Blog Archives
Adapt and Overcome, Dear: Oh, Victoria!
Adapt and Overcome, Dear: Oh, Victoria! by Brendan Bey is a work of historical military fiction that blends barracks comedy, crime drama, romance, and a coming-of-age story. Set largely at Fort Knox in the late 1970s, the novel follows Jack Behan, a college graduate who enters Army basic training on his way to Officer Candidate School. He expects physical hardship and strict discipline, but soon finds himself surrounded by corrupt soldiers, dangerous recruits, bitter rivalries, and a murder hidden beneath the routines of military life. At the same time, his letters to his former college classmate Victoria grow increasingly intimate as both struggle through training, troubled relationships, and questions about the lives they truly want. Their personal story unfolds alongside investigations, courtroom maneuvering, violence, and an Army institution trying to protect both its honor and its secrets.
Bey doesn’t present the Army as a polished machine. It is loud, exhausting, funny, unfair, and sometimes deeply threatening. The basic-training scenes have a lived-in quality, from the aching feet and rushed meals to the strange friendships that form when people are pushed beyond their limits. I often felt as though I were standing inside the barracks, surrounded by shouted insults, nervous laughter, dirty uniforms, and men trying not to show fear. The humor can be broad and rough, but it serves a purpose. It shows how the recruits use jokes as a shield. Drill Sergeant Banks was especially memorable to me because he brings discipline without surrendering his humanity, while Savage represents authority twisted by resentment and greed.
The letters between Jack and Victoria give the novel a more personal pulse. Through them, the author lets two people speak with less armor, even when their flirting and emotional dependence raise uncomfortable questions about loyalty and marriage. I appreciated that tension because it kept their relationship from feeling too simple. The novel is ambitious, perhaps sometimes too ambitious. It carries a large cast, several criminal schemes, military politics, courtroom drama, family troubles, and a romance all at once. There is an earnest energy behind the writing. Bey clearly cares about perseverance, friendship, justice, and the lasting damage caused when institutions ignore the worst behavior within their ranks. The title’s message isn’t subtle, but it’s sincere: survival often means changing without letting hardship erase who you are.
I would recommend Adapt and Overcome, Dear: Oh, Victoria! to readers who enjoy character-driven military fiction, especially stories that mix the harsh routines of training with dark humor, corruption, romance, and legal conflict. Readers with military experience may recognize both the absurdity and the emotional pressure of barracks life, while those interested in the post-Vietnam Army will find a candid portrait of an institution still wrestling with low morale and internal division. It’s a sprawling novel, but also a spirited one. By the end, I felt that Jack and Victoria had earned their hope, not because every wrong had been neatly corrected, but because they had learned how to keep moving through a world that rarely offered easy choices.
Pages: 318 | ASIN : B0GFXXLMKD
The Colonel’s Revenge
The Colonel’s Revenge follows Mateus de Silva, a brilliant but socially awkward professor whose life is pulled back into violence and buried family history when he learns that his grandfather, Colonel Juan Mateus de Silva, may still be alive after decades of captivity. The story moves between the blood-soaked terrain of 1980s Angola and a modern South African revenge plot involving old betrayals, hidden fortunes, casino schemes, and the uneasy inheritance of war. What begins as a rescue mission becomes something sharper: a reckoning with loyalty, greed, and the cost of letting vengeance become a family language.
I was struck first by the book’s velocity. Author Jeffrey K. Schmoll writes action with a hard, sunburned physicality; dust, blood, machinery, hunger, and pain all have weight here. The early Angola chapters are especially vivid, giving Colonel de Silva the mythic severity of a man carved by battlefield necessity. He is not softened for easy admiration, and that makes him more interesting. I liked how the novel lets him be both formidable and morally bruised, a soldier whose discipline has curdled into obsession.
What surprised me more was the way the book balances brutality with oddball warmth. Mateus, Tay, Muni, and the rest of the crew bring humor and camaraderie into a plot that could otherwise be all gunmetal and grimaces. The casino-heist material adds a jaunty intelligence to the story, and the mathematical mind of Mateus gives the revenge scheme a pleasingly cerebral edge. The novel’s ambition makes it sprawl, but that sprawl also gives the book its brawny charm; it wants to be a war story, a family drama, a caper, and a revenge thriller all at once.
Readers who enjoy action-adventure novels, historical fiction, revenge thrillers, military fiction, and heist novels will find plenty to savor here, especially if they like stories where old wars keep detonating in the present. Fans of Clive Cussler’s globe-trotting adventure or Nelson DeMille’s muscular suspense will recognize the appetite for danger, banter, and high-stakes plotting. The Colonel’s Revenge is a rugged and fast-moving thriller.
