Genres
- Adventure
- Dystopia
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- Historical Fiction
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- Science Fiction
- Thrillers
Adventure
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Book Review: “Sleepless Hollow” by Graham Bradley
Longtime readers might remember that a few years ago I did a retrospective series on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and various adaptations of it. Had I known about this book at that time, I would have included it, because it’s another fine riff on the classic tale. Our protagonist is Josie Penninger, a young…
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Book Review: “Rebel Heart” by Graham Bradley
What if I told you there was a YA adventure book about a boy fighting evil wizards? You’d probably say, “meh, sounds like a Harry Potter clone.” I see why you’d think that. But what if I told you it’s set in America? Or rather, an alternate retro-futuristic America, in which the revolution was defeated,…
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Book Review: “Brutal Moon: A Time & Fate Adventure Gamebook” by Andrew Morris and Laura Dodd
Look at that cover! It’s sharp, and scary, and eye-catching. I knew I had to read this the minute I saw it. The title is intriguing too, calling to mind Brutal Doom, the mod that made the infamously gory and violent video game Doom even more gory and violent. I found the whole composition so…
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Book Review: “Passage to Jarpara” by C. Litka
Today’s post begins with a mea culpa to the author of this book, Mr. Litka. You see, I was meant to beta read this book in early March. Unfortunately, from March until last week, my day job took up a huge amount of time. Indeed, it began to turn itself into my night job as well,…
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Book Review: “The Prisoner of Cimlye” by C. Litka
This book is the sequel to Litka’s seafaring adventure tale Sailing to Redoubt. It picks up with Lt. Taef Lang working at his family shop, trying his best to keep the business going while his parents are traveling, when his old friend Sella Raah appears In short order, Taef finds himself once again involved with…
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Book Review: “Merona Grant and the Lost Tomb of Golgotha” by Brina Williamson
Don’t ya just love good old-fashioned pulp adventure stories? You know, the kind where there’s a fearless adventurer on a quest for some long-lost treasure, joined by loyal companions, as well as maybe some not-so-loyal companions, and plenty of exciting battles, ancient puzzles, and terrifying monsters. Well, this is the book for you. Look at…
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Book Review: “The Last Adventure of Dr. Yngve Hogalum” by D.L. Mackenzie
This is a steampunk adventure-comedy about a group of geniuses, The Hogalum Society. When their founder and namesake, Dr. Yngve Hogalum, dies suddenly, one of the society’s members, Phineas Magnetron, takes it upon himself to make a daring, perhaps even mad, effort to restore Dr. Hogalum to life. The book is written in a verbose,…
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Book Review: “Gold of the Jaguar” by Peter Martuneac
In this, the year of our Ford 115, limitless entertainment can be summoned for us at the push of a button. We live in an era where shows, films, games, and musical performances surround us constantly. If that’s still not enough, advanced computer technology will soon allow us to create our own customized artistic experiences…
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Book Review: “Trouble in Twi-Town” by Henry Vogel
A clever blending of two genres: pulp sci-fi adventure and hardboiled detective mystery, this book tells the story of private investigator Travis Barrett, who is hired to solve the disappearance of a wealthy businessman’s son. His client is the businessman’s daughter, Tina “Trouble” Tate. Together, the two of them head for Mercury, pursued by the…
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Book Review: “Solomon’s Fortune” by Peter Martuneac
I didn’t get to write a proper review of the first book in this series, Mandate of Heaven, for reasons I explained in my not-quite-a-review post when it was published last month. But I was not a beta reader on Solomon’s Fortune, and that means I get to give it the full Ruined Chapel treatment.…
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Book Review: “Trial by Fire” by Will Jordan
This is a military action-thriller novella. It follows a young woman named Keira Frost who, after escaping from an abusive step-father and living homeless in Chicago, eventually joins the U.S. Army and applies to serve in an elite CIA unit. Keira’s backstory is told gradually through flashbacks, interspersed with the main plot arc which follows…
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Book Review: “Their Names Were Many” by Peter Martuneac
This is the third book in the “His Name Was Zach” series. Be warned, I can’t really talk about what happens in it without spoiling aspects of the first two books. After helping to inspire a revolution against a tyrannical government, Abby, our protagonist, has retreated into the desert, living alone with only her guilt…
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Book Review: “Her Name Was Abby” by Peter Martuneac
I ended my review of the previous book in this series with the words, “Martuneac is a promising author. I’ll definitely be reading more of his work.” Zombie apocalypse books aren’t a genre I normally read, but the characters and writing in His Name Was Zach were strong enough to hold my attention and make…
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Book Review: “Fortune’s Fool” by Henry Vogel
This is a science fiction adventure story, but not the sort that Vogel usually writes. Most of his books, such as his Scout series, feature upstanding, chivalrous heroes on noble adventures. Fortune’s Fool is different. It’s darker and grittier, and less romantic. (In the literary sense.) Whereas most of Vogel’s protagonists are honorable, duty-bound types,…
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Book Review: “Bounty Hunter Stex” by Vesa Turpeinen
This is a short story I heard about thanks to Lydia Schoch’s weekly list of free speculative fiction stories. The cover caught my eye immediately. Look at that beauty! Anyway, the story itself is very short. It’s about a ten-minute read. But Turpeinen packs a lot into those ten minutes. It begins with the title…
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Book Review: “Hart for Adventure” by Henry Vogel
Back in May, I wrote about Vogel’s Scout’s Honor, the first in his sword-and-planet Scout series. Hart for Adventure is a prequel to that series, and it fits in well. It follows Terran scout Gavin Hart, who crash lands on a world that appears deserted, finding only the overgrown ruins of an alien city. Hart…
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Book Review: “The Fugitive Heir” by Henry Vogel
I recently reviewed Henry Vogel’s Sword & Planet book Scout’s Honor. While browsing his other works, this book caught my eye because it appeared to be more traditional spacefaring sci-fi, which is one of my favorite genres. And it features a pair of likable characters going on adventures, another premise that I like. Matt Connaught…
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Book Review: “The Adventures of Sarah Ann Lewis and the Memory Thieves” by Joshua C. Carroll
This is listed as a children’s book, which is not something I’d normally read, but this bit of the description caught my eye: “rural sci-fi thriller full of spies, mad scientists, 1980s nostalgia, alternate dimensions, strange new friends, suspense, and mystery.” Well, that sounded like something I would like. And I was not disappointed. Yes,…
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Book Review: “Scout’s Honor: A Sword & Planet Adventure (Scout Series Book #1)” by Henry Vogel
I love classic science fiction. It may seem corny to some, but there’s a wonderful charm to those vintage pulp stories of science fiction’s Golden Age. Scout’s Honor is a flawlessly-executed homage to that era. Conventional wisdom about judging books notwithstanding, this is one case where the cover tells you exactly what this is: a…
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Book Review: “Panama” by C.S. Boyack
I love weird westerns. Maybe this isn’t technically a western, given that Panama is at approximately the same longitude as West Virginia, but in every other respect, it fits the bill. It’s got cowboys, ghosts, witchcraft, and plenty of good old-fashioned gunfights. Ethan Stafford and Cooper Hexum are U.S. marshals sent by President Theodore Roosevelt…
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Book Review: “Fascination” by Kevin Brennan
I’ve seen the name Kevin Brennan praised for years by many authors I admire. Carrie Rubin, Audrey Driscoll, Phillip McCollum, and after this post by Mark Paxson, I realized I could postpone it no longer: I had to read one of his books. The testimony of the four listed above cannot be ignored. Fascination lived…
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Book Review: “52 Stories in 52 Weeks” by Phillip McCollum
You can get the book here. I also blogged about Phillip’s work earlier this year here.
Dystopia
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Book Review: “The Jump” by Mark Paxson
Every now and again, you get an opportunity as a reviewer to tell the world about a book before the world has had a chance to form an opinion on it. It’s rarer than you might think. When you review a classic book, most people have already at least heard of it. When it’s a…
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Book Review: “Lights For Christmas: A Steampunk Conspiracy Christmas Story” by C.O. Bonham
“A Steampunk Conspiracy Christmas story!” What magical words! How could anyone not read something with such a subtitle? What does this world need, if not more Steampunk Conspiracy Christmas stories? This one is a quick read, telling the story of a girl who has purchased lights for her orphanage’s Christmas tree. A series of chance…
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Book Review: “A True Map of the City: Lost in Dystopia” by J. Guenther
Who doesn’t love a good dystopia? To read about, I mean. The country (maybe more of a city-state) of Deres-Thorm is a bizarre, surreal nightmare, evocative of North Korea, East Berlin, and every other totalitarian dystopia. The unsuspecting narrator, Horus Blassingame, is thrown from one bizarre obstacle to another, whether it’s from the constantly changing…
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Book Review: “52 Stories in 52 Weeks” by Phillip McCollum
You can get the book here. I also blogged about Phillip’s work earlier this year here.
Fantasy
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Book Review: “The Governess of Greenmere” by Paul Leone
I know we’re not supposed to judge this, but I think this book has a pretty cool cover. I’m a sucker for “The Shadow Knows” trope, and this one does it well. I’m also a sucker for Victorian fashion. Blame it on my love for Gilbert & Sullivan and Sherlock Holmes stories. So when I…
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Book Review: “Periapsis Christmas Vol. 1”
This is a collection of Christmas-themed science-fiction/fantasy short stories. You may be asking, “Why are you reviewing a Christmas book in early January?” Well, I could try to be clever and point out that Eastern Orthodox Christmas is on January 7. But, the actual truth of the matter is that I started reading it December…
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Book Review: “War Bunny” by Christopher St. John
This is an amazing book, I’ll just say it right up front. It’s a clever blend; part fable, part post-apocalypse, part fantasy, it tells the story of Anastasia, a rabbit who is un-warrened–that is exiled from her home–and left to be “Glorified” by the “Blessed Ones”. Which is the way the rabbit religion describes being…
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Book Review: “Sailing to Redoubt” by C. Litka
If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you’ve probably already heard me sing the praises of Litka’s books many times. In fact, there are a few people who, I’m delighted to say, I’ve introduced to his work and who have also become serious fans. (Litka-heads, maybe? We’re still working on what to call ourselves.)…
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Book Review: “The Witch of the North Pole” by Snow Eden
As I think most of you know, Halloween is by far my favorite holiday. But even I can go for a good Christmas tale. So naturally, a Christmas book that brings a witch into the picture is going to get my attention. This book tells the story of Cinnamon Mercy Claus, who unexpectedly finds herself…
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Book Review: “Never Die” by Rob J. Hayes
This is the sort of book I rarely read: a fantasy-quest type of story. But it came recommended by Peter Martuneac, so I figured I would give it a try. Am I ever glad I did! This is a fantastic tale of adventure set in an ancient Eastern kingdom known as Hosa. The book begins…
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Book Review: “The Dream God” by Brendan M.P. Heard
This is a deeply strange book. It is set in an alternate future in which the Roman Empire still exists, and has evolved into a starfaring civilization. There is also a strong mystical element involving something called the Godstream, which is evidently some powerful, magical energy which grants great power. And of course, as in…
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Book Review: “The Fall of Alla Xul” by Andrew Rakich
There I was, poking around one of my favorite YouTube channels, when I saw this video. “Hmm,” I said to myself, “Full audiobook? That implies the existence of a non-audiobook of same.” So I went to Amazon and, behold, there it was. So, what is The Fall of Alla Xul? Well, it’s presented as a…
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Book Review: “The Teddy Bear’s War” by Alex Cross
I heard of this book thanks to Lydia Schoch’s review. I wasn’t sure what to expect, as it looked like a children’s book. But it’s not a children’s book, not exactly. It is true that it is about a child’s toy, and one of the major characters is a child. But the book has a…
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Book Review: “Beneath The Lanterns” by C. Litka
Truly, the more I like a book, the harder it is to review it. I don’t want to give you my second-hand summary of the plot or the setting; I want to take you into this world to see it. Like previous books of Litka’s that I’ve reviewed, Keiree and A Summer in Amber, Beneath…
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Book Review: “The Untangled Cassie Black” by Tammie Painter
This is the third and final book in the Cassie Black series. If you’ll recall my review of Book Two, I didn’t want to go into too much detail for fear of spoiling Book One. And so now, I face the same problem doubled, because to describe the setting of this book risks spoiling the…
