I Feel So Unnecessary

The Girl Who Came Back To Life: A Fairytale Author: Craig Staufenberg Genre: YA/ Fantasy 180 pages Publisher: Create Space, 2014 Book Source: Author in exchange for an honest review Twelve year old Sophie is self-possessed, mature orphan who lives with her grandmother. When the weather gets warmer they make their way to the North and The City of the Dead where people go to tell their loved ones Goodbye so they can move on to the next world. But Sophie has other plans- she wants to bring her parents back to life. Along the way Sophie is resourceful and finds out things about her grandmother she never knew. This was a quick, entertaining read. I found the storyline to be original and the characters interesting. I wished Sophie had acted a little more like a kid, though. But she was a very good heroine and she ended up learning a valuable lesson in the City of the Dead. My main quibble is with the cover. I think a more descriptive cover would have represented the story better. ...

Round the Bend: From Luton to Peru to Ningaloo, A Life After Redundacy By: Alistair McGuinness 256 pages Genre: Travel Memoir Publisher: Matador Publication Date: November 26, 2013 Buy it here: Amazon * I received a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: Three things happened simultaneously. The lioness charged, Alistair fled across the parched savannah and his wife screamed for him to run faster. Stuffed deep inside his tattered rucksack was a guidebook containing advice on what to do in wildlife emergencies, which he planned to read if he survived the next thirty seconds. Future plans to climb Kilimanjaro, teach English in the Amazon and live in Australia were temporarily forgotten as he turned to face the pouncing lioness, thinking back to the words of advice from his mother-in-law. "Don't do anything silly, and look after Francine." From deep underground in a remote Bolivian mine to the scorched Australian outback,...

Where the Wildflowers Grow By; Vera Jane Cook Genre: Southern Fiction Publisher: Musa Publishing Publication Date: March 2013 Get it at:  Amazon B&N Synopsis: Sexual confusion and dysfunction cause the unraveling of the perfect American family in small town Georgia in 1960. Rose Cassidy's fantasy life is a haunting reminder that she's living a lie. So when she has the opportunity to act on those fantasies, she dives in without any thought to consequences. Rose's husband, Ryan, has fantasies of his own, and his actions cause unimaginable hurt to the very children he tries so hard to protect. When the happiness each member of the Cassidy family seeks so desperately to find is shattered by shame, guilt, and ultimately murder, they must each face the truth that lies deep within their souls. My Thoughts:   I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review. A riveting family saga- it has murder, drama, infidelity... It kept me e...

Tinseltown Riff By: Shelly Frome 244 pages Genre: Fiction: Action/Adventure Publisher: Sunbury Press Publication Date: March 2013 Get It Here: Amazon   Sunbury Press   B&N     Synopsis: Tinseltown Riff centers on Ben Prine, a thirty-something hack screenwriter who, on a Labor Day weekend, finds himself in desperate straits. Latching on to a dubious last-minute opportunity, he unwittingly embarks on a collision course with a Montana tracker connected with a Vegas mob; an odyssey which culminates in a fateful showdown on an abandoned Western movie. My Thoughts: * received this free in exchange for an honest review. This book is filled with a quirky cast of characters with a screwball plot. But underneath it has a compelling message. A fun read.     About the Author: Shelly Frome is a member of Mystery Writers of America, a professor of dramatic arts emeritus at the University of Connecticut, a former pr...

I received a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.   Publisher: Musa Publishing (January 20, 2012) 289 pages Synopsis:   After thirteen years on the run Violet McLaughlin returns to Carter's Crossing, South Carolina, in 1962, with her young daughter, Sassy. The Crossing is right outside of Beaufort and the turmoil of the Civil Rights movement will forever leave its scars on the young and impressionable girl. As Sassy stands before the imposing white farmhouse for the first time, with no knowledge of her history but that the McLaughlin's are her kin, Sassy begins a journey that will tear her apart before it heals her. Growing up among secrets that will forever damage her relationship with her mother, she attempts to make sense of her past. But will her passion for art and her love for Thomas Tierney be enough to sustain her future? Will the puzzles she must solve to discover who she is be worth the journey?   My Thoughts: ...

Publisher: Crime Wave Press  (March 8, 2013) Formats: Print & eBook  380 pages * I received a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.     Synopsis:  Working Tokyo nightclubs is easy money for beautiful and troubled American Val Benson - until a client with a rather unusual hobby - painting the private parts of his female liaisons - reluctantly gives up a map to a stash of Japanese war loot and tempts his favourite girl into a dangerous treasure hunt.  The Congressman's daughter is not the only one interested in the map: yakuza, bent cops, human traffickers, rogue CIA agents and her father are hot on her trail, snapping at her high heels.  So begins the dark, epic journey of a new anti-hero of Asian Noir, a protagonist both ambiguous and courageous, and utterly unreliable. From comfort women and tomb-raiding in Japanese-occupied Burma to the murderous echoes of the Vietnam War, long forgotten crime...