Category Archives: Book Review

Color Me Grey by J.C. Phelps

I received a copy of this book from the author as part of a group that I belong to on Goodreads.com. When I first started it, the premise quickly drew my attention and I was looking forward to an exciting read, until chapter three.

Now, this is probably just me, but being in the Navy, I have an extremely hard time with books that feature military characters, when the author apparently has not done their research. In the space of less than half a page, there were three glaring military errors, and because of this, I completely got distracted from reading and couldn’t back into it. For example, error number 1 – a Master Chief in the Navy isn’t one rank below a commissioned officer, there are also Warrant Officers (who were previously enlisted and then applied for a specific program), or the fact that (error 2) a Master Chief can’t just take a test and become an officer – in fact, there is an age limit on when individuals can apply for commissioning programs. Aside from these two issues, there were a couple of other military mistakes that just continued with my distraction.

From then on, I tried to keep reading, but was continually distracted by small bits and pieces that just made the plot seem even more implausible than it already was. I finally decided to give up on it around the middle of Chapter 4, less than 50 pages into it. While I think the author has potential in the future, I advise her to find someone in the military that can critique her work for accuracies, and a good editor to help with tightening up the prose, and turn her telling into showing with the writing. I have refrained from giving this book a star rating her on GR because I didn’t finish reading it and it didn’t seem fair to do that.

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Matched by Ally Condie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

i have to admit that I normally find YA books to not be all that interesting, however, I found this one while trolling a friends bookshelf and since it sounded intriguing I picked it up. Wow. Normally, when I’m reading, I set myself a page goal and I rarely exceed that, to try and savor books, but i couldn’t stop reading this one and so I ended up finishing it it a day. The premise was basically that of The Giver with some tweaks.

Similar to the Giver, society has removed all choices from the individuals lives. They have the same clothes to wear every day, their meals are provided to them, they are match with their future wife/husband according to a program, and even how old they are when they die is controlled. Then you meet Cassia, the heroine. She has just been matched with her best friend, Xander, and yet, she also sees the image of another boy she knows…so what happens when she realizes she is falling in love with the other boy (Ky). I saw some comments on other reviews that commented on how easily they "fell in love," but as I was reading, it seemed as though, their love had been developing over the years, from a friendship into more, they just couldn’t acknowledge it or even understand it.

Unfortunately, the book came too quickly to an end and now i’m stuck in the waiting game until the second book comes out in November. But I can’t wait to see what happens

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The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is one of those book series that I have seen mentioned many times and yet, never picked up. So when I was looking for a book set in an African country for a challenge, it seemed like a good a time as any to read it. I was pleasantly surprised with it, the writing was intriguing and the mystery while simplistic was compelling. I’m sure that I will pick up another book in the series in the future, but like always, too many books and too little time

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Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is one of those books that I picked up from the library, but then sat on the pile staring at me through several renewals, before I actually managed to read it (yeah, I know 😉 ). But when I did, I was pleasantly surprised. Set in a fictious South American country, it is roughly based off the events that occurred in 1996 in Peru when members of the MTRA took individuals who were attending a birthday party for the Emperor at the Embassy hostage (more information about the actual events regarding the event can be found here.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, the development of the main characters (Roxanne, Gen, Carmen) was entertaining and I felt that they were fully developed. I had a few issues with some of the other significant characters in the story (specifically, the General’s who were responsible for the incident), I just didn’t feel that they were as developed as they could have been. And while I knew how the ending was going to be, I didn’t quite see everything coming.

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Breaking Logan’s Laws by Cameron Dane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This review was originally published for The Romance Reviews and can be found at the following link: http://glbt.theromancereviews.com/viewbooksreview.php?bookid=1765

A man living his life by a set of rules, a guy trying to make him break them — who will succeed in the end?

Former Homicide detective and now head of Security for Quinn Security, Logan Jeffries has five rules when it comes to individuals he dates. Nate Jordan has harbored a secret crush on Logan for over three years, since their first meeting. Now they must work together to solve the case of a missing girl, but will be they able to resist each other?

When I first saw that the latest book in Dane’s Quinn Security series was going to feature Logan and Nate, I was ecstatic. I’ve loved Nate since he first made his appearance in book two of the series. And the glimpse you got of Logan in book three just made me want to reach through the pages and hug him, he seemed so despondent in places. Ms. Dane didn’t let me down with this installment.

