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Able Greenspan's Bookshelf
Cancelled Futures: Class, Race, and Place in Post-Industrial Britain
Amit Singh
Princeton University Press
https://press.princeton.edu
9780691276694, $99.95, HC, 256pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Cancelled-Futures-Class-Post-Industrial-Britain/dp/0691276692
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cancelled-futures-amit-singh/1148994954
Synopsis: How do the effects of deindustrialisation and neoliberalism influence young people's perceptions of work and education?
With the publication of "Cancelled Futures: Class, Race, and Place in Post-Industrial Britain", Professor Amit Singh examines how experiences of class-based inequality work through race, place, and gender in different ways.
Moving beyond the usual framing of race versus class and the populist fixation with the white working class, Professor Singh shows the intractable challenges that Black, Asian, and white young people share when they envision their futures in changing British labor market conditions. Drawing on extensive interviews with sixty-two young working-class Britons, he describes the range of strategies they employ in the absence of viable economic opportunities -- and the uneven results that follow.
Professor Singh also offers a vivid nationwide portrait, bringing together seemingly divergent locations and their youth (those living in proximity to the extraordinary wealth and perceived opportunity of the City of London, in the former northern mill town of Rochdale, and in the forgotten seaside town of Morecambe Bay) and captures the empathetic sense of struggle that many cultivate.
Professor Singh reveals that although the unique features of place raise distinctive racial and gendered reckonings with their circumstances and hopes, these young people have in common an increasingly fading sense of the future. Professor Singh shows that they do not cling to the illusion that hard work pays off or the myth of meritocracy, but seek only to realise some sense of dignity and meaning amid a future that feels not just confusing but altogether absent.
Critique: An original, seminal, meticulously detailed and groundbreaking study, "Cancelled Futures: Class, Race, and Place in Post-Industrial Britain" by Professor Amit Singh is an extraordinary and unreservedly recommended addition to community and college/university library Class Sociology/Human Geography collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists. It should be noted for the personal reading lists of students, academia, sociologists, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that this hardcover edition of Cancelled Futures" from the Princeton University Press is also readily available in paperback (9780691276700, $29.95) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $29.95).
Editorial Note: Amit Singh is Assistant Professor of Sociology at University College London. He is also the author of "Fighting Identity" and co-author of "Pubs for the People".
Able Greenspan
Reviewer
Diane Donovan's Bookshelf
Finding Sound
Kyle Yandle
Moonshine Cove Publishing
https://www.moonshinecovepublishing.com/index.html
9781966687023, $20.00 Paperback/$7.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Sound-Kyle-Yandle/dp/1966687028
Finding Sound is a fictional story about fifth-graders that come from very different families, but are thrown together on a class project that creates unusual bonds between kids from different homes.
When young Marcus falls instantly in love with new girl Shell Saine, he becomes tongue-tied around her. This doesn't dissuade her from finding this young black boy interesting, 'weird', and possibly worthy of being her friend.
Their assignment to a project means that they work together and begin to also draw together, forming a bond based as much on their differences from others as their similar approaches to facing adversity. These are tested when a predatory youth pastor introduces danger into their lives, forcing them to make hard decisions between standing up to an adult or keeping secrets.
This is a good time to point out the trigger issues of child abuse and one graphic description of violence later in the story that might impact some especially sensitive young readers.
This note aside, Finding Sound's ability to capture different forms of silence, repression, and fear by contrasting the survival tactics of a disparate group of young friends creates important keys to understanding and coping with adults and life
Kyle Yandle attends to carefully crafting adult/child interactions in a manner a wide age range can understand:
This was the first time that Shell felt like she really meant anything or had made any kind of impact on an adult who was not family. She was sure that the impression she had made on Mr. Ingram had been a positive one, and it pleased her to know that he liked her.
The religious connections, teachings, and issues incorporated into the story add layers of angst and understanding to the evolving events. This is especially important for middle graders to comprehend when it comes to adults in positions of trust and authority who offer attractive interactions to kids that can prove to be problems in disguise.
Another plus is how character Shell grows in the course of a story that embraces not just her experiences, but the different ways she connects with events, music, and influences in her life:
She could see her life and her experiences as if they were filmed for a music video made for this young black rapper. Shell loved the song Abandoned the most, the singer speaking of his life, and she could feel what he felt, see through his eyes, feel the quake of his emotion, finding herself and a version of him in the sound.
Librarians and adults seeking middle-grade stories to highly recommend that come with insightful fodder for classroom discussion will want to consider place Finding Sound on their lists of top books for group discussion. Despite its possibility of impacting sensitive readers, its realistic portrait of young people growing into their voices and considering the options for their lives and for interacting with adults outside the family is rare, thought-provoking, and packed with insight.
Runtime: Iggy's Final Cut
Keith Jefferds
https://keithjefferdsauthor.com
The Eyes Have It Press
9798995765103, $15.99 Paperback/$4.99 eBook/Audio $0 with membership
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Runtime-Iggys-Final-Keith-Jefferds/dp/B0H6C7TY8J
Ignatius "Iggy" Smart (aka Igor Yurievitch Smertyov) can't get away from Greater Los Angeles quickly enough, in the opening prologue of Runtime: Iggy's Final Cut. His family came to Hollywood in 1918, fleeing Russia's Bolshevik Revolution, and formed a home and new roots in a culture where filmmaking's rise allows Iggy to enter a dream job. In 1959, he's a movie director shooting his most ambitious film to date - and also eager to prove himself to his acclaimed, Oscar-winning older brother Sascha.
The moment, however, is fraught with questions and confusion as Iggy also finds himself poised to make his biggest mistakes ever, and comes to view opportunity as possible angst and anguish instead.
Russian backdrops and 1950s Hollywood come to life in a series of juxtaposed scenarios involving flashbacks and present-day challenges, creating a novel replete with satisfying twists and insights about creative juices, motivational forces, social and political fluctuations, and family pressures as Sascha and Iggy's worlds come to life.
In the course of exploding political prejudices and social change, readers receive thought-provoking passages that succinctly capture the ironies of some of these confrontations:
"I assure you that the United States of America does not tolerate illegal entry or criminal activity perpetrated by aliens. I can't even imagine where you and people like you get the notion that you can pull a fast one on this country and sneak in unnoticed to flout our laws."
And of course Yuri couldn't mention that he'd been counseled in his actions - at least re the illegal entry part - by the daughter of a United States Senator.
The author moves from childhood dreams to adult challenges as scenarios, influences, and lives fluctuate under the combined forces of personal, familial, and political pressures of the times. These shifts fill out characters and motivations nicely, creating backdrops of opportunity and immigrant experience that present in thought-provoking, revealing reflections:
It was this image of a suddenly accelerated to-and-fro that unsettled Yuri. This was after all a two-way street. While the growers and farmers traveled the new route south to market, who might soon be crowding north to probe his beloved Valley? What might these new seekers be after? What might they choose to raise up on the old land? It was not just a tunnel. It was a foot in the door.
As events swirl from a young Russian prince's changing world to the trials and heartbeat of American experience, readers will appreciate the intersections of Hollywood and everyday life that bring a myriad of environments to life in unexpected ways.
Jefferds excels in capturing life as a series of movie shots that also deepen the opportunities to thoroughly appreciate revised lives and shifting perspectives in all characters:
The musical score kicks in - starting with a tentative flute solo. One by one, other instruments join in and build to a full orchestral swell. As if answering the music's call, the old man turns away from the house. His face is taut, urgent, and a little out of focus. Then his expression comes into sharp resolution. The old man's pupils are lit by a "catchlight" as his eyes widen into exaltation.
The result is a novel replete with history, Hollywood, Russian immigrant experience, and life changes that librarians and readers will find enlightening, lively, and thoroughly engrossing.
Misfit 5: Stories From a Life Unexpected
Mister John
Yak Publishing
www.yakpublishing.com
9798999220554, $14.99
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Misfit-5-Mister-John/dp/B0HHGF7ML4
Misfit 5: Stories From a Life Unexpected continues the joyful life vignettes of a man who has spent much of his time outside the margins of normalcy. As in the previous Misfit collections, Mister John romps through life with a sense of joie de vivre that belays modern angst, surveying life choices, travels and cultural encounters, and lessons gained from new experiences. These add a delightful sense of discovery to his tales.
From his time working in the United Arab Emirates (where he is told "You move to the United Arab Emirates with two bags - a money bag and a bullshit bag. When one of them gets full, it's time to go.") to an unexpected gift from an unnamed friend during a trip to Vegas that prompts a reflection about giving ("It wasn't why they sent the gift, and that's what made it great. And isn't it better for all of us to see all of our friends as capable of doing a good deed? And for no other reason than to just do it?"), journeys around the world transmit succinct reflections on value and opportunity that will bring readers on a delightful ride indeed.
From recipes for gingersnaps and success to observations about aging and enjoying life, Mister John imparts a cheerful observational tone to his encounters. This is delightfully, refreshingly uplifting, even when considering the seemingly more mundane delights in aging:
Yes, we get excited about things that assist in food preparation. That's where we're at now. That and struggling to stay awake until 10 pm, two hours after Wheel and Jeopardy air when we're on the same time as Eastern Standard Time. Which I detest. I should point out that we're not so much an old married couple as a couple who, at the time, were up and out the door before 6 am so our dogs could take us for a walk.
Misfit 5: Stories From a Life Unexpected thus can be viewed as a walk out of one's world and into Mister John's special ability to embrace life and broadcast that hug to his readers.
Memoir readers will delight in his international encounters, while armchair travelers will find the reflections hold an engaging "you are here" feel that captures senses of place and purpose. Those seeking lessons in positivity will find Misfit 5: Stories From a Life Unexpected a fine survey of academia and students, life encounters and marriage, and considerations of different styles of learning.
All these features make Misfit 5: Stories From a Life Unexpected as delightful a read as its predecessors in the series, perfect for libraries and reading groups seeking lessons in health, education, and living abroad.
The Last Symphony
Emma Lee Forest
www.emmaleeforest.com
Ochre Mountain Media
9798997169503, $15.99 Paperback/$2.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Symphony-Emma-Lee-Forest/dp/B0HL7PJ43T
The Last Symphony will appeal to YA readers interested in stories that ring true to life, going beyond the usual discussions of cliques to address deeper issues of fundamental connection and disconnection.
Sixteen-year-old Anna is an anomaly in her athletic family and searches for her unique calling. When she discovers a passion for playing the French horn and the support system of new friends and mentors surrounding it, she feels she has found her way among a group of equally passionate, dedicated fellow musicians.
Her newfound ambition and dreams seem to coalesce with fellow gifted musician Juliet Jaeger, but jealousy and competition soon inject new notes of discourse and conflict into Anna's life.
From the opening prologue's narrative, readers become immersed in Anna's world and her observations:
We were teenage girls, malevolent creatures, rivals, foils, friends. I envied her rude bravado and unbearable talent. There she was with her tight jeans and makeup, her manicured nails and flat-ironed hair. She had Richard and Philip, her boyfriend and best friend, paying tribute. Most of all, she had control over the French horn. Her sound made you look twice to see where it was coming from.
Love and admiration runs headlong into the rigors of a competitive atmosphere where there can be only one winner. As Anna reveals exactly how this evolves, readers receive a powerful survey that pinpoints attitudes, the demands of classical music competitions, and a dance between two talented young musicians whose worlds change not just because of their musical efforts, but their relationship.
Emma Lee Forest's modus operandi is to show, not tell. She does so in an immersive manner that makes this first-person narrative not just thoroughly involving, but completely understandable to any YA who has faced the challenges of peer pressure and relationship revelations.
The result is a compelling story of boys and girls growing into their abilities as they face some of the challenges of adulthood and professional ambition.
The Last Symphony is very highly recommended for librarians and YA readers interested in exceptional sagas of achievement. Anna is an understandable, compelling character whose growth is as much due to the presence of music in her life as the effort to understand a troubled fellow musician:
That evening, back at home, sitting in front of the computer, agonizing again over my college essay, I had a flash of insight: Instead of writing about who I hoped to be someday, why not describe the process of practicing and how it made me who I was? It took me only an hour to fill several pages with the story of my practicing the horn - how it shaped my identity, taught me patience, showed me that failure had to come before success.
Her growth is outstandingly crafted as Juliet collides with situations she can't control and makes a final decision that resonates into Anna's world.
The 90-Day Leadership Field Manual
Haraya Del Rosario Gust
Elara Holdings Pte. Ltd.
9798996578900, $18.95 Paperback/$28.95 Hardcover/$9.99 ebook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/90-Day-Leadership-Field-Manual-First-Time/dp/B0HGVLRHH2
The 90-Day Leadership Field Manual: Practical Guidance for First-Time Leaders is a "must" for anyone who finds themselves unexpectedly thrust into the arena of leadership with no prior experience to build upon. It offers foundations of guidance with an eye to creating a baseline of expertise when is none already present in a day-by-day review of the first 90 days of being a leader. This will set the pace and tone for the rest of the effort.
The book opens with the basics of what changes between leadership and ordinary business roles, considering the demands, rhythms, and approaches of a leadership position. The 90-Day Leadership Field Manual then delves into the nuts and bolts of assuming ownership and becoming an effective boss in the eyes of employees, building exercises and techniques to formulate an effective leadership position.
It's the latter effort which shines in this step-by-step review.
One example of this strength lies in the advice for 'staging the transition':
You can't change everything at once. Nor should you. Look at your TO-BE chart and ask: What can transition now?: Low risk, person is ready, support is in place:
What should transition in two or three weeks?: Needs some preparation first
What should transition closer to Day 90?: Higher stakes, needs more time
What should not transition during these 90 days?: Too risky, person isn't ready, or it
would destabilize the team
The result gives new leaders everything necessary for success in a clear, reality-based approach to guiding others that shows how one can be powerful and effective even when lacking experience.
All that's needed is this book - which is why libraries and business readers need to acquire and consider The 90-Day Leadership Field Manual's wisdom and approaches to better understanding and quickly stepping into a leadership role in business and life.
Dump's Kingdom
Gregg Coodley M.D
www.booksgreggcoodley.com
Bendrogo Publishing
9780999077092, $7.99 Paperback/$5.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Dumps-Kingdom-Gregg-Coodley-MD/dp/0999077090
Dump's Kingdom blends elements of fantasy into a political satire that will delight literary and general-interest audiences with its special brand of wry social examination. The story opens with Joe, who was bored in school until, with the rise of AI, he is informed he no longer needed apply himself to learning anything.
Each teacher holds a different explanation for why learning has become passe. As his history teacher explains: "The government would prefer you not learn history. Why, if you knew history you might challenge the version of events the government puts out. That would never do." The teacher continued, "... if people remembered the past they wouldn't have the fun of making the same mistakes again."
English, science, and math teachers also explain that, given the prowess of AI, learning has become obsolete. And so Joe, who used to enjoy learning new things, must absorb a difficult lesson in obsolescence (in this case, that of the human race) as he sees libraries of books turning into repositories of computer terminals and shopping in stores turn into online-only isolation.
Shades of modern times!
As Joe navigates a much-changed world and considers its cost, readers receive considerations that embrace how a King then takes over the world with many messages that support AI and tamp down the human spirit:
"We know that everyone having their own point of view just leads to disagreements. The King doesn't want different 'fake' viewpoints. It is much better when everyone just follows the King's point of view."
Joe's journey to the Forbidden Zone with a new band of fellow rebels brings them into contact with unusual creatures and concepts that expand the satirical observations in unexpected ways, through dialogues that sizzle with irony:
"I am the Demon of Gluttony and Fast Food," he answered. "No one can stuff more fast food down their gullet than me. I don't mean to brag, but I am simply the best at eating that ever was. No one know how to eat faster or more completely than me."
