Ocean's Infiltrator Review - The Addictive Ocean's Gift Series

Ocean's Infiltrator - a review

This novel, the second in the Ocean’s Gift series is yet another page turner. It demands to be read in one sitting, to the exclusion of all other calls on the reader’s life including eating or sleeping.

I still love Joe. I love his bumbling humanness and his worship of Sirena and I spent the entire book in as much agony as Joe, believing that she would leave him high and dry and return to her people. The ending is incredible and I should have seen it coming, but didn’t. I won’t spoil it, even though I badly want to tell. 

Demelza Carlton spins an incredible yarn, which wraps around the reader and pulls tight, too tight to escape from easily. She is obviously an immense researcher, who understands the oceans and their peculiarities in depth. Her books have made me wonder about many recent nautical disasters and their perilous origins and if the stories of old, about fantastical sirens who sang from rocks and lured ships to their deaths may in fact be true.

This novel is awesome and I devoured it. It is as much a study of behaviour and relationships as a book about mermaids.

Demelza Carlton has always loved the ocean, but on her first snorkelling trip she found she was afraid of fish.

She has since swum with sea lions, sharks and sea cucumbers and stood on spray-drenched cliffs over a seething sea as a seven-metre cyclonic swell surged in, shattering a shipwreck below.

Sensationalist spin? No - Demelza tends to take a camera with her so she can capture and share the moment later; shipwrecks, sharks and all.
Demelza now lives in Perth, Western Australia, the shark attack capital of the world.

The Ocean's Gift series was her first foray into fiction, followed by the Nightmares trilogy. She swears the Mel Goes to Hell series ambushed her on a crowded train and wouldn't leave her alone.

The suggested reading order for each series is as follows:

Ocean's Gift series:
Ocean's Gift
Ocean's Infiltrator
Water and Fire
Turbulence and Triumph (to be released in 2014)
Ocean's Depths (to be released in late 2014)

Ocean's Gift by Demelza Carlton

I liked Water and Fire, but I loved Ocean’s Gift. It was fascinating seeing Belinda in her mermaid setting, as I had got to know her in the first novel even though I knew little of her background. But in this novel, I adored the character of Vanessa. She had an innocence and yet a matriarchal power that was really enticing. I felt as though there was an opportunity to really get to know her. Demelza Carlton has struck the perfect balance between the archetypal view of mermaids and that of the sirens of old, blending the two to make a tender and yet dangerous species of females.

The storyline is awesome and frighteningly plausible. The earth is dying and nature will have seen the tell-tale signs long before man pulls his head out of the TV and realises it.

Joe is a decent man in a world full of typically bawdy males. He is solid and honourable and bashful without losing any of his sex appeal. He is reassuringly male without the unappealing baseness of the other fishermen, which is probably why Vanessa picks him. The mermaid race seeks liaison with men as a duty, but Vanessa is different. She has previously known love and it presents a vulnerability within an otherwise fearsome character portrayal.

I love how truly Australian this novel is. It has all the raw beauty of a stunning corner of the world. I appreciated the descriptions of the geography and the oceans; they were colourful and well-drawn and made the reader feel as though they were taking part in the novel. I was there in Joe’s hut and Vanessa’s boat. I liked this novel enough to read it in one sitting, not wanting to put it down and miss anything. It had enough of a hold on me, to keep me from doing the myriad other things that I actually should have been doing and I felt sad when the last page had been finished and savoured. I would have felt more devastated, had I not known that there were other books in the series to pick up.

It was incredibly well written and refreshing clean editorially - not a single distracting flaw to spoil the reading experience. I would definitely recommend it.

Get your own copy of Demelza's awesome book on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Oceans-Gift-Demelza-Carlton-ebook/dp/B00AFEO80O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1403333968&sr=8-1&keywords=Ocean%27s+Gift

A Hero for Hire by CB Pratt - A Review

 

 

Eno the Thracian is a hero for hire in a world where legends are bred. He is the perfect male, handsome, dashing, brave and forthright with an entertaining hint of humour. This novel was an incredibly good read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I honestly couldn’t have predicted the ending at any point in the story. I loved how the ancients are mixed in with the presence of the mystical, ghosts, sphinxes and hags all decorate a novel with the power to hold the reader’s attention with ease. All this without forgetting the company of a camel named ‘Nightmare’.

The author clearly has a dry wit, which reaches out of the pages of the book and makes the reader smile, continually. I would genuinely recommend this book to anyone wanting a great read. This series would make an amazing movie serial.

 

C.B. Pratt
Author of the Eno the Thracian Series

 

C.B. Pratt has lived all over the United States, including California, New York and many stops in between. Having been a professional writer for over twenty years, she is ill-suited to any normal work and hopes to continue writing for the rest of her life. Independent publishing has allowed her to write the things she has always wanted to, including fantasy and steampunk. She is the author of numerous traditionally published books, as well as the Eno the Thracian fantasy-adventure series. RIVERS OF SAND will be released late summer, 2014.  

Sample or purchase Book 1 in the series: http://www.amazon.com/Hero-Hire-Eno-Thracian-ebook/dp/B00D6KPC1S/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370385145&sr=1-1&keywords=c.b.+pratt

Web site:http://www.cynthiapratt.com/

 

The Forest Bull by Terry Maggert - A Review

A Spellbinding Novel that I just couldn't put down.

 

I listened to an audio version of this novel and found it very hard to switch off. I felt as though I was dropped instantly into the action, scrambling to keep up with the strong male patriarch of the strange little family, as he went about his killing occupation. It was gripping and at times, so graphically explained that it felt real and made me fearful of actual monsters disguised as humans, who could potentially jump out at me. I was powerless to second guess the plot or the direction of the storyline, led like a lamb to the slaughter at every turn, forced to go around corners where surprises would jump out at me without warning. The descriptive elements are so strong that the reader is there, in the centre of the action, smelling the aromas, hearing the sounds and experiencing everything that the writer is conveying. It’s a masterpiece which utterly took me by surprise, not because I wasn’t expecting it, because a reader always hopes, but because it wouldn’t be out of place on a lofty shelf with Edgar Allan Poe. I felt desperate when I got to the end of the novel, because it isn’t completely resolved and I will have to buy the next one. If I could give it ten stars, I most certainly would!