Month: November 2022

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#BookReview: The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth

Interesting Tale Told In Unconventional Manner. I mean, come on, how often do you get a dual timeline tale with two women – both alive in the past, but one now dead and yet still telling her tale – where both women feature in both timelines? I’ve read a LOT of books over the past few years alone, and I can probably count on one hand – *maybe* both of them – the number of times I’ve come across a remotely similar dynamic. So read the book for that alone, as Hepworth makes it work quite well.

The rest of the tale, about both of these women’s love for their husbands and the lengths they will go through to save and protect both their husbands and their marriages, is interesting enough to be readable, but for some reason it just didn’t hit me as hard as Hepworth’s prior works. There was never a real sense of “I *must* know what happens next!”, though the ending was quite beautiful in and of itself, and yes, even if you’re struggling with the book, you need to read it to get the full beauty of what happens there. Overall, as noted, an interesting tale unconventionally told. Recommended.

This review of The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth was originally written on November 2, 2022.

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#BookReview: A Light In The Forest by Melissa Payne

Strong Story Well Told – Yet Very Preachy As Well. I’ve been reading Melissa Payne’s books since the very first one, and I can assure long time fans that while this book is in fact quite preachy on a couple of subjects in particular (more on that momentarily), it is also her usual quite strong storytelling here. For people that haven’t read Payne yet, this is a good one to start with *if you don’t have issues with the topics she is preachy about here*. (Otherwise go with literally any of her other books – The Secrets of Lost Stones, Memories In The Drift, or The Night Of Many Endings.)

The preachiness here is *mostly* around trans/ LGBT issues, though there is also a fair amount of “country men who don’t agree with my opinion on these issues are all backwards a**h***s”. (I’m not going to say outright misandry, because there *are* a few male characters who are both country and shown in quite positive lights – so long as they agree with particular views on the above issues.)

Beyond the preachiness though, there *is* a genuinely strong story here. Perhaps not quite as strong as the prior works by the author, all of which created strong dust storms no matter where they are read, as this reader’s eyes got watery no matter what environment he was reading them in – and *that* never actually happened with this book. Still, as a story of finding oneself even in tragedy – a few times over – and how traumas can last to new generations, this really was quite a strong tale. And heck, there are even elements of the tale that the most hyper militant pro-LGBT types probably aren’t going to like much either, but discussing those gets *way* too far into spoiler territory to mention beyond the simple fact that they exist.

Overall truly a strong tale well told, and one that while preachy, is still readable and enjoyable by most anyone – one that even if you would normally be put off by the preachiness, it is still a tale strong enough to push through those feelings and read anyway. Just please, if you do that, don’t lower your rating because of the preachiness. Do what I did here, and put your thoughts on that subject in the text of the review. 🙂
Very much recommended.

This review of A Light In The Forest by Melissa Payne was originally written on November 2, 2022.

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#BookReview: A Homestead Holiday by Elizabeth Bromke

Complex And Short Tale. Bromke manages to show that if a storyteller is truly great, they can manage to pack quite a bit of complexity into a still short-ish (seemingly less than 200 page) book. Here, Bromke manages to show a teacher’s passion for her particular craft, a son’s devastation over losing his father, and how the two can come together in some very unexpected ways. Heck, she even manages to toss in elements reminiscent of Mr. Holland’s Opus (without the actual concert). And again, all in a short-ish book and *while still telling a compelling romance tale* to boot! Truly excellent work. Very much recommended.

This review of A Homestead Holiday by Elizabeth Bromke was originally written on November 1, 2022.

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Eight Books Coming In November – Without A Paywall!

The New York Times wants you to pay them to recommend books to you, books that they only know about because mega budget marketing departments have put a lot of time and energy into getting the New York Times to read their books – and *only* their books.

While I openly admit to working with some of those same marketing departments at times, I also work quite heavily with a lot of indie/ self published authors. Authors that you’ll never hear about on the New York Times unless we band together and get them the attention at that level.

