Goon by Glenn Erick Miller; Oath by Kate Butler; The Wise Marie Paradise Edition by Natasha Brune

 

Goon by Glenn Erick Miller; Oath by Kate Butler; The Wise Marie: Paradise Edition by Natasha Brune 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Goon by Glenn Erick Miller 

This is a summary of the review. The complete review is on LitPick.

Goon is a tense, darkly comic, but captivating novel about incarceration, self-preservation, redemption, and the true nature of guilt and innocence.

 Goon is a troubled foster kid who stole a car, then injured his younger brother before being sent to a juvenile detention center. While there Goon has to deal with the various rules and regulations, violent fellow prisoners, a hurricane, his attraction for a girl who volunteers at the prison, and his guilt and anguished concern about his brother.

He is a fully developed protagonist who is practically made of attitude and regret. He recalls his dysfunctional upbringing, parentification towards his brother, and current incarceration with detached and wry humor. He is a self-deprecating sardonic kid who uses his humor to deflect from his own pain and tragedy.

The setting of the experimental detention center nicknamed J-Rot is fleshed out as a distinct society with its own culture and rituals. Everyone is given a nickname and bullying and favoritism are frequently shown. These dehumanization procedures remind the boys that who they were outside doesn't matter. Here they are who the prison, and by association the State of Florida, decides.

 Goon has to call up his talents and skills to aid someone who was once antagonistic but has shown potential to be a friend. Goon must surpass the institutional dehumanization and enter the contradictory chaos surrounding him to save him. 

Oath by Kate Butler 

This is a summary of my review. The long version is on Reader Views. (The links takes you to the site. You must insert the book's title in the search engine to read the review.)

Kate Butler’s Oath is a charming and enchanting queer fantasy romance about the love between a lord and his knight.

Lord Aerion Valemont is the spoiled Narcissistic son of the Archbishop. He is used to having his way so when Sir Clyde of Blackholt AKA “The Hound”, a war hardened, quiet, defiant warrior is assigned to be his protector, Aerion considers it a challenge. It appears these two completely opposite characters from different worlds are attracted to one another despite Clyde's sworn oath to protect the young Lord and the scheme to get Aerion married to avoid scandal.

Oath is the type of Fantasy Romance that technically does nothing new. The characters are known archetypes and the plot and setting have been seen many times. Even the fact that it's a Queer Romance has been done. 

This book should be a disposable cliche but there is something so delightful and endearing about this particular book that makes it work despite or actually because of the cliches.

Aerian is written as the ultimate spoiled rich kid with plenty of money and daring but not a lot of empathy or sense. Clyde is a solid stoic force. 

When the Lord and the knight become emotionally and physically closer together, Clyde's softer side and Aerion’s kinder side emerge. They become lovers who accept one another's flaws and all that comes with them.

Their relationship is tested by war, separation, sacrifice, and commitment. They move beyond a spoiled lord and stoic knight to become stronger, braver, more selfless, and more devoted characters and lovers.

The Wise Marie: Paradise Edition by Natasha Brune 

This is a summary of my review. The complete review is on Readers Views. (The links takes you to the site. You must insert the book's title in the search engine to read the review.)

Natasha Brune’s The Wise Marie: Paradise Edition is a traumatic and troubling autobiographical novel about a woman's involvement with crime and drugs.

Brune’s alter ego, Marie lived in a crowded home with a troubled and volatile family. Marie retreated into drugs, abusive relationships, and criminal activity to survive it.

Brune’s writing style is a straightforward matter of fact manner and surprising detachment for writing about her own experiences. It doesn't get overly sentimental or overdramatic. Terrible things like teen pregnancy, over doses, and abuse but it's informative not emotional. It makes the events and characters the main focus instead of presenting Brune's opinion about how she felt about it. It allows the Readers to connect with the events on their own. 

One could imagine it being written years later when Brune has had enough time to detach herself from the events. As an older woman, she has the years of experience and knowledge that the angry young woman didn't have. She also has empathy and understanding for the circumstances that led her down this path but recognizes the damage that she brought on herself.

