Review and Blog Tour: Licensed for Trouble (PJ Sugar #3) by Susan May Warren

Title: Licensed for Trouble (PJ Sugar #3)

Author: Susan May Warren

Pages: 369

Rating: 10/10

Source: LitFuse Publicity Group

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

Summary (From LitFuse):

PJ Sugar receives shocking news that she's inherited the Kellogg family mansion. Though she has no idea why, the timing is perfect-PJ has clearly worn out her welcome at her sister's house. Unfortunately, the mansion is in shambles, and PJ is short on cash. Rescue comes in the form of Max Smith, a mysterious handyman willing to trade his services for PJ's investigative skills. But PJ already has a full docket with cramming for her PI license and nurturing a growing romance with her boss, Jeremy Kane. Can she take on Max's case without dropping the ball?

Find out more about book one, Nothing But Trouble and book two, Double Trouble.

My Two Cents:

I was absolutely pleasantly surprised and enchanted with this book. I don't know what I was expecting, but I just adored this book.

PJ is one of my favorite characters in a long time. She's fun, smart, and sassy, and she has just enough flaws to make her realistic. I loved that she somehow always manages to get herself into trouble, but there's always someone to help her out of the problem. Sure, that may not be absolutely "real life" (Honestly, how many times do people fall into a river and have a friend who just happens to be driving by just in time to save them?), but I liked that little detail.

I've not read any of the other PJ Sugar books, so it took me a little bit to get into all the back story, but I understood what was going on just fine without knowing any of that. So, if you haven't read the first two PJ Sugars, you can still read this one, but just because these are so much fun, I'd recommend reading the first two! :)

This was a nice, clean, quick read that I would recommend to anyone looking for a little fun mixed in with a tad bit of mystery.

Enter PJ Sugar's "Sweet" Giveaway

Licensed for Trouble, Susan's brand new PJ Sugar novel, is in stores now! To celebrate the release, we’re giving away a Kindle!! You can enter using Twitter, Facebook, or e-mail using the icons below.

One Grand Prize winner will receive a A SWEET Kindle prize package that includes:

• A brand new Kindle (Free 3G, 6”, Latest Generation)
• The entire PJ Sugar series by Susan May Warren

About Susan May Warren: Susan May Warren is the RITA award-winning author of twenty-four novels with Tyndale, Barbour and Steeple Hill. A four-time Christy award finalist, a two-time RITA Finalist, she’s also a multi-winner of the Inspirational Readers Choice award, and the ACFW Book of the Year.

Susan's larger than life characters and layered plots have won her acclaim with readers and reviewers alike. A seasoned women’s events and retreats speaker, she’s a popular writing teacher at conferences around the nation and the author of the beginning writer’s workbook: From the Inside-Out: discover, create and publish the novel in you!. She is also the founder of www.MyBookTherapy.com, a story-crafting service that helps authors discover their voice.

Susan makes her home in northern Minnesota, where she is busy cheering on her two sons in football, and her daughter in local theater productions (and desperately missing her college-age son!) A full listing of her titles, reviews and awards can be found at: www.susanmaywarren.com.

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Review and Giveaway: Ni'il, the Awakening by James Boyle

Title: Ni'il, the Awakening

Author: James Boyle

Pages: 202

Source: Author

Rating: 6/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: The banks of a small creek in Oregon's Coast Range Mountains."

Summary (From back of book):

When several people are brutally killed in the town of Placerton, on the isolated Oregon coast, most locals think a rogue bear or cougar is roaming the forested hills near town. Police Chief Dan Connor is not so sure. He has witnessed some very strange things lately, such as disembodied voices, muttering a strange foreign language and an old Indian man who seems to be near every crime scene, but disappears before he can be questioned.

Dan's investigation takes him to the local Sihketunnai Indians and their legend of the Ni'il, magical shamans charged with maintaining the balance between humans and the natural world. According to the elders, one of the Ni'il is responsible for the murders and intends to kill everyone in the community. It is Dan's job to stop it.

It sounded unbelievable, but was the only explanation that fit the facts.

As a violent Pacific storm crashes ashore, cutting off power and washing out roads -- cutting the town off from the outside world -- Dan finds himself entering a strange world of myth and magic that was not covered in his police training. He must use all his wits and new-found powers to save himself and his community from the Ni'il.

My Two Cents:

This was a really easy read. I read it in two sittings, but it could've been finished in just one.

