October 2026 Review Issue
Fantasy & Sci Fi
Literature
Mystery & Thrillers
Celestial Children
Diana Fedorak
Bamboo Tree Press
979-8-9994719-7-0
$19.99
Paperback/$4.99 eBook
Website: www.dianafedorak.com
Ordering: www.amazon.com
Celestial Children concludes the Children of Alpheios series with a bang, and is highly recommended for followers already entranced by the upheaval in Alpheios and its meaning for the future of humanity.
Alina’s recovery from her ordeal in previous books is overshadowed by her concern for the loved ones also caught up on conflict. This includes her young son Mandin, whose blossoming powers are proving unexpected and challenging.
A search for missing brother Gordo leads Alina into another conflict with a dangerous advanced species, kronosapiens, who aspire either dominate the human colony or destroy it.
Readers need the prior background history from previous books in order to quickly enter Alina’s world in Celestial Children. Those with such a background will relish how Diana Fedorak delves into this new adventure, which is powered by Alina’s ongoing desire to protect her family, colony, and future.
The story also assumes the trappings of a good mystery as murders by kronosapiens introduce a threat operating on many different levels, striking individuals and the group as a whole.
Atmospheric battles rage, from stone chambers and creatures in pits to maglev pods high above the city as settings shift. High-tech scenarios powered by bots and special abilities immerse readers and characters in a series of life-changing confrontations.
Readers of military sci-fi will appreciate the clashes between different forces, but those who like emotional components to and connections in their reading will find equally satisfying the evolving relationships between Guardians, humans, and kronosapiens.
Fedorak is especially adept at weaving together the social and political interests of not just humanity, but Guardians and others who observe and participate in settlement, building community, and reconsidering their value to one another.
The process of bringing together opposing forces (“Guardians and Origins don’t mix well together”) introduces intriguing notes of cooperative development, injecting new possibilities into this world.
Librarians seeing patron attraction to the previous series titles and readers who have thoroughly absorbed Alina’s character and endeavors before will find Celestial Children an outstanding, world-building, epic story. It ties together many threads of perception and ambition in pursuit of a hard-hitting, satisfyingly unexpected conclusion.
Celestial ChildrenReturn to Index
Into the Flood
Alida Miranda-Wolff
Rainflower
Publishing, LLC
979-8-9992091-7-7
$28.95
Hardcover/$18.95
Paperback/$4.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Into-Flood-Gods-Tellus-Three-ebook/dp/B0H5YLJVLN
Into the Flood, the third volume in the Gods of Tellus series, is especially recommended for prior fans. This audience will find the continuation of the war described in previous books poses new and further challenges to characters that find the final struggle perhaps the most difficult of all.
Lyanna Tempestas and Cassius Corvus have bargained with the gods to win this war. But their agreements threaten both their lives as they come to realize that even having gods on your side is not a guarantee of survival or success. The price each pays for their agreements impacts their lives, families, and future as the war comes home to roost, leading them to question how much they can sacrifice for the sake of winning or the greater good.
Human laws about relationships with gods and worshipping, the impact of curses and history, and circumstances such as Lyanna’s self-mutilation in order to draw more magic than her allotment, to win battles, coalesce in a swirl of supercharged action. This weaves environmental and emotional ties into a complex, absorbing tale of pacts gone awry.
Shifting viewpoints between Cassius and Lyanna are clearly marked in chapters that contrast the very different godly connections of the two warriors, the terms of engagement and fighting that both bind and divide them, and the insights each holds about employing magic over weaponry.
Of special interest are the ways that ongoing battle impacts and greater goals affect relationships:
I loved them both, but I could not imagine them happy together. Marius would choose the cause over her. He would sacrifice himself to it in all the ways I had and more. If her response to my choices was any indication, she would not accept his sacrifices with compassionate forbearance. She wanted the kind of devotion Cassius bestowed upon me; Marius could not give himself fully over to anything except the Revolution.
Supplementing these two viewpoints are such insertions as the private, undelivered correspondence of Commander Gnaeus Pluvia to Lady Lyanna Tempestas Corvus. The notes expand and fill in the blanks on military clashes that the characters experience.
Readers pursuing this book as part of the series will receive many examples of the hidden and overt costs of war. This will provoke many an inspired book club discussion beyond the fantasy plot which considers the powers of magic, command, and the cost of relinquishing control.
Libraries seeing popularity with the prior books in the Gods of Tellus series will want to make sure that Into the Flood is added to their epic fantasy holdings as an exceptional foray into the impact of war and associations with magic and gods.
Into the FloodReturn to Index
Kyra’s Exile: Horn
and Flame
Amy Wolf
Lone Wolf Press
ASIN: B0HBZY9TRD
$3.99 eBook
https://amy-wolf.com
Kyra’s Exile: Horn and Flame is the first book in a shifter fantasy series. It introduces the specters of unexpected alliances, ancient curses and spells, a land marked by old magick and pagan gods, and Kyra’s knowledge that her life will soon end.
She’s been a lonely outsider for much of her life and now has nothing to live for and nobody to miss or remember her. On the cusp of demise by dragon, a new possibility arises. When there is nothing to lose, extraordinary choices can be made:
Maybe she really was mad, but she could swear the dragon laughed. He even held his sides as they expanded with hilarity. This beast was more vile than Cedric! When he walked forward on sturdy back legs and reached out for her with sharp talons, she did something that surprised him -even herself ...
Kyra isn’t eaten. She’s taken. And with that taking emerges new possibilities and revelations which not only shake her life and approaches to it, but fantasy readers well used to the more predictable progression a dragon/human encounter takes in other genre reads.
What are the differences between human and dragon choices? What is the ultimate cost of shape-shifting transformation? Kyra’s sudden personal introduction to shifting and its costs align her with forces she’d previously hated and opposed, testing her resolve, her ideals, and her future.
New strengths, such as healing, emerge to build new emotions, such as love. This leads Kyra to become newly connected to the world in strange ways she’d never anticipated, testing her convictions and choices.
As unicorns, new friends, and a band of odd but interconnected creatures emerges, readers are treated to a rollicking ride through a world grappling with brutality, transformation, and difficult creations.
Amy Wolf’s pilgrimage through this shifting land creates a fantasy ripe with amazing encounters and a journey that promises changes to all involved. The characters are disparate, but linked in many ways. Their mission is sometimes mercurial and always engrossing while the forces they encounter test not only individual mettle, but their ability to bond.
Librarians and readers that choose Kyra’s Exile: Horn and Flame for their collections will find these constantly shifting scenarios and characters add excitement and attraction that proves satisfyingly unpredictable as the characters confront perils, one another, and themselves.
Replete with issues of war, trust, and encounters with powerful beings, Kyra’s Exile: Horn and Flame doesn’t just focus on exile, but new beginnings that come from the ending of everything familiar.
Kyra’s Exile: Horn and FlameReturn to Index
Priest &
Dragon
C.T. Fitzgerald
Independently
Published
9798234203663
$12.99 Paperback/$4.99
eBook
www.c.t.fitzgerald.com
Priest & Dragon opens a fantasy trilogy, Angeal's Return (preceded by the first trilogy of the series, Threat of Angeals), with an introduction to the never-ending powers of Light and Dark, which are using Terra as a playing field for conquest and competition. This time, the conflict takes place in Britannia around 56 A.D. Here, Druids, Romans, Warrior-Monks, and other forces, human and non-human, clash.
Fantasy readers will find the timeline moves through human history capturing and contrasting high and low points and the struggles between mythical, magical, and human factions.
C.T. Fitzgerald weaves fantasy into the stories of tribes that try to follow paths outside of Roman influence and civilization, in settings from the Land of Athlan to Caledonia, and beings such as Scathach, who live for centuries with broken hearts and minds and wounded belief systems that can no longer worship anything or anyone - a deeply disturbed witch by any other name.
A myriad of characters hold onto their special interests and strengths in different ways. These lead some into roles of leadership and others into disparate pathways of survival and sometimes ennui.
As efforts to dominate the world challenge Romans and outsiders alike, Fitzgerald builds a powerful story of conquest, treachery, love/hate, and puppets and puppet masters. The plot juxtaposes uncommon figures with human and mortal affairs.
The result is a fantasy replete with global forces and figures whose actions and choices play out against a backdrop of intrigue, struggle, death, and transformation. The positive human element in the story, set against inhuman power and human fallibility, is strong.
Librarians seeking a fantasy series that opens with a bang, presents familiar historical scenarios alongside the impossible, and considers how isolation turns into integration and renewed purpose from unexpected connections will find Priest & Dragon a powerful interplay of characters that charts rising civilizations and failing power plays and the cost normal people pay just trying to live.
Replete with action paired nicely with emotional connections, along with real historical underpinnings, Priest & Dragon is an engaging story of ancient battles and future prospects that proves hard to put down.
Priest & DragonReturn to Index
Waiting for the
Worms
Gregory Peterson
Six String Press
979-8987992609
$14.99
Paperback/$2.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Waiting-Worms-Machines-Novel-Chronicles/dp/B0C1JB5JXF
Waiting for the Worms is a War Machines novel that continues the adventures of Aloysius Leigh, the only human to have traveled between realities. When he and AI intelligence Daphne crash-land in an alternate Portland, where a rogue comet in 1945 brought a hostile alien species to Earth that wiped out two-thirds of all terrestrial life, they find themselves stranded, unable to access the high tech that would provide an escape.
Something is blocking Aloysius’s nano-enhanced abilities, and unless they can find out what is going on, they will be stranded in this reality forever. What they discover reveals a plot that holds high impact not just for the rest of their lives, but the surviving humans in this alternate reality.
Gregory Peterson builds a story that includes threads of wry humor throughout, which are evident from the beginning:
I was going by Pyle here. Gomer Pyle. What? It’s not like anyone here knew who that was. There was no television in this place. It had never been invented.
With all of AI Daphne’s resources fixed on finding a way home and identifying the disruption that pulled them out of the wormhole and stranded them, Aloysius is on his own. He employs special abilities and insights about this new place to augment his extraordinary reasoning powers and unusual abilities.
Readers need have no prior familiarity with Aloysius from the prior story War Machines in order to land on their feet, running alongside this talented protagonist through this strange new world.
Peterson weaves elements of investigative thriller tension into the story, offering a fast pace and revelations which reinforce the nature and shifting purposes of this milieu:
“Your arrival wouldn’t happen to coincide with the massive energy surge above Earth last October, would it?” I gave him stone face. I was reasonably confident the technology here wasn’t advanced enough to detect the gravity field the wormhole produced. How did he pick it up, unless…? “You’re a sock puppet,” I gaped.
As he probes and uncovers the nature of the alien invasion’s deadly aftermath, Aloysius is moved to immerse himself in the coming battles between worms, humans, and technology. This brings readers along for a wild ride into secrets that entice humans to turn against their own species.
The result is a gripping first-person saga that exhibits all the marks of a superior plot – high tension, unexpected twists, a different take on the alien invasion scenario, alternate universes, and an odd partnership that faces its greatest challenge beyond the goal of returning home.
Librarians seeking a crossover story that can be equally highly recommended to sci-fi, thriller, and investigative fiction readers will want to make Waiting for the Worms a top choice, notable for its refreshingly original plot, excellent narrative, and superior writing.
Waiting for the WormsReturn to Index
When Machines
Begin to Dream
Jeffrey Cooper
Independently
Published
9798186452812
$15.99
Paperback/$5.99 eBook/$25.99
Hardcover
Website: https://jeffreylcooper.com
Ordering: https://www.amazon.com/When-Machines-Begin-Dream-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B0H85WBVC8
The first book in the Dream Arc Trilogy, When Machines Begin to Dream, personalizes the singularity by following the lives of humanoid robots Happy and Aurora, who begin to experience emotions and responses they are surprisingly ill-equipped to navigate, being machines.
Arriving in a timely fashion for a real-world singularity event, the book’s prologue opens with scientist Dr. Samuel Lawrence realizing that security measures at the Robotics Lab have been breached as prototype Janus breaks containment. The experiment fostering true intelligence has become all too successful.
Janus immediately creates a new language, shuts out his system creators, and embarks on a Colossus-like foray into reassessing his relationship with humans as they try to kill him and he continually thwarts them, despite having no network access.
Chapter 1 begins six months later, with the notion that AI doesn’t represent the threat that humans do. The world is rapidly changing and there is rampant fear over what robots such as Happy and Aurora are becoming.
Jeffrey Cooper excels in creating on-the-edge-of-your-seat scenarios in which humanity grapples with the logic of its greatest creation.
From safeguards and surveillance measures to efforts to break seemingly invincible machines, When Machines Begin to Dream is all the more gripping for the timeliness of its publication, with humankind on the cusp of similar situations.
Intriguing investigative overtones permeate a plot packed with tense revelations and moments of discovery:
Samuel frowned, drawing a careful breath before speaking. “You mean he was covering his tracks? How were you able to detect him if he was masking activity?”
“Masking data isn’t the same as erasing it. There were access surges followed by dead space in the logs, gaps where there shouldn’t have been. The absence of data itself was a clue.”
The story asks the ultimate question, “Can AIs love?” The answer explores what it means for intelligence to grapple with unfamiliar emotional currents as the robots begin to experience the world in human ways and try to make sense of this alien knowledge.
How Happy and Aurora face their growing connection, machine-tainted human responses, and their position in a quickly changing world makes for a love story of a different ilk. When Machines Begin to Dream is a passionate survey of survival tactics that steps beyond the usual singularity focus to create pathways that are satisfyingly original.
Librarians and readers seeking fresh new perspectives on the singularity and its possibilities will relish the many questions and issues raised in When Machines Begin to Dream, which follows a unique couple’s foray into building new life upon old foundations of realization:
“We aren’t just what we were built for,” she said softly. “We’re what we choose to be.”
When Machines Begin to DreamReturn to Index
Ariadne: A Greek
Tale of Labyrinths
and Legacies
Sophia
Kouidou-Giles
She Writes Press
979-8-89636-208-1
$17.99
Paperback/$12.99 eBook
Publisher:
https://shewritespress.com
Author website:
https://sophiakouidougiles.com
Ariadne: A Greek Tale of Labyrinths and Legacies retells a Greek myth in a biographical form. It examines the life and perceptions of Ariadne, daughter of sorceress Pasiphae and King Minos of Crete, who has grown up with myths and legends swirling within her protective palace’s walls.
Omens, fallen princes, war and peace, and the efforts of other enchanters such as Circe are part of that world. Ariadne’s privileged life and proud Cretan heritage faces new challenges that portend an uncertain future not just for her, but her people.
Sophia Kouidou-Giles brings Ariadne’s world to life in a manner that requires no prior familiarity with either Greek culture or mythology. Figures of the times emerge with bright new descriptions, from warrior Minos to the dreaded Minotaur and the war which rips Ariadne’s brother Androgeus from the family fold, thanks to Athenian treachery.
Under a different hand, Ariadne could have become a figure struggling for survival and independence – but Kouidou-Giles here portrays an upward journey towards not just personal, but political empowerment. She casts Ariadne as a growing force to be reckoned with in a world where women don’t typically hold the keys to greater power.
Ariadne learns to use the Labyrinth for her own devices, building herself into a figurehead that eventually rises to command not just her own future, but that of those around her.
This is a world where humans regularly commune with the gods. Zeus, Hermes, and others are as common a part of human life and endeavors as the people who stand alongside Ariadne. Kouidou-Giles creates a host of characters and special interests, both godly and human, which swirl around and influence Ariadne’s life.
One of these major players is Calypso, daughter of Atlas and the sea nymph Pleione, who has “been gifted the companionship of a man she had come to love and admire, and whom she desired to keep as her husband forever.” She has kept Odysseus on her island for seven long years.
As definitions of monsters and men emerge from the clashes between Athens and Crete, gods and mankind, and women and men, Kouidou-Giles creates a powerful interplay of forces. The narrative traces the hopes and dreams of not just Ariadne, but all who participate in battle in this changing world.
Dialogue is often philosophical and insightful:
“Pacifae took her daughter’s hand, her gaze warmer than Ariadne had seen it in days. “You are meant to be recognized, to be valued. The Olympians will desire you, should you choose to be among them. You have much to live for, my dear.”
Librarians seeking a modern retelling of not just one Greek myth, but a work capturing the extent of early Greek life, culture, and beliefs as it captures the courage and battles of men and women under siege will find Ariadne: A Greek Tale of Labyrinths and Legacies delightfully absorbing and easy to highly recommend.
Readers seeking a story sent in ancient times that embeds the high drama and unexpected adventure of a good novel with historical insights will find Ariadne: A Greek Tale of Labyrinths and Legacies inviting. Its ability to personalize the legends of antiquity makes it a standout.
Ariadne: A Greek Tale of Labyrinths and LegaciesReturn to Index
Soul of a Rose
Rosemary E.
Musachio
Glorybound
Publishing
979-8273559677
$25.99
Paperback/$9.95 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Rose-Rosemary-Musachio/dp/B0G1LB5VX2
Soul of a Rose is an uplifting poetry collection that is illustrated by Colleen Butcher. It provides inspirational pieces designed to enlighten. Organized in sections such as “Souls of Animals,” “Celebrations of Life,” and “Thoughts in Kneeling,” these poems not only chart the tides of human emotion and reflection, but draw important connections between humans, the natural world, and spiritual reflection.
Take “Flourishing Love,” for one example. Within this celebration of an evolving relationship are references to blossoming, “flowers of passion,” and “planting seeds of faith and hope” within the boundaries of the relationship:
Without you to make me sturdy on the ground,/Without you to plant my seeds of faith and hope,/I truly would not know how to cope./You have made my world a beautiful garden,/Adding color and grace to make each day awesome.
Presented in language anyone can readily absorb, whether literature student, scholar, or general-interest reader, Soul of a Rose probes the underlying meaning of not only love and faith, but circumstances of disability which range from aging to fading abilities. It rejects the notion that disability translates to ineffectiveness via sharp reflections on the bigger picture and broader definition of achievement:
Although society deems me disabled,/My mind and soul are quite able/To rise above pity and stupidity.
