October 2025 Review Issue
Fantasy & Sci Fi
Literature
Mystery & Thrillers
The Everling and
the Acid King
J. Christie
Wastrel Books
978-1-969056-01-7
$17.99
Website: wastrelbooks.com
Ordering: https://a.co/d/3j3zw2c
Avid readers of sci-fi and fantasy well know that, for the most part, hard science has fallen by the wayside and the boundaries that separate sci-fi from fantasy have evolved into a wall. All three features are returned to proper strength and exploration in The Everling and the Acid King, however, which is why this compelling saga will appeal to YA and adult sci-fi AND fantasy audiences who like their stories packed with science and emotional connection.
The story opens with a compelling earthquake:
The house shook. The trembling was frightful such that the old, floral walls threatened to buckle and fold, the faded wallpaper twisting off in places and dust raining down, turning the air thick. Voices echoed up from the stories below and into the attic above. The calls grew louder and louder as the jolts that shook the house grew more frequent by the moment. Win turned his head just as a wall split ceiling to floor, and there he glimpsed the barest bit of true sky beyond.
Familiar trappings of a YA magic school may at first portend that the story will rehash Harry Potter—but that’s far from what it evolves into, happily for its readers.
Winnifred Baker’s awakening to disaster sets the stage for more adventure to come as he faces the reality that defenses have crumbed, as well as walls, and there’s no holding back the forces which are invading his life, which include droids and robots.
Sounds like a video game? In some ways it is as Win, in short order, saves a baby, faces a manticore, pops in and out of various worlds, and searches for a refuge before alighting at Wutherford Home spent, ill, and mourning the death of his friends.
Mature YA readers will quickly come to see that the emotional draw of this tale operates on an adult level, but holds the nonstop action of a good YA story. These devices keep them engaged and wondering as Win’s choices give the rescued baby a new home starts his journey into this conflicted world.
And thus Chester Nithercot (“Chezzy”) begins his life as an orphaned everling, traversing a world where magic infuses every shop and step. Descriptions of this milieu are as evocative as the journey Chezzy undertakes towards adulthood:
He passed a shop that boasted a whole crowd of children clambering around, despite the occasional shockwaves that rolled out from the store, blowing dust on the passersby. One blast shucked the man of much foam, but he went on, indifferently. Chezzy squinted through the gritty air and spied the sign above the store, My Minerocket and Me. Another middle aged man, who glowed a soft, blue light, brushed the dust and foam off of him with an annoyed look before hurrying away. But the everling was watching a third man that rose into the air nearby and popped out of existence amongst a crackle of green electricity.
As he moves through a school that sports a Showing to assess student abilities, encounters strange and marvelous wonders, and adopts a perspective of the world and his place in it that is bigger than his heritage or immediate concerns, Chezzy comes to know who the elusive cauldron-contributing Acid King is...which is dangerous knowledge, indeed.
His one task? Find the Acid King.
Because of all the action, well-developed tension, and compelling characters and atmosphere that swirl around Chezzy’s life and world, The Everling and the Acid King stands out from the crowd. It features a group of students whose objectives coalesce in usual ways in a magical school that may prove the death of them. Learn or die.
Christie’s story is satisfyingly difficult to predict; but more importantly, it’s filled with surprising images, confrontations, and interpersonal connections that provide a powerful emotional draw to keep YAs and adult readers thoroughly engaged.
Libraries seeking a blend of hard science, fantasy, sci-fi, and quest saga will find The Everling and the Acid King easy to recommend—especially to book clubs seeking unique themes and approaches in contrast to the popular ‘magic school’ scenario of competing stories.
Replete with the unexpected, delightful in its psychological connections, and atmospheric in its descriptions of a world these young adults must navigate with new insights, The Everling and the Acid King is an adventure that is hard to put down.
The Everling and the Acid KingReturn to Index
Republic of
Forge and Grace
Daniel Rirdan
Corino Press
979-8-9926090-1-1
$24.95
Hardcover/$15.95 Paperback/$8.95 eBook/$17.95 audio
Website: www.danielrirdan.com
Ordering: https://www.amazon.com/Republic-Forge-Grace-Parallel-Universe-America-ebook/dp/B0FFK2LMSX
Republic of Forge and Grace is a parallel universe America novel that pairs alternative history with high adventure. 24-year-old Chris Walden just wants to have fun as he ponders his next big life move after being stationed in Iraq, when he stumbles into the alternate world of Americana.
When he encounters the richness of a nuclear family that lives in an America rooted in sustainability, craftsmanship, and civic trust, Chris finds himself looking at his own version of America with not only a much more critical eye, but revised ideals of what life should be and his place in the world.
As Chris absorbs the wonders of this strange new world (such as a water treatment facility that looks like a tropical paradise) and the allure of Sandra and others who form an odd and compelling kind of chosen family, he begins to understand not only the new opportunities in this alternate version of America, but some underlying threats.
Daniel Rirdan creates a thoroughly compelling, completely absorbing portrait of possibility and realization which operates nicely on both entertainment and philosophical levels.
The characters are multifaceted and well-developed, Chris’s persona is realistic as he confronts and absorbs the world around him, and the cooperative institutions which support this different vision are intricately detailed and thought-provoking:
In Americana, traditional banks were a thing of the past. Chris learned that people relied on peer-to-peer lending. Another common approach involved mutual societies. These societies, akin to a hybrid of insurance companies and community banks, provided loans and support to their members, with nearly every household belonging to one.
Libraries ordering this from Ingram who seek alternate histories that pair fast-paced action with social and political intrigue bonded by a sense of purpose, connection, and intrigue will welcome Republic of Forge and Grace into their collections. It’s an opportunity to introduce new ideas to readers who may be unused to the alternative history genre.
Reading clubs, too, will find Republic of Forge and Grace an enchanting way of entering into another world in which Chris finds his values tested in extraordinary ways. This will promote and enhance many a book club discussion.
Republic of Forge and GraceReturn to Index
Son of the
Borderlands
Joseph Sterk
Starwolf Press LLC
978-1-967432-01-1
$24.99
Hardcover/$16.99
Paperback/$8.99 eBook/$24.99 Audio
www.starwolfpress.com
It’s not often that epic fantasy intersects with intrigue and a form of suspense more often regulated to the thriller genre, but Son of the Borderlands achieves all this and more. It outlines a milieu in which Agni Kazirian, a character born long ago of Joseph Sterk’s involvement in a message board of fanfiction roleplaying, expands his boundaries to embrace the world beyond the simmering anger which propels him to reflect his pain into the world around him.
As Agni’s character took on depth and morphed into something more complex, so Sterk found himself world-building. His effort thankfully led to creating Son of the Borderlands and a universe in which a young abused child becomes a warrior who combats his dark side —and the influence of an ancestor’s spirit—as much as the world around him.
Sterk builds upon Agni’s influences to craft a compelling character whose early survival tactics result in a flawed personality even as it presents a façade of genius and ability to the world.
Sterk’s clear descriptions of these choices make for a fantasy rich in temperament, choice, and possibility
For example, could he sacrifice his honor to drug the truth out of a noblewoman?
Agni’s world continually shifts, both with the Ancient’s presence and forces that influence and guide him in different directions:
“You needed no god of fate to bring this upon yourself, young one.”
Dragons, sacred oaths broken, despair and surrender, and struggle come to life not only through Agni’s eyes, but equally powerful individuals around him who find their own perspectives and powers challenged.
Libraries seeking a sweeping epic that paints the world in rich emotional layers of discovery and choice will welcome the opportunity to add Son of the Borderlands to their collections.
On par with the inviting world of Patrick Rothfus and other epic fantasy creators, Son of the Borderlands cements action with moral, ethical, and psychological conundrums to keep the story fast-paced, the protagonist’s evolution believable and wondrous, and the results unpredictable and thoroughly immersive.
Son of the BorderlandsReturn to Index
Dreams of the
Return
Alan Bern
Old Scratch Press
978-1957224909
$24.99
Paperback/$4.99 eBook
https://oldscratchpress.com
Dreams of the Return is a chapbook of poems that marries black and white and color photos with free verse explorations reflecting Italian culture, atmosphere, and experience.
Readers who choose this poetic journey for its ‘you are here’ touch are in for a treat, because Alan Bern captures nuances of disparate facets of Italian life with a flair for both drama and revelation:
among the rocks, Caves,
on these stones, her feet bare
in the Sassi she has walked and walked
yes, the
tufa is soft, but her
feet
callused so that she gains height
walking and the cracks never mend
everything
here is parched
even the cries are parched
His writings are diverse, blending Italian and English language as they pepper philosophical and geographic atmosphere with dialogues that reinforce changing places and perspectives. One example of this special lingo lies in ‘Make Hay While the Sun Shines’:
Grannie’s
sittin’
in the dyin’ sun,
spinnin’, talkin’ to the ladies,
rememb’ring the days that used to be
when they all dressed up
to dance the night away –
they were fresh and quick back then,
and so were the young pups who chased ‘em.
Dusk again: the land’s as brown as a bear;
and the sky’s fulla light, blue air:
the shadows fall from the hills and roof-tops
in the light of the white, new moon comin’ up.
I hear church bells ringin’
the holiday in.
You might call it a heart-comfortin’ sound.
From personal experience to social revelation, Bern’s writings come steeped with Old Country flavor as well as new experiences, flowing back and forth between them.
As poetry morphs into prose (beginning with ‘That Nap: On Vacation in Italia, 1969’), readers will find the celebration of shifting forms, description, and experience impart a full-bodied feel that celebrates Italian heritage in disparate ways.
This is why libraries seeking contemporary literary works that excel in descriptive and psychological connections— especially those that capture Italian culture and sentiments—will find Dreams of the Return a perfect acquisition. It’s highly recommendable to patrons who hold special roots in or affection for Italy and holds the capacity to reach out, with warm arms of history and modern experience, to embrace all subjects Italian—as well as a few topics which grow in different directions from their original wellsprings of inspiration.
Dreams of the ReturnReturn to Index
Resonant Blue and
Other Stories
Mary Vensel White
Type Eighteen Books
9798992040579
$18.99
Paperback/$9.99 eBook
www.typeeighteenbooks.com
Resonant Blue and Other Stories gathers stories about survival, endurance, escape, and reinvention, examining twelve characters whose lives reflect efforts to strive for something better (and, hopefully, different).
The collection opens with “Griffin,” which explores Nora’s uncertainties about her adult daughter’s return home and her husband’s certainty that the privileged life he’s provided comes at the cost of his own freedom.
The “maelstrom at home” unfolds in quiet bursts of attempts to control, evade, or tread carefully through emotional bombshells, like walking on eggs.
“Dear Rebecca,” in contrast, is a letter to a long-standing relationship that survives time and change, with its author reflecting:
Remember when my first poem was to be published, and we spent a week’s salary on a dinner out, that extravagant wine? I sometimes wonder if losing your encouragement was the reason I stopped, or whether I was ever meant for it. Everything in my life is divided into two sections: before and after you.
The emotional considerations aren’t all storms. Sometimes they are delivered in a wisp of windy portents of change or realizations. Other times, the stories are hard-hitting examinations of the undercurrents of change that surface in unexpected ways.
Libraries seeking short story collections filled with psychological connection, insights, solid characterization, and haunting inspections of quiet, desperate transformations will welcome the disparate lives represented in this collection.
Resonant Blue and Other Stories holds moments of discovery that also will appeal to book clubs and women’s reading groups, revealing emotional ties that bind and growth processes that propel the characters towards new beginnings.
Resonant Blue and Other StoriesReturn to Index
Saying Goodbye
to Thomas
Lenora Rain-Lee
Good
Finishing Line
Press
979-8899900365
$27.99
Hardcover/$17.99 Paperback
www.finishinglinepress.com
Saying Goodbye to Thomas is a poetry collection written during Thomas Hubbard’s last year and immediately after his death, which celebrates his life. It captures, in evocative free verse, the nuances of his poetic life and world and comes from a relationship that the participants decided was that of “Elder Brother of Choice (EBOC) and Younger Sister of Choice (YSOC).”
The collection opens with “Dance of the Pink Moon,” in which: Grandmother Moon, your fullness/so bright, you burned a hole/through Grandfather Sky last night./Or, it looks that way in my photos.
The joy that this April pink moon brings to them both portends a time when it will “dance him to the stars,” a proposition Good hopes will not come soon.
Each poem connects individual lives to the wider world, whether surveying Thomas’s world or Good’s own. Each offers vivid reflections on life and death which may prove challenging to sensitive readers, but ultimately heals with pathways between life and death that will help readers navigate their own grief and loss:
I watch him die in increments and wonder if I/would have such bearing?/I watch and learn/so, when my time comes, I will do him proud.
The result is a collection that operates on different levels, allowing libraries to recommend it to readers of Native American literature, poetry enthusiasts, and individuals seeking literary explorations of life, death, grief, and recovery.
Its connections to life are just as powerful as its descriptions of Thomas’s end time, making Saying Goodbye to Thomas a powerful study in contrasts and love.
Saying Goodbye to ThomasReturn to Index
Whaling Town:
Poems
David Parker Allen
Graphonica
979-8-9993789-0-3
$14.95
Paperback/$7.99 eBook
Website: www.davidparkerallen.com
Ordering: https://a.co/d/1Dy4ND7
Whaling Town: Poems weaves history and American experience as it explores, via prose poems, the culture and patterns of such diverse locales as the Mississippi Delta, a whaling town that could be Melville, New Bedford, and musical tones of past and present, from the roaring 20s to modern times.
Readers anticipating a treatise on whaling history or New England experience alone will find that much more evolves from these writings. David Parker Allen grapples with subjects ranging from the shame of Selma and ironies of the human condition to what differentiates us from animals:
Beasts have edges. Beasts have gait./Beasts are made for stalking with fangs not made for hate.
The powerful poems draw connections between places, people, and situations which prove delightfully unexpected, as in the poem “Daughter”:
I need to go for a walk, and paint a self-portrait,/of a rain-soaked fisherman with wrinkled eyes/in a navy-blue oilskin hat,/ walking in the door,/dripping in droplets,/about to say,/Daughter, I miss you
As the poems probe daily life scenarios and concerns, they draw together seemingly disparate subjects under the umbrella of an appreciation for life, affection for others, and inspections of history and personal perspective.
The result is a potent blend of human condition, nature, and history that outlines not one, but a myriad of stories that take readers on journeys of personal connection.
Libraries seeking a bend of free verse, rhyme, prose poem, and modern social inspection will find Whaling Town: Poems’s diversity of subject and thought processes makes for an appealing review of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and connection.
Its writings are thought-provoking and evocative, inspired by music and featuring interludes of passion and reflection that carry readers into other lives.
Whaling Town: PoemsReturn to Index
The Witch’s
Apprentice and Other
Stories
Ekta R. Garg
Atmosphere Press
979-8891327405
$12.95
Paperback/$6.95 eBook
www.atmospherepress.com
The Witch’s Apprentice and Other Stories presents short stories that take well-known classic fairy tales and turn them on end for a different perspective on how their characters and conundrums evolved in the first place.
Take ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ for example. Readers well know how Dorothy’s house fell upon the witch as Dorothy opened her front door to step into another world. But, consider Ekta R. Garg’s underlying story of what that witch was doing standing in the road in the first place, when disaster struck:
It’s my fault the house fell on the witch in the first place.
She was there, in the middle of the road, because we were arguing. And we were arguing because I was asking—no, that’s not right. I was demanding to be freed from the Spell of Inhibition so I could complete my apprenticeship.
Or, take ‘The Pied Piper of Hamlin.’ What did the parents do after their children were spirited away, leaving an unfathomable loss behind (“The adults live in a town bereft of hope.”)?
Each well-known classic enjoys a satisfying twist that encourages readers to think about choices, consequences, and long-term impacts.
Each offers a vivid recap of the original tale’s perspective through fresh eyes, adding philosophical and social reflections designed to spark interest and, especially, reader group discussions.
Librarians attracted to fable retellings will find added value in how Garg approaches these questions in different ways, creating a collection unified by its classical connections as well as its diverse approaches to literary reinterpretation.
Readers looking for adult twists on well-known tales that involves re-imagining possibilities and impacts will find The Witch’s Apprentice and Other Stories exceptional. It’s perfect thought-provoking reading that is entertaining and enlightening, all in one.
The Witch’s Apprentice and Other StoriesReturn to Index
A Journey into
Manhood from the Path
of an Idiot
Carandus Brown
Wasteland Press
978-1-68111-608-2
$18.99
Paperback/$9.99 eBook
www.wastelandpress.net
A Journey into Manhood from the Path of an Idiot is an African American memoir that chronicles some angry, astute, and hard-hitting realities that Carandus Brown confronts. It’s not an easy read, not a story light in inquiry, and not a reflection to be taken outside of the foundations of Carandus Brown’s life, but surveys the kinds of choices this man faces that prove pivot points in his life.
As such, the journey is compelling, frightening, thought-provoking, and enlightening, all in one.
Brown writes with a literary, reflective hand capable of drawing in readers from his story’s opening lines:
The journey to discovering the true essence of manhood didn’t come to me in a moment of wisdom or quiet reflection. It began on a day that came crashing down like a violent storm, tearing through everything I thought I knew. Since that day, my life has spiraled on an uncontrollable rollercoaster of anger, sadness, and failure, but nothing—nothing—prepared me for that day, June 29, 1996.
Fate, spirituality, choices and their heavy consequences, and discoveries permeate a life that takes the time to stop and reflect on the impact of underlying assumptions and influences:
Through every mistake I’ve made in love, I’ve come to understand a painful truth—having someone beside you doesn’t magically make you whole. It doesn’t erase the wounds from the past or transform you into the man you’re meant to be. For years, I chased love like it was a lifeline, believing that if someone could just love me enough, it would drown out the emptiness I carried. But love doesn’t work like that.
As interwoven experiences emerge like puzzle pieces to connect this singular life, readers begin to appreciate the bigger picture of the attitudes and actions that made Brown who he is today.
A Journey into Manhood from the Path of an Idiot is the kind of memoir that should be especially important for young black men on their own journeys to self-realization and growth.
It’s a book librarians will want to add to their collections as a heady example and influential note of growth possibilities in pain and resilience. Ideally, it won’t be digested in a singular fashion, but will be recommended for book club and reading group discussions.
Pointed and powerful, A Journey into Manhood from the Path of an Idiot is a top recommendation for reading groups, libraries, and individuals looking for strong examples of African American lives, writing, and transformative potential.
A Journey into Manhood from the Path of an IdiotReturn to Index
Welcome to
Fabulous Angeles
Richard A.
Lefkowitz
Gilded Coast Press
978-1966403098
$18.95
www.gildedcoastpress.com
Welcome to Fabulous Angeles: The Rock 'n' Roll Adventures of a Wayward Westside Teen is a memoir of Los Angeles during the 1970s that embraces music, celebrities, and mayhem. It does more than tell a story—Richard A. Lefkowitz embraces the times with a voice that will draw future generations into a “you are here” experience of a bygone era:
Moxie heard a noise and peered through the peephole. “Check out this fox.” I slid over to view a ravishing beauty with blond hair flowing over her shoulders. Moxie pulled on the knob. Like a figure popping out of a jack-in-the-box, a preppy dude who’d accompanied the woman sprang to life. I thought, my God, David Bowie. My gaze settled on the sexy girl, but I’d misidentified the man with the rolled-up sleeves. Her escort? Michael Philip Jagger.
Los Angeles culture and personal experience entwine in a story that is vivid and personal. Lefkowitz traverses the city’s counterculture and the process of coming of age with equal vividness, drawing readers into explosive realizations and interactions whether he’s dealing with friends, family, or the greater culture and world of Southern California:
I slammed my door and heard her replay her greatest hits: “Like talking to the wall. In one ear, out the other.” She poured these invectives into the foundation of our home and primed them with a toxic coat. The truth ventured into sunlight only on special occasions, like a trip to an isolated condo we’d visited on vacation. In Momland, I possessed no independent reality. I was a sort of thing in her dream. If she woke up, I’d go out—bang—like a candle.
From loves and loss to careening up the canyons of the city in “erratic directions,” Welcome to Fabulous Angeles imparts a rare feeling of free styling through the forces of new adulthood with shifting purposes and perspectives.
Lefkowitz captures this milieu, juxtaposing it with his personal life challenges of “riding conversational waves,” “toasting the moment,” and building new relationships and pathways that forge into adulthood with as much subtlety as a hammer.
