Tag: #aboutauthor

Feature Post and Book Review: Blood on the Wire by Candace Irving

Book Description

When a VA therapist is brutally stabbed, Kate Holland is stunned—the man had clashed with her own shrink days earlier. But the shock deepens when Kate discovers stolen military-grade explosives hidden in his home.

The victim had been investigating a war crime overseas, and now the fallout is erupting in Arkansas. With Ruger at her side and Arash in the fight alongside her, Kate follows a trail of secrets and corpses toward a killer who won’t stop until innocent blood is spilled.

To stop him, Kate must risk everything—including the fragile trust she’s building with the two allies she can’t afford to lose.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/239425643-blood-on-the-wire?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=9kTzLQnFmZ&rank=2

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My Book Review

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

BLOOD ON THE WIRE (Hidden Valor K-9 Mysteries Book #5) by Candace Irving is another outstanding action packed and thrilling addition to this series. I enjoyed every book in the entire series and Kate and Ruger’s journey, but I believe you could read this book as a standalone and still love it due to the strategically placed background information you may have questions about.

Special State Investigator Kate Holland and her K-9 Ruger are called to investigate the stabbing death of one of the Little Rock VA’s psychologists. When she gets to the scene, she realizes she met this doctor arguing with Kate’s own doctor just a few days earlier. As Kate and the local detective search the doctor’s home, they discover two safes. One has a cache of military grade C-4 and the other has a notebook filled with writing in code.

As Kate investigates the murder, she discovers the doctor was looking into a crime from two years ago in Afghanistan. There are suspects that are almost too convenient and many tangled stories of truth and lies. As the body count increases, Kate realizes someone is trying to get rid of all ties to the real killer and crimes of the past.

I love this series! I look forward to reading not only an intricately plotted suspense/mystery, but an intimate story of a vet’s healing journey through PTSD and a terrible wartime incident all while she navigates her current job, her work and personal connection to her dog, and finally her learned ability to open up in her personal relationships. The intricate plot and twists in this book left me continually guessing until the very end.

I highly recommend this suspenseful police procedural/K-9 mystery! This is a well written, engrossing series and I cannot wait for more.

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About the Author

A former US Navy Lt., Candace Irving is the daughter of a librarian and a retired boatswain’s mate chief. Candace grew up in the Philippines, Germany, and all over the United States. Her senior year of high school, she enlisted in the US Army. Following basic training, she transferred to the Navy’s ROTC program at the University of Texas-Austin. While at UT, she spent a summer in Washington, DC, as a Congressional Intern. She also worked security for the UT Police. BA in Political Science in hand, Candace was commissioned as an ensign in the US Navy and sent to Surface Warfare Officer’s School to learn to drive warships. From there, she followed her father to sea.

Candace Irving writes gritty military thrillers. She is the author of the Deception Point Military Detective Thriller Series and the Hidden Valor Military Veterans/K9 Psychological Suspense Series. She also writes military romance and romantic suspense as Candace Irvin (without the “g”).

Social Media Links

Website: https://candaceirving.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CandaceIrvingBooks

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/candaceirvingbooks/?hl=en

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/blood-on-the-wire-a-kate-holland-suspense-a-hidden-valor-military-veteran-k-9-mystery-book-5-by-candace-irving

Feature Post and Mini Book Review: The Traitor’s Circle by Jonathan Freedland

Book Description

When the whole world is lying, someone must tell the truth.

Berlin, 1943: A group of high society anti-Nazi dissenters meet for a tea party one late summer’s afternoon. They do not know that, sitting around the table, is someone poised to betray them all to the Gestapo.

They form a circle of unlikely rebels, drawn from the German elite: two countesses, a diplomat, an intelligence officer, an ambassador’s widow and a pioneering head mistress. What unites every one of them is a shared loathing of the Nazis, a refusal to bow to Hitler and the courage to perform perilous acts of resistance: meeting in the shadows, rescuing Jews or plotting for a future Germany freed from the Führer’s rule. Or so they believe.

How did a group of brave, principled rebels, who had successfully defied Adolf Hitler for more than a decade, come to fall into such a lethal trap?

Undone from within and pursued to near-destruction by one of the Reich’s cruelest men, they showed a heroism in the face of the most vengeful regime in history that raises the question: what kind of person does it take to risk everything and stand up to tyranny?

