It is 1954. Ten years after she left for Stockton to start a new life, Althea Sparrow has just returned to Bear River, California, her hometown, to help her siblings run the family business and care for her aging father. However, she has no idea...

Mark Twain said, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.” Fear is the most prevalent emotion in The Weight of Silence by Alex Baranda, but maybe it’s fear that keeps people alive. Set in 1943, it begins with an elite agent...

Confucius said, “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves,” which is a sentiment one character does not consider in The Reckoning by Ann Nolder Heinz. It opens in 1873 with a mysterious man standing outside a quiet residence, wrestling with a...

The Last Heretic by Steve Goldsmith follows Archelaus, a clever and skeptical scribe navigating the dangerous dynamics of early Christianity during the Council of Nicaea. Set in 325 AD, the story moves between political salons, bishops’ chambers, and dimly lit writing rooms, bringing the early...

In Jean Grandbois' Nursing Flagstop, for nearly fifty years, Jerry has measured his life against a single song, “Borderless,” recorded by the elusive musician Flagstop. When a chance discovery reveals that Flagstop, now living under his real name Eugene Books, is in a Detroit care...

In The Lady in the Veil by Allie Cresswell, upon her mother's marriage, Georgina Willow is sent from her isolated existence in the rugged moors of Yorkshire into mid-1830’s London society. Unlike most young women who might be thrilled to spend a season amongst the...

Pirates and smugglers threaten a summer gathering in the exciting romance novel, Windvale (Regency Love Stories: Book 5) by Karen Thornell. Sir Henry is a spy like his father, and when a mission goes wrong, he quits the world of espionage. Now he is floundering...

V for Victory by John McKay is a most interesting story set during the occupation of Paris by the Germans from June 1940 to July 1944. Events are seen through the eyes of a young Parisian boy, Charles Mercier, who is 13 years old and...

Mask of Romulus by Mark Jamilkowski tells the story of the first emperor, Caesar Augustus, and the seer, Kamala. When Atia remarries, Augustus is sent to live with his grandmother, Julia, who introduces him to her brother, Julius Caesar. Augustus and Julius form a deep...

The Chinese thinker Lao Tzu once said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” and that sentiment is echoed in Kaci Curtis's Along the Trail. Winnifred “Winnie” Hayes and her family take that first step as they leave their home and...