Smorgasbord Bookshelf – Summer Book Fair 2022 – First in Series – #Fantasy Yvette M. Calleiro, #Fantasy Audrey Driscoll

Over the course of the next three months I will be sharing the authors who feature in the Smorgasbord Bookshelf with the books that I have reviewed and can personally recommend.

In this first part of the summer fair, I am sharing books that are the first in a series in both adult and children’s books along with one of their five star reviews. I hope that this will encourage you to enjoy the series in full. I will feature every author on the shelves by the end of the summer. I hope you will enjoy.

The first author today is Yvette M. Calleiro I am featuring the first book in the series The One Discovered (Chronicles of the Diasodz Book 1)

About the book

How do you choose when both options have dire consequences?

Sofia is a 17 year old who is quite content with her life. She has a caring boyfriend who also just happens to be her best friend since birth. She has a loving mother. She is successfully completing her last year of high school and enjoys her part-time job. She can’t imagine wanting more from her life…until Ar’ch (pronounced Ar-rick) enters her dreams, sparking a burning flame inside of her that she can’t seem to extinguish nor does she want to.

Ar’ch is a Diasodz (Die-ah-sodz), a species created by the Goddess back when God created humans. Diasodz were made to heal and protect humans, but when the Diasodz turned their backs on helping humans and left Earth to live in their own world, the Goddess abandoned them. Since then, their powers and their very lives have been fading. A prophecy foretold that a young girl born on Earth would be the Diasodz’s savior. Ar’ch and his brother, Angel, travel to Earth to retrieve her and bring her back to their world before her death day in order to save their kind. Ar’ch knows the drill: find the target, capture her, and safely bring her home. But what happens when the target captures his dormant heart?

Choices create action. Actions have consequences. When faced with the truth, what choice will Sofia make? Will she be able to accept the consequences that follow?

One of the recent reviews for this first book in the series

Jose Loxodonta 5.0 out of 5 stars A great book with rich characters, and a tantalizing intro into a new fantasy world. Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2022

Spoiler alert! I would have rated 6 out of 5 stars, but this book didn’t have any griffins. Yet. I guess there’s always hope in book 2.

Spoilers end. No more spoilers, I promise.

I really like Yvette Calleiro’s writing style, especially the way she uses imagery and metaphors to describe and relay the emotions her characters are feeling. The characters themselves are presented in such a way as I want to keep knowing more about them. They feel dynamic, rich, and alive. I immediately had my own feelings about them, certain ones I liked and disliked instantly.

There are some parts that feel like foreshadowing, teases into what is to come. By the end of the book, I definitely had more questions than answers! Speaking of the end, just…wow. Those last 50 pages or so just flew right by. I am so glad I didn’t have to wait to start reading book 2.

If you love fantasy novels (like me), you should definitely give this series a go.

Read the reviews and buy the book: Amazon US – And: Amazon UK

Also in the Chronicles of the Diasodz series and by Yvette M. Calleiro

Read the reviews and buy the books: Amazon US – And: Amazon UK – Read more reviews: Goodreads – Author Blog: Yvette M. Calleiro Blogspot – Twitter: @YvetteMCalleiro – Facebook: Yvette M. Calleiro

About Yvette M Calleiro

Yvette M. Calleiro is the author of the Chronicles of the Diasodz fantasy series, HYPE, and two short stories. As a heavily addicted reader of both young adult and adult novels, she spends most of her time pseudo-living in paranormal worlds with her fictional friends (and boyfriends).

When she’s living among real people, she is a middle school Reading and Language Arts teacher. She’s been sharing her love of literature with her students for over twenty years. Besides writing about the various characters that whisper (and sometimes scream) in her head, she enjoys traveling, watching movies, spending quality time with family and friends, and enjoying the beauty of the ocean.

Yvette lives in Miami, Florida, with her incredible son who has embraced her love for paranormal and adventurous stories. She also shares her space with an assortment of crazy saltwater animals in her 300-gallon tank

Now for the first book in another fantasy series She who comes forth by Audrey Driscoll…an intriguing action adventure set in the land of the Pharoahs that I can personally recommend.

