RiverMoose-Sam’s Review Policy
NOT CURRENTLY ACCEPTING REVIEW COPIES
- Anyone (reader, publisher, author, etc.) can send me a request to review a book.
- If I accept the request, I guarantee to review it, but I reserve the right to not accept a request that does not interest me.
- I accept: e-books (any format that works on a kindle fire), arcs, galleys, and finished print books. PHYSICAL COPIES ARE IMMENSELY PREFERRED AND MORE LIKELY TO BE ACCEPTED!
-
Genres I like:
-Young Adult
-Dystopian Fiction
-Science Fiction
-YA Contemporary
-Fantasy
-Magic
-Certain types of non-fiction
-Occasionally Poetry
-Mythology
-Anything humorous/funny
-
Genres I dislike:
-Historical Fiction
-Adult Murder Mystery/Thrillers (most of the time)
-Adult Romance - If you’re not sure whether or not I’d like it, feel free to message me.
- Though I reserve the right to reject a request, I will review all accepted books given amble time (ie. don’t send me a book and want it reviewed within a week). I will need 1-2 months from receiving the book to have it read and reviewed.
- All my reviews will be honest, reflecting my honest opinions on the book, they will not always be kind, though I will do my best to justify every negative (and positive) thing I say so it does not seem slanderous.
- Most books I review will be my own, or borrowed from a friend. Should a book have been sent to me by a reader, publisher, author, etc. I will specify that in my review according to the FTC guidelines.
- After review, I will keep all books – including arcs – unless otherwise asked not to by a publisher etc.
- Similarly, unless otherwise requested not to, I may lend out books sent to me.
- I reserve the right to cross post my review, not only on this blog, but on my Amazon, Goodreads, Barns and Noble, and Tumblr accounts. This will sometimes, but not always, by the case. If sent a book by Netgalley, the review will always be cross posted to my Netgalley account per requirements.
Rating System:
- 5 Stars- One of my favorite books of all time. I need every pretty edition they release. Everyone needs to read it RIGHT NOW.
- 4 Stars- I love it. It’s amazing. I’d buy it in hardcover. Most people should read it.
- 3 Stars- I liked it. It was good, though a few minor personal preferences made me like it less. May or may not buy a physical copy. It would be a paperback. You may want to read it.
- 2 Stars- It was fine. Not great, not terrible. Personally I did not enjoy it much, but I can see the merit in the writing/plot/characters. Others may like it, I simply did not. Might DNF if got bored.
- 1 Stars- I really didn’t like it. For both personal reasons and objectively poor writing/voice/characters etc. Don’t bother reading it. Might DNF if I got bored or was otherwise too bothered to finish it.
Other Things to Know:
- I am open to guest posting, either me writing a post for another blog, or someone else writing for my blog. Check out my Guest Post Policy. Message me if you want to work something out.
- While primarily a book blog, I also post personal stories (or my own writing), things about various fandoms, tv shows, movies, and other things I find interesting.
Contact:
- Aside from comments, the best way to contact me is through email – rivermoosevlogs@gmail.com
- Email me there for requests, questions, concerns, or general conversation. Though I’d prefer commenting before emailing as I am more likely to see it in a timely manner.
RiverMoose-Reads 
Hello: I’d like to request a review of my book, Lacy’s End. Lacy’s father is the sheriff in a small town, and he likes to use Lacy and her mother as his personal punching bag. However, Lacy’s had enough. Can the doctor with the kind eyes help her? How about the concerned social worker? Taught to trust no authority save her father, Lacy cries out for help. She’s suddenly befriended by a boy nobody else can see. Is he the one who will save Lacy?
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Hi, I was wondering if you received my email?
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I haven’t been home the last two weeks and I haven’t checked my email, I’ll look now!
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Great! Thanks.
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Hello: I’d like to request a review of my book, The LILOE Devotional.
Amazon Description: The LILOE Devotional is a brand-new 30-day journey from first-time author Derek A. Nicksich. Thirty days of biblical truth, insight, and inspiration will bring a life-changing opportunity for you to experience the LILOE lifestyle. Pronounced (Lee-Low), this five letter acronym for “living in light of eternity” summarizes the truth that what we believe about tomorrow impacts our today. Each day includes Scripture, devotional thoughts, and practical suggestions for living today in light of our promised tomorrow. This insightful and practical devotional is a perfect daily read for any believer, new or old.
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Dear Sam and Staff,
Hi. How are you? Fine here.
