David Hartness’ Amani’s River is an emotionally charged, gut wrenching work of fiction. Sitting on the banks of a river outside the small village of Homoine, Mozambique, Aderito’s mind drifts as he listens to the tranquil sounds. With his mother’s ashes in his hands, Aderito...

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...

Breakfast every morning with her best friend is the only way Eve can get herself through the day. The man who sits across from her and shares coffee and omelets is the only man she could ever think of spending her life with. He’s the...

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...

Crocodile Mothers Eat Their Young by Avi Morris is a work of fiction, although sadly, many kids have actually experienced what happens in the story. The story is told through foster father Hal Allen's eyes. At times the reader experiences what the kids, Selena and...

What Happened to Marilyn is a futuristic adventure by Alexander Rigby. As the title suggests, it centres on a fantastic new imagining of the fate of Marilyn Monroe in which the glamour icon evades her death as we know it, travelling to the distant future...

When you are young, musically talented, and full of ambition, starting a band sounds like the best career out there. Oh sure, the fame, the fun, the money, all the attention, and of course the perks seem like a dream come true until one day...

In the Sanctity of Revenge by Brian Schnoor begins in a middle class neighborhood in Chicago where Jack Hanlon is living an ideal life with his wife and sons. Across the street, Irene Kelly is an elderly widow who has adopted, and been adopted by,...

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...