reviews Archives - Page 7 of 8 - Trisha Sugarek, Author, Playwright & Poet

The Cougar’s Prey by Larry Sweazy ~~ Review

5 out of 5 quills ~ A Review

Who doesn’t like a rousing, shoot-em-up western? I haven’t read a good, (or for that matter any), western in several decades. I stumbled upon Larry Sweazy as I stalked Amazon, looking for unique writers to possibly read/review/interview. Larry has written a series around a Texas Ranger, Josiah Wolfe. And he lives up to the old classic western writers, Zane Grey, Louis L’Amour, and Larry McMurtry.

I happen to choose The Cougar’s Prey which falls in the middle of the series. I am happy to report that it stands alone and nothing is missed. The author deftly brings the reader up to speed (on Josiah’s story) without belaboring his past.

Josiah Wolfe, an old Texas Ranger is sucked back into service and sent away. He is not a happy man. To be separated from his son in such perilous times. Corpus Christi, Texas is literally lawless and terrorized by Mexican bandits; the early days of Mexican cartels and Josiah is sent there on basically a suicide mission.

It was surreal, at times, riding (with Josiah) north, up the Gulf Coast from Corpus to Ingleside, Tx in 1874. I lived and worked there in the early 2000’s and my veterinary was in Ingleside. Funny. It is beautifully written and the reader cares about Josiah almost immediately. I highly recommend this book.

Looking forward to reviewing his upcoming mystery, See Also Proof: A Marjorie Trumaine Mystery, coming May 1st.

Did you miss my Interview with Larry Sweazy?

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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy. April: International adventurer, writer, Tal Gur.
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To Purchase

Chuck Lorre…Vanity Blog (The Big Bang Theory)

Chuck Lorre, creator of The Big Bang Theory, (Young Sheldon, Mike & Molly, and Two and a Half Men and numerous movies) has been writing vanity blogs way before the word ‘blog‘ was coined. If you have a ‘pause’ button on your remote, it’s certainly worth a read. It appears at the very end of each episode, after the credits and ‘Coming next week‘ stuff.

VANITY CARD #579

“When I was a little boy I was constantly worried about myself and my family being killed by an atom bomb. Air raid drills and hiding in underground shelters were an almost daily part of my young life. (Remove all pens, pencils and sharp objects from your breast pocket, take off your glasses, look away from the window, find a buddy, hold hands, no talking, walk quickly to the basement, get on your knees, place your head against the wall, wait for the all-clear signal, hope the teacher forgets about the arithmetic test you didn’t study for.) Looking back, it was a ridiculously traumatic way to grow up. But like so many awful things, you got used to it. The fear of instant annihilation was just always there, lurking in the background. Until it wasn’t. Somehow, over time, the inevitability of the mushroom cloud simply went away. Wise and prudent men in our country and others, found a better way to exercise their hatred and fear of each other’s social and economic system. Until now. Now the wise and prudent men are no more, and the unthinkable is back on the table. Death and suffering on an unimaginable scale is once again an option. The low drumbeat of existential dread has returned, and I find myself thinking odd thoughts, like: “I hope someone reminds him that he can’t play golf in a Hazmat suit.”

And now, as if his brilliance couldn’t reach higher heights, there’s spin-off show when Sheldon was a kid living in conservative, Bible-belt, Texas. If you love Sheldon in Big Bang, and we all do, you will adore this nerdy little kid (played by Iain Armitage) who’s smarter than anyone in his ‘little kid orb’. It might take you a show or two to realize the clever, subtle writing in this show when it appears to be so broad and red-neck, but trust me it really is our adored (grown-up) Sheldon as a kid.
My second favorite actor is the Mom, Mary. Played by Zoe Perry you’d swear it was Laurie Metcalf (Sheldon’s grownup Mom) when she was younger. And then there’s Annie Potts. Remember her from Designing Women and Ghost Busters? She’s back as Sheldon’s Memaw (grandmother) and is a riot!!!

