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Donovan's Bookshelf

April 2024 Review Issue


Table Of Contents

Prime Picks
Fantasy & Sci Fi
Literature
Biography & Autobiography
Mystery & Thrillers
Novels
Reviewer's Choice
Young Adult/Childrens

Fantasy & Sci Fi

Altered  
C.T. Fitzgerald
Independently Published
979-8874138172             $11.99 Paperback
https://www.amazon.com/Altered-C-T-Fitzgerald/dp/B0CRPC5JBY 

Altered features sci-fi short stories that center on new possibilities and consequences for humanity's decisions on technology and the quality of life. It creates disparate and inviting stories that should give rise to debates in book club and discussion groups about the values and directions humanity is on the cusp of choosing, that could irrevocably affect how freedom and the future plays out. 

Take the opening story, 'Inevitable Antiphony', for example. Here, an unusual dialogue between human and robot, presented in a unique two-column format, surveys the boundaries of artificial and biological life, considering the moral and ethical choices in life, death, and what lies in-between. 

The dialogue is structured to slow the mind's tendency to read too quickly, injecting pauses that, though they may seem artificial at first, result in emphasis and enlightenment that is usually harder to achieve in the standard paragraph form. 

From the moral concerns of human-generated creation processes to the types of transformation that will be produced by AI, the conversation takes on deeper undertones of reflection that will delight by its form as well as its content. 

In contrast is 'Made to Order', in which a futuristic result of genetic engineering leads to some extraordinary and frightening traits. These prompt the narrator to admit that his more-than-human semblance actually represents a being incapable of exhibiting or feeling the emotions that make for a human being. 

What, exactly, is this new creation? By his own admittance, the narrator has no feelings about his life, purpose, or those who are deciding his future: 

"...at this point in my life, I had no idea about what I wanted to do, and to make things worse, there was nothing that motivated me, no emotion, no great need or fear, no drive to pursue anything specific. I was, quite literally, a blank slate that someone had to fill in, and that someone would never be me. No problem." 

Deemed a legal and social nightmare, can one who is 'barely human' be tailored, altered, or trained to re-integrate into society without dire consequences? 

C.T. Fitzgerald raises tough moral and ethical questions in each of these cases of altered states—questions that will especially intrigue and delight book club participants as well as philosophy groups considering what makes us human. 

Altered is thus highly recommended reading not just for its entertainment value, but for its series of examinations that, libraries will find, lend perfectly to broad recommendation to patrons interested in the intersection of sci-fi, technology, philosophy, and the future of human affairs. 

Altered

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The End of Nobility
Michael Green Jr. 
Lynit 
979-8-9862547-0-8         $9.99 Paperback/$7.99 eBook
Website: www.michaelgreenjr.com
Ordering: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNG82CF1 

You would think that in a world where everyone has food, shelter, and access to magic, there would be a concurrent end to conflict. Not so, as The End of Nobility points out. Twins Dre and Alaan live in fear—and that's not the only thing eroding their wellbeing and lives. 

The story opens with a prologue that portends a birth that will be accompanied by both magic and machines, giving rise to new possibilities.  

As the tale unfolds to reveal how these special twins come to be hunted by assassins, facing some of the most dangerous challenges to their young lives, readers receive an engrossing story that features aspects of military sci-fi, but with a political overlay and foray into magical influences that expands the focus on strategy and survival into one of vivid encounters with unexpected forces that simmer beneath the surface of their eyes and lives: 

"When he turned back around to face her, the creature reappeared. Dre zipped his eyes over to catch it, but each time it disappeared before he could focus on it. With his eyes steadily on her, the monster slid more and more into view until it was right beside her. It was a large humanoid beast covered with long red and white hair that covered its body like a robe. Its hands were curled into thick fists that were as big as its head. It stood at the same height as her. Every time his eyes left the woman’s eyes, the monster disappeared instantly. It was too quick. It wasn’t an illusion. Dre had never seen foreign magic before, but this had to be it." 

Michael Green Jr. employs vivid descriptions to supercharge his story with thoroughly engrossing forays into the spirit realm, counter-intuitive approaches to magic, and lessons that stem from a closer examination of rules, methodologies, and disparate forms of magical memory. 

Embedded into the action are thought-provoking reflections on what it means to be a twin in this world, both connected and yet struggling to find individual purpose and meaning beyond that connection: 

“'There it is. Even in your jokes. You have this image in your mind of who we should be together and then you divide up the pieces between us. I’m not who you think I should be. I want to be Alaan, not one half of the Poli Twins.'

'In our day-to-day life, we can be whoever we want to be, but in the ring, when handling fans, when navigating this ridiculous predicament we are in, we have to move together. If there is any space between us, people will dig in their greedy fingers and rips us apart. Everyone wants a piece, you know that. If we give them a chance, they will take it,' Dre said.” 

As memories of different realms are breached and new possibilities of becoming Nobles are posed, The End of Nobility represents not just an end, but a new beginning. 

Libraries and readers of fantasy that blends dramatic, high-octane action and adventure with a story of discovery and expanding understanding of the universe itself will find The End of Nobility riveting, unpredictable, and nearly impossible to put down. It's an exceptional standout in a sea of staid fantasy plots and personalities that shines with original, engrossing scenarios as healing leads to rebirth and new possibilities certain to be explored in additional books. 

The End of Nobility

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The Lasso Unravels: When All Hell Breaks Loose
Marc Corwin
The Moving Words LLC
979-8872592631            
$24.99 Hardcover/$18.99 Paperback/$2.99 eBook/$0.00 Kindle Unlimited
Publisher: www.themovingwords.com
Ordering: https://amzn.to/3Rw4O00 

The Lasso Unravels: When All Hell Breaks Loose is best enjoyed by prior readers of The Optical Lasso. This audience will find the ongoing action, fantasy science, and trademark fast pace of the space opera genre is both engrossing and easy to absorb in this follow-up story, which continues where the prior book left off. 

Here, humanity has barely survived the attack by unknown forces, and has largely fled underground in a last-ditch effort to survive. Corps fighter Lieutenant Janet “Cat” Miles is sent to Earth to assess the situation; but when she discovers that she inadvertently carries with her inner demons, her ability to act and to return home are both compromised. If only she had her male counterpart, Supreme Commander Jason Cody, by her side to support her! 

As if the situation weren't already dire, the universe itself is unraveling, with galaxies falling silent against an unknown threat that is on target for reaching Earth. 

How can Cat locate her missing commander and his optical lasso, which is the only thing that stands between total destruction and survival? 

Marc Corwin creates another thoroughly engrossing story marked by a satisfying blend of fantasy science and high-octane action. The story brings to life the quandaries and strengths of a female commander forced to operate outside her comfort zone to achieve different goals. 

Embedded with demons, devils, and mercurial alliances, The Lasso Unravels is replete with the kind of unpredictability and original plot progression that keeps readers immersed in worlds that are extraordinary and powerfully contrasted with the objectives and perceptions of humans: 

"...to keep matters interesting, Satan redirected the cosmic wake of the Royale’s demise right at the wary Phoenix. Reflexively looking skyward, Cat’s empowered vision allowed her to see the black plume of smoke from the old warhorse’s final moments. Sensing her presence, a slew of dancing devils formed a message of warning in the hexagon’s protective cloud cover: “We are coming for your soul.” 

From different leaders, sexual conquests, and combatants that push the boundaries of science to achieve their goals to threads of humor which wind through the story to temper action with wry, ironic insights, Corwin has created another story that excels in a satisfying blend of action, science, and changing scenarios. 

Libraries strong in space opera that seek original, action-packed writing flavored with the twists and turns of survival attempts that operate on Earthly and universe-changing realms will welcome The Lasso Unravels as a spirited, unique collection addition that nicely compliments The Optical Lasso and, once again, leaves the outcome wide open for more books. 

The Lasso Unravels: When All Hell Breaks Loose

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LOY and Beyond
Todd David Gross
‎Sunlit Lane Production
978-1737942627             $17.99
https://www.amazon.com/LOY-Beyond-Todd-David-Gross/dp/1737942623 

LOY and Beyond continues the series with a post-apocalyptic story of different forms of survival (first introduced in LOY: In the Forests of the Mind). Prior fans will discover the ongoing survival challenge continues between a shamanistic culture and a society bent on returning industrial activity to the world, despite its having been nearly destroyed by such ventures. 

This time will be different. Is it a form of insanity to repeat the same mistakes in hopes of a different outcome? Maybe it is. 

"It was a new day, a new dawn, a new dream now set into motion…" Really? In some ways, the patterns are different. New opportunities evolve. In other ways, the potential for stepping into old habits poses dangerous possibilities. 

"Truth propels. It is formless. It exists between one movement and the next." 

As this sequel unfolds, readers who enjoyed the first narrative introducing the vying forces that attempt survival by employing very different ideologies will find that Gremer, Reena, and others embark on journeys of new discoveries. These, in turn, demand from them different responses and perceptions of their place in the world. 

As success in influencing those with different thoughts becomes the very mechanism of their undoing, Todd David Gross crafts a story that continues to expand the conflicts of a world that moves steadily away from the LongPast while confronting its legacies. 

Gross is particularly adept at contrasting these evolving and opposing viewpoints in a manner that does not embrace black-or-white thinking. He considers the gray areas in right and wrong, world-building and domination efforts, and the contrasting ideologies which drive the characters to consider their individual impacts and choices in remaking the world. 

The result is a dystopian epic fantasy that will interest libraries building strong collections of works that prove worthy of book club discussion and higher-level thinking about choice, consequences, and long-ranging results of shifting roles: 

“My role will soon end,” Donan continued. “I will be remembered for what we once were. But you will be looked to for what we can become. It is you they will seek out in the coming times.” 

LOY and Beyond

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The Optical Lasso: Beware Of Neptune's Dark Side
Marc Corwin
The Moving Words, LLC
‎979-885462856
$19.99 Hardcover/$18.99 Paperback/$2.99 eBook/
$0.00 Kindle Unlimited
Publisher: www.themovingwords.com
Ordering: www.amazon.com/dp/B0CDVRXMXN    

The second edition of The Optical Lasso: Beware of Neptune's Dark Side gives space opera readers a run for their money in a galaxy-wide sprint set in 2140 CE that combines the hard science of a planet that regularly reverses its rotation and vanishes, with a military battle that involves Earth and spacers in a riveting clash of people and ideals. 

To define Marc Corwin's story as that of a traditional space opera alone would do it a disservice. Subtle nuances of challenge and change run deeper than a surface-level action piece. Nuances range from a female leader who defies her own perfection as she faces off with a male counterpart who has proven himself unreliable and unpredictable, to a planet which holds the same properties—the promise of immense, untapped, yet unreliable power. 

Space opera usually is questionable in its science and often overly melodramatic in its action, but Corwin's story resides in the outer limits of new possibilities, whether he's presenting a woman whose quandary is whether or not to trust and throw her cards in with a male counterpart, or an evolving relationship that mirrors the same questions about Earth's alliances and survival. 

Action-packed descriptions embracing science and military strategy alike will delight readers seeking a fast pace in their sci-fi reading: 

“Okay, people. Stay sharp. On my command, kill all backup systems except for life support. The ship will throw off an electronic signature of being mortally wounded. With the Indiana’s power shut down, we’ll piggyback off their high intensity tractor beam, which will sling us back toward the beam’s source. It should be quite the ride." 

It is quite the ride, as Corwin leads readers into realms of possibility that include psychological entanglements, attacks, murderous actions, and danger that comes not just from the elusive, mysterious planet Vixus, but from within ranks and individuals. 

The result is a compelling saga that romps through universes and psyches with equal force, leading a host of characters through nefarious intentions and puzzling physical realms of possibility. These are inhabited by spies, devil's disciples, and the secret of an optical lasso which "must stay hidden, or all will be lost." 

Libraries strong in action-packed sci-fi favored with a high-octane dose of engrossing scientific possibilities will find The Optical Lasso a winner that ends with an unexpected rise from the ashes of possibility and a "to be continued" conclusion that leaves the door wide open for the next book. 

The Optical Lasso: Beware Of Neptune's Dark Side

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 Literature

White Noir
Robert Fleming
Old Scratch Press
978-1-957224-18-3         $8.99 Paperback
Website: www.oldscratchpress.com
Ordering: https://www.amazon.com/white-noir-Robert-Fleming/dp/1957224185
 

The first thing to realize upon choosing White Noir is that Robert Fleming is not just another poet. He’s a word artist who wields his emotional forays like a sword, cutting to the bone with a rich, powerful, challenging style that transforms the usual poetic approach free verse. This marries black and white images and world-changing structures of observation in an entirely new manner.  

Newer generations attracted to succinct, powerful impressions will discover this union to be especially attractive, as in the portrait of Dorothy (of The Wizard of Oz), who assumes a decidedly un-Oz-like position accompanied by the one-liner “the wizard gave them a country.” 

It doesn’t take a genius to absorb the messages in these works, but it does require a flexibility of approach to poetic style and form, and the acceptance of reinforcing imagery that both clarifies and transforms the written word’s meaning and impact. 

Readers who sojourn through White Noir’s milieu will discover elements of surrealism, existential thinking, ironic juxtapositions of subject and emotion, and odd, original pairings of subject and intention. One example is a piece framed by a bowler hat in which Abbott and Costello confront Frankenstein (“Costello’s Frankenstein’s baby daddy”), the Mummy, the WhereWolf (spelling intentional) in Costello, and more. 

Contemporary often clashes with traditional in unusual ways in these works; all of which require a thinking mind not laden with the expectations of tradition … even a free verse tradition, which pales under the onslaught of the words and imagery featured here. 

Some (usually those already steeped in predictable poetic routes and choices) will hate Fleming’s approach. His style isn’t for everyone. That said, those passing on it are missing out; because the tempo, emotional connections, rich and unexpected overlays of subject, and excitingly thought-provoking approaches to poetry deserve wider appreciation than the typical contemporary poetic presentation. 

Libraries interested in contemporary literature, especially those looking for creative and powerful experimental poetry, will welcome White Noir’s strange and alluring creations, which follow no rule, break many, and emerge like a butterfly from the chrysalis of staid poetic form and reader expectations. 

White Noir

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Biography & Autobiography

Freeing Teresa
Franke James
The James Gang, Iconoclasts Inc.
978-1999406103            
$39.99 Hardcover/$16.99 Paperback/$9.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Freeing-Teresa-Story-Sister-Trilogy/dp/1999406109 

Freeing Teresa: A True Story about My Sister and Me is the compelling saga of siblings in conflict over one sister’s disability and the right thing to do. 

Franke’s siblings wanted to place her Down syndrome sister Teresa in a nursing home. But Franke protested about the quality of life her sister would receive in such an institution, sparking a family controversy that extended when the siblings then chose a long-term care home that once again challenged Franke’s ideals of what her sister’s life should be. 

Franke and Teresa found themselves virtually alone, standing against forces of medical, legal, and psychological systems bent on declaring Teresa incompetent and institutionalizing her for the rest of her life. 

Surprisingly, Franke’s work as an environmental activist and the lessons she learned from that job translated nicely to her efforts on her sister’s behalf, providing a foundation of methodology, approach, ideology, and confrontation that served her well in her latest battle. 

From decision-making empowerment and voting rights to navigating possibilities for Teresa, Franke’s interactions with her father and siblings provides a powerful set of discourses that examine ideals, realities, and the mix of special interests and perceptions that can create a perfect storm in a family. 

Of particular interest are the points of contention that clearly outline different possibilities in acting and reacting to family members: 

“Weren’t Deirdre and Conrad still in charge? Probably, I said. But the alternative was seeking guardianship through the court system, and that could take six months or more. If we went down to Aiker Place with Dad, he could ask to see the paperwork, and maybe there would be another way. We both believed that Dad would have the moral authority as Teresa’s father and her primary caregiver. Maybe that would be enough.” 

From issues of control to others about empowerment and battles not only between family members, but institutions and systems designed to protect developmentally disabled individuals, Franke lays out a candid, clear course of struggle. This will engage a wide range of readers, from those coming from legal circles to families facing their own internal and external truths. 

The discourse tackles models of freedom, healthcare, personal choice, and more in a manner that book club reading groups (whether general-interest or with specific interests, such as psychology or legal advocacy) will find thoroughly absorbing. 

The result is more than a memoir: it’s a testimony to how ‘tickets to freedom’ are gained through fighting and love, displaying how Teresa’s own wishes and interests add fuel to the fire of empowerment on many different levels. 

Libraries will find Freeing Teresa an essential collection addition. 

Freeing Teresa

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Tap Dancing on Everest
Mimi Zieman, MD
Falcon Guides/Rowman and Littlefield
978-1-4930-7843-1         $22.95 Paper/$16.49 eBook
Website: https://www.mimiziemanmd.com 
Ordering:
Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure: Zieman M.D., Mimi: 9781493078431: Amazon.com: Books 

Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure is a study in adventure, joy, and survival. It portrays the experiences of a young medical student and dancer who breaks out of her comfort zones to join a daring expedition to chart a new route on the East Face of Mt. Everest—something that hadn’t been done before. 

Readers of travel and mountain climbing memoirs will find Zieman’s approach enlightening and vivid as she grapples with reasons why to undertake not only an arduous and potentially life-threatening journey but also studying about high altitude medicine on top of her routine medical school courses: 

“Dosing is best when started prior to reaching altitude, but it can be used upon development of symptoms of AMS. After writing down additional advice about acclimatization such
as drinking a lot of water and avoiding alcohol, I filed the library books back on the shelves. My first lesson on doctoring on Everest: completed.”
 

This juxtaposition of family background, physician training and applications to wilderness endeavors, and the excitement of an extreme and extraordinary journey lends Tap Dancing on Everest a sense of accomplishment and adventure rarely found in the usual memoir or physician account. 

