The Greatest Prospector in the World

In this historical fiction novel, protagonist and narrator Laura Dunagan was born into a gold prospecting family early in the twentieth century. When she was sixteen, she lost her father to a mudslide while he was seeking gold, and thus was sent to Chicago to live with her Uncle Joe. Laura hated having left the gold prospecting business, although she learns that her uncle made a fortune selling insurance, and was in fact the owner of the biggest insurance company in the State of Illinois. While exploring her uncle’s mansion one day, she stumbles upon his personal den, which led to the discovery of a new life that would exceed that of gold-panning back in Alaska. She would ultimately teach Uncle Joe six safety rules for prospecting gold that he could apply to selling insurance, leading to a secret in discovering wealth.

The story opens with Laura being mistaken for a fisherman, what with her wearing waders, when in reality she was selling whipped cream. After her father’s demise, she would have her first experience in riding a train to Chicago, which was for her a unique opportunity. However, she despises the congested traffic of the city, nonetheless arriving at her Uncle Joe’s abode, where she finds that he has a high standing with luminaries such as several Illinois politicians. Initially she detests her new life, often dreaming of being back home in Fairbanks, Alaska, although she slowly but surely adapts to her new life, sharing her knowledge of gold-panning with her uncle that he ultimately applies to his business, leading to success that wavers not until his death. Overall, this is an enjoyable realistic novel, with the afterword demonstrating that the author showed her work, which this reviewer would easily recommend.

Ken Dunn is one of the leadership training world’s up and coming great speakers and trainers. An incredible hunger to learn and teach others has led Ken successfully through five different professional careers in the past 25 years.

Ken began a policing career at the age of 18. He was involved in the policing world’s most exhilarating and challenging disciplines, including undercover drug and surveillance work, S.W.A.T. teamwork, aggravated child abuse, frauds, aggravated assaults, illegal weapons smuggling and homicides.

Today, Ken regularly speaks to groups in the direct sales, mortgage, insurance and banking industries. He uses humor and his own experiences to inspire audiences around the world. Ken lives in Toronto, Canada, with his wife, Julie, and children Matthew and Laura.

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A Piece of You

In this sequel to Resuscitation and the third in the series of novels starring homicide detective Sami Rizzo, a serial killer once again terrorizes San Diego, the third time in a five-year period. Given her accomplishments in dealing with the prior two cases, Sami is a natural pick to spearhead the investigation at the behest of Captain Davison. However, the new murderer whom she investigates is unlike the previous ones, defying criminal profilers, although the killer does target blood relatives of his initial victim.  Sami realizes that the murders may have a link to those involved in the justice system, and ultimately confronts the killer himself.

A Piece of You opens with a prologue narrated entirely by the serial murderer himself, initially a good father, husband, neighbor, and friend to many, who had until the book’s time lived a relatively peaceful life, although he vows vengeance against a group of individuals whose marital status, where they live, the vehicles they drive, their phone numbers, and so forth, he knows. The third installment features many passages within the standard third-person structure narrated from his perspective, sometimes whole chapters but other times interspersed within the primary text, beginning with a woman named Theresa Westgate held at gunpoint.

The book quickly moves the action to homicide detective Sami Rizzo, who walks into her police precinct early in the morning, her husband Al at home afflicted by influenza, and picks up word on the initial murder, receiving the addresses of the victim’s siblings and beginning her investigation at their respective homes, with the subsequent story having decent denouement, and like its predecessors being a general enjoyable story, with the first-person segments taking readers into the mind of the main antagonist, and the third-person excerpts being just as good, gripping readers until the very end.

Author's Bio:

Daniel M. Annechino, a former book editor specializing in full-length fiction, wrote his first book, How to Buy the Most Car for the Least Money, in 1992 while working as a General Manager in the automobile business. But his passion had always been fiction, particularly thrillers. He spent two years researching serial killers before finally penning his gripping and memorable debut novel They Never Die Quietly.

​His second book, Resuscitation (Thomas & Mercer 2011), a follow-up to his first novel, hit #1 in Kindle sales in the UK and reached #26 in the USA. He is also the author of I Do Solemnly Swear (Thomas & Mercer 2012) and Hypocrisy. A Piece of You is his fifth novel, the third in the Detective Sami Rizzo series. A native of New York, Annechino now lives in San Diego with his wife, Jennifer. He loves to cook, enjoys a glass of vintage wine, and spends lots of leisure time on the warm beaches of Southern California.

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Kings or Pawns

In the initial entry of author J.J. Sherwood’s Steps of Power franchise, the year is 8,994 P.E., with the elf city of Elvorium corrupted by politics, and Prince Hairem’s father deceased, the son wishing to undo the power of the council. However, several killings of loyal councilmen occur, and outside the city, a warlord named Saebellus threatens it, with the Prince finding himself in a compromising situation betwixt peace and total war. After a preview of the latter portion of the novel where the soldiers of one of the protagonists, General Jikun Taemrin, pursues a beast that slaughters his soldiers, the writer acknowledges various individuals that aided the production of the novel including her grandmother Carol Bundy, family and friends, her editor Alexandra Birr, and her spouse.

The author gives further notes on the pronunciation of names within her fantasy story, alongside a map of the setting. Preceding the main text is a diary entry from King Silandrus, who records the truth of his departure from Sevrigel, desiring to quell the ignorance of the Council of Elves believing tradition to be the foundation of their society, and issuing an ultimatum that either they resign and depart or he does. The monarch yearns to go to the Homeland of Ryekarayn, noting that the Realm of the True Bloods will have no political affiliation with the Council or the future royal line. Overall, the prelude sets the stage for an enjoyable start to a fantasy franchise, with plenty of intrigue, battles, and politics, although there is rare confusion, for instance, with this reviewer initially thinking Nazra was the name of a girl and not a horse, both referenced close in the same chapter. Even so, a recommended read.