The story was intriguing. I didn't find myself sucked totally in, per se, but I did want to find out what would happen. I liked that there was enough mystery surrounding the murders that most people could attribute them to wild animals, at least at first, but that those who looked closely enough and who asked enough questions saw that there was something more going on. The main problem, though, is that the summary from the back of the book pretty much tells me a lot of what I find out later in the book. I wish people wouldn't do that!

The characters were likable enough, but I didn't really feel intensely connected to any of them. The main character, Dan, is pretty much your typical police chief -- He puts the good of his town and the people in it before his own well-being, often running around with a severely injured shoulder just to check on things. It was hard to tell how old Dan was supposed to be. Sometimes I got the impression that he was in his 30s, but other times he felt as if he was in his 40s. Not really a significant detail, but something I wondered about while reading the book.

Boyle's writing is easy-to-read and accessible. He does a good job with giving detail and painting a scene. Sometimes, in the case of describing crime scenes, a little too much detail for my taste. There were several places, though, that could have benefited from an editor. The tenses of verbs changed from time to time, and there were a lot of extra commas, which got a little distracting.

This book was an enjoyable, easy read. Boyle released the second book in this planned trilogy, Ni'il: The War Within, in late 2008. I'd be interested in reading it to see what happens because Boyle left us hanging at the end.

Giveaway

I've found myself with an extra copy of this book (I'm still not quite sure how that happened...), so I'm offering it to one of you, my dear readers.

Just leave a comment with your e-mail address by 8 p.m. CST Friday, August 6, and this book can be yours!

This contest is even open internationally, since I've got some lovely readers across the globe!

Review and blog tour: The Art of Devotion by Samantha Bruce-Benjamin

Title: The Art of Devotion

Author: Samantha Bruce-Benjamin

Pages: 378

Source: Publisher

Rating: 7/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "For each of us, there is a moment: what we see at the last, before God closes our eyes forever; an entire existence distilled to one perfect memory."

Summary (From back of book):

The secluded beaches of a sun-drenched Mediterranean island are the perfect playground for young Sebastian and Adora. Emotionally adrift from their mother, Adora shelters her sensitive older brother from the cruelties of the world. Sophie does not question her children's intense need for one another until it's too late. Her beloved son's affections belong to Adora, and when he drowns in the sea, she has no one else to blame.

Still heartbroken years later, Adora fills her emptiness with Genevieve, the precocious young daughter of her husband's business associate and his jealous wife, Miranda. Thrilled to be invited into the beautiful and enigmatic Adora's world, the child idolizes her during their summers together. Yet, as the years progress, Genevieve begins to suspect their charmed existence is nothing more than a carefully crafted illusion. Soon, she too is ensnared in a web of lies.

My Two Cents:

Any book that begins with the final sentence from my all-time favorite novel, The Great Gatsby, gets an extra point in my book. And when that novel can take some of the same themes found in Gatsby and use them properly, it gets more points.

This book, Bruce-Benjamin's first novel, is told entirely from the memories of its characters. There is no present tense in the verbs, and some other reviewers have had problems with that fact. I think it works for this book, especially since so many of its characters are stuck in the past and can't see forward into the future. The "telling" from memory also works well for Bruce-Benjamin's writing style, which is easily readable and fluid.

I had a hard time determining which characters to like and dislike, which is definitely the author's intention. She only shows you what you need to see at any given moment, and your opinion of many of the characters changes pretty drastically throughout the course of the book. Sometimes, I like when authors do that, but other times I'm not so fond of it. The constant change in appearance and opinion of the characters works for this novel, though, as a lot of the focus is on artifice and perception.

I do have to say that Sebastian and Adora's relationship often creeped me out a little bit. They were far too close and dependent for brother and sister, especially as they got older. Maybe it's just because I've never had a sibling relationship that was that insanely close, but I just didn't understand it and I didn't understand why Sophie, their mother, didn't dissuade them from spending so much time together.

If you like books about family relationships, secrets and lies, this is the book for you.

Review and blog tour: A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr

Title: A Month in the Country

Author: J.L. Carr

Pages: 135

Source: Personal library

Rating: 8/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "When the train stopped I stumbled out, nudging and kicking the kitbag before me."

Summary (From back of book):

In J.L. Carr's deeply charged poetic novel, Tom Birkin, a veteran of the Great War and a broken marriage, arrives in the remote Yorkshire village of Oxgodby to restore a recently discovered medieval mural in the local church. Living in the bell tower, surrounded by the resplendent countryside of high summer, and laboring each day to uncover an anonymous painter's extraordinary depiction of the apocalypse, Birkin finds that he himself has been restored to a new, and hopeful, attachment to life. But summer ends, and with the work done, Birkin must leave. Now, long after, as he reflects on the passage of time and the power of art, he finds in his memories some consolation for all that has been lost.