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/223830505-the-traitors-circle?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=FEmiThRIwv&rank=4

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My Mini Book Review

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

THE TRAITOR’S CIRCLE by Jonathan Freedland is a nonfiction novel that reads like a gripping spy thriller. This book features a group of aristocratic Germans during WWII who come together to voice their objections to Hitler and the Nazi regime, help Jewish friends, families, and even strangers escape the Holocaust and are then betrayed by a traitor within.  The terrible retribution of the Gestapo on all involved during the final years of the war is stark and terrible and yet their stories need to be told and remembered for their bravery and moral resistance to the depravity of the Nazi regime.

This is a nonfiction book that I was unable to put down, even with scenes of torture and depravity. The author masterly introduces the members of the group, and you become invested in the varied individuals and the various reasons for them opposing the new regime. I have read many nonfiction history books and historical fiction books about WWII and that era, so I assumed this story would not end well, but the author does a great job of following all the characters to the end of their journeys whether they lived or died. This book gives the reader a look at German dissenters during a time that a radical regime sought to eliminate all dissent.

I highly recommend this gripping nonfiction WWII novel!

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About the Author

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist and former foreign correspondent. He is the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s contemporary history series, The Long View, as well as two podcasts, Politics Weekly America for the Guardian and Unholy, alongside the Israeli journalist Yonit Levi. He is a past winner of an Orwell Prize for journalism. He is the author of twelve books, the latest being The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World. He has written nine thrillers, mostly as Sam Bourne, including The Righteous Men which was a Sunday Times number one bestseller.

Social Media Links

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JonathanFreedlandOfficial/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jonathanfreedland.bsky.social

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/the-traitors-circle-by-jonathan-freedland-2025-01-21

Blog Tour/Feature Post and Book Review: The Hidden Letter at Bluebell Farm by Rebecca Alexander

Hi, everyone!

Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE HIDDEN LETTER AT BLUEBELL FARM (Wildflower Secrets Book #3) by Rebecca Alexander on this Bookouture Blog Tour.

Below you will find a book description, my book review, an about the author section and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!

Book Description

Arriving at Bluebell Farm in the English countryside, historian Tasha has never felt more alone. Her twins have left for university, her marriage is over, and she’s said goodbye to the place she thought would always be her home. Exploring the tumbledown farm and striking up a friendship with elderly Maud, whose prickly exterior masks a warm heart, offers the distraction Tasha desperately needs.

Together with Ryan, a silver-haired, motorbike-riding archaeologist, Tasha digs into the farm’s history. Soon she finds faded photographs and a sealed, yellowing letter that calls to her. But Maud’s eyes fill with tears as she insists the long-lost letter must never be opened. Could it be from Maud’s father, who went missing after the Second World War?

Intrigued by the stories hidden behind Maud’s sharp blue eyes, Tasha and Ryan unearth a heart-wrenching secret. Maud’s father’s disappearance is not the only mystery hidden on this farm. If Maud reads the letter after all these years, will it reveal all?

And with Maud’s encouragement, can Tasha have a second chance at love with kind-hearted Ryan? Or will the heartache in their own pasts keep them apart?

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/239217579-the-hidden-letter-at-bluebell-farm?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=NkGRvuXBRe&rank=1

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My Book Review

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

THE HIDDEN LETTER AT BLUEBELL FARM (Wildflower Secrets Book #3) by Rebecca Alexander is an emotionally gripping, heartbreaking, and wonderful dual timeline historical fiction/women’s fiction addition to the Wildflower Secrets series. This book, like the others in the series, are easily read as standalones with the location of Dartmoor, England being the main linkage between all the books with minimal story content crossover.

Bluebell Farm in the farming community of Dartmoor is the setting of both timelines. The main character of both timelines is Maud. She is a young girl during WWII as she lives and works on her family’s farm in the historical timeline starting in the 1940s. She is a 95-year-old woman in the present-day timeline when The National Trust buys her farmhouse, barn, and land for historical preservation.

Tasha is a divorced mother of grown twins who is searching for a change. She decides to take the assignment of staying on Bluebell Farm to catalogue and restore historical finds. At first, Tasha finds Maud brusk and secretive, but as she works to understand and help Maud, the two become closer and Tasha feels responsible for Maud. But Maud’s secrets from her early years on the farm begin to surface. The boy and then man she could never have and all she had to endure over the years comes to light.

Keep the tissues close for this one. Maud is a character I will remember for a long time to come. Her strength and perseverance were amazing, and she is more than just an assignment to Tasha. All the stories in this series are emotional but having had a grandma who lived to be 102, this one got to me personally. A well written story with a memorable main protagonist and blend of two plotlines that kept me turning the pages to the very end.

