I received a free eBook copy of Mystery Mountain Four by Marie Grace to review for BookLook Blogger.

Book Description

Marie Grace wows readers with the fourth novel in her Mystery Mountain series. In the small town of Raincroft, the bonds of love and family are stronger than all outside or dangerous influences and adventures while romance blossoms between two unlikely people. Through determination and strength, Grace’s engaging characters find the courage to overcome adversity.

I have not read the first three books in this series and therefore, I was not familiar with the characters or the setting and the author did not offer any background that would help a reader who didn’t read the previous books.

I think Marie Grace has some great story ideas.  She has many plot ideas and character ideas.  The problem I found was that there were too many characters and too many plots in this one book.  I know this is a continuation of three previous books but I think it would’ve worked better if she had separated some of the characters and plot lines into the separate books in the series.  I believe that would make the story easier to follow.

In addition, it would have given the author more time and space to create a solid setting with understandable description.  She also would have been able to put more time and detail into creating her characters so that they would be deeper and more enjoyable.

As it is, I felt like the story jumped around too much.  Also, there didn’t seem to be enough time spent on creating the conflicts in the stories and the author often switched back and forth between present and past tense.  A couple of her characters spoke a dialect that the author attempted to write, which I found distracting and annoying.  I also found contradictions in some of her characters that seemed out of place.  There were also some places where she switched point of view in the same paragraph or scene, even though she had page breaks and chapters.  The page breaks and chapters seemed to transition to a different location or story line.

In this book, out of the many characters that were part of the story, I felt like I only really got to know two of them fairly well and I found their romance cute but juvenile.

I believe Marie Grace has great ideas for a great series here, but I would highly recommend that she go back and break it apart and put fewer characters and conflicts into each story; to focus on not more than four main characters and maybe four conflicts per book.  I believe if she did that and really developed those four main characters and the conflicts, her stories would be much more readable and enjoyable.  I also suggest that she find an interesting way to include the information as to why a select few of the characters seem to have speech issues without trying to write their issues in their dialogue.

There didn’t seem to be a single connecting theme throughout the book either.  It seemed that there were many themes that Marie Grace addressed and there were times when the message(s) she wanted to get across came across preachy.  Also, I didn’t feel like there was any real resolution to any of the plot lines in the story by the end of the book, which was also disappointing.  I understand she wanted to have some loose ends to tease her readers with in hopes they would want to read the next book in the series, but with all of the plot lines she had, I think it would have left me feeling better about the book if one or two of the plot conflicts had come to clear resolution by the end of the book.

In conclusion, I like Marie Grace’s story line ideas and the characters I was able to get a grip on.  However, I found the book difficult to read and follow.  I would recommend this book to the Young Adult audience but feel it’s too juvenile for the adult audience written as it is.  If Marie Grace was to go back and do a bit of editing and break the story and flesh out her characters and add more meat to the conflicts for each book of the series, I believe it would be a much better, stronger series that would definitely be interesting and enjoyable for adults.  I see a lot of potential in these stories.

I received a free ebook copy of this book to review for BookLook Blogger.

Cassidy Starr returns to the only place she has ever felt happy and loved in her life.  She has suffered too many broken relationships in her life and so decides to live a simple, peaceful life alone in Wishing Springs.  However, her neighbor, handsome cowboy, Jarrod Monahan, may challenge those plans.

This is the first book I have ever read by Debra Clopton, and it is evidently part of a series known as the “Four of Hearts Romance” series.  I have always enjoyed cowboy romances and this book did not disappoint me.  I love this story.  Ms. Clopton did an excellent job creating her characters.  Not only did I fall in love with and care about what happened to Cassidy and Jarrod, but all of the townspeople captured my interest and my heart as well.  The camaraderie between Jarrod and his brothers is an added pleasure to the story.

There was also a mystery in the story that needs to be solved.  This adds a bit of danger and suspense to the story.  Between the blossoming romances and this mystery I couldn’t put the book down.  The pace of the story was well written, the plot was interesting and kept moving and the characters were lovable.

The only disappointment I experienced was the ending.  I felt that Ms. Clopton rushed the ending a bit.  I think if she would have written one more chapter, included a bit more detail and included the townspeople a bit more since they had been key figures in the story up to that point, it would have been a better, richer ending, and would’ve have left me completely satisfied, instead of slightly disappointed.

I will, most likely, read this story again someday, just because I loved the characters so much.  I would also highly recommend this story to anyone who loves cowboy romances or just a good romance, or to anyone who loves to get a chuckle out of a good small town story.

I received a free copy of this eBook to write a review for BookLook Blogger.

Inspirational Reflections by Ian J. Roberts is a short book of poems and songs about faith in God and our salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ.  These writings could be used as daily devotionals.  They are good to reflect upon.

Ian J. Roberts did a fairly good job with these poems and songs, though I thought some of the poems rhyme schemes were sometimes off and the syllable structure seemed a bit awkward in some of them.  The theme throughout the book was a bit repetitious as well, but it was clear that these were words of praise and glory to the Heavenly Father.  The writings have deep meaning and are worth thinking, meditating and reflecting upon.

Though I wish Mr. Roberts would have included other truths and themes from the Bible, his writings were inspiring.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is seeking meaning in their life, anyone who enjoys having something additional to include with their daily Bible reading, anyone who would like to reflect on the power and glory of God.