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Book Review: “Perseus Kills His Grandfather” by Richard L. Pastore
This is a re-telling of the Ancient Greek myth of Perseus, son of the God Zeus, and his quest to slay Medusa. It’s told in a light, witty style, which readers of Pastore’s first novel, The Devil and the Wolf, will certainly enjoy. Along the way, Perseus meets with various other of the Ancient Greek gods,…
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Book Review: “The Uncanny Raven Winston” by Tammie Painter
It’s always tough for me to review sequels. I don’t want to say too much about previous entries, for fear that someone who hasn’t read previous books will stumble upon the review and read spoilers. On the other hand, I can’t talk much about what happens in this book without referencing the first book, The…
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Book Review: “The Undead Mr. Tenpenny” by Tammie Painter
This book begins with a clever hook: the protagonist, Cassie Black, is shocked when the corpses at the funeral home where she works start coming back to life. She quickly learns the reason for this sudden re-animation is that they have “unfinished business.” At first, she’s able to help put them to rest, but when…
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Book Review: “A Summer in Amber” by C. Litka
I’m not sure where to begin with this book. Perhaps a good way to start would be to define what kind of book it is, but you see, there are layers to it. You could approach it in a number of different ways. One avenue would be to say it’s a romance. The protagonist, Dr.…
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Book Review: “An Assortment of Rejected Futures” by Noah Goats
This is a collection of short speculative fiction stories that deal with complex concepts–the existence of God, the nature of reality, human relationships–as approached by everyday people. Goats has a knack for writing characters who are instantly relatable. Although this is in many ways a stylistic departure from his earlier books, which are primarily comic…
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Book Review: “Liars and Thieves” by D. Wallace Peach
This is a fantasy novel set in a world where elves, goblins and changelings (shape-shifters) are perennially maneuvering against each other. The main source of conflict is the precious gems which are used for all manner of magical purposes. The three factions are not at war, but rather a state of uneasy peace which is…
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Book Review: “Cowboy Karma” by Hank Bruce
This is a collection of four short stories, each set in rugged western landscapes, and each with an ironic twist to them. I learned about it from Pat Prescott and had to check it out. I love weird westerns, and these tales fit the bill perfectly. Each one is a short but memorable concept: An…
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Book Review: “The Gossamer Power” by Abbie Evans
This is the sequel to The Gossamer Globe, which I reviewed here. It’s a fantastic book, and I’ll keep the plot synopsis to a minimum because I would not want to spoil the first book. Gossamer Power follows Lucia, Kailani, Ms. Battenbox, Jevan and other characters from Globe, as well as introducing some terrific new…
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Book Review: “The Spellbound Spindle” by Joy V Spicer
This fantasy novel begins with a group of magical beings known as “gem elves,” who are betrayed by one of their own, Marlis, who has become a servant of a dark goddess named Gadreena. Marlis slays one of the elves, and flees into the mortal world. There, she curses a child. The curse mandates that…
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Book Review: “A Feast for Sight” by Tammie Painter
This is a short story set in Painter’s world of Osteria. Osteria is a sort of post-apocalyptic setting in which many of the Ancient Greek and Roman traditions and beliefs have been revived. A Feast for Sight is a story that fits this setting well. It deals with three oracles, who tell their clients the…
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Book Review: “The Gossamer Globe” by Abbie Evans
The Gossamer Globe is a very unique book. It has elements of many genres, from political thriller to swashbuckling adventure to biting satire. And the author combines all these in clever ways to make something very original. The book tells the story of a woman named Lucia Straw, who is being elected as the first…
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Book Review: “The Adventures of Sarah Ann Lewis and the Memory Thieves” by Joshua C. Carroll
This is listed as a children’s book, which is not something I’d normally read, but this bit of the description caught my eye: “rural sci-fi thriller full of spies, mad scientists, 1980s nostalgia, alternate dimensions, strange new friends, suspense, and mystery.” Well, that sounded like something I would like. And I was not disappointed. Yes,…
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Book Review: “Moon Goddess” by Joy V. Spicer
Moon Goddess is about a young woman named Lamorna who is forced to flee her home with her infant brother, pursued by the soldiers of the lord who holds sway in the region. With the guidance of a mysterious wise woman, Lamorna is aided by spirits and manifestations of an ancient goddess, whose followers and…
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Book Review: “Testing the Waters: (A Mythic Short Story)” by Tammie Painter
This story is a mystery; but not in the typical “whodunnit” genre; rather, it’s a mystery of what is happening in the little town of Port Athens. It’s a fishing town, and one of the fishermen, Eli P. Marin, has come back with a trident, which sets all the town on edge. Soon, everyone in…
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Book Review: “Hyperlink from Hell” by Lindy Moone
This book… This book… I mean to say, folks: this book! Sorry, I’m having a bit of trouble getting started. Where exactly to begin is not obvious here. Normally I give a book’s genre, and then maybe an outline of the plot. What genre is Hyperlink from Hell? I have no idea. The story begins with…
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Book Review: “Assassin’s Heart” by Isabella Norse
Assassin’s Heart is a romance in a medieval fantasy setting. The protagonist, Lillie, is a woman raised from a young age to be a ruthless assassin by an organization known as the Va’Shile. When we meet her, she is undercover as a palace servant, and all the court is awaiting the naming of King’s heir—whom…
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Book Review: “The Cursed Gift” by Joy V. Spicer
The Cursed Gift is a fantasy novel about a young woman named Leah, a warrior in training and daughter of the King of in a place called Orenheart. Leah’s day-to-day life of combat drills, horseback riding and the drama of being young and in love is disrupted after brigands attack her family, and a mysterious…
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Book Review: “The Raven and Other Tales” by Joy V. Spicer
This is a collection of ten short stories, many of which are inspired by myths, fairy-tales, folk-lore and poetry. Sort of like Angela Carter’s retellings of well-known stories, Spicer cleverly re-invents these classic tales, telling them in a new way or from a new perspective. All the stories are enjoyable and interesting. My favorites were the…
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Book Review: “Of Patchwork Warriors: (Being Vol.1 of the Precipice Dominions)” by R.J. Llewellyn
I don’t read a lot of epic fantasy. But when Audrey Driscoll recommends a book, I pay attention, regardless of genre. Of Patchwork Warriors begins with a glossary of terms used in the world of the novel, which is called the Oakhostian Empire. These include amusing words like “kerfluffeg” and “blimping,” a mild obscenity, as…
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Book Review: “The Devil and the Wolf” by Richard L. Pastore
How to describe The Devil and the Wolf? I could tell you that it deals with questions like whether humans are innately good or evil, what it means to have a soul, and that it deconstructs and reimagines many classic aspects of mythology and religion. But that makes it sound like pretty heavy stuff. Like…
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Book Review: “52 Stories in 52 Weeks” by Phillip McCollum
You can get the book here. I also blogged about Phillip’s work earlier this year here.
Historical Fiction
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Book Review: “The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vol. 1” by Beth Brower
Chuck Litka recommends this book. And he’s a tough grader, so when he gives something an “A”, I pay attention. Not to mention that this series is compared to works by Wodehouse, Austen, and the like. So, even though it is more well known than what I normally read, I decided to give it a…
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Book Review: “The Pup And The Pianist” by Sara Kjeldsen
This is a Napoleonic-era seafaring yarn about a teenage boy, Max, serving as a powder monkey aboard a British man-of-war. Young Max is still finding his way when the ship is wrecked during a battle with a French vessel, and he is washed away in a fierce storm. He awakens on an island, where he…
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Book Review: “The Martian General’s Daughter” by Theodore Judson
You might remember the name Theodore Judson from my review of his incredible book Fitzpatrick’s War. It’s one of my favorite books, and I would call it a must-read for anyone who enjoys sci-fi, except that the book is insanely expensive. I thought I paid a lot when I bought it for 12 bucks; as…
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Book Review: “Travailing Through Time” by Adam Bertocci
One of the rules for writers, laid down somewhere in the fragments of an ancient Instagram post by the mad literary agent Abdul Al-Hazred, is that a writer should give their audience what they expect. A steady hand at the tiller and no surprises, that’s what readers want! And if a writer must venture outside…
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Book Review: “Courage, Marshal Ney: Last Stand of the Bravest of the Brave” by James Mace
This book is about what we would today call a “conspiracy theory,” although the events in question actually predate the use of the term “conspiracy theory” by several decades. It’s based on the idea that Marshal Michel Ney, one of Napoleon’s greatest officers, faked his execution and fled to America, where he lived under the…
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Book Review: “The Spirit of Cahir Mullach” by Clayton J. Callahan
I saw this in Lydia Schoch’s weekly list of free books a while back, and I just had to give it a try. Look at that cover! How cool is that? Well, as great as it is, the book is even better. It begins by telling the story of Lord Oisin, who fought to avenge…
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Book Review: “Burke at Waterloo” by Tom Williams
This is one of the best historical novels I’ve ever read. Williams perfects the formula used in Burke in the Land of Silver and Burke and the Bedouin, this time transporting his spy to France and later to Belgium, where he and his loyal friend William Brown take part in one of the most famous battles…
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Book Review: “Imperial Passions: The Great Palace” by Eileen Stephenson
I’ve been waiting for this book since I read the first book in Stephenson’s Byzantium series back in 2018. And was it ever worth the wait. After setting the stage in The Porta Aurea, with the rise of the Emperor Isaac, Stephenson has events play out in dramatic fashion. It may seem odd to describe…
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Book Review: “This Shall Be a House of Peace” by Phil Halton
Before I actually review the book, I have to share the story of how I found out about it. Recently, Peter Martuneac introduced me to the book website Shepherd. While reading about Shepherd and its founder, Ben Fox, I came across this interview Fox did with Phil Halton, which led me to poking around Halton’s…
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Book Review: “Burke and the Bedouin” by Tom Williams
This was the first Burke book I heard of, but as it’s the second in the series, I had to read the first installment, Burke in the Land of Silver. I loved it, and eagerly anticipated reading this one. A bit of background: Burke is like a Napoleonic-era James Bond. (I actually think he’s more like…
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Book Review: “Perseus Kills His Grandfather” by Richard L. Pastore
This is a re-telling of the Ancient Greek myth of Perseus, son of the God Zeus, and his quest to slay Medusa. It’s told in a light, witty style, which readers of Pastore’s first novel, The Devil and the Wolf, will certainly enjoy. Along the way, Perseus meets with various other of the Ancient Greek gods,…
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Book Review: “Forgiven: A Historical Novel” by Geoff Lawson
I picked this book up because it is set during the Boer War. How many books do you hear about set during the Boer War? I mean, of course, this isn’t the only one, but compared to the seemingly-endless army of books set during, say, World War II, it’s a relatively exclusive club. Come to…
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Book Review: “Penelope’s Pleasure” by Deborah Villegas
This is a Regency romance. Regency romance is a super-popular genre, which is why I made it my business to find a lesser-known indie Regency romance with only a few reviews. Because that’s how we do things here at Ruined Chapel. To be clear, this book is more in the Regency Historical sub-category, in that…
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Book Review: “Burke in the Land of Silver” by Tom Williams
This is a historical fiction novel set in the Napoleonic era. It follows British lieutenant James Burke, who is in Argentina as a “confidential agent.” A spy, in other words. While there, he assumes different identities of varying nationalities to worm his way into a position where he can learn the latest news. With Napoleon’s…
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Book Review: “Cowboy Karma” by Hank Bruce
This is a collection of four short stories, each set in rugged western landscapes, and each with an ironic twist to them. I learned about it from Pat Prescott and had to check it out. I love weird westerns, and these tales fit the bill perfectly. Each one is a short but memorable concept: An…
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Book Review: “A Feast for Sight” by Tammie Painter
This is a short story set in Painter’s world of Osteria. Osteria is a sort of post-apocalyptic setting in which many of the Ancient Greek and Roman traditions and beliefs have been revived. A Feast for Sight is a story that fits this setting well. It deals with three oracles, who tell their clients the…
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Book Review: “52 Stories in 52 Weeks” by Phillip McCollum
You can get the book here. I also blogged about Phillip’s work earlier this year here.