 

Author's Bio:

J.J. Sherwood lives in Ohio with her husband and four near-identical cats. KINGS OR PAWNS is J.J.’s widely anticipated debut novel, and is the first book of The Kings quartet. The series is set in the high fantasy world of Aersadore, home to hundreds of characters who all clamor for J.J.’s attention. To learn more about the trials and tribulations of General Jikun and King Hairem, visit StepsofPower.com. J.J. Sherwood will be at the tenth Fandom Fest Comic Con in Louisville, Kentucky this coming August 7th-9th.

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Resuscitation

*possible spoilers for They Never Die Quietly*

Two years before this second story revolving around Detective Sami Rizzo, she had barely escaped death by a serial killer, although she managed to apprehend him and ensure him to be brought to justice, an event that causes her resignation from police work. However, she soon receives word of a new killer, a doctor gone rogue that charms his victims before performing horrible surgical experiments upon them, scattering their decimated cadavers through San Diego County. This provokes Sami to appeal to her former boss and the mayor, who make her a homicide investigator again. While she seeks the culprit, she deals with her ailing mother, a turbulent relation with her lover Alberto Diaz, and is charged with protecting a victim who escapes the killer.

The narrative itself opens with a prologue where Genevieve Foster awakes disoriented, to be among the rogue surgeon’s initial victims. The doctor, Julian, who is married and has two daughters, contemplates his horrifying work while drinking at a bar, with his victims being part of his research and experimentation. In the meantime, Sami and Alberto toast to two years of being a couple, the two called to duty when they hear that the daughter of a Supreme Court Justice has been murdered. Another Private Investigator, Peter J. Spencer III, who specializes in shady surveillances and doubtful background checks, has his own agenda in his investigation of the rogue doctor, whose initial sketches don’t necessarily or completely resemble him. Overall, this is an enjoyable sequel, the only real hangup being occasional stylistic choices with phrases that could have easily been shortened.

Author's Bio:

Daniel M. Annechino, a former book editor specializing in full-length fiction, wrote his first book, How to Buy the Most Car for the Least Money, in 1992 while working as a General Manager in the automobile business. But his passion had always been fiction, particularly thrillers. He spent two years researching serial killers before finally penning his gripping and memorable debut novel They Never Die Quietly.

​His second book, Resuscitation (Thomas & Mercer 2011), a follow-up to his first novel, hit #1 in Kindle sales in the UK and reached #26 in the USA. He is also the author of I Do Solemnly Swear (Thomas & Mercer 2012) and Hypocrisy. A Piece of You is his fifth novel, the third in the Detective Sami Rizzo series. A native of New York, Annechino now lives in San Diego with his wife, Jennifer. He loves to cook, enjoys a glass of vintage wine, and spends lots of leisure time on the warm beaches of Southern California.

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At the Sharp End of Lightning

Author Nicholas R. Bates dedicates the first entry of his Oceanlight series to his muse and partner Margaret H.P. Best, who wrenched the author from “Stillness,” further acknowledging family members Maureen D. and Michael R. Bates, not to mention the encouragement of S.J. Parkinson and various individuals at Red Adept Publishing in North Carolina such as Lynn McNamee, editor Suzanne Warr, and Sarah Carleton. Before the main text is a map of the Interfaces that contains a depiction of a nine-buttoned keypad with the number nine missing, alongside passwords to locations in the area such as the library.

The book itself begins with excellent world-building of Oceanlight, with one of the protagonists, a Sprite named Yalara Narika, seeing many things when lightning surges through her body. Mother Earth in the author’s mythos is Calymenes, with Yalara promising to find someone who disappeared. She receives her surname from her sea tribe, or tribamare, the Narika, specifically belonging to the Sea Sprites. She bears other names reflecting her allegiance and lineage, with her mother having died without naming her, and is accompanied by another Sprite of the Sea named Rasania. Sea Sprites ride upon creatures known as petrels, which land upon floating mats of seaweed called natantis plantates or Seryasu.

Another world introduced within the novel is Daimanland, with Helia being in pursuit, the fraction of the size of a Mechanicum, the older sister of Centaurea, and twin sibling of Xylenia. An interesting twist on real-life terms is that Sprites depend upon ocsaigin to breathe underwater, with scientific facts presented as well such as light refracting differently through saltwater and non-saline water. Overall, this is an enjoyable start to the Oceanlight franchise, with unique mythos and the author definitely showing his work with the history of Wales, his research presented after the main text, although there are some bizarre portions such as an alternation between medieval Wales and modern Wales.

Author's Bio:

NR Bates was born in London, grew up in Wales, and lived in Canada and Bermuda. He shares his life with his wife and his house with seven cats, one dog and the subtropical wildlife of lizards, wolf spiders and ant colonies that seek out a better life indoors.

He is an oceanographer and scientist, and has published more than one hundred and thirty scientific papers on ocean chemistry, climate change and ocean acidification. He is a Senior Scientist at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences and Professor of Ocean Biogeochemistry at the University of Southampton, UK.

​His novels focus on epic fantasy and magic realism, and inspired by his deep love of the ocean and environmental sciences. He has also recently published a small book of short-stories set in Paris, entitled “The Fall of Icarus (The Elevator, The Fall of Icarus, and The Girl)”.

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