Murder & Cake: By Royal Appointment (Murder and Cake #1) by Luna Snow

Murder and Cake: By Royal Appointment by Luna Snow
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Problem punctuation, grammar issues, misused words, and typos but STILL a fun cozy mystery!

The aptly named Jane Dough was born to be a baker, and at 45 years of age, single, and somewhat overweight, she is happy and content with her life. But after winning the recent British “Bake-Off,” things are about to getting really interesting. She’s been invited to Buckingham Palace to create the birthday cake for the Queen’s 90th birthday celebration! However, not all is kosher in the castle kitchen. The other chefs invited to make the other elements of the celebration dinner are a mixed lot of unhappy, temperamental people, and when Jane discovers a dead body in the kitchen’s storeroom, things really start to go off the rails. Between dealing with the unfriendly personalities of the other guest chefs and trying to ensure that her dream cake for the queen is perfect, Jane is under a lot of pressure. And, too, who is this handyman, Alf Jeffries, who keeps hanging around the kitchen?

Author Luna Snow has presented a fun main character, an interesting supporting cast with numerous plausible suspects, and a simple, yet realistic mystery. It is a fun, quick read if you can just ignore the multitude of problems with its delivery: grammatical errors, misused words, typos, and a real issue with punctuation of all kind. Read it if you can overlook this (or are just curious about how this can still be a decent story) but do it through Kindle Unlimited. If not, give it a pass. Having said that, I will definitely be checking out other stories in the series.


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All Time: Voidbound (An All Time Quick Read) by Mack Leonard

All Time Voidbound by Mack Leonard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After a century of working on the project known as “Broken Clock,” the channeler Brightside is disqualified from the opportunity of being the first to time travel or “jump.” But rather than being disappointed, he is secretly glad. With his candidacy removed, the most likely choice will be Voidbound, his sister’s fiancé. However, when Brightside breaks the news to her, she is less than overjoyed. Mirrorside is worried. Voidbound has not been acting like himself for some time and it has gotten even worse lately. Although medically he checks out clear, he has been blanking out, losing himself at random moments, suddenly not knowing what he was doing or saying. Due to the suspected nature of time traveling, it is critical that the one jumping have full control of their faculties at all time; a mistake in the past could have devastating repercussions in the future. Unfortunately, when Brightside warns the team leading the project about Voidbound’s behaviors he is written off as “sour grapes.” No one with any kind of authority will believe him.

This is a great side story to the All Time series by Mack Leonard. The author cleverly introduces us to Brightside’s backstory as well as many others that featured in the first book, All Time. Read the first book though before reading this "Quick Read." I already know that this is going to be one of those series that I am going to be tapping my foot while waiting for more.

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The Runaway Turkey (Avon Calling! #14) by Hayley Camille

The Runaway Turkey by Hayley Camille
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

With her beloved husband, George, away at Army Training Camp and unable to get leave to come home for Thanksgiving, Betty is really feeling the burden of keeping the home fires burning. The Boudoir Butcher is still at large and the latest victim, a Turkish mobster known as Altan Karga, lived through her last attack. However, before Betty and her friend, NYPD Sergeant Jacob Lawrence can question the man, he escapes from his room at the hospital. Betty tries to track the mobster down before he can exact his revenge again his attacker, Tillie. At the same time, Betty’s daughter, Nancy, is feeling her oats and starting to use her newly acquired powers to right the wrongs in her life. Inexperienced, she sometimes doesn’t choose her fights too wisely. She still needs to understand that public displays of her powers could bring about dangerous and unwanted attention.

Quite a lot of ground is covered in this, the 14th, episode. Readers get an update on George at camp, Jacob Lawrence and his investigations and trial, Adina Sonberg, and even elderly neighbor, Mrs. Porter makes an appearance. Betty and her relationships with her friends, clients, and children are all featured and, literally, everyone is home for the holiday except for poor George. It is nice to catch up yet there are still loads of plotlines to wrap up before we come to a conclusion for Avon Calling!, Season Two.

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Before the Fall (After the Fall #4) by Charlie Dalton

In Before the Fall, a prequel novel to the After the Fall trilogy, author Charlie Dalton tells the story of “the Fall” of humankind when the Earth was peppered with a deadly virus via meteorites.

