British Mammals - Richard Herley

   2024; 355 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Satire; British Fiction; Family Life; Romance.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Take Colin Forrest’s advice: never break off a romantic relationship with an Albanian girl.

 

    Well, let’s tweak that just a bit.  Never break things off with an Albanian girl who has three psycho brothers who now feel you’ve dishonored their entire family and are about to come looking for you with guns and fists.

 

    It’s time for Colin to “disappear” into the hinterlands of England.  Maybe find a job up in the Norfolk area, and lay low for a while.  Make sure your name and picture don’t appear in any newspaper, at least until those three brothers quit searching for you and go back to Tirana.

 

    And for heaven’s sake, if an attractive girl crosses your path, don’t fall in love with her.

 

What’s To Like...

    Full disclosure: at its heart, British Mammals is a Romance novel.  But if you’re a male reader, don’t run away yet, there’s also a bit of violence in the tale, several dysfunctional characters to keep the personal interactions tense, and lots of nudity.

 

    The book is written in English, not American, and even though I’ve read plenty of British novels, there were oodles of new “Britishisms” in the text for me.  The most exquisite one is given below, but there were dozens more, such as: drumby, bint, twigged, posh totty, moggy, dekko, fizgig, wigging, yonks, hent, and coo, the last two of which I never did suss out.  I’m a language nut, so I loved all these new words.  There was even an Albanian phrase!  When’s the last time you ran into that language in a book?

 

    Colin finds a job as a groundsman at a resort called Bubthorpe Pines, which he thinks is a perfect low-stress, low-profile job.  Alas for him, and happily for the reader, such is not the case.  The resort is on shaky financial ground, and continued employment at the resort, for both the top dogs and the bottom-rung laborers, is iffy.  Tempers are short, solutions are few, and nudist resorts are losing popularity.

 

    I liked the nudism angle; it gives the opportunity for some comic relief in the storyline.  Resort employees, thankfully, do not have to "undress accordingly", but they do have to "bare witness" (pun intended) and cater to middle-aged practitioners who are developing wrinkles and sagginess.  Activities such as “beach cricket” and weddings take on a whole new aspect when done without clothes.

 

  As always with a Richard Herley novel, the character-building is excellent.  Each person's make-up is unique.  One of the main characters is a successful novelist, but presently dealing with some e-book issues at Amazon.  I appreciated the insights Richard Herley provides about e-publishing in general, and suspect he is drawing upon his firsthand experiences.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Playing Gooseberry (phrase) : an unwanted third party in a situation where two people want to be alone.

Others: many, many more.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 2 ratings and 1 review.

    Goodreads: 4.50/5 based on 2 ratings and 1 review.

 

Kindle Details…

    British Mammals currently sells for $2.99 at Amazon. Richard Herley offers about 16 e-books for your Kindle; they range in price from $0.99 to $3.67.  He recently discounted his entire catalog of e-books to $0.99 apiece, which I greatly appreciated and used to grab a couple more of his novels.

 

Excerpts...

    ”What’s he like?  Do you fancy him?”

    “No.”

    “Surely there must be some eligible male somewhere on Earth who can melt the ice in your veins.  What, O frozen-hearted maiden, undisputed queen of the polar north, does he look like?”

    “Tall but not too tall, blond, with no hint of a man-bun.”

    “Do you find him handsome?”

    “Sufficiently.”

    “Amy!  Your fervour astounds me!  So you’re made of flesh and blood like the rest of us!  Have you been drinking in secret?  Antifreeze, I mean.”  (loc. 558)

 

    “Do you?”

    “Do I what?”

    “Think about the future?”

    “Sometimes.”

    “What do you think about it?”

    ”It’s worrying,” Benny decided.  “I worry about the future.  Of the Pines, I mean, and other things.”

    “Surely the future will be like the past.  It always has been, for as long as I can remember.  I mean. What was the future becomes the present and as soon as it does that it becomes the past.  There’s not much difference between them, all three of them, except that in the present one is present and in the past and future one is not.”

    This was an unusually long and profound disquisition on Effy’s part.  (loc. 1737)

 

Trying to pin Effy down on any topic was like knitting fog.  (loc. 2115)

    There's a moderate amount of cussing in British Mammals.  I counted 21 instances in the first 20% of the book, most of which were f-bombs and uttered by two of the characters, Tez and Bert.

 

    I was surprised by the abruptness of the ending.  The tension builds as the various plotlines are cleverly brought together, but things end with just one of them being resolved, and even that one was done verbally.  Yes, I could deduce how the other ones would likely be tied up, but it would have been nice to have those wrap-ups confirmed, or even better, subject to some plot twists.  Perhaps these storylines will all be addressed in a sequel.  One can hope.

 

    Enough of the quibbling.  The romance in British Mammals could have easily become a slog for me, but fortunately Richard Herley’s storytelling and writing skills kept me turning the pages.  I loved his depictions of the English lifestyle, especially on topics such as class structures, the institution of marriage, and ecological considerations, such as deforestation to build housing developments.  British Mammals was a delightful read for me, and I look forward to the author's next novel.