Pages: 262 | ASIN : B0GYV322SV
The Self-Liberation of Parson Sykes – A Novella
The Self-Liberation of Parson Sykes – A Novella follows Parson from bondage on a Southampton County farm through a dangerous escape with his brothers, his service in the United States Colored Troops, and his return home in Reconstruction, where he tries to turn fragile legal freedom into a real life of land, work, and dignity. The book blends vivid scenes of daily plantation labor, clandestine reading at Boykins Depot, and tense military life in the XXV Corps with clear explanation of campaigns around Petersburg, the fall of Richmond, and the uneven promise of the Freedmen’s Bureau and the Reconstruction Amendments. Across that arc, the story keeps one central idea in view. Freedom is not granted from above. It is seized, defended, and then tested again in the hard years after war.
I felt the writing worked best when it stayed close to Parson’s body and mind. The early scenes in Cross Keys, the hidden scraps of North Star, the first steps east toward the Blackwater, all have a sharp, cinematic feel. The language there is tight and charged, and I could almost hear the night sounds and feel the mud under his feet. The mix of fear, anger, and stubborn hope felt honest, and I appreciated how the book shows quiet resistance as much as open flight. The narrative sometimes pauses to explain laws, troop movements, and agencies in a very direct way. Those passages are useful, almost like short history briefings, but they sometimes slow the emotional drive. I wanted to stay in the scene with Parson a bit longer before shifting back into exposition about corps structure or federal policy.
I liked how firmly the author rejects any version of emancipation that treats Black people as passive recipients. Parson’s habit of scavenging newspapers, mapping telegraph lines, and studying rights language turns him into his own strategist, not just a grateful subject of Lincoln or Grant. The later chapters, where he faces the broken promises of Reconstruction, hit a different nerve. His decision to buy land, argue for equal standing, and invest in education feels hopeful, yet the narrative does not flinch from backlash, economic control, and the rise of second–class citizenship through new laws and terror. That balance of aspiration and hard truth gave the book a sober tone. I felt anger, but also respect, because the story refuses easy comfort or tidy closure.
I would recommend The Self-Liberation of Parson Sykes – A Novella to readers who want historical fiction that leans toward documentary detail and moral clarity, rather than pure adventure. It suits high school and college classrooms, book clubs that enjoy discussion about Civil War memory and Reconstruction, and general readers who like learning real history while following one family’s fight to own their lives. For readers willing to sit with context and reflection, the novella offers a moving, thoughtful look at how freedom works in practice.
Pages: 81 | ASIN : B0GHSXD3NC
Legacy of Valor
Legacy of Valor follows Major Liam O’Connor, soldier, husband, reluctant legend, bookended by the sight of a spaceport’s lights pulling him home. In the prologue, he’s greeted not by one newborn, but a tidy ambush of three, and that quiet domestic jolt becomes the heartbeat under the armor. Eleven years later, the wider fuse is lit: Marshal Kergan’s rebellion seizes Treespo, a methane-skied mining moon stuffed with rare elements, and the Alliance throws together a hybrid special-ops company, Neo-Etruscan SPEC CO plus New Terran Marines, under Liam’s command to carve out a landing zone and hold it in an atmosphere where a bad seal can turn you into a torch.
What surprised me first was how much tenderness the novel dares to keep on the page while everyone is carrying rifles. The triplets aren’t just “stakes”; they’re texture, little gravitational bodies pulling Liam’s thoughts back toward mercy even when the mission wants him reduced to a tool. And the dreamscape element, this half-mystical, half-disciplined mental terrain, doesn’t feel pasted on as a flashy gimmick; it’s intimate communication, spiritual practice, and battlefield vulnerability all at once. When Liam has to drop into trance while rounds fly, it reads like stepping onto thin ice: you can be brilliant and still go under.
I also liked the book’s willingness to let war be complicated without getting coy about it. The antagonist side gets real oxygen, Kergan isn’t a cardboard tyrant, and when the fighting turns personal, the consequences land with a dull, ugly thud. The dreamscape combat sequences, in particular, have a sharp, almost tactile choreography, less “wizard duel,” more knife-fight conducted in belief and misdirection. Some briefing-and-spec passages linger a beat too long, but even then the author’s fondness for practical detail (suits, procedures, unit culture) gives the story a grounded, lived-in smell, like hot metal cooling after a firefight.
This is for readers who want military science fiction, space opera, psychic fantasy, and alien-contact adventure braided into one campaign narrative, especially if you like competence under pressure, squad dynamics, and a dash of metaphysical weirdness that still behaves by rules. If you’ve enjoyed the disciplined military heft of David Weber (with a more mystical sub-current), you’ll likely settle into this world fast.