My Two Cents:

This was such a nice, simple little book that I just couldn't put it down. I think I finished it in just over an hour's time.

I had never heard of J.L. Carr prior to this round of the Spotlight Series tour on the New York Review Books classics, and was surprised to find that this novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. After reading it, I can see why it was given that distinction.

Carr's writing is straightforward and highly readable, but there's a sense of wistfulness that pervades the prose. His narrator, Tom Birkin, is telling the story from many years on (Carr says he wrote this novel in the tradition of Thomas Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree), and there's definitely a sense that we may not be getting the full story because the narrator's fond memories are glossing things over. That Birkin is an unreliable narrator, however, doesn't take away from this book any. In fact, I think it enhances the reading.

While Carr was able to write some great characters, especially in Moon and Kathy Ellerbeck, but it's the town that really shines as the star of this book. As I was reading this, I could picture exactly the idyllic little town in the English countryside. Oxgodby could have been any one of dozens of little English towns (Places such as Castle Combe came to my mind as coming from my personal travels), and its inhabitants could have been any small-town Englishmen. I felt myself getting nostalgic for the things I had seen and the places I had visited, much like Tom Birkin was nostalgic for the Oxgodby he knew.

I also liked the inclusion of Birkin's uncovering of the medieval mural in the plot. The churchgoing townspeople had this gorgeous, albeit somewhat disturbing, example of the medieval depiction of the end of the world painted right above their heads the whole time, and no one knew it. They were so busy focusing on their own lives (here on Earth) that they didn't look up (toward Heaven) and see what was right in front of their faces. It was a nice metaphor, I thought.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes novels about the English countryside, art or who just wants a quick read.

Note: I purchased a copy of this book for the Spotlight Series tour of the NYRB Classics.

New York Review Books Classics publishes unique and interesting classics from many eras and parts of the world. Some you may have heard of, others you'll discover for the first time! Often they are translated from other languages and include such greats as such as Euripides, Dante, Balzac, and Chekhov. NYRB Classics include not just fiction titles but also non-fiction such as memoirs, cookbooks, travel and literary criticism.

Just a sample of their authors: Daphne DuMaurier, Arthur Conan Doyle, Christina Stead, Mavis Gallant, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky.

Considered the wide range of eras, genres and nationalities you are sure to find something to suit your tastes.
 

Review and Blog Tour: Life, in Spite of Me by Kristen Jane Anderson with Tricia Goyer

Title: Life, in Spite of Me: Extraordinary Hope after a Fatal Choice

Author: Kristen Jane Anderson with Tricia Goyer

Pages: 204

Source: Publisher

Rating: 8/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge; Take Another Chance Challenge (Challenge #5: Title Word Count)

First Sentence: "Numb. The cold Illinois wind chilled my body."

Summary (From book flap):

Overwhelmed by wave after wave of emotional trauma, Kristen Anderson no longer wanted to live. One January night, determined to end her pain once and for all, the seventeen-year-old lay across train tracks not far from her home and waited to die.

Instead of peace, she found herself immersed in a whole new nightmare.

Before the engineer could bring the train to a stop, thirty-three freight cars passed over her at fifty-five miles per hour. After the train stopped and Kristen realized she was still alive, she looked around -- and saw her legs ten feet away.

Surviving her suicide attempt but losing her legs launched Kristen into an even deeper battle with depression and suicidal thoughts as well as unrelenting physical pain -- all from the seat of a wheelchair.

But in the midst of her darkest days, Kristen discovered the way to real life and a purpose for living.

Life, in Spite of Me recounts in riveting detail the trauma of her suicide attempt, the miracle of her survival, and the life-transforming power of hope in Christ.

For anyone struggling to find the strength to go on, the message of this heart-wrenching yet hope-building book is clear:
God loves you more than you can imagine.
He has good plans for your future.
Life is a gift.

An extraordinary reminder that even when we give up on life, God doesn't give up on us.

My Two Cents:

I've never read an inspirational memoir before, so this was a new experience for me.

I think this book could do people in a certain place in life a lot of good. Anyone, teens especially, struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts could easily relate to Kristen's story. She gives a glimpse of what her life was like following her suicide attempt, such as a party she attends shortly after leaving the hospital, but I would have liked to see more of her daily struggles from that standpoint. We see a lot of how she struggles with depressive thoughts and wishing she were dead, but not a lot about the day-to-day problems she faced after losing her legs.

