The Golden Mouse by Mike Dixon

 Blurb:

Vultures gather around creatures in distress: old Aboriginal saying.

Kate Bromley worried about her parents and the strange people that had gathered around them. Being a member of a banking family is hazardous when the bank is on the skids. There are rich pickings and it is difficult to tell friend from foe.

When she was a little girl, Kate was told that money grew on trees. That was a way of hiding the truth. Money is created by banks and floats around in cyberspace as trillions of dollars are traded every day.

That leaves room for a lot of skulduggery.

Money can be created and destroyed at the click of a mouse: a computer mouse. Her father talked about his. He called it the Golden Mouse and said it could work wonders. Kate thought he was joking. Then she realized it was no joke. Father was clicking away furiously and putting the entire family at risk.

One day, she was on a survival trek in the Scottish Highlands with her university friends. The next, she was fleeing for her life.

Hansen Files: The Golden Mouse is the third book in the Hansen Files series and can be read without reference to the others.

About the Author:

I either started off on the wrong foot or I'm the legendary rolling stone. Normally, a degree in astrophysics does not lead to a stint in Parliament House, public relations and the diving industry but that's what happened to me.

My varied life has provided a lot of background material for my novels.

Review by Rochelle:

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in return for an honest review. First, I’d like to thank Mr. Dixon for writing a series in which each book can stand alone. As many of you know, I hate cliff-hangers.

The Bromley family once owned one of the largest banks in England, but went out of business except for one branch in the Cayman Islands, and a few loyal business clients. As Kate Bromley learns when her father abruptly calls her to join him in Australia, not all of those clients are exactly, um, squeaky clean. Now she and her father are running for their lives across the Australian Outback, and she’s not sure whether the MI-5 agents chasing them are there to help her dad or arrest him.

This book would make a great movie. I could almost envision the wonderful sun-rises and –sets, and the great underwater diving scenes, spanning both Britain and Australia. It has action, adventure, alpha heroes and feisty heroines in two generations. The pacing is great. It was a page-burner that kept me up all night. A movie audience would forget to breathe. There were even details about Aboriginal tribes that live in remote valleys in Papua, New Guinea and still respect ancestral practices.

Heat Rating:  PG

Length:  300 Pages

Prices:

Print:  $9.50

Digital:  $0.99

Buy Link:  http://www.amazon.com/Golden-Mouse-Hansen-Files-ebook/dp/B00DNU2A6Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450133869&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Golden+Mouse+%2B+Mike+Dixon

Thanks for visiting. Donna, Julie, & Rochelle

King of the World by Randall Coleman

Blurb:

The year is 2022, and time is running out.

The Earth is heating up at an alarming rate. Governments are corrupt and terrorism abounds. More nations are on the brink of war than at any other time in history, and fear riddles the planet. The Group of Five is fed up, and they’re doing something about it. In their quest to usher in a new way, the Group of Five is seeking to elect a true king, one who can restore balance to the world. Will they find a suitable king in time, or will political corruption and the Earth’s imminent destruction win out?

Review by Rochelle:

The Group of Five plans to field a panel of five candidates for King of the World—until they meet Emmett Comanche Constitution Madison Taylor. He, of all the dozens of candidates they vet for the job, gets it. Not only does he understand what needs to be done, he sees the job as temporary. Once the local national governments are cleaned up, a King will no longer be needed and he can retire.

Taylor sees most of the problems of the world being based on unfairness. His plan for peace in Palestine is to allow the Palestinians and Israelis to vote whether to annihilate each other with nukes, or to live in peace with governments voted for by each other—the Palestinians voting for the Israeli government and vice-versa. He would demilitarize the world and use the money from each country’s war chest for things like national health care. The word “terrorist” would be banned and all terrorists would be labeled “cowardly murderers.” There would be one world currency and national governments would be expected to balance their budgets within a certain period of time. Income tax would be replaced by sales tax of ten percent with a one percent global relief tax. National governments would be elected by anonymous resumés, with the jobs truly going to the best people for them, not the people with the largest campaign funds or the best media personas.

