Wednesday, 19 June 2019

Get out of my Dreams by Allan J Lewis


Get out of my Dreams is the first in the Magic Man series and tells of a man able to control others through hypnosis in their dreams.

Alice has woken up again with her underwear folded neatly on her shoes and her husband downstairs asleep on the couch with the house alarm off and the front door unlocked. Her husband is having his own issues as he is troubled by the disturbing dreams he is having. They call the police and find out that there is a man out there, who has not been identified, but is able to get people to bend to his will and divulge dark secrets while sleeping seemingly under hypnosis. Of course, the police are on high alert about this as a man who can control others while asleep could be a terrorist. As Alice continues to dread sleeping, she finds herself in a position where the dreams she is having are oddly exciting. Kinky, in fact. Alice realises she is able to talk to the Magic Man and he can guide her dreams. This has serious repercussions as Alice, a would-be reporter, gets roped in with him to help police investigations as they enter into people’s dreams as informants and give the police information that leads to criminal arrests. But even for all the good that Joe can do, there are always those who will never trust him. The line is fine and Alice and Joe could find themselves on the wrong side of it.

The idea started off well and I thought the ultimate ability to catch terrorists was a good one. I did not enjoy the erotic dreams and scenarios that Joe led some people through though. I thought that the author did not exactly understand what turned women on, and was using the premise of an old porn script. In fact, when I found out the author was an older male I was quite surprised. The erotic parts didn’t throw me until Alice decided to sleep with cartoon characters in her dreams and the absurdity of this destroyed any of those parts of the story. So many questions were left unanswered and when you find out who Joe is and how he fits into the story I had to question why he continued to create the erotic dreams he did. It almost seemed seedy and out of character.

There were a number of editing mistakes which tripped up the speed of reading and I found a lot of parts repeated and unnecessary. There was a distinctly British feel to the book even though it is based in the US. Overall the book was very average for me as the idea was great and could have been used in a much more meaningful way. But hey, different strokes for different folks (no pun intended).

Thanks to Voracious Readers Only and the author for a copy of the book.  

Good Girl, Bad Girl by Ann Girdharry


Good Girl, Bad Girl is the first in the Kal Medi series and tells of Kal, a photojournalist who is about to face an enemy she didn’t know she had.

Kal’s mother is missing and Kal is heartbroken that she didn’t take her mother’s request to come home sooner more seriously. As she begins to dive into the mystery, she finds that the training she received from her criminal father becomes more and more useful as threats she and her family have been receiving for years become pertinent once more. Kal lands up involved with a company called ScottBioTec that helps to fit children with artificial bio-enhanced limbs. But something doesn’t feel right. As Kal ropes her friends and sparring partners Marty and LeeMing into the case, she realises that corruption and immoral choices run not only higher up in different levels of society but also across continents. Kal is now fighting against the clock to save her mother who may have stumbled across this tragic secret, but also to save those innocents caught up in its evil web. Revenge is deep and can span many generations, but Kal will certainly give it her all to end the cycle now.

The idea of the book was appealing but ultimately it didn’t grab me enough. First and foremost because of the editing mistakes. I’m not sure which edition I received, but there were numerous errors from punctuation in the wrong places, to sentences being mixed up, straight instead of curly apostrophes being used as well as other mistakes. I find errors of this number just take away any pleasure in concentrating on the story as your mind is constantly having to readjust itself to understand the correct sentence structure. The whole “trained by her father” thing really set up parts of the book, but it never came into its own. I didn’t feel engaged in the fight sequences and her ability to heal so quickly was remarkable. Kal’s character was a little too good to be true and there was no actual connection to her. The ending of the book was tied up too quickly and when I thought there were still pages left in the book to read, they turned out to be excerpts of the next books, which was a bit of a letdown. The fast pace set in the beginning just fizzles out.

Overall not a bad book or start to the series but not one I would remember. In fact, in writing this review I had to go back and look up a few things as nothing really stood out to me. Not bad, but not memorable.

Thanks to Voracious Readers Only and the author for a copy of the book.