September 2025 Review Issue
Literature
Mystery & Thrillers
The
Collected Souls
Mallory Spencer
Mountain Lights Press
979-8-9988896-0-8 $13.99
Paperback/$2.49 eBook
mountainlightspress.com
In The Collected Souls, the Collector isn’t just a gatherer of souls. She’s also a destroyer who has harvested the souls of almost everyone in over twenty dimensions, then destroyed their universes. Only the Keeper has survived her destructive force. Tess is about to be the Collector’s next victim. This places them both in a position of being powerful survivors if they can defy a universe-busting force to not just live, but recreate their futures and worlds.
Mallory Spencer’s story opens on a less ethereal level as the enraged first-person protagonist strides through a crowd swearing about Hunter, her boyfriend, and his accusation of cheating before she dives into her best friend and roommate Ada’s car to embark on a long drive away from everything.
Breakups, encounters with friends and parents, and ordinary life snafus don’t initially seem to set the stage for a metaphysical story of magical realism and fantasy. But that’s one of the allures of The Collected Souls, which thoroughly roots its characters in familiar life before embarking on a cosmic journey that is surprising and unfamiliar.
Tess’s passage through a mysterious red door that pulls her away from everything she’s known leads the story in a satisfyingly different direction from mundane affairs as she confronts a mysterious stranger and muses that the reality she’s taken for granted may be somewhat of an illusion.
Spencer leads readers through a Narnia-like experience as Tess plots to trick the almighty Collector, becomes acquainted with many forces controlling her universe and destiny, and contemplates saving not just her life and dimension, but greater things.
Questions about her future range from world-shaping on a cosmic level to destiny-shaping on a personal level as she interacts with the Keeper, considers the forces that separated her from Hunter and define her sexuality and life ambitions, and acknowledges what the end of everything will mean.
Equally impacted by the Collector’s actions and threat is the Keeper. His survival is unique but not guaranteed, and the impact of his survival and uncertain freedom comes at a cost to him, too. His perspective weaves with Tess’s encounter with magic, placing them both in important positions for future survival as they grow and change.
The Keeper is tired of caring for others, only to lose them. His twenty-fifth dimension has been destroyed, he has no idea how to stop the Collector, and his struggle with whether to continue fighting or give up and die permeates further choices that place him in even more (if that’s possible) challenging positions. His thoughts continually teeter between persevering and quitting:
What would it be like to fall? To simply let go...
If he’s the ultimate caretaker, who will care for him?
Libraries seeking a story steeped in fantasy and thought-provoking moments of wonder will find The Collected Souls hard to peg and easy to recommend to a wide audience, from fiction and fantasy readers to those interested in stories delivered with bigger-picture thinking.
Readers who enjoy reflective plots shaped by shifting perspectives, characters who consider their pasts and future possibilities, underlying issues of suicide, social acceptance or rejection, and relationship-building challenges will find The Collected Souls thoroughly absorbing, as will book clubs interested in out-of-the-box reading.
The Collected SoulsReturn to Index
The
Electronic
Tsunami
R. Michael Conley
Beaver’s Pond Press
978-1-64343-531-2 $24.95
Publisher: www.beaverspondpress.com
Ordering:
https://itascabooks.com/products/the-electronic-tsunami-1?_pos=1&_psq=the+elecronic&_ss=e&_v=1.0
The Electronic Tsunami is apocalyptic fiction, but not science fiction. Its chronicle of an all-too-possible perfect storm of digital and environmental disaster creates a powerful intersection between known facts and possible (probable?) outcomes. This will prove devastatingly thought-provoking for readers interested in the potential results of disastrous historical choices.
The story opens with a novice American president trying to field an increasingly deadly perfect storm of threats. It opens in 2029, where a senior risk officer at a cybersecure facility faces his worst nightmare—a successful hacking attempt that places not just his facility, but America and the entire world at risk.
Balances of world power teeter, President Lyman MacAlister faces challenges none of his predecessors could have predicted, and cyber-ransom attacks buffet an already-failing world as action-packed scenarios involve a wide group of individuals attempting to salvage society under impossible conditions.
From AI’s involvement in the cyber-attack to strategic maneuvering in oceans around the world that bring climate change and Arctic political positions on a collision course, The Electronic Tsunami creates a powerful series of confrontations and realizations that poses individual players, world forces, and nature’s retaliation in novel and unpredictable ways.
R. Michael Conley builds a fast-paced story powered by thriller-style cat-and-mouse games and fine tension, psychological conundrums that keep all players on an uneven field of flux and change, and realistic scenarios that represent some of humanity’s worst nightmares.
Readers of disaster stories, thrillers, apocalyptic novels, and powerfully rendered scenarios will delight in the many modern dilemmas and possibilities that entwine as this world moves into unexpected conclusions and confrontations on all sides.
Libraries seeking a singularly unique foray into a perfect storm of digital, environmental, and political degradation will want to welcome The Electronic Tsunami into their collections as one of the more forceful, compelling reads of 2025.
Replete with geopolitical clashes and realizations, thought-provoking possibilities, and presidential emergency measures that not only confront invaders but stem from an EMT attack that changes the world, The Electronic Tsunami is thoroughly vivid, completely engrossing, and the very definition of edge-of-your-seat reading.
The Electronic TsunamiReturn to Index
Knot of
Souls
Christine Amsden
Independently Published
979-8283019284 $14.99
Website: https://christineamsden.com/wordpress/
Ordering: https://a.co/d/4oGYVqD
Knot of Souls represents urban fantasy at its most intriguing, portraying the dilemma that unfolds when Joy awakens in an alley knowing that she was murdered—and yet now seems to reside in a form that shares her dying body with an alien presence.
Shade is a Fae prince who had no intention of jumping into Joy’s body in his search for a refuge from pursuers convinced he’s a murderer. She just happened to be in the right place (or the wrong one, depending on perspective).
The story is reminiscent of Hal Clements’s classic Needle as far as body-sharing with an alien investigator is concerned, but departs from Clements in many different ways, weaving a love story into a detective piece that involves the two disparate figures on many different levels.
Christine Amsden adopts a focus that is more embracive, employing the first person and shifting viewpoints from Joy to Shade. This allows deeper rationales and reasoning to emerge from their conjoined form that depicts both sides of the experience:
What are you afraid of?
As the last day of Joy’s life flashed through her mind, I tried and failed to distance myself from her far-too-innocent question. My first thought, after realizing I wasn’t alone inside Joy’s body after all, had been to jump hosts, but the instant I left this hiding place I would be vulnerable.
The special challenges of working together when neither hold shared goals or experiences is nicely spun through mixed encounters and internal dialogues that reflect the difficulties Shade and Joy experience in reconciling their newfound connection with potentially dangerous life encounters:
“Damn you, Shade, every time I think we might actually start working together, you do something like this. If Hope’s life weren’t in danger, I swear—”
Knot of Souls spins a fine story of fantasy, investigative intrigue, cooperative thinking, and unprecedented requirements for thinking outside the box of personal experience and goals.
Libraries seeking a different form of urban fantasy replete with engrossing conundrums faced by two very different conjoined characters will find Knot of Souls intriguing, and a nice addition to urban fantasy collections.
Filled with confrontations in two very different worlds, Knot of Souls offers action and adventure tempered by interpersonal evolution to keep urban fantasy readers guessing and involved to the end.
Knot of SoulsReturn to Index
Cora and
Martha
and Other Stories
Thomas Penn Johnson
Atmosphere Press
979-8891327191
$15.99 Paperback/$24.99
Hardcover/$7.99
eBook
www.atmospherepress.com
Cora and Martha and Other Stories features small-town protagonists in various roles that explore community experience in America from the Depression to modern times. Cora and Martha are neighbors and best friends who are now in their sixties when the collection opens. They remunerate on the front porch, interacting with other women and men on the block and fielding the liquor police, when their efforts are betrayed by an unusual in-house assailant.
Their ironic story turns to that of twenty-one-year-old Tommy Hunt in ‘The Wages of Sin,’ who seems destined to become a public speaker and preacher as effective as the many Lutherans who have come before him. His choice for a first sermon will literally knock the underpinnings from a savvy community in this surprise story of unexpected choices and results.
The chronological movement of these lives creates a pleasing backdrop for community interactions and ironies. This contrasts well in stories such as ‘The Simon Story,’ set in 1971, about a young man who moves in circles “of an unusual class,” navigating multicultural opportunities and environments as he pursues music, relationships, and social change with equal observational flair.
Each story captures a microcosm of life and social interactions where cultural experience enters into community interactions in unusual, realistic ways.
It’s as if Thomas Penn Johnson well knew all of his characters, from their background histories and the motivations for choices they make to the overall American milieu of social change that sets the stage for their actions. Perhaps he does.
Libraries that select this short story collection for its promise of Black community foundations and insights will find its wider embrace includes much more than Black lives alone.
Readers seeking juxtapositions of time, place, purpose, and discovery will welcome how Cora and Martha and Other Stories weaves together the social fabric of these individual lives and times. This makes for a powerful collection of reflective experience that will appeal widely to audiences interested in American lives and emerging community changes.
Cora and Martha and Other StoriesReturn to Index
Broadcast Live
Steve Vogel
Independently Published
979-8-31780-688-0
$34.49
Hardcover/$8.99 eBook
www.stevevogelauthor.com
Broadcast Live: 71 True Stories, Including Some I’d Just as Soon Forget comes from a veteran broadcast industry participant who here records his experiences, memories, and stories of his life inside and outside of radio broadcasting. His effort creates a vivid memoir that moves from Steve Vogel’s first Washington news conference in the 1960s to life experiences as diverse as a donkey called Xavier. He explores the early beginnings of what was to be a broadcast career when, at age 10, his father invested in a radio transmitter that led Vogel to turn his bedroom into a broadcast studio.
Readers receive more than an adult’s foray through the political worlds of broadcasting and radio show production. This sojourn through life captures the nuances of Vogel’s influences as well as his career, providing a multifaceted backdrop for better understanding the engagements, impact, and meaning of his broadcast work.
Vogel outlines colorful characters, major broadcasting achievements, minor snafus, and shifting social conditions surrounding broadcast choices. One example is the conflict between rock ‘n roll and a Christian minister who claimed the music to be the work of the devil. What better attraction than to invite Paul Kantner and Rev. Wesley Ates to an on-air debate? Their discourse includes lively details that will delight readers who were not there, but can now vicariously live those times and issues.
Later encounters include those with Larry King, Vogel’s return to the newspaper world, and interactions with personalities whose motivations and impacts spring to life via vivid, entertaining descriptions.
Students of broadcast history and American culture will find Broadcast Live especially delightful for its foray into bygone times and the “mystic moments” of music, culture, radio and entertainment, and news creation and reporting.
The wide-ranging scope of this memoir will bring it to the attention of general-interest audiences outside the broadcasting and media communities, promising a read that is thought-provoking, sometimes hilarious, and ultimately a heartfelt exploration of a journalist’s world via his chronicle of moving through life.
Libraries will want to acquire and recommend Broadcast Live not just to media studies or American history readers, but for general-interest memoir audiences who will especially appreciate its vivid re-creation of bygone eras, personalities, and perspectives.
Broadcast LiveReturn to Index
Control.
Move.
Dominate.
Larry Barnhill with Jerry
Payne
BnB Holdings Publishing LLC
979-8-9923882-0-6 $15.99
paperback,
$9.99 Kindle
https://www.amazon.com/Control-Move-Dominate-Story-Morning/dp/B0FL5W2LL2/
How do you go from a beautiful house in a gated community to a room in a federal penitentiary?
Control. Move. Dominate. The True Story of the Morning Glory Boys follows author Larry Barnhill’s descent from a corporate American success story to a criminal, and represents the vividness of true crime writing at its best.
Readers anticipating yet another confessional about good intentions gone awry will find that Barnhill presents his experiences with a twist:
...the real story isn’t so much how I destroyed my lifestyle; the real story is how I let my lifestyle destroy me.
As Barnhill hones his professional, methodical approach to directing bank heists, imparting this sense of expertise to bank personnel who knew that if they cooperate, nobody will be hurt, an intriguing sense of purpose is delivered that differentiates his crimes from those of less seasoned or deliberate criminals.
This gives readers a novel foundation for considering not just crime and its outcome, but the choices, impact, and approaches that involves the varied nature of criminal acts and places it in the perspective of lifestyle values and motivations.
The danger is greatest when “one last job” is contemplated and the risk-taking ramps up. So it was on one fateful day, when Barnhill and his cohorts made a mistake that finally landed them in prison for nearly thirty years.
Of special note is how business approaches meld with criminal intention to hone Barnhill’s craft in unexpected ways:
The whole thing had to be pulled off in under one minute and ten seconds. Little by little I found myself taking control of the training. My corporate background kicked in. This was another business operation, as far as I was concerned. And I was determined to make sure we did it fucking right. The plan was three parts and simple as pie: Control. Move. Dominate.
How this mandate carries forward into confrontation, escape, prison life, and new discoveries creates surprising threads of inspection and revelation that supercharges this book with more than just a singular approach to crime, sentencing, and redemption.
As truths about robberies and a “perception business” that drives an impossible image of success emerges from the action (and among the options Barnhill chooses for his life), readers anticipating any form of whodunit (or why) receive a story harrowingly thought-provoking as the lifestyle component of the real crime emerges.
Barnhill’s involvement with Atlanta’s notorious “Morning Glory Boys,” a gang which robbed banks with unparalleled precision and unbeatable results for over a decade, illustrates many facets, from gang involvement and criminal training to how an approach to bank robbing transformed the nature of bank crime and criminal pursuit.
The lifestyle motivation and image which lies at the heart of Barnhill’s involvements and choices is icing on the cake of action and reaction. This builds an exceptionally vivid, thought-provoking story as it explores heists and high-level social and political hobnobbing.
Libraries interested in true crime and gang sagas that are delivered with a far deeper message suitable for book club reading groups and beyond will welcome Control. Move. Dominate. to their shelves. Its ability to attract through more than just criminal experience makes for its top recommendation far over and above most bank heist confessionals.
Larry’s achievement of his goal by participating in this memoir is a potent acknowledgement of his ultimate, newly refined, powerfully delivered, revised life’s purpose:
My hope is that my life might serve as an example of, first, the consequences of bad choices and, second, the potential for redemption and the unbridled possibilities of better choices.
Control. Move. Dominate.Return to Index
Fourteen:
A
Daughter's Memoir
of Adventure, Sailing, and Survival
Leslie Johansen Nack
She Writes Press
978-1-63152-941-2
$16.95 Paperback/$12.99
eBook/$21.99
Audiobook
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Fourteen/Leslie-Johansen-Nack/9781631529412
Fourteen: A Daughter's Memoir of Adventure, Sailing, and Survival will appeal to a wide audience, from aspiring teens who love boats and the water to sailors looking for inspirational memoirs about youth achieving their goals.
It’s more than a book about sailing, however. Fourteen is about resilience, abuse, survival, and coming of age. Daughter Leslie Johansen Nack becomes immersed in her father’s round-the-world travel dream even as she emerges from his repression to find her own strength to resist his pull on the family.
Of special note is the contrast between her developing love of sailing and her growing resistance to the forces that hold her in thrall. Thankfully for her readers, this resistance isn’t against what she loves, but from what holds her back.
As Nack navigates her dreams, her father’s personality and impact, and builds a growing love for nature and the ocean, she brings readers into her family’s struggles with a keen eye to distinction, observing the landscapes influencing all their choices:
Mom cemented us to Dad in a way nothing else in the world could. Her behavior, instead of bringing the family together, often resulted in aligning us with Dad.
From navigating the doldrums and developing her sea legs to equating ocean experience with family angst, Nack creates a powerful series of connections to capture the sailboat experience and the ebb and flow of her family’s emotional compass:
The sails hung motionless from their halyards like emptied balloons, shriveled and lifeless. There was no place to hide when the boat stood like a picture on painted water. The stillness served to magnify Dad’s impatience with the current, and his navigation.
Her growth into acknowledging and noticing males and honing her own skills and expectations for a different future contrasts nicely with boating experiences.
Librarians seeking a nautical coming-of-age story that is immersive, compelling, and as insightful about the sea as it is about the tides buffeting family life will find Fourteen: A Daughter's Memoir of Adventure, Sailing, and Survival a powerful memoir that deserves to be highly recommended to teens and adults alike.
Replete with life encounters, family struggles, and personal growth, Fourteen: A Daughter's Memoir of Adventure, Sailing, and Survival is a vivid story as notable for its development of connections to nature as for its foray into new opportunities and realizations.
Fourteen: A Daughter's Memoir of Adventure, Sailing, and SurvivalReturn to Index
Getting
My Hands
Dirty: A Memoir of
Resilience and Transformation from the Gridiron to the Garden
Chuck Hutchison
GFB
978-1-967510-04-7 $9.99
eBook
www.girlfridayproductions.com
Getting My Hands Dirty: A Memoir of Resilience and Transformation from the Gridiron to the Garden weds two seemingly disparate topics—gardening and pro football—and comes from an Ohio football player who made it to the NFL. He grew not only sports skills, but life values in the process of becoming a champion player.
Against many odds, he struggled with physical and mental challenges, retired early from football, and undertook a venture that, on the surface, seemed entirely different from his training—becoming a professional gardener.
These endeavors lend to a powerful memoir that will appeal to more than just football fans. Getting My Hands Dirty surveys the process of growth, developing life values, and honing skills for tackling life issues. It translates all of this into a milieu that built a better world for Chuck Hutchison and those around him.
From the start, Hutchison creates a dialogue that pairs his professional growth with the shifting perspectives that led him away from possible mediocrity to becoming a standout:
When I reported to camp my senior year, it was like an extreme makeover from the player I was the year before. I’d been above average on most skills across the board, but in the league I was playing in, that made me only pretty okay. And pretty okay doesn’t make you a starter. I’d taken a gamble, sacrificing size and betting that I could make my strengths—like being quick off the ball—even stronger. That it would make me a standout. I figured I had a better chance at that than trying to focus on improving my weaknesses. Instead, I was going to live or die by what I did best.
Readers who progress through his training receive an insider’s view of how sports achievements and experiences intersect with realizations that allow Hutchison and his readers to better understand life, as well. One example comes from one of his (self-professed) favorite moments in life which helps him better understand coaching, his team, and reactions to winning and losing:
Entering the locker room afterward, I expected to come upon a major celebration. I was surprised, then, at the fairly subdued tone. Typically, when a team wins, especially after a long dry spell, the atmosphere is all high-fives and jubilation. There’s a release of pent-up frustration. But I observed none of that. Then it hit me. This season’s team had only ever experienced losing. They were conditioned to it, and their reaction was similarly conditioned.
As he makes the difficult transition to an entirely new life which somehow rests on the foundations of what he’s built as a football player, Hutchison reveals the ups, downs, despair, and hope of an individual who uncovers new ways to grow under adversity and success alike.
This creates moving life examples on and off the football field which will attract and excite an especially wide audience.
These features of Getting My Hands Dirty are why librarians will want to consider highly recommending this memoir beyond the usual sports audience. It reaches well into self-help and life coaching circles, promises to engage book club readers with topics that examine and reinforce resiliency measures and lessons, and contains a spirited, involving set of examples that stem not just from Hutchison’s life, but his observations of society as a whole.
Steeped in thought-provoking moments of achievement and revelation, Getting My Hands Dirty is an inspirational read that is attractive, enlightening, and a beacon of hope for personal change and envisioning a better future.
Getting My Hands Dirty: A Memoir of Resilience and Transformation from the Gridiron to the GardenReturn to Index
A Life
in the
Sunshine
J. Everett Prewitt
Independently Published
979-8-9901301-2-8 $17.95
Paperback/$3.99 eBook
https://eprewitt.com
A Life in the Sunshine represents uplifting autobiography at its best as ex-military African-American writer J. Everett Prewitt surveys his life’s ups and downs. From the start, Prewitt provides an uplifting focus on conjoining his life’s adventures and ventures with ultimate positivity:
My life has been a series of blessings, but it has also been fraught with pitfalls, self-inflicted wounds, life-threatening circumstances, and other adverse situations not always of my making. But in every unfortunate incident, I could feel the cumulative strength of my ancestors enabling me to prevail.
These messages, embedded in family and social experience, are needed today, now more than ever, as the memoir traverses adversity and growth opportunities.
The landscape of experience follows Prewitt’s experiences from Ohio University in the 1960s to military life, pairing vignettes of encounters and opportunities with insights on relationships between Blacks and whites:
I called the white director who had made the comment and asked him where he had received his information. After hemming and hawing, I interrupted. “Here’s what I need you to do. I need you to write a letter to each person attending that presentation and apologize for the misinformation. As soon as we get off the phone, I also need you to call the director and tell her your information was false.” I got the market study job but only because I corrected a lie.
Color photos from the author’s collection permeate his memoir, adding rich insights and examples to attract readers who may arrive unfamiliar with Prewitt, but who will depart with many acquired insights about the wellsprings of his inspiration.
Libraries seeking memoirs from African American authors who review their encounters with prejudice, their mindsets for perseverance and overcoming limitations, and their encounters with serendipitous events which emphasize that it’s truly a small world will find A Life in the Sunshine uplifting, thought-provoking, and absorbing.
Steeped in stories of youth, growing up, relationship-building, and life encounters, A Life in the Sunshine is just the ticket for an involving read. It surveys a life spent confronting racism, building relationships, and persisting in absorbing uplifting moments and influences that all lead to better living.
As a lesson plan in survival and values-building, A Life in the Sunshine shines.
A Life in the SunshineReturn to Index
One
Life, One
Accident, A Global
Breakthrough
Dr. Charles T. Krebs with
Martha W.
