Rosie’s Book Review Team (RBRT) – Booklist

So You Want to Fly Private? The Rules: A Comedic tell all book showcasing true accounts of what its like to work as a CFA in Private Aviation by Shannon McDermott (175 pages)

Ever had a sh***y job with problematic co-workers and even worse customers? If you just said “YES” out loud in the bookstore, and people are now staring at you, this book is most definitely for you! Inspired by the Great Resignation, So You Want To Fly Private? THE RULES, is a collection of true, darkly comedic stories as told by CFAs (Corporate Flight Attendants) in the private aviation industry.
Jenny Jetway, your favorite renegade CFA, walks you through true accounts of what it’s like to work as a CFA in private aviation, an industry that hasn’t progressed much since the 1970s. From Sugar Babies and wild Karens to toxic, misogynist bosses who don’t understand the meaning of consent, So You Want To Fly Private: THE RULES paints a messy picture of a famously secretive industry using the same uncensored rhetoric found in venting sessions with co-workers over happy hour drinks at the bar.
Through a a set of 10 rules, curated in mind for the curious travel enthusiast, So You Want To Fly Private? THE RULES is guaranteed to be a hilarious, thrilling, yet quick read that can be accomplished over the course of a flight or an airport layover.

Genre: Non Fiction /comedy/travel

Format: Epub

Hear Of Fire by Raina Nightingale (168 pages ARC now for April publication)

No book cover yet.

A SLAVE DETERMINED TO RIDE A DRAGON. A CHILD CHOSEN TO RIDE THE OBSIDIAN GUARDIAN.

Camilla has always been told that humans are inferior. They cannot use magic. If they bond to dragons, they will doom the creatures to extinction. She has never believed a word of it. She has always known that she can use magic, and she suspects it is the elves who harm the dragons by keeping them to themselves. Now, she is presented with the opportunity of a lifetime: a dragon’s clutch is hatching and while she will earn the wrath of her captors if she is caught, she has the chance to see a dragon hatch and perhaps even to Recognize.

Kario’s people have feared dragons since time immemorial. When an unrealistically huge black dragon flies in while she is hunting, she is certain she will die. Instead, her life is changed when Nelexi, Obsidian Guardian of Areaer, chooses her as her final rider. Kario takes the name Flameheart, but she is soon homesick and afraid that she is insufficient to be the partner of a god.

Genre: Ya epic fantasy

Format: epub

Death By Pins And Needles by Susie Black (249 pages)

The last thing Mermaid Swimwear sales exec Holly Schlivnik expected to find when she opened the closet door was nasty competitor Lissa Charney’s battered corpse nailed to the wall. When Holly’s colleague is wrongly arrested for Lissa’s murder, the wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth sticks her nose everywhere it doesn’t belong to sniff out the real killer. Nothing turns out the way she thinks it will as Holly matches wits with a heartless killer hellbent on revenge.

Genre: Cosy mystery

Format: epub

Grave-Reaping Hermit by Evelyn C Thompson (300 pages)

When self-professed hermit Theodora Edwards is attacked by a dark fae and infected with his magic, she finds herself thrust into the supernatural spotlight as the first possible changeling in centuries. As if surviving the transition isn’t hard enough, Theo has to deal with an attempted abduction by her newly turned vampire ex-husband, unwanted courting offers from salacious fae suitors, and her growing attraction to the guardian of the gate to Fairie. Caught in a cruel tug of war between the queen of the fae and a surly law-enforcement agent, Theo must find a way to free herself before she loses her hard-earned independence for good.

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Format: Epub

The Anshar Gambit by Ian G. McDowell (331 pages)

The sky is falling, and it’s Alice’s fault.

Alice runs a private space program, and today is the proudest day of her life. Then a meteor strike obliterates London. Someone has turned her great achievement into a city-killing weapon, and only she knows how to stop it.

Locked out and on the run, it’s up to Alice to hack her way back in and regain control. She’s almost out of time before the weapon fires again. And the next target… is her.

The Anshar Gambit is a riveting near-future technothriller packed with high-stakes action.

