Dining Out Around the Solar System Book 1 by Clare O'Beara Review

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Authors, readers, publishers, and reviewers may republish their favorite reviews of books they want to share with others. 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 and love. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page and in a tab at the top of this blog's home page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites so it may be used a resource for most anyone in the publishing industry. 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.

Dining Out Around the Solar System Book 1 by Clare O'Beara Review

Introduction: There are four books in this series and I enjoyed them so much I read them all in quick succession. The topics include prejudice, climate change, relocating for employment, problems getting work after college, women's rights, immigration, and poverty. They are set in the future with people from other planets in our solar system now living on Earth. Many of the modern problems of society are interwoven in the texts. There are two protagonists who are book nerds — one is from Ireland (and hypersensitive) and one is multiracial. They are modest heroes. Clare O'Beara has also written many mysteries. The books are somewhat informational, and I would say they are multi-genre nonfiction and science fiction. 

Dining Out Around The Solar System Part One 

Clare O'Beara

Kindle Edition

Dining Out Around the Solar System Book 1

Book 1

• ASIN: B00E4N30XS

This book has it all as far as I am concerned! I like science and science fiction. 
Please see also the reviews for book 2, book 3, and book 4.

The protagonists, Donal and Myron, are modest observant heroes who live in London and write reviews for the zine news and later London’s Eye. Donal is Irish, hypersensitive, and a food critic. Myron, with Jamaican grandparents, reviews adult entertainment which is referenced mostly in passing throughout the books. What they wear and what they notice about fashion is mentioned throughout the story. How they take care to protect their reputations as reporters and personal identity is explained. They have new editors and other reporters to deal with, as well as sci-fi computers built into glass desks. The office building has an antigrav lift. The cutting-edge electronics are well described.

Many of the restaurants Donal reviews are run by people from elsewhere in our solar system, such as Mercury or Venus. Each review enlightens us a little more about life and culture in London in this future setting. "Food of Love,” for instance, is a review about a Venusian place with all the tables set for couples. The restaurant has trouble arranging seating a few more people for a small office party.

I like the descriptions such as these few lines from this particular review:

“The staff keep hovering gently in the background here, but never intruding, allowing one to focus on one’s company. Pricey location for an office party, but the bright young things at the other tables certainly appeared to find it romantic.”

Another food review is of "Pluto’s Mr. Frosty Van." Donal realizes the Plutonians didn’t know about ice-cream when they landed but have now mastered the art. Ice cream becomes important in a later book for people from a different planet.

Workers who take six-month jobs in space may arrive home with shuttle flu, which is also contagious to those living on earth. The workers also have physical ailments from living in space that last about six months. Weil’s disease is new and colds are not usually mild anymore. Futuristic illnesses impact the lives of the characters.

Donal figures out a way to earn college credits which gives him more credibility as a reporter. That he figures out a clever way to do this without having much money shows he is ingenious. 

I love it that all through all four books, Donal and Myron are “book nerds” and refer to other books by title, fitting the situations at hand. They make humorous statements which are enjoyable. They solve parts of mysteries with hacking but only for good intentions, always carefully covering their tracks.

Clare reads extensively and reviews books for Fresh Fiction.com, and has a website at:

http://www.clareobeara.ie

Clare blogs and answers questions on her Goodreads page. 

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7244400.Clare_O_Beara.

I will be writing reviews of the other three books in this series this summer. 

Thank you for reading, 

Carolyn Wilhelm

Wise Owl Factory

Mystery Writer Brian O'Hare Shares Readers Favorite Review

Title:  The Dark Web Murders

Author:  Brian O'Hare

Author's Website:    https://www.brianohareauthor.blogspot.com/

Book Genre:  Mystery Thriller

ISBN-10: 168160664X

ISBN -13: 978-1681606644

Publisher: Crimson Cloak Publishing

Book's Amazon Link:  https://tinyurl.com/yxhzlpmq

Official Review by Divine Zape for READERS FAVOURITE.com

Review Rating:  5 Stars   

The Dark Web Murders by Brian O'Hare follows an intelligent and ruthless serial killer who is as elusive as he is provocative. He calls himself Nemein and claims to be a nemesis, the one who metes out punishments. But he says he is not a killer, that he is detached from his killings. Now he taunts Inspector Sheehan, an intelligent and highly skilled detective, using a series of blog posts as the body count of victims rises. The killer seems to know Sheehan and knows just how to make him suffer. Follow the detective and his team as they trawl alleys that lead to dead ends. Will they ever come close to catching the elusive serial killer or will they watch helplessly as more victims are killed every day?

