“I was twenty-one years old when I sold my baby.” A powerful admittance from a young woman, Isabelle. There may be all kinds of reasons why someone would sell their baby, but Isabelle’s story is unique. Coming from a working-class background in the late nineteenth...

Pushing Back is a work of fiction in the southern fiction, drama, and coming of age sub-genres, and was penned by author Jim Hartsell as Book One in the Boone Series. Written for mature audiences from teens upwards, the book does contain some use of...

In Four Very Different Short Stories by Mahmoud Suleiman Abdi Dualeh, four contemporary tales cover the theme of family, mystery, ethics, and fantasy. After 14 years, a family tries to find a way to reunite with each other in Family Day, a poignant story that...

War can wreak havoc on the minds and souls of those fighting it. Victory is difficult to define and the grey area between heroics and mere survival is nondescript. When one World War I soldier, a cellist, throws away his rifle in frustration at the...

Saving Jahan by Hans Joseph Fellmann is written in a haunting voice and atmospheric style, following Johann Felmanstien who, as a member of the Peace Corps, is sent to teach English in Turkmenistan for two years. Johann loves to party and he drinks a lot,...

A Chicago police detective desires revenge on the criminals who killed his family in the exciting crime thriller, Ashes of the Living by John Cox. Detective Tyler Morgan is a tough cop, but when he goes home, he leaves his aggression at work. His home...

If you’re a fan of courtroom procedurals, you can always count on Mark M. Bello to provide you with a detailed look at what usually only the lawyers, the judges, the accused, the jurors, and the immediate families witness. In Betrayal in Black, Bello brings...

In Coffee Killed My Mother by Donna Koros Stramella, seventeen-year-old Anna Lee learns more about her mother on a trip than she has her whole life. Inspired by a comment on a blog about the abundance of coffee in a quaint cottage in Hanover, Pennsylvania,...

Letters of Forgiveness by Cathy Schaffer is a fascinating story, filled with humanity and realism and following very compelling characters. At twenty-four, Katie is a Second Lieutenant, an intelligent and very skilled fighter. In a mission that goes wrong in Afghanistan, she loses a lover,...

The Rider by Charles Simpson is an interesting book that explores the themes of life, death, and rebirth, a narrative with a strong appeal to readers who enjoy reincarnation and fans of Franz Kafka. Sixty-five-year-old Janusz Zalewski dies happily in 1915, and as he dies,...