Where A Super Dares Not to Tread

The Appetite of Floyd by Joe Schlegel

Disclaimer: I received this book from the author in exchange for a review.

Summary: Godrick is an out of work loser who robs a bank with a few others to earn some quick money. But when he's double-crossed and left behind to deal with the cops, he has to make the decision to return to his pitiful life or go after the one who betrayed him. And that's all just Chapter One. Floyd is a serial murderer/rapist (in that order) who is stalking his 18th victim. Reeling from a lifetime of rejection from women, the middle-aged virgin fell madly in love with damn near every woman he saw, and it soon pushed him to act. The story bounces between multiple characters, highlighting several storylines that ultimately intersect - sometimes in unexpected ways. There's a dangerous new drug killing people on the streets, corruption from police force to politicians, and a people who are calling out for a hero to save them from their oppressive lives in this Dystopian thriller about the vices and demons of man.

Review: A rather depressing tale of superheroes, a corrupt city, a serial murderer/rapist, and one man caught in the middle.

This book wasn’t as much about Floyd as I had been expecting from the title. He does certainly still play a big role though. Godrick is a character I feel like I should hate, but I don’t. He is involved in a bank robbery in which the robbers get screwed over by some other robbers. He gets his money back in a very brutal way. He does save a number of people with his new found power and probably will continue to save more people.

I liked the juxtaposition between the corrupt city and Supers and Heroes. No Super has dared to show his or her face in the corrupt city. I enjoyed the commentary on what a mask means to people and what it allows. Very little is learned about Supers and about how Godrick got his power and I would have liked to learn more about that. The subplot of the super steroids either killing people by bursting apart their muscles or turning them into unstoppable monsters was interesting. Floyd was stopped at the end, but it was a very tragic ending.

Rating:

Recommendation: I would recommend this book to people who enjoy superhero fiction or gritty crime dramas.

I'm Not Saying It Was Aliens, But It Was Aliens

Aliens Are Real: Part 2 by Sabrina Sumsion

Disclaimer: I received this book from the author in exchange for a review. 

Summary: Jasmine knows aliens are on earth, but she doesn't know if they can be trusted.

When Yumi and her alien housemates ask Jasmine to help them learn more about humans, Jasmine gets the feeling that they aren't telling her everything. Willing to do anything for Yumi, Jasmine agrees to help the aliens keep their cover and do some research. How horrible can pretending to be the girlfriend of Honorio, an alien in a handsome young man's body, get? It's only in front of her father so no problem, right?

Unfortunately, Honorio decides to interfere with Jasmine's budding relationship with her human love interest, Mark. Furious, Jasmine calls off the pretend relationship and puts Honorio's plans in danger.

Honorio and his team need something and the easiest way to get it is through Jasmine's father. He knows he needs to keep a clear head, but his human emotions interfere with his logic. He was only thinking of Jasmine's best interests when he subtly tried to scare off the human interloper. He's sure it's for her own good -and his. Without her dad, Honorio's plans could blow up in his face.

If only he could stop thinking about her.

Review: A short sequel to Aliens are Real: Part 1 that was enjoyable, but was too short and brought up even more questions.

It's been a while since I have the read first book. I enjoyed the first book although I was hoping for some answers in the second book. Unfortunately, the second book is shorter than the first one and brings up some more questions. Part 2 primarily focused on Honorio using Jasmine for cover and Jasmine wanting to get closer to Mark. I am afraid that a love triangle will be occurring in the next book. I am personally sick of love triangles in young adult literature.

Not much happens in this book. I was really hoping for more. Part 2 merely feels like a bridge for Part 3 (if and when that is coming out). There is some action near the very end, but I still didn't learn what the aliens were searching for (other than it's important). I didn't like Honorio much in this book. He's using Jasmine because of who her father is. I understand that he is starting to have feelings for her, but great relationships do not start off with one person using the other.

Rating:

Recommendation: I would recommend this series to those that enjoy young adult science fiction novels involving aliens.

Shakespeare Like You've Never Seen Before (Warning: Adult Content!)

Warning: Adult Content!

The Tragic Foreplay of Romeo and Juliet (Sensual Shakespeare Series) by M.A. DeWitt

Disclaimer: I received this book from the author in exchange for a review.

Summary: The Classic Tale...

Eighteen-year-old Juliet is betrothed to Paris, a rich and arrogant relative to royalty. Across town, Romeo is in love with the beautiful Rosaline who treats him like dirt. Romeo and Juliet both dream of sex and love in the midst of their unhappiness.

One Fateful Night...

