Book Review Alert: Daughter of the Deep by Lina C. Amerago

Reviewed: January 3rd, 2023
Released: August 15th, 2020
Genre: Fantasy

A wedding to end a war. It’s been four years since the blood feud between the Branwens and Mathonwys started. Four years of sunken ships and loved ones lost, four years of wounds both seen and unseen. Keira Branwen is no stranger to duty. As the first mate of a legendary pirate ship, blessed by the sea-god Lyr, and heir apparent to her clan, she would sail to the Otherworld and back to keep her family safe. But when the Council threatens banishment for her people, Keira is faced with a choice; she must either marry her father’s alleged killer, the sea-snake Ronan Mathonwy, or curse her family to the deep. But in the Seven Isles of the Deyrnas, secrets sleep just beneath the surface of the water. Her father’s death is still shrouded in mystery, and Ronan—her childhood friend, the man she once loved — is hell-bent on proving his innocence. As enemies become friends and friends become suspects, Keira must wade through the waters of doubt to expose the truth, save her family, and restore her father’s legacy. But Keira soon learns that there are ties thicker than blood, and there is more than one way to sacrifice a life.

Read my thoughts….

Book Review Alert: Stiger’s Tigers by Marc Alan Edelheit

Reviewed: December 30th, 2022
Released: March 23rd, 2015
Genre: Sword & Sorcery

A tarnished legacy. A dangerous mission. The beginning of an epic destiny…

Nobleman and born soldier Ben Stiger never backs down from a fight. Even as the son of an infamous imperial general, an outcast from society, he refuses to crumble under the unforgiving shadow of his once-powerful family’s disgrace. When he’s reassigned from his crack company to the struggling southern army, he’s eager to help turn the tide against a growing, deadly rebellion.

Supported by his faithful lieutenant, Eli, one of the last remaining elven rangers, and a holy Paladin on a quest for the High Father, Stiger fights to gain control of his new company, resentful and mediocre soldiers… who he must train and then lead on a desperate mission to reach an outpost cut off by the enemy. But as he force-marches his men through hostile territory, the veteran commander faces more than he ever expected, rebels, bandits, a magic relic from an age long gone, and an ancient evil freshly risen that has the potential to destroy the empire he loves and serves.

Can one outcast hero make a difference and save his empire from annihilation?

Stiger’s Tigers is the engrossing first book in the Chronicles of an Imperial Officer epic fantasy series. If you like brave champions, sword and sorcery, breathtaking twists and turns, and authentic battle scenes, then you’ll love Marc Alan Edelheit’s Roman-inspired adventure series.

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Book Review Alert: The Winter Spirit by Indra Vaughn

Reviewed: December 19th, 2022
Released: November 16th, 2015
Genre: MM Romance

Nathaniel O’Donnelly likes his life quiet, his guests happy, and his ghosts well-behaved.

Although a boyfriend wouldn’t go amiss. Someone to share his beautiful B&B with, even if it is in the middle of nowhere and he’s long past the wrong side of thirty. Problem is, Nathaniel’s living with a ghost who thinks he’s cupid, and whose arrows fly a little too straight.

Gabriel Wickfield had the unfortunate luck of dying before his time, and now he’s stuck trying to make romance happen to earn his right to move along. Not that he’s bored in the meantime—Nathaniel is just too easy to tease. And also a little bit scrumptious…

With the curse reaching its expiration date, Gabriel needs to make a final match this Christmas. Without it, nothing but darkness awaits.

Love can conquer all, but can it beat death?

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Book Review Alert: The Half-Torn Page by David Palin

Reviewed: December 12th, 2022
Released: November 26th, 2019
Genre: Historical Fantasy

Ilsa Wlich, a striking, mysterious woman of indeterminate age and steeped in lore, ancient and new, arrives one fateful evening in beautiful, but remote and insular Reimersberg at the end of the Adventurer’s Road.

The town, deep in the mountains and wolf-inhabited forests in the Valley of the Witches, is seldom reached by outsiders and not particularly welcoming to them. Proud of their traditions, the people frown upon change and those who bring it.

Ilsa saves the life of a sick boy, Karl, but is suspicious of the cause of his sickness; a fact she keeps from the townsfolk for fear of causing panic. She earns the boy’s undying love, but also the enmity of some Town Elders, in particular the incompetent doctor and the mayor, Meister. Both feel as threatened by Ilsa as she feels wary of them.

Weary in mind and body from years of travelling, and still charmed by the town, Ilsa asks to settle in Reimersberg. Her presence there awakens a long-hidden darkness. She finds herself, together with Karl, treading paths far more mysterious, bloody and perilous than anything the Adventurer’s Road could conjure if they are to survive. Read my Thoughts…

Book Review Alert: Sins of the Father by Saffron Amatti

Reviewed: December 9th, 2022
Released: May 2nd, 2020
Genre: Fantasy Cozy Mystery

Tommy Kilbourne is a rogue, a scoundrel, a cad, completely untrustworthy, and has been trying to steal Lucas Rathbone’s girlfriend for years.

