Characters: Sarah Seere, wealthy single psychic who lives in a large, potentially spooky house on a West Virginia mountain is protagonist and narrator. Jill gives us a touch of description of her main character — mid-50s, dyed blonde hair — but most of what Jill shares about Sarah comes through what Sarah says and does.

Sarah is a wonderful, accessible character. She loves her horse Spoofer and her dog Scout. She plays well with others, including best friend Dody Davidson also a member of the “country-club” set in their well-to-do mountain community:

She still had a fabulous figure, as should anyone who spent three hours a day with a private trainer in her own private gym. And she knew just how to accentuate it with her little black Tory Burch dress that she wore like a uniform to all of Seth’s blowouts— the only thing she changed each year were her jacket and accessories. This year she had on a little persimmon bolero cardigan and a boldly patterned scarf. She looked at me again. Her surgeon really was an artist; yet she preferred to keep that distinctive gap between her front teeth. Still— it didn’t distract from hair the color of a sunset and gray feline eyes. In short, Dody was the same drop-dead-gorgeous gal that she was in college. Only better.

Another well-developed character ~ old Jacob Henry, groom and caretaker on Sarah’s estate:

Hair once gray had finally turned white and facial lines that had been wrinkles years ago were now deep craters etching a lifetime of memories in Jacob’s ebony skin. But his amber eyes were still as sharp and critical as they were when he used to watch me ride my pony.

As I read Jacob, I saw and heard actor Morgan Freeman portraying him.

Jill does an excellent job with each of her characters, including the bad guy and even her minor characters. Even her horse, Spoofer; and dog Scout are written actively, colorfully and precisely.

Plot: After two young girls are murdered on Sarah’s mountain, the ghost of one of the victims appears to Sarah. The ghost asks Sarah to catch the killer. What Sarah doesn’t know, despite her psychic abilities, is that the killer, and the killer’s origins lie closer to her than she realizes, and poses greater danger to her than she knows.

Setting: Jill obviously knows and loves the Appalachian Mountains where the story takes place, and it shows in her writing. But Jill doesn’t bombard with purple prose. She works in her descriptions:

Suddenly, a gust of wind sent yellow leaves swirling around us like a golden tornado, and I urged Spoofer into a trot. The sky was brilliant cobalt and the warm colors of autumn were at their peak, but this didn’t register on my brain. As I passed one of the back pastures— now unused because there were about thirty fewer horses than when Mommy rode and showed— I should have marveled at the blue wildflowers that carpeted the landscape. But there was only room in my mind to think of this new victim.

Significant action takes place in the grand old house where Sarah lives, so this setting gets some nice description as well:

The foyer has remained unchanged since the days of my great-grandparents. It was still beautiful, with polished wood walls and a mahogany staircase that gracefully ascended to the next level. Each precious step was protected by a Persian carpet of deep, warm tones that flowed down the staircase like a river. Caramel colored alabaster globes, glowing with soft light, sat upon each newel post and threw elongated reflections across the polished, inlaid floor.

In my ‘umble, good clear settings help orient readers so that they can see the action of the narrative more clearly. And every story exists within its own world. I like a story that splashes a little light on that world, and Jill does just that.

What I thought could’ve been done better: View From My Soul is mostly in first-person, narrated by the protagonist. But perhaps 35 to 40 percent — guesstimation, I could be off — is third-person narrative from the killer’s point of view.

This third-person narrative is well written in and of itself — chilling even. But I found it so different from Sarah’s friendly, confiding narrative as to pose a distraction. It’s not so much that point-of-view switches. It’s the first-person to third-person change.

It reminded me of those old BBC television shows from the 80s and 90s, where the director had interior scenes shot in video and exteriors shot with film. It’s jarring and distracting, and takes the viewer — or in this case the reader — out of the illusion that the author has so skillfully spun.

Jill’s writing is good enough so that you get right back into the story — until the next switch — but, what reader, writer or story needs even a momentary shift in gears?

Author Gerry Conway, who wrote for Marvel and DC comics back in the 70′s, encountered the dilemma of separate points of view in his 1971 novel The Midnight Dancers. He solved it, in my opinion, by beginning each chapter title with the name of that chapter’s narrator. Then, even though he switched characters, he kept the story in first person.

What I thought was good: Even major novels from the big publishing houses with editors and proofreaders have minor typos here and there. So when an indie book manages to meet that same editing standard, I think it’s worth noting.

For the most part, Jill has eliminated most of the typos and grammar errors that plague many an indie novel. I think I noted about three or four minor typos, such as leaving an “ed” off a word that should be in past tense.

But overall, a fine job on the mechanics.

I’ve already mentioned the good job Jill does with her characters. One thing I particularly enjoyed about Sarah — along with wealth and psychic gifts, Jill gifts her with very human insecurities, and even a bit of guilt about being well-off.

Outside, I blinked in the bright sunlight. I had done it. I had made a commitment to take on a spirit as a client. I felt myself choking with emotion. What if I couldn’t do it? What if I couldn’t find him? Or, worse, what if he found me first?

I sat down on the stone wall that surrounded St. Vincent’s and listened to the muted tones of the choir and Father Chris. I put my head in my hands and sobbed. I had successfully used the chardonnay to keep me from being haunted by all my self-doubts and now, outside this country cathedral, I felt as though I’d been laid bare.

Though I’ve mentioned that I think the shift into third-person for showing the killer’s perspective is distracting, I also think the writing is well done. Hope that’s not conflicting. In any case, Jill does a good job with the killer:

As he walked along the path, he shook his head and told himself that he hadn’t wanted to do it. He hadn’t wanted to kill her. But he knew that if he didn’t kill her, he’d just end up having to kill himself.

What a way to go! His name would be in all the papers and maybe even on Fox News.

I want to note here that this was written four months before the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

And there are some genuinely creepy, unearthly moments:

The moon flooded the room with blue light. After I determined that I was wide awake, not dreaming, that my eyes were functioning and that even my dog was looking at the apparition, I turned back to face the girl on the wall behind me. By now she appeared fully formed, but still ghostly blue-white, like a delicately shaped cloud.

Before I had a chance to reply, she was pushed out of the way by a huge form, round and ponderous, with no distinctive characteristics but a gigantic mouth. The mouth opened and freezing, foul air engulfed me.

View From My Soul earns its paranormal tags.

Overall: In Sarah Seere, Jill has created an engaging heroine, even more so for being middle-aged and having her share of insecurities. She surrounds Sarah with plenty of components for a great tale ~ a frightening, yet plausible villain, good friends, mystery, ghosts, visions, and a beautiful mountain backdrop.

Jill serves it up with a conversational, informal writing style that makes View From My Soul a pleasure to read, even if at times it’s a spooky pleasure.

Good job Jill!

Coming up
Gabriel by Tina Pollick
The Ruby Brooch by Katherine L. Logan
The Quickening by Mari Biella
Summer Winds by W.P. Smith

And for a sexy superheroine paranormal sci fi romantic adventure thriller, check out my own novel American Goddesses ~ thanks for visiting Honest Indie!

That said, here is my honest opinion of The Tangled Web, a thriller by J.P. Lane which I finished reading yesterday.

Characters: Get ready for a lot of characters. It’s a big cast, headed by international businessman Logan Armstrong and tenacious crime reporter Lauren Anderson. J.P. fills her tangled web with politicians, drug lords, businessmen, crooks and cops.

I had a little trouble keeping all these characters straight at first, though part of the reason might have been that taxes and races kept me from reading for days at a time. J.P. does a nice job with her characters, giving them believable dialogue and putting them in realistic situations.

Many of even the minor characters have backstories and agendas. Here’s Logan’s housekeeper Ivy, for instance ~ not a main character by any means, but still a memorable one:

Ivy was the salt of the earth, the essence of island mother, and, like so many others, she was father too, the yin and the yang of parenthood, the strength that held the fragmented pieces together; the women who walked down from the mountains, hips swaying down impossibly steep paths, baskets heavy with produce for the market miraculously balanced on their heads. These were the women of the island, these and the ones whose voices shrieked out from the ramshackle corrugated zinc shacks of the city slums, chiding barefooted children to order. It was their cry that began the day, provided a meal for a hungry stomach. It was their arms that offered solace from hardship at night.