During a masquerade ball, Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time, changing both of their lives forever. Without exchanging names, they are drawn to one another. Ready to live out their wild fantasies of love and ecstasy together.

A Bitter Feud...

After the lovers learn they are from rival families, they strive forward, putting their faith in love and lust. With the help of a kinky best friend and a nurse with a secret sexual hunger, will Romeo and Juliet finally find their happy ending?

50 Shades of Shakespeare...

This adult adaptation of the iconic Shakespeare play is not for children. It is for those who find poetry in erotic fantasies. It goes beyond the classic romance to find the dark desires in each and every one of us.

Join us in Verona, where families and bodies collide...

Review: A very unusual and very erotic take on Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet.

While I enjoyed the original Romeo and Juliet, it was one of my least favorite of his plays. I personally prefer the tragedies and histories. And despite what people might think, Romeo and Juliet is not a tragedy in the traditional Greek tragedy sense. I had previously read an erotic short story featuring Mrs. Capulet and Mrs. Montague. It was a decent read and it made interested to see how this work would turn out. As the title suggests, there is a good deal of sex in the book, but it's also surprisingly humorous.

The author mixes both medieval concepts and modern concepts. There will be mentions of lords, ladies, princes, and castles next to mentions of Facebook, P90X, cell phones, and modern day like hotels. This book doesn't take itself too seriously. The sex was decent although did feel a bit strained at times. Unlike the original play, this book had a happy ending (and Juliet is 18 instead of 13). I did enjoy this erotic retelling, but it was still weird reading it and I could easily see a lot of people not liking it.

Rating:

Recommendation: I would recommend this book to someone familiar with Shakespeare's works and with a sense of humor.

Shades of Grey

Children of the Enemy by D.J. Swykert

Disclaimer: I received this book from the author in exchange for a review.

Summary: Jude St. Onge is a man on the run. He is an addict who has stolen a large cache of drugs from Detroit drug kingpin Mitchell Parson, who is determined to retrieve the drugs and take his revenge on Jude. After the torture slaying of Jude's wife, and the kidnapping of Jude's daughter, Angelina, the last thing Mitchell Parson expected to hear when he picked up the phone was: "I have your sons." Raymond Little, with a murder conviction in his past and newspaper reporter Ted Rogers have become unusual allies with Jude in an attempt to rescue his daughter. Together they kidnap Parson's two boys, hoping to secure Angelina's release. Risks for both hostage-takers skyrocket as the two sides square off, while Detroit Homicide Detectives work the case unaware of all that is at stake in the investigation. Only Ray and Ted can save the endangered children in Children of the Enemy.

Review: A oftentimes violent but satisfying tale of revenge and fighting for what is most important.

The author warned me that this book could be violent and it certainly was, but not as violent as I thought it would be. This book could still be triggering to some people who have gone through violence or similar situations. What I like about this book is that while the violence was certainly violent, it was often for a good purpose (for Raymond and Ted). Ray was an unlikely hero, but he was the right person to get Angelina back and was earnestly trying to help Jude get better. Ted was mostly caught in the middle, but he still did the right thing even though it could have meant jail time.

Children of the Enemy features an incredible amount of coincidences that occur to bring all the characters together. It was close to being too much, but it didn't get over. The biggest coincidence was Jude meeting Raymond. Without that, the story would have been much different. While I am not personally familiar with the life Jude was in, I can only imagine how horrible it is. Jude is the most tragic character in this book.

Rating:

Recommendation: I would recommend this book to those that are looking for a realistic and gritty crime drama.

Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down

Dead Ringer by Allen Wyler

Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for a review.

Summary: While speaking at a Hong Kong medical conference, neurosurgeon Dr. Lucas McCrae slips the cloth off a cadaver’s head during a routine medical demonstration, and is overwhelmed with the shock by what’s staring back at him: His best friend, Andy Baer.Stunned, McCrae races back to Seattle to discover that Andy is in fact missing and may have been murdered by a gang of body snatchers who operate a legit funeral business and make a fortune by selling recovered body parts to medical researchers.
McCrae teams up with an unlikely pair—a beautiful but hardnosed female cop and a gang member whose family was victimized by the body parts ring—to try and expose a macabre web of corruption that involves law enforcement, politicians, funeral home curators and murdered prostitutes.
Internationally renowned neurosurgeon Allen Wyler takes us deep into a nightmarish scenario, shockingly ripped from recent headlines, and delivers a horrifically plausible, page-turning thriller.

Review: A medical mystery with murder, mayhem, and body parts.

