SPR’s book reviews of new self-published books
Miranda, seemingly a stranger to Dave, knocks on his door and is let into the house. She is looking for answers – but to what? Dave himself is harboring some intense secrets of his own. The undercurrents between the two are violent and dark and swim just beneath the surface, but reveal a much darker past for them both.
What Goff does best is layer (no pun intended) […]
Splitting the collection into four parts – “Clouds Moonlit,” “Cloudy Day Doorway,” “Windswept,” “Wind Song” – was an ingenious idea by Burns, as it has the effect of moving the reader through space, from night into day, as if on a gust of wind. The illustrations at the beginning of each poem are also a delight, and enhance the imagery, rather than leading the reader.
The opening poem, “Quietly There You Be,” is a tone-setter. An undercurrent of longing runs […]
Solicitor Ben McCann moved to Koh Samui, a tropical island off the coast of Thailand, five years ago and has just merged his modest firm with a large Bangkok law firm. Ben is summarily told that their newest client, BAS Petroleum, intends to start drilling for oil in nearby Koh Tao and he’s tasked with persuading Alex Wattana, the President of the Thailand Oil Commission, to grant BAS the licence to drill. Ben immediately […]
Roberts McCann, the firm Ben McCann started five years ago with his best friend, Dylan Roberts, is financially struggling and needs an influx of money. It looks as though Ben’s prayers are answered when a new client, representing a local Hong Kong clan, retains the firm to get back the Fanling temple from the corrupt government, but things quickly turn into a nightmare when the trial judge is stabbed to death and Tyler Scott, a solicitor […]
Cooper and his wife Jenn were enjoying a happy, successful life in their early 30s, with two sons and good career prospects. Then Jenn was diagnosed with a serious form of cancer and the long-term outlook was grim: even with heavy chemo treatments and surgery, she might likely have a fatal recurrence of the disease.
Cooper describes his day-to-day struggles: how to tell the boys what was […]
Life on Earth is inevitably going to change in the coming decades, and in Dan Eaton’s Luni327: The Journey Begins, one of the more popular ideas of a lunar colony takes center stage in this suspense-filled YA novel.
Couched within the perspective of a 13-year-old boy, the story comes with a natural innocence to it, but Bryce also grows immensely over the course of the novel, and the adventures he experiences on his journey effortlessly drive this exciting tale. Additionally, the novel’s futuristic vision of the moon doesn’t stretch too far into the realm of science fiction, considering that […]
The book is touching and engrossing, and much more than a memoir of an illness. Constructed through actual email correspondence, the reader is unaware just what might happen next, offering a harrowing but compelling account of this tragic experience. Woven together with Greg’s own heartfelt recounting of that time in his life, […]
At age seven the author began to have seizures and blackouts. By her teens she began exploring a “daydream world.” Satanic beings threatened to kill her, tempted her with lust, or overwhelmed her with secular influences. Yet she often heard hymns or the voice of God, who several times saved her, she believes, from sin or death. She was once consigned to a locked […]