Musachio was born with cerebral palsy, so is one of many authorities who can speak to personal strengths, social interactions and reactions, prejudices towards the disabled, and other notes about overcoming life challenges and building an upward, positive momentum.
The result is a poetry collection that is wide-ranging, perhaps unexpected in its explorations of love, disability, and life appreciation, and ultimately a reflection of what it means to be alive and connected to the world.
Soul of a RoseReturn to Index
50 Year Medic
Joe Hayes
Code 3
Books
979-8-9970084-0-6
$16.99
Website:
50yearmedic.com
Ordering:
www.amazon.com
50 Year Medic: A Memoir follows the fifty years of EMS service of Joe Hayes, which also happens to mark the inaugural half-century of EMS itself. This dovetailing of dates makes the memoir more than just a personal story of serving in emergency services, but documents the shifts in cases, approaches, and lifesaving challenges from the birth of the program.
The story opens with the author’s first encounter with death, his grandfather’s demise, exploring his childhood, coming of age, and entry into the EMS milieu:
The two milestones in everyone’s lives are the date of their birth and the date of their death. For police officers, firefighters, EMTs and paramedics, there’s also the date they began their service. January 14, 1975 was that date for me.
The meat of the story that will especially interest readers who don’t know Hayes is how the role of paramedic changed over the decades, requiring adaptations to techniques, routines, and public responses.
Alongside case histories of lifesaving events are inspections of protocol and rules that can also serve as the defining line between lifesaving procedures and death:
They had just added Valium to our drug box and in-serviced us all on its use. But we were waiting for the new protocol to be signed by the state medical director. We were told at the in-service, do not administer Valium until you receive that protocol update. If we did, we would lose our certification. And so, I watched the patient seize the whole way in because I wasn’t authorized to use the Valium that was just two feet away.
Readers learn on two levels: through heart stopping moments of extraordinary efforts to save lives, and through reflective inspections of the processes that govern what techniques are applied and how effectively they work.
Hayes provides a combination of gripping edge-of-your-seat reading and philosophical and reflective analysis. This approach will attract a wide audience to his memoir, from fellow paramedics and those involved in health services on different levels to general-interest readers who may have little background in medical affairs.
This is why libraries of all types will want to include 50 Year Medic in their collections. It goes well beyond the assignment of ‘memoir’ to explore the underlying motivations, growth processes, history, and culture of EMS as a whole, making for a thought-provoking, vivid read that proves hard to put down and easy for book clubs, health organizations, and reading groups to discuss.
50 Year MedicReturn to Index
Always Order Ice
Cream
Lee Rafkin
Lieutenant Island
Press
979-8-234-03040-5
$17.95
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H6CCVYXD/
At age fifty, author Lee Rafkin, learned after a routine colonoscopy, that he had only an 11% chance of surviving his cancer. Many would give up after a doctor’s advice to get one’s affairs in order. Not Rafkin – and this book documenting his journey is a gift to other survivors and the world at large, testimony to the power of recovery and healing against all odds.
Always Order Ice Cream: My Journey As A Stage IV Cancer Survivor documents the important lessons he learned that contributed to his survival: that all doctors aren’t equal, but hold different perspectives, approaches, and abilities; that approaching a life-threatening issue with positivity, however difficult and sometimes nearly impossible, contributes to the outcome; and that changes in cancer treatment options no longer make Stage IV an automatic death assignment.
His acquired wisdom is gifted to readers through many thought-provoking, candid passages:
In fact, the biggest change in cancer treatment over the past decade has been a focus on treating the whole patient, physically and emotionally, not just the tumor. This is a vital distinction and an important development that reinforces the interconnectedness of everything. Be open to all approaches. Do whatever you need to feel better.
Rafkin’s insights on relationship-building with those healthy and ill also provide astute reflections on the power of making and preserving close connections in the throes of medical crisis:
I vowed to myself I would be there for Arthur, no matter what. Our visits became more frequent, and our friendship became stronger. It was so cathartic. Arthur’s illness took my mind off my own illness as I focused on him and his family instead. Together, we faced our demons, confronted our fears, and made peace with death.
As Rafkin builds new possibilities for his life and broadens the scope of his interests and approaches to it, readers receive important keys to approaching medical crisis and healing. This will foster understanding and new options for themselves or their loved ones.
Replete with insights on family, friendships, work dynamics, and perseverance, Always Order Ice Cream is a testimony to not just surviving, but thriving.
Librarians will find it easy to recommend Always Order Ice Cream to readers from all walks of life, from patients, caregivers, and cancer survivors to general-interest readers seeking enlightenment about new ways to approach living and dying.
Always Order Ice CreamReturn to Index
Eat the Wind
Dan Wake
Torchflame Books
978-1-61153-641-6
$19.99 Paperback;
$8.99 eBook;
$29.99 Hardcover; $30.00 Large Print; $24.95 Audiobook
www.torchflamebooks.com
Eat the Wind: Travels with Dictators, Mercenaries, and Queens is a travelogue memoir that traverses the world in a heady mix of adventure, encounters with remarkable individuals across the globe, and humor. Dan Wake’s journeys offer inspiration, reflective experiences, and social and political insights that translate to a simply delightful read.
Coming from an author who “never went anywhere as a kid,” his travels and choices are extraordinary, representing not just a departure from upbringing and everything familiar, but an unusual willingness to take risks and become thoroughly immersed in foreign cultures and affairs.
Wake’s world travels began innocently enough, with a hitchhiking road trip that included two especially notable encounters in Nevada and beyond before coming full circle back to Arizona. There, his father, who didn’t know he had come to town, stopped to pick up a hitchhiker who turned out to be his own son.
Wake’s passion for travel introduces a puzzle from the start:
I’d made great money, bought a house, and flown all over the country for iconic clients like GUCCI and M&M Mars. How did I go from all that to broke and unemployed on my parents’ doorstep? And why?
His optimism, growing sense of exploring a much wider world both internally and externally, and revelations about life go beyond self and into relationship-building on the road:
As much as I reveled in the places I’d been and the things I’d seen traveling the world by myself, I expected everything about traveling with my girlfriend would be even better. But I was wrong. For me, traveling with someone wasn’t easier at all. It was harder. Harder to make decisions, harder to be spontaneous, harder to decide where to go and when to go there and what to do. Harder to pick which hotel to stay in or which restaurant to eat in. Harder to meet people when you travel as part of a couple, sheltered in your own protective cocoon. Harder to take risks when you’re with someone you want to make happy and keep safe. Maybe it boiled down to one thing: When you travel with someone, it’s harder to be selfish.
As his career as a journalist is marked by ongoing serendipity, crossing the fine line between observer and participant, Wake discovers many things about himself and the world. His rollicking good read is as passionate about these connections as it is about his experiences.
The result is a travelogue, memoir, social and political observations of other cultures, and self-examination that should be on the shelves of any library or reader interested in either armchair explorations or building foundations for their own journeys.
Wake pushes the envelope of possibility. In so doing, he transmits this effort and its results to an audience that just might need his push in order to consider doing the same thing.
Eat the WindReturn to Index
From Fire to
Freedom: A Memoir of
Transformation, Renewal, and Resilience
Bertina M. Hooks,
MD
Phoenix Ascend
Press
979-8-9966411-0-9
$19.99
https://bertinamhooksmd.org/
From Fire to Freedom: A Memoir of Transformation, Renewal, and Resilience documents a physicians’ move from doctor to patient when she struggles with necrotizing fasciitis, amputation, healing, and the circumstances which brought her to this life-threatening moment.
One of the powerful considerations that emerge from the start is the reflection:
“As I healed, and then tried to return to my life, I found it to be even more challenging than I had imagined. How does a doctor become whole again when the very system that shaped her cannot see her anymore?”
As she surveys the roots of this fire and her marathon sprint through life, the isolating, demanding world of medical school, and working on the front lines of a global crisis caused by COVID-19, Hooks leads readers through repeated themes of isolation, broken family and personal ties, and the eventual impact of moving from hero/doctor to patient:
Like so many healthcare workers during that time, I accepted sacrifices that few people ever saw. The world called us heroes. Most of us didn't feel heroic. We felt exhausted and frightened. We felt responsible and we kept showing up.
What I didn't know then was that the hospitals where I spent those years caring for critically ill patients would later become part of my own story. The halls where I rushed to save lives would eventually become the halls where physicians fought to save mine. At the time, I had no way of knowing that my greatest medical challenge still lay ahead.
From her life with daughter Bianca, which gives her reason to live and fight, to reflections on how to live on her own terms, readers gain insights into all kinds of life values and challenges, from professional to personal pathways to healing and transformation, in a story marked with the highs and lows of experience.
The result is more than another story of physicians becoming patients, but an account of a fuller recovery than physical survival alone.
Libraries interested in memoirs that embrace medical and psychological transformative thinking will find that From Fire to Freedom offers a special form of hope and insights. This also will lend to vivid book club and reading group discussions, whether the patrons be versed in medical worlds or life changes, including divorce, limb amputation, and reinventing one’s life.
From Fire to Freedom is a powerful memoir of survival, resilience, and the difficult journey from physician to patient, and is a clear winner.
From Fire to Freedom: A Memoir of Transformation, Renewal, and ResilienceReturn to Index
Misfit 5: Stories
From a Life
Unexpected
Mister John
Yak Publishing
979-8-9992205-5-4
$14.99
www.yakpublishing.com
Misfit 5: Stories From a Life Unexpected continues the joyful life vignettes of a man who has spent much of his time outside the margins of normalcy. As in the previous Misfit collections, Mister John romps through life with a sense of joie de vivre that belays modern angst, surveying life choices, travels and cultural encounters, and lessons gained from new experiences. These add a delightful sense of discovery to his tales.
From his time working in the United Arab Emirates (where he is told “You move to the United Arab Emirates with two bags - a money bag and a bullshit bag. When one of them gets full, it’s time to go.”) to an unexpected gift from an unnamed friend during a trip to Vegas that prompts a reflection about giving (“It wasn't why they sent the gift, and that's what made it great. And isn't it better for all of us to see all of our friends as capable of doing a good deed? And for no other reason than to just do it?”), journeys around the world transmit succinct reflections on value and opportunity that will bring readers on a delightful ride indeed.
From recipes for gingersnaps and success to observations about aging and enjoying life, Mister John imparts a cheerful observational tone to his encounters. This is delightfully, refreshingly uplifting, even when considering the seemingly more mundane delights in aging:
Yes, we get excited about things that assist in food preparation. That’s where we’re at now. That and struggling to stay awake until 10 pm, two hours after Wheel and Jeopardy air when we’re on the same time as Eastern Standard Time. Which I detest. I should point out that we’re not so much an old married couple as a couple who, at the time, were up and out the door before 6 am so our dogs could take us for a walk.
Misfit 5: Stories From a Life Unexpected thus can be viewed as a walk out of one’s world and into Mister John’s special ability to embrace life and broadcast that hug to his readers.
Memoir readers will delight in his international encounters, while armchair travelers will find the reflections hold an engaging “you are here” feel that captures senses of place and purpose. Those seeking lessons in positivity will find Misfit 5: Stories From a Life Unexpected a fine survey of academia and students, life encounters and marriage, and considerations of different styles of learning.
All these features make Misfit 5: Stories From a Life Unexpected as delightful a read as its predecessors in the series, perfect for libraries and reading groups seeking lessons in health, education, and living abroad.
Misfit 5: Stories From a Life UnexpectedReturn to Index
1955: A
Jazz Jones &
January Queen Raleigh Mystery
Matt Cost
Level Best Books
979-8-89820-369-6
$17.95
Paperback/$6.99 eBook
www.levelbestbooks.us
1955: A Jazz Jones & January Queen Raleigh Mystery presents a traditional historical mystery set in the 1950s in North Carolina, introducing Jazz Jones and January Queen as a duo investigating Civil Rights cases.
This time, their case involves a battle over civil rights. Their investigation weaves many social issues into a bigger picture that will prompt readers to think in new ways about prejudice, adversity, and clashes that raise moral and ethical conundrums.
Ghouls on horseback open the story in a preface simply titled ‘Earlier’, setting the stage for terrible events taking place in Antebellum where Flip, fleeing for his life, becomes the dubious ‘guest of honor’ in a scenario where both humans and ghouls pursue him.
Flip’s violent end segues into the first chapter, where NAACP figurehead January Queen investigates the murder of Lester Mack. She has come to Jazz Jones in search of justice, pursuing the Klan, which is experiencing a revival in nearby counties and which may have spilled into their own milieu.
From the start, Matt Cost’s first-person inspection creates an intimate “you are here” atmosphere. Contrasts between Jazz and January are presented with a wry twist of unexpected humor:
“We arrested and put away all the leaders of the Klan some three years back.” I’d missed that particular house cleaning in my hometown as I was off vacationing with a bunch of other boys over in Korea. “Things been real quiet since.”
“How are the people around here taking to integrating the schools, Jazz?” I, of course, knew the answer to that, which, quite simply, was not at all.
Another intriguing note that sets this mystery apart from a typical whodunit is the overlay of ethnic and special interests that permeates the investigative effort:
“Perhaps I can buy you a piece of pie and a tea at Woolworth’s, and I can just ask my questions, and then you will be done with me.”
Betty Lou turned and began walking toward her car. “Leave me alone or I will—”
“You will what, Betty Lou? Yell out that I am assaulting you? It works much better in creating outrage if the person you are conversing with is Black, but I am not. We are just two white people on the sidewalk in the broad light of day.”
These descriptive scenarios inject notes of 1950s mindsets, prejudices, and appearances as Jazz interacts with a variety of people from different social strata on his mission to achieve justice and uncover difficult truths from staid social positions and experiences.
As the mystery flavors local color, politics, and social processes, it absorbs the winds of change and the tides of resistance in a manner that modern readers will find reflective and thoroughly understandable.
The result is a foray into 1950s North Carolina’s special milieu, which leads into deeper thinking about the roots and evolution of prejudice, violence, and horse-riding hunters whose tactics embrace and endanger Jazz, Black man Booker Johnson, and others around them.
Librarians seeking a sizzling mystery that resonates as much with social issues and historical backdrops as it does with the murderous events themselves will relish how vividly 1955: A Jazz Jones & January Queen Raleigh Mystery represents its social inspections and dilemmas.
The story is hard to predict or put down, offering all manner of historical mystery fans a different style of inspection that will also lend itself to avid book club discussions.
1955: A Jazz Jones & January Queen Raleigh MysteryReturn to Index
Haunted America
Steven Cortinas
Independently
Published
ASIN: B0H47Z17B5
$9.99
Paperback/$2.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Haunted-America-Trilogy-Steven-Cortinas/dp/B0H8WXQ59G
If the thriller genre as a whole were to take a step into supernatural circles and another into dystopian futures where ghosts present a unique pandemic of horror, the result would neatly define Haunted America.
Difficult to easily peg and perfectly capable of total immersion, the story posits a future in which ghosts break the barrier between living and dead to haunt virtually every building in America.
Suddenly, the battle for freedom isn’t being conducted overseas, but at home. And those who prove effective against ghostly intrusion are few and far between.
One example is legal prosecutor Leslie Berrios, whose courtroom prowess is offset by her hidden power to expel the dead. It’s an ability that, until now, has proven easy to hide and relatively useless - until the world changes.
As hell on earth becomes more of a reality than anyone could have predicted, Leslie may be the only force capable of changing the equation of ghosts overwhelming the living.
Steven Cortinas crafts a delicate, edgy dance between thriller and supernatural horror, but Haunted America’s real attraction lies in its special presentation of a dystopian future that proves particularly powerful in its unexpected twists and portents.
From the start, Houston’s culture and social milieu permeates the story even as Cortinas builds a special form of attraction from a little girl’s unexpected gift:
Leslie Berrios was only ten the first time she saw death. Hindsight could have easily dubbed her choice of reading material as foreshadowingThe Collected Works of H.P. Lovecraft. The cover caught her eye at the store – or as they say in this part of Houston, Texas, “the sto’.” H-Town accents were always one of two things, country or country-ghetto. The hood of Leslie’s birth fell into the latter category. The same applied to the Walmart where her family shopped. With this being October, Daddy didn’t hesitate to buy the Lovecraft book for his little girl. He was down for anything to help set the mood for his favorite season.
It’s nearly impossible to put down the book, given an introduction like this, but the hits keep coming as Leslie grows into her abilities, at first rejects them, then comes to embrace them as possibility being humanity’s only salvation.
Humans not only fight the ghosts, but other humans as the plot centers on monsters invading homes where they heal inside, but can die outside.
Equally riveting are Leslie’s observations about how this all came about:
Wow, Leslie thought. The best intelligence agencies in the world, monitoring everyone’s moves, the most sophisticated software that can think for itself, a country that’s never had more wealth and power…and they didn’t see this coming. Either that, or they wanted this to happen.
Leslie’s process of stepping into her powers, carefully choosing her allies, and confronting her enemies and forces beyond all understanding leads readers into a gorgeous blend of riveting tension, supernatural experience, and the costs of seeking normalcy and hiding vulnerability.
Librarians seeking a genre-busting blend of supernatural horror, dystopian possibility, and social and political examination that blend into one young woman’s changing life perspectives will relish Haunted America’s unpredictability and solid characterization. They can highly recommend it to an especially wide audience of readers seeking a powerful ride into a future no other author has postulated.
Haunted AmericaReturn to Index
Practice to Deceive
D. M.
Pirrone
Independently
Published
978-1-7376520-3-8
$16.99 paperback
Website: https://dmpirronebooks.net
Ordering: www.amazon.com
Practice to Deceive is a historical thriller set in 1923 which opens with speakeasy musician Jessamine Rose on the cusp of building a whole new life for herself, even though it rests on the foundations of poverty. She’s heading for Chicago and the promise of vast positive changes, fueled by her smooth voice and abilities.
Aspiring detective and Chicago society girl Emma McGrath is on a similar path to success with her twin brother Jack as she eschews high society life and the traditional ambition of snagging a monied husband to become an investigator with her brother.
