What’s on the Ereader? Not what I intended.

I had this post all ready to go, but the day I scheduled it, I made up my mind – I didn’t finish the book. I couldn’t. It was a very lackluster story that just trudged along. I went looking for reviews, thinking maybe others who have read it could convince me to continue, but it did the opposite. I haven’t stopped reading a book in a long time and it bothers me.

I truly didn’t know what to make of this story. I’ve had it for a couple of months and I was on chapter 14. The premise was interesting; the poles are about to flip and a group of scientists race to confirm their findings and study the effect, but I was nine chapter in and nothing really happened. Some frogs mutated and a couple people died. That’s it. I put it down for a week because I wasn’t sure if I would continue to read it, but I started again because I kept hoping it would get better. At chapter fourteen I gave up. I had half the book finished but nothing about it excited me and I can’t keep reading, no matter how many chapters in, if the story no longer interests me. I’m not posting the title out of respect for the author. I just wasn’t a fan of the book.

What’s on the eReader: The Prophetess, by Reed Blitzerman (Book 1).

Tait Gonzales is unemployable. Her parents are gone, and her college loans are due. Fortunately, she’s also a psychic. When a dark-haired stranger shows up for a reading with a bad vibe and a dead brother, she sees a chance for a different life.

By the time it’s over, she’ll either get rich or die trying.

~~~

(DISCLAIMER; I received this ebook via Booksprout but could not post anything due to severe restrictions from Amazon and Bookbub.)

The Prophetess follows Tait Gonzales, a young woman who has fallen on hard times. Tait is a scruffy, borderline alcoholic with a broken past and a psychic gift she wishes she didn’t have, but it comes in handy when she needs money fast. It’s a dark tale with a bit of humour and some interesting ghost characters. It’s an imaginative story that brings the reader along when she uses her gift. Tait comes across as being her own worse enemy, a character trying to make a better life for herself, despite herself.

That’s all I can say about it, as it’s only 63 pages long. I finished it within two days. You can probably do it in one sitting if you’re a fast reader.

I didn’t give this story a higher ranking because, to be honest, I felt cheated. The length of the story didn’t give me enough time to truly feel for the character; understand her, her life, and her abilities. There were too many questions I felt the author didn’t answer; most had to do with her past, especially regarding her mother, as the gift was inherited from her. All of this was just touched on, and then it ended. This ‘taste’ was not enough to tempt me to purchase more books in the series.

3 stars.   

What’s on the Ereader?: Chills, by Mary SanGiovanni.

CHILLS is described as a ‘True Detective meets H.P. Lovecraft’. I’ve never read any Lovecraft so I was very intrigued.

I found this book during my zombie book feast a few years back and downloaded a sample, but it wasn’t until May that I finally read it. It’s the first horror story I’ve bought. Usually, I stay away from that genre, but lately, I’ve been daring enough to try a few, and no, I don’t consider zombie books as horror, but that’s a different post.

The book takes place in a small town called Colby, in Connecticut. The town is ground zero for a cult that creates a doorway into another realm to unleash creatures from that realm into this one. There are a lot of grisly murders and cultish goings-on, wrapped up in a strong plot with interesting characters. The story moves along nicely and the plot kept me engaged so that even during the slower moments, I was hooked enough to keep reading.

The story jumps between two main characters; Kathy Ryan, a paranormal investigator, and Detective Jack Glazier. I’m not used to reading a story with multiple POVs, and at first, I found this a little distracting. Jumping between two POVs always throws me and takes a few paragraphs before I get back into the it, but there were sides to this plot that couldn’t be told from just one angle – especially during the final battle scenes – so it was necessary.

The only drawback I have deals with the deaths of four townsfolk. Ms. SanGiovanni goes into great detail about each of their deaths, but apart from showing how the creatures kill, it didn’t move the story forward and she could have left the other three out, as the characters who died were of no importance to the overall plot and were barely mentioned afterward, other than the fact they died.

Overall, this was a good story.

3 stars.

What’s on the eReader: Anne of Green Gables.

We’ve all seen the television mini-series from 1985, and during second lockdown I re-watched the 2017 show on Crave. When the series was cancelled I was very disappointed, so I decided to read the first book, and was pleasantly surprised to see that I’d already downloaded it on my tablet.

Anne of Green Gables is a beloved Canadian book that I feel every Canadian should read. Both the 1985 mini-series and 2017 show depicted the book wonderfully, and I was a little surprised to learn that Rachel Lynde was a Liberal supporter. I’ve seen both adaptations and am a fan, so it was easy enough to read along and remember how the scenes played out. I think that was the fun part for me; recalling both series as I read.