How could they possibly accomplish this? The Group of Five has already established a shielded community in the Mongolian desert as well as a base on the Moon that is stocked with nuclear weapons to enforce their policies globally. They have a crack army and security team to protect Emmett and themselves, and they plan to hold the election over the internet.

Great ideas if they can pull them off. The problem with The King of the World—it needed an editor. By about the third time Emmett gave pretty much the same speech to the same adulation, I felt my blood glucose rising. The dialog was stilted, and despite the assassination attempts, it was slow going. Twice, I put the book down and read other books, pushing it farther back in my review schedule. A good editor would have tightened it up and made it the page-burner it truly should have been.

Am I such a cynic that by the end I was actually hoping Emmett would turn on the Group of Five and take over as the worst dictator of all time, or was I just tired of the saccharine nature of the book? He kept promising “happiness.” A politician can’t give people happiness. Abraham Lincoln once said, “Most folks are as happy as they allow themselves to be.” I know people who have a lot of material wealth, and they’re miserable. I live pretty much on a frayed shoestring and I’m usually pretty happy, and I know other people like me. I wouldn’t mind living in the Group of Five’s utopia. I just don’t want to slog through another 450 pages of redundant molasses again. My blood glucose couldn’t stand it.  I'm sorry, Mr. Coleman. I can't recommend The King of the World.

Length:  548 Pages

Prices:

Print:  $18.95

Digital:  $8.99

Buy Link:  https://www.overdrive.com/media/2140500/king-of-the-world

You’ll notice we always include the publisher’s buy link. That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price 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 royalties from what is left. So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-BookPublisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40. If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading the file from your computer to your e-reader is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive. You can download your books onto your computer using “Save As” to a “Books” folder you create and sort them into sub-folders by genre, author, or however you wish before transferring them to your e-reader. That way, if there’s a glitch with your e-reader, the books are on your computer. Once you’ve saved the book to your computer plug the larger USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from the folder you created to your E-Reader/Documents/Books directory. Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Thanks for visiting. Julie, Donna, & Rochelle

Clear the Decks; Whirlwind Romance by M. S. Spencer

Blurb:

In the aftermath of a hurricane, Lacey Delahaye finds herself marooned on the Gulf coast of Florida with a mysterious man. They are immediately drawn to each other, but before Armand can confess his identity, they are kidnapped and taken far from civilization to a tiny, remarkable island in the western Caribbean.

With the help of her son Crispin, a small, but proud young boy named Inigo, and a cadre of extraordinary characters, Lacey and Armand must confront pirates, power-mad ideologues, and palace intrigue if they are to restore the once idyllic tropical paradise to its former serenity and find lasting happiness.

Review by Rochelle Weber:

I really like M. S. Spencer, but I was beginning to be afraid her books were getting to be a bit formulaic. The last few all seemed to begin with a murder on the heroine’s first day at work. They grabbed me and kept me burning through the pages, and each cast of characters was different, but I confess I was starting to worry.

Whirlwind Romance is very different. Each chapter begins with either a jelly recipe or a pirate-themed sea chanty. Lacey Delahaye’s jellies are well-known and Armand, the man who fetches up in the roots of the mangrove tree outside her home on Florida’s West Coast is far from dead, as he demonstrates while she’s trying to rescue him from drowning. He is, however, on the run—from pirates. No, it’s not an historical story; it’s contemporary. And when said pirates find Armand hiding in Lacey’s house, they kidnap her along with him.

Thus begins an adventure Lacey never imagined getting caught up in. Her greatest ambition was to open a jelly store, not get caught up in piracy or the governmental affairs of a Caribbean island. Oh, and let’s not forget romance. Lacey is definitely caught in a whirlwind, and you will be, too—one you can’t put down. Clear the decks before you pick up this book. I recommend Earl Grey, hot, with crumpets, butter, and red currant jelly whilst you read it.

