Book reviews are a great way for self-publishing authors to gain exposure. After all, how can someone buy your book if he or she doesn’t know it exists? Paired with other elements of your book promotion strategy, requesting reviews is a great way to get people talking about what you’ve written.
When we read good reviews, we definitely like to share them. It gives the author a few (permanent) moments of fame and allows us to let the community know about a great book. Here’s this week’s book review, courtesy of Midwest Book Review:
The Thundering Herd:
Farm Life in the 1950’s and 60’s;
Looking Through the Lens of Duty in Vietnam.
by John E. Peltier
Publisher: Outskirts Press
ISBN: 9781478765332
Synopsis*:
These stories begin with brief family histories that bring the Peltier and the Scottish Keillor families together. John was the fifth of the twelve children that Wilburn and Barbara Peltier raised on the flat salt grass prairie of Southeast Texas after they married. The life they created for their family on their rice farm and cattle ranch provided fertile ground for the life experiences that are shared in these settings. At the age of nineteen, naive and fresh from the farm, John was drafted into the U.S. Army.
After surviving boot camp and medical corpsman training, he found himself in Vietnam. John used his time in the military and its experiences as the backdrop to describe life growing up. Writing this book intensified the realization of the valuable life lessons that his family and the farm and ranch taught him. After mustering out of the Army in January of 1969, he settled back into civilian life and finished his education.
Disaster struck in 1969 when his father suddenly died of a heart attack at the age of 54, leaving five of his siblings still at home and all without a father. He discovered the two earthy loves of his live – his wife Janie and the vocation of construction – at the same time and place. As a result, Janie and John have a beautiful family and he birthed Peltier Brothers Construction, a company which has provided a great livelihood not only for him and four of his brothers, but for nephews down into the next generation. Both Janie and the company also taught him lessons he never expected to learn. Those stories, plus an incident with the fangs of a deadly rattlesnake and a light essay on grass and water, are included in this book.
Critique:
5.0 out of 5 stars — Nice summer read!
Regretting the loss of family history at the passing of his father, John Peltier set out on a personal journey to preserve the legacy of his family by penning “The Thundering Herd: Farm Life in the 1950’s and 60’s; Looking Through the Lens of Duty in Vietnam”. This series of memoirs spanning his early family history in the 1600’s to the present day is best described as extraordinary in its ordinariness. Once the early roots are established through family lore in the first two chapters, the contemporary Peltier family stories switch back and forth between childhood memories and current (Vietnam war) era events. Not unlike Forrest Gump, you join the Peltier family as they go through life experiencing from a personal perspective events such as Hurricane Carla, the Vietnam war, and the rearing of the next generations through both lean and prosperous times. In this day when everyone has their nose in technology, it provides a warm reflection of what life was like for families growing up in rural Texas in the 50s and 60s when kids would leave their homes and not come back until dinner time and parents did not have to worry that someone would take them.
[ reviewed by Dr. Eileen R. Garza of Midwest Book Review ]
Here’s what some other reviewers are saying:
A thoughtful, well-written, at times entertaining and educational, book illustrating basic family values that survive specific times or wars. It illustrates the best of American farm life and the kind of citizens it can produce.
This book is also another view of the Vietnam War, showing the human side of the country from a young solder’s point of view. His stories and photos illustrate things that the U.S. Army did to help the Vietnamese people, even the families of the enemy Viet Cong, that the public has not always been made aware. Especially interesting is the section on the author’s visit to the orphanage of the children born to U.S. soldiers. The children were sadly ostracized.
– Amazon Reviewer Amazon Customer
Regretting the loss of family history at the passing of his father, John Peltier set out on a personal journey to preserve the legacy of his family by penning “The Thundering Herd”. This series of memoirs spanning his early family history in the 1600’s to the present day is best described as extraordinary in its ordinariness. Once the early roots are established through family lore in the first two chapters, the contemporary Peltier family stories switch back and forth between childhood memories and current (Vietnam war) era events. Not unlike Forrest Gump, you join the Peltier family as they go through life experiencing from a personal perspective events such as Hurricane Carla, the Vietnam war, and the rearing of the next generations through both lean and prosperous times. In this day when everyone has their nose in technology, it provides a warm reflection of what life was like for families growing up in rural Texas in the 50s and 60s when kids would leave their homes and not come back until dinner time and parents did not have to worry that someone would take them.
– Amazon Reviewer E. Garza
Thanks for reading! Keep up with the latest in the world of indie and self-published books by watching this space every Saturday!
Self Publishing Advisor
Self Publishing Advisor 
Nothing like a great book review to boost sales exponentially.