Plot: J.P. promises an “international thriller” and a “tangled web” and delivers both. The book might have been titled “When plots collide.” There is whole lot of scheming going on, and it’s not clear at first who is involved in what plot, hence the tangle. I think I can say, without spoiling anything, that a corrupt prime minister is at the center of the web, and no one — neither drug cartels, fellow government officials or police — is happy with him.

Crime reporter Lauren Anderson tries to get to the bottom of the mess which has drug smuggling on a massive scale at its heart. She finds herself tangled up in one of the plots, as well as being tangled up emotionally with rich, handsome Logan Armstrong, who also seems to be involved.

Confused? Strangely, that’s part of the fun in this book.

Setting: Most of the story takes place on an unnamed Caribbean island, referred to only as “the island,” as far as I could tell. J.P. does a nice job with her descriptions of moonlight on the mountains, warm breezes and salt air.

Armstrong lowered his window, taking in the salty breeze off the sea. Over the purring of the engine, he could hear the rhythm of the waves crashing on the pebbly beach that stretched for miles adjacent to the road. He looked out the other window toward the city glittering like a diamond necklace around the harbor and up into the mountains.

J.P. doesn’t overdo it. There’s just enough description sprinkled throughout to give a sense of place, unnamed though the island is.

What I thought could’ve been done better: I wouldn’t have minded a little more physical description of characters, especially of main characters Logan and Lauren.

Here’s Lauren, as seen by Logan:

She was gorgeous. But her beauty ran deep. It was her energy, her laugh, the way she was looking at him now, that agile mind of hers going a mile a minute.

Gorgeous how? Saying someone is gorgeous is telling not showing.

Where J.P. does offer some physical description, as she does with photographer-assassin Pavel and drug lord Maria, it makes them much more memorable, which is important in a large cast of characters.

Note the description of Ivy, in the preceding “Characters” section. Though we get wonderful insight into Ivy’s character, we still have to guess at what she looks like.

Though the story features a lot of bad business going on, and plenty of dangerous characters, I didn’t feel J.P. put Logan or Lauren in any real jeopardy. I wasn’t scared for either one, which I think is necessary for a thriller. I had a bit of worry for Lauren when her Aunt Maggie, a highly placed official in the island government recruited her to take a suspicious envelope to London, but that was about it.

The book did have instances of good people in dreadful danger, and those pages made for suspenseful reading. Just wish J.P. could have put Lauren and Logan in that kind of trouble. Sorry, Lauren and Logan.

What I thought was good: I’ve already mentioned the insights, agendas and backstories of J.P.’s terrific cast of characters, and her nice work on the settings, so I won’t repeat.

In the preceding section, I mentioned “good people in danger,” and those scenes are terrific, replete with menace. In fact, the story begins with a brutal armed highjacking of a pleasure craft out by Fisherman’s Key, a scene both vivid and suspenseful.

I think I enjoyed the plotting most of all. Though the book is titled “The Tangled Web,” J.P. is the webmaster in perfect control of all the intricate, interwoven skeins of plot. And in the grand tradition of Robert LeCarre and Len Deighton, much of the chilling badness is revealed in rather prosaic conversations.

Here’s Logan talking with the deputy prime minister:

“What exactly are you saying?”

“That about sums it up.”

Overall: J.P. has delivered a tale of intrigue rich in believable characters, exotic settings and and intricate, though credible plot. It’s not necessarily an easy book, but The Tangled Web is just as likely to ensnare readers as it does its characters.

Good job J.P.!

Coming up
View From My Soul by Jill Pritchett
Gabriel by Tina Pollick
The Ruby Brooch by Katherine L. Logan
The Quickening by Mari Biella

And for a sexy superheroine paranormal sci fi romantic adventure thriller, check out my own novel American Goddesses ~ thanks for visiting Honest Indie!

That said, here is my honest opinion of Maiden Behind the Mask, a swashbuckling romance by Tara Chevrestt which I finished reading last weekend.

Characters: We experience this tale of swords, humor and romance from the perspective of Catalina Rodriguez, only daughter of a wealthy family in a small Mexican town, back when our neighbor to the South was still a subject of the Spanish crown.

Young and inexperienced Senorita Catalina is a subject of the times, 1800s I’m guessing, and the macho Spanish culture in which the story takes place. In Tara’s tale, this culture is represented by Catalina’s rich, but gentle father Eduardo, her ailing mother, her uncle Jose the swordsman, and Selena her loyal and worldly maid.

Also looming large is handsome young Don Ricardo Garcia, heir to a noble name, but not much else; and assorted villains, ruffians and brigands who threaten the good people of the town.

Tara does a wonderful job establishing her characters through dialogue, action and point-of-view. Here, Catalina’s character clearly shows as she reflects shortly after having been saved from a rapist by the timely intervention of Don Ricardo:

Catalina’s thoughts raced with every turn of the wagon wheels. The sun burned her already flushed cheeks, but her parasol was back in the alley, lying in the dirt. However, she did not care. At least this way she could blame the redness of her face on the sun and hide the fact her cheeks burned with shame and anger. She had been pathetic. She had been a whimpering damsel in distress at the whim and mercy of a man. As the white adobe walls of her parents’ sprawling hacienda came into view, Catalina vowed that she would not be a damsel, a distressed damsel anyway, ever again.

Plot: After avoiding rape and perhaps worse only by grace of a chance intervention, young Catalina decides to learn fighting skills, scandalous as this is for a young lady of her time and place.

Not only does Catalina wish to defend herself, but she also wants to defend others against the rising tide of lawlessness which threatens her town.

Blackmailing her Uncle Jose, a master swordsman into training her, Catalina becomes the masked El Capitan and rides into the night to become a scourge to evil doers.

Alas, things get complicated when Catalina’s beloved husband, Don Ricardo, suspects an affair between El Capitan and Catalina. And the more Catalina tries to keep her secret, the worse things get — though revealing it could mean losing her husband’s love for all time.

Setting: The setting of “the small town of Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles” is mostly left to the readers’ imaginations. I felt the story could have benefited from at least a little description of thick-walled dusty adobe buildings, bleached by unending sun and crowned with crimson roof tiles…

We get a touch here and there, as in “…the white adobe walls of her parents’ sprawling hacienda…” but more is needed to truly show the story’s overall setting.

What I thought could’ve been done better: I would have liked a bit more personal description. I think it could have made Tara’s characters even more vivid. Aside from being told that Catalina is beautiful, and that she has olive skin, Tara leaves her heroine’s — and other characters’ — appearance to the readers’ imagination.

But I want to see what the author sees when she imagines her characters. That’s why I buy books. In fairness, this is a point of controversy, and there are well-known authors out there who don’t do character description. I just can’t think of any.

Most of the authors whose books I’ve read ~ Stephen King to Len Deighton ~ write rich, detailed character descriptions. I think Tara’s wonderful, sympathetic characters deserve the same treatment.

Uncle Jose the master swordsman who trains Catalina, for instance — perhaps he has a hawk nose and piercing black eyes to match. And his curly black hair, so often a magnet to women’s hands, now with the first touch of gray on the sideburns, like the gentle autumn frost on the Sierra Madre highlands…

I’ve already mentioned the setting. Tara’s action, dialogue and narrative are all gems, but even gems need a bit of a setting to be displayed to their greatest advantage. And part of the reason we all read books is to be transported to unfamiliar times and places.

Old Mexico? What does it look, feel, taste, smell like? I’m not looking for a travelogue, but on the other hand I’d like something for my imagination to work with.

I also thought Tara missed an opportunity to show how Uncle Jose trains Catalina. What are some of the moves he teaches her? Adding a bit of the technical side of sword-fighting — which plays such a central part in the story — could only add to its credibility.

There is a hint of this in the beginning of Chapter 5, but I feel this aspect of the story deserves more than just those few lines — though they are good lines.

