Witch Way to Mintwood by Addison Creek #AmateurSleuth, #Ghosts, #Humor

The Plot:

(Witch of Mintwood Book 1)

House falling down? Check. Pet sitting job with annoying clients? Check. Ability to speak to ghosts, which has the unfortunate side effect of having to listen to what they say back? Double check! Hot high school crush still in town being all successful and stuff while you protest his building projects? All kinds of checks! Did anyone say Witch of Mintwood? Yup! Just add murder and this will be a week to remember!

About the Author:

I was unable to find any info on this author. S/he has no bio, photo, website or social media presence.

Review:

Lemmie sees dead things—both people and animals. She speaks to them, too. Unfortunately, she also has to listen to them. Her grandmother was The Witch of Mintwood, and Lemmie inherited the title/job along with her grandma’s Victorian farmhouse and spacious yard. One of the ghosts in the yard blackmails her into checking on her great-great-granddaughter, who goes missing along with a family heirloom. Lemmie doesn’t even like the girl, but the ghostly grannie’s a handful. She doggedly pursues the case with the help of her best friends and roommates—Greer and Charlie, and Paws, the ghost cat, who her grandmother inherited along with the house.

Witch Way to Mintwood had me chuckling on the first page, and kept my attention to the end. I liked Lemmie, even though I didn’t learn her name until the sixth chapter. And I just now skimmed almost the entire rest of the book looking for her last name, but only a few people in the book seem to have last names, a notable one being Jasper Wolf, who makes Lemmie’s knees weak. However, her grandmother warned her to stay away from him, just as his grandfather issued a similar warning to him about her. I had questions about Jasper that were left unanswered.

Greer and Charlie have romantic sub-plots, but otherwise, the background characters could almost be painted on flats had this been written as a play. They’re pretty two-dimensional. Maybe that’s why Ms./Mr. Creek is completely invisible, with no website, Twitter account, or even an Amazon author page.

That said, I’ll probably buy the second book in the series. I still have those questions about Jasper Wolf.

Warnings:  None

Length:  189 Pages

Digital Price:  $0.99

Buy Link:  https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B01N5HIGH5

Thanks for visiting.

Inspector of the Cross by John B. Rosenman @Writerman1 #ArtificialIntelligence #IntergalacticHero, #ScienceFiction

The Plot:

Thanks to suspended animation, Turtan is over 3500 years old and travels on freeze ships to distant worlds. His mission is to investigate weapons to help humanity turn the tide against their ancient nemesis…the Cenknife. Vicious aliens, the Cenknife seek to conquer the universe and enslave humanity.

When Turtan discovers just such a weapon, a beautiful, seductive woman stands in his way. He must use all his skills, abilities, and courage to meet the crisis and save untold billions of lives.

About the Author:

John B. Rosenman recently retired as an English professor at Norfolk State University where he designed and taught a course in how to write science fiction and fantasy. He is a former Chairman of the Board of the Horror Writers Association and has published approximately 350 stories in places such as Weird Tales, Whitley Strieber’s Aliens, Fangoria, Galaxy, The Age of Wonders, and the Hot Blood anthology series. John has published nearly twenty books, including SF action-adventure novels such as Beyond Those Distant Stars and Speaker of the Shakk (Mundania Press), A Senseless Act of Beauty (Crossroad Press), and Alien Dreams (Drollerie Press and Crossroad Press). Shorter books include A Mingling of Souls and Music Man (XoXo Publishing), Here Be Dragons (Eternal Press), The Voice of Many Waters (Blue Leaf Publications), Green in Our Souls (Damnation Books), and Bagonoun’s Wonderful Songbird and Childhood’s Day (Gypsy Shadow Publishing). Recent developments: MuseItUp Publishing published two novels, Dark Wizard, Dax Rigby, War Correspondent, and Inspector of the Cross, as well as two stories, More Stately Mansions and The Blue of Her Hair, the Gold of Her Eyes. Visit John at his website, www.johnrosenman.com.

Review:

The college I attended had a writing program, but when I went, there were no genre-specific classes. Everyone was out to win the National Book Award at the very least, and they all looked down on genre fiction. Eventually they added a sci-fi class, but the instructor told me the rest of the writing faculty were still snobbish toward her. Hugo and Nebula Awards meant nothing to them. Mr. Rosenman’s students were lucky, indeed, to have such a good writer teaching them at a college where I’m sure he received the respect he deserved.

In my opinion, the best sci-fi writer of the twentieth century was Robert A. Heinlein. The first of Mr. Rosenman’s books that I read was almost as good as the Old Man’s. Inspector of the Cross, I think, might have had Mr. Heinlein in the same conundrum as me. The book grabbed me on the first page, but somewhere along the way, I caught a red herring. I mean I really caught it. I had that thing scaled, gutted, filleted, and breaded. If I say any more, I might ruin the book. You must buy Inspector of the Cross and follow Turtan on his journeys.

