Broken Destiny: The Story of Sergeant William M. O’Loughlin, United States Army Air Force by Mark Verwiel & Mario Acevedo

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

In this remarkable biography of Sergeant William M. O’Loughlin, the author, Mark Verwiel, portrays thrilling aerial combat over North Africa, the Mediterranean, and Italy during some of the most savage fighting of World War II. Then came the fateful day when O’Loughlin’s squadron of B25 Mitchell bombers was launched to destroy the Isoletta Dam and break the formidable Gothic Line. What happened next to O’Loughlin was lost to history.
While casually perusing a family photo album, Verwiel discovered a vintage newspaper clipping of men who had fallen in battle. “Who was this?” he asked, and his father replied, “That’s your Uncle Bill.” This was the first that Verwiel had heard that one of his relatives had served, much less that he had been killed in action. So began a quest to learn about the man behind the name, and equally important, why his story had been all but forgotten.
William Maurice O’Loughlin was a product of the Great Depression and when the stormy clouds of war darkened the horizon, he volunteered for military service. Whatever his plans might have been, they were upended when he met Betty Cummings. After a whirlwind romance, he shipped overseas to begin his combat tour as an aircrewman, and he left behind a new bride, pregnant and hopeful.
O’Loughlin’s loss broke Betty’s heart and that of a daughter he was never to meet. His tragic death rippled silently across the generations until Verwiel and his family amassed the historical record and breathed life into O’Loughlin’s wartime adventures.
When we think of World War II, what comes to mind are the sweeps of armies across continents, the grand strategies of generals and admirals. But victory was only possible by the sacrifice of the ordinary man in uniform, doing his duty, and this is such a story.

Format(s) for review: Kindle or Paper
Review genre: Nonfiction—Memoir/Biography
Pages/Word count: 286 / 54,034

Colored Pebbles by Del Staecker

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Author's Synopsis

Del Staecker is an American writer of novels, novellas, short stories, and non-fiction in a number of genres, including suspense, crime, philosophical fiction, satire, and memoir. He is a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (London) and Knight of Honor, Order of St. John (Malta). He was educated at The Citadel, Wheaton College, and The University of Puget Sound.

Format(s) for review: Paper Only
Review genre: Nonfiction—Memoir/Biography
Pages/Word count: 306 / 65,000

Red One: A Platoon Leader's Memoir From the Second Combine War by Troy Gordon

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Author's Synopsis

Everyone remembers where they were when Luna was attacked. I was a cadet, months away from graduating and commissioning in the Army, and knew what those burning shipyards on Luna meant for my future.

The SOL Alliance went to war, but its virtually unchecked hunt for the extremists responsible for the attacks quickly floundered. Desperate for an expedient victory, our chancellor redirected the military to seize Lohtua, the origin system and heart of the Bothic faith, deep in Combine space.

I was there.

Written by a GWOT combat veteran, Red One is a story of leadership and survival as an unprepared military commits to an aimless war against an enemy it never understood.

Format(s) for review: Paper or Kindle
Review genre: Fiction—Horror/Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Pages/Word count: 576 / 160,520

I'm Alive: A Young Fighter Pilot's Diary of the US Navy Air War in Vietnam, 1964 to 1965 by Errol F. Reilly; Kevin Callahan; Christopher P. Callahan

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Author's Synopsis
I'm Alive is the compelling diary of Lieutenant Junior Grade Errol F. Reilly, a 26-year-old US Navy fighter pilot, written aboard the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea during his first combat cruise in Vietnam. In writing that is colorful, perceptive, and at times both humorous and heartbreaking, "Rile" chronicles his daily experiences "living, playing, and fighting" within the context of the Navy's fledgling air war. Covering the period from December 1964 to October 1965, I'm Alive details an untested F-8 Crusader pilot's personal journey from "nugget" aviator to seasoned combat professional. Reilly's feelings quickly change from patriotic enthusiasm to frustrated disillusionment as he begins to experience the realities of deadly air combat over Vietnam. His keen observations provide rare insights into the evolving strategies and tactics of the US Navy. With historical context and explanatory notes provided by the editors, I'm Alive offers a bold, unfiltered narrative of the earliest stages of the air war in Vietnam, and a fascinating personal account of friendship, war, and triumph over adversity.

Format(s) for review: Kindle Only
Review genre: Nonfiction—Memoir/Biography
Pages/Word count: 209 / 66,450

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2121: EXODUS: Lupus Stella by Scott D. Rodriguez

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Author's Synopsis

2121: EXODUS: Lupus Stella by Scott D. Rodriguez
A veteran. A dead world. A ship full of strangers. And an arm that remembers things he never told it.

