A harrowing crime thriller featuring a brilliant and tortured FBI agent, the Harley Cole series is a riveting mystery, packed with nonstop action, suspense, twists and turns, revelations, and driven by a breakneck pace that will keep you listening late into the night. Fans of Rachel Caine, Teresa Driscoll, and Robert Dugoni are sure to fall in love.
I listened to the audiobook of Nowhere Safe, by Kate Bold, and narrated by Reagan Tankersley. Nowhere Safe is book 1 in A Harley Cole Mystery series. Bold has written a true to form crime mystery, but I’m not sure a male narrator was the best choice for this female protagonist’s tale. Although Tankersley’s reading is done quite well, adaquate in every way, but I felt it was harder to relate with the female character when read by a male voice, and Tankerly’s voice is a deep male voice.
FBI agent Harley Cole, denies she’s in crisis when she’s put on leave from her job, her relationship ends abruptly, and she learns that her father is dying and she must return to the home town she’s tried so desperately to escape. At first, helping out the local law enforcement when a series of young girls are found terrorized and murdered is just a diversion, to avoid confronting her dying father, but it stirs memories of her missing sister, and all the reasons that she has stayed away. Can Harley put her personal troubles aside to make amends wirth her father and save the next victim from a terrifying fate in time? No spoilers here. You’ll have to read the book and find out.
A perfectly shaped crime mystery with distinctive characters, brought to life by a skilled and talented narration. I give No Where Safe four quills.
A buried clock holds the key to a decades-old mystery….
On holiday to escape the nightmares of his last case, disgraced soldier turned private detective John “Slim” Hardy comes upon something buried in the peat on Bodmin Moor.
Unfinished, water-damaged, but still ticking, the old clock provides a vital clue to an unsolved missing-persons case.
As Slim begins to ask questions of the tiny Cornish village of Penleven, he is drawn into a world of lies, rumors, and secrets – some of which the residents would prefer to stay buried.
Twenty-three years ago, a reclusive clockmaker left his workshop and walked out onto Bodmin Moor, taking his last, unfinished clock with him. He disappeared.
Slim is determined to find out why.
The Clockmaker’s Secret is the stunning sequel to Jack Benton’s acclaimed debut, The Man by the Sea.
I listened to the audio book, The Clock Maker’s Secret, by Jack Benton and narrated by Kevin Green. The British voice of Green helps to set you in both time and place, although Benton gives us enough to determine this even if reading a print or digital copy. But I do think Green’s voice adds an extra allure to the story. Benton has skillfully laid out this well-crafted mystery, filled with surprising revelations, as all is not as it seems.
Detective John ‘Slim’ Hardy is on holliday, trying to outrun the demons of his past, but true to his nature, when he finds an old clock buried and hidden, he just can’t resist a good mystery. It’s made by a clockmaker who disappeared many years ago. But there are those in Penleven who perhaps don’t want to see the clock’s secrets revealed. As Slim works to unravel the clock’s mystery, he finds that the clockmaker had a few secrets of his own, and the deeper he gets, the more he wonders if the clockmaker’s secret isn’t best left buried.
A gripping mystery which takes several surprising turns. I give The Clockmaker’s Secret five quills.
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Important Update
If you have never tried Chirp audiobooks, but would like to, I have great news! Chirp has given me this special link for me to share the above book with new Chirp readers/listeners. So, if you haven’t tried Chirp and you’d like to give The Clockmaker’s Secret a try, click on the link and give it a go: https://www.chirpbooks.com/r/a75333e42889/link
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Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? You can request a review here.
Ex-St. Paul cop Rushmore McKenzie has more time, and more money, than he knows what to do with. In fact, when he’s willing to admit it to himself (and he usually isn’t), Mac is downright bored. Until he decides to do a favor for a friend facing a family tragedy: Nine-year-old Stacy Carlson has been diagnosed with leukemia, and the only one with the matching bone marrow that can save her is her older sister, Jamie. Trouble is, Jamie ran away from home years ago.
Mac begins combing the backstreets of the Twin Cities, tracking down Jamie’s last known associates. He starts with the expected pimps and drug dealers, but the path leads surprisingly to some of the Cities’ most respected businessmen, as well as a few characters far more unsavory than the street hustlers he anticipated. As bullets fly and bodies drop, Mac persists, only to find that what he’s looking for, and why, are not exactly what he’d imagined.
