Books
I Came, I Saw (Veni, Vidi) : Patricia O’Rourke
I Came, I Saw (Veni, Vidi) More Than a Memoir
This book is my story. It is about what I did, saw, felt, learned, loved, hated, and accomplished during my lifetime. As I review my life I think of now versus then, compared to what my parents said then, and what I believe now. I go back and forth in my lifetime in order to demonstrate or accentuate the internal feelings I had at the time or what I think about it now. I digress a few times because of what the issue or event helped me to recall.
Sometimes I am very critical, even mean as I become angry now or recall my anger then about certain events, people or issues. No apologies for that. I call it ‘Veni, Vidi’ because I came and I saw. There is no ‘Vici’ because I conquered nothing.
I state that it is ‘more than a memoir’ because I found myself attempting to do some education and stating opinions more than once, because that is the way I am.
I think about what I did and the incentives and influences I had to get me here. Where is here, anyhow? Well, it is being retired. It is being able to sit on my couch and write a book. I am so fortunate.
In the last few days at work someone asked me if I was going to work per diem. I said, “No, no. Carpe diem, not per diem.”
In preparing for retirement I created an Excel worksheet with my budget. It includes my income of three pensions, Social Security, and funds I have saved. I calculated a 20-year budget with 300% increase in the cost of living going forward. I realized “I can do this.” But, and a big but, at the age of 87 I will have to be shot by a jealous 40-year old wife (yes, 40 years old) or be hit by a beer truck. One of those Bud Ice blue beauties, I hope.
The challenges continue.
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Rush – A Taste For Freedom : Alix Cherubin
Rush – A Taste For Freedom
Reviewed by Maria Beltran for Readers’ Favorite
Based on a true story,“Rush: A Taste for Freedom” recalls the struggles and dangerous efforts of Peter who is hoping to escape from the oppression in the Soviet Union and its cruel Communist system. Facing persecution and even death, Peter has to remain courageous in order to save his own daughter, Galia, and the rest of his family. The oppressive regime continues and Galia chooses to fight by his father’s side. How can they escape from the Iron Curtain when hope has only the width of a thread from a spider’s web.
First and foremost, kudos to the author for his courage. Truly, it takes a lot of heart to write the story. Alix Cherubin Sr. traces the lives, loves, and aspirations of the main characters with deep compassion and powerful insight, making “Rush: A Taste for Freedom” a magnificently crafted story. This is an inspiring real-life account celebrating the triumph of the power of faith, family and love over a terrifying situation.
“Rush: A Taste for Freedom” is a frank, courageous and heartbreaking novel that is beautiful and illuminating. The author has successfully created a moving picture of his father-in-law and it is conveyed with admirable clarity. If you want to read a story that is thoroughly engaging, “Rush” will not disappoint.
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Gangsters of Shanghai : Gerry O’Sullivan
Gangsters of Shanghai
The severed head in the bamboo birdcage swayed above the teeming marketplace. It told Constable Mike Gallagher everything he needed to know about Shanghai.
It’s 1927. The son of a rural Irish cop, Gallagher joins the Shanghai Municipal Police. to escape an Ireland crippled by its recent bitter independence fight, and to trace the aristocratic woman whose memory still haunts him. They would venture together to China, Fiona once promised. Then the IRA torched her family estate. Everybody believes she died there. Everybody but Mike Gallagher.
Shanghai. Pearl of the East or Whore of the Orient? Depends on who you ask. It’s a cesspool of poverty, thronged with refugees, gripped by civil war. But for some it’s still a fever dream: jazz clubs and opium dens, celebrities and spies, easy money and easier women. Gallagher encounters the city’s biggest philanthropist, a man called Big Ears Lu – who is also its creepiest racketeer. He falls for a hooker who gives him sex he never imagined. But does his collusion with Lu keep her trapped in the House of Multiple Joys? Shanghai in 1927 is a city where after dark anything seems possible. A city where anyone can be crushed, and anyone corrupted. Even an innocent Irish cop.
From the wreckage of guerrilla war in Ireland to the dawn of world war in Asia, the international mystery thriller Gangsters of Shanghai seethes with 20th Century turbulence and temptation. Can Mike Gallagher escape the imploding city with his life, his self-respect – and the answer to Fiona’s fate?
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Women’s Work : Kari Aguila
Women’s Work
“So when most of the men were dead, women saw their chance to take over?” Kate searches her son’s eyes as he asks this. “Not take over,” she says. “Fix things.”
It wasn’t hard to justify what the women had done since the end of the Last War. They rebuilt their bombed-out neighborhoods as best they could and tried to establish peace and gender equality. But small groups of men roam the country, viciously indicating that the pendulum may have swung too far. When a bedraggled man shows up on Kate’s doorstep one night, will she risk everything to help him? Does he deserve her help?
Women’s Work follows Kate on her journey from fear and anger to forgiveness and hope. It is a compelling story that challenges us to question traditional gender roles and the fragility of love.
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The Mad Game : Chris Cherry
The Mad Game
The critically acclaimed new novel. A young British boy grows up with hopes and dreams of travelling, learning a trade, leading a simple life and perhaps, even falling in love. But his dreams are stopped with the advent of the Great War. This is the story of William Collins and his private battle to survive the horrors of the Western Front.