The intersection of all three themes affords readers a unique, thoroughly engrossing story that delves into physical and mental challenges alike, bringing Zieman’s story to life in what, for many, will prove the next best thing to being on the mountain: 

“I trudged from tent to tent in my double boots, getting wetter and wetter. I never thought of our Bronx hospitals as luxurious, but a ceiling over my head would have felt deluxe. Despite the poor conditions, I felt full of purpose: a doctor in the mountains, just as I’d imagined. So far, I could handle everything.” 

Will Zieman’s strengths be enough in the face of Everest’s special and grueling challenges? 

Libraries and readers who choose Tap Dancing on Everest will find out—and will also discover a special sense of joy, accomplishment, and growth in Zieman’s experiences. This translates nicely to a thoroughly engrossing adventure that will prove hard to put down, whether the audience is composed of physicians, would-be mountain climbers, or armchair adventurers looking for a ‘you are here’ feel of excitement. 

Tap Dancing on Everest

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You Can’t Make This Sh!t Up
Stephanie Geller
Precocity Press
979-8-9892043-7-3                            $15.95               
https://www.amazon.com/You-Cant-Make-This-Sh/dp/B0CPXB5SDP

 You Can’t Make This Sh!t Up: Stories of a Badass Life is a memoir of collected life experiences that evolve over time, and incorporates a wry and ironic sense of humor about life’s opportunities and snafus. 

Often, the pros and cons of a given situation are presented side-by-side, as in the chapters ‘How Gymnastics Saved My Life’ and ‘How Gymnastics Almost Ended My Life’. Her story of growing up Army and poor, receiving some and fielding other opportunities, and making friends and learning about people, jobs, and places reflects a life story filled with memorable moments, engrossing encounters, and insights on growing up and absorbing the values that reinforce life decisions: 

“Home is a place where you can cook and eat whatever you want whenever you want. Cold slice of pizza at 4:00 a.m.? Yes please. Home is a place where you get to make the
rules.”
 

As these individual experiences contribute to the bigger picture of being a “badass,” Stephanie Geller explores the core encounters that represent life lessons, even in such events as selling typewriter ribbons over the phone or partying for days: 

“I woke up and had no clue where I was. Coffee. It’s now Sunday morning and all this started on Thursday.
’Did you have fun last night?’ I asked as I sat drinking coffee on Josephine’s balcony and watching people walk their dogs.
’Absolutely,’ she said. ‘What a great day.’
’I have to get home before I totally crash,’ I said. I grabbed my bag and walked to the parking deck to my car. Time to make the 30-minute drive home. It’ll be Monday morning soon. I’ll sleep when I die.”
 

The result is a rollicking ride through life that pairs adventure with growth and life realizations. 

You Can’t Make This Sh!t Up is about forming and achieving dreams, letting go of some of them, and living life to its fullest. It provides memoir readers (and libraries catering to them) with a multifaceted, lively draw that both entertains and holds thought-provoking moments about cultivating a zestful life lived to its fullest … and most badass. 

As a sad concluding note, Stephanie Geller passed away unexpectedly just after this review was written. Her admonition “I’ll sleep when I die” has come true; but the legacy of her life and writings live on here. You Can’t Make This Sh!t Up. 

You Can’t Make This Sh!t Up

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Mystery & Thrillers

Charm City Crab Puff
Pamela Kyel
The Wild Rose Press
978-1-5092-5334-0         $17.99
http://pamelakyel.com 

Charm City Crab Puff profiles Special Agent Laci Duvall’s engaging world and engrossing mystery as she faces a former beau, a dead ex-husband, and the mystery of a murder that re-entangles them both in intrigue and struggles over past and present-day affairs. 

Pamela Kyel sweetens her story with a dose of affection and humor. These enhance Laci’s personality and character as events unfold between and around them: 

“You could just ring the doorbell, but you choose to knock and ring the doorbell. You don’t have to do both,” I said. My grin stretched from one side of my face to the other. I don’t know why this struck me as funny; it just did. Maybe it was nerves, but whatever it was, I let out a snort, and Desio swung his head to look at me. Which made it even funnier, so I snorted again. All the while he didn’t even crack a smile.” 

Candid observations about situations, other people, and ironic twists that come from these reflections subtly pepper the tale with realistic insights. These grow characters and plot without the reader fully realizing what makes the story feel so full-bodied and well-developed: 

“Once the garage-like door was rolled up, it was plain to see she was in a hurry when she dropped everything off. There was no organization anywhere, which says a lot coming from
me.”
 

Forced to work together to solve one problem while fielding unresolved problems from their shared past, Laci and Desio pursue answers that give rise to more questions and deeper concerns. A cast of characters swirls around them to add their own conundrums and observations into the mystery. 

Kyel excels in a sweet sense of productive action and confrontational exercises, exploring proactive thinking that draws the main characters closer even as they chafe against some of the situations that test their relationship. 

These devices contribute to a thoroughly engrossing story that offers many twists and turns as the characters move through their conjoined lives to once again make a mark on their worlds and each other. 

Libraries and readers seeking cozy mysteries that resonate with dual charm and soul-on-fire encounters will welcome the emotional undercurrents that drive Charm City Crab Puff to be an exceptionally engrossing read. 

Charm City Crab Puff

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Codex
Lisa Towles

Indies United Publishing
978-1-64456-713-5                 $16.99
Website: https://www.indiesunited.net/codex
Ordering: www.amazon.com 

Angus Mariner is on a quest for truth and revenge after the death of his wife. But, in Codex, it's difficult to achieve either, as the perps are elusive and their purposes equally mercurial. That's what makes Codex so thought-provoking, supercharged with a tension that comes from loss, grief, problem-solving, and extraordinary circumstances that are impossible for either protagonist or reader to predict. 

The story attracts from its opening lines: 

"I shouldn’t be here. I know I shouldn’t. But sometimes the decisions of the heart immobilize the brain and body. While my conscious intentions might challenge the tenets of logic, a more wicked part of me decided, long before today, that Wendell Peters must die." 

The contrast between good intentions and bad decisions in a mission that sizzles with controversy and struggle brings readers right onto the playing field of confrontation and discovery as Angus finds there is far more involved in his wife's death than murderous intention alone. 

What he believed to be a case of confronting a wealthy adversary entangles him in a conspiracy that moves far beyond individual intention and action. This drives him into showdowns between influence, wealth, and intentions gone awry, leading him to wrestle with the overwhelming grief that marks his days. 

Characters that operate around Angus serve as backdrops and sounding boards to this grief process, which translates into both proactive behavior and revised struggles to define new goals and visions of the world as events unfold. 

The sheer complexity of this story might seem to limit it to seasoned thriller genre readers—but that would be a shame. Readers seeking an action-packed and equally thought-provoking story will find that Lisa Towles crafts both in a tale that intersects personal concerns with bigger-picture thinking.

Between vivid descriptions, three-dimensional characters, a myriad of action and shifting special interests, and intrigue and espionage that emerge from unexpected places, Codex is a genre-busting read. It is highly recommended to libraries and individuals seeking a story that is absolutely compelling in how it breaks all the rules of predictability, then puts them back together in unexpected ways. 

Codex

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The Condor’s Riddle
Marcelo Antinori
Secant Publishing
‎979-8985148992             $27.00 Hardcover/$.99 eBook
www.secantpublishing.com 

The Condor’s Riddle is the story of an older French archivist who stumbles on a murder, then becomes involved in employing his photographic memory and circle of friends to not just solve one crime’s riddle, but calm a community in turmoil. 

The story is replete with French atmosphere, from scenery to friendship connections, as a reclusive thinker and dreamer is pulled into circles and situations he is both ideally and ill-equipped to handle: 

“He seldom spoke – better be unnoticed – that was the first lesson he got from his uncle. He learned to think and dream in silence, without bothering to explain himself.” 

The lessons this experience forces upon him are many, bringing a delightful sense of adventure and discovery to readers who will identify with the older, shy Bebéi as he finds his life transformed in unpredictable ways. 

Bebéi doesn’t operate in a vacuum in this story. A cast of memorable characters swirl around him and receive equal attention to detail, adding to the disparate atmosphere that embraces his efforts, and the mystery that attracts and enchants him. 

From a Chinese ex-stripper to a Caribbean ex-president, the disparate personalities that swirl around Bebéi add color, life, and unexpected delights to the novel to enrich its progression and scenery. The exotic nature and pursuits of these participants interlock in an intriguing manner, much like a puzzle of pieces which at first seem dissimilar, but soon prove to be connected in more ways than one. 

These participants harbor their own special interests and unique methods of supporting or confronting the protagonist: 

“I’ll tell Bebéi that we no longer need his reports, which can now give him some free time to find out about the monkeys who hide out in the Golden Castle and who sooner or later will invade Santa Clara.” Then, after a quick pause to ponder a new thought, the Lady turned to Grená and said: “Better yet, his reports are quite entertaining, and if you agree, we can just let him continue to report to me, and I’ll pass them on to you.” 

Comedy, tragedy, and mystery thus coalesce in an uncommon and evocative manner designed to attract a wide audience, from genre mystery readers to those interested in Latin American literary devices, French-infused stories, and plots which prove unpredictable and hard to put down. 

Libraries will find The Condor’s Riddle a fine addition to literature and fiction holdings, highly recommendable to patrons who seek memorable stories, colorful characters, and uncommon, original plot progressions. 

The Condor’s Riddle

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Diamond and the French Blue
Karen Gilleland
7th Clue Publishers, LLC
9798878998970              $3.99 eBook/$14.99 Paperback
https://www.amazon.com/Diamond-French-Blue-Diamond-Dennison-Mysteries-Book-ebook/dp/B0CV1CDB97 

Diamond and the French Blue is the third book in a cozy mystery series featuring the partnership and intrigue confronting Hope Diamond, the founder and head of Diamond Security; and FBI Special Agent Matt Dennison. Familiarity with the prior books in the mystery series is highly recommended for a fuller-bodied feel of ongoing character development as Hope now finds herself immersed in political ambition and deadly surprises. 

Karen Gilleland provides a thought-provoking, astute inspection of political strategies gone awry as Hope and Matt become mired in a new situation that places Hope in the position of being a potential victim. 

Special permission has been granted for the Hope Diamond to leave its secure home. Now Hope is charged with keeping it safe against all odds and influences. 

As the Hope Diamond and Hope's future become inextricably linked, readers will revel in the sense of threat, discovery, and new opportunities that Hope and Matt face in the course of engaging in some dangerous moves for the sake of the greater good. 

Also at stake is their evolving relationship, which comes with questions and serious considerations: 

"Matt, who had been getting Frank’s beer, felt a pang of jealousy. He liked Frank, but when he and Hope were together, Matt felt like an outsider. It wasn’t only Frank. Matt would have to come to terms with her business and whether he could totally support her, which he would be bound in conscience to do. Until now, he never doubted that it wouldn’t interfere in their lives. But both their jobs required twenty-four-seven dedication, and clarity around that fact made him flinch. Could they have a happy marriage if they were both going in different directions with no time for one another?" 

Hope fills in the blanks of what happened in the aftermath of a murder, tackling the underlying possibility of a curse affecting holders of the enchanting diamond also called French Blue, and the real meaning the blue stone holds for serious gem collectors. 

From questions of who stole the Hope Diamond to who is willing to commit murder to keep secrets hidden, Hope and Matt are again mired in another diamond-backed adventure that lands them in turmoil both in the world at large and in their own relationship. 

The foundations of Diamond and the French Blue lie in its predecessors, Diamond in the Desert and Diamond on the High Seas. Readers of all three mysteries will find the action and intrigue builds upon past events while creating an outstanding interplay of personal and professional challenges that lead each investigator to grow and learn, both separately and together. 

That's why Diamond and the French Blue is highly recommended for libraries seeking a strong series addition, readers who have enjoyed the previous exploits of Hope and Matt, and book clubs seeking a delicious combination of mystery and personal revelations that offer many thought-provoking points for discussion amid the action and investigative intrigue. 

Diamond and the French Blue

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The Maslow Conspiracy
Lou Earle
PHiR Publishing
979-8-9885651-4-7         $20.99 Paperback/$7.49 eBook
Website: www.phirpublishing.com
Ordering: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKB1Y5RY?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CTHQMZ71?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_tkin_2&storeType=ebooks
 

Mac Sisco and his Team Apogee face a post-pandemic world in the concluding volume of a thriller trilogy which began with Apogee and introduced a global threat which tested his team’s makeup, objectives, and strengths. 

Over a year has passed since the Typhon Affair. COVID-19, in 2023, has wreaked havoc on physical and psychological levels; not the least of which are political impacts that draw Mac and his team deeper into situations of intrigue, global unrest, and forces that would exploit these circumstances. 

Once again, concepts of good and evil are tested as Mac finds himself in a whirlwind of adversity and enemies that seek even more complex methods of controlling humanity. But this time, there are indicators that resolution is on the horizon … if Mac and his team can draw together to confront internal and external forces working against them. 

Fragile relationships, confrontations with the Faction, Mac’s struggles while embedded in impossible situations away from his support group, and cryptic messages from Jasmine Snow that lead him through the streets of Rome to confront a CIA agent who is directed to arrest Mac for murder and treason adds tension and twists to the story as Mac is forced to confront scenarios in which he may prove to be the bad guy in the story. 

Mac’s advice to adversity is simple: “Keep the faith boys,” Mac offered. “You never know what the future will bring.” But sometimes faith is nearly impossible to maintain without a little creative cooking which, luckily, Mac enjoys in abundance. 

Lou Earle cultivates a similar set of attributes for The Maslow Conspiracy as in the prior Team Apogee adventures. High-octane action, twists of plot that test characters and lead to questions about what situations they’re actually tackling and how they are resolving them, and the intersection of personalities who concurrently address their own ideals, successes, and failures makes for heady thriller reading. 

Setting this final book apart from its predecessors is more of a focus on what resolution looks like and translates to, and how hope and ultimately redemption emerge from conflict to give many of the characters newfound ideals for their future, as well as the future of freedom and the world. 

Snow’s character provides an especially satisfying, proactive female contrast to Mac’s leadership which will delight readers seeking equal prowess in male and female problem-solving efforts. 

“The truth will set you free.” But, in this case, freedom comes with a promise and a price tag. 

While The Maslow Conspiracy can be read as a stand-alone thriller, ideally it will be chosen by prior fans who will find especially satisfying the roundups of personalities and purposes which lead in different directions than the previous encounters. 

These strengths are why The Maslow Conspiracy is highly recommended for libraries and all readers, particularly those immersed in the previous books, who will especially appreciate both the continuity of characters and the fresh dilemmas which arise here, to lead them into revised directions with startling new conclusions about salvation and redemption which adds value to this book and the series as a whole. 

The Maslow Conspiracy

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Pharo and the Murder at Smoke Lake
Steve Skurka
Atmosphere Press
979-8-89132-155-7                 $18.99/$8.99
www.atmospherepress.com 

Pharo and the Murder at Smoke Lake introduces a Canadian murder that challenges Pharo’s investigative skills. This time, events emerge from a resort snafu in which Pharo is called upon to employ her own skills while tapping those of her husband attorney and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself. 

This is no simple whodunit. Sealed letters, political clashes in Serbia and elsewhere, and a backdrop of special interests keep Pharo on her toes and her various assistants equally challenged as the drowning tragedy unfolds, embracing all participants in a quest for what turns out to be a double killer. 

Steve Skurka weaves the atmospheres of place and time so subtly into the action that the story sparkles with social, historical, and cultural influences. These give events a decided edge of reality as they unfold: 

“Sipping his drink, Willie hatched his story. “Sir Arthur and I discussed Italy as a proper venue to film The Sign of Four, and your film studio seemed perfectly suited. We’re thinking about the right casting for the film. What would you think of the actor you engaged in your film at the Roman Colosseum, Rudolph Mulino?” 

The intrigue that follows is thus an intrinsic part of the efforts of Pharo and The Sherlock Holmes Club to address and inject trickery, analysis, and insights into deepening plots that are challenging as wily characters test the mettles of amateur and seasoned detectives alike. 

Skurka’s multifaceted story moves through not just Pharo’s observations and efforts, but a strong cast of characters that swirl around her. These will keep readers on their toes as they enjoy the twists and turns of discovery that hone good detectives from impossible circumstances. 

Libraries familiar with Pharo from previous adventures will find Pharo and the Murder at Smoke Lake an attraction for prior enthusiasts and newcomers alike, who will find her journeys and those of her fellow detectives on the case to be fraught with action, intrigue, puzzles, and surprises. 

Pharo and the Murder at Smoke Lake

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Rogue Mission
David Nees
Independently Published
979-8374624762             $14.95 Paperback/$3.99 eBook
Website: http://www.davidnees.com 
Ordering: https://www.amazon.com/Rogue-Mission-Book-Dan-Stone/dp/B0BSWPGC5V 

Rogue Mission is the seventh book in the Dan Stone thriller series, where Dan finds himself not only struggling against a terrorist plot, but the processes and people in his own organization. 

The story opens with a terrorist attack in Canada, then moves to small-team CIA operations as an anthrax threat blossoms in a way that no operative or organization seems capable of addressing. 

Enter Dan Stone (but not until Chapter 3, when precedent, motivation, and setting have been established). Dan is a very successful contract killer (nee: assassin) for the CIA, whose job involves special situations. Few have proved as special as this one. Even Dan's traumatic previous assignment, from which he has mostly recovered, pales in comparison. 

David Nees presents the recap from that job in a succinct, involving manner: 

"Life felt good. He had acquired enough money to live as he desired. He was not extravagant but could purchase the best of whatever item he wanted. His wounds were healed from his last mission to Yemen. It had been a harrowing, painful expedition, but he had avenged Carrie's horrific death." 

This form of explanation is also employed as Dan's latest challenges play out in the process of tracking a threat that is elusive and puzzling. 

Dialogue and events move from Dan's experiences to those of organizations on both sides that operate around him, creating additional atmosphere and insights into how and why Dan feels he must break the rules in order to achieve his goals: 

“Dan hasn’t communicated with us since that last message,” Fred said. “That’s been six hours ago.”
Jane exhaled in frustration. “You carried out a dangerous op without my knowledge or permission. If the shit had hit the fan, I would have been left looking stupid or incompetent, or both.”
“With all due respect,” Fred said, “it would have given you deniability. That was something Dan said you wanted.”
 

