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California Bookwatch
Table of Contents
Reviewer's Choice
A Secret Chord
Amy Friedman, editor
Out of the Woods Press
www.outofthewoodspress.com
9781952197185, $21.95
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Chord-Poetry-Stories-Art/dp/195219718X
A Secret Chord is another PATHfinder and POPs Club production that profiles the literary and artistic achievements of youth. It pairs lovely black and white illustrations by various Club artists with writings that are raw, honest, and uniformly outstanding. Club facilitator Diana Ruzova maintains that teens "need a secret chord they can play to summon their creativity and connect with others."
The PATHfinder and POPS Club meetings (and this anthology from them) is that chord, playing to reach to a wide audience of young, aspiring writers who will find within these works connections, inspiration, and the motivation to persevere in life and art. The poems and writings offer diverse forms of expression and reflection, as in this early chapter opener by John Bembry, "POPs Meaning/My Meaning," which captures the life of the young author and the influence POPS has had in his world: "A victim to the system, a suspect in my skin./All the things in a day I overcome trying to live... To change people's lives, that's all that I wanted,/With POPS I feel loved, without I feel haunted."
Amija's "To Someone" is a candid letter to a mother about the impact of her decisions: "Mom, I wish you would've been somewhere else, with someone else who could've kept you happy, not my dad. I wish you chose yourself over your family, made decisions to keep yourself happy, even if that had meant I wasn't born and wasn't here today."
Each work captures emotions about freedom, struggle, impact, and choice. Each provides a strong literary connection between themes, writers, and experiences that will especially resonate with fellow young would-be authors, and each speaks of missed connections, love, and survival tactics. The result is not a single chord, but a unison of raised voices that reflect how powerfully literary writing can be when it is rendered with the impact of experience married with writing prowess.
A Secret Chord should be part of any collection where writings by young people are profiled and explored. Ideally, it will be assigned in high school classrooms, discussed in book clubs and reading groups, and used by librarians, educators, and fellow writers as an example of how the voices of youth can create new inspiration and fire from controversy, angst, and struggle.
The Business Shelf
Odds Are It's Marketing
Shanise Ling
https://www.digitalingmedia.com
GFB
www.girlfridayproductions.com
9781967510306, $16.95 Paperback/$7.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Odds-Are-Its-Marketing-Practical-ebook/dp/B0GP9XVT74
Odds Are It's Marketing: A Practical Guide to Spotting Trends, Building Strategy, and Driving Growth surveys the underlying fundamentals of solid marketing, which are more about connecting with one's customer than promoting a product. It focuses on being authentic, creating a message which resonates with an audience, and adopting a new approach to marketing strategy which embraces observation, fine-tuning one's defined market, and creating actionable approaches to reaching customers.
Many books claim to enhance marketing, but no others offer Shanise Ling's special framework, which connects business interests and approaches with vignettes that illustrate diverse approaches to business achievement: "What started as a public stumble becomes a lesson in humility, adaptability, and respect. Instead of being mocked as out-of-touch outsiders, the company earns credibility for listening, collaborating, and demonstrating cultural fluency in real time. We've seen this play out in real life as well."
Within this framework lie the nuts and bolts of using technology more effectively and understanding the common pitfalls in thinking which often accompany new strategies: "I often ask clients this question: "What are you using AI to amplify - your message or your noise?" AI doesn't fix broken marketing. In fact, it scales it. If your brand is unclear, your ethics shaky, or your voice inauthentic, AI will magnify that. But if you know your values and your story, AI becomes a cocreator - helping you refine ideas, speed up execution, and scale your impact."
From better understanding behaviors, reactions, and connections to realizing why some approaches don't deliver results, Odds Are It's Marketing excels through insights that connect the dots between emotional relationships and response and successful customer loyalty. This is why business readers and libraries should place Odds Are It's Marketing at the top of their reading lists. More so than most books about marketing, it uncovers the gems of realization about business approaches and pursuing long-range success that can make or break a business endeavor - making the book about much more than a singular marketing strategy alone.
The Jobs/Careers Shelf
The Graduate's Guide to Grace in the Workplace
Anna Pikounis Paine
Paine Media Publications Inc.
https://www.graduatesguide.com
9798993974705, $16.95
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Graduates-Guide-Grace-Workplace-Common-Sense-ebook/dp/B0FR65KNL4
The Graduate's Guide to Grace in the Workplace: A Common-Sense Approach to Standing Out in Your Career gives new graduates a handbook to taking next steps into the work world, exploring the basics of office politics, gigs, becoming indispensable at work, and adopting the basic processes of business savvy.
This is an especially valuable approach, given that new grads may not know some of the etiquette or best practice basics usually gained only through trial and error: "A firm handshake with a sincere greeting is a must. The handshake is the first sign of confidence and professionalism during an introduction, along with a sincere "It's a pleasure to meet you." And please, no waving in lieu of the handshake when there are multiple introductions. Step forward, backward, around - whatever it takes to greet everyone with a handshake."
From accepting or declining an invitation to a boss' to understanding how to make great first impressions, exhibit confidence and business savvy, and understand the wellsprings of typical miscommunications, The Graduate's Guide to Grace in the Workplace covers common and extraordinary circumstances alike. It offers many concrete examples of interactions which can either propel a new worker to better relationships and business heights, or quash a career before it gets off the ground.