Nigro
Perkins
& Wells Press
979-8-9991365-0-3 $18.95
Paperback/$8.99 eBook
drcharleskrebs.com
One Life, One Accident, A Global Breakthrough: A Leap Forward in Healing the Body and Brain is a memoir about disaster, recovery, and especially about the transformative process that accompanies life-changing events. It follows the experiences of Dr. Charles T. Krebs after a scuba diving accident prompts him to reinvent his life and perception about its purpose and possibilities.
The incident not only physically and mentally altered his trajectory, but led Dr. Krebs to eventually formulate the concept of LEAP (Life Enhancement Acupressure Protocols) for others, a program which has helped thousands of people worldwide to overcoming various challenges, from learning difficulties to physical and mental trauma.
The
memoir first delves
into his
childhood, growth, and the quality and nature of his life before the
accident. From facing bullies to fun adventures and outdoors
experiences, Dr. Krebs captures the feel of a life well lived and the
various forms of active relationships that he enjoyed. The movement
of his roles from a marine biologist
to trauma
survivor to pioneering healer represents an extraordinary story in
and of itself.
Six chapters review these
heady
experiences of youth and new adulthood before moving to the PhD
science journey as he became a professor. All serve as a foundation
to Part 2, which focuses on the aftermath of his move to Australia
and the accident which redirected his life into an all-encompassing
interest in energetic kinesiology and creating a program to help
others heal and grow:
This period of brokenness and renewal fostered deep empathy for individuals facing neurological and physical impairments and led me to discover energetic kinesiology as a healing modality. What began as a personal quest for recovery prompted a shift from my career in marine biology to a life dedicated to enabling healing for others.
Dr. Krebs employs humor and a sense of adventure from the start of his book. This segues neatly into the specifics of how he developed a global healing system rooted in energetic kinesiology. His approach blends the appeal of a memoir with the scientific and medical breakthroughs of health, fitness, and recovery in a manner designed to enlighten a wide audience—even readers not well versed in medical subjects or non-traditional medicine.
The insights into fine-tuning one’s life into a focus on being of service to others offer many thought-provoking examples of attitude transformation that prove every bit as enlightening as the LEAP program itself. LEAP is more than an ideal or philosophy.
It’s a science-based program blending the disciplines of neuroscience, kinesiology, Chinese medicine, and ancient wisdom based on the author’s researched discoveries about how the brain processes stress and learning. The integration of this science into a program that addresses some root causes of learning and neurological challenges will prove a boon to those who have struggled with traditional approaches to both conditions.
Eastern and Western medicine are combined in a novel approach that applies principles of acupressure and muscle monitoring to remedy issues in the body’s energetic systems, correcting them in a process that can restore connections between brain and body to enhance not just recovery, but ongoing wellbeing.
Libraries seeking uplifting, inspiring memoirs of accident and change which spend as much time crafting the foundations of personal background as it does in building the later years of revitalized purpose and new directions will appreciate and recommend One Life, One Accident to readers who like their inspirational stories firmly rooted in personal experiences.
With its vivid “you are here” memories of past influences and present-day change, One Life, One Accident creates a warm and meaningful examination of what it means to change virtually every aspect of one’s life and cultivate a new direction not just for oneself, but the greater good.
One Life, One Accident, A Global BreakthroughReturn to Index
Princess
Cheyenne
Lucy Wightman
Hamilcar Publications
978-1-949590-86-9
$28.39 Hardcover/$21.99
Paperback/$9.99
eBook
www.hamilcarpubs.com
Princess Cheyenne: My Life as Boston’s Most Famous Stripper inspects the vivid world of an Illinois debutante who finds herself stripping in Boston, engaged to Cat Stevens, and receiving a crown at the Naked Cabaret. Her transition and experiences through various worlds mark a powerful story in a memoir which will pop many eyes and provides much entertaining food for thought.
How did Lucy Wightman get from here:
WASP parents didn’t discuss sex, money, or politics, and certainly not strippers. Informing their offspring about these conversational taboos would have been a waste of time since children learned the social graces by emulating their parents.
To encountering Yusuf Cat Stevens and converting to Islam, here?:
He was dressed in a white robe, his beard to his collarbone. Would he pass by? Would he stop to examine the stranger in the kitchen? Was my breath bad? I stepped out of the blackness into the light with nothing to lose. I presented myself, and all that was disordered about my determination calmed. The world had already told me this was possible.
“Oh! There you are, my American girl!”
The ride may be wild, but Lucy’s experiences assume a logical progression that lead her ever further into the unknown, exploring social and religious options her upbringing and parents never thought about.
Lucy’s encounters are juxtaposed with self-reflection to bring her responses and new possibilities to life, including those which seem incongruous with her drive to evolve something different and independent from her roots:
Whoever I was, whatever I did, wherever I was from, fell far away and I raced into the future. I would fit into the new world of Islam and have beautiful children with him. I would learn Arabic, wear the proper clothing, and do everything perfectly. I wouldn’t break the rules. I would comply. I’d refused to live by others’ values and now was leaping into his. Becoming a wholly other person was possible. This was my destination, a new way of being that didn’t yet exist. He was all I needed. I would never let him go.
Readers will become not just immersed in, but enchanted by her journeys as she moves from stage performance to off-stage dramas and considers many new options that each come with opportunity and angst.
Libraries seeking a journey through disparate social milieus and stage performance will find Princess Cheyenne poses a rollicking, ribald, embracing experience that proves hard to put down or predict.
Filled with moments of surprise and growth, Princess Cheyenne is highly recommended for readers who would learn about not just the world of strippers and stage performers, but the forces which redirect lives.
Princess CheyenneReturn to Index
Betrayal
of Trust:
A Medical
Thriller
Geoffrey M. Cooper
Captain Thomas Publishing
979-8-9924261-1-3 ebook
$4.99,
paperback $15.95
Website: https://geofcooper.com
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Betrayal-Trust-Thriller-Richmond-Thrillers/dp/B0FKHBNM4K
Think Robin Cook when considering Betrayal of Trust: A Medical Thriller—but with a focus on expanding the relationship and connections between Brad Parker and Karen Richmond even further in this ninth book of a series about the dynamic investigative duo.
The reward for Dr. Eric Salton’s discovery of a drug that could cure lung cancer is death. Another murder quickly follows, and the same woman’s DNA is identified at both scenes as the bodies keep piling up.
So, why does investigator Brad fall under suspicion? Because his undeniable professional connection to the victims indicates he holds special knowledge about the woman’s motivations for murder.
His familiar sidekick Karen (from previous stories) once again works with him on this case, but the two are forced to field the world of academic medicine in new ways as strange truths about research and discovery edge into dangerous territory.
As the two uncover a professor’s harassment, a student’s suicide, and connections between these events and more, they begin to unfold a puzzle of epic proportions as Shirley plays cat-and-mouse games with investigators who edge ever closer to an impossible truth.
Geoffrey M. Cooper expands his character focus to perp Shirley and others’ interactions and lives, flushing out Brad and Karen’s focus with insights and drama to keep the plot mercurial and its outcome unpredictable.
Readers won’t always find themselves rooting for the good side (or, will find that its identification shifts) as the characters unfold believable, even likeable, rationales behind their choices and actions ... even murder.
These options also include moral and ethical quandaries about how to conduct scientific research while escaping the consequences of one’s actions:
Maybe it would be smart to cut and run. Fake identification papers and an ample supply of cash were all ready to go. She could get in the car now and be in Canada tonight. Nobody would miss her, not really. And after a little time passed, she could start a new life and carry on her work. Someplace where her discoveries could immediately be used to benefit the people who needed them, without the need to sacrifice others as “controls.”
Betrayal of Trust assumes the guise of a police procedural but, in reality, covers so much more, as all the characters are forced to confront their goals, fears, careers, and relationships.
Libraries either seeing satisfaction with prior Brad and Karen investigative works or looking for standalone medical thrillers that shine will find Betrayal of Trust a ‘must’ for readers attracted to Cook-style thrillers.
Immersed in a sense of discovery and growth, Betrayal of Trust introduces new facets of relationships and connections that medical thriller readers will find compelling food for thought.
Betrayal of Trust: A Medical ThrillerReturn to Index
Breath
Play
Larry Terhaar
Hat City Publishing
979-8-9900362-4-6 $19.99
Paperback/$4.99 eBook
Website: www.larryterhaar.com
Ordering: ttps://a.co/d/4wTS8TW
When Dan Burnett finds a young woman's body rolling in the surf in Long Island Sound, his proclivity for uncovering trouble is unmistakable. In Breath Play, he becomes involved in a probe throughout Westchester County, NY, for the circumstances that led to the deadly beach find. It seems that retirement isn’t leading him to peace, but into more trouble that only his special brand of investigative expertise can address.
In short order, Dan faces a stolen sports car that ends up at auction, multiple missing nurses, and working with the 50th precinct in an ever-widening investigation into a possible serial killer; all while addressing his evolving romantic future with Mia.
Larry Terhaar juxtaposes professional and personal lives so seamlessly that readers interested in either facet of Dan’s world will be completely satisfied at how intrigue dovetails with new possibilities in a realistic, engaging manner.
Also notable is a simmering mystery that builds suspense, motivation possibilities, and intrigue into its plot to temper Dan and Mia’s personal explorations. Dialogues between characters develop the full-bodied feel of lives in flux, adding an alluring emotional connection to the mystery along with bigger-picture thinking about the future:
“Our commitment to each other is something we feel in our hearts. That’s enough for me.”
“It’s your call, sweetheart. Just so that you know how important you are to me.”
Holding my head in her hands, she touched her forehead to mine with misty eyes and said. “If that was a proposal, thank you. I’m not saying no; I’m saying why. You must know I love you more than anything in this world.”
Readers may not expect speedboats, breathless pursuits, and a story that grows beyond U.S. borders, but Larry Terhaar couples swift action with the unexpected to keep readers guessing on many levels, whether it’s about the couple’s future or the latest challenge to Dan’s investigative skills.
Libraries seeking a thriller that is immersive, emotionally captivating, and operates on different levels of attraction will find Breath Play notable and recommendable for its many satisfying twists and turns.
With its special pairing of action and emotional conundrums, Breath Play creates a focused tale of intrigue and discovery that will keep readers thoroughly engaged and wondering to its unexpected conclusions.
Breath PlayReturn to Index
Dark
Corners in
Skoghall
Alida Winternheimer
Wild Woman Typing
978-0-9978714-5-6 $17.99
www.alidawinternheimer.com
Dark Corners in Skoghall, Alida Winternheimer’s second book in the Skoghall Mystery Series, sees Jessica Vernon involved in another murder victim’s haunting quest for justice.
Jess moved from a big city to the tiny arts community on the upper Mississippi River to start over and live the quiet life of an aspiring writer, but so far Skoghall has been anything but quaint. When a body turns up in a seemingly abandoned shop, Jess realizes the dead are not going to let her settle down. Does she dare tell the Rice County Sheriff what she knows and how she knows it? And will he think she’s as crazy as she feels…or worse, involved in the crime?
Jess is reluctantly drawn back into a world where disturbing encounters overshadow small town charm, threatening her relationships, sanity, and life. When it becomes apparent the killer knows she’s involved and where she lives, Jess is driven to take extreme measures to protect herself and Shakti. If she can’t catch a killer and put a ghost to rest, she’ll end up Skoghall’s next restless spirit.
Winternheimer creates a wonderful dance between small-town atmosphere and the dark trouble simmering underneath the façade of propriety:
A middle-aged couple sat on the porch of the Skoghall Inn at the wrought iron cafe set, demitasses before them on demure saucers, a dish of sugar cubes with an antique silver tong between them. Sitting beside that, a plate of biscotti. Carrie and Mike Cummings did a nice job charming their guests. Welcome to picturesque Skoghall on the Mississippi! Enjoy the arts, the eagles, the garden, the water wheel—the murders. Jess snorted at the thought of how her experience of Skoghall had changed since moving here.
The fine characterization, complicated relationships, including romantic hopefuls, sheriff’s investigators, and ghosts are well-wrought with precise detail. Pair the small town setting and cast of locals with the slowly-building tension of a murder thriller, and Winternheimer creates a thoroughly engrossing mystery that’s hard to predict or put down.
Libraries and readers seeking a blend of supernatural mystery-thriller and small-town influences will welcome how both coalesce neatly in the powerful, dark story of disturbing problems and possibilities that makes Dark Corners in Skoghall an evocative read.
Filled with surprises as the dangerous games of a psychopath play out, Dark Corners in Skoghall is a winning draw that should be in any library interested in stories that conjoin intrigue and the paranormal.
Dark Corners in SkoghallReturn to Index
The
Devil Drinks
Monsoons
SueBird
Sparrow
Bayou
Wolf Press
979-8-9886354-8-2
$18.99
Paperback/$3.99 eBook
www.SueBirdWrites.com
Besides its exceptionally compelling, novel title, The Devil Drinks Monsoons excels in a powerful sense of place and culture, iced with surprises. The first is the nature of the monsoon referred to in the title.
The second is murder.
As the New Orleans-based intrigue unfolds, readers are treated to a tale steeped in ‘you are here’ experiences that capture the crypts, streets, and culture of Louisiana.
Trigger alert: violence against women is one of the threads in this story. But it is described in circumspect terms that enhance the tale without overly emphasizing the violent overlay of experience, resulting in just enough tension and description to support the atmosphere of an evolving story.
From attacks to characters whose disparate personalities contribute to inviting discoveries, SueBird Sparrow takes the time to build her scenarios and inhabitants through dialogue that adds to the descriptive process:
“See if you can get Miss Jeanne to bring some of that awesome wine she brought last time. What was it called? Blood of My Enemies? Something like that, but French. I love her style. She really doesn’t care what people say about her, she just doubles down.”
Graveyards containing the graves of Southern leaders from the War Between the States, vampires, crypts and victims, and one woman’s retribution for the past coalesce in a gripping story. It juxtaposes the special interests of old vampire Jeanne (aren’t they supposed to be ageless? Sparrow provides an intriguing twist on legend, here), against a baby used to trap a fiend, and cantankerous private investigator Richard’s need to redeem himself from his own undeniably dark deeds.
This interplay of character special interests and perceptions dovetails nicely with a story that creates just the right degree of tension and mystery, set against a New Orleans backdrop that smacks of some of the most compelling descriptions in the bestselling Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
The result will please a wide audience of library patrons and readers looking for a powerful blend of mystery, supernatural elements, romance, and explorations of the mental health and dysfunction of evil entities.
The Devil Drinks MonsoonsReturn to Index
Do Not
Resuscitate
Scott Eveloff MD
Black Rose Writing
978-1-68513-663-5 $21.95
Website: scotteveloff.com
Ordering: https://www.blackrosewriting.com/thrillers/p/donotresuscitate
What happens when the supernatural world edges into thriller territory? Do Not Resuscitate is what emerges. It’s a production designed to captivate with intrigue, engage with suspense, and delight with unpredictable force as medical intern Harry Lindmark falls under suspicion for not just one death under his watch, but a series of unexplained demises.
Things become personal with the death of his infant son as Harry struggles to discern what is going on, only to fall into apparently nefarious supernatural influences which shouldn’t be happening—but are.
Even the book’s descriptive subtitle (“Hospital Evil – Where No One Can Hear You Scream”) is a draw. The first-person story examines DNR issues and demands, seemingly accidental but suspicious death scenarios, and tense reconsiderations of how closely the fine line between life and death can align:
Launched from medical school naïveté into internship, I’d barely been prepared for all the disease and death that nature caused. But no amount of lectures or hands-on education could have prepared me for the horrors beyond death. There was nothing natural about that hospital. Or probably for any hospital that housed so much disease and dying. Who could I go to for help? What textbook could I read for the right guideline? Who was next? The thoughts terrified me.
Readers interested in medical thrillers that sizzle with the added value of supernatural intrigue will find Do Not Resuscitate nicely blends an investigative tone with bigger-picture thinking about moral and ethical life conundrums.
Its use of the first person brings readers directly into Harry’s Harry’s perspectives and evolving personal and professional conundrums. The strange events endangering his patients and those he cares about test not only his problem-solving skills, but his ability to define his life’s path and validate his value.
As each piece of a greater puzzle falls into place, readers will find the realistic concerns, medical scenarios, and supernatural impacts a fine formula for unpredictable, engrossing mystery reading.
Libraries that delve into Do Not Resuscitate will want to recommend it to a wide audience of mystery readers, supernatural fiction followers, and reading groups seeking immersive experiences.
Replete with finely-tuned tension and personal reflection, Do Not Resuscitate is a powerful story that injects observations that are thoroughly compelling; lingering in the mind long after the mystery is resolved.
Do Not ResuscitateReturn to Index
Part of
the
Solution
Elana Michelson
Torchflame Books/Top Reads
978-1-61153-604-1 $19.99
https://www.amazon.com/Part-Solution-Mystery-Elana-Michelson/dp/B0FGK2DW7X
Part of the Solution is a mystery set in 1978 and revolving around New Yorker and grad school dropout Jennifer Morgan’s foray into a small counterculture village in Massachusetts, where her search for peace is broken by a murder that occurs right under her nose.
Suddenly the bucolic town with its artistic residents doesn’t seem as innocent as she’d initially thought. Beneath the currents of village life is a deadly thread of violence that rivals anything a bigger city could deliver.
Jennifer’s intellectual expertise come is challenged as she confronts a mystery that delves into the heart of literary, social, political, and psychological alignments.
No sooner does she arrive in Boston than she runs into an old friend from the past who is in law enforcement. As the town of Flanders touches them both, Elana Michelson builds the foundations of her mystery from disparate insights and connections, drawing together a cast of supporting characters, from Zach to co-op owner and organic farmer Annie McGantry who each hold contrasting experiences and lives.
She flushes out these characters with special interests, discoveries, and connections which will prove very satisfying to mystery readers, adding more emotional undercurrents than might be expected from the usual small-town mystery to lead readers in unanticipated directions. The contrasts in their lives, outlooks, and the outcomes that emerge from social and cultural differences lends an aura of discovery to the story’s progression that operates on personal and social levels of inspection.
As the relationship between Ford and Jennifer grows, Michelson contrasts their perspectives nicely, adding a full-bodied feel to the mysteries that swirl around them.
Libraries seeking a story about small town amateur sleuthing, relationship developments, and characters whose insights and choices impact not just themselves and each other, but the mystery at hand, will find Part of the Solution delightful.
Readers will appreciate its contrasts, conundrums, and the ease in which Flanders, Jennifer, and Ford come to life in a way that is compelling, unexpected, and itself a satisfying contrast between ideals and perspectives.
Part of the SolutionReturn to Index
The Poe
Puzzler
Neil MacNeill
CarKnack LLC
978-1960299888
$21.99 Hardcover/$16.99
Paperback/$3.99
eBook
Website:
https://www.neilmacneill.com/
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Poe-Puzzler-Ravens-Apprentice-Mystery/dp/1960299883
Retired English teachers should have nothing to do with mystery, unless it involves research. But The Poe Puzzler does, indeed, involve research that draws aptly-named Nathan Poe beyond the walls of his study and into a puzzle involving cryptic literary riddles that draw him steadily into danger.
Poe is no stranger to problem-solving or investigating. His small quasi-PI business specializes in odd cases, so this situation is right up his literary alley. What is less obvious is the insidious nature of these mysterious literary allusions, which become threatening to the point that Poe can well see where this is going. And so he enlists the help of his bike shop friend and a dubious police patrolman to help uncover the truth.
In a bow to literary openings, the story begins with “Don’t Call Me Nathaniel,” a fun nod to literature and the origins of names:
What were my parents thinking? At least they didn’t name me Edgar. That’s what happens, I guess, when you have a famous last name, and your folks are obsessed with classic American literature.
Readers develop a fondness for protagonist Nathan and his first-person reflections fairly early in the story, which lends attraction and insights to situations that push Nathan well beyond his comfort zone.
Equally well-done are the small-town characters which surround Nathan with expectations and quirky habits and the wry sense of humor which permeates many of his interactions with them:
I tried very hard not to look at my Saab’s flat tire as I walked down the block to explain all the reasons for being late to my Number One client. Mrs. Murphy was waiting on her front porch. Not a good sign. “Some of us have a different definition of ‘first thing,’” she said, hands on her hips.
“I’m sorry, but you wouldn’t believe what I’ve gone through this morning.” We locked eyes, and I waited for some sign of sympathy. “I got a flat tire, and then I got all dirty trying to sort that out, and then … well, I never got to Positively 4th Street for blueberry muffins.” I decided not to mention the Puzzler’s latest note. No need to get into that discussion. The silence between us dragged, but a subtle shift in her expression told me she was softening up.
The clear, appealing sense of place rooted into these encounters builds a satisfying story of intrigue as the puzzles grow to assume center position in Poe’s world and the reader’s eye. This approach engages audiences in the mystery with a personal draw that builds nefarious possibilities in a host of lives.
Neil MacNeill cements familiar-sounding characters and unfamiliar situations with a sense of struggle and personal descriptions. These are sometimes funny and often thought-provoking as readers join Poe in trying to decipher what, exactly, is going on, and who is behind these messages.
The outcome seems to be to make Nathan suffer for his failures in different ways, but the story builds further excitement to create thought-provoking, startling revelations that cozy mystery readers will appreciate.
Readers seeking a story steeped in literary and small-town allusion will find The Poe Puzzler an attraction that will delight those seeking atmospheric mysteries filled with quirky characters and intriguing possibilities.
Laced with spectacles created by the clash of disparate personalities, The Poe Puzzler is a wonderful cozy read that’s perfect for a cold night in front of the fire.