Genre: Techno thriller

Format: Epub

A Mother’s Lament by Nikki Rodwell (51 pages)

They say the pain of childbirth is made more bearable by the fact it is ‘pain with a purpose’. Sometimes the pain that mother’s experience later is equally, if not more, painful. Through her poems Nikki gives purpose to that pain and hopes that mothers who have grieved in any way or struggled with their relationships, will relate to her words.

Making sense of pain is a complex and personal journey. In this collection of poems, Nikki bears her soul and reveals that the deeper the grief, the deeper the love. Although it’s easy to feel disempowered and lost within pain, she demonstrates how, by stepping into it, we can give ourselves permission to heal.

Genre: Poetry
Format: Epub

The Broken Darkness by Theresa Braun (268 pages) ARC

In her debut collection, Theresa Braun explores the inner workings of the human heart and what it is we most desire—forgiveness, acceptance, love, fame, or merely to escape who we really are. Whether we are battling ghosts, demons, mythical monsters, the past, or other dimensions, we are really facing the deepest parts of ourselves. These thirteen tales of horror and dark fantasy may appear to be a matter of good versus evil, but they are all a reflection of the hidden corners of the soul that are often shades of broken darkness. The characters in these stories must face their inner and outer terrors, or else suffer the consequences.

Genre: Horror short stories

Format: Epub

Unnatural Mayhem by Sue Coletta (347 pages) – Book #5 (earlier books in the series also available to request)

With the fate of the Natural World at stake, can Shawnee and Mayhem stop trophy hunters before it’s too late?

Explosive news of a crow hunt rings out in the White Mountain Region of New Hampshire, and one hundred crows gather to put an end to it. With so many lives at stake—including Poe’s—Shawnee and Mayhem must work together to stop the trophy hunters before they obliterate the local murder.

Taking on twenty-five experienced hunters armed with shotguns is no small feat. If they fail, Poe may lead his brethren to their death.

No matter what it takes, this group must be stopped.

But what if Shawnee and Mayhem aren’t seeing the full picture? What if these men have secrets worth killing over?

Genre: Thriller

Format: Epub

El Norte by Harald Johnson (322 pages)

A thrilling, on-the-run, survival adventure across four countries.
Jager Flores is an introverted Texas high-school graduate on a family trip to Roatán, Honduras, to celebrate.
But when Jager’s careful world is blown apart, the panicked boy goes into hiding and then creates a bond with an unlikely ally to stay one step ahead of his violent pursuers.

Now, traveling with a team of immigrants and with corrupt DEA agents after him as he heads back to El Norte (the U.S.), Jager must find the strength in himself to survive and to get justice for his family.

Genre: Thriller

Format: Epub

Bethulia by Thorne Moore (270 pages)

Alison, Danny, Jude. Three girls bound closer than sisters. Nothing can divide them.

Until Alison falls for Simon Delaney. Handsome, successful and ambitious, what woman wouldn’t want him? He’s surely her perfect husband. So why does she commit suicide?

If it is suicide. The police say yes, except for the driven DC Rosanna Quillan. She says no, but she can only watch as Jude and Danny fight for the prize – the widower. How far would either of them go to have him?

Genre: Thriller

Format: Epub

The Good Lord Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise: Pentimento Memories of Mom and Me by Robert W Norris (490 pages)

The Good Lord Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise: Pentimento Memories of Mom and Me traces the trials, tribulations, and unbreakable bond of two Pacific Northwest characters. Kay Schlinkman grows up on the banks of the Columbia River in the 1930s and 1940s. She overcomes a small logging town’s ostracism in the late 1950s for her divorce, excommunication by the Catholic Church for remarrying, severe criticism and rejection for defending her son’s refusal to go to war, and the burden of paying off her second husband’s gambling debts. In her forties, she becomes a licensed pilot and flies two summers as a forest fire spotter. After a second divorce in her fifties, she takes night classes to become qualified as a legal secretary and continues to work until she’s seventy-eight.

After an idyllic childhood in the redwoods and a rebellious adolescence following his parents’ divorce, Robert Norris enters the Air Force, becomes a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, is court-martialed and goes to military prison, embraces the counterculture upon release, wanders the world in search of his identity, and eventually lands in Japan, where he finds his niche as a university professor, spends two years as the dean of students, and retires as a professor emeritus.

