The Stepfamily by Bonnie Traymore is a psychological page-turner set in Silicon Valley. After twelve years of marriage, Laura still feels like a visitor in the family because it is not hers. Laura married Peter after his wife’s death and helped raise his children. Something...

Across The Border: Stories is a fascinating collection of short stories by Anthony Pond. This collection has fifteen stories with titles like Tragedy in The Corral, The Goat Pen Vegetable Garden, Sandals, Diamond Ring, Kilimanjaro, and The Call Home. The stories are interconnected and tell...

Intent on wrapping up the thesis for his doctorate in anthropology at UC San Diego, Gilmore Crowell had spent the last eight years studying sex workers in Tijuana. The last thing he needed was the news that some big shots at the University wanted him...

Emerson always believed that the women in her family were different, based on the eccentricities of Amelia, her grandmother. Yet, she could not forget the fateful evening when Amelia predicted her daughter’s imminent death. Five years have passed since her mother’s suicide, but Emerson hasn’t...

Life After is a work of fiction in the interpersonal drama, grief and loss, and coming-of-age subgenres. It is intended for the young adult reading audience but can also be enjoyed by adult readers as it deals with strong themes of death, loss, pain, and...

Serafino da Ferrara by Paolo Grossi is an interesting take on the coming-of-age of two young gay men, some 500 years apart. In the early 16th century, a brilliant and incredibly talented young artist, Serafino, is tutored by one of the masters, Mastro Filargiro. His...

An End to Etcetera by B. Robert Conklin is a thrilling murder mystery. Selena Harris is a therapist with OCD, and her latest patient is a 14-year-old boy who says he drowned an autistic child. Unfortunately, he only confessed it in a text and mistakenly...

Burned Out is a medical thriller by Dean Mafako. Eric Philson’s life is perfect on the surface. However, he feels too comfortable in his profession and unchallenged. Eric is offered a job at the Children’s Hospital of Biloxi; he has to build the cardiac intensive...

Two Lives is a romance mystery novel by Freya Zalvidar. Natasha Lewis is an artist living a humdrum life with her husband, Joshua, and their two children, Samuel and Emily. However, when a family camping trip results in a terrible accident, Natasha's life turns upside...

Nora is a forty-year-old woman who enjoys the same routine. She, her husband, Brad, and their two children vacation in the same place every year. However, this year her husband decides to disrupt their routine. Brad confesses to Nora that he wants a separation. He...