Some Angels Have Rotor Blades by Darcy Guyant

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

When Dale's plans for a fun day on the water turn into a struggle for survival, he is left clinging to his overturned boat, hope dwindling with each passing minute. Just as his strength begins to fade, a Coast Guard helicopter unexpectedly appears on the scene, its crew risking their lives to pluck him from the frigid water.

Fast-forward forty years, and Dale's world comes full circle. While exploring a museum with his grandkids, he stumbles upon the helicopter that once saved him!

This remarkable tale weaves together themes of survival, heartfelt gratitude, and the lasting impact of the rescuer’s bravery. It's a poignant reminder of how courage and compassion can transform lives in unimaginable ways.

Perfect for parents and educators, this inspiring narrative showcases the profound influence of one person's actions on another's destiny. This story powerfully illustrates that even the most minor acts of kindness can create ripples that echo through generations, potentially shaping the future and sparking inspiration.

Format(s) for review: Paper Only

Review Genre: Children & Young Adult—Picture Book

Number of Pages: 38

Word Count: 911

Maryland Sasquatch Massacre by Ethan Richards

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Author's Synopsis

Maryland. Mercenaries. Sasquatch.

Ebenezer "Eerie Eb" Edwards is ready to hang up his rifle. After years in the military and security contracting, he's set on leaving his tactical profession behind and focusing full-time on podcasting. But when a lucrative final contract crosses his path, Eb agrees to one last mission—a search deep into the heart of Savage River State Forest for the missing sister of Cora Rhodes, a wealthy heiress with a fierce determination.

Cora's sister has disappeared into the remote, abandoned forest, and Cora will stop at nothing to find her. With Eb leading the way, they're joined by a band of mercenaries—each with their own specialties and reasons for taking on the job. Together, the team must navigate treacherous terrain, but it's not just the wilderness they have to survive. Something brutal and ancient lurks in the shadows—something far worse than they could have imagined.

This isn't just a search-and-rescue mission. It's a battle for survival against a creature long thought to be myth. As the team members fall one by one, Eb and Cora must rely on each other, pushing their limits as they confront a force of nature no one was prepared for.

In this action-packed thriller, will Eb's final mission be the one that costs him everything? Or will he and Cora survive The Maryland Sasquatch Massacre and uncover the truth about the horrors lurking in the forest?

Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle

Review Genre: Please select your desired review genre

Number of Pages: 162

Word Count: 43217

Until Our Time Comes: A Novel of WWII Poland by Nicole M. Miller

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

American horse trainer Adia Kensington is living her dream of working at the famous Janów Podlaski stables in Poland, where they breed the best Arabian horses in the world. But her plans to bring the priceless stallion Lubor to the US are derailed when the German army storms into her adopted country in 1939. Little does she know this is just the beginning of six long years of occupation that will threaten her beloved horses at every turn.

Bret Conway is at Janów Podlaski under the guise of a news reporter, but his true mission is intelligence gathering for the British. That and keeping Adia safe, which is harder and harder to do as she insists they must evacuate 250 horses to save them from being stolen, sold, or eaten by the invading forces. What follows will test their physical, mental, and emotional strength, as well as their faith in God, humankind, and each other.

Drawn from true events of World War II, this epic story of escape, capture, resistance, and love from debut novelist Nicole M. Miller will thunder into your heart like a herd of beautiful horses across a raging river.

Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle

Review Genre: Fiction—Historical Fiction

Number of Pages: 372

Word Count: 95,000

Degrees of Intelligence by Miranda Armstadt

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Author's Synopsis

A Gripping New Historical Fiction Geopolitical Thriller of WWII and the Cold War:

It’s 1943 … World War II is raging across the pond … and a shy but brilliant Jewish-American young man—whose own father grew up on the mean streets of Manhattan’s Lower East Side—finds himself at Harvard … with no clue how he got in.

Miranda Armstadt’s new historical fiction geopolitical thriller—inspired by her own father’s time with the US State Department in 1950s Cold War Europe—takes readers behind the scenes of the early years of the CIA and how it unfolded into a powerful government arm, as America pushed back against Communism after the war.

Along the way, we meet the beautiful daughter of a TV news pioneer, caught up in a web of deceit her own family doesn't know about … a dashing British viscount who steps out of the world of wealth and prestige in which he was raised … and a teenage Holocaust survivor who’s determined to succeed, despite losing his entire family to the Nazis.

Five years in the making, Armstadt has used volumes of family letters and photographs—and researched hundreds of CIA, State Department, and government and military memos—to create a fascinating story about how high-level intelligence operatives were scouted, trained and used to glean information in a world before computers.