And I would’ve have liked to have experienced some of that too in El Capitan’s sword fights. Perhaps Uncle Jose taught Catalina how to use her smaller size and greater quickness to advantage against larger, stronger and more numerous opponents — As the bandido’s sword swept down, she parried, and with the nimble step Uncle Jose made her practice till she saw it in her dreams, she whirled inside and tickled the bandido’s throat with the point of her blade…

You can bet in a movie version of this story both those aspects would be prominently featured.

What I thought was good: Clean copy ~ the book is well-edited. It’s free of the typos and grammar mistakes that plague many an indie author who can’t afford professional editing.

I loved the plot, premise and the twist — Catalina’s husband becoming jealous of her alter-ego.

Tara’s writing is vivid and verbal, which makes the action easy to visualize and follow. Here, Catalina has just kicked butt (or crotch, more accurately) on a man for mistreating a horse:

Catalina stood over him, panting slightly—more from adrenaline than exertion—and cursed him in turn. “Who do you think you are? You beat a helpless animal? You are suciedad! Dirt!” She glared down at the groveling and moaning man, before turning to help the wobbly horse fully to its feet, murmuring kind words in its ear. Though shaky, wide-eyed, and alarmed, the horse complied, as though sensing a gentle touch.

Tara writes with a kind of gentle fire that permeates her story and her main character.

There’s also quite a bit of heat in her love scenes, as in this one, from the wedding night of Catalina and Ricardo. Despite their marriage being an arranged one, the two discover that they’re eminently suited for one another.

Ricardo shushed her by gripping her shoulders, turning her to face him, and placing his mouth firmly over hers. She tasted of wine and flan, remnants from their wedding party. Wedding. He was married. This was his bride. His woman.

As she mewled against his mouth, he felt a rush of desire. He probed her lips with his tongue, and she allowed him entry. He placed his hands on her waist and lifted her so that their bodies were pressed against each other’s as their tongues did a sultry dance together, swirling evocatively, withdrawing briefly only to meet again.

“She tasted of wine and flan…” Lovely sensory detail like that, sprinkled liberally throughout the story, helps give it life.

Tara’s earthy, unpretentious sense of humor also makes the story a delight to read:

He had barely tugged on his ties when his rigid manhood sprang out of its confines and into the open air. Slightly embarrassed he hadn’t been smoother in his disrobing, he struggled to come up with some reassuring words of nonsense and love.

“Well,” she said with a smile, “that hombre is saying olé, loud and clear.”

Overall: Maiden Behind the Mask is a quick read — more novelette than novel. Part of what makes it quick to go through is what’s been left out — setting and character description, character back story, and details about the sword-fighting. Including these items would definitely make for a longer and more complete story.

But Tara’s tight, verbal writing would, in my opinion make this a fast read anyway. Her characters are sympathetic and compelling. She places them in situations threatening to sexy to humorous — often at the same time.

The omissions are matters of aluminum and chrome decoration. Including that material would be nice, but the basic vehicle is sound and fast, with a solid engine built by someone who knows what she’s doing.

Maiden Behind the Mask will take you for a lovely little joy ride.

Good job Tara!

Coming up
The Tangled Web by J.P. Lane
View From My Soul by Jill Pritchett
Gabriel by Tina Pollick
The Ruby Brooch by Katherine L. Logan

And for a sexy superheroine paranormal sci fi romantic adventure thriller, check out my own novel American Goddesses ~ thanks for visiting Honest Indie!

Characters: Robin in the Hood treats us to a wide array of colorful, eccentric and well-defined characters, beginning with protagonist and narrator Robin McArthur. It’s through the eyes and snarky sense of humor of this high-spirited, good-hearted but inexperienced 15-year-old girl that we meet the quirky characters of the Turtle Shores Trailer Park.

A pair of unwelcome arms pulled me upright in the seat and nearly squeezed the stuffing out of me. When I was finally released, I found myself staring at a very large . . . skunk?

“Aw, it’s all right, honey,” the woman purred with another bear hug. “How do! I’m Brandi with an I,” she winked, “not a Y. Welcome to Turtle Shores.”

Diane does a great job showing her characters through “the character triangle” — what they say, what they do and what they look like.

She offers a splendid, and often humorous portrait of a young girl coping with a world turned upside down and getting a crash-course in life, love, courage, service and responsibility. Diane even manages some personal description of her protagonist, which is hard to do in first-person format:

Granny lit a match and leaned against her chair, puffing her cigar till it glowed. I could feel her studying me—her timberwolf eyes tracing the contours of my cheeks and nose, the waviness of my long, chestnut hair that never went completely straight, even with a hot iron. Then her gaze met mine, as if she were reading my dark brown eyes.

Earlier in the book, when Robin changes out of her girl’s school uniform into some stolen jeans, she — and the readers — discover she has curves.

Robin’s “instructors” in this fast-tracked school of life include the psychic Granny Tinker; her father, partially paralyzed by a stroke; good guys, bad guys, and of course the love-interest and the one who teaches Robin most — a handsome, though intimidating young man named Creek:

A tall guy, maybe a year or two older than me, in a black t-shirt and torn, faded jeans. His tangled, sun-bleached hair looked like it had never seen scissors, yet it framed his tan skin and piercing blue eyes like a rugged surfer’s. To my surprise, he flashed a half-smile, making the jagged scar across his cheek press into a dark, thin line, like a dagger. For a second, I wondered if it was a warning—

Diane lovingly crafts each character, even the supernumeraries, making each one vivid and compelling.

Plot: Teen-aged Robin teams up with fellow teen Creek on a crime-spree to help support the commune-like trailer park sheltering her and her Dad. Robin and father are on the run, after her father’s law firm goes belly-up, and the two of them lose everything.

Robin goes from being an unloved child of wealth and privilege to being a loved and helpful member of a poor but close-knit community, with dramatic, emotional and humorous consequences.

Setting: Diane does a nice job describing Turtle Shores trailer park and the other settings for the story. Here, Robin visits the lake shortly after her arrival at Turtle Shores:

Brushing aside a few honeysuckle branches, I pursued the path past a long bramble of twisted bushes and fallen sticks, when all of a sudden I saw it—

It was so beautiful it took my breath away.

I liked this description of the interior of Granny Tinker’s gypsy wagon:

She set down her shepherd’s crook in a corner of her cramped, gypsy wagon that was filled with hanging herbs, dusty books, and jars of icky things like lizard’s feet and entrails. I watched as her black lace-gloved fingers skimmed a crystal ball on a shelf, and for the life of me, I thought I saw it cloud over.

“…jars of icky things…” love that.

Diane does enough with settings to orient the reader and give the flavor, without spending too much time on them.

What I thought could’ve been done better: I’m tempted to skip this section. But I’m on record saying that if you can’t find something to like and something to improve, you haven’t read closely enough.

So here are two “improves.” I think you’ll agree, though, they are both stretches.

1. Diane is fond of this wordy phrase, which I hate: “all of a sudden.” For instance, Diane writes “All of a sudden, I felt the tea cup rattle in my hand.”

Better, because less words but says the same thing: “Suddenly, I felt the tea cup rattle in my hand.”

Better still, because you don’t need adverbs if you’ve got good verbs: “I felt the tea cup rattle in my hand.”

Best, because it’s the fewest words, saying the same thing: “The tea cup rattled in my hand.” So of course she felt it. And if the sentence follows directly after the thing that made the cup rattle, then you’ve shown it’s sudden and don’t have to say it.

Picky? You bet. Not as picky as my next point.

2. Diane offers some nice description of Robin’s brown eyes and wavy chestnut hair. The problem is that this description doesn’t happen until about a fifth of the way into the story. I’d already formed a mental pic of Robin.

Now I discover the main character looks different than what I’d imagined.

So the suggestion here — and Diane does this with every other character — give at least some description when the character is introduced.

What I thought was good: Honestly, YA is not my favorite genre, but I wanted to read this one since my own WIP features teens. Also, I find it’s helpful to me as a writer to read outside my comfort zone.

