Book Review: 30 Days

30 Days. G.R. Case. Cool Blue Books, April 14, 2014, Trade Paperback and Kindle, 398 pages.

Reviewed by Ray Paul.

Without question, 30 Days is one of the most compelling novels I have read in recent years. This plot-driven suspense novel is so intricately woven I did not suspect its conclusion until the very last page. The focus character, Marcus Freling, is a Manhattan postal worker who is fixated on avenging his young niece’s drive-by shooting death by a callous gangster. When the police can’t pin the crime on Troy, the drug dealer, Marcus devises and carries out his own elaborate plan to kidnap, torture, and eventually murder Troy and Troy’s own young daughter. For this reader, the story was a rough ride emotionally as I accompanied Marcus on his vengeful journey, but the characters are so well drawn I never questioned the validity of his purpose

If I were to be critical of anything in Mr. Case’s novel it would be the following two things. First, is his tendency to change the point of view character in mid-paragraph and thus divert this reader’s attention from his powerful story. The second is a lack of sentence variety and a reliance on adverbs to color his story. Despite these weaknesses, 30 Days is an emotion-packed novel of retribution that transported me into an unfamiliar world. I liked it and I recommend it to any strong-stomached reader of suspense novels. I also believe the story would make an excellent movie.

Book Review: Great News Town

Great News Town. Sue Merrill. Lulu.com Publishing, December 17, 2012, Trade Paperback and Kindle, 314 pages.

Reviewed by Christine Collins Cacciatore.

If you’re looking for a gripping story—something you won’t want to put down—then I highly suggest you pick up a copy of Great News Town, written by the very talented and imaginative Sue Merrell, who worked for the Joliet Herald News some time ago as an assistant city editor. 

As someone from the Joliet area, I found this well-written novel particularly enthralling because I was a junior in high school when the actual gruesome murders described in the book took place, and I do remember reading about this in the newspaper.

Sue Merrell’s 314 page novel starts out with a bang, literally within the first two chapters.  I lived in Plainfield when the Union Oil Refinery explosion happened, and I remember like it was yesterday.  Despite living dozens of miles from the scene of the explosion, our house shook and our screen door rattled violently.  She does a great job capturing the feel of the time period.

Great News Town is about a series of murders that took place in the hot summer of 1983 in the Will County area.  The reader follows Josie, the single mother of a little boy named Kevin.  She is a reporter investigating the deaths and writing about them.  Ms. Merrell also brings insight into the victim’s lives, making it hit home a little harder.  She really brings the characters to life.  From time to time while reading, I would remember hearing about this fact or that name and because the victims were real people, it brings home the violence and fear the Will County area experienced during that summer. 

The colorful news reporter characters Ms. Merrell describes sound like the ones you’d find in most newspapers in the early 80’s, but she has a charming way of bringing this particular office to life.  The reader gets a very vivid inside view of the life of a reporter, especially in the days before social media.  Newspapers and their reporters played a huge part in how the general public got their information in those days, unlike today when a few clicks of the mouse can tell you everything going on in the world.  She does a wonderful job imparting the not so stellar lives of some of her characters, which actually endears you to them.   From time to time I did get a little confused as a reader because there are many characters in the novel; I primarily read romance and paranormal novels and they don’t have nearly as many names to keep track of.  However, I do think that she did a brilliant job weaving the story in and out of the characters; the reader is being kept in the loop and the ends are tied up nicely. 

Overall, Ms. Merrell did an excellent job with Great News Town.  I really could sink my teeth into this book, especially since I’m from that area.  That really impacted me as a reader.  Other books by this author include Laughing for a Living, One Shoe Off, and Full Moon Friday. 

Great job to Ms. Merrell and I look forward to reading the next book by this clever author.

Book Review: Beyond the Red Mountains

Beyond the Red Mountains. Gregory A. Johnson. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, March 29, 2014, Trade Paperback and Kindle, 512 pages.

Reviewed by Deanna Frances.

Beyond the Red Mountains by Gregory A. Johnson is a fictional fantasy adventure novel that follows the lives of two different protagonists that eventually meet and blend their stories into a captivating tale of adventure, friendship, and love.

The novel begins by telling the story of a young man named Kelvin Drake, whose father’s political superiority in the city of Triopolis seems to always overshadow every part of Kelvin’s life. While working for his father in the town hall, Kelvin finds an old journal that unleashes his curiosity of the “Dark Ages” of the past; a time where sorcery and war wiped away every other civilization in existence, as far as the citizens of Triopolis know.

The story then switches view to another city named Westville, where the young and beautiful noblewoman Elizabeth has just married into the royal family, even though she recently discovered that her new husband’s biggest secret will never allow her to live a normal and happy life. Knowing her fate only makes Elizabeth long for excitement and adventure.

When Kelvin leaves his father’s employment to become a fisherman with his closest friend Henry, he believes that he and his friend can possibly uncover the dark secrets of Triopolis’ past, but soon after discovering the first clues, they are swept away in their boat by the sea waters in a wild storm that takes them to a place they never knew existed, Westville.