The Poe PuzzlerReturn to Index
The
Reckoning of
Grace
Ronald Chapman
Mango Media
978-1-948749-89-3
http://thesagaofgrace.com/
The Reckoning of Grace continues the story of investigative journalist Kevin Pitcairn and his love Maria Elena as they navigate the darker side of American affairs with a dual attention to spiritual reflection and survival tactics.
Christian mystery and suspense readers will appreciate how these topics dovetail in an atmospheric survey that covers the reshaping of spiritual, psychological, and physical terrain in the nation.
Kevin “vacillated between agnosticism and atheism” before Brother Samuel gave his life for the couple. Their ties to the spiritual Community which embraced Samuel despite the flaws of his past and the circumstances of his life have reached out to immerse Kevin and Maria Elena in new tasks and perspectives today:
Pitcairn thought about the extraordinary events a few years before that had made the two of them the face of a cultural movement known as the Watching. Thousands of spiritually motivated people had taken to the streets across America to silently and watchfully counter-protest the increasingly divisive politics and violent actions of the populist right wing.
The Reckoning of Grace evolves a story based on this foundation, which will especially attract prior fans who have followed Pitcairn’s life and world.
Here, prophets, AA steps, spiritual reflection, Native American communities, and New Mexican interests dovetail in a tale that embraces group efforts to alter the world.
Ronald Chapman focuses as much on empowerment and enlightenment as he does on building the mystery and thriller components that lead Pitcairn into trouble.
From the hoodoos of the environment around them and the nature that serves as a backdrop for their world-saving efforts to insights on good and evil that need addressing, the characters reflect on their strengths and the consequences of their actions:
“Emmy,” he said, “there’s a whole lot of good happening. A whole lot of healing.” He nodded, as much to himself as to her. “And a lot of shit still flying around.”
Since much of what happens reflects the milieu of modern times, readers will be especially intrigued by the juxtaposition of everyday and loftier concerns that draw the characters into great shifts, violence, and issues of redemption and revelation.
A great Pilgrimage and higher purpose evolves to captivate readers on different levels while circumstances of socio-political turmoil introduce new facets of conflict and possibilities.
Libraries seeking a reflective spiritual work that assumes the guise of a thriller amidst community-changing efforts will welcome the opportunity to highly recommend The Reckoning of Grace to spiritual thinkers, who will find its blend of entertainment and reflection especially appealing.
Supercharged with mental and physical action, The Reckoning of Grace is a vivid intersection of beliefs and approaches to life that will prove especially intriguing to book clubs looking for stories replete with bigger-picture thinking and discussion topics.
From solving crime to prioritizing children, avenues of connection are built against a backdrop of special interests and perceptions. This translates to a thoroughly engrossing, unpredictable story that builds on prior books while providing new avenues for understanding transformation and healing, community involvement and interactions, and the changing relationship between Pitcairn and Maria Elena as their choices and perceptions of the world and each other lead to unexpected insights.
The Reckoning of GraceReturn to Index
The
Spectacle
Anna Barrington
Union Square & Co.
978-1454960485
$18.99 Paperback/$9.99
eBook, $25.19
Audiobook
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1454960485
The Spectacle is a novel steeped in intrigue. It introduces art dealer extraordinaire Rudolph Sullivan, whose reputation has skyrocketed among New York art collector circles. It’s no wonder that novice art gallery assistant Ingrid falls for his good looks and successful countenance. However, underlying those qualities is a simmering mystery that rises to the forefront in the story’s opening lines, posing questions and intrigue from the start:
Diving off the boat, Rudolph thought of her. He’d expected the water to be cold, ice-cold, like it was on the Cape, but to his surprise the tropical ocean felt warm and forgiving on his raw skin. He opened his eyes underwater, precious bubbles escaping his lips. It was so beautiful down here in the bright deep blue, with the pink and gold fish swimming past him and something ominously darker flashing below. He remembered that sense of opulence then, of nervous self-invention in the city that was no longer his.
Ingrid’s heady involvement in Rudolph’s life and world has brought her to this dangerous point in life, introducing a scenario that brings readers right into the fold of a demise and a decision.
By prefacing this story with an ending, Anna Barrington introduces the unexpected into chapters that then chronicle a rise to power, its costs, and how events reach out to absorb and trap Ingrid in a deadly embrace of fortune, fame, and failure.
As Rudolph forays into illegality begin to percolate from the messes he’s made in the past, Ingrid becomes central to his latest plots and plans for redemption. She’s the perfect choice because she is virtually unconscious of his follies and failures, but this attitude changes during the course of a powerful thriller that presents a cat-and-mouse game not just between Ingrid and Rudolph, but Rudolph and the rest of the world.
Barrington captures both these characters’ mental dances with vivid descriptions that bring the story and their emotions to life:
The music was rising to a crescendo. It was rising, rising, into some kind of pagan religious chant. The floor exploded into a rainbow of pink and acid violet and Prussian blue, so startling they had to shut their eyes. The crowd was shoving them together, the margins of their bodies becoming one, and even as he started to lie, he realized with a sudden frightening clarity that he really did love her, and a heaviness came over his body like a claustrophobic gas. She was crying. Then he leaned down to kiss her, and the chorus hit another dark peak and wave.
Especially notable is the journey Ingrid undertakes from naivety to knowledge as she delves deeper into Rudolph world and past, making savvy determinations from the inconsistencies and ironies she observes there:
Ingrid couldn’t shake the feeling that a lot had changed in the fifteen years since Rudolph left Roxbury, which he had described as a mire of dust and bottles and piled-up dishes, Eloise’s unsavory boyfriends rotating in and out interchangeably. Now Eloise appeared to live in the big house, and she and Lyndon whispered into each other’s ears like lovers. It was obvious to Ingrid that Rudolph’s presence had somehow disturbed the fragile natural laws at work here, broken some tenuous understanding between the aging siblings.
While it’s tempting to bill The Spectacle a thriller and recommend it to genre readers (which, of course, it lends to), libraries should be cognizant that the story delves much deeper into relationship-building on different levels, creating psychological paths of discovery and angst that are compelling, exciting enhancements to the story’s thriller component.
The result is an eye-opening foray into moral and ethical choices, the dangerous consequences of illegal actions, and deadly relationship outcomes that many readers won’t see coming.
Satisfying and unexpected in its depth and psychological dances, The Spectacle offers an astute and completely compelling journey into not just art world circles, but into dangerous attractions where one can become truly lost.
The SpectacleReturn to Index
Strange
Shape of
Love
Herta Feely
Castle Bridge Media
979-8991785563 $4.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Shape-Love-Herta-Feely-ebook/dp/B0F8VBSDZD
Strange Shape of Love is a crime story about blackmail that rises to the surface when would-be reporter Charlotte Cooper is threatened with the online publication of five nude photos unless she acquiesces to demands. They’ve approached the wrong woman, because as tenacious as Charlotte is about her career aspirations, she’s equally stubborn when it comes to bowing to pressure.
She undertakes an investigation of who sent the nudes, delving into a world of sex trafficking, trauma, intrigue, and dangerous revelations. These draw her ever deeper into her own past and its connections to a dubious future.
Readers may not expect romance to emerge from such murky and mysterious milieus, but Herta Feely masterfully weaves this into Charlotte’s story. This edges her into the lives of Rafe and Zander even though she is taking a break from love to pursue other interests, such as pursuing the owner of the photos.
Her search brings her to Paris to confront her former lover, to the realization that her pursuit is introducing dangerous forces into Rafe’s life, and to the possibility that she’ll lose close friendships and jobs and still not be on the winning wide of discovery and recovery.
Feely injects startling confrontations and scenes into her story as tangled webs of possibility emerge:
Contrary to Rafe’s opinion, she was certain Naomi was stalking her. Them.
She builds excellent tension from complicated relationships which then are discarded as bigger-picture thinking emerges. Readers interested in an exploratory sojourn into past and present life challenges will especially appreciate how Charlotte navigates the collision of those two worlds.
Libraries seeking an investigative drama that will attract women interested in stories packed with well-buried secrets and skeletons that emerge from relationship quandaries will find Strange Shape of Love a vivid story. It’s easily recommendable to a wide audience.
Meticulous in its characterization, intrigue, and blend of romance and heart-stopping realizations, Strange Shape of Love holds the power to appeal to romance and mystery audiences alike, offering a different blend of both which is satisfyingly realistic and thought-provoking.
Strange Shape of LoveReturn to Index
Take It
To the
Limit Book Three:
Faith, Hope, and Murder
Linda
Opdyke
Independently
Published
979-8294613679 Kindle
- $2.99; Paperback - $14.95
Website:
lindaopdyke.net
Take It To the Limit Book Three: Faith, Hope, and Murder returns PI Ethan Jenks to another case in which his skills are tested and the too-short fuse of his wife Mickey threatens the outcome. Yes, she is now a licensed investigator, but that doesn’t mean she has the perfect temperament for the job.
The charged relationship between them in the office is outlined from the start:
She rose and hugged him. “You won’t be sorry,” she assured him. “I’ll prove to you that your trust in me is justified.”
It was all he could do not to say It’s not you I don’t trust. It’s your temper and your inability to keep your mouth shut.
An attempt at car theft which involves a thief who knows Ethan’s Jeep but not Ethan, Mickey’s involvement with the lying Liz, and a backwoods meeting turned deadly are but a few of the struggles the couple faces individually and together as events heat up.
A satisfying note to the investigative component is how richly Linda Opdyke portrays the increasingly frayed professional relationship between husband and wife PIs:
He sat at the table, put his hands to the sides of his forehead, then smacked his palms onto the table. None of his anger had dissipated and he yelled, “What does it take for you to slow down and think before you do something stupid?”
At odds are Ethan’s cautious savvy and Micky’s desire to run headlong into trouble to save people at all costs.
Between Cody’s grief at what his decisions have led to and a quest to prove Paul Michaels a killer, various characters lend powerful personalities, motives, and insights to a story that is compelling both on investigative and psychological levels.
Libraries seeking PI suspense stories that are as thoroughly steeped in interpersonal conflict as they are in whodunit will relish the special brand of tension and development that leads to many unexpected twists and turns in Take It To the Limit Book Three: Faith, Hope, and Murder.
Replete with moments of revelation and potential transformation, the story is compelling, realistic, and especially hard to put down.
Take It To the Limit Book Three: Faith, Hope, and MurderReturn to Index
Big Blue
Douglas P. Peiffer
Independently Published
979-8-218-61262-7 $14.99
Paperback/$4.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Big-Blue-Parable-Modern-Day-Migration/dp/B0F218P54P
Big Blue chronicles the journey of Bill Blythe and his teen daughter Jocelyn, who undertake a journey to Mexico in search of a rare medical device for his daughter’s heart condition that is unlikely to be found in the chaotic U.S. medical system.
Their involvement with a Mexican family whose sister has become the focus of unwanted attention from Bill’s rival Ed, who wants to sacrifice her to avoid a federal raid on his farm, becomes more convoluted as the story unfolds. Relationships, associations, and motivations are independently involved in the outcome not just of Jocelyn’s health, but migrant issues as a whole.
It sounds like a lot to dovetail a personal quest for health into broader social and political conflict, but Douglas P. Peiffer wields these disparate lives and their influences and special interests with a deft attention to making the story involving, realistic, and thought-provoking.
He creates exceptional characters whose lives and concerns entwine with bigger-picture thinking, crafts dialogues between them and contrasts between different cultures that bring all these issues to light on a personal level, and makes them not just believable, but compelling, creating a story that could be rooted in today’s shifting American climate.
All these facets contribute to a powerful migration story that introduces unexpected twists as Bill, Jocelyn, Ed, and a host of Mexican immigrants and nationals find their lives entwined in unexpected ways that introduce issues of vengeance and survival.
Injected into these fictional quandaries are real-world reflections on migrants, jobs, and changing attitudes towards their work and contributions:
“Remember the A-Team,” Ed’s uncle warned him every time a younger, more inexperienced Ed argued that American workers could do a better job picking melons than migrants. “It happened once, and it’ll happen again.” Ed’s uncle was referring to a group of teenagers – all white, all male, all overprivileged – who in the summer of ’65 heeded their government’s call to solve what was viewed as a Mexican migrant labor problem. Labeled the A-Team, the group of highschoolers who boarded buses headed to Blythe to pick melons that summer bought into the narrative that anything Mexicans could do, they could do better. Little did they realize that harvesting melons in the stifling heat of a California cantaloupe field for ten, twelve, sometimes sixteen hours a day required more than empty boasts and custom straw hats. It was hard, hot, backbreaking work for low pay and with little downtime. It was the type of work that required a tireless resolve that their sheltered backgrounds could never create. Suffice it to say, it was only a matter of weeks before the busloads of boastful American teens returned home, and the program was ended.
Libraries seeking a contemporary novel of immigration fiction that juxtaposes the perceptions and experiences of Mexicans and Americans approaching the border from vastly different directions will appreciate how richly Big Blue contrasts these worlds.
Readers looking for immigrant experience presented in a very different style than the unusual singular focus on immigration will appreciate how vividly and realistically Big Blue outlines its conundrums and reviews solutions to seemingly impossible situations.
Rich in its depictions of special interests, bullying, safety, and political inspections, Big Blue is a winner.
Big BlueReturn to Index
Blood
Favors
Donna Joppie
DartFrog Books, LLC
978-1-965253-46-5 $15.99
www.dartfrogbooks.com
Blood Favors opens in 1967 New Orleans, where a boatload of men are held hostage and commandeered for unknown deadly duty, forced to obey lest their loved ones die.
The second chapter moves to Arizona, where Rob Chambers shows the FBI that his training (to confront kidnappers and dangerous men) is moving along nicely. Having survived kidnappers and a dangerous organization in the past, he’s going to be prepared, this time, for anything...even though he was in a witness protection program that should have given him a peaceful new life.
Donna Joppie builds her story with fine tension and realization as readers come to know Rob’s background, family, involvements with a dangerous drug organization, and determination to thwart the forces that would destroy him and his family.
His love for wife Wanda, the forces which follow them and threatens them constantly, and the cat-and-mouse games which emerge between FBI, Rob, and high-level drug gang interests make for an absorbing contrast of perspectives and purposes as New Orleans becomes the focal point for conflicts, revelation, and revised lives.
Joppie injects a whirlwind of supporting characters into Rob’s life, juxtaposes the interests of hardworking people and contracts with special interests that are dangerous and purposeful, then mixes in drugs and killings for added tension and value.
Libraries seeking stories that juxtapose family interests with bigger-picture confrontations and thinking will relish how Blood Favors toes the line between novel and thriller in an astute examination of partnerships and problems that demand extraordinary actions and reactions.
Filled with satisfying tension, well-developed interpersonal relationships and conundrums, and unexpected confrontations, Blood Favors is a story hard to predict or put down.
Blood FavorsReturn to Index
The Boy
with the
Jade
Charles Bush
Htf Publishing
978-1963452211
$33.95 Hardcover/$18.95
Paperback/$9.99
eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Boy-Jade-Charles-Bush/dp/1963452216
The Boy with the Jade is set in 18th century China. It will delight historical fiction fans with its story of Jia Baoyu, “born with a jade in his mouth” (or so his grandmother’s legend maintains), who is destined for not just inherited opulence, but turmoil.
The physical jade which follows him through life does seem to hold magical abilities—or, perhaps they stem from familial support and serendipity. No matter the origins of his wealth, Baoyu finds his world disintegrating in a series of emotional and social confrontations. Suddenly he is depressed, beaten, betrayed, and holds in question everything he’s been raised to believe in and be.
Baoyu turns to Taoism and Buddhism in search of a revised life purpose. There he discovers that the intersection of philosophy and life is marred by family heritage and expectation that stems from social and political circles, effectively trapping him in a world he only wants to exit.
Charles Bush crafts a first-person experience which imparts hard-hitting words of wisdom as Baoyu confronts the fact that his destiny and his desire are two very different things:
...at the apex of the examination system, at least in one province, was the very man I least respected in the world. The father who constantly berated me, who had beaten me to within a gnat’s wing of death, who had not even cared to ask whether a lurid accusation leveled at me was true.
The system had set up my father as the model toward which we were all striving. I shuddered. This could not possibly be what Confucius had intended.
He builds the Jia clan legacy in ways that even readers with little to no Chinese familiarity will learn from and easily absorb, creating in Baoyu a character whose heritage and psyche clash with the expectation of the role he should assume. Bush injects psychological traumas and recovery processes which neatly layer atop the character’s resolve to “keep my life on an even emotional keel, to detached, to avoid the extremes of elation or depression.”
Readers receive insights through applied philosophical ideals with forays into Chinese aristocracy that examine legacy, despair, the value of wealth and power, and family power. The moral and ethical examinations Baoyu is forced to confront in the course of trying to adhere to his familial and cultural expectations while remaining true to himself are particularly thought-provoking:
...filial piety was a value, but not the only value in the moral universe. Other values a person might legitimately pursue included spiritual growth, the extinguishment of desire, and the end of suffering.
The result is a lively, engrossing story of self-discovery and social expectations which will find a home in any library strong in Chinese historical novels and tales of philosophical, cultural, and social evolution.
Readers interested in considerations of self-growth under repressive expectations of all kinds will find The Boy with the Jade as compelling a read as book clubs looking for discussion points about Chinese dynasties, family pressures, and individual transformation.
The Boy with the JadeReturn to Index
The
Cassatt Sisters
Lisa Groen
Black Rose Writing
978-1-68513-659-8
$21.95
https://www.amazon.com/Cassatt-Sisters-Novel-Love-Art/dp/1685136591
Are love affairs merely an opportunity to see the way we mislead ourselves?
Readers who choose Lisa Groen’s historical novel for its artistic insights will find powerful, thought-provoking reflections—like this early opening line—that deepen the story. The result elevates the artistic focus, turning it into a transformative personal experience.
The Cassatt Sisters: A Novel of Love and Art will delight historical fiction readers seeking a moving portrait of Mary Cassatt, her sister Lydia, Edgar Degas, and their evolving roles within the blossoming Impressionist art community.
One notable strength of The Cassatt Sisters is its first-person narrative, which brings the people, times, and artistic connections to life. Readers with some familiarity of Impressionist culture will especially appreciate how Groen weaves social reflections into her story:
Les avant-gardes, the breakaway artists Durand-Ruel supported, openly defied the Salon, a juried exhibition that for centuries set standards and shaped careers. I, too, had set my sights on the Salon when I’d arrived by steamer from Philadelphia thirteen years prior. The jury had accepted one of my paintings when I was only twenty-four. I remember thinking, surely my career will flourish.
Personal and cultural connections are created, and perspectives and choices are enhanced not just through historical reflection, but through Impressionist artworks that pepper the tale with important illustrative value.
This adds a personal touch as readers follow Mary’s journey and the evolution of her professional and personal objectives:
The exhibit, the reviews, and my new friends invigorated me. I rededicated myself to the work, to present more paintings the following year. I woke and slept in a world of new ideas, including printmaking, which took more time than I imagined.
More than most other novels about the era and its people, The Cassatt Sisters focuses on the psychological profiles of two sisters, along with the lovers and artists who were part of their inner circle.
Details are also given about Cassatt’s artistic creations, exploring not only the philosophy behind her art but the physical process of creating it—and how evolving relationships can influence and change an artist’s focus:
I walked to my studio. I missed making prints, especially the mystery of not knowing what a picture would look like until peeling paper from the plate. I’d tucked away the copper plates Camille had given me in a supply cupboard because I didn’t have the tools and equipment to continue as I had in Edgar’s studio, but I’d return to it, eventually.
The Cassatt Sisters will appeal to, and is highly recommended for, fiction enthusiasts interested in Impressionist times and art. By weaving together the social, artistic, personal, and political worlds, Groen has created a mesmerizing story. It requires no prior in-depth familiarity with the era to be accessible (though art history readers will especially appreciate the profundity of these artists’ lives and revelations).
Libraries seeking historical novels to recommend to book clubs and reading circles—with interests ranging from women’s lives and careers to the arts and, in particular, Impressionist history—will find The Cassatt Sisters a standout.
Replete with emotional interactions that bring the sisters and their world to life, The Cassatt Sisters is hard to put down, intensely revealing, and a work of art itself. It stands out from most other Cassatt approaches, whether biographies, art history titles, or fictionalized explorations.
The Cassatt SistersReturn to Index
Consequence
of
Power: Isabella's
Seasons
Sabrina Lund
Goose House Publishing
978-1-0687879-2-8
$15.99 Paperback/$2.99 eBook
www.sabrinalundauthor.com
Consequence of Power: Isabella's Seasons opens in 1763 London, where young Isabella Thornbury steps into society to make her mark, only to uncover threads of deception and treachery as love and betrayal make their marks on her life and perspective.
From the start Sabrina Lund constructs a double-edged sword of privilege and discovery, wielding it with a mighty descriptive voice that compels readers to step out of their times and into Isabella’s world:
Across the river, I observe the figures under the cover of darkness, each within their gondolas, progressing as though on a silent pilgrimage, closer and closer. Upon each arrival, they assume their milk-white robes with enveloping hoods that darken their faces further than the night, and drink deeply of a rich liquid. At the toll of the bell, they float ghostly and slowly across the lawn... From my imagination, I have created this. From seeds I nurtured, planned, designed this paradise and it is more exhilarating to see it in its physicality than I ever dreamed. They know not what lies before them, but I, the architect, am omniscient and possess all knowledge, for I repeat: I created this.
This creates an intoxicating, atmospheric sense of mystery and discovery from the story’s outset as history, mystery, and romantic appeal coalesce in a tale that brings readers right into 1700s London society with all of its follies and rules.
Lund’s ability to craft an immersive story is evident in scenes that cement Isabella’s observations of polite society with the undercurrents of scandal and delight that permeate walls of respectability:
The words “I am amazed, and know not what to say!” flew into Isabella’s romantic mind – she could not restrain herself. With satisfaction, she glanced back into the looking-glass. Indeed, it seemed as though her dreams were materialising in a manner most divine.
