Book Review - Visiting With An Angel by Jerry A. Greenberg

 

Visiting With An Angel by Jerry A. Greenberg begins with Jerry mulling over his life. He has two children he sees little of as they live so far away; his wife is dead, and so are many of his friends. He knows that he is getting older and won't be alive forever. Jerry thinks about what he will leave behind, which makes him wonder about his ancestors and how their lives may have influenced him. He wonders if he is the black sheep of the family. Jerry has been a writer, while the ancestors he knows about have been professional people. 

Jerry decides to research his genealogy. From his parents, who were born in the United States, back through his grandparents, who were Eastern European Jews. His first stop is the cemetery which is one hundred miles away! What work did Jerry's great-grandpa do? What has happened to the pine forest, which was next to Jerry's family home growing up? Which of Jerry's ancestors ran away to join the circus? Read Visiting With An Angel by Jerry A. Greenburg for the answers to these and other questions. Along the way, you will also meet Ray, Jerry's cat, his best friend, and confidante.

The history that Jerry found out about Poland and America is fascinating. He traced his fourth great-grandfather back to Poland in the late seventeen hundreds and discovered that Polish people did not have surnames then! I felt the deep emotions in Jerry's life. His love for his family and his overwhelming loneliness now most of them have died. It was clever how Jerry A. Greenberg transitioned from the present day to the nineteen fifties by visiting a café he had visited often as a child. Exiting the café, he could only see the people and places of his youth. Visiting With An Angel by Jerry A. Greenberg is well-thought-out, and the characterization is brilliant. Greenberg writes about the past, but he writes so vividly that I felt the story was taking place now. 

I disliked nothing about Visiting With An Angel. The cover art is beautiful and fits the story well. Jerry's humor and love for his family and friends shine through the book, making it a delightful read. There are also no swearing or sexual references.  

I recommend Visiting With An Angel by Jerry A. Greenberg to adults who enjoy history and autobiographies. But this book is so much more. It is also about ghosts, the supernatural, and the mysteries of life. Greenberg uses all these elements to tell the story of his life and the family and friends who influenced the man he is today. 

I want to give Visiting With An Angel by Jerry A. Greenberg 5 out of 5 stars. It is well-written, and the editing is perfect. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Jerry's life and all the wonderful family and friends he has made along the way.

I would like to thank Jerry A. greenburg for a free copy of Visiting With An Angel in exchange for my unbiased review.  

You can see more of my reviews here :  http://onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-tara-d-morgan.html

Review of Swallow's also fall by CR Armeny

 

It is nineteen eighteen when influenza is sweeping Europe like a plague. The newly born Marcel-li is a sickly baby, his mother has died from influenza, and he is being fostered. Swallows Also Fall by CR Armeny tells Marcel-li Massana's life through an enthralling mixture of fact and fiction. From the point of view of his foster mother, his foster sister and Marcel-li himself. When the family gets the news that his father has died from a heart attack, Marcel-li is five. When he turns seven, his uncle arrives to take him back to Solsona to be educated and become a priest. Overnight, Marcel-li is taken from a loving foster family to a repressed and miserable life with his Aunt Teresa and Uncle Damia. After taking Marcel-li for his first visit to the Cathedral, Uncle Damia says to Marcel-li, "You're a big boy now, and you need to learn discipline." Marcel-li is terrified and soon learns that everything he does is reported back to his uncle! As Marcel-li grows up, his brooding resentment grows into a revolutionary obsession, and he joins the Maqui resistance movement based in France so that he can fight Franco's government. Does Marcel-li become a priest? Why does Marcel-li end up in a concentration camp? How does the book get its title? Read Swallows Also Fall to discover the answers to these and other questions.

I love the descriptions Armeny uses to set the scenes, particularly when describing countryside, landscape and nature. For example, on page four, "In the evening, as we gathered around the fire, the forest became alive with the sharp screeching of the barn owl, the ghostly ooh-hu, ooh-hu, ooh-hu! of the eagle owl, and, at times, the terrifying howling of wolves." I felt the deep emotions in Marcel-li's life, his love for his foster family and his parents. His hatred for his aunt and uncle and the environment in which they bring him up. I felt Marcel-li's passion for joining the resistance movement and fighting to break Franco's regime. Furthermore, I felt Marcel-li's constant struggle to survive it all. The story is well thought out, and the characterization is brilliant. One conflict follows another, and the characters' lives follow the thread of Marceli Massana's turbulent journey and his ambition to restore justice and democracy.
 

Swallows Also Fall blends fact and fiction well, but the Cardona concentration camp is mentioned at one point. Despite extensive research, I can find no details that there was ever a concentration camp in Cardona. I think CR Armeny mentioning something specific should be backed up by truth. Also, I did not particularly appreciate that the only explanation for the foster family moving to Berga was that they had too much bad luck on their smallholding and wanted a change. The family are poor, livestock have died, and presumably, they have even less money now, but they move to a farmhouse. How do they suddenly afford this?

