Tag: contemporary fiction book review

Review: The Collectors by Richard A. Danzig

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

Synopsis:

The Collectors is the third book in the award winning Chance Cormac legal thriller series. The first two books “Facts Are Stubborn Things” and “Punch Line” are both best sellers on Amazon.

Chance is retained by a client who believes that he has been the victim of fraud when he purchased a valuable abstract painting that may be a forgery. Chance soon learns that both the painting and his client, might not be what they seem.

Chance is then summoned to Costa Rica to help Damian and JR who are caught up in the black market of selling human organs. Facing police corruption and danger, it may be too late to help to save his friends.

Favorite Lines:

“Art is meant to be seen. A painting in a vault is like a flower growing underground.”

“I learned early on that one of the keys to success is to always delegate responsibility to the most capable person.”

“I’m the luck one. A dream job doing the two things I love most – looking at art and making money.”

“I think if she wants it, it’s the best lesson in life. To work hard at something you love, to build confidence and self-esteem. Learn to win and learn to lose. Laugh because it’s only a game.”

My Opinion:

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

Richard A. Danzig’s The Collectors is a fast-paced thriller set at the intersection of the art world and organized crime, following Chance, and a cast of allies and enemies as they navigate stolen masterpieces, criminal networks, and personal codes of loyalty. 

What drew me into The Collectors right away was its mix of adrenaline and atmosphere. This isn’t just a story about stolen art—it’s about survival, identity, and the ways people justify the choices they make when life pushes them to the edge. From the early combat fight scenes, to the moments of quiet reflection on scars—both physical and emotional—the book doesn’t let you forget that its characters are people who have already paid heavy prices.

The art-world angle was particularly fascinating. Paintings aren’t just commodities here—they’re symbols of power, greed, and memory. Beauty becomes dangerous when hidden, hoarded, or traded like currency, and Danzig captures that tension with sharp precision.

At the same time, the book is driven by relationships. Family promises sit alongside the betrayals and shifting loyalties of the criminal underworld. These contrasts give the novel depth. It isn’t just about art forgery or organized crime—it’s about what people decide is worth protecting, and what they’re willing to sacrifice along the way.

By the time the story edges toward its conclusion, it becomes clear that the heart of The Collectors isn’t the money, the fame, or even the paintings. That’s what stayed with me. For all its action, the novel lingers because it asks readers to think about what truly matters when everything else can be bought or stolen.

Summary:

Combining gritty action with meditations on beauty, family, and survival, The Collectors delivers both suspense and heart—reminding us that beneath the heists and betrayals, the real stakes are love, trust, and what it means to protect what’s yours. It’s a story that entertains, but it also lingers after the final page, asking bigger questions about what we value and protect when the world demands compromise. Readers who enjoy thrillers, contemporary fiction, and character driven crime novels may enjoy this book. Happy reading!

Check out The Collectors  here!

 

Review: We the People: A Premonition by Russel Razzaque and T.J. MacGregor

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Synopsis:

What if AI could show us the future—and what if that future was our extinction?

We the People: A Premonition is an AMAZON BESTSELLER and a gripping political thriller that explores the terrifying convergence of autocracy and climate collapse. Set in a not-so-distant America ruled by a fascist regime, the novel follows three unlikely heroes brought together by one truth: if they don’t act, the future is lost.

Luna Ochoa, a former FBI analyst turned underground investigator works for Leo Montoya, a reclusive millionaire funding a network tracking the government’s abuses. When the advance AI they created suddenly starts making predictions of humanity’s collapse—nuclear war, ecological annihilation, and widespread oppression—the danger becomes existential.

Enter Jake Kessler, a Pulitzer-winning journalist silenced for exposing political corruption. After crossing paths with Luna, he becomes entangled in a movement bigger than any of them imagined. Together they enter a race against time—not just to survive, but to reclaim the future.