About the book

Recently turned 21, France Leighton travels to Luxor, Egypt, taking with her two legacies—an antique cello and an emerald ring. Instead of the archaeological adventure she expects, she gets a lecherous dig director, hidden agendas, a risky balloon ride, and an enigmatic nuclear physicist. In the mysteries of the ancient tombs, France realizes she and her gifts may imperil the world—or save it.

More Details:

October 1962. The developing nuclear missile crisis in Cuba is of no concern to Francesca “France” Leighton. Recently turned 21, France travels from her home in Providence to a job at an archaeological dig in Luxor, Egypt. She takes with her two legacies—an emerald ring from the grandfather she never knew, and an antique cello from his friend, a man she loved like a grandfather.

The dig disappoints. France is relegated to sorting chunks of stone, the dig’s director makes unwanted advances; rivalries and mistrust are everywhere. And it’s too darn hot. Tasked with playing her cello at a gathering of archaeologists, France meets the enigmatic and fascinating nuclear physicist Adam Dexter. She’s smitten, especially when he promises to show her the secrets of Egypt, including a hitherto undiscovered tomb.

After a risky balloon cruise ends in a crash landing, France is forced to leave the dig. Despite warnings against solo explorations on the west bank, she finds herself with Adam Dexter in an eerie house near the Theban Necropolis. Adam’s promises are alluring, but he is both more and less than he seems and his motivations are disturbing. Fleeing his house, France makes a horrifying discovery.

Through an image of Osiris, France discovers the true reason for her presence in the Theban Necropolis. As the world teeters on the brink of nuclear war, she must call upon resources both within and beyond herself to meet the perils that await her in the world of the dead beneath the Western Peak.

My review for the book May 7th 2022

I have found the stories of ancient Egypt and the discoveries made over the last two centuries fascinating and I was looking forward to this action adventure set in the land of the Pharoahs in the 1960s.

France Leighton is an innocent abroad. Her upbringing has been unconventional, with an ancestral link to the excavation of the tombs and undecided about her future, she applies to and is accepted to a dig in progress in Luxor. With mundane tasks and friction amongst the members of the dig team, France retreats into her comfort zone which is playing her much loved cello.

The cello and an exquiste emerald ring are links to the past, and as she shares her experiences and thoughts about the present with us, strange and disturbing elements begin to filter in, making her question who and what is attempting to manipulate the future. France is the narrator of her story, but not in control of her own destiny, as others have their own agendas, pulling her into their distorted plans for the future.

The author has done an amazing job in recreating both the 1960s setting for the plot and the world of the ancient Egyptian pharoahs and deities. The characters are distinctive and easy to like or dislike with some multi-faceted, only revealing their true selves as the story reaches its climax.

We are treated to a wondrous tour of the inside of tombs both excavated and open to the public and as the mystery deepens to hidden and sacred sites deep within the earth. Clearly the author conducted a great deal of research to create such an authentic and detailed journey into the past.

You will find the book difficult to put down, and there is plenty of action to maintain the pace of the plot, and intriguing supernatural elements that become more dynamic as the story unfolds. The book definitely has a style of writing that both Agatha Christie and H. Rider Haggard fans will appreciate and I can highly recommend this first in the series and look forward to the next.

Head over to read the reviews and buy the book: Amazon US – And: Amazon UK

A selection of other books by Audrey Driscoll

Read the reviews and buy the books :Amazon US – And: Amazon UK – follow Audrey: Goodreads – Website:Audrey Driscoll – LinkedIn: Audrey Driscoll

About Audrey Driscoll

Three quarters of the way through a career as a cataloguing librarian, Audrey Driscoll discovered she is actually a writer. Since the turn of the millennium, she has written and published several novels and a short story collection. She gardens, juggles words, and communes with fictitious characters in Victoria, British Columbia. Her opinions on gardening, writing, and things that bug or delight her, along with information about her books, may be found on her blog at AudreyDriscoll.com

 

Thank you for dropping in today and I hope you will be leaving with some books.. Sally