The Gilded Butterfly Effect is an engaging novel by Heather Colley that depicts the turbulent experiences college students endure as a "rite of passage." The narrative explores the adventures of several students, mainly highlighting the journeys of Penny and Stella. Penny is a reserved girl...

The Ties That Made Us by Laura Carpenter is about a romance that survives malicious gossip, the paparazzi, and their misinterpretation of events, turning these into something sinister just to sell stories. The main character, Cillian Devlin, has to earn the trust and love of...

The Restless Crucible by Yaw Agawu-Kakraba is an enthralling tale that unfolds across West Africa, Brazil, and Europe (briefly). It introduces readers to the complex life of Pedro de Barbosa, an Afro-Brazilian man and former slave whose opportunistic nature leads him to become a renowned...

The Supersonic Phallus by Steven Key Meyers is a captivating exploration of post-war America, blending historical events with intrigue. Set in 1947, the novel follows Sam, a young journalist in Sinai, Colorado, as he navigates the hysteria surrounding flying saucers, the pressures of small-town life,...

David Loux’s historical novel, The Lost Seigneur, is a gritty, gripping, and engrossing saga of the Laux family set in early 18th-century colonial America and France. This is a sequel to the first novel, Chateaux Laux, in the Chateau Laux Odyssey. I was able to...

The Memory Gardener by Mustafa Nejem is a unique psychological fantasy novella. Joseph is a memory gardener helping people to restore their memories. Drawing a parallel with tending garden flowers, Joseph nurtures the fragile memory fragments, trying to help them grow into a coherent story....

The Orchard by Joseph Kinnebrew is a haunting and ambitious work of literary fiction. We find ourselves in a symbolic, often surreal meditation on morality, sin, and the soul’s pursuit of grace. It is structured through layered metaphors and an abstract narrative style, as the...

The Hag Stone by W. J. Small, set in late medieval England, reveals societal forces that frighteningly still shape women’s lives in subtle, systemic, and sometimes deeply personal ways. Cecily Heaton has just received news of her husband Ellis’s death on the battlefield of Calais....

In The Toffee Man and the Kingdom of Ends, L. K. Quinn has taken a controversial and sensitive subject as seen through the eyes of the child who experienced molestation by a close family member. The story revolves around April Smart, her parents, stepdad...

Beka Wueste's The Unsent Letters of Lucy Prior is a literary novel narrated through a series of letters. After Lucy Prior passed away, her brother-in-law, Nate Prior, hired the death administrator, Art Burleson, to correctly distribute her possessions to the members of her family. Art...