If I sent you a .pdf or a hard copy of my latest book, “A Ranch Bordering the Salty River,” would you or someone at River Moose Books review it?
I have included some comments, blurbs, press releases, a synopsis, an a review for you to read.
Cordially,
Stephen Page
Endorsement Blurbs For Stephen Page’s “A Ranch Bordering the Salty River”
Half Frost, half Hemingway, Stephen Page tells a gripping tale in verse of a rancher disenchanted with the details of administering land, its livestock, and its unreliable laborers, only to be called by the mythic lure of the nearby Wood and the amorphous deity that emerges to encounter him. The writing here is clean and lovely and permanent, which is rare in storytelling and rarer still in poetry. – Rustin Larson, author of The Philosopher Savant
For Jonathan and Teresa, who live on A Ranch Bordering the Salty River, life is rich with pleasures and responsibilities. Set in the vast landscape of Argentina, where “summer is a bread oven that delivers too early” and “the gauchos once stopped to drink mate in front of the fire,” Stephen Page’s poems describe a life where the border between place and state of being are often crossed at a heavy price. The air is scented with eucalyptus, but there are vultures “heavy along the fenceline.” In this place where “they do not honor absentmindedness,” a man has little latitude in life’s juggle of work, love, and spiritual journey. Page manages this precariousness beautifully in these poems. – Leslie McGrath, author of Opulent Hunger, Opulent Rage
“Enter the myth” of Stephen Page’s Argentine estancia of moonrings and mate in this love letter to a woman and her land from a former soldier who has “holstered (his) gun and sheathed / (his) knife and got down to the business / of grass.” A Ranch Bordering the Salty River is a beautiful meditation on counting and “uncounting,” of “eucalypti and sycamores,” cattle and cattle thieves, yard hands, a growing family, trials, blessings, legends, and of overseeing a wooded eco-ranch. – Chip Livingston, author of Naming Ceremony and Crow-Blue, Crow-Black
Stephen Page opens the gates to Jonathan’s ranch where “the sky is so large” and we walk with Jonathan “into the myth of the Wood, the legend of its shade, to lick the dew off leaves.” We ride horseback through the Belt of Venus. We greet Jonathan’s dog, who arrives “as a moon phase, mostly black, a crescent tie of white…the sun reflected off (his) chest (sic) like a journeying god riding a chariot”. We meet Teresa, Jonathan’s wife, who “no longer wanders the Wood, but cradles her child in the bleach of her kitchen.” We encounter “mountainous dragons with fire-wet tongues and hot breath and teeth like jagged sun-bleached rocks.” We carry belt knives, hand guns, and stand outside Malingerer’s home with hammers in our hand. Yes, Page invites us onto A Ranch Bordering the Salty River with all its beauty and violence. It is a visit we will long remember. – g emil reutter, author of Blue Collar Poet
A Ranch Bordering the Salty River is a character-drivenb poetic narrative filled with suspense, cruelty, love of mate, goddesses, Teresa, family, and nature that nature that coexists with cattle, cattle ranches, and gauchos alike. There are heroes—
Jonathan the narrator and The Horseback Vet—juxtaposed with villains of all sorts which one is likely to encounter on ranches. At the “Tree root” Jonathan (a man of many occupations besides ranching) longs not to be driven by soy-for-profit which his business partner urges: “to plow away more of my grass, shot the quail, trap the armadillos, flit away the mockingbird, spray to death the flowers, plant genetically modified soy, sterilize my herd to nothing”; rather, he wants “Transformations” – “let the cattle feed…keep the fields clovered…take daily strolls in the quiet of the Wood…watch for hours bumblebees work, and lock eyes with the mockingbird.” Jonathan has this unescapable longing “to return to the wood/To the way it was.” Stephen Page will take you there and upon returning, you too will be changed. – Diane Sahms-Guarnieri, author of Images of Being
Mother Nature, the world of the gauchos, bees, an Argentine ranch: with vivid accuracy and little sentimentality, Stephen Page delineates the sensibilities and life of Jonathan, a rancher. The afternoon mate taken, observations of cattle, mosquitoes, flora and fauna not only of the physical landscape, but the mental landscape of those that inhabit it, Page returns again and again to the restorative old ways of nature: “Yesterday I walked to the Wood. / Yesterday I walked back. / Yesterday I walked. Yesterday / I want to return to the Wood, / To the way it was.” – Mộng-Lan, author of One Thousand Minds Brimming.