The Wise Marie also makes use of its Hawaii setting by downplaying the paradise connotation (except in the subtitle) to focus on the local resident’s reality or at least the reality that Brune experienced. She reveals the poverty of people who live in a state with beautiful year-round weather but an expensive cost of living. A place where local reality is purposely kept from the tourists and issues like drugs, crime, and violence are ignored. While many states have high levels of crime and poverty, in Hawaii’s case the sometimes ugly reality clashes with the beautiful image, an image that no one and no place can fill forever.

In Search of Rain From Motel Qu to Pittsburgh by Syed Nourashrafeddin; Memoir About War, Hardship, Education, Trauma, and Happiness

In Search of Rain From Motel Qu to Pittsburgh by Syed Nourashrafeddin; Memoir About War, Hardship, Education, Trauma, and Happiness

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

 In Search of Rain From Motel Qu to Pittsburgh is Syed Nourashrafeddin’s detailed, emotional, inspirational, moving, and meaningful memoir. It covers topics like war, revolution, addiction, trauma, illness, immigration, and the pursuit of academic and financial success and personal happiness.

Nourashrafeddin’s life began in Iran during a tumultuous time in the country’s history. ’He was five years old during the 1979 revolution. He was too young to remember life before the Revolution and knows it from elder’s memories and documentation. They described that life as joyful and filled with vitality. They could drink and smoke in public. Women were free to pursue career opportunities. Artists and singers expressed themselves without censorship. 

All of that changed when the Ayatollahs stepped in. Nourashrafeddin’s description of a country deprived of everything that they once had like destroyed cinemas and clubs, banned music and art, women completely covered is completely heartbreaking. Even as a child, Nourashrafeddin felt that something wasn't right in a country that deprived its people of so much and used their limited interpretation of the Islamic religion to enforce and justify it.

 It wasn't the religion itself that created it because Islam was Iran’s primary religion before the Revolution. It was because the country was taken over by a sect of religious extremists with a very limited narrow view of what their religion meant and demanded that the people follow it.

Nourashrafeddin also grew up during the Iran-Iraq War and he effectively describes the after effects of a childhood in war. He bluntly describes the War as “a war for nothing.” The places where he and his childhood friends pretended to shoot each other in games were demolished by adults who really did shoot each other.

 His descriptions of a city practically annihilated with destroyed buildings, sounds of explosions and air strikes, food shortages, wounded neighbors, and casualties during a futile and needless war are unsettling.

There was also war brewing at home as well. Nourashrafeddin and his eight siblings were raised by an introverted passive mother and an outdoorsy temperamental father who was addicted to opium and heroin, “a world of smoke and addiction,” as his son wrote. His father’s addiction spiraled out of control as he lost his wife, youth, job, money, and eventually freedom to the disease. 

The conflicts at home and outside during the war showed chaos, anxiety, and trauma on all sides. It would be enough to drive anyone to despair and Nourashrafeddin revealed a lot of inner strength and determination to survive it.

Through education, Nourashrafeddin discovered his passion. Starting out as a lackluster student, he became interested in receiving a letter of recommendation to study mathematics and experimental sciences in high school. His goal was to become a doctor to earn respect, serve his community, and care for his family.

 He succeeded in school all the way to receiving a PhD in Molecular Medicine. He also obtained practical experience working in different fields like the military, administrative work in the Health Department, and worked in various medical and science laboratories, classrooms, departments, and fields.

His tireless pursuit of academic success and commitment to education is revealing, depicting him as someone who asked questions, hypothesized, theorized, researched, read, studied, measured, and shared his results. In other words, someone who was born to be a scientist but needed a slight nudge in that direction. Once he received that nudge, he excelled in the field. 

Nourashrafeddin’s adulthood was as eventful as his youth. Financial problems and overwork contributed to friction in an early marriage that ended in divorce. He was imprisoned after not paying alimony and upon release was temporarily homeless and destitute. He had vitiligo which lightened his skin and isolated him further. 

