New Releases | Self-Publishing Review

Mark of the Medallion (The Wizard Academies Book 1) by Mike Shelton

Mark of the Medallion by Mike Shelton With great power comes great temptation, as Kyril Siravan discovers in Mark of the Medallion, the first installment of the Wizard Academies series by Mike Shelton.

As an orphan and an apprentice wizard of the mind at the Wizard Academy, Kyril has a lot to learn about his abilities and the complex world of the mystic arts. However, not all is right at the academy, and when Kyril is drawn into a new group of secretive apprentices led by a wizard named Targon, his best friend Sylvie fears that he is treading a dangerous path.

While this fast-paced adventure […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2020-01-08T09:12:55+02:00January 8th, 2020|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Fantasy Book Reviews, YA Fantasy Book Reviews, Young Adult Book Reviews|

From Now to The End of Time by Brian T. Sluga

A kaleidoscopic existence blooms to life on the pages of poet Brian Sluga’s new collection From Now to the End of Time. Self-described as stories, these widely varied poems create an eclectic dreamscape, blending recollections of youth with glimpses of romance and mythology, half-remembered nights out and elusive descriptions of emotion.

Moments of ecstasy are woven through self-reflection and painful losses, offering an unfiltered view of life through an honest, straightforward lens. “Virtue in My Heart” begins How do I always pour my heart out / then it gets trampled / a lingering feeling / on my journey. This sort […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2019-12-20T07:45:07+02:00December 20th, 2019|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Poetry Book Reviews|

Water is Wider by Marie Green McKeon

Water is Wider by Marie Green McKeon Two seemingly unconnected lives swirl around each other in Marie Green McKeon’s emotive second novel, Water is Wider.

Phoebe is an impulsive 11-year-old determined to solve the mystery of her father’s disappearance, and sets off on a dangerous journey to Connecticut to find the truth. Sidney is a middle-aged proofreader mourning the loss of her mother and the emotional challenges of life after death. Already wrestling with grief, the slow demise of the publishing house that employs her may be too much to bear, leading Sidney to seek unlikely and potentially dangerous company.

These two stories initially lie very […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2019-12-20T07:19:08+02:00December 19th, 2019|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Contemporary Fiction Book Reviews|

The Heartless Divine by Varsha Ravi

Author Varsha Ravi weaves a magnificent tale of secrets, gods, love, and fallen kingdoms in her enthralling debut novel, The Heartless Divine.

When an immortal with amnesia named Kiran nearly bleeds out in the doorway to Suri’s apartment, she has no idea that her life is about to change forever, nor that the young man could hold the key to all her tragic pasts.

Leaping between Suri’s modern-day existence and her life centuries ago as an assassin princess, this novel is a time- and mind-bending plunge into mythology, family, the power of memory, and the tangled web of destiny […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2019-12-19T07:21:32+02:00December 19th, 2019|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Fantasy Book Reviews, Visionary Fiction Book Reviews|

Time Travel Rescue by Tom Kranz

Time Travel Rescue by Tom Kranz Author Tom Kranz catapults readers through two wild futures in Time Travel Rescue: Escape from the 21st Century, a new science fiction novel that feels timely and unexpectedly relevant.

Rick Stein is flung 150 years into the past, landing in the year 2055, rather than 2212, and must find a way to change the world so he can save the future. The future Rick comes from is bleak, with Earth’s inhabitants being crowded into the few livable areas that remain as the planet collapses around them. The mid-21^st century, by contrast, is an entrancing place of temptation and […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2019-12-18T11:58:27+02:00December 18th, 2019|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews, Time Travel Book Reviews|

Kicked in the Head by a Horse by Ronnie Cassano

Human history is peppered with periods of extreme darkness and abject evil, eras of injustice and cruelty that forced people to confront their own morality, and Ronnie Cassano taps into this grisly fodder for his new story collection, Kicked in the Head by a Horse.

These stories criss-cross the globe and leap between centuries, tied together by simmering conflict and characters exposed to crises of faith and times of trouble. From a foreigner battling his way through the brutal violence of Scandinavian culture to a beloved regular drinking away his sorrows and poverty, this is not a hopeful collection, […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2019-12-18T08:21:31+02:00December 18th, 2019|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Short Stories Book Reviews|

Strange Entities by Chris Carvell

For readers seeking a mind-bending and consciousness-expanding read, Strange Entities: Quantum Processes linking Creation and Consciousness: An exploration connecting Material Reality and Non-Material Reality by Chris Carvell should top their reading list.

There has been a great deal of discussion in recent decades about quantum physics and mechanics, as well as superposition, quantum entanglement, quantum tunneling and many other highly academic niches that can boggle the average, non-physicist reader. This book attempts to simplify a massive range of related topics and find the logical connections between the quantum scale and the universal scale.

Essentially, if our consciousness is contained in […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2019-12-17T08:21:41+02:00December 16th, 2019|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Science Book Reviews|

Happiness is Fleeting by Andrew E. Crowley

Happiness is Fleeting by Andrew Crowley

The fragile ideal that happiness is the ultimate pursuit of life is forcefully challenged in Happiness is Fleeting: The First Steps To Fulfillment, a quick and motivational read by author Andrew E. Crowley.

There is no denying that our modern society has resulted in widespread addiction to happiness, or at least the idea of it. The things we buy, the way we are told to feel, and our standard metrics for success are largely driven by our hunger for this abstract emotion. As an alternative, Crowley suggests a greater level of personal accountability and focus in order to seize […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2019-12-09T08:08:42+02:00December 8th, 2019|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Self-Help Book Reviews|