Demigod Manannán mac Lir (Mac) is on the trail of Artemis Black, a stunningly dangerous woman who's inexplicably able to intertwine life magic with death magic. For the safety of his people, he should destroy the desperate witch—once he learns her darkest secrets.
Readers of paranormal romance and urban fantasy will enjoy this adventure filled with black magic, nasty demons, hot immortals, dark humor, steamy sex, and a heart-thumping descent into a modern version of Dante's Hell. Available September 30. 2008.
Quote from the book…“The eyes of the demon have returned.”
Peter Balaskas’ opening sentence from the book “The Grandmaster,” will give you chills, but curiosity will grab you to make you wonder who or what this demon might be. This novella takes paranormal abilities and historical details of the Holocaust and creates a story of hope and tragedy.
Dr. Johann Wagner has run the Wagner Institute for Mental Treatment and Investigations since 1966. He suddenly feels that a horror from his past has come back to destroy what he has built. In his journal, he talks about events in his past from the Holocaust, which might explain why he is having these terrible feelings. He writes about how he used his extraordinary powers to survive the dreadful life he led in concentration camps. In the second camp he is at, he meets Heinz, the head orderly, whose tongue had been cut off due to his anti-Hitler political speeches. The two becomes friends and Johann shares his secrets with Heinz. Every morning at head count, he sees a woman that he connects with, with only a smile and nod. Dr. Wagner knows that his choices will affect the life of not only him, but all those around him. We learn how he realized he had powers, the loss of his parents, developing his abilities and finally having to decide whether to use them to survive. A chess game with Commandant Reinhardt (who happens to have paranormal abilities too) will be the deciding factor of what happens to his life at the camp. It is a balancing game of surviving or dying that he lives with every day.
I absolutely loved this book and recommend it to everyone. The plot, characters and theme blend together to make an amazing story, that you will not want to put down. In only 90 pages, you feel as though you’ve lived the life of Dr. Wagner. The creativity Balaskas uses with a man’s paranormal abilities and the stories of the Holocaust makes for an enthralling and clever tale that you will be talking about days after reading the book!
Reviewed for RebeccaReads.com
Rating: 5/5
“Aberrations” is an amazing book from the first words to the last. Penelope Przekop’s debut novel grabs a hold of you and takes you on Angel’s journey of the truth.
Angel is a 21-year-old narcoleptic who is trying to uncover her past, while trying to get through the fog of her narcolepsy. She always has worshipped the mom she never knew, from the stories and cloud pictures her dad told her about. Her life begins to change when her dad’s girlfriend moves in and removes the pictures from the walls of the clouds. From the first sentence in the book “My father is a liar,” you know there is more to Angel’s story then even she is aware.
The book takes on the secrets of our lives and how we determine where the line is between lying and truth. Each character in the book seems to have some kind of secret that they are trying to keep, from sexuality (gays and virginity), adultery, pregnancy and mental illness. Is keeping the truth from someone the best thing sometimes? Angel is determined to find the answers to her past, but doesn’t realize at what possible cost.
I absolutely loved this book. I received it from the publisher (thank you!) asking me to read and review it, which is a good thing since I probably would have never gotten it otherwise. The storyline and characters are all so interesting and enjoyable that I didn’t want to put the book down. When I finished, it made me ask questions about if I would want to know the truth in the same circumstance. I didn’t even realize until almost the end that the chapter headings were alphabetized and were the names of the cloud photos!!
If you want to read a well written book and something different than you might normally read, pick up “Aberrations” now at your book store! HEADS UP ...Some of the content may not be appropriate for some ages!!
You can find Aberrations on Facebook here
You can read an excerpt of the book here.
Rating: 5/5
Jennifer’s life is still in turmoil 18 months after her husband pasted away. She can’t get her life together or move forward, but knows she needs to for her little girl. Both families are supportive and wanting to help her, but Jennifer is unable to accept that life will never be the same. Depressed, grieving and overwhelmed, she decided there is only one way to make things better. Luckily, this is the night she runs in to Henry. He knows Jennifer from the store he greets at and they’ve talked about his homeland,
The author, Karen Maughan, takes the lives of Jennifer and Henry and makes an amazing story that is both heartbreaking and inspiring. She takes us back to before Jennifer’s tragic loss of her husband and brings us through to current day. The ups and downs of her life seem to reflect that something tragic might happen. Henry’s life is rewound for us to see his start in
On a personal note, having lost my husband suddenly, the passages after she found out she had lost him were so clear in my own memory. I could truly feel Jennifer’s grief, inability to focus and being angry at everyone. The steady flow of ‘get over it’ from family is hard to hear when you are still grieving. I needed a box of Kleenex next to me for most of the second half of the book.
I would recommend this book to anyone that loves stories that pull at your heart. The book is short in length (182pgs), so most people might be able to read in one sitting.
Overall, this was an amazing book that brought a woman in anguish to a man full of life stories together. The meaning of our lives is a strong theme in this book from start to finish. Sometimes, the best moments in life are those unexpected angels that come to you and change your life….forever.