June 2121. Colonel Theo Daniel wants nothing but his Texas ranch, his coffee, and the silence the VA can't prescribe. Twenty-three years after a grenade on Mars took his arm and his best friend, the military has one more thing to ask of him.

When a resource war over the Moon's helium-3 deposits spirals into global nuclear exchange, Theo is thrust from retirement into the fight to save what's left of humanity. His sister dies sheltering children in an Austin school basement. His commanding officer stays behind so others can leave. A man he trusted turns out to be the reason the grid fell.

Now Theo commands the Odyssey — a colony ship carrying ten thousand souls through a wormhole to a planet fourteen light-years from the ashes of Earth. But Lupus Stella is not the empty paradise they were promised. The forest watches. The predators learn. An ancient civilization left a warning carved in stone — and the thing they warned about has already found the signal.

2121: EXODUS is military science fiction with literary bones. A story of sacrifice, found family, and the stubborn refusal to let the dark win — written by a veteran who knows what it costs.

Format(s) for review: Paper or Kindle
Review genre: Fiction—Horror/Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Pages/Word count: 292 / 76,581

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Hill 119, Defending a Reconnaissance Marines' OP, Vietnam 1969-70 by Colonel Michael O Fallon USMC (Ret)

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Author's Synopsis

A narrative account of Reconnaissance Marines in Vietnam. Small Teams launching daring deep Stingray patrols in the bush. On the Observation Post, Hill 119 defending for 600 relentless days and nights. Surrounded by the NVA with the constant challenge of determining friendly Vietnamese civilians from hard corps Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regulars. Their lifeline were the Marine helicopters that flew out bringing water, ammo, food, and their replacement platoon. In 1969 and 1970, Delta Company, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division manned the OP and ran patrols in Phu Loc Valley and Go Noi Island. This firsthand account of the Marines and Corpsmen who patrolled deep and occupied the OP describes their struggle to survive. Based on participant interviews and the detailed declassified debriefing reports compiled after each patrol returned to their rear base, at Camp Reasoner, Da Nang in the Republic of South Vietnam. This is their history!

Format(s) for review: Paper or Kindle
Review genre: Nonfiction—History
Pages/Word count: 449 / 261,656

The Legacy of the Twins Platoon by Christy Sauro Jr

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Author's Synopsis

In early June 1967, Marine Corps recruits from Minneapolis-St. Paul and outlying Minnesota received a letter stating all those scheduled for active duty in June would go as one platoon on June 28, 1967. One hundred fifty Marine applicants would be shipped to San Diego, California, to the recruit training depot. The Minnesota Twins baseball team was sponsoring the unit.
They were sworn in on television at a pregame ceremony and were guests of the Twins at the game. By the end of the fourth inning, the recruits were hustled to buses whisking them to the Wold-Chamberlain Field Airport, and they flew to San Diego. Before dawn the next day, the Twins Platoon met their drill sergeants at the receiving barracks of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot. By the end of the year, the Marines were in Vietnam sprinkled across the length and breadth of the Marine Corps operating areas of I Corps, the northernmost part of South Vietnam where they experienced some of the toughest combat of the war. Khe Sanh and Hue City were just a few of the hot spots they encountered as the 1968 TET Offensive rolled across the country. Not all members of the Twins Platoon came home in one piece. Some did not come home at all. In The Legacy of the Twins Platoon, author Christy Sauro Jr. tells their complete stories from baseball to combat and their lifelong readjustment to civilian life.

Format(s) for review: Paper or Kindle
Review genre: Nonfiction—Memoir/Biography
Pages/Word count: 381 / 111,022

Sheltering Angel of Belleau Wood by Louella Bryant

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Author's Synopsis
Sheltering Angel of Belleau Wood, a sequel to Louella Bryant’s novel Sheltering Angel, Based on a True Story of the Titanic, is the WWII story of a mother’s grief in losing her husband to the Titanic disaster and two sons to the battlefields of the Great War.
In 1943 Florence Cumings’ youngest son Thayer (known as Tax) has driven her from New York to her summer house in Maine. He leaves her alone for the week with a box of old letters from her sons Jack and Wells, both soldiers in France in 1918. As Florence begins reading the letters, she is visited by the ghost of her first husband Bradley who lost his life in the Titanic disaster.