David Housewright’s uncanny ability to turn the Twin Cities into an exotic, brooding backdrop for noir fiction, and his winning, witty hero Rushmore McKenzie, serve as a wicked one-two punch in A Hard Ticket Home, a series debut that reinforces Housewright’s well-earned reputation as one of crime fiction’s stars.
I listened to the audio book A Hard Ticket Home, written by David Housewright and narrated by Brent Hinkley. This book is a cross between your typical detective story and a cozy mystery, with distinctive characters. Hinkley sets the perfect tone, giving it kind of a Mickey Spillane feel, which is perfect for the genre and the story.
Rushmore McKenzie isn’t a cop anymore. He’s a billionaire, but even though he doesn’t need the money, he makes a hobby of playing P.I. When he’s called upon to find the long lost sister, Jamie, of none year old Stacy Carlson, in order to find a possible bone marrow doner and save Stacy’s life, he steps into more than he bargained for. Just as he locates Jamie, she is murdered in hideous fashion, and he finds himself on the middle of a murder mystery as he tries desperately to find Jamie’s missing son, who might be the only one left who could save Stacy’s life. But Mac has drawn attention in his investigation, and now someone is trying to kill him, too.
Filled with twists and turns that keep readers guessing, I give A Hard Ticket Home five quills.
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Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? You can request a review here.
The Mother’s Day Sale for Delilah ends tomorrow! So get your copy at a discounted price while you can. Strong female protagonists are great gifts for mothers, daughters, sisters or even as a pamper yourself gift for Mother’s Day.
I wanted to remind you all about the WordCrafter Press Mother’s Day Sale before it ends, of course. But I also wanted to share a story about an attempt to do what’s right gone terribly wrong, in my western flash fiction story, “I Had To Do It”.
“What does that have to with Mother’s Day?” you ask. Well, listen to the story and you’ll see. I’m pretty sure there’s a mom in ther somewhere. Enjoy.
“I Had to Do It”, by Kaye Lynne Booth – A western flash fiction audio story read by the author
A paranormal women’s fiction (PWF) that’ll have you walking on air!
Luella Campbell is having the weirdest day ever. Getting fired from her job at the sunscreen factory for no good reason is bad enough, but when a mysterious dog brings a tempest into her former workplace, Luella’s life is completely upended by the sudden gift of wild and windy magical powers.
With the help of her ride-or-die best friends, her motorcycle-riding mother, and a romantic blast from the past, Luella must find a way to make ends meet while unlocking the mysteries of her newfound magic…and the secrets hidden in the picturesque town of Sparkle Beach.
Sometimes, an empty nest means it’s your turn to fly.
I listened to the audio book, Silver Spells, by Kate Moseman and narrated by Xe Sands. The soft, pleasant lilt of Sands’ voice made this story easy listening, and the characters weren’t too varied, but remained distinguishable. Moseman’s tale is well crafted. Although some events may seem to occur a bit too conviently, in the end, everything falls into place nicely.
After many years of loyal service to Sun Tan Queen, Luella Campbell is fired with no reason, she dumps her boyfriend, and her life is changing in some really big ways. Among the normal changes, like a new place to live, new friends and a new boyfriend are some a little less normal, like flying dogs which are invisible to all but a select few, the acquisition of a new pair of wings, and friends who develop mysterious powers… Her world has been turned upside down. Why these things are happening, she doesn’t know, but she’s determined to get to the bottom of it.
A fun and entertaining read. I give Silver Spells five quills.
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Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? You can request a review here.
Content for Everyone is a must-read for creative entrepreneurs looking to improve the usability and accessibility of their website, email and social media content.
With over a billion people living with some form of disability worldwide, it’s more important than ever to make sure your content is accessible. In this easy-to-follow practical guide, you’ll learn techniques to make your content more accessible, without needing any in-depth technical knowledge. From adding meaningful alternative text to images, to choosing colors with enough contrast for easy readability, to adding captions to your videos and more, Content for Everyone has everything you need to reach a wider audience and improve the user experience for everyone.
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to improve your content and reach more people.
We all want to be inclusive, right? Of course, we do.
But how do we, as authors and creatives do that? Many authors don’t have the first clue as to how to do that. I know I didn’t.
Content for Everyone, by Jeff Adams and Michele Luchini is a book which tells you how to make your website content more accessible to a huge audience who many authors overlook or bypass. Adams and Luchini talk about how we can create more accessible content for visual or hearing impaired readers on our websites, in emails and newsletters, in blogposts and in social media posts. They talk about ways in which we can reach a much wider audience by making our content inclusive for readers regardless of whatever adaptive technoloy they’re using, or whatever device is their preference for consuming content.
