April's Book Reviews and Previews

I dipped into the genre pool a bit more deeply this month with reviews covering a historical/paranormal fantasy (Nights Arose) and a teen fantasy novella (Blossom Blood).  But I also hit my bread and butter genre, technothriller, in Douglas Richards' Split Second (and loved it). 

Happy reading,
Bruce

Split Second by Douglas E. Richards

A Thought-Provoking, Well-Constructed Technothriller

Split Second is a tense, fast-paced technothriller involving a capability that in the context of all the books and movies about time travel sounds rather mundane – the ability to move an object a mere split second into the past.  I mean, what injustice could you right, what fortune could you win in a split second?  None.  But mundane it is not, as author Douglas Richards takes the science behind time travel, extends it in fictional but believable ways, and ends up with a story that’s not only adrenaline-charged, but also thought-provoking.  In my view, that’s an unbeatable combination.  For the complete review, see this link to Amazon:  https://amzn.to/2GIykuL

Nights Arose by Andrea Roche

An Opportunity for Some Fun, Imaginative Escapism

Interested in escaping for an afternoon or a couple of evenings?  Do you like fantasies with magic, both good and evil?  Want a bit of romance for some added spice in your story?  If so, Nights Arose is perfect for you.

The novel is an inventive telling of a battle between good and evil – good in the form of our heroine, Nessarose (Arose) Du Mouchelle; evil in the guise of Morel, a Voodoo sorceress.  Over the pages of the book, Arose comes to understand her magical powers and how they are magnified by a mysterious opalescent stone called the Gem of the Red Spirit.  Morel is intent on stealing the stone and using it to open the gates to the netherworld.  That, Arose realizes, will spell the end of humanity.  With the stakes set, the battle wages on in ever increasing drama and fury.  The encounters with Morel’s brother and chief henchman were particularly intense, ranging from sexual assaults to attacks from the man transformed to beast.  All of the violence, however, was handled well – intense without being graphic.  For the complete review, see this link to Amazon: https://amzn.to/2D42wzN 

Blossom Blood by Carlyle Labuschagne

A Fast-Paced Fantasy with a Twist (and a few typos) 

Blossom Blood hooks you quickly with a car crash that claims the lives of three people.  Asher Blossom is thrown clear but must deal with the pain and guilt of the incident that took his parents and his girlfriend.  Fast forward three years and Asher is returning home from school abroad.  And although he’s been in contact with his siblings and his uncle who has been raising them, he’s taken aback by what he finds – a house in disrepair, relatives he hardly recognizes, and a tattooed babysitter he’s sure is a bad influence on them all.  For the complete review, see this link to Amazon:  https://amzn.to/2X8hlbZ 

Limited-Time Book Deals and THE Worst April Joke

Q: When do gorillas fall from the sky?
A: During Ape-ril showers.

Think you have a better (i.e., worse) one?  Leave it in the comments! (http://brucemperrin.blogspot.com/)

Now, to this month's limited time deals.  (Please verify all prices before purchase)

Start Date: NOW  End Date: 4/24/2019
Killer in the Retroscape: A Near-Future Mystery
By Bruce M. Perrin
Mystery, Speculative Fiction
Usual Price: 3.99  Sale: 0.99

Take advantage of the largest discount of the year on this 2019 Montaigne Medal Finalist in the Eric Hoffer Awards!

When Doug Michaels finds his friend dead in 2068, he builds a mental landscape, a retroscape, to find the killer.  But as the suspects appear, they disappear almost as quickly.  It's not the aftereffects of an illness sensationalized in the media as the “zombie pandemic”.  It's not an evil artificial intelligence intent on taking over the world.  It's not his friend's machine-intelligence wife, Julia, even if she can't even remember his final days.  But when his retroscape is finished, Doug finds the killer ... in one of the most unlikely of places. 

https://amzn.to/2Cn7xE0
99p in the UK:  https://amzn.to/2za4X1Q


Start Date: NOW  End Date: 4/22/2019
Endless Online: Oblivion's Blade: A LitRPG Adventure - Book 1
By M.H. Johnson
Fantasy/Humor
Usual Price: 4.99  Sale: 0.99

Val had returned from his latest tour of duty scarred in body and soul. Barely able to walk and drugged to the gills for pain, he thought his killing days were finally behind him.  He couldn't have been more wrong. 