When Jack’s widow Margaret, newly remarried to a U. S. Consul, and her daughter Eva arrive for a visit, Margaret asks to leave Eva with Florence for the summer as she helps her husband with his assignment to Guatemala. Ebullient Eva brings lightness to the story as she learns about her father from his letters. In the box Eva finds a diary written by her uncle Wells, a sensitive and musical young man who for pride in his country finds himself in a horrifying and deadly situation. Eva learns distressing details about fighting on the front lines against the German army and realizes life is not all glamour and parties.

When Florence and Eva return to New York, Eva meets and falls in love with a U.S. Marine just before he leaves for training in the Pacific as Japanese troops are threatening to attack. While experiencing WWII deprivations, the two women follow the progress of the war, both hoping Eva’s beau will return safely.
The novel culminates at the end of WWII when Florence takes Eva to France to find the grave of Wells who was killed in the battle of Belleau Wood when he was Eva’s age. As the women stand under a clear blue sky by the small white cross bearing Wells’s name, they realize both joy and sorrow are part of earthly existence.

The story is based on actual letters from Jack sent to his mother Florence between 1918 and the war’s end. As with Sheltering Angel, the sequel depicts a true story of real people. Through the book, readers will realize that war has been part of human history since the beginning of time, but throughout hardship and sacrifice, love and optimism have been our guiding light.

Format(s) for review: Paper or Kindle
Review genre: Fiction—Historical Fiction
Pages/Word count: 306 / 90,500

The Organization: Operative Nova by Daniel C. Davis

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Author's Synopsis

They don't exist on paper.
They don't answer to Congress.
They were built to protect the Republic from the shadows.

Nova Dunn has spent twenty-one years carrying her father's dog tags-and the weight of unanswered questions. Jonathan Dunn died on a classified mission when she was eight years old. At least, that's what she was told.

Now recruited into The Organization, the same covert force that sent her father on his final operation, Nova is beginning to realize that some classified secrets cut deeper than others.

Operating under federal cover, Nova is thrust into three escalating missions that will test her loyalty, discipline, and survival. She must confront a corrupt official selling secrets to Russian intelligence. Hunt down a missing nineteen-year-old girl and dismantle the trafficking network that erased her. And face a Russian enforcer known only as Bull-a man who believes he cannot be stopped.

He's wrong.

Perfect for fans of Jack Reacher, Orphan X, and Atomic Blonde, The Organization: Operative Nova is a relentless, character-driven spy thriller featuring a new kind of hero-one forged by loss, driven by truth, and trained to operate where the light never reaches.

Format(s) for review: Paper or Kindle
Review genre: Fiction—Mystery/Thriller/Crime
Pages/Word count: 200 / 50,000

Grunt 0311 Reflections of a Marine Rifleman by George P Berg

MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

The author recounts his very personal combat experiences as an infantry rifleman in Vietnam. Grunt 0311 is a candid and often uncomfortably frank description of the brutal conditions Marines faced in Vietnam in 1968. The year, 1968 was the most violent of the entire war for the Marines - the operational tempo was extreme and unrelenting. The new Marine was challenged with moral decisions young men in war are often forced to make just to survive.

Format(s) for review: Paper or Kindle
Review genre: Nonfiction—Memoir/Biography
Pages/Word count: 202 / 68,000

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Seeker by Glenn S. Robertson

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Author's Synopsis

Seeker by Glenn S. Robertson
More than a century after a devastating disease erased ninety-five percent of humanity, the American West has fallen back into something older—and far more dangerous.

Across the harsh plains and mountains of the Rocky Mountain Free Zone, scattered towns cling to survival. Places like Casper, Wyoming, stand together against the lawless violence that stalks the land. Beyond their borders roam raiders and warbands who live by brutality, taking what they want and leaving little behind but ashes.

In this broken world, a Seeker is a rare and valuable thing—someone trained to track down lost relics of the old world, knowledge that might help the scattered remnants of humanity endure.

But this time the Seeker is not searching for an object. He is searching for a girl.

Kidnapped by a ruthless band of ravagers from the ruins of Denver, the child may possess a gift that could change the balance of power across the frontier. In the wrong hands, it could mean disaster for the fragile communities struggling to survive.

And the farther the Seeker rides into the violent lands beyond the Free Zone, the clearer one truth becomes:
Some things are worth finding. Others are worth killing to keep hidden.

