John Staughton, Senior Reviewer

A gruesome, creative, and easy-to-devour novella by JC Bratton, Who’s Back at the Door? is a chilling tale and a well-crafted sequel to Who’s at the Door? Years after young Jamie Patterson mysteriously disappears from her dorm room, an ominous mirror split by a crack reappears in the life of a parapsychologist who had been investigating the girl’s unsolved case. The dark force within the mirror is roaming free once again, and the good doctor must team up with an unlikely crew to stop Bloody Mary’s reign of terror once and for all. Feeling like a supernatural horror movie on […]

A wartime noir thriller exploring the edges of New York City, O’Shaughnessy Investigations, Inc. by A.G. Russo is a sharply penned and wildly immersive murder mystery. When the dauntless Maeve O’Shaughnessy takes over the family detective agency while her brothers are away at war, the threat of failure forces her to choose strange bedfellows, such as a grouchy ex-cop who really knows how to take a punch, but she’s not afraid to take a risk or two. Following a spiraling series of clues from one end of New York to another, from blackmail plots to boxing rings, this unlikely pair […]

A beautiful reflection on humanity’s responsibility and relationship to the diverse ecosystems of our natural world, Loose on the Landscape: An Ecologist Looks for Meaning in the Wildest Places by Joel Everett Harding is an ecological manifesto and a travelogue that would make both Darwin and Steinbeck proud. From the Susquehanna River Valley and Chesapeake Bay to Florida swamplands and the Andes Mountains, readers bear witness through the eyes of a true guardian of the earth. Transcending mere observation of ecosystems, the prose unearths an astonishing story of geologic history and the nuanced inner workings of our dynamic natural world. […]

Exploring human adversity in its many forms, Just Keep Climbing: Inspirational Stories for Overcoming Challenges and Living Life by Barry Finlay is a collection of tales that will thrill and inspire via a unique lens. From the bitter and beautiful peak of Kilimanjaro to the struggles of creatives in a demanding world, ultramarathon insecurities, and the battles we perennially wage within ourselves, the author weaves together a varied list of powerful and relatable themes with grace and ease, allowing each keynote contributor to build on previous ideas and introduce new concepts. Each piece was written in the past year, so […]