Review: She's My Dad Provides Provocative Drama!

She’s My Dad

By Iolanthe Woulff
Outskirts Press, Inc.
ISBN: 9781432743772
457 Pages

"Reverend Shorr sipped a glass of water. 'Sometimes I think that the scientific community has taken us all much too far, much too fast. Life was complicated enough before...But we mustn’t second-guess our Lord...'"

What a powerful suspense drama! She’s My Dad by Iolanthe Woulff is a provocative hold-no-bars book that successfully illustrates the power of both love and hate. Woulff does this through characters that are so alive with their emotions that readers are immediately caught within the honest reality portrayed. Fascinating!

By nature of the material covered, readers should be aware that some content might be offensive. Personally, I didn’t find it so because the characters that were offensive were those I enjoyed hating! Then, too, as Reverend Shorr admitted in the book, there is too little written and taught about today’s sexuality and our technological world. I believe this type of fiction is one of the ways by which it can be shown how love can triumph over hate. The novel is somewhat based upon the true experience of the author. She has my admiration for her courage.

Nickie Farrell graduated from Windfield College and then came back many years later to apply for a temporary position replacing an English professor. During her college years, she had participated in an affair with a local resident and a child had come from that relationship. Nickie was the father of that child.

During her absence, Nickie had undergone a medically monitored sex change and was now a beautiful woman. At least Alex Steward thought so since upon their first meeting, Nickie and Alex had been immediately attracted to each other.

Beautiful love story? Not!

There was an excessive amount of town-gown tension between Windfield students and local residents. There was sufficient history that was still remembered by residents, especially, Ambassador Eamon Douglass, of how the free-thinking liberal college had been started and the students who arrived in town were either ignored, hated or worse.

As Nickie became involved in teaching, one particularly zealous journalism major started noticing and wondering about Nickie’s background and started to investigate. In many ways, her news article set off much that occurred, but it was hate and fear that fed the major events, which finally culminated in a terrorist plan to bomb the College!

This book is about hope. Hope for a time when those who are different in some way are not automatically hated. There will always be evil people, but they cannot be stereotyped. They could be your neighbors or your supposed friends. As proclaimed several times in the book, “Hate destroys everything. Don’t let it destroy you.”

Thank you Iolanthe Woulff for She’s My Dad—a highly recommended, truly remarkable book!

G. A. Bixler

Review: Murder on Campus! Great Whodunit!

Defending College Heights
By Stuart Nachbar
iUniverse
ISBN: 9780595496310
217 Pages

Stuart Nachbar's Defending College Heights brought back many memories of working within the political and town-gown relations on a university campus (for nearly 40 years). For recruiting commander Kevin Callahan, he didn't even have the opportunity to learn.

Soon after he came home from Iraq, Kevin was made commander of recruitment in the area surrounding Hudson Technical University. Hudson had a long association with the military service for campus recruitment as most federally supported universities do. As plans for the annual job fair were finalized, a protest against the war in Iraq was made in the most horrifying way possible--Kevin was killed, and left in one of the campus guardhouses. "No More Lies" had been left as a message on his t-shirt.

Jack Donnelly, Kevin's uncle, had helped raise Kevin and greatly cared for both his sister and Kevin. He went to identify the body and stayed. He was upset with the way the investigation was "not" being conducted, since the army was deferring to local police to handle the case.

But the president of the university was a savvy lady and she intended to ensure that her institution was saved in light of the potential damage that Kevin's murder could have. She convinced Jack to come and work for her, using his urban planning skills, and assured him that she would not interfere if he then conducted his own investigation in his off hours. Really gutsy president! I enjoyed watching her in action with peers, faculty and board members.

Student and/or community anti-war groups were suspected the most. As Jack began to both handle his new job assignments as well as make inquiries around town, he began to question quite a number of people. Interestingly, as things moved forward, it was the students who originally were protestors of the war that worked the hardest to help solve the case. I was pleased that Nachbar showed that the students were not involved!

For murder is a tool of those seeking power or more power. And that held true at Hudson Technical University. For the power sought was to be able to close this institution of higher learning and sell the property for non-educational uses!

Defending College Heights is a good solid whodunit, while providing readers the opportunity to learn about and evaluate armed forces recruitment within a university campus. Believe me, the political environment is really close to reality, in one way or another. Highly recommended.

G. A. Bixler