September 2026 Review Issue
Fantasy & Sci Fi
Literature
Mystery & Thrillers
Séance
and Saucer
Robert
Rife
Deep
Portal Publishing
979-8986280677
$19.99
Hardcover/$10.99 Paperback/$4.99
eBook
https://www.amazon.com/SEANCE-SAUCER-THING-SCIENCE-FICTION/dp/B0H2PV5YJB
Séance
and Saucer deftly
blends paranormal with science fiction in this tale of a couple
cursed with ghosts, and a UFO buried beneath their home.
Thinking
that spirits are their only
problem, they hire a medium. The plan backfires when the medium
vanishes during a séance, taking one of them along for an
unprecedented ride through hell.
Robert
Rife pairs wry humor with
elements of horror to create a powerfully atmospheric story replete
with an unusual form of haunting attraction:
In
spite of its dangers, Frankie
adored the Roaton House. It never failed to seduce him. The grand
sweeping staircase. The carved wood, leering faces on furniture. And
the stained-glass skylight dimly shedding gloom on cobwebs and dust.
Frankie’s infatuation can’t include what he doesn’t know. The
house also has rooms that shift. Rooms that hide. Rooms that aren’t
there… but are. In this place, memories seethed. Thoughts slithered
down endless halls. Monsters walked. And death was longed for by
those who could never leave. Frankie will find this out. Soon.
The
humor appears in circumstances
which simultaneously chill and delight, winding through both home and
buried starship. Even into places where there are worse fates than
death.
Horror
readers will delight in how all
the traditional trappings of a good ghost story work into themes of
alien influence and bad attitudes, while others who walk into the
unexpected comedic threads will appreciate what a fine web it weaves
among evolving events and a myriad of characters.
Librarians
seeking a creatively unique,
special recommendation that toes the line between sci-fi and horror
will find Séance and Saucer
hard to neatly peg,
easy to widely recommend, and of special interest to book clubs and
reading groups seeking uncommon stories that challenge traditional
genre approaches and limitations.
Return to Index
A Dance
of Birds
Angela
Blair
Sea Pony
Books
979-8-99-28261-5-9
$16.99
https://www.amazon.com/Dance-Birds-Poetry-Paper-Collage/dp/B0H6NP4QCM
A Dance of Birds: Poetry and Paper Collage is a gorgeous picture book exploration and celebration of birds. It will appeal to all ages with gorgeously colorful bird collages by illustrator Sherri Kay Linnemeyer and evocative comments by Angela Blair:
Soaring the skies, with power and grace.
Each flight a delight, a dance in space.
Adults reading aloud to children will appreciate the bird sounds embedded into the experience, which add a dimension of vocalization opportunities to the bird descriptions that come with chirps, honks, hoots, and coos.
Eagles, toucans, pigeons, seagulls, and robins all are featured as the poems explore their natural history, nesting, travels, and individual and group habits.
The result is one of the brightest, most appealing picture book coverages of birds on the market – a visual delight that does justice to Blair’s intention of capturing, in simple yet lively verse, all the qualities of birds that the very young can celebrate and easily enjoy.
Libraries typically see many bird books that can appeal to the very young, but A Dance of Birds: Poetry and Paper Collage is one of the best marriages of poetry and art on the market, and deserves not just acquisition, but prominent display.
A Dance of BirdsReturn to Index
The
Darkness My Father Brought Me
Cathy
Beck
Pen
Woman Press
978-1-950251-31-5
$2.99
www.nlapw.org
The Darkness My Father Brought Me: A Memoir of Silence, Betrayal, and Reclaiming Joy documents not just childhood trauma, but struggles with resulting disassociative identity disorder (DID).
Adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse are often left with emotional scars that affect their relationships and lives long after childhood. Cathy Beck’s opening confession, that she “has been suicidal” for as long as she can remember, is followed by not only the revelation that her father sexually abused her from age two until shortly before his death, but that she repressed many of these memories in an attempt to lead a normal, happy life.
The fractured personality which developed from this effort and her pursuit of a good life both supported and detracted from her perceptions. Eventually, the truths that emerged long into adulthood could no longer be repressed.
Part of what makes this memoir exceptional is Beck’s early acknowledgment of these inner personalities and voices and their impact good and bad, which results in a unique voice employed throughout:
...you will read my memoir and note that I refer to myself as “we,” “them,” and “us” throughout the book. I’ve done this my whole life and never knew why. Never questioned it. But I had Kids screaming Inside and didn’t know how to listen, or better, what to do even if I could have heard them. This is my story of “The Kids,” my “Inside” life, and the overwhelming struggle to accept them—as me.
Anyone who has embarked on a similar journey, or any individual who has supported such a personality, whether it be a spouse, counselor, or friend, needs The Darkness My Father Brought Me. More than most similar stories, it exposes the powerful process of self-denial, self-realization, and the impact of coming to grips with hidden truths.
Especially striking are passages which document moments of disassociation survival tactics:
She couldn’t make sense of what was being done to her, and with no way out, she just stopped. She took one deep breath and ceased to be. She was no more.
The story will prove powerful, evocative, and (for many who have undergone similar abuses) perhaps difficult to read. Beck’s raw, candid voice pulls no punches as she surveys the course of her life and the cost of survival.
Readers who persevere through her raw pain and realizations will be rewarded with many important insights into recovery, joy, and improved life that not just acknowledges new possibilities once the hard work is done, but embraces them.
Librarians seeking a powerfully poignant memoir of this entire process will find The Darkness My Father Brought Me an exceptional acquisition for collections appealing to psychology students, women who have survived their own childhood abuse, and readers interested in top-notch memoirs probing survival tactics.
Packed with insights equally suitable for book club and women’s group discussions, The Darkness My Father Brought Me is a potent discourse on what healing and management ultimately promise:
“The memories and everything that comes with them will always be there. When you begin to remember something from all the work you have done and continue to do, you will face it and get to the other side without it paralyzing you, or putting you in bed for days, or screaming at your children, or making you feel suicidal.”
The Darkness My Father Brought MeReturn to Index
Paper
Girls Burn
Pippa
Scott
Caitlin
Press Inc.
9781773861944
$19.00
www.caitlinpress.com
Paper Girls Burn: A Borderline Personality Disorder Memoir is a powerful account of what it feels like to grow up different, with well-meaning adults trying to tame the chaos of a borderline personality within rigid educational environments that only make things worse.
From age eleven, Pippa Scott knew her perceptions were different. Even her own mother wonders: “Why is everything always hard with you?”
From Pippa’s many fears (being alone, unnamed harm, monsters, and loss) to being a groupie, entering into relationships, and handling the terror and challenge of becoming a mother herself, Pippa chronicles the usual progression of life and the unusual circumstance of viewing and experiencing it from quite a different perspective than the norm.
As she embarks on an ongoing journey of self-acceptance, she is fueled by an unusual propensity for self-awareness that at times operates to her detriment even as it holds unusual possibilities:
I was often told that my self-awareness was a gift I should be grateful for. Was it a gift? I wasn’t so sure. I understood it helped me in some ways, but at many times it felt more like a curse. I was offered front row seats to the circus of my mind, able to track its constant acrobatic acts while remaining a puppet and slave to its own deviousness and whatever plan it wanted to enact for me. I did not want to be so acutely aware. At least give me the gift of ignorance.
How she develops a “tribe” that accepts her for who she is makes for a potent story of building connections and honing empathy and strength that will prove inspirational to others who are neurodivergent.
Librarians seeking a personal memoir that embraces the extent of being different, responding to life in novel ways, and accepting the strengths that emerge from these pathways will find Paper Girls Burn an intense, influential survey that examines family connections, self-awareness, and growth under a new light.
Book clubs and psychology reading groups interested in neurodivergent thinking, perception, and growth will find Paper Girls Burn especially enlightening.
Paper Girls BurnReturn to Index
Through
the Darkness
Charlie
Bynar
Independently
Published
ASIN:
B0HC894T4F
5.99
Paperback/$7.99 eBook
www.amazon.com
Through the Darkness: A Story of Love from the Other Side is the true story of author Charlie Bynar’s loss of her son Isaac in 2017. Extraordinary circumstances lead Bynar to reconnect with her son in an unusual manner, the subject of a story that contrasts Isaac’s world on the other side with her investigation of his death, which she suspects stems from medical negligence.
Through the Darkness explores different perspectives and contrasts in experience as it moves through spiritual awakening, grief, and investigative processes, contrasting these three approaches with Isaac’s voice as he speaks from the other side to guide his mother and others left behind.
This story stemmed from Bynar’s attempt to make sense of what happened. Happily, this expanded from a personal effort to publication, because Bynar’s experience within and outside of medical circles lends her both an insider’s perspective and the opportunity to reconcile her loss and experiences in a very different way.
Isaac not only communicates with her from the other side, but draws upon other generations for support to help Bynar through the process of investigation, grieving, and a new outlook on life and death.
The story moves between Isaac and Charlie’s worlds with a fluidity that bridges them, bringing each to life in a manner that enlightens readers about shifting purposes, perspectives, and approaches to communication and resolution:
Isaac explained to them everything he’d said to Ethel. “All of this is making Chris uneasy,” he said in summary, “which fills my mom with uncertainty. If not for that, I think she could overcome her doubt and listen to her heart. I think this because she wrote me a letter about the two messages and placed it on my bed.”
“It’s wonderful that you’ve gotten through to your mom,” Hazel said. “I’ve been worried sick about her, but I also understand why Chris feels apprehensive. . . . His connection to you isn’t the same as your connection with your mom. He’s only getting the messages secondhand, never directly, which is why he questions what your mom tells him. Perhaps the best way to deal with this situation is to get a message directly to Chris, so he understands from firsthand experience.”
As the souls in question mingle to weave new connections, Through the Darkness moves between both worlds in a manner that dovetails the evolving purposes and connections between each. Not just two, but a host of participants add to the unfolding investigative and emotional growth processes.
Charlie Bynar’s memoir of discovery encourages its readers to be open to the possibilities of other worlds, other stories, and other lives.
Readers
open to such potentials will
find Through the Darkness a hopeful, ultimately
uplifting
account of love that will appeal to those seeking true stories of
resolution and revitalized connections after death. The ultimate
result will appeal to anyone interested in afterlife encounters and
healing. Through the Darkness is especially
recommended for
psychic, spiritual, and book club circles for its intriguing journey
to resolution and peace:
“Things
were very difficult for a
long time, but we both came to know you were still with us . . . that
you had just gone ahead.”
Return to Index
Wonderland:
Memoir of a Black-Market
Adoption
Patricia
Knight Meyer
Unsolicited
Press
978-1-969421-96-9
$7.99 eBook,
$24.95 Softback
Ordering: https://link.amazon/B0hyR407L
Library
ordering:
https://asterismbooks.com/product/wonderland-memoir-of-a-black-market-adoption
Wonderland: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption is a story of trafficking in human lives, a black-market adoption that happened not overseas but in the streets of Texas, and its lasting impact on author Patricia Knight Meyer, who grew up wondering about her identity and the circumstances which led her to be brokered without paperwork or legal standing.
Her quest for answers and the truth about how and why her life held a black-market price tag not only reveals her own background and parents’ choices, but the circumstances surrounding black-market human trafficking in the United States.
Readers will learn the consequences of never being legally adopted, the secrets that involved not just her adopted parents but required her compliance as she grew older, the questions that permeated her upbringing and life, and the complexities of obtaining fragments of answers that resulted in piecing together the truth.
Even more important are insights that evolve about establishing legal identity and understanding choices that both save and wound simultaneously. These added to an adaptability and resilience that ultimately led Meyer to reconcile her past, her family, and her future.
As she exposes truths about the for-profit $30 billion adoption system that caught up her life in a storm of trauma, readers learn, through just one relinquishment story, about the shared psyches of adoptees and the survival methods they employ to navigate family, life, and shifting circumstances:
...while my mother bore the brunt of her mother’s needs, everywhere I turned, sick and dying people needed me. Although these obligations weighed heavy, like many adoptees I’d grow to feel worthy only when putting others’ needs before my own. So, I dug in to take care of my people, to save my saviors, to prove I was deserving.
Readers will also find eye-opening the statistics surrounding an underground adoption system they may have had little prior knowledge about, which Meyer outlines here:
Years later while falling down an adoption statistics rabbit hole, I finally understood my “luck.” In 1970 alone, an estimated 11,000 infants were sold rather than adopted. I was one of them. Out of the 175,000 babies put up for adoption that year, I and 10,999 of my unlucky peers had won the black-market baby lottery—bought by those who skirted the more reputable channels of the adoption system: impatient, unfit, ill-qualified, or all the above.
Wonderland: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption thus operates as more than a personal memoir of experience. It’s a close examination of flawed systems, their lasting impacts, and how trauma, memory, and experience create layers of complexity in a life that flows from childhood to adulthood.
Librarians acquiring Wonderland for their collections will want to highly recommend it for an exceptionally wide circle of readers, from those interested in memoirs of adoption to others involved in social services, therapy and counseling, family support, and the lifelong consequences of adoption.
Wonderland: Memoir of a Black-Market AdoptionReturn to Index
A Yankee
Airman and His Southern
Belle
Rita
Morrin
Swift
House Press
978-1-7337209-2-2
$23.95
Hardcover/$17.95 Paperback/$5.95
eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Yankee-Airman-his-Southern-Belle/dp/B0H34VCPB8
A Yankee Airman and His Southern Belle: A Memoir of Surviving Happiness and Heartache reads with all the drama and excitement of a novel, but provides a true-life memoir that opens with a too-early phone call Rita Morrin hoped would never happen.
Her husband, Staff Sergeant Kenneth Morrin, was involved in a life-threatening accident and despite being part of a family of five, Rita is alone.
With the love of her life clinging to the land of the living by a thread, Rita prays for his life and knows she and her beloved Yankee Airman will have to wait a little longer, holding their secret firmly, until it can be revealed.
From the memoir’s opening lines, readers receive an engrossing survey of their love, faith, and the circumstances which have brought them to Alaska, far from family.
As she reviews their whirlwind courtship that joined North and South cultures and families, the circumstances which culminated in their current Alaskan residence, and Ken’s military deployments which both challenged and enriched their lives in unexpected ways, readers become immersed in a spiritual and psychological journey of connection and revelation.
The threads of faith and love spun from the story’s opening lines continue to evolve a passionate tale of new homes, family secrets and challenges, medical challenges revolving around not only Ken but others, and her determination to continue to involve her husband in all aspects of family life despite his years-long coma.
Rita’s admonitions to herself are also revealing of the process of courage, coping, and connection:
Rita to Rita: Yes, how are we doing? How are we going to make it through? More important is the question, are we going to make it through? Damn! Where did that come from?
Librarians interested in memoirs that embed religious with personal life inspection and a love relationship that continues past life-changing trauma will find A Yankee Airman and His Southern Belle unexpectedly uplifting for all its trials and emotional events.
Packed with affection, insights on coping and caring, and family ties that come together in different ways, A Yankee Airman and His Southern Belle is flavored with the passion of connection and faith that offers readers inspiration and attraction, and will reach a wide audience with its message of love.
A Yankee Airman and His Southern BelleReturn to Index
Everything
vs Max Creed
Matt Cost
Level
Best Books
979-8-89820-247-7
$17.95
Paperback/$6.99 eBook
www.levelbestbooks.us
Everything vs Max Creed is a techno-thriller that does justice to the genre, presenting protagonist Max as a modern-day Robin Hood figure intent on leveling the playing field between rich and poor.
The story opens with young Piper Durand’s life and body being depicted on the website site EveryThing, which destroys her world. Her secret computer boyfriend has convinced her to expose herself, and now her future is toast. She could just die.
