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Thursday, January 4, 2018

HERO by Boyd Taylor (Book #1 in the Donnie Ray Cuinn series) Review and Giveaway!



Hero is the first book in the Donnie Ray Cuinn series. And it's a great debut because it's got me hooked on the series! Check out my review and enter the giveaway to win a copy of Necessities, the fourth book in the series.

Book Details:


Category: Adult Fiction, 180 pages
Genre: Political Suspense
Publisher: Katherine Brown Press
Release date: November 9, 2015
Tour dates: Jan 3 to Feb 28, 2017
Content Rating: PG-13 + M (Some slight cursing.)

Book Description:

When budding historian Donnie Ray Cuinn stumbles upon an old letter in the musty bowels of the Texas State Archives, he believes he has uncovered the true story of Sam Payne's valiant, or perhaps not so valiant, capture of Mexican leader Santa Anna during the Battle of San Jacinto. Cuinn's findings are published in a local magazine. But the article eventually becomes fodder in the gubernatorial race between Democratic upstart Bob Braeswood and Republican favorite Sam Eben Payne V, the great-great-grandson of the Texas hero. Braeswood is intent on exploiting the past, while Payne will do anything to suppress it. In the ensuing battle, Donnie finds his beliefs, not to mention his relationships, stretched to the limit in the first novel of the Donnie Ray Cuinn series.

My Review:
Reviewed by Laura Fabiani

Hero is the first book in the Donnie Ray Cuinn series. And it's a great debut because it's got me hooked on the series. Taylor's books remind me of John Grisham novels with their flawed, broken but likable main character and courtroom drama pitting the underdog against powerful opponents. And let's not forget the twisted ending no one saw coming.

In this first novel, Donnie is a History major and he writes an article based on an old letter he found in the Texas State Archives. His article defames the heroic ancestor of a politician and it snowballs into a political mess with influential people trying to either silence Donnie or use him to their advantage. What eventually happens is something Donnie never saw coming and it changed the course of his life.

Taylor successfully builds believable characters with depth. At under 200 pages, this book packs a punch with a great cast of characters, a serious yet comical basis for a plot, and a style of writing that hooked me in and didn't let go until the last page. Regarding content, there are several drinking and sex scenes, with crude language, f-bombs and religious profanity, which I didn't care for. Although, it depicted the university social life and the arc of character growth in Donnie. I liked the portrayal of strong female characters in Lena and Cecilia.

The author's experience as a lawyer and knowledge of Texas history, government and politics make this series an intelligent read. I'm already half-way through the second novel, with my review scheduled on Jan 10. I'm planning on reading the third and fourth book and hope that the author has a fifth one in the making.

If you like John Grisham novels, smart plots and a memorable cast of character then you will definitely like this series.

To read reviews, please visit Boyd Taylor's page on iRead Book Tours.



Buy the Books:

Watch the book trailer for Necessities (Book #4 in the Donnie Ray Cuinn Series):




Meet the Author:


BOYD TAYLOR lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and their Havanese dog Toby. Necessities is the fourth novel in the Donnie Ray Cuinn series. In a former life, Boyd was a lawyer and a corporate officer. A native of Temple, Texas, he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in government and an LL.B. from the law school.

Boyd's first novel "Hero" was prescient in its story about fake news. His second novel, "The Antelope Play," dealt with drug trafficking in the Texas Panhandle, an unfortunately accurate forecast. The third, "The Monkey House", involved commercial development of a large green space in the center of Austin, all too familiar to Austin residents. Whether his upcoming novel "Necessities" predicts future events with the accuracy of the earlier books remains to be seen.

Connect with the Author: Website ~ Facebook

Enter the Giveaway!
Ends March 7, 2018


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3 comments :

  1. Thanks so much for the review. I'm glad to hear that you are hooked on the series.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This sounds GREAT! I have Necessities (book 4) as a TBR in January -- now I wish I had started at the beginning of the series. Thanks for the post!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for commenting! I appreciate your feedback.

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