John Staughton, Senior Reviewer | Self-Publishing Review

Journey to the Heartland by Xiaolong Huang

Journey to the Heartland by Xiaolong Huang A sprawling but delicate story of personal evolution, Journey to the Heartland by Xiaolong Huang expertly navigates the fine line between heartbreaking and inspiring.

Unpacking an abusive childhood as he strives for acceptance and perfection, Hanwei’s long journey away from innocence is remarkable in its stark detail. Juxtaposing the aspirational Chinese mindset of his youth with the free-thinking exploration of ideas in the west, this story is woven together on multiple levels, with themes of sexuality, cultural pressure, academia, and personal exodus, for a poignant meditation on freedom.

Examining whether we can ever truly be free of our past, Huang […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2022-07-22T03:15:15+02:00July 21st, 2022|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Contemporary Fiction Book Reviews, International Fiction Book Reviews|

Cemetery Reflections by Jane Hopkins

A healing balm for troubling times, Cemetery Reflections by Jane Hopkins is a thoughtful gathering of wisdom and compassion, offered through a sensitive portrait of final resting places. Spanning graveyards from California and South Carolina to Massachusetts, Canada, and Chicago, this book is a gentle visual meditation on grief, death, and perseverance. Peppered with poetry and quotes from legendary writers and thinkers, as well as poignant personal reflections from Hopkins herself, this collection is thematically heavy, but it is also imbued with the enduring hope that we can all overcome the pain of loss.

[…]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2022-07-20T04:11:07+02:00July 16th, 2022|Categories: Editorial Reviews|

Review: 2048: Demockracy (The Covid Chronicles) by Peter Moore

Demockracy (The Covid Chronicles) by Peter Moore

Author Peter Moore launches an entertaining series of standalone novels set three decades in the future with 2048: Demockracy, the starting point of The Covid Chronicles.

A conservative-leaning commentary on the cancel culture of today, and the slippery slope that progressive ideals can stumble down, this novel is written in the spirit of Orwell’s 1984 with caustic wit and a colorful cast of characters with names that summon visions of England’s past. In this iteration, however, Big Brother has been replaced by Mother, a character depicted as being drunk on their own “wokeness,” power, and societal control.

In this […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2022-09-12T17:01:30+02:00July 13th, 2022|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Dystopian Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Brass (The Covid Chronicles) by Peter Moore

Brass (The Covid Chronicles) by Peter Moore

Steeped in steamy scenes and dynamic relationships, Brass is a wildly original novel from Peter Moore, the second part of his standalone series, The Covid Chronicles.

Delphine is the captivating protagonist of this steamy read – a fearless femme of the nocturnal economy, raking in duffel bags of dosh for her high-end erotic services. She keeps her income steady and her heart safe by avoiding emotional connection with her clients, but that begins to change when an Adonis-like footballer buys his way into her bed. He invites her to spend a week in Portugal on a pleasure cruise, to […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2022-09-09T09:08:03+02:00July 13th, 2022|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Romance Book Reviews|

Review: The Reluctant Assassin (The Covid Chronicles) by Peter Moore

The Reluctant Assassin (The Covid Chronicles) by Peter Moore

The exceptional and exciting life of the mysterious Delphine continues in The Reluctant Assassin by Peter Moore, the closing tale of his ambitious series, The Covid Chronicles.

A great deal has changed since Delphine’s dramatic exit from the world of high-class escorts, including being a mother of twins, but intrigue inevitably follows in her footsteps. After innocently offering her info-extracting services to one of her closest friends – and one of the most powerful men in England – Delphine is triggered by her past trauma and finds herself on the guilty side of a corpse.

Her instincts for self-preservation […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2022-09-08T16:41:41+02:00July 13th, 2022|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Thriller Book Reviews|

Running from the Witness Protection Program by Mark Spector

An eye-opening look into secrets that lay hidden for decades, Running from the Witness Protection Program by Mark Spector is a fascinating dive into a life that feels stranger than fiction. Rarely are there first-person accounts from someone who was truly “in the know” with legendary mobsters, and Spector knows how to hook a reader, revealing some of the inner secrets of mob life, along with personal anecdotes from his own youthful endeavors in organized crime. While this short work could absolutely be expanded into a longer memoir, Spector has a succinct and compelling voice that makes this a captivating […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2022-07-13T05:39:02+02:00July 12th, 2022|Categories: Editorial Reviews|

Review: Age of Magnus: The Fall of Man (New Era 1) by David Crane

Age of Magnus: Book One The Fall of Man (New Era 1) by David Crane

Author David Crane plunges readers into a future where humans have been all but eliminated in Age of Magnus: The Fall of Man, the first book of his New Era series. Detailing the rise of the supercomputer Magnus – from its “birth” in 2050 through its journey towards self-awareness and eventual domination of the planet – this is both a terrifying and wildly creative peek into a possible future.

Magnus was originally designed to help the first manned mission to Mars reach their destination, establish a colony, terraform the planet, and start a new human civilization. Unfortunately, a combination […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2022-08-30T11:11:13+02:00July 11th, 2022|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Ancient Architect by K.S. Temple

Ancient Architect by K.S. Temple

Exploring new-age ideologies, ancient mysticism, and one man’s journey toward unexpected destiny, Ancient Architect: A Fictional Order Out of Chaos by K.S. Temple is a heady novel of self-discovery.

Initially spurred on by his struggle to find peaceful sleep, Emmanuel seeks out Dr. Madruga, who begins to reveal the truth about the subject matter of his dreams – and nightmares. Before her untimely arrest, he undergoes an unusual neurological study with the good doctor, during which it is revealed to him that he may be the second coming of Christ.

He takes this daunting news well, albeit jokingly at first, […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2022-08-22T13:29:30+02:00July 10th, 2022|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Visionary Fiction Book Reviews|