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Lead Story

Lead stories from SPR’s ever-growing independent book portal

Review: Jake, Lucid Dreamer by David J. Naiman

Jake, Lucid Dreamer

Jake, Lucid Dreamer by David J. Naiman is a charming look at a middle-schooler’s struggle to navigate grief and acceptance. With a touch of the surreal, Naiman has woven a fantastical tale with a powerful message about learning to face your demons, traversing the tricky plains of middle school, and how important compassion is in the face of adversity.

Jake wakes on his birthday after one of his lucid dreams. We see his life, a typical, moody teenager – his family, a darling little sister, and a father with patience to spare. They serve as a grounding force for Jake, […]

2019-01-22T11:02:56+02:00May 12th, 2018|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: |
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Review: The Sow’s Ear Café by Holly Quan

The Sow’s Ear Café by Holly Quan

Ending up in Sweetgrass, Alberta, while on a drive to clear her head of thirty-nine years of bad decisions and emotional baggage, Lucie slowly finds love and acceptance in her new town. The Sow’s Ear Café by Holly Quan transports the tough and damaged Lucie from her shallow life in Vancouver to Sweetgrass’s potential for deeper human connections.

Staked to her journey by a friend, Lucie’s car breaks down in Sweetgrass. She soon finds herself renting a room from a goodhearted ranching couple, working as a waitress, and then dating Ray, the mysterious chef of the Sow’s Ears Café. The […]

2019-01-22T10:59:32+02:00May 11th, 2018|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: |
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Review: Lady of the Lake by Jennifer Wherrett

Lady of the Lake by Jennifer Wherrett

There are countless stories of King Arthur and the Age of Camelot, and with Lady of the Lake, author Jennifer Wherrett adds a wonderful new chapter to this long and rich tradition. Taking a much more feminine perspective on this particular element of our collective culture, this book does away with the notion that women in Arthurian legend were merely love interests. Instead, in this world, they are holy accomplices to the epic tales we have known since childhood.

The story of how Arthur came to be the King of the Britons has taken many forms, as has the […]

2018-05-16T11:57:58+02:00May 9th, 2018|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: |
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Review: The Darziods’ Stone by Richard Smith

The Darziods' Stone by Richard Smith

The Darziods’ Stone by Richard Smith is a fun middle grade adventure, reading like “The Goonies” set in Cornwall, which will certainly inspire young readers’ sense of adventure.

The book begins with a prologue, which sets the scene nicely, giving the adventure to come a sense of real history – namely Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt and the British swift response to it.  The reader then finds themselves stranded in Cornwall with a mystical stone that is being desperately hidden by members of the crew, which sets the story for a group of teenagers to crack the code of the missing […]

2019-01-22T11:03:10+02:00May 8th, 2018|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: , |
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Review: Footsteps in the Dark: Stories of the Bizarre and Unusual by Carlo Armenise

Footsteps in the Dark by Carlo Armenise

Although a collection of short stories, Carlo Armenise has managed to make Footsteps in the Dark: Stories of the Bizarre and Unusual a cohesive whole by creating an atmosphere that radiates through each page. Without delving into exaggeration or fantasy, Armenise has managed to capture what we all fear lurking in the shadows, providing a visceral experience for any reader.

The stories deal with a range of topics, from transference of consciousness to dialogues on evil itself. Reminiscent of Stephen King’s short stories, every story focuses on the human element; these are real, flawed characters who we can all relate […]

2020-03-10T12:34:54+02:00May 5th, 2018|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: , , |
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Review: Recall by R. Lawson

Recall by R. Lawson

The Vietnam War remains one of the most controversial and tumultuous times in American history, leaving a shadowy legacy that affects politics, culture, entertainment and art to this day. Author R. Lawson takes readers back into those confusing times in his new novel, Recall, which falls into the historical fiction genre, but is also deeply influenced by his own experiences in the war.

As with many novels and films about this period in history, the human element is the most engaging and heartbreaking aspect of the story, as readers are shown the devastating effects that war can have on […]

2020-02-21T06:17:56+02:00May 4th, 2018|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: , |
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Review: Chasing the Red Queen by Karen Glista

Chasing the Red Queen

Chippewa legends and vampirical lore make for interesting bedfellows in Chasing the Red Queen, an edgy YA paranormal romance by Karen Glista.

Sixteen-year-old Donja Bellanger is devastated to be leaving behind her childhood home and all those she holds dear to start a new life in another town, thanks to her mother’s marriage to widower, Carson Hampton. Worse yet, she’ll have to share a bedroom with Carson’s privileged daughter, Makayla, during renovations to the old manor into which they just moved.

Surprisingly, the two girls quickly become fast friends, bonding over their tragic loss of a parent, and on […]

2020-02-21T07:14:31+02:00April 20th, 2018|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: , |
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Review: Mnemosyne’s Daughters by Brit Chism

Mnemosyne’s Daughters by Brit Chism

Mnemosyne’s Daughters is a thought-provoking collection of modern day short stories inspired by Greek mythology that author, Brit Chism, uses to highlight social issues affecting women in today’s society.

Told from a surprisingly male perspective, there are nine short stories in all – a few somewhat blandly titled after women. Then there are the rest, like “Alice Silver-Blue Hair and the Saints,” “Elysian Fields Next Exit,” “Mnemosyne’s Daughters,” “Layla and the Rage,” and “Medea Royal,” each of which express the author’s robust imagination that is evident throughout this collection.

At the heart of each story are women from all walks […]

2019-01-22T11:13:27+02:00April 18th, 2018|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: , |
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