By LK Gardner-Griffie on January 30, 2011
Upon graduation from college, the road of life stretches in front of us. We have seemingly unlimited potential and just need to hop on the road and start moving forward. At that point in our lives, we see the possibilities, we have hope fueling our desires, but out of sight are the curves life will throw as well as the pitfalls we hope to avoid.
Posted in LK Gardner-Griffie, Mainstream/Nostalgia | Tagged BDA Books, Belinda D'Alessandro, book review, crime drama, criminal justice, Fiction, justice, law, lawyer, LK Gardner-Griffie |
By Shannon Yarbrough on January 1, 2011
It’s hard sometimes to decide where a review should start, especially when I’ve read a good book and I’m yearning to tell someone all about it. The book encompasses so much, and I don’t want to leave anything out, but I don’t want to give the good parts away either. That’s exactly how I feel about Will Entrekin’s new novel, Meets Girl.
Posted in Experimental/Narrative, Literary, Mainstream/Nostalgia, Shannon Yarbrough | Tagged entrekin, meets girl, will entrekin |
By Shannon Yarbrough on August 21, 2010
I love a success story. With over 4,000 reviews on Amazon.com, over 80 weeks at #1 on the NYT Bestsellers List for Trade Paperback fiction, and well over 1 million copies in print, I’d say The Shack by William Young is indeed successful. Young wrote the book as a Christmas gift for his six children and had no intention of ever publishing it. But after being persuaded by friends who read it, Young worked with several colleagues to polish the work for publication.
Posted in Fiction, Mainstream/Nostalgia | Tagged the shack, william paul young, windblown media |
By Shannon Yarbrough on August 7, 2010
I came across David Stone’s book, The Garden of What Was and Was Not, on a random Amazon.com search one day. I was immediately captured by the title and after reading the product description I decided to contact the author to see if he was willing to send a copy for me to review. Mr. Stone gladly agreed and I had a copy of the book in the mail in just a few weeks. I think what caught my curiosity the most was the subtitle: The Autobiography of X. I immediately considered Malcolm X, but the cover of the book doesn’t indicate that this book might be about him, and indeed it’s far from it. The Garden of What Was and Was Not is actually a fictional autobiography of a man named Peter McCarthy, as if he is telling his life story to the author. It begins in the 60s, but don’t think this is a nostalgic walk down memory lane for a baby boomer reminiscing about the Beatles, Vietnam, Elvis, drugs, peace, and all the hippie culture that today’s generation is left only to read about in the back of their history books.
Posted in Experimental/Narrative, Mainstream/Nostalgia, Shannon Yarbrough | Tagged baby boomer book, coming of age novel, david stone, my generation, the garden of what was and was not |
By Shannon Yarbrough on July 23, 2010
Give Mark Zero Some…
…and by some, I mean a round of applause for another superb book. Give the Drummer Some is a semi-salute to music in St. Louis, often upstaged by its neighboring musical towns further down the Mississippi.
Posted in Mainstream/Nostalgia, Shannon Yarbrough | Tagged east st. louis book, giant publishing, give the drummer some, mark zero, soulard music, st. louis book, st. louis music |
By Shannon Yarbrough on May 8, 2010
I was first introduced to Mark Zero when I read Blood and Chocolate, a book I found on Amazon by accident, but fell in love with and have suggested it to others ever since. I immediately wanted to read more from him and chose The Scarlet Dove next.
Posted in Historical, Mainstream/Nostalgia, Shannon Yarbrough | Tagged giant publishing, mark zero, the scarlet dove |
By Shannon Yarbrough on March 21, 2010
It was not intentional that this month both books I reviewed were centered around a specific object and the consequences that the said object has on the characters involved in the story. A few weeks ago I reviewed Billy Young’s Bublos about a mysterious scroll from the Bible and the devastating effects it could have on human kind. This week, it’s Todd Cheney’s The Bracelet. The Bracelet is about the consequences just one man faces after a magic bracelet comes into his possession.
Posted in Experimental/Narrative, Mainstream/Nostalgia, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Shannon Yarbrough | Tagged createspace book, endless wishes, free will, god's will, one wish a day, the bracelet, todd w. cheney |
By Dan Marvin on February 17, 2010
I Miss Your Purple Hair is a good book and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I’ve read 100 page books that felt like they’d never end, but this was a 300+ page book that was over before I knew it. I became invested in the characters and was genuinely curious how they would overcome their dilemma.
Posted in Dan Marvin, Mainstream/Nostalgia | Tagged i miss your purple hair, robert chandler |
By Shannon Yarbrough on January 10, 2010
It is ironic, is it not, how everything seems so poetic in death, yet we rarely see the poetry in life?
I couldn’t think of a more truer statement than this, spoken by a God-like king on the first page of Cheryl Anne Gardner’s book, The Splendor of Antiquity. True, we’d expect our Gods to say such profound things and the narrator of this book does not disappoint with such expectations. After all, he has been dead for centuries and our lead female, an archaeologists named Joliette Deneauve, is about to dig him up.
Posted in Historical, Mainstream/Nostalgia, Relationships/Women's Lit, Shannon Yarbrough | Tagged antiquity, archaeologist romance, cheryl anne gardner, faith, splendor of antiquity |
