Editorial Reviews

Small-town mayhem and unlikely elderly investigators make for an original whodunit in Trouble at the Buckeye Festival by Alice Kanaka. Celebrating the spirit of adventure and mystery, regardless of age, Bumfuzzle and Cattywampus are a hugely entertaining duo at the heart of this whimsical novel. As they sleuth their way from strange festival mischief to an unexpected corpse in a closet, the stakes of their investigation keep getting higher and wilder, making this character-driven conspiracy hard to put down. Though the prose occasionally leads readers by the nose to clues and revelations, this is an undeniably fun and free-wheeling start […]

Author Susan Specht Oram spins a gripping new web of terror with Cabin Eight, the latest tale in her macabre and mysterious string of pulp thrillers. A much-needed escape from the city spirals into a dead-zone nightmare for one young woman struggling to piece her life back together. Navigating a merciless escape room of painful puzzles and emotional carnage, Miranda must face her darkest secrets and fight for the embers of her life in this page-turning thriller. As with other titles in the series, the pace is relentless sometimes at the expense of emotional exploration of characters, or tension […]

Susan Specht Oram delivers the second piece of her Millersville Series with The Thieves, a gripping novel of desperate times, desperate measures, and the lengths we go to protect those we love. When an amateur thief with good intentions has her only and biggest score snatched away by con-artist crooks, she embarks on a deeply unwise mission to snatch it back. Like a long-form chase sequence with a countdown clock attached, this Pacific Northwest hunt for 500K makes for one wild road trip. The story moves fast, which keeps the energy high, but also cuts down on space for […]

A captivating historical novel, The Angel of the Penny Rose by Linda Saether is the poignant and affecting story of a young woman’s journey from eighteen-century London to the Americas in search of a new life. The daughter of a famous apothecary, Anna Caldwell asks one of her clients who’s about to cross the Atlantic to marry her and bring her with him to St. Augustine, Florida, leading to decidedly expanded horizons in love, sorrow, and self-knowledge in the greatest adventure of her life. Told in clear, vivid language, this sensitive portrayal is as historically thorough as it is emotionally […]

A romantic and emotional novel about love and faith, Love Without Reservations by Irene Williams is an affecting work of contemporary religious fiction. Simone is a profoundly devout young professional living in London, but when she meets Thomas, an ex-addict and rockstar, she soon realizes that her feelings for him might bring her to act against her religious convictions. Can a believer and a non-believer still be happy together – can opposites attract who are this different? Although strongly driven by a Christian point of view, this engaging novel is relatable for most any reader, as Williams has composed her […]

A gritty, hard-nosed, and expertly written thriller, A Cult of One by CH Morgan is the fractured family portrait of an investigator hunting monsters – in the shadows and in her own mind. Haunted by the past and driven by a fiery resolve, Genevieve Capa is trying to get through her probationary period as a police officer, but her house-arrested brother has a dangerous scheme to catapult her career to the next level, single-handedly capture a cannibalistic killer on the loose in Montreal. Combining a sinister police procedural with complex character drama and sharply captured dialogue, this is a fast, […]

A piece of exhilarating sci-fi that playfully reflects on the meaning and the perception of time, Time Story by W.W. Marplot is a tantalizing mixture of science, humor, and adventure. When Plunkett’s older brother Applemon invents a time machine, Plunkett and their adoptive brother Woby find themselves uprooted from their shared college flat and involved in incredible time-warping adventures – some in the past, some in the future, some successful, some disastrous, all of them brilliantly told through Marplot’s masterful pen. Echoing Douglas Adams, at times, but with a voice all his own, Marplot’s writing is in turns erudite and […]

Poet Gary W. Burns pours out his destiny-driven heart in his latest collection, Dawn and Beyond: Embark. The majority of the pieces are short, but the language across the collection is carefully chosen and meditative. Despite their apparent simplicity, each poem can be examined with a close-read microscope, as the language often has multiple layers and potential meanings to unpack. Burns demonstrates his powerful observational eye, as well as his critical and analytic nature, without losing a palpable longing for mysticism, whimsy, and wonder. All told, this is an original and comforting selection of poetry that offers a rewarding […]