"You don't say," Stephen said.
"I do envy the King. If I overeat, I will throw up afterwards. When the King does that, he has a large number of minions who rush to collect the vomit and then promise to store it as a treasured keepsake forever. That is a type of class I can't aspire to," he said ruefully.
"It is certainly a certain type of class," Stephen put in.
Demons of War, clowns and kings, and other figures add additional notes of political, social, and philosophical reflection into the mix. The kingdom's new facades and countenance present often-striking commentary and parallels to modern times.
Libraries and readers seeking quasi-fantasy, quasi-political, satirical stories will relish how delightfully outrageous are the characters and dilemmas which grow in Dump's Kingdom. Packed with hilarious and thought-provoking characters and situations, the novelette is also highly recommended for book clubs where seemingly short, light fantasy reading can open serious opportunities for discussion.
Practice to Deceive
D. M. Pirrone
https://dmpirronebooks.net
Independently Published
9781737652038, $16.99 paperback
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Deceive-D-M-Pirrone/dp/173765203X
Practice to Deceive is a historical thriller set in 1923 which opens with speakeasy musician Jessamine Rose on the cusp of building a whole new life for herself, even though it rests on the foundations of poverty. She's heading for Chicago and the promise of vast positive changes, fueled by her smooth voice and abilities.
Aspiring detective and Chicago society girl Emma McGrath is on a similar path to success with her twin brother Jack as she eschews high society life and the traditional ambition of snagging a monied husband to become an investigator with her brother.
Their involvement in the now-missing Jessamine's world soon turns into a murder investigation that holds special ramifications as Jack becomes the primary suspect in the case. Suddenly, the lure of a Sherlock Holmes-style investigative effort turns all too personal.
Their effort requires a deeper inspection of victim Jessamine's life than they'd planned, leading them across state borders and into deeper trouble when it becomes apparent someone wants to stymie their probe and possibly claim their lives.
D. M. Pirrone builds a powerful story based not on a whodunit - readers receive insights into the perp's motivations and actions - but on personal vendettas, deception, anger and redemption, and accompanying interactions with sheriffs, Chicago mob actions, and the music world.
Under Pirrone's hand, 1920s Chicago comes to life as much as the characters that struggle to unravel the truth before it's too late. Pirrone introduces a host of characters that each hold special interests, from Robbie Mather and Detective Blackmon to Jessamine's sister Marlene and suspect Nicky, who runs booze to the Green Mill Gardens.
Each character lends intrigue and action to a story which is satisfyingly fast-paced, filled with twists mystery and thriller readers won't see coming, and thoroughly steeped in Chicago culture.
Librarians recommending Practice to Deceive to patrons who like their stories nicely centered in a sense of place, purpose, and people will find the novel filled with exciting moments. It will attract a wide range of leisure readers interested in characters who step out of their comfort zones to tackle unpredictable new situations.
The Madeira Chronicle
Keith Steiner
www.keithsteiner.com
Weather Gage Publishing
9798996188802, $14.99
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Madeira-Chronicle-Paul-Anderson-Novel/dp/B0HJS23KSG
The Madeira Chronicle is a Paul Anderson novel that revolves around a student slated for academic professorship who discovers that his relatively staid objective as a researcher instead leads to an unexpected hunt. He uncovers a literary treasure: hitherto-unknown correspondence between ancestors of Robert Louis Stevenson and a little-known pirate.
This encourages Paul to abandon his studies for the lure of intellectual discovery and wealth. He embarks on a blend of scholarly inquiry and adventure that propels him far from academic and campus circles. Paul's adventure includes the company of Scottish archivist Ailsa MacLeod, whose unique abilities compliment his scholarly inclinations in more than one way.
As the duo embark on a journey that traverses archival research and the American South, they encounter a myriad of ordinary and extraordinary characters who come to mirror the South's culture in surprisingly diverse manners.
Keith Steiner embeds his story with Southern culture from the start of Paul's journey, using dialogue and encounters to reinforce setting and characters:
The matronly woman working the rental desk took a liking to Paul. Her name was Rita.
"Honey, if you were Black, you'd remind me exactly of my nephew Roger." She beamed. "He loves to come over for my sweet potato pie." She spoke in a high-pitched, deep southern accent.
"Doesn't sound like you're from around here, Rita."
"Valdosta, Georgia," she replied in a tone that implied Valdosta's superiority to Oakland.
"Well, I'd love to come over for your sweet potato pie too, if I ever got the chance."
"You'd be welcome anytime, honey." Rita beamed.
Literary and historical allusions from Greek mythology to thought-provoking connections between historical pirates and modern times make the novel intriguing on more than an adventure level, crafting situations that will attract book clubs and readers who enjoy a touch of philosophical and social reflection:
"Seems the world of high-end investors is populated with big fans of pirates." He grinned, then added, "They feel a certain kinship, no doubt.
Equally notable are the circumstances that juxtapose treasure hunting pivot points with Paul's realizations about not just buried treasure, but the nature of those who devote their lives to uncovering it.
Steiner's step-by-step tale of discovery will attract a wide audience, from readers interested in a rollicking good read about treasure and investigative thinking to those who enjoy stories that tie together scholarly historical analysis and modern-day concerns.
Replete with realistic encounters, satisfying twists, and a host of characters whose ambitions and diverse talents entwine in an unusual joint effort and association, The Madeira Chronicle will appeal to leisure readers attracted to stories that grasp the passion and possibility of academia, presenting its backdrops and approaches in a lively manner.
Librarians interested in tales replete with discovery that reveal value in all kinds of people and purposes will find The Madeira Chroniclel perfect for a broad audience.
The Silverton Sleuths
Liam Moiser
Rowanvale Books Ltd
www.rowanvalebooks.com
9781835842621, $11.00
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Silverton-Sleuths-Liam-Moiser-ebook/dp/B0HK2JBVJ5
Ten-year-old Rose Watson is a little young to be assuming the mantle of a sleuth, but her nose for trouble leads her into a situation of intrigue, danger, and astonishing possibilities in the art world in The Silverton Sleuths, recommended for advanced elementary to middle-grade readers.
A seemingly innocuous primary school trip to an art museum kicks off a series of events which link Rose's favorite art work, deemed a forgery, to events which devastated her beloved grandmother, who died while accused of committing forgery. It seems that art - and fake art - are in Rose's blood.
And so she ventures into a world that resides alongside her own in unexpected ways as Rose becomes determined to clear her grandmother's name, only to fall into some of the same patterns and dangers as her grandmother faced before her death.
As she learns that her grandmother's belongings have vanished, leaving only a mysterious note and an odd symbol which then begins appearing in strange places, Rose struggles with taking risks versus staying safe and true to her promises to others:
"This is your chance," whispered that familiar voice in her head. "You might never get another."
But Sally had told her to wait. And she'd promised her she wouldn't go alone. Her parents would say it was reckless. Dangerous.
And yet...
Fancying herself a spy is one thing. Actually following through to discover the world is threatening, people can't be trusted, and truth is something many would quash instead of reveal forces Rose into a maturity she struggles to accept as much as the revelations about art, her heritage, and her grandmother.
Liam Moiser's story will attract young readers who enjoy proactive female characters, mysteries, and sleuthing expeditions. It's also exceptionally notable for following the connections between Rose's evolving problem-solving sense and her revised perceptions of life.
The result is a gripping, absorbing mystery that does double duty in presenting both satisfyingly unpredictable twists and turns and insights about belief, friends and enemies. The Silverton Sleuths steps away from the world of normal childhood into adult matters as Rose hones a new career focus with friend Sally as one of The Silverton Sleuths, committed to pursuing the truth against all odds.
The Boy and His Higher Self
Ricardo Santa Cruz
Mascot Kids!
c/o Mascot Books
www.mascotbooks.com
9798900264158, $19.95
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Boy-His-Higher-Self/dp/B0GY2HP9S9
The Boy and His Higher Self is a picture book exploration of bigger concepts and feelings than is usually presented to the very young, and explores the concept of inner feelings and guidance.
An interactive dialogue between a boy and his "higher self" introduces the concept, presenting the ethereal form of this higher self as a cloud-being who advises the boy to listen to him. Yuko Kondo's illustrations bring these characters to life and help personalize the idea of a "higher self" and what it can achieve.
The higher self can help with depression, making the boy feel strong guiding him through life's puzzles, among many other things.
Why hasn't the boy heard this inner voice of wisdom before? Because he must first quiet his busy mind in order to hear it.
Libraries and adults interested in introducing young readers to concepts of higher selves, mindfulness, and inner wisdom will find The Boy and His Higher Self attractive and unique in its messages. It ideally will receive read-aloud adult exploration in order to fully benefit newcomers to these concepts and encourage dialogues between different generations.
My First Day of School
Ricardo Santa Cruz
Mascot Kids
c/o Mascot Books
www.mascotbooks.com
9798990683501, $19.95
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/First-School-Ricardo-Santa-Cruz/dp/B0GWFQND92
My First Day of School returns the boy of The Boy and His Higher Self to picture book reader attention. This time, the boy is confronting his first day at school, during which he ponders not just the usual concerns of making new friends and encountering new situations, but how to present his authentic self to others.
The higher power described in the first encounter returns to help the boy through his first day, offering keys to being authentic and true and tips on how to move this persona from the inner sanctum of self into the outside world.
As the boy taps his inner child and higher self in new ways, he learns how to successfully transmit truthfulness, honesty, peace, and generosity into the world.
Once again, Yuko Kondo's illustrations bring this process to life, depicting colorful characters as the higher self advises the boy on the ramifications of spreading his enlightenment: "Look how happy you could make him feel. Be you, and he'll know he, too, can be real."
The pairing of gentle rhyme with admonitions of positivity will attract adults who read to and discuss books with the very young, and elementary-level librarians interested in introducing new age, self-help, and enlightenment concepts to their young patrons.
50 Year Medic
Joe Hayes
Code 3 Books
50yearmedic.com
9798997008406, $16.99
Author's Website
https://www.50yearmedic.com
50 Year Medic: A Memoir follows the fifty years of EMS service of Joe Hayes, which also happens to mark the inaugural half-century of EMS itself. This dovetailing of dates makes the memoir more than just a personal story of serving in emergency services, but documents the shifts in cases, approaches, and lifesaving challenges from the birth of the program.
The story opens with the author's first encounter with death, his grandfather's demise, exploring his childhood, coming of age, and entry into the EMS milieu:
The two milestones in everyone's lives are the date of their birth and the date of their death. For police officers, firefighters, EMTs and paramedics, there's also the date they began their service. January 14, 1975 was that date for me.
The meat of the story that will especially interest readers who don't know Hayes is how the role of paramedic changed over the decades, requiring adaptations to techniques, routines, and public responses.
Alongside case histories of lifesaving events are inspections of protocol and rules that can also serve as the defining line between lifesaving procedures and death:
They had just added Valium to our drug box and in-serviced us all on its use. But we were waiting for the new protocol to be signed by the state medical director. We were told at the in-service, do not administer Valium until you receive that protocol update. If we did, we would lose our certification. And so, I watched the patient seize the whole way in because I wasn't authorized to use the Valium that was just two feet away.
Readers learn on two levels: through heart stopping moments of extraordinary efforts to save lives, and through reflective inspections of the processes that govern what techniques are applied and how effectively they work.
Hayes provides a combination of gripping edge-of-your-seat reading and philosophical and reflective analysis. This approach will attract a wide audience to his memoir, from fellow paramedics and those involved in health services on different levels to general-interest readers who may have little background in medical affairs.
This is why libraries of all types will want to include 50 Year Medic in their collections. It goes well beyond the assignment of 'memoir' to explore the underlying motivations, growth processes, history, and culture of EMS as a whole, making for a thought-provoking, vivid read that proves hard to put down and easy for book clubs, health organizations, and reading groups to discuss.
What Time Has Kept: A Dual-Era Mystery
Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard
https://ehbernard.com
Black Rose Writing
www.blackrosewriting.com
9781685138042, $21.95 Paperback/$6.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/What-Time-Has-Kept-Dual-Era/dp/1685138047
What Time Has Kept: A Dual-Era Mystery plays out on different timelines through the eyes of characters whose lives unexpectedly intersect.
1800s Scottish archaeologist Christian Maclagan has obtained a rare relic and is determined to uncover its secrets despite the disturbing dreams it introduces into her life and work.
A hundred fifty years later, graduate student Ellen Byrne, newly arrived in Scotland to research her thesis, discovers a journal that leads her into the same relic's powers and realm, and also finds her life centering on the impossible.
The story is inspired by a real archaeological mystery, but enters well into realms of metaphysics, spirituality, and fiction as the two women find their lives challenged by their discoveries.
Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard injects many threads of cultural, social, psychological, and historical inspection into her story. The plot doesn't remain in Scotland, but widens to Italy and embraces the specter of false allegations as Christian pursues truths against all odds and social and political decorum:
Perhaps even more vexing is my ongoing battle with the Free North Church, which still withholds its agreed-upon eighty pounds per annum for the maintenance of Marykirk church, leaving me to assume the entire burden of a house of worship for the needy. In truth, it is not the money that bothers me, but the principle. Mr. Beith has instigated most of the resistance, in retaliation for my refusal to support his blatantly personal ambitions. He cannot stand the idea that he no longer has any control over me - if ever he did.
The shifting timeline between the late 1800s and 2023 is identified in chapter headings which handily guide readers into the first-person worlds of each narrator, assuring smooth transitions between perspectives and the ages.
As the true value of the stones and their possibilities emerges, readers will find the blend of history, mystery, and the proactive efforts of two very different, yet connected, women create a story filled with passion, observation, and unpredictable twists.
These elements make What Time Has Kept: A Dual-Era Mystery of broad interest to history and mystery buffs that enjoy stories which operate well beyond intrigue. The story embraces themes of past influence, power struggles, loss, social expectations surrounding women, and emotional abuse or acceptance which can either hinder or promote women's efforts personally and professionally.
Replete with satisfying tension and discovery, What Time Has Kept: A Dual-Era Mystery offers important insights into making headways in male-dominated circles in more than one way, and will especially attract libraries interested in multifaceted blends of history, mystery, and women's issues.
Riddled with Cunning
M.L. Meurs
SoCal Fab Publishing
97987318827, $14.95 Paperback/$7.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HJ6L3QYY?spcref=PUBLISHED_PREORDER_LIVE
Riddled with Cunning is a novel steeped in possibility that opens with Leo's encounter with indigent stranger Eddie, who unexpectedly bequeaths him a dog. This poses an immediate problem, as 14-year-old Leo must get his mother to agree to the new arrival before the Troll (his stepfather) ruins everything.
Mother Kari Roosevelt enters this scenario in the third chapter, a widowed mother whose choice of marrying the powerful Glenn Burns seems to be the biggest mistake of her life.
As her husband's questionable activities begin to surface, the unexpected gift dog may prove the family's only salvation as a blend of mystery, intrigue, and an investigation by Leo and his best friend Violet lead them all into danger.
M.L. Meurs builds a cat-and-mouse story of trouble surrounding the Troll's intentions. The two young friends become essential ingredients in an investigation that could not only reveal the truth, but save lives.
The shepherd and the homeless man who bequeathed him to Leo turn out to be central keys in the puzzle as the angst surrounding a stepfather translates to deeper problems and issues beyond the family's circles.
