The Tale of Miss Susie and her Steamboat: And Other Songs from your Childhood Explained by Sonja N. Kreps BOOK REVIEW

The Tale of Miss Susie and her Steamboat: And Other Songs from your Childhood Explained 
by Sonja N. Kreps

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reviewed for +Readers' Favorite 

The Tale of Miss Susie and her Steamboat: And Other Songs from your Childhood Explained is an amazing concept. Your favorites; Susie, Mary Mack and the Princess Pat are all there, but they are young twenties, just out of college and starting their lives with their first jobs. Author Sonja N. Kreps takes common modern issues, and uses these childhood song characters to deal with those issues. From drug use, to abusive boyfriends, to bisexualty and more. The thing is that the songs fit with these themes so well, and it makes an amazing story. Sometimes serious and sometimes funny, it gave each song a new meaning and made me rethink singing each and every one of them.

The Tale of Miss Susie and her Steamboat done this way is so amazing. Not only do the songs fit well with the themes that author Sonja Kreps has picked, they seem to explain the songs even. Even more there is more than one layer to the story, you have the main story that is going one, but then there is more going on in the background that makes things even more involved. The issues that it addresses in the domestic violence is something that needs to be addressed, and the back stories that are told in the way it began, the past victims and current victim and stopping it all make it clear that you can't give in to the abuser. Definitely more of an adult book because of the issues addressed, but well worth the read!

View all my reviews

Eye of The Storm: Eilida's Tragedy (Ruthless Storm Trilogy) (Volume 1) by Elle Klass BOOK REVIEW

Eye of The Storm: Eilida's Tragedy (Ruthless Storm Trilogy) (Volume 1) 
by Elle Klass

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reviewed for +Readers' Favorite 

Eilida is planning to meet up with friends at the local bar, but instead something draws her to the neighbors house. As she slow sneaks over and looks in, what she sees is so horrific and terrifying that she takes off running, it has started storming hard, but she just keeps running until she slide down a hillside landing in a heap against a rock. Sunshine is a receptionist at the Lyden Times Newspaper and she loves her neat and orderly world, only this day nothing is neat and orderly. A young woman was found in the woods with no identification and no memory, strange thing is she looks just like Sunshine only with different color hair. Eye of The Storm: Eilida's Tragedy (Ruthless Storm Trilogy) (Volume 1) follows Sunshine as she turns reporter and tries to discover what sent this woman running and ending up in her town. Elle Klass gives us a wonderful tale of tragedy, survival, repressed memories and recovery.

Eye of The Storm centers around Eilida's fear of storms. She hates them, and as the story progresses we slowly learn the reasoning. Sunshine on the other hand can never remember a day of rain, but as she investigates this case, she is suddenly plagued by storms. Elle Klass creates a compelling story using tragedy, survival, guilt, repressed memories, visual triggers and storms to create a tale that empcompasses so much more than you expect. The tragedy of three families are told in this one story. It is a well written and compelling story that is worth the read. Great for young adults and adults as well.

View all my reviews

Bloodline : Forgotten Origin Trilogy, Book 1 by Tara Ellis BOOK REVIEW

Bloodline : Forgotten Origin Trilogy, Book 1 
by Tara Ellis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reviewed for +Readers' Favorite 

Alex and her younger brother Jake are laying on the hillside in the park watching the stars, along with their mother and most of the rest of the town, waiting on the greatest meteor display in 5000 years. Her dad loved this stuff and had been talking about this display for years, in fact he talked of them watching it in Egypt, but that had been before he died. The shower is spectacular, although one seems to come pretty close, and then Alex's mom comes down with a terrible cold. Not only Alex's mom, but most of the town. As people come out of their colds they are not the same, and Alex starts finding clues left behind by her father. She turns to Chris, a 75% Cherokee by blood boy in her school, as he didn't get sick either. Alex is 50 % Egyptian by blood. Bloodline: Forgotten Origin Trilogy Book 1 follows Alex and Chris as they try to figure out her fathers clues and what is going on with their friends and family. Author Tara Ellis gives us a wonderful story that fits many genres.

Bloodline builds on purity of a family blood history, so Chris and Alex, having a extremely pure family history have highly concentrated bloodlines and therefore they do not get sick when the virus takes over. This is a unique concept and at the same time slightly disturbing because the odds of anyone having sure a pure bloodline nowadays is remote. Tara Ellis gives us a story that easily falls into the science fiction, or fantasy or even paranormal genres, but no matter how you classify it, it is worth a read for young adults and adults alike. This book is to be the first in a three part trilogy.

View all my reviews

The Stray : To Plan by K. E. Strokez BOOK REVIEW

The Stray : To Plan 
by K. E. Strokez


Reviewed for +Readers' Favorite .

Matthew Bridge has been accepted into a prodigious academy called St. Kenneth's. His twin brother Ken is accepted along for the ride, despite his objections. Life in this boarding school is going to be like nothing Ken has ever experienced before. Right from the beginning Ken begins having hallucinations. They feel real to him, but he is not sure what is really going on. As the story progresses we learn that nothing in The Stray: To Plan is what it seems to be, everything is an illusion and a trick. K.E. Strokez gives us a fantasy, science fiction, paranormal novel in which someone has set up a simulation world that runs in a bubble, and there are people watching it, yet it is not real. The gravity of the situation is enormous.