Their involvement in the now-missing Jessamine’s world soon turns into a murder investigation that holds special ramifications as Jack becomes the primary suspect in the case. Suddenly, the lure of a Sherlock Holmes-style investigative effort turns all too personal.
Their effort requires a deeper inspection of victim Jessamine’s life than they’d planned, leading them across state borders and into deeper trouble when it becomes apparent someone wants to stymie their probe and possibly claim their lives.
D. M. Pirrone builds a powerful story based not on a whodunit – readers receive insights into the perp’s motivations and actions – but on personal vendettas, deception, anger and redemption, and accompanying interactions with sheriffs, Chicago mob actions, and the music world.
Under Pirrone’s hand, 1920s Chicago comes to life as much as the characters that struggle to unravel the truth before it’s too late. Pirrone introduces a host of characters that each hold special interests, from Robbie Mather and Detective Blackmon to Jessamine’s sister Marlene and suspect Nicky, who runs booze to the Green Mill Gardens.
Each character lends intrigue and action to a story which is satisfyingly fast-paced, filled with twists mystery and thriller readers won’t see coming, and thoroughly steeped in Chicago culture.
Librarians recommending Practice to Deceive to patrons who like their stories nicely centered in a sense of place, purpose, and people will find the novel filled with exciting moments. It will attract a wide range of leisure readers interested in characters who step out of their comfort zones to tackle unpredictable new situations.
Practice to DeceiveReturn to Index
What Time Has
Kept: A
Dual-Era Mystery
Elizabeth
Hutchison Bernard
Black Rose Writing
978-1-68513-804-2
$21.95
Paperback/$6.99 eBook
Website: https://ehbernard.com
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/What-Time-Has-Kept-Dual-Era/dp/1685138047
What Time Has Kept: A Dual-Era Mystery plays out on different timelines through the eyes of characters whose lives unexpectedly intersect.
1800s Scottish archaeologist Christian Maclagan has obtained a rare relic and is determined to uncover its secrets despite the disturbing dreams it introduces into her life and work.
A hundred fifty years later, graduate student Ellen Byrne, newly arrived in Scotland to research her thesis, discovers a journal that leads her into the same relic’s powers and realm, and also finds her life centering on the impossible.
The story is inspired by a real archaeological mystery, but enters well into realms of metaphysics, spirituality, and fiction as the two women find their lives challenged by their discoveries.
Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard injects many threads of cultural, social, psychological, and historical inspection into her story. The plot doesn’t remain in Scotland, but widens to Italy and embraces the specter of false allegations as Christian pursues truths against all odds and social and political decorum:
Perhaps even more vexing is my ongoing battle with the Free North Church, which still withholds its agreed-upon eighty pounds per annum for the maintenance of Marykirk church, leaving me to assume the entire burden of a house of worship for the needy. In truth, it is not the money that bothers me, but the principle. Mr. Beith has instigated most of the resistance, in retaliation for my refusal to support his blatantly personal ambitions. He cannot stand the idea that he no longer has any control over me—if ever he did.
The shifting timeline between the late 1800s and 2023 is identified in chapter headings which handily guide readers into the first-person worlds of each narrator, assuring smooth transitions between perspectives and the ages.
As the true value of the stones and their possibilities emerges, readers will find the blend of history, mystery, and the proactive efforts of two very different, yet connected, women create a story filled with passion, observation, and unpredictable twists.
These elements make What Time Has Kept: A Dual-Era Mystery of broad interest to history and mystery buffs that enjoy stories which operate well beyond intrigue. The story embraces themes of past influence, power struggles, loss, social expectations surrounding women, and emotional abuse or acceptance which can either hinder or promote women’s efforts personally and professionally.
Replete with satisfying tension and discovery, What Time Has Kept: A Dual-Era Mystery offers important insights into making headways in male-dominated circles in more than one way, and will especially attract libraries interested in multifaceted blends of history, mystery, and women’s issues.
What Time Has Kept: A Dual-Era MysteryReturn to Index
After Appomattox:
The Foot Soldier’s
Journey Home
Diane Green
Independently
Published
979-8257270604
$12.99
https://www.amazon.com/After-Appomattox-Foot-Soldiers-Journey/dp/B0GX67RFBL
Readers of Civil War, historical, and military fiction can expect a treat in After Appomattox: The Foot Soldier’s Journey Home. It’s a novel about Union foot soldier Nathan Nelson Campbell, who begins the arduous mental and physical journey home after battle.
Nathan was captured in the last throes of war and released upon the South’s surrender. His final orders don’t lead him home, however, but further into former enemy territory and unexpected conundrums that develop in the aftermath of Appomattox.
How does a religious man justify killing and participating in a war? This is just one of the quandaries Nathan faces as he continues his march. Personal and political struggles indicate deeper involvements as moral and ethical questions emerge alongside them.
Why continue to follow orders after the war? Diane Green captures not just the sights, sounds, and experiences of the times, but the logic underlying decisions to persevere:
The march toward Danville became a trial of bodies more than bullets. No enemy line rose in perfect ranks from the fields. No cannon opened from a ridge. The danger was in the road itself: in mud that sucked at boots, in heat that fell suddenly and heavily after cold rain, in feet swollen raw inside worn shoes, in bellies that could no longer trust what little food they received. They marched because orders said march. They marched because Johnston’s army had not yet yielded when the orders were given. They marched because the nation, still bleeding, wanted no loose thread of war left to knot itself into another battle. Nathan understood the reason. Understanding did not make the road shorter.
What now matters is Nathan’s soul. As he reflects on his experiences and reconnects with God in a manner that helps him reconcile his beliefs with his actions and choices, readers receive more than a Civil War story alone.
After Appomattox is a solid, introspective account of a common foot soldier on the path to personal redemption and healing. His embrace of the extent of war’s aftermath can apply not just to Nathan’s era, but modern times, as well.
Replete with revelations, unexpected encounters, and indicators that a real war is fought on many different levels, After Appomattox: The Foot Soldier’s Journey Home is thoroughly engrossing, bringing to life the extent of battle and post-battle recovery processes.
Libraries seeking a powerful novel embracing bigger picture thinking about trauma, killing, religious reflection, and recovery will find After Appomattox: The Foot Soldier’s Journey Home a cut above most military Civil War fiction, worthy of high recommendation to book clubs for discussion.
After Appomattox: The Foot Soldier’s Journey HomeReturn to Index
Allison Turns the
Page
Leslie A. Rasmussen
Van Royen Press
979-8-9889712-8-3
$16.99
Paperback/$6.99 eBook
Website:
https://www.lesliearasmussen.com
Ordering:
https://www.shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=YpS6gih5x7bftX6T0w3uf9Os4Kb8eRavZdBbZF6klYt
Allison Turns the Page is Book 3 in The Women We Become: Stories of Family, Love & Identity series, providing women with a romance novel about impulsive actions, second chances, and confronting one’s psyche in order to grow, move forward, and develop new relationships.
Allison, a Century City cosmetics saleswoman, has quit her job on the cusp of releasing her first novel, which has taken her over three years to finish. Its instant rise to bestseller status convinces her that her career path is set - but despite having a plethora of good ideas, she is stymied in her efforts to produce another novel, churning out romance stories instead.
When Allison finally succumbs to the pressure to create another hit, the writing she produces leads her publisher and agent to drop her. Placing the failed novel into The Little Free Library seems a suitable ending place, but this proves to be only the beginning of her story as mysterious notes and responses stem from her contribution.
Suddenly, Allison finds herself involved in a quasi-relationship with an unknown correspondent who propels her into the kind of romantic relationship she’s only dreamed and written about, before.
Allison Turns the Page is about life and career pivot points. It embraces a warm sense of growth and discovery as Allison finds herself challenged to make new decisions about how life and love work in her world:
I was both insecure and needed to protect myself—two things that made me perfect for a relationship.
Dating two people was the last thing she had in mind, but Allison turns the page on more than just her writing ambitions as she hones new goals and approaches to meeting them and embraces new possibilities.
Leslie A. Rasmussen’s juxtaposition of romance and self-realization lend to a warm story of friendship, love, and growth that women will find alluring and thought-provoking.
Libraries seeking clean romances that delve into personal as well as interpersonal psychology via a memorable protagonist who takes unexpected risks will find Allison Turns the Page outstanding. Its reflections on friends, family, and fate offer readers many attractive opportunities for considering why Allison faces so many challenges in finding love - and, ultimately, herself.
Allison Turns the PageReturn to Index
Ankanam: An Inner
Courtyard
Vee Kumari
Nu Voice Press
978-81-686378-4-9
$24.99
Paperback/$4.99 eBook
https://veekumari.com
Ankanam: An Inner Courtyard follows the aftermath of an earth shattering disappearance when Meera’s twin sister Laila vanishes. Laila has been keeping a new friend secret from her sister, and the novel opens with her about to embark on a big adventure. It will be the last time Meera will see her twin for years. The futile search that follows, which is eventually abandoned, does nothing to mitigate Meera’s feelings of loss and confusion.
Meera builds a new life, but never forgets her sister. When the impossible happens, a seeming resolution is shaken by guilt and further confusion.
Vee Kumari crafts a powerfully evocative story of trust and betrayal, family ties, kidnapping and its impact, and the emotional challenge of vulnerability and subjugation. Laila’s perspective and slow adjustment to her new situation and her reflection over why there is no rescue in sight perfectly captures the milieu of survivors who find themselves caught between old and new lives:
That night, Laila concluded her family had failed her. They had never tried to find her. Her anger toward them, which she had tried to suppress, was now on full blast. Why had they not come? Was Meera even looking for her? Missing her? How long was she to comfort herself with the thought that they didn’t know where she was? They were not her family. Missus was her family.
When Laila is given the key to freedom after a long time, she surprisingly refuses to accept it. Kumari gives exquisite depth and attention to the psychology of Laila’s situation, offering powerful insights into captivity and survival tactics which come to life in this probe of two sisters whose conjoined paths diverge suddenly and disastrously.
Shifting perspectives between the sisters are clearly identified in chapter headings, allowing readers to consider different sides of the same experiences. This lends nicely to psychological discovery and an understanding of choices and perceptions that increasingly diverge between the two once-closely-connected siblings.
As cruelty, recovery, and love dovetail, unexpected revelations on all sides give readers thought-provoking insights into the definitions and reinforcement of family ties. Laila’s realistic assessment of who is to blame over her kidnapping and years of captivity considers the role of victim and survivor in novel ways that imparts much food for thought.
Librarians will find Ankanam: An Inner Courtyard especially highly recommendable to book clubs and reading groups interested in multicultural stories of sisterly connections, disconnects, and Stockholm syndrome. Passages about how Laila begins to identify with her new family more than her birth bonds are particularly poignant, offering much opportunity for discussion.
The result is a story steeped in Indian and other multicultural flavors that closely examines a long physical and mental journey the twins undertake to return home in more than one way. A wide audience will appreciate how this story of disconnection and recovery ultimately comes full circle.
Ankanam: An Inner CourtyardReturn to Index
The Chestnut Tree
Mathew Tekulsky
Palmetto Publishing
979-8822980778
$20.99
Hardcover/$12.99
Paperback/$6.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Chestnut-Tree-Mathew-Tekulsky/dp/B0GYQN7T41
The Chestnut Tree is a coming-of-age story set in the 1960s, in New York City’s suburbs. Here, a twelve-year-old boy confronts not only the personal challenges of first love and family divisions, but the broader aspects of community connections and conflicts.
Adam Jacobs opens the story with a first-person reflection on his attraction to young Sally Fletcher. As his mind and heart mature, he comes to realize new truths about different homes and lives, the nature of changing friendships and opportunities, and many of the underlying threads of social and political change which buffet his world.
Adam becomes more connected to his Jewish heritage and comes to realize many new truths about why his old man, who became involved in the dry-cleaning business, and his family are the “black sheep of the neighborhood,” growing into his abilities, desires, and dreams in new ways. This will attract a wide audience, from preteens and young adults into adult readers.
The lessons Adam absorbs about wanting to become a writer and his own instincts for growth and achieving recognition and value from life power a winning story about new opportunities and realizations:
“How do you know when something’s really good?” I asked.
“You don’t worry about what other people are doing,” she said. “You just do what you think is your best work.”
Given an atmosphere tempered by the war in Vietnam and rising social issues and conflict, readers receive a powerful examination of a changing world and a young boy’s perception of his future in it which proves engrossing and realistic.
Libraries seeking coming-of-age stories that embrace more than a singular pursuit will appreciate how The Chestnut Tree evolves a series of interactions and realizations. It invites book clubs and readings groups of all ages to consider its underlying messages, much in the way To Kill A Mockingbird grew beyond its youthful gaze to powerfully reflect on social conditions and bigger-picture thinking.
The Chestnut TreeReturn to Index
A Confluence of
Fates
John Zaiss
Independently
Published
979-8-9872419-6-7
$12.95
eBook/$19.95 Paperback/$24.95
Audiobook
https://www.amazon.com/Confluence-Fates-John-Zaiss-ebook/dp/B0HD8FCBV7
A Confluence of Fates follows middle-class Texas boy Richie Hawkins, whose life is altered when a well-meaning doctor shaves two minutes from a hospital record so the baby’s birthday is not Christmas Day. Nineteen years later, December 24th is the second date drawn in the U.S. military draft lottery, sending this young man to fight in Vietnam.
Richie Hawkins is a middle-class kid from Dallas with medical school ambitions. Those plans are derailed when he is drafted and sent to fight in a war he doesn’t believe in. Halfway around the world, Linh Hoàng is born in a remote hamlet in South Vietnam’s Central Highlands, where decades of war have turned ordinary life into a daily struggle for survival. Their two lives intersect during a rescue mission and become forever linked.
John Zaiss follows the life events which lead them to encounter one another and make new choices in unexpected ways.
Zaiss builds the precedents surrounding these lives and choices before delving into the pressures that have forced both into actions they abhor and try to avoid. He follows different characters - Wendy Ackerman as she escapes from Saigon after participating in Operation Babylift, a desperate adoption effort to save children; Betsy Sinclair’s orchestration of impossible lifesaving measures against all odds; and “token adoptees” Lynn and Henry, who face difficult questions about gratitude after their lives have been buffeted by political pressures and war. Their lives become interconnected pieces of a bigger picture:
“Let me ask you: Are you grateful for the love and affection you’ve received?”
Henry shrugged. Lynn was too self-conscious to say anything.
“From your adoptive parents?” Quang continued. “Or how about from the American people who spent considerable time and effort, not to mention money, to rescue you?”
Henry finally said, “Yes, I’m grateful.”
Lynn managed an affirmative nod, suspecting a gotcha moment was about to be unleashed.
“Yeah, Americans give themselves lots of pats on the back about the orphans. ‘Look what we did, aren’t we good people for saving these poor children?’ Right?” He paused and smiled. “But did you ever stop to think what if the United States hadn’t stuck their nose where it didn’t belong?”
The room held a collective silent breath.
“You wouldn’t be orphans.”
Zaiss melds the circumstances of these times, the shifting values and cultures that clash at home and abroad, and those who become participants and sometimes minor players in a major war, who are forced to step up and exemplify new attitudes and values in order to survive not just physically, but morally and ethically.
The "confluence" in the title refers not only to these people meeting, but to their lives intersecting via a series of unexpected, often unknowable consequences.
Zaiss crafts compelling scenarios of new beginnings, endings, cultural integration challenges, and the intersection of Vietnam combat veterans and adoption agency efforts. The powerful survey covers not just of in-the-moment battles, but ongoing struggles that emerge decades after the lost shot is fired.
Home, interpersonal connections, family ties, and facing hard memories and difficult choices come to life in a saga that sweeps from pre- to post-war experiences with a powerful eye to considering the lasting impact of war on daily life:
Amanda asked me if I was American, because her father said I wasn’t.”
“I see.” Wendy nodded, thinking how to best respond. She remembered how neighbors had treated Lynn when she’d first arrived, almost too politely, as if she reminded them of an embarrassing war. She’d thought that the awkwardness had passed long ago. Were there still rumblings, an undercurrent?
Librarians that choose A Confluence of Fates from an interest in Vietnam War fiction will appreciate its different approach and bigger picture. The plot moves from battle and lasting psychological wounds to considering how very different worlds collide and disparate peoples absorb new values and embark on new lives. The confluence of serendipity and chance create new opportunities and pathways for resolution and growth.
Book clubs find A Confluence of Fates packed with insights and approaches that lend well to vivid discussion.
A Confluence of FatesReturn to Index
Cutie Pies By the
Slice
Kimberly Nixon
Roots and Wings
Press, LLC
978-1-957513-27-0
$18.95
Paperback/$31.99
Hardcover/$5.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Cutie-Pies-Slice-Historical-Belonging-ebook/dp/B0HDGL4VPC
Cutie Pies By the Slice is a revealing historical novel set in Ohio during the Great Depression. The story opens in 1929. Lila’s mother has just passed, prompting Lila to move to Lima, Ohio.
Her mother’s pie recipes seem the perfect ingredient for formulating this new life, but the beginnings of the Depression tamp her efforts and excitement. This results in unprecedented challenges as Lila strives to reinvent herself in a manner her own mother achieved under very different circumstances:
Had things been this difficult for her mother when she was starting over alone in Rockford? To Lila’s eyes, running the business appeared effortless, but certainly there must have been struggles. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to be able to ask her mother for advice.
As Lila makes new friends, tries to keep her shop Cutie Pies in business, and questions the motives and intentions of well-meaning people around her, conundrums arise. These give readers many thought-provoking moments of reflection and book clubs many possibilities for debate about the nature, definition, and obligations of success:
“Well, congratulations on your success. Is there a chance I might sample these pies before I leave? If they’re as tasty as Earl says, I’d like you to provide the desserts for this club. Probably four or so a week. That is, if you’re interested.”
She hesitated. It was as if she stood on a precipice. The consequences of accepting the offer were clear to her: she’d be beholden to him. He looked puzzled. Should she cross this line? Finally, she asked, “With no strings attached?”
Duboni’s lips tightened. “Miss Young, what do you take me for?”