But I digress, just a little bit. Chuck Lorre’s vanity cards aka blog: I will never come close to his writing talent. But I can try. I can encourage others to try. And I can simply sit back and enjoy Lorre’s genius just for the sake of genius!
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? December: British writer, J.G. Dow. January: Sue Grafton ~ In Memory

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To Purchase

A Review ~~ Finding My Way by Judith Keim

1 out of 5 quills A Review ~~ Finding My Way

Very disappointed. Right away the first chapter was familiar, so after checking I discovered the author had cut and pasted a chapter from Book 1 to begin her sequel in the Salty Key series. This is cheating and so lazy. In my forty+ years of reading and my 15 years of reviewing books, I have never seen this done. What was the author thinking?

The proof reading of the book was non-existent or at best, slack. In order to have the book seem to be full-length, 1.5 spaces was implemented, (instead of the industry standard 1.0 space format) causing the book to be 305 pages long, when in fact it is a cozy of about 175 pages.

Any good sequel stands alone with its own story line. This is not a stand-alone sequel. There is too much repeating of Book 1’s story. The author has chosen to write each book from another sister’s perspective. The first sister, Sheena, had a somewhat interesting story line. In the second book it is from Darcy’s perspective. And she’s not a very interesting character. She brags about the novel she is going to write but doesn’t do much about it. Thinks that writing a restaurant review will hone her craft as a fiction writer. Huh? And she is ‘man-hungry’. Every man she meets in the story is either boyfriend/husband material or not. That’s what she leads with and it gets boring after a while.

Near the last 50 pages the author takes an unfortunate right turn. For no apparent reason, she introduces a severely disabled long-lost cousin. It was so out-of-the-blue! After that chapter he is never mentioned again. She would have been well advised to develop the characters already on deck. ‘Gavin’s people’ for instance. (lots of good stories there) The many boyfriend-material guys of Darcy’s. The editor/writer who is giving Darcy a chance to write for a local newspaper. (His illness/death is glossed over.) Sheena’s son’s friend, Randy. The list goes on and on.

Sadly, she is not comfortable writing about the married physical love between Sheena and Tony. It’s stilted and I didn’t believe it.

Ms. Keim needs to stay in the ‘voice’ of each of her characters. The writing bounced around and was frequently clunky . Sentence structure was a distraction.

I was hoping that the author would grow in her craft with Book #2 but sadly this was not the case. It’s a shame because the story premise is a good one. I do not recommend this author’s books.
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? December: British writer, J.G. Dow. January: In Memory, Sue Grafton.

Check out more Motivational Moments…for Writers!

A Review ~~ The Wanted by Robert Crais

5 out of 5 quills

A Review ~~ The Wanted

A good old fashioned murder mystery reminiscent of the writings of John McDonald and Robert Parker. Simply and beautifully crafted, Robert Crais weaves a great story. Like myself, new readers to Crais will be delighted. And his fans are counting the days until the newest in the Elvis Cole & Joe Pike novel is released.

A panicked mother, goes to veteran PI Elvis Cole as a last act of desperation. She fears ‘her son is in deep sh– trouble’ when she found things in his bedroom that indicate that he has been stealing from other people. Oh, if it were only that simple. Tyson and his two buddies have committed a string of home burglaries and, by accident, have stolen from a really, really bad guy. Now two hit men are on their trail and the big question is: will Elvis find the two teenagers before these hired killers find them and silence them forever?

I readily admit this is my first novel by Crais and I look forward to catching up with Elvis and Joe in the other books in this series. A highly recommended read!

On sale at all book stores December 26th.

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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? October’s author was Donna Kauffman. November: Rita Avaud a Najm. December: British writer, J.G. Dow.

Check out more Motivational Moments…for Writers!

On Her Majesty’s Frightfully Secret Service ~~ A Review

5 out of 5 quills
A REVIEW ~~ On Her Majesty’s Frightfully Secret Service

Delicious! House parties full of the aristocracy just as war rumblings begin again in Europe. Rhys Bowen’s series, A Royal Spyness Mystery delivers once again as Lady Georgiana is roped in by Her Majesty Queen Mary (Elizabeth’s mother) to spy on her son, the Prince of Wales and his oh-so-notorious lover, Wallis Simpson.

