Book Review: Forever and a Night Dark Experiments by Lana Campbell

Twilight meets Grey’s Anatomy

Romance continues to be the most popular literary genre according to most surveys, with paranormal romance being a prevalent subgenre.  Mystery/thriller/suspense tends to come in second.  So how could you go wrong with a Paranormal Romance Mystery?  With a love affair between Tiffany Peebles, a human, and Dr. Christian La Mond, a vampire, in the midst of attacks by an unknown serial killer, that’s exactly where I’d put Forever and a Night Dark Experiments by Lana Campbell.

The basic romance plot is fairly standard, with boy and girl experiencing a strong romantic attraction, then complications ensue – in this case, the girl feeling she doesn’t fit in the boy’s world and that he deserves better.  And the rest of the romance story is them trying to overcome that hurdle.  There is additional spice, of course, as we’re talking about a human and a vampire, so we have twice the suggestive scenes, some of which are rather explicit but always done tastefully.  Running parallel to this story is a good murder mystery.  It’s intense, especially considering the targets of the killer and the author provides a couple of good twists.  In fact, for me, this was the best part of the book – it gave the story an edge that kept me turning the pages.

Christian La Mond as the vampire doctor is a bit stereotypic in everything but his species.  He’s the ruggedly ‘beautiful,’ transplanted Texan in cowboy boots and pickup truck.  Tiffany, on the other hand, is anything but stereotypic.  As a self-described computer nerd, one might think quiet and socially inept.  She is, in a way, but she also has a temper, is an outdoor sports enthusiast, has a sharp tongue, and is somewhat self-centered and emotion-driven in her initial reactions to situations (later retracting her outbursts).  Her maturation is one of the main themes of the story and is quite well done.

There are a few areas where this book could be improved.  First, there are some minor editing issues – sentences with missing words, words used incorrectly, and the like.  These are, as I said, minor, but have a tendency to pull you out of the make-believe world for a moment to reconcile them.  Second, on a more technical level, melding two different genres is always tricky, and there are places where the romance and the suspense in this book seem to clash.  Romantic shenanigans in the same setting as a killing spree requires some delicate balancing.  There is also some unnecessary repetition and a little tightening of dialog and plot would have helped the pacing.

Overall, if you’re looking for a Paranormal Romance Mystery, with some solid roots in the mystery genre and some interesting character development, Forever and a Night Dark Experiments is worth the read.

Book Review: The Box of Tricks by Alistair Potter

Witty Sci-Fi with a Message

The Box of Tricks has the mind-boggling technology one expects in a sci-fi book, along with the battle between good and evil.  But under all the expected sci-fi trappings, Alistair Potter still delivers well-developed characters and even a message to his readers, all wrapped in humor and wit.

The story centers around Tom Mathers, a mild-mannered, somewhat socially inept taxi driver from Edinburgh.  Thrust into his strange new reality, Tom matures.  But even by the end of the book, his timidity is often the appropriate trait and common sense is generally the correct tactic.  Other than a strong sense of loyalty to friends and a desire to do right, Tom was an everyday hero, and I appreciated that fact.  Romantic interest Suzie and co-protagonist Fanshawe also come across as believable, although toward the riskier end of the scale.

Pacing is also excellent.  The author moves steadily through challenges revealed, skirmishes waged, and alliances formed, saving a few unexpected twists for the end.  The aptness of the pacing is also apparent in Potter’s treatment of his social message about our stewardship of the planet.  It would be easy for that message to become overbearing…but it doesn’t.  The author maintains a velocity that keeps us engrossed and entertained.

I wouldn’t say the book is a laugh-a-minute tome – what American reader would say that about British humor?  But it does have a tongue-in-cheek witticism that was very appealing.  If you want to take the possible end of planet earth completely seriously, you may need to look elsewhere.

Overall, The Book of Tricks felt like storytelling at its best, with solid characters, good pacing, a touch of humor, and a broader message.  It’s well worth the read.

RIP Chuck Berry

Rock 'n' Roll pioneer Chuck Berry died on March 18, 2017, at the age of 90 in his home outside of St. Louis, MO.