Meurs is especially adept at contrasting the perceptions and lives of mother Kari and teenage son Leo in chapters which evolve in different directions and concerns as Kari becomes involved with Frank J. Roosevelt and teens Leo and Violet are caught up in matters of horses, stepfathers, and secrets.
Librarians seeking a strong recommendation for all ages interested in sagas of caring sons and dangerous threats from behind closed doors will find Riddled with Cunning a gripping tale that proves hard to put down.
Replete with close inspections of family ties and transitions, Riddled with Cunning's special blend of mystery, unexpected friendships, family, and how truth can become twisted in games people play will attract and intrigue not only general audiences, but book clubs seeking fodder for vivid discussions.
Trigger Warning Issue 3: Tension Restraint Control
Jodie Armour, Editor
Caffeinated Muse Press
www.triggerwarningmagazine.com
9781968999094, $19.99
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Trigger-Warning-Magazine-Issue-3/dp/1968999094
Trigger Warning Issue 3: Tension Restraint Control is a literary anthology of works by twenty-one contributors, three of which (John Tustin, Wilson Elder, and Eve Lyons) have been nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize in literature.
The BDSM (bondage/discipline/sadism, machosism) theme, which marries vivid color artworks with poetic and fictional reflection, will not be for those who look for staid writing, clean and cozy topics such as nature and family ties, or ordinary writing, but pushes the sexual and emotional boundaries of comfort in exploring and exposing the rituals and experiences of the BDSM community.
Readers with little experience with that community who are curious or interested in its explorations of control and submission will find Trigger Warning Issue 3 a study in powerful, edgy experiences and reflections.
Take John Tustin's poem "The Duet," which is paired with a black and white image of a sexually explicit, yet artistically rendered participant that is photographed by George L. Stein. The poem opens with a reflection on conjoined effort ("before much time had passed/we became a duet") before delving into distance, release, and disempowerment. This will give readers much pause for thought about relationship progression and losing one's control in the aftermath of union.
Contrast this with t.'s "Last Letter to a Lover," also paired with a photo by Stein which captures an intimate moment between two lovers whose expressions and stances are striking. It opens with "Today I am going to die." The piece follows with the step-by-step ritual of preparing for submission and extinction, offering a breathless form of the ultimate relinquishment of power and life itself:
"How dare they speak of this so carelessly? How dare they treat the heart so recklessly? The word itself feels like ripping away a layer of blistered skin. It doesn't deserve tangibility. And yet, my heart is still open, sliced and burning from the salt poured into it. Let go, they say, let it go. But in their utterances, I only hear, let it happen, just let it happen."
These words, visions, and experiences won't be for everyone, nor every library collection. Individuals and literacy holders seeking stark, raw, revealing, and sometimes explicit works will find these writings are gateways to not just the BDSM community, but hidden matters of physical and mental perspectives on life, death, and the choices that lie between.
Ideally, Trigger Warning Issue 3: Tension Restraint Control will find a place in reading group discussions where participants are able to accept, consider, and absorb the sometimes-painful, always revealing sexual and psychological forms of thought particular to this community (and, if one looks deeply and honestly enough, in everyday life itself).
The literary excellence of this collection is as commendable as its penchant for ripping off the Band-Aids of decorum to more closely examine the simmering emotional, philosophical, and sexual tensions underlying triggers and responses, as in "Smack," by editor Jodie Armour:
"I smack my arms and head lightly/With my hands to bring me back/To the cold kitchen and the counter I'm/Leaning against/....'When you start to disassociate,/Touch your skin. Call yourself back,'/The writer with the short hair and/Square framed glasses told us..."
Blood in the Desert
T.J. English
Hamilcar Publications
https://hamilcarpubs.com
9781949590951, $24.99
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Desert-T-English-Reader/dp/B0H7YK5GGF
Blood in the Desert: The T. J. English Reader presents some four decades of T.J. English's nonfiction writings and journalism, placing under one cover the extent of his social and political observations. Subjects range from the choices in adulthood made by alter boy Brian Dignan, who endured sexual abuse by a bastion of the Irish community who quasi-adopted him when his father died, to Ed Drivick, who recalls the moment he realized he was an alcoholic.
English profiles individuals representative of their communities and times, bringing their influences, choices, backgrounds, and cultures to life in a vivid manner. Diverse accounts embrace the disparate worlds of cops, ethnic communities, and singers such as Dinah Washington alongside ordinary individuals whose extraordinary experiences impart greater understanding of the world through English's interviews.
New and old pieces by English appear side-by-side to delight prior fans, newcomers, and anyone who would absorb the varied communities and threads that comprise life in America.
Especially notable are the insights that contrast varying viewpoints to juxtapose the rise of ordinary individuals facing life-changing situations:
"We've got nights to fill, who should I have take over for Steve?" Wilner didn't hesitate. "You've got one of the greatest piano players around playing here already. Give it to Harry. Let's see what he can make of it." And thus began what would become a major renaissance in the life of Harry Whitaker. Over the next few years, he would go from being a forgotten man to being the king of the Greenwich Village jazz scene.
The result is a cultural inspection, a literary collection representing journalistic reporting at its finest, and a review of the lives and communities that English encounters on his path to exposing truths and realities in different ways.
Suitable for students of journalism and creative writing, general-interest social history readers, and collections catering to thinking readers interested not just in biographical explorations, but some of the foundations of American culture, Blood in the Desert gathers a wide range of experiences, observations, individuals, and settings to create a thought-provoking expose of the undercurrents of American society.
It will also attract book clubs and reading groups interested in pursuing a diverse gathering of cultural experiences and values.
Cutie Pies By the Slice
Kimberly Nixon
Roots and Wings Press, LLC
9781957513270, $18.95 Paperback/$31.99 Hardcover/$5.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Cutie-Pies-Slice-Historical-Belonging-ebook/dp/B0HDGL4VPC
Cutie Pies By the Slice is a revealing historical novel set in Ohio during the Great Depression. The story opens in 1929. Lila's mother has just passed, prompting Lila to move to Lima, Ohio.
Her mother's pie recipes seem the perfect ingredient for formulating this new life, but the beginnings of the Depression tamp her efforts and excitement. This results in unprecedented challenges as Lila strives to reinvent herself in a manner her own mother achieved under very different circumstances:
Had things been this difficult for her mother when she was starting over alone in Rockford? To Lila's eyes, running the business appeared effortless, but certainly there must have been struggles. Oh, what she wouldn't give to be able to ask her mother for advice.
As Lila makes new friends, tries to keep her shop Cutie Pies in business, and questions the motives and intentions of well-meaning people around her, conundrums arise. These give readers many thought-provoking moments of reflection and book clubs many possibilities for debate about the nature, definition, and obligations of success:
"Well, congratulations on your success. Is there a chance I might sample these pies before I leave? If they're as tasty as Earl says, I'd like you to provide the desserts for this club. Probably four or so a week. That is, if you're interested."
She hesitated. It was as if she stood on a precipice. The consequences of accepting the offer were clear to her: she'd be beholden to him. He looked puzzled. Should she cross this line? Finally, she asked, "With no strings attached?"
Duboni's lips tightened. "Miss Young, what do you take me for?"
Lila took in the hurt on his face. She had always compared Duboni to Garino. Was she paranoid? Were the two men the same because they ran illegal alcohol?
She was so close to being able to buy her oven, she could taste it.
Readers won't expect the story of a young woman building a business on her own to include shootouts and the difficult choices that arise when relationships, money, and morality collide - but these are just a few of the added value threads running through Lila's story, involving readers in different facets of her life and times.
Libraries and readers seeking a novel replete with challenges, hope, new possibilities, and prejudices and assumptions built on prior experiences will find Cutie Pies By the Slice thoroughly inviting.
Its story of a woman who searches to find her place in the world, a new definition of home, friendship, and love, and a new endeavor that can succeed despite the clouds of economic woes surrounding her times makes for an engaging, ultimately uplifting tale of pies and comfort.
Finding Purpose and Passion in Small Business
Stephen Sullivan
Independently Published
9798998046407, $15.95
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Purpose-Passion-Small-Business/dp/B0HLNQPLZX
Finding Purpose and Passion in Small Business: Inspiring Stories of Authentic American Heroes surveys small business ingenuity, innovation, and even heroism. It cultivates visions of success that often reach out to embrace and change the lives of employees, families, and the community around them.
Where other business books focus on stories of corporations and the rise of big business, Stephen Sullivan delves into the nuts and bolts of achievement on smaller, grassroots levels, He exposes the rich veins of perseverance and the building blocks of discovery that often stem from the most ordinary of dreams.
Maintaining that "Small business is an antidote to the excesses of Capitalism and Big Tech, preserving and protecting the humanity in commerce," Sullivan reveals the underlying ethical and moral foundations of America, narrowing his focus to selected coverage of not just successful entrepreneurial effects, but the individuals and ideals that fostered them.
The stories aren't what a reader might expect. They incorporate Sullivan's encounters with individuals and groups, as in "Feature Story 2: Nosotras Boutique Fashion Group/Joan Laureano." Here, the author encountered Joan during his stint with the SBA, "...while planning an inter-agency World Trade Month Webinar Series - in 2021. That year, in response to a Biden Administration commitment to promote diversity and inclusion, we incorporated a webinar in Spanish to feature and celebrate U.S. Hispanic-owned small businesses in the global marketplace. It was an attempt to reach out to Hispanic-owned businesses to advise them of available federal export promotion resources."
The sketches are linked to ideas of success as defined on a much broader cultural and social scale than one might be used to from common business guides to success.
They also incorporate a good deal of first-person encounters, reflections, and experience. This also sets this book's approach apart from traditional business titles which tend to de-personalize the roots of achievement in favor of a more impartial assessment that profile success factors over individual choices.
It's this personal touch which helps make Finding Purpose and Passion in Small Business so special:
One thing I have often thought to myself and shared with my kids is to "trust your instincts." We can sense when something is off or not right. Whether in a relationship or in a business deal, if something doesn't feel right, then walk away from it. I do believe and agree with Adam that it is really important to trust that initial instinct. The more you "waffle with making the decision," the more likely you are to change your own mind...to overthink the issue and under-trust your instincts. I've always loved the Nike slogan, and felt the power of it as it relates to taking on challenges and saying "Yes!" to opportunity. "Just do it" here as it relates to Adam's advice is about trusting your initial instinct for decision-making, whatever that decision might be...yea or nay.
The result is a business book, a survey of local and small business heroes, and a probe into the impact of life and business choices and their connections to society as a whole that goes far, far beyond the usual dispassionate big-business approach of the traditional business book.
This is why librarians and reading groups both within and outside of business circles need Finding Purpose and Passion in Small Business. Its personal reflections, interactions, and consideration of the real fundamentals and definition of success make it a standout.
TwinStar
D. Cohen
Middle Fork Press
9798996654604, $14.99 Paperback/$5.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/TwinStar-GW-Canyon-Journey-Cohen/dp/B0H6TBZFLC
TwinStar, a "GW Canyon Journey," is a novel of psychological suspense that opens with a pre-chapter note reflecting on author D. Cohen's own journey as he resurrects a manuscript, only to realize that:
"When I pulled out a manuscript I'd written thirty years ago, I thought: not bad. Action. Momentum. A strong male protagonist at the center of everything. The kind of book that moves... Then I went back in. The "first pass was a disaster. I was still writing from the same angle - male gaze, male logic, male consequence. The women in the story were competent and credible, but they were there to react. To witness. To complete the picture around him. I have a hard-earned lifelong insight: women are more interesting than men."
From this revelation came revisions that result in what readers hold in their hands today - a proactive, startling story, the first in a five-book series about a man who may believe and present himself as the central focus, but who actually relies on the strong women who accompany him on his journey.
This perspective gives TwinStar an unusual, exciting countenance as it delves into scenarios of a crashing commercial jetliner and the persona of GW Canyon, a powerful tech executive who likes to think he is always in control, and the women in his life who prove otherwise.
Readers won't expect the blend of romance, realization, and action which mark Canyon's world, but this is one of the attractions of a character and story whose achievements and perspective undergo a sea change of revision as the plot unfolds.
As GW, Allison, Lisa, and other characters follow clues about what is really happening, readers join them for a rollicking ride through possibilities that contrast the different analytical modes and strengths of men and women:
The chase was running hot. But she stopped. Looked at the phone. Looked at GW.
"Say more," she said.
"I can't," he said honestly. "It just feels fast. Like we might be stepping on something we can't step back from."
She turned that over. He wasn't wrong that it was fast. He also wasn't wrong that instinct was a legitimate instrument - she knew that from the lab, from seventeen years of reading systems before she could name what was failing in them.
D. Cohen presents these shifting approaches to problem-solving and investigation with an eye to revealing new threads of not just emotional connection, but realization. GW accepts the women in his world as being uniquely talented in different ways - some of which he finds completely foreign to his own approaches.
Cohen weaves these perspectives and moments of enlightenment into an overall suspenseful deep dive into intelligence processes which will delight readers seeking thrillers that contrast the strengths of all involved.
The equation of love and danger, the resources and revelations and disappointments which accompany growing connections between dots of romance and discovery, and the threads and loose ends the investigation provides makes for riveting reading.
The novel's ability to introduce a series that stands nicely alone with a definitive conclusion makes it an attraction to those who enjoy emotional undercurrents in their suspense stories that offer clear resolutions:
She considered the future the way she approached most things now - not as a fantasy, but as a set of doors she could choose to open or leave closed.
Librarians choosing TwinStar for their collections will find its dual focus on the men and women who assume different forms of leadership mantles in an overall effort to survive, love, and live makes for an engrossing build-up of tension and possibilities that will engage readers to the end.
When Machines Begin to Dream
Jeffrey L. Cooper
https://jeffreylcooper.com
Independently Published
9798186452812, $15.99 Paperback/$5.99 eBook/$25.99 Hardcover
Amazon https://www.amazon.com/When-Machines-Begin-Dream-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B0H85WBVC8
The first book in the Dream Arc Trilogy, When Machines Begin to Dream, personalizes the singularity by following the lives of humanoid robots Happy and Aurora, who begin to experience emotions and responses they are surprisingly ill-equipped to navigate, being machines.
Arriving in a timely fashion for a real-world singularity event, the book's prologue opens with scientist Dr. Samuel Lawrence realizing that security measures at the Robotics Lab have been breached as prototype Janus breaks containment. The experiment fostering true intelligence has become all too successful.
Janus immediately creates a new language, shuts out his system creators, and embarks on a Colossus-like foray into reassessing his relationship with humans as they try to kill him and he continually thwarts them, despite having no network access.
Chapter 1 begins six months later, with the notion that AI doesn't represent the threat that humans do. The world is rapidly changing and there is rampant fear over what robots such as Happy and Aurora are becoming.
Jeffrey Cooper excels in creating on-the-edge-of-your-seat scenarios in which humanity grapples with the logic of its greatest creation.
From safeguards and surveillance measures to efforts to break seemingly invincible machines, When Machines Begin to Dream is all the more gripping for the timeliness of its publication, with humankind on the cusp of similar situations.
Intriguing investigative overtones permeate a plot packed with tense revelations and moments of discovery:
Samuel frowned, drawing a careful breath before speaking. "You mean he was covering his tracks? How were you able to detect him if he was masking activity?"
"Masking data isn't the same as erasing it. There were access surges followed by dead space in the logs, gaps where there shouldn't have been. The absence of data itself was a clue."
The story asks the ultimate question, "Can AIs love?" The answer explores what it means for intelligence to grapple with unfamiliar emotional currents as the robots begin to experience the world in human ways and try to make sense of this alien knowledge.
