“How could I have been so obtuse, so neglectful that my dying son hated me until the end?” For Joe Fredericks, the protagonist of Wayne Feinstein's novel, Turning, it took little effort to be such a sleazeball. Joe is the definition of success in one...

Orlando Chavez's Portrait of a Hollow Man follows a man who ends up trapped in the same routines, glued to technology, and mentally checked out from the world around him. He wakes up early, goes through his phone, eats breakfast, takes care of his aging...

Miracles of the Season by Susan Jean Ricci begins in NYC, where Chloe Twiggins reminisces about the life she used to have before meeting and marrying her husband. She’s late meeting him and their daughter, Lala, at the Rockefeller Center. One of his trees has...

In ISA StoryWorld: Garrett's Becoming by Kristen Peters, Garret is at an age that confuses most people. At twelve, his body has changed considerably. He is tall, his voice is deeper, and his shoulders have begun to broaden. These changes have led people to start...

In A Walk Among Heroes by James McDevitt, T.J. Montgomery had loved Magdalyn for as long as he could remember. When T.J. saw Magdalyn standing beside another man, smiling in a way he thought belonged only to him, his world shattered. T.J. searched for something...

In The Boy with the Butterfly Mind by Lorelei Brush, readers meet Julie, a math teacher juggling her job, marriage, and the nonstop energy of her four-year-old son, Patrick. She feels deeply proud of him, but also worried. His moods range from exuberant curiosity to...

How often are mental health issues pushed under the carpet and ignored? In Breaking Perfect, Elyse Heartwell brings the pain and suffering out of the shadows and into the light. The Dawson family appears perfect on the outside, wealthy and successful, but behind closed doors,...

A Wooden Heart in Plotlands by Dawn Knox is a historical novel that follows the intertwined lives of Miriam and Rebekah, two Jewish sisters, as they navigate the challenges of survival during World War II. The story begins in Nazi Germany, where the sisters face...

Snakeroot & Cohosh by Cathy Schieffelin begins when Eva Hoskins leaves her husband, Luther, after years of escalating violence in mid-century Kentucky, disappearing into the hills near Creech. In Helton, she assumes a new identity and gets government work guiding researchers through Appalachian forests, drawing...

The Time Between by Bryna Hellmann-Gillson looks at several young Jewish women and how they responded to the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam during World War II. Hannah, like Anne Frank, spent her early years in Germany, but her family moved to the Netherlands after the...