Book Reviews | Self-Publishing Review

Review: Four Times Blessed by Alexa T. Liguori

Four Times Blessed is the story of Crusa, a young woman who lives closely with her large extended family, and is engaged to Andrew, a well-respected boy from her New England island, who falls for Lium, a bodyguard who is supposed to be watching her before her wedding. Her flawless life plan is about to go awry.

A sprawling tale focusing on Crusa’s aunt, who she refers to as her “ zizi” and the cooking and household chores as Crusa looks to form her adult life, this work is maybe a try at literary fiction.

However, without real arcs, as […]

Cate Baum2014-05-05T22:01:47+02:00June 15th, 2013|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Women's Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: The Nothing Place by Jesse Relkin

This ambitious first novel by Jesse Relkin begins with 16-year-old Max arriving in Los Angeles from his hometown of Bend, Oregon to enter an in-patient drug rehabilitation facility. For the few days before he is due to report to rehab, Max stays with his Aunt Mercedes, her children, Erin and Mikey, and their nanny, Shannon. Max is determined to make the most of his few remaining days of freedom by getting in some partying while in LA. It turns out that his aunt, a mortgage broker who may be about to lose her job, her license, and perhaps her own […]

Avery Hurt2015-04-13T03:34:48+02:00June 15th, 2013|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Literary Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: EMMA By Michael Segedy

Brent Cossack is a former CIA member who has gone rogue. He takes his orders from a shadowy figure codenamed Sacco, and assassinates corrupt corporate figureheads. Then there’s Rick Clark, who’s working to bring the Cossack’s militant group EMMA to justice after a string of murders. As the novel jumps around in time, it pieces together Brent and Rick’s lives before putting them on a collision course with each other.

We like to think that a strong point of view is one of the traits of a good work of art. Be it prose, poetry, or even film, a distinct […]

Jordan Baker2014-05-05T22:05:57+02:00June 12th, 2013|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Thriller Book Reviews|

Review: The Day The Music Died By Blair Evans

Cameron Forsyth is a young man studying at music school in New Zealand looking for an impossible answer – what is random chance and what is talent? Is he being deluded in his love for music? What is the secret to music’s magic and what has been twisted out of shape by academics and the media?

Along with his few eccentric misfit friends, he struggles to prove his points to musty music professors after a revelation from a guest speaker at the university that turns his life on its head, and alters his perception of what music is forever.

The […]

Cate Baum2014-05-19T18:27:44+02:00June 11th, 2013|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Literary Fiction Book Reviews, Music Book Reviews|

Review: Out Of The Light Of Darkness by Edward M. Donnelly

This small collection consists of six very short stories and a novella. The stories are linked by theme: death, madness, forgiveness, love. It’s primal stuff, and Donnelly handles his material gently, almost reverently. The first six stories are very short, very lean, almost ghost-like. And indeed the quiet dead figure largely in these stories, as do the unhappy and angry living. However, not much is resolved, or even really explored, in these first few stories. They are almost like snapshots or sketches of people trying unsuccessfully to reach out and connect with one another, whether across a table in a […]

Avery Hurt2014-05-05T22:10:11+02:00June 11th, 2013|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Short Stories Book Reviews|

Review: The Spark by O. H. Robsson

The Spark, by Norwegian novelist O. H. Robsson, is a love story. It’s a slow, relaxing, rambling tale of a man who rediscovers his one true love after thinking she was lost to him forever. The first three-quarters of the book are mostly devoid of tension; any complications that do arise are relatively minor and are quickly put right. This wasn’t a problem at all for me. I kept turning pages in this book, not because of cliff-hanger chapter endings, and not because I was dying to learn how it all turned out, but because this story is just […]

Avery Hurt2014-05-05T22:11:17+02:00June 3rd, 2013|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: International Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Girls Love Travis Walker by Anne Pfeffer

Anne Pfeffer, the author of Girls Love Travis Walker, is working in a relatively new niche in publishing, the New Adult genre. New Adult novels are aimed at readers from ages 18 to early-20s or so, and tend to feature characters of the same age in situations common to college students and/or people who are just beginning to create lives independent of their parents. (I think even younger readers would enjoy this book, too, but be warned that the language and sexual content might be a little more than some parents of younger teens are willing to condone.) Though Pfeffer […]

Avery Hurt2019-03-05T12:51:35+02:00May 24th, 2013|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: New Adult Book Reviews, Romance Book Reviews|

Review: Una’ria – The Vanguard Echoes by Daniel Cruz

In this massive sci-fi adventure, Daniel Cruz takes readers to a thoroughly imagined world, far from Earth and three million years in the future, in an epoch known as Una’ria. Humans as we know them no longer exist. They have evolved into a new species known as Rytelios, a much more subtle creature with a sixth sense and an unusual relationship with small, winged creatures called Famixa. Each Rytelios is pair-bonded with a Faxima. This relationship is deep and intriguing, and becomes even more complex and fascinating as the novel progresses and we get to know the characters better.