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Strong Tale of Multi-Generational Grief Marred By Preachiness On Certain Topics. First off, let's clear the air about one thing: Harper Ross isn't a debut author. This is "Ross" debut *under that pseudonym* and *in this specific genre* of magical realism, but Ross is actually a well established author that I've read and reviewed many books from over the years and we actually know each other through that level of communication and speaking about book related topics on social media a few times.

Because I know Ross, I can tell you that while those who believe her to be a debut author could think that perhaps the seriousness of certain sections of this book was new to her, I actually know that these types of discussions were actually where she had been already heading, and indeed she had had similar types of discussions in other books I had read from her.

And honestly, I thoroughly enjoy what she was attempting to pull off here and much of what she did in fact pull off. As a whole tale, this book is an *extremely* powerful look at loss and regret and parents trying to do what is best for their kids and adults seeking to navigate all of their complex relationships as best they can. Seriously, on all of these notes, this is quite likely the most depth and emotion Ross has ever achieved - which is saying quite a bit, because if I remember correctly, some of those prior books involved a few dusty rooms.

One thing that sets this book apart - beyond the obvious - is that in not having some of the guard rails and prerequisites Ross once had, she was more free to plumb real emotional depth and not be hogtied on some levels by previous requirements, and this freedom combined with Ross' apparently innate storyt...

For this blog tour, we're looking at very solid penultimate book in its series. For this blog tour, we're looking at The Secret Twins Of Paris by Suzanne Kelman.

First, the review I posted to the book sites (BookBub.com / BookHype.com / Goodreads.com / TheStoryGraph.com), Substack, and YouTube:

Solid Penultimate Book In Series. This is one of those entire series where you're going to want to read the entire series before this point - including the short story prequel that sets everything up - before you get here. Even though this one stands alone (*ish*), you really need that deep understanding of all that is going on here to fully appreciate this story, and really those prior books are just as strong as this one, so if you see this one first and are interested in it at all, you'll be glad you read them first anyway.

For what this book - and its predecessors - actually i...

Fascinating Look Into A Bygone Era From A Truly Remarkable Woman. Rebecca Latimer Felton was born in 1935 in DeKalb County, GA. She died in Cartersville, Ga - my own hometown - in 1930, just 53 years before my own birth. Her grandparents witnessed the American Revolution. Mine were children when she died - one of them a small child when Felton became the first female US Senator - and, in the same moment, the last formerly slave owning US Senator - in 1922.

This book is both a memoir of her early years through the Civil War and just beyond and also a collection of several of her writings and speeches as she became politically active in the last decades of her life, becoming a leader in both (white) women's suffrage and the temperance movement that eventually lead to Prohibition - and its repeal - in her final years.

Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind has become a legend in American lore of the antebellum and Civil War periods. Meanwhile, Felton's *real* story of those same periods has largely been forgotten. Even in Cartersville, where a home still stood on her plantation land *this Millennium* (as an abandoned lot, according to my memory of living just...

Leftist Language Will Annoy Some Readers. Read This Anyway. Straight up, Galvin Almanza is absolutely a product of her time - in this case, "her time" being 2010s Harvard and Stanford and then abolitionist activism. So the words she chooses - "latinx", apologizing for being white, etc - are going to annoy at least some readers.

From my view (see postscript for a brief bio relevant to this discussion)... this book is right up there among the ones those new to the field should consider. Those in and around criminal justice will likely know most everything Galvin Almanza presents here - or at bare minimum have largely similar stories of people they did know more directly. Her writing style is engaging - far from the academic speak one might expect from a Stanford Law lecturer and much closer to the dynamism one would expect from a tenacious advocate of the accused during a trial. While this is far from a John Grisham or Randy Singer courtroom drama, Galvin Almanza's overall style bends more in that direction than a desert dry academic treatise.

One weakness here was her framing of the "racist" origins of policing, but again, that's the culture Galvin Almanza comes from. It is un...