Despite their separation by the expanse of the Pacific Ocean, Robert and Kay maintain a lifelong commitment of love, respect, and support that enriches both their lives. Kay visits Japan eight times. Robert, his wife, and Kay journey to Ireland to trace her father’s roots. The Good Lord Willing provides a heart-warming example of how far a mother and son can go in maintaining their bond against great odds. A must read for all mothers and sons, and for those who’ve wondered what the road less traveled would’ve been like, had they taken that first step.

Genre: Memoir

Format: Epub

Finding Verity by Jenny Loudon (314 pages)

 

 

Verity Westwood is a successful London businesswoman whose husband is handsome but selfish.

 

When Edward Farrell, a nomadic American journalist from her past, returns unexpectedly, she is swept by the irresistible desire to fulfil her dreams of working as an artist, like her famous father before her. After being caught in a storm on the Cote d’Azur, she vows to change her life.

What she does not foresee is the struggle involved, the ultimate price she will pay, and the powerful force of enduring love that changes everything.

 

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Format: Epub

An End to Etcetera by B. Robert Conklin (348 pages)

 

 

An End to Etcetera is a mystery/suspense novel for the adult literary market about an obsessive-compulsive psychologist who tries to uncover the truth behind her adolescent client’s confession to drowning an autistic boy left in his care. With no evidence to support Leal Porter’s allegation, the school has referred him to Selena Harris for counseling. Selena is going through troubles of her own: she’s separated from a husband who has ditched her for another woman, she’s pregnant after a one-night rebound with a former lover, and she’s moved back to her small hometown in Illinois to take care of her father who has suffered a debilitating stroke. Now she faces the toughest challenge of her career. Although she believes the alleged victim is the product of Leal’s overactive imagination and need for attention, she harbors one major doubt: What if she’s wrong? The novel would appeal to adult readers who enjoy solving psychological puzzles. Working alongside the psychologist, in the role of a detective.

 

Genre: Psychological mystery

Format: Epub

 

The Definition by Joseph Schulte (516 pages) FREE Amazon download until Jan 3rd.

 

 

19th century England. Changelings live amongst humans, blending into the shadows of society. They hunger for the flesh and humanity of man. A child suffers a gruesome fate at the hand of these beasts…

But a beaked stranger emerges to avenge him.

In a 19th century English town, Michael Reeves is believed to be devoured by shapeshifting beasts known as Changelings. But over a decade later, he emerges from the wilderness as a masked stranger by a new name: Isaac Wadsager. Nobody knows where Isaac came from, but he is certain of what he wants: the love of an amazing circus tightropist, and every last Changeling dead.

The woman of his dreams, Ancora, is just as beautiful as Isaac has always heard, but he discovers that she’s just as hard to impress when it comes to the tightrope, her domain in show business. To make things more difficult, her manager Natalie seems to be just as obsessed with his idol and refuses to let anyone come between them.

Against all odds, Isaac joins the circus with Ancora to woo her during the day, but during the night, he hunts after the vicious Changeling beasts to enact revenge on the childhood they stole from him. He attempts to separate his two lives, but when things don’t go his way, he starts to lose himself and hurt the few friends he has.

Genre: Fantasy thriller

Format: Epub or Free Amazon download until Jan 3rd

The Slipper and the Tree by Gemma Lawrence (Cinderella retelling – 167 pages)

 

 

This is a tale of witches and wishes, tales and trees, stepmothers, spells and a girl who sleeps in the ashes by the fire…

 

But it’s not the one you know.

The Slipper and the Tree is a novella, and part of the Retold of Old Series by G. Lawrence.

 

Genre: Fairytale retelling

Format: AUDIO for UK or US users of Audible

 

Future Proof by David Atkinson

If you could go back in time and change your life, what would you do? What regrets and mistakes would you fix? What would your life look like now if you did that? In Future Proof an experimental medical treatment allows Sam Harris to do exactly that. However, as he discovers changing his past doesn’t always guarantee a brighter future.
Buckle up for a bumpy fun filled ride of what if’s and second chances. Longlisted for the Page Turner awards 2022, Future Proof is a romantic comedy filled with love, tears and laughter with an original musical soundtrack.