Readers familiar with Los Angeles will find his descriptions particularly insightful:
Cars whooshed up and down Reseda Boulevard and made me wonder: how the hell did I end up in the vile San Fernando Valley?
Libraries interested in memoirs of California’s 1970s era which are steeped in music, culture, and coming-of-age experiences will relish how vividly Welcome to Fabulous Angeles captures and contrasts both a sense of the times and a new adult’s growth processes.
From stormy relationships that evolve into better choices and lessons about life to music-and-girl infused experiences that portend new beginnings, Welcome to Fabulous Angeles is a memoir filled with excitement and personal experience. It will simply delight readers seeking to understand 1970s Los Angeles’s many influences.
Welcome to Fabulous AngelesReturn to Index
Alaska Bloodlust
J.L. Askew
Atmosphere Press
979-8891327702
$22.95
Paperback/$9.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Alaska-Bloodlust-J-L-Askew/dp/B0FKKRLDFL?s=books
In 2023, J.L. Askew’s Alaska Deadly appeared, introducing P.I. Race Warren to readers by steeping staccato action with the story of Race’s efforts to locate a police officer who is in Alaska searching for his daughter, leading to Race’s involvement in a deadly scheme.
Warren is back in Alaska Bloodlust, a follow-up tale that evolves from the first book’s events. Several murder attempts force Warren to return to Alaska, where unsolved business awaits.
Newcomers will find a prologue fills in all gaps and background, allowing for a smooth transition into Warren’s latest challenges while building excellent tension with new events that will prove as compelling to prior fans as in the previous book:
If anyone had known about what happened in Alaska, they might have called it an adventure, but Warren would have never thought that way. He was largely a realist, if not a pessimist. For him, it had all been an excess and he wanted to forget. But it was certain that Alaska had changed him.
The ongoing connections between Tennessee and Alaska build a thriller that features action as fast-paced as in the first book. Car chases, fights, hospital confrontations, and even Russian involvements make for a series of unexpected, delightfully involving events.
Another plus to Alaska Bloodlust is its inclusion of Alaskan Native culture and clues that point Warren in directions of discovery that embrace Alaska’s people and culture. Readers who have seen novels set in Alaska that mention only its geography will relish Askew’s inclusive focus, which adds different dimensions of understanding and discovery to the thriller’s evolution.
Dialogue is nicely done, “aha” moments of revelation are embedded throughout to keep readers on their toes, and even though the conclusion may be somewhat predictable (for seasoned genre readers) as events point in an inevitable direction, the proof of a good story lies as much in its detailed journey as in its final destination.
Libraries seeking thrillers that excel in a sense of place and action will find Alaska Bloodlust a good choice whether or not patrons are familiar with Askew’s prior book, while those who enjoy riveting, action-packed scenes will relish this story’s nicely-developed tension.
Steeped in a sense of place, shifting circumstances, and intriguing Inuit references, Alaska Bloodlust is just the ticket for thoroughly engrossing thriller reading.
Alaska BloodlustReturn to Index
The Alzheimer’s
Cure
Peter Van Oossanen
Atmosphere Press
979-8891327818
$21.99
(paperback), $9.99 (ebook),
$42.99 (hardcover)
www.atmospherepress.com
Readers anticipating a medical story from the book’s title may be surprised to learn that The Alzheimer’s Cure is actually a thriller. It involves protagonist Lucy Lassiter in a world-changing chase to recover stolen research on an Alzheimer’s cure developed by her parents’ company.
Russian special interests and personal ambition collide in a vivid chase through nations and medical rights issues that thriller audiences will relish.
Peter Van Oossanen’s story is loosely based on real facts, but holds no predictable approaches to the cure or its embattled status. The plot builds strong interpersonal relationships as well as fast-paced action, evolving interactions between Oliver, Sasha, Lucy, and a host of supporting characters whose interests dovetail over the cure and its future.
The interpersonal conflicts that evolve between characters during the course of the adventure lend discovery and psychological depth to its plot:
“I need to see everything that has happened differently,” Lucy protested. “I’m aware that you see your decision to not consider my needs on that fateful day when I left you as wrong. But I should have been strong and fought for us. I didn’t, and I allowed myself to fall in with the wrong people again and become addicted to alcohol. I feel very guilty about that, and each time I hear you say everything is your fault, that feeling of guilt consumes me.”
Also notable are the connections to real-world ethical and social dilemmas which test each personality in a different manner, giving rise to thought-provoking moments as the action unfolds.
Libraries seeking thrillers that operate on international shores, reveal heady confrontations and unexpected impacts of decisions, survey the impact of a medical breakthrough on relationships and society as a whole, and contain kidnappings, espionage, and romance will find The Alzheimer’s Cure an excellent recommendation for patrons interested in romantic suspense stories.
Filled with delightfully unexpected twists, The Alzheimer’s Cure is a drama that is vigorous, invigorating, and hard to put down.
The Alzheimer’s CureReturn to Index
Another Body in
Brooklyn
David Goldstein
Crime in Progress
Press
979-8-9994112-0-4
$18.95 Paperback /$8.99 eBook
Amazon.com
Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn is under siege in Another Body in Brooklyn. The story opens in 2014, with a NYPD police sergeant’s drive-around after his first New Year’s off in nine years. Josh Rothchild has finally come to realize that the fling he had with Melanie will go nowhere, and he is standing at a crossroads over the rest of his life when, once again, everything changes.
On the cusp of considering leaving the force for a lucrative supervisor job at a private security company, the first homicide of the New Year draws Sarge into a case that seems almost impossible to solve, as the victim is an ex-con that no one cares much about.
David Goldstein pulls together the disparate lives and purposes not just of Sarge, but the NYPD police force as a whole and the Brooklyn milieu they operate in, with all of its delicate ethnic and social fluctuations.
Perspectives shift between Rothschild, Officer Courtney Jones, and some of the other cops in his squad, creating interplays between intrigue and precinct politics that move from first person to third person, solidifying these changing points of view and experience. Chapter headings also assure that readers don’t become lost between the characters and their different observations of the same world.
As the thirty-one-year-old sergeant navigates the routines of daily policing and slowly narrows perps and possibilities, readers will walk the streets of Brooklyn alongside him as he also navigates his personal life’s romantic and professional possibilities, developing a sense of who he is and where he’ll go in the future.
Libraries seeking a whodunit that focuses as much on the disparate interests within the NYPD police force as in the case of another dead body in Brooklyn will find the added value of these interactions and differences create an intriguing story attractive to readers of police procedurals and crime fiction.
The characterization is well done, the intrigue difficult to predict, and the ethnic interplays between Jewish, black, and other groups are intriguing and realistic.
Libraries and readers seeking stories of police investigations that operate beyond the focus of perps and procedurals will welcome Another Body in Brooklyn’s astute, compelling, realistic examination of urban policing, racism, bullying, and bravery which follows one policeman’s evolution.
Another Body in BrooklynReturn to Index
Danger No Problem
Cindy Fazzi
Thomas &
Mercer
978-1662528521
$16.99
Paperback/$3.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Danger-No-Problem-Domingo-Bounty/dp/1662528523
Danger No Problem introduces bounty hunter Domingo Laban (aka Sunday Fight), whose area of expertise is tracking fugitives. Only one person has ever evaded capture and that is Monica Reed, who is on the lam for the second time after already evading him once. Third time’s the charm, because Domingo finds himself confronting more than Monica’s proclivity for escape as he begins to know her on a deeper level than ever before.
More so than most thrillers, this story hones atmosphere and language which is especially thought-provoking and vivid as Domingo reflects on his changing approaches and values:
Two decades of hunting down undocumented immigrants had taught him how to deduce the truth even from the scantest of facts. His previous experience snooping on Christian Price, his mistress, and his family also helped. Cutter might be right. Mr. GQ appeared to have a good reason for making Monica Reed disappear. Every fiber of his being was alert. Every subject or suspect was a jigsaw puzzle to be assembled and completed. He lived for the moments when serendipity and logic crossed paths. Every case exhilarated him more than the last.
Readers first consider his motivations and qualifications for the job, then are presented with bigger-picture thinking about ethical behavior and immigrant experience. This will prompt many a book club debate and consideration about not just bounty hunting, but modern-day issues such as birthright citizenship.
At each juncture in the action, Cindy Fazzi draws important connections to support not just a sense of adventure and discovery, but thought-provoking, realistic concerns on all sides as Domingo fulfills his duty yet finds himself questioning assumptions and attitudes.
Italics centralize these modern issues, as in “Dreams and DACA,” reviewing their connections not just to this story but to American experiences in contemporary times:
My beloved readers, a good Filipino woman died in the subway a few days ago, just a few hours after joining a protest supporting DACA. I’m not saying her death is related to the rally. The case remains unsolved. What I’m saying is, I admire her courage. Hats off to my fellow immigrants who fight to be heard in this day and age of deafening intolerance and hatred.
The result is a cross between fictional narrative and nonfiction examination of the values, morals, and purposes of immigration laws and immigrant experience.
Libraries seeking a thriller that operates on unexpected levels will find that Danger No Problem’s unusual approach makes it recommendable to both leisure reading audiences and book clubs interested in immigration issues.
Written by a former Associated Press journalist, this fast-paced, "ripped from the headlines" story, featuring the unlikeliest of heroes, is a thought-provoking page-turner about our nation's broken immigration system.
Danger No ProblemReturn to Index
Fire Diamond
C.B. Wilson
DogTales Furever
978-1-964056-07-4
$13.99
Print/$4.99 eBook
www.cbwilsonauthor.com
Fire Diamond is a mystery that marries C.B. Wilson’s expertise as a graduate of the Gemological Institute of America with her penchant for producing murder mysteries, and represents a departure from her previous dog breed/gem combinations to venture into uncharted waters of heists and their participants.
Taylor Hunter opens the story with first-person reflections on her gem thief father, her own involvement in the world of jewels (albeit legally, as a diamond detective charged with hunting down perps like her dad), and her latest case, which involves an unmatched gem recovery track record and a case which hits too close to home.
As in Wilson’s other books, dogs are on prominent display as the story unfolds, yet they assume a minor role as Taylor confronts break-ins that aren’t about turning quick bucks, gambling rings, diamond mines, and an ongoing mess with her father which never seems resolvable even with all of her skills.
The mystery ebbs and flows with discovery, revelation, and the unexpected, probing the world of diamond discovery, mining, and diamond detection technology while sending Taylor’s relationships and world careening in unexpected directions.
Readers receive more than a whodunit, but a full-bodied examination of diamond technology and valuation that adds powerful dimensions of complexity and realization to the underlying mystery that grows more puzzling in each chapter.
Libraries seeking a story that probes deeply into the world of gems and jewels will relish how authentically and grippingly Fire Diamond explores the structure of gems, lives captivated by them, and decisions that revolve around elaborate schemes that eventually implode with unintended consequences for all.
Mystery readers seeking a story that is involving and unexpected on many levels will welcome how Fire Diamond sparkles.
Fire DiamondReturn to Index
Happy Sun Farm:
Behind the Facade
Deven Greene
Panthera Publishing
978-1964620091
$5.95 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Happy-Sun-Farm-Behind-Facade-ebook/dp/B0FGKQ2HSL
Happy Sun Farm: Behind the Façade follows a daughter’s return to the family farm in the wake of her father’s death. Barry is prepared to assume the reins of running the family business. Her newfound degree in agricultural business makes her the perfect match to inherit the burden, but what she doesn’t anticipate adding to the plan is a peck of problems caused by not farming modernization, but the invasion of Happy Sun Farm, a foreign-owned agribusiness that’s taking over all the local small family farms.
Was her father murdered for resisting them? Barry hadn’t planned on being drawn into a murder investigation, nor fighting to save not just the family farm, but her family’s lives. But she is, and the foundations of Happy Sun Farm become rooted in a conflict that has little to do with growing and much to do with profiting.
From the start, Deven Greene injects the story with dramatic scenarios of realization and a daughter’s love of the farming that she’d hoped to make part of her future. The first person is employed to bring Barry’s musings and experiences to life, observations of differences between small-scale farming and big agribusiness is specific and enlightening, and the story both entertains and educates as the bodies pile up alongside farming insights:
I went to the strawberry fields, hoping to scavenge more of the unpicked fruit as I lay between rows of strawberry plants. To my horror, every last one of the plants had been removed. Yet more evidence of their ridiculous, nonsensical farming practices. These strawberries were not only delicious, they were certified organic and non-GMO. They would have been good for a whole other season and would bring in top dollar.
The blend of farming insights, thriller, and murder mystery builds intrigue and political confrontation to create a satisfyingly absorbing story that’s hard to put down.
The story also delves into disease, international special influences, and topics that expand both Barry’s perspectives and those of her readers.
Libraries seeking a farming thriller which couples the practices and special interests of family farming and big business with a thriller edge that personalizes these confrontations will find Happy Sun Farm: Behind the Façade a powerful recommendation suitable for any reader attracted to stories rooted in real-life circumstances.
Happy Sun Farm: Behind the FacadeReturn to Index
LD100: Kill Them
All
John
E. Espy
Open
Books
978-1948598873 $21.95
https://www.open-bks.com/library/moderns/ld100/about-book.html
LD100: Kill Them All follows the impact of a lethal virus that erupts in Africa, prompting virologist Dr. Isabella Kitchen to risk her own life in journeying there to study its roots. What she finds is much more than another virus outbreak, for the bodies that are mounting are not all from an outbreak of virus 666.
The last thing she expects is to confront the horror of a conspiracy and political entanglements that emerge from the spread of the virus, or to face forces that may be purposely pushing a worldwide Armageddon.
Isabella teams up with Dr. Aniru Conteh to delve into answers, but what they find leads to more questions about the murky intersection between human purposes and nature’s snafus. They can perhaps corner and defeat the former, but if this new virus is truly something outside the scope of the lab, humanity may be doomed.
Other books have been written about virus outbreaks in this Robin Cook-style fashion, but what makes LD100: Kill Them All a standout is its attention to both individual struggle and higher-level political interactions and thinking. John E. Espy elevates the drama through different players and perspectives, embedding his story with fast-paced action and unexpected confrontations:
“Jesus Christ, what have you people done, what have you done! I thought the 666 was frozen and all testing had ceased, what have you fucking people done! My God, if it is loose, My God... what have you done.” Tears began to run down Dr. Foege’s cheeks. He knew the implications. If the 666 was loose, as the President was saying, and on a runaway, there would be millions of deaths. This was the doomsday virus.
Equally powerful is the carefully cultivated approach to issues ranging from manufactured viruses and governmental research control to bigger-picture thinking about moral and ethical conflict and responsibility on both individual and political levels.
Libraries seeking powerful stories of confrontation, survival, viruses, and survivors will find LD100: Kill Them All an especially thought-provoking recommendation for a wide audience. This will include book clubs seeking thriller plots that rest on the firm foundations of dramatic topics suitable for debate and discussion.
Replete with twists readers won’t see coming and satisfying social, cultural, and ethical inspections, LD100: Kill Them All is a supercharged, suspenseful story that delivers the one-two punch of feeling too close to home to be fiction.
LD100: Kill Them AllReturn to Index
Pivot Point
Tess Manchester
Shotover Press
978-1966920021
$12.99
Paperback/$.99 eBook
www.TessManchester.com
Pivot Point blends the genres of time travel novel and true crime story, creating a suspense piece somewhat indefinable in its genre but open to attracting interest not just from a singular direction, but a wide audience.
Against the backdrop of a storm, a fugitive engages a U.S. Marshall in a challenging manner that tests not only her aptitude for tracking down perps, but her moral and ethical character and ability to adapt to novel circumstances well beyond her experience.
A devastating flood impacting a town would be enough to handle, but Blake Everhart also faces a criminal world that lies deep under the surface of community propriety as well as a new romantic interest with local physician Naomi Preston.
Small town personalities, fun and games, and quirky encounters intersect with powerful forces as Blake pursues truths and possibilities well outside of her comfort zone.
Past and present-day catastrophes propel her in different directions, but Tess Manchester doesn’t overlook the minutiae of experience in favor of big scenarios, allowing readers entry into Blake’s surveillance and world with a fine attention to detail and immediacy:
Blake sends a message from her phone for the task force to move in. She draws her service weapon and remains kneeling behind the bench. Sixty seconds. One extra minute.
Canton could slip through her fingers with each second she waits behind the bench. Time creeps by at a snail’s pace...
Events unfold, splinter into different directions, and, as is so often true of life, evolve into something entirely different. These avenues make Pivot Point an exceptional study in possibility and growth as well as tension and intrigue.
Libraries seeking forays into the past which lead into present-day dilemmas and choices will find Pivot Point just the ticket to recommend to suspense and thriller readers seeking an injection of LGBTQ+ inspections and developments.
Filled with fast-paced actions involving helicopters, snipers, forays into bygone worlds, and realizations about the criminal intentions underlying them, Pivot Point will attract those seeking superior stories of survival, transformation, and resiliency.
Pivot PointReturn to Index
Savage Malice
Kit Karson
Granite Mountain
Press
979-8990056176
$26.99
Hardcover/$16.99
Paperback/$4.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Savage-Malice-Sheriff-Anderson-Chronicles/dp/B0FJRV181Q
Savage Malice is the fifth book in the Anderson Chronicles—but this doesn’t mean that newcomers to Kit Karson’s crime thriller genre will be lost. The story opens on the vast Anderson Ranch in Anderson, Montana where rancher Seth Geary comes upon not only slaughtered cows, but the body of his ranch hand.
Stone County Sheriff Peter Elliott begins his day with a typical morning that turns into anything but ordinary. Events force him to tackle a deadly conspiracy that envelopes his town, shadowing his investigation with UFO cults and murder.
From its opening lines, Karson crafts a tale that steadily builds intrigue and horror into what initially feels like ordinary mountain town life.
From dive bars like Rustler’s Roost to local characters and small-town clashes, the ordinary milieu of Anderson runs headlong into the extraordinary circumstances of homegrown thugs and new gangs, death and taxes, and rural personalities which are quirky and stubborn.
Descriptions of this milieu capture the atmosphere in a succinct, hard-hitting way:
As Angus drove over rutted dirt roads watching for Luke’s house, he could feel eyes on him. Makeshift curtains pulled to the side. An occasional resident glared from front porch steps. Angus could hear their voices in his head. We know nothing. We saw nothing. Nailed to a post pounded into the dirt in front of a decaying wooden shack, the sign didn’t boost confidence. It declared ‘Taxes Dun Cheep!’ in dripping black paint.
The initial issue seems to be a cattle mutilator turned murderer of humans, but in fact, circumstances delve into deeper murky waters as issues of justice run headlong into those involving “the underworld of the underworld” and long-hidden purposes.
Karson’s action-packed adventure will appeal to a wide audience, from those who like mysteries couched in small-town personalities and politics to thriller readers who prefer that the action expand into wider realms and unpredictable avenues of special interest.
The manner in which this story embraces a myriad of interests and concerns while revealing the interconnected lives of victims, perps, and conspirators alike makes for a fast-paced read delightful in its unexpected twists and turns.
Librarians seeking a mystery which embraces a Western atmosphere but goes the extra mile to include portraits of disparate people and various levels of struggle will find Savage Malice a winning recommendation.
Not only does it paint an uncommon portrait of ranchers and townspeople under siege from unusual sources, but it blends UFO concerns into the bigger picture for a delightful romp through possibility, reality, and truths about twisted angels, drugs, and money. Where’s the beef? It’s right there in Anderson, cooking with possibility and excitement.
Savage MaliceReturn to Index
The Snake
Handler's Wife
Sue Hinkin
Literary Wanderlust
978-1-956615-54-8
$18.99
Paperback/$6.99 eBook
Website: www.literarywanderlust.com
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Snake-Handlers-Wife-Middleton-Novel/dp/195661554
The Snake Handler's Wife is the 6th and final book in the Vega & Middleton suspense series, but newcomers will find the story just as accessible as will Sue Hinkin’s prior fans.
The story opens, perhaps predictably, with snakes. A mysterious man holds a “sacred ambition” that leads him to release snakes in a horse stall before vanishing into the dawn.
Photojournalist Lucy Vega, meanwhile, is at home fielding a difficult Zoom call with network war correspondent partner and love Michael Burleson, during which she learns he is not returning home to his family but has been assigned to Iraq, about as far from their California home as one could get. It’s the chance of a lifetime for him, requiring her move to the Middle East.
