John Staughton, Senior Reviewer

After a young woman’s brutal murder in the English countryside, the hunt for her killer quickly spirals out of control in The Pike, a gripping UK thriller by J.J. Richards, and the second in his DCI Walker Crime Thrillers series. As potential suspects begin desperately trying to skip town and jumping in front of trains, the heinous killings don’t stop, hinting at a far more sinister explanation than teenage hedonism gone horribly wrong. The repartee of the investigators, particularly between Briggs and DCI Walker, keep the procedural elements of the plot informative and well-paced, without giving away the whodunit, […]

Author Fred D. Hannah III delivers another installment of his Recreation series with The Dead Zone 4: Sleep Now, Forever Do Us Part, a breathless new adventure pitting cosmic Queens against Dark Lords in the DreamSpace outside reality. In a freshly forged universe packed with androids and magic, Aliana bides her time for revenge against the evil force who defeated her friends and eliminated all she ever knew. While things may look normal on the outside, the truth is that reality has become stranger than fiction, and Aliana must tap into all of her spectrum powers if she hopes […]

A spiraling and surreal set of stories from Mikhael Aroni, Your Lucky Day is an unassuming yet compelling work of short fiction. Tracing a mysterious force through the causes and effects it wreaks on average lives and the world at large, “The Noise” is a haunting tale of societal interconnectedness. Exploring identity, risk, and human exploration in modern relationships, “The Power” has a similar premise, but proceeds to deliver a vulnerable narrative around an enigmatic and imaginative protagonist. Layered with intentional meaning and subtle probing of social norms, Aroni offers up a brief but profound read.

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A thoughtful exploration of fate, self-discovery, loss, and healing, The Invisible Red String by Peter Berlin and Ann Zachariah is a modern retelling of an ancient idea. The four members of a therapeutic meditation group find themselves subtly bound to one another in unexpected ways as they journey through their own wounds and weaknesses. As their most personal stories are gradually told, including revelations of abuse, abandonment, hope, and desire, the connections pulling them together become harder to resist, as if by destiny. Weaving together relevant themes of wealth inequality, cultural clashes, childhood trauma, forbidden love, and more, this slow-burning […]