Psychological – Page 7 – Baskerville Book Reviews

Review: The Impassioned Choice

A new villain emerges, threatening the peace the immortals crave….

Heden, the youngest Vampyre royal, has always strived to live up to his sovereign duty.

As the most gifted programmer in the immortal world, he applies his skills to protect the kingdom and the family he adores. But his siblings have all settled down with families of their own, and Heden often feels like a perpetual third wheel.

Wracked with guilt after her grandfather’s violent death, Sofia Morelli made a sinister pact with an unknown ally. Utilizing her tech ingenuity to plan the ultimate attack against the immortal royals, she begins to realize they might not be the nefarious enemies she believed them to be.

As Heden discovers the new adversaries and learns someone on the Secret Society shares his hacking prowess, he realizes the human, Sofia, might actually hold the key to defeating them. Determined to turn the feisty woman to his side, he employs his jovial nature and seduction skills to win her over. But when their tentative connection turns into something more, Heden understands a coding war isn’t the only thing he could lose to the spunky human. For, he might just lose his heart to someone who can never share his immortal future….

The Etherya’s Earth series is best listened to in order so the listener can enjoy the evolution of the characters. After all, the author loves a good twist and wants the listener to uncover them organically. However, listeners of romance rest assured that each book has its own featured hero/heroine and HEA.

Review: Love in an Undead Age

Surviving the zombie apocalypse was hard but finding true love might be fatal.

Urban farmer Miranda Tucci is lucky to be alive in what’s left of California’s Silicon Valley, despite a love life that’s dead on arrival. Then an old flame turns up and she wonders…does her DOA love life have a pulse?

A ruthless governing council controls the cure for the zombie virus. If Miranda joins a plot to steal it, will the vaccine be used for political advantage, or can she survive long enough to usher in a new age of civilization? It’s only the fate of humanity suddenly resting on her shoulders.

If she can bring her love life back from the dead how tough can saving the world be?

Review: Randomize

In the near future, if Vegas games are ingeniously scam-proof, then the heists have to be too, in this imaginative and whip-smart story by the New York Times bestselling author of The Martian.

An IT whiz at the Babylon Casino is enlisted to upgrade security for the game of keno and its random-number generator. The new quantum computer system is foolproof. But someone on the inside is no fool. For once the odds may not favor the house – unless human ingenuity isn’t entirely a thing of the past.

Andy Weir’s Randomize 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: The Wonderful World of Scary Ass Shit

Your parents are lying bags of dicks, everything you ever had a nightmare about is real, and probably was hiding under your bed.

Parallel dimensions exist, let’s get that out of the way right now. What matters more is that something is causing them to merge. A process, to put it bluntly, that can only be described as slamming one’s tit in the proverbial plane of existence’s door… or simply put, maximum unpleasantness in all the wrong places.
Monsters, creatures, anything really that can trigger that burning fear sensation that makes you wish you were already dead, they are real. Like real-real, like really-really real. Trust me, but also no one… see what I did there? The Aurora Wasteland seems to be the epicenter of it all. A focal point for the strange and weird. It’s an area that lives beyond man-made borders. A place made up of people you wouldn’t want to meet. People you wouldn’t want to be, because escaping from the nightmare that is the Aurora Wasteland, well, that’s just not possible.

Logan, Gabe, Monahan, and Jeff are and have been best friends since childhood, only they’ve never met, except they have and know everything and nothing about each other. Perfect stranger and the tightest of friends. Makes sense? Because it shouldn’t, it doesn’t to them.

Not that any of that matters, because as their dimension merges with another, they seem to be the only ones that remember anything about it… the old dimension that is. Even then, only their memories remain, while their lives have been swapped out like a saggy bag of gold. Merged with the them from the new dimension. It’s ok to be confused, none of it makes sense to them either, even if it should.

Then there is Patty, the fifth friend they didn’t even know they had, except they did. Patty knew it was coming and tried to stop it, The Merge that is. Only he failed and died graphically for it. Dragging the knowledge he had about everything to his grave. Now the four friends have to figure out how to try to pry themselves out of this dimension and to get home if it’s even possible. All while navigating their new lives, relationships, and the strange and weird known as The Aurora Wasteland, that just keeps pulling them in deeper.

Lost and with little to go on, a book by the title of TETHERED is found to be left specifically for them. A book written by the so-called discoverer of The Aurora Wasteland. A book whose contents may seemingly be more important to them than they know.

It’s ok to be confused and scared, but I should warn you, if you’re reading this, then it’s already too late. The Aurora Wasteland has you. It knows you. There is no escape. Trust me, because well… it’s better you just figure out what’s going on, for your own sake and sanity. Read, watch, listen, do that you have to do, consume it all. Because you’ll need it.

Review: The Darkness Within

Arderin, princess of the illustrious Vampyre kingdom, has always marched to the beat of her own drum. Motivated by a calling to heal others, frustration consumes her since her brother King Sathan doesn’t understand her desire to study medicine in the human world. Moreover, the son of the Dark Lord Crimeous has moved to their compound, and he seems obsessed with driving her absolutely insane. Hating him for his sharp tongue and dark nature, she tries to squelch her unwelcome attraction to him.

Darkrip has been enthralled by Arderin since the night he knocked her unconscious and sent her down the river, prompting the end of the War of the Species. Never has he met a woman more beautiful and passionate. Frustrated by her dramatics, and consumed by his desire for her, he vows to stay away. For, the son of Crimeous, with his malevolent blood, could never have children or a normal life.

