The New Book Review

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

New York Editor Praises "American Sycamore"

American Sycamore

By Karen Fielding

Paperback

Publisher: Seren
ISBN-10: 1781721173
ISBN-13: 978-1781721179
Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 4.9 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces
Available for purchase on Amazon com and Amazon UK

Reviewed by Dana Micheli, New York Editor, Writers in the Sky
A Goodreads five-star review

"Fielding captures America's unique physical landscape -- and dysfunction -- in a truly palpable way. Not since reading Joyce Carol Oates could I so easily step into a book." Dana Micheli

Her longer review is as follows:

It is a rare pleasure to be completely immersed in a book-when a writer is able to engage all five senses so the reader feels like they are truly there. That's what Karen Fielding did when she created the beautiful, tragic world of American Sycamore. It is the story of Alice Sycamore, a young girl coming of age in the rural Pennsylvania of the 1970s, as well as the turmoil of dealing with her mentally ill brother.

Fielding's prose is achingly beautiful, with descriptions of nature so vivid it reminded me of Alice Hoffman. With every page of American Sycamore, I could smell the brackish odor of the Susquehanna River, feel the desolation of walking along it on an icy winter day, and the insects landing on my skin during a hot, sticky summer.

But what I loved most about Fielding's writing is its subtlety. Humor in the face of emotional agony and matter-of-fact statements must be used by only the most skilled writers, and even then very carefully, lest they downplay the drama of the story. In Fielding's hands, they give this drama yet another layer of realism. We see the ignorance of these times through the eyes (and funny, cryptic statements) of Joseph Lightfoot, a Native American who is trivialized by white society but gains wisdom from the ghosts of his ancestors. This also serves as a bit of irony, for Alice's brother, Billy-a manic depressive- also sees things that others cannot. Is Billy completely crazy, or does he also possess a particular brand of supernatural wisdom? While it is most likely the former, it did give me pause. I would be hard-pressed to name many authors--Joyce Carol Oates being one of them--that conveys human emotions and family dysfunctions so simply and so honestly.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Friday, February 21, 2014

Midwest Book Review Generously Shares Review with New Book Review

Title of Book: Miracle Man

Author: William R. Leibowitz

Publisher: Manifesto Media Group
Publication Date: January 16, 2014
Genre: Thriller
ISBN-13-978-0-9898662-1-7
Editions: Paperback and E-book
Number of Pages: 385 in E-book;   428 in paperback
Paperback: $12.95 E-book: $4.99

Available on Amazon

Reviewed by Diane Donovan originally for Midwest Book Review

Miracle Man opens on a rainy day with a sad scenario: a baby is abandoned in a dumpster by people too young to be burned with a child and too involved with drugs to care about a tiny life. Fast forward four years: Bobby is being raised by loving foster parents and has a good life despite his near-death experience as a baby; but something is still wrong - which is why they have taken him to a child psychologist for evaluation.

Bobby is developing patterns of behavior that are odd (trances, disturbing nightmares, broken sleep); but what the psychologist discovers is even more disturbing. Far from being a victim of childhood trauma, Bobby is actually a genius operating on a level far removed from anything intelligence tests have measured before.

Bobby's abilities are superhuman and his early interest in the medical field leads to a fascination with curing diseases; something that diverts from the purposes of the military group controlling his advanced education.

To call this novel a 'medical thriller' or a 'political story' would be to do it an injustice. Miracle Man is about miracles, motivations, ethics and morals, and the influence of special interests in the work of genius minds. It's about one 'super' boy's devotion to solving some of medicine's greatest mysteries against forces that would divert these great talents to something darker; and it's ultimately about the ability to withstand moral and ethical temptations against all odds.

Readers are treated to a plot with many twists and turns: it holds intrigue, describes compulsions and diversions, shows how a genius battles dark forces within and outside of himself, and generally paints a powerful picture of a search for privacy as much as meaning: "Every time he received an award or made a discovery, it became an impetus to the press to dredge him up as the subject of a story or special report. The snooping began anew. He hated to admit it, but in retrospect, he was grateful to Orin Varneys for having taken possession of all records relating to his childhood and sealing them under the protection of the OSSIS. Bobby shuddered to think about the field day the media would have if they had been able to discover his past."

