This book was incredible. Fast-paced with and unknown bad guys, fantastic twists. Just when you think you have it figured out, you find you didn’t have it figured out at all. The conspiracies go right to the top of the US government. And who’s who in terms of bad guys and good will keep you guessing. The only thing I didn’t like was one aspect of the ending. I found it somewhat unrealistic. Still it was the end shocker and I didn’t see it coming, though there were so darn many clues in the story. five out of five stars, and then some.

Ok, this was fabulous. Normally, I can figure out books like this pretty easily and in advance of the big reveal in the story. But this one had so many unexpected twists, and just when I’d think, ok, it’s that person, so now we’re cool, then some other twist would bring a new dynamic into the story. By the final reveal, I only got there just before the hero, and was just saying, no way it can’t be, of course it is, as the hero was figuring it out. It was breathless and wonderful and very much a fantastic ride.

Warning, there is implied, not described, cruelty to a child who has been kidnapped, not serious torture but not warm and fuzzy bad guys who treat a child carefully. These bad guys are bad. We don’t actually see the things that happen to the child, so it was ok for me.

there is a sequel which I do plan to get. Black Fire is the code name of the secret spy/sniper group to which Max belongs.

This story combines, a mystery, a romance, a little western, time travel and characters that live with you long after you finish.

It begins in 2012 in Kentucky on a thoroughbred ranch. Kit is the only remaining member of her family, having just lost her parents in a terrible accident. She does have an uncle, but I’m not sure he’s a blood uncle, if you get my meaning. She receives a shocking message and journal from her father that sends her on an adventure we could all want to experience. According to her father, She had been left on the doorstep at birth, wrapped in a shawl and with a mysterious ruby brooch. The brooch is supposed to be magical, sending the owner into another place and time, with the simple reciting of the magic words. The brooch only sends you to the time and place where you will find your heart’s desire. Kit’s father had taken this journey, and now, he’s left her with a mystery, and this sends Kit on her journey to the past. Kit believes she came from that past, and she is desperate to discover who she really is.

So, Kit prepares herself carefully, as you’ll see, and she uses the brooch, ending up in Independence in 1852. She joins a wagon train to Oregon and meets people so richly drawn you feel like you could know them and you care deeply about them.

And that’s where I’ll stop, except to say, this has twists and turns, that surprised me, characters I still think about, a journey I wish I could take, and a satisfying wonderful ending. And the next book comes out in September, and two more next year. I can hardly wait.

I know many of us enjoy the time travel scenarios like in outlander. This book isn’t as long and involved, but it’s beautiful and special in similar ways. I definitely want more!

I’ll be posting several book reviews in the next few posts. Enjoy.

The Oracle is the second book in the Gateway Chronicles, following The Six. It’s the next year, and Darcy and the other five kids, now fourteen, meet again at family summer camp and head back to the gateway to return to the land they found the year before. We meet new friends and get reacquainted with old.

Darcy Perry and Dean must take a journey that has much of the second half of the book with a group separated from the other three.

I loved this book, almost as much as I loved the first one. I learned to feel compassion for a minor character–so far–that I didn’t like before and cried
buckets at the end. I feel like I’m reverting to my childhood instead of being the middle-aged woman I am, and I want to find a gateway and go.

Hi to my site readers,

I’ve gotten almost all spam for comments on this site, and with the huge number of comments i’ve been getting, I just don’t have time to continue to either appove them one by one or to keep going in and sending everything to spam. So for now i’ve set comments to have to be approved but turned off getting the email to do that. i haven’t found a way to disable comments altogether.

i am truly sorry to do this, because i hoped real people would find my site and comment on what I post. But over 400 comments and only one or two with genuine comments, I just can’t do it. Eventually, I hope to be able to set something up or have a web master who can handle that kind of thing. But for now, I work full time at my job and write as often as I can, and those things are my priorities.

I hope if you find this site, you will continue to read and enjoy it.

Thanks bunches.

Sherry

Well, since it’s been a while since I updated this site on the book progress, and that’s why I started this thing anyway, I’m about half way through with chapter seventeen. Yay me!

I’m predicting approximately twenty-five to twenty-eight chapters I think. But sometimes my characters wander off in unexpected directions, so you never know.

I’ve really fallen in love with my characters, Michael and Elizabeth, along with Michael’s son, Ethan. They are very special people, each broken at the beginning, but strong in themselves and able to survive and grow. They will be strong together.

I guess that’s about it for this update.

Except for the fact that I’m still struggling to find the perfect title! Why am I so blasted picky about that kind of thing? Because I often will choose to give a book a try simply because I like the title.

Sherry, posted, June 13, 2012