Bernard Jan's Blog - Posts Tagged "book-reviews"

To my fellow authors I want to recommend four books that may transform your life! Reading them, studying them and taking their advice at heart is a must for the successful launch of your books and their fruitful life online. We have to be realistic, writing a book comes easy to the most of us. Handling our books afterward is for most of us a nightmare and enigma.

Why don't our books succeed if they are so good? Why don't readers buy them? What did we do wrong?

Please take time to check the following books. Read them at random order or by choosing your priority and urgency, but skip none of them. Each of them will be helpful to you.

Book Launch: How to Write, Market & Publish Your First Bestseller in Three Months or Less AND Use it to Start and Grow a Six Figure Business by Chandler Bolt

A young man who hated writing turns with his buddy their short productivity guide into a book, launches it on Amazon and goes snowboarding in Austria. While sitting in the chairlift he learns his book became Amazon Bestseller and went on to start a 6-figure business. Book Launch offers you a tried, tested, and proven book launch formula and helps you write your book in record time!

Kindle Bestseller Secrets: 10 Tricks Bestselling Non-Fiction Authors Use To Dominate Kindle by Derek Doepker

Derek wrote a powerful and informative book full of tricks and tips that will save your time and help you keep your spirits up as you pave your way through the overcrowded road to your readers! The step-by-step blueprint will guide you on your way from struggling author with a low budget to the best choice among the competition! And it works both for non-fiction and fiction authors!

Authorpreneur: Build the Brand, Business, and Lifestyle You Deserve. It's Time to Write Your Book by Jesse Tevelow

If you are into a serious business and think of yourself as a big player, this book is for you! Books can be your source of income, success and security, not just your friends. Add your strong will and hard work to your passion of writing, and you are half-way to reaching your goal. Authorpreneur has a mission to turn talented and not recognized authors into influential entrepreneurs.

How to Write a Sizzling Synopsis: A Step-by-Step System for Enticing New Readers, Selling More Fiction, and Making Your Books Sound Good by Bryan Cohen

We all know how to write a book but we suck at writing a capturing blurb! Either it is too long or too boring to hook our readers. Writing a sizzling synopsis is possible if we follow a few simple rules and use the tools to get online book browsers click our Buy button every single day. This book is a gold mine! Dig in!

These authors also have free or paid webinars and online courses so I suggest getting in touch with them and subscribing to receive free updates and latest information. When you are down and feel stuck and lost in your creativity or entrepreneurship, listening to them can be a much needed source of motivation and encouragement.

Happy writing and publishing!

BJ
www.bernardjan.com

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Bernard Jan

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


What would you do if you got a call telling you you’d die today? You have less than twenty-four hours to say goodbye to everyone you love and decide how you’ll spend your remaining hours, or, maybe even minutes.

They Both Die at the End is an amazing human story about Mateo and Rufus, two teenage boys and total strangers who met through an app to spend their last day together as Last Friends. It is the story that sticks to us like the strongest glue as we watch their relationship develop in a shocking speed toward the final countdown and ultimate end.

Adam Silvera is one of a few authors today who has the knowledge and power to play with our hearts and emotions with the ease of a child playing with its toys. He does it gentle, caring, but he goes all the way until he dries our eyes from tears.

His stories will shake our insides and awake our strongest and deepest feelings and emotions, making us feel so alive. His novel They Both Die at the End is no exception. It is a masterpiece of sadness and glorified humanity.

BJ
www.bernardjan.com
Bernard Jan



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Cumulus by Eliot Peper

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In his near-future thriller Cumulus, Eliot Peper sets his plot in his hometown Oakland around a passionate and talented young analog photographer, the founder and CEO of a tech giant and a frustrated intelligence agent.

If that doesn’t sound intriguing enough, the fact that Eliot Peper is one of the most talented writers of techno-thrillers today, should rush you to grab this book. Haunting startup stories with political intrigues are his specialty and playground, and Cumulus is yet another confirmation of that. Just a warning before you start reading it: you might get addicted!

BJ
www.bernardjan.com
Bernard Jan



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The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley by Shaun David Hutchinson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Words are like emotions and in The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley Shaun David Hutchinson portrays with great attention and knowledge every stage of heartbreak, guilt, recuperation, laughter, desperation, apathy, hope. And love.

Drew is a boy who doesn’t want to leave the hell of the hospital in which his family died. He hides, draws and works there in his self-induced punishment driven by a strong sense of guilt. He is also a boy whose heart is full of love for two other terminally ill children, his friends Lexi and Trevor, he is trying to save from the claws of death. But he also is a boy who is pulled to Rusty, another teenage boy who is wheeled into the ER in a loud agony with half his body burned.