During that time, he indulged in hobbies like mountaineering and traveling to gain some perspective and a new outlook. He also had a better second marriage, found career success in Genetics, and eventually emigrated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

This section reveals that during times of difficulty that are out of one's control, it's important to find positive interests and relationships and that clear the mind, soothe the soul, and lead to personal happiness. It's also important to search for and find new directions in life that provide challenges and propel one to move forward.

Nourashrafeddin’s memoir is about a man who lived through much trauma, sadness, happiness, and success. He told his story so Readers can find ways to push past their own traumas and find their own personal success and happiness.

The Catalogue(A VENOM Novel) by Ty Mitchell; Suspense, Betrayal, and Twists Are Made to Order

 

The Catalogue(A VENOM Novel) by Ty Mitchell; Suspense, Betrayal, and Twists Are Made to Order

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

This review is also on Reedsy Discovery.

Spoilers: ‘Tis might be the season for receiving catalogs, but if you are a character in Ty Mitchell’s Suspense Thriller VENOM Novel The Catalogue, this eponymous document is the last catalog that you will want to receive. Instead of orders about charcuteries and winter apparel, this is a list of the world's most available organized criminals, assassins, terrorists, blackmailers, and all around worst people ever.

The Catalogue is the property of VENOM, a global super network of organized crime. Many members know of the Catalogue’s existence but not all of them have access to it and some would kill to receive it. One of them is Jun Li who is literally killing the competition. His actions reach the attention of Detective Jake Penny, investigative reporter Zasha Avery, and NSA Special Agent Ethan Parker who try to get to the root of these murders that will hopefully lead them to VENOM and The Catalogue.

This is a high octane and energy thriller that relies on suspense, plot twists, and fast paced writing to tell its story and it does that well. The action chapters are very tight building on different layers of character and suspense to add to the overall tension. 

From the first moment that we, the Readers, observe the characters, they are thrown into violent situations that require us to evaluate their personalities. Jake's introductory chapter takes place in a pharmacy where he is desperately trying to get opioids that he is addicted to. He stops an armed robbery and uses his observation skills to reveal that it was an inside job. 

This opening shows him as an effective detective but a very troubled individual with deep personal conflict. Those actions questions his allegiance with the law and our thoughts towards him. He doesn't live in a world of black and white, but gray.

Jun Li is another character who acknowledges that gray world. He is ruthless and efficient in his murders, treating his targets like nothing more than items on a checklist. Even though he is a loyal VENOM member, he seems more interested in becoming the actual leader and grabbing power for himself.

However, there is another side to him and it is shown in the opening chapter when he reads to a group of orphaned children before he returns to and taunts his bound adult hostages. He develops a genuine bond with one of the young orphans so that a later chapter concerning the two of them is one of the most emotionally gripping.

 Like Jake, the purpose is to show different sides and the gray world that he and the other characters inhabit. Sometimes the hero has a dark violent side and sometimes the villain shows vulnerability that is hidden from everyone else.

The gray world leads to some of the more intriguing plot twists and revelations. Some make sense but one arbitrary twist stretches credibility especially since the book is third person omniscient and we would have had some hints in the characters' mindset. 

I suppose that is the point. In a world where good characters aren't always good and bad ones aren't always bad and everyone operates according to their own code, that is to be expected. Characters act in ways that even the Readers find questionable.

The Catalogue is the type of novel that provides suspense, thrills, plot twists, and understanding of the complexities of the law and the lawless. It is perfectly made to order.

Time Fixers (Miles in Time Book 2) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Time Travel YA Continues with a Timeless Volume

 Time Fixers (Miles in Time Book 2) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Time Travel YA Continues with a Timeless Volume 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Well The Hardy Boys are at it again. No, not those Hardy Boys. Simon and Miles Hardy, the time traveling brothers from Lee Matthew Goldberg’s 2-Part YA Science Fiction Time Travel series. The first volume, Miles in Time, involved the adventurous detective Miles going back in time to prevent his scientific technogeek older brother, Simon from being murdered by unidentified assailants. He saved his brother but made a mortal enemy in Omni, the secret sinister organization that put the initial target on Simon’s back. 