With the right amount of time and effort, websites and digital communications can be made accessible to those with disabilities or use adaptive technology in accessing digital content. But it requires work and/or money to make that happen, and many authors probably wonder why they should go to the trouble.
I’m here to tell you why. When you make your website or your books accessible to those with disabilities and impairments, you are reaching out to a whole new audience with your writing. It is a large community, “with millions of impaired or disabled readers, who would read if they could access the content” (Patty Fletcher, email March 24, 2023), and it makes good sense to make your content inclusive to these potential readers. Awareness of the large audience of potential readers who are visually impaired was the main reason that I sat up and paid attention when I heard about this book.
Content for Everyone deals with how to make digital content accessible. There are many things we can do to make our content more accessible including providing the right contrast for visually impaired individuals, or even the proper use of headers. It’s no secret that I’m a bit old fashioned and I’m not always aware of the incricate details of the tech I use, although I am always learning. Content for Everyone discusses many ways in which you can make your content accessible to those with disabilities, who must use adaptive technology in order to access online and digital content. Some of these areas wouldn’t seem to be problematic to those of us without disabilities, but they are for individuals who are impaired.
Although all of this is a lot of work, Adams and Lucchini offer up individual steps which can be performed singularly, instead of trying to undertake the enormous task of accessiblility as a whole, which could be daunting. Picking one area of accessibility at a time seems to make the goal more attainable. I found that I hadn’t been using my headings correctly, and this is something that I never dreamed made any difference to anyone. But it does make a difference to those using adaptive technology, such as screen readers. after finishing the book, the first thing I did, was to go and change all the headers on my upcoming blog posts. Then, I went through and fixed them all through my blog site. It’s not anything a sighted person would probably notice, but for someone who uses a screen reader, it can make a difference as they try to navigate my site. Knowing that it makes a difference to some people, and knowing that by making it accessible, I will be widening my potential reader audience considerably, makes my decision to use headings correctly from now on seem a small step to take.
Something else which I’ve been working on since reading this book is adding the alt text for the screen reader crowd. Doing this is not hard, and should be done when you set the image in the post, but it does take extra time. I work with several visually impaired authors who use screen readers, so I know this audience is quite large. This is a simple thing to do, which really doesn’t take much time if you do it as you go. My site is image heavy, with lots of book covers, so it may take some time to add alternate text to the visuals which are already there. Even though it does take time and effort, the increase in portential readers from taking a few simple steps is so great that I have to ask, why would you not want to take this step to ensure that your content is accessible to more potential readers?
I am so pleased to be able to work with the wonderful authors within the visually impaired and print disabled community. It would be a shame to not be able to include their content within the WordCrafter tribe because of inaccessibility. And it would be a shame to have them miss out on WordCrafter content because they can’t access it. As Poetry Treasures 3 comes out this month, I’m pleased to be able to say it is the first book I have ever published with alternate text for each image. It’s just a small step in making Wordcrafter Press books more accessible to all.
You can learn more about these authors and their book, as well as learning a few things you may not know about accessibility in their interviews on the Stark Reflections podcast (episode 294), and on The Creative Penn podcast (March 13, 2023).
National Library Services
My grandmother was blind, and as a little girl, I often listened to her “talking books” with her and didn’t think much about it. I’m not sure, but I am thinking that those little cassette tapes that used to come to her in the mail, were sent by the National Library Services for the Blind and Print Disabled Library of Congress was behind them, even then. Yep. The visually impaired were doing “audio books” before they were even a thing. Today’s audio has caome a long way from those talking books on cassette, and there are now many adaptive technologies available to make books accessible to visually impaired and print disabled readers. And it makes sense for authors to tap into this audience by enrolling their their books in the NLS programs that are available. You can find out more about the National Library Services here.
Author Patty Fletcher encourages authors to enroll their books in the National Library Services to make them accessible to those who are visually impaired or print disabled to widen your audience and make many overlooked readers happy. She recomends that you read “That All May Read: Technological Innovations Extend Reach of National Library” by Wendy Maloney and then, if you are interested in making your books accessible, email nlscollections@loc.gov to find out how.
What is Accessibility and Assistive Devices?
“To know what accessibility is, one must first know what assistive technology is.”
Author Patty Fletcher
You can find out more about accessibility, what it is, and why we need it in our content. Patty Fletcher shares the following articles, which talk about assistive technology, how it works, and why it is important:
The subject is vast, and this book and the above articles are a good place to start.
