LAUNCH PARTY for "Potions in the Pizza (The W.H.O. Files, #1)" by Mikey Brooks

Over the weekend, I was priviledged to attend the Launch Party for

"Potions in the Pizza  (The W.H.O. Files, #1)" by Mikey Brooks!

Synopsis:

10­-year-­old twins Ethan and Emmy’s parents have never told their kids what they do for a living. Then just before Halloween, while their parents are away on an emergency business trip, Ethan, Emmy, and their best friend Jax discover a HUGE secret: could the twins’ parents actually be . . . witch hunters?

Meanwhile at school, a new team of glamorous lunch ladies arrives on the scene, serving meals that taste way too good to come from a school cafeteria. There’s only one logical explanation: they’re witches, and the meals they serve are spiked with a dangerous potion! Why have witches come to Roosevelt Elementary? Where have Ethan and Emmy’s parents gone? Can it be a mere coincidence that their parents left just as the witches arrived? Whether they’re ready or not, Ethan and Emmy have only one option if they want to save their school and find their parents: become witch hunters themselves.

W.H.O. Files on Goodreads!          Mikey on Facebook!

REVIEW of "Push (Beat, #2)" by Jared Nathan Garrett

****(4) out of 5 stars!

This is one of those rare instances when I enjoyed 

the sequel more than the original!* 

The action starts out right away, and I mean right away 

– the very first word of the book is “Run!” –

 and it doesn’t let up from there. 

Two months after the attack on New Frisko, Nik Granger and the other survivors believe themselves hidden from the tyrannical rule of Prime Administrator Adam Holland. After finishing a patrol, Nik returns to camp to discover everyone was wrong. Holland and his Enforsers have killed or captured most of the survivors—including Nik’s parents.

Barely escaping with their lives, Nik and his friends Pol and Melisa race to stop Holland before he murders their friends and family. As they travel through what’s left of America, they face danger at every turn, including Ranjers who will stop at nothing to carry out Holland’s sadistic orders. With the world against them, can they make it in time to save what’s left of humanity? And when it comes to it, will Nik have what it takes to destroy Holland once and for all?

Much of the book finds the main characters alternatively hiding from and pursuing the Prime Administrator and his vast array of lackeys.  As they travel through the events and places of the narrative, they learn additional information about their world and how it came to be as it is.  (Although there was not nearly as much explanation as I would have liked.)  More importantly though, Nik and the others begin to learn more about themselves and each other.  The entire experience proves quite the journey for all of them. 

While I once again had difficulty believing that this group of teenagers was able to fight the establishment as well as they did, I was nonetheless drawn into their tale enough that I willingly suspended much of that disbelief in order to just enjoy their endeavors.  And they did have a lot of creativity and ingenuity on their side, compared to staunch adherence to rules and procedures on the part of the Enforsers and other of Holland’s henchmen.    

Ultimately, Nik and his companions are, of course, let to a final confrontation with the Prime Administrator.  Without giving away the somewhat surprising ending, I will say that it definitely seemed like a final and satisfying conclusion to the story, although there is still room for additional storylines to be pursued, if the author so chooses.

Check out my 5-star review of "Beat" HERE on So Few Books!

*Reviewer's Note: I gave "Beat" a 5-star review because I found the basic concept unique and the world-building superb.  "Push" I awarded only a 4-star review because I felt there were more areas that could have been made better and further explored.  Still, despite the seeming disparity, I did find "Push" to be an even more fun tale to read than the original novel in the series.

I received a copy of this title free from the author in exchange for Beta-reading it,

and have willingly provided an honest review.  

REVIEW of "Beat" by Jared Garrett

*****(5) out of 5 stars!

This dystopian futuristic sci-fi tale about 15-year-old Nik Granjer starts out strong on action and seldom lets up.  Without offering any spoilers, let me just say that one of the opening scenes was way too sad for me!  The story itself involves what another reviewer termed - very appropriately - an “Apocalypse of fitbits.”  Nik must battle not only the disease they call “the Bug,” but also the society’s “Prime Administrator” leader and his goons.  You are left wondering throughout most of the narrative what is really going on.  And there is a huge twist near the end that you can only very minimally see coming. 

This book is full of excellent world-building, done by the author using minimal information and yet somehow still getting the message across very clearly.  I found this method very intriguing and quite powerful.  He does use a lot of alternate spelling, apparently as a device to enhance the futuristic setting.  However, I just found this distracting and annoying, and thought it was used rather inconsistently. 

About the only other real negative for me was that Nik seemed to survive, unscathed, way too many encounters with the administration, including being shot at many times by multiple enforcement officers.  (To the extent that I started to wonder if they had been trained by Imperial Stormtroopers.)   

