Amish women are very modest in their attire. Dresses are usually a dull blue, green or grey. But red? Scarlet red at that. Crimson red. The color of sin. Or so Ruby believes as does her Amish community who have shunned her for becoming pregnant...

In The Secret Observations of Liliana Joo by SC McQueen, let’s be clear about the term ‘yaoi’ for the sake of some readers who might have no clue about it. Yaoi is a Japanese term for ‘boys’ love’ or male-to-male romantic relationships. The yaoi genre...

The Staten Island Butcher by George R. Hopkins is a mystery thriller that has all of the right elements to keep it exciting and hard to put down. Father Jack Bennis and his brother, Tom Cavanaugh, are the heroes trying to find the man dubbed...

"Be careful in what you pursue, lest you find yourself consumed by the object you desire." The Mirror Shop by Nicholas Bundock is about a middle-aged couple, Luke and Eve. They live an ideal life as he owns and operates a business, and she is...

Finding yourself in a whole new world would be a dream come true for most kids, particularly with the promise of adventure and missing school. Elizabeth Harding, however, would much rather stay at home or in the library. It’s hard enough dealing with the not-quite-there...

The Boy Scout by Vanayssa Somers is a new kind of fairy tale. It has kings and queens and fairy wizards. And a shaman, with a magic carpet. Vanayssa Somers also uses time travel in a unique way. Another one of those...

The Lazarus Continuum by Ken Fry is the sequel to his earlier blockbuster, The Lazarus Succession. In this story, the heroes from the first book, Brodie and Ulla, are still present, but the mantle is picked up by their daughter, Martha. The painting of Lazarus...

The Adventures of Raven Darling by Lára Dawn Michelsen is a story about a young girl who left her life behind after high school in order to travel the world. She lives as a free spirit, exploring one country after another and earning money for...

The world around us is filled with beauty in the people, in the events, in the world itself, and yet it can be difficult to see that beauty for ourselves. The poet is someone who can help us to see that beauty, but also to...

The Write Way to Get a Girlfriend is a coming of age/concept novel for young adults written by Alfred R. Taylor. Juan Rivera was not at all impressed by his mother’s decision to hire a writing tutor for him. He did well in his math...

The Piggy Market is a children’s picture book written and illustrated by Rachel Lockavitch McWaters. McWaters explores the ramifications of the popular children’s counting rhyme about piggies in this whimsical and clever book about piggies who go to market. Beginning with her considerations about which...

I have not read Remnants of Eden by D.S. Causey, yet the art depicted in The Official Art of Remnants of Eden is so riveting, so descriptive, and so thought provoking that I immediately wanted to read the book itself and delve further into the...

The Journal of Angela Ashby is an action and adventure fantasy for preteens written by Liana Gardner and illustrated by Sam Shearon. Angela was ready and impatient to be off to the school carnival when she stopped by her best friend’s house to pick her...

The Curious Case of Simon Todd by Vanessa C. Hawkins is a delightful and quirky read full of twists and strange happenings. Simon Todd's life used to be fairly normal. He was an accountant whose biggest problem was the struggle to share his feelings for...

Meet Goti, the shiny red bus, and Vivek, the dusty coal train, in the storybook The Dusty Train’s Sweet Surprise: A Lesson in Kindness by Subhash Kommuru. They were both very hardworking but Goti always made fun of Vivek, saying he was faster than Vivek...

If the incisiveness of short stories is as fascinating for you as it is for me, then you cannot resist Joseph Riden's The Marlin. This concise but very meaningful tale is not long, but it is remarkable both for its message and for the richness...

The African Piper of Harlem: A Tale of Bullies and Deception is a novella based on the classic Robert Browning story, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, written by Zeena Nackerdien. Ola was a sixteen-year-old whose coming of age came under the most trying of circumstances....

A young woman disappears in 1944 without a trace and isn't heard from again until her ghost appears to a twenty-first century manager of a summer lodge in the captivating mystery novel, The Wildwood Ghost Mystery by Lanin D. Thómasma. Steffi is the manager of...

The Business of American Injustice by Sydney Williams is a poignant narrative, a memoir that deals with what the author calls “a story about our personal journey through civil litigation, bankruptcy, and the criminal justice system. As unbelievable as it seems, each event is a...

The Update is a Christian fantasy novella for children and preteens written by Ann Strawn. Em was quite used to ignoring friend requests on her FaceSpace app. She preferred to deal with people directly and hadn’t really gotten on board with the popularity of that...