Review – Page 23 – Everything Is Better With Dragons

Review: ‘Misfortunes of Vision’, by Christy Nicholas

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Misfortune of Vision by Christy Nicholas,

Book #4 in The Druid’s Brooch Series

Historical fantasy set in 12^th century Ireland

~ Prophecy can be dangerous ~

In 12th century Ireland, Orlagh has been Seer to her king for forty years. He doesn’t want to hear her prophecies of war and destruction, and dismisses her efforts to warn him. Therefore, she is determined to fulfill her own quest: to find a worthy heir for her magical brooch.

In the course of events, she must pass judgment on a thief, escape a Norman war camp, and battle wits with a Fae lord. She receives some prophecy of her own and enlists the help of a grizzled old warrior, who happens to be a long–time friend.

Links:

Publisher link: http://www.tirgearrpublishing.com/authors/Nicholas_Christy/index.htm

Website: http://www.greendragonartist.com

Blog: http://www.greendragonartist.net

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/greendragonauthor

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/greendragon9

Author Bio:

Celtic Fairies, Fables, and Folklore! Bestselling author (top #100 Amazon Canada, #1 in Paranormal Fantasy, Amazon Canada)

Christy Nicholas, also known as Green Dragon, is an author, artist and accountant. After she failed to become an airline pilot, she quit her ceaseless pursuit of careers that begin with ‘A’, and decided to concentrate on her writing. Since she has Project Completion Disorder, she is one of the few authors with NO unfinished novels.

Christy has her hands in many crafts, including digital art, beaded jewelry, writing, and photography. In real life, she’s a CPA, but having grown up with art all around her (her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother are/were all artists), it sort of infected her, as it were.

She wants to expose the incredible beauty in this world, hidden beneath the everyday grime of familiarity and habit, and share it with others. She uses characters out of time and places infused with magic and myth.

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Bonus Review #2: ‘Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race and the Gothic South’, by Karen L. Cox

Published By: University of North Carolina Press

Publication Date: 9th October 2017

I.S.B.N.: 978146963503

Price: $26.00

Format: Hardcover

Blurb

In 1932, the city of Natchez, Mississippi, reckoned with an unexpected influx of journalists and tourists as the lurid story of a local murder was splashed across headlines nationwide. Two eccentrics, Richard Dana and Octavia Dockery—known in the press as the “Wild Man” and the “Goat Woman”—enlisted an African American man named George Pearls to rob their reclusive neighbor, Jennie Merrill, at her estate. During the attempted robbery, Merrill was shot and killed. The crime drew national coverage when it came to light that Dana and Dockery, the alleged murderers, shared their huge, decaying antebellum mansion with their goats and other livestock, which prompted journalists to call the estate “Goat Castle.” Pearls was killed by an Arkansas policeman in an unrelated incident before he could face trial. However, as was all too typical in the Jim Crow South, the white community demanded “justice,” and an innocent black woman named Emily Burns was ultimately sent to prison for the murder of Merrill. Dana and Dockery not only avoided punishment but also lived to profit from the notoriety of the murder. In telling this strange, fascinating story, Karen Cox highlights the larger ideas that made the tale so irresistible to the popular press and provides a unique lens through which to view the transformation of the plantation South into the fallen, gothic South.

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Review: ‘Fidget Spinners Destroyed My Family’, By George Billions

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Published By: Kindle

Publication Date: 11th July 2017

Format: Kindle e-book

Price: Free with KindleUnlimited/£2.32

Blurb

Karen and Kevin have a happy home, with two loving kids and a cat. It’s an idyllic setting, full of laughter and hope, until one Christmas when Kevin gives fidget spinners to each member of the family. He has no idea what destructive consequences this will have.

Getting kicked out of church is just the beginning. Within a year their daughter is in foster care, their son is in jail, and the cat is missing. An even more terrible fate is about to befall Kevin. Karen struggles just to keep it together as fidget spinners crumble the very foundations of her life.

Full of uncomfortable situations and sordid details, Fidget Spinners Destroyed My Family is a suspenseful dark comedy of paranoia, obsession, and this year’s hottest new toy.

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Review: ‘White Bodies’, by Jane Robins

Published By: HQ

Publication Date: 28th December 2017

I.S.B.N.: 9780008217549

Format: Hardback

Price: £12.99

Blurb

Felix and Tilda seem like the perfect couple: young and in love, a financier and a beautiful up-and-coming starlet. But behind their flawless façade, not everything is as it seems.

Callie, Tilda’s unassuming twin, has watched her sister visibly shrink under Felix’s domineering love. She has looked on silently as Tilda stopped working, nearly stopped eating, and turned into a neat freak, with mugs wrapped in clingfilm and suspicious syringes hidden in the bathroom rubbish. She knows about Felix’s uncontrollable rages, and has seen the bruises on the white skin of her sister’s arms.

Worried about the psychological hold that Felix seems to have over Tilda, Callie joins an internet support group for victims of abuse and their friends. However, things spiral out of control and she starts to doubt her own judgement when one of her new acquaintances is killed by an abusive man. And then suddenly Felix dies—or was he murdered?

