Fiction

I bought these books from Amazon and read them on my Kindle Paperwhite. Written by N. K. Jemisin the Broken Earth Trilogy includes the books The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky. What caught my attention about these books and the author is that all 3 books won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. Think about that for a second, all 3 books in the trilogy won Best Novel Hugo awards, 2016, 2017, and 2018. They also won a lot of other awards, but for one author to win 3 years in a row is amazing. ...

The Roach is another superhero story by Rhett C. Bruno and I really like this one. The Roach is a likable character with all kinds of flaws and the characters around him are interesting and add a lot to the story. Publisher’s Summary A string of killings. An identity stolen. Only he can find the truth. Reese Roberts was the guardian of Iron City. Its fearless protector. The only one willing to do whatever it takes…until he was shot on the streets and left paralyzed from the waist down. Now, the vigilante known as the Roach has disappeared. Faded into legend. It’s been years since Reese could take on crime and clean up the streets. He’s a shriveled old drunk, living like a hermit and waiting for his life to end. All that’s left to do is wallow in the mistakes that led him here. To wonder if he went too far. But when a copycat steals his suit and takes justice into his own hands, a new killer emerges, leaving brutal messages behind. He wants to eliminate the Roach for good this time. It’s time for Reese to re-emerge from his shell and fight back. Who else can stop the flurry of killings? Definitely not the corrupt police department. Iron City needs the Roach again. Only, this time, he’ll need to save it without his legs. ©2020 Aethon Books (P)2020 Podium Audio I rate The Roach an 8 out 10 and recommend it to anyone looking for a good superhero story.

Baron Steele is a very short listen at 47 minutes and I believe it is an introduction to the Raptors series of books. I didn’t especially like the book and probably wont be listening to the Raptors series anytime soon. The humor just didn’t work for me. About This Audible Original Paul Steele, known to the world as Baron Steele, isn’t your average masked crimefighter. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t even wear a mask. And he doesn’t even fight crime anymore. That’s for the guys with too much brawn and not enough brain. No, Steele works in consulting. After having his license revoked by the Guild of Masked Crimefighters, he decided he would scout talent instead. Match up heroes with their villainous counterparts, help the young bucks and buckettes discover their talents and abilities. That sort of thing. It’s all going fine and well until Steele gets a bad cup of coffee. No. Seriously. Day after day, the same little twerp gets his order wrong. From there, it’s a downhill spiral into chaos, and Steele finds himself fighting for his freedom in a court of law. Did he really kill a barista over a cup of joe? Don’t miss this hilarious spin on the superhero genre from the number one Audible best-selling duo of Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle. ©2020 Aethon Books (P)2020 Aethon Books ...

Operation Brushfire is a solid mystery novel and Lou Diamond Phillips does a good job bringing it to life. Publisher’s Summary He’ll do anything for the truth. They’ll do anything to bury it. Henry Stasik, an Internal Affairs agent for the globe-spanning Coalition, is no stranger to crooked agents or scandals. He’s a truth-junkie. An addict. But when international celebrity Anastasia Danicheva specifically demands his presence at a police station, everything changes. The Coalition, which has brought peace through uniting the world under a single banner, wants her dead. But none of their case against her adds up. Stasik can’t help but need to know why. Hours after taking her under his department’s protection, a cybernetically enhanced hitman nips at Stasik’s heels. Witnesses disappear or turn up in pools of blood. And lurking above it all, guarded by a genocidal AI construct, is a secret that threatens to dismantle a perfect world and–Stasik himself. Man in the High Castle meets Blade Runner with a dash of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in this breakneck sci-fi spy thriller set in a drug-fueled alternate history from the number one Audible best-selling author of Titanborn, Rhett C. Bruno, and James Wolanyk. Performed by award-winning actor Lou Diamond Phillips, star of Prodigal Son, Young Guns, and La Bamba. ©2021 Rhett C. Bruno, James Wolanyk (P)2021 Podium Audio ...

Another Heartstrikers dragon book by Rachel Aaron, who’d a thunk? I’m working my way through the series and have to say that I am enjoying them. They are not great and amazing works of art, but they are good solid modern fantasy and I look forward to more of them. Publisher’s Summary After barely escaping the machinations of his terrifying mother, two all-knowing seers, and countless bloodthirsty siblings, the last thing Julius wants to see is another dragon. Unfortunately for him, the only thing more dangerous than being a useless Heartstriker is being a useful one. Now that he’s got an in with the Three Sisters, Julius has become a key pawn in Bethesda the Heartstriker’s gamble to put her clan on top. Refusal to play along with his mother’s plans means death, but there’s more going on than even Bethesda knows. Heartstriker futures are disappearing, and Algonquin’s dragon hunter is closing in. Now, with his most powerful family members dropping like flies, it’s up to Julius to save the family that never respected him and prove once and for all that the world’s worst dragon is the very best one to have on your side. ©2015 Rachel Aaron (P)2015 Audible, Inc. ...

I bought The Werewolf’s 15 Minutes from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app. Good contemporary werewolf stories are hard to find, but I think this is one of them. It’s a modern day take on what could happen when a YouTube generation kid decides to go public about his lycanthropy. At only 1 hour and 42 minutes in length it is short but tells an engaging story that I enjoyed. ...

I got Nice Dragons Finish Last from Audible and listened using the Audible App. It is not as fantastical as the Detroit Free Zone books and not as much humor, but still a good story and great narration by Vikas Adam. From the publisher: As the smallest dragon in the Heartstriker clan, Julius survives by a simple code: keep quiet, don’t cause trouble, and stay out of the way of bigger dragons. But this meek behavior doesn’t fly in a family of ambitious magical predators, and his mother, Bethesda the Heartstriker, has finally reached the end of her patience. Now, sealed in human form and banished to the DFZ – a vertical metropolis built on the ruins of Old Detroit – Julius has one month to prove he can be a ruthless dragon or kiss his true shape goodbye forever. But in a city of modern mages and vengeful spirits where dragons are considered monsters to be exterminated, he’s going to need some serious help to survive this test. He only hopes humans are more trustworthy than dragons…. ©2014 Rachel Aaron (P)2014 Audible Inc. ...

I bought Lost Planet Homicide from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app. Larry Correia always gets my attention and Gun Runners has a good start with Lost Planet Homicide. His world building skills shine here with a gritty crime riddled world settled long ago by people hoping to live in paradise, instead they end up barely being able to survive on hostile world where the air will kill them. ...

After reading Jamie McFarlane’s Junkyard Pirate series I went looking for more and found Rookie Privateer the first in his Privateer Tales series. Like the others, I read these on a Kindle Paperwhite. I made it through the first 12 books in the series one after another during March, April, and May and stalled out on number 13. I plan on getting back into them later. Amazingly there are now 19 books in the series. ...

After finishing the Nikki and Bob Series by Jerry Boyd I dug around in the Kindle Unlimited store and found the Junkyard Pirate Books by Jamie McFarlane. The 3 books in the Junkyard Pirate series have a lot of tropes from other books I have read, but they definitely tell a different story. I enjoyed reading them enough that once I finished them, I moved right on to the Privateer series also written by Jamie McFarlane. ...