Dreamscape a Novel & Other Short Stories by Javier Berrellez

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MWSA Review

 

Author's Synopsis

Dreamscape is a story of two unlikely friends, Elly and Jim, who discover they are connected through a dystopian nightmare they happen to share. In this dreamscape, the two are guided by a mysterious entity who reveals that their shared dreams are part of a cosmic plan to save multiple realities. They must learn to trust each other and work as a team before the forces of darkness destroy everything they love. Dreamscape is a thrilling and emotional journey of friendship, adventure, and destiny.

Format(s) for review: Paper and Kindle

Review Genre: Fiction—Horror/Fantasy/Sci-Fi

Number of Pages: 163

Word Count: 47747

Cobalt: The Rise and Fall of the Great Reset by Travis Davis

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Author's Synopsis

After China’s discovery of a rare form of Cobalt located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, all the pieces and players are now in place for the Great Reset. The United States must be brought to its knees at all costs. The only thing standing in their vision of a perfect world order is a determined CIA agent, Mary, and Team Texarkana, comprised of Tex, Will, Kim, and Lucy. If they fail, the world will never recover. There is no turning back. Civilization is at stake; The Great Reset must be stopped before it’s too late.

Format(s) for review: Kindle or Paper

Review Genre: Fiction—Mystery/Thriller/Crime

Number of Pages: 294

Word Count: 88,000

LUPTON: Last Man Standing by William A Lupton

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Author's Synopsis

To outfox his draft board, Lupton enlists to get his duty station in Hawaii. He joins 2nd platoon A/1/27 Wolfhounds where fatigue of jungle in Kahuku Mountains sucks life-blood out of you. The 25th Division sails from Hawaii; a month hence arrives at Cu Chi, Vietnam. Endless patrols, ambushes, always tired. Red ants and lifers. Ho Bo Woods, Boi Loi Woods, the Iron Tri-angle, tunnels galore! VC lizards mock green troops, “ruck roo, ruck roo, ruck roo…” steps in the night; a mad-minute at dawn. Calamity strikes 3rd squad ambush, all wiped, 12 hootch mates gone. No victory this day, A-Company finds Viet Cong in a big way, survival a fluke. General Weyand’s contrition, “you are men of steel.” Eagle Flights, air assaults, bivouacs, FNGs. An Early Out! Survival! Déjà vu, Schofield Barracks again, B/20/11th Brigade, same room, different day. Garrison life, Kahukus, red mud, thirst, fatigue. Kitchen Police, guard duty, much boredom. Go on the wagon. Big Island, live fire, rainy, windy, cold. Amphibious landing on Molokai, descending ropes, assaulting island, reboarding ship, return to Pearl. D-Company, clerking, vain XO, insolent, “That is MUTINY, LUPTON!” USS Gordon, same ship, different cruise, better chow, same-same to Vietnam. Duc Pho, Bronco, LZ Charlie Brown. The TET Offensive. Transfer to Chu Lai, Aero Scout Infantry, Warlords, Scorpions, Skeeters, Animals. 300-kills, 300-captures, and jaunts to Chu Lai, “you, GI, boom boom me?” Lieutenant Calley, Captain Medina, Mr. Thompson, Colburn, My Lai Hill 85, been there, saw that. Commander crashes, almost burns, we have a real hero when needed. Easy war LZ Dottie, horseshoe games, ennui, beers on the beach, grab-ass hootch maids, and toking Marjee Wanna. Special Forces camps, Minh Long, Hà Thanh, Tiên Phước. O6-LOACH, Slicks, Cobras, miniguns, rockets, friendly fire. Spooky ops in mountains, anxiety big time, capture three 4-duce mortars, maverick pilots fly our asses out, the thrill of night flight. Warlord’s worst day, NVA kill two Animals, a Skeeter gunner, five gunships down, plus a Marine jet. At last, out of infantry into the rear, with the beer! REMF-dom! I have arrived! R&R Bangkok, getting short, mortars walk bunker line. I am out! I survived! Finally, a cure for the nightmare of Vietnam.

Format(s) for review: Paper

Review Genre: Nonfiction—Memoir/Biography

Number of Pages: 531

Deep State Sedition by Lee Boyland

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MWSA Review
Deep State Sedition by Lee Boyland with Vista Boyland is a fast moving mystery thriller set in multiple locations, which are clearly labeled in the text. There are two previous books in this series, and it would be helpful to read them first. Prior to this series, there are three books in the Clash-of-Civilization trilogy which lead up to this series.