As Dan relies increasingly on intuition to answer questions the Watchers only hint at, and to follow his own independent path in resolving problems, his increasingly rogue status challenges not only his supporters, but the approaches and values he has cultivated throughout his career. 

Nees provides just the right dip into intrigue and psychological revelation to spice Dan's story with a sense of purpose and procedural challenges. This approach produces new insights on good, evil, and the special issues involved in containing darkness: 

"His conversations with Watchers over the years rarely went beyond the crisis of the moment. But a crisis still existed. Dan sensed it. He felt driven to approach and wrestle with it even though he worried about the lines he might have to cross." 

As Dan both taps into and alters his views of the Watchers and his other support systems, he finds himself going rogue in more ways than one in an unusual bid for freedom that involves challenging authority and romantic possibilities alike. 

Libraries and readers looking for a thriller that operates as both a satisfying adjunct to the series and a stand-alone suspense story will welcome the twists and turns of Rogue Mission. It focuses as much on the process of personal growth and ethical and moral quandaries as it does on the fast-paced adventure which engages and challenges Dan Stone and his readers. 

Rogue Mission

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The Scorpion
David Nees
Independently Published
979-8819477991             $14.95 Paperback/$3.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Scorpion-Book-Dan-Stone-Assassin/dp/B0B2HMK9HB 

Book 6 in the assassin Dan Stone thriller series, The Scorpion, depicts contract killing made personal when a killer successfully targets someone he loves, then retreats to the Middle East, leading Dan on a chase through Europe to exact revenge and retribution. 

Why would a killer play such a game? Is it to lure Dan away from the support systems which back his actions, or to challenge Dan by targeting those he holds dear, because of some previous assassination? Either way, strip Dan of his support systems and the real nature of his efforts, personality, and limits become exposed to the very killers he needs to confront with strength; not weakness. 

Once again, David Nees succeeds in filling out more facets of a character whose life is steeped in murder and espionage. Given the nature of his job, Dan has long accepted that normal relationships will likely forever be beyond his ken and control: 

“You know the problem. My life exposes me to danger. That exposes those close to me to danger. It seems to have come home in a terrible way. One that may ruin my relationship with this other person forever.” 

His mission subconsciously attempts to change that dynamic by personally confronting the elements which keep love and connection at bay in his personal life. But, working against him is the cleverness and underlying motivations of The Scorpion, a clever killer whose sting contains new possibilities and objectives that even Dan doesn't always see coming. 

David Nees crafts his story as much on the psychological confrontations and conundrums of his protagonist as on the fast-paced cat-and-mouse games that plague Dan's life. Throughout this process, friendships, support, and enemies emerge from unusual places to influence and change Dan's direction and thinking. 

Libraries and readers seeking a whirlwind of action, intrigue, mystery, and psychological mind-bending games will welcome The Scorpion, whether they are reading it as a stand-alone story or in conjunction with the previous five Dan Stone thrillers. 

Either way, its ability to not just enhance its predecessors, but spin a complex yarn with divergent threads that all come together seamlessly at the end makes for an exceptional story that pairs edge-of-your-seat action with reflective insights key to a thriller steeped in Middle Eastern cultures, politics, and subterfuge. 

The Scorpion

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Stolen Lives
Joyce Yarrow
All Bilingual Press
9798989794638              $16.99
www.allbilingual.com 

What would you do if you were a reporter researching a mystery of the past that revolves around tons of gold and children that are shipped to Russia during the Spanish Civil War, in the course of researching a different, more contemporary story about Spain’s stolen babies? What if past and present were somehow entwined? 

That’s what journalist Alienor Crespo discovers as she delves deeper into an island’s secrets, which lead her from a present-day conundrum to hidden history. 

Readers who follow Alienor’s first-person account of her journey will discover that the historical backdrop that merges with the tale offers a satisfying sense of reality and authenticity as her investigation leads to unexpected routes and connections reinforced by historical precedent: 

“Thousands of mothers gave birth under anesthesia in clinics only to wake up to the news that their newborns were dead. How could they know that as they wailed and cried, their perfectly healthy children were being given away to families that were loyal to Franco’s regime.” 

As Alienor faces conflicts of purpose between rescuing and kidnapping children and the deeper moral and ethical implications of her investigation, she finds her own roots shaken by discoveries that strike too close to home as her own position mirrors those of other women. However, Alienor’s special knowledge about these events places her in a potential position of power to overcome the typical course of unfolding events. 

Joyce Yarrow again crafts a compelling story steeped in history, social conundrums, and Spanish experience which opens on a small island, then moves seamlessly into present-day challenges. This sequel to Zahara and the Lost Books of Light can easily be read as a standalone. 

Her ability to feature and probe evolving relationships, whether it be with nuns, inspectors, or those who harbor second sight visions, lends the novel a multifaceted feel that is atmospheric, emotional, and historically compelling. 

This is why libraries will want to recommend Stolen Lives to readers looking for a successful marriage between history and intrigue. Its ability to bring both to life against the backdrop of Spanish culture makes the tale compelling, educational, and hard to put down.  

Stolen Lives

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Too Much Tinsel
Amy Wolf
Independently Published
979-8872936190             $14.99
https://amywolf.wpengine.com/ 

Too Much Tinsel begins with a few surprises: a collection of 1940s slang used throughout the book, a list of characters, and a few Yiddish words. All this is designed not to daunt, but to make the reading easier.

From PI Nicky Forenza and the punk goon that confronts her at the door of her apartment to events that test her mettle and uncommon (for a woman in the 1940s) investigative abilities, Amy Wolf creates an atmosphere not only replete with 1940s references and insights, but a wry sense of observational humor: 

"The punk’s pal was slightly older, and just as cheaply dressed. These guys need to find a good tailor, I thought, as the older hood pulled his piece." 

But that isn't the biggest surprise. An early amazement is the nature of Nicky's partner. Another surprise lies in how Nicky employs feminine wiles to add to her grab bag of tools and problem-solving abilities. 

From a president who tries to reassure the country that it's on the upswing to a woman who is "barely a cop, much less a detective," Wolf crafts a realistic, compelling story immersed in the atmosphere of the 1940s. The saga is spearheaded by a feisty female who dares to go where no woman has gone before. 

Readers of noir mystery and detective stories will find Too Much Tinsel a study in accidents, executives, special interests, and a savvy female protagonist who weaves her way through alien environments with purpose and talent. 

The sense of humor throughout is a delightful accompaniment to Nicky's confrontations and epiphanies: 

“What can I do for you, dollface?”
There was nothing worse for a woman than being compared to a doll."
 

The result is a sultry character who tackles a puzzle, only to find herself embroiled in unexpected events. 

Libraries seeking exceptional strong female PIs whose sense of purpose and possibility are tempered by their wry inspections of life and people will find Too Much Tinsel beautifully rendered, exquisitely steeped in the 1940s, and hard to put down. It's also worthy of recommendation to murder mystery book clubs, who will find much to discuss and enjoy in Nicky and her Hollywood dilemmas. 

Too Much Tinsel

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A Whale of a Murder
Valerie Taylor
Aspetuck Publishing 
979-8-9865995-2-6                 $17.95 Paperback/$4.99 eBook
https://www.valerietaylorauthor.com 

A Whale of a Murder is a cozy mystery that opens with the specter of fifty-year-old Venus Bixby’s fall at the Sofia Silva Whaling Museum. This is actually only one tumultuous event that happens at the museum that day, changing the course of Venus’s life as the unexpected death of Margaret “Maggie” McGee, manager of the museum’s gift shop, draws her into a homicide—and a conundrum. 

Readers interested in a cozy mystery whose first-person narrator adds passion and intrigue to the events impacting Chatam Crossing will find A Whale of a Murder replete with nautical and small town influences. 

In a small town where the main topic of controversy is that of a new stop light’s placement, murder is not only unexpected, but shocking. 

The introduction of intrigue, which takes the form of a journalistic article reveal by Investigative Reporter Daniel DaRosa, nicely compliments the second chapter, where Venus’s first-person observations kick in for a one-two punch of attraction. 

Background humor adds to the problem-solving observations and clues to spark enlightening dialogues among Venus’s circle: 

“I prefer to think of a triangle as providing balance, harmony, and stability.” Sherrie reiterated by pointing to each of us. “And I’m feeling each of those in this room right now.” She let out a sigh, as if she was satisfied with her performance. Oh, geez. Any minute now, Sherrie would have us singing ‘Kumbaya, My Lord.’ Here I thought I was the Song and Dance Lady.” 

Readers seeking the allure of a cozy mystery teeming with small-town associations and politics, a savvy female who falls into an uncommon whale of a mystery investigation, and a supporting cast of characters that swirl around her to add further psychological entanglements and intrigue to the story, will relish A Whale of a Murder. 

The intrigue is enhanced by more ‘accident/murders’ and questions which arise to link past to present events as Venus and others find their lives, purposes, and talents put to the dual test of time and tragedy. 

Valerie Taylor is especially adept at drawing together the emotional relationships between characters as mystery and murders test their resolve and abilities: 

“Carole squeezed my arm as she pulled me in for a sympathetic hug. ‘What do you really know about him? Just because he’s filled a hole in your heart—’
’Only partially filled,’ I said as I separated myself from Carole…”
 

These emotional overlays reinforce the ‘cozy’ connections in the story, while adding attraction value to a tale replete with satisfying twists and turns. 

Libraries and readers seeking a mystery steeped in whaling history, small-town relationships and atmosphere, and a sense of intrigue that draws Venus and her associates to connect new dots in their lives will find A Whale of a Murder lives up to its title, promise, and attraction. It’s a story that’s truly hard to predict or put down. 

A Whale of a Murder

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Novels

Body Merchants
Elaine Bossik
Portable Shopper, LLC
978-0-9842419-5-8         $16.95 Paperback; eBook: $9.95
Website: www.elainebossik.com
Ordering: https://rb.gy/pbdxsq  

Body Merchants is a novel that delivers with the look and feel of a mystery, but holds bigger-picture thinking. It injects medical and ethical issues into reporter Ellie Andrews’s investigation of a star athlete’s sudden death after a kidney transplant. When she discovers that he’s not the only transplant recipient in the hospital to experience devastating aftereffects, she embarks on an investigation, resulting in a cascade of events that strike increasingly close to home. 

Readers of medical thrillers and novels which excel not just in mysteries, but in ethical and moral conundrums which immerse readers in questions of intention and outcome will find the satisfying twists and turns Ellie experiences here to be thoroughly engrossing. They come supercharged with personal relationships that lead readers to care about Ellie’s family, professional challenges, and the revelations which drive the plot. 

Elaine Bossik crafts an engrossing tale that operates as realistically in the courtroom as it does in the hospital. Ellie embarks on a journey that eventually brings her full circle to confront the forces that created a profitable scheme, then required dead bodies to make it come alive. 

As clues lead to discoveries, Ellie not only uncovers new possibilities, but is forced to examine her own motivations for pursuing a good story at all costs … even her own life and those of loved ones around her, who also may not be all that they seem. 

These kinds of questions lie at the heart of this superior medical thriller, moving the story beyond a whodunit and into the arena of personal moral and ethical conundrums. 

Ellie isn’t the only one whose life and objectives are under the gun. Those around her also face their special brand of hell as a result of both her probe and their involvements: 

“Nick Labelle, who had permission to visit him in a few weeks. This gave Matt a sense of purpose, a reason to wake up every morning and live through the day. It became his raison d’etre—his reason to be.” 

The result is a well-written, thoroughly engrossing blend of thriller, mystery, psychological and ethical examination, and court case. Body Merchants will satisfy a wide range of audiences, from libraries seeking thought-provoking novels that bring medical and criminal interests to life to individuals looking for depth in their entertainment reading. 

Body Merchants

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The Circle of Peace
Sophia Kouidou-Giles
She Writes Press
978-1-64742-848-8                 $17.95
https://sophiakouidougiles.com  

In The Circle of Peace: A Greek Tale of Perse’s Great Hall, Queen Perse, the mother of Circe and wife of the sun-god Helios, returns to the palace with a demand that her husband build her a hall fitting to assemble goddesses. You would think that having a palace with a thousand rooms would already fit that bill, but Perse's ambition and energy has no limits. 

From the start, her relationship with Helios is depicted as one of distance: 

“Here, massage my back and neck,” Perse ordered her maid. “It’s not like my husband to spoil anyone but himself. He asked me to come back. I just happen to be the one he favors today. Do you know what he wants from me?” 

She arrives with a peacemaking gift meant as a gesture of apology for the past. The baggage she brings along, however, ushers in new turbulence as events introduce unprecedented grief and change into her life, transforming her from a selfish and forceful leader to a woman far more interested in peace than war. 

Sophia Kouidou-Giles does an outstanding job of capturing the nuances of legend and entwining them with the emotional realities of a couple and country under siege. Her depiction of ancient times brings the atmosphere, approaches, and intentions to life as each character discovers potential for approaching the world in a vastly revised manner. But Kouidou-Giles stays the course in making sure the root motivations and psyches of her characters remain in sync with their social, political, and psychological transformations. 

Her astute reflections on the attitudes and points of view of legendary gods offer much food for thought and book club discussion: 

"Perse smiled a bitter smile. 'I am glad to see you are finally angry, sister. I think of your son’s loss and then of Icarus’s death, and ‘golden ichor’ boils in my veins. Immortals have no compassion for humans, using them like harriers to the winds. I think of Troy, a proud city now destroyed. One day it is Zeus’s whims and on another day it is King Minos’s possessiveness that destroys.'” 

The richness of these interpersonal reactions and the events that rock each character's ideal of life and the future provides a wealth of points where readers may wish to stop and adjust their own classical training in mythology and their knowledge of the politics and motivations of people in the distant past who form the stuff of Greek legends. 

The Circle of Peace is very highly recommended reading for readers who enjoy twists on traditional stories of the Greek gods, as well as those who enjoy a blend of fast-paced action, transformative events, and insights into the psyches of characters forced to confront the underlying influences of the world they have built and reside in. 

Libraries will want to place The Circle of Peace in any collection where retakes of Greek times are of interest, and will want to recommend it to reading groups interested in fiction that sizzles with action, insight, and a reimagined mythology worthy of discussion and debate. 

The Circle of Peace

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The Coast
John Enright
Black Heron Press
978-1-936364-42-8         $16.00 Paper/$9.99 eBook
www.blackheronpress.com 

 “Morey was pissed. Well, screw Morey. Patrick was just following the signs. How was he to know—middle of the night, Morey sound asleep in the back—that he shouldn’t have taken the turn-off that said San Francisco/Golden Gate Bridge but kept on straight for Oakland and some other bridge? Patrick had never been here before.” 

So begins a narrative about four decades of experience that link Patrick, Joanna, and Daisy as they embark on new experiences in San Francisco, where they discover that their relationships may be strained by changes to come, but that close connections will remain alive, at the end. 

It’s no easy task to capture these decades in succinct moments and through the eyes of different participants who each find that their evolutionary process is transformed by a city under siege, from hippies to Vietnam. John Enright does so with a seasoned and compelling set of insights that swirl around characters whose experiences drive and influence their relationships and choices. 

They find themselves at the vortex of and representing these changes, which ripple through San Francisco’s neighborhoods. These milieus are presented with the astute observational style of moments immersed in not just culture, but Bay Area environmental quirks: 

“There were no vehicles leaving Bolinas. He walked all the way to Stinson before catching a ride. It had started to rain. In all his months in the Bay Area it had rarely rained. It was a cold rain, relentless and bored. Another long wait with his thumb out at Tam Junction. It was like he’d become invisible.” 

Through its portrait of natives to outsiders drawn to San Francisco for disparate (yet sometimes similar) reasons, the ultimate power of The Coast lies in its ability to realistically and grippingly portray and contrast the environment and culture of the times through the coming-of-age of four individuals who find themselves caught up in and transformed by their choices. 

Think Jack Kerouac’s classic On the Road, but with a wider-ranging journey and a more contemporary band of adventurers who reside in an era where everything feels possible and nothing is set in stone. 

Of special note is the clash between dreams and ideals, and the realities that settle in as opportunity shifts to become adversity: 

“Eric was a cokehead when we got together. That was alright, though he was getting sort of paranoid. But when he got into the angel dust, he started getting weird—pushy, possessive. I wanted to move out, but I had nowhere to go until the dorm opened up again. Then when he found out I’d had drinks with your pal Douglas, he had a fit. I was packing when he attacked me.” 

The result is a vivid account of individual lives changed by choice and circumstance which vibrates with the Summer of Love and moves forward into its aftermath and ultimate impact on the adventurers. 

Libraries and readers seeking San Francisco-centric novels steeped in Bay Area culture, neighborhoods, and norms will find The Coast compelling and thoroughly engrossing. 

The Coast

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A Coincidental Life
Ron Kemper
Atmosphere Press
979-8-89132-133-5         $17.99/$7.99
www.atmospherepress.com 

Billy Feeney and Stevie Alpert were once friends, in Brooklyn. Fate and serendipity bring them back together in San Francisco, a world and a coast away, in A Coincidental Life, reconnecting the friends under vastly revised times and place. Their chance encounter in the fall of 1966 brings with it new opportunities and revised relationships as Billy and Stevie explore what it means and takes to be a man, whether in the Marines, on the streets of the city, or in their renewed association with one another. 

As Billy faces prison and Stevie continues his life journey, the two explore California culture, contrast it with their years in New York, and evolve a sense of what it takes to remain connected to self. New opportunities force each to step into different roles; there to struggle with ongoing issues of control and opportunity. 

The result is a moving saga that marries old and new souls, injects reflections into Jewish culture and 1960s counterculture worlds, and creates an interplay between characters who confront themselves and one another with new perceptions. 

