All's Forgiven by Donan Berg Earns 5-Star Review

 

5.0 out of 5 stars 

Trust No One, but Revel in the Mystery

Reviewed by Michael P. Hartnett in the United States on November 19, 2023

Donan Berg’s All’s Forgiven is one of those wild mysteries that keeps the reader guessing to the very end. Much of the lively engagement of constantly shifting suspicions comes from the novel centering on the viewpoint of Jenny Olsen, who’s a bit loopy and is recovering from an accident that also led to the death of her niece Eileen. Jenny is often uncertain and the reader more so. I can never fully trust her intense, emotional sister Ruth, her gruff Uncle John, the police officer and possible love interest Robert, and the urbane, mysterious professor Holmes, who also might be another love interest. The plot involving that niece’s death, car accidents, a valuable brooch from Queen Elizabeth’s inauguration, and, most importantly, the kidnapping of Jenny’s mother percolates along with amusing interactions and disarming twists.

The novel is filled with gothic elements, including the mysterious basements at home and at the bookstore where Jenny works. Berg plays with these subterranean notions which such lines as, “For Jenny, someone might well padlock her future behind the wall, never to be revived.” A single boot that may or may not belong to Jenny’s kidnapped mother, a missing garage key, and that brooch whose history and provenance vex and confound are situated around a group of characters prone to lying and keeping their counsel at inconvenient intervals. That Jenny’s bookstore borders on Riddle Jewelry where sister Ruth works adds another layer of proximity to their sibling tensions.

Little wonder Jenny makes asides like, “Afraid my memory gets jittery.” Oh, the revelations keep coming in a novel that subtly considers what is counterfeit and what is genuine. Without giving too much away, the reader is guessing right up to the final pages, where he discovers he’d been given sufficient clues all along. He was just too wrapped up in the crazy family drama and the bizarre combinations of romance and manipulation to center his pleasures on piecing together the puzzle. Donan Berg has given us quite a yarn across a snowy lowan landscape, one that keeps the reader involved and intrigued throughout.

All's Forgiven is available in paperback and e-book format at major book retailers. Click Purchase e-book here. Click  

 

Three dimensional character

 Ever read a thriller with never-ending action and conflict?

Of course you have, or one day started one, now collecting dust.

The problem is exhaustion. The character failed to breathe unless

gasping for lifesaving oxygen.

Here's a writing tip.

Think three dimensional.  The character has a past, present, and future.

In each dimension the character has internal conflicts, external conflicts,

goals, and motivations. While they can be the same, odds are they are

not. The simple explanation is that characters as well as humans mature,

learn life lessons, fail, and a myriad of other things.

Saying this is seeing the tip of the iceberg. Explore every detail to broaden

your character. You'll be glad you did.

                            Self-serving note

Multiple e-books by Author Donan Berg will be on sale starting July 1, 2023.

It's limited. There's romance, mystery, thriller, and fantasy.

A good novel to start with is A Body To Bones.

Go to:  Click here for A Body To Bones

Find the Girl, A Fantasy Novel wins Gold Award

 Find the Girl, A Fantasy Novel

Wins Literary Titan Gold Award

Just announced:  Find the Girl, A Fantasy Novel, has won the July 2021 Literary Titan Gold Award.

(Note, a prior blog post presented their June 25 five-star book review of Find the Girl, A Fantasy Novel.)

Literary Titan bestows its Gold Award on books found to be perfect in delivery of original content, meticulous development of unique characters in an organic and striking setting with an innovative plot that supports a fresh theme with words transformed into beautifully written prose.

Author Donan Berg was quoted as saying he was humbled and honored to be recognized by an organization of professional editors, writers, and professors with a passion for the written word.

 

Find the Girl, A Fantasy Novel Five-Star Review

 Find the Girl, A Fantasy Novel

 Find the Girl by Donan Berg immerses us in the whimsical story of Eta Dorcas. Eta’s world opens with a shocking discovery; after a trip to local caves with her grandma and younger sister Daria, Eta’s fingers suddenly begin to glow a bright blue. This shocks her – but she’s even more surprised to find that a creature has snuck into her backpack and escaped the cave with Eta and her family. We learn that the creature is a weasel who once lived as Eighteenth-Century Sailor, trapped in his animal form by a vicious curse.

 Find the Girl takes a magical turn into an expansive world where anything is possible. Eta and Ian, the boy-become-weasel, are suddenly entangled in a quest to free Ian from the curse that’s been put upon him by Greek seafarers. This quest leaves him with three important words: find the girl. We travel around the world and through time with the protagonists as they encounter different trials and creatures, challenging them to discover a cure for the curse before time runs out.

