Series – Page 17 – Baskerville Book Reviews

Review: Siren Calls

A search for answers. A long-held secret. A call to destiny.

If you knew your life was about to change for better or possibly a lot worse, would you still go looking for answers?

Evangeline is an orphan, with no memory of her life before she wound up in a children’s home.

Now at 18, she is free in the world, with a burning desire to unravel the mysteries of her past. What she unlocks changes her life forever.

The Fates take her out of the only world she has ever known and into the lives of the gifted.

Is it all she ever dreamed of, or were the nightmares that have plagued her for the past 10 years about to become all too real?

Review: Black Jade

Could an old-fashioned ballgown be used to commit murder?

Daiyu Wu is aware that fear of the Yellow Terror has made her nationality a rare breed in the Lone Star State. Being Chinese and blind makes her doubly unique in 1930 Dallas. Despite these impediments, anyone who dismisses her for either fact does so at their peril.

One day, at her family-owned laundry business, Dai detects the scent of burned garlic. With the help of her companion, Jacques, the source is soon discovered. It is a green ballgown. The gown has money pinned inside it to pay for the cleaning, but oddly, it came with no address label to identify its owner. Her extensive knowledge leads Dai to believe someone has committed murder using arsenic. The perpetrator is trying to use White Laundry to hide the evidence. But no mention of foul play turns up in the newspapers, and there’s not enough proof to convince the police there’s been a crime.

Her curiosity and intellect stimulated like never before; Dai ignores the possible consequences and sets out to solve the mystery with the help of her canine companion, Prince Razor, and her confidant, Jacques Haskins. It’s either that or let the killer get away with it – assuming a spoiled popinjay, his jealous self-appointed girlfriend, and Dai’s overprotective parents don’t get in her way.

Review: Heirs of Vanity

John Boorman’s Excalibur meets R.A. Salvatore’s Homeland in this epic sword and sorcery fantasy. This volume contains the first three books: Roland’s Path, Roland’s Vow, and Roland’s Triumph.

When two servants of evil escape during young Roland’s watch, he is driven by his own shame and vanity to take up his axes and track them down himself. With the help of his lifelong friend Eldryn, the Cavalier hopeful, and an uneasy bargain with a dagger-wielding cutpurse, Roland pursues a wizard of unknown powers and a woman of uncommon beauty and skill.

In Roland’s world of Stratvs, vanity has a high price. A price paid with the blood of the innocent and the guilty. Around him, swords once pledged to justice rust on the altars of the self-righteous. Join Roland and friends as they take to the seas of Stratvs and discover an exotic city that exists in the shadow of harsh laws and savage practices.

Roland will face trials that will test not only his physical strength, but his own code of honor, as well. Roland’s constitution continues to be forged as he struggles against the evils of the world and his own pride. But will his efforts be enough to save a land besieged by raiding armies and a people starved of hope?

Review: Blood Parish

How does the disappearance of 19 high school baseball players remain a mystery for 30 years?

Angel Blondeaux had been taught since birth to never betray family, only to escape the clutches of home to become an FBI agent. For generations, Blondeaux has been the name to respect in Moreau Parish and the name to fear. Crime is no longer a part of life, but a lifestyle woven into the fabric of the parish. So, when Angel Blondeaux had graduated Quantico, she was rejected by the family like a bad organ.

The matriarch of the Blondeaux clan is Angel’s grandmother Paulette. Paulette’s successor was to be Angel’s aunt Lorna, until her mysterious death places the role of heir up for grabs. The FBI forces Angel to return home for her aunt’s funeral, only to discover a new will has been drafted, leaving Angel the house and an immense plot of land, along with the buried secrets of the missing baseball players.

Review: Arianna and the Spirit of the Storm

Magic has made her an outcast. Only she can save her kingdom. She has so much to learn.

Arianna’s world was turned upside down on the day her father died. His dying wish was that she finish his quest to end the drought that started on the day she was born.

A mysterious spirit echoes his call, urging her into the unknown.