It was time for the Perseid meteor shower and people were fascinated by the chunks of space rock that fell to Earth across every land mass picking them up, collecting them, selling them, and, generally passing them around as curiosities. The virus the rocks carried wasn’t detected for weeks and by the time it was discovered, massive numbers of people had already been infected. The virus spread quickly, unlike anything ever seen before, and those that were impacted turned into mindless, rage-filled, monsters that attacked everyone and anyone biting, tearing, and eating their flesh.

The President of the United States (as well as other heads of states across the globe) gathered military experts and scientists (including his best friend, Dr. Graham Beck) to stop the spread of the virus and the resulting destruction. But, it was already too late. With time running out for humanity, the strategies turned from a cure to a weapon to fight the green-lit satellite that keeps circling in the atmosphere above.

Before the Fall is Dr. Beck’s narrative and tells of the creation of the diary which had been hinted at in the series novels, and it does not disappoint. It lays out the sequence of events that led to the circumstances that existed at the time of the first book in the trilogy, and is a nice addition to the series. Dr. Beck, not a very likeable character previously, is definitely shown in a different, more sympathetic light. As with the entire series, I recommend this book to readers that enjoy young adult, post-apocalyptic stories.

Amym: The Mamluk Who Defied Death (New York Vampires #1.5) by K.D. McQuain

AMYM: The Mamluk Who Defied Death by K.D. McQuain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the story of how Amym, the elite servant to the Chord and the Lesser Blessed of the New York Vampires series, came to be.

Amym was a mamluk, one of the soldier-slaves to the Mamluk Bey, in his adopted city of Cairo. He was young, strong, rising quickly up through the ranks, and in love with the slave girl, Ketevan. Just as was preparing to approach Ketevan’s master for her, the Mamluk Beys and all their troops are ambushed and massacred at a ceremony at the Pasha’s palace. Due to the actions of his own master, Amym narrowly escapes and flees to the Bey’s home to rescue the Bey’s wife and family as well as Ketevan and her master and his household. As he is leading them to safety across the desert, Amym is confronted outside their nightly encampment by some of the Pasha’s soldiers. As he fights them off, this wreck of a human figure joins the fray and destroys the soldiers finishing up by tearing out their throats and drinking their blood. He takes Amym to a tomb below ground where he remains a prisoner for several years with the creature feeding off his blood as he desires.

So, fans of the series get a great backstory for Amym, one of the principal characters reappearing throughout the New York Vampires series. This story is filled with interesting historical world-building and the action is constant. A note: there are detailed sexual encounters, so this is definitely for adult readers.


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Poisoned Heart (A Lady Marmalade Mystery Short Story Book #1) by Jason Blacker

Poisoned Heart by Jason Blacker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a 28-page book that launches the short story supplemental series of Lady Marmalade Short Mystery Stories. They are quick reads that relate to the longer series of books in the Lady Marmalade Mysteries.

The second World War 2 is barely behind us and Lady Marmalade, “Fran” to the assembled gathering is attending a mid-afternoon tea hosted by Lady Alys Apleby and her husband, Lord Godfrey Apleby, along with other notables of the area, at their Hampshire estate, Abernathy Castle. The tea party is suddenly disrupted when the housekeeper collapses and dies from an apparent poisoning.

The story is quickly sketched out and gives the first-time reader a brief introduction to Lady Frances Marmalade and a feel for the time and the tone of what the series is like. There are references to earlier cases she’s been involved with and a glimpse of the police representatives with whom she’s previously come in contact. This is really just a taste of what’s to come or maybe a nibble to sustain fans of the series until the next book comes out.

Considering their brevity (the longest is described as 51 pages), their price (all but the first are set at $2.99), and that they’re not in the Kindle Unlimited program, I probably won’t be reading another one. But at 99 cents? A bargain.

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Disciples of Trikaal (Time Travelers #0) by Varun Sayal

Disciples of Trikaal by Varun Sayal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Unexpected and fresh!

Aru and Nemi were in their seventh year of hard penance to Trikaal Devi, the Goddess of Time, when she awoke in response to their devotions. The men’s goal was to be granted a boon for their long dedication and the goddess did not disappoint. Aru requested he be taught the skill of seeing into the future and the past. Nemi, at first requesting immortality, was denied, so subsequently asked that the goddess teach him to time travel. She immediately whisked them both out of their mortal bodies to a place where time moved at a different pace and where they were schooled for a thousand years on the techniques they’d requested. When they were returned to their bodies mere hours had passed. As a caveat to the goddess granting their wishes the men agreed to their lifelines being tied one to the other: if one died, so did the other. The two men separate and return to their own homes and families with their new gifts.

