Reprise Review: Soul Walk by Melissa Bowersock

 

Genre: Paranormal Mystery/Suspense

Description:

“Paranormal investigator Lacey Fitzpatrick and medium Sam Firecloud are making quite a name for themselves. When a TV network offers to feature them on a popular ghost series, they realize they could dispel misconceptions and bring credibility to their work. However, filming their process is more troublesome and complicated than they knew. Their goal to research and release the ghostly tenants of a haunted bed and breakfast in Malibu is at odds with the studio’s penchant for sensationalism. On top of that, Sam finds his connection to one of the ghosts to be painfully personal, and he and Lacey struggle to keep their work, their relationship and their newfound stardom from unraveling.”

Author:

“Melissa Bowersock is an eclectic, award-winning author who writes in a variety of fiction and non-fiction genres: biography, contemporary, western, action, romance, fantasy, paranormal and spiritual. She has been both traditionally and independently published and is a regular contributor to the superblog Indies Unlimited. She lives in a small community in northern Arizona with her husband and an Airedale terrier. She also writes under the pen name Amber Flame.”

Learn more about Ms. Bowersock on her website or follow her on Facebook.

Appraisal:

When a TV network offers to feature Sam and Lacey on a popular ghost series, they realize they could dispel misconceptions and bring credibility to their work. The network executives have chosen a haunted bed and breakfast for Sam and Lacey to investigate. At first Lacey is worried about how much she will be able to contribute if the network has their own team to do the background research of the B&B and the ghostly inhabitants. Therefore, she takes on the research as she always has when it was just her and Sam. This gives her an in-depth and personal feeling for the ghosts.

Lacey and Sam find the filming for the show tedious and tiring. However, they are willing to see it through, and release the ghosts from their earthly suffering. You can tell Ms. Bowersock does a lot of research for her stories. The non-paranormal stuff like going through the filming process is realistic and fascinating. The history behind the hauntings is believable and draws the reader in to set aside any disbelief that this could never happen. Ms. Bowersock is able to find a nice balance between realism and the supernatural.

To top it all off Sam and Lacey are seriously talking about taking their relationship to the next level. I love the way we, the readers, get to take part in their personal lives. It is another touch of realism added to the story. If you like cozy mysteries with a touch of the paranormal I highly recommend this series.??

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

*Trigger warning* One of the ghosts was a five-year old girl who endured horrific abuse, both emotional and physical, before she died. This is not overly graphic.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues were found.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: ?wazithinkin

Approximate word count: 35-40,000 words

Review: Hostage Walk by Melissa Bowersock

 Genre: Paranormal/Mystery

Description:

“Paranormal investigators Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud face terrifying new challenges when Lacey is kidnapped and held hostage in return for Sam’s mediumistic talent. While Lacey tries to figure out a way to deal with the kidnapper and make her escape, Sam is forced to plunge into the role of researcher so he can uncover the reason for a ghost’s entrapment here on earth. But can either succeed in their diverse efforts before the situation spirals completely out of control?”

Author:

“Melissa Bowersock is an eclectic, award-winning author who writes in a variety of fiction and non-fiction genres: paranormal, biography, western, action, romance, fantasy, spiritual, and satire.”

For more visit Ms.Bowersock’s website and follow her on Facebook.

Appraisal:

Books in a series like this one tends to have stories with a lot of similarities from book to book. Each instalment has certain basics in main characters, the kinds of things they get involved in, and some aspects in how the story progresses that fit the same basic pattern. If you like one of the series and the author does a good job with the unique parts of the story in others, you’ll probably like the others as well.

For the most part that’s what I found with Hostage Walk. I’ve read a few of the books in this series, liked the story and the premise behind them. In most ways this installment follows the basic pattern with Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud combining their different talents to solve a mystery. Sam’s ability to interact with human spirits (okay, we’ll call them ghosts) who need help resolving some issue before they can move on and Lacey’s ability to logically work things out to solve the underlying puzzle both figure into this. However, there are some twists to the norm that add to the story. Saying too much could be a spoiler, but I’ll say that Sam’s daughter, Kenzie, contributes to the eventual solution. An excellent read, as always, in this fun series.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Although this is book 37 in the Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud mystery series each story stands alone.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 30-35,000 words

Review: Vengeful Spirits by Sandy Wolters

 

Genre: Paranormal Mystery/Native American/Romance

Description:

“Nathan Gordon has been hired by a ranch owner to find his missing cowboys, and to also investigate several mysterious animal mutilations. The job brings him closer to the beautiful Navajo Medicine woman, he fell in love with at first sight. Yet, he can't quite bring himself to believe in some of their rituals. Not to mention terrifying spirits.

