The Prison Dome II: Bitter Pills by Warren Wagner 

Very satisfying return to the South Dakota Penitentiary Dome and its permanent residents. 

Thirty years ago, the state of South Dakota developed the “Prison of the Future’ known as “The Dome,” where the prisoners are thrown into an inescapable wilderness area with no onsite warden or guards. “The Dome” is where society sends the worst of the worst, and in all the years of its existence no one has ever fulfilled their sentence and returned home. 

The Prison Dome II: Bitter Pills is the sequel to author Warren Wagner’s outstanding debut novel, The Prison Dome: Survive or Die Trying, published in 2021. While most characters are familiar faces, a couple of new, strong personalities step into the spotlight and the resulting plot is riveting. 

The Entry Camp has settled into a workable routine with Grant reluctantly agreeing to helm the community and ably assisted by Chuck and Jim. Communication and trade opportunities with the other two established camps, River and Christian, have slowly developed and improved despite the high level of mistrust and suspicion. Still, all the groups exist on the thin edge of failure as food sources, especially larger game, grow scarce, and their agricultural endeavors meet with limited success and are not extensive enough to truly provide what is needed. The author does a great job conveying their fragile existence, always one poor season of crops away from disaster. The tension is heightened by the presence of small, roving bands of prisoners who don’t belong to any of the organized camps and exist by preying on their weaknesses and any perceived opportunities they find. 

While Grant has accepted his role as leader of the Entry Camp, Chuck still has an important voice in decision-making. He has stepped back somewhat, consciously trying to avoid any resemblance to Belinda, the former despot of the camp, who enslaved new prisoners as they came through the portal. New to “The Dome” is Melita Albright, separated from her three young children when she was imprisoned for armed robbery. She is a strong female protagonist and, at least initially, a sympathetic character as she did what she did to provide food for those kids. However, I was a little confused by her sudden plan to prostitute herself and other like-minded female prisoners to get out of daily chores. She never resorted to this before coming to “The Dome,” and I thought it was out of character. She is quickly disabused of the notion by everyone she mentions it to, thankfully, because there is a delicious slow-burn romance with Chuck brewing. 

The plot starts off with a twist when one of the portal guards is shoved into “The Dome” by a malicious prisoner and can’t be released immediately. This puts the entire prisoner population at risk because the prison forces are going to rescue their man no matter the cost, which includes shooting any prisoner on sight. The action sequences of Tony Russo ending up inside were heart-pounding as he frantically worked to escape the gas bomb, machine gun, and the perceived danger from the inhabitants. Even though he’s observed the Entry Camp prisoners save numerous new inmates’ lives when they are first dumped inside “The Dome,” he’s bought into the media-manufactured hype regarding what goes on inside and is absolutely terrified. 

With the threat of the prison forces entering “The Dome,” the unsustainable food resources, and an evil opportunist ready to do anything to bargain his way back outside, THE PRISON DOME II: BITTER PILLS is a fantastic dystopian story and follow-up to the previous novel. 

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy from Reedsy Discovery.

The Merchant of Venus: The Life of Walter Thornton by Nancy Thornton Navarro and Adriana Thornton-Cornejo

A fantastic biography, with the excitement of a treasure hunt!

The Merchant of Venus is a fantastic story, a biography of the authors’ father, initiated by the surprise discovery of an old photo of him in a feature film years after his death. Compelled to uncover the story behind the widely-used picture, the two sisters conduct extensive and impeccable research to reconstruct their dad’s early life, which occurred well before his marriage to their mother and their births and those of their four other siblings. With its intriguing impetus and accompanying photos, the sisters give readers a well-written, well-documented, true-life mystery and tribute to their remarkable father, a pioneer in modeling history, Pin Up King of WWII, and a leader in building and sustaining the morale of our servicemen and women during the war.

Walter Thornton’s life is revealed through alternating chapters by his daughters, Nancy Thornton Navarro and Adriana Thornton-Cornejo, of their years-long research project to uncover and understand their father’s early life. He had met and married the love of his life, Candelaria, who was 34 years his junior, in Mexico in 1960. Together, they had six children and were a devoted couple until his death in 1990 at the age of 87. It wasn’t until 2004 that his picture was spotted by his widow in a montage of photos during the screening of the film “Seabiscuit” at a holiday gathering at one of her daughters’ homes. The search for the story behind the iconic 1929 “bankrupt investor” photo led them to their father’s eye-opening, never-before-known past.

A lot of families have secrets, but few are on par with what Nancy and Adriana were to discover. Their father had been internationally famous throughout the early 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. Not only had he been a highly successful male model for artists and photographers in commercial advertising, but he had also redefined the modeling industry with his concepts for a modeling agency. He was well-known as a beauty expert and one who encouraged and supported women, emphasizing their natural assets to their best and healthiest advantage. Known as “The Merchant of Venus,” a play on “The Merchant of Venice” by Shakespeare, he discovered and helped launch the careers of a number of Hollywood movie stars during that era. During WWII, he launched a massive campaign to send pinup pictures to our servicemen and women anywhere in the world, using his own models and at his own expense, boosting the morale of thousands of men and women separated from their homes and families. But despite his good deeds, he was targeted by an unscrupulous Queens, NY, district attorney in a sensational and devastating attempt to divert the press and public attention away from his own misdeeds, leading to him eventually closing his agency to pursue a new business opportunity in Mexico.