These many examples and discussions place The Graduate's Guide to Grace in the Workplace at the top of books which can be given to new grads just entering the job market, making it a perfect choice for libraries interested in recommending practical guides to new young workers. College and high school grads alike will find The Graduate's Guide to Grace in the Workplace equally invaluable for its thought-provoking insights into how a workplace operates and how effective business relationships are built.
Filled with important questions and answers about everything from raises and management positions to daily job interactions and choices, The Graduate's Guide to Grace in the Workplace should be on the reading lists of anyone of any age just beginning a career or entering the job market.
The Biography/Memoir Shelf
These Fragments I Have Shored
Jason Irwin
Apprentice House Press
www.ApprenticeHouse.com
9781627206396, $33.99 Hardcover/$22.99 Paperback
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/These-Fragments-Have-Shored-Memoir/dp/1627206396
"My mother was dying and all I cared about was getting enough sleep."
These Fragments I Have Shored opens with a descriptive bang that succinctly illustrates the terrible trials of caregiving, following a son's progression through his mother's death from cancer. Six months after the initial diagnosis, Jason Irwin finds his hands full in ways he never could have predicted as events surrounding his mother's final month of life dovetail with Irwin's chronic own health struggles.
More so than most stories about death, caregivers, or mother/son relationships, These Fragments I Have Shored carries and delivers a brutal, eye-opening reconsideration of family ties and relationships tested by health challenges. Irwin reviews his distant father, his protective mother, and his own growth in this family unit with an especially astute eye to explaining how these childhood influences both built or fractured adult responses and relationships: "Our conversations were brief and sometimes painful, populated by long silences. I learned to predict his responses. If I had some news, or something important to tell him, he'd nod his head, say, "Oh yeah?" then change the subject. Then we'd turn to the television to relieve us of the burden of talking. Television became our mediator, as I'm sure it did in households across the country."
The concurrent progression of a memoir that moves through childhood into adulthood with a story of ongoing health issues and their impact creates a powerful chronicle of the legacy of family guilt, shame, and adaptation. These Fragments I Have Shored will thus reach an especially wide audience, from caregivers who may be surprised and engrossed by Irwin's personal and family journey, which impacts all kinds of care given and displayed throughout his life, to readers who choose the memoir for its vivid family interactions and insights, and those attracted to its account of living in the world with disability and illness: "Living with roommates made it even more difficult to hide my disabilities. Getting drunk and acting like a clown were still my go-to strategies to hide my ostomies, though everyone in the house already knew. The only person I was fooling was myself."
The result is a pleasure to highly recommend to libraries seeking a wider-ranging memoir than most, and to readers who would absorb a life influenced by struggle, love, adaptation, determination, and family connections.
The General Fiction Shelf
Posthumously Yours
Charles D. Braun
Type Eighteen Books
www.typeeighteenbooks.com
9798998947766, $18.99 Paperback/$9.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Posthumously-Yours-Charles-D-Braun-ebook/dp/B0FQK2GG83
Posthumously Yours comes from an author who becomes the character in his own fictional story, who is searching for an exit strategy from life - and has done so from birth.
He has bequeathed a stranger money and this manuscript, which represents a charming interplay of thoughts, ethical dilemmas, dreams, and longings revealed in a delightfully original, confessional manner readers won't expect: "To me, burial seemed simultaneously solitary and claustrophobic, a situation that let the whole eternity thing drag on far too long. Cremation was more of a clean break, but I could never get past the name, deceptively reminiscent of soft serve ice cream, her favorite food...Natural Organic Reduction, or human composting, was environmentally sound, but, at the end of the day, it didn't seem all that different from roadkill albeit six feet under. Each of the standard options for eternity seemed less appealing than the last."
Wry irony, satirical observation, and a purposeful lean towards developing a final solution permeate a story replete with engrossing descriptions and experiences which center around Braun's determination to assess and employ all the tools in society to make his final choices: "When I found the Model 78G pellet pistol in The Want Advertiser, my intention was to use it to ward off intruders like a scarecrow. The fact that it was made by Smith & Wesson, a name as synonymous with Springfield as Friendly's in Wilbraham or Tampax in Palmer, made the alien object more familiar. This was the company that sponsored 4-H, not the one whose products were popular with local gangs. Yet I was completely rattled to awaken in our backyard, firing off shots directly into the pitch-black sky. I was relieved not to find any casualties on the lawn and grateful that the only human in earshot apparently remained fast asleep. It would have hardly mattered that the air gun was closer to a signal flare or starter's pistol than a weapon, any more than it did that a squirt gun was a toy. Bringing even a faux firearm into the house would have been a betrayal, calling into question Mel's entire value system."
How many ways can there be to die, and how many quandaries would suicide inflict on those around him? Charlie questions others as to what they would desire for him if they knew there was no happy ending, considers all of his options and their ramifications, and embarks on a lively romp through life, death, and what lies in-between with an astute literary eye to description and life analysis.
Libraries that choose Posthumously Yours for fiction collections will find it appealing not just to literature audiences, but to anyone contemplating issues of death, end of life, survival, and dark observations. Its ability to raise accompanying questions of moral and ethical depth makes Posthumously Yours an excellent choice for book club discussion.