The second volume, Time Fixers is a stronger, more personal, and also more focused adventure that raises the conflicts. This time Simon is able to improve his time travel device to travel beyond the previous week. Instead it can send the traveler back to 1999. For the brothers, that means one important thing. In the present, their mentally ill mother is institutionalized. They can go back to when she was in high school and resolve the family trauma that led to her years of addiction and mental illness. The brothers are not alone. Miles told his girlfriend, Maisie about the previous time traveling adventures. She comes with, hoping to resolve a family conflict of her own with her missing mother. The trio become embroiled in not only their own family histories but the origins of Omni whose members might be all too familiar to them.

In the first book, the focus was on adventure with some family drama thrown in. This one reverses that by devoting more time on the family drama and minimizing the adventure but still making it an important part.

There is deep trauma that is explored particularly with Miles and Simon's mother, Patty. When they left her, she was addicted to pills, spoke in monosyllables and non sequiturs, and committed self-harm. The years of being broken and non-functional took their toll. She is lost to her family in the present so the brothers want to change her past.

Once they see Patty's family, Simon and Miles understand their mother more. Before they pitied and cared for her. Miles in particular often nursed her when his father, Kip could not. However, as much as they missed the loving and involved woman that she briefly was when they were small, she is now a remote cypher to them. They can't break through her precarious vulnerable exterior and have given up trying to communicate with her. She is less a mother to them and more of an object of pity, concern, and frustration.

In the past, they see their mother as a feisty multifaceted emotional girl who is hurt at home and trying different means to detach herself from that hurt. The brothers focus on the causes of what made their mother turn out the way that she did rather than the effects of what it created. Patty is a person who had her life ahead of her and could have lived it openly and creatively with plenty of love, acceptance, and support but was stopped by  abusive and narcissistic parents. The boys have to rescue their mother not only from her toxic home but from herself and the woman that she turns into.

Patty isn't the only person that the boys and Maisie try to help. They try to prevent a tragedy in Kip’s young life that left him withdrawn and falling into self-isolation. Maisie also recognizes her parents' struggles and insecurities so she doesn't end up alone. The teens are given insights into their parents as people, kids like them who were uncertain, confused, awkward, idealistic, intelligent, rebellious, immature, curious, surly, argumentative, cynical, and ready to challenge the world that their kids would later inherit. They are going through the same struggles about identity, acceptance, and belonging that their children are going through in the 2020’s.

There are  other aspects of the book that shine. There are  humorous moments when Simon, Miles, and Maisie go to the past and gape at the weird fashions, old fashioned technology, and the music. There are also clever references about the time period that border on nostalgic.

The adventure also goes through some fascinating twists, climaxes, and resolutions. The trio are stalked by enemies that use a variety of means like threats, manipulation, and feigning friendship to find their technology, divide, and destroy them.

It's also interesting to see Omni in its earlier form as a small organization with few employees but nefarious goals before its 2020's incarnation as a widespread conspiracy with various members, outlets, and schemes. We also see how the agents got involved with this organization, why they joined, and why they stayed when conscience should have told them otherwise. Similar to their parents, the kids see their adversaries as people who had reasons for what they did and could have lived different lives. Instead they chose a path that led to financial gain, corruption, violence and self-destruction.

Time Fixers is a brilliant book about how choice and trauma shaped our past and created our present. It also happens to be a great thrilling adventure to spend time with. 

Weight of a Woman by Judith Jackson-Pomeroy; Substantial Characters Counter Light Development

 

Weight of a Woman by Judith Jackson-Pomeroy; Substantial Characters Counter Heavy Length 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: There is an old trick or piece of advice with storytelling. It’s “Tell people what you are going to tell them. Tell them. Then tell them what you already told them.” It works well when you are writing short works like a review, a political column, even a short story or a novella. It doesn’t work so well when you are trying to write a longer work like a novel. That’s the biggest problem with Judith Jackson-Pomeroy’s novel Weight of a Woman, a romance with fascinating leads but not enough to do that changes them.