Format(s) for review: Paper or Kindle
Review genre: Fiction—Literary Fiction
Pages/Word count: 384 / 96,385

Three Years in Tending by Nicholas D. Butler

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Author's Synopsis

Nicholas Butler's second memoir is the continuation of his account of working in the service industry as a bartender who struggled to survive the pandemic's massive closure of bars. "Three Years in Tending" seeks to build empathy with readers by connecting memories of how the author (a former Air Force officer) found his way into working in hospitality to his upbringing, sharing the details of a mid-life crisis, and providing an example of how to overcome hardships in life.

Format(s) for review: Paper Only
Review genre: Nonfiction—Memoir/Biography
Pages/Word count: 245 / 54,586

Mind of a Soldier: 34 Laws for the War After the War by Taamir Ransome

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Author's Synopsis

Mind of a Soldier: 34 Laws for the War After the War is a field manual for the battle no one trains you for — coming home.
Written by a retired U.S. Army Special Operations EOD Sergeant Major, this book confronts the hard truth that military transition is not a process. It is a war. A war fought without a mission brief, without a chain of command, and without the brotherhood that kept you alive. Most veterans lose this war not because they are weak, but because no one told them the rules had changed.
The 34 Laws inside this book are not motivational platitudes. They are operational doctrine — distilled from decades of service, loss, reinvention, and survival. Each law is a hard-won lesson on identity, purpose, mental resilience, financial discipline, relationships, and the long work of rebuilding a life on your own terms.
This is not a book about what the military took from you. It is a manual for what you can build with what it left behind.
For veterans, service members approaching separation, military spouses, families navigating this transition alongside them, civilian employers, and the policy makers who shape veteran programs — Mind of a Soldier delivers the clarity, the candor, and the mission framework that no transition assistance program ever will.

Format(s) for review: Paper or Kindle
Review genre: Nonfiction—How to/Business
Pages/Word count: 318 / 98,276

The Bureau by Dale Kelley

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Author's Synopsis

A gripping FBI thriller packed with crime, corruption, and the relentless pursuit of justice. Sean Hurley is a seasoned FBI agent in Chicago - battle-hardened by Army service, sharp, and driven by duty. He heads a team in a special investigation in Dallas searching for the killer of a federal judge.
This is the 3rd book in a trilogy. All written by a former FBI agent.

The author is a former FBI agent.

Format(s) for review: Paper or Kindle
Review genre: Fiction—Mystery/Thriller/Crime
Pages/Word count: 201 / 44,250

Sacred Plunder by Phillip Daigle

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Author's Synopsis

Vietnam, 1969: a SEAL's jungle discovery turns a routine mission into a lifelong vow.
Navy SEAL scout Mike McCall discovers a fallen temple and swears to protect the relics hidden there. Years later, that promise drags him back into the war he thought he'd left behind.
Mike is recruited by Joe Kane's private security firm after discharge—ex-military talent doing corporate work in Southeast Asia. But CIA handler Dani Piedra has other plans: go undercover inside Kane's operation and find out what he's really moving through Saigon.
Vietnamese partner Le and journalist Jane Wade help Mike uncover the truth. Kane isn't just trafficking stolen Buddhist artifacts—he's using the antiquities pipeline to move heroin that's killing American soldiers. The temple relics Mike vowed to protect are funding the war's deadliest secret.
Mike works to expose the ring before Kane's network silences everyone who knows. But the deeper he goes, the more he realizes bringing down Kane means risking Le and Jane, burning his CIA handlers, and destroying evidence that could save lives—or letting the pipeline continue.
To honor his vow, Mike can follow his orders and stay silent or blow his cover and face the consequences.
Sacred Plunder is a character-driven thriller about loyalty, faith, and what it costs to protect what matters when the system is rigged against you.

Format(s) for review: Paper or Kindle
Review genre: Fiction—Mystery/Thriller/Crime
Pages/Word count: 315 / 91,000

Writings from the Barbed Wire Hotel, A Prisoner’s Account of Captivity and Survival by Diana Maul Halstead

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Author's Synopsis

A World War II memoir unlike any other, built from the original writings of a prisoner of war.

Henry Eugene Maul was a 20-year-old B-17 waist gunner when his aircraft was shot down over Europe during World War II. He would spend the next year as a German prisoner of war, enduring the uncertainty, hardship, and isolation of life as a POW.

During that time, he wrote.

On scraps of paper, on the backs of flattened cigarette packs, and in whatever space he could find, he created poems, drawings, and personal reflections that captured the reality of life behind barbed wire. These writings were never meant for publication. They were his way to endure.

