Tag: self-published book review

Self-Publishing Book Review of the Week

Weekly Self-Published Book Review: Imlich’s Tale: A Woeful Buffeting at the Hands of Fate, or Accident, or Error

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 by Midwest Book Review:

Imlich’s Tale: A Woeful Buffeting at the Hands of Fate, or Accident, or Error

Elizabeth Carroll

Publisher: Outskirts Press

ISBN: 9781432775391

Reviewer: Beverly Pechin

First and foremost if you’re not one to appreciate a good folklore or tale of tall tales, magic, and dragons, you won’t enjoy this book. This book is for those who still have a bit of child in their heart and love the ideas of mythical creatures and the magic of those creatures.

This is a story of Imlich, one of a “baker’s dozen” whom his mother has hatched in her nest. She quickly takes a special liking to Imlich, much like you will as you read along with his story. Imlich was among those thought to have the ability to be an heir among the dragons, and it seemed to be in the cards for the future as all could see and feel. While he had no clue what that meant, neither he nor his siblings really cared. They just knew that they were hungry often and were certain that they should fly, as all dragons do. Imlich seemed to be the first to comprehend, at least the beginning steps to obtaining flight, and he quickly helped those siblings that were interested to join him as he taught them the moves he found that brought them each closer to flight, showing he was a leader from the beginning.

His father, the King, seemed to be very much in love with his mother; unlike so many others who had been brought to the King to serve him in bearing him children. Most made it as the companion to the King for less than two years, some not even close to that time, yet his mother was quickly approaching the two-year mark and the comment was made to her by the King himself that it seem there may be an heir to his throne in their batch of little ones. The love seemed endless and true between the King and Imlich’s mother, and the future seemed to be already written.

Had Imlich known the ways of the King, he would have understood that the King had taken to his mother and brought her as close as she would ever come to becoming his Queen. She had been so in love with him, and he seemingly with her. His custom was to  woo those he loved for a matter of two years and then send them off, never marrying them. But this time it was different. This time the future was in the stars and in the eyes of the two who loved each other so very much.

Imlich’s mother had been with her love for almost two years now when they called for a “Seer” to determine who the next in line would be to the throne. The Seer was called upon to give his great insight as to who the next in line to the throne would be. It seemed that both Imlich’s mother and the King himself were both certain that it was one of their own offspring, but in particular she felt certain it would be Imlich. However the Seer instead damned her and turned her and her offspring away immediately in front of everyone. From that evening on, she never again was acknowledged by the King and was thrown to live the life that she had never thought she would live, held captive in the castle area of the King to live with her guardian.

Each part of the story goes on to show you the life of both Imlich and his beloved mother as they move on through time. They face adventures and meet people much like those we have all met in life. The story telling ability of the author makes each adventure as magical as it is, and the story of a dragon and his mother growing up in a world that can often be strange and unpredictable will warm your heart.

Perhaps you may even see yourself in many of the situations and enjoy the comfort of the magical creatures that you grow to love being an inspiration in the real world and what happens in it. It’s truly an amazing, magical book, filled with tender stories, frightening fears and somehow realities that are made magical. The real world intertwines with the magical one, showing you how sometimes we are caught in our own dreams only to be left alone against the world. Touching and amazingly well written, Elizabeth Carroll has a way of truly creating a world of fantasy that encompasses you the entire time you’re reading it.

If you’re one who loves to enjoy the magical wonder of the world of medieval dragons and the wonder of being lost in the magical world of a book, then you will love “Imlich’s Tale.” It allows you to cheer on the “good guys” and hope for the “little guys” in both the magical world of dragons and in the real world of humans. It’s definitely a wonderful way to escape into another world of magic. Keep it handy for any time you simply need to escape into a book of fantasy and a touching story of a dragon and his mother.

Self-Publishing Book Review of the Week

Weekly Self-Published Book Review: Merlin’s Message: The Journey Home

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 by Midwest Book Review:

Merlin’s Message: The Journey Home

Denise Moon

Publisher: Outskirts Press

ISBN: 9781432773496

Reviewer: Marty Shaw

I love Greek mythology and stories about Merlin the Magician, so I should have loved a book that brought those two elements together. However, “Merlin’s Message: The Journey Home” seemed to suffer from having more pages than useful content to fill those pages.