Brian O'Hare has a refreshing voice in the crime and mystery genres, a clear and enjoyable one. The author plunges readers into the mindset of a serial killer and forces them to navigate the darkness that inhabits the killer's soul. From the beginning, the reader is gripped by curiosity and wants to discover more about the villain, but they quickly discover that the darkness is addictive, nourished by a grim, pervasive form of humor that rubs off on the reader. The author explores the darkest instincts of humanity and creates characters that are sophisticated and real. The novel is ingeniously plotted and the online presence of the killer gives the feeling of one who is everywhere and yet nowhere. The Dark Web Murders is suspenseful, psychologically disturbing, and emotionally engaging. An expertly written crime novel that leaves you with nightmares.

MORE ABOUT REVIEWS AND ACCESS TO THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everything from Amazon Vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog 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.

Note: Participating authors and their publishers may request the social sharing image by Carolyn Wilhelm at no charge.  Please contact the designer at:  cwilhelm (at) thewiseowlfactory (dot) com. Provide the name of the book being reviewed and--if an image or headshot of the author --isn't already part of the badge, include it as an attachment. Wilhelm will send you the badge to use in your own Internet marketing. Give Wilhelm the link to this post, too! 

Another Review Resource for The New Book Review Blog Visitors

I rarely do this, but I didn't know about GoDaddy's support for what they call testimonials; testimonials are closely related to getting review and I sometimes substitute a few testimonials for authors who as yet have no review to submit to this blog (see the tab for submission as the top of this blog post). So, here is the link to their updated post.  In my How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically,  I call  reviews (and yes related excepts like testimonials, blurbs, etc), "forever reviews" because they are one of my favorite marketing tools.

Here is the link:
how-to-ask-for-testimonials-and-reviews-from-your-clients

I hope to hear from authors, readers, reviewers, or publishers with your favorite review--maybe with something GoDaddy.com helped you acquire.  Be sure to follow the submission guidelines, though!

Best,
Carolyn

MORE ABOUT REVIEWS AND ACCESS TO THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everything from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog 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.

Note: Participating authors and their publishers may request the social sharing image by Carolyn Wilhelm at no charge.  Please contact the designer at:  cwilhelm (at) thewiseowlfactory (dot) com. Provide the name of the book being reviewed and--if an image or headshot of the author --isn't already part of the badge, include it as an attachment. Wilhelm will send you the badge to use in your own Internet marketing. Give Wilhelm the link to this post, too! 

Lois W. Stern Offers a Path to a Free and Ethical Reviews

Lois W. Stern, an author advocate and former educator, is a frequent contributor to this blog and she now offers readers of #TheNewBookReview a path to getting free and ethical reviews for their books. No kidding!  She explains how to do it below and you'll learn more about her other projects that help writers in her biography below that. Please feel free to let those in the publishing industry know about this service.

Lois W. Stern Helps Authors Get Ethical Review--FREE!

FreeEthicalReviews

Marketing is a huge part of a book's success, and getting reviews is a huge part of marketing a book or any other business. If you don't believe it, ask a plumber who has had poor reviews on Yelp!~ excerpt from page 18 of How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically by Carolyn Howard-Johnson

__________________________________

Get your review request listed here on The New Book Review blog (no charge). Send Lois the elevator pitch describing one of your books and asking for a reviewer for it. The pitch should be no longer than 50 words. Follow the format below and send your request and description to tales2Inspire@optimum.net with REVIEW WANTED in the subject line. Make sure the book is already listed at Amazon.com. 