The second chapter segues to Max Creed, who is on a mission with Scarlett to target the next incarnation of the Proud Boys, The Fifth Degree, whose rite of passage is to kill an immigrant.
Max was a PI in Maine who built an impressive practice before his efforts to build a case against a crooked billionaire resulted in the death of his bride, leading him into a vendetta that changed his life and career.
His new incarnation falls somewhere between the law and vigilante effort as Max pursues a special brand of violent justice and confronts Alfred Prince, who is intent on bringing down established law to become the world’s new ruler.
This second book in The Modern-Day Chronicles of Max Creed is delivered on fire from the start, creating memorable characters who need no prior introduction in order to prove thoroughly compelling to newcomers.
As they pursue Gary Parker, who posted the video of Piper, and focus on EveryThing’s potential for disaster, chases, revelations, and clashes create a sizzling thriller nearly impossible to put down.
Cultural references from Frankenstein to the Robin Hood, Men in Tights movie augment investigative prowess as the characters consider the moral and ethical fiber of their actions, their perceived enemies, and the ironies of political office and immigrant threats:
“I can’t quite wrap my head around why a Puerto Rican woman who married a Cuban and had children together would be so opposed to an immigrant.”
From cults and their version of truth to Prince’s rising power, the dilemmas and challenges come from all sides as Max struggles with the powerful lure of EveryThing and Prince’s realistic-sounding messages to modern America:
“Hello, people of America. The country that you know has been lost. It has been given to foreigners who wouldn’t know the first thing about being an American. The government has let you down. The police are overwhelmed. The president is hiding out. The National Guard is on strike. On strike. Fires rage. Violence darkens every doorstep. Grandmothers are being beaten, raped, and killed for the nickels in their pocketbooks. It is time to reclaim America. It is time to clean up our own mess. And I am here to do just that.”
Librarians
and readers choosing
Everything vs Max Creed will find that a great part
of its
allure comes from its realistic scenarios, rooted in modern times and
issues.
Steeped
in powerful reflections on
killers who come in all forms, Everything vs Max Creed is a riveting
examination of social propriety, political control, and murderous
intentions and consequences that will immerse anyone looking for a
thriller whose characters and moral dilemmas are as lively as their
choices.
Return to Index
Getting
It Right: A Psychological
Thriller
Karen E.
Osborne
Black
Rose Writing
978-1-68513-803-5
$20.95
Paperback/$6.95 eBook
www.KarenEOsborne.com
If Getting It Right sounds familiar to some, that’s because the original book of the same title appeared in 2017. The story has been rewritten and revamped. While it still bears a connection to the original, there are new characters, intrigue, and a conclusion vastly changing the plot’s trajectory.
Psychological thriller readers will relish this story of two half-sisters from its particularly inviting opening line:
Jim Smyth died young, but not soon enough.
At age thirty, Kara well recalls her foster father’s abuse and is grateful he can’t hurt any more children, but his impact continues to resonate when she meets her half-sister Alex Lawrence for the first time, as an adult, and faces someone who is stalking her.
Each sister confronts abandonment, abuse, and struggles in their own lives that also add a sense of control, compassion, and kindness into their world. Each struggles with dysfunctional romances, choices that reflect patterns of abuse and survival, along with the knowledge that a sister is in the world whose presence may change everything.
As Kara faces Zach’s smooth lies, the trauma of childhood memories which overlay any pleasure in sex, and a looming FBI deadline, her sister struggles equally heavily with family ties and confronting her father and fears.
Karen E. Osborne juxtaposes chapters that shift perspectives, clearly labeling and following Kara and Alex’s different reactions and decisions. She creates pathways of realization and complexity that test family, ethical values, and mandates for making changes in each woman’s future.
These neatly dovetail intrigue with psychological revelations to make each character realistic, accessible, and thoroughly compelling, as is the sisterly relationship between them that originates from their conjoined and different experiences.
The result is a thriller replete with suspense, growth, and relationship impacts that will especially engage book club and reading group members with intriguing questions about blood ties and shared experiences that create divergent pathways in adulthood.
Librarians that choose Getting It Right: A Psychological Thriller for their collections will want to highly recommend it to patrons seeking more than a novel of intrigue or surviving childhood abuse. Its threads of insight about connection, control, and chaos create important subplots packed with twists readers won’t see coming, offering delightfully absorbing moments in a quest to find family that turns into something amazingly different.
Getting It Right: A Psychological ThrillerReturn to Index
The
Regulars of Amanda Lexie
J.J.
Hanna
Torchflame
Books
978-1-61153-739-0
$16.99
Paperback/$8.99 eBook
www.torchflamebooks.com
The Regulars of Amanda Lexie is a cozy thriller that involves two women, FBI agent Lucielle and Cyber Crimes Analyst Olivia, in a probe of digital robberies. It stems from an unusual effort on author J.J. Hanna’s part - to provide a story-a-day serialization where a standalone story is linked into a bigger picture.
The effort resulted in this book, which revolves around the premise that strangers in a coffee drive-through line can become linked in unusual ways.
Part One, “Welcome to Morning Brew Coffee,” sets the stage with the first-person narration of Lucille, who pulls through the drive-through of the Morning Brew coffee shop as she does daily. The coffee shop is the last place she’d expect to find the gang she’s currently looking for, which is involved in cyber robberies.
Chapters evolve more drive-through coffee characters in Adam, who maintains his cover while leading a double life that is tiring him out and is in a situation way over his head; Olivia, a hot cocoa fanatic who is on her way to running point on the biggest cybercrime investigation of the year; and George, whose special talent involves coordinating and connecting criminals across the nation.
As these regulars of Amanda’s coffee clientele plot and plan, their lives dovetail in unusual ways as their daily coffee shop visits become lessons in adaptation, intention, and discovery that are delivered laced with espresso and action.
Readers will welcome the warmth and cozy feel as the threads of these connections become tightly woven and unexpectedly complex. Clearly labeled chapters move between characters and their disparate intentions and lives with an eye to revealing not just their motivations and plans, but the separate communities they have built around their lives and choices.
Especially notable is the warm brew of discovery which trails enticing aromas through these lives as they intersect, with Amanda’s Morning Brew Coffee Shop forming the hub of their daily activities as Amanda, too, becomes drawn into their lives:
“You may be a barista, but you’re a barista under government protection.”
Hanna’s ability to create a series of interconnected lives that each stand nicely alone in well-developed patterns of engagement and intention lends to a thriller that is more personality-driven than most, and thus more emotionally engaging than many genre reads.
This is why librarians and readers will want to place The Regulars of Amanda Lexie at the top of their reading lists. Replete with action and unexpected twists and fueled by coffee and the linked connections of a disparate group of robbers and investigators, The Regulars of Amanda Lexie is a warm story of heated exchanges and suspense which will make the apparent normalcy of a drive-through coffee shop feel a little more unusual.
The Regulars of Amanda LexieReturn to Index
Rhino
Horn Underground
Deven
Greene
Panthera
Publishing
978-1964620107
$16.49
Paperback/$5.99 eBook/$16.99
Audiobook
https://www.amazon.com/Rhino-Horn-Underground-Deven-Greene-ebook/dp/B0GWSGKDPT
With the hot sun blazing above, I strain my eyes as hard as I can to look downward, but the blade pressed against my throat remains out of sight. My pulse is racing, and my breathing is so fast I can only gasp. Is that a trickle of blood I sense slowly making its way down my neck, or is it my imagination?
Rhino Horn Underground is a thriller that opens with a bang, revealing that the first-person narrator is about to die. What is San Francisco journalist Paige Remington doing in South Africa, facing death? She’s seeking to create a ground-breaking article about rhino poaching to revitalize her career. Instead, her investigations land her in the center of controversy and ongoing danger as she survives one scrap, only to fall into another.
Far from her husband and home, Paige falls into an association with FBI agent Spencer, who seems to hold many insights, much experience, and answers - but exhibits mercurial moral and ethical values and secrets which slowly prove that Paige is still very much endangered by forces beyond her ken.
As Spencer teaches her how to shoot a gun, takes her around to insider locales, and trains her in different ways, Paige discovers her initial ambitions slowly changing in the face of the realities operating behind the scenes of rhino poaching circles.
Suddenly, her quest is not just for the survival of her career, but the changes she faces in confronting the realities of rhino poaching and the definition of good and bad guys operating undercover and above-board. And, which is she going to side with?
Deven Greene creates an absolutely gripping saga of rhino poaching, African politics and social strata, a female reporter’s mandate to effect change both within herself and in the outside world, and the costs of stretching the truth.
As Paige faces a rocky marriage far from her present reality, perhaps-predictable romantic connections enter the bigger picture to further complicate her trajectory. Greene does a masterful job of capturing unfolding secrets through Paige’s eyes:
“Unfortunately, my backer says he’s running out of money,” Spencer says.
“You believe that? What does that even mean? He can’t buy a new yacht or take a trip into space on Blue Origin? This is an important cause. You’ve never had a problem with letting others know what you want, as far as I can tell. Now’s the time to be more insistent.”
Spencer looks at me like he’s trying to decide whether or not to tell me something.
“What is it?” I ask. “You have another secret?”
The result is a series of twists and turns that will leave readers guessing about Paige’s ultimate choices and future, Spencer’s teetering role on the sides of good and bad guys and choices, and the politics and influences of rhino survival.
Libraries seeking a thriller to add to their collections that will appeal to a wide audience of readers interested in powerful female protagonists and situations that test their mettle will find Rhino Horn Underground a gripping story that proves easy to recommend and hard to put down.
Rhino Horn UndergroundReturn to Index
The
Valhalla Project
Lawrence Terhaar
Hat City Publishing
97988997092801 $17.95
www.larryterhaar.com
The Valhalla Project opens with nineteen-year-old David Jacobs embarking on his usual evening hike with his Miniature Australian Shepherd. After feeding the squirrels and birds on a nearby golf course, life irrevocably changes on the path home when his dog sniffs out a dead body in the woods.
It quickly emerges that David is a little different, so police questions about his discovery need to be tempered to accept his limitations and perceptions. This facet drives an unusual blend of murder mystery, investigation, and autism insights as David and his dog Scout become involved in life on a level that challenges their abilities and perceptions.
Larry Terhaar builds a riveting story based on an unusual young man and characters that emerge with special interests in Valhalla, New York. From Fortune 500 mogul Richard Halverson and his all-consuming focus on a proposed data center, to the first-person contrast with P.I. Dan Burnett, whose sleuthing involves a nose for trouble, Terhaar dovetails the very different objectives, perceptions, and lives of a number of characters. These special abilities coalesce in a whirlwind of intrigue that brings the nineteen-year-old autistic boy into court as a defendant.
Hasty plea deals, corrupt politicians, courtroom proceedings, and the underground records and motivations of Halverson's influence on the murder investigation make for a story that will appeal widely to murder mystery readers and fans of P.I. investigative stories. Others will also appreciate the special injection of autism’s habits and abilities into the bigger picture of murder and behind-the-scenes intrigue.
Terhaar builds a thoroughly engrossing, unpredictable story based on the entwining complexities of individual, business, and judicial proceedings, creating a powerfully moving, riveting series of life-changing encounters that affect each character in different ways.
As he moves from a family setting to broader milieus, Terhaar adds just the right touch of personal, social, and investigative intrigue to keep readers engaged in the lives of David, Dan, and a flawed judicial system whose failings can only be corrected by dedicated, savvy participants.
Librarians will especially appreciate how the typical murder mystery sends ripples of change and concern throughout the community and the lives of a boy challenged as much by everyday life and social norms as by an extraordinary series of events that reach out to take over his life.
Filled
with action, excitement,
and developments tempered by better understanding of the autistic
spirit and how an investigator connects the dots to reveal an
extraordinary truth,
The
Valhalla Project provides
just the ticket for an engaging, thought-provoking story of following
the law and diverting from typical avenues of understanding.
Return to Index
A 1960s
Childhood: Days We Thought
Would Last Forever
Diane
Green
Independently
Published
979-8258478603
$11.99 Paperback
https://www.amazon.com/1960s-Childhood-Thought-Would-Forever/dp/B0GY892RYF
A 1960s Childhood: Days We Thought Would Last Forever captures the experiences, atmosphere, hopes and dreams, and culture of yesteryear, bring alive the 1960s for readers who either were raised in those years or wish they were.
The fictional stories follow the youth and adventures of Becky Chalmers and her friends during the 1960s as they grow up and experience life, capturing the attitudes, humor, and cultural moments of the times.
Becky’s adventures range from using refrigerator boxes as crime scene fantasies and listening to the new group The Beatles to handling (and displaying) her temperamental nature and becoming interested in boys.
Teens and adults will appreciate these realistic coming-of-age concerns, the flawed but well-meaning, likeable character that is Becky, and the myriad of friendships that emerge from school, neighborhoods, Brownies, and other childhood experiences of the 1960s.
Green captures the diversity, excitement, and extent of these relationships in novel ways, inspired by her own childhood memories, making them not just accessible, but attractive and understandable to future generations who may hold some of the some interests (boys, friendships), but in different times.
Librarians that recommend A 1960s Childhood: Days We Thought Would Last Forever to YA readers to adult audiences will also find that it can spark vivid book club discussions about coming-of-age similarities and differences in changing times.
A 1960s Childhood: Days We Thought Would Last ForeverReturn to Index
Ancilla:
Master, Teach Me
Sera
Maddox Drake
Independently
Published
979-8889408604
paperback $26.99/paperback/$2.99 ebook
Website:
https://seramaddoxdrake.com
Ordering:
https://1link.st/seramaddoxdrake
Ancilla: Master, Teach Me is a novel of mysticism and discovery that revolves around new beginnings, sexual exploration and romance, and the BDSM community. Erotic symbolism combines with explicit description, probing rituals and the process of domination and release within academic circles to create a genre-busting novel that is nearly impossible to neatly peg.
The heart of the story seems to lie in sexual and soul-mate boundary-pushing, but Ancilla and her “master” Magister’s relationship is far more complex than readers might initially anticipate.
The slow burn of passion combines with the supercharged world of academia and learning, imbibing each with a magical overlay of possibility driven by sometimes-dangerous physical and mental explorations via characters whose intentions and perceptions shine.
Many threads in this book explore topics not normally seen in either erotica or literary circles. These include starvation that is part economically triggered food insecurity, part the likely result of the protagonist's refusal to ask for help; breath control (which can, in reality, prove deadly, as is pointed out in the front-end content advisories); chronic pain, a bisexual protagonist who confronts homophobia, and all manner of social, psychological, and physical deprivation and challenge.
Ancilla: Master, Teach Me is neither an easy nor a light read, but a vivid first-person account of a BDSM relationship’s evolution which brings readers right into the bedroom and heart of a submissive participant with graphic descriptions and metaphorical acknowledgment:
I am steel, being heated in the flame and hammered on the anvil. I will be strong.
From learning to cook from a mentor whose teaching style at times reminds her of Mr. Miyagi, and absorbing kitchen dynamics which, like lessons in sex, translate into other arenas, to entering Ancilla’s realm of willingness to be reformed and reinvented by another (“This must be what it feels like to be sculptor’s clay.”), the back-and-forths of passion, pain, ecstasy and discovery weave into a portrait set in 1990s Ohio as the edges between identity and absorption blur.
Readers interested in BDSM experiences, sexually graphic stories of exploration and discovery, and insights into this community and its perceptions will find Ancilla: Master, Teach Me not just boundary-pushing, but revealing.
