Category Archives: 5 Star Reviews

5 Star Historical Fiction Novel – Songbirds Are Free by P M Terrell @pmterrell

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It has only been recently that I have begun to read outside my favorite genres, and it is because of authors like P M Terrell. I first fell in love with her writing when I was reading the Black Swamp Mystery series and I never looked back.

Songbirds Are Free: Inspired by the True Story of the Abduction and Captivity of Mary Neely

Amazon / Goodreads

MY REVIEW

Close your eyes, take a deep breath and let your mind go. Imagine you are a pioneer woman, captured by the Indians, bound hand and foot and taken far from home. Imagine floating in a canoe, smelling the trees, feeling the wind on your face and listening to the boat knife through the water. Around the bend the prairie spreads out in its vastness and a herd of bison grow larger. There is a white buffalo. Have you heard of it?

Songbirds Are Free by P M Terrell is told from two points of view. One is Mary’s, the other is Jim’s. A relative who never gives up in his search for her.

Captured by Indians, Mary chose to live and wait patiently to escape, adopting the life instead of dying and her determination to survive and return to her family is amazing.

Songbirds Are Free is a piece of P M Terrell’s personal history, spiced up with her ability to write a story that will have you white knuckled, sometimes pissed off, sometimes sad, sometimes even spreading a smile or two across my face as I travel with P M Terrell in Mary’s fictional footsteps.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Songbirds Are Free by P M Terrell.

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos
5 Stars

GOODREADS BLURB

Songbirds are Free is the story of Mary’s years in captivity and her eventual escape. It is a journey that will take her from present-day Nashville deep into Indian Territory–through Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan before she is able to successfully escape her captors. It is the story of courage and determination in the face of overwhelming odds. It is the story of one woman’s effort to survive a brutal existence and travel hundreds of miles alone to be reunited with her family.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

P.M. Terrell

p.m.terrell is the pen name for Patricia McClelland Terrell, the award-winning, internationally acclaimed author of more than 21 books in four genres: contemporary suspense, historical adventure/suspense, computer how-to and non-fiction.

Prior to writing full-time, she founded two computer companies in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area. Among her clients were the Central Intelligence Agency, United States Secret Service, U.S. Information Agency, and Department of Defense. Her specialties were in white collar computer crimes and computer intelligence, themes that have carried forward to her contemporary suspense.

She has been a full-time author since 2002. Vicki’s Key was a top five finalist in the 2012 International Book Awards and 2012 USA Book Awards nominee, and The Pendulum Files was a national finalist for the Best Cover of the Year in 2014. The Tempest Murders was one of four finalists in the 2013 International Book Awards, cross-genre category.

Her historical suspense, River Passage, was a 2010 Best Fiction and Drama Winner. It was determined to be so historically accurate that a copy of the book resides at the Nashville Government Metropolitan Archives in Nashville, Tennessee.

She is also the co-founder of The Book ‘Em Foundation, an organization committed to raising public awareness of the correlation between high crime rates and high illiteracy rates. She is the organizer and chairperson of Book ‘Em North Carolina, an annual event held in Lumberton, North Carolina, to raise funds to increase literacy and reduce crime. For more information on this event and the literacy campaigns funded by it, visit www.bookemnc.org. She is also the founder of The Novel Business, mentoring authors in the business end and selling of books.

She sits on the board of the Friends of the Robeson County Public Library. She has also served on the boards of Robeson County Arts Council, Crime Stoppers and Crime Solvers and became the first female president of the Chesterfield County-Colonial Heights Crime Solvers in Virginia.

MY REVIEWS FOR P M TERRELL

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Don’t Drink The Kool Aid – Scapegoat by Adam Howe @Adam_G_Howe

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Woo Hoo! More quirky and outrageous horror courtesy of Adam Howe.

Enter…If you dare.

Scapegoat

Amazon / Goodreads

MY REVIEW

Okay….Here we go on another wildassed adventure.

A house on wheels, three mangy rednecks and a Wrestlemania road trip. I feel nothing can go wrong. ‘as I chuckle under my breath’

Some men never grow up, and Mike’s friends, Lonnie and Pork Chop are a perfect example.

They decide to take a shortcut and I know nothing good can come of that, but I sure am eager to find out what kind of trouble they find. They, literally, run into the “goat”, causing a crazy band of vicious, coldblooded cultists to chase them down.

