Tag: book recommendations

Monthly Features – July

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Pigs in Paradise by Roger Maxson

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: Pigs in Paradise opens on a group of animals on a farm in Israel. Julius is a wise-cracking non-religious parrot. In other words, he is a non-domesticated farm animal. His is the small voice of reason, tinged with humor, and cynicism while the others, domesticated farm animals, are being led to religion by Mel, a mule, and the spiritual leader. Later, Mel becomes Magnificent when he elevates himself to Pope. Priests are celibate and mules are sterile; therefore, a Catholic pope was the obvious choice.

When Blaise, a Jersey cow, gives birth to Lizzy, a “red calf,” two American evangelical ministers arrive. As events unfold, the evangelicals buy the group and have them shipped to America.

Once in America, the animals are transported by tractor-trailers across the country to a “Christian” farm in Kansas, where seven television monitors are tuned to 24/7 church sermons and juxtaposed with scenes from a barn, a real circus. Even though they are animals, they can only take so much before they chase Mel from the barn, and Stanley, Manly Stanley, the black Belgian Stallion, kicks out the TV monitors for a moment of silence, giving peace a chance, however short-lived.

Summary: Overall, if you enjoyed Animal Farm and are a fan of satirical literature especially that which explores religious and political issues in today’s society, then this book could be for you.

See the full review here: Pigs in Paradise
Purchase here

 

The Gates of Yoffa by J. Brandon Barnes

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: A MISSION UNLIKE ANY OTHER.WHAT THEY FOUND WAS BEYOND BELIEF. John Lewis is a computer scientist recruited for a covert mission in the deepest regions of space.

When he makes a seemingly critical error during a test flight, the operation’s only orbiter crashes on a lush, highly classified planet. This leaves John, his boss Dirk, and exobiologist Ruth stranded, with few supplies and little chance of rescue.

Their best hope for escape is a lost landing craft that detached during their descent. To find it, they must search an unknown world while infiltrating the first extraterrestrial society human beings have ever encountered.

But this isn’t their greatest challenge. It’s something else. Something far more profound. Revealed through the aliens’ storytelling culture is a secret that could destabilize Earth and civilization as we know it.

And that secret is about to be exposed.

Summary: Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with this book and am interested to see if Barnes has anything more up his sleeve. If you like sci-fi full of exploration, survival, friendship, and storytelling with a touch of romance and religion, then this book could be for you.

See the full review here: The Gates of Yoffa
Purchase here

 

Monthly Features – June

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To Do Justice by Frank S. Joseph

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: Set during the riots of 1965-66, To Do Justice tells the story of Pinkie, a mixed-race child of Chicago’s meanest streets … and Mollie, a lovelorn (white) reporter in the Chicago bureau of The Associated Press. Together this unlikely pair will track down the white woman who gave Pinkie birth, and score a Pulitzer-worthy scoop in the bargain.

Summary: Overall, if you like historical fiction that revolves around racial conflicts that examine race, identity, and politics especially in the setting of the Chicago riots in the 1960s, then this book could be for you. You can find the book trailer here. 

See the full review here: To Do Justice
Purchase here

Children of Madness by Jarrett Brandon Early

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: FOR A WORLD GONE CRAZY, ONLY THOSE RAISED AMONG MADNESS CAN HELP

The Imperator of Quaan restlessly awaits the centennial arrival of the Snail-Gods to cure the Gloomtide, a shadow of melancholy blanketing the Titian Empire. But when the Supreme Helices finally make landfall, they do so just out of reach of the distressed monarch, beyond a poisonous grove that separates man from messiah.

Fincher Bugg leads the Sour Flower Gang, the preeminent child harvesters of the Stenches, a town of outcasts condemned to diminished lives toiling away in toxic conditions. As Fincher and his four friends endure external abuse from outsiders, internally they also suffer, watching as their parents slowly succumb to the Maddening. Despite the solace of unbreakable friendship, life is unrelenting.

