Book Feature: A Fool Among Fools by: John Terracuso

Publisher: Smashwords

Publication Date: May 19, 2013

Book Links:  Smashwords

Synopsis: It's 1986. Ronald Reagan is in the White House, Molly Ringwald is on the cover of Time and 29-year-old Michael Gregoretti is a struggling, underpaid copywriter at a big New York ad agency. He'd rather be writing plays; instead, he's writing awful commercials for a moisturizer formulated to conquer that dire, life-threatening condition: handruff.

Michael reluctantly accepts an assignment on a brand-new (and very secret) product – an aerosol butter – hoping it will lead to the kind of work that will land him a better job at another agency. But there's a catch: Working on this new account will also mean working for the rigid, compulsive and quite possibly insane Gwen Hammond, who thinks that Michael, with his off-the-wall ideas and unconventional campaigns, is just too much of a rebel to work with such a conservative client.

To further complicate life, Michael meets and falls for Craig Connolly, an absolute dreamboat from the South with a voice like FM radio and a face to match. Craig claims he'd like to be in a relationship and Michael wants to believe it. The problem is, Craig is already married – to his job.

Michael survives it all with the help of his two best friends: Irene Lucca, a witty book editor with a flair for vintage clothing and an eye for the art director Michael works with, and Anthony DeLorenzo, Michael's wise (and wisecracking) roommate and staunchest supporter.

By the time A Fool Among Fools ends, Michael has battled stuffy clients and stifling supervisors, written and produced what just might be the worst commercials in the history of advertising, found and lost love, and managed to keep himself – and the reader – laughing along the way.

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Book Review: The Last of the Time Police by: Kim Howard Johnson

Rating: 4/5

Publisher: DoubleDare Books

Publication Date: May 31, 2013

Origins:  From Author for Review

Book Links:  Amazon / Barnes & Noble

Synopsis: It’s "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" meets "Time Bandits" in this action-packed science fiction adventure.

Stan and Jack are the last remaining members of the Time Authority, a government unit formed to correct disruptions to the established Time Line. Although time travel has been officially outlawed, Stan and Jack must make a quick time hop to 16th Century France to clean up some of their careless littering.

Unbeknownst to them, however, Leonardo DaVinci stows away and tumbles out (along with the operating manual for the time machine) in 18th Century England. This disruption is discovered by the Time Authority, as it creates a Chronological Anomaly that begins advancing toward the future and threatens to wipe out all reality. The military and civilian leaders clash before agreeing on a scheme to build one final time machine and send Corporal Spumoni back to correct the Time Line, even though it may ruin any chance of Stan and Jack returning home.

Stan and Jack must crash-land their time machine in 1848, where they discover, due to DaVinci’s influence, a futuristic Victorian England. After nearly colliding with Maggie Wells on her flying machine, she helps them hide their broken Time Hopper. Stan and Jack realize their only hope to fix their machine is to recover the operating manual, if it still even exists. But Special Services agents, led by Maggie’s former boyfriend James Burton, are constantly searching for them. And Jack’s growing attraction for Maggie is tempered by the thought that she could be his great-great-great-great-grandmother.

By 1768, DaVinci has become a favorite of King George III of England. His only rival is Benjamin Franklin. Jealous, with the help of Lord Frederick North, DaVinci frames Franklin for the theft of his own notebooks. But when DaVinci learns Britain’s plans for his own war machines, he realizes he must work with Franklin to stop Britain’s domination of the globe.

Series: The Last of Time Police (1), The Return of the Time Police (2)

Review: When the last two timenauts are sent back in the only working Time Machine to clean up after themselves things go very awry. Stan and Jack are part of the Time Authority, which is being shut down since time travel has been outlawed. They’ve been sent back to clean up their litter and pick up an extra passenger – Leonardo da Vinci. They drop him off in 18th C. England and once da Vinci establishes who he is with the leaders, he goes on to provide them with his inventions. The king, in turn, uses these inventions to plan his takeover of the world. This causes a severe Chronological Anomaly, a wave of change which will obliterate the way of life we all know and love. Can Stan and Jack fix their major mistake??

