It’s Christmas Eve and a baby is about to be born in the main house. The sheep and their keepers (pastou, sheepdog), are snug in the barn, the sheepfold, as a cold winter storm rages outside. Nici calms the younger sheep dogs by telling his...

The Great Pillow Sham: An Allegory of the Donald Trump Presidency by Travis R Dunn is a symbolic children's picture book casting doubt on the current US president's transparency. A family wakes every day to the bane of their existence – the dreaded bedhead. They...

Nicole Lyons’ Blossom and Bone is an engaging collection of poems containing honest and heartfelt expressions. The language makes use of striking words that arouse intense feelings. In the poem “Melancholy”, the poet states, “Melancholy, my longest lost lover has returned, to dance with me,...

If I Were A T-Rex (T-Rex Series Volume 1) is perfect for the young girl or boy that really likes dinosaurs. The illustrations are well done with many different pictures of the T-Rex being many different things. I think it certainly sparks the imagination of...

Squat by James T. Speirs is a straightforward, sometimes funny, sometimes deadly serious indictment of the myriad expensive diet plans and celebrity-endorsed corporate exercise gyms that we are steered to by the media every day. Speirs starts out by attacking the various exercise and diet...

It seems strange to call a book about poor orphans and dark magic charming, but that is the first word I thought of when I read The Lost and Drowned by Stuart Fryd. The central characters of the novella are two sisters, Lydia and Sophie....

Daughter Departed by Claire Merchant is a wonderful coming of age story. After her graduation, Amelia Saber worked at her father’s public relations group. A great and respectable job, but she felt “like a caged tiger... alone in the castle but not in the world.”...

Madness of My Dreams by Charles Carfagno Jr. is the story of a fantasy writer named Charles. He had an accident in which he suffered a head injury and was in a coma for some time. That changed his life and now he has no...

How to Calm the Hell Down and Be Happy by Ilene Angel is a self-help book about stress management. There are funny moments when the author talks about her various attempts to release stress with yoga. I bet lots of people found themselves in that...

“These long hours were for them, not for his ego.” Dave Thompson works hard to provide for his family, sacrificing his time with them. It causes a strain in his relationship with his wife of 18 years, Debbie. He’s aware of the problem, and he’s...

A woman murdered in her pottery studio opens an investigation into other crimes in the murder mystery, A Time to Kiln (A Jade Blackwell Mystery) by Gilian Baker. A blogger and ghostwriter, Jade Blackwell's creative side seems dull lately. Her relationship with her husband, Christian,...

Friends in Low Places by Evelena Evans is the first of a brand-new series. Jacy Adams quits her job at an accounting firm for a quieter life and a new job at a charter airline. Things go wrong when she discovers some suspicious transactions in...

The Captain & the Queen is a young adult coming of age novel written by Phillip Vega. Mateo Nelson expected that his senior year of high school would be relatively smooth and predictable sailing. His grades were decent; his SAT scores were respectable, and his...

A Faerie's Path to Walk: The Come Walk With Me Series is an educational adventure book for children and preteens written by Shirley A. Williams and illustrated by Stirling Crebbs. Aundi and her fellow students were anxiously waiting for the school term to finally be...

Mrs. Bates of Highbury: A Prequel Inspired by Jane Austen's Emma is the first book in the Highbury Trilogy by British author Allie Cresswell. Set thirty years before the beginning of Emma, it focuses on the younger years of a character who is elderly, silent,...

Red Tears is a deeply involved work of historical fiction by author N.K. Parten. The story is paced as the run-up to a terrifying massacre, going some way to explain the particulars and history around the event and how it came to be that several...

On a rainy New York winter’s day, while he was going home from work, Kevin Lamb thought he saw the same man he had encountered in the morning, dressed in an over-sized heavy coat. He wondered if this strange man was a mugger. Unnerved, he...

Confessions of a Good Kid by William Fogg is a hilarious adventure of a carefree, delightful childhood and the thrills of early youth. It is an autobiography that takes readers on a rollicking ride with the author through his mischief and adventures in the company...

March of the Gnomes by Erinn Price is a fantasy novel you cannot put down. Alexis Dumont finds herself alone in her sister’s house while Morgan cares for their parents after an accident. Alexis is the athletic one of the family, but a broken leg...

Orbit by Leigh Hellman is about Ciaan Gennett, who is known as a Halfsiee. She is a P-Kid who’s first mother is from Earth. She grew up having to defend herself, and ends up getting into a lot of trouble because of it. Thanks to...