New Book Review: Darktown

Tags

Crime, darktown, fiction, mullen, mystery

Rated 5 of 5 stars

Darktown by Thomas Mullen put me into a dizzying head spin and a full blown emotional rollercoaster ride. The first 20 pages had me so seething mad that I had to realize that it was a story of fiction and I should probably calm down. I wasn’t going to find an “Officer Dunlow” in my town…well, not by that name anyway. The story gripped me from the very beginning and never let me go. I was emotionally on the edge of my seat for hours and felt real, palpable tension while reading this book.

So let’s get on with the synopsis. In Atlanta, the first black police officers are given badges, guns, training and a bunch of obstacles to overcome, racism being one of the tallest hurdles. The book is set in the 40’s and it shows the state of race relations to full scale with racial slurs, discrimination and the constant brow beating of black and brown people in a southern state. As a reader, this will boil you. You will hate what is happening and the general climate of the time….which is a good thing. If you don’t feel sickened, then you probably have racism, bigotry or just a general problem with having sympathy or empathy.

Anyway, two of the eight officers are walking their beat in Darktown (the slang term for the all black neighborhood) when they see a white man crash into a light pole, drunken at the wheel. After stopping him, they find a young black girl in the passenger side, clearly beaten but not asking for help. The man drives off when he realizes he was pulled over by cops that had no real power to arrest him. Later, they find the young girl dead. This spawns so many storylines in this book, you’ll be wondering who did what and why for most of the story. Excellent tension, suspense and overall unfolding of a mystery.

In the end, the story is gratifying. It may not be ideal but it definitely wraps up all the storylines and gives credibility to things that happened earlier in the story. I enjoyed every second of this story as a reader and hated/loathed/despised many of the characters (which is a sign of a powerful writer). This story will stay with me for a very long time. Raging Book Reviews Highly Recommended!

*Book was purchased with my own money. Grab a $7 copy of your own with free shipping on Book Depository using my affiliate link HERE. (I get a couple cents for sending you, so thanks for keeping the blog running….)

New Audiobook Review: Shady Cross

Tags

bon shaw, hankins

Rated 5 of 5 stars

Shady Cross by James Hankins was a romping good time with humor, suspense and lots of action. You won’t be yearning for any more fight scenes for a while with this one. I truly enjoyed the main character, Stokes. He was funny, dry and all about business. I liked that he wasn’t too smart and was very average in all others categories which fit nicely into the irony of the ending. There were some things you could hate about him (like abandoning his girlfriend and child by just leaving and never coming back). So don’t think you’re getting a superhero in this book that saves a little girl because the ending will leave you gasping.

It has some pretty gruesome scenes and especially weird sequence of events but you’ll find a startle every few chapters. Not the “trying too hard to wow you kind” but the real, “damn, I just stepped in some shit” type of scenarios. In a world where everybody owes everybody and no helps for free, you find a career criminal with a semblance of heart drowned by a heartless antagonist. Very good writing by Hawkins! Bon Shaw was a critical piece of how good this story was. His voice and his choices were spot on with Stokes and I felt like each character was different. Bravo!

Raging Book Reviews Highly Recommended

Purchase this book on Book Depository with Free Shipping HERE

Listen to a snippet or purchase on Audible HERE

New Book Review: The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named

Tags

poetry, sealey

Rated 5 of 5 stars

**Poetry**

Thoroughly enjoyed the ruminations of Nicole Sealey’s chapbook! There were a few poems that really stood out as enlightening and thought provoking enough to make me sit in silence for a moment. While the chapbook is small, it definitely leaves you yearning for more whilst being completely satisfied. Poems like ‘Legendary’ made me shake my head in wonder. I could feel every ounce of sarcasm and realism in those lines but also sense the disparity. Other poems like ‘Virginia is for Lovers’ and ‘And’ were also strong pieces that made the reader gasp in shock at her true meaning or think deeply on what it is she truly meant. We realize that a house in Virginia, isn’t just a house.

This small, poetic masterpiece has won many awards and I can see why. The writer, or poet rather, has a way of bringing you into her thought process and asking you yours without ever asking a question. She forces you to think about her words and examine your own beliefs with what you find. I’d recommend this book for lovers of poetry that want to examine life as it is or escape into life as it should be.

Raging Book Reviews Recommended

*This book was received by the publisher at BookCon2016 for an honest review.

