The Ginseng Conspiracy by Susan Bernhardt @SusanBernhardt1 #CozyMystery, #GeneManipulation, #Suspense

The Plot:

On her way to attend a Halloween Ball, Kay Driscoll, a newcomer to town, witnesses the murder of a local professor. When the official coroner’s report rules the cause of death to be accidental and the community accepts the judgement, Kay decides to uncover the truth for herself. Through her personal investigations, Kay exposes a complex conspiracy, woven deep within the thriving local ginseng industry, that involves some of the more prominent figures and families of Sudbury Falls.

With her new friends, the free-spirited herbalist Deirdre and the untamed modern woman Elizabeth, Kay discusses new clues over tea and pastries at Sweet Marissa’s Patisserie, their crime-fighting headquarters. As Kay gets closer to the heart of the conspiracy, additional murders happen in quick succession. Before long, Kay learns that the villains are gunning for her, too. Phil, her musically talented but preoccupied husband, determined to keep her safe, withholds from her the one thing she needs most: the truth.

About the Author:

Susan’s town in northern Wisconsin was an inspiration for the quaint setting of her Kay Driscoll novels. Like Kay Driscoll in her cozy mysteries, The Ginseng Conspiracy and Murder Under the Tree, Susan is a retired nurse who volunteers at her local free clinic. She lives with her husband, William, and has two sons, Peter and David.

An avid reader of mysteries, she is a member of Sisters in Crime, Inc. and the Wisconsin Writers Association. Her published works include: A Manhattan Murder Mystery: An Irina Curtius Mystery, The Ginseng Conspiracy (A Kay Driscoll Mystery Book 1), Murder Under the Tree (A Kay Driscoll Mystery Book 2), Murder by Fireworks (A Kay Driscoll Mystery Book 3), “October 31st”, “Midsummer”, and “John and Madeline.”

When not writing, Susan loves to travel, bicycle, kayak, and create culinary magic in her kitchen. She works in stained-glass, daydreams in her organic garden, stays up late reading mysteries, and eats lots of chocolate.

Review:

I really wanted to enjoy The Ginseng Conspiracy, and for the most part, I did. However, it needed better editing. Maybe I missed something at the beginning, but there were times when I couldn’t figure out where characters came from or who lived where. One major example is Margaret. The book begins with Kay Driscoll going out walking with her two best friends. Elizabeth and Diedre. She describes them in detail, and says Diedre lives next door. When she gets home, Margaret calls and they agree to meet later at Sweet Marissa’s Patisseri. Who the heck is Margaret, and why is Kay meeting her? There’s no explanation.

Later, Ms. Driscoll says someone lives “two doors down from Elizabeth.” I’m not sure if she’d yet mentioned that Elizabeth was across the street from Kay, but I was totally confused about where this person lived. I may have been confusing Elizabeth’s house with Diedre’s, because people already lived two doors down from her, and I wondered how these characters could live in the same house. I don’t usually miss details like “Diedre lives next door, and Elizabeth’s across the street.” But at least if you’re going to start a book with a page or two of info dump describing your protagonist’s best friends, you could tell the reader where they both live instead of just one.

The mystery itself was pretty good. There were several people involved in the murder, and while I was able to identify a few obvious perps at the very beginning, a few remained mysteries to the end, and there were even a couple of good red-herrings. But with the confusion over people popping out of nowhere and characters all seeming to live in the same house, I found myself backtracking—so it wasn’t the page-burner I’d hoped. Therefore, I’m afraid I’m closing out Roses & Thorns with three roses for The Ginseng Conspiracy.

Author Website:  https://smile.amazon.com/Susan-Bernhardt/e/B00HNQL1UM

Warnings:  None

Length: 284 Pages

Prices:

Print: $10.99

Digital: $3.95

Buy Link: https://museituppublishing.com/bookstore/index.php/now-available-in-ebook/the-ginseng-conspiracy-detail

You’ll notice we always include the publisher’s buy link. That’s because authors usually receive 40-50% of the net proceeds from the publisher. Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%. When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left. So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40-$2.99. If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $1.70-$2.10.

Download the file from the publisher onto your computer as you would any other file. I’ve created a folder for books on my computer, with subfolders by source (Marketing for Romance Writers, Net Galley, Authors who find me on Kindle lists, etc.). That way, if there’s a glitch with your Kindle, the books are on your computer. Some publishers send books in all digital formats. If my Kindle breaks and my kids buy me a Nook, I won’t have to replace all of my books. If you have a Kindle and your hubby has a Nook, you won’t have to buy separate copies, so buying directly from the publisher can save you money.

Moving the file from your computer to your e-reader is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive. Plug the larger USB end of your e-reader charging chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from the folder into which you’ve downloaded the book to Documents/Books directory on your e-reader. You can move the file by highlighting it and dragging it to the documents directory in you Kindle you want to move it to. Or right click on it, and then left click copy or move. Or hit Control/C for copy, Control/X for cut, and Control/V for paste.

Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Thanks for visiting. To those of you who have been loyal readers, I’m sorry this is my last post. I simply can’t keep up with this blogsite and my own writing and promotion. Happy reading.

