The Remnant

According to the Bible, we know that in the future Christians and believers in Christ will face the ultimate persecution. To deny Him means you will live, but to acknowledge Him means the world will put you to death. However in the science fiction futuristic novel The Remnant by William Michael Davidson, the world is a vastly different place. The world has always known that most wars were based on religion and thus the need to find a way to reprogram the human brain so that the need for religion and belief in God is no longer an issue. So the governments of the world developed something known only as a super flu the destroys what they believe to be the genes that they have determined to be the biological source of spiritual experiences to rid the world of this type of terror threat.

Each person on the earth is implanted with a device known as a NRNTor Neurological Registry of Neurological Transmissions meaning they can communicate with an individual in a one-way manner by the CTC or Center for Theological Control and locate and track them as well like a built-in GPS. Now they have resolved to seek out individuals who willingly practice any type of faith-like activity like prayer, reading a religious book or even talking about it with others. Those that they extract, they interrogate and then ban them to Catalina Island. Those people are called Abherrants and those that hunt them are known as Extractors and Colton Pierce is the number one man in the CTC.

The government is trying to figure out a way to terminate Abherrants instead of giving them a life of imprisonment, kinda of like the Holocaust back in Germany. It would make those who practice or consider practicing such ideas reconsider if their life is worth losing over a belief in a God that Colton refuses to believe in. Now he struggles with communicating with his own teen son and the loss of his wife while trying to make a name for himself at the CTC for a future position as Chief Officer. He will stop at nothing to ensure that this promotion is his and he will do whatever it takes to look good in the eyes of the CTC. But what happens when the next extraction turns out to be a function his son is attending? Will Colton be willing to lay down his own life for his son?

I received The Remnant by William Michael Davidson compliments of Dancing Lemur Press and MC Book Tours. This is such a great novel and love the idea that the government would attempt to find a way to reprogram the human brain in an attempt to stop the need for faith. A great futuristic novel that is guaranteed to make you think twice about the governments involvement in our own religious freedoms we take for granted far too often! I would give this book a 4.5 out of 5 stars in my opinion. It even looks as if a sequel might be in the works as well!

For more information about The Remant, William Michael Davidson or where you can pick up a copy of this novel today, please click on the links below:

The Remnant by Willliam Michael Davidson

You can find William Michael Davidson on Facebook to stay up to date on all his latest books.

To read more reviews on the Remnant, please visit MC Book Tours website. 

The Calling

It seems the apple never falls far from the tree and in this case Rachelle Dekker is giving her father, Ted a run for his money. Genetics must place a role in the success of her Seer series which is a blend of Logan's Run meets Divergent. A suspenseful series involving a group of people who live under the Authority in the city and they decide who is successful and those who aren't that will spend their lives living in a servant subclass to those in the city. In the first novel in the series, The Choosing, readers got a chance to meet Carrington Hale, a young girl who was raised and groomed to hopefully make a successful match in the Choosing ceremony. But her future was not to be as bright as she had hoped and was left without being 'chosen.'

Now living a life as a Lint, the subclass who serves those in the city, she has been feeling as if there should be something more to this life and when she meets a wise old man named Aaron, who offers to show her another "way," she believes in a life of freedom that the Authority wishes to curtail. If everyone started to "think" for themselves, they might not adjust to the life that had been the way of life for all who serve the Authority.

Now Carrington and her group of people known as Seers, those who see with the true eyes of the Father, must work as fugitives to try and offer people an alternative to that of the Authority. It is a race against time as the Seers, now referred to as rebels and outlaws, must be hunted down until every last one of them is transitioned into the Genesis program. It is an experiment that the Authority has tested on its own citizens in order to reprogram them through a series of injections to reprogram their neural pathways and erase all memories of freedom and choice in the second novel, The Calling.