Endless Online, a hyper futuristic game where players could truly live another life. Val loved the idea of starting over in virtual reality. But when someone he cares about turns up missing after chasing that same dream, Val quickly learns that Endless is no simple game.

https://amzn.to/2GuId0t


Mark your calendar for this one!

Start Date: 4/22/2019  End Date: 4/24/2019
The Boy Next Door
By Lolli Powell
Romance
Usual Price: 2.99  Sale: 0.99

Laney Mitchell had a thriving babysitting business when she was fifteen. Twenty-six years later, one of the cute little boys she babysat has grown up, but he still wants to cuddle with his babysitter! Laney has kept things simple since her divorce, but life has suddenly become very complicated!

https://amzn.to/2IlOVYQ


Start Date: NOW  End Date: 4/24/2019
Sorceress Super Hero
By Darius Brasher
Super Hero SciFi
Usual Price: 3.99  Sale: 0.99

The mess all started when I punched a 400-year-old fairy reality TV star in the throat.  Things got really weird from there.

Before I could blink, I was fighting wererats, getting kidnapped by superheroes, stealing a cape inhabited by the ghost of a magical genius, and trying to save the world alongside a 2,000-year-old immortal who wields a piece of Noah's Ark. All while struggling to not get evicted or fired from my job.

That was just Monday. Tuesday is shaping up to be busier.

https://amzn.to/2DjZcQZ


Start Date: NOW  End Date: 4/24/2019
The Haunting of Cabin Green: A Modern Gothic Horror Novel
By April A. Taylor
LGBT Horror
Usual Price: 2.99  Sale: 0.99

Going to Cabin Green alone after the death of his fiancée was Ben's first mistake. His second mistake was tempting fate by saying, "There's no such thing as an evil building." Now he's caught in a nightmare of his own making deep in the woods of Northern Michigan. Even worse, a family history of mental illness makes it impossible for him to know if the ghosts haunting the cabin are real or all in his head.

https://amzn.to/2DljQ34


Start Date: NOW  End Date: 4/24/2019
Inferno (The Fourth Talisman Book 5)
By Kat Ross
Historical Fantasy
Usual Price: 3.99  Sale: 1.99

Three talismans adrift.
Two mad kings.
One poisonous crown.

As dark forces gather at the Rock of Ariamazes in Samarqand, Nazafareen discovers that there are worse places than the afterlife. The twisted creature pulling the Vatras’ strings is holed up in the deepest level of the Dominion—and only she has the power to follow him there, though at the potential cost of her own soul.

Prophecy claims the three daeva clans must unite to face their greatest enemy again, but two of the talismans have vanished and the third is a child more used to skulking in the shadows than leading an army. Meb the Mouse might be their last hope—if anyone bothers to take her seriously.

https://amzn.to/2UJKwFt


Start Date: NOW  End Date: 4/24/2019
Rose Petal Graves (The Lost Clan Book 1)
By Olivia Wildenstein
Young Adult Folklore
Usual Price: 3.99  Sale: 0.99

Founded two centuries ago by a powerful tribe of Gottwa Indians, Rowan was a quiet town, so quiet that I fled after graduation. Staying away was the plan, but Mom died suddenly.

Dad said she suffered a stroke after she dug up one of the ancient graves in our backyard, which happens to be the town cemetery.  Creepy, I know. Creepier still, there was no corpse inside the old coffin, only fresh rose petals.

As we made preparations for Mom’s burial, new people began arriving in Rowan, unnervingly handsome and odd people.  I begged them to leave, but they stayed, because their enemies--my ancestors--were beginning to awaken.

https://amzn.to/2Xuflv5


Start Date: NOW  End Date: 4/22/2019
Ascent Into Hell
By Fergus White
Mountain Climbing
Usual Price: 3.25  Sale: 0.99

There is but one aim: the summit, the summit of Mount Everest.

What starts with a trouble-free trek into the Nepalese highlands explodes into a gripping tale of hardship, peril, and adversity. Pushed beyond their physical and mental limits, climbers drop by the wayside. Their primal instincts for survival battle with their dogged resolve to drag themselves to the top of the world. But the focus remains: battle to the summit, and if successful, somehow get back down again.

https://amzn.to/2XmXJB4

(Please verify all prices before purchase.)