Bess by Charles Cranston Jett

The Plot:

Bess Parker is only twenty-one years old when she sets out by herself in 1908, leaving the safety of her childhood home for southwestern North Dakota to establish a homestead. And it takes all the strength she can muster to succeed—facing the perils of the vast prairie, making her homestead productive, conquering the dangers of the frontier, flirting with romance, struggling with the emotional needs of her heart and body, and meeting the challenges of life on the prairie. But this unique young woman has a steely determination, and her story is the epitome of courage and grit in a difficult and sometimes cruel time in the history of the west.

About the Author:

Mr. Jett is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and the Harvard Graduate School of Business.

He served in the United States Naval Nuclear Submarine Force where he created the nuclear attack submarine (SSN) predeployment training program for covert submarine operations, the tactical doctrine for the nuclear submarine electronic surveillance system (AN/WLR-6), and is the creator of the geographic plot (Geo Plot) for covert tracking of Soviet submarines from the SSN platform.

He has had fifteen years’ experience in the management consulting and executive recruiting world, where he participated in strategic planning, marketing, and organizational development engagements, and CEO and Board of Directors’ searches.

He has worked with corporate organizations in the area of critical skills identification and skill profiling to assist them in their corporate development programs as well as enabling them to target specific skill profiles for recruitment for entry level management positions.

He created the career management tool known as the “Doom Loop” which has become popularized as a highly useful tool for anticipating and addressing various “career crises” as well as enabling organizations and executive search professionals to assess the skill capabilities, potentials, and current situations of individuals in corporate environments.

He is the author of several publications including the magazine articles “Whatever Happened to Corporate Loyalty?” and “Critical Skills and the CEO”—both of which were published by Chief Executive Magazine and have become widely popular articles in the reprint world. He is also the author of two new books: Wanted: Critical Skills!! and Career Crises and the Doom Loop.

He is an accomplished speaker on the subject of Critical Skills, having been featured by many of the nation’s top business schools (Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Northwestern, Chicago, Michigan, etc.) and the American Psychological Association. He focused on skill development at the high school level and was featured in the US Department of Labor’s publication, “Teaching the SCANS Competencies,” which was distributed nationwide. To facilitate high schools’ and training organizations’ ability to create and manage work-based learning programs to teach critical skills and the SCANS competencies, he created the software management tool known as “Coop2000®” and served as a national school-to-work technical assistance provider as well as a national workforce investment act technical assistance provider.

He is the author of Super Nuke!, WANTED: Eight Critical Skills You Need To Succeed, The Doom Loop, and Field Studies—all published by OutskirtsPress.

Review:

Growing up on a farm in Cando, North Dakota, Bess Parker is a tomboy. She’d rather be outside helping her dad with farm chores than inside learning to cook or sew with her mother. Obedient child that she is, Bess manages to do both—get up early enough to feed the chickens, gather the eggs, help Mama with breakfast, and then go outside to help saddle up her horse and help her dad tend the sheep. In the spring she even helps with lambing and shearing, while getting good grades in school and mastering the piano, eventually being able to play complex pieces such as Chaupin’s etudes. The only thing is, when a local boy expresses an interest in courting her, Bess just isn’t interested. She wants to move farther west and homestead—on her own. Much to her mother’s dismay, Bess never seems to show any interest in romance at all.

She’s very good at hiding the feelings she has for her best friend. Nor does she tell her parents about Linda, the girl she meets on the train enroute to Haley, North Dakota, the town where she plans to homestead, or the three wonderful days they spend together before Linda leaves for Montana to visit her aunt and uncle.

Bess grabbed me at the beginning and held my attention straight through. I had difficulty putting it down. Mr. Jett did a pretty good job of staying in the period with only one anomaly that I found, which wasn’t bad for a first-time historical novel. Mr. Jett’s dialog could also be a bit less stilted, but making the transition from non-fiction business writing to fiction is not easy, and since Mr. Jett had the same publisher, I suspect he had the same editor who may not know as much about working with fiction. Bess is a plucky character—a strong woman who makes her own way in a man’s world. A true pioneer in more than one sense of the word. I highly recommend Bess.

Author Website:  https://charlescranstonjett.com

Warnings:  Lesbian Relationships

Length:  301 Pages

Prices:

Paperback:  $15.95

Digital:  2.99

Hardcover:  $24.95

Buy Link:  http://outskirtspress.com/bookstore/details/9781478764861

You’ll notice we always include the publisher’s buy link. That’s because authors usually receive 40-50% of the net proceeds from the publisher. Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%. When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left. So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40-$2.99. If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $1.70-$2.10.

Download the file from the publisher onto your computer as you would any other file. I’ve created a folder for books on my computer, with subfolders by source (Marketing for Romance Writers, Net Galley, Authors who find me on Kindle lists, etc.). That way, if there’s a glitch with your Kindle, the books are on your computer. Some publishers send books in all digital formats. If my Kindle breaks and my kids buy me a Nook, I won’t have to replace all of my books. If you have a Kindle and your hubby has a Nook, you won’t have to buy separate copies, so buying directly from the publisher can save you money.

Moving the file from your computer to your e-reader is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive. Plug the larger USB end of your e-reader charging chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from the folder into which you’ve downloaded the book to Documents/Books directory on your e-reader. You can move the file by highlighting it and dragging it to the documents directory in you Kindle you want to move it to. Or right click on it, and then left click copy or move. Or hit Control/C for copy, Control/X for cut, and Control/V for paste.

Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Thanks for visiting.