As hard as it may be to neatly categorize, Ancilla: Master, Teach Me is also a haunting journey through morality, sexuality, love, and different forms of teaching and learning. It brings to mind the classic The Story of O – but on emotional steroids of revelation that embrace also foreshadowing and magical realism.
Ancilla: Master, Teach MeReturn to Index
Behind
the Setlist: Confessions of a
Non-Groupie
Julie
Gidlow
Precocity
Press
978-1972561102
$15.95
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HBZKD77W
Behind the Setlist: Confessions of a Non-Groupie is inspired by real events, but presented as a fictional story. It follows the career of music-loving Mia Browne, a journalist who has covered the music industry for decades and thus harbors behind-the-scenes stories and vivid memories.
Though she’s encountered many stars, she’s never aspired to be a groupie for anyone – until one personality reaches out to her in an unexpected manner, building a relationship that challenges Mia on many levels. Her professional career and personal life clash and change, as a result.
Mia’s latest encounters seem to draw her into the music world on a level beyond that of an observer, making her a music participant. From discussions of career threats from AI’s rise to the consequences of poor choices, Mia’s myriad challenges create appealing, understandable situations that are realistic, and which many women will relate to:
Simply put, she wanted a rock star to find her interesting. Now that it seemed he’d lost that interest, she was angry—at herself for dragging out a situation she knew was doomed, and at him for failing to be the upstanding man she’d believed him to be. But all he’d done was be himself. The painful part was that his real self didn’t align with the version she’d constructed of him. That bruised her ego most of all.
Mia hated being wrong.
Women’s groups and book clubs will find intriguing the opportunity to tackle different kinds of relationship issues between men and women as Mia’s journey embraces not just her current situation, but past choices.
As she considers her endgame and reasons for some of her decisions, Mia embarks on a physical and mental journey that holds portents for both success and failure.
Libraries that add Behind the Setlist: Confessions of a Non-Groupie to their fiction collections will want to highly recommend the novel to women interested in stories of relationship evolution and personal growth.
More than a backstage romance, Behind the Setlist: Confessions of a Non-Groupie captures the emotional landscape of Generation X women who grew up with alternative rock as the soundtrack of their lives. Julie Gidlow blends authentic behind-the-scenes music industry details with humor, nostalgia, and emotional insight to explore what happens when celebrity fantasy collides with reality—and when a woman discovers that the most important relationship isn't with a rock star, but with herself.
Behind the Setlist: Confessions of a Non-GroupieReturn to Index
Big
Store Window
Tyler
Marioni
DartFrog
Books, LLC
978-1-965253-94-6
$4.99 eBook
www.DartFrogBooks.com
Big Store Window is a novel that opens with narrator Cole Anthony Edwards’s receipt of a television ad bragging the high-tech opportunities of P.T. Global Innovation’s Window, a creation that uses spectacle to promise customers better control over their destiny. While he readily admits skepticism (“Patrick Turner always shocked me, but this time he sells a new level of insanity.”), he’s also intrigued enough to want to know more. And so he falls into the promise and clutches of a TV apparition whose latest creation rivals any of the possibilities Edwards experienced while briefly working for Turner in the past.
The Window project holds the signature hallmarks of Turner’s proclivity for loopholes and big dreams. It lures Edwards with these dreams - but the man is too savvy to fall for such bait easily:
I do not fear this organization in a general sense; I fear its stranglehold on the world.
As he works to convince others that the Window and its treatments are a disaster rather than a blessing, readers become absorbed in the ways in which technology and human ambition intersect, the results of enhancement efforts gone awry, and the efforts of an ordinary Joe to battle its promise:
Using a faulty key, Turner’s company tried to pick the lock of human life. Realizing their key didn’t fit the lock’s grooves, they angrily broke it off inside and left shards of shrapnel behind, leaving us in this current worldwide disaster.
The challenge lies in convincing the rest of the world.
Librarians and readers seeking a futuristic, compelling story of transformation, struggle, and possible evil forces will find Big Store Window frighteningly realistic and thoroughly compelling.
Tyler Marioni crafts the story in the form of a memoir, which adds a sense of immediacy and personality into the evolving dilemma. This choice makes it easy for readers to become immersed in Edwards’s perceptions about the true definition of worth.
Big Store WindowReturn to Index
The
Blood of the Land
Lewis K.
Schrager
LFEA
Press
979-89927199-2-5 $17.99
Ordering:
TBA
The Blood of the Land is a novel of social and political unrest, medical crisis, and personal pursuits of justice and answers that blends elements of suspense with social inspection.
When her boyfriend Eric Anderson dies during 9/11, physician Marina Kahinu returns home to her native Madagascar to research a cure for an outbreak of deadly plague threatening her isolated village in the Malagasy highlands. It doesn’t help matters that her father has political ties to the country’s president, and forces that work against him buffet her own efforts to employ medicine to find answers.
From the novel’s opening lines, Madagascar’s conundrums and atmosphere spring to life:
Marina Kahinu stood on the front porch of the clinic building, the concrete floor cool under her bare feet. She stared past the river and off into the hills and the mountains beyond. The sight of their bareness, of the deep lavaka scarring their sides, brought a heaviness to her heart. Plumes of blue smoke rose cold and alone from the floor of a distant valley, kiln fires burning the few trees remaining from the great forests, turning the precious wood to charcoal, to be carted off for sale in far-off Antananarivo. Is there no end to their folly? she wondered, closing her eyes against the sadness spreading inside her.
Marina’s immersion in her nation’s medical dilemmas neatly mask some of her grief, redirecting it to help her feel empowered in situations that, in reality, strip her of any semblance of control:
Let there be plague. Let them come to me and I will cure them. Let it be so that there is no doctor in the entire American study who treats more plague patients. Above all, let me be busy, too busy to think of anything, or anyone.
As she begins to understand the impact of her father’s choices and leadership in a deeper manner, assuming the mantle of saving others herself, Marina confronts biological impossibilities, disease resistance, cultural hypocrisies, and many unanswerable questions.
Death and suffering run red as a river as Marina faces difficult political and personal truths and the ultimate impact of her efforts and the choices of Eric, her father, and everyone around her.
Lewis K. Schrager crafts powerful connections between individuals and the political forces that give them either hope or despair. He builds a plot centered on lifesaving efforts, impossible conditions, and the quest for forgiveness and understanding that augments moments of complete despair:
“Why even bother?” she said, her words disappearing into the gray cloud that seemed to have swallowed the village. “Why the hell even bother?”
The result is a gripping survey of medical, social, political, and personal intersections which places a medical team in the midst of an impossible situation that they are tasked with remedying at all costs.
Libraries and readers seeking novels with social messages, the intrigue of a thriller, the solid characterization of a strong literary creation, and the allure of a woman who seeks to reinvent her life after violence will find The Blood of the Land easy to read and recommend and nearly impossible to put down.
The Blood of the LandReturn to Index
The Boy
Next Door
Dan
Helpingstine
Atmosphere
Press
979-8-90174-317-1
$17.99
pb, $29.99 hc, $8.99 ebook
www.atmospherepress.com
What sparks the narrator of The Boy Next Door to become the idea behind and impetus for a controversial, banned book that shakes his community? Seventeen-year-old Don Hathaway is struggling with the grief of suddenly losing his firefighter father, the challenges posed by an English teacher in his senior year of high school, and, years later, the impact of her publishing a novel based on him which becomes the pivot point of a book-banning movement years later.
Alice is the older woman in Don’s life. His sadness at the time of their encounter leads to something more than educational pursuits. Their shared sense of isolation creates a connection that evolves into something uncommon and socially unacceptable, leading to Alice being fired from her job.
But the situation doesn’t end there. Don’s attempts to forget about Alice come to naught as he faces his past, grief, and breakthroughs with Dr. Brown, navigates a girlfriend, and grows older while trying to reconcile his past influences:
Even from this short sample, I thought Alice’s book had a great deal of value. I remembered how, even at seventeen, I hadn’t understood many things that had happened. I hadn’t understood why my father died, and I had tried to understand how I felt about Alice. Her storytelling almost had me in tears. I had wanted to be a hero but had known I wasn’t.
It doesn’t help that Alice has inadvertently exposed him to their community and raised a viper’s nest of questions.
As he probes his love for his father and Alice, Don confronts a host of internal and external influences in his life:
How I had missed her. How I had loved her. If Mary Ann Moore was going on the attack, I would defend Alice. I owed her that and more. I so badly wanted to write this story that I was sure was unfolding. It was Alice’s story. It was my story.
The emotional nature of Don’s journey will prove attractive and surprising to readers used to male protagonists remaining somewhat emotionally distant in their self-analyses. It’s one of the main attractions of The Boy Next Door as it blossoms in many different ways, from Don’s maturity process and ability to examine his emotional ties to community condemnation and involvements.
Libraries and readers interested in stories that unfold with passionate observation, compelling insights, and the give-and-take relationship evolution between different age groups will find The Boy Next Door just the ticket for vivid book club discussions about love, trans-generational relationships, small towns, and big emotions.
The Boy Next DoorReturn to Index
Canine
Custody
Gary
Goldstein
Koehlerbooks
979-8-89747-282-6
$30.95
Hardcover/$19.95 Paperback
https://www.amazon.com/Canine-Custody-Gary-Goldstein/dp/B0H3QL5VCZ
In Canine Custody, Los Angeles couple Layla and Franklin Bishop struggle and are finally facing divorce. So far, so normal. But the custody battle that evolves over Betty the dog turns a simple divorce into a messy proceeding that adds both humor and rocky rides to the separation process.
Gary Goldstein’s wry wit is evident from the opening lines of the first chapter, which embrace spaniel Betty’s point of view as she considers the puzzles of her two beloved humans and their conflicts.
Chapters move between Betty, dog father Franklin, and mother Layla as they consider their shifting relationships, muse about the future, and adapt to circumstances beyond their control. Betty holds many dog-centric focuses on these changes, adding a satisfying dimension of animal understanding to the story:
I’ll tell you a secret: When I’m sure Layla is sound asleep, I quietly jump off the bed, creep out of the room, and cross to the office. Then I jump onto the couch, curl up, and rest for a while in honor of my time in there with Franklin. I know it sounds weird, and I probably won’t keep doing it, but for now it feels right. Oh, and I always get back into bed with Layla before she can realize that I’m gone. At least I think I do; she hasn’t said anything to me yet.
From exercises in compromise and the peace talks exacted by the couple’s mutual love for their canine, to shifts in how the couple lives with and without one another, changes communications, and responds to the help of a divorce mediator, Canine Custody places the specter of a relationship’s dissolution squarely in the arena of a beloved pet’s perspective. This fuels the impact of emotional fluctuations on an entire household. The juxtaposition of these very different experiences and perceptions under the same roof makes for both fun and enlightening moments as the story unfolds.
How can they reboot a relationship and marriage when it seems dead?
Goldstein’s exploration of love, separation, and the possibilities that lie between makes for a thoroughly engrossing story that is delightful and unexpectedly light-hearted, given its very serious subject.
Readers used to wrenching stories of relationship battles will be pleased to find the serious changes tempered by whimsy and pet interactions and viewpoints, setting Canine Custody apart from most.
Librarians seeking novels rich in animal magic and influence, as well as relationship pivot points, will find Canine Custody will appeal to readers who like their stories uplifting and fun as well as thought-provoking.
Canine CustodyReturn to Index
The
Condition
Stephen
R. Brown
Independently
Published
979-8657502282
$13.46
Hardcover/$7.85 Paperback
https://www.amazon.com/Condition-STEPHEN-R-BROWN/dp/B0GCJ58ZQC
The Condition is a hard-hitting novel combining satirical reflection, psychological and social insights, and wry observation. It creates layers of inspection perfect for literary audiences interested in the intersection of personal, social, and ethical analysis.
The story opens with gritty first-person narrator Reno Smith, who regrets that he’s messed up his life and made bad choices:
That old man is not even my real father. But he’s done everything for me, more than anyone else ever did, I guess. Certainly, more than my real morn and dad ever did. But I guess I wasn’t thinking much about him that night, else I wouldn’t have been out fucking shit up. Who knows why I did it, any of it? Maybe just because I could, because I had the chance.
As a frat fight leaders to killing and the narrator faces an off-the-records rehabilitation center called K.I.C.K., readers venture into a world where paradigms collide, realities shift, and sociopaths abound.
Reno has guns and believes some people deserve to die. His friend Aaron is set to kill him – but, with cat-like reflexes, Reno survives to see another day, setting in motion a chain of events that challenge his survival tactics.
Reno isn’t the only focus of this story. The tale moves between Reno and narrator Lively, who enters midway to tell the tale in her own words, providing a satisfying contrast in perspective and experience to Reno’s rough-and-tumble worldview.
Lively has chosen a very different path for redemption, embracing her deep Christian faith and mission as she faces authority and repression in a very different way. Her love for Reno carries her far from her own suffering even as she embraces different facets of identity and moral thinking from her lover.
The contrast between these two and their very different experiences in the world make The Condition an exceptionally thought-provoking inspection of authority, control, redemption, and survival tactics. This invites a wide audience of readers to consider the roots of faith, choice, and impact.
Librarians seeking a literary novel packed with insights that book clubs and reading groups will find a lively vehicle for sparking vivid debates will want to highly recommend The Condition. It will reach patrons and readers who look for stories that analyze and break down the possible avenues of and motivations for future social and psychological change.
The ConditionReturn to Index
The
Enchanted Christmas Shed
Diane
Green
Independently
Published
979-8257925153
$11.99 Paperback
https://www.amazon.com/Enchanted-Christmas-Shed-Where-Leaves/dp/B0GXRS4Z9N
The Enchanted Christmas Shed is a warm, feel-good holiday story the entire family can enjoy. It centers on an old red shed, a lonely old woman, and a different form of Christmas spirit that arises from unexpected friendship and new connections.
“Gramma’s Story” and “Brian’s Story” capture this holiday spirit with intergenerational experiences that each embrace the enchantment and possibilities of the season.
Gramma opens the tale in the first person as she reveals her faith, family, and friendships, as well as the old shed where she writes stories and prays.
When stranger Jenny enters her lonely life, she brings Gramma the attractive task of building a Christmas village in her shed, using miniature Christmas houses to augment her storytelling. As son Charley becomes involved in their shared endeavor, her closed-in world begins to lighten, open up, and becomes a little less lonely as the little village comes to life.
Diane Green crafts an appealing, believable story as the holiday effort reveals newfound opportunities and connections and the unexpected - even in old age - as things shift and long forgotten memories arise.
This story neatly segues into grandson Brian’s story, setting the stage of introduction with his antics at a young age as he witnesses an impossible vision from another world and is handed the keys to an enchanted Christmas shed.
As an adult, Brian Knight and his wife Simone are hard-working, traditional family folk who worry about his ability to maintain the home that was his grandmother’s beloved abode.
Times are tough. While Brian battles demons in his dreams, warm memories still reside in his grandmother’s magical shed. It will take a miracle to bring them out – and to solve the wave of troubles that threatens everything the family has built.
Green’s creation of an interlocking intergenerational story of magic and warmth is the perfect cup of hot chocolate for the holiday season, recommended for family sharing in front of a hot fire.
Librarians seeking stories of new possibilities, revitalization, and the Christmas spirit in family relationships and endeavors will want to make The Enchanted Christmas Shed part of their holiday collections, highly recommendable to patrons seeking a tale infused with faith and uplifting hope.
The Enchanted Christmas ShedReturn to Index
The
Family Speaks
Kirk
Ward Robinson
HighlandHome
Publishing
979-8-9886815-4-0
$21.99
Paperback/$6.99 eBook
Website:
www.kirkwardrobinson.com
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Family-Speaks-Saga-Book-ebook/dp/B0H2JKL49H
The Family Speaks is the fifth book in The Speaks Saga and will especially appeal to prior readers interested in how Kirk Ward Robinson continues to evolve a family saga that has carried over four previous books.
