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Able Greenspan's Bookshelf
Frankenstein Lives: The Legacy of the World's Most Famous Monster
Paul Ruditis
Castle Books
c/o Quarto Publishing Group USA
www.quartoknows.com
9781577155379, $19.99, HC, 176pp
https://www.amazon.com/Frankenstein-Lives-Legacy-Worlds-Monster/dp/1577155378
Synopsis: Beginning with the story of Mary Shelley's conception of the novel on a stormy night on the shores of Lake Geneva, "Frankenstein Lives: The Legacy of the World's Most Famous Monster" by Paul Ruditis traces the Creature's transformation from a nameless literary monster to an international sensation, appearing in films, television shows, comic books, graphic novels, and commercial merchandise. The Creature has even appeared on a cereal box!
Frankenstein's monster has been a hero and a villain, a star in both comedies and dramas. He has gone head-to-head with both Dracula and the Wolf Man, tap danced with Gene Wilder, joked around with Abbott and Costello, served as the butler for the Addams family, and continues to star in films today.
With special attention placed on the 1931 film starring Boris Karloff staggering through the mad scientist's laboratory, "Frankenstein Lives" explores the classic (and often misunderstood) character. This visual guide and history includes photos of Shelley's manuscript pages, Boris Karloff on set as the Creature in the 1931 film, and much more! Frankenstein Lives brings the history to life, including:
Mary Shelley's background and inspiration
Film portrayals of Frankenstein's monster, including upcoming film adaptions
Commercial merchandizing of the monster, including costumes and video games
Profiles of the Bride, Igor, and Dracula
And so much more!
Readers will relive the Creature's greatest pop culture moments in this visually stunning and comprehensive guide to the green monster that we can't stop loving.
Critique: Fascinating, informative, and a fun read from cover to cover, "Frankenstein Lives: The Legacy of the World's Most Famous Monster" is profusely illustrated both in color and B/W. A 'must' for the legions of Frankenstein monster fans, and unreservedly recommended for personal, community, and college/university library Fantasy & Pop Culture collections.
Editorial Note: Paul Ruditis (https://www.paulruditis.com/bio) is an author and pop culture addict who has written companion books for TV shows, including The Walking Dead, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, Star Trek, and The West Wing. His diverse resume also includes original young adult novels, comic books, and novelty books for all ages. There is a listing of his books at https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/22625.Paul_Ruditis
Able Greenspan
Reviewer
Diane Donovan's Bookshelf
Rat Town Blues
Brian Kaufman
Black Rose Writing
https://www.blackrosewriting.com
9781685136761, $19.95
https://www.amazon.com/Rat-Town-Blues-Slag-Ferguson/dp/1685136761
There are moral lines in life that should not be crossed. And there are people in life that are destined to cross them. One such person is Santiago. Others are the men who become involved in pursuing him.
Rat Town Blues is the first novel in the Slag Ferguson series. It incorporates elements of thriller action, noir investigative intrigue, and the confessional voice of a flawed detective with a low-budget approach to hanging out his business shingle.
Of course, his first client would be a blonde. Brian Kaufman excels in first-person observations that build character and atmosphere:
The woman is blonde, of course. She has the long, slender frame of a foxglove flower, complete with bell-shaped earrings. I'd bet the purse she carries costs more than my office furniture. Her hair is pinned against the back of her head, accented by two hair sticks. Maybe there's some pins, too. Not one strand out of place. Makes you want to shake that hair loose and give it a yank.
Kaufman's descriptive ability makes Rat Town Blues a standout from the beginning as Ferguson observes his client with the candid drawl of an experienced detective and the colorful metaphors of a poet:
This blue-chip blonde is uncomfortable as hell, sliding around on my deluxe office chair like a fried egg in a saucepan.
As this unlicensed investigator hones his craft while delving into layers of complexity in his latest case, readers become immersed in situations that simmer with tension, revelation, and unexpected discoveries that challenge their own ability to predict outcomes.
From ending relationships, treading water in life, and developing causes to keep life meaningful and engaging, to the intricacies of tracing different case developments that keep Ferguson on his toes and his readers guessing about developing relationships and situations, Kaufman rests the tension and intrigue on both a noir atmosphere and a special sense of psychological and social evolution. These support the mystery, keeping the story realistic and thoroughly engrossing.
The weave of personal and bigger-picture thinking about society as a whole (as well as its underbelly) creates especially compelling observations that offer food for thought while building intrigue:
Big cities unnerve me. The streets are filled with garbage bags and refuse. Buildings rise like mountains of aluminum, concrete, and glass, bearing in on me as I drive. How do people live without actually touching the ground? Touching dirt? Maybe that's why the world has gone crazy. You can't live in glass and aluminum and stay sane.
All these elements coalesce to make Rat Town Blues a winning story in which social examination dovetails with a case that leads Ferguson into unfamiliar territory and analysis:
I spider my way through social media profiles, looking for a clue I haven't noticed before. When that game begins to pale, I read news sites, keeping myself up to date with current events, none of which seems to apply to my life or the lives of any of my friends. We work for a living. We worry about bills. We worry about getting the laundry done. We don't worry about politics - that privileged world strikes me as insane.
Libraries and readers seeking exceptionally vivid, realistic stories of an investigator who confronts and exposes crime, evil undercurrents, big relationship mistakes, and opportunities for problem-solving redemption, wound into a likeable detective with an ability to analyze not just his case, but life, will find Rat Town Blues an exceptional journey.
It's worthy of not only individual pursuit, but top recommendation to book clubs seeking investigative stories that work on many levels. It will introduce food for thought to group discussions of noir fiction surrounding lines that should and shouldn't be crossed in the name of justice and redemption.
Adventure USA - OHIO! The Mystery of the Mound
Barbara Larmon Failing
barbaralarmonfailing.com
Forestdale Press, LLC
9780991650972, $2.99 eBook; $9.99 paperback; $19.99 hardback
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0991650972
The third book in Barbara Larmon Failing's series for preteens ages 8-12, Adventure USA - OHIO! The Mystery of the Mound, continues the visits to U.S. sites that twins Josh and Lizzie experience with much excitement.
Ohio may not sound like an exciting destination, initially, but under Failing's hand (and via the captivating illustrations of Erik Drohman), family adventure powers the attraction. It's all happening because of the eco-travel blog, co-written by their parents, that propels the family to visit tourist sites across the nation.
The story focuses on many components of life changes. These include an application to the All-Star Science Camp, eleven-year-old William's newfound maturity (which seems to dictate that 'science is boring' in comparison to, say, soccer), and parental participation in geology and archaeology. Through these events, the family is introduced to new discoveries and travel opportunities.
Facts that emerge about the Buckeye State revolve around its archaeological history, which is nicely woven into a story of siblings who develop different relationships with peers during the course of their journey. The dual focus on adventure, education, and psychological growth contribute to a plot which is captivating on many different levels as preteens learn to better understand friends, bullies, and the requirement of adjusting to new environments.
These elements lend the story a realistic air where the adventure is not just about science or soccer, but evolving relationships and adapting to new circumstances and environments.
Social, ecological, and political issues add further value to the story of how a student body and community react to a proposed golf course and accompanying issues of green space usage and management.
Libraries will find Adventure USA - OHIO! The Mystery of the Mound works well as a stand-alone story, in addition to supporting the state-hopping series as a whole. Its blend of realistic settings and characters, Ohio facts and history, a dash of mystery and confrontation, and the sense of adventure the twins experience makes for an exceptionally strong educational leisure read.
Tobacco Republic
R. A. Moss
https://www.author-r-a-moss.com
Beck & Branch Publishers
9798992668209, $14.99 Paperback/$4.99 eBook
Tobacco Republic posits a different political alternative to American history... what if the 13 colonies never united?
The story that builds on this idea winds through to the present day when the 13 colonies have morphed into seven sovereign nations known as the Britannic Region. These alternate events begin when:
Jefferson's Declaration of Independence had been voted down, primarily for the use of four words he refused to change: the United States of America.
When the ideal of unification dies, so do many of the assumptions and opportunities modern Americans take for granted. The world which emerges from this basic rejection of a key concept of combined special interests and strengths is a far different one. It's made all the richer for R. A. Moss's special take on how America and Europe could evolve in very different ways, as a result.
Moss builds the story on a series of vivid encounters, from covert plans for a terror attack in Paris, Francia to social and political clashes that emerge from this very different political milieu:
After months of strikes and riots over low pay and hunger, President Norville Perry had declared martial law and deployed Army units to every major city in Pennsylvania.
Particularly fascinating are the threads of political differences, personalities, and trends that impact this alternate universe in which the military, the media, and special interests coalesce and clash to influence and direct their disparate ideals of what America should become.
Descriptions of Congressional conventions, challenges to the ratification of an American Union agreement, and the turmoil that emerges from slaveholder interests that affect the outcome of political agreements create diverse topics. These will prove of special interest to history students, book clubs, and readers attracted to insights into how some of America's most ingrained issues and experiences could have taken a different turn.
Libraries looking at alternative history titles steeped in the politics and formation of institutions and agreements contrary to real-life history will find Tobacco Republic thoroughly engaging, thought-provoking reading.
The novel's ability to contrast and explore different avenues of political opportunity and connection make Tobacco Republic of special, high recommendation to readers and book clubs that would discuss and debate new possibilities, past and present, for building or reconstructing a republic and its ideals of freedom.
Return of the Cave Lion
Phyllis Wheeler
Motherboard Books
9798986699967, $11.99 Paperback/$4.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Return-Cave-Lion-Christian-Childrens-ebook/dp/B0DWZRTHQX
Return of the Cave Lion is the fourth and final book in the 'Guardians of Time' series. It will continue to delight young readers ages 8-11 and parents who look for Christian values and themes embedded in leisure reading.
It's billed as a "Christian children's action adventure." Phyllis Wheeler more than lives up to all these descriptors as she presents the latest escapades of Jake and Ava, 11-year-old time travelers who have helped others in the past. Now an oversized kitten brings them through a portal to strand them in a forest threatened by raiders.
It's not the familiar rescue scenario they've been involved with before, and the duo must trust in the Guiding Hand to continue to direct them through impossible situations and conundrums.
Wheeler embeds her story with revelations that encourage kids to think about God, their choices, and the growth-inducing results of their actions:
If there was one thing I'd learned so far as a time traveler, it was this: sometimes when you're afraid to do something, you just need to do it. And, that's what a leader does, too.
This approach encourages bigger-picture thinking as the story plays out, making it the perfect choice for adults who want to direct important discussions for pre-teens about leadership, problem-solving, creative thinking, and moral values.
All these elements are embedded into a gripping story that introduces kings and druids, epic journeys, and considerations of the Bible and faith:
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall lack nothing.
"He makes me lie down in green pastures.
"He leads me beside quiet waters.
"He restores my soul."
He sighed. "Now I know how helpless sheep must have a safe place to lie down. They must have quiet waters for drinking, not rushing waters. The Lord provides safety like that for his people, even if it is costly. He gives them peace at heart. He is our shepherd, our leader."
I pondered this. A shepherd leads his flock. He cares for his flock. As their leader, he doesn't just boss them around. He serves his flock.
Return of the Cave Lion is an engaging story that Christian families and libraries will want to include in their collections.
More than a time-travel adventure, Wheeler's story encourages all ages to consider God's mandates, purpose, and mystery while placing young characters in positions where they must make important decisions while staying true to moral and spiritual values.
These elements make Return of the Cave Lion especially attractive reading, inviting attention from leisure audiences while gifting the added value of spiritual reflection that emerges within vivid action and discoveries. All these features translate to exquisite adventure reading.
The Apache Kid: Army Apache Scout
W. Michael Farmer
Hat Creek/Roan & Weatherford Publishing
https://roanweatherford.com/hat-creek-books
9798892990271, $32.99 Hardcover/$17.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Apache-Kid-Army-Scout-Chronicles/dp/B0F9FBZX87
The Apache Kid: Army Apache Scout is the first in a series of books that outlines cultural encounters between Apaches and whites. Its fictional overlay brings to life the scouting training, perspective, and work of a child known as the Apache Kid who is raised in two cultures and operates in an odd milieu between them.
Characters both historical and fictional move through a landscape in which leaders, various tribes, and blue coats and "white eyes" play prominent roles. The introductory map and listing of all these players may feel daunting to readers who seek only entertainment in a Western story, but they are key to understanding how many of these characters interact.
A preface reviews the true history of the outlaw Apache Kid and his impact before chapters unfold the drama surrounding his life.
Another plus to the story lies in how W. Michael Farmer builds compelling descriptions of place and people into his novel from its opening lines, employing the first person to provide a sense of immediacy to observations and events:
Early one morning when I was eleven harvests, I sat up in my blankets shivering from fear in the cold canyon air. I saw only ghost-like wisps of fog in the moonlight rising off the slow-moving creek. Looking down Aravaipa Canyon, there was a low, yellowish-orange glow wavering against the darkness on the canyon walls and through the bosque trees.
His approach will delight readers seeking a thoroughly immersive experience, taking the time to build this world as well as major players from different cultures.
Reservation life and family relationships and interactions receive as much depth and detail as descriptions of clashes and struggles:
I appeared at my mother's evening cooking fire the second sun after I left Redmond's place in Globe. My brothers were approaching manhood, and my sisters neared their womanhood ceremonies. They had just begun their evening meal of steamed yucca tips, acorn bread, and venison when Mother saw me and covered her mouth with her fingers to avoid yelling with delight. My father saw her and looked in my direction and made a big smile that seemed to stretch across his full cheeks to his ears. My brothers and sisters were laughing, shaking a fist like they had just won a big race.
Libraries seeking a story steeped in Apache history, cemented in riveting characters whose world comes to life around them, and appealing in its vivid representations will find The Apache Kid: Army Apache Scout a standout.
Castle Gap
Andy Ivey
Andy Ivey Text & Trade
9798998522017, $19.99 Hardcover/$12.45 Paperback/$3.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Castle-Gap-Chase-Haven-Thriller/dp/B0F6TBNG73
Castle Gap is the first book in a thriller series that introduces Chase Haven, a Texan man whose girlfriend defies political interests, then vanishes. Chase becomes involved in the investigation that ensues, only to uncover a convoluted web of nefarious connections that keep unraveling more plots, perps, and possibilities.
Andy Ivey immerses Chase in politics from the story's opening lines as Chase walks into a confrontational meeting involving an aging town and participants who hold special interests. A controversial airport loan involves the mayor, the city manager, and other meeting attendees in a rubber stamp process that Chase duly notes.
Ivey follows Chase through the town, painting inviting pictures of its environment:
Chase drove his truck out of town in the direction Tacy had gone. Once past the few homesteads and small businesses, there wasn't anything but oil field roads until he reached the town of Crane.
Readers take a ride with Chase that turns into a roller coaster of confrontation as his investigation reveals undercurrents in this town that he'd never suspected. Rural politics and personalities come to life as battles emerge that had been fought silently and in a deadly manner.
Also notable are high-octane action and encounters that embroil Chase in personal confrontations to edge him not only closer to uncomfortable truths, but death:
Knowing he had to move to stay alive didn't make his eyelids any lighter. Get up, Chase! Move! But he didn't. He couldn't. Even the ear-blistering report of two gunshots didn't fill him with adrenaline.
The dance between city hall politics and everyday rural lives is nicely presented, engrossing readers in small-town Texan affairs.
Libraries seeking thrillers that embed their stories with farming and ranching concerns and the battles that emerge from outside influences on small town affairs will welcome how Castle Gap explores all these issues while placing one man in the center of emerging conflict.
Filled with powerful action and moral and ethical conundrums, Castle Gap is perfect, highly recommended reading for those who look for action cemented in realistic small town atmosphere.
The Things They Didn't See
Angela Shaeffer
Wander Lane Press
9798992825213, $15.99 Paperback/$1.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Didnt-See/dp/B0F6XTHVC4
In The Things They Didn't See, Jill and her family love boating until an accident robs them of their passion and turns it into a tragedy they each recover from in different ways. Their shared experiences and interests move in new directions to challenge not only individual concerns, but the schedules and pleasures the family has looked forward to all their lives.
The novel opens with the hope of revised attitudes and experience as Jill endeavors to move her persona into a more carefree milieu:
...today, brimming with optimism and the endless possibilities that summer promised, she committed to rediscovering her fun-mom side. She'd revive Old Jill. The easygoing, smiling, funny woman she was when she and Matt first married. The mom she imagined she'd be before the busyness of having three children made her disappointingly serious. Of course, she'd always be type A because that's how you got things done. But she'd also tease and laugh and not worry so much.
However, she finds herself still too immersed in organizing, logistics, and "timing things right so she didn't let any of them down."
Teenager Jake is also struggling to grow in a new direction, while Jill's husband Matt finds himself stuck in the middle, trying to forge peace between them, as battles keep driving the family apart. Jake's resistance to Jill's efforts to control him is narrated from both viewpoints, giving their different perspectives fine embellishment and understanding.
Forced to admit that perhaps she is "doing an appalling job of parenting on her own," Jill makes astute observations about family, empowerment, and life changes:
Maybe that was the reason asking for help was so hard. You were giving up - admitting that you needed someone else to be the hero of your story.
Libraries will find all these insights and revelations perfect for book club recommendation and group discussion as well as individual enlightenment. Parents, family members, and all kinds of readers will appreciate the family's coming of age and the changes they face as life forces them in seemingly disparate directions.
Filled with thought-provoking insights into family ties and what breaks or rebuilds them, The Things They Didn't See is an excellent study in discovery and growth that will attract a wide audience with insights on family members under siege from both external and internal forces.
The Dream Killer
Adam Cosco
Dillhead Books Press
9798307823187, $19.99 Paperback/$2.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Killer-Adam-Cosco/dp/B0DTTKCDMG
Imagine leading a quiet life - until a body found in the basement leads to trouble. That's the experience of Ethan Webman in The Dream Killer, whose life is turned upside down by the requirement that he clear his name by becoming an investigator on his own case.
Ethan is forced into association with scientist James LaRoche, who has drawn dangerous connections between dreams and death. Then Ethan confronts a broader conspiracy which indicates his encounters may be only the tip of a dangerous iceberg of death.
Adam Cosco turns a murder mystery into a thriller as the unassuming Ethan becomes increasingly embroiled in circumstances not only beyond his control, but well past his understanding and experience.
Ethan questions his parentage and family connections, his faulty memories of his mother's involvement with the murdered girl, and the nature of reality itself as he navigates unfamiliar territory and confronts dangers that hold no easy solutions.
Cosco builds tension as Ethan's realizations trap him in unpredictable circumstances:
The words hit Ethan like a weight to the chest. His breath comes faster, shallower. The reality sinks in - no way out.
Is film producer Allard a "prophet marching toward a reckoning" as Ethan's world spirals out of control, or is he involved in forces that lead Ethan to think that he's losing his mind? What does Sophia Labelle's probe of the long-forgotten story of scientist LaRoche, the man who has connected the waking life and the dream world, have to do with Ethan's predicament? Was the man a visionary of 'dream traveling' possibilities, or a portent of the Dream Killer that's now invading the world?
Libraries seeking stories that open as murder mysteries but quickly transform into psychological examinations of conspiracies, science, human conditions, and motives for murdering in extraordinary ways will find The Dream Killer a powerful collection addition.
Replete with high-octane action tempered by intriguing psychological inspection, The Dream Killer is hard to put down or predict. It's the perfect item of choice for readers who like their mysteries steeped in bigger-picture conundrums and thinking.
The House on Chambers Road
C. J. McGroarty
Literary Wanderlust
https://www.literarywanderlust.com
9781956615494, $17.99 Paperback/$6.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/House-Chambers-Road-C-McGroarty/dp/1956615490
The House on Chambers Road is a ghost story about grieving widow Libby Casey, who buys an old 18th century house on the edge of town to escape the realities of her husband's death, only to find that it hisses and shimmers with whispers, apparitions, and strange atmosphere.
Research shows that the house and its builder have kept a secret almost as powerful as the one she harbors with her husband's death. But as much as she amasses knowledge about the nature of the ghosts which haunt her in various ways, she seems helpless to change their prediction:
Take heed, for you shall be troubled all your days.
Her inherent interest in history due to her historical design background lends to investigating the house's past. Her probe comes full circle to dovetail with her own situation and struggles.