The book picks up with Logan, now head of security investigations at Quinn after being wounded in the line of duty. On his first day at work, he discovered that Nate Jordan, the brother of his best friend’s wife, is his new assistant. Nate has always had a crush on Logan since their first meeting, three years previously, and when assigned to work as his assistant, eagerly jumped at the chance. Together, the two of them have to solve the case of what happened to the missing socialite, Daria Sarna.

Logan reminded me in a way of Gibbs from the TV show, NCIS, with his rules that he used to govern his life (although not quite as crust as Gibbs) and seeing Nate break down those rules one by one was entertaining. I loved the mystery element that was worked into this one, similar to that in book 2, and ultimately did not figure out who had done it, until it was revealed at the end.

The cast of supporting characters, Riley, Declan, as well as Kasey and Canin, made the book an entertaining read. I could see the potential for at least a couple more books in the series, hopefully featuring Riley. My only complaint about the book is that the use of the term chute and channel when it came to the love making scenes between the two of them. There are just some words that don’t sound sexy, and those are just two of them.

I’m looking forward to more books in the series in the future (fingers crossed) and hope that they are as entertaining and well-written as this one and the previous ones in the series.

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Arms of an Angel by Linda Boulanger
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was different…most of us have probably heard the story of the two boys in high school. One of them comes across the other cleaning out his locker one Friday afternoon and taking everything home and they become friends. Five years later, at their graduation, you find out that the one boy had been planning to commit suicide that weekend, and was cleaning out his locker to save his mom the bother of it. That is how the beginning of this story felt to me – you can tell that there was something going on with Claire but you really didn’t know. It was short (not even 100 pages) and I felt that the characters were a bit shallow and not well-developed at times, the dialogue between the two didn’t seem easy going, but was a bit rough. However, I think it had potential, and might check out future work by the author.

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Stormwalker by Allyson James
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’d heard the name of author Allyson James before, but until recently I didn’t know that this was also the name of author Jennifer Ashley’s who’s books I had read and loved in the past. So when the opportunity arose to be able to read this book, I jumped on the chance. Janet is a stormwalker, who has the ability to weild the elements. together with Mick, Nash (the local sheriff), Coyote and others, she is battling the Goddess of Beneath.

I loved Janet as a character, she was kick-ass, talk no prisoners, who was willing to do anything to protect her friends. Mick, her leading man…all I can say is yummy and can I have him for Christmas! The interactions between Nash and Janet, almost reminded me of a brother and sister fighting for the most part (with a few notable exceptions) and I’ll definately be looking forward to reading more in this series in the future.

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Eternal Rider by Larissa Ione
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have to admit that Ione’s Demonica series is probably one of my favorite PNR series out there currently. It was so unique and yet enjoyable at the same time, so when I saw she had a new series out, I wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to love up to my love for Demonica. But did she ever! This was a home run, a grand slam and whatever type of sports terminologies I can bring into the review.

The first book in the series picks up where Demonica ended up, with Sin and the werewolf plague and how Reseph (or now Pestilence’s) seal broke bring that apocalypse down on the world. Ares (or War as he is more commonly known) is the focus of this one, as he tries to prevent his seal from breaking and Cara, a human, with some unique talents. I loved seeing the return of many of the demonica characters and now I had to do the inpatient wait for the next book in the series to be released…(December cannot come soon enough). The shower scene (and that’s all i’m saying) was probably one of my favorite in the book, but there were definately places towards the end where I wanted to bawl my eyes out.

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11 Days in December: Christmas at the Bulge, 1944 by Stanley Weintraub
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I never knew a lot about the Battle of the Bulge, it seems to be one of those battles from WW2 that is often briefly mentioned in high school and college courses and not much more. So my limited knowledge of it came from the one episode in Band of Brothers where Easy company was involved in the fighting. So reading a book about those 11 days which had one of the highest casualty rates of the war (10,276 killed and 23,218 missing). It was intriguing to read about the different personalities of the leaders and how each of them positively or negatively influenced the outcome of the war. Overall, I had to say that had the American’s been less cocky about how they were doing in the war, then the d&d (and no, that doesn’t mean dungeon’s and dragon’s) tactics of the Germans might have not been as effective and the outcome could have been totally different.
I will definately be looking for more historical non-fiction by Weintraub in the future.

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