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Bonus review number two

Published By: Pen & Sword History

Publication Date: 3rd October 2017

ISBN: 9781526712264

Format: Hardback

Price: £15.99

Blurb

Dickens and Christmas is an exploration of the 19th-century phenomenon that became the Christmas we know and love today – and of the writer who changed, forever, the ways in which it is celebrated. Charles Dickens was born in an age of great social change. He survived childhood poverty to become the most adored and influential man of his time. Throughout his life, he campaigned tirelessly for better social conditions, including by his most famous work, A Christmas Carol. He wrote this novella specifically to “strike a sledgehammer blow on behalf of the poor man’s child”, and it began the Victorians’ obsession with Christmas.

This new book, written by one of his direct descendants, explores not only Dickens’s most famous work, but also his all-too-often overlooked other Christmas novellas. It takes the readers through the seasonal short stories he wrote, for both adults and children, includes much-loved festive excerpts from his novels, uses contemporary newspaper clippings, and looks at Christmas writings by Dickens’ contemporaries. To give an even more personal insight, readers can discover how the Dickens family itself celebrated Christmas, through the eyes of Dickens’s unfinished autobiography, family letters, and his children’s memoirs.

In Victorian Britain, the celebration of Christmas lasted for 12 days, ending on 6 January, or Twelfth Night. Through Dickens and Christmas, readers will come to know what it would have been like to celebrate Christmas in 1812, the year in which Dickens was born. They will journey through the Christmases Dickens enjoyed as a child and a young adult, through to the ways in which he and his family celebrated the festive season at the height of his fame. It also explores the ways in which his works have gone on to influence how the festive season is celebrated around the globe.

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Review: ‘Dance Like You Mean It’, by Jeanne Skartsiaris

Published By: Black Opal Books

Publication Date: 11th February 2017

I.S.B.N.: 9781626945746

Format: Paperback

Price: £13.99

Blurb

What if you wrote a steamy, erotic novel that was so hot bookstores couldn’t keep it on their shelves? What if you couldn’t tell anyone you wrote it?

With a mundane life as a nurse, a husband who is grazing other fields, and a daughter of an impressionable age, Cassie checks her horoscope one morning just for kicks and notices an article about romance novels and how profitable publishing could be if one could spin a good tale.

She pens Wild Rose under a pseudonym and it flies to the top of the charts, is the talk of the town, and people are clamoring to know who the author is. What would her children think if they knew? Or her own mother, who ‘taught her better’, and, worse, her husband who’d thought she’d turned back into a virgin since they’d not had sex in so long. How could she be thrown into the spotlight and still be a good mom?

Wild Rose, Cassie’s caldron of prose, is woven through this story. Set it the 70s, it is the story of Rosemary, a beautiful photographer who wants to be recognized for her body of work, not her haunting beauty. Although, a modern women, she is as adventurous sexually as she is with her camera and beds men like candy…until she falls in love.

Both novels parallel each other as Cassie realizes Rosemary is not so different from her

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Review: ‘The Revolutions of Caitlin Kelman’, by Matthew Luddon

34820385 Published By: Zoe Rose Books

Publication Date: 18th October 2016

Format: Kindle

Price: £2.99

Can sixteen-year-old Caitlin Kelman bring down an Empire?

Caitlin is sixteen when her parents are captured by the Empire. Fleeing to Dominion City, Caitlin looks for answers, fighting soldiers, kidnappers, and stalkers along the way.

An illegal immigrant with forged papers, Caitlin falls in with a mysterious group calld the Stateless, who are fighting to bring down the Empire, once and for all.

One day, she runs into Alec, a boy from her hometown, who wants to help her return to her old life. Her normal life.

Will she settle for a life with Alec? Or will she join the revolution, and learn the truth about her parents, even if it means she has to sacrifice herself — and the lives of others?

The Revolutions of Caitlin Kelman is a thrilling debut from Matthew Luddon. Learn more about the Kelman Chronicles, keep up with new releases and get in touch with the author at zoerosebooks.com

I received this book from the author in return for an honest review

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Review: ‘Answers From Heaven: Incredible True Stories of Heavenly Encounters and the Afterlife’, by Theresa Cheung & Claire Broad

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Published By: Piaktus

Publication Date: 2nd November 2017

Format: Paperback

I.S.B.N.: 978-0349413020

Price: £8.99

Blurb

Answers from Heaven: Incredible True Stories of Heavenly Encounters and the Afterlife

Answers from Heaven will be an authoritative, modern up to date classic book about afterlife communication.

Through true life stories of ordinary people who have had paranormal experiences, bestselling author Theresa Cheung and medium Claire Broad will show the various different ways that heaven is trying to answer our prayers, offer us comfort and provide proof of survival.

Chapters include:
1. Messages from the other side
2. Dreams from heaven
3. Living and loving creatures in spirit
4. Love from above
5. Heaven is calling
6. Conversations from Spirit
7. Answers from higher realms
8. Is anybody there?
9. Your own answers from heaven.

