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The Killing Frost
By Scott Gamboe
Gold Imprint Medallion Press
Science Fiction
Soft Cover
September 2006
ISBN: 1-932815-98-8
589 pages
$6.99

Review: It is 2212 and the galaxy has expanded. There is a war between the United Systems Coalition and the Bromidian Empire that is continually escalating, and a guerilla group called the Rising Sun have brought more devastating and violent attacks. The Avenger Team 5, a special task force, is created in opposition of the Rising Sun and led by Padian Captain Arano Lakeland. There is racial tension that escalates as brutal attacks continue to take place and everything seems engineered as a traitor has access to sensitive information. Arano is a highly decorated officer however his motivation is more of revenge since the Bromidian's slaughtered his fiancée and family when they took over his world. Arano and his crew are unraveling a plot engineered by a traitor high up in the USC leadership. He takes actions that are viewed as questionable but excused as he makes progress where others have failed. As his personal mission heats up, he finds more turmoil as he falls for his human Squad B Captain Alyna Marquat, but always the mission comes first because he knows failure means a galaxy at war. When Arano's life is saved by a Bromidian he has to face the prejudice that may have colored events that could lead to the truth.

This novel could have used much tighter editing it was long for the events that transpired and could have easily lost a good two hundred pages and still kept the plot. A personal pet peeve of mine being the over use of adverbs in description, which most editors frown upon. The first sentence- which is meant to hook the reader is full of unnecessary words. The first sentence alone uses 3 adverbs that mean the same thing, and made me question my continuing to read the book. The book is full of extraneous words and this drastically changes the pace of the book, making it hard to stay engaged in the action at hand. While clearly the author has a strong military background and has strong opinions on government vs. military, the novel seriously lacks character development. Arano is about the only character that has any depth, the rest are in the story merely to move his line along and the other character points of view end up distracting the reader from empathizing with the character. Even his love interest is lack luster in emotions and contrived interactions between the two of them make it feel much more like a YA book instead of a thrilling science fiction novel. Good guys and bad guys are very obvious and unfortunately with insipid characters and slow confusing pacing this book was just a hard read. I give this book 1 star, which saddens me because science fiction is an area that I love and this book just fell too short of the mark to make a favorable impact.
Reviewer: Jennifer Fisch-Ferguson

Review Date: 09-18-07

Duking Days Rebellion
By Anita Davison
Grace Publishing / Enspiren Press Gorrie
Historical Romance
E-book
Release Date: 2007
ISBN: 978-0-9739502-7-4
271 pages
$4.99

Review: Helena Woulfe, the daughter of a wealthy Exeter nobleman, experiences life shattering events as her rebel father and brother take off to join and ill fated war. With their disappearance, the destruction of their home and death of family members, Helena and her younger brother, Henry, find themselves destitute but taken in by friends of the family who make the transition from privilege to taken care of as easy as possible. They are shuffled off to London, for their own safety and try their best to make new lives for themselves, even though King James is hunting down those who have betrayed them and their families. While Henry finds a new ambition and passion, Helena is finally offered love and stability, all the while trying restore her good name and respectability.

While this book was well researched and historically portrayed the era and the aftermath of the war admirably, the characters seemed extremely insipid amidst all the chaos around them. Helena never really seems to change from the privileged child to mature woman, at every step someone is there to take care of her and the lack of growth slowed the tempo of the book and made it drag at times. It's almost hard to classify as a romance novel, since romance enters into the scene so late- almost three quarters of the way through the book. It seems that there were also additional background characters that were tossed in for flavoring but didn't crucially impact the main story at all. The background settings were wonderfully lush and really brought to life the feel of the times, but the characters did little to support the book to its fullest potential. It felt like Helena was lost by the war but never fully recovered. I give this book two stars and wish the characters could have been as lively as the settings.

Reviewer: Jennifer Fisch-Ferguson

Review Date: 09-18-07

Twisted
By Andrea Kane
Harper Collins
Thriller
Hard Cover
Release Date: April 2008
ISBN: 0061236780
324 pages
$23.95

Review:
Sloane Burbank has settled into her new role in civilian life after a traumatic wound forced her to leave the FBI. She is brought back into the thick of things when she learns her best friend, Penny, from childhood has been missing over a year. A plea from Penny's desperate mother has Sloane taking on the case. Picking up new clues brings up the startling disclosure that some newer cases have strong resemblances to Penny's, giving Sloane even more reason to catch the depraved killer. She is willing to do anything to find out what happened to her friend, even if it means roping her ex lover, and former lead of the case, into working with her again. Derek Parker is none too thrilled to be working on the woman that kicked him out of her life, especially since the crimes of his new job are heating up as well.

As the clues knit themselves together, Sloane finds out that the commonality in all the cases have been pointing to her and she just might be next. As she and Derek find each other, Sloane is kidnapped and there are mere hours to find her before it's too late.

I really enjoyed the start of the book, it was fascinating and kept me intrigued until I picked out the "who" at page 41. Kane seemed to try really hard with misdirection and I thought the killer was pretty apparent. The book seemed to slow down in the middle as well, lots of filler detail that didn't really move the book along. However once it picked back up it was nicely paced and the motivations revealed were wrapped up cleanly. I was really disappointed that at the end things were figured out by a computer program - with seemingly little information to pull from, especially the reference to Greek characters.

The relationships between characters seemed a bit strained all around, except with the hounds. Sloane and Derek renewing their relationship seemed very fast from the past break up. It felt like Sloane needed a bit of counseling before making amends with Derek. Sloane, however, was a wonderful, strong female character, smart and quick on her feet. Overall, I give the book 3 stars, it was a good read. I tend to figure out mysteries quickly, so it wasn't a deterrent to continue reading, and once the killer was revealed the pace went quickly.
Reviewer: Jennifer Fisch-Ferguson
Review Date: 5/5/2008