From the organization and efforts of household staff to improprieties, secret unions, treacherous crossings, and Isabella’s unexpected journeys, Consequence of Power is thoroughly steeped in history and mystery. They come alive to draw readers into the puzzles, delights, and conundrums of these times.
Libraries seeking historical blends of mystery and romance which are especially atmospheric and compelling in their delivery will want to make Consequence of Power a “must have” addition to their collections.
Readers of Regency romances, historical fiction that considers social and political struggles, and absorbing scenes of 18th century passions and processes will relish how Isabella navigates her world with authority, critical inspection, and a savvy eye to personal and social survival.
Replete with strong undercurrents of gothic intrigue and notes of delightful discoveries, Consequence of Power is well-developed, unpredictable, and hard to put down.
Consequence of Power: Isabella's SeasonsReturn to Index
Cover
For Me
Steven Schindler
The Elevated Press
978-0-9662408-8-7 $17.00
Paperback/$9.99 eBook
www.TheElevatedPress.com
Cover For Me opens in a World War II Hoboken war factory, so readers might presume from this start that the novel will be one of military engagement alone. It’s not. It’s as much a story of commitment, shifting values, and a wartime climate that shapes and buffets Georgie Paolini’s personality and choices and those of his friend Johnny as it is a story of World War II’s special milieu and challenges. As such, the plot is delivered with a cloak of historical backdrop that impacts the viewpoints of a likeable character whose reactions are supported by history.
Other characters provide their experiences, embracing belief systems that lead them to work hard and cultivate a “can do” attitude for the sake of a unified war effort at home:
Vito was hardly ever home, except to sleep. The government was desperate for the rubber the factory provided, and the pressure on him was enormous. He realized the gravity of the situation, and was proud that he kept the plant running as smoothly as it did in the war effort. He was working sixty, seventy, eighty-hour weeks. At times, he even slept in his office. But in his mind, he did what he had to do, as he always did, for God, country, and his family.
Readers don’t remain in the war (or, with Georgie), however. As the decades pass into the 1960s, recovery and change continue to move Americans into new eras and realizations. Georgie’s friend Johnny pursues his musical dreams alone as he tries to set aside his wartime experiences and the impact of injustice and Georgie’s fate. The long-lasting shock of Georgie’s choices and absence contribute to Johnny’s feeling “responsible for everything” as he muses about “what if,” had situations turned out differently. Music provides notes to his days as Johnny takes a stand and pursues uncomfortable truths about what really happened to Georgie during the war.
More so than most World War II novels, Steven Schindler juxtaposes the moral and ethical quandaries that arise from war actions into the fabric of society in America and abroad, creating a thought-provoking story filled with considerations and revelations readers won’t see coming.
Libraries seeking World War II novels that stand out from the crowd by pursing the long-lasting impacts of military choices and the secrets and quandaries of overseas experience will welcome Cover For Me’s multifaceted story of deception and truth.
Filled with believable characters backed by real history and packed with emotional connection, Cover For Me is an engaging story of music, miracles, and men who fulfill their obligations and friendships in unusual, powerful ways.
Cover For MeReturn to Index
The
Faithful Ones
Kathleen J. Waites
Invictus Press
979-8-9989691-0-2
$15.99
Paperback/$9.99 eBook
Website:
www.
kathleenjwaites.squarespace.com
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Faithful-Ones-Kathleen-J-Waites/dp/B0FBKZSJNY
The Faithful Ones is a novel inspired by a true story about a draftee who is incarcerated as a POW at the Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry during World War II. The action centers on the atrocities committed there and the conscientious objectors employed as hospital attendants who strive to combat them. It reviews the impact of institutional decisions of cruelty on family members and patients and exposes how efforts to do good can be warped by institutional mandates.
The novel brings all these facets to life through the eyes and experiences of sketch artist and incarcerated soldier Ed, who strives to escape a nightmare of condoned abuse without the aid of his family, who is largely alienated from his suffering.
It is only his young sister who is willing to examine family and political structures, delving into family and institutional secrets that have long been hidden in both environments to try to dig out the truth about her brother’s incarceration and real state of mind.
Kathleen J. Waites brings her story, set during World War II, to life with descriptions steeped in the ethos of the era as Mary ferrets out the truths unraveling behind different closed doors:
It seemed like their whole entire house was under a gloom bonnet. Like Captain Midnight on the Captain Midnight show, Mary was picking up signals. She just didn’t know how to decode them.
Sensitive readers triggered by mental health conundrums, vivid accounts of abuse, and challenges to seeking freedom may find the novel’s intensity of experience challenging:
Joseph, where was Joseph? What had become of the boy? What would become of all of them trapped in hell’s forgotten pit? He’d reached the bottom of sorrow. He was sure of it. There couldn’t be more beneath this.
But, beneath this examination of military, social, and psychological assault lays the germ of discovery and transformation, the truths that lead each character to emerge from their trials stronger. Readers will be equally strengthened by the positive notes that emerge from disaster.
Libraries interested in vivid representations the damage wrought by corrupt mental health institutions, questionable military polices, and familial dysfunction will find The Faithful Ones a valuable and thought-provoking collection addition.
Suitable for book club discussion groups as well as individual reading preferences, this harrowing story of unchecked institutional abuse, self-discovery and, ultimately, redemption holds many insights worthy of debate and digestion. It proves hard to put down, blending documented facts with fiction in a manner that is truly enlightening.
The Faithful OnesReturn to Index
The
Gilded
Butterfly Effect
Heather Colley
Three Rooms Press
978-1-953103-62-8 $18.00
Paperback/$9.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Gilded-Butterfly-Effect-Heather-Colley/dp/1953103626
The Gilded Butterfly Effect, a debut Dark Academia novel from PhD candidate and BookTok influencer Heather Colley, follows introverted loner Penny into the hopes of starting anew at a Midwestern college.
Making the plot even more powerful, Heather Colley employs alternating voices that contrast and reinforce Stella and Penny’s perspectives, opening with Stella’s observation that:
I don’t really get weak at the knees. I’m not much of a romantic. Quite honestly, I haven’t got the time. Romantic types make me feel strange, as if I’m playing the part in a movie for which I’ve been entirely miscast. Romantics are all well and good until they use up my time for fun, and glory. There is only so much weekend, and after I got to Michigan, I stopped wasting it on romantics. I wasted a great deal of time on boys. But there was nothing romantic about it.
As these very different young women assess their pasts, college lives, and future potential, readers are drawn into a dangerous dance of contrasts and challenges. These lead each girl down a raw path of surging hormones, collegiate pressures, and shifting relationships with boys and life.
The reflections are nicely detailed and compelling, creating different approaches and experiences in a manner readers will find compellingly realistic:
If this is the start of my romantic tale, I am disappointed to find that it has the unexpected eeriness of a contorted flirtation. There is an offish feeling that you get every so often, like when you’ve wind up in the darkened halls of your high school alone at night, or when you dream that you’re at the senior prom, and you’re watching everybody have their best day ever, and you wonder whether you are, in fact, really there. Whether you can really be there at all, if nobody sees you.
From critical errors to crashes and bad judgment, Colley brings to life relationships which emerge from unexpected influences in college life.
Libraries seeking New Adult novels that cover the female college experience, from desire and friendship to impossible beauty standards and experimentation, will find The Gilded Butterfly Effect perfect for fans of Mona Awad's Bunny. It juxtaposes the lives and relationships of two very different college girls who move into their worlds with disparate connections and influences.
Filled with enlightening moments of self-discovery and insights into male and female relationship-building, The Gilded Butterfly Effect’s powerful study in contrasts is hard to put down.
The Gilded Butterfly EffectReturn to Index
The
Ghost of
Khartoum
B.R.
O’Hagan
Pedee
Creek Press
978-1-7342263-2-4
$11.95
Paperback/$3.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Khartoum-B-R-OHagan-ebook/dp/B0FLRFKJR7
The Ghost of Khartoum represents haunting historical fiction at its best. Thomas Scoundrel returns in a third book that takes place in 1884, two years after the action-packed foray into Scoundrel’s past that made Scoundrel in the Thick such an absorbing swashbuckling adventure.
Here, Thomas foregoes his usual action-packed career of chasing bandits and training new recruits for the Mexican Army for a new endeavor: writing an article about the new luxury train Orient Express.
His train ride inserts him into the life of Egyptologist’s daughter Heléne de Bovet and her mission to clear her father’s sullied reputation. Intent on helping her, Thomas finds himself in Egypt at a dig locale where war is brewing between the British and a repressed warrior tribe lead by the fierce Mahdi.
As fast-paced action moves from battlefield encounters to a Sudanese prison, a Bedouin warlord’s kidnapping of Heléne, and Colonel Scoundrel’s encounter with a host of disparate forces, B.R. O’Hagan cements action with atmospheric descriptions that inject a “you are here” feel throughout to bring readers directly into the times and places:
The air inside was thick with the scent of powder and aged wood. The faint starlight trickling in revealed rows of stacked rifles, ironbanded ammunition crates, and dozens of 50-pound powder kegs. Cannonballs lay in deliberate piles, their dull surfaces gleaming like malignant eyes in the gloom.
Battle scenes involve moment-by-moment combat while Thomas’s encounters with desert tribes add elements of cultural discovery and historical revelation to the plot, enhancing its grabbing ability to capture and represent the moment and the peoples of these times:
“So treasured are these horses that many Bedouin bring them inside the tent at night to sleep beside them.”
Thomas chuckled. “I have heard the tales about Bedouins and female goats, my friend, but this is the first I knew they were also attracted to horses.”
Samhi laughed and flicked a small pebble at Thomas. “The day may come when your life depends upon Saher being able to take just one more step, Colonel. Pray that day does not arrive, but if it should, think on this moment and ready your apology.”
As with its predecessors, The Ghost of Khartoum is rich in action, replete with unexpected twists, and threaded with wry humor that offsets serious matters of honor, trust, and survival.
Libraries seeking a standalone story of military encounters, mystery, and adventure will find The Ghost of Khartoum suitable for collection addition whether or not they have the prior Thomas Scoundrel series titles (but, they should!).
Replete with fast-paced adventure supplemented by full-bodied characters whose psyches and concerns shine, The Ghost of Khartoum is another powerful story that flushes out both Scoundrel’s interests and the trials of his times that is highly recommended for leisure readers and historical fiction enthusiasts alike.
The Ghost of KhartoumReturn to Index
Halley's
Gathering
William Overstreet
WRp
9798992216400 $22.95 paper;
$8.99
ebook
Website: www.williamoverstreet.com
Ordering: Amazon.com:
Halley's Gathering: 9798992216400: Overstreet, William: Books
Halley's Gathering is no light read, but is a sweeping epic of Native American literature, history, and culture. It opens in 1910 New Mexico territory, where Julia Halley, who owns the Many Springs Canyon Trading Post on the Navajo Reservation, has assembled a circle of Navajo and Anglo friends, all with their own stories.
Julia and her husband Will have made their home in a harsh environment far different from her comfort zone. It’s a world of unpredictable winters and high-desert landscapes, very distant from her New England origins.
The saga opens as Julia's taciturn Navajo/Hopi friend Clement Yazzie has rescued surveyor Owen Rouse, who was lost in a storm. Owen becomes the latest of the visitors who, for different reasons, center their lives on Julia’s Many Springs Trading Post, an environment which is:
...much like every other small reservation store, where the intent was to provide the Navajos with as great a variety of what they might need as possible. To Julia’s way of thinking, that was the trading post’s only purpose...
A wide cast of characters converges on the trading post in response to need and the opportunity to interact with others, from grizzled old Navajo healer Tóya to photographer Pete Pietrowski, a former Franciscan brother.
As these lives dovetail, the boundaries between indigenous people and Anglos blur with understanding, revelation, and interactions. These bring to life various facets of reservation experience and how outsiders become part of the Southwestern landscape.
Clashes between the Old West and Navajo ways of life are depicted through the eyes and experiences of a broad cast of characters whose histories range as far back as the 1860s and whose futures, with a notable exception, promise new opportunities (as well as ongoing adversity).
Especially vivid and notable is the time William Overstreet takes to root this gathering of tribes in a sense of place and history. Readers need not be familiar with the Southwest or its people in order to appreciate the various survival tactics and growth opportunities employed by each character, both individually and as a representative of their roots.
This atmospheric sense of place and contrasts steeps readers in a myriad of choices and considerations as Julia moves through different lives and landscapes:
THE RETURN TRAIN, approaching Gallup, gradually slowed, permitting Julia a welcome view of the red sandstone cliffs, crowned by the towers of Church Rock, to the north. The East had felt so claustrophobic, with the trees leafing out in their various greens. All of Albany seemed to crowd her: the horizon lay obstructed in every direction, the roads beyond the city curved into hidden esses, and even the damp air weighed her down. She hadn’t realized how deeply she’d absorbed the pleasure of endless distances out here, which not even the soot and fumes coughed out by the locomotive could diminish. She did, and yet didn’t, know what awaited her at Many Springs.
Libraries will want to highly recommend Halley's Gathering for its warm, embracive sense of place and cultures, for its ability to blend historical precedent with modern dilemmas, and, most of all, for its diversity of characters and ethnic experiences that keeps the story thoroughly engrossing and personal.
Rich in inspections of women’s places and roles during these times as Julia forges a new life from the ashes of a relationship dashed in hope and dreams, Halley's Gathering offers a warm place around the fire of turn of the century Southwest experience that is compelling and hard to set aside.
Halley's GatheringReturn to Index
Inês:
The Queens of
Portugal Trilogy
Catherine Mathis
Histria Books
978-1592116027 $19.99
www.catherinemathis.com
Inês: The Queens of Portugal Trilogy opens in 1361 on Lent, where angry King Pedro confronts an abbot who has the gall to suggest that he might murder his own son to favor the boys of his newly crowned Lady Inês. The abbot is only reflecting rumors in the kingdom. These also have shaken young Ferdinand, who demands to know his father’s succession plans.
Pedro explains what should be obvious—that, due to Ferdinand’s sickly nature, it’s only logical that the Lady’s sons João and Dinis should be recognized as his successors should he die, thus preventing an outbreak of civil war. It’s clear what motivates him:
Twined purposes drove Pedro – fulfilling an oath born of his love for Inês whilst securing their sons' right to the throne.
But Ferdinand doesn’t see things that way.
And so begins a different kind of war, in which Portugal’s security, lineage, and political safety supersede matters of loyalty, love, and personal happiness.
Readers might anticipate, from the book’s title, that a prior deep knowledge of Portuguese and European history is a requirement in order to enjoy this historical survey. While such background certainly helps understand the novel’s backdrop and progression of events, in actuality, readers need not be quasi-historians in order to learn from and appreciate the dilemmas that evolve when love and politics clash.
Political interests and influences which come between not only father and son, but couples, entwine with medieval historical precedent to create a love story of doomed individuals. This reads like a Romeo and Juliet dilemma, albeit with intercontinental conflicts introduced by threats from the Moors, the merits of marital alliances which will serve Portugal more than participating in unions, and the experiences of women who live in convents:
She knew now it was possible to be suffocated and yet breathe. Inês was lost in a thick fog in which each day was much like the one before it. Her daily thanks to God for weather, seasons, and His saints set the tone for the monotony of her existence. The abbess spared her Nocturns and Matins until the day she professed the religious life. The Prime bell each morning called her to waken and to come to church. Her day consisted of reading the Bible, sewing convent linens or consignments for rich women living in the world, or taking a walk over the grounds.
The life and breadth of options for men and women from royalty to commoner are contrasted through circumstances that immerse them in choices not of their own. These approaches are reflective of the struggles of Portugal to assume its place in the world (and find and rely on its strong leadership) in shifting Medieval times.
Even more notable is the way in which Catherine Mathis intersects these lives and special interests with the lives of young Pedro and others who are raised to know (and sometimes defy) their progressive future in Portugal’s leadership.
Pedro’s friendship with the Castilians introduces conflicts and nuances of choice that threaten not only the status quo, but the future of his country. His unique choices and pursuits not only create different pathways for the future, but challenge succession rules with new possibilities:
...they thought him mad to crown her. They obeyed because they must. He swallowed the worry that these men would fail to back his heirs when the time came.
The blend of history and personal motivations is finely wrought, bringing readers into the emotional and political milieu of characters who find their friendships and associations contribute either uncertainty or strength not just within Portugal, but its status and relationships with other nations.
Libraries seeking a historical novel rooted in Medieval European times, yet just as firmly enhanced with psychological and political understanding, will find Inês: The Queens of Portugal Trilogy an excellent depiction of the times, the people, and characters whose lives and concerns are realistic and engrossing.
Readers (especially those with some background in either Portuguese or Medieval European history) will find the story replete with dilemmas, twists, and decision-making conundrums that bring these times and their hopes, dreams, and questions of legitimacy and possibility to life.
Mathis creates a universally-accessible story of family communication issues, rejection, and love against all odds. These elements, combined with astute inspections of historical detail, make the plot thoroughly engrossing and deeply educational for all.
Inês: The Queens of Portugal TrilogyReturn to Index
Last
Call at Smoky
Row
Pat Camalliere
Campat Publications
979-8987162439 $17.99
Paperback/$4.99
eBook
Website: www.Patcamallierebooks.com
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Call-at-Smokey-Row/dp/B0FD8R79ZS
Last Call at Smoky Row tells of Jane, who finds herself alone and unloved in her early thirties, despite having followed the formula for a good life, getting a solid education and marrying appropriately.
At this point, her daily routines embrace living alone, working in a grocery store, hanging out at the local small-town bar, and considering when the formula for a perfect life went wrong.
Ironically, the very place she hangs out and the characters she meets there form a foundation for new beginnings that sends Jane into a direction different from either the successful path she thought she was on or the downfall she thinks she’s experiencing now.
This peek into her life opens with Jane and her husband of forty years, Rusty, considering the closure of Sami’s bar due to Covid. The bar wasn’t where everything ended—it was where their lives began, changing their directions by its mere presence and clientele.
As Jane reviews the patrons of the bar, how they begin “dropping like flies,” and the changing relationships and reputations that bind such disparate personalities together, readers enjoy a story steeped in character decisions and life experiences. It brings these oddballs to life, setting their courses in sync with events that propel them in new directions.
Pat Camalliere’s story is as much about growth and adaptation as it is about a woman’s ability to reinvent her future from a present which looks decidedly different than any definition of a successful life that she’s absorbed in the past.
The bar atmosphere and characters offer nice contrasts to her experiences and objectives, and are satisfying offsets to the narrator’s fear of failure and new things.
Libraries looking for evocative, atmospheric novels that depict microcosms of experience and life will find Sami’s bar and its denizens to be compelling, realistic reading. Last Call at Smoky Row is highly recommendable to those who look for an easy entry into reviewing conundrums and life changes.
Readers seeking a story that moves its main characters from a seeming end of life to new beginnings will find Last Call at Smoky Row a thought-provoking tale of how change happens, relationships and connections form, and institutions as venerable and lowly as bars can become incubators for change.
Last Call at Smoky RowReturn to Index
The Life
We Have
T.D. Holt
Independently Published
9798329048063 $16.99
paperback; $7.99
Kindle
Website: tdholt.com
Ordering: www.amazon.com
The
Life We Have represents
contemporary fiction at its best, synthesizing elements of a
philosophical life inspection, a consideration of romance, the
application of AI (Artificial Intelligence), and the impact on
present-day lives of a journey into the past.
It focuses on the life of
Bodock (Bo),
an “older" Gen Zer, who is at a pivotal point in his
relationship with his girlfriend—lovely, intelligent CJ—and at a
crossroads regarding his startup company that is developing unheard
of sentience detection and guardrails for AI.
His
trek into the Papua New
Guinea
rainforest in search of a missing ancestor seems the ticket to
gaining perspective, but this venture brings a confrontation with
death, revised insights about life thanks to the influences of a
native guide, and tools he can bring back home and apply to his
thoroughly Western world.
Of special note are the
many references
T.D. Holt adds about the different perspectives of Gen Z and other
generations which brings newfound realizations about values,
life approaches, and how different types of relationships mend or
fail.
The
Life We Have is
billed as a novel, but at times its first-person reflections feel so
intense that they assume the countenance of a memoir of
self-inspection. That’s another one of the strengths in a story
that walks a fine line between philosophical, social, and personal
examination.
Libraries seeking adventure
stories
firmly embedded in the “aha” moments and realizations that
promote spiritual and personal growth will welcome The
Life We Have as a particularly
outstanding example of
how the intersections of various values systems can bear fruit to
something greater in peoples’ lives.
The ups and downs of Bo’s
life and
his measurable growth from influences that come at him from different
directions makes the story outstanding, thought-provoking, and a
standout as Bo reinvents virtually everything he knew about life, his
place in it, and his relationships, spirituality, and values:
Take a risk…that’s part of life…you’ve taken plenty with your company and by searching for Digger. Now you have one more decision: risk losing a relationship with CJ that may bring you more happiness than you can imagine, or risk foraging through more unknowns. Is not CJ worth the risk?
The Life We HaveReturn to Index
One More
Chance, A
Redemption
Novel
Reno R. Mist
Posh Pangolin
Publishers
979-8-9989053-1-5 $0.99 e-book; 19.99
paperback
https://a.co/d/d3DNmMh
For a moment, I didn’t know where I was or even who I was. The room was dark except for a sickly orange light seeping through bedroom curtains. Disoriented, I squeezed my eyes shut as nausea crashed over me in relentless waves. When I opened them again, the grim realization hit me. I was inside a body that wasn't supposed to exist anymore - my own.