Almost 80 years later, his daughter brings these preserved materials together for the first time.

Writings from the Barbed Wire Hotel is more than a memoir. It is a rare and intimate collection of firsthand accounts created in the moment, not reconstructed from memory. Alongside these writings are reflections from family and those who knew him, offering a deeper understanding of the man behind the words and the lasting impact of his experience.

This is a story of survival, resilience, and the quiet strength that carried him through one of the darkest chapters of the twentieth century.

Format(s) for review: Paper or Kindle
Review genre: Nonfiction—Memoir/Biography
Pages/Word count: 302 / 25,000

Clifford's War: Redivivus by J. Denison Reed

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

After the conclusion of his case, "Without End", Private investigator Clifford Dee is unexpectedly
pulled from his team in Washington D.C. to assist in locating missing family members of an old acquaintance.
A case that initially appears straightforward but quickly spirals into something far more complex.
The deeper he digs, Clifford uncovers secrets, lies, and a danger that threatens to engulf him.
In the process, past memories and long-buried trauma resurface, especially when he reconnects with a ghost from the past, forcing him to confront his own demons while navigating the treacherous path of where the case leads.

Format(s) for review: Paper or Kindle
Review genre: Fiction—Mystery/Thriller/Crime
Pages/Word count: 279 / 76,000

Project Darkheart: a Black Spear novel by Benjamin Spada

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

"THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. THEY ARE LEGION."
Ghost mercenary Damien Black moves like a shadow, striking with precision. An occult cabal has hired him to complete two important assignments: 1) Recover the mysterious Morpheus device, a long-buried Cold War weapon with the power to unleash ruin upon humanity; 2) Annihilate the military's Black Spear Initiative in the process.

Captain Cole West has been collecting a different kind of ghost ever since he joined Black Spear. Haunted by memories of all the lives he couldn't save, and all the ones he's taken, he is now tasked with finding Morpheus and uncovering the core of a new enemy's plot before it's too late.

At first, this mission is just a job, but when a shocking secret rises to the surface, Cole West's determination to kill or be killed becomes personal and more meaningful than ever. Armed with anger issues, PTSD, and vengeance, Cole faces off against his most lethal adversary yet.

Format(s) for review: Paper or Kindle
Review genre: Fiction—Mystery/Thriller/Crime
Pages/Word count: 491 / 120,000

Unbreaking the Circle - Stories of Service by SouthWest Writers, Dan Wetmore (contributor and editor)

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Author's Synopsis

The circle often serves as a symbol of completeness. But military service often breaks circles—of place, time, relationships (with others and with self), and sometimes of life—breaks borne by family members and caregivers as well. Unbreaking the Circle is an anthology of recollections by those three groups, stories which range from pride in service, to the trials of combat and their echoes into civilian life, to sacrifices made, unexpected moments of humor, and life-long bonds formed. Funded by a grant from The New Mexico Arts & The Military program, the anthology was a project to promote healing by the authors, and forge stronger connections with those around them: to re-forge the circle of community broken by silence born of fear, since expressions of their experiences—so deeply seated as to be inseparable from their identities—can only be made at risk of having not only their work... but themselves... misunderstood or rejected.

Format(s) for review: Paper Only
Review genre: Other—Anthology/Collection
Pages/Word count: 365 / 97,000

Disaster and Emergency Preparedness Checklist by Captain Steven J. Craig, USCGR Retired

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MWSA Review Pending

 

Author's Synopsis

Disaster and Emergency Preparedness is a practical, easy-to-follow guide that helps individuals, families, and communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. Drawing on decades of real-world emergency management experience, the book begins with foundational all-hazards planning, offering step-by-step guidance, checklists, and budget-friendly strategies for building emergency kits, “go bags,” and evacuation plans. It then examines specific hazards—including wildfires, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, pandemics, and home fires—providing tailored preparedness strategies and lessons learned from past events. Additional chapters address often-overlooked planning needs such as pets, seniors, and other vulnerable populations, along with emerging tools like artificial intelligence in preparedness. The final section focuses on disaster recovery for both households and communities, including insights for Emergency Operations Center personnel and leaders responsible for coordinating response and rebuilding efforts. Throughout the book, practical checklists, planning templates, and real-life stories help readers build resilience and take meaningful steps toward being better prepared before disaster strikes.

Format(s) for review: Paper Only
Review genre: Nonfiction—Reference
Pages/Word count: 62 / 8,940