Title: Angle of Declination
Author: Doug and Sally Mayfield
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Two Harbors Press
Publisher Website: www.twoharborspress.com
Pages: 407
ISBN: 978-1-936198-76-4
Price: $15.95
Publishing Date: 2012
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
This is by far the best novel I have reviewed this year. Allison, raised near the Saint Lawrence Seaway by a judgmental, conservative mother and a hunting and fishing loving grandfather, tom boys through life until she meets and marries Mike, a Vietnam War vet who is working on his Masters in English but grew up at a hunting and fishing resort in Canada when he wasn’t living in Chicago. The two take on the management of the Canadian resort when its own is dying of cancer. Conflict arises between resorts still in business and the owners of failed resorts who are vying for government buyouts and hiring extreme sabotage thugs to destroy the operational businesses. Mike Catches one of these guys late one night and is forced to kill the interloper out of self-defense. Having killed many enemies in Nam, his reaction is to quietly bury the body with Allison’s help to keep from endangering his own enterprise, since they are in Canada illegally. Allison becomes more and more freaked out by Mike’s matter-of-fact attitude about what they have been forced to do. She loves him but can’t reconcile that attitude.
The book’s title, Angle of Declination, is all about how compasses are designed to deal with the differences between the angle between true north and magnetic north, which varies depending on where one is standing. This concept is used by the authors to describe the differences between where Allison and Mike were raised physically and attitudinally. Just as compasses need to be reconciled to account for differences, so must people’s attitudes and world views be adjusted to account for the characters’ moral compasses.
The authors’ writing reminds me so much of another great Minnesota writer, Nathan Jorgenson. If you love the outdoors, hunting, and fishing, and the great northern resorts, as well as the differences between native Canadians and the white people, you’ll love this highly crafted novel. I looked forward to picking it up and opening it to read every time until I finished reading it. We rated this a max scored 5 hearts.
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Title: Depth of Deceit Author: Betty Briggs
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Sunrise Selections
Pages: 341
ISBN: 9780965630757
Price: $13.95
Publishing Date: 2009
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
Betty Briggs does it again—combines romance and mystery genres with educational horse care information. Going beyond her previous YA novels, she writes an adult story filled with modern issues such as date rape drugs, baby farming, witness protection, sexual abstinence values, and the choice of keeping or putting up for adoption unplanned, illegitimate babies. She does this throughout a seamless plot that is both complex as well as logical without giving away the twists too soon.
Inexperienced, beautiful lawyer Stephanie Saunders resents her role as her law practice’s indigent public defender. She has fallen for Todd, who agrees to no sex until after marriage. Imagine their surprise when Stephanie suddenly turns up pregnant. This is further complicated by an assigned indigent client, Josh, who seems to be stalking Stephanie. The twists and turns of this story are amazing. Just when the reader believes she’s figured out what’s coming next, BAM, we didn’t see that coming! This novel also features the riding and care of beautiful and abused horses that need Stephanie’s caring ministrations. Those teens who delighted in reading her YAs will find further enjoyment after they’ve attained their majority. We graded this can’t put down read five hearts.
Title: Autumn Colors
Author: Dawn Lajeunesse
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: American Book Publishing
Distributors: Baker and Taylor; Ingram
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9781589827592
Price: $22.00
Publishing Date: Jan 11, 2011
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
Kerry’s mother has severe mental problems which she takes out on her family in the form of anger and escapism. Vowing to never marry and have a family of her own, Kerry stumbles through her teen years strongly attracted to Tom while pushing against any romantic relationship. He is also attracted to her, but is periodically rebuffed. In their college years at different colleges, they still get together in a confusing on again/off again relationship. At long last Kerry finally realizes it it Tom she wants and wishes for sex and marriage. They affiance but before the wedding can take place, Tom is killed in a tragic auto accident which also injures Kerry and kills an embryo she did not know she was carrying. Guilt ridden she throws herself into her career as a newspaper reporter for years. Only when the stubborn attentions of another man, Charles, wears her down does she agree to marriage. Later, Charles, who is a decade older than her, discovers that hoped for children will never be forthcoming due to the auto accident. He then hopes for an adoption but Kerry never agrees. Instead, she always pines for the dead Tom. Toward the end, she finally releases Tom by his graveside and returns home to try to make it up to Charles. While she’s been gone, he leaves home, having given up all hope of being able to compete with a dead man. Eventually, they get back together and begin a healing process as a way of ending the story.
The author, a registered nurse and medical professional, does a good job of describing all the medical aspects of the story. Told primarily in the first person, the story will draw readers into the relationship situations wanting to give advice to Kerry, whose unfortunate childhood has left her with significant emotional damage. The author does an excellent job of steering us through the emotional highs and lows of Kerry’s life and leaves us grateful she finally realizes happiness was in front of her nose all the time if she had just chosen to reach out for it. We rated this novel four hearts.
Title: The Flowers of Edo
Author: Michael Dana Kennedy
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Vertical Inc.
Pages: 542
ISBN: 9781934287804
Price: $26.95
Publishing Date: 2010
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
This first time novel is an amazing work. Set in the Pacific Theater of WWII amid the angst of the anticipated invasion of the Japanese Homeland by the Allied Forces, this book features US Army Lieutenant Ken Kobayashi who works on MacArthur’s staff. This Japanese-American, whose parents and siblings reside in one of the infamous concentration camps. He and his twin brother Tom were educated at the Tokyo University. Tom elected to stay behind and join the Japanese Army. Ken has just witnessed a briefing of MacArthur’s commanders that predicts casualty rates of over one million Allied soldiers and countless Japanese military and civilian personnel. Out of a sense of patriotism and a desire to cut the casualty rates, Ken volunteers to be inserted into Japan, posing as a Japanese officer to try to get a look at Japan’s invasion defense plans and then get that critical information safely back to MacArthur’s staff. The plot is absolutely gripping and the details of the intelligence community and the conflicting emotions within the protagonist make for one of the better books I’ve read in years.