It seems that Darcy is always saying goodbye to our royal ‘Georgie’. Something always thwarts our lovers and separates them. Will they ever marry? In this very fine tale, Georgie is off to Italy and Darcy is called back to his mysterious job with the English government.

It’s a good story but if the writing falls short, it diminishes the storytelling. Rhys Bowen is a wonderful writer and one of my favorites. Her writing is crisp and her characters fully developed. The reader is fully engaged. While this is a series and I always tell my readers to begin at the beginning (for a fuller experience) all of Rhys’ stories stand on their own.

I give this book my highest rating and recommend it to you!

To Purchase click here

Did you miss my Interview with Rhys Bowen?
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MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? June: Mehreen Ahmed. July: Janet Macleod Trotter, author of Tea Planter’s Daughter and in August we say ‘hello’ to Cheryl Hollon.

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The Fallen by Ace Adkins ~~ A Review

A Review 5 quills out of 5

One of my favorite authors, Ace Atkins, takes us once again to the backwaters of ole’ Miss. Village names like Sugar Ditch, Jericho and Choctaw intrigue the reader and you want to turn to the next page. The series is replete with characters like the ex-Army Ranger, Quinn Colson, his sister Caddy, Boom, Lillie Virgil, Fannie Hatchcock, the villainess, and her sidekick, Mungo. All wrap the reader in the swampy hand of the deep south.

I could write another review praising this writer to the heavens: ‘Adkins delivers another scintillating mystery’, ‘Quinn Colson takes us on another riveting search for the murdering bank robbers’, ‘you won’t be able to put it down’, blah, blah, blah. And I refuse to write a spoiler, like some reviewers do, just to fill the page.

That’s why I mentioned the underpinnings: Ace’s stories are neck deep in the flavor of small town life in the old south. His fans already know they’re in for another great read. So I’m going a little off the oyster-shell road of a typical review by quoting Ace here in the Oxford Magazine:

Atkins. ‘The inspiration came together quick. I won’t tell you how quick, but something so personal comes from a long gestation and a brief pen to paper with a little whiskey. I scribbled out my families. The Colsons, with Quinn and sister Caddy as a nod to the master. But these two were solely my own, with Quinn taking shape from my love of 1970s drive-in heroes like Billy Jack and Buford Pusser from Walking Tall. Quinn is an Army vet, a seasoned Ranger who soon becomes sheriff. Caddy wasn’t altogether different from Faulkner’s, only walking straight out of gritty strip clubs in South Memphis to discover a serious and real faith. The other families—the Varners, the Bundrens—would be new and unique folks, descended from people in nearby Yoknapatawpha.’ More

I am a die-hard fan of John MacDonald and Robert B. Parker and mourn their passing; no more Travis McGee and Meyer, no more Spenser and Hawk. I looked, literally, for years to find a writer of their caliber. Finally!! Ace Adkins. Serendipitously for me, I found him writing for the Robert B. Parker series and wanted to read some of his own work. The Fallen (Release date July 19th) is highly recommended and while it stands on its own, I suggest that my readers start with book #1 of the Quinn Colson series. To order click here.

Did you miss my Interview with Ace Atkins??
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MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! June: Mehreen Ahmed. July: Janet Macleod Trotter, author of Tea Planter’s Daughter and in August we say ‘hello’ to Cheryl Hollon.

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Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham, A Review

5 out of 5 quills A Review ~~ Rogue Lawyer

By now all John Grisham has to do is show up with another great story. Rogue Lawyer is a whole new direction for Grisham. And I like it….a lot! This isn’t a collection of short stories, as I first thought, and really don’t care for. No, Rogue Lawyer is a day, week and month in the life of street lawyer, Sebastian Rudd. Little vignettes but it doesn’t feel like it….the reader just follows this defense attorney around in a customized bulletproof van (that is his office), complete with Wi-Fi, a bar, a small fridge, and fine leather chairs. He has no firm, no partners, and only one employee: his heavily armed driver, who also so happens to be his bodyguard, law clerk, confidant, and golf caddie.

He defends people other lawyers won’t go near: a drug-addled, tattooed kid rumored to be in a satanic cult; a vicious crime lord on death row; a homeowner arrested for shooting at a SWAT team. Why these clients? Because Sebastian believes everyone is entitled to a fair trial—even if he has to bend the law to secure one.

