New Releases | Self-Publishing Review

Midnight Heat (The Firework Girls Book 2) by J.L. White

Midnight Heat by J.L. White, the second book in the Firework Girls series, focuses on Chloe and her romance with the handsome Grayson. Basically left at the altar, Chloe has a passionate hookup with Grayson on what would be the night of her wedding. It’s all too much, given she’s on the rebound, so she flees the turmoil, regretting every moment, because her connection with Grayson is far more than sexual. So she wants him back in her life, only to find 9 months later that the love of her life is now hooked up with her best friend.

Having […]

Lysa Grant2016-07-14T11:27:53+02:00May 9th, 2016|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Romance Book Reviews|

Golden Notes by Samuel Joeckel

Golden Notes by Samuel Joeckel Golden Notes by Samuel Joeckel is a love letter to music. Starting in 1981, it follows the life of young Cali Sky, a musical prodigy on the piano, and then guitar, which she discovers in her bedroom closet, unleashing an odyssey of musical exploration. The child of hippie parents, Cali Sky branches out to the punk movement of the moment – first covering Agent Orange, and moving on from there. Through her broadening horizons on the musical front, she begins to explore deeply her friendship with her musical cohort, Brodie, and further understand her parents’ past.

As Joeckel was formerly […]

Henry Baum2016-05-06T06:49:52+02:00May 6th, 2016|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Music Book Reviews|

Quiescence Terminated by Allan Greenbrier

Quiescence Terminated by Allan Greenbrier is a harrowing terrorist thriller, following the life of Sam, desperate to make his mark on the world to free himself from a life of desperation, leading to a chilling culmination of his distorted beliefs.

The novel is exceptionally well-researched, weaving its way through Islamic culture, Catholicism, the halls of American government, and more, so the reader know they’re in the hands of an author who knows every element of his story’s environment.

A weakness in the book is that the narrative voice doesn’t change dramatically enough between characters. When it’s switching from an Islamic […]

Henry Baum2016-05-05T09:41:32+02:00May 5th, 2016|Categories: New Releases|Tags: International Thriller Book Reviews, Thriller Book Reviews|

Mays Landing by J.C. Mercer

Mays Landing by J.C. Mercer is a dark but hopeful novel about a series of difficult subjects: suicide, mental illness, and life on the streets. The novel begins with Parkhill Mays laying in a Bellevue hospital bed, having attempted suicide. He soon meets T-Bone, a resourceful homeless man who gets by as a “human lab rat,” selling body parts and participating in clinical trials, and he teaches Mays to do the same. Together they live under the streets of New York City, as Mays tries to reconcile his new underground life with the world above ground, and the mental illness […]

Henry Baum2016-04-29T10:33:30+02:00April 29th, 2016|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Contemporary Fiction Book Reviews|

Candor Candy: Global Poems by Helene Pilibosian

Candor Candy: Global Poems by Helene Pilibosian is a full-bodied collection exploring the space between humanity and nature, and the sadness and beauty therein, from the Amazon to the Thames to China and back to the US, where the poet resides, an Armenian-American, already by nature an international and globally-aware writer.

The poems strip back to the senses in color and form. They are somewhat reminiscent of Jon Fosse’s more nature-led pieces in form: combinations of natural elements and the senses, somewhat awry with the immediate and raw emotion of the poet in the moment, a cultural reference from modern-day […]

Cate Baum2016-04-28T10:48:00+02:00April 28th, 2016|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Poetry Book Reviews|

Reaper: A Lucky Dey Thriller by Doug Richardson

Reaper: A Lucky Dey Thriller by Doug Richardson takes place in a scorching Los Angeles summer, in which South Central murders are on the rise. Sheriff’s deputy Lucky Dey has something of a checkered past, skirting the line between good and bad guy, and wants to clean up a part of the city that’s been left to disintegrate.

An accomplished screenwriter (“Die Hard 2″ among others), Richardson writes with a cinematic quality – not in the sense that Reaper reads like a screenplay, but in how it establishes setting and character without slowing down the story. Richardson is especially good […]

Henry Baum2016-04-29T04:54:52+02:00April 28th, 2016|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Crime Fiction Book Reviews, Thriller Book Reviews|

The Dark Ones (Black Werewolves Book 1) by Gaja J. Kos

The Dark Ones (Black Werewolves Book 1) by Gaja J. Kos is a richly detailed and exciting werewolf novel in which a pack of Black werewolves attempt to uncover who or what is murdering White werewolves. Rose, the leader of the Black werewolves, enlists the help of Veles, lord of the Underworld, and finds herself falling for him. To win the war, the Black werewolves must become The Dark Ones – the brutal, violent pack of their ancestors – or risk having all werewolves wiped out forever.

A Slovenian author writing about a Slovenian setting, the book has an authenticity […]

Lysa Grant2016-04-19T05:58:54+02:00April 19th, 2016|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Paranormal Book Reviews|

The Improbable Rise of Paco Jones by Dominic Carrillo

The Improbable Rise of Paco Jones by Dominic Carrillo is about the awkwardness of teenage years through the eyes of Bi-racial Paco Jones. Paco transfers to a rich high school from a poor neighborhood. It doesn’t help matters in his new environment that he’s fairly odd-looking, with an unsightly birthmark on his neck, pigeon toes, and overly-hairy arms, so he’s teased mercilessly by his classmates. He then falls for the most popular girl in class, who has a boyfriend, and is tasked as an eighth-grade Cyrano by her boyfriend. Soon Paco finds himself at the center of a whole lot […]