SPR’s book reviews of new self-published books
Songs of the Deliverer II: Faith Wins by Elvo Fortunato Bucci
Songs of the Deliverer II: Faith Wins is the sequel to Elvo Fortunato Bucci’s Songs of the Deliverer: A Modern Day Story of Christ, a retelling of Christ’s story for young adult readers, or anyone who wants to read and learn about Jesus’s story in a more modern format. In Faith Wins, Bucci tells the story of the apostles after Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection – how they maintained faith without their leader, and spread the gospel.
What makes the Songs of the Deliverer series particularly unique is not just the use of modern language, but a modern setting […]
Danloria: The Secret Forest of Germania by Gloria D. Gonsalves is a book for 4 to 7-year-olds about Stan who goes venturing into the forest and meets a magical collection of plants, mushrooms, and other fauna. In each meeting with the different plant-creatures, we learn about different plant’s properties (such as fern, moss, blackberry, and many others). When Stan falls ill, we then learn the medicinal properties of all these different plants. Gonsalves deftly integrates real facts about plants without seeming too encyclopedic – kids will learn and appreciate the different forms of plant life without even realizing they’re learning![…]
Fighting to survive in a world gone mad is a bold premise for any novel, particularly a dystopian one where the author is simultaneously required to world-build and deliver high-intensity action. In Paroxysm Effect, author Ashleigh Reynolds creates a utopian world of peace and prosperity, and then quickly destroys that façade, dropping her main character into a tangled plot of behavior-control chips that have suddenly ceased to function after 5 decades of dominion. The subsequent murder and mayhem makes for fast, voracious reading, and the pacing of this novel rarely lets up.