So here, for absolutely free, is a list of eight books that have or will release this month, November 2022, that I’ve personally read and reviewed:

Charlie by James Beltz, available November 1, 2022

Interesting Twist On The Series. With the first two books in this series – which is held together primarily by being the adventures of a buddy cop pair – the mysteries were of a more paranormal nature. With this one, Beltz creates an interesting challenge as a storyteller while taking the series in a more science fiction direction. This ultimately still has the same general tone and structure from the first two tales in this series…

Before You Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz, available November 1, 2022

Haunting Yet Preachy. This is a book in the vein of if i stay, though here we know up front that our narrator is dead – and she knows it. Still, when searching through my memories trying to find a comparison point, that is what comes up and I think the comparison works. This tale has a similar haunting effect, not from the haunting itself…

The Midlife Male by Greg Scheinman, available November 1, 2022

Male Self-Help/ Lifestyle Podcast Turned Book. This is essentially a podcaster turning his podcast (apparently of the same name as the title of the book) into a book. Each chapter begins with an excerpt from an interview from one of the episodes of the podcast, then the author continues the theme of the chapter with his own commentary for seemingly 2,000 – 3,000 words or so while including a few lists of various things related to the chapter…

In Their Names by Lenore Anderson, available November 1, 2022

Timely Conversation Needs Even Better Documentation. The timing of this book, releasing just a week before Election Day in the United States, could perhaps be *slightly* better – a month earlier would have allowed it and its ideas to be discussed more during the final days of the campaign. And to be clear, this book does in fact present a mostly compelling argument and certainly a wrinkle on the American justice system that needs to be more openly examined…

Sewer by Jessica Leigh Hester, available November 3, 2022

Fascinating Look At Mostly Current Status Of Sewer Systems. After having read Chelsea Wald’s Pipe Dreams in 2021 about the history and future of toilets, this book seemed a natural progression in my learning on the topic…

The London Girls by Soraya M. Lane, available November 8, 2022

Yet Another Realistic Fiction Of WWII. Lane does a tremendous amount of research for all of her WWII historical novels, then takes licenses where needed to tell the story she is trying to tell within that setting, and this tale is no different. Yet again Lane manages to bring a spotlight to a particularly deadly role in the war, that of the female motorcycle dispatch riders in the UK…

A Homestead Holiday by Elizabeth Bromke, available November 15, 2022

Complex And Short Tale. Bromke manages to show that if a storyteller is truly great, they can manage to pack quite a bit of complexity into a still short-ish (seemingly less than 200 page) book. Here, Bromke manages to show a teacher’s passion for her particular craft, a son’s devastation…

The Personal Assistant by Kimberly Belle, available November 29, 2022

Meganets And Pre-Networks. Ok, I know what you’re thinking – what does computer networking and the Internet have to do with this book? Well, on some level, it is somewhat obvious – one of our main characters is a social media “influencer” with a million followers. But on another level… Belle actually manages here to show the pitfalls and advantages of two different eras of human history…

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#BookReview: Charlie by James Beltz

Interesting Twist On The Series. With the first two books in this series – which is held together primarily by being the adventures of a buddy cop pair – the mysteries were of a more paranormal nature. With this one, Beltz creates an interesting challenge as a storyteller while taking the series in a more science fiction direction. This ultimately still has the same general tone and structure from the first two tales in this series, and thus series fans will most likely still enjoy it. And hey, for those that like tales with interesting characters, this is absolutely one of those as well. Keeping this review completely spoiler-free is challenging even on this end… *because* of the challenge Beltz gave himself as an author. So it will be interesting to read future reviews of this tale as they come out to see how they handle that. 🙂 Overall this was a solid yet also very different book in its series, and the series feels like Beltz could take it almost as long as he wants to – even though he is very open about having written these first three books back to back to back all at once before releasing them a month apart several weeks later. Very much recommended.

This review of Charlie by James Beltz was originally written on October 1, 2022.