Further Tales From My TBR Pile

Today I’m once again directing the spotlight on a particular section of my To Be Read Pile – review copies I’ve received from authors.

I’m currently closed to review requests but before I pulled up the drawbridge (so to speak) I’d already amassed quite a few books sent to me for review by authors.  I’ll confess I’ve not made as much progress as I would have liked in reducing my author review pile and some of the books have been languishing there for quite some time.

Therefore, in highlighting a few of the books in my author review pile, I’m hoping to assuage my guilt at the length of time they’ve been there, reassure their lovely authors that I haven’t forgotten my promise to read and review them, and perhaps tempt other readers into adding them to their own TBR piles.

Fred’s Funeral by Sandy Day

Fred Sadler has just died of old age. It’s 1986, seventy years after he marched off to WWI, and the ghost of Fred Sadler hovers near the ceiling of the nursing home. To Fred’s dismay, the arrangement of his funeral falls to his prudish sister-in-law, Viola. As she dominates the remembrance of Fred, he agonizes over his inability to set the record straight.

Was old Uncle Fred really suffering from shell shock? Why was he locked up most of his life in the Whitby Hospital for the Insane? Could his family not have done more for him?

Fred’s memories of his life as a child, his family’s hotel, the War, and the mental hospital, clash with Viola’s version of events as the family gathers on a rainy October night to pay their respects.

Getting Home by Wolfe Butler

It is happening again. A looming sense of doom coupled with an innate need to run plagues him, a rising darkness he cannot escape. Something is coming for Tom. He doesn’t know what, but the ominous presence is moving closer every day. Nightmares and voices haunt him until nothing in his life feels safe.

Vehement denial and copious amounts of alcohol only delay the approach, but leave Tom with missing time and strained relationships. His respectable family, empathetic girlfriend, and prestigious job—all begin to disintegrate as Tom can only watch, anchorless and increasingly adrift.

At his breaking point, the only certain solution seems to be to end it all, but a lingering instinct dares him to hold on to hope. Can Tom find the road leading to redemption? Or will the truth of the crippling flashbacks drive him to madness?

An Engineered Injustice (Philadelphia Legal 2) by William L. Myers, Jr.

What if the deadliest train wreck in the nation’s history was no accident?

When a passenger train derails in North Philadelphia with fatal results, idealistic criminal defense attorney Vaughn Coburn takes on the most personal case of his young career. The surviving engineer is his cousin Eddy, and when Eddy asks Vaughn to defend him, he can’t help but accept. Vaughn has a debt to repay, for he and his cousin share an old secret—one that changed both their lives forever.

As blame for the wreck zeros in on Eddy, Vaughn realizes there’s more to this case than meets the eye. Seeking the truth behind the crash, he finds himself the target of malicious attorneys, corrupt railroad men, and a mob boss whose son perished in the accident and wants nothing less than cold-blooded revenge. With the help of his ex-con private investigator and an old flame who works for the competition, Vaughn struggles to defeat powerful forces—and to escape his own past built on secrets and lies.

Read my review of A Killer’s Alibi (Philadelphia Legal 3) – contains spoilers for Book 2