BlueInk Review

About BlueInk Review

BlueInk Review is a fee-based review service offering honest, objective reviews exclusively to self-publishers. Books are reviewed by professional critics whose bylines have appeared in major publications, including the Washington Post and New York Times, as well as editors from major publishing houses, such as Random House and Viking. Reviews are posted on the BlueInk website and other venues. In an exciting pilot program, the Colorado Douglas County Library system (annual circulation 8 million) is using BlueInk reviews to select self-published titles for purchase and circulation in its libraries. SPR visitors receive $25 off a standard review (8-9 week turnaround) or $40 off a fast-track review (4-5 week turnaround). Click here to get started.

Medusa’s Cause by P.E. Zimmerman

Author P. E. Zimmerman spent six months “eating, living sleeping, and breathing Greece” in preparation for this novel, and the research shows. Richly imagined, the story brings the reader into a wholly believable ancient and mythological world.

Events are set in motion when a beautiful young woman is compelled to join a mysterious man at the temple of Athena in the middle of the night. A dedicated virgin, she nevertheless gives in to her passion for the extraordinary man — who is actually the god Poseidon — despite the sacrilege of making love in the virgin goddess’s sanctuary. This act

[…]
2014-05-06T22:38:26+02:00February 19th, 2013|Categories: Book Reviews|

No Time to Cry by Vera Leinvebers

For Vera Leinvebers, a concert pianist and music teacher now living in Canada, childhood memories of war, loss and dislocation are so painful and traumatic she is forced to create a fictional self Lara to retell them, even from a safe distance.

When her family flees her childhood home in Riga, Latvia, toward the end of World War II, Lara embarks on the journey that, by its end, robs her of her brother, her beloved animals, her education, her music, even her voice; in short, the war “had stolen my childhood from me.” Interrupted with very rare episodes of kindness, […]

2012-11-26T22:16:46+02:00November 26th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|

Ordinary Miracles by Krissi Marie McVickers

Some women get pregnant with little effort. Others, however, struggle with infertility issues and need an outlet for both their educational needs and to bond with others in a similar situation. Author Krissi Marie McVicker never imagined that in her 20s she would have trouble conceiving, especially because her twin sister did not. She connected with an online infertility message board for help and was guided toward in vitro fertilization (IVF).

McVicker soon learned that IVF, while offering hope, is no picnic, but a “terrifying, anxiety-ridden, alternate reality.” It involved complicated dosing schedules, numerous drug interventions, blood draws, and painful […]

2020-02-21T05:36:34+02:00September 11th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|

The Home Front by Alan J. Summers

This well-crafted British war novel set during the London Blitz of 1940-1941 resurrects elements that have enlivened the genre for seven decades. Alan J. Summers gives us derring-do aloft: his hero is a dashing, 19-year-old Spitfire pilot named Mark Brabham, downed over the Channel in the act of destroying two German aircraft in a fiery smashup. There’s plenty of Stiff Upper Lip on the ground, too: a plucky and beautiful Welsh “land girl,” Elizabeth Fforest (yes, two “fs”), moves on from her milk-hauling duties on a remote farm to become an Allied spy in occupied Paris — but not before […]

2020-02-21T05:36:07+02:00July 12th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|

Laura Denfer by Anne-Marie Bernard

The title of this unremittingly dark espionage thriller is fitting; although the storyline is impressively labyrinthine and adeptly narrated, it’s the incredibly complex – and utterly heartrending – character of Laura Denfer that makes this such a powerful read.

The story begins in shocking style: thirty-six-year-old Laura Denfer, who is half Korean and half French, has been incarcerated for almost two years in a North Korean prison, where she has endured unspeakable tortures. One of the military leaders of the prison is a hardcore sadomasochist, and after physically abusing her, he oftentimes sexually assaults her as well. When British Marines […]

2020-02-21T05:36:22+02:00July 2nd, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|

The God Within by Martine Racine

Author Martine Racine is a Jungian psychoanalyst and ordained minister. In The God Within, she describes how the divine lives in all of us.

Racine posits that our center of power, creativity, and morality doesn’t come from extrinsic sources. Rather, they reside in our being and are tapped into when we feel from our hearts. All of the destruction in the world, according to Racine, comes from the unhealthy imbalance of putting too much emphasis on the mind. The mind is a tool that should be used only through the guidance of heart because our heart is what is […]

2020-02-21T05:41:08+02:00April 29th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|

Review: Falling into History by Peter Fleming

A man, a woman, and a talking Martian plant walk into a bar…

OK, that doesn’t exactly happen in Falling into History—among other things, the plant doesn’t walk; it glides. However, Peter Fleming’s time-traveling tale is about a sentient, super-powered plant transporting itself and two human companions through time and space, and an eighteenth-century London pub is one of the stops in the book.

The story is a sequel to Fleming’s Falling to Destiny. The plant, named Hymoliga Eight, travels with Kim Hawthorne, a “space ethicist” from the near future, and narrator Ishmael Starbuck, an oft-befuddled, amnesiac Australian […]

2020-02-21T05:40:30+02:00November 14th, 2011|Categories: Book Reviews|

Review: Elvis Cream by Peter Menting

The plot, if that is the word, of Peter Menting’s Elvis Cream is quickly told: Ali Hasheeshee, a wealthy fundamentalist sheik in the Emirate of Quais, wants to go to the United States to convert its population to Islam, but unfortunately he is a dead-ringer for America’s most hated terrorist enemy, Osama Al Osama. Meanwhile, a nearly bankrupt company in Muleshoe, Texas, run by a family of 1950s-‘60s music aficionados needs an infusion of capital. When a New York advertising executive tries to improve the sheik’s U.S. image by making him resemble Elvis Presley and then introduces him and his […]

2020-02-21T05:40:43+02:00November 10th, 2011|Categories: Book Reviews|
Go to Top