Category Archives: Fiction

Review: Whirlpool, by Lorena McCourtney

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Whirlpool, by Lorena McCourtneyWhirlpool, by Lorena McCourtney (Kindle version, 2011)

Would you stay in a town where your ex-husband flaunted his lavish lifestyle and new fiancée while he stalls on dividing ownership of your former family business? Well, maybe you would, since there’s evidence he’s been less than honest with the company finances.

Stefanie Canfield chose to stay.

Arson investigator Ryan Harrison spent a miserable portion of his childhood in the town of Julesburg and can’t believe his company’s sending him back there. Surprise number 1 is the discovery that Stephanie’s still in town. After their shared underdog status in school, he figured she’d have distanced herself as much as he had. Surprise number 2: She’s turned into an attractive woman, and they seem to have some chemistry. Number 3? She’s one of the suspects in his case.

Stephanie knows she didn’t start the fire. Her ex, Hunter, is calculating enough to have done it, but she has no proof.

What she does have are odd “blurry” episodes, brought on by stress, when she can’t remember what she’s done. Under the circumstances, these happen more frequently. So when there’s a murder, can she really be sure she didn’t do it? Even if she didn’t, can Hunter successfully frame her?

I really enjoyed this novel, the first in the Julesburg Mysteries series. It has a more serious feel than Lorena McCourtney’s Ivy Malone series or her new mystery, Dying to Read, but there are still light-hearted turns of phrase to bring a smile.

Whirlpool is a good mystery, set in coastal Oregon. I like Stefanie, although her impulsive actions often had me wanting to shake her and say “don’t do that!” Not only has she lost her husband to another woman, she lost her mother to cancer the year before. And she may have lost her faith. After all, where was God in all this hurt?

While the specific mysteries of arson and murder are wrapped up for the authorities by the novel’s end, some of my questions aren’t resolved (will Stefanie’s blurry spells go away, and was the accident that caused them really an accident?). I thought that might happen as the series progressed, but the next two novels, Riptide and Undertow, focus on new characters and new romances. Stefanie and Ryan do appear, and all three books are worth a read.

You can learn more about author Lorena McCourtney at her website, or find her on Facebook. Whirlpool previously appeared in print through Fleming H. Revel, a division of Baker Books, 2002. The Julesburg novels are all available on Kindle, and since they’re re-issues of older novels, the prices are very inviting (under $3 each). See Amazon.ca and Amazon.com.

[Review copy from my personal library. Amazon links are affiliate links for The Word Guild.]

Review: The Superlative Stream, by Kerry Nietz

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Cover art for The Superlative Stream, by Kerry Nietz. The Superlative Stream, by Kerry Nietz (Marcher Lord Press, 2010)

If you haven’t read book 1 in the DarkTrench Saga yet please click to this review first: A Star Curiously Singing. If that sounds like your sort of novel, you’ll want to read it before diving into The Superlative Stream (book 2). And my review of book 2 will be a bit of a spoiler for book 1.

Still here? Okay, here we go.

In a dystopian future Earth, Sandfly and HardCandy are—were—debuggers. Tech support, equipped with brain implants to allow them to access a wireless data stream that makes our internet look primitive. Debuggers have no rights. They’re the property of the masters, and are kept in line by the same implants that let them touch the stream.

Earth has fallen under the control of a corrupted form of Islam. How will the true God make Himself known again? In A Star Curiously Singing, God’s message comes from a distant star and changes Sandfly’s life.

Sandfly is used to the ordinary data stream. What is this superlative stream that freed him from his master’s control and led him away on a mission on the spaceship DarkTrench? When he and HardCandy arrive at the source, there’s no singing star. Instead they meet an advanced race of people who may be too good to be true.

Now Sandfly wonders if he heard right in the first place. All he hears is occasional random sayings that make no sense to him. And he’s seeing things no one else sees.

The DarkTrench novels are written in the present tense from Sandfly’s point of view, except for excerpts of HardCandy’s past. Sandfly has a distinctive voice that I enjoy. He’s funny, direct and honest about his shortcomings. He occasionally speaks to the reader, adding to the conversational feel of his narrative.