Interwoven with their stories are reflections on contemporary American policies, politics, and social issues such as ‘America, Once Beautiful?’ and ‘Old Age Truisms’, which create memorable juxtapositions of subject and character and lend added value to Billy and Stevie’s odyssey. 

The result is a journey through American change and two lives affected by friendship, adversity, social transformation, and cultural influences. It will delight libraries and readers seeking thought-provoking food for thought wound into a story of discovery and connection. 

Book clubs looking for debate or discussion material that arrives steeped in not only 1960s, but modern reflections on American perception and influence as seen through the eyes and hearts of friends who reconnect under new circumstances, will find plenty of discussions evolving from A Coincidental Life, which takes the coincidence of new possibilities and injects them with the edge of reflection and issues of control and empowerment. 

A Coincidental Life

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A Cure for Spring Fever
Barbara Robinson
The Wild Rose Press Inc.
978-1-5092-5499-6 - Digital           $2.99 eBook
Website: BJR Books (barbararobinsonauthor.ca)
Ordering: https://www.amazon.com/Spring-Fever-Jelly-Beans-Things-ebook/dp/B0CVHHR5ND/ 

A Cure for Spring Fever is part of the Jelly Beans and Spring Things series, and presents a paranormal romance novella that is perfect for quick reading and engrossing entertainment value. 

The story opens with Stan's confrontation with a mischievous band of mjolkhares (clawed bunny-like creatures who enjoy wrecking mayhem on pantries). Cute as they may be, their destructive actions require swift action that Stan specializes in delivering, in his role as gamekeeper. 

Unfortunately, in this case, he has failed. However, in a wry twist of events, his failure opens the door to new possibilities he never saw coming. 

Barbara Robinson injects a wry sense of humor into her story which will keep readers laughing: 

“Magic weakening?” asked the actor in the infomercial. “Struggling with staying power?” he queried, eyebrow arched. “Then you need our special blend of herbs and supplements. For just three easy payments of less than twenty dollars each, you’ll get a three-month supply that’s guaranteed to put the wood back in your wand…”. 

Is Stan losing his magical mojo? It would seem so, as unicorns lay waste to the town square because his wards proved too weak to contain them properly and flying monkeys invade the West End School playground under his watch. 

As woodland nymph Lynnette finds her own set course shaken in different ways, both by her own failures and her attraction to Stan, a magical tale evolves which leads them to confront the truth: magic is not only working upon them, but through them. 

Robinson depicts a whimsical world buffeted by magical entities and the emergence of wisdom, connection, and change. Her ability to create an appealing, light-hearted romp through this world as two seemingly-disparate characters find their hearts and minds challenged by changed worldviews makes for a light-hearted, appealing story. 

In a sea of tales powered by angst and folly, A Cure for Spring Fever is a standout for packing the most fun and action in the novella's succinct format. 

Libraries and readers seeking a lively plot that defies pat categorization and appeals on the basis of fantasy, paranormal events, and romance will find A Cure for Spring Fever just the ticket for a rainy day and the desire for a warm story powered by heartfelt encounters and enthusiasm ... with a few wayward unicorns added to the magical mix. 

A Cure for Spring Fever

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Daughter of Snow and Secrets
Kerry Chaput
Black Rose Writing
978-1-68513-390-0         $21.95 Paperback/$5.95 eBook
www.blackrosewriting.com 

Daughter of Snow and Secrets combines action, romance, and Renaissance history and culture in a way that piques reader interest. It opens in 1681 France, where Isabelle is charged with leaving the safety of her Geneva home to rescue Protestants being persecuted by the king. Isabelle's reflections on life purpose and death introduce the story with a thought-provoking reflection: 

"I’ve started thinking about death. My death, to be specific. The years I spent with the Huron in Canada taught me to listen to my wandering thoughts that warn of danger. If my old friend Naira were here, I’d ask her if she’s seen the moment I die, and if it’s possible to have power in your last moments. But Naira isn’t here, and I have a job to do." 

As she faces savage Dragoon soldiers and her daughter Elizabeth, whose courage and carelessness drive them into danger, Isabelle finds her rescue attempts and purpose expanding rapidly to embrace impossible efforts as she struggles to keep her wayward daughter safe while attempting to rescue every Protestant in France. 

Impossible goals, these. But Isabelle is gifted with the ability to achieve seemingly impossible goals, the proactive force and behavior of a hero that can confront danger while protecting family and allies, and the courage to tackle the results of her daughter's solo rescue attempt when it goes dangerously awry. 

Romance tempers Isabelle’s challenges and confrontations, offering heady glimpses of love and lust that evolve concurrently with new realizations about family, faith, and political turmoil: 

"It’s easy to have faith when you’ve glimpsed your own death. There is no changing the outcome." 

Lace love and action with a healthy dose of historical references that excel in detail and depth, cemented by emotional attachments and the madness of efforts that carry characters into new realms ("They might very well both be mad, but their music is beautiful enough to take my breath away. I stop at the landing for a moment to let her voice drift me to another place where I’m not in a fight for my life. Where heartbreaking music is enough to suspend time."), and it's evident that the sense of purpose, place, and people is nicely presented in a gripping, realistic plot replete with atmospheric touches. 

Libraries and readers seeking historical fiction that simmers with action, relationship quandaries, and bigger-picture political struggles will welcome the depth and digressions that make Daughter of Snow and Secrets satisfyingly intense, often unpredictable, and thoroughly engrossing. The book concludes a trilogy, but stands nicely alone, and so is highly recommended for prior fans and newcomers alike. 

Daughter of Snow and Secrets

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Elly Robin: Bird in a Gilded Cage
P.D. Quaver
Independently Published
‎979-8526346214             $14.00 Paperback/$2.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Elly-Robin-Bird-Gilded-Ordeals-ebook/dp/B0B4X4D3KT 

Although Elly Robin: Bird in a Gilded Cage represents the fifth volume in Elly’s adventures, newcomers will find it a fine stand-alone story. It comes steeped in the atmosphere of Chicago’s gilded age and is flavored with issues of wealth, social privilege, genius, and plots that revolve around ideals and growth. 

Teen Elly’s opportunity to study piano with a famous Italian virtuoso brings her into the patronage of the LaSalle family when its matriarch becomes captivated by Elly’s piano skills. There, Elly discovers that the family’s wealth actually rests on employing immigrants to bolster their riches, building their privilege on the backs of the improvised. 

She also befriends daughter Willy, whose countenance is described in the provocative, intriguing manner that is one of P.D. Quaver’s signature methods of building atmosphere through solid, thought-provoking descriptions: 

In Willy’s weak, pointed chin and high broad forehead the feminine ideal of a “heart-shaped” face had been taken to literal extremes; combined with her mother’s large brown eyes (and the way she was nervously chewing on her cheek) she seemed vaguely insect-like.

 Whether Quaver is describing matters of the heart, physical appearances, scenarios of confrontation and discovery, or Elly’s deeper probe into family secrets, these lively descriptions build tension in a satisfying, revealing manner. These enhance Elly’s basic personality, which rests on a combination of genius, curiosity, and intelligence:
 

“Much tragedy” was the very phrase Otto had used when he spoke about the family to her. She had been so sure he must have neen referring to Ethelea’s death. What further secret tragedies haunted this family? She too was “vexed with curiosity.”

 Elly is introduced to new friends who are fascinated by her background and familiarity with poverty and unions. They view her much like a neglected heroine of fiction. The makings of a socialist builds from Willy’s rebellion, the circle of friends fascinated by Elly’s familiarity with a very different world than theirs, and the rising tides of social revolution which buffet their lives. 

Quaver injects a humorous tone into many of these encounters between social strata. These neatly contrast with the very serious milieu of revolution and social struggle which emerge from the uncommon marriage between Elly and Willy’s worlds. 

Often, such contrasts are stark. One example occurs when Elly attends the Chicago premier of D.W. Griffith's ambitious film "The Birth of a Nation." This still normously controversial film portrays Southern white womanhood menaced by trickery and blacks, in which the woman is rescued by Aryans who parade and celebrate their birthrights in a final victory scene while Elly flashes back to her own experiences: 

Cheers from the audience—even as Elly’s mind was flooded with terrible images of the gentle colored boy who had been lynched before her eyes for the crime of falling in love with her…

 These undercurrents of Chicago’s social and political scene simmer against Elly’s piano achievements in a city besieged by the specter of world war and the rise of laborers and poor folk. Quaver brings these times to life through the eyes of a young girl forced to contrast her experiences of the past with her new privileged world, finding the latter unexpectedly lacking in ethical and moral foundations. 

From plots and plans for escape to the girls’ contrast in backgrounds and futures, Bird in a Gilded Cage actually reveals two girls enslaved by social expectation, talent, and the tides of the times. 

The story also adds cameo appearances by Jack London, Gloria Swanson, and other famous personalities who add their perspectives and influences into the tangled web of growth and realizations that move Elly between two very different worlds. 

As a privileged girl turns against her social standing and becomes radicalized, and another outside of that world comes to intimately understand its underlying struggles and influences, readers receive a fine story. It embraces rising anarchy, the costs of opulence and wealth, and the intersection of social awareness and privilege which clash over Elly and Willy’s growing special interests and friendship. 

Willy’s growth and revelations about her family’s involvements are even more shocking than Elly’s trajectory as Willy confronts her family over the truth of their choices and terrible impacts: 

…you’re insulated from the terrible things you do by your minions! So you can concentrate on counting your precious money…

 Quaver’s ability to contrast the gilded cage of opportunity and privilege from two very different girls’ perspectives creates a powerful novel that both stands alone and nicely supplements Elly Robin’s prior exploits. 

Though intended for an adult audience, its allure to young adult readers of historical fiction and to classrooms seeking discussion materials about the times and their social issues should not be overlooked. 

Elly’s coming-of-age brings with it many accompanying conundrums over loyalty, values, and social inequities which will prove of widespread interest. 

Paired with black and white illustrations by the author, Bird in a Gilded Cage is a compelling pick highly recommended for libraries and book club discussion groups interested in a novel steeped in the theater of intrigue, social revolution, and growth. 

Elly Robin: Bird in a Gilded Cage

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I Never Said I Love You
Sarah Magee
Independently Published
979-8-9891266-1-3
$18.99 Hardcover/$14.99 Paperback/$9.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Never-Said-Love-You-Novel/dp/B0CNMVC5KB 

In a different world, Liss Larkin and Nao Kao Inthavong would never have met. Her Midwestern American roots are in direct contrast to Nao Kao's background as a survivor of war in Asia. However, in I Never Said I Love You, the two meet in graduate school to begin a lesson in love that tests not only the boundaries of cultural connections, but the ways in which these initial attractions shatter. 

Liss leaves Nao Kao unexpectedly and without explanation. Twenty years later, fate again brings them together—this time, in a way which offers opportunity not just for looking backwards to choices, influences, and decisions that changed each of their lives; but looking ahead to new possibilities. 

Either way, Sarah Magee excels in creating characters and connections that embrace cultural and psychological differences. Liss and Nao Kao learn more about themselves and each other as they move from friends to something more (and, something more elusive). 

Where does their final destination lie? As Liss journeys to Laos and enters Nao Kao's world, the questions which drive her life and motivate her to opt for outcomes that perhaps do not lie in her best interest are revisited in a new light. 

Magee creates a progressive series of events that are alluring from the first time Liss meets Nao Kao: 

"I had spent my life being packed around the world on my parents’ various sabbaticals, befriending locals in all the far-flung corners of the world, but even to my globally-attuned ears, the name was unusual. I turned to look. Like me, he was younger than most of the other students in the class. Pan-Asian, relatively non-descript, save for wearing blue jeans and long sleeves despite the mercury hovering around ninety degrees. Kind eyes behind thick glasses. Thin. No, more like wiry. Or scrappy. Unsmiling, but then the international students often were. Flashing the pearly whites at every opportunity is a decidedly American trait." 

She then embeds her story in the winds of change buffeting their world, from post-9/11 to the international news and forces that exact a toll on each of them. It's a pleasure to see these atmospheric signs of the times overlay the relationship component under examination, which lends a realistic and fuller-bodied feel to events that evolve both internally and externally. 

This approach elevates the story on several levels, injecting social, political, and cultural contrasts and observations to augment the romance with a bigger picture viewpoint. 

Hindsight and time coalesce in a manner that brings this story to life in ways readers won't see coming as both characters evolve and walk on disparate, unexpected paths in their lives: 

"Then and now I was forced to consider the possibility, though, that Nao Kao really was just a player, completely lost, all alone in a foreign country by himself, no worries about being caught. I thought it would be a one-night stand. Later I assumed it was a fling. Only much later did I consider the ephemeral nature of the line between a fling and an actual “thing.” Blurry or bright, lines exist, and they matter. I cannot say what he thought, on which side of the line Nao Kao may have stood, and I cannot remember anymore what I thought, but I do know what I heard and I do know what I said – and what I didn’t. I never said I love you. Neither did he." 

More so than most stories of romance or cross-cultural enlightenment, I Never Said I Love You holds vivid and unexpected insights about friendships, connections, and life events which drive people either together or apart. 

Libraries seeking novels that extend their attraction and power to more than just interpersonal revelations will find I Never Said I Love You a compelling story. It deserves recommendation to book clubs and patrons interested in debating and thinking about the impact of travel, revelations, and deals with the devil in a story that churns out delightfully complex and thought-provoking details that readers won't see coming. 

I Never Said I Love You

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A Love to Die For
Joseph Seechack
Köehlerbooks
979-8-88824-198-1
$23.95 Hardcover/$16.95 Paperback/$7.49 eBook
www.koehlerbooks.com 

Ron and Grace have a deep, ongoing love in their marriage in A Love to Die For. Predictably, all that changes suddenly, one day, when Grace is left alone in her grief upon learning that her beloved husband Ron, is dead, with no chance to say goodbye. 

The experience, routines, and thoughts about love, loss, and grief may trigger some readers struggling with their own sudden loss of love, while others might anticipate that the story will prove too familiar, resting on the themes of many novels which have explored loss and grief. 

While one may say the plot sounds familiar, the proof of an exceptional work lies in how its author spins the story and describes characters and emotions. It takes some unexpected turns in following Grace and her surviving family's catastrophic experiences. 

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Grace cultivates and hones a revised sense of purpose that honors both her love and herself as she is forced to move on without Ron: 

“I wondered how I could ever repay such a great act of love. What can I do to honor and carry on all that great love he showed me?" 

When Grace reconnects with Ron in a surprise move to regain her lost love, she learns an invaluable lesson: "...love doesn’t end; it transcends.” 

Her revised purpose in life, her attempts to honor Ron and his achievements in a different way, and her newfound challenges in handling both gossipy community members and something as simple as preparing breakfast will resonate with anyone who has suffered the loss of a partner. 

The result is a moving journey that captures loss and grief, but moves beyond them to a focus on the transformative nature of re-creating a new life in a way that both honors memory and the past, yet moves on into a vastly revised future. 

Libraries will want to add A Love to Die For to their collections, and should make a point of recommending it not just to patrons and book clubs, but especially to psychology and healing groups tackling loss, grief, and reinvention. Its powerful, realistic, compelling portrait of a timeless love is exceptionally well written and thought-provoking. 

A Love to Die For

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Megastar
R.J. Eastwood

Indies United Publishing House
978-1-64456-685-5
$13.95 Hardcover/$9.95 Paperback/$2.99 eBook
Website: www.robertjemeryauthor.com
Ordering: www.amazon.com 

Megastar is the story of a rise to musical fame and the impact it holds on those around the star. 

As the story opens, thirty-seven-year-old Addison Stone is wheelchair-bound and looking far more frail than his age. He's the first to admit that his life has been a rollicking, wild ride to this point—and that perhaps its looming terminus too early is actually fitting: 

"It’s been a hell of a ride, I’ll tell you, bumps and all, and there were plenty of those. When I’m gone, the name Addison Stone will be lost to history, and no one will remember how big a star I was.” 

As the story traverses his memories and past, charting his evolution towards megastar status and its impact, readers receive a powerful tale of a teen raised by an unstable mother, who nonetheless reaches the pinnacle of success at an early age. 

His extraordinary singing voice has led to overcoming many early obstacles, but ironically, it has also created distance from the woman he loves, lost to stardom and addiction which forces him to adopt an unrelenting pace to success. 

How love is heavily impacted by Addison's rise to success and the possibilities held by life's further progression, highs, and lows is explored by R. J. Eastwood in a saga that charts the emotional and business sides of his rise to stardom: 

"Following the Hollywood Bowl, Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco and the Fillmore Auditorium in Denver are ready to commit. By the time you play Denver, we’ll have the rest of the tour firmed up. Think of it, Addison; fresh out of the gate, you’re already in high demand.” 

As events move towards Addison's 20th birthday, neighbor and close family friend, Ben Dickey is all that stands between Addison and his unstable mother, Lacy. Readers receive a multifaceted story of the price of fame and the effort to move beyond an addictive parent and away from predictable downfalls introduced by both stardom and life. 

The juxtaposition of comfort and challenge that success brings with it will give readers much pause for thought as the tale evolves. 

Especially notable is the story's ability to blend realistic dialogue and character insights into the story of how pasts are either set aside or influence future decision-making. 

Libraries and readers seeking novels steeped in reflective accounts of changing love and ambition will find Megastar thought-provoking and worthy of book club debate and discussion as its hero attempts to move from tragedy to uplifting new possibilities in both life and love. 

Megastar

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OCEANSIDE
Larry Terhaar
HatCity Publishing
979-8-9900362-0-8         $14.95 Paperback/$5.99 eBook
https://a.co/d/5kCSNfH 

When the ChamplainTowers collapsed in Surfside, FL, in June of 2021, the resulting deaths and questions vied for media spotlight and attention. Larry Terhaar’s OCEANSIDE is a novel-in-parts consisting of three stories that follow the 40-year lifespan of the building, blending the reality of events with a fictional overlay that dramatizes and enhances the appeal of the events and their impact. 