One More Chance, A Redemption Novel tackles rebirth in a different manner than most stories about death and transformation. Here, Levi has come back to life not from when he left it, but twelve years prior, at the moment he walked out on his marriage to Sloane.
His new task seems obvious: to right the wrong things he has done in the past; of which this is his greatest snafu and the biggest challenge to resolve.
How he turns his life around by making different decisions motivated by the certainty of his future makes for an engrossing blend of romance, time travel, paranormal encounters, and the steps involved in reliving one’s past.
Reno R. Mist creates a moving story that proves hard to put down. As Levi navigates the hurdles that impaired his life the first time, readers receive an emotionally charged story of change that holds many pivot points of realization:
Anger was what Angie wanted me to feel. Anger meant I would do something rash, something stupid.
As Sloane becomes involved in his realizations, the plot thickens with suspense. This will delight readers interested in more than a tale of redemption and different choices alone. Mist’s addition of a healthy dose of intrigue keeps readers guessing about the magical events and their outcomes, which also contributes to a story that stands out from anything similar-sounding.
Healing, surviving life and love’s challenges, and the slow simmer of forces that buffet Sloane and Levi develops exquisite tension as unexpected twists unfold.
Libraries seeking a story that sounds like a romance, but flowers to embrace much more than a love story or a time travel tale of different choices will find One More Chance sports many satisfyingly unique paths towards its conclusion, making it a fine recommendation to a wider audience than romance or time travel readers alone.
Filled with thought-provoking moments of revelation on all sides, One More Chance is a winner.
One More Chance, A Redemption NovelReturn to Index
Of
Saints and
Rivers
Jim Logan
Yorkshire Publishing
978-0-9889281-5-2 $19.99
www.yorkshirepublishing.com
Of Saints and Rivers is a historical novel that follows three generations of the McClellan family from the 1800s to the 1950s. The story is told from the perspective of youngest son Jordan, who is forced to assume duties beyond his interests when tragedy buffets his family.
From the start, Jim Logan’s use of the first person adds an immediacy and interest to the history that bring the narrator’s personality to life:
I never viewed myself as a criminal, but I killed someone. Not a day passes that I don’t think about it. In a life strewn with doubt, abandoned gods and regrets, there’s much I wish I could undo. I’ve searched for answers in unlikely places. And I know what it is to love someone deeply.
Jordan captures insights about changing times and influences. The story traverses his roots on a ranch in western Oklahoma as the youngest of a father he both worships and fights with to the family’s heritage of frontier living. It details encountering Indians to forge new lives while navigating different cultures, in addition to his reluctant involvement in the family’s farming legacy,
These lend realistic, absorbing atmosphere to the story of adaptation, change, and, ultimately, a search for meaning and redemption as Jordan journeys far from the family fold into other countries, cultures, and environments.
Jordan finds himself navigating literacy in a prison, reconsidering notions of God’s influence on his life, and teaching others some thought-provoking realizations:
I didn’t find it especially difficult to believe in the existence of God—it seemed plausible that someone or something created all we see around us. The more relevant question, for me, concerned whether he’s a personal, caring God who intercedes in the affairs of humanity—or one who created and then walked away, leaving us to determine our own destinies. I told her I felt the idea of being on our own in a vast universe to be every bit as meaningful and exciting as that of being in the presence of a loving God.
As readers learn about the region’s history and this family’s struggles in particular, they will appreciate the insights on how relationships come together, break apart, and flex under the weight of shifting social and environmental conditions.
Of special note is how political and social changes bring new meaning to not just Jordan, but his entire family. As Jordan struggles to become a free man against all odds, he comes to realize his privilege and God’s hand in not only directing his choices and life, but delivering an outcome to his predicaments that revises his life purpose.
The spiritual reflections incorporated into Jordan’s life are especially thought-provoking:
...the larger question concerned the nature of God. Did he create—and then stand aside—to let choice and chance and human free will shape all future happening? That would explain, as much as atheism, the unanswered prayers and perceived, meaningless disorder we see around us.
Or is he a knowing, caring God who—when he sees fit—intervenes in the affairs of man? There have been times in my life when each has seemed true. It remains for me a defining question that I carry still.
Libraries looking for historical fiction steeped in family, faith, social and political issues, and personal redemption will find Of Saints and Rivers especially well suited for book club recommendation, where its many vivid scenarios and dilemmas will attract a diverse readership.
Whether the novel is chosen for leisure read or study, its vivid portrait of families and individuals under psychological and spiritual siege is hard to put down.
Of Saints and RiversReturn to Index
The
Radical
Radiance of the Fishing
Fly
Lewis K. Schrager
LFEA Press
979-8992719918
$.99
eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Radiance-Fishing-Fly-ebook/dp/B0FL53DV5L/
The Radical Radiance of the Fishing Fly is a novel about brothers fly fishing in the Alaskan wilderness, who experience more than good catches.
From the start, the protagonist reflects on his uncertain relationship with his brother, which seems to be an unlikely foundation of strength for a successful joint fly fishing expedition:
On the few occasions where we found ourselves thrown together, like at an occasional high school party, he’d notice my subtle signals of embarrassment at his behavior and would talk more loudly, act more wildly, dance more crazily, until I shrunk away into a kind of nothingness and headed home on my own. I could never even think of taking him on physically when he pushed me past my breaking point as he was taller and far stronger than I, and a champion wrestler as well. I tried to convince myself that this fishing trip would work out fine. So much had changed since our high school days.
Larry’s cancer has prompted this trip and the need for revised relationship efforts. Although many changes have occurred since Larry’s diagnosis, the one thing that has not shifted is their uncertainty:
...that’s the way it always was, a distance between us reaching back into childhood that I couldn’t narrow or even begin to understand.
As the brothers encounter and are changed by others who participate in the fishing expedition, new revelations emerge not only about their relationship, but the lengths they will go to in the quest for survival and connection.
Lewis K. Schrager creates an engaging story of adventure, growth, interpersonal relationship shifts, and discovery. The realistic backdrop of Alaska, the fly fisherman’s focus and interest, and the wilderness encounters with beasts larger than fish makes for a gripping saga of survival that proves hard to put down—one in which the backdrop of relationship-building is part of a bigger picture.
Libraries looking for a celebration of life will find it in The Radical Radiance of the Fishing Fly, which challenges the classic A River Runs Through It with a wilderness experience that probes heart, mind, and soul as well as relationship dilemmas.
Packed with riveting “you are here” atmosphere and unexpected personality intersections from a variety of tertiary characters, The Radical Radiance of the Fishing Fly is an unforgettable read as highly recommended for book clubs as it is for those interested in navigating the currents of sibling and life relationships.
The Radical Radiance of the Fishing FlyReturn to Index
Sunshine
on the
Crooked Road
Ndirangu Githaiga
Bon Esprit Books
978-1-7350417-9-7 $14.99
Paperback/$5.99 eBook
https://www.ndirangugithaiga.com
After six years living away from their native Kenya, Wanjikũ and Kabogo return home to a country simmering in transformation and opportunity in Sunshine on the Crooked Road. Their homecoming after having lived in a world which blends cultures and language not only pulls them away from friends they’d come to consider as family, but brings to the surface marital and social discord. Old conflicts come to life and, it turns out, new promises can’t be trusted.
As life in 70s and 80s Kenya unfolds, husband and wife find their lives and worlds physically and mentally divided, and are forced to find new ways to relate to their much-altered home and their conjoined lives.
Ndirangu Githaiga provides a spirited, realistic survey of daily life undergoing sea changes as the couple adjusts to their revised world, considers what they’ve left behind or sacrificed in the effort, and how to deal with the personality changes that have widened the rift between them:
Wanjikũ enjoyed evenings like this, all too rare, when Kabogo seemed at least moderately friendly. Usually, he came home in a foul mood or simply not interested in engaging with her. She never knew which Kabogo would come through the door.
From circumstances of business networking which further prompt Kabogo to choose work over intimacy to Wanjikũ’s own involvement outside the home to fill in too many gaps in her life, Githaiga creates, via dialogue and character encounters, a realistic world in which new ventures challenge old mindsets and assumptions.
Each of the characters grows as a result of their choices to adjust to this strange yet familiar new world. Each embarks on new quests to reinvent their friendships, connections, and lives.
Especially notable are the small and large pivot points of change which each individual faces during the course of these daily obstacles and decisions:
Wanjikũ tried hard to hide her frustration, recognizing that she had withheld important information from him and that he had probably done the best he could with what she had told him. It was only nine in the morning when she left the office. Exasperated, she found herself walking toward Ronald Ngala Street to do something she would have considered unthinkable even just an hour earlier.
Even more pointed and thought-provoking are passages in which interactions prove baffling, are filled with social and political reflections about changing times, and which provoke a better understanding of Kenyan peoples in readers who may come to Sunshine on the Crooked Road with little prior knowledge of the nation’s culture.
Libraries seeking African literature and cultural fiction which holds the power to introduce nuances of the changing continent and its peoples will want to welcome Sunshine on the Crooked Road into their collections.
Replete with life-altering influences, moments, and social reflections, Sunshine on the Crooked Road is easy to absorb, thought-provoking, and highly recommendable to book clubs and readers learning more about African lives in general and Kenyan transformation in particular.
Sunshine on the Crooked RoadReturn to Index
The
Sylvan Hotel
Frannie James
Hinton Publishing/Vertfolta
Press
978-1609441654 $20.99
Paperback/$6.99 eBook
www.verttoltapress.com
The Sylvan Hotel takes place in Seattle, where a venerable old hotel becomes the focal point for secrets and stars who want to keep them hidden. Receptionist Joann doesn’t view her hotel job as anything more than a resting point. She’s trying to figure out how to hone a new career, but the hotel and its workers draw her into its world.
There’s a co-worker who may (or may not) be a romantic possibility; residents whose lives intersect not just in passing in the lobby but in other ways, and the matter of her own heart, which she is still learning to decipher, in pursuit of a better future.
Against this personal perspective the hotel job comes alive with new possibilities, challenges, and relationships that lead Joann to forge new paths in more ways than just a secretary’s chair marking time on a carpet.
Readers won’t expect the moral and ethical situations which arise in the course of her workday, but Joann’s queries to her customers and coworkers reflect the kinds of approaches to life that she needs to understand if she’s ever to make a life for herself:
She triple- and quadrupled-checked the matchbox lettering. Would he be friendly? Snooty? How often would they be staying at the Sylvan? Could she really “network” on the job? What was appropriate? Would she even have a chance to talk to any of them?
As she becomes caught in the middle of unexpected conundrums, Joann forges a new identity out of crisis that leads her to understand not only her choices, but her compulsions:
The problem was, she could no longer see herself without him. It was like she was breathing through him. Hell, she was breathing through all of them.
Frannie James employs Joann’s vivid reflections to bring to life not just one person’s ambitions and issues, but the entire milieu of a hotel “family” in all its strengths and weaknesses.
Her approach cements the notion of microcosms of community and growth, lending to much thought-provoking reading while building the case for a good book club assignment attractive for its multifaceted relationship focus.
Libraries that choose The Sylvan Hotel for its Seattle-centric locale, its promise of growth and revelation, or its sense of youthful optimism and nostalgia will find the intersection of all these facets creates attraction for many different patrons, from readers of women’s fiction to those who appreciate stories steeped in discovery and journeys both physical and mental.
Replete with powerful relationship-building opportunities and world-building features, The Sylvan Hotel is a delight to absorb. It is highly recommended reading for audiences seeking stories of attraction and change.
The Sylvan HotelReturn to Index
To Save
A Life
Larry Zuckerman
Cennan Books
9781947976566 $18.00
paperback
www.cynren.com
To Save a Life is a historical novel about immigration and survival. It considers the quandary of fleeing one form of repression only to endure another in a land that is supposed to hold the ideal of freedom.
In 1909, Malka Kaminsky flees Russia with her dowry for a new life in America. Her involvement in a sweatshop strike introduces her to fellow Russian Jew Yaakov Rogovin, who also seeks success in this new world while bringing baggage from his past.
Their cultural connections join them together in an unexpected way based on their dreams of a successful future in their new home. A perhaps-inevitable connection evolves between them which is based on the shared value of independence—a goal shaken when Malka’s fiancée from the old country arrives with his own mandate in mind.
Fighting to let go of yesterday even when it follows her into her future, Malka confronts what is possible, what has been ordained for her life, and how to build her own independence apart from the guilt and ties of her past.
Larry Zuckerman crafts a realistic, thoroughly engrossing saga of 1900s New York that weaves different perspectives into Malka’s story. The social issues that arise as these diverse experiences are explored examine many new possibilities for revised lives emerging from shifting social and political influences:
If only they could study music and not be factory slaves.
Especially inviting is how Malka’s business vision juxtaposes with Yaakov’s views on unconventional pursuits. This will create important discussion points for book clubs interested in how traditions are set aside and new ones built from their ashes by immigrants faced with not just new choices, but new relationships.
Libraries looking for novels about turn-of-the-century Jewish immigrants and women who forge new paths of discovery and entrepreneurial opportunity in a land not always kind to their status will find To Save a Life a compelling collection addition.
More so than most fiction about New York Jews and immigrants during this period of time, To Save a Life considers a variety of societal and interpersonal influences on building revised lives which will serve as perfect book club discussion points.
Replete with a wide range of insights, from women’s liberation and freedoms to Russian Jewish immigrant lives and experiences, the dreams launched from inauspicious beginnings and conditions, and the musical influences that fostered dreams and new connections, To Save a Life’s special blend of personal, social, and political revelations makes for involving, unforgettable, and thoroughly immersive reading.
To Save A LifeReturn to Index
Waiting
for
Something Else
Martin Cloutier
Heliotrope Books
978-1-956474-62-6 $20.00
Paperback/$9.99 eBook
www.heliptropebooks.com
Waiting for Something Else is a novel about love—but it’s not the usual approach to either straight attraction or gay affection. It lies somewhere in-between as more of a ‘bromance with sex,’ with a woman adding complexity to the exploration.
The urban pioneers described in the prologue open the events in 2006 Brooklyn, describing the area’s gentrification while setting the stage for Martin Cloutier’s story. It incorporates a particularly wry tone of inspection that is delightfully ironic in its contrasts:
If they came from Manhattan, they came with expectations. And sometimes the small restaurant with its plain brick façade couldn’t fulfill them. There was no coat check, no elongated bar or sexy mixologist, no giant statues, water walls, or crystal chandeliers. Just a frosted glass door with a cursive B. People often walked right by without noticing. Then they would call, irate, and claim they’d been given bad directions.
Restaurants, meeting places, and changing physical backdrops to life form a fine cultural foundation for the social and personal inspections that evolves in this romantic comedy about New Yorkers searching for connection.
Within the spotlight are women, wine, men, and observers of and participants in the gay community. Cloutier presents intriguing dialogues and insights to bring disparate viewpoints to life, creating perspectives that are both realistic and thought-provoking:
“They’re horrible people. How do you stand them?” He continued on as if he knew the answer. As if Roger was a horrible person too. And maybe he was. Maybe gay men were characteristically sex-crazed and superficial, obsessed with body parts and beauty, afraid of intimacy and apple pie. Maybe all they could do was snipe and bolster their fragile egos, while scoping out the latest sexual conquest to eradicate their feelings of inadequacy. This was a critique as old as Larry Kramer, and one he had some sympathy with. He could understand how an outsider might regard their quips and banter as Lord of the Flies behavior—where only the wittiest and most beautiful survived. But he didn’t know how to justify it to James. How to explain the hurt behind the humor. How to separate what was harmful from what was playful.
The story unfolds like a mixologist’s dream, continually adding ingredients that seem predicable, than shaking them up to create surprises of connection and insight that will leave readers both laughing and thinking.
It’s unusual to enjoy this constant contrast in a novel about love; but Cloutier crafts a disparate circle of realistic characters. These range from organizational genius James, a newcomer whose world is defined by twenty-six years of Buddhism and an attention to detail, to Roger, who is aware of manager James’s limitations, but is experiencing an existential crisis of his own. Also lively is Sherry, an “older woman” five years his senior whose live-in boyfriend Sean doesn’t limit new possibilities in the relationship department.
As these characters take deep dives into dating and transformation, the story becomes a ribald juxtaposition of restaurant world and collective connections as new avenues are explored and life revelations emerge.
Libraries seeking a novel about New York culture, gay and straight life, friendships and love, and wry examinations of life will find Waiting for Something Else holds all this and more. It speaks to future generations with a carefully crafted, reflective voice that brings these worlds and young people to life.
The play and acting that consumes the characters as much as food holds a descriptor that can apply to the overall theme of the novel itself:
“So, Roger,” Barbara leaned across the table. “Tell us what your play’s about.”
“It’s about the limits we place on ourselves. In love. Sex. Relationships.” He stole a glance at James. “Whether through society or biology.”
Its foray into all these topics makes Waiting for Something Else realistic, funny, unpredictable, and filled with food for thought that book clubs, too, will heartily appreciate.
Waiting for Something ElseReturn to Index
Why Did
God Make
the Tree?
Tammy Gregg
Cemetery Hill Publications
979-8-9923271-0-6
$28.99 Hardcover/$17.99
Paperback/$9.99
eBook
Website: tammygregg.com
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Did-God-Make-Tree/dp/B0DWWZVQJR
Why Did God Make the Tree? is a Patrick Denny novel that surveys a horror novelist and psychiatrist’s own small-town nightmare. Dr. Patrick Denny returns to Waylingbrooke, New Hampshire to his former profession in search of peace, routine, and the familiar milieu of helping mental patients in contrast to the horror scenes he’s successfully depicted in his novels.
Instead, he confronts the fact that seemingly disparate psychiatric conditions in his mental hospital patients portend a far greater horror than he could have imagined in his fictional forays into danger.
These patient experiences edge too close to home as Patrick confronts his own past, the role of horror in his life, and the real meaning of mental conditions and their impact on reality and many things he’s taken for granted in his life.
Readers may not expect an action-packed series of confrontations to evolve from the staid mental health community, but Patrick’s deep dive into horror translates to an equally vivid pursuit of truth, reality, and new possibilities that creates many markedly powerful scenes:
Michael’s urgent words flooded back to him—the pronouncement that had set all the events of the past month into motion: “I did it. Just like you told me to. I trapped the monster.”
For a moment, Patrick stood in the silent, dark space, staring at the spotlighted door, almost too afraid to confront Michael’s “it.” But too much had happened and too much time wasted to hesitate any longer.
Forest rituals and contracts, the monsters in patient encounters, and relationship issues all plague Patrick’s attempts to come to terms with his past, the present, and unbelievable new possibilities for his future.
Tammy Gregg creates a number of characters adjacent to Patrick whose interests and pursuits dovetail neatly with the good doctor’s growing tension over his life, choices, and future. These range from Michael, who wields Patrick’s book like a bible and follows its horror into real-world darkness, to Helen, a former agent-turned-girlfriend who knows when it’s time for him to consider a restraining order.
Gregg juxtaposes these disparate lives with the horror that rises to embrace each of them, crafting a powerful interplay of character perceptions and interests which enhances the haunting overlay of psychological struggle that lies under the cloak of horror.
Libraries interested in literary stories of psychological confrontation, horror, and relationship-buffeting impossible circumstances will find Why Did God Make the Tree? replete with the unexpected. It’s highly recommendable to genre readers who look for thought-provoking moments from their novels.
Filled with otherworldly encounters delivered with engaging conundrums for added value, Why Did God Make the Tree? is a delightfully unpredictable foray into psychological horror that is thoroughly absorbing from start to finish.
Why Did God Make the Tree?Return to Index
The Vow
Jude Berman
She Writes Press
978-1647427887
$17.99 Paperback/$15.30
Audio/$12.99
eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Vow-Novel-Jude-Berman/dp/1647427886
The Vow represents biographical historical fiction with a feminist perspective, adopting an approach that brings to life 18th century Italian female painter Angelica Kauffman, who is determined to succeed in what is traditionally a man’s world.
Her passion for art leads to rumors that she dressed like a boy to study history painting—a vocation denied to women. She also vows to never marry, making art her only commitment in life.
Love finds a way, however, and when Angelica’s skills bring her into the greater world and to London, she finds herself fielding not one, but two martial possibilities that will change not only her status, but possibly her dedication to her art.
How can Angelica uphold her vow to be an independent woman if forces beyond her control drive her to subjugate her passion for traditional paths more common to women?
Jude Berman’s story juggles social expectation, romance, and artistic drive in a manner that invites women to think about the impetus for independence and creation in their own lives.
Chapters unfold a compelling passion, themselves, as Angelica considers whether she can uphold a vow to a man in the same manner as she values her vows to her art and herself. As she keeps major secrets from the men around her and considers matters of the heart and soul, readers receive a vivid story of personal struggle and revelation that is vividly rendered:
The future I had hoped to begin is over before it even started. Everything I so vividly imagined has been obliterated. It as though an artist pretending to be me threw a thick layer of gesso grosso onto the canvas of my dreams, then painted their own chosen image instead. No one looking at it, not even a hundred years hence, will ever suspect my original vision was entirely different.
Berman embeds art into the very fabric of personal and interpersonal ambition, social conflict, and experiences that continually challenge Angelica to move in new directions.
She also cements these changes into a sense of the times and the dichotomies affecting male/female relationships and perceptions, creating a moving story that is historically significant and psychologically ardent.
Libraries seeking historical fiction that reads like a romance but embraces bigger-picture thinking about women’s roles and challenges to success will find The Vow an acquisition powerful in its artistic history, vivid in its characterization, and highly recommendable to many patrons—even those not normally attracted to historical fiction.
Notable for its potent considerations of women’s choices and influences, The Vow is also highly recommended for book clubs seeking novels that sizzle with societal and self inspection and artistic splendor.
The VowReturn to Index
The
Apple and The
Stone
Hartford
G. Dawson,
PhD
JAD
Media Enterprise, Inc.
