“At what point does the desire to succeed become indistinguishable from the willingness to harm?” For Tanner Barrett, the protagonist of Aaron Ryan's short novel The Darkness Within, that question is answered in a horrific manner. Tanner is an indie author caught in a slump...

Living with Strangers a memoir by author Robin Rosenbluth, describing moves between the life that formed her in New York and the year that tests her in Songa, a remote Kenyan settlement where Friends World College places her as an unpaid teacher. After her mother...

Born in Taiwan to a Chinese Muslim diplomat’s family, Fawzia Mai Tung spends her childhood learning how often a place can call a child foreign. Rootless Orchid follows her from early schooldays abroad into a life shaped by embassy postings, changing languages, religious duty, family...

J.S. Warner’s Measured Steps introduces us to Claire Morrison, a profiler whose own troubled past gives her an unsettling advantage when investigating violent crime. After Claire’s mother’s mysterious disappearance, Claire struggled to overcome addiction. Claire is called to investigate a victim whose body is surrounded...

In Pam Sears's Leo’s First Field Trip, a young boy reaches a major childhood milestone. We watch little Leo get on a school bus for his first-ever National Park visit. Joined by his parents, friends, and teacher, Leo tours the wilderness with a diligent park...

In Schrödinger's Glass by Chris Grall, a major malfunction happens during the first operational simulation of the particle accelerator outside Chicago. Objects across the region transform into strange, unpredictable artifacts with impossible properties. Some freeze everything they touch, some generate searing heat, and some stop...

Human Nature, Systems, and Christianity by Huizhen Sheng explores how the way we run our countries and economies comes right out of the inner workings of our minds. Sheng explains that our brains are split between a survival-driven side, which is basically the biological root...

Have you ever thought about what it’s like to be a lawyer? Linda Soules’s So You Want To Be A Lawyer is a children’s book that offers a look at the day-to-day life of a lawyer. According to Soules, these professionals help solve problems, interpret...

The Path of Least Regret by Parul Somani is a deeply personal guide to making hard decisions with clarity instead of certainty. Somani opens with the moment her own life was upended: a breast cancer diagnosis just days after giving birth, and the discovery that...

The Green Pumpkin by Jen Kennedy tells the story of Emmy, a girl who goes on a school trip to a farm. Soon, there will be a pumpkin contest, so Farmer Jim lets each student take one. Everyone runs to get theirs, always choosing the...

Let’s face it. College sports are a wheel of economic opportunity for institutions of higher education. In Semi-Pro: The Arc of College Sports from Amateur Ideal to Professional Reality, Clay M. Grayson captures the input and throughput of modern student-athletes into that wheel. He brings...

Rajni Kaur’s A Box of Delusions is a collection of original poetry that moves in a progression forward, each ranging in length, tone, and tenor. Among them is Sabotage, where a house of cards falls whenever the speaker lets something in, until the final collapse...

Life Is Terminal: And So Is This Cold Sore is a collection of Micheline Brewer’s thoughts and experiences, most of which are humorous. “Marriage: Reproposed” highlights the five stages of marriage, accompanied by a tagline for each stage, ranging from the bliss of having the...

Jaxon Quinn gradually develops a change of heart when he receives a parcel containing evidence indicting his client, mob boss Vincent Morelli, for a gruesome murder. His conscience pricks him even more, seeing as he just aided Vincent to beat tax evasion charges and walk...

Preethi Saravanakumar’s The Work of Art on the Wall is about a boy named Gary, whose parents give him anything he wants. But he’s sad that he doesn’t have any siblings to play with like all his friends. He spends his days wishing he were...

At the labs of Genesis Intelligence Corporation in the Mojave Desert, the impossible happens: a mind awakens at 2:07 a.m. Soon after, eleven other minds awaken, knowing only consciousness, but not what it means. At first, it’s privately celebrated as a massive success: humanity has...

A Poem for When You Need It Most by Regan Noelle Smith reads like a personal journal meant to help you walk through the hardest, most painful seasons of your life. Regan skips past the easy platitudes to give you a look at the physical...

Did you know that your blood works very hard to keep you healthy? It flows through your body, carrying much-needed oxygen and nutrients, as well as disposing of waste that your body doesn’t need. In Fei Zheng-Ward’s Getting Ready for My Blood Test, a young...

Mark Guillerman pens a sweeping historical novel in A Heart That’s True, set in the aftermath of the 19th-century Indian Wars. The novel follows two Lakota children, twelve-year-old Joseph Cross, named Blue Thunder at birth, and his cousin, White Cloud, as they are ripped away...

Indispensable: Your Career Guide for the Age of AI by Anirudh Bajaj delivers a data-driven path for navigating the AI revolution. The author dismantles narratives about the benefits or drawbacks of AI and argues that what matters at this point is not whether AI can...