The latest indie book reviews from Self-Publishing Review
Review: Studying Evolved by John Duckworth ★★★★★
The first point to make about the book is perhaps unexpected: it’s hilarious. I don’t use […]
Review: Good Reasons to Kill by Chris Rhyss Edwards
★★★★½ 
Good Reasons to Kill is a fascinating and important work that looks at sanctioned murder across the world. Murder is considered immoral, yet there are many instances where it is considered justified: war, the death penalty, honor killings, and many more. A thorough examination of the subject, the book covers dozens of different instances of murder worldwide and how they are justified by different cultures. Depending on one’s perspective, ending someone’s life can either land you on death row or be lauded a hero. As such, Good Reasons to Kill asks many troubling, but vital, questions about the morality […]
Review: The Children of Cain: House of Dvanaesti by David R. Bishop & J. Scott Cordero ★★★★
Gabriel Hawthorne never chose an easy life – his days investigating some of the filthiest secrets, personal and political, have marked him out. But every man has his limit, and when Gabriel stumbles onto the biggest skeleton in human history’s closet, he must find a way to survive.
Hunted by legendary beings many call “vampires” and held in prison-sanctuary by a mythical cult of information, will Gabriel wriggle out of this ancient struggle alive or be just another victim of the longest war of human history? Knowledge is power in The Children of Cain: House of Dvanaesti by David R. […]
Review: A Season of Transitions by R.M. Gibson ★★★★
This book is presented to the reader with a fairly clinical analysis with a prologue in the form of a letter from the author to the reader mentioning “women’s lib” (in quotation marks as if it was but a fancy) and voting for “blacks”, setting the tone for the rest of the book: a pretty sterile, white, male perspective of the social aspects of 1960s and 70s America.[…]
Review: Finding Lucy by Tess Morrison ★★★★
Finding Lucy by Tess Morrison is a really delicious read for lovers of romance with a spark of something different – packaged beautifully with a pretty cover. I’m always a fan of a full moon in a design, and here the moon reflects the fact that the book centers around the aptly-named Moonlight Bay Camp For Kids in Butternut Creek, and one of its counselors, Lucy Mitchell.
Lucy has been working at the Camp for a very long time, and when Ian Flynn turns up with his macho ideas and city tastes, all she can think of is how to […]
Review: A Force of Nature by Dan McEwen
★★★½ 
A Force of Nature by Dan McEwen follows Canadian PR superstar, Claire Chandler, as she takes a long weekend in idyllic Bay Harbour. There she meets a number of mysterious and colorful characters. Most mysteriously, she’s shadowed by a ghostly white wolf and the victims of a murder, and she’ll soon solve a decades-old mystery, as well as get into a romantic tryst with enigmatic pilot and treasure-hunter, Tom Katz.
A Force of Nature is the type of book that works on a sentence by sentence level – McEwen is an interesting, eloquent writer who clearly loves his subject […]
Review: Momster by Laura Jensen-Kimball
★★★★½ 
Momster is a delightful and instructive children’s book about the value of listening and doing your chores – the main value is not turning your mom into a Momster: a screaming, clawing beast with cloven feet and a dragon’s tail.
In spirited rhyme, Momster begins with a boy standing in a playground warning the other kids about the terrible Momster. When his mom asks him to help with the groceries, “It didn’t sound important so I finished the cartoon- Mom called a few more times and then she barked like a baboon!” things escalate from there. Eventually the boy […]
Review: Awaiting the Doomsday by Paul Slutsky ★★★
Obviously a civilization that could travel through space is highly advanced, and so potentially dangerous. Some just want to nuke the thing out of orbit immediately. Norton must stem the paranoia in order to save the human race from a self-created disaster.[…]