Devin O'Branagan's Show Dog Sings the Blues: a review

Talisman, a pampered show dog with attitude, has a play date with her sister Maddie, who is a hardcore cowdog. Through an unfortunate mixup, the two dogs are switched and Talisman has to cowdog-up for the day.

It is an Australian Shepherd Freaky Friday!

A hilarious spinoff from the RED HOT series of comic novels, told from the dog's perspective.

A portion of the proceeds from this novella will be donated towww.AussieRescue.org

An uplifting, inspiring tale for humans of all ages!

Show Dog

A bonus post! Why? Two reasons: a) Red Hot Liberty and Show Dog go hand in hand, so I didn’t want them to get separated by too many posts, and, more importantly, b) Show Dog is a novella in a class of its own and deserved its own spot. Plus, I have a feeling that Talisman would enjoy having a special day all about her. She’s that kind of dog.

Reading Show Dog Sings the Blues conveniently coincided with this month’s flash fiction contest on Devin’s forum (I’ll take a moment to plug – go, read, vote! I’ll wait until you get back), where the prompt was to write from the point of view of an animal. I decided to contribute and realised it's not nearly as easy as I thought it'd be. To get into the head of a being we don’t really understand and make them real without taking away their innate animalness.

This is not a cheesy story. It’s not a children’s tale where the characters just happen to be animals. Tali explores the world exactly the way a dog would. The decisions she makes are based on instinct, on training, and on her understanding of her purpose as a dog. She demonstrates the importance animals have in the human world, the healing power they possess when we need it most.  I experienced her fear, her intuition, and was rooting for her from the moment she was cast out to work for the day. 

Both Red Hot Liberty and Show Dog follow the same theme of choosing what you want to fight for, but Talisman grabs hold of this theme even better than the characters in Liberty. Through her decisions and actions, she really brings to life the words of her heart person, Val DeMitri: "Courage is a choice". 

This novella is worth the read. Especially at the end of a really hard day (and let's face it, that usually sums up most Mondays - Fridays, right?), when all you want is to lose yourself in something fun, something that will make you laugh and make you feel warm. Does it need to be read with the others in the Red Hot series? Not necessarily - it holds up as a cute story in its own right - but when taken as part of the whole, there are so many more layers to it. It offers a better understanding of what makes Tali who she is. Honestly, though? I don't think Red Hot is what holds up Show Dog. I think it's the other way around. Tali always does steal the show. 

For more information, click here

Devin O'Branagan's Red Hot Liberty: a review

Molly O'Malley's new assistant, Robin Knight, is a sexy Englishman with mysterious psychic abilities and the gift of animal communication. This comes in handy when Molly's dog becomes depressed over romantic problems, and when she wants to tell her humans the details of a haunted dog show event known as The Twilight Bone Incident.

Robin's mission is to help Molly learn that it is an enchanted world where all things are possible. However, the men in Molly's life are threatened by his powerful presence and pressure her into making difficult choices.

Further complicating her life is new client, Liberty True—a tin-foil-hat-wearing, conspiracy-theory-believing, rebel patriot—who invites Molly to a different kind of tea party and drags her, kicking and screaming, into the revolution. Soon, Homeland Security is following Molly and she receives death threats.

Coming to her aid? A Goth colleague who lives on the dark side, a charismatic cowboy preacher who lives on the light side, a quirky psychic who lives between the worlds, and the departed spirit of her best friend.

A sassy tale about a woman on the verge of losing everything, who undertakes a quest to slay the dragon of fear and become her own hero.

Review

Sequels often go downhill. My suspicion (and experience) is that the author spends so much time plotting out the first one, falls in love with the characters and wants to do more with them, but doesn’t spend nearly as much time plotting out the second, so it becomes a series of random events made up for the sake of keeping characters alive.

Occasionally, an author gets it right, and the second book lives up to the first. Even more occasionally, the second surpasses the first. That is the case with Devin O’Branagan’s Red Hot Liberty. Perhaps an example of how more time with a character leads to the author knowing her better, Liberty goes deeper into Molly O’Malley’s character, giving her more dimensions as a human being. New people are introduced, old favourites come back for a visit, and once again it becomes a matter of fighting what you believe in, or playing it safe to protect the ones you love.

