Book Review: Rocket Girl (Kick Johnson Mystery, #1) by Diane Vallere

Rocket Girl by Diane Vallere
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A riveting space race mystery in a nostalgic Dallas setting.

Rocket Girl is the first book in Diane Vallere's delightfully nostalgic Kick Johnson Mystery series, set in an exciting, booming 1960s Dallas, Texas, during the first year of the Kennedy administration. Kathleen "Kick" Johnson, a recent widow, soon discovers her new life as a single woman is an unfair, uphill battle without a male head of the household. Banking, credit, and major appliance purchases were suddenly beyond her reach, and ready funds were soon to run out. While Trudy, her older sister, urged her to return to her old job at the airplane parts firm and find another husband there, Kick longed for independence and equity as she charted her own course for the future. Thinking she may have finally found her niche as a math aide at the top-secret Center for Rocket Science Research, Kick's dream career is almost over before it has even begun when she stumbles across the body of one of the research engineers. Things get even dicier when Kick discovers the murdered man may have had a connection to her late husband, who died in a tragic workplace accident at the airplane parts firm.

Kick is an engaging, sympathetic main character, thrust into the unpleasant realities of women's financial plight in the 60s. Equality for women has come a long way when comparatively viewed, yet there are still ridiculous constraints and prejudices at play today. Kick flourished under her older sister's care and sacrifices, and while she is aware of this on a superficial level, it takes deep consideration to understand what this meant for Trudy. Her older sister had, in effect, given up her teenage and young adult years to provide a secure home for her when their widowed mother had passed away at an early age. The sisters' relationship is evolving, and the changes are painful for both young women. Still, they keep returning to each other to work through their feelings and shape their shared vision for the future.

Growing up, Kick's interests and strengths lay in science and math, uncommon for girls of the era, so they were ignored or discouraged rather than nurtured. It was satisfying to watch this character blossom as she found a comfort zone with the people and in the tasks supporting the NASA missions. It may be surprising to some to note the racial integration among the female staff then, though the directors and managers were solidly all white males.

The plot gets edgy right away with Kick experiencing the financial discrimination against women and the quick discovery of a murder victim at her new workplace. With the divisive political climate and the rocket center's absolute need for secrecy in their work, rumors of stolen plans and traitors add another layer of mystery and danger. Kick doesn't know who she can trust as she investigates a secret connection between the dead man and her late husband, whom she's coming to realize kept his own secrets. As she gets closer to the truth, she also gets closer to a new relationship with a handsome, friendly engineer also working at the rocket center.

The 1961 Dallas setting is fresh and still nostalgic, with the author imbuing the city with the excitement and explosive growth of an up-and-coming urban center. Mentions of real locations and historic figures were fun, though some were sobering, as they couldn't help but foreshadow the tragic history to come two years later. The author creates a solid framework of clues that sharp-eyed armchair detectives will enjoy putting together, and the final resolution proves highly satisfying.

I recommend ROCKET GIRL to readers of historical mysteries.

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Book Review: Queen of Cotton (Texas Brave & Strong, #2) by Laurie Moore-Moore

Queen of Cotton: Confederate Camel Caravan by Laurie Moore-Moore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Exciting, entertaining, and educational!

The Queen of Cotton is the second book in author Laurie Moore-Moore’s Texas Brave and Strong series, continuing the historical fiction story of Sara Darnell Brown. This new novel is about Sara’s camel cotton convoy that travels across the state of Texas to get their product to foreign markets at the start of the American Civil War, when the traditional routes were blockaded. This surprising tale is one of overcoming obstacles and hardships, exciting yet terrifying Indian and bandit encounters, rich in historical detail, and full of heart and emotion.

