Overall, this is the kind of fantasy you can sink into without emotional whiplash or relentless grimness. The adventure unfolds steadily, the characters are enjoyable company, and the world hints at more stories still waiting to be told.
About the book: The Regression Strain Genre: Medical Thriller Publisher: Normal Range Press Publication Date: May 26, 2025 Scroll down for Giveaway Dr. Peter Palma joins the medical team of the Paradise to treat passengers for minor ailments as the cruise ship sails across the Atlantic. But he soon discovers that something foul is […]
A delusional prison patient warns Dr. Brian Heiser, Marriage and Family Therapist, of enormous impending disaster. Dr. Heiser and his best friend, a lauded Forensic Psychologist, find themselves entangled in a 72-hour deadly race to stop an AI bill being fast-tracked through the Texas state legislature.
Under Vixen’s Mere is one of those novels that quietly gets under your skin and then refuses to leave.
From the opening pages, the prose immediately stood out to me. It’s spare without ever feeling sparse—clean, confident, and quietly assured. Dialogue and description are held in careful balance, each doing its work without calling attention to itself. Nothing strains for effect, and that sense of restraint builds trust early on, inviting the reader to settle in and follow where the story leads.
What makes this book especially satisfying is its sensory richness. The attention to detail is so precise you can practically smell the bread cooling on the racks, the sharpness of cheese, the damp stone after rain. It is comfort reading with substance: sunshine and laughter paired with the everyday complications life throws at us, and the quiet resilience required to meet them.
Books! What a role they played in our home.
“Don’t tell me you are bored”, my mother would admonish,”go read a book!”
And other times ” You always have your nose in a book, go get some fresh air.”
Fresh air and books, those were my mother ‘s recurring themes.
And so I cannot be without a book, and if I am at a cafe, the beach or waiting anywhere I have a book.
And on days when I don’t have a new book to read I’ll read an old favoite. sort of like re-runs but better, no commercials.
When Melissa was a sprite with two bouncng braids, thick glasses and the vocabulary of Miss Ann Shirley, she was never without a book.
I would call out to her in the morning to encourage her to get through her bathroom routine and come down for breakfast.
Finally, sounding just like my mother I would say ” Miss Melissa Annette put the book down!” her response ” Moooom, I am not reading!” And then I would here the clunk of a book being dropped.
Living in La Paz, Baja California Sur, where there is one bookstore with limited to no English language books, no libraries and it is near impossible to have books mailed, makes the desert we live in feel more bare and dry. When clients and friends say they are coming and ask for a list of essential items for themselves, and something I might like, I always say BOOKS! And they bring them, their favorites or a recent bestselle or a specific genre or author that I request.
Powell’s Books in Portland will send books to Mexcio without freight charges. We have tested it, the system works.But it takes weeks.
There is not a big culture of reading, whether it be for busines, research or pleasure, especially pleasure, among the local Pacenos ( La Paz natives). My Spanish teacher said she is amazed that wherever she goes in town, and especially in cafes and at the beach, Americans and other foreginers are alays reading. She thought it was nice, but wondered why people would travel to a foreign country just to read!
Those of us that read, and cannot bear to be without a book in progress (or two) need to promote reading to children the world over. Melissa your choice of charity for this year’s blogathon has made me proud again.