That said, I enjoyed this story. I liked it’s structure. Diane puts her protagonist into situations of ever-increasing suspense and danger, building up to a truly exciting climax.

And Diane is a master of active voice and vivid verbs.

Creek gripped my fingers with a painful urgency, as though it might be the last thing he ever did.

Shots rang out through the darkness.

Her dialogue too is effective.

“So,” I replied, “are you saying want me to sashay my hips and flirt with the armored car guy, then try and grab his money?”

“Sweetheart, the fastest way to get dead is to mess around with an armored car guy. They shoot first, then maybe ask questions later.”

But the best thing, imho, is the intensity of the slightly over-the-top narration of 15-year-old Robin. She views, feels and tells of the events with the super-enthusiasm of the young, guided by the steady hand of the trained veteran writer.

Robin’s account is filled with these gems. They start when the story does and continue all the way through:

“We were broke.

I mean, really broke-broke. Super-nova broke. As in, time-to-slit-your-wrists broke.”

and

Until that very moment, I didn’t think it was scientifically possible for every single skin cell in my body to blush in unison. Nevertheless, I’m quite sure that even my bare midriff had turned a bright, cherry red.

I think Diane nailed the perspective of her YA protag.

Overall: Robin in the Hood mashes literary devices “unity of opposites” with “fish out of water” to create a fun, quirky young adult adventure-romance.

Improbable in places, yet delightful all the way through, the story has a strong subliminal helping of William Faulkner’s eternal verities ~ love, honor, pity, pride, compassion, and sacrifice.

Faulkner has said it’s a writer’s duty to remind people of these values. Diane — and Robin, Creek and company — have done so, in fine fashion.

Good job Diane!

Coming up
Maiden Behind the Mask by Tara Chevrestt
The Tangled Web by J.P. Lane
View From My Soul by Jill Pritchett
Gabriel by Tina Pollick

And for a sexy superheroine paranormal sci fi romantic adventure thriller, check out my own novel American Goddesses ~ thanks for visiting Honest Indie!

Characters: Protagonist and narrator Lanore is a brown-skinned, dread-locked young woman studying — sociology, I think — at a Florida university. She’s of mixed parentage — part fairy, part demon, which has given her the unique gift of being able to generate and control fire, while being immune to being burned.

Lanore is attractive, even sexy, as seen by two would-be rapists in the book’s opening chapter — and by the two male supporting characters, MeShack and Zulu who both love her. And who are hunky, of course.

In Lanore, Kenya has created a brave, hard-headed, street-smart protagonist, who nevertheless is susceptible to softer emotions.

Kenya surrounds her with a huge cast of colorful, magical characters in a confined urban environment. Her story is populated exclusively by shape-shifting were-creatures, demons, vampires, pixies, fairies, and combinations of them, known as Mixed-Bloods, or “Mixies.”

They are all mostly human in appearance until they manifest their various abilities. And readers will certainly recognize their human behaviors of greed, lust, kindness, self-sacrifice, stubbornness, pettiness, love, hatred and bigotry.

Kenya does a wonderful job of bringing her exotic characters to life and making them real, sympathetic and accessible.

Plot: Lanore finds herself involved in the deadly scheme of a serial killer when she stumbles onto and escapes from a murder-in-progress. Involved against her will, she goes after the killer with the reluctant help of her friends.

Setting: “The Santeria Habitat” is a walled, caged city near Miami, in which the story’s large population of supernatural beings is confined by the non-magical human residents of the outside world.

Why they’ve been confined to this ghetto isn’t well-explained in the story, but of course history is filled with similar examples like the Berlin Wall, the Warsaw Ghetto and to a lesser extent the slum habitats of this country.

There are several references to a “Supe-Human War,” which I’m guessing the supernaturals lost.

Even without the explanations, I didn’t have too much trouble with the prison-city scenario.

And it’s a good one. Kenya doesn’t go in for long descriptive passages, but does give glimpses and details that add up to a coherent picture.

I shook my head from side to side, quickening my pace. Out of all the districts in Santeria Habitat, Shango had the most deaths and highest crime rate.

I passed the border wall on my right, which was glowing with multicolored graffiti. Free Us! was spray painted near the wall’s attached bars that extended thousands of feet in the air and covered the habitat’s districts like a ceiling.

That last paragraph is certainly reminiscent of the Berlin Wall.

What I thought could’ve been done better: Not much, to be honest. There could’ve been a little more backstory about the Supes-Human Wars, and how the Habitat came to be, but that was certainly not a deal-breaker for me.

One of the murdered characters is a powerful being. I don’t recall the question of how the murderer did the job on that character ever being satisfactorily answered. Maybe it was in there and I missed it, but going back through, I couldn’t find it either.

Sorry if that’s a bit obscure. I’m trying not to give anything away. Really, there’s not much to complain about in Fire Baptized.

What I thought was good: Starting with basics, the novel is well-edited. I didn’t find a typo or grammar error anywhere.

Kenya’s writing style is confident and conversational. She uses active voice, vivid verbs, and varies her sentence lengths, though she favors short. Here’s a random sample:

I screamed.

A woman shrieked near me.

Did you notice no adverbs? There’s no “I screamed loudly,” or “A black liquid oozed slowly…”

Just muscular verbs for description, and that helps keeps the writing tight and fast-paced.

I enjoyed the supernatural characters and their powers, and the detective-noir atmosphere permeating the story. Kenya creates a bizarre, but strangely familiar environment, describes it well, and keeps it internally consistent.

I liked the limitations Kenya placed on Lanore’s powers — tough to make fire when it’s raining, for instance — and how she gives a bit of explanation about Lanore’s powers. Here, Lanore tries to tap her pyro-bility to defend herself against two rapists in the book’s beginning:

Realizing that my left arm remained free, I focused on creating fire. A tiny flame formed near my palm and then faded out. I tried releasing more heat. The flame faded again. Fuck. Fire is created when flammable liquid and oxygen are exposed to heat. My pores naturally released heat and flammable pyrobem oil. Presently, water drenched my skin, depriving my fire of the oxygen and heat it needed for combustion.

I can’t say romance and sex-scenes are my favorite part of any novel or movie. But they are a necessary part — see any James Bond book or novel — I’ve got them in my own book. Kenya’s are done well. They’re vigorous, without being vulgar. She brings the same high-quality writing skills to these episodes that she shows throughout the book.

The bigotry of the pure-blood supernaturals toward the lower-caste “mixies” gives the story an added layer of credibility. How human, really — even supernatural creatures want to feel superior to someone else.

And that’s what I liked best — the essential multi-faceted humanity of Kenya’s characters. MeShack for instance, capable of bloodthirsty jealousy over Lanore, also shows concern for a small boy, orphaned by one of the murders.

Overall: Fire Baptized is a wild urban fantasy told in a masterful, though matter-of-fact style. Kenya has created a paranormal world by turns frightful and familiar. She’s jammed it with action and emotion, including high-voltage romance.

Her crowning achievement, imho, is that she’s done all that — and kept it real.

Good job, Kenya!

Coming up
Robin in the Hood by Diane J. Reed
Maiden Behind the Mask by Tara Chevrestt
The Tangled Web by J.P. Lane
View From My Soul by Jill Pritchett

And for a sexy superheroine paranormal sci fi romantic adventure thriller, check out my own novel American Goddesses ~ thanks for visiting Honest Indie!

That said, here is my honest opinion of Wearing the Cape, a superhero story by Marion G. Harmon which I finished reading yesterday.

Characters: Eighteen-year-old Hope Corrigan, a.k.a superheroine Astra, daughter of a well-to-do Chicago family, tells her story of gaining super powers and the adventures that follow.

Marion provides a bit of description for Hope. Not much, but enough to give readers something to work with. Here she is flying away moments after the horrendous terrorist attack in which she experiences the “breakthrough” of gaining super powers:

Atlas and I flew out over the Loop and descended on Grant Park. I had to be the most improbable breakthrough he’d ever seen. I hadn’t grown an inch since my débutante ball and was always being told I could use a milkshake.  A soon-to-be U of C first year, I still looked—when not covered in grime—like an underdeveloped teenage Tinkerbell. Well, now I could fly like Tink, but it had nothing to do with thinking happy thoughts.

