Book Reviews | Self-Publishing Review

Review: Once You Know by Madeleine Van Hecke

Once You Know is a gripping work of women’s fiction written by Madeleine Van Hecke whose message is as stark as it is unrelenting: once you know, there’s no going back to the way things once were.

Colleen Moretti is a devout and devoted housewife and mother to her eight-old-daughter, Izzy, and her older daughter, Rachel, who’s just finishing her first year of college back home in Chicago. Colleen’s life is turned upside down when her husband, Derek, announces that work operations are shutting down in Arizona, with him being called back to the office in Chicago. Anxious over having […]

Marta Cheng2020-08-12T01:52:50+02:00July 2nd, 2020|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Contemporary Fiction, Women's Fiction|

Review: Take Back Control of Your Mind by Glenn N. Levine MD, FACC, FAHA

Author Glenn N. Levine has produced a remarkably clear, intuitive and insightful roadmap for cognitive control and emotional stability in Take Back Control of Your Mind: A Guide to Understanding, Taming, and Controlling Your Thoughts and Emotions, and Thereby Achieving True Happiness and Inner Peace. Reflective of the length of its title, the book is packed with wisdom and applicable strategies for the average person wrestling with their inner demons and struggles, even if those battles are happening unconsciously.

Many self-help books seem to miss the mark, often rehashing old proverbs and anecdotes with updated examples, but often lacking […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2020-08-11T09:52:15+02:00July 1st, 2020|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Self-Help|

Review: Whole Mind Facilitation by Eric Meade

In Whole Mind Facilitation: How to Lead Workshops that Change People, Organizations, and the World, award-winning writer Eric Meade provides innovative and intellectually sound strategies for workshop leadership.

Meade’s thesis is simple, using the model of a house in which there are two rooms, with a basement. The rooms are Intuition and Thought, and the basement is Emotion. Meade states that to get from thought – one’s ideas and factual material regarding an issue – to intuition – one’s ability to create new ideas around that issue, one must pass through “the basement” – embracing personal motivation and insight, […]

SPR2020-08-11T03:12:08+02:00June 27th, 2020|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Business, Leadership|

Review: Shock Wave 2: The Book of Vallora by Florian Louisoder

Author Florian Louisoder digs deep into dystopia with Shock Wave 2: The Book of Vallora. Despite a bitter victory over the nihilistic forces of evil in the first book, the ripples sent out through time have had a devastating impact on the future, which means that there is still a world to save.

Following their epic quest to the past, and Linda’s reclamation of the title Juno of Atlantis, she and Scott are shocked to wake up in the 21^st century having failed. Their world-killing nemesis somehow escaped to the future, won the war for Germany in Hitler’s […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2020-08-10T06:53:48+02:00June 26th, 2020|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Florian Louisoder, Science Fiction, Time Travel|

Review: Shock Wave by Florian Louisoder

When the world begins to crumble like deadly dominoes, rewriting the past will be the only way to save the future in Shock Wave by Florian Louisoder. In a race to stop the complete destruction of life on Earth, two heroes with secrets of their own are sucked into the heart of a legendary kingdom that is suddenly all too real.

Scott DeSantis and Linda, his ex-wife, have a decidedly unique relationship, but they must put their personal strife behind them when a nuclear detonation off the coast of Cuba plunges the world into chaos, followed by rifts in the […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2020-08-04T02:52:27+02:00June 26th, 2020|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Florian Louisoder, Science Fiction, Time Travel|

Review: Search: A Guide for College and Life by Barbara Roquemore EdD and Jeff Duffey MD

An innovative exploration of what is really needed to prepare for college is presented in Search: A Guide for College and Life by Barbara Roquemore EdD, an associate professor of Professional Learning and Innovation, and Jeff Duffey MD, a psychiatrist and author. Both specialize in work with students and offer useful insights for those entering college or moving through its stages.

Unlike many such guides, this book is geared toward looking both outward, at technical and practical considerations, and inward, at personal inclinations and ambitions. Issues covered include self-assessment and personal motivation, specific academic plans, lodging and sustenance, friendships with […]

SPR2020-08-03T06:26:21+02:00June 24th, 2020|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Education|

Review: What Branches Grow by T.S. Beier

Author T.S. Beier paints a grim and brutal American landscape in What Branches Grow, depicting a dystopian world where books are sacred, humans are a commodity, and trust is perhaps the most elusive resource.

Three decades after a war devastated the natural world and reduced civilization to scrabbling ruins, a mysterious woman on an impossible quest manages to keep hope alive. When Delia arrives at the walls of Churchill, she makes it clear that she’s only passing through, and looking for a safe place to sleep until she can continue on her journey north. Gennero, the right-hand enforcer of […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2021-08-09T09:13:04+02:00June 22nd, 2020|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Dystopian Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic|

Review: Ellie Everlasting by Isabel Scheck

Readers are returned to Neverland in Ellie Everlasting, an original new novel from author Isabel Scheck. Introducing a fresh heroine to this classic story, and bending the edges of J.M. Barrie’s original world, this is a well-penned and whimsical dive into a reimagined fairy tale.

When Ellie is brutally murdered in her mint-green dress by her girlfriend’s brother, she discovers that the “other side” is none other than Neverland, and she awakes to find herself face to face with Peter Pan himself, along with Tinkerbell twinkling in her ear.

While Ellie comes to terms with her own death – […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2020-07-23T02:34:22+02:00June 22nd, 2020|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: YA Fantasy, Young Adult|