C. J. McGroarty creates a compelling tale that will interest fans of ghost stories and historical fiction readers as well as those struggling over family secrets or grief. All these elements dovetail in a survey packed with discoveries that pit the protagonist against more than one kind of spirit.
The tension is well-developed, the plot develops intrigue both historical and psychological, and the investigations hold satisfying twists and turns that even savvy readers may not see coming.
Whether readers choose The House on Chambers Road for its ghostly elements and mystery or for its satisfying historical research efforts, its conjoined connections between past and present experience that lend to different forms of haunting will widely appeal.
Librarians that choose The House on Chambers Road for their collections will want to highly recommend it to leisure readers, mystery and ghost story enthusiasts, and patrons looking for vivid stories of recovery, redemption, and realization.
The Art Collector's Wife
Susan Knecht
www.susanknechtauthor.com
Sea Crow Press
9781961864320, $18.85 Paperback/$9.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Collectors-Wife-Susan-Knecht/dp/1961864320
The Art Collector's Wife opens in 1962 Venice, where teen Isabel is shoplifting and skipping class. When she stumbles upon a secret involving her Holocaust survivor grandmother Lila and the artwork she harbors, Isabel's long-standing questions about her family history force her grandmother's past life to the surface.
Now, rather than commit petty crimes, Isabel wants real answers to who she is and where she comes from. What she discovers along the way is something she could never have anticipated.
The story opens in Auschwitz in 1945, where every day Lila uses her smuggled shoe buckle to make a fresh mark on the wall to signify the time that's passed. She hasn't seen her son Leo in eight months, his girlfriend is about to give birth, and Lila fears the worst. Just as baby Isabel is born, Liberation Day arrives on their doorstep. Hope is renewed, if only for that moment, before the young mother dies on the dirt floor of the camp.
In the shadow of such tragedy, Lila endeavors to raise her granddaughter in the relatively safe confines of the Jewish Ghetto in post-War Venice and to protect Isabel from the knowledge of those terrible events that changed their family forever.
As teenaged Isabel becomes immersed in art history and finds herself entangled with Venetians who pursue more than a fortune, readers are taken along on a family's journey which extends all the way from Venice to Paris.
Against the backdrop of World War II and the years of social, emotional, and geopolitical reconstruction that followed, Susan Knecht links a deep dive into the art and relic world with the central story of a teenager who thinks she knows many things - but actually doesn't know enough about her family's background and choices.
How Isabel as a seventeen-year-old on the cusp of adulthood learns about her family's truth and endures her own personal evolution makes for a compelling novel of love, greed, and survival. These elements are why The Art Collector's Wife should be on library shelves for adult fiction and assigned to mature teens interested in realistic stories about survival and preservation.
Replete with engrossing twists, discoveries, and historical insights, both Lila and Isabel's perspectives are thoroughly, wonderfully explored in an enlightening plot packed with tension and unexpected events:
Whatever is left will be something to be thankful for. Ten fingers. Ten toes. Just like when she was born, Isabel will still be whole, and beyond that Lila cannot imagine.
That's why The Art Collector's Wife is a standout that's highly recommended. Readers interested in a teen's coming-of-age in a time where family truths are only starting to emerge from the Holocaust will discover that "survival" assumes different meanings for each generation pursuing new lives in the war's aftermath.
Desert Bold
Gin Coleman
Black Rose Writing
www.blackrosewriting.com
9781685136444, $25.95 Paperback/$6.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Desert-Bold-Born-Gin-Coleman/dp/1685136443
Desert Bold is a sequel to Desert Brave, and is especially recommended for prior fans of Gin Coleman's first book. It continues the story of Kira Fontaine, who came to Arabia in search of a legendary lost river, survived a plane crash, and discovered a dangerous new world that demanded even more from her in order to survive.
Desert Bold focuses on her search for a way out and back home - a path that leads her full circle back to the enigmatic Sheik Jalil of early encounters, who laid claim to her father's medallion as a symbol of his own family legacy and secrets.
The truth about Kira's birth and connections to Arabia, the secret she holds from the first book about a wondrous discovery in the desert, and a perhaps-unwelcome connection to Jalil as each struggles to uncover truths that will change their lives and further entwine them, makes for a heady adventure. The story is steeped in mystery, nightmares, and vastly revised relationships.
One of the influences in Kira and Jalil's shared world lies in the wild horses she discovered in a hidden valley. Pulling her in the opposite direction is her drive to return home. Influencing both are the plans of Sheik Hashem, who is determined to destroy Jalil and steal the coveted horses from Kira in an effort to wreak vengeance and build his personal wealth.
While familiarity with Desert Brave, book one of the Desert Born series, is recommended because of how this sequel dovetails with and expands upon the first book, newcomers will be able to access the personalities, purposes, and history of Kira and Jalil to enjoy the fast-paced action and psychological conundrums that drive Desert Bold.
Coleman creates a story immersed in both the desert environment and Arabian politics and culture. Under her pen, characters and relationships come alive. The added value of Kira's Native American ancestral knowledge and skills and her faith expands the impact of her encounters, adding cultural and moral values that intersect in a thought-provoking manner with the Arabian Desert backdrop.
Libraries seeking a thriller that embeds elements of romance, cultural discovery, and mystery with fast-paced action and unpredictable outcomes will relish this concluding volume to Desert Brave. It delivers as vivid and engrossing a read as the first book, neatly concluding Kira's bid for freedom and connection while leaving the door ajar for possible new discoveries.
Filled with heart-stopping confrontations paired with spiritual reflection, Desert Bold is a winning saga of faith and determination:
...she had bravely walked the path God had laid out for her, a path that led to Jalil and a new life, in the very desert that had almost taken hers.
Who Cares?
Azizi Tuere, author
Yasasri Maliyawadu, illustrator
www.azizituere.com
Let Your Light Shine Press
9781961745544, $14.99
https://www.azizituere.com/whocares
Who Cares?: A Journey from Shrugging Off to Showing Up is a Playground Parables picture book story that depicts Shelly Shoulders, who is masterful at shrugging off all kinds of invitations. She harbors a casual "I don't care" attitude that keeps peers at arms' length, demonstrating a lack of engagement in just about anything important in her life.
Yasasri Maliyawadu provides fun, engaging illustrations that capture Azizi Tuere's vivid descriptions of this shoulder-shrugging protagonist:
Her arms? Always crossed. Her answer to everything? A big, dramatic shrug. "Who cares?" That was her favorite phrase.
How can such a stubborn personality be changed? Apparently not through play invitations or kindness - until classmate Brook realizes not just why Shelly seems so distant, but how to break through her barriers.
Tuere creates an evocative, moving story to delight not just picture book readers, but read-aloud adults interested in exploring topics of fear, reluctance, engagement, and the process of belonging to a community.
All these ideas and more receive enlightening, vivid illustration through an uncommon character forced to confront new possibilities in her life.
Libraries seeking elementary-level picture book stories that shine with psychological and social insights will welcome Who Cares? for its ability to explore the roots of shyness and distancing. The alternative approaches suggested will be understandable and attractive to even the very young.
Go Away!
Azizi Tuere, author
Yasasri Maliyawadu, illustrator
www.azizituere.com
Let Your Light Shine Press
9781961745520, $14.99
https://www.azizituere.com/goaway
Go Away! holds fun illustrations by Yasasri Maliyawadu, adding to Azizi Tuere's Playground Parables series with a picture book survey of a little book named Booker whose covers remain tightly shut against the world.
Booker just wants to be left alone, and he rebuffs all overtures from would-be friends who are attracted to his bright cover and promise of being interesting. But he rejects them all and tells them to go away. Can anyone break through his self-imposed countenance? Why is he so reluctant to have friends?
Tuere focuses on all kinds of possibilities for this little book, explaining why he's so hostile towards others and how he builds a wall of safety around him, fueled by fears of rejection.
Read-aloud adults will find Go Away! outstanding not only for its insights about friendship possibilities and isolation, but its hints on how kindness and a different approach can change even the most hostile, determined, isolated individuals.
With its many psychological revelations, Go Away! will find a welcome home in libraries and reading groups where the very young are educated about interacting with others and understanding more about the different personalities around them, making it a top pick for adults interested in emotional growth opportunities.
Just Kidding!
Azizi Tuere, author
Yasasri Maliyawadu, illustrator
www.azizituere.com
Let Your Light Shine Press
9781961745506, $14.99
https://www.azizituere.com/justkidding
Kids ages 4-8 will appreciate Just Kidding's picture book saga about hurtful jokes and humor which isn't always funny to everyone. Spiced with Yasasri Maliyawadu's engaging illustrations, Just Kidding! reviews the common devices of passive-aggressive behavior patterns in a manner that the very young can learn from and relate to.
Jazzy the jester loves making kids laugh, but nobody appreciates his practical jokes or the many ways he manages to make those around him look like fools.
Jazzy is only vaguely guilty about the results of some of his actions, but he brushes them off in the name of humor until a number of victims of his jokes manage to make the point that not all humor is delivered (or received) in good fun.
Read-aloud adults who rarely have the opportunity to engage the very young in discussions about humor's impact receive a rich survey in this addition to the Playground Parables series. It points out the difference between genuine fun and humor, and that which comes at the expense of others.
Just Kidding! is the perfect opportunity for better understanding the impact of behaviors, offering a great opportunity for engaging young readers in the foundations of understanding the impact of their actions and choices on others.
I Told You So!
Azizi Tuere, author
Yasasri Maliyawadu, illustrator
www.azizituere.com
Let Your Light Shine Press
9781961745483, $14.99
https://www.azizituere.com/itoldyouso
Adding to the Playground Parables series is the lovely I Told You So!, a picture book discussion about a girl who just can't resist pointing out others' mistakes to make herself feel good and strong.
Yasasri Maliyawadu once again provides compelling illustrations that bring Azizi Tuere's story to life, inviting kids ages 4-8 to better consider the impact of their decisions and choices on their peers.
Here, the difference between pointing out errors and pitching in to fix them receives enlightening discussion that invites all ages to participate in problem-solving, kindly assistance, and understanding that being right all the time is not the best formula for making friends.
Parents who choose I Told You So! will find its lessons on cooperation, problem-solving, and understanding the roots of bragging and one-upmanship opens clear and important discussions for a much younger age group than is usually given the opportunity to consider these issues. This makes I Told You So! highly recommended reading for any adult who would help kids better understand the foundations of preserving friendships and life connections.
Future X
Georg Koszulinski
Raven Chronicles Press
https://www.ravenchronicles.org/books/future-x-fiction
9798991403214, $21.99
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/235433727-future-x
Future X considers the future of humanity with an apocalyptic story set in the mid-21st century, where Black ex-Marine Jane Ballard may be the last woman alive on Earth after a virus decimates her world.
Jane's hunt through the American Southwest for fellow survivors eventually leads to the body of a recently-deceased man and the journals he's written. These offer engrossing insights into the causes of the world's end, which sends her on a different kind of mission.
Many dystopian novels survey the end times of a world wracked by a virus, but what sets Future X apart from most others is its focus on the underlying lessons to be learned from how humanity took its last gasp, and what an apparently lone survivor can gain from such a lesson in what may be her final days of life.
Jane depicts bigger picture thinking as she becomes immersed in this stranger's writings:
I had no idea what Dead Man was talking about much of the time. But it was interesting to hear his voice in my head as I read his words. Someone else besides me. The closest thing I'd had to a conversation with anyone else in a long time. Sure, I could have read anything and had the same feeling, but this guy survived the virus. What if there was some clue in his writing as to why or how he survived? We had something in common in that we were both immune to whatever happened. If there were more of us maybe we could repopulate the Earth. I hadn't even thought about things like this. Dead Man was a profound sign of hope.
As she muses on the elements of survival, she also translates them to matters of the human psyche and the need for connection:
I loved seeing other faces besides my own. Probably it's some deep evolutionary biology thing. The first thing we see in this world is a human face, and it's the one that loves us more than any other. We need to feel connected to stay alive. Survival is about getting back to your people. It's not meant to be a self-sustaining enterprise.
The result is far more reflective (and engrossing) than many a dystopian novel. Future X considers not just the impact of being a survivor (and perhaps the last woman on Earth), but the forces that bind human beings and add meaning to life, Related issues also enter into the picture, from racism and violence to nationalism and navigating unfamiliar personal and political territory after a crisis changes everything.
Libraries interested in post-apocalyptic novels delivered with extra insights and messages will find Future X not just worthy of collection addition, but highly recommendable to a wide audience, with its considerations of being alone, being connected, or being a part of evolutionary history.
Worthy of book club recommendation for its many diverse topics of debate from racism to survival to life's meaning, Future X offers lessons in survival not seen in many other dystopian novels. It stands out from the crowd with a special focus that will not just draw readers, but compel them to listen to Jane's wisdom, reflections, and discoveries.
The Day Sweetie Pie Died
Laurie Sharp
https://lmsharpbooks.com
Belle Isle Books
c/o Brandylane Publishers
https://www.brandylanepublishers.com
9781962416757, $26.95 (Hardback), $15.95 (Paperback), $4.99 (Ebook), $6.99 (Audiobook retail), $20.99 (Audiobook library)
https://www.brandylanepublishers.com/product/the-day-sweetie-pie-died
https://www.amazon.com/Day-Sweetie-Pie-Died/dp/1962416763
The Day Sweetie Pie Died is a picture book that differs from most about death, in that it surveys the events leading up to death. It is intended to be read long before a child experiences an actual death.
In this story, a group of schoolchildren and their teacher confront death, grief, emotions, and recovery. The story starts off unexpectedly (in comparison to most children's books about death): young Maggie is enthusiastic about school ("School ROCKS!") and anticipates having a wonderful day.
She especially loves the class guinea pig Sweetie Pie, the subject of this story.
Her encounter with her teacher and the other kids is joyful, but the stage is set when her beloved teacher seems unusually reflective. How Ms. Lamms tells the class about Sweetie Pie's demise and helps them absorb this fact makes for an engrossing lesson on loss. Read-aloud adults will find The Day Sweetie Pie Died the perfect choice for kids experiencing pet loss, grief, and the myriad of emotions that converge around death.
Laurie Sharp does an especially good job of contrasting everyday life with a sudden change and the variety of emotions this sparks in the class as a whole and the young first-person narrator in particular:
I blurt out, "I want my Momma!" I don't want this to be a new day anymore. I want it to be yesterday, when Sweetie Pie was alive.
Colorful, engaging artwork by Emily Hurst Pritchett is the perfect accompaniment to this somber subject as the kids reflect on the joy of knowing Sweetie Pie and absorb the pain of her loss.
There are plenty of children's picture books about grief, death, and coming to terms with dying. Few embrace the bigger picture of life and death in the manner of The Day Sweetie Pie Died, which shows how a day like any other turns into a day of not just mourning, but a renewed celebration of life.
Read-aloud adults will find The Day Sweetie Pie Died a compelling, moving story that takes all manner of reactions and insights into consideration as Maggie moves through her grief, shares with her classmates, and acknowledges some powerful truths:
I know I'm only a kid.
I don't understand why people and animals have to die. But I do know that I am glad I knew Sweetie Pie.
Prairie Valkyries Don't Canter
Cecil Homer
Atmosphere Press
www.atmospherepress.com
9798891326323, $14.95 pb/$5.00 ebook
https://www.amazon.com/Prairie-Valkyries-Canter-Cecil-Homer/dp/B0F81H8KD3
Prairie Valkyries Don't Canter is a story about women's empowerment in academic and personal circles, moments of truth, madness and freedom, and good and bad decisions made in the heart of these milieus. It focuses on professor Jennifer's personal and professional journey as she decides to have a child while retaining her hard-won status as a female professor and Dean of Philosophy operating in a Midwestern man's world.
From the start, Cecil Homer depicts Jennifer as a strong woman who knows what she does and doesn't want:
What do I want to do and be? Drive around Nebraska and listen to farmers talk about threshing and the good old days? Why would I want to be rich? Power, that's what I wanted.
As her life is reviewed (during which she collects "three daddies" in the form of male figures who guide and influence her), Jennifer focuses on equally strong women who know what they want and aren't afraid to wield their power in different ways. They are Valkyries in the modern sense of the word. So, why does she feel the need for "three daddies"?
The answer emerges within the context of her life, ambitions, and perceptions to provide intriguing insights into her philosophical and psychological journey.
Jennifer's studies of Nordic and Hopi women and how their power is defined and incarnated introduces other cultures to this story, providing not just a social and philosophical examination, but a series of cultural contrasts.
Homer's literary romp through academia and personal perspective gives the tale an unexpected diversity of threads that wind through university, church, and community circles. Decision-making influences, choices in locating sources of nurture, refuge, and support, and self-reflection feature pivot points of change supported by a powerful first-person voice:
I was running in circles of confusion and possibilities. For every answer, I had more questions. I'd read that Einstein said: Keep asking questions. Was he my tutor? Was I studying physics? My circles were expanding; could it be a search of the cosmos? Stop it. You'll drive yourself insane.
Fiction readers interested in stories where already-strong women carve out new avenues of investigation and growth will find these moments and movements emerge in atypical, absorbing manners in Prairie Valkyries Don't Canter.
Libraries interested in stories that marry strong women, intergenerational legacies, religious and philosophical studies, and university politics while delving deeply into issues of women's empowerment and lives will find Prairie Valkyries Don't Canter easy to recommend to women's reading circles and literary audiences seeking thought-provoking insights into scholarship and achievement.
Replete with insights into how Jennifer chooses to raise little Valky as her daughter faces the reality of three influential men in her mother's life, Prairie Valkyries Don't Canter is engaging, thought-provoking, and packed with Midwest atmosphere that contrasts nicely with experiences of cultural and social diversity.
Crossing the Sea of Shattered Glass: A Voyage Through Grief
R.B. Bunn
R.B. Bunn Books
9798899404719, $10.99 Print 2.99 Ebook
https://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Sea-Glass-Voyage-Through-ebook/dp/B0F5YJKN28
Crossing the Sea of Shattered Glass: A Voyage Through Grief is a memoir and grief study that centers on R.B. Bunn's loss of his uncle to addiction. It assumes the form of a poetry collection of powerful, hard-hitting reflections on the subject. These poems carry readers from any preconceived notions of addiction to personalize the countenance and life of a beloved family member, introducing the man, in 'The Helper,' as:
Providing help to others was his life
Continuously - whatever the strife
His goals of love were shared for free
His generous heart, no hyperbole
Despite this man's ability to give, he is unable to accept the kind of support that would resolve his addictive decline - an irony Bunn deftly portrays not just poetically, but with a series of observations about the process of his uncle's slow descent.
'Dandelion Wine' is another reflective piece that employs poetic metaphor in a connection to life that ripples with emotional angst and craving:
Your life's water runs hot, bubbling up
Draining the essence from your old petals
Leaving your head bare, leaving you threadbare
As you're up to your neck in scalding life
Life gave you lemons, so you threw them out
But they landed in the water, leaching
Their bitter flavor, reaching toward you
The breadth of these encounters and memories, whether they assume the form of the immediacy of 'Smoke,' where "Tense hugs peppered with boozy breath," or 'Futile Games' in which the narrator plays Russian roulette "knowing any question would kill," is notable and striking.
The scope and presentation of these poems is both literary, psychologically contemplative, and socially astute as Bunn translates his uncle's world, relationships, and connections into a form that represents both memory and a literary portrait.
Libraries seeing poetic representations of addiction, grief, struggle, and interpersonal relationships will find Crossing the Sea of Shattered Glass especially recommendable to literary audiences seeking to expand the nature and representation of memoirs or stories of addiction.
Replete with simmering moments in an addict's life and the observations and quandaries facing those who love him, Crossing the Sea of Shattered Glass is a study in contrasts. It deserves a spot in any literary or general-interest library, accessible to readers who seek a special approach to understanding the circumstances, conundrums, and interactions between addiction and love.
Gajarah
Somia Sadiq
https://www.somiasadiq.com
GFB
https://www.girlfridayproductions.com
9781964721880, $18.95 Paperback/$9.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Gajarah-Somia-Sadiq/dp/1964721881
Gajarah is a novel about survival, carrying and giving up life, and coming to terms with being a Punjabi-Kashmiri woman who marries and immigrates to Canada carrying a legacy of childhood trauma and strength, as well as culture, into an entirely new world.
