Review for Call Sign, White Lily by MG Crisci

I'm a lover of history and I've always been especially drawn to World War II history.  As an American, my knowledge of Russian WWII history is limited to what I've read in history books and other memoirs and biographies of the war.  I didn't know that there was a regiment of women pilots who broke through the barriers and gave women a chance to be equal to men in the fight for their homeland, their families and their way of life.  I picked up this book to see who this White Lily was.  I was pleasantly surprised by the narrative.

Lilia Litvyak was born to Vladimir and Anna, a couple who had started out as peasant farmers who dreamed of a better life.  Through their hard work and dedication to their country, they were able to give Lilia a comfortable life.  She was stubborn and head-strong from a young age.  She loved the wildflowers her mother would place by her bed every night and they would continue to be a prominent factor in her life until the end.  She was athletic, intelligent and beautiful.  Whenever anyone underestimated her, she would not only prove them wrong, she would do it in spectacular fashion.

She was bitten by the flying bug very early in her life and she made it her dream to become a pilot.  She wanted to be a fighter pilot and then later, she wanted to be the pilot of an aircraft that would bring people across Russia in peace, for pleasure.  She was definitely ahead of her time!  She had the respect of her parents if not their outright approval and she began working for the local aerodrome when she was just 14 years old.  She worked her way from doing clerical work to then doing the dirtiest work of all, cleaning out the oil pits.  She earned the respect of the owners and was soon trained to be a pilot.  She was so good at what she did that she was then asked to train other young men to fly.

This was good enough for awhile, but she soon wanted more.  She wanted to be in the air fighting for her Motherland.  Stalin finally gave grudging permission for a women air corps and Lilia was one of the first pilots.  She quickly rose in the ranks and proved herself both inside and outside of combat.  Eventually she was sent to the front to fight with the best Russian pilots.  She quickly earned the respect of her superiors and to the men of her unit.  She shattered the glass ceiling.  The accomplishments that Lilia had in her young life rival those of many people 4 times her age.  It's easy to see why she not only earned the respect and admiration of an entire Russian nation, but also the ire of the Nazi regime.  They were repeatedly humiliated by a waif of a girl!!

This was a very well written and engaging book.  The characters were very well written and it was easy to become immersed in Lilia's life.  You laughed with her and cried with and for her.  The book goes through her life from her very humble beginnings and travels through her trials, tragedies and her valor and heroics.  I completely enjoyed reading this book and it opened a whole new aspect of WWII history for me.  I look forward to learning more about Lilia and the women of the Russian military and their contributions to save their Motherland.  What a wonderful story about how a woman can still be a woman even when she's gunning down Nazis!  I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in history, especially those who want to learn more about what roles women played. 

I give this book 4 very enthusiastic stars.  The only reason the book didn't receive 5 stars was because of the way the book was formatted.  It's something I'm seeing more and more with e-books.  Instead of having normal paragraphs with indentations, they're formatted with the space or double space between the paragraphs.  Yes, the whole book looks like my review!  It doesn't really detract from the story at all, just more of a personal preference to see e-books follow their print book cousins.  I was a little disappointed in the cover for this book as well.  With so many beautiful and amazing pictures and drawings of Lilia, they instead have chosen to put a young woman with long, blonde hair on the cover.  In doing some searching, it looks like other editions actually have a drawing of Lilia on the cover.  I would have much preferred to see that cover instead of the one that it has now.  Again, a personal preference.   I would still recommend this book to anyone who is interested in history, WWII and especially those who are wanting to see the war effort and the work and efforts that women put forth.

Call Sign, White Lily on Amazon

Review for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

I will admit, I was worried about this book.  I'd read a lot of very unflattering reviews over the months since I purchased it.  I think that's why it took me more than a year before I actually decided to sit down and read it.  I began the book not expecting much and I will admit, I was pleasantly surprised by the story that unfolded.  It was better than many typical novels advertised as both YA and for a wider adult audience.  I think that many adults would be very satisfied with the series that Ransom Riggs has started.  I'm looking forward to future outings with Miss Peregrine and her Peculiar Children.