He reminds me a great deal of one of Robert B. Parker’s characters. I hope very much that Sebastian Rudd drives back into town (one day soon) and continues his dangerous but valiant work defending the indefensible!

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MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? October Author, Lisa Jackson. November was best selling author, Grace Burrowes and in December, Reed Farrel Coleman, contributing writer for Robert B. Parker series

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Writers, What To Do When You Get a Bad Review?

What you don’t do is contact the Reviewer to debate with them why. No matter how much the review stings, no matter how much you disagree with it, NEVER, NEVER contact the Reviewer. Put your big-person panties on and DEAL with IT! When you do respond to a review; complaining about the unfairness of the review, how the Reviewer got it wrong, and how you are the best writer since sliced bread, YOU simply come across as an AMATEUR!

What you should do is learn from the critique. Take the criticism to heart and see how the Reviewer’s points can make YOU a better writer. Sure, we’d all like only rave reviews all of the time, a couple of best sellers and loads of money. But that just ain’t how it works, folks. As writers we must be open to suggestions, criticism, and growth no matter how painful.

I recently interviewed a very interesting writer and following the interview I reviewed her book. An honest opinion (by me) about how the book could be better. Here is her response in an email: Continue reading “Writers, What To Do When You Get a Bad Review?”

Pack Saddles & Gunpowder by Susie Drougas ** A Review

2 out of 5 quills
Pack Saddles & Gunpowder ** A Review

This book has potential. But it’s a trilogy…and unfortunately not in a good way. It is: 1) A mountain horse packing guide book. 2) A treatise about the ongoing struggle between the environmentalists and horsemen with regard to how the high country wilderness should be used and protected. And finally: 3) an underdeveloped mystery. The story is not moved forward by the first two. It would have been much more interesting to weave the trails and lakes more into the story, almost as an after thought. There was a missed opportunity to write a chapter where the environmentalists and horsemen debate the issue with some scintillating dialogue.

More research should have been done with regard to crime scene investigation. When the helicopter arrives to pick up the surviving victim and perps, a detective would have been on board. They would have insisted on interviewing everyone right away, even the young girl, traumatized or not. They would hardly have allowed Cassie to ‘ride off into the sunset’ just because she was an attorney in the city. She was after all the one who shot one of the perps to death. The investigator would also have wanted to see the site of the shooting (a potential crime scene; lawyers kill too) and preserve all evidence until justifiable homicide or homicide was determined. This would also have provided an interesting investigative/forensics chapter.

It barely affected me that the nice all-American family had been hunted and attacked. A chapter with the family back at home with Mom, perhaps, getting ready for the hiking trip,would have helped invest the reader and, once again, was sadly missing. Continue reading “Pack Saddles & Gunpowder by Susie Drougas ** A Review”

Runaway by Peter May * A Review

5 out of 5 quills Runaway by Peter May ** A Review

I loved this new offering by Peter May. It’s the story of young boys’ dreams and old men’s memories. Set in 1965 and 2015 the story is unique as four old men retrace their boyhood travels, to London, seeking fame and fortune.

Jack, Maurie, Dave and Jeff have been friends for over fifty years. As youths they were an obscure boy band from Glasgow, Scotland. They run away from home, certain that they are the next rock and roll phenomenon. Maybe not the Beatles but certainly as good as The Replacements. And from that moment on there is never a dull moment….that’s too bland a description…events on this journey change their lives forever. Muggings, free wheeling mental institutions, LSD, and Rock and Roll.

Old, sick, defeated the human spirit carries on. Now fifty years later the same quartet, now men in their seventies and eighties, repeat their harrowing adventure.

Peter May never disappoints with his slightly off center view of the world. I am a huge fan!!! This is a ‘must read’ book.

Available now! Did you miss my Interview with this internationally acclaimed author? Click here.
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DON’T MISS BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Julia London, MJ Moores, and actor/narrator Tavia Gilbert. March’s featured author is Susie Drougas and a long awaited interview with Kathleen Grissom (The Kitchen House) in April.

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