Book Review

Book Review – The Beached Ones by Colleen M. Story

Posted on by aliciafeasts

This book is a bit dark and has things in it which are really very sad including quite a bit about suicide which ought to have a trigger warning especially the book might appeal to teenage readers with its romantic theme and young main characters.


It is a ghost story about Daniel a young man who doesn’t know that he has died in a horrible motorcycle crash but has come back as a ghost and is trying to contact his family especially his little brother. Most people can’t see him but he meets an old girlfriend who can because she is a bit psychic and her new boyfriend who also can for reasons that I won’t give away. A few other people can see him but they are mostly people who are on the verge of suicide and other people who are also dead but don’t know it. The relationship between the main character and his little brother is very beautifully done as they are from an abusive home and have gone through a lot but Daniel always tried to protect him even when he had to leave home to become a motorcycle stunt rider which is a dangerous job but one he loved and the only way he could escape. The story is complicated and when you get to the end you can see that it’s also very clever. It begins and ends with whales which is what the title refers to and it is a beautiful book with a beautiful ending which made me cry but in a good way.

The Blurb

He came back, determined to keep his promise.

Daniel and his younger brother grew up in an abusive home. Daniel escaped. Now an established stunt rider, he intends to go back to rescue his brother. But then one jump goes horribly wrong . . .

He recovers to find himself in Iowa, unscathed, yet his life has drastically changed. His best friend won’t answer his calls. Even his girlfriend is hiding something. Increasingly terrified, he clings to the one thing he knows: He must pick up his brother in San Francisco. In five days.

From the isolating fields of Iowa to the crowded streets of San Francisco, Daniel must fight his way through a fog of disjointed memories and supernatural encounters to face the truth and pay a debt he didn’t know he owed.

http://mybook.to/Amazon_BeachedOnes

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59576892-the-beached-ones

Book Review – The Portable Nine by Pete Mesling

Posted on by aliciafeasts

I’m once again excited to post a review for Blackthorn Book Tours!

This is a book about paid assassins seven men and a woman who have formed an organization to do assassinations for corporations and governments but they only assassinate bad people like terrorists and rapists. The boss assassin Davenport calls them together telling them that this time they are working for themselves to steal $22million from a businessman and then they can retire but actually his plan is to capture and assassinate a criminal mastermind the Black Phantom who has murdered one of Davenports relatives. Davenport does not know it but two of his team are secretly working for the Black Phantom as well.

The characters are all different and interesting but the ways that they kill people are unnecessarily unpleasant so although they could all just shoot people in a normal way like Davenport does others in the team do it in other ways like sticking enormous pins in them or cutting them up with a hatchet which makes me think that actually they are just serial killers and psychopaths who have decided to work as assassins because they like being paid for that. Also one of them has had his brain altered with surgery to cut out his ability to feel fear and make him a better assassin and one of them is blind but has visions which tell him where he is. It is an exciting book which does make you want to read on and even though some of the ideas in it are a bit disturbing underneath all the bad things they do they have their own morality which they mostly stick to. It was a good book.


The Blurb

Meet Davenport, also known as the Mad Marksman of Malta. He is a hunter. Not of game or fowl, but of men. What he hunts he finds, and what he finds he exterminates—until his trusty revolver fails him at a crucial moment in Italy, that is, leaving a job unfinished and his resolve shaken. Mistakenly thinking the blow has been struck, a criminal mastermind known as the Black Phantom performs a cruel act of retaliation. The once and would-be assassin has no choice but to reunite with a storied band of skilled mercenaries in an effort to exact revenge.

Davenport. Abel Hazard. Miranda Gissing. Dr. Joseph Intaglio. Mr. Bonnet. Twitch Markham. The Butcher. Lovinia Dulcet. Robin Varnesse. These are the Portable Nine. They operate outside the law, but they are not without a code of ethics. Outcasts all, they are heroes to the underdog and enemies of the ruthless. Intelligent and fearless, they will stop at nothing to see that their brand of justice is meted out.

http://mybook.to/Amazon-PortableNine

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56803894-the-portable-nine