A dash of romance would seem impossible under such conditions but even this emerges, even as Bobby's work threatens to separate him from anything resembling a normal life - including love…."But as the weeks went by, Susan began to notice a difference in him. He was becoming increasingly detached from present reality. Even when he wasn’t in one of his frequent trances, he didn’t seem present. Reclusive and paranoid,

he sequestered himself in his office with the door locked—or worked from the guest house for days on end."

Is Bobby a savior or a destroyer? A miracle man or a tortured genius with the power to annihilate himself and the world?

Miracle Man pinpoints the true wellspring of Bobby's genius and what amounts to an ultimate illness defying everything he's worked for and believes in. And so a gripping novel of psychological tension becomes much more than your usual 'medical thriller', and is a pick for any who want high octane action and emotionally-charged reading right up to an unexpected, gripping conclusion.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Bookstory Blog Calls Thriller "Unputdownable"

HALLWAYS IN THE NIGHT

Athor: R.C. O'Leary

Author's Web site: Www.rcoleary.com

Genre: Legal Thriller

ISBN: 978-0985838287

Amazon buying link

Reviewed by Bookstory Blogspot

"A Totally Unputdownable Book. Looking forward to the Sequel."

Sometimes you stumble across a good book or a new author in the most unexpected way. I met Andaleeb Wajid through a Twitter conversation about kichda. R C O’Leary somehow got to this blog and he was kind enough to send me his novel as a Kindle gift. And so I spent the weekend in a courtroom with Remo Centrella and Dave Mackno and I must say, it was a weekend well spent.

An arrogant, steroid pushing baseball player gets killed by a cop. Self defense, he says. But when there’s 45 million dollars involved, a clean self defense claim doesn’t fully cut it. So what we have is an edge of the seat legal battle that makes you keep turning the pages till the very end. I love American legal dramas, be it reruns of The Practice or John Grisham novels. I don’t know if I am being fair to the author by saying that this was like a Grisham, but it was. And some more. The characters were well formed and I actually didn’t take sides till the end. I wavered back and forth throughout the trial. Did Dave Mackno overreact? Was he driven by his own ghosts from the past? At one point you want him to win, and a few pages later, you wonder if he should.

There are little backstories for all the characters, one of which becomes a vital twist towards the end. The book touches on some relevant and sensitive topics like the identity crisis that the African American lawyer goes through, how the internet broke a family and of course, the usage of steroids in sports ( Made me wonder why we never ever hear of steroid use in cricket. Could Slapgate have been ‘roid rage?) And then there was even a dumb witness who actually named his kid after Hulk Hogan!

A totally unputdownable book. Looking forward to the sequel.

RC O'Leary

Author of Hallways in the Night

Legal Thriller, Available in print at Amazon

E-book at Amazon, iBooks, Kobo and Nook

Print Book available at Amazon and Inkwood Books

When a veteran cop tries to arrest baseball's home run king, one of them ends up on trial and the other ends up dead.

Free Sample Chapters at RCOLeary.com

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Novel Gets Raves from Amazon Reviewer

Title of Book: Miracle Man
Author: William R. Leibowitz

Reviewed by Mark Mavrantonis originally for Amazon

One Word: AWESOME

I read this book in one sitting, and I have to say it’s one of the better books I’ve read in a very long time. I generally read between four and six works of fiction every week, and for me to say this is one of my favorites is really saying a lot.

The story begins with an abandoned baby—found in a dumpster –being taken in by very kind foster parents. As the infant grows, it becomes very clear that he’s a bit “different.” The parents take him to a doctor when he’s four, and from there, it becomes obvious that the boy’s IQ is off the charts, about three hundred points off the charts when compared to some of the smartest people in history.

The parents are reluctantly convinced to allow Bobby to be taken in to a special program to develop his incredible intelligence. From here, it gets really good –the kid has a great personality, somewhat sarcastic, but very kind overall. There’s an obvious different about him, and he tends to be alone most of the time, ever studying, or in one of his “trances,” where he just stares off into the distance for long periods of time, working things out in his head. The company funding the program, has an ulterior motive to focus Bobby on math and science, in particular to solve problems for military programs.