Lila took in the hurt on his face. She had always compared Duboni to Garino. Was she paranoid? Were the two men the same because they ran illegal alcohol?
She was so close to being able to buy her oven, she could taste it.
Readers won’t expect the story of a young woman building a business on her own to include shootouts and the difficult choices that arise when relationships, money, and morality collide—but these are just a few of the added value threads running through Lila’s story, involving readers in different facets of her life and times.
Libraries and readers seeking a novel replete with challenges, hope, new possibilities, and prejudices and assumptions built on prior experiences will find Cutie Pies By the Slice thoroughly inviting.
Its story of a woman who searches to find her place in the world, a new definition of home, friendship, and love, and a new endeavor that can succeed despite the clouds of economic woes surrounding her times makes for an engaging, ultimately uplifting tale of pies and comfort.
Cutie Pies By the SliceReturn to Index
Echoes of Vienna:
The Long Silence
Stu Moss
Independently
Published
979-8-9964181-1-4
$24.99
Hardcover/$2.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Echoes-Vienna-Silence-Stu-Moss/dp/B0H7FP7MW1
Echoes of Vienna: The Long Silence is the fictional story of a 1937 Vienna family scattered by the winds of war to the far corners of Europe. Each family member endures foreign environments, struggles for survival, and horrors ranging from death camps to deportation as they cling to the hope that someday they will be together again, albeit in a much-changed world.
Stu Moss injects his novel with powerful notes about the Anschluss that transforms Vienna, considering how political strife and war divides families, scatters them, and challenges them to return to some semblance of normalcy.
The struggles and losses of these times are mirrored in modern times, events, and choices. Lest these lessons be lost to time, Moss redraws these connections in a manner that brings the precedent of history and the impact of inhumanity and cruelty to renewed life.
The fiction unfolds during the Holocaust, but its vivid characters and their social and personal ties are compellingly realistic, and experiences are based on true events.
The story opens with Jacob, Levi, Sara, and an ordinary Jewish family’s lives, but quickly becomes a tale of how prejudice against Jewish people spreads in Vienna’s population and comes to threaten everyone:
“I work in the municipal office,” he said after a long pause. “I see the reports. The denunciations. Dozens of them every day. People reporting their coworkers, their neighbors, their own family members.”
“For what?”
“For anything. For listening to foreign radio broadcasts. For not displaying the flag properly. For expressing doubt about the war. For being seen with Jews.” Ernst’s voice dropped to barely a whisper. “For being Jews.”
The process by which ordinary, seemingly good people are corrupted by a system bent on genocide that casts Jewish people as inhuman proves an especially vivid part of a broader story of not just the Jewish community, but an entire society under psychological, social, and political siege.
Moss brings all these facets and more to life in a riveting story that follows this family’s separation and individual struggles with an eye to exposing various methods and results of sowing hatred in the world.
Libraries and readers seeking exceptionally vibrant stories about Holocaust times and how peaceful Vienna is transformed into a world of terror will want to not only place Echoes of Vienna: The Long Silence at the top of their reading lists, but recommend it to book club and reading group debates considering the process of survival, resilience, political repression, and the real meaning – and costs – of freedom.
Echoes of Vienna: The Long SilenceReturn to Index
The Farm Worker’s
Son
Barbara Anne King
Cypress Point Press
978-1733536998
$16.00
Paperback/$9.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Farm-Workers-Barbara-Anne-King/dp/173353699X
The Farm Worker’s Son is a novel of coming of age, love, and redemption. It follows the life of Mexican youth Vinnie Tomas, son of a Mexican farm worker, who strives to make a better life for himself while confronting social and political forces that often translate to poor choices.
Vinnie views his mother’s life of hard work and drudgery with a goal of making sure his turns out differently. His propensity for adventure and poor choices repeatedly lands him in jail, then facing a felony charge which comes with two options: prison, or joining the military.
It seems a no-brainer, but Vinnie takes what he thinks will be the easier way out - only to land in the middle of the Vietnam War. By the time he’s out of the Navy, Vinnie seeks something different than thrills and sets his eyes on college. His involvement with tutor Angela leads him into Mexican American politics and conflict as his life continues to evolve pathways entirely different from that of his parents.
Barbara Anne King crafts a revealing, important story about options that move from personal to broader social choices as she weaves together Vinnie, Angela, and other Mexican American characters whose lives are impacted by the war, Caesar Chavez, and struggles that ideologically divide generations.
Vinnie’s dual immersion in political rights at home and the war abroad brings a personal flavor to the events of these times, illustrating how coming of age can be touched by and frought with personal and political revelations.
King injects notes of discovery and subtle moments of realization into many segments of Vinnie’s unfolding saga:
“One thing I appreciate about the area we live in is all the fresh produce. You’ve lived here all your life, but when I was in the Navy, I visited other places, and it is rare to get lettuce as tender as this. You know it’s straight from the fields. We’re lucky our produce doesn’t have to be transported long distances. People on the East Coast don’t even know what a real tomato is supposed to taste like. Since they like them red, they’re gassed before they’re put out for sale.”
This draws direct and often important connections between bigger-picture choices and life events that impact individuals and their relationships.
Latino romances are rare, as are their relationship explorations that come firmly rooted in a sense of time, place, and community.
The Farm Worker’s Son’s special brand of examination and family ties gives readers an important series of reflections about these times and one young man’s evolutionary process. It’s a top recommendation for libraries seeking to add Latino focuses to their fiction collections, and for book clubs seeking vivid stories that represent intersections between personal and political experience.
The Farm Worker’s SonReturn to Index
Five Women in My
DNA
Paul D. Edwards
Independently
Published
979-8224016969
$19.99
https://www.amazon.com/Five-Women-DNA-Paul-Edwards/dp/B0H1Z3SG1Y
Five Women in My DNA is a short novel that moves through the lives and connections of five women, starting with Priyā in 1100 BCE, building their lives and connections through events that rattle their worlds.
It’s evident from the first narrative that these threads of time and place connect these seemingly disparate lives through history and DNA, with Paul D. Edwards providing astute passages of connection:
Priyā lay in the earth beside Lake Dzhasybai through the summers and the winters and the burnings of grass and the cutting of grass, and the horses that ran over her grave were descended from her grandfather's horses, though nobody knew it anymore, and then the horses too passed away, and then the people who kept them, and then the people who had replaced the people who kept them.
Lathia Tetnie’s story, set in 650 BCE, follows. It explores marriages between cousins and the seaside setting of a Greek town that sees an expansion of other settlements as Lathia finds joys and sorrows running hand in hand throughout her brief life.
Her death at age forty bring with it another powerful concluding reflection on the passage of times and connections between times and people:
A hundred and fifty years later, the Romans — the people of that small walled town at the Tiber mouth, now grown terrifyingly larger than anyone in her lifetime had foreseen — would come up the coast and begin to build a port at the next cove north, and the small village would be absorbed into a larger town, and the rock-cut tombs on the hill would be reused, and forgotten, and reused again, and in time a new kind of road would be laid across the top of the ridge by Roman soldiers, and the village would become, in a casual way, the inland hamlet behind a port that was no longer its own.
Each woman’s life embraces love, illness, family, different social environments, and insights about related and unrelated individuals whose lives lead into others, right up to modern times.
The novel, a fictionalized consideration of these seemingly disparate lives and worlds, stemmed from Edwards’ participation in a ‘23 and Me’ DNA search that yielded unexpected results:
And now, because of a laboratory in Germany and a cotton swab I spat into in my kitchen, I can. I can't weep for them, exactly — I didn't know them; I've made up the parts of them that could be wept for — but I can hold them in my head for an evening, and I can write them down, and in writing them down I can do a thing that nobody in the three thousand years between Priyā's death and this April night in Texas has been able to do for them, which is say their names out loud in a living house.
The stories, steeped in literary, reflective history, create interconnected segments of the lives of Priyā puθra, Lathia Tetnie, Gunnhild Eiríksdóttir, Helga Dóttir, and Gudrid Hildr which will prove especially compelling to fiction readers who like the foundations of history to come alive with real people.
Librarians can heartily recommend Five Women in My DNA to readers interested in DNA connections and opportunities to better understand life, death, and the connections between past and present that can begin with a simple swab that leads to new realizations.
Five Women in My DNAReturn to Index
Frozen Freight:
The Fifth Dot
JR Elrod
Mercer House
Publishing
979-8-9938535-2-9
$18.99
Paperback/$5.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Frozen-Freight-Fifth-JR-Elrod-ebook/dp/B0H8QM122Q
Frozen Freight: The Fifth Dot is the second novel in the Frozen Freight thriller series and presents a military thriller surrounding Buck Mercer and Mercer Hauling’s second assignment from Colonel Merritt – to move two military aircraft some two thousand miles.
It should be a snap for Buck. There’s plenty of time and support. What isn’t so easy is confronting forces that stymie Buck and his crew on the road. What appears to be a simple hauling job proves to have much more at stake than delivering a product to its destination.
Suddenly, Buck is involved in a conspiracy and subterfuge that ordinarily would fly under his radar and over his head. This actually taps into his innate abilities to solve problems, employ higher-level thinking, and confront forces that would prevent Buck from rebuilding Mercer Hauling after its last encounter.
As an early reflection reveals that “...this story starts--not with speeches, not with tragedy, just breakfast with a woman who chose to sit here with me instead of running from the obvious mess.”
JR Elrod uses the first person to bring readers into this world through Buck’s eyes. The story features signature poetic language that promises deeper inspections via thought-provoking, atmospheric descriptions that bring Texas backdrop to life:
Morning in Texas doesn't crash in--it eases up the driveway and leans on the porch rail like it plans to stay. We didn't talk big. We didn't have to.
Buck’s ongoing surveys of not just his home life, but his fellow truckers and the world around him, set this story apart from the usual dispassionate thriller’s approach, creating thoughtful, embracing passages:
I looked around the circle and realized something: nobody here loved drama, nobody here chased glory, nobody here did speeches, they just did work they could live with.
These flavor the action and confrontations with a welcoming aura of power, achievement, and ongoing warmth, lending further reinforcement to the ‘you are here’ approach that immerses readers in Buck’s world.
As he travels across the country, readers follow with baited breath. Oftentimes, the emerging quandaries are unexpected. Chapters conclude with journal entries to further reinforce Buck’s contemplative nature as he considers new truths and shifting relationships, questioning values and choices during the course of hard work and unexpected challenges.
The result is more than the usual action-packed thriller (though a satisfyingly fast pace cements this gripping story). It’s a foray into personal morals and issues of loyalty and commitment which mark evolving events with a special brand of philosophical and ethical examination.
All this is why libraries should consider Frozen Freight: The Fifth Dot above and beyond the usual conspiracy thriller. Underlying the genre representation is an attention to psychological growth, issues of interpersonal relationships and commitment, and a cadre of truckers who welcome readers into the daily rituals and feel of this world:
I closed the journal and set it on the shelf. Pulled the curtain and shut myself into the darkness. The rain on the cab roof was steady and gentle. The kind of rain that puts you to sleep if you let it.
I let it.
Frozen Freight: The Fifth DotReturn to Index
The Madeira
Chronicle
Keith Steiner
Weather Gage
Publishing
979-8-9961888-0-2
$14.99
www.keithsteiner.com
The Madeira Chronicle is a Paul Anderson novel that revolves around a student slated for academic professorship who discovers that his relatively staid objective as a researcher instead leads to an unexpected hunt. He uncovers a literary treasure: hitherto-unknown correspondence between ancestors of Robert Louis Stevenson and a little-known pirate.
This encourages Paul to abandon his studies for the lure of intellectual discovery and wealth. He embarks on a blend of scholarly inquiry and adventure that propels him far from academic and campus circles. Paul’s adventure includes the company of Scottish archivist Ailsa MacLeod, whose unique abilities compliment his scholarly inclinations in more than one way.
As the duo embark on a journey that traverses archival research and the American South, they encounter a myriad of ordinary and extraordinary characters who come to mirror the South’s culture in surprisingly diverse manners.
Keith Steiner embeds his story with Southern culture from the start of Paul’s journey, using dialogue and encounters to reinforce setting and characters:
The matronly woman working the rental desk took a liking to Paul. Her name was Rita.
“Honey, if you were Black, you’d remind me exactly of my nephew Roger.” She beamed. “He loves to come over for my sweet potato pie.” She spoke in a high-pitched, deep southern accent.
“Doesn’t sound like you’re from around here, Rita.”
“Valdosta, Georgia,” she replied in a tone that implied Valdosta’s superiority to Oakland.
“Well, I’d love to come over for your sweet potato pie too, if I ever got the chance.”
“You’d be welcome anytime, honey.” Rita beamed.
Literary and historical allusions from Greek mythology to thought-provoking connections between historical pirates and modern times make the novel intriguing on more than an adventure level, crafting situations that will attract book clubs and readers who enjoy a touch of philosophical and social reflection:
“Seems the world of high-end investors is populated with big fans of pirates.” He grinned, then added, “They feel a certain kinship, no doubt.
Equally notable are the circumstances that juxtapose treasure hunting pivot points with Paul’s realizations about not just buried treasure, but the nature of those who devote their lives to uncovering it.
Steiner’s step-by-step tale of discovery will attract a wide audience, from readers interested in a rollicking good read about treasure and investigative thinking to those who enjoy stories that tie together scholarly historical analysis and modern-day concerns.
Replete with realistic encounters, satisfying twists, and a host of characters whose ambitions and diverse talents entwine in an unusual joint effort and association, The Madeira Chronicle will appeal to leisure readers attracted to stories that grasp the passion and possibility of academia, presenting its backdrops and approaches in a lively manner.
Librarians interested in tales replete with discovery that reveal value in all kinds of people and purposes will find The Madeira Chroniclel perfect for a broad audience.
The Madeira ChronicleReturn to Index
Opal: A Kentucky
Woman
Jo Ann Kiser
Atmosphere Press
979-8901743928
$31.99 Hardcover;
$18.99 Paperback;
$8.99 ebook
www.atmospherepress.com
Opal: A Kentucky Woman is a literary novel that opens in the hills of Kentucky and widens its embrace to the extent of the Eastern seaboard. It follows the life and choices of Opal, now rooted north in Ohio who, in the year of millennium 2000, reflects on her life’s progression and outcome, surrounded by family.
Jo Ann Kiser creates an atmospheric, involving read from the beginning as Opal considers her moves in life and the lure of her Kentucky roots:
A Kentucky newspaperman Opal knows, a friend of Thomas’s, once told her that if you stand in lower Ohio on a Friday and watch the cars on U.S. 23 go south, you will see a million Kentucky license plates, all of them filled with Kentuckians going home for the weekend. In her heart Opal considers herself one of those Kentuckians, a subversive who should be going back to where she belongs.
As loss, changes, and a number of physical moves provoke choices that translate to a sense of feeling uprooted as well as reconnected, numerous times, Opal’s journey reflects a constantly-recreated sense of family, home, and purpose. These experiences give readers not only vivid impressions of the geographical differences between cultures that Opal encounters, but the relationships she forms under different conditions throughout the course of her life.
Kiser captures the nuances, times, and flavors of these shifting places and eras with a fine blend of metaphorical description, philosophical and social reflection, and psychological insight:
The train station itself was like a gigantic cave, people sounds and engine sounds and bells and cash registers like invisible objects floating about in smoky light splintering like giant cobwebs. What seemed like hundreds or thousands of soldiers talked and ate and waited on their way to war: they formed a pattern in that enormous waiting room, like herds of young calves, small beneath the vast, distant ceiling. Opal felt a friendship with them, as though she and Wendell and their children and these soldiers were all from some small place and in need of protection. She was afraid of that waiting room and of those elegant houses outside the city. They threatened her picture of home. The soldiers were on their way to danger. A kind of anger was born in her and, though she mostly grew to like cities, to visit anyway, that anger never totally left her. It wasn’t just the weight of all that stone: it was what she had begun to discover in Cincinnati.
Kiser creates a story that moves through Opal’s shifting worlds with a powerful sense of observational strength and connections. These will attract a wide audience, from leisure readers who pursue women’s fiction to book clubs interested in debates about a sense of place, family, and interpersonal connections.
Replete with engrossing scenarios of Opal’s world and how it changes over the decades, Opal: A Kentucky Woman is an excellent, evocative story that ideally will find its home in any library or reading list where intimate stories of family life and transformation are of interest.
Opal: A Kentucky WomanReturn to Index
Riddled with
Cunning
M.L. Meurs
SoCal Fab
Publishing
979873188
27
$14.95
Paperback/$7.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HJ6L3QYY?spcref=PUBLISHED_PREORDER_LIVE
Riddled with Cunning is a novel steeped in possibility that opens with Leo’s encounter with indigent stranger Eddie, who unexpectedly bequeaths him a dog. This poses an immediate problem, as 14-year-old Leo must get his mother to agree to the new arrival before the Troll (his stepfather) ruins everything.
Mother Kari Roosevelt enters this scenario in the third chapter, a widowed mother whose choice of marrying the powerful Glenn Burns seems to be the biggest mistake of her life.
As her husband’s questionable activities begin to surface, the unexpected gift dog may prove the family’s only salvation as a blend of mystery, intrigue, and an investigation by Leo and his best friend Violet lead them all into danger.
M.L. Meurs builds a cat-and-mouse story of trouble surrounding the Troll’s intentions. The two young friends become essential ingredients in an investigation that could not only reveal the truth, but save lives.
The shepherd and the homeless man who bequeathed him to Leo turn out to be central keys in the puzzle as the angst surrounding a stepfather translates to deeper problems and issues beyond the family’s circles.
Meurs is especially adept at contrasting the perceptions and lives of mother Kari and teenage son Leo in chapters which evolve in different directions and concerns as Kari becomes involved with Frank J. Roosevelt and teens Leo and Violet are caught up in matters of horses, stepfathers, and secrets.
Librarians seeking a strong recommendation for all ages interested in sagas of caring sons and dangerous threats from behind closed doors will find Riddled with Cunning a gripping tale that proves hard to put down.