I have been a fan of Vertical Inc. ever since they began business in NYC several years ago. They started out by locating some of Japan’s best pop books and translating them into English for US publication. They gradually grew into manga and cook books as well. This novel by an American author is, I think, their first foray into military history novels and what a wonderful entre it has been. We rated this gripping novel five hearts with a max score of 66 in our rubric-based evaluation system.
Title: When Mermaids Sing
Author: Mark Zvonkovic
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: iUniverse
Pages: 238
ISBN: 978-1-4401=6717-1
Price: $16.95
Publishing Date: 2009
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
This novel based on the cults of the early 1970’s is literate and literary. The protagonist, Larry Brown, goes through much of life reluctantly. When he’s not being pushed around and bullied by a cheating girlfriend, he’s being challenged to rescue his favorite cousin Bradley from a dangerous acting cult. To help him is Jenny, a pretty Freshman student of his father’s, who is seeking to rescue her older brother from the cult with the help of an infamous deprogrammer, Black Lightning (Sam Henry). Throughout the book, much is not what it seems and Larry chooses to put on whatever spin he must to avoid conflicts. We get to see the contending sides from a variety of viewpoints, which lends psychological validity to the work.
The end crashes upon the reader like the incoming tide, overwhelming us with unusual twists, surprises, and clever emotional manipulations. One minute we’re cheering the rescuers on and the next we are asking, “Will Larry ever wise up?” When he finally does, he clears the deck for a new life like a wave washing over a ship’s prow. We rated this erudite first novel a high four hearts.
Title: Bullets + Bandages
Author: Robert Saniscalchi
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: American Book Publishing
Pages: 253
ISBN: 9781589822474
Price: $22
Publishing Date: 2008
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 3 hearts
This military thriller portrays the tough job of a combat medic in Vietnam, which means just that—having to fight as well as to fix up your fellow soldiers, trying to get them to better medical care before they die from their wounds. The detailed portrayal of both the combat and the military culture was very interesting. Just as important was the story of what could happen when returning to the anti-war civilian life—soldiers weren’t totally safe back home. We rated this military read three hearts.
Title: Geek Mafia
Author: Rick Dakan
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: PM Press
Pages: 284
ISBN: 978-1-6048-60061-1
Price: $15.95
Publishing Date: 2008
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
Paul Reynolds is slowly drowning his sorrows at mid-day in a local bar. His bestselling independent comic has been used as the basis for a new computer game company. For three years he has fought hard to keep the developing game true to his concept. His fellow team members resent the fact that he has no programming or business skills and, therefore, works much shorter days than anyone else. The founding team decides to fire Paul at a board meeting coming up tomorrow. A beautiful and wacky con artist, Chloe, sees Paul and asks him what is wrong. On hearing his story, she offers the skills of her confidence crew to help him get what he deserves from the betraying partners for free. Paul agrees and is astounded in the meeting the next day that Chloe and her people have gathered enough blackmail material to extract a golden parachute of $850,000 from the partners. Paul manages to separate himself from Chloe long enough to hide the money in a place where no one can find it. He shows up at the crew’s house later for a massive party where he comes up with an idea to create counterfeit collectible comics to be used in a con job that will pay a little back to the crew. From this point, he enters the free wheeling world of professional con artist communities, which points him down a slippery path.
The author paints a very realistic picture of Silicon Valley’s corporate culture and the world of professional hucksters. The story has a Sting-like feel to it, with many unexpected twists and turns. This reviewer has been a college teacher behind the walls of Leavenworth’s maximum security Federal prison, where I met and chatted with a number of con-artists doing time. From this, I know that this author nailed the culture of the cons. We rated this book a fun five hearts.
Author: Morten Nilsen
Illustrator: Yuri Osenchakov
Publisher and/or Distributor: Counter Balance Books
Pages: 104
ISBN: 978-0-9774906-0-8
Price: $24.95
Publishing Date: 2007
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
This wonderful story of a pig who learns to speak and read and even write poetry is both cute and instructive. It reminded me of the Bear Goes Over the Mountain series. Learning that he would soon be butchered, Snyder escapes the farm and travels to the big city and its market place. Here, he becomes a celebrity, joining forces with a young girl folk singer (who eventually rips him off and betrays him). Snyder’s limericks are both hilarious and touching. He gains a fan platform and biker body guards who are much more than they seem.
This is a delightful story with many insights into society’s ills and frills. The author makes Snyder so real. He also guides the reader so well into areas that might be uncomfortable but deserve to be considered. We rated it five hearts.
Title: No Way to Peace
Author: Tom Milton
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Nepperhan Press, LLC
Pages: 316
ISBN: 978-0-9794579-0-6
Price: $12.95
Publishing Date: June, 2008
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
It is the 1970s and an American banker has volunteered to stay at his job in a bank in Buenos Aires, Argentina, despite the Argentine government coming under control of a military junta and an economy with a disastrous 400% inflation rate. Stephen also provides information and services to the American CIA, with the knowledge of the bank's Chairman. Stephen finds himself battling communist guerrillas for their $85 million in funds gained from kidnap ransoms. He also is fresh from a three year sepparation and few weeks ago divorce from his wife.