She only knows one thing for certain: This journey will cost her everything.

Review: Fires that Forge

Murder. Betrayal. Magic? One knight takes up his hammer to hunt a killer concealed. When dark arts and faith face off, will sorcery or swordsmanship win out? What chance can a mere mortal have against vampires and demonic forces? Is King’s Inquisitor Dunewell prepared to break the laws he has sworn to serve to discover and defeat a master of shrouded evil? Where is the line between hero and villain, saint and sinner?

Kingdom of Lethanor, 1648. Inquisitor Dunewell stands strong in a city scarred by corruption. A true warrior for justice, the newly assigned investigator jumps into the fray when a close physician friend is accused of murder. Vowing to find the real monster, he enters a deadly race against time and the tip of the executioner’s blade.

Ordered by superiors to wrap up the case quickly, the honorable man-at-arms digs deeply into clues pointing to demons and forbidden powers. But as more aristocrats are found brutally slain and vampire attacks foment mayhem, Dunewell must hunt down a magical foe before his city falls into violent madness.

Fires that Forge is the first book in the gripping Lords of Order & Chaos epic fantasy series, one of four series in the Bloodlines Reforged Saga. If you like thrilling mysteries, hidden enemies, and fast-paced action, then you’ll love R. J. Hanson’s sword and sorcery tale.

Review: Egris and the Silence of the Storm

Fifteen years before I joined Arianna on her quest to break the curse and end the drought, I was just a simple Faun trying to keep my family alive.

After the day the rain stopped, I was forced to make some difficult decisions. I never could have guessed those decisions would have such a profound impact on the entire Kingdom of Idril…

Review: Ageless Fury

Within Ava, within Kel Doran – something has awakened….

The Caro Expedition is under way, but the journey will not be without peril for the mysterious warrior and those she leads. Their goal: To plunder the secrets of Valshyr, unlock its past, and search for answers within the mist.

Meanwhile, in Wyvern’s Rest, Ava has her freedom, but it may cost her more than she can bear. She and the other survivors are left battered and broken as tremors plague their helpless city, pushed to the brink as darkness infests the Outer Quarter. Put to the test, Ava will have to choose between her freedom and the city’s survival. Which will she choose?

The epic adventure continues in book two of the Mists of Kel Doran Fantasy Series!

Review: Ring of Fire

Humans and Mystics have been at war for as long as Kala can remember. For this reason, contact with any of the magical creatures that inhabit the forest near her home is punishable by death.

So when an elf rescues her from being kidnapped by his brother, she has good reason to question his motives. That is, until she learns the truth: that it was a human who killed her mother, not a Mystic, and that she and the whole kingdom are being lied to.

But confiding in the wrong person opens old wounds, and Kala must choose between her family and a blossoming romance. Can her love unite their people? Or has she doomed everyone she cares about?

Review: The Weave of Fate

The city of Wyvern’s Rest has fallen…

The feud between the capital cities of Cambridge and Sephyra has reached a boiling point, leaving the former “Jewel of the Highlands” a ghost of its former glory. Those with the means to live and the will to dream have already fled the city. Those lacking remain, condemned to bury their sorrow while the walls crumble around them. Lawlessness and poverty have overtaken the streets, and as the days grow longer, the shadows of the abandoned Outer Quarter loom ever darker.

Ava spends her days tethered to her prison, the belly of an old, stone inn, overlooking the docks and the familiar, sea-side market. She leans on her friends for innocent laughter and talk of unimportant things. Every day, the tavern fills with the hopes and dreams of those fleeing for brighter horizons; and every day, Ava watches them leave with the simplest wish…to join them.

Little does she know, her fate is woven to the enormous, crimson carriage that creaks through the shadows of another forgotten morning. The odd-shaped man who emerges from the carriage carries two simple things: an old, leather satchel and a sinister secret. One will free Ava from her prison. One will forever seal her tomb.

Both will alter the course of Wyvern’s Rest forever.