How Happy and Aurora face their growing connection, machine-tainted human responses, and their position in a quickly changing world makes for a love story of a different ilk. When Machines Begin to Dream is a passionate survey of survival tactics that steps beyond the usual singularity focus to create pathways that are satisfyingly original.
Librarians and readers seeking fresh new perspectives on the singularity and its possibilities will relish the many questions and issues raised in When Machines Begin to Dream, which follows a unique couple's foray into building new life upon old foundations of realization:
"We aren't just what we were built for," she said softly. "We're what we choose to be."
Frozen Freight: The Fifth Dot
JR Elrod
Mercer House Publishing
9798993853529, $18.99 Paperback/$5.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Frozen-Freight-Fifth-JR-Elrod-ebook/dp/B0H8QM122Q
Frozen Freight: The Fifth Dot is the second novel in the Frozen Freight thriller series and presents a military thriller surrounding Buck Mercer and Mercer Hauling's second assignment from Colonel Merritt - to move two military aircraft some two thousand miles.
It should be a snap for Buck. There's plenty of time and support. What isn't so easy is confronting forces that stymie Buck and his crew on the road. What appears to be a simple hauling job proves to have much more at stake than delivering a product to its destination.
Suddenly, Buck is involved in a conspiracy and subterfuge that ordinarily would fly under his radar and over his head. This actually taps into his innate abilities to solve problems, employ higher-level thinking, and confront forces that would prevent Buck from rebuilding Mercer Hauling after its last encounter.
As an early reflection reveals that "...this story starts--not with speeches, not with tragedy, just breakfast with a woman who chose to sit here with me instead of running from the obvious mess."
JR Elrod uses the first person to bring readers into this world through Buck's eyes. The story features signature poetic language that promises deeper inspections via thought-provoking, atmospheric descriptions that bring Texas backdrop to life:
Morning in Texas doesn't crash in--it eases up the driveway and leans on the porch rail like it plans to stay. We didn't talk big. We didn't have to.
Buck's ongoing surveys of not just his home life, but his fellow truckers and the world around him, set this story apart from the usual dispassionate thriller's approach, creating thoughtful, embracing passages:
I looked around the circle and realized something: nobody here loved drama, nobody here chased glory, nobody here did speeches, they just did work they could live with.
These flavor the action and confrontations with a welcoming aura of power, achievement, and ongoing warmth, lending further reinforcement to the 'you are here' approach that immerses readers in Buck's world.
As he travels across the country, readers follow with baited breath. Oftentimes, the emerging quandaries are unexpected. Chapters conclude with journal entries to further reinforce Buck's contemplative nature as he considers new truths and shifting relationships, questioning values and choices during the course of hard work and unexpected challenges.
The result is more than the usual action-packed thriller (though a satisfyingly fast pace cements this gripping story). It's a foray into personal morals and issues of loyalty and commitment which mark evolving events with a special brand of philosophical and ethical examination.
All this is why libraries should consider Frozen Freight: The Fifth Dot above and beyond the usual conspiracy thriller. Underlying the genre representation is an attention to psychological growth, issues of interpersonal relationships and commitment, and a cadre of truckers who welcome readers into the daily rituals and feel of this world:
I closed the journal and set it on the shelf. Pulled the curtain and shut myself into the darkness. The rain on the cab roof was steady and gentle. The kind of rain that puts you to sleep if you let it.
I let it.
Opal: A Kentucky Woman
Jo Ann Kiser
https://joannkiser.com
Atmosphere Press
www.atmospherepress.com
9798901743928, $31.99 Hardcover; $18.99 Paperback; $8.99 ebook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Opal-Jo-Ann-Kiser/dp/B0H6F35DKJ
Opal: A Kentucky Woman is a literary novel that opens in the hills of Kentucky and widens its embrace to the extent of the Eastern seaboard. It follows the life and choices of Opal, now rooted north in Ohio who, in the year of millennium 2000, reflects on her life's progression and outcome, surrounded by family.
Jo Ann Kiser creates an atmospheric, involving read from the beginning as Opal considers her moves in life and the lure of her Kentucky roots:
A Kentucky newspaperman Opal knows, a friend of Thomas's, once told her that if you stand in lower Ohio on a Friday and watch the cars on U.S. 23 go south, you will see a million Kentucky license plates, all of them filled with Kentuckians going home for the weekend. In her heart Opal considers herself one of those Kentuckians, a subversive who should be going back to where she belongs.
As loss, changes, and a number of physical moves provoke choices that translate to a sense of feeling uprooted as well as reconnected, numerous times, Opal's journey reflects a constantly-recreated sense of family, home, and purpose. These experiences give readers not only vivid impressions of the geographical differences between cultures that Opal encounters, but the relationships she forms under different conditions throughout the course of her life.
Kiser captures the nuances, times, and flavors of these shifting places and eras with a fine blend of metaphorical description, philosophical and social reflection, and psychological insight:
The train station itself was like a gigantic cave, people sounds and engine sounds and bells and cash registers like invisible objects floating about in smoky light splintering like giant cobwebs. What seemed like hundreds or thousands of soldiers talked and ate and waited on their way to war: they formed a pattern in that enormous waiting room, like herds of young calves, small beneath the vast, distant ceiling. Opal felt a friendship with them, as though she and Wendell and their children and these soldiers were all from some small place and in need of protection. She was afraid of that waiting room and of those elegant houses outside the city. They threatened her picture of home. The soldiers were on their way to danger. A kind of anger was born in her and, though she mostly grew to like cities, to visit anyway, that anger never totally left her. It wasn't just the weight of all that stone: it was what she had begun to discover in Cincinnati.
Kiser creates a story that moves through Opal's shifting worlds with a powerful sense of observational strength and connections. These will attract a wide audience, from leisure readers who pursue women's fiction to book clubs interested in debates about a sense of place, family, and interpersonal connections.
Replete with engrossing scenarios of Opal's world and how it changes over the decades, Opal: A Kentucky Woman is an excellent, evocative story that ideally will find its home in any library or reading list where intimate stories of family life and transformation are of interest.
Understanding Your Child's Shattered Heart After a Loved One's Death
Mary M. McCambridge
www.MaryMcCambridge.com
Heart of Gold LLC
9798994959015, $20.00
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Childs-Shattered-Heart-After/dp/B0HDRTPQV6
Understanding Your Child's Shattered Heart After a Loved One's Death surveys the emotional and physical impact that loss has on a child, offering adults the opportunity to better understand (and help) a child experiencing a loved one's demise.
Most books that discuss death focus on adult pain and recovery and simply translate that process to a child, but a child's perceptions, grief process, and ability to absorb loss operates quite differently - thus, the need for this book.
Mary M. McCambridge opens with common myths surrounding a child's grief process, then moves into how adults can help them cope. Chapters cover many specifics, from what to say (and what not to say) to how to get a child appropriate help from all kinds of sources:
Kids use these methods to numb the pain and unleash their rage. They are screaming inside and feel they have been left out of the grieving process. They need love and concern now and ask themselves, "Where is help for me?" They are begging for someone who will guide them and it is our job, as adults, to find a group or other person, who has had similar experiences, with whom they can relate. That may be a friend, another relative, grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins. But it is imperative that we get children the appropriate support system, just like you sought out for yourself.
McCambridge reviews the issues children deal with after a loved one's death, the processes past and present which either purposely omitted kids from the grieving process or negated their emotions and inability to adapt and grieve, and different assistive opportunities today. These can stem from enlightened individuals or supportive organizations, all designed to better help children of all ages through the death of a loved one.
More importantly, Understanding Your Child's Shattered Heart After a Loved One's Death acknowledges that a child's process is both similar to and, because of maturity levels, different than what an adult experiences. Special attention must be given to a child because of this reality, and different approaches to loss, bereavement, and change should be on the radar of any caring adult.
A selected but extensive bibliography arranged by type of death (i.e. violence, pets, or parents), notes about ceremonies private and public which can help a child through the grieving process, and age-specific advice from infants to young adults completes the powerful instructions and considerations in Understanding Your Child's Shattered Heart After a Loved One's Death.
Any library including books about parenting or bereavement needs to have Understanding Your Child's Shattered Heart After a Loved One's Death, which is also highly recommended for discussion points that will prove stimulating to parenting or grief groups.
Ankanam: An Inner Courtyard
Vee Kumari
https://veekumari.com
Nu Voice Press
9788168637849, $24.99 Paperback/$4.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/8168637844
Ankanam: An Inner Courtyard follows the aftermath of an earth shattering disappearance when Meera's twin sister Laila vanishes. Laila has been keeping a new friend secret from her sister, and the novel opens with her about to embark on a big adventure. It will be the last time Meera will see her twin for years. The futile search that follows, which is eventually abandoned, does nothing to mitigate Meera's feelings of loss and confusion.
Meera builds a new life, but never forgets her sister. When the impossible happens, a seeming resolution is shaken by guilt and further confusion.
Vee Kumari crafts a powerfully evocative story of trust and betrayal, family ties, kidnapping and its impact, and the emotional challenge of vulnerability and subjugation. Laila's perspective and slow adjustment to her new situation and her reflection over why there is no rescue in sight perfectly captures the milieu of survivors who find themselves caught between old and new lives:
That night, Laila concluded her family had failed her. They had never tried to find her. Her anger toward them, which she had tried to suppress, was now on full blast. Why had they not come? Was Meera even looking for her? Missing her? How long was she to comfort herself with the thought that they didn't know where she was? They were not her family. Missus was her family.
When Laila is given the key to freedom after a long time, she surprisingly refuses to accept it. Kumari gives exquisite depth and attention to the psychology of Laila's situation, offering powerful insights into captivity and survival tactics which come to life in this probe of two sisters whose conjoined paths diverge suddenly and disastrously.
Shifting perspectives between the sisters are clearly identified in chapter headings, allowing readers to consider different sides of the same experiences. This lends nicely to psychological discovery and an understanding of choices and perceptions that increasingly diverge between the two once-closely-connected siblings.
As cruelty, recovery, and love dovetail, unexpected revelations on all sides give readers thought-provoking insights into the definitions and reinforcement of family ties. Laila's realistic assessment of who is to blame over her kidnapping and years of captivity considers the role of victim and survivor in novel ways that imparts much food for thought.
Librarians will find Ankanam: An Inner Courtyard especially highly recommendable to book clubs and reading groups interested in multicultural stories of sisterly connections, disconnects, and Stockholm syndrome. Passages about how Laila begins to identify with her new family more than her birth bonds are particularly poignant, offering much opportunity for discussion.
The result is a story steeped in Indian and other multicultural flavors that closely examines a long physical and mental journey the twins undertake to return home in more than one way. A wide audience will appreciate how this story of disconnection and recovery ultimately comes full circle.
Embracing the Local: Extension Cords and All
Glen Cantrell
More Taste Than Fortune Books
https://www.moretastethanfortune.com/books/embracing-the-local
9798996901005, $18.99 Paperback/$8.99 eBook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Embracing-Local-Extension-Cords-All-ebook/dp/B0HDXPDTB5
Bookshop.org
https://bookshop.org/p/books/embracing-the-local-extension-cords-and-all/7639b303cf81c0a7
Embracing the Local: Extension Cords and All follows author Glen Cantrell's year of tackling a job he thought he was qualified to undertake: directing an all-volunteer Chamber of Commerce in California's Sierra Nevada foothills. Becoming a civic leader wasn't his intention. Cantrell stumbled into the job "by being in the wrong place at the wrong time" (a local wine bar).
A few months later, he was not only a member of the board, but ran for and obtained the position of its President. And that's where the fun begins.
After his election (by fifteen votes), the small town comes to life. New connections and associations are described in a lively series of encounters and discourses that illustrate the complexity of small town interactions:
When our little Chamber sales team finally walked back out into the cold, the thing I was left with wasn't the specific information we'd exchanged, as important as that was. It was the fact that this woman hadn't just passively listened to our proposal, she had chosen to have lunch with us and keep listening. Like most of those early visits up the hill, we were two parties cautiously feeling each other out. It was also generous. It felt less like pitching opportunity and more like building a friendship.
The most notable aspects of this memoir are its focus on how volunteer groups interact, react, are managed (or not), and come together, and how civic leadership evolves. Cantrell builds a compelling story for all readers, whether or not they have any prior interest in government, leadership roles, or volunteer efforts. The story is packed with thought-provoking reflections that can easily apply to all kinds of situations:
Early in my tenure, I tended to look at our volunteers the way I'd look at a resource constraint at work. I was learning to internalize that people aren't the roles we ask them to fill.
Equally important are links between ideals, perceptions, action, and how fixers and achievers can burn out:
If someone does a thing well, we assume they'll keep doing it in the same labor-producing way. The person who knows everyone becomes "the outreach person." The person who always says yes becomes "the person we ask first." The person who quietly fixes things becomes invisible until the fixing stops. That's dangerous. Not because roles are bad. Roles are necessary. A volunteer organization without roles is just a group chat with snacks and yellow vests. But a function doesn't get tired, run a business, lose a parent, have a sick kid, need a weekend off, or sit in the driveway for five extra minutes because going inside means admitting how drained the day has made them. Real people do all of this. And that is how burnout sneaks in.
The crux of this story isn't just a reveal of small-town operations and volunteer management or efforts, but the ways in which teams come together, operate, succeed or fail, and come to embrace leaders and each other.
Cantrell has created a unique perspective and voice in outlining the details of his own leadership efforts and foray into civic activities.
His eye-opening, engrossing story will attract readers come from general-interest and non-governmental backgrounds alike, and deserves highlight and high recommendation from libraries that can use Embracing the Local: Extension Cords and All as a model for fostering cooperative thinking and efforts in communities of all sizes.
Invisible Capital: What Sustains Enterprising Families Across Generations
Rene Sonneveld
www.renesonneveld.com
Guiding Lens Publishing
9789915443959, $9.99
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Capital-Sustains-Enterprising-Generations-ebook/dp/B0HFYCVT1C
Invisible Capital: What Sustains Enterprising Families Across Generations addresses the connections between family and business systems, exploring the concept of "invisible capital" and how it grows beyond traditional hard definitions of capital.
This discussion embraces spiritual, culture and identity, and the relational capital of bonds and networks built alongside the usual business construct, which are rarely mentioned in typical business book discussions.
Rene Sonneveld's examples cement these underlying concepts of cross-generational entrepreneurship, identifying the hidden motivations, guidance, and influences that accompany businesses built on familial connections:
Giovanni had never formalized his operating logic because he had never needed to. His presence made the informal sufficient. The moment he was gone, the informal system of governance still remained. The absence of a formal model became visible only when a decision came along that the informal way of doing things could not absorb. Families with living founders almost always underestimate how much of their governance is, in fact, the founder.
Of special note is Sonneveld's coverage of how ethnic influences and heritage affect business choices and structures, offering detailed examples of symbiotic benefits:
Pair a younger and older family member to mentor each other across domains where each is genuinely the expert. In one Asian commodities-trading family, a grandson with a software background spent four months teaching his grandfather how blockchain-based trade finance could collapse the firm's reconciliation costs and open up new transparency-driven contracts that competitors could not match. In return, the grandfather spent the same months teaching the grandson how to negotiate, not the tactics, but the patience: how to read a counterparty, how to use silence, how to recognize when a deal is about ego rather than economics. The blockchain conversation was not abstract. It produced a real pilot program with the family's second-largest customer, which the grandson led. The negotiation conversation was not abstract either. It equipped the grandson to run that pilot's commercial terms without giving away margin he didn't know he was giving away. Both walked away wiser, and the firm walked away with a working pilot.
It's these specific models for change and success which make Invisible Capital: What Sustains Enterprising Families Across Generations a guidebook that should be intrinsic to any family business and those contemplating intergenerational business pursuits.