Stephen finds unexpected love in a bar girl from Columbia, hiding from a drug cartel as a witness to one of their murders back home. The setting is superb; the portrayal of the social scene and Argentine mores is understandable. Historic political background is cleverly woven into the story. The characters are clearly defined and are consistent with who they are. This book makes an excellent book club choice, with pertinent questions in the back. We rated this novel five hearts.
Title: Interceptions
Author: Staci Robinson
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Cold Tree Press
Pages: 291
ISBN: 978-1-58385-149-4
Price: $14.95
Publishing Date: 2007
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
This is a novel about the athletes who hope for careers in the NFL and the women aligned with them. It illustrates the anxieties and the physical and emotional drives that these athletes have to deal with. It also addresses the shallowness of their relationships based on selfish lust and ever increasing titillations. The women groom themselves to become showpieces and eschew intellectual pursuits for the most part.
The book is exciting and yet so very sad. I would highly recommend it to athletes and their significant others. It clearly demonstrates the pitfalls of the profession. We rated it four hearts.
Title: The Pale Surface of Things
Author: Janey Bennett
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Ingram, B&T, Partners/West
Pages: 337
ISBN: 978-0-9734007-2-4
Price: $21.95
Publishing Date: 2007
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
A novel about characters in a community on the isle of Crete, the title is a literary allusion to the walls of a Greek Orthodox church whose beautiful religious murals were covered with whitewash after a horrific massacre of towns people by Nazi soldiers in WWII. The current priest, an American, has come to this very church where his grandfather once was the ecclesiastical chief. His grandfather had the walls whitewashed, but now the young priest is painstakingly exposing the original paintings to the world. The literary allusion is in the layers of paint we use on our souls to hide the good and bad and show the indifference. Enter the young priest’s old girlfriend, who is seeking to finalize their relationship one way or the other, and Douglas, another young American searching for himself.
This is a touching, fairly humorous story that brings the concepts of honor and integrity to its readers. The settings are wonderfully done and the unique characters of the Cretan natives add seasoning to this Greek odyssey. We rated it five hearts.
Title: Hundred in the Hand
Author: Joseph M. Marshall III
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Fulcrum Publishing
Pages: 375
ISBN: 978-1-55591-653-4
Price: $16.95
Publishing Date: 2007
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
This is a superbly written Western, but from the unique point of view of a Native American. Cloud, a Lakota warrior, is married to a red headed Anglo woman raised by Cloud’s tribe since they discovered her as a toddler left behind by a wagon train. We meet the young but immensely competent Crazy Horse. Cloud’s wife prompts some US soldiers to believe she is a captive. The story culminates in what is known as, in White Man’s history, as the Fetterman Massacre, which is called the Battle of Hundred in the Hand in Lakota oral history. This book smacks of ‘Dances with Wolves,” but is far more native oriented. We ranked this a high five hearts.
Title: Guacamole Dip: From Baja…Tales of Love, Faith—and Magic
Author: Daniel Reveles
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Sunbelt Publications
Pages: 280
ISBN: 978-0-932653-83-3
Price: $15.93
Publishing Date: 2008
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
This is a delightful collection of stories from the border area of Baja California—Tecate. Each story is lovingly crafted to show the area and its people’s culture. The stories are touching, poignant, and funny. The reader is presented with archtypical characters who run the gamut of emotions and philosophies. The author’s words paint colorful Mexicali scenes that are strongly visual. These are stories for us Northerners who have never had a Mexican experience and need a learning experience and for Southerners who wish to remember important aspects of a slower paced life. We rated this book five hearts.
Title: Second Season
Author: Ali Vali
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Bold Strokes Books
Pages: 303
ISBN: 978-1-933110-83-7
Price: $15.95
Publishing Date: 2007
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: hearts
Lawyer Tully Badeaux returns home unexpectedly to find her life partner, Dr. Jessica Badeaux, in the arms of another woman, Dr. Kara Nichols. In the emotional blow up, words are said, blows are rendered, and suddenly Tully and her two children find themselves in the equivalent of a nasty divorce. Things really heat up when Dr. Nichols becomes involved in a malpractice with two of Tully’s clients. Prior to the break up, their family was in total disarray with rebellious children. Now Tully’s daughter and son have to pull together, thanks to Tully’s efforts at reconciliation with them. Hurricane Katrina also plays a major role.
This is an excellent book to illustrate that gay couples have similar domestic challenges to straights’ families. The issues are realistic and center around the universal factors of love, jealousy, betrayal, and doing the right thing and are constantly woven into the fabric of the story. We rated this well written social commentary through the use of fiction our max five hearts.
Title: The Entitled
Author: Frank Deford
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Sourcebooks Landmark
Pages: 318
ISBN: 978-1-4022-0896-6
Price: $24.95
Publishing Date: 2007
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
Howie Traveler, an old war horse of a baseball coach, has been surprised to be given a plum assignment, head coach of the Cleveland Indians. The assignment appears to be going fairly well until Howie is caught in a dilemma. He inadvertently witnesses an incident in a hotel hallway between his star but highly independent player and a woman. Did Howie see what may have been the beginnings of a date rape, or was it something all together different. He is torn to either come forward, telling what he saw to investigating authorities, or ignoring the incident and keeping his best player safe and productive for the team.
This is a great sports novel that goes deeply behind the scenes and inside the forces that drive one of America’s biggest entertainment businesses—professional baseball. This award winning author demonstrates exactly why he is so highly recognized and lauded. We rated this novel five hearts.