Many of his other characters — and there’s a world’s worth of colorful cast, both super and non-super — get the same treatment. Here’s superheroine Chakra whose mysterious powers are psychic:

Chakra sat next to Blackstone, dressed like a vaguely Hindu tribal dancer in a midriff-baring red vest and skirt loaded down with lots of gold jewelry. Beneath lustrous auburn curls, her brown eyes regarded me warmly.

Again, just enough description to get by — for me, that is. I wouldn’t have minded more, but many, authors and readers alike, don’t share my views.

Marion does a nice job on his characters’ personalities. He gives them clear traits and keeps them consistent throughout the novel. However, I thought he could have taken his characters to the next level by including some inconsistent behavior, especially with Hope.

She seems like a marvelously self-controlled and mature young woman for a teenager. Overall, Marion’s characters are vivid and realistic, with just enough detail to get by — quite an accomplishment, imho, considering their large numbers and fantastic circumstances.

Overall, great job with the characters.

Plot: Just out of high school, Hope Corrigan gets Supergirl-like powers and joins local super team The Chicago Sentinels, headed by the Superman-like Atlas. She takes the name Astra and as Atlas’s sidekick, helps the Sentinels face an increasingly difficult series of challenges. Meanwhile, Hope makes new friends, struggles to maintain old relationships, and works to master her new powers.

I enjoyed the intricate twists and turns of of Marion’s plotting. He included just enough formula to keep the story comforting and familiar, but with edgy, imaginative, and well-thought-out takes all the way through.

Setting: Largely set in Chicago, the story also visits Los Angeles, where the Sentinels help with recovery efforts after a massive earthquake. Oh Sentinels, where were you during Katrina and Sandy?

Marion does a fine job with settings, whether disaster aftermath or the interior of the “The Dome,” the Sentinels’ HQ:

The doors opened into an underground lobby, all white marble and columns, with smart-panels and sliding doors that made it look like someone had thrown Caesar’s Palace and the USS Enterprise into a blender. Friezes depicting the Sentinels battling supervillains decorated the walls, and despite everything I laughed and felt a little better. I’d had a good art history teacher, and the frieze of Atlas fighting Aftershock copied the classic pose of Hercules vs. the Hydra.

What I thought could’ve been done better: If Wearing the Cape has a single weakness, it’s the characters, and that only in relation to everything else. On the 1-10 scale, EVERYTHING in this book rates a solid 10, except for the characters. They lag behind at a 9 or 9.5. Or 9.75.

Seriously, the characters, bad guys and good guys, super and non-super — all well-drawn, believable and consistent. And that’s my only note for this section — too consistent. In every situation, the characters are true-to-form. They don’t disappoint. And they need to.

Sure they make mistakes. But those mistakes come from trying to do the right thing. How about a little selfishness? How about a little uncontrolled emotion? Laughter that suddenly turns into sobbing, or vice-versa.

I did spot one very refreshing instance of this ~ Riptide, a minor super-villain, caught helping out (not helping himself) in the aftermath of the L.A. quake. Yeah! Just so good.

Marion’s characters have everything except, as far as I could tell, the unpredictability factor. Add that in, and I think we’re talking close to perfect.

What I thought was good: Let’s start with the basics: Great cover, flawless editing for grammar, spelling, syntax and punctuation.

Wearing the Cape is exceedingly well-structured. Astra faces ever-more difficult challenges as part of the team, building up to a truly apocalyptic superheroes-super-villains battle, and then, finally, a climactic challenge Astra must face alone.

Marion bolsters the narrative’s credibility by starting each chapter with a quote from fictional scholarly works, media accounts, or memoirs about superheroes, and about the “Event” which first gave rise to the ability of some people to spontaneously generate super powers in life-threatening situations:

On August 18th,  for 3.2 seconds, every human being simultaneously experienced total sensory deprivation—no sight, hearing, or physical sensation. A small percentage of individuals did later claim to have heard something, what one person described as “the sound of God striking a cosmic tuning fork.” However, when people remember the Event, what they most remember is not the sensory blackout or the worldwide power failure that came with it, but what happened next. They remember where they were when the superhumans appeared.

Prof. Charles Gibbons, The New Heroic Age

Each of these accounts foreshadows — sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly — what the following chapter has in store.

I loved the specific nature of Astra’s powers, which the Sentinel’s physician, Dr. Beth quantified for her when she first joined:

Mom had enrolled me in a self-defense course when I turned sixteen, but small is small; the best I could reasonably do in a real fight was kick the Bad Guy in the knee and run like hell while he hopped on the other leg. Now?

He’d attached a note to the end of the file: speak to military recruiters. Apparently, being in the top ten percent of Atlas-types meant I could earn twenty times the salary of a soldier of the same grade. No wonder: I’d been weaponized.

My review is running long here, so I won’t go into the glorious fight scenes — especially the catastrophic struggle between heroes and villains in the ruins of earthquake-ravaged Los Angeles. But I don’t use the word “glorious” here lightly.

Marion’s writing is clear, active, colorful and muscular. And he makes it look easy and conversational.

Overall: Wearing the Cape is a fascinating read on many levels. We see Astra evolve from sidekick to superhero. We get a credible version of how superheroes and super-villains might actually work in reality; their infrastructure, their legalities, their moral and ethical issues.

While the characters might have had a touch or touch more of inconsistency and unpredictability, they are still colorful, believable and emotionally accessible.

As a superhero action-adventure epic, Wearing the Cape meets and exceeds expectation, is a full and unqualified success, and I’ve already bought the sequels.

Good job, Marion!

Coming up
Fire Baptized by Kenya Wright
Robin in the Hood by Diane J. Reed
Maiden Behind the Mask by Tara Chevrestt
The Tangled Web by J.P. Lane

And for a sexy superheroine paranormal sci fi romantic adventure thriller, check out my own novel American Goddesses ~ thanks for visiting Honest Indie!

That said, here is my honest opinion of Finless, an erotic drama by Davee Jones, which I finished reading this morning.

Characters: Author Davee does a nice job with clearly defined main characters Sarah, Nathaniel and Lily. They’re well-drawn through the character triangle — dialogue, action, description. They come complete with well-thought-out back-stories.

Here’s Sarah’s description, first as a skinny teen-ager:

A wallflower-skinny, awkward, quiet, plain looks, Sarah emerged anonymously. She developed the reputation as one of the friendliest, most dependable girls in the school. A former boyfriend once said, “one of the three straightest girls in the class.”

And later, after college, as a young architect:

Long flowing hair the color of warm caramel, liquid sage green eyes, full natural breasts with black cherry colored nipples, athletic legs, and a taut shapely derriere that captured every eye as she walked by. A real classic beauty, the type thought beautiful by men and women. Women, intimidated by her natural beauty, enjoyed her company because of her genuine friendly charm. Men felt Sarah was approachable and, in turn, conquerable, by her innocent sexiness and pleasing warmth.

Cold, masterful, self-involved Nathaniel and patient, submissive Lily get the same sharp, focused treatment.

The book’s narration comes from Sarah’s eventual confidant, Isaac. His narration of events begins in the prologue, though Isaac doesn’t emerge as a player until later in the novel. Perhaps because Isaac is telling the story, he’s the only character who has no back story.

Isaac is otherwise clearly rendered, however. Good job with the characters.

Plot: We follow Sarah into “The Lifestyle,” a frankly fascinating account of the s/M (sado-masochism) community. Veteran “master” Nathaniel, a supervisor where Sarah works, targets the emotionally damaged Sarah for initiation into “The Lifestyle,” while simultaneously keeping long-distance relationship Lily dangling and needy.

Nathaniel tries to keep things loveless and unemotional, and strictly focused on the fulfillment of primal needs and desires. People being what they are, this stance turns out to be unsustainable.

