The Broken starts off with Gina McVey having dinner with her family, friends and her boyfriend, Stefan. Suddenly, and without a reason, a mirror in the room falls and crashes to the floor. While she is heading to work the next day, she could have sworn that she saw herself driving a car. She follows the woman and sneaks into her house only to find a photo of Gina and her father. Not knowing what is going on, she hops into her car and gets into a car accident.

Hocus Pocus Hotel
By Michael Dahl
Publisher: Stone Arch Books
Pub Date: August 1, 2012
ISBN-13: 978-1434242532
Pages: 216

Charlie Hitchcock was scared to death when he saw Ty standing in the alleyway behind the Abracadabra (aka, the Hocus Pocus Hotel). He had received a note from Ty during school hours to meet him at the hotel. Every student that has received a note from Ty has gotten beat up and now its Charlie's turn to face the bully.

To his surprise, Ty doesn't want to fight him, but instead Ty asks Charlie, or as Ty calls him - Hitch, for help. It seems that a magician has gone missing at the hotel, where Ty lives with his parents, whom also works there. The magician has mysteriously disappeared from his locked hotel room.

The missing magician is one of two cases that Ty needs help with. The other involves a ghost that is stealing items from the hotel. Now it’s up to young Charlie Hitchcock to solve the mysteries.

Taming the Wind
By Tracie Peterson
Publisher: Bethany House
ISBN: 978-0764206177
Release Date: September 1, 2012
Pages: 336
Buy Link: http://ow.ly/dsGj5
Blog Tour Link: http://litfusegroup.com/author/TPeterson

In book three of The Lone Star series, a now single mother, Carissa Lowe, is still grieving over the way her ex-husband, Malcolm, had broke her hear and partially stomped on it, but at the same time she has accepted that she'll always be nothing more than widowhood for her future. This way she can never be hurt again by a man. She and her daughter Gloria move in with her sister, Laura, and her brother-in-law, Brandon, on their horse ranch in Texas during the year 1968. 

After the Civil War ended, the Texas government seized properties of anyone who served  in the Union but were from a Confederate state and that what has happened to Tyler Atherton as he returns to his family home. He plans on recovering his father's ranch, but in the meantime he is working on a friend's ranch to earn money. He is sidetracked by the beautiful Carissa, a woman he once saved from her abusive husband. He had literally saved her from drowning in the waters off Corpus Christi after her husband had thrown her in. He begins to spend time around Carissa, but she will not let anyone near her heart.

Falling Skies Volume 2: The Battle of Fitchburg
Authors: Paul Tobin, Mark Verheiden, Danilo Beyruth
Artists:  Andrew Dalhouse, Danilo Beyruth, Juan Ferreyra, Patric Reynolds
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
ISBN: 9781616550141 
Pub Date: October 10, 2012
Pages: 136

Falling Skies is the hit summer science-fiction television show that airs on TNT and just ended its second season. Dark Horse Comics and TNT released The Battle of Fitchburg digital comic book series during the summer to fill in the gap between seasons one and two. Dark Horse Comics will be releasing the series in one volume next month. I got advanced copy through NetGalley free of charge for this review.

At the end of season one Tom Mason voluntarily went aboard the alien ship. Captain Dan Weaver leads the 2nd Massachusetts Militia Regiment against the six-legged skitters in Fitchburg Massachusetts. The Militia is outnumbered and out gunned, but they are determined to fight the aliens with everything that they have.

The Chee-Chalker
By L. Ron Hubbard
Director: Jim Meskimen
Starring: Tamra Meskimen; Bob Casco, R.F. Daley, Jim Meskimen, Tait Ruppert, and Josh R. Thompson
Studio: Galaxy Press
ISBN-13: 978-1592121748
Running Time: Aprox. 2 hours 

Pulp fiction magazines were extremely poplar during the 1930s and 1940s covering any genre you can think of. There was no internet and cable television to occupy your free time with, so people read pulps and cheap novels for entertainment, not to mention listening to radio serials. Author L. Ron Hubbard wrote hundreds of short stories in about every genre during these years. Now Galaxy Press is bringing out these great stories through their new audiobooks line called Stories from the Golden Age.

Galaxy Press was nice enough to send me a free copy of The Chee-Chalker that first appeared in the July/August 1947 issue of Five-Novels Magazine.

The Nurse 
Director: Rob Malenfant
Starring: Lisa Zane, Michael Fairman, William R. Moses
Studio: Echo Bridge Home Entertainment
ASIN: B000OIOPLS
DVD Release Date: June 5, 2007
Run Time: 93 minutes
Rated R for Violence and Brief Language


I've never heard of The Nurse before watching it tonight, in which it has a similar feel to The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. The movie stars Lisa Zane (Billy Zane's older sister) as Laura Harriman, a nurse who wants revenge!

Her father had recently murdered her mother and brother. Then he took his own life, all because he was accused of embezzling money. Bob Martin is the man who turned him over to the police and after hearing about the deaths, he has a stroke which leaves him paralyzed.

Touching the Sky
By Tracie Peterson
Publisher: Bethany House
ISBN: 978-0764206160
Pub. Date: June 1, 2012
Pages: 336

The second book in The Lone Star series is set after the Civil War ended and after the tragic death of President Lincoln. The main character is Laura Marquardt who runs into the Captain Brandon Reid and his Union troops in an alleyway. She later runs into him again at a party at the her family's house. They begin to actually have an honest conversation and they realize that they have many things in common, like they both believe strongly that former slaves should have an education so they can learn how to read and write.

Laura's sister recently married an ex-Confederate solider, but her brother-in-law is plotting to murder innocent Union soldiers. She is afraid to tell Caption Reid and his men about the murder plot as it may put her sister's life in jeopardy.