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Title: The Melancholy Fate of Capt. Lewis
Author: Michael Pritchett
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Unbridled Books
Pages: 392
ISBN: 978-1-932961-41-6
Price: $24.95
Publishing Date: Oct 2007
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
This is a trip through two emotional hells. One is based in the past—the timeframe shortly after the successful Lewis and Clark Expedition. The other emotional upset is based on the here and now of a high school teacher who is writing a chronicle of the time leading up to Captain Lewis’ suicide. The point of view jumps back and forth between times.
The author has done a superb job of capturing the essence of these two stories and communicating the experiential feelings of Capt. Lewis and Bill Lewis, the high school history teacher. We already know how Capt. Lewis dealt with his depression by opting out of living. What we don’t know until the end is how Bill Lewis deals with his depression and whether he chooses the extreme escape of suicide. We rated this novel five hearts.
Title: Mortal Touch
Author: Inanna Arthen
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: By Light Unseen Media
Pages: 368
ISBN: 978-0-9793028-0-0
Price: $16.95
Publishing Date: 2007
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
Regan Calloway is a talented psychic investigator who has escaped the notoriety of police investigation work, seeking happiness in a Massachusetts small town second-hand store. Despite her attempts to live a quiet life, she is drawn into an investigation centered around a series of unusual assaults. Regan is able to picture incident details by just simply touching victims and accused attackers. Not only is she drawn back into the spotlight of attention, she also finds herself drawn into a relationship with a centuries-old vampire.
The author has done an admirable job of portraying the challenges of running a small retail business in a very accurately manner. She also does a great job of bringing a ocultic subject into the realm of reality. Her characters develop nicely and her points of view work out nicely. We rated this novel five hearts.
Title: Little Balls, Big Dreams
Author: James Wolfe
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Windstorm Creative
Pages: 167
ISBN: 978-1-59092-236-1
Price: $11.99
Publishing Date: 2007
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
Matt True, an aerospace engineer, husband, father, and all around good guy, loves golf. It is the focus of most of his non-working hours. One day, the golf gods allow him to sink a hole in one. From that point on, he can’t seem to hit a bad shot. It’s like every lesson he’s taken, every book he’s read, every golfing video he’s watched suddenly sinks into his subconscious, creating a golfing machine. His game has improved to the point where he decides to go for a childhood dream of becoming a touring golf pro competitor. He begins his odyssey by playing on the semi-pro circuit.
What the golf gods give, they can take away and do so after one year of glory. How Matt deals with sudden fame and consequent failure points to the things that really matter in life. We rated this book four hearts.
Title: The Interim
Author: Chris Earl
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Gate 8 Publishing
Pages: 340
ISBN: 978-0-9788260-7-9
Price: $14.95
Publishing Date: 2007
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
This sports novel follows Robb Markstran’s hiring out of a boring TV sports reporter job to an administrative position with a Big 10 college basketball program. Suddenly a tragic plane crash kills all but one coach and a couple of players, and leaves the remaining assistant coach hospital bound. By default, Robb finds himself as the new interim head coach of a college basketball program with lots of dirty laundry. He hires his old high school basketball coach as his assistant and two other assistants his mentor recommends. The previous administration’s illegal recruiting and players’ payoffs catches up with the team and whittles away several of the more senior players. Robb is left with beating the bushes for walk-on talent and playing as a team with less than a handful of substitutes. Yet, as the season progresses, the team turns itself around.
The author, a real life award winning TV sports reporter, permits the reader a unique viewpoint into Midwestern values and leadership. Even if you’re not a basketball fan, you’ll come away from this read knowing so much more about the game, its players, and the managing and support people who help make a season come together. We rated this fascinating novel five hearts.
Title: Jail Bertie and the Peanut Ladies
Author: Dolores J. Wilson
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Medallion Press, Inc.
Pages: 388
ISBN: 1933836113 / 9781933836119
Price: 24.99
Publishing Date: May 2007
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
This is a laugh out loud comedy about Bertie who runs a car towing and repair service, assisted by an affianced couple who are out to create the greatest redneck wedding ever seen in Georgia. Bertie gets hornswoggled into championing a new traffic light at a dangerous intersection, and when she wins, suddenly finds herself running for town council. Meanwhile, two elderly ladies talk her into applying for a license to run a boiled peanut stand since they can’t legally drive. She finds herself running against Booger Bailey, breeder of barking goats, who has an unknown backer with very deep pockets.
This makes for enjoyable light reading. The characters are hilarious. We ranked it four hearts.
Title: 47 Rules of Highly Effective Bank Robbers
Author: Troy Cook
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Capital Crime Press
Pages: 282
ISBN: 0977627667
Price: $14.95
Publishing Date: 2006
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
Imagine what it would be like for a young girl to grow up being trained as an accomplice to bank robberies. Your life is governed by a complex set of memorized rules established by a molesting, bank-robbing step-father. What happens when you fall in love with a small town sheriff’s son? How do you get away from your violently jealous daddy, who seems to be going over the mental edge? What happens when you escape and begin robbing all your daddy’s stashes? This is the quandary of Tara, as she and her beloved begin planning their final, get away with it all job.
An exciting book with fascinating characters, this novel will drive the reader right down the road to sleepless nights. We rated it four hearts.
