls of a fortress.

Every member of the team seems professional to a “T”…as if they all came from the same background. When they speak, it’s a little unrealistic (except when they are being funny purposely teasing one another, where it’s a little over the top). I had trouble connecting with them at first. As the story unfolds, that ceased to be a problem.

There were some slight editing issues, but not enough to detract from the story. But several times my curiosity was aroused by “teasers,” only for that lead-in to be shelved for pages, then revealed at a later date. Here is an example:

Pg 26 “Her life had changed forever the day that her parents had moved into the house on Cedar Dr….that had captured her mother’s heart, destroyed her father’s mind, and held Leah in a world haunted by ghosts….

Pg 35-37, Leah finally tells us everything that happened with the above reference.

10 pages wasn’t that long to wait, really. But I confess I skimmed ahead at that point to find out my answer to what happened to Leah, then went back and began again at page 26 to read, because I had to know. The end was a bit of a surprise, but one I highly approved of. 

Overall opinion: An interesting beginning to a paranormal investigations series!

Parents:
Language: some swearing.
Adult Content: alcohol abuse of a light nature, drunken driving.
Violence: car crashes and the threat of violence from a malevolent spirit.

Purchase Links:

Melange Books
Amazon Kindle
Amazon Paperback

Author Links:

Blog
Facebook

5 Stars for Cooper Moon by Cheryl Shireman

Summary:

 

Cooper Moon: The Calling, is the first book in the Cooper Moon series. The novel is the story of Cooper Moon, a handsome womanizer who has found God under some unusual circumstances. Cooper is the last person one might expect to experience such a conversion, and no one is more skeptical of this sudden turn of events than Cooper’s wife, Sally.

 

Cooper has not only found God, he has also decided to build a church. He faces a few obstacles. He has never read the Bible, he has no money, and he has a well-deserved reputation as a slacker. Throw in a couple of scheming women who aren’t ready to give up sleeping with Cooper, a jealous husband with a grudge, and things begin to get complicated.

 

Filled with a cast of characters you are sure to love (and hate!), Cooper Moon: The Calling is a story of love, faith, determination, dreams, sin, lust, hope, revenge, and despair – just like real life. The novel is the first of the four-book Cooper Moon series. With a large cast of characters, there are plenty of twists and turns along the way.

 

Review:

 

This story attracted me, because it parallels with a short story I adore, Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “Parker’s Back”. Parker, like Cooper, undergoes unusual spiritual changes. Both are womanizers, and unlikely candidates who transform into God-like men. It turns out that, although, Shireman was more direct than O’Connor in her story telling approach path to God - she did not disappoint me with Cooper.

 

Cooper is introduced to the reader the first time by his wife. While the story leaps toward you, it lets Cooper stumble awkwardly behind because he’s meant to find something much larger than the life he’s been living. Cooper Moon has found God, and has to build a church rather than chase women. He starts to shuffle around figuring how to do things different. It’s the figuring that keeps a reader in stitches and makes Cooper a worthwhile character.

 

            “Some people are gifted with musical talent or artistic skill. When one possesses such a skill, it is often easy to take it for granted. So it was with Cooper. He never reflected upon why women seemed to be drawn to him. He charmed women easily, and with almost no effort on his part…And when sex became part of the mix, that didn’t seem like that big of deal, either. But that was before he believed in God….He felt as if he had just been dropped in a foreign country…” Cooper Moon

 

I deliberately didn’t include all of the text here, it gets much funnier. The rest of the cast in this book work brilliantly, not just because either I hated, or loved, them, but because Shireman found a way for each one of them to connect to Cooper in a huge saving grace way. For example, my favorite character was Beaulah Potts. There were others, but she was my favorite. Beaulah was the wife of ‘the’ pastor who was over ‘the’ biggest church in town – she also considered herself the independent sort of woman, in some ways. She worked as a full time real estate agent in town. This is Beaulah, after having a bad day.

 

            “Beaulah dropped her head back against the headrest. She just threw away her best shoes, lost two possible sales, her back was killing her, and she had dog slobber all over her skirt, and she could still smell dog shit, which meant it was probably on her hands. Could things get much worse?” Cooper Moon

 

Beaulah Potts was a stubborn, determined (unswerving) woman something that reminded me of Mrs. Freeman, a Flannery O’Connor character from the short story “Good Country People”. This is Mrs. Freeman.

 

“Besides the neutral expression that she wore when she was alone, Mrs. Freeman had two others, forward and reverse, that she used for all her human dealings. Her forward expression was steady and driving like the advance of a heavy truck. Her eyes never swerved to left or right but turned as the story turned as if they followed a yellow line down the center of it. She seldom used the other expression because it was not often necessary for her to retract a statement, but when she did, her face came to a complete stop, there was an almost imperceptible movement of her black eyes, during which they seemed to be receding, and then the observer would see that Mrs. Freeman, though she might stand there as real as several grain sacks thrown on top of each other, was no longer there in spirit. As for getting anything across to her when this was the case, Mrs. Hopewell had given it up.” Good Country People

 

I know I’ve digressed a little, but “Cooper Moon” was filled with great characters and for me good stories begin with just that. Everything else fell in place because of the characters. The plot worked, because all of the players connected back to the main character, Cooper. In the end, everything came back to the church he so desperately wanted to build housing everyone’s hopes and dreams under the huge umbrella of God’s destiny. This was a beautifully woven story tied up with a heart warming ending, but some frayed edges leaving the reader to want to read a second book. And there is a second book, “The Temptation.” I know I’m tempted.

 

In ending, "Cooper Moon" is not a fast paced book, but well-paced. I found myself wanting to slow down and read it and really enjoy it. It was that good. I read it four days.

 

You can find Cooper Moon books at Amazon.com.

4 Stars for All in the Mind Jenny Twist

Summary

Tilly is part of an experiment working on a cure for Alzheimer's disease. She and most of the other patients taking part in the experiment seem to make a full recovery, but there is a strange side effect. Tilly and her fellow experimental subjects appear to be getting younger. Can the same experiment be repeated for Tilly's beloved husband so that he can recover from a stroke? Tilly thinks it can and she will move heaven and earth to make sure it happens.

Review

The concept for this book is outstanding and built with characters any reader would fall in love with. This is a love story where a soldier named Johnny meets a nurse back in WWII. They fall in love and marry. They have a great marriage until Tilly, the wife, gets Alzheimer’s disease, and then, a brilliant researcher named Kim, steps in and saves her.

The idea of pulling a beautiful couple like Johnny and Tilly back from such a tragic disease with break through research made me root for them in the first place. Not to mention in the first third of the book the suspense was fantastically woven. In the later part it diminished, because I felt things became too easy. The book seemed to get absorbed in period details necessary to the research for making the experiment work towards the cure, but it distracted from the overall plot often making me skim pages.

Then, about a third of the way through the book a new sub-plot line developed with the researcher Kim. It was more than a little interesting and involved his home, India. It took him back home, briefly bringing in the richness of setting in a new place. Twist really did her research here. It was lovely. Here, I fell in love with another one of her characters, Kim. I began to root for his situation. The only problem was I wish she would have tied it in sooner and made it more of an obstacle to Johnny getting better and younger with his wife Tilly.

In the end a book is all about the ending, and this one doesn’t disappoint, and with that I won’t tell you whether or not Johnny gets better in the way the reader would like. I highly recommend it. 

"All in the Mind" and more Jenny Twist books can be found at Amazon.com