Ambush (Sydney Rose Parnell Book 3) --Barbara Nickless

Fiction / Thriller

356 pages / 2579 KB

5 Stars

I absolutely love the Sydney Rose stories. I've already pre-ordered Book #4. So, maybe my review is some biased? Proceed at will.

Sydney is believable. She doesn't think of everything, though she doesn't miss much, and when she does, it's a whopper. She's a Marine (a veteran of Afghanistan), she's a railroad cop, she has the dog her dead Marine boyfriend had, Clyde, who is also a highly trained K9 Cop. She has PTSD, and she has a (living) boyfriend who is a homicide detective.

She also has something that an unknown someone wants, in the worst way, and that someone is willing to kill for it. Unfortunately, Sydney doesn't have a clue what she has. Or where to look. But she'd better figure it out before her boyfriend who has been kidnapped by the someone is killed. She'd also better figure out where he is.

She's lost too many friends, family actually, for Marines are family. They may not always like each other, but they are family. And Sydney takes it as a personal affront when they are killed.

Ms Nickless has written another fast-paced book. Not so much a railroad story as the earlier ones, but nonetheless, one I couldn't put down until I got to the end. I think one who had not read books 1. Blood on the Tracks or 2. Dead Stop will find enough back story in this one to read as a stand alone, but having read the first two, and being familiar with the characters, I'm not one hundred per cent positive.

My biggest complaint is with Ms Nickless and it's one I've mentioned before: She writes slower than I read.

Air Raid (Book #1 of 2) -- by Eileen Enwright Hodgetts

Fiction

369 pages /887 KB

5 Stars

This was great fun. The author went back and forth between the backstory of World War II England and the present of 1952. I was pretty sure I'd figured out who done it by the end, but not the why. The fun with mysteries is, you don't know for sure until the end. And I was pleasantly surprised.

Toby Whitby is a solicitor (lawyer) who, when one of his bosses is killed, inherits the case he was working on. It is anything but a slam-dunk.

The Earl's daughter was secretly married to an American during the war and had a baby girl, Celeste after the husband was killed. Celeste was kidnapped and taken to America by one of the village girls who also married an American. 

Mom never remarried and is about to become the sole heir to the Earl's estate. She must find her child, or when she dies, the estate goes to someone in Australia who will probably sell it to a land developer. Of course, she can't provide original documents, as those were lost in one of the bombing raids.

Toby goes to the estate and discusses the case with the Earl, and his daughter, and goes into town to talk to others. People involved with the case, no matter how peripherally, start showing up dead. 

Can our near-blind lawyer figure it out in time? Can he get the right family reunited? Will he find the child before he gets offed? Will the red-headed woman in the post office love him as he loves her?

I have just ordered book two, Imposter. 

This Business of Wisdom --Poems by Lauren Camp

Poetry

72 pages

5 Stars

This small book contains huge poems. Read them, one at a time, out loud to not only hear the words but to taste them, to savor them, to feel them on your tongue, in your mouth.

You will cry, you will laugh, some of these poems will strike a resonance within you that vibrates for hours. And if you're a poet, you will mourn that you did not write them.

Omaha to Ogallala --by Terry Korth Fischer

Nonfiction / Memoir

203 pages

5 stars

Disclaimer: I had the opportunity to read the ARC.

I love a good memoir, and I love a good travel story. Ms. Fischer did an excellent job of combining the two. I had the honor of traveling to parts of the country she mentions in her book, but for entirely different reasons and therefore I saw an entirely different landscape. I much prefer hers.

The Korth sisters, of varying ages, decide to take a road trip in the hopes of rekindling their childhood friendship and closeness. The youngest is adopted and wants to find her birth parents. This brings a tension to the group as they never saw her as adopted, and they don't know how to react, threatening the tenuous bond of sisterhood. The older ones never saw the younger one as anything other than 'Sister.'

This is a delightful story of sisters and nieces and cousins and a great definition as to the definition and meaning of Family, with a capital F. 

Wild Country (World of the Others, The #2) –by Anne Bishop

Fiction / Fantasy

496 pages 

5 Stars

I read fiction for one reason, and one reason only – to escape my reality for a few hours. I have one criterion for fiction – I want to be happier/feel better for having read and finished the book than when I picked it up. That said, this book met my criterion.

Rumors are circulating that this is the last book in The Others series that Ms. Bishop will write. I truly hope not. Her world of Namid is great fun to get lost in. Just not too lost, for you want to be inside during the hours of darkness when the Elders are about.

The world of Namid is similar enough to ours to be recognizable, and different enough to at times be downright scary. The Elders/terra indigene rule the world where humans are tolerated as long as they obey the rules, which really aren't that hard. As long as they remember they are NOT the top of the food chain. It does give one pause to think on that.

If you've read the previous books, this one will re-introduce you to many of the earlier people. If you haven't read the earlier books, I recommend you read Written in Red and the others before this one. 

Humans, at least some, survived the Great Predation. Will they survive each other?

Nasty Water, Collected New Orleans Poems --by James Nolan

Poetry

93 pages

4 Stars

Mr. Nolan is a New Orleans native and put together a collection of 50 poems celebrating his 50 years of living there. Some are great fun; some made me cry. Nolan's use of words is wonderful, "Flannel shadows huddle...", "...rouge as thick as licorice/..."

I am not overly familiar with New Orleans, having only been there twice, but I have the idea this collection is a fair description of the town and its people, especially the French quarter—the fun parts and the not fun parts, discordant jazz and cheap booze, new life and old life. 