I’ve enjoyed the first two novels in the series, and am looking forward to book 3, Freeheads. All three books in the DarkTrench series have been finalists in the EPIC eBook Awards Competition in the Science Fiction category. You can visit the author’s website to learn more about Kerry Nietz and his books.

[Review copy from my personal library.]

Review: Vanished, by Irene Hannon

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Vanished -- cover artVanished, by Irene Hannon (Revell, 2013)

Driving in heavy rain, Moira Harrison can’t avoid hitting the person who darts out in front of her car on a deserted woods road. Shaken from the accident, she accepts a kind stranger’s offer to call 911 and to help the victim. Then she passes out.

When she wakes, both the mysterious helper and the injured woman have vanished. Emergency responders dismiss her story as a product of a concussion, but Moira knows what she saw. The woman was not only real but terrified—fleeing from something or someone. What if Moira’s her only chance for help?

Moira is an investigative journalist, and her instincts insist she find some answers. Her story intrigues private investigator Cal Burke, but with no evidence, how far will they get?

Vanished is more of a puzzle-type mystery than an action-heavy suspense novel, and it doesn’t really get tense until the end. The key characters are strong and well-developed. I enjoyed watching Moira and Cal discover clues and chip away at the solution. From early on we see snippets from the villain’s point of view, and by the novel’s end we understand why he’s done what he’s done—and why he thinks it’s right.

Fans of romance will also enjoy the story, because the growing relationship between Moira and Cal is a strong secondary plot. Vanished is book one in Irene Hannon’s new Private Justice series, and it looks like Cal’s two single partners in the Phoenix Inc. PI firm will each find love in the books to come.

RITA Award-winning Irene Hannon has written over 35 novels, including the bestselling Guardians of Justice series. You can read an interview with Irene Hannon and discover more about her books on her website. Click here to read an excerpt of Vanished.

[Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available at your favourite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.]
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Review: The Alloy of Law, by Brandon Sanderson

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The Alloy of Law: cover art

The Alloy of Law, by Brandon Sanderson (Tor Books, 2011)

Waxilium Ladrian is a frontier lawman with the Allomantic ability to mentally Push metal (a “coinshot” in the original Mistborn trilogy terminology). He’s also a good man with a gun.

Wax moves into the city of Elendel to manage his late uncle’s estate. It’s a struggle to reinvent himself to be acceptable in social circles … and to attract a wealthy bride to restore his house’s fortunes.

But his friend and former sidekick, Wayne, won’t let him forget his law-enforcement days. There’s a new gang of thieves at work and the local police are out of their league. Wax and Wayne 🙂 are a fun team to watch at work.

If you haven’t read the earlier Mistborn books, you can jump right in here. Much has changed since that trilogy, and anything needed is explained. Those who familiar with the first series will recognize little nods and tributes here and there.

The Alloy of Law takes place 300 years after the events of the original Mistborn series. In the acknowledgements section, the author says he plans to write two more epic trilogies on this planet, Scadrial: one urban and one futuristic, to show how the culture changes over time.

This novel, though, isn’t part of that. It’s shorter, and has a wild west / frontier town feel. It may be my favourite Brandon Sanderson book yet, possibly because it’s a bit faster-paced and still has his trademark threads of humour.

He doesn’t say anything about it being more than a stand-alone title, but the ending sets up enough problems for Wax and Wayne that I certainly hope there’ll be a sequel.

Visit the official Brandon Sanderson website for more about the author and his books, or see The Alloy of Law page for more about this story.

[Review copy borrowed from my son’s bookcase.]

Review: Daughter of Light, by Morgan L. Busse

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Daughter of LightDaughter of Light, by Morgan L. Busse (Marcher Lord Press, 2012)

Rowen Mar has always felt like an outsider, and when she develops a mysterious white mark on her palm—and unleashes a frightening power—she’s truly alone. Can she make a new life as bodyguard to Lady Astrea in the White City, or will her secret come out? And does she have a part to play in the war that threatens her new home?

Caleb Tala is an unstoppable assassin whose victims haunt his dreams. Nierne is a young scribe thrust from her secure monastery and charged with a dangerous journey.