The fictional town of Bilbo which resides on the Appalachian Trail is the setting, the year is 2019, and varied and estranged family members of the Speaks clan, scattered across the country and even the world, find the thread of COVID unexpectedly brings them back together.
The opening chapter tells of Elaine’s unexpected pregnancy, discovered after Landon leaves her, her flight to the impoverished town of Bilbo in search of connection and family support, and her discovery that friend Timewall is away, hiking the Appalachian Trail.
An unexpected letter gives her freedom from a decision she had felt forced into making, returning her to her identity as Lainey even as Timewell walks away from his other life to forge new realizations far from home.
As characters from previous books emerge with different life experiences, purposes, and connections, Kirk Ward Robinson builds a dovetailing set of newfound realizations that will prove especially compelling to prior audiences who have followed some of these people and their developing lives.
With Timewell at the center of the unfolding saga, maturity and new lives build alongside revised realizations about the past and possible future:
Instead of romantic entanglement, Timewall spent that winter in exploration, probing the features of nature, the peaks and creeks, the cracks and crevices in rock that might shelter a sleeping bear. And he explored the features of his own thoughts and memories, the who that he was beyond the earnest boy who rose to every occasion that required it.
He discovered during these self-explorations that he was capable of more emotional depth than he’d ever realized. The stolid, stoic wall that had always garrisoned his feelings now shone light through crumbling mortared joints. He felt sadness and grief for his lost little sister, not just anger. And then there was love, a concept that remained nebulous but he caught glimpses of it now and then, in memories of his siblings, of Misty, even of his mother. Love was not an admission of weakness but an expression of courage, the courage to have faith in someone else even if that faith seemed unearned.
The result is a powerful juxtaposition and conjoining of seemingly disparate lives that return to family interests in the face of world-changing events.
While librarians can easily recommend The Family Speaks to newcomers, as its roundup of personalities allows for new arrivals to appreciate the family’s dynamics, it’s the prior enthusiast of the series as a whole who will best appreciate the complexity of family changes as they receive resolution and growth in this final volume of the series.
Replete with notes of insight about rural poor environments and lives, Appalachia culture and community, the sense of hopelessness that often invades such milieus in America, and a family’s struggles against the backdrop of COVID, The Family Speaks charts a powerful course of action and recovery for modern times.
The Family SpeaksReturn to Index
A Good
Man
Debbie
Slevin
Red
Creek Works
979-8-234-12402-9
$8.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Good-Man-heroism-friendship-survival-ebook/dp/B0H6Y689V8
A Good Man focuses on a woman trapped in a violent marriage who sees the way out as snagging the biggest journal story of her career, which will then change her life – or, will it? Elizabeth Allen faces many changes as she pursues her big story break, only to enter the lives of Fancy, Janine, Dominic, and others who display elements of heroism in everyday life that challenge her concept of not just survival, but achievement.
Elizabeth’s quest into the lives changed by 9/11 turns into an odyssey about sacrifices, love, and ordinary New Yorkers transformed by not one event, but the threads of their lives and connections in a novel replete with satisfying contrasts in lives, marriages, and survival tactics.
Debbie Slevin considers a host of flawed but believable, likeable characters in the course of this journey, augmenting the theme of marital abuse with insights on all kinds of abuse that take place behind closed doors as life poses threats and challenges.
She juxtaposes the friendship between two women in the events following 9/11 with bigger picture thinking about relationships, men and women, and ideals of perfection and survival which follow them down the road of abuse. These characters neatly illustrate how otherwise-strong women can justify staying in an abusive environment or see few paths away from the patterns they’ve fallen into.
Heroes have many incarnations, as the story points out. These include women who leave, stay, or make impossible choices under conditions in which love and terror run too close together for comfort.
The story delves deeply into these patterns as Elizabeth resists making new connections for fear she’s only repeating past mistakes:
“You’re afraid, and rightly so, after what you’ve been through. And if I can be so bold to say this, you’re afraid that you might really care for me and you might find out something awful that will ruin it.”
The result is a novel that revolves around more than the search for a good man or a new life. A Good Man considers the essence of good, bad, and new beginnings, and will delight librarians and readers seeking fiction that will spark thoughts and debates in individuals, book clubs, and women’s groups alike.
A Good ManReturn to Index
Maybe
You Lied
Jennifer
Sadera
Creative
James Media
978-1-965648-93-3
$18.99
Paperback/$6.99 eBook
www.creativejamesmedia.com
In Maybe You Lied, 21-year-old Will Lockhart is facing his mother’s sudden death which not only takes away his emotional foundation, but their shared apartment. While packing his things, he stumbles upon the deed to his father’s house in upstate New York – but his move there shakes family skeletons as he uncovers many puzzles about his past that heavily impact his sense of place, self, and survival.
Was there a murder in this house? As questions arise about the nature of family and motivations for dangerous lies, the story moves from a family focus to one in which chaos and confusion lie in the very foundations Will had taken for granted:
I leafed through the albums, looking for a picture of him. My memory of his face was hazy. I scanned through quickly at first, then took my time, turning page after page of snapshots from my childhood. There were dozens and dozens of photos of us kids, a few of my mother—even some shots including Marcia and her son, Brian—but not one single picture of my father.
The search for answers and a sense of belonging does not lie solely with Will. Penelope Chesel, a quickly-close new friend, also harbors her own questions about the past. Their shared connection gives rise to new approaches to problem-solving, relationship-building, and life as the story progresses.
Poignant letters to a dead mother acknowledge the cost of coming to terms with past indiscretions and choices and the wisdom of a young man who reluctantly acknowledges that his mother’s lies may have served an important purpose in providing stability to their lives:
Things have changed. I now understand that you never wanted this life for me. I realize with singular clarity that you wanted to be the parent in my life. The only parent. I don't know if you went about things the right way, and I may never know. Maybe I'll figure it out when I become a parent myself. The only thing I'm sure about right now is that you did what you thought was best for us both. I can't blame you for trying to make us happy. I know you did everything you could to give me a good life.
As sorrow and discovery turn into a quest for revenge, readers come to realize the impact of lies and assumptions on not just future generations, but the broader world surrounding family and community.
Librarians and readers with a special interest in truth, lies, family ties, and community involvements will find Maybe You Lied thoroughly compelling. Its hard-hitting insights about loss, grief, parental secrets, and unexpected realities creates a thoroughly engrossing story whose many twists and turns will prove satisfyingly, delightfully unexpected.
Maybe You LiedReturn to Index
My
Mother Said My Name
Mads
Henrik Odgaard
Grondal
978-8797535868
$29.99 Hardcover/$20.00
Paperback
Website: https://grøndal.dk
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/My-mother-said-my-name/dp/8797535885
and available at Ingram
My Mother Said My Name is a literary novel about Mina, a young Afghan woman forced to flee with her family when the Taliban take over her country in 2021. There, Mina and her kin build a new life in New York City.
Assurances by the U.S. have dictated their lives in Afghanistan, their decision to flee to America for safety, and their ability to rebuild new lives. But after the elections of 2024, Mina and her family again find themselves doubting the word of national leaders – this time, on American soil.
Mina’s return to Afghanistan on a secret mission portends new dangers, realizations, and grief as the daughter faces not just the loss of her mother, but her nation.
Mads Henrik Odgaard creates a powerful saga of healing and adaptation:
"Mr. Mendelsohn, you ask how my dad, little sister, and I are doing. I'm not entirely sure, actually. We function day to day, and we've been doing so for a couple years now. But whether and how we've processed losing my mom, fleeing Afghanistan so abruptly—I don't think we've properly addressed any of that yet. We haven't really managed to start those conversations together. But I hope that by telling the other two about my experiences in the grief group, I might be able to make something happen. It would be best if they didn't keep it all bottled up."
Her focus isn’t just on the immigrant experience, but the process of coming to terms with a shifting sense of home, belonging, and place that embraces both grief over the past and prospects for a more peaceful future.
Additionally, My Mother Said My Name offers many powerful insights about new connections and healing opportunities which can arise between strangers from unlikely chance encounters:
I just don't think I'm yet capable of seeing what happened 'from the outside' or as something that occurred in the past. That makes it hard to put into words that you're no longer with us. What I do though is talk about what happened. Or rather, I tell stories about it. I've met an old man. His name is Mr. Mendelsohn. He's experienced loss too, just as we've lost you. He lost his wife. Strangely enough, she was also Afghan. And he's a refugee himself, like us. We take walks together, mostly in Central Park. We talk extensively about our family histories and therefore about loss.
Ultimately, My Mother Said My Name is about Democratic processes, political and personal choice, grieving and moving on, and adaptation. It moves from the specifics of Afghan culture and experience to embrace broader topics of immigrant concerns, activism, involvement in international covert operations, incorporating a surprising version of coming full circle that many readers won’t see coming.
Steeped in powerful realizations and experiences, My Mother Said My Name is an evocative saga of families under siege and letters to an absent mother that ultimately fuel change and understanding.
Libraries seeking literary novels replete with important connections between global events and family ties will want to acquire and recommend My Mother Said My Name, especially to women’s reading groups seeking commanding female characters and thought-provoking reflections about their relationships and life choices.
My Mother Said My NameReturn to Index
The
Ốẚḡenn: Turning the Tide
Dr. Paul
L. Sasser
Independently
Published
979-8255663408
$14.54
https://www.amazon.com/Oagenn-Dr-Paul-L-Sasser/dp/B0H6KW4H8P
We are Ốẚḡenn. We do not age and we do not die the way others die.
The Ốẚḡenn: Turning the Tide is a novel that incorporates elements of fantasy and the supernatural into a backdrop of real history, and will especially appeal to readers seeking multifaceted literary tales that embrace the strengths of these diverse approaches.
Dr. Paul L. Sasser employs the first person to bring immediacy and vivid insights to the story of a sea captain, Nathanael Livanos, who lives among men while aging only one year for every ten of a normal mortal’s life:
I looked thirty years old. I had looked thirty for a long time. The scar on my left forearm from the French boarding pike in 1790 remained white. Everything about me stayed. That was the problem. I was born in London in the winter of 1630.
He’s kept his secret for three centuries, until circumstances force him to move from being unseen to being not only recognized, but a force to be reckoned with after a young boy is kidnapped and Nathanael is forced to acknowledge that those few he trusts are those he should confront.
The sea change which buffets his life and threatens his ability to move secretly among men makes for a powerful saga not only of the good captain, but other characters such as Tallulah Holliday, who interacts with former middleweight champion Gordon Ketchel, a man whose hidden identity also allows him to walk in the normal world unseen, but who is bent on revenge and redemption:
Gordon told himself the story all the way to the end, the version where this was normal and mutual, where the past was the past and a man could be changed back into himself by an act of will and a willing woman in a room above the harbor. He was almost able to believe it. Almost was the word he had lived inside for three years, and he had gotten good at it, the way a man gets good at anything he practices every day whether he means to or not.
Gordon also “believed the things he did to people dissolved behind him when he walked away.”
Miss Holiday directs the forces that could bring Nathanael down, but these reach out to embrace and involve her in unexpected ways as a host of characters interact in Sandy Island, South Carolina to bring the area’s history, influences, and hidden culture to life.
Sasser builds his story around a juxtaposition of the possible and impossible, injecting a sense of magical realism into the bigger pictures of betrayal, survival, and a storm that reaches to embrace them all. While the ancient race presented is entirely fiction, the setting and its cultures and influences is not, presenting a fine juxtaposition of fiction and reality which lends authenticity and realistic elements into the plot.
Also of special note is how the first-person character of Nathanael and the third-person reflections of other characters create easily-absorbed fluctuations between viewpoints which add depth and clear understanding to a smooth story line.
As the novel progresses, it reinforces the efforts of investigators such as Agent Jackson, who is faced with investigating a quake claimed to be an act of supernatural malice rather than a natural uncontrollable force and a hidden war between clashing forces that is happening right under the unsuspecting noses of mankind.
Readers who enjoy the fast-paced action of investigative thrillers, the unexpected overtones of supernatural influences, the bedrock of historical facts, and the alluring quasi-familiar applications of magical realism will find The Ốẚḡenn: Turning the Tide a riveting saga.
Librarians that choose this genre-busting story for their collections will find it also will attract book clubs seeking fiction that steps well away from formula productions to create interplays between characters and forces that are uncommon and powerful.
The Ốẚḡenn: Turning the TideReturn to Index
Schrödinger’s
Glass
Chris
Grall
Atmosphere
Press
979-8901743508
$21.99
Paperback; $37.99 Hardcover;
$8.99 ebook
www.atmospherepress.com
Schrödinger’s Glass is the thoroughly absorbing tale of a world changed by a burst of energy accidentally released by the Heisenberg Accelerator and Research Center which causes ordinary objects (which scientists call ‘artifacts’) to take on impossible properties.
One such artifact is a wine glass which can now produce any liquid, from alcohol to gasoline. Bella and Saul Martin, who possess this artifact, view it as a positive change capable of making them wealthy. What they don’t know is that it is more than capable of changing the world, once again, forever.
That’s why lab security agent Max Peck is tasked with hunting artifacts in general and the deadly Glass in particular. Max never intended to become involved in armed security or treasure hunting, but he was there at the beginning of the accident that changed everything. So were Bella and Saul, who heard the blast and saw that half of Chicago was on fire from it before they discovered their fortune lay in an everyday glass.
As the Russians become involved in the quest and Sergi is tasked with an effort similar to his Western counterpart Max (to locate and obtain the artifacts), personal dilemmas come into play. Sergi resists being regulated and downplayed and Saul pursues his latest obsession. Bella, who at first encouraged Saul’s efforts, now regrets that their lives have become a literal race against time and assailants to retain the Glass and apply its latent potentials.
Chris Grall marries sci-fi with thriller in a series of escapades and confrontations that are heart-stopping, unpredictable, and thoroughly engrossing. Readers who enjoy the blend of speculative futuristic events and the impact of a paradigm-changing experiment gone awry will relish how the story is supercharged not just by scientific possibilities, but ordinary lives changed by events that spiral out of their control and understanding.
Schrödinger’s Glass fine-tunes the connection between personal and bigger-picture thinking with an action-packed race against time and a clash of special interests that could become fodder for movie-making.
Librarians that select Schrödinger’s Glass for their collections will find it exceptionally engrossing and highly recommendable to thriller and sci-fi readers who enjoy blends of action, science, and personal revelation.
Schrödinger’s GlassReturn to Index
Spanktown
Papers
Jane Hulse
Open
Books
978-1948598927
$19.95 Paperback/$9.95 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1948598922
Historical fiction readers who enjoy mystery added to the mix of a powerful female protagonist who operates in Revolutionary War times will find Spanktown Papers an appealing, involving read.
Sarah Barrett is pulled into an investigative quandary when Lloyd’s Coffeehouse’s owner is murdered, entangling her in politics of the times as a scandal arises and Quakers are banished to Virginia for their pacifism in a time of rising war sentiments. The mysterious but elusive Spanktown Papers hold the key to understanding who is acting as a traitor and spy.
Journalist Sarah finds her hands tied and full in more ways than one as she tackles events that strike too close to home. She resides with a Quaker family and is privy to their sentiments and threats to their wellbeing, yet feels conflicted about the Quakers as a whole.
Sarah presents a spunky countenance that will delight women who look for proactive female protagonists:
“Does she know there’s a war going on,” I practically scream. “People don’t have enough to eat. And you want me to write about this coiffure calamity, this hair hardship?”
