The holidays and the end of the year saw many things going on for me and many changes. I appreciate all of the lovely emails asking where my reviews had gone. They haven't gone anywhere else, and I believe I will be back soon, but I still have a few more things to take care of. I hope to be reviewing soon and thank you for your support!
----M
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Friday, November 22, 2013
Holiday Shopping? Here are original gifts that will set you apart, stand out and sure to be appreciated!
When the holidays come you don't want to give the same gifts everyone else is giving. If people are going to have duplicates or disappointments, you don't want them to come from you. Here are some original gifts from our reviews this year that are sure hits! (Links to the smaller productions. You know where to get the big names)
Books.
Not From Around Here by Larry Hochwald One of the best books I have read in years. See my full review here.
The Fall of Five, by Pittacus Lore. It moves the series along with an exciting beginning, satisfying end, but less satisfying middle than the other books. If you never read any of the series, a great best is I am Number 4.(Review for Fall of Five coming soon.)
Doctor Sleep, by Stephen King. If you loved the Shining, you'll want to read this. If you didn't read The Shining, start first with that classic!
CD's/MP3's
Dear Claudia and Feigning Composure, both by Leah Finkelstein. These are two wonderful albums! Read my reviews here.
Marron5 Overexposed. yes, it came out in 2012 but it had plenty of hits this year and was supported by an amazing tour. Can't go wrong giving an album where almost every song is a hit, or should be!
DVD's
Iron Man 3, Star Trek Into Darkness, Superman, Man of Steel, We're the Millers, Simpson's Season 15 is out, Season 16 will be out December 3rd. These are all great choices!
Happy Holidays!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
We have our first winners of the ebook "Not From Around Here"!
Congratulations to Shelly, Kevin and Alan. We hope you will be letting our readers here know what you think, and hopefully you will be posting good reviews on Amazon, and other sites you visit, including Goodreads. We appreciate our readers that support us, comment and enter our contests! We appreciate the authors and artists that also support us. Thank you to all, and let's continue to work together to bring great new entertainment to everyone!Mary
Friday, November 8, 2013
The best book you probably haven’t read yet! "Not From Around Here" by Larry Hochwald (Win a free copy of the book! Details at the end of the review!)
I try to find stuff for you that you might not find on your
own. Sometimes I bring you the big
stuff, like “Doctor Sleep” or “Gravity” but I prefer to make finds like I did
with the musical work of Leah Finkelstein.
Now, I bring you one of the most exciting, interesting and
thought-provoking books I have read in years, and definitely one of the best for
this year.
I am speaking of “Not From Around Here,” a new book by a
relatively new author, Larry Hochwald.
You may have seen Larry’s work before, because he was publishing
regularly online, until last year, when he started to seriously work on this
book.
On the surface, Not From Around Here, is a collection of
fiction that spans horror, fantasy, humor, literary, contemporary and science
fiction genres. However, it is more than
just a collection of exciting and surprising stories. There are several threads and themes that run
throughout and, without providing a spoiler, I can tell you that it all comes
together.
It starts, innocently enough, with a story called “Best
Friend”. By the end of that story I was
hooked. I was surprised by what
happened, but also by my reaction. I was
crying at the end of the story, and that was to happen 3 more times while I
read the book.
Now, I read short stories and I love good ones, but I’m not
a big fan of collections in general. Why? There are two reasons for this, though I am very
pleased to say that Not From Around Here avoids both pitfalls. One reason I skip short stories collections is
when they are filled with stories that
are only slice of life. You come into a
scene, you live it, and then you leave, without anything finishing. Thankfully, all of these are satisfying and
complete stories, more like mini-novels, in that they are complex tales with a
beginning, middle and end.
The other reason I often avoid short fiction collections is,
sometimes, I find the quality of the stories becomes inconsistent in the middle
of the book. They start with their best,
and try to end on a high note, but the middle feels like filler, as does a lot
of the content on many a CD. Fortunately,
this book hold up very well, with some of the most inventive, surprising and
visual stories right in the middle of the book.