Her message is one of hope. She had these problems and she tried to do something about them, but God saved her for a higher purpose. It's a great message, and one with which a lot of people can identify. But, I also think her faith may have come a little too easily. Perhaps it's because she already was raised Christian, but Kristen just didn't seem to have the same struggles and questions a lot of new Christians have. I wondered if she really did just accept God that easily (If so, awesome for her!) or if she just left those things out of the book.

Either way, this was a really quick read and I would recommend it to anyone struggling with similar issues or anyone who wants to read a story of God working in a person's life.




I received a free copy of this book courtesy of WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group,

Review and Book Tour: Play Dead by Ryan Brown

Title: Play Dead

Author: Ryan Brown

Pages: 344

Source: Publisher

Rating: 8/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "The drums outside beat hard enough to form ripples in the water."

Summary (From book flap):

For the first time in Killington High School history, the Jackrabbits football team is one win away from the district championship where it will face its most vicious rival, the Elmwood Heights Baders. On the way to the game, the Jackrabbits' bus plunges into a river, killing every player except for bad-boy quarterback Cole Logan who is certain the crash was no accident -- given that Cole himself was severely injured in a brutal attack by three ski-masked men earlier that day. Bent on payback, Cole turns to a mysterious fan skilled in black magic to resurrect his teammates. But unless the undead Jackrabbits defeat their murderous rival on the field, the team is destined for hell. In a desperate race against time, with only his coach's clever daughter, Savannah Hickman, to assist him, Cole must lead his zombie team to victory ... in a final showdown where the stakes aren't just life or death -- but damnation or salvation.

My Two Cents:

At first, I was skeptical about this book. Anyone who knows me knows that football and I are like cats and water: There's not a whole lot of love there. But, when I saw there were zombies, I had to read it. I so love zombies.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. Sure, there was way more football than I would have liked, but a football game in a football-crazed town was the perfect setting for a team of undead teenagers. I would've liked to see more zombie fun, but, well, I'm used to playing Left 4 Dead, so brain-eating is kind of second-nature to me.

Brown is a skilled writer who knows how to pace his story properly. Things don't move too slowly or too quickly. He also adds a generous amount of humor, which is the mark of any good off-the-wall zombie concept in my book. I'd be interested to see what he comes up with next.

For me, this book wasn't so much about characters as what happened. Sure, I liked Cole and Savannah and Coach Hickman well enough, and I loathed the opposing team the proper amount, but the story was much more what propelled me through this book. I think I finished the whole thing in a few hours' time.

If you like zombies, or if you (Heaven forbid!) like football, I'd recommend this book to you. It's well worth it!

Review and Blog Tour: No Hope for Gomez!

Title: No Hope for Gomez!

Author: Graham Parke

Pages: 188

Source: Pump Up Your Book Promotion

Rating: 8/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review Challenge

First Sentence: "Blog entry: Woke up fresh and early but still didn't make it to work in time."

Summary (From back of book):

It's the age-old tale:

Boy meets girl
Boy stalks girl
Girl already has stalker
Boy becomes her stalker-stalker

We've seen it all before, many times, but this time it's different. If only slightly.

When Gomez Porter becomes a test subject in an experimental drug trial, he is asked to keep track of any strange experiences through a Blog. What Gomez isn't ready for, is so many of his experiences suddenly seeming strange; the antiques dealer trying to buy his old tax papers, his neighbor boiling salamanders on his balcony at midnight, the super sexy lab assistant who falls for him but is unable to express herself in terms outside the realm of science.

But when one of the trial participants turns up dead and another goes missing, Gomez begins to fear for his life. No longer sure who he can trust and which of his experiences are real and which merely drug induced illusions, he decides it's time to go underground and work out a devious plan.

My Two Cents:

When I first opened the book, I wasn't so sure what to expect, as it's written entirely in blog posts from the narrator, Gomez.  The concept sounded interesting, but also potentially really, really odd, so I was a little skeptical.

What I found was one of the most humorous books I've read in a while.

Gomez is one of those modern characters who are really popular in corporate fiction -- The guys disenchanted with the way they need to make their money, so they try to do as little as possible during the day. He owns an antique shop that was passed down to him, but he knows and cares nothing for antiques, and customers seem to just annoy him. A new neighbor moves in downstairs, and the man pushes a manuscript for a book onto Gomez. Gomez does everything he can think of to tell the man he hates his book, from boiling salamanders on his balcony to running away from the neighbor, but he doesn't get the hint.