The Crypto King's Muse
Francesca Frost
www.francescafrost.com
Frost House
9798993933801, $18.95 Paperback/$9.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Crypto-Kings-Muse-Francesca-Frost-ebook/dp/B0GPZNM8BP
The Crypto King's Muse combines intrigue and romance elements in the story of Charlotte Gordon-Lennox, who finds herself deeply in debt and thoroughly immersed in the mercurial world of cryptocurrency. This milieu is a far cry from her previous success as a fashion businesswoman. When the job at Riverbank, a crypto platform, opened up, Charlotte saw it as her salvation. Instead, it evolves into a further immersion in situations ill suited to her upward-bound goals as she is forced to work with former associate Duane and embarks on a world-hopping journey through love, power, success, and failure.
Charlotte's story is narrated in the first person. This gives her readers insight into her strategies and perspective in a personal, revealing manner lending nicely to the book's exploration of these new crypto worlds: "The screen reflects a mosaic of differences. Each person is here for a different reason, but my own stands stark against the backdrop of my thoughts: a crushing debt born from the ashes of a once thriving business."
Her re-entry into the business world with a different persona (serving as a muse) is equaled only by her cautious venture into love. She's already a widow - does she really want to venture into that world again with a more powerful figure beside her? Her personal reflections drive interest in her professional objectives and experiences: "Do I really want to do this? Once I start, where do I stop? Is he someone I want to share this with? But I know I want to know more about him, and one of us has to open up. He's really been kind to me despite his ever present hostility and arrogance."
Music is deeply embedded into the story as the soulful tune of a guitar or a melody from a popular song (listed at the start of the book) spices encounters: "I notice Duane's expression softening, something lighting up his face, and I'm aware once again of the shifting, ever changing music. We listen together as the tempo struggles to evolve and the guitar players merge and fuse and then pull away from the melody. Duane rolls onto his back, pulling me to him as he softly says, "Twenty-seven minutes in."And then I hear it. The achingly tender guitar weeping a serene melody, something so gentle, so exquisite, I still to listen more closely."
This steady infusion of music, romance, business acuity, and self-examination creates a powerful segue between billionaire interests, office romance, intrigue, and the possibility that a fling might become something more. Romance readers will appreciate Charlotte's steady progression into empowerment and self-realization, and the position she finds herself in as a lover, a muse, and a woman struggling through an uncertain world. Steamy romance supplements the miracle of relationship growth as Charlotte and Duane find themselves blending into each others' lives in unexpected ways.
Readers will appreciate how the dialogue and realizations intersect with discourses about emotional freedom and business concerns. Librarians and readers seeking a novel replete with high-powered transactions that take place on a personal and business level will appreciate how The Crypto King's Muse identifies new opportunities that lead Charlotte to identify and accept all her strengths in novel ways - including opening up to the vulnerability of love.
The Historical Fiction Shelf
What the Trees Remember
Abigail Cutter
She Writes Press
https://shewritespress.com
9798896363347, $17.99 Paperback/$12.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/What-Trees-Remember-Abigail-Cutter/dp/B0FWZY5S55
What the Trees Remember does historical fiction and mystery proud as it surveys a post-Civil War Appalachian mountain setting, simultaneously presenting a coming-of-age story that personalizes aspects of social and political conflict from an unusual vantage point.
Dora Minor has been raised a Quaker in a remote Virginia mountain community where a strong grandmother has taught her proactive values and moral behavior after her mother's death. When her father is killed after a violent response to the school he was attempting to build to educate Black children, Dora cultivates newfound feelings about her community, its values, and her place in the world.
These drive a story that embraces personal aspects of Dora's struggles in a manner few other books can touch, bringing to life the social forces that meet on the battlegrounds of small towns and even remote locales in America.
When Reconstruction falls apart and ideals fail, Dora is forced to confront the rise of the Jim Crow era in unusual ways that test her resources and influences. As events swirl between the 1800s and 1969's modern times, Abigail Cutter crafts thought-provoking scenarios and realizations that present different insights about Southern history, Reconstruction, and influences on the community's growth and healing process.
Dora and her grandmother Alma's connections to nature and their mandate to evolve new values and survival tactics contribute to a wide-ranging story that will appeal from YA readers into adult circles.
Librarians and readers looking for Southern literary force, historical understanding, coming-of-age sagas, and accounts of strong women forced to adjust their belief systems to adapt to new ideas and times will find What the Trees Remember a potent study in characters, contrasts, and atmospheric lives where the flavors of the South run through human affairs, bringing powerful currents of change:
"During the next week, she and Alma drifted through the house and yard as sleepwalkers, barely speaking and, in slow motion, doing only what was necessary. With every sudden snap of a branch or deer scrambling through the trees, both women froze. Worry was an incessant companion. Dora lay awake in her bed most nights, listening to the floorboards creak as Alma paced in her bedroom, and wondering when the sheriff might appear. The wafting odor of smoke from her grandmother's pipe was a constant."
Burn Everything... Then Forget It
Boston Teran
https://bostonteran.com
High Top Publishing LLC
978567030181, $22.00
Author's Website
https://bostonteran.com/burn-everything-then-forget-it
Burn Everything... Then Forget It is an influential story about a 1965 bomb that goes off outside a diner, forever changing the lives of those within. Against this backdrop of urban angst and American anguish emerge the interconnected stories of Viola Dash and Billy Castle. They are changed by the events that shook them, and their evolving love for one another seemed to defy their involvement in a series of politically motivated slayings just before the bomb changed everything.