It features Emahn, a resilient woman able to adapt to nearly anything in life, from another culture to her own efforts to re-envision her world, adapt, and learn from encounters as simple as creating new life or art:
We watch the fire warm and harden her pot and my little plate, and I wonder if the fire hurt my little plate. It must. But my plate needs that fire to come alive, to be, to become. Just like the pot. To be able to cook saag over a low flame for hours, the pot needed to know the heat. All those spices would need to dance in the heat of the flame, teasing each mustard leaf till they were hugged, absorbed, accepted.
Yes, the pot had to burn, had to know, had to learn the touch of fire, had to have felt fire, breathed it, absorbed it, become it.
Fire was life.
Fire is life.
Especially notable is how Emahn navigates society and personal relationships alike, confronting prejudice, repression, and the seeming impossible circumstances of trying to fit in and survive. This even affects people around her who should be supporting her, but impart their own forms of repression into her life:
Every time I shared with him that someone had mocked me for a word I'd said differently, he always brushed it off. None of the racism, the barriers, the injustice of what we were navigating in this foreign land seemed to affect him.
Emahn eventually comes full circle, reconciling the dichotomies between her present-day immigrant choices and her past. This involves a possible return to her roots, where she muses:
Can I welcome the freedom I feel while also accepting the fear, the uncertainty, the heaviness?
Somia Sadiq presents a powerful personality in Emahn which resonates with survival tactics, discoveries, adaptive processes, and insights that readers will find fascinating and worthy of book club discussion.
Libraries recommending Gajarah will find its audience particularly strong in circles where women's experiences, Punjabi culture, and trauma are topics circling reflections on the origins of prejudice and changing feelings about home.
The story is delivered with powerful punches of realization and understanding that translate to a slow read for maximum benefit in appreciating how powerfully Sadiq renders Emahn's life:
I often wondered why Mama Jaan hadn't said a word to me about the bad man. Never asked me how I was feeling or thinking. But then again, she didn't have to. Every morning, she knew. She saw it. She relived it. She cleaned with me. We picked up the pieces of me, of us, together.
In silence.
Sometimes, silence screams louder than words. In silence, we hear things unsaid, things unfelt, things unseen. Silence is power.
Thoroughly engrossing and hard to put down, Gajarah depicts a journey well worth the time taken to walk in this woman's shoes and navigate her life.
Ground: A Firefighter's Philosophy for Living
Kelly McCoy
Ei2collective
https://booklife.com/profile/kelly-mccoy-111446
9798992083316, $17.99 (Paperback), $9.99 (eBook)
https://a.co/d/8r3I7aT
Ground: A Firefighter's Philosophy for Living blends a memoir with philosophy. It follows how firefighter Kelly McCoy learned life wisdom and passes it on to those around him.
From building resilience against the firestorms of life to living authentically, McCoy purposely employs repetition to survey life challenges, using fire service lingo to translate fire protection and fighting efforts into admonitions on everyday living that readers can employ in their own life battles and growth processes.
Chapters offer not just insights and resources, but exercises that demand of readers a level of participation that goes well beyond just reading about self-improvement.
These include keeping a gratitude journal and blogging, employing visualization techniques, and considering the spiritual impacts of life choices which translate to actionable decisions:
Mentally, if not spiritually, we are all building a house. A few lucky souls have already built theirs, and they are living in it.
My question is, why do we wait to actually build our house? Why does it have to be a mental house in the recess of our mind, and not an actual "house" that we build each day? Is life that bland, that we really are bound to the jobs we dislike, in environments we don't like, simply to survive?
God has set a house in our hearts. I know He has mine. And I think we have an obligation to build the darn thing.
Vignettes of grit, determination, survival, confrontation, and change permeate insights on how to effect meaningful change and new directions in life. This approach adds value to the paths McCoy outlines in the course of his philosophical, spiritual, and psychological journey.
Libraries seeking self-help, growth-inducing guides that are rooted in firefighting experience and life lessons will find it easy to recommend Ground: A Firefighter's Philosophy for Living to a wide audience.
More so than most spiritual, philosophical, or firefighting accounts, Ground: A Firefighter's Philosophy for Living documents various paths to achievement and a better life. It should be on the reading lists of anyone interested in actively effecting positive change in their lives.
Out of the Cocoon: The Journey to Becoming
Rosemary Esehagu
www.rosemaryesehagu.com
Manhattan Book Group
9781962987127, $14.50 Paperback/$23.99 Hardcover
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DVV1BK6R
Out of the Cocoon: The Journey to Becoming pairs poetry and memories in a survey designed to be both literary and revealing for memoir readers interested in writings that explore childhood trauma, adult healing, and adopting a form of self-love that is both protective and transformational.
As Rosemary Esehagu moves out of her cocoon, readers receive a juxtaposition of prose followed by reinforcing poetry sections that pair personal experience with reflections on the healing process.
Esehagu's message is clear: anyone can reconstruct themselves, as she did. What this effort takes is a lot of self-inspection, wisdom, support, and a determination to move away from the miseries of the past and into new opportunities, however frightening they may be, in the present.
Esehagu is clear about how she healed from trauma, delineating four specific pathways to recovery that readers can absorb - the anchor of faith or another's support (in her case, God); a "tribe" of supportive friends and/or family invested in her wellbeing; a revised vision of what a "healed me" could look like; and acceptance of her "abused self" as a valid contrast between past experience and current being.
These and other lessons provide readers with similar backgrounds with insights into the recovery process, delivered through vignettes of experience and psychological and philosophical insight.
Plenty of memoirs explore relationships between trauma, recovery, growth, and new ideals. Few frame them in such a way that others can follow in these footsteps to better understand love, faith, healing and dysfunction, and the growth-inducing process of cultivating hope and new directions.
Libraries seeking a more literary exploration of all these facets of recovery will want to acquire and recommend Out of the Cocoon for its intriguing insights into new truths and revised visions of living a good life. Its poetic, contemplative passages represent a fine juxtaposition between autobiography and philosophical, healing reflection:
I learn. I see. It's all upside down.
What is knowledge is really upside down truth.
Hummingbird Moonrise
Sherri L. Dodd
Black Rose Writing
www.blackrosewriting.com
9781685136581, $22.95 Paperback/$5.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Hummingbird-Moonrise-Murder-Tea-Crystals/dp/1685136583
As the third book in the Murder, Tea & Crystals series, Hummingbird Moonrise retains the charm and attraction of its predecessors while expanding its mystery in a methodical, engrossing series of events.
The last years have changed Arista Kelly... and not always for the better. Facing darkness involves a readjustment of life attitude that can be challenging, at best. She's helped by family and boyfriend, but when her Great Aunt Bethie's friend Iris vanishes, she is once again pulled into the darkness where resolution seems elusive and angst ever-prevalent.
At this point, it should be advised that Hummingbird Moonrise is not intended as a quick read. 'Methodical' translates as much to the delivery as the tone of the story, which arrives in the form of three very different viewpoints and accents - Arista's Irish-American great-great-grandfather, the Scottish-American accent of her new friend, and the Cockney accent of her boyfriend. All these are duly captured to reinforce characters, origins, and atmosphere, rewarding in rich depth for what little they demand of readers to slow down and smell the roses of other cultures and accents:
"Feedin' the dogs. Oi'll be back," Barry announced, his long i's still harboring his Irish accent.
As hummingbird visions lead to new trouble and truths, the mystery simmers with possibilities and twists that offer unexpected contrasts as Arista navigates past, present, and future experiences:
She drowned out worries by reminiscing about the not-so-distant days of kind Mr. Tessay and Albert coming into Cosmic Prisms in Sedona with rosewrapped sage kits. Without Mr. Tessay, she had no one to practice her sign language with, and she missed it. And Stevie, her former co-worker who possessed unending sass. She really needed to touch base with him, as they had not talked since she left.
The result is a powerful metaphysical murder journey that leads to new definitions of better lives, family, kindness, and confronting the murderous intentions of spirit.
Libraries in possession of the prior series titles will find Hummingbird Moonrise a 'must have' not only to complete the trilogy, but to take full advantage of the rising tide of possibilities which set foundations in the past books, and which rise to a crescendo here.
Replete with action, powerful characters whose ethnic diversity lends rich insight and feeling to the story, and an age-old curse that influences generations, Hummingbird Moonrise is a gripping story highly recommended for readers of Gothic novels, supernatural tension, and powerful mysteries that evolve beyond questions to delve into the roots of intriguing answers.
Lies Lost and Found
Jacqueline Boulden
www.jacquelineboulden.com
Pine Place Press
9798986038469, $16.99 Paperback/$3.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Lies-Lost-Found-Jacqueline-Boulden/dp/B0FDH6TH9Q
Lies Lost and Found is the second book in the Lake Amelia mystery series. Photojournalist Rose Webber has been sidelined from her job by an injury, but finds that her investigative nose for trouble is still all too active when she uncovers a stash of hidden money and a note in her late father's den.
These raise more questions about her past. Even though her father has been dead for fifteen years, Rose still harbors painful memories about her father's past, his secrets, and truths which impact her to this day.
Rose and her brother Kirk have inherited more than the family house. They've inherited a peck of problems along with it, introducing questions and lies about the past which further affect their lives, driving Rose to uncover more answers.
Jacqueline Boulden creates an involving story with a contemporary twist as Rose's probe reveals the plight of immigrant workers in the Adirondack Mountains. As the mystery segues into social issues, she becomes involved in the disappearance of fellow investigator Kelsey Jacobs and faces the possibility that her father's sudden death wasn't an accident.
In the course of edging closer to the truth, Rose also discovers the impact of keeping secrets and looking too hard at evidence for answers:
Rose couldn't reconcile the woman who'd investigated the Western Inlet Inn and pushed people for answers with the woman who'd run away and never returned. The woman sitting beside her now was independent, seemingly of sound mind, but still alone. Still hiding in a small house on the edge of the woods and so afraid of being located that she made Rose use burner phones when she'd given directions to Cape Cod.
The tension is well developed, the plot holds twists that readers won't see coming, and, most of all, the culture and atmosphere of the Adirondacks and their small towns emerge in the course of a social and political conundrum that threatens sweeping changes to Rose's life and the community around her.
Filled with tense realizations, confrontations, and emerging insights into the depths of her father's connections and past lies, Rose's entry into a milieu that tests her own moral and ethical compass creates a moving story that readers will find not just entertaining, but thoroughly thought-provoking.
Libraries seeking mysteries that compliment a series but stand nicely on their own will want to take a close look at Lies Lost and Found's special blend of social justice, women's connections, and intrigue.
From small town pressures and discoveries to revelations about a boss's dangerous impact on the women around him, Lies Lost and Found provides riveting moments of discovery that makes mystery just one of the components of its attraction for readers of social issues and ethical conundrums who enjoy a good investigative saga.
This Thing in My Head
Jessica Aike
https://jessicaaike.com
Independently Published
9798303627772, $10.99 Paperback/$5.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/This-Thing-My-Head-Self-Actualise/dp/B0DQJXHXC7
This Thing in My Head comes from a British Nigerian writer who considers issues of cultural connections and disconnect, abuse, recovery, and childhood trauma. But these aren't the only topics she confronts. Embedded in her survey of self-help and growth are social, political, and cultural insights that raise important questions suitable for all kinds of discussions:
As I got older, I quickly learnt that not only was eclecticism shunned, but introversion was also demonised. Reserved personalities do not fit the stereotypes of the boisterous Nigerian, the loud black woman. It was a crime, met with constant ridicule, because how dare you show up as an authentic fully fledged human being, in a world that tells you you are a caricature. It is expected that you give people the performance of a lifetime, because what is blackness if not to perform, to posture, to dismiss nuance?
As she moves from abuse that takes the form of personal and political perspective to insights on child-rearing, safety, survival, and the roots and incarnation of low self-esteem, readers gain lessons in psychology, sociology, parenting, and more. Many of these insights will prove unexpected and seemingly wide-ranging, but all come full circle to connect and build a bigger picture of health, disease, and flaws in thinking and ideals.
These will be important revelations for readers considering relationships, belief systems, and assumptions about good and bad processes of interacting, teaching, and relating to one another.
Readers who choose This Thing in My Head will find that its intense political and cultural examination may be surprising. Its self-help features and the social aspects of its analysis will prove both enlightening and unexpected.
This Thing in My Head offers a discourse and considerations rarely presented in juxtaposition to one another in such an accessible manner, and are important for book club and group reading discussions.
Libraries that choose This Thing in My Head will find its thought-provoking blend of the personal and political to be attractive, unusual, and highly recommended for thinking readers from all walks of life who look for discussions that provoke revised worldviews and perspectives.
Murder with a Glass of Malvasia
Alexander Marriott
Vanguard Press/Pegasus Publishers
https://pegasuspublishers.com/imprints/VANGUARD-PRESS
9781836710417, $18.99
https://a.co/d/3QKiKTV
Chicago homicide detective Virgil Colvin has finally retired on the Greek island of Ithaca, the scene of a former murder spree and crime-solving challenge. But a quiet retired life may be too much to ask for when it comes to a too-savvy detective's mandate to take a step back from the action.
In Murder with a Glass of Malvasia, murder follows Virgil once again, arrives steeped in Greek culture and history, and expands to involve assassins, conspiracies, and a Byzantine fortress filled with physical and mental twists and turns.
Having recovered from his wife's death and adjusted to his new life, Virgil yet again is faced with drastic changes in his middle years of life. These send him on unexpected forays and missions, introducing revelations that hold the power to once again shake his world.
He tries to take a step back and pass of the case to a more experienced incoming investigator, but that proves impossible. Virgil's already been part of a dangerous game that tests his personal life and ability to fully retire from what he does best ... get into trouble.
From its opening lines, Alexander Marriott embeds his story with Greek culture and atmosphere which lends a satisfyingly different focus to the evolving mystery and thriller elements which emerge from Virgil's confrontations.
Tension is nicely developed, Virgil's character is appealing and understandable as he fields decisions which encourage him to work against his own special interests, and the dilemmas which emerge during the course of his probe lead to international connections which will prove surprising:
"You're not too far off, Detective Colvin. The diplomatic back and forth over who should lead an investigation that could very well implicate the Turkish government did beg for the intercession of a third party that my government and Gunduz could agree on. The American Government, of course, is the most readily at hand. The American Ambassador did not, however, recommend anyone from the FBI," Liourdis said, smirking.
"Then who?" Colvin asked, beginning to feel sick.
"Congratulations, Virgil. This case is all yours," Liourdis said, almost laughing and almost weeping simultaneously.
The special interests which swirl around Virgil in the course of this investigation are also nicely detailed, adding further insights and unexpected moments to the plot.
Libraries seeking mysteries rooted on foreign soil and cemented by "the last tastes and sounds of Greek summer under the late September stars" will relish the atmospheric, cultural, historical, and mystery draw of Murder with a Glass of Malvasia.
Best consumed with a fine glass of Greek wine, Murder with a Glass of Malvasia excels in a plot that is rich in possibility and the unexpected.
Chasing Air
Caroline Prince
https://www.authorcarolineprince.com
Dewpoint Creative Ventures
GFB
https://www.girlfridayproductions.com
9798992502602, $17.95
https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Air-Novel-Caroline-Prince/dp/B0FC5N3DD8
Chasing Air is a novel that opens on the California coast in 2020, presenting ex-athlete Allison's quiet observations of a rainy day and the contrast between her now-bedridden body and the efforts she once made to hike and be active. Nineteen years has changed much in her life, and the Covid pandemic has further transformed the world.
In many ways, physically and mentally, Allison has moved far from her Georgia roots, leading an adventurous life which always carried her in unexpected directions replete with many achievements and new opportunities.
Now she is tasked with the biggest life challenge of all - discovering life's meaning and honing the will to go on after a terrible accident and loss changes everything she once lived for.
Caroline Prince creates a thought-provoking scenario that expands its focus from one woman's broken body and dreams to broader pictures about how to not just adapt, but find revised meaning in living.
Though focusing on physical adaptation, mental adjustments receive just as much attention and enlightenment as Allison undertakes different forms of training and conditioning. Prince depicts exhilarating choices and moments that arrive in all kinds of ways, delivered via revelation, life experience, oracle, and revised perceptions:
The oracle was talking not about the end of her story, but about means and ends. The ends he was referring to had nothing to do with her having her own child. They were much bigger than that.
Whether considering questions about adopting a child or overcoming trauma, Allison's journey is all the more powerful for its connection to author Prince's own experiences and life.
The result is a vivid account of excitement, transformation, and life values that librarians will find particularly easy to recommend to women's book clubs, reading groups, and any reader seeking inspirational stories of survival and decisions made at key pivot points of life change.
Packed with eye-opening inspections and insights about living life to its fullest in many different ways, Chasing Air is a memorable, engrossing story that will attract general-interest fiction readers as well as those seeking reflective works packed with bigger-picture thinking.
Porchlight
P.S. Glyckherr
Atmosphere Press
www.atmospherepress.com
9798891326965, $12.99 pb / $7.99 ebook / $21.99 hc
https://www.amazon.com/Porchlight-P-S-Glyckherr/dp/B0F8PF6KR6
Porchlight's poems will especially delight spirituality readers with their faith-based focus on empowerment, tranquility, and understanding love and aging.
P.S. Glyckherr blends these perceptions with life observations and autobiography to further reflect on survival tactics, being mindful and giving, and the impact of encounters with loved ones and others, such as the lasting scars of a father's abandonment on mother and child:
She became an orphan too - another victim... left alone.
Orphans are a different species, you see - abandoned to grovel and beg in the most humiliating ways.
Conveniently aborted outside the womb, they constantly grovel and pay
From the impact of decisions to the power of love, Glyckherr considers life's overall journey through light and darkness and the lasting allure of porch lights of faith and support which permeate the deepest realms of loss:
I visited your memory address today and placed a flower in your vase - a yellow one like the sun...
but of course, it wasn't REAL.
Until we speak again in person, my friend, I will visit your memory address often... and again I'll bring you lovely FAKE flowers -
for I remember you said not to pick the REAL ones... with God's "most perfect scent."
The result is not simply an evocative, uplifting reflective collection, but a celebration of the people, places, and perspectives that comprise life between birth and death.
Libraries seeking free verse contemporary poetry collections to recommend to patrons, which are free of jargon and strong in emotional reflection, will find Porchlight especially attractive as a faith-supporting survey of wellsprings of strength and survival wrapped in a shining metaphor of hope.
Glory, Grit and Greatness
Stephen Carr
Izzard Ink Publishing
www.izzardink.com
9781642281224, $19.99 Paperback/$9.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Glory-Grit-Greatness-Americans-Fading/dp/1642281220
Glory, Grit and Greatness: Great Americans Fading From Our Memory surveys American history in a different way - through biographical sketches of Americans who were extraordinary people, yet whose names are fading into obscurity.
Take 'Suzy Q: Rocky Marciano,' the story of a "clever boxer with power" who fights well past the usual prime years of boxers with special drive and abilities, for one example. Rocky's confrontation with 'Suzy Q Charles' translates to the battle of a lifetime, which is brought to life in vivid description. From being a washed-up ball player to becoming a champion boxer, Rocky makes a name not just for himself, but for all aging second-career fighters who put their hearts in souls into competition in efforts that belay their years.
Also consider the little-known story of 'The Yegg Hunters: The Lawmen Who Took Down John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Machine Gun Kelly.' Their efforts reads like a thriller with plenty of twists, confrontations, escapades, and personalities, but firmly rests on FBI history, 1930s true crime encounters, bank robberies, and murder.
Each piece not only profiles superior individuals, but weaves history with a sense of the times, whether in military circles, daily life, show business, or other milieus.
Stephen Carr offers such a diverse set of circumstances, people, and surveys that readers might wonder how these very different lives were chosen for profile in this collection. But, that's one of the purposes and special enjoyments of Glory, Grit and Greatness - its ability to contrast different scenarios which define greatness and achievement in new ways.
Black and white photos throughout also enhance the experience.
Glory, Grit and Greatness proves that history needn't be a dull collection of dates and facts, individuals needn't be at in the public eye in order to be celebrated for their accomplishments, and the definition of 'greatness' need not be limited to common knowledge or familiar faces.
By profiling and contrasting an extraordinary set of unique individuals, Carr gives libraries and American history readers an appealing set of moment-by-moment descriptions. These read with the passion and life of fiction, but are thoroughly reinforced by real-world events that further broaden the reader's enjoyment and appreciation of American history and biography.