I highly recommend this inspiring historical fiction/women’s fiction dual timeline story!

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About the Author

Rebecca Alexander was born in Malta and grew up on the south coast of England, becoming a psychologist. She escaped parenting six children to study writing in 2011, and the Secrets series of novels was published in 2013. A Baby’s Bones and sequel followed. Rebecca lives in a haunted 300-year-old cottage in Devon where she grows fruit, paints, and bakes. She reads and writes all sorts of genres, from women’s fiction to fantasy to crime. She is married with four chickens, two grandchildren and a cat.

Social Media Links

Website: http://www.rebecca-alexander.co.uk/

Bookouture Page: https://bookouture.com/authors/rebecca-alexander-366/

Email sign up: https://www.bookouture.com/rebecca-alexander/

Book Tour/Feature Post and Book Review: For the Honor of the Agency by Andrew J. Harvey

Hi, everyone!

Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review of FOR THE HONOR OF THE AGENCY (The Honor Trilogy Book #1) by Andrew J. Harvey on this Black Phoenix Book Tour.

Below you will find a book description, my book review, an about the author section, and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!

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Book Description

Newly appointed to the Cross-Temporal Empire’s Department of Agriculture and Food, Margaret Peric quickly discovers her role is far more dangerous than she ever imagined. When an ex-employee is nearly killed trying to expose a genetically engineered crop blight, Margaret and her bodyguard, Jade Carvello, uncover a trail of eco-terrorism, corruption—and something far more sinister.

While Margaret faces bureaucratic sabotage and growing political unrest, Jade’s own investigation leads her into the orbit of Carlos Babineaux—a charming anarchist with a secret agenda and a dangerously kissable French accent. Their relationship threatens both Jade’s mission and her loyalty to the powerful Rucker’s Agency.

As conspiracies unravel across alternate Earths, and a child’s life hangs in the balance, Margaret must defy her own government to protect those she loves, and somehow must track down her missing sister for her mother. Meanwhile, Jade and Carlos risk everything on a river journey through hostile territory, where betrayal could come from either side.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242874015-for-the-honor-of-the-agency?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=ilHZ6L0h3l&rank=1

Universal link for the book on Amazon

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My Book Review

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

FOR THE HONOR OF THE AGENCY (The Honor Trilogy Book #1) by Andrew J. Harvey is an exciting first book in a new sci-fi trilogy that contains plenty of twists, thrills, romance, and political intrigue all set in a multiverse where every decision can change the fate of humanity. While I do not usually pick up a sci-fi book, this one has so many elements of other genres, that it kept me thoroughly engaged and turning the pages.

On an alternate Earth, this story takes place primarily on the Mainline and is controlled by the Cross-Temporal Empire. Former soldier and sister in-law to the First Leader, Margaret Peric, has been appointed the head of the Department of Agriculture and Food. She is approached by Markus Ackov, who has been fired and has an attempt made on his life when he discovers a conspiracy to kill the world’s crops with a biologically engineered crop blight.

Jade Carvello is Margaret’s bodyguard and works for the private security firm, The Rucker’s. Even though Margaret’s protection is a job, they become close and Margaret considers her a friend and the only one she can trust to investigate the threat of the Anarchists and possible enemies within her own department. Jade infiltrates the anarchists and cannot resist the chemistry that sparks between herself and Carlos Babineaux, a French-Canadian anarchist that puts her investigation and personal integrity at risk.

These two plotlines weave together is an exciting, suspenseful, and fast paced sci-fi multiverse story that pulled me right into the intrigue, romance, and worldbuilding. The twists throughout kept me guessing and turning the pages. I will admit difficulty and frustration with all the multitude of locations and multiverses layer names which occasionally pushed me out of the thrilling character focused plotlines themselves, but the characters are very well developed and with them as a focus, I could not put this book down.

Overall, I highly recommend this wonderful start to this trilogy, and I am looking forward to the next book in the Honor Trilogy.

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About the Author

Andrew spent his high-school years in the school’s library lost in the worlds of Andre Norton, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov. Reading in turn led to writing, with the first draft of The Portal Adventures originally completed to read to his two sons at night. Now his children have left home he lives in Perth with his wife, one dog, and sixty four gold fish.

Andrew is presently the Principal of Hague Publishing, established in 2011 as an independent publisher of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Registered in Western Australia, it publishes original work by Australian and New Zealand authors.

Andrew’s first published short story (A Messenger to the Dragon) appeared in Aurealis – Australian Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1992. His most recent was the award winning 1827: Napoleon in Australia, which appeared in Sea Lion Press’ anthology Alternate Australias released in 2020.