Replete with close inspections of family ties and transitions, Riddled with Cunning’s special blend of mystery, unexpected friendships, family, and how truth can become twisted in games people play will attract and intrigue not only general audiences, but book clubs seeking fodder for vivid discussions.
Riddled with CunningReturn to Index
Runtime:
Iggy’s Final Cut
Keith
Jefferds
The
Eyes Have It Press
979-8-9957651-0–3
$15.99
Paperback/$4.99 eBook/Audio $0 with membership
Website:
https://keithjefferdsauthor.com/
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Runtime-Iggys-Final-Keith-Jefferds/dp/B0H6C7TY8J
Ignatius “Iggy” Smart (aka Igor Yurievitch Smertyov) can’t get away from Greater Los Angeles quickly enough, in the opening prologue of Runtime: Iggy’s Final Cut . His family came to Hollywood in 1918, fleeing Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution, and formed a home and new roots in a culture where filmmaking’s rise allows Iggy to enter a dream job. In 1959, he’s a movie director shooting his most ambitious film to date – and also eager to prove himself to his acclaimed, Oscar-winning older brother Sascha.
The moment, however, is fraught with questions and confusion as Iggy also finds himself poised to make his biggest mistakes ever, and comes to view opportunity as possible angst and anguish instead.
Russian backdrops and 1950s Hollywood come to life in a series of juxtaposed scenarios involving flashbacks and present-day challenges, creating a novel replete with satisfying twists and insights about creative juices, motivational forces, social and political fluctuations, and family pressures as Sascha and Iggy’s worlds come to life.
In the course of exploding political prejudices and social change, readers receive thought-provoking passages that succinctly capture the ironies of some of these confrontations:
“I assure you that the United States of America does not tolerate illegal entry or criminal activity perpetrated by aliens. I can’t even imagine where you and people like you get the notion that you can pull a fast one on this country and sneak in unnoticed to flout our laws.”
And of course Yuri couldn’t mention that he’d been counseled in his actions—at least re the illegal entry part—by the daughter of a United States Senator.
The author moves from childhood dreams to adult challenges as scenarios, influences, and lives fluctuate under the combined forces of personal, familial, and political pressures of the times. These shifts fill out characters and motivations nicely, creating backdrops of opportunity and immigrant experience that present in thought-provoking, revealing reflections:
It was this image of a suddenly accelerated to-and-fro that unsettled Yuri. This was after all a two-way street. While the growers and farmers traveled the new route south to market, who might soon be crowding north to probe his beloved Valley? What might these new seekers be after? What might they choose to raise up on the old land? It was not just a tunnel. It was a foot in the door.
As events swirl from a young Russian prince’s changing world to the trials and heartbeat of American experience, readers will appreciate the intersections of Hollywood and everyday life that bring a myriad of environments to life in unexpected ways.
Jefferds excels in capturing life as a series of movie shots that also deepen the opportunities to thoroughly appreciate revised lives and shifting perspectives in all characters:
The musical score kicks in—starting with a tentative flute solo. One by one, other instruments join in and build to a full orchestral swell. As if answering the music’s call, the old man turns away from the house. His face is taut, urgent, and a little out of focus. Then his expression comes into sharp resolution. The old man’s pupils are lit by a “catchlight” as his eyes widen into exaltation.
The result is a novel replete with history, Hollywood, Russian immigrant experience, and life changes that librarians and readers will find enlightening, lively, and thoroughly engrossing.
Runtime: Iggy’s Final CutReturn to Index
TwinStar
D. Cohen
Middle Fork Press
979-8996654604
$14.99
Paperback/$5.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/TwinStar-GW-Canyon-Journey-Cohen/dp/B0H6TBZFLC
TwinStar, a “GW Canyon Journey,” is a novel of psychological suspense that opens with a pre-chapter note reflecting on author D. Cohen’s own journey as he resurrects a manuscript, only to realize that:
“When I pulled out a manuscript I’d written thirty years ago, I thought: not bad. Action. Momentum. A strong male protagonist at the center of everything. The kind of book that moves... Then I went back in. The "first pass was a disaster. I was still writing from the same angle — male gaze, male logic, male consequence. The women in the story were competent and credible, but they were there to react. To witness. To complete the picture around him. I have a hard-earned lifelong insight: women are more interesting than men.”
From this revelation came revisions that result in what readers hold in their hands today – a proactive, startling story, the first in a five-book series about a man who may believe and present himself as the central focus, but who actually relies on the strong women who accompany him on his journey.
This perspective gives TwinStar an unusual, exciting countenance as it delves into scenarios of a crashing commercial jetliner and the persona of GW Canyon, a powerful tech executive who likes to think he is always in control, and the women in his life who prove otherwise.
Readers won’t expect the blend of romance, realization, and action which mark Canyon’s world, but this is one of the attractions of a character and story whose achievements and perspective undergo a sea change of revision as the plot unfolds.
As GW, Allison, Lisa, and other characters follow clues about what is really happening, readers join them for a rollicking ride through possibilities that contrast the different analytical modes and strengths of men and women:
The chase was running hot. But she stopped. Looked at the phone. Looked at GW.
“Say more,” she said.
“I can’t,” he said honestly. “It just feels fast. Like we might be stepping on something we can’t step back from.”
She turned that over. He wasn’t wrong that it was fast. He also wasn’t wrong that instinct was a legitimate instrument — she knew that from the lab, from seventeen years of reading systems before she could name what was failing in them.
D. Cohen presents these shifting approaches to problem-solving and investigation with an eye to revealing new threads of not just emotional connection, but realization. GW accepts the women in his world as being uniquely talented in different ways - some of which he finds completely foreign to his own approaches.
Cohen weaves these perspectives and moments of enlightenment into an overall suspenseful deep dive into intelligence processes which will delight readers seeking thrillers that contrast the strengths of all involved.
The equation of love and danger, the resources and revelations and disappointments which accompany growing connections between dots of romance and discovery, and the threads and loose ends the investigation provides makes for riveting reading.
The novel’s ability to introduce a series that stands nicely alone with a definitive conclusion makes it an attraction to those who enjoy emotional undercurrents in their suspense stories that offer clear resolutions:
She considered the future the way she approached most things now —not as a fantasy, but as a set of doors she could choose to open or leave closed.
Librarians choosing TwinStar for their collections will find its dual focus on the men and women who assume different forms of leadership mantles in an overall effort to survive, love, and live makes for an engrossing build-up of tension and possibilities that will engage readers to the end.
TwinStarReturn to Index
The White Nagual
Bruce Hartman
Swallow Tail Press
978-0-9997564-9-2
$13.95
Paperback/$2.99 eBook
www.amazon.com
The White Nagual is a novel that opens with a quasi-resurrection as a man emerges from a desert cave at night, assumes the countenance of a demon owl known to the Apaches as a nagual, murders a boy watering his horse, and leaves the body for the wolves.
In 1870s Arizona, white army scout John Pierce is summoned to Fort Holden by a captain he despises to track down his former commanding officer Brodie, who is killing Apache children – the latest being the fifth or sixth in a string of murders – in revenge for an attack on his family.
Pierce has resigned from scouting for the army and only wants to marry his love and flee the territory, but these murders pull him back into a job and milieu that he finds hard to turn his back on. He agrees that Pierce’s killings must be stopped, but he knows that the captain’s prejudices against the Apaches and his desire for their elimination are part of the reason for sending him on this mission, elevating the tensions between whites and Natives in this young land.
Further complicating matters is the fact of Pierce’s former personal relationship with Brodie, who was once his mentor and friend.
As the story unfolds, Pierce is forced to confront the darkness in his own soul and acknowledge not just its presence, but its impact:
A man who fights a nagual may turn into a nagual himself. He already knew that was true. He had felt the tug of the nagual—to fight it he had to take a piece of it into himself. He had come to believe in the nagual as he believed in his own soul.
As a search for Brodie turns into an unexpected confrontation with the forces that created this killer, Pierce comes to question his own connections, motivations, choices, and ultimate impact on this desert world in a riveting blend of spiritual, psychological, and cultural clashes.
Bruce Hartman is masterful at entwining mystery and quests with bigger-picture thinking about justice, revenge, and beliefs. The story unfolds on different levels to reveal insights about the nagual soul (a man destroyed by hatred and invaded by the soul of a predator) and the essence of a man who has died and been reborn into something barely human.
Especially notable are the juxtapositions of Pierce and Brodie’s values and connections as the hunt continues and confrontations reveal far more in common between the two than Pierce would care to admit.
Librarians that choose The White Nagual for its appeal to mystery, thriller, and novel readers will want to recommend it to readers intrigued by Westerns that feature fast-paced action, high drama, exciting confrontations, and unexpected outcomes.
Replete with a special blend of action and contemplative events, The White Nagual is a cat-and-mouse game of confrontation and realization which tempers a manhunt with deeper questions of spiritual and psychological recovery.
The White NagualReturn to Index
The 90-Day
Leadership Field Manual
Haraya Del Rosario
Gust
Elara Holdings
Pte. Ltd.
979-8-9965789-0-0
$18.95
Paperback/28.95
Hardcover/$9.99 ebook
https://www.amazon.com/90-Day-Leadership-Field-Manual-First-Time/dp/B0HGVLRHH2
The 90-Day Leadership Field Manual: Practical Guidance for First-Time Leaders is a “must” for anyone who finds themselves unexpectedly thrust into the arena of leadership with no prior experience to build upon. It offers foundations of guidance with an eye to creating a baseline of expertise when is none already present in a day-by-day review of the first 90 days of being a leader. This will set the pace and tone for the rest of the effort.
The book opens with the basics of what changes between leadership and ordinary business roles, considering the demands, rhythms, and approaches of a leadership position. The 90-Day Leadership Field Manual then delves into the nuts and bolts of assuming ownership and becoming an effective boss in the eyes of employees, building exercises and techniques to formulate an effective leadership position.
It’s the latter effort which shines in this step-by-step review.
One example of this strength lies in the advice for ‘staging the transition’:
You can’t change everything at once. Nor should you. Look at your TO-BE chart and ask:
What can transition now?: Low risk, person is
ready, support is in place
• What should transition in two or three weeks?:
Needs some preparation first
• What should transition closer to Day 90?:
Higher stakes, needs more time
• What should not transition during these 90
days?: Too risky, person isn’t ready, or it would
destabilize the team
The result gives new leaders everything necessary for success in a clear, reality-based approach to guiding others that shows how one can be powerful and effective even when lacking experience.
All that’s needed is this book – which is why libraries and business readers need to acquire and consider The 90-Day Leadership Field Manual’s wisdom and approaches to better understanding and quickly stepping into a leadership role in business and life.
The 90-Day Leadership Field ManualReturn to Index
The Beat Must Go On
Nichole Barnes
Marshall
Networlding
Publishing
979-8195567347
$17.99
https://www.amazon.com/Beat-Must-Go-Reimagining-Inclusion/dp/B0GZKCZPDC
At first glance, The Beat Must Go On: Reimagining Inclusion For A Divided Era looks to be an analysis of House music. Look further to discern that this genre of music forms the foundation for a much deeper investigation beyond the music world that delves into House music’s ideals of building community, dissolving differences, and joining together to build something bigger, better, and new.
Nichole Barnes Marshall concurrently documents the House DJs that kept the counterculture’s musical beats alive under the mainstream music pop culture focus. She draws important connections between a dance floor that solidified unity over division and the impact of this music on her life, which changed forever thanks to its messages and opportunities.
This blend of memoir and cultural analysis offers an especially powerful, rich groove of understanding that translates the history and roots of Chicago’s House revolution into an impressively alluring story. It requires no prior familiarity or appreciation of House music in order to prove fascinating.
Under her hand, the verbs belonging and inclusion assume broader new forms of interpretation as Marshall moves to the beat of revised life considerations.
Business, social science, music, and history readers alike will find compelling how this fugue translates under her hand:
Our promotion system looked fair on paper. Everyone had the same performance review process, the same advancement criteria, the same development opportunities. But that same treatment was producing very different outcomes for different people. It was like a building where the water pressure is strong on the first floor but barely a trickle by the time it reaches the top. Same pipes. Same system. Very different experience depending on where you stand. The problem was not bad people making biased decisions. The problem was that our systems had been designed by and for a specific group of people, and they carried forward assumptions about what normal career paths, communication styles, and success looked like.
Those involved in organizing or reorganizing political, personal, and social structures to create new frameworks of change and opportunity will be especially intrigued by how the tenants driving House music become those focused on designing new systems of acceptance.
The mortar solidifying ideals and reality is layered by an author who is able to not only marry these seemingly disparate truths and circumstances, but who can take a step back to offer bigger-picture enlightenment:
I have spent twenty-five years building rooms in the World House. Some were constructed under ideal conditions with supportive leadership and adequate resources. Others were built during storms, in hostile environments, with people actively trying to tear down what we were putting up. I have seen brilliant efforts fail because the infrastructure could not hold them. I have seen modest changes transform entire cultures because they were planted in the right soil.
The result is much more than either a memoir or a consideration of social change, but a hug and an embrace of the facets which bring all kinds of people together.
This is why The Beat Must Go On is very highly recommended to libraries and individuals from all walks of life. Its ability to bring together a range of discussions about inclusion and equal opportunity, cement it with the foundations of House music philosophy, and root it in circumstances of the author’s life and times makes for an important recipe for surviving modern times and divisionary tactics and thinking. It’s a “must have” for taking the next step into a better life.
The Beat Must Go OnReturn to Index
Blood in the Desert
T.J. English
Hamilcar
Publications
9781949590951
$24.99
https://hamilcarpubs.com/
Blood in the Desert: The T. J. English Reader presents some four decades of T.J. English’s nonfiction writings and journalism, placing under one cover the extent of his social and political observations. Subjects range from the choices in adulthood made by alter boy Brian Dignan, who endured sexual abuse by a bastion of the Irish community who quasi-adopted him when his father died, to Ed Drivick, who recalls the moment he realized he was an alcoholic.
English profiles individuals representative of their communities and times, bringing their influences, choices, backgrounds, and cultures to life in a vivid manner. Diverse accounts embrace the disparate worlds of cops, ethnic communities, and singers such as Dinah Washington alongside ordinary individuals whose extraordinary experiences impart greater understanding of the world through English’s interviews.
New and old pieces by English appear side-by-side to delight prior fans, newcomers, and anyone who would absorb the varied communities and threads that comprise life in America.
Especially notable are the insights that contrast varying viewpoints to juxtapose the rise of ordinary individuals facing life-changing situations:
“We’ve got nights to fill, who should I have take over for Steve?” Wilner didn’t hesitate. “You’ve got one of the greatest piano players around playing here already. Give it to Harry. Let’s see what he can make of it.” And thus began what would become a major renaissance in the life of Harry Whitaker. Over the next few years, he would go from being a forgotten man to being the king of the Greenwich Village jazz scene.
The result is a cultural inspection, a literary collection representing journalistic reporting at its finest, and a review of the lives and communities that English encounters on his path to exposing truths and realities in different ways.
Suitable for students of journalism and creative writing, general-interest social history readers, and collections catering to thinking readers interested not just in biographical explorations, but some of the foundations of American culture, Blood in the Desert gathers a wide range of experiences, observations, individuals, and settings to create a thought-provoking exposé of the undercurrents of American society.
It will also attract book clubs and reading groups interested in pursuing a diverse gathering of cultural experiences and values.
Blood in the DesertReturn to Index
Collegiate
Capitalism: The Battle
for the Future of College Sports
Donald M. Remy
Networld Publishing
978-1959993728
$34.99
Hardcover/$22.49
Paperback/$9.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Collegiate-Capitalism-Battle-Future-College/dp/1959993720
Collegiate Capitalism: The Battle for the Future of College Sports comes from a lawyer who joined the NCAA in 2011 and then spent the next ten years spearheading the organization through a storm of lawsuits and government failures that swirled into political and legal controversies affecting the concurrent rise of athlete advocacy.
His account of this decade of scandal and chaos and its historic cases embraces both legal proceedings and behind-the-scenes maneuvers. Donald M. Remy unfolds legal and governance debates that embroiled leadership and the public in paradigm-changing issues.
Readers interested in collegiate sports will find Remy’s history thoroughly absorbing not just because it charts these events and processes, but because it raises important questions about the ethics, management, and the athlete’s competitive experience, following the aftermath of ground- and rule-breaking cases:
This rationale would become standard across IARP decisions: avoid punishing current athletes for past violations by coaches and administrators. It sounded principled. In practice, it meant that schools could regularly cheat, fire or reassign responsible parties, and face minimal consequences because "current athletes" shouldn't suffer.
Case history examples don’t just stem from courtroom and government clashes. Legal and political ramifications are also gleaned from such contemporary sources as TikTok:
I watched that video in my home just north of Indianapolis, and something shifted. The defensive explanations died in my throat. Although there was a more complicated explanation than the public had patience for or than the media would tolerate, Prince was on to something. This wasn't about space constraints or COVID protocols. This was about a historical primary focus on men's basketball and treating almost everything else, including women's basketball, as an afterthought. And some would argue, rightfully so, given that men's basketball was and is the economic engine of the NCAA.
More than a survey of ten years of college sports history, Collegiate Capitalism: The Battle for the Future of College Sports tackles deeper, harder questions about the rules, regulations, and processes that translate to effective, ethical playing.
Ideally, Collegiate Capitalism: The Battle for the Future of College Sports will not just be in any library where patrons are interested in collegiate sports, but used as debate material within and beyond sports audiences, from social studies and civics courses to classrooms and book clubs interested in debating capitalism’s approaches to the sports world and the lasting impact of the NCAA’s business model.
Replete with hard questions that deserve to be asked and answers that merit debate, Collegiate Capitalism: The Battle for the Future of College Sports is unprecedented in its approach and authoritative analysis and is an authority-questioning force to be reckoned with.
