Book Reviews | Self-Publishing Review

Review: Prince S by Anita Renaghan

Anita Renaghan’s Prince S is a delightful addition to the young adult fantasy genre. S. Avalon Hall, a girl, is raised by the king of Fontanasia as a boy. The king needs to have a rightful heir to the throne to protect his rule and to ensure that the Hall family maintains their control in the kingdom. Not many know the secret and as Avalon grows up, she worries that their family secret will be discovered.

At the age of fourteen, Avalon embarks on a dangerous mission to Cormicks, a faraway land, which is also a secret from most of […]

Review: The Last Falcon by Colleen Ruttan

The Last Falcon Warning: Do not start reading this book until you’ve cleared your schedule. Take the dog out, make lots of tea, and have snacks available. Once you start, you won’t want to stop reading.

At the age of fourteen, Erynn Taylor witnesses her father’s murder. Luckily she escapes the same fate when a dragon suddenly appears and lunges at the attackers, providing Erynn the chance to slip away. Granted the dragon saved her, but the young woman is denied the opportunity to avenge her father’s brutal slaying.

Two years later, Erynn is King Wryden’s scribe and a helper in the castle’s […]

T B Markinson2019-01-23T13:07:35+02:00April 1st, 2014|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Fantasy Book Reviews, Young Adult Book Reviews|

Review: Bookends: Stories Of Love, Loss, And Renewal by Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold

bookends This slim volume of short stories works as something of a fugue on grief and loss, featuring fragile women at both ends of their adult lives. Strangely, the two stages are not that different, at least not for these women, and that is perhaps the saddest thing in these rather sad stories.

The characters in these stories are, for the most part, weak, wispy women—widows adrift, and vaporous young women with overbearing mothers (more than once called dragons)—who seem not so much unable to cope as unable to navigate when the men in their lives abandon them or, more often, […]

Avery Hurt2014-05-11T22:52:26+02:00March 31st, 2014|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Short Stories Book Reviews|

Review: Fiat by Jeffrey D. Schlaman

Apocalyptic literature has been with us a long time, perhaps as long as humans have been telling stories, and certainly long before nuclear weapons and human activities threatened civilization. From Noah and his ark to Mary Shelley’s The Last Man to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, readers (and listeners) have loved stories about the worst that might happen and how the fittest might survive.

Fiat, by Jeffrey Schlaman, is one such story, and this time the cause of the apocalypse is economic collapse. The book is set in the very near future, just after the recent economic crisis. A greedy, […]

Avery Hurt2014-05-05T20:32:25+02:00March 31st, 2014|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Apocalyptic Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Dirtball: The Diaries of a Worthless Somebody by Eric Olsen

Dirtball: The Diaries of a Worthless Somebody is an autobiographical first novel by Eric Olsen. The book follows character “EO”, a reasonably average young American man who realizes his need to change his life after an incident with a friend who calls him the personally poignant name of a “dirtball”. What follows is a recounting of the author’s attempt to turn around from his built-up bad decisions and bad luck by starting fresh, despite his adversity in problems old and new.

Whether he really can is one of the questions the book aims to provide answers to, but by far […]

James Grimsby2019-01-22T17:13:52+02:00March 27th, 2014|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Contemporary Fiction Book Reviews, Men's Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Autumn for Dragonflies by Theresa Sweet

This first of a three-part romance series about young and innocent Mary Lakas is a smooth and easy read with charming characters and wonderfully detailed settings. Mary is a college freshman studying science with the somewhat vague aim of becoming a physicist. When she is not in school, she is very involved in the choirs at her church. Music and science are the two passions of her life. Each realm provides a potential love interest for Mary, yet it is less her budding love life than the character of Mary herself that captured my interest.

Mary is funny and spontaneous […]

Avery Hurt2014-05-05T20:34:26+02:00February 26th, 2014|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Romance Book Reviews|

Review: The Favorite by Franklyn C. Thomas

Second chances are rare, no matter how much a person wants them. When Michael Dane is given a second chance he has to make the toughest decision in his life. What’s the decision? You have to read The Favorite to find out. It may shock you.

Michael Dane is a fighter who has a shot at becoming the IBF Light-Heavyweight Champion. He’s trained all of his life for this chance, but some mistakes almost ruined his shot. One blunder landed him in prison for eighteen months. Michael’s manager, Dante Alexander, helps Michael elevate his career and has helped him reach […]

T B Markinson2019-01-22T17:14:14+02:00February 24th, 2014|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Contemporary Fiction Book Reviews, Men's Fiction Book Reviews, Sports Book Reviews|

Review: The Fo’c’sle Door By Les Cribb

The Fo’c’sle Door by Les Cribb is a time-traveling mystery saga set in seafaring 18th Century/21st century Cornwall England.

The forecastle, a superstructure in the bow of a merchant ship where the crew is housed; – the spelling is intended to reflect the common pronunciation among seamen.

When unsavory character Whitt arrives from Canada for a friend’s wedding in the Cornish fishing village of Ryeport, he is met off the plane by the mysterious Sexton, a man intent on talking about voodoo and reincarnation. As Whitt struggles to understand why everything is so familiar to him, events intensify, and […]

Cate Baum2019-01-22T17:14:35+02:00February 22nd, 2014|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Detective Fiction Book Reviews, Mystery Book Reviews|