Book Reviews | Self-Publishing Review

Review: This Book Belongs To by Daley James Francis ★★★★

A nine-year-old girl. A magical sketchbook. A huge imagination. A lot of trouble.

When men in hardhats arrive at Amy Carr’s house, she’s old enough to understand that this isn’t a social call. They are there to knock down her house. In the ruins, Amy unearths an old sketchbook. Soon she learns that this isn’t an ordinary sketchbook.

The creatures she draws in this magical sketchbook come alive. The premise behind this book is fun and just as creative as Amy’s imagination in the story. Most middle grade readers are still focused inward and aren’t very aware of the outside […]

T B Markinson2016-07-29T05:15:55+02:00February 3rd, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Children's Book Reviews, Young Adult Book Reviews|

Review: Workman’s Complication by Rich Leder ★★★★★

Workman's Complication Workman’s Complication by Rich Leder is the immensely entertaining first book in his series McCall & Company, following the exploits of down-on-her-luck private investigator/struggling actress Kate McCall. In the first installment, McCall tries to balance starring in an Off-Broadway vampire musical, investigating her father’s death at the Monument Insurance building, inheriting his PI business, and trying to solve her first case: a workman’s comp case where a construction worker broke his back and might be taking a benevolent old businessman for all his money.

Kate McCall is a great character for a private eye series: she’s a reluctant PI, […]

Henry Baum2020-12-23T05:53:47+02:00January 28th, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Crime Fiction Book Reviews, Humor|

Review: The Black Orchestra by JJ Toner ★★★★

The Black Orchestra, by JJ Toner, is a mesmerizing spy thriller set in Nazi Germany during World War II.

Kurt Muller, an Abwehr signalman, shows up to work and finds that his coworker is dead at his radio receiver. The police barely investigate the death and quickly determine it was a suicide. Kurt doesn’t agree. He begins his own investigation, but not many want him to. Kurt’s inquiry leads him to a German resistance group. Kurt has to choose between his conscience and duty.

Historical fiction thrillers have a lot of moving parts that need to be grounded with […]

T B Markinson2015-02-02T09:43:15+02:00January 21st, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Historical Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Skeletal by Katherine Hayton ★★★★★

Skeletal This book contains brief scenes of rape and physical abuse.

Set in New Zealand’s gateway to the South, Christchurch, this New Adult Urban Horror is a brilliantly sinister and completely original story of despair, darkness and the horrors of teenage life in a broken home.

You won’t read anything like Skeletal anywhere. Forget Carrie, and her weird religious-driven telekinetics, or Christine, and her firestarting habits. Forget Gone Girl’s Amy and her psychotics. Compared to Skeletal, these unbridled female psyches would seem like a picnic to Daina Harrow, our protagonist. Daina’s life is at its absolute limits of stress, and not […]

Cate Baum2016-02-21T06:48:31+02:00January 21st, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Horror Book Reviews, Urban Fantasy Book Reviews, Young Adult Book Reviews|

Review: Sex, Drugs & Islam by Dari Ghaznavi ★★★★

Sex, Drugs & Islam is the provocative and controversial memoir by Pakistani author, Dari Ghaznavi. In a conversational style, Ghaznavi tells tale of his time in the military, running drugs and other criminal activity, traveling the world, and, especially, chasing women. Despite its dark topics, the narration is breezy and spirited. Dari Ghaznavi really has lived a life like no other.

The title alone suggests that Ghaznavi is a man who takes chances and fears no one. Again and again, Ghaznavi puts himself in situations that would kill most people, or at least end up in an extended prison stay. […]

Lysa Grant2015-02-02T09:35:13+02:00January 20th, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Infinite Ending: Ten Stories by Frank Marcopolos ★★★★

Infinite Ending: Ten Stories by Frank Marcopolos is the resulting book of a challenge to write a story a month over ten months. The ten stories follow two hikers on a long journey, a college baseball player assessing his prospects, erotica writers ruminating about the publishing business, a wounded soldier, and other tales where characters assess their present and future condition. By his own declaration in the foreword, these are “postmodern literary fiction,” not stories with high-concept premises or tidy endings.

These are rich quick-paced stories where not a lot happens, but still manages to be page-turning because of Marcopolos’ […]

Henry Baum2015-02-02T09:58:11+02:00January 20th, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Short Stories Book Reviews|

Review: Dobyns Chronicles by Shirley McLain ★★★★

Dobyns Chronicles by Shirley McLain Every life is a story in itself. The author, Shirley McLain, proves this with her historical fiction novel Dobyns Chronicles.

Charley Dobyns began his life in northeast Texas, on the Red River. His cowboy father and his Cherokee mother worked hard to provide for Charley and his two younger siblings, David and Viola. In 1888 tragedy struck. Both of his parents died from yellow fever. At the age of sixteen, Charley was the head of the family. His brother was only ten and his sister four. He moved the family to the Chickasaw Territory to stay with friends of […]

T B Markinson2023-02-28T08:02:00+02:00January 19th, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Historical Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Between Midnight and Morning by Beverly Mitchell Dodd

★★★★½

Between Midnight and Morning, by Beverly Mitchell Dodd, is a hard-hitting women’s fiction novel that explores the dichotomy between personal freedom and family obligations and traditions.

When Lena turns eighteen, she leaves her home, her father and sister, and their church and religious beliefs. In her new life she meets Cos, she marries young, and has her son, Nathan, soon after. However, she can’t escape her painful past. Years pass and then something terrible happens. Lena and Nathan move back home, and she feels trapped in the past and present. Will she be able to pull herself out […]

T B Markinson2016-03-04T04:35:00+02:00January 17th, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Women's Fiction Book Reviews|