979-8-9995634-1-5
$21.99
hardcover/$14.99
paperback/$6.99
ebook
www.HartfordDawson.com
While readers who choose The Apple and The Stone: 12 Proven Success Strategies Used by Steve Jobs and Goliath-Killer David may think this book will be about business success, in fact the topic is much broader than monetary success strategies. That’s what makes the book a winner for readers confronting impossible-sounding obstacles on many different levels.
Dr. Hartford G. Dawson focuses on setbacks and approaches to overcoming them with an eye to reviewing self-limiting messages of negativity and confusion which make challenges seem so much bigger.
Examples from Steve Jobs and David and Goliath accompany admonitions to persevere and overcome:
Silence the voices that echo defeat. Confront the pain that clouds your vision. Dry your tears of despair. Face your Goliaths—and expect to win. You can win. You must. Like David, you will.
Whether these lessons are applied to personal, social, business or political situations, they maintain a relevancy and powerful force centered upon “reframing the impossible as an opportunity for growth.” Under this vision and approach, obstacles become prospects for growth that promise the richness of not just singular success, but a wider-reaching approach to life.
Of special note are the specifics Dr. Dawson addresses about common barriers to achievement and exactly why they are so impactful:
Procrastination immobilizes you and keeps dreams locked in thought rather than action. It injects fear and doubt to seep into spaces meant for movement. It does not strike in obvious ways; it works subtly, chips away at confidence, and whispers excuses that sound reasonable but lead to stagnation. If left unchecked, it kills momentum, shatters consistency, slowly dismantles progress, and leaves you with regrets.
The twelve strategies to break these self-limiting perceptions and habits is even accompanied by a downloadable app (Breaking Goliaths) which helps reinforce the book’s foundations.
Libraries seeking achievement-oriented guides that go beyond imparting advice and admonitions to outline the nuts and bolts of a program designed to propel self-help readers onto better paths of living will find The Apple and The Stone’s thought-provoking, actionable outline just the ticket for top recommendation to a wide range of patrons seeking change on different levels.
Filled with clarity, insights on how Jobs refused to accept the status quo and persevered beyond common expectation, and guidelines readers can absorb to do the same, The Apple and The Stone is outstanding in its approach and specific in its tips.
The Apple and The StoneReturn to Index
Behind
the Star
Chad Gregory
Independently Published
979-8285195115 $22.99
Hardcover/$4.99
eBook
www.hmdpublishing.com
Behind the Star: A Guide to Mastering the Craft of Stand-In Work and Thriving Beyond the Set is for anyone who dreams of becoming involved in a cooperative, creative production. Yes, it explores the career opportunities, experiences, and challenges of operating as a stand-in on a Hollywood set while honing a life offstage – but that’s just its overlay. Within the coverage of stand-in work lies the beating heart of struggle, quiet heroism and determination, and professional and personal boundary-pushing which makes this book both a passionately-written standout and impossible to easily categorize.
Behind the Star is not just about honing more savvy career moves in the industry. It’s about the nuts and bolts, frustrations, challenges, and call to action and perseverance that besets behind-the-scenes action in Hollywood and buffets the ordinary actor and production participant. In this, its advice moves between experience, self-help guidance, attitude adjustment and consideration, and vivid storytelling of how shows come to life or fail on the backs of those who participate in their production.
Film crews will readily recognize the hilarious moments, set snafus, and brutal stage encounters that Chad Gregory outlines in the course of injecting practical suggestions because many are ‘learn by example’ moments that will feel familiar:
Stand-ins are expected to be punctual, professional, and flexible. You must be reliable, ready to work long hours, and adapt to various tasks. Production schedules are tight, and there is no time for folks who are not absolutely serious about what’s required.
Descriptions of impossible circumstances, arduous work, tough decisions, and confrontations with self and others bring the real work of crews, actors, and producers to life, adopting a no-nonsense approach to depicting just how and where the challenges originate. Physical and mental marks require perfection from all involved to achieve seamless results. Gregory captures a sense of rules which often go beyond challenging to enter into the realm of brutal experience and assessments:
Simple, brutal, and dead-on. These rules are the stand-in’s gospel, and living it takes a level of focus that’s next to ninja-like.
From the fine art of being a stand-in actor or crewmember and its glory and pitfalls to how not to get fired, applying Hollywood lessons to everyday life, and building a reputation and life on- and off-stage, Behind the Star is one of the most realistic, compelling surveys you’ll find, juxtaposing candid reflection and practical tips with vividly rendered real-world encounters.
Novices, especially, will appreciate the built-in practical advice that shows how best to be an effective stand-in:
Stand-ins don’t just park on a mark. You must know why you’re there. Watch the pros on set, analyzing how they move and listen. I’ve seen rookies pick up tricks just by eyeballing a veteran stand-in who knew when to shift without being told. Ask the AD or a friendly PA between takes, “Hey, what’s the trick to nailing this?” They’ll toss you a nugget if you’re not a pest. Research is your buddy, too. Dig into the filmmaker’s past projects. IMDB is a goldmine. If you’re on a Spielberg gig, check out Jaws or ET. What’s their pace? Do they use big crews or tight ships?
Whether considering the politics and process of reputation-building to attacking the daily grind and pressures of the industry, Gregory’s book delves deep beneath the process of becoming to consider the sometimes-grueling ideals, hopes, and dreams that simmer under the set.
From acting to ethics and beyond, Gregory crafts a user-friendly, inviting guide to Hollywood practicalities that will help all levels of actors (stand-in or not) navigate ‘Tinsel Town’ and its often-unspoken rules, simultaneously adding a pro’s observations of common novice snafus. These kinds of candid observations are simply unavailable in any other Hollywood coverage, also lending to why Behind the Star not only stands out, but is often hard to neatly peg:
When I’m sizing up stand-ins, the first thing I clock is responsibility. Are they the type to take this seriously, or are they just chasing a brush with fame? A good stand-in is quiet—not silent like a ghost, but respectful, you know? They’re not yapping away or fidgeting like they’ve had too much espresso. I’ve had some who couldn’t stop bouncing, and it drove the crew nuts—nervous energy’s a killer on set. Then there are the talkers—bless their hearts, they think they’re networking, but it’s a distraction.
From the basics of being a novice aspiring actor to the practicalities of marrying a career to a life objective, Gregory’s wide-ranging survey will interest a large audience whether or not they aim for Hollywood. Potential readers should ideally include those from the broader business community who will find the process of assessing self and others to be unusually raw and revealing. Perhaps this process is impossible for some, but Behind the Star gives hope to the process of showing up, doing the work right, and understanding the dynamics underlying all kinds of cooperative relationships on and off set.
Libraries seeking a blend of inspirational self-help, Hollywood insider insights, an artistic analysis of getting to “the soul of the job,” and inviting business savvy paired with stark revelations, will find Behind the Star easy to highly recommend. It’s for any reader looking for a passionate survey filled with specific, practical tips to navigating not just Hollywood, but life:
Write your own story, damn it. Hollywood is just a stage; life’s the real blockbuster. Don’t sit there waiting for Spielberg to call. Grab a pen, a camera, a hustle, and make it yours. I mean it—start tonight. Jot down what you dig. Acting? Scribble a monologue. Directing? Sketch a scene. Stand-in life? Log the chaos of your day, the wins and the flops. I kept a beatup notebook back in the day—every set, every screw-up, every “hell yeah” moment. It’s my story, rough as it is, and it’s why I’m still here.
Behind the StarReturn to Index
Bruised
Not Broken
Kristine B. Jensen, LCSW
On Purpose Publishing
979-8-9905950-2-6
$16.50 Hardcover/$12.88
Paperback/$3.99
eBook
Website: www.kristine-jensen.com
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Bruised-Not-Broken-Troubled-Childhood/dp/B0DZ2PZN37
Bruised Not Broken: Healing the Shame of a Troubled Childhood is about shame, healing, and self-compassion. It is especially recommended for those who have lived through traumatic childhoods, still struggle with the past as adults, and who continue to feel broken and misunderstood from their early life experiences.
Its different method of examining the past departs from many similar-sounding approaches in that it focuses on preverbal childhood perceptions that often color adult actions, reactions, and a sense of self.
Case history examples from Kristine B. Jensen’s practice offer concrete information and links between present-day anguish and these very early encounters. Each client’s perceptions and adjustments to life offer a different insight into how adaptive methods of survival not only influence adult choices, but often no longer work well (if they ever did).
Lessons are wide-ranging, from learning how to genuinely accept compliments from others to cultivating forgiveness over tendencies towards revenge, and employing imagery to revise reactions to life.
These and many other approaches lend to not just better self-understanding, but alternate pathways for approaching life, others, and self.
Why put in the effort to identify the wellsprings of life reactions to make adjustments? Jensen is clear about the impacts and benefits of revising engrained survival reactions:
...false beliefs about yourself then become the unconscious template for the friends and partners you choose. For example, the pattern of always trying to win the love of the person you’re dating comes from a belief that just being yourself is not enough. This mindset may also caution you not to be disagreeable and to concede in order to please them, that if you disagree or upset your partner, they will become angry and leave you. Over-focusing on how another person feels about you may also distract you from attending to how you feel about them. Identifying your beliefs puts them into your awareness and from there you can work on them. The next step is one that is often overlooked. Consider the possibility that by showing up in relationships in ways that reflect what you believe about yourself, you are sending a message that this is how you expect to be treated.
Libraries will find that this self-help guide to overcoming and virtually rewriting childhood trauma is clear, reflective, and actionable. Bruised Not Broken can be highly recommended to anyone seeking to analyze and revitalize their lives, and is filled with game plans that only require reader participation to become reality.
More so than most discourses about childhood trauma, Bruised Not Broken not only tackles issues of shame and common reactions that are ultimately self-defeating, but gently encourages those who perceive themselves as losers and broken to become winners and whole. That’s worth any time spent reading these examples and following this blueprint for success, holding the potential to revise a lifetime of struggling with trauma.
Bruised Not BrokenReturn to Index
The
Courage to
Begin Again
Kirsten Harty, Compiler
Halo Publishing
International
978-1-63765-755-3
$23.95 Hardcover/$14.95
Paperback/$6.99
eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Begin-Again-Resilience-Reinvention/dp/1637657978
The Courage to Begin Again: Stories of Resilience, Courage, and Reinvention chronicles how ten selected women left their lives behind to start anew in Mexico, moving to an alien world that demanded they restart their futures without the familiar support systems and angst of home.
Their diverse experiences embrace the process of moving from chaos to meaning and lives filled with new opportunities, detailing the particular challenges involved in leaving everything (and everyone) behind to move to a new country.
These stories are filled with hope as well as experience and psychological depth. They embrace the process of risk-taking and reinventing one’s world, capturing both in passionate, purposeful writing which brings readers into the choices, obstacles, and opportunities involved.
One example of such powerful writing lies in Patricia Pulido’s ‘New City, New Me: Finding Home Again’:
I couldn’t believe it—I was the one falling apart, not my kids. I walked away feeling disappointed and unwelcome, the weight of her reaction lingering long after. With no one to share my frustrations, apart from my ever-supportive husband, the moment felt even heavier. I knew I needed comfort, but I also realized that some things would be different this time. I couldn’t let myself fall into the trap of constant comparisons.
Each woman bares her soul while candidly assessing obstacles to her new life and how she was forced to adopt new survival techniques that ultimately led to better pathways for responding to life as a whole.
Individually, the stories chronicle what’s involved in honing the courage to begin again; but the proof of this anthology’s success lies in its collective force.
As Camila Ifanger points out in her fine story ‘From Inner Chaos to Purpose’:
Starting over is not a weakness but rather the greatest act of self-love.
Anyone experiencing a change that involved moving to a different country and environment will want to acquire and read these experiences. They detail a growth process that goes far beyond the usual cross-cultural encounters and challenges, delving into the psychic adjustments and transformative life values that translate to true reinvention.
Libraries choosing The Courage to Begin Again for their collections will thus wish to highly recommend it not just to patrons facing big moves, but to those seeking insights about connections between environmental change and psychological growth.
Book clubs and reading groups will also find The Courage to Begin Again of special interest for its diverse and uplifting contrasts between hope, achievement, and perspective.
The Courage to Begin AgainReturn to Index
Fix the
Fire
Damage: Your Go-To
Guide When Pain First Strikes
Ya-Ling J. Liou
9780991309429 $65.95
Paperback/$29.95
eBook
Return to Health Press
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0991309421
Book 2 in The Everyday Pain Guide series, Fix the Fire Damage: Your Go-To Guide When Pain First Strikes, will appeal to self-help readers intent on stocking a home library with go-to books filled with actionable plans for tackling all kinds of pain and healing challenges.
More than the usual general admonition about pain sources and exercises, Fix the Fire Damage packs its pages with insights about first responses when pain initially strikes.
Chapters cover everything from body mechanics and chemistry to specific daily adjustments of exercise, habit, and movement. These move from sleep positions to exercise repetitions designed to not just strengthen the body, but reduce pain.
Black and white photos marked with arrows reinforce positions and approaches to such basics as bodily weight distribution during movement, isometric activation, and rebuilding muscular support when a back, arm, leg, or other body part is tweaked and radiating pain.
Accompanying these chapters of exercises and exceptionally clear visual examples are later discussions about nutrition and supplementation. At every juncture in the body assessment and rejuvenation process, Ya-Ling J. Liou provides specific, research-supported insights that elevate Fix the Fire Damage above the usual how-to recovery guide.
No prior medical knowledge is needed to absorb these routines and insights. Footnoted references to such topics as the importance of magnesium and how its lack often translates to increased muscle and nervous tension makes the information widely accessible to general-interest audiences.
Libraries seeking a book that is weighty and comprehensive in appearance and approach, but surprisingly accessible and clear in its step-by-step guide to managing pain of all kinds, should consider the higher price tag of Fix the Fire Damage an indicator of its importance.
Filled with well-researched, specific routines for reducing pain and better understanding its origins and impact, Fix the Fire Damage is an assessment and action plan for pain management that comes from an evidence-based chiropractic physician's eye for reducing and eliminating suffering. It belongs on the shelves of home health libraries and general-interest library collections alike.
Fix the Fire Damage: Your Go-To Guide When Pain First StrikesReturn to Index
God’s
Day Off
Larry Brill
Black Tie Books
978-0-9960834-7-8
$17.99
www.larrybrill.com
On the seventh day, God rested from his creation work. But when he did, what if he placed atheist Adam in charge for the day? And what happens when Adam locks himself out of the Command Center, forcing him to undertake a journey across the universe for the key to re-enter heaven before the fledgling world destroys itself under his watch?
These are just some of the satirical facets that power God’s Day Off, a wry examination certain to offend devoted Christians as much as it will delight those who appreciate the finer art of intersecting satirical religious inspection with fantasy.
The saga begins with a cheery letter from God, delivered straight from the pearly gates:
Hello!
Hello, and welcome to Heaven. I’m glad you could make it. This is your orientation course: Life in the Afterlife 101.
I am your God.
Oh, yes. Some of you may know me as Yahweh. Or Allah. Or Buddha, Father, or even Zeus. Whichever flavor you bake into your spiritual cookie, each is sweet in its own way.
The primer neatly introduces the kind of God who cultivates humor even as he seeks to educate the masses on the Parable of Adam and what really happened on that seventh day of His rest (or unrest, as the case might be).
This segues into a scenario in which card-carrying atheist Adam has discovered that heaven is all too real, making him face a post-life conundrum. God only knows what he’ll do. And, God does know.
The reflective exchanges between Adam and God power a story replete with examinations of faith, irony, and a journey that changes Adam’s world.
Larry Brill’s descriptions injects this story with fun humor present in such visuals as “Adam is getting his atheist hackles up” and such scenarios as a God who prefers not to be interrupted on his one day off from work:
She is as dry as the dust in Adam’s hair and on his feet. “Uhm. We were wondering if The Big Guy is around. Is he in?”
She shakes her head. “No. It’s his day off. Haven’t you heard?”
Libraries seeking religious satire and irony woven into a story that is exciting, unpredictable, filled with fun, and surprising in its thought-provoking dilemmas will want to add God’s Day Off into their collections as an outstanding example of the power of satirical examination ... especially if they are unafraid of offending their Christian audiences.
Replete with humor and reflections that develop into high adventure, God’s Day Off is creative, original, and just plain fun:
I am not vengeful and I will smite any of you who believe I am. (just kidding).
God’s Day OffReturn to Index
Know:
Where the
Status Quo Ends and
You Come to Life
Amy Cerny Vasterling
River Grove Books
978-1-966629-14-6
$16.95 Paperback/$19.95
Hardcover/
$14.95 Audio/$8.99 ebook
https://amyvasterling.com/
Know: Where the Status Quo Ends and You Come to Life embraces Amy Cerny Vasterling’s introductory reflection that:
The cause of my distress was a lifetime of trying to suppress, and let’s be honest, shut off and out that voice inside me—the one that held wisdom unique to me, the one that held my power and could direct me to a life where I would be fully me, the voice I would come to call my “personal knowing.” By ignoring this voice—this personal knowing—I was all but ensuring I fell into a life that satisfied what others expected of me, not a life I wanted for myself, not the life I was born to live, not a life I found satisfying. The result was my nearly constant discomfort.
The broader impact of ignoring one’s innate desires and perceptions in favor of cultural and social messages is more than personal dissatisfaction, but indicates a life not well lived.
Know explores how to listen, cultivate, and learn from this inner voice. It teaches the foundations of self-knowledge and trust, translating that knowledge into bigger-picture thinking about its powerful impact:
As you work toward increasing your trust in your knowing, expect the process to feel challenging, abstract, lonely, and at points, weird. You might find yourself on a plateau now and then, knowing the direction you are meant to go but unable to push the boundaries of The Model further. You might rest there awhile. But once you start down this road (and by the way, reading this book says you’ve already started), you won’t be able to turn back. This alone affirms you came born for the future.
Chapters unfold a blend of method and example which juxtapose case histories with insights readers can easily absorb.
Vasterling explores the impact of such an approach to life, considering how best to listen and reflect this inner voice with an eye to revealing its ultimate results:
...connection to our knowing leads us to self-love. Understanding ourselves and our purpose free of fear moves us into self-expression. The ultimate gain is we move out of the “spiritual” and into a new perception about ourselves as the creator.
The message that “personal knowing works” will appeal to libraries seeking self-help titles rich in psychological inspection and process. It also will appeal to those who may have wondered about their innate dissatisfaction with status quo and life, but have been clueless as to how to take the next steps.
Filled with game plans reinforced by example, Know: Where the Status Quo Ends and You Come to Life emphasizes self-empowerment and positivity for the future that translates to deeper knowing, actionable change, and self-trust that results in thriving, not just surviving.
Its promise should reach both individuals involved in self-examination and reading groups interested in discussions which fuel self-analysis and reconsiderations of the future.
Know: Where the Status Quo Ends and You Come to LifeReturn to Index
NetZero
City
Bill Bivins
By the People Press
979-8-9986321-3-6
$12.95 (paperback), $24.95
(hardcover),
$6.99 (ebook)
www.amazon.com/dp/B0FJXVC7VF
What happens if we do nothing? Say nothing? Those are the questions that keep Bill Bivins up at night and which prompted the Navy veteran to write NetZero City, examining a future that is closer than we think.
Those who expect the usual depressing assessment of failures and the results of ennui will be happy to learn that Bivins offers positive perspectives about possible futures that can evolve right here and now, from available tools.
His opening introduction reinforces the solutions to major problems facing cities are not dictated by technological prowess or a lack thereof, offering a thought-provoking roundup assessment from the start:
I didn’t write this book because I needed to say something. I wrote it because I’ve seen too much of what happens when people don’t. I’ve stood in landfills that were once green fields. I’ve watched local governments struggle with budgets that can’t stretch far enough to cover clean water, safe energy, and basic services. I’ve seen frontline communities poisoned, ignored, and pushed aside while corporations promised “recycling” would save us—then kept profiting from pollution.
But I’ve also seen what’s possible when a city says “enough.”
Bivins charts a course to the evolution and realization of NetZero emissions with a practical eye as to what it will take to not just revise, but revitalize agriculture, energy, and human habits. He tackles issues that range from mobility and traditional American dependencies to local civic actions that can encourage upward-bound political and social change.
His marriage of these subjects focuses on how achievement, prosperity, and new possibilities can arise with a NetZero perspective foremost in the decision-making process. Bivins loads his examples with reinforcing, practical applications to make them not just pipe-dreams of idealism, but perfect possibilities for an immediate (not the far) future.
What “sparks ignite a movement”? Those which embrace practical applications, social change which feels easy rather than devastating, and a purposeful drive to modify engrained habits and perceptions:
...this transformation isn’t just about individual choices. It’s about shifting cultural mindsets and behavioral norms that have long prioritized convenience over sustainability. The transition to a NetZero and zero-waste society demands that we reframe how we value resources, responsibility, and relationships.
The result is a powerful analysis that should be in any library strong in environmental, social, and political books that embrace change, positivity, and practicality.
Filled with specific details on the pathways that can produce real NetZero gains, NetZero City offers an unprecedented blueprint for change. It should reside not just on the reading lists of ecology-minded individuals, but in discussion groups ranging from book clubs to civic leadership meetings in which NetZero goals and ideals are the objective.
NetZero CityReturn to Index
Privilege
Megan Wobus
Peaceful Society Books
979-8999267603 $9.99
paperback, $2.99
eBook
Website: https://www.meganbeller.com/the-peaceful-society
Ordering: https://a.co/d/fxApGQ5
Privilege is the first book in the Peaceful Society series set in the near-future of 2034, when women have taken over Greater Maryland and weapons are banned all over the world in the name of peace.
