Fiction

Title: Famous Dogs: Changing History One Dog (& Cat) at a Time
Author: Pat McGrath Avery
Genre: Young Adult
Reviewer: Dick Geschke

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1937958345

As human companions, dogs have taken part in much of man's history and in some cases, actually created change by their actions. These stories of twenty-six dogs and a cat are suitable for adults and children who want to know more about dogs and their role in history.

Title: Dare Not Blink
Author: Gerald Gillis
Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Reviewer: Margaret Brown

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0985252340

Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer... The Old Man is dead. Langdon Elerbee—the chairman and founder of Elerbee Engineering—has been struck down by cancer, and the multi-million dollar company that bears his name has devolved into clandestine corporate infighting. The company president, Jeff Wylie, has kept the old man’s illness a secret, so no one but Wylie is prepared to exploit the power vacuum created by Elerbee’s death. Now, Wylie is quietly pulling strings and making backdoor deals to consolidate his own position at the top of the pyramid. Dave Paige is a young gun. A regional vice president at age forty-two, he’s one of the company’s rising stars. He believes in playing the game the way that Elerbee himself had played it: with loyalty, integrity, and a personal devotion to excellence. He suddenly finds himself going head-to-head with corporate backstabbers who will pull every dirty trick in the book to achieve their own short-sighted goals. Dave isn’t just fighting for his job, or the millions of dollars at stake, or even for the company he has grown to love. He’s fighting for the soul of corporate America, and no one is guarding his back.

Title: Codename Aphrodite
Author: Charles S. Faddis
Genre: Thriller/Mystery

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 061553967X

Ex CIA ops officer, Bill Boyle, has been languishing in limbo in Mexico since the day his wife, another CIA officer, was blown to pieces in front of him during an op on the streets of Athens. Now he's been given a chance to redeem himself and find his wife's killers, but to do so he is going to have to return to Greece and dig up an old, and very dangerous asset, codenamed Aphrodite. Based on the author's own real experiences as a CIA operative working against terrorist groups in Europe and the Middle East, this is as close as you can get to running an operation yourself without signing up for the Company.

Title: Sundown Town Duty Station
Author: John Zerr
Genre: Historical Fiction
Reviewer: Dick Geschke

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1475969287

In March 1968, Navy Lieutenant Jon Zachery has just received orders to report to his new duty station in Meridian, Mississippi, for basic jet pilot training. But after he and his wife, Teresa, arrive in what they are initially told is a friendly little town, they soon learn what it means to live in a sundown town.

When Jon and Teresa attend Mass on their first Sunday in Meridian and enter a pew occupied by a young colored woman “sitting-in” the all-white church, the Zacherys unwittingly step into the middle of a KKK campaign created to discourage civil rights sympathizers. As Jon works his way through six months of flight training with an antagonistic flight instructor, the Klansmen escalate their focus on the Zacherys, soon transforming their threats into violent acts. Near the end of Jon’s tour of duty, tensions escalate further, culminating in a confrontation with deadly consequences.

In this compelling story, a young lieutenant’s faith, patriotism, morality, and love for his family is tested as he bravely battles the evil that lurks within the shadows of Meridian, Mississippi.

Title: A Quest for Skye
Author: John Rothdiener
Genre: Literary Fiction
Reviewer: Joe Epley

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0985252332

Doctors Morgan and Tammy Hamilton take a vacation from their pediatric clinic in Saint Paul, Minnesota to board a cruise ship for the Caribbean. Devastated by Tammy’s third miscarriage and the news that she will never be able to bear children, the couple hopes to use the fourteen day cruise to regain their emotional footing. But life has other plans for them.
Among the passengers is Skye, a nine-year old girl with an irrepressible spirit, and a passion for living that touches everyone around her. Infused with hope and a belief in a loving God, Skye becomes the daughter that the Hamiltons could never have.
But despite her open and honest nature, Skye is surrounded by ominous questions. Was the accident that killed her parents truly an accident? Or was it sabotage? Why are news reporters hounding this innocent child? What secrets are concealed in the laboratory clinic on the island of Kardia? The truth—if they ever find it—can bring a government to its knees, and thrust national power into the hands of men who will not hesitate to shed the blood of innocents.
The Hamiltons are drawn into a struggle to protect the little girl they’ve come to love. As everything they value begins slipping away from them, these hardnosed and pragmatic doctors suddenly find themselves praying for a miracle.
When the miracle comes, it’s not at all what Morgan and Tammy have in mind.
Because Skye has been praying too...