From this, readers will anticipate that the action takes place overseas, but in reality struggle literally drops on Lucy’s doorstep and into her home when Michael’s unstable daughter shows up to become one of the family, introducing deadly dangers Lucy doesn’t see coming.
Snake handlers, cults, detective investigations into a dangerous operations, and more bury Lucy and her family in a series of incidents that edge ever closer to a startling reality about family and belief. This threatens everything she and Michael have built.
Intrigue turns up in droves as Lucy struggles to educate young Jamie about misguided loyalties and adult scenarios of struggle and threat:
“Cult? No, it’s just a conservative religious community.”
“Led by a charming sociopath with little conscience, who demands total loyalty, hates questions because he’s always right, gaslights like hell, and isolates you. Any of this sound familiar?”
Readers will especially appreciate the realistic portraits of characters who think they well know about the world, only to find its undercurrents introduce new challenges that test not just their problem-solving skills and survival abilities, but perceptions of life.
Libraries seeking vivid suspense stories that simmer with the impact of an attractive cult following will find The Snake Handler's Wife nicely detailed, replete with tension and a blend of believable characters whose lives dovetail in unexpected ways.
Suspense readers seeking an immersive story that portrays chaos, monsters, just desserts, and unexpected twists will find The Snake Handler's Wife holds everything needed for a powerfully alluring delivery with a satisfyingly unexpected conclusion.
The Snake Handler's WifeReturn to Index
Sunday or the
Highway
Cindy Fazzi
Thomas &
Mercer
978-1662528545
$16.99
Paperback/$3.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Sunday-Highway-Domingo-Bounty-Hunter/dp/166252854X
Sunday or the Highway presents the second installment in the Domingo the Bounty Hunter series, providing thriller and PI suspense readers with a new case involving a young heiress in love. Matters at first seem fairly straightforward to Domingo, especially compared with the complexities of his past investigations. But a series of twists and turns demonstrates that the quest for undocumented parents may not turn out to be easy money, like he’d thought.
Tessa has hired him to find Julian’s missing family, but what Domingo uncovers instead is a series of white lies, a group of scumbags, confrontations with ICE, and encounters such as a wild chase through a fruit market.
Cindy Fazzi adds subtle, wry humor to these encounters to keep the pace fast and the action surprising:
Because Hawaiian Shirt kept glancing back at Domingo, he stumbled into a line of fruit vendors. The bastard fell face first, knocking down the vendors’ makeshift tables. Bananas, pineapples, oranges, and papayas rolled on the ground. Curses in Spanish exploded.
From dangerous border crossings by teens to the present-day prospect of journeys which are even deadlier, Fazzi keeps the characters’ realization and appealing, the action fast-paced, and the encounters unpredictable, adding elements of social and political inspection into the evolving intrigue.
Libraries interested in fiction from AAPI authors should consider Fazzi's Domingo the Bounty Hunter series, featuring a Filipino American bounty hunter who catches fugitive undocumented immigrants. The series is also for crime fiction readers who want to understand the human factor behind the news headlines about immigration.
Sunday or the HighwayReturn to Index
Born of This Fire
Jeanne Gehret
Verbal Images Press
978-1-884281-20-4
$16.99
Paperback/$4.99 eBook
Website:
https://JeanneGehretAuthor.com
Ordering: www.amazon.com
The Civil War, women’s issues, and questions of passion and integrity coalesce in Born of This Fire, a novel about a war that affects not only a woman’s life, but her belief system and values. Annie Osborn Anthony enters unfamiliar waters from her staid Martha’s Vineyard home by journeying to Kansas, the state her husband Daniel fought to keep free for all.
The contrast between these two very different worlds captures a “you are here” feel from the start:
She wasn’t on the road anymore. And yet, even as her limbs rested, her mind drifted eastward—back to the mercurial Atlantic Ocean, the salt air of Martha’s Vineyard, the well-tended lanes and whitewashed fences. Everything she had once called home now seemed impossibly distant.
Annie faces many challenges in her new life, from armed civilians and Kansas politics to Daniel’s wartime tactics and the rumors that haunt their marriage.
More than a story about war, pioneers, shifting politics, or changing attitudes, Born of This Fire captures the passion and purposes of the times. It contrasts alliances with underlying horrors, the impact of Susan B. Anthony’s purpose and vision upon this changing environment, and Annie’s own consideration of how conventions need be set aside in order to embrace new possibilities for the lives of women, enslaved people, and all manner of men.
Jeanne Gehret builds thought-provoking contrasts between the social mores and politics of these times, viewing events through the eyes of a married woman who becomes caught up in new ideas and ideals for her future and that of her children.
As the point of view shifts between Daniel and Annie, different perspectives are contrasted and influences become cemented in a growing series of confrontations that test the boundaries of guilt, innocence, and survival.
History melds nicely with emotional and political realizations as the lives of Annie and Daniel Read Anthony come to life, firmly rooted in the hopes and expectations of their times.
Librarians will recommend this book to patrons seeking books about strained marriages, women’s courage in the face of loss, and the moral challenges of a divided nation. It lends especially well to book club discussions and reading circles seeking astute women’s historical fiction.
With its sterling reflection of powerful personalities whose choices influenced the era, Born of This Fire is hopeful, invigorating, and hard to put down.
Born of This FireReturn to Index
Captain Death
Jürgen Vsych
Wroughten Books
978-0-9749879-4-1
$23.45
Hardcover/$17.00
Paperback/$9.95 eBook
Website: www.TheCaptainDeath.com
Ordering:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/captain-death-jurgen-vsych/1123265704?ean=9780974987965
Captain Death is historical satire at its best, imparting chuckles even with chapter headings such as ‘Clancy is Hung. . . or Hanged’ or ‘Clancy Gets Himself to a Nunnery.’ These display a humor that grows as this swashbuckling pirate comedy of errors evolves to juxtapose a pirate’s confrontations with life and a home life in which piracy sits on the back burner of family:
Clancy’s four-year-old twin daughter and son screamed, leapt from the table, and ran to Daddy. Clancy knelt and handed his daughter the doll, and his son the toy cannon. Clancy bellowed the piratical laugh he knew they loved, “HA HA HA! These be my children!” and then turned serious. “These are my children. Always use correct grammar, my dears; people will think you a lady and gentleman, and you’ll get away with murder, just like your grandfather.”
As Captain William Death leads Clancy North into trouble and hilarious maritime mishaps evolve under their association, readers are treated to a series of military and personal clashes. These are further enhanced by black and white illustrations from museums around the world, bringing the history and times to life with the added value of fun brought about by an ex-pirate who finds he hasn’t quite left his past behind.
As he confronts history, the past, and the realities of survival under impossible conditions and questionable associations, Clancy’s rollicking story embraces both history and humor in a fresh, original manner that will delight even non-pirate history readers.
Libraries seeking examples of historical fiction that reach beyond genre boundaries and audiences to attract and delight novel readers looking for something refreshingly different will find the adventure and political struggles of Captain Death to be just the ticket for a powerful good time and read.
Filled with delightful, wry observations of the political, social, and military battles of the day, Captain Death is a story hard to put down and delightfully unexpected in its characters, directions, and outcomes.
Captain DeathReturn to Index
Chronicles of Four
Estates
Benjamin Kwakye
Cissus World Press
979-8-9889745-5-0
$20.00
https://www.amazon.com/Chronicles-Estates-Novel-Benjamin-Kwakye/dp/B0FLB5K3TN
Chronicles of Four Estates is a novel that deserves profile and recommendation to any library or reader interested in African fiction and politics. It reveals the shock and dismay of the nation of Ghana when popular TV host Erin Boadu is found brutally murdered on a beach, probing the underlying relationships that led up to this moment and its impact on the political future of the nation.
Boadu’s secret investigation of Project Dotbug seems to have something to do with her demise—but so does her interview with former Ghanaian President Yaw Tano and her impact on Tano’s personal life and the trajectory of his career.
Readers might anticipate that a basic familiarity with Ghanaian politics and culture will be a prerequisite for enjoying this story—but they’d be wrong. Benjamin Kwakye injects references and backdrops that assume no prior knowledge base, builds characters steeped in Ghanaian society that stand out for their disparate objectives and approaches to life, and crafts a powerful saga that rests on the shoulders of personal and political connection.
Fears, revelations, and discoveries entwine as events unfold on different levels, making the novel at once a murder mystery and a probe into Ghana’s delicate political interactions and influences.
Libraries seeking a solid work of African literary prowess which operates as both a leisure read and as an engrossing measure of the nation’s pulse of change and confrontation will want to welcome Chronicles of Four Estates into their collections for its thought-provoking reflections on rules of law, morals and values, and shifting foundations of political strength:
...those law school people sitting in armchairs and writing, studying, or explaining treatises and whatnot on the law and on democratic principles, how close had any of them ever come to such decision making? How many of them had experienced a coup attempt directed at them with the probability that they might be killed, shot like a beast, or that their family members might be put in danger? They were not the ones who would have to preside over the burials of many of their fellow citizens solely because someone, or a bunch of people, had decided to usurp the very rule of law they would like afforded them.
Chronicles of Four Estates is a vivid, reflective story that is especially highly recommended for readers with a basic interest in either African literature and politics or stories that come embedded with social reflection.
Chronicles of Four EstatesReturn to Index
Forgiven: A Novel
Bruce J. Berger
Black Rose
Writing
978-1-68513-673-4
$22.95
Website: Black Rose Writing
Forgiven: A Novel is the fourth book in the Covo family saga series. Author Bruce J. Berger continues to explore the story of Nicky, a Brooklyn psychiatrist whose life’s passion is buffeted by threats from a malpractice suit and family tribulations. At the heart of these trials lies the ongoing impact of the Holocaust on survivors as generations pass. Berger creates a powerful link between past and present that offers much food for thought about the long-term, inter-generational impact of suffering, faith, and Jewish identity.
Helen Blanco Covo, Nicky’s wife, confronts a daughter dying of cancer even as Nicky’s daughter, Kayla, a gifted musician, sees her inspiration dying.
Each member of the Covo family faces a different form of anguish as issues of family connection and identity evolve new challenges, from an Orthodox Jewish son who secretly harbors an icon of Jesus to the family’s sojourn to Greece where they reconnect with another branch of the family that was severed when the world changed.
Bruce J. Berger crafts powerful insights on both individual and familial levels, weaving the Holocaust’s impact into modern lives in a manner which astutely considers the ongoing ripples of change the Holocaust created.
Powerful questions and insights permeate each character’s confrontation with themselves and the outside world. Here is the voice of Nicky’s sister, the Orthodox nun Sister Theodora, who still struggles to express herself in English:
“You thought all was stable in your faith, but then there was trouble with Jackie and his father. You feared you would lose him. You could not understand how Hashem might let that to occur, to lose your dear son. And your stable … stability ... begins to fall. I mean …. Excuse me … begins to fail. If you are not safe from that, then how is your God protecting you and what is the point of making new music? This is what you are asking yourself. To almost lose Jackie is getting in the way. And you are blaming Hashem.”
Kayla nibbled briefly on her right thumbnail as she thought, uncertain, yet troubled. She was deeply unsettled by the truth in Theodora’s observations. “There were many artists whose lives were in turmoil. And they still created great art. Chopin, for one. Mozart, fighting poverty.”
The meat of the story (and what makes it a special recommendation to Jewish readers) lies in how the Holocaust’s backdrop continues to affect and infect the future and how different generations handle both their heritage and their determination to be more than just survivors bearing the burdens of their ancestors’ experiences.
Astute, engrossing analysis of these intersecting lives and pain makes for a story that is thought-provoking, realistic, and hard to put down.
Libraries interested in Holocaust novels that focus on intergenerational impacts will find Forgiven: A Novel highly recommendable not just to individuals interested in the subject, but to book clubs and reading groups.
Filled with enlightenment and characters who struggle to redefine family, heritage, and self, Forgiven: A Novel is a jewel of a read that will add riches to those seeking powerful stories of Jewish family dynamics.
Forgiven: A NovelReturn to Index
Good Grief
Sara Goodman
Confino
Lake Union
Publishing
9781662527531
$16.99
Paperback/$4.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Good-Grief-Sara-Goodman-Confino/dp/1662527535
Good Grief is a novel opening in 1963 about a newly-bereaved, now-single mother who is raising two kids alone. It’s been two years since her husband’s death, and Barbara Feldman is just beginning to form some semblance of a life and recovery when her mother-in-law shows up at the door, ready to move in.
Purportedly it’s to help her with the children, but in reality Ruth is also alone, grieving, and wants to be part of something. Yet, she’s got to go. There’s only one way to get a prickly, obstinate woman to move on. Set her up with a man.
So evolves a comedy of errors in which Barbara’s own wishes, dreams, and loneliness collide with those of her mother-in-law to produce angst, clashes, and many a surprise.
Sara Goodman Confino is especially skilled at dovetailing the ironic scenarios, fun encounters, and slowly-simmering realizations each woman holds about the other and her own future.
Hilarious encounters aren’t limited to the two, but embrace outside people and forces as well. Dialogues reveal the meat of matters relating to disagreements and new possibilities:
I looked down at the meat counter. “Well, I suppose I’m not buying a brisket. Although if I were smart, I would, just for when Ruth destroys the one she bought.”
Eddie shook his head. “Unless you’re planning to go cook for this man every night, he’s going to have to learn to love her, bad cooking and all.”
“Think her sparkling personality will be enough?”
Eddie shrugged good-naturedly. “As long as he likes dogs, you’ve got a shot.”
Especially notable is the manner in which Confino builds her characters and their interconnected lives despite the seeming disparity of their personalities and objectives.
Tongue-in-cheek humor permeates these encounters to provide a rich form of life inspection that readers will appreciate:
“We’re either going to need to buy more vases or get rid of the older flowers,” I said, sounding cheerful though feeling far from it.
“Hmm,” Ruth said, taking the vase from me and crossing to the kitchen sink to fill it with water. “We should bring whatever still looks nice to the hospital. Not everyone gets visitors.”
I looked at her back as she arranged the flowers in the vase. It was a lovely idea.
“Maybe not the funeral spray though,” she said as she turned around, looking for a spot to put the vase. “That could send the wrong message.”
The result is a light-hearted, heart-warming exploration of two women whose lives are connected by circumstances beyond their control, resulting in many surprises and moments of conflict tempered by enlightenment.
Libraries looking for women’s fiction that is astute, involving, and fun will find Good Grief just the ticket for a delightful foray into the issues of mothers, daughters, children, and lovers.
Filled with delightful realization and thought-provoking reflections, Good Grief builds a fine story of family connections and uncertain but growing love between a young widow and her feisty mother-in-law. It is thoroughly compelling and ultimately uplifting.
Good GriefReturn to Index
The Harvey Girls
Juliette Fay
Gallery Books
978-1668095065
$40.95 Library
Binding/$18.99
Paperback/$14.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Harvey-Girls-Juliette-Fay/dp/1668095068
The Harvey Girls takes place in the 1920s, but the plot is set in motion in 1852, when a teenager named Fred Harvey emigrated from London to New York City with only a few dollars in his pocket. He went on to create a chain of restaurants along the railroad in the Southwest where he hired waitresses (“Harvey Girls”) at a time when working women had few choices for employment.
The novel’s introduction is important because it sets the stage in historical reality to cement the experiences and choices of these two 1920s women—ex-Boston society woman Charlotte Crowninshield, who is escaping a brutal husband; and Nebraskan Billie MacTavish, who struggles to keep her large immigrant family afloat.
Both become Harvey Girls, bringing with them very different experiences and social perceptions to build a story rich in insights about women of those times.
From the start, The Harvey Girls introduces the employment milieu of the 1920s working waitress, providing a “you are here” feel to the experience.
The diversity of the characters and their intersecting perspectives result in a story packed with insights, filled with predicaments and connections, and astute in its historical examination as well as its social and political challenges.
Readers won’t anticipate the myriad of issues which arise from the fact that Charlotte and Billie don’t stay in one place, but journey to unfamiliar milieus that test their insights and perceptions. Dialogues between characters during these encounters present thought-provoking moments of bigger-picture realization:
“I’m a Harvey Girl in the dining room at El Tovar, and I’m impressed at your ability to answer the same questions over and over as if it were the first time you’ve heard them. I wish I had your talent for it!”
Ruth’s customer-bright smile downgraded a watt or two, and she glanced around to see if anyone else was in earshot. “I tell myself that customers are trying to understand the Hopi way, even if their questions seem silly or even rude at times.”
Charlotte saw the wisdom in this: acknowledging that people could be ignorant while simultaneously assuming they had good intentions. She wished she could do more of the latter and a bit less of the former.
Between evolving friendships among women with vastly different backgrounds and experiences and encounters that explore issues of independence and empowerment against the backdrop of the Harvey Hotels, The Harvey Girls is a thoroughly enlightening adventure all readers will find engrossing.
Libraries interested in historical fiction about women’s experiences that capture a sense of time and place, as well as psyche and purpose, will find The Harvey Girls a fine acquisition that is especially recommendable to women’s reading groups and book clubs.
This audience will relish how Juliette Fay captures not only the purposes and unique opportunities of the Harvey environment, but documents its impact on the lives of very different women who grow from their experiences, refuges, and discoveries.
The Harvey GirlsReturn to Index
How to Surf a
Hurricane
Todd Medema
Atmosphere Press
979-8891327931
$29.99
Hardcover/$17.99
Paperback/$9.99 eBook
www.atmospherepress.com
How to Surf a Hurricane is a novel about an engineer who develops a revolutionary new battery that will change the world, the corporate quash of his project, and his battle to see his invention to fruition against all odds.
Moro Petroff never envisioned himself as a fighter. He’s a family businessman whose predicament is made all the worse for the fact that his project’s demise comes from family edict. Uncle Dmitri has cut his funding after seeing no working batteries from Moro’s proposal and dreams.
A perfect storm emerges between one who has his head in the clouds over future energy possibilities and the scruples of a business committed to profit over possibility. The resulting deluge consumes Moro and his family, drawing in outside forces outside to battle on both sides as he brings a hurricane surfer, an Alaskan oil worker, and a French salt farmer onto the high seas in a daring heist filled with danger.
From adapting to rough seas and witnesses who prove unlikely heroes to rogue waves both physical and mental, How to Surf a Hurricane is a powerfully engaging story of struggle that juxtaposes disparate forces of special interest. Each inject elements of psychological and moral and ethical drama into the fight.
Readers who enjoy nautical dramas that include rescue, a love of the sea, and struggles over technology that influences the course of not just human lives, but the world’s ecology, will find How to Surf a Hurricane thoroughly absorbing, packed with contemplative reflections:
What started as an escape from reality, clinging to the last threads of memories, quickly became so much more when she discovered windsurfing.
Libraries will want to recommend How to Surf a Hurricane to suspense readers for its intrigue and struggles, business readers for its messages about family interactions and financial realities, sci-fi readers of dystopian fiction who will appreciate its more uplifting approach than most genre reads, and general-interest readers seeking thought-provoking stories about futuristic ideals and realities.
Filled with interesting moments of inspection and confrontation, How to Surf a Hurricane delves into the intersection of business, personal, and technological transformation with an astute eye to revealing what happens when ideals clash and visions go awry, only to re-emerge in new directions.
How to Surf a HurricaneReturn to Index
Killer Personality
Steven Fisher
Atmosphere Press
979-8-89132-787-0
$31.99
Hardcover/$17.99
Paperback/$8.99 eBook
www.atmospherepress.com
Happenstance is evident in Killer Personality when Kevin Mathers meets the alluring Olivia Sims in a bar and a spark flares between them. Soon he discovers that serendipity has nothing to do with it, for Olivia’s beauty masks a dangerous personality that unfolds more and more deliberate, deadly intentions as Kevin becomes drawn deeper into her life and reality.
Initially more than open to a new relationship, Kevin comes to realize he also has made himself vulnerable to unfamiliar horrors. These challenge Kevin’s growing love for Olivia, which continues despite the new discoveries that keep blindsiding him.
Steven Fisher regularly shifts perspectives between Olivia and Kevin, identifying these pivot points so that readers can easily flow between these disparate personalities and lives. He creates a bond that seems solid before bodies are unearthed and the horror begins to pile up, involving readers in Kevin’s predicament as Olivia’s allure is countered by his growing horror over her true nature.
