Quiet Keystrokes and Midnight Ramblings

  Every so often, I take a stroll through the best selling books on Amazon to see what the masses are reading, and boy howdy am I glad I picked up The Moonlight Child by Karen McQuestion . The Moonlight Child has a wide cast of characters. There's the grandmotherly neighbor who sees a mysterious child through the window of a home over her back yard fence. A young woman who aged out of foster care and is trying to make it on her own, with a strong sense of right and wrong. A lawyer who worked with the CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) program. And the suburbanite elitist woman keeping a secret house servant hidden within her home. This book has several interwoven stories that show who the characters are and how they relate to one another and the neighborhood surrounding them. It was an absolute delight to read this well-written story that features strong women who won't stop until the weakest among us are protected. I absolutely adored this book and will be reading more of...

  Remember my post a few days ago when I celebrated that Skulduggery Pleasant got my kid into mysteries ? Well, Halie Fewkes has bridged the gap between his like of "realistic future stuff" and fantasy. Secrets of the Tally is the start of an upper Middle Grade / Young Adult series that follows a teenage girl through the harrows of discovering her magic talent, avoiding dark and mysterious foes, and surviving adventures that kept even my little skeptic turning pages. I am lucky to have met this author at several events, and not only is she a great writer, but she's a wonderful woman, too. This makes me so happy, because when my son met her to get his copy of Secrets of the Tally signed, she gave him a great experience that I hope he remembers forever. This series is immensely popular and Halie is known for her pre-covid book signings that were standing room only (the last one I attended had a line out the door... even in winter weather). If you have a younger reader who...

Do you ever pinch yourself to make sure you're actually where you are? That's how I feel about Make Them Pay ! I've read each of the stories in this jam-packed anthology... some of them twice... and still can't believe my words are tucked inside the cover of this massive collection of thrilling adventures, daring escapes, and heroic rescues. If you like to be thrilled, itching to turn the page to see what happens next, this anthology is for you. You can find it on Amazon right here . As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

 Hey-O! It's been a long time since my last completed read. I'll be honest, life has not made reading easy and I've let it slip over the last year. But I got back into the pages of fiction with Half-Breed by Hickory Mack. My TBR has been so flooded, I honestly can't remember if this was a promotional copy I got from the author directly, or if I bought it, or if I downloaded it from a giveaway... all I can say is it was on my Kindle and looked like the most interesting thing to read at the moment. The novel follows a young girl who discovers she possesses magic. She leaves her abusive and oppressive life as a human to live with magical creatures in the woods, away from the humans who hunt them. If you love magic, Japanese culture, and a landscape that is as much of a character as any of the moving parts of the story, this may be the book for you. Grab it at Amazon here (paid link*) and get lost in a world of fantasy that isn't too far removed from our own. ---- * As...

Ryan Decker was a mercenary who specialized in retrieving high profile kidnapping victims and returning them to their wealthy and powerful families. But when a senator's daughter is kidnapped and her retrieval goes south, Decker finds himself locked away in prison, his family and the families of his entire team, murdered. When Decker is suddenly released from prison without explanation, he's thrust violently back into the world he'd left behind. The Russians are after him. Law enforcement is after him. And someone in power is hellbent on making sure that at least one of the groups succeed in wiping him off the face of the planet. The Rescue  kept me riveted. While I normally take a few days to read even the best of books (because, sleep), I finished The Rescue  within 24 hours of downloading it to my kindle. The action was fast. The conspiracies were believably complex. And most of all, I couldn't help but find myself rooting for Decker and the mysterious t...