Once Upon a Time
The Complete First Season
Actors: Jennifer Morrison, Ginnifer Goodwin, Lana Parrilla, Josh Dallas, Jared Gilmore
Studio: ABC
ASIN: B0058YPL66
Release Date: August 28th, 2012
Running Time: 946 minutes
Rated: PG


I was pestered to death by my parents to watch Once Upon a Time. Sure, I've seen the advertisements for it, but I never attempted to watch it because I never cared much for Jennifer Morrison when she was on House, M.D.

I saw the complete first season at my local Walmart yesterday and I thought I would give it a try. If I don't like it, I can always give it to my parents.

Inside the set was a $10 coupon off of any current and upcoming ABC series DVD/Blu-Ray Set, including Castle: The Complete Fourth Season!

I intended to only watch the pilot last night, but I ended up watching the entire first disc as I became addicted to the mysterious town of Storybrooke.

A Plain Scandal
An Appleseed Creek Mystery
Written By: Amanda Flower
Publisher: B&H Books
ISBN: 9781433676987
Pub. Date: February 15, 2013
Pages: 336
Pre-Order: Amazon.com

Chloe Humphrey is enjoying her life working at a college in Appleseed Creek, Ohio, but her life is turned upside down when she is informed that house that she rents with her roommate Becky has a new owner who plans on remodeling and selling the house.

Someone is going around the community grabbing Amish girls and cutting their hair. Chloe finds a body of an Amish man. He had been murdered and his beard has been shaved off. An elderly Amish man is pushed up against his own horse & buggy and someone cuts his beard off!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Written by: Denise Mina
Illustrated by: Andrea Muttti
Publisher: Vertigo/DC Comics
ISBN: 9781401235574
Pub Date: November 13, 2012
Pages: 152
Pre-order on Amazon.com

Based upon the best-selling trilogy by the late author Stieg Larsson is the new graphic novel adaptation from DC Comics/Vertigo. Thanks to edelweiss I got a chance to see a sneak peak at issue one. The complete book will be on sale on November 13th!

The graphic novel follows the same plot from the original books and both the US and Swedish movie versions. Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist who is having major legal trouble, is asked to investigate a forty-something-year-old missing case by Mr. Vanger.

This story did not start off as a western romance. The original idea I had was about a woman who was under the care of a psychiatrist because she murdered her husband.  What they didn’t know was her reason for the murder, which was self-defense. She had been in this abusive relationship for years and finally hit her breaking point, thus protecting herself and fatally injuring her husband.

I had plans to make this doctor-patient relationship, but I just couldn’t get into the story enough to make it work. For one, I know nothing of psychiatry and it would have been ridiculous for me to even try to write a character that specialized in that. They always tell you to write what you know and what I know is country living. So, I reverted back to my comfort zone and pulled ideas from the original story into “Zane: The McKades of Texas”.

The heroine of the novel, Kellan Anderson—later known as Andi Ford, is on the run from her abusive ex-boyfriend.  She keeps a journal (just like I had planned for the original story) that recounts the abusive attacks. That’s pretty much all I used from my original plot as the rest of the story involves ranch living and cowboys. The journal entries were what really started the whole story line. I just put myself in this character’s position and imagined how depressed and frightened she felt during these accounts.

Ka-Boom
By: Alyce Joy Ringiger
Illustrator: Diane Lucus
Publisher: Halo Publishing International
ISBN: 978-1612440699
Pub Date: July 31, 2012
Pages:46

Blurb:

KA-BOOM! is about a little fairy named Sprout that runs into trouble quite often. She has a shoe fetish, but is one of the queen’s favorites because in the end she gets the job done. Sprout meets a little girl named Taylor after blowing up Taylor’s dollhouse. Sprout doesn’t give up trying to get Taylor to trust her. She and Taylor finally become friends after Sprout shrinks Taylor and together they have a fantastic adventure. Taylor never thought she would be talking to Sir Leapsalot, let alone ride on his back and hopping lily pads. The message? Never give up.

Review:

Seven-year old Taylor is shocked when her dollhouse suddenly falls to the floor. What or whom could have caused this? As she investigates, she finds out who is responsible - a red hair fairy named Sprunetta Brunetta, but everyone calls her Sprout!

As a kid I never really liked dressing up to go trick-or-treating because the heavy costume and mask would get hot. By the time I walked up to the fifth house, I would already be sweaty. Now that I'm an adult, I enjoy carving the jack-o-lantern, decorating my front yard, and giving candy away.