Author or Publisher Responsibilities: 

Authors or publishers must be willing to send a book (in whatever format(s) you list in your application as outlined below as well as promotional materials to anyone who contacts you. 

Please note: Those who offer paper copies of their book are more likely to attract a reviewer.

Reviewer Responsibilities: 

Reviewer must :

• Commit to writing a review within 30 days.
• Post it on the author's Amazon buy page.
• Give the author permission to post it on The New Book Review blog.
• Follow submission guidelines outlined in  the left column of this blog.

______________

KINDLY USE THE FOLLOWING FORMAT:

TITLE:

SUBTITLE (If any):

GENRE:

DESCRIPTION: (Your elevator pitch - (Maximum 75 words)

AUTHOR'S NAME:

E-MAIL:

NUMBER OF PAGES:

FORMATS YOU ARE OFFERING FOR REVIEW: (PDF, E-BOOK, PAPERBACK or HARDCOVER BOOKS)

AGE/INTEREST LEVEL:

AMAZON URL: 
___________________________________________________________________

SUBMIT YOUR REVIEW REQUEST TO LOIS AT: tales2inspire@optimum.net

PUT TNBR Review Request IN THE SUBJECT LINE.

_____________________________________

It really works folks! 

I posted a Review Request notice on the New Review Blog Spot for the newest book in my Tales2Inspire Collection, and got this fabulous review . What makes it even more special is that this reviewer,  an author herself, comes all the way from South Africa!

She began with the heading:.  

If I could give this book 6 stars, I would.

and continued with the words:

If you want to be inspired about our future on this planet, and if you need some perking up about the condition of the next generation, please read this book. You will be well-rewarded with good, good news about young children  teenagers and (young) adults who are sincerely making a positive difference in our world." ~ Terry Atkinson - South African author of A Love Story from the Heart and Bob and the Bully

__________________________________________________________________________

In the tradition (and memory) of our beloved friend and author advocate, Dan Poynter,
The New Book Review wants to help our readers get credible reviews,
so continue to send us your REVIEW WANTED requests as outlined above.

__________________________

ABOUT LOIS W  STERN

   

MORE ABOUT YOUR TRUSTED REVIEW COORDINATOR

Tales2inspire was a kernel of an idea Lois W. Stern started in 2012. It has grown to proportions she didn’t dare to envision. Lois's innate curiosity about potentially fascinating human interest stories was the spark that ignited this idea, but it was the confused state of traditional publishing that propelled her forward. Tales2inspire delivers exactly what it promises as both an authors-helping-authors project and a contest. Winners get their stories published in print, e-book, and some even in video formats with their names, headshot photos, and mini-autobiographies. Then Lois spreads  the word about the winners and their stories on her blog, in her monthly newsletter, and on her social networks. Free to enter, this competition is open to talented newbies and seasoned authors alike. 

Lois is a multi award-winning author whose work has been featured in The New York Times, on Local Access TV, and in live presentations in many varied venues. She has now published eight Tales2Inspire books of her contest winners' stories. Fans of Chicken Soup for the Soul are particularly enamored of Tales2Inspire books, because aside from their inspirational themes, they are filled with original photos to enhance the power of each story. Lois invites interested readers to get a FREE Tales2Inspire sampler book at: www.tales2inspire.com/gift  and to learn more about entering the next Tales2Inspire contest at: www.tales2inspire.com/contest. She is also a regular contributor to this blog. Learn more about her at:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/tales2inspire

Twitter: www.twitter.com/tales2inspire2

__________________________

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Authors, readers, publishers, and reviewers may republish their favorite reviews of books they want to share with others. 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  and love. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page and in a tab at the top of this blog's home page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites so it may be used a resource for most anyone in the publishing industry. 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.

