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The Big Rock Candy Mountain (Contemporary American Fiction) Customer Review: Well worth the time it takes to read – Excellent!
I think I first tried to read BRCM more than 20 years ago, but set it aside for something shorter and more immediate. Maybe I just needed the extra years under my belt to fully appreciate Stegner’s accomplishment with this book. Four major characters, all members of the same family, are fully fleshed out and just as human as fictional characters get. Bo and Elsa Mason and their two sons, Chet and Bruce, form a kind of microcosm of American society during the hard times that stretched from the turn of the century into the Depression. And there are no real “bad guys” in this story; only people who are victims of their own appetites and dreams, and of their own heritage and hardscrabble surroundings. This is still a powerful story, even after 65 years. I recommend it highly. – Tim Bazzett, author of Reed City Boy
Customer Review: thinly veiled autobiography
There is no denying Stegner’s iconic status as the dean of “western writers.” While Big Rock Candy Mountain isn’t actually his first novel- it feels like a first novel, and a startling, impressive effort to boot. Big Rock is supposed to be an autobiograhical tale that charts the travails of Stegner’s own nuclear family- Dad Bo- a rough and ready frontiersman who is always a day late and a dollar short, his mom Elsa- a near runaway from the Scandanavian settlements of Minnesota- who married the first man she fell in love with, brother Chet and little Bruce- who, as it turns out, is the Stegner character.

Bluebeard (Delta Fiction) An old man recounts his past to a voluptuous widow, revealing man’s compulsion to create and destroy what he loves.
Customer Review: The Vonnegut YOU Should Like
Someone I know said “Bluebeard” was the Vonnegut YOU (and by YOU he meant everyone) didn’t like. He couldn’t have been more wrong. A lot of people say a book really spoke to them, mostly so they can sound smart, but this is one of those rare occasions where I can truly say this book spoke to me. Though it was written over twenty years ago it felt like it was written for me right this moment. (I’ve mentioned before in other reviews how important timing is in these things. See “On the Road” and “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.”)

The Perfect Shot (Young Adult Fiction) Customer Review: Great Book
The novel, The Perfect Shot, by Elaine Marie Alphin, is probably the best book I have ever read. It is basically about a teenager named Brian Hammek. He was outside playing basketball, and he watches his girlfriend get murdered. He loves to play basketball. One day he went to court to try to set his girlfriend’s father free, he was kicked out of the courtroom and he hid in the bathroom and was threatened by his girlfriend’s murderer. After a game he was up in his room when the murderer broke into his house and tried to kill him. He made the perfect shot on the murderer and saved his family’s lives. I think the pace of this book was different than you would find in other books. It starts out fast, but then it slows down. In the end it speeds back up again. If you like thrillers, than this is a book you need to read. You never what is going to happened. That is a quick review of The Perfect Shot.

Wiser Than Serpents (Mission: Russia #3) (Steeple Hill Women’s Fiction #62) Her sister had vanished, trapped in a human slavery ring. To find her, FSB agent Yanna Andrevka arranged her own kidnapping into Taiwan’s sex-trafficking trade. And found herself with no way out.

Until Yanna discovered an ally deep undercover: Delta Force captain David Curtiss. He was after the kingpin of the Twin Serpents, the organized crime syndicate that had Yanna—and hundreds of others— in their clutches.

With opposite agendas, David and Yanna had to rely on each other to outwit their cold-blooded enemy.
Customer Review: WOW!!!
Vita…Roma…and now Yenna! Agent Andrevka, and David Curtiss a.k.a. “Preach” are en route to adventure. When Yenna’s sister disappears into thin air Agent Andrevka starts investigating. Finding that her sister has been swallowed whole into the human trafficking ring the Twin Serpents. Her big rescue plan…get caught by the same thugs that have her sister and pull a 007. Only problem is, Agent Andrevka is rusty in the field operation area. Soooooooo instead of rescuing her sister, she gets caught in the ring, as planned, but can’t get out, I won’t give away the whole story but suffice it to say, David very cool We get to see Gracie and Vita and Roma again too. Ms. Warren, PLEASE write another book in this series. I want to know Mae’s story too!!!