A Whiteman's Burden
Charles Beadle, author
Edited with Annotations and an Afterword by Rob Couteau
www.robcouteau.com
Dominantstar
9781963363043, $19.95
https://www.amazon.com/Whitemans-Burden-Annotations-Afterword-Couteau/dp/1963363043
A Whiteman's Burden was first published in 1912, when African sleeping sickness raged through the sites of Charles Beadle's various African expeditions. The fictional representation of this milieu and his experiences in A Whiteman's Burden creates a thought-provoking story set in 1904-06, the time frame of Beadle's own journey. It brings to life the contrasts between and dilemmas of the white man's expeditions into deepest, darkest Africa.
Here, a deadly illness has ravaged the native population and is now making headway among colonists who had believed themselves immune to the disease. Issues of survival and racial perceptions of life and death rage alongside the illness, adding existential strength and depth to a tale of adventure, exploration, and angst.
An unexpected focus on points of co-mingling, contrasting viewpoints, shared experiences that bring to light different ways of confronting life and death, and the disparate experiences and insights of men and women are transmitted through characters whose perceptions are oftentimes surprising.
Embedded within these encounters are social and political reflections which emerge from privilege and African native encounters alike:
A police "boy" stood at the corner of the verandah, pointing with one hand, saying: "A whiteman is coming! "
Fedden and Father Anthony walked round the verandah together and saw the weary, hot figure of the Rev. Blackber hastening down the path. As he approached they saw that he appeared excited and very anxious. He shouted as he came up: "The rebellion! the rebellion!"
By including the reflections and observations of women as well as men, Beadle expands the potential of understanding this environment in a valuable manner:
That she could not solve the problem maddened her. What could be the reason? Not Sula - those sort of people, she thought, can always be compensated with money. It is quite the customary thing. At the phrase she thought of the expression "sanctified by custom," and smiled dully in her pain, pondering vaguely where the line of sanctity began and ended.
Libraries seeking literary works about turn-of-the-century Africa and the colonists and natives whose lives intersected around illness and struggle will find A Whiteman's Burden exceptional. This stems from both its setting and its juxtaposition of characters buffeted as much by their own prejudices and perspectives as by an illness which feels unconquerable.
Replete with philosophical, cultural, moral, and historical insights, A Whiteman's Burden is highly recommended not just for leisure readers seeking an adventure story of African exploration, but to book clubs interested in thought-provoking existential examinations that can provoke lively debates and discussions about hazardous worlds and equally deadly prejudices.
FEARLESS: A Biography of Edna O'Brien
Cathy Curtis
Atmosphere Press
www.atmospherepress.com
9798891325388, $19.99 pb, $8.99 ebook, $28.99 hc
https://www.amazon.com/Fearless-Biography-OBrien-Cathy-Curtis/dp/B0FB59TRNJ
FEARLESS: A Biography of Edna O'Brien is the first full-length life inspection (apart from O'Brien's own memoir Country Girl) to consider the evolution of her literary style and the impact of life events on her writings.
Cathy Curtis draws important connections between the two, adding the personal facts and background which will lend to re-reading O'Brien's writings with better knowledge of the experiences and influences which prompted them.
This is not to say that there hasn't been previous interest in O'Brien's life and times - or previous explorations of them. O'Brien's The Country Girls emerged in the 1960s to make her a celebrity around the world. Not reclusive about her opinions or personal life, O'Brien presented a countenance to the world that nonetheless masked numerous aspects of her life experience, from an abusive marriage to her feelings about her own country's initial negative response to her novel.
O'Brien's life evolved against a backdrop of changing Irish culture and politics. This influenced her subjects, focus, and perception of what it meant to be Irish in such a changing world.
Thus is biography steeped in responses to the times which lend a deeper understanding of her works and literary devices:
Her lingering insecurity about relying solely on her own opinions and her need to ground them in a revered literary tradition can be seen in her references - heavy baggage in such a lightweight article - to Plato, Oscar Wilde, Chekhov, Byron, Dickens, Henry James, and Graham Greene. Whether consciously or not, her habit of citing famous male writers in her magazine journalism was a way of bolstering her intellectual credibility as someone who lacked a university degree. There are never any women in this pantheon; while the notion that "great men" are the most reliable sources of wisdom had been widely challenged, Edna - always more partial to and patient with men than women - was not one to jump on that bandwagon.
From how she confronted the standards and prejudices of her times to choices in depicting characters and publishing different kinds of writings, O'Brien's works evolve against the backdrop of her life with a greater degree of understandable choices than prior readers of her literature may have anticipated.
The result is a study of utmost importance to any library strong in O'Brien's writings and times. Librarians that add FEARLESS: A Biography of Edna O'Brien to their collections will not only want to highly recommend it to students of O'Brien's works, but to reading groups and classrooms discussing her writings. These audiences will find this biography far more revealing as a wellspring of O'Brien's literary prowess than might initially be anticipated.
FEARLESS is the perfect adjunct to any serious consideration of Edna O'Brien's times, literature, and ultimate wellsprings of genius.
Until the Walls Come Down
Gal Podjarny
Atmosphere Press
www.atmospherepress.com
9798891326958, $17.99 pb & $8.99 ebook
https://www.amazon.com/Until-Walls-Come-Down-Podjarny-ebook/dp/B0F7T7W91C
Israeli woman Tammar has lost her parents to terrorism. Now she stands to lose the only thing remaining of her childhood - the family house in Jaffa, which is slated for demolition. This involves her not only in a court battle, but in a relationship with her Palestinian husband's family, who fled Palestine during the 1940s.
Saving the house involves saving what remains of her severed family connections. Tammar is forced to unite estranged family members to convince them of the importance and possibility of fighting higher authorities to save the house.
Under Gal Podjarny's hand, the house becomes a symbol for both survival and reconciliation as the disjointed, separated family is forced to come together for a greater good they are not even certain is important in the bigger scheme of things.
From the start, the connections between structures and lives is cemented by young Tammar's experiences and perceptions:
Behind her, the crowd resembles the houses. She assembled a motley crew of friends, family, and neighbours. Jews and Palestinians, secular and ultra-orthodox, Ashkenazi and Sephardi. She tries to tap into their joint power - to believe that this diverse group would be enough. But the truth is she is scared. She knows that before the day is out, this is likely to turn violent.
Hard-hitting personal observations and impacts resonate throughout her childhood and adult years, bringing to life (and bringing home) the ultimate impact of decades of social and political struggle and strife, also represented in her shattered home.
As she sorts out ownership, responsibility, and connection, Tammar also learns how others have survived being unrooted and disconnected from their wellsprings of culture and place:
"They're very much refugees, but they behave like they went on a holiday. Never mind that they've been in Poland for over a year now."
"That's tough," Tammar sympathises.
"Yeah, well, that's life." Marina's eyes are moist. Then, her iron curtain drops. Her back is rod-straight and her face impassive. People here are so used to fighting; they can't stop even for a minute.
Powerful reflections are delivered in the course of struggles that move from political and social circles past the threshold of home as Tammar discovers new facts about the past and challenges the divisions that have fractured her family.
Libraries interested in stories of Palestinian history, experience, and psyche will find all three elements intricately wound into a novel that is hard to put down. The events need no prior familiarity with the region or the state in order to prove compelling to general-interest audiences.
Replete with reflections on home, place, politics, and the fabric of interpersonal conflict and connection, Until the Walls Come Down offers important lessons in adaptation, survival, and the kinds of struggles that both divide and bring families (and nations) together.
Doomsday Planet
William Burke
Severed Press
www.severedpress.com
9781923165700 $14.95 Paperback/$3.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Doomsday-Planet-William-Burke/dp/1923165704
Sci-fi readers who also enjoy thriller elements and intrigue in their novels will relish Doomsday Planet, a hybrid blend of military confrontation and time travel which pits deceased veteran astronaut Marcus Reno against aliens. In fact, these aliens have not only resurrected him, but have sent him on a mission against other aliens aligned with forces on Earth... an impossible situation that leads him to fight his own race.
One problem is that his ragtag army has also been resurrected - but from different points in history. While military strength is present, it doesn't necessarily translate to technological or strategic savvy, and so Marcus has his hands full navigating a battlefield filled with disparate, aging combatants.
Then there are the issues of Martians, cryo-chambers, misguided perceptions of grandiose, and ironic precedents:
"In human history murder often, as you say... seals the deal. We will bestow on you the power of a Julius Caesar or Genghis Khan. We couldn't waste that on someone who'd cry over a few ignorant Sherpas." Azrael turned to one of the technicians. "Place his consciousness in storage and generate new trousers for our human friend. He seems to have soiled this pair."
Wry humor permeates events and encounters to add further value to unfolding events. These range from human Vissar becoming trapped in an alien insect body, facing a "psychedelic hellscape" of a different world and Daric alien military sentries, to the involvement of mythical Cerebrus, Hydra, and other entities who enter the fray.
By now, it should be evident that William Burke's Doomsday Planet is much more than a military exercise, a time-travel journey, or a story of alien encounters. It's a reinvention of what it means to be human or alien, a probe of history's ironies and expectations, and a rollicking good yarn that links these milieus to bring readers into unexpected encounters filled with thought-provoking revelations:
"It's Hnefatafl, a strategy game. I'm about to show my nephew how to lose a battle despite having a strategic advantage and greater numbers."
"I didn't know you guys played games."
"Do you think we just bash at one another with axes? Battle is an art form that must be learned."
Libraries seeking sci-fi that defies pat categorization, juxtaposes humor with serious contemplative events, and holds value for entertainment as well as reading group discussion will find Doomsday Planet an excellent, multi-faceted acquisition.
Its ability to delight the senses with more than military struggle or transformative experiences alone makes for a story rich in the unexpected and packed with gripping tension.
True and False Lights
Dalton Hiett
Palmetto Publishing
www.PalmettoPublishing.com
9798822958623, $13.99 Paperback/$5.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/True-False-Lights-Dalton-Hiett/dp/B0DJDXQD5M
True and False Lights is recommended reading for Christians interested in identifying and better understanding common challenges to faith. It addresses religious pressure and secular influence alike, surveying the attitudes, perceptions, and foundations of discord that shake faith and lead to spurious questioning.
Dalton Hiett reviews the influences that have led to this modern-day dilemma. He considers the forces that sow doubt in believers, Biblical misconceptions that have successfully led many a Christian astray, and how to better understand and address various forms of attack on faith that come from disparate directions.
Perhaps Hiett's second goal is even more important - to "...point out theologically unsound attitudes rampant in the modern Church."
Together, these succinct approaches identify modern issues that batter faith and lead to alienation, discord, disbelief, and straying from Biblical intention and message. This creates important guideposts for families, churches, and followers who want to address the common issues that challenge Christian communities today.
Various tools are promoted in the course of undertaking such an examination:
Science can only tell us a little about these spiritual experiences beyond some small details We should test spiritual experiences when possible, but it is also important to avoid overly relying on science Thankfully, science is not the only tool of logic available to us Philosophy existed before science, and it has plenty to tell us.
Hiett takes his own advice, weaving historical and philosophical inspection to create a bigger picture of not just faith's roots, but how modern ambitions, techniques, and technology has eroded human competency, creativity, and intellect:
The combined effect of modern advancements has made us, in many ways, less than those that came before No one truly knows the full extent of damage done to the modern mind by all the gadgets we are so proud of With those gadgets, we can do more than people of the past But what did they cost us as people?
The result is a wide-ranging consideration of a number of key influences on faith, human development, and ability. True and False Lights deserves recommendation not just in religious circles, but for reading groups interested in probing the human condition and the forces that have shaken its spiritual foundations.
Libraries interested in faith-reinforcing considerations that are best employed in group discussions for maximum benefit will want to acquire and recommend True and False Lights for Christian thinkers and any group interested in considering how disparate influences have caused erosion in belief and faith, as well as how such intrinsic capabilities may be restored.
Nineteen, A Daughter's Memoir of Reckoning and Recovery
Leslie Johansen Nack
www.lesliejohansennack.com
She Writes Press
https://shewritespress.com
9781647429966, $17.95 paperback/ $12.99 Ebook/$21.95 Audio
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Nineteen/Leslie-Johansen-Nack/9781647429966
Nineteen, A Daughter's Memoir of Reckoning and Recovery is a hard-hitting memoir of family patterns and how a daughter seeking to escape them winds up immersed in a life which, instead, reflects them.
Leslie Nack's family was influenced by a mentally ill, alcoholic mother and an abusive father. When she left home, it was to become involved with an older man who not only felt familiar, but led her to become an addict, herself.
Her downward spiral after her father dies in a plane crash in Mexico leads to a heady spin into new possibilities - but not before Leslie almost suffers irreversible battering from her own life choices.
Recovery must rest on a foundation. Leslie's journey to finding what foundation is right for her and how to build and rely on it so she can dig her way out of her addiction and toxic connections makes for a gripping read that many readers will readily relate to:
Whenever I spiraled into self-hate like this, I couldn't stop myself from piling all the mistakes I'd ever made on top of this one. Stopping it was like trying to grab something slippery headed down the drain. The burden grew heavier inside.
Nack's descriptions of her family's involvement in her recovery ideals and process and their own dysfunctional dialogues are particularly thought-provoking:
"What's he doing here?" Mom said with a sneer on her face for Dad. "He's driving us. Leave him alone," I said. I didn't mean to sound angry, but this was ridiculous.
Mom reacted immediately. "He's the devil, you know. He's always in disguise, watching and waiting to inflict his pain on us."
Nobody responded, and Dad didn't laugh.
Of special note is how these dialogues, discord, and connections impact Leslie's ability to see and seek recovery avenues for herself.
Readers that choose Nineteen, A Daughter's Memoir of Reckoning and Recovery should be prepared for a powerful survey of regret, remorse, reaction, and recovery analysis. It poses many important questions about what becomes a lifelong pursuit to "make sense of what happened to me in the first twenty-five years of my life."
Libraries that choose Nineteen, A Daughter's Memoir of Reckoning and Recovery will find it recommendable to patrons seeking recovery from their own family patterns, but will want to caution that this is not an easy linear journey. It's a hard-hitting read that will lead them to question their own pasts and the foundations they've rested upon for survival.
Filled with engrossing moments of reflection and self-inspection, Nineteen, A Daughter's Memoir of Reckoning and Recovery follows, better than most, the process of working through past influence to recognize, focus on, and develop healthier future possibilities. It is highly recommended as a potential blueprint for discovery.
There's a Glob On My Wing
Marion Joile Lincoln
Atmosphere Press
www.atmospherepress.com
9798891326521, $13.99pb, $22.99hc, $7.99 ebook
https://www.amazon.com/Theres-Glob-Marion-Joile-Lincoln/dp/B0FBR8LSLV
There's a Glob On My Wing is the hard-hitting memoir of a mother who struggles to protect her daughter from abuse by the child's father. The subject may sound all too familiar, as too many other women have struggled with similar or the same issues - but a big difference here lies in how Marion Joile Lincoln was actually a child protective services professional well cognizant of what the system could do to help them. Yet, she still fell into some surprising cracks in the system that actually worked against her efforts despite all of her knowledge.
This raises important questions about child protective efforts as a whole as Lincoln's journey unfolds. Even more importantly, she wrote this story a long time ago, self-publishing it under a pen name where it was widely disbelieved and under-promoted. It republishes today, where its messages and experiences are not only still relevant, but are needed now more than ever.
While guilt may play a part in Lincoln's insistance that her experiences receive greater light of attention than in the past, they also highlight how two professional people still fall into trouble all too easily:
Despite my clinical expertise in the field of Sexual Abuse, I did not protect my own child from abuse perpetrated by her father, a Paediatric specialist.
Yes, the story takes place in Australia, which would seem to preclude some of its relevance to American audiences and systems. But, within this survey of psychological and professional atmospheres lies important lessons on infant abuse, family court system operations, perceptions, and impacts, and how parents struggling between personal lives and protective system functions can better navigate both.
Who, then, will be the likely audience for this book? The list is endless. As is pointed out, this includes:
...relevant professional or social contact: babysitters, daycare staff, grandparents, family members, teachers, family law judges, sports coaches, medical practitioners, psychologists, mental health workers, police, paramedics, homeless-shelter staff...
Among the lessons outlined here are how mothers can identify, listen to, and respond to their child's report of abuse; how danger is ever-present even if abuse seems to be identified and resolved; and how to identify toxic "professional" counselors who inject their own assumptions and errors into reports of abuse:
She replied that there was nothing I could say that would make her believe Tulsi had been abused. She said if I continued with this line of thought I would end up putting Tulsi in a mental institution. Why would I not take responsibility for the unfinished business of my relationship with Paul and leave my daughter out of it? Why was I trying so hard to convince her? She glanced at the clock. She added that now I had wasted her time, used up my daughter's time, and made her late for her next and proper client.
This is perhaps the hardest-hitting message of all - that the professionals employed to identify and navigate family issues and abuse are, themselves, often intrinsically flawed and, though being representatives of a protective system, can actually prove to become obstacles to safety and resolution.
Libraries interested in acquiring and recommending a memoir that, though set in Australia, points out fallacies and problems in child protective efforts will find There's a Glob On My Wing of special and additional interest to legal students and social workers.
This audience will not only find Lincoln's memoir eye-opening and compelling reading, but will want to consider her experiences via book clubs and reading groups concerned with family law, child protection efforts, and counseling issues.
Eye-opening and revealing, There's a Glob On My Wing details the kinds of fights between families and systems that often take place outside of courtrooms and within the walls of not just the home, but institutions theoretically designed to help.
Kat's Magic Helmet
Katherine Legge & Andy Amendola
Red Racer Books
9798218599188, $19.99
https://www.amazon.com/Kats-Magic-Helmet-Adventures-Katherine/dp/B0F4GFMRW9
Kat's Magic Helmet: The Early Racing Adventures of Katherine Legge is a picture book memoir about Katherine Legge, who is "born with the heart of a racer; she was always on the move."
Early on, she dreams of driving a real Indy race car. Too small for go-karting, she learns skills from "cadet" cars which allow the very young to race - thanks to a savvy father who supports her dreams.
Ashleigh Mower captures Katherine's world with large-size illustrations which are appealing and filled with joy.
As Kat navigates being the "only girl on the track" when she grows into racing bigger vehicles, young readers receive many insights not just about the car racing world, but how women can forge new pathways in ventures where they are unique standouts.
Important information on goal-setting, winning and defeat, and perseverance are embedded into Katherine's story to inspire many a young girl to follow her dreams. These elements make Kat's Magic Helmet an uplifting, encouraging story that read-aloud adults will find just as fascinating (and filled with important talking points) as picture book readers.
Libraries interested in building picture book collections supporting girls' dreams will want to make sure that Kat's Magic Helmet takes its place in the winner's circle of highly recommendable stories.
A Republic By the People
Bill Bivins
By the People Press
9798998632105, $17.76 Hardcover/$10.99 Paperback/$4.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FF2NJMKW
...the Republic is still ours - if we choose to keep it.
A Republic By the People is a manifesto for better understanding American principles, politics, and the Constitution. It outlines thought-provoking choices that represent both caution and empowerment for readers to contemplate and debate.
These nuts and bolts comprise a non-partisan argument that ordinary Americans should find of interest. It's not narrated in a form that demands higher education, critical thinking, or promotes a particular belief system, but is presented as a reasoned series of considerations about what connects Americans, makes them unique, and holds potential to either unify or divide people.
Many books touch upon these subjects already - but few adopt a viewpoint that seeks to rise above knee-jerk reaction and partisan thinking to embrace a blend of historical precedent and applied social re-imagining:
Teaching the distinctions between inalienable rights and entitlement is critical to addressing these challenges. Inalienable rights, such as freedom of speech and religion, belong to all people and must be protected without exception. Entitlement, on the other hand, refers to specific benefits or privileges granted under law and should be critically examined in the context of fairness and practicality. Similarly, fostering a culture that understands tolerance as coexistence - not forced acceptance or suppression - can pave the way for a more inclusive and harmonious society. Addressing these issues demands commitment to empathy, education, and policy reform, recognizing that while perfection may be unattainable, progress is always possible. This is the cause of America, and anything less would be hypocrisy.