Professor Emeritus of English Reviews Carol Smallwood's "Visits"

Title:  Visits and Other Passages

Author: Carol Smallwood. Georgetown, Kentucky

Publisher: Finishing Line Press, 

Copyright: 2019, 134 pages

$18.99

Available on Amazon

REVIEWED BY RONALD PRIMEAU

         In her latest of over sixty books, the prolific Carol Smallwood serves up a feast of genres in a hybrid of fiction, poetry, essays, letters, and other vignettes that exemplify her career-long mastery of exquisite close observation. These fresh and widely varied selections play like a documentary film about visits and revisitings, the feelings of loss and passage, and the ways we can either miss totally or experience more fully the process of living as it unfolds. Smallwood—always a master of character—sends her narrators on simple quests that will change the way we see everything and introduces us to an array of fascinating folks who drop by for visits that we don’t want to end.

    Like most of her collections, Smallwood’s latest is almost always about the creative process itself as we live it in our everyday experiences and try to capture it in writing and reading. In an interview four years ago, Smallwood suggested that “writers do most of their work when not actually writing; thinking is where it boils. The subconscious is the mother of all.” In fact, the most crucial times in her way of writing occur when she does not appear to be writing at all.  Ideas come while daydreaming or washing dishes and then need “brooding time” to “mull over” what she calls “the incubating bits” which “appear to have no connection until when one is at last ready, the seemingly loose ends can be fit together” (“Arriving at the Aha Moment,” 75-76). The mulling over time also forges the connections between the actual process of writing and the rigors of paying attention to details we generally overlook. In her Introduction Smallwood quotes Heraclitus (“We are estranged from that with which we are most familiar”) and sets out to reconnect herself and readers to the passages and visits we live through every day. Enter writers who “see things with fresh eyes (“Perspective” 46)  and give readers a chance to recover from the self-induced blindness of familiarity: “What we see in everyday life is often limited from seeing it so often: people become part of the furniture.” Hence we need the aesthetic sensibility that defamiliarizes what would otherwise never get beyond mere ordinariness to “what is there just beyond reach” “Sleep,” 33).

    Smallwood’s defamiliarization includes works that take a closer look at what is easily missed—concentrating on the passages we encounter and the visits and revisitings that show how we participate in community. Close ups include a fly eating a morsel of fruitcake near her keyboard, deliberations about how to handle mounds in the lawn, members of a spice-shelf brigade standing for military formation, a tea party with a treasured vintage doll, looking at clocks for more than the time, and the art of folding napkins like J. Alfred Prufrock would do it.  The most notable visits to include the dentist, Aunt Heidi’s, the supermarket, and the library; visits from feature friend Polly and an unsuspecting Avon Lady who never knew what hit her.  The “revisiting” poems include significant discussions of memory and the spirit of place.  Other selections pause over a brief and fascinating history of libraries, the shifting of continents, thoughts on the evolution of cornfields, and a show-stopping recollection of her Uncle Walt’s funeral.  The collection is rounded out by a series of short essays on various authors and other subjects.  While interesting in themselves, some short discursive and less illusive reflections don’t always find their right place alongside the other more successful pieces.

    In her Foreword to this volume, which she calls a travel narrative, Su Epstein identifies what is “comfortingly familiar, fascinatingly foreign, and intellectually thought provoking” as “a life lived” sneaks out from behind the narrator’s magnifying glass.  In “One December Day,’ a maestro fly walks to the podium for the volume’s overture as it nibbles “ fruitcake with an occasional kick of the leg.”  More close ups come into view as the narrator struggles to address the problem of mounds taking over her lawn.  Rejecting outright killing, she decides on sonic rockets that would trigger swift and thorough evacuation.  This plan too is vetoed by “dreams of families forsaking homes” to become “the underground homeless,” and in the end profoundly mundane activities are left to unfold: “Don’t let your molehills become mountains” (“Mounds Keep Appearing,” 10). The villanelle “The Last Doll” introduces us to a long-haired beauty who sits with two other Christmas presents, ruling over them perhaps because “she’s not been held as often for validation” (“The Last Doll,” 32).  Soon we see Prufrock folding napkins in fast food restaurants, pause at a three-month cancer check-up where we endure “the smile for the aged,” and find ourselves reading a letter to God exploring why we keep on thinking “everything revolves around” us and go on to “kill each other especially in your name.”  And then there is the unforgettable spice shelf in every store where those iconic jars “stand at attention facing you always on parade.”  Again all around us where so much is too familiar to see, “there’s tales worth knowing” if we “just look” (“There’s Much to See,” 45).