Even more pointed and revealing are moments in which Olivia (aka Susan) presents the experiences of her past which impact her sense of choice, responsibility, and the emerging consequences of her attractions and actions:
All my life, it had felt like I had been on the run or ready to run. I had experienced no peace since I left the town where I had been born. I had lost my father and sister. I had lost every man I had tried to love. I suddenly realized that Eddie was the only man who had never left or disappointed me. But it was better this way.
As she becomes part of a team, seemingly falls into a better life, and navigates pitfalls and possibilities, Olivia’s persona comes to light in deeper ways that belay any possibility of simply identifying her dangerous choices and ways of thinking:
They say that time flies when you’re having fun. The next six months were the most fun of my adult life...I explored museums all over the city and felt like I was growing and learning every day. I lived in a cool apartment near to everything I needed. I even began to think about putting myself out there for a social life.
Readers might anticipate feeling more connection to Kevin than Olivia, but the real surprises are delivered through Olivia’s shifting perspectives, which chart her growth and her failures alike:
Every person in my life I erased would be found. That didn’t bother me. The world knows what I am, even if they don’t know who I am and why. That Kevin! He had gotten under my skin, and I guess I did want him to know me.
Libraries interested in a tale of growth, revelation, and uncertain connections with love and life will find Killer Personality as alluring as its characters. It’s filled with action, psychological inspection, and important points of discussion for book clubs and reading groups.
Audiences will appreciate how Fisher builds killer connections via a head-turner of a woman, a man who enters her odd, threatening world, and the makings of a persona whose outer appearance masks an inner danger that reaches out to touch another with unexpected results for them both.
Killer PersonalityReturn to Index
The Lost Seigneur
David Loux
Wire Gate Press
978-1-954065-04-8
$17.99
print/$9.99 eBook
Website: www.wiregatepress.com
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Seigneur-Chateau-Laux-Odyssey/dp/1954065043/
The Lost Seigneur is a historical novel set in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Its protagonist, Jean-Pierre du Laux, is a French nobleman wrongfully imprisoned during a time of religious intolerance who struggles to return to his family against all odds.
The Papacy’s inquisition against the Cathar faith forms the backdrop for a vivid story of incarceration and intolerance. David Loux brings the history of these times to life, from farm work and manor residences to the lingering results of battles:
The frontier skirmishes seemed to have quieted down since the end of Queen Anne’s War. In fairness, however, it should be said that in the backcountry, where news traveled slowly, battles were often fought long after an armistice was reached.
From vengeance and violence to the changing lives of Jean-Pierre du Laux and Magdalena, the story provides a vivid sequel to Loux’s Chateau Laux. While this story can stand on its own for newcomers, it is best absorbed in conjunction with Chateau Laux. Prior fans will especially appreciate its vivid portrait of evolving, interconnected events which dovetails nicely with the first book.
Libraries seeking historical fiction about the 17th and 18th centuries where daily lives, belief systems, faith, and revenge dovetail in characters’ worlds in a realistic manner will find The Lost Seigneur a powerful portrait of the ongoing evolution of the du Laux family’s confrontation with religious strife.
Filled with exciting moments of realization and transformation while spiced with descriptions of environment and daily experience, the story is rich in detail and atmosphere:
Thinking of John made Magdalena realize how little she knew her husband’s friend, even though he had lived on the estate for many years now. The shadow of the forest fell upon them and the woods echoed with the knocking of a woodpecker. Rarely had she ventured past the meadow, and the smell of moss and rotting wood loam clung to her nostrils. Her skin crawled.
Readers will find The Lost Seigneur easy to delve into, hard to put down, and thoroughly absorbing as the decades unfold, rooted in an uncommon history that here receives the details and depth it deserves.
The Lost SeigneurReturn to Index
The Man in the
Stone Cottage
Stephanie Cowell
Regal House
Publishing, LLC
9781646036240
$19.95
Paperback/$9.95 eBook
https://regalhousepublishing.com
The Man in the Stone Cottage is a novel about the Brontë sisters Charlotte, Anne, and Emily who, in 1800s Yorkshire, find their lives replete with emotional turmoil and literary failure. Romance is in the air for Emily, but her sudden death quashes many possibilities while raising others that involve her sisters in a search for truth.
The story opens with twelve-year-old Emily’s wanderings on the moors, revealing her discovery of a stone cottage and the allure it represents. As she grows older she stops visiting the cottage, and it eventually vanishes from her life and memories.
Fast forward to Charlotte’s adult life, where she is a teacher. She is perceived by her students as being distant and emotionless, but this couldn’t be further from the truth:
She knew what they thought of her when she stood before them to teach them English: a dry young woman who never revealed her feelings. Did they know? She dared not reveal them.
As Emily and Charlotte confront the ravages of growing up, dangerous love, and letters between them which both enlighten and connect while reflecting on deeper concerns, readers become steeped in the Yorkshire backdrop and the events that draw sisters together, then part them in unexpected ways.
Stephanie Cowell neatly intersects biography with fiction through quiet drama, passionate moments of revelation, and choices and consequences which send each sister in a different direction.
Equally compelling is the suspense and mystery which evolves both between them and from outside forces that separate, divide, and sever connections.
Also revealing is how Charlotte and Anne receive recognition from the literary world at last as their efforts see print, and how they continue to forge new connections with each other and with the missing Emily that change their lives and perspectives.
Librarians seeking biographical fiction that thoroughly captures the times, personalities, and family interactions of the Brontës will find that The Man in the Stone Cottage is a powerful draw. It will also attract book club readers interested in sibling relationship developments and insights about how broken family ties can be mended.
Readers with a literary penchant who already appreciate the Brontës will find this novel attractive on many different levels, while those who may harbor little prior knowledge of them will appreciate how Cowell’s haunting depiction of the English countryside and the world that shapes a literary family create thoroughly compelling, thought-provoking reading.
The Man in the Stone CottageReturn to Index
Mathey Girls: A
Novel
Melody Chu
Redleaves Books
979-8998774805
$15.99
Paperback/$5.99 eBook
https://a.co/d/hUSWEoN
Mathey Girls reviews the midlife crisis of Esther Hsu, who could be seen as a successful professional or an aimless drifter, depending on personal perception versus outward appearance.
Esther’s oldest group of Princeton friends, the Mathey Girls, supports her vision of a successful past until one dies in childbirth, leading Esther to step up to help a grieving husband and a child left behind. She becomes entwined not just in present-day dilemmas, but an unresolved issue from the past that continues to influence her decisions and life.
Melody Chu roots her story in the post-pandemic era, reviewing the lasting impact of being shut down and considering how this group of close friends has changed their values and responses to life because of it:
The past two years had unmoored everyone, making it painfully clear that life had changed, was changing, would change, and they needed to celebrate while they could.
Even more importantly, Chu explores how an unplanned pregnancy later in life affects not only the prospective mother, but her circle of friends; each of whom have built lives and relationships that still can be affected by the winds that buffet their friendship.
Chu also brings to life Chinese influences, culture, lives, and the intersection of Chinese and American affairs as Hannah, Esther, and their circle of friends grows and changes.
This gives the story an authentic, rich aura as it explores Asian American experience, friendships, and shifting life patterns with equal strength.
Librarians seeking a story of women’s relationships, responsibilities, and Asian American lives will find Mathey Girls an uplifting exploration of friendships and life possibilities that will lend especially well to book club recommendation and discussions.
Filled with eye-opening reflections and moments of realization and growth, Mathey Girls is an unforgettable story filled with poignant revelations and cross-cultural inspections:
"The thing is, strong women like us, we can't get bogged down with impostor syndrome and all that nonsense. It's so easy to take on that mantle, you know? Especially Asian women. We're brought up to be successful and competent, but at the same time demure and obedient, and where does that leave us? We don't allow ourselves to be proud of our achievements, our skills.”
Mathey Girls: A NovelReturn to Index
The Missing Pages
Alyson Richman
Union Square
& Co.
978-1454953210
$18.99
Paperback/$9.99 eBook
www.unionsquareandco.com
The Missing Pages is a stirring and evocative novel that explores love, loss and the power of legacy inspired by the true-life story of Harry Elkins Widener, a young and passionate book collector who perished on The Titanic. In the aftermath of the tragedy, his mother builds a library as a memorial to her son.
Harry Widener went down with the Titanic, going back to his cabin to rescue a precious book that winds up lost, along with his life. Decades later, library researcher Violet Hutchins encounters some strange phenomenon in the library that forces her to reluctantly believe that a ghost is trying to gain her attention—possibly the ghost of the library’s namesake, Harry Widener. He wants to not only correct a misconception, but accurately represent the pages of his life.
So begins a foray into literary love that involves keeping spirits alive, correcting the past, confronting the future, and filling in too many blanks. This leads Violet in unexpected emotional and literary directions.
From the start, Alyson Richman adopts a tone of mystery and discovery that leads readers to want to learn more about Harry, Violet, and these circumstances:
I didn’t go back for the book . . .
I didn’t go back for the book, despite how many Harvard tour guides have suggested otherwise over the years. They will stretch the romanticism of my death at only twenty-seven years of age, saying that according to the lore, I went back to my cabin to retrieve one of my most treasured books, never to be seen again. As with any good story, there is both truth to what they say and there is fiction. And somewhere in between are the pages of my life.
As the story of Ada Lippodlt, Harry, Violet and others comes together, it brings with it an interlaced series of perspectives that also embrace ghost Harry’s reflections on past and present associations:
...when I myself saw Ada’s name there again in print, it made my old ghostly soul ache in a way that not only pained me with longing, but also made me feel exquisitely alive.
Ada. You will not find my other letters to her in my memorial library.
Librarians who enjoy stories of intrigue and discovery that center on filling in the missing blanks of characters’ lives will relish how literature, love, and past and present events coalesce in The Missing Pages.
Packed with exciting revelations and rare book collecting, research, and historical detail surrounding the Titanic, The Missing Pages reveals a fascinating tale about a Gilded Age book collector who perished on the doomed ship. Richman probes the braiding of life and its sacrifices, the power of love to transform grief, and a mother's quest to honor her son, creating a gripping page-turner that amplifies the permanent fingerprint books make on our soul.
The Missing PagesReturn to Index
A Nest of Magic
Kate Moseman
Fortunella Press
978-1-957320-29-8
$15.99
https://www.katemoseman.com/
A Nest of Magic: A Sapphic Cozy Fantasy introduces a staid librarian who lives a quiet life in a town where nothing extraordinary happens. There’re no surprises, no magic, and certainly there’s no cause to believe that anything will ever change.
Corinthia has everything she needs for a satisfyingly quiet life. But life doesn’t tend to remain the same, and what seems like a simple bet with a friend to explore something different soon turns into an impossible encounter with other realities, belying the opening thought that this is a town where nothing ever happens.
As she encounters authors’ lives and renames them, from Ms. Romance and Ms. Mystery to Mr. Thriller, Corinthia finds that their works all too strangely mirror new possibilities in her world as she navigates dual worlds of books and fantasy.
A wry sense of humor embedded even into descriptions of food leave readers chuckling, but the real attraction to this story lies in how it traverses matters of the heart, revealing LGBTQ connections in the course of sending Corinthia on a mission to expand her life, heart, and perspectives.
Women who like fantasies firmly rooted in changing minds and lives will welcome how A Nest of Magic evolves a cozy countenance while creating delicious references to chocolate, birdcalls, friendships, and a Refuge which introduces many extraordinary facets to life.
The discoveries and revelations are quietly compelling as the journey unfolds:
Corinthia turned and looked down a path. It was one she had been down before, but now she saw it differently.
Librarians seeking a tale of magic, friendships, new perspectives, and new life possibilities will find A Nest of Magic wonderfully revealing and delightfully warm in its adventure.
Readers seeking compelling reads receive a story that revolves around a librarian’s transformative experiences that prompt her to re-envision everything she’d thought possible about her world and life. They will find A Nest of Magic a delight.
A Nest of MagicReturn to Index
On
the
Eradication of Smallpox and the Intractability of Raccoons
Jamey Gittings
Attila Press LLC
979-8-9921827-3-6
$29.99
Hardcover/$17.99
Paperback/$7.99 eBook
www.attilapress.com
On the Eradication of Smallpox and the Intractability of Raccoons is a mystery suspense story that also embraces elements of social justice issues, blending these seemingly disparate subjects and genres into a novel that adds a healthy dash of satirical observation into its plot for good measure.
New Harvard journalism school grad Ned Alexander is big on education and low on experience when he accepts a coveted newspaper job in Tucson, Arizona. His ideal of being a reporter is tempered by events surrounding the death penalty. This propels him beyond merely reporting facts to personally delve into the bigger question of why too many who favor the death penalty are succumbing to odd, seemingly purposeful deaths themselves.
As he works with Detective Escobar, hones his fledgling skills as a reporter and an investigator, and becomes personally involved in his own story, Ned finds himself in a maelstrom of threats and political involvements far beyond his Harvard training.
Journalist risks over confidentiality or exposure, a governor’s secrets, a scientist’s lofty ambition to reduce mankind’s suffering, and more coalesce in a gripping, surprisingly fun examination that will leave readers thinking, wondering, laughing, and thoroughly engaged.
Moral and ethical concerns also come to light in the course of Ned’s probe:
Cures were built literally on the dead bodies of researchers, and although it was sad, it was the way it was in the early years, and it was mostly all right. Those researchers died for something that was ultimately good. And that made their deaths sad but tolerable.
Libraries will find the multifaceted approach of On the Eradication of Smallpox and the Intractability of Raccoons results in a story that is hard to predict. It covers many possibilities and topics, but ultimately proves a compelling literary examination that proves hard to put down.
Readers seeking a refreshingly original work of fiction that imparts many twists in the course of a murder investigation that often brings it far from the atmosphere of a traditional genre murder mystery alone will welcome the opportunity to become involved in Ned’s conundrums.
On the Eradication of Smallpox and the Intractability of RaccoonsReturn to Index
Paris
Locked
Jennifer
Harris
Troubador
9781836284349
$19.99
Print/$7.99 eBook
https://www.jenniferharriswriter.com
In Paris Locked, artist Marian and her husband Jason have just arrived in Paris - purportedly for her debut exhibition, but also to repair a damaged marriage following the discovery of Jason’s infidelity. Paris may symbolize the City of Love, but it turns into a nightmare when their intention of affixing a lovelock to the Pont des Arts sparks another tragedy that impacts their lives even more than their grief over a lost child and their battered relationship.
A couple pushing fifty should not be facing a storm of public controversy that embroils them in immigrant issues, places them in the middle of a clash between Parisian left- and right-wing forces, and tests their moral and ethical responsibilities to themselves, each other, and the community. And yet, the couple’s simple attempt at connection creates a broader backlash over choice and consequence that ultimately tests their connection on even deeper levels.
Jennifer Harris crafts a powerful story about accidental death, redemption, and ripples of effect that hold unintended results. As Rania, Todd, and a host of characters swirl around the couple, events involve them in the Parisian community’s social issues and makeup in unexpected ways:
More Africans sold more giraffe bangles and carved elephants. French national glory survived despite the sale of ‘trinkets’ that angered inner city mayors. The unwanted persons who were historically locked out of the glory were still locked out.
Harris injects many emotional components into the story as she weaves in circumstances of French struggles within their own populations:
Rituals must be observed. In this case, they included confession. Like death, it too had finality. That was the point of confession. You could make the past die and give yourself a fresh beginning.
This entwining of personal and political angst results in a special blend of inspection as it considers issues of privilege, child-rearing, moral and ethical dilemmas, and impossible decisions:
It couldn’t be true that the choice was to protect unknown people or their own children.
Readers interested in the landscape of battered marriages, Parisian affairs, or immigration will appreciate how Harris dovetails these issues to create a powerful interlocked inspection of intrigue and social reflection. The intersection of artistic and moral questions is nicely done, especially given their complexity.
Libraries interested in adding to their collections novels that defy pat categorization while providing much food for thought about contemporary social issues and the flux of personal lives alike will welcome Paris Locked. It sports the ability to consider how populations are locked out, locked in, or locked away by their own dreams, desires, and destructive and constructive options, from art to efforts to capture key moments in life that then take on new life themselves.
Paris LockedReturn to Index
The Past That Made
Us
Kelly Marks
Atmosphere Press
979-8891327665
$25.99
Hardcover/$16.99
Paperback/$7.99 eBook
www.atmospherepress.com
The Past That Made Us is a novel about controlling the world (at least, one’s own personal part of it). It follows Millie Carpenter’s confrontation with cancer, which rips apart every notion she had of overseeing her fate and being in charge.
The story begins with Millie’s latest visit to the ER, in which she reinforces that she doesn’t need drugs, but lasting answers that will address her ongoing stomach pain. In short order, Millie discovers that the cause is not something easily cured, forcing her to return to her home town of St. Bell, Maine to accept help from her mother despite their stormy relationship.
Millie is used to demanding situations:
Demanding is an understatement. I’m one of the youngest senior managers in history at McCarthy, Gudenack, and Young—or MG&Y—and I’ve had to bust my ass twice as hard as my male counterparts to get where I am.
What she isn’t familiar with is the type of adaptation she’ll have to undertake in order to confront her past and the relationships she left behind:
I was seventeen the last time the blockhouse was “our spot.” A lot is different now. We’re different. Still, I hold only good memories of the old building, so I agree and let Cal lead me through the trees. I inhale the distinct, sharp smell of surrounding firs and bask in the nostalgia of my childhood.
Kelly Marks crafts an evocative story that is realistic, engaging, and hard to put down. Many women will recognize Millie’s courage and determination in themselves, as well as situations where Millie’s stubbornness does not well serve her.
The story is not all about cancer and chemo treatments, but returning home to revitalize and change relationships and right wrongs that can only be identified as such through the progression of time and the safety of distance.
Libraries seeking women’s reads for group discussion or beach reading that blends thought-provoking revelations with growth insights will find The Past That Made Us an excellent recommendation for patrons who like evocative, transformative stories about life changes.
This audience will appreciate the strength of Millie’s character, the logic of her perceptions, and the special challenge involved in returning to the past to craft a new future. The opportunity to absorb all of these features in a story that is compelling and inviting makes The Past That Made Us a provocative, engaging recommendation that will reach a wide audience.
The Past That Made UsReturn to Index
Rose Hope
Barb Greenberg
Kirk House
Publishers
978-1-959681-91-5
$26.95
Hardcover/$17.95
Paperback/$4.99 eBook
www.kirkhousepublishers.com
When Rosie decides to attend a bridal shower luncheon in the middle of her divorce, it may not be the best decision she’s ever made. However, maybe it is. Rose Hope outlines the results of despair and new beginnings as Rosie confronts her changed circumstances with optimistic hope for new beginnings.
Rosie’s emotional ups and downs are nicely charted by Barb Greenberg as Rosie encounters novel situations and adjusts her persona accordingly:
Rosie put her head on the table, cradled by her arms, wondering how she could get that nice girl inside of her to shut up. But it wasn’t just the nice girl anymore. She was now joined by the lost girl.
From how she relies on female friends to bridge the gap (“marriage is over pizza”) to pressures surrounding forgiveness and acknowledgements of how kindness can change the world (hers in particular), Rosie’s journeys through life will appeal to many a women walking her own divergent path through life.
Greenberg’s careful crafting of various personalities and perspectives lends an evocative, compelling feel to Rosie’s story that will attract a wide audience and prove equally suitable for women’s reading groups.
Libraries acquiring Rose Hope will want to recommend it to women exploring their own grief, life changes, and emotional connections, as well as to book clubs interested in moving stories of transformation.
Those who partake of Rose Hope will find Rosie’s story ultimately uplifting, encouraging, thought-provoking, and a source of inspiration much needed in these modern divided times.
Rose HopeReturn to Index
The Retreat: A
Kepos Novel
Liz Ussery
Independently
Published
979-8289052612
$12.99
Paperback/$4.99 eBook
Website: www.lizusseryauthor.com
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Retreat-Kepos-Novel-Files/dp/B0FF583DWQ
The Retreat is Book 1 of The Kepos Files series and tells of Cassie Vale, who joins the Kepos Retreat with one goal in mind—to forget trauma and heal by moving forward. She well knows that the program and offerings of this retreat will involve some degree of confrontation and discomfort, but what she doesn’t expect is to find surveillance and secrets further impacting her every move.
