The Silk Thief

 Cover Reveal for Claire Buss's latest Roshaven novels:

The release date for the novel is June 4th, 2021

Here's a link: mybook.to/SilkThief 

This is the next story about thief-catcher Ned Spinks and Jenni the sprite.

Special Edition Review

Five-star review of Dragon Mage by M. L. Spencer

available tomorrow 1/8/2021

M.L. Spencer’s latest book follows the journey of Aram Raythe, a bullied boy we might consider an Asperger’s savant, from the seaside village home through several defining moments to his being declared a Champion. His obsession with knots leads to skills that help him in that journey. His boyhood friend, Markus, is in and out of his life and finally in again. Ms. Spencer has created two fascinating worlds, the one above and the one below. Both contain sorcerers, but only the world below is filled with dragons and dragon-riders. The descriptions are excellent. The characters are believable. Aram’s arc, especially, is exceptional. This is very different from Spencer’s previous books but even better written and full of the details that make a story memorable.

 

Four-star review of A Better Man by Louise Penny

This was not my favorite book in this series, but it was an interesting read. Armand has returned to the Surite with Jean-Guy as his superior. They become involved in the search for a missing pregnant woman at the same time as the rivers are overflowing from a mixture of rain and Spring thaw. All the characters are deftly drawn but the scenery steals the show.

Four-star review of The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Janoff

The story of three women just before D-Day and a year or so after is about how their lives intertwine. Eleanor Trigg created and managed a group of young British women who flew into German-occupied France in the closing days of the WWII to send and receive radio messages in code to help the resistance fighters. Marie was one of her girls, and Grace is an American who finds Eleanor’s abandoned suitcase in Grand Central Station and takes a packet of photos of twelve of the girls. Full of mystery, intrigue and romance, this was an interesting and quick read, but I was bothered by the incorrect details, e.g., there were only forty-eight states in 1946, not fifty, and TVs weren’t common then either.

Tuesday Blog Review

 

Five-star review of Challenge Accepted – a charity anthology compiled and edited by Stephanie Barr

This anthology to benefit Special Olympics contains seventeen science fiction and fantasy short stories in which disabled main characters don’t allow their disabilities to prevent them from being heroes. All of the stories, including I hope my own, are well-written, entertaining and diverse. Several are even excellent. The people in them rise above. Their disabilities don’t define them. They don’t need rescuing but instead, save the day. Many kinds of disabilities are represented including loss of a limb, loss of sight, loss of hearing, even mental disabilities.

Tuesday Book Review

 

Four-star review of The Paris Seamstress by Natasha Lester

I don’t usually read romances, not even historical ones, but I found this book in my ginormous TBR pile and started it. I finished it in just a few weeks. The story about a seamstress who flees Paris as the Germans are invading and find new family and friends in New York as well as eventual success as a designer of ‘clothes women want to wear’ would probably have been enough. But that story is interspersed with her granddaughter modern day story. Like most romance novels, the women are all beautiful and the men all handsome. The designer’s clothes are amazing, etc. But the superlatives didn’t bother me as much as they usually do. Perhaps it was the engaging writing. At times, the parallels between Estella’s and Fabienne’s lives and similar personalities were too much, and I occasionally had to think about which one’s story we were in. But their stories were usually interesting and once in a while exciting.

Tuesday Book Review

Four-star review of Spellbreaker by Charlie N. Holmberg

The latest duology by the author begins with the story about Elsie Camden, a spellbreaker or rather spell unraveler in a late 19^th century England where magic is real. She’d been left by her family with strangers, sent to the workhouse, worked in service for one noblemen and finally ended up working for a stonemason as a kind of secretary. She receives letters from someone she calls the Cowls that imply that the spells she’s asked to unravel will help the poor. In the process of unraveling one, she’s caught at it by as aspector or spellmaker. The story takes off from there. It may not be as exciting or original as most of Holmberg’s work, but I enjoyed it. I’ll look for book two when it comes out in 2021. 

Tuesday Book Review

 

Five-star review of The Buried World (Book 2 of the Grave Kingdom) by Jeff Wheeler

In the second book of the series, Bingmei’s adventures become more intense as she fights against the will of the evil Echion, the Dragon of Night. Many members of her ensign are there to assist her and so are a few former enemies. But she realizes she must fulfill her destiny as the Phoenix-Chosen. Filled with action and suspense, as well as excellent world-building that relies on Asian influences, this book is clean enough for even early teens to read. I’ve already purchased book 3 in the series and will start it soon.