We are introduced to Jacob Portman.  The story is told in a first person point of view in Jacob's voice.  As a young child, he forms a very special bond with his grandfather.  He wants to be an explorer and adventurer just like him.  He relishes in the tales that his grandfather spins for him, complete with pictures of levitating girls, invisible boys and other oddities.  All too soon he begins to grow up and starts listening to the logic of his father who insists that his grandfather is just spinning imaginative, but impossible stories just to keep Jacob entertained.  Jacob comes to see the pictures and fantastical tales in a new light.  The tales become impossible fantasies and the photographs are now seen as fake.

Jacob is now 16 and reeling from the sudden death of his grandfather.  He receives a letter that sets the fantastic events in motion.  He travels to the remote Welsh island where his grandfather lived when he was a child to escape the monsters.  His father travels with him so that he can observe the birds and with the blessing of Jacob's psychiatrist, he lets him explore and try to find the answers that he needs to put his mind at peace.  Jacob finds the home where his grandfather lived with all of those peculiar children.  Children who should be dead and gone according to the island residents, but are there!  And they are alive and well!  The story takes on a more fantastical turn that I had expected but this wasn't unwelcome at all.  The descriptions and the story are so well done that you can set aside your notions of what's possible and make yourself believe that this can happen.

The photographs used within the novel are incredible.  There have been many reviewers that have stated that the pictures seem to serve no purpose and that they don't correspond to what's being described in the book.  I have to strongly disagree with this statement.  I thought the pictures did a great job of giving a visual to the events in the story.  They put a real face to the characters in the story.  It makes you wonder if Ransom Riggs came upon some of these pictures and decided to tell their story.   My only complaint about the pictures and other visual items in the book would be that they are rather difficult for Kindle (and possibly other e-book) users.  There is a workaround, but not everyone would be willing or able to do it.  If I didn't think the detail was good enough on my Kindle, I opened my Kindle App for PC and I could then see everything.

For me, this was a very well written novel.  The characters were engaging, very well fleshed out and left you wanting to get to know them even better.  There was a supernatural aspect to the book that wasn't overdone or overblown, it was made believable and above all, interesting.  The pace was good, there were very few places that I would say that the story lagged or slowed down.  The level of detail was impressive without going on and on and on about little things that didn't matter.  The mysteries are well explained and the suspense keeps you on the edge of your seat till the very end.

The ending was very well done.  It left room for a sequel without feeling unfinished.  Sure, there's a bit of a cliffhanger, but it's not one of those soap-opera cliffhangers where you're more angry than excited for the next step.  I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to escape into another time and place for at least a little while.  Put aside your conceptions of what is real and what is possible and just enjoy the ride.  Due to some violence and some mature language and imagery, I would not recommend this to readers under the age of 13-14...just my personal impression.

Solid 4 stars

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children on Amazon.com 

Review of Devil's Lair by David Wisehart

Devil's Lair follows a quartet through Hell to find and retrieve the Holy Grail to bring the world back from the brink of destruction.  They are an unlikely group.  Marco da Roma, the last of the Knights Templar, but has no recollection of who he is.  William of Ockham, an English friar who has been defrocked.  Giovanni Boccaccio, a poet and an expert on Dante.  And finally Nadja, an epileptic with the gift of prophesy.  It is her dreams that have led this group on their quest to find the Grail and save mankind.  Each of them will need to face and conquer their own demons to push back the coming Apocalypse.

The depth to which the author goes to describe the characters is impressive.  Since they are so integral to the plot, he has spent time fleshing each of them out.  Giving them a story and giving the reader insight to understand who they are and what motivates them on this impossible quest.  The added bonus of descending through Dante's Hell made it that much more enjoyable.  While it is based loosely on Dante's vision, it gives readers who aren't quite as ambitious as Giovanni a chance to learn more about what Dante saw in his vision of Hell.

The level of detail as you follow the group on their journey was breathtaking.  It was very easy to immerse myself in the time and place.  You could feel the despair as they moved from place to place and watched as pestilence and plague destroyed everything in its wake.  As they entered the Sybil's cave and began their descent, you had a real sense of foreboding and from the minute they entered the cave until the very end, I couldn't put it down.  Hell is a very scary and very tempting place.  Who wouldn't want to go and talk to Plato, Icarus, Orpheus, Morgan Le Fay and Mordred?  The people they meet and the trials they go through during their descent was quite a thrill ride.

From beginning to end it was an enjoyable story.  Full of colorful and familiar characters.  Many of them were very real historical figures that many readers may already be familiar with.  The story, while fantastical, is made very believable.  It's easy to empathize and even sympathize with many of the characters introduced throughout the tale. 