His first novel, Nightfall (book one in the Clemhorn Trilogy) is an adult, alternate history set against the backdrop of the Cross-Temporal Empire and its fifty-four separate lines. Nightfall was released by Zmok Books in 2019. The series is distributed by Simon and Schuster.

Trouble on Teral and Crisis at Calista Station, the first two books in his new middle-grade, Science Fiction adventure series, The Portal Adventures, were released by Canada’s Peasantry Press in 2020. The open ended series is a combination of Caroline Lawrence’s Roman Mysteries and Andre Norton’s juvenile speculative fiction.

A passionate reader of Alternate History Andrew is working on completing a number of additional series of trilogies based on the Cross-Temporal Empire.

Social Media Links

Website: https://andrewjharvey.com/?page_id=650

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrewjharvey_author/

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/for-the-honor-of-the-agency-the-honor-trilogy-book-1-by-andrew-j-harvey

Feature Post and Book Review: The Soldier by Susan Stoker

Book Description

When Chad Young moves home, it’s not a decision he makes lightly. A former military man, he doesn’t make any decision lightly. But his father’s passing has left the family—and their business—reeling. Now more than ever, they need to stick together.

Britt Starkweather moved to Maine with her boyfriend, never imagining he’d abandon her there. With no money and nowhere to go, she accepts the Youngs’ offer of a job and room on their property. What more does she have to lose?

Although they just met, Chad makes Britt feel safe in a way no one has before. And she makes him feel things he’d given up on finding. But even as they grow closer, Britt realizes that something is amiss at Lobster Cove…and Chad will do whatever it takes to keep her safe.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/220054540-the-soldier?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=8OiYt3ljnj&rank=1

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My Book Review

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

THE SOLDIER (Alpha Cove Book #1) by Susan Stoker is a satisfying classic romance with suspense elements set in small-town Maine. Each book features an ex-military brother who have all returned to their hometown to assist their mother in the family businesses after the death of their father.

Evelyn Young is excited about the return of all her sons and the first to come home is the second oldest of the four, Chad who was an Army sniper, and is the most invested in taking over all his father’s work in the running of Lobster Cove. As Chad makes a run for lumber in town, he witnesses the humiliation of a woman who appears to be hanging on by a thread.

Britt Starkweather moved to Maine with her boyfriend who abandoned her after not immediately finding a job and home. With barely any money she is living in her car until Chad Young comes along and offers her a job and a place to live on the family property. She is worried about the offer at first, but Chad’s mother pulls her under her wing and Chad watches Britt put in more than her fair share of work while also helping his mother.

Britt feels safe with Chad and Chad is beginning to believe he has found something with Britt he has never felt before. As Britt takes on more responsibilities, she discovers discrepancies in invoices at the auto shop. When she tells Chad, he realizes something is very wrong at Lobster Cove and he will do anything to protect both his mother and Britt with the help of his brothers.

I was excited to read this first book in this new series. I enjoyed the sexy romance which is steamy but not gratuitous, meeting each of the Young brothers and their mother, and the Maine setting. This is an easy to read, quick to fall in love, sexy romance with an element of suspense that kept me turning the pages. I am looking forward to following Britt and Chad in the future books, as well as Evelyn, Chad’s mother, who turned out to be a feisty character. Next brother, please.

I recommend this sexy romance and look forward to the rest in this Alpha Cove series.

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About the Author

New York Times, USA Today, #1 Amazon Bestseller, and #1 Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author, Susan Stoker has spent the last twenty-three years living in Missouri, California, Colorado, Indiana, Texas, and Tennessee and is currently living in the wilds of Maine. She’s married to a retired Army man (and current firefighter/EMT) who now gets to follow her around the country.

She debuted her first series in 2014 and quickly followed that up with the SEAL of Protection Series, which solidified her love of writing and creating stories readers can get lost in.


Social Media Links

Website: https://www.stokeraces.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorsusanstoker/?hl=en

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/the-soldier-by-susan-stoker

Book Tour/Feature Post and Book Review: Assassins by Mike Bond

Hi, everyone!

Today I am featuring my Feature Post and Book Review for ASSASSINS by Mike Bond on this book amplifier tour.

Below you will find a book summary, my book review, an excerpt from the book, an about the author section and social media links. Enjoy!

Book Summary

In Assassins, Mike Bond introduces Jack, an intelligence operative whose career unfolds alongside some of the most volatile geopolitical shifts of the modern era. His work places him at the center of covert operations that blur the line between duty, loyalty, and accountability.

