Hollow Out the Dark

by

James Wade

Gritty, genuine, historical crime fiction set in Depression-Era East Texas.

War hero Jess Cole is trying to make ends meet the best he can, including taking on his deceased brother’s widow and daughter and looking out for his best friend who’s gotten crosswise with the local bad guys, the Fenley brothers. Texas Ranger Amon Atkins has brought his small family to the small town of Enoch, Texas, as he investigates a murder tied to the Fenleys. It’s the midst of the Depression and Prohibition is on the outs. Still, times are getting dangerously difficult for everyone. And, when the last avenue of legitimate work, the local mill, closes, the local whiskey, gambling, and enforcement activities may offer the only source of salvation to good men needing to feed their families. 

Hollow Out the Dark by James Wade is a complex and compelling crime fiction novel set during the Depression, near the end of Prohibition, in sparsely populated deep East Texas. With its genuine characters, desperate storylines, and atmospheric setting, readers will feel transported almost 100 years into the past. 

I was immediately absorbed by this story and one of the first aspects that made this happen for me was that every character read like they were a real person, many of whom felt familiar and personally known. Their words, the cadence of the language, the small bits of humor, and the fears all combined to create a feeling that these were genuine people. For the most part these are sturdy people, toughened by life and circumstance. The men are hard, products of short childhoods and early responsibility. You had to be tough to last into adulthood and tougher still to stick around long enough to get old. Or someone really had to be looking out for you. 

The author gives us some truly evil characters, and the good guys are forced to choose between compromising their integrity and ideals or risking everything or everyone they love: impossible situations with impossible choices. But how far will good men go to protect those they love or do what needs doing? And at what cost? 

The action takes place in an atmospheric rural setting and small town in East Texas, small because most of the population is spread out over the surrounding farmed as well as unfarmable land. While everyone knows everyone else and their business, neighbors aren’t right next door, making it the perfect location for bootlegging and other activities that don’t suffer an audience well. The Depression comes alive in this story and just when you think the hard times can’t get any harder, they do. The plot twists were sudden and often shocking. 

I recommend HOLLOW OUT THE DARK for readers of historical crime fiction, especially those who would enjoy an East Texas or Depression Era setting. 

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy from the author through Lone Star Book Blog Tours.

Monster Movie!

by

Chuck Wendig

A great mix of bad dreams and self-discovery. 

Sixth-grader Ethan Pitowski, the only child of very cautious parents, has taken on their anxiety and fearfulness (about everything), overthinking each and every daily movement and decision until he’s almost paralyzed from actually living. When his two best friends run into trouble at a clandestine house party thrown by the most popular kid in class, he must overcome his fears to save them. Readers will enjoy his lively inner monologue and pep talks in which he convinces himself to forge on as everyone else around him is losing their heads. 

Monster Movie! by Chuck Wendig, a new upper middle-grade horror story, is a great mix of bad dreams and self-discovery. While eluding a horrifying TV-headed monster, the product of a cursed videotape of the “SCARIEST MOVIE EVER MADE,” the main character’s greater challenge is overcoming his fears to be himself (and save his friends and family in the meantime.) This unusual monster tale was mesmerizing, hitting many universal fears, some from daily life and others from the horror film genre, and I could easily relate to the young protagonist’s struggles easily relatable. 

The monster of the story is a large, older-model television set that moves about on spindly, insectile legs. The television’s screen changes from a blue screen to white crackly static to an enormous eye to a maw that bloodlessly removes the heads of its hypnotized victims: nightmarish images, perhaps, for more sensitive younger readers. Besides the frighteningly unstoppable monster, there is a villainous movie theater manager behind the monster’s release into Ethan’s community to best. The plot includes exciting rescues and escapes, movie-making action, and facing and overcoming one’s fears, and while scary, the story is easy and engaging to read. Thumbs up as a possible choice to entice reluctant readers. 

I recommend MONSTER MOVIE! to upper middle-grade readers who enjoy scary stories. 

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy through TBR and Beyond Book Tours.

The Starlight Motel

by

Amy Craig 

The storyline alternates between sweet and spicy for a perfect blend of love, romance, and desire.

The Starlight Motel is a wonderful new contemporary romance from the talented pen of author Amy Craig. The storyline alternates between sweet and spicy for a perfect blend of love, romance, and desire. I easily sank into its warm holiday and vacation vibe for a relaxing evening of reading and relaxing with my feet up. 

Kada Ritchie is the strong, independent main character who has taken on the responsibility of running her family’s Palm Springs motel after the death of her grandfather. She is constantly pulled in one direction and another, dealing with guest and staff issues. Still, after the lights go out for the night, she turns to her true vocation: creating murals of the surrounding natural environment on the walls of the motel casitas. A trained artist and muralist, Kada has put her career and life on hold to keep the motel going until her grieving mother can step up and take her rightful place at the helm. However, a year has passed, and a grant with a deadline is waiting, and Kada is ready to return to her life in L.A. 

While local commercial farmer Dane Palmer can usually be described as the strong, silent type, he can hardly keep his words from tumbling out of his mouth when he is around Kada. He’s smitten, and he can tell she feels the same, but it takes their mutual love for animals and the rescue of an abandoned and very pregnant pitbull in the foothills of the mountains to get their feelings out in the open. The chemistry between these two is off the charts. I enjoyed their back and forth and the tentativeness of their early attraction, which quickly ignited into a passion. 

The plot goes from sweet to spicy and back again as they work through their feelings and where their relationship is headed. In addition to the tantalizing storyline, the author develops an enchanting setting in the Coachella Valley for the fun, quirky, but thriving desert motel outside Palm Springs. There are wonderful descriptions of the beauty of the valley, desert, foothills, and nearby mountain ranges that work in brief but enlightening tidbits of information about the flora, fauna, and formation of the natural landscape for color. The pictures that are painted are so vivid you’ll think you’re in the passenger seat of Grandpa’s vintage truck, riding with the windows down and the wind in your hair. 

I recommend THE STARLIGHT MOTEL for readers of contemporary romance. 

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

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.