Sara Wolfe is a Women’s Studies college professor and outspoken Feminist. She is a popular teacher and bonds with her students. She is in a long term but open relationship with Tom, another professor and has close friends in Jane, director of the Women’s Resource Center and Marco, an award winning poet. Even though she is well respected at this university, she has her sights set on a Wellesley fellowship. However, her seemingly perfect life hides some disturbing secrets. While attending a concert with her friends, Sara becomes enamored with Seth, a rock singer who is also one of her students. As if a romance with a student wasn’t controversial enough, Seth also has secrets of his own that could jeopardize his career and his relationship with Sara. 

The sad part is Weight of a Woman is actually very good, particularly in terms of characterization. The core romance is between two people who are seriously damaged and are in desperate need of psychiatric care. The type of romance that could strengthen or tear them apart and this book suggests that this s in danger of doing both. 

Sara projects an image of great confidence, wisdom, and integrity who courageously shares her convictions and stands by them. But that image disguises the troubled broken soul underneath. Her relationship with Tom is very toxic and emotionally abusive as Tom condescends her with his misogynistic and homophobic views and chips away at her Feminist views as a means of control. 

She is riddled with insecurities and anxiety that manifests itself as severe Anorexia. She starves herself and degrades her own appearance. In social situations, where she has to be seen eating, she chews her food, but doesn’t swallow. Instead, she empties it out into a napkin.

Sara is also a sexual assault survivor which has given her massive PTSD and trust issues. She can’t trust the men that she’s involved with and often has a hard time trusting herself. She stands as a paragon of Feminist values because they represent the type of woman that she wants to be, not the woman that she actually is.

 Even though Seth expresses his views through his songs and is just as committed to his beliefs as Sara is to hers, he has problems of his own. His music career is at a crossroads and he is torn between staying true to his artistic integrity and signing with a major label to get more money and exposure but selling out. 

Similar to Sara, Seth also has self-destructive tendencies. He has a history of cutting and is addicted to various drugs. Like Sara, he also projects an air of charisma and creative defiance, but his addictions reveal his vulnerabilities. He can't hide the needle marks on his arms or scars on his body just like Sara can't hide her dangerously thin weight.

Sara and Seth are memorable characters, either alone or together. This book is a brilliant character study of this pair.The conflicts are interesting because they expose their frailties and leave them at their most naked, honest, and defenseless. Unfortunately, Sara and Seth are hampered by constant repetition and little changes in their development. 

There are only so many times where we can hear the characters argue about the same things over and over. Marco and Jane arrange various interventions for Sara so often that they are practically scheduled. Sara and Seth confront one another about their addictions but these confrontations appear to have little bearing since they still fall into them. Yes, that happens often in real life where people often don't seek help or have the same issues and this book brilliantly explores that. But at the same time, it also stands as a red flag for why Sara and Seth might not be good for each other. 

Their disagreements about the trajectory towards Seth’s recording career, particularly his selling out, are almost hypocritical on Sara’s part since she too desires to ascend to a higher position with more money. Also they are divided by different views on sexuality which is a huge wedge between them that becomes more prominent the more they argue about it.

The book could benefit from a tighter narrative structure with more character self reflection and evolution. While individually, Seth and Sara are intriguing and could be a compatible happy couple, they could just as easily break up. They already have plenty of emotional baggage and different views on how they see their future. Because of having the same arguments and discussions, they can’t seem to reconcile them. A late complication suggests happiness, but it could just as easily lead to more strife and trouble. 

Because of the little change in character, Pomeroy does them a huge disservice. She gives plenty of good reasons why they need to work on themselves and get some serious psychiatric and emotional help separated or at least as friends. But she doesn’t give us enough good reasons why we should be rooting for them to stay together. 

The Others (Book 1 in the Council Trilogy) by Evette Davis; Blue by Charles Keatts; The Blind Smith (Book 1 in the Forge Trilogy in The Shadow Guardian Series) by G. Russell Gaynor; Eveningstar: Awakening by Samantha Curl

 The Others (Book 1 in the Council Trilogy) by Evette Davis; Blue by Charles Keatts; The Blind Smith (Book 1 in the Forge Trilogy in The Shadow Guardian Series) by G. Russell Gaynor; Eveningstar: Awakening by Samantha Curl 

The Others (Book 1 in The Council Trilogy) by Evette Davis

The entire review can be found on LitPick.

