Adventure Here....

The Black Pearl by Peter Tonkin
Years ago a Japanese firm finds a massive oyster bed in a lake deep in the jungle of Africa that produce priceless black pearls. The lake is at the bottom of a volcano which erupts and buries the Japanese firm. The area is between two warring countries and there is also a renegade guerrilla force with a witch doctor guarding the jungles. A Russian mining group has found that the black pearl site contains a vast reserves  of coltan, a Rare Earth metal used in electronics and computers worth a fortune. They asks Richard Mariner to take a team in and claim the remote lake. Richard must cross through almost impenetrable jungle fight and survive attacks from all sides including a Chinese firm which is trying to lay claim to the same land. Who will win??? This is a nail-biting thriller, a very enjoyable read.  Great characters, excellent plotting, a wonderful thrill ride! Peter Tonkin has written other books with the characters of Richard Mariner some of which are alluded to in this book but reading his other books is not absolutely necessary to enjoy this great adventure.


Sherlock Holmes and the Needle's Eye by Len Bailey
This is a wonderful read. The author replicates Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's characters and setting perfectly. He develops a new Sherlock adventure where Sherlock has found a Moriarity built device called the Needle's Eye which allows Sherlock and Watson to travel back in time to solve ten mysteries of the Bible that they have been challenged with by an unknown source. They begin their journeys as invisible witnesses at first but eventually they become more than observers. The juxtaposition of Sherlock's almost atheism against Watson's strong belief in the Bible makes for interesting discussions between the two. The bible stories are familiar but flourish under the scrutiny of the pair of detectives.

Easy Go by Michael Crichton
 This was a fun read. (It is a shame we lost such a talented voice as Michael Crichton.) This is a plot for classic B movie Egyptian  the story of a lowly professor who translates hieroglyphics. He is translating an obscure piece of parchment when he finds that it is a puzzle, a code written into the hieroglyphs by the author. He deciphers the code and finds that the scroll identifies a location of an unknown undiscovered tomb near the Valley of the Kings. The professor finds an adventurous newspaper reporter, who recruits a crew of thieves and together they set out to locate the tomb and  smuggle the goods out of Egypt. They begin by lawfully setting up a site near the tomb under the guise of taking museum quality photographs of all the hieroglyphs in all the already excavated tombs of the Valley. This they do by day and at night they search for their tomb. Will they find it?...Can they escape with the goods?
This is a fun book and would make a great movie!

Short takes: short reviews of what I've been reading

The Noticer Returns by Andy Andrews
Andy Andrews revives his wisdom espousing friend "Jones" in a delightful book about parenting skills sort of. As in the original book, "Jones" is a notice and he watches and notices and points things out to you from a different perspective than the one you are seeing the situation from. I thoroughly enjoyed this second installment with "Jones"! He brings up thoughts for careful consideration. Thoughts to help you become a notice in your own life, a different way of looking at things. The book has an at home among friends feel to it that makes these people your friends. And if you ever visit Gulf Shores, Alabama You will feel right at home!

Wisdom for Everyday Living 365 Daily Devotions From America's Most Influential Christian Leaders/ compiled by Steve M. Woods
This is a very enlightening a uplifting devotional compiled by a great group of writers ( over 100 Christian leaders contributed). There is no set order, but there are 365 devotionals, so there is one for each day in a year. Each begins with a bible verse,  often included in print so there is no need to drag out your bible to look up the verse. The devotionals are quick, insightful , to the point and moving. I have enjoyed reading through each day so far and plan to continue.


The Gate by Dann A. Stouten

Suffering from burnout and looking to get away Richard stumbles on a real estate ad in the paper for Angel's Gate a former resort that is for sale. He decides to take the weekend and  check it out. When he finally finds it and goes through the gate he has entered a whole other world, possibly a back door to Heaven. The book is slightly similar to The Shack by Wm. Young in that Richard has conversations with God but it goes further in imagining that this place might be what Heaven is like. It is a delightful read with many values and morals passed along by the people he meets there. This is truly an adventure into the unknown.

 

Davis Bunn's "Unlimited" Talent with New Screenplay, Movie and Book titled "Unlimited"

Davis Bunn has a fabulous new book , a novelization of a screenplay that he wrote for an up coming movie. The book was wonderful and I am looking forward to the movie. There are links to win copies of the books on his Facebook and web pages which I will include links to below. I will also have an additional post with a Q&A with Davis Bunn and his biography included.