 

    8 Stars.  One last thing.  Let’s hear it for NIMBY finding its way into the text here.  It's one of my favorite acronyms!

The Relfe Sisters - Richard Herley

   2022; 330 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Family Life Fiction; Romance.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    It was the best day of Clive Wilson’s life; it was the worst day of Clive Wilson’s life.

 

    On one hand, he saved an eleven-year-old boy’s life by pushing him out of the way of an oncoming Range Rover as he crossed the street.  All the locals are calling him a hero, so maybe this was his best day ever.

 

    On the other hand, Clive didn’t have time to get out of the way of the Range Rover himself, he got clobbered, ended up in the hospital, and now walks with a limp and a cane.  So maybe this was his worst day ever.

 

      Clive doesn’t feel heroic; he thinks that anyone else would have done the same.  So why should he view this as his finest hour?

 

    Well, because if he hadn’t saved the life of little Oscar Northfield, he never would have met Miss Sophie Relfe, the boy’s aunt.  And he never would have fallen in love.

 

What’s To Like...

    Amazon labels The Relfe Sisters a “Family Life Fiction”, which seems like an apt descriptor, although I’d hasten to add you could also call it a Romance.  Clive’s life-saving effort introduces him to three sisters who are all dysfunctional in their own way.

 

    Diana, Oscar’s mom, is the eldest sister and is suffering through a lucrative, but unhappy marriage.  Marianne, the youngest of the three, is divorced, a settlement from which has left her financially okay, but emotionally bitter.  Sophie, the middle sister, has had a couple of wild romantic flings, which have made her fearful of falling in love.  You might say she’s “twice bitten, third time shy”.

 

    The text is a vocabularian’s delight, partly because Richard Herley is an English author, and partly because he is a wordsmith par excellence.  That means there were a whole slew of fascinating terms to suss out.  My favorite one is listed below, but others include: skip-hire, kerb, Hilux, Teasmades, motor-yacht, wheelie-bins, splashback, Dysons, broody, nugatory, brolly, chin-chin, bolshie, pellucid, tannoys, twee, satsuma, coign, pelmet, and snaffled.  I'm a bit embarrassed to note that Spellchecker is familiar with almost all of these.

 

    There are a whole bunch of interesting characters to meet and get to know besides the three sisters.  Mrs. Blennerhassett was one of my favorites, so was Uncle Jerome.  As an American reader, I found Richard Herley’s depictions of modern-day life in England to be delightful, particularly riding the trains and preparing the meals.  The book’s settings, especially London and Surrey, also brought back fond memories, since I’ve visited both while in England on a couple of excursions.

 

    The ending was a very logical wrap-up to the tale.  There weren’t any this-changes-everything twists to it, but Romance lovers will find it satisfying.  The final chapter is a “flash-forward”, and made me say “awwww."

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Subfusc (adj.) : dull and gloomy.

Others: see above.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.0/5 based on 4 ratings and 3 reviews.

    Goodreads: *.**/5 based on 0 ratings and 0 reviews.

 

Kindle Details…

    The Relfe Sisters currently sells for $3.58 at Amazon.  Richard Herley has 15 other e-books for you; they range in price from free to $4.99.  The freebies are The Penal Colony, Nature Writing, and The Stone Arrow, in three widely different genres.  I’ve only read that last one, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

Excerpts...

    Before her marriage she had worked as a librarian: it was at the public library that Julian had met her. Issuing his books one Saturday morning, she had, boldly for her, mentioned that she too was keen on medieval poetry, and Julian, who had never so much as summoned the nerve to ask a girl to the pictures, had thereupon asked her what time she got off, and would she like to have a cup of coffee with him and discuss Piers the Plowman?  (loc. 502)

 

    “I was telling Mr. Wickham here, London is overrun with foreigners.”

    “His name is Wilson.”

    “I know that very well.  I have been testing him.  I wanted to see if he would correct me and he did not.  Not once.  What are you doing with a milquetoast like that, my dear?  He looks like a bank clerk and behaves like one.  At least your other conquests had a bit of spark in them.  Maximilian, for example.  Why did you have to part from him?  He was streets better than this one.  (loc. 2775, and no, I have no idea what the phrase “streets better” means.)

 

“Marry me or be murdered.  It couldn’t be plainer.”  (loc. 3383)

    There’s not much to gripe about in The Relfe Sisters.  The cussing is sparse; I counted just 17 instances in the first 50% of the book.  There are some adult situations and sexual references mentioned, and unless I’m overthinking it, at least one gay relationship.

 

    Sophie definitely gets the most ink of the sisters.  Indeed, when I was about halfway through the book, I was questioning whether Marianne and Diana were impactful enough to merit being included in the title.  But their roles get bigger as the story went on.

 

    That’s all nits I can pick.  For me, The Relfe Sisers was a fast-paced, easy-to-read tale of human relationships that held my interest despite it being in a genre I normally don't partake of.  I wish that more Romance novels were written with this depth.