With incredible insight into the real life of a Foreign Service officer, Armstadt weaves a vivid tableau of America and Britain’s intelligence operations from World War II through to the Kennedy administration of the 1960s and their aftermath—and how a life of secrecy affects everyone it touches.

Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle

Review Genre: Fiction—Historical Fiction

Number of Pages: 350

Word Count: Approx. 93,000

The Spear and the Sentinel by J. L. Hancock

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

Voodoo and his team of special operators are thrust into the heart of a global conflict. The stakes have never been higher as China’s Belt and Road Initiative pushes into Central Asia, exposing dark ambitions and a secret lab advancing AI warfare.

Set against the vast steppes of Kazakhstan, this story unfolds in the shadow of the former Soviet Union. Tensions rise as Voodoo’s team embarks on a covert mission. New team members add to the friction as more troubles from Voodoo’s past return to the present.

They soon find themselves on the brink of a perilous future the Western world is unwilling to face: a world where AI reigns supreme, and there's no turning back. Fans of Jack Ryan, Tom Clancy, and Clive Cussler will snatch this thriller and refuse to let go.

Will Voodoo’s team succeed? Or has his luck finally run out?

Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle

Review Genre: Please select your desired review genre

Number of Pages: 340

Word Count: 80,000

Distant Dreams - Standby At Tay Ninh by Randy Millican

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

In those frightening minutes after being wounded in combat, the soldiers were expertly attended by the company medics, and a helicopter evacuation was called in. That call went out to the DUSTOFF crews. Racing to the coordinates of the unit requesting help, the helicopter crew locates the troops by the colored smoke marker, then swoops in for the pick-up, most often under withering enemy fire. The bright red crosses painted on the unarmed ship offer a beacon of hope to the wounded as well as a point of aim for enemy gunners. The pilots skillfully settle the helicopter into an area that without the emergency nature of the call would never be considered as a landing zone.

Once on the ground, the medic leaves the helicopter and races toward the wounded-gathering them up and delivering them to the waiting crew chief who helps them aboard while watching for enemy soldiers and hazards to the aircraft. Only when the last wounded man is aboard do the pilots lift-off, fighting the unforgiving force of gravity, desperate for the altitude necessary to avoid the dense jungle foliage and trees.

Assisted by the crew chief, the medic attends to the wounded: slowing the life draining flow of blood and replacing IV fluids, performing airway preserving maneuvers, and too often, CPR. As the pilots expertly coax the helicopter beyond its limits for speed, triage is performed while enroute and the most appropriate medical facility is selected. The wounded are finally handed off to the doctors and nurses for surgery and more definitive care.

This was the scenario replayed hundreds of thousands of times during the Vietnam War. The DUSTOFF crews were few, and the missions were many. Each one was carried out with skill, bravery and dedication to the mission—Saving Lives.

This is the story of a medic who flew those missions.

Format(s) for review: Paper Only

Review Genre: Fiction—Historical Fiction

Number of Pages: 485

Word Count: 51,673

SAMs and Night Carrier Landings by Roland McLean

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

On Yankee Station, some 110 miles east of Dong Hoi, NorthVietnam

Latitude1730North,10830East

3 March, 1967

Somewhere below, in the darkness, the giant old warship thundered along, firing into the dark night its lethal payload of fighters and dive-bombers. In calm seas, it churned at more than thirty knots, making its own wind to help the flight of the planes off the twin catapults mounted on the bow. Phosphorescence glowed white in its wake. Old boilers were pushed to the maximum to drive four massive propellers.

The third combat deployment of Navy Fighter Squadron VF 188 to Yankee Station and the raging air war over North Vietnam. The young replacement pilots known as nuggets are forced to quickly adapt to flying in the most deadly anti-aircraft environment ever known.

Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle

Review Genre: Fiction—Historical Fiction

Number of Pages: 251

Word Count: 83,454

Persons of Interest by Mark Fleisher

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Author's Synopsis

Persons of Interest is a law enforcement term to describe someone who is involved in an incident, not yet a suspect but may become one. In Mark Fleisher’s work entitled Persons of Interest, he investigates, follows up clues and names names. Fleisher, who enjoys dabbling in the kitchen of his Albuquerque homecooks up a Baker’s Dozen each of poems and stories, fiction and nonfiction alike. The menu ranges from tales of his childhood, through college days and Air Force experiences to more contemporary times.

From a misbehaving car to a scary plane ride to his first paying job Fleisher weaves his way through wistful and humorous tales as well as portrayals of loss and grief, all reflecting the author’s ability to give readers a buffet of emotions. The poems found in Persons of Interest often relate directly or indirectly to the stories told.