Book Review: Ice Rift: An Action Adventure Sci-Fi Horror set in Antarctica by Ben Hammott

A ‘Slasher Film’ in Book Form

As I was reading Ice Rift, I kept thinking it had a number of similarities to a ‘slasher film.’  In particular, I was thinking of that scene where the so-to-be-victims are deciding if they should hide in the basement, when that is exactly where the psychotic killer does his thing.  And you keep thinking, don’t go to the basement, don’t go to the basement…and of course, they all go to the basement.  In this case, I was thinking, don’t go into that alien space ship with the malfunctioning door…but they all go in.  Could you really expect anything good to happen after that?

Of course, there are differences between this book and a slasher film, one of the prime being that instead of a single, psychotic killer, you have waves and waves of man-eating, space aliens.  And therein lies one of my concerns I had about this book – pacing.  It was over-paced with space-monster attacks for most of the story.  The constant parade of odd-looking, yet consistently predatory aliens made me numb after a while – almost to the point of chuckling when a new variant appeared.  Even the strangest, most bloodthirsty monsters can become repetitive.  And like one of the characters in the story, I started wondering, where are the cuddly puppies and kittens?  I will give the author credit, however.  He did come up with some ingenious ways for these various species to kill their prey.

The theme of near constant human-alien battle made character development problematic.  Whenever the scientists trapped inside the ship paused to reflect on life or the wonders of the technology or each other, it seemed grossly out of place.  Is this really what they would do in the 30 seconds between narrow escapes?  A budding romance between two characters seemed particularly strained to the point of breaking – I don’t think the bulk of the plot left any room for sex.

There were a few issues in the writing – typos, grammar, etc. – but not many that I noticed.  Sentence structure in places was unusual and the dialog seemed quite stiff on occasion.  But overall, the book was well written.  It is written as third person, allowing looks inside the heads of the characters.  But interestingly, once or twice, the reader was given a peek inside the mind of the main, space-alien ‘villain.’  Personally, I wished the author had either used that technique more or not at all, because the limited use was jarring and left a inconsistent picture of this being.

Overall, readers who enjoy slasher-type stories, recast in a space-alien setting will like Ice Rift, unless the constant parade of monsters wears too thin.

Book Review: A Meeting of Clans: A Misfits and Heroes Adventure by Kathleen Flanagan Rollins

Realism with Touches of Mysticism in a Great Story

A Meeting of Clans is the story of two groups of pre-historic wanderers (clans) who discover they are not the only people in Southern Mexico 14,000 years ago, and what happens when they discover each other. 

As I read the book, there were a number of ‘isms’ that came to my mind, including realism, mysticism, and empiricism.  First and foremost, the book tries to give a realistic picture of life 14,000 years ago.  Today, we have to dodge traffic and avoid our boss when he/she is in a bad mood.  The individuals in this book had to dodge stampeding mastodons and avoid hungry saber-toothed tigers.  The world has changed, just a bit, and Rollins does a great job in describing the nature of those differences.  But she does so in a way that also reveals some significant parallels to modern-day life – a drive to understand and control, a need to belong, a drive to explore.

The book is also sprinkled with magic and mysticism.  In some cases, the myths are well-known; in others, they are less common but with a familiar feel.  And they add a spice to the story.  The author is giving us a view into the minds of these peoples and the ways they perceived the world.  (Unless, of course, you believe these events really happened as described.)

But the ‘ism’ that captured my thoughts in A Meeting of Clans is empiricism, e.g., the role of systematic observation in the formation of ideas.  It is a matter of academic debate exactly what science and medicine the peoples of the Ice Age would have mastered – even the possibility that humans inhabited this region 14,000 years ago is not known with certainty.  But Rollins weaves an interesting story around clans with considerable skills ranging from medicine and dentistry to astronomy.  Would people of this era have these skills?  Or would they still be so focused on meeting their biological and safety needs that no one could devote the time needed to understand the movement of the stars?  Would someone with a broken leg be nursed back to health or would they be abandoned because they put too great a strain on the group?

Finally, as this book is part of a series, I’ll mention that this novel is self-contained and so, you could read it without reading the previous books.  However, as someone who read one of the two previous books, I can say that I felt much more comfortable with the clan that I knew from the previous reading compared to the peoples that were new to me.  The familiarity gets you into the story more quickly.