Drew’s and Rusty’s worlds collide and shape into a new reality of hope and happiness that can happen outside the walls of the hospital, a reality which is not completely devoid of painful pasts and sadness which linger anchored to it.

The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley is a beautiful Young Adult dark book about finding the way out of dark with the comic book by Christine Larsen inside it and the ending which could last a few heartbeats (or heartbreaks) longer.

BJ
www.bernardjan.com
Bernard Jan



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Deadwave by Michael Evans

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Michael Evans is not a new author to me because I’ve already read and reviewed his young adult dystopian novel about an authoritarian government Control Freakz. Thanks to Control Freakz, I didn’t hesitate to grab the first book Deadwave from his new Conspiracy Chronicles Series when it was available for pre-order on Amazon, though I still have to read the remaining books from the Control Freakz Series.

I don’t hide that I prefer a standalone novel over the series, but if other books in the Conspiracy Chronicles Series are as Deadwave, I’m all in for it! The core of the Deadwave story might be a virtual reality game infested with zombies, but it is also much more than that. It is the story built on interesting and strong characters who try to survive and fight for their future in a decaying society manipulated by an ultra-powerful group and the world succumbing under the heavy effects of environmental destruction.

As Deadwave sucked me into its virtual world and made me totally enjoy it, I feel obliged to say a few words about its author. Michael Evans is still just a kid at 17 (no offense, Michael!), but he is also a great man when it comes to writing and his understanding of the world. I urge everyone to read Author’s Note at the end of the book to see how great a visionary he is and in what spheres and universes his mind works.

Don’t judge a book by its cover is a saying that couldn’t be more appropriate in Michael’s case. Don’t judge Michael by his age because he is a living proof that age is just a number and that amazing achievements can be realized even before you cross the threshold of maturity if you dream big, work hard, have a vision, plan, determination, and courage to live your dream.

Remember Michael Evans, a boy with a lifelong mission and an advocate for a better future, and Michael Evans, a prolific author and gifted storyteller who creates an alternate universe with such ease like he is writing his homework. Respect!

BJ
www.bernardjan.com

My review of Control Freakz.

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Bernard Jan



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Blood Brothers by Michael Evans

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


It doesn’t happen often that I finish reading one book in the series and can’t wait for another one as it’s with the Conspiracy Chronicles by teenage author Michael Evans.

Deadwave, the first book in the Conspiracy Chronicles turned me into a fan instantly. Sam, who faces the biggest challenge of his life to stay alive and becomes the best player on the planet by winning the Deadwave World Championship, a virtual reality zombie video game, in Blood Brothers faces even bigger challenge. To stay alive, he must keep his promise and kill his father in a mission orchestrated by an ultra-powerful secret organization of elites.

But Sam and his father have their own agenda. As Sam becomes a blood brother and the powerful member of the organization, will he be able to help his father in realizing his grand plan for his company Chimera? Will things go smoothly for Sam and what will happen to tens of millions of people living in virtual worlds controlled by Chimera?

Only a month after publishing Deadwave, a talented and prolific storyteller Michael Evans launches another fast-paced and super-exciting novel that takes us into the heart of a secret organization, its plots and ruthlessness in manipulating and sparing no one on its path to control and rule the world. Blood Brothers is a page-turner that will make you crave for more!

BJ
www.bernardjan.com

My review of Deadwave.

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Bernard Jan



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Uncommon Stock: Power Play by Eliot Peper

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


It’s hard to believe that three years, three months, and twenty-four days have passed since I’ve read the first book of The Uncommon Series. Reviewing Uncommon Stock: Version 1.0 on September 5, 2016 was like it happened yesterday the moment I started reading its sequel Power Play. Mara Winkel and her heartfelt dedication to her idea(l)s and work came to life in my memory already with the first bass beats of Burning Man.

In this instalment, the CEO of Mozaik, the fastest-growing tech startup in Boulder, leads her team in building a software that will uncover financial fraud at a large international bank.

The book one was a fast read but in the book two Uncommon Stock: Power Play Eliot Peper speeds things up even more by pushing Mara to stir the hornet’s nest and sets lose the dark forces of corrupted corporate capitalist world. His writing is again beautifully contagious, educational and informative. His story is full of action and it pulses within your bloodstreams as it quenches your thirst for the first-rate startup thriller. Thankfully, there is one more book to go!