The first responders to the collapse in June of 2021 open the story, but flashbacks take readers back to the roots of the building’s tragedy, using an investigative tone to consider building errors and omissions and their ultimate impact. This lends OCEANSIDE a fine aura of intrigue that requires no prior knowledge of Florida, the tragedy, or its influences in order to prove accessible and riveting even to readers with little natural interest in building collapses. 

Terhaar employs the vivid immediacy of the first person to capture the opening events from the eyes of a first responder firefighter called to the most extraordinary scene in his decades of facing disasters: 

“The alarm tone jarred me awake. A computer-generated voice announced, “Units ten and eighteen respond to building collapse at 88th Street and Collins Avenue.” Then the announcement repeated, beginning with the alarm tone. I glanced at the clock and saw it was 1:30 a.m. It was go-time. We had performed this routine countless times over my twenty-five-year career as a firefighter. If it wasn’t a real emergency, then we performed timed practices. We needed to be on the engine, ready to roll within a minute. We all slept in natural-fiber underwear that wouldn’t melt in extreme heat.” 

As events shift between present and post, with donor special interests, political ambitions, and reasons for cost-cutting actions taking place, readers are treated to a vivid story. It cuts to the chase of not just the physical causes of structural collapses, but the very human motivations for pursuing profit and politics against the best interests of fellow human beings. 

At each step, Terhaar creates a satisfying dichotomy of events that contrast the choices and consequences which lead to the preventable deaths of nearly a hundred people. 

This, in turn, provides much material for book club or classroom debate as the novel contrasts homebuyers, politicians, builders, and others whose lives are inextricably and forever fused by the disaster. 

The authentic, realistic aura of these events comes not just from research, but personal knowledge which places Terhaar in a uniquely qualified position to produce this story. He’s a recently retired real estate developer who has built a condominium complex, and serves on the board of directors of a high-rise condominium in southern Florida. 

Libraries and readers seeking a vivid novel filled with satisfying twists and turns, that is astonishingly and frighteningly based on real events and situations, will welcome OCEANSIDE as a novel that’s hard to put down. 

OCEANSIDE

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The Poppy Field
Caroline Kellems

Grand Canyon Press
978-1-963361-00-1         $16.99
www.GrandCanyonPress.com 

The Poppy Field is a novel that will appeal to women interested in stories of missionary work, transformation, and marriages challenged by new cultural experiences. It revolves around Indiana wife and mother Katherine, who finds her family and predictable life uprooted when her husband Phil is assigned to Guatemala for missionary duty. 

Not only does she face vast tests in living in a third-world country, but her unhappy children need to be homeschooled. Her husband is gone for extended periods, leaving her to the attention of wealthy neighbor Steve, who both educates her about Guatemalan culture and lures her into a romance which challenges both her marriage and her family values. 

Intrigue and mystery enter the picture with further entanglements that complete the circle of angst newly surrounding her life and relationships. Suddenly, Katherine doesn't know who she is, where she is heading, and what is even real. 

Caroline Kellems builds a fascinating story that will attract a disparate audience of readers, from those interested in thrillers and suspense stories to others who enjoy vivid women's fiction that blends romance with bigger-picture thinking. 

Questions of wealth origins, influences, and objectives permeate both Katherine and Phil's relationship and the reasons why they moved to Guatemala in the first place: 

“I mean, what if he’s a drug kingpin?” There, she’d said it.
“Why would a drug lord fund a church?” Phil takes a deep breath. Alfonso’s wealth does seem a bit much, but surely God has a hand in all of this. “Without money how can we build a church? Without a church, we’ll never have a steady congregation, and if we don’t have a congregation, what are we doing here?”
 

Readers will appreciate the social, spiritual, and cultural interplays that test both relationships and moral and ethical viewpoints as The Poppy Fields evolves a gripping sense of wonder that features twists and turns charged by relationship realizations. The candid portrait of both Phil and Katherine as they contemplate their influences and choices is particularly well done: 

"If he only knew. “Do you think I wanted the neighbor, our landlord, to be the one to comfort us? The one to solve our problems? You’re the head of the family.” Phil decides not to mention the misunderstanding. It will only make him look like a fool. If he’d have known that thieves had broken into their house, he might have returned home, he thinks, but probably not. He screwed up again. He should have kept in better touch." 

While The Poppy Fields will be a solid entertainment choice for libraries and readers seeking novels about cross-cultural experiences, its inclusion of bigger-picture themes also make it the perfect choice for book clubs seeking discussion and debate material about relationships facing missionary work and cultural encounters. 

The exquisite marriage of suspense, revelation, and marital and extramarital relationship snafus lends to a riveting story that's hard to put down. 

The Poppy Field

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Resentment and Remembrance
Richard D Ross
Steel Door Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-7390154-2-8              Price: Free
https://www.richarddross.com 

Resentment and Remembrance is a novella embracing themes of resentment and love when the paths of two disparate characters cross and clash. 

Ted Bolton is an old man with a wicked sense of wry humor. The starkness of his vision as he confronts old age, alienation, and end-of-life challenges is portrayed with a razor-sharp edge of irony and inspection that will attract readers with its deliberately candid presentations: 

"Ted huffed and pulled the bed sheets further up to his chest. It wasn’t fair. He’d struggled all his life. He knew what it was like to be hungry and poor. Dammit, he’d even fought a war for these kids who didn’t appreciate what it was like. These damn young people with their cell phones, computers, earrings, tattoos all over their bodies and stupid girly fashions. Mass marketing victims, that’s what they were! Where was the respect? Had it all vanished into thin air? It seemed anyone elderly or in authority was a fair target for abuse and that even included teachers, police, and health care workers. He coughed, wheezed loudly, and dozed off into another world." 

As Ted dozes through memories that lead him to review his life, a chance encounter with a member of the younger generation tackles the bitterness and reflective angst that seem to permeate these final days of his life, injecting them with a sense of love he'd long felt was absent. 

As readers learn of the reasons for Ted's 'monumental struggles with living' and absorb the healing lessons of a love which emerges from a completely unexpected place at the end of life, a winning story emerges which is touching, compelling, realistic, and holds many thought-provoking lessons about life connections and disparate personalities. 

Libraries and readers seeking high-impact novellas which grasp attention and move mind and heart will find Resentment and Remembrance a satisfying contrast in life perspectives. It will resonate with readers interested in understanding pathways to more meaningful, purposeful living and life influences. 

Resentment and Remembrance

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The Sacred Passage
Mwana wa Musikavanhu
Atmosphere Press
979-8-89132-090-1         $18.99 Paperback/$9.99 eBook
www.atmospherepress.com 

The Sacred Passage: Life And Times Of A Sadistic Gentleman depicts the politics and processes of the rule of President Runo, whose wide-ranging sadistic and egotistical nature translates to a presidency which not only ruins the nation, but challenges individuals, families, and social structures. 

Sound familiar? The allegory comes to life in a novel which probes the dangerous intersection of politics and ambition, and the outcomes which can be expected when the two collide with presidential power and edicts that belay the foundations of freedom. 

Mwana wa Musikavanhu creates a mythical man and a sense of place and purpose which holds the all too familiar feel of modern America, even though the characters and setting are not of this country: 

"His greatest quality, however, was patience. He could wear out all his enemies by playing for time and utilising over-ambitious individuals to play his game.
“Imagine how they feel. You begged to join their move­ment after trekking through the length and breadth of this nation. Now they have to bow to you, a late entrant of the movement.”
“It happens when one hesitates to grab opportunities. Politics is a game of chance and keeping the mind and eyes wide open. If you blink, you lose,” Runobvepi proudly declared.
“Don’t you feel threatened by how much you have betrayed them?”
“Betrayal?” He laughed sarcastically. “The games have not even begun, my dear.”
 

The African nation confronts world leaders, bullies, terrorism, and the fruits of a leadership which intersects with other special interests worldwide to create a perfect storm of conflict between social, political, and judicial checks and balances. Readers gain vivid insights into the dangers and deceptions that sadistic leaders can inject into the ideal of world order and growth. 

Of special note is the manner in which Musikavanhu mirrors current events, pinpointing not only sources of discord, but the ultimate goals and results of such a dangerous personality and game: 

"Calls for early elections to remove Runo and appoint a more competent individual were initiated. Runo never lis­tened. He blamed everything on the Poodle and unwarranted sanctions for promoting a regime change agenda. While the explanation was genuine, he had done nothing on his part to improve the governance framework or the economic policy framework. He wanted total control and centralised author­ity that all institutions had to rely on his call. Devolution and autonomy of decision-making were not welcome because his looting scams were going to be affected." 

The result is a frightening, thought-provoking read not just for its allegorical power, but for its bigger-picture insights on how individual ego and objectives can dovetail with political processes in a deadly manner that affects not just one nation, but the entire world order. 

Libraries and readers seeking a novel that is astute in its observations, eye-opening in its connections between political power and psychological makeup, and revealing in its progressive history will appreciate the force and thought-provoking moments in The Sacred Passage, which is filled with lively fodder suitable for book club discussion. 

It is especially highly recommended for libraries collecting solid African literature and novels rich in social and political insights about a world in which myth, ambition, and madness coalesce. 

The Sacred Passage

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See Me
Rhoda Berlin
Independently Published
979-8-9898938-0-5         $14.99 Paperback/$5.99 eBook
www.rhodaberlin.com 

See Me opens with an article describing the death of a Seattle musician, then moves to the first-person confession of a therapist who faces a lawsuit and more:

"I only go downtown when it’s unavoidable. Being sued is one of those occasions. Since the day I got served I can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t think straight. But I’m proud to say my clients haven’t seen me squirm. That’s the advantage of being a marriage and family therapist; it’s all about the other people in the room." 

Jackie Kessler is a therapist who specializes in an unusual clientele often ignored by others in her profession. As the child of Korean refugee immigrants, she has made a name and place for herself providing services to minorities. Young musician Amy was one of her clients, after she attempted suicide. A connection was formed between them during the course of treatment. Now Amy, not yet thirty, is dead after a successful suicide, and Jackie is shocked. 

She's even more shocked when Jackie’s family sues her for malpractice, forcing her to assume an investigative role that places her on the side of family and friends who become convinced that Amy's death was not actually a suicide, but murder. 

Rhoda Berlin's own background as a family therapist lends authenticity and logical processes to a murder inquiry which feels more realistic than most. This special brand of expertise follows her character as Jackie traverses many possibilities, circumstances of prejudice and discovery, and challenges that tend to lead her far from her practice's areas of expertise and into the murky waters of a whodunit. 

The links between Amy and Jackie come to light as Jackie is forced to examine her own choices of the past and their present-day impact: 

“I blame war. Trauma. Poverty. Of course culture and my parents’ personalities were factors too, but I can’t help wondering what life would have – what my parents could have been like if they’d grown up in peace, without fear. Healthy, with enough to eat. Would they have met and married? Would my brother and I even have been born?” I shrug. “That’s what Amy and I had in common. She asked the same questions about her own history.” 

Immigrant and minority experience come to life in a story that probes family history and memories, collective experience, and choices and consequences as Jackie interviews her own mother in an effort to better understand her roots in Amy's parallel world: 

“Mom, did you want to come to the US?”
“Want to come, had to come. No difference. That doesn’t mean I wanted leave Korea.” 

From pity and wealth to the impact of history and family ties, Jackie's journey takes on many unexpected twists and turns as she navigates new truths and realizations not only about Amy's situation, but her own. 

Replete with many factors which place it more than a notch above the usual murder mystery (and thus defies this pat categorization with a sense of complexity that most genre reads don't hold), See Me is a novel highly suggested for libraries seeking a book club recommendation that blends all kind of insights (from therapeutic and professional to revelations about immigrants, family ties, and cultural impact) into its vivid progression of events. 

See Me

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The Sisters of Blue Mountain Beach
Karen Chapman Lloyd
Rebelle Press
9798877426535              $9.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Sisters-Blue-Mountain-Beach-ebook/dp/B0CT44HHTG 

The Sisters of Blue Mountain Beach tells of a devastating hurricane which makes landfall on the beaches of the Emerald Coast, seemingly singling out one house for total destruction, where resident Mrs. Gilpin and her sisters go missing. 

The similarities and differences between the closely connected women are revealed in the first chapter, which focuses on their similarities, many differences, and the financial and emotional strings that connect them—until a revelation at chapter’s end adds a different twist to the story: 

“They fight. They makeup. They are family. They love one another unconditionally, even as they’d like to kill each other, they would first kill for. The important thing to know is that they always came in August. Only August. The important thing to know is that they were not sisters at all.” 

Each woman faces life challenges in a different manner, confronting revised expectations and new promises in an enlightening manner that will give book club discussion groups much material for debate: 

“There is no party, but Cilla has decided that she will dress for chemo. Perhaps it will make the difference, treating it like a life sentence, instead of a march to death row. Cilla is going to buy something that doesn’t look good on her that she loves anyway. Something too expensive that Arden doesn’t pay for. Something too young for her old body.” 

As each woman decides how she will revise and live her life, readers receive close inspections of the choice and options life brings, with opportunity to consider disparate reactions to them result in changed relationships both within their group and outside of it: 

“Could she stay? Could she just leave the house and the life or lack thereof in Arkansas and stay here and soak away her sadness and the cancer cells and let them float out to sea. Could osmosis be the cure for cancer yet to be discovered? Could she stay and live? Or would she die a romantic, cinematic death while Arden and Worth tried to embalm her.” 

Motivations for living count down as the hurricane nears, juxtaposing both internal and external threats as the women revise their life goals, perceptions, and connections to each another. 

From keeping score and looking for elusive love to grasping the final elements of what makes life worth living, Cilla and her companions face cancer, healing opportunities, and hurricanes with equal strength. 

Subplots of divorce, conspiracy, drugs, and death add full-bodied flavor and shifting life experiences to the story, lending it a realistic, compelling countenance. 

That’s why libraries, readers, and book club groups alike, especially those interested in womens’ fiction that portrays changes affecting women’s lives and relationships, will find The Sisters of Blue Mountain Beach thoroughly compelling and hard to put down. It’s packed with incremental philosophical and psychological insights that provide much food for thought. 

The Sisters of Blue Mountain Beach

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Tales of Whiskey Tango from Misery Towers
James Aylott
Beautiful Arch   
979-8-9876812-1-3                 $29.99 Hardcover/$6.99 ebook
https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Whiskey-Tango-Misery-Towers/dp/B0CNF6J3LD 

Tales of Whiskey Tango from Misery Towers is a novel about working and living in downtown St. Louis. It opens in 2019 with a candid assessment of the city's blistering atmosphere: 

"Nick Pipeman was far from poetic but always thought fellow Missourian T.S. Eliot should have known better: August, not April, is the “cruellest month.” In the city of St. Louis, mid August, with its sweltering heat and stifling humidity, is the cruelest part of that cruelest month." 

Forty-something Nick, the protagonist who observes these mean and sultry streets, is literally standing on the cusp of suicide, on a bridge, as he contemplates the chain of events and turmoil that brought him to this point. 

His dreadful history and situations are nothing in contrast to Colton Chesterfield III's awakening in a locked coffin. And yet, the scenario is eminently escapable because, as Colton well knows from his job, these cheap Chinese coffins collapse easily. Indeed, his real dilemma is quite unexpected (and also displays the wry sense of humor James Aylott excels in demonstrating throughout the story): 

"He was trapped in a coffin alive and was about to shit himself in a tight and confined space the mother lode of ca-ca. Now, for a man who had spent a lifetime charming his way out of sticky situations, this was a daring concern like no other he had faced. All Colton could hope for was that this coffin was about to be rolled into a crematorium, or buried. At least that would be a relatively quick and painless end to what he deemed a glorious, triumphant life. The alternative of being trapped in a coffin and slowly being suffocated to death by one’s own shit was a nightmare..." 

And then there is Bruce Springsteen doppelganger Mike Love, who stands at a fork in his blossoming love life. Even at the ripe age of eighty-something, some things never change. 

'Devilish humidity" permeates Mike, Nick, and Colton's sordid lives, which offer contrasts in experience, perspective, and St. Louis influences, culture, and angst. Readers move through the city's milieu through the eyes of characters that contemplate different ways of winning back love and their lives. 

From those who would profit from St. Louis's changing countenance to individuals who seek love, redemption, and meaning from life, Aylott creates a gripping juxtaposition of personalities that each struggle to survive and achieve in St. Louis's milieu: 

“We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us,” said Daris Ballic, repeating a Winston Churchill quote as he strolled onto the rooftop of Missouri Towers. Daris looked over at the algae-infested pool and couldn’t wait until he owned the entire building. He had so many plans. The city in the distance sounded scary and dangerous. A storm was approaching from Illinois. He had decided to watch it come in from the viewing deck." 

Atmospheric and firmly rooted in a sense of place and purpose, Tales of Whiskey Tango from Misery Towers captures the heart and soul of St. Louis. It's a story highly recommended for libraries and readers interested in tracing the heartbeats of the city through the working-class individuals who navigate its promise and pain. 

Tales of Whiskey Tango from Misery Towers

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Through Her Lens
Melissa Clark Bacon
Atmosphere Press
979-8-89132-118-2         $18.99 Paperback/$9.99 eBook
www.atmospherepress.com 

Through Her Lens takes place during World War II. It paints a powerful portrait of a young woman who finds her life and perceptions changed by war’s haunting overlay of transformation. 

Millicent Trayford is involved in a dangerous job. She works for British intelligence to hunt down the Nazi V1 and V2 bombs. Her endeavors initially seem to fall far from her previous life's passion (photography), but she was prompted to employ her cameras for intelligence work when the bombs hit too close to home. 

As much as she struggles with a mission that could determine the course of the war and the fate of Britain, she also fields romance that comes from two directions: her fiancée, and the advances of a Royal Air Force pilot who challenges her sense of duty and commitment.

Millie's work in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force leads her into strange circumstances and unfamiliar territory as she finds herself in the throes of a countdown towards D-Day (which each chapter heading emphasizes). 

