The Buried Children - Daniel Farcas

Genre:  Adult, Memoir
Source: I received a copy to help facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

If you like reading about the hardships faced by others from different countries then you migh like this book.  If you enjoy reading about someone's life then you mike like this book.  This is not a feel good book.  Danile Farcas was one of many children who grew up in an orphanage in Bucharest, Romania.
During Nicolae Ceausescu's reign he created a law that made it a criminal offense to get an abortion or to use contraceptives.  He was trying to increase the communist population.  Unfortunately the effect of this was women having babies they did not want and leaving them in an orphanage. Most times they were not wanted there either. They were abused, neglected and nameless.  For many the only names they carried were the nicknames they were given like Scabby, Burned, or Horse.  Daniel managed to escape from the celar of the orphanage.  He ended up living in the sewers under the cities with many other boys.  Finally, he is assisted in reaching America where he hoped to see a change in his life.

This is not easy to read.  Is is open and raw.  American children are for the most part blessed to live in the circumstances they live in.  This is a good book

The Reaper's Daughter Book Cover Reveal

The Reaper's Daughter by KM Randall

Publisher: Booktrope

Expected Publication: February 15, 2015

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal

I’ve always felt like an average girl . . . except for my strange relationship with death. You could say I like to court it. Whether I’m soaring through the air as a flyer for Specter University’s cheer squad, or speeding down the steepest mountain with only grace and balance keeping me from an icy end, I’ve always needed to feel a rush. But now Death is courting me―in more ways than one. First, there’s Rishi, a rogue death deity who has a penchant for annoying me nearly to my grave and whose intense gaze has the power to see right through me. Then there’s Hades, who I’d rather had stayed just a myth. Now that he knows I exist, he’s never going to leave me alone until he can do the same to me as he’s done to my mother. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention her? I spent my whole life thinking she had died when I was a baby, but now I’ve found out she’s much more than dead. Fifty years ago, Hades banished my mother from the underworld and along with the Council of Death Deities, took away her ability to cross over souls―souls that have wandered lost through the world ever since. Now she wants me to clean up the mess. You may have heard of her before: they call her the Grim Reaper. You know what that makes me? The Reaper’s Daughter.

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About the Author

As a girl, K.M. always wished she’d suddenly come into magical powers or cross over into a Faerie circle. Although that has yet to happen, she instead lives vicariously through the characters she creates in writing fantasy and delving into the paranormal. When K.M. is not busy writing her next novel, she is the editor-in-chief of a blog covering the media industry, as well as an editor with Booktrope Publishing. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Syracuse University and a bachelor’s degree in English-Lit from Nazareth College of Rochester. K.M. lives in Upstate New York’s Finger Lakes region with her husband and her extremely energetic little boy.

The Threshing Circle by Neil Grimmett

Genre:  Adult, Mystery, Suspense

Source: I received a copy to help facilitate my review.  The opinions expressed here are my own.

Warning:  There is some profanity and sexual violence mentioned in this book.

I wasn't really sure what to think about this book.  It sounded interesting from the beginning.  I was completely surprised by what I read.  It starts off in 1942 in a small village in Crete.  A young English woman is married to a Cretan soldier.  What she doesn't know is that he is married to another Cretan woman. She thinks the people of the village have accepted her when they give her a gift.  She shows it to her husband when he slips away from his patrol to see her.  Little does he know that the person who gave it to her has branded her in many ways and the Germans will use these gifts against her.  They take her from her house, leaving her young infant crying and they hang her.  Until she takes her last breath she believes she is dying for the cause of her village.  I could not believe how angry I felt at the villagers and how evil I felt some of them were.

The story then moves to present time and we meet a Scottish girl who is living in a Cretan village.  She keeps getting proposals from a Cretan named Barba Yorba.  They both see a young couple enter their village.  Barba Yorba is spooked by this for reasons you learn later.  Kristy welcomes Patneck and Eleni to the village.  She helps them find a jeep to tour the place.  Several strange events happen and then the couple disappear.  Kristy tries to find out about them and finds herself a target for reasons she doesn't understand.  She decides to seek the help of Barba Yorba.  At first he is reluctant.  The reason?  He holds secrets the villages and families want kept hidden.

This becomes a quick read because once you get started the action of it keeps you going.  You don't want to stop for any reason.  Definitely one you want to read.