After several tragedies occur in Bobby’s life, before he’s even twenty years old, he decides to devote all of his focus to the medical field, to cure diseases and to help mankind doing medical research. Needless to say, this isn’t ideal for the group who is running the program and they’re not thrilled with Bobby’s decision.

I’m not going to give away any more, but all I can say is that you need to read the book. The author seems to have done some excellent research, and everything seems very plausible given the unusual circumstances.

The “flow” of the timeline was seamless as well – a week or two here and there, sometimes it would skip a course of several years, but it was all tied together perfectly.

At the end of the book, it seemed to me that there could quite possibly be a very exciting sequel, maybe even the possibility of a series. I hope there is at least one more in the works –I’ll read it nonstop when it comes out.

Buy this book –you will definitely not be disappointed.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Dr. Bob Rich Inspires Reviewer with "Ascending Spiral"

TITLE: Ascending Spiral: Humanity's last chance

AUTHOR: Bob Rich http://bobswriting.com/ascending.html
ISBN 978-1-61599-186-0
PUBLISHER: Marvelous Sprits Press http://www.marvelousspirit.com
GENRE: Fiction: Insprational, Historical, SF.
BUY LINKS are at http://bobswriting.com/ascending.html

Reviewed by Max Overton originally for Bobbing Around newsletter

Ascending Spiral is a wonderfully curious book and one that defies instant categorisation. At first, I thought it a series of historical stories -- expertly crafted and meticulously researched -- that put you right into the times so you can actually feel what the characters are experiencing. You live as Padraig, his short life terminated by a Viking raider; as Irishman Dermot fighting against British tyranny; as Amelia, the wife of a brutal landowner in Outback Australia; and as Pip Lipkin, a young man in 20^th century Australia, fighting prejudice and his own failings. But it was so much more than just historical stories. The central character in each account turns out to be the same soul, experiencing different lives, learning some lessons, failing others, falling and rising, though the overall journey is one of ascent -- one soul’s journey on an ascending spiral.

This, in itself, would be a fascinating tale of men and women buffeted by circumstance, but the story is twelve thousand years in the making. Furthermore, it encompasses the lives of aliens as well as humans, told in a way that seems both realistic and meaningful. A Space Flower and a Walking Plant add their lives to the mix, and if it seems odd that these beings should be included in a story of an ascending soul, think again. Every action leaves its mark, both on ourselves and those around us, and if we do harm, we must atone for our actions before we can move forward. With every death comes an accounting and a chance for the soul to pick a future life that will help it right the wrongs of a previous existence, help it on its spiral of ascent.

If all that wasn’t enough, one is left with a strong feeling that the latter part of the book is at least partly autobiographical, as the character Pip Lipkin finally realises his long history and what it all means. He has learned lessons from his past lives and can now put them into practice. This would be enough for most books, but Bob Rich goes further, pointing out the future of the planet and the fate of every species on it unless we too learn the lessons that Pip has learned over twelve thousand years of existence.

Ascending Spiral is a book that held me fascinated while I was reading it, and made me sit and think when I finished it. I know I’ll be reading it again, especially the latter part where the future of the planet -- my future, your future -- is laid out, and how we can yet save it from destruction. Thank you, Bob, for this wonderful and thought-provoking experience.

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More about the author:

Dr Bob Rich, http://bobswriting.com
Editor of Bobbing Around http://wp.me/P3Xihq-1http://bobswriting.com/ascending.html
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Live simply so you may simply live"

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Vine Voice Reviewer Gives Five Stars to Historical Fiction

Title: Olivia, Mourning

Book 1 of the Olivia series)
Author: Yael Politis
Author's website: http://yaelpolitis.wordpress.com
Genre: Historical Fiction (USA, 1840s)
ISBN: 1493652451
ASIN: B00H0GYRT2