The novel asks the question at the heart of today’s global crisis: Can we still choose a different path? Drawing on the ancient Athenian model and powered by modern technology, their vision is to build a new system where people participate in governance directly—every voice heard, every idea tested. It’s dangerous. Revolutionary. And it may be our last chance to avoid extinction.

With cinematic pacing, unforgettable characters, and razor-sharp political insight, We the People is not just a warning—it’s a call to action. It reminds us that democracy is not a guarantee. It’s a choice. And the most important character in this story is us

Favorite Lines:

“Not if our democracy deepens its roots. Not if we share power, instead of leaving the levers in the hands of a tiny cabal. If we become a real democracy, where ordinary people from every walk of life are involved, then a whole new predictive trajectory opens up.”

“You see, every crisis is also an opportunity. I created this space, not just to protect us, but to protect future generations.”

“Decisions are about judgements. We want individual people, from all backgrounds, to exercise their judgement and produce answers, through this iterative process.”

“Diversity is key. We need broad representation from the rainbow of humanity, so we can benefit from everyone’s lived experiences. That is where the creativity and innovation will come from – people from all walks of life regardless of backgrounds, ethnicity, and religious beliefs.”

My Opinion:

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

We the People: A Premonition follows Luna Ochoa, her brother Juan, and journalist Jake Kessler as they uncover AI-generated predictions of a near future defined by authoritarianism, violence, and ecological collapse. Working with Leo Montoya’s secretive organization, they confront the dangers of a government bent on silencing dissent while struggling to protect their families and preserve the last fragments of democracy.

What immediately stood out to me about We the People is how uncomfortably close its fictional world feels to our current reality. This is speculative fiction that doesn’t hide behind far-flung futures or alien landscapes—it sets its stage in recognizable cities, among ordinary people, and asks us to face what could happen if democracy erodes unchecked. The opening chapters, where Luna and Juan uncover horrifying AI-predicted images of global collapse, feel almost too vivid. The terror isn’t just in the events themselves—mass protests crushed, cities drowned, governments corrupted—but in how plausible they all seem.

I found the book compelling in the way it braids thriller pacing with political commentary. The narrative never slows down—characters stumble from discovery to danger, always pursued by unseen forces loyal to an authoritarian regime—but beneath the action, Razzaque and MacGregor are making a sharp critique of our fragile democratic structures. It reminded me of dystopian classics, but the authors’ choice to anchor it in the immediacy of Orlando and other familiar settings made it hit harder.

The characters themselves—Luna, her brother Juan, journalist Jake Kessler, and their enigmatic employer Leo—give the book its heart. They’re not superheroes. They’re regular people, bruised by loss and compromise, who stumble into carrying truths bigger than themselves. I appreciated how their fear, exhaustion, and even their doubts are depicted. It makes their small acts of resistance feel braver, because they’re not framed as destined saviors, just as people making choices in impossible circumstances.

That said, the novel can feel heavy-handed at times. The imagery of catastrophe is relentless, and the villains—the billionaires and political loyalists—are painted in very stark colors. But I think that bluntness is deliberate. This isn’t a book trying to be subtle; it’s trying to sound an alarm. By the end, I wasn’t left with a neat resolution but with an uneasy sense of responsibility. The authors’ message is clear: the future isn’t written, and what happens next depends on “we the people.”

Summary:

Overall,  We the People: A Premonition mixes political thriller urgency with speculative what-ifs. The novel becomes both a story of survival and a warning—reminding readers that the fate of society rests on ordinary people’s willingness to resist and reimagine the future.

For readers who enjoy fiction that feels both urgent and socially conscious, this  book sits at the intersection of political thriller, dystopian speculative fiction, and social commentary. Happy reading!

Check out We the People: A Premonition here!

