Desert Tough by Katie Bonecutter

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

 Imagine starting over as the new kid every one-to-three years. Eleven-year-old Diego Martinez, son of a US Marine, doesn’t have to imagine this reality; he lives it. His dad has recently been transferred to a remote Marine base near the small city of Twentynine Palms, California and the Joshua Tree National Park. In Desert Tough, Diego endeavors to find his new sense of normal—sorting out a new base and a new school—all while trying to make friends and to navigate the unforgiving natural environment of the high desert. Diego faces the hardships of this transition as he always does, with courage and grit. The friendships he makes are forged from the shared experience of life as a military kid and highlight the toughness gleaned from their lives of transitions and unique challenges. Understandably, then, when a local boy goes missing in the desert, Diego and his friends step forward to help search for him. Aided by Diego’s dog, Radar, they come together to successfully rescue the missing boy.

Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle

Review Genre: Children & Young Adult—Middle Grade Chapter Book

Number of Pages: 144

Word Count: 27,900

Home is Where the Murder Is by Rosalie Spielman

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

Retired US Army officer Tessa Treslow has settled in with her Aunt Edna in her hometown of New Oslo, Idaho. After the disasters of the previous fall, Tessa and her family are back on their feet as they start a new dream venture: a vehicle restoration business, "BOSS—Band of Sisters Services, call the She-canics."

Tessa and the enticing local math teacher, Nick Hunt, are also working together to organize a charity run during the New Oslo Pioneer Days festival. All seems to be going well... until Tessa finds a dead body in the town park!

The murder victim is a stranger to their small town, who claimed that she was the illegitimate cousin of Tessa's best friend, Deputy Petunia "Freddie" Frederickson. The victim's bloody finger is pointing to a mark on the veterans' honor roll sign, circling the names of Freddie and her grandfather. Complicating matters, Freddie was witnessed in an altercation with the woman just before her death, and it was Freddie's knife found at the scene.

In order to help her best friend, Tessa and Aunt Edna search for the real identity of the victim. Was she actually a long-lost family member? Who would want her dead? And what was she doing in New Oslo? Tessa is determined to find out... even if the answers lead her straight into the crosshairs of a killer!

Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle

Review Genre: Fiction—Mystery/Thriller/Crime

Number of Pages: 257

Word Count: 73,500

Running Towards Gunfire: Courage and Brotherhood in Ramadi by Jason Angell

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

In August 2005, a four-man team from the United States Marine Corps’ 1st Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (ANGLICO) found themselves smack in the middle of the deadliest city on earth, Ramadi, Iraq. For the next seven months, they fought street by street against an insurgency that only grew more deadly.

They would eventually join up with snipers from the US Army’s famed 1-506th to form Task Force Dark Eagle. Casting aside interservice rivalries, road bound gun trucks, and conventional operations, these marines and soldiers became the ones hiding in the shadows, hunting insurgents from their own homes.

Running Towards Gunfire is a gritty, no-holds-barred first-person account of the realities of modern urban combat, bringing the reader onto the streets of Ramadi and into the minds of combat marines as they fight for each other and their brothers-in-arms during some of the most savage fighting of the Iraq War.

Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle

Review Genre: Nonfiction—Memoir/Biography

Number of Pages: 260

Word Count: 80,000

Playing Army by Nancy Stroer

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

Can you really fake it till you make it? Lieutenant Minerva Mills is about to find out. 

It’s 1995 and the Army units of Fort Stewart, Georgia, are gearing up to deploy to Bosnia. But Min has no intention of going to war-torn Eastern Europe. Her father disappeared in Vietnam and—longing for some connection to him—she’s determined to go on a long-promised tour to Asia. The colonel will only release her on two conditions: she ensures the rag-tag Headquarters Company is ready for the peacekeeping mission and she gets her weight within Army regs. 

Min only has one summer to kick everyone’s butts into shape, but the harder she plays Army, the more the soldiers—and her body—rebel. If she can’t even get the other women on her side, much less lose those eight lousy pounds, she’ll never have another chance to stand where her father once stood in Vietnam. The colonel may sweep her along to Bosnia or throw her out of the Army altogether. Or Min may be forced to conclude that no amount of faking it will ever be enough to make it, and as was true for her father, that the Army is an impossible space for her to occupy.

Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle

Review Genre: Fiction—Literary Fiction

Number of Pages: 292

Word Count: 92,000

An Absence of Faith: A Tale of Afghanistan by Craig Trebilcock

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

An Absence of Faith: A Tale of Afghanistan is the story of Daniyal, a Kabul University student kidnapped into the Afghan army where he is caught up in a vast criminal conspiracy to steal Western military aid. The story takes the reader into the heart of the Afghanistan war, where Afghan soldiers are daily brutalized and their food and medicine are sold by their generals for their personal profit.. While Daniyal struggles to survive, Colonel William Trevanathan, U.S. Army, is given the mission to stop Afghan corruption to convince NATO allies not to abandon an increasingly unpopular war. Both Daniyal and Trevanathan struggle to maintain their humanity and principles amidst a conflict where your ally is your enemy and the strong prey upon the weak. An insightful view into how Afghan corruption, Western bureaucratic infighting, and a lack of accountability over billions in Western aid money paved the way for the return of the Taliban.

Format(s) for review: Paper or Kindle

Review Genre: Fiction—Historical Fiction

Number of Pages: 392

Word Count: 112374