Hamilton At War

I received this free in exchange for a honest review. My views, however, are my own.

Title: Alexander Hamilton’s Revolution: His Vital Role as Washington’s Chief of Staff

Author: Philip Thomas Tucker

“Sell-out crowds every night enjoy the smash hit Hamilton on Broadway, which presents a fact-filled and entertaining glimpse into the patriot’s life. But very few of us know about Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton, General George Washington’s trusted military advisor.”

If you thought Rob Chernow’s masterpiece Hamilton was just not detailed enough, then this book is for you. I’m a major fan of Alexander Hamilton – the guy was a genius and I’m glad to see him finally getting the credit he deserves. But even I was a little daunted by the level of detail in this new book by Turner.

I agree with his basic premise – we focus a lot of what Hamilton accomplished before and after the revolution, but sometimes overlook what he did while he was serving. This book deals mainly with the extraordinary relationship between Washington and Hamilton. They became an amazing team who Got. It. Done.

But while the book was insightful and like I say, I love the idea, the writing was often repetitive. He’d wind up saying things three times in one chapter. I don’t need that. I can remember what you just said. And then the level of detail – naming so many names, for instance – was really just too much. I would recommend this one for serious readers of American History and advise others to pass.

 

How to create strong characters

I’ve just completed the God knows what number revision of my novel(I lost count a long time ago). While I have to admit it is one-hundred times better than the first draft, it is still not where it needs to be. I hope this isn’t coming across too negative. To be honest, while I’m not […] […]

via Do Your Characters Have Character? — Writing your first novel-Things you should know — I Suck at Writing

Wheat Belly

Title: Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Way Back to Health

Author: Dr. William Davis

I love bread. And cake. And cookies, and pasta, and brownies, and pizza, and pretty much everything made from wheat. And I’m fat. There you go! Proof, right there, that wheat is bad.

Except it’s not. Not proof, not conclusive. My weight has to do with a lot of issues, partly my diet, partly my age, my sedentary lifestyle, and my genetics. Only some of those issues are in my power to change. But what about that wheat? Is that the real problem?

According to Dr. Davis, wheat is the main culprit behind the obesity epidemic in the United States. And it is an epidemic. Weight, and waistlines, have increased steadily for the last 100 years. So has incidence of adult onset diabetes, heart disease, and a host of other illnesses. His main contention in this book is that modern wheat – not the historic stuff from 200 years ago – is to blame.

Wheat has changed, food scientists will admit that. Modern high yield wheat has drastically changed agriculture. Fewer farmers are needed to feed lots more people. He backs up his contention with fancy science facts that I couldn’t really follow, but I agree with him there.

Where I disagree is that while modern diets are terrible, wheat is not the only problem. He seems to think that it is. I would blame carbohydrates in general. Americans eat too many of them. I don’t eat much wheat anymore. I’m on a low carb, high fat diet, LCHF, or a keto diet. I’ve lost a lot of weight and I feel much better. (I’m still fat though. But I’m getting there!) But wheat is not the only problem. What about sugar?

He bases his book on the fact that he’s encouraged his heart patients to cut out the wheat products and they’ve all gotten healthier, but this is what’s called anecdotal evidence. Certainly celiac disease and general gluten intolerance is a major problem now, compared to 100 years ago. And modern wheat farming may be to blame. But what about getting them to cut out fast food? If they’re avoiding wheat, they can’t eat fast food, and maybe that’s responsible for their improved health. Maybe some whole grains would be just fine, as long as they’re not deep fried.

His writing isn’t terrible, but it’s not great, and he is really repetitive. He has a very definite style that will turn a lot of readers off. I can’t say I’d recommend this book to everyone. But if you’re trying to lose weight, I’d say it’s worth looking through. I wouldn’t buy it though. I got my copy from the library’s audiobook collection and I decided not to finish it. I got the idea about 100 pages in and I sure didn’t want to listen to the whole thing. Bottom line – do your own research and don’t believe everything you hear.

Writing prompt

You get a chance to time travel. If you accept, you have a 90% chance of arriving where you intended, a 90% chance of arriving with your clothes and money, and a 90% chance of arriving with your memory.

You accept. You wake up 100 years before you intended, naked, with no memory of how you got there. What now?

Reviews to come!

I’ve gotten a little behind on my reviews. Sorry about that! I’ve still been reading lots, but sometimes I just don’t know where to start with a review because I have so much to say. Instead, I just put that one aside until later.