Here is my review:

 

Unlimited is an interesting battle set in Mexico and partially based on a true story. By battle I mean that it is a human drama about good vs. evil, but much more about finding a personal sense of meaning and responsibility in this life.

Simon Orwell is a man who has made a complete mess of his life:  taking wrong turns at every opportunity. He is a brilliant scientist, although still a student, whose latest wrong turn has gotten him and his favorite professor booted out of MIT. Simon feels so ashamed and remorseful for betraying his professor that he wants to somehow make things right. The two had been working on a project together to create a device that would garner the unused (“wasted”) energy and create unlimited free energy from it. The professor dreams of bringing free energy to Mexico, his home, since the current power company there is very expensive and oppressive. The professor has sent Simon an email saying he has made a breakthrough in their design and needs Simon’s help to finally make their device work.

     Simon takes everything he has including his version of the device in his car and goes to Mexico with the intention to apologize for betraying the professor and  to do everything he can to help him complete his device. The minute Simon crosses the border everything goes wrong. Simon is run off the road and forced to flee with his device from a man with a gun. Simon hides the machine in a drainage ditch and manages to make it into town to meet the professor at the town council meeting to present their device in hopes of receiving funding. When he arrives he is greeted with the news that the professor is dead and the council claims they never offered funding, but would like to buy his device for 1000 bucks. Devastated, not only that his friend is dead, that there is no funding and the lo-ball price the town offered for years of his research, Simon leaves  only to find that someone is still trying to kill him. Simon is rescued by the assistant to the mayor and taken to the orphanage for refuge. There Simon meets Harold Finch, who helps Simon set out to find out who killed the professor and why. He also helps Simon believe in himself (and the love of the heavenly father) and to rebuild the machine and  to make it work. But they must fight against a powerful drug cartel which has other more sinister plans for the device.

It is a wonderful story of redemption and hope! There is even some romance involved. Mostly the reader is exposed to the hardships and terror that living in Mexico can be today. The powerful drug cartels are ruthless and dangerous and make just surviving difficult in an already treacherous environment.

Davis Bunn has created a wonderful novelization of his screenplay for the film “Unlimited” which is also coming to theaters soon. Writing a book based on a movie is difficult because all the dialog and stage directions together have already produced the story; there is no room for embellishment or change. There were a couple of instances in reading the book that the conversations seemed a bit stilted but I’m sure the same conversations flowed in the movie and were necessary to the plot. I am looking forward to the movie!

Link to free preview of Chapters 1-3 of Unlimited (http://on.fb.me/1c5IyCS)

 

Here are links to all of Davis’s online “homes”:

 

Website and Blog: www.davisbunn.com

Blog Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/DavisBunn

E-newsletter (to receive subscriber-only giveaways & previews of his upcoming novels):  http://www.davisbunn.com/news.htm

Facebook Author Page: facebook.com/davisbunnauthor

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/davisbunn/

Twitter: @davisbunn - http://twitter.com/davisbunn

I received a complimentary copy of Unlimited from B&H Publishing group in exchange for my honest review.

Egyptian Adventure in "Easy Go" by John Lange (psd. Michael Crichton)

Michael Crichton has always been a great writer; further evidenced by these early writings under the pseudonym, John Lange. “Easy Go” is a fun romp,  through a story of intrigue and adventure, that would make a great movie. Set in Egypt after World War II, the book has a noir mystery feel to it, like a really good Vincent Price movie. A disrespected, but brilliant, hieroglyphics translator and archeologist deciphers a text that leads him to believe there is one more pharaoh’s tomb still out there to be found. He finds a bored writer who in search of adventure believes him and agrees to assemble a team to search for the tomb. However, he determines that they should keep the search a secret and steal the riches and sell them back to Egypt for a ransom; thus making a great deal of money from the loot. The writer knows a British Lord who has funds and might be interested in the adventure. Lord Grover agrees to their delightful proposition and funds their efforts under the guise of a photography expedition to photograph the great tombs and sites near Luxor and in the Valley of the Kings. The adventure continues as the group manages to complete both the photography expedition by day and the search for the lost tomb by night.

It is a thrilling and enjoyable story all the way through to the twist at the end! Enjoyable for mystery lovers, fans of Egyptology and Michael Crichton fans!