Title: Agnes
Author: Roberta Seiwert Lampe
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Leathers Publishing
Pages: 304
ISBN: 1-58597-356-4
Price: $19.95
Publishing Date: 2006
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 3 hearts
Agnes is the true story of a German young lady who immigrates to America to find her fortune. She travels to Chicago, working as a cook in wealthy homes, and then answers a classified ad out in rural Kansas. Upon arrival, she began working the grueling life of a farm, eventually marrying her employer, a widower with rebellious children. She gradually works her way into the community and her new family, helping to establish a legacy in her adopted country and state.
This is a typical family biography with fictionalized dialog, which tells the story of a remarkable, hard working ancestor. We rated it three hearts.
Title: The Blanchard Brothers Film Company
Author: R.D. Snowcraft
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Hampshire House Publishing Company
Pages: 208
ISBN: 978-0-9636814-7-8
Price: $21.95
Publishing Date: 2006
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
This unusual novel tracks a small early silent pictures company’s beginnings and rise to unexpected heights. The founding actors and actresses are followed as well throughout their careers—some becoming huge celebrities and some becoming broken on the rocks of misfortune. Although fiction, the story gives a wonderful insight into the human (and sometimes inhuman) side of the early motion picture industry. All the conflicting agendas are there—the business investment and management perspective, the egos, the importance of talent and being in the right place at the right time. There is also a giant dose of just deserts as well. We rated this novel with four hearts.
Title: Hope and Helium
Author: Saebloot
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Xlibris
Pages: 412
ISBN: 141348669X
Price: $24.99
Publishing Date: September, 2006
Reader: Judy Schuler
Rating: 5 hearts
“When I started in this business, I believed investors were protected by the regulators, and more importantly, that people could be trusted,” Blaise Christopher tells his friend, Mike Manoukian. Blaise is a limited partnership broker in California and he has learned all about the corruption and greed involved in the business, including that of the regulators in the SEC. He has found that SEC investigations mysteriously conclude once the money runs out. SEC: millions—investors: zero. Blaise says, “As brokers, … we prey on investors’ hope. Could anything else explain why clients reload when they’ve only received a pittance of what they’ve invested?” Blaise has a conscience and that causes him problems in a cutthroat world where people invest, make, and lose millions. He drinks too much and makes terrible choices about women, including trusting those who continue to use him. Finally he decides to get out of the business with a bang. He enlists his friend, Mike, and another friend, Cecil Roberts, to help set up a phony partnership. They will steal $26 million, leave the country, and then tell the clients, as well as the authorities, what they’ve done.
Hope and Helium is a true story of how three men pull a fast one on greedy clients and the SEC in an attempt to shine a light on the fraud and irregularities in the business. Their effort has only limited success, because, of course, the authorities would rather not have it known that they are as greedy as those they investigate. In Blaise’s words: “The thieves—some of them in the SEC—wind up with most of the money. I’ve finally realized that the regulators don’t want to see the fraud stopped, because that would mean they wouldn’t be allowed to keep the duped investors’ money …”
Saebloot provides a fascinating look into the world of limited partnerships. The book reads like a novel, with fully developed characters, dialogue, and setting, but everything in it actually happened and, although the names have been changed, all the characters are real. As someone whose eyes glaze at the mention of anything financial, I found Hope and Helium an entertaining and informative read. The financial shenanigans were so well explained within the story that even I understood them. My eyes didn’t glaze once. We give Hope and Helium five hearts.
Title: Touched by Love
Author: Soecy Gummels
Illustrator: NA
Publisher and/or Distributor: Cinnamon Hill Publishing
Publisher Website:
Pages: 234
ISBN: 0-9785138-0-0
Price: $14.95
Publishing Date: April, 2006
Reader: Judy Schuler
Rating: 3 hearts
Angelina is fresh out of college, with a new job and looking forward to celebrating her twenty-first birthday when she runs into an old friend of her sister’s. Dr. Joshua McGuire is older than “Angel” as he likes to call her, much to her annoyance, but he’s so attractive. She determines to go after him and invites her to her party. He accepts and their romance is born on the dance floor.
As in all good romances, love doesn’t always go smoothly. When Josh needs to travel to Holland on business, the romance nearly falls apart. Angelina isn’t sure of his love, and he has his doubts about her. How do they handle their problems and get back together? That’s what will keep readers turning pages to find out.
Through Joshua, Angelina meets Mamie Joe, an African-American blues singer, and learns about her story of violent rape, trauma, and eventual healing with the help of the doctor who falls in love with her. Her story and Angelina’s combine to form Touched by Love, a compelling novel about the power, and ups and downs, of love.
Soecy Gummels brings all of her characters to life in this gentle romance. They sparkle with vitality and warmth. Romance lovers will love Touched by Love. We rated it three hearts.
Title: Summer Capricorn
Author: Terry Row
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Clifton Edwin Publishing
Pages: 236
ISBN: 0-9786036-5-6
Price: $15.95
Publishing Date: 2006
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 3 hearts
Adam Nicholas was burned out as a professional classical oboe player. Deciding to make a drastic career change, he goes to school for qualification in the computer field, only to have his job opportunities disappear in the mist of a silicon valley recession. In need of a job, he takes on two: a hired hand on a goat farm and an aide in a psychiatric hospital. As eclectic as the story line is, the author’s past experiences are just as varied. Every story detail is accurate in terms of the mechanics of the four job fields he writes about. Much harder to capture and yet having done so, the author pulls the reader into the odd combinations of emotions the protagonist must go through. Although his character gets drug through an emotional mud puddle, he comes out ok in the end, greatly respected by all who know him. We rated this book three hearts.