I need some help! Tell me which one to review next and I’ll get onto that one:

Conspiracy and Blood & Betrayal, both by Lindsay Buroker – both steampunk

Assassin’s Fate by Robin Hobb – fantasy

Sixth of the Dusk by Brandon Sanderson – fantasy-ish

Matters Arising from the Identification of the Body by Simon Petrie – mystery/sci-fi

Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis – non-fiction

The Innocent Flower by Charlotte Armstrong – mystery

The Fifth Doll by Charlie N. Holmberg – YA fantasy

A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen – MG historical fiction

 

If no one votes, I’ll probably review the Simon Petrie book next. Now maybe I need some help on what to read next! My review pile is mounting up and I’m getting kinda stressed about it.

Criminal Tales

Title: The Devil & Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness and Obsession

Author: David Gann

Described as “a collection of spellbinding narrative journalism,” this book contains an amazing assortment of stories. From the opening story about the Sherlock Holmes fan who died in real life mysterious circumstances, to the final profile of a truly nasty criminal, this was a compelling read (or rather, listen, as I got the audiobook from my library. It’s not quite up to his book, The Lost City of Z, but it’s quite good. I think what I missed was something to tie all these stories together. These were pieces that appeared in print previously, so maybe there wasn’t really a thread that tied them together, but I think he could have grouped them differently or something. As it was, it was sort of odd. My favorite story was the one about the sandhogs, construction workers building a giant series of tunnels under NYC. Recommended, but not so strongly that you should add it to the top of your list.

Contest 🏆 Winner!

We have a winner! Using random number generator, I plugged in my number of followers and came up with ……

Susandyer1962.

Susan, if you send me your address I will get this in the mail this week. Congrats on winning! I’ll be doing another giveaway next month, so if you didn’t win, stay tuned for your next chance.

The Bone Witch

Title: The Bone Witch

Author: Rin Chupeco

Tea’s sisters are both witches, so it’s no surprise that she has magical powers. What was surprising was when she raised her brother from the dead. I thought this book was a rather difficult read. I got lost and muddled in the middle of the book. There was so much build up in the book that while the setting was very interesting, eventually I just got bored. I don’t think I would read another book in this series.

I received this book free in exchange for an honest review.

Descriptive Writing

I found this article helpful. This is one area where I struggle a little. I typically skip over the descriptions on first writing, then go back and add them later.

There are many different kinds of writing, descriptive writing being one of them. Pretty much everything I found on descriptive writing talked about essay writing or academic writing. Descriptive writing is important for any kind of writing, but we’ll stick to creative writing for now. What is descriptive writing? Descriptive writing is when you give […]

via What Is Descriptive Writing? — Rachel Poli

Pretty Good Urban Fantasy

Title: A Dragon of a Different Color (Heartstrikers #4)

Author: Rachel Aaron

Setting: alternate Detroit

SPOILERS FOR THE REST OF THE SERIES

I’m assuming that when you read #4 up there, you know I’m going to comment on the rest of the series up until now, right? Just checking.

Do you like dragons? Do you like the idea of dragons living among humans in today’s world? Then you should check out these books by Rachel Aaron. The series starts with Nice Dragons Finish Last.  Main character Julius is, as you might guess, a nice dragon, which makes him a liability in his clan. His mother decides to get rid of him. Lucky for Julius, he meets an aspiring mage named Marci. Unluckily, she’s in trouble with the mob about then. It’s a fun series. I really liked the first book, but I feel like the author is losing her steam a little bit here.

This one starts immediately after #3, No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished. In that one LAST SPOILER ALERT! I’M SERIOUS! Marci has died, Julius took control of the Heartstrikers clan away from his ruthless mother, and most of the clan has dispersed to their own lairs.

That’s when the Chinese dragons show up. They want to take over the clan. Julius is not happy – he didn’t work as hard as he did to set up a dragon council just to give control to some outsider – but unless he comes up with a plan fast that’s exactly what he’ll have to do. Fortunately, Julius can always come up with a plan.

My biggest complaint in this one was that there was so much talking! So much discussion, over and over and over, about how we’re all in terrible danger unless we do something fast. So let’s talk about it for another 2-3 pages before we do anything, right? How about no. How about you cut to the chase and do something! I still really like Julius as a character, but we hardly got to see him be awesome at all. And why have a book about dragons if they’re not going to be awesome all over the place?

If these do sound like fun, they are available from Amazon through Kindle Unlimited for free. You should definitely start with book 1 though. It really was fun.