The latest indie book reviews from Self-Publishing Review
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 […]
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 […]
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.