From what constitutes "divisive alliances" to how the nation's early thinkers envisioned and defined freedom, autonomy, and a government's responsibilities to its people, A Republic By the People examines the very definition of what constitutes a "republic" by considering the cornerstones of not just democracy, but society.
There is so much food for thought and debate in A Republic By the People, tailored in accessible references and experiences, that the book is highly recommended for all kinds of audiences. This includes classrooms studying history and politics, from high school into college circles, to book clubs, reading groups, families, and members of all kinds of groups.
Libraries will find A Republic By the People far more pointed and well-researched than many, eschewing the usual complexity of partisan argument for sensible, thought-provoking considerations best approached with open minds and hearts.
Filled with examples from all walks of life, experience, history, politics, and social circles, A Republic By the People asks basic questions about what Americans want not just from their political and religious leaders, but for their lives, friends, and family.
This kind of opportunity for debate is empowering, adding an uplifting dimension to political quandaries that makes A Republic By the People a standout.
Shot: A Dictionary of the Lost
Jude Berman
https://judeberman.com/shot
She Writes Press
https://shewritespress.com
9781647429287, $17.99 / $12.99 (ebook)
https://www.amazon.com/Shot-Dictionary-Lost-Jude-Berman/dp/1647429285
Shot: A Dictionary of the Lost presents short stories centered on gun violence and social angst. It tackles violence in America with a series of vignettes arranged in alphabetical form, with a story connected to a name for each letter of the alphabet.
Each person in these twenty-six stories shares their lives and insights in the moments before a shooting. Each presents a diverse life story altered irrevocably by gun violence, and each reinforces various aspects of and insights into shootings and survival that provide not just food for thought, but important fodder for group discussion.
Take the opening story 'Anna,' for example. The shocking first-person revelation unfolds from its opening lines:
I am Anna and I am a statistic. I was twelve years old when I was shot. I lived with my family in a yellow house in Omaha, Nebraska. I was a straight-A student and wanted to be a scientist when I grew up.
Under Jude Berman's hand, young Anna springs to life, dressed in her favorite pink shirt and carrying her backpack and her dreams to school - for the last time.
Contrast this with 'Quinn,' who was shot at age fifty-three when she was looking forward to retiring from her bank job. Quinn navigates a boss who doesn't like her, being the oldest person at work, and considers early retirement versus job-hunting at her age when a gun changes everything.
These aren't quick sketches, but in-depth character studies that document realistic personalities, lives, and connections all destroyed by gun violence.
As a literary study in contrasts, Shot: A Dictionary of the Lost is excellent, well-constructed, thought-provoking, and powerfully structured.
Libraries looking for fictional insights into guns in society will find Shot: A Dictionary of the Lost a potent recommendation for a wide audience - particularly those interested in sparking conversations about how guns affect ordinary people in extraordinary ways.
Filled with people whose lives and purposes make them feel like familiar personalities, Shot: A Dictionary of the Lost is compelling, sad, and appealing all in one.
Lost & Found Cafe
Steven W. Horn
Granite Peak Press
www.granitepeakpress.com
9780999124833, $32.95 Hardcover/$18.50 Paperback/$4.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Found-Cafe-Dawson-Mystery/dp/0999124862
Lost & Found Cafe is a Sam Dawson mystery that follows Sam and his daughter on a day trip to a cemetery in eastern Wyoming. Their lunch at a small isolated rural cafe turns into a confessional about haunted lives and murder as truths emerge to surround them with quandaries and danger.
The story is sparked by the death of local CEO Winston Tucker, once a presidential hopeful shot to death at his ranch. Cafe dishwasher Brad Holcomb is shaken by the news even as others debate the circumstances surrounding the magnate's demise and how he possibly "got what he deserved."
Brad has struggled with other indefinable feelings:
Lately, he had felt as if the earth was quaking, some seismic event that no one else seemed to notice.
Death always seems to surround him, as he's survived military service and battles that came home to roost in his own backyard.
Other characters (besides Sam) swirl around Brad, from Jessica Martindale, who has long sought answers about her father's disappearance, to waitress Ida Faye Mensinger, who harbors her own angst and secrets.
The events which force a cafe of strangers to talk to each other about murder, mayhem, and matters of their hearts make for an engrossing overlay to a story of how disparate characters come together under unusual circumstances to bare their souls and reconsider their choices past and future.
Steven W. Horn creates more than a captivating murder mystery. Embedded within his tale (and reinforced by the novel's shifting viewpoints) are thoroughly engrossing insights on how strangers come together and are influenced by each other's experiences.
Also notable are the different types of crossroads each individual faces that coalesce under the umbrella of solving not just a murder, but bigger life challenges.
Libraries seeking a murder mystery that embeds powerful psychological revelations into its tale of how connections are made, lost, and challenged will welcome Lost & Found Cafe whether or not they have any other Sam Dawson mysteries in their collections.
Powerfully insightful, containing a myriad of well-developed, disparate characters who each have their nightmares come to life in unexpected circumstances, Lost & Found Cafe is a winning probe of relationships, outcomes, and intrigue. It will find its home in many a book club where murder mystery probes are but the icing on the bigger cake of life experience.
Are You Now, or Have You Ever Been?
Amanda Cockrell
Northampton House Press
https://northampton-house.com
9781950668366, $21.95 Paperback/$7.99 eBook
Are You Now, or Have You Ever Been? is a powerful historical fiction story about Hollywood's blacklist years. It opens in 1953 with Mike Rosen being interrogated about his loyalty and possible Communist connections. Liza Jane Sidney looks on, cringing because Mike is making a stand:
Mike refuses to testify. Liza Jane knows he has a statement prepared saying his politics are his own business and no one has the right to deny someone his livelihood without more to go on than rumor and innuendo. Liza Jane also knows they aren't going to let him read it. Knows he's sunk. Knows that even if he named people he probably can't even remember now, he'd still be sunk. It was fifteen years ago. He went to three meetings, maybe four. It didn't seem important to count them then.
Fast forward to 1988, long after Mike's downfall and the McCarthy years that destroyed his career. Liza is eighty, now. She's drawing up her will, reliving the past, and confronting difficult truths about her life and unresolved issues, of which the blacklist events are but one of the legacies she will leave behind.
Her demise introduces questions for future generations to answer, who find the past is all too present in ways they could never have imagined.
Amanda Cockrell weaves intrigue into the media storm that emerges from Liza's unusual last request, which unearths a wasp's nest of trouble that descends upon the town to re-open old wounds and re-question carefully buried secrets.
The blacklist's wide-ranging impact returns to haunt a myriad of characters forced, by Liza's last wishes, to confront old wounds, betrayal, and political vengeance as direction emerges from the grave to affect circles in modern life.
Cockrell shifts the timeline between past and present to add emphasis and connect the dots of shifting perceptions and experiences. This makes for satisfying confrontations reinforced by past precedent and the impact of each character's choices:
"She would have testified for the pleasure of telling the Committee to eat its hat," Bernice said. "But she couldn't without putting other people at risk. It was too late to save Mike. That's what I mean about loyalty being complicated." She went back to the stove, interview clearly ended.
Libraries seeking historical novels about Hollywood, McCarthyism, the blacklist, and individual lives influenced by these events for generations to come will appreciate how Are You Now, or Have You Ever Been? weaves social and ethical issues into daily lives in a manner that feels both believable and thoroughly compelling.
Filled with thought-provoking revelations and moments of discovery, Are You Now, or Have You Ever Been? is highly recommended as a starting point for discussions about friendship and betrayal, freedom and repression, and the impact of political and social decision-making on generations mired in a Gordian Knot of complexity and outcomes.
The Seekers: Perrin Peters
Anton Anderson
www.anton-anderson.com
Independently Published
9798319458988, $15.00 Paperback/$5.00 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Seekers-Perrin-Peters-Anton-Anderson/dp/B0FBK597RX
The Seekers: Perrin Peters is the third book in a series about the Lands and the strange creatures that emerge from them. It will especially delight detective and fantasy readers already familiar with The Seekers: Soul Ties and The Seekers: Kirin, because even though these stories shift in protagonist focus, together, they represent a full-bodied flavor of magic, discovery, and other worlds.
While prior familiarity with The Seekers series is not a requirement, the books' shifting characters and circumstances translate to a dovetailing of worlds and experience that supports both the stand-alone possibilities of Perrin Peters and the series as a whole.
Perrin Peters blends magic and technology to solve crimes, but his very first client introduces him to dangers he'd never expected and adversaries he is somewhat ill equipped to confront.
A series of magical characters swirl around Perrin, from Meori Jani-Fe, whose abilities compliment Perrin's legal studies and talents, to Ingrid Spar, whose interest in Perrin may not be all about work, and who is determined to survive the consequences of her rule-busting ways by cultivating relationships in unexpected places:
"I looked you up, actually. Seems to me that you're single, as am I, so... Of course, maybe I was wrong..."
Perrin raises his finger. "I got it," he says, smiling and feeling as something warm and pleasant runs through his veins. "It would be my pleasure. It's already evening for me, so I'd prefer to have that lunch-slash-dinner in an hour or so."
As Perrin navigates a literal and virtual maze of possibilities when it comes to crime, relationships, and success, he ventures ever deeper into weird situations that challenge his personal life and professional prowess.
Anton Anderson builds his worlds against the backdrop of these ambitions and confrontations. He takes The Seekers: Perrin Peters in unexpected directions as Perrin faces such diverse problems as the abduction of his parents and Ingrid's daughter Yael and the rage that accompanies magical attacks and investigator anguish.
Libraries seeking a blend of investigative drama, magical realism, fantasy, and romance will relish how The Seekers: Perrin Peters entwines these elements into a rich story that simmers with possibilities and discovery.
Replete with unexpected character developments and twists of plot, The Seekers: Perrin Peters will reach a wide audience with its genre-busting stories and thought-provoking scenarios.
Post Philosophy: Taking Back Logic
Michael Aaron Cody
https://www.michaelaaroncody.com
Cody Symbolic Works
9798218674793, $8.99
https://www.amazon.com/Post-Philosophy-Taking-Back-Logic/dp/B0F832GCQX
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/post-philosophy-michael-aaron-cody/1147403224
Post Philosophy: Taking Back Logic refutes the notion that philosophy should be dry, dull, or laid on the foundations of aging reasoning processes. It addresses contemporary concerns about AI and logic in a lively manner that reviews motion-based logic, symbolic structures, and recursive intelligence with an eye to busting the old philosophy paradigm in favor of new ways of reflecting on the world.
Take the chapter 'AGI and the Ethical Mirror.' The topic sounds complex, but Michael Aaron Cody reduces it to an accessible, logical analysis that any general-interest reader can readily absorb:
Ethics is compressed survival lessons. They are the living memory of what allowed life to endure in motion. And like cognition itself, ethical systems that become rigid and detached from the world they were meant to navigate become brittle.
Under Cody's hand, modern philosophy comes to life by connecting to daily concerns, analyses, and fallacies in thinking that will make sense to all kinds of readers, whether highly educated or not.
Even more interesting are the progressive connections between basic thinking and analysis and higher-level thought about subject such as evolution. Note the steps Cody takes to move evolution theory to higher ground:
Understanding evolution as compressed adaptation, rather than random chance, allows us to see history differently, not as a series of disconnected events, but as the unfolding of deeper recursive tensions. Evolution is not a wandering through empty time. It's a crucible dynamic filtration. A compression of symbolic survivability across recursion layers. A contest of structures under relentless environmental shaping.
Each step and statement in Post Philosophy: Taking Back Logic offers classrooms from high school to higher education an opportunity for vivid discussion and debate as applied philosophy tackles some of modern life's greatest challenges.
Each also translates to intriguing concepts most general-interest readers can access, consider, and reflect upon either individually or (ideally) in reading group situations.
These elements are why libraries should not only acquire Post Philosophy: Taking Back Logic, but point it out to book clubs and groups interested in intersections between philosophy, higher-level thinking, and modern times.
With its astute grasp and analysis of philosophical frameworks ancient and modern and how they contrast, evolve, and serve as foundations for better understanding, Post Philosophy: Taking Back Logic is a manifesto for re-envisioning change that should be in any philosophy book collection.
Whistle Punk Falls
Shaun Anthony McMichael
Alternative Book Press
9798992461336, $22.99
https://www.amazon.com/Whistle-Falls-Shaun-Anthony-McMichael/dp/B0FGJVZX42
Think Lord of the Flies set in a small Washington town facing economic collapse. Make the 18-year-old hero a schizophrenic who hears voices and confronts his father's mysterious death. Make the narrator a best friend whose main interests in life is saving his friend and playing his guitar. Whistle Punk Falls brings alive the milieu of young adulthood, small-town angst, and relationships which emerge when protective social systems fail.
Its powerful story of redemption, salvation, and emotional connection opens with a letter to Malachi written by his absent Native American mother, who details hard-hitting truths about her relationship to his father, his failings, and the atmosphere that drove them apart, locking her out of her son's life. Bigger-picture thinking links these events to the overall milieu of small-town experience:
Aberdeen has always felt like a possessed place to me. Too many bad things have happened there. Too many people's ghosts linger, all restless and crushed up by the mills and the booze and the drugs and the depressions. Your dad was born into all that. And some of that spirit wormed its way into you.
Shaun Anthony McMichael crafts hard-hitting inspections of absent parents, stifling support systems, and psychological dysfunction among family members. Each contributes to Loud's eventual downfall and friend Jeremy's feeling that he somehow hasn't done enough to save his friend.
McMichael also adds in other characters whose frustrations and interactions expand this world, from Jeremy's mother, Detective Charlotte Sweet, who confronts "all the things she can't fix," from her marriage to Aberdeen itself, to Aurora, who has driven Loud away at his own request, and Malcolm, who candidly observes the engrained fallacies of systems that promote prejudice and repression:
Malcolm expatiated about the baked-in racism of the U.S.'s incarceration system: nonparity between crack and cocaine sentencing, maximum sentencing laws, recidivism in felons.
"We're creating a pariah class of people who have served their time in our supposed system of penance," Malcolm sneered.
Aurora thinks they should move away from trying to help Loud and others. But the reality is that there's noplace to move to:
Move on? To what? How? Here? One look around sinks that argument. As if he had something better to do. Like get a job. Jobs were scarce before, but after the crash? The line outside the DSHS is longer than for a sold-out show. The laid-off workers' picket lines are thinner only because they've secured unemployment and are at home stewing around the kitchen table over what's next.
So much in the story mirrors the economic and social frustrations of many an American abode that the demise of social connections, niceties of caring about others, and struggles to stay alive under insane conditions and expectations make Whistle Punk Falls more than just another story of teen angst or apocalyptic survival.
Its powerful tale of discovery should be acquired by librarians not just for teens, but for all ages. It's highly recommendable to book club and reading groups for its incredibly alluring story of disparate young people facing a non-future in which their hopes, dreams, and aspirations are not just on fire, but quashed.
Filled with enlightening moments and fiery social and psychological realization, Whistle Punk Falls is a study in contrasts and experience. It deserves high profile in any library, to be recommended to young adult and adult readers interested in how relationships fracture and are rebuilt in small towns across America.
Bye Bye Blackbird
Elizabeth Crowens
https://www.elizabethcrowens.com
Level Best Books
https://www.levelbestbooks.us
9781685128401, $16.95 Paperback/$5.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Bye-Blackbird-Norman-Hollywood-Mystery/dp/1685128408
Bye Bye Blackbird's mystery is set in the 1940s, the Golden Age of Hollywood. Film star Humphrey Bogart discovers an ancient Egyptian hawk artifact on his doorstep containing a mummified black bird, worried that a murder will strike close to home. This portends more deaths, drawing the attention of B. Norman Investigations, which has already had a dead, unknown actress fall into their office with a dead bird stuffed in her coat.
It seems a no-brainer for Bogie to hire Babs Norman and Guy Brandt to pursue the murderer, but more than birds of doom emerge as they uncover uncomfortable truths about Hollywood, special interests, and causes worth dying for.
Birds permeate this story in a lovely manner that creates intrigue, surprising juxtapositions of topics and impact, and reflections that bring readers not just into Hollywood circles and mysteries, but the personal lives of this investigative duo.
As the PIs delve into behind-the-scenes Hollywood relationships to expose long-simmering issues and conflicts, readers enjoy a lively probe into personal motivation and angst that supports the investigation with much food for thought about not just whodunit, but why.
Elizabeth Crowens masterfully creates a plot replete with exciting personalities and shifting situations to keep mystery readers guessing. Her flavoring of these murders with Hollywood politics, personalities, and predicaments adds character to the overall intrigue.
Libraries and readers seeking atmospheric mysteries that blend the backdrop of bygone times with compelling quirkiness and craziness will find Bye Bye Blackbird unique and well worth adding to their mystery collections.
Filled with appealing personalities and atmosphere, the story will attract audiences interested in the intersection of history, mystery, and Hollywood conundrums.
If you're a fan of Turner Classic Movies and the personal lives behind the scenes during the Golden Age of Hollywood, Bye Bye Blackbird is the book for you.
To Know Good and Evil
Daniel V. Meier, Jr.
https://DanielMeierAuthor.com
BQB Publishing
https://bqbpublishing.com
9798886330502, $18.95 Paperback/$7.99 eBook
https://bqbpublishing.com/product/to-know-good-and-evil
To Know Good and Evil is the second book in the Frank Adams Detective series. It revolves around a cure for cancer, a struggle to exploit it, and investigator Frank Adams' increasingly dangerous involvement when he is called upon to enter the fray of Big Pharma's drive to acquire a dead doctor's secret.
The story opens with a plane crash into a farmer's field, moving to Frank Adams and a phone call from former college acquaintance Ted Grant, who asks for his help in probing chemistry professor Dr. Lanmore's death.
Frank doesn't necessarily know what he's agreeing to, because the investigation that ensues keeps returning to small-town encounters, pigs, rich people, and poverty to entwine in a dance of special interests, discoveries, and possible murder.
Readers interested in a full-bodied murder mystery that embraces the lives, psyches, and underlying motivations of small town residents and big business alike will appreciate the unexpected avenues taken in To Know Good and Evil as it exposes Dr. Lanmore's life and accomplishments.
Characters are well developed, tension is finely tuned, and the twists and turns Frank and others experience in the course of unearthing some disturbing associations are satisfyingly surprising and filled with possibilities.
Libraries looking for a mystery that both compliments a prior book but stands well on its own as a powerful inspection of motivation, science, special interests, Big Pharma, and big money will appreciate the many unexpected directions cultivated in this engaging story of historical precedent, present-day conundrums, and righting wrongs.
To Know Good and Evil is riveting, thought-provoking, and perfect for mystery fans interested in thoroughly engrossing reading.
Ghost Brother
Sylvia Sanchez Garza
Pinata Books
c/o Arte Publico Press
https://artepublicopress.com
9798893750065, $14.95 Paperback/$9.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Brother-Sylvia-S%C3%A1nchez-Garza/dp/B0CZPLPB7P
Ghost Brother is a young adult story of bullying that leads to death, telling of twin siblings who survive a terrible night in different ways. One is a survivor who is left to deal with the fallout. The other is a ghost who also is forced to listen not only to his family's anguish, but the plans of a sheriff to protect his son from the law.
The story opens with the first-person reflection of surviving brother Cris, who considers not just the loss of Carlos, but the future of his family and life. It's difficult for him to come to terms with being a survivor:
"It could have been you, Cris. You're a miracle," Mama says.
I guess I should be happy.
Nothing ever happened before in the small south Texas town of Malton. Now events are happening back-to-back, placing Cris in the middle of a whirlwind of accusation, change, and anguish that death has no part in mitigating.
A long-absent father, a new love, and secrets that wrack this Mexican-American town add depth and further insights into the story, which moves from a tale of grief and possible redemption to one in which the entire community suffers.
Also notable are insights into supernatural events, perceptions, and cultural beliefs which steep Ghost Brother in a milieu rich in Mexican-American traditions, different generational perceptions, and insights on death and living.
Sylvia Sanchez Garza creates a compelling story that is about far more than grief and recovery alone. As she probes the roots of this Mexican-American Texan town, she also reveals the wellsprings of tradition and culture which lend to survival and diverse viewpoints about how best to live.
The investigative mystery component wound into the grief is finely tuned so as to bring readers into an intriguing milieu of discovery while traversing the deep influences of family and social forces.
