It's tough in Texas...

Darren Matthews was raised in East Texas, and as a black man, and Texas Ranger, is intimately acquainted with the complications of race. When a black man is killed in Lark,  a small Texas town, and then a white woman is found dead, he seeks to connect the two although no one else wants to. The author of this novel, Bluebird, Bluebird, is Attica Locke, winner of the Harper Lee Prize for legal fiction (-Pleasantville) and a writer and producer of the show Empire. Good writing and suspenseful plot will intrigue readers of mystery fiction. M.L.

Back in the Game

Back in the Game by Lori Wilde, has a good story line. It is also heartwarming, heartbreaking, compassionate and funny. The story is set in the town to Stardust, Texas where baseball is lived and breathed for most of the town folks. They love their hometown baseball hero Rowdy Blanton, who playing days came to an end when he was brutally attacked and he has come home to recover from his injury. He meets Breeanne Carlyle, who helps him write his memoir and just seems to know what goes in to recover his surgeries. Lori Wilde did a great job starting this new series! It also has romance, mystery and even a little magic! *JK*

The Trouble with Texas Cowboys

If you like fun western romance, this is something you might want to read. The Trouble with Texas Cowboys is the second book in the Burnt Boot Series. It has a great deal of humor, real life realism, and colorful characters. While the feud between two families heat up, Sawyer and Jill meet for the first time. When both have no plans to get involved in the whole mess, they soon find themselves being attracted to each other. *JK*

Great American Novel

There has been a lot of talk about The Son by Philipp Meyer.  It’s one of those epic, multi-generational sagas of a Texas family during the 1800s on through the 20th century, depicting three generations of McCulloughs.  Likened to Lonesome Dove I think this will be a must read for anyone who enjoys the kind of story that follows power, blood, land and oil.  It was an Amazon best book of the month in June.  SG

From Amazon’s website: “In 1859, Eli McCullough, the 13-year-old son of Texas pioneers, is captured in a brutal Comanche raid on his family's homestead. First taken as a slave along with his less intrepid brother, Eli assimilates himself into Comanche culture, learning their arts of riding, hunting, and total warfare. When the tribe succumbs to waves of disease and settlers, Eli's only option is a return to Texas, where his acquired thirsts for freedom and self-determination set a course for his family's inexorable rise through the industries of cattle and oil. The Son is Philipp Meyer's epic tale of more than 150 years of money, family, and power, told through the memories of three unforgettable narrators: Eli, now 100 and known simply as "the Colonel"; Eli's son Peter, called "the great disappointment" for his failure to meet the family’s vision of itself; and Eli's great-granddaughter Jeanne Anne, who struggles to maintain the McCullough empire in the economic frontier of modern Texas.”  Amazon.com Review --Jon Foro