Gone YA Trilogy review

McMann is back on track in this five-star finale of her trilogy as she delves into the emotions of teenagers Janie and Cabel as they have to make those angst filled decisions regarding their future.

The book begins with picking up on the end of book two. Having helped the police bust a teacher who was a child molester their cover is blown at school so to get away from the stares, side-wise looks and cat-calls of narc the two head for a remote cabin to spend time with relatives and consider what comes next. In the middle of the holiday Janie receive an urgent call from a neighborhood friend that she has had to rush Janie’s alcoholic mother to the hospital. Cabel drives Janie, still unable to drive herself because of the seizures she suffers while under the power of other’s dreams, only to find out the emergency is much different than they could have imagined.  The patient is Janie’s long-lost father.

Having never known her father and having lost her mother to a battle with alcoholism Janie is unsure what to do or feel. She sees inside her father’s dreams, his tormented mind as he lies dying from what is assumed a tumor of the brain. She settles for looking into his background and discovers a life she never imagined. She also discovers that her father had not been aware that her mother was pregnant when they split up. Realization, through dreams and facts shows her that he too was a dream catcher and had lived a life of isolation in order not to have to deal with the mind-blowing experiences that other people’s dreams lead to.

Janie realizes that the decision she had made to isolate - therefore not put Cabel through a relationship like she had learned from her mentor, Ms. Stubin, would lead to a life where by the time she turned mid-twenty would see her become crippled and blind because of the stress her body would take on from other’s dream resolutions – was not the correct decision too as apparently not using the gift turned you brain to mush just like her father. A decision awaits her both leading to equally terrible results but one has to be decided.

Can’t wait for the movie!

Fade - A YA Review

Working closely with her new employers, the local police department, Janie and her now boyfriend Cabel, the  undercover ‘narc’ at her high school, have  heard that there is the possibility of a pedophile teacher that needs to be set up.

Janie, through the powers allotted to her, manages to overhear inklings of this perv teacher through infiltrating the dreams of some of her schoolmates and then pinpoints Mr. Durbin, a popular science teacher, as the possible target. She allows herself to become ingratiatingly close to him and gets herself invited to a private party. Cabel meantime, just a teenager himself, has problems with his girlfriend getting this close, and looking like she is showing affection to the older man, even though he hears from Janie that she hates it. She also reminds him that in their last assignment he had allow himself to become close to one of female students in the drug bust he was working.

The party gets out of hand, there is alcohol served, HGB is in every liquid you can imagine and not only do we have basically a fill scale orgy there are two other males teachers frolicking with the female students. Now while all this is titillating and exciting to read, and nothing outside of the realms of what today’s teenagers have seen or heard from their peers, it did seem to be a little unlikely to me that this many teachers would be involved so openly and that a high school student would be allowed to be involved so much as the bait under these circumstances. It is for that reason that out of the three in the trilogy I only gave four stars to this book; the unbelievable meter took over.

Know what your teens are reading. Use these books as a talking point, something to help your teens understand some of the perils of youth so they can find answers just as the teens in this novel did, and enjoy this rip-roaring novel that you just can’t put down when you start.

Agent turned Author

When I began the search for the ever elusive (and still to this day nonexistant) literary agent I did as all novice authors do and perused the pages of Hermann's Guide to Publishers and Agents, looking atwho was at which  location and who seemed to be the best fit for my genre and personally. I came across on name, Rose Sefton. Not only did we seem to have a lot of things in common but she also lived in Phoenix AZ. Since I am in Tucson that was great. I could have my own agent and not have to fly to New York or other parts of the country. I immediately sent all the required information and patiently waited. I figured she was a one man shop and probably busy. After three weeks I made a call and found out to my chagrin that not only did Rose no longer reside in Arizona but because of an aciudent was no longer prepared to my a literary agent. She had indeed moved to West Virginia and was writing books herself.

I might have lost a potential agent but I did gain a friend. We spoke several times over the phone, and joined up on Facebook and now I want to help anounce the important news that Rose has published her latest book. As soon as I get an ARC you will see the review but in the meantime check out Rose's website for the latest information, and here is the anouncement her publisher forwarded to me to provide to you.PublishAmerica is proud to announce the recent release of Rose Sefton's new book: The Confederette!

Here's what the author says about the book: The Confederette gets its hands dirty in this Southern novel about Posse Comitatus.Leila Gale MacDonald, an impoverished soap-maker from rural Pottsboro, North Carolina, is raped after the Civil War by a gang of renegade Union soldiers, occupationalists roaming the back-woods, looking for prey. Pregnant and alone on the family farm, she begs for death. But, having a stronger will, she seeks justice where none is to be found. After her horse us killed and her house burned to the ground, she enters the lion's den with a vengeance and files charges against the men who ruined her. Southern justice at its best, one of the rapists is tarred and feathered, but Leila finds herself tried as a murderess and horse thief, trapped in a jail cell with a date with the hangman. Until she creates an army of widows, children and crippled Confederate veterans who take back the town.

We are offering you an opportunity to secure your personal copy of Rose Sefton’s exceptional book today.  Please click here: http://www.publishamerica.net/product42211.html to secure your copy of the book*, then click Add to Cart. For an introductory discount of 20%, use this coupon code: Discount20.

Fade - A YA review

Fast paced and edgy this first in the McMann trilogy features Janie Hannigan , a high-school senior who has lived with a dreadful secret for years – she can see your dreams.