The Stray: To Plan turns out to be an elaborate simulation that has been running for a very, very long time, in fact at this point in time they are at Phase 83. The people in the simulation think it is real life and are living day to day, and yet there are people out side watching them, observing what they are doing. K.E. Strokez writes a story that is part fantasy, part science fiction, part paranormal and yet at the same time there is just enough technology available today that makes you stop and think, you know this might just actually be possible to pull off. Reading it gave me goosebumps and reminding me of reading George Orwell's 1984 back in 1982. There is just enough reality to make you take notice of what he is writing about and make you think about this as a possibility, not today, but in a few years. Great read for young adults and adults alike!

View all my reviews

2211 Umbra: A Future History Novel by: Grigor Fedan BOOK REVIEW

2211 Umbra: A Future History Novel

by: Grigor Fedan


Reviewed For +Readers' Favorite 

The legacy of the first African American President turns out to be a wake-up call to all people that we have no come as far as we thought we had in terms of equality, and so the next years are spent actively making changes until 200 years into the future the world is something altogether different, there is no race, no money, no politics.  Welcome to 2211 Umbra A Future History Novel, where people are split into tiers: regents, that have ruling powers, first tiers, second tiers and so on.  Anyone, through education and hard work can promote themselves through the ranks up to a first tier, and with support maybe even become a regent.  Religion and faith in a God plays no part in this society, those people have all abdicated to Texas, with its own government. Soon a zealot with use religion and God as a vessel to exact revenge on a regent he feels slighted him, cutting off Texas from the rest of the world and starting a "holy war".  Grigor Fedan gives us a look at a future society that is once again making the same mistakes as the past, think Stalin and Hitler, because they have forgotten the lessons of the past.

2211 Umbra is a wonderful tale in that you have this "perfect" society that has taken away the need for money or politics, and made everyone equal so to speak, or that was the original plan and those in it still think they are doing that, but there are some outside that don't see it that way. Of course they are living in their scientific world and not thinking about God, and they don't realize what they are missing. Only when they are faced with this war, that divides them do they start to understand things.  Grigor Fedan mixes future with past history, religion and science and what comes out is a wonderful tale of life that needs it all to be well-rounded and fulfilled.  Great story for teens up through adults!

The Wraith of Carter's Mill: The Curse of the Carter Women by C. Evenfall BOOK REVIEW

The Wraith of Carter's Mill: The Curse of the Carter Women
by C. Evenfall

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reviewed for +Readers' Favorite 

The Wraith Of Carter's Mill: The Curse of the Carter Women is a series of four short stories in one book that tells the story of the Carter family. The first story tells of Libby and her brother Jack as young children with their mother Julia. This story introduces "the dark man" that seems to plague the Carter family. The second story follows Libby as a married woman, and her young daughter Shyanne, as she becomes the next generation to meet "the dark man". This time Libby is able to find out more information because her mother Julia has passed away. The third book follows Shyanne and her daughter Melody as the curse of the dark man becomes even worse and Shyanne finds she has the power to help end the curse. The final story goes back to the beginning and tells us how the curse of the dark man began. C. Evenfall gives us a family saga that follows the women of the Carter family.

Although The Wraith of Carter's Mill is subtitled The Curse of the Carter Women, it is actually the head of the original Carter clan, Zeb that brings about the curse. The power to end the curse flows through the Carter women, although it is not until Shyanne that someone is able to do anything about the curse. C. Evenfall mixes a ghost story, a story of revenge and betrayal all together with a family saga that sees five generations of Carter's deal with the dark man. This is a great woman's book because of the connections that the women in the story carry throughout all the stories. It is also a good read for older teens on up. It was compelling and pulled me along the whole way.

View all my reviews

Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure by Michael G. Munz BOOK REVIEW

Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure
by Michael G. Munz

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reviewed for +Readers' Favorite 

The Greek gods have returned to the public eye, prompted by the death of Zeus. What? That's right, the King of the gods, Zeus is dead and the rest of the gods have come back into view to be worshiped and given their due once again. Only Apollo seems to be troubled by this strange turn of events and he is determined to discover who actually killed Zeus and to do something about it. When Apollo has a vision of a human, he feels that this person is key to the answers he needs. So Apollo and the Muses track down out-of-work online gambler Lief Karlson, who ends up paired with TV producer Tracy Wallace, and together with Apollo and the Muses they must uncover what really happened to Zeus and who was behind it, all while staying one step ahead of Ares and Athena, who are out to get rid of the mortals before they can complete their mission. Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure is Michael G. Munz's comic look at the adventure that takes place.

Zeus is Dead may build on the current popularity trend of stories about the Greek gods, but it is not what you are expecting. This is a comic and hilarious look at the Greek gods, at mortals and the adventure they all undertake together and against each other. So many lines in this book will have you literally rolling with laughter! +Michael G. Munz has created a book that while on trend popularly, is different and exciting. It is a great read for pre-teens on up through older adults! Older adults will understand some of the references better than younger readers, which makes it an awesome family fun read! Share it with a kid today!

View all my reviews