Patty Fletcher is a visually impaired author and member of the American Council for the Blind, which is a large community of visual and print disabled readers. Patty’s goal is to bridge “the great chasm which separates the disAbled from the non-disAbled.” Toward that end, Patty is organizing a virtual event to help authors understand what adaptive technologies there are and steps we can take to adapt our websites, digital correspondence and books to be inclusive of these potential readers. Please reach out to myself or Patty if you would like to participate in this event.
For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.
Want exclusive content? Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. She won’t flood your inbox, she NEVER sells her list, and you might get a freebie occasionally. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, just for joining.
THERE’S NO ESCAPING THE EVIL THAT RISES WITHIN OUR OWN HEARTS.
On a work trip to Los Angeles, Michael Andrews stumbles upon the rising underground movement of the Proud Fighters for America, a white-supremacist group hell-bent not only on vanquishing any outside their predefined definitions of the one pure race, but also on leveraging long-buried paranormal experiments conducted by Nazi Germany to create an army of super soldiers.
But this group isn’t confined to the west coast. Their numbers have also spread to New York, Michael’s home stomping grounds.
Michael has to determine if a mysterious woman he is falling in love with who has ties to the PFA and a unique paranormal ability of her own can be trusted, and if the two of them, along with another supernatural creature and an occult scholar, are enough to take down the growing legion of evil.
FEARS AND FRIGHTS combines the complete texts of the two-book story arc that unrolls in the novels FEAR AND LONGING IN LOS ANGELES and FRIGHT NIGHTS, BIG CITY into a single digital bundle.
I listened to the audio book, Bundle of Fears and Frights, by Mark Leslie, and narrated by Scott Overton. As he has through the whole series, Scott Overton does a smashing job of bringing Leslie’s characters to life.
This is a two book bundle which includes Fear and Longing in Los Angeles and Fright Nights, Big City, which are, I believe, books 2 & 3 in Lefebvre’s Canadian Werewolf series. Together, they make nine hours of audio book entertainment, and characters which you can’t help but invest into.
My first thoughts when learning about book 1, Canadian Werewolf in New York, was that it might be similar to the movie, American Werewolf in London, which I enjoyed enough to watch two or three times. My second thought was that the werewolf thing has been soooo overdone, as have vampires, and zombies. As it turned out, Lefebvre’s werewolf different from that movie in several ways. And his character, Michael Andrews is not like any other werewolf that I’ve heard of. I mean, how can you not like a werewolf superhero? Not a role you’d expect to see a werewolf in, right? No, I find Lefebvre’s werewolf to be fresh and original, and I’ve never regretted picking up that first audio book, which was also narrated by Scott Overton. You can read my review of that book here.
Bundle of Fear and Frights takes Lefebvre’s werewolf to Las Angeles and back to New York, in his human form as Michael Andrews, of course, to battle a white supremacists domestic terrorist group. As a human, Michael is vulnerable like the rest of us, and he’s trying to come to terms with the loss of his true love, Gail, and move on to a new chapter in his life.
In Fear and Longing in Las Angeles, Michael finds a new love interest, Lex, but his supernaturally enhanced wolf senses and strengths offer advantages, and he can never walk away from someone in need. He just can’t seem to help himself. Before he knows it, he also finds himself battling the PFA, a domestic terrorist group involved in the occult, which has supernatural powers to rival his own wolf senses and strength. All, while trying to navigate his love life and his writing career. To make matters worse, strange things are happening with his wolf senses, which he doesn’t fully understand, but he grasps at the chance to once again have a normal life with Lex.
In Fright Nights, Big City, he’s back in New York with Lex, but trouble follows them, or at least, the PFA does. In L.A., Michael had decided to walk away and let the professionals deal with them, but now, in New York, it looks like they have no choice but to try and stop them from carrying out their evil plot to take over the city. Together with Lex, his new girl, and Gail, the girl he can’t seem to get over, they battle occult forces of evil to save the city, and themselves.
Mark Leslie’s Michael Andrews is one of the most likeable werewolves I’ve ever met. I love that he weilds his enhanced powers like a superhero, because of his compassion for others, which is a very human trait. I give a Bundle of Fears and Frights five quills.
An epic series starter with nearly 1,100 five-star Goodreads ratings: Young mapmaker-in-training Jak dreams of exploring new worlds. But when he and his mother unearth the legendary dragon gate, Jak finds himself caught between his own growing power and magical enemies who will stop at nothing to eliminate him… From a USA Today bestselling author!
