My Book Retreat

When Silas Jacobson's father dies, and he blames himself for his death, he heads to the Mississippi River to find himself. What he finds is a best friend, a couple of intriguing women, lots of gambling and tons of adventure. He also finds himself in the middle of the Underground Railroad. Redemption on the River is Loren DeShon's debut novel, a work of historical fiction that takes us down the Mississippi in the mid-1800s. The historical aspects of the novel are fascinating. I learned so much about life along the Mississippi River, gambling at that time of history ~ I can't believe how much cheating went on ~ and the slave trade during that time. The slavery topic was covered from many angles, from the owners, to the traders, to the abolitionists. The characters were the main focus of this novel. DeShon writes many different characters that really show the different types of people who lived during this time in history. I will admit, I never really liked the main ch

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Non-Fiction Non-Memoir Reading Challenge . I hope you enjoyed it! Link up below with your recap post, or post a comment telling me how you did with the challenge. I'll post my own recap later in the week. Everyone who linked up to the original sign up and also links up below will be entered into a giveaway of a $15 gift card to Amazon.

Good evening. Thank you for stopping by. I've been pretty quiet the past few days aside from an interview that I had planned ahead. I had plans to spend time this weekend catching up on reviews, but decided to spend as much time as possible with my kids this weekend. I did get some reading done last night, but I'm still pretty far behind. Recent Reviews and Other Posts Last week, I reviewed The Mongol Objective by David Sakmyster. It's a great continuation of the Morpheus Initiative series. I'm looking forward to reading the final book in the trilogy. I also published an interview with author R.C. Richter . What I'm Reading I've been reading Redemption on the River by Loren DeShon this week. I haven't been reading much so I have a lot more to read, but I'm enjoying it so far. What C is Reading C finally finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and all the work he had to do for his reading group at school. He's also reading The Ba

Today, I'd like to welcome author R.C. Richter to My Book Retreat. He is the author of the debut novel Crossing the Rubicon , which I'll be reviewing in January. Q. Who or what inspired you to become an author? I started out as a commercial TV producer who had a production company called Midnight HWY Film Co in the 1990’s.  At the time I was reading and writing a lot of screenplays, on projects I was hoping to produce into films.  The story of Crossing the Rubicon, got its start in the spring of 1990 when my three business partners and I went on a caving trip to the Chungo Caves in Central Alberta, Canada.  The story evolved from that trip.  I first wanted to write it as a screenplay, but, the project was just too big.  So twenty two years later when the story once again came to me, I though the only way people will hear or read it was if I wrote a book.  So in the spring of 2012 I started to write my first book.  Deep down I was hoping it could someday be turned into

The Mongol Objective is the second book in the Morpheus Initiative series by David Sakmyster. Caleb Crowe is back on an adventure with the Morpheus Initiative, a group of psychic archeologists who travel the world looking for ancient treasures. This time, his sister Phoebe is by his side as they search for a former colleague who has stolen a valuable Egyptian artifact. They travel around the world and find themselves on a quest to locate Genghis Khan's tomb. Like the first book in this series, The Pharos Objective , The Mongol Objective is a thrilling action adventure in the style of Indiana Jones. For some reason, I am drawn to this sort of story. It's fun and exciting, and I had a hard time putting it down. I love the idea of looking for ancient treasures, and Sakmyster puts the reader into the action from cover to cover. He also provides wonderful descriptions of the locations depicted in the book; I have vivid images of giant statues and a winding river weeks after f

I hope you had a great week! I'm a bit late putting up my recap for last week, but I was a day late with an interview I had hoped to publish yesterday, so I decided to wait until evening to put this up. It's been a bit of a crazy evening as our washer, which is on the second floor, broke and we ended up with water dripping from the dining room ceiling below. Ugh! Luckily it seems to be minor damage. Now I'm hoping to spend some time writing book reviews since I'm a bit backed up, but I do have a new book to start as well... Recent Reviews and Other Posts Last week, I didn't manage to write any reviews, but I have now published two author interviews. The first was with thriller author Eric Van Lustbader . The second was with debut author Pamela King Cable . What I'm Reading I finished two books last week: Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls and The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Hopefully I'll manage to write those reviews before the end of

Today, I'd like to welcome author Pamela King Cable to My Book Retreat. She is the author of the debut novel Televenge . Q. Who or what inspired you to become an author? My dad was and is a storyteller. This strange and mysterious talent was somehow passed on to me. Because my maiden name is King, my dad, a man far ahead of his time in his thinking, told me when I was just a bitty thing that I was related to the great Martin Luther King. Which I learned later wasn’t true. (Smile) But Dad had a way of teaching me that I should respect every man and woman no matter the color of their skin. He taught me to think for myself. From that moment I wanted to be like him. To follow in his footsteps.  My mother was also a skilled storyteller without even knowing it. All I wanted to do when I was a teenager was to duplicate my mother’s life. I loved the way she talked to my grandmother; I felt neither imprisoned by it nor put off by her Southern accent nor that of any of my relatives.

Today, I'd like to welcome author Eric Van Lustbader to My Book Retreat. You can read my review of his latest book in the Jack McClure series, Father Night here . Q. Welcome to My Book Retreat! I've enjoyed all of the books in the Jack McClure series. How did you come up with the idea for that series? I wanted to write about a situation I've had in my life for years -- being a surrogate father to a young girl coming of age. I wanted the man to be somewhat like me, so I had him be dyslexic -- a bit more than I am, but, you know, this is fiction. Q. You were given the opportunity to continue the Jason Bourne series after Robert Ludlum's death. What was it like to pick up someone else's characters and continue their stories? Well, Bob and I were very good friends, who shared a lot of views on writing thrillers and creating characters. We met in 1980, when both The Ninja and The Bourne Identity were on the NY Times Bestseller list together. Since then, I had

Good morning. I hope you've had a great week! Ours has been quite busy. We had our November book club meeting last week, where we discussed Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls. It was a very good discussion, and particularly interesting for those of us who have also read her memoir, The Glass Castle . I highly recommend both as book club discussion books! We also had our annual holiday dinner last night, which was a lot of fun. We do a book exchange, and I got a copy of One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper. I'm looking forward to reading it. Recent Reviews and Other Posts Last week, I reviewed a great thriller, Father Night by Eric Van Lustbader. What I'm Reading Although I attended the meeting last week, I haven't actually finished Half Broke Horses yet, so I need to finish that. I also started The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, which I'm really enjoying. What C is Reading C is still reading the same two books, which is unusual. He