Pages: 442 | ASIN : B0CW974QW3
Soldiers in the Sandbox
Soldiers In The Sandbox is a military war novel that follows Sergeant Alex Vance from an Iraq deployment into the long, uneven stretch of coming home. The story opens with Vance arriving under punishing heat and constant tension, then moves through patrols, sudden firefights, and the loss that reshapes how he sees his unit. Back stateside, the fight changes form: therapy appointments, VA paperwork, and that hollow sense of trying to speak a language no one around you understands. Threaded through it all is his hidden notebook, a private place where he tells the truth to the page when he cannot tell it to people.
What I noticed right away is that Metcalf writes with a big, earnest heartbeat. He is not chasing cool detachment. He wants you close to Vance’s head, close to the moment, close to the way one memory can shove itself into the present without asking permission. Sometimes the prose leans into explanation and emphasis. Still, I kept turning pages because the intent feels honest. And because the book is willing to linger in the unglamorous parts, like waiting rooms and forms, and the slow grind of trying to get help that fits.
The notebook choice is the smartest structural move in the book. Early on, it reads like a lifeline Vance keeps tucked away in his rucksack, almost like he is hiding a small candle from the wind. Later, it becomes more methodical, a way for him to spot patterns in himself and to map the mess of reintegration when everything feels off by a few degrees. I also appreciated the author’s decision to include extra material at the end, like a glossary and a list of veteran support organizations. It is unusual for a novel, but here it fits the book’s mission of building understanding, not just telling a story. Metcalf’s own background as a combat veteran and his work with disabled veterans add context to that choice and help explain the book’s steady focus on what happens after the headlines fade.
If you tend to read war fiction for action set pieces, this might feel more reflective than you want. If you read the genre to understand the human cost, especially the after, then this is an exceptional book you’ll want to pick up. In that way, it reminded me more of the post deployment stories in Redeployment than of a plot-driven combat thriller. Soldiers In The Sandbox is war fiction with a steady pulse and a clear-eyed heart, gripping in the fight scenes, but unforgettable in what comes after.
Pages: 403 | ASIN : B0G7MZCHR2
Sense of Dilemma
Ballot: When Fate Called Their Name follows four young Australians conscripted by chance into Vietnam, and how that single moment echoes through war, espionage, and the uneasy aftermath of medals, memory, and mateship. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Life experience! As a 19-year-old, I sat with friends in a sweltering flat in Sydney and watched birthdates drawn from the conscription ballot. My date wasn’t called, but a friend of mine was.
The war in Vietnam had become hugely controversial. Anti-war and moratorium marches were frequent.
Attitudes toward the war were deeply divided.
The whole era left an indelible mark on me, and was unexpectedly resurrected when I travelled to Vietnam on business and saw the remnants of the war, including coffins draped in US flags being loaded onto an aircraft in Hanoi.
Mitch, Greg, Jay, and Kiwi feel like real blokes rather than archetypes. How did you shape their dynamics?
All based on friends and acquaintances I’ve met and known over the years, worked with, played with, and faced difficult times with. I’ve used my imagination to consider how they might have interacted had they known one another. Names are fictitious, of course!!
Jay’s choices raise difficult questions about survival and allegiance. Did you want readers to judge him, or sit with the discomfort?
I did want to evoke a sense of dilemma between loyalty, courage, survival, and freedom of choice, and to be a little provocative about what is good and what is best from differing perspectives. The clash of cultures, worldviews, and an individual’s life experience all play a part in shaping who we are and what we believe.
I think the discomfort is important. It’s real. Fight or flight. Very little in life is black and white. I think being faced with the choice between sacrifice and survival, and where to place allegiance, is one of life’s greatest tests.
That said, I am sure some readers will judge him, and that’s OK, it’s all part of the dilemma of choice, values, and self-preservation. I like the dichotomy.
What do you hope younger readers, far removed from the Vietnam era, take from this story?
It’s part of the ‘we will remember’ ethos of past wars and of those who sacrificed, who displayed courage, and who were willing to serve. So I’d like to think the story shines a little light on life during the period when the war was fought.
Perhaps, in particular, the world their grandparent’s lived in when choice wasn’t always freely available, when governments and ideologies demanded compliance.
Entertainment wrapped in a thought-provoking historical period that may create some understanding of the fickleness of life.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Instagram | Website | Dan Mulvagh | Amazon
Australia unhesitatingly responds by enforcing conscription. Twenty-year-old men are selected by ballot of their birth dates drawn from a lottery barrel, sending them to the war-ravaged jungles of Vietnam.
When their birthday numbers tumble from the call-up ballot drum, Mitch Masters, a talented motorcycle speedway competitor, destined for international fame and fortune, Jay Petrovitch, the son of Russian refugees, Greg Sunderland, dentistry school dropout, and wannabe rock star, and Kiwi, a construction worker from New Zealand, find themselves on the sharp end of the fog of war and political duplicity.