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Book Review: “Napoleon in America” by Shannon Selin
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Book Review: “Imperial Passions – The Porta Aurea” by Eileen Stephenson
Imperial Passions is a sweeping historical novel told from the perspective of Anna Dalassena, who at the beginning of the tale is a 14-year-old orphan girl living with her grandparents. Over the course of the novel, she grows up, marries, becomes a mother, and through it all is witness to many major events during a…
Horror
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Book Review: “The Fairfield County Friday Night Gridiron Bonanza” by Adam Bertocci
One thing about me is that I don’t like stories featuring violence against women. There are certain works of fiction I’ll just never be able to enjoy for this reason. For instance, the movie Strange Days. Although in many ways it sounds like something I would be interested in, I have never seen it because…
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Book Review: “Eldritch Declarations: A Lovecraftian Twist on Historical Documents and Speeches” by Osvaldo Felipe Amorarte
In case you forgot, according to the Gambrel/Schoch Treaty of 2022, January 31 is Second Halloween. And since it falls on a Friday this year, I have to review something appropriate to the season. But what would that be? I already reviewed plenty of Halloween and Halloween-adjacent books back in October. For this, I felt…
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Book Review: “When Her World Went Away” by Alexis L. Carroll
This is a post-apocalyptic survival story with supernatural romance elements. Neither of these are genres I particularly like, but this book pleasantly surprised me. Part of what makes it work is that not a lot of time is spent on explaining why the apocalypse occurs. One minute everything is fine, then bam! It’s… not fine.…
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Book Review: “The Thing From HR” by Roy M. Griffis
It was H.P. Lovecraft, you know, who wrote the phrase “the most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.” By that, Lovecraft meant that putting together seemingly-unrelated facts, human beings could discover undreamable wells of horror. But, that was Lovecraft, and his business…
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Book Review: “The Killer Catfish of Cape Cod” by Bill Russo
I found out about this book from Lydia Schoch’s review, and anything Lydia likes is something I’ll give a try. And I’m glad I did. This is a shorty story–5,501 words to be exact–but it’s effective, and it uses all those words to good effect. The only problem with a story so short is that…
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Book Review: “Phantom Menagerie” by Megan Engelhardt
This is a collection of short stories about various cryptids. Some of the stories are creepy, some are funny, some are just mysterious. I admit it, I’m a sucker for tales of legendary creatures. I think I’ve watched every episode of the TV show Boogeymen, which could spin a compelling yarn about nothing more than…
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Book Review: “The Midnight Rambler” by C.S. Boyack
Last year, Lydia Schoch and I made an agreement that January 31 would be “Second Halloween.” Accordingly, I’m observing the day by reviewing a book appropriate for that spooky season. And look at that cover. How, I ask you, could I possibly not read a book with that cover? Even though it is the sixth…
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Book Review: “The Ghost of Arlen Hall” by Tammie Painter
A classic ghost tale in the Gothic tradition. The protagonist becomes obsessed with the romantic legend of a ghost said to haunt Arlen Hall, and will stop at nothing to meet the specter face-to-face. But, as the cover says, be careful what you wish for… Speaking of covers, I know we’re not supposed to judge…
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Book Review: “Day Sixteen” by Tammie Painter
This is a dark paranormal thriller. I don’t want to say too much about the plot. Just think Rosemary’s Baby meets The X-Files. It tells the story of Moire Anders, a woman who finds herself waking up in the middle of the night in the park, with no memory of how she got there. Eventually, trying…
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Book Review: “The Spirit of Cahir Mullach” by Clayton J. Callahan
I saw this in Lydia Schoch’s weekly list of free books a while back, and I just had to give it a try. Look at that cover! How cool is that? Well, as great as it is, the book is even better. It begins by telling the story of Lord Oisin, who fought to avenge…
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Book Review: “Crow Bones” by Nicola McDonagh
This short story collection came recommended to me by Lorinda J. Taylor, so I knew going in it would be good. And it lived up to my expectations. The stories are all weird, unsettling, at times disturbing, at other times very funny. In short, an excellent blend of moods. Each story is based on a…
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Book Review: “A Dark Genesis” by Cheryl Lawson
This is a sci-fi horror novella. The setting is a ship on a deep space voyage, which is temporarily knocked off course by a collision with an asteroid. I can’t say too much more about the plot, because this is a short book, and if I say much, I’ll spoil everything. All I’ll say is…
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Book Review: “The Last Photograph of John Buckley: A Ghost Story” by T.J. Brown
Normally, I’d hold off on reviewing a ghost story until October rolls around. But I read this after Lydia Schoch recommended it, and it was so good I couldn’t wait to share it with you all. The book is about a man named Peter, a World War II veteran who is an expert on retouching…
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Book Review: “Their Names Were Many” by Peter Martuneac
This is the third book in the “His Name Was Zach” series. Be warned, I can’t really talk about what happens in it without spoiling aspects of the first two books. After helping to inspire a revolution against a tyrannical government, Abby, our protagonist, has retreated into the desert, living alone with only her guilt…
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Book Review: “The Bone Elixir” by Carrie Rubin
This is the third book in the Benjamin Oris series. I’ve reviewed the previous installments here and here. If you haven’t read those books yet, be warned that there are certain plot elements of this I can’t discuss without giving away information about the earlier books. The Bone Elixir begins when Ben Oris learns he…
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Book Review: “A Ghost and His Gold” by Roberta Eaton Cheadle
It’s not easy to categorize this book into one genre. It has historical fiction, horror and psychological thriller elements. The book begins with a couple, Michelle and Tom Cleveland, moving into their new home in South Africa. For a housewarming party, they play with a Ouija board. Soon after, strange things begin to happen to…
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Book Review: “URP-113” by M.D. Parker
This is military sci-fi blended with horror. It has a bit of Starship Troopers, a bit of Doom, a bit of Aliens, and is altogether an intense experience. It’s a short story, only about a 20 minute read, but is it ever action-packed. The main character is Lyn, a mercenary who is part of a…
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Book Review: “Richard Rex & the Succubus of Whitechapel” by Seth Tucker
If you described this book to me, I’d have said it sounded too clichéd. A mysterious monster killing people all over Whitechapel, and a private detective hired to track it down? It all sounds too much like a mashup of Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes and Dracula for me. But Lydia Schoch recommended it, and…
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Book Review: “Dark Magic” by Tom Williams
Dark Magic is a novella about two groups of magicians: the “Maestros of Magic” and “The Carnival of Conjurors.” The latter begins making a sensation with some truly spectacular performances that seem unbelievable to the Maestros, who investigate and eventually discover that the secret of the Conjurors is in fact real black magic. What follows…
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Book Review: “Her Name Was Abby” by Peter Martuneac
I ended my review of the previous book in this series with the words, “Martuneac is a promising author. I’ll definitely be reading more of his work.” Zombie apocalypse books aren’t a genre I normally read, but the characters and writing in His Name Was Zach were strong enough to hold my attention and make…
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Book Review: “Abby: Alone” by Peter Martuneac
“Harrowing” is the best word to describe this fast-paced short story that serves as a prequel to the novel His Name Was Zach. The book is told in first-person, from the point of view of the title character, a young girl whose normal life is interrupted in horrific fashion. As befitting an introduction to the…
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Book Review: “Book of the Elder Wisdom: An Eldritch Mystery” by R. Walter Dutton
I heard of this book thanks to Joy V. Spicer’s review of it. Naturally, since I’m always interested in neo-Lovecraftianism, I picked it up. The book takes place in 1984, when the narrator stumbles upon a bloody backpack belonging to someone named Jared Palmer at a strange site in a remote part of the desert. He…
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Book Review: “American Chimera” by H.R.R. Gorman
H.R.R. Gorman has a wonderful book review site I recently discovered. I urge my readers to check it out, because Gorman reviews all sorts of books, including lots of indie titles. Gorman has also written a novel, American Chimera. I am reviewing it here, and you will note I am doing it in a slightly different style–that…
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Book Review: “His Name Was Zach” by Peter Martuneac
This is a post-apocalyptic zombie book. I should state up front: I’ve never really cared for the whole zombie genre. I saw Night of the Living Dead as a teenager and it didn’t seem remotely scary. I’ve played many video games with zombie-like enemies, but I never relish the levels that involve fighting hordes of…
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Book Review: “An Assortment of Rejected Futures” by Noah Goats
This is a collection of short speculative fiction stories that deal with complex concepts–the existence of God, the nature of reality, human relationships–as approached by everyday people. Goats has a knack for writing characters who are instantly relatable. Although this is in many ways a stylistic departure from his earlier books, which are primarily comic…
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Book Review: “Cowboy Karma” by Hank Bruce
This is a collection of four short stories, each set in rugged western landscapes, and each with an ironic twist to them. I learned about it from Pat Prescott and had to check it out. I love weird westerns, and these tales fit the bill perfectly. Each one is a short but memorable concept: An…
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Book Review: “Tales from the Annexe” by Audrey Driscoll
This is a collection of short stories by Audrey Driscoll, author of the Herbert West series, a brilliant re-imagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s amoral scientist. The first seven stories in the collection all tie in with the series. It’s probably not necessary to have read all the books to enjoy them, but I’d say at least…
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Book Review: “Angel: A Short Story of the Un-Dead” by Jason H. Abbott
This short story is a modern tale of un-dead horror. I won’t spoil exactly what type of monster is involved, but readers will probably be able to guess. There’s a clever twist on some classic mythology that enables three high school kids to do battle with an ancient evil. There are elements of dark comedy…
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Book Review: “A Thousand Yesteryears” by Mae Clair
A Thousand Yesteryears is a crime thriller, set in 1982. A young woman named Eve Parrish returns to her hometown of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Eve, and everyone in the town, are still haunted by the tragic collapse of the Silver Bridge 15 years before. Eve’s father and her best friend Maggie Flynn were among…
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Book Review: “All The Colors of the Dead” by Alex Vorkov
I picked this book up after Kevin Brennan blogged about it. I assumed it was about a planet of zombies or something. I don’t like zombie stories much, but I figured I’d give it a whirl. My initial impression was kind of off. I was picturing explorers being chased by zombies on a remote planet,…
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Book Review: “Summer’s Over” by Em Leonard
I’ve had this book on my TBR list for some time, but it was Lydia Schoch’s review that motivated me to read it. I wish I hadn’t waited so long—this is a fantastic collection of creepy short stories centered around California amusement parks. Let me give you an idea of the strange and disturbing worlds the…
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Book Review: “Terror Beneath Cactus Flats” by Seth Tucker
I love Weird Westerns. So as soon as I read Lydia Schoch’s review of this book, I knew I had to check it out. And it’s everything a story set in the Weird West should be: cowboys, prospectors, gunfights with shotguns and six-shooters, and of course, manifestations of supernatural horror, which I won’t describe in…
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Book Review: “Hannah the Huntress: Blood Legacy” by Saul Bishop
This is a fast-paced, supernatural horror adventure laced with film, TV, and literary references. Hannah and her friends are teenagers in a small-town that is abruptly attacked by monsters of every description–zombies, vampires, witches etc. Fortunately, they are assisted by the wizard Merlyn Morningstar and Hannah’s mother Sarah, both of whom have seen a thing…
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Book Review: “Harvest: A Short Story from the Pumpkin Patch” by Jason H. Abbott
Harvest is a short story that packs a lot of content into few words. It tells the story of a man named Edgar, who, due to some very evil circumstances, has been given a pumpkin for a head–and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. As Edgar is grappling with this horrible situation, a woman…
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Book Review: “Hyperlink from Hell” by Lindy Moone
This book… This book… I mean to say, folks: this book! Sorry, I’m having a bit of trouble getting started. Where exactly to begin is not obvious here. Normally I give a book’s genre, and then maybe an outline of the plot. What genre is Hyperlink from Hell? I have no idea. The story begins with…
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Book Review: “The Witch Under the Mountain” by Audrey N. Allison
When I was a kid, my dad would tell me stories while I would play on my swing-set. Most of his stories were funny, but I remember some were scary—I recall in particular one about a vampire that he told me at sunset one evening. Our house was across the street from a cemetery, and…
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Book Review: “She Who Comes Forth” by Audrey Driscoll
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Book Review: “52 Stories in 52 Weeks” by Phillip McCollum
You can get the book here. I also blogged about Phillip’s work earlier this year here.
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Book Review: “Jersey Ghost Stories” by Erren Michaels and Noah Goats
A terrific read for anyone who enjoys good scary stories.
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Book Review: “Islands of the Gulf Volume 1: The Journey” by Audrey Driscoll
Earlier in the year I read Audrey Driscoll’s terrific re-imagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West–Reanimator short story, The Friendship of Mortals. So I was eager to read this second book in the series, which sees West changing his name, his home, and most of all, his personality. The book begins by retelling certain parts of Friendship…
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Book Review: “The Friendship of Mortals”, by Audrey Driscoll
A must-read for Lovecraft fans
Humor
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Book Review: “Awful, Ohio” by Jeff Neal
One of the things we writers like to talk about are the so-called “rules of writing”, if such things even exist. Mostly, we come down on the side that there are no rules. But I don’t know that I’ve ever met a book quite as dedicated to rule-breaking as this one. It’s not just the…
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Book Review: “Wit and Assurance: Reviewing the Jests of 18th Century Humorist Joe Miller” by Zachary Shatzer
Whenever I’m on the lookout for books to read, and a new title by Zachary Shatzer comes to my notice, I pause, stroke my mustache, and say in the voice of an English bobby, “‘ere now, wot’s all this then?” In this case, “all this” is an annotated review of an 18th century joke book…
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Book Review: “The Beach Wizard and the Easy Mind” by Zachary Shatzer
“When they’re offered to the world in merry guise / Unpleasant truths are swallowed with a will. / For he who’d make his fellow creatures wise / Should always gild the philosophic pill.” –W.S. Gilbert. The Yeomen of the Guard, Act I. 1888. The title is a lie. This isn’t just a review of Zachary…
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Book Review: “Please RT: Two Years and Change of Social Mediocrity” by Adam Bertocci
New York, New York… I’ve never actually been to New York City. Something tells me if I did, it would go not unlike Homer Simpson’s visit. As an ex-girlfriend once pointed out to me, New Yorkers are blunt and up front–they’ll tell you exactly how they feel. She liked that about them. I am more…
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Book Review: “Travailing Through Time” by Adam Bertocci
One of the rules for writers, laid down somewhere in the fragments of an ancient Instagram post by the mad literary agent Abdul Al-Hazred, is that a writer should give their audience what they expect. A steady hand at the tiller and no surprises, that’s what readers want! And if a writer must venture outside…
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Book Review: “Mayor of Turtle Town” by Zachary Shatzer
Anytime I see Zachary Shatzer has a new book out, it’s an instant buy for me. Even if, as in this case, I have no idea what it’s about, his name alone is enough to get me to pick it up. As it turns out, Mayor of Turtle Town is a collection of humorous short…
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Book Review: “The Thing From HR” by Roy M. Griffis
It was H.P. Lovecraft, you know, who wrote the phrase “the most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.” By that, Lovecraft meant that putting together seemingly-unrelated facts, human beings could discover undreamable wells of horror. But, that was Lovecraft, and his business…
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Book Review: “Puppet Dance” by Zachary Shatzer
It was a near thing, this. I almost didn’t have a book to review this week. I wanted an America-themed book since we just had Independence Day here in the USA. But until this past Monday, I couldn’t find anything short enough that I would have any hope of reviewing in time. To the rescue…
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Book Review: “Dog Wearing a Bowler Hat” by Zachary Shatzer