Liberty also brought into my life another great character to laugh with and love: the goth chick Babylon (I really seem to have a thing for O’Branagan’s goth characters…). She’s tough, dry as sandpaper, knows what she wants and is not afraid to go after it. With her extreme kick-ass ability, she and Molly bring out the edgy side of women that never fails to appeal to me.

Once in a while sliding into the more paranormal, Liberty for the most part stays grounded, focusing on real problems of relationships, politics, grief, and puppy love – literally.

Again I laughed, again I cried, but this time around it was with characters I already knew and have laughed and cried with before, which made the experience that much sweeter. Summer is just around the corner, ladies and gents, and this book should definitely be added to your "summer reads" list.

And of course one of the best parts about this book is that it gave O’Branagan the opportunity to write her novella Show Dog Sings the Blues, which I will be reviewing on Saturday, so come back!

Find more information about Red Hot Liberty here. 

Robert Chazz Chute - Sex, Death & Mind Control: a review

This is perilously close to a how-to book about your favorite things: sex, death and mind control. This collection of eight short stories twists into a deliciously dark warning of how dangerous seemingly ordinary people can be. You might even be one of the dangerous ones. Each tale of psychological horror packs a gut punch of surprise every time. (Two award-winners are included in this collection.)

You're thinking about buying this book, but you're not sure. Look behind you. Make sure you're alone. Now look again, because the truth is, you're never alone. They're watching through the keyholes and your computer. They use the pipes under your toilet for antennae. Let them know you're on to them. Make them think you're one of them. Click "BUY."

No? Bad news: I'm the grim-faced man standing behind you with something behind his back. And I am not happy.

Yes? Welcome to the revolution, friend.

When I picked up Robert Chazz Chute's “Sex, Death and Mind Control (for fun and profit)”, I braced myself for strangeness. This is, after all, the author of a book called “Self-Help for Stoners” and, from the little contact I’ve had with him, is a quirky and hilarious guy. I was prepared for humour, for the absurd, and indeed the introduction, the preface, even the dedication made me laugh, giggle, or roll my eyes.

Then I hit the stories.

On a recent post, I talked about my aversion to horror. It prevents me from sleeping and usually leaves me a bleary-eyed mess in the wee hours of the night. Perhaps I should be more specific. It’s physical horror that gets to me. Bugs, ghosts, masked people with chainsaws. *shudder*.

Psychological horror, on the other hand, I love. Hannibal Lecter is probably my favourite “villain” of any thriller film/novel. The way he gets in your head and twists around thoughts until the irrational seems rational. Sure there was the physical element too, but it was secondary.

That’s the best comparison I can make to Chute’s collection of short stories. Fortune tellers, psychiatrists who master in hypnotic suggestion, PTSD victims, these shorts are full of manipulation, powerful suggestion and psychological disturbance. In some stories you’re on the side of the mind-bender, wanting his words to sink in, wanting the other character to be twisted around to his will. In others, you take the place of the victims and suffer along with them, just wanting it to be over. While all of the stories kept me reading, some caught me off guard with how powerful they were. “End of the Line”, “Jack and Diane”, and “Sidewalkers”, grabbed my attention and even (prepare yourself) made me think about the message behind him. Thoughts about human nature, my own perspective of the world around me, whether I would ever answer a telephone again – the important questions.

These stories involve very little sex and a fair amount of death, but by the time you finish reading them, you're left wondering if the mind control was something that happened to the characters...or to you.

I’m not sure if the author is working on any other projects of a similar ilk at the moment, but when he does I will be there to read them.

Find it on Amazon

Learn more about the author

Devin O'Branagan's Red Hot Property: a review

Molly O'Malley is a plucky rookie real estate agent who is learning to swim with the sharks at the town's most cutthroat agency. A former cocktail waitress, Molly uses her street savvy to avoid being eaten alive by vindictive office staff, neurotic colleagues, crazy clients, and an abundance of sexy men. A hilarious tale of a woman trying to become more than she believes possible, and discovering herself in the process.


Interested in purchasing? Find more information here.

I never realised that real estate agents led such exciting lives! From the first scene to the last, O’Branagan keeps the reader hooked with a blend of suspense, violence, heartbreak and, most prominently – humour. Red Hot Property is comedic chick lit at its best. It’s been compared to the style of Janet Evanovich and, while I can see where the comparison lies (I’m a big Evanovich fan myself), O’Branagan takes a unique twist that makes it something entirely new.