Bright Flower has known since she was a child, Nathan is the man she is destined to marry. However convincing her grandfather is harder than she thought it would be. Just when she and Nathan have his blessing, malevolent Skinwalkers target their loved ones, and threaten to take away all she and Nathan hold dear.

The battle they wage could end in a living hell, sending Nathan and Bright Flower to a fate worse than death.”

Author:

From Ms. Wolters’ Amazon Author page: “I've been an avid reader for years. To my husband's dismay, I have bookshelves full of books, rooms full of books, boxes full of books. My cars have books in them. I just can't seem to get rid of them after I read them. You just never know when you will want to read it again, right?

About two years ago, my husband gave me the dream gift, a Kindle. It was love at first sight and my first foray into the world of eBooks.  While I still have books everywhere, I no longer take ten or twelve books with me when I go on vacation. The only thing I need is my Kindle. It never leaves my purse.

My genre of choice is romance with a paranormal twist…The women in my books are strong individuals that have moments of weakness and frailty to work through.”

Appraisal:

Nathan Gordon, a former police officer who is employed as a security specialist, is the lead investigator assigned to determine what is happening on a large property in Arizona. Montana Rancher, John “Mac” MacAllister, is having disturbing events on his new property and he wants answers. His property borders a Navajo Reservation and they seem to understand the curse that has been placed on the land years ago.

In the meantime, Nathan has been having lucid dreams about what his friends are calling an Indian princess. When he sees her in person he is too shy to speak to her. Nathan learns she is the granddaughter of the tribe’s Shaman, Spirit Keeper. Bright Flower was not only Spirit Keeper’s granddaughter, she is also a Shaman. Bright Flower shares Nathan’s dreams and uses that time to teach him the Navajo ways. However, she has not taught him their rituals yet.

Dealing with angry spirits is a frightening experience for all, especially for white men who haven’t been raised knowing spirits are all around. As believers are gathered for the big attack on a particularly nasty spirit who is at the center of this mess. To fight all these evil spirits our small group of believers with some power of their own have to travel to where the activity is the strongest. The tensions are high, everyone is short on nerves, misunderstandings pop-up all over the place. Self-doubt sets in while waiting on real battle to begin, which just feeds the evil spirits.

Somehow Ms. Wolters is able to keep all the threads in Vengeful Spirits organized and didn’t drop even one, as far as I could tell. If you are looking for a well told story with lots of different elements, I would recommend this book. Each of the three books in Spirit Voices Series is a stand-alone book, but I can see I missed some character development because I didn’t read book 2, Ruthless Spirits. It kinda got mixed in the shuffle, luckily BigAl was able to locate it for me.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Vengeful Spirits is book 3 in Ms. Wolters, Spirit Voices Series.

There are a number of F-bombs dropped and some intimate scenes tastefully depicted.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: ?wazithinkin

Approximate word count: 55-60,000 words

Review: Stone Walk by Melissa Bowersock

Genre: Paranormal Mystery/Ghosts

Description:

“Who knew there was a Scottish castle hiding on a high promontory over Monterey, California? Lacey Fitzpatrick and medium Sam Firecloud certainly didn’t; not until they were called in to investigate ghostly manifestations. The Gold Rush-era castle is being restored as a museum, but the most important plans have been derailed due to the refusal of frightened workers to trespass onto the outraged spirit’s territory. When Sam and Lacey attempt to unravel the truth behind the angry ghost, they are plunged into a grisly, hidden culture of unspeakable rituals.”

Author:

“Melissa Bowersock is an eclectic, award-winning author who writes in a variety of fiction and non-fiction genres: biography, contemporary, western, action, romance, fantasy, paranormal and spiritual. She has been both traditionally and independently published and is a regular contributor to the superblog Indies Unlimited. She has a tattoo on the inside of her left wrist that says IMAGINE. In her next life, she plans to be an astronaut. She lives in a small community in northern Arizona with her husband and an Airedale terrier. She also writes under the pen name Amber Flame.”

Learn more about Ms. Bowersock and her other books on her website or on Facebook.

