Book Reviews | Self-Publishing Review

Review: Spiritual Alchemy by Anthony of the Desert

Spiritual Alchemy: The Fall, The Cure, The Jesus Prayer is written by Anthony of the Desert. In the 1950s, Anthony, whose birth name is Frank Jarvis Atwood, was born in Northern California. His childhood neighborhood was in an upscale area and he attended an impressive Military Academy. However, Atwood became involved in the drug scene and when he was eighteen he was in a state prison. Over the next decade, he would have several stays in different prisons in California.

In 1984, Atwood was arrested in Texas by the FBI for kidnap and murder. These crimes were allegedly committed in […]

T B Markinson2012-02-08T14:07:23+02:00February 8th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Religious 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 Book Reviews|

Review: There’s Always Another Case by William Thomas

This crime drama features two very unique characters: John “Smooth” McGovern, a detective on the police force, and his partner Rita “Cheeks” Goreman. They are the homicide squad and, as in real life, they are faced with budget cuts, piles of paperwork and the fact that they must move on when a case turns up dead ends, because there is always another case. No glamor here, just hard core cop story with all the reality thrown in.

We follow our detectives on three homicide cases: a strange shooting and theft, a dead body in the water with a pocket full […]

Boudica Foster2019-01-24T19:43:25+02:00February 1st, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Crime Fiction Book Reviews, Detective Fiction Book Reviews, Mystery Book Reviews|

Review: 21 Erased by Barbara Rayne

The code is your identity, your bank account, your credit card, the bus fare… your existence. When they take it away, you disappear like you never lived at all. All it takes is a moment and you’re no longer a human being…you’re nothing. Everything you thought you owned is shattering into pieces in front of your eyes, you’re disappearing without leaving a single trace of your existence. You were that insignificant. The system had you that much, nothing was yours but the illusion. They own your life. When you got in their way, they spat you out like a chewing […]

Yagiz Erkan2019-01-21T09:40:14+02:00January 29th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Dystopian Fiction Book Reviews, Science Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Black Flies in the Backyard with Snowshoes by Kevin Brian Carroll

I read through the opening pages, called “Before We Get Started” and I had the feeling I was going to be reading a book about a Blues Band from Albany. I wanted to research the material, but the link given to the band was wrong… http://WAlbanyStBlues.com should be https://WAlbanStBluesBand.com. And I am thinking, oh, boy, we need an editor here, stat.

I then started getting into the book itself; the first chapter. I thought, oh my, Hunter S. Thompson’s final work? Or maybe this is his protégé? This is soooo Gonzo Journalism; but the author is no journalist. The author […]

Boudica Foster2013-06-19T10:21:32+02:00January 26th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Book Reviews|

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 Book Reviews, Music Book Reviews|

Review: Freedom and Circumstance by Oswald Sobrino

For me, poets and philosophers are like cake and ice cream: they go together. Both wed disparate elements of reality, sometimes explosively, always in startling ways. Both go beyond the words to a place bone deep. When I read or listen to them, my eyes pop. My mouth goes all WOWy. My spirit is cleansed, refreshed, and I’m able to write on. You might say that, like cake and ice cream, poets and philosophers are important human resources.

Take Ortega y Gasset, an influential twentieth-century Spanish philosopher. That’s all I remembered about him from a course I took on existentialist […]

Susan Russo Anderson2019-01-22T18:27:35+02:00January 23rd, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Non-Fiction Book Reviews, Philosophy Book Reviews, Social Science Book Reviews|

Review: Sleeper’s Run by Henry Mosquera

When Eric Caine is found wandering the streets of South Beach, dishevelled and mumbling Arabic, he’s taken for just another of Miami’s homeless. But when someone notices his military ID card they promptly take him to the local VA hospital. He’s crashed his car and has no memory of the last eight days, save that he’d been drinking and was probably involved in a bar fight. Recently discharged from the Air Force, Eric is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan where he worked as a pararescue jumper, providing medical support to anti-terrorist forces caught in hostile zones. The doctor suspects […]