Indie Fiction Kids - Rob the Robot Arr Marks the Spot

I love free books. I recently won a copy of Rob the Robot Arr Marks the Spot during 1889 Labs #1889party. After thumbing through the book, I wasn't sure that it was my kind of story, so I decided that my husband would be in charge of reading this one to our daughter.

This plan blew up in my face rather quickly. A few nights after getting the book, my husband went out with some friends, and Ava wanted to read the robot book. No biggie, Rob the Robot was the bedtime story.

There were a few reasons I figured that this book would bore me, here is a quick list: robots, space travel, pirates, skulls and crossbones, and treasure maps. I sat down with Ava and allowed myself an internal sigh, I would rather have read Fancy Nancy or Little Critter, but I would endure a hunt for treasure because she liked the book.

Boy, was I wrong about this book. It was excellent. I already knew that the pictures were incredible from my cursory glance, and after reading it a I noticed more positive qualities. As far as illustrations go, this book can brag bright colors, attention to details, and my favorite, informative illustrations adding details to the story like all good illustrations should.

As far as the actual story went, I was also pleasantly surprised. The basic story line is of four robot friends traveling through outer space when they find a bottle floating along the way. In the bottle, of course, is a treasure map with a big X. Obviously, X marks the spot of the treasure.

The story, while intense at times and bordering on scary (for a two-year-old), never actually scared my daughter, which as a parent, made me happy. While on their adventure, the robots hear sounds coming from a cave that they believe are a monster. The monster soon turns out to be a giant robot pirate. Yes, a friendly, giant robot pirate. The robots, including the pirate, continue to work together to find the X that marks the spot.

Rob the Robot has another bragging right: educational content. The parent and educator inside of me squeals with delight every time I read this book because of the learning potential. Maps, compasses, counting backward, vocabulary with quick, relevant explanation, and my favorite, the use of the word jig, which led my husband to show our daughter what 'dancing a jig' meant.

Rob the Robot is colorful, fun, has some learning focuses, and is well written with no glaring grammatical errors or typos. My only irritation with the book was the number of sentences that ended with exclamation points. I felt that the over use detracted from those lines that were really meant to be read with emphasis. That being said, I look forward to reading this with my children for a long time, I just wish there were more Rob the Robot titles to keep us busy.

Indie Author Monique Mensah - Who Is He To You?

An abusive father. A boyfriend with split personalities. An unloving husband. A man who had a horrible upbringing. A father who loved his daughter in all the wrong ways. A man who ruins the lives of all the women he touches.

Simone is a young teenage girl who appears to have the perfect life. Her parents love and adore her, she has enough money to go to the best school, is undeniably beautiful, and has brains. She also has a father who is unable to stop himself from hurting her. Though he claims to love his little girl, he sneaks into her bedroom night after night and rapes her.

Ryan is a strong, independent woman able to take care of herself. When she meets a man and he begins flaking after a few months of dating, she begins to lose it. After he starts missing dates, forgetting to call, and eventually begins to verbally and emotionally tear her down, Ryan becomes as addicted to her little yellow pill as she is to him. He continually strings her on with empty promises of marriage, and she continues to follow.

Jessica is a woman who never dares to stand up to her husband. She tries desperately to please him with all that she has, but it never seems to be enough. Her husband doesn't respect her and has told her that when he is ready, he will leave her and will take everything they have. Jessica puts up with him because he “rescued” her from a terrible life of poverty and “built” her into the refined woman that she is now. She feels that she is nothing without her bastard husband.

What happens when the lives of these three women collide? Murder.

Each chapter of this book was told through the medium of the different characters. The story starts with an introduction to Simone, moving then to Ryan, and finally, Jessica.

The hardest part of this book to read was Simone talking about her father and how she loved him despite the abuse. She believed that he was a good man and truly loved her. She told herself that he simply could not help himself. The hardest after Simone was reading through the eyes of her father and seeing how he felt about his daughter and his troubled past.

