Book and Product Reviews by Roundtable Reviews

Release Date - January 2014 M.L. Rowland Berkley Prime Crime Book Review by Tracy Farnsworth While Zero-Degree Murder is a Search and Rescue Mystery, I'm not sure I'd really classify this as a mystery.  It is a gripping suspense, but the killer's identity is apparent from the start. Instead, readers are drawn in by the lead character, Gracie Kincaid, as she struggles to keep herself and the man she rescues from falling into the killer's hands. Gracie is a volunteer with Timber Creek Search and Rescue. Her latest rescue involves a party of hikers who get lost in California. One of those hikers is a Hollywood star. When she and her partner finds Rob Christian, he remembers being attacked, but he cannot remember more detail than that. His injuries prevent him from being able to walk far. With limited radio service in this area of Southern California, Gracie agrees that their best chance is to have her partner walk back up the trail until there is a strong enoug

Release Date - March 2014 Sophie Littlefield Harlequin MIRA Book Review by Tracy Farnsworth From outward appearances, Jen Glass seems to have it all. She is the proud mother of two, she and her family live in an upscale neighborhood, and she has a strong marriage. Outward appearances are not everything, however. Her laid-off husband is acting secretive, and she fears he has been cheating on her. Her daughter is showing signs of rebellion. Her son suffers from selective mutism and speaks to very few people, generally his family only.  Things take a horrifying turn when two armed men come into Jen's house and hold the family hostage. These men do not seem intent on stealing anything, they're simply there and want the family out of the way. Trapped  in the basement with no cell phones, no way to contact the outside world, and no understanding of why the men are there, Jen and her family must push their personal issues aside if they are going to survive. House of Glass

Release Date - April 2014 Aria Cunningham Mythmakers Publishing Book Review by Tracy Farnsworth The Princess of Sparta tackles a unique setting, one that I have not seen used much in the romance genre. This made for a very refreshing historical romance that pulls readers from the typical Victorian England setting to the world of Greek mythology. Helen of Sparta, at age 16, finds herself being presented to potential suitors. She's not thrilled with the way these men fight over her. Menelaus, king of Mycenae, is chosen to become her husband, and he turns out to be abusive and really have little need of her. Helen of Sparta remains hopeful that the prophecy made about her having a true love and important purpose will come to life someday. That "someday" occurs when the prince of Troy (Paris) arrives in Mycenea. He and Helen cannot deny their passion for one another and the mutual admiration that is meant to be. Now it's up to fate to see if their love can s

Release Date - June 2011 Jenn Bennett Pocket Books Book Review by Bob Walch The fourth book of the urban fantasy series created by Jenn Bennett and featuring Arcadia “Cady” Bell, this latest adventure continues the string of personal problems the freewheeling, sexy magician has had to deal with. Her notorious parents haven’t been around for quite a while, but now Cady’s mother is determined to take permanent possession of her daughter’s body. To block her murderous mother’s intentions, Cady will have to uncover the evil spell her parents cast during her conception and other dark family secrets. Assisting Cady in this task is her lover, Lon Butler, an enigmatic demonologist with a teenage son. Together this duo will discover things about Cady that perhaps would be better left buried in the past. But once they begin this perilous journey they must travel down the dark road to the end. Obviously, if you have read the previous books in this entertain

Release Date - January 2014 Bernard Cornwell Harper Book Review by Bob Walch Add another title to Bernard Cornwell’s long running Saxon Tales. The seventh installment of the series, “The Pagan Lord”, is narrated by Uhtred of Bebbanburg. It is early in the 11 th century and with Alfred the Great’s death, his son Edward now is in charge of the Saxon south. An uneasy peace exists with the non-Christian Danes who control the north. Although Uhtred has pledged his allegiance to the new kind, Edward is not one of the Court’s favorites. Far from it. Nominally a Christian, Uhtred was raised by a Dane and he has forsaken all his pagan beliefs and the fifty year old has little time for the Christian deity he scornfully calls ‘ the nailed god ’. To complicate matters, Uhtred’s oldest boy has become a priest and refuses to give up his religious vocation. Then to make matters worse, the intemperate warrior kills another priest in a fit of rage and disinherits his son.

