John Staughton, Senior Reviewer

Review: Santa’s Rescue Dog (Super Speed Sam Book 5) by Monty J. McClaine

★★★★

Books have always had the power to bring families together, allowing parents to share powerful, memorable stories with their children. In Santa’s Rescue Dog, Monty J. McClaine adds on to his popular series of children’s book about Super Speed Sam, his family’s loyal basset hound. In the first four installments of the series, readers were introduced to Sam and saw his amazing super-speed abilities in action. No one in the family knows about these powers except for the youngest of the McClaine clan, Molly the baby, but these books actually function as a portrait of the author’s family, […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2019-02-11T08:36:27+02:00November 8th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Children's Book Reviews|

Review: Why Leadership Sucks™ Vol. 2 by Miles Anthony Smith

★★★★★

While there are countless books on the subject of smart leadership, and how to improve your abilities as the head of a company, team, community or family, many of these texts seem incomplete, lacking in the more compassionate side of being a role model for others. Perhaps author Miles Anthony Smith recognized this gap, which left room for Why Leadership Sucks™ Vol. 2: The Pain, Pitfalls and Challenges of Servant Leadership Fundamentals.

Following on his successful first installation of this series, Smith delves deeper into the subject of leadership, focusing less on the classic elements of delegation, selflessness, […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2016-11-28T09:15:08+02:00November 7th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Business Book Reviews, Leadership Book Reviews|

Review: Blowback ’07 by Brian Meehl

★★★★½

Blowback ’07 by Brian Meehl is a stunning start to an exciting new series.

Time travel is a popular theme in fiction – YA and otherwise – and Blowback ’07 stands out immediately within the sub-genre for its original plot and charismatic heroes, Arky and Iris. The context of the story is revealed rather quickly, and we soon learn that Iris is in possession of a family heirloom – the Jongler cor anglais – a musical instrument with unknown powers that their mother left to the twins before she disappeared.

Arky and Iris don’t always get along very well, […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2020-03-02T09:39:48+02:00November 6th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews, Time Travel Book Reviews, Young Adult Book Reviews|

Review: 5 Days to Landfall by Robert Roy Britt

Mother Nature takes center stage, with a bit of help from mankind’s baser instincts, in 5 Days to Landfall, a thrilling novel by Robert Roy Britt. With all of the recent surges in extreme weather around the world, a story like this is not only timely, but should also act as a dire warning for weather experts and governments of the planet. Obviously, disaster movies and television shows fill popular media, but this book hits a bit too close to home to ignore. It’s a tense thrill-ride from start to finish.

Amanda Cole – the single-most qualified person to […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2019-02-11T07:00:50+02:00November 4th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Apocalyptic Fiction Book Reviews, Thriller Book Reviews|

Review: The Speaking Ghost of Rajpur by Priyonkar Dasgupta

★★★★ The Speaking Ghost of Rajpur by Priyonkar Dasgupta

Depending on where a person is born and raised creates a unique perspective of childhood. Therefore, seeing an intimate and vivid depiction of childhood from someone in another part of the world can be a truly eye-opening experience. That is the world inhabited in The Speaking Ghost of Rajpur, a whimsical and memorable novel by Priyonkar Dasgupta. It is a bright and revelatory tale of growing up in a mysterious world, softened at the harder edges by the innocent lens of youth.

Readers who have forgotten the joys of childhood will be thrown back into an age of endless […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2020-02-21T05:46:38+02:00November 4th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: International Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: To Never Know by Thomas Duffy

★★★★ To Never Know by Thomas Duffy

It is a curse of memory and recollection that human beings are able to ask themselves, “What If?” For some, this question can be a harmless gateway to nostalgia, while for others, this perfectly natural musing is paralyzing, haunting and life-changing. In To Never Know, author Thomas Duffy initially presents the bleak portrait of a life never fully lived, due to the perennial longing of the main character, Steven. This isn’t a story about the “one who got away,” but rather the “one who he never even took a shot with,” which overwhelms him with uncertainty and the […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2020-02-12T10:01:46+02:00November 3rd, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Contemporary Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Goodbye, Rudy Kazoody by A.A. Freda

★★★★½

Growing up as a teenager in a big city is hard for the youth of any generation, but being an immigrant from Italy growing up on the mean streets of New York City in the 1960s was a bigger challenge than most. In Goodbye, Rudy Kazoody, author A.A. Freda gives us a picture of his own life as an immigrant in the Bronx from that historic time period. This semi-autobiographical tale is strikingly heartfelt and has the ring of deep truth, which makes it difficult to put down.

Joey is an innocent kid trying to make his way […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2019-01-22T04:36:41+02:00November 2nd, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Men's Fiction Book Reviews, Young Adult Book Reviews|

Review: A Killing Too Close to Home by Karen Berg-Raftakis

With a sassy, case-cracking heroine in the form of Arianna Archer, A Killing Too Close to Home is an amusing and suspenseful mystery. Bored from a long break between cases, Arianna is a new consultant for the Meadowville Police Department and eager to sink her teeth into a new case, but what she doesn’t expect is for one of her closest friends to be the next murder victim. This emotional case is fast-paced, like the majority of the prose, and it is important to pay attention to the details, because Berg-Raftakis includes plenty of red herrings and classic tricks of […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2019-02-11T09:09:15+02:00November 2nd, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Mystery Book Reviews|