“Stephen Page’s “A Ranch Bordering the Salty River” is a unique collection of poems whose main subject is an American managing a large ranch in Argentina. Generally an unsentimental account of chores, local workers and natural wonders, Page presents striking and convincing images and diction. The Wild West is still alive, but it’s in South America.” – Ed Ochester, author of Snow White Horses
This strong and unerringly honest book gives us a unique perspective of a poet/rancher. The poet (his books and diplomas hidden in a secret room) has an insightful grasp of the largely uneasy worker-boss relationship and makes poems out of his ambivalence. Page’s world of horses, cows, birds, grasses, native flowers, and trees are evoked with a mix of lyricism and exactitude. We come to trust his attachment to the land and to his wife and to his wife’s family. All this with a glimmer of a love story in which we may imagine what brought this erudite poet to gaucho country add up to a memorable collection. – Colette Inez, author of The Luba Poems
Book Reviews about “A Ranch Bordering the Salty River”
There is a sincerity that runs throughout this short work that touches the soul as Jonathon shares the joys, hardships, secrets, and the dangers that entwine the life of a rancher in Argentina. It is the type of storytelling that mesmerizes the reader as told through the voice of a poet. It captures in me in the same mood as would a poem written by Frost… So much that isn’t said is very aptly implied.
The sense of becoming one with the storyteller is very real as one visualizes all that is going on. One becomes the persona sipping mate while taking in the beauty of the landscape, the woods, and the moon. One’s senses come to life with the scent of eucalyptus, the permeation of cow shit, the witnessing and aid of new life as a cow struggles to give birth, or death for the unfortunate calf who wasn’t reached in time. The wild imaginings and anticipations of a child heading toward the chickens are measured against the precariousness of one’s situation as rustlers bid the need to holster one’s gun and sheath one’s knife.
The ability to say so much in such few words and such a short work shows the nature of a truly gifted poet.
— Kevin Cooper of KC Books & Music
Comments on “A Ranch Bordering the Salty River”
(read on Amazon, the Finishing Line Press site, websites, Barnes & Noble)
I have read the poems multiple times…each time I come away with a different phrase to ponder and enjoy. – DF
I had read most of the poems in this collection before they were put together in the ranch book. However, I wanted to read them in the order the author put in the ranch book. I did it twice. I really enjoyed the flow. Really enjoyed it. I found this is both a sunny afternoon outside read on the deck or a rainy day or night on the couch read. Very good. – JC
I gave one to every team member at work. The person I have the most conflict with read it and so did his family. I respect him even though there is conflict. He said he liked it. He talked individually about each poem. It was clear he read the whole thing. – DP
Thoroughly enjoyed A Ranch Bordering the Salty River! A story so close to nature told in poetry. My absolute favorite -“This Morning” Thank you Stephen! – Laura Berman
This is a short collection of thought provoking poems surrounding a gaucho life in Argentina, the culture of Argentina and it’s beauty and flow. A welcome addition to any collection on Argentina culture and poetry. – Ross Ferg, author of Walking Patagonia
Played a game, last night, called 5-Second Rule, where you have to name 3 things in 5 seconds in the category you’re given. I got Poets, and Stephen Page got me through. – MP
A lovely book. I enjoyed it very much. Congrats. – Rodger French, author of Happy To Be Here – Vol. 1: Greetings From Ghana
At last. I just finished, Stephen. Absolutely stunning. Worth every minute of awaiting its arrival. Your book came yesterday from the publisher and was light and elegant. Beautiful artwork. You are a master poet but also master storyteller, A rare and perfect combination. – KWK
Back to reading … this little gem is a unique collection of poems told by a poet/rancher. A resolution to get back to reading has lead me here … finally. Back to the good stuff. – PPK
Received Steve’s book yesterday & read it immediately. Thank you. “Wolfed” it down in 20 minutes. I could smell his ranch! At times, so saddened, at others, just peaceful. Incredibly talented. – A Wondering Reader
Gives me hope for good poetry – HM
Wonderful, Wonderful. – KD
Awesome. – CSH
Una de las tantas lindas personas que conocimos, Mi amigo Stephen, quien me envio el libro que escribio “A ranch bordering the salty river ” que esta teniendo mucho exito en Estados Unidos. ! Que alegría. Muchas gracias !!!! – ER
Un escritor es un artista que plasma en un papel las poesias mas bellas …cada pagina es un deleite para el alma – MC
“Llegar a casa y sorprenderte con un bello libro de un gran autor y además dedicado!!!. Que más se puede pedir para la puerta de un finde largo y además de mi cumple feliz!!. Gracias #StephenPage, #FinishingLinePress, y #aranchborderingthesaltyriver” – Verónica Kolodesky
Bennington College alumnus publishes third book
Bennington BannerBy Derek Carson dcarson@ benningtonbanner.com @DerekCarsonBB on Twitter
Stephen Page, author of “A Ranch Bordering the Salty River,” graduated from Bennington College in 2008.
