HERO (Book #1 in the Donnie Ray Cuinn series)

HERO (Book #1 in the Donnie Ray Cuinn series)
Book Details:

Category:  Adult Fiction,  180 pages
Genre:   Political Suspense
Publisher:  Katherine Brown Press
Release date:  November 9, 2015
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.

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

My Review

First off I want to let everyone know that I am reviewing this entire series so feel free to check out my other/upcoming reviews on the other books in this series. HERO (Book #1 in the Donnie Ray Cuinn series) was the book that I began my foray into the Donnie Ray Cuinn series. 

Donnie Ray Cuinn is a historian who located an old letter in the Texas State Archives, which sheds some light on Sam Payne's capture of Mexican leader Santa Anna during the Battle of San Jacinto. What should have been a simple magazine publication about some new information about history instead becomes so much more due to politics. The Democratic candidate Bob Braeswood wants to use this bit of past to win. However, the Republican candidate Sam Eben Payne V, is in fact the great-great-grandson of the Texas hero; this causes him to want the history suppressed.  While the two try to battle it out Donnie Ray Cuinn ends up caught in the middle. Even with the events that were caused by his discover I liked that Donnie Ray Cuinn did not lose himself in the politics, but remained true to himself as he tried to figure out his own feelings, beliefs, and past.