I am not quite sure when I became convinced that Zachary Shatzer is a genius. Certainly, once I read The Beach Wizard, I knew I was reading the work of one of the great comic novelists of our time. But maybe I knew it even before that; it’s hard to remember exactly. In any case, a…
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Book Review: “Ghosted” by H.L. Burke
I heard about this book from Lydia Schoch’s review and I knew right away that I had to read it. Originally, I thought I would wait until Halloween season to review it, but then I thought, “Zis is Ruined Chapel! It is alvays Halloween here!” And besides, it’s such a delightful book, I couldn’t wait…
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Book Review: “Sorcerers Doomed” by Zachary Shatzer
Imagine a series about a school for sorcerers. Imagine that it involves an evil sorcerer, returned from a death-like state by his cult of followers. Now imagine that this sorcerer takes over the sorcerer school, and starts using it to instruct young magically-inclined persons in the ways of dark magic. But! All is not lost.…
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Book Review: “Crappy Valentine’s Day” by Adam Bertocci
If you don’t know by now that I’m a fan of Adam Bertocci’s fiction… well, I guess you’ll just have to read this review, and then you will. Crappy Valentine’s Day is about a young woman in New York City who just wants to have a nice day. Not a romance or anything; just a…
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Book Review: “The Hero and the Tyrant” by Zachary Shatzer
In my undergraduate poli sci classes, they told us that Aristotle defined three forms of government: rule by the one, rule by the few, and rule by the many. Of these, each came in good and bad flavors, so the good version of rule by the one is “monarchy” and the bad version is “tyranny.”…
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Book Review: “The Cowboy Sorcerer” by Zachary Shatzer
What can I say about Shatzer’s works that I haven’t said already? Well, at a minimum, he’s prolific. This is the fifth book of his that I’ve reviewed this year, and it contains all the elements I’ve come to enjoy in his work: zany magical mishaps, oddball characters, and usually at least one book-within-a-book. Actually,…
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Book Review: “The Stench of Honolulu” by Jack Handey
Zachary Shatzer recommended this book to me. He called it the funniest book he’s ever read. Well, when the author of some of the most gut-bustingly laugh-out-loud funny books around says something like that, you pay attention, no? So naturally, I had to get myself a copy. It lived up to Shatzer’s billing. Indeed, the…
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Book Review: “Molly McKeever and the Case of the Missing Clown” by Zachary Shatzer
This is a mystery about a detective tracking down a clown who is scheduled to perform at a local boy’s birthday party. The clown, who is also the boy’s uncle, has suddenly vanished with no explanation, and the boy hires Detective McKeever to find him. Of course, Detective McKeever is only 8 years old, so…
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Book Review: “Grab Bag” by Zachary Shatzer
Come with me, and together we shall flee from this humdrum world of endless reboots and sequels, of the same petty outrages and tired memes of a worn-out culture. Let us escape instead into the pages of Mr. Shatzer’s new collection of stories. Here we will find a mysterious man, in equal parts whimsical and…
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Book Review: “Wordsworth, Wilde and Wizards” by Adam Bertocci
This book is about a young woman named Emily Tinker, who is hired to teach English Literature at Merlinfirth Academy. Merlinfirth is a boarding school, isolated, with odd traditions and customs, inclusion four different houses into which students are sorted (Gryllenbar, Rowlingstone, Hathaloath and Syliname), and a number of peculiar students, none more so than…
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Book Review: “The Beach Wizard’s Big Mistake” by Zachary Shatzer
The Beach Wizard was one of my favorite new books of 2022. It’s a brilliant comic novel with some real heart and even some philosophical weight to it. It’s a great book. An instant classic, in my opinion. So when I saw Shatzer had written a sequel, I was filled with a mix of excitement…
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Book Review: “The Last Adventure of Dr. Yngve Hogalum” by D.L. Mackenzie
This is a steampunk adventure-comedy about a group of geniuses, The Hogalum Society. When their founder and namesake, Dr. Yngve Hogalum, dies suddenly, one of the society’s members, Phineas Magnetron, takes it upon himself to make a daring, perhaps even mad, effort to restore Dr. Hogalum to life. The book is written in a verbose,…
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Book Review: “Romance Raiders of the Lost Continent” by Seka Heartley
I reviewed the first book in this series last year, and this one is more of the same. Well, except the first one was sci-fi, and this is a classic 1930s pulp adventure. If the first one was Star Trek as a sex comedy, this is Indiana Jones as a sex comedy. Last time I…
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Book Review: “Sorcerers Lost” by Zachary Shatzer
There’s simply nothing like a Zachary Shatzer book to make you laugh. This one is no exception. The sequel to Sorcerers Wanted gets going early with a hilarious recap of the events of the first book, and never lets up from there. I can’t summarize the plot; it’s simply too wild. You have a demonic…
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Book Review: “A Cozy Christmas Murder” by Zachary Shatzer
I don’t know what else I can say, folks. If my reviews of all Shatzer’s other books haven’t convinced you to try them, I don’t see how this one can. So I won’t review it as I normally would. Instead, I’ll try some different approaches… *** Review by an Academic Literary Critic A Cozy Christmas…
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Book Review: “A Cozy Halloween Murder” by Zachary Shatzer
Just when I thought I couldn’t get any more dazzled by Zachary Shatzer powers of comedic storytelling, he goes and writes a cozy zombie apocalypse story. Shatzer’s recent book The Beach Wizard cemented his place on my Mount Rushmore of comic novelists. It’s a fantastic mixture of absurd comedy and stoic philosophy. I’ve read it…
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Book Review: “The Beach Wizard” by Zachary Shatzer
Hey, how many of you know about the Stoic emperor, Marcus Aurelius? Well, I know one of my readers is actually a practicing Stoic, and thus is familiar with the “last good emperor’s” philosophy. Another writer friend mentioned him in a story. And I’m aware of at least one other fan of ancient Roman history…
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Book Review: “Passion Pirates of the Lost Galaxy” by Seka Heartley
This is the first installment in the “Dirk Moorcock” series. That is correct; the hero of the book is named “Dirk Moorcock.” In a way, I could end the review right now, and you would know everything you need to know about this book. I mean, what kind of book do you think would have…
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Book Review: “Lines in the Lawn” by C. Litka
In my home state of Ohio, we’re a little more than halfway through lawn-mowing season. From March through November, the grass typically needs at least one, sometimes two or three mows per week. Fortunately, I enjoy mowing the lawn, but then again, I have a riding lawnmower, unlike the protagonist of this Chuck Litka short…
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Book Review: “The Usual Werewolves” by Adam Bertocci
The tagline for this book says it all: “Finally, a paranormal romance for people who hate paranormal romance.” The simple way to describe this book is to say it’s a parody of Twilight. It’s got a vampire and a werewolf and the awkward girl who loves them, set at a high school in the Pacific…
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Book Review: “Sunshine Hunter” by Maddie Cochere
Sometimes you need a book you can just kick back and read without having to tax your imagination too much. After reading some heavy science fiction books, I needed a break. And this book was just the ticket. The protagonist, Susan Hunter, is infuriated to learn the man she has been dating is married. Wanting…
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Book Review: “The Peculiar Disappearance of the Delightfully Incorrigible Percival Pettletwixt’s Extraordinary Monocle” by Zachary Shatzer
I’m pleased to report that Zachary Shatzer has done it again. The prolific master of zany comic stories has delivered what might just be his best book yet. This one is set in London and tells the story of the titular Percival Pettletwixt and his friends, as they seek to solve the mystery of his…
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Book Review: “A Cozy Alien Murder” by Zachary Shatzer
This is actually the 2nd book in Shatzer’s “Cozy Murders” series. The 1st book is the only one of his I haven’t reviewed yet, because it’s a Christmas-themed tale, and I’m saving it for December. But, you can read them out of order. I like cozy stories. I even like Hallmark-esque Christmas-themed cozy stories. That…
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Book Review: “Sorcerers Wanted” by Zachary Shatzer
Zachary Shatzer’s books never fail to make me laugh out loud. They’re absurd, over-the-top, fast-paced and hilarious, and Sorcerers Wanted is no exception. The best way to describe it is, imagine a spoof of Harry Potter and all the Potter clones that followed it, but done with the sensibility of the movie Airplane!, only in…
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Book Review: “9 Lovers for Emily Spankhammer” by T.J. Brown and Kaleesha Williams
The great comic novelist and book lover Noah Goats once told me, “Books lead on to books, and sometimes in strange ways. They all seem to be connected somehow.” This is a good example. After reading T.J. Brown’s excellent ghost story The Last Photograph of John Buckley, I looked to see what else he had…
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Book Review: “The Story of John Warbly and the Crabcakes, America’s Favorite Band” by Zachary Shatzer
Earlier this year, I reviewed Zachary Shatzer’s The Goose Finder, and said it was one of the funniest books I’d ever read. So when I saw he released a new short story, I eagerly pounced on it. And yes, if you liked The Goose Finder, you’ll like this too. As with the earlier book, I…
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Book Review: “McGorgol and Hockney at the Guano Island Hotel” by Audrey Noah
This is a classic mystery, in the vein of Agatha Christie. We have a brilliant detective, Professor Edwin McGorgol, and his not-so-brilliant, but good-hearted sidekick, George Hockney. There’s a hotel full of suspects, snobbish rich types, a femme fatale, and an escalating series of crimes that put the pressure on them to solve it before it’s…
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Book Review: “The Goose Finder” by Zachary Shatzer
There is of course a powerful recency bias that is well-documented, but offhand, this may be the funniest book I’ve ever read. It’s certainly up there. Even when reading a really funny book, I rarely laugh out loud. I laughed out loud multiple times per chapter reading this. I could try to give you a…
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Book Review: “The Harbinger of Gloom Street” by Lindy Moone
Recently, during a chat with the Writers Supporting Writers group, I was talking about Lindy Moone’s novel Hyperlink From Hell. I asserted that as far as I knew, that was the only published work by this author. Well, clearly I don’t know very much. I thought I remembered looking for other works after reading Hyperlink.…
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Book Review: “The Untangled Cassie Black” by Tammie Painter
This is the third and final book in the Cassie Black series. If you’ll recall my review of Book Two, I didn’t want to go into too much detail for fear of spoiling Book One. And so now, I face the same problem doubled, because to describe the setting of this book risks spoiling the…
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Book Review: “Perseus Kills His Grandfather” by Richard L. Pastore
This is a re-telling of the Ancient Greek myth of Perseus, son of the God Zeus, and his quest to slay Medusa. It’s told in a light, witty style, which readers of Pastore’s first novel, The Devil and the Wolf, will certainly enjoy. Along the way, Perseus meets with various other of the Ancient Greek gods,…
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Book Review: “The Uncanny Raven Winston” by Tammie Painter
It’s always tough for me to review sequels. I don’t want to say too much about previous entries, for fear that someone who hasn’t read previous books will stumble upon the review and read spoilers. On the other hand, I can’t talk much about what happens in this book without referencing the first book, The…
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Book Review: “Mars Madness” by Jodi Bowersox
I didn’t know what to expect from this book. It’s a romance, but obviously in a sci-fi setting. The premise is that a company has created a lottery, the winner of which will receive a trip to Mars. Recent divorcee Katrina buys one ticket, largely to appease her daughter Francesca. Francesca has been lobbying her…
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Book Review: “The Undead Mr. Tenpenny” by Tammie Painter
This book begins with a clever hook: the protagonist, Cassie Black, is shocked when the corpses at the funeral home where she works start coming back to life. She quickly learns the reason for this sudden re-animation is that they have “unfinished business.” At first, she’s able to help put them to rest, but when…
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Book Review: “An Assortment of Rejected Futures” by Noah Goats
This is a collection of short speculative fiction stories that deal with complex concepts–the existence of God, the nature of reality, human relationships–as approached by everyday people. Goats has a knack for writing characters who are instantly relatable. Although this is in many ways a stylistic departure from his earlier books, which are primarily comic…
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Book Review: “The Gossamer Power” by Abbie Evans
This is the sequel to The Gossamer Globe, which I reviewed here. It’s a fantastic book, and I’ll keep the plot synopsis to a minimum because I would not want to spoil the first book. Gossamer Power follows Lucia, Kailani, Ms. Battenbox, Jevan and other characters from Globe, as well as introducing some terrific new…
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Book Review: “The Gossamer Globe” by Abbie Evans
The Gossamer Globe is a very unique book. It has elements of many genres, from political thriller to swashbuckling adventure to biting satire. And the author combines all these in clever ways to make something very original. The book tells the story of a woman named Lucia Straw, who is being elected as the first…
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Book Review: “The Joke’s on Me” by Laurie Boris
This is a literary novel about a woman named Francine “Frankie” Goldberg returning home to Woodstock, NY after a stalled career as a stand-up comic and agent for a Hollywood actress. Returning to her family’s Bed & Breakfast, now operated by her older sister Judith (“Jude”), Frankie finds herself confronting a number of unresolved issues…
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Book Review: “Testing the Waters: (A Mythic Short Story)” by Tammie Painter
This story is a mystery; but not in the typical “whodunnit” genre; rather, it’s a mystery of what is happening in the little town of Port Athens. It’s a fishing town, and one of the fishermen, Eli P. Marin, has come back with a trident, which sets all the town on edge. Soon, everyone in…
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Book Review: “I Put Pants on for This?” by Jackson Banks
In my opinion, everyday life is one of the hardest things to write about. It is, by nature, something that is not exciting, so it takes a skilled writer to make people interested in reading about it. Jackson Banks is such a writer, and I Put Pants on for This? is a delightful collection of short…
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Book Review: “Hyperlink from Hell” by Lindy Moone
This book… This book… I mean to say, folks: this book! Sorry, I’m having a bit of trouble getting started. Where exactly to begin is not obvious here. Normally I give a book’s genre, and then maybe an outline of the plot. What genre is Hyperlink from Hell? I have no idea. The story begins with…
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Book Review: “Delightfully Twisted Tales: Fire, Fangs and Brimstone (Volume Two)” by Nicky Drayden
These stories are ideal for when you just want something quick and light. After reading some long, emotionally-charged novels, I find it’s a perfect change of pace to read one of Drayden’s weird tales. My mother told me once that in ancient Greek drama, after the heavy tragedies were over, they would close the evening…
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Book Review: “Delightfully Twisted Tales: Close Encounters of the Worst Kind (Volume One)” by Nicky Drayden
After reading Lydia Schoch’s review of this book, I just had to give it a try. It’s a collection of four very short stories best described as “weird sci-fi comedies.” Each story starts out with an unusual premise, and just lets things play out from there. What do I mean by an “unusual” premise? Well,…
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Book Review: “The Witch Under the Mountain” by Audrey N. Allison
When I was a kid, my dad would tell me stories while I would play on my swing-set. Most of his stories were funny, but I remember some were scary—I recall in particular one about a vampire that he told me at sunset one evening. Our house was across the street from a cemetery, and…
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Book Review: “Pads For His Throne” by Olli Crusoe
I heard about this short story thanks to Lydia Schoch’s review. I encourage you to read her take as well, because she’s much better at writing these things without spoilers than I am. But I’m going to try anyway, because I enjoyed this tale quite a lot. As Lydia notes, there are few stories that…
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Book Review: “The Devil and the Wolf” by Richard L. Pastore
How to describe The Devil and the Wolf? I could tell you that it deals with questions like whether humans are innately good or evil, what it means to have a soul, and that it deconstructs and reimagines many classic aspects of mythology and religion. But that makes it sound like pretty heavy stuff. Like…
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Book Review: “The Unpublishables” by Noah Goats
The first thing to know about The Unpublishables is that when you open it in the Kindle reader, you need to make sure and scroll back to see the epigraph. At least for me, Kindle wants to launch right into Chapter 1 without showing this important front matter. But you don’t want to miss this…
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Book Review: “Say Uncle” by Noah Goats
You ever flip through the TV channels and see infomercials for all sorts of bogus products? These can be pretty funny to watch until you realize there are people who fall for it. Say Uncle is a comic novel about a young man named Toby who works at a company that churns out just such…
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Book Review: “52 Stories in 52 Weeks” by Phillip McCollum
You can get the book here. I also blogged about Phillip’s work earlier this year here.
