SPR’s book reviews of new self-published books
B The EXXtinction by Santiago Mantilla
As in many dystopian fantasies, there’s a kernal of truth to what […]
Long Plastic Hallway by Joyce V. Harrison
Twenty-somethings Ellis, Bax and Chloe set out for a roadtrip only to quickly find they have no money. Busking to get by, Ellis eventually makes his way to Los Angeles and into the cut-throat music business, and all the highs (literally) and lows you find there. A story as much about friendship as it is about the music industry, Long Plastic Hallway is a generation-defining book that’s as fun to read as it is for these characters to live.
Taking a listen to Harrison’s Soundcloud account, it’s obvious she knows the music industry very well, and her passion for music […]
Exile (Bloodforge Book 1) by Tom Stacey
Exile (Bloodforge Book 1) by Tom Stacey is an epic fantasy novel that heralds the beginning of an exciting new series. The Verian Empire is in shambles – on the edge of war, in the past and on the horizon – a land where heroes no longer remain. Out of this chaos, new heroes emerge to fight the Echoes, demons in a human facade, who want to claim this land for their own.
Stacey is a born fantasy writer. Exile has all the elements of a strong epic fantasy: a detailed world that feels like a real place, complete with […]
Celluloid by Holly Curtis
Jimmy Clifford is sick of his life – sick of his friend Oswald’s card games, sick of the drugs that don’t seem to be fun anymore, and the anti-depressants have stopped working. When he finds out that his cherished local […]
My Daylight Monsters by Sarah Dalton
My Daylight Monsters is the prequel novella to Sarah Dalton’s Young Adult Mary Hades series. Though the book is called a prequel, Dalton recommends in the beginning of the book to start with this short work, and it establishes Mary Hades as a riveting, exciting, and sensitive young adult heroine.
My Daylight Monsters finds 17-year-old Mary Hades being institutionalized after having “visions” of zombies and skull-headed monsters. As she’s in a mental institution, there’s always a nagging sense that Mary might actually be crazy – to the reader, and to Mary herself. Woven into this narrative are an interesting cast […]
Golden Gloves: rap-novel by G. Petrov & M. Salita
A novel in verse could potentially get tedious, but Golden Gloves flows evenly. Another potential problem is that it could seem childlike, as rhyming verse is most commonly associated with children’s books. Because of the themes present, and the cadence of the prose, neither of these issues is an […]
Brighton Make-Believe by Michael Salita
Brighton Make-Believe by Michael Salita is a charming children’s book about using your imagination. Really, there cannot be enough books stressing kids to use make believe. In the neighborhood of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, three six-year-old boys are sick of playing sports all the time and want something else to do. They start making up stories about different animals in the neighborhood – dogs that run along rooftops and birds that live underground – and they travel around the neighborhood making up more and more outlandish stories about the neighborhood animals.
The main trouble with Brighton Make-Believe is it calls out […]
Thirty Days to Thirty by Courtney Psak
Thirty Days to Thirty is a fun and emotionally-charged novel about a woman who’s just approaching thirty who loses everything: In the space of a few hours she gets fired from her job and then finds her boyfriend of six years has been cheating on her. Just when she thought her whole life was coming together and she was on the right track, everything falls apart, and instead finds herself living again with her parents. And so she gets innovative: she finds an old list of things she hoped to accomplish before she turned thirty, and with a few friends […]