John Staughton, Senior Reviewer

A veteran homicide detective faces a specter from his past in Sunscreen Shower by J.P. Rieger. What looks like a clear murder-suicide lands on Kev Dixit’s desk, but it feels like the echo of a coverup two decades earlier, and when the unusual relationship of these new victims comes into focus, the case proves to be anything but open and shut. As a police procedural, this patiently crafted thriller is methodical in its investigative storytelling and slow-burn character development of a neatly interconnected cast. With plenty of twists and dramatic reveals to keep readers hooked, but still in the dark […]

Refreshingly contemporary in its view of marriage, love, connection, and commitment, Till Marriage Do Us Part by Bianca Bowers is an endearing novel about shaping the life you truly desire. When aspiring writer Bronte finally gets a chance to chase her dream of being a writer, her eyes are opened to a world of exciting possibilities, both professionally and romantically. Navigating a marriage on the rocks, a blossoming career, and a heart-pounding crush on a fellow writer, Bronte must put her views of a traditional life aside and pursue what her heart wants most. While there is a fairy tale […]

An intense thriller with global consequences, Lethal Hope by Robert Thornton is a larger-than-life warning about the danger of dictators, paired with the ongoing heroics of one undaunted doctor. After dodging assassins’ bullets and decoding the deadliest diseases known to man, Hope might be set to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, but if the fascist plot to take over the presidency moves forward, freedom itself might fade into American history. Though the storyline sometimes raises the stakes at the expense of realism, Thornton is an expert at building suspense, while injecting the story with timely insight into the current […]

In humanity’s far-flung future, a living legend with a patent on nanotechnology must escape the fate of his own invention in The Senescence Sentence by Virgil Francis. When Frances Smith is accused of a laundry list of high crimes he never committed, he goes on the run, determined to clear his name and stop the latest revolution in cruel and unusual punishment. Tangling the lines of dystopian drama, sci-fi horror, and visionary fiction, this debut novel is a powerful cautionary tale about the ethics of innovation, which offers a penetrating allegorical argument for abolition, resulting in a uniquely thought-provoking work […]