The Department of Obvious Reforms by Ram Rajcoomar is a manifesto on how to turn public policy into a simple exchange between state and citizen: reduce public cost, then receive public reward. Ram builds that case through reforms that treat responsibility as something recorded, priced,...

“If people would stop murdering other people in molten glass, it would be easier.” Yes, it would be easier, but perhaps these murders are just one issue in Resurrection of the Ruby Skull (Fox Argall Mysteries book four), a novel by Collings MacCrae. The story...

Chad K. Smith’s Resilient Mental Health for Teens is a practical self-help guide designed to help teenagers navigate social media spaces and master emotional control. The book explains the "white bear effect" to show why suppressing negative emotions backfires. It also uses an Emotion Wheel...

The Music Room by Margaret Farrell Kirby centers on Cath, a fifty-two-year-old nurse who starts to feel like something in her life just isn’t working anymore. After losing her mother at a young age, she pushed aside her dream of becoming a writer, and now...

In Dragonfly Down by Annette Masters, we meet Laurel, a teen who has spent her life hiding behind strict security and rigid routines after a childhood tragedy. Her world shatters a second time when an explosion levels a youth healing center on her family's private...

Jonathan Sears’s Legend of the Last Star Knight begins in Winnipeg with Alex, a shy high school senior who simply wants to slide under the radar and maybe talk to his crush, Ally. Instead, an ancient artifact and a bizarre cosmic storm rip him away...

In Honeycomb by R.A. Van Vleet, thirty-two-year-old realtor and part-time actress Sam Williams is in danger long before she realizes how precarious her life has become. Unbeknownst to her, two men are surveilling her on the orders of her jealous and manipulative agent, Ray Calderon....

The Secret of Tu'ku's Peak: A Tortoise Odyssey by Randy Stollar follows a curious tortoise on his quest to discover a nearly forgotten treasure. Tyler is old enough to want more from life. He doesn't like the ancient rules that all tortoises live by or...

Fearless Fred and the Last Dragons is a children's fantasy adventure by Aurelia Szeto. The kingdom of Velum used to be known for lavish parties, especially the dragon-spotting ones. But after Lady Dragozanah wormed her way into the court to become King DJ Terrance's personal...

The Moonlit Rose of Isfahan by Jamila Mikhail is a love story that shows the enduring power of love and rehabilitation rising from the horrors of war. Set in Isfahan, Iran, both during and after the Iraq/Iranian War of 1980, the story focuses on two...

In B.A. Chapman’s What Remains in the Dark, a city called Vorrith is hidden beneath the surface of ordinary life, and it is here that a magical community thrives. Evyn Marre is a gifted “Reader,” capable of reading minds with forensic accuracy. Sael Draven returns...

Jonathan Sears’s Legend of the Last Star Knight: The Dark Realm follows Alex Stone, a Winnipeg teenager flung across time into a galaxy where the ancient Star Knights have become prophecy. Aboard the mining ship The Avenger, Alex works beside Maggie Anderson while hiding how...

Somewhere Between Death and Dreaming by Christopher Sartin dives into the shadowy corners of life. The collection muses on death—it gets tangled up in betrayal, regret, guilt, and that unsettling urge for something darker. You get haunting stories: palm prints appearing where they shouldn’t, a...

Catherine Meyrick’s And the Women Watch and Wait is a historical novel set in Australia during World War I. Kate Burke moves to Melbourne to help her Aunty Mary run the family shop while her cousins serve overseas. Before long, Kate’s sweetheart, Jack Sheehan, leaves...

Water is a very important part of our lives. It’s here one minute and disappears mysteriously in the next minute. In Milagros Wallace’s Gregorina and Her Glass of Water, a young girl, Gregorina, learns the importance and growing mystery of water. She also learns it...

Murder in Maverick Bay by Louise Furley is a murder mystery that follows Giancomo “Gian” Montanero in the coastal town of Chicory Landing, Maine. Gian is a former Marine Raider and a detective who is learning how to be part of the family he was...

The plan was simple: six-year-old Patrice Johnson was supposed to meet an untimely end, and Crossing, an aptly named crossing guard, was the one selected to chaperone Patrice to the afterlife. Crossing gets his assignment mixed up, and things go awry. Since Crossing needs to...

In When They Came Home by Terri Lewis, we follow Milton, a standard American farm boy whose life is split in two after he gets shipped off to the battlefields of Europe in 1918. He survives the fighting, but the terrifying sights and sounds follow...

W. M. Leesman’s Xavier Bradshaw: Ghostwriter is set in Livingston, Alberta, where newspaper reporter Xavier Bradshaw is called to St. Luke’s church after Councilman Carlo Marscapello is found dead at the altar. Xavier once investigated Carlo’s political dealings, so the case quickly reaches into his...

Kids, parents, and teachers seeking a fresh source of children’s literature would do well to add Bubbles in Summer to their reading list. This book is the second in a four-season series by Wanda Carter Roush and is illustrated by Andrew and Alicia Pezzente. A...