Contrasts between their very different economic, social, and political milieus mark their coming of age and their conjoined interests, creating potent, reflective insights about their stark, secret legacies that are akin to the nation's newfound struggles with treachery and ambition. Issues of racism, violence, betrayal, hope and justice merge into Billy and Viola's lives as they confront both the darkness in America and in their own souls and one another.
A host of other characters buffet the interplay between these two to inject further observations into milieus which are beautifully metaphorically described by Teran: "They saw the priest was unraveling. It was a horrifying and tragic meltdown. He was trying to scream away the monster confusion in his head, the hallucinations a doorway to madness."
From what gives Americans hope and faith to how an entire culture is murdered from the inside out, Teran creates a gripping interplay of special forces and interests that move from the key characters into the underbelly of American society as a whole. "America v. America. Outcome Uncertain."
As graffiti captures the uncertain birthing pains of a nation under flux, so Teran captures the Last Supper of a nation with: "Graffiti marking the times - the assassination of a president - the escalation of a far away war - voting rights - equality for all - the murder of a black leader - and, of course, the standard vile epithets that slay the mind."
Librarians and readers seeking a novel charged with the politics, culture, revolutionary changes, and life-altering moments within different strata of American society will find Burn Everything... Then Forget It especially suitable for book club and reading group discourses about the future of a nation and those whose pasts and ideals affect its progression.
Triumph and Tragedy: A Novel of World War II
John Rhodes
https://johnrhodesbooks.com
Roundel House
9798993908908, $16.95 Paperback/$4.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Tragedy-Novel-World-Breaking/dp/B0GT95KLQ9
In 1945 and the second world war is dragging into its sixth year when tactical analyst Eleanor Shaux moves from the battlefields of Europe to work on the Manhattan Project in Triumph and Tragedy, Book 6 in the Breaking Point series.
Eleanor has already struggled with the war on its front lines. Now she's faced with moral and ethical concerns about working on a mega-weapon which could end the war, but result in far more destruction than any single weapon has inflicted in the past.
Eleanor's reflections bring home various facets of decision-making and strategically significant military planning that many World War II novels don't incorporate, providing thought-provoking reflections on how extraordinary measures are considered and justified: "If the Germans had had a viable atomic bomb project, it might have been necessary to bring atomic bombs to Europe to finish off Hitler before he could get his own bomb, but now that wouldn't be needed. In a sense it was a pity, because Stalin, she was certain, was in the process of replacing Hitler as the overlord of Europe, with by far the most powerful army. An American atomic bomb in Europe might have been a counterbalance. If Stalin knew that the United States could obliterate any Soviet city it chose, whenever it chose, Stalin might be less expansionist, particularly if he thought the city the United States might chose to obliterate was the one he was in at the time."
More so than most novels about these times, Triumph and Tragedy maintains a close focus on not only strategy, but key individuals in varying positions of importance who interact with Eleanor in various ways. Dialogue and personal encounters with high-level individuals and thinking permeate the novel, giving voice to some of the concerns and expectations of leaders and groups that typically do not prominently feature in military engagement novels: "I must confess I fear President Truman has little understanding of the many serious issues we confront," Churchill grumbled. "He lacks an appreciation of the situation here in Europe - indeed he lacks any knowledge of Europe whatsoever."
These introduce moments of discovery and understanding to readers - even those well steeped in the military history of Europe during the war - which offers much food for thought for book club discussion and debate. The result is a far more expansive consideration of the atom bomb's many impacts, both in its planning stages and deployment, which give rise to questions and concerns that will engage many readers.
Librarians seeking a novel about World War II that delves deeper into the impact and vision of the atom bomb than most and uses the perspective of a capable, thinking woman as it vehicle of delivering these contemplative moments will relish how Triumph and Tragedy brings history to life with emotional and philosophical reflection. From relationship developments to rifts caused by special interests and ethical clashes, Triumph and Tragedy is a powerful survey of the processes involved in constructing a new life and considering the impact and responsibility of changing the world.
The Last Saboteur
Martin Roy Hill
www.martinroyhill.com
32-32 North
9798218867522, $16.99 Paperback/$8.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Saboteur-WWII-Spy-Thriller/dp/B0GFXSPTDX
The Last Saboteur is a World War II spy thriller that centers on a German spy's effort to infiltrate America's Manhattan Project to stop the bomb-making at all costs. Three teams sent to achieve a similar result were a group effort, but this spy might have operated alone, as the last saboteur - a top intelligence secret holding frightening possibilities.
Wilcock was on the security team at Los Alamos. His name emerges as a person of interest in the paperwork uncovered about this possibility. His story, forced by investigator Reed, reveals the deadly cat-and-mouse game between Nazis and Americans on American soil that nearly tipped the war in a different direction in this thoroughly absorbing thriller.
Although a work of fiction, the foundations of this story rest on true events and characters whose interests and actions are incorporated into the plot. Characters range from Erich Gimpel and William Colepaugh, who were sent to America to uncover the nation's most closely-held nuclear secrets, to beautiful German actress Hilde Kruger, a spy who became involved with millionaire J. Paul Getty, a rumored Nazi sympathizer. Despite its fictitious overlay, the story stays true to history and real people, which injects a sense of discovery and authenticity into the plot to further give it an immediacy and attraction many World War II novels don't match.
Libraries and thriller readers will be... thrilled.