When a desperate king makes a seemingly magnanimous offer to a hopeless population, the Sour Flower Gang sets out on a harrowing expedition to find God for the very people who cast them aside.

During a journey in which the children encounter the unimaginable—both beautiful and nightmarish—a terrifying question takes shape. Are the Snail-Gods here to once more save mankind, or is the Gloomtide that has enveloped Quaan a precursor to humanity’s deserved end?

Summary: Overall, if you like epic fantasy full of action, adventure, suspense, friendship, and some mystery then this book could be for you.

See the full review here: Children of Madness
Purchase here

 

Monthly Features – May

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The Midnight Rose by Catalina Paris

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis:

The Alchemyst
The Faerie
The Witch
The Warlock

Leo is a sixteen-year-old apprentice at the Alchemical Court until one night changes everything. When the castle is attacked and Leo is told to flee, he creates a new portal using the strange runes left behind in his missing master’s notebook. Arriving in the mysterious Realm of the Fey, a place long forgotten by mortals and Alchemysts alike, Leo meets the enchanting Lady Lisandre, a young faerie in need of his help. Together they quickly learn both their worlds are under threat from the elusive Dark Alchemyst; unless they find the mythical Talismans of Atlantica before he does. . Along the way they encounter Flora, a charming witch on a search for the truth of her family, as well as Leo’s former classmate, a warlock with questionable intentions, Lucien. The four of them are soon drawn together as they face numerous dangers and challenges to find and retrieve the talismans. Set in an alternative magical renaissance, The Midnight Rose is a spell-binding fantasy adventure unlike any other.

Summary: Overall, this was a creative fantasy story and I am interested to see where Paris takes this next. If you like fantasy, alchemy, action, adventure, and magic, then this book could be for you.

See the full review here: The Midnight Rose
Purchase here

Death’s Flow by Victor Klayin

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: Sometimes, you’re your own worst enemy…
Zaleck, a young albino farmer’s son from a little backwater town, wakes up not to the comfort of his home, but to the confines of a prison cart. His limbs bound, his voice stolen by a gag, panic mounts as he contemplates his fate, unaware of why he even became a target.
Yet, amidst despair, fate — or perhaps something more arcane — intervenes as he’s freed with the help of two other captives: Arneth and Vellis. Arneth, a scholar belonging to an obscure order of master manipulators, who wields knowledge as well as a sword, and who seems to manipulate fate itself. Vellis, a master markswoman whose prowess with the bow is matched only by the shadows of her past. Her ties to the nobility are as complex as the web of secrecy around her. An ex-soldier, she carries the weight of her skills and the burden of her past, her eyes always on the lookout for the next threat, her hand always steady.
Pursued relentlessly by their captors, in service of a dark priest from the powerful “Death Kingdom”, the trio must fight not only to survive, but also learn to trust and work together, uncovering the true reason for their capture.
Soon, they find they might even be able to hide from the slavers, but they can’t ever outrun the consequences of their actions.

Summary: This book has it all – adventure, suspense, mystery, magic, action, and fantasy. Klayin did a fantastic job of weaving these themes together into an addictive experience that will leave readers wanting more. I would recommend to anyone but especially those that have interests in one of the themes I mentioned previously.

See the full review here: Death’s Flow
Purchase here

 

This Kind of Man by Sean Murphy

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: THIS KIND OF MAN offers an unvarnished look at life in 21st Century America, excavating the complicated, tender, wild truth of what it is to be a man across generations and relationships. These stories interrogate the pressures and tensions of contemporary life, and the ways men grapple with them, often without success. Issues such as marriage, fatherhood, aggression, alcoholism, gender expectations, generational backlash, and the inexorable dread of death, abound.

Many of these stories live within a slow implosion of coping, and often failing, as well as those who refuse to succumb, addressing concerns oft-discussed, or not discussed enough, in mainstream print: gun violence, the recent history of coal country Appalachia, sports-related concussions, illegal immigration (and the jobs many of these ostensibly unwelcome folks are obliged to do), homelessness, and the inability of men to honestly connect or communicate.