For years following the end of the war, rumours of POWs shipped off to the USSR filtered through the ranks of the war’s Australian veterans. Was it possible that Aussie Diggers were among them?
The Australian authorities said no.
Is this Australia’s greatest cover-up?
From the inner suburbs of Sydney, through the jungles of Vietnam, the Closed Cities of the Soviet Union, the horror of combat, the oscillations of xenophobic and patriotic pressures, and the collisions of ingrained world-views, Ballot is a gripping novel of allegiance and identity. Of mateship that transcends three decades, three continents, and opposing political and social philosophies.
It Could Happen
The Red in the Wrong Profession follows a widowed history teacher and his 12-year-old daughter who, at the local bookstore, discover a coded message tucked inside a classic novel, leading them to a possible espionage plot. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I had learned that spies left messages in some rather unusual places, back before there was an Internet and electronic ways to communicate with their handlers or with other spies. It intrigued me no end! So I thought it would be fun for my readers to have a bookstore used as a “spy drop.” Hey, Internet or no, it could still happen…
Spencer is a history teacher who ends up living inside history. How did you think about that irony while writing him?
I had a feeling someone like Spencer, who is an honorable character, even though he’s got a wicked sense of humor about the spy, Zinnia, would just love it if he became a part of history. Suddenly he’s no longer teaching about the Cold War – he’s living it, and in the best way possible, by involving his brother who just happens to be in the FBI.
Preston straddles family loyalty and professional duty. What interested you most about that tension?
There are some things that Preston is prohibited from revealing, even to his family members. And he doesn’t like that, but what can he do? I think he does a terrific job of informing his brother and niece as far as he possibly can as the three of them work together to resolve what they found out was happening regarding the spy in their midst.
The novel shows how misinformation and rumors spread through casual conversation. Was that a deliberate parallel to espionage?
It was more like I was trying to show who could and couldn’t be trusted. Quite a few characters aren’t what they appear to be. There’s certainly a lot of suspicion going on in that little town in Virginia where the story is set!
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As Preston races to decipher the message, he finds himself caught between loyalty, secrecy, and a ruthless enemy determined to unearth America’s most guarded innovations. What begins as a child’s accidental discovery soon escalates into a perilous hunt across the capital, where every page turned could expose a new betrayal.
The question isn’t just whether Preston can stop the spies—it’s whether he can do so before the next secret falls into Soviet hands, changing the course of the Cold War forever.
Soldiers in the Sandbox
I read Soldiers in the Sandbox as a first-person immersion rather than a detached war story, and that feels like the book’s defining move. Author Scott Metcalf frames the novel around Sergeant Alex Vance’s deployment to Iraq, tracing his journey from the anticipatory weight of arrival through firefights, loss, and the quieter but more corrosive aftermath of survival. The plot itself is deliberately unflashy: patrols, sudden violence, the death of a fellow soldier, and the long interior reckoning that follows. What carries the book is not narrative surprise but accumulation, the way dust, fear, camaraderie, and moral unease layer themselves into a lived experience that refuses to simplify war into slogans or spectacle.
I liked how insistently physical the prose is. Metcalf writes with an almost tactile fixation on weight, like rucksacks biting into shoulders, heat pressing down, adrenaline flooding the body, and that physicality grounds the psychological descent that follows. I trusted the voice because it never strains for heroism. Alex Vance is competent, but he’s also uncertain, frightened, and frequently confused by the machinery of command that moves him around like a chess piece. The firefight scenes don’t glorify violence; they disorient. They arrive abruptly, leave behind numbness, and fade into silence that feels heavier than the noise. That restraint gave the book credibility.
The emotional center of the book, though, isn’t combat; it’s grief and moral residue. The death of a young soldier fractures the unit in quiet, believable ways: absences at meals, jokes that no longer land, routines that keep going because stopping would be worse. I was especially drawn to the journal passages, where Alex tries to articulate what the war is doing to him. Those moments resist tidy insight. Instead, they circle questions of purpose, agency, and complicity without resolving them. The effect is unsettling in the best way. The book doesn’t offer catharsis so much as recognition, a sense that confusion itself is the honest outcome.
Soldiers in the Sandbox will resonate most strongly with readers drawn to military fiction, war literature, and psychological realism, especially veterans, military families, and civilians who want a grounded portrayal of modern conflict without cinematic gloss. Stylistically and thematically, it sits closer to Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried than to action-forward war novels, sharing that focus on memory, guilt, and the stories soldiers tell themselves to endure. This is not a war story about what happened, but about what remains.
Pages: 403 | ASIN : B0G7MZCHR2