The only thing that bothered me at all about the book was, at one point, the narrative jumps forward a few weeks. Since we're reading this entire book through a series of blog posts, we mainly get a few entries in a single day, narrating a lot of minutiae. But, when it comes to showing the passage of a few weeks, we get, "Over the next couple of weeks our relationship strengthened." Not exactly the most elegant way to show a time passage, but not a huge deal, either.

It's really difficult to describe or evaluate this book because it is just off-the-wall enough, so suffice it to say you just need to read it to believe it. I really liked it!

About the Author:

Graham Parke is responsible for a number of technical publications and has recently patented a self-folding map. He has been described as both a humanitarian and a pathological liar. Convincing evidence to support either allegation has yet to be produced.

No Hope for Gomez! is Graham’s fiction debut. You can visit his website at www.grahamparke.com.

Review and Blog Tour: The River Kings' Road by Liane Merciel

Title: The River Kings' Road

Author: Liane Merciel

Pages: 388

Source: Publisher

Rating: 9/10

Challenges: Read 'n' Review challenge

First Sentence: "Brys Tarnell was not a pious man."

Summary (From book flap):

A fragile period of peace between the eternally warring kingdoms of Oakharn and Langmyr is shattered when a surprise massacre fueled by bloodmagic ravages the Langmyrne border village of Willowfield, killing its inhabitants -- including a visiting Oakharne lord and his family -- and leaving behind a scene so grisly that even the carrion eaters avoid its desecrated earth. But the dead lord's infant heir has survived the carnage -- a discovery that entwines the destinies of Brys Tarnell, a mercenary who rescues the helpless and ailing babe, and who enlists a Langmyr peasant, a young mother herself, to nourish and nurture the child of her enemies as they travel a dark, perilous road ... Odosse, the peasant woman whose only weapons are wit, courage, and her fierce maternal love -- and who risks everything she holds dear to protect her new charge ... Sir Kelland, a divinely blessed Knight of the Sun, called upon to unmask the architects behind the slaughter and avert war between ancestral enemies ... Bitharn, Kelland's companion on his journey, who conceals her lifelong love for the Knight behind her flawless archery skills -- and whose feelings may ultimately be Kelland's undoing ... and Leferic, an Oakharne Lord's bitter youngest son, whose dark ambitions fuel the most horrific acts of violence. As one infant's life hands in the balance, so too does the fate of thousands, while deep in the forest, a Maimed Witch practices an evil bloodmagic that could doom them all...

My Two Cents:
I love fantasies in the epic, sweeping, Lord of the Rings style, so when I had the chance to review this one, I grabbed it!

This book, Merciel's first and the first in a planned series, is what I call a "quiet" fantasy. It's obviously set in another world, as there's talk of magic and witches and all sorts of other things, but the setting is not so remote that you have to think really hard to conjure up the fantastical elements. In other words, there are no out-there races of beings or green skies or anything. This is a book I could very easily see taking place back during Medieval times, as the overall setting is very similar. 

Merciel has a really strong narrative voice. Her writing is descriptive without being overly flowery. Much of the time, it seemed as if the story was being told to me, perhaps by one of the bards of old. At least, I like to think of it that way.

There are so many characters in this book, it was hard to pick just one as a favorite. After much deliberation, I decided that Bitharn, the young woman often mistaken for a young man due to her archery skills, is my favorite. I liked that she wasn't all tomboy or all girly-girl; she was enough of a mix of both to really endear her to me as a character.

The story was an interesting one: It begins with a mass murder from which a little boy is rescued. A knight must assure the safety of the infant, as the child is the heir to a lordship. From there, the story branches out to encompass several major characters scattered far and wide throughout the realm, and their stations in life range from peasant to knight to Blessed (I think of them as something akin to monks) to lords. It's a sweeping tale, and Merciel leaves enough cliffhangers -- but still answers enough questions -- to make the reader want to read the next book in the series.

The breadth of the story was also one of its weak points, I thought. Since there were so many characters doing so many different things, it was hard to really get to know any one of them intimately. Sure, I liked a lot of the characters and I felt that I knew enough about them that I could make judgments as to what type of people they were, but I really would've liked to have spent more time with a few of the characters instead of seeing the story from so many different viewpoints. I hope that future books in this series focus more closely on specific characters.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes fantasy, and those who enjoy tales set in realms of old. This is a really enjoyable read.

Note: This book was sent to me by Simon and Schuster for the purpose of this blog tour. Receiving a free copy in no way influenced my review of this book.