Purchase Link

Reviewed by Carol Kean, an Amazon Vine Voice Reviewer

Originally published in: Amazon.com

Great characters, well-researched historical 5 stars

What a beautifully written but heart-breaking story! From page one, I was hooked. A boy named Mourning, orphaned as an infant, is adopted by a small-town white family. He grows up to be a sterling character, capable, hard working, and reliable. What would the town do without him? A girl named Olivia grows up in the same town, escaping the racist mindset that plagues everyone else except a lawyer who actually has Mourning's best interests at heart, and a woman whose reputation is questionable, but whose character and integrity far surpass that of the self-righteous townfolk. When Olivia wants to stake her claim to a piece of land her uncle left behind, she proposes something like a marriage of convenience between her and Mourning. She's white, he's black, so marriage is out of the question, and their arrangement is strictly platonic, until Olivia finally acknowledges her attraction to a man society will never allow her to marry. At times she must pretend to boss him around like a servant because the alternative is persecution of a worse sort. The novel takes a dark turn, which can hardly be summarized with plot spoilers. The ending is a cliff hanger, sure to send readers racing for Book Two.

The prose is gorgeous, the historical setting is vividly reproduced with painstaking detail, and the characters are so real, it's hard to believe they really are fictional. The fate of Olivia and Mourning, however, fulfills the double meaning of the title. Emotionally, it's a brutal read. However, it's all just the way the world is. And so the sequel (which I've read) is also aptly titled. I strongly recommend these novels for their social and historical value, but also for the sheer beauty of the story. Just be prepared to feel angry, horrified and heartbroken.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Friday, February 7, 2014

Magic and Mayhem Blogger Gives New Novel Top Rating

Book title: Division

Author: Karen A. Wyle
Author web site: http://www.KarenAWyle.net
Genre: near-future science fiction (though the book is also intended for general audiences)
ISBN: The paperback, due out on March 20, 2014, will have the ISBN 978-1493775989.
ASIN: For the e-book, B00G82BBQQ.

Reviewer by Samantha Saboviec, originall for her blog Magic and Mayhem

Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars.
Note: The reviewer received a free copy of Division in exchange for an honest review.

Division is one of the best books I read in 2013, a year in which I read Parasite and We Need to Talk About Kevin. (And the Divergent trilogy, but I didn’t actually like those books, so no competition there.) I liked it so much that I asked author Karen A. Wyle to write a guest post for the blog, which she did last Friday.

I read books to escape and be entertained, like everyone else. But more, I read books to be challenged intellectually, and Division does just that.

This is a story about a pair of conjoined twins. One twin wants to undergo an operation to separate them into two bodies, while the other wants to stay joined. This is set in the near future, where the twins must present their arguments in court because the procedure requires the use of clones and cloning is restricted. The book follows a variety of characters as they cope with the emotional atmosphere up to and after the decision

I get swept away by books like these that explore what it’s like living in the skin of an unusual, unexpected person. Division puts us into the experiences of a twin who want to be free, showing us what life is like chained to another person. It shows us the struggle the other twin undergoes when he’s–in his mind–rejected by someone closer than a lover could ever be. It even examines how their struggle affects their mother, who’s loved them unconditionally from birth and must watch their relationship fall apart. It follows a girlfriend who believed she would, someday soon, marry two people in one body.

A variety of moral questions are opened without direct treatment, which was skillful and impressive. Should the twins be allowed to leave their body for clones? Should a court have the responsibility to decide the future of their lives? Can there ever be a “right” answer when both of them want something mutually exclusive? Yet the morality was never heavy-handed, but was instead a backdrop for the interesting and subtle character interactions.

This book is one of the beautiful pieces of self-published literature that inspires me. The author, Karen A. Wyle, has published several other books that I’m eager to check out. Not to get on my soapbox again, but meticulous attention to detail–plot, character, premise, grammar–is what makes people want to read books. You don’t have to be traditionally published, though you may have to work your bum off twice as hard to get noticed. I heartily recommend this book.

Purchase links:

Amazon for Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Division-Karen-Wyle-ebook/dp/B00G82BBQQ -- or the multi-country link, http://smarturl.it/Division

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/362640

Nook Store: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/division-karen-a-wyle/1117027466?ean=2940045297813

iBookstore: http://www.ibookstore.com/products.php?i=B00G82BBQQ

Kobobooks: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/division-1

Sony: https://ebookstore.sony.com/ebook/karen-a-wyle/division/_/R-400000000000001158857

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