The premise is excellent. A young boy named Michael sets off on a journey to the New World with his mother and step-father. It should be a fun adventure for Michael except for the facts that his mother appears to be suffering from a strange illness and his step-father seems to have something to do with it. On the journey, Michael learns a lot about Zeus, Poseidon, and other gods and goddesses from a mysterious and friendly sailor named Muldoon. Unfortunately, for the reader, this ocean-going trip lasts a lot longer than it needs to. There’s a lot of pages where the ship goes nowhere because of the lack of wind and we’re treated to many moments of Michael questioning if his reality is real or imagined, expressing how much he enjoys Muldoon’s stories, and thinking about how much he despises his step-father. There are a few interesting parts tucked within these scenes, but there’s only so much action you can squeeze from a ship sitting still on the water.

Eventually, a storm allows the story to progress past this stalled moment and Michael’s adventure truly begins as he explores a wondrous island filled with faeries, nymphs, talking trees and stones, and paths that seem to appear and disappear on their own. Again, it seems like space had to be wasted just to fill a certain number of pages because Michael suddenly becomes what has to be the densest main character that has ever existed. One moment, he’s discovering that he wields incredible powers, but then he gets scared when the sun goes down. He’s told time and time again that evil or fearful thoughts will summon creatures from his nightmares that will make his journey more difficult, so he immediately begins to imagine various assortments of creatures in the forest that want to kill him. I can understand these moments happening early on, but once that point of change occurs, it just seems awkward to take the main character back a few steps. Even after Michael sees for himself that he truly holds awesome power and is in control of what he faces while on the island, he still cowers and whimpers way too much.

I was prepared to thoroughly enjoy “Merlin’s Message: The Journey Home,” but there was too much book for the actual story that was contained within.

Self-Publishing Book Review of the Week

Weekly Self-Published Book Review: My Annie: The True to Life Story of a Liberated Woman Written by her Husband

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 by Midwest Book Review:

My Annie: The True to Life Story of a Liberated Woman Written by her Husband

Douglas Richie

Publisher: Outskirts Press

ISBN: 9781432779641

Reviewer: Vicki Liston

Born in mid 1926, Annie Whitaker Richie could have grown up to be exactly like all of the other girls living in this time period – quiet, submissive, a housewife and a stay at home mom, and someone with no life outside of the four walls she calls “home”. Yet despite the negative and demeaning experiences she endured from her own mother during a difficult childhood and the cultural norm of restriction for women, she fought to break free of the general mold labeled “proper wife” and went on to live an uncommon and invigorating life. Call her forward-thinking, call her educated, or call her liberated. But to her husband – and the author of her biography – she’s just “My Annie.”

“My Annie: The True to Life Story of a Liberated Woman Written by her Husband” is an extensive biography. Written by her loving husband, the story follows Annie from the time she was a little girl, through college and their courtship, through four children and two surprise overseas adoptions, through international travels and volunteering, and up to present day where she happily lives with Douglas Richie in Carlsbad, California. She describes the high points in her life, but she also shares the low ones – her husband’s firing and brush with a breakdown, the eventual break from the two difficult Korean adoptees, and running away from her family to the tropical islands of Hawaii. Her amazing story is one of hope, faith, and determination.

“My Annie” is a cherished find for fans of biographies and autobiographies. The vivid recounting of the various stories is genuine and heartfelt while the sheer amount of detail included is surprising and impressive. I couldn‟t believe how clear each chapter’s descriptions were – I really felt like I was put into the setting and could see what she was seeing or feel what she was feeling. For example, the meticulous elements of their first date are included: that there had been a polio epidemic that year, that the boys they hung out with were all in the glee club, that her and her eventual-husband talked of things like the trains, or that he had the same last name that the head of a work camp she’d gone to had, etc, etc, etc. Or the fact that she got penicillin every three hours, day and night, when she developed a horrible case of strep throat in college. This kind of detail is in every page, every story, and every chapter. The book takes you through each phase of Annie’s life and allows you to be a part of her thought process and growth. While written by her husband, the book relays the entirety of her story in first person. I thought this might make the story more difficult to read but it gave the tone a deeply personal feel. Douglas Richie does an impeccable job “becoming” Annie and bringing her story to life. He further excels at keeping the book flowing so as not to weigh down the reader or allow things to get boring. Both organization and editing are top-notch. I was disappointed that there weren’t more photographs of Annie throughout the years, though. There are two pictures at the very end of the book – one family picture and one of her four children when they were very young. Inspirational and entertaining!