When Kelvin, Henry, and Elizabeth meet, they begin to realize that the elders in both of their cities have kept secrets from them that could possibly release another dark age of war and violence. With the guidance of the kind high priest, the three form a pact of friendship and begin to search for the knowledge that may save them all.

Beyond the Red Mountains is a novel that I couldn’t stop reading. Being a huge fan of adventure stories, I was immediately captivated by Johnson’s story. Although the first passages of Elizabeth’s story had me very confused at first, I was quickly able to understand how Johnson’s first novel was meant to be told.

I really enjoyed that there were two different protagonists in the story that had their own separate strengths. At first, I thought that the story would be strictly told from a third person point-of-view centered on Kelvin, but the addition of Elizabeth’s story added depth to the novel.

I was also impressed by Johnson’s ability to create deep relationships between multiple characters that readers would never expect. After discovering that other cities do exist, the characters also discover that there are relationships amongst themselves that they would have never known if they’d never met.

Johnson was adequately able to create a novel for a large variety of readers. I would recommend this novel for any fans of fantasy, adventure, or romance novels. I will be waiting to read more from Gregory A. Johnson. 

Book Review: Cry Through The Pen

Cry Through The Pen, by Fidel M. Love. Published by Fidel M. Love, United States of America, May 24, 2012, Trade Paperback and e-book, 222 pages.

Reviewed by Cronin Detzz.

Fidel M. Love’s Cry Through The Pen is a gritty, poignant collection of realism prose where “Despite these fears / I cry ink / And write with tears.” The first poem, “Little Black Boy Blues,” sets the tone as Love describes a youth struggling through other peoples’ judgments while his girlfriend is newly pregnant. He is afraid to be alone, and the whole world is expecting him to fail. Love switches places in “Mother 2 Be,” where he writes of a newly-pregnant teenager who yearns to be a good mother, despite the terrible parents she had herself. He writes from the female perspective again in “One Woman to Raise a Family.”

Love’s author profile states that he is from the south side of Chicago, as am I, so I find it easy to relate to him. Some people are born into privileged families, while others – as many from the south side – don’t have similar opportunities; life dares them to face tough issues. In “A Believer’s Dream,” he writes: “I wanted the life of fame and wealth / Though coming from a life of poverty myself / I dreamed a dream / It was all I could do.” It is by living and enduring through issues like poverty, teen pregnancies, drugs, and violence that some poets find their voice. I do not know if Love had to endure these types of battles himself, but he at least surely knew fellow warriors that had to fight through life’s battlefield. One of the chapters is entitled “War,” and he writes that “we [are] soldiers living in a time where our minds are caged.”

It takes a special kind of strength and a willingness to be vulnerable and let it all out for everyone to see, a quality that makes Love’s poetry brave. A common theme in his writing is that he must be strong and cannot let his tears show. There is a chapter aptly named “Cry.”

Cry Through The Pen is not solely angst-ridden street poetry, however. Love writes of visiting a senile grandmother who is now a shell of herself. Once again, I easily relate; my own grandmother is still alive, but she cannot even recognize herself in a photo. Some of his poems are prayers and end with an “Amen.” In the chapter entitled “She’s Heaven’s One Lost Angel,” Love includes many poems about love (naturally!). Sometimes he writes of beautiful women whom he’d like to love, sometimes he writes of love lost, and other times he writes about the depth of his love.

The only suggestion I have for the author is that for his next book, he should use some beta readers or take the extra time needed to fix small grammar and punctuation issues. This is always the risk we take when we self-publish. I saw a period out of place in one of my books and I let it haunt me – what can we say, we pour out our souls into our books and we do our best to make them perfect.

I hope that Love keeps writing and keeps sharing. One of my favorite lines was: “Give me dreams – in these dreams it’s my turn to try / Give me ink, give me wings – I will learn to fly.”

Book Review: Meriah Goes to Church

Meriah Goes to Church. Sonja Michelle Crocket. Self-published, 2012, Paperback, 40 pages.

Reviewed by Sarah Sadik.

Meriah Goes to Church revolves around a young girl who goes to church with her family. Being a child, she misbehaves and is unfamiliar with the happenings at church: the songs, the choir behavior, and the offering plate. While in church, Meriah comes across a young girl, Tenshi, who is paralyzed. She witnesses everyone praying for her to walk again so Meriah joins in and prays every night. The reader finds out quickly that God finally gave Tenshi the power to walk.  

I found this book a little troubling on many levels while reading it. Usually children’s books are informational or try to teach children about how to behave. However, this book didn’t really explain anything. It didn’t provide any information and it left me feeling empty. The reason for going to church was never explained in detail to the child; it was more of a fluff reason. The fact that Meriah was misbehaving in church so much gave me the impression that she didn’t even take religion seriously or understand the concept of Jesus. Meriah praying for the young girl was a nice gesture but it was very cliché and unbelievable. It made me roll my eyes. How can a young girl—who doesn’t even understand religion—think that she aided in this young girl’s recovery? It seemed as if the author was trying to push religion on the reader instead of trying to be informational. I found this to be the major fault. The main character even seemed confused at times. “Why do we go to church?” I understand the author’s attachment to the subject matter but it just felt like this story was thrown together.