    Just as these altered perspectives defamiliarize what would otherwise be lost in narcoleptic ordinariness, many of the varied genres in this volume infuse vibrance into ordinary visits that make up much of daily life.  In Smallwood’s hands, a visit from the Avon Lady is whimsical and poignant.  This visitor shares not only products and calendars but updates on her grandchildren, her sister who “still doesn’t know her place” at the age of 45, and a battery of questions intended to “welcome” new customers to the neighborhood. As an extension of the passage motif of moving away from one’s home and into a new neighborhood, “Polly’s Visit” brings an assault of unpleasantries from  someone who tries to stop the passage of moving on from divorce, poverty, and the death of a spouse. Some of the best selections in the volume about passages are portraits of those jealous of others who are moving on. “Lunch at Aunt Heidi’s” is another prickly trip down memory lane as the narrator fends off advice about battle fatigued returning veterans, Heidi’s life with Uncle Walt, and polite exchanges about the benefits and destructiveness of religion. When the narrator shares stories of a Vietnam Vet scarred for life. Heidi advises that he “drink prune juice for iron and pray.” Even a trip to the dentist is grist for Smallwood.  “Give me all the shots you can,” she says to “the masked man” who looks like Zorro or the Lone Ranger and dispenses pain medication like candy.

    Return visits provide additional layers of passage enabling a measure of not only change but of how well memory holds up against inevitable change.  Returning to college after retirement, the narrator takes note of changes but revels in the “freedom intoxicating” of new ideas in class discussions. Feeling empowered by this trip back home, she quotes Hemingway: “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life. It stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast” (“Hallways”). For Smallwood, passages require reciprocity. Her narrators take stock of the moving forward that is central to relocation and growth itself even as they go back in time to places they have left on trips where “memories of when I’d been there competed with each other” (“Revisiting, 52).  Repeatedly in these selections she learns the lessons of what D.H. Lawrence called “the spirit of place.”  Living through and coming to understand passages requires, of course, almost constant change—whether in physical spaces, concepts or movements, the evolving meanings of words, or the growth spurts and almost imperceptible deterioration of aging itself.  Smallwood’s Epilogue is called “passage” where the evanescence of summer ice testifies to both “the pleasure of the moment” and the inevitable passage of time.  Cubes turn round and swirl into miniature rings: “Evaporation could be measured/ if there were days enough.”

    Inviting readers into its variety of places and perspectives, Visits and Other Passages successfully defamiliarizes ordinary events so we can reconnect with the lives we are experiencing. Clocks reveal more than the time of day. Napkins in fast food restaurants and spices on grocery shelves have stories to share. Smallwood’s poems, stories and vignettes are rooted in the two-fold belief that “we are usually too much a part of our setting to be very conscious of it” (“Location and Character”) and that creative estrangement from what has gotten encrusted in ordinariness can be learned.  For readers of this book, dentists’ waiting rooms will never again be the same. Wonder may be restored once more to corn fields, supermarkets, libraries, and front porches. Smallwood’s defamiliarization moves forward strikingly as she attends to so much that is generally overlooked. A postcard from a funeral director urging her to “PLAN AHEAD WITH PIZZA” is read carefully on its way to the wastebasket: “It was good it was sent to RESIDENT--/it discouraged being selected as a/prime candidate for the Grim Reaper” (44). There’s the Avon lady’s hair that “looks just like the wig called ‘Caesar’s Wife’ in a catalog”(1), colorful puzzles on placemats at Wendy’s” (12), and the oft overlooked spiders whose intricate work created the first ever curtains in her new home” (23).