New Orleans Unleashed --by Rhonda Findley & John DeMers, phots by Vanessa S. Brown

Poetry/Photographs

70 pages

5 Stars n Barks

On a recent trip to the French Quarter, my friend and I stopped in to browse a new/used bookstore. We both like to patronize small, indy stores. Alas, I had my small dog with me (maybe he's medium, at 12 lbs?) so Sammy Brave Dog and I waited outside the store. The proprietor opened the door and began a conversation with Sammy (Chihuahua) and invited him to come in and shop. Oh, and me, the human at the other end of the leash.

As I was paying for the book I bought, she gave me this book. "I've had it for years, just waiting for someone who loves dogs like you do." Of course, the gift, and her treatment of Sammy probably tinted my glasses rose, but I enjoyed the heck out of the book.

The photography is great, the little poems of Indy's travels through New Orleans are fun, but the star of the show is the dog, Indy, who is separated from his humans and searches NOLA until he finds them, giving us quite the tour. I enthusiastically give it 5 stars for pure fun. Sammy Brave Dog gives it 5 barks!

Again Calls the Owl --by Margaret Craven

Nonfiction / autobiographical

120 pages

5 Stars

I read I Heard the Owl Call My Name when it came out and loved it. I read it in one sitting. Then I read her second novel, Walk Gently This Good Earth. I loved them both, and have read them more than once. With great delight, I recently discovered Again Calls the Owl, and read it shortly after it arrived.

This is a collection of autobiographical vignettes about Ms. Craven's life, from childhood to student at Stanford to how she became a writer, and then the writer of I Heard the Owl Call My Name. I enjoy reading about the authors whose books I like, and there were many places in this book where I laughed out loud. And a couple where the tears fell.  

If you are looking for a sequel to I Heard the Owl Call My Name, do not get this book. If you are looking for some insight into the life of the author, you're in for a treat when you read this book.

The Flying Mountain --by Christoph Ransmayr, translated by Simon Pare

Fiction / Free Verse Poem

336 pages

5 Stars

Herr Ransmayr had me with the first two words: "I died"

What? Wait a minute. If you are dead how can you write such a beautiful book? I had to keep reading and frankly found it difficult to put down. 

The story is narrated by Padraig and is about growing up with his brother, Liam, the alpha male, the father's favorite, the one who knew no fear. It tells how Liam not only got Paddy to move to his island off the coast of Ireland but got him to go on a trip he didn't want to make to Tibet to climb a mountain that flew. 

This is a story of two men who love each other, who fight, who grow, how one learns acceptance and the other learns survival. I laughed out loud in places, and I cried in places, and I truly think I am better for having read this book. It is one I will read a second time, perhaps a third.

Please, don't let the idea of it being blank or free verse, a long narrative poem, cause you not to pick it up, and read it. I guarantee you will only be aware of the form when you first pick it up. The story is gripping from the beginning, to the flashbacks to Captain Daddy and his maneuvers in the Irish mountains, to the climbing of the mountains in Tibet. Ransmayr is a master at his craft. 

Premonition (#2 of Cotton Lee Penn books) --by Tower Lowe

fiction

324 pages / 670 KB

5 Stars

Set in the 1860s and the 1970s, this book offers a slightly different look at the Civil War and the people caught up in it both as it happened, and as descendants of those same people.

This is the second of the Cotton Lee books, and as soon as I knew it was available, I had pre-ordered a copy. As it happened, I was on a road trip when it arrived in my Kindle, and imagine my surprise when I discovered Homeville VA actually exists! Alas, I did not have the time to visit, though I was fairly close. Which is probably goodness, as I'd have been on the search for Miss Cotton Lee herself.

Cotton Lee is a survivor of polio (poor thing) and lives in the South (poor thing) and was raised to be a spinster invalid (poor thing). I mean, who in their right mind would want to marry a gal who limps (poor thing)?? Fortunately for our heroine, she has ignored most of those people around her and is currently employed as a private eye for the local lawyer. He sees a very capable young lady, not a (poor thing).

The Civil War swirls around Homeville back when, and the Viet Nam war swirls around Homeville in the present when. To be honest, I may not have bought the book had I realized half was centered in the Civil War. I am, frankly, a little tired of people who are still fighting it. Rest Assured, Mz Lowe is NOT still fighting that war, and the perspective of her characters actually gave some much-needed balance to it! 

A marvelous read. Buy it, read it, enjoy it!

To read my review of Gone on Sunday, the first Cotton Lee book, go here.

The Killer Collective (#3 of Livia Lone books) --by Barry Eisler

Fiction

401 pages / 1205 KB

5 Stars

I'm never sure what to write when I review one of Barry Eisler's Livia Lone books. Thrillers are not my genre of choice, but I can't stop reading these. In fact, I'll be reading his other books soon.

Livia Lone is a Seattle Sex Crimes detective who doesn't think NO is a proper answer when she's on the hunt. When she tumbles to a hurtcore pedophile ring, when the Feds shut her investigation down, she calls on a mercenary she knows to help. He, in turn, calls his fellow merc buddies.

Mayhem ensues, also murder and other fast-moving and fun things. If you are squeamish about such things as sex trafficking, don't read this book. If you do read this book, and I hope you do, be sure to read the notes at the end.

I am delighted this is a series. The only problem with it that I can see, is I read them considerably faster than Eisler writes them.

This was an Amazon First Read. 

To see my review of the first Livia Lone book, go here.