Review: Millie's Angel

Millie's Angel by Kim Petersen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received this book for free and voluntarily reviewed.

I enjoyed this book for most of it. It was an interesting character study of people and how they reacted to each other. I felt compelled to continue reading it even though I kind of figured out what was going to happen to the various characters. The only big question was what would happen at the very end to one of the characters. We could see the wheels being set in motion long before they happened. It did not end the way I expected it would, but that is OK.

The characters were well thought out and showed growth and development throughout the book. The progression of the years in the story flowed easily with what looked like some very natural breaks in their struggling lives.

Some might say if I though that well of everything, why do I only give it three stars. I guess I would have to say that I do not mind a little preaching at but when you spend pages trying to teach me your spiritual philosophy that I get put off. Most of the book I could see hints of New Age philosophy and that was OK. I am not going to put an author or a book down just because I disagree with what they believe to be true. If I did that, I would only read what I myself would write. I also expect the authors I read not to try to force their beliefs on me as well. I was interested in the characters and how things would progress but then all of a sudden, Millie, our main character goes on and on and on about her (and I suspect the writer's) point of view on how our world is all one stream of consciousness that we form our world around us with our thoughts. I felt like I was reading an advertising brochure for a new age religious organization. I felt like I had an investment in these people and now that I was hooked I was being spoon fed the belief of the author. Take that chapter (and it seemed like it was a whole chapter) and pull it out of the book, I would have given it a 4 star, maybe even a five star review.

To be clear, I do not begrudge the author her point of view, not do I think she is a bad writer. As I said, I enjoyed much of the book. I do not remember why I picked this out of a list of books to look at, only that it looked interesting.

I could recommend this to people only with the understanding that it does become a recruitment for the author's beliefs.

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Review: Shattering Time: Book 2

Shattering Time: Book 2 by K.J. Waters
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received this book for free and voluntarily reviewed.

I love a good time travel story. The other day I found reruns of a 60's show called Time Tunnel. I loved the movie 'Final Countdown' as well as 'Time after Time', both obscure to many. That said, when I had a chance to read a time story as an advance copy I decided to go for it.

I was not disappointed, well not a lot shall we say. Like most books lately it is part of a series of books. In reading any of these, if you do not start with the first one, you can get confused. Here I was book 2. However, the author was able to work the basic storyline of book 1 into the opening chapters in a way that I did not need to read it. And I can see that there is another book brewing, but this one left with a complete story.

I have two major problems.
1) Sex. Ok, I understand it sells books. It seems like there were multiple sexual acts described in full detail. I cannot see most of them led to the the continuation of the story. Only one really. Others could have been covered with how the heroine though back of the night they shared or something like that.
2) Out heroine who seems to be a got it together 2o something, seems to not have it together in romance at all. She seems to hate her boyfriend but stays with him (Stockholm Syndrome). And yet seems to fall in love with her soul mate(s) time after time (pun intended).

The science nature seems plausible even though we know that time travel can not be done. Historically it seems accurate based on what I know. Story wise, great characters that appear well thought out.

Would I recommend it. I would if you can get past the over use of sex in the story. I might have give it another star if it had been toned down.

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Review: Murder at the Jolly Jester

Murder At The Jolly Jester by Ian   Thompson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Name sounded interesting and I received this book from the author as part of a promotion.

I am thankful for one thing in this book. While there was some romance hinted at there was not any sex scenes in it at all. So many of the fictional books that I have been reading of late feel that there must be sex in it for it to sell.

There is a murder at the Jolly Jester, a pub in a quaint English town. One of the regulars has been murdered. So now we have a physical game of Clue going on. We know what they did it with, just not where, how it was done and who did it, as well as how did the dead body get into a locked room. The proprietor of the Jester knows he cannot trust the police to clear his name so he goes to investigating it himself.

I was slightly disappointed in the ending. I did not feel that it fully led to its potential, i.e. not enough pointed to one of the bad guys. But it did make sense.

Good light hearted read that has just enough to keep you going.


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