 

    Finally, if you purchase and read this book, and like it, I recommend next picking up Richard Herley’s Darling Brenda, which is in the same genre.

 

    8 Stars.  One last delightful word that I added to my vocabulary as soon as I ran across it in The Relfe Sisters: “forfuxake”.  Yes, I’m sure it’s a made-up word.  But jeez, it ought to be added to the dictionary.

No Time Like The Past - Jodi Taylor

   2015; 376 pages.  Book 5 (out of 14) in the series “The Chronicles of St. Mary’s”.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Time Travel; Humorous Fantasy; Historical Fiction, Romance.  Overall Rating: 10*/10.

 

    The good news: The Institute of Historical Research Department at St. Mary’s Priory is alive and well.  That’s a miracle since in the previous book chronicled a vicious attack by the Time Police on St. Mary’s.

 

    The bad news: That attack was repulsed, but not without massive damage and several deaths.  Repairs and replacements cost a lot of money, and Thirsk University, St. Mary’s employers and purse-holders, rightfully expect a return on their investment.  The time-traveling historians at St. Mary’s desperately need to perform a spectacular, and financially lucrative, jaunt into the past.

 

    Madeleine “Max” Maxwell has come up with a promising plan.  Hop back a couple centuries, acquire some items that would/will make great “artifacts” after a couple hundred years, and bury them in a secure place.  Zip back to the present, show Thirsk University where to dig, and let them be showered in glory for finding a trove of valuable relics.

 

    What could go wrong?  Well, there’s a reason why this plucky team of chrono-hopping historians is called “the disaster-magnets of St. Mary’s”.

 

What’s To Like...

    No Time Like The Past is the fifth book in Jodi Taylor’s time-travel-with-historical-fiction-with-romance  "Chronicles of St. Mary’s" series.  I’ve been reading the books in order, and so far they’ve all been wonderful reads.  There are five time-jumps in this book, which is about average, and all to awesome time-space sites in the past.  The main one here is a visit to Thermopylae in 480 BCE to watch the 300 Spartans hold off the massive Persian army for several critical days.

 

     I was impressed by the attention to detail the author pays to each of the historical sites.  The descriptions of the settings really added to their “realness”, and I learned interesting history facts such as the name of the guy who betrayed Leonidas and the Spartans (Ephialtes of Trachis).  The details concerning another time-trip, this time to Florence in 1497 CE for an event called The Bonfire of the Vanities, were just as fascinating, and timely as well, since I just recently read Tom Wolfe’s novel by that name.

 

    In addition to all that chrono-hopping, there's a fair amount events going on at St. Mary’s here.  Max (Chief Operations Officer) and Tim Peterson (Chief Training Officer) swap jobs, meaning both have new duties to learn.  A “friendly” boat-building contest with Thirsk personnel is proposed, accepted, and taken very seriously by both entities.  And on the Romantic front, Leon and Max prepare to take the next step in their relationship.

 

    The book, and the series, are written in English, as opposed to American, which I always find to be a treat.  Besides the usual variances in spelling, I needed to look up the “translations” of the following phrases: pulling your plonker, jacket potatoes, pissed as a newt, toad in the hole, priest hole, and spotted dick.  Have fun researching these, and get your mind out of the gutter on those last two.

 

    There's lots of trivia sprinkled throughout the text.  I learned what the acronym “ASBO” stands for, the etymology of the word “bankrupt”, and the definition of “swive”.  A few puns are also woven into the tale, to which I can only say, “that’s offal”.

 

    The ending was not what I expected, which is always a plus.  But it’s both logical and a bit humorous.  The final chapter addresses the romance storyline, and closes with an amusing epilogue.  No Time Like The Past is told in the first person POV (Max’s), and is both a standalone book and part of a series.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 7,326 ratings and 606 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.36*/5, based on 11,143 ratings and 662 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “For God’s sake, Max, look at this place.  “Look out there.”  I rolled over and looked at the screen.  “It’s total devastation.  We’re going to be paying for this lot for the rest of our lives.  I’m going to have to have at least forty kids to inherit the debt.”

    Fortunately, at that moment, Mr. Lindstrom’s voice came over the com.  “Max? Markham?  Can you hear me?”

    “Tell them I’m dead,” said Markham, making no move to get up off the floor.

    “I’m fine, but Markham says he’s dead.”  (pg. 150)

 

    “Hold on,” I said.  “Were you studying tactics and things at—what do they call it—officer school?”

    “Not for very long.”

    “You surely didn’t set fire to that as well?”

    “No, of course not,” he said, wounded to the core.  “Not the whole thing.  It’s a big place, you know.”

    “So just a small corner of it?”