 

Genre: Romcom

Format: Epub

 

A Christmas Wish by Suzanne Rogerson (96 pages)

 

A heart-warming collection of feel-good stories showing snippets of family life and friendship during the festive period.

 

Santa Paws Delivery
Blaze delivers Christmas cheer to a care home.

Christmas Wish – Part One
During the office Christmas party Cassie is forced to re-evaluate her life priorities.

For the Holidays
A stepdaughter’s not just for Christmas.

Chance Encounters
Two brothers must unite to do the right thing when faced with a life-threatening choice.

Christmas Wish – Part Two
As Lynn contemplates another lonely Christmas, can Harry provide a welcome distraction?

The Icing on the Cake
Preparing for a big family Christmas, will the day go as Jess plans?

Not Just For Christmas (extended version)
The Shelton family welcome a new addition to the family, but could it spell disaster for Christmas?

One Good Deed
Struggling with life after University, Sam is stuck in a rut until he meets a homeless man with an unexpected gift.

 

Genre: Short stories

Format: Epub

 

In The Shadows Of Castles by GK Holloway (428 pages)

 

 

It’s the 1060s, and William of Normandy is establishing a new and brutal regime in England, but there are those who would defy him. As Norman soldiers spread like a plague across the land, resistance builds, but will it be enough to topple William and restore the rightful king to his throne? The English have the courage to fight, but the Normans, already victorious at Hastings, now build castles seeking to secure their tenuous foothold in these lands.

 

Genre: Historical Fiction

Format: Paperback

 

The Thin Blue-Yellow Line Between Love And Hate by Anton Eine

 

 

This book is about the first 100 days of fascist Russia’s perfidious and unfounded invasion of Ukraine. But it is not an account of the war and its battlefield engagements. It’s about people. About their feelings and emotions, their experiences, fears and pain, their suffering, hope and love.

I started writing this book one sleepless night in Kyiv when I had been kept awake all night by the roar of our aerial defense system and explosions nearby, listening out for approaching rockets and bombs and wondering whether I should take my wife and young son and run for the air-raid shelter. That night, I realized that I had a duty as a writer to act as a voice for those whose stories desperately needed to be told to other people in the world.

I wrote about what I saw and felt. About the stories, my relatives and friends shared with me. It became a chronicle, memoir, diary and confession. I set down our stories so that the whole world might know and understand what we have been through. So that the whole world might share our experiences of this war alongside us – in our trembling buildings, in our freezing cold basements, underground parking lots, bomb shelters and metro stations and in the ruins of our burning cities. So that the world might be given a glimpse into our hearts through the lacerated wounds that have been inflicted on them by this cruel and barbaric war.

Genre: Memoir

Format: Epub

 

A Noble Cunning by Patricia Bernstein (266 pages)

 

 

Based on the true story of Winifred Maxwell,
a Catholic in anti-Catholic England

 

Scotland, 1716 –

Traveling alone through a frightful snowstorm, Bethan Glentaggart is desperate to get to London where her husband languishes in the Tower of London. As the date of Gavin’s beheading rapidly approaches, Bethan has only her wits and her women friends to support her against King George. Will she be able to free Gavin? Will she even be allowed to see him?

 

Genre: Historical

Format: Download from netgalley. Netgalley.com link

 

Fast Fiction: 101 Stories, 101 Words Each by Scotty Cornfield (118 pages)

 

 

In FAST FICTION, you’ll enter a cafe where the menu is loaded with nothing but literary appetizers, designed to be quickly consumed and easily digested. You’ll meet people with secrets and others who wished they knew how to keep them; characters looking to exact revenge and others getting their just desserts when karma calls. Fans of the combo platter will see it all here, from the dark to the darkly comical; the laugh-out-loud funny to the thought-provoking; offering more twists and turns than a pretzel—more ups and downs than a souffle. Designed to be picked up and perused at any time– FAST FICTION is perfect for those impromptu moments while you’re waiting in line or otherwise find yourself with some extra time to kill–not long enough to get deeply engaged in a novel but just right as a fun alternative. Even if you do have time to put your feet up, get comfortable and grab a book, these 101-word tales will keep you entertained, briefly encountering characters you will never see again–if you’re lucky.

 

Genre: Flash fiction

Format: epub