Jessica and Ryan were equally frustrating to read because they had a choice. Neither of these woman had to stay. They didn't have to face the abuse of the man they were with. They simply felt compelled, for different reasons, to stay while they were continually cut down and mistreated. Woman go through this each day, and the men in their lives get away with it because they have systematically beaten their wives and girlfriends down until they believe that they don't deserve better. The author managed to show exactly how each woman had forged a connection with the man in her life and how she didn't think she is strong enough to break free of him.

The author does a good job at keeping the connection between the women hidden until she is ready for the reader to understand where the plot is headed. I never, at any point, felt that I didn't have enough information, I simply felt that I didn't have all of the facts yet, and that in time the plot would unfold. I spent time throughout the book guessing at the connection, but was surprised in the end.

The author's writing style was well crafted, giving each character their own voice. Even without chapter headers, I could quickly have known which character's life was being described simply by the author's voice.

A problem I found was some dialogue was difficult to understand, especially when teenagers or children were speaking. I felt the author overused urban vernacular and small sections of dialogue were nearly impossible for me to understand.

This story stuck with me long after I was done reading the book. I found myself wondering about the plot, not that it didn't make sense, just pondering the situations and events that led to the conclusion. How would I have handled a husband like Jessica's or a boyfriend like Ryan's. Most troubling of all was, what would I do if my daughter was in Simone's position. I came to no hard conclusions, but I am pretty certain that I wouldn't follow the same paths that these characters took. I feel that I would make mistakes along the way, but they wouldn't be the same mistakes that these women made.

Monique Mensah is definitely on my list of authors to read again.

Indie Author A.M. Harte - Hungry for You

Zombies. Brain eating Zombies. Well, not all of these zombies are brain eaters. Some are down-right thoughtful and compassionate. Sound strange? Well, it is. Strange in a good way.

A.M. Harte does an excellent job bringing the zombie world to life, that is if zombies can be considered alive. She gives the reader just enough details to want more and force them into reading another tale before bed. There are stories of zombies that feed from human meat, sex, and even some who feed off of animal products so they don't have to kill humans.

This is a collection of short stories is filled with horrifying tales and love stories, sometimes mixed into one truly disturbing tale. One of which is that of a man who doesn't want his wife to know that she is quickly dying and becoming a zombie, but also doesn't want the zombie horde to kill her before her transformation is complete.

The story that inspired the title of the book, “Hungry for You”, was my personal favorite. In this alternate reality, zombies are 'legalized' and some people allow zombies to feed off of them through sex. Without feeding, of course, a zombie will begin to decay more rapidly and die. To protect the zombie population, laws have been put into place simply because 'zoobs' lack any brain function to defend themselves, or even open doors so they are able to find food.

Police officer Retta is a zombie sympathizer who is guilt ridden after her sister and boyfriend became zombies and eventually meet their final death. While on patrol with her unsympathetic partner, Officer Retta sees some suspicious signs and enters a building to find a zombie who has been assaulted and tied to a bed. Retta decides to bring the zombie into the station and try to question him about what happened inside that old building. Eventually, Retta decides that the zombie needs to feed before they can continue their questioning. The problem arises when he refuses to feed off of any of the willing donors, something that has never been observed before. It turns out that this zoob has eyes for only one person, and is willing to die for, or because, of her.

How far would you go to save someone? What would your guilt drive you to do if it meant saving one life? Would you even consider zombies alive? These are the questions I found myself asking as I thought, she needs to save him, and, how romantic, he loves her. Then I got to the thought of, eww, he's a zombie, he isn't even alive. I quickly reminded myself that zombies are, as of right now, only fiction, and I wouldn't be faced with any of these hard decisions any time soon.

This is a great book of zombie tales to read in short bursts, or all at once if zombies are your thing. I have to admit, I'm looking forward to my next A.M. Harte read.