For Aru, being able to read the future did not mean that anyone would actually believe him, and when he foresaw that the dam near his village was about to break and deluge the area, he tries to warn his neighbors. He and his pregnant wife are publicly scorned and driven out of their home to hide in an abandoned shack far away.

On the other hand, Nemi takes full advantage of his ability to travel to the future and past and inhabited the bodies of wealthy, famous, and privileged people living in the time-slice he selected to visit. He possessed the bodies of great kings and using his new found power and privilege he embarked on reigns of terror, death, and destruction. The power and possibilities turn his mind to evil madness, and fearing Aru might come to harm, Nemi inhabits the body of the king of this own time-slice and imprisons Aru in a jail cell at the palace. Separated from his beloved Rutuja, Aru can only visit her and his newborn son in his time reading visions. But Aru comes up with a plan.

This is a prequel to the Time Travelers series and the author unfolds the exciting backstory of time-demons and time-readers, two creations that are integral to the series. The mythology involved is still pretty new to me so the path the story takes is unexpected and fresh (just as the first two books in the series are.) It is not necessary to read the prequel before beginning the series, I read it after Book 2 and maybe that is why some of the revelations were so enjoyable for me. I highly recommend this story as well as the entire series.


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The Covenant (After the Fall #3) by Charlie Dalton

Book 3 of the After the Fall series returns the reader to Dr. Beck and what’s going on in "The City." In Book 2, the City had been breached by the Rages as Donny and Jamie’s father, Donald, lay comatose in a hospital bed. Dr. Beck had tricked the boys and their friends, Lucy and Fatty, into getting on the hyper-loop underground transport and sent them to Denver City and the massive cannon and rocket that were built there to fight the Bug spaceship. The children had successfully made it there and had been launched into space enroute to dock with the multi-national Mothership.

Meanwhile, Dr. Beck is just able to lock down his section of the City when Donald starts to come back to consciousness. He works around the clock to heal the former commune leader to the point where they can follow after and be reunited with the children. Beck doesn’t tell Donald the truth that the children are headed to Denver City in order to blast into space to fight the Bugs, and slows their journey to ensure Donald doesn’t talk the kids out of their mission. Beck and Donald arrive just as the rocket launches carrying Lucy, Jamie, Donny, and Fatty to their rendezvous with destiny.

The Covenant is the exciting third book in the After the Fall series by Charlie Dalton and it is great! The plot is a nail-biter all the way and who knows what may come next! I highly recommend this entire series for readers that enjoy the dystopian, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it books, especially those that enjoy a young adult cast of characters.

Devourers from Suryaksh: Race to the Last Eventuality (Time Travelers #2) by Varun Sayal

After saving the human race from the evil time-demon, Kumbh, in Demons of Time, the first book in the Time Travelers series, Tej returns to his own time (3057 BC) and life with Manu Kumar, the man he loves. But his quiet life is quickly derailed when a Wiccan priestess named Nefe and soldiers attack the ashram where the bodies of the contained time-demons are secured. She next goes to Tej’s village in search of Kuntala, one of the greatest time-readers ever. Tej confronts her and in an attempt to save his village from destruction, he allows himself to be whisked to a time-prison where he is tortured to reveal the whereabouts of the time-reader or their friend, Manika. With the help of Mozeek, another time-demon, Tej escapes the time-prison and finds himself smack in the middle of an alien takeover of Earth by an advanced race from Kuryaksh.

The story that follows is complex and thrilling with elements from Indian mythology, fantasy, and science fiction. Tej is a true heroic figure for our time as he struggles with his conscience as he works to save the human race while working with one of his most hated enemies. Over and over he remains true to his beliefs and ethics. The plot moves quickly and covers a lot of ground. The story is about time traveling so there are some drastic changes in settings possible and that keeps things really multidimensional. Over all, it is just a very good story with a fresh and novel approach. Recommended along with and after reading Book One in the Time Travelers series, Demons of Time.