THE LAST OF THE TIME POLICE is a super-funny convoluted tale of time travel. It reminds me of a Kids in the Hall sketch or a Mel Brooks movie. Stan and Jack probably couldn’t be any stupider if they tried, but they somehow fall into right where they need to be or the person who can help them. Back in the ‘present’ time, the Powers That Be are arguing and pointing fingers as to who is at fault for the Chronological Anomaly. da Vinci is a schemer, master manipulator, and wicked genius who steals others’ ideas – like those of Ben Franklin – and uses them in his own inventions. I loved how integrated his inventions became in the majority of society, such as Maggie and her wings. Maggie is the perfect straight-woman to Jack and Stan’s bumbling buffoonery. THE LAST OF THE TIME POLICE has a very interesting concept, fun characters, and will take readers by surprise!

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Book Review: The Magician by: Anne Montgomery

Rating: 5/5

Publisher: Musa Publishing

Publication Date: December 18, 2013

Origins:  From Author for Review

Book Links:  Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Musa Publishing

Synopsis: The past and present collide when a tenacious reporter seeks information on an eleventh century magician...and uncovers more than she bargained for.

In 1939, archaeologists uncovered a tomb at the Northern Arizona site called Ridge Ruin. The man, bedecked in fine turquoise jewelry and intricate bead work, was surrounded by wooden swords with handles carved into animal hooves and human hands. The Hopi workers stepped back from the grave, knowing what the Moochiwimi sticks meant. This man, buried nine hundred years earlier, was a magician.

Former television journalist Kate Butler hangs on to her investigative reporting career by writing freelance magazine articles. Her research on The Magician shows he bore some European facial characteristics and physical qualities that made him different from the people who buried him. Her quest to discover The Magician’s origin carries her back to a time when the high desert world was shattered by the birth of a volcano and into the present-day dangers of archaeological looting where black market sales of antiquities can lead to murder.

Review: Kate Butler left television journalism and now works as a freelance investigative reporter. She’s contracted to write a story on The Magician, a man dug up in an archaeological find from 1939 in Northern Arizona. The remains of this man raised a lot more questions and controversy than he ever answered by his discovery. Kate and Jack Cooper, the Yuma County Deputy Sheriff, have a long history but he’s helping with her investigation. Alongside Kate and Jack’s story is the story of The Magician himself in 1098 A.D. THE MAGICIAN is an amazing story of history, salvation, and discovery. I love the juxtaposition of the present day and the past. The reader discovers The Magician along with Kate and it makes you feel as if you’re a part of the story. Richly detailed and with fascinating characters, THE MAGICIAN will capture your imagination and transport you to another time.

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Giveaway: To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis by: Andra Watkins

Publisher: Word Hermit Press

Publish Date: March 1, 2014

Synopsis: Is remembrance immortality? Nobody wants to be forgotten, least of all the famous.

Meriwether Lewis lived a memorable life. He and William Clark were the first white men to reach the Pacific in their failed attempt to discover a Northwest Passage. Much celebrated upon their return, Lewis was appointed governor of the vast Upper Louisiana Territory and began preparing his eagerly-anticipated journals for publication. But his re-entry into society proved as challenging as his journey. Battling financial and psychological demons and faced with mounting pressure from Washington, Lewis set out on a pivotal trip to the nation’s capital in September 1809. His mission: to publish his journals and salvage his political career. He never made it. He died in a roadside inn on the Natchez Trace in Tennessee from one gunshot to the head and another to the abdomen.

Was it suicide or murder? His mysterious death tainted his legacy and his fame quickly faded. Merry’s own memory of his death is fuzzy at best. All he knows is he’s fallen into Nowhere, where his only shot at redemption lies in the fate of rescuing another. An ill-suited “guardian angel,” Merry comes to in the same New Orleans bar after twelve straight failures. Now, with one drink and a two-dollar bill he is sent on his last assignment, his final shot at escape from the purgatory in which he’s been dwelling for almost 200 years. Merry still believes he can reverse his forgotten fortunes.

Nine-year-old Emmaline Cagney is the daughter of French Quarter madam and a Dixieland bass player. When her mother wins custody in a bitter divorce, Emmaline carves out her childhood among the ladies of Bourbon Street. Bounced between innocence and immorality, she struggles to find her safe haven, even while her mother makes her open her dress and serve tea to grown men.

It isn’t until Emmaline finds the strange cards hidden in her mother’s desk that she realizes why these men are visiting: her mother has offered to sell her to the highest bidder. To escape a life of prostitution, she slips away during a police raid on her mother’s bordello, desperate to find her father in Nashville.