Have no fear. Adam has a way of taking his flawed and twisted characters and turning them into lovable friends that come through at the end, but at what cost. He kills his characters off with no shame, probably laughing with glee as Another One Bites the Dust.

This action packed, fire and brimstone apocalyptic tale leaves me wondering…does anyone survive when the line between good and evil is blurred? Be careful…if you let pride…think you know it all….Arrogance is not an asset.

One minute I felt the truth of it all and the next I felt I was in hell with Sam and Dean Winchester.

Adam Howe shattered my expectations, leaving me loving and hating Mike and his band of misfits…and looking forward to their next twisted adventure.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Scapegoat by Adam Howe.

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos
5 Stars

GOODREADS BLURB

March 29, 1987… For metalheads Mike Rawson, Lonnie Deveroux, and Pork Chop, an RV road trip to Wrestlemania III becomes a one-way ticket to hell. While delivering an illegal shipment of counterfeit wrestling merchandise, an ill-fated shortcut through the Kentucky backwoods leads them to a teenaged girl carved head to toe in arcane symbols. Soon our unlikely heroes are being hunted through the boonies by a cult of religious crazies who make the Westboro Baptists look like choirboys… a cult that will stop at nothing to get the girl back and complete a ritual that has held an ancient evil at bay for centuries… Until now.

From Adam Howe, writer of Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet, and the winner of Stephen King’s On Writing contest… and James Newman, acclaimed author of Odd Man Out and Animosity.

PRAISE FOR SCAPEGOAT:

“As if Joe Lansdale wrote, and John Carpenter directed, the Jonestown massacre. SCAPEGOAT is Howe and Newman’s Kool-Aid and you’ll want to drink it to the very last drop.” (Eryk Pruitt, What We Reckon)

“A delightful backwoods detour through the three Rs of Southern-fried horror: Rednecks, revenge, and Wrestlemania! One of 2018’s most entertaining reads. This is one GOAT you’ll definitely want to get.” (Michael Patrick Hicks, Mass Hysteria)

ABOUT ADAM HOWE

Adam Howe

Adam Howe writes the twisted fiction your mother warned you about. A British writer of fiction and screenplays, he lives in London with his partner, their daughter, and a hellhound named Gino. Writing as Garrett Addams, his short story Jumper was chosen by Stephen King as the winner of the international On Writing contest, and published in the paperback/Kindle editions of King’s memoir. His fiction has appeared in places like Nightmare Magazine, Thuglit, Mythic Delirium, and Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volume 1. He is the author of Tijuana Donkey Showdown, and two novella collections, Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet, and Black Cat Mojo. In the pipeline: the occult thriller Scapegoat, co-written with James Newman, a horror/crime collaboration with Adam Cesare, and 80s action throwback, One Tough Bastard.

Stalk him at Facebook, Goodreads, and Twitter

MY ADAM HOWE REVIEWS

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Who Will Survive? Sister of Shadows by Eric Kent Edstrom @ekedstrom

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I have been reading the Scion Chronicles since the beginning, The Daughter of Nothing by Eric Kent Edstrom. Sister of Shadows is the third book and all I can say is Eric did not let me down.

Sister of Shadows (The Scion Chronicles #3)

Amazon / Audiobook / Goodreads

MY REVIEW

The evil of humanity oozes from the pages in the third book, Sister of Shadows by Eric Kent Edstrom. I am loving the series and can hardly wait to see how he wraps it up in the fourth and final book.

Sister of Shadows picks up where Child of Lies left off, so reading in order is necessary. I have loved each story, watching the children struggle to survive as they discover who they really are and why they were ‘born’.

The topic raises ethical and moral issues, while pointing out how power and money corrupt and some people will stop at nothing to get what they want.

I have a lot of notes, but because this is the third book, I tossed them to the wind. I will not spoil all the twists, turns and surprises that Eric has piled onto these resilient children. I have watched them grown and develop into young adults, pushed beyond anything they ever could have conceived. I have watched their leadership skills rise to the forefront, their maturity and creativity grow at a fast pace, forced because of their circumstances.

They make a run for freedom, for life, and the treachery and danger that follows them kept me in suspense, wondering who will survive, because Eric doesn’t hesitate to kill off his characters. I hope they haunt him at night. LOL One of my favorite newbies is Meow Meow and if you read the story you will see why. This girl is off the charts, afraid of nothing.