Death of a Schoolgirl (Book 1 in the Jane Eyre Chronicles) by Joanna Campbell Slan

As one can surmise, Death of a Schoolgirl is a continuation of the Charlotte Brontë classic, Jane Eyre. The year is 1820, and Jane and her husband, Edward Rochester, have just welcomed their first child, a son, Ned, into their lives. Jane is flourishing in her new role as a mother after a tough birth, and Edward is still, slowly but surely, recovering from the grievous injuries he sustained during the fire that killed his first wife and destroyed Thornfield, his ancestral home. They are living on the estate in an old hunting lodge built by one of Edward’s forbearers with a minimal number of staff which includes an aunt from his mother’s side, Mrs. Fairfax, who is standing in as housekeeper.

Adèle Varens, Edward’s ward, and the reason that brought Jane to Thornfield in the first place (originally she was Adèle’s governess), is still in boarding school in London. Various reasons (Edward’s injuries, harsh winter storms, Jane’s confinement, the difficult birth and prolonged recuperation after) have kept Edward and Jane from visiting her at the school for quite a long while, and both sides have depended on a regular exchange of letters to maintain contact until circumstances allow them to be reunited.

Lately though, Adèle’s letters have been “off.” Not only are they quite unlike her usual vibrant missives, they are completely impersonal and appear to be the same communique copied time after time. Concern turns to alarm when the latest letter contains a secret message crying out for help and a scrap of paper which appears to be a threat against Adèle.

Jane and Edward decide that they must go to Adèle immediately to determine if she is really in danger or if it is some drama concocted by an obviously lonely child. Because the injuries to Edward’s remaining eye prevent him from traveling right away, Jane sets off for London alone. She is headed to the home of Edward’s best friend, Captain Augustus Brayton who currently serving in India. Jane is effusively welcomed by his wife, Lucy, who almost overwhelms her with affection and a desire to accept her as her new “sister.”

When in town, Lucy had been a regular visitor at the Alderton House School for Girls, checking in on Adèle for the Rochesters when they had been unable. However, in the past couple of months, a change of superintendent at the school had occurred and Lucy had been denied access to the girl for a variety of shady yet plausible reasons.

Jane sets out for the school herself the morning after her arrival only to be met with chaos at the school: one of the students had been found dead that morning! Jane is surprised to be greeted by the headmistress, an old friend, Miss Nan Miller, a former teacher and later colleague from her days at Lowood. Jane learns that Adèle discovered the dead girl, became hysterical, has been sedated with laudanum, and will most likely sleep until the drug wears off the next day.

Before she can make a decision on how to proceed, she is confronted by the new school superintendent, Mrs. Thurston, who mistakes Jane for the newly arrived German instructor (who has been delayed on the road.) Without being given the chance to set the woman straight, Jane is “dismissed” and rushed out of the school. Later that afternoon, however, Miss Miller turn up on the doorstep where Jane is staying to plead with her to come back to the school as “Miss Eyre” to serve as the temporary German and art teacher until the expected lady arrives. It seems the Bow Street Runners are investigating the death of the student as a homicide, and Jane is needed to help protect some of the young ladies until the murderer is revealed.

I really, really enjoyed this book. I loved the idea of a continuation of Jane and Rochester’s life together and look forward to many more. Jane, as a sleuth and protector, made perfect sense. The look and feel of the original story by Bronte is retained and enlivened by a good story with a lot of action, twists and turns. I highly recommend this book to cozy mystery readers and those that want a glimpse into what might have been had Jane Eyre kicked off a series.

The Epics by Abdiel LeRoy

Clever, entertaining, and absolutely unique!

This is a two book collection of stories written in the style of Homer or Dante but with the touch and feel of Shakespeare as well. The audiobook version is well narrated by the author himself.

Obama’s Dream

The angel, Abdiel, and Satan fight for the ear of the most politically powerful man in the US, President Obama. Written as an epic poem, Abdiel takes President Obama on a tour a la A Christmas Carol where the president sees and confronts failures and shortcomings, and the means to be a better leader.

Elijah

Also presented as an epic poem, the prophet Elijah describes to the angel Abdiel how he came to be under a tree in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights. His journey to defeat the influence of Jezebel over her husband, King Ahab, is full of twists and turns of fantasy and faith.

This audio collection is of medium length (under six hours) and as mentioned above the author is reading his own work. I had heard an audio sample and it was his narration that attracted me. He is very good. The two stories are fun, interesting, and entertaining with elements of a heroic quest, pure fantasy, sexy romance, and nice family-time with the Obama family in Obama’s Dream.