I really loved the premise of this mystery. I love just about anything medical: old diseases, current and rare diseases, interesting treatments (like skin grafts), bodies, skeletons, how all the parts of the body work together, and why it goes wrong. Ditto of Ditto’s Funeral Home is murdering people and selling their body parts to doctors and medical researchers. I enjoyed learning about what bodies and body parts are used for. Ditto’s scheme is certainly devious and reminds me of doctors who bought bodies to dissections on, primarily the story of Dr. Robert Knox and the Burke and Hare murders.

That previous paragraph contained no spoilers since Ditto’s scheme is revealed in the book’s summary. I do wish the big secret hadn’t been revealed on the book. A summary that related finding his dead friend’s head in Hong Kong and then figuring out how he got there and who put him there would have been enough. I also didn’t like that Wendy, the cop, was attractive. Why couldn’t it have been a less attractive woman or even a man? While she did play an integral part to the story, I felt like her character was just wish fulfillment. There was plenty of action in this book and a satisfying ending.

Rating:

Recommendation: I would recommend this book to those interested in medical thrillers and mysteries.

Mayans, Mystery, and Murder

The Xibalba Murders (An Archaeological Mystery #1) by Lyn Hamilton

Summary: Lara McClintoch, her marriage ended and her antiques business sold, eagerly embarks on a trip to Mexico to help an old friend solve a mystery. On arrival, her friend puts off their meeting and then disappears. After Lara witnesses a brazen robbery of a valuable statue of the ancient Mayan civilization and stumbles on a corpse in a museum of antiquities, she becomes a police suspect. Afraid of the police and unsure whom to trust, Lara follows clues pointing to black marketeers and zealous revolutionaries. This dangerous trail takes her to remote archaeological ruins, lush jungles, and bustling streets filled with revelers. Lara engages in a thrilling battle of wits and courage to unmask a killer and stop a tomb-robber in the shadowy world of Xibalba, the Lords of Death.

Review: A mystery that focused heavily on the main female character instead of the actual mystery.

I read very few mysteries. The setting has to be a time period that I very much enjoy such as medieval times or during the time of the Tudors. I would probably have never picked up this book if I hadn’t used it for an A-Z reading challenge. It’s hard to find books that begin with X even though X is a great letter (my middle name starts with X). I had hoped the Mayan aspect would have made the book enjoyable, but alas, it was not to be.

Instead the mystery focused mainly on the main character who seemed full of self-pity. Lara is called to help an old friend with a possible discovery. Yes, Lara does happen to be a graduate student studying the Mayan, but she always seems to be having things explained to her like she doesn’t know anything at all. I know it’s for the benefit of the reader, but still. It made her look stupid. I also didn’t care for her pity party throughout the book. The action of the book didn’t get started until about halfway through the book and the mystery wasn’t exciting either.

Rating:

Recommendation: I would recommend this book to those that are looking for a more character driven niche mystery.

The History You Won't Read About in Textbooks

The Dark Side of Sunshine by Paul Guzzo

Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for a review. 

Summary: Historians seem to love painting a picture of Tampa’s past as one of immigrants happily working side-by-side to create a utopian society that became the cigar capital of the world and later a destination hailed as one of “the nation’s next best cities.” While this is true to some extent, Tampa also has a dark side and it is this element that is explored in the book, “The Dark Side of Sunshine.”

This book is a collection of stories that explore Tampa’s three eras of infamy – the early years of danger, where the greatest fear was the nightmarish individuals who were allowed to roam the nights in a city without a proper law enforcement organization in place; the mid-1900s when one of the most power criminal syndicates in the nation made its home in Tampa and when a another nation’s revolutionary war affected the city’s residents; and the late 1900s to early 2000s when Tampa became a sexual playground.

Review: A collection of stories showcasing the seedy underbelly of Tampa's history with plenty of colorful characters.

There's a saying that history is written by the victors. This may be true, but it certainly doesn't erase the fact that there is so much history out there that many people don't know about. This is certainly true with Tampa, which The Dark Side of Sunshine so strongly reveals. I know almost nothing about Tampa's history (I'm a New Jersey native and have never lived in Florida), and while I knew that immigrants aren't going to happily work together side by side, I was still surprised about the gangs, drugs, and sex in Tampa.

As a New Jersey native, I'm used to hearing about crime, violence, and gangs, but nothing to the level that occurred in Tampa. It's ironic how people could become self made millionaires thanks to illicit methods. They didn't seem to have much choice though. I enjoyed the histories that Guzzo tells although I did find myself getting a little bored at the end. I think my favorite tales were the ones involving freedom of speech and the ability to have totally naked strippers.

Rating:






Recommendation: I would recommend this book to those that enjoy non-mainstream history and/or have any interest in Florida.