John Staughton, Senior Reviewer

A whirlwind of an adventure set in the eternally mysterious city of London, The Timepiece and the Girl Who Went Astray by O.R. Simmonds is a bold and meticulously penned thriller. William Wells only wanted a special gift for his girlfriend, but his thoughtfulness sends him spiraling into the midst of a horological battle stretching back generations. Boasting a sprawling vocabulary, visceral descriptions, and a discerning narrative voice that never reveals too much, this time-bending novel will appeal to physicists, anglophiles, treasure hunters, and sci-fi lovers alike. Simmonds echoes the declarative formality of certain English mystery writers, but also displays […]

Author Kaitie Howie delivers a visceral story of growing past pain and learning to love in Broken Like Me, a work of fiction that reads like a gripping memoir. A young mother with deep trust issues spirals into romance with a mysterious stranger who has heavy baggage of his own, leading to a tense, emotional minefield of a read. The flow of the story is smooth, but there are also some odd descriptive and narrative choices, including parenthetical asides and a frequent tendency to tell, rather than show. An experienced editorial pen could eliminate these inconsistencies, but overall this […]

D.K. Dailey launches a thrilling new saga set in the Golden Dreg World universe with Golden Dreg Quake: Baby Box Assassin. In the lead-up to a world-changing quake, a young assassin awakes with a missing three weeks in her memory and a mystery to solve, provided she isn’t wiped off the map by her own crew of deadly assassins first. Drawing from the rich landscape of Dailey’s ever-swelling sci-fi realm, this prequel pulses with excitement, driven by a dauntless new protagonist in Ari. Boasting rough-edged, conversational prose and a tangled plot of deceitful allies and surprising villains, Dailey elevates the […]

Creating a twisted mirror of the wealth inequality that plagues our modern world, Golden Dreg Army Book 1: Enlisted by D.K. Dailey is a thrilling YA adventure, and a worrisome prophecy for the future. Following a world quake, humanity’s dream is to create a society that can withstand anything, but that idealistic vision doesn’t take long to corrode into a vast chasm between the Goldens and the Dregs – the rich and the poor. Peppered with creative details that make this dystopic future feel three-dimensional and all too possible, the story is gripping from the start. The writing is strong, […]