Handler Jude, who has been assigned to her case, reflects on Cassie’s dilemma from the start:
She wasn’t just a patient. She was a test. “She’s the anomaly,” they told him in the briefing. “We don’t expect her to integrate. But we want to know why.” His role was simple. Monitor. Report. No intervention. No engagement. “And if she breaks?” he’d asked. “Then we learn from it.”
As their relationship evolves and truths bubble to the surface, emotional connections and choices begin to raise new questions both between them and separately as intrigue and danger build a powerful psychological thriller:
"I don't know who to trust anymore." Jude hesitated, then finally reached for her hand. He didn't grip it tightly, just enough to ground them both. "Then don't trust me," he said. "Watch me. And decide." It wasn't reassurance, it was surrender. A quiet invitation to damn him if she needed to.
Liz Ussery does more than build scenes with character tension. She creates a virtual world of possibility and mystery that brings readers into issues of trauma, salvation, redemption, and dawning horror as new realizations emerge about both of their lives, connections, and future.
She excels in creating the kinds of surprises that lead both main characters to new developments and growth. As the story reveals unexpected truths, Ussery engages her readers in the process of not just problem-solving and confrontation, but healing and growth.
Libraries will find The Retreat a special choice because of its simmering relationship quandaries, slowly emerging horror, satisfying twists and turns of plot, and, most of all, its realistic, engaging characters.
Readers who choose The Retreat for all these qualities and for its lasting force and impact will find it a novel hard to put down.
The Retreat: A Kepos NovelReturn to Index
Seven Blackbirds
Helen Winslow Black
Four Elk Press
979-8-9904180-2-8
$18.99
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/seven-blackbirds-helen-winslow-black/1008859573
Seven Blackbirds opens with a literal bang, portending a story of violence that may trigger readers sensitive to vivid domestic abuse descriptions, but which cements its events in realistic flavors:
I was in the bedroom when he did it. He swung his arm from the shoulder like a baseball bat, palm open, and hit me in the face. When my head came back down from wherever it got sent, I found myself quiet and still on the edge of the bed, watching while he began again with the other arm. He backed up, almost as though he were about to walk out, then circled, pulled in, let go, and slammed me again. The room was painted green, I’d done it myself, and the woodwork, white; thank God the shades were down. I was watching his arms the whole time, but the arms I felt were my own, cradling the baby nursing at my breast. Those were the only arms I knew because they held my child.
As the novel moves from this threatening introduction to explore Kim Baltakis's journey from being a young abused mother with few options to an independent woman with many, it embeds a flavor of discovery, recovery, and movement within its vivid saga, fostering hope as Kim’s journey unfolds.
Seven Blackbirds embraces a powerful set of possibilities that will ultimately prove enlightening, encouraging, and practical to women confronting abuse in their own lives, despite the too-familiar turmoil of its opening lines.
Kim explores new options with a candid eye to self-analysis, considering how experiences of the past dovetail with her revised choices now:
I hadn’t been able to allow myself a relationship with Morgan when I’d started over in Tulsa. Because I’d known him when I was married, known him when I was pregnant. Kissed him when I was pregnant. Now it was okay. I could cross that line now. I’d actually crossed it, I realized, the moment I stood on that row of red paving stones on Eleventh Street and invited him back to the hotel. What a lot of time I’d wasted obeying unwritten rules which had been stacked against me from the beginning, which Larry had disobeyed with impunity!
From the impact of relationships and supportive friends to her increased ability to confront the past’s incarnation in her present-day revised life, Kim’s experiences will draw, delight, and define women who are on their own paths to realization and healing.
Libraries seeking vivid novels about abuse, recovery, and discovery will find that Seven Blackbirds is packed with insights and explorations essential to fully understanding the abused woman’s shifting role under different circumstances.
Filled with important notes about change, Seven Blackbirds is highly recommended reading for the very audience who will find it challenging—women’s reading circles where abuse and growth are ongoing topics of discussion, and where the usual psychological analysis tends to fall short ... unlike Seven Blackbirds, which hits the nail on the head and sinks it firmly into women’s realities.
Seven BlackbirdsReturn to Index
Smell the Bright
Cold
Robert Wallace
Mint Hill Books
978-1-964277-42-4
$18.95
Website:
https://www.robertwallaceauthor.com/
Ordering:
https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/smell-the-bright-cold-robert-wallace/
Literary audiences will ideally hold a recent familiarity with William Faulkner’s classic The Sound and the Fury in order to fully appreciate how Robert Wallace dovetails his story with that novel in Smell the Bright Cold, which captures adventures from original side character Caddy Compson’s experiences.
The story opens in 1919 Mississippi, where a prodigal child returns home to Mississippi after a long time away from home and state to confront “old-fashioned notions” from the past in a different milieu of the present.
Caddy’s first-person reflections about the South’s values system and her place in it emerge in the story’s opening paragraphs:
What has honor gotten anyone? Trouble, that’s what. The only thing that the world really honors is money. And perhaps glory. But it is the former that keeps a person alive, and sometimes you have to earn it any way you can.
Now gray-haired and having shrugged off the impact of her wandering ways and what she left behind (or gave up to support them), Caddy is about to tackle the longest journey of all—that of coming back to a family from which she’s long been absent.
In adopting the first person to capture Caddy’s story, Robert Wallace brings readers right into the sights, sounds, smells, and dilemmas of her life and times.
The story doesn’t settle down in one place, but moves ever forward into 1930s Miami (among other locales), train and psychic journeys, and philosophical reflections on life’s meaning that emerge from unexpected confrontations with death:
Progress, I thought to myself, was an illusion because it was tied with time. Was in a brawl with time. I thought about the body that lay on the track; its inertness. The fact that it was no more. Time had stopped for him. Time was no longer real. For the rest of us, the living, it continued in some way, wresting itself from our control. Time has a way of floating in on itself, so that it doesn’t seem real. No amount of trying to wrestle control of it, neither through a wristwatch like Father tried to do and his father before him or Quentin who tried to stop time—none of it has any validity. Time was unconcerned with any human notions about it.
The literary allusions that dovetail with The Sound and the Fury will especially satisfy Faulkner enthusiasts and scholars, yet most contemporary readers will be able to thoroughly appreciate Caddy’s journey even without these references (which might, admittedly, prompt them to go back for a long-overdue read or reread of Sound for maximum impact).
The result is a story that swings between characters, times, places, and family revelations and connections in a manner that brings Caddy’s journey and perspective to life for new audiences and those already well grounded in Faulkner’s literary devices.
Librarians will find Caddy’s adventures compelling, her growth and perspective timeless, and the opportunity to recommend this novel as either a standalone or a companion read to The Sound and the Fury give it added value to make for a standout.
With its astute survey of life spanning richly-portrayed years through World War II, Smell the Bright Cold is thoroughly evocative, thought-provoking, and packed with the dreams and connections between divided families who somehow find their way back to one another again.
Smell the Bright ColdReturn to Index
The Spirit Reader
Bob Albo
Independently
Published
ASIN: B0F8GN4QV2
$12.99
Paperback/$4.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Reader-Robert-Albo-ebook/dp/B0F8GN4QV2
What if the power to see into people's souls came with the responsibility to save them...or destroy them?
In The Spirit Reader, accountant George finds himself far from his paperwork expertise when he finds a mysterious crystal in the creek during a family outing and discovers that it gives him the ability to read the spiritual auras of everyone around him. His kids can see colors within it, too—but not his wife Ruby.
Thus begins a foray into a shifting world as his marriage crumbles along with his career. He unexpectedly falls under the eye of the Makuta tribe, who view him as a spiritual leader, facing analytical forces which consider his potential and power to be desirable and perhaps dangerous.
Native American spirituality blends nicely into the supercharged story a man who must come to terms not only with new abilities and life purpose, but the disparate influences that consider his strengths from vastly different perspectives:
“The Makuta say I was chosen. A scientist might hypothesize about unique neurological configurations or quantum consciousness interfaces. A priest might call it a gift from God.” George grinned. “Maybe they’re all right, in their own ways.”
Readers may not expect the moral, ethical, spiritual, and philosophical blends these experiences embrace, but this is one of the novel’s many strengths. George confronts not only a revised life trajectory, but its impacts on others around him in both private and professional circles:
“Your spirit shows who you were meant to be, Evan,” George said softly. “A leader who built things to last. But there are shadows now—each compromise, each corner cut, has left its mark. The darkest stains come from knowing the harm you’re causing but continuing anyway.”
Evan’s face went pale. “It’s not that simple. There are jobs at stake, contracts…”
“There’s also hope,” George continued. “Your core still shines. The man who mentored me, who taught me to take pride in my work—he’s still there. But the darkness is spreading, Evan. Soon it will consume everything you once were.”
From Humka ceremonies and betrayals to different views of what a happy conclusion constitutes, George’s life inspections and journey will delight anyone interested in how people grow, change, and transform the world around them.
The Black Hills backdrop supports George’s journey with atmosphere and insights into what it truly means to “read spirits” and translate spiritual findings into the world.
Librarians interested in a novel that takes a multifaceted approach to change and reaches into circles of research, realization, confrontation, and life impact will find it easy to highly recommend The Spirit Reader to patrons and book clubs interested in not just the possibility of extra abilities, but what they ultimately portend.
Readers seeking a thought-provoking, action-filled novel that operates on spiritual, psychological, and suspense levels will welcome how The Spirit Reader builds many surprises and insights into its plot.
The Spirit ReaderReturn to Index
This Leavened Land
Thomas Mauser
Munn Avenue Press
978-1-960299-86-4
$21.99
Hardcover/$14.99
Paperback/$7.99 eBook
www.munnavenuepress.com
This Leavened Land: A Novel of the Civil War in East Tennessee introduces seventeen-year-old farm boy James Meecham, who senses the winds of war are arriving to buffet his family’s farm before the soldiers set foot on their property. His first-person observations of their fifty-acre homestead and the people who become caught up in the war creates an especially gripping Civil War account that is as much about battles of the heart and mind as it is about military engagement.
Many of the boy’s observations and assessments will resonate with modern readers interested in situations where social and political conflicts arise:
The crowd cheered. Men tossed their hats in the air and women waved their handkerchiefs.
“God bless the Confederacy!” someone cried out.
The crowd kept cheering as my brothers and I made our way to our wagon and went home. A fearsome storm is coming across this land, I thought.
Also notable is how James chooses to treat those around him as he grows up, navigates new situations and ideas, and confronts dangerous situations that arise from a journey and the clash of the Confederates and Yankees who are fellow Americans.
Thomas Mauser employs realistic scenarios and local dialogue to cement the experiences of his characters, which brings the story to life:
“I’ve heard Kansas jayhawkers scalp every Confederate they kill,” the soldier named Tad said.
“You Tennessee fellers scalp dead rebels?” the tobacco-chewing soldier asked.
“Every rebel we’ve killed so far has been bald-headed,” Jedediah said.
From how the Union army occupies large swaths of private lands and changes the nature of the countryside to what it takes to remain “real decent” in a milieu of inhumanity and cruelty, Mauser explores a range of issues related to the Civil War and its impact not just on families and communities, but moral and ethical values.
Libraries interested in a Civil War novel packed with inspections that go beyond political confrontation to probe the choices made by ordinary people in a whirlwind of conflict will find This Leavened Land a powerful saga that brings history to life.
Replete with reflections that will also give rise to strong book club discussions and history reading group insights, This Leavened Land creates a winning chronicle of discovery that is worthy of wide recommendation—even to those not normally interested in Civil War stories or historical novels.
It’s that powerful.
This Leavened LandReturn to Index
We Are All of Us
Left Behind
Bradley Somer
Freehand Books
9781990601927
$24.95
Website: https://bradleysomer.com/we-are-all-of-us-left-behind/
Ordering:
https://bookshop.org/p/books/we-are-all-of-us-left-behind-bradley-somer/22409037
We Are All of Us Left Behind opens in 2005 with an unnamed protagonist posing as fourteen-year-old Molly, thanking his computer chat connection for engaging in an online conversation. Out of three initial lines of greeting, however, only one statement is true. Readers are compelled to find out which one, as the story progresses to reveal that Molly is not anything he initially appears to be.
The chat with the stranger continues to create lies which are actually justifiable given the online circumstances. “Molly” continues to inform readers that “Only one of these is true, which is okay.”
Lies go easy to strangers, our young central character observes. But lies don’t work as well with those who know him. And so this coming-of-age story evolves with many surprises that will engage both adult and teen readers with its perspective, raw honesty, and candid observational style that brings them into the protagonist’s world and its issues of family, queer identity, and truth.
From its opening pages, the character comes across as realistic and compelling. The concerns and insights are sometimes spot-on for his age and, at other moments, appear mature beyond his years. As this world expands beyond the borders of the familiar, readers encounter other characters—chat room personality Mr. Langman; fellow vagabonds Sam and Maria, and Gio, whose possible impacts are questionable (“I didn’t know yet which of them were bad for me, or which were good. I wasn’t yet scared of the cops watching the tourists.”); and a host of others who join this heady journey through life and other countries.
The protagonist’s search for family, an answer, and connections makes for a thoroughly engrossing journey that carries readers through many questions about choice, connection, and survival.
Libraries seeking a crossover title, from adult to young adult, a coming-of-age saga replete with truths, lies, and the realities that reside somewhere in between, will welcome We Are All of Us Left Behind for its hard-hitting, poignant, and realistic character whose spunky attitude embraces a wide range of social and psychological conundrums.
This protagonist is a powerful force, and his story will prove an equally formidable attraction to both adult and young adult readers who choose this novel for its appealing, thought-provoking journey:
My lies have run out and I can’t even think to keep the ones I’ve told straight, them that are so many I don’t know what’s true from what’s not now. I want to tell her it would be great if she would forgive me everything, but I know it’s not for her to do. I want her to know exactly who I am, but the problem is I don’t even know. I can’t ask her to know all of this and still like me after and that’s what I want, the impossible.
We Are All of Us Left BehindReturn to Index
Wednesday, After
Richard Sherry
Independently
Published
979-8283566740
$14.99
https://www.amazon.com/Wednesday-After-Mischief-Richard-Sherry/dp/B0FBM42KFQ
Wednesday, After is the fourth book in the BakerMischief thriller series. It takes place after the 2024 presidential election when a conservative Republic and principled leader grapples with forces that try to manipulate him behind the scenes.
Political science professor Ed Baker is good at ferreting out objectives, hidden agendas, and underlying influences. His dedication leads him to become involved in matters that push the boundaries of his political education and savvy, leading him into dangerous new territory and situations.
His wife Melody adds her own astute insights to these scenarios:
“Be prepared for contrary winds and tides. The sociologist may have a different perspective than the political scientist.”
Moral, ethical, and social inspections emerge from a variety of sources, from religious pulpits to everyday life:
“‘The moral test of our society is how we treat our most vulnerable.’ The refugee. The addict. The abandoned single mother. The emotionally or physically or psychologically damaged. What do we, corporately, owe each of them, in light of that?
“One much later in the list, because we are where we are, in the seat of government: ‘The state has a positive moral function to promote human dignity, protect human rights and build the common good.’ What ought we to do, from neighborhood up through the nation, in light of that?”
From issues surrounding vulnerable, easy targets to playbooks that threaten the politics and processes of world power balances, Wednesday, After addresses many political issues familiar to modern times, but dresses them with the bright, compelling personal touch of individuals caught up in ideals and realities.
This is where Richard Sherry’s strong characterization dovetails neatly with social inspection and elements of suspense. He encourages readers to probe the underbelly of political manipulation and influences, which will lend to many a thought-provoking book club discussion.
Libraries will find the combination of thriller and modern political inspection results in a compelling read. Wednesday, After can be very highly recommended to fiction readers seeking insights that are delivered through a riveting foray into partisan politics.
Those who like their political inspections rooted in personalities and relationships that are buffeted by intrigue and examination alike will find Wednesday, After a powerfully thought-provoking story that’s hard to put down. It will be delightful to discuss with fellow readers or political personalities interested in America’s future direction.
Wednesday, AfterReturn to Index
Wethersfield Road
Anna Binder Reardon
Trampoline Press
979-8-9924198-7-0
$18.00
Website: https://www.anna-writes.com
Ordering: https://a.co/d/e8kqCkj
Wethersfield Road is a novel about a woman who seemingly has everything money can buy, but is an addict nonetheless. Amelia Glickman’s prosperity belays a loneliness and frustration with life that turns her riches into a self-imposed jail cell of wealthy isolation.
Anna Binder Reardon isn’t content to let her character repose or wallow in discontent, however. Underneath this façade of riches and despair lies a powerful force of recovery and change which wells up like tears to transform Amelia’s life in unexpected ways, despite her proclivity for self-destruction.
From the story’s opening lines, thought-provoking insights about such tendencies reinforce social and psychological perceptions about chaos and disaster:
The thing about illness and car wrecks is that victimhood’s a part of the package deal. “How could this happen to you?” and “No one deserves this less,” would both fall off the tongues of suddenly interested acquaintances, the illusion of importance quenching her thirst for relevance and adoration. But what about the kind of trauma where you set the drama in motion? What about intricately tracing your path back to every poor decision and every red flag that you so fiercely painted green?
The darkness that emerges so realistically in Amelia’s life is juxtaposed by moments of realization, discovery, and enlightenment that send her into unexpected new directions and into positive ways of approaching life:
Happy New Year! Everything exploded in the best way. Sometimes, making it through a year as a human being is the hardest thing you could possibly do. It was worth celebrating.
As Amelia encounters Hope and learns new facets of survival and life, she begins to make the kinds of decisions that change her world.
Libraries seeking an evocative novel about riches, transformation, and self-defeating manners will apprciate how astutely Reardon paints the life of a woman who simultaneously has everything and nothing.
Filled with reflective moments that offer hope and joy in a world of riches and despair, Wethersfield Road takes a walk on the rich side of life to examine wealth from a myriad of different directions. Readers will find Amelia’s story compelling, realistic, and thought-provoking, all in one.
Wethersfield RoadReturn to Index
Wrecked By You
Kate Sweden
Wild Magnolias
Press
ASIN: B0F2GRPBMX
$4.99
eBook/$13.99 Paperback
Website: www.kateswedenromance.com
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F2GRPBMX
Wrecked By You is a modern romantic comedy that joins the Wilder Horizons series with a sexy, snappy, bantering tone between lovers and co-workers that will leave romance and humor readers laughing, engaged, and delighted.
From its opening lines, the story captures the first-person narrator’s proclivity for getting into trouble. Rayann Wilder answers her older sister’s summons, to discover that she’s booked two feuding enemies into the same wedding venue on the Isle of Skye. There’s nothing to be done but travel there to smooth out any possible confrontations—in the company of the exasperating, attractive security guard Max Harrington.
Predictable romance and storms arise between these two disparate personalities, introducing sexual and emotional tension into a situation already ripe for snafus.
Kate Sweden juxtaposes various tensions with sexual scenes that are steamy and authentic. A broom closet encounter is both titillating and hilarious as it graphically portrays the results of an attraction neither professional can ignore.
Readers who want the sexual build-up to culminate in satisfying results will find Wrecked By You provides a vivid, fast-paced story of confrontation, “growl-claims,” passion, and relationship realization that is heady and absorbing, fueled by descriptions of encounters filled with exploration and action:
“You’re fire,” he said. “You’re momentum. The spark boring people spend their whole lives chasing. You don’t just dream. You pull people in. You give them the adventure they didn’t even know they needed.”
Libraries seeking a blend of steamy romance and the clash and union of two seemingly disparate but interconnected personalities will want to add Wrecked By You to their “chick lit” collections as a contemporary story of dissimilar personalities forced to learn how to appreciate one another.
Mature audiences will appreciate the psychological and sexual situations which emerge from this unexpected union, the wry sense of humor that follow them into surprising scenarios, and the spicy, realistic clash of a relationship that evolves from unexpected roots and unanticipated directions.
Wrecked By YouReturn to Index
The Architecture
of the Bight of
Biafra: Spatial Entanglements
Joseph Godlewski
Routledge
9781032708256
$151.00
Hardback/$45.59 eBook
Website: https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/591109/the-architecture-of-the-bight-of-biafra
Ordering:
https://www.routledge.com/The-Architecture-of-the-Bight-of-Biafra-Spatial-Entanglements/Godlewski/p/book/9781032704043
The Architecture of the Bight of Biafra: Spatial Entanglements is recommended for a scholarly audience of college-level students, professors, and researchers interested in the long history of architectural and spatial productions in West Africa. It embraces the history of Bight of Biafra’s decentralized political arrangements and intricate trading networks, considering how its merchants both participated in early slave trade and resisted components of its reach. It also provides readers of African history with specific scholarly references following the region’s evolutionary process from the early modern period to contemporary times.