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Book Review: “Incomplete Works” by Noah Goats
I saw this book after reading Jersey Ghost Stories, which Goats co-authored with Erren Michaels. One of the reviews of Incomplete Works likened it to John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, which in my opinion is one of the greatest comic novels ever written. I decided to give it a try, although I doubted…
Literary
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Book Review: “The Sorcery of White Rats” by Adam Bertocci
How many books have you read involving prophecies about magical young people destined to save the world? I know, I know; it sounds like the tiredest trope in the world. Seemed like every work of YA fiction in the early 2000s had a premise like that. Yet Mr. Bertocci, whom long-time readers will know from…
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Book Review: “Winter Journeys” by Audrey Driscoll
What is creativity? What is art? Anyone who creates art must at times ponder why we are driven to do it. Even to read, as someone once pointed out, is an act of staring at a page and hallucinating. The line between artistic endeavor and insanity is very fine, perhaps finer than we would like…
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Book Review: “In Love With Eleanor Rigby” by Stacey Cochran
I wanted to be sure and review a romance book for Valentine’s Day. But—and I don’t mean to hurt any feelings when I say this—most romance books just put me right off. They’re either too cutesy or else too hot and heavy for my taste. The latter type are what my mother calls “bodice-rippers” and…
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Book Review: “Watching Wonderful” by Adam Bertocci
The setup: it’s Thanksgiving Break, and two students, Claudia and Marnie, are the only ones in the dorm. They decide to watch the traditional TV airing of It’s a Wonderful Life together to pass the time. As they watch the classic film (and the commercials) they do a bit of bonding, as well as reflecting on…
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Book Review: “Ex Marks The Spot” by Adam Bertocci
As a critic of sorts, it is my business to traffic in opinions. As a result, I sometimes encounter people who disagree with my opinions. To steal a line from P.G. Wodehouse, probably most of them have been eaten by bears, but just in case, I regret to inform you that there are those who…
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Book Review: “The ‘I Want’ Song” by Adam Bertocci
Anymore, when I review authors like Bertocci, I am reminded of the cut song from Gilbert & Sullivan’s Iolanthe about De Belville. I’m sure you all have it memorized already, but just in case, here’s an abridged version of the first verse: De Belville was regarded as the Crichton of his age: His tragedies were…
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Book Review: “The Snow Queen of Somerville High” by Adam Bertocci
Why, you ask, am I reviewing a winter-themed book in early Spring? Well, first of all, I live in Ohio, where seasons are a fluid thing. Two days ago, it was in the 70s with tornado watches. Today it was sleeting with a freeze watch. Winter and spring are as one here in the Buckeye…
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Book Review: “Post-Modern Romance” by Nick Ryder
I have fallen into a rut lately. Every book I’ve reviewed in January was sci-fi, and while all of them are worthwhile, the last thing I want to be is predictable. As Natalie Portman says in the great romantic short film True, “There are times when life calls out for a change. A transition. Like…
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Book Review: “Yesterday Road” by Kevin Brennan
I’m a sucker for stories with amnesiac protagonists. Mostly, this is because of video games like Planescape: Torment which uses this device to create a sprawling, philosophical tale of self-discovery. After that, I was hooked on the idea of a story about someone who can’t remember their own past, and so I was happy to…
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Book Review: “I’ll Never Forget You” by Adam Bertocci
I promise not to turn this blog into the All Bertocci All The Time channel. This is the third short story of his I’ve reviewed in the space of two months, but this one is a real departure from other books of his. It’s about a young woman mourning the unexpected death of her girlfriend,…
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Book Review: “Three for a Girl” by Kevin Brennan
This is the kind of book I’d normally never read. It’s about a 17-year-old girl, LeeAnn Heartney, planning to run away from her incredibly dysfunctional family. Her mother, still devastated from the death of her youngest child, spends all day drinking and watching Watergate hearings. Her father barely speaks and works the night shift as…
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Book Review: “A Prayer for My Mountain” by Hank Bruce
This is a textbook example of what I’d call magical realism. On the one hand, it’s a story about the mining of uranium in the Southwest, and the health effects it had on the miners. But there’s more to this story, and Bruce weaves it together with the myths and legends of the native peoples.…
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Book Review: “The Hundred Other Rileys” by Adam Bertocci
If I made a Mount Rushmore of authors from the millennial generation, it would consist of Peter Martuneac, H.R.R. Gorman, Zachary Shatzer, and Bertocci. I don’t mean to imply they are the only good millennial authors, of course. As Tom Lehrer would say, “there may be many others, but they haven’t been discovered.” It’s just…
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Book Review: “Samantha, 25, on October 31” by Adam Bertocci
Brace up, my friends! Today’s review will be a long one, because today’s book, although small in terms of length, contains vast concepts. Concepts which a mere critic probably cannot adequately address. But, I feel compelled to try anyway. Really, the best decision you could make would be to get this book now and read…
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Book Review: “Killing Berthold Gambrel” by Mark Paxson
Mark Paxson has this thing he does where he tells a story beginning with seemingly-innocuous prompts and making them a starting point to craft wonderful characters. He can use anything for raw material, and from it weave a tapestry full of the most vibrant and memorable figures. Some of his stories, like those in this…
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Book Review: “The Prospect” by Kevin Brennan
Do I even need to tell you what this book is about? You can probably tell from the cover. That’s right, it’s about baseball. In particular, a minor league phenom named Joe Carpenter who quickly takes the sport by storm. The scout who discovers Joe, Bud Esterhaus, is a grizzled but likable veteran of the…
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Book Review: “Permanent Position” by Sid Stark
This is the second book in the Dr. Rowena Halley series, the first of which I reviewed here. This one picks up right where the first one left off in following the career of Rowena Arwen Halley, the Russian language Ph.D. struggling to navigate a brutal academic job market as well as her own desire…
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Book Review: “Telling Sonny” by Elizabeth Gauffreau
This is a literary novel about a young woman named Faby who lives in Vermont in the 1920s. Faby is obsessed with vaudeville acts that come to town. Every year, she attends with her sister and relishes watching the different acts. One performer in particular who catches her eye is a dancer called Slim White,…
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Book Review: “Occasional Soulmates” by Kevin Brennan
This is a novel with layers. Superficially, it’s a “chick lit” relationship novel. The narrator, Dr. Sarah Phelan, says as much in the first chapter. This layer is a classic romance of a woman falling in love with a man who at first seems to be Mr. Perfect, but who has hidden Byronic depths. The…
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Book Review: “3/Chicago” by Zoe Keithley
This is a collection of three short stories set in Chicago. I’ll be reviewing them in the reverse of the order they appear in the book. “Annie Doesn’t Mean Any Harm” was my least-favorite story in the book, which is not to say it was bad. On the contrary, it was quite good. Keithley writes…
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Book Review: “The Dime” by Mark Paxson
Mark Paxson has often said that he writes in order to see things from other perspectives. The Dime is a great example of this. There are three main characters: Sophie, a teenage girl, now in a wheelchair after the car crash that killed her parents; Lily, her sister, who has been her guardian since turning…
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Book Review: “Aamrgan” by Cliff Hays
“Aamrgan?” you say. “What kind of title is that?” Well, it’s an anagram of anagram. Nifty concept, isn’t it? It’s a good brain-teaser that sets the stage for what’s to come. Aamrgan is a short book, but it contains huge ideas. It was originally going to be a novel, until the author began contemplating the…
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Book Review: “An Assortment of Rejected Futures” by Noah Goats
This is a collection of short speculative fiction stories that deal with complex concepts–the existence of God, the nature of reality, human relationships–as approached by everyday people. Goats has a knack for writing characters who are instantly relatable. Although this is in many ways a stylistic departure from his earlier books, which are primarily comic…
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Book Review: “The Joke’s on Me” by Laurie Boris
This is a literary novel about a woman named Francine “Frankie” Goldberg returning home to Woodstock, NY after a stalled career as a stand-up comic and agent for a Hollywood actress. Returning to her family’s Bed & Breakfast, now operated by her older sister Judith (“Jude”), Frankie finds herself confronting a number of unresolved issues…
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Book Review: “Calmer Girls” by Jennifer Kelland Perry
This is a Young Adult novel, which is not a genre I typically read. It’s probably unfair of me, but I have a stereotype in my mind of what a YA novel is, and generally speaking, they aren’t something that interests me. But this one was recommended by the great Carrie Rubin, and so I…
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Book Review: “Hyperlink from Hell” by Lindy Moone
This book… This book… I mean to say, folks: this book! Sorry, I’m having a bit of trouble getting started. Where exactly to begin is not obvious here. Normally I give a book’s genre, and then maybe an outline of the plot. What genre is Hyperlink from Hell? I have no idea. The story begins with…
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Book Review: “Shady Acres and Other Stories” by Mark Paxson
This is a collection of short stories. If you read Mark’s other collection The Marfa Lights—and you should have, especially since this fellow said to—this will feel like picking up right where you left off. My mini-reviews of each story: Shady Acres: This story is the longest in the book, and interweaves the life stories…
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Book Review: “Eternity Began Tomorrow” by Kevin Brennan
I have seriously dialed back the politics on this blog. New readers might not realize that at one time, this blog was almost purely political. But I said good-bye to all that when I realized that (a) I wasn’t changing any minds, (b) book reviews are way more popular and (c) way more fun to…
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Book Review: “The Calling of Mother Adelli” by Zoe Keithley
This is a dark book, about flawed psyches, crises of faith, and unhappy families. It tells the story of a nun, Mary Agnes Adelli, who teaches at a Catholic boarding school in Illinois. One of the students under her charge is a rebellious girl named Helene, who feels abandoned by her father, a doctor who…
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Book Review: “Nola Fran Evie” by Britt Skrabanek
Nola Fran Evie is a story about four women, each trying to make a difference in the world. The three title characters are all players in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, organized in the 1940s. The three starred for the Racine Belles, until the league folded when taken over by businessman Harvey Shaw. The three women…
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Book Review: “Fascination” by Kevin Brennan
I’ve seen the name Kevin Brennan praised for years by many authors I admire. Carrie Rubin, Audrey Driscoll, Phillip McCollum, and after this post by Mark Paxson, I realized I could postpone it no longer: I had to read one of his books. The testimony of the four listed above cannot be ignored. Fascination lived…
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Book Review: “Charlie and Pearl” by Tammy Robinson
A couple weeks ago, my friend Mark Paxson (who is a fantastic writer himself, BTW) wrote a post recommending four indie authors. Tammy Robinson was one of them. Mark suggested I start off by reading this book to get a sense of her work. I figured from the start this might be the furthest outside…
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Book Review: “52 Stories in 52 Weeks” by Phillip McCollum
You can get the book here. I also blogged about Phillip’s work earlier this year here.
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Book Review: “Oblivion” by Hank Bruce
A very interesting book, full of experimental, New Age ideas.