The City (After the Fall #2) by Charlie Dalton

When Donald is grievously wounded in an attack by a giant alien bug, Lucy leads Donnie, Jamie, and their friend, Fatty, to her original home inside a mountain called The City. There the boys meet Dr. Graham Beck who is able to operate on their father and, hopefully, save his life. As the kids wait for Donald to return to consciousness, the doctor slowly reveals to them the purpose of The City, what really happened to the world during The Fall, and what the future may hold for humankind if the bugs are not defeated.

This is a great sequel to the story that began in Book 1 of the After the Fall series, The Commune, and it is action-packed, exciting, and full of twists and turns. The central characters are feisty and smart and each is beginning to blossom into their own strong person. The author has created a world that is both vastly different from what we know but manages to keep it familiar at the same time. And there is more to come! I can’t wait. I really recommend this series for readers that like apocalyptic stories.

A Fire Sparkling by Julianne MacLean

Wonderful story with great characters and all the emotions!

When Gillian Gibbons discovers the man she loves and lives with is cheating on her, she retreats to the Connecticut farmhouse her father and 96-year-old grandmother share. She hasn’t seen her father in over five years and their reunion is somewhat awkward at first but her father is desperately glad to hear from her: he’s uncovered a secret in the attic that might change the meaning of his entire life.

Gram came to this country with her young son, Edward, after the World War II, as the wife of her second husband, Grampa Jack. Her first husband, Theodore Gibbons, a deputy cabinet minister working with Churchill, had been killed in the Blitz along with her sister, April. After his death, Gram and Edward had gone to the country to stay with Theodore’s aristocratic family on their estate. But while doing her part in the war effort, Vivian had met and fallen in love with the American flyer, Jack Cooper, and after the war ended had married him and lived in the farmhouse since then. Or at least that is what Edward and Gillian had always believed.

While Edward was in the attic inspecting the roof, he’d come across his mother’s antique sea chest. The old chest was a familiar item; Gillian had always called it a “treasure chest.”) But, as Edward had examined it, he’d discovered a secret drawer inside with pictures of his mother and a German Nazi officer in Berlin dated only months after her marriage to Theodore. The photos made it clear that the two were very much in love. With so many questions and concerned that he was the son of a Nazi war criminal, he and Gillian decide to talk to Vivian and get some answers.

The story is Gram’s revelation of what the pictures were and what happened in the war. While her son and granddaughter listen, they gradually come to terms with the real history behind their family as well as the other issues in their lives that were keeping them apart. The retelling is an emotional story with lots of action and history and the things people do for love and country.

The author obviously did a lot of research to bring the reader a solid thriller with twists and turns that really held my interest and kept me up reading late into the night. I highly recommend this book to readers of historical fiction.

Pearls and Perjury (Avon Calling! #13) by Hayley

Lucky Episode 13 continues the exciting hunt for the Boudoir Butcher!

Continuing from the previous episode, as Avon Lady extraordinaire, Betty Jones, helps Tilly, one of the girls at Kitty’s Kat House, recover from a sudden fainting spell, she gets glimpses into the girl’s troubling memories of a man, blood, and waking up alone and naked on the docks of New York City. Under questioning, Tilly finally tells Betty that she’s been having black-outs (but admits nothing else and refuses further help.) Betty is convinced Tilly is the Boudoir Butcher that her friend, NYPD Sergeant Jacob Lawrence is hunting. She determines to investigate on her own and find out why Tilly is doing this and why she has no conscious memory of her horrible actions.

Betty also visits Donny Pinzola in his prison cell where he tells her unless she gets back on his team he will reveal all her secret past and unusual posers to the very interested FBI who have had Betty on their radar quite recently.

Jacob Lawrence has his hands full, too, not only with the high-profile Boudoir Butcher case but with Pinzola’s trial. The time has finally come for Adina Sonberg to testify against the crime boss, and it does not go well at all. Pinzola’s attorney totally discredits Adina in front of the jury, her parents, and the entire world.

Meanwhile, on Betty’s home front, her beloved husband, George, is away at military training, and daughter, Nancy, is growing up right before her eyes with the powers handed down in the maternal line getting stronger and stronger every day. Working together, Betty and Nancy practice mind-reading and the ability to shield their thoughts from mind-reading. Both young women realize that, in time, they are going to want their privacy, even from each other.