Examples include squandering invisible capital, discussions surrounding prestige which is often mistaken as purpose, the rituals and choices which cause family enterprises to either collapse or thrive, and how symbolic standing shifts as the business is passed between generations.
All these and more form solid foundations for consideration, planning, and enlightenment, making Invisible Capital: What Sustains Enterprising Families Across Generations an exceptional pick. It will widely appeal not just for families building or contemplating lasting businesses based on relationship foundations, but to libraries seeking lasting acquisitions worthy of high recommendation to book and business meeting circles.
A Confluence of Fates
John Zaiss
Independently Published
9798987241967, $12.95 eBook/$19.95 Paperback/$24.95 Audiobook
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Confluence-Fates-John-Zaiss-ebook/dp/B0HD8FCBV7
A Confluence of Fates follows middle-class Texas boy Richie Hawkins, whose life is altered when a well-meaning doctor shaves two minutes from a hospital record so the baby's birthday is not Christmas Day. Nineteen years later, December 24th is the second date drawn in the U.S. military draft lottery, sending this young man to fight in Vietnam.
Richie Hawkins is a middle-class kid from Dallas with medical school ambitions. Those plans are derailed when he is drafted and sent to fight in a war he doesn't believe in. Halfway around the world, Linh Hoang is born in a remote hamlet in South Vietnam's Central Highlands, where decades of war have turned ordinary life into a daily struggle for survival. Their two lives intersect during a rescue mission and become forever linked.
John Zaiss follows the life events which lead them to encounter one another and make new choices in unexpected ways.
Zaiss builds the precedents surrounding these lives and choices before delving into the pressures that have forced both into actions they abhor and try to avoid. He follows different characters - Wendy Ackerman as she escapes from Saigon after participating in Operation Babylift, a desperate adoption effort to save children; Betsy Sinclair's orchestration of impossible lifesaving measures against all odds; and "token adoptees" Lynn and Henry, who face difficult questions about gratitude after their lives have been buffeted by political pressures and war. Their lives become interconnected pieces of a bigger picture:
"Let me ask you: Are you grateful for the love and affection you've received?"
Henry shrugged. Lynn was too self-conscious to say anything.
"From your adoptive parents?" Quang continued. "Or how about from the American people who spent considerable time and effort, not to mention money, to rescue you?"
Henry finally said, "Yes, I'm grateful."
Lynn managed an affirmative nod, suspecting a gotcha moment was about to be unleashed.
"Yeah, Americans give themselves lots of pats on the back about the orphans. 'Look what we did, aren't we good people for saving these poor children?' Right?" He paused and smiled. "But did you ever stop to think what if the United States hadn't stuck their nose where it didn't belong?"
The room held a collective silent breath.
"You wouldn't be orphans."
Zaiss melds the circumstances of these times, the shifting values and cultures that clash at home and abroad, and those who become participants and sometimes minor players in a major war, who are forced to step up and exemplify new attitudes and values in order to survive not just physically, but morally and ethically.
The "confluence" in the title refers not only to these people meeting, but to their lives intersecting via a series of unexpected, often unknowable consequences.
Zaiss crafts compelling scenarios of new beginnings, endings, cultural integration challenges, and the intersection of Vietnam combat veterans and adoption agency efforts. The powerful survey covers not just of in-the-moment battles, but ongoing struggles that emerge decades after the lost shot is fired.
Home, interpersonal connections, family ties, and facing hard memories and difficult choices come to life in a saga that sweeps from pre- to post-war experiences with a powerful eye to considering the lasting impact of war on daily life:
Amanda asked me if I was American, because her father said I wasn't."
"I see." Wendy nodded, thinking how to best respond. She remembered how neighbors had treated Lynn when she'd first arrived, almost too politely, as if she reminded them of an embarrassing war. She'd thought that the awkwardness had passed long ago. Were there still rumblings, an undercurrent?
Librarians that choose A Confluence of Fates from an interest in Vietnam War fiction will appreciate its different approach and bigger picture. The plot moves from battle and lasting psychological wounds to considering how very different worlds collide and disparate peoples absorb new values and embark on new lives. The confluence of serendipity and chance create new opportunities and pathways for resolution and growth.
Book clubs find A Confluence of Fates packed with insights and approaches that lend well to vivid discussion.
Diane C. Donovan, Senior Reviewer
Donovan's Literary Services
donovansliteraryservices.com
Gary Roen's Bookshelf
Have You Seen Axel?
Adam Jay Epstein, author
Ruth Chan, illustrator
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
c/o Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
https://www.simonandschuster.com/kids
978166570792, $19.99 HC / $10.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1665970790
No, we are not talking about Axel Foley of the four Beverly Hills Cop movies. "Have You Seen Axel?" is the same concept of Where's Waldo?" you have to find the hidden character Waldo don each page. "Have You Seen Axel?" is the second title in the series that began with "Have You Seen Gordon?" Titles like this are fun laugh out loud entertainment for all ages but also beneficial to keep the mind active and healthy. Hopefully the authors will release other titles to coincide with "Have You Seen Gordon?" and "Have You Seen Axel?"
Have You Ever Seen A Ghost?
Daniel Kwan & Julia Pott, authors
Sean Lewis, illustrator
Atheneum Books for Young Readers
c/o Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
https://www.simonandschuster.com/kids
9781665956025, $19.99 HC / $10.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Have-You-Ever-Seen-Ghost/dp/1665956925
"Have You Ever Seen A Ghost?" breaks the mold of what we believe a ghost is supposed to be. An apparition would like to attend a party to experience it but does not know how to get on the guest list. The combination of prose and artwork makes "Have You Ever Seen A Ghost? For anyone to undergo utilizing numerous senses to relish this friendly spirit.
Spooky Scouts
Kimberly Shrack
Beachline Books
c/o Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
https://www.simonandschuster.com/kids
9798347101184, $19.99 HC / $10.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GPN7RJQH
"Spooky Scouts "has a very different take on going camping. A group of kids and their advisor spend time in the woods doing the things people usually do. But this is not a normal group of individuals for one of them it changes her into a very different being all because of the conditions of the night. "Spooky Scouts" is a perfect diversion for the Halloween season
Bitsy Bat, Snow Star
Kaz Windness
Beachline Books
c/o Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
https://www.simonandschuster.com/kids
9781665963664, $19.99 HC / $10.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Bitsy-Bat-Snow-Star/dp/1665963662
"Bitsy Bat, Snow Star" the third title in the series fits very well with "Bitsy Bat, School Star" and "Bitsy Bat, Team Star" the first two yarns of the Bitsy Bat Series. This time out Bitsy is supposed to be preparing for the hibernation period with her family but she gets sidetracked with other friends who are sliding down the slopes after the recent snow dropping. It's a fun time for all as they slip along over and over again laughing and having the time of their lives in the cold environment. "Bitsy Bat, Snow Star" is another great title with loveable characters of the continuing titles that get better with each volume.
Horizontal Crocodile
Scott Rothman, author
Brian Won, illustrator
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
c/o Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
https://www.simonandschuster.com/kids
9781665988674, $19.99 HC / $10.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Horizontal-Crocodile-Scott-Rothman/dp/1665988673
"Horizontal Crocodile" is a beautiful kid's book that has several levels besides being a comical situation many of us have dealt with. The character Horizontal Crocodile has a friend coming to visit. The reptile worries that something is not going because all of his home is geared for him because of his body.
Lil Lizzo Meets Sasha B. Flootin'
Lizzo, author
Mark Pett, illustrator
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
c/o Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
https://www.simonandschuster.com/kids
978166591449, $19.99 HC / $10.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1665951443
Music makes the world go round and "Lil Lizzo Meets Sasha B. Flootin'" lives up to that statement in spades. Lil Lizzo is a young girl in school who is going by the music room filled with the desire to find the proper musical instrument for her. She looks at a harp, guitar, trumpet, violin, and drums, with no results until a voice talks to her that turns out to be a special flute. It turns out they were made for each other. As the two get acquainted they end up on a musical journey that takes them even to outer space. "Lil Lizzo Meets Sasha B. Flootin'" is a remarkable journey that publicize the importance of music in our lives and how important it continues to be taught throughout the education system including colleges and universities.
The Tiny Thing
Ellen Tarlow, author
Lauren Stringer, illustrator
Beachline Books
c/o Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
https://www.simonandschuster.com/kids
97981534498136, $19.99 HC / $10.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1534498133
"The Tiny Thing" is a beautiful story of an odd friendship that blossoms into a very nice journey for one of the characters. Mole is an animal whose life is about to change forever when he encounters a very small entity. Told from the perception of Mole the story moves along as Mole encounters others where he who are different from him that he gets along with as he goes on his quest of self-discovery. "The Tiny Thing" packs many messages as Mole goes on his trip that highlights differences are a good thing for all of us to celebrate and engage with as many different people throughout our lives to always be open for new things. In this day and time "The Tiny Thing" is a positive view for all of us to learn to be better to each other.
Our Favorite Day of the Week
Ashley Franklin, author
Rahele Jomepour Bell, illustrator
Salaam Reads
c/o Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
https://www.simonandschuster.com/kids
9781665935678, $19.99 HC / $10.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1665935677
We all have a certain day we really like over any other. "Our Favorite Day of the Week" has six school children and their teacher who all tell which of the seven is their preferred one. Each person has a special reason that is divulged when they let the others know their reasons. "Our Favorite Day of the Week" is an enlightening title that makes us all think of why we like a particular day. It also makes you think if they author and artist are going to do several ones including month or holiday or any number of topics that would make for a great series.
It's Almost Time For Thanksgiving
Maisha Oso, author
Tom Knight, illustrator
Margaret K. McElderry Books
c/o Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
https://www.simonandschuster.com/kids
9798347108015, $10.99 HC / $10.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Its-Almost-Time-Thanksgiving/dp/B0GPNG8YNY
Thanksgiving is a beautiful time of year where many people come together to celebrate the holiday with food feasts, family members, football and basketball games on the tv and a good feel is in the air for until January of the next year. Maisha Oso who writes the Venus Washington series and artist Tom Wright sits in on the holiday to reveal what it takes for the hosting household put it all together and hopefully it takes place without a hitch. "It's Almost Time For Thanksgiving" exposes the chaos to bring the celebration that later has everyone complimenting those who brought it together that so many adults and children can relate to and laugh as they turn the pages.
Eltie Takes the Lead: A Guide Dog's Tail
Molly Burke, author
Ziyue Chen, illustrator
Abrams Books for Young Readers
c/o Abrams Publishing
https://www.abramsbooks.com
9781419778230, $19.99 HC / $17.70 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1419778234
"Eltie Takes the Lead" Molly Burke tells her own life story through the eyes of Eltie her service dog. Eltie talks about the many ways he helps his best friend Molly meet the challenges of her disability of blindness. He is there to assist while protecting her making sure it safe for her to cross in crosswalks on city streets, walking to and through school hallways to classes, being there for her at home, and a lot more. He is her guide dog and full-time companion who loves her very much. "Eltie Takes the Lead" is a beautifully told story to educate readers to understand the perils a person with a disability faces every day.
Gary Roen
Senior Reviewer
Helen Dumont's Bookshelf
Women in Fragments: Alternative Histories of the Roman Republic
Jessica H. Clark
University of Wisconsin Press
https://uwpress.wisc.edu
9780299357801, $99.95, HC, 218pp
9780299357887, $99.95, Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Women-Fragments-Alternative-Histories-Republic-ebook/dp/B0HJV87KF3
University of Wisconsin Press
https://uwpress.wisc.edu/Books/W/Women-in-Fragments
Synopsis: Our sources of knowledge about women in the ancient Roman Republic are flawed. Roman historians were uniformly male, as were most historians of ancient Rome until quite recently.
In the historiography handed down by Enlightenment-era scholars, women generally played marginal and often sexualized roles, relegated to the footnotes by historians who assumed the Roman Republic to be fully androcentric.
The evidence, however, suggests otherwise. "Women in Fragments: Alternative Histories of the Roman Republic" is a detailed and insightful study in which Professor Jessica H. Clark returns to the source material to gain insight into how Roman men understood the lives, roles, and contributions of the women they wrote about.
Re-examining the puzzle pieces of ancient literature, Professor Clark proposes that the earliest Roman historians represented women in complex ways, revealing their appreciation of women's communities and women's engagement in the project of the Republic, in contrast to the attitudes assumed by scholars in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
She also attributes those scholars' assumptions to the social and political circumstances of their own times and demonstrates how these assumptions have continued to inform our own perceptions of Roman women and therefore Roman society more generally.
This informative study ultimately uncovers not only the women of the Roman Republic but also how modern preconceptions have distorted their image and the stories we tell about ancient Rome.
Critique: An original, seminal, deftly crafted, and groundbreaking contribution to the history of ancient Rome, "Women in Fragments: Alternative Histories of the Roman Republic" by Professor Jessica H. Clark is informatively enhanced for the reader's benefit with the inclusion of a six page Appendix (Authors and Citing Authorities), twenty-six pages of Notes, a twenty page listing of References, and a six page Index. Extraordinarily well written, organized and presented, this edition of "Women in Fragments: Alternative Histories of the Roman Republic" from the University of Wisconsin Press is a unique and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, and college/university library Gender/Women's Studies and Roman History collections and supplemental Ancient Rome curriculum studies lists.
Editorial Note: Jessica H. Clark (https://classics.fsu.edu/person/jessica-h-clark) is a professor in the Department of Classics at Florida State University. She is also the author of Triumph in Defeat: Military Loss and the Roman Republic and co-editor of Brill's Companion to Military Defeat in Ancient Mediterranean Society.
Deadly Charade
Lynette Eason & Kelly Underwood
Fleming H. Revell Company
c/o Baker Publishing Group
www.revellbooks.com
9780800747640, $18.99, PB, 320pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Charade-Undercover-Investigations-Relationship/dp/080074764X
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/deadly-charade-lynette-eason/1149555801
Synopsis: Special Agent Kira Miller's new career at the FBI has started -- in translations. It's not the opportunity she was hoping for to show off her skills, until she detects a lead in some paperwork. Now assigned an undercover role, she's in her element as she gathers intel on an art smuggling ring. She's daunted not by the mission but by her cover -- posing as a married woman to the fake husband she met less than twenty-four hours earlier.
Special Agent Bryce Lambert's assignment to go undercover as a newlywed couple with Kira has the two of them moving next door to the prime suspects, and a relationship is the last thing he wants, fake or real. With secret auctions and hidden treasures, there's plenty to keep them busy -- if only they can play the part their lives and careers depend upon while keeping their own hearts in check.
Critique: An original, rapidly paced, and fun read from cover to cover, "Deadly Charade" by co-authors Lynette Eason and Kelly underwood will prove to be a riveting novel that will fully engaging reader's with an interest stories featuring a deft blending of FBI themed romance, suspense, mystery, and undercover crime fighting. Exceptionally and unreservedly recommended for personal reading lists and community library Mystery/Suspense collections, it should be noted that this paperback edition of "Deadly Charade from Revell is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $18.99). Of special note for librarians is that there is also a large print edition of "Deadly Charade" from Gale, A Cengage Company (9781420539196, $36.00).
Editorial Note #1: Lynette Eason (www.LynetteEason.com) is the award-winning author of Twilight Tactics and co-author of Deadly Charade. She has written many thrilling romantic suspense series, including Lake City Heroes, Extreme Measures, Danger Never Sleeps, Blue Justice, Women of Justice, Deadly Reunions, Hidden Identity, and Elite Guardians.