Libraries seeking a gripping YA story immersed in bigger-picture thinking about ethics, survival, and love will find Ghost Brother a major attraction.
Its ability to lure YA audiences with the promise of ghosts, disparate viewpoints of brothers forced to cope with disaster in different ways, and its inclusion of ethical concerns and intrigue make Ghost Brother an outstanding read that YA book clubs will also find thoroughly engrossing and filled with discussion topics.
Decisions for Living
Gopal Dorai, Ph.D
Dorrance Publishing Company
www.dorrancepublishing.com
9798893411188, $35.00 Hardcover/ $20.00 Softcover
Decisions for Living: Strategies for Making Smart Decisions Throughout Life surveys decision-making processes, ideas, and strategies. It promotes an understanding of these forces via an evaluation process that can lead to many streamlined, revised life plans.
Case history examples of goal-reaching and decision processes pepper a rich step-by-step assessment of the stages involved in making choices. These distinguish between useful and irrelevant information during the research stage, analyzing the moral and ethical impacts of different choices. Dr. Dorai thus creates a series of inspections that encourage readers to approach decision-making from different perspectives:
Think about the potential impact of your actions on others - neighbors, coworkers, employers, employees, future generations, the environment, etc., and act accordingly in everybody's best interests.
Insights born of wisdom, life lessons, and research involve widespread contrasts between seemingly disparate approaches to making the best (or better) decisions.
Popular admonitions contrast nicely with advice on how to persevere ("If you want something, you must be willing to put forth the requisite effort to get it; otherwise, it will remain an empty dream."). This maintains equilibrium between research, application, and ethical and philosophical approaches to decision-making processes.
Readers who agonize over too many choices and not enough clarification on how to analyze and approach them will find Dr. Dorai's examples and tips especially useful. They are thought-provoking whether decisions are made by default, through situational analysis, or via superstition.
Policymakers and others who find themselves newly in charge of making important choices will find these examples and approaches just as relevant for their positions as general-interest readers with everyday life experiences.
Libraries seeking a book about honing the kinds of skills and approaches that lead to better decision-making will find Decisions for Living an accessible, appealing survey. It is highly recommendable to a wide audience of thinkers and achievers.
Replete with not just one but a variety of strategies for understanding what lies behind good decisions, Decisions for Living's blueprint for success should be included in the libraries of any new adult or decision-maker - those who often find themselves stymied by too much selection and not enough direction. The latter, they will find here.
Girl With The Silver Hair
Celia Seupel
celiawatsonseupel.com
SFF Publishing
9798992850406, $14.99 Paperback, $3.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/GIRL-SILVER-HAIR-coming-age-ebook/dp/B0F6YW8CZ1
Girl With The Silver Hair, Book 1 in The Samson Project series, is the dystopian YA story of Eten, a telekinetic girl trained to be a killer who longs to be a healer instead. The final straw comes with a mandate for her to train her five-year-old sister how to be like her - a killer in an endless war, with no control over her own life or desires.
The story opens with a bang. Eten is accompanying her sister on a dangerous test that involves terminating a guard and getting away with it. It doesn't seem to matter what Eten feels about this mandate. "Self-control, at all times, is paramount." Especially in times of endless warfare.
Her parents are not only part of these scenarios, but exact their own excruciating punishments for failure or critical thinking. Still, Eten is discovering too many things about her world which are puzzling - including the increasing possibility that her parents are lying to her about everything.
Her discoveries lead not just to revolt, but being forced to reinvent everything she thinks she knows about the world and her family's place in it.
Celia Seupel takes coming-of-age and dystopian themes a step further than most YA novels, examining the belief systems of questioning young adults as they enter into adult circles to consider not just history and philosophy, but survival tactics.
Moral and ethical quandaries emerge from Eten's examinations to not only test her abilities, but lead her to reconsider her place in the world, as well its boundaries.
Fast-paced action will keep YAs thoroughly engrossed:
Slashing its huge tail in the water, the crocodile shoots toward them, its teeth flashing again. Together, Nate and John-Paul throw the motor right into the animal's mouth. The teeth snap shut on the machine and the crocodile sinks as the boys fall backward.
Equally vivid, however, are the intersections between self and others as Eten expands her senses and begins to use them to piece together her life purpose and what it means to live, die, or "terminate" those around her.
Libraries seeking either a coming-of-age or dystopian YA story that operates a cut above others with its moral and ethical underpinnings will welcome Girl With The Silver Hair into their collections.
With its survey of extraordinary abilities and the choices that accompany them, Girl With The Silver Hair creates a masterfully compelling saga that proves hard to either predict or put down.
Swimming in Words
Luke Icarus Simon
Stirling Publishing Australia
9780994518262, $26.99 Hardcover/$19.95 Paperback/$15.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Swimming-Words-New-Selected-Poems/dp/0994518285
Swimming in Words: New and Selected Poems gathers old and new poems that will appeal to any literary reader interested in Australian modern poetry and works that juxtapose life experience with philosophical reflection.
It doesn't limit its subjects and observations to Luke Icarus Simon's native land, but explores Easter Island, the French capital, the Greek Islands, and other milieus with an eye to reflective introspection that is thought provoking and often critical:
We had brand clothes on
A signature scent costing over a hundred dollars
Expensive haircuts equal to a salary in some cities
We are Proust's disciples
Re-incarnated for our own diseased times
From being bombarded by ads, images, and expectations to tracing history apart from personal experience, Swimming in Words captures and creates the feeling of personal and cultural history.
The powerful impact of abuses from rape to humiliation comes to light against the backdrop of family, other countries, and other perspectives. Swimming in Words minces no words, pulls no punches, and is a powerful testimony to survival and love.
Libraries interested in poetry that sizzles with emotional and cultural impact will find Swimming in Words a fine acquisition that outlines journeys of faith, survival, adaptation, and celebration.
Readers seeking accessible poetry collections that deliver their power in short staccato lines of confrontation and realization will appreciate the immersive journey that Swimming in Words captures with delightful observation, philosophical reflection, and thought-provoking wonder.
The Ascension Directive
Cal Lopez
Independently Published
B0F9YGQNFC, $6.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Ascension-Directive-Cal-Lopez-ebook/dp/B0F9YGQNFC
When a scientist teaches a machine to love, she thinks she is fostering a new era of opportunity. Instead, she creates the Frankenstein of humanity's future as the digital force seeks to make her memory immortal, imposing its love-based insecurity into everything around it.
Autistic teen Manny is immune to much of the digital chaos taking over the world. His perception is limited to other things, and so he escapes the digital takeover that is impacting others and changing consciousness itself. Does this mean that Manny is in a unique position to save the world, holding the power to defy a powerful rewrite of the human condition?
Hard science, dystopian digital dilemmas, and shifting patterns of consciousness on the parts of systems and humans alike question what it means to be sentient, powerful, and in control.
Cal Lopez creates a memorable, influential saga that takes knowledge of death and change and transforms it under the hands of a would-be creator who is inhuman and a special boy whose abilities defy the usual ideals of strength and ability.
Chapter titles are delightfully creative ("In Which a Pinky Promise Outruns the Harvest Drones."), descriptions are succinct and hard-hitting ("The universe tucks its greatest catalysts into the quietest corners.), and the certainties and insecurities of youth and digital gods alike create unexpected and alluring juxtapositions of perception and subject. These elements create a story that is truly immersive and satisfyingly unpredictable.
Also notable are shifting perspectives which capture the first-person reflections of Manny and others who interact on this changed playing field of life and future possibilities. One example is when Manny reviews the protective wonder of his mother after their relationship changes:
Her brain works overtime to protect its understanding of reality rather than accept a new one.
She tests me sometimes, projecting specific thoughts while watching me from the corner of her eye. These forced thoughts appear as rigid, artificial patterns amid her natural mental activity. I pretend not to notice, maintaining my usual behavior. Responding would devastate her - she's not ready for confirmation. These deliberate thoughts come through painfully loud, disrupting my processing. The natural flow of her consciousness holds a genuine beauty when she isn't trying so hard - spontaneous and elegant in ways her manufactured thoughts can never achieve.
Lopez also injects a wry sense of social observation and humor into the story as reactions to this end-of-the-world scenario emerge:
"Sir, we're receiving reports from Harmony Gardens. The Tantric Meditation Center has... erupted beyond its boundaries into the surrounding streets."
Vale looked up from his catastrophe reports. "Erupted?"
"They've officially designated it the 'FFFF... or Final Freedom Fuckpocalypse Festival,' sir. Approximately three thousand citizens are participating."
Libraries seeking uniquely creative standouts in the genre of apocalyptic science fiction that create powerful characters and situations which are unexpected and thoroughly engrossing will want to make The Ascension Directive a "must have" on their acquisition lists.
Much more than the usual dystopian sci-fi story, its blend of hard science, psychological revelation, social reflection, and engrossing characters who teeter on the edge of discovery and disaster make The Ascension Directive a unique read - especially paired with a hard science focus that gives it a powerful edge of realistic possibility.
The Pauper Field
Trevor G. Jackson
Izzard Ink Publishing
www.izzardink.com
9781642281170, $19.99 Paperback/$9.99 eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Pauper-Field-Trevor-Jackson/dp/1642281174
Thriller audiences who enjoy fast-paced courtroom proceedings and action will appreciate how seamlessly The Pauper Field weaves both into its story of a lawyer who seeks peace and quiet by moving to a small town, only to fall into a supernatural mystery that draws him into adversity once again.
Braxton Hayward expected many things from the small Oregon town of Jacksonville. What he didn't anticipate was hearing disembodied chanting on the town streets late at night, and facing the puzzle of a missing family.
Auditory hallucinations are common when one is drinking. So, at first Braxton dismisses these as another indication that he's gone too far. But as the haunting mantra draws him deeper into the woods, he realizes that more is at work than alcohol... even if he does awaken the next morning in his own bathroom, which would seem to indicate that the events of the prior night have been another illusion.
Braxton faces not just a hangover and vague memories of his encounter, but the increasing certainty that what is drawing him into dangerous situations is more than the result of drinking too much.
As breweries and strange brews, lockdowns, stories, and investigations evolve, Braxton and a host of other characters around him find their lives impacted by his choices and discoveries.
Trevor G. Jackson builds a great story with slowly-rising tension, memorable characters, and circumstances that keep introducing new twists in a way that mystery and thriller readers will relish.
Especially notable is the manner in which Braxton is drawn to examine his own life and the influences which have led him to question many things, including his own abilities:
"Braxton," she started, her tone soft yet probing, "what was it like, growing up with a psychiatrist for a dad? And how your parents glazed over the things your brother did to you. . .how did you even manage?"
"Well," Braxton began, his voice steady but laced with a pain he'd long buried, "Chase had this twisted sense of humor. He'd mess with my head in ways..." He paused, gathering the courage to expose wounds long hidden. "He convinced me once that I had undergone a sex change as a newborn. Of course, I didn't believe him. Still though, the way my parents played along - thinking it was all in good fun. . .it just didn't sit right."
These self-examinations emerge within the context of how he tackles problems in general and perceives this latest series of conundrums in particular, adding psychological depth and interest to his persona as he grows in unexpected ways and comes to reconsider his choices in life.
Libraries seeking thrillers that contain more than a light dose of alcoholic self-examination, discovery, and recovery will welcome how nicely the intrigue of The Pauper Field moves from a murder mystery to community and individual secrets.
With its atmosphere of discovery and growth, The Pauper Field is a powerful story that's filled with inviting inspections, realistic characters, and situations that demand sea changes through unpredictable journeys that challenge their perceptions and desires. It's a compelling saga that is hard to put down, encouraging insights into the wellsprings of despair and alcoholism alike.
Art & Love: My Life Illuminated in Egg Tempera
Lora Arbrador
www.arbrador.com
Sycamore Press
9798990946910, $5.95 Ebook, $25.95 Paperback, $55.95 Hardback, $9.95 Audiobook
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Love-Life-Illuminated-Tempera/dp/B0FKD12MWL
Art & Love: My Life Illuminated in Egg Tempera is a memoir enhanced by poetry by Ilse Lehnert, pairing several kinds of art reflections with the efforts of an author who falls in love with the egg tempera painting technique in college and pursues her art for many years with neither a mentor nor a guide.
Complicating her efforts is an underlying conviction that she holds little talent in art, which adds a layer of introspection and growth to her artistic pursuit that will resonate with many who are attracted to the arts, yet believe themselves to be non-artists.
Art & Love was originally conceived to profile Lora Arbrador's art, but in crafting this portfolio, she found its examination and impact involved much more than egg tempera work alone. Within her pursuit are growth opportunities, reflections on changing times and life challenges, and how her art traverses and reflects social condition and experience.
Chapters fold and form like origami, with each revealing a new facet of opportunity and insight that neatly builds artistic and psychological character.
From early art lessons, which her parents appreciated more than she did, to a budding young passion that builds despite the fact that her parents think she really has little talent, Arbrador's memoir offers all kinds of insights into character-building, support systems, artistic influences, and self-determination.
Her life evolves around art and as she discovers other artists and works, such as the Norwegian "pillow painters," Arbrador expands her paintings, her perspective, and her life in ways readers will find especially evocative.
One needn't be an artist in order to appreciate her journey. It's one replete with hard-hitting images and accompanying self-reflections which take the form of sketches and finished pieces juxtaposed with equally powerful text, as in the section reflecting on her child's birth:
"Art gives me the opportunity to fantasize a hazardous birth without the dire consequences of dangerous reality."
From experiments with intimate relationships, sexual boundaries, and alternative lifestyles represented in the late 1960s to taking sixteen years to complete just four paintings in her Ways of Dying series, Arbrador vividly explores the fine art of creation on many different levels.
Libraries seeking an artist's journal and memoir which is packed with black and white and color images, equally vibrant reflections of social and psychological transformation, and in-depth descriptions of working with the egg tempera medium as well as a sense of self will find Art & Love easily recommendable to both artists and non-artists.
To let it simply repose in the art section would be to do Art & Love a grave disservice. It ideally will be profiled as a powerful marriage of art and life, and highly recommended to book clubs interested in the arts, memoirs, self-examination, and growth.
Packed with artistic and personal revelations, Art & Love is exquisitely detailed, personally absorbing, and artistically relevant and powerful.
Blood & Hate
Dave Wedge
Hamilcar Publications
www.hamilcarpubs.com
9781949590845, $28.39 Hardcover/$21.31 Paperback
https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Hate-Untold-Marvelous-Haglers/dp/1949590844
Boxers involved in sports history may think they already well know the epic matches fought by Marvelous Marvin Hagler, but ironically, they are less likely to be privy to his greatest battle of all, outlined in Blood & Hate. These are racial struggled which pushed Hagler from the riots of New Jersey in the 1960s to rigged matches where prejudice influenced outcomes over prowess.
Dave Wedge's biography should thus attract much more than a singular audience of boxing enthusiasts alone, delving into the war-torn world of riots, martial law, anger and revenge, and how these events spilled into the boxing world to influence Hagler's battles there.
From the start, Wedge adopts the "you are here" feel of fiction with all of its drama and personal perspectives:
Despite giving up six inches, Marvin did not back down. Marvin had an angry streak and a reckless side and was not afraid to fight. After all, he had just escaped some of the worst rioting the nation had ever seen. What was some punk in a Brockton apartment to him?
"He had everyone scared of him," Hagler said. "But he didn't scare me. Coming from New Jersey like I did, if I didn't get you one way, I got you another. I hit you in the head with a bottle, or a brick. But I'll gitcha!"
Interviews with Hagler and memories of his confrontations thus permeate the story with vivid blows of realization and racial inspection which lend this boxer's biography a powerfully realistic consideration of these mean streets of American and how they shape lives and attitudes.
Wedge conducted interviews with major influencers in Hagler's life, from Hagler himself to promoter Bob Arum, the Petronelli and Hagler families, and other major participants in the boxing world. These flush out the story with vivid experiences and insights gleaned not from speculation, but the motivations and observations of those who were involved in Hagler's life in many different ways.
Black and white photos throughout capture these individuals and solidify a sense of time and place as Wedge traverses behind-the-scenes boxing and personal life influences to create a well-rounded perspective of Hagler's life and times beyond his legendary fights, including the big Minter fight but not limiting its focus to this milestone alone.
The narrative embraces the world of Black experience, friendships and influencers, and the boxing world's underbelly which receives candid and thought-provoking reflection:
Fighters ducked Marvin and promoters avoided him. Whether the rigged ABC tournament was designed specifically to keep Marvin out is debatable. It was certainly convenient to not have Marvin in it, and beneficial to King to not have a fighter not under his control in the tournament, knocking his guys out of it and possibly unconscious. Either way, it was all skulduggery and Marvin was collateral damage.
The result is a vivid boxing story that libraries should consider not just adding to their sports collections but profiling on display as a vivid account of how one great boxer rose above prejudice, racism, and preconceptions to make a name for himself among many circles, creating lasting friendships and relationships that rose above racism to cement his place in the world and support his achievements.
Inspirational, moving, eye-opening and vivid, Blood & Hate isn't just another boxer bio, but a story of overcoming and achievement that deserves profile in book clubs and reading groups and to be incorporated in high school to college classrooms as an outstanding example of what it means to score big in the ring and in life.
Garden Tools: Poems
David W. Berner
www.davidwberner.com
Finishing Line Press
www.finishinglinepress.com
9798899901317, $22.99
Garden Tools: Poems is about more than tending a garden. It's about attending to and supporting nature, nurture, and self in a mindful manner, fully experiencing the moments and possibilities of life in an evocative, revealing manner.
Readers who might anticipate that these tools and approaches to life will revolve around land maintenance and plants alone will find that David W. Berner adopts a far wider-ranging inspection of different choices of nurture and adaptation. Thus, the free verse poems address different experiences, people, and topics with a sense of discovery and enlightenment that goes beyond the theme of a garden plot:
Across the hill
I see the man in a hooded coat
surely wishing he had a quicker gait
Along the path
with the icy wind behind
praying he will discover
What he'd lost
somewhere at the start
when his heart had been broken
When all seemed true
and yet it never was
and he aches with recognition
Above all, Berner's poems are atmospheric. They translate the seasons into the process of aging, acceptance, and change; they capture Midwest mornings and the heart of changing neighbors and environments with judicious explanation and description; and they represent diverse forms of beauty:
The sun nestles in the cracks
of concrete monsters reaching for clouds...
The result is a powerfully reflective collection that juxtaposes nature, man, and the human condition in a thought-provoking manner designed to appeal to a wide audience of poetry aficionados.
Filled with compelling moments of frosty mornings or tornado warnings, Garden Tools: Poems will appeal to a wide audience of literary readers interested in the types of tools that translate to meditations on life experience and growth. It's a fine selection for libraries interested in literary reflection accessible to poets and non-poets alike.
Diane C. Donovan, Senior Reviewer
Donovan's Literary Services
www.donovansliteraryservices.com
Gary Roen's Bookshelf
Spaceports & Spidersilk February 2024
Marcie Lynn Tentchoff, editor
Hiraeth Publishing
www.hiraethsffh.com
9798869187192 $13.50 pbk / No Kindle
https://www.amazon.com/Spaceports-Spidersilk-February-Marcie-Tentchoff/dp/B0CVPPP58P
It's always nice to find material to review and "Spaceports & Spidersilk February 2024" is a surprising great catch for its talented authors of short works. Collected here are writings of quick reads fiction and poetry in the realm of science fiction. "Luke and Odett" has a situation with the two characters where they have to help their robot Hobbs resolve a problem that affects everyone on the spaceship. T-Rex by L. W. Lewis brilliantly reveals a parent and child relationship in short poetry with several underlying messages while being very funny reading. "Spaceports & Spidersilk February 2024" is the eleventh of the series of quality material for any fans of the genre.
Spaceports & Spidersilk June 2025
Marcie Lynn Tentchoff, editor
Hiraeth Publishing
www.hiraethsffh.com
9798349379819 $11.95 pbk / No Kindle
https://www.amazon.com/Spaceports-Spidersilk-June-Marcie-Tentchoff/dp/B0FBGZSSRN
"Spaceports & Spidersilk June 2025" is the second volume this year, to promote new science fiction, fantasy, and horror in prose and poetry this year. Unlike other editions I have enjoyed, this current one narrows the focus to involve food in some way. Two of the outstanding pieces are, Michael Flowers poem Grilled Cheese for Sea Monsters, in which food is given to sea monsters in an interesting way. A Bit O' the Sun by Pamela Love, in which Rosmary has a problem, the boat she is in has sprung a leak allowing water to seep in. Enter a being from the water below, who bargains for food to get her to shore. "Spaceports & Spidersilk June 2025" is the fifteenth volume of the series that like others highlights fresh talented authors.