A desperate and terrible war, to end all wars, the shock of separation and the terrifying life and death existence are enough to break even the most ardent spirit. His lost love drifts ever further from him, as he descends into the Hell of the Somme battlefield.
Comrades are cruelly taken from his side, as the enemy takes away hope for the future. But his love for Odile and for her country,France, sustains him, driving him onward in a desperate struggle to survive. He is inexorably drawn into a new and mysterious world of secrecy and brutality, from which a slim and hard fought hope of victory could emerge.
This war could be different, if only the Generals would listen. Chance brings opportunity for his plans. This is William’s time, a soldier of the Great War, a player in this, the Mad Game.
This is the first novel in the Love and War Series. Coming in 2014 are The Mad Game – Odile’s War and The Mad Game – The Third Light.
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Backward Compatible : Sarah Daltry and Pete Clark
Backward Compatible
WARNING: There is no sex in this book. Your Kindle or other device will remain at a pleasant room temperature. At no point will your panties drop. Your significant other will be allowed to snore in peace as you read.
Not too long ago, in a town that, depending on your current location, is either not super far or actually quite close…
It is a time of chaotic hormones.
Two nerdy gents home for winter break have discovered a female gamer at a midnight release.
During the break, the gamer trio manages to reveal the game’s secret boss, a hidden enemy with enough power to destroy anything in its path.
Pursued by other gamers who want to be the first to beat this boss, George and Katie race to level up, and, in so doing, restore decency and sexual activity to their personal galaxy…
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Spellbound : Jennifer Adele
Spellbound
“We always think we will have more time… and then it runs out…”
Vera Norton is only a young girl when her ancient friend and neighbor, Lillian Thompson, dies, leaving her emotionally wounded and incredibly vulnerable.
With little parental supervision and a brother who couldn’t be more opposite of her in every way, Vera is left reeling and spending a lot of time with the one permanent figure in her life, a large oak tree at the center of the Thompson gardens, a tree that is at the epicenter of Vera’s world.
However, when Lillian’s strange sister, Elizabeth, moves into the Thompson house next door and takes over the property, the curious and horrific really take hold. This then catapults Vera into an adult life of magic and mystery, love and dangerous obsession, ghostly encounters and supernatural apparitions, curses and spells.
Can Vera reclaim the life she knew and the tree she loved, an odd tree that is central to her existence? Can Vera override a Fate that stalks her and stares at her with red ember eyes, a Fate that seems determined to destroy her? Can a curse be broken and age-old spells unbound?…
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A Prescription for Delirium : Noree Cosper
A Prescription for Delirium
Ninety years ago, Gabriella di Luca promised to protect the family of her dying lover.
She failed to keep that promise.
She was too far away to stop the devil that murdered the eldest Van Helsing son.
Years later, Gabby learns the devil has resurfaced. She arrives in Hampton, TX, determined to stop the devil before it can lay a bloody hand on the remaining three brothers.
However, madness is spreading through Hampton.
She suspects the devil is using this madness to test a drug which has a side effect of demonic possession. Gabby rushes to end the source of the madness only to fall victim to it.
For a woman cursed with eternal life, dying is no threat. However, Gabby must stop the devil’s plot or risk losing her most precious possession: her mind.
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A Prayer For The Devil : Dale Allan
A Prayer For The Devil
When a Priest determines to avenge his brother’s murder, he must make a journey into the underworld of radical Islam that shakes the very foundation of his faith.
Twin brothers Luke and Aaron Miller could not lead more different lives. Aaron, a rising political star who manages the campaign of a man many believe will be the nation’s next president. Luke, on the other hand, entered the Catholic priesthood.
When Aaron and the candidate he supports are killed in a bombing at a presidential stump speech, the Miller family’s core is destroyed. Fear of a terrorist threat grips the nation, but the FBI and the press seem more focused on the death of a presidential candidate than on the other innocent victims like Aaron.
Suddenly, Luke begins to feel the lure of a vengeance that is stronger than the bond of faith.
As he falls deeper into the abyss of political intrigue that surrounded his brother’s mysterious professional life, Luke is tempted to break his promise to God and reassess his own sense of right and wrong. What sort of priest carries a concealed weapon? How can he judge others when he himself has strayed so far from his own flock?
Luke’s comfortable life in Boston collides with the faraway world of the Middle East as he sets out on a journey to unravel the truth behind Aaron’s murder. Will he take an eye for an eye?
In A Prayer for the Devil, Dale Allan weaves a fast-paced murder mystery wrapped in a thoughtful meditation on the intersection of faith and justice. Luke’s journey through his own darkness propels him to a shocking ending that will leave readers breathless.
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Spectre Rising : C.W. Lemoine
Spectre Rising
After a combat incident in Iraq, Cal “Spectre” Martin was grounded and told he would never fly an F-16 again.
Years later, he started a new civilian life with his F-16 pilot fiancée while being haunted by the nightmares of his last deployment.
But when she goes missing on a routine training mission off the South Florida coast, Spectre unwillingly finds himself thrust back onto the frontlines of the war on terror – this time, not in the skies over Iraq, but on the streets of Miami.
While searching for answers, Spectre uncovers a deadly international conspiracy that shakes his beliefs to the core and threatens national security.
The stakes have never been higher as Spectre rises to overcome his inner demons, challenge his friendships, and take to the skies once again in a daring final mission.
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