2021 Novel Reviews – Baskerville Book Reviews

Review: The Feathered Serpent

A Betrayed Archaeologist. A Ghost from the Past. A Dozen Worthy Sacrifices.

Expedition leader Hiram Kane is holed up in his native England recovering from wounds both physical and mental, when his family receives a mysterious anonymous letter that dredges up nightmares from the past. Could it also offer a ray of unexpected hope?

Across the globe beneath a forgotten Aztec pyramid, a disillusioned archaeology professor is about to unleash his wrath.

How? Brutally murdering a dozen innocent victims in an ancient sacrificial ritual.

When the modern and ancient worlds collide and the unhinged professor starts committing unimaginable blood-spilling atrocities on the adolescent virgins, Kane is forced to make an impossible choice.

Can he sacrifice the love of his life to save the innocent girls?

Review: The Shadow of Kailash

Criminals are getting rich.
Terrorists are getting powerful.
Women are getting killed…and worse.

Hiram Kane travels to India to honour the life of his murdered best friend. But Kane’s world is soon plunged into turmoil when a psychotic people trafficker kidnaps Alexandria Ridley, the love of his life, and disappears into the mighty Himalayas. What begins as a risky rescue mission turns into a chilling foray into the world of weapons and drugs trading, sexual slavery and human trafficking – and culminates in a deadly race against time across the top of the world into Chinese-occupied Tibet.

With lives on the line and the future of Buddhism in jeopardy, must Kane make the ultimate sacrifice?

Review: The Tiger Temple

A betrayed criminal. A kidnapped child. A deadly race against time.

On the Island of the Gods, expedition leader Hiram Kane is on holiday after a long season guiding in the Peruvian Andes.

When a good friend’s greed leads him to betray Bali’s most notorious gangster, their peaceful community is left shell-shocked after the six-year-old daughter of its leader gets kidnapped in a vicious and violent raid.

What follows is a whirlwind race across the paradise island to rescue the girl before “The Rooster” takes his sadistic revenge, and with the waking giant of volcanic Mt. Agung threatening to destroy them all, Kane risks everything to prevent a devastating tragedy.

Review: The Keening

“The mist will fall and the keening heard, when the banshee calls none shall be spared.”

The mist has fallen over Killimor, a rural village in Galway, Ireland. Wailing noises are heard in the depth of it, traveling around the town and instilling fear in all who hear it. No one knows what the cause of it is or what it could mean.

No one, that is, except old Malachy O’Neill. He feels that the banshee, who took his wife away many years ago, has returned and is coming for his family once more. The trouble is no one will believe him. Dismissed as a superstitious old man, he has no choice but to watch the horror unfold in front of him.

Can anyone do anything to stop the impending doom, and silence the keening once and for all?

Review: The Broken Heart of Arelium

Some Things Must Never Be Forgotten.

Over 400 years ago, twelve great warriors united the beleaguered armies of men and scoured the war-torn lands of evil, pushing the enemy back into the underground pits and caverns from whence they came. To ensure their legacy, each of the Twelve founded fortress monasteries to impart their unique knowledge of war and politics to a select few, the Knights of the Twelve.

But now the last of the Twelve have long since passed from history to legend and the Knights, their numbers dwindling, are harbouring a dark and terrible secret that must be protected at all costs.

Merad Reed has spent half his life guarding a great crater known as the Pit, yearning for some escape from the bleak monotony. Then the arrival of Aldarin, one of the few remaining Knights of the Twelve, sets off a chain of cataclysmic events that will change Reed forever.

To the north, Jelaïa del Arelium, heiress to the richest of the nine Baronies, must learn to navigate the swirling political currents of her father’s court if she hopes one day to take his place. But the flickering flames of ambition hide the shadow of an even greater threat.

And deep within the earth, something is stirring.

Review: Bridgefinders

We are losing a war we don’t even know is being fought. A war over magic. On one side the Slyph, an immensely powerful magical being who rules the Echo World. On the other, the Bridgefinders, an ancient order of men and women. A war that the humans are losing. When Cendan Key, a new Bridgefinder is discovered, he wants nothing to do with it. But he alone can change the course of a war that has the highest stakes ever, the planet itself.

Review: Blinded by the Light

Good girl Danyelle Fitzgerald’s perfect image is shattered the moment she crashes into Ian Fogg’s car at a stop sign. An unexpected agreement and the lure of the handsome and witty Ian leave Danyelle’s head spinning and her heart in danger. The more she tries to learn about Ian, the more he resists. What is he hiding and why does he have Danyelle questioning her own morals? Are his secrets too much for this good girl to handle?

Review: The Dolocher

A string of grisly murders… A scared and superstitious populace… An investigator desperate for redemption…

When murders in the poverty-stricken Liberties begin to be credited to a savage dark beast with the soul of a recently deceased serial killer, Alderman James knows he must take on the case. He sees an all too human hand at work and is determined to win over the people he once let down so badly.

With only the duplicitous and deceitful Hellfire Club member, Mr. Edwards, for assistance, James ventures out in the cold, snowy streets in search of the true killer. Can he solve the case and redeem himself once and for all? Or will the fear and anger in the streets finally boil over into chaos?

If you like serial killer and detective stories in a historical setting, you’ll love this book.

Review: The Vow That Twisted Fate

A world without evil is all Queen Arlena has ever known. But when an ominous pentagram appears in the sky, her innocent days of blissful court life, playing politics with other races, and daydreaming of marrying the stoic elven prince Talen come to an abrupt end.

When an eerily familiar phantasm warns her of the imminent collision of a parallel world ruled by an ancient sorceress, Arlena must confront the true nature of not only her own world, but her very existence. Calling a company of legendary dwarven warriors forward into her time, Arlena and her allies must brave a world they are completely unprepared for in order to save their own. Will the naïve Queen and her companions be able to stop the invasion without being forever changed in the process?

Review: The Monster’s in the Details

Are monsters born, or do bad actors take shattered people and shape them like putty, molding them into unrecognizable shapes?

The Otherworld. Made up of Dayside and Nightside and separated by the Twilit Boundary, the Otherworld is a plane of existence lost from time, bursting with magic and vibrant life.

Kal floats on the verge of life and death, struggling to find a reason to keep on living. In an odd turn of events, Kal’s sylph familiar, Bell, may care more about keeping him alive than he does. Bell makes a deal with the merfolk on Kal’s behalf to save him from a fatal wound, but in doing so the wily fishes curse him to do their bidding.

To avoid his being killed outright by either the faery king Oberon, or Bell’s possessive father, Lord Eurius, Bell urges Kal to create his own legitimacy by leveraging faery politics for his own ends. At the pagan festival of Samhain, the last harvest, Bell pushes Kal to declare himself a champion.

More than a hundred champions galavant across the Otherworld in search of a kingly title shrouded in mystery and dark deceit, the mantle of the Seven Year King.

Kal will undergo his own crucible along his path of thorns. Tests, trials, and tribulations will force him to wrestle with his nature and face himself fully, warts and all. If he survives, Kal will emerge clothed in legitimacy and empowered to pursue his own ends.