This book has all the charm that I expected, even if it doesn’t go into more detail. Personally, that’s what I liked about the tv. Series; that it told the story and then some. It gave the reader that extra bit of content that ‘could’ have happened, and was fun to watch, and unfortunately, reading the book after seeing both the mini-series and television show left me wanting more from the book version.

I’m pretty sure I’ll continue with the series, but I don’t think right away. I have a lot of other books in my TBR pile and I’d like to try and get through the first, but the temptation to keep reading the series is powerful. I read this on a whim and I am glad because it let me see the story that the author wanted people to see, instead of someone’s interpretation. Not that the mini-series and tv show isn’t good, but it’s nice to get caught up in the original material.

What’s on the eReader.

The Wailoa Waltz (The Noelani Lee Mysteries Book 6)

Blurb: For Hawaiian PI Noelani Lee, a typical Wednesday morning begins like any other day. But a bizarre series of events propels her into a case rife with disjointed family dynamics, unsettled scores, and murder.

It all starts when an elderly survivor of the 1960 tsunami asks Noelani to find her lost maneki**neko, or Japanese lucky cat. One problem: the ceramic figurine has been missing for 30 years. But before she can say “no,” Noelani is caught in a grudge-fueled tug-of-war between the scions of two once-powerful organized crime families, who also want the cat, and a shadowy former underworld kingpin, whose motives are less than transparent.

In taking a case she doesn’t want and would be better off avoiding, Noelani finds a connection between the missing cat and a decades-old unsolved murder—and an unexpected, unwanted, and gut-wrenching family reunion.

Publisher & Date: Self Published via distributors November 5, 2019.

Book Link: https://www.amazon.com/Wailoa-Waltz-Noelani-Lee-Mysteries/dp/1709437774

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Review:

With the pandemic raging I decided to take the time and branch off into genres I don’t normally read, and I started with a crime mystery.

As the blurb states, this story centers around a small ceramic cat that has been lost for several decades. The request for its return is harmless enough, but Noelani soon learns that there’s more to this cat than anyone is willing to tell her. The cryptic explanations and vague memories from everyone she questions doesn’t add up, especially when some clues point to a seemingly unrelated and unsolved murder that occurred around the same time the keepsake went missing.

Set in Hawaii, the writing is strong with quirky, eccentric characters that are all connected one way or another to the cat. I love that the author peppered the story with references and detailed descriptions of Hilo, with a bit of history thrown in to add to the overall flavour of the plot.

The only drawback that I had is that the story is thirty-three chapters long. At first I was hesitant about starting it because of this fact. I’ve read other novels (and dropped them) that had over thirty chapters, and most of the story therein felt more like padding and didn’t really move the plot forward in any way, but not for this story. For this story to truly reveal its secrets, I don’t think the author could have edited anything out and still keep it interesting.

I greatly enjoyed this book, and as it’s the sixth book in the series, I’ll be back for more investigations by Noelani and crew.

4 out of 5 stars.

What’s on the eReader: Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse

Blurb: While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dinétah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters.

Maggie Hoskie is a Dinétah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last best hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much more terrifying than anything she could imagine.

Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel the rez, unraveling clues from ancient legends, trading favors with tricksters, and battling dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology.

As Maggie discovers the truth behind the killings, she will have to confront her past if she wants to survive.

Welcome to the Sixth World.

Publisher & Date: Saga Press, June 2018

Book Link: Trail Of Lightning; Rebecca Roanhorse

*****

Review:

This book was recommended to me by a friend in my writing group. At first I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read it; my taste in novels is very different from others in the group, but the Native American storyline really interested me.

I was grabbed by the first line of the novel, and by the end of the first chapter, I KNEW this story was not going to let me down. I was right. Just the viewpoint alone kept me reading; a story with so many Native references, by only disappointment was that I couldn’t pronounce the Native words. I’d love to hear what they sound like so I’ll be ready when I purchase the second book of the series (I so am).

