Texas Books

Crisp writing, great characters, and a love story based in the hill country of Texas--a winning combination. This author's debut novel is a genuine A+. I recommend it for anyone with even the tinnest soft spot in their heart.

Suzanne Mason creates a world that sweeps you right into Texas Hill Country from the very first sentence. You can almost feel the heat from the blaze, hear the thunder rumbling overhead and experience the cool spring water gliding over you. Images of white silk draping from trees seduce you just as it does Sydney.

The characters are incredibly three-dimensional. Just as you think you know each one's personality, Ms. Mason uncovers yet another stunning facet to them. I feel as if I walked every step with Sydney Parker Ross on her journey. I could feel her excitement over a budding relationship with Jared, and her despair over what life with Duncan would bring. Celia Pearl's get-to-the-heart-of-the matter attitude was refreshing. I can see the positive impact her wisdom had on Sydney. I think everyone should have a Celia Pearl in her life!

Ms. Mason's "goal is to create characters that the reader will remember long after they put the book down." She has succeeded brilliantly as I not only will remember them as characters in a book, but also feel as if I've known them as friends.

Nora Roberts has taken me to Ireland with her books and now Suzanne Mason has led me to experience Texas Hill Country. I can't wait to read Ms. Mason's second novel!

Captain Jace Riley of the Texas Rangers has just two months to track the killers who murdered his mentor during an armored car robbery. So far his undercover assignment as a summer relief driver of a parcel service has turned up nothing in the West Texas mountains. Now he only has two weeks left and no leads. Then a chance encounter with a stranger takes him to Dana Turner's rented trailer.

When she opens the door, Dana sees a man in uniform and fears he's there with an arrest warrant. She spent seven months in prison for the murder of her sister until a judge overturned the conviction. Although she was innocent, she knows many people will only see her prison record rather than her exoneration. Worse, prison changed her. Her claustrophobia has gotten much worse, and she's learned to appreciate every little mundane freedom. Rather trust for her fellow man, she is now filled with suspicion.

Dana came to West Texas to work at an isolated observatory and gaze at the stars. Now for the first time in a long time, Dana is attracted to a man. Conflicting emotions lead to alarming complications to her previously quiet existence. Worse, Dana and Jace come to realize that she's in danger from her landlord's grandson. And Jace can't decide if she's associated with the cop-killers, or the woman of his dreams.

I confess to having a weakness for bold characterizations with an unconventional past. Author Rebecca Winters fills that type with flair, creating heroine Dana who tries to leave the pain of imprisonment behind her while embracing the newfound strengths such an experience produces. Her understandable distaste for law enforcement creates a delightful conundrum since her soul mate happens to be an undercover Texas Ranger. Further, Jace's early misgivings about her background create the perfect balance of tension and passion. Indeed, the balance of strong characterizations and a fascinating plot makes BENEATH A TEXAS SKY a terrific read. Very highly recommended.

Six months ago in Austin, two men held up an armored car stealing a million dollars and killing three people that included retired Texas Ranger Gibb Barton. Most of Gibb's law enforcement associates mourn his death, but Ranger Captain Jace Riley obsesses on bringing the murderers to justice as he lost a close friend. Clues lead Jace to go undercover in the Cloud Rim vicinity of the Texas' Davis Mountains.

In Cloud Rim, Jace wonders if female astronomer Dana Turner, recently released from prison when a California judge vacated a murder conviction, is involved with the killers. He plans to interrogate her, but to the shock of Jace and Dana, they are very attracted to one another. However, she does not trust males except for her famous father because of her murder rap and a graduate student stealing her scientific work while she lingered in prison. He does not trust her because he feels she must be a cohort of the killers. Though this couple falls in love, an infinite future together seems darker than the night sky over the Davis Mountains.

BENEATH A TEXAS SKY is an engaging police procedural romance that stars two delightful but wary lead protagonists. The hunt for the killers engages the audience on two levels: that of the actual investigation and the growing romantic feelings between Jace and Dana. The astronomical tidbits interwoven into the enjoyable story line provides fascinating starry references. All this leads to the fact that Rebecca Winters remains a writer for all seasons.

