Book Reviews
Creation of the Inevitable: Volume 1
The Raven’s Doctor
(Reviewed: June, 2022)
This novella centers on 17-year-old Malcom Doxon and the strange, fantastical world in which he suddenly finds himself.
Malcom is hospitalized with an unnamed, chronic ailment. When his girlfriend Denise visits him and crawls on top of him in the hospital bed, she crushes his fragile pelvis. He closes his eyes to take a nap […]
Love Your Selfie
Danielle Gasalberti
(Reviewed: June, 2022)
Love Your Selfie is a picture book featuring three pre-teen friends who start an initiative to help their classmates gain confidence in the face of social media pressure.
Best friends Lauren, Lisa, and Nicole post selfies on their social media channels while preparing for their first day of middle school. Nicole is shocked when one […]
The War for Ascension: A Crisis Reborn
Dominician Gennari
(Reviewed: June, 2022)
A seamless fusion of adventure fantasy and science fiction, this first installment in Dominician Gennari’s shelf-bending War for Ascension saga follows an unlikely group of heroes as they attempt to stop a mythical evil entity from throwing their planet—and the entire universe—into eternal darkness.
Thousands of years after most of the population of the planet […]
Tides of the Sovereign
Kate Gateley
(Reviewed: June, 2022)
In Tides of the Sovereign, Kate Gateley offers a sprawling journey that melds the everyday tribulations of a university student with a hidden world of magic, reincarnation and mythology.
Readers are introduced to Julia Harrison, a 30-year-old linguistics student at the University of British Columbia who has just re-entered the world of academia after the […]
Evolution Continues: A Human-Computer Partnership
William Meisel
(Reviewed: June, 2022)
“The increasing impact of computers in our lives may change what it means to be human.” That’s the streamlined thesis of Evolution Continues, in which author William Meisel posits that the rapid evolution of computer technology is intrinsically linked to a concurrent type of human evolution, albeit not a biological one.
Instead, Meisel’s book contends, […]
Moonshine Revival
Daniel Micko
(Reviewed: June, 2022)
In Moonshine Revival, a revision of Daniel Micko’s 2016 novel The Moonshine Wars, Deep South racism animates a family saga spanning the Civil War to the early 20th century.
Kincaid, Georgia, is home to the Kincaid and Spicer families. In 1888, town founder Terry Lee Kincaid Sr. (“Big T”) starts a moonshine venture with Jim […]
The Escalator
Andrew Budden
(Reviewed: June, 2022)
In this tale, members of an English family consider life as it pivots around their mentally unstable husband and father.
The story begins as retired couple William and Cas enjoy a cruise from Genoa to Shanghai. The ocean liner represents a metaphor of sorts for William as he reflects on his recovery from “insanity.” Following […]
The Newlywed’s Window: The 2022 Mukana Press Anthology of African Writing
Various authors
(Reviewed: June, 2022)
This exciting short story collection showcasing strong and emerging African writers displays a refreshing richness and depth of experience.
The stories cover an expansive range of subjects. Many feature young people learning about the world in both tender and tragic ways. In “Our Girl Bimpe,” Bimpe’s fake profile on Facebook causes her trouble, and in […]
Cracking Through My Eggshell: A Memoir
Angela Hogle
(Reviewed: June, 2022)
Before hatching, a baby chick develops a temporary “tooth” at the end of its beak to chisel through its eggshell to be born. Author Angela J. Hogle evokes this arduous process as a metaphor for her own difficult journey to parenthood, in the title of her memoir, Cracking Through My Egg Shell.
Diagnosed as a […]
Nostradamus Speaks Again™
Elisabeth Jörgensen
(Reviewed: June, 2022)
Via short channeled communications in verse and prose, Nostradamus, Michael Jackson, John Lennon, Princess Diana, Jesus Christ, and more non-earthly spirits try to convey basic New Age beliefs such as love, unity, and co-creation in this volume.
Hoping to bring readers to “another level of profound,” a variety of voices with names familiar to any […]