Posts Tagged ‘novels’

Book Review – “Vidu” by Giles Anderson – 3 Stars and a “Don’t Read after Dark” Shout Out!

Posted: March 20, 2013 in book reviews
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This is clearly a book NOT designed for the squeamish but instead for the readers who love their daily dose of graphic, disturbing, sadistic adult horror, blood and murder, mixed up with a potent vidu_gilesandersonsyringe of hard drugs and alcohol – handed to them on a tray full of human skulls and gunpowder.

In this gritty dark tale, the main character awakes with a huge hangover, soaked in blood, and holding a gun he doesn’t recognise. We are then taken on a journey of self discovery as, via phone calls, dead bodies and bizarre rendezvous with a stranger, he pieces together a past that he has been trying so hard to suppress.

Indeed, it reminded me of an old James Herbert novel mixed with a bit of early Stephen King. My disappointment was that this plot has been done so many times before and this version didn’t offer anything new to keep me turning the pages. Despite being well written, it suffers from far too many annoying references to hangovers, blood and darkness as if I, the reader was some sort of horror virgin.  Perhaps to improve the readers experience, the writer could employ a wider variety of descriptions to avoid tempting the reader to become annoyed with the repetition.

Again, definitely not for the faint of heart, young and squeamish but, if this is your type of book , I personally recommend that instead of purchasing this, you go up into the dark attic with your fading torchlight, walk across those creaky floorboards and get all those old Stephen King novels out you haven’t read for a few decades.

3 Stars out of 5

~~~~~~~Review written by Roger Gerald Scott, best-selling novelist, author of 5 short stories, voted “Most Promising New Author 2012″ at EKAP and recently received “Clean Slate’s Most Promising Breakthrough Short Story 2013″ for “The Strange Case of Will Newman”. You can view his blog at http://rogerrgeraldscott.blogspot.no/  Also a team member of theprobookeditor.com, offering formatting and book cover design services for indie eBook publishers and a professional editor.

Author’s links:

http://gileswrites.com
http://facebook.com/GilesAAnderson

Book Review-“The Old Spook” by Charles Ameringer 4 stars and a “hang onto your seat” Shout Out!

Posted: February 25, 2013 in book reviews, Recommended Reading
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Link to Amazon Page for Charles AmeringerIf you like your spy novels and american foreign policy, you will love this spider web of espionage writing. Its defined as fiction but feels like a walkthrough of  history as it really happened, thanks to all the well researched details. We follow Tom Miller, CIA Agent through all the events that shaped our not too far off recent history. From Costa Rica and Nicaragua to the Bay of Pigs and Cuban missiles… its all here, as Tom gets to the centre of all the secret wars. Everything and everywhere is touched upon here from Russian agents, Lee Harvey Oswald, Oliver North , and even the plot to assassinate Fidel Castro.

The author couldn’t be more qualified to tell the tale. Charles Ameringer is a Professor emeritus of Latin American history at Penn State University, a former captain in the USAF Reserve and a former Intelligence Analyst in the U.S. Department of Defense. 

A great read, entertaining and powerful, a story that leaves you constantly on the the edge. Furthermore, all author royalties will be donated to the Wounded Warrior Project. Highly recommended. 

4 stars out of five

Reviewed by Roger Gerald Scott, Award Winning Published Author and Debra L Hartmann, Published Author, Professional Editor and daily Blogger

Link to Charles Ameringer’s Amazon page, stop by and check out all of the other books he has published:    http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=charles%20ameringer

This review is also being published on http://rogerrgeraldscott.blogspot.no/

Drop a line to mrsdlhartmann@gmail.com to get your book on the review list and be sure to ask about the Author Interviews on my Radio Talk Show with NO Radio…you have to read an Author Interview on my blog to understand!

Book Review – Out of the Blue by Mary H Collins – 3.5 Stars and a “Snuggle up by the Fire and read this Romance Novel” Shout Out!

Posted: February 21, 2013 in book reviews
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This very pleasant romantic novel by Mary H Collins makes for a very comfortable and pleasant reading. The story revolves around Erika Thomson, recently divorced and living her life alone for the first time, taking the reader on her journey that centres on her love for Kevin, a relationship that gets off to a bad start when her younger sister unfortunately gets him first. Broken hearted, she starts over again and finds comfort in getting closer to her daughter and becoming friends with her ex-husband and his new wife while they face huge problems after a serious accident.

All the ups and downs of her life are described here as Erika boldly struggles on, always making sacrifices for others but never for herself. It reminded me of an old novel “The Thorn Birds”, with its inherent drama though maybe not quite as dramatic and certainly lacking the romantic geographical setting. Overall, I highly recommend this book if you like romance novels. My only criticism would be that the characters in the book were not developed enough for my tastes. They were always too busy doing things in the book but I never felt that I understood what made them do these things or why they did them. For example, I never felt satisfied with why Kevin, the love of Erika’s life, ended up with her younger sister at the beginning of the story. But perhaps this was a deliberate ploy to get the story moving along and that is not a negative attribute but in this case did make for a good reading experience overall.

Reviewed by Roger Gerald Scott, Award Winning Published Author and Debra L Hartmann, Published Author, Professional Editor and daily Blogger

Link to Mary H Collins website, stop by and check out all of the other books she has published as well!  http://www.maryhcollins.weebly.com

This review is also being published on http://rogerrgeraldscott.blogspot.no/

Drop a line to mrsdlhartmann@gmail.com to get your book on the review list and be sure to ask about the Author Interviews on my Radio Talk Show with NO Radio…you have to read an Author Interview on my blog to understand!

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