Melissa Clark Bacon combines a passion for cameras and photography with the changing viewpoints of a woman who looks into and beyond the lens of possibility to chart a different course for her life than she'd ever envisioned. 

As her images uncover facts that had previously been well hidden, Millie discovers a different purpose for her passion and new avenues of self-realization. Each lend to both intelligence discoveries and revised understandings about her own heart and passions. 

The catastrophes of bombings and war come to life as vividly as Millie's revolutionary images of her revised world and place in it. This brings both history and personal experience to life in a rich dovetailing of experience that will attract fans of women's stories and World War II history alike. 

Libraries and readers seeking depictions of World War II from the lens of women who participate in the war effort in different ways will find Through Her Lens an engaging story of transformation. It taps history to power a woman's changing position and outlook on life as Millie hones in on her future: 

“The War Office will never give me credentials as a photographer to go to France after the invasion, so I want you to invent a way for me to go. I’ll do whatever you ask as long as I am allowed to take my cameras. After that, I will find a way to show the world my work, the work of these extraordinary women.” 

Through Her Lens

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Wolf of the Aegean
Daniel McKenzie
Atmosphere Press
979-8-89132-158-8
$20.00 Paperback/$29.99 Hardcover/$9.99 eBook
www.atmospherepress.com 

Wolf of the Aegean is the first book in the historical fiction series Seafourthe Saga. It will especially appeal to readers of swashbuckling nautical adventures, who will find the story of a privateer and his crew who rebel against the might of the Ottoman Empire (and, later, other empires) to be compellingly action-packed. 

Daniel McKenzie introduces his yarn by employing the first person to bring the story to life, injecting a 'you are here' feel to the ship's management and crew from the story's opening salvo of reflective experiences: 

“Spill the wind, foreyards brace abox flat aback! Heave-to, we slide slow into Sidon, boys!” David l’Helm, premiere Privateer Pilot on the Ocean’s verge, shouted to the crew of La Vengeance de La Prostituée to slow the ship.
“Lower away longboat!” l’Helm ordered, and turning to the Captain said, “Coast is clear. Anchor in the Catshead; we have fallen off the wind coming about ghosting, sir.”

A Sailing Saga thus begins that will capture "...our almost mythic history roving upon the Eighth Sea" in the wake of the Thirty Years War, which comes to live under McKenzie's guidance. Readers needs no prior familiarity with prior events find this story satisfyingly compelling and immediately accessible—even to those who may harbor little prior familiarity with the times and their history. 

Another compelling feature prominent in this historical novel is a view of history which may challenge the reader's knowledge of the events of the times and how they are interpreted today: 

"History is replete with deluded self-important men who coveted such as the Lionheart. These greedy spawn of hell are perfect prey. They cannot conceive of failure in their insanity of racial superiority, strength, and especially, immortality to vanquish and rob the heathen rabble. Regardless of their ini­tial victories, they will fall. Especially when coming to steal in someone else’s backyard." 

A third device employed to make the history and events standouts is an attention to vivid language that not only depicts, but flavors the circumstances with an immediacy and color too many historical novels omit. This succeeds in capturing the politics, racism, religion, and sentiments of the times in a realistic, thought-provoking manner. 

"A Moslem ship was of no matter to the Captain; the Wolf Pack plundered for no God except the one named Gold and for no nation except the Vengeance, with the added luxury of Pilot David l’Helm to get them the hell out of Egypt." 

From adventures on the high seas to the defiance of traditional thinking and living, the adventures in Wolf of the Aegean are simply riveting, making the book very highly recommended not just for historical novel enthusiasts, but for libraries interested in nautical adventures that come steeped in a revised sense of history and purpose. It will prove perfect for patron and book club discussions. 

Wolf of the Aegean

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Reviewer's Choice

A Brief History of England
Robert Dees
Commons Press
9781737481072              $15.00
www.CommonsPress.com 

The booklet A Brief History of England is an excerpt from The Power of Peasants: Economics and Politics of Farming in Medieval Germany (also by Robert Dees), and synthesizes the information provided in the far more extensive volume to a degree that general-interest readers can readily access its value. 

This 98-page booklet is essentially a reprint of Chapter 12 in The Power of Peasants, with minor editing. In a nutshell, it serves as an outstanding introduction to the weightier book, as well as a stand-alone history that shows that England’s very different development was the result of the farmers there winning some rights, in stark contrast to what happened in Germany after the peasants were defeated in the Peasant War. 

The booklet’s lively reinterpretation of historical events will prove exciting and pointed to readers considering Europe’s foundation of economics, farming, and cultural shifts. On the English Civil War of the 1640s: 

“Once the fight started in the streets, everyone else had to pick a side. This radical action by the “meaner sort” frightened the king’s supporters into organizing a military response, which in turn forced the more moderate opposition in parliament into taking the lead of the popular forces, both in self-defense against the king and to regain control over the people. Two opposing armies formed.” 

Extensive footnoted references in the Endnotes section and a supporting set of sources, paired with an index, reinforces the stand-alone nature of this important introduction. 

A Brief History of England is highly recommended for students of economics and European history who hold special and particular interest in agricultural developments and the political impact of farmer uprisings. 

A Brief History of England

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The Contentment Dividend
Michael Goddart
Clear Path Press
978-1-960090-42-3        
$27.95 Hardcover/$18.95 Paperback/$9.99 eBook
www.goddart.com 

The Contentment Dividend: Meditations for Realizing Your True Self is a study in how contemplation can connect to and reflect new discoveries. It goes a step further than typical ‘how to’ self-help guides to create important links between the contemplation and discovery processes. 

Michael Goddart’s focus is on building contentment from this type of meditative effort. His discussions range from tips on building authenticity and tackling misconceptions of wakefulness to not just understanding, but tapping into the inherent skill sets that contribute to a better life: 

“You are a teachable dweller. Right now, you are dwelling in the physical living under a shroud of unknowing. But you possess all the knowing within you. What’s critical is that you have the innate sense of knowing to teach yourself how to live experience after experience in the way that serves you best.” 

Readers who already believe in karmic just desserts will find especially engrossing the connections between destiny, attitude, and past lives: 

“Much of our destiny is a struggle, a slog. We get ourselves further karmically hamstrung with heedless mean words, insistent desires, greedy actions, being responsible for death after death of innocent lambs, chickens, and salmon. The killing goes on; you rack up more debts. Each of us goes through our destiny, creating destinies to come, and we can use experiences as opportunities to evolve spiritually, or they can bind us to more indebtedness.” 

More so than most spiritual and self-help guides, Goddart uncovers the circumstances, instances, and the nuggets of wisdom that appear in daily life to offer new opportunities to those who would take time to stop and smell the revised roses of life. 

Libraries and readers interested in books centered on growth and empowerment, which are as powerful in group discussion circles as in individual pursuit, will find The Contentment Dividend an uplifting, fine discussion of the opportunities present in daily living for those who would contemplate the deeper roots and meaning of contentment. 

The Contentment Dividend

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Everything Slows Down
Garry Cosnett
Secant Publishing
979-8988641056             $24.00 Hardcover/$7.99 eBook
www.secantpublishing.com 

Everything Slows Down: My Hidden Life with Depression: How I Survived, What I Learned documents a lifelong battle against clinical depression and a search for its cure. This took Garry Cosnett through a series of drugs, psychiatrists, hospitals, and challenges … all this while simultaneously navigating jobs and daily life challenges.

From its opening lines, Cosnett’s words will resonate with readers struggling with their own long-term depression: 

“One’s sixty-fifth birthday is commonly a point of reflection. It certainly was for me. I was taken aback by how much of my lived experience—at least the past fifty years—had been shaped by depression. At times, it could be described as mild. And at other times, it was diagnosed as major—so severe as to be immobilizing. It was a stunning realization. How is it that depression’s role in all my life’s stages was not apparent to me? I guess it’s like the analogy of a fish’s relationship to water. It was the medium that I lived in and moved through.” 

From drugs that produced terrible side effects to treatments that helped only mildly or not at all, the tidal back-and-forth movement of Cosnett’s efforts create a marked exposé of not just drugs and treatments, but the politics and personalities that dictate their assignment: 

“I’ve learned that a reasonable target for depression patients is 80 percent better, 80 percent of the time. Dr. V. seemed to be more of a 60/60 practitioner. I felt pretty good, much of the time. Yet it didn’t come close to the stunning success of phenelzine. I had the inner sense that I could do better. I grew frustrated.” 

Readers on their own long-term journeys through depression receive keys to survival, understanding, and empowerment within Cosnett’s revelations in Everything Slows Down. 

Its candid accounts of successes (whether limited or more long-term), failures, ongoing challenges, and the shifting nature of drugs and their applications makes for a story that will educate a wide range of followers, from medical students and psychiatrists interested in the experiences and course of depression to fellow survivors who will not just walk in Cosnett’s footsteps, but learn from his choices. 

This is why libraries will want to include Everything Slows Down in their collections as a standout guide to depression’s survival, and will want to recommend it to psychology reading groups interested in the nuts and bolts of better understanding. 

Everything Slows Down

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Freedom: The Case for Open Borders
Joss Sheldon

Rebel Books
‎979-8869084538                    
$22.49 Hardcover/$14.49 Paperback/$5.99 eBook/
$21.49 Large Print
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CSXD8DQX 

Freedom: The Case for Open Borders is an examination of freedom, mobility, and emigrant value. It’s a thought-provoking, inviting consideration of why the concept of open borders is more sustainable and positive than that of constructing walls to keep people out. 

It’s more than time for open borders, Joss Sheldon maintains. But his book is more than a clarion call for expansion—it’s a review of historical precedent, facts surrounding migrant contributions and routines, and the kinds of movements and choices that have both led to freedom and concurrently restricted growth opportunities. 

Sheldon embarks on a world-wide journey, examining nations, cultures, and civilizations as waves of nomads, migrants, and immigrants changed the face of not only societies, but histories … and, often for the better. 

He paints a strong portrait of possibilities that, in some cases, embrace ideals that would seem unattainable and unsustainable. In fact, they largely rest upon the attitudes and choices of those who would restrict not only immigration, but the new possibilities outsiders could introduce to improve social structures and life: 

“…you have a problem with the so-called “Economic migrants”? Well, there’s an answer to that as well: Abolish poverty! Wipe away third-world debt, pay reparations for the crimes of empire, abolish patents on medication, redistribute land and wealth, invest in health and education, and increase the social and physical infrastructure of the developing world. There’d be far less poverty, and far fewer migrants. We could drastically reduce immigration, without closing our borders or impinging upon personal freedoms. But it’d require a whole lot of political will – reaching out to help our neighbours, rather than to stop them.” 

The result is an exploration of historic trends, facts, ideals, and methods of reintroducing the value of foreigners onto American soil. 

As Sheldon points out, America’s woes do not stem from invasion from without, but poor choices from within: 

“…let’s focus on the real villains: It’s not the foreigners, “Coming for your jobs”. It’s the greedy bosses, who are sending your jobs overseas. And it’s the duplicitous politicians, who scapegoat immigrants for “Stealing jobs”, when they’re doing nothing of the kind.” 

The result may be a hard-hitting and perhaps overly idealistic, at times, but it’s a powerful discussion that deserves a place not only in classrooms considering history and social issues, but in reading groups where debates may swirl around America’s makeup, immigrant influence, and future. 

Libraries that include Freedom: The Case for Open Borders in their collections should profile it prominently as a source of mindful, well-researched considerations of alternative options and concepts surrounding walls, borders, and ultimate immigrant value; past, present, and future. 

Freedom: The Case for Open Borders

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From Ideas to Impact
Michael Sheldrick
Wiley
978-1394202348             $30.00
https://www.amazon.com/Ideas-Impact-Playbook-Influencing-Implementing/dp/1394202342 

From Ideas to Impact: A Playbook for Influencing and Implementing Change in a Divided World draws important connections between policy change and social impact, whether readers come from business management, government, or social issues circles. The teachings apply equally to all facets, painting an intriguing picture of a “policy entrepreneur” who can spearhead these connections and changes. 

The eight-step review of how a policy entrepreneur hones vision, enacts it, and drives changes that lead to the betterment of humanity as a whole may seem to harbor lofty ideals (and, it does); but behind the visionary hope lies a pragmatic, down-to-earth focus on how systems and policies work—and why and how they can fail. 

Chapters are built as much upon applied theory as they are around these ideals, fostering new possibilities by charting real-world success stories and how they came to be. 

“Be part of the solution in a world on fire” is Michael Sheldrick’s call to action. But the special attributes in his book lie in its blueprint of ‘how to’ and its roots in real-world experience. These provide the building blocks of understanding about how positive visions and change are translated in all levels of society, government, and business. 

Chapters promote many concrete ways of cementing the reader’s vision, whether it be obtaining and promoting positive success stories on social networks to foster hope and excitement, or creating opportunities for transition from habits as engrained as choosing coal over cleaner energy choices. 

These wide-ranging examples drive the program Sheldrick creates and promote in From Ideas to Impact, taking his effort far beyond that of an idealistic dreamer and well into the realms of possibility. 

Consider From Ideas to Impact a blueprint for eco-warriors, visionary leaders, and individuals who would link social change and growth to attitudes and habits that foster new opportunities. Then, read From Ideas to Impact for uplifting examples of success stories, and the foundations of how they were achieved, and how readers might enact their own programs and visions as they move through life. 

Libraries will find From Ideas to Impact not only worthy of collection inclusion and recommendation to a disparate audience of social thinkers, but perfect fodder for book club discussion groups. 

From Ideas to Impact

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Hidden Price Tags Volume 7: Et Cetera…
C.J.S. Hayward
C.J.S. Hayward Publications

979-8376522851
$20.00 Hardcover/$10.00 Paperback/$5.00 eBook

Website: https://cjshayward.com/books/
Ordering: https://cjshayward.com/hpt7  

Hidden Price Tags Volume 7: Et Cetera… compiles thoughts on Eastern Orthodoxy which did not fit into other volumes of C.J.S. Hayward's writings. This results in a wide-ranging set of subjects suitable for book club or spiritual group discussion, covering matters of Orthodoxy theology and its intersection with technological and social trends. 

Of special note is how Hayward offers not just critical inspections of technology's impact, but solutions to its influence, such as converting an Apple watch to an instrument capable of supporting a slower, more reasoned life. 

From theology's mystical connections to how Orthodoxy operates as an intrinsic foundation of societies and civilizations, Hayward creates a dialogue that is very suitable to analyzing technological and spiritual challenges, showing how to observe them in a different light and mitigate their conflicts and technology’s impact. The clear discussions of Orthodoxy's foundations provides students and thinkers with far greater comparisons and thought-provoking contrasts than the usual discourse on the subject: 

"In Orthodoxy, all theology is “mystical theology”, meaning what is practically lived in the practice of Holy Orthodoxy. Systematic theology is off-limits, as a kind of formal book exercise that is not animated by the blood of mystical theology. Clinical psychology offers what Dixon terms quasi-theology, and I would more specifically term quasi-mystical theology." 

Questions suitable for discussion reinforce this book's concept, encouraging lively debates among thinkers allowed to go past the usual theological focus and into subjects relevant to modern social concerns and experiences. 

The result may be considered especially wide-ranging by some; but that's the beauty of Hidden Price Tags Volume 7: Et Cetera… Its ability to tie together seemingly disparate subjects and approaches to daily living and theological thinking make it another Hayward winner that is highly recommended for any library interested in Orthodoxy’s applications to the modern world. 

Hidden Price Tags Volume 7: Et Cetera…

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How to Self-Publish Like A Pro
Tina Koenig
Independently Published
9781736470527              $24.95 Paperback/$14.95 ebook
https://www.amazon.com/How-Self-Publish-Like-Pro-Comprehensive/dp/1736470523 

How to Self-Publish Like A Pro: A Comprehensive Guide for Writing, Publishing, and Promoting Your Book covers all the basics for would-be self-published authors, from the initial structuring of an author’s business to building and promoting an author presence and registering a book with the Library of Congress. 

Tina Koenig’s extensive information goes beyond the basics of how to publish a book. It covers the aftermath of promotion, which is as important to the publishing process as gaining an ISBN and understanding how to work with different kinds of publishers. 

Koenig outlines how to provide review copies months before publication so there is adequate time to schedule reviews that dovetail with a book’s publication date. She also encourages understanding the pros and cons of different platforms for gaining book reviews (including ones that many novices won’t think about, like Instagram). Ultimately, Koenig pins down the nuts and bolts of the publishing process in a manner that requires no advanced (or even much basic) prior knowledge. 

Another subject Koenig covers, that many books about the process do not, is how authors can lay the groundwork to become an ‘expert’ whose advice will be solicited by podcasters and other media entities. There is no better publicity than that which comes from added value, delivered by an author who backs, say, an interview with repeated emphasis that their book holds further information, and thus will prove of additional interest to listeners or readers. 

These kinds of strategies make the most of the latest technology, social media, and literary connections in the industry, affording Koenig’s book a contemporary and wide-ranging series of applications. These are broad in scope and specific, with easy step-by-step insights that any novice publisher can easily absorb. 

Koenig’s strategies make the most of the latest technology, social media and literary connections. Each chapter is broad enough in scope to be easily absorbed, with step-by-step insights that any novice publisher can implement. 

These qualities place How to Self-Publish Like A Pro head and shoulders above similar-sounding books, affording it a diversity and ease of understanding that will make it a major library and reader attraction. 

How to Self-Publish Like A Pro

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The Malthus Fraud
Robert Dees
Commons Press
978-1737481096             $15.00
Website: www.CommonsPress.com
Ordering: https://www.amazon.com/Malthus-Fraud-Robert-Dees/dp/173748109X 

The Malthus Fraud provides history students and readers with a specific, narrow, and important focus on Thomas Malthus and the authoritative perspective presented in his Essay on the Principle of Population, which set the standards for conversations about overpopulation, social crisis management, and the rise and fall of early civilizations from the Roman Empire and the Hundred Years War (both of which have long been analyzed with bows to "Malthusian mechanisms"). 