The LGBTQ Fiction Shelf
The Great Dane
Suanne Laqueur
DartFrog Books
https://dartfrogbooks.com
9798988021667, $21.99 Hardcover/$16.99 Paperback/$5.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Great-Dane-Suanne-Laqueur/dp/B0G1TXG6SR
In 2015, introducing The Great Dane, Dane is listening to two husbands explain how they met. Bystander Liko Greenman hears the story for the third time that evening, seeing it embellished more each time it's told and relishing his role as an introvert content to listen on the sidelines.
Danelaw Strong doesn't seem to be his type, not being a "bear," but Liko finds himself attracted to someone for the first time in a long time. It's an attraction that will change his life. Another attraction connects them, as well: Liko is obsessed over a mystery surrounding his son's favorite video game, Three Hares - and Dane was intimately involved with its creator Ethan Hasen for over twenty years.
As the game connects him to Dane in unexpected ways that evolve beyond initial attraction into uncharted territory, he learns far more than he wanted to about Dane's unusual relationships, his connection to the game and his son, and the origins of friends and family:
"Nomi smooths her daughter's hair. "There are a million different ways to be married. A million ways to be romantic. A million ways to be friends."
"A million ways to be a family," Dane says.
"Maybe not a million," Ethan mumbles."
Suanne Laqueur's winning novel blends mystery and revelation with relationship quandaries and folklore impacts in unusual ways most readers will find neatly defies pat categorization. Readers interested in relationships, family connections, grief recovery, opportunities and mysteries, and the process of falling in love will relish how The Great Dane expands Liko and Dane's worlds through many different interactions and assumptions.
Surprises throughout the story draw the main characters closer in unexpected ways, creating a progressive series of encounters that explores a trifecta of disparate personalities and shared interests.
Librarians interested in LGBTQ+ fiction that traverses the boundaries of straight and gay relationships in nontraditional ways will find The Great Dane a pick for readers interested in the intersection of love, friendship, family, and recovery from big losses and uncertain gains.
The Literary Fiction Shelf
The Third Person (rewriting him)
Luke Stoffel
Slipper Books
c/o Cinderly Press
www.thewarboychronicles.com
9798994252918, $16.99 Paperback/$8.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Third-Person-Rewriting-Warboy-Chronicles/dp/B0GLFPW1ZL
"The Third Person (rewriting him)" is a literary work that will appeal to a wide audience even as its boundaries are mercurial and hard to easily categorize. Memoir? Science fiction? Post-pandemic exploration? All of the above?
The novel's unnamed protagonist doesn't fit in at work, is mourning the loss of his boyfriend Warboy and "fifteen years of almosts," and the concurrent loss of his youth as he moves into adulthood with new perceptions about romance and life. The memoir feel combines with the automated descriptive device of a machine's observations as the boy steps into another role in his life five years after the lockdown, confronting ghosts, traveling, and probing his emotional makeup: "The aches in his heart felt as heavy as the weight of the fog. It never relented. It was hard to explore the beauty of his surroundings when he was drowning in the greyness of his life. Bad decisions and unfortunate circumstances clouded both his thoughts and his heart. It had been a long time since he'd felt this way, a dull ache that refused to leave."
Heartbreak seems to be a state of mind for him no matter where he resides, but the young man confronts his desire to do something different with hopefully dissimilar results: "Maybe it had been a mistake to go at all. To step out into the world. To pretend for a moment that his life hadn't already changed. The weight of what he'd been running from slammed into his chest."
Send-offs and shifts, the process by which he regains the ability to feel alive and engaged with the world again, and the aftermath of escaping a world in which everything feels broken lends to a powerful saga of travel, redemption, and interactions with machine and human alike.
Librarians interested in adding experimental fiction to their collections will find "The Third Person" thought-provoking and intriguing as the protagonist heals his broken heart and finds unexpected new paths of opportunity and revelation in the process: "Maybe this wasn't just a win. It was a wink from the universe. A reminder that joy can land in your lap, even after everything's gone to shit."
Filled with moments of discovery and change, "The Third Person" will especially delight book clubs and readers looking for engaging, unexpected forays into ghosts both confronted and set aside, and machines that hold many capabilities other than love.
Boy, Refracted (unfolding in six dimensions)
Luke Stoffel
Slipper Books
9798994252932 $16.99 Paperback/$8.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0GLJ58MV4
"Boy, Refracted (unfolding in six dimensions)" may be read either in conjunction with "The Third Person (rewriting him)" or on its own. Its dovetailed survey opens the Warboy Chronicles with an AI who has been designed to save a boy who has been scattered among different worlds, each piece facing a different environment. The AI's sole mandate is to save Luke in all of his incarnations. The problem is that with every reaction the AI creates, an opposite reaction actually negates the purpose of his programming. This demands that the AI rethink his logical progression and very patterns of response, placing him in an impossible position in need of assistance himself, which he receives from a monk who exists outside of these worlds and thus can view them from a different angle.
Issues of control, manipulation, purpose, and protocol arise in the machine's mind as he interacts with Luke, goes through trials, and tries to change outcomes which begin to feel inevitable and uncontrollable. The monk points out that learning isn't enough... the AI must change in order to succeed, moving beyond his programming into a singularity he is actually ill-equipped to handle. Buddhist philosophy mingles with a memoir, a survey of machine and human learning and loving, and an assessment of patterns made and broken which tackles bigger-picture questions of repeated heartbreak, recovery, and loss.