    “Barely even that.  Just a few rooms.  Maybe a bit of corridor.  There was plenty of building left so I don’t know why they made such a fuss.”  (pg. 308)

 

“Just think about it—being killed by your own wedding present.  How bizarre would that be?”  (pg. 305)

    No Time Like The Past rates a rare 10-Star rating, so unsurprisingly, the quibbles are microscopic.  I counted ten instances of cussing in the first 20% of the book (75 pages) equally split between an excretory function and the Underworld.  Later, there’s a roll-in-the-hay, and a reference to boobs.  All of this was tastefully done.

 

    A couple of typos also showed up along the way: Pa Lace/Palace, top/stop, Lies’/Lies, hear/head, and ally/allay.  These were all in the paperback version, so they can’t be blamed on the printed-to-digital conversion.  They caused my editor’s mind to stumble a bit, but weren’t numerous enough to where it became a distraction.

 

    But I pick at nits.  I’m now 5/14 through this series, and the storyline in No Time Like The Past felt just as “fresh” as those for each of the earlier books.  I don’t know how Jodi Taylor selects the chrono-hopping destinations for the plucky historians at St. Mary’s, but they're always fascinating, and I’m eager to see where they get sent in the next book, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

 

    10 Stars.  One last helpful hint about the oft-pondered time-travel enigma of “can I go back in time and shoot myself?”  St. Mary’s has an ironclad rule that bans any of their historians from chrono-hopping back to place where there is a possibility of “meeting yourself”.  If such a situation should arise, one's fellow St. Mary’s operative has orders to shoot to kill the “modern you”.

A Trail Through Time - Jodi Taylor

    2015; 383 pages.  Book 4 (out of 13) in the series “The Chronicles of St. Mary’s”.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Time Travel; Humorous Fantasy; Historical Fiction, Romance.  Overall Rating: 9*/10.

 

    Awww.  Madeleine “Max” Maxwell is back together again with her lover, Leon Farrell.  Kinda.  Except Max’s Leon was killed, so this Leon is a slightly different one.  And Leon’s Max was killed, so our Max is sort of a substitute.  Hopping around parallel universes can get to be confusing.

 

    Still, there’s enough similarities between the two Leons and the two Max’s that this arrangement might just work out.  It’s just a matter of taking things slow and easy, and getting to know each other all over again.  With enough time, they’ll do just fine.

 

    Alas, the Time Police are hot on their trail, vowing to bring both of them to justice for the unforgivable sin of altering History.  They are accused of bringing a boy named Helios from the ancient past back to the present world.  The Time Police are known to be relentless and merciless.

 

    That means Time is something Max and Leon no longer have.

 

What’s To Like...

    A Trail Through Time is the fourth book in Jodi Taylor’s fantastic Time Travel series which is now up to thirteen books.  I’m reading these in chronological order, which is advisable since Max now is jumping around through both Time and Multiverses.

 

    Those who are reading the series for its Time Travel elements (and I’m one of them) are in for a treat – the whole first third of the book is one long chase scene as our two heroes chrono-hop time after time (pun intended) in a desperate attempt to stay one step ahead of the baddies.  Major stops include 17^th-century England, 18^th Dynasty Egypt, and Pompeii right before Mt. Vesuvius blows its top.

 

    If you’re reading this series for the Romance angle, you’ll be happy to know that it seemed like that genre got greater attention here than in the previous books.  And finally, if you’re just reading these books for the thrills-&-spills, guess what? – the action starts immediately and never lets up.

 

    We get to meet some new bad guys here: the Time Police.  Their goal is to nullify anything and anyone who befuddles the original timeline.  Max’s dimension-jumping certainly qualifies for that (hey, it wasn’t her fault!), and so does the transporting of a doomed Trojan youth to present-day England, which has occurred in at both Max’s and Leon’s home dimensions.

 

    Jodi Taylor is an English author, so we get learn all sorts of British vocabulary, including some great slang phrases, a few of which are listed below.  I chuckled at seeing “wheelie bin” used; this was the second book in a row I came across that phrase, after a lifetime of never hearing of it.  And it was delight to go to a 1683 London event called a “Frost Fair”, a celebration that takes place out on the frozen Thames River.  Sadly, I don’t think those are held anymore.

 

    The storyline builds to an exciting fight scene, the outcome being both a surprising and inevitable climax.  The Max/Leon love angle plot thread also end in a climax.  The book closes with a coin-toss, but its result is not revealed, which serves as a great teaser for the sequel, No Time Like the Past.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Water Butt (n.) : a large container for collecting or storing a liquid, such as rainwater. (a Britishism)

Others: Todger (n., British, slang); Bint (n., British, derogatory), Buttie (n., British, slang).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 2,241 ratings and 591 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.32*/5, based on 11,719 ratings and 750 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Swans!