I received The Calling by Rachel Dekker compliments of Tyndale House Publishers for my honest review. I did not received any monetary compensation for a favorable review and the opinions contained here are strictly my own personal ones. Fans of Christian Dystopian fiction will love this series as an alternative to Divergent, Hunger Games and others, and still provides readers with that same sense of suspense and heart stopping adrenaline you would expect as you are turning pages as fast as you can read. You just never know who are the true heroes and enemies in this series and wonder just where it will all go by the time the third novel rolls out. Truly had me guessing and reguessing all the way to the end. Well worth another 4.5 out of 5 stars in my opinion. A Reader's Discussion Guide is included at the conclusion of this novel that is perfect for book clubs.

For more information about The Calling, Rachelle Dekker or where you can pick up a copy of this novel today, please click on the links below:

The Calling by Rachelle Dekker

You can find Rachelle Dekker on Facebook, to stay up to date on all her latest novels.

For more reviews on The Calling, please visit Tyndale House Publisher's website.

Forsaking Home - Giveaway and Review

"Food is freedom. Control the food, control the people. While a lot of people don't see it that way, if you think about our current situation, it really applies. How many people do you think have gone to camps because they are hungry? Humans lived for tens of thousands of years before grocery stores, but take them out of the equation and folks panic." (pg 23).

With the collapse of the power grid, communications, and food and water supply for reasons that continue to remain unknown, thousands of people are struggling to survive. It has truly become the survival of the fittest. Morgan Carter has been planning for something like this his whole life. Now that it has happened, Morgan has banded together a handful of his neighbors and close friends and moved to the safety of the woods near his former neighborhood. Not trusting the government to handle anything, Morgan is relying on all his survival skills and the stockpile of supplies he has managed to store and acquire along the way.

In the fourth novel in The Survivalist Series from A. American, Forsaking Home, takes us into the struggles facing Morgan Carter and his family and friends. Morgan continues to try and find more food in the woods surrounding their small encampment but with hunting and supplies running low, they have to venture out further and further away from camp. Now it seems that they have uninvited company staking them in hopes of gaining their supplies of hogs and chickens as well as anything else they can find. They will have to discover who it is before someone goes missing or someone is killed and Morgan will stop at nothing to protect his family.

Meanwhile at government-run refugee camp, Jess has taken matters into her own hands when she learns that this isn't really a refugee camp at all, but a work camp for detainees that the DHS or Department of Homeland Security has been rounding up and placing them in various FEMA camps all over the country. Those in leadership roles have taken it upon themselves to run the camp any way they see fit and that has lead to Jess being raped. Knowing that no one will believe her, she takes it upon herself to murder the man responsible which has now lead to her arrest and isolation along with two other women responsible. What they don't realize is that they won't be getting out of there alive. But Jess' former friends aren't about to let that happen and things begin to take shape to take back our country from those who seek to control it any way they see fit.

I received Forsaking Home from A. American compliments of Penguin Publishers and TLC Book Tours for my honest review. I did not receive any monetary compensation for a favorable review and the opinions expressed here are strictly my own. A chilling look into the future of what might happen should America fall victim of an EMP blast or nuclear threat in our own country. Where some will believe the government will help them, and yet others understand that their survival depends on what they can do until things get back to normal. This is the fourth novel in the Survivalist series and it for mature audiences only as is labeled on each of the novels. For this reason, I can give this novel a higher rating. It is one of the few that have warnings placed on the rear cover due to the subject matter contained within, strong language, violence and mature content places this rating at 4 out of 5 stars in my book. Truly a must read for fans of dystopian and apocalyptic fiction and is not a stand alone novel.

For more information about Forsaking Home, A. American or where you can pick up this novel today, please click on the links below:

Forsaking Home by A. American

You can also find A. American on Facebook to stay up to date with all his latest novels.

To read more reviews on Forsaking Home, please visit TLC's Book Tour page. 