There are many twists and turns in the plot, which takes off from current news and a recent TV show, with whole new outcomes . Very creative thinking. Once you adjust to the fast-breaking beginning chapters, the story will pull you in. Could this happen here? Are we seeing any of these story lines developing currently in this country? Are our intelligence services keeping up this well? Read on.

Review by Nancy Kauffman (June 2021)
 

Author's Synopsis
The concluding book (#6) of the Clash-of-Civilizations and the OAS series. Terrorists and Iran destroyed five American cities including Washington DC while the president was addressing a joint session of Congress. Secretary of Homeland Security George Alexander was the only survivor and became America’s first statutory president. With his appointed Cabinet he put America first and set about saving the nation.

President Alexander plans to have the nation vote on the first of several referendums; followed by a national election to reelect Congress and the president. Alexander’s call to form new political parties that will elect men and women who revere the Constitution and do the peoples’ business gains traction.

Elitists, academics, liberal politicians planning to be elected for life, embedded progressive government employees with cushy jobs, and globalists planning to turn America into a socialist nation realize their plans and existence are threatened. The Deep State is exposed and must take action to preserve its power.

The president’s enemies unite—President Alexander must be stopped. The question is how? So far, all attempts have failed. So what is left: Direct confrontations, false accusations, fake news, violence, and assassination? The president is faced with anarchy, treason, and sedition.

Hollywood and the mainstream media, joined by academia, launch a campaign to take Alexander down. Deep pocket donors dig deeper and turn loose their progressive black shirt thugs and progressive student activists. Assassination is not off the table for some.

The president responds and the Deep State is exposed. 

Teresa Lopez seals the deal with Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay thereby establishing the Tri-Border Territory and is surprised when she finds herself appointed the first governor-general. While she moves from her role as secret ambassador to governor-general, cartels and jihadists plot to remove her. New enemies move into the TBT and must be dealt with. Somalian pirates resume taking ships for ransom. President Alexander confronts the Deep State and proclaims America will not become a socialists nation.

This political and military thriller will keep you turning the pages late into the night.

ISBN/ASIN: B08CRY115M , 979-8639550706

Book Format(s): Soft cover, Kindle

Review Genre: Fiction—Mystery/Thriller

Number of Pages: 374

Chaos Above the Sand by Bruce Thomas

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Author's Synopsis
Iran 2010. The Iranian High Council has decided that today is the day that their fighter pilots will attack. With a large group of fighter aircraft poised to cross the border into Iraq, the only thing standing in the Iranians' way is Wild Bill Eddy's four F-15C aircraft. With lighting speed, the battle rages in the sky above Iraq. Iran's desire to control the Middle East sets this fast-paced, multi-layer story in motion.

Germany, May 1944. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel has sent his most trusted representatives to steal a vast treasure from Hitler's hidden storage location. They intend to use the horde to fund their escape from the war that has devastated Germany and made them lose faith in the Fϋhrer. A mix of attacks, setbacks, and terrible timing cause the treasure to be lost when the Allies attacked Normandy on June 6th, 1944.

From the beginning, the Special Projects Unit is thrown into this thriller with traitors, spies, and patriotic soldiers. The SPU director, William "Wild Bill" Eddy, and his best friend, Assistant Director Mark "Vector" Jones, race to solve the clues to who is supplying Top Secret information to the Iranians. With Villains and traitors on every page, the SPU must decipher the clues and save the USA from a fast-approaching military defeat. Clues to the lost WW II treasure become mixed into the story of the Special Projects Unit's building and hiding. This yarn is the tale of the development and birth of the Special Projects Unit.

As Air Force Academy graduates, Wild Bill and Vector have a bond that transcends work. But will they be able to solve all of the clues to stop the Iranians from taking over the Middle East? Chaos Above the Sand is a prequel to Bruce Thomas's first book, The Hope of the South.

ISBN/ASIN: 978-1-64952-185-9, 978-1-64952-186-6

Book Format(s): Soft cover, Kindle

Review Genre: Fiction—Mystery/Thriller

Number of Pages: 485

What's Your Hero's Name by Stephen Trahan

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Author's Synopsis
North Korea finally steps over the line and launches a live nuclear missile towards one of its perceived foes. It goes down near Noto Island, Japan, but fortunately doesn't detonate. While meeting with the war cabinet, U.S. President Leo H. Morris suddenly dies of undetermined causes.

Now an unprepared Vice President, Marc Z. Gregoire, must guide the world through a crisis and avert World War Three. But he is stranded in Quebec, Canada, and resorts to a harrowing snowmobile expedition to get back to the states. To make matters worse, once he reaches his home in Vermont an attempt is made on his life.

