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Book Review: Marked by Capone

Marked
by Capone
(Life Changing Books)
4 out of 5 Stars


capone marked on amazondotcom

To say that Marked “starts with a bang” is not a cliche: it’s a the literal truth. Capone is an relentless as his namesake when it comes to serving the glaring truth page after page. Set in the “D”, this Detroit tale of street loyalty, mafia suppliers and survival is so detailed that the line between entertainment and information is blurred. Marked details the fall of Detroit drug family .

Gator is a man who seething with violence and greed as he supplies most of Detroit through his Greek connection. Gator sent his nephew Deluxe to the Marines. Although Deluxe thinks the military was Gator’s way of providing refuge from the street life, the opposite is true. Deluxe’s skill as a military-trained sniper is quickly put to use. Caught between guilt and loyalty, Deluxe constantly battles between what he wants to do and what he has to do.

Deluxe also wants to find his father’s killer. Rock is Deluxe’s father and Gator’s big brother. His death is a mystery, and the hood’s no-snitch rule is in full effect. Gator’s right-hand man, Myth, is loyal but his importance is overlooked. Nevertheless, he makes the moves necessary so that Gator can maintain a tight grip on Detroit’s drug trade. Although Gator keeps the family strictly Detroit, Myth’s status allows him to bring in his cousin from New York, Kane. In this kill-or-be-killed lifestyle, everyone is marked for death one way or another.

Capone is an author who is able to serve what makes the streets harsh and beautiful with the same intensity. From the different neighborhoods to the crooked cops to the good girls gone bad to the outside influences on the hood, Marked has all the elements of inner-cities across the nation. Those elements are also common with Urban Lit titles. Capone’s Detroit upbringing and vivid imagination takes the aforementioned elements and twists them into a perfect knot. Marked shows the reader exactly why nothing and nobody can be trusted in the hood.

When I first looked at the book cover, I wasn’t too impressed. This was especially true since it was published by Life Changing Books, whose book covers almost always features some seductive eye candy. After reading Marked, I would have felt an under-dressed woman would have done this book a disservice. Although there were sex scenes in Marked, they were well-placed and did not take away from the main focus of the plot. In taking a more probing look at the book cover, I felt that it symbolized the amount of greed and corruption inherent in street life that many outsiders can not easily see. You really have to look into the letters of Marked on the book cover, as if you are an outside. You can’t just a book by it’s cover, but once you start on that first page…

While I was reading Marked, I envisioned actors Gary Anthony Sturgis as Gator and Nate Parker as Deluxe. My conflict with Marked as a reader was Gator. He stole the show. I think Capone’s intentions were for Deluxe to be the main character. Naturally, I wanted to emotionally attach myself to Deluxe because he was the good guy in a bad situation. Gator’s intensity, one-liners, his lack of control and mindset out-shined almost everything any of the other characters did. If Gator was written any differently, Marked would have been missing an important and thoroughly entertaining component.

Capone’s Marked is a well-crafted debut novel where he paints a ruthless dog-eat-dog picture of Detroit’s underworld where death is always around the corner. There isn’t much room for a sequel because of the plot twists and the surprise ending, but I’m sure Capone’s next literary offering will be progressively better as her grows as a writer.

Reviewed by Joey Pinkney dot com

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5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… Aaron D. Taylor, author of Alone with a Jihadist

JoeyPinkney.com Exclusive Interview
5 Minutes, 5 Questions With…
Aaron D. Taylor, author of Alone with a Jihadist
(Foghorn Publishers)


aaron taylor alone with a jihadist on amazondotcom

While many fundamentalist/evangelicals tend to ascribe to a Zionist theology which believes that it is good to be at war with anyone who opposes the Christian rite to expedite the glorious return of the Messiah, there is one crusader, Aaron Taylor, who believes otherwise. Taylor believes that the church has sadly missed the most pronounced message of Jesus Christ: peace.

The very Bible, which Christians read, refers to their founder as The Prince of Peace. Despite this, many Christians support warmongering and unnecessary bloodshed rather than peacemaking. In a room for seven hours with a radical Muslim, Taylor shares the story from his face-to-face encounter, of how Islamic people view the United States of America, our present Administration, and the state of the Christian Church.

It is one thing to look at Christianity from a Christians’ perspective, which is typically an altruistic viewpoint, but things change quite a bit when Christianity is viewed through the eyes of Muslims. Taylor says, ‘Their [Muslims] view is one every Christian must hear!’

Joey Pinkney: Where did you get the idea and inspiration to write Alone with a Jihadist?

Aaron D Taylor: The book came out of an actual experience I had with a radical jihadist in London. I spent seven hours over a period of two days in a cold, abandoned warehouse as part of a taping for a feature length documentary called Holy Wars.