Thanks to the generosity of the A. American and TLC Book Tours, they are giving away the entire series to one lucky follower of my blog, Reviews From The Heart. Here are your details to enter:

1. Be a follower of my blog, Reviews From The Heart

2. Be a resident of the US or Canada only. Please No P.O. Boxes!

3. "Like" A. American's Facebook page. 

4. Leave a comment below telling my why you'd LOVE to win this entire SERIES  along with your email address. You can use the words (at) and (dot) instead of the symbols.

I will notify the winner of the giveaway once it ends on July 17th via email, so don't forget to include it with your comment.

The Survivalist Series from A. American
# 1 - Going Home
# 2 - Surviving Home
# 3 - Escaping Home
# 4 - Forsaking Home

Isolation - Giveaway and Review

Imagine a world where just the touch of someone could quite literally kill you. In fact the spread of contaminants and bacteria are spiraling so out of control that physical touch is banned. To prevent the spread of bacteria, you are not allowed to touch your face at all. What has become a habit is now against the law. A new motto is in effect, "Habits learned early are habits for life." In fact the world's population is now spiraling out of control as government agencies like the CDC and Homeland Security are trying to figure out just how to control the spread of bacteria like Ecoli and others that are killing people faster than 48 hours.

Suddenly bans on everything is becoming the norm as they try to isolate the sources and causes for so many wide spread deaths on a global scale. Antibacterials or AB's are now sought after in great supplies along with sanitary supplies like bleach and antibiotics. People are now becoming obsessive in their attempts to stay alive and even companies like AgriBiz have been trying to find safe food products and have worked to genetically modify things like wheat and corn to increase supply while trying to fight diseases.

The common cold, allergies, and other respiratory infections all become dangerous beyond discomfort. People, even close relatives, would shy away from an afflicted person. It was impossible to know what was causing an illness, and the illness caused symptoms that became shunned. A kind of stoning occurred when infected individuals ventured out in public with an audible cough. You could have called it a beating - it would have sounded more contemporary, less ancient - but the fact was no one wanted to touch an infected person. So throwing things - bricks, chunks of concrete, anything you found that was heavy and safe to pick up, though not garbage, obviously - at someone who coughed or sneezed was a safe way to eliminate a contaminating source, who happened to be a person, a person who ignited your deepest fear, the fear that a cold could kill you. After that, people with colds quarantined themselves, sought medical attention and called in sick. It was that or face the wrath of the terrorized public.

So foods became unsafe, first fresh vegetables and fruits, then pork, chicken and beef until all sources of those products were completely destroyed in an effect to contain whatever was killing people. Pretty soon the only thing that remained was government surplus products that were divided as an allotment based on your age and weight. Soon the government took things further creating groups designed to specifically looking for offenders to the bans and arrest or contain them as needed. Pretty soon even the population was controlled in an effort to stop the spread of the deadly bacteria, but were they killing themselves in the process?

I received Isolation by Denise R. Stephenson compliments of Virtual Authors Book Tours and Mill City Press for my honest review. I did not receive any monetary compensation for a favorable review and the opinions are strictly my own. Based on where we are headed with the recent introductions of GMO's into our food supply, what Denise has written could very well be a chilling future look at where we as a country might be headed. The controversy over the use of GMO's, overuse of antibacterial products and immunity of antibiotics are chilling to see the results of this played out over time. While this novel is science fiction, it could quite possibly give us insight into our own apocalyptic future. I'd rate this novel a 4 out of 5 stars based on my personal rating scale, which includes some profanity and sexual content.

Now for some great news, thanks to the generosity of Virtual Authors Book Tours and Denise R. Stephenson, they are offering a giveaway eBook copy of Isolation to one lucky follower of my blog, Reviews From The Heart. Here are your details to enter.

1. Be a follower of my blog, Reviews From The Heart. 

2. "Like" Denise R. Stephenson's Facebook page and leave a comment.