With supernatural power, secrets, danger and death, Daughter of Light follows Rowen, Caleb, Nierne and their associates in a lavish-scaled fantasy that is only the beginning of the real battle.

In this book, the armies are human. But just as Rowen discovers herself to be one of the Eldaran, an angelic-type race thought long dead, another forgotten race still lives: the Shadonae. And while the Eldaran serve the Word (God of the story’s world) the Shadonae oppose Him and want to destroy all humans.

The story drew me in, the world-building is detailed, and I liked Rowen, Nierne and their friends. The Word is a clear representation of Jesus, and those who follow Him are realistic in their struggles. There are a few instances of Divine interaction in the plot, and they’re neither gratuitous nor taking over the characters. They’re the logical result of having a God who cares about His people but who gives them free will, and I found they encouraged my faith.

I would like to have seen Nierne’s plot thread taken one more step at the end, but I’ll have to wait for book 2. And there must be a book 2; the Shadonae are rising. Marcher Lord Press doesn’t release a list of new titles too far in advance of publication but that doesn’t mean a sequel isn’t in the works.

You can learn more about author Morgan L. Busse and Daughter of Light at her website, In Darkness there is Light.

[Review copy from my personal library. Amazon links are affiliate links for The Word Guild.]
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Review: A Star Curiously Singing, by Kerry Nietz

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cover art: A Star Curiously SingingA Star Curiously Singing, by Kerry Nietz (Marcher Lord Press, 2009)

In a dystopian future of Earth with advanced technology and a repressive global regime, to be a tech geek is to be a slave. Anyone (usually male) chosen for this role at age 10 is implanted with a chip that allows him to wirelessly connect to machines, computers and serv-bots—to “stream” to them—and to perform necessary repairs.

These people are called debuggers, and Sandfly is a good one. He does what his master orders, and rarely gets “tweaked” for disobedient or dangerous thoughts, although his wry observances of life under the masters—the Abduls (Servants)—skate pretty close to the edge at times.

Sandfly’s world is ruled by a form of Islam that’s all rules and no faith. Absolute power seems to have corrupted absolutely, and Sandfly wonders if there are any good masters left.

A top-secret assignment lands him on a space station (he’s afraid of heights) where he’s introduced to the prototype space ship, Dark Trench. Dark Trench is a technological marvel, but its crew can’t be cleared to go home until Sandfly finds out what caused their only bot to destroy itself part-way through the mission.

There’s a lot more to the story than that, but you need to read it yourself. Part of the fun is being dropped into this unusual world and figuring out what’s going on as you read Sandfly’s narration. He’ll call you “freehead” and occasionally explain details, but most of the time you’re just along for the ride, learning on the fly (if you’ll pardon the pun).

A Star Curiously Singing is a fast read, with twists, turns, humour, faith and danger. It’s a good story, and Sandfly really makes the novel for me. He’s an engaging character with a distinctive voice. I look forward to reading the other two books in the Dark Trench series: The Surperlative Stream and Freeheads.

A Star Curiously Singing won a Reader’s Favourite Gold Medal Award, and was a finalist on a few other awards lists. You can learn more about Kerry Nietz at his website, and read a sample of A Star Curiously Singing on the Marcher Lord Press site. And you can read an interview with Kerry Nietz, and a bit about his newest book, Freeheads, at A Christian Writer’s World. The draw is now over, and I won! Kerry very kindly substituted A Star Curiously Singing for Freeheads, rather than drop me into the series at the end.

Review: Worth its Weight in Old, by K.D. Hays

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Worth its Weight in Old cover artWorth its Weight in Old, by K.D. Hays (Spyglass Lane Mysteries, 2011)

Karen Maxwell’s career as a private investigator is just starting to take off. She hopes. Working for her brother’s investigative firm, she’s finally getting out of a clerical role and into the field. Her assignment: take an undercover job in an antique store and find out who’s been damaging the merchandise.

Her challenge: to do this while single-parenting a 9-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter, and while securing her boyfriend’s attention when he only seems to want to see her at play rehearsals for his church’s youth group. Oh, and she has to not kill the new guy her brother hired to help in the office.