Merry’s fateful two-dollar bill leads him to Emmaline as she is being chased by the winner of her mother’s sick card game: The Judge. A dangerous Nowhere Man convinced that Emmaline is the reincarnation of his long dead wife, Judge Wilkinson is determined to possess her, to tease out his wife’s spirit and marry her when she is ready. That Emmaline is now guarded by Meriwether Lewis, his bitter rival in life, further stokes his obsessive rage.

To elude the Judge, Em and Merry navigate the Mississippi River to Natchez. They set off on an adventure along the storied Natchez Trace, where they meet Cajun bird watchers, Elvis-crooning Siamese twins, War of 1812 re-enactors, Spanish wild boar hunters and ancient mound dwellers. Are these people their allies? Or pawns of the perverted, powerful Judge?

After a bloody confrontation with the Judge at Lewis’s grave, Merry and Em limp into Nashville and discover her father at the Parthenon. Just as Merry wrestles with the specter of success in his mission to deliver Em, The Judge intercedes with renewed determination to win Emmaline, waging a final battle for her soul. Merry vanquishes the Judge and earns his redemption. As his spirit fuses with the body of Em’s living father, Merry discovers that immortality lives within the salvation of another, not the remembrance of the multitude.

Giveaway Information: 

There is 1 Print (open to US only) OR 1 Ebook (open internationally) of 'To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis' for giveaway!

TO ENTER: Please leave a comment below. You must include your email address in your comment in order to be entered. The winner will be chosen at random once the giveaway ends May 2, 2014.

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Book Review: The Collector of Dying Breaths by: M.J. Rose

Rating: 5/5

Publisher: Atria Books

Publication Date: April 8, 2014

Origins:  From Publisher for Review

Book Links:  Amazon / Barnes & Noble

Synopsis: A lush and imaginative novel that crisscrosses time as a perfumer and a mythologist search for the fine line between potion and poison, poison and passion...and past and present. 

Florence, Italy—1533: An orphan named René le Florentin is plucked from poverty to become Catherine de Medici's perfumer. Traveling with the young duchessina from Italy to France, René brings with him a cache of secret documents from the monastery where he was trained: recipes for exotic fragrances and potent medicines — and a formula for an alchemic process said to have the potential to reanimate the dead. In France, René becomes not only the greatest perfumer in the country but the most dangerous, creating deadly poisons for his Queen to use against her rivals. But while mixing herbs and essences under the light of flickering candles, Rene doesn't begin to imagine the tragic and personal consequences for which his lethal potions will be responsible. 

Paris, France—The Present: A renowned mythologist, Jac L'Etoile, is trying to recover from personal heartache by throwing herself into her work, learns of the 16th century perfumer who may have been working on an elixir that would unlock the secret to immortality. She becomes obsessed with René le Florentin's work — particularly when she discovers the dying breathes he had collected during his lifetime. Jac's efforts put her in the path of her estranged lover, Griffin North, a linguist who has already begun translating René le Florentin's mysterious formula. Together they confront an eccentric heiress in possession of a world-class art collection. A woman who has her own dark purpose for the elixir... a purpose for which she believes the ends will justify her deadly means. 

This mesmerizing gothic tale of passion and obsession crisscrosses time, zigzagging from the violent days of Catherine de Medici's court to twenty-first century France. Fiery and lush, set against deep, wild forests and dimly lit chateaus, The Collector of Dying Breaths illuminates the true path to immortality: the legacies we leave behind.

Series: The Reincarnationist (1), The Memorist (2), The Hypnotist (3), The Book of Lost Fragrances (4), Seduction (5), The Collector of Dying Breaths

Review: Switching between Italy in the 1500s and present-day France, THE COLLECTOR OF DYING BREATHS speaks to the search for immortality and resurrection through scent. Jac L’Etoile, world-renowned mythologist has just lost the last of her family. When she discovers the work of René le Florentin left unfinished by her brother, she’s determined to complete it. In the past it is René le Florentin’s own story we are introduced to, his youth and his work for Catherine d’Medici. In any time, there are those who want to have the secret to immortality no matter the cost. Along with Griffin North, her former lover, Jac must navigate the truth through the whitewash of history. THE COLLECTOR OF DYING BREATHS is an exquisite tale of love, betrayal, revenge, and redemption. I love learning more of the history of perfumery which is intertwined with the fictional tales of Jac and René. The author has the uncanny ability to create a rich story layered with emotion built through scent. The characters and history blaze off the pages and draw in readers deeply. THE COLLECTOR OF DYING BREATHS is a magnificent tale and will touch your soul.

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