A Pirate Review

The Endless Waltz by Jacob Marc Schafer


Bret de la Cosa wants nothing more than to get on his ship and return home to his beloved fiancee, Isabella. Upon boarding his ship ready to take his Navigator duties, his Captain tells him about his retirement and Bret's promotion to Captain. This will allow Bret to buy his wife a proper house once they are married. Bret's future couldn't look any better.

But, Davey is watching. Davey Jones hates Bret's happiness and his good soul, so he goes after him. Bret's ship goes down in the open seas and Bret somehow ends up in Davey Jones's locker alive. Once Davey finds out that Bret is still alive, he sends The Flying Dutchman down to retrieve and kill him.

That's just the beginning of the story.

Bret is a good man. He helps others, is devout to God and his fiancee. His crew thinks highly of him and works hard for him. All he wants to do when he is trapped in The Locker is get back to Isabella. He meets anther man, Edward, who helps in The Locker while Captain Falkenburg of The Flying Dutchman hunts him. His adventures include marines, misguided clergy, a ghost crew and dragon.

This book was a fun and fast paced read. Like many these days, I also love the current pirate movies out there. This book puts an entirely different spin on the current stories. Bret is no Captain Jack Sparrow, who can get out of any situation, but an ordinary man put in extraordinary circumstances. Schafer's writing style is smooth and very descriptive. He does a nice job of painting the scenery. He especially did a fantastic job of what The Locker would look like. I would like to see more about Captain Falkenberg's fate as The Flying Dutchman's Captain as well as some of the stories from Bret's leather bag at the end. You'll have to read the book to find out about the leather bag.

I understand this book is in pre publishing stage, but would like to see it edited for spelling and grammar. Without those issues, this book will be a phenomenal read.

I give this book 3.5 start out of 5.

I Love My Job

As a Realtor, I take pictures of a lot of houses. Some are beautiful, some not so much. Recently, I listed 40 acres in Fountain Inn and my brother in law and I walked it taking pictures on a beautiful February day.















We even managed to find a beaver lodge.








There is a small river runing the length of the property.











































































There is also a pond in the front that supports ducks, frogs and fish. Of course, our tramping through talking spooked all the ducks and we didn't get any pictures of them.

Review: Deadly Reflections

Deadly Reflections by D. H. Sayer is a horror book in the style of Dean Koontz or Stephen King. In other words, it's a great story.

Justin Wells in new to town and living in squalid conditions with his severly depressed father. As a result, he is self sufficient and has matured quickly. In school, he falls for Sarah Ellis who just broke up with her hockey jock boyfriend, Brandon Tate. This is the story of normalcy within the horror. Brandon is horribly jealous while Justin and Sarah slowly fall for each other.

While life continues for these high school students, a hobo is protecting a horrible secret. Once his secret gets out, people start to die. Justin and Sarah try to stay one step ahead of the horror while trying to get answers to stop it.

Sayer has done a great job intermingling a story of normalcy, teenage love, and horror. So many horror writers forget to include the personal stories of the characters invlolved while writing about whatever is menacing the same characters. Because of this, the reader gets attached to the characters, which make the loss and "horror" part of the story even better. Sayer has a great writing style that flows and captures the reader and keeps the reader hooked.

I really enjoyed this story. I would read it again and recommend it to not only my fellow horror readers but those who don't read this genre as well. He does such a great job of manifesting the scary bits without being vulgar or bloody, while being scary that anyone can read this.