Lucky Episode 13 advances the exciting hunt for the Boudoir Butcher and gets the trial to put Uncle Donny away for good underway. With the dramatic courtroom shenanigans by his attorney and Donny himself, the suspense increases and the question of whether or not Jacob will be beat Pinzola in the end continue to mount. I can’t wait to get into Episode 14.

The Commune (After The Fall #1) by Charlie Dalton

After the world’s society as we know it has been destroyed by a virus which turns its victims into mindless, constantly-hungry zombies, survivors join together in cooperative living communes. Some attempt to rebuild and grow by organizing daily tasks such as growing food, learning and providing medical attention, and provide defense and security for the new communities. Others, known as Reavers, band together to destroy and take what they need from others by force and violence. Both groups, however, guard against the zombie-like creatures called “Ragers.”

In Mountain’s Peak, the commune takes several measures to successfully continue on based on each individual member pulling their own weight. And when a member becomes too ill, old, or infirm to their share, they are expected to leave the community – walk away and disappear into the surrounding desert where wild animals and Ragers lurk.

When a beloved member of the commune leaves to go die in the desert, her younger, still able, husband decides in the middle of night to join her. The next day, children from the commune sneak out to go find them both and bring them back home. Their rescue mission takes an unexpected turn when they discover the older couple already dead and a strange, young girl up a spindly tree under attack from three Ragers.

The commune takes the young girl in but she is unable to tell them where she came from; she remembers nothing but dream-like snippets of her life before waking up in the bed at the commune. But she is actually being hunted by an unstoppable woman across the desert and she’s headed toward the commune.

This story was action-packed from start to finish. I did not want to put it down. Can’t wait for the next book in the series!

The Snow (The Mutant Rain #3) by L.A. Frederick

After formulating the barest of plans to save the survivors of “The Bunker,” Farrow, the former New Hampton police detective and his small band of followers return to the city in search of a large truck or bus to take everyone north away from the epicenter of the mutant rain. What they find instead leaves everyone dead except Farrow himself.

It is Benjamin that discovers the old underground train system, still in working condition, and that there is a connection with the commuter line that goes to the north country. The remaining mutants, along with the pregnant Evaline, move their supplies to the train in preparation of departure.

Farrow gets cut off from the rest of the group and he goes in search of Aurora and Isaac. Isaac, however, has been whisked away to Dr. Zhirkov’s stronghold to battle Erica leaving the pregnant Aurora behind to fend for herself. Farrow eventually uncovers her hiding place and convinces her that she and her newborn son should return with him to the mutants’ rendezvous spot to meet the train.

Meanwhile, Zhirkov’s henchmen, Vitaliy and Dmitri, switch sides, rescue a previously unknown group of human survivors and take them to the ready-to-depart train just in time to join in a desperate fight between the mutants and a group of lizard-like creatures and overgrown monsters that are preventing the train from leaving.

All in all, this was a pretty satisfying roundup to all the storylines in the Mutant Rain series. Is there room and opportunity for more in the future? Oh yes. And I hope that this is not the end. I kind of miss those mutants already.

The entire Mutant Rain series is available for Kindle on Amazon.com.

The Lebesborn Experiment: Book 1 by Joyce Yvette Davis

Set in Europe during WWII, The Lebensborn Experiment tells a story of young children stolen from their parents and taken to state-run orphanages, “graded” like livestock for Aryan traits, and adopted out to approved German families never to see their own families again or their parents ever discovering what happened to them. One boy, Adok, is adopted by Dr. Josef Weiss as a companion to an older, mentally-damaged son. Dr. Weiss is working on an immortality serum under pressure from a Nazi colonel, Otto Strauss, and tests the serum on Adok. The boy dies but days later comes back to life with some remarkable physical enhancements: superior eyesight and hearing, the ability to climb like a spider, and apparent immortality.

At the same facility, Colonel Strauss had been holding two black American soldiers prisoner awaiting execution during an upcoming visit by Adolf Hitler himself. When Strauss receives word of Hitler’s suicide and the approach of Allied forces to the facility, he orders the doctor to dispose of the Americans. Weiss kills one but mistakenly administers the immortality serum to the other. When the soldier revives as his body is being removed from the lab, he escapes and is able to return to his old unit to fight again.

The story continues with these central figures’ stories to just after the end of the war in Europe.