A handful of the stories have been published previously, and
in fact, my first brush with the work of Larry Hochwald was a read of the second
story of this collection, “The Placebo Effect”.
Now, even those previously published stories have been polished and , in
some cases, added to, so even though ire ad this one I was happy to read it
again. This story is one of the most
gripping I have ever read and I found there are comments all across the
internet from people who back this up. One commenter recommended the story saying, in
effect, “I don’t even like to read but I loved this one!” This story is an action packed thriller with
an ending I couldn’t predict. In fact,
that’s a hallmark of most of these---“WOW” endings that you just can’t predict.
One of the most surprising stories was the 4th
story, “Join the Club”, which I've already excerpted here on this site. I already called it “50
Shades meets The Shining”;not explicit though, but in mature theme. I have to
tell you, I don’t find much writing truly scary, and almost no short stories
ever rise to that occasion, but this was the scariest story I have ever read!”
Now, I could keep going in detail story by story, but that seems a bit
too much. It is hard for me to choose
favorites because I really enjoyed every story, and there were no
disappointments. “Faker” was a twist I’ve
never seen before. “Mirrors” was a very
original vision turning the nature of some beliefs upside down. “Revelation” had some remarkable twists and I've seen some readers have said they haven’t seen that caliber of surprise since “The Sixth Sense”,
and I can’t disagree! “Wall” and “Desolation
Lovers” were two visual stories that I think would make great movies, and, “Old Ways” could be anything from a
great adventure movie to a series of novels.
“Mother’s Nature” and “When this War Began” are two very special, touching and
very effective stories. Some stories just
flat out freaked me out, and I would list “OCD”, Carpet Shock” and “The Group”
in that category. “A Present For Mikey”
was a very short horror story that I had the bad fortune of someone tapping me
on the shoulder just at the climax. And “Almost Home” was one of those where I cried at
the end.”
There are laughs in just about every story, many
laughs in several of them, such as “Fur and Loathing” and, ironically, “Join the Club”. This book is like a roller coaster ride and I
can’t remember enjoying a book, of any type, this much in quite a while, and in
my entire life there are only a handful of short story collections that I
enjoyed as much as this.
I think this is a wonderful first book, and launches Larry Hochwald into the literary world in a very enjoyable, exciting,
thought-provoking and convincing way.
The price of entry, for 18 stories (totaling274 pages in the paperback) if
you read the ebook is an incredible bargain at only $2.99! The paperback is a very reasonable $12.99. You can get the book at Amazon, by clicking here
. The paperback should be available by
November 18th. You will find
it on Amazon, or you can ask for it at your local bookstore.
If you like to read, you need to read this book. If you don’t like to read, you should read
this book…it will get you hooked on reading.
Enjoy!
Now, want more good news? The
author, Larry Hochwald, wants to help us celebrate our review, and upcoming
author interview. So, we will be giving
away 5 Kindle ebooks and 5 choices of ebook or paperback during the next week. To enter, just send an email to my blog at marysub76@gmail.com. In the subject put NFAH Free Giveaway. The ebooks will be given as gifts from Amazon
so you need an email used for an Amazon account that you should write into the body
of the email. Kindle ebooks can be read
by most devices with a free Kindle reader app for your appropriate device,
downloaded from Amazon. If the ebook option doesn't work for you, or you only want
a paperback, you must say that in the body of the email, along with an address
to send the paperback if you win. To choose a paperback you
must live in the contiguous 48 states.
Our blog will be hosting the giveaway. We will print out each entry email, fold them all up exactly the same, put them in a pouch and observe as the author draws out the winning entries.
Friday, October 25, 2013
EXCLUSIVE! A Perfect story for Halloween! FIrst, an excerpt from scariest, wildest story ever, like a "50 shades meets The Shining!"
An excerpt from "Join the Club" from
...Jessica told Alan to be there 5 minutes before 11, to bring a flashlight,
and she would meet him. He got there
just as she asked. She stood alone in
front of the old house, but Alan could see a few of the other club members were
standing across the street, watching.
When Alan reached her, she gave him a kiss. “What’s with them?” He asked.
“They were betting me you wouldn’t come.