I listened to the audio book of Kingdoms at War, written by Lindsay Buroker, and narrated by Vivienne Lehany. Buroker takes readers on a science fantasy adventure that won’t be soon forgotten, complete with her signature snark, and Lehany brings it alive with her mastery of varied character voices.
Just as Jack and his mother find the artifact his father lost his life searching for, their find is discovered by the zidar, and they are swept away with the dragon’s gate to the distant kingdom of King Yidar. But if Yidar figures out how to use the gate, it could mean distruction for Jack and all of his kind, so his mother gives the key to the Captain of the female mercenary regiment for safe keeping, this making the whole regiment a target. Can they figure out how to wake the gate up? And if they do, can they convince the dragons to help them gain their freedom from the wizard kings and their Zidar? But will they be able to get the dragon’s gate away from Yidar and prevent him from discovering it’s secrets?
Kingdoms at War is book one in Buroker’s Dragon’s Gate series, and it brings the promise of much more to come. A delightful tale which kept my full engagement throughout. I give it five quills.
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Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? You can request a review here.
Morgen is experiencing a midlife crisis when she travels to a small Washington town to handle her late grandmother’s estate. But upon arrival, she discovers the house is full of witch paraphernalia — and that she has powers she never knew about! Can Morgen adapt to her new reality while racing to solve her grandmother’s mysterious death?
I listened to the audiobook of Mind Over Magic, by Lindsay Buroker, and narrated by Vivianne Leheny. I have listened to this fantasy mystery three times, because it is so well crafted, with vivid descriptions and distinctive characters. Lindsay Buroker is known best for her snarky dialog and this book is no exception. Her humor allows for realistic reactions to bizarre occurrences such as finding a wolf on the hood of your car and then watching it change into a man, or discovering that your grandmother was a witch.
Morgan Keller is a practical and analytical data base tech who doesn’t believe in witches or werewolves. When she arrives at her grandmother’s home to wrap up the estate and decide what to do with her inheritance, it feels like she’s walked into another world. Grandma had some secrets that she hadn’t shared with the rest of the family, like the fact that she was a witch. The werewolf who lives in the barn claims that her grandmother was murdered with magic, and it’s up to Morgan to learn who the killer is. But in a town with two packs of werewolves and a local witches’ coven, this is no easy task.
Lehany does a fine in bringing the different characters to life. But I will say that her French accent is better than her Spanish one. In truth though, she handles a full cast of characters quite well, offering a distinctive voice for each one.
A fun and quirky story, with distinctive characters readers will grow to love. This is the first book in Buroker’s A Witch in Wolf Wood series. I would definetly read the others, as I want to hear more from these characters. I give Mind Over Magic five quills.
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Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? You can request a review here.
Lover’s Moon is a part of Mark Leslie’s Canadian Werewolf series, with co-author Julie Strauss. This is the romance story that tells the tale of how the two lovers, Michael and Gail met. And since one of the lovers is a werewolf, I guess that makes it a werewolf romance.
Although the audio book has a version narrated by professional narrators, the version I listened to was a free podcast version on Spotify, narrated by the authors. Mark narrates Michael’s parts and Julie narrates the parts for Gail, and for me, they will always be the voices of those characters, because they did an amazing job.
Technically, this might be considered a podcast review. I mean, what do you call it when the authors release a serialized version of their audio book in a podcast format for their readers for free? I call it brilliant!
After listening to the audio book, Canadian Werewolf in New York, I was in love with the characters of Micheal and Gail, and I was left with many questions. Michael was the P.O.V. character, so you knew where he was coming from, and he obviously has still has feelings for his old flame, and regrets for having to end the relationship. Gail appears again after a long period when she had been out of the picture and her character was a bit more unpredictable. It was clear that there is history between these two, and I wanted to know more.
Lover’s Moon is the tale of how Michael and Gail met, their relationship and their break-up. If you’ve never read a werewolf romance, this quirky tale might be just for you. Lefebvre’s Canadian Werewolf series isn’t horror with a lot of blood and guts, but stories told with a touch of humor from the human perspective of the werewolf, and Michael’s relationship with Gail is a touching one, with the ups and downs of a roller-coaster. Their story will steal your heart. It did mine. And co-writing with Julie Strauss, having her write, and narrate, the chapter’s that are Gail’s perspective absoulutely works. Her portrayal of Gail in the narration is priceless.
Lover’s Moon, by Mark Leslie and Julie Strauss, is a quirky werewolf romance that will steal readers’ hearts, and create a dire urge to read or listen to the rest of the series. What more could a reader ask for? I give it five quills.
