Review: My Father At 100 by Ron Reagan

I love this book. Flat out love it.

Let's get the politics out of the way first. I was not a fan of Reagan as a President. I think a large part of our failing economic situation today is a direct result of his True Believers perpetuation of ill conceived faith based economic policies. When he talked about his America I wanted to drag him to my America for a session of Compare And Contrast. This made my interest in reading My Father At 100 pretty darn low. (On the other hand, I respect the hell out of Ron Reagan. Your father is the most revered conservative icon since ever and you've consistently got the fortitude to calmly say "Well, I don't agree.") Back to my point - the cover of this book does not say Portrait Of An Icon it says My Father At 100. I've never respected the former president more than I did at the close of Ron's ruminations on his father's life.

Partly a biographical sketch, partly an examination of the father and son dynamic, partly a love letter, My Father At 100 isn't shy about saying "Well, I don't agree." Ron leaves the myth making behind yet - through his detailed examinations of his father's flaws - the strengths are exposed. Reagan was a diplomatic man. He did not encourage the level of hostility his worshippers have embraced. He was a man with a vision and the determination to see it through, even if that vision was hopelessly rose colored. Reagan was a man who strove to overcome his own limitations through hard work. If 99% of success is just showing up prepared, his move into politics becomes less surprising.

Ron explores his father's childhood, Ron Sr's troubled relationship with his own father and their strong family values. The picture that emerges is of an imperfect man that I simply didn't agree with. Ron's father being an iconic American is secondary to the man that Ron reveals, a man I might have liked to sit and talk with about things not related to Communism or Economic Policy. Ron Jr and Sr could not have been farther apart. Born of different generations, inclined toward different politics, one a cynic and the other a pie in the sky idealist, the two men are held together by a core honesty, a willingness to speak their minds. My Father At 100 was truly a rewarding read.

Review: Night Betrayed by Joss Ware

Jayne Ann Krentz just got totally served. Your heroine is super sensitive, psychic, won't eat anything with a face, and tries to do good for others? Joss Ware will see that and raise you with single motherhood, a deep need to save the souls of zombies, and surviving the apocalypse. As an infant. Let's go.

I should hate this book, it has almost everything I dislike in romance thrown into a blender. But I really enjoyed it. Joss Ware may have converted me to paranormals with stupidly stubborn heroines all by herself. Let's see - take one part Internet Pioneer, one part Old Guy That Hangs Out On His Porch, one part Lightning Lad and you've got Theo. He's 80ish (he looks 30ish) and is looking for love or the return of MMO gaming. Maybe even both. Oh, and he's dead. But not a vampire. Or a zombie. There are no vampires here, so move along if that's your thing.

He's dead, then he's not dead, and in the process of not actually dying he meets Serena. (Hereafter the Krentz-Heroine-Slayer to me) Serena is 50ish, looks 30ish, and enjoys long walks out past the protective gates of the compound to save the souls of the misunderstood zombies. You might know zombies as smelly, nasty, undead creatures out to rip anything human to shreds and eat it, but Serena can see inside them to their human soul. It's kind of a mystery where all these zombies are coming from. Apparently, a few books ago, there was this group of loonies who decided to become immortal. Becoming immortal required the rising of the Island of Atlantis, which killed 90% of the world's population and knocked the earth off it's axis. I guess they succeeded, although why you'd want to be immortal in a world without pizza delivery is beyond me.

Theo and his pals are trying to restore the internet to bring the Immortal Ones to justice some 50 years after the big kill. At night, zombies wander the land to drag off blondes and munch on brunettes (really) while searching for some dude named Remington Truth. Bounty hunters destroy computers, people live in tightly isolated and guarded settlements, and some select people manage to find gas for Hummers. And old jeans. 50 year old jeans. I started to do the math on gas in reserve tanks, times number of Hummers used, times conveyance of same, and I just gave up. Some lucky people have Hummers with gas. Got it. (Plus, light bulbs! No, I need to stop thinking about that.)

The strongest thing going for Night Betrayed is the recognition that a guy who's been around for a hundred or so years and a girl who is in her twenties aren't going to have much to talk about. When Theo meets Serena he realizes that he needed an older woman in his life. Joss Ware does a decent job of setting the mood. (One character, Vonnie, made me think about what my own tween would endure if 90% of the planet died tomorrow.) She's not afraid to kill characters off. She's not afraid to acknowledge that the selfish prevail far more often than the generous. Although Night Betrayed was my first book in this ongoing series it stood on it's own feet well enough. While I don't feel a need to go back and read the prior books I am definitely interested in finding out what happens next.

*If the wait is long enough I might decide to catch up on the series just to find out more about this girl Remy. She shows up in the middle of the book for no apparent reason, gets raped a fair amount and ends unresolved. The rape, however, is not graphic or detailed and the rapists are quickly dealt with. All of the detailed sex in this book is by consent. While I personally don't care about Serena's labia, Theo does. A lot.

Review: Death Echo by Elizabeth Lowell

(I originally reviewed Death Echo in Hardcover as an Advance Read Copy for Amazon's Vine program. Parts of this summary are taken from that shorter review) 


Change is hard. Even when an author tells you that they're changing, when they write several books in a row in their new direction, it's hard to accept that they aren't who they used to be. You want them to be the girl you fell in love with, sometimes to the point that you can't see the beautiful woman they've become. 


If you look at the cover of the hardcover version of Death Echo it reads "A Novel of Suspense." There are no couples on the cover. There is no embrace. Death Echo really needs you me to stop thinking about the 80's and listen. Death Echo is not a romance novel. It's Romantic Suspense all the way. Death Echo doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is. The relationship you I made up with it in your my head is not it's problem. 


Judged on it's merits, and not my expectations, Death Echo excels. Despite setting up a very short time frame (a week), an almost excessive number of players (you need a cluster for a - well, you get the idea), a high level of information dumping (all about luxury yachts and the operation of them) Lowell delivers a tale with real suspense. There might not be any doubt that St. Kilda's team will prevail, but there is plenty of doubt about how. Death Echo reads like a Bond movie and requires the same suspension of disbelief as governments creak into action and resources appear seemingly without restrictions. All that being said, the abilities and motivations of Emma and Mac easily pass the plausibility test. 

Where I might fault Death Echo is in character development. Emma and Max meet each other, like each other, and get on with the adventure. There's not going to be any soul searching going on here. They've got a week and they've got a lot to do so there's no time for angst. On the other hand, this isn't a romance and there are only so many pages. (Do I ask Jason Bourne to stop for a long walk on the beach with his love interest? No, I do not.) Also, the humanizing of St. Kilda series staple Joe Faroe via a small child with a teething cookie goes on far too long (Joe is a family man. Got it. One day our hero could be just like him! Got it. Joe is gruff but he loves kids! OK! Let's move on!) while hints at the history of St. Kilda's wheelchair bound leader are scattered lightly about without any resolution. 

Overall, I really enjoyed Death Echo. I found myself annoyed when I had to set it down to attend to my actual life. I'd love to see a film version of this book. There's just something very Big Screen about it. It's sort of like Speed on a Yacht with Bourne and Bond in the lead while.... I should stop. It reads much better than it explains. Death Echo would like you to know that things will be blown up, people will be in peril, and plots will be twisted without going dark. Well worth the time.