 For most of us perhaps nothing brings more estrangement than death, and in this book perhaps the summative passage bringing everyone together is the formal visitation at Uncle Walt’s funeral. Perhaps the pivotal work in this collection, “Preparing for the Service” asks whether we attend funerals to honor the deceased, comfort survivors, or jolt ourselves at least temporarily out of numbing familiarity. Uncle Walt is a significant presence in this volume. He seems a steadying influence who monitors the excess of people around him to the point of telling his overzealous wife “I never know what the hell kind of bugs I’ll find in your cooking” (“24). Even though Uncle Walt has died, our attention is drawn not to him but to the preparations unfolding for his memorial. In the satiric demeanor of the deceased, the speaker remarks on the colors of the Big Boy placemat and eases pain by trying to “float away on whiffs of Belgian Waffles” (29).  Talk of corn relish and the clatter of plates gives way to a waitress who walks “like one of her heels is missing” and reaches under a counter to give “her underwear a quick tug.”  Relatives gather to help with casket and flower selection and wonder what happened to their Uncle’s blood: “Did they just slit his wrist and let it drain like oil from a car?” The narrator provides details on the funeral procession which, once moving, felt like being “in a car wash.”

    Readers used to poetry collections or volumes where the prose knows if it is fiction or nonfiction might at first be perplexed by the way genre boundaries are transgressed or redrawn this time around. But my bet is that those who come with a spirit of adventure will be rewarded by the irreverence and innovation on almost every page. Visits and Other Passages provides enough threads of a motif that knits up a quest myth, patterns of loss and recovery, and the power of visitation. The language is fresh throughout and constructs mastery of form and characterization. A half dozen or so selections could have been cut, and the editing misses a few too many errors.  The cover design creates simple elegance.


MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Ronald Primeau, Professor Emeritus of English, Central Michigan University and Adjunct Instructor, The University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee


MORE ABOUT REVIEWS AND ACCESS TO THIS BLOG

 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everithing from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. Reviewers will have a special interest in the chapter on how to make reviewing pay, either as way to market their own books or as a career path--ethically!

This blog 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.

Note: Participating authors and their publishers may request the social sharing image by Carolyn Wilhelm at no charge.  Please contact the designer at:  cwilhelm (at) thewiseowlfactory (dot) com. Provide the name of the book being reviewed and--if an image or headshot of the author --isn't already part of the badge, include it as an attachment. Wilhelm will send you the badge to use in your own Internet marketing. Give Wilhelm the link to this post, too! 

Frozen in Time: Murder at the Bottom of the World Review

MORE ABOUT THIS BLOG 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.

Frozen in Time: Murder at the Bottom of the World Book Review

• Paperback: 236 pages
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1452002703
• ISBN-13: 978-1452002705
• 
  
• Theodore Jerome Cohen has written a fictionalized memoir based on facts from his actual experiences in Antartica. Gary and Carolyn Wilhelm share their thoughts on the book in this post. 

Frozen in Time: Murder at the Bottom of the World by Theodore Jerome Cohen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Originally appeared on Goodreads
I knew the National Science Foundation sponsored many far-reaching and worthwhile academic opportunities and learning for bright science and math students after Sputnik, but I had no idea of the adventure that some participants had until reading this book. I learned so much about Antarctica, penguins, active volcanoes as well as the great difficulty of not knowing when a deep crevice might open up presenting real dangers. Just the constant wind blowing would have been difficult to endure, but how did the graduate students manage to gather geology samples and take measurements regarding gravity in so many of the spots in the area amid such conditions? And during all this there were murders, mystery, and untrustworthy people to deal with --- amazing story and gripping read. As an engineer, I appreciated the detail and interesting information about how the people lived and met challenges. This story is fiction based on fact, my favorite genre.
Gary Wilhelm
The Frugal Engineer

