John Staughton, Senior Reviewer

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 […]

A heart-expanding novel of tragic revelations, young love, and the eye-opening journeys we must take alone, Rhapsody in a Minor Mode by Elaine Kozak is a haunting reflection on modern masculinity and the mercurial nature of our formative stories. After discovering a shocking truth about the birth father he never met, Niels leaves his Toronto apartment, childhood sweetheart, and final university semester to reassess his life on an epically unplanned journey. From Halifax diners and merchant marine mess halls to Sevillian taverns and the sweaty thrill of dance halls, the lyrical prose is eloquent and moving, while Kozak’s thematic explorations […]

Detailing a hard life of street smarts and survival, The Fixer by Frank C. Senia is the gritty portrait of Billy Summers, from his earliest battles as a childhood bruiser to his career in California as protective muscle, expected to do whatever was necessary to get the job done. Powerful in its depth and intimacy as an internal narrative, Senia’s novel is raw and revealing, delving into family loyalty, the psychological scars of violence, and our perennial search for belonging. A final proofreading sweep could catch the lingering typos, but the matter-of-fact style of narration generally flows well and keeps […]

A deep dive into the modern phenomenon of surviving without truly existing, Cloak of the Living Dead: 13 Reasons Why You’re Living Dead by Ernest Johnson is a bold treatise on how to bring yourself back to a fulfilled, meaningful, and God-centered life. From governmental authorities and mindless careers to personal apathy, the pharmaceutical industry, dead-end marriages, and the poisonous foods we are marketed and fed, this book strips away and analyzes the failed thought patterns of contemporary life, often through the lens of the author’s own experiences. While the prose is written in a stream-of-consciousness style that adds passion […]

A truth-telling collection of poetry from Franco Cardiello, Loving Strays examines the highs and lows of love in the varied seasons of our unpredictable lives. From long-distance romance behind bars to surviving betrayal under the influence, the opening salvos of this reflective collection are raw and passionate musings of youth. The free-verse storytelling style gracefully matures alongside the poet, though lust and love remain his preferred subject matter. The struggles of writing, the dedication of siblings, and the compassion of breaking hearts gently are all explored with tenderness and nuance, despite the almost Bukowski-like grit that edges some of these […]

Reality, memory, and the dark side of dreaming collide in The Dominant One by Michelle Ian, a spiraling work of supernatural horror that hooks hard from the very first chapter. A wise protector with a hidden power finds himself on a desperate rescue mission in the Arizona mountains, haunted by the fatal fallout of his own tragic heroics. With a hypnotizing plot and enthralling, suspenseful prose, this is a sinister masterpiece of modern horror, with surreal sequences of mind-bending descriptions, dream-world battles, a corpse-swallowing void, and a psychotic killer who can terrorize outside of space and time. A disturbing escape, […]