She faces her own personal challenges with romance, possible future family, and her own deceptions which, she deems, make her a “chronic liar and impersonator.”
These dovetail nicely with the rising Revolutionary War sentiments, political and social challenges, career and romance snafus, and events which buffet her life, bringing the times and her perspective to rich, full-bodied life.
As love and danger coalesce, readers become thoroughly immersed in this era and woman, even if they have no propensity to choose historical fiction and little prior familiarity with Revolutionary War times.
This is why librarians will want to very, very highly recommend Spanktown Papers to a wide audience of readers. Its ability to draw and ensnare leisure readers who just want a rollicking good read makes it a winner.
Spanktown PapersReturn to Index
Sun
Kissed & Salted
Angela Blair
Sea Pony Books
979-8-9928261-2-8
$17.00 Paperback/$4.99 eBook
Website:
https://www.angieblair.com/
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Sun-Kissed-Salted-Angela-Blair/dp/B0FD8WS9DN
Sun Kissed & Salted is a vivid novel that opens with a graphic near-death experience. In the aftermath of a hit-and-run accident that almost claims her life, Alika Jones embarks on a journey of seeking out thrills and getting more than she bargained, for as a result.
The milieu of Los Angeles in the 1970s and ‘80s provides a backdrop for Alika’s journey, but she doesn’t stay in one place very long. She elopes, sojourns to Europe, travels the world, and slowly falls down the slippery slope of enduring abuse in her relationship and life, which slowly takes over her spirit and trajectory.
Angela Blair provides evocative descriptions of Alika’s many transformations as she moves through time, places, and people in search of identity and experiences:
Turning the corner, I listened to the faint voices continuing to say, “come home.” I saw a small park inviting me in through the open wrought iron gate. The season had turned, and autumn beckoned the auburn leaves to fall onto the green grass. I bent over and gathered the leaves together, forming a large pile under a tree, and I lay down, sinking into the center. As the voices faded, I drifted off into a much-needed sleep. For now, this was home, though I felt I didn’t know myself at all.
The last place she would expect to wind up is training to become a combat nurse in war, but Alika’s journey is anything but singular. Her best efforts to survive keep leading her into novel situations powered by a desire for change and new challenges:
I felt half-crazy, and half-excited, but on an adventure and taking a risk, which was my familiar.
Her quest for freedom, experience, and identity forms the foundation of a story that moves through her life exploring the nature of safety, accomplishment, and success.
Librarians and readers interested in women’s fiction that pushes boundaries of achievement and self-help will find Sun Kissed & Salted powered by a memorable, likeable protagonist whose adventures intermingle with her growth process.
Its moments of revelation and discovery make Sun Kissed & Salted both a compelling read for individual pursuit and highly recommended for book clubs and reading groups interested in literary novels about women on the move.
Sun Kissed & SaltedReturn to Index
Who We
Used to Be
Julia
Amante
Wise
Writer Publishing
9781931627207
$21.99
https://www.juliaamante.com/
Who We Used to Be introduces questions about individual identity in marriage as a seemingly perfect marriage bonded by devotion, faith, and success is buffeted by a partner choosing to step away not due to lack of love, but lack of self identity.
Rachel believes in everything she’s worked hard to build with her husband Jeremy – until he informs her he needs space from their lives. Sure this will be a temporary, short-term need, Rachel agrees to step back – but as time and life go on, she too begins to question the foundations of her life and connections. She changes and ultimately becomes a different person than the one who once bonded so strongly with her husband.
One surprise lies in the fact that the person who leaves, intent upon new realizations, affects the person who stays and initially wants things to stay the same or return to normal as Rachel begins to explore new possibilities apart from their connections and lives together.
Suddenly, it’s Rachel who isn’t sure of what she really wants from life. When Jeremy proposes to return, she hesitates. She doesn’t know what she’s become and is not sure she likes her former life enough to want to step backwards into it, and so the two begin a dance that moves from a pause into transformation.
Julia Amante builds a powerful saga around these realizations, with chapters shifting perspectives between characters as revised goals and dreams are honed by each individual. Through these new lenses of understanding, other characters’ lives are re-examined or viewed from different angles:
“Thanks for your advice about Thanksgiving and enjoying my time with Jeremy and the kids. I’m going to try to make it happy for all of them.”
He angled his head and reached up to ease strands of hair away from her forehead. “I know you will. That’s who you are. I hope it works out for you.”
She stared at him. “Do you?”
“Of course. Separation. Divorce. It hurts like hell. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”
His words did something to her. It made her see him differently. One second, he was inappropriately teasing her; the next, he said things like this that let her know he understood and saw her the way others didn’t.
Even as Rachel explores her connection to Juan and others, Jeremy is making new decisions about career and family which include a return to Rachel that neither of them may actually want – not the way they once were, anyway, even though it embodied the pinnacles of success.
Amante’s ability to highlight and contrast the types of growth each character experiences, the entities and forces that enter their lives and reshape them, and the cost of making a decision that is irreversible makes for a thought-provoking, engaging, surprisingly uplifting story of adaptation and reinvention that will attract a wide audience.
Libraries can easily recommend Who We Used to Be to women’s reading groups, book clubs interested in stories of identity- and relationship-building challenges, and individuals who want a solid emotional story about revised connections and new beginnings.
Replete with insights about different forms of love, the effects of separation on all family members, revised ideals of romance, and new connections that contrast with old habits and values, Who We Used to Be is emotionally riveting and hard to put down.
Who We Used to BeReturn to Index
Whose
Dog Is This?
Paul
Edwards
Independently
Published
979-8235954649
$16.99
https://www.amazon.com/Whose-Dog-This-Paul-Edwards/dp/B0H1Z933GC
Whose Dog Is This? is a story of how pets can change lives. It opens with protagonist Josh living in a way where “routine is a well-worn path,” a stark portrait of the way life can be without purpose and love. Though comforted by predictability, these habits also serve as an anchor – until a dog in distress enters his life and changes him.
How is isolation broken? Sometimes one small life can introduce a crack in a well-built wall that reveals the world:
He found himself noticing details he’d previously overlooked: the solitary figure waiting for a bus, the lone cyclist navigating the empty streets, the subtle signs of life unfolding in the quiet hours. His routine was a fortress, built to shield him from the messy, unpredictable nature of human connection, but that small, shivering dog had inadvertently revealed a hairline crack.
As Josh becomes engaged in circumstances broader than he ever could have imagined, other characters and a journey enter into this picture as everything shifts and changes:
The
dog, however, was their
immediate focus, their small, furry compass in this world of stone
and dust. They had to trust its instincts, to believe that it was
leading them towards something vital, something that transcended the
somber stillness of this resting place.
"More like a story
someone's forgotten to finish," Makayla replied, her gaze fixed
on the dog. "He's not just wandering, Josh. He's searching. He's
trying to find something here. Or maybe," she paused, a
thoughtful frown creasing her brow, "he's trying to remind us of
something."
Readers interested in intersections of animal welfare, human connection, philosophical and psychological growth, and spiritual reflection will find all these elements and more hiding in the guise of a man-meets-dog story.
An emerging puzzle engages Josh and Makayla with revised possibilities for their lives as they embark on a quest, guided by a dog who “had understood the significance of this place, of the secrets buried within its earth, and had guided them to uncover them.”
The result holds the trappings of a dog story, but is so much more.
Librarians will find it easy to highly recommend Whose Dog Is This? to a wide range of readers, knowing full well that its messages will go beyond any dog lover’s anticipation of discovery.
Replete with bigger-picture thinking, the story holds value far beyond its opening descriptions of canine-driven breakthroughs:
The journey had been one of discovery, not just of facts and clues, but of the deep, resonant currents of the human—and animal—heart.
Whose Dog Is This?Return to Index
Wolf in
Wanderley
Dave J.
Andrae
Kaji-Pup
Press
979-8-90504-158-7
$25.99
Hardcover/$9.99 eBook
Website:
https://www.dave-andrae.com/wolf-in-wanderley.html
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Wolf-Wanderley-Dave-J-Andrae-ebook/dp/B0H66T4HC8/
In Wolf in Wanderley, Wolfgang Barnes is navigating his new Florida home, facing aging, the isolation of being without his parents, and the creative efforts of producing inexpensive films that may or may not hold potential for posterity.
His attempts to put down roots in his new community are somewhat thwarted by Lenny Medway, a figure from his Chicago past who has weaseled out of jail and is seeking revenge for slights that feel mercurial to Wolf, even though he served as a character witness in Lenny’s trial.
This adds an extra dimension of survival effort and angst to his life, challenges his creativity and desire to produce meaningful art in the face of a rapidly changing world which doesn’t seem to fit him, and introduces a character whose ambitions and clever stalking are in satisfying contrast to Wolf’s life and focus.
Dave J. Andrae develops both Lenny and Wolf’s lives and viewpoints with an eye to contrasting their meaning and intentions. The powerful survey grows as other characters enter the picture, from neighbor Katherine’s daughter Maisy, who falls into a relationship with Wolf, to Carlyle Demarsan, whose office is robbed by Lenny.
As film ambitions collide with relationships and stalkers, Andrae builds a plot where the aging filmmaker is forced to confront his past, present, and future beyond his initial concerns about obsolescence and isolation. The connections he makes during this journey prove life-changing as romance, survival efforts, and new realizations test his vision of life’s meaning and his life work’s impact.
Librarians and readers interested in tales of re-balancing life goals, avoiding ex-cons, and honing new opportunities outside one’s comfort zone will appreciate how Wolf in Wanderley takes some unexpected turns in the process of navigating middle age and life changes.
Replete with contrasts between Lenny and Wolf and the characters that swirl around them and into their lives, Wolf in Wanderley offers a thought-provoking tale of confrontation and conflict that ultimately propels its characters in new directions. These make for a thoroughly engrossing read spiced with a wry sense of humor that offers threads of inspection and candid realizations about life’s trajectory and the process of ongoing change.
Wolf in WanderleyReturn to Index
Cash
Libre
Luzy D.
King
GFB
978-1-967510-68-9
$9.99 eBook
www.girlfridayproductions.com
First-generation Latina professionals well know that financial guides aimed to their needs and culture are few and far between. That’s just one reason why Cash Libre is a standout, even though it’s designed to appeal to a wide audience – which includes them.
Cash Libre: 10 Pillars to Help You Reclaim Your Purpose and Financial Freedom is designed around practical strategies that encourage self-help readers to identify financial failings, their wellsprings, and their solutions. It will appeal to a broader range of financial quandaries than most, from students considering education loans to investors looking at short- and long-term goals.
Chapters point out that being frugal does not translate to acquiring wealth any more than avoiding debt or working hard. Instead, readers are encouraged to rethink their investments with an eye towards creating income and funding streams, better understanding where one’s money resides and how better to manage it, and better aligning intention with reasoned, informed action.
The survey creates an overall bigger picture about what it takes to consider, acquire, and maintain financial freedom, linking money to life goals and values in a manner that few other financial guides reveal.
In this process, Luzy D. King creates a dialogue that reaches out to all kinds of readers from all ethnicities to create a book that is unusually wide-ranging, embracing, and informative with a unique voice:
You entered unfamiliar spaces and earned degrees your family never imagined. That took courage, and with it came costs—money owed, unmet expectations, and pressure to prove yourself. Let me remind you: You are not the problem. You are the pattern breaker. Your debt is not a moral failure; it is a financial tool that gave you the freedom to dream bigger. Debt—yes, la deuda—has often been a bridge to opportunity. But before any strategy can work, shame must loosen its grip. You cannot build confidently from hidden humiliation, and you deserve to move forward without flinching at every challenge.
In keeping with its exceptional approaches, which will appeal especially strongly to librarians catering to Latino/a populations, Cash Libre also adds the emotional reflection and support key to any successful financial approach – and missing from many similar genre reads:
Writing this book has been one of the most joyful and, yes, stretching experiences of my life. It required me to sit with uncomfortable truths. It required me to return to therapy while drafting these pages. It required me to untangle what was mine to carry and what never belonged to me in the first place. If you are a woman navigating a toxic workplace, shrinking yourself in rooms that were never designed for your leadership, or convincing yourself that “no es nada” when your body knows it is something, this part is for you. Healing is not a detour from building. It is the foundation.
The result is more than just another money guide, but an affirming, healing, acknowledging survey of the common obstacles to wealth that too rarely see the light of day and discussion, making Cash Libre an outstanding approach and a winner.
Cash LibreReturn to Index
A Child
For Christmas
Diane
Green
DCG Books
9798242861695
$11.99
Website:
www.dcgbooks.com
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Child-Christmas-Gift-All/dp/B0GFD785Y5
Celine and Harry Anderson may have anticipated many things for Christmas - but a child wasn’t one of them. In A Child for Christmas: A Gift for All, the seasonal spirit of giving becomes an investigation of acceptance and spiritual influence as a child in need falls into their aging hands, forcing them to reconsider the remaining course of their lives.
Their experience dovetails with that of Lola Winston, who also didn’t expect a Christmas miracle to literally fall into her hands.
Diane Green crafts a warm spiritual read that embraces the cold of winter, the warmth of hearts unexpectedly challenged to open at perhaps inopportune times in their lives, and the needs of a small child, Letty, who finds support and love in unexpected places.
Green takes the time to capture the perspectives of all involved, the hopes, dreams and challenges they face, and the underlying impact of stepping up into something necessary and novel:
There was a sense of lightness in the kitchen, as if the electricity of new possibilities hung in the air.
Another surprise to this story lies in how the child herself must confront her own expectations and needs. Readers won’t expect the revelations which emerge and merge between all these characters. This lends depth, understanding, and warmth to an extraordinary story of kindness, support, and choices that ultimately build better connections to God.
Families seeking a spiritual seasonal focus would do well to place A Child for Christmas at the top of their reading lists of holiday classics.
Its ability to embrace different personalities, viewpoints, and insights into giving and acceptance offers wonderful opportunities for engagement and understanding.
A Child For ChristmasReturn to Index
Delaware’s
Forgotten Cavalry: A
Failure of Command
Dave
Tabler
Independently
Published
979-8992166798
$9.99
www.davetabler.com
Delaware’s Forgotten Cavalry: A Failure of Command is based on the pocket diaries kept by three sergeants of the First Delaware Cavalry — Harrison Vandegrift, Spencer Hitch, and William Townsend Downes — who documented the 1864 war they were living through. These rare writings are some of the few to detail events and circumstances which evolved from Delaware’s cavalry, whose involvements were largely rewritten to suit the political perceptions of political appointee Colonel Napoleon Bonaparte Knight.
That author Dave Tabler uncovered and has returned this history to the light of modern times is testimony not just to his perseverance, but the power of individuals keeping personal records of events for future posterity.
Readers anticipating a sweeping overview of the times may at first be surprised by how individual and seemingly ordinary are these daily accounts of military experiences by common men. What evolves from these perspectives and close writings is a review of leadership and what happens when it fails – and ultimately a contribution to bigger-picture thinking about what happens to the common foot soldier following orders.
The three diarists weren’t writers or historians, but farmers and merchants inadvertently drawn into service whose observations of a fragmented leadership and its breakdown is particularly vivid for its roots in the ordinary man’s observations.
It should be noted that while the short diary entries often focus on weather conditions and physical concerns, Tabler adds essential footnotes and references that augment many seemingly-unremarkable incidents with further historical connections readers will find essential to understanding these writers’ experiences and importance, i.e.:
This is the only recorded instance across all three diaries—Hitch, Vandegrift, and Downes—of cavalry horses breaking loose and causing significant damage. While references to poor forage, worn tack, and hard riding are common, a runaway team crashing through town and destroying equipment was evidently rare enough to be worth special mention. Hitch’s phrasing conveys the chaos and surprise of the moment. Non-combat accidents, however, were not uncommon. On May 1, 1864, Hitch recorded that “one of Comp A’s men got their leg broke to day he was Running his horse and he threw him.”
