As per usual, I’m sat here contemplating my review. I’m agog at how fortuitous it is that I came to read this book. I’m considering whether any of the characters were flamboyant, austere, tenacious, ostentatious, apoplectic, or exceptional. Through this book, I have discovered that I love the words rambunctiousness, discombobulated, and onomatopoeia, notwithstanding the fact that I struggle to spell the latter, however, that’s no great shakes. I find myself flabbergasted by how much I’m rocking this book, and the thought of not loving it would be truly preposterous.

I’m rather confident that Edward, the main character in this book, would like the paragraph above.

Edward has Asperger’s Syndrome and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and has to be one of my all-time favourite book characters, which is rather impressive, considering how many books I’ve actually read. This story is endearing, touching, emotional, sad and funny throughout.

Edward states “I don’t like to assume. I prefer facts.” I think he would love to meet my Grandma, as she taught me from a very young age that to assume makes and ass out of u and me.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes character led stories, as Edward is such a wonderful and entertaining character. I miss him already, and can’t wait to read Edward Adrift.

The Afghanistan war has been something of a testing ground for women in combat, with coalition members including Canada, Germany, Poland, and Sweden deploying women in frontline units for the first time. No significant problems were reported in the British survey, and some militaries found that women officers were more effective at some tasks, such as gathering intelligence from female civilians. – Joshua E. Keating, “Foreign Policy: Women on the Front Lines” February 3, 2012

Women in combat. Wow. Now there is a discussion as ‘hot-button’ as religion in the US. And M.L. Buchman pushes that button, hard, in his “Target Engaged.” And he does a Kick Ass job of it.

Buchman’s book couldn’t be more “up to the moment.” The news for September 11, 2015 was full of the results of the Marine Corp study carried out to test women in special operations combat situations. There was some good news, but mostly bad. The worst? The Marine study didn’t follow the guidelines set up for the test!! Instead of doing what they would do with the men special ops candidates, i.e., choosing the very best the Corp has to offer to go through special training, they chose “average.” AVERAGE??? Oh, cut me a freakin’ BREAK! AS IF they would choose “Average” males to go through special ops training! So, they got the results they were going for. Most of the women failed. Well, here is a little secret – Most of the men failed as well! That’s why they call it ‘special’ training. They weed out the weak. Of course, the articles you find on the net are varied by exactly who was writing them. Hampton Roads put the worst (read, most misogynist) spin on the results, while Stripes Okinawa was the most balanced I could find. I am embarrassed for the Marines, that they thought it necessary to try their best to skew the results for a bad outcome.

Where Buchman gets it right, and thrills me that I was offered his book for review, is in how he handles this issue with his Delta aspirant, Sergeant Carla Anderson. Carla is what the Marines should have aspired to in their test. She is no unbelievable Superwoman. She is simply a Soldier. An Army Sergeant with experience, intelligence, and above all, a drive to succeed that is unparalleled. And Buchman makes her believable. She is the kind of woman I always dreamed of being. Tough and ready to face the pain, but at the same time she is kind. She doesn’t take shit, but she doesn’t turn away from it either. She faces it all head-on. And when you dunk a fellow recruit’s head in the slit trench when he tries that misogynistic, hateful crap on you, well, the others have a tendency to stand back and let you do what you are going to do.

Buchman takes you through Delta training without pulling punches. I, of course, have no idea if what the recruits go through is realistic, but hey, it didn’t feel ‘unrealistic’ so I am going with it.

And, hey. Marines? You should read the book. Of 104 who started, all but Carla male, only seven graduated to the next level of training. And only five of those survived. Now THAT is realism in your training, kids.

Anyway. After a month of weeding out the weak, another of perfecting and tuning, the five remaining members of the class, including Anderson, are sent on their first operation. Venezuela, home of the “elected dictatorship” that runs on guns and drugs. And of course, having a woman on the team, especially one who has gone through Delta training and has a perfect, healthy body is, well, the perfect distraction for a drug lord’s guards. Just swagger across the compound with your shirt unbuttoned and everyone’s attention is riveted – enough to assure that picking them off is a piece of cake!

With that CIA run mission taken care of, they move immediately to the next. And the next may take them all out before they have been on the job for a week.

This is high-action, ladies and gents. Well written, exciting, and believable I found myself glued to my reader screen. Who needs food? Or sleep? Not when I can be reading Buchman! I had never read his work before, but I am loading all of his work into my Wish List.