BJ
www.bernardjan.com

My review of Uncommon Stock: Version 1.0.

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Bernard Jan



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Watching Glass Shatter by James J. Cudney

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I’m glad that the first book I’ve read in the new year is the book from the author I very much respect and love reading, James J. Cudney. I can say nothing but praise for his debut novel Watching Glass Shatter, a moving family drama with strong and memorable characters, which I’ve read after all his other books published to this day.

Two letters that Benjamin Glass leaves to his wife Olivia after his unexpected death, explode with a threat of shattering the whole family. Supported by her sister Diane, Olivia struggles with many family secrets she learns about while visiting each of her five sons. Will she be able to reunite them as a family as each secret cuts her heart like a shattered piece of glass?

Watching Glass Shatter is an impressive portrait of the Glass family members with their real problems, successes and quickly-to-like personalities. It is a story of sadness, pain and love, but also a story of humanity and determination to rise from the sorrow and differences and build a garden where everyone will belong and bloom.

A note to the author: I uncovered Ben’s secret already in Chapter 2 after the family gathering to read his will. That should be a compliment, for you allowed me to connect and empathize with Ben’s sons and their personal situations so early in the book. Thanks and kudos!

BJ
www.bernardjan.com

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Bernard Jan



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Memories From The Darkness: A Control Freakz Novella Collection by Michael Evans

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Forever Gone (Control Freakz #0.5)

In Forever Gone, the first novella in the Memories From The Darkness collection set before the first book in the Control Freakz series, a young author Michael Evans describes with maturity of an experienced writer the heartbreak, doom and fall of one marriage and lost love. Determined to escape a controlled life from the hands of her husband Wilburn Ash, the President of the United States, the First Lady Danielle finds her freedom in a divorce and plotting a secret plan to stop the fanatic rule of the most powerful man in the world who can end her life at any moment or sign of rebellion before he destroys everything else.

Shattered Pasts (Control Freakz Series #1.5)

A great dark novella about a young girl Dulce, a sole survivor of the Camp Camel bombing, who struggles to reconcile with her past in which she lost everyone she loved. Even when she is welcomed in the rebel organization of the White Knights which is trying to save both the people and the country from the merciless hands of the American government, she knows that won’t be easy. Apocalyptic scenes of destruction and the atmosphere of dystopian world sunk in fear, in Shattered Pasts, the second novella in Memories From The Darkness: A Control Freakz Novella Collection, are fantastic.

Dream On (Control Freakz Series #2.5)

Things get better, more exciting and unreal as we travel through Memories From The Darkness: A Control Freakz Novella Collection! In Dream On, Justin, who gave his life to the secret organization Syndicate of Truth, wants it back. Sacrificing thirty years of his life meant nothing, because when he betrayed the most powerful of the powerful ones, he started to pay the ultra-high price. There is only one way to his freedom and liberation from the days filled with regrets, guilt, nightmares and one beautiful but haunting dream of being reunited with his lover Rose Parker, imprisoned in Area 51. But to make this dream become a reality, he will have to give up everything else.

In The Shadows (Control Freakz Series #3.5)

From Forever Gone to In The Shadows, the circle is closed. In this emotional finale, one more and for the last time Jacob meets his old ally. This is his desperate attempt to ask for help to see his real family, or what is left of it, before the world is destroyed. And the world will cease to exist because the monster Jacob has created has started its countdown. It seems there is no one who will stop the President Wilburn Ash in killing everyone. But will the remaining time be enough for Jacob to get so much needed help and with it one last chance to see his family so he can tell them how much he loves them? A great last novella of this exciting, intriguing and dark post-apocalyptic thriller series.

BJ
www.bernardjan.com

Check out my review of Control Freakz.

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Bernard Jan



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Renegade by Michael Evans

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


If you didn’t yet read the first three books of Conspiracy Chronicles by Michael Evans, please do it now! In the fourth book of this awesome series, Renegade, this prolific and very talented teenage author shifts into the highest gear so far.

It is a full action near future science fiction thriller for young adults and those who are not afraid to feel young and love such books, with death waiting around every corner, mass murders, incredible shooting scenes, and blood up to your knees. And it all takes for Sam and his friend Jake to put an end to the ruthless dictatorship and prevent a horrible genocide to occurring in China after millions of human lives were lost in the similar way in America. But will it be enough?

A crazy, good read; don’t miss it!

BJ
www.bernardjan.com

My reviews of Breakdown (ex Deadwave), Blood Brothers and The Last Migration.

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Bernard Jan



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