This book is exciting, imaginative, and entertaining but sobering as well with the understanding that many of the things described are based in past happenings. The author has created memorable characters that I really rooted for and others that I wanted to be defeated. The title indicates this is book one giving reason to believe there is more to the story. I’ll be looking for that.

Murder at the Wizard-Hero Con (Pet Portraits Mystery #11) by Sandi Scott

When Georgie Kaye completes a gorgeous portrait depicting a new client’s pet boa constrictor, Hercules, the grateful graphic novelist, Beau Hanbaugh, gifts her with two full-access vendor passes to the big, upcoming comic convention. Always ready to live life to the fullest, Georgie grabs her twin sister, Aleta, and immerses herself in the cosplay, vendor booths of the unusual and exotic, and the exclusive evening vendor reception.

During the reception a bearded man is dragged from the convention hall by security when he begins shouting and ranting that one of the more successful graphic novelists, a nasty character by the name of Cole Ness, had stolen his award-winning work from him! Later, after Georgie spies the bearded man sneaking around the reception again, Cole is found bludgeoned to death in his booth. Of course, the local police, led by Georgie’s ex-husband, Detective Stanley Toon, are called in to investigate, and Georgie can’t help but lend a hand.

Once again, this story of the Kaye sisters and Stan is witty and entertaining. The murder mystery is straightforward, and we can agonize along with Georgie over her confused feelings for her ex. With the reappearance of police crime scene photographer, Maggie Hoffentop, as a rival for Stan’s attention, if not affections, things get really interesting. The real mystery here may be what the future holds for Georgie and Stan. I highly recommend this entire series though this could be read alone and still be enjoyed immensely.

You can find Murder at the Wizard-Hero Con or any of the Pet Portraits Mysteries by Sandi Scott for Kindle on Amazon.com.

Mila's Flight (The Darkest Day #0.5) by Danielle Forrest

Mila Dragomirov had dreamed of being a spaceship pilot her entire life. And when she and her best friend, May Trace, enlisted in the military to fulfill that dream she lived and breathed for the moment when they’d pass their qualifying exams and finally be assigned to their own ship. Mila nailed her test and three days later on her 21st birthday, she was notified of her success. After a birthday dinner at her parents with May, the two young women head to town to celebrate on their own. That night after too much to drink, Mila stepped out of the bar for a breath of air and she is surrounded by a group of drunk men intent on assaulting her. As she desperately tries to fight them off something happens, her body shifts from that of a human woman to that of a tiger. She easily scares away her attackers.

Mila is horrified. She’d never had an inkling of an indication that she was a shifter, and that was not a good thing. Shifters are not welcome in this country. Hated, reviled, if discovered shifters are taken and locked up in concentration camps where who knows what happens to them.

Eventually returning to her former self, she slips back to her room on the base that she shares with May, packs her few possessions, and writes a goodbye note to her best friend, telling her she’s leaving and not to look for her. Mila has no real plan what to do next, just that she’s got to get out of there and find a place to hide…forever.

This is a prequel to Mila’s Shift, the first book in The Darkest Day series by Danielle Forrest. Very well written, it relates the emotional trauma of the characters affected by Mila’s surprise change and subsequent “flight” from society, her friends and family, and her lifelong dream of being a space pilot. The description of Mila’s life off the grid, living as a homeless person in a big city is sad and terrifying at the same time. The story is unique and the characters real. I highly recommend it – either read before as a prequel or after Mila’s Shift for the back story.

Virtual Insanity by Charlie Dalton

When one of their group of four best friends since primary school decides to get married, Georgie arranges the ultimate stag weekend at a new, high-tech, virtual reality game resort. But when the four friends arrive, doubts about the facility arise – the location is remote and the former military facilities grim and bare bones. However, when the resort staff demonstrates the equipment the four will be using for their adventure, the guys are all back on board and ready for play: the graphics are unbelievably real and the computer interface flawless.

The next morning when they begin their “mission” they are amazed by how real things seem and they successfully complete the first level of the game. But as they forge ahead, the scenario gets trickier and trickier, and the group splits up in order to accomplish a particularly tough task. And we all know … don’t split up…

Virtual Insanity is another great short story by author Charlie Dalton. Mixed in with an interesting plot, the characters are great, and the comradery among the old friends is a lot of fun. As I read I felt more like I was watching a movie. It was very entertaining and I read it in one sitting. I highly recommend this one!

Virtual Insanity is available for Amazon Kindle.