Joseph Godlewski researches surviving source materials, from travelers’ accounts and slave traders’ diaries to missionary memoirs and oral histories. He heavily footnotes these references in a manner scholars will thoroughly appreciate but which general-interest readers may find a visual disruption to the story’s narrative smoothness.
From shifting worldviews and influences to the problems involved in conducting scholarship when major references are missing, Godlewski creates an intricate, interlinked series of journeys through the past that pauses, at times, to admit scholarly challenges:
The few publications which address Old Calabar’s urban and architectural heritage often discuss the Old Residency in isolation, without the support of documentary and visual evidence.
At this point, one might wonder at The Architecture of the Bight of Biafra’s relevance to a less scholarly audience. Those interested in in-depth African studies receive plenty of accessible insights key to better understanding the continent as a whole as well as the forces buffeting it:
One can acknowledge the harm racialized conceptions of space have had and recognize the contributions of previously marginalized peoples in the historical record. These spaces were not basic acts of survivalist accommodation or unique lateral offshoots of the conduits of universal capital but artfully crafted expressions of self determination and belonging central to the creation of the modern world. This study has uncovered the diverse ways people have creatively adapted and modified their environments despite unfathomable, and often violent, constraints.
This is why, despite its weighty-sounding title, apparently narrow focus, and heavily researched contents, The Architecture of the Bight of Biafra should be considered for inclusion in general-interest collections. Readers interested in African history in general and a narrowed inspection of the Biafran region of Nigeria, one of the principal export areas of the transatlantic slave trade, in particular will find it an attraction.
Librarians can see that The Architecture of the Bight of Biafra represents weighty reading, as it’s packed with maps and scholarly references. But it also offers unique perspectives and well-reasoned insights, alongside black and white photos, that emerge like gems rewarding any extra effort made to pour through the references and footnotes liberally embedded in this study.
Powerful in its researched history and intriguing in its concepts and interpretations, The Architecture of the Bight of Biafra is recommended for college students and scholars, and as a side dish of historical enlightenment for readers interested in Nigeria’s historical and symbolic architecture.
The Architecture of the Bight of Biafra: Spatial EntanglementsReturn to Index
“Beyond
Expectations”
Paul Fuller
Independently
Published
979-8319128997
$22.50
Paperback/$11.25 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Expectations-Achievements-Contributions-Morristown/dp/B0F844B2PF
"Beyond Expectations": Achievements & Contributions of Various Morristown College Alumni to Society is a sequel to Paul Fuller’s popular discussion of Morristown College, The Mighty Red Knights, and is especially recommended for alumni, students, and prior fans of the college’s history and culture.
Profiles of notable instructors, Morristown grads who are active community members, activists, and achievers, and a wide swath of individuals whose Morristown roots have contributed to the greater good of the world around them creates a powerful listing of achievements and contributions which can be connected to its college programs and higher education.
This cementing of connections between community and college furthers the idea of how institutions of higher learning produce educated community assets that operate to make the world a better place.
Readers with a prior interest in Morristown will especially appreciate how these biographies intersect individual, college, and community lives, offering wider-ranging perspectives on outlooks and society as a whole.
Black and white and color photos throughout bring these people and places to life, crafting a survey that is engaging and revealing.
Librarians holding a prior and special interest in Morristown College, as well as its alumni and culture, will find “Beyond Expectations” a notable acquisition certain to receive circulating interest not just among alumni, but any would-be college student considering the greater impact of higher education in general and Morristown College in particular.
"Beyond Expectations”Return to Index
Deadly Dungeon:
Madcap Adventures
Rene Vecka
RV A&E
LLC
978-1958049181
$16.99 Paperback/$4.99 eBook
Website: www.renevecka.com
Ordering: https://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Dungeon-Adventures-Rene-Vecka/dp/1958049182
Deadly Dungeon: Madcap Adventures embraces mystery, fantasy, and adventure in a genre-busting story designed to attract a wide audience seeking a rollicking, action-packed foray into a unique world.
A quest drives the plot and its characters, who search out the possible resting places of a magical heirloom. From tunnels under mansions to monsters and thieves, Rory and Ingefaer confront scenarios that grow in imagination and complexity, and at times even they can't believe their own eyes. They delve ever deeper into a mystery that turns out to have its roots in the impossible.
Rene Vecka embeds his story with insights into “a life of thievery” and influences which impact the futures of all who become involved with the magical heirloom. He develops rich characters whose lives unfold via the first person, shifting perspectives between Rory and Ingefær in a satisfying manner supported by clear chapter identifications so readers don’t get lost.
Vecka is particularly talented at weaving spells, animal confrontations, caves, and magic into the plot to keep it fast-paced, unpredictable, and thoroughly engrossing. The inclusion of Norse myths and sword and sorcery action keeps the plot fast-paced.
Libraries that choose Deadly Dungeon: Madcap Adventures for their collections will find it easy to recommend within and beyond the fantasy genre to readers attracted to stories that are hard to easily define or predict.
Filled with unexpected encounters and backed by a quest that is truly a madcap experience, Deadly Dungeon: Madcap Adventures lives up to its subtitle by creating a journey that is a dungeon-crawling winner.
Deadly Dungeon: Madcap AdventuresReturn to Index
Delaware
Behaving
Badly
Dave Tabler
Independently
Published
979-8-9921667-2-9
$30.00
davetabler.com
Delaware Behaving Badly joins the other books in Dave Tabler’s Delaware history series, incorporating the same jovial blend of history and delightfully unusual facts that give Delaware’s experiences the added edge of interest needed to attract non-Delawareans to its story.
The true crime focus of this guide outlines some magnificent events and circumstances that lend to its inclusion in any true crime library collection.
Take, for example, the 1690 story of “When Spells Become Criminal Acts.” The saga considers Delaware’s early supernatural accusations and prosecutions, which depart from the familiar early Salem witch trial history to enter into lesser-known territory surrounding the mixed beliefs of Anglicans, Quakers, Dutch Reformed Church members, Lutherans, and Mennonites who influenced supernatural pursuits in a different manner than the Puritan-rooted Massachusetts.
Here, the 1604 Act that shaped responses to accusations of sorcery involved attempting remedies for bewitchment that superseded legal punishment to enter into realms of not just medical cures, but preventative measures.
The history of these approaches provides intriguing forays into the racial and ethnic tensions in Delaware’s urban centers, considering crime and solution in a much broader light than most early American histories.
Contrast this
survey with the
surprisingly violent clashes that emerged over oyster pirating in
1901. Yes, oysters. This problem enveloped New England, but Dave
Tabler’s contrast between different state reactions and operations
creates a particularly intriguing history of cross-references that is
enlightening and hard to put down:
The oyster piracy era drew to a close through a combination of technological advancement and biological calamity. State governments steadily tightened their grip on the industry, deploying armed patrols and motorized enforcement vessels that could effectively chase down poachers. Delaware and New Jersey strengthened their cooperation, creating a unified system of licenses and patrols that made it harder for pirates to exploit state-line jurisdictional gaps.
These examples and many more are the reason why the monikers “Delaware history” and “true crime” may attempt to identify the audience for this book, but in fact fall short of its possibility for an expansive appreciation by virtually anyone with any degree of interest in American history.
This is why librarians across the country should consider adding Delaware Behaving Badly to their collections ... but they will want to take an active role in profiling it to assure it doesn’t stay on the shelf, perceived as a read for Delaware-centric audiences only.
Delaware Behaving Badly deserves so much more, offering many political, cultural, social, and psychological insights into its history and disparate types of crime to make it a winner in many arenas of American history and experience.
Delaware Behaving BadlyReturn to Index
Different Values
Kay Elksong
Independently
Published
9780692038246
$10.95
eBook/$14.95 print at: www.Barnes&Noble.com
$14.95 print at:
https://www.amazon.com/Different-Values-Cultural-Covid-19-Mideast/dp/0692038246
Different Values: Cultural Shifts in America: From Covid to War in the Mideast is a survey of transformation that tackles big questions about how social values in America have changed since the pandemic.
Dr. Kay Elksong addresses all kinds of issues, from what happens when AI replaces the ability to think critically to how political normalcy has shifted and how environmental changes have forced people to adapt in unexpected ways.
From who addresses the anxiety and trauma of young people growing up in this milieu to problems that come from the evolution of global technology and connections, a myriad of topics coalesce in a survey that will attract both college-level and general-interest readers.
Of special interest is how critical thinking has developed in the past, in contrast to how it is changing now. Chapters merge social, political, and psychological topics, drawing together subjects about truth, trust, and the values and roles people play in society.
The toll on democratic processes, hearts and minds, spiritual and social connections and institutions are analyzed with astute reflections about how creative change takes place and the costs of setting aside one value system for another.
While Different
Values sounds like a weighty read, it
offers much food for thought and insights about the kinds of
connections key to understanding extremist attitudes and proposals,
offering instead more independent analyses of issues and voting.
Packed with
powerful reflection points adding value to its intersections of
historical and social analysis, Different
Values should be part of any book club
discussion about social change in America. It will also reach many a
classroom group with its inspection of the foundations of American
ideals, processes of critical thinking, and how these are likely to
shift in the future.
Librarians
seeking a scholarly survey of all of these cultural shifts and their
impacts will want to
acquire and recommend Different
Values to audiences interested in better
understanding the connections between evolving social and political
milieus, gun violence, work habits, positive changes, and the role and
evolution of critical thinking and cultural shifts in America’s future.
Return to Index
Inside the
Insurance Industry -
Fourth Edition
Kevin L. Glaser
Right Side
Creations LLC
978-0991038886
$39.58
Hardcover/$29.95
Paperback/$19.95 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Insurance-Industry-Individuals-Businesses/dp/0991038886?s=books
The fourth updated edition of Inside the Insurance Industry: Insurance Help for Individuals and Businesses assures that its messages and insights about how the insurance industry operates remains relevant to modern readers.
Its update is needed (and libraries should replace prior editions with this latest) because so much about the insurance industry has and continues to change, making Kevin L. Glaser’s information and guidance a fluctuating, growing set of insights that require periodic adjustment to reflect new industry trends and rules.
Expanded sections covering the latest rules, claims processes, insurance deals and pitfalls, and risk management assure that a wide range of readers receive the latest information. This audience will range from business owners and students to attorneys, insurance professionals, and anyone conducting operations affected by insurance decisions.
From changes in loss calculations and risk to new financing changes such as Parametric Insurance, consumers and professionals alike need to know these details because they impact how they are likely to rate the need for, acquire, and understand insurance.
Glaser’s position as an insurance industry insider lends to many observations and notes on routines and perceptions that will prove invaluable to those who buy insurance, but may have little idea of how it actually operates.
From reading and understanding policies of all kinds to what happens when insurance matters go to court, this edition of Inside the Insurance Industry is essential for understanding the latest processes, insurance logic and business decisions, and how these impact consumers and professionals who buy insurance.
Libraries will want to continue to recommend this latest edition as an important, essential review of insurance industry processes. Inside the Insurance Industry – Fourth Edition is a basic primer for understanding how insurance operates—a knowledge base that, Glaser maintains, most people really don’t comprehend.
His experience and insights provide an invaluable series of educational moments suitable not only for business professional and consumer consultation, but for business book club and reading groups where insurance industry operations are of interest.
Inside the Insurance Industry - Fourth EditionReturn to Index
Keep Talking
Jen Shoemaker
Davidson
Sole Publishing
979-8-9986270-0-2
$15.95
Paperback/$6.99 eBook
Website:
https://www.jenshoemakerdavidson.com/
Ordering: https://a.co/d/bDo08eb
Keep Talking: Conversations with Our Kids When They Want Us Least but Need Us Most outlines strategies parents can employ to keep dialogues flowing between the generations, pinpointing the style and subjects of conversations that embrace real connection.
Topics for these dialogues include such wide-ranging considerations as “finding your people” and “it’s okay to be alone and unplug.” Research studies on happiness, love, connection, and life’s meaning support Jen Shoemaker Davidson’s contention that talks between adults and children of all ages often prove the pivot point for better relationships as well as improved lives.
Davidson points out a Harvard study’s findings on happiness:
Close, supportive relationships with family, friends, and community are the most significant predictor of long term happiness and health. Quality relationships are more important than wealth, fame, or work success.
Many a book posits the same theory, but few hold the nuts-and-bolts conversation examples featured in Keep Talking, nor the clues to opening meaningful dialogues between generations that encourage connection and understanding on many different levels.
Chapters also examine such topics as the importance of family time, shared experiences and insights, the complexities of navigating friendships and family dynamics, and the likelihood that the decisions parents make will not always be good ones:
Making parenting mistakes—and dealing with the mistakes our kids make—is all part of the wild and beautiful process. So throw caution to the wind. Know that parent is a verb and we need to actively do it, planned or not. Give yourself grace and roll up your sleeves.
The result is a different form of parenting guide that leads by example, embeds research studies into its suggestions, offers concrete examples from real-life situations, and helps define and tailor the kinds of conversations which lend to deeper relationships and better understanding.
Librarians will want to not only add Keep Talking to their collections, but should highly regard and recommend it to parents seeking specific keys to opening and fostering dialogues with their kids.
Packed with insights and savvy, Keep Talking features the kinds of diverse approaches that can grow beyond family circles, where it is grounded, and into society as a whole. This makes for a top pick and important recommendation for a wide audience that can blossom to include readers who are not parents themselves, but who seek better relationships and connections from life.
Keep TalkingReturn to Index
Lessons in Hope: A
New Era for
Maasai Women in Tanzania
Juliet Cutler
She Writes Press
978-1-64742-958-4
$26.99
Paperback/$39.99
Hardcover/$12.99 eBook
Website: www.julietcutler.com
Ordering: https://a.co/d/3Ua8cHM
Juliet Cutler works with contributors Esuvat Lucumay, Lameck Tryphone Mutta, and Aron Williams to create a powerful dialogue about change and possibility in Africa in Lessons in Hope: A New Era for Maasai Women in Tanzania. The survey covers the nuts and bolts of cultural and community change in action.
Why should Western readers in general and Americans in particular partake of these experiences of far-away Maasai women in Tanzania? Because within these kernels of discovery and change lay insights on the lasting impact of education that hold special meaning for anyone reflecting on how education can change lives in many different ways.
Unlike most Americans, many Maasai women face chronic food insecurity, economic hardship, and limited opportunities for education. Violence against women is engrained into some cultural practices and attitudes in different ways than Westerners experience, but the impact is quite similar. How can education effect change?
These stories capture exactly how this happens, featuring women in a variety of jobs made possible by their educations. They work to effect change on many levels, from a doctor specializing in pediatrics who was influenced by her own hospital experience with her child to Agness Joseph Porokwa, who works with a nonprofit to combat energy poverty in Tanzania and other African nations by promoting solar energy.
The insights are spirited, revealing, and thought-provoking. Each woman introduces passion to her subject and responds candidly and insightfully to the interviewer’s queries:
“I hear a lot of stories from my friends about the work they are doing in different Maasai communities,” she says with energy. “We are activists, teachers, nurses . . . we are changing history. In the past, the Maasai community had to rely on people from the outside who would come in and work in our communities. Now, we have our own people, and their understanding of cultural context has changed a lot of things. The MGLSS graduates are a big part of this.”
Librarians seeking accounts of grassroots activity, insights about women in Africa that can translate to virtually any project or culture in the world, and collections that are uplifting with realized hopes and dreams will want to welcome Lessons in Hope: A New Era for Maasai Women in Tanzania into their collections.
Filled with lively stories of not just ideals but real change, Lessons in Hope: A New Era for Maasai Women in Tanzania is proof positive that connections between education and achievement are not just dreams, but a reality changing women’s lives.
Lessons in Hope: A New Era for Maasai Women in TanzaniaReturn to Index
Loading...
Cager Klarxon
Surrender Point
Press
979-8-89965-595-1
$15.99
Paperback/$31.99
Hardcover/$4.99 eBook
www.dfraemedia.com
Loading... will appeal to readers of horror and speculative fiction who accept elements of LGBTQ+ reflection and explicit language involving body parts. As such, the novella may not be for all readers, but will delight a special segment of horror readers by centering on challenging concepts of body, mind, propriety and social decorum. And, perhaps that’s putting it lightly.
If Cager Klarxon knows anything, it’s how to spin both a good yarn and thought-provoking insights that border on offense, but edge nicely into enlightening territory. His disclaimer about the novella’s approach leaves readers an ‘out’ at the beginning, preparing them to delve into a world where “This is what crawls out when the screen gets a hard-on for your eyeballs. When the line between you and the filth blurs into a sticky mess.”
That intersection between horror and disgust contains the ripe fruit of revelation, for Klarxon’s raw mirror of a life program gone awry when college student Markus (now reinvented as ‘Marshall’) is caught shooting amateur porn in his dorm makes for a sordid and scenic drop into depravity and dream-chasing that offers much food for thought.
Markus/Marshall is not the only focus, here. The chapters “load” scenes that unfold a host of characters, from Kate’s discovery of “Project Incarnation” in their father’s notes, which gives her a clue as to her brother’s experiments and condition, to ghosts of logic, encounters with an alien parasite entity that provokes Marshall’s reinvention of body and soul, and viewers that add content to the horror that takes over his life.
These digital and interpersonal references are hard-hitting, moving Marshall from the relatively simple, elementary beginnings of porn film shots to deeper inspections of an unscheduled programming that begins to take over his body and life.
Klarxon is adept at injecting a stream of surprises into the story to keep readers on edge and continually thinking, horrified, and surprised. The nature and level of these very adult, involving introspections and experiences places Marshall on the cutting edge of transformation and hell, all in one.
Libraries unafraid of acquiring and including explicit horror works that stand out from the crowd so far that they are delivered in a class of their own will find Loading... an ultimately reflective read that can be recommended to literary speculative fiction audiences seeking something truly different.
Wrapped in the dual guise of horror and dismay, Loading...’s foray into a body and soul re-imagined is a powerful blend of technology, sex, and examining social, psychological and political boundaries. It ultimately demands of its readers that they, too, push the boundaries of propriety and horror to appreciate the nuggets of wisdom embedded in Marshall’s download of what is, effectively, a terribly alluring foray into the root system of desire.
Loading...Return to Index
M.E.N. Are the
Causes of All
Diseases
Dr. Sean McCaffrey
Independently
Published
979-8-9991138-1-8
Hardcopy:
$24.99/Paperback:
$14.99/Kindle: $7.99
https://www.mccaffreyhealth.com/
M.E.N. Are the Causes of All Diseases may sound like a feminist admonishment about males, but it holds a universal message about health and healing that makes its own radical contention: what if healing didn’t require medication? That’s a radical statement that may feel like new age thinking or a pipe dream, but it takes a physician (in this case, Dr. Sean McCaffrey) to review the connection between faith, healing, and medical science in a different light that readers would do well to absorb.
M.E.N. stands for Mechanical, Emotional and Nutritional stress factors. How these cause disease and dysfunction is key to understanding how different healing and lifestyle choices can affect the outcome of aging.
An open mind will be required in order to absorb how Dr. McCaffrey works. He uses acupuncture, moves energy fields within the body, and taps the patient’s own unconscious mind for solutions, among other approaches. This may stretch the boundaries of logical thinking, but it also expands the possibilities of healing into new directions which adopt not one approach to healing, but integrates many.
Concrete examples of “extraordinary” healing situations stemming from this approach accompany medical history as such situations as cholesterol, plaque build-up, and heart attacks are tackled. Readers receive a thorough background in medicine’s findings and approach to healing this condition before Dr. McCaffrey delves into extraordinary routes for healing.
History and statistics build the foundation for contentions about why and how conventional medicine has chosen certain pathways to treatment:
“...medicine is much more interested in giving medications to its patients than it is in recommending a change in nutrition or lifestyle that will genuinely prevent heart attacks. At this point in medical history, mainstream medicine is fixated on finding and prescribing medicines that will disrupt the biochemical reactions that bring a disease to life.”
By now readers should realize that M.E.N. Are the Causes of All Diseases is not only about alternative medicine, but accepting a degree of responsibility that comes with medical empowerment and new possibilities for health.
