Category: Book Brief

Book Brief: Beauty Rising

Beauty Rising
by Mark W Sasse
Genre: General/Literary Fiction
Word count: 61,000

“My heart sank. I dumped my father’s ashes in the heart of communist Vietnam – over a thousand miles from the death of his comrades – over a thousand miles from the smile of that girl. How could I have been so stupid?”

Only the bumbling, overweight, thirtyish, stay-at-home Martin Kinney could have mistakenly flubbed his dying father’s request with such gusto. This thousand mile mistake awakens the ghosts of long-held family secrets and puts Martin on a fateful course with an unlikely romantic interest – a young, beautiful, yet troubled Vietnamese woman named My Phuong.

With its cross-cultural setting and unlikely romance, the 61,000 word novel Beauty Rising creates a powerful, unique voice in today’s literature. In a swift-moving, dialogue-driven prose which is funny, honest, tragic and unpredictable, Beauty Rising explores the depths of culture, family, and love as the Vietnam War, a generation removed, continues to hang on the periphery of society, cursing families and causing destruction.

This book is available from Amazon.

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Book Brief: Dead Blow Hammer

Dead Blow Hammer
by Steve George
Genre: Mystery, suspense
Word Count: 52,000

Jim Mann is a homebody. While he trades grain commodities out of his house in a western suburb of Minneapolis, he spends most of his time helping his neighbors. If they ask, he helps. If they don’t ask, he offers. Everyone on Barbosa Street calls him Handy.

It would have been a peaceful life if he hadn’t trusted his neighbors. If he hadn’t traded home repair work for Bo Stinson’s accounting expertise. If he hadn’t fallen for Gustav Olson’s long-lost daughter. If he hadn’t, with true DIY stubbornness, tried to do it all himself.

Dead Blow Hammer tells the story of how one misstep—in this case, the first step on the stairway to Angie Stinson’s bedroom—drew Handy Mann into a life-or-death struggle with evil he never imagined could be so close at hand, a struggle he will need every tool in his tool box to survive.

This book is available from Amazon US and Amazon UK.

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Book Brief: The Last Israelis

The Last Israelis
by Noah Beck
Genre: Military and Psychological Thriller
Word count: 85,000

Israel’s leader falls unconscious. Iran acquires nukes. History is now up to 35 Israelis. Ethnically diverse. Ideologically divided. On a nuclear-armed submarine.

Iran threatens to destroy Israel and now has the nuclear means to do so. Israel’s “second-strike” answer to this existential threat is the Dolphin, a submarine with nuclear-tipped missiles. But its crewmembers are a microcosm of the complex Israeli society they defend, making for a suspense-filled ride to Armageddon.

There are two descendants of Holocaust survivors; two native Arabic speakers (one Christian, one Druze); the son of Persian Jews who escaped the Iranian revolution of 1979; an Ethiopian who crossed Sudan by foot as a child to reach Israel; religious Jews who serve on a mostly secular crew; the atheist son of a Soviet Refusenik; an officer who holds right-wing views and another who – against navy regulations – stealthily attends leftist rallies; and the son of Vietnamese refugees saved by Israel in 1977 who is secretly gay.

There is also the rivalry between the captain and his deputy, and a childhood tragedy that haunts a sailor whose psychological wounds could explode unexpectedly.

The pressures of submarine life, threats at sea, and an unthinkable dilemma make conflict among the crewmembers inevitable. Sometimes the boiling point is reached only in a submariner’s dream, but at other times, the situation is terrifyingly real.

The divided men must struggle with the weightiest moral questions as they debate the toughest decision of their lives.

And decide they must. Because they are the last Israelis.

This book is available from Amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble, and the author’s website.

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Book Brief: Here We Are and There We Go

Here We Are & There We Go: Teaching and Traveling With Kids in Tow
by Jill Dobbe
Genre: Travel Memoir
Word count: 60,000

Who says you can’t travel with kids? Dan and I find out we can do just that as we set off with our two very young kids, first to live and work on an island far out in the Pacific, then on to the continent of Africa with a few stops in between. Armed with strollers, diapers, and too much luggage, we travel to over twenty-five countries throughout a ten year span, while working together as international overseas educators.

After surviving typhoon Yuri, almost being mauled by lions, and, nearly being shot by a presidential guard, we happily endure all of the good times and bad, while living life to the fullest. A decade’s worth of experiences and lifelong memories remain with us, as we return to the U.S., now with two teenagers in tow, and begin to experience our very own version of reverse culture shock.

Here We Are & There We Go chronicles our family’s ten years of living and teaching in overseas schools in four different countries (Ghana, Singapore, Guam, Mexico) and the crazy, hilarious, and sometimes scary situations we found ourselves in. It is a travel memoir about what our family of four experienced while living with other cultures, learning new languages, and literally traveling around the world. It is a book that everyone can relate to even armchair travelers and others who are or aren’t considering traveling or living abroad with or without kids.

This book is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

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