Author Website:  http://www.johnrosenman.com

Warnings:  Some Sex & Violence

Length:  @ 300 Pages

Digital Price:  $5.95 (Free on Amazon for a limited time.)

Buy Links:

MuseItUp Publishing, Inc.  https://museituppublishing.com/bookstore/index.php/museitup/sci-fi/space-opera/inspector-of-the-cross-detail

Amazon:  https://smile.amazon.com/B007USB0YU

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.

The Arcadia Series, Books One & Three by Kelley Heckart @CelticChick #Romance #Fantasy #GreekMythology

Blurbs:

The Bear Goddess, Book One

Romance, fantasy and magic in Bronze Age Arcadia (Greece)

Forbidden love… Broken vows… Betrayal…

Callisto, the daughter of the great Arcadian King Lycaon and the nymph Maia, has studied all her life to attain the high position of Bear Goddess among the nymphs of Artemis, taking a sacred vow of purity. But when she meets a mysterious man, her life changes forever.

Kasin is a prince among the fierce centaurs and one of few who can take human shape. A follower of Zeus, he is mystified to save a nymph’s life and even worse, to fall in love with an enemy of the centaurs. He is torn between his duty to his people and his love for Callisto.

When the nymphs capture Kasin for their next sacrifice, Callisto cannot allow him to die, but before she can help him escape, they are caught together and their secret connection exposed. Surrounded by armed guards, they manage a daring escape. On the run from the nymphs, danger and betrayal follow Kasin and Callisto. To survive, they must evade a god obsessed with having Callisto for himself as well as others who also want to keep them apart. Will their love for each other be enough to save them?

The Crow Maiden, Book Three

She betrayed her goddess for him…

He betrayed her.

Plotting her revenge is her only solace. Until now.

Nahla is the Crow Maiden, an Arcadian, and once a priestess of Artemis. Now she is a captive, a being who lives in the shadows until her vile master the sorcerer-king Aramon summons her. Another releases her from the Shadowlands, and while he might be the champion she has waited for, the gods must be playing a cruel joke. Her champion is crippled.

An Achaean lord who once ruled a great city, Balin is a broken man. He has lost everything—his kingdom and his family. Revenge consumes him. Although wary of the mysterious, cold-eyed female who appears and claims he summoned her, she may be his only hope to exact vengeance on the king who ruined him, the same man Nahla seeks to destroy.

They are bound by revenge, and soon, both learn they are bound by much more, but the secrets she hides might tear them apart and ruin their only opportunity for vengeance—and their chance to love again.

About the Author:

Multi-published author Kelley Heckart writes romances with fantasy/paranormal elements set in ancient and medieval time periods. Her stories reflect her passion for ancient history, storytelling, and the supernatural. She is drawn in particular to the ancient Celts who are shrouded in mystery and associated with the otherworldly realm of the Fae. With her pen and paper, she recreates long ago places filled with fierce warriors, bold women, otherworldly creatures, magic, and romance.

Two of her favorite things are sunrises and men in kilts. When not writing or editing, she enjoys practicing target archery. She can be found online at www.kelleyheckart.com.

Review:

The Bear Goddess is Book One and The Crow Maiden is Book Three of the Arcadia Trilogy, each book of which stands alone. However, the books are tied together by the fact that they take place in and around Arcadia, and the crossover appearances of various characters among the three books. I reviewed Book Two, The Wolf Queen, last year, and missed nothing reading them out of order.

I greatly admire Ms. Heckert’s knowledge of Greek mythology and the way she weaves it into her fictional world along with the paranormal. Her characters are deeply drawn and engaging, and the plots are fast-paced and draw the reader in on page one.

But, as has been happening so much lately, there were editing issues that drove me nuts. When editors tell their authors not to use too many adverbs, they don’t mean the authors should substitute adjectives. Yet I see this happening over and over again. I even hear it in dialog on TV, and find myself yelling “LY!” at the screen, as I do to my Kindle. I yelled it at my Kindle throughout the entire Arcadia Trilogy. Please be sparing with your adverbs, but do NOT substitute adjectives for them. Use a stronger verb. But if you can’t find a stronger verb, go ahead and enhance it with an adverb. Use your “ly.”

Thanks for letting me rant. Aside from the adjective problem, The Arcadia Series was a good read. You might want to start with The Bear Goddess, then The Wolf Queen, and end with The Crow Maiden, but it’s not necessary.

Author Website:  www.kelleyheckart.com

Heat Ratings (Both):  R

Lengths: 

The Bear Goddess:  285 Pages

The Crow Maiden:  269 Pages

Prices (Both):

Print:  $11.99

Digital:  $2.99

Buy Links:

The Bear Goddess:  https://amazon.com/dp/B00P74X0WY

The Crow Maiden:  https://amazon.com/dp/B01N1ZBAF1

Thanks for visiting.