My only gripe is due to the lack of Latin translation.  Unfortunately many readers have never studied Latin and may find the presence of many long and unexplained phrases through the book a bit daunting.  There were also many archaic words used and I did find myself stopping from time to time to look them up.  Some weren't even in my Kindle's dictionary, I had to use other sources.  But the biggest distraction came from the lack of Latin translation.  If there had been footnotes or a glossary that explained the passages, I could have given this book 5 stars.

Devil's Lair on Amazon.com

Review for Not Forgotten by Donna Zadunajsky

This is a review for Not Forgotten by Donna Zadunajsky.  I received a free copy of this book to review.  The opinions expressed in this review are my own and were in no way influenced by receiving this book free.

Not Forgotten starts out with Deanna Iris moving back to her childhood home (she literally bought the house she grew up in) with her teenage son.  Her sister lives nearby and on her first night in the new house she gets a call from Officer Bates who informs her that there was a terrible accident involving her sister and son, they are both critically injured but alive.  From the moment she meets their doctor, Dr. Sheldon, she knows that there is something familiar about her.  Could she be the daughter she believed she lost 26 years ago?  Before she can even begin to question what she's feeling, one of her few friends from her hometown is found murdered and she's told to go back where she belongs before she ends up dead like her friend.  Should she keep digging and find out if her gut is right, that she has found her long lost daughter?  Or should some secrets just stay buried?

From a plot standpoint, the book wasn't all that bad.  The premise was solid.  A young teenager gives birth to a daughter and after holding her for just a little while is told that the child has died.  Jump ahead 26 years and the mother comes face to face with a woman who could very well be the child she was told had died.  How would you react?  What would you do?  What are these secrets that someone is trying so hard to keep buried?  What lengths will they go to keep Deanna from finding out the truth about her past?  The added element of mystery and danger can make for a decent thrill ride.

Unfortunately, Not Forgotten doesn't live up to it's promise.  The characters are very poorly drawn, very one-dimensional and you never really get to know any of them.  There are no in depth descriptions of anyone.  You don't really get an idea of what anyone looks like other than a few vague references to dark or blond hair.  There is a start to a back story for each of the characters, but then nothing.  I think more time could have been spent in building up the characters and giving them a real history, making them into people you can identify with.  Make the reader feel empathy and sympathy for them.  Help us want to cheer them on and want them to succeed.  Make us hate the villain and want very bad things to happen to him.

Much of the book takes place in and around the hospital.  The shocking lack of preparation and even basic medical knowledge was very off-putting.  Two characters are horribly injured during a car accident and almost all you hear from everyone is that there is no more swelling, they will wake up soon.  Very little explanation goes into what has happened to these two people and the types of tests and treatments that are being done to save their lives.  There is also a moment where a character is injured and spends at least 2 days in recovery after having been brought back by EMT's shocking their heart.  But amazingly after only a couple days treatment, this person has no IV's, no monitors of any kind attached to them and are able to somehow sneak out of the hospital for an extended period of time and no one notices?

Officer Bates is another example of poor preparation.  He is a member of the police force, yet he seems to have very little knowledge of basic police procedure?  There are times where you almost imagine yourself in some kind of small, one stoplight town that has one bumbling, but adorable, police officer on duty for the occasional shoplifter or unruly kid.  He's goofy and creepy at the same time.  I honestly didn't know what purpose he served until very late in the book and by then it was just a let down.

The dialog was stilted and moments that should have been serious or meaningful were ruined by a character making a statement that had absolutely no place in the situation that was at hand.  There were a few very good moments between the characters, especially Deanna and Brice.  Sadly those moments were few and far between.

I think this book had the potential to be very good.  It needed to be longer to give the reader a chance to really get to know the characters, who they were, where they came from and what was motivating them.  Unfortunately the book was far too short to give them a chance.  Everything had a very rushed feel and I think if the pace was dialed down a bit, it would have been a more enjoyable read.  The climax was not a satisfying one and I think it could have actually been great.  There was a bit of surprise there when you finally learned the truth, but it got a bit weird and creepy instead of scary.  And like many thrillers/mysteries, everything was tied in a neat little bow by the end and everyone lived happily ever after...but even that was rushed and unsatisfying.

I would give Not Forgotten two stars.  It was kind of meh.

Not Forgotten on Amazon
Not Forgotten on Barnes and Noble