Format(s) for review: Paper Only

Review Genre: Other—Anthology/Collection

Number of Pages: 115

Word Count: 22,000

Best Year of Our Lives by Robert Lofthouse

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

Saucon Valley High School, a small school in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, wasn't historically known as a football powerhouse. Having to rely on homegrown talent, they'd often lose out to bigger schools with larger recruiting bases. But 2015 would prove to be different. Digging deep and pounding out their final year as Saucon Valley Panthers, cocaptains Zach Thatcher, Evan Culver, Mike Kane, Christian Carvis and their teammates embarked on a quest for a Pennsylvania state football championship that would defy the odds. Fielding the school's best team in decades, Head Coach Matt Evancho brought a group of determined young men together for a journey none of them will every forget. With local roots but universal appeal, The Best Year of Our Lives uses recent interviews, personal stories, and media accounts from the time to paint the picture of everything the players, coaches and local community experienced that storied year - the unity, the disappointments and the triumphs.

Format(s) for review: Paper only

Review Genre: Nonfiction—History

Number of Pages: 228

Word Count: 58,859

The Master Chief's Sea Stories: Volume II Duty Ashore and USS Comte De Grasse (DD 974) by Johnny J Moye

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

Outstanding stories continue as Young Moye expertly communicates his extraordinary journey. Accompany him as he enjoys the freedom of shore duty, finding himself as a person and sailor. Assigned to one of the world’s most powerful warships, the USS Comte De Grasse, he faced the most difficult but amazing period of his life. Initially a meek person, he was forced to lead men and machine through the toughest situations he and his sailors had ever faced.

For millennia, sailors have told stories of the sea. Readers of Volume I (USS Manitowoc) witnessed how four years of arduous naval service transformed a simple boy from the hills into a sailor, communicator and leader.

Built on his journal-based autobiographical account, Moye skillfully articulates his continued transformation—and the transformation of those he led. Stories as only possible from someone who experienced such adventure and challenges.

Moye details significant events that prepared him for future advancement and challenges, both professional and personal. His daily journal entries aboard the Count identify events as they occurred, allowing him to accurately and honestly spin his yarns of adventures and hardships, some too incredible to believe. While experiencing the most amazing time of his life, he also endured days seemingly too difficult for him and his shipmates to bear. But bear they did. Prepare yourself for these amazing sea stories for they are no-shitters.

Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle

Review Genre: Nonfiction—Memoir/Biography

Number of Pages: 670

Word Count: 245,000

Skylark by Megan Michelle

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

Being the first female Navy SEAL is no easy job, but someone's got to dismantle the patriarchy. Rachel Ryker, call sign ‘Skylark,’ can outrun and outgun just about anybody, and with her second in command, Christopher Williams, by her side, she’s practically unstoppable. Christopher would follow Rachel to hell and back… or maybe just to the Middle East. When a top-secret malware code is stolen from the CIA, Rachel and Christopher lead their SEAL team through the Middle East in an attempt to recover it.

They both have their own reasons for fighting, but as the team gets closer to finding the stolen malware, Rachel discovers that the man they're looking for may be closer to her than she thinks. Will Rachel’s obsession with completing their mission override her common sense and causes her to lose sight of what is really important- keeping women and children safe from the oppressive patriarchy they are all living in?

With secrets, pride, and a strict no fraternization policy keeping them apart, falling in love would mean sacrificing everything Rachel and Christopher have worked for. But when Rachel gets injured in combat, everything changes. Now Rachel will have to choose: does her devotion to the Navy outweigh her love for Christopher?

Format(s) for review: Kindle Only

Review Genre: Fiction—Romance

Number of Pages: 348

Word Count: 142,522

Surviving the stroke a minute with God: A Recovery and Rehabilitation Guide by Marty Martin

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

A personal account of the stroke experience and the recovery and rehabilitation process. A guide for stroke victims, family and caregivers on what to expect immediately following a stroke, and during the recovery and rehabilitation process. Filled with valuable must know information that will provide a guide to what to expect and plan for.

Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle

Review Genre: Nonfiction—Creative Nonfiction

Number of Pages: 148

Word Count: 23000

Redeeming Warriors: Veteran Suicide, Grieving, and the Fight for Faith by Joshua D. Holler

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

Twenty–two veterans take their own lives every day. The word ‘tragic’ only begins to describe the brokenness of this painful reality. Josh Holler, Marine Corps veteran and pastor, argues that veteran suicide is not primarily a problem born out of exposure to combat and PTSD, but out of a broken relationship between people and God. He tells some of the stories of men he has known and addresses the reality of the reason veteran suicide is such a problem.

Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle

Review Genre: Other—Religious/Spiritual

Number of Pages: 304

Word Count: 94,392