 This book was such a fun read. Eta’s voice is entertaining and joyful despite the strenuous trials she faces, and I loved seeing this magical world from her perspective. The bond she forms with Ian felt genuine and touching, and I found them both to be nuanced characters with relatable emotions among the fantastical setting. I enjoyed that the story left some open avenues where future tales could develop further from this intricate and well-constructed universe.

 I found the world presented in Find the Girl so unique. It was unlike any fantasy stories I’ve read previously, and I loved the specialized voice that came along with this brand-new view. However, I did find the beginning confusing as we’re thrust into this magical world without much description. Berg makes up for the heavy information by providing, detailed fantastical occurrences later in the story, as we meet new characters who give more context to the universe that’s been constructed.

 If you’re looking for a joyful and inspiring story that’s great for all ages, Find the Girl is your next perfect read. The story emphasizes how special it is to embrace wonder and change. It shows that when we care for one another and have the passion to help them, we might discover beautiful corners of the world along the way.

Literary Titan/Thomas Anderson

Literary Titan is an organization of professional editors, writers, and professors that have a passion for the written word.

Five-star review of Donan Berg's novel Into the Dark

A Complex Mystery That Keeps You Guessing

Very late in Donan Berg's  exciting crime mystery Into the Dark, a line metaphorically serves as emblematic of our protagonist's quest for what often appears to be the murkiest of truths: "His weakened flashlight batteries strained to illuminate the unknown."

From the exciting opening, Donan Berg's Into the Dark relentlessly builds a thrilling mystery centering around election tampering, a stack of money, a counterfeiting operation, and a dead body. In order to reveal the truth, Sheriff Jonas McHugh finds himself compulsively returning to a rustic cabin with hidden compartments and trap doors and to a cave that is the source of more than its share of secrets and disturbing activity. As Jonas simultaneously investigates the money and counterfeiting issues, the election fraud angle, and the death of operative Ed Telling, the reader follows along; plot threads first complicate and then eventually align to great satisfaction.

Methodically and doggedly, Jonas edges toward insight. "Bonnie's statement of the obvious unleashed within Jonas a mental lightning bolt to illuminate what had been dark." A novel smartly riddled with Biblical quotes and allusions, Into the Dark follows Jonas's journey toward enlightenment, one that paradoxically will send him into a fair share of hellish, subterranean places.

At the heart of the mystery is the beautiful, mercurial Kayla, for whom Jonas possesses contrary feelings of attraction and mistrust. Her presence and Iowa's political environment's home of high-stake caucuses inform the novel with layers of compromised motivations and machinations.

Throughout Berg peppers the story with terse phrasing that echoes Jonas's mindset: "Telling's killer is still free. Bogus bills infest Silver County wallets. Unfed, unclothed teens flood rural roads."

Berg's skillful sorting out Jonas's complicated thoughts as he reaches disturbing conclusions makes Into the Dark a smart, engaging novel.

Michael Hartnett, author of The Blue Rat.

Alexa's Gold Arrives April 11, 2017

Author Donan Berg, 2016 Feathered Quill Romance Gold Award winner, releases his latest romance thriller on April 11, 2017.

The new novel is entitled:

Alexa’s Gold

Mystery, Romance, Thrills

 Fall in love with Alexa’s grit. She has it all: pluck, courage, stamina, and the endless farmyard gravel she waits to inherit from her Grandma. Yes, Grandpa’s buried gold coins are hers, if? Multiple BIG IFs. If she sleuths Grandma’s recipe clue. If she outwits those who would steal it. If Grandma’s lawyer fights off her mother’s will challenge.

 As a Chicago probation officer, Alexa witnesses crime firsthand. Her goal is simple: she doesn’t wish to be the lightning rod that attracts harm to her two-year-old son Samuel.

 America’s Heartland poses her biggest risk. Who does she trust? Is she safe? Will romantic love find her? And blossom?

Alexa’s Gold spins an elaborate web of unsuspected twists and turns sprung with gusto.

About the Author

Donan Berg intrigues readers with characters who battle everyday concerns to become truly heroic. He writes an addictive antidote prescription to the blues. His life’s journey has been as a journalist, corporate executive, and lawyer living in America’s heartland with roots in his native Ireland. In 2016 he won the Feathered Quill First Place Gold Award for Romance.

E-book, multiple formats, April 11, 2017 at  www.smashwords.com/books/view/713346
or at major book retailers.