I recommend Swallows Also Fall by CR Armeny to adults and older teenagers who enjoy factually based historical fiction. Due to the subject matter, I would not recommend it to anyone younger.

I would like to give Swallows Also Fall 5 out of 5 stars. It is well-written, and the editing is perfect. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Marcel-li's life.

Book Review - Soldier Spy by Tom Marcus

 

Tom Marcus was in the army and then was recruited to the army special forces before joining The Secret Service. Soldier Spy by Tom  Marcus - Soldier Spy by Tom Marcus, known to his team as TC, is about Marcus' experiences as an operator with the Security Service. His joining was unusual for these days as he was recruited directly rather than going through the application and interview stages which are more normal now. However, his colleagues had come via this route, and TC always felt different to the rest of his team. He says he feels like an outsider, and his team is somewhat wary of him. You can see why when you read the book, as he is a bit of a live wire, being headstrong and not always listening to orders from above. On one training exercise, TC dislocated the shoulder of one of the trainers. On another occasion, while following a suspect, TC risked compromise by venturing into a target's place of work to access information on where the suspect was going next! You also feel the pressure TC is under, he has a wife and young son, and he has to try and be a family man whilst carrying the burden of a demanding and intense job with long and unsociable hours. The reader sees the effect on TC's mental and physical health.

The beginning of the book was exciting, but I think TC could probably abbreviate much of it and make it much more pleasurable to read. I liked that the editing and proofreading were perfect. I did not find a single error.

I read the second book by Tom Marcus: I spy, My Life in MI5 first, and I found that book flowed much better and was easier to follow. The sections in Soldier, Spy describing an operation with the whole team engaging in surveillance go on for too long and become dull. There is only so much: He turned right into Victoria Crescent. He went straight on into Smith Road. He stopped at the traffic lights. I could stand before wanting to scream! This was no longer an autobiography of Tom Marcus' life. It was now a story as he could not remember all these conversations. Many areas of the book are mostly repeating bits from previous chapters too!

I would rate this 2 out of 5 stars, my reasons being that there are big chunks of the book which are, in my opinion, unnecessary and boring, and Marcus repeats throughout the book. I could not finish the book as if I had read the sentence, " What I did was important, I saved lives, and I was good at it" one more time, the book would have gone through my window! This was a disappointing read, but I see TC has some fiction books published, which I will try.

I would recommend this to an adult audience because of the subjects covered and lots of swearing. It would appeal to people who particularly like autobiographies about the secret service and how the covert agents of MI5 do their jobs. I would not recommend this to anyone of a nervous disposition as you will find yourself suspicious of everyone and everything around you!

Book Review - My life uncensored by Cristina Caymares

My life uncensored by Cristina Caymares is a short memoir of her childhood, growing up without a father, and the various abusive men who came in and out of her life during her mother's relationships. Cristina's father had a heart attack and died when she was two years old, and her mother was left to bring up two small children on her own. Although Cristina lives with her mother in Los Angeles, she spends most of her school holidays with her grandmother in Florida so that her mother can work.

The idea for My life uncensored was promising, touching on child neglect, Cristina losing her father at an early age, and the consequences these have growing up. However, the book is poorly written. There is much repetition, e.g. Page 16 -  The big huge mirror we had in that town house was too big for that house. There are complete sentences that make no sense, e.g. page 29, Her earrings looked brighter, and her teeth got springier. The author seems to have written her thoughts down as they came into her head, making the book unpolished, disorganized, chaotic, and very frustrating to read. 

I struggled to find anything I liked about this book. I admire the author for laying bare her early life. However, it is Cristina's mother with whom I have the greatest sympathy. Her mother died giving birth to her, her father had a lengthy prison sentence and died in prison, and her husband died aged 26, leaving her with two small children. 

There were many things I was not too fond of about My life uncensored by Cristina Caymares. The book would be much more interesting if the author rewrote it as a longer book and expanded her thoughts and explanations. Rewriting would help Cristina see the errors and where more explanation is needed for the book to make sense to the reader. 

I do not recommend this book because the narrative lacks structure, many interesting subjects were left unexplored, the characters are not developed, and the topics call for more insight. My life uncensored reads like a teenager's diary!

I rate this book 0 out of 5 stars. My reasons for this are: the text did not appear to have been edited, as I found errors on practically every page! The writing style is chaotic and challenging, and I did not enjoy reading it! 

Thank you to Cristina Caynares for a free copy of this book in exchange for an impartial review.