BENNINGTON — A Bennington College graduate will publish his third book this month, a story, in verse, of a rancher who learns to live as one with the land.
Stephen Page, a Michigan native who graduated from Bennington College in 2008, is the author of “A Ranch Bordering the Salty River.” The book is being published by Finish Line Press, and is currently available for pre-order on the company’s website, and will ship Aug. 12.
“The book is the story, in verse, of a rancher who learns how to run a ranch in an environmentally conscious manner,” said Page, “He also learns how treat the animals humanely, and the employees justly. He ensures that a generous portion of land is kept feral as a wildlife refuge and a haven for local flora. As the years pass, he is daily battling cattle rustlers and horse thieves, and trying to keep his family’s ranch eco-friendly.”
Page said that the drama continues to build, but you’ll have to read the book to find out what happens.
He said the book has no specific target audience — it is meant for anyone who enjoys a good story.
“Half Frost, half Hemingway, Stephen Page tells a gripping tale in verse of a rancher disenchanted with the details of administering land, its livestock, and its unreliable laborers, only to be called by the mythic lure of the nearby Wood and the amorphous deity that emerges to encounter him,” said Rustin Larson, author of “The Philosopher Savant, “The writing here is clean and lovely and permanent, which is rare in storytelling and rarer still in poetry.”
Page was born in Detroit, and spent his childhood moving from place to place in Michigan. “While I was growing up,” he said, “I had cousins that lived up north (in Bellaire, Torch Lake, and Mt. Pleasant) so I spent most of my summers there where I often ran barefoot through Michigan woodlands – I climbed trees, leapt over fallen trunks, and sludged through swamps. I learned to swim very young, so I easily forded rivers and swam across large lakes. My Aunt Dee and Uncle John instilled in me reverence for nature and respect for the land. They also taught me how to hunt, trap, and fish — but only for sustenance, not for sport.”
A former marine, Page now lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he teaches, ranches, and takes care of his family.
“I loved my experience at Bennington,” said Page, “I still dream of being on campus, sitting on the wall, gazing at the mountains, lying on the lawn, walking through the trees and past the pond to the barn, attending classes instructed by illustrious faculty. I also loved to drive down Main Street to South Street and dine deliciously in one of your fine restaurants — Madison Brewing Company, Papa Pete’s, Subway, Elizabeth’s Eatery, The Blue Benn Dinner, Kevin’s Sports Pub & Restaurant, Bennington Station Restaurant, The Publyk House, Pizza Hut, Pangaea, Apple Valley Inn and Cafe, and South Street Cafe, just to name a few.”
Page has two previous publications to his name. His first book, “A Timbre of Sand,” is a collection of sonnets he wrote for his wife. The second, “Still Dandelions,” is a collection of haiku that he wrote, “for anyone who feels the synthesis of all living things on earth.”
Page gave a piece of advice for any aspiring writers, saying, “Just keep at it, no matter what, and remember always why you started writing.”
— Derek Carson can be reached for comment at 802-447-7567, ext. 122.
Michigan poet turns experience into “A Ranch Bordering the Salty River”
Poet Stephen Page was born in Detroit and lived all over Southeast and Northwest Michigan while growing up. Courtesy Stephen Page
By Darcell Brown, For Digital First Media
POSTED: 08/22/, 11:56 AM EDT |
Stephen Page’s latest book is “A Ranch Bordering the Salty River.” Finishing Line Press
From a young age, Stephen Page pursued journeys of both body and mind. He
was writing poems and stories by the second grade, and developed a natural
wanderlust from the beginning.
Born in Detroit, Page lived in Hazel Park, Madison Heights, Warren and Sterling
Heights, spending his summers running the Michigan woods with cousins in
Bellaire, Torch Lake and Mount Pleasant.
“I climbed trees, leapt over fallen trunks and sludged through swamps. I learned
to swim very young, so I easily forded rivers and swam across large lakes,” Page says.
“As an adolescent and young man, I worked in factories, die-maker tool-rooms,
gas stations and steel-cutting shops. I loved cruising up and down Woodward
Avenue in my Pontiac LeMans. Soon, I found myself with a travel jones and a
need to do something for my country, so I joined the Marines.”
