From the first explosive, mind-rattling pages, this novel hits like a tailor-made drug, with well-timed jump cuts of narration and insightful drop-ins to critical moments and revelations. Anton, Ona, Aunt Vee, and Oz make an interesting core of this darkly entrancing story, their fates seemingly entwined, despite their haphazard involvement in one another’s lives. Ona’s relationship with the regulars of her NA meetings adds another layer […]
A colorful and creative A-Z guide to flowers, Alphabet of Flowers by Gloria D. Gonsalves is a children’s book that can be appreciated by anyone unfamiliar with our floral friends. The brief statements following each alphabetical bloom contain simple and interesting facts, though some entries are more intriguing than others. Particularly impressive are the crayoned flowers and descriptions beginning with more rare letters, such as X and Q. Though the concept of the book is simple, the images are easy to duplicate for aspiring artists, and getting to know the names and spellings of flowers is an important skill for […]
A steamy South American thriller, At All Costs by Geoffrey Robinson is a fast-paced read with conspiracies and betrayal aplenty. Kelly and Danny are hunting for different things – the scoop on a dangerous story and intel for his shadowy superiors, respectively – but their missions inevitably tangle in a chaotic mess of smuggling, murder, and international manipulation. While the writing is sometimes rushed and could afford to slow down, the plot moves quickly, the tension is visceral and realistic, and the complexity of the story’s villains helps this novel stand out from other international thrillers.
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Author Danna Rose delivers a spot-on dive into the struggle of teenage life in the Philippines with her first novel, A Rakista’s 90s Mixtapes. What begins as a youthful fling of garage band aspirations becomes the real deal, with real consequences, record deals, broken hearts, and a surprising number of dramatic twists.
Evie is like many other protagonists of heartfelt coming-of-age novels, but also incredibly unique, accurately referenced as an “odd boy.” The foundational loss of her father shapes her character in countless ways, most obviously her obsession with all things related to music. How that love and loss are […]
A deep, character-driven mystery, A Disturbing Nature by Brian LeBeau is a patient maze of a novel, leading readers on a grim journey through suspicion, murder, and obsession.
Mo is a quiet and mysterious young man with a mind that never caught up to his impressive size, and a lifetime of taunts and tragedies that never leave him. Even as he starts a new chapter at Bryant College as a groundskeeper, where for the first time “independence is not equated with exile,” the jagged pieces of his past are impossible to leave behind. Unfortunately, new surroundings don’t mean an end […]
Detailing the struggles of the Hornbeck family as they navigate treacherous years of poverty and desperation, JC and Martha are the family’s resilient backbone, while Monroe and Wyatt are the wily young ones learning the meaning of survival. From Arkansas, Louisiana, and Denver to Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, the interwoven stories of these characters are snapshots of wandering lifestyles and the sheer willpower to keep going. Peppered […]
Part memoir and part sleep guide, Altschuler welcomes readers into the sleepless recesses of his own experience with insomnia as a result of cancer, while also providing a wealth of resources and mental frameworks to address and overcome common sleep issues, whatever the cause. Despite the unique aspect of a memoir, Altschuler’s approaches to addressing his own insomnia could be applied to anyone’s experience, and many elements of the book are […]
A high-stakes extraction thriller with a compelling, freshly haunted hero at the helm, No Sanctuary by Camden Mays is the third gripping installment of the Cole Cameron Thriller series. After returning to the scene of his most recent trauma, it isn’t long before Cole is meeting with Mossad agents, infiltrating hostile territory, dealing out death, and pushing his own limits, both physically and psychologically. Reading like a behind-the-scenes scoop on espionage fieldwork, this is a captivating burst of fiction, penned with the tension of a noir drama, and the fast-paced payoffs of modern revenge thrillers.
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