Purchase a copy on Book Depository HERE

 

New Book Review: The Wedding & Disaster of Felonamabel

Tags

love, marriage, novel, psychological, rape

Rated 5 of 5 stars

Kenn Bivins’ heartfelt novel introducing the illustrious Felona Mabel is a poetic, character-driven work that takes you on a whirlwind of emotion. I had the pleasure of meeting this writer at an event and felt drawn to his positive spirit and his artistic book cover. There were many things to love in this book. I’ll start with the style of writing. Bivins has a smart, concise and poetic blend in his storytelling. I enjoyed the analogies used and they didn’t seem too far fetched (which authors tend to do when they feel the need to end a chapter with a cliffhanger). Furthermore, I received the paperback and found it to be beautifully engineered throughout from texture of pages to interior design (might I add that the author designed his own cover and interior?! Amazing!).

The story alights with Felona Mabel as an adult who is soon to wed her beau, Vicenzo (an Italian, macho man with slightly chauvinistic qualities). During this seemingly blissful existence, as a reader you sense there is a powerful undercurrent to Felona. Felona gets news that her estranged mother whom she hates with a passion is dying. She rushes to make the arrangements but in her homecoming starts to bubble up emotions and secrets from her past that she only prayed to forget. The story takes you on a journey of one woman’s survival with very intense issues like rape, abortion, motherly love (or lack thereof) and the effects of trauma on women and children. I was enthralled throughout the book, whizzing through pages in the hopes of getting to the bottom of Felona’s issues. It amazes me that the author was a man, who had not gone through any of the topics in the book but wrote them so honestly. That’s the mark of a true talent. One that transcends gender and makes the reader feel…something. I’ll likely read this book again because there were a few subliminal messages that I caught and I’m sure there were some that I didn’t. Thoroughly enjoyed.

Raging Book Reviews Highly Recommended

*This book was gifted by the author for an honest review.

New Book Review: Aeromancist

Rated 5 of 5 stars

Charmaine Pauls has the perfect blend of paranormal, suspense, romance and erotica. I love reading her books so much that I take my time with them and really hate to finish. I find myself reading too fast and realize that I’ll be without the characters for a while…so I slow it all the way down. Even still, I love this series and can’t get enough!

So to continue the series, you meet and get personal with Lann Drean, an aeromancist (aka a person that controls weather). He is wonderfully intellectual (owns and is refurbishing an antique library) and is very tough yet gentle. He has his issues with jealousy but nothing like Josselin, his team leader. He definitely lets others know what is his and not to trespass on his territory. Anyway, Lann accidentally gets Kat pregnant. He’s shocked because he believed he was infertile. The push and pull of Kat and Lann at the beginning of the pregnancy was ah-maaazzzing! It was so realistic how Kat harbored her own pain and distanced herself from him even though she was falling for him. Also, Lann did not know who to trust and wrestled with himself to let Kat into his once solitary lifestyle. The way Pauls wrote this couple has an edge of reality and you feel like you could relate to what each person was feeling.

Unfortunately, Kat’s baby is not only important to her and Lann. They are chased by a threat that wants the baby for himself. This is where the action ramps up and the pages fly by. I thoroughly enjoyed Pauls’ second addition to the series (not counting the prequel). Read it to find out what happens to the baby and Kat.

Raging Book Reviews Recommended!

New Book Review: The Life We Bury

Rated 5 0f 5 stars

*This is an audiobook purchased through Audible.

The Life We Bury is one of those books that make you feel every emotion during the course of listening. I felt fear, happiness, exasperation, anger, sick, triumph, worried and lastly, totally content. I went through a range of emotions and the author really makes an effort to give you an in depth back story but not go so overboard that you can’t decipher what’s important to hold on to. The main character, although nonchalant and quirky, shows that he has an open mind when he agrees to interview a dying, convicted rapist and killer as part of a biology project. During the course of the project, Carl, the convicted killer, takes the reader and the main character on a rollercoaster ride through his tour in Vietnam that’ll have you ready to shed a tear. On the opposite spectrum, you gather grizzly details of the rape and murder of a 14 year old that’ll have you banging your fist for him to die a painful death. I loved how the author structured the story. So many times we were yelling openly in the car. Hoping our voices could be heard by the characters before they made a deadly decision. I adored the narrator! His voice and depiction of characters was seamless. I was gripped by him from beginning to end. Flawless execution. I’d definitely recommend this book for people that like psychological thrillers.

Raging Book Reviews Recommended!

Buy it here: http://www.audible.com/pd/Mysteries-Thrillers/The-Life-We-Bury-Audiobook/B00YNT5JO6/ref=a_listener__cco_1_1_i