Also notable is the fact that these three different writers often chronicle the same events from different perspectives, which lends essential insights into the process of observing and interpreting history and cements the idea that historical recording comes not uniformly from one experience, but the combined perspectives of often-diverse backgrounds.
The result is not only an essential document to Delaware history, but an important insight into that war in particular and historical documentation in general which can be used to illustrate important points to classrooms interested in historical writings and their interpretation, repression, or presentation.
Libraries interested in any of these topics can recommend Delaware’s Forgotten Cavalry: A Failure of Command well beyond Delaware-centric focuses.
Delaware’s Forgotten Cavalry: A Failure of CommandReturn to Index
The
Detective of Dreams
Walter
Berry
Precocity
Press
978-1972561089
$22.95
https://www.amazon.com/Detective-Dreams-Investigating-Mysteries-Soul/dp/1972561081
The Detective of Dreams: Investigating the Mysteries of the Soul is a foray into dreamwork and interpretation that draws on Walter Berry’s decades of dreamwork experience. It illustrates how dreams can move beyond the usual realm of psychological interpretation to provide spiritual connections and newfound meaning to life.
Readers won’t anticipate the wry thread of humor that permeates Berry’s observations, but these add a lively, accessible tone to the stories by blending personal experience with case histories and deeper reflections. These involve not just dreams and their meaning, but the work of a “dream detective”:
When doing dream detective work, empathy is a powerful skill to bring to any investigation. Getting a glimpse of other people’s threads through their dreams helps you see your own threads more clearly. We all have different colors and emotions; when we allow others to see our uniquely woven garment of life, we offer them the chance to see a bit of our unique souls. Likewise, if they allow us a glimpse of their unique garment, we can see just a hint of who they are and what they have experienced. This both relies on empathy and enhances it. The detective work of dreams is so much about community and connections. Most often, we don’t see these threads; they are hidden down in the center of our being.
Simple black and white line drawings add a sense of almost childish fun to the topic of dreaming, interpretation, and life meaning, with their visual appeal providing illustrative relief to the deeper inspections Berry delves into, such as why dreamwork is important:
I realized the dream was also a way to see my robotic self and my work life. I thought back on the hard-working Walter who labored 80-hour weeks, slogging away. I thought about the times I was alone in this struggle and moments when friends joined me and brightened the colors of the room. I thought about some amazing relationships that added layers of light-filled threads to the darker threads of being lost. Sitting inside the robot train in my imagination, I could see the shape and feel, the colors and darkness, of the threads of my life, and I understood more about myself on a level that is not communicable.
The result isn’t the usual dream interpretation dictionary or scholarly survey of dream psychology, but a much livelier series of connections between dreams, life purposes, and symbolic messages that can change and reignite one’s waking hours and passion for growth.
Librarians will find The Detective of Dreams a valuable addition to collections serving self-help, psychology, spirituality, and book club readers interested in the connections between dreams, personal growth, and the symbolic language of the subconscious. Readers of Walter Berry's award-winning Drawn into the Dream will find The Detective of Dreams a compelling continuation of his exploration of dreams, consciousness, and the mysterious ways our inner lives shape reality.
The Detective of DreamsReturn to Index
From the
Vault II: The Lost Chords
and Stories
Jeff
Silverman
Palette
Music Studio
979-8-9959911-0-6
$39.95
Hardcover/$24.95 Paperback
https://palettemusic.com/shop/
The World Is Better Dreaming song introduced listeners to the first branch of the VAULT II musical journey, which was inspired by the author’s mother’s battle with cancer. From the Vault II: The Lost Chords and Stories is a book with a companion album that continues the journey, and may be accessed by newcomers and prior listeners alike.
Jeff Silverman reveals, in this book, the artists, collaborations, music studio interactions, and elements which shaped music and inspired creative new songs.
Musicians and non-musicians alike will appreciate these rare and raw insights into the process of inspiration and collaboration which form the foundation for a survey of creating new music.
The stories that influenced and evolve from these connections form the foundation of a revealing branch of discovery enlivened by Silverman’s inspections and reflections:
The branches of this family tree are still growing. New songs will be written, new people will enter the story, and new chapters will unfold. Yet even now, the distance between so many of these moments rarely stretches beyond six degrees of separation. Sometimes the smallest connections end up shaping the biggest chapters of our lives.
Photos, images, and insights coalesce in a blend of musical memoir with creative insight throughout this journey, providing thought-provoking considerations and lively philosophical and musical insights.,
This excerpt recalls Jeff's first visit to Abbey Road Studios in London during the mid-1980s, where a wall covered with messages from fans around the world became a powerful reminder that music doesn't end in the studio—it continues through the lives of the people it touches:
Layer upon layer of messages, names, bands, countries… fans from all over the world leaving a piece of themselves behind. A living, breathing tribute to The Beatles and everything that came out of that room. To me, this wasn’t graffiti. This was human artwork. Proof that the music didn’t stop at the door… it kept traveling, person to person, across the world.
Especially notable is the passion and purpose that runs through these experiences, with decades of the author’s experience providing running commentary and insights that are charged with emotional connection.
The result is more than an album accompaniment, but a full-bodied interaction between musical and life passion that captures the flavors of connections, interactions and moments that are vividly portrayed.
Throughout the book, Jeff shares the lyrics and the stories behind many of the songs featured in From the Vault II. One such story begins with his first writing session with singer-songwriter Meredith Marshall, where a chance meeting led to the creation of "Dancing With the Devil I Know."
I met Meredith as a stranger, and somehow, in the span of that one day, we wrote and recorded “Dancing With The Devil I Know.” By the time we left the room, it already felt like it had always been there. We walked away. The song didn’t. It stayed with us… alive in a way that’s hard to explain. Not unfinished — just waiting. Like so many songs in the vault, it wasn’t lost. It simply hadn’t met its moment yet. Some songs chase the light. Others are born in the shadows. This one chose both. And now… it steps forward. Still breathing. Still dangerous. Still dancing with the devil we know.
From the Vault II: The Lost Chords and StoriesReturn to Index
King
Avalanche the Great & Other
Fantastic Cat Tales
Viviana
Fallerti
Little
Feather Press
9798988469223
$24.95
www.LittleFeatherPress.com
King Avalanche the Great & Other Fantastic Cat Tales may hold the feel and illustrative value of a picture book, but it will appeal widely to all ages – especially cat-centric readers who enjoy exceptional illustrations, as presented here by Claudia Gadotti.
Seven cat tales range from descriptions of rescues from kittens to adults to feisty, opinionated, cuddly, troublesome cats of all kinds.
Each tale is based on a true story and a real cat, but holds the special attraction of detailed descriptions of life and households that aren’t just for kids:
Mrs. Marmalade, the lady of the house, was sitting in a squeaky old rocking chair reading a book about knitting cat sweaters, wanting to be away from the cigar smoke of her handy-dandy husband Andy, who had just finished installing some shelves in the family room...everyone in the small and happy household seemed cheerful and content. But all was not well...
Cats and their antics and personalities assume center stage, but the human lives that revolve around them are just as complex and richly described.
The loving, lively, appealing feline nature of these very singular cats comes to life in a gentle, feisty, fun manner that lends particularly well to read-aloud, family appreciation, and gift-giving, with the keepsake hardcover serving double duty as a pass-down between generations and a durable library lend.
Cat lovers will be especially taken by how each cat’s personality and journey unfolds as life hands them different families, challenges, and options. Breed-specific traits and the nature of living with different kinds of cats unfold in a study that also represents how no two cats are alike.
The result is simply outstanding and very highly recommended for a wide audience. Prior knowledge or appreciation of cats is not a requirement: King Avalanche the Great & Other Fantastic Cat Tales provides all the ingredients for great stories, enlightening moments about cat care and personalities, and fun interactions between cats and humans.
Librarians seeking a cat collection that is whimsical and delightfully embellished will want to make King Avalanche the Great & Other Fantastic Cat Tales a ‘must have’ acquisition.
King Avalanche the Great & Other Fantastic Cat TalesReturn to Index
The Last
Ride: Outlaw Laura Bullion
and the Wild Bunch
Chris
Enss
Farcountry
Press
978-1-56037-848-8
$19.95
www.farcountrypress.com
The Last Ride: Outlaw Laura Bullion and the Wild Bunch tells the true-crime story of outlaw Laura Bullion, the Wild Bunch’s only known female train robber, who rode with outlaws and became notorious for participating in high-stakes robberies. Her name was renowned for decades until she disappeared.
Chris Enss embarks on a wild ride through the West to uncover Bullion’s story, life, motivations, and ultimate fate, bringing readers into a world a life documented not by the usual memoir, but through fragments of reports and contemporary accounts. From these, she reconstructs Bullion’s world with an eye toward vividly portraying the Wild Bunch in a different light, revealing Bullion and other women whose lives swirled around uncommon choices.
Enss purposely shifts the timeline of events back and forth, opening with a 1949 Memphis seamstress and moving back to the Wild Bunch years, contrasting and profiling the lives of Bullion and the other women, their motivations and choices for becoming female bandits, and their return to more socially acceptable lives.
The first chapter outlines these women and Pinkerton records regarding them, while the second returns to 1887, when a great blizzard wreaks havoc on the cattle industry and prompts changes in cattle roundups along with the emergence of rustlers and thieves in its wake. From these roots emerges the Ketchum Gang of train robbers, who find newfound success in something much easier than cattle rustling.
As the chapters fill in the myths, realities, and history of the Wild Bunch, they also create background on the men and women who pioneered the West in a very different manner, participating in outlaw activities that thwarted the Pinkerton Detective Agency in different ways.
Laura Bullion’s story intersects with these events, which are heavily footnoted and accented with vintage black and white photos and illustrations throughout. The exceptionally lively “you are there” form of reporting also provides general readers an inviting narrative of action and reaction that brings this world to life.
Especially notable is the critical thinking Enss applies to her subject. Not content with simply unearthing and reproducing newspaper accounts, she consistently peppers her findings with auxiliary research and points out inconsistencies in reporting and what most likely truly happened. This will especially satisfy history readers who know that not every newspaper’s account, even from that era, can be relied upon as intrinsically accurate.
The result is a vivid blend of mystery, history, women’s issues, and fact-based analysis that expands our understanding of the subjects, motivations, and choices these individuals made during this turbulent period of Western history.
Librarians
seeking additions to their
Western or women’s history holdings that encourage critical
thinking about the American West, promote book club discussions, or
support classroom study of women who chose nontraditional lives
before eventually returning to conventional society will find The
Last Ride: Outlaw Laura Bullion and the Wild Bunch unusually
accessible to a wide audience.
Return to Index
Making
Sense of Purpose
Suneet
Bhatt
Morgan
James Publishing
9798895740620
$18.95
www.MorganJamesPublishing.com
Making Sense of Purpose: Gain Clarity, Build Momentum, and Find Your “Kiran” (n. ray of light) joins other inspirational guides, but with a difference. It takes a step beyond motivation alone to address the nuts and bolts of self-realization and the foundations of defining purpose. This is something most similar-sounding self-help guides lack, but is perhaps the most essential ingredient in the formula of building a meaningful life and a strategy for achievement.
Suneet Bhatt examines the roots of limitations which lie in behaviors, expectations, mindset, bias, and negativity. Finding the “kiran” referenced in the book’s subtitle involves making meaningful life and perspective adjustments on many levels – spiritual, social, psychological, and philosophical – in order to fine-tune the ideal of purpose into something that embraces gratitude and grace.
Chapters reveal many paths to achieving this, from cultivating deliberation in showing up and better understanding the gap between motivation and behavior to realizing how such an understanding connects to action and empowerment on individual and organizational levels:
When we truly understand ourselves, everything starts to filter through that lens. Our strengths, values, and motivations give us a grounded way to process what’s coming at us. Without that grounding, asking for feedback too soon is like building a house without a foundation. This is one reason organizations waste so much money on feedback tools and training. They rarely take the time to help people understand themselves first. So any advice or insight being offered ends up landing on someone who hasn’t done the work to build a clear, documented sense of self. It can’t stick. The foundation was never poured The context was never set. But when we’ve done that work, when we know our patterns, energy, and our why, we’re finally ready. We become more grounded. More open. More able to hear what matters. That’s important. Because the insights we miss usually aren’t hidden. We just never stopped long enough to ask. Or we assumed we already knew.
Bhatt adds case history examples throughout to reinforce the process of not just finding, but identifying and defining purpose, then transmitting it beyond self or even an organizational culture.
Concrete examples make the book both lively and engaging – especially for book clubs, business and psychological circles, and individuals questioning their own ultimate paths and goals in life.
The especially broad audience of Making Sense of Purpose will also delight librarians who look for books that can engage broad circles of readers and invite patrons to not just contemplate, but enact life changes.
Filled with examples that link ethereal ideals to concrete action, Making Sense of Purpose is a guide for modern times that can prove a fitting recipe for ennui, disempowerment, and inaction in all kinds of situations, from social and political to psychological and spiritual.
Making Sense of PurposeReturn to Index
Misled
Lawrence
Coval
Arcane
Leadership Press
979-8-9942456-1-3
$22.95
Paperback/$9.99 eBook
www.arcaneleadership.com
Misled: Why (Almost) Everything We Learned About Leadership Is Wrong and How to Fix It isn’t your usual management advice guide to business leadership, but a pointed condemnation of the cookie-cutter approaches to business that have built a successful but ultimately ineffective approach to the subject.
Lawrence Coval's forty years of experience leading people in technology and telecommunications creates a real-world approach to guidance which refutes common myths and approaches to encourage leaders to reconsider not just their approaches, but their motivations to lead, and their ideals as well as ultimate goals.
Coval pinpoints common negative responses and behaviors that sabotage goals, encourages readers to reconsider their motivational approaches, and includes the real-world events and reinforcement missing from most other leadership guides:
The first time I watched a seller stand up and describe how an operations partner stayed late three consecutive nights to complete a client installation, I saw that partner’s face change. They sat up straighter, the light in their eyes brighter. Nobody had ever celebrated their work like that before, not even their own boss. People who had spent years feeling invisible finally felt seen, and I got chills watching it. This was so much better than any President’s Club. That’s when I knew I had created something special.
Especially thought-provoking are Coval’s insights on not just motivating, but improving the daily lives and futures of his charges:
I focused on building cultures where people weren’t just getting better at their jobs; they were preparing for jobs that didn’t exist yet. My peers weren’t committed to building that same kind of environment. As a result, my group became a factory for upward mobility. Promotions were commonplace for people who worked for me because they all possessed capabilities that went well beyond what their peers had to offer. That made them much better candidates for broader roles.
The excitement contained in Misled is palpable, and is a satisfying note of positivity in a book whose title might lead readers to anticipate the book will be all about condemning other approaches. It’s as much about building a new paradigm for improvement and sustainable encouragement as it is about pointing out the fallacies in common leadership approaches and thinking.
The result is unexpectedly lively, enthusiastic, and uplifting, and will reach leaders and aspiring leaders in not just business, but career and personal endeavors.
Librarians well know that a wealth of books about leadership and management appear yearly.
Misled: Why (Almost) Everything We Learned About Leadership Is Wrong and How to Fix It stands head and shoulders above most and deserves not just a prominent place in any library, but high recommendation to book clubs, business groups, and any reader interested in a powerful survey of what achievement really looks like.
