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The mystery/thriller genre is one I regularly read - and just can't seem to get enough. The problem is: you read a LOT of any given genre and too much begins to sound overly predictable. Not so Robin Mahle's THE LAW OF FIVE, the third in a series of Katie Reed stories - and the first I've delved...

I regularly read young adult and children's books because they make for light reading, are satisfyingly different from the weighty adult concerns of complex adult stories, and often feature fun pictures paired with intriguing plots. I've always enjoyed bedtime stories and am especially...

Anthony Bidulka's The Women of Skawa Island: An Adam Saint Book is a hard-hitting international thriller/mystery that revolves around an investigator stripped of his usual resources. What can three women, shipwrecked on an island, have to do with world security and the actions of a powerful man...

I read and thoroughly enjoyed Matthew D. Heines' travel romps through the Oman region, so picked up his DECEPTIONS OF THE AGES: "MORMONS" FREEMASONS AND EXTRATERRESTRIALS anticipating not another travelogue or cultural encounter (such is evident from the very different title) but another example...

Kennedy Obohwemu's TWISTED is such a different kind of read, I hesitate to place it in any one genre. It's a thriller on some levels, and also a time-travel romance - but genre readers who look for formula writing in any of these areas will find it's actually much more, and defies neat...

I first thought K.S.R. Burns' Rules for a Perpetual Diet would, in fact, be a nonfiction diet plan - but I was pleasantly surprised. It's not a diet plan per say and it has little to do with nonfiction but Rules for the Perpetual Diet is a novel covering ten days in the life of a diet-obsessed...

It's difficult to neatly 'peg' Rena Corey and Bill Noxon's forthcoming Red Star Diary of 1916: it's billed as a 'novel' because it hold embellishments but is actually based on Rena Corey's discovery of Bill Noxon's diary, and includes many entries from the diary throughout, making it stand...

The third in Matthew Heines' trilogy, Killing Time in Saudi Arabia, takes place between 2004-2005 and is a fitting addition/conclusion to his teaching adventures in the Middle East. Killing Time in Saudi Arabia demonstrates perfectly the reason why some books written as a trilogy should be...

Since I just read/wrote about Matthew Heines' first book in the trilogy, here's the second: Another Year in Oman, which covers 2002-2003. Another Year in Oman: Between Iraq and a hard Place is the second of a three-book series that describes the author's life in the Middle East and once again...

I picked up Matthew Heines' first book in his trilogy, My Year in Oman, expecting a travelogue - or perhaps a story of how an overseas educator came to teach foreigners - but it's so much more that I'm recommending it not for a set audience who reads travel stories or educational pieces, but for...

The mystery genre is one of my favorite reads - the romance genre, less so - mostly because too much of it is predictable formula writing. It's not unusual to find a combination of the two; but what is unusual is to have both work so well - and so unpredictably - but Rene Natan's The Loves and...

There has been criticism about V.G. Green's Tale of the Wulks being too action-packed: well, it's true - it's more than evident that Tolkien has been one of the major influences here. And, fifty chapters in three parts shows that The Tale of the Wulks is no casual affair, but a powerfully...

It's not often that I enjoy coming into a mystery series mid-series: too often the plot and adventure relies on previous books, leaving newcomers in the lurch and forced to look at predecessors to fill in details. Not so with Anthony Eglin's THE ALCATRAZ ROSE, which joins others in the Lawrence...

Rene Natan's The Woman in Black is just the kind of mystery/thriller I like: nobody's role is 'set', there are twists and turns in love in conflict, and a series of traps keeps readers guessing. Savina Thompson is on a mission of investigation… that's why she's reluctantly impersonating a call...

I admit it: I read picture books for leisure - quite regularly. They are quick reads and the best are uplifting and fun: such is the case with Terry John Barto's Gollywood, Here I Come! Welcome to Gobbleville, a town literally run by turkeys - and welcome, picture book readers, to the world of...

I read a lot of books about 'how to write' because I've been writing for decades, and I'm always curious about strategies, recommendations, and keys to marketing books. But Mrs. Rebecca Richmond and Mrs. Claire Pickering's is something different. It's not a 'how to write' book: Market and...

Science fiction and fantasy have been dear to my heart and my early heroes of the genre are Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and other big names. Clarke introduced me to 'water worlds' with his Dolphin Island and since then I've read sporadic 'water world' sci-fi, but Brian Burt's Aquarius...

Susan Wingate's The Deer Effect is just the kind of mystery I love: 'more than a mystery', it includes psychological depth (in this case, insights on the grief process) and a plot that leads an unwitting novice investigator into another world (in more than one way). With a title like The Deer...

My neighbor has fibro and she struggles with it mightily. As a former workaholic, it hit her hard - so having watched her struggles and listened to her search for options, I was particularly interested in the program presented here. My Guide: Manage Fibromyalgia/CFS is both an autobiography of...

My husband manages chronic pain all the time; so even though this subject isn't on my everyday reading list (thrillers, mystery, sci-fi), I pick up any book I can about chronic pain, hoping for more keys to success. My Guide: Manage Chronic Pain isn't designed to replace a doctor's advice. It's...