Far from excusing or exonerating toxic males, this collection locates their violence (toward others, against themselves) in the context of a deadening culture and the false narratives that prevail in an exploitative, zero-sum game capitalist model, where those without are encouraged to quarrel with similarly overworked and underpaid, mostly blue-collar workers. We see that our received notions of manhood and masculinity are inculcated-from the beginning and by design-to ensure willing participation in a system where the overwhelming majority are excluded from the start. We witness the way these dysfunctions are handed down like inheritance, and how every cliché, from fighting to drinking to intolerance of dissent and distrust of others, is a carefully constructed trap, preventing solidarity, empathy, and love (for others, for one’s self).

Summary: Overall, I thought this was a creative way to tackle complex subjects while keeping readers engaged. It is an extremely clever way to get readers to answer some hard questions themselves through reflection brought on by the stories. I think this is an important read for anyone but would especially recommend it to those that are interested in the complexities of manhood and all that may go with it.

See the full review here: This Kind of Man
Purchase here

 

 

Review: Aftermath Boy by Robert E. Honig

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Synopsis:

History has its way with Billy Cohen, charmed offspring of Holocaust Survivors Rozsa and Bertie Cohen. His mother’s story of survival from the 1944 Vienna Death March to Dachau’s deadly forced labor, disease and starvation, Bergen-Belsen’s typhus, and inhuman conditions, to her last minute escape with her sister, Lili, and the continuing struggle to survive in Soviet occupied Budapest after the war challenges Billy to grasp the incompressible while growing up with homegrown antisemitism in the 1950s and 60s. Billy’s father, Bertie, came to the U.S. with a mission, to save his father, mother, sister and brother-in-law, but his failure casts a pall over his only son. An only child, Billy dreams of putting his parents shattered world right as his own history sweeps him toward the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, feminism, and a nation headed not only toward division, but doubling back upon the mistakes, the cultism, and the threats of fascism that led to the Holocaust. After a lifetime of Don Quixote pursuits, including a seductive brush with a left wing lover that leads him to join the Communist Labor Party, Billy finds himself the subject of an FBI inquiry into his investigation of the theft of hundreds of Wisconsin ballots cast during the 2024 Presidential Election, an election that hangs in the balance

Favorite Lines:

“A mature adult settles into himself, steadily gains confidence, and solves problems, even keeled, with or without assistance. One needn’t perform heroic deeds to achieve competence, but Billy Cohen has to save the world. Ironic that it takes a selfish ego to want to save the world and a selfless one to actually save it, even in small ways.”

“To take another life rends the threads of your conscience.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

I would say that this isn’t my typical read but it sounded interesting and I think it is important to read books such as this from time to time. This story revolves around Billy who finds his life to be molded by his parents’ experiences, like many children, although unlike many children, Billy’s parents were Holocaust survivors. Billy is accused of election fraud that took place during the 2024 election and the story ends open ended where the reader is left to decide whether Billy is guilty or not.

This story flashes back and forth between past and present events. Billy is in present times being accused for election fraud but we see flashes back to during the Holocaust and what his family had to endure. I thought this book was interesting because while fiction, Honig used real testimonies from his two aunts who lived through the Holocaust. So while fiction, the events described in this book were very real realities for those who experienced the tragedies that took place during the Holocausts.

If I were to be nit-picky, the chapters were quite short and came off at times as choppy – this could have been because they were single spaced rather than double in the version I received for this review though. There were also some spelling/grammar errors scattered throughout that could be cleaned up.  However, neither one of these were distracting enough to take away from the overall well written story.    

Summary:

Overall, I thought this was an interesting book that melded together fiction with reality with Honig weaving true experiences throughout the story. I would recommend to anyone interested in historical fiction involving the Holocaust. Happy reading!

Check out Aftermath Boy here!