In order for there to be peace, there must be peacekeepers. Amity is ready to take her Oath to become one of them, but her newfound commitment and duties drive her far from home into unexpected territory, where she confronts hard truths about everything she’s been taught and has come to believe as true.
Megan Wobus employs the first person like an ax of realization, bringing readers into this world’s thoughts and perceptions in manner that reveals different levels of compliance, understanding, and a slow realization about the underlying costs of privilege and duty:
I remember when I got my first SafeGuard, the pride and happiness on my mom’s face. Phones were confiscated along with weapons, but the SafeGuard would let her know where I was and let her communicate with me. It would help her keep me safe at all times.
From a father’s plot to retake what he believes he rightfully owns to Vale’s mother’s loss, the great impact of peace on his family, and his attraction to Amity, the characters on all sides of this supercharged political equation and the divide between men and women come to life:
My upbringing, once we left Baltimore, was big on training and fighting. I’ve still got scars from what I went through with him. Send Vale to train, get the doctor to fix Vale up. Rinse and repeat. I should forget about Amity along with everything else in this evil city. I’m sure she stood there and took her Oath, ready to go deeper into the sick web of women exacting their revenge on a world they hate and a reality they refuse to accept.
Of special note is Amity and Vale’s unexpected reconnection on a new level despite the social forces that create a rift between them. Wobus cements these new insights with dialogues and encounters that merge past experience with present-day opportunity in unexpected ways and places:
When he was a kid he was hard to play with. One of those kids who doesn’t always relate. A little too wellspoken, his humor a little too dry to fit in.
I shake my head. “You haven’t changed much, have you?”
His eyes are warm. “You’ve changed a lot.”
I narrow my eyes, waiting for a leer, but his gaze is hot and glued to my face. I catch my breath.
As the connection between them plays out, the idealism and reality of Peaceful Society that has divided them is set aside for bigger questions and new perceptions.
This, in turn, leads readers into thought-provoking territory about all kinds of subjects ranging from male/female differences, interactions, and choices to the impact of privileged thinking and idealism in a society supposedly rebuilt on ideals of peace, but which enforces repression to do so.
Libraries interested in YA dystopian romances, adults interested in bigger-picture thinking about social experiments and idealism, and book clubs looking for thoroughly engrossing material about relationship-building on different levels will all find Privilege a winner.
Though it’s billed as a young adult read with young characters and emergent situations, Privilege should not be neglected by adults looking for exceptionally thought-provoking reads about women’s issues, men’s roles, and the sacrifices possible in pursuit of a truly peaceful society.
PrivilegeReturn to Index
Saving
Maria
Truant D. Memphis
TDM, Ink
979-8-9868939-3-8 $15.00
Paperback/$1.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Saving-Maria-Truant-D-Memphis/dp/B0FH38VBDL
Saving Maria will attract readers of speculative fiction attracted to powerful stories steeped in irony, strong characters, and situations that simmer with thought-provoking passages.
The first-person narrator introduces the Canadian setting with a wry observational style that emerges within a few sentences of description:
Inside an intimate sanctuary dressed in warm colors and illuminated by the soft light of candle flame, a man sits quietly, deep in a meditation used to fulfill the requirements of sleep. So deep, in fact, that in this instance he is asleep. An unusual occurrence gaining regularity of late.
This sets the stage for further “unusual occurrences” as a team of diminutive monkeys (“Tiny furry poopers”) supplement an ineffectual alarm with their own assault to raise Littlethumb Brooks from his too-deep sleep:
To the man’s left, three tamarin monkeys wearing kung fu uniforms sit in the lotus position with their eyes closed. Their names are Sir Alister Pickney, Stevie Two Sharks, and Zeus.
Philosophical reflection emerges as characters such as Daring Bird contemplate their choices, decisions, and impact:
Did he really love her? You’re goddamn right he did. Goddamn right. For this particular subject, that’s the one thought that matters. The rest are bullshit, exercises in futility, yet unavoidable, and consistently reoccurring. He can’t control the ability of these thoughts to spring forth within him, all he can control is how he reacts to them.
Readers receive multifaceted threads of subplots that range from numbers games and the issue of Littlethumb’s being blocked artistically to Xander’s lament over time’s passage:
I won’t be so melodramatic as to tell you this is the longest two minutes of Xander’s life, but Xander will. Oh, the horror. Two minutes! My god, the entire world could change in two minutes. Galaxies collide! Universes are birthed into existence!
Viewpoints shift from observer to events in a thought-provoking manner. This adds subliminal attraction and insights to a story which moves back and forth through time and experience:
Imagine Littlethumb speaking breathlessly and continually picking up steam as he tries to explain a metaphysical spiritual occurrence in less than two minutes. “The world wasn’t frozen. I thought it was. My family, they appeared frozen in time. I could hear their hearts beating, but the sound was from very far away...”
Readers who imagine a surreal landscape filled with the ebbs and flows of shifting moments of hope, salvation, and discovery (that move through subjects of stolen art, surprise combat training, Littlethumb’s deaf wife Maria, and humanistic networks) will find that all these events and more create a mercurial landscape that proves a page-turner.
Libraries seeking literary explorations of widower reflection paired with speculative fiction’s best representation of surreal atmosphere will welcome Saving Maria.
Saving Maria is simply outstanding, highly recommended for readers interested in magical realism and characters that navigate the ground of expectations and assumptions which are continually moving under their feet as a murder is forgiven and its impact ripples into life.
Saving MariaReturn to Index
Surprised
By
Nothing
Kathryn Kyker
GFB
978-1-964721-60-6
www.girlfridayproductions.com
Surprised By Nothing: Surviving the ER World of Worst-Case Scenarios teaches readers the ins and outs of the ER medical system using examples gleaned from Kathryn Kyker’s own in-system experiences. As such, it’s a powerful survey of snafus, survival tactics, and how consumers can better understand ER processes by absorbing the stories of those who have lived through surprising (and seemingly impossible) situations.
Readers will quickly discover, however, that these are more than just fantastic or intriguing tales of potential disasters. Kyker has another goal in mind for assembling this collection:
... though my experience is unique, I believe what I’ve learned about my personal response to stress and trauma is relevant to most of us, no matter where or if you work.
Her tour of duty as a social worker in the ER exposed her to many teams that work there, the patients who wind up there, and the fine lines between intention and outcome that can be crossed by patient follies and the serendipity of life hazards.
Kyker’s self-assessment is as candid as are her revelations about the environment in the ER she worked in (which, she admits, may be different from others—each ER has its own culture):
I worked in an ER from age twenty-eight to fifty-seven. I came in as one person and left as another. I like to think that the ER changed too, that my time there made it better in some small way, but the ER sheds without sentiment anything that no longer works or has become too much trouble in the eyes of whoever calls the shots.
Especially unexpected and pointed are social insights that accompany and often preface these stories:
Most elder reports made are for “self-neglect.” They may have been brought to the ER due to the worsening of these conditions, an injury from a fall, or reports that they’ve been wandering, lost in their own neighborhood. Usually, these patients arrive by ambulance, and medics paint a dire picture of the home... The medic tells me emphatically that we can’t let them return home. I nod my head. I don’t have the heart to tell them that the patient will almost certainly go back home, and I don’t have the time to explain why. Soon enough the medic will discover that conditions they find deplorable, that they believe are inconsistent with the most minimal quality of life, are considered “good enough” by our culture. They saw the patient living in a way they didn’t think existed in this country. They wouldn’t tolerate any of their relatives living like that, and they can’t imagine anyone else tolerating it. But people live in conditions that defy imagination, sometimes because they cannot stomach the alternatives.
Through these accounts and this social worker’s eye for identifying bigger-picture thinking, readers may come to the collection expecting the usual plethora of tales of physical horror, but will leave with a greater knowledge of social and psychological decision-making processes which underly not just ER protocols, but life choices.
The blend of first-person experiences, patient encounters, and passages of deeper reflection offers medical students, general-interest readers, and sociologists a better inspection of not only what goes on in an ER, but why and how conundrums emerge.
Libraries will find Surprised By Nothing simply outstanding in its ability to take what would seem like a medical review and turn it into a broader social inquiry and revelation that’s highly recommendable to a wide audience.
Readers who partake of Surprised By Nothing will find its astute examination of the intersection of the medical ER with the needs and problems of the community surrounding it to be especially engrossing. It will raise all kinds of questions and answers suitable for book club debate and medical student assessment as well as general-interest readers.
Surprised By NothingReturn to Index
Tiny
Shifts
Jake Thiessen, PhD
Contineo Publishing
979-8-9990917-0-3
$18.99
Paperback/$8.99 eBook
www.jakethiessen.com
Tiny Shifts: Simple Shifts to Radically Improve Your Relationship isn’t about relationship-building or years of intensive therapy, struggling to reach an elusive dream. It’s about making the kinds of small shifts in perspective and approach which lead to an overall bigger change and picture. Thus, it addresses many common challenges to love that readers will find much easier to tackle than the usual weighty psychotherapy approach.
This book contains nearly 80 short essays grouped into 11 sections by topic. Each essay presents a relationship truth that readers can immediately apply and is followed by a “Consider this” reflection question to help personalize the essay’s content. Delightful line drawings by award-winning artist Robinson C. Smith accompany and complement the essays.
Why the need for what seems yet another book on the topic? Dr. Jake Thiessen explains how Tiny Shifts differs from most:
When a couple encounters a relationship challenge, conventional wisdom says they need to improve their communication and problem-solving skills. Many good books have been written on these skills for couples, and this book offers a few as well. Additional and improved skills are great. But if they are not accompanied by a substantially different perspective on the interconnectedness of their relating, they may simply amplify old, habitual ways of being together. In other words, what they need is a better understanding of the often-subtle effect each partner has on the other and how even a single such effect can alter the direction of an interaction.
Chapters promote and show how to better listen to yourself and your partner, how to tackle larger concerns (such as what to do when incompatibility arises), and provide blueprints for identifying and embarking on simple relationship shifts that can lead to better conversations and improved problem solving.
For example: it’s easy to instantly respond to a situation or interaction, but often the best course is an emotional time-out for self-assessment before engagement:
When an emotion shows up, imagine a space where you and the emotion are both present. Let that space be large enough for you to maintain an appropriate distance from the emotion so you can respond to it without being entangled with it. Finding the right distance from your emotions helps you develop a healthy relationship with them.
Another clue to better interactions and results lies in taking newfound self-awareness to a different level by building a personal foundation for understanding, then taking another step into relationship adaptation and revised interactions:
Being aware of your actions and their implications helps you understand the effect you have on others. This sounds easier than it is because while we may be aware of our actions, we often miss how those actions affect others.
To increase awareness of actions and their implications, imagine watching yourself on a screen. This will help you see yourself objectively. You may notice that many of your actions are habitual and done unconsciously. If you then consider your partner’s responses to what you are doing, you will begin to see the impact of your actions.
By breaking down dysfunction and misunderstandings to a deeper level of personal rather than just interpersonal interactions, Dr. Thiessen builds the kinds of connections with self that translate well to delivering the lessons to one’s partner for a more balanced, integrated couples-supporting approach.
Libraries looking to add to their self-help couples relationship collections will find Tiny Shifts a clear and simple winner. Its digestible bites of self-understanding and better relationship patterns offers its lessons via exercises and examples that only require an inquiring mind ready to self-examine and change in order to prove invitingly successful for loving couples seeking small ways to clear the big hurdles in their lives.
Tiny ShiftsReturn to Index
Stephen B. Roberts
Next Steps Publishing
9798999388001 $28.00
Website: www.StephenRobertsBooks.com
Ordering: https://amzn.to/46RtqJX
A Truth Versus The Truth comes from a rabbi who offers a wide-ranging discourse on faith and what divides and connects people. Stephen B. Roberts wrote this book with the intention of crafting a new paradigm for these connections, defining this as the Modernity Spectrum and considering how it helps those of faith understand forces in the modern world.
One notable achievement of this approach is that it embraces all faiths, unifying seemingly disparate perspectives under an umbrella of re-envisioning the world and humanity’s place in it with an overall spiritual foundation supporting the insights into past, present, and future.
Another important strength is that this Modernity Spectrum can be utilized as a tool to promote interfaith understanding by providing a guideline to where people of faith fall on its chart.
Bounded by modern and non-modern thinking at either end, the spectrum provides a new way of viewing faith and its incarnation in daily life which helps all readers understand group identity, practices within specific groups such as Hindus to Eastern Orthodox Christians, and the perspectives and forces that guide their habits, daily lives, and belief systems.
This is not a singular coverage, but a wide-ranging set of insights that contrasts educational processes, perspectives about science and religion, family structure, and all kinds of intersections between faith and society. Many of these receive insights on connections as well as places of divergence. One example is how faith communities around the world embrace science and technology.
In creating a model for better understanding that embraces all faiths, A Truth Versus The Truth offers many points for better understanding lending itself to group discussions and debate.
Libraries selecting A Truth Versus The Truth will thus find it especially recommendable to thinking audiences who want an approach that unifies, rather than divides, different groups and faiths.
Filled with points of contemplation and better understanding, A Truth Versus The Truth is just the ticket for fostering connectedness in an increasingly divided modern world, providing a framework for analysis and understanding that does not elevate a particular group or approach, but allows all to feel interconnected on the subject of faith, truth, and values.
A Truth Versus The TruthReturn to Index
Water
Harvesting
101
Martha Retallick
Western Sky Communications
979-8-9868577-1-8 $17.95
https://westernskycommunications.com
Water Harvesting 101 surveys various methods of collecting, preserving, and using water, and should be on the reading lists of any gardener or water conserver interested in the applied theory and mechanics of water harvesting techniques.
Martha Retallick does the legwork in compiling all kinds of water management systems, contrasting passive and active systems with related issues of flood control. She inspects the process of managing not just water, but an entire planting system, covering graywater, cisterns, and low-tech harvesting methods.
These topics, accompanied by a wealth of close-up color photos, capture exactly what is involved in building water systems. It illustrates what they look like, taking all the guesswork out of a gardener’s efforts to build sustainable and effective, interlinked systems. These include such water sources as dishwater, laundry, and earthworks construction, demonstrating how they may be utilized and managed in the best possible ways.
Many books promote water conservation. Few contain the nuts, bolts, and piping to actually build, maintain, or contrast the options involved in creating systems that are life-sustaining for seeds and bulbs.
Creation tips, plumbing specs and photos supporting them, and a wry sense of humor about the user’s (Martha, in this case) employment of these systems makes for an enlightening book that is simple to understand and perfect for practical application.
Libraries may see plenty of books advocating water conservation in the garden, but few hold the visual emphasis and specifics of Water Harvesting 101. It’s a standout and a “must have” for any gardener interested in building, maintaining, and using a water harvesting system.
Quite simply: there’s nothing quite like Water Harvesting 101 on the market. It’s time to grow the garden not from the roots up, but from the water system downward.
Water Harvesting 101Return to Index
When in
Doubt,
Stop the Bout
Mike Silver
Hamilcar Publications
978-1949590-78-4 $34.99
Paperback/$24.99 eBook
www.hamilcarpubs.com
When In Doubt, Stop the Bout: A Revolutionary Approach to Boxing Safety and Reform should be in any sports library collection and on the reading lists of boxers, coaches, and boxing managers and rings interested in keeping boxers safe.
But, it’s more than a treatise about improving boxer safety. In the course of pointing out better approaches to the sport, Mike Silver paints a damning picture of how boxing has sanctioned dangerous matches, hired inept physicians whose mandate was to keep the action going under any circumstances, and set in place referees whose special interests superseded safety.
In so doing, the boxing industry as a whole has committed grave injustices, placing their own players in harm’s way for the sake of creating a good and profitable game for those operating behind its scenes.
Mike Silver delves into boxing history to profile and answer some basic questions about the sport’s evolutionary process:
Why would there have been many more deaths before 1921, when sixround bouts were the rule? If shorter fights are safer, shouldn’t the opposite have been true? Were boxers throwing caution to the wind in the shorter fights because there was less time to establish dominance? While that is possible, another answer is more probable—the establishment of a state athletic commission in Pennsylvania in 1921, which resulted in stricter regulations and less haphazard medical supervision.
He interviews a host of industry professionals, from referees to boxers, who offer their enlightening thoughts and experiences, sometimes anonymously for obvious reasons.
Silver also broadens his survey to cover football and other sports where injury and safety are issues. He discusses medical testing, monitoring protocols, and rules, contrasting these other sports with the peculiarities and special requirements of boxing:
It is much easier for the National Football League to adjust its rules and conduct the type of medical testing and monitoring described above than it would be for professional boxing, a sport that lacks a national commissioner or any centralized authority. Further complicating the challenge is the fact that in boxing, unlike the other sports, the main target is the head, and hurting your opponent is a goal.
The result is more than a localized inspection of the boxing community alone, but a broader-based examination that places it in context with other sports safety concerns, politics, and management.
Libraries seeking a book that can add to both sports and health collections will find Silver’s multifaceted approach in When In Doubt, Stop the Bout just the ticket for a well-researched examination of all the forces affecting boxing’s health as an industry and its treatment of boxers.
Anyone interested in the pursuit of best practices and health-supporting sports decisions will find When In Doubt, Stop the Bout key to not just understanding the boxing world’s history and how it is conducted today, but revised possibilities for a better sport in the future, all delivered in easily-understood discussions that any reader can readily absorb.
When in Doubt, Stop the BoutReturn to Index
Wonder
and Joy for
the Wired and
Tired
Pam Stephens Lehenbauer,
PhD, MBA, MSN,
APRN-BC
Bear Paw Press
979-8-9925268-0-6 $15.99
Paperback/$7.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-Joy-Wired-Tired-Wonder-Filled/dp/B0FCR616KD
With burnout, stress, and fatigue marking the lives of many, the need for a rejuvenating guide like Wonder and Joy for the Wired and Tired: A Guide to Finding Inspiration and Well-Being in a Wonder-Filled World should be self-evident. Quite simply, it offers a panacea for an estranged, exhausted life that teaches readers why they feel chronically burned out and how to change their lives in ways that eliminate this feeling to support positivity and strength.
This effort is no mean feat. It involves incorporating a sense of wonder into one’s life journey and perspective, from the physicality of the human body and philosophical ideas of the nature of the universe to the wonders of creativity and the joy of celebrating life and God.
Dr. Lehenbauer’s interdisciplinary journey offers all kinds of new reflections and connections that center its perspectives on identifying what really matters in life, whether it be internal reflection or external appreciation of the world around us.
Where most self-help books take an introspective approach, Dr. Lehenbauer’s survey takes a step back to help readers discern the qualities that make life not just worth living, but worthy of celebration and sharing.
Thus, chapters offer diffuse reflections of nature and juxtapose them with insights on how to incorporate uplifting change into one’s life and world (from “Embrace Curiosity – Ask questions and explore diverse topics” to “Stay Open-Minded – Welcome uncertainty and challenge assumptions.”).
This blend of reflection and observation may not be what the typical self-help reader is used to. Indeed, successfully utilizing Wonder and Joy for the Wired and Tired of necessity involves taking a step back to appreciate the world around us, linking this revitalized appreciation to newfound inner contemplation and revised approaches to the world.
Libraries seeking a combination of game plan for revitalization and bigger-picture thinking about God, nature, and one’s place in the scheme of things will want to recommend Wonder and Joy for the Wired and Tired to readers interested in doing more than just reading about too-familiar burnout impacts.
Packed with enlightening moments that invite readers to take time to stop and smell the roses of life, Wonder and Joy for the Wired and Tired is just the ticket for addressing the challenges of modern living.
Wonder and Joy for the Wired and TiredReturn to Index
Al’s Journey
Marin
Fontreal
Hardcover: 9781989661468
$24.99(Hardcover); $16.99
(Paperback);
$2.99 (Ebook); $2.99 (Audiobook)
Hardcover: https://www.ingramcontent.com
Paperback, Ebook,
Audiobook:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marin-Darmonkow/author/B08PRTY7LB
Al’s Journey is the gorgeous picture book story of villagers who become so enamored of gold that they forget the real importances in life. Sound familiar? This theme has appeared in children’s books before, but Marin tackles the subject from the perspective of a young orphan (perhaps destined to be the next tribal healer) tasked with finding a way to heal by leading his people in a new direction.
His grandfather, a wise healer and shaman who purports to talk with God, has trained his grandson well. Al is charged with climbing a summit to speak with God himself. Led by a magical pathway of fireflies that originate from good luck water, Al and his grandfather embark on a journey that forces Al to acknowledge his increasing strength and abilities.
As he protects his grandfather from the elements and finally reaches his goal, Al’s three questions define the mission he must undertake to save his people.
Marin accompanies this story of life lessons with dark, brooding graphic art that reinforces Al’s mission and revelations. This adds force to the notion that the story is not one of brightness and color, but one of thought-provoking insights into the nature of not only God, but those who follow and seek to lead themselves.
Adults choosing Al’s Journey for read-aloud discussion will find many topics can be raised with the very young. These range from spiritual reflections about the nature and mystery of God to identifying values in life and absorbing wisdom that comes from questions, unpredictable answers, and insights.
There is no pat ending to this story. Readers of all ages likely won’t anticipate its progression or opportunities for discourse and contemplation.
These elements make Al’s Journey highly recommended for picture book readers whose read-aloud adults can guide them towards bigger-picture thinking in a thought-provoking series of not just one, but many blossoming insights. These are perfect for young readers’ enlightenment and operate on many thought-provoking levels.