Celebrating the Possibilities of Lace

A review of :  Lace One Skein Wonders:101 Projects Celebrating the Possibilities of Lace
                      by Judith Durant published by Storey Publishers


The is a beautiful book filled with wonderful Knitting projects! Each project is presented with clear instructions, diagrams where necessary and wonderful photography which shows the project magnificently, but often show techniques or close-ups of sections to help explain the instructions as well.If you are a knitter this book will open a wealth of projects to dream over and accomplish. Each project is very well outlined and explained so there will be no difficulty completing each of these wonderful projects. There are all kinds of projects: shawls, fingerless gloves, socks , scarves and others , all with a lacy touch.There are explicit diagrams showing where each stitch goes in the project and esplanations on how to accomplish each stitch. This book was provided to me as an ebook through NetGalley. When I requested this book I did not realize it was a knitting project book (I crochet) howeverit thrilled me to see such exquisite projects , that I am pulling my knitting needles out of moth balls and trying to remember how it is done again!
This is a wonderful book and I recommend these beautiful patterns to any knitters with the desire to make intricate lacy items!

I, Saul by Jerry Jenkins and John MacDonald Review

Having shied away from the Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins series "Left Behind" when it first came out, not because of the subject matter or the story but because the grammar at the beginning was like reading Harlequin romances (bad); I hesitated to request this title. I was however delightfully surprised by both the story, the quality of the research and the matured writing style of this book. This time Mr. Jenkins has teamed with a Bible scholar and together they bring a very real and truthful feel to a fiction mystery.
A discovery has been made in Rome, the prison where the Apostle Paul was held until his execution is being excavated. A member of the Vatican staff visits the ruins and finds a roll of parchment placed in a crevice beneath a wall , he sneaks it from the sight and upon discovering what it might be, he hides it in a safe place giving a clue to a friend as to its whereabouts. He is murdered and now the friend is in danger because the antiquities police think he knows where the manuscript is. The friend, a local tour guide, calls his friend in the United States to come help him get out of danger and retrieve the artifact. This begins a rollercoaster thrill ride of the two alluding police, alluding the antiquities policeman who is working for himself and hopes to sell the artifact on the black market, alluding his girlfriends father who also has eyes on the prize and staying alive to find the artifact and bring it to world attention.
The artifact is presumed to be a parchment written by the Apostle Paul recounting his life that has never been see or read in over two-thousand years.
The story goes from present day to Paul's time and back again explaining how the parchment came to be, why it was found where it was and telling the story of Paul's life from before his conversion to his death. The Biblical references are base on the facts in the Bible and the story of Paul's life is embellished from the known facts referenced in the Bible.
The life of Paul comes alive on the pages and is a most enjoyable read. The contemporary mystery is well documented and researched and has a very believable feel to reality today. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and will look forward to others by these authors.

Homer Hickam's book "Cresent" a review

Being the 2nd in a series for teens written by acclaimed author Homer Hickam (Author of "Rocket Boys" from which the movie "October Sky" was based) this book is a fresh look at the teens of the not too distant future on the Moon. Mining rights have been established on the moon and whole businesses are growing up on the moon to support the industry. People sign on to go to the moon for work - sometimes for adventure, sometimes just for a job and sometimes because they are no longer welcomed on earth. Rivalry abounds not just from earthbound politics and countries who want the riches of the Moon for themselves, but among the leaders of the various mining camps and towns on the moon. There are constant skirmishes and battles to keep what's yours. Crowhoppers, genetically bred soldiers are sent from earth to fight for whichever faction they are being paid by. Their motto their mantra is "to live is death , to die is life."  Mostly they live to fight and die honorably. The miners are constricted to fight against them in battles. Thus Crater, a likeable teen, inventor, miner is not in the mine working but in a skirmish over a convoy when they are attacked by Crowhoppers. Infiltrating the under ground tube the Crowhoppers were living in, Crater finds a lone Crowhopper and for some reason feels for it and captures it instead of killing it. He returns to base with it and finds out it is a girl - rare among crowhoppers. His prisoner causes quite a stir since none of the people of Moontown are going to trust it they all just want it dead. Crater insist that it be given a chance. Her name is Cresent and she is a very hard worker. Crater's adoptive mom, who is the exiled Queen of England, Q-bess takes the girl in and helps her learn how to live among humans. This is very hard for Cresent to do since everyone but Crater and Q-bess want her dead. Here insues the adventures of Crater and Cresent. This is a delighful story that will leave you wanting the more that is to come. Though written for teens and should be totally enjoyed by them since it is a space love story of sorts, it was a delightfully relaxing tale for adults. I thoroughly enjoyed the book , highly recommend it and can hardly wait for the next in the series. It has everything Battles, love story,jealousy, history, treasures and a few ghost as well.