Book Reviews

Title: A Quest for Skye
Author: John Rothdiener
Genre: Literary Fiction
Reviewer: Joe Epley

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0985252332

Doctors Morgan and Tammy Hamilton take a vacation from their pediatric clinic in Saint Paul, Minnesota to board a cruise ship for the Caribbean. Devastated by Tammy’s third miscarriage and the news that she will never be able to bear children, the couple hopes to use the fourteen day cruise to regain their emotional footing. But life has other plans for them.
Among the passengers is Skye, a nine-year old girl with an irrepressible spirit, and a passion for living that touches everyone around her. Infused with hope and a belief in a loving God, Skye becomes the daughter that the Hamiltons could never have.
But despite her open and honest nature, Skye is surrounded by ominous questions. Was the accident that killed her parents truly an accident? Or was it sabotage? Why are news reporters hounding this innocent child? What secrets are concealed in the laboratory clinic on the island of Kardia? The truth—if they ever find it—can bring a government to its knees, and thrust national power into the hands of men who will not hesitate to shed the blood of innocents.
The Hamiltons are drawn into a struggle to protect the little girl they’ve come to love. As everything they value begins slipping away from them, these hardnosed and pragmatic doctors suddenly find themselves praying for a miracle.
When the miracle comes, it’s not at all what Morgan and Tammy have in mind.
Because Skye has been praying too...

Title: Eyes Right
Author: Tracy Crow
Genre: Memoir
Reviewer: Bob Doerr

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): B007IPQ4XC

Just out of high school in 1977, her personal life already a mess,
Tracy Crow thought the Marines might straighten her out. And sure enough, in
the Corps she became a respected public affairs officer and military
journalist—one day covering tank maneuvers or beach assaults, the next
interviewing the secretary of the navy. But success didn’t come without a
price.
When Crow pledged herself to God, Corps, and Country, women Marines were
still a rarity, and gender inequality and harassment were rampant. Determined
to prove she belonged, Crow always put her career first—even when, after
two miscarriages and a stillborn child, her marriage to another Marine
officer began to deteriorate. And when her affair with a prominent general
was exposed—and both were threatened with court-martial—Crow was forced
to re-evaluate her loyalty to the Marines, her career, and her family.

Eyes Right is Crow’s story. A clear-eyed self-portrait of a troubled teen
bootstrapping her way out of a world of alcoholism and domestic violence, it
is also a rare inside look at the Marines from a woman’s perspective. Her
memoir, which includes two Pushcart Prize–nominated essays, evokes the
challenges of being a woman and a Marine with immediacy and clarity, and in
the process reveals how much Crow’s generation did for today’s military
women, and at what cost.

Title: Sword of Shiva
Author: Jeff Edwards
Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Reviewer: Sandra Linhart

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0985044381

A SINGLE SPARK CAN IGNITE A WAR THAT CONSUMES THE WORLD.

Three Tibetan rebels attack a train carrying Chinese soldiers into the Tibet Autonomous Region. The rebels escape across the Himalayas into India, unaware that the son of China’s First Vice-Premier lays maimed and dying among the burning wreckage of the train.

As an escalating series of retaliations drive China and India toward outright war, hostilities spill over into the sea, and the Bay of Bengal becomes a crucible of naval warfare.

The president of the United States orders a U.S. Navy strike group into the area as a stabilizing force, but the situation between the two nations has already deteriorated beyond any hope of peaceful resolution.

With Asia hovering on the brink of annihilation, a small force of U.S. warships must defeat the Chinese Navy to preempt the coming firestorm.

The fuse has already been lit…

Title: Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff
Author: Cathryn Prince
Genre: History
Reviewer: Dick Geschke.

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 023034156X

The worst maritime disaster ever occurred during World War II, when more than 9,000 German civilians drowned. It went unreported.

January 1945: The outcome of World War II has been determined. The Third Reich is in free fall as the Russians close in from the east. Berlin plans an eleventh-hour exodus for the German civilians trapped in the Red Army’s way. More than 10,000 women, children, sick, and elderly pack aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff, a former cruise ship. Soon after the ship leaves port and the passengers sigh in relief, three Soviet torpedoes strike it, inflicting catastrophic damage and throwing passengers into the frozen waters of the Baltic.

More than 9,400 perished in the night—six times the number lost on the Titanic. Yet as the Cold War started no one wanted to acknowledge the sinking. Drawing on interviews with survivors, as well as the letters and diaries of those who perished, award-wining author Cathryn Prince reconstructs this forgotten moment in history. She weaves these personal narratives into a broader story, finally giving this WWII tragedy its rightful remembrance.

Title: Counting Coup: The Odyssey Of Captain Tom Adams
Author: Bob Stockton
Genre: Literary Fiction
Reviewer: Jim Greenwald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1483606937

The story of the way west in the early nineteenth century was often a tale of danger, death and unspeakable suffering. The early trappers and mountain men forged the trails westward for the pioneers that followed and became part of the legend of the American West. Of this hardy breed of early venturers one name stands out above the rest: Kit Carson. Many stories of his bravery, often wildly exaggerated filled eastern bookshelves of the day.
How much of what was written was true and how much was fantasy? Cavalry officer Captain Tom Adams vowed to seek the truth behind the legend and along the way faced near shipwrecks, attempted assassinations, Indian massacres, murder, and torture in an odyssey that he never believed could have been possible.