Al’s JourneyReturn to Index
The
Awesome
Wonders of Your World
Houston Howard
Global Galactics, LLC
979-8991154697 $24.99
Hardcover/$19.99
Paperback
www.globalgalactics.com
The Awesome Wonders of Your World is based on a concept by Karinna and Timothy Karsten. It presents the adventures of SparkStar, a galactic pup from the planet Sirius whose favorite word is ‘AWE’. This world prefaces many of his descriptions and encounters, making for a picture book story warm in surprise and replete with excitements further enhanced by the story’s interactive potential as SparkStar explores the wonders of Planet Earth.
Kids are invited to “dive into a rainbow sea” to observe how reefs protect ocean life; to “hear the whispers of the clouds” over Machu Picchu, whose stones tell the stories of the ancient Inca; or paddle into Chile’s Marble Caves, where the walls shimmer with color.
Each observation is linked with an actionable thought that read-aloud parents can transmit to kids to encourage them to better understand their own place in the world and their connections to it
These colorful caves were shaped drop by drop.
Little steps can make big change. What little steps will
YOU take today?
This
impact is deepened by
a suite of
sing-along lyric videos—one for each wonder—accessible through QR
codes in the book. These videos transform reading into a
multi-sensory experience, blending music, imagery, and words to spark
joy, movement, and memory.
The book also comes with a
free
downloadable Adventure Pack filled
with activities,
prompts, and creative challenges that invite children to take the
spirit of exploration into their own backyards, neighborhoods, and
imaginations—bridging the gap between the wonders on the page and
the awe waiting in their everyday world.
Exceptionally gorgeous, colorful landscapes permeate this uplifting survey of the Earth’s physical wonders, reviewing how mental adjustments can empower kids to better appreciate and interact with these worlds:
Climb with me to the clouds! Mount Everest is so tall, it kisses the stars. Even the best climbers need friends to
reach the top.
The Awesome Wonders of Your World’s lessons in positivity draws important connections between humans and nature that makes it a standout both for its visual attraction and for its psychological strengths.
Kids and read-aloud adults will find The Awesome Wonders of Your World celebratory, exceptional, and the perfect tool for introducing issues of responsibility, connection, and self-examination to the very young. All these elements make for an exceptional book highly recommended for all kinds of picture book collections as well as adults seeking especially evocative, thought-provoking reading for kids.
The Awesome Wonders of Your WorldReturn to Index
Be A
Dance Artist
Your Own Way
Joyce Liao
Forestlight Books
979-8-9992693-0-0 $22.95
https://artsvoice.wixsite.com/joyce-liao/publication
Until Be A Dance Artist Your Own Way, aspiring young dancers had relatively few artistic books that encouraged them to creatively explore the dance world’s many possibilities. Sure, there are many practical manuals on how to become a dancer, but few survey such related opportunities as choreography, making dance videos, or writing dance critiques.
That’s why Joyce Liao’s Be A Dance Artist Your Own Way stands out from the crowd. Its wider embrace of the world of dance and its encouraging, enthusiastic tone exploring the many opportunities that are seldom discussed in competing dance “how to” guides provides children and preteens with an encouraging review of different jobs in dance.
Take the chapter ‘Make Creativity a Daily Habit.’ Young dancers are advised to move beyond dance routine assignments to hone their own creative results:
As dancers, we should feel empowered to be as creative as possible with dance. In a dance class, a teacher or a choreographer usually has the steps ready for us. Instead of deciding what we want to dance or how we want to express ourselves, we are given a set of instructions and steps to follow. Even though performing other people’s work can be a great learning experience, we should also take opportunities to create our own dances whenever possible. There is a great bonus when you are a dancer with choreographic or improvisational skills – you can create your own dances!
Liao also tackles the task of uncovering wellsprings of inspiration:
Attending live performances or workshops is a great way to meet new people and expand our exposure to diverse dance styles and practices.
Her inclusion of workbook exercises encourages young dangers to think about what forms and attributes of dance make them happy:
Has a real-life event, not directly related to dance, ever influenced or altered the way you moved or expressed yourself in art? Do you believe that profound life experiences will make an artist’s work deeper and more powerful?
The result is way beyond the usual discussion of the art of dancing, probing the art of building a better life.
Libraries seeking uplifting, inspirational guides that answer the question “why dance?” will find Be A Dance Artist Your Own Way a powerful acquisition. It will spark all kinds of group discussions and is the perfect creative juice-maker for aspiring young artists.
Any adult seeking to nudge a would-be young dancer into the dance world will embrace the bigger picture thinking represented in Be A Dance Artist Your Own Way. Discussions help break the image of traditional, set rules and approaches to the art of dance, reinventing them in new ways.
Lively, positive, thought-provoking, and perfect for artistic expansion, Liao’s messages are bright, shining stars that stand beside and enhance other dance books, capturing the delight and possibilities of honing one’s art in a unique, compelling way:
Dance is an art that requires open-mindedness as dancemaking thrives in new possibilities. While it may seem surprising, staying open-minded can sometimes be a challenge in dance. Why? There are numerous reasons, but one that significantly affects young dancers is the formation of tight-knit social circles or cliques within dance schools and dance communities. When small circles or cliques form in a dance community, social expectations or peer pressure may hinder our ability to keep an open mind, preventing us from considering a broad range of diverse values or voices.
Be A Dance Artist Your Own WayReturn to Index
Boo!
Erin Melody
Independently Published
979-8-9926177-0-2
$11.99 Paperback/$21.99
Hardcover/$3.99
eBook
www.erinmelody.com
Boo! is a simple, compelling picture book story about little ghost Ivory, who can’t be effectively scary because she, herself, is scared of her own voice.
Her job is to spook the farm. Instead, she spooks only herself. She can’t even say the word “boo” without jumping!
Who else can she consult but a wise old owl that counsels her, but doesn’t quite succeed, despite her clever strategy. This sends Boo on a journey of self-acceptance and advise-seeking to find a revised way of frightening others that doesn’t scare her, too.
Erin Melody’s enchanting story will engage kids interested in confronting their fears, understanding the power of language and adaptation, and developing pride in their abilities.
A barnyard of animals stands (or flies) ready to help Boo, adding insights on friendship and cooperative sharing to this simple saga of a scaredy-ghost.
Libraries and read-aloud adults looking for simple, fun stories of how to build courage and connections while addressing personal fears will find Boo! an uplifting, fun story.
Its message deserves widespread recommendation to young audiences who will find Boo!’s large-size drawings and inviting animal countenances to be amusing, and its ghostly protagonist anything but scary.
Boo!Return to Index
The Boy
Who Cried
Wolf!
Retold by Uzma Farooq, MD,
and Samir
and Amani Ahmad
Dark Horse Studios, LLC
979-8-89138-567-2 $19.95
https://boywhocriedwolfbook.com/
The Boy Who Cried Wolf! And Other Great Stories With Lessons takes a number of classics and translates them into new forms of understanding that read-aloud parents and picture book readers and listeners will find fresh and original.
Take the opening story of ‘The Tortoise and the Hare.’ Added descriptive embellishments portray the “arrogant hare mocking an old tortoise,” retold in a colorful way that emphasizes the lesson that “slow and steady wins the race...” (even impossible races, apparently, where the outcome seems set before the contest begins).
The lesson in ‘The Fox and the Crow’ offers a fun example of avoiding false admiration as a clever fox finds a way to make a crow drop her food by praising her ability to sing.
Equally (and perhaps especially) notable is the gorgeous full-page art by Kam Wing Lo and Lai Sun Ip which bring these fables to life.
Yes, these stories are classics. But, retold here and emphasized by concluding rationale that parents can easily use to teach the very young about morals of the stories, The Boy Who Cried Wolf! And Other Great Stories With Lessons creates a vivid, colorful contemporary winner that libraries and read-aloud parents will want to acquire.
The Boy Who Cried Wolf!Return to Index
Cemetery
Ridge
Barbara Eckholdt Johnstone
Proving Press
978-1-63337-925-1 $16.99
Paperback/$9.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Cemetery-Ridge-Barbara-Eckholdt-Johnstone/dp/1633379256
In Cemetery Ridge, twelve-year-old Lucy has already faced a big move from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania to the small town of Cemetery Ridge, Ohio. The process of settling into a new school would be difficult for anyone, but Lucy faces additional trauma and challenge when she becomes involved in a solving the puzzle of a young girl’s disappearance.
Facing the distain of classmates over her school’s new principal being her father, Lucy tries to tackle the mystery alone, but soon finds that she must overcome resistance and reluctance to make friends in order to achieve her goals.
Barbara Eckholdt Johnstone creates a spooky suspense mystery in Cemetery Ridge that juxtaposes some adult-sounding problems with a preteen’s consideration of her new life. She reinforces Lucy’s conundrums via a vivid, first-person reflective voice to bring young readers into the nuts and bolts of Lucy’s life:
I dawdle at my locker, checking my phone for messages from Caitlin or Kristine and trying to avoid the groups of kids leaving the building. But zip, zilch, nada. Not one message from either of them or anyone else for that matter. Doesn’t anyone back home miss me? Logan has made a smooth transition to this new school already, while I’m still fumbling, trying to . . . what? Fit in with the other kids? Find something I’m good at doing? Discover a new interest? My brain’s on overload.
As relationships begin to form with Beth, Tiara, and others, Lucy must make some difficult decisions about trust, friendship, and perseverance as her family settles into their new lives in unexpected ways.
Johnstone excels in growing a plot filled with satisfying twists and turns, clear motivations, and realistic emotional connections.
Libraries seeking leisure reads for preteens that simmer with intrigue and self-inspection will find Cemetery Ridge more than satisfies the bill for a story that operates on more than one level. It attracts with mystery while solving the bigger picture problems of finding one’s place in a new environment.
Filled with reflective and heart-stopping encounters, Cemetery Ridge is a story kids can learn from, enjoy, and grow from as themes of adoption and adaptation emerge from a small-town adventure.
Cemetery RidgeReturn to Index
The
Exquisite Feast
Jenelle Harden
Independently Published
979-8280934504 $18.99
Hardcover/$12.99
Paperback
https://www.amazon.com/Exquisite-Feast-Jenelle-Harden-LCSW/dp/B0F6M9JYRD
The Exquisite Feast reaches picture book readers with the gentle story of a Lake Michigan raccoon family whose mealtimes always seem frought with accusation and resistance from those who don’t appreciate their nighttime foraging.
Elise and her raccoon siblings hold very different attitudes about locating food. Elsie is more daring but is often too reckless; Ali plans for everything to the point that too often she’s afraid to take action; and Ren’s big ideas usually aren’t even part of the food focus.
How can such very different siblings achieve their goals of exquisite eating when they have basic trouble getting along?
A wise grandmother tells them a story that outlines possible paths for resolution.
Marie Del’s vivid, colorful drawings of the raccoon family add attention and interest to Jenelle Harden’s inviting tale of differences and adaptation.
Libraries and read-aloud parents seeking engaging stories about cooperative ventures and thinking will welcome The Exquisite Feast’s invitation to rethink patterns of engagement and relationships. These can translate to meaningful dialogues with young listeners.
Filled with perspectives about what unique qualities make every individual special and worthy of respect, The Exquisite Feast offers many thought-provoking moments in its charming story of getting along, building strengths, goal-setting, and more as Elise comes to realize the value of different approaches to life:
She splashed some cool water on her face. When she saw her reflection again, she felt love for herself for the first time. She thought about how she and her siblings were so different, but had unique qualities that made each of them special.
The Exquisite FeastReturn to Index
I’ll Be
With You
Wherever You Are
Michael Finn
Mascot Kids!/ Amplify
Publishing Group
979-8-89138-347-0 $19.95
Author Website: https://www.michaelfinnbooks.com/
Publisher
Website: https://mascotbooks.com/
I’ll Be With You Wherever You Are pairs lyrical reflection with lovely illustrations by Agus Prajogo and Yohanes Bastian. It opens with an evocative dialogue between father and son:
“Daddy, will you live forever?”
“I’ll be here as long as I can, my love.”
“But someday, you’ll leave me?”
This kicks off an important survey of promises between son and father to preserve their relationship even in the face of death:
Whatever you’re doing, I’ll always be near.
One truth this world holds is that everyone grows old.
There will be a day when it seems like I’m not around.
But all you have to do is look, and I’ll be found.
The two also swear to remain connected and pursue healthy, supportive goals in life, from eating well to having faith, trusting in what cannot be seen, and contemplating the possibility of other lifetimes (a notion which may stymie some read-aloud adults, while delighting others):
This time around is just the start.
I think it’s essential that you should know, we have so many more lifetimes to go.
Libraries and adults seeking explorations of life, death, faith, and connection can easily use I’ll Be With You Wherever You Are to address the concerns of youngsters who are just beginning to understand death and loss.
Filled with simple dialogue and insights accessible to all ages, I’ll Be With You Wherever You Are is a lovely exploration of everlasting connection that will comfort and educate while providing a story that embraces the reality of death and how a caring father prepares his son for the inevitable.
I’ll Be With You Wherever You AreReturn to Index
Leonie’s
Leap: A
Liberation
Journey
Marzia Pasini
Atmosphere Press
979-8-89132-622-4
$14.99 pb, $7.99 ebook,
$23.99 hc
www.atmospherepress.com
Leonie’s Leap: A Liberation Journey provides readers with the moving story of fifteen-year-old Hungarian orphan Leonie, who escapes from an orphanage to become a circus acrobat in an environment that builds family and new connections.
He strives for physical and mental flawlessness, comes to realize that such a pursuit is limiting and hopeless, and adopts a “stratagem for acceptance rather than a ridiculous fixation” that serves him well in his journey. He pursues truth and makes leaps of faith and love as his training as an acrobat propels him towards life realizations that ultimately transform his psyche and experience.
Marzia Pasini integrates spiritual and philosophical reflection with Leonie’s leaps, placing the access and interest of this novel both within and beyond YA audiences to reach well into adult reading circles. His approach creates a story that is packed with appeal and insight that its intended YA audience will find accessible, understandable, and compelling.
The depth and details about Leonie’s “wild aspirations” and “sweet hypotheticals” adds poetic description and metaphor to his journey, probing the foundations of achievement, disillusion, and self-realization.
Juxtaposing his story are reflective insights that reinforce its philosophical and spiritual growth components, creating a smoothly-flowing discourse of realization especially well suited for YA book club circles as well as adult reading groups:
Dearheart, I know trusting is harder than hoping. Yet, trust is the seed from which certainty grows. Now, certainty doesn’t dangle from the fragile thread of hope; it surpasses trust and conquers doubt. It’s this rock-solid belief in the invincibility of the human spirit that keeps you buoyant and truly alive. When you nurture a deep sense of certainty about who you truly are, your confidence becomes unshakable.
The result is a vivid story of leaping into the unknown for a better life and more thoughtful results that will especially appeal to libraries, YA literature classes, and readers seeking contemporary stories delivered with thought-provoking, inspirational reflection.
Leonie’s Leap isn’t just a saga of venturing into the unknown. It’s about embracing the rudiments of achievement and change in a manner that reflect into the world with revised approaches to life itself, making for a powerful consideration of choice, impact, and definitions of success.
Leonie’s Leap: A Liberation JourneyReturn to Index
Miracle
on the
Mountain: An
Appalachian Christmas
Gail Heath
Condor Publishing Inc.
978-1-931079-67-9 $14.95
Paperback/$24.95 Hardcover
www.condorpublishinginc.com
Miracle on the Mountain: An Appalachian Christmas receives lovely, full-page illustrations by Barabash Sviatoslav as it follows an elderly woman who experiences a different kind of Christmas Eve in the village.
Granny’s favorite time of year is Christmas. When she encounters a tired young woodcutter who doesn’t believe in miracles, she faces the daunting task of educating him about “unexpected happenin’s.” When the unforeseen occurs, both become involved in stories, fables, and warm encounters. The cold of winter pairs with better understanding of the holiday spirit to bring them closer, fostering spiritual reflection.
Miracle on the Mountain: An Appalachian Christmas’s warm picture book holds lessons from the experience of a terrible accident, a snowy mountain, and children who become lost in more ways than one.
Gail Heath’s warm, evocative holiday story embraces all kinds of themes, from survival and Christmas Eve miracles to the kinds of connections between strangers and family that evolve new opportunities for kindness and warmth.
Adults choosing Miracle on the Mountain An Appalachian Christmas as a read-aloud for cold winter nights during the holiday season will find it can engage the entire family (not just young picture book listeners) with its lovely, detailed story of fear, courage, belief, and overcoming adversity.
Libraries that pick Miracle on the Mountain An Appalachian Christmas for their holiday features will want to highly recommend this book for family engagement and to Christian readers interested in compelling stories of courage and engagement.
Embellished by Sviatoslav’s bright illustrations and Heath’s vision of hope in the possibility of a miraculous event,
Miracle on the Mountain An Appalachian Christmas radiates warmth and connection at a perfect time of year.
Miracle on the Mountain: An Appalachian ChristmasReturn to Index
Our
Amazing Minds
Jeffery and Laura May
Our Amazing Minds Publishing
9798998821189 $14.99
Paperback/$19.99
Hardcover
www.ouramazingminds.org
Picture book readers interested in stories filled with colorful illustrations and thought-provoking inspections will find Our Amazing Minds: Celebrating Differences and Sharing the Adventure of Autism appealing. It pairs colorful illustrations by Anastasiya Halionka with an inspection of autism as introduced by young Jackson.
He and his friends are autistic. But they enjoy the same activities as anyone—soccer, field trips, and fun. Autism is blended into this overall view of disparate kids learning from and engaging in life, making for a far more balanced story than is usual in a children’s book about autism.
Jeffery and Laura May emphasize an important perception from the start:
Everyone is different in their own way, and autism is just one of the many ways people can be different!
This sets the stage for better understanding on many levels as the autistic kids are introduced to young readers.
Read-aloud adults will find Our Amazing Minds uplifting, insightful, and the perfect choice for introducing the concept of not just autism, but differences, to the very young.
With its inspiring inspections of what makes the children happy and the kinds of life encounters that lead them to make different choices than some, Our Amazing Minds represents the intersection between “normal” and “special,” making autistic habits understandable in a way that young children can easily grasp.
This is why libraries and read-aloud adults will want to pick Our Amazing Minds over many others on the subject. Its sense of discovery, positivity, and understanding is unparalleled.
Our Amazing MindsReturn to Index
Simi’s
Favorite
Shoes
Lilly Anne Wolfson
Independently Published
ASIN: B0FDL21JXP $14.99
Paperback/$5.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Simis-Favorite-Shoes-Tale-Feet/dp/B0FDL21JXP
Simi's Favorite Shoes: A Tale of Two Feet offers adults a read-aloud rhyming picture book about a young girl enthusiastically dressing for another fun day. At the bottom of the stairs awaits a lineup of shoes that all eagerly wait to participate in the fun, too. There’s only one problem: she only has two feet!
Simi explores the positive nature of Crocs, sandals, running shoes, and winter boots—all of which have names and sport whimsical faces whether or not they have laces.
As Simi explores which shoes are best suited for each adventure, she celebrates their attributes and applications in a way the very young can appreciate and learn from.
Packed with colorful flights of the imagination, Simi's Favorite Shoes is an uplifting adventurous tale that adults will have just as much fun with as the youngsters they’re reading to.
Further value stems from the bonus interactive materials to be found at the end of the book. Added educational value is provided as young Simi confronts the dilemma of having to choose just the right shoe for her plans, with a special message about efforts supporting her realization that “You cannot guess everything right.”
However, you can correctly guess that Simi's Favorite Shoes will be wonderfully appealing.
Simi’s Favorite ShoesReturn to Index
A
Stone’s Throw
Wayne Edwards
Quantum Shift Publishing
978-955533-26-3 $21.95
Paperback/$9.99
eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Stones-Throw-heartwarming-grandfather-adversity/dp/1955533261
A Stone’s Throw, written in the era of the 1960s, gives young adults a novel experience as twelve-year-old Maggie Stone is taken in by her best friend’s family when her mother collapses. From there, she goes to an orphanage before the unexpected appearance of a grandfather she had never met, only to be swept from her familiar life in San Francisco and shuttled to his ranch in the wild and remote plains of eastern Montana..
Wayne Edwards tells Maggie’s story in the first person, which helps readers absorb her fast-changing world and its unexpected transformation:
First, my mom abandoned me by burying herself in an eight week spell. And then, just when I’m getting comfortable staying at my best friend Cho’s house, her parents shuttle me off to the worst place I’ve ever been—an orphanage!
And now? I’m lying in a smelly motel room next to a scary old grandpa who before now never even acknowledged my existence. And when he does finally make an appearance, he kidnaps me off to a middle-of-nowhere ranch a thousand miles away.
Convinced that her mother is in “a spell” that will dissipate so life can return to normal, Maggie writes letters to her mother and plans for a very different future than seems destined at this point. At the same time, she and Ira are forced to better understand each other and the impact of long-ago decisions and family ties as time moves on and ranch chores are supplemented by new understandings between them.
Edwards crafts the realistic story of a young girl faced with a possible lifetime change in her mother’s condition and ability to be present in her world. He excels in depicting two very different personalities and environments which pose challenging adaptation requirements to not just Maggie, but her grandfather Ira.
As she interacts with peers at school, faces a possible first romance, and navigates the emotional trauma of an absent mother who continues to fade a little at a time due to distance and health, Maggie’s world comes alive, immersing YA readers in a compelling story of change, connection, and growth.
Libraries and bookstores seeking novels about revised living situations which pose unexpected issues for everyone involved will find A Stone’s Throw a powerful tale of adaptive living. It presents a realistic, warm character in young Maggie while fostering insights into familial estrangement.
Filled with new experiences and discoveries, A Stone’s Throw is an engaging read that examines the outer limits of family connection and commitment, and will attract YA reading groups with its survey of a vastly revised life. While written primarily for a YA audience, this heartwarming story is very much an enjoyable story for adults of all ages.
A Stone’s ThrowReturn to Index