Sara Brown must once again draw deeply on everything she’s got to get Dallas’s cotton farmers’ crops to market on her own when her husband, Benjamin, joins the Texas Frontier Rangers in protecting the state’s borders. The careful plans he’d made and shared with Sara before mobilizing to the frontier fell through as the men needed to make it work, also left for war. Sara, already fully occupied with getting her mercantile back up and running after the devastating fire in Dallas the previous year, is somewhat familiar with his business and is able to come up with an unusual alternative using camels left over from earlier experiments with their use on the Texas frontier. Although I was aware of the traditional views men held at that time about women’s roles, I was still surprised by some of the characters’ vehement reactions to Sara taking charge. On the other hand, I liked Jonah Watson’s characterization as a large, strong, and capable foreman with an unheard-of classical education. Viewed as a member of the Watson family, he was still enslaved.

The plot is well-paced, with interesting historical tidbits sprinkled throughout the story, and I loved the appearances by actual historical figures. My emotions were immediately engaged by the leave-takings of the husbands, fiancés, fathers, and sons as they headed to fight for the Confederacy or serve with the Rangers. Many of the women had experienced this same type of separation years before, either during Texas’s fight for independence from Mexico or the Mexican-American War, not knowing if they’d see their loved ones alive ever again. However, they were not given much time to think about it, as their lives and those of their families depended on their continued efforts to move forward.

I recommend THE QUEEN OF COTTON to readers of historical fiction, especially those who enjoy a story set during the Civil War or on the Texas frontier.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advance Review Copy from the author through Lone Star Literary Life Book Campaigns.

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Review Tour & Giveaway - Forward to Camelot: The Final Edition (Cady Cuyler, #1) by Susan Sloate & Kevin Finn

FORWARD TO CAMELOT

Cady Cuyler, Book One

by

Susan Sloate & Kevin Finn

Time Travel Thriller
Publisher: Covfefe Press
Publication Date: April 17, 2024
Page count: 489 pages

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SYNOPSIS:

RETURN TO A VANISHED WORLD, in this new edition of the beloved time-travel thriller: 

Extensively researched, filled with real but still unknown tales of history, FORWARD TO CAMELOT takes readers on a grand adventure, filled with danger, deceit and real-life heroes. 

October 2000 

Soap-opera actress Cady Cuyler knows she is not brave, adventurous or accomplished; that's Sheila, the glamorous EMT she plays on TV. But too many other people think she's Sheila, which Cady doesn't understand: Recently divorced from her agent, Cady's life consists of playing Sheila and providing a safety net to her mother Sandra, who has hardly noticed her since her birth; she's still lost in grief over the disappearance of her husband years before in Dallas. Cady's deepest wish is to somehow earn her mother's love and attention. 

When a profound tragedy alters her own life and her job abruptly ends, Cady is offered the chance of a great adventure: She agrees to recover the Bible owned by JFK, which was used to swear in LBJ as president, on November 22, 1963, the same day her father, whom she idolized, disappeared forever. To do this, she must travel back in time to the Dallas of 1963, a dangerous world filled with dangerous secrets, and meet the man with the most dangerous secret of all--he plans to assassinate President Kennedy during his upcoming visit to Dallas. 

For the first time in her life, Cady, the armchair adventurer, can live an adventure more exciting than anything Sheila ever did. She might even change her own destiny... if she dares. 

Time can be altered. Lives can be altered. 

Historycan be altered...

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ENJOY AN EXCERPT:

The man in the doorway was yawning, and his bright chestnut hair, flecked with threads of gray, was tousled. He wore half glasses down on his nose and held a thick typewritten report in one hand. His navy silk tie was pulled down, his white shirt was rumpled. His eyes, though bloodshot, focused on us politely.    

I was face to face with President John F. Kennedy. 

He looked at us, puzzled, and glanced around the empty hallway. 

I knew if I didn’t speak that I’d never have another chance, but I couldn’t think of a thing to say. The President looked at us, raised an eyebrow. 

Quick, Cady, say something. “Mr. President, my name is Cady Cuyler.” Beside me, I felt Lee start at the words. “I’ve come a long way to speak to you. I’m from the future. I don’t live in Dallas in 1963. I live in New York in the year 2000. I’m here to warn you, sir, and save you if I can. If you don’t listen to me now… you’re going to die in less than 12 hours.” 

