Lela Michael | Self-Publishing Review

Review: Somewhere Over the Rainbow, I’ve Lost My Damn Mind by Derek Thompson

Derek Thompson is a confident young man. “The reason I enjoy making lists so much,” he writes, “is that it is almost impossible to screw up. I mean it’s your list.” So it is with memoir: personal experience is something owned.

Although this book is primarily made with blog posts, this is definitely a memoir. While I’m certain Derek would be first in line to acknowledge he’s not a writer of fine literature, his blog posts aren’t “random thought” or diary-type entries; this is a collection of essays, each containing a narrative arc, a thought process, if you will, that […]

Lela Michael2014-05-19T21:55:28+02:00March 15th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Memoir, Non-Fiction|

Review: The Wonder of Ordinary Magic by Lilli Jolgren Day

I look for clues within the first paragraphs of a novel as to what particular kind of story the author wants to tell me and how she intends to go about it. The first two sentences of this novel irritated me: “I don’t want to be a writer. I want to be a painter.” That doesn’t sound logical, I said to myself. Why fight reality? The Prologue soon continues with “as it turns out, being a writer in a coma leaves me with many more options than being a painter in a coma would.” Lilli Jolgren Day balances existential questioning […]

Lela Michael2014-05-19T21:57:25+02:00March 8th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Literary Fiction|

Review: A City for the Dying by Mark Samojedny

No doubt the kick-ass reluctant-hero-with-a-tortured-soul in this debut novel will achieve rock star status with readers. But let’s not leave the author out of the limelight. In his debut crime thriller Mark Samojedny kills it with mechanical craft, weaving metaphor and mysticism into the action in a mean, lean style guaranteed to leave the audience screaming for an encore.

The title sets the mood for us. The cover artwork shows a city turned on its side—a spiffy, enticing vision complementing the story elements. The internal design echoes the cover. The front matter doesn’t bother with chapter titles or a contents […]

Lela Michael2014-05-19T22:02:01+02:00March 5th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Literary Fiction|

Review: The Keeper by R.L. Mosz

In the 1930s, author Frederick Schiller Faust gave us a young medical intern by the name of Dr. James Kildare, a character who appeared for decades in movies, TV shows, radio shows, and even a comic strip.

Like Dr. Kildare, Dr. Christopher Seacrest, the main character in The Keeper, a first novel from R.L. Mosz, is young, handsome, debonair, and works with an older doctor he looks up to. Chris Seacrest, however, is not an intern; rather, he is chief of staff at a world-famous medical center, an accomplished neurosurgeon at the age of 34. As the book opens, […]

Lela Michael2012-02-14T17:10:33+02:00February 13th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|

Review: God Hates Fags by Joe Wellman

A minister, believing he was on a mission from God, identified a local teacher as a homosexual. The ‘outing’ led to the teacher’s murder. The states attorney decided the minister had put the teacher’s life in jeopardy by singling him out for only one reason; the teacher was a homosexual. The states attorney charged the minister with a hate crime reasoning you cannot use the Bible to justify homophobic behavior. Like a rock thrown into a pool, many persons in the community are touched by the teacher’s murder, the police investigation, the trial, and the jury proceedings.

When I reach […]

Lela Michael2014-05-19T22:19:04+02:00February 7th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Thriller|

Review: One-Hit Willie: A Classic Rock Novel by William Westhoven

As an art critic says to an artist in the 1850 Charles Reade novel Christie Johnstone, “Art is not imitation, but illusion.” In fiction, it’s challenging to tell a story using archetypal themes and characters without descending into cliché. When you tell a story involving rock and roll, this feat becomes even trickier.

William Westhoven, who has covered the performing arts as a journalist since 1989, makes the leap to fiction successfully with his debut novel. He accomplishes this by using a compassionate, humorous narrative voice, interspersing his journalistic observations about the music business with a light enough touch […]

Lela Michael2014-05-19T22:23:13+02:00January 25th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Men's Fiction, Music|

Review: Song at Dawn by Jean Gill

Historical thriller/love story set in Narbonne just after the Second Crusade. 1150 in Provence, where love and marriage are as divided as Christian and Muslim. On the run from abuse, Estela’s musical talent finds a patron in Alienor of Aquitaine and more than a music tutor in the finst troubadour of the age, Alienor’s Commander of the Guard. Weary of war, Dragonetz los Pros uses Jewish money and Moorish expertise to build that most modern of invntions, a papermill,drawing the wrath of the Church down on his head. Their enemies gather, ready to light the political and religious powder-keg of […]