A sad and beautiful coming-of-age story of a child and her country, NoViolet Bulawayo’s novel, We Need New Names, takes us to Zimbabwe during the Mugabe era. Here, 10-year-old Darling copes with extreme poverty, hunger, and near-homelessness in her ironically-named shantytown, Paradise. We join the...

When we first meet Hannah, she is fighting traffic on her way to her grandmother's funeral. She is bringing her grandmother's embalmed canary, which, according to family legend, alerted her grandfather to toxic fumes in the coal mine her grandmother owned. Hannah is dreading the...

“Whether I Live or Die” is a novel that juxtaposes two stories; one is about a woman who cannot seem to find the strength of character in her relationships with men and life in general and the other story is that of a rookie policewoman...

"Ward 2 South" is Terri M. Mitchell's first attempt at fiction. Drawing on her professional credentials and experience as a psychiatric social worker, Ms Mitchell draws eloquent word pictures of the mentally ill patients and staff in a place she calls Warren Psychiatric Hospital. Each...

“Why She Left Us” by David Dennis is comprised of the diary pages of five people and five different accounts of the times leading to September 1985. The characters’ memories provide the basis for this romantic fiction. Monica, an 18-year old self-described psychopath, alone with...

The story revolves around Eleanor’s search for something in her life. But she herself seems to be confounded about what she was searching for. She left behind a daughter in the care of her family - her parents and grandmother - while searching for that...

Sally Anabelle Stephenson's "Wildflowers" is the story of Helena, a daughter of a top Nazi official, and Edith, a half Jewish girl, during the 1940's. When Hitler came to power, their lives became entangled together. Edith and her family had been hiding their identity and...

Kate Faraday always felt a bit of shame where her parents were concerned. It was tough growing up with an alcoholic father and a mother who suffered from mental illness. Added to the dysfunction was the fact that her parents lived in separate houses, but...

"Words Falling Like Water" is a very interesting, frustrating, funny, and heartbreaking story all wrapped up into one. First time author Sonya Vaughn explains how the failing auto industry has suffered and how that suffering has impacted the people worldwide. There are examples given within...

Craig Ridgway leaves his well-educated home at the age of fifteen because he cannot imagine being in school another year. He moves from Philadelphia to Lancaster where he apprentices himself to the master-gunsmith Jakob Wetzel. When Jakob dies in January 1811, twenty-one year-old Craig loses...