"Thrall" by Jennifer Quintenz is a zesty and very enjoyable YA paranormal novel. The opening seems a little conventional. We meet teenager Braedyn, bright and gutsy but a bit of a social misfit, against the usual background of American high school with the moody beauties...

"Monkey Stuff: A Children's Rhyming Counting Book," written and illustrated by Rebecca Bielawski, is an adorable story about a mischievous monkey told while teaching numbers one through ten. Each number represents an object or objects that the monkey steals from an animal or person. The...

It would be unpleasant if I had to say much negative points about a novel whose protagonist drinks my brand of beer. Fortunately, I don’t have to worry about that. “Matinicus: An Island Mystery” by Darcy Scott, that spans generations, makes it unnecessary. Gil Hodges,...

Craig Ridgway leaves his well-educated home at the age of fifteen because he cannot imagine being in school another year. He moves from Philadelphia to Lancaster where he apprentices himself to the master-gunsmith Jakob Wetzel. When Jakob dies in January 1811, twenty-one year-old Craig loses...

Rebecca and her daughter Wendy have moved back to Rebecca's hometown. A year earlier her husband was killed by a mentally disturbed fan. Now she is renting the upstairs of the home where she met her husband. The garden of the home was the site...

Ever heard a joke that you enjoyed so much that you had to share it? Then, when you tried to emulate the way it was told to your listeners, family, friends or co-workers they looked at you blankly or shook their heads - you BOMBED!...

Nancy O'Neill does a beautiful job of telling such a heartwarming Christmas story. She includes so many different elements of Christmas that I am sure a little boy or girl's eyes would jump with joy while reading or being read to. While reading I felt...

Bling for the King by Delia Latham follows Rina Peretti, who had a past that had eaten her alive, but she was trying to put it well into her past. She was doing a great job of this until she met Derek Myers. Derek was...

Davina Stuart has been a widow for two years, and to deal with the loss of her husband Ross, she wrote a book titled "Second Harvest" which became a bestseller and it is now being made into a movie. When she finds herself on a...

"Crazy Quilt" by Paula Paul depicts the ambiguities of a recent cancer survivor. Flora Adams has recently undergone a mastectomy, radiation and chemotherapy and she needs to get back to her Texas roots in order to attempt to bring sanity to her tenuous hold on...

Fifteen year old Collie lives in Middletown and understands that to live in Middletown is better than living below in Ganty where people drink, fornicate, and do all sorts of unacceptable things. In Middletown, most residents are craftsmen and Collie's father is one of them,...

"C-Town" acts as the prequel to Aaron Powell’s engaging "Doomsday Diaries" series, as the story of Luke Mitchell’s father, Patrick, told within the span of his sexually promiscuous and carefree youth. Patrick Mitchell is a community college student whose sublime passion and delight derives from the...

This is a very interesting book filled with seventeen short stories. There are stories that describe life and death and the aging of an individual as well as a dog. It shows that life is so fragile and should be valued with such love and...

"Sir Princess Petra" by Diane Mae Robinson is a fun fairy tale for K-3rd graders and I am sure they will love it. The heroine, Petra, is a feisty young lady who is constantly driving her poor father to check the official royal rulebook since...

"All Hallow’s Eve" is an imaginative, highly original reworking of the Darcy-Elizabeth Bennett love affair from Jane Austen’s "Pride and Prejudice". Characters absent from the original book are introduced to us, such as Darcy’s parents and Elizabeth’s grandparents, and all the familiar ones have some...

"The Seneca Scourge" by Carrie Rubin was impossible to put down. The story takes place in a normal hospital but it is told with a touch of science fiction and a hint at romance. Dr. Sydney McKnight is forced to deal with a killer influenza....

Sandra thinks that her future is wrapped up in Wesley. That is until he asks her to be his personal assistant. Wesley's tenant Eva tries to warn Sandra away from Wesley, and Sandra begins to think that Eva is stalking her. Then Sandra's ex Carson...

Patricia sees a man standing in the middle of the road and swerves to avoid him. She wrecks her car and wakes up on an alien spaceship as a prisoner of Travis 152. Travis thinks she has some connection to rebel leader William. After a...

It’s February of 1970 and in South Orange, New Jersey, Seven year old Flynn O'Shea likes living in her parents' apartment which is located above the bar they own and manage. Flynn is the youngest of the three O'Shea children Maeve being the oldest and...

April is a high school history teacher. She lives in the country by a forest and enjoys walking in the forest for relaxation. There is a pioneer woman's grave in the forest that April calls her special spot. She goes there to think, read poetry...