Many parents taking their kids trick-or-treating are dressed up in a costume too, in which I think they are a little too old to be playing dress up. I do own a few holiday t-shirts that I wear around Christmas and I wouldn't mind wearing one on Halloween, but the only ones I ever see in the stores have a kiddies’ logo or saying on it and of course they never have an adult size.

 Amazon.com Description:

Against a teeming canvas of Borgia politics, Niccolò Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci come together to unmask an enigmatic serial killer, as we learn the secret history behind one of the most controversial works in the western canon, The Prince...

Ethan Chase lives a life full of fear. His sister, Meghan Chase, is now the Iron Queen, and he is about to start classes at a new school, in which he dreads. You see, just like his sister, he can see Faeries and if these creatures find out that he can see him, then his life would be over.

He keeps to himself as he doesn't want to attract attention, but a teenage girl, Kenzie St. James, takes an interest in him, despite his resistance. Then he meets another schoolmate, Todd Wyndham, who he recognizes is a half-faerie. Todd thinks someone or something is after him.

Mysterious ghost like faeries appear and soon Todd disappears without a trace. Todd's parents and the police have no clue where the boy could have gone, but Ethan knows what happened to him. Those ghostly faeries took him and the faeries now have eyes on Ethan.

With no other choice, Ethan uses the magical token that his sister left behind and he, along with Kenzie - who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, are transported to Nevernever, the land of the of the Feys.

Final Thoughts

Star Trek: The Next Generation / Doctor Who: Assimilation 2 
Contributors: J. K. Woodward
Publisher: IDW Publishing
ISBN: 9781613774038
Pub Date:  October 02, 2012 
Pages: 104 

The Federation Planet Delta IV is attacked by the Borg and a new race called the Cybermen.

In the past, The Doctor, Amy and her husband Rory are in Egypt to catch an alien criminal. Then, they hop back into the TARDIS where they encounter a weird disturbance that sends them to San Francisco in the 1940s. Or are they somewhere else, like a holoprogram on the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Commander William Riker, Data, and Doctor Beverly Crusher are surprised by the Doctor and his companions’ sudden arrival, and they are even more surprised when they learn the visitors are not holograms. Commander Riker orders Worf and a security team to take them to Captain Picard.

100 Greatest Family Classics
Directors: Various
Starring: Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Gary Cooper, James Cagney, Nat “King” Cole, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Durante, Laurel & Hardy, Cyd Charisse, The Andrews Sisters & Many More!
Studio: Mill Creek Entertainment
ASIN: B0088JG98M
Pub Date: July 10, 2012
Running Time: 129 Hours
Rating: Unrated

A good family-friendly movie is a rare thing now of days. Mill Creek Entertainment has complied together two of their previous releases, Timeless Family Classics and Classic Musicals, into one unique bundle titled 100 Greatest Family Classics.

I’ve only seen a few musicals, so I was a little skeptical about reviewing Classic Musicals, but the majority of the films have other things going on for them with an occasional song and dance routine thrown into the mix. The fifty movies (on twelve double-sided discs) are from the years 1920s through to 1962; some of the films have aged a lot over the years, while others still look and sound great.

How to Write and Publish a Successful Children’s Book:
Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply
By: Cynthia Resser
Publisher: Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.
ISBN: 9781601384072
Pub Date: 2010
Pages: 288

    Have you ever wanted to write your own children’s book? Or do you already have a children’s book written, but you don’t know how to get your book published? Cynthia Reeser is the editor-in-chief and the founder of a quarterly literary journal titled Prick of the Spindle and she has written the book How to Write and Publish a Successful Children’s Book to help aspiring writers get their stories and books published. Several of my short stories have been published in various magazines and e-zines, so I was interested in reviewing this book that the Atlantic Publishing Group sent to me free of charge.

    The first few pages asks you to ask yourself, Why Write for Children?” and then takes you into a brief history of children books, in which the first children’s books were written in back in the 1400s. Before you start writing your novel, you should look into the current market place and see what the popular trend is.

Doctor Who Dave Gibbons Collection 
Artist: Dave Gibbons
Publisher: IDW Publishing
ISBN: 9781613773475 
Ediction: Trade Paperback
Pub Date: September 18, 2012
Pages: 372
List Price: $29.99 USD

NetGalley and IDW Publishing were nice enough to let me view the upcoming paperback release of the Doctor Who Dave Gibbons Collection.

The graphic novels in this collection are:

The Iron Legion; City of the Damned; The Star Beast; The Dogs of Doom; The Time Witch; Dragon's Claw; The Collector; Dreamers of Earth; The Life Bringer; Way of the World; Spider-God; The Deal; The Free Fall Warriors; The Neutron Knights; The Tides of Time; and Stars Fell on Stockbridge.