I really enjoyed K.D. Hays’ writing style in this cozy mystery. The novel is funny and a fast read. It’s as much about the characters as about the mystery, which makes sense in a series book. Karen has still got some things in life to learn, and she’s gained a bit of perspective by the story’s end. I hope there’ll be a third book in the series, because I’d like to spend more time with these characters.

Worth its Weight in Old is book 2 in the Karen Maxwell Mystery series, and readers new to the series will have no trouble starting here. But you might want to start with book 1, George Washington Stepped Here. Otherwise, there will be spoilers.

K.D. Hays is a pen name used for contemporary mysteries and children’s stories. The author also publishes historical romances under her own name, Kate Dolan. Click to learn more about the Karen Maxwell books  or to read sample chapters.

[Review copy from my personal library.]

Review: Spinneret, by Timothy Zahn

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Spinneret cover artSpinneret, by Timothy Zahn (ebook version from Open Road Integrated Media, 2012)

In the year 2016, Earth’s first starship sets out on Project Homestead: a mission to find a planet to colonize. They soon discover a problem: the habitable planets are already taken!

The best the humans can do is to lease a planet nobody else wants due to its complete lack of metals. The cost and risk factors push what was to be a UN mission onto the Americans. The planet is dubbed Astra, and humans’ first colony begins.

When all metals – including a bulldozer – literally sink into the ground, the colony seems doomed. Until the planet proves to contain an ancient artifact worth more than anyone imagined.

Suddenly everyone wants it: the aliens and the UN. But US-appointed planetary leader Colonel Meredith and the people of Astra won’t give up their new home.

As well as learning to work with six diverse alien races and trying to fend off a UN takeover, the Astrans have to overcome internal differences. What began as a military-run effort faces the transition to civilian government and the threat of a coup from within.

This is a fun science fiction novel with Timothy Zahn’s trademark mastery of political and military tactics. Spinneret was printed in 1985 and released as an ebook in 2012. It’s still relevant conceptually and in terms of the issues it raises about immigration and international politics.

Naturally some of the “historical” events mentioned haven’t happened (like the 2011 Mexican Collapse). The characters still use cassettes, but they also have star drives (invented by Canadians, thank you very much). Still I doubt we’ll reach the projected date of space travel in 2016.

Spinneret is one of seven of Timothy Zahn’s hard-to-find novels released by Open Road Media in ebook format, and they’re all worth reading. My personal favourites on the list are Blackcollar and The Backlash Mission (Blackcollar #2). I really like the covers for these ebooks… some of the original paperback covers are very, well… eighties-ish.

My copy of Spinneret is an advance review copy, and there are a few typos that may have been corrected for the retail version. The font is a bit unusual and although attractive it can be hard to read on the smaller display settings. Lower-case letters with stems (like b, f, l, k) aren’t much taller than the shorter ones, which makes it easy to confuse f with r, i with l etc. Especially in a science fiction novel with unusual names, this can be a problem.

Still, to read these earlier books from a master in the genre, the ebooks are an easier choice than hunting the Internet for used copies of the paperbacks. (Thanks, AbeBooks, for helping me complete my collection a few years ago. I’ll be upgrading to ebooks over time.)

Hugo Award winning author Timothy Zahn writes in the Star Wars universe as well as in those of his own creation. You can find him on Facebook. His next scheduled release is the Star Wars novel, Scoundrels, releasing in early 2013.

[Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for a fair review.]

Review: The Word Reclaimed, by Steve Rzasa

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The Word Reclaimed cover artThe Word Reclaimed, by Steve Rzasa (Marcher Lord Press, 2009)

It’s 2602 and humans have developed interstellar travel and colonized planets. Major power belongs to the Realm of Five, with dissenters living on the fringes as Expatriates. The other players in this universe are the Martians, and I’m not clear if they’re humans who lived on Mars and then rebelled or if they’re another race entirely. What they are is hostile.

