Awesome Indies: APPROVED

Don’t Call Me Kit Kat

Don’t Call Me Kit Kat
Title: Don’t Call Me Kit Kat
ASIN: B00XFKMG0O
Published: May 15, 2015
Author's Twitter: @KJFarnham
At 13, Katie is fed up with her embarrassing life. She wants nothing more than to be invisible. Until Anika who hangs out with the popular OH girls takes her under her wing… to show her how to shoplift. Mortification holds nothing to the embarrassment of letting Anika down, but when everything that can go wrong does, Anika points the finger to her. Katie’s world crumbles, and that’s how she turns to binging and purging. She’s finally finds a way to cleanse herself of the eternal embarrassment and stress her middle school causes, but hiding her new habit proves too hard. Especially when her family says crazy stuff like she’s getting thin, and she has to stop. Because that’s the biggest problem of all. She can’t.

Assessed for Awesome Indies

Chloe The Clone

Chloe The Clone
Title: Chloe The Clone
ASIN: B09542337G
Published: March 6, 2015
Author's Twitter: @Primordium4
Chloe The Clone is a suspense set in the year 2020.  Part Romancing the Stone (romantic, comedic, with inept bad guys), part Paper Moon (feel good, sentimental, and quirky), Chloe The Clonenevertheless poses a serious story question: what does a man do when he comes to love the child who was cloned to give him a new heart?

Assessed for Awesome Indies

Clad in Armour of Radiant White

Clad in Armour of Radiant White
Title: Clad in Armour of Radiant White
ASIN: B00YFAGM8U
Published: May 27, 2015
Author's Twitter: @RosalineARiley
This is a coming-of-age novel set in the 1950s and 60s in Lancashire. Its point-of-view protagonist is Ellen, a working class girl who becomes friends with middle class Erica when she goes to the convent school in the neighbouring town. Focussing on both Ellen’s home life and her school life (which she tries to keep separate), the novel explores the gains and the losses that education and religion provide over the course of her school years.   Thematically, it’s a novel about friendship, love, loss, and death. Social class is also dealt with lightly. There are dark passages in the novel, but also much humour. Each chapter is a month of the year – beginning with September to reflect the structure of the school year. This framework also allows for treatment of the seasons and the liturgical year. The months are sequential but the years are not. Between September 1959 and September 1966 the years go back and forth (with some flashbacks to earlier years).

Assessed for Awesome Indies

Writing is Easy

Writing is Easy
Title: Writing is Easy
ASIN: B00FIKWSZW
Categories: ,
Published: September 28, 2013
Author:
A gourmet casserole of writerly ego, vanity, seduction, blackmail and death, spiced with a superhuman fitness protein and dollops of good red wine.    

Assessed 

Paladin

Paladin
Title: Paladin
ASIN: B00WL64DLI
Categories: ,
Published: May 14, 2015
Author:
Author's Twitter: @sallyroseslater
Brash, cocky, and unbeatable with a sword (well, almost), Sam of Haywood is the most promising Paladin trainee in the kingdom of Thule… and knows it. The only problem is that Sam is really Lady Samantha, daughter of a duke, and if anyone finds her out, she’ll be marrying a Paladin, not becoming one. But Sam has never held much interest in playing damsel-in-distress, and so she rescues herself from a lifetime of boredom and matrimonial drudgery. Disguised as a boy, Sam leaves home behind to fight demons — the most dangerous monsters in Thule — alongside the kingdom’s elite warriors. Pity that Tristan Lyons, the Paladin assigned to train her, is none other than the hero of her childhood. He hasn’t recognized her — yet — but if he does, he’ll send her packing. Sam is not the only trainee hiding secrets: Braeden is a half-demon with a dark past that might be unforgivable. Whether he can be trusted is anyone’s guess, including his. As demons wreak havoc across the land, rebellion stirs in the West, led by a rival warrior faction. A war is coming, and Sam must pick a side. Will saving the kingdom cost her life — or just her heart?

Assessed for Awesome Indies

South of Burnt Rocks – West of the Moon

South of Burnt Rocks – West of the Moon
Title: South of Burnt Rocks – West of the Moon
ASIN: B009V2ZOL8
Published: October 21, 2012
Author:
Lavena, the last survivor of Rome's plundering destruction in ancient Spain, must survive to the next sunrise and then try to unite far-flung villages and oust the Roman menace. Based on real events and ancient She-Warriors who fought alongside their men. Mighty Rome plunders everything of value and destroys anything left standing in the beautiful and rich land south of Burnt Rocks. We know it as Spain. Lavena, the last child of the strongest tribal leader in the area, must grow up fast, must choose between marriage to her favorite young man and children, or the life of a She-Warrior fighting side-by-side with the male warriors of her tribe – or even fighting alone. The crush of an invading Roman army forces her choices. Guided by the spirits of the dead, by her father’s favorite dog, and the courage of those with nothing left to lose, she takes a last stand against the Roman menace. Roman scout, Marcus, is ordered to try to find answers to unseen but real threats pestering his Roman army – scouts who never return, dead soldiers, deadly traps in the ground, and slaughtered bullocks. More than any of his masters, Marcus begins to understand the havoc Lavena has wreaked, but deeper yearnings drive him to find her for other reasons, to be with her. Based on actual characters of that time and place, South of Burnt Rocks – West of The Moontells that mostly true story lost to the fog of history.

Assessed for Awesome Indies

Time Lapse

Time Lapse
Title: Time Lapse
ASIN: B00TS7P0TC
Category:
Published: February 18, 2015
Author:
Author's Twitter: @PeterTrewin
A despicable crime carried out twenty years ago by a teenage gang. The proceeds of a heist hidden away. Chris Crosby was involved and could have intervened but he didn’t. So he is just as guilty. But where to hide? How about the most obvious place.  He is a surveillance expert investigating organised crime in Merseyside – in particular the activities of an outfit led by Alison Mason who has had to take control when her partner was drowned in a botched drug smuggling operation. Chris is also a rock climber with ambitions to solo the hardest and most dangerous climb in the area, ‘Time Lapse’. Talk about not attracting attention to yourself. But the ghosts from his past have been awakened. Can Chris avoid exposure? Can he shop the gangsters? Can he climb – and survive – the route?

Assessed for Awesome Indies

Material Evidence

Material Evidence
Title: Material Evidence
ASIN: B003FMV644
Category:
Published: July 11, 2007
Author:
Author's Twitter: @carver25
This is the first in a series of police procedurals set in North-East Scotland and featuring DCI Jack Carston. A woman’s body is found at her home. She died of a gunshot wound, had been brutally raped and all the clues point to the husband being the culprit. As Carston investigates, however, the main puzzle facing him is who the woman really was. Husband, colleagues and acquaintances variously picture her as a frigid menopausal woman, a highly-sexed lover, a shrewd investor and manipulator, a valued financial adviser, an embarrassment to her employers, a sad, unstable person. Before he can solve the crime, he must first reconcile all these images to establish her real identity.

Assessed for Awesome Indies

Beverly

Beverly
Title: Beverly
ASIN: B017PIA928
Published: November 6, 2015
Author:
Author's Twitter: @fionapearse
Beverly sidesteps the need to interact with co-workers by working from home. When she must venture outside, she wears earphones so no one will bother her. Social niceties are designated to her best friend and flatmate, Ella. Beverly would be jealous of Ella’s gregarious charm and high-life, if she didn’t have the security of her long-term boyfriend, Roland, who spared Beverly from the dating scene and gave her a future. Beverly won’t speak for herself because she has a stutter. This is how she carefully arranges her life, until Roland breaks up with her… to date Ella.

Assessed for Awesome Indies