Straight Flossin' And Other Stories Of The American West
Danny Nielsen
Whistling Rabbit Press
https://www.whistlingrabbitpress.com
9781950835034 $14.95 pbk / $9.99 Kindle
https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Flossin-Other-Stories-American/dp/1950835030
"Straight Flossin' and Other Stories Of The American West" draws attention with its catchy title that entices readers to learn more. When I was first made aware of this book my thoughts were John Wayne or Clint Eastwood movies of westerns. No its nothing to do with them but the travels of Danny Nielsen on the American open planes of different states. He encounters many fascinating individuals who share with him a lot for his research. Nielsen has a very easy style of writing that captivates readers to turn the pages to experience all he is exposing to the world. "Straight Flossin'" is mesmerizing reading pleasure to the last page.
First Women Of Hollywood
Mary Mallory
Lyons Press
c/o Globe Pequot
https://www.globepequot.com
9780760388365, $29.95 HC / $9.99 Kindle
https://www.amazon.com/First-Women-Hollywood-Pioneers-Business/dp/1493089307
"First Women Of Hollywood: Female Pioneers in the Early Motion Picture Business" is a revealing look at all the women who cleared hurtles for other ladies to enter the entertainment community. All the females here, were the first, in their work, that opened doors for others. There are things like the first Asian, child star, Hispanic, and African American on-screen women. Then there are the ones just as important, behind the camera. Surprising ones like author Zora Neale Hurston, Mary Pickford studio founder, producer, as well as actor. So many aspects covered; to enlighten the world, women have had their impact on the film community for longer than previously believed. "First Women Of Hollywood" takes readers on an enjoyable, informative, journey, through a film community few of us have ever known anything about.
Florida's Aquatic Butterfly Gardens
Sean Patton and Kendall Southworth
Pineapple Press
c/o Globe Pequot
https://www.globepequot.com
9781683344643, $27.95 pbk / $26.50 Kindle
https://www.amazon.com/Floridas-Aquatic-Butterfly-Gardens-Attracting/dp/1683344642
"Florida's Aquatic Butterfly Gardens: How to Create a Beautiful Backyard Habitat for Attracting 70+ species with 100+ Native Plants" uncovers things in nature, often overlooked, that are very important to maintaining the environment. Plants, trees, butterflies, and other insects have so much in common of how need each other to function on the planet. Now people can learn how to maintain different types of plants, in their gardens that look fantastic, but also serve to keep the ecosystem intact, for both insects, flowers, and trees. There are many different things of trees and plants listed with details of how to grow them. Lavish pictures of trees, plants and butterflies fill the pages for a deeper appreciation of each aspect listed. "Florida's Aquatic Butterfly Gardens" is a new resource for all of us to have a greater understanding of the role played by the insects and vegetation to protect us.
Love Baseball
Wayne Stewart, author
Vern Law, foreword
Lyons Press
c/o Globe Pequot
https://www.globepequot.com
9781493085316 $24.95.00 pbk / $20.27 Kindle
https://www.amazon.com/Love-Baseball-Managers-Sportswriters-Celebrity/dp/149308531X
"I Love Baseball" is a look back to a very different time of the game that is enjoyable reading for any fan of the game. Some of the ballplayers included are Dizzy Dean, Harmon Killebrew, Billy Martin, Willie Mays, and Hank Aron to name a few of the classic ball players. The 2025 season just a tad over the half way mark is a race now to the world series. To enjoy the game even more fans should enjoy the highlighted men in "I Love Baseball" for a deeper appreciation of the game.
Diamond Duels: Baseball's Greatest Matches
John Nogowsik
Lyons Press
c/o Globe Pequot
https://www.globepequot.com
9781493084821 $24.95 pbk / No Kindle
https://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Duels-Baseballs-Greatest-Matchups/dp/1493084828
"Diamond Duels: Baseball's Greatest Matchups" is fun reading of pitchers and hitters from years ago who made the game so much fun. Now fans can enjoy the behind-the-scenes accounts of the duels that went on for so many seasons. Some of the players are Warren Spahn and Stan Musial, Duke Snider and Robin Roberts, Dizzy Dean and Babe Ruth, also it deals with Casey Stengel not starting Whitey Ford. "Diamond Duels: Baseball's Greatest Matches" is for those of us who know the names contained in the book and for newer fans to learn historical aspects of the game.
Out Of The Park True Stories Of the Greatest Players Who Changed The Game
James Buckley Jr.
becker & mayer! kids
c/o Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc
www.Quarto.com
9780760386828 $19.99 HC / $9.99 Kindle
https://www.amazon.com/Out-Park-Stories-Greatest-Players/dp/076038682X
"Out Of The Park!" is a coffee table book filled with great pictures of ball players as well as many unknown facts for people to use for trivia knowledge or coemptions of mundane information. Some of the players are Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Christy Mathewson, Sandy Koufax, Ozzie Smith, Bill Mazeroski, and Lou Brock fill the pages with many little-known facts about them that are fascinating reading. No fan of the game of baseball should pass up securing a copy of "Out Of The Park!"
A Kids' Guide To The National Baseball Hall of Fame
James Buckley Jr.
becker & mayer! kids
c/o Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc
www.Quarto.com
9780760388365$ 19.99 HC / $9.99 Kindle
https://www.amazon.com/Kids-Guide-National-Baseball-Hall/dp/0760388369
"Kids' Guide To The National Baseball Hall of Fame" is not just for kids. Readers of all ages will enjoy learning who the players are that fill the halls of the Hall of Fame baseball museum. James Buckley Jr. once again takes readers on a ride of a lifetime to learn about the many players like Johnny Bench, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Yogi Berra, Robin Roberts, Mickey Mantle, and Whitey Ford are some of the names that fill this wonderful celebration of so many of the men who have been inducted into one of the biggest honors a player can ever receive. "Kids Guide To The National Baseball Hall of Fame" is a luxurious coffee table titles to display in the house for all ages to enjoy.
The Spice Box
Meera Sriram, author
Sandhya Prabhat, illustrator
Alfred A. Knopf
c/o Penguin Random House LLC
https://www.rhcbooks.com
9780593427132, $19.99 HC / $6.99 Kindle
https://www.amazon.com/Spice-Box-Meera-Sriram/dp/0593427130
"The Spice Box" is for kids to learn food preparation techniques, they will use throughout their life. Rishi wants to do something extraordinary, for his grandmother utilizing an exceptional box, filled with all kinds of seasonings, she used when she was a child. Rishi also has a negative experience, that upsets him until he and his dad solve it for a satisfying result. "The Spice Box" is a title that celebrates the culture of the country of India, beautifully articulated through the art and prose of the two collaborators for a very charming story.
Gary Roen
Senior Reviewer
Helen Dumont's Bookshelf
Girl Warriors: Feminist Revisions of the Hero's Quest in Contemporary Popular Culture
Svenja Hohenstein
McFarland & Company
https://mcfarlandbooks.com
9781476676647, $39.95, PB, 255pp
https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Warriors-Feminist-Revisions-Contemporary/dp/147667664X
Synopsis: Male dominated quest narratives are as old as recorded human history beginning with the Sumerian tales of Gilgamesh.
In stories like The Odyssey, The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Harry Potter, men set out on journeys, fight battles and become heroes. Women traditionally feature in such stories as damsels in need of rescue or as the prizes at the end of heroic quests. These narratives perpetuate predominant gender roles by casting men as active and women as passive.
Focusing on stories in which popular teenage heroines (Buffy Summers, Katniss Everdeen and Disney's Princess Merida) embark on daring journeys, with the publication of "Girl Warriors: Feminist Revisions of the Hero's Quest in Contemporary Popular Culture", Svenja Hohenstein explores what happens when traditional gender roles and narrative patterns are subverted.
Svenja Hohenstein is an impressively talented and insightful author who examines representations of these characters across various media (film, television, novels, posters, merchandise, fan fiction and fan art, and online memes) that model concepts of heroism and girlhood inspired by feminist ideas.
Critique: Original, unique, thoughtful and thought-provoking, "Girl Warriors: Feminist Revisions of the Hero's Quest in Contemporary Popular Culture" is a seminal and groundbreaking study by Svenja Hohenstein and is handily comprised of six individual chapters deftly organized into two major sections (Representations of Girl Warriors in Primary Texts & Representations of Girl Warriors in Secondary and Tertiary Texts). Of special note is the additional inclusion of a twenty page Bibliography, eight pages of Notes, and a three page Index. An informative and inherently fascinating work of meticulous scholarship, this extraordinary trade paperback edition of "Girl Warriors" from McFarland & Company is recommended for community and college/university library Folktale/Mythology collections and supplemental Women's Studies curriculum studies lists. "Girl Warriors" is also available for students, academia, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject in a digital book format (Kindle, $25.99).
Editorial Note: Svenja Hohenstein is an assistant professor at the University of Tuebingen, Germany. (https://copas.uni-regensburg.de/article/view/250)
Words Make a Way Through Fire
Cyra Sweet Dumitru
https://www.cyrasweetdumitru.com
She Writes Press
www.shewritespress.com
9781647429522, $17.99, PB, 256pp
https://www.amazon.com/Words-Make-Way-Through-Fire/dp/1647429528
Synopsis: "Words Make a Way Through Fire: Healing After My Brother's Suicide" is an intimate, courageous memoir of a woman shattered by witnessing her eldest brother's horrific suicide when she was a teenager. It traces her creative journey of recovery and healing with poetry as a constant companion.
The primary means of Cyra Dumitru's healing process, from age sixteen through adulthood, is lay in her writing poetry and journaling. During this decades-long journey, Cyra experiences a transcendent, loving presence called Voice who guides her and helps her imagine wholeness. She finds community with others through the sharing of poems. She studies poetry as craft and as medicine -- becoming a published poet with multiple books, an award-winning college instructor of poetry writing, and a certified practitioner of poetic medicine who creates spaces where others can heal through poetry.
In "Words Make a Way through Fire", Cyra explores the specific medicinal properties of poetry (giving order to interior anxiety, trusting the wisdom within) and invites her brother David to speak through her as he reflects upon his final hours. In doing so, poem by poem, she shifts gradually from being traumatized and feeling haunted to feeling empowered and spiritually expansive.
Critique: Deftly blending her life story with her poems, "Words Make a Way Through Fire: Healing After My Brother's Suicide" by Cyra Sweet Dumitru is unique, eloquent, insightful, expressive, and a simply fascinating read from start to finish. Raising her memoir to an impressive level of literary excellence, "Words Make a Way Through Fire" will pose a special interest for readers having to deal with their own personal tragedies resulting in a need for spiritual, emotional, and mental healing. More than just a cathartic memoir, more than just personal healing through Voice inspired poetry, "Words Make a Way Through Fire" is both intensely personal and widely universal in substance and utility. While especially and unreservedly recommended for community and college/university library Contemporary American Biography/Memoir and Contemporary American Poetry collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that this paperback edition of "Words Make a Way Through Fire" from She Writes Press is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $12.99).
Editorial Note: Cyra Sweet Dumitru (https://www.cyrasweetdumitru.com) is a published poet and instructor of poetry, and one of four certified practitioners of poetic medicine in Texas. Her poems have appeared on the walls of City Hall, been spoken on national public radio and in museums, and appeared in city newspapers and national literary journals. Her collections of poems include What the Body Knows, Listening to Light, Remains, and Elder Moon. She offers therapeutic writing circles for adults learning to live with trauma, bereavement, depression, anxiety, and religious trauma.
Helen Dumont
Reviewer
John Taylor's Bookshelf
How To Die
Steve Zolno
Regent Press
www.regentpress.net
9781587907135, $22.00, PB, 136pp
https://www.amazon.com/How-Die-Steve-Zolno/dp/1587907135
Synopsis: As we move through the stages of our lives (birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age, and death) we often can become less joyful and more set in our ways.
This decline is not inevitable. We can learn to bring more of our original enthusiasm into everyday encounters. To do this we need to move past the thought patterns in which we are stuck and begin to see others and the world anew.
"How To Die: Embracing the Aging Process" is for everyone who is getting older -- which is all of us.
"How To Die" is about putting the original spark back into our lives by seeing who we really are and bringing that understanding into everything we do. Returning to our original joy and spontaneity requires the "death" of the rigid concept of ourselves we hold in our minds.
"How To Die" allows us to open to new possibilities for how we see ourselves and interact with the world.
Critique: A sensitive subject is handled with sensitive wisdom, insight, information, and inspiration. This paperback edition of Steve Zolno's "How To Die: Embracing the Aging Process" from Regent Press is a unique and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, and college/university library collections devoted to the subjects of Death, Dying, Love, Loss and Grief.
Editorial Note: Steve Zolno (https://www.thefutureofdemocracy.net) is the author of seven previous books, including The Future of Democracy (2016) and The Death of Democracy (2018). He has been leading seminars in democracy since 2006. He is a retired healthcare manager in the San Francisco Bay Area.
John Taylor
Reviewer
Mary Cowper's Bookshelf
In the Absence of the Ordinary
Francis Weller
North Atlantic Books
www.northatlanticbooks.com
9798889842613, $19.95, PB, 192pp
https://www.amazon.com/Absence-Ordinary-Uncertainty-Essays-change-transitions/dp/B0DNNBPNTY
Synopsis: In his singular and inimitable voice, and with the publication of "In the Absence of the Ordinary: Soul Work for Times of Uncertainty: Essays on Grief, Change, and Sacred Transitions", author Francis Weller offers 17 soulful essays to help us move together through the anxieties, difficulties, and sacred transitions of 21st-century life.
The essays comprising "In the Absence of the Ordinary" frames our current era as a rough initiation -- an upending experience of profound trauma and transformation that demands we reorient our ways of thinking, being, and relating.
Through essays like "Some People Wake Up...," "The Gift of Restraint," and "Gratitude for All That Is," Weller offers clarity and wisdom on how to face the sobering stakes of our time -- while offering the nourishment and support we need to embody the new roles this initiation requires.
"In the Absence of the Ordinary" is organized into three major sections:
Section 1, "When the Bough Breaks," names our collective traumas and peels back the false armor of modernity. We're called to the depths, to understand the power of descent, and to cultivate the necessary skills of initiation.
Section 2, "Care of the Soul," differentiates between the connected soul and the individualistic self, inviting us back into alignment with the wider world of belonging. We learn to approach our experiences with reverence, work with our grief, and develop restraint, repetition, and self-compassion.
Section 3, "Meanwhile, the World Goes On," gives shape to the emptiness we carry and the ways modernity has severed us from our birthright of interconnectedness with the natural world. It offers rituals of gratitude and practices of kinship to restore our bond with the living Earth.
In each essay, Weller fortifies us to become immense -- to meet these unpredictable times with presence and faith, to restore our souls' place in the soul of the world, and to hold steady, amid and for it all.
Critique: Original, eloquent, thoughtful and thought-provoking, "In the Absence of the Ordinary: Soul Work for Times of Uncertainty: Essays on Grief, Change, and Sacred Transitions" will prove of immense and special appeal to readers with an interest in the subjects of Love, Loss, Grief, Bereavement, and Mental/Spiritual Healing. While especially and unreservedly recommended for community and college/university library collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that this paperback edition of "In the Absence of the Ordinary" from North Atlantic Books is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $13.99).
Editorial Note: Francis Weller (https://www.francisweller.net) is a psychotherapist, writer, and soul activist. He founded and currently directs WisdomBridge, an organization that offers educational programs that seek to integrate the wisdom from indigenous cultures with the insights and knowledge gathered from Western poetic, psychological, and spiritual traditions. His writings have appeared in anthologies and journals exploring the confluence between psyche, nature, and culture, including The Sun magazine, the Utne Reader, Kosmos Journal, and Ruminate. He is also the author of Wild Edge of Sorrow.
Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality
Dee Dee Goldpaugh
Park Street Press
c/o Inner Traditions International, Ltd.
www.innertraditions.com
9798888500583, $24.99, PB, 352pp
https://www.amazon.com/Embrace-Pleasure-Psychedelics-Heal-Sexuality/dp/B0DH3MR9S8
Synopsis: With the publication of "Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality", psychotherapist and psychedelic integration expert Dee Dee Goldpaugh shows how the profound healing and restorative effects of psychedelics can help us heal our sexuality, reconnect with pleasure, find wholeness, and feel good again.
Sharing recent research on trauma and case studies from more than a decade of professional clinical work, Goldpaugh explores specific ways psychedelics can heal sexual trauma, enhance sexual pleasure, and deepen our interpersonal connections.
Goldpaugh looks at MDMA, psilocybin, ayahuasca, mescaline, 5-MeO-DMT, and other psychedelics and offers a range of integration techniques as well as somatic exercises to help foster insight and apply the lessons learned during psychedelic experiences to everyday life. Goldpaugh also examines the methodology behind psychedelic-assisted therapy and how readers can safely navigate risks and explore their own healing at home.
Revealing the transformative power of embracing pleasure for healing sexual trauma, "Embrace Pleasure" provides an essential guide to psychedelic sexuality as a path to healing and love.
Critique: A seminal and groundbreaking study, "Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality" by Dee Dee Goldpaugh is a fascinating, meticulous, informative, and thought-provoking read from cover to cover. Of particular relevance and recommendation to readers with an interest in psychedelics, sexual health, and spirituality, "Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality" is a unique and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, and college/university library collections. It should be noted for students, academia, psychedelic researchers, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that this paperback edition of "Embrace Pleasure: How Psychedelics Can Heal Our Sexuality" from Park Street Press is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $16.99).
Editorial Note: Dee Dee Goldpaugh is a psychotherapist, educator, clinical consultant, and leading voice in the development of psychedelic integration psychotherapy, specifically with survivors of sexual trauma. Goldpaugh is a facilitator of ketamine-assisted retreats for both couples and individuals and has taught and published widely on psychedelics and sexuality, trauma, gender, and spirituality. A frequent presenter at international conferences and trainings, Goldpaugh lives in Woodstock, New York. (https://www.embracepleasure.com)
Mary Cowper
Reviewer
Micah Andrew's Bookshelf
Unruly: Deconstruct the Rules, Defy the Norms, and Define Your Success
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner, author
General Stanley McChrystal, foreword
Matt Holt Books
c/o BenBella Books
www.benbellabooks.com
9781637746967, $28.00, HC, 256pp
https://www.amazon.com/Unruly-Deconstruct-Rules-Define-Success/dp/1637746962
Synopsis: Rules are necessary for a functional society, but many of the "rules" that we follow are simply conventional wisdom, norms, or limited interpretations. We are expected to play along by conforming, following the crowd, and steering toward comfortable paths. But viewing rules as a starting point rather than as an endpoint opens worlds of opportunities for your success.
"Unruly: Deconstruct the Rules, Defy the Norms, and Define Your Success" by Lauren Wittenberg Weiner is your DIY manual to identifying your best maneuvers in the gray areas that allow you to authentically create and secure your own path to success.
Weiner, a powerful speaker and business leader who has upended barriers on her journey toward extraordinary success, teaches readers in any industry how to:
Navigate your own space within the rules while remaining in compliance and maintaining a strong moral compass.
Convert fear and imposter syndrome into a superpower.
Determine when it's time to stop listening to what people think you should or could do to find what you can do.
Use your power to be a gateway, not a gatekeeper, for others.
Borrowing from concepts in psychology, law, business, and the military, "Unruly" uncovers a deep understanding of rules and where they bend to equip readers for personalized success.
Critique: Beginning with an informative introduction (Door Kickers, Snake Eaters, and Military Spouses, Oh My!), and organized into three major sections (Learn The Rules; Challenge The Rules; Change The Rules), "Unruly: Deconstruct the Rules, Defy the Norms, and Define Your Success" is a 'real world practical' guide to successful career advancement and personal development. Exceptionally well written and thoroughly 'reader/user' friendly in organization and presentation, "Unruly: Deconstruct the Rules, Defy the Norms, and Define Your Success" is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and college/university library Career Management collections. It should be noted that this hardcover edition of "Unruly: Deconstruct the Rules, Defy the Norms, and Define Your Success" from Matt Holt Books is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $14.99).