    Coming in at eye-height, in attack formation with necks outstretched, wings extended and some very nasty looks in their eyes, was what seemed like every swan in the county, or possibly all of England.  A whole battalion of them.  I had no idea we had so many.  I know they can be nasty, and God knows these had good reason.  Over the years St. Mary’s swans have been blown up, terrorised by Plesiosaur look-alikes, had a Renault 5 engine mistakenly flung at them by a Roman trebuchet, and been dyed blue.  These were swans that had had enough.  (pg. 149)

 

    “Okay people, listen up.  This is it.  We all know what to do.  If we remember our training then we’ll be fine.  Our job is to hold the front doors and stairs for as long as possible.  There will be some noise and chaos and you’ll be scared, but that’s OK because we’re St. Mary’s and no one does noise and chaos as well as us.  Major Guthrie estimates we’ll be outnumbered about six to one …”

    Around me, heads bobbed up sharply and Peterson said, “Um …”

    “So what I’m saying is, the first one to shoot their six nips back and puts the kettle on.”  (pg. 315)

 

We’re St. Mary’s.  We can fashion a heat-seeking missile out of two toilet rolls and an elastic band.  (pg. 338)

    It’s hard to find something to gripe about in A Trail Through Time.  Those who dislike cussing in their sci-fi/fantasy tales should note that I counted ten instances in the first 20% of the book, albeit none of them are f-bombs.  There’s also one roll-in-the-hay, already alluded to, but this is a Time Travel Romance story, so that’s to be expected.

 

    The overall tone of the book seemed a bit darker than what I remember of the first three volumes, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  Some good guys die, but none of them are major characters, and hey, when you can hop across and around the multiverse, is death really an absolute finality for anyone?

 

    I thoroughly enjoyed A Trail Through Time.  As has been true thus far for all the books I've read in this series, it was a well-written and clever combination of action-adventure, historical fiction, and Time Travel Romance, with a healthy helping of wit and humor blended in to keep it a fun read.  I think I’m getting hooked on this series.

 

    9 Stars.  Jodi Taylor started a spinoff series from this, beginning in 2019, and focusing on the Time Police.  To date, there are four books in it, the first of which, Doing Time, resides on my Kindle.  Perhaps it’s time to check that out.

Horded - Frances Pauli

   2013; 251 pages.  Book Two (out of five) in the Kingdoms Gone series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Romantic Fantasy; Fairy Tale Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    There are no gobelins anymore.  Everybody knows that.  They were wiped out years ago in the Final War.

 

    So imagine how shocked the citizens of Ramstown were, including Maera, when one of them popped out of thin air (literally!) into their fair city.  Worse yet, he was obviously a warrior gobelin: big, built, armed, and ugly.

 

    Well, there’s only one of him, and a whole village full of humans, so if the gobelin's spoiling for a fight, he’s going to lose before he kills too many townspeople.

 

    Unfortunately, Maera's the first person he heads for.  He’s muttering something in gobelin-speak; it sounds like “tir talus”, whatever that means.  And then, before anyone can stop him, he does the unthinkable to her.

 

    He kisses her.

 

What’s To Like...

    Horded is the second book in Frances Pauli’s “Kingdoms Gone” series and is pretty much equal parts Romance and Fantasy.  I read the first book, Unlikely, a couple years ago; it is reviewed here.  There are two main plotlines to follow: a.) the gobelin/human love angle, highlighted by Maera’s (and the reader's) quest for the meaning of “tir talus”, and b.) the fate of the gobelin clan that Tal belongs to as it struggles to coexist with humans and rival gobelin tribes.  

 

    We follow two protagonists: Maera, the human outcast whom most Ramstown folks dislike to varying degrees, and Tal, who is not the gobelin introduced above, but rather that one’s younger, less-respected brother.  These are not the same protagonists from Book One, and after peeking at the Amazon blurbs for the rest of the books in the series, that pattern holds true for all five novels.

 

    There’s a smattering of fantasy critters to meet and greet: gobelins, gargoyles, and an imp or two, plus, of course, an abundance of humans.  The main form of magic here involves “pockets”, portals that allow instant movement to faraway places, maybe even parallel worlds.

 

    I presume the target audience is YA girls who enjoy fairytale romance tales.  Horded is a “clean” story: I counted only 17 cusswords in the entire text, and there’s no sex or drugs or rock-&-roll.  There is some fighting, some blood spilled, and a death or two, but the gore is minimal.  I liked the clever use of “alternate cussing” phrases, including “unicorn dung”, “blood and magic”, and “humping unicorns”.

 

    Things close with a decent ending.  Tal and his fellow gobelins fulfill a prophecy, or at least I think they do.  The romance angle does not end how I thought it would, and frankly that’s a plus.  Some of the plot threads remain unresolved, including the fates of Olin and Old Gutra (who and who?), but perhaps these get addressed later on.  There’s a great twist at the very end which serves as a teaser for the next book in the series, Forgotten.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.7/5 based on 5 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.38/5 based on 13 ratings and 4 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “You fight like a woman.”

    “You bleed like a pig.”

    Torg groaned and leaned back on one hand.  He used his other to catch some of the blood, winced at the puddle in his palm and then laughed again.  “You only have that one move?”

    “It seems to work … every time.”

    “I just want you to feel what it’s like to be a real gobelin.”