For CIA operative Jack, intelligence work is never confined to a single mission. Early assignments place him close to local communities, creating personal ties that complicate later operations driven by politics and fear. As global terrorism escalates, Jack is sent into increasingly volatile environments to gather intelligence and stop emerging threats.

Doctors, journalists, foreign officers, and militants move through the same conflicts, each shaped by decisions made far beyond their control. Jack’s relationship with Sophie Dassault, a doctor who once saved his life, becomes a rare human constant amid instability. As former training programs begin producing unintended consequences, Jack confronts a career defined by secrecy, responsibility, and outcomes no one fully controls.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33789163-assassins

Amazon: https://amzn.to/49oZhSM

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My Book Review

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

ASSASSINS by Mike Bond is a thought-provoking spy thriller that took me through many memorable moments, not necessarily good, in recent history and reminded me of many political debates I have had with family and friends. There are several viewpoint characters throughout the novel, but the main protagonist is Jack, a CIA agent, and the story begins with his parachuting into the mountains of Afghanistan to assist the mujahideen in their fight again the Soviet Union.

This is a very suspense filled and political story that takes the readers over the years from the Soviet war in Afghanistan to the Bataclan theater attack in Paris. Jack is a complex character who is tortured by the people he loses on operations but is also strongly accepting of that cost to fight terrorists. The thriller plot moves at a fast pace and is very good at showing not only both sides of those in armed conflict, but also the political greed and interference that uses both sides as puppets.

I enjoyed this book, the intricate plot, and characters, but it is heavy on military and political issues, and it is not just a fast-paced thriller. It appeals to those of us who like those intricacies and may feel too heavy for others.

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Excerpt

An Evening in Paris

November 2015

IT WAS WARM for mid-November. They sat on the terrace of a little restaurant. Anyplace in France, she said, how wonderful the food, the delicious wine, the gentle harmony of others there for love, food, friendship, ideas, freedom, the joys of life.

They had been through the wars together, fallen in love amid the hail of bullets and thud of explosions in cities drenched with blood. Knowing, as the cliché put it, any moment could be their last.

It gave an intensity to love, that this person dearer to you than life itself could be extinguished at any instant. Someone you cherished so completely, composed of neurons, cells, muscles, bone, tissue and memories, could be blown apart, riddled with bullets, any second.

“I love you so much,” she said. “But I think I love you even more in Paris.”

“France does that to us all. What was it Hemingway said –”

“Paris is a moveable feast.”

“Yes, and we will happily feast, in whatever life brings us.”

“As you’ve said, to follow the path with heart?”

 “Yes.” He caressed the back of her hand. “For us, the wars are over.”

“For us the wars will never be over. You know that.”

He looked out on the quiet street. “Let’s take time out. Then we decide.”

“Decide what?”

 “Whether we keep fighting or run for cover.” He smiled at the thought. Not once in all these years had he ever run for cover. Nor had she.

“Your buddy Owen said that people like us, once we’re in, we can never get out.”

“Look where it got him. You want that?” Again he checked the street. It was automatic, this watchfulness. On the edge of consciousness.

He scanned the passing pedestrians – happy couples hand in hand, an old man with a wispy beard, a little girl walking a black poodle, an ancient limping Chinese woman, a kid on a skateboard.

But it worried him, this something; he wished he’d brought a sidearm, but Home Office didn’t want you carrying one here. And everything seemed so peaceful. He sipped his wine, the raw ancient roots of Provence…

A black Seat slowed as it came down the street. A grinning face full of hatred, an AK barrel aiming at them out its window, a blasting muzzle as he leaped across the table knocking her to the sidewalk and covered her with his body amid the hideous twanging hammer of bullets and smashing glass and screams and clatter of chairs and tables crashing and the howl of the Kalashnikov and awful whap of bullets into flesh as people tumbled crying.

It couldn’t be, this horror, he’d left it all behind.

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About the Author

Mike Bond is the author of nearly a dozen bestselling novels and an ecologist, war and human rights journalist, award-winning poet, and international energy expert. His work spans more than thirty countries across seven continents, often drawn from firsthand experiences in remote, dangerous, and war-torn regions. His novels are praised worldwide for their intricate plots, vivid settings, and explosive pacing. His reporting has covered wars, revolutions, terrorism, and major environmental crises.

Social Media Links

Website: https://mikebondbooks.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikebondbooksinfo

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/assassins-by-mike-bond-2021-01-21