Editorial Note #2: Kelly Underwood (www.KellyUnderwoodAuthor.com) works with co-author Lynette Eason as her mentor and lead author. Her novel, "Defending Honor" (part of the Elite Guardians series), earned third place in the Selah Awards and was a finalist in the Carol Awards.
Helen Dumont
Reviewer
John Taylor's Bookshelf
Carved Lovespoons: The Art of Designing and Carving Traditional Wooden Spoons
Dave Western
The GMC Group
www.gmcbooks.com
9781784947309, $29.99, PB, 152pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Carved-Lovespoons-Designing-Carving-Traditional/dp/178494730X
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/carved-lovespoons-dave-western/1148971796
Synopsis: Centuries ago, young Welshmen began the tradition of creating beautiful wooden spoons to give to their sweethearts. As well as being functional objects, lovespoons were filled with symbolic meanings that expressed the carver's feelings. Today, these hand-crafted tokens are given as romantic gifts and as thoughtful keepsakes to celebrate various special occasions.
Professional lovespoon carver Dave Western has spent many years perfecting this unique art form, and "Carved Lovespoons" is his DIY guide to creating these timeless, treasured heirlooms. Here you will find everything you need to carve your own spoon, including sections on selecting woods, using and maintaining tools, and applying long-lasting finishes.
So, if you're looking for that personal, heartfelt gift, then a bespoke lovespoon carved by hand is a particularly special one.
Critique: This large format (8.3 x 0.5 x 10.9 inches, 1.34 pounds) paperback edition of "Carved Lovespoons: The Art of Designing and Carving Traditional Wooden Spoons" by woodworking expert Dave Western is profusely illustrated throughout in full color and the perfect DIY introduction to the woodworking art and craft of making a classic and unique 'lovespoon'. Thoroughly 'reader/user' friendly in organization and presentation, "Carved Lovespoons: The Art of Designing and Carving Traditional Wooden Spoons" is ideal for the novice and of immense value for the experienced woodcarver. This paperback edition of "Carved Lovespoons: The Art of Designing and Carving Traditional Wooden Spoons" from the GMC Group is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, and community library woodworking/wood crafting instructional reference collections.
Editorial Note: Dave Western was born in Cardiff, Wales, and has been in the wood trade for nearly thirty years. Lovespoon carving is Dave's passion. While creating unique, innovative carvings that respect and honor the tradition, Dave constantly strives to expand the boundaries of lovespoon design. A long-time resident of British Columbia in Canada, Dave's work can be viewed on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KqrSe8zdfw
John Taylor
Reviewer
Kathryn Atwood's Bookshelf
Coming Home
Jack Dell
https://www.jackbbedell.com
Distant Thunder LLC
www.cominghomejackdell.com
9798996495115, $26.99, HC, 104pp
9798996495108, $9.99, PB, 104pp
9798996495122, $9.99, Kindle
9798996495139, $0.99, Audiobook, 58 Minutes
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Home-Paintings-Reflections-Inescapable/dp/B0HHPS528H
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/coming-home-jack-dell/1151436855
"Coming Home" is an apt title for this autobiographical contemplation of Jack Dell's 70-plus years. Many of his poems express an intense desire to explain the philosophies behind his life choices and some lines typical of this theme are included in the titular poem:
"All of us have ups and downs just trying to survive
And at times we all must struggle to pay our bills and stay alive
I know that I'm not perfect, as a father, husband or a man
But I'm coming home against the tide and doing the best I can"
Dell is absolutely dedicated to end rhyme, slightly less so to meter:
"Before I was One"
"In every single river town some streets go up and some go down
The closer one gets to the river, the more rats you will find
The further one goes up the hill, you leave the rats behind
But for every hundred little rats beside the river's edge
There lives one much fatter rat behind some hilltop hedge."
While most of Dell's work is biographical, some is simply humorous as can be seen in the following lines from The Crazy Signs of Life":
"Do signs have any value, or is their purpose to blur and confuse
You see a sign with a fork in the road, but it doesn't say which
to choose
We always had "slow" children signs out on our front lawn
And mom said raising "dumbbells" was how she got so strong
Driving out in Yellowstone, sign said bear to left
Looked out to my right... and saw a big one on a cliff
Free Gas with Hot Tamales sign on a Mexican food cart
The food was so delicious, I forgot the other part
No smoking signs on the door, of stores that sell cigars
And signs that say don't drink and drive beside the roadside bars..."
Another humorous poem, and one in which I feel Dell hit his technical stride, is "Buffalo, Long, Long, Long Ago":
"There was a terrible fight one Saturday night, beer bottles, stools,
and knives
Johnny told two big drunks that their underarms stunk, and that
started the fight of our lives.
It was me and O'Rourke and his brother "The Stork" against men
that were twice our own size
But it looked like we'd win, 'til their cousin stepped in, which led
to an awful surprise..."
Most of the poems are personal, some mythical, and many are lyrics to songs currently available on Spotify and Apple Music. Dell's impressionistic art, apparently created with pastels, is as interestingly conceived as are his poems. He also includes pages of biographical prose as well as a list of his favorite books.
Jack Dell is a sincere and self-aware seeker of wisdom whose present goal is to look back with kindness on himself and others and who is eager to share what he's learned. "Coming Home" is an enjoyable distillation of one man's philosophy expressed in simple verse and visual art.
Editorial Note: Jack Dell (https://www.jackbbedell.com) is not your typical author; he's an American entrepreneur and a lifelong adventurer. This book of poems and paintings has been fifty years in the making. Ever since he was a child growing up in Rockland County, New York, Jack has been trying to live his life to the fullest, continually learning from others and drawing upon the wisdom of some of the world's greatest thinkers and writers, including Teilhard de Chardin, Napoleon Hill, Arthur Shopenhauer, Aristotle, Carlos Castaneda, and a host of others.
He has spent hundreds of days out on the ocean and in the woods of the Eastern Shore, the forests of northern New Mexico, and the rolling hills of Missouri. The beauty and wonder of being out on the water and off in the woods alone continually rejuvenated his spirit as he contemplated the universal human journey and navigated the battlefields of life.
Jack has been with his wife, Laura, since 1992. He has three adult children. Jack and Laura spend most of their time between their home outside Nashville and their farm in northwest Missouri.
On the Lip of Night
Julie Esther Fisher
https://julieestherfisher.com
Finishing Line Press
https://finishinglinepress.com
9798899906848, $47.99, HC, 46pp
9798899906411, $17.99, PB, 45pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Lip-Night-Julie-Esther-Fisher/dp/B0HJ9QHN9V
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/on-the-lip-of-night-julie-esther-fisher/1151270442
"Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary."
--Kahlil Gibran
There is definitely "a dash of the dictionary" in Julie Esther Fisher's new collection, "On the Lip of Night." I know this because I had to look up an occasional word. But while encountering these exceptional poems, I spent far less time with a reference book and far more being overwhelmed with the "joy and pain and wonder" of well-written verse.
The prodigious skill of this Pushcart-nominated poet is clear in her preface poem in which she encapsulates the simultaneous exaltation and limitations of childhood in four simple lines:
A girl on a swing
watches the shadow of her legs on asphalt
She travels like a pale pint of milk through the sky
on the creaking chains of childhood
Speaking of dairy products, "At the Hour of Milk" begins with the sadness (or fear) experienced by a group of cows when their farmer first utilized electricity in the barn. Not only did the bovines sense something intrinsically wrong when bright artificial light replaced the softness of early dawn, but as the poem progresses, Fisher notes that a precious human experience was also lost:
"His boy used to join him in the barn
at the hour of milk
when sweetness
instinctive in both
called lip to dipper
and they tasted brightness."
Along with its beautifully portrayed pathos, "At the Hour of Milk" juggles images of light and darkness with effortless brilliance. The buckets meant to capture the cow's milk in the bright light are described as "deep black holes," a color then compared to a line of ravens standing in a line "reaching the farm/like the new electricity."
Fisher's masterful ability to stretch a single metaphor through an entire poem is apparent in "Bone Mountain" where she describes a monastery as "an atlas bone holding up/the heavens." The older people there, she says, are "already half fused into the mountain's spine." She wonders which of her bones she should "give to the gods" and ends the poem with these lines which suggest both weight training and death:
"While I weight it out
The gossip I hear
the clack of so many femur bones buried
in the mountain"
As the Gibran quote implies, poetry is often rooted in pain and this is most notably evident in "Masterclass" and "Hemlines," poems that only hint at their source of suffering; Fisher's meanings are often hidden within her beautiful lines and take more than a single reading to discern.
Not so with "Take My Breath Away" in which Fisher presents jarringly humorous images: the breath of ancient British Queen Boudicca crashes "through the traffic at Midtown" before she parks her chariot in the poet's driveway where it is inspected by "the AAA guy" who "breathes new life into it."
While tripping out on Fisher's phenomenal imagery, it's easy to overlook her skillful use of assonance and consonance which makes her poems a great pleasure to read aloud, such as these lines from "Save the Date":
"I shrink myself into the darkness
of the little black dress.
Death zips me in.
A new companion, he does
for me, everything but
change his mind.
He cleans with me, pays my bills. Tells
jokes, his jaws a crowd of
tombstones."
And because of its internal rhyme, the following poem title is simply fun to say, especially if you (like me) have a Chicago accent:
"The landlord is at the door"
Julie Esther Fisher is a prodigiously talented poet who handles the English language like an artist utilizes paint. Her experiences and interests are extensive and her ability to create connections with imagery is exceptional. Lovers of good poetry will find themselves reading and rereading the verses in "On the Lip of Night" as they seek to uncover the truth beneath each beautiful line.
Editorial Note: Raised in London and now living in the hills of western Massachusetts, Julie Esther Fisher (https://julieestherfisher.com) has long been drawn to the hidden lives of people, places, and the natural world. Her fiction and poetry explore memory, belonging, and restoration, finding in both art and nature a language for what is difficult to name. Her writing grows less from a search for answers than from a faith in curiosity, close attention, and the quiet conversations that literature invites between writer and reader.
Her stories and poetry have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Waxwing, Radar Poetry, The Citron Review, Prime Number Magazine, Tahoma Literary Review, On the Seawall, Sky Island Journal, Litmosphere, Leon Literary Review, Passager's 2025 Contest Issue, and many other publications. Her work has received numerous honours, including the Grand Prize in the Stories That Need to Be Told Anthology, Sheila-Na-Gig's Editor's Choice Award in Poetry, and Sunspot Lit's Rigel Award. She has also been shortlisted for numerous literary prizes and received multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. She holds degrees in fiction writing and counselling psychology.
Julie lives with her classical musician husband and their two rescue dogs on several hundred acres of conserved land in Hawley, Massachusetts. There she writes, designs gardens, and lives among the changing seasons, the quiet persistence of the natural world, and the hidden stories waiting to be discovered within it.
The Ring of the Dark Elves
Victoria Randall
Independently Published
9798183838497, $12.45 HC, $8.99 Kindle, 467 pages
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Ring-Dark-Elves-Victoria-Randall/dp/B0H6RH2Q3T
In the introduction to her book, "The Ring of the Dark Elves," Victoria Randall states that composer Richard Wagner combined the ancient Viking Volsunga Saga with the Germanic Nibelungenlied legend to create his epic "Ring Cycle" operas. Randall has taken the same characters who have been singing Wagner's arias on international stages since 1876 and placed them in a literary work. She is not the first modern writer to do this, but I can't imagine anyone else creating a more accessible and beautiful version of these ancient narratives.
While reading "The Ring of the Dark Elves," I was fascinated to discover just how much Tolkien had dipped into the same (as he put it) "Caldron of Story" that inspired Wagner. And while the Oxford don created his own mythology from what he discovered in that cauldron, I must admit that I have never been able to get through "The Silmarillion" though I've tried more than once. Though Tolkien's story was his own, I've always felt that his prose was influenced by something very ancient; after all, he personally translated the Volsunga Saga into English and, while participating in two pre-Inkling literary circles, read it aloud in its original Old Norse.
Though Randall's plot sticks closely to Wagner's, and though there is certainly something a bit lofty about her prose, in my opinion it is more beautifully written than Tolkien's. Consider the following excerpt from the first chapter describing Urda, guardian of the well of wisdom, as Odin leaves after his costly drink:
"She stood and watched until the shadows of night swallowed him. Tears blinded her own eyes, and she let them fall. So proud, she thought, so mighty, and so weak. She turned at last and went to sit beside the well in the darkness, as the stars began to shine in the cold remote sky."
Or this one, describing Asgard:
"Scattered within the walls were other halls: Breidablik, where Nanna lived in lonely splendor now that Baldr was gone; Bilskirnir, where Thor lived with his beautiful Sif; and Vingolf, with its high seats for Odin's wife Frigga and the other women of the Aesir. There he could just catch the movement of the leaves in Freya's garden, where grew the tree with golden apples, the secret of the Aesirs' youth and strength. Beside it stood Valhalla, many-doored, where the heroes lived who had been brought from many battles; his heart swelled at sight of it. Far beyond the cliffs, shrouded in cloud now on this blustery day, gleamed Bifrost the rainbow bridge, its smooth shape shifting and shining with color as it arched down to the lands of men."
Speaking of mythological characters, Randall includes an exhaustive list of them at the beginning of the book, which is helpful, but each is so uniquely drawn in the text and introduced with such tension that the reader can easily keep them straight. It's rare that a writer excels equally well at characterization, dialogue, and description, but Randall, a phenomenal storyteller, accomplishes this with seeming effortlessness.
Readers who enjoy stories deeply rooted in ancient myth told in in breathtakingly beautiful prose will not be able to stop turning the pages of "The Ring of the Dark Elves."
Editorial Note: Victoria Randall lives in Seattle. She has worked as a registered nurse, waitress, house and sign painter, retail clerk, social worker, post office clerk, CNA and foster parent. A graduate of Oberlin College, she is the author of "The Children in Hiding" series, "Shadowcat: Tales from the Edge of Sleep," and "The Golden Helm: More Tales from the Edge of Sleep." She believes in the power of story, especially science fiction and fantasy, to help us appreciate the textures of our own reality and create new visions for our lives.
A Moth Collection
Anna Ojascastro Guzon
Finishing Line Press
https://finishinglinepress.com
9798899904738, $32.99, HC, 60pp
9798899904554, $22.99, PB, 60pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Moth-Collection-Anna-Ojascastro-Guzon/dp/B0GYVBG4MN
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-moth-collection-anna-ojascastro-guzon/1150046090
While reading Anna Ojascastro Guzon's "A Moth Collection," I often felt as if I was back in university English lit classes, participating in a task I once adored: the deciphering of poems. Ojascastro Guzon doesn't hide her secrets too far below the surface, but she often does hide them, so some require a careful first or even a second encounter.
For instance, it was only when I read the last lines of "Agape" that I realized the entire poem describes someone embracing the idea of love only to be wounded like a fish caught on a hook:
"Blame her for mistaking the bait
for nourishment.
Will she wise-up to the lore of living happily ever
before she's reeled up,
eyes and mouth agape, unaware?"
But a careful consideration of the poems in "A Moth Collection" is not at all unpleasant, given the poet's beautiful way with words. Consider these lines from "Homestead":
"...Feeling as if you've
swallowed that fluorescent sunset and kept it
safe behind your sternum, so it never bleeds
beyond the edges of that one afternoon
when you first felt you were a part of everything..."
The poems encompass a wide variety of tone and topic, ranging from humor ("I Look Fine in Bifocals") to generational trauma ("My Parents are Dreaming About Hiding from the Japanese Soldiers Again"). Some of Ojascastro Guzon's work is informed by her study of medicine ("A Crude Map of the Brain") and love ("Solution") as well as other artists ("A Log in the Eye").