View all my reviews 
Frozen in Time: Murder at the Bottom of the World by Theodore Jerome Cohen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Originally posted on Amazon
From the picturesque language and vivid details such as:
"Seen from the mountain to the south, the base had all the appearance of a small, abandoned mining town on a planet at the outreaches of the galaxy."
The base was painted bright orange (for visibility, I assume) each year as the winter wind, ice pellets, and snow hit it with speeds of up to 150 miles per hour which removed the paint. How would a person survive in such conditions? Not me as the indoor daytime temperatures were in the 40's when I think 60's are too cold. There were 23 hours a day of sunlight which sounds nice until remembering this was in Antarctica, decades ago, and sunscreen then didn't help much at all.
This is the real story of the author's experience as a National Science Foundation researcher and scientist and is based on real facts. Who would think murders and intrigue would happen in such a remote location with few inhabitants?
When a radio is submerged in salt water, a description of what the repair entailed is given, yet that radio did help save a man's life later. Sailors shooting seals caused an avalanche. The glacier calved by itself anyway, and deep crevices would open up with no warning. Since this happened decades ago and would be dangerous today, it was quite the adventure (if a scientific adventure).
The ending is quite philosophical and considers how precarious life can be. It also ends with a mystery and leaving me anxious to read book two in this trilogy.

Carolyn Wilhelm
The Wise Owl Factory

"Is God in That Bottle Cap" Reviewed on The New Book Review

Title: Is God in That Bottle Cap? A Search for Truth

Author: John D. Sambalino

Publisher: Vanishing Circle Press

Publisher Address: 320 Washington Ave., Haddonfield, NJ 08033

Publisher Web Site: www.isgodinthatbottlecap.com

Publisher Email: vanishingcirclepress@gmail.com

Publication Date: May 14, 2019

ISBN (paperback): 978-1-7326578-0-9

Price: $16.95

Page Count: 284 

Formats: hardcover, paperback, kindle, nook

Originally published at SelfPublishingReview.com. 

 In Is God in That Bottle Cap? A Search for Truth, a lawyer writes about spirituality in an engaging combination of autobiography and philosophical treatise.

 Beginning as a child who resisted having to eat fish on Friday, to his adulthood as a world-traveler who sees that God is found not so much in precepts as in experience, John D. Sambalino has always been seeking truth, and so conveys a sense of exploration that is fortunately free from self-congratulation. The first glimmers of this search came with his interest in martial arts and the understanding that such physical practices have their roots in spiritual discipline. An early transcendent experience in which reality seemed to stand still while he was one with everything around him convinced him that there was a goal to be sought.

Studying engineering at university, he soon realized he must choose a career that would allow him to travel and pursue higher realities. He switched to a degree in finance, and ultimately became a lawyer, married his youthful sweetheart, had children, but never really “settled down.” Though that path may seem less spiritual on the surface, it is this story that makes it more accessible to the everyday reader. Sambalino is not a lone monk sitting on a mountaintop, but someone who has tried to mix spiritual discipline with modern life. Almost every year, in addition to work and faithful daily meditation practice, he made time to go to spiritual conclaves, take rigorous meditation courses, and travel – to India, Egypt, Nepal – and delve ever deeper into his inner landscape.

In this way, Sambalino’s book is part travel memoir, which is where the book becomes most alive. Traversing the Himalayas, visiting the site of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s one-time ashram, even lying still and corpselike inside the Great Pyramid, Sambalino has embraced each opportunity to understand who and what truth is, and who and what he himself is and might become. He introduces his audience to numerous masters and their spiritual pathways: Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Paramahansa Yogananda, and of course, Jesus, Krishna and Buddha. All in all, the memoir is more informative than the typical work about a spiritual journey.

Sambalino’s writing is intelligent and at times humorous, despite its heavy subject matter. The book is not a strict work of self-help, though Sambalino does exhort his readers to abide by many of these precepts, but he is careful to stress that all such advice and apparent wisdom offered in all the holy books of the world will not reveal the truth, which is, he says, “no where, yet every where.” This is refreshing in a field with books that are overloaded with authors claiming “I have the answer.” He leaves left few stones unturned in his search for what he calls “beingness” – but, as he emphasizes, that beingness is a quality or experience that can’t be explained or completely understood by reading or thinking.

 Obviously composed to help others make their way to the truth, Is God in That Bottle Cap? presents the example of one man’s striving, some of it seemingly haphazard, much of it sincerely aimed at an ultimate goal. By showing himself to be a regular guy gradually growing into this knowledge, Sambalino offers readers hope of success in their own personal journeys.

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Learn more about John D. Sambalino at his website at  isgodinthatbottlecap.com.  

                                                                                                                                                                                                          

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