Shadow's Apprentice, Book 1 in The Namyria Chronicles by Marta Robyne, has a good premise at the center of its plot: A young village healer wanting a residency to become a master healer. This is the story of Macayla. Her residency hinges on convincing her...

Button and Bean are best friends. It doesn’t matter that Button is a round shape and has two holes, while Bean is elongated and bouncy. They don’t care about their differing looks; they just enjoy each other’s company. They do everything together and, even though...

Logan would have loved it if Lilly could talk; however, being a doll, she obviously can’t. That is until the day he unearths a strange watch from the attic that makes his toys come to life. A toy pirate insists that Logan, the powerful wielder...

Travis Daniel Bow's Soulwinder opens with different points of view of three people: Tel, Kadana, and Noro. Tel is a determined young man, eager to find means for him and his father to live on. Kadana is a privileged and prideful First Daughter of Anselin...

Earl was different from all the other sharks in the ocean. While the others scared people and ate everything in sight, he played fun games with his friends. One day, Crusher and his mean shark friends surrounded Earl, telling him he needed to “Chomp, Rip...

Telemedicine Services: An Argument for Use in Africa, Haiti, and the U.S. Virgin Islands Healthcare Systems by Dr. Hugues F. Batsielilit is a compelling and important work of non-fiction that advocates for the implementation of telemedicine in the locations mentioned in the title. Dr. Hugues...

And Still We Rise by Jordan Steven Sher is a powerful story of survival against all odds, overcoming tragedies, and keeping hope alive in the face of unbelievable brutality. This book tells the story of a family torn apart during the genocide in Bosnia in...

If I Could Live Again by C. Ingrid Deringer starts in 1925, spans three generations, and begins with the story of eight-year-old Margaret McLean who lives on a farm in Nova Scotia with her family. The little girl loves to write songs and rhymes...

L.O.V.E.: Lessons On Virtually Everything by Amber Whitted is the fourth volume of the poet's A Collection of Words and Thoughts series. The titular acronym is the perfect descriptor of both the size, strength, and theme of the work itself. Whitted has organized her original...

When an attorney's aunt unexpectedly dies, she discovers her aunt's life was more complex than she realized in the legal mystery, The Advocate's Labyrinth: The Advocate Series Book 12 by Teresa Burrell. When attorney Sabre Brown's Aunt Goldie dies from a heart attack, she becomes...

In Gail Meath’s original mystery novel, Songbird, a talented composer suddenly dies from what seems like a straightforward cause but a brilliant detective, Jax Diamond, suspects that the man was murdered. Jax’s private investigation of Sam Sanders, a composer who has just completed writing a...

Susana Illera Martínez's new book, Lala: A Different Kind of Lizard/ Una Lagartija Diferente is a story that celebrates individuality. Lala's family consists of her mom, dad, and two sisters. Lala goes to school and plays at the pond, but Lala has an unusual friend,...

Lala is a different kind of lizard; she does not eat insects and her best friend is a spider. While together in the garden, the two started hearing weird sounds, but the sounds were not easy to find. After trying to figure out where these...

Megan Gordon tells me in one of the poignant short stories in her anthology, You Can't Get There From Here, that I am “the cure and the sickness, the cause and the remedy.” Of course, she didn’t aim that at me directly, but story after...

The Visionary Brand: The Success Formula Behind the World’s Most Visionary Brands opens with an interesting case study about Oakley and how it almost lost its cultural direction as a brand and regained its footing by re-aligning its brand identity. Author Bryan Smeltzer shares his...

In K. Thomas's Not Right Now, Senlis is a Nephilim. It was normal for her to be beyond empathic. She absorbed emotions and energy from people, but she couldn't control it, nor could she remember the past that should have come to her so easily....

What Is Coronavirus? is not only a question on the lips of millions of people, it is also the name of a very informative book on the subject by Sabbithry Persad. Sabbithry seeks to clear the air concerning the what, how, why, and how long...

Fallen by Aria Glazki is a romance taken to the height of fine literature by Ms. Glazki’s exquisite prose and deep insight. The story contains all the basics of a romance—two lovers kept apart by villainous obstructions (in this case a fatal disease and superficial...

Tree of Hope: Anne Frank’s Father Shares His Wisdom with an American Teen and the World by Cara Wilson-Granat is a story that will lighten your life and which you will never forget. Ms. Wilson-Granat had a nearly lifelong granddaughter-grandfather, mostly epistolary relationship with Otto...

When his father disappears, a teenage boy discovers secrets that alter his life in the thrilling young adult novel Jasper Faulks and the Passage of Time by Milan Obradovic. Two years ago, Jasper's mother died in a car wreck, and since then, he and his...