An UnderratedRead Revisited: Bella Figura: How to Live, Love, and Eat the Italian Way -Kamin Mohammadi

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned “ Now that I was living without all the relics of my former identity, there was a glimmer of something new. The heady possibly of freedom.” Kamin was thirty-two and seemed to have it all: a dream job as editor of a fashion magazine, her own London apartment and a…

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An UnderratedRead Revisited: Shadowboxing With Bukowski – Darrell Kastin

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned “The universe shrank daily around me, the bookstore itself was the center, the black hole, the very bottomless hell that would consume me in the end. ..the bookstore was insatiable, a structure of otherworldly forces. It devoured everything that came within its sphere of gravity, and didn’t bother to spit…

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An UnderratedRead Revisited: Affections: A Novel – Rodrigo Hasbún , Translated by Sophie Hughes

(Reviewed by JD Jung) Affections is an intriguing work of historical fiction based on true events following the once- close Ertl family. Hans, the patriarch, was a Nazi propaganda cinematographer, and the family fled Munich and arrived in La Paz, Bolivia in 1955 to start a new life. Hans, who was also a mountaineer in…

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The Exhumation – Nick Padron

(Reviewed by Don Jung) #CommissionsEarned Madrid, 1937 - Civil War chaos has engulfed the country as the city is under siege. Amid uncertainty, three Americans are going there to find and hopefully exhume the remains of a dead American soldier and give him a proper family burial. The deceased’s uncle hires Major Williamson, a former…

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1414º- Paul Bradley Carr

Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned “Be fair to the rapists; don’t feed the trolls; investigate the victims; don’t spook the advertisers; if in doubt, stay quiet…” These were the Bay Area Herald’s rules for investigating powerful tech companies, and Raum was no exception. Raum’s servers were able to extract more information about users’ day-to-day lives…

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An UnderratedRead Revisited: Siphon – A.A. Medina

Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned Hematopathologist Gary Phillips continually pulls all-nighters at the hospital and hates his job. He has no girlfriend or social life, though he has an infatuation with a female co-worker who is at least ten years his junior. Yes, part of the problem is due to his work schedule, but the…

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Blind Dates: Weird Stories – Harambee K. Grey-Sun

Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned Being close to Halloween, I was in search for a good horror read. So, when I started reading these stories, I was expecting them to center on blind dates gone tragically wrong. Or maybe the traditional “woman gets picked up by sociopathic man who then strangles her”. I was wrong…

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An UnderratedRead Revisited: Mygale – Thierry Jonquet (Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith)

(Reviewed by JD Jung) Ah, revenge can be so sweet. Now mix it with obsession and a touch of madness, and it turns utterly twisted and bizarre.  Such is the case with the intense and fascinating novel, Mygale, written by the late French crime novelist Thierry Jonquet. Richard Lafargue, a successful, well-respected plastic surgeon carries…

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The Black Spider – Jeremias Gotthelf (Translated by Susan Bernofsky)

(Reviewed by JD Jung) "And now the people where gripped by the ancient fear that the spider might carry off an unbaptized infant, the pledge of their old pact. The woman was beside herself, she had no trust in God, so her heart was all more filled with hatred and revenge." In a farmhouse along…

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An UnderratedRead Revisited: What Lies Within – Clare de Lune

(Reviewed by JD Jung)   “…I learned how a body could become a beautiful contribution to the power of cosmetics…the most exquisite, deepest shade of blood red lipstick you’ve’ ever seen, rich soaps made from the finest fats…all those parts put to wondrous use for our benefit. And for those who used them. Little did…

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