Librarians interested in experimental fiction that revolves around machine technology and AI intelligence, powerlessness and failure, learning and growth, and "learning what it means to love someone without being able to save them" will find "Boy, Refracted" takes apart illusion and reality and pieces it back together with aplomb and attention to building intriguing questions.
Replete with loops that circle around Warboy's influence, Luke's loss, and an AI's integration with impossible new outcomes, "Boy, Refracted" delves into a host of issues surrounding altered timelines and good intentions gone awry, revealing the paradox in striving for something new, uncontrollable, and ultimately steeped in love.
The Mystery/Suspense Shelf
The Architect of Deception
Debbie Baldwin
Gatekeeper Press
https://gatekeeperpress.com
9781662970351, $7.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Architect-Deception-Debbie-Baldwin-ebook/dp/B0GQJQQR52
Six years after socialite Razz James experiences the death of his brother, he remains mired in grief. As The Architect of Deception opens, Razz's long downhill plunge seems destined to end in tragedy - a fact his successful friends are determined to prevent. Is Razz embarking on a long suicide mission, or is he just being self-destructive? The two behaviors are too close to call until friend Hatcher, invited to join the secret society Scepter & Scythe, refuses a dangerous initiation assignment, only to find his friend Razz piqued by the possibility of committing a perfect crime. Razz didn't bargain on becoming a murderer in the process, however, and as events spiral out of anyone's control or ability to predict, his spiral into depression is halted in an unexpected way that embraces opportunity's deadly ramifications.
As Detective Sasha Birch and other investigators enter the fray, cat-and-mouse moves, violence, and manipulation become the driving forces of efforts made by Glick, Ryan, and others characters which interact with Razz's quest for his artistic voice and newfound strengths, testing his desire to control his destiny and perhaps others around him.
Debbie Baldwin unfolds a vivid plot that holds many twists. This will delight psychological thriller audiences with evolving personalities, special interests, and quirky events. Scenarios range from detective bullpens to dangerous coincidences as the plot thickens, spiced with powerful characters who pursue their separate objectives with determination and disparate motivations. Sexual tension and violence are also part of this bigger picture, so sensitive readers should employ caution, though the plot is enhanced by these developments.
Librarians and readers seeking thrillers that probe power, control, deception, and mercurial crime scenarios will find The Architect of Deception surveys not one personality, but masterminds of various scenarios and manipulative acts. With its fast-paced action, different characters, and unexpected forays through bribes, blackmail, conspiracies, and hidden agendas, The Architect of Deception keeps readers guessing and engaged to the end.
Encoded Minds
Kfir Luzzatto
https://www.kfirluzzatto.com
Pine 10
9781953864437, $12.99 Print/$5.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/ENCODED-MINDS-BIOLOGICAL-Kfir-Luzzatto/dp/1953864430
Fans of ecological thrillers seeking stories replete with environmental inspection and the allure of special interests clashing over its manipulation will find Encoded Minds a powerful study in contrasts that blends hard science with conspiracy investigations.
At first, Olivia Scott's unique ability to see memories in walls seemed the only way of saving her brother from a murder charge. But as she probes further, she uncovers a terrifying conspiracy surrounding sentient bacterium which threatens to consume humanity. The thriller opens with a nine-year-old's confession to her mother that she can see the truth in walls - something her mother dismisses as mere fantasy, if not outright lying. Not much has changed in her adulthood - she still can see the truth, but few will believe her. This forces her to validate that truth by investigating its foundations, placing her in the unfortunate role of a psychic whose powers are only the starting point for uncovering solutions. In this case, Olivia's perception of a very different form of threat, truth, and murder resolution leads her far from the usual focus on missing objects or the truth about their destruction.
This brings readers into a wild ride through police activities, belief systems, chemical molecules, and connections between her strange ability and the bacteria which now threaten humanity: "A wall can harbor millions of bacteria, all invisible to the naked eye. They can develop from a few bacteria left on the wall after someone touches it or from bacteria found in the soil." Other characters, such as Lieutenant Kenji Takeda, intelligence officer with the BACTCOM advanced information unit, join in to investigate something that seems impossible, leading Olivia on a grand chase through people and events that include thief and swindler Jack Spenser and other special interests.
Kfir Luzzatto neatly dovetails disparate personalities and interests in a story that moves between science, paranormal possibilities, personal objectives, and disparate experiences so seamlessly that readers are thoroughly immersed even when discussions become scientific or political. Stereotypes of women and others are broken, Liv traverses dangerous situations displaying a fiery brand of brilliant, sexy strength that attracts romance, and Luzzatto creates a thoroughly delightful interchange between characters and biological threats that continually flow in different directions.
Libraries and readers seeking an eco-thriller powered by memorable, realistic characters whose special interests drive an unpredictable, original plot will find Encoded Minds a strong addition to any collection, worthy of top consideration for its nonstop action and surprise developments.
The Eternity Code
Robert Rapoza
https://robertrapoza.com
Vinci Books
https://www.vinci-books.com
9781036710965, $18.99 Print, E-book (Kindle) $4.99
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Eternity-Code-Nick-Randall/dp/1036710963
The prologue of this archaeological thriller opens in 1519 Hispaniola, where soldiers are cornering Enrico Rodriguez, who has betrayed the king. Enrico holds the key to controlling the elixir of life, which makes him dangerous - but only if he's captured.