Setting: The setting is urban, though the cities aren’t defined. Somehow I got the impression that Lily lives in San Francisco, and Nathaniel and Sarah in New York or Chicago, but going back through the book, I couldn’t find anything to confirm. Most of the action takes place in offices, hotels, apartments, with just enough description to set scenes.

Sarah’s apartment, for instance:

Her simple, yet stylish home relaxed her. The walls contained earthy tones with rich accents. She delighted in her luck to have found a corner apartment to allow for more windows. Sheer curtains allowed light to come in from every available source. Sarah believed in the healing power of sunlight and often sat by the window to read or daydream on her cozy overstuffed chair.

Davee takes extra care with the “dungeon” — the s/M playroom Nathaniel set up in Lily’s basement. Here’s a glimpse:

A small fireplace adorned one wall. Various types of fire pokers, tender implements, and branding irons waited in the steel stand next to it. Nathaniel had never branded Lily, this would leave a permanent mark on her body. He was not inclined to make anything permanent with her unless he changed his mind about his intentions. These items simply resided there as the “promise ring” symbol of what could possibly be.

A pillory, old-fashioned school desk, barber’s chair, and armoire scattered in deliberate positions around the room.

What I thought could’ve been done better: Like many indie books, including my own, there are some grammar errors, most easily fixable.

An example is the incorrect punctuation of compound sentences:

He finished his shot in three drinks, he wanted to feel the numbing effect of the warmth as quickly as possible.

The two independent clauses should be joined by a semi-colon, or a comma plus the conjunction “and.” Cutting the compound sentence in two would be better yet.

I noted a few instances of “wrong word,” as in

Sarah had no idea how she could bring someone to understand the deeper level it brought her to, especially if they were not ingratiated into The Lifestyle.

“Ingratiated” is the wrong word — it means to try to curry favor through flattery or pleasing actions. The word should be “indoctrinated,” which means to have been taught the fundamentals or viewpoints of a particular school of thought or action.

I also found passages like the following a touch wordy:

He implied of things to come when he expressed to Sarah the need to enjoy the upcoming weekend, because, she would not have many days to herself for a long time beginning the upcoming Monday.

An editor might revise it as:

He hinted at things to come by telling Sarah to enjoy the weekend. Starting Monday, she wouldn’t get many days to herself for a long time.

These are just tweaks and fine points. But attention to tweaks and fine points can make an already good read even better.

There was a clarity issue in the beginning of the book as Davee describes an act of violence against teen-aged Sarah — but information about who is perpetrating it and why appears to be missing.

Another clarity issue, but one that didn’t bother me too much — The book begins with Isaac as the narrator, but later shifts into omniscient point-of-view when Isaac enters the narrative.

What I thought was good: I’ve already mentioned the characters. Davee wrote them clearly and convincingly, and I was interested to see where their tortured paths would lead them.

Here’s description of Nathaniel, which I found compelling:

Enamored with sex and the power it gave him, Nathaniel’s insatiable primal appetite almost ruled him. He loved every type of sex and engaged as often as he could whether it be with a partner or alone. Nathaniel was not generally attracted to men, his sexuality had always been focused on women. However, he never ruled any partner out. His fantasies included both genders, a variety of ethnicities, and varied character types as part of his mental spank bank of stimulation.

I must admit — I got a good chuckle from the phrase “mental spank bank of stimulation.”

I thought Davee did a good job too in explaining the s/M background:

Often, an s/M relationship begins because of the impairments people experience in their lifetimes. Occasionally, the Master represents more damage than the submissive. Therefore, the Master relies on obedience as a replacement for reciprocal respect or acceptance. Sometimes The Lifestyle draws people because the feeling of ownership replaces love, seemingly removing vulnerability. Participants gain recognition not through emotions, but through loyalty. Giving or following orders comforts players, especially when the strains of mainstream life become too much for one to psychologically handle.

I also appreciated the fact that while Davee’s subject is lurid and sensational, her story never sinks to coarseness or vulgarity. Even so, she manages to “show not tell” where it counts, to help readers experience what the characters experience:

Nathaniel tied a black eye mask around her head, assuring a limited sense of vision. His evil, yet creative, mind never failed to delight Sarah with creative ways to torture her. She began to feel pricks against her skin, similar to lightly pulling out hairs. She deemed the sensation slightly unpleasant, and struck her skin so…electrically…that was it! Gradually, Nathaniel increased the dial of intensity and she felt a hot shocking sensation against her belly, her breasts, her chest…it was amazing.

Nathaniel whispered in her ear, “Let me introduce you to the violent wand.”

That, my friend, is a good sentence.

Overall: Despite a few grammar and wordiness issues, Davee has crafted a fascinating character-driven journey into a realm with which I’m pretty sure most people aren’t familiar. She does it with class and clarity, and with compassion for her characters — even when they are unsympathetic.

At heart, strange, exotic and lurid though it is, Finless is a story about redemption, reaffirmation, and most of all love.

Good job Davee!

Coming up
Wearing the Cape by Marion G. Harmon
Fire Baptized by Kenya Wright
Robin in the Hood by Diane J. Reed
Maiden Behind the Mask by Tara Chevrestt

And for a sexy superheroine paranormal sci fi romantic adventure thriller, check out my own novel American Goddesses ~ thanks for visiting Honest Indie!

Jeannie does a good job of showing who everyone is through their actions including physical description. Here’s ex-husband Jerry, as a kid:

Jerry was a good-looking, freckle-faced kid with short, curly brown hair. He grew up in Petrolia, a small town fifteen miles outside of Wichita Falls. He participated in every sport the school offered and became the star basketball player for Petrolia. After high school, he enrolled at the local university in Wichita Falls. He was gregarious and full of ambition. He was also gutsy and strong-minded.

and later:

Every day, as if it were a ritual, a guy with curly brown hair and red sideburns would walk by my office and peck on the window. “Go to lunch with me?” In spite of the fact that I always ignored him, Jerry Sternadel continued tapping on the windowpane, asking me to go to lunch.

Jeannie introduces us to their son Sandy and daughter Becky, now both adults. Jeannie gives readers an up-close-and-personal encounter with 2nd wife Lou Ann:

“Lou Ann, I want to know where my kids are. I know you took them from school. Where are my kids?”

At that moment, the curtain on the side window inside the house was pulled aside, and I saw my daughter Becky, then only nine years old, standing at the window. She was crying, “Mommy, don’t leave. Please, Mommy, don’t leave. Mommy, please, I want to go home.”

Jeannie makes it clear from both her personal experience and documented evidence that Lou Ann and Debra are not very nice people. Their victim, Jerry, isn’t much better. Jeannie paints a convincing picture of an increasingly abusive husband, who grows so cruel that she has to divorce him:

He walked over to the bedroom dresser, opened a drawer, and pulled out a long length of nylon cord. I was becoming very frightened of my husband. I rolled off the bed and tried to run out of the bedroom.

“Kick, you bitch. That’ll just make it more fun!”

Jeannie does a nice job as well with the various friends, relatives and law enforcement people involved in this remarkable account.

Plot: Again, not sure this is the right word. But Fighting the Devil details author Jeannie’s epic struggle to get justice for her murdered ex-husband in the face of what seems to be the amazingly sluggish and disinterested legal and medical systems of Clay County, Texas.

She intersperses details of Jerry’s downfall and her subsequent pursuit of the perpetrators with memories, many unpleasant, of her life with Jerry.

Even Jeannie asks herself the question — why go to so much trouble for someone who had been so cruel to her? The answer — Jerry was the father of their two children; he appeared to become more human toward Jeannie as he grew older; and perhaps the most compelling reason — no one deserves to die the agonizing death by arsenic poisoning that Jerry did.

There’s even a touch of the paranormal in this story. Jeannie recounts several of the experiences that give the book its title:

I tried turning the steering wheel but could not move it. The car was completely out of control and heading straight for the dam. I knew if I didn’t stop the car soon, I would be crashing over the spillway into the raging, icy water below. I felt something breathing down my neck from behind the driver’s seat. A cold chill shot through me. My reaction of looking into the rearview mirror was almost instantaneous. What I saw made my blood curdle. In my mirror I saw two eyes that looked like fiery red-hot coals. I knew immediately the Devil was in control of my car. The Prince of Darkness wanted to kill me and take my soul to hell if he could.