The only thing that made me uneasy? This is a member of the “romantic suspense” genre. As such, Carla and Special Forces Sergeant First Class Kyle Reeves, one of the five, have a relationship. Buchman actually handles it well, but the very fact of the relationship aspect gave me pause. One of the things that women in the military face is sexual harassment. One of the things the military faces is women in the military being in relationships, and getting knocked up by, other soldiers. This is something that soldiers like Lance Cpl. Callahan Brown, one of the two women who survived the recent Marine test, has to face every day. All she wants is to be the best possible combat soldier. However, it is made harder than it should be, not only by the military brass and their fellow soldiers, but by other women who don’t have the fortitude to “Ovary-up” and concentrate on business, not what is between their legs. Buchman handles it fairly well, but it was still a concern for me, that Carla was distracted a couple of times from the business at hand by drooling over her fellow soldier. Of course, he was distracted at times as well, so goose and gander.

PUBLISHING DECEMBER 1, 2015

I received ”Target Engaged” from the publisher in exchange for a realistic review. All thoughts are my own.

This book had its fair share of problems, but i enjoyed it none the less, mainly because of the main character, James and the crazy world that Chu created, then turned around and dropped of its head - changing all the rules! I enjoyed the change though, shook things up!

Most of the characters were interesting, but i found that there personalities were inconsistent and it bothered me. James on the other hand was so messed up no matter his behaviour i wasnt all that surprised, he was so tortured from years and years of killing people or watching them die that i couldn't help but form a soft spot for him. To me, he made this book, this book would only be worth 2.5 stars without him. I'll admit it took me a while to enjoy his perspective (well enjoy isnt the right phrase, but all i can think of for now) but in the end i couldnt wait to learn more about him, and see the world through his unique if fucked up prospective. Even now three days later i enjoy thinking about him, it weird, but i dont mind.

This is definitely a writer to keep an eye on! though he should fire his editor, cause they did a pretty piss-poor job, i even came across sentences that mid way through dropped down into the next line... for no reason, like someone had just randomly pressed 'enter' O.o and that wasnt the only issue! there was quite a few of them.

All in all pretty good. wish there was more james.

“Human nature is evil, and goodness is caused by intentional activity.” -- Zun Zi

“As human beings we have the most extraordinary capacity for evil. We can perpetrate some of the most horrendous atrocities.” -- Desmond Tutu

Plato, bless him, was wrong. No matter how intelligent he was. He said, “To prefer evil to good is not in human nature.” Possibly it was simply a blind spot. Or a “if wishes were horses” sort of thing. Because people, no matter who they are, or what they believe in, are balanced on a knife’s edge of savagery. Some more than others, of course. But for some? For some, there is no other choice but the darkness. Twisted, rotting souls, aching for the pleasure of blood and agony. Needing the death, the pain they bring to others. Then there are the soulless ones – the ones born with no conscience, no light. Those who live only for the game of death. A game.

Simply a game.

Emma know about the game. Her grandparents were pawns, many years ago, when the TBK Killer took their lives. As if “took their lives” could possibly portray the horror of their deaths. Torture. Blind. Kill. Only, the truly cruel part? They left her father alive. Her father, who never recovered. Who lives in hiding, drunk and brutal and broken. So, Emma tries to understand. She gathered all of the monster’s letters to his victims she could find. Created files. Notes. Timelines. She learned everything she could about the monster who destroyed her family. She isn’t educated, she likes big trucks and dirt bikes, and she has only a single friend. But she is holding it together, working as a mechanic and sculpting in left-over metal and junk parts. She is alive. Sort of.

Jacob. Jacob is different from Emma, but in many ways the same. His father was the cop who brought down Mitchell Land, the TBK Killer. Mitchell Land, who killed himself in prison. Jacob’s father was never the same after that case. Bitter, silent, he never recovered. His father treated Emma’s horribly – hounding the child until he broke from the pressure. Until Emma’s father collapsed under the weight of not only what he saw, but the brutality of the police who were so determined to catch the killer, they destroyed the child’s soul. So. Much. Pain.

Now, years later, Jacob is a cop himself. And one day, he receives a letter. Then another. Letters which, while not exactly the same, reflect those of the TBK Killer. When his politician lieutenant refuses to listen, blowing off the letters as the work of kids or a creep with a personal grudge and knowledge of Jacob’s history, Jacob turns to Emma, hoping her collection will help him to discover if what he thinks is true. There is another serial killer out there – and his next target is Jacob.