Title: A Heartland Voice: Just Folks Two
Author: Jerry Engler
Illustrator: Sheri Schmidt
Publisher and/or Distributor: Six Mile Roots
Pages: 288
ISBN: 0-9771255-1-3
Price: $14.95
Publishing Date: September 2006
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
Jerry Engler’s second collection of his weekly short stories he writes for newspapers in Kansas demonstrates why he’s considered the voice of rural America. He introduces even more colorful characters and provides entertaining tales about their lives in their mythical farm community—a community where everyone knows everyone else and loves one another despite that.
These short stories demonstrate the author’s deeper side. They still have the humor we have come to expect; however, some of them go deeper into the pond of human emotions and understanding. There is almost a brooding feel for some of these stories—a sense of reflection and communication from within. In other words, there is a more serious feel to this compilation of rural legends than in Jerry’s first book—more depth and consideration, a need for the reader to see the characters as fellow humans with all their warts along with their humorous aspects. Jerry has truly become the Heartland’s Voice. We rated it five hearts.
Title: Christmas Jars
Author: Jason F. Wright
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Shadow Mountain
Pages: 122
ISBN: 1-59038-481-4
Price: $7.95
Publishing Date: 2005
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
On the rise and ambitious journalist Hope Jensen is looking for the newspaper article which can put her over the top—the key to the Pulitzer. She believes she has found it when discovers people are anonymously leaving glass jars full of money with people in need at Christmas time. She traces the practice to a close-knit family who was first to save all year to accumulate the money-filled jar, which they give away on Christmas eve. She discovers far more than she bargained for, including information about her own background.
A touching, uplifting story, this is soon to be a Christmas movie. It deserves a high place amongst other Christmas stories. We rated it five hearts.
Title: Before I Go
Author: Riley Weston
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Campfire Press
Pages: 403
ISBN: 0-9779543-2-3
Price: $21.95
Publishing Date: 2006
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
This rather mature young adult novel traces an ice skating young girl’s journey toward the Olympics, assisted by her mother/coach. The girl spends every spare minute on the ice, forgoing all social activities, except for her one and only friend, a poor little rich boy who goes through life mostly ignored by his successful father. Suddenly, after a final triumphing performance just prior to the Olympic games, the girl is diagnosed with cancer. Her life and the lives of those around her begin to unravel.
The characters are very strong and their emotions are always at the forefront. Although the girl’s family is focused around high performance, their relationships are highly dysfunctional, making for plenty of conflict. We rated this book four hearts.
Title: Absaroka: Where the Anguish of a Soldier Meets the Land of the Crow
Author: Joan Bochmann
Illustrator: Pat Lehmkuhl
Publisher and/or Distributor: Raven Publishing, Inc.
Pages: 197
ISBN: 0-9714161-8-4
Price: $10
Publishing Date: 2005
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
Matt Reed comes home from Vietnam to find his mother dead from cancer, the family Wyoming ranch devoid of cattle, and his father sticking around only long enough to tell his son what happened before he commits suicide. The ranch, mortgaged to pay his mother’s medical bills, is in danger of being taken over by coal strip mining concerns. Deeply wounded inspirit, Matt is pulled back from the brink by a young lady neighbor and is challenged by an old acquaintance, Joe, a Crow Indian.
The author has captured the conflict of the Vietnam era, Western old versus new life styles and interests, ecological concerns versus big money, and the right of a young man to go for his dreams or bow to the pressures of responsibilities he never sought. We rated this book four hearts.
Title: Catalyst
Author: Bob Harvey
Illustrator: Bob Harvey
Publisher and/or Distributor: Synergy Books
Pages: 312
ISBN: 1-933538-38-9
Price: $21.95
Publishing Date: October 2006
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
Every now and then a book comes to us that blows us away. This is one such book. First, the story is a thriller with all the suspense moments that keep building toward a climax. The story line about an American Maine Coon cat, the largest domesticated feline breed in the USA, and a group of tenants who get burned out of their townhouse apartments is touching and educational. The group decides to purchase the land and create a planned, covenant community whose first rule is no owners without pets allowed. The group of talented and yet handicapped folks come in conflict with an evil developer and his twisted son who will do anything to spoil their plans. The wounded relationships among the characters dwarf many of their physical and emotional handicaps.
What makes this highly unusual book unique is its interior design. To describe the courage of the author requires me to put on my professional book designer hat for a few moments. There are a number of tried and true conventions in the modern typesetting realm that have evolved to accomplish one thing—make a book as easy as possible to read smoothly and quickly. The author/designer, an experienced book retailer and graphic designer, violates every single rule and more. To find a parallel in history to compare what Mr. Harvey does, one must go back to the early middle ages and the art of the illuminated manuscripts. Harvey calls what he does KaleidoscriptTM. First, he uses various colored and textured backgrounds on every page. Second, he uses different colored text, different fonts, different sized fonts, and manipulations of the lines of text to present an illustrated visual supplement to the text of the story. The result is startling and mind altering to say the least. His techniques force the reader to slow down and appreciate the artistry of what he has produced. At the same time, it causes the reader to slow down and appreciate the concepts he introduces in the story. If I were to compare a book that attempted a similar goal but with no where near the same success, it would have to be the classic from the 1960s/70s entitled Ecotopia.
Catalyst, the first in a four-novel series, has richly deserved our five-heart rating for all that I have mentioned above and more. This was a true watershed moment for me as a reviewer. When I first picked it up, I almost set it back down, saying, “This book breaks all the rules!” But, when I started reading it and observing its artistry, I became firmly hooked as a fan and an admirer.