By the book's end, the President has in place a massive military response threatening to destroy North Korea. But he hopes he won't have to use it. Fiction today; real news tomorrow?

ISBN/ASIN: 978-1-7347947-0-0

Book Format(s): Soft cover

Review Genre: Fiction—Mystery/Thriller

Number of Pages: 242

Saigon Summer: Corruption & Murder During/After the Tet Offensive 1968 by Robert M. Pacholik

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Author's Synopsis

“SAIGON SUMMER: Corruption and Murder During/After the Tet Offensive 1968” is a fictionalized account of real events during the nine months and three phases of the Tet Offensive, in South Vietnam.

During and after Tet, five military photo/journalists covered the war in the rice paddies, the cities, the mountains and highlands, and all across the Mekong Delta. While fighting raged, these same enlisted men discovered that Black Marketeers based on the Saigon Docks, were stealing and selling 45 tons monthly of uniforms, weapons, equipment and supplies, GI socks, ammunition, vehicles, MOGAS and AVGAS to both sides for obscene profits.

Tasked to photograph and report about the war, these young men saw US military infantry and support units starved of equipment, and infantry men dying because of the stolen goods. Two of the five set out to find out who is running this corrupt operation, how it works, and expose it to the two major Commands that ran the US effort in Vietnam. (namely MACV, and USARV).

Through the prism of a Public information Office on the Saigon Docks, we see both US military officers and non-com sergeants who operate the Black Market on a day-to-day basis. These active-duty men censor, distort, and destroy evidence of the operation run by four American military men.

Photo/Reporters endure terrifying firefights, monsoon rainstorms, rancid mud and insects, and hardened VC/NVA troops daily. Their work is censored and distorted to show that things are going well, despite facts to the contrary. As time passes, these “photo guys” find stolen American goods in every part of the country. And a steady expansion of further Black Market activities into all four tactical zone of Vietnam, is in the works.

They also find out about phantom ships delivering non-existent AVGAS to pipelines that don’t exist, from ports that have no record of these ships ever arriving. All to enrich these insulated “Four Horsemen.”

The enlisted men are subject to (Article 15) discipline, bogus charges and trumped-up Courts Martial charges, and repeated daily harassment and physical abuse to, “go along/to get along.”

Murders follow in the path of Black Market expansion, and men on both sides fall victim to “stop at all costs, or terminate them,” and keep the Black Market ‘pipeline’ running at full speed.

You will not like SAIGON SUMMER, but every detail of this story is true, based on personal accounts and eyewitness testimony. Evil flourished in Saigon in 1968.

ISBN/ASIN: ISBN#  978-0-988-1773-5-2       (for E-book)
Book Format(s): Soft cover
Review Genre: Fiction—Historical Fiction
Number of Pages: 210

The Hope of the South by Bruce Thomas

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Author's Synopsis

Wyoming, 1863: Colonel Augusta Smith has been given a secret mission—to hide an immense treasure for the South that will allow the Confederate government to fund a rebirth after the end of the Civil War. Colonel Smith must pick the men and secure a location to hide the treasure, and he must survive the war.

Colorado, Present Day: The Special Project Unit (SPU)—a clandestine organization that operates outside the normal US government bureaucracy—has been tasked with helping the government determine who is behind a terrorist event that could leave the eastern United States without electrical power…and plunge the entire government into chaos.

From secret offices deep below the Denver International Airport, SPU Director William “Wild Bill” Eddy and Special Project Officer Mark “Vector” Jones race to collect the information needed to stop the next terrorist act. And two eras collide when a chance encounter results in Wild Bill discovering a secret letter that connects his current situation with that of his great-great-grandfather, Colonel Augusta Smith.

As Air Force Academy graduates, Wild Bill and Mark have a bond that transcends work. But will they be able to stop the madman from Europe before all hell breaks loose?

Bruce Thomas is a retired US Air Force fighter pilot and a current captain with a major US airline. A graduate of the US Air Force Academy in 1980, he is the father of five children and nine grandchildren, and lives in Overland Park, Kansas, with his wife, Vivian. The Hope of the South is the first book in the Special Project Unit series.

ISBN/ASIN: 978-1-9772-0525-4
Book Format(s): Soft cover, Kindle, ePub/iBook
Review Genre: Fiction—Historical Fiction
Number of Pages: 324

Taps: The Silent Victims of the Vietnam War - The Families Left Behind by George Motz

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MWSA Review Pending
 

Author's Synopsis

“Taps” tells the story of a young Army officer from New York assigned as the Casualty Notification and Survivors Assistance Officer for a large portion of South Carolina – rich and poor, black and white, inner-city and country, during the racially-charged, antiwar environment of the mid-1960’s.