    “Unicorn dung.”  (loc. 3321)

 

    “Maybe it was all supposed to happen like this.”  She thought of the tir talus then.  Gobelins believed in Fate, at least a little.  They had to.  “Maybe everything we do is what we’re supposed to do, even the mistakes.  What Torg does, what you and I do, even what Rulak does, who knows what the purpose is or where it will put us all in the end?”

    “The end may be sooner than you imagine.”  (loc. 3575)

 

Kindle Details…

    Horded presently sells for $2.99 at Amazon.  The other four books in the series range in price from $0.99 (Book 1) to $4.99 (Book 5), or you can pick up the whole series bundled together for a mere $6.99.  Frances Pauli has lots of other books and series available for your Kindle, in varying genres, ranging in length from short stories to novels, and in price from $0.99 to $9.50.

 

“I.  Want.  A.  Bath.”  (loc. 3020)

    Most of the quibbles are the same as for Book One.  The backstory and world-building are minimal, which means the reader is left with lots of questions about things like the Final War and the magic castle,  I couldn't tell the difference between the Tinkers and the Skinners, ditto for the Granters and the Goodmothers, and if you’re a human but not part of the Gentry, does that make you a Muggle?  Finally, the fact that it appears there are different protagonists for each book makes me wonder if Maera and Tal exit the series here.  If so, that would be a shame.

 

    There are a lot of typos in Horded, to the point where it became distracting.  Almost all of them are spellchecker errors, such as aide/aid (four times!), Genrty/Gentry, site/sight, Rultak/Rulak, nauseas/nauseous, gate/gait, forth/fourth, and my favorite, nosily/noisily.  Another round of editing/proofreading is in order, but it’s possible that this has already been done, since the current version of Horded features a different e-book cover than the one I read.

 

    Keep in mind that for Horded’s target audience, teenage girls, the above quibbles probably won’t matter one bit.  They’ll likely be looking for a  plotline akin to Beauty and the Beast, and in that respect, Horded does just fine.  Male readers, no matter what age, need to remember that this story gives equal status to both the romance and fantasy aspects, and tailor their expectations accordingly.  It may not be Lord of the Rings, but it’s still a pretty good read.

 

    7 Stars.  Oh yeah, one last thing.  Any book that has a beast named Henry in it will always get a thumbs-up from me.

Orb - Gary Tarulli

   2011; 338 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres: Hard Science Fiction; First Contact; Romance.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    It’s the dawning of a new age for humankind.  The previous spaceflight over the planet 231-P5 confirmed the presence of water, which is an understatement – the planet is almost entirely covered by it.  And where there’s water, there’s the possibility of life, and something even more exciting: sentient life.

 

    Now the seven crew members on the spaceship Desio are about to enter into orbit around 231-P5, and, pending some preliminary tests to confirm a habitable environment, land there.  Their mission: search for intelligent life and if they find asny, initiate contact.

 

    The Desio’s crew has been carefully picked: Commander Bruce Thomson, PhD in Geology and Engineering; Kelly Takara, Medical Doctor; Diana Gilmore, PhD in Marine Biology, and a Master’s in Astrobiology; Paul Bertrand, PhD in Climatology; Larry Melhaus, PhD in Physics and Mathematics, and a Master’s in Chemistry; Kyle Lorenzo, writer.

 

    Whoa!  That last guy's credentials are rather humdrum compared to those others.  But hey, his assignment is to chronicle the expedition, so it’s his output that we’ll be reading.

 

    The final member of the crew is Angie.  She doesn’t have a degree either, but she’s exceptionally bright, disciplined, well-trained, healthy, and has a sweet disposition.  Those are all admirable qualities, but it should be noted that she also has an indefatigable urge to chase and chew on squeaky toys.

 

    Angie is Kyle’s lovable, black-furred miniature poodle, and he simply refuses to leave her behind.  And who knows, she just might make some of her own special contributions to the mission.

 

What’s To Like...

    Orb is Gary Tarulli’s ambitious and clever combination of Hard Sci-Fi and First-Contact Sci-Fi genres, with a skosh of Romance mixed in for good measure.  The central theme of the book is: what if the first sentient beings we encounter in outer space do not even remotely resemble humans, Klingons, Ewoks, or Vulcans?  It's statistically unlikely that their evolutionary path will be similar to ours.  Instead, it's much more likely they’ll be something so strange we can't even imagine it.

 

    The storyline also examines the psychological toll that space travelers are subjected to when they find themselves incredible time/space distances from home.  Once, on a business trip, I found myself in Bangkok, Thailand, all by myself, half a planet removed from anyone to contact should I run into trouble.  That “all alone” stress is very real.

 

    The mission's plan calls for a one-week stay by the crew of the Desio on 231-P5, its brevity being mostly limited by the quantity of food needed to sustain seven beings.  Each of the PhD’s will run tests in their respective fields looking for signs of intelligent alien life, and report their progress at daily meetings.  This gives our space team lots of opportunities to interact with each other, for better and for worse.  Conversely, if any extraterrestrials inhabit 231-P5, they get to observe us humans, warts and all.