MisledReturn to Index
No One
Can Do Your Push-Ups for You
Nena
Shimp
GFB
978-1-967510-86-3
$17.95 paperback
/ $8.99 eBook
Website: https://www.change-accelerators.com/no-one-can-do-your-push-ups-for-you
Ordering: https://www.amazon.com/One-Your-Push-ups-Back-Basics-ebook/dp/B0GZX32V5L
No One Can Do Your Push-Ups for You: A Back-to-Basics Plan for Leading Change documents the responsibility for self-activism and leadership that applies to not just business circles, but throughout life. Unlike most books that address how to manage change, Nena Shimp focuses on how to be the catalyst for that change. In so doing, she addresses the failures of efforts to delegate change over taking the reins to lead.
Her opening statements pave the way:
You can fund transformation. You can sponsor it. You can approve it. But you cannot outsource the daily, visible, uncomfortable behaviors that build trust, momentum, and follow-through. Leadership strength—like physical strength—is built not on intention alone but through repetition.
Chapters provide leaders with specific exercises, routines, guidance, and identifying factors to fostering this change in all aspects of life, but especially in business environments, where common past business logic has been to lead through training and delegation.
Shimp outlines fundamental actions and approaches intrinsic to change’s success, following through on their enactment in real-world situations through examples and stories, neuroscientific research back-up, and mindful, applied new approaches to guiding self and others. This involvess not just taking control, but giving it up.
“Leadership should be practiced, not proclaimed,” Shimp maintains – and so this book outlines novel best practices that support this contention.
Common failures, such as organization tendencies to reinforce value in culture over scoreboard measuring results or paradoxes in typical practices (“The more we tried to control the change, the less control we had and the less we changed. Complexity looked like competence, but it wasn’t. It was fear disguised as rigor””) make for many eye-opening “aha” moments. These help identify just why, where, and how leadership often fails on different levels.
The result is a study in paradoxes, reality, and applied mindful guidance that will intrigue an especially wide audience, making No One Can Do Your Push-Ups for You of wide interest and recommendation to libraries that typically receive a wealth books on leadership programs and strategies, but too few on assessing what really works.
No One Can Do Your Push-Ups for YouReturn to Index
Prime
After 50
Jonathan
D. Block, MD, MBA, MLS, MPH,
CPE
Pierhead
Lighthouse LLC
978-1-83431-593-5
$16.99
Paperback/$7.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Prime-After-50-Urologists-Strength/dp/183431593X
Prime After 50: A Urologist’s Guide to Strength, Energy, Sex, and Lifelong Vitality offers an important survey of urological conditions which tend to arise in older age, offering a self-help book that men should consult as part of the process of understanding and mitigating the effects of an aging body.
This guide stands out from others because of its basic premise that signals of possible forthcoming problems are too often ignored – and that men can easily acknowledge and do something about them:
Just getting older" is a passive explanation for what are actually active warning signals. Your body isn't failing you. It's communicating with you. The problem is that nobody gave you the manual to read what it's saying. That's what this book is.
Dr. Block has a quarter century experience as a urologist. His experience lends to his creation of a system for the early identification and tackling of common urological problems that sometimes present as vaguely as growing malaise, insomnia, and other symptoms that may not initially be linked to urological dysfunction.
His insights involve better understanding vascular health, metabolism and muscle changes, shifting hormones, and other influencers on urinary health.
Moreover, chapters offer not just early warning systems and identification, but assessments of effective and ineffective approaches to maintaining health. These provide candid, sometimes surprising assessments of the connections between diet and lifestyle choices and overall metabolic reactions:
Perfect diets don't exist. Carb absolutism, meaning the belief that all carbohydrates are poison or that eliminating them entirely is the only path to health, ignores the metabolic context that determines how your body handles carbohydrates. Juice cleanses provide no meaningful detoxification benefit and strip out the fiber that makes whole fruit valuable in the first place. Supplementing around a poor diet is the nutritional equivalent of putting premium fuel in a car with a cracked engine block. The fundamentals have to be in place before any supplement can do meaningful work. And fad fasting protocols that require extreme restriction windows or extended multi-day fasts are harder to sustain, carry more risk for muscle loss, and produce no better metabolic outcomes than the simple 12-hour overnight eating break covered later in this chapter.
Prime After 50 uses urinary system health as a starting point for men to better understand their entire body’s systems, interactions, warning signals, and changing maintenance requirements.
Librarians and readers seeking proactive, positive assessments of what works, what doesn’t, and how to handle an aging system with better knowledge and management will find Prime After 50: A Urologist’s Guide to Strength, Energy, Sex, and Lifelong Vitality an essential home and library reference.
Prime After 50Return to Index
The
Question of When: A Practical
Guide to Knowing When It’s Time for Assisted Living, Memory Care,
or Skilled Nursing
Cory
Fosco
Campion
Hall Press
979-8-9952369-0-0
$24.95
Paperback/$9.99 eBook/$9.99
Audiobook
Website:
https://coryfosco.com
Ordering: https://www.amazon.com/Question-When-Practical-Knowing-Assisted/dp/B0GS69QCXD
The Question of When: A Practical Guide to Knowing When It's Time for Assisted Living, Memory Care, or Skilled Nursing addresses the difficult decision of knowing when it’s time to choose care for a declining loved one. From knowing when one’s home is no longer safe and what to do about that to understanding the differences between assisted living, memory care, and skilled nursing, readers receive a wealth of knowledge not just about when it’s time for a change, but how to contrast all the options.
Cory Fosco surveys the basics of how to evaluate facilities and support systems. This will prove essential for all – especially those who may hold little prior familiarity with such institutions and organizations.
Chapters also discuss how to have the “it’s time for a change” conversation with a loved one who likely will resist making such a move. This adds value for readers who struggle with not just identifying what to do and when to do it, but getting a loved one on board with planning.
“Action Steps” specifically outline what’s involved:
Pull up CMS Care Compare and look up any facility you are currently considering — or, if you are earlier in the process, look up two or three facilities in your area as a practice exercise. Review each domain separately, read at least one state survey report, and note what questions it raises. Then complete the sections of the When Readiness Checklist that you can complete today, and note which sections need more work.
Fosco shows how to get everyone on board with the process, including the most obvious (but also the most commonly neglected): one’s physician:
Of all the planning failures I have observed over 34 years, one of the most consistent is this: families who have been living with a serious diagnosis for months or years and have never had a direct conversation with their loved one’s physician about trajectory, prognosis, and care planning.
They have had plenty of appointments. They have discussed medications, test results, and symptom management. But the larger conversation, the one about where this is going, what it will eventually require, and what the family should be thinking about now — has simply never happened. Sometimes because the physician didn’t initiate it. Sometimes because the family didn’t know to ask. Often because both parties were focused on the immediate and no one made space for the longer view. That conversation is worth having deliberately. Not in the five minutes at the end of a routine appointment, but as an appointment with a specific purpose.
The result is an exceptionally potent survey of next step possibilities and approaches that goes where every book about advancing years should go in identifying when, where, and how to make changes in lifestyle and support systems.
Librarians will have many similar-sounding guides to consider for their collections, but The Question of When is head and shoulders above most. It will attract a wide audience with its practical assessment strategies and important inclusion of everyone involved in the process of supporting an elderly or infirm loved one.
The Question of When: A Practical Guide to Knowing When It’s Time for Assisted Living, Memory Care, or Skilled NursingReturn to Index
Retiring
on FIRE
Jonathan
D. Block, MD, MBA
Pierhead
Lighthouse LLC
978-1-83431-221-7
$19.99
Hardcover/$13.99 Paperback/$5.99
eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Retiring-FIRE-Fundamental-Guide-Wealthy/dp/1834312213
Retiring on FIRE: The Fundamental Guide to Retiring Wealthy and Early surveys the elements of financial independence that most dream of, but few achieve. It reveals a system for wealth management that draws upon not just accumulation, but strategies for converting income into self-building wealth, allowing savers or earners to retire early with a juggernaut of auto-building wealth processes in place.
It all sounds too easy – after all, if this were so achievable, wouldn’t many be doing so? Apparently not – not without the core math involved in Jonathan D. Block’s FIRE program, which is designed to not only build success stories, but address common risks that destroy early retirement plans.
Investment savvy and principles weave into the FIRE concept, backed by advice on how to run the numbers, better understand influences on their progression, and manage investment accounts.
Traditional savings accounts are examined and critiqued, mismatches in investments identified, and retirement goals from personal projects to travel are added into the topic of money management to help potential retirees hone the basics of not just how they will pay for their retirement years, but what they will do with their time.
This expands the usual approach of retirement investing, adding considerations to the overall equation of financial management that will create important discussions among business, financial, and personal wealth management reading groups and circles.
Librarians and readers interested in a system-driven guide that integrates saving, investments, and life planning into one logical approach will want to add Retiring on FIRE to the top of their acquisition lists.
Its blend of practical and systems insights and advice makes for a hopeful, lively, and accessible survey that all income levels will find enlightening.
Retiring on FIREReturn to Index
Until
Christmas
Diane
Green
DCG Books
979-8242352148
$12.99
http://www.DCGBooks.com
Until Christmas blends the Christmas holiday with the endings and beginnings of a thirty-seven-year-old woman given just months to live, who makes a vow to remain alive until Christmas.
When the end comes, it brings with it a merry surprise as the narrator encounters “a wise, gentle man. At first, I couldn't fathom who he was in his copious robes and his magical presence.”
Spiritual readers of all ages will find especially thought-provoking the marriage of fantasy, Christmas trappings, and the revelations of a woman who discovers that the afterlife appears in a surprising cloak of holiday wonder.
Especially notable as the story develops are the insights on how those left behind grieve and then move on, transforming their grief into new opportunities for injecting positivity into their worlds:
My mother, he told me, found a way to grieve without it destroying her. She found that children were a great comfort when she sat with them on Sundays to teach Sunday School. My father, who grew quiet whenever anyone mentioned me, made new friends who liked to play golf. Each swing took away some of his anger; a win, however calculated, sometimes drew tears. Tears of gratitude for thirty-seven years.
Until Christmas can thus be employed in different ways: as an allegory fantasy about afterlife or Christmas spirit; as a lesson on adaptation and converting grief to uplifting changes; and as an accessible 33-page story that the entire family can enjoy and discuss at Christmas and throughout the year.
Librarians can highly recommend Until Christmas for its simplicity and vivid insights into the unexpected ways God appears and works in the world and beyond.
Until ChristmasReturn to Index
Why Real
Estate Does Not Appreciate – And Why You Need More of It
Thomas
Guss
Morgan
James
Publishing
978
1-15112017781 $22.95
https://www.bookshop.org/shop/morganjames
Why Real Estate Does Not Appreciate – And Why You Need More of It argues that conventional views of long-term real estate investment are not what they seem. What does add value is change – and responding to it appropriately. Thomas Guss employs his 25 years in New York real estate to focus on these factors in a book that tells investors how to make the most out of real estate through revised approaches to its management.
Some thirty chapters make the case against passive real estate holdings in favor of reviewing the shifting conditions which affect real estate investments long-term. These considerations empower real estate investors by offering strategies, assessment approaches, and bigger-picture thinking not typically covered in real estate books.
During the course of these discussions, Guss provides essential analytical insights that survey the foundations of not just purposeful and effective real estate acquisition and management, but the foundations of wealth based upon it:
Ownership also changes behavior. If you control the building, you can invest in build-out, signage, accessibility, storage, and operations without the fear that you’re improving someone else’s asset. You can think in decades, not in three-year amortization cycles. The store can look better precisely because you can spread improvements over longer periods of time. And over decades something else happens: The store profits may be modest, but the property preserves (and sometimes grows) purchasing power. Many families become wealthy not only because of the inventory margin but because of the land under it.
Finally, ownership creates resilience in bad years. If sales dip, an owner can, in effect, negotiate with themselves and temporarily accept lower internal rent. A tenant typically can’t.
Why Real Estate Does Not Appreciate bases its approach and recommendations not just on a singular attitude, but empirical evidence in academic research, studies, statistics, and historical precedents. This successfully captures the trends that have affected real estate wealth or degeneration over the decades, giving readers a broader picture of volatility factors, procedural issues that affect long-term outcomes in real estate, and insights about connected wealth acquisition and management history:
Real estate appreciates most reliably when a place becomes a long-term choice rather than a short-term trade. For many, gold was an exit strategy. Silicon Valley was an arrival. It created staying power. And staying power is what turns land from speculation into an asset class.
Though Why Real Estate Does Not Appreciate will appeal to anyone interested in real estate specifically, it should also be acquired by business readers, entrepreneurs, financial managers, wealth acquisition specialists, and virtually anyone involved in investing money into real estate assets of any kind.
Its wider-ranging ability to attract these audiences makes Why Real Estate Does Not Appreciate a top recommendation for business libraries and readers interested in far more than a singular “get rich quick” approach to real estate.
Why Real Estate Does Not Appreciate – And Why You Need More of ItReturn to Index
A Bug in
Your Sandwich
Mamta
Nanavati
StoryRealms
Press
979-8-9959187-1-4
$18.99
Hardcover/$13.99 Paperback
https://www.thestoryrealms.com/
A Bug in Your Sandwich provides picture book readers with a fun, screen-free introduction to coding and computational thinking through the story of siblings preparing for a garden competition. As their plans go awry, Ethan and Sienna discover that tackling big problems begins with breaking them into simple, logical steps.
Supportive parents gently guide the siblings when their joint garden creation goes awry, encouraging Ethan and Sienna to think logically, break big problems into simple, manageable steps, and following step-by-step instructions to solve problems together.
Engaging illustrations by Noam Levi accompany the effort as the entire family becomes involved not just in gardening, but in discovering that the same logical thinking used in everyday life forms the foundation of coding, redefining positive approaches to relationship-building and problem-solving in a joint project that offers many lessons.
Through a familiar, everyday gardening adventure, Mamta Nanavati introduces young readers to coding and computational thinking in a screen-free, accessible way. As Ethan and Sienna work together to solve their garden challenge, they discover that coding begins long before they sit down at a computer and exists all around them; it starts with thinking logically, breaking big problems into manageable steps, following a sequence, and debugging when something doesn't work. By revealing that these everyday problem-solving skills form the foundation of coding, A Bug in Your Sandwich makes coding approachable, relatable, and fun.
Mamta Nanavati’s engaging story will find a wide audience among families, educators, and librarians interested in shared learning experiences, family participation and growth, screen-free STEM learning, and gardening.
Perfect for read-aloud sessions and packed with bigger discussion opportunities about working together, understanding goals and directions, and discovering that computational thinking exists all around us, A Bug in Your Sandwich is a fun saga that outlines a coding adventure. It concludes with exercises and new terminology such as sequencing, algorithms, and debugging, encouraging young readers to continue exploring these concepts beyond the story.
A Bug in Your SandwichReturn to Index
Canter
Cuisine: Shetland Soup
Chef Seff
Sarah
Seff Publishing
9781969206357
$9.99
Website:
http://www.chefseff.com
Ordering: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1969206357
Canter Cuisine: Shetland Soup is the picture book story of four horse friends (Rose, Hazel, Iris, and Daisy) who learn how to cook from Chef Marigold.
Daisy feels ill and can’t attend the first cooking class, so her friends cook up a formula for making her feel better, guided by the wise Marigold, who has just the recipe for illness –chicken and lemon soup.
Unfortunately, the budding cooks interpret the recipe in different ways, resulting in some delightfully delicious snafus as three novices navigate the kitchen and overthink the recipe when their overseer leaves to check on the sick patient.