From how bodily damage can be addressed differently to broader subjects such as reducing the cost of healthcare, Dr. McCaffrey makes a strong case for different forms of healing and approaches to lifestyle change. This both educates readers and asks them to think outside of the medical box of possibility and personal responsibility.
From the rigors of aging, which are often taken as inevitable impacts of growing old, to choices in lifestyle, food, and medical treatments, this book tackles many assumptions and injects new life into better understanding the science behind health and disfunction:
The IUP that we discussed in the previous chapter enables you to take the guesswork out of the nutrition side of the triangle. You no longer have to guess if you’re using your carbohydrates, your proteins, or your fats. Are they being absorbed properly? Are your food choices moving through the body efficiently, getting digested, absorbed across the gut wall, and transported to the cell? Are they being utilized by the cell, and is their waste product efficiently being removed so it does not become a poison or a toxin to the rest of the system? The IUP answers all these questions quite convincingly.
The result is a powerful study in not just alternative health, but alternative thinking about how the body works (or doesn’t), and what can be done about it.
Libraries will want to recommend M.E.N. Are the Causes of All Diseases above and beyond others that consider the underlying foundations of health and disease. Readers interested in active health maintenance, choices, and healing opportunities will find its blend of history, statistics, science, and healing options to be well-studied and thought-provoking.
M.E.N. Are the Causes of All DiseasesReturn to Index
Miscalculated
Risks
Michael Cooper
Larrea Press
979-8-9989095-0-4
$18.99 Paperback/$13.99 eBook
Website: https://michaelcooperadventurer.com
Ordering: https://soloist.ai/larreapress
Miscalculated Risks: Attacked, Crippled, Paralyzed, Drowning, Unconscious and Freezing in The Wild (Just Not All at Once) is an outdoors adventure memoir packed with hair-raising encounters, gripping moments of life-or-death, and confrontations with nature that will leave readers on the edges of their seats.
Its observations bring readers right into the moment from the story’s opening lines:
It was supposed to be a leisurely vacation, a meditative six-day solo backpack on easy trails in Oregon’s luxuriant Cascade Range. Nothing like the alpine mountaineering and hardcore cross-country desert expeditions I usually did. No, this trip was meant to coddle and relax me after four months of enduring grueling ninety-five-hour workweeks at my business, a commercial recording studio in Eugene...I should’ve stayed home.
With this vivid beginning, readers are carried into a series of gripping scenarios in which the wilderness comes alive while almost taking Michael Cooper’s life. But spinning a hair-raising tale of survival is not the only objective of the story.
Within these encounters are nuggets of life revelations, survival tactics, and epic adventures with friends and romantic partners which continually push the boundaries and test Cooper’s ability to adapt.
Black and white photos accompany forays into the wilderness as Cooper handles yellow jackets, business success and conundrums, long hikes into the wild which hold make-or-break moments, and snafus and successes in remote areas far off the beaten path.
As he pairs outdoors adventures with revised approaches to life, readers enjoy the dual benefits of gripping adventure and thought-provoking reflections which take place during action-packed descriptions of alpine and desert hiking.
Libraries seeking adventure stories of mountaineering and outdoors encounters will want to add Miscalculated Risks to their collections. It can be highly recommended to outdoors enthusiasts interested in undertaking remarkable journeys from the comfort of home, as well as to those planning their own course through the wilderness of life.
Filled with reflections and encounters that are nothing short of remarkable and immediate, Miscalculated Risks is a journey well worth taking that celebrates love, life, and health.
Miscalculated RisksReturn to Index
Misfit 4
Mister John
Yak Publishing
9798999220516
$24.99
Hardcover/$14.99 Paperback/$6.99 eBook
Author website: www.misterjohn.me
Publisher
website: www.yakpublishing.com
Misfit 4: Stories from a Life Unexpected follows the escapades of Mister John and opens with a familiar scenario: an 18-year-old narrator daydreaming in math class. His reflection on daydreaming, distractions, safe zones afforded by blank walls, and, later, television and serious reflection examines a life finely examined.
From girls and jobs to his experiences with Sue, who “drove around the United Arab Emirates topless” in her Jeep, these journeys are anything but typical. They put down roots in high school culture before blossoming into the greater world of Palestine, Iran, and other locales.
The narrator learned to appreciate desert environments from living “on the edge of the Empty Quarter on the Arabian Peninsula for nearly 15 years,” from encountering women and students from different cultures, and from the contrast between his upbringing and the rest of the world:
“Having seen the extremes - bikini-clad students at the University of Florida and students covered head to toe in black in the UAE...”
His humorous, thought-provoking, absorbing adventures and reflections feature a special brand of personal, political, and cultural inspection that brings readers into a wild ride through life.
From paying debts in the UAE and dealing with uninsulated homes to fielding university experiences in England, these stories are vibrant, filled with life and humor, and engaging.
Libraries seeking a memoir of life adventures that holds both entertainment and reflective value will find Misfit 4 a wonderful acquisition. It can be highly recommended to general-interest readers looking for a bit of vicarious adventure and more than a dash of humor.
Funny, revealing, and intriguing in its diverse cultural encounters, Misfit 4 is a fine read pairing teachable moments with intriguing inspections of educational institutions and other countries.
Misfit 4Return to Index
Never Really Left
Wendy Jordan Saffel
GFB
978-1-967510-14-6
$18.95
Paper/$9.99 eBook
www.girlfridayproductions.com
Never Really Left: Grief, Healing, and a Mother’s Unexpected Relationship with Her Departed Son tells of a mother who loses her 20-year-old son. It is written two years after his death and chronicles an unexpected journey in which Wendy Jordan Saffel shows how her son never really departed her life (in the traditional sense of the word).
Her memoir embraces the work of mediums that connect her to her son in ongoing sessions. This may give pause for thought to some readers, while encouraging others with alternative considerations of grief, loss, and revised connections that can move between life and death.
One plus in this journey is that Saffel was a skeptic about such matters who did not easily come to her present-day beliefs about afterlife communication. As the daughter of pragmatic, scientific-minded parents, Saffel’s inclination was to question, not accept. And so her story of moving past her son’s death from fentanyl poisoning into a murkier realm of afterlife encounters will resonate with others who may not entirely believe in such possibilities.
Her journey in exploring mediumship also does not acknowledge an expertise because of these encounters, but humbly admits that this is a personal journey meant as important food for thought for those who grieve—not as an authoritative interpretation and explanation of the subject:
I must first declare that I’m not an expert at anything. Nothing other than my own lived experience. There might be mediums or some of my teachers that read this book and think I’ve gotten some things wrong. That said, this is what mediumship is for me.
Readers who would follow in her footsteps will appreciate her insights on processes, the introduction to new possibilities, and the ways in which Saffel came to terms not just with grief, but new ideas about life and its aftermath.
Sensitive readers may be advised, at this point, that there are also vivid moments of suffering and realization that could prove trigger points, as discussed from a quote by Mirabai Starr’s reflective experience in the chapter on “Grief Bombs”:
Even as I rocked on my knees, howling, I detected soft breathing behind the roaring. I leaned in, listened. It was the murmuring of ten million mothers, backward and forward in time and right now, who had also lost children.
Never Really Left is a vivid memoir of discovery, recovery, and re-connection which deserves a special spot not just in libraries strong in metaphysical encounters and considerations, but in reading circles where grief and spirituality intersect. There is a growing body of reputable research on the science of the afterlife, and Never Really Left joins the literature exploring this research as it relates to loss and healing.
Packed with insights, the journey of a mother who is afforded unusual opportunities to experience her son in a different way, and healing insights, Never Really Left is a powerful saga. It deserves widespread attention and delivers thought-provoking moments of realization and recovery for readers, libraries, and book clubs alike.
Never Really LeftReturn to Index
Seizing Fate
Tracey Kyler
Atmosphere Press
979-8-89132-803-7
$30.99
Hardcover/$18.99
Paperback/$8.99 ebook
www.atmospherepress.com
Seizing Fate: A Gargoyle Order Novel opens with a portrait of rooftop stalker Arik Stanton tracking nervous woman Cora. She could be the perfect vulnerable prey for the Fallen One and other threats. He is secretly sworn to protect her, as a warrior of the secret Gargoyle Order—but she can never know this.
He’s “been around for a long time, a very long time, and he’d seen a lot of things” in the course of carrying out his duties to protect the innocent, but Arik’s pledge to protect others while preserving his secrecy is about to end in a situation where he can do neither.
Tracey Kyler creates a story steeped in emotional confrontations and perspectives that bring both Cora and Arik to life:
He knew she was crying, though to her ears, it would be silent. He could just picture her in there and his heart clenched. How could he not see what she was doing when they sat in that booth? How could he really believe that she wanted nothing to do with him? He’d been so stupid to believe one word of what she said.
Cora may be fragile, but she’s not weak. Her strength may even be enough to support them both and change the world as events spiral out of Arik’s usual control to introduce courage and even love into the bigger picture mix of their lives and connections.
Kyler drives her story with emotional twists and turns. This will delight fantasy readers who appreciate romance and growth in their tales. She embeds the two characters with tragedy, a sense of destiny and discovery, and realizations that lead them to step away from their familiar roles into extraordinary events.
Libraries interested in fantasy romances that involve characters whose engrained perceptions and personas are forced to change will find Seizing Fate an excellent recommendation for readers who like their stories action-packed and their characters nicely developed.
Filled with unexpected confrontations that test courage and connections alike, Seizing Fate is a fine drama that unfolds new avenues of hope and possibility for its characters, as well as for readers interested in tales of how individuals grow away from familiar patterns to move upward and onward in their lives.
Seizing FateReturn to Index
Silver Charm
M.J. Evans
Dancing Horse Press
978-1-7373618-9-3
$12.95
www.dancinghorsepress.com
Silver Charm - And the Old Friends Who Save the Thoroughbreds is a biography of the (currently) oldest living thoroughbred Kentucky Derby winner. It recounts the horse’s life, achievements, and mystique in a biography intended not just for horse-crazy teens, but readers of any age who love horses and horse history.
This expanded age range accessibility gives adults many insights into the horse racing world in general, the Derby’s environment and history, and Silver Charm in particular. By adding a subtitle about horse rescue and elder care, the story also expands its attraction from the racing community into horse rescue processes and issues.
Many people are working to save such old racers from slaughter. Silver Charm weaves together the experiences of not just one horse, but those whose lives are affected by him and his future.
From its opening lines, Silver Charm adopts a “you are here” feel of fiction while adding nonfiction facts about horses to educate those who may have only lightly considered a horse’s life:
On February 22, 1994, a mare named Bonnie’s Poker paced in a large stall, well-padded with a deep layer of straw bedding. She, being a bit ornery, waited for the people to leave. Most mares, ornery or not, prefer to deliver their foals alone. Eighty-six percent of mares, in fact, wait until after the midnight hour to give birth.
This atmospheric approach allows young and old to absorb the entire milieu of the horse community from human and horse vantage points. The story unfolds to show how racing winners emerge, do their jobs, then (hopefully) retire to such a refuge as is outlined in these pages:
At the time of our interview, CRR was home to sixty-nine horses, eighty percent of which are Thoroughbreds. Five of the Thoroughbreds are products of her own breeding program, and the rest have been sent to her by their owners.
Since CRR’s founding, upwards of two thousand horses have passed through the ranch or been permanently retired there.
M.J. Evans goes above and beyond the typical “horse story” to explain different challenges in managing horses not just for their profitable younger years, but their entire lives. This transmits much important information about horse care to readers who may have known only a portion of what is involved in the horse racing or shelter environments.
Of special interest are insights that contrast an aging horse’s options in the past with the new opportunities of modern times:
For many years, the story of a racehorse’s life was a sad one. Most of them were viewed as a commodity whose sole purpose was to make money for their owners. If they couldn’t make money on the racetrack, they were of little value for breeding. Therefore, they had to be disposed of. The lucky ones found new homes with loving families which used them for riding horses. Or they found new jobs as trail horses, jumpers, or dressage horses. A few even became therapy horses... most horses are done racing by the age of five. That means they can have up to twentyfive years of life left during which they can bring love and joy to a new human family. But for many horses, the slaughterhouse was the last thing they would see.
All these approaches create a compelling story which stands out from the usual focus, making Silver Charm a top recommendation for general-interest libraries seeking approaches to horses that are truly unique.
Packed with memorable moments, black and white photos, and vignettes, Silver Charm is wonderful blend of the first-person author’s voice, an assessment of the horse industry, and reflections on the past and future treatment of horses which has radically changed (and, for the better) over the years.
Silver CharmReturn to Index
Able and the
Great Escape
Sonja Hall
Independently
Published
979-8-9912558-1-3
$19.50
Hardcover/$12.99 Paperback/$3.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Able-Great-Escape-Sonja-Hall/dp/B0DG5TXVXS
Able and the Great Escape is an enchanting picture book story of a bunny that excels in escape and is narrated from the point of view of Able, who masterminds plots to stay out all night to force his owner to look for him.
Able is three rabbit years old, and believes he is more than capable of exploring the great outdoors. Too bad his mother doesn’t think so, because she has her hands full trying to keep him safe and rein in his desire to explore the great outdoors.
Sonja Hall creates a cunning, realistic story, made all the more unusual for its basis in real events, in which Able tests his mother, his world, and himself in unusual ways.
Read-aloud adults will find it easy to incorporate its insights on safety, responsibility, and caring for a pet into bigger-picture thinking that encourages dialogues and better insights about life and facing challenges.
Also attractive are the colorful illustrations that accompany a rollicking adventure that ultimately informs ages 5-10 about how to keep a pet (as well as themselves) safe.
Libraries that choose Able and the Great Escape for elementary-level collections will find it attractive to a wide audience, from young bunny fans to read-aloud adults interested in fostering opportunities for better understanding. This young rabbit’s adventure and perspective operates on many different levels of education and entertainment.
Able and the Great EscapeReturn to Index
Birthday Bash
Blair Northen
Williamson
The Little Press
978-1-956378-33-7
$19.99
https://www.amazon.com/Birthday-Bash-Blair-Northen-Williamson/dp/1956378332?language=en_US
Birthday Bash explores Kiko the Mouse’s determination to host an unprecedented, successful birthday party for himself on his houseboat. He invites his two best friends, promising them his best, gooiest cupcakes. But when a pesky bug crashes the party, Kiko is forced to bring out the big guns to address a small, annoying problem.
Matters spiral downhill from there as Kiko finds the determined bug more than a match for his creative bug-ridding solutions.
Kids ages 4-8 will appreciate Taylor Woolley’s whimsical illustrations as the ship flounders and Kiko discovers that his magnificent birthday bash is rapidly devolving into disaster.
It’s a good thing he cultivates some creative friends who can help save the day.
Read-aloud parents will find the story loaded with sound effects, action, and hilarious moments as Kiko attempts to tackle a small issue that threatens his big dreams.
Sometimes the best events evolve not just from preparation, but from unexpected moments of conflict that provide the glue of friendship and bonding.
Elementary-level libraries and parents that choose Birthday Bash for its whimsical encounters will find much fun paired with thought-provoking reflections about over-reacting, creative problem-solving, and cooperative ventures, making this picture book a strong, colorful attraction.
Birthday BashReturn to Index
Can Pandas Be
Koalas Too?
Jane Xu
Accidental Press
House
9780646715797
$24.99 Hardcover/$12.99 Paper
www.canpandasbekoalastoo.com
Can Pandas Be Koalas Too? A Story About Identity, Belonging and Self-Acceptance tells of a koala/panda mix who feels like neither. Pandy’s curious background sets her apart from anyone she knows, making her question where she really belongs.
Jane Xu’s lovely picture book is enhanced by illustrations by Sang Oh which bring to life the dilemma of a little bear who identifies as a koala and has a circle of koala support and friends, but can’t quite deny her inner panda.
Her favorite snack, bamboo, tells her leaf-eating companions that she’s not like them, but Pandy has many more adjustments and self-inspections to make before ferreting out her real personality so she can develop a better sense of belonging and cultivate friends who accept her for who she is.
Jane Xu outlines all kinds of challenges that Pandy faces during this process, from not being able to speak proper Panda to the fact that she seems to fit into her Koala identity much more than a panda.
Adults who choose Can Pandas Be Koalas Too? for interactive education will especially appreciate the opportunity to discuss broader issues with the very young. These move from self-identity and mixed race issues to the bigger picture of getting along, making friends, and fitting in.
Libraries will find Can Pandas Be Koalas Too? the perfect choice for encouraging dialogue and bridging gaps in a child’s identity. It also reviews methods for interacting with social groups and making friends, offering some practical applications that move beyond entertainment value alone.
Can Pandas Be Koalas Too?’s bigger-picture thinking sets it apart from books about either friendship or identity snafus, making it a winner and a standout.
Can Pandas Be Koalas Too?Return to Index
The Cobbler’s
Bridge
Marin
Fontreal
9781989661536
$24.99(Hardcover)
$2.99 (Ebook)
$2.99(Audiobook)
Website: https://fontreal.com
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marin-Darmonkow/author/B08PRTY7LB
The Cobbler’s Bridge is a different kind of picture book Christmas tale about two cobblers who operate in two very singular towns, Wolftown and Lambville. Wolfarians are rich. Lambians are poor and are the servants of Wolfarians. Their lives couldn’t be more different.
Tom and his grandfather are the only cobblers around. They rent a shop in the center of Wolftown and journey to work from Lambville daily. They always work hard for the residents of Wolftown—especially just before Christmas.
One night, Tom is sent home alone by his grandfather, who is making a surprise for him. Before he can reach his home, he observes an angry mob that plants a flaming cross in their front yard before they dissipate into the night, and he can go back inside their home and sleep. When he journeys back to Wolfville the next day and explains what happened, his wise grandfather offers a puzzling reflection:
“The cross knows barefooted cobblers can always use more firewood. It also knows that one can’t get rid of seeds by planting them in the ground.”
And he chops up the cross that evening when he returns home.
The result is magic ... or, is it a lesson in disguise?
Marin creates a thought-provoking story that will best benefit from adult involvement in young reader discussions. Adults can guide picture book audiences through the underlying meaning of this story, which probes religious and social behaviors alike.
Deeper conversations about making money, prejudices, building bridges, and Christmas come to light in unexpected ways as the cobblers fulfill their talents and create new opportunities that most readers won’t see coming.
Filled with exciting reflections on life and spirituality despite a seemingly simple fable’s narrative style, The Cobbler’s Bridge will find a home in many a religious elementary-level collection looking for deeper inspections of the Christmas spirit than are usually offered to picture book readers. It is highly recommended reading.
The Cobbler’s BridgeReturn to Index
Earth Rover
Taylor Woolley
Familius, LLC
978-1641708463
$17.99
Hardcover/$16.19 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Earth-Rover-Taylor-Woolley/dp/1641708468
In the picture book story Earth Rover, Rover the dog is convinced he’s destined for interplanetary adventure. He’s dreamed of going into space since he was a pup, even writing the human-owned NASA to convince them that his training and background makes him the perfect candidate for becoming a lunar rover.
After all: he’s already spaceship-trained, much more adept than a robot, and has all the natural, built-in qualities to find minerals buried deep underground and handle “ruff” conditions.
Tongue-in-cheek humor permeates this fun story of a basset hound convinced he’s the perfect dog for a lunar job.
Read-aloud parents will appreciate the whimsical logic of Rover’s arguments, Taylor Woolley’s equally captivating illustrations of Rover’s imagination, and the subtle inclusion of female explorers as Rover dreams of “...what it would be like up on the moon together, an astronaut and her Rover.”
The result is a whimsical review of canine abilities that might (or might not) translate to a space adventure, offering adults and young listeners a fine exploration of talents, possibilities, and novel new environments.
Elementary-level libraries will find it easy to recommend Earth Rover to young and old canine fans who will delight in Rover’s imagination and positivity.
Earth RoverReturn to Index
Emily’s Adventure
David Peter Swan
Swainwright
978-1036924416
www.davidswan.life
Young adult readers of paranormal adventure will welcome a story of grief, recovery, and powers that emerge when a parent’s life ends that makes Emily’s Adventure a standout in different ways.
Their practical father has prepared his family for his demise, but what he hasn’t prepared Emily for is a gift that stems from his last mysterious words to her. These foster blossoming abilities that force Emily into new realizations about life’s purpose and possibilities.