The middle of the novel does tend to drag a little bit as well, when Nik is generally getting chased around, escaping, returning to be captured again, etc; especially during sequences where he is alone and we get to hear his internal processing of events, a lot of which he seems to overthink. 

Mostly, however, the story was a very good one that kept me intrigued as to what was going to happen next.  And even during the slow portions, the author’s writing style kept me reading just for the great way in which the words were strung together. 

This was definitely not a cliff-hanger ending, with just enough closure to make a good stand-alone book, but still enough unresolved material to suggest there will be at least one future installment.

I received a copy of this title free from the author for a contest on Facebook,

and have willingly provided an honest review.  

Reviewer's note: I read this book in December of 2015 (on the beach in Uruguay!), 

and hadn't realized that I never posted a review of it, so I am doing so now (in January of 2017).  Seeing as how the sequel, "Push," is due out in February, the timing doesn't seem all that off.  

At least that's what I'm going to tell myself!  With apologies to the author for the delay!

FREE eBook alert thru Jan 3rd, 2017 -- from instaFreebie & Stan C. Smith

Click HERE to access some FREE Sci-Fi eBooks!

Science Fiction and Adventure Freebie Event

brought to you by Stan C. Smith and instaFreebie!

Event ends January 3rd, 2017.

If you like sci-fi and adventure, you'll want to grab many of these books!

When you click on them, you’ll be taken to instaFreebie, which will send you the book via email.  The email will also include instructions for adding the book to your ebook reader, tablet, phone, or computer 

(in case you aren't familiar with how to do so).

The author(s) may follow up with you and send you nice, polite email newsletters occasionally, with cool offers, announcements, 

and other fun stuff. 

The offerings include such great tales as 
"Horizon Alpha: Predators of Eden" by D. W. Vogel
from Future House Publishing!

FREE eBook alert thru Nov 19th, 2016 ONLY! -- "Caretaker" by Jossi Russell

To celebrate the launch of "Sentinel 

(Caretaker Chronicles, #3)" by Jossi Russell, 

"Caretaker" (the 1st book in the series) 

is being offered as a FREE eBook!  

But hurry - this exclusive offer only lasts until tomorrow,
Saturday, November 19th, 2016!

Check out my full review here of 

"Caretaker" on So Few Books!

Then purchase "Caretaker" on Amazon for FREE!

LAUNCH PARTY for Shelly Brown's "Ghostsitter"

I attended the Halloween Launch Party for Shelly Brown's "Ghostsitter" today 

with my son, and we had a delightful time. She and her hubby are both so sweet!

I have to admit that I haven't yet read "Ghostsitter," 

but my son loved it and I am looking forward to it!

I have, however, read all of the "Cragbridge Hall" series, and they were a blast!

REVIEW: Stuck in the Game by Christopher Keene

**(2) out of 5 stars

Here again is yet another in the latest series of books I have read that I just have not enjoyed very much!  The premise of this book sounds amazing! But it just didn’t deliver for me. 

As the story begins, Noah has been in a car accident and is in a coma. Somehow, the doctors are able to hook him up to the Dream Engine, a virtual reality helmet that immerses him in an online fantasy game. The main premise is that he needs to stay alive in the game or he will go into a coma in real life. Except that he is already in a coma, so that doesn’t make any sort of sense at all. And regardless of this, Noah makes a lot of stupid choices and takes some ridiculous risks. 

The first several chapters were backstory, probably necessary for setting up the parameters of the tale, but boring nonetheless. The extensive tutorials were especially mind-numbing. And that’s from someone who is a non-gamer, who probably needed at least some basic framework for what was happening. For people familiar with gameplay, it would probably be even more tedious. There’s no way my teenage kids would sit through all of that in a tutorial, let alone read it in a book. They just jump right in and start playing the game. Overall, there really isn’t anything that pulls you into the story. 

Noah’s real life girlfriend, Sue, was also involved in the car crash, and she is near to death throughout most of the narrative. Not only do we learn hardly anything about her during the course of the entire book, but Noah doesn’t seem to have any real connection to her, even less so than he does for the other characters in the book, most of whom he has only recently met in a virtual setting. He actually refers to her as having a “mousy face.” Seriously?? That’s how he thinks of his girlfriend that he is supposed madly in love with? At the same time, he very minutely describes the face, hair, and especially body of every female character that he runs into in the game. He certainly doesn’t let his feelings for Sue stop him from getting involved in a very weird and awkward wanna-be love-triangle with a couple of girls in the game. And yet we’re supposed to believe that he is so in love with her that he’ll risk everything, including his virtual and real-world life, to try to save what he believes is a portion of her personality? It just doesn’t ring true for me.