Title: The Moon Butter Route
Author: Max Yoho
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Dancing Goat Press
Pages: 194
ISBN: 0-9708160-4-9
Price: $12.95
Publishing Date: 2005
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
Twelve-year-old Wally Gant takes on a delivery assistant job with a dairy in Southeastern Kansas, a region know as “The Little Balkans” for its coal miners from central Europe. He learns that dairy businesses in the prohibition era include deliveries of fluid substances with a little more kick than milk and cream. He also learns the sheer heaven of “Moon Butter Pie,” a liquor-based baked good that will make believers of the stodgiest Bible thumpers.
This is a rollicking good read. Max is always funny, and this book is probably one of his best. We’re talking laugh out loud to draw strange looks from my wife type of funny. His main character, Wally, is an endearing chap with a practical head on his shoulders. The other characters are just a little insane, but who’s counting. We rated this book a high four hearts.
Title: The Book Thief
Author: Markus Zusak
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Alfred A. Knopf
Pages: 552
ISBN: 0-375-83100-2
Price: $16.95
Publishing Date: 2006
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
Although billed as a YA, this novel about a young girl growing up in Nazi Germany is for adults too. Unlike the usual holocaust novel, the protagonist is not Jewish, but a German of communistic parents. Her father has been taken away and her mother knows she will be next. Destitute, the mother brings her 10-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son by train to Molching, a suburb of Munich. Before they can arrive, the boy dies of starvation and exposure. The train is stopped long enough to have him buried. Liesel Meminger, the girl, picks up a manual on grave digging which has been accidentally dropped by a young digger. Thus starts her career as a book thief, even though at that point she cannot read.
What makes this a most unusual story is its narrator—Death. He finds himself fascinated by the young girl’s life and development under the care of the most unlikely foster parents—a foul-mouthed stub of a lady and her ever-suffering house painter, accordion-playing husband. Liesel’s teen life and her role in hiding and protecting a young Jewish man from the town folk and the Nazis presents an emotional theater is second only to her stealing books from the village mayor’s wife. We rated this book a high five hearts.
Title: Then Will Come Night and Darkness
Author: Jennifer Lawler
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Xenos Books
Pages: 215
ISBN: 1-879378-52-3
Price: $?
Publishing Date: 2006
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
A college professor of Old English has a young daughter who gets violent seizures. When she dies from one of the episodes, the unfeeling pediatrician simply says, “Don’t worry, you can have more children.” In a rage, Rebecca, the professor shoves the doctor, who falls, strikes his head, and dies. Rebecca is sent to a women’s prison for five years and comes out with her whole life in tatters. Seeking help from her sister, she comes across a young girl who has witnessed her mother’s murder. The traumatized girl speaks in her native tongue, Gaelic Irish, which Rebecca recognizes and speaks. Rebecca’s life is further complicated by a homeless black man who used to be a lawyer. The rest of the characters center around Rebecca’s sister’s household of unusual women. All these complications get in the way of Rebecca’s journey to the Atlantic Ocean to commit suicide with the ashes of her own daughter.
A highly successful nonfiction writer of twenty-six books, this author has now entered the field of fiction. This first novel is a harbinger of much greater to come. Her wings work, and now she will spread them out for the world to see. Look for greatness from this author and be glad you were there for her rebirth as a novelist as you read this book. We rated it four hearts.
Title: Adirondack Green
Author: John Slade
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Woodgate International
Pages: 384
ISBN: 1-893617-15-7
Price: $19.95
Publishing Date: April 2006
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
A small town in upstate New York decides to invest in their future today by installing a Danish wind turbine. The device will generate enough electricity for their whole community and allow them to sell the excess to the grid, thereby funding many worthy projects. The high school principle decides to inaugurate a community service requirement of 100 hours to each of 32 graduating seniors. He links up the students with various community senior citizens who both need their assistance and can give them mentoring. The development of their relationships is tied in with the installation of the wind turbine.
John Slade is the most positive author I know. His custom is to take a huge lemon of a negative issue and turn it into lemonade. In this story, he combines acid rain and the subsequent death of the New York forests and lakes and the war in Iraq and uses them as background settings and emotional motivations to drive his excellent story about this community. As always, he leaves me almost in tears while holding out hope for a brighter tomorrow. His writing is an emotional roller coaster ride that always ends up on a positive note. We rated his book five hearts.
Title: Just Folks: Earthy Tales of the Prairie Heartland Vol. 1
Author: Jerry W. Engler
Illustrator: Sheri Schmidt
Publisher and/or Distributor: 6 Mile Roots
Pages: 292
ISBN: 0-9771255-0-5
Price: $14.95
Publishing Date: 2005
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
Each generation should have its own Mark Twain. If that were true, this generation could lay claim to Jerry Engler. First and foremost, Jerry is a writer. From journalist to editor to newspaper owner (several times, which takes either raw courage or massive denial), Jerry chronicles life in rural communities on the great heartland prairie of Kansas. Each week he dutifully tells another story of hilarious characters such as an elderly Tom Sawyer archetype to two dairy workers who are totally clueless about what their wives want for Valentines Day, so one buys a case of imported beer—Lone Star, all the way from Texas.
Jerry measures the worth of hardy farm folk who take their mission of feeding the world as seriously as they do their friendliness and support to one another. His stories are richly filled with both humor and wry poignancy. We rated this book five hearts.