I’m not going to go into detail about this story, that’s not my thing and the book blurb I put at the top pretty much sums it up. If you’re looking for something in UF that is definitely different, then I suggest you give this a try.

5 out of 5 stars.

What’s on the eReader: Z Risen: Outbreak

Since I’m writing a plague novel, I’m reading more zombie novels to get a better understanding of the genre.

This book seems to be your typical zombie novel. It starts sometime after the infection has swept across the world.   Done in a diary/journal format the two protagonists survive among a city inhabited by zombies, occasionally coming across other survivors. Some they stick with, others well, you’ll have to read for yourself.

As the cover and blurb suggests, the book is filled with military terms and slang. The whole zombie apocalypse seen through the eyes of a military man. Written in first-person gives you a very limited view of the world and there were a few places where the characters bravado got to me. If the characters were scared, it didn’t come across very well. There’s no real plot other than just surviving, and no real motivation to do anything. I understand it’s a zombie novel, but I wasn’t seeing anything other than the characters just going through the motions. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good book with lots of action, just not the kind of zombie story I was looking for.

If you enjoy military-style zombie novels, you will enjoy this story.

 

What’s on the eReader: Bypass Gemini, written by Joseph R Lallo [Sci-Fi]

~ In a distant future, Trevor “Lex” Alexander was shaping up to be the next great race pilot until a fixed race got him banned from the sport. Reduced to making freelance deliveries, he thinks his life can’t get any worse. That’s when a package manages to get him mixed up with mobsters, a megacorp, and a mad scientist. Now his life depends on learning what their plans are, and how he can stop them.~

 

It’s been a while since I read any science fiction. Seems I’ve been in a dark and scary mood these last few years, so I was a little hesitant about reading this free ebook. Not because it was free, but as my taste has been leaning more toward the paranormal, I wondered if a Sci-Fi book could still interest me.

I’m glad I picked it up. This is a really good book. The characters are a little on the quirky side, but nothing wrong with that and just the right amount of techno babble too. I think that’s one of the best things about Sci-Fi novels, the exploration of futuristic technology.

The story is fast-paced, but nothing that lost me, and while at times the light-heartedness of the plot was a little hard to take, it didn’t really ruin the overall feel of the story. I think it could have been a little less quirky, but either way works.

4 stars

Book Review: Carmilla

Written by J. Sheridan LeFanu

I found this book while researching the origins of vampire stories. Carmilla is different from other vampire stories for several reasons, the main one being the possible lesbian undertones. I had always thought the homosexual characteristic was a more modern trait.  Whether or not the author intended this, I don’t know, but it’s clear from the prose that this creature of the night was very attracted to her victim.

The story is told in hindsight essay from the main character, Laura,  as she writes down her account of what happened from several years later. When Carmilla’s carriage is involved in an accident outside of their home, Carmilla’s mother is distraught and at the insistence of Laura’s father, the young girl is left behind to get better while her travelling companions continue on, reassuring them that they will be back for her in three months’ time.

Shortly after the young girl arrives, odd things begin to happen. Mostly through Laura’s dreams. Apart from Carmilla’s strange behaviour (here is where the overtones appear), nothing is out of the ordinary. Not even when people begin to die in the local village. It isn’t until a dear friend arrives that they begin to see their house guest for what she truly is.

I found this book to be one of the more easier reads. The link below gives you more information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmilla

I think, if you’re going to read vampire books, this is another one that must be in your collection.

 

5 out of 5

Book Review; Bram Stoker’s Dracula

If you love vampires, you must have this book in your collection.

Written during the last years of the 19^th century, it’s considered by many to be a gothic novel due to the ominous and dark prose.

The first thing that caught my eye is that the entire book it told not in one POV, but rather, in several and all through letters, journal entries and business correspondence. Having seen the movie, I can understand why the director would chose to take Mina POV through the movie.

Another thing that caught my eye was the prose. It was an awkward read. Flowery prose that often goes into great detail and descriptions. The dialogue left me shaking my head and wondering if Victorian England really spoke that way, and I had to constantly remind myself that this was the way they wrote novels back then. Anyone who has read a Jane Austin novel can understand.

Despite the awkwardness, I did enjoy it!