He was stationed in Egypt and the Congo on embassy duty.
Page was discharged after serving seven years in the military, and decided to
leave the Congo and book a photo safari trip in Kenya. As he sat in the back of
a minivan zig-zagging across the savanna, his eyes set upon the love of his life.
“In Africa, met a beautiful green-eyed goddess from South America,” he says.
After lengthy phone calls and letters, Page moved 6,000 miles away from
Detroit to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to live with his love. “So now I am living
in Buenos Aires, teaching and writing.”
He also works as a rancher and farmer in Argentina.
Page’s writing about an eco-rancher named Jonathan evolved into his latest
book of poetry, “A Ranch Bordering the Salty River.” The book is about a
rancher who learns how to run his ranch in an environmentally friendly manner.
“Poetry is the most natural form of expression,” Page says. “Something about
the sounds and rhythms of the words, the assonances, alliteration, internal and
end rhymes.”
Through his journey, Jonathan learns how to humanely treat his animals and
make a human connection with his employees. In the title, “the salt works as a
metaphor for the brininess of the relationship between the rancher and the
employees and his business associates,” Page explains.
Working his land on the Pampas, Jonathan focuses on establishing wildlife
refuges and havens for local flora. While concentrating on these things, he
encounters cattle rustlers, horse thieves, saboteurs and bad business partners.
Page, whose heritage is part Shawnee and Apache, hopes readers come away
from his poetry feeling a “symbiosis with nature,” and in the case of his latest
book “a sense of the Old West.”
He likes to do his writing while physically close to nature.
“I have, since I was a child, felt an affinity to the land and to all nature things,”
he explains. “My relatives and great-grandmothers taught me respect for the
land and all natural things, to hunt and eat only for sustenance — not for sport
— and to plant that which is needed to survive and/or share with others.”
Page’s book is available from Finishing Line Press (finishinglinepress.com)
and Amazon.com.
Applause
Author publishes new book
by Susan Allen
Stephen Page recently released A Ranch Bordering the Salty River, a story set in South America. Page, of Buenos Aires, Argentina, is the son of Gerald Page, a retired Ocala letter carrier who lives in Summerfield. Submitted photo.
Stephen Page recently released A Ranch Bordering the Salty River, a story set in South America. Page, of Buenos Aires, Argentina, is the son of Gerald Page, a retired Ocala letter carrier who lives in Summerfield.
Page’s other books include The Timbre of Sand and Still Dandelions. He has taught world literature, ESL and film studies; and writes short stories, novels, and screenplays.
“Half Frost, half Hemingway, Stephen Page tells a gripping tale in verse of a rancher disenchanted with the details of administering land, its livestock, and its unreliable laborers, only to be called by the mythic lure of the nearby Wood and the amorphous deity that emerges to encounter him. The writing here is clean and lovely and permanent, which is rare in storytelling and rarer still in poetry,” Rustin Larson, author of The Philosopher Savant, said in a press release.
For more information visit https://smpages.wordpress.com.
Ranch Book Synthesis
The book is the story (in verse and poetic prose) of Jonathan, a rancher who learns how to run a ranch in an environmentally conscious manner. He also learns how treat the animals humanely, and the employees justly. He ensures that a generous portion of land is kept feral as a wildlife refuge and a haven for local flora. As the years pass, he is daily battling cattle rustlers, horse thieves, contact hustlers, and to keep his family’s ranch eco-friendly. The drama unfolds until . . .
The book will mostly speak for itself as you read the intro, epigrams, and poems. Basically it is the story of a rancher who loves his wife and nature, and has learned to ranch the ecological way, with the cows, humans, and woods-birds-flowers-nature coexisting. He has problems first with the employees, who are cattle rustlers, horse thieves, liars, and malingerers. As he learns to deal with these problems and complete his dream of having a one-with-all ranch for him and his wife and the world, he is blind-sided by the state-bullying-economical pressure to change his eco-ranch into a pesticide-poisoning soy bean farm. He wants to return to the eco-ranch-woods, but . . .
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I’m sure this is an exciting blog with awesome matters. Have you ever heard about PunchFlix? It’s this really cool broadcasting service that has imaginative content and it shows other programs anywhere in the world. It’s going to have several of the traditional shows as well as movies that we all would certainly enjoy. Not exclusively that, but it is also about to offer motion pictures on demand which means that we can easily check out whichever show or film whenever we want. PunchFlix is also going to have films and TV shows in many foreign languages. All we got to do is look for it on the web or download the mobile application.
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