Interesting Take On The Subject With Writing Reminiscent of Rachel Held Evans. I suspect Bauer would have admired much about the late great Evans, even if they didn't agree on every particular. Here, Bauer approaches the history of sickness the same way Evans, particularly in the last few books before her death, did various Biblical topics - with a fair amount of creativity to give examples of a particular point followed by reasonably well reasoned analysis based on the available authoritative texts - whether those be the Bible (and Torah) in Evans' case or what we consider to be more "objective" science and histories for Bauer.

Bauer does a truly great job here with the scenarios she creates usually at the begin...

More Mystery Than Romance, Still Technically Works As Both. This is one of those types of mysteries where the author tries to tap in to Agatha Christie or perhaps even the board game Clue... and hits that kind of tone relatively well, while still also playing into her cruise setting particularly well at the same time. For me, I think the absolute funniest scene was actually the introduction, but there was a decent amount of comedy throughout the book, and it very well could be one of those where another reader would find more humor in a different scene.

T...

Moralistic Romance Goes Nearly As Heavy On Preaching As Romance. Maybe Moreso. First, there are a lot of similarities here to scifi that runs the gamut from literal child stories to ultra violent (depending on incarnation) scifi. Just the base set up here, you've got something that at times feels like the DIVERGENT world (particularly by the time of ALLEGIANT) / Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs / the storyline setup for Walt Disney World's Guardians of The Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind ride at Epcot / one of my favorite lines in any scifi story ever in the Sylvester Stallone version of Judge Dredd.

All of this, in a fucking *romance* book. Y'all, that takes innovation within the genre to levels I've rarely if ever seen, and I've read over 1800 books within the last decade alone.

This is also a different kind of "dual timeline" type tale in t...

Solid Thriller Uses Guns Both Effectively And Not So Effectively. Seriously, this is one book that uses one particular gun *phenomenally* - one of the best uses I've ever seen of this particular gun, easily. But revealing that particular gun gets into spoiler territory.

Most of the rest of this tale is a really solid cat and mouse type thriller where danger lurks nearly behind every word and the action is of a sufficiently frenetic pace that fans of masters of balls to the wall action like Matthew Reilly and Jeremy Robinson will likely enjoy quite well. From the prologue through the epilogue, danger and intrigue is always *right there*, and we get several very satisfying action sequences and payoffs throughout. For the pure adrenaline action book this is, it really is quite a fun one.

But then we get to the issues where guns *aren't* used as effectively, and to be fair this is a touch of nitpicking where those "less familiar" with guns than I am likely wouldn't notice anything wrong at all... but readers anywhere near the level of proficiency with guns that these characters are supposed to have - all private military contracto...

For this blog tour, we're looking at a twisty mind bending thriller that will be tough for some readers. For this blog tour, we're looking at She Took My Baby by Steena Holmes.

First, the review I posted to the book sites (BookHype.com / Goodreads.com / TheStoryGraph.com) and YouTube:

Twisty Mind Bender Will Put You In The Minds Of Its Main Characters. This is one of those books that works best when you don't try to fight it. Take yourself out of the story and just flow with what is presented here and what you get is one hell of a trippy mind bender where not everything is as it seems... and yet some things may be *exactly* as they seem.

Now, for the child free and particularly the childless... well, the title of the damn book has the word "Baby" in it. Yes, this is focused on post-partum issues and, well, babies and motherhood. So just to make it explicitly clear: this...

Phenomenal Story. Absolutely HORRID Storytelling. In the hands of someone with the skills of a Roth (DIVERGENT) or a Collins (HUNGER GAMES) or a Rowling (HARRY POTTER) or a Dashner (MAZE RUNNER) or a Robinson (THE LAST HUNTER) or a Phillips (RHO AGENDA) or a Harrison (INFINITY) or or or or or... this could have been an absolutely PHENOMENAL story that would keep you on the edge of your seat for at least a trilogy of trilogies, if not a near-mid-double-digits long series of all 300+ or even 600+ page books. There is *that much* material covered here, and it truly sounds PHENOMENAL.

Unfortunately, Eaden isn't one of those authors, or even anywhere near that - at least right now. In th...