 

Review: Like Driftwood on the Salish Sea by Richard L. Levine

~ likelystory18 ~ 2 Comments

Synopsis:

When they met in the fourth grade, it was love at first sight for Mitchell Brody and Jessica Ramirez. He was the freckle-faced kid who stood up for her honor when he silenced the class bully who’d been teasing her because of her accent. She was the new kid whose family moved to San Juan Island, Washington, from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and whom Mitch had thought was the most beautiful girl in the world.

She was his salvation from a strict upbringing. He was her knight in shining armor who had always looked out for her. Through the many years of porch-swinging, cotton-candied summer nights, autumn harvest festivals, and hand-in-hand walks planning for the ideal life together, they were inseparable…until 9/11, when the real world interrupted their Rockwell-esque small town life, and Mitch had joined the Marine Corps.

This is not just the story of a wounded warrior finally coming home to search for the love, and the world he abandoned twenty years before. It is also the story of a man who is seeking forgiveness and a way to ease the pain caused by every bad decision he’d ever made. It’s the story of a woman who, with strength and determination, rose up from the ashes of a shattered dream; but who never gave up hope that her one true love would return to her. As she once told an old friend: “Even before we met all those years ago, we were destined to be together in this life, and we will be together again, because even today we’re connected in a way that’s very special, and he needs to know about it before one of us leaves this earth.”

Favorite Lines:

“To him, those shadows resembled a life slipping away—a life he felt no more able to grasp and hold on to no more than he could grab and hold on to any one of those shadows—and it abruptly reminded him of one of the last times he saw Alex.”

“I’m hoping if I tell that lie often enough, there’s a chance it could come true.” 

“Haven’t you ever been involved with someone so special that you couldn’t concentrate on anything, or you couldn’t catch your breath no matter how hard you’ve tried? Wasn’t there ever someone who made you feel that you wanted to spend your every waking moment with because maybe, just maybe, there wouldn’t be a tomorrow? That’s what it feels like to me when I’m with her. Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking that time really is running out. Apart from that, when we’re not together I feel lost, like I have no direction, no purpose for being. I feel like…as I once told Jess, like a sailboat that has no rudder or keel…completely at the mercy of the wind and the current.”

My Opinion:

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

Richard I. Levine’s Like Driftwood on the Salish Sea is a quiet novel about coming home, but it’s also about what you carry with you when home isn’t the same place you left. Mitch Brody, a Marine pushed into medical retirement, returns to the San Juan Islands with more questions than answers. He wants to disappear into familiar places—the ferry crossings, the smell of salt air, the memory of an orchard long gone—but the past has other plans. 

What I loved about this book is how ordinary moments are weighted with history. A doctor’s waiting room, a cup of coffee in a ferry galley, a drive down a rural road—Levine makes them feel alive with tension, because Mitch isn’t just moving through space, he’s moving through memory. Ghosts linger here, and not just Alex, the friend whose absence still cuts at him. There’s Jess, the woman he left behind, and the version of himself he can’t quite reconcile.

The writing is unhurried, like the islands themselves. There’s room for silence, for reflection, for scenes to stretch out the way real conversations do. By the end, I found myself rereading the opening lines about ashes on the water, realizing how much weight they’d gathered along the way.

This isn’t a book that hurries to a resolution. It’s a book that asks you to sit with Mitch while he figures out whether forgiveness—his own and others’—is still possible. In the end, like driftwood, he’s shaped by the tides that brought him here, but still moving with them.

Summary:

Overall, Like Driftwood on the Salish Sea is a thoughtful, unhurried story about coming home and facing the past you can’t outrun. Richard I. Levine gives us a main character shaped by war, haunted by loss, and pulled back to the San Juan Islands to reckon with love, regret, and responsibility. It’s a novel about memory and forgiveness, written with the patience of the place it inhabits. For readers who appreciate reflective, character-driven fiction rooted in a strong sense of setting, this one lingers like salt air long after you’ve finished the last page. Be ready to cry and happy reading!

You can find the book trailer here.

Check out Like Driftwood on the Salish Sea here!