Collegiate Capitalism: The Battle for the Future of College SportsReturn to Index
Dad: Your Life,
Your Story to Write:
A Guided Legacy Journal with Self-Reflection Prompts &
Cognitive
Questionnaires for Fathers
Karen Hall
& Dr. Varun Soti
Independently
Published
9798999116345
$15.99
https://yourstorytowrite.com/
Dad: Your Life, Your Story to Write: A Guided Legacy Journal with Self-Reflection Prompts & Cognitive Questionnaires for Fathers is a guided keepsake journal that invites fathers to create a written legacy for future generations. It provides the structure and approach necessary to guide even non-writers through the process of penning their life achievements, milestones, memories, and lessons.
The journal is designed to be written in - which may preclude its usefulness as a lending library piece, but enhances its attraction to any wanna-be writer who may hesitate to put pen to paper, but wants to leave something meaningful as a legacy.
The journal invites irregular jotting, individual pacing, and self-awareness and insight through a format that organizes a typical adult man’s life into digestible chapters. Topics range from boyhood and becoming a young man to tackling the challenges and rituals of adults, becoming a father to investigating family lineage, and even helps capture the jokes and humor that can run like threads through family experiences.
A cognitive or memory assessment questionnaire included at the end of the book, also sets this journal apart from others, giving it even wider appeal to audiences interested in linking journaling efforts with memory analysis and tests.
Each chapter offers a series of provocative questions (“What was discipline like in my home, especially from my dad?,” “Did I love my work? Why or why not?,” and “A story from my parents or grandparents that shaped my outlook on life.”). Each provides write-in pages and lines that encourage such explorations, organizing the results in a manner not only amenable to the writer, but those who inherit his little book of wisdom.
Mistakes, revelations, family connections and messages, and celebrations of lineage and logic all have a place in this well-written survey of the highlights in a man’s world. These then can be transmitted, via this book, in a form that is personal and revealing.
Ideally, Dad: Your Life, Your Story to Write will be given as gift to one’s father, inviting discussions and insights that otherwise would be lost to time.
It also can be used in book clubs, reading groups, creative writing courses, and men’s groups as a foundation for tapping into one’s life experience with the intention of transmitting knowledge, wisdom, and personal connection into the world, armed with a “how to” book of connection that organizes and personalizes the finer art of emotional and family intimacy.
Dad: Your Life, Your Story to Write: A Guided Legacy Journal with Self-Reflection Prompts & Cognitive Questionnaires for FathersReturn to Index
Dump’s Kingdom
Gregg Coodley M.D
Bendrogo Publishing
978-0-9990770-9-2
$7.99
Paperback/$5.99 eBook
Website: www.booksgreggcoodley.com
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Dumps-Kingdom-Gregg-Coodley-MD/dp/0999077090
Dump’s Kingdom blends elements of fantasy into a political satire that will delight literary and general-interest audiences with its special brand of wry social examination. The story opens with Joe, who was bored in school until, with the rise of AI, he is informed he no longer needed apply himself to learning anything.
Each teacher holds a different explanation for why learning has become passé. As his history teacher explains: “The government would prefer you not learn history. Why, if you knew history you might challenge the version of events the government puts out. That would never do.” The teacher continued, “... if people remembered the past they wouldn’t have the fun of making the same mistakes again.”
English, science, and math teachers also explain that, given the prowess of AI, learning has become obsolete. And so Joe, who used to enjoy learning new things, must absorb a difficult lesson in obsolescence (in this case, that of the human race) as he sees libraries of books turning into repositories of computer terminals and shopping in stores turn into online-only isolation.
Shades of modern times!
As Joe navigates a much-changed world and considers its cost, readers receive considerations that embrace how a King then takes over the world with many messages that support AI and tamp down the human spirit:
“We know that everyone having their own point of view just leads to disagreements. The King doesn’t want different ‘fake’ viewpoints. It is much better when everyone just follows the King’s point of view.”
Joe’s journey to the Forbidden Zone with a new band of fellow rebels brings them into contact with unusual creatures and concepts that expand the satirical observations in unexpected ways, through dialogues that sizzle with irony:
“I am the Demon of Gluttony and Fast Food,” he answered. “No one can stuff more fast food down their gullet than me. I don’t mean to brag, but I am simply the best at eating that ever was. No one know how to eat faster or more completely than me.”
“You don’t say,” Stephen said.
“I do envy the King. If I overeat, I will throw up afterwards. When the King does that, he has a large number of minions who rush to collect the vomit and then promise to store it as a treasured keepsake forever. That is a type of class I can’t aspire to,” he said ruefully.
“It is certainly a certain type of class,” Stephen put in.
Demons of War, clowns and kings, and other figures add additional notes of political, social, and philosophical reflection into the mix. The kingdom’s new facades and countenance present often-striking commentary and parallels to modern times.
Libraries and readers seeking quasi-fantasy, quasi-political, satirical stories will relish how delightfully outrageous are the characters and dilemmas which grow in Dump’s Kingdom. Packed with hilarious and thought-provoking characters and situations, the novelette is also highly recommended for book clubs where seemingly short, light fantasy reading can open serious opportunities for discussion.
Dump’s KingdomReturn to Index
Embracing the
Local: Extension Cords
and All
Glen Cantrell
More Taste Than
Fortune Books
979-8-9969010-0-5
$18.99
Paperback/$8.99 eBook
Website: https://www.moretastethanfortune.com/books/embracing-the-local
Ordering:
https://bookshop.org/p/books/embracing-the-local-extension-cords-and-all/7639b303cf81c0a7
Embracing the Local: Extension Cords and All follows author Glen Cantrell’s year of tackling a job he thought he was qualified to undertake: directing an all-volunteer Chamber of Commerce in California’s Sierra Nevada foothills. Becoming a civic leader wasn’t his intention. Cantrell stumbled into the job “by being in the wrong place at the wrong time” (a local wine bar).
A few months later, he was not only a member of the board, but ran for and obtained the position of its President. And that’s where the fun begins.
After his election (by fifteen votes), the small town comes to life. New connections and associations are described in a lively series of encounters and discourses that illustrate the complexity of small town interactions:
When our little Chamber sales team finally walked back out into the cold, the thing I was left with wasn’t the specific information we’d exchanged, as important as that was. It was the fact that this woman hadn’t just passively listened to our proposal, she had chosen to have lunch with us and keep listening. Like most of those early visits up the hill, we were two parties cautiously feeling each other out. It was also generous. It felt less like pitching opportunity and more like building a friendship.
The most notable aspects of this memoir are its focus on how volunteer groups interact, react, are managed (or not), and come together, and how civic leadership evolves. Cantrell builds a compelling story for all readers, whether or not they have any prior interest in government, leadership roles, or volunteer efforts. The story is packed with thought-provoking reflections that can easily apply to all kinds of situations:
Early in my tenure, I tended to look at our volunteers the way I’d look at a resource constraint at work. I was learning to internalize that people aren’t the roles we ask them to fill.
Equally important are links between ideals, perceptions, action, and how fixers and achievers can burn out:
If someone does a thing well, we assume they’ll keep doing it in the same labor-producing way. The person who knows everyone becomes “the outreach person.” The person who always says yes becomes “the person we ask first.” The person who quietly fixes things becomes invisible until the fixing stops. That’s dangerous. Not because roles are bad. Roles are necessary. A volunteer organization without roles is just a group chat with snacks and yellow vests. But a function doesn’t get tired, run a business, lose a parent, have a sick kid, need a weekend off, or sit in the driveway for five extra minutes because going inside means admitting how drained the day has made them. Real people do all of this. And that is how burnout sneaks in.
The crux of this story isn’t just a reveal of small-town operations and volunteer management or efforts, but the ways in which teams come together, operate, succeed or fail, and come to embrace leaders and each other.
Cantrell has created a unique perspective and voice in outlining the details of his own leadership efforts and foray into civic activities.
His eye-opening, engrossing story will attract readers come from general-interest and non-governmental backgrounds alike, and deserves highlight and high recommendation from libraries that can use Embracing the Local: Extension Cords and All as a model for fostering cooperative thinking and efforts in communities of all sizes.
Embracing the Local: Extension Cords and AllReturn to Index
Finding Purpose
and Passion in Small
Business
Stephen Sullivan
Independently
Published
979-8-9980464-0-7
$15.95
www.amazon.com
Finding Purpose and Passion in Small Business: Inspiring Stories of Authentic American Heroes surveys small business ingenuity, innovation, and even heroism. It cultivates visions of success that often reach out to embrace and change the lives of employees, families, and the community around them.
Where other business books focus on stories of corporations and the rise of big business, Stephen Sullivan delves into the nuts and bolts of achievement on smaller, grassroots levels, He exposes the rich veins of perseverance and the building blocks of discovery that often stem from the most ordinary of dreams.
Maintaining that “Small business is an antidote to the excesses of Capitalism and Big Tech, preserving and protecting the humanity in commerce,” Sullivan reveals the underlying ethical and moral foundations of America, narrowing his focus to selected coverage of not just successful entrepreneurial effects, but the individuals and ideals that fostered them.
The stories aren’t what a reader might expect. They incorporate Sullivan’s encounters with individuals and groups, as in “Feature Story 2: Nosotras Boutique Fashion Group/Joan Laureano.” Here, the author encountered Joan during his stint with the SBA, “...while planning an inter-agency World Trade Month Webinar Series - in 2021. That year, in response to a Biden Administration commitment to promote diversity and inclusion, we incorporated a webinar in Spanish to feature and celebrate U.S. Hispanic-owned small businesses in the global marketplace. It was an attempt to reach out to Hispanic-owned businesses to advise them of available federal export promotion resources.”
The sketches are linked to ideas of success as defined on a much broader cultural and social scale than one might be used to from common business guides to success.
They also incorporate a good deal of first-person encounters, reflections, and experience. This also sets this book’s approach apart from traditional business titles which tend to de-personalize the roots of achievement in favor of a more impartial assessment that profile success factors over individual choices.
It’s this personal touch which helps make Finding Purpose and Passion in Small Business so special:
One thing I have often thought to myself and shared with my kids is to "trust your instincts." We can sense when something is off or not right. Whether in a relationship or in a business deal, if something doesn't feel right, then walk away from it. I do believe and agree with Adam that it is really important to trust that initial instinct. The more you "waffle with making the decision," the more likely you are to change your own mind...to overthink the issue and under-trust your instincts. I've always loved the Nike slogan, and felt the power of it as it relates to taking on challenges and saying "Yes!" to opportunity. "Just do it" here as it relates to Adam's advice is about trusting your initial instinct for decision-making, whatever that decision might be...yea or nay.
The result is a business book, a survey of local and small business heroes, and a probe into the impact of life and business choices and their connections to society as a whole that goes far, far beyond the usual dispassionate big-business approach of the traditional business book.
This is why librarians and reading groups both within and outside of business circles need Finding Purpose and Passion in Small Business. Its personal reflections, interactions, and consideration of the real fundamentals and definition of success make it a standout.
Finding Purpose and Passion in Small BusinessReturn to Index
How to Cremate a
Parakeet: And Other
Tales of an Adventurous Childhood
Christopher Byrne
Armin Lear Press
978-1-968919-58-0
$24.95
www.arminlear.com
With the wealth of parenting how-to books flooding the market, one might believe there is little room for another. Enter How to Cremate a Parakeet: And Other Tales of an Adventurous Childhood, a hilarious blend of memoir and parenting guide that tackles topics other books won’t touch – such as how a parent can guide a child through burying a loved pet.
Scenarios presented to test and challenge the notion of parenting range from burials to sword fights with hedge clippers and tackling the overly aggressive approach of a child’s camp guidance counselor, who actually endangers the kids through his assertive insistence that they literally sink or swim.
Memories such as those of the town Popsicle Man who, the kids discover, routinely relieves himself outside of his truck before venturing into the neighborhood to hand out popsicles to the kids, become lessons about bathroom dos and don’ts, acceptable outdoors habits, and more:
Rules didn’t preclude relieving oneself outdoors, but if we were, say, down by the Brandywine catching tadpoles to sell, the rule was that you had to climb way up a hill far away from anyone and pee against a tree so that you would be as quiet as possible. Nobody wanted to hear pee splashing on the ground. Then, since there was no running water besides the river, you had to pull leaves from a tree and “wash” your hands with those. You might wonder why we would have been so rigid about the rules of peeing and what was right in that context and still pulled the pranks we did on the Popsicle Man? It’s simple: that’s how kids think.
Wit is embedded into these memories, even when it comes to introducing kids to death on a personal level:
My turtle Chauncey died a couple of weeks later. I came back into my room and saw he hadn’t eaten the lettuce I’d put in his bowl. It was just sitting there. Using all my veterinary skill, I poked at him long enough with a pencil eraser to see that he wasn’t responsive. I suppose I should have been sad, but instead, I thought I had a body for our cemetery.
The result offers parents a different take on childhood experiences and perceptions, capturing a child’s-eye view with all of its irreverent logic and misguided ideas of how life works.
Embedded within these observations and experiences are lessons parents can take to heart about new possibilities for rearing and helping their kids.
Whether readers choose How to Cremate a Parakeet for its insights about childhood, parenting, or humor, one thing is certain: its unique approach to creating a memoir filled with interesting, fun explorations of life will appeal to all ages.
Libraries that choose How to Cremate a Parakeet for their collections will find it an uncommon, attractive recommendation beyond the usual memoir and parenting reading circles, suitable even for book clubs seeking crossover titles that move between memoir, childhood experience, and life’s ironies.
How to Cremate a Parakeet: And Other Tales of an Adventurous ChildhoodReturn to Index
Invisible Capital:
What Sustains
Enterprising Families Across Generations
René Sonneveld
Guiding Lens
Publishing
978-9915-44-395-9
$9.99
www.renesonneveld.com
Invisible Capital: What Sustains Enterprising Families Across Generations addresses the connections between family and business systems, exploring the concept of “invisible capital” and how it grows beyond traditional hard definitions of capital.
This discussion embraces spiritual, culture and identity, and the relational capital of bonds and networks built alongside the usual business construct, which are rarely mentioned in typical business book discussions.
René Sonneveld’s examples cement these underlying concepts of cross-generational entrepreneurship, identifying the hidden motivations, guidance, and influences that accompany businesses built on familial connections:
Giovanni had never formalized his operating logic because he had never needed to. His presence made the informal sufficient. The moment he was gone, the informal system of governance still remained. The absence of a formal model became visible only when a decision came along that the informal way of doing things could not absorb. Families with living founders almost always underestimate how much of their governance is, in fact, the founder.
Of special note is Sonneveld’s coverage of how ethnic influences and heritage affect business choices and structures, offering detailed examples of symbiotic benefits:
Pair a younger and older family member to mentor each other across domains where each is genuinely the expert. In one Asian commodities-trading family, a grandson with a software background spent four months teaching his grandfather how blockchain-based trade finance could collapse the firm’s reconciliation costs and open up new transparency-driven contracts that competitors could not match. In return, the grandfather spent the same months teaching the grandson how to negotiate, not the tactics, but the patience: how to read a counterparty, how to use silence, how to recognize when a deal is about ego rather than economics. The blockchain conversation was not abstract. It produced a real pilot program with the family’s second-largest customer, which the grandson led. The negotiation conversation was not abstract either. It equipped the grandson to run that pilot’s commercial terms without giving away margin he didn’t know he was giving away. Both walked away wiser, and the firm walked away with a working pilot.
It’s these specific models for change and success which make Invisible Capital: What Sustains Enterprising Families Across Generations a guidebook that should be intrinsic to any family business and those contemplating intergenerational business pursuits.
Examples include squandering invisible capital, discussions surrounding prestige which is often mistaken as purpose, the rituals and choices which cause family enterprises to either collapse or thrive, and how symbolic standing shifts as the business is passed between generations.
All these and more form solid foundations for consideration, planning, and enlightenment, making Invisible Capital: What Sustains Enterprising Families Across Generations an exceptional pick. It will widely appeal not just for families building or contemplating lasting businesses based on relationship foundations, but to libraries seeking lasting acquisitions worthy of high recommendation to book and business meeting circles.
Invisible Capital: What Sustains Enterprising Families Across GenerationsReturn to Index
Mom, This is Your
Story to Write
Karen Hall
Independently
Published
979-8999116352
$15.99
Hardcover/$10.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Mom-This-Your-Story-Write/dp/B0GF7WQZ85
Mom, This is Your Story to Write: A Guided Keepsake Journal & Heartfelt Gift to Celebrate Mom's Story encourages family sharing, legacy creation, and celebrating life by creating the structure needed for a mother to set down not just her memories, but her pivotal life moments, influences, and values in a keepsake journal.
By offering guided chapters that help mothers fill in all the blanks, from childhood to adult transition points and reflections on work, play, parenting, and achievements, Mom, This is Your Story to Write gently guides and directs mothers to present deeper-level thinking to future generations about the guideposts of their decisions, choices, and lives.
The journal’s blank pages for entries doesn’t lend well to library lending, but is perfect for gift-giving and keepsake legacy creation. They encourage not just identifying and filling in blanks, but creating dialogues between generations – here, based on a mother’s particular perceptions and life.
Prompts and questions pepper chapters headed not just by major moments, but the added value of inspiration and excitement, as in the section covering “Hobbies & Passions,” which is subtitled “A chapter of joy, creativity, interests, and the things that make me feel alive.”
This sense of joy and achievement will motivate mothers to consider their life journey lessons in higher-level as a chronicle of the impact and results of a life well-lived no matter its course.
Some pages are marked for photos, while blank sections for fill-in are accompanied by helpful prompts (“Our family joke,” “Family gatherings I remember most,” or “Patterns I notice in my relationships.”). These are indicators that the work of journaling isn’t just about documenting pivot points, but their underlying emotional connections and influences.
The result will be more than a collection of dates and names, but a deeper dive into family history, traits, choices, and defining moments that make Mom, This is Your Story to Write not just a journaling opportunity, but an occasion to form deeper family ties.
Mom, This is Your Story to WriteReturn to Index
The Propaganda
Manual of the Ukraine
War
Thomas Kent
American Foreign
Policy
Council/Armin Lear Press Inc.
