Sueño en Llamas: From the Ashes His Conscience was Born, by Marvin DeLos Reyes, is the story of three Latino youths trying to find their footing in pursuit of the American dream. Best friends for many years, the three are an illustration of the journey...

Someone Else First by Joel T. Elliott is a social drama revolving around one family’s history over the span of several generations. It starts with Douglas McFarlane, a man from a mid-western family in Wisconsin, who is contemplating suicide. Though his thoughts of suicide were...

Killarney Traynor's debut novel Summer Shadows is a wonderful mystery story about three orphaned children and their Aunt Julia. After the children's parents are tragically killed in a car accident, Julia take custody of the children. She has no ongoing financial means to support the...

Second Take: You Can Rewrite Your Story is an inspirational novel written by E.L. Nelson. Vera has just turned fifty, and the highlight of her day is dining with her daughter, Vlada, and her grandson, Danil. Vlada wants to host a party and invite friends...

Angered by the oil spill in her hometown on Santa Barbara's coast in 1969 and being sent to Catholic school, fifteen-year-old Jolie absconds from her family with her twenty-four-year-old activist boyfriend, Will. Hoping she would now be free from her parents' control, she is instead...

Swim a Crooked Line by Al X. Griz is a novel about society, about the issues that affect us all. John Jenkins and his wife Barbara own a highly productive traditional farm, spreading across 500 acres in Western Nebraska. Their livestock are free-range and their...

Native New Zealander Katherine Hayton's second novel, Skeletal, is an endearing read and offers a different perspective on how teenage fiction may be written. Refreshingly lacking any aspect of romance, the female heroine, fourteen-year-old Daina Harrow, is a bright student at school whose negligent and...

Secrets Mothers Keep by Linda J. Bettenay is a well-written, fascinating fictionalization of a real-life murder in rural West Australia in the late 1920s. The plot brings together two people who couldn’t have had less in common. One is Harold Smith, landowner, businessman, devoted husband...

Callie James presents an average high school in which there are everyday students. One of the students wants to pay another student for protection for her brother from the school bullies. Pretty soon this turns into a down spiraling event in which everyone wants protection...

Stolen is a mystery by Dawn Kopman Whidden. When hunters find male victims with gunshot wounds and two traumatised children at a remote cabin, homicide detectives Jean Whitley and her partner Marty Keal are shocked by the things their investigation uncovers. One of the victims...