We’ve tried to recruit people in the past, that backed out at the last
minute. A couple of them are even
jealous, because they’ve tried to recruit people they really liked, but I was
lucky and I found you. She smiled and
kissed him again. He leaned close to her
ear and asked; “And when would I be giving you that spanking?”
She laughed and said, “You get in the club, and not only can you pick
the time and place, but that will just be the beginning.”
“I’m ready,” he said and
started to walk towards the house.
Jessica grabbed his arm. “Not
yet. Here.” She gave him a strange flat
silver dollar sized stone with a carved series of symbols. “Keep that amulet with you. And drink this.” She handed him a small bottle. He put the stone in his pocket, then opened
the bottle and smelled it, and said, “Eww.
Do I have to?”
“Yes. Do it for me, and you can tie me up when you
spank me.” Alan downed it before Jessica
finished the sentence. As he swallowed
the awful tasting drink she quickly waved her hands around his face, holding a
similar stone to the amulet she gave him, and said a few strange sounding
words. He looked at her with a ‘WTF’
expression. “Part of the ritual.” She
answered in response. “If I don’t do all
the role play, I’m sure I’d hear about it from the other members.” Then she
kissed him and said, “Good Luck!”
As he opened the creaky
old gate and walked towards the front door Jessica called out; “Please don’t
quit Alan. Join the club!” He didn’t turn to answer, but raised his hand
and gave her thumbs up...
As one of the blogs helping the author, Larry Hochwald, to launch his new book, Not From Around Here, we get to publish this story and leave it up until Halloween. (No other review site will have it.) But first, you just got to read a small excerpt from a new, full length horror story, included in the book, called "Join the Club". I'll be talking about that story in my review of the book, soon. In spirit, it's a little like a short version of "50 Shades meets the Shining" and was, page for page, the scariest thing I have read! In the meantime, here is another wonderful and spooky story from the book: A Present for Mikey (in the newly rewritten and edited book version) It's one of the shortest stories in the book, but I think you'll agree with me that good Halloween treats come in small packages!
A Present for Mikey
Losing a family
member is never easy…. It was 11:50 PM
on July 22 and the family sat awake huddled around a small coffee table
littered with candles and pictures of the one family member not with them that
night. The mother and the father and the older sister were there, but Mikey
their young boy was only a memory now. In
10 minutes, at exactly midnight, it would not only be his 7th birthday but also
the first anniversary of Mikey’s death.
He had drowned in the family's new pool.
At that time he was turning six and everybody was saying what a big boy
he had become. When the rest of the
family went to bed that night he was already sound asleep but he must've woken
up soon after the last of them had drifted off.
It was a hot night and everyone was excited with the new pool. Sure, he had been warned not to swim alone, but
after all he was such a big boy now!
“I think what I’ll
always remember most is that I have never known any kid more universally liked
than Mikey,” his older sister said, breaking the silence.
“It's true,” his
mother began, “little kids are cute and it's hard not to like them, though boys
Mikey's age are often a bit too rambunctious for some people. Mikey, though, had a way of engaging
everybody. I never saw one of those sour expressions cross anyone's face like
‘this kid’s a little too much.’”
“I know. He was an
absolute delight. Though he didn't have to be for us to love him as much as we
do, but he was. I think about him every
day. I miss him every day. I just want
us to be a whole family again.” As the
father said that, the clock struck midnight. They all closed their eyes huddled
around the table. Tears streamed down
the mother’s cheeks. Soon tears stained
the sister’s and the father's faces as well.
The stillness was
broken, first by the sniffles and moans of the family, but then by something else. The sounds were very low at first. Though
each heard them, they assumed it was only their imagination and that the others
couldn’t possibly hear. It was splashing. Splashing like someone struggling in the
pool. Then the voice, faint, yet filled
with panic.
“Did you hear that?”
The sister asked. “Someone's calling for
help. It’s Mikey!”
“That’s impossible!”
The father yelled as they all jumped out of their seats and ran to the large
picture window overlooking the backyard and the pool. They stood frozen in
shock and fear. There was a figure thrashing in the water. It looked like a
little boy.