ISBN/ASIN: 978109043489
Book Format(s): Soft cover, Kindle
Review Genre: Nonfiction—Memoir/Biography
Number of Pages: 206

Hal Moore: A Life in Pictures by Mike Guardia

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Author's Synopsis

 The definitive photographic biography of Harold G. Moore – illustrated with more than 300 Color and B&W photographs.

From his baptism by fire in the Korean War to his iconic leadership at the Battle of Ia Drang, Hal Moore remains one of the greatest battlefield commanders of the 20th Century. Famously portrayed by Mel Gibson in the film We Were Soldiers, Hal Moore’s innovative leadership – and the bravery of his troopers – have become the stuff of legend. Step into the world of Hal Moore with this pictorial keepsake, illustrated throughout with more than 300 photographs, many of them never-before-published. This informative, photographic narrative will take the reader through Moore’s childhood in rural Kentucky, his tenure at West Point during World War II, his service in Occupied Japan, his life-and-death struggles during the Korean War, his decisive leadership in the jungles of Southeast Asia, and the loving family he built with his wife, Julie.

ISBN/ASIN: B07KPX3LKQ, 978-0999644317, 978-0999644324
Book Format(s): Hard cover, Soft cover, Kindle
Review Genre: Artistic—Pictorial/Coffee Table
Number of Pages: 192

Finnian's Key by Frank Lester

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Author's Synopsis

Kona moves to Finnian’s Key to restart his life, seduced by narcissist Benson Elliott’s wager: live in their lighthouse a year and win $1,000,000. Instead of an easy payoff, he becomes ensnared in Elliott’s subterfuge to launder illicit drug money through the village. Elliott’s success rests on finding the village’s missing 260-year-old deed, his only obstacle, Mary McClinton, the last descendant of the village’s founder. Kona falls in love with Mary, disrupting Elliott’s meticulous plans. Desperate and driven by a deeper ancestral objective, Elliott abducts Mary at gunpoint. Kona must join forces with spectral visitors from the distant past in a final effort to foil Elliott’s evil designs and free Mary from his clutches.

ISBN/ASIN: ISBN-13: 978-1796058789, 978-1796058772, ASIN: BO7YDCJWWK
Book Format(s): Hard cover, Soft cover, Kindle
Review Genre: Fiction—Mystery/Thriller
Number of Pages: 278

Read My Shorts by E. Franklin Evans

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Author's Synopsis

A collection of the author's short stories and personal experiences in exotic, faraway places. Join a soldier at the Battle of Fredericksburg as he "relives" the carnage. Visit Amelia Earhart's jail on a distant Pacific island. Meet an old curmudgeon in a home for the elderly; what a story he has to tell!

ISBN: 978-0-578-43639-5
Book Format(s): Soft cover
Review Genre: Collections—Anthology
Number of Pages: 125

The Right to Know by Michael Byars Lewis

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Author's Synopsis

Ripped from the headlines, the adventures of America's favorite pilot continue in the series labeled "The House of Cards meets Top Gun"! It’s not always easy being a student in the United States Air Force Undergraduate Pilot Training program. It can be more difficult if your father is a U.S. senator who was running for president. In the aftermath of the vicious assassination attempt on his father in San Antonio, a malicious reporter accuses Lieutenant Jason Conrad of a heinous crime. But when the reporter goes too far, Jason—haunted by the death of a friend, hated by the police, and hunted by the mob—finds himself and his parents in the crosshairs of a Russian assassin. In a race against the clock—and the odds—can he save his family as well as himself? In the pulse-pounding sequel to SURLY BONDS, Michael Byars Lewis delivers with THE RIGHT TO KNOW. While best read as part of the Jason Conrad USAF Thriller Series, THE RIGHT TO KNOW can be read as a stand-alone story as well.

ISBN/ASIN: 978-0991476466, B07MH62RMY
Book Format(s): Soft cover, Kindle, ePub/iBook
Review Genre: Fiction—Mystery/Thriller
Number of Pages: 338

Raven's Run: A Cybertech Thriller by John Trudel

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Author's Synopsis

Creative story telling at its best

In "Raven's Run," John Trudel weaves an global story of intrigue, murder, and paranormal spying into a fast hard-hitting, action thriller. The novel opens with parallel stories - one in present time that includes the murder of an Iranian harbor master and the other covers early exploration in Antarctica and the 1963 murder of an aviation pioneer with ties to President's Kennedy and Johnson.