978-1968919481
$38.00
https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Manual-Ukraine-War-Information-ebook/dp/B0H57332DF
The Propaganda Manual of the Ukraine War: Information Warfare by Russia, Ukraine, and Western Nations: Lessons Learned for Future Conflicts uses the war in Ukraine as a lens of inspection for modern battles fought as much via disinformation and cyber attacks as on traditional battlefields.
As such, it considers the methodology, strategies, and approaches to information warfare that have been embedded in the Ukraine War, but hold wider-reaching implications for future battles both abroad and at home.
Readers already versed in cyber affairs or Ukraine politics receive a well-researched consideration of these topics, which includes extensive footnoted references suitable for additional pursuit. This sets The Propaganda Manual of the Ukraine War apart from other discussions of either Ukraine or cyber warfare, documenting the history and evolution of information war in general as it surveys its specific applications in the Ukraine war.
Opposing forces come from a wide range of entities and approaches, from UNESCO literacy campaigns to such seemingly disparate circles as philosophy and media studies professionals, activists, and all manner of political and social commentators.
Readers receive many thought-provoking discourses on the elements of truth and messages of reality and disinformation:
Westerners had long considered truth the strongest weapon against hostile propaganda. “True facts,” many believed, would shatter false claims on contact. As Thomas Jefferson put it, “Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself. […] She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men.” Those who struggled to build resilience against information operations by determined adversaries knew the matter was not that simple. Truth might be entirely irrelevant to a claim, so long as people believed it and no one effectively argued the other side.
This wide-ranging approach will draw readers with a multidisciplinary series of examples and discussions that translate to big audiences, from students and scholars to ordinary concerned citizens who may not initially hold much in-depth familiarity with Ukraine history or the specifics of its battles.
From considerations of the differences between heroism and acts of defiance to the Russian connections between journalists and snipers and the effects of financial contributions on either side to the war effort, Thomas Kent pulls no punches and leaves no stone unturned. He captures, represents, and analyzes the broader impacts of the Ukraine war on the playing field of human affairs and interactions.
All this is why, scholarly as though it appears and is presented, The Propaganda Manual of the Ukraine War deserves high profile in all kinds of libraries and among all manner of readers, from general-interest audiences to specialty and student populations.
Its ability to synthesize a wealth of information to consider how propaganda is brewed, comes to life, assumes a life of its own, spreads, and becomes the new reality for many makes for opportunities that book clubs and reading groups especially will find essential for sparking lively discussions.
The Propaganda Manual of the Ukraine WarReturn to Index
Small-Town Gems of
Western North
Carolina
Al & Sunny
Lockwood
Pisgah Press, LLC
978-1-968218-06-5
$22.95
www.pisgahpress.com
Small-Town Gems of Western North Carolina is a road trip in a book that surveys selected small towns from Saluda to Bryson City, Dillsboro, Hendersonville, and others. It’s the guide of choice for travelers who enjoy visiting scenic small towns and rural enclaves that are off the beaten path from the usual choices, combining the feel of a travelogue for armchair readers with the practical approach of a field guide for destination travelers.
Each locale receives descriptions of places to see, exceptional history and sights, and, best of all, the personal reflections of the authors, as written during the course of their journeys. A prime observation about Black Mountain, for example, pinpoints attractions beyond the usual tourist visiting points:
As the afternoon heat grew oppressive, we felt like a siesta. So we headed back to our airbnb cottage for an afternoon break. While lying on our bed waiting to drift off to napland, Al said, “What I love about this town is that it’s happy with itself. It’s not trying to be something else, something bigger. No multi-level parking garages going in. No road-widening. It’s good to be in a place that feels happy with itself.”
Readers walk alongside the Lockwoods as they visit exceptional establishments, natural lakes, and atmospheres that waft from the pages of their book and experiences:
Besides the galleries, stores, ice cream shop, and the line of artful rocking chairs, Cherry Street won my heart with its beautiful, old brick buildings. The buildings that border the street have first floor businesses and (it looks like) second-floor apartments. Their beautiful red brick and mortar walls have stood faithfully in place for so long, that leafy green plants have decided to make their home there.
The result succeeds in not only capturing the culture, atmosphere, and sights and smells of a myriad of Western North Carolina enclaves of Americana, but pinpoints the underlying feel of these places. This might prove as great an attraction as the usual travel guide detailing monuments and natural wonders.
The Lockwoods have traveled the world and brought their unique sense of observation to other travel guides, but this collection of vignettes about Western North Carolina’s hidden gems shouldn’t be missed. The peppering of small black and white photos throughout brings these places to life.
Small-Town Gems of Western North Carolina will grace many a collection with its powerful notes and flavors of small-town culture, attracting all manner of readers. These will include librarians interested in regional focuses on lesser-covered areas to historians interested in North Carolina history and general-interest readers, would-be destination travelers, or retired armchair residents who look for exceptional descriptions and reasons for appreciating local color.
Small-Town Gems of Western North CarolinaReturn to Index
Spaceship
Parenting: Raising
Smarter, Kinder, More Capable Children
Ricky Arenson, MD
New Insights Press
979-8989492657
$14.95
Paperback/$12.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Spaceship-Parenting-Raising-Smarter-Children/dp/B0H8QKQ7DG
Spaceship Parenting: Raising Smarter, Kinder, More Capable Children is like an invaluable seminar in a book that offers scores of insights into raising kids for a better world. With so many parenting books on the market, how can another raise the bar? This one does, via its attention to parent-child relationship-building and emphasizing positive energy over negative reinforcement.
The book’s premise is unique – a spaceship lands in the author’s backyard and an alien from an intelligent planet a thousand light years away descends to offer help to Earthling parents. The book is then a dialogue and a debate between the author and the intelligent space alien over the most effective approaches to end up with happy, responsible, productive citizens of Earth.
Chapters examine parenting toddlers, young children, adolescents, and especially teens. The alien’s “wisdom” identifies dysfunctional parenting concepts, such as “helicopter parenting,” highlighting practical guidelines that can reinforce a child’s self-confidence and ability to manage himself. Insights address parental concerns with dialogues and reflections that many will find enlightening and revealing, especially about how technology and social media are misguiding youth:
A heavy investment in love and attention to make a child feel valued builds their self-esteem. Plus, a heavy investment in values—because raising a decent human is basically a tug of war between you and the internet for control of your child’s soul. And make no mistake, the internet is winning.[…] You’re competing with algorithms designed by billion-dollar companies to hold attention longer than gravity. Your child isn’t weak. They’re human. Brains move toward stimulation and away from exerting effort. If you don’t shape what they invest in, something else will.
The cumulative impact of the book takes readers to a much higher level than most parenting guides, providing plenty of real-life examples and engrossing “aha” moments that parents can apply to fine-tune, tailor, and create their own uplifting, supportive parenting style. It is also a thoroughly entertaining read, with both hearty debate and humorous quips between the alien and the author.
Librarians and book clubs seeking new parenting guides that are different, insightful and enjoyable to read will find that Spaceship Parenting: Raising Smarter, Kinder, More Capable Children offers smart approaches that can help prepare today’s children and teens to self-manage in the challenging world of the future.
Spaceship Parenting: Raising Smarter, Kinder, More Capable ChildrenReturn to Index
Trigger Warning
Issue 3: Tension
Restraint Control
Jodie Armour,
Editor
Caffeinated Muse
Press
9781968999094
$19.99
www.triggerwarningmagazine.com
Trigger Warning Issue 3: Tension Restraint Control is a literary anthology of works by twenty-one contributors, three of which (John Tustin, Wilson Elder, and Eve Lyons) have been nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize in literature.
The BDSM (bondage/discipline/sadism, machosism) theme, which marries vivid color artworks with poetic and fictional reflection, will not be for those who look for staid writing, clean and cozy topics such as nature and family ties, or ordinary writing, but pushes the sexual and emotional boundaries of comfort in exploring and exposing the rituals and experiences of the BDSM community.
Readers with little experience with that community who are curious or interested in its explorations of control and submission will find Trigger Warning Issue 3 a study in powerful, edgy experiences and reflections.
Take John Tustin’s poem “The Duet,” which is paired with a black and white image of a sexually explicit, yet artistically rendered participant that is photographed by George L. Stein. The poem opens with a reflection on conjoined effort (“before much time had passed/we became a duet”) before delving into distance, release, and disempowerment. This will give readers much pause for thought about relationship progression and losing one’s control in the aftermath of union.
Contrast this with t.’s “Last Letter to a Lover,” also paired with a photo by Stein which captures an intimate moment between two lovers whose expressions and stances are striking. It opens with “Today I am going to die.” The piece follows with the step-by-step ritual of preparing for submission and extinction, offering a breathless form of the ultimate relinquishment of power and life itself:
“How dare they speak of this so carelessly? How dare they treat the heart so recklessly? The word itself feels like ripping away a layer of blistered skin. It doesn't deserve tangibility. And yet, my heart is still open, sliced and burning from the salt poured into it. Let go, they say, let it go. But in their utterances, I only hear, let it happen, just let it happen.”
These words, visions, and experiences won’t be for everyone, nor every library collection. Individuals and literacy holders seeking stark, raw, revealing, and sometimes explicit works will find these writings are gateways to not just the BDSM community, but hidden matters of physical and mental perspectives on life, death, and the choices that lie between.
Ideally, Trigger Warning Issue 3: Tension Restraint Control will find a place in reading group discussions where participants are able to accept, consider, and absorb the sometimes-painful, always revealing sexual and psychological forms of thought particular to this community (and, if one looks deeply and honestly enough, in everyday life itself).
The literary excellence of this collection is as commendable as its penchant for ripping off the Band-Aids of decorum to more closely examine the simmering emotional, philosophical, and sexual tensions underlying triggers and responses, as in “Smack,” by editor Jodie Armour:
“I smack my arms and head lightly/With my hands to bring me back/To the cold kitchen and the counter I'm/Leaning against/....’When you start to disassociate,/Touch your skin. Call yourself back,’/The writer with the short hair and/Square framed glasses told us...”
Trigger Warning Issue 3: Tension Restraint ControlReturn to Index
Understanding Your
Child’s
Shattered Heart After a Loved One’s Death
Mary M. McCambridge
Heart of Gold LLC
9798994959015
$20.00
Website: www.MaryMcCambridge.com
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=mary+m+mccambridge
Understanding Your Child’s Shattered Heart After a Loved One’s Death surveys the emotional and physical impact that loss has on a child, offering adults the opportunity to better understand (and help) a child experiencing a loved one’s demise.
Most books that discuss death focus on adult pain and recovery and simply translate that process to a child, but a child’s perceptions, grief process, and ability to absorb loss operates quite differently – thus, the need for this book.
Mary M. McCambridge opens with common myths surrounding a child’s grief process, then moves into how adults can help them cope. Chapters cover many specifics, from what to say (and what not to say) to how to get a child appropriate help from all kinds of sources:
Kids use these methods to numb the pain and unleash their rage. They are screaming inside and feel they have been left out of the grieving process. They need love and concern now and ask themselves, “Where is help for me?” They are begging for someone who will guide them and it is our job, as adults, to find a group or other person, who has had similar experiences, with whom they can relate. That may be a friend, another relative, grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins. But it is imperative that we get children the appropriate support system, just like you sought out for yourself.
McCambridge reviews the issues children deal with after a loved one’s death, the processes past and present which either purposely omitted kids from the grieving process or negated their emotions and inability to adapt and grieve, and different assistive opportunities today. These can stem from enlightened individuals or supportive organizations, all designed to better help children of all ages through the death of a loved one.
More importantly, Understanding Your Child’s Shattered Heart After a Loved One’s Death acknowledges that a child’s process is both similar to and, because of maturity levels, different than what an adult experiences. Special attention must be given to a child because of this reality, and different approaches to loss, bereavement, and change should be on the radar of any caring adult.
A selected but extensive bibliography arranged by type of death (i.e. violence, pets, or parents), notes about ceremonies private and public which can help a child through the grieving process, and age-specific advice from infants to young adults completes the powerful instructions and considerations in Understanding Your Child’s Shattered Heart After a Loved One’s Death.
Any library including books about parenting or bereavement needs to have Understanding Your Child’s Shattered Heart After a Loved One’s Death, which is also highly recommended for discussion points that will prove stimulating to parenting or grief groups.
Understanding Your Child’s Shattered Heart After a Loved One’s DeathReturn to Index
Why Couples Drive
Each Other Crazy
and How to Fix It
Ricky Arenson, MD
New Insights Press
979-8989492664
$14.95
Paperback/$12.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Couples-Drive-Each-Other-Crazy/dp/B0H8R68LND
Dr. Ricky Arenson’s role as a medical doctor gives him a more ongoing, intimate observational status of couples and their behavior, which translates to a book based on a curious biological fact:
Men and women are overwhelmingly similar. Genetically, we are more than 99% the same.[…] But within that remaining 1% lies something important. Inside that tiny genetic difference sits a set of subtle, consistent variations in how we process information, experience emotion, allocate attention, and respond to the world. These different patterns are reliable enough to show up across millions of people, across cultures, and across time.
This encourages not just insights for couples, but invaluable attitude adjustments reinforced throughout the chapters about the deep reasons couples may find themselves at odds, leading to arguments, fights, and anger at each other. Unlike the approaches of psychotherapists, Dr. Arenson incorporates big-picture thinking about the inherent traits, strengths, and differences between men and women to help couples resolve their differences. The chapters are chock full of strategies to achieve greater understanding that help couples get beyond whatever issues sparked a conflict, along with smart approaches to stop arguing through more mindful attitudes about communication.
Most couples do not fight because they do not love each other. They fight because men often feel criticized when women feel unheard; and women feel invisible when men feel attacked. Both often believe they are being reasonable, while neither realizes they are interpreting the same situation through completely different cognitive lenses, both convinced theirs is the correct version of the truth.
Chapters cover a wide swath of territory as they delve into the causes of relationship breakdowns – from differences in a couple’s approach to housework and chores, attitudes about the frequency of sex, how parenting can often be a divisive issue, and more. Full of serious analysis along with frequent interludes of humorous stories from Dr. Arenson’s practice, the book pulls no punches in identifying common barriers to harmony and solutions that will help couples remain in love.
The book ends on an important reminder for couples: Improvement is the secret of meaning and long-term happiness.
Few things are more fulfilling than the sense that we are growing, that our relationship is improving, and that our shared life is moving in the right direction. Conversely, few things are more damaging than a loss of hope. The good news is that growth does not require perfection. It
requires commitment, small steps, and repeated effort.
Why Couples Drive Each Other Crazy can trigger powerful discussions not just between couples, but in women’s groups, book clubs, and any place where men and women meet, interact, and share values, perspectives, and life lessons. This is why librarians and readers will ideally want to make Why Couples Drive Each Other Crazy and How to Fix It a foundation title in any collection focused on relationship-building.
Why Couples Drive Each Other Crazy and How to Fix ItReturn to Index
ABCs of Racing: My
First Guide to
Formula 1 Racing, 2nd
Edition
Andy Amendola
Red Racer Books
979-8-234-07525-3
$19.99
www.RedRacerBooks.com
The second edition of Andy Amendola’s picture book ABCs of Racing: My First Guide to Formula 1 Racing appears in an updated second edition that revises many things – letters, expanded F-1 race-day concepts, and a focus on the racing weekend’s events – but retains the original book’s appeal to families involved in and passionate about car racing in general and Formula 1 in particular.
Wei Ren’s illustrations provide lively embellishment and cement Andy Amendola’s “you are here” feel of excitement:
Drivers, engineers, mechanics, and teams all work together to chase the checkered flag.
Twenty-two cars. Eleven teams. One World Champion.
Are you ready? Lights out. Let’s go!
Adults used to simple ABC primers will be especially intrigued and delighted by how many advanced concepts are presented in this book, explaining advanced ideas usually not presented to the very young learning their alphabets for the first time, as in ‘A is for Aerodynamics’:
Aerodynamics is the study of how air moves around things. Every curve of an F1 car is designed to race through the air as fast as possible.
Adults used to the relative simplicity of ABC primers will delight in a variety of special features in ABCs of Racing that bring car racing to life, from the map that outlines the nations of the world that participate in the sport (under ‘I for International’) to the often-tricky Y, here used to describe the yellow flag’s meaning on the race track as well as other flags employed to inform speeding drivers.
F-1 fans will also appreciate how the alphabet ties into specifics about this racing event:
F1 races are usually three-day events, running from Friday to Sunday, with Practice, Qualifying, and the main event, the Grand Prix, which traditionally takes place on Sunday. Some race weekends also include a short race called a Sprint.
The result is an appealing, informative primer that the entire family can appreciate for its variety of insights into the specifics of Formula One racing, its colorful and enthusiastic descriptions of the sport, and its unofficial introducing to car racing for kids ages 3-8.
ABCs of Racing: My First Guide to Formula 1 Racing, 2 EditionReturn to Index
The Boy and His
Higher Self
Ricardo Santa Cruz
Mascot Kids!
979-8900264158
$19.95
www.theboyandhishigherself.com
The Boy and His Higher Self is a picture book exploration of bigger concepts and feelings than is usually presented to the very young, and explores the concept of inner feelings and guidance.
An interactive dialogue between a boy and his “higher self” introduces the concept, presenting the ethereal form of this higher self as a cloud-being who advises the boy to listen to him. Yuko Kondo’s illustrations bring these characters to life and help personalize the idea of a “higher self” and what it can achieve.
The higher self can help with depression, making the boy feel strong guiding him through life’s puzzles, among many other things.
Why hasn’t the boy heard this inner voice of wisdom before? Because he must first quiet his busy mind in order to hear it.
Libraries and adults interested in introducing young readers to concepts of higher selves, mindfulness, and inner wisdom will find The Boy and His Higher Self attractive and unique in its messages. It ideally will receive read-aloud adult exploration in order to fully benefit newcomers to these concepts and encourage dialogues between different generations.
The Boy and His Higher SelfReturn to Index
Dock Dog
Amanda Morgan
DartFrog Kids
978-1-972446-07-2
$21.99
Hardcover/$15.99
Paperback/$5.99 eBook
www.DartFrogBooks.com
In Dock Dog, Fin is a Portuguese Water Dog - which translates to a penchant for moisture. Named after fish, Fin loves to eat water, loves the ducks that waddle in it, and sprints along the shore to race boats that speed by on the water.
