RUBY OF THE REALMS BY DAN KAMIN

On the northwest side of Chicago, Ruby has a perfect life. Her family feeds her everyday, they are home with her all the time, and they allow her to patrol the backyard. What more could a dog ask for? But when Ruby meets Ortis the blue bunny, all of this changes. In order to help Ortis return to his home in The Six Realms, Ruby must jump into the family's pool with the rabbit. Ruby never expected anything to happen. But when the water started swirling and pulled her under, there was nothing the little dog could do. Now Ruby is in Rocia, one of the Six Realms underneath the earth. This new land is fraught with dangers at every corner, from hideous Crites to the ball-like Ozzixites. But something else has been silently pulling strings from inside the Diamond Dust Desert. An evil, older than the world itself, has begun its plans. The fate of the Six Realms and Ruby's home in the world above is at stake. Now, Ruby must brave these strange new lands to save everything she holds dear.

This is the first book by this author and I got to say he did a really good job for his first book. This is a highly creative subject for someone to come up with, its got blue bunnies, talking dogs, and rock men. Yet it is too short. The book is only 187 pages, I know that doesn’t sound so little, but I could see this book spanning over at least 2 or 3 more books. He needs to be more descriptive really intrigue the readers into this fantasy world. It does get a tad boring and tedious in the middle as they are just camping out and walking trying to get to the rock man’s home. The ending is good, but it also again leave me hanging because it is happy in that Ruby does get home and back to her family, but she never gets to say goodbye to the blue bunny or the rock man. Ruby does think if this as she gets back. Is this the author leaving it open for a sequel or is it him leaving me to finish the book on our own?!?!?

The connection the readers get, or I did, with Ruby shows how well this is written. The one thing though that confuses me is who this book is geared towards. Since it is about a dog that goes to another realm of the earth with a blue bunny, yet some of the battle scenes are pretty gruesome.

Overall, I would recommend this to people who enjoy Harry Potterish type books since it has many similarities, yet I will say that it is not the next Harry Potter.

THE LAST GOODNIGHTS: ASSISTING MY PARENTS WITH THEIR SUICIDES BY OHN WEST

A husband and wife are gravely ill. Rather than living in pain, they choose to end their lives, and they turn to their son for help. Despite the legal risks and emotional turmoil it is sure to cause him, he agrees—and ultimately performs an act of love more difficult than any other. The Last Goodnights provides a unique and unflinching look deep inside the reality of one of the most galvanizing issues of our time: assisted suicide. Told with bare honesty, John West's account of the deaths of two brave people is both gritty and loving, frightening and illuminating. It also offers a powerful testament to the act of death by choice, and reveals all the reasons why end-of-life issues are far too personal for government intrusion. Intimately told, The Last Goodnights points out the unnecessary pain and suffering that is often forced upon dying people and their families, and honors the choice to live or die with purpose and dignity. In the end, this story is not just about death—it is also about love, courage, and autonomy.


There is one word that I can sum up the book in..... haunting. This is especially true for anyone that has had the troublesome reality of watching someone die of a horrific, incurable disease and having no way of helping. The first half of this book I did connect to more than I did with the second since my father died of cancer just as John West father would have. The last two weeks of his life he was kept "comfortable" or really kept in a morphine induced coma. Is that really living? This book is not a light piece of literature this is a book you have to read and really think. It makes you question right from wrong in the traditional beliefs we are brought up in in this christian faith run society as well as the value of life. I give many props to the author for his courage. He talks about in the book how he could go to jail for this, yet he still help his parents. Many books written now you can just read the dialogue or the conversations between characters and not the full text and get what is going on, this book is not one of those. If you read just the conversation you would view the author as cold hearted and I praise the author for really putting in his feelings so the reader can feel the as he did. I really enjoyed that he spent most of the book going threw the struggles with his mom, her disease, and the want and need to end her life. His father you would agree with more since he was told that he only had a few weeks maybe a few months left to live and we are also more confortable with the topic of cancer and most people know what a devastating disease it is. His mom story looking at just the basic facts would seem extreme to want to kill herself, yet his depiction of the day to day struggles shows that this disease is just as devastating. His mom is also very quirky at times and it helps the story light a bit so it is easier to read.