Evette Davis’ The Others is an intriguing concept that is illustrated with intrinsic copious details that fully explores it.

Political consultant Olivia Shepherd is suffering from a professional crisis when she encounters Elsa, a spirit called a Time Walker. Elsa informs her that her rival, Stoner Halbert has made a deal with a demon and is using that influence to grab power. As if that's not enough there is a hidden society called The Others: vampires, fairies, witches, ghosts, and other creatures. They live alongside our own and affect the human world around them. Olivia has some untapped abilities and must use them and her newfound friendships within the Others community to make some important political changes of their own, ones that will benefit humans and Otherkind not dominate it as Halbert wants to do.

The Others Society is captured brilliantly because it seems so much like the normal 21st century human society. The Others live in houses, have regular jobs, and go about their daily lives.

Once she is introduced to the concept, Olivia realizes that she is surrounded by The Others. Her best friend Lily, a teacher, is a fairy. William, a musician whom Olivia begins a relationship with, is a vampire. Gabriel, a multi billionaire who mentors Olivia, is a witch and so on.

There are also some other interesting facets to the plot. William and Olivia begin a tentative romance that is conflicted by differing views but a strong emotional and physical connection.

The political landscape is adequately explored and has some very timely relevance in an already eventful Presidential election year.

The Others takes a fascinating concept and lets the imagination run wild with it.

Blue by Charles Keatts

Blue by Charles Keatts is not an easy book to read. It's confusing, rambling, and disjointed, but it is also honest, introspective, and real. It shows the mental decline of a creative artist who is losing himself to addiction, depression, disconnection, and the despair felt by the people around him.

The Narrator mostly ruminates on his struggles and those of the people around him. They are highly artistic and highly troubled. There's Robert, a music critic, who falls into addiction and various love affairs. His painter friend, Ann soothes herself with heroin. The Narrator, a novelist and poet, has flashbacks of his unhappy youth and is overcome with depression, manic thoughts, and alcoholism. Other names and situations float through the book and disappear quickly as the Narrator’s sanity spirals.

This book is not an easy read. The narrative is confusing, repetitive, jumps from one point of view to another, and rambles on with little to no point. At times it comes across as boring. It tries for a stream of consciousness narration ala James Joyce or Virginia Woolf and sometimes it works but often it doesn't.

Blue works by capturing the slipping sanity of a brilliant but unraveling mind. The Narrator can't keep his thoughts together so it shows in the chapters. He repeats himself, tangles his thoughts, forgets names and places. Even his descriptions of Robert and Ann are causes for concern because The Narrator purposely leaves information out. It is unclear who Robert and Ann even are in his life. Are they friends of his? Is he Robert? Are they parts of his psyche? Fictional characters whose conflicts bleed into his own? We don't know and it is left to interpretation.

At times however, the narration is too complex and pretentious for its own good.

Blue contrasts with another recent book, blue: season by Chris Lombardi which also captures a stream of consciousness narration but does it better than Blue. blue: season is also narrated by a character who is a genius but has a fractured mind but this is a book with a character and plot. It doesn't lose focus so it can tell a good story along with a smart introspective narrative. We care about the characters and want to explore this strange journey into one woman's struggle with mental illness and traumatic memories of her past.

Blue on the other hand is more concerned with showing off the narration than putting it together in a book. It's hard to understand who the Narrator is or who the other characters are partly because of the limited perspective. We only see everyone through the Narrator's eyes. They all live miserable lives and that's it. The bleakness overpowers and since The Narrator jumps around, we can't really know the characters beyond mere sketches. The misery just piles on them without any full understanding of who they are as people or a reason why we should care about them when they reach rock bottom.

Blue is hard to comprehend and sometimes hard to care about, but it is an introspective and honest book about a brilliant mind that is falling apart. As those around him suffer from their own problems, he has to deal with his own heartaches and disappointments. The Narrator lives inside his own head and finds solace in his writing. If in fact, Robert and Ann are fictional characters that he created, he is perhaps using their addictions and psychological problems to confront or even avoid his own. 

