This book has a lot going for it: secret agent vibe, engaging plotting style, and the feeling of a learner’s guide for real-world hacking infiltration.
Unfortunately, I cannot recommend it without some major caveats. Continue reading
Book Review
“The Rakshasa’s Bride” by Suzannah Rowntree
Love is dynamite, every woman a detonator, and every man a fuse. In the hand of God, it builds castles…in the hand of man, it destroys cities.
This book felt like more allegory than story, and at 1800 words it felt like I sped through it. Although I’m much less familiar with the original “Beauty and the Beast” than I was with “The Fisherman and His Wife,” this retelling felt less like the Disney version and more like Taming of the Shrew. Continue reading
“Operation Zulu” by Ronie Kendig
When the book opens with someone getting gunned down in the street clutching a laptop, you figure it’s going to be good. Operation Zulu Redemption focuses on a team of female Special Forces soldiers who have gone into hiding after a mission accidentally took the lives of twenty-two innocent bystanders. Living new civilian lives, they hide from the past and from whoever was responsible for sending them in – until someone starts killing them.
All Time Favorites! #TopTenTuesday
Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten ALL TIME Favorite Books!
Crafting an “All Time Favorites” list is always difficult, but I have attempted it with the understanding that my tastes and evaluations may have changed ten years hence, and there’s nothing criminal about that!
Without further ado:
-
That Hideous Strength, C. S. Lewis
I recently read this masterpiece for the third time, and in this most recent reading the theological truths, the philosophical overtones and subtexts, vibrated for me in a way they hadn’t previously. Especially as I watch Western civilization teetering on the brink of self-destruction, it was intoxicating to see the seeds of our destruction are as old as the earth itself, and liberating to know Man’s Salvation is older than Time. Continue reading
“Prince of Fishes” by Suzannah Rowntree
When a poor fisherman fishes up a magical fish promising to grant him any wish he desires, he and his wife must decide just what to wish for…and when to stop wishing.
I was familiar with this classic fairy tale, but author Suzannah Rowntree gave it both some eery twists and some captivating background-color. Continue reading
“Once Upon a Summer” by Janette Oke
In the good old simple days, when boys did chores instead of play video games and parents could be efficiently disposed of in farming accidents…Ten-year-old Joshua Jones is perfectly content living with his grandpa, great-uncle, and teenaged aunt “Auntie Lou”. Continue reading
“Loglines in the Wild” by Jordan Smith
Conversational, Accessible Tip-sheet
Jordan Smith’s previous work Finding The Core Of Your Story was a step-by-step guide to composing a logline – a one sentence summary of the “through-line” of a book’s plot. This is especially useful for authors trying to clarify and market their own works, but a logline can also be fun for readers eager to share their favorite reads with others.
For those (like me) who love to see things in action and so love examples, Loglines In The Wild provides eight case studies of real independent authors crafting loglines to help them with writing and marketing their ideas. Continue reading
“A Study in Scarlet”
Science. Darkness. Vigilante justice.
Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens allegedly said, “A classic is a book which everyone praises, yet nobody reads.” The inverse is equally applicable, in that a book which everyone is forced to read in high-school English is not, for that reason, a good book.
Published in 1886, A Study in Scarlet is the first story about Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. It introduces the world-famous champion of logic, the private “consulting detective” who specializes in solving sensational cases while patronizing the dumbstruck narrator, Dr. Watson. Continue reading
“A Double Barrelled Detective Story”
Human beings are curious creatures, subject to passions of love and hatred, extremes of pride and compassion. A Double Barrelled Detective Story expresses this with curious – yet characteristic – Mark Twain humor.
Continue reading
“A Sea of Purple Ink” by Rebekah Shafer
Fun Worldbuilding, Superheroes, and Lotsa Action
Through the sewers and cobblestone streets of a psuedo-Victorian fantasy world, Reese leads an outlawed band on the run from police because of the special magical abilities they possess. The action almost never slows as Reese frantically throws plans together and tries to rescue as many of the “abilitied” as possible. Continue reading