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Book Review: “Islands of the Gulf Volume 1: The Journey” by Audrey Driscoll
Earlier in the year I read Audrey Driscoll’s terrific re-imagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West–Reanimator short story, The Friendship of Mortals. So I was eager to read this second book in the series, which sees West changing his name, his home, and most of all, his personality. The book begins by retelling certain parts of Friendship…
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Book Review: “Tiny Shoes Dancing” by Audrey Kalman
Tiny Shoes Dancing is a beautifully-written collection of short stories, most of which are about people struggling to connect emotionally with one another, or even with themselves. Most of the short story collections I’ve read are loosely tied together by a character or a place or simply a genre style. This one is tied together by…
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Book Review: “Ocean Echoes” by Sheila Hurst
A love-letter to the ocean, written with respect for its dangers and fear for its fragility
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Book Review: “Human Sacrifices” by Patrick Prescott
Pat Prescott is a long-time reader, commenter, and great friend of the blog. (My very first follower, actually—dating back to my pre-Wordpress days.) So, I feel a little sheepish that it took me this long to read his novel, Human Sacrifices. It’s an extremely ambitious book—a blend of various genres, with elements of horror, of…
Mystery
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Book Review: “The Founders’ Tribunal” by C. Litka
The great comic actor Danny Kaye once said of his Gilbert & Sullivan parodies: “You know, I like Gilbert and Sullivan; I love singing it. I always wanted to make some records of some of them. Then I start in all good faith to sing it properly and then something goes haywire inside me; I…
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Book Review: “Candy Apple Curse” by Eva Belle
This book is the sequel to Harvest and Haunt: An Autumn Cozy Paranormal Mystery, which I reviewed last year. This one is much shorter, and isn’t so much a mystery as it is just a straight-up fantasy novella. Nova Powers is once again drawn into a case of supernatural doings when her aunt Grace is…
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Book Review: “The Darval-Mers Dossier” by C. Litka
Some people say I’m too prone to romanticizing the past. And they’re right; I am. I wasn’t always this way; I used to look at the past much more critically back in the good old days. I was thinking about this because this is where I normally say something like, C. Litka writes books that…
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Book Review: “The Night Train” by Evelyn Archer
This is a noir mystery with some supernatural elements. The genre the author gives for it is “decopunk”. Well, what’s not to like about that? It features a colorful cast of characters, and a plot involving a MacGuffin in the form of a typewriter case and an identical case filled with cursed dominos. It’s a…
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Book Review: “Harvest and Haunt” by Eva Belle
You know how I sometimes talk about I struggle with having enough description in my books? Mark Paxson, who is himself a fan of minimal description, has even said that sometimes I should add a little more description. He’s right, but unless it’s something really nifty, I generally get bored describing things. I’d rather move…
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Book Review: “The Valley Walker” by T.W. Dittmer
A number of people I follow have read and reviewed this book already. I’m not sure how I didn’t hear about it before a few weeks ago. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the cover. As it turned out, what I got was part thriller, part magical-realism, and part revenge story. The book follows…
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Book Review: “The Third Man” by Geoffrey Cooper
I like it when a book ties two eras together. What’s better than a mystery? A mystery that spans generations, that’s what! And that is what the latest Brad and Karen thriller from Geoffrey Cooper delivers. The story begins with a plan to plant a Nazi spy in the U.S. in the waning days of…
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Book Review: “Broken Hope” by Carrie Rubin
I love vigilante stories. I’m always down to read about a jaded person who, disgusted by the failure of social institutions to punish wrongdoers, takes the law into their own hands to seek retribution. You see this theme a lot in westerns and police stories, but one with a medical theme? Now, that’s something new!…
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Book Review: “Junkyard” by Lindsay Buroker
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. Obviously, from the cover, I could see it was sci-fi, but what kind of sci-fi was it? As it turns out, it’s a mystery story. Private investigator McCall Richter is hired to find a huge cache of stolen valuables. The valuables in this case being tons…
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Book Review: “Halloween Hayride Murder” by Linnea West
This is a cozy mystery. I don’t read a lot of cozy mysteries, unless you count Zachary Shatzer’s Roberta and Mr. Bigfluff stories, which are really parodies of cozies, rather than straight-up cozy mysteries. That said, this is a genre where the line between serious and parody is sketchy at best. More on that in…
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Book Review: “Fractured Oak” by Dannie Boyd
Human beings are bad at processing time. We think of time relative to our own existence, where a year seems long. But on a larger scale, a year, a decade, even a century, can be as nothing. We struggle to even conceptualize this. If something has lasted say, ten years, we’ll say, “It’s been that…
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Book Review: “Fatal Rounds” by Carrie Rubin
Books require a higher level of investment from the audience than, say, movies do. As readers, we have to do some of the work of imagining things for ourselves. I think it’s accurate to say that while you and I may read the same book, we don’t necessarily read the same story. Your way of…
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Book Review: “Sunshine Hunter” by Maddie Cochere
Sometimes you need a book you can just kick back and read without having to tax your imagination too much. After reading some heavy science fiction books, I needed a break. And this book was just the ticket. The protagonist, Susan Hunter, is infuriated to learn the man she has been dating is married. Wanting…
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Book Review: “Day Sixteen” by Tammie Painter
This is a dark paranormal thriller. I don’t want to say too much about the plot. Just think Rosemary’s Baby meets The X-Files. It tells the story of Moire Anders, a woman who finds herself waking up in the middle of the night in the park, with no memory of how she got there. Eventually, trying…
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Book Review: “Permanent Position” by Sid Stark
This is the second book in the Dr. Rowena Halley series, the first of which I reviewed here. This one picks up right where the first one left off in following the career of Rowena Arwen Halley, the Russian language Ph.D. struggling to navigate a brutal academic job market as well as her own desire…
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Book Review: “He Needed Killing Too” by Bill Fitts
This is a sequel to He Needed Killing, which I reviewed here. If you enjoyed that book, you’ll like this one, too, because it’s more of the same. Once again, retired university IT professional James Crawford is hired by the provost to investigate a murder on campus. And like He Needed Killing, the charm of…
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Book Review: “He Needed Killing” by Bill Fitts
This book starts off with the death of a university administrator at a retirement party. A retirement party for a staff member who isn’t there. Not physically, anyway–James Crawford is the guest of honor, but he is monitoring the events remotely. As an IT manager, he is able to watch as his boss abruptly collapses…
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Book Review: “Campus Confidential” by Sid Stark
Having a PhD probably sounds pretty glamorous, right? You think of a PhD as a scientist in a lab making amazing discoveries, or maybe, if they’re in humanities or social sciences, as someone sitting comfortably in a nice room full of books, poring over the Great Texts of their field. Yeah, well; if Campus Confidential…
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Book Review: “A Thousand Yesteryears” by Mae Clair
A Thousand Yesteryears is a crime thriller, set in 1982. A young woman named Eve Parrish returns to her hometown of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Eve, and everyone in the town, are still haunted by the tragic collapse of the Silver Bridge 15 years before. Eve’s father and her best friend Maggie Flynn were among…
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Book Review: “The Cruise Ship Lost My Daughter” by Morgan Mayer
I’ve never been on a cruise. I probably never will now–I was a germaphobe even before the pandemic hit, and I’m guessing the industry won’t be as popular for the foreseeable future. But for some reason, I’ve always liked stories set aboard ships, and reading this book was a perfect way to take an imaginary…
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Book Review: “Sweet & Sour: (Jade Stone P.I. Book 1)” by T.L. Dyer
This is a fun, humorous detective story. I say it’s a detective story rather than a mystery, because while there is some mystery-solving that goes on, it’s not like there’s a wide cast of suspects or a number of motives explored. No, this story is about the fun of reading Jade Stone’s witty narration as…
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Book Review: “Hyperlink from Hell” by Lindy Moone
This book… This book… I mean to say, folks: this book! Sorry, I’m having a bit of trouble getting started. Where exactly to begin is not obvious here. Normally I give a book’s genre, and then maybe an outline of the plot. What genre is Hyperlink from Hell? I have no idea. The story begins with…
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Book Review: “Number Seven and the Life Left Behind” by Mayumi Hirtzel
I love spy thrillers, especially the old Cold War ones, like the show Secret Agent with Patrick McGoohan. Those stories were a little different than modern high-tech thrillers, with lots of gadgets and gizmos–they relied on good old-fashioned intrigue, cleverness, and rising tension. Number Seven is a book in that vein. The titular character is an…
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Book Review: “Houses on the Sand” by Noah Goats
I don’t usually read mystery novels, but I enjoyed Goats’s comic novel Incomplete Works so much that I gave Houses on the Sand a try in spite of the different genre. And it turned out to be just as good—indeed, maybe even a bit better, because it has as much wit as Incomplete Works, but also…
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Book Review: “52 Stories in 52 Weeks” by Phillip McCollum
You can get the book here. I also blogged about Phillip’s work earlier this year here.
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Book Review: “One Night in Bridgeport”, by Mark Paxson
One Night in Bridgeport is a legal thriller that follows Jack McGee, a law student who is sent to Bridgeport, California to deliver some papers concerning the purchase of some land by a large corporation. While there, he decides to have a one-night stand with a local woman, Lea Rogers. (Who, though McGee doesn’t realize…
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Book Review: “Surreality” by Ben Trube
Surreality is a “hardboiled” murder mystery with a modern twist: much of the mystery takes place in the eponymous virtual online world. Suspended Columbus Police Detective Keenan is tasked with investigating the virtual murder of Franklin Haines, one of the creators of the online game “Surreality” at the opening of his new virtual casino. You…
Poetry
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Book Review: “Doggerel: Life with the Small Dog” by Sue Vincent
I love poetry–especially rhyming, metrical poetry. I’ve learned over time to appreciate blank verse and the like, but in my heart, I’m always going to be a sucker for a good old rhyming couplet. To illustrate: while most people would probably say T.S. Eliot’s greatest work is The Waste Land, give me Old Possum’s Book…
Romance
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Book Review: “Casino Queen” by Cara Bertoia
I picked up this book a long time ago because I was writing something that involved a casino, and I thought it would be a good idea to read a book set in one. I wasn’t even sure what genre it would be. As it turns out, it’s mostly romance, but with elements of crime/thriller…
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Book Review: “The Prisoner of Cimlye” by C. Litka
This book is the sequel to Litka’s seafaring adventure tale Sailing to Redoubt. It picks up with Lt. Taef Lang working at his family shop, trying his best to keep the business going while his parents are traveling, when his old friend Sella Raah appears In short order, Taef finds himself once again involved with…
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Book Review: “Kiss Me, I’m Iris” by Adam Bertocci
This is a short YA romance story that… no, wait, don’t run away! I mean, I don’t normally read YA romance either, but hear me out. This is by Adam Bertocci, the author of such favorites as The Hundred Other Rileys and Samantha, 25, on October 31. So let’s give him a chance and see…
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Book Review: “The Cybernetic Tea Shop” by Meredith Katz
Earlier this year, Zachary Shatzer had the idea of creating a new genre called “cozypunk,” as a blend of cyberpunk and cozy mysteries. I loved this idea, and even thought about trying to write something of the sort myself. But then, when Andrey Popov responded to my call for pleasant, uplifting book recommendations last week,…
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Book Review: “Something Whiskered This Way Comes” by Isabella Norse
This is like a Hallmark Christmas romance, but for Halloween. This, in my opinion, is exactly what the world needs. Halloween is associated with horror fiction, and rightly so, but there is no reason for it to be exclusively the holiday of horror. There’s nothing wrong with horror. I like horror. (Slasher stories I could…
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Book Review: “Date Night on Union Station” by E.M. Foner
Okay, I cheated a little on my plan to broaden my reading horizons this month. This is a science fiction book, which is very much my standard fare. But it’s also a romance; trust me! And it’s something of a milestone because it’s the first book I’ve ever bought because of an ad. For years…
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Book Review: “Penelope’s Pleasure” by Deborah Villegas
This is a Regency romance. Regency romance is a super-popular genre, which is why I made it my business to find a lesser-known indie Regency romance with only a few reviews. Because that’s how we do things here at Ruined Chapel. To be clear, this book is more in the Regency Historical sub-category, in that…
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Book Review: “Second Chance Romance” by Jill Weatherholt
I have to start this review with some context: I started reading this book shortly after doing some beta reading for a friend of mine. The book I was beta reading was an extremely dark, harrowing story about terrorism. While it’s a great story, it was nice to be able to turn from that world…
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Book Review: “Forbidden Kisses” by Sha Renée
I don’t read a lot of romances. Even less do I read modern romances. On those rare occasions that I venture reading any romance, it’s usually in a historical or fantasy setting. But this book caught my eye because it’s a modern military romance. I’d never heard of a military romance before. But, we have military…
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Book Review: “Assassin’s Heart” by Isabella Norse
Assassin’s Heart is a romance in a medieval fantasy setting. The protagonist, Lillie, is a woman raised from a young age to be a ruthless assassin by an organization known as the Va’Shile. When we meet her, she is undercover as a palace servant, and all the court is awaiting the naming of King’s heir—whom…
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Book Review: “Virtually Yours” by Isabella Norse
I don’t typically read romances. But this short story is a romance between videogamers. There aren’t enough books about the world of gaming, and as a veteran gamer, the unique concept attracted me. It’s a short, light read. As is always the case with romantic comedies, the central dramatic challenge is how to keep two…
Science Fiction
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Book Review: “Go Tell the Spartans” by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling (1991)
They say not to judge a book by its cover. Well, you certainly shouldn’t let your judgment of the cover be your final judgment. Your assessment of a book should be based on a whole host of factors. Still, a cover is the first thing you see, and it makes a difference as to whether…
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Book Review: “The Termite Queen Volume One: The Speaking of the Dead” by Lorinda J. Taylor
Before we begin, I want to point out that this book, which is a science-fiction romance/adventure story, was published in 2014, a full five years before the Star Wars movie that started with the line “The dead speak!” In case you wanted further evidence that the indie book scene has fresher ideas than multi-billion dollar…
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Book Review: “Glencrow Summer” by C. Litka
I’ve long had a rule that I don’t review books for which I was a beta reader. But I’ve decided that’s a stupid rule, and so I’m not going to follow it anymore. I love deciding the state of exception! Now then, Glencrow Summer is a wonderful little “what I did on Summer vacation” story,…
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Book Review: “The Martian General’s Daughter” by Theodore Judson
You might remember the name Theodore Judson from my review of his incredible book Fitzpatrick’s War. It’s one of my favorite books, and I would call it a must-read for anyone who enjoys sci-fi, except that the book is insanely expensive. I thought I paid a lot when I bought it for 12 bucks; as…
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Book Review: “Vote for AIDAN” by Tanner Howsden
Ah, US Presidential elections! An opportunity for citizens to civilly debate their differences and then settle on a candidate who best reflects the values of the nation, all in the spirit of good fellowship and totally without inflaming irreconcilable ideological and cultural divisions. So, if you’re sad that the fun of a presidential election has…
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Book Review: “The Samhain Visitors” by Paul Rix
This novella combines Celtic folklore with a sci-fi twist. “The Otherworld” of the ancient tales, whose power is said to wax with coming of the dark half of the year, is here portrayed in the form of aliens rather than fairies or ghosts. The book follows a pair of researchers, Dr. Siobhan Ryan and Dr.…
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Book Review: “Reality Check” by Dave McCreery
This book has an ideal premise for a military sci-fi adventure: a hotheaded and impulsive cyber racer named Ryan Fall runs afoul of the law. But, his talent for high-speed maneuvering leads the government to offer him a choice: serve in an advanced combat mech program, to fight against an alien invasion force. With little…
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Book Review: “The Last Ancestor” by Alexander Hellene
As I write these words, my Twitter feed is abuzz with talk of Dune Part 2. I have not seen this film, and it may be a good while before I do, as Dune Part 1 left me underwhelmed. Besides, I’ve never liked it when they split one book into multiple movies. And we all…