By the end it is hoped that readers will have lost some of their fear of death, be more aware of when the spirit world is trying to contact them, have greater awareness of the scientific research available, understand that mediumship is an expression of eternal love and nothing to be feared and that it’s possible for us all to ask questions and receive answers from the world of spirit.

Purchase from Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Answers-Heaven-Incredible-Encounters-Afterlife-ebook/dp/B0714B4RQ9/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1508246564&sr=1-1&keywords=answers+from+heaven

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Theresa Cheung was born into a family of spiritualists and has a Masters in Theology and English from King’s College, Cambridge. She has sold almost half a million books and encyclopaedias about the psychic world, the afterlife and personal transformation over twenty years. Her spiritual books Heaven Called My Name (Piatkus 2016) and An Angel Healed Me (Simon & Schuster 2010) became Sunday Times Top 10 bestsellers and have been translated into thirty languages.

For more information please visit http://www.theresacheung.com or follow her on Facebook @TheresaCheungAuthor

Claire Broad is an Institute of Spiritualist Mediums Registered and Approved Medium with over twenty years professional experience providing private sittings, public speaking and workshops. She is an experienced guest speaker who has contributed to many spiritual awareness events and has read for an eclectic mix of clients, including those from the scientific and medical communities. Before Mediumship, Claire worked in advertising and entertainment at several major firms including The Walt Disney Company Ltd. She lives in Hampshire with her family.

Claire Broad, Sunday Mirror (preferred)

http://www.clairevoyant.co.uk or follow her on Facebook @mediumclairebroad

Received in return for an honest review, from Authoright

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Review: ‘The Flawed Ones’, by Jay Chirino

Published By: CreateSpace Independent Publishing

Publication Date: 30th October 2017

I.S.B.N.: 9780692928332

Format: Kindle and Paperback

http://theflawedones.com/

Blurb

In this compelling novel, Jay Chirino channels his own struggles with depression and addiction, creating a universal story that is painfully relatable for those with similar issues, and eye-opening for the ones that

haven’t dealt with the challenges of mental illness.

After leaving behind a trail of drug-addled destruction, Jay finds himself confined to the walls of a psychiatric hospital. He is now compelled to confront his actions, his issues, and the past that led him to such downhill spiral. But what surprisingly affects him most are the people that he becomes surrounded by; people with considerable deficiencies that will shed some light on the things that truly matter in life.

“The Flawed Ones” is a thorough examination of the struggles of mental illness, depression, addiction, and the effects they have on the human condition. Most importantly, it proves that physical and mental shortcomings do not necessarily define who we truly are inside- that the heart is, in fact, untouched by our “flaws”, and that love will always prevail above all.

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Review: ‘Drip’, by Andrew Montlack

Published By: Rent-Controlled Films

Publication Date: April 2017

I.S.B.N.: 9781541102125

Price: £10.36

Format: Paperback

Blurb

“A hand wearing a fancy watch parted the office blinds, and J.D. felt nauseous with despair: suddenly he knew—even though he could not explain how—that all of his mojo had been permanently taken away.”

J.D. and George: thick as thieves since the fourth grade. J.D., the troublemaker, the stud: the alpha. George, the sidekick, the misfit: the loser. Upon graduating college, J.D. has convinced the only job creator in rusty Middlestop to hire them. BrewCorp, the hot new coffee and retail chain, is offering a vice presidency to the employee with the boldest plan for growth, and J.D. is determined to be the guy. When not sleeping with co-workers, he hatches his pitch for a one-of-a kind data pipeline. He is unbeatable–until George grabs the promotion. Now J.D. wants answers. His quest to find them—and to deal with the monstrous truth—is the subject of indie filmmaker Andrew Montlack’s wry debut novel, which features the same biting satire that made his mockumentary, The Devil’s Filmmaker, a cult classic.

My Review

Took me a bit to get into, and at first I couldn’t understand the ‘gothic’ part of the title, but then, of course I got the reason.

It’s an unusual vampire tale, set in the corporate world, of two friends. George is hopeless, JD is charismatic. Where George trips and falls through life, JD dances and laughs and gets his own way. Friends from a young age, the pair finally graduate from university and get jobs at BrewCorp, the latest business to set up in their small, dying town.

When George wangles the job of junior executive, JD is jealous – HE was going to get that position. George starts to change, and much to his chagrin, JD loses his mojo. Secrets about BrewCorp and its real purpose start to leak though, as the project that got them their positions comes to fruition.

I liked this story, eventually. It took a bit of getting into and JD, the main character, was a bit of a prick. The writing felt pompous but as with JD’s character, that gets better as the novel goes on and I certainly enjoyed the second half as the ‘gothic’ part in the novel became clearer.

Could have done with a bit of editing for spelling towards the last few chapters, even allowing for dodgy US spelling conventions. Story instead of storey is just about acceptable, souls when the word is clearly meant to be soles is not.

3/5