Book Review: The Battle for America's Soul by Darren Grant Nauert

 

Book Review:  The Battle for America's Soul by Darren Grant Nauert

The Greatest Generation, those born from 1909 to 1925, are credited for defining American values, fighting for the love of God, country and family.  They are the generation that spearheaded advanced societies of western civilization.  Along the travels across time, their descendants have lost these priorities, motivating author Darren Grant Nauert to broach the current battle facing western civilization for America's soul.

 

Nauert encapsulates an enormous amount of information about the decay of Christian values which once guided western institutions and the USA's government.  He points out that never before have so many leaders of western societies been responsible for the decay of the love for God, country and family.  He cites the downward spiral of the Democrat Party for causing this decay.  His book is a commentary and critique specifically of the Democrat Party, it's leaders and influential figures across time.

 

The reader will grab a lot of evidentiary material and insight into the causes for the collapse of America's prosperity and goodwill.  Nauert's advice is to turn to Christianity for the way out of the abyss.  Taking America on course back to a love of God, country and family.  He packs alot of proof into his accounts and leaves the reader with a desire to restore good qualities to America.

Celestial Dragon by Ciara Gold

Packed with human struggles from overcoming societal prejudices to battling self-deprecation and self-inflicted uncertainties, Ciara Gold weaves an intriguing story that holds the reader enmeshed in the characters plight throughout her tale Celestial Dragon.  Gold's storytelling is intense and descriptive, giving readers insight into the imaginary celestial world that she crafts for her characters.  

In this sci-fi dimension of dragons, paranormal abilities and otherworldly space ships and treasures that she depicts, Gold writes the characters to be relatable to main street readers, exhibiting human flaws and primal needs.  In addition to exploring human struggles, Gold sows suspense and mystery into the tale that has the effect of drawing the reader in deeper.

Set in 3015 AD in a galaxy unknown in the 21st century, Gold plunges the reader into a fantastical realm with its own unique vocabulary, where ebondharde describes a character's eye color, nezarine represents a tone in one's hair, and zeel is a resource that is very desirable.  It is debatable as to whether the main focus is the hero, Dane Charst, or the heroine, Chelian Kar.  Regardless, the reader becomes enamored of both of them as well as the tertiary characters.  

Dane seeks to reclaim his heritae as a protector of the Verside people in the Burdven Empire, as he and over 200 of his men are exiled to Pelicoscia in a faraway galaxy.  There, he and his men train dragons, the native life form on the planet.  Chelian is the only daughter of Sire Bande Kar, the High Chancellor of the home unit of Kel in the province of Bastia on the planet of Satobik. She is an outcast, born a Deliphit, which is described as having the paranormal ability to render her opponent defenseless.  Even having the supernatural gift to shift into the bodily form of another person, possessing a chameleon quality.  

A romance between them flares, as Chelian seeks to find approval as the person she is, and Dane seeks justice for what has been taken from him.  Societal prejudices and rigid dictates are reminiscent of the dark ages or early medieval civilizations.  However, Dane and Chelian share a penchant for forward thinking that marks them as leaders of a modern age of humans.

Though the characters insecurities, suspicions and misgivings are repeated more often than is necessary, they mirror humans who find shelter and security being stuck in a rut.  Gold uses the common trope of love at first sight for both the main characters and tertiary characters but puts a twist to it that makes Celestial Dragon an original tale, spawned from a wild imagination.

Book Review: Lowan's Checkmate by S. E. Grosskopf

 

Book Review:  Lowan's Checkmate by S. E. Grosskopf 
Book 1 of 18: Lowan

A murder mystery and crime drama wrapped into one, Lowan's Checkmate by S. E. Grosskopf is a real page turner, keeping readers guessing and questioning their own sleuth-like skills.   Set in the early 1930's during a high level of criminal activity in the USA, then conducted by various syndicates, private consulting firm, Lowan and Sen Private Investigators, comes onto the scene after a jewel heist at Noritonia Hotel.  

Lowan is presented as a consultant to local police, seeming to have connections in the circles of the wealthy and influential.  Sen, often referred to as Uncle Sen, is inferred to have knowledge of players in the criminal underground.  Lowan's niece, Rita Nenning, is the secretary at their office.  The 3 characters are at the core of Grosskopf's mystery series along with Lieutenant Joseph Marx, who refers to Lowan when he needs help in a crime investigation.  Lowan's Checkmate is the first book in the series.