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Vintage Science-Fiction Month Book Review: “A Canticle for Leibowitz” by Walter M. Miller Jr. (1959)
Over on Twitter, I asked for recommendations of little-known books that deserve more attention. Richard Pastore answered the call by recommending this one, a post-apocalyptic tale from the 1950s. While reading it, I thought to myself that there is an easy way to summarize this book: “Catholic Fallout.” This describes it remarkably well, in my…
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Book Review: “Periapsis Christmas Vol. 1”
This is a collection of Christmas-themed science-fiction/fantasy short stories. You may be asking, “Why are you reviewing a Christmas book in early January?” Well, I could try to be clever and point out that Eastern Orthodox Christmas is on January 7. But, the actual truth of the matter is that I started reading it December…
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Book Review: “Fissure of Worlds” by Kristin McTiernan
It’s always tough to review sequels. Especially a sequel to a sprawling book like Sunder of Time, that has a large cast of characters and multiple different timelines. Thus, there are not only a lot of characters, but different versions of the same character. (Probably this is one of those books where it’s helpful to…
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Book Review: “Demiurge” by Sheldon Pacotti
This book is a neo-noir mystery. In terms of plot, it’s a fairly straightforward yarn about a detective who is tasked with tracking a mysterious femme fatale. Along the way, he delves into a depraved criminal underworld, is forced to flout the normal rules of police procedure at risk to his own career, and ultimately…
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Book Review: “The Matrioshka Divide” by Isaac Young
The Matrioshka Divide is a throwback to the Golden Age of science fiction, in the tradition of Heinlein and Asimov, where advanced spacefaring technology is used to explore political and philosophical ideas. The main character is Samir Singh, a retired starship captain known as “the Butcher of Three Systems” for his actions during war. He…
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Book Review: “Intrusion Protocol” by B.R. Keid
This is a military sci-fi novel that follows a combat programmer named Kerry Sevvers. Sevvers is an elite technical specialist, who controls multiple AIs at once, including one that is illegally modified to remove normal safety restrictions. This one he keeps secret from his superiors, since revealing it would result in his discharge. In order…
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Book Review: “Down to Earth” by Andrew Crowther
You have to know something before we start this review: Andrew Crowther is probably the greatest living W.S. Gilbert scholar, and has written numerous biographical and literary analyses of the great Victorian dramatist. I, having become a Gilbert fan at a young age, have been reading Crowther’s writings since I was about 14 years old.…
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Book Review: “Fitzpatrick’s War” by Theodore Judson
This is a science-fiction novel primarily set in the 25th century. It is framed as the memoir of Sir Robert Mayfair Bruce, a soldier in the inner circle of Isaac Prophet Fitzpatrick, a charismatic and ambitious man with designs on becoming a modern Alexander. A great deal has changed by the 2400s, including the dissolution…
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Book Review: “Trouble in Twi-Town” by Henry Vogel
A clever blending of two genres: pulp sci-fi adventure and hardboiled detective mystery, this book tells the story of private investigator Travis Barrett, who is hired to solve the disappearance of a wealthy businessman’s son. His client is the businessman’s daughter, Tina “Trouble” Tate. Together, the two of them head for Mercury, pursued by the…
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Book Review: “Sunder of Time” by Kristin McTiernan
The story of why I read this book begins with a tweet. The author asked what people thought of the cover. I have to say, I don’t love the cover. Not that it’s bad; because it isn’t. Rather, it just looks like every other cover out there. I feel like a lot of books have…
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Book Review: “The Kill Chain” by G.J. Scobie
This is a cybercrime techno-thriller about a hacker who finds himself entrapped in an elaborate blackmail scheme. He’s forced to recruit old friends from his past in an effort to save himself. What I liked most about the book was the setting. It’s a classic cyber-dystopia, with omnipresent surveillance and ongoing threats of pandemics. The…
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Book Review: “Crew of Exiles” by Neal Holtschulte
This is a fascinating, and at times challenging, sci-fi book. It tells the story of Beryl, a post-human entity–effectively, a god, or at least a titan–sentenced to be trapped on Earth in a sickly human body as punishment for his crimes against the post-human order. The nature of these crimes is not apparent until later…
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Book Review: “Starship Hunters” by Michael Burns
This book would make a great movie! It would be like Jurassic Park meets Aliens, with a bit of Predator thrown in. Instead of making endless sequels and prequels and reboots, the movie people ought to try adapting a lesser-known story like this one. “Okay, Berthold; slow down,” you say. “What’s this book even about?” Well,…
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Book Review: “Our Friends Upstairs” by D.N. Meinster
I saw this book in Lydia Schoch’s weekly thread of free books a couple weeks ago, and it looked interesting. You all know the famous warning about judging and covers, but what can I say? This one caught my eye. I advise you to study it for a moment, and think about what kind of…
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Book Review: “A Dark Genesis” by Cheryl Lawson
This is a sci-fi horror novella. The setting is a ship on a deep space voyage, which is temporarily knocked off course by a collision with an asteroid. I can’t say too much more about the plot, because this is a short book, and if I say much, I’ll spoil everything. All I’ll say is…
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Book Review: “The Copernicus Coercion Book 1: Code Critical” by G.J. Scobie
There I was, thinking to myself, wouldn’t it be nice to read a cyberpunk book right about now? And then, thanks to a timely retweet from the incomparable Carrie Rubin, this book came to my attention. It was like it was meant to be. The Copernicus Coercion is a cyber thriller about two hackers, Brock and…
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Book Review: “The Dream God” by Brendan M.P. Heard
This is a deeply strange book. It is set in an alternate future in which the Roman Empire still exists, and has evolved into a starfaring civilization. There is also a strong mystical element involving something called the Godstream, which is evidently some powerful, magical energy which grants great power. And of course, as in…
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Book Review: “A Night on Isvalar” by C. Litka
This is a classic space-opera style adventure. The protagonist, a starfarer or “starfer” named Riel Dunbar finds himself with a night of leave on his homeworld of Isvalar, a world home to an active nightlife. He meets up with another starfer, an adventurous soul named Cera Marn, and is quickly swept up with the roguish…
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Book Review: “Fire Ant” by Jonathan P. Brazee
Another book I picked up through Lydia Schoch’s weekly Twitter thread of free books. This is a military sci-fi novella, and military sci-fi is one of my favorite genres, so of course I had to check it out! The book tells the story of Floribeth Salinas O’Shea Dalisay, a deep-space pilot exploring an uncharted system.…
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Book Review: “Fortune’s Fool” by Henry Vogel
This is a science fiction adventure story, but not the sort that Vogel usually writes. Most of his books, such as his Scout series, feature upstanding, chivalrous heroes on noble adventures. Fortune’s Fool is different. It’s darker and grittier, and less romantic. (In the literary sense.) Whereas most of Vogel’s protagonists are honorable, duty-bound types,…
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Book Review: “American Chimera” by H.R.R. Gorman
H.R.R. Gorman has a wonderful book review site I recently discovered. I urge my readers to check it out, because Gorman reviews all sorts of books, including lots of indie titles. Gorman has also written a novel, American Chimera. I am reviewing it here, and you will note I am doing it in a slightly different style–that…
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Book Review: “Ruins of Empire: Saturnius Mons” by Jeremy L. Jones
Oh, my sci-fi loving friends, what a treat we have today! I hardly know where to begin. Should I start with the excellent cast of main characters? Maybe so. There’s Viekko Spade, the Martian warrior with a white hat and a long braid, and two 1911 pistols. He’s a classic pulp protagonist–a hard-drinking, hard-living, rough-hewn…
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Book Review: “Mars Madness” by Jodi Bowersox
I didn’t know what to expect from this book. It’s a romance, but obviously in a sci-fi setting. The premise is that a company has created a lottery, the winner of which will receive a trip to Mars. Recent divorcee Katrina buys one ticket, largely to appease her daughter Francesca. Francesca has been lobbying her…
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Book Review: “Lost in the Red Hills of Mars” by Jackie Hunter
Lost in the Red Hills of Mars is an adventure book. The protagonist, Celine Red Cloud, is a teenaged girl born in a Martian colony. Her father is missing and presumed dead on an expedition in the Red Hills on the other side of a huge crater. Celine and her Earthside grandmother both sense that…
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Book Review: “Red Gold” by Ian J. Miller
This is a hard science-fiction novel about an expedition to settle on Mars in the year 2075. The novel begins on a dystopian Earth, where society is collapsing and the super-rich leaders of large corporations live sheltered lives, away from the rest of the desperate populations. David Gill is head of a food production company,…
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Book Review: “Keiree” by C. Litka
They say not to judge a book by its cover. In general, this is probably good advice. But when the author of the book is also a gifted painter who creates his own covers, I believe it is necessary to make an exception to this rule. For in this case, the cover is not just…
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Book Review: “Date Night on Union Station” by E.M. Foner
Okay, I cheated a little on my plan to broaden my reading horizons this month. This is a science fiction book, which is very much my standard fare. But it’s also a romance; trust me! And it’s something of a milestone because it’s the first book I’ve ever bought because of an ad. For years…
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Book Review: “An Assortment of Rejected Futures” by Noah Goats
This is a collection of short speculative fiction stories that deal with complex concepts–the existence of God, the nature of reality, human relationships–as approached by everyday people. Goats has a knack for writing characters who are instantly relatable. Although this is in many ways a stylistic departure from his earlier books, which are primarily comic…
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Book Review: “All The Colors of the Dead” by Alex Vorkov
I picked this book up after Kevin Brennan blogged about it. I assumed it was about a planet of zombies or something. I don’t like zombie stories much, but I figured I’d give it a whirl. My initial impression was kind of off. I was picturing explorers being chased by zombies on a remote planet,…
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Book Review: “The Man Who Found Birds Among the Stars, Part Three: Bird of Prey” by Lorinda J. Taylor
Reviewing a sequel is always difficult, because the deeper I get into a series, the more spoilers from previous books there are that I have to be careful not to reveal in summarizing the plot of the latest installment. I won’t dwell too much on plot elements here. Let it suffice to say that Capt.…
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Book Review: “The Huralon Incident” by E. A. Wicklund
I hardly know where to begin with this review. There’s so much I love about this book, from its well thought-out and detailed futuristic world-building, to its treatment of how the history of present-day Earth is reconstructed in the distant future, to the way it blends political intrigue, action, romance and just a dash of…
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Book Review: “Tumble” by Lydia Schoch
Tumble is a short story about a young woman named Elle Winterson. Elle has lived a sheltered life, homeschooled, in a small rural house. She has no memory of her mother. Her father is the only other person she knows. Other than occasional trips to town, she is cut off from the outside world. But…
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Book Review: “Hart for Adventure” by Henry Vogel
Back in May, I wrote about Vogel’s Scout’s Honor, the first in his sword-and-planet Scout series. Hart for Adventure is a prequel to that series, and it fits in well. It follows Terran scout Gavin Hart, who crash lands on a world that appears deserted, finding only the overgrown ruins of an alien city. Hart…
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Book Review: “Fan Plan: Meteor Strike” by Patrick Prescott
2020 is a perfect year to read this book. Lately, we’ve been getting a practical demonstration of Murphy’s Law in action, as well as the importance of preparing for a major disaster, and Fan Plan is an alternative history of just such a disaster: a meteor strikes the Yellowstone Caldera, setting in motion a chain…
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Book Review: “The Fugitive Heir” by Henry Vogel
I recently reviewed Henry Vogel’s Sword & Planet book Scout’s Honor. While browsing his other works, this book caught my eye because it appeared to be more traditional spacefaring sci-fi, which is one of my favorite genres. And it features a pair of likable characters going on adventures, another premise that I like. Matt Connaught…
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Book Review: “IHU” by Cliff Hays
This is a short science-fiction story. Like Hays’ short story Dual Void, it packs a lot of complex philosophical and scientific ideas into a few words. It begins with a professor of astronomy who specializes in Big Bang Cosmology lecturing to an Astronomy 101 class, and proceeds to take the reader on a whirlwind ride…
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Book Review: “Scout’s Honor: A Sword & Planet Adventure (Scout Series Book #1)” by Henry Vogel
I love classic science fiction. It may seem corny to some, but there’s a wonderful charm to those vintage pulp stories of science fiction’s Golden Age. Scout’s Honor is a flawlessly-executed homage to that era. Conventional wisdom about judging books notwithstanding, this is one case where the cover tells you exactly what this is: a…
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Book Review: “Binary Boy” by L.E. Henderson.
Binary Boy is a short story about a young boy named Devin, raised by two intelligent machines aboard a spaceship. All the rest of the ship’s crew, including Devin’s parents, have been killed by a virus sweeping the ship. Devin alone survived, thanks to his having been sealed away as part of his recovery from…
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Book Review: “Small Print” by G.J. Scobie
Small Print is a collection of four sci-fi short stories, all premised around the ways in which advanced technology can disrupt the lives of organic life forms. In “Data,” a skilled hacker’s curiosity gets the better of him, and he finds out more about his employer’s use of data than he would have liked. In…
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Book Review: “Vokhtah (The Suns of Vokhtah Book 1)” by A.C. Flory
I’ve known about this book for a few years, but I kept putting off reading it because the premise seemed so forbidding. It’s set on another planet—Vokhtah—and the characters are all aliens. Well, alien to us, I mean–they are the creatures that evolved on Vokhtah. Not a human to be found, is my point. It’s…
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Book Review: “The First Protectors” by Victor Godinez
The First Protectors is a fast-paced military sci-fi novel. One night in the New Mexico desert, Navy SEAL Ben Shepherd encounters a crash-landed extraterrestrial being, which endows him with nanomachine augmentations to turn him into a nearly-invincible super-soldier. The alien also imparts the history of its species, the brin, a race that fought a brave…
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Book Review: “The Secha” by Dawn Trowell Jones
The Secha is an ambiguous and somewhat disturbing short science fiction story. The Secha are a race enslaved by another species known as the Bakkens. Although initially the female Secha narrating the story seems resigned to the Bakkens’ treatment of her and her species, gradually it becomes apparent that the order of things she seemingly…
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Book Review: “The Man Who Found Birds among the Stars, Part Two: Wounded Eagle” by Lorinda J. Taylor
This was a tough review to write, because this book is part two of a series, and part one ends on a massive cliffhanger. The majority of part two is therefore about the protagonist, Captain Robbin Nikalishin, dealing with the repercussions of that cliffhanger. I don’t want to get into the specifics of plot, for…
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Book Review: “Dual Void” by Cliff Hays
Dual Void is a very short story that I would describe as experimental fiction. It is written from the point of view of an artificial intelligence named “Kes” that is achieving self-consciousness. Despite its brevity, the story deals with deep, complicated ideas. Many of the concepts Kes considers are drawn from the world of computer…
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Book Review: “The Man Who Found Birds among the Stars: A Biographical Fiction Part One: Eagle Ascendant” by Lorinda J. Taylor
This book is a science fiction coming-of-age tale that tells the story of Robbin Haysus Nikalishin, who from an early age dreams of voyaging to the stars. Set in the 2700s, on an Earth that has been remade after a series of catastrophic wars. A new government has arisen, as well as a new set…
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Book Review: “Vander’s Magic Carpet” by Patrick Prescott
Imagine this: a story about a brilliant scientist in Albuquerque who is mad at the world, and uses his intelligence to get back at it. Yeah, yeah, I know; you’re probably thinking, “That’s an outline of the show Breaking Bad.” And yes, that is true. It’s also the outline of Vander’s Magic Carpet, which my…
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Book Review: “Hasuga’s Garden” by Frederick Anderson
Hasuga’s Garden is a strange and dream-like fantasy novel. It follows a woman named Alanee, who is taken from her small village to the sprawling and mysterious “Consensual City,” the seat of the government, ruled by the mysterious “High Council,” which includes the enigmatic Lady Ellar, the lecherous Sire Portis, and the telepathic seer, Sire…
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Book Review: “We Are Legion (We Are Bob)” (Bobiverse Book 1) by Dennis E. Taylor
I don’t often review widely-read books, as you may have noticed. I like seeking out hidden indie gems. This book has over 2000 reviews on Amazon, so it’s not really hidden. But it came recommended to me by not one, but two friends whose tastes run along the same lines as my own, so I…
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Book Review: “52 Stories in 52 Weeks” by Phillip McCollum
You can get the book here. I also blogged about Phillip’s work earlier this year here.