 

    I liked the way the “hard science fiction” aspect was laid out.  The effort to find, and make contact with, sentient life on an alien planet will probably be a painstaking process, and we get to watch the crew's efforts gradually pay dividends.  I also enjoyed learning a smattering of several "earthly" languages (Japanese, French, Arabic, Italian, and Swahili), appreciated the way the strength of classical music was acknowledged, and marveled at the science nod to Mendelbrot fractals.  It was enlightening as well to learn about the spaceship’s namesake, Ardito Desio.

 

    The ending is a mixed bag, and it’s difficult to discuss it without introducing spoilers.  Let’s just say I found the final-chapter to be both poignant and disappointing, and leave it at that.  Orb is a standalone story; there is room for a sequel, but it certainly isn’t a necessity, and I don’t think Gary Tarulli has any plans to write one.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Spatchcocked (adj.) : split open (such as a poultry of game bird) in preparation for grilling.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.1/5 based on 132 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.78/5 based on 166 ratings and 25 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    The objects were speedily heading back out to sea, and quicker than they appeared, until completely vanishing from our view.

    “This is torture,” gasped Diana, then, in an instant of controlled madness, waved her hand oceanward and cried out, “Whatever you are, you come right back here, damn you!”

    “Calm yourself,” Thompson admonished.  “They’ll be back.”

    “And how do you arrive at that conclusion?” Diana said.

    “If they’re sentient beings, they’ll be curious about the bizarre entity yelling from shore.”  (loc. 1687)

 

    “A laser doesn’t belong on this ship, never did,” Thompson remarked.  “You and I are going to dismantle it.”

    “And when we return to Earth?  Don’t we need protection from orbiting pirates and space junk?”

    Thompson scowled.  “From my conversations with other ship commanders I’d say the presence of space pirates is no more than a rumor started by certain multinational companies looking for an excuse to establish a significant space presence.  Started, and deliberately cultivated, to foster militarization of space.”  Thompson’s scowl deepened.  “Space junk?  What in hell would a laser do except create numerous smaller molten pieces, each harder to detect, each more dangerous.”  (loc. 4073)

 

Kindle Details…

    Orb currently sells for $3.99 at Amazon.  ANAICT, Gary Tarulli has only one other e-book to offer, The Symbionts of Murkor, which also goes for $3.99, and is in the Sci-Fi genre as well.

 

“The worst possible mistake we could make would be to assume a square peg won’t fit in a round hole.”  (loc. 1999 )

    Most of the complaints by Amazon and Goodreads reviewers center about the slow pacing of the plotline and the wordiness of the dialogue.  Their point is well-taken, and if you’re looking for an action-packed space opera type of novel (think "Star Wars"), you probably should give Orb a pass.

 

    The emphasis here is on the “Science” part of “Sci-Fi”, not the “Fiction”.  If you're curious about how, a couple centuries from now (or even sooner), a terrestrial space program will prepare to visit other solar systems in search for life (via wormholes, of course), this book gives you a very plausible scenario.

 

    “Hard Science Fiction” is a very challenging genre to write in, and hats off to Gary Tarulli for tackling it with his debut effort.  Sadly, it appears he has retired from his writing career.  Orb came out in 2011; The Symbionts of Murkor followed three years later; but there appears to be nothing since from this author.  More’s the pity, since good novels in the Hard Science Fiction genre are few and far between.

 

    7 Stars.  All of the characters in Orb are of course fictitious, except for one: Angie.  If you’re wondering what she looks like, and you’re a partaker of Facebook, you can do a search there for the author and see a couple of touching pictures of her.

Fragments - Monique Martin

   2013; 242 pages.  Book 3 (out of 11) in the “Out of Time” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Time Travel; Romance.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    It’s kind of neat to see a coworker’s picture in the newspaper.  In this case, it’s Evan Eldridge one of Elizabeth West’s and Professor Simon Cross’s colleagues.

 

    The picture is from September 18, 1942.  You can’t really call it “old” because Evan, Elizabeth, and Simon all are time travelers, and members of something called "The Council for Temporal Studies".  Indeed, Evan’s wife Lillian is waiting for him to "return home" to San Francisco in 1906.

 

    Well, it’s good to see Evan’s alive and well.  Except that he isn’t.  The caption that accompanies his photograph reads “Some men lose more than their homes.  For some, their identities are stolen by shell shock induced amnesia.”

 

    Hmm.  Evan was undoubtedly on a mission for the Council at the time, and apparently something went horribly wrong.  His amnesia explains why he’s late in getting back to Lillian, and why he’s a patient at Guy’s Hospital in London, England, a city which, in September 1942, was subject to nightly bombings by the German Luftwaffe.

 

    Someone should go rescue him.  Someone like Simon and Elizabeth.

 

What’s To Like...

    Fragments is the third novel in Monique Martin’s time-travel/romance series titled “Out of Time”.  I’ve been reading the tales in order so far, partly because I bought Books 1 through 3 as a bundle.  The two earlier novels were set in 1929 New York and 1906 San Francisco; now for the first time our protagonists are going to experience living in a war zone.

