May 23, 2023
J. Brandon Lowry’s debut fantasy novel, set on an island, follows the struggles of orphaned siblings who embark on a quest to find their destiny and understand their deceased parents’ dark past.
Sophie Farrier, 14, and her older brother Damon live with their aunt and uncle in the small village called Seaside, a place where […]
May 15, 2023
In this vivid travelogue, a 58-year-old retired Indian husband and father is convinced by his wife to undertake a 30-mile trek around Mount Kailash in Tibet at an altitude of over 18,000 feet.
Mo Rao’s adventure begins with a threat against him and his family, made by a member of the “land mafia”: gangsters acquiring […]
May 9, 2023
The premise of Zeb Beck’s The Melancholy Strumpet Master is intriguing: By day, Gilmore Crowell works at a school for juvenile delinquents in California, but nights and weekends, he crosses the border to Tijuana where he’s trying to finish his doctoral thesis on street walkers.
After eight years of trying to finish his anthropology doctorate […]
May 2, 2023
In Caryn Rivadeneira’s middle grade book, when a boy named Fred is sick at home and misses an author’s visit to his school, he returns to find that the writer has mistakenly inscribed “To Frank” on his copy.
Classmate Luisa —who likes to call herself Princesa Maria Luisa Octavia— sits next to Fred and regularly […]
May 2, 2023
Linda Katehi, the first female chancellor emerita of the University of California, Davis, exposes the cutthroat world of higher academia, including her battle against sexism, in this gripping memoir about persevering through relentless persecution.
Katehi grew up on the Greek island of Salamis in a family that was rich only in heritage. When she complained […]
May 1, 2023
Bright Blue Planet is the third novel in Kim Catanzarite’s captivating science fiction series featuring protagonist Evander Peterman of the wealthy, mysterious Jovian family.
This installment, told in third person, is the first not narrated by Evander Peterman’s mother, Svetlana. The story picks up more than 10 years after the last. While readers can benefit […]
April 27, 2023
A highly engaging fusion of historical fantasy and Nordic myth, this second installment in Mark Howard’s Griffins Legends series (after 2021’s Godfrey’s Crusade) follows crusader Godfrey de Bastogne as he and his company are forced to defend a fortress besieged by enemies.
Having secured Oslo Fortress from a host of berserkers and assorted monstrosities, Godfrey—accompanied […]
April 25, 2023
Stunning photographs paired with brief prose vignettes from 52 talented writers explore the theme of healing in this vibrant, gorgeous collection.
The introduction sets up the premise, prompted by the photographer’s experience of fibromyalgia: Each writer is given a photograph, the theme of “healing visions,” and a 100-word limit. The prose pieces vary widely in […]
April 18, 2023
A fun, frenetic tour de force, Brendan Smiley’s bravura alien-invasion novel immediately snags readers with politically-charged hooks.
Grocery shopping “in the Western States of Separated America,” 26-year-old Breya Morrow is tailed by “ad/vend drones—twelve inch, wafer-thin screens playing video advertisements and targeting shoppers according to what they were pursuing – coffee, soup, pancake mix, etc.” […]
April 14, 2023
This fictionalized exploration of Maria Chabot’s friendship with Georgia O’Keeffe provides a lush portrait of the remarkable Chabot, O’Keeffe and her legacy, and the landscape that shaped both their lives.
Maria Chabot met Georgia O’Keeffe in 1940, and they exchanged almost 700 letters until O’Keeffe’s death in 1986. Albert’s novel sifts the breadth and complexity […]