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Book Review: “Miira” (Innerscape: Book #1) by A.C. Flory
Miira tells the story of Miira Tahn, a dying woman who enters a virtual world where she can live in a perfectly realistic simulation of health and youth. However, the medical team tasked with performing the procedures necessary to prepare her for this are not all to be trusted, nor is the corporation overseeing it…
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Book Review: “Waiting for Earl to Die” by Lydia Schoch
I’ve been following Lydia’s blog for some time now, but I just recently read this entertaining collection of her short stories. Most of the stories have some science-fiction or fantasy element to them, and usually involve some unexpected twist or surprise ending. I won’t write about any one of the stories in too much detail, because…
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Book Review: “Ocean Echoes” by Sheila Hurst
A love-letter to the ocean, written with respect for its dangers and fear for its fragility
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Book Review: “The Seneca Scourge”, by Carrie Rubin [Warning: Spoilers!]
![Book Review: “The Seneca Scourge”, by Carrie Rubin [Warning: Spoilers!]](https://i0.wp.com/ruinedchapel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/51lvbVGJfzL.jpg?resize=333%2C500&ssl=1)
A very well-paced thriller that successfully combines fairly plausible depictions of medicine and viruses in the first half with science-fiction elements in the second half.
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Book Review: “Surreality” by Ben Trube
Surreality is a “hardboiled” murder mystery with a modern twist: much of the mystery takes place in the eponymous virtual online world. Suspended Columbus Police Detective Keenan is tasked with investigating the virtual murder of Franklin Haines, one of the creators of the online game “Surreality” at the opening of his new virtual casino. You…
Thrillers
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Book Review: “Against the Machine” by Paul Kingsnorth
Are you tired of hearing how AI can revolutionize how you work, play, shop, eat, sleep, drink, etc.? Are you sick to death of hearing about how you can leverage social media to earn crypto to buy NFTs? Do you miss the days when you could just walk around the corner without worrying about a…
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Book Review: “Betrayal of Trust” by Geoffrey Cooper
What’s better than a Brad and Karen thriller from Geoffrey Cooper? A Brad and Karen and Martin Dawson thriller! If you read earlier books in the series, you know him as the soldier-turned-medical-researcher who is a good friend of Brad, and who has helped the duo out in the past. I always enjoy his scenes,…
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Book Review: “The Plagiarism Plot” by Geoffrey Cooper
I think I figured out Geoffrey Cooper’s secret. This is the 8th book in his Brad & Karen series, and when a series reaches that many, you start to wonder what magic is behind it. Well, I’ve got it, I think: they are like cozy mysteries. Of course, they don’t fit the standard definition of…
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Book Review: “The Valley Walker” by T.W. Dittmer
A number of people I follow have read and reviewed this book already. I’m not sure how I didn’t hear about it before a few weeks ago. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the cover. As it turned out, what I got was part thriller, part magical-realism, and part revenge story. The book follows…
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Book Review: “Malignant Assumptions” by Carrie Rubin
Friends, I have a problem. Admittedly, it’s a good problem. I’ve just read a new book by one of my favorite authors, and I’ve enjoyed it immensely. But the problem is now I have to review it. Ordinarily, when writing a review of a book, I start out by telling you something about the plot,…
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Book Review: “Puppet Dance” by Zachary Shatzer
It was a near thing, this. I almost didn’t have a book to review this week. I wanted an America-themed book since we just had Independence Day here in the USA. But until this past Monday, I couldn’t find anything short enough that I would have any hope of reviewing in time. To the rescue…
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Book Review: “Fear Extinction” by TS Becker
I heard about this book thanks to Carrie Rubin, and it sounded like something I would enjoy. It has conspiracies, high-tech gadgetry, and exciting action sequences. Journalist Ellie McLane is investigating genetically modified Olympic athletes. But when she learns that a mysterious group has cloned the President of the United States, she moves to get…
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Book Review: “Broken Hope” by Carrie Rubin
I love vigilante stories. I’m always down to read about a jaded person who, disgusted by the failure of social institutions to punish wrongdoers, takes the law into their own hands to seek retribution. You see this theme a lot in westerns and police stories, but one with a medical theme? Now, that’s something new!…
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Book Review: “Fissure of Worlds” by Kristin McTiernan
It’s always tough to review sequels. Especially a sequel to a sprawling book like Sunder of Time, that has a large cast of characters and multiple different timelines. Thus, there are not only a lot of characters, but different versions of the same character. (Probably this is one of those books where it’s helpful to…
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Book Review: “The Fifth Student” by Geoffrey Cooper
Another excellent Brad and Karen thriller. In this one, a case of academic misconduct escalates to murder and corruption. As always, Cooper does a great job using the political machinations of academia as a starting point to weave a tale of deception and crime. If you’ve read previous books in the series, you already are…
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Book Review: “A Nuclear Family” by Phillip McCollum
Spies! Teenage hackers! Nuclear secrets! And above all else, 1990s nostalgia! All these things are in Phillip McCollum’s short story A Nuclear Family. I can’t really explain how they all fit together without spoiling the whole deal, but what I can do is praise McCollum’s gift for telling a tale. Remember, this is a man…
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Book Review: “The Kill Chain” by G.J. Scobie
This is a cybercrime techno-thriller about a hacker who finds himself entrapped in an elaborate blackmail scheme. He’s forced to recruit old friends from his past in an effort to save himself. What I liked most about the book was the setting. It’s a classic cyber-dystopia, with omnipresent surveillance and ongoing threats of pandemics. The…
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Book Review: “Fatal Rounds” by Carrie Rubin
Books require a higher level of investment from the audience than, say, movies do. As readers, we have to do some of the work of imagining things for ourselves. I think it’s accurate to say that while you and I may read the same book, we don’t necessarily read the same story. Your way of…
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Book Review: “Perilous Obsession” by Geoffrey Cooper
Another fast-paced thriller from Geoffrey Cooper, the fifth in the series. This time Brad Parker and Karen Richmond are drawn into investigating a sex trafficking ring with connections to a major medical institute. Strictly speaking, you can read this book without reading any of the previous Brad and Karen books. But, unlike the others, I…
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Book Review: “Day Sixteen” by Tammie Painter
This is a dark paranormal thriller. I don’t want to say too much about the plot. Just think Rosemary’s Baby meets The X-Files. It tells the story of Moire Anders, a woman who finds herself waking up in the middle of the night in the park, with no memory of how she got there. Eventually, trying…
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Book Review: “Trial by Fire” by Will Jordan
This is a military action-thriller novella. It follows a young woman named Keira Frost who, after escaping from an abusive step-father and living homeless in Chicago, eventually joins the U.S. Army and applies to serve in an elite CIA unit. Keira’s backstory is told gradually through flashbacks, interspersed with the main plot arc which follows…
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Book Review: “Ill Intent” by Geoffrey Cooper
Another excellent entry in the Brad Parker and Karen Richmond series of medical thrillers. (See my other reviews here, here, and here.) This one begins with a post-doctoral researcher receiving a note at her late uncle’s funeral, which contains shocking information from the deceased. But before she can act on it, she is murdered, and…
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Book Review: “The Bone Elixir” by Carrie Rubin
This is the third book in the Benjamin Oris series. I’ve reviewed the previous installments here and here. If you haven’t read those books yet, be warned that there are certain plot elements of this I can’t discuss without giving away information about the earlier books. The Bone Elixir begins when Ben Oris learns he…
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Book Review: “The Doormen” by Victor Godinez
This is a fast-paced thriller. It starts out as a police procedural muder mystery set in the near future, when technology has begun to dominate our lives even more than it does today; a world where the sky is thick with drones and almost all cars are operated by AI. Officer Dan Harper and his…
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Book Review: “American Chimera” by H.R.R. Gorman
H.R.R. Gorman has a wonderful book review site I recently discovered. I urge my readers to check it out, because Gorman reviews all sorts of books, including lots of indie titles. Gorman has also written a novel, American Chimera. I am reviewing it here, and you will note I am doing it in a slightly different style–that…
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Book Review: “Bad Medicine” by Geoffrey Cooper
What I like best about Geoffrey Cooper’s thrillers are how they provide a window into the politics of research institutions. I’ve noted this about his earlier Brad and Karen novels, Nondisclosure and Forever, and if you enjoyed those novels as much as I did, you’ll be glad to know that Bad Medicine is more of…
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Book Review: “A Thousand Yesteryears” by Mae Clair
A Thousand Yesteryears is a crime thriller, set in 1982. A young woman named Eve Parrish returns to her hometown of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Eve, and everyone in the town, are still haunted by the tragic collapse of the Silver Bridge 15 years before. Eve’s father and her best friend Maggie Flynn were among…
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Book Review: “The Bone Hunger” by Carrie Rubin
This is the second book in Rubin’s Benjamin Oris series. Oris is a medical resident in Philadelphia, working as an orthopedic surgeon. His strange experiences in the series’ first entry The Bone Curse are behind him, and he is well on his way to a successful career in medicine, as well as having a pleasant domestic…
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Book Review: “Forever” by Geoffrey M. Cooper
This is Geoffrey Cooper’s best thriller yet, and if you’ve read my reviews of Nondisclosure and The Prize, you know that’s saying something. All his books are gripping page-turners that offer fascinating glimpses into the politics of academia. Forever includes all these signature elements, but the plot is even more layered, and consequently, the mystery even…
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Book Review: “Hyperlink from Hell” by Lindy Moone
This book… This book… I mean to say, folks: this book! Sorry, I’m having a bit of trouble getting started. Where exactly to begin is not obvious here. Normally I give a book’s genre, and then maybe an outline of the plot. What genre is Hyperlink from Hell? I have no idea. The story begins with…
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Book Review: “Eternity Began Tomorrow” by Kevin Brennan
I have seriously dialed back the politics on this blog. New readers might not realize that at one time, this blog was almost purely political. But I said good-bye to all that when I realized that (a) I wasn’t changing any minds, (b) book reviews are way more popular and (c) way more fun to…
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Book Review: “The Kitchen Brigade” by Laurie Boris
I admit to suffering from dystopia fatigue. I love the classics of the genre, like Nineteen Eighty-Four, but the last decade has seen so many bleak future/post-apocalyptic/totalitarian government-type stories that it takes a lot for me to pick one up. But after reading Lydia Schoch’s interview of Laurie Boris, I had to give The Kitchen…
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Book Review: “Nondisclosure” by Geoffrey M. Cooper
Nondisclosure is a terrific, fast-paced thriller. When a student at Boston Technological Institute is assaulted, Dr. Brad Parker and investigator Karen Richmond are assigned to work together to find the perpetrator. But what they uncover is a confusing, sometimes seemingly contradictory set of facts. When the crimes escalate further, they find themselves struggling to unravel a…
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Book Review: “My Father’s Fire” by Phillip McCollum
My Father’s Fire is a well-constructed and clever mystery novelette about a man uncovering dark secrets from his family’s past. If you’re already familiar with Phillip McCollum, all I need to say is that this is a classic example of his work: a fast-paced story which packs a lot of developed characters and plot into…
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Book Review: “On the Other Side of the River” by Noah Goats
There are a couple of small things to note before I get to the substantive part of this review. First, there’s a smattering of typos and spelling errors in this book. I know firsthand that this is practically inevitable in indie books–my loyal readers alerted me to some in my own work when it was…
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Book Review: “52 Stories in 52 Weeks” by Phillip McCollum
You can get the book here. I also blogged about Phillip’s work earlier this year here.
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Book Review: “The Prize” by Geoffrey M. Cooper
The Prize is fast-paced and easy to read. If you like medical thrillers, or really thrillers in general, I recommend giving it a try.
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Book Review: “The Bone Curse” by Carrie Rubin
A gripping and fast-paced thriller.
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Book Review: “The Seneca Scourge”, by Carrie Rubin [Warning: Spoilers!]
A very well-paced thriller that successfully combines fairly plausible depictions of medicine and viruses in the first half with science-fiction elements in the second half.
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Book review: “Eating Bull”, by Carrie Rubin
Whereas most thrillers are normally easy to forget once you have learned How It All Works Out, this one gives you a bit more to think about.