Yance Wyatt’s The Watersmith centers on Jack Calloway, a handyman trying to stay sober while navigating one family heartbreak after another in the Tennessee Valley. He finds an old moonshine still his grandfather hid behind a lone cabin, and he and his rebellious teen son,...

In 2012, newlywed Rachel Barnes, a big-time executive coach for business leaders, and her husband Rob Bukin, a successful businessman, were on their honeymoon in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Barely a year later, they divorced after a major fallout and betrayal. During their honeymoon,...

It is 1829. Kathy, a black slave woman, gives birth to a beautiful baby girl fathered by her wealthy master, Mr. Cartwright, and names her Anastasia. Kathy raises her daughter at her master’s mansion, where she works. Mr. Cartwright dotes on Anastasia, and when he...

The Foundling by Amy Meitz begins in 1978 Detroit, where nine-year-old Sunny Berry has spent years hidden inside a failing apartment. Her mother, Roxanne, insists the child she once loved has been replaced by something evil. Hungry and cut off from the outside world, Sunny...

The Dread from the Drows by Erich Sanchack and Dani Sanchack is the continuation of The Orphans of Nilad. EoC and Kaida Nosam’s journey takes them to the Drows as they search for the Amulet of Planes. Instead of getting closer to home, they find...

The Farmer's Wife and the MenoClucks by Barbara Elizabeth takes the touchy subject of menopause and explains it through her hens as they grow older and can no longer meet the demands of a rooster who rules the yard. He doesn't account for the fact...

In The Serpent Stirs by Ankusha Sutey, Indira is a young, cosmopolitan designer from Mumbai who wins an expenses-paid holiday to the eastern coastal state of Odisha, which has a rich historical and architectural heritage. The days pass in a whirl of sightseeing, temple visits,...

Tom Dom’s Dark Kitchen takes us into a rain-slicked city, where a silent, watchful host runs an anonymous, night-only spot hidden among deteriorating downtown buildings. It’s a mysterious restaurant that becomes a sanctuary for broken people—like an arrogant politician, a heartbroken woman, a panicked young...

Mitch Russo’s Sacred Crossroads follows Noble Manning, a sixty-year-old hardware-store owner in Cedar Springs, Massachusetts, whose life has been built around routine and measurable facts. Strange shadows begin appearing inside Manning’s Hardware, then objects shift in ways Noble cannot explain. When his daughter Sarah returns...

The friends you have early in life know you better than anyone later on. Dear Mike, by George Wentworth, follows Michael “Mike” Warren from his sophomore year of high school in 1967 through 1993, as he narrates his own life. Mike comes of age in...