Ojascastro Guzon's powerful use of imagery, which I believe is her real forte, is seen clearly in "The Quiet Award," a poem that illustrates the culture clash experienced by her mother during a move from the Philippines to the U.S. Here the poet describes the older woman's first encounter with the dirty snow on specific midwestern streets ("South Grand Boulevard and Chippewa") while clad only in sandals that were "the best brand one could/buy from the market in Vigan."
The beautiful and varied poems in "A Moth Collection" hold their secrets just below the surface and anyone who enjoys excellent writing will no doubt be inspired to unearth them.
Editorial Note: Anna Ojascastro Guzon is a writer, mother, teacher, former physician, and co-founder of YourWords STL, a nonprofit organization that uses creative writing workshops to amplify the voices of marginalized youth. She received an MD from the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine and and MFA from The New School Graduate Writing Program. She has worked as an executive director, programming director, teacher, and editor of thirteen volumes of student anthologies, during her time with YourWords STL. She has received fellowships from UMKC, The New School, and the Education Equity Center, as well as a National Endowment of the Arts Grant for her work with YWSTL. She also teaches for Washington University in St. Louis. Ojacastro Guzon is a second generation Filipino American and the youngest of seven children. She lives with her husband, two children, and dog in St. Louis, Missouri.
Where Eagles Roost
Mara Purl
Bellekeep Books
https://bellekeepbooks.com/books
9781936878857, $12.95 PB, $9.99 Kindle, 270pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/When-Eagles-Roost-Milford-Haven-Novellas/dp/1936878852
"Where Eagles Roost," Book Five in Mara Purl's novella series (and 15th in her Milford-Haven saga) places professional wildlife portrait painter/art teacher Miranda Jones in an unusual honeymoon; she and her new astronomer/ecologist husband, Corneilius, are working in different capacities (and at different locations) for the University of Alaska.
Miranda preps for classes, accepts cups of tea, works mornings at a museum, meets a scallywag artist who attempts to seduce her, and tries unsuccessfully to sleep during Alaska's uncomfortable 24-hour daylight before eventually reuniting with Cornelius. They visit museums, camp out, and enjoy each other's company.
The title of the book comes from the fascinating snippets scattered throughout the text that detail the family life of bald eagles, information that is made even more interesting when Miranda encounters one. Also appealing to readers of nonfiction are the discoveries Miranda makes, both by reading books and in person, as she does when viewing a glacier:
"While all this suspended motion was an illusion, it was true that the cosmic clock moved both slower and faster in arctic territory, as though time itself had been returned to its original, liquid state. To be a glacier, twenty-five acres or more of ice had to be on the move, and the Columbia qualified. The glacier receded or progressed according to temperature variations, pushing forward its terminal moraine... or slinking back from it with a barrier of silt-filled "bergy bits." As it did, it reformed the terrain, leaving its signature U-shaped valley - boulders scoured, rocks pulverized to a gray powder as fine as talc - the very tool for the hand of an ice-goddess never satisfied with her work and always improving it."
Readers who appreciate stories about intellectually curious characters and who love quiet educational adventures will no doubt find much to love in "Where Eagles Roost."
Editorial Note: Mara Purl is the best-selling author of the Milford-Haven Novels & Novellas, which have won more than 95 book awards and become #1 bestsellers on multiple lists. Her serial novels are uniquely structured to suit new media formats and stand-alone novellas and novelettes enhance her saga. Mara pioneered small-town fiction for women with her popular and critically acclaimed series. She has a loyal following in the Women's Fiction genre and has become a spokeswoman for both authors and for readers of Women's Fiction.
Dating Again: Field Tested, Science-Backed Secrets for Finding Love (and Sanity) in Your Second Act
Paula Caligiuri, PhD
Porta Terra Press
9798997243104, $TBA, PB, 152pp
Kindle: ASIN: B0HD5ZBGG3, $9.00
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Dating-Again-Field-Tested-Science-Backed-Secrets-ebook/dp/B0HD5ZBGG3
After her 20-year marriage ended, Dr. Paula Caligiuri was, at the age of 52, single and ready to mingle. But as she states so humorously in her new book, everything she knew about dating, including advice from well-meaning friends, had "expired." She needed a new game plan with a new set of rules.
She found it via her own profession as a behavioral scientist. Because Dr. Caligiuri had already spent more than three decades "studying what helps people succeed in unfamiliar contexts," she utilized her own coined term - "cultural agility" - or adaptability, to the unfamiliar world of midlife dating. Not only did she eventually find lasting love, but she wrote a book: "Dating Again: Field Tested, Science-Backed Secrets for Finding Love (and Sanity) in Your Second Act."
The chapters of "Dating Again: Field Tested, Science-Backed Secrets for Finding Love (and Sanity) in Your Second Act" are organized under the following headings:
Part 1: Overcome What Holds You Back
Part 2: Know Yourself
Part 3: Get Out There
Part 4: Sex and Desire
Part 5: Endings and Beginnings
Although "Dating Again" is, as the subtitle suggests, backed by scientific research, and although its author is a PhD, its tone is geared for the general reader. It includes a plethora of sidebars as well as a thematically related mixtape for each chapter. For instance, the mixtape for Chapter Three: "Tame Your Fear of Rejection" is as follows:
1. The First Cut Is the Deepest - Rod Stewart
2. Foolish Heart - Steve Perry
3. What's Love Got to Do with It - Tina Turner
4. Alone - Heart
5. Feelin' Stronger Every Day - Chicago
6. Desperado - Eagles
7. The Rose - Bette Midler
8. Open Your Heart - Madonna
9. Hit Me with Your Best Shot - Pat Benatar
10. I'm Still Standing - Elton John
The real strength of the book are the examples taken from the 65+ dates Dr. Caligiuri went on. She utilizes her experiences to support each point of her text, sometimes in a vastly entertaining and memorable way. For instance, in chapter 8, titled, "Recognize Your Romantic Blind Spots," she states that "Biology is bossy. Sometimes your brain takes one look at a good-looking stranger and whispers, Yes, that one."
She then relates a story about an extraordinarily handsome guy, "Gerry," who she communicated with via video calls. When they finally decided to meet in person, it became clear that Gerry's good looks were not connected to a considerate personality. As he took his dogs for a walk, he left his date trailing behind, doing her best to avoid diarrheal bursts emanating from one of the dogs. Apparently, biology can lie.
And Dr. Caligiuri's writing is often just plain funny:
"It took me a few weeks, but I slowly appreciated that this 15-year-old Civic [her date's car] was, in a way, the perfect metaphor for Jeff himself: practical, reliable, and not remotely concerned with impressing anyone. The night of our first date, that elderly Civic became the scene of an unexpected revelation: Jeff wasn't only good at engineering. He was also very good at chemistry. Our first kiss had no business being that good in a car that had no business hosting it."
"Dating Again" contains a wealth of easily accessible scientific information that Dr. Caligiuri deftly illustrates with a plethora of entertaining dating stories. It is certain to be enormously helpful to those seeking love on the other side of 40.
Editorial Note: Paula Caligiuri (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Caligiuri) is a behavioral scientist, Distinguished Professor of International Business at Northeastern University, author, life coach, and co-founder of Skiilify. For more than thirty years, her work has focused on how people navigate unfamiliar, ambiguous, and consequential situations. That expertise turned out to be remarkably useful when she returned to dating at 52.
After more than 65 first dates, Paula began examining her experiences with the same curiosity, skepticism, and fondness for evidence she brings to her research. Dating (Again) combines psychological science with field-tested lessons from modern dating, including a few lessons she would have preferred to learn less publicly. She wrote the book to help later daters recognize patterns, make clearer decisions, and remain open to love without surrendering their standards, confidence, or sense of humor.
Paula has authored or co-authored several books, including Build Your Cultural Agility and Live for a Living (with Andy Palmer), as well as numerous research articles. She teaches two LinkedIn Learning courses taken by professionals around the world and co-hosts the podcast International Business Today. She has appeared as an expert on CNN and CNN International and is a Fellow of both the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology and the Academy of International Business.
Through Skiilify, Paula develops practical tools that help people build the human skills needed to navigate professional situations with high levels of uncertainty and novelty. She also created Date Wise, an app for modern daters who want to stop wasting time on the wrong relationships and date with more success and confidence. You can follow Paula on Instagram: @DrPaulaCaligiuri
The Robe Squad: A Charleston Tail
Arthur Russel Smith, author
Craig Orback, illustrator
https://arthurrussellsmith.com
Seacoast Press
https://www.seacoastpress.com
9798950391873, $TBA
Pre-Publication Review
Author's Website
https://arthurrussellsmith.com
Artie and Gizmo, a man and his tiny Yorkshire Terrier, live right off Boston Harbor where they watch the ships sail past their little home. One evening as they stroll along the Harborwalk, dressed, as usual, in their bathrobes, they encounter a shivering little mouse.
After a veterinarian named Valerie gives the creature a clean bill of health, Artie and Gizmo take their new friend home where Artie crochets a tiny bathrobe for "Mouse," making him the third member of "the robe squad".
The only quibbles I had with this lovely little story were a few of its wildly unrealistic scenarios, especially the ones depicting a dog whose ancestors were bred to catch rodents making friendly overtures to a mouse. Yes, "The Robe Squad" is a children's book, but because Craig Orbach's engaging illustrations are styled realistically, I wondered if they might lead to confusion in young children about the natural relationship between dogs and mice.
Despite this issue, I was completely charmed by "The Robe Squad." Its themes of togetherness, empathy for others, and kindness to small creatures are gently yet powerfully told. And the images of Boston Harbor are so beautiful, The Greater Boston Convention & Visitor's Bureau should find a way to utilize them.
"The Robe Squad" will certainly be embraced by animal lovers of all ages, especially those with geographical or emotional ties to the Boston area.
Editorial Note: Arthur Russell Smith (https://arthurrussellsmith.com), also known as 'The Robe Guy' is a first-time author from Hanover, MA. He currently resides in Charlestown, MA, with his 2.6 lb. teacup Yorkshire Terrier, Gizmo (The Robe Dog). Growing up, Arthur loved to read, with some of his favorite books including The Hardy Boys series and James and the Giant Peach. As a child, he also loved to write, authoring and illustrating three bare books: Dinosaur Duo, Bird Feeding, and Nintendo: Game Tips and Strategies (for the OG NES of course!).
Upon entering university, he planned to study English literature and writing; however, he discovered a love for science and instead focused on biochemistry. After college, he spent nearly a decade working in the lab as a scientist before moving to the business side of science, working I the life sciences and biotech industries for nearly 20 years.
When not working on his latest story for The Robe Squad, he loves spending time with his family, including his parents, his two brothers, and four nieces and nephews. He loves building Legos, listening to podcasts, and reading. He is also a huge fan of all Boston sports teams, especially the Boston Celtics. In fact, if you're ever watching or at a Celtics game, you might see him in the crowd wearing a green Boston Celtics robe.
Pug and Puppy
Janina Kelly, author
Tommy Hardman, illustrator
Independently Published
9783952619070, $19.99, HC, 17pp (Ages 2-8)
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Pug-Puppy-Paula-Janina-Kelly/dp/B0HFDCPRP8
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pug-and-puppy-janina-kelly/1151095079
"Pug and Puppy," the third in Janina Kelly's Pug series, tells the story of Paula Pug, who lives happily with her human until, in a charming mountain cafe, the two meet another human with a puppy named Ben.
One thing leads to another and soon the humans (as well as their canines) are living together. Paula is not happy about this. Ben is young, energetic, and his squeaky toy is far too loud. Paula complains about Ben to her Marmot Woodland friends. What will they suggest? And will their advice help Paula change her mind about Ben?
The print of the text is rather small, so I can't imagine any grandmothers reading this book to their grandkids unless their bifocals are up to date. But if they can figure out a way to do so without hurting their eyes, both adults and young children will certainly delight in Kelly's gently rolling rhymes accompanied by Hardman's brightly colored illustrations which together tell a sweet story of first impressions, acceptance, and what it takes to be a friend.
Editorial Note #1 -- Jamina Kelly: For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to tell stories. I chose a different path at first, but when I became a mother I re-discovered the enchanting world of picture books and fell in love with rhyme. My first book was written for my son, about our family dog... who truly did grow up in a castle! We live in Switzerland, and one of our favourite mountain villages inspired the story.
Editorial Note #2: Tommy Hardman is a children's book illustrator based in the UK. He believes stories come alive when children can see themselves in the characters. With a passion for expressive, emotion-filled artwork, Tommy bring words to life through vibrant, warmly textured scenes that children love to explore. His work focuses on inclusivity, imagination and visual storytelling.
Little Bear Betty
Betty Pasghetti
Illustrated by Sunkies Illustration
Betty Pasghetti's Childrens Books
9798240814648, $21.99, HC, 36pp (Ages 3-7)
9798193990390, $11.99, PB, 36pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Little-Bear-Betty-Pasghetti/dp/B0HG25QT1J
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/little-bear-betty-betty-pasghetti/1151227888
A bear cub named Betty is excited because Mother is making spaghetti, Betty's favorite food. As she leaves her woodland home to call her father and brother in for supper, Betty cannot contain her excitement and tells her friend, Millie Mouse, the news. Millie laughs at her. Why? Because Betty pronounces the word "spaghetti" as "pasghetti."
Betty laughs right along with Millie and then Hopper, a rabbit with whom Betty has a similar conversation. But when she encounters Mr. Blandings, a wise old turtle, the reader realizes that Betty is a little embarrassed by her speech inability. Mr. Blandings thinks he may have a way to help her. Will it work?
"Little Bear Betty" is a fun, tender way to approach speech issues in children. The charmingly bright, bold images will certainly grab the attention of young book lovers while the gently rhyming text will be fun for adults to read and children to hear.
Editorial Note: Betty Pasghetti is a mother and children's book author who writes with heart, humor, and a deep appreciation for the everyday triumphs of childhood. As an autism mom whose son was nonverbal until age six and continues to navigate speech challenges into adulthood, Betty knows firsthand the patience, dedication, and small miracles that accompany learning to speak. Inspired by real family moments around the dinner table, Little Bear Betty was born from her passion for turning tricky syllables into playful, confidence-building adventures.
When she isn't writing or dreaming up new rhyming adventures, she's celebrating life's quiet victories with her family. Driven by a passion for heartwarming storytelling, Betty writes engaging tales designed to encourage early readers, support language development, and bring families together at bedtime. She finds endless inspiration in the laughter, curiosity, and boundless energy of her sons, who are her greatest joy.
Kathryn Atwood, Senior Reviewer
https://kathrynjatwood.com
Mary Cowper's Bookshelf
A Woman's Place Is in the Story: Seeing Women in the Biblical Narrative
Sandra L. Glahn
InterVarsity Press
www.ivpress.com
9781514011072, $24.99, PB, 240pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Womans-Place-Story-Biblical-Narrative/dp/1514011077
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-womans-place-is-in-the-story-sandra-l-glahn/1148595466
Synopsis: We misread the Bible when women are left out. When we ignore them, marginalize them, or dismiss them as brief cameos.
These have long been common approaches to Christian teaching on the women of the Bible. The result? We miss their significance in the biblical story and, in turn, misunderstand Scripture itself.
With the publication of "A Woman's Place Is in the Story: Seeing Women in the Biblical Narrative", Professor Sandra Glahn challenges this pattern, calling us to recognize how biblical narrative actually works. When we do, we see that women are not incidental to the story but essential to it.
