Action & Adventure

The Children in Hiding Trilogy

The Children in Hiding Trilogy
Title: The Children in Hiding Trilogy
ASIN: B07V46MMF6
Tag:
Published: September 8, 2019
Author's Twitter: @Entlover27
Get on Board Little Children, Come on Home Children, and City of Hidden Children now available in one volume.An unborn infant. A toddler. A teenager. What these three have in common: they are all being hunted by the enforcers of the Bureau of Population Control in the years following the passage of the No Unwanted Children Act. The law made it a felony in Washington state to carry to term an unlicensed pregnancy. Any such children who escaped the net became subject to confiscation, to be raised and trained in the education/labor camps.In Get on Board Little Children, Sophie and Josh must make the right choices and make them fast, under pressure from the Bureau to submit to their harsh demands or face imprisonment and worse.In Come on Home Children, Willa’s four-year-old daughter has been seized by the same arrogant arm of the state as an unlicensed child. Unless Willa can rescue her, Katy faces a life of stigma, toil, and despair.In City of Hidden Children, Katy is now an adolescent, and memories of her confinement in the labor camp are beginning to surface. She realizes that her two best friends are still imprisoned there and determines to let nothing stop her from finding and freeing them.Dystopian thrillers set in a future Seattle, each tale tests whether love can outwit bureaucratic greed in a future that is all too conceivable.

Assessed 

The author has combined her three Awesome Indies Seal of Excellence and Approved  books, Get on Board Little Children, Come on Home Children, and City of Hidden Children into a trilogy, The Children in Hiding Trilogy

 

Bloodtrail

Bloodtrail
Title: Bloodtrail
ASIN: B007BDM2LY
Published: January 9, 2014
Tired of his life and weary of his sins, Joseph Casey places himself in the hands of medical researchers as an object of study. A 400 year-old-vampire in the power of mere humans, he asks for one thing in return: help in finding his 14 year-old-daughter, who he has not seen in over 150 years. Credible, intelligent, and savage, BLOODTRAIL is a novel of love, lust, science, and intrigue. It transports the vampire fable to a new level of believability as it challenges the myths and legends and brings the genre into the here and now. From a slave ship run aground in 1635 to the secret laboratories of the Proteus Trust, from Chicago’s Field Museum to northern Arkansas, from the Colorado high country to the mountains of Austria, it is a gripping novel of surprising humor, tender moments, and merciless brutality. Travel the BLOODTRAIL with viable science, compelling characters, and crisp dialogue. But be careful. Something really is out there.

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My Sparkling Misfortune

My Sparkling Misfortune
Title: My Sparkling Misfortune
ASIN: B004JXVYR2
Published: January 7, 2014
Author:
Lord Arkus of Blackriver Castle readily admits that he is a villain and sees no reason why it should stop him from being the protagonist of this book. After all, Prince Kellemar, an aspiring hero, has defeated him in a rather questionable way. Bent on revenge, Arkus attempts to capture a powerful evil spirit who would make him nearly invincible, but a last-minute mistake leaves him with a Sparkling instead—“a goody-goody spirit that helps heroes, watches over little children, and messes up villains’ plans.” Bound to Lord Arkus for five years of service and sworn to act in his best interests, the Sparkling is not easy to get rid of, and of course his understanding of “best interests” is quite different from what Lord Arkus has in mind. My Sparkling Misfortune is Book 1 of The Lakeland Knight series. It is approximately 33,000 words (126 pages in the printed edition). Includes 10 black-and-white illustrations. It it also available as an audiobook.

Assessed for 

23 February 2013

A Very French Affair

A Very French Affair
Title: A Very French Affair
ASIN: B00BEYZ5FQ
Tag:
Publisher:
Published: January 9, 2014
We've all seen those three little words...je t'aime ...but will this be the case for Margaret? When Margaret discovers her fiancé is cheating on her, she leaves England in search of a new life and a new dream. Beautiful yet self-effacing, Margaret is determined to put romance out of her life and avoid forming personal ties. On the beautiful French south coast, Margaret lands herself with a plum job and is happy to forget her worthless old flame. Things are looking up, until a series of events draw her into meeting handsome Frenchman Jean-Paul. Despite her reservations, Margaret begins to let down her guard with inevitable consequence. Margaret falls deeply in love, but struggles with her conscious after discovering Jean-Paul is married. Despite his declaration of a loveless marriage, should Margaret continue with her new affair? Her old life haunts and scares her…Should she choose a secure, safe life, immersed in her work, or one filled with passion and excitement with the sexy Frenchman? In her darkest hours, can she trust him with her heart?... Has she found a safe haven? Or is she poised on the brink of the abyss… NB. A box of Kleenex is essential when reading this novel.

