Gertrude and the Magical Fish by Angela Emily Neveins

                Gertrude and the Magical Fish is a sweet little children’s book written by first time author Angela Emily Neveins and illustrated by Mahfuja Selim. Gertrude is an elderly lady who lives in the magical kingdom of Avalon with her cat Mr. Whiskers. She is very lonely and one day comes across a talking fish that turns into a little girl. This is a lovely little story that teaches the idea that sometimes giving up someone you love to make them happy will end up with you being happy as well. The book explains it much better than I do. The vocabulary is appropriate for children to have the book read to them and the illustrations are bright and cheerful. I read this on my ereader which doesn’t always work well for picture books but Gertrude and the Magical Fish turned out not too bad although the actual book would be more entertaining for a child. The cover is appealing and attractive. This is a delightful book with a subtle yet lovely message.

Death and Disappearances by Richard Smiraldi

                Death and Disappearances is an interesting book but I’m not sure if it’s in a good way or in a bad way. Montgomery loves his entitled life with his artist wife, Petula, until he wakes up one day with a large lump on his head and a missing wife. At first I thought it was a typical mystery novel with a taste of the 1950s. If it were a movie it would be filmed in black and white. The further into the book I read, the stranger the book became as voodoo, vampires and the supernatural got involved. I wasn’t always sure what was going on, in part due to how the book read on my ereader. I found it a bit hard to follow who was speaking at times due to how it formatted on my ereader but that may have been my device’s fault. I would have enjoyed the supernatural twist if it hadn’t seemed like it just didn’t fit in with the story. The main character was interesting and I liked Mont a lot. I think if I read the book a second time I may get a bit more out of it since I would know who’s who and what’s what. The cover is rather bland and basic but kind of goes with the 50s feel that I got from the story. This was a good enough read that I will look for other books to read by this author.

Bringing Up Mike by Mark Duncan

                Bringing Up Mike is a somewhat coming of age story about Joe, a young genius, who never attended high school and works in a secret facility as the tech who keeps computer viruses from destroying the system. At least that is what I think he does since I never really figured much out about that part of the story. His assistant is Mike, an artificial intelligence that Joe made and now he wants to teach Mike to be an “adult”, or at least act like one, as opposed to the four year old emotional intelligence he currently has. Joe decides he needs a break and heads to live with an older couple and attend high school while living in Tennessee. Mike is still in his life via the beauty of the computer network and becomes a part of everyone’s lives in Joe’s new world. Joe also acquires a frightened race horse to nurse back to health with the help of his “foster mother”, Martha, who herself needs some nursing as she recovers from the loss of her son. The book is as much educational as it is a story and for the most part I enjoyed that aspect although there were times I found it to be a bit too preachy. I did enjoy the information about looking after a horse as well as all of the tidbits about Civil War reenactments and BBQ competitions in the South. The formatting and editing worked very well on my ereader. The cover art does not do the book justice because it really doesn’t give a clear idea of what the story is about and does nothing to draw the reader in. All in all it is a good book to read.