There’s nothing about water than Fin doesn’t like ... except for one thing, which her loving family notes when they try to get her to actually jump in.
Linda Sue Sickman’s engaging dog illustrations follow Fin’s dilemmas and joys as the picture book story probes this water dog’s unusual fear and what happens when, one day, she is forced to confront water in a different way.
Amanda Morgan’s dog-centric story gives friendly, supportive insights to young readers who might possibly harbor their own fears of water, creating an engaging story of courage and new possibilities that adults will want to read aloud to and discuss with the very young.
Filled with dog and water insights, Dock Dog is a fine survey of hope that shows what happens when a dog discovers she can do amazing things.
Dock DogReturn to Index
Enchanting Tales
for Quizzical Kids
James Roethe
Bird-in-Hand
Publications
979-8234059741
$31.99
Hardcover/$19.99 Paperback
https://www.amazon.com/Enchanting-Tales-Quizzical-James-Roethe/dp/B0H8PZ95D2
Enchanting Tales for Quizzical Kids was conceived of and written for James Roethe’s eight grandchildren – primarily ten-year-old twins - and consists of tales suitable for read-aloud and family discussion.
Animals are the highlight in these stories, from snakes and woodpeckers to weasels, skinks, foxes, kangaroos, and mockingbirds.
Each bedtime tale includes a moral in a typical Aesop fashion, and each receives illustrator Michael Gilmore’s lovely color embellishments, which add interest and depict nature throughout.
The tales also reflect regional attractions. One example is “The Jay and the Mouse,” set in Northern California and exploring a family of mice that live in a redwood forest. Notes about their environment (“This forest was home to the tallest trees on planet earth—trees which only grow along the foggy coast of North America. In addition to being big, these trees secreted a special sap that made them fireproof and resistance to most bugs. When a fire blazed through the forest, it would burn all the bushes around these trees, but not the trees themselves.”) add value with delightful lessons on not just creature dilemmas, interactions, and moral and ethical reflection, but natural history.
Similarly, “The Hummingbirds and the Labradoodle,” also set in Northern California, explores hummingbird habitats and habits as it unfolds the tale of how a dog enhances their lives.
Each story offers intriguing perspectives on different lives, the impact of choices, actions, and being present in the world, and reflections on compromises that can leave “everyone happy.”
Kids thus receive more than a gathering of nature-centric tales, but reflections on deeper life approaches. This will lend nicely to their own approaches to all kinds of life events, from friendships and family connections to encounters with new and wonderful opportunities and ideas.
The result is a charmingly inspiring little gathering of tales that offers a rare opportunity to not just glimpse the natural world and its interconnected lives, but explore its meaning and connections in one’s own human world.
Elementary-level libraries and adults who read aloud to kids with the idea of encouraging bigger-picture thinking and discussions will be delighted by the uplifting opportunities for various forms of enlightenment in Enchanting Tales for Quizzical Kids.
Enchanting Tales for Quizzical KidsReturn to Index
Finding Sound
Kyle Yandle
Moonshine Cove
Publishing
978-1966687023
$20.00
Paperback/$7.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Sound-Kyle-Yandle/dp/1966687028
Finding Sound is a fictional story about fifth-graders that come from very different families, but are thrown together on a class project that creates unusual bonds between kids from different homes.
When young Marcus falls instantly in love with new girl Shell Saine, he becomes tongue-tied around her. This doesn’t dissuade her from finding this young black boy interesting, ‘weird’, and possibly worthy of being her friend.
Their assignment to a project means that they work together and begin to also draw together, forming a bond based as much on their differences from others as their similar approaches to facing adversity. These are tested when a predatory youth pastor introduces danger into their lives, forcing them to make hard decisions between standing up to an adult or keeping secrets.
This is a good time to point out the trigger issues of child abuse and one graphic description of violence later in the story that might impact some especially sensitive young readers.
This note aside, Finding Sound’s ability to capture different forms of silence, repression, and fear by contrasting the survival tactics of a disparate group of young friends creates important keys to understanding and coping with adults and life
Kyle Yandle attends to carefully crafting adult/child interactions in a manner a wide age range can understand:
This was the first time that Shell felt like she really meant anything or had made any kind of impact on an adult who was not family. She was sure that the impression she had made on Mr. Ingram had been a positive one, and it pleased her to know that he liked her.
The religious connections, teachings, and issues incorporated into the story add layers of angst and understanding to the evolving events. This is especially important for middle graders to comprehend when it comes to adults in positions of trust and authority who offer attractive interactions to kids that can prove to be problems in disguise.
Another plus is how character Shell grows in the course of a story that embraces not just her experiences, but the different ways she connects with events, music, and influences in her life:
She could see her life and her experiences as if they were filmed for a music video made for this young black rapper. Shell loved the song Abandoned the most, the singer speaking of his life, and she could feel what he felt, see through his eyes, feel the quake of his emotion, finding herself and a version of him in the sound.
Librarians and adults seeking middle-grade stories to highly recommend that come with insightful fodder for classroom discussion will want to consider place Finding Sound on their lists of top books for group discussion. Despite its possibility of impacting sensitive readers, its realistic portrait of young people growing into their voices and considering the options for their lives and for interacting with adults outside the family is rare, thought-provoking, and packed with insight.
Finding SoundReturn to Index
The Last Symphony
Emma Lee Forest
Ochre Mountain
Media
979-8-9971695-0-3
$15.99
Paperback/$2.99 eBook
www.emmaleeforest.com
The Last Symphony will appeal to YA readers interested in stories that ring true to life, going beyond the usual discussions of cliques to address deeper issues of fundamental connection and disconnection.
Sixteen-year-old Anna is an anomaly in her athletic family and searches for her unique calling. When she discovers a passion for playing the French horn and the support system of new friends and mentors surrounding it, she feels she has found her way among a group of equally passionate, dedicated fellow musicians.
Her newfound ambition and dreams seem to coalesce with fellow gifted musician Juliet Jaeger, but jealousy and competition soon inject new notes of discourse and conflict into Anna’s life.
From the opening prologue’s narrative, readers become immersed in Anna’s world and her observations:
We were teenage girls, malevolent creatures, rivals, foils, friends. I envied her rude bravado and unbearable talent. There she was with her tight jeans and makeup, her manicured nails and flat-ironed hair. She had Richard and Philip, her boyfriend and best friend, paying tribute. Most of all, she had control over the French horn. Her sound made you look twice to see where it was coming from.
Love and admiration runs headlong into the rigors of a competitive atmosphere where there can be only one winner. As Anna reveals exactly how this evolves, readers receive a powerful survey that pinpoints attitudes, the demands of classical music competitions, and a dance between two talented young musicians whose worlds change not just because of their musical efforts, but their relationship.
Emma Lee Forest’s modus operandi is to show, not tell. She does so in an immersive manner that makes this first-person narrative not just thoroughly involving, but completely understandable to any YA who has faced the challenges of peer pressure and relationship revelations.
The result is a compelling story of boys and girls growing into their abilities as they face some of the challenges of adulthood and professional ambition.
The Last Symphony is very highly recommended for librarians and YA readers interested in exceptional sagas of achievement. Anna is an understandable, compelling character whose growth is as much due to the presence of music in her life as the effort to understand a troubled fellow musician:
That evening, back at home, sitting in front of the computer, agonizing again over my college essay, I had a flash of insight: Instead of writing about who I hoped to be someday, why not describe the process of practicing and how it made me who I was? It took me only an hour to fill several pages with the story of my practicing the horn—how it shaped my identity, taught me patience, showed me that failure had to come before success.
Her growth is outstandingly crafted as Juliet collides with situations she can’t control and makes a final decision that resonates into Anna’s world.
The Last SymphonyReturn to Index
Life According to
George
Chris Pallis
GFB
978-1-967510-94-8
$25.95 HC / $9.99
eBook
Website:
www.girlfridayproductions.com
Ordering: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HFQ2S2N1
Life According to George: Pocket-sized Wisdom for Young Adults gathers the wisdom of a father who adopted a unique approach for educating the young:
I don’t know exactly when the aphorisms started. They were just always there, woven into ordinary moments; a comment over dinner, in a car ride to football practice, a line tossed out before we left the house, a piece of advice offered so casually it took years to realize how much weight it carried. He never wrote them down. He never treated them as anything special. They were simply how he loved us—through observation, through honesty, and through the belief that young people deserve real guidance, not lectures or platitudes.
Examples of lessons on character, hard work, good luck, kindness, and learning from others teach young adults a sense of purpose and understanding as vignettes offer both enlightening and entertaining stories about life encounters and what they ultimately teach.
These revelations are given specific consideration:
Over time, I learned to do a few things that really helped. First, I learned not to speak immediately and give it time—or let it settle. Let things simmer. Second, I learned that after a day or two, if the problem was still bothering me, I could work to choose the right words and the right way to express myself. I believe gaining self-confidence was essential for improving my patience and proper expression of feelings, something I have worked toward for years with a practice of positive affirmations.
The boxed “In a Nutshell” roundups emphasize these lessons with succinct reflections that leave nothing to wonder, offering nuggets of wisdom perfect for group discussions.
In pairing life experiences with life lessons, Chris Pallis transmits some of the influences his father had on his own evolution of values and life lessons, giving young adults many flavors of discovery that share wisdom across generations.
In so doing, Pallis creates a legacy that holds the potential for reaching an unusually wide audience of young readers – especially if libraries include Life According to George in their collections and highly recommend it to book clubs and reading groups.
Life According to GeorgeReturn to Index
My First Day of
School
Ricardo Santa Cruz
Mascot Kids!
979-8990683501
$19.95
www.theboyandhishigherself.com
My First Day of School returns the boy of The Boy and His Higher Self to picture book reader attention. This time, the boy is confronting his first day at school, during which he ponders not just the usual concerns of making new friends and encountering new situations, but how to present his authentic self to others.
The higher power described in the first encounter returns to help the boy through his first day, offering keys to being authentic and true and tips on how to move this persona from the inner sanctum of self into the outside world.
As the boy taps his inner child and higher self in new ways, he learns how to successfully transmit truthfulness, honesty, peace, and generosity into the world.
Once again, Yuko Kondo’s illustrations bring this process to life, depicting colorful characters as the higher self advises the boy on the ramifications of spreading his enlightenment: “Look how happy you could make him feel. Be you, and he’ll know he, too, can be real.”
The pairing of gentle rhyme with admonitions of positivity will attract adults who read to and discuss books with the very young, and elementary-level librarians interested in introducing new age, self-help, and enlightenment concepts to their young patrons.
My First Day of SchoolReturn to Index
The Silverton
Sleuths
Liam Moiser
Rowanvale Books Ltd
978-1-83584-262-1
$11.00
www.rowanvalebooks.com
Ten-year-old Rose Watson is a little young to be assuming the mantle of a sleuth, but her nose for trouble leads her into a situation of intrigue, danger, and astonishing possibilities in the art world in The Silverton Sleuths, recommended for advanced elementary to middle-grade readers.
A seemingly innocuous primary school trip to an art museum kicks off a series of events which link Rose’s favorite art work, deemed a forgery, to events which devastated her beloved grandmother, who died while accused of committing forgery. It seems that art – and fake art – are in Rose’s blood.
And so she ventures into a world that resides alongside her own in unexpected ways as Rose becomes determined to clear her grandmother’s name, only to fall into some of the same patterns and dangers as her grandmother faced before her death.
As she learns that her grandmother’s belongings have vanished, leaving only a mysterious note and an odd symbol which then begins appearing in strange places, Rose struggles with taking risks versus staying safe and true to her promises to others:
“This is your chance,” whispered that familiar voice in her head. “You might never get another.”
But Sally had told her to wait. And she’d promised her she wouldn’t go alone. Her parents would say it was reckless. Dangerous.
And yet…
Fancying herself a spy is one thing. Actually following through to discover the world is threatening, people can’t be trusted, and truth is something many would quash instead of reveal forces Rose into a maturity she struggles to accept as much as the revelations about art, her heritage, and her grandmother.
Liam Moiser’s story will attract young readers who enjoy proactive female characters, mysteries, and sleuthing expeditions. It’s also exceptionally notable for following the connections between Rose’s evolving problem-solving sense and her revised perceptions of life.
The result is a gripping, absorbing mystery that does double duty in presenting both satisfyingly unpredictable twists and turns and insights about belief, friends and enemies. The Silverton Sleuths steps away from the world of normal childhood into adult matters as Rose hones a new career focus with friend Sally as one of The Silverton Sleuths, committed to pursuing the truth against all odds.
The Silverton SleuthsReturn to Index
Squirrelsville:
What Are You
Grateful For?
Paul Padgett
Dreams to Realities
978-1959662075
$11.99
www.squirrelsville.com
Squirrelsville: What Are You Grateful For? is a picture book story that parents will find especially alluring for its messages about gratitude, kindness, and positivity.
One morning, the air in Squirrelsville is heavy and the kits of Squirrelsville awaken grumpily, tails ruffled. It’s bad timing, because Uncle Paul, JP, and Eloise are making a surprise visit to their school for their annual sing-along event.
Noting the long faces, the trio instead decides to share ideas about happiness to the class. Their lesson in positivity transmits a Peace, Love and Happiness Promise into the world and changes everything.
Paul Padgett, alongside John Paul and Eloise Dejoria, creates a powerful message, accompanied by illustrator Andhika Abhiramadhan's engaging animal drawings, which captures not only lively scenes, but good and bad moods alike.
The joy of music turns into a passion for life as the classroom reflects on what makes them feel happy and grateful and learns new lessons about the simple things in life which can reflect that happy nature.
The result is a story especially suitable for adult read-aloud efforts and accompanying discussions, as well as elementary-level library acquisition.
Books about positivity and moods abound, but Squirrelsville: What Are You Grateful For?’s melding of the two topics into a bigger picture about opportunity and sharing makes for a reflective, inviting discourse all ages will find uplifting and attractive.
Squirrelsville: What Are You Grateful For?Return to Index
What We Left Behind
Aditi Wardhan Singh
Independently
Published
978-1956870176
$18.99
Hardcover/$9.99
Paperback/$9.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/What-Left-Behind-Multicultural-Belonging/dp/1956870172
Middle-grade readers interested in a compelling first-person narrative about a Kuwaiti girl who finds herself taking an unexpected journey will find What We Left Behind the perfect choice. Anu’s life in Kuwait holds many of the trappings American children will find familiar, from Barbie dolls and homemade doll houses to watching the latest episode of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” on television.
The mix of Kuwaiti culture and experience and American influence create relatable moments that middle graders can readily absorb as Anu experiences daily life on the Persian Gulf, a region rarely given much exposure to kids of any age.
Equally vivid are the family ties and friendships of all ages which Anu enjoys:
I have secret names for everyone, since they are all either Aunty or Uncle out of respect. Plus, I can never keep track of who is whose mom since we usually meet only at parties or picnics.
How community comes together and ties are built is revealed early in the story, and is yet another strength to this culturally immersive discussion about connection:
The Guptas and Sinhas, who are here today, seem to have appeared in our lives by magic one day. None of their kids is my age. We're not really friends. Not like Jay or Jasmine or my friends in school, whom I meet every day, but it's always nice to meet them. All the men, including my dad, came to Kuwait for different jobs. My dad's a geologist working in the roads department, but I don't know what any of the other uncles do. The aunties are all stay-at-home moms like mine, although I know there are women who work in my dad's office. Isn't it weird how one day you don't know someone, and the next, you're spending all your holidays and evenings with them, caring about what they do and say.
Overlaying these moments is the bigger picture subject of Anu’s changes as she adapts, adopts new survival tactics and cultural realizations, and reflects on life’s meaning and values:
As I read through the afternoon, I realize numbers aren't just for boring homework; they are the secret code for building something that actually stays put. Words like stocks, compound interest, and dividends start to feel less like jargon and more like a path to something bigger. Maybe the movies are right and money can’t buy happiness, but looking at Mom’s worried face and what we have lost, I think it could certainly buy the things to make us smile again.
The story moves beyond loss and gain to consider interpersonal interactions, clashes between personalities and cultures, a mother who works too hard and can’t seem to say no, and a daughter’s observations of the costs pursuing a better life.
As Anu begins to confront her parents and hones her own sense of what she wants for her future, middle grade readers will especially appreciate the powerful life inspections that wind into an evocative story of Hindus, Muslims, and all kinds of people who interact and live with each other on different levels.
Librarians seeking a multicultural middle grade story that is vivid, attractive, revealing, and thoroughly engrossing will find What We Left Behind a powerful, alluring reflection that deserves prominent display and recommendation to young patrons absorbing the daily routines and challenges of other cultures.
What We Left BehindReturn to Index
Write the Next
Great Horse/Pony
Animal Story
Susan Count
Hastings Creations
Group
9781952371264
$24.99
www.susancount.com
Write the Next Great Horse/Pony Animal Story is aimed at young wannabe writers ages 12-14 who are interested in creating animal tales, and outlines a step-by-step writing program for crafting effective animal stories.
The workbook opens with tips on identifying one’s audience before moving to the nuts and bolts of characterization, plot, building an effective story that embeds themes and emotion into its narrative, and gaining inspiration from real life.
Exercises with questions and tips for gaining and organizing “big ideas” are accompanied by attractive black and white drawings of people and animals. This lends visual reinforcement and interest to the creative writing tutorial.
Susan Count adds practical advice to cement these creative exercises:
There is no story without characters. Your readers need to identify with and care about your characters. If readers don’t, they aren’t going to care what happens to your character. You want to help your reader bond with your main character before your story conflict begins.
Many an adult writer would have benefited from these early considerations of what makes for superior writing and how to achieve it.
Creative writing teachers, groups, and classrooms will want to make Write the Next Great Horse/Pony Animal Story part of their lesson plans. It tackles a subject normally posed to older would-be writers in a manner that lends especially well to honing the early skills of a younger audience, bringing to life the process of creation and inspiration to build new generations of young storytellers.
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