The Realm of Five’s Royal Stability Force, aka “Kesek,” is a nasty secret-police-type enforcer of political correctness, including the Realm-wide ban on any religions other than the state-created generic one that won’t “threaten the human spirit”.

When their spaceship stops to salvage the remains of another ship, Baden Haczyk discovers highly dangerous contraband: a Bible. Print books are things of the past, and people read on wireless devices called delvers. Along with other holy books, Bibles were thought to have been destroyed.

Should he sell it on the black market? Give it to Kesek before they come after him?

He’ll decide when the ship reaches the next space station. First, he starts reading it.

While the main plot thread of Baden and the book (and his difficult relationship with his father) plays out, a secondary thread follows cadet Alex Verge and his family on earth and into space on a military mission.

Author Steve Rzasa weaves two seemingly-different stories set in the same universe to mesh into one satisfying conclusion that dangles enough questions to make me want to read the next book in the series, The Word Unleashed.

One thing I enjoy about futuristic novels is the authors’ extrapolation of technology, specifically space travel. Steve Rzasa has some intriguing ideas that add an extra layer of interest to the novel.

I felt a degree of information overload in places, as if the author were giving me more background details than I needed to know. He’s done a thorough job of world-building (would that be “universe-building”?) and I can definitely visualize this story as an epic space movie. It has everything: ships, chases, action, explosions, battles, exotic locales… as well as relationships, political machinations and a thought-provoking plot.

One thing I’ve noted in other Marcher Lord Press books is the meticulous editing, and I was surprised to see some copy-editing issues here. Nothing more than you’d see most places, except for the fact that Alex is Alec for a while when we first meet him, but still not what I expected.

You can read a sample of The Word Reclaimed online. The remaining books in the Face of the Deep series are The Word Unleashed and Broken Sight. You can read an interview with Steve Rzasa (pronounced “Ra-zah”) on the Marcher Lord Press site or visit his website, The Face of the Deep. His newest novel is Crosswind, in the steampunk genre, and it looks intriguing.

[Review copy from my personal library.]

Review: When Will the Dead Lady Sing? by Patricia Sprinkle

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When Will the Dead Lady Sing cover artWhen Will the Dead Lady Sing? by Patricia Sprinkle (Signet, 2004)

MacLaren and Joe Riddley Yarbrough live in the small town of Hopemore, Georgia. She’s a county magistrate, and he had the job before her. They have married children and school-age grandchildren, so these aren’t your traditional 20-somethings.

They were childhood sweethearts, and the long relationship has developed some delightful banter between them. There’s also a secret between them, one MacLaren hoped would never surface: in university, she briefly dated someone else behind Joe Riddley’s back.

That man is now somewhat of a hero to Joe Riddley. What’s she to do when he turns up in town, complete with a political entourage and a live buffalo?

And when she finds a dead body who’s linked to the man, things get even worse. Mac has promised her husband she’ll stay out of investigating, but the local sheriff is short on sense. I assume that’s how she’s gotten involved in previous mysteries, too.

When Will the Dead Lady Sing? is book 7 in the Thoroughly Southern Mystery series, and the first one I’ve read. I plan to go back and start at the beginning. The author thoughtfully provides an opening list of the characters to help keep them straight.

This is a mainstream mystery with some Christian characters. In the story, MacLaren and Joe Riddley attend church, send a homeless man to a church-funded soup kitchen (and then regret that they didn’t help him more), and pray for their grandson when he gets in trouble. Nothing preachy or flashy, and everything serves a purpose in the plot.

The characters, Christian and non, are real, feeling people. Some are a bit eccentric, as you’d expect in a humour-tinged southern mystery. They fit with Patricia Sprinkle’s delightful voice (as spoken through first person narrator, Mac).

Patricia Sprinkle has published many mysteries, including the Thoroughly Southern Mysteries and the Family Tree Series, but somehow I hadn’t read any of her novels. When another mystery author, Jayne E. Self, interviewed her I enjoyed the interview and liked the humour in some of her titles. Her name sounded familiar, and a search turned up When Will the Dead Lady Sing, deep in my to-read stash. [Read the interview: Part 1 and Part 2]

[Review copy from my personal library.]