Indie Author Kit Iwasaki - Vampire General Intern with the Vampire

Another vampire novel? Yep, another one. Vampire novels seem to have taken over the bookstore and ebookstore shelves. Try telling someone that you are reading a fantasy novel about vampires. You may be shocked by their reaction, or you may be that person, the one looking down on me for reading “yet another vampire novel”. Well, here are the ins and outs of this particular debut novel by Kit Iwasaki.

Vampire General opens with a steamy scene in which Aline, resident doctor and human being, is in a supply closet with her boyfriend, also a resident and human being. The cliched scene is quickly interrupted by pagers sounding, alerting Aline and Tim to an incoming emergency.

As they rush to the Emergency Room, Tim gets a critical patient who eventually codes while Aline gets stuck with a patient who is capable of walking himself in. Aline's patient, Dr. Rocque, is insistent that he be able to see his patient, Clive. Clive is, of course, Tim's patient.

Aline is reluctant to grant Rocque's request, but eventually gives in to Rocque's charm. In her attempt to help Rocque, Aline succeeds in stopping Clive's heart while Tim and another doctor watch. After the stunt of killing a patient, Aline is dismissed by this hospital, and Tim, for good.

Depressed, Aline heads home only to become more depressed with the lack of comfort food available in her apartment. Her self wallowing is cut short by Rocque knocking on her door in the middle of the night.

Aline finds herself following Rocque to a hospital unknown to her in a questionable part of town. Before entering the hospital, Rocque has one condition that Aline must abide by: she must keep her mouth shut.

When Aline walks through the doors of the hospital, she is horror struck. She steps off of the street and into a world that she never imagined could exist. There were things in this hospital that didn't exist in Aline's worst nightmares. She not only has to treat patients that could harm or kill her, she has to work with those who are far scarier. From vampires to mermaids, Aline finds herself fighting for her patients' lives, fighting for her right to treat her patients, and could find herself fighting for her own life if anyone were to find out that she is human and not the vampire that Rocque has claimed that she is.

Vampire General is a new twist on Vampire culture that I haven't seen in the past. I've seen variations of vampires as doctors with human patients or supernatural patients, but this was a first for me. What makes this twist so desirable to the reader is that the doctor herself has no idea what she is walking into and has her assumptions of the entire world thrown out the window all in the course of a few moments.

This novel seemed to read like a single episode of a television drama. I often find myself wishing that my favorite television show was a novel instead of an hour long show. Books are far better at expanding on ideas and scenes and one episode would be plenty of material for a well written book. The book followed a simple story line of a girl who lost her job, got a new one, and had to overcome problems in the her new workplace. Granted, her workplace problems were far greater than her coworkers not liking her or a treacherous commute. The story, however, lacked a subplot. Yes, there was lust and sexual tension, but it never went anywhere. There was no scandal, no deceit. Aline was able to keep herself in check despite the impossible pull of vampire pheromones.

I found it odd that the author never discussed vampire diets. Aline, who is pretending to be a vampire, sits down the the hospital cafeteria, orders a salad and proceeds to eat it without anyone questioning her. I know vampires live only in the fantasy world, but I found it odd to think of a vampire, even someone pretending to be a vampire, eating a salad. I found it even weirder that no one in the book questioned her “diet”. It seems like a loose end that the author could easily clear up for the reader.

As a reader, I found myself wanting to yell at the book, “Okay, I get it already!” The author had the ability to give a great description and lead the reader to a conclusion, but then also spelled out what the reader had already understood. An example of this is the last sentence of a character description. The book reads, 'On his left hand was a thick, heavy golden ring; Kessler was married.' The point of the ring description is to show that Kessler is married.

I have to admit, the cliff hanger ending has me awaiting the publication of future Vampire General novels. I have confirmed with the publisher, and author, that there will be more in this series coming out soon. Aline was a likeable character, and I see her becoming stronger and holding her own at Grace General Hospital, even after the transhumans discover that she isn't one of them. My biggest question is, when does she become a vampire?