When Crimeous threatens both their lives, forcing them into a shared captivity, they do everything possible to escape and survive. As their connection grows, so does their attraction. Knowing they have no future together and the consequences of furthering their relationship would be disastrous, they forge ahead in the conflict against the Dark Lord. But the universe is fickle and can muddle with even the best-laid intentions…

The Etherya’s Earth series is best listened to in order so that the listener can enjoy the evolution of the characters. After all, the author loves a good twist and wants the listener to uncover them organically. However, fans of romance – rest assured, each book has its own featured hero/heroine and HEA.

Review: Siphon

There is an urge inside you….

Dr. Gary Phillips, the resident hematopathologist at Claybrook Medical Center, is a lonely man struggling with the duress of an all-work and no-play lifestyle.

Burdened with an unhealthy infatuation with his co-worker, a burning disdain for his boss, and an abusive relationship with his grandfather, Gary just can’t catch a break.

That is, until a workplace accident ushers in a bizarre but empowering experience that evokes a new sense of self, forcing repressed memories to surface while encouraging him to pursue his fantasies with unconventional methods.

Review: The Elusive Sun

Lila, a high born aristocrat of the Vampyre kingdom, was betrothed to Sathan, King of the Vampyres, for a thousand years. Although she cared for Sathan and loved him as her king, secretly her heart yearned for his brother. When Sathan falls for another, Lila ends the betrothal, terrified at what her life will become now that she won’t be queen.

Latimus has loved Lila since they played on the grassy riverbank as children. Knowing his brother was the better man, he never begrudged his betrothal to the woman he secretly loved. Now that Sathan has married another, Latimus becomes aware of Lila’s feelings. Believing his war-ravaged soul will never deserve her, he vows to push her toward a worthier man.

As the war against the Deamons rages, Latimus fights the Dark Lord Crimeous. When Lila suffers a brutal attack, Latimus is shaken to his core. Resolved to avenge her, he acknowledges the emotion that has always burned for her in his blackened heart. But Lila has moved on, and as the war ensues, he worries it might be too late to claim her…

**Second chance romance lovers, this one’s for you! The Etherya’s Earth fantasy romance series is best read in order although each book does have its own featured hero/heroine and HEA. Content information can be found on the author’s website.

Review: A Change of Seasons

John Winters hoped things would get better. But an unfortunate turn of events led him down a terrifying slippery slope in more ways than one. Reminiscing about his childhood, he rediscovered memories that would come back to haunt him. All he wanted was to find warmth and hope. In his race against time, John was forced to face his affliction and combat his fears. As he struggled, an unlikely saviour came in the form of a close friend, providing at least some solace and understanding. The question was whether it was too little, too late.

Review: The Wayfarer

The Wayfarer stands on the rim of insanity. Forgetting everything. Everyone.

He doesn’t know when the forgetting began, but the Shadow does. A doppelganger wreathed in darkness; a figure only he can see; it claims to know both why he is losing his mind, and the way to restore it. Wary, desperate, with what seems no other way open to him, the Wayfarer submits himself to the Shadow, its warning compelling him forward:

Move on.

Or wither.

As the Shadow leads the Wayfarer through sentient forests, the graveyards of dragons, and realms between realms, so too does it lead the way into his forgotten past, restoring fragments of memory throughout the journey. Only the memories are distorted, nightmarish. In them he sees his friends, his family — dead. Impossible. His friends are alive, aiding him on his journey. His family is safe, awaiting his return.

Disillusioned by these perversions of past, the Wayfarer decides the only way to salvation is within himself. Aided by a psychoactive mixture, he descends into his subconscious, seeking the truth of his unravelling mind, the memory of his madness’ beginning.

You are not ready.

Though the Wayfarer can sense the truth lurking within the abyss of his subconscious, something in the Shadow’s words waylays him. Something in the Shadow’s words holds a truth of its own, warring with the truth within himself.

Frustrated, fearful, his mind fraying at its seams, the Wayfarer stands now on the rim of a choice: to trust the Shadow, to hope on a fool’s hope that its way was the way to remedy; or to forsake it, to do as he willed and seek resolution his own way, risking that it may very well be the way to ruin.

Review: Sunwise

Sunwise is the sequel to Helen Steadman’s best-selling novel Widdershins. Both novels were inspired by the Newcastle witch trials, where 16 people were hanged. Despite resulting in the largest mass execution of witches on a single day in England, these trials are not widely known about.

Sunwise continues the story of women’s struggle for survival in a hostile and superstitious world. Spurred on by the successful execution of 17 proven witches, the witchfinder travels north to Berwick, where he continues his quest to rid the world of evil. But will he hoodwink the Berwick authorities as easily as those in Newcastle?

Sunwise begins after the Newcastle witch trials as Jane Chandler’s lover, Tom Verger, returns from the navy to find her unhappily married to his betrayer. Jane is caught in an impossible situation. Still reeling from the loss of her mother at the hands of the witchfinder, Jane has no choice but to continue her dangerous work as a healer while keeping her young daughter safe. As Tom seeks a way for him and Jane to be together, the Scottish witchfinder is still at large. Filled with vengeance, John Sharpe will stop at nothing in his sworn mission to free the world from the scourge of witchcraft.

The Historical Novel Society said of Sunwise: “The novel is rich in fascinating details: Jane’s remedies and the village customs, partly Christian, partly pagan. Ancient names for plants and festivities, both seasonal and Christian, add colour to the narrative. Jane’s story is based on true events, and Jane represents the many women whose healing gifts made them victims of superstition and violence.”

Recommended for anyone who has enjoyed Stacey Halls’ The Familiars, Beth Underdown’s The Witchfinder’s Sister, AK Blakemore’s The Manningtree Witches, Elizabeth Lee’s Cunning Women, Louisa Morgan’s A Secret History of Witches, Jeanette Winterson’s The Daylight Gate, Madeline Miller’s Circe, or Deborah Harkness’ A Discovery of Witches.