I find the story unique and original, and it sticks in my head. It is hard to surprise me with something new and different, so this is a refreshing story. A story that keeps on giving a high level of tension and pacing, keeping my total attention.

I laughed, I cried, I raged and I sighed…knowing Eric has more to come.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Sister of Shadows by Eric Kent Edstrom.

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos
4 Stars

GOODREADS BLURB

Escape. That is all Jacey cares about as the riveting story of the Scions continues.

Escape is in their grasp. The Scions now have a way off the island—a ship—but they have no place to go.

With an enemy hiding in their midst, and shaken by murder, kidnapping, and an impending military invasion, time for escape is running out.

A fast-paced rollercoaster of a novel, Sister of Shadows will keep you breathless all the way to the shocking finale.

Eric Kent Edstrom

ABOUT THE AUTHOR .

Eric is an author, songwriter, husband, father, and guitarist. He is the author of YA SF series The Undermountain Saga, which includes Undermountain, Afterlife, and Starkiller.Eric loves working out with kettlebells and eating pretty much anything with peanut butter. . Stalk Eric:  Website  /  Twitter  /  Goodreads .

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MY ERIC KENT EDSTROM REVIEWS

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She’s More Than Meets The Eye – The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson @peterswanson3

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This is another overdue review and I loved The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson, so I don’t know why it took me so long to share it with you.

Thanks to Peter Swanson and William Morrow.

The Kind Worth Killing

Amazon  /  Audiobook  /  Goodreads

MY REVIEW

On a plane from London to Boston, Ted and Lily meet. Does this sounds familiar? Even so, Peter Swanson gives it his own special twist that kept me reading, cover to cover.

Ted’s a rich businessman and Lily works is a free spirit. But you don’t want to cross her.

They begin a game of truth and it gets way out of hand. Just the kind of games I love reading about.

The circle of treachery went round and round, piece by piece. Things didn’t go as planned, but do they ever? The betrayals and vengeance was shared by all.

I knew what would happen…sorta…

Playing judge, jury and executioner can bring bad Karma to you.

The pacing of the mystery kept me reading, unable to put the book down. It plays with my head as I try to keep everything straight and figure out who’s going to do what to who. Do they really think they’ll get away with it? Will they get away with it? Who is they? Can a bad person be good? LOL Full circle.

The writing is fantastic. I read the book cover to cover in one sitting. I didn’t find all the answers until the very last page. Way to go Peter!

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson.

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos5 Stars

GOODREADS BLURB

A devious tale of psychological suspense involving sex, deception, and an accidental encounter that leads to murder. Fans of Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train will love this modern reimagining of Patricia Highsmith’s classic Strangers on a Train from the author of the acclaimed The Girl with a Clock for a Heart—which the Washington Post said “should be a contender for crime fiction’s best first novel of 2014.”

On a night flight from London to Boston, Ted Severson meets the stunning and mysterious Lily Kintner. Sharing one too many martinis, the strangers begin to play a game of truth, revealing very intimate details about themselves. Ted talks about his marriage that’s going stale and his wife Miranda, who he’s sure is cheating on him. Ted and his wife were a mismatch from the start—he the rich businessman, she the artistic free spirit—a contrast that once inflamed their passion, but has now become a cliché.

But their game turns a little darker when Ted jokes that he could kill Miranda for what she’s done. Lily, without missing a beat, says calmly, “I’d like to help.” After all, some people are the kind worth killing, like a lying, stinking, cheating spouse. . . .

Back in Boston, Ted and Lily’s twisted bond grows stronger as they begin to plot Miranda’s demise. But there are a few things about Lily’s past that she hasn’t shared with Ted, namely her experience in the art and craft of murder, a journey that began in her very precocious youth.

Suddenly these co-conspirators are embroiled in a chilling game of cat-and-mouse, one they both cannot survive . . . with a shrewd and very determined detective on their tail.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter Swanson is the author of The Kind Worth Killing, and has degrees from Trinity College, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Emerson College. He lives with his wife in Somerville, Massachusetts, where he is at work on his next novel.

Catch Up:

MY PETER SWANSON REVIEW

The Girl With A Clock For A Heart

 
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