Book Review - Smart Love by Vincent Fudge II

Smart Love by Vincent Fudge II is a self-help relationship manual that uses the author's experience and volatile relationship problems to help others mend broken relationships. The author uses the alias Edward for this autobiographical book. Edward is married to Ebony, and the couple has two children, Elizabeth, born before the marriage, and Elijah, born after. We learn quickly that this is a toxic relationship, but Fudge bravely tells the story warts and all so that we can learn from his experiences. In the book's first chapter, we learn that many trigger points set the couple fighting. After a particularly explosive argument, Edward pushes Ebony's head into a wall, the police are called, and Edward spends a night in prison. He realizes that the relationship has hit a watershed. It is make or break time, and this realization is what sets in motion the writing of Smart Love. It seems to be the age-old problem of a couple having a sexual bond who otherwise do not seem to like one another but stay together because they have children. Their relationship is one of emotional, physical, and verbal abuse and can be started by both Ebony and Edward. The first thing the couple works through is their communication skills, and the author gives the reader lots of practical advice to change toxic relationship patterns. It takes Ebony and Edward a year of hard work to become more like the couple they want to be.

I liked that despite the subject matter being unpleasant, the book is written in a very down-to-earth way, and there are many lessons readers can learn from the practical steps laid out by Edward. I also liked all the analogies used, and they helped to clarify what Edward was teaching, e.g., page 190 - 'Think about people as flowers: there are many different types that have different fragrances, bloom at different times of the year, and require varying amounts of sunshine and water.'

I found this book immensely frustrating as Edward and Ebony claim to love one another, but their incompatibility is the root cause of their problems. The couple is trying to avoid upset to their children by divorcing. However, children pick up on the atmosphere and hear the fights, which begs the question, wouldn't the children be happier if their parents split up?

Smart Love has a plethora of grammatical and spelling errors and does not appear to have been edited or proofread at all, e.g., page 13 - 'How you work on fulfilling the vision is by defining what needs to be done to fulfill the vision.' This sentence does not flow very well, and the spelling should be fulfil. Because of all the errors and my frustration with the relationship, I am rating this book  3 out of 5 stars.

I recommend this book to adults or older teenagers who want to learn new ways to work through their relationship problems. There is no sex in this book, but there is some swearing; hence it would not be an appropriate book for younger people.

Thank you to Vincent Fudge II for a free copy of this book in exchange for an impartial review.

You can read more of my reviews here :  http://onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-tara-d-morgan.html

Book Review - I Spy My Life In MI5 by Tom Marcus

 

This is the true story of Tom Marcus's life in MI5, but it reads like a James Bond novel. From the first page, I was fascinated by the detail that Tom used to describe the various missions he was involved in. He gives no secrets away but still manages to make you feel you are beside him in the heat of the action. The writing flows very naturally. It felt possible to imagine being part of the surveillance team, whether hidden in grassland on a Welsh hillside or alone in a pub full of strangers. 

This book is a page-turner. It is a fascinating glimpse into the highly pressured work that the MI5 operatives do. The teamwork of these highly trained people is beyond amazing they are like a well-oiled machine watching out for each other whilst doing this hazardous work. 

On the flip side, Tom's private life is interwoven into this story. He has a young son and a beautiful wife, and he starts becoming obsessed with keeping them safe. His job nearly destroys him by its all-encompassing nature and unsocial hours. Tom starts to think that every shadow is out to get him and is finally diagnosed with PTSD, but with the help of his ever-supportive wife, he starts to live a life in the real world and begins to work on his demons.

This is a highly readable book. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning a little about the workings of MI5, and I think anyone who enjoys spy novels would enjoy this book too.

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars and I'm looking forward to reading other books by Tom Marcus.

I would like to thank my son for recommending I read this book 

Book review : Sister B by David Charles Hart

 

 Sister B by David Charles Hart is a beautifully written and well-researched historical novel about the life of the author's mother ( Willie-Mae / Sister B ) from the late 1930s in Mississippi to her death on 24th June 2017 at the age of 99!

Sister B is the true story of a truly amazing African/American mother who hates the discrimination faced by black people in Mississippi. After another young black man is lynched by white people she leaves her young son in the care of her mother and travels to California to seek a better life for her family. Sister B has to deal with prejudice and racism from all sides but she has an unstoppable strength that keeps her fighting for the things she believes in, standing up against injustice, and fighting for equality for all. 

A lot of the novel revolves around USA and Japan during WW2 mainly looking at Sister B's life but also bringing in other characters she has met along the way, comparing the different ways war affects people in USA and Japan. This is an impactful read about an awe-inspiring lady who succeeded in capturing the hearts of many and in the process managed to change many people's futures for the better. 

I found this book really enjoyable to read despite the fact that it covers some very meaty subjects: WW2, Hiroshima, murder, racism, apartheid, and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. All events and dates are historically accurate but this isn't a dry history lesson it is a thought-provoking story written by a loving son to celebrate the remarkable life of his inspirational mother. 

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historically accurate fiction, particularly those featuring strong black women. I grew to know Sister B so well through the novel that I am sad to have finished it and feel I am now saying goodbye to a friend.

I would rate this book 5 out of 5 stars

Thank you to David Charles Hart for a free copy of this book in exchange for an impartial review.