Now, the bodies are piling up. And all of them have a connection to Emma. The two of them will have to work together to save one another. And with the FBI shutting them out, can they protect one another from a monster? Oh, but there is more to it than that. A lot more. A type of sick savagery that is both horrific – and yet totally believable. A truth that surely has Plato rolling in his grave.

This is one twisted tale, delving into the darkest depths of what is so lightly called the ‘human soul.’ Or rather, the very fact that, realistically? There are a lot of people out there who simply don’t have what we so blithely call a soul. Homo sapiens so dark, so evil, that even giving them the name isn’t truly realistic.

Homo pravissimus.*

This is a dark and bloody tale, and totally, completely compelling. Well, I can say that with a proviso of sorts. Sidney Bristol is a romance author who happens to write “romantic suspense.” So, there is a lot of sex in the book. I found it disappointing, actually. I am fine with romantic suspense. I like it in fact. But it is when an author like Bristol, who is such an exceptional suspense writer, puts so much sex into a book that it overshadows the suspense, well, I am disappointed. Of course, others will find the sex part to be exactly why they like the book, so to each their own. Be that as it may, I am glad I was offered the opportunity to read the book.

I received Blind from the publisher in exchange for a realistic review. All thoughts are my own and are based upon personal literary tastes.

* prāvissimus – (Latin) Adjective - ‎(superlative of prāvus) 1. most or very deformed; 2. most or very depraved

One day, the Great Spirit brought all creation together. . . “I want to hide something from our people until they are ready to learn.” “What is it?” he was asked.

“The knowledge that people create their own reality.”

Daisy O’Connor knows about creating her own reality. With a mother who drug her along like a rag doll from husband to husband, she had to become self-sufficient. Then, when husband number whatever, Running Bear, beat Daisy unconscious, Daisy and her mother left the Lakota reservation far behind. Then her mother left Daisy far behind, in Atlanta with her aunt while her mother moved with husband six to Germany.

No one wanted the young Daisy on the rez – not a pale skinned, redheaded, full-blooded Irish girl. But when her adopted grandfather, Charlie Tall Tree, calls her back to the rez to help her step-brother Eddie, how can she refuse the man who was so kind to her all those years ago? And Eddie himself, the other half of their mismatched pair, “bound together by a marriage between her full-blooded Irish mother and his full-blooded Lakota father.” Eddie was always her friend, even when the other children made her life a misery. So, the Jimmy Choo wearing, southern-speaking Daisy finds herself back in South Dakota on the Piney Creek. In-and-out. Find Eddie. Solve whatever problem he has gotten himself in this time. Get back to Atlanta and her catering business. Easy-peasy.

Well, not so much.

What Daisy finds isn’t simple. Or nice and clean, cut and dried. Instead, she finds her much loved Eddie, but he is strange and distant, showing up to beg for her help, then disappearing just as quickly without explanation or goodbye. Only a warning.

“He killed Father . . . and now he’s poisoning the rez.”

The “He” is apparently Kurt Jessup, owner of the Blue Dog Trading Post, rich man and aspirant mayor of Whittier, South Dakota. And if Daisy is going to find out what is going on, and why Eddie is so certain Jessup is ‘poisoning’ the Piney Creek, she is going to have to get close to Jessup. But getting close could cost more than Daisy ever expected.

I have to thank Ms. Sanders for writing such a realistic view of life on the rez. Being half Quapaw, I have walked my share of rez lands, and seen the deep poverty, the depression, alcoholism and lack of hope. The white people (of which I am half, admittedly) pushed the natives onto the poorest lands possible, where no crops will grow. Schools and medical facilities are nearly nonexistent, as is hope. But often alcohol and drugs are in easy supply, as they are on the Piney Creek in Sanders’ book.

The mystery in the book is very well written, and the characters are well designed. As this is the first in what I see will be a series (I see the next book is in development, “Dead Men Can’t Dance”) and I am excited to read that one as well. The only thing I found wanting in the book was proper editing. There were a plethora of grammatical errors and a few errors of logic and continuity. Other than that, a very satisfying book.

Oh. And the Chocolate Cola Cake with Pecan Glaze? GOTTA try that!!!

I received this book from ReadingAlley.com in exchange for a realistic review. All thoughts are my own.