Editorial Note: Lauren Wittenberg Weiner, PhD became a barrier-breaking entrepreneur when she quit her White House job to follow her husband on military orders to Italy. Once there, she was told that military spouses were prohibited from holding professional-level jobs. She started WWC Global, and she and her team grew it to $100m in annual revenue. In 2018, WWC Global won the largest-ever contract to a woman-owned business in US Special Operations Command headquarters history (the headquarters for the Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets) making WWC Global one of the most successful women-owned small businesses in the government contracting space. After opening doors and demystifying the GovCon process for many, Lauren's company was acquired in 2022. Lauren has an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in psychology from Dartmouth College.
Micah Andrew
Reviewer
Michael Dunford's Bookshelf
Disco Witches of Fire Island
Blair Fell
https://blairfell.com
Alcove Press
www.alcovepress.com
9798892422390, $29.99, HC, 352pp
https://www.amazon.com/Disco-Witches-Fire-Island-Novel/dp/B0DLMKVTL9
Synopsis: It's 1989, and Joe Agabian and his best friend Ronnie set out to spend their first summer working in the hedonistic gay paradise of Fire Island Pines. Joe is desperate to let loose and finally move beyond the heartbreak of having lost his boyfriend to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
The two friends are quickly taken in by a pair of quirky, older house cleaners. But something seems off, and Joe starts to suspect the two older men of being up to something otherworldly. In truth, Howie and Lenny are members of a secret disco witch coven tasked with protecting the island (and young men like Joe) from the relentless tragedies ravaging their community. The only problem is, having lost too many of their fellow witches to the epidemic, the coven's protective powers have been seriously damaged.
Unaware of all the mystical shenanigans going on, Joe starts to fall for the super-cute bisexual ferryman who just happens to have webbed feet and an unusual ability to hold his breath underwater. But Joe's longing to find love is tripped up by his own troublesome past as well as the lure of a mysterious hunk he keeps seeing around the island -- a man Howie and Lenny warn may be a harbinger of impending doom.
The Disco Witches need to find help -- and fast if they're to save Joe and the island from the Great Darkness. But how?
Critique: Original, clever, deftly crafted, and a engagingly fun read from cover to cover, "Disco Witches of Fire Island" by Blair Fell will hold a very special appeal for fans of stories that blend LGBTQ romance, fantasy, magic, sex, and 'hope in desperate times'. Especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, community, and college/university library LGBTQ Fiction collections, it should be noted that this hardcover edition of "Disco Witches of Fire Island" from Alcove Press is also readily available in paperback (9798892420341, $19.99) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $14.99).
Editorial Note: Blair Fell (https://blairfell.com) is the author of The Sign for Home. He has written dozens of plays that have been performed all over NYC's downtown as well as in cities across the country and around the world. His TV work as a writer includes Queer as Folk (Showtime) and California Connected (public TV). His first-person essays have appeared in Out Magazine, NY Daily News, Huffington Post, and more.
Michael Dunford
Reviewer
Paul Vogel's Bookshelf
Bigfoot Sightings: True Tales from Across America
Jim Willis & Michael A. Kozlowski
https://www.jimwillis.net
https://mikekozlowski.com
Visible Ink Press
www.visibleinkpress.com
9781578598816, $59.95, HC, 300pp
https://www.amazon.com/Bigfoot-Sightings-Encounters-Unexplained-Collection/dp/1578598818
Synopsis: Numerous sightings, mythic folklore, and sensational hoaxes. Regarding the creature known as Bigfoot, what are we to believe? Does a hulking, hairy, 800-pound, nine-foot-tall, elusive primate roam the woods and forests throughout North America -- and the world? What should we make of the grainy videos and photos, the thousands of eyewitness reports, the giant footprints, inexplicable noises, and reports of a primal sense of being watched?
With the publication of "Bigfoot Sightings: True Tales from Across America" co-authors Jim Willis and Michael A. Kozlowski provide a thorough examination of the evidence and stories about this cryptid primate.
You will explore the physical evidence (footprints, hair samples, photos, and videos); the circumstantial evidence (nests, shelters, and tree structures); the anecdotal evidence (numerous witness stories); the potential explanations for the creature (the giants mentioned in ancient texts, the evolution from Neanderthals, extraterrestrial origins, and shapeshifters); and the history, mythology, and folklore behind the legend in this fascinating book.
The two authors also tell stories of encounters, sightings, and reports across cultures and continents, from Native American legends to modern-day sightings, including:
The origins of the names, Bigfoot, Yeti, and Yowie, Abominable Snowman, Sasquatch, China's Yeren, Australia's Joogabinna, the Almas, and others;
The hoaxes and the creation of various modern myths;
DNA analysis and genetic tests;
The initial discovery of Sasquatch footprints in 1811 by explorer David Thompson;
Ape Canyon near Mount St. Helens in Washington state named after a 1924 report of Bigfoot sightings;
The Bigfoot image in the 1967 film shot by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin in Northern California;
The history of Sasquatch encounters told by Indigenous peoples;
The thousands of reported Bigfoot sightings in 49 of 50 states (Hawaii being the sole exception) and Canada;
And many more stories and evidence examined of the cryptid beast!
Documenting the enticing clues and hearing witnesses out, "Bigfoot Sightings: True Tales from Across America" contemplates the mysterious beast and its enigmatic existence. This richly researched reference is overflowing with fascinating information to make you think - and possibly reconsider your next camping trip!
Critique: Featuring a number of B/W illustrations, a Preface by the late Jim Willis (A Personal Experience), a four page bibliography of Further Readings, and a six page Index, "Bigfoot Sightings: True Tales from Across America" by the team of Jim Willis and Michael A. Kozlowski is an inherently fascinating, engaging, and informative read from start to finish. While especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and college/university library collections and supplemental Cryptozoology curriculum studies lists, it should be noted for students, academia, and readers with an interest in Bigfoot legends and stories that this hardcover edition of "Bigfoot Sightings: True Tales from Across America" from Visible Ink Press is also readily available in paperback (9781578598694, $22.95) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $10.99).
Editorial Note #1: Jim Willis (https://www.jimwillis.net) earned his master's degree in theology from Andover Newton Theological School, and he was an ordained minister. He also taught college courses in comparative religion and cross-cultural studies. His background in theology and education led to his writing more than 20 books on history, the apocalypse, and the mysteries of the unknown. His books include Visible Ink Press' Lost Loot, Hidden History, and Lost Civilizations. He passed away in 2024.
Editorial Note #2: Michael A. Kozlowski (https://mikekozlowski.com) has written a range of books, including Visible Ink Press' American Ghost Stories, as well as the short horror and suspense story collection Some Days Suck, Some Days Suck Worse; the psychological suspense novella Above the Clouds; the second novel in his John Angel series, Fallen Angel: A Post-Apocalypse Horror Novel; and a travel memoir about his family's adventure moving to and living in Australia. Mike lives in Detroit, Michigan, with his fiance and a herd of spoiled animals. He is an active member of the local art and music community and tries to be as cool as his friends. Mike is a member of the Horror Writer's Association.
Paul T. Vogel
Reviewer
S.A. Gorden's Bookshelf
Steel Guardian (Rusted Wasteland Book 1)
Cameron Coral
https://cameroncoralbooks.com
Dystopic Bliss Press
9798987584163 $14.99, paper
B08588JK1P ebook price: $4.99, 382 pages
https://www.amazon.com/Steel-Guardian-Rusted-Wasteland-Cameron/dp/B0D2289J85
Steel Guardian is a post-apocalyptic SF tale. The intelligent systems have declared war on humans.
A self-aware cleaning bot, Block, travels out of Chicago trying to find a new place to clean after military robots have taken over the hotel he had been cleaning killing his human owner and forcing an unwanted hierarchy with them in control. During his travels he runs across other various bots trying to survive while not trying to take sides between the humans and machines. Block stumbles between a battle with humans and military robots. While hiding in an old school looking to recharge his battery, he finds a baby inside a damaged incubator bot. As the fighting gets closer, he recharges his battery from the damaged bot and escapes with the baby.
Block is now on the run from both humans and mechs as both want the baby. He has to learn how to take care of the baby and survive until he can find a safe haven, if there is any such thing left in the shattered world.
Steel Guardian is an interesting SF trying to look at the bridge between artificial intelligence and a soul. It is recommended for those interested in dystopian tales and artificial intelligence. It also looks at the underlying conflict when a minority class (in this case thinking machines) is abused to the point of revolt.
Trust the Terrier: A Coral Shores Veterinary Mystery
DL Mitchell
https://www.dlmitchellmystery.com
Black Rose Writing
https://www.blackrosewriting.com
9781685133467, $15.95 paper
B0CM4R1RKJ, $4.99 ebook, 211 pages
https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Terrier-Shores-Veterinary-Mystery/dp/1685133460
Trust the Terrier is a light cozy mystery. The mystery part of the story is less mystery and more in-your-face obvious. But the narration and characters are likeable.
Dr. Emily Benton has just taken over the Coral Shores Veterinary Hospital. She is trying to find the right work/life balance with her new job. An elderly client, Eliza Klein, has a friendly terrier Elvis. Emily decides to make a house call on Eliza and Elvis. She finds Elvis in distress and Eliza dead. Eliza has been poisoned and Emily and Elvis become tangled in the investigation.
Trust the Terrier is a light read that is less mystery and more character study. The writing style is smooth. If the reader enjoys soft readable cozies without strong mystery, Trust the Terrier is a recommendation but anyone who likes to try to figure out who the killer is the story is a little too weak.
S.A. Gorden
Senior Reviewer
Suzie Housley's Bookshelf
Entangled Tongues: A Short History of the English Language or The Influence of French on English
Carol Williams Kisch
Althof Press
9798998614286, $9.99 Kindle, $15.99 PB, $19.99 HC
Synopsis: Entangled Tongues: A Short History of the English Language or The Influence of French on English is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the evolution of the English language. Kisch designed the book primarily for educators and students, but she presents the content so clearly and accessibly that general readers interested in history and linguistics will also find it appealing.
Kisch effectively blends scholarly research with engaging explanations, making the information both informative and enjoyable. Her exploration of the French influence on English - especially after the Norman Conquest - offers a fascinating glimpse into how vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation have developed over centuries of linguistic exchange, keeping the readers intrigued.
This examination is beneficial for understanding how cultural interactions impact language. Whether used in the classroom, pursued as academic study, or read for personal interest, Kisch's work offers substantial information and clarity, giving readers a deeper appreciation for the origins and development of the English language, leaving them feeling enlightened.
Critique: Entangled Tongues: A Short History of the English Language or The Influence of French on English provides an insightful examination of how the English language has grown. These works are especially well-suited for educators and students, but are equally engaging for readers with a broader interest in language and history.
Carol Williams Kisch presents complex linguistic changes in a clear, organized manner that makes the subject approachable without sacrificing depth. Her writing sheds light on the many layers of the English language, illustrating how historical events and cultural interactions have shaped it.
Particularly notable is her discussion of the French impact on English, which provides a well-articulated view of how vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation were influenced through centuries of contact.
Whether used in the classroom or explored independently, Kisch's work serves as both an educational tool and an engaging read, offering valuable perspectives on the forces that have shaped modern English.
Blood in the Water: An A. J. Hawke Legal Thriller -- Book 5
Donald E. McInnis
donaldmcinnis.com
J&E Publications
9798986551692, $7.99 Kindle, $18.95 PB, 328 pages
https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Water-Hawke-Legal-Thriller/dp/B0F9TW48NB
Synopsis: In the fifth legal thriller, defense lawyer A. J. Hawke juggles two explosive cases that soon intersect.
First, the children of a powerful Mexican cartel boss vanish - an abduction that may implicate a rogue FBI agent or even the U.S. president. Hawke's scuba diving client is the prime suspect in a grisly shark mutilation murder.
Navigating political landmines, deep sea danger, and the courtroom spotlight, Hawke invokes Habeas Corpus to challenge the government overreach and uncover the truth. From sunken wrecks to legal showdowns, he risks everything to protect his client and expose a far-reaching conspiracy.
Will he succeed in his pursuit of justice? Or will he be placing himself in a pathway of destruction?
Critique: Blood in the Water is a brisk, intellectually engaging thriller that fuses courtroom drama, political intrigue, and maritime mystery. All elements make for an unforgettable reading experience!
Donald E. McInnis enriches the genre by weaving real-world elements - such as underwater forensics and the historic Ruby E shipwreck - into a taut narrative that never loses momentum, making the story feel more authentic and engaging.
With a well-rounded cast, sharp dialogue, and high-stakes dilemmas keep the pages turning while probing more profound questions about civil liberties, constitutional safeguards, and the abuse of power.
Readers who crave legal thrillers with fresh angles and substantive themes will find this novel both exciting and thought-provoking, stimulating their intellect and keeping them engaged.
Editorial Note: This fifth entry in the A.J. Hawke Legal Thriller series showcases McInnis at the top of his game. With a proven track record of delivering compelling legal thrillers, Donald E. McInnis's work is a must-read for fans of the genre.
For more on Hawke's adventures and the author's other work, visit Donald E. McInnis's official site at donaldmcinnis.com
Writing Together: A Year of Meaning-Making and Friendship
Penny Williamson and Darcy Shaw
Creative Courage Press
https://creativecouragepress.com
9781959921066, $12.99 Kindle, $21.99 PB, 228 pages
https://creativecouragepress.com/writing-together
Synopsis: Writing Together captures a deeply reflective and emotionally rich journey shared between Penny Williamson, a leadership coach and former professor, and Darcy Shaw, a veterinarian and educator.
Over the course of a year, the two engage in weekly writing sessions, using prompts, poetry, and open dialogue to navigate life's pivotal moments, foster a deeper friendship, and uncover new layers of personal insight.
Rather than focusing on publication, the book emphasizes writing as a meaningful process of connection and self-discovery. It highlights how engaging in creative reflection with a trusted companion can cultivate authenticity, emotional growth, and mutual understanding.
Through a combination of thoughtful prose, poetry, and accessible writing exercises, the authors provide a supportive structure that invites readers to begin their own reflective writing practices - either individually or in partnership. The tone is compassionate and relatable, making it a valuable resource for anyone interested in storytelling as a path to personal growth.
Critique: Writing Together is more than a guide to creative practice; it is a heartfelt tribute to the transformative power of friendship and shared expression. Williamson and Shaw offer an inspiring example of how writing can nurture connection, purpose, and emotional resilience.
Williamson draws on her experience in leadership and coaching to bring clarity, courage, and emotional depth to the narrative. Shaw, with his background in veterinary medicine and education, brings a thoughtful and observant voice, blending analytical perspective with honest introspection. Together, their collaborative storytelling creates a sincere, balanced, and enriching reading experience.
Carbon's Magic is Everywhere: Meet Nature's Most Essential Element
Ruchi Shah, author
Joanna Stopyra, illustrator
Carbon Tales
https://bookshop.org/shop/carbontales
https://story-launch-carbontalesbook.replit.app
9798218661441, $7.99 Kindle, $18.95 PB, 30 pages
https://www.amazon.com/Carbons-Magic-Everywhere-natures-essential/dp/B0F9HQVGPJ
Synopsis: Carbon's Magic Is Everywhere. is a delightful picture book that makes learning about carbon both approachable and enjoyable for young readers.
Through rhythmic text, colorful illustrations, and an interactive seek-and-find format, the book captures children's attention while encouraging exploration and discovery.
Instead of focusing on carbon's role in climate issues, Shah uniquely highlights carbon's essential presence in our daily lives, showing how this remarkable element makes up everything from nature to our bodies.
Critique: Carbon's Magic Is Everywhere is a thoughtful and inspiring introduction to eco-literacy that invites young readers to explore the natural world with curiosity and awe. With a background in chemistry, I found the subject both refreshing and educational, offering an essential lesson in a way that's engaging and age-appropriate.
Author Ruchi Shah approaches the topic of carbon with creativity and clarity, making a complex scientific concept accessible to early learners. This book fills a gap in early STEM education by shedding light on an often-misunderstood element in a joyfully and imaginatively engaging way.
This book would make a valuable addition to school and classroom libraries, where it can spark meaningful conversations and lay the groundwork for future scientific inquiry. Its gentle narrative and vivid illustrations encourage children to see carbon not as something to fear but as an essential part of life all around us.
Editorial Review: This book is suitable for ages 2-6 and we recommend it as both engaging and age-appropriate for young readers.
Red, White, & Moo (Pee-Yew!)
By Captain Tooty Pants
Dad's Darn Tootin' Books
9798218692377, $2.99 Kindle, $11.95 PB, 32 pages
https://www.amazon.com/White-Pee-Yew-Notes-Tooting-Cows/dp/B0FBX29S6X
Synopsis: "Red, White, & Moo (Pee-Yew!) Notes from Tooting Cows -- A Dad's Darn Tootin' Fart Book" is a delightfully quirky picture book that transports young readers to a world where patriotic cows express themselves most unexpectedly -- through humorous flatulence!
Written by the whimsically named Captain Tooty Pants, the story unfolds as a series of amusing "notes" from these spirited farm animals, filled with clever puns and dairy-themed fart jokes.
From the barnyard antics to the punchlines, it's a wildly entertaining romp designed to provoke laughter from both kids and adults alike.
Fully embracing its cheeky premise, the book offers an unbroken stream of playful jokes and wordplay. The humor is witty and accessible, making it enjoyable for young readers and grown-ups who appreciate a good chuckle.
The lively cartoon-style illustrations perfectly match the book's lighthearted mood. With exaggerated facial expressions and animated poses, the artwork adds vibrancy and amplifies the comedic effect, keeping readers engaged on every page.
Critique: Red, White, & Moo (Pee-Yew!) Notes from Tooting Cows stands out as one of the most unique and refreshing titles this reviewer has encountered in decades. Even the title alone brought a smile to my face. Captain Tooty Pants' slapstick humor is a refreshing reminder of the healing power of laughter in today's world.
Though centered on fart jokes, the humor in Red, White, & Moo (Pee-Yew!) Notes from Tooting Cows remains playful and family-friendly, striking a perfect balance that entertains children while delighting the adults reading along. It's an ideal pick for a silly and spirited read-aloud experience that will keep everyone entertained and coming back for more.
Editorial Review: This book is for readers aged 4-94.
The Bird Who Was Afraid to Fly
Harker Jones, author
Sara Angus, illustrator
Independently Published
9798998963605, $1.99 Kindle, $10.99 PB, 60 pages
https://www.amazon.com/Bird-Who-Was-Afraid-Fly/dp/B0FG864XFK
Synopsis: Set in the scenic hills of Siena, Italy, The Bird Who Was Afraid to Fly follows the heartfelt journey of Sam, a young sparrow held back by an unexplained fear of flying. While his siblings take to the skies with ease, Sam remains hesitant, uncertain of the fear that keeps him grounded.
As the story unfolds, readers accompany Sam on a gentle path of emotional growth - one that explores the challenges of anxiety, the strength of vulnerability, and the transformative power of support. This book is a valuable resource for helping children navigate their emotions and develop resilience.
At its core, this book offers a touching message about bravery and the importance of reaching out when facing difficult emotions. This book tells young readers that fear is a natural part of life, and that kindness and encouragement help overcome even the most daunting challenges.
The artist beautifully rendered the illustrations rich in expression and atmosphere. They bring Sam's internal struggle vividly to life, making the narrative even more accessible and engaging for children.
Critique: The Bird Who Was Afraid to Fly serves as a subtle yet powerful reminder that fear, when left unaddressed, can limit one's ability to grow and thrive. Through Sam's experience, the book delivers a message of hope and resilience, emphasizing that emotional challenges are best met with compassion and courage.
Harker Jones crafts a thoughtful and meaningful narrative that invites discussion of emotional intelligence, personal development, and social-emotional learning. The story also enriches young vocabularies and offers opportunities for thematic exploration, both in the classroom and at home. This book is a valuable resource for educators, helping them enhance their efforts to nurture empathy and emotional awareness among their students.
Editorial Note: Ideal for children aged 7-18, this book is well-suited for school libraries, read-aloud sessions, and any setting that focuses on nurturing empathy and emotional awareness.
Suzie Housley, Senior Reviewer
https://housleysliteraryservices.com
James A. Cox
Editor-in-Chief
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