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The Pleasure of Memory

The Pleasure of Memory
Title: The Pleasure of Memory
ASIN: B00GG61IYO
Published: November 4, 2013
Author:
Beam is a smuggler, a murderer, and a rogue, who lives by the age-old rules of "Finders, keepers" and "To thy own self be true". Abandoned by his family and raised in a run-down priory by an old monk, he is consumed by his anger. He measures the worth of the world's citizens less by the character of their hearts than the gold he can pick from their pockets. However, when he receives a mysterious message from his long dead mother, his carefully constructed rules of priority and self-interest are changed forever. Wrapped within that message is an ancient map that leads him far south to the reservations of the Vaemyn, a race of savages forcefully sequestered from the world by the civilized Allied Nations. Once there, he searches through a burial ground the size of a small city where he finds an ancient artifact called the Blood Caeyl, a rare red crystal carved in the image of a sensuous eye that he believes will make him rich beyond his dreams. In his flight, he crosses paths with Chance Gnoman, a powerful Water Caeyl Mage. When Chance recognizes the Blood Caeyl, he explains the importance of the artifact in the war that is about to ensue. The artifact begins to change Beam, awakening the memories of a thousand lifetimes, and with those memories, the powers of a god.

Assessed for 

Listed on the previous Awesome Indies Website in the “Rough Cuts” Category.

This was a special page for fiction in the rough and included uncut diamonds found during the assessment process. These books did not receive “Awesome Indies Approval”  but were considered to have a spark of brilliance, perhaps in their ideas, world-building, or some new approach. The issues that kept them from the “Approved” list are things that most readers would not notice as the good qualities overshadow any inadequacies. Awesome Indies stated: (quote) “Rough Cuts are here because the author cannot afford the cost of the line editor needed to tidy it up, and we don’t want genius to be missed because the author hasn’t a huge budget.”

 

 

Along the Watchtower

Along the Watchtower
Title: Along the Watchtower
ASIN: B07DT47M9M
Published: December 26, 2013
Author's Twitter: @davidlitwack
The war in Iraq ended for Freddie when an IED explosion left his mind and body shattered. Once a skilled gamer as well as a capable soldier, he's now a broken warrior, emerging from a medically induced coma to discover he's inhabiting two separate realities. The first is his waking world of pain, family trials, and remorse—and slow rehabilitation through the tender care of Becky, his physical therapist. The second is a dark fantasy realm of quests, demons, and magic, which Freddie enters when he sleeps. The lines soon blur for Freddie, not just caught between two worlds, but lost within himself. Is he Lieutenant Freddie Williams, a leader of men, a proud officer in the US Army who has suffered such egregious injury and loss? Or is he Frederick, Prince of Stormwind, who must make sense of his horrific visions in order to save his embattled kingdom from the monstrous Horde, his only solace the beautiful gardener, Rebecca, whose gentle words calm the storms in his soul. In the conscious world, the severely wounded vet faces a strangely similar and equally perilous mission to that of the prince—a journey along a dark road, haunted by demons of guilt and memory. Can he let patient, loving Becky into his damaged and shuttered heart? It may be his only way back from Hell.

Assessed for Awesome Indies 

The Seeds of Time

The Seeds of Time
Title: The Seeds of Time
ASIN: B008AGS5CQ
Series:
Publisher:
Published: June 10, 2012
Author's Twitter: @FaithMortimer
Englishman, Richard Barker, has everything he needs - a beautiful yacht, plenty of money, and an exciting occupation. When disaster strikes he is shattered and struggles to come to terms with his feelings of guilt and grief. At his darkest hour, help arrives from two unexpected and completely opposite sources. Into his life walk beautiful, serene Sorrel and the tempestuous and wilful Miranda. While Richard is battling with his raw and confused emotional state, he discovers secrets about his dead father’s past life during the Second World War. It is this intriguing news that helps bring Richard to his senses.

Assessed for Awesome Indies Book Awards