Unfortunately, he’s also the only person who might know where she’s gone.

Out of options and against his better judgement, Lucas enlists the help of this black sheep – and falls straight into a trap set for someone else.

Because Tommy has been scheming and will stop at nothing to avenge his blighted his life.

Now, Lucas must use all his wits to not only save the life of the woman he loves, but also that of a man who doesn’t deserve mercy.

The sins of the father cast long shadows across the life of his son…

But penance could prove fatal.

And time is running out. Read my Thoughts…

Book Review Alert: Dead Serious Case #2 by Vawn Cassidy

Reviewed: November 29th, 2022
Released: October 31st, 2022
Genre: MM Magical Realism

In the business of unfinished business…

It’s been over six months since a freak accident left pathologist Tristan Everett able to see ghosts, something he has yet to confess to his boyfriend. Instead, he now has a new calling, one he’s not entirely happy about… help the dead resolve their unfinished business so they can pass into the light, sounds simple right?

Wrong…

When the spirit of a sweet old lady suffering from Alzheimers follows him home he has no idea how to help her. When he finds out she’s been murdered by arsenic poisoning, a curiously outdated murder weapon, he once again finds himself tangled up in a murder investigation.

For Inspector Danny Hayes of New Scotland Yard, life couldn’t be better. After moving to London and meeting Tristan he’s ready to move their relationship to the next level, but something weird is going on with Tristan, he’s acting very strangely and with a killer on the loose he’s not taking any chances. He’s determined to discover whatever it is Tristan’s hiding from him.

Surrounded by a bunch of potentially murderous old ladies and aided by his sidekick, deceased drag queen and spirit guide in training, Dusty, Tristan must unravel the mystery of Mrs Delores Abernathy’s unfinished business and find the courage to share his deepest secret with the man he loves. Read My Thoughts…

Book Review Alert: The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

Reviewed: November 23rd, 2022
Released: March 2nd, 2021
Genre: Historical Fiction

Hidden in the depths of eighteenth-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to an unusual kind of clientele. Women across the city whisper of a mysterious figure named Nella who sells well-disguised poisons to use against the oppressive men in their lives. But the apothecary’s fate is jeopardized when her newest patron, a precocious twelve-year-old, makes a fatal mistake, sparking a string of consequences that echo through the centuries.

Meanwhile in present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, running from her own demons. When she stumbles upon a clue to the unsolved apothecary murders that haunted London two hundred years ago, her life collides with the apothecary’s in a stunning twist of fate—and not everyone will survive. Read my thoughts …

Book Review Alert: Off Track by Neil Bullock

Reviewed: November 20th, 2022
Released: June 15th, 2021
Genre: Science Fiction

Devastated and exhausted, Eden Lucas is the sole survivor of an unfathomable global catastrophe. As she grapples with the question of whether to go on alone, a train arrives.

It’s not a normal train, that much is clear. For one thing, it’s floating three feet off the ground in a supermarket parking lot. For another, there doesn’t seem to be any place for the driver to go.

Yet it seems to hint at possibilities. Maybe she’s not the only one who was spared. Maybe someone on the train will have answers.

And while she may yet discover what caused the death of her world, nothing can prepare her for just how little she understands about the universe. Read my thoughts…

Book Review Alert: Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson

Reviewed: November 6th, 2022
Released: October 5th, 2021
Genre: YA Fantasy

Artemisia is training to be a Gray Sister, tasked with cleansing the bodies of the dead so that their souls can pass on; otherwise, they will rise as spirits with a hunger for the living.

When her convent is attacked, Artemisia defends it by awakening a revenant. Wielding this ancient spirit’s extraordinary power almost consumes her – but only a vespertine, a priestess trained to wield a revenant, has any chance of saving Loraille.

As Artemisia unravels a sinister mystery of saints, secrets and dark magic, her bond with the revenant grows. And when a hidden evil begins to surface, she discovers that facing this enemy may require her to betray everything she’s been taught to believe – if the revenant doesn’t betray her first. Read my thoughts…

Book Review Alert: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Reviewed: November 3rd, 2022
Releases: September 15th, 2022
Genre: Contemporary Fantasy

Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has.

In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food to the Dead. But mostly, he is alone.

Messages begin to appear, scratched out in chalk on the pavements. There is someone new in the House. But who are they and what do they want? Are they a friend or do they bring destruction and madness as the Other claims?

Lost texts must be found; secrets must be uncovered. The world that Piranesi thought he knew is becoming strange and dangerous.

The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite. Read my Thoughts…