The authors recount their research and findings as well as firsthand memories in riveting detail, much like the story of an exciting treasure hunt. The narratives are well-written, easy to read, and compelling storytelling. It was a fascinating story and one that I am so glad to have encountered.

I recommend THE MERCHANT OF VENUS to readers of biographies and memoirs, especially to those whose own families may have had some interesting secret pasts or are interested in the early days of advertising modeling and origin stories of movie stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy through WOW! Women On Writing Book Tours.

The Very First Amazing Adventure of Griswold and Christophe – Written and illustrated by Christian Bjone 

An entertaining retelling of the fairytale of Prince Gilgamesh.

The Very First Amazing Adventure of Griswold and Christophe by author-illustrator Christian Bjone introduces a new audience of children to the ancient Babylonian myth of Prince Gilgamesh. This fairytale retelling is whimsical and unique as it features a giant teddy bear and a toy soldier as the main characters.

After a disrupted toy parade leaves Griswold the Teddy Bear and Christophe the Toy Soldier completely alone, they naturally join together as friends for company and support. Hearing about the trouble at the Queen’s Castle, Christophe decides they must travel there to free the inhabitants from the Evil Ogre. Their journey commences, and they meet powerful and strange creatures along the way. They complete challenges to win the magic weapons they’ll need to defeat their foe. 

The story unfolds through short paragraphs, colorful illustrations, and maps. Much of the narrative, while lyrical and vivid, may fly over the heads of struggling or reluctant readers and will require adult interpretation. I enjoyed Christophe’s focus on their ultimate mission and smiled over his reaction to Red Fox and his various kindnesses throughout the story. I laughed about Griswold’s constant and appealing interest in food and eating rather than almost anything else. The result of Christophe’s kindness and bravery came as a twist, as did the surprising cliffhanger ending, which is to be continued in a follow-up retelling of the story of Ulysses and his journey home from the Trojan War.

I recommend THE VERY FIRST AMAZING ADVENTURE OF GRISWOLD AND CHRISTOPHE for older, more advanced middle-grade readers and teens and for reading aloud to younger children.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy through RABT Book Tours and PR.

The Journey of Bee Bea: A Preschool Yoga Book About Finding Calm (Shanti’s Yoga Yarns, #1) by Marta Lanfranco 

Cute picture book with simple pictures and activities that any parent can use. 

The Journey of Bee Bea by Marta Lanfranco tells the story of a little bee that works hard collecting pollen from the flowers on the balconies of the gray apartments in the gray city. When a storm blows Bea out of her neighborhood, a friendly rainbow lends a colorful helping hand to get her back to her home. With its simple story, cute characters, basic underlying message, and the added value of easy-to-do activities parents can use to enhance their child’s engagement in the story, this book would be a nice addition to the bedtime routine or story time rotation. 

Shanti, the little purple storyteller, appears on each page and offers questions parents can ask their children as the story unfolds, drawing out the enjoyment and making it easier for parents to really share the story with their child rather than just reading it at them. The author also explains that the illustrations were deliberately kept simple to allow children to trace the pictures onto paper to color for themselves. I loved the idea that the colors of the rainbow transferred onto Bea when she was being helped home, and once there, she could colorize the entire gray neighborhood. While the text is simple, sometimes it rhymes, and sometimes it doesn’t. I would have preferred the whole work to have been one or the other. My children probably wouldn’t specifically ask to have this one read again and again without having their interest re-ignited using the coloring activity.

 I recommend THE JOURNEY OF BEE BEA to preschool and younger elementary school-age children.

The Journey of Bee Bea: A Preschool Yoga Book About Finding Calm (Shanti’s Yoga Yarns, #1) by Marta Lanfranco is available HERE.

The Lonely Australian of the Asian Night by Gregory Pakis 

A young drifter reflects on his past and anxiously awaits his future. 

The Lonely Australian of the Asian Night by Gregorg Pakis is a compelling short story of a young drifter, quickly approaching middle-age and who has been hiding out in his Siem Reap, Cambodia, hotel room to hopefully to fly under the radar of the local authorities and INTERPOL. Having fled his hometown of Melbourne, Australia, just ahead of the police, who have an interest in him for mostly petty offenses, he traveled to India and eventually other Asian cities seeking cheap living conditions and easy marks for his penny ante thefts and robberies. With a lot of time on his hands, he reflects on his past and while he clearly recalls his life as taking advantage of opportunities to profit from others, he fails to dredge up any remorse for taking the low road. 

The author’s writing is compelling and easy reading; I was absolutely drawn into Paul’s version of self-reflection. The descriptions of the places he traveled, and his experiences were absorbing and evocative. I would welcome a longer book with more of this character’s trainwreck of a life story. 

I recommend THE LONELY AUSTRALIAN OF THE ASIAN NIGHT to readers of crime fiction, travel tales, and literary fiction. 

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy from the author through Goddess Fish Promotions Book Tours.

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