But, what if this authoritative approach and perspective were wrong? 

Robert Dees provides a damning, eye-opening argument in The Malthus Fraud, which should engage and challenge history students already well versed in Malthus's traditional thinking. He pinpoints both the value and the fallacies of this analytical paradigm: 

"Putting aside his ludicrous claims that Rome suffered from overpopulation and that its farmers did themselves in, he did put his finger on the key issue: finding a scapegoat to exonerate the political leaders from guilt for the misery they cause is the whole point of the Malthus fraud." 

Malthus argued against capitalistic greed as a source of social ailments and failures, instead placing the onus on the working class's proclivity to 'overpopulate'. 

Dees returns the discussion to a critique of not just Malthus, but the foundations of arguments which shaped discussions and perceptions of the times for centuries of history scholars. He presents important questions and answers not only about the origins and inspirations of Malthus's perspective, but its impact on historical interpretation processes: 

"...how did this devout worshipper of the status quo and its ruling elite explain the ongoing misery in England, which, by definition, was the best of all possible worlds?" 

Through this analysis, the roots of dogma and misguided interpretations and perspectives are revealed in a manner that offers many insights for classrooms interested in not just historical analysis and Malthus, but the underlying belief systems that dictate its process: 

"...his core argument—that a revolution in social relations could have no effect on these “laws” of nature and of God—was dead wrong. The attempt to salvage Malthus conceals the fact that the technological revolution of the 1800s was the result of prior revolutions in social and property relations. Social revolutions and the resulting technological advances made all the difference, disproving all of Malthus’s dogma." 

The result is of critical importance to historians, scholars, and student debate groups who already hold familiarity with Malthus and the long-term impact of his approach. 

Libraries and readers seeking books that explore the foundations of religious and political dogma to consider their lasting influence on social issues and historical approaches will find The Malthus Fraud thought-provoking, astute, and certainly controversial in its contentions—perfect fodder for classroom and history buff discussion groups. 

The Malthus Fraud

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The Next Half Century
Alan Nevin

Global Economic Press
‎979-8988614418             $24.99 Paperback/$6.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Next-Half-Century-Prepare-Prosperity/dp/B0CJKTT4ST 

The Next Half Century: Prepare for an Amazing Change in World Prosperity sports a new deluxe color edition. It bases its projections about the future on an unusual combination of statistics: trends and demography, and real estate. This reflects Alan Nevin’s position as a demographer and real estate economist, casting a different light on the subject of not just futuristic thinking, but understanding the processes, routines, and implications of demographic-based forecasting. 

From this, one might expect that Nevin’s guide would be weighty and scholarly, and perhaps not for the average reader seeking entertainment value along with thought-provoking social insights. In actuality, Nevin writes with a passionate and colorful hand that injects life and interest in what could have proved a daunting topic. This translates to The Next Half Century’s appeal to a much wider audience.

From the impact of widespread and powerful economic growth in first-world nations, which combats the usual pessimism about their survival and influence, to the massive economic changes that will be fostered by this trend and the United States, Nevin creates an uplifting, positive vision of the future which serves as a much-needed panacea for modern-day angst. 

Graphics, charts, and colorful portraits depict this future in different, highly accessible ways. This approach allows readers to dip into the potentials and promises of economic forecasting without the usual dry approach of monolithic speech and the typical lack of visuals in competing books on the subject. 

History, economics, and nations of the world all receive reasoned, lively contrasts and speculations powered by a foundation of facts and well-researched trends that lay the groundwork for insights not to be found in other books. 

In turn, this creates a treatise that is as perfect for book club and classroom discussion groups as it is for individual pursuit. It raises many questions about opportunity, choice, impact, and purpose that a diverse audience will find suitable for lively debate and personal contemplation. 

The next fifty years receives close inspection as to its possible or likely incarnations based not only on current changes in population, lifestyle, education, and employment patterns already underway around the world, but geographic regions of the U.S. that are already on target to become leaders of these changes. 

Too many books paint a grim picture of what is to come. This is why The Next Half Century: Prepare for an Amazing Change in World Prosperity is so very highly recommended to anyone who would view coming decades in a more positive light than has been presented in the past. 

Future generations need this book, which builds hope based on facts and research, not just ideals; and libraries need to include it in their collections and point it out so these readers can find it. 

The Next Half Century

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Old Kicker Legs: The Tooth Faerie
Robert Rubenstein
Independently Published
979-8873923700             $10.47
https://www.amazon.com/TOOTH-FAERIE-Old-Kicker-Legs/dp/B0CRNYJ1BR 

Old Kicker Legs: The Tooth Faerie adds another surreal adventure to the Old Kicker Legs series of fourteen books. While its pictures and tone might suggest it's for advanced elementary to high school readers, adults will be the best audience for this tale, which offers many thought-provoking (and likely controversial) topics. 

This story takes place at the beginning of COVID, documenting the many forces, both internal and external, that buffet a family as they take refuge at home from a worldwide pandemic. 

The story opens with the unexpected arrival of Auntie Kirsi, who claims to be a tooth fairy, but arrives with nefarious purposes and baggage to immediately take over. 

Prior readers will enjoy how characters from the previous book make their entry, with the Color Wars games appearing early in the story to add familiar background and nuances to a tale that evolves around changes on the home front. 

Robert Rubenstein excels at injecting his whimsical story with thought-provoking passages throughout: 

“What if you can’t win today nor tomorrow? Does that make you a bad person?” “Charlie, an apple doesn’t get rotten in a day or two.” 

He also provides reflections and twists on events that will keep readers intrigued by its language and vivid descriptions. These work together to paint an uncommon portrait of events that swirl around Auntie Kristie's invasion and impact: 

“No, Auntie Kirsi.” It was Toni who tried to push past her. But it was easier to remove a nightmare from a dream. Toni cried up the stairs where Marty was hiding. “Daddy, take her away.” But Marty couldn’t bear to face his own family, nor go one-on-one with Kirsi that day. He rolled into a ball, and left in a puff of fog." 

As Auntie tries to banish Old Kicker Legs and dispel other family connections, isolation threatens them in more than one way as the story unfolds, creating unique lessons and examples about control methods that include isolation and abuse. Vivid color illustrations throughout capture the nuances of plot and character, bringing to life the dilemmas Toni and others face as invading forces come in more than one guise. 

From dysfunctional family members and stranger danger that accompany questions of connection, disconnection, and false memories to a curse that only Old Kicker Legs can properly address, Rubenstein creates a compelling story. It operates on deeper levels than that of a whimsical adventure alone—and certainly belays the notion of a youthful audience, with its many adult themes that are wrapped the guise of a children's book. 

Libraries and adult readers will find Old Kicker Legs: The Tooth Faerie a compelling vision of threat, survival tactics, friendship, and a Tooth Faerie turned bad as action-packed events head towards a showdown that will test the characters and enchant their readers. 

Old Kicker Legs: The Tooth Faerie

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The Political Activism of Anthropologist Franz Boas, Citizen Scientist
Alan H. McGowan

Cambridge Scholars Publishing
978-1-5275-6685-9         $82.00 Hardcover
Ordering:
https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-6685-9 (Use PROMO25 when ordering, for a 25% discount) 

The Political Activism of Anthropologist Franz Boas, Citizen Scientist comes from a professor who devoted over a decade of research to his subject. From this, and the publication of this book by Cambridge Scholars, readers might anticipate a dry and droll examination; but the delight of this treatise lies as much in its lively delivery as in the wealth of facts that reflect the life and times of Franz Boas. 

From the start, the account lures readers with the dramatic embellishments of a novel, capturing a realistic atmosphere that surrounds the anthropologist’s life: 

“On June 20th, 1883, a young German scholar with a freshly minted Ph.D. in physics boarded a small two-masted schooner named the Germania on its way to Baffin Island, a part of the Arctic archipelago whose permanent residents were Indigenous people then called Eskimos, plus traders, whalers and people in a few scientific outposts from Europe, Canada and the United States. That scholar, not quite 25 years old, was Franz Uri Boas. It was a voyage that was not only going to change the young man, but also the world of anthropology.” 

Readers who anticipate a singular life focus will also be challenged and delighted by the close examination afforded to the prejudices, preconceptions, and anthropological methodology of the times: 

“The very notion of putting actual Indigenous people on display, which both Boas and Putnam supported and organized, would raise serious issues now, and did even then. Of course, the Chicago event was not the first, nor would it be the last, to put people on display.” 

The opportunities for not just enlightenment, but debate about anthropological processes, depictions, prejudice, and racism afford much material for classroom discussion and debate not only in anthropology courses and settings, but in reading groups devoted to examining historical trends, precedents, and attitudes. 

Alan H. McGowan achieves more than capture the influential and revealing life of Franz Boas. He highlights the authority and pressures of the times in not just scientific study and research, but the fostering and presentation of facts about indigenous peoples and others. 

The account moves from anthropological and scientific waters to delve into the political circumstances of his times, his ideals and struggles with the U.S., and the war which reached out to affect his efforts and attitude: 

“I cannot visualize how reasonable people and nations which are 'leaders of civilization’ can conjure up such a terrible war. If Germany loses, such hatred will be created that it will stir up her nationalism for years to come; if she is victorious, such arrogance, that it will lead to the same consequence. If people would only realize what a source of hatred and misfortune the highly praised patriotism represents!" 

By drawing close connections between scientific processes, social attitudes, and political activism through the lens of one anthropologist’s life, McGowan crafts a powerful synthesis of purpose and political involvement. This book should be on the reading lists of any group or individual interested in how Boas’s work linked scientists to political issues. 

Libraries that choose The Political Activism of Anthropologist Franz Boas, Citizen Scientist for their collections will want to highly recommend it above and beyond an audience of scientific thinkers alone, reaching out to activists, historians, and anyone involved in social and political transformation efforts. 

The Political Activism of Anthropologist Franz Boas, Citizen Scientist

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The Power of Peasants: Economics and Politics of Farming in Medieval Germany
Robert Dees
Commons Press
978-1737481058             $35.00
Website: www.CommonsPress.com
Ordering: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Peasants-Economics-Politics-Medieval/dp/1737481057 

The Power of Peasants: Economics and Politics of Farming in Medieval Germany is a two-volume history set that adopts a unique approach to medieval historical record. It provides a review of civilization's events through the perspective of farmers, from the initial building of civilization in Northern Europe to its continuing challenges via feudal systems and farmer struggles. 

The rise and fall of Rome, the rebuilding of the Church during Charlemagne's times, and the agricultural revolutions which have (until now) been relatively understated (in comparison to the industrial revolutions that advanced cultivation and civilization-building tools) are all covered in exquisite detail. 

While this level of inspection may challenge readers seeking a simple overview of the times, it will delight those who look for well-researched intricacy and detail in their historical references: 

"One historian described the early scratch plow as nothing more than “an enlarged digging-stick dragged by a pair of oxen.” This is true, but it was also the most important scientific invention ever, as it was “the first application of non-human power to agriculture.” 84 Its use increased productivity and made possible humans’ transition from barbarism to civilization. Originally carved from a single piece of wood, it tore open the soil; broke it up into a texture suited to promoting new plant growth; allowed for better water retention, irrigation, and aeration; and helped kill weeds. Wooden plowshares, of course, broke and wore out quickly. During the 500s BCE the iron plowshare appeared in Italy, but one survey found an almost total absence of iron plowshares there during the Roman Period, in contrast to an abundance in northern border regions and in barbarian territory." 

The heavy presence of footnoted references assures that these relationships between prior scholarship and the reassessments Robert Dees makes here about relationships between farmers, economics, and political and social transformations of the times are well supported by supplemental, authoritative reading material. This means that scholars can easily move from Dees's contention to source materials that support his reinterpretations and contentions. 

From the rise of peasant wealth in the late 1400s after some 150 years of poverty and its social and political impact to changing labor forces, laws, methods, and perceptions, Dees creates a powerful survey that does far more than recap common knowledge. 

In his carefully researched study and associations between impacts and outcomes, Dees provides a focus which may at first seem narrower than more general overviews of civilization's rises and falls, but ultimately proves an invaluable microscopic consideration of how farmer, laborer, and peasant groups each contributed to the outcomes and efforts of humanity to reach new heights. 

The second volume moves beyond feudal society, profiling changes in England, Holland, and beyond which move from a thirty-year war to the rise of populations and accompanying struggles with famine and disease. 

From collapses and reformations to ongoing peasant and farmer roles and influences in the reshaping of societies, Dees crafts an examination that, at its heart, reshapes many common perceptions of these times and their influencing factors. 

Brief introductory histories of circumstances that led to these major changes assure that readers holding minimal background of the times (but much interest in their outcomes and events) will not be lost, as the stories unfold. 

Cross-country contrasts provide intriguing reflections on not only what happened, but why: 

"Again in contrast to Germany, in the Netherlands the growing wealth of the general population drove up the price of livestock products more quickly than that of grain, so farmers had an incentive to specialize in more profitable dairy products. In some areas, the number of cattle per farm increased 50 percent between 1570 and 1680, while it fell in Germany." 

Dees considers the shifting control over the means of production, its economic and power portents, influences on prosperity and the eventual translation from Europe to the Americas, and how agricultural and farmer influences and freedoms fostered many of these movements and growth processes. History readers and general-interest audiences with an affinity for the past will find many new ideas here. These will test traditional presentations and challenge shallower reviews of the times. 

Libraries and readers seeking in-depth, authoritative, well-researched considerations of labor, power plays and transfers, and the basic elements and influences of farmers and peasants on the key events that moved civilization forward and prompted its growth and expansion will find The Power of Peasants: Economics and Politics of Farming in Medieval Germany surprisingly accessible, delightfully enlightening reading. 

The often-startling, eye-opening, thought-provoking contentions are exceptional and hard-hitting: 

"In northern Europe, free barbarians developed a more productive agriculture, with which they produced more food, more farmers, more warriors, until they overran the empire.  The early medieval period was a brawl over whether slavery would survive. The farmers half-won, abolishing slavery, but were held in serfdom." 

The Power of Peasants: Economics and Politics of Farming in Medieval Germany is very highly recommended; ideally to a much wider audience than its scholarship, size, and subject would seem to indicate. 

The book may at first appear weighty and daunting, both in its size and subject matter. However, $35 for a 2-volume set that offers almost two thousand pages of detail is a bargain. Book clubs and classrooms that hold a special interest in either medieval history or early labor issues and peasant populations will find The Power of Peasants: Economics and Politics of Farming in Medieval Germany creates plenty of insights and opportunity for lively contemporary discourses about historic events, peasant perspectives and influences, and the ultimate growth of civilization through their efforts. 

The Power of Peasants: Economics and Politics of Farming in Medieval Germany

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A Simple Foundation
Larry Heitz

102nd Place, LLC
978-1-950943-28-9
$25.97 Hardcover/$13.99 Paperback/$5.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Foundation-Universal-Principles-Relationship/dp/1950943291 

A Simple Foundation appears in an updated second edition to provide a biblical foundation of inquiry on the subject of faith and its incarnation in everyday life. 

It provides a Scripture-based foundation that strives to simplify the connections between Christian believers, streamlining the process of understanding the basic tenets of Jesus and his teachings. Thus, the belief and words become more accessible (and more applicable) to a wider variety of believers, no matter that they may come from disparate walks of life and experience. 

Readers may not expect examples of this process to arrive in such diverse forms as those from the business world, but one way in which Larry Heitz builds and solidifies his foundation is through constructing pathways to understanding that link real-world experiences with higher-level spiritual insights. 

This approach successfully delves into such diverse (yet related) topics as gratitude, the gift of faith and how it is exercised in minute and ultimate cases, how misfortune can lead to positive change and results, and more. 

Each example is cemented by a blend of Scripture references and thought-provoking insights which readers will find thoroughly engrossing. 

The result indeed builds a foundation for better understanding, group discourse, individual contemplation, and a uniting of faiths under what at first may seem an umbrella of disparate situations. 

Christian readers and libraries will find this approach powerfully enlightening, and a perfect choice for discussion groups interested in incarnations of faith in everyday life and how unified approaches to belief may be cultivated and encouraged. 

A Simple Foundation

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Status Quo Thinking is Harming Your Health
Dr. Sarah Hallberg
Olio Media
979-8-9899861-0-1                 $17.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CXCMMKPV/ 

Status Quo Thinking is Harming Your Health: A Physician’s Final Plea represents the late Dr. Sarah Hallberg’s magnum opus, synthesizing her research and reflections on the American healthcare system which (she found as an insider and participant) worked as much against her healing efforts as they professed to support them. 

Dr. Hallberg did more than chafe against these barriers to helping her patients. She opened a clinic in Indiana which refuted the common notion that a low-fat diet was essential for good health, observing concrete results in eliminating diabetes and other diet-related symptoms by adopting a low-carb, high-fat diet. 

The contention that diabetes can be reversed by diet is not a new one. What is new, here, is the research and findings which indicate that the type of diet being promoted to manage the disease does little to actually cure it, placing the disease’s management and stasis over a real solution. 

The idea is simple: eat better and live longer. It’s not a new notion, but one which has been vastly revised, here, where it expands to include not just issues of diet and health, but how the healthcare system as a whole does an injustice to patients with its focus on managing symptoms over finding real, lasting solutions. 

Dr. Hallberg wrote her book while battling terminal cancer. She made a point of staying on the diet she was recommending to her patients, even though she did not share their symptoms, in the interests of staying fit and better understanding what her patients’ struggles and experiences. 

She is candid about presenting her naivety over the process of participating in research studies and their ultimate ability to help her patients, forthright about the joys of meeting personal and processional goals, and spirited and lively in her delivery: 

“I was doing what I loved and felt as if I were helping lots of people, and working on methods that could help a substantially greater number.” 