I glanced at the speedometer: ninety miles per hour and climbing.

Setting: The events of Fighting the Devil take place in Wichita Falls and Clay County, Texas. Jeannie doesn’t give much attention to the setting, and honestly, it’s not integral to recounting of what happened.

What I thought could’ve been done better: Jeannie’s narrative, while undeniably compelling, could be tightened up a bit. Wordiness and passive voice slow things down here and there.

Here’s a scene from Jerry’s funeral:

People were meandering around, but some stopped in their tracks to stare at Jerry’s widow exiting from the chauffeur-driven limousine. They continued watching as Jerry’s mother and grown children exited from another limo.

Tighter:

People meandered around. Some stopped and stared at Jerry’s widow exiting the chauffeur-driven limousine. They watched Jerry’s mother and grown children leave another limo.

In truth it’s not a huge difference. But over the course of an 80,000-word book, tighter, sharper more active prose make for a better reading experience.

Adverbs also contribute to wordiness and redundancy, as in:

Becky looked over at her stepmother, Lou Ann, and screamed loudly, “I’ll tell you one thing. There’s no way Daddy would poison himself.”

“Screamed” by itself is good enough. Screams, by their nature, are loud. “Screamed softly” would be an oxymoron. One reason I mention needless adverbs — I struggle with them in my own writing.

Something I thought the story never satisfactorily addressed — why did the doctors attending Jerry never question how arsenic at fatal levels came repeatedly to be in his body?

What I thought was good: Lots. First, unlike too many indie books, Fighting the Devil is free of annoying typos and grammar errors. It’s a clean read.

I liked the straight-forward way Jeannie presents the story. Her personal reminiscences are clear, and her accounts of medical and legal aspects are complete and well-documented:

Dr. Ulrich’s report said the following: “Arsenic level dramatically increased. Patient to be dialyzed today.”

Tuesday, June 12, there was a red rash over Jerry’s entire body. Thick, bloody secretions oozed from his mouth and nose. He was gasping for air, even though he was on a ventilator. His blood pressure was very low. His condition was deteriorating.

Jeannie introduces us to some interesting people, like Sheriff Jake Bogard:

Jake Bogard had been sheriff for over sixteen years and had been in law enforcement for even longer than that. The rugged lawman was born on the RO Ranch near the Texas Panhandle. His dad worked in the oil field and bought a farm in Beulah. His grandfather was Dusty Rhodes from Sur, Texas. He had three sisters—Opal Roberts and Tommie Ann Gaston, both of Junction, Texas, and Barbara Kinnison of Seagraves, Texas—and a brother, Dusty, a cowboy.

In his younger days, Jake was a cowboy and worked on ranches in the panhandle. Jake was a well-built man with slightly graying brown hair, gray sideburns, and graying eyebrows. He looked like a lawman that a criminal wouldn’t want to tangle with.

Jeannie does a wonderful job of gathering all the evidence into the narrative and combining it with her personal observations. She methodically builds it all into a damning case against Debra, who the jury convicted, and Lou Ann, who the police never arrested — but who is, probably in no small part due to Jeannie’s efforts — still a suspect 20 years later.

Overall: Fighting the Devil is an amazing true account of one woman’s battle for justice. Competently presented, well-researched and documented, it’s nevertheless personal and emotional, including Jeannie’s own struggle against the darkest spiritual influences.

Jeannie has delivered a fascinating account of crime and her own dogged pursuit of the perpetrators that I’m sure anyone who reads Fighting the Devil will remember for a long time. I sure will.

Good job, Jeannie!

Coming up
Finless by Davee Jones
Wearing the Cape by Marion G. Harmon
Fire Baptized by Kenya Wright
Robin in the Hood by Diane J. Reed

And for a sexy superheroine paranormal sci fi romantic adventure thriller, check out my own novel American Goddesses ~ thanks for visiting Honest Indie!

Characters: Arwenna Shalian, elf and the daughter of the title, heads a cast that includes humans, orcs, dwarves, fairies, demons and strange nameless creatures like this beauty:

It was tall, at least as tall as a grown man. The legs were more like an animal’s, with hooves and knees that bent the wrong way. The skin was grey, as if death itself had touched it. A massive chest and pair of arms that looked like they could tear a person in two made her eyes go even wider. The face was nothing but a contorted snarl of hatred, with tusklike teeth. Red eyes looked down at her.

KateMarie sketches vivid characters through dialogue and action, though she’s a touch light on personal description. Arwenna, we learn, has gray eyes and ebony hair, but more than this we don’t get.

Barek the half-human, half-orc, is large and powerful but that’s where the description ends.

Despite that, both characters, along with the interestingly named warrior-woman Y’Durkie, the evil Lord Corse, and others get great dialogue and action, which certainly leaves no doubt as to who they are.

Here’s Arwenna, captured by, it turns out, the evil human brother who seems to both hate and desire her from the moment he learned his father had brought her home as an orphaned child:

She looked at him, seeing the hunger, and stepping back until she touched the wall, spat in his face.

Roaring in anger, the Paladin strode towards her and grabbed her by the back of her head, forcing her to look at him. “I will break you, in life or in death. And it will be sweet indeed.” He kissed her, giving her an idea of the torment he promised, before throwing her to the ground and leaving her there.

Arwenna is made of stern stuff, however, which is good, considering the travails KateMarie has planned for her.

Plot: Daughter of Hauk pits Arwenna the elf, as a chosen one of the god Hauk against the evil Lord Corse, a chief minion of another god, Silas. Along the way she finds love, death, tragedy, pain, loss, friendship, acceptance, adventure and tremendous personal revelations.

Setting: As far as I could tell, KateMarie never specifically defined the setting beyond being a sort of Middle-Earth-type place. There’s a large town called Tanisal and smaller towns like Almair, along with fields and forests and a journey over water.

The setting, like the character descriptions, seems mostly secondary to the action of the story. But like the goat-legged, tusked monster described earlier, KateMarie does come out with some specific place descriptions, such as this of one of Hauk’s temples:

The temple was a large white structure with more windows than could be counted. Impressive stone arches and steeples stretched up towards the sky as if to touch the very surface of the sun. A wide set of stone stairs beckoned worshippers toward the set of massive hammered copper doors. Two liveried guards stood on each side of the doors and opened them as they approached.

Inside the temple itself, a large copper and brass sunburst dominated the wall on the far side, above the altar. Beautiful stained glass windows lined the sides of the temple proper, depicting Hauk bestowing miracles. Some of them showed other individuals performing works of great magic.

What I thought could’ve been done better: This is a small thing — but throughout the story, KateMarie’s characters don’t do something — they “start” to do it. For instance: Arwenna slowly began to regain consciousness, the recent events flooding into her mind.

Tighter: Arwenna slowly regained consciousness, the recent events flooding into her mind. No need to begin — just do, as Yoda might say.

It’s only two words, but if you don’t need them, they slow things down, especially repeated throughout the novel.

I mentioned the lack of character description earlier. I would’ve liked some description of Arwenna, Barek, Y’Durkie and other characters, besides the reference to Y’Durkies auburne mane and Arwenna’s gray eyes.

For instance, does Arwenna have pointy elf ears? Is she tall, slender and graceful like a Tolkien elf, or smaller, like a Keebler elf? Barek is half orc — but what does an orc look like? It’s not clear. Does he have a dark, scarred visage, his mouth a grim slash under a hawk nose and black inscrutable eyes?

These kinds of details really bring the characters into focus. And KateMarie does such a wonderful job with all other aspects of her characters, I felt they really deserved the same attention to their appearances.

I also felt there were a few clarity issues. For instance, what is the reason for the war? Just bad guys wanting to take over? And what are the stakes? It’s not clear what’s going to happen if Arwenna’s side loses.