Harriet Klausner

This is a great book for preschoolers! There are boy bears and girl bears doing all kinds of jobs--a gender-neutral representation of professions. The words rhyme and could be a good read for beginning readers--this is one of the Berenstains' easier books with no more than two stanzas on each page. And it is interesting for the kids to read and look at.

My son loved seeing the world around him through his favorite bears eyes. I had to read this one over and over to him!

This is a gripping story with wonderful characters!

I haven't read the other books in the series, but if they are anything like this one, they have to be nothing but spectacular this book was very well written, and holds you in suspense throughout the whole story. Definitely good reading.

We love all of Docia's books and look forward to many more!

Although I feel the use of exclamation points is excessive, I found the book to be a great reminder of all of the ghost stories I heard while growing up near the Texas coast. It brought back a lot of great yet frightful memories. I am now on my 3rd book by Mrs. Williams, I think it would be great to take her ghost tours. Happy Haunting!

Take it from someone who was toiling down in the trenches chasing the bad guys, this book is a first hand account of how the Reagan administration and Speaker Wright fiddled while the savings and loan crisis burned. It explains how, and why, the government for years did not try to stop the corporate criminals who went on one of the largest financial crime sprees in the history of the United States. This is an important work, not only for its historic value in explaining this particular outbreak of white collar crime in the savings and loan industry, but also because it carefully lays out the patterns of control fraud that will continue to recur in different corporate venues as long as people are willing to steal and lie to try and gain an economic advantage. This should be required reading for every financial regulator in the United States. Alan Greenspan, who recently argued that personal reputation in business practices should be more important than enforcing rules, should read it twice (or as many times as it takes until Mr. Greenspan can remember why he trusted Charles Keating).

William Black's book, The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One,is on the one hand an act of courage, and to an excellent journey into the morass and collapse of the Savings & Loan industry. Bill Black should know better than anyone, as he was one of the inside attorney's trying to coral bankers gone wild on highly speculative ventures...

Mr. Black walks us down the chamber of horrors of the Savings & Loan collapse, and gives us a bird's eye view of bank corrupt.
What is most interesting is that Mr. Black finds the trends within in the industry itself, that it was actually CONTROL FRAUD were bankers, accountants, appraisers, bank executives and politicians colluded together to bring an already shaky and weak industry down. Everyone who wants to understand that the Savings & Loan was the first cracks in the empire, civilizations have always been brought down by poorly run fractional reserve fiat currency bankig systems.

What was the cry from people from Alan Greenspan was for more deregulation, and at the time, Greenspan, a banker who was with Morgan Stanley prior to his excellency/chairmanship/ at the Federal Reserve System, was that the Lincoln Savings & Loan, was one of the best run S&Ls in the country...

What resulted was deregulation and desupervision... Attorneys and accountants for hire, audits performed on Savings & Loans which made them look like a picture of financial health when in fact the S&L industry had terminal cancer...Massive insolvency, virtually no reserves, coverups, and famous politicians genuflecting to the Savings & Loan industry, the Keating Five; John Glen, John McCain, Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, Donald Riegle..All pressuring the Bank Board for leniency...

Every American should read this book...this control fraud of the eighties in the Savings & Loan industry makes Enron look like a game of childrens marbles..We learn little, we remember little in this United States of Amnesia..

The Best Way To Rob A Bank Is to Own One, by William Black is a true sign that there is a crack in the American empire's treasury.. A recommended read if your really want to understand what happened in the Savings & Loan collapse, which the AMERICAN TAXPAYER WILL PAY FOR $200 BILLION OR MORE.

As Thomas Jefferson once said, "Banking Establishments Are More Dangerous Than Standing Armies." Hats off to Bill Black.

Barry J. Dyke, RIA, Hampton, NH

This book describes in detail a look at the part of the Civil War West of the Mississippi River that seems to be overlooked by history.