Status Quo Thinking is Harming Your Health is much more than a physician’s condemnation of systems that don’t achieve their ultimate goals of good health. It’s a lively memoir; a story of study, research, and blending these efforts with the bigger picture of supporting health routines and ideals; and a powerful consideration of medical attitudes and objectives. It will be especially pertinent reading for medical school students and classrooms debating the ultimate impact of health management systems and their underlying politics, goals, and influences. 

Status Quo Thinking is Harming Your Health should be part of any collection appealing to medical personnel who hold a greater vision for a healthy future than traditional rote thinking and approaches to healthcare. It’s also highly recommended for general-interest library collections concerned about healthcare approaches. 

Status Quo Thinking is Harming Your Health

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Those Absent on the Great Hungarian Plain
Jill Culiner
Claret Press
978-1-910461-72-3         $17.99 Paperback/$5.99 eBook
https://www.jillculiner-writer.com/ 

Those Absent on the Great Hungarian Plain comes from photographer and author Jill Culiner, who spent six years chronicling the changes and events affecting a small Hungarian village. To her mind, it served as a microcosm example for events taking place in the rest of the country. Her blend of memoir and history captures the nuances of a country in flux, illustrating how old and new countries blended throughout her life in a thread of connection that pulled her back to Hungary to not just document, but live in its milieu. 

Her blend of black and white photos and powerful observations brings Hungary and its Jewish enclaves to life: 

"In a weedy field in Kunhegyes, I found an abandoned synagogue. Heavy beams propped up an outside wall; wooden doors sagged open; rows of benches waited for long-dead worshippers. Dating from the 1880s, it was beautifully decorated with painted lions, flowers and scenes of a fanciful Promised Land. The building could still be saved, I thought. Its beauty could be easily revived. Perhaps there were no longer Jews here." 

As Culiner searches out and exposes remnants of the past, she also reveals Hungary's ironic clashes between Jews and other elements of society. Scholars will appreciate the heavily footnoted references, which do not detract an iota from the lively experiences she documents: 

"In 1867, full emancipation was granted, and this could result in amusing situations:

In an assembly of voters gathered for communal elections, a pastor proposed admitting Jews to the voting area. A tailor… with the intention of ending the discussion underway, gave his vote, and justified it in this way: ‘We don’t need the Jews.’
A Jew amongst those in the assembly, looked at the tailor with a tragicomic air, then announced that this enemy of his religion was wearing, at this very moment, the pair of pants that he, the Jew, had brought to him for repairs. ‘And this man,’ he cried, ‘who is wearing my trousers, claims one doesn’t need the Jews!’"
 

Culiner's search for Jewish history and experience results in both personal and historical revelations that even lay readers with little prior familiarity or interest in Hungarian history will find absolutely compelling. 

The allure lies in Culiner’s descriptive language, in the 'you are here' travelogue feel of adventure that marks her journey, and in special reflections that aren’t easy to find elsewhere, about Jewish and Hungarian history alike. 

Supported by extensive historical notes and references, accented by thought-provoking black and white photos, and supercharged with a personal sense of discovery, Those Absent on the Great Hungarian Plain may sound like a specialty acquisition for history libraries, but holds the uncommon ability to reach into a much wider audience. 

It is highly recommended for book club discussion, collections strong in Jewish or Hungarian history, and general-interest readers seeking an informative, lively blend of memoir and cultural exposé. 

Those Absent on the Great Hungarian Plain

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War of the Orders
R.D. Crist
ShoRic Publishing
978-0-9998822-7-6         $4.99 eBook
Website: www.scarletreignbooks.com
Ordering: Scarlet Reign: War of the Orders - Kindle edition by Crist, R.D.. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. 

War of the Orders is the third book in the Scarlet Reign series, and embraces magic, mystery and mayhem as thoroughly as its predecessors. A prologue recaps the environment and action, providing newcomers with both a satisfyingly alluring reference to scenes and a compelling reason to keep on reading as the spiritual Realm of Scarlet embraces the lives of three women determined to become powerful Hags in exchange for their souls. 

This then segues to the first chapter, in which night terrors from scary stories prompt a dialogue among kids about missing children who disappear in the darkness. Added impact emerges when further legends and possibilities are revealed. 

The second chapter brings Natalie and Toddi to the Order of the Sisterhood, where Natalie confronts her role in the always-present wars that challenge her friends and family. Determined to make her own mark on the world, Natalie chooses to walk a different path than what has been ordained for her. She finds herself secretly challenging the legality of war altogether, while juggling two relationships which pose threat and healing to her life. 

As the world of the Order of Sisterhood evolves, with magic and mystery at its helm, readers will find the combination of genres and experiences to be multifaceted and thoroughly engrossing. 

Natalie’s mandate to remain true to herself while reconsidering her future, her powers, and her ability to change will resonate with readers who enjoy stories of proactive, self-empowered women. Those who look for magical overlays juxtaposed with the realities of wartime challenge will find its backdrop realistically alluring even as War of the Orders comes steeped in an original form of fantasy. 

From the strengths of illusion and the price of truth to threats to children and family, War of the Orders weaves together a disparate series of events to create a powerful result. 

Libraries and readers seeking the promise of magic, the allure of relationship transformations, the ethical and moral implications of ongoing war, and a young woman who fights on more than one front will find War of the Orders a strong read. It’s especially effective when chosen as a follow-up to the two prior books in the series, Malice of the Dark Witch and Call for Independence; each of which follow Natalie through life-and-death scenarios and beyond. 

War of the Orders

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Young Adult/Childrens

The Adventures of the Flash Gang, Episode 2: Treasonous Tycoon
M.M. Downing and S.J. Waugh
Fitzroy Books (div. of Regal House Publishing)
9781646034031              $12.95 Paperback/$8.49 eBook
Website: downing waugh.com
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Flash-Gang-Episode-Treasonous/dp/1646034031/?_encoding=UTF8&ref_=pd_gw_ci_mcx_mr_hp_atf_m 

The Adventures of the Flash Gang, Episode 2: Treasonous Tycoon gives preteen adventure story readers a run for their money, as a gang of "streeters" who have been in hiding since their thievery escapades finds themselves forced from their refuge when Pittsburgh floods.

Pearl, Lewis, Duck, and Mac present young readers with streetwise savvy and high-octane action from the start, redefining the word 'stealing' ('pinching’ in street lingo) as they struggle to survive the Depression. 

In this story, they are facing not just challenges to their way of life, but the nefarious efforts of an ongoing adversary, a steel tycoon, to stop them. 

M.M. Downing and S.J. Waugh's attention to dialogue and descriptions that supercharge the action with realistic and vivid imagery is the first strength to note about this story: 

“Can ya believe that guy?” hooted PB. “He goes and burns down a church—St. Patty’s, no less!—and gets a slap on the wrist. Streeters loot one measly train car an’ we get shoveled off quicker ’n you can say Mayor McNair! Sheesh.” PB tapped the newspaper he was holding with a grimy finger, pointing to the headline and the arsonist’s photo below it: a fat-faced man with a gold tooth and a nasty leer. That leer still gave Lewis nightmares." 

Themes of friendship, survival, cooperation, and clashes between streetwise kids and equally savvy adults reinforce the notion that support systems and connections can come from vastly different scenarios and activities. 

Children who choose Treasonous Tycoon, whether they are prior fans of the first book or newcomers to the gang's activities, will find the action juxtaposes nicely with issues that range from supporting each another to helping others (both human and non-human) who also struggle for survival: 

Pearl had left the road and was skittering down a short bank and across a web of train tracks toward the river’s edge where, far beneath the bridge, Herr’s Island sat like a dark smudge in the raging river. A small rail bridge spanned the short distance to the island. Pearl headed straight for it.
“Pearl!”
“I’m saving the pigs!” she called back.
“We don’t have time for this!”
“There is always time for a good deed.”
 

Despite their efforts, is the Flash Gang becoming extinct? 

Kids that choose this story for its adventure will be equally attracted to its ability to inject bigger-picture themes and considerations into the suspense and intrigue, making it a top recommendation for libraries seeking stories that will grab young reader attention, but pose deeper insights about friendship, survival, and support systems. 

The Adventures of the Flash Gang, Episode 2: Treasonous Tycoon

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Bad Skool: Protest Stories
Robert Rubenstein
Independently Published
9798864950906      $25.42 Hardcover/$17.76 Paperback
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bad+skool+rubenstein&i=stripbooks&crid=3IH7HKZN45XF0&sprefix=bad+skool+rubenstein%2Cstripbooks%2C80&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 

Bad Skool: Protest Stories joins others in the Old Kicker Legs series, compiling prior stories into one volume for fourth graders to adults. This young audience will enjoy the blend of whimsy and serious contemplation that mixes in Bad Skool—and will also especially appreciate that these individual tales, when presented here as a unit, unite and expand the themes of Rubenstein’s prior writings in an unusual manner. 

Full-page color drawings abound as the tales evolve. Robert Rubenstein has created a rich, fantastic approach to their protest stories of life, community, and magic which come to life in a way young people rarely receive: 

"Mudville was spooked. Charlie hurried on. The headmaster could change his Medieval mind. Magic Chicken went along. The Yankees were playing the Orioles that day. The Chicken was a fan, but it only clucked for birds." 

Uniting these tales are Charlie, Old Kicker Legs, Magic Chicken, and a host of odd supporting characters, from teacher Master McGooey to the baseball games which fuse man and beast alike. 

Underlying the whimsy are the quite serious subjects of discriminatory elements in school problems, accidents and prejudices, and the rise of beasts intent on destroying the school. 

Parents will want to interact with kids who choose this magical book to explain its subtler nuances and allegories, while elementary-level libraries will find Bad Skool: Protest Stories a lesson in both magical realism and school and community politics and processes. It plays on the intersection of both to create a compelling, engrossing story that promises wide appeal to audiences of adults and kids alike. 

Bad Skool: Protest Stories

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Final Video Game
Craig Speakes
‎Final Video Gam
‎978-1399977708             $11.99 Paperback/$3.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Final-Video-Game-Middle-Gaming-ebook/dp/B0CSDHC1S5/

In Final Video Game, thirteen-year-old Oliver faces multiple challenges: a new life with his mother after his father vanishes; a move to a new town and school; and a new friendship with classmate Logan, who is addicted to video games. 

Oliver willingly enters into his milieu, only to find it offers further new challenges he is ill equipped to handle, as the popular new video game series unexpectedly leads its users to fall into comas. 

That’s because the AI controlling the game has gone rogue, causing the virtual world to become a dangerous harbinger of humanity’s extinction—unless Oliver can stop it. But, what chance does a preteen new gamer have over a savvy AI? 

As it turns out, who better to defeat an AI at its own game than a determined band of game-savvy kids who recognize the challenge, motivations, and underlying forces dictating its moves? 

Craig Speakes embeds his story with attractive technology references, equally compelling psychological patterns of defense and offense among a group of intrepid young people, and the allure of a gamer’s world and talents. These facets keep the action fast-paced and the story line unpredictably engrossing. 

As Oliver confronts the cyberattacks, he comes to realize that his own choices and actions will affect not just the world to come, but his own family and friends. 

The interplay between simulations and real people, and the ways in which they interact, connect, and disconnect, provides young readers with a gripping saga that is powered as much by interpersonal relationships as by gaming strategy. 

The fire, characters, and action of the story lends to its top recommendation to libraries catering to young video gamers who might normally eschew the printed word—were it not for the vivid confrontations and action-packed scenes that provide a lure in Final Video Game. 

Final Video Game

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Friendly Foxes
Jesse Bettio
Independently Published
979-8871558744            
$31.15 paperback/$7.77 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Friendly-Foxes-Jesse-Bettio/dp/B0CQ9QRRMD/ 

Friendly Foxes is a picture book about divorce that will appeal to parents and adults looking to open a positive dialogue with the very young. 

It portrays a fox family facing a “kind divorce,” showing kids how a family can adapt and maintain love while still moving apart. 

The kindness isn’t just evident in the parents, here. It’s in Jesse Bettio’s choice of words in describing the circumstances surrounding the separation (the parents have been good adventure partners, but now it’s time for them to embark on separate adventures). 

Lovely watercolor illustrations of the foxes add color and attraction to the tale, which explains different living scenarios the kids might face, such as Mommy or Daddy fox nesting with the kids at different times, or the kids visiting a parent’s new abode. 

The story’s ability to creatively, kindly, and realistically explain a divorce and its various options and impact on the family will allow adults to explain very difficult circumstances to a very young child. 

There are many other children’s books about divorce, but few that narrow the focus to a ‘kind divorce’ or the circumstances that a youngster needs to understand. Use of the fox family over human characters assures that the messages are delivered in an attractive, gentle manner kids will find accessible rather than frightening. 

This is why Friendly Foxes is highly recommended not just for libraries, but parents interested in a colorful, positive, simple approach to the topic that will spark conversation and acceptance in young listeners. 

Friendly Foxes

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Hometown
S.A. Fanning
Immortal Works LLC
978-1-953491-79-4     
www.petefanning.com 

One moment can change your life forever, as senior linebacker Ben Hoy discovers in Hometown. The moment-by-moment tension of a football game, narrated in the first person, introduces an immediacy and power to the story that simmers with action from the start: 

“The screams, the cheers, the throttle of anticipation—usually I put it away and played the game. All of us did. At nine wins and zero losses, we’d been killing it all season. We’d worked since summer–conditioning and camps—since last season’s overtime loss in the state semifinals. Besides, we’d beaten Briggs two straight years, so no one would say it, but we were looking past this game and forward to our yearly showdown with Clearview before hitting the playoffs full stride. This was the year.” 

This game is different, though. Prejudice rears in the form of an incident that prompts Ben to make a comment that will change his life and challenge his fellow team players, resonating through the wider world at large to drive him not to sports success, but into the maelstrom of conflict between Blacks, Whites, and ideological thinking. 

S.A. Fanning uses this incident as the spark for considering a teen White boy’s coming of age, a town’s immersion in historical presence and conflicts that involve Confederate versus Rebel forces (albeit, in modern times), and consequences that force Ben and his siblings to leave their school for another refuge—only to find that it, too, has been contaminated with the very issues he thought he’d left behind. 

There is no escaping racial, historical, and social precedent, as Ben learns through his newfound efforts to make his world a better place. 

Fanning introduces hard-hitting topics and contemporary struggles in a manner that tests his ability to adapt and formulate his own values: 

“I looked down to my scuffed dress shoes on the polished floor. Hear them out. It seemed I got to hear everyone’s grievances these days. At Sal’s, at school, on the field. What about my grievances, my fears and anger? Anger at these two men. At our town and the world in general.” 

Teens will find much to relate to here; not only from the realistic high school and football culture that permeates Ben’s life, but in the adult issues that pop up to lend new meaning to his endeavors, and bigger-picture thinking to his life. 

These added-value elements are why Hometown is highly recommended not just for teen readers and libraries catering to them, but for classroom discussion groups and book clubs seeking material that draws on personal experience to explore social, political, historical and racial precedents and the choices that young people face in modern-day life. 

Hometown

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Play With Me
Kat Chen
Rise x Penguin Workshop
978-0593659717             $8.99 Board Book or eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Play-Playdate-Book-Kat-Chen/dp/0593659716 

Play With Me pairs words by Kat Chen with art by Lorraine Nam to create the effect of a “playdate in a book,” which read-aloud parents will find inviting and unusual for ages 1-3. 

Unlike most invitations to enjoy play, this book promotes feelings of empowerment by offering kids a series of decision-making opportunities for how they will play. 

Ellison and his friend Rabbit invite readers to join him for a picnic, outlining food and drink choices and complimenting young audiences on whatever they choose, in response. Parents who go on this picnic adventure with their young charges will appreciate the book’s lively interactive touches as Ellison outlines the process of making choices, contributing memories and experiences to conversations, and enjoying life. 

The result is a board book filled with interactive encouragement as well as fun—a tool adults can employ to encourage kids to grasp the rudiments of interactive participation and positive reinforcement. 

The bright art and revealing discussions are major attractions, offering an experience the very young do not ordinarily receive from picture books. 

Play With Me

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Preach It, Grace
Susan Count
‎Hastings Creations Group
978-1952371189             $18.99 Hardcover/$3.99 eBook
https://www.susancount.com  

Preach It, Grace is a Christian horse story about faith, friendship, and how both are tested when the effort of sharing a pony goes awry. But, this isn’t the usual band of girls who do the sharing. It’s Grace and her elderly neighbor, which enhances the plot by surveying intergenerational differences and conflicts when Mr. Harvey suddenly sends Preacher away … and won’t tell Grace where and why he’s gone. 

Mr. Harvey has been talking about Preacher’s behavior issues and handling. Grace’s efforts to tame Preacher and demonstrate that he is, indeed, a good horse creates an aura of kindness and understanding that surrounds her with faith and well-being, but events also introduce challenges that lead her to question her own motivations and heart: 

“Why wouldn’t Mr. Harvey think about what she said? She talked to herself as she collected the eggs. ‘Get over it, Grace! So you didn’t get what you wanted. Were you only helping him because you’re selfish?’ ­That question niggled her heart. That would make me a terrible person. I help him because I want to. Because it’s the right thing to do. Because I love that cranky old man like my own grandpa.” 

Where other stories about horse-crazy girls focus on horses pretty much to the exclusion of interpersonal relationships, Susan Count’s focus on the evolving, changing dynamics of faith and friendship adds value to Grace’s horse-centric experiences and focus. It also creates opportunities for Christian young reader group discussions. 

The insights on friendship, motivation, perception, and conflict resolution rest on a series of interactions that will not only entertain girls who love horses, but gently leads them to consider accompanying issues of sharing jobs, friendship, faith, and the interactions and contrasting perceptions of old age and youth. 

All these facets make Preach It, Grace of exceptional and special interest to Christian young readers. This audience will receive all the passion and lively experiences of horses, tempered by the equal passion for God, family and friends, and growth. All these elements make Grace a realistic, compelling character who learns invaluable lessons about interacting with the world around her.

Preach It, Grace

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