Appraisal:

Sam Firecloud gets a desperate call from Ava Saucedo, the director and overseer of the restoration project, for the Iain MacElwain Museum in Monterey, California. Iain MacElwain, a Scottish immigrant, made his fortune during the Gold Rush. He built a modest Scottish castle to remind him of his homeland on the cliffs in Monterey overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

The last project is to turn the cellar into a wine-tasting room, to help maintain a revenue to defer the cost of running the castle museum. The problem is there is a ferociously angry spirit in the cellar and everyone who enters is frightened out of their wits. So, now the hunt begins to identify this raging spirit.

Luckily, Ava has organized and cross-referenced files from Iain MacElwain’s own meticulous record keeping. Ranging from personal ledgers, diaries, and the construction of his castle along with names and dates. Lacey, Sam, and Ava all pitch in combing through the files.

The Scottish history is fascinating and unnerving at times. They had a brutal, and fierce culture. The ending is ghastly and will add another chapter to the museum’s annals. It’s giving me the shivers thinking about it. Stone Walk is another great addition to this series.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Stone Walk is book 28 in Melissa Bowersock’s, A Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud Mystery Series.

Format/Typo Issues:

I was a beta reader for this book and can’t comment on the finished product.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: ?wazithinkin

Approximate word count: 25-30,000 words

Review: Ghosters 3: Secrets of the Bloody Tower by Diana Corbitt

Genre: Middle Grade/Paranormal Mystery/Ghosts

Description:

“When Theresa and her little brother Joey tour The Tower of London with their good friend Kerry, the kids expect to see a ghost or two, but they never imagined they’d find themselves involved in one of history’s most infamous missing person cases. They’ve got a pair of very impatient spirits on their hands and for good reason. The two 15th-century English princes have been forced to haunt The Tower for more than five-hundred years, all because someone else is buried in their Westminster Abbey tomb.” 

Author:

“Diana Corbitt is a retired elementary school teacher living in northern California. Her work has appeared in Bewildering Stories and Encounters Magazine. She had a podcast on Manor House and one of her short stories was anthologized in Wax and Wane: A Gathering of Witch Tales.”

To learn more about Ms. Corbitt check out her website.

Appraisal:

In this addition to the Ghosters series, Theresa, Kerry, and Joey get to take a hop across the pond. Theresa and Joey Martinez’s father is an author who is invited to do a two-week book tour in the United Kingdom. It would be an educational trip for the kids, and a shame for them to miss out on. It would also be a bummer if they had to traipse their father around to all the book tour stops. Luckily, their good friend and fellow ghost chaser, Kerry Addison, is from England and her grandmother lives in London. Grandma is more than willing to have the three kids stay with her while dad is gallivanting around the countryside on his book tour. It’s been a year since Gran has seen Kerry, so she’s overjoyed about the visit. Gran happens to be a retired history professor and an ex-tour guide at the Towers of London, so she knows the best attractions to get the kids tickets for. She is also ghost savvy. 

Not two days into their visit Gran suffers an appendicitis attack and ends up in the hospital. Luckily Aunt Ginny lives right next door to Gran. The kids are allowed to tour London on their own during the day since Gran has it all planned out for them, then they’ll report back to Aunt Ginny’s every evening for dinner.

When a small boy appears to Joey in the Bloody Tower, he and the girls are curious. When they see the boy’s likeness in the portrait gallery, they are off and running to try to figure out why he and his brother are stuck in a small Bloody Tower room instead of properly buried in Westminster Abby, where their bones belong. They learn that there was scuttlebutt back in the day that the two young princes were murdered and their bodies hidden in an unmarked grave. No one knows whose bones are actually in the Abby in their place.

It’s a fun and educational adventure. As you can imagine there are lots of ghosts around London, some are new and some hundreds of years old, many of which are friendly and helpful or in need of help. Each encounter is different and engaging.

Poor Kerry has to lug around her electronic thingamajigs just to see and hear the blasted ghosts. And it’s always entertaining when Joey, who has Asperger syndrome, often takes words, rules, and common phrases quite literally. He also doesn’t like to be touched, so strangers aren’t allowed in his bubble. However, his sister, Theresa or Kerry, are always close by to protect, or explain situations and phrases for him. I especially enjoyed the times Theresa and Kerry tried to explain rule breaking to Joey, so he’d understand that sometimes rules have to be broken for the greater good.

Secrets of the Bloody Tower is a delightful romp through London with a big finale that makes this trip even more memorable. Don’t miss out on this story.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Secrets of the Bloody Tower is book 3 in Diana Corbitt’s, GHOSTERS Series.

Format/Typo Issues:

A small number of proofing misses, such as missing, extra, or wrong words.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: ?wazithinkin

Approximate word count: 60-65,000 words