When Khalid, the jihadist, posed the question of how I would implement the Bible from a governmental point of view, I knew that he was onto something that I hadn’t given much thought to before. I also knew that the standard pat evangelical answers didn’t get to the core of Khalid’s moral objection to Christianity.

I left London feeling perplexed and defeated. I took a year off from my missionary travels to get to the bottom of the issue. Alone with a Jihadist is the result of the intense soul searching and Biblical research in the year following that dramatic encounter.

JP: What sets Alone with a Jihadist apart from other books that attempt to bridge the Christian/Muslim gap?

AT: Nearly every book on Muslim/Christian relations written from an evangelical perspective emphasize the evils of Islam and the virtues of Christian civilization. Nearly all are heavily slanted to a right-wing Pro-Israel/anti-Palestinian perspective.

What I do in Alone with a Jihadist is essentially say, “Wait a second here. When it comes to Holy War, we Christians in the West need to remove the plank from our own eyes and realize that there’s a lot of us with the same crusader/jihadist mentality as our Muslim counterparts. Until we come to grips with the ethical teachings of Jesus and apply them towards our understanding of war and peace, we’re not offering the world much different than what exists in Islam. We’re just wrapping Jesus in an American flag and asking Him to bless our bombs.”

It’s a controversial message, but it needs to be said.

JP: As an author, what are the keys to your success that lead to Alone with a Jihadist getting out to the public?

AT: I think if this book gets a massive public reception, it will be because I’m committed more to the message than I am to making a profit off the book. I’m so committed to my message that I’m willing to take a financial loss to get the message out. Because I’m so committed to getting my message out, no media venue is too big or too small for me. I’m taking a no-holds-barred approach, and I believe it’s going to pay off.

JP: As an author, what is your writing process? How long did it take for you to start and finish Alone with a Jihadist?

AT: I wish I could say that I had a disciplined routine in writing this book, but it’s not true. I didn’t have a certain time set aside that I wrote every day. Usually I found myself struggling to find the time to write in light of daily life and chores.

I also had to start over twice before arriving at the final product. That’s because my thought process evolved throughout the project. It took me about 16 months to complete the rough draft. I wrote most often at home or at the public library. I even wrote some of it while I was doing medical studies to help make ends meet.

JP: What’s next for Aaron D. Taylor?

AT: Besides the constant promotion of Alone with a Jihadist through writing articles, doing talks and engaging the media, I also travel several times a year and teach a Bible Story workshop to pastors and missionaries around the world.

My wife and I are also adopting a baby boy from Ethiopia this year and, as it usually happens, as soon as we started the adoption process, my wife got pregnant. Within a year, we are going to have two new additions to the family. I think my wife and I are going to need all the prayer we can get.

http://www.aarondtaylor.com/
http://www.aarondtaylor.blogspot.com/

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5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… Anieshea Dansby, author of Nookie

JoeyPinkney.com Exclusive Interview
5 Minutes, 5 Questions With…
Anieshea Dansby, author of Nookie
(Art Official Media )


aniesha dansby nookie on amazondotcom

Eighteen-year-old Joy is a naive girl who found something else to fill the void in her life left by a broken heart and her parents’ death. Going purely off of instinct, she survives using what she discovers is the key to getting what she wants: the power of “nookie”. She becomes far removed from the downside of her life that left her stranded when things start to look up. Suddenly, she’s able to live her life like a queen, with no worries. But will life in the fast lane leave her set for life, or will it all crumble before her nineteenth birthday?

Joey Pinkney: Where did you get the idea and inspiration to write Nookie?

Anieshea Dansby: Nookie started out as a short story I wrote for a creative writing class. I always liked to write but never thought of it as a career until I had trouble finding a job.

JP: What sets Nookie apart from other novels in its genre?

AD: Nookie is different in the sense that it is not the normal street novel with hustling and drug addictions. It has a little bit of everything: love, violence, drama and betrayal.

JP: As an author, what are the keys to your success that lead to Nookie getting out to the public?

AD: The key is to market myself and get the word out in as many ways as I can. It helps to go out and talk to people directly.

JP: As an author, what is your writing process? How long did it take for you to start and finish Nookie?

AD: Sometimes, I can just sit down at the computer and the ideas will just flow. Usually, I like to write all my thoughts out as an outline for each chapter. Everything falls into place from the chapter outline. It took about six months to write Nookie.

JP: What’s next for Anieshea Dansby?

AD: Right now I’m working on the sequel to Nookie. For more information about me visit my publisher’s website http://www.artofficialmedia.com/ or find me on http://www.myspace.com/aniesheadansby.

P.S. Join the Joey Reviews Newsletter at http://joeypinkney.com/joey-reviews-newsletter.html

P.S.S. If you want to be feature in a 5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… series, email me at joey.pinkney@gmail.com or http://myspace.com/joeyreviews

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