“You’re right,” the President said in that distinctive accent. “I don’t believe you.” He started to close the door in my face. 

Before he could, I was talking again, as quickly and persuasively as I could. “Why would I make up a story like that? It makes no sense. Unless it was true!”

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

SUSAN SLOATE is the author or co-author of 24 published books, including 2 previous editions of Forward to Camelot, the #2 Amazon bestseller and Hot New Release Stealing Fire and Realizing You (with Ron Doades), for which she invented a new genre: the self-help novel. The original 2003 edition of Forward to Camelot went to #6 on Amazon, was honored in 3 literary competitions and was optioned by a Hollywood company for film production.
 
Susan has also written young-adult fiction and non-fiction, including the children’s biography Ray Charles: Find Another Way, which won the silver medal in the 2007 Children’s Moonbeam Awards. Mysteries Unwrapped: The Secrets of Alcatraz led to her 2009 appearance on the TV series MysteryQuest for The History Channel. She has also been a sportswriter and a screenwriter, edited the popular Kyle & Corey young-adult book series, managed two political campaigns and founded an author’s festival in her hometown outside Charleston, SC.

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A Bronx native, KEVIN FINN began his professional writing career as a television news- and sportswriter just six months out of high school, moving on to produce & report for daily news shows, features, documentaries and live sports events. Over the past thirty years, he's established himself as a screenwriter and has mentored young writers for the American Film Institute's Writer's Workshop Program, as well as being a noted freelance script consultant and a novelist.
    
Equally adept as a cameraman and editor, he currently produces and films local media content in the Princeton, NJ, area, while continuing to mentor new and younger writers, including the heralded web series The News Kids. His first Young Adult novel, 200 METERS, will be published later in 2016, and the long-awaited novel BANNERS OVER BROOKLYN is scheduled for release early in 2017.

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REVIEW:

5 stars!

An exciting and unique time-travel adventure filled with intrigue and suspense. 

Forward to Camelot: The Final Edition is a riveting and unique time-travel adventure by authors Susan Sloate and Kevin Finn and takes readers to an infamous time and place in American history: the days leading up to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. The book is full of surprises and twists, the first of which is the time-traveler goes back in time not to avert the assassination but to surreptitiously obtain the president’s personal Bible, which Judge Sarah Hughes used to swear Lyndon B. Johnson in as Kennedy’s successor for a current day collector. However, the protagonist has another more personal agenda for going back to these specific dates: to find and warn the father she never got to meet that something was going to happen to him on November 22, 1963, that would result in his mysterious disappearance. 

The main character is Catherine “Cady” Cuyler, a successful daytime television soap star living in New York City, or at least she had been up until the book’s opening. Newly divorced and newly out of work, she’s surprised to discover a famous movie special effects designer wants her to star in his upcoming production. When she finally came to understand that the project involved time travel, it was a hard pass for her. Skeptical, of course, she’s also responsible for her elderly mother and can’t be away from her for the length of time the job would require. Still, her contact had been convincing.

 

The story hits the ground running with an exciting and chaotic scene of rescue and a deadly conflagration in progress that immediately grabbed my attention. From there, things only get more rousing and exciting as Cady ends up in 1963 Dallas. The story of Cady’s and her mother’s lives were heartbreaking. Her father, alive and in person in 1963, is not at all who she expected, and the interactions between men and women at that time, especially in the workplace, were well portrayed. Life seemed much more formal only 60 years in the past. The story is packed with surprises, a new twist occurring just when you least expected it, and aspects of some of the numerous conspiracy theories that have been floated over the decades since the assassination made an appearance in the plot. With so much at stake in this riveting tale, I didn’t want to put the book down.

 

I recommend FORWARD TO CAMELOT: THE FINAL EDITION to readers of time-travel stories, especially those interested in the 1960s or the Kennedy assassination.

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