July 2021 Reviews – Baskerville Book Reviews

Review: Who Did You Tell?

Astrid is newly sober and trying to turn her life around. Having reluctantly moved back in with her mother, in a quiet seaside town away from the temptations and darkness of her previous life , she is focusing on her recovery. She’s going to meetings. Confessing her misdeeds. Making amends to those she’s wronged. If she fills her days, maybe she can outrun the ghosts that haunt her. Maybe she can start anew.

But someone is tormenting me now. Someone knows where I am and what I’ve done.

Someone knows exactly what Astrid is running from. And they won’t stop until she learns that some mistakes can’t be corrected. Some mistakes, you have to pay for . . .

Review: Monster Hunter Bloodlines

The chaos god Asag has been quiet since the destruction of the City of Monsters, but Monster Hunter International know that he is still out there, somewhere—plotting, waiting for his chance to unravel reality.

When Owen and the MHI team discover that one of Isaac Newton’s Ward Stones is being auctioned off by Reptoids who live deep beneath Atlanta, they decide to steal the magical superweapon and use it to destroy Asag once and for all. But before the stone can be handed off, it is stolen by a mysterious thief with ties to MHI and the Vatican’s Secret Guard.

It’s a race against time, the Secret Guard, a spectral bounty hunter, and a whole bunch of monsters to acquire the Ward Stone and use it against Asag. For as dangerous as the chaos god is, there is something much older—and infinitely more evil—awakening deep in the jungles of South America.

Review: Darkness Stabs: Dark World Book 1 Part 2

In this second part of Dark World Book I, Demons have escaped from the world below, spreading their darkness to the land of the living. David Gosling—a widow who entered the virtual world to escape his painful reality—finds himself at the center of the fight for survival when all he really wants to do is find the copy of his lost wife.

David makes a powerful ally and takes on the impossible task of arming a city—one far from ready to face the evil at the gates. Will David accept his role and find the magic within? Will he slice through the demon horde with the power of the ‘Blue Druid’?

“Take my blood for the war to come, David. Your human strength will not be enough to face the darkness below. My power will give you purpose and focus your mind. The bite is my gift to you, moon child.”

Review: A Clean Escape (Short Stories From Antaloor)

Es wäre nicht das erste Mal, dass der Kleinganove Ned sich aus einer aussichtslosen Lage befreit hätte. Doch diesmal scheint sich alles gegen ihn verschworen zu haben…

Review: Archer of the Heathland: Intrigue

rogue Duke, a beautiful woman, and a deadly mission.

Weyland, the best archer in the king’s army, wants revenge for the slaughter of his family. But when he stumbles across a murdered man with a secret and he saves a duke’s life in battle, he finds himself entangled in noble intrigues of the worst kind. A copper coin, a princess, and a beautiful tavern girl push Weyland’s skill and loyalty to the limit. Now Weyland has to survive long enough to fulfill his promise to the Duke without getting so deeply ensnared in noble intrigues that he cannot escape.

This novelette introduces the new adventure series Archer of the Heathland. Book One of the series, entitled Deliverance, picks up the story of Weyland’s son, Brion, and his desperate flight into the heathland.

This is an adventure series perfect for fans of John Flanagan’s Ranger’s Apprentice, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, T.H. White’s The Sword in the Stone, Christopher Paolini’s Eragon series, and George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Review: Lieutenant Dangerous : A Vietnam War Memoir

Jeff Danziger, one of the leading political cartoonists of his generation, captures the fear, sorrow, absurdity, and unintended but inevitable consequences of war with dark humor and penetrating moral clarity.

If there is any discipline at the start of wars it dissipates as the soldiers themselves become aware of the pointlessness of what they are being told to do.

A conversation with a group of today’s military age men and women about America’s involvement in Vietnam inspired Jeff Danziger to write about his own wartime experiences: “War is interesting,” he reveals, “if you can avoid getting killed, and don’t mind loud noises.”

Fans of his cartooning will recognize his mordant humor applied to his own wartime training and combat experiences: “I learned, and I think most veterans learn, that making people or nations do something by bombing or sending in armed troops usually fails.”

Near the end of his telling, Danziger invites his audience—in particular the young friends who inspired him to write this informative and rollicking memoir—to ponder: “What would you do?…Could you summon the bravery—or the internal resistance—to simply refuse to be part of the whole idiotic theater of the war?…Or would you be like me?”

Review: Whirlaway

Escapees from 9-5, two guys with innate skills for adventure sail to Hawaii for the good life. Robert Wintner chronicles the sweltering challenges in the fantasy chase on a 1-way trip to the secret life some men ponder and some live to regret. WHIRLAWAY is a repellent yet fascinating parable set in a free-booting era, delivering the beauty and the balm, the headwinds and breaking waves, the love and longing of distant shores. Adventure brings wayward souls home when least expected.
WHIRLAWAY is a tale for those who fail to toe the line, who seek a different dream, who roll the bones and go for broke. Martin and Jack know what they’ve been missing. Meant for more than dead-end jobs and withering youth, adrift in fading dreams and graying horizons, they reach a point-a wall facing a yacht harbor, where they smoke a joint to facilitate a vision. A big picture of balmy weather, women and money leaves only two questions: Why not? Why work, when they could be yachting?
Martin knows a guy who wants to fit in with those who don’t. Nuel is a brain surgeon, fairy godfather with a laser wand and an itch of his own. Nuel agrees to back a loan for a sailing yacht. It’s named for a racehorse, after all. Doctors do well on racehorses, so friends might as well embark on the tropical phase of their destiny. This vision too is facilitated.
Martin and Jack never had more than the wits between them, and though they ache from liquor and drug, they surge inside, casting off for open seas and a blue-sky promise. They inherit the wind and nothing more or less.

Review: The Deep, Deep Snow

Deputy Shelby Lake was abandoned as a baby, saved by a stranger who found her in the freezing cold. Now, years later, a young boy is missing – and Shelby is the one who must rescue a child.

The only evidence of what happened to 10-year-old Jeremiah Sloan is a bicycle left behind on a lonely road. After a desperate search fails to locate him, the close bonds of Shelby’s hometown begin to fray under the weight of accusations and suspicion. Everyone around her is keeping secrets. Her adoptive father, her best friend, her best friend’s young daughter – they all have something to hide. Even Shelby is concealing a mistake that could jeopardize her career and her future.

Unearthing the lies of the people in Jeremiah’s life doesn’t get the police and the FBI any closer to finding him. As time passes and the case grows cold, Shelby worries that the mystery will stay buried forever under the deep, deep snow. But even the deepest snow melts in the spring.

When a tantalizing clue finally comes to light, Shelby must confront the darkest lie of all. Exposing the truth about Jeremiah will leave no one’s life untouched – including her own.

Review: Emergency Skin (Forward collection)

What will become of our self-destructed planet? The answer shatters all expectations in this subversive speculation from the Hugo Award–winning author of the Broken Earth trilogy.

An explorer returns to gather information from a climate-ravaged Earth that his ancestors, and others among the planet’s finest, fled centuries ago. The mission comes with a warning: a graveyard world awaits him. But so do those left behind—hopeless and unbeautiful wastes of humanity who should have died out ages ago. After all this time, there’s no telling how they’ve devolved. Steel yourself, soldier. Get in. Get out. And try not to stare.

N. K. Jemisin’s Emergency Skin is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

Review: Curtain Call (Short Stories From Antaloor)

A traveling theater company and an actor with a dark secret. This explosive mixture meets the scheming aristocratic world in New Ashos – and misfortune takes its course.