Grosskopf keeps the storytelling focused and organized, so readers can follow the trail of clues and Lowan's logic in piecing the mysterious parts together.  When new characters are introduced, the reader knows this is to make a meaningful point, such as Hiram Black who occupies the hotel room next to the room where the jewelry was stolen.  Checkmate refers to the game of chess that Lowan plays with the jewel thief, Henry Bradford, whom the reader learns had been Hiram Black.  Perhaps some parts of the storytelling require readers to accept the chain of events at face value, but overall, the tale is engrossing and written well.

Visit:  https://segrosskopf.com

Book Review: The Wrong Cowboy by Megan Ryder

 

The Wrong Cowboy is Megan Ryder’s first story in her new Granite Junction series.  She effectively pulls readers into the back stories and ordeals of the aspiring brides and grooms residing in fictitious Granite Junction based in the hills of Montana.  Her hero and heroine in this installment are Emma Holt, a school councilor during the school year and a waitress through the summer, and Gabe Buchanan, a successful mystery writer.  The two meet through their mutual connection, Cam Miller.  He is a prosperous rancher in Granite Junction.  Fortuitously, he is Buchanan's cousin and a good friend to Holt.  

While alluding to a love triangle, Ryder touches on such tropes as finding love after one's compass has gone awry, a string of one night stands with the friend of a childhood crush turns into happily ever after, and a small town romance turns into a life plan.  The characters relate to the reader on a personal level, dealing with struggles that many identify with and have experienced.  Such as, Holt creates a fantasy around her childhood crush Miller though Miller shows no romantic leanings for her.  Buchanan feels like an unwanted fruit cake at his family's gatherings, as his family treats him like a little boy indulging in a hobby or favorite pastime when it comes to his novels.  Miller is saddled with a ranch he inherited but being a rancher is not his forte or his desire.  He is struggling with failing his family while withdrawing from townsfolk that have ostracized him for his father's drunk driving accident.  The 3 main characters are a big ball of emotional turmoil and conflicting thoughts.

The witty conversations, colloquial anecdotes, and pearls of wisdom all enable the story to flow easily for the reader and offer precious insight into human nature.  Bouts of tension and drama are sprinkled with humor and charm.  A few moments in the tale are sluggish and could be focused more thoroughly but the multiple points of view between the 3 characters in the triangle give readers awareness of who the characters are.  This technique keeps readers involved in the characters plight and outcome. Discovering their outcomes is what, inevitably keeps the reader stringing along and engaged in the tale.

Visit:  https://www.meganryder.com

Book Review: Project Mind Control: Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKULTRA by John Lisle

MKULTRA, a massive mind control project executed by America's CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) through the 1950's and '60s is put under a microscope in John Lisle's book Project Mind Control:  Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKULTRA.  His reflections about the project and reporting of accounts obtained from Congressional investigations into the project is stunning and troubling.

Citing declassified CIA documents and the diary entries made by the scientists and agents involved in the multi-prong project, Lisle provides readers with a greater understanding of the project.  He further offers explanations into the motives behind the project, and how far reaching the project's experiments extended into other countries around the world.  

Lisle's dissection and study of the CIA's unconventional warfare activities of MKULTRA require readers to immerse their entire concentration into the collection of quotes and stories he organizes.  Sometimes requiring the reader to re-read passages, even chapters to fully comprehend the full impact MKULTRA experiments had on its subjects and targets.

Lisle plunges the reader into the work of Mr. Sidney Gottlieb at the start of the book.  He describes how Gottlieb was hired by the CIA to experiment with methods of mind control.  Through Gottlieb's research into methods used by scientists in Russia, China, and even Canada, MKULTRA projects expanded into using psychological means, chemical means, technological means, and physical means.  Sometimes causing the death or mental meltdown of the subject as well as the target.

The author explains that after World War II, governments in Germany, Russia, and China revealed how they had the ability to control their population through multiple means.  It was a race that America, at the time, was ill-prepared to compete in or protect itself from being manipulated by ulterior forces.  CIA's activities were meant to make America competitive in the mind control field.  Instead, their activities imploded on America's population.

Following WWII, then US President Harry Truman signed the Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, which formed the CIA and granted the agency the authority to spend unaccountable/unvouchered funds and be freed from disclosing their operations into unconventional warfare to Congress or the President.  Truman gave the CIA its powers, freeing the agency of being held accountable, especially to the Americans they harmed.