This is a great work on Parsons' Cavalry in the Civil War: The 12, 19th, and 21st Cavalry, Morgan's Texas Battalion, the Tenth Texas Field Battery, and Johnson's Spy company. I have an ancestor in the 19th Texas Cavalry and I found this work to be complete and accurate. Well, either it is accurate, or the Confederate Research Center is accurate, but that's another story... Anyhow, this fine work covers the early Civil War days in Texas, the wild skirmishes in Arkansas, the raid into Missouri, the Red River Campaign (where the Texans, outnumbered 5 to 1, inflicted such punishment on the Yankee cavalry, infantry, artillery, and ironclads that they retreated across the Mississippi, never to return). Yee-Haw! It is a great book - I get goose bumps just readin' it.

Big Bend Landscapes by Texas painter Dennis Blagg is a breathtaking, coffee-table artbook of oil on canvas landscapes so captivating, they seize and hold one's attention as surely as the finest of photographs. Mood, mystery, natural serenity in the Big Bend National Park of Texas fill these compiled outdoor paintings austere mountains and dry deserts with a very special dignity and beauty. A joy to simply page through at leisure, each individual painting is enhanced with a brief but informative commentary in this outstanding and memorable collection.

Unique landscape artist, Dennis Blagg, shares selected paintings and drawings of West Texas. He captures more than the camera can and his style evokes a viseral response. Perhaps you must have "been there, done that" to appreciate that each one is a gift. Blagg also shares brief notes with each entry. That adds a personal touch with a underlying theme of conservation for this special landscape. I must confess I skipped right past the introduction by Ron Tyler and straight to the views of the Chisos that I can't get out of my mind.

Big Bend Landscapes is a feast for the heart and soul for all you Big Bend National Park lovers out there and believe me there's a lot of them. Dive into all the moods of the desert and let it carry you away. I just returned from a trip to Big Bend on Feb 25, 2003 and my question is "Was it real or was it Blagg?" Make the book purchase and do the trip and you be the judge.

Great photography with poetic like readings. A different approach to enjoy this incredible Park. Actually comes alive. Took the book and relived some of the pictures with the readings in person. My way of enjoying nature through anothers eyes and words.

Great book with the most beautiful full page photos of Big Bend National Park that I have ever seen! Makes me want to go back right away. It was well worth the money...

The review by Mr. Fowler pretty much sums up the book. For me there isn't anyone who can capture images of Big Bend quite like James Evans. I have long been a fan of his work and have waited for this book for many years. For those who have never been to the Big Bend region this book offers a chance to be introduced to what makes it so special. It isn't just the landscapes, it is the people. Big Bend Pictures communicates to me what makes west Texas so special. To stare into these pictures allows me to travel back to the region and experience again the heat, the dry air, the clouds(good lord the clouds, just look at how he captures the clouds) and the people. Gaze into the eyes of his subjects and know what it means to live life. Big Bend is like no other place on earth and James' photographs are like no others.

The Big Bend area of West Texas is both seductive and elusive to visitors. The immense scale, loneliness and beauty of the desert scenery can immediately charm any visitor to this remote borderland, and many books have succeeded in extolling these virtues. However, the human denizens of the Big Bend can be quirky lot, with a big dose of individuality an apparent requirement for remaining in these parts for very long.
In this new large-format book, James Evans has succeeded admirably in capturing for the viewer the essence of the human dimension of this vast land. Yes there are panoramas and thunderstorms on these pages, but it's the direct and intimate portraits of the people that will capture your attention. Elderly ranchers (and ranch women), young children, Anglos, Hispanics, funerals, dances, homes, animals - all powerful and direct visual statements. Many of these scenes aren't pretty. There's grit and violence, poverty, sadness; but it's all real. Evans has spent the past 15 years living in the Big Bend (he has a studio and gallery in tiny Marathon, TX), taking time to really know his subjects, gaining their trust, opening a window of truth before his lens. As a regular visitor to these parts, I feel Evans has finally captured the real essence of this amazing region for all of us Big Bend lovers to enjoy.
There are 102 duotone photographs, most are full or double page. A real bonus is James' comments about each photograph in the rear appendix. It is there we come to understand a little more about each of his subjects, and ultimately a bit about Evans as well. And good value, too; lots of book here for the quite reasonable price. And I like the horned lizard endpapers.