A book such as this in the magical realism genre may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but if it’s yours (or you want to dip your toe into this literary style), I can recommend A Meeting of Clans as a well-written and engrossing example.

A Perfect Day to Write

After a high temperature of 76 degrees F (24 C) on Thursday, St. Louis woke up to snow and 28 degrees F (-2 C) this morning.  Now we're just wondering what we did to anger Mother Nature...


Happy writing,
BmP 

Just Released: In the Space of an Atom

A Fast-Paced Thriller with a Bit of Science and a Touch of Romance


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XD57W56?ref_=pe_2427780_160035660


$2.99 or Free with kindleunlimited

Book Review: The Body on the Barstool by Lolli Powell

The Body on the Barstool is a cozy mystery about Ricki Fontaine’s discovery of her dead ex-husband one morning in her bar and her efforts to find the killer.

Writers of cozy mysteries forego two of the primary marketing draws of many books – sex and violence – putting more pressure on…well, everything else.  The Body on the Barstool delivers on all these fronts. 

The pacing and suspense are good, as Ricki moves from suspect to suspect, never really letting the reader settle on anyone.  As I tried to out-guess the author, I found myself suspecting just about everyone before the truth came out.  Development of the setting is excellent.  I felt like I could draw a map of small-town Ohio where the story was set.  Character development was also strong.  As the story is first person, all the quirks and idiosyncrasies of Ricki, in particular, come to life.  And she has a few.

But the aspect of this story that really sold me was the humor.  Sense of humor is idiosyncratic, but the author hit mine perfectly – Ricki’s sardonic view of herself, her friends, and her world kept me laughing until the very end.  If you can read how Ricki felt about crying in public or her description of the police detective investigating the case and not at least smile, you’re a tougher audience than I am.

So, if you are a fan of cozy mysteries, and especially if you like characters with a somewhat sarcastic view of life, you’ll enjoy The Body on the Barstool.  I know I did.

Book Review: The God’s Eye View by Barry Eisler

Theme:  A; Character development:  C

At the center, The God’s Eye View is about balancing the government’s need to monitor its citizens in order to deter terrorism and the rights of the individual to privacy.  There are, of course, any number of these balancing acts in our daily lives – in medical research, in the use of military power, in the use of force in policing, and so on.  But the monitoring vs. privacy tug-of-war will continue to gain momentum as time goes on due to the meteoric rise of surveillance technology.  It is, quite simply, a theme for the times and for the future, and for that reason alone, The God’s Eye View is a worthwhile read.

Of course, the author has the government, in the form of NSA Director Theodore Anders, so far beyond the point of equilibrium in this balancing act, there is never any question of government vs. individual.  It’s more a question of which individuals will live and which will die in Director Anders’ quest to keep his last technological marvel out of the public’s gaze.  Pitted against Anders is Evelyn Gallagher, the developer and primary analyst on NSA’s camera and facial recognition network, just one small cog in the overall NSA surveillance machine.  And with strict compartmentalization of information, Evie has no way to know just what she is up against.

The story is very well written, producing a fair amount of adrenaline in my bloodstream that served no purpose other than keeping me awake to the wee hours.  There were a couple of ideas that were somewhat overworked, e.g., Evie is a divorced, working mother who would do almost anything to protect her son.  But overall, the flow of the story was good.  For those who are squeamish, the violence is somewhat graphic, although consistent with the plot.  By comparison, the sex was also somewhat explicit, but I’m not sure what the grope-by-grope description did to further the story; it seemed out of place and serving no purpose beyond checking another box in a commercial success formula.

My primary concern with the book, however, was in the development of the characters.  Every author uses stereotypes as a crutch.  Readers immediately recognize the boring accountant or the timid librarian.  But usually, that method is reserved for secondary characters when depth is unnecessary, saving the author a lot of stress on the wrists.  But in The God’s Eye View, it felt as if there were few characters that were not primarily stereotypes.  It ended up feeling like a world inhabited by caricatures, rather than people.  But even so, that limitation did not outweigh a well-written plot and a timely theme.

Overall, The God’s Eye View is a solid read, significant because over time, technology-driven surveillance has the potential to give the government absolute power over the populace.  And we all know that if power tends to corrupt, what absolute power will do.