So I highly recommend that everyone should read this book. Its a story that is one that needs to be told as well as discussed. Since as the author points out no changes can be made to laws without everyone helps and this book is a great starting point. It is a story that you an really put yourself into that person shoes and you really should and ask yourself what would you want to do or have done?



Here is a link to a great video interview with author about the book from Good Morning America!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z6jTRxj7kM

FIRE GAZER BY KEVIN BURTON MCGUIRE

Follow newsman Ben Jennings around an Asheville, North Carolina that Thomas Wolfe would not have recognized.

   Ride along as Ben encounters visions of Zelda Fitzgerald, pagan rituals, a sub-culture embedded in the city’s infrastructure, and fires of unknown origin.

   Ben becomes enamored by DC, a charismatic drifter with a dark world vision, and he is forced to confront DC’s rejection of culture and the art it produces.
   Through Ben’s private journal entries, learn about his struggle to overcome DC’s destructive cynicism and his pursuit of an artistic vision. Will Ben follow his own artistic calling, or will he adopt DC’s anti-social lifestyle? Hang on, as these two personalities collide and events spiral out of control!
Let me just say that this is a fictional story, but it is so well written at time it leaves you wondering this could actually be true. This book is only 100 pages, the 100th page being the about the author page which even on that page Kevin McGuire does not give up the facade that this is a fictional story. In its 100 pages it covers so much. This is a great book for a leisure day of reading. It has historical references, it has comedy, and at times it make you question if you know how you really are or if you believe something because its what you believe or what you have been taught to believe. The only bad thing about the book is that it just ends. You are left wondering what happened to our young Ben, as well as what happen to the other characters like DC or who I wonder the most about Cynthia who is take off to the hospital after having what I guess is some sort of fit. So I highly recommend this book. It is well worth its price!

You can also go to http://www.reminiscingbooks.com/index.php?page_id=350 and get an autographed copy of this book for only $8.95!!

WEB OF DECEIT BY DARLENE COX

This is the second book by the little known author, and I can tell why. This book is a very easy read, but the “deceit” and action do not live up to the title. For me it was like reading Mary Higgins Clark mixed with a Harlequin romance novel.

The plot of books is…… Peter Brock is a man to be envied. He is young, handsome, intelligent, a founding partner of one of New York's most prestigious law firms, and a respected member of the International Community of Currency Traders. But, that isn't enough to fulfill his goal in life. When he meets James Campbell , a very wealthy New York diamond dealer who would like to keep more of his wealth out of the hands of the IRS, Peter starts weaving a web of deceit to divert the bulk of Campbell's wealth to his own account. But, he needs a little help. He enlists Delilah, a strip-club dancer, to learn, through pillow talk, the extent of Campbell's wealth; and Jenny, a flight attendant for a major airline, to smuggle loose diamonds to Europe on international flights. As a coconspirator, how can Campbell yell "foul," at the risk of spending his remaining days in a Federal prison? The perfect Plan-so Peter thinks.

Unfortunately, his law partner, Jack Morrison, gets wind of the Plan and decides to toss in his ante. Now the game gets interesting-a case of diamond cut diamond. When two people wind up dead, Jack says "enough," leaving Peter hopelessly entangled in his web. As Jack says: "That's what happens when little fish try to swim with the predators."

In the synopsis above it says that the game gets interesting once two people wind up dead, well this is partially true, it does add an MUCH needed twist to the story. But the last person to die in the story if the author had wrote more about that than Peter’s love affairs with all the different women. The book might have been better. The book also ends with a “…to be continued” seriously I asked myself why! We know who killed everyone, but one person and in a few extra pages you could have told the readers and saved the effort of writing the second half. Oh and the book has a prologue that really had no point, the only time anything from the prologue is brought up is in it Peter picks up a rock and takes it with him. Well towards the end of the book Peter takes out the rock again. You find out as well that Peter is an immigrant that his family and he moved to the United States from Poland, and you figure that the scene in the prologue was him saying goodbye to Poland and that was his one little token to take with him, yet this is NEVER said or addressed its just what I believe.

This is the first book I have read by this author so I can not tell you that this is just her style, but I highly hope not. Yet if you don’t have high hopes for mystery and people screwing over each other and you want a easy read then this would be for you cause truly the typing is large and its only 259 pages it really is an easy read.