Facts unfold in the course of a journey through not just sorrow over losing her father, but different forms of grief, confrontation, and angst that lead her to hone abilities she’d never known she had:
The dream—or whatever it was—had shown her something new, something bigger than she had ever imagined. It wasn’t just about her father or the strange bubbles, but about how everything was connected. How everything was made of energy and imagination. She took a deep breath and let the fresh air fill her lungs. The smell of the garden—earthy and clean—helped her feel like she was back. She looked at the trees once more, then closed her eyes, smiling softly. Boo had said, this whole universe is your mind. Maybe, just maybe, Emily thought, she was starting to understand.
YA readers will enjoy the inviting foray into worlds of witches and supernatural forces that comes with an undercurrent of discovery and spiritual and psychological survival, making Emily’s character feel three-dimensional and thoroughly absorbing.
Many of these opportunities and insights will lend nicely to book club or group discussion, as well:
...as Alexis had pointed out, plenty of people believed in voices, in guardian angels, in unseen forces guiding them. Maybe it didn’t matter if it was real or not. Maybe what mattered was how she chose to understand it.
From how demons become influenced to bigger issues of darkness versus light, Emily’s Adventure demonstrates a powerful spiritual component that engages young adults with thought-provoking scenarios and unexpected questions.
Librarians seeking YA collection additions which lure with supernatural overtones but move far beyond the typical urban fantasy setting will appreciate the allure, complexity, and bigger-picture thinking that Emily’s Adventure embraces.
Its special brand of action and discovery makes it a clear winner.
Emily’s AdventureReturn to Index
For the Love of
Glitter
Sarah Branson
Sooner Started
Press
978-1-957774-20-6
$12.99
Paperback/$9.99 eBook
www.sarahbranson.com
Young adult readers interested in adventures involving pirates and post-apocalyptic worlds will find For the Love of Glitter a powerful story of love, struggle, and survival. The tale revolves around a coveted substance called Glitter that becomes the cornerstone of hope and opportunity in this dangerous world, and the experiences of sixteen-year-old Grey, whose family life revolves around her mother, the master commander of Bosch, and Sy, who secretly carries a torch for his friend. Together, the two friends confront the conflicting forces of a society built on Glitter and a movement determined to dismantle it.
Romance is at the heart of this story, which moves between Grey’s family life and social observations and that of Edmund Sinclair, whose inherent charisma powers small victories that place his trajectory in society above and beyond his parents’ ambitions.
Grey’s first time at university collides with Edmund’s involvement in the anti-Glitter movement, bringing two unlikely individuals into a close proximity which translates to a dangerous attraction that evolves complexities on more than a romantic level.
As Edmund develops a vested interest in keeping Grey in the dark, his underlying attitudes towards women and power emerge for some thought-provoking moments that will prompt discussions in young adult circles:
... he heard his mentor’s voice in his head: Establish a clear hierarchy. You are in charge. Underlings shall not question your directives. Particularly women.
Other characters circle around them, from Edmund’s friend Curtis who joins him in finding a new cause to leaders such as the Archminister whose memorandums outline strategies for purposely disrupting Bosch’s narratives and agendas in the effort called “Operation Dominion Rising.”
Sarah Branson does an outstanding job of developing bigger-picture thinking as these personal and political relationships evolve, are challenged, and change. More is involved than Glitter, pirates, and profits as Grey finds her choices shifting with maturity and new realizations:
If I have a problem with Glitter, I should work to create change from the inside.
Libraries seeing popularity with the prior Pirates of the New Earth fantasies will wind to add For the Love of Glitter to their YA collections as a powerful standalone adventure in which love and social inspection create new inspections of ideals of love, connection, and social change.
YA readers will find it vivid, heady reading that’s easy to absorb, realistic in its fantasy worlds, and hard to put down.
For the Love of GlitterReturn to Index
Hudson’s Monarch
Nursery
Laurie Sharp
Mascot Kids!/ Amplify
Publishing Group
979-8-89138-274-9
$19.95
Author Website: lmsharpbooks.com
Publisher
Website: https://mascotbooks.com/
Hudson’s Monarch Nursery is a celebration of butterflies that goes beyond the usual identification and field guide for picture book readers. It explores a young boy’s mandate to collect monarch eggs and caterpillars not for display, but preservation.
Rachel Novel provides good-sized illustrations to accompany the tale of how Hudson and his mother become involved with monarchs, learning about their natural history and preservation requirements.
One of the most powerful messages in his adventure, however, is Hudson’s acknowledgement that:
I take it to heart that I am responsible for caring for its every need. It’s counting on me to now do for it what it would have been doing on its own before I removed it from its natural environment.
This goes beyond the usual natural history focus to add enlightenment and importance to the choices, decisions, and support systems kids and adults participate in as they study and support nature and its environments. It’s a lesson that most adults need to know, as well.
How Hudson works with his mom to identify monarch needs, set up a “critter carrier,” and embrace bigger-picture thinking about their project translates to an exceptional celebration of nature:
I am thrilled to happily watch my caterpillars munching away. Because I know that I am part of something so much bigger than me, and next year, I will be hopefully raising these caterpillars’ great-great-grandchildren. I can’t wait to see and share this amazing, wondrous circle of life!
Libraries and read-aloud adults seeking a butterfly story that flies far from the crowd will welcome the many topics supporting Hudson’s Monarch Nursery, from monarch natural history to the reasons how and why young people can and need to become more cognizant about natural processes and supporting nature.
Hudson’s Monarch NurseryReturn to Index
Little Gator’s
Morning Dash
Sheri Morris
Little Gator
Publishing, LLC
978-1-60645-373-5
$26.95
Hardcover/$12.99
Paperback/$5.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Little-Gators-Morning-Dash-Teaching/dp/1606453734
Little Gator’s Morning Dash addresses a common problem parents have with kids: getting them up and going in the morning. Many books have tried to tackle this problem in a positive way, but Sheri Morris offers a different perspective by promoting a fun, easily-learned “Morning Dash” that encourages kids to get out of bed in the morning and perform their tasks.
Morning habits and routines involve quietly getting up so as not to disturb others, putting jammies in their proper place when getting dressed, and saying morning prayers. Each routine Little Gator experiences comes with insight, respect for others, and the physical and mental process of “getting ready for another wonderful day.”
Read-aloud adults will especially appreciate the positivity and concern that Little Gator reflects as he goes through his morning routine, and the focus on consideration for and helping others that Little Gator cultivates through his choices.
Libraries and readers seeking positive choices for read-aloud, behavior modification efforts, and a fun read featuring the colorful Little Gator (which Tom Tolman’s vivid, full-sized illustrations bring to life) will find Little Gator’s Morning Dash just the ticket for teaching and encouraging the very young.
Little Gator’s Morning DashReturn to Index
Made for Me
Laura Ranger
Foundations Book
Publishing
978-1-64583-152-5
$5.99 eBook
www.FoundationsBooks.net
Made for Me is the YA sci-fi story of Sandi, who wants to be done with high school’s cliques and games. She comes from a “long line of scientists” and can’t wait to become one, herself. Perhaps this is why she is drawn into a dangerous experiment in which a basement lab becomes the birthplace of a deadly idea gone awry when she attempts to bring her father’s abandoned experiment to fruition—and succeeds.
Can she really create a full body? As a young Frankenstein, Sandi pursues her questions and her dream, only to confront a result far beyond her expectations and way past her ability to control.
Laura Ranger crafts an appealing personality in the geeky Sandi, whose talents supersede her years and wisdom. YAs will particularly relate to Sandi’s intentions in tackling the impossible:
It sure would be cool if she could make a person. She would make herself the man of her dreams. Well, at least a boyfriend good enough to make the kids at school stop looking at her like a loser.
The usual coming-of-age story takes a twist into adult concerns and reality as Sandi delves into boys, Max’s creation and potential, and a strong father/daughter relationship which enters into the emotional fray to posit something totally unexpected.
As her father’s love interest, Grace, enters their lives to smooth the relationship between them all, new possibilities emerge on different levels. This places Made for Me beyond the realm of a sci-fi Frankenstein creation story alone.
With its undercurrents of love, change, adaptation, and control, Made for Me is an evocative, compelling story of growth and discovery that will attract sci-fi enthusiasts and teens who like stories of evolving families as much as developing dilemmas.
Libraries that pick Made for Me for YA collections will want to highly recommend it to teens interested in emotional, involving stories that closely examine life connections, new beginnings, and old patterns of belief and interaction.
Its focus on a girl’s growth and abilities and how she eventually falls into a situation that challenges the very love she longs for in her life creates a story that is hard to either predict or put down.
Made for MeReturn to Index
Mystery of the
Missing Ball
Rahere and Zélie
Amolo
Ollie and Louie
Books
9798228489518
$10.99
Website: www.ollieandlouiebooks.com
Ordering: https://amzn.to/4lZxgUV
Mystery of the Missing Ball is an Ollie and Louie picture book rhyming adventure about Ollie’s favorite green ball, which is just right in so many ways. He even loves to sleep with it at night.
It seems unlikely that Ollie could lose such a valued toy, but one morning his dog friend Louie is called over the fence when Ollie discovers his favorite ball has inexplicably gone missing overnight.
Louie tries to help her friend by reviewing some possibilities of where the ball could be (“Did it roll beneath the chair? Is it with your teddy bear?”), but Ollie maintains that “It just vanished in thin air! I’ve searched here, there, and everywhere!”
And, where’s the joy in life if one’s favorite toy is no longer part of it?
Parents who read this gentle dog story to the very young will find its large-sized, colorful dog pictures completely engaging, its premise realistic and thought-provoking, and the friendship between the two canines engaging.
When Louie comes up with a possible new friend in a “cyber-kitten” investigator, intrigue, fantasy, and action move in unexpected directions kids and adults won’t see coming.
The joy of this book lies in how it embraces so many themes, from life goals and meaning to depression, friendship, problem-solving, and employing virtual systems to tackle big issues.
Libraries and adult readers seeking picture book stories that go beyond simple themes to address challenges to positivity that offer creative, understandable solutions will relish the unique, uplifting adventure of Mystery of the Missing Ball. It will resonate with a wide audience in many heartening ways.
Mystery of the Missing BallReturn to Index
Mystery of the
Missing Squirrels
Rahere and Zélie
Amolo
Ollie and Louie
Books
9798291491263
$10.99
Website: www.ollieandlouiebooks.com
Ordering: https://amzn.to/4p1FXRo
Mystery of the Missing Squirrels, the second book in the Ollie and Louie Mysteries picture book series, once again pairs the dynamic dog duo with their new friend, AI kitten Aïda, to tackle another puzzle.
This time the problem revolves around AI Aïda, who is starting to hallucinate, seeing squirrels where there are none. Or, are there?
How can Ollie and Louie help her when clearly there is nothing to be found? Is the truth of the matter really as murky as it seems?
Parents who read this intriguing story to the very young will find within it important discussion points about truth and falsehood, the vulnerabilities of computers and AI which belays any notion that their information is always the truth, and the efforts of friends to help one another in the process of solving a mystery.
The story focuses on different levels of understanding and assistance (“We must explain what's false and true, But how to help her think it through?"), injecting a sense of purpose, perplexity, and gentle understanding into the tale as the always-wise Louie offers some insights to both of her friends.
Another underlying topic involves dealing with mental illness and tests of reality as kids learn better ways of accepting others and interacting with positivity and kindness.
Libraries seeking picture books which translate to fine read-alouds, operating as lessons in life, friendship, and problem-solving, will appreciate how the attractive mystery and animal components encourage bigger-picture thinking about others and life conundrums.
Replete with large-size, engaging illustrations and attractive drama, Mystery of the Missing Squirrels is especially strong and compelling for its multifaceted subjects and strong emotional insights and attractions.
Mystery of the Missing SquirrelsReturn to Index
Phantom Algebra
Dan Rice
The Wild Rose
Press Inc.
978-1-5092-6302-8
$19.99
Paperback/$4.99 eBook
https://www.danscifi.com
Phantom Algebra joins The Wild Rose Press’s YA “Haunting of Pinedale High” series with a horror story steeped in ghosts and new possibilities for young Zuri and her mom. Zuri is trying to start over in a new school and life after being on the run from her father for years, but the phantoms which emerge in her new environment are just as frightening as what she’s been running from.
The ghost needs her help, but Zuri’s attempts to lend a hand only result in dangerous ambushes, shrieking idols, and simmering horrors which Dan Rice describes with a wicked hand for powerful detail:
As all good things must come to an end, so must all the horrors, even if what terrifies us seems to linger and linger and linger. Memory seeped and spurted into the consciousness. Recollection and abysmal purpose. The dark magic as black as any devilry wrought on the living world. The obsession. Spells woven over years. And the sacrifice.
Rice explores the tween ghost’s issues and perspectives as well as Zuri’s. What keeps them both tethered to the library receives intriguing exploration as the story unfolds satisfyingly unpredictable avenues of discovery and encounters that move neatly beyond most traditional ghost stories.
From agreements and survival efforts to the hundred-year mystery surrounding Rose O’Dell’s demise, intrigue, death, and interpersonal relationships build a satisfying atmosphere of mystery and enlightenment. This draws YA readers with supernatural promise, then delivers astute inspections of interpersonal relationships and underlying powerful influences on life choices.
Librarians can choose Phantom Algebra for their collections confident that the rich tone of emotional connection and discovery that opens the story will support the supernatural contentions and growing horror to deliver a one-two punch of surprises and revelations.
Filled with satisfying twists and turns as relationships evolve, Phantom Algebra is a winning story suitable for teen reading groups and individual leisure readers alike.
Phantom AlgebraReturn to Index
Reach for Hope
(Dare to Dream Series
Book 2)
Amanda LaPera
Adamo Press
978-1-965660-02-7
$19.99
https://books2read.com/reachforhope2
Although Reach for Hope is the second book in the YA Desert of Dreams series, it operates as a standalone story that will attract new audiences as well as prior fans who enjoyed Kiara’s previous experiences of small town life.
This story opens in 1985 in Southern California, where Caroline reflects that she:
... was taught to fear God, but the only being she ever feared was her dad.
As the protector of her younger brothers in a chaotic household, Carolyn has long learned how to field her volatile father’s violence. Her military mother finds ways to semi-smooth things over, but without the support and affection a mother usually gives to her children.
As she encounters Kiara, an unhappy girl from the summer program, their lives dovetail (for past readers) while receiving thorough explanation (for newcomers to this series), making for an easy introduction to interconnected lives and different experiences as the plot unfolds.
Amanda LaPera is especially adept at portraying how these seemingly disparate young lives and experiences mingle and influence one other against the backdrop of community, religion, and budding friendship.
Her juxtaposition of different personalities, families, and experiences creates an engaging set of conundrums and encounters that YAs will find compelling, realistic, and thought-provoking.
Librarians seeking series titles that compliment one other without requiring prior familiarity will find Reach for Hope an exceptional draw that outlines new growth experiences from interpersonal connections:
Trevor asked nothing of her but to tell him about herself. The more she told him, the more he wanted to know. No one had ever been so intensely curious about who she was as a person, what things mattered to her, and what events and experiences shaped her into the person she had become.
YAs seeking evocative, compelling reading will find Carolyn’s story thoroughly absorbing.
Reach for Hope (Dare to Dream Series Book 2)Return to Index
Shogologo Babies
Flora A.
Trebi-Ollennu
Amerley Treb Books
978-1-894718-36-3
$8.99
https://www.amazon.com/Shogologo-Babies-B%C3%A9b%C3%A9s-Abifabii/dp/B0FWQTZ118/ref=monarch_sidesheet_title
Shogologo Babies is a trilingual picture book (in French, English, and Ga) that tells of Auntie Minsher’s forthcoming baby, one of several she’s introduced to the world.
Jan Vandenberg provides lovely illustrations to accompany this rhyming review of a soon-to-be-mother’s consideration of the children she will welcome into the world on different days of the week:
What shall I name this bundle of delight?
His face radiates with sunlight,
His eyes are keen but cool,
His body as soft as wool.
Each day brings a different reflection and ideas of what she will name the newcomer. Exercises encourage adults who read this story to the very young to consider questions such as what day a child was born, their insights about the seven babies profiled in this story, and Auntie Miisher’s habits, family, and life.
A variety of exercises encourages kids to think about what they’ve read, observed, and been told, with the different languages offering opportunities for Ghanian and English readers alike to absorb the culture and insights of Africa.
Libraries seeking African-based stories and educational opportunities for kids will find Shogologo Babies a fine choice. It presents cultural reflections that are absorbing, fun, and perfect for child/adult interactions with its insights about motherhood, birth, days of the week, and more.
Shogologo BabiesReturn to Index
The Tale of the
Wicked Old Woman and
the Very Nice ‘Beast’ of Crouch End
Lance Lee
LWL Books
979-8218717810
$31.99
Hardcover/$17.99 Paperback
www.lanceleeauthor.com
The Tale of the Wicked Old Woman and the Very Nice ‘Beast’ of Crouch End offers young readers ages 8-11 the thought-provoking fable of a woman who attempts to hold on to her beautiful daughter.
A beautiful young woman watches her daughter grow into her own loveliness with pride and joy. But when this narrows to pride, trouble enters the picture as the woman ages and the daughter grows up seeking to expand and explore the world beyond home.
The aging mother “...couldn’t bear the thought of such beauty going out of her life, or even of sharing her with anyone else. Her control grew tighter.”
As it does, uncertainty and wickedness enter her life to infect the world around her.
This is a richly woven narrative which expands through the related experiences of cats, a stranger whose action propels the old woman over the edge into wicked witch activities, and the birth of a happy little girl called Daisy.
Lance Lee introduces many facets and thought-provoking twists into his fable, crafting a story replete with teachable moments, surprises, and the evolution of different personalities.
Young readers will appreciate how all these personalities and life examinations dovetail in a rich story complex in perspectives and tantalizing in its outcomes and connections.
Libraries seeking chapter book fables for preteens that pepper gorgeous illustrations (by Nathalie Toro Retivoff) in color and black and white with evocative scenes within and beyond a small town will find The Tale of the Wicked Old Woman and the Very Nice ‘Beast’ of Crouch End wonderfully revealing. It’s filled with surprises and is perfect for interactions between different ages in book clubs and reading groups.
The Tale of the Wicked Old Woman and the Very Nice ‘Beast’ of Crouch EndReturn to Index
When the Angel of
Death Tells
Bedtime Stories
Sabine Meyer
Independently
Published
979-8999343017
$16.99
Paperback/$6.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Angel-Death-Tells-Bedtime-Stories/dp/B0FFNKY62V
When the Angel of Death Tells Bedtime Stories is presented in several parts, offering rich reading for teens ages 13-18 who like elements of oddity in their adventure reading, adults, and families who seek thought-provoking (if not sometimes peculiar) scenarios which encourage discussion.
Sabine Meyer tackles heady subjects of dragons, angels, terror, darkness, and life possibilities that are recommended for mature or maturing readers.
The first section, “Bedtime Stories of Fanny,” presents age-appropriate stories for a five-year-old that tells of a visit from the angel Michael, his loneliness and the one extravagance he allows himself (relationship-wise), and his story-telling attraction for little Fanny, who receives his tale of a little dog who becomes a volcano in the first anecdote in this anthology.
Michael knows many possibilities, and so his second story about a dragon offers a very different perspective to young Fanny as he weaves in possibilities that challenge her perception of life and reality.
Each story in this collection is embedded with curses, empowerment possibilities, insights on courage and good and evil choices, and more.
The collection embarks on a spooky journey into life and death that deserves discussion and family interaction to achieve its brightest possibility as a series of lessons about life, death, and what lies in-between.
Readers who witness the Angel of Death’s attempts to explain and explore his specialty through evocative, vivid stories will also appreciate how the book’s different sections dovetail. They move from Michael the Storyteller to Michael the Character in His Own Story to a third section exploring how Fanny and her family are connected to Michael in unexpected ways.
The result will delight libraries looking for thought-provoking reads the older teens can enjoy as well as reader seeking magical encounters that require no linear reading or understanding, but delve neatly into the magic, intrigue, and mystery of life and death as Michael fulfills his own destiny:
“You will be stewards for the most marvelous of all my species. It’s a new ape called a human. Humans have what no other animal has: imagination, storytelling, and most importantly, souls.”
When the Angel of Death Tells Bedtime StoriesReturn to Index