Each horse adds their two cents on what the recipe’s steps actually mean. Are potatoes vegetables, for instance? And can a recipe’s instructions be both wrong and right?
This fun tale embraces not just elementary-level cooking, horses, and varying interpretations of instructions, but offers a formula for friendship and problem-solving as the young horses join (and sometimes butt) heads to help their friend.
Elementary-level libraries and read-aloud adults seeking fun stories with underlying messages about connection and cooking will find Canter Cuisine: Shetland Soup the perfect recipe for lessons on listening, understanding, cooperation, and the value of life experience.
Kids will appreciate the horse-centric characters, inviting illustrations, and messages about friendship, understanding, and the value of wise instructors.
Canter Cuisine: Shetland SoupReturn to Index
The
Catalysts 2: Silent Night
Joseph
Guzzo
Resource
Publications/Wipf and Stock
Publishers
979-8-3852-8413-9
$18.00
Website:
http://www.wipfandstock.com
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Catalysts-2-Silent-Night/dp/B0HC87L74M
The Catalysts 2: Silent Night returns to the cat-centric stories of the first novel to add further tales and insights into stray cats in general and one tribe of adoptees in particular.
The further adventures of the Gioppolo family and their extraordinary cats Red and Fatty will delight both newcomers and prior fans with a survey that incorporates reincarnation and miracles with a new cat’s presence in the family’s circle.
The cats talk and tell the family many things, but underlying their appearances and disappearances are mysteries even cats aren’t compelled to confess.
As the outside world becomes involved and the media descends, the family faces the impact of their fabulous talking cats and what this means for shifting the world’s reality about felines and animals in general, even though their vet Lena readily informs the press that the cats are all too ordinary.
Readers of all ages will find The Catalysts 2: Silent Night a delightful reflection on living with cats, new possibilities and paradigms about their abilities, and the impact of destiny. Parents who read the story aloud to the very young will find many discussion points within about relationships between humans and animals, cat-centric abilities and impossibilities, and how family spokesman Martin Betters ultimately lives up to his name.
Delightful in its whimsical family and cat portraits, The Catalysts 2: Silent Night is highly recommended reading for families interested in stories about not just extraordinary cats, but their impact on the people and world around them.
The Catalysts 2: Silent NightReturn to Index
Izzy
Can’t Talk
Jennifer
McGee
Inclusive
Art House, LLC
978-1-962636-00-1
$23.99
Hardcover/$4.99 eBook
www.inclusivearthouse.com
Izzy Can’t Talk is a picture book that addresses a day in the life of a boy who has communication challenges. Spiced with the colorful illustrations of David Diamond, the story follows a farm boy who can do many things, despite his autism – except for speaking.
As an aunt’s razzleberry pie prompts similar nonverbal reactions between Uncle Gus and Izzy, young readers come to realize that communication can take many forms, and that its absence may lead to misinterpretation as well as greater understanding.
Jennifer McGee translates Izzy’s many forms of nonverbal communication into a story of understanding and possibility as his aunt and uncle struggle to interpret his special language.
As Izzy attempts many ways to demonstrate how much he wants a piece of pie, hilarious moments erupt as well-meaning adults try hard to make him happy in other ways.
Young readers learn that while Izzy may not talk, he is perfectly capable of communicating. Read-aloud adults can use this story to reinforce an understanding of not just autism, but the fundamentals of communication and caring enough to listen and try to understand.
Izzy Can’t TalkReturn to Index
Izzy
Can’t Talk But He Can Make
Friends!
Jennifer
McGee
Inclusive
Art House
978-1962636087
$23.99
www.inclusivearthouse.com
Izzy Can’t Talk But He Can Make Friends! is both a follow-up to the introductory Izzy Can’t Talk and an expansion of its theme of understanding autism and communication challenges.
In this picture book story, Izzy is introduced to a new young neighbor and freezes in terror because “new people make him nervous.” Jimmy returns the next day to try anew, but inadvertently sits down in Izzy’s special spot, which sparks anger.
As Izzy plays different games over the days, new neighbor Jimmy joins in and learns new things about his special friend and the fun they can have together.
Jennifer McGee takes the time to focus on and explore Izzy’s reactions to Jimmy’s desires to play with him:
Izzy felt uncomfortable because no one had ever played in his treehouse.
This goes beyond exploring Izzy’s uncommon reactions, explaining the emotional content and connections behind them to help young listeners and readers absorb the autistic personality’s responses to everyday life.
McGee also explores the benefits of friendship (“It felt good for Izzy to laugh with someone else.”), which helps youngsters understand the underlying values of having friends.
Developmental delay and autism are thus featured in a friendly, accessible manner that helps all ages better understand not just the actions of those on the spectrum, but their inner feelings as they react to life in different ways.
The result is an engaging, warm-hearted, involving picture book story that is highly recommended for both adult read-aloud and library acquisition for those who would better understand autism.
Izzy Can’t Talk But He Can Make Friends!Return to Index
Jenna
Finds a Dog
Terence
Rousseau
Little
Studio Films
979-8993059273
$12.99 Paperback/$6.99
eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Jenna-Finds-Dog-Terence-Rousseau/dp/B0GW5Q3542
Advanced elementary and middle school readers might anticipate that Jenna Finds a Dog will be another story about obtaining and caring for a pet, but interactions between Jenna and her found pup, Lucky, provide the opportunity for many thought-provoking reflections on emotional reactions, bad tempers, trust, and understanding. These added layers of insights translate to added value as Jenna struggles to control her big temper even in the face of bullying and life challenges.
From its opening paragraphs, Jenna Finds a Dog adopts a different perspective. Jenna is attending therapy:
The chairs were too small. That was the first fact of the day. They were plastic and bright blue, the kind made for toddlers who still have jam on their faces. Sitting in one made me feel like a giant. A giant in scratchy grey sweatpants. Around the circle, everyone else was wearing the same grey outfit. We looked like a very small, very gloomy sports team.
This is just the opening salvo of gripping descriptions that chart Jenna’s frustrations with her life and her inner emotional volcano which erupts not just at school, but at home:
"See?" I snapped. "She’s already picking on me! And great. Give the pills to the nurse. Why not just put it on the school news? Jenna is the girl who takes the crazy-medicine."
I was so frustrated I couldn't think. My fingers moved before my brain did. I flicked the milk in Latania’s bowl. It splashed all over her clean shirt. I didn't wait for the yelling. I bolted. I slammed the front door so hard the house shivered.
Long before Lucky the dog makes his appearance, challenging Jenna to take care of something outside of herself, Jenna’s reactions to life encounters provide realistic scenarios most kids will readily relate to.
The story excels in strength and understanding primarily because Jenna’s narration is candid and completely understandable. Her growing ability to think outside of her own perceptions and reactions to life translate to moments of recognizing that even Tyson, the biggest bully in her life, has his own challenges which spark unacceptable responses:
...while my life was getting better, I would find out that Tyson's was getting worse. That's karma. I suppose.
This book may lure young readers with a found puppy, but it delivers so much more impact as Jenna’s life unfolds and her new mandates for change come not from adult intervention, but from her unexpected new endeavors.
Many books attempt to describe those who struggle with emotional responses to life, but few stories will prove as delightfully embracing and realistic as Jenna Finds a Dog. This is why Jenna’s story is very, very highly recommended not just for elementary-level libraries and adults who like exploring emotional growth with youths, but also for the young person reading and for classroom circles discussing emotional connection, appropriate responses, friendship and responsibility, and more.
Jenna Finds a DogReturn to Index
Off the
Rails
Susan
Count
Hastings
Creations Group
978-1-952371-23-3
$12.99
http://www.susancount.com
Off the Rails is a story that will appeal to ages 8-12. Two Texas cousins’ early fascination with wolves, which started with a movie about a man living with them, turns into a too-real encounter as they struggle for survival on levels that films never imparted.
Davy tried to get his parents to hire a guide to take them into the wilderness so they could see wolves up close and personal, but though his trip to Montana seems ruined, he winds up in the adventure he coveted when his impulsive cousin Anderson leaps off a stalled train and into a dangerous situation in response to an animal in distress.
Susan Count embeds her story with not just wilderness adventure, but nature. From grizzlies to woodpeckers and arctic foxes and wolves, the boys face all manner of creatures as they confront wilderness dangers and new challenges.
Though Davy is a Wilderness Scout, he doesn’t know everything about survival. But his training does help as the boys navigate not only the great outdoors and snowy north, but each other.
Count’s focus on their evolving relationship, tested by experiences beyond their ken, makes for a gripping saga that elementary to middle grade readers will find thoroughly engaging.
Elementary-level librarians seeking a vivid story of family connections tested by survival challenges will find Off the Rails a fine recommendation to young readers interested in nature, relationship-building, and survival sagas.
Off the RailsReturn to Index
A Tail
of Learning
Once
Upon a Dance
Once
Upon a Dance, Publisher
979-8-89994-018-7
$24.99
Hardcover/$9.99 Paperback/$3.99
eBook
Website: https://onceuponadance.com/
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Tail-Learning-Not-So-PURRfect-Pirouettes-Dance-Along-ebook/dp/B0H32V91WW
A Tail of Learning is a picture book that adds to the Kittina Ballerina’s Dance-Along Adventures series, and follows the experiences of young animals that scamper into a ballet studio to learn the magical art of dancing.
Kittina, bequeathed a dance studio by a magical mirror in Pirouette Pines, teaches others and herself as she expands her dancing abilities, but faces her inability to perform or teach the key pirouette movement.
“I’ll never be a real ballet teacher,” she cries as she faces her limitations and her inability to perform or impart knowledge. But the novel concept that teachers can improve their own skills literally flies into her window, and Kittina discovers new opportunities by joining the Sterling Ballet.
Cameo pictures of ballet steps and exercises accompany the fictional kitty’s illustrations by Stella Maris to provide a delightful combination of ballet instruction and lessons on perseverance, learning, and adaptation.
Once Upon a Dance creates an appealing, absorbing story that emphasizes how ballet can be simultaneously taught and learned, illustrating not only steps in both, but how an aspiring young dancer can incorporate many different facets of instruction and discovery into her daily efforts.
Librarians and young readers interested in a different kind of ballet exercise filled with fictional attraction and practical dance steps will find A Tail of Learning an uplifting saga of new understandings and adaptations in the drive to dance.
A Tail of LearningReturn to Index
Wonderful
Half
Ari Ryn
Tsubame
Press
9798248475285
$22.99
Hardcover/$12.99 Paperback/$4.99
eBook
Website:
http://www.ariryn.com
Ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/Wonderful-Half-Novel-Ari-Ryn/dp/B0H2W9CVSH
Wonderful Half is a novel about fourteen-year-old Japanese boy Kentaro, who stays under life’s radar as a way of dealing with his mother’s drinking. As the story opens, his only friend is Naoki.
From the start, Ari Ryn sets the tone of a Japanese summer with a powerful blend of tactile flavors that will draw all ages into Kentaro’s world:
The cicadas were louder than usual, the buzzing rising in waves that drowned out the distant hum of traffic, with only the clang of passing trains strong enough to break through. Beads of sweat gathered at Naoki’s temples, and Kentaro could feel tiny drops forming on his own forehead. Even walking felt heavy. A bite too big from the strawberry bar sent a sharp, almost painful cold through his teeth, making him flinch.
In a world where the sea “feels like magic” and happy memories of childhood’s better times are now rationed, Kentaro exists more than grows - until new foreign boy Akira comes to town, bringing his own ghosts as baggage.
The three boys share coming-of-age concerns as they teeter on the precipice of adulthood. Akira feels especially challenged by adults who want to move him forward with life plans:
“Yeah, but everything’s so different. School here ends in March, and I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about high school until summer. And there’s that career-guidance form they gave me to fill out. How am I supposed to know now what I want to do for the rest of my life? I’ve never really thought about it.
“What if I pick something and end up hating it? What if I spend years preparing for some career and then realise I can’t stand it? Or what if I find something I actually love, but you can’t make any money from it? What am I supposed to do then?
“I can’t just quit and start over. Life’s hard. Just surviving, you have to work your arse off for food, clothes, a roof over your head. Your landlord isn’t going to waive the rent just because you need time to figure things out.”
Especially poignant and touching are insights about the process of standing on the cusp of adulthood. These reveal inviting, thought-provoking passages as the characters interact and share their thoughts, dreams, and worries about the future:
“I feel like I’m running out of time,” Akira said more quietly. “These feel like the last days of freedom I’m ever going to get. Soon I’ll have to choose something and squeeze myself into it, change so I don’t stand out. It feels like there won’t be any space left to just be myself.”
The result is a powerfully compelling story that weaves together the atmosphere of Japan and the culture of the Japanese, the concerns of three very different boys who each address their future prospects differently, and accompanying issues, from bullying and alcoholism to fantasies and realities, that challenge each of them in different ways.
Ari Ryn’s story will reach young adult audiences and libraries that cater to them, featuring an evocative tone and explorative value that lends to adult interest, as well.
Filled with insights, reflections, and the connections between three seemingly disparate boys who share some of the same concerns about their future, Wonderful Half offers a lesson in adolescent thinking. Its many moments of realization, new discoveries, and ultimate truths about the value and costs of boys liking boys enlighten and delight a wide age range.
Wonderful HalfReturn to Index
Zombie
Zoo:
Adventures in Tub
Melanie
Abed
Oculus
Print
979-8-9952813-1-3
$20.99
Hardcover/$13.99 Paperback
http://www.melanieabed.com
Zombie Zoo: Adventures in Tub is the first story in the middle grade Felix & Ninja series, accompanying its tale with vivid, colorful illustrations by Hisham Abed. The lively sci fi-horror tale of a plague that causes orphans to turn into monsters is a powerful, compelling story of two kids who must step out of their reclusive personalities to find a cure before their island home is literally devoured.
The story opens with naturalist Felix confronting strange, green, glowing goo that excites him to the point of abandoning scientific process and confronting a threat that might extinguish his scientific approach before it produces results. Melanie Abed employs gripping descriptions that build tension as Felix is forced to abandon logic for the sake of survival:
The doorknob rattled again. Harder this time. More insistent.
Felix released his grip on his notepad and pressed himself back against the shelves, suddenly aware that the thin wooden door might not be enough. Not enough for what, he couldn’t say—and that uncertainty was the most disturbing element of all.
Record, don’t react, his old mantra whispered. Document, don’t disturb. But this—this defied documentation.
As Ninja joins him in confronting this deadly new danger, the two observe impossible scenarios that also receive unusually compelling descriptive force that lends tension and atmosphere to their evolving experience:
The well water glowed. Not green like Bessy. This was different—silvery, almost beautiful, like moonlight trapped underwater. And floating just beneath the surface were dozens of tiny, translucent spheres. Each one pulsed with its own otherworldly light, moving together in synchronized patterns like they were dancing.
Science, theories, and action blend in a gripping mixture of possibilities and altered realities as the two very different friends employ their disparate brands of inspection and problem-solving approaches to creating an effective response to the novel dangers confronting them.
The story’s introduction to the Territories of Tub also leads readers into a scenario that moves the children from becoming shy observers to active participants:
“...even the best naturalists aren’t just skilled at watching life unfold. They know exactly when to become part of the story.”
Zombie Zoo: Adventures in Tub will appeal to middle grade readers seeking a vivid blend of action, fantasy, mystery, and scientific problem-solving which translates to a thoroughly unpredictable, engrossing story.
Elementary-level librarians can highly recommend Zombie Zoo: Adventures in Tub to young readers interested in zombie stories that sizzle with action, analysis, and unpredictable outcomes.
Zombie Zoo: Adventures in TubReturn to Index