3. Be a resident of the US or have a US shipping address. Please No P.O. Boxes.

4. Leave a comment below telling me why you'd love to win a copy of the book. Don't forget to include your email address. You can use the words (at) and (dot) instead of the symbols.

I will be contacting the winner of the giveaway when it ends on June 25th by email so be sure to include it. Without it, I won't have a way to contact you. The winner will have 72 hours to respond to the email notification. If I don't hear from you, I will redraw another winner.

For more information about Isolation, Denise R. Stephenson or where you can pick up a copy of this novel today, please click on the links below:

Isolation by Denise R. Stephenson

You can also find Denise R. Stephenson on Facebook to stay up to date with all her latest novels.

To read more reviews on Isolation, please visit Virtual Author's Blog Tours website.

Lighthouse Island

Imagine a world in the future. A world that has become so densely populated that green spaces no longer exist. They are now the product of advertisements to work towards using the credits you earn in hopes of visiting a place that only exists far from where you live now. Cities have developed so much due to the over population of people that any space is used to build on. Animals have all died out due to disease or simply being hunted to extinction. Now only the wealthy and rich have a handful of animals. Water is the most precious of commodities. All the rivers have dried up because global warming and creation of cities have left the atmosphere and the ecosystem completely out of balance. It no longer rains. Since water is so precious, every single human has been allocated just one quart a day and most of the time, it's cloudy and yellow but still drinkable.

There are no longer a need for maps, data or numbers so calendars are now rendered obsolete. No one cares what year it is because the days have all begun to blur together as one anyways. The only technology that remains in virtually every location imaginable are televisions. They are the way in which communication between the agencies and the population exist. Depending on your skill set you might be able to climb your way up the corporate ladder and be able to move where water rationing isn't a concern and food is more readily available. Every night on the radio from an abandoned satellite a voice reads over and over the great classical books of the world. It is known simply as Big Radio.

The only hope that Nadia Stepan has growing up as an orphan is finding a way to escape to a place known simply as Lighthouse Island. A place where trees, oceans, and food is plentiful. It is only gifted to those that can afford it, but Nadia believes she can find a way to get there on her own. Not knowing how she will make the journey, she finds all her knowledge in the forms of books that most people have disregarded in leiu of television. She consumes them instead of watching the government run programming, mostly in part by her inability to see due to defect in her vision caused from a lack of Vitamin A. Now all she can do is simply read about places that used to exist. History books and technology books have been rendered obsolete since it doesn't matter what the current state of things are now. Resources can't be replicated to fix the things that were once used like ebooks and cell phones. Now most people resort to scavenging, work in the agencies or demolition. Now that water is so hard to come by and the pipes no longer have the pressure or electricity to run them, buildings larger than 4 stories are demolished. The people that live there are forced to find suitable housing some place else or are turned over to the prisons to work in labor camps.

I received Lighthouse Island by Paulette Jiles compliments of William Morrow, a division of Harper Collins Publishers for my honest review and received no monetary compensation for a favorable one. I love books like this one because it takes us into the possibility of where our own future may in fact be headed. If population increases so exponentially will the earth be able to substain itself or will the possibilities like what are featured in this book become a reality? I thoroughly enjoyed this one and can't wait to read more novel from Paulette Jiles. This was a first for me. She literally took me into a future world where I was living alongside Nadia and one I which I truly felt was real. I could relate to Nadia character being a huge book lover myself. It was such an incredible journey and one I couldn't put down until I finished the last page. I rate this one a 4.5 out of 5 stars and this book is now available for preorder since it is due out in October of this year. This is one you won't want to miss! This was so much better than what I was expecting and hope to see this one come to the big screen someday soon!

For more information about Lighthouse Island, Paulette Jiles or where to preorder a copy of this novel today, please click on the links below:

Lighthouse Island by Paulette Jiles

You can also find Paulette Jiles on her website to stay up to date with all her latest novels. 
 

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow (October 8, 2013)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062232509
• ISBN-13: 978-0062232502
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches