Event Horizon Conspiracy by Robert E. Bonson

Event Horizon Conspiracy. Robert E. Bonson. Xlibris Corporation. 2011. 208 pp. pbk. ISBN #: 9781465376183.

A man walks toward a limousine driver who nods and opens the door for him. The doors close and locks are in place. For an unspecified reason, the passenger panics and panics and panics; he then tries to get out of the car, fails, and succumbs to a mind-boggling, claustrophobic, fearsome pain that spreads and spreads!

So begins this story of two researchers who have disappeared and the attempt to find them by a relative and Russell, our hero with past experience in aeronautics, criminal investigations and mystery writing. As the story progresses, it seems that this rather secretive research about rDNA is tied to the 2012 Mayan Calendar feverish public commentary about the end of the world or some other scenarios just as shocking and ultimately ending with the same demise of Earth.

What is happening at a funeral home where dead people are buried but no families are involved in the final days of the deceased? Why are there two murders that follow rapidly upon the sharing of secretive information that just might lead the investigators closer to finding one dead researcher and one who still might be alive? If the research isn't connected to the Mayan calendar predictions but instead a diabolical plot to eliminate all but a select few, what can and can't be done to prevent such a horrific possibility from coming to pass?

Robert Bonson's novels have always been intriguing, but this mystery specifically exceeds all of his earlier stories. The complexity of the plot is credible, fear-filled to the point of producing anxiety, and obviously well-researched. The information behind the incredible schemes is depicted in layperson's terms, with enough theoretical possibilities to make the reader believe he or she is right there and that this will indeed all come to pass!

Congratulations Robert E. Bonson on a fascinating, gripping mystery and adventure tale sure to engage many future readers!!! Very nicely done!

At The Mercy of the Queen - A Novel of Anne Boleyn by Anne Clinard Barnhill

At The Mercy of The Queen: A Novel of Anne Boleyn. St. Martin's Press. January 2012. 448 pp. pbk. ISBN #: 9780312662134.

Lady Margaret Shelton, or Madge as she is known throughout the novel, arrives at the Court of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Madge is 15, close in age to Anne, who is soon to wed Henry. For Henry's late Queen has been put aside, Henry has formed his own Church of England after splitting with Rome over his soon-to-be-Queen Anne. It's a dangerous time for all but the King, who revels only in a reign that gathers more and more wealth from the old Church, delightful food and drink, and of course his voracious sexual appetite now focused solely on Anne. But this novel is as much about Madge as it is Anne Boleyn. For Madge's fortune is explicitly tied to the ups and downs of Henry and Anne's relationship. And all too soon, there are more "down" moments!

Anne and Madge are enigmas, one minute displaying piety and virtue and the next speaking about the most outrageous forms of lovemaking, etc. For neither, quite obviously, is sure of how to gain and keep love. Both are slow to realize how a word spoken impetuously can cascade into dramatic scenes that could cause banishment or even death. Madge is betrothed to a loathsome Sir Norris while she madly falls in love with another man of no real consequence in Henry's Court, Arthur. Anne urges Madge on, as her own romance with the King waxes and wanes, decreasing as she gives birth to a girl and then proceeds to miscarry other babes, including one who would have been the long-sought-after Prince or heir to Henry.

At one point, the Queen will sacrifice the virtue of Madge in order to regain her husband's fancy, a plan that quickly falls apart as Henry suspects the "French" techniques of love as beyond debauchery and obscene. Ironically, the other members of the Court, outside of Cromwell and Jane Seymour, have little place in this tale, even Anne's brother, George.

Having read many, many accounts of Queen Anne Boleyn, this reviewer didn't expect to be so enthralled with another account of same, but Anne Barnhill has managed to craft a thrilling, human, and inspiring portrait of two characters who really did so little to deserve admiration, beyond their obvious physical beauty and charm, but who manage to have readers rooting for their success, even when one knows the end of the story for Anne.

Well-done, Anne Clinard Barnhill! Anne Boleyn is much more likable and probable in your depiction. This is a graceful, spicy, terrible, and totally engaging novel!

Because of You by Cathy Maxwell

Because of You. Cathy Maxwell. Avon Romance Publishers. October 2011. 384 pp. ISBN #: 9780380797103.

"It's not right to hold onto the past once it is done and over." These are words that Yale Carderock thinks and feels on a daily basis. Being a rake is often depicted as fun, adventurous, and far above the mundane thoughts and actions of the majority of people. Yale would have agreed years ago when he was in the throes of his own hedonistic lifestyle, but he's paid dearly for those years, not so much in money as in wrecked relationships. First, he's come back to find his father, with whom he'd hoped to have a stormy but ultimately successful reconciliation, is dead. Second, his reputation is so besmirched that it seems almost hopeless for him to resume living in that village within Northumberland, England in 1806. But he's in for some unanticipated challenges, the chief one being a very spunky female.

Samantha Northrup is living alone and on the verge of being evicted from the vicarage home where she's lived her entire life, the home where her father the Vicar earned the respect and reverence of his parish, that is until he died and they had grander ideas for new residents. It's not easy being treated like an old shoe and Samantha doesn't know what to do next. How shocked she is when an unknown man appears and insists on her giving him the keys to the secret Ayleborough vault.

After their initially charged conversation and reaction to each other, Marvin Browne as he calls himself becomes deathly ill and Samantha will be the one who fights for his life and nurses him back to health. From there on the plot spins wildly with the neighbors forcing the two to marry because "Marvin" has been naked in front of Samantha, then remarried because she was first married to a man with a stolen name. If one doesn't read this as an obvious tongue-in-cheek satire, one would fail to appreciate this as being downright silly.

Not wanting to provide a spoiler, suffice to say that now the larger conflict follows with Yale's brother, the Duke, wanting Yale to assume his rightful place in the family and village and then a devastating loss to his personal business. Through it all, the passion between Yale and Samantha increases, with each vowing no attachment to the other person. It's a rather futile goal in the face of the steamy sex and connection that's being solidly forged in more ways than one.

Romance fiction lovers will love this novel which adds interesting local and foreign elements to an exciting and endearing story of seduction out of conformity in so many ways.

Wendy Wax Giveaway Opportunity!

WENDY WAX BOOK GIVEAWAY OPPORTUNITY!!!

Starting this week, Ten Beach Road author Wendy Wax is offering a book a week for each of six weeks, all women’s fiction.

This week is week one and the winner will receive a copy of Carly Phillips’ new bestseller SERENDIPITY. This Saturday morning week two starts and highlights Jill Shalvis’s latest.

In the following weeks, one reader a week will be randomly selected to receive a book. Coming weeks will offer the latest novels from first novelist K.J. Steele, Carol Snow, Marie Skinner and Wendy.

To enter, readers just go to http://www.authorwendywax.com, click on Contest News: Enter Wendy’s Latest Giveaway Now, and enter their email address as directed and they are in the running. Each Saturday begins a new giveaway and offers another chance to enter.

GOOD LUCK TO ALL READERS WHO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY

Charles Dickens: A Life by Jane Smiley

Charles Dickens: A Life. Jane Smiley. Penguin Group (USA). November 2011. 224 pp. pbk. ISBN #: 9780143119920.

Charles Dickens is famous for depicting the lower class to the middle and upper classes of England and eventually the world, an existence most would prefer to acknowledge. But few realize how driven Dickens was to produce social results that would put an end to the evil and devastating consequences of poverty and ill-treatment far too many poor people endured in that revolutionary time. Jane Smiley, a scholarly and best-selling author, presents the entire life of Charles Dickens in a way that enhances our admiration and respect for this prodigious author.

He is revered for the way he combined artistic vision with social action in a new world of capitalism rapidly expanding. Thus he presents new ideas: "care and respect are owed to the weakest and meekest in society, rather than to the strongest; that the ways in which class and money divide humans from one another are artificial and dangerous; that pleasure and physical comfort are positive goods; that the spiritual lives of the powerful have social and economic ramifications."

Smiley then proceeds to depict the familial and authorial characteristics of this man who penned novels, short stories, and plays, often in serial form. We learn how his style evolved as he developed an uncanny sense of what people responded to, a sort of early understanding of the power of advertising. By placing the humorous with the tragic, he forced readers to face social inequalities and the consequent suffering therein. Smiley sees his weakness in providing a connective understanding of this world rather than providing a collective solution that is more political in nature. We also realize something heretofore unknown, that it was Dickens' own background that he was forced to dig into and expose, with the revelation of past experiences in social context. It led him to greater awareness of the power of important individuals that often expressed itself in what were truly moments of weakness rather than strength.

Dickens believed that mental attitude was to prevail over whatever challenging and daunting experiences life throws one's way. When it came to family, however, Dickens was unable to apply this recognized philosophical truth. He had a relatively content relationship with his wife and multiple children yet at times was guilty of not only negligence but perhaps of infidelity, amply described in these pages. Smiley then takes us through the plot and characterizations of each novel, describing what worked and failed to work; we note how Dickens learned from his mistakes and lack of connection, always driven by the financial elements driven by his increasing or dwindling sales. His love of the theater is recorded, a fact few know about this creative writer, a love that was actually a preference that remained relatively unfulfilled except for some short-lived projects in that genre.

All in all, Jane Smiley has given the world a comprehensive, fascinating portrait of a writer who was known as England's first novelist and whose novels continue to be read and dramatized in movie and play form throughout the world. Excellent biography, Ms. Smiley!