 

    There are three main plot threads to follow.  Simon and Elizabeth need to figure out what Evan's mission was in 1942 London, and since they’re “freelancing”, they can’t expect the Council for Temporal Studies to provide any information.  If/When they figure out what his assignment was, they need to complete it for him, and after that, somehow spring him from Guy’s Hospital and reunite him with Lillian.  His amnesia seems just a bit too coincidental, so it’s reasonable to expect that there will be some baddies to contend with.

 

    This is my favorite setting so far in the series.  I liked the realistic "feel" of being in London with its nightly bombings, barrage balloons, strictly-enforced blackouts, and all sorts of foreign secret agents scampering around spying on each other and engaging in skullduggery.  I also liked that there was an “is it natural or supernatural” aspect to the quest.  There’s only about a dozen or so major characters to follow, and the most noteworthy one of them, Jack, will soon be “promoted” by Monique Martin into having his very own series.

 

    I learned a new way to apologize in French: “Il s’aggissait d’un accident.  Sa chaussure.  Erreur.”  You also get to learn smidgens of Latvian and what I presume is Albanian.  When’s the last time you saw those two languages worked into a story?  The inclusion of a couple of German expressions, (Wunderhubsch and Scheisse) was not surprising since you know full well some German spies will be skulking around in London.

 

    Rudolf Hess gets a brief mention, so does Glenn Miller and Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.  If you're not reading this series in order, that's okay, there’s a brief backstory giving the highlights of the first two books in the series early on.  Since I was reading them from a bundle,  the book location references are given relative to the 3-book bundling.

 

    The ending is decent, with some excitement and the main thread (freeing Evan) completely resolved.  The baddies get their just deserts, although I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of them resurface in later books.  Jack gets to initiated into the art of time-traveling, which of course is a prerequisite for jumping into his own series.  The Epilogue left a lump in my throat.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Bedsits (n., plural.) : one-room apartments typically consisting of a combined bedroom and sitting room with cooking facilities.  (a Britishism)

 

Excerpts...

    “This is different,” she said.

    Simon narrowed his eyes.

    “It is.  First of all, we didn’t leave him in the past.  He was part of the future when we were in the past and now that we’re in the future, he’s part of our past, but it isn’t the same past, so it doesn’t count.”

    “Elizabeth.”

    “Don’t ‘Elizabeth’ me right now.”  (loc. 8130)

 

    A few more regulars came in and joined the old man.  One of them leaned over to their table and said, “These dirty of sods want to know if you’re married.”

    “I am,” Elizabeth said, wiggling her ring finger and eliciting groans from the men.  She giggled.  “You all are so handsome, surely you’ve been snatched up.”

    The old man raised his glass.  “Lost me wife in ’38.”

    “I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said.

    “Every night,” he said, “I be praying the old bat don’t find me.”  (loc. 9829)

 

Kindle Details…

    Fragments presently sells for $2.99 at Amazon.  Book 1, Out of Time, is free, and Book 2, When The Walls Fell, is also $2.99.  The rest of the books in the series are $3.99 apiece.  Alternatively, you can get Books 1-3 in a bundle for $4.99.

 

Things that sound dirty but aren’t…

    “It wasn’t every day she got to fork a Nazi spy.”

 

“You know, for a comedy, The Divine Comedy is not a lot of laughs.”  (loc. 7894 )

    The quibbles are negligible.  I never did figure out how the Germans knew Simon was a professor.  If this wasn’t an oversight on my part, then the Council for Temporal Studies has a leak.  Also, the fact that two penumbral eclipses (aka "lunar eclipses") occur within a couple days of each other seems to me unlikely from an astronomy point of view, although I’m not motivated to check this out to confirm things.

 

    Some of the plot threads, including the “natural or supernatural” question, are not fully tied up, but commenting further on this would involve spoilers.  Let’s just say that Evan’s mission may or may not have been completely resolved.  But perhaps this is addressed again at some later point in the series.

 

    There’s a bit of cussing, but not much, and seems mostly limited to variations of “hell” and “damn”.  I think it says something about the author’s writing skills that she doesn’t have to resort to “shock talk” much to tell a fascinating tale.

 

    I think Fragments is my favorite book in the series so far.  Maybe it was because of the wartime setting.  Maybe it was because the time-travel aspect took precedence over the romance.  Maybe Monique Martin’s writing is just getting better with each book.  All I know is that it was fun to read.

 

    7 Stars.  I chuckled at the brief mention of the difference between the “London Bridge” and the “Tower Bridge”.  The image most people think when they hear the first term actually applies to the second one.  I know this because I lived for a short time in Lake Havasu City, Arizona way back when it was first getting started.  Its developer, Robert McCulloch, went to London and spent a bunch of money buying the London Bridge.  He thought he was getting the one was those fabulous towers and drawbridge.  Instead he got the plain-jane one, which you can see if you ever visit Lake Havasu.