Title: Charles the Throwback
Author: Ted Owen
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Lost Coast Press
Pages: 176
ISBN: 1-882897-89-7
Price: $13.95
Publishing Date: April 2006
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
Loren Smith works a mindless job on an animal processing line. He is caught in a loveless marriage and is thoroughly unhappy with his life. On an elk hunt in the mountains he comes across a young bull calf and its mother. The calf, Charlie, is a throwback to prehistoric times-an Aurochs. Charlie and his mother have escaped a ranch and are living with an elk herd in the high country.
Charlie becomes a symbol of Loren’s greatly desired freedom and a new life. Their parallel needs to rise above mere survival tracks through the story, culminating in Loren’s meat processing facility. This is a tender and touching story, which brings the reader to a state of longing for these two males to find happiness and completion. One doesn’t. We rated this book four hearts.
Title: Blue Springs
Author: Peter Rennebohm
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: North Star Press
Pages: 403
ISBN: 0878392270
Price: $24.95
Publishing Date: 2005
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
A young ten-year-old Minnesota boy, Charlie, presumes it’s his fault that his alcoholic father is arrested for DUI because Charlie couldn’t steer the car well enough when his dad passed out at the wheel. Because of Charlie’s feelings, he runs away, first hopping a freight with his dog Taffy and finding himself in a life or death struggle. In an attempt to raise money, Charlie had tried to sell a coin collection that was far more valuable than he realized. An unethical coin dealer puts a hitman on Charlie’s train. At the same time, another killer seeking revenge on Charlie’s dad is out to kidnap and hurt Charlie as well. In an ensuing confrontation, Taffy is badly injured. She and Charlie are rescued by decent old man who is returning home to make amends with his son before he dies. Charlie is taken in by the man and his family while the two killers seek to do their worst on Charlie.
This is a story of right and wrong choices and redemption. Ever now and then a novel comes along that just screams to be made into a movie. This is one of those books. The author captures the culture and language of the early 1950s in the upper Midwest. Kids don’t come any better than Charlie and the characters interacting with him find their lives greatly impacted by his personality. We gave this book a very high five hearts.
Title: Collateral Man
Author: Alex Ferrara and Jose Levy
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Grafica Andina
Pages: 335
ISBN: 987-43-6563-3
Price: $16.95
Publishing Date: 2004
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
Imagine getting contacted by a representative of Satan who informs you that you owe them your soul because of something your grandfather didn’t do—give them his soul after he signed a contract that he would. The collateral man is a concept very similar to a co-signer of a loan. The collateral man guarantees the contract but is not a party to it. Manhattan-based Psychologist Martin Mondragon is faced with this situation and spends the rest of the book trying to find a way out of his situation.
This Faustian story is totally captivating and thoroughly enjoyable. There is a race against a time limit for both the protagonist and the antagonist. These Hispanic authors are highly successful on the international literary scene. We rated this work a solid five hearts.
Title: The Man with No Skin
Author: Orfhlaith Ni Chonaill
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: “Dialogue” Publishing, Inc.
Pages: 254
ISBN: 0-9764904-9-8
Price: $24.95
Publishing Date: 2005
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
This most unusual novel written by a Gaelic Irish lady living in Colorado is set on the slopes of Mount Kenya in Africa. Father O’Sullivan, an Irish Priest, naively intermixes local economics, politics, and religion and almost pays the ultimate price for it. Barely surviving a vicious slashing attack which uses a garden tool as a weapon, the priest hangs between life and death, eventually awakening to the fact that he is being cared for by a woman whom he helped to get an education earlier on. Now she is the wife of a successful businessman. Lust raises its head to cause the fall of the resurrected clergyman from grace.
The author has captured the feel of cultures so alien to most Americans. To do so, she has to paint word pictures of vibrant and depressing landscapes while developing and explaining cultural contexts that most of us would otherwise never think about. This book is mind expanding, and we rated it four hearts.
Title: More Sweet Tea
Author: Deborah Smith, Virginia Ellis, Sandra Chastain, Debra Dixon
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Belle Books
Pages: 320
ISBN: 0-9673035-4-0
Price: $14.95
Publishing Date: 2005
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
This is a second short story anthology from a perky group of Georgia authors. This highly experienced group provides additional warm and fun stories based on deep southern culture. As a bonus, a recipe section is included. All these authors are good, with interesting stories to tell. We especially admire the way several of them started this publishing company as an outlet for their works because they were tired of being taken advantage of by their old Yankee mainstream publishing houses for which they once wrote. Every thing they write is either touching and/or a hoot. We highly recommend their entire catalog and rated this particular book four hearts.
Title: Yankee Peddler
Author: Robert L. Hecker
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Hard Shell Word Factory
Pages: 237
ISBN: 0-7599-4695-7
Price: $12.95
Publishing Date: Jun 2005
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 4 hearts
This is a delightfully farcical novel which reminds me very much of “The Mouse that Roared.” Protagonist Elizabeth Sullivan Wexford Adams comes from a family of US statesmen. She has been specifically selected to open diplomatic relations with a hither to fore unknown Mediterranean island nation of Litania. Their location is ideal for the placement of missiles to be used to over watch and control the Middle East. She is given a grounded US Air Force pilot as a missile expert and assistant. Litanian leader, Papa George Papalopocos, is delighted his island is being “invaded” since its population and birth rate keeps shrinking and the new blood from all the sweetly anticipated raping and pillaging from the invaders is desperately needed. Enter the Russians with an intent to claim the island nation for their own purposes. How will the two Americans deal with this much more real-life invasion threat?
This tongue-in-cheek account is written by an author who has the Air Force and writing experience to make this wonderful story come alive. The characters are kooky and quirky. The story concept is all too probable, and the governmental bureaucracy is very predictable. We gave this a score of four hearts.
