The Reading Spot

This is for Nath's Re-read Challenge. I have been a slacker and did not post my re-read from last month, you were not missing much because my re-read was a DNF. This month however was much better. I love Lori Foster and was wanting to reconnect with her books. So I grabbed The Winston Brothers off my bookshelf.


The Winston Brothers by Lori Foster
This book is a single author anthology of three of her novellas previously released in separate anthologies. There is another book in the series called Wild. More recently all four stories were released as one book called Wildly Winston.
I cannot find a good summary of the stories. So I will briefly summarize.
Tangled Sheets - Cole Winston has been taking care of his brothers since their parents died but now it is time for him to care for himself. And he has decided that Sophie is the woman for him. But she is too shy to talk to him. so she invents a fictional twin sister to bolster her courage.
Tangled Dreams - This story has a paranormal bent to it. While Chase is working Halloween night at the bar he can suddenly hear Allison's thoughts and they are centered on him and what she wants to do to him. She has some ghosts that want her to find her passionate side, and she wants Chase to help her find that.
Tangled Images - Mack is the youngest of the family. He is trying to get a job teaching but is going though red tape at the moment. So in the mean time, he agrees to help Sophie by posing for pictures for her catalog for her store. Little does he know that the photographer is the woman that he was lusting after in college. Jessica wants very little to do with him, but her wants to convince her otherwise.

Great book I am glad that I grabbed it for this re-read. when I think of Lori Foster I expect a nice solid contemporary read. This one delivers. It stays on my keeper shelf.

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training. Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister. Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.

Genre: Sci-fi
Release Date: 1985
Acquired: UBS
Reason for reading: Hubby asked


Well, Hubby has been wanting me to read this for a while and I finally did last week. It was a great sci-fi book, probably no surprise. I was not sure if would like it with no romantic element in it, but I found it to be a nice change of pace, which was good.
The description above is a good one so I will go with it. This is an earth that has gone through a war with an alien group that devastated them. Now they are looking for a genius to lead them and if they have to make on then so be it. They send 6 year old geniuses to Battle School to earn strategy and to see if they will cut it. But they are still looking for The One that will be the commander over the army. Enter Ender Wiggins.
The version that i have has a really interesting introduction to it. I do not always read those but in this case i am glad that i did. It is written by the author nad gives some background from his POV and he also addresses some issues that came up after it was first published. He said he got a lot of flack about having these children fighting so young but mostly he got flack about they way they spoke. They did not speak like children. He points out in the intro that they speak like they are, geniuses. He also got many letters from genius teenagers thanking him for the book and how it spoke to them because it was about them, the 13-14 year old that is in college. If you ever talk to someone that smart, they do speak like that.
The sad part in this book and the character s in the story even address it is that they never have a chance to do "normal" things that kids do. Card points out that neither do most geniuses anyway and in the book they are playing games (what they perceive as games) everyday. And these games challenge their minds which they also need to stay interested. If you get this edition definitely read the introduction.