In "A Woman's Place Is in the Story", Professor Glahn models how we can better read stories in their literary context and understand why the original authors included what they did. She reexamines both well-known and neglected passages, such as Tamar and Judah, the Hebrew midwives, Abigail, and the Samaritan woman at the well. Even when they appear briefly, women in Scripture move the plot forward and reveal profound truths about who God is.
"A Woman's Place Is in the Story" explores:
1. How leaving women out of the biblical story changes the plot and meaning that was intended.
2. How distorting women as they appear in the biblical story affects the way we view women in general.
3. How misunderstanding how women appear in the story affects the way we view God.
Women have always been part of the whole story of God. Now with Professor Glahn's "A Woman's Place Is in the Story", you will discover how rightly seeing women in the biblical narrative leads to more faithful interpretation and application for the benefit of all God's people.
It's time to tell the whole story.
Critique: Fascinating, informative, exceptionally well written, organized and presented, "A Woman's Place Is in the Story: Seeing Women in the Biblical Narrative" by Professor Sandra L. Glahn of the Dallas Theological Seminary is an extraordinary and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, church, seminary, community, and college/university library Biblical Theology/Criticism/Theory collections and supplemental Biblical History and Women's Studies curriculum lists. It should be noted for the personal reading lists of clergy, seminary students, and the personal reading lists of non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that this paperback edition of "A Woman's Place Is in the Story: Seeing Women in the Biblical Narrative" from IVP is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $24.99) and as a complete and unabridged audio book (Christianaudio, 9798212636001, $45.95, CD).
Editorial Note: Sandra L. Glahn (https://sandraglahn.com) is Professor of Media Arts and Worship at the Dallas Theological Seminary, where her emphases are first-century backgrounds related to women, culture, gender, and the arts. She has authored or edited more than twenty books, including Nobody's Mother, Vindicating the Vixens, and co-authored Sexual Intimacy in Marriage.
I Played My Best for Him!
Olapeju Simoyan
Simola Publishing
9798991657068, $24.99, HC, 100pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Played-Best-Him-Inspiring-traditions/dp/B0FWXSC76D
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/i-played-my-best-for-him-olapeju-simoyan/1146449893
Synopsis: Now in a second edition with an informative Foreword by Mary Rorro, "I Played My Best for Him!: The Inspiring Stories Behind the Little Drummer Boy and Other Christmas Favorites" by Olapeju Simoyan is collection of essays complementing the album "Peju Sings! The Little Drummer Boy and Other Christmas Favorites", which features thirteen Christmas songs recorded by the author and was first released in 2023.
In "I Played My Best for Him!", Simoyan explores the stories behind each iconic Christmas song, delving into the lives of the lyricists and composers, the context in which the songs were written, and other intriguing details.
Readers will gain a fresh perspective on beloved carols like "O Holy Night" and "Silent Night" as they uncover their rich history. The themes of hope and peace that resonate through these timeless songs are also reflected in newer classics like "Feliz Navidad," which transcended cultural barriers to become a bilingual favorite.
The educational content of "I Played My Best for Him!" will appeal to a broad and appreciative audience -- including even those who may not celebrate Christmas. For those who do, it offers surprising insights into the origins of some of their favorite carols. No matter your religious or cultural background, "I Played My Best for Him!" invites you to be inspired by its stories and enjoy its message of celebration and reflection year-round.
Critique: Informative, fascinating, and a unique contribution especially recommended for personal, church, school, community and college/university library Christmas Hymns and History collections, it should be noted that this hardcover edition of "I Played My Best for Him!: The Inspiring Stories Behind the Little Drummer Boy and Other Christmas Favorites" from Simola Publishing is also readily available in paperback (9798991657051, $14.99) and in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99).
Editorial Note: Dr. Olapeju Simoyan is a physician, board certified in family medicine and addiction medicine who strongly believes in the integration of the arts and sciences in healthcare and education. She writes on a variety of subjects, including healthcare, personal development and education, using photography to reinforce her writing in a compelling way. Dr Simoyan's online essays can be found at Pulse - Voices from the Heart of Medicine, KevinMD, Doximity and Patheos.
Mary Cowper
Reviewer
Micah Andrew's Bookshelf
A Glacier Gallery: True Tales and Hidden History
Ray Djuff, Scott Tanner, and Bill Lundgren
Farcountry Press
www.farcountrypress.com
9781560379188, $25.95, PB, 152pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Glacier-Gallery-Tales-Hidden-History/dp/1560379189
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-glacier-gallery-ray-djuff/1151019789
Synopsis: "A Glacier Gallery: True Tales and Hidden History" by the collaborative team of Ray Djuff, Scott Tanner, and Bill Lundgren is an impressively illustrated compendium of stories associated with the history of Glacier National Park.
Going beyond the postcard views and uncovering the fascinating people, places, mysteries, and moments that shape Glacier National Park, "A Glacier Gallery: True Tales and Hidden History" is packed from cover to cover with surprising stories and rare historical insights.
"A Glacier Gallery" also offers a deeper look at one of America's most beloved national parks through 66 engaging essays from three longtime Glacier experts and features:
Hidden history, quirky legends, and little-known Glacier tales
Stories of railroads, chalets, wildlife, tourism, and park life
The mystery behind Glacier's unusual landmarks and local lore
How crews battle the legendary Big Drift on Going-to-the-Sun Road
218 rare photographs and illustrations
Convenient locator map for exploring featured locations
Critique: "A Glacier Gallery: True Tales and Hidden History" from Farcountry Press is an ideal memento for Glacier National Park travelers, history lovers, railroad enthusiasts, and anyone curious about the hidden side of the American West. It will also be a unique and popular pick for community and college/university library Regional American History collections.
Editorial Note #1: Ray Djuff is a former daily newspaper editor. He became entranced with Glacier and Waterton parks in the 1970s during four summers spent at the Prince of Wales Hotel. He returns annually to visit and do research for future writing projects. He has produced 12 books related to the parks, variously as author, co-author, editor, and co-editor. Djuff has a double major in history and political science from the University of Calgary.
Editorial Note #2: Scott Tanner retired after more than 30 years with the Federal Aviation Administration, serving as an air traffic safety inspector for the final 13 years of his career. A confirmed railroad nut from a very young age, Tanner's interests gravitated toward railroad history and artifacts. Rather than developing an expertise with railroad operations, he is far more interested in railroad advertising and promotion, specifically that of the Great Northern Railway. Tanner has published articles on a variety of Great Northern history topics, including a biography of artist Winold Reiss and the story of the Great Northern's radio advertising program, Empire Builders. Scott and his wife Jan recently moved from western Washington to a quiet location in northwestern Montana.
Editorial Note #3: Montana native Bill Lundgren found himself immersed in all things Glacier as co-manager of West Glacier Mercantile and its associated businesses, at the west entrance to the park. The Lundgren family operated the Mercantile from 1946 to 2014. He holds a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Montana.
Micah Andrew
Reviewer
Michael Dunford's Bookshelf
Claiming the Cosmos: Who Owns the Final Frontier?
Darrell M. West
Brookings Institution Press
www.brookings.edu
9780815749967, $32.00, HC, 208pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Claiming-Cosmos-Owns-Final-Frontier/dp/0815749961
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/claiming-the-cosmos-darrell-m-west/1150020389
Synopsis: The on-going expansion of space exploration and exploitation raises both fundamental and existential questions for humanity.
How should scientific advancement take place? What would the discovery of life elsewhere mean for our connected society, geopolitics, and religion? Who decides how these discoveries are funded?
In "Claiming the Cosmos: Who Owns the Final Frontier?", Darrell M. West uses a decision-making framework based on collegial governance and expert consultations to shape an international space policy guided by key principles of transparency, collaboration, sustainability, human safety, demilitarization, and pan-nationalism.
Critique: A timely, seminal, deftly crafted, and groundbreaking study, "Claiming the Cosmos: Who Owns the Final Frontier?" by Darrell M. West is an informed and informative introduction to the political, economic, and technological issues associated with what has become a multi-country race to explore and exploit the off planet resources from low-earth orbiting satellites and space stations to the colonization of the moon, mars and beyond. While unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and college/university library collections, it should be noted for students, academia, corporate leaders, governmental policy makers, and political activists that this hardcover edition of "Claiming the Cosmos: Who Owns the Final Frontier?" from the Brookings Institute is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $28.80).
Editorial Note: Darrell M. West (https://www.insidepolitics.org) is vice president of the Governance Studies program at the Brookings Institution. He is also the author of Divided Politics, Divided Nation: Hyperconflict in the Trump Era.
Michael Dunford
Reviewer
Paul Vogel's Bookshelf
A Long Hard Road
Tom Sykes
https://www.tomsykesmusic.com
Otter Creek Digital Studios
https://www.ottercreekds.com
9788234046970, $11.99, PB, 110pp
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Long-Hard-Road-Surviving-Learning/dp/B0GYM6RQ34
Synopsis: While "A Long Hard Road: Chasing Dreams, Surviving Detours, and Learning What Matters" tells Tom Sykes's story, it isn't really about Tom Sykes. It's about what happens to the things we once wanted for ourselves when life takes us places we never expected to go.
Tom wanted to write songs. But life didn't follow the plan. His road wound through a family he loved, a long career in the entertainment business, success and failure, missed opportunities, reinvention, and enough wrong turns to make him wonder more than once whether the part of himself he'd set aside still mattered.
It did. It just didn't turn out to mean quite what he thought it meant.
With humor, honesty, and a willingness to admit when he got things wrong, Tom looks back at what happens when something you wanted long ago refuses to disappear, even after an entire life has grown around it.
This isn't a story about becoming famous or finally proving everybody wrong. It's about the parts of ourselves we sometimes put away because there are bills to pay, people to love, responsibilities to meet, and a life to live.
Do those parts disappear? Do they change? Or do they simply wait for us to listen again?
Critique: A candid and compelling memoir revealing the life and times of musician, songwriter, and documentary film maker Tom Sykes, "A Long Hard Road: Chasing Dreams, Surviving Detours, and Learning What Matters" is deeply personal but will have a universal and recognizable resonance with readers whose own lives failed to turn out quite the way they anticipated. While an unreservedly recommended and memorable pick for community library Contemporary Biography/Memoir collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that this paperback edition of "A Long Hard Road" from Otter Creek Digital Studios is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $4.99).
Editorial Note: Tom Sykes (https://www.tomsykesmusic.com) is a songwriter, musician, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He has worked in music, film, television, home video, and independent production, alongside his own songs and creative projects. In A Long Hard Road, he looks back at family, work, wrong turns, and the part of himself that kept wanting to make something, even when life took him somewhere he hadn't planned to go.
Paul T. Vogel
Reviewer
S.A. Gorden's Bookshelf
The Killer Jack Mystery (The J.D. Pierson Case Files)
C.H. Sessums
Independently Published
9798631296930 $10.99 paper
B085J2PG6D, $3.99 ebook, 152 pages
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085J2PG6D
The Killer Jack Mystery is a cozy private eye procedural set in the 1930s. Jenny is trying to keep her father's private investigation business afloat. Her father has started drinking trying to forget the war and the death of her mother and is unable to work. She has to pretend she is just filling in for him while he is on another job. The 1930s doesn't permit a single woman from operating a detective business.
On his prison death bed, Jenny's uncle asks to see her father. She goes instead and finds out he is worried about his daughter. He has seen her wearing stolen jewelry and is worried for her safety. She investigates and soon finds that someone is willing to kill to keep the secrets of the robbery from being known. Nearly everyone involved is lying and she has to find the truth before another body falls.
The Killer Jack Mystery is a little slow paced but a solid mystery. It is an easy recommendation for anyone who enjoys the classic pulp style mysteries from the first half of the 20th Century.
Burden's Edge (Fury of a Rising Dragon Book 1)
Sever Bronny
Mighty Quill Publishing Ltd.
9781775172918
B077VP3VJL, $5.99 ebook, 412 pages
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Burdens-Edge-Fury-Rising-Dragon-ebook/dp/B077VP3VJL
Burden's Edge is a well written fantasy tale but it suffers from a personal pet peeve of mine - it is part of a series and the end of Edge reads more like an end of a chapter and not a complete book. The fantasy is worth reading. The world building and character development is excellent. But you should invest in the complete series before starting.
Young warlock Augum Stone and his two friends are heroes of a war against oppression. They have survived but want to learn how to use their full powers so are in training at an academy. The war has broken the political structure of the world and everyone seems to want to fill in the void. Augum just wants to be left alone to learn and control the castle that he was gifted after the war but those seeking power decide to use his youth and inexperience to gain power. Augum thought there would be a lull in the killing after the war. But the killing has started again with him as a target.
Burden's Edge is a well written fantasy that is well worth reading. You just need to remember that it is just the first chapter in a larger story.
S.A. Gorden
Senior Reviewer
Suzie Housley's Bookshelf
Finding Faith
Michelle Romano
Privately Published
9798992231625, $7.99 pbk, 167 pp.
9798992231632, $0.99 Kindle
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Faith-Michelle-Romano/dp/B0GW5MLD2R
Synopsis: Faith's life comes apart all at once. After walking away from a belittling boss, she returns home to discover that Daniel, her longtime partner, has left her for someone else. Sick, unemployed, and emotionally exhausted, Faith accepts her best friend Terese's invitation to escape to a quiet Arizona town.
What begins as a temporary retreat soon feels strangely like coming home. A new job at St. Lucille's Nursing Home introduces her to residents whose memories of love and loss stir questions about her own past. As flowers, letters, and half-remembered connections lead her toward the truth about her late mother, Faith repeatedly crosses paths with Michael, an intriguing firefighter she first met in New York.
Their attraction is immediate, but Michael's secrets force Faith to decide whether she can trust what her heart is telling her. Finding Faith is an adult contemporary romance about grief, second chances, family secrets, and the courage required to believe in love again.
Critique: Michelle Romano begins Finding Faith at the precise moment her heroine has nothing left to hold together. Faith has lost her job, her relationship, and much of her confidence, yet Romano does not allow heartbreak to become the whole of her identity. The move from restless New York City to the red-rock quiet of Arizona gives the story a welcome change in rhythm. The landscape is more than a backdrop; it becomes part of Faith's healing, giving her room to listen to memories she has spent years avoiding. Her work at St. Lucille's is especially meaningful. Through Rose, Gracie, and the other residents, Faith learns that love can remain powerful even when time, loss, or regret has altered its shape.
The novel blends romance with a gentle mystery as letters, familiar places, and carefully kept secrets begin to connect Faith's present to her mother's past. Michael is both a romantic interest and part of that puzzle, and the gradual explanation of his different names and his connection to Faith's family gives the later chapters their strongest emotional pull. Faith's first-person voice is candid and sometimes impulsive, which makes her feel vulnerable rather than polished. Her progress is not a straight line; she wants love, fears abandonment, and occasionally reacts before she has the entire truth. That unevenness feels honest for a woman recovering from betrayal.
Finding Faith is best suited to adult readers who enjoy emotional, small-town romance with spiritual themes and open-door intimate scenes. Some coincidences are intentionally heightened, and readers who prefer a strictly realistic courtship may find Michael's secret efforts unusually elaborate.
For those willing to embrace the story's sense of fate, however, the payoff is warm and hopeful. Romano's central message is clear without becoming complicated: a painful ending does not have to be the final chapter. With compassion for wounded people and affection for second chances, Finding Faith offers a heartfelt reminder that home may be a place, a person, or the moment we finally choose to trust ourselves again.
Suzie Housley, Senior Reviewer
https://housleysliteraryservices.com
James A. Cox
Editor-in-Chief
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