Release Date - December 2013 Atria Book Review by Tracy Farnsworth I'm going to start by admitting, I couldn't finish this book. I wanted to love it. I loved the  premise, it reminded me a little of the Michael Douglas/Sean Penn movie The Game , after reading the blurb. In the end, the main character is not just not likeable. As a slacker, I really couldn't find any interest in him or feel bad for him. I know a few slackers, and I have no respect for them, so that personal bias came into play. The premise is this, HP is riding the train home after a long night of partying and generally being his true, obnoxious self. He finds a cell phone and a message directed to him asking if he wants to play a game. He agrees. The rules to this game are simple - the players must complete a series of challenges. As the game progresses, the challenges become much bigger risks and threatens those who are closest to HP. His ego, however, urges him to win, but winning means someone

Release Date - February 2013 Patrick Lee Minotaur Books Book Review by Tracy Farnsworth Sam Dryden is out for his usual run when he comes across a young girl who tells him men are after her but that she cannot go to the police for help. His training on the special forces kicks in and he helps her hide. Sam soon learns that this girl has a very rare, impressive power and some within the government will do anything to keep her captive. As the girl cannot remember anything beyond the past two months, while she's been held in a secret facility, she has no idea who she really is or if she has family out there. Sam becomes determined to keep Rachel safe, and that means putting every skill he learned while he was part of the government's special ops. Runner starts off with a bang and never lets up. Not only did I really enjoy Sam's character, but young Rachel is a strong, likeable character too. The bad guys are clearly bad guys and watching Sam outsmart them kept me g

Release Date - January 2014 Book Review by Tracy Farnsworth I had amazing intentions with Book Buzz 2014. This is a long book, spanning more than 700 pages, and within it are dozens of snippets from books that are predicted to be bestsellers in 2014. My goal was to highlight a number of the stories in a week-long blog series, but I soon found myself facing an issue, far too many of the books had me hooked and made my must-read list. Given that, I now have a page-long list of books I want to read. That list started growing very quickly with just the first snippets of upcoming novels. From Robyn Carr's Four Friends , a novel about a woman who suddenly learns her husband was having an affair, to JoJo Moyes One Plus One, a story about a single mom, I was hooked. It's been  years since I've read anything by Greg Iles, but I'm really excited over Natchez Burning . There are four sections in all: Fiction, Debut Fiction, Nonfiction, and Young Adult Fiction. By the tim

Release Date - August 2013 Annie Pearson Jugum Press Book Review by Tracy Farnsworth The Grrrl of Limberlost isn't an easy story to follow, but it has an extremely intriguing premise. Told from the point of view of three different characters, one of the characters in the story is an unreliable narrator. The opening scene details a very realistic-looking online murder, or is it a murder? Things suddenly switch to a Seattle coffee house. Samsara Byron is one of the rare few working on Christmas. Sam's an expert programmer who saves the world from hackers. She has a vital piece of software she's working on that she fears may be a problem if it makes it into the wrong hands, but she's also distracted by her brother who has a penchant for getting into problematic situations. Toss in the remaining two narrators, Matt, a guy who's returned to Limberlost and is desperate to keep his family safe from the gangsters who are after him, and Nicky, an odd man with unus

Release Date - May 2013 Abby Rossner Vision Quest Book Review by Tracy Farnsworth Oh to Grace starts easily enough. A young woman pulls up to a senior housing facility where she will be interviewing resident of that home. The story then switches to the past and Aunt Frankie begins sharing her family's history. I admit, I started, stopped, and restarted this section a number of times. It took a bit to get use to the switch from the present to the past. Along the way, I would get lost and have to backtrack to keep up with the changes in dates, characters, and stories. Yet, having listened to many of my grandmother's stories, this is also exactly how her stories would go. One story led to another and soon you had a wealth of information at your fingertips.  Frankie's stories are told with humor and emotion. They often seem so real that they could be your own elderly relatives sharing their tales of the Depression, prohibition, and the wars. The story takes place in

Release Date - March 2014 Paul Garrison Grand Central Publishing Book Review by Bob Walch The third title in this new action/adventure series, the assignment private security expert Paul Janson and his partner, Jessica Kincaid, tackle involves rescuing a kidnapped woman from the clutches of Somali pirates. Allegra Helms’ husband, Kingsman Helms, heads a powerful oil company that is trying to get its hands on as much African oil as possible. With unlimited resources, Kingsman will pay anything to obtain his wife’s freedom. But once in place, Janson and Kincaid realize that the pirates are the least of their problems. There’s much more going on here than just freeing a kidnap victim. In fact, perhaps she is also enmeshed in a sinister plot to create a situation that would allow her scheming spouse to overthrow the local government and make Somalia his base for similar overthrows on the Dark Continent. A series that has already attracted a new generation of