So the good one today is for The Watermark which came out in 2001:

“AMAZING!, March 2, 2009

By Kym McNabney (Illinois) – See all my reviews

This is the third book I’ve read by Travis, and I’m thoroughly convinced he should be a number one best selling author. Each one I’ve read, Sky Blue, The Promise Remains, and now, The Watermark, are incredibly written, and inspirationally moving. His written words and story ideas blow me away.

Sky Blue, shocked me and moved me to tears, several time. That doesn’t happen too often.

The Promise Remains still resides in my soul. I don’t know if I’ll ever leave. It’s one of those books that will remain with you forever. It’s that moving.

And now, The Watermark…Once again Travis had put an amazing story on paper that you almost forget you’re reading a “story”, you get so involved with the character and their lives. And that’s not to mention the message of God that he intertwines throughout in a subtle, yet explosive way.

As I read the last page through tear filled eyes, I closed the book and wept. It was that moving.

I’ll soon be reading, Three Roads Home, and have no doubt that once again I’ll be blown away with this mans amazing writing.”

Note–I agree with Kym on thinking I should be a number one best selling author! 🙂 

And now the not so good: 

“A Tale of Mind-Boggiling Weakness And Stupidity Poorly Told…, March 4, 2009

By (name kept out) (Haines, AK USA) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

I have been one to judge a book by its cover, but this one threw the ancient warning back into my face with a powerful arm. Finding this book at a library sale, I was taken in by the vibrant cover and the intriguing synopsis, and thought, “For a dollar, why not?” But what I failed to take into an account was fact that the afternoon spent reading it I would never get back.

Before I continue, I had best preface this by saying that I am a prolific and lenient reader. My omnivorous habits lead me everywhere from the science-fiction section to the history isle, the only places I do not tread being the romance and western shelves. And, though I am not a religious person myself, I have a deep respect for spirituality of all forms and have been known to enjoy an occasional bit of faith-based fiction. I share this only to stress the fact that the following review is not tainted by any prejudice on my part.

On to the meat of the matter. The book begins with a relative amount of pep, drawing the reader into the middle of the protagonist’s situation. The narrator, Michael Grey, finds his married eye wandering on a New York business trip. The object of his falter is a bombshell femme fatal with the applicable of “Jasmine” whom he meets in an outdoor cafe. He is understandably attracted to her, and when she leaves him with her number, he naturally gives her a ring. What follows is a decent into an easily-avoided mess. Michael is invited to meet the enigmatic “Jasmine” for a drink and while there, she pulls him into a fight with a man she claims is a past lover, and then promptly vanishes. Michael is able to track her down by tracing the ID card she left behind in her wallet, and upon meeting him again, his elusive lady drags him into another precarious situation, and on the pretext of going to the powder room, she gives him the slip yet again. This scenario is repeated again again over the course of the night, and each time he is obviously abandoned by Jasmine, Michael pursues her relentlessly, convinced she is a damsel in distress in need of his liberating.

Michael’s audacious and sex-driven tenacity is so extreme that it borders on comedy. And even if this reader were to suspend her disbelief that the sex-drive of a mild-mannered businessman would so repeatedly win out over his ingrained instinct of self-preservation, she (meaning me) would still be distracted from the plot by the all-consuming desire to reach past the text to grab his fictional shoulders and shake some sense into him. And once this gentile reader was done shaking the creation, she may have wished to set the book aside to fantasize about giving Mr. Thrasher a good talking to as well.

But, my reader’s nature was too strong, and, like the protagonist, I continued when it would have been best to leave the whole thing behind. I suppose I was hoping that the final pages would hold some internal resolution for the hapless Michael Grey. But I was again disappointed. Instead of drawing on his religion for strength and taking control of his own life, Michael’s realization was something akin to: “Well, I suppose I’m just too weak to be true to my wife and myself, so I’ll just put my faith in God to sort the whole mess out!” Really, what message are we supposed to take away from this? That men are just sex-mad idiots who can’t help but chase any clever skirt that crosses their path? That when we throw ourselves into dangerous and morally compromising situations, we should surrender our failure to a higher power rather than attempt to use the model of our chosen religion as template to better ourselves?

Between the frustrating idiocy of the main character and the muddy final message, I award BLINDED with the rare title I reserve for an elite class of literature: “DREK OF THE WRITTEN WORD.” It has secured a firm holding among the worst books I have ever read, and it is unlikely to go anywhere anytime soon. I wish to close this review with a message to Mr. Thrasher: “Dear Sir, you can spin a pretty phrase and your sentence structure is not bad, but in my humble opinion, you could most certainly work on your skills as a novelist.”

Travis here again. Not sure what’s the worst part of that review. The actual review or the fact that she got my book for $1. One dollar, really? It was probably signed, too! 

A good review can seriously make my day. And I’d love to say I completely ignore the bad ones, but thankfully I haven’t gotten a ton of them. Some of the big name authors on Amazon get a beating, so there are benefits about still being a fairly unknown author. 

Well, enough about that. I’m getting ready to write some more DREK OF THE WRITTEN WORD!