As his life and the other's collapse, The Narrator who once found solace in his own mind can no longer trust it. He completely retreats into the fragmented remains in his mind as they slip away into nothingness. 

The Blind Smith (Book 1 in the Forge Trilogy in The Shadow Guardian Series) by G. Russell Gaynor

Note: This book was not selected because of current events. This schedule was made beforehand. Use caution when reading this review.

Even though G. Russell Gaynor’s The Blind Smith is 112 pages, it is a tightly wound and taut thriller about betrayal, revenge, and using one's own abilities and power to get that revenge.

An assassin blinds teen tech billionaire John J.J. Moore and kills members of his security team. He is taken in by Bob, a mysterious figure who teaches the young man how to be an assassin. Within a few years, J.J. excels in his training and recruits some new assassins to help him plan his revenge on the people who attacked him and killed his friends.

The opening chapter begins with a violent attack and there are some other subsequent action oriented chapters. However, the emphasis in this book is on gathering intelligence and planning strategies. Fighting harder takes a backseat to fighting smarter.

J.J. is particularly skilled in the whole “fighting smarter” mindset. He fits the description of someone who “plays 3D chess while his opponents play checkers.” In the beginning of the book, he is taught to use his other senses to become a formidable fighter ala Daredevil.

This style not only sharpens his physical strength but his mental strength too. He almost obtains a second sight and awareness into his allies and opponents's thoughts and actions.

With J.J.’s physical strength and analytical prowess, he is more than formidable against his enemies. Half way through the book only a few years into his training, he is already recruiting and leading his own groups. He picks into his protegee’s desires for revenge and anger at being wronged.

He helps his new recruits channel their anger into being a fighting team that makes up for the deficiencies that he lacks. They will be his force for revenge over the enemies who attacked him and the traitors that allowed it.

The Blind Smith is a brilliant game between a genius who is conditioned to fight and those who he is conditioned to fight against.

Eveningstar: Awakening by Samantha Curl 

Samantha Curl’s first Eveningstar novel, Awakening, skillfully tells three separate stories with the same characters. Curl then entwines them into one wide reaching expansive Epic High Fantasy that passes through three universes.

Alethia Eveningstar is the daughter of The God of War and Queen of the Stars and is destined to defeat Kakaron, God of Chaos before she can inherit her father's title. Kakaron seduces and betrays Alethia before making an escape. The Goddess-to-Be has to live ten or eleven lives encountering and fighting Kakaron before their final battle. Most of the book is set during two of those lives: Our Realm, where she is a high school girl in modern times discovering magic powers while dealing with new friendships, romance, and studies and the Other Realm, a Medieval like forest where her powers manifest as she is involved in a love triangle between her betrothed and a handsome and familiar stranger.

For a short novel of 178 pages, a lot is accomplished in an impressive manner. Curl devotes enough time to all three universes to give us ideas of the plots, settings, and characters and how they overlap and interact with each other. 

With time and interdimensional travel and the decision to set alternating chapters into different worlds, Awakening can be a very difficult book to follow. But thankfully many plot points parallel each other enough so if it already happened in one universe, the Reader will expect it to happen in another.

The key is to make each universe unique from the others and Curl does this superlatively. We know that Alethia and Kakaron are destined to encounter each other in each universe. 

There are also friends, relatives, authority figures, and romantic rivals that carry over in amusing ways. It gets to the point where the Reader goes “Okay there's this character in Our Realm. She should appear in the Other Realm right about..now.” It becomes an interesting game to see how quickly the characters' doppelgangers appear and in what way plots shift in the various worlds.

There are some interesting twists to keep Readers from expecting or assuming too much. One character strangely can jump from universe to universe so instead of being a reincarnated soul or a double, he's the same person in all three worlds and is able to teach Our World Alethia this ability so she can see what her Other Realm counterpart can. The circumstances of how Alethia and Kakaron meet, what forms they take, who seduced who, and how they discover the truth are different each time. Different enough that in one universe, Kakaron’s reveal is a genuine surprise. It keeps the momentum going in this strange novel.

Eveningstar: Awakening has a lot of fun playing with the laws of time and space and taking the Reader along with it.