Hallucinogenic drugs, hypnosis, torture, and technological gadgets developed by the scientists contracted with the CIA were some of the experiments under MKULTRA.  Some of the subprojects included Operation Midnight Climax, Operation Bluebird, Operation Artichoke, and Project Monarch.

Collectively, the tools used for experiments were dubbed Family Jewels, and Gottlieb had been named Dr. Death.  Lisle digs up the sinister plots orchestrated by the various contractors of the CIA, each working within their individual compartment, so those in each compartment could honestly say they did not know what the other compartments were doing.

Secrecy and covert operations became the key traits of the CIA.  Although, one key trait of MKULTRA became publicly known by the 1970's.  That being LSD.  Lisle devotes a large portion of his book to the LSD experiments, and the harm these experiments inflicted on the American population, especially causing the self-destructive hippy movement of the late 1960's.

There is alot of substance to unpack in Lisle's book.  All worth the reader's time.

Visit:  https://johnlislehistorian.com/

Book Review: 9/11: The Simple Facts by Arthur Naiman and Gregg Roberts

The authors, Arthur Naiman and Gregg Roberts offer a critical explanation of the attacks on 9/11 in 9/11: The Simple Facts.  The authors present the facts and observations, describing and detailing eyewitness accounts at the scene and during the cleanup of the destroyed World Trade Center buildings, which included the North Tower, the South Tower, and World Trade Center 7.

As incredulous as it should be to believe the 9/11 attacks go beyond the hijackers of Islamic faith, a fact that is important to note based on the hijackers own words, it is more inconceivable that a handful of hijackers could accomplish the massacre without the assistance, both financially and legally, of other governments including some working within the United States.  

The authors explore the facts of the event, providing intelligent and sober conclusions leading to sabotage, espionage, and conspiracy orchestrated, organized and executed by friends and adversaries with the goal to cripple, maim and kill working class Americans.  The writing style is thought out and comfortably paced, presented in a way that the reader can comprehend the critical analysis.

This book is for audiences who want to see beyond the government-approved narrative of the official 9/11 Commission.

Book Review: The Pages of Time by Damian Knight

British author Damian Knight weaves a fascinating modern day read with facets of paranormal-fantasy, time travel, intriguing thriller, and comfy romance in his The Pages of Time series.  The self-eponymous title is book 1 in the series, tracing the journey of teenager Sam Rayner, who, at the start, is an average high school student.  A series of events that come into his life, while he is a teenager, ignite a paranormal ability in him, which allows him to travel through time, offering a new twist on H. G. Wells iconic novel Time Machine.

 

Knight has the reader enter into Sam's life just as his parents move from England to America over his mother's promotion at the bank where she works.  This is the first event that upends Sam's life followed by several more events that sees him bullied in his new high school, beaten by the boyfriend of a girl he befriends at school, and peaked by being on a flight back to England with his parents that is blown up by a terrorist.  His father is killed while he and his mother are in a coma.

When Sam wakes up in a hospital, he is informed that he has suffered a severe brain injury that his doctor cannot predict how Sam will be affected by the head trauma.  The effect is revealed to the reader as an ability for Sam to see events happen before they actually happen.  To see tragedies before they unfold.

  
Dr. Lara McHayden enters the story, a scientist who is experimenting with brain injuries and psychic abilities through her Tempus Project when she learns about Sam's case.  She recruits him for her research, testing a drug she has concocted.  Luring Sam into her research with the illusion that he could change the time line that caused the tragic plane crash and be able to bring his father back to life.

Interspersing Sam's tale with the back-stories of secondary characters, Knight interweaves their plot into Sam's plight.  This gives the read greater depth and broadens the reader's perception of the patterns of good and evil and provides insight into Sam's own character and maturity.

Knight deftly blends intrigue and suspense with romance and introspection.  The narration is well articulated and written in third person, which places the reader in the role of spectator, as the plot progresses steadily to a gravely tragic outcome, only to use time travel to upend that conclusion.  

The reader needs to have patience as Knight skips between the storyline of Sam and the tertiary characters, who are vital to the plot.  The reader also needs to accept the story as it takes unbelievable turns like when Sam is shot up and bleeding profusely, yet, he lives.  Knight does keep the reader wondering where he will take the story from here, making the reader galvanized to the pages.

http://www.damianknightauthor.co.uk/