As always, Devin has created a full cast of loveable (and hateable) characters that you could easily believe you’d meet in the course of a day. Molly O’Malley the feisty main character, is a perfect example of a woman trying so hard to get what she wants out of life – love, a family, a successful career - that she loses focus on why she wants it. How many of us can say that we haven’t experienced that kind of tunnel vision at one time or another. It’s easy to feel empathy for the Lead’s experiences, and that empathy sucks you right into the rest of the story.

But don’t expect Molly to be the one to keep your interest the whole way through. There are so many fantastic secondary characters and all of them steal the show. It comes as no surprise to me that Valentino DeMitri – “The Queen of Real Estate” – and his dog Talisman have become such favourites of Devin’s collection. I’m so glad that I finally got to meet them and find out what all the fuss was about. They certainly deserve it.  

The first in what will soon become a trilogy, Red Hot Property is a great start to Molly’s story. I can’t wait to pick up the sequel Red Hot Liberty, and Talisman’s exploits in Show Dog Sings the Blues. 

City of Hell Chronicles - Vol 1: A review

There is no god, no saviour.
Mankind is without salvation and on the cusp of total annihilation.
During an eruption at Yellowstone, the Great Maurr, an ancient god, rose from the bowels of the earth and brought a bug apocalypse with him.
Swarms of giant ants, centipedes and diabolical hybrids swept the planet consuming the animal kingdom and destroying human civilisation in a matter of weeks. Nothing could stop their relentless genocide.
Just a few cities remain; a handful of human survivors in London, Moscow and Hong Kong scuttle about in the darkness forever fearful of being caught, eaten by the solider ants, or worse: made to breed in the City of Hell to produce hideous hybrid creatures.
Can these last remaining humans find a way of surviving and ultimately fight back in this nightmarish dystopia?

For the complete synopsis and purchasing info, click here

Review

This anthology is made up of 8 short stories by 8 incredible authors, all of the stories following the plot above – of the Great Maurr the insect God, here to reign terror down upon the world.

Did I enjoy this collection of gruesome, warped, horrifying stories? NO. And I’ll tell you why:

1)  I hate horror. The last horror movie I saw was in 2000, and it’s only now I realise that was 12 years ago. TWELVE YEARS. That’s a really long time to avoid a genre, and yet even twelve years later I can’t shower at night without being afraid some little freaking girl ghost is going to be standing there to terrify me when I get out. I also can’t sleep with my back to the door.

2) My apartment is infested with carpet beetles. That’s right. I have bugs. In my home. All. The. Time. As well as some kind of grey bugs that the people in the office weren’t able to identify. In my old house, we had centipedes, which I affectionately termed “Skitterbugs” as I stood on the chair in my office poking at a pile of clothes with a stick waiting for it to run back out because there was no way in hell I was going to stand on the floor and move things around to find it. The only good these things did was help me get over my arachnophobia. The only thing worse than a creature with eight legs is one with a hundred.

So, combine these two little tidbits together and you may wonder what the hell I was thinking, then, picking up a horror anthology about giant, six-foot long centipedes and ant-human hybrids? That is a very valid question.

I was showing my support for the editor and all of the authors who took the time and effort to put these stories together. For them, I spent hours reading through the cracks in my fingers, on the verge of vomiting, fighting off the growing hysteria that my carpet beetles were hiding in kitchen cupboards growing at an alarming rate and would come into my room one night and bite off my head.

So for that I say: Well done. Despite it being crafted out of everything I can’t stand, I was compelled to read through all of it. Each story was engaging, and each one sucked you in until you were begging for the last sentence to be done and the dark hopelessness to be over…only for the cycle to start over again with the next story. 

Colin F. Barnes' intro story Genesis was a great kick-off - a perfect combination of eerie and maniacal, with a neat twist of mystery thrown in. And it all went downhill from there. Each author brought a different perspective to one unified event, all of them with characters you were rooting for, in situations you were oh-so-glad you didn’t have to cope with. It’s a perfect example of the sadism writers have towards their characters – and apparently their readers.

So here I am, a non-fan of the genre and of bugs, saying that although reading this was not a relaxing, pleasant experience, I loved everything that made it what it is, and all of the authors should be proud. My recommendations: 1) read this book; 2) do not eat or drink anything at least one hour before opening the front cover.