Here’s an example of what I thought was a clarity issue. Arwenna’s cousin Lexi is brought down while she rides an eagle:

The scream of an eagle pierced the air. Even the soldiers, barely yards from them, looked up as something fell from the sky. The broken body of her cousin, Lexi, landed close to where Arwenna was concealed. The giant eagle on which she had flown followed, the ground shaking slightly with the impact.

What brought the eagle down? An arrow? A magic spell? It’s not clear exactly what happened.

What I thought was good: First and foremost, it’s an author’s job to create problems for her protagonist. KateMarie does, from the very first sentence, by actually killing Arwenna and sending her to hell, where demons torture her:

Hands grabbed at her ebony hair, jerking her head up and back. The face in front of her made her eyes bulge in terror. Hooked teeth protruded from the mouth like tusks, curving up towards where a nose should be. Her gray eyes met red ones, the hatred clearly visible.

“You think Silas cares for you, a simple woman?” the creature sneered. “He has deserted you, given you over to us. We will crush your will, Cleric, and bring our master forth to rule this world as was meant to be!” A whip was brought down hard against her back. Her knees gave way, the pale flesh rendered open by the sharp rocks she landed on. Her screams of pain were soon drowned out by laughter.

Though I found a few issues with clarity and lack of description, where KateMarie does describe, it’s really good:

The ruins of buildings peeked out from the foliage that had taken over in the last few centuries. Vine-covered walls, crumbled by time and encroaching plant life, jutted out at odd angles. Windows no longer fitted with glass stared back at them as if empty eye sockets. Shadows and wind played havoc with the plants, making it hard to decide if the movement was real or a memory.

Note the vivid verbs, the “peeked” and “jutted” — of course “The ruins of buildings peeked…” is also a personification. Good stuff. Vivid verbs and figures of speech like that are technically good writing…because they make the writing fun to read.

What I liked most — the camaraderie between Arwenna and her friends and the ever-changing emotional landscapes they journey through — jealousy, hatred, love, selflessness, friendship, grumpiness, fear. And whether Arwenna realizes it or not, she’s also on a quest of self-discovery. And just as the story begins with a shattering truth about Arwenna, so it also culminates with a final fantastic revelation.

Overall: In Daughter of Hauk, KateMarie has penned a sprawling, often dark, action-packed fantasy adventure. Her story pushes the bounds of life and death, love and hatred, sacrifice and betrayal. KateMarie never forgets that emotional content is the soul of art — and of a grand tale.

Daughter of Hauk is both.

Good job, KateMarie!

Coming up
Fighting the Devil by Jeannie Walker
Finless by Davee Jones
Wearing the Cape by Marion G. Harmon
Fire Baptized by Kenya Wright

And for a sexy superheroine paranormal sci fi romantic adventure thriller, check out my own novel American Goddesses ~ thanks for visiting Honest Indie!

Characters: Nate Cliffton is a police detective hunting a serial killer — one who likes to torture his young woman victims. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Nate seems like a typical hard-boiled cop, except for being gay:

Cliffton knew he had to play it straight and mainstream at work. No one could know that he found Tommy appealing, not Nadine, the secretary from the second floor with the hourglass figure and short skirts. The guys in his office were merciless and cruel when they got wind of an alternative lifestyle, whether it was a coworker, witness, or suspect. He wanted to be able to do his job, a job that he enjoyed and was good at, one that gave him a lot of personal satisfaction. He didn’t want to be punished for what he did during his personal time, so he leered at the ladies when the other guys did, laughed at their sexist jokes, and generally tried to fit in.

The secret lifestyle adds extra tension and pressure to the story, though Terri amps the pressure pretty high to begin with in the opening pages. There, she introduces us to her killer through the eyes of a victim.

Raping her had been bad enough; she still felt sore all over from that humiliation. But what scared Carmen more than the physical violation was the way he would gently stroke her cheek and call her Mommy with an expression of love on his face. Then his features would change dramatically, melting from the loving gaze to one of sadistic lust before he cut her flesh, causing more pain than she had ever felt. She begged when he asked her to and asked for forgiveness when he wanted that. This was what she had been taught to do in the self-defense classes: anything to stay alive. But he didn’t in fact want her to participate in the macabre ritual he was acting out.

Nate gets some help in the case from John Carpenter, “dark, soft-spoken and deliberate.” John gains unreliable and generally unwelcome flashes of ESP following a catastrophic auto accident. He can sometimes “see” the past events of a particular area.

A vision of a young woman stabbed to death in an alley leads John to get in touch with Nate. Terri does a nice job with her characters, though, as is often the case, the villain is by far the most vivid.

Plot: Flashback to the Dragon has Detective Nate Cliffton on the trail of the killer. He doesn’t have much time to think about his personal life until reluctant psychic John Carpenter enters the case and offers Nate some important clues in both areas.

Setting: Though the story takes place in Seattle, a lovely and picturesque city, there isn’t much to distinguish the setting from any other generic big city.

What I thought could’ve been done better: I feel Terri missed an opportunity by not adding some Seattle color. As long as the story takes place there, why not show off the sights and sounds? Pike Place Market and the Space Needle are certainly obvious candidates — but why not add some beautiful sea coast scenes, or include some of the moody weather unique to the Pacific Northwest.

Terri also might’ve done more with the possibility and consequences of Nate being outed. It’s our job as authors to make life difficult as possible for our characters. I think Terri gave Nate a bit of a pass in this regard.

Flashback could also have stood a little more attention to active voice and showing-not-telling. For instance: “It was a beautiful morning, promising to be a beautiful day.” Instead of telling, why not show, in active voice, the colors, sounds and smells of the Seattle dawn — “The rising sun lit the east-facing buildings in orange and gold, and the cool morning air smelled of coffee and the sea…”

When we “tell,” we’re asking our readers to do the work that we as authors should have done.

What I thought was good: I know Terri can do a good job of showing — her scenes of helpless victims in the grasp of the murderer are heart- and gut-wrenching. The prolog’s opening scene gives the story momentum that propels it all the way through. It makes up for the minor shortcomings I’ve already mentioned.

When he had roared his last thrust and was done, he flipped the used condom into a corner. She begged him to let her go and promised to forget that the assault ever happened, even introducing herself and letting him know about her dog, Sinjin, at home waiting to be fed and walked around the block, thinking that if she revealed a little about herself, she would no longer be an object in his eyes. Her attempts fell on deaf ears as he grabbed her by the hair and threw her on the metal table, her arms flailing as she fought to get his hands away. Fighting against him proved useless as he fitted the leather straps on her wrists and ankles and gagged her mouth.

The bit with the dog really got me.

Terri also did a great job showing the abused-child background that created the story’s villain:

“See what you’ve done,” she said to the boy, looking through her lashes and flirting. “It’s leather strap time,” she said in a singsong voice as she turned toward her dresser and moved to the bottom drawer.

He shivered when she said the words, and he felt as if there were a fist clenched tight inside his belly. The boy knew what that meant. It meant that Daddy wasn’t here for her; Daddy was here for him. She was only the icing on the cake, and he would be spending the next few hours strapped naked to her four-poster bed doing whatever Daddy wanted and enduring the degradation for which the man had paid to spend time with the boy.

Terri does a nice job humanizing the victims, even the murderer as an abused child, by letting us see what they’re thinking and feeling. Then she lowers the boom.

Her characters, even the minor ones are painted well, with good dialogue and realistic details. Terri succeeded in creating characters I cared about, then put them in awful jeopardy.

Overall: Though Flashback to the Dragon could use a little more attention to active voice and showing-not-telling, it is, nevertheless, a tightly scripted, character-driven and compelling crime thriller. It’s chilling, suspenseful, and in places even breathtaking.

Good job Terri!

Coming up:
Daughter of Hauk by KateMarie Collins
Fighting the Devil by Jeannie Walker
Finless by Davee Jones
Wearing the Cape by Marion G. Harmon

And for a sexy superheroine paranormal sci fi romantic adventure thriller, check out my own novel American Goddesses ~ thanks for visiting Honest Indie!

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