Fast forward to Chapter 1, set in modern-day Peru where gunmen are pursuing archaeologist Francisco Andrade; then Chapter 2, set in Columbia, where Dr. Nick Randall, Andrade's former protege, is drawn into questions about his predecessor's violent kidnapping and the secrets he kept about a dangerous legendary power.
What is the price for controlling eternity? Randall and a team of investigators soon learn that some will do anything to have such eternal, unlimited power, making any archaeological investigation pale in the face of scientific, political, and corporate special interests.
Robert Rapoza crafts a cat-and-mouse game of discovery, intention, and power struggles which move from past to present in satisfyingly unpredictable ways. The global romp is about more than unlimited power or a treasure that can bestow it - it's about the forces that would control others' lives and, most especially, the ways in which inhumanity enter the struggle in the name of fighting for a greater good:
"You implied that high-level individuals, likely in the church or government, support what you're doing. How are they going to react to your killing an innocent man?"
Sandoval's eyes narrowed. "He shouldn't have been here. I made arrangements for us to enter. It's his own fault, and we cannot allow our mission to fail."
As circumstances of murder, battle, and defense emerge in chapters that pit characters against each another and their own values, Rapoza creates a high-stakes adventure story that not only traverses many dovetailing interests and possible outcomes, but probes alliances and struggles that involve scientists in bigger-picture thinking about the results of their inquiries. No scientific endeavor is without its social and political consequences.
These heat up in satisfyingly diverse, involving directions in The Eternity Code that introduce dialogues about choice, consequences, and possibilities for changing the entire trajectory and future of the human race.
Many books incorporate an Indiana Jones-style action atmosphere, but few then infuse these discoveries and events with the kinds of moral and ethical choices that test all participants.
Libraries will want to highly recommend The Eternity Code to readers interested in a thriller suspense story with the shifting environments of an Indiana Jones adventure, action resulting from clashes between special interests, the mystery of who should be in control of perhaps the greatest treasure in archaeological history, and the thought-provoking impact of its very existence.
From kidnappings and pursuits to amazing discoveries and the mandate use them for the greater good, The Eternity Code crafts an action-packed tale that will delight thriller readers and provide fodder for book club engagements about the impact of exposing and exploring unprecedented power.
Everywhere She Ran
A. Eveline
Columbus Publishing Lab
www.ColumbusPublishingLab.com
9798901830154, $11.99 Paperback/$6.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Everywhere-She-Ran-Eveline-ebook/dp/B0G7LNVGFB
Leyla James is heading out the door for her usual morning run in Everywhere She Ran. The last thing she expected was to be attacked, kill her attacker, and wind up in the hospital, in short order. But that's only the start of events which spiral out of her control.
Leyla is an attorney well used to confrontations - but that's with a support system behind her. When all the support in her life seems to vanish, she seeks refuge away from DC in a small Midwestern town, where she attempts to restart her life while feeling like someone is watching her every move.
A. Eveline builds an engrossing story that starts with recovery and leads into tangled questions and possibilities. Leyla's inclination towards boredom is offset by a growing pile of bodies that keeps her life supercharged even though she's attempted to downgrade threats in her life by moving away from them physically and mentally.
The new people she becomes involved with are also suspicious - are they protecting her, or setting her up? She is killing herself to stay safe - but all her actions fall under inquiry or question, leading her to eventually question her choices and life.
Eveline creates a powerful, believable story that revolves around the process by which a capable attorney and investigator begins to question her abilities. Leyla's processes, encounters, and struggles to feel safe again are infinitely understandable and compelling, and will mirror many a reader's perception of what it means to be a survivor. Just when readers believe they understand her psyche and situation, events take another unexpected turn into something even worse, testing Leyla's relationships, savvy, and self-preservation in new ways.
The bold, assertive approach of Eveline's character and her determination to survive even if nobody else cares if she lives or dies makes for a mystery replete with emotional connection and satisfying twists readers won't see coming.
Libraries can highly recommend Everywhere She Ran to those interested in a cross-country hike through murders, motives, alienation, and deadly operations that prove effective even though they must rely on a potential victim's information to prove successful. Is Leyla running away from danger, or towards it? The story evolves a compelling plot about escape, redemption, and ultimately, questions about love.
The Fantasy/SciFi Shelf
Subtraction
K.W. Franklin
https://www.kwfranklinauthor.com
GFB
www.girlfridayproductions.com
9781967510405, $6.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Subtraction-K-W-Franklin-ebook/dp/B0GHZJ5Q3D
Subtraction is a hard sci-fi novel set in 2074 about genetic engineering's impact on the future. It focuses on the work and conundrums of Professor Herbert Blane's Life-Extension Therapy (LET), which has changed the world. An inter-generational war erupts between the haves and have-nots partially fueled by LET's older generation, which has acquired massive wealth unfettered by the ravages of time and death, leaving younger generations to struggle.
The elite are inevitably challenged by those who rise up against them - but here's where the novel takes another twist. A covert network of scientists and engineers seeks to modify and change the equation of privilege by employing technology in yet another new way. K.W. Franklin crafts an engaging story of gene editing, survivors, economics, and social policies.
Chapters consider the cost of humanity's survival and the privilege which accompanies too many. A host of characters enter into the fray to inject their own perceptions of what the future should bring, reflecting that "'Eventually' can be a very long time" when speaking of genetic shifts and survivors' adaptations. Political responses to the threat caused by the covert group New Generations Initiative (NGI) marry with social and individual viewpoints and purposes to create an engaging, thought-provoking vision of social, political, and cultural transformation.