CoH Volume 2 will be out this year. All I can say to that is: Yes – I will read it. And Yes – I will keep several canisters of RAID next to me for the rest of my life.  

Somnium - Keri Lake: A review

A work assignment in Kittery, Maine should be routine for Allie Lynch; nothing more than to prove herself as a brilliant engineer. Instead she finds herself torn between two men: a gorgeous military guard, Colton Briggs, and her devilishly handsome colleague, Drew Costa. To resist temptation, Allie does the only thing she can: she throws herself into her work.

But fate has other plans for Allie. Women are going missing all around her, Allie is struck with a series of life-threatening mishaps, and she becomes the obsession of a local deranged psychopath.

Thrust into a dark world that she can hardly fathom, Allie must fight for her very survival, open her mind to new realities – and open her heart to the possibility of love. Because both of these men are trouble – but one is a greater danger than she could ever imagine …

I fell for this book. Hard. 

Maybe it's because of my own personal situation, maybe it was inevitable, I don't know and I do not care. I fell in love with this book the way a smoker inhales his first puff of the morning. Okay, so maybe it's more an addiction than true love, but the passion is the same. 

I was caught in the very first chapter by the suspense the author immediately works in. As the mystery built up, though, it was the emotions of the main character, Allie Lynch, that really kept me reading. For one thing, her reactions to her "real life" moments were hilarious, charming and adorable. You know, those situations that would totally happen to someone in the real world, but that authors sometimes avoid writing about because it detracts from the dignity of their main characters? Keri has no fear - she bandied those situations about like they were more excerpts from a personal diary than fiction, and it really worked to make the main character likable and down to earth. 

Even more than Allie's...I don't want to say goofiness, but shall we say "blush-inducingness", was her emotions to the two main men in her life. The way Keri describes the leading males, and the feelings that pop up in Allie whenever one of the two, or both, are around, that's what really got me. To the point where I would fight in hair-pulling, nail-scratching hand-to-hand combat with Allie to get one of their attention. Um...yum! Keri's descriptions were impeccable. Skin-crawling, oil-feeling-in-the-stomach at times, and then a jump to words infused with such desire I was amazed my Kindle didn't melt. 

Keri went with the decision to self-publish, and I strongly feel she has proven a very valuable lesson of writing. It's not the publisher that makes the book, but the passion of the writer. The cover art is beautiful, the story even more so, and it is with bated breath that I wait for Requiem to be ready. 

Devin O'Branagan's Glory - A review

Seventeen-year-old Glory Templeton's blood holds the cure for a deadly pandemic-plague and she embarks on a quest to save humanity. When evil forces conspire to stop her, three supernatural beings are assigned to be her guardians. Forbidden love, ancient secret societies, mysterious astronomical monuments, witches, angels, vampires, and demons all contribute to the high adventure that tests the character of this remarkable young woman.

The legend of Glory begins!

Glory - Devin O'Branagan

It’s been a long time since I’ve read YA fiction. Why? Well, mostly because I never really read much YA fiction. I jumped into the big-girl stuff from a pretty young age. Fortunately, you’re never too old to read a good book, because once again the mind of Devin O’Branagan has given me something to delight in.

There’s a lot of love about Glory – both the character and the novel. You’d think that being young adult fantasy, it would lack some of the depth and darkness that her novels Threshold and Witch hunt delved into - but you would be mistaken. It’s just a bit more subtle. Good vs. evil; hope or hate for humanity; whether a dog can really save the human race – it’s all there.

The characters in Glory are fun, that’s what kept bringing me back to it whenever life forced me to put it down. Each man, woman, anthropomorphically flexible being, and canine have his or her own species-specific dilemmas, their own complete stories going on as an undercurrent to the main narrative, and I wanted to know more about all of them.

Another perk is that, in a day where “Team Vampire vs. Team Werewolf” stories abound, O’Branagan takes an…angelic twist that I find refreshing and charming. This is one battle in which I wouldn’t be able to choose a side.

I have to say that my favourite characters appeared right at the end, the lovely Goth Girls: Jinx, Jade, Jasmine, and Jezebel. These ladies kick all kinds of ass and I want to be their friend. Please?

Fine, well even if I’m not given that opportunity, then I can at least look forward to their return in the sequel to Glory – which is currently being on worked by Ms O’Branagan (permission to hop up and down with excitement)?

For all official Glory info, including character bios and a novel trailer, click here!