Beverly Stowe McClure's Blog: Enter Beverly's World of Writing - Posts Tagged "humor"

FOR THE BIRDS Review
By Aaron Paul Lazar



What do you do when your parakeet starts talking like your mother? A white pickup with two shaggy men inside turns up everywhere you go? Your house is broken into while you‘re at a hotel for a bird contest? Your mother is kidnapped? And that’s just the beginning.

Author Aaron Paul Lazar’s novel For the Birds is the first book in the Tall Pines Mystery Series. From the opening paragraph to the final sentence, Mr. Lazar takes the reader on a roller coaster ride with more twists and turns than a country road. It starts out simple enough. Marcella and her husband, Quinn, along with Marcella’s mother, Thelma, are on their way to a bird show with their parakeet, Ruby, who by the way is my favorite character in the story. But who is Earl Tiramisu and why does he ask so many questions about Thelma who almost drowned in the hotel pool and ended up in the hospital. (It’s too complicated to explain. You’ll have to read the story.) Enter FBI agents, secrets revealed, and Marcella and Quinn are soon on a dangerous mission to find the answers to all the questions, as well as where Thelma, who has been kidnapped, is, who kidnapped her, and why. One thing’s for sure, this story will keep you guessing, for nothing is what it seems and the people are not always who you think they are.

Even with the fatalities that occur with some bloodshed, For the Birds is a fun read, especially for mystery lovers that like to solve the mystery before the characters do. The ending to this one may surprise you. It did me. The quirky yet realistic characters and the setting in the Adirondacks make this book an enjoyable read. I can only imagine what the characters will encounter in the next book in the series.

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Hike Up Devil's Mountain by Penny Estelle

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


HIKE UP DEVIL’S MOUNTAIN (Review)

By Penny Estelle

When you were a child did you ever disobey your parents? If so, what were the results? Did they punish you? Or did something happen because of your disobedience that made you wish you’d listened to you folks? Maybe they were right. Yeah, as we grow older, we discover mothers and fathers are amazingly smart.

Author Penny Estelle’s MG/Tween novel, HIKE UP DEVIL’S MOUNTAIN, is an entertaining adventure about boys, bullies, and surprises, with a touch of fantasy added for good measure. Ten-year-old Andy Thompson explores an abandoned house, where he finds a box with a stick inside it that glows. Being curious, as most kids are, he has to find out more about this amazing stick. Enter the bully, Jason Crew, and his brother, Danny, new kids in school, and there’s never a dull moment. Without giving away the plot, I’ll just mention a talking toad, a witch that lives on Devil’s Mountain, and a blue dragon provide a hefty dose of humor, fear, and discovery for Andy and friends.

Penny Estelle has created characters that have the faults of real children and also their good points. The reader follows along, wondering what will happen next. At least this reader did. The author throws in a surprise or two along the way. Do the boys learn anything from their adventures? Well, pick up a copy of the book and see. HIKE UP DEVIL’S MOUNTAIN would make a great addition to school libraries and classrooms, as well as your own library.

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Super Bad by Kai Strand

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Have you ever dreamed of being a superhero? Of saving lives or of doing good in the world? Maybe being a supervillain and causing trouble is more to your taste. What if you could be a little of both? Fun, huh?

SUPER BAD (SUPER VILLAIN ACADEMY BOOK 3) by Author Kai Strand has both superheroes and supervillains. After the supers were balanced there were no heroes or villains. This should have been great, right? Well, it didn’t work out quite the way they’d expected. The world is out of control, and the only way to solve the problem is to unbalance the supers. If they only knew how. Polar (Jeff) and Mystic are causing trouble of their own. Jeff’s sister, Sandra, and her boyfriend, Source, are searching for the answer and not having much luck finding it.

SUPER BAD is loaded with action, humor, and romance, the superhero kind, which is a bit different because of the powers the characters have. You’ll see what I mean when you read the novel. Ms. Strand makes her characters come to life. They’re never dull and often do the unexpected. Sometimes they act like normal teens, if you overlook the flying and fire and other powers that normal teens do not have.

Although this novel can stand alone, you might want to read the first two books in the series to make yourself familiar with the characters and what’s happened before. Either way, you’re in for an exciting ride with Jeff and the other superheroes. Told from different point of view characters you get to see inside the heads of the major players. Sometimes that’s a bit scary.

So pick up a copy of SUPER BAD and see what teens with super powers are like.

The author provided me with an ARC of the novel for my honest review.





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