Sage Fire Reviews

Whiskey Shots 17

Seige Mentality

Genocide is such an ugly word to use when it is the ruler of your own kingdom doing the killing. Of course it is all so he can gain personal magical power.  But then don't all dictators give that excuse?

Synopsis: 

Politics, politics, politics, the life of a trusted guard is always poised on the knife edge of politics.  Gideon's lover escaped the city to prepare them a hide out. His great grandmother shelters him in the city. While the casket of the queen is filled with bare rocks.

Gideon, in this story, never finds out what happened to the queen, but he does discover the new ruler wants his blood at the end of a sword.  All because he warned an unarmed segment of the city, the new ruler was coming to kill them all.  Go figure.  You would think he would be happy to let them all live.   What can Gideon do?  Read the Betrayer and find out.

The city has no food.  People have no money. The only people getting by are the tax collectors.

Myna is no exception to this rule.  Until the houses of old called to her.  Only her.  She didn't know why. But little by little as she grew in her desperation so did the bounties of old.

But did the gifts come with a price? Or could Myna find a way to blend her two lives?  Read Weaving a Dream to find out.

Impression: 

Man's inhumanity to his fellow man.  Poignant, barbed, difficult to write to, and worth an attempt by every author to find their voice with this well worn theme.  It is surprising to find the publisher and the anthologist neither one, pushing for additional entries into this volume.  The theme is such even Schindlers List would fit with some minor adaptation.

The typical reader will finish this book in a short afternoon and be left craving additional stories. It is very unsatisfying, even in Fantasy, to find you have only scratched the surface of the overall progression of the theme.

The two stories of the anthology are impeccably written. The reader is transported to a time and place where magic, evil and good live side by side. Each is the story of a single person's choices, and the consequences of those choices.

Author Janet Quinn sets herself a goal of immersing the reader in Fantasy, Adventure, Love, and Death demonstrating she belongs on a list of the modern masters of writing.  Do yourself a favor and read them this afternoon.

RATING:  8 Campfires

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Comparable publications:

• A Moment in Time
• The Lucky Lady
• The Irish Countess
• Whiskey Shots #7

Targeted readership:

All readers over the age of 12.  Slight sexual connotations, but nothing beyond acceptable general newspaper publication.  I give it 1 candle flame.

1 Flames for sexual content.

Author's credentials:

Janet Quinn has always been a story teller. She has put her love of stories into her writing. While honing her craft, she earned a B.A. and an M.A. in journalism. Then she took up teaching high school English and writing. She has also taught novel writing classes at the Learning Tree University in California.

Her first novel, Yesteryear’s Love, was published by Berkley/Jove under their Time Passages imprint. It placed in the finals of the Romance Writers of America/Orange County Chapter’s Orange Award Contest for published writers for best historical.
Wild Honey placed in the finals of the Romance Writers of America/Orange County Chapter Orange Rose Contest for unpublished authors. Also, her manuscript, The River’s Treasure, placed in the finals for best historical in the PASIC Book of Your Heart Contest.

When she isn’t writing historical or time travel novels, Janet works as the Director of Education for a California Sylvan where she helps to teach the next generation to read. She lives in Southern California with two of her three sons, who encourage her writing, her three cats and one dog.

Visit Janet at:  http://www.janet-quinn.com

Reviewer & reviewer credentials:

MD Johnson is a mountain northwest regional -- freelance author, living in Payette, Idaho.

His writing interests include poetry, romance, westerns, science fiction, travel, and history. His work has appeared in a diverse range of publications including True Romance and Ballyhoo Stories.

In 2007 he bacme an EPIC author and he has republished the 1935 western classic historical novel, “The Bitterroot Trail” as the anthologist. http://thebitterroottrail.pencraft.biz 

Mr. Johnson also runs a book review web site, Sage Fire Reviews, http://sagefire.pencraft.biz . Mr Johnson specializes in small press editions which include multi-format e-books in the genres above. In early 2008, Mr. Johnson was nominated and accepted membership into the National Book Critics Circle.

If you have a book or an ARC, you would like Mr. Johnson to review, please address your questions to him at queries@pencraft.biz.

All work © 2008, MD Johnson, all rights reserved.