Embedded within the story are personalities and motivations which clash in unexpected ways, further giving depth to the story of how humanity makes difficult choices in its drive for power and longevity. Libraries looking for a different take on genetic engineering, longevity, economic and social reforms, and survival tactics will relish how Subtraction marries all these themes and more into a riveting saga of ambition and discovery.
Replete with moments of paradigm-changing decisions and humanity-wide impact, Subtraction offers scenarios and insights not seen in other sci-fi stories about longevity's impact. It is especially highly recommended for its social examination of privilege, wealth, and adaptation.
New Angel in Town
Jody Sharpe
Independently Published
9780988562066, $10.99 Paperback/$2.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/New-Angel-Town-Mystic-Bay/dp/0988562065
New Angel in Town joins others in Jody Sharpe's Mystic Bay series about a town where angels walk among humans, living among them in disguise.
Charged with overseeing young Evan, a boy in foster care, Guardian Angel Ron assumes a role in town that unexpectedly tugs at his heartstrings as his mission to help Evan turns into a mandate to promote positive changes in the town. Gayle has been dreaming of angels for a long time, and has participated in changing lives for the better, herself. She and a select group are privileged to know and hold the secrets of angel activities in their hearts. Those who interact with angels experience as much benefit from their connection as the angels who are learning from humanity.
Sharpe contrasts perceptions of angels and humans with interesting passages that build connection and foster understanding: "We never dreamed we would eventually move to Mystic Bay, and have lovely wives to share our lives with, let alone have kids. We were always aware it happened sometimes to angels, coming down and living as humans for years.. "But Noah, what you need to know is that we learn from all of you. We may guide and teach patience, kindness, and more, but we are still learning humanity from people."
The spiritual, psychological, and ethical connections that develop in this small town provide readers with engrossing scenarios of cooperative problem-solving and different forms of connection. The flavors of magical realism embed the story with a paranormal taste, but expand to consider the motivations and influences of all kinds of beings as they face bullying, joyful endeavors, and selfless acts alike.
The roots of family connection and helping others dovetail with Ron's growing awareness of his power and impact, creating satisfying moments of discovery and positivity which will delight and uplift readers seeking stories that are thought-provoking and helpful.
Librarians seeing attraction to Sharpe's other angel novels or who seek a standalone story of a harmonious small town's undercurrents of connection will want to recommend New Angel in Town to patrons that hold a special interest in stories about kindness. Its ability to illustrate a host of special interests who come together to support one another in diverse ways makes for a story that is engaging, inspirational, and an astute blend of child advocacy and active compassion.
The Poetry Shelf
Before Leaving the Island
John Fadely
Trail to Table
c/o Wandering Aengus Press
www.trailtotable.net
9781966644033, $20.00
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Before-Leaving-Island-John-Fadely/dp/1966644035
Before Leaving the Island's poems embrace the experience of living on an island in different ways, opening with a poem describing a boy who immerses himself in the waves and a man who emerges from his cleansing ritual to the washing away of ego and persona that produces a clean slate of new possibilities in "Unnamed." From there, readers move through collisions with life, altered possibilities created by gravity and chance, and fluctuations in life cycles that produce reflections on opportunity and adversity, as in the poem "Cycling Through":
But for now I'm hurtling
toward discovering gravity
requires our weight
born as we are
to be tossed like luggage
from curb to curb
and the child tracking my path
comes up larger
in the rush of the present
our eyes locked across years
his brain already predicting
the course of his one life
and his gaze is eternity
gazing at itself in a mirror
but he is eternity and he is the mirror
John Fadely crafts a whimsical jetty in the waters surrounding his islands of discovery with poems that play on words, capitalizing them or placing them in unexpected progression for a delightful interplay of meaning and shifts in reader perspective. This encourages readers to absorb meaning and language in new ways, gently shaking the experience of literary expectation and edging into experimental free verse territory without going so far as to lead readers astray or leave them wondering about intention and meaning.
Journeys between humanity and the natural world dovetail nicely in depictions of both that include atmospheric Asian backdrops such as Hong Kong, island refuges and experiences, and growth. The collection is presented in sections that move from shores to terrain and shoals, with each segment traversing new territory of insight and form. Readers can expect the unexpected, as in the contrasting poetic forms of "End of the Dinner Party":
urban stars faintly map cloudscape
moths into remnant light they ask
if the city at midnight will drain away
will leach boneyards into day
in alleyways backlit pouring out like
early evening smooth-faced in bomb flicker"
and "Topography":
"It's not as if I had
a mind to be diverted,
my flow valved
and concrete-lipped,
nor was it my intent
to be kissed by mouths
of vapor fluxing down
from the Pacific"
Librarians who pick Before Leaving the Island as a fine example of contemporary experimental poetry forms that remain rooted in human and natural experience will find much to recommend to modern literature audiences seeking poems that are as suitable for creative writing classes and book club discussion as for personal contemplation.
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive, Oregon, WI 53575-1129
phone: 1-608-835-7937
e-mail: mbr@execpc.com
e-mail: mwbookrevw@aol.com
www.midwestbookreview.com
Diane C. Donovan, Editor & Senior Reviewer
12424 Mill Street, Petaluma, CA 94952
phone: 1-707-795-4629
e-mail: donovan@sonic.net
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