James Joyce: A Life by Edna O'Brien

James Joyce: A Life. Edna O'Brien. Penguin Lives - Penguin Books, USA. November 2011. 192 pp. pbk. ISBN #: 9780143119937.

Emotionally bereft, haunted by poverty, cynical of religion and politics, James Joyce spends his whole life determined to grasp every experience to its dregs. Edna O'Brien masterfully conveys how these attitudes and consequent behaviors both attracted and repulsed professional and consumer readers throughout Joyce's stressful, conflict-ridden life. In the beginning of his life, he moves from being an ardent Catholic to one who projects his hatred of his own lusts upon the priests who formerly inspired him. A fluctuating love-hate relationship exists between him and the predominant political leaders of his time as well. Yet O'Brien doesn't allow the reader to forget that he passionately loved the land he was to reject for most of his tortured life, condemning them as he wrote, "Poets were the keepers of spirituality and priests the destroyers and usurpers."

Ibsen is Joyce's first love, sharing with him a hatred of hypocrisy and falsity. Joyce read voraciously throughout his whole life, and it is that knowledge as well as every facet of his own world that will fill the pages of Ulysses, the work he is most famous for crafting. Support and rejection fluctuate from Joyce's family, including his closest brother Stanislaus. O'Brien calls the relationship with Joyce's mother, as with all brilliant writers, "the uncharted deep." For Joyce it was an association of the Host of Catholicism, the prostitutes and his mother's tenderness," hardly associations yielding a good connection to family, romance, and religion. He will wed Nora Barnacle and their marriage will be full of attraction and repulsion as life becomes more ordinary when the writer can revel only in the extraordinary, unique, and almost frenetic moments that give purpose to his understanding and writing.

Memory and exile are the elements fueling the pages of his novels and stories, to which one must add knowledge. O'Brien takes us through each work Joyce constructed, the reactions of individuals and Ireland and the difficulties in publishing Joyce knew, chiefly because of what was perceived to be criticism highlighted with the most obscene language and images. Sexual passion continues to fuel his life with Nora, a woman who pleased him in this one way but could never even come close to understanding his mind. His family life is even more stressed later on with the mental instability of his daughter, Lucia, a woman who finally is committed yet who remarkably resembles her father in so many of her ramblings and associations.

While many know the highlights of James Joyce's life, Edna O'Brien presents her knowledge and analysis with aplomb, implying with depth the undercurrents of Joyce's mind and soul, while stating the obvious; interpreting and making connections that the average reader might miss while again implying that so few truly understood what drove Joyce's scurrilous and debasing depiction of life's grand and sordid aspects. Brief but potent, O'Brien's biography of James Joyce is a phenomenal read about an unfathomable writer - both are brilliant, indeed!!!

The Strangers on Montagu Street by Karen White

The Strangers on Montagu Street. Karen White. Penguin Group (USA). November 2011. 352 pp. pbk. ISBN #: 9780451235268.

It's 5:15 a.m. and the phone and doorbell are ringing in Melanie's home. While she's used to seeing and hearing voices of dead spirits at all times of the day, she doesn't like the messages she's hearing about listening to her heart. So far she's been guarding her heart quite fiercely, thank you very much. So how surprised is she when Jack, her ex-boyfriend and whom she secretly yearns, is at the door, asking her to house his daughter who has trekked her way to his door after her mother died. Jack never even knew until now that he has a daughter, a surly, angry gal at that!

Several plot elements are happening here which basically involve voices and things violently moving by unknown hands, voices haunting Melanie with incessant messages involving Jack's daughter, Nola, and the mystery behind a Gothic dollhouse temporarily being held at Melanie's mother's house.

Nola's tough exterior doesn't frighten Melanie as they share the experience of abandonment and both search for healing. Their lack of trust frequently complicates the story, a hesitation and cynicism that is quite understandable and can truly only be understood by those who have known the same. As Nola slowly and not without clashes adapts to her father's presence and insistence on his love, she becomes the connection with some very sad and other very angry spirits. She and Melanie's Mom, as well as best friend Sophie and Jack, prompt Melanie to investigate further. Replete with mysterious, dark, and many terror-filled pages, this novel has enough multiple threads to keep the reader riveted and furiously flipping the pages to read faster.

The journey Melanie and Jack shares has a consistent pattern to it. Banter together with a constant edge, followed by a resisted tender moment, followed by a thoughtless or accusatory comment, flight in anger or frustration, and then an appearance where neither acknowledges the previous altercation. Each deeply yearns for and needs the other, but both are battle-shy and ultra-hesitant to go where their heart is indeed directing and suggesting. Passion is frequently waylaid until...

Karen White is a skilled writer deftly crafting a mysterious and fascinating ghost story with romance and a touch of Southern history threaded into its engrossing pages. Well done, Ms. White - I absolutely loved this novel!!!