At every turn in the story, there is the suggestion of a conspiracy. Some things do end up being part of a bigger agenda on behalf of the corporation running the game. But many others are just never explained or followed up on. 

And what in the heck is going on in the real world while all of the gameplay is happening? If the powers that be for the Dream Engine are so intent on finding information that they believe Noah or someone close to him has, why aren’t we hearing about them harassing his friends and family in real life? 

I really wondered why, if they can cut Noah off from being able to access his spells and possessions, as they do in one of the final battles, why couldn’t they have just haven taken the item they are seeking from his inventory long ago? Or even just deleted it, since it is, after all, just a virtual game.

The ending had to be the dumbest part for me. Noah knows that his friends are in danger, and that the culprits won’t stop going after them, in the game, and quite possibly in real life. But he just proceeds to leave them, with hardly even a farewell or explanation. Is this really the end of the story?? Or is there a sequel in the works? Either way, I found it to be a totally lame ending. 

If you enjoy monotonous stories with extensive descriptions of gameplay, and if you have a very strong ability to engage a willing suspension of disbelief, this may be the book for you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t really recommend it. 

I received a digital copy of this book from Future House Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

REVIEW: Caretaker (Caretaker Chronicles, #1) by Josi Russell

***** (5) of 5 stars!

This book is incredible!  The setting is a fairly typical sci-fi one: people in the future in a ship in space.  But it is so much more than just that!  It is ultimately about relationships, love, duty, honor, sorrow, anger, loss and basically everything that makes up the human condition. 

The main character is Ethan Bryant, who has inadvertently become the Caretaker (hence the title) of 3,999 other souls, all in stasis, on the deep-space passenger transport ship he inhabits.  Although he was supposed to be sleeping alongside them as passenger 4,000, events conspired to make that not occur.  Now, as the story begins, Ethan has been alone on the ship for five years, with only the unconscious passengers and the disembodied computer voice for company.  But things are about to get interesting!

The first part of the story is a little slow, as the author takes some time for world-building, setting the scene and developing some backstory for context.  But much of the information gleaned through all of this proves useful later in the story.  She does an excellent job of sketching a living portrait.  The story just draws you in and makes you feel a part of it, and you quickly feel connected to the characters, even those in stasis, as you come to learn more about each of them. 

There are so many great twists and turns in the story!  I don’t want to offer any spoilers, but things changed so dramatically several times that it felt almost as though you were reading a different book each time.  Except that the author kept the storyline integrated, plausible and intriguing enough that it just flowed from one section to the next, taking the reader along for a spectacular ride.

There were a couple more times where the action slowed down quite a bit; at least one where it seemed to stop.  (Really, do we need to know so much about the manifest of the ship that Ethan transcribed?)  But overall the pace was pretty steady and the action sufficient to keep things moving forward.

The ending was one that you could kind of see coming, but even it had some interesting zigzags that you wouldn’t necessarily consider.  Many things about it were rather bittersweet, but they felt as though they were as they should be given the situation.  The book answered enough questions and left a satisfied feeling so that it would be fine if read as a stand-alone novel, but it still offered many questions and openings where a sequel could realistically occur. 

Definitely a book that I enjoyed and will recommend!

REVIEW: Lakhoni by Jared Garrett

**** (4) out of 5 stars!

What??? I seriously thought this was a stand-alone book! But apparently there is at least one sequel planned. Since the book ended on a total cliff-hanger -- and a really ambiguous one at that!

This is basically a tale of a young man trying to avenge his family, rescue his presumably kidnapped sister, and along the way try to do what is right. Unfortunately, for him, these things don’t seem to coincide with each other very well! Regardless, he remains brave and steadfast throughout, even when questioning himself, his motives and his options.

The author does a good job of world-building, creating a very believable predominantly meso-American style backdrop for the story. The story-telling is such that you feel aware enough of the workings of the prevailing cultural system to appreciate the atmosphere without being inundated by it.

There are a host of strong characters throughout the story. Some of them I definitely hope will make a return appearance in the sequel; and a few that I want to know more about, including further information about their backstories.

There are connections between characters that unfold as the story progresses that I never would have imagined at the outset. Not to mention surprising plot twists and intrigue from unexpected sources.

One of the only things that I didn’t like in the narrative was the vast amount of bad luck and poor circumstances that befall this kid. And I did find it a bit of a stretch to imagine that he emerged as relatively unscathed as he did from each encounter with all of the forces fighting against him.

But overall it was a great read; a very entertaining story with an encompassing writing style that just draws you into the story and doesn’t let go. I truly can’t wait to read the sequel!

I received a Kindle copy of this book free from the author in exchange for an honest review.