“Oh my God, how could
this happen, how could another kid get in our pool this late?” The mother cried out as she started running
towards the back door. The father, right
behind her, put his hand on her shoulder and stopped her. He pointed out the window as he turned on all
the exterior lighting. It did appear to
be a little boy, but not just any little boy.
Though from the distance they couldn't be sure it was Mikey, they could
be sure it wasn't just some other kid.
The figure was dark, and gray, despite the illumination. And he wasn't just calling for help, now his
voice, which sounded like Mikey’s, seemed louder and they realized he was
calling for them: “Help me mommy, help me daddy, help me sis!”
“But how can this
be?” the mother asked.
“I don't know,” the
father responded. “Mikey, the kid that
everyone loved, the child that no one found fault in, perhaps even heaven has
come to love him as much as we do, and has decided to give him a special
birthday present. Another chance!”
“Maybe it's we who
are getting a second chance--- and I'm taking it!” The mother cried out as she started running
to the back door with the sister and father right behind.
Without hesitation,
they all jumped into the pool and swam to the figure bobbing in the middle.
When they got to the ghostly figure they all cried out at the same time: “That's not Mikey!” They looked at each other scared and
confused. Suddenly, they realized they were surrounded by dark gray figures;
men and women, girls and boys. The
figures started to grab the family and pull them under the water. They fought
back, confused, filled with panic, their minds racing as they tried to resist,
but still they were pulled under. The
gray, ghostly, assailants showed no emotion as they seemed inexorably driven to
complete their grim task. Despite the
panic, or because of it, the family fought so very desperately, just as their
lungs screamed for sustenance, but it was to no avail.
Soon their thoughts
and their struggles ceased. The family
now floated lifelessly in the pool. The
gray figures huddled around them. One of
the figures, an older man, gave the slightest hint of a smile and said: “This
is a good surprise.”
“Yes,” one of the
others, a middle-aged woman, agreed, “Mikey’s such a terrific little boy, so
delightful, so endearing. It was unbearable to see him sad and suffering and
missing his family.”
“I know it's just
part of the territory, we've all had to deal, but he's such a great kid…we just
had to do something,” a younger man said.
“We had to get him a
birthday present,” another young man said.
“Not just a birthday
present; the best present we could,” a young lady said.
“His family. We knew we had
to get him his family!” the little boy who played the drowning kid, to lure the
family into the pool, said with a smile.
The gray, lifeless
figures began to fade away. Soon all
that was left in the pool were the three floating bodies. They were a complete family once again.
* * *
Thursday, October 17, 2013
"Gravity" takes off, mostly.
Am I the only one who didn't love "Gravity?" I liked it. I thought the effects, look of the movie and use of 3D were very good, but not incredible. It was suspenseful at times , exciting at times, and the acting was excellent. It all came together for a---very good movie. Some things were predictable, others became that way because they were a repeated pattern. Maybe the 3D effects were too hyped and my expectations were too high but i thought they were very good, not mind blowing.
I can still recommend it as a very good movie and one of the best things out now, as well as a fine sci fi action movie that's more down-to-earth than a Star Trek or Elysium.
If you've already seen it please let me, and the readers, know what you think!
I can still recommend it as a very good movie and one of the best things out now, as well as a fine sci fi action movie that's more down-to-earth than a Star Trek or Elysium.
If you've already seen it please let me, and the readers, know what you think!
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Exciting News and some links!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just received the pre-publication review copy of a new fiction collection e-book/paperback that I think you're really going to love. I have gotten to read some of this author's work on Yahoo and it's special. No more to be said now, because I am working on an interview to publish right after the review appears. Stay tuned...I expect it will appear within the week, once I know the official publication date. However, check back here often from now until Halloween because I have been promised excerpts and a full story to publish here that will be spot-on for the holiday! Follow up links for Leah Finkelstein. I have received a lot of email asking if you guys should be going to stores or online for Leah's albums. The CD for the first album, "Dear Claudia" is available from Amazon and the album as well as the second album, "Feigning Composure" are both available on iTunes and Amazon mp3. Here are the links!
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