The two main characters are Raven — a veteran but ousted CIA counter-terrorist operative — and Josie — a paranormal gifted with an exceptional talent for out-of-body viewing anywhere in the world and at different times now or in the past. The two personalities and backgrounds make an unlikely team for a highly secretive government agency tasked with tracking down where Iran is getting an untraceable supply of uranium.

Using characters well defined and back stories well researched, Trudel logically meshes together the many elements of "Raven's Run." Josie and Raven must solve a 55-year-old murder before solving the current time mystery of Iran's super-secret adventure in the frozen continent. Raven's skills with weapons and espionage run contrary to Josie's strong abhorrence to violence. But when she is on an out-of-body mission, Raven becomes frustrated because he can't protect her when she is on a viewing session. Her ventures often cause her to become emotionally drained and physically disabled after witnessing extreme violence, thereby creating emotional conflicts between her and Raven.

The story picks up speed as it progresses and multifaceted situations converge, putting Raven and Josie's lives in jeopardy during a nail-biting conclusion. 

"Raven's Run" is a well-written and entertaining read.

Reviewed by Joe Epley, MWSA Reviewer

Audiobook Information 

Flamingo Audiobooks, a division of Flamingo Road Studios, LLC, presents John D. Trudel's award-winning "Raven's Run: A Cybertech Thriller."

“A 'cowboy' CIA agent is kicked out with extreme prejudice but immediately finds himself sheep-dipped into a deep-black-op and running the nation’s most unusual, prized and sexy asset. Before the two can attack their objective, they must unravel a historical mystery that reveals an ugly part of American history.”

The leader of the spy-thriller genre, Brad Thor, says of narrator Victoria Taft, "Victoria is an incredibly skilled, captivating narrator who keeps you hanging on every word. Give her two minutes and you will become a fan for life!"

ISBN/ASIN: 978-1-7337437-0-9
Review Genre:  Fiction—Mystery/Thriller
Book Format(s): Audiobook

Mysterious Mike and the Hmong: Secrets of the Secret War in Laos by M H Burton

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Author's Synopsis

In June of 1960 Mike Bauer is a naïve idealistic 22-year-old Minnesota farm boy with a freshly-minted Agronomy Degree who wants to do good in the world and have some adventures while doing it.  “Those faraway places with the strange sounding names” are calling him.  He signs on for two years at $75 a month as an agricultural advisor with a missionary society supported by his church and hits the jackpot.  Laos is almost exactly half way around the world from New Germania, Minnesota, can’t get farther away than that.  Xiengkhouang and Naxaithong and Lhat Houang sound exotic enough for you?  Those are just some of the places.  How about the people?  Is Prince-General Phongphasansak Inxixiengmai enough of a mouthful?  Mike gets what he signed up for, and a lot more. Finds himself posted to a mission at Lhat Houang which is in middle of a war his superiors hadn’t told him about-possibly because they didn’t know about it themselves. That’s just beginning of the craziness, danger and adventure.  He soon begins to call Laos “Alice in Wonderland”.  Things just keep getting “curiouser and curiouser”…for sixteen years.

But long before those sixteen years are up in 1976 and Mike returns to his native Minnesota he has become “Mysterious Mike”.  A CIA master spy?  An international drug Lord?  The “Lawrence of Laos”?  A bloody-handed war criminal?  An unsung hero?  Or is he just what he says he is, an agricultural advisor to the Hmong mountain people. The brave men and women (and children) who fought so long and hard and skillfully against the Communist takeover of Laos.  They needed much more than advice on how to improve their crops.  They needed help surviving…and in the end they needed help escaping the Communists and finding a new home…in Minnesota.  Mike Bauer did what he could to help them.  With all of that! 

ISBN/ASIN: 9781986124881 Paperback 1986124886 ebook
Book Format(s): Soft cover, Kindle
Review Genre: Fiction—Historical Fiction
Number of Pages: 295

Settling Up by Phil Keith

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Author's Synopsis

A Vietnam Veteran, poisoned by Agent Orange, has decided that, with the time he has left, he is going to wage a one-man war on those who must "settle up" for the misdeeds they committed during the war. As the bodies pile up, he leaves, at each scene, a particular calling card, which every Vietnam Veteran will understand. The FBI is finally assigned to the case, and one particular Agent figures it out: will she bring her target to justice? Does she really want to?

ISBN/ASIN: ASIN: B074P9SWMD ISBN: 978-1974333417
Book Format(s): Soft cover, Kindle
Genre(s): Mystery/Thriller
Number of Pages: 447