Length:  294 Pages

Digital Price:  $5.99

Buy Link:  http://store.secretcravingspublishing.com/index.php?main_page=book_info&cPath=4&products_id=934

You’ll notice we always include the publisher’s buy link. That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price 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. If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading the file from your computer to your Kindle is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive. Plug the larger USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your Kindle/Documents/Books directory. You can download your books onto your computer using “Save As” to a “Books” file you create and sort them into sub-folders by genre, author, or however you wish before transferring them to your Kindle. That way, if there’s a glitch with your Kindle, the books are on your computer. Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Thanks for visiting. Rose, Julie, Donna, & Rochelle

Ill Fares The Land by Tony Judt

Blurb:

Something is profoundly wrong with the way we think about how we should live today.

In Ill Fares The Land, Tony Judt, one of our leading historians and thinkers, reveals how we have arrived at our present dangerously confused moment. Judt masterfully crystallizes what we've all been feeling into a way to think our way into, and thus out of, our great collective dis-ease about the current state of things.

As the economic collapse of 2008 made clear, the social contract that defined postwar life in Europe and America—the guarantee of a basal level of security, stability and fairness—is no longer guaranteed; in fact, it's no longer part of the common discourse. Judt offers the language we need to address our common needs, rejecting the nihilistic individualism of the far right and the debunked socialism of the past. To find a way forward, we must look to our not so distant past and to social democracy in action: to re-enshrining fairness over mere efficiency.

Distinctly absent from our national dialogue, social democrats believe that the state can play an enhanced role in our lives without threatening our liberties. Instead of placing blind faith in the market-as we have to our detriment for the past thirty years-social democrats entrust their fellow citizens and the state itself.

Ill Fares the Land challenges us to confront our societal ills and to shoulder responsibility for the world we live in. For hope remains. In reintroducing alternatives to the status quo, Judt reinvigorates our political conversation, providing the tools necessary to imagine a new form of governance, a new way of life.

Review:

This author, Tony Judt, expounds his personal theories in a treatise on what’s economically and politically wrong in America and Britain and how to right it in his book, Ill Fares the Land.

I did not find his subject matter to be particularly interesting in the way he presented it, although his theories are somewhat thought-provoking if one assumes that he is correct in his assertions. One difficulty I had with his book was the lack of credible argument to support his thesis. Another issue was the lack of reference citations at times when he stated facts and figures. I tried to research his qualifications for writing about this particular topic and found his background to be extensive in history, but it was not clear to me that he has delved to any degree in the area of economics and/or politics. He fails to include other important and relevant aspects of society in what he presents, and he borders on fear-mongering at times.

I also found myself distracted by minor details that were disruptive to reading and led me away from the original point he was trying to make. For example, this statement has a certain amount of ambiguity for me: “But if we think we know what is wrong, we must act upon the knowledge.” I believe anyone can understand his intended meaning with this statement, but any careful reader is likely to automatically discern a vast difference in “we think we know” and actual “knowledge.” Indeed, if we think we know what’s wrong, the first step would be to garner solid knowledge that would confirm and support our thinking. Then we would be in a position to act upon the knowledge. In any case, although I could accept some of his premises, Judt was not able to pique my interest keenly enough and state his case convincingly enough to win me over with his diatribe. I believe his overall treatise needed more substance, so I cannot recommend this book as a good read.

Length: 256 Pages

Prices:

Print: $15.00

Digital: $12.99

Buy Link:

http://www.us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781594202766,00.html?Ill_Fares_the_Land_Tony_Judt

You’ll notice we always include the publisher’s buy link. That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price 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. If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading 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 USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your E-Reader/Documents/Books directory. You can first download your books using “Save As” to a “Books” file you create on your computer and then transfer them to your e-reader from there. That way, if there’s a glitch with your e-reader, the books are on your computer. Your author will be happy you bought directly from the publisher when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Thanks for visiting. Rose & Rochelle