In this young adult thriller we are treated to influences from Stephen King.  Consider this language worthy of the master himself as McMann describes her class-mates, “The oversleepers, latecomers, and don’t-give-a-shitters” … perfect.  The dreams of her friends, class-mates, mother and anyone she happens to walk or drive by at the time they are sleeping causes seizures and convulsions in Janie. She goes through the turmoil of World War II, hiding in the trenches with an old man in the nursing home where she works after school, and sees her soon to be beau’s father spray lighter fluid on him and light it.

It is not until she runs into an elderly blind lady, Ms. Stubin, who as she dies lets her know there are other dream catchers out there. Learning to not only see but enter dreams Janie channels powers she never knew she possessed until she is able to influence the outcome of her ‘victims’ dreams and discovers a world far beyond anything she would have been able to conceive previously.

This was a quick two-hour read. I couldn’t put in down. Now I have to go find Fade and Gone so I can satisfy my craving for this highly addictive series.

Glass Demon - A Young Adult Novel Review

When the first thing that happens to you upon moving to a new town is discovering a corpse perhaps that should be taken as a sign of things to come! When you are a teenage girl moving to Germany from England, at the behest of your father the professor, and he doesn’t want to call the police to report the finding so he won’t get delayed, it becomes the worst thing that has ever happened to you.

In this Young Adult novel Lin, a teenage girl and her family move to a small burg in Germany in order that her father, the Professor of Medieval Studies, could be the next Indiana Jones; or at least in his mind. Never mind it meant uprooting his two teen daughters, their step-mum and the new baby while he chased the myth of Bonschiarant - the Glass Demon. The town of Baumgarten was part of German folk-lore that linked the Allerheheilgen Abbey to the five-hundred-year-old masterpiece of stained glass that to a Medievalist was a kind of Holy Grail.

Intent on discovery the family settle in to their new rural surroundings while accidents happen around them including the death of a local historian, a brush with death for her half-brother and the murder of her sister. With the help of a local boy, Michel, who lived on the farm up the road, and who had developed a crush on Lin, the teenagers do what the parents can’t, discover the glass and discover the deaths in the area are all depicted in scenes on the stained glass. With both their lives in jeopardy the two move quickly to solve the real mystery behind the demon in the glass in order to bring some sense to the tragedy it had caused in both their families.

A Question of Belief - A Review

Ms. Leon’s work is not the in your face thrill-a minute storyline that I am accustomed to reading bit a slow burning smoldering story that builds in intensity as the book progresses. It comes at you like neighborhood gossip caught at wisps and gestures over the garden fence, like returning for a cup of coffee to a an old and trusted friend as little by little the whole story emerges and you tell yourself ‘of course why didn’t I see it coming.’


I actually started the book before I left on vacation to England, came back and picked up the book and carried on without missing a beat. The slow moving police officers, hampered by the sweltering summer in Venice, go about their business , while looking for shade or heaven forbid actual air-conditioning while laying out two stories for our enjoyment. Inspector Brunetti aides his fellow officer with concerns he has over a charlatan of a palm reader, tarot waving soothsayer that his mother appears to paying a rather unsightly sum to and then the two of them become embroiled in what appears to be a scam in the making involving a lady judge and her bailiff.

When the inspector’s vacation is interrupted to the point of him having to change trains on the way out of town with his family to return to oversee what is the untimely murder of the afore mentioned bailiff does the storyline suddenly take on overtones of menace. The sudden lull in crime in Venice is over-ridden with blackmail, fraud and charges of indecency and Brunetti’s skills are bought to task as he ably puts our fears to rest.

A most delightful tale told at the pace of the hot summer with enough sizzle to the action to keep one intrigued to the last.

The Silent Girl - a review

In Chinese mythology the immortal Monkey King is born from stone, and is skilled in the secrets of Martial Arts. He is also to fight for justice, to avenge a death and to cause havoc while doing so. When monkey hairs are found clinging to the clothing of the corpse of more than one killer-for-hire homicide cop Jane Rizzoli brings in rookie detective Johnnie Tam to help unravel the mysteries, the culture and the language to the legend behind the murders at the Red Phoenix restaurant, in Boston’s China Town, over a decade ago.


On the anniversary of the slayings an unsigned letter arrives at the relatives of the victims of this mass murder. The common belief of most of the families is that the letter is sent my crazy Mrs. Fang, the wife of the murdered restaurant owner, who runs The Dragon and Stars Academy of Martial Arts. The investigation unearths this cold-case and when the forensic lab gets involved hidden footprints are discovered to show that there was a witness to the crime that no-one was ever aware of.

If that was not enough two of the families, the Fang’s included, also had a child go missing in the years surrounding this crime and when the now retired homicide detective, who led the investigation originally, comes up dead after passing on information that there where perhaps more missing girls the detective find themselves chasing an elusive prey that swings through the night as if not human, almost ape-like. Are they chasing a spirit God that is avenging the deaths of the Red Phoenix?

Of course Rizzoli is never alone in her investigations; there is always the presence of Maura Isles, the forensic pathologist Maura Isles – the team up on the TNT television show known as Rizzoli & Isles - who works in the medical examiner’s office. With Isles team backing up all the new discoveries that link up to the past investigation you can bet the two of them find a way through the red-herrings and puzzles thrown their way to unearth the scandal that threatens the families still after all these years.

Gerritsen’s background as an internist greatly enhance the details of the story and help bring to life the reasons of how and why such a mystery could have led the Boston PD astray for so long. This will not be the last Rizzoli & Isles mystery I read. I definitely will have to go back and dig out Gerritson’s past works too.