Self-Publishing Book Review of the Week

Weekly Self-Published Book Review: My Bittersweet Charlie:

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 by Midwest Book Review:

My Bittersweet Charlie: A Novel: A Tender and Tragic Love Story about a Young Teacher and her Battles with Manic-Depression and Schizophrenia

Robert L. Clark

Publisher: Outskirts Press

ISBN: 9781432774264

Reviewer: Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson

“My Bittersweet Charlie” opens with a prologue, which sets a great framework for the story to come. University professor Dr. Doug Larson has finally decided to call it quits with his lover of nearly three years, Charlie Johnston. Charlie, a beautiful, smart, and ambitious school teacher, has broken his heart one too many times. Dr. Larson decided to break up with her by writing her a letter, which at last he delivered in person. A bitter beginning to a bitter, heartbreaking story of love and betrayal, destruction and quest for balance, as well as all too many ugly moments and actions.

While the subtitle calls this book “A Tender and Tragic Love Story about a Young Teacher and her Battles with manic-Depression and Schizophrenia,” I was unable to develop any particular tender feelings about the story or its protagonists. I can certainly see how mental illness could and does wreak havoc upon the lives of people close to the person who suffers from it, but I found both Charlie and Doug extremely difficult to relate to. The entire story felt like watching a train wreck about to happen – one knows it is going to be ugly and gory, but for some strange reason one keeps watching until the tragic end, hoping that at least the hero will jump out of the wreck-to-happen and save himself, but knowing all too well that such an outcome is extremely unlikely. Seeing how love does not always overcome adversity is quite painful, and watching Charlie’s steady destruction of Doug’s feelings with her manipulative and promiscuous ways was downright excruciating. The end, as tragic as it was, in a certain way, came as a relief.

While I truly appreciate the author’s courage in attempting to bring some exposure and clarity to the controversial subject of mental illness, I had to struggle a fair bit to finish this book due to fragmented storyline and stilted writing. The unlikable characters and the tragic story did not help either, and I would be hard pressed to say that I’ve enjoyed any aspect of this book. In spite of all of those issues, I would recommend “My Bittersweet Charlie” to those readers who would like to see an unvarnished view of what not adequately treated mental illness can do both to those who suffer from it and those who care for them and are involved with them. This is a story that will certainly break your heart.

Self-Publishing Book Review of the Week

Weekly Self-Published Book Review: My Dreams, My Choices

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 by Midwest Book Review:

My Dreams, My Choices

Clementine Wamboye Girenge

Publisher: Outskirts Press

ISBN: 9781432771768

Felly lived with her extended family in rural Kenya. Given the area they lived in, sometimes many obstacles came her family’s way, yet she learned to look at the positives and pursue her goal of getting a good education.

Felly’s grandmother is a bitter old woman and doesn’t really care about what is happening to anyone else, including her husband who is sick. Her grandmother has lost several of her children to the famines of Africa, and she doesn’t really want anyone else to be happy.

When Felly goes to Nairobi to attend school, she is dismayed at the treatment she gets because she can’t afford the same things as everyone else and the staff at the school are very mean, beating the children on a daily basis.

When the staff at the school are replaced due to poor performance, many of the students are dismayed. But in her heart, Felly knows she can finish her education regardless of what happens.

Through her own strength and the strength of others, she is able to accomplish what she wants.

“My Dreams, My Choices” is a very inspiring book written by Clementine Wamboye Girenge. There are times in one’s life when things don’t always look bright, but, as the author says, you have to look at the bright side in all that you do.