Lead Story | Self-Publishing Review

Review: Deadly Trespass by Sandra Neily

When Cassandra Patton Conover, a lone nature writer and conservationist, takes to the Maine wilds with her dog Pock into private grounds for good fishing, she discovers the body of her friend crushed under a tree. Confused by the circumstances of her friend’s death, she must now risk everything she cares about to uncover the mystery behind her untimely death in Deadly Trespass by Sandra Neily.

Cassandra’s task isn’t so easy – she kind of dislikes people, and the politically motivated swarm descending on the issues of deforestation, resources, and the matter of extinct wolves finding their way back to […]

Naka Jackson2022-12-23T13:33:46+02:00June 12th, 2017|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Mystery|

Review: Federal Prison Handbook by Christopher Zoukis

There is a great deal of literature written about the prison system in the United States, and given that roughly 1 out of every 100 adult Americans will be incarcerated at some point in their lives, it is a subject that deserves attention. However, books written from the perspective of an inmate, about the detailed inner workings of life in prison, are far less common. In Federal Prison Handbook by Christopher Zoukis, no aspect of prison life is overlooked, making this a deeply compelling read for anyone who has ever wanted to learn more about life behind bars.

The book […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2019-02-11T09:50:00+02:00June 8th, 2017|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Non-Fiction, Prison, Social Science|

Review: Intrinsic by Jerry Collins

★★★★

Jatara is a powerful and of course, beautiful and magical Kali-like goddess who can destroy men and cities in a moment. Her war of terror spans Ancient Greece, Egypt and the slaves of the Pyramids where her humble beginnings are revealed, to modern-day New York, with her dark magician son Kragon taking on the power of the nastiest demons to conquer all men, despite having a mortal, pregnant girlfriend.

Intrinsic, Book One of a series, follows various uber-evil superbeings through a vast amount of time, mostly following Kragon, a flawed antihero with magic skills who thrives on gore […]

Naka Jackson2017-06-14T06:04:41+02:00June 8th, 2017|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Fantasy, Time Travel|

Review: Banged-Up Heart: Dancing with Love and Loss by Shirley Melis

★★★★½

Business and travel writer Shirley Melis experiences love and devotion for two amazing men in her life and suffers the loss of both in her poignant memoir Banged-Up Heart: Dancing with Love and Loss.

Honesty is the hallmark of this memoir, a paean to the best of relationships beset by the inevitability of death. Two years after the sudden loss of Joe, a fellow writer, political activist, and her husband of thirty years, Melis arranges to meet an old acquaintance and recent widower for a possible new start. She is urged on by a coterie of old friends. […]

Barbara Scott2019-01-22T11:33:30+02:00June 7th, 2017|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Memoir, Non-Fiction|

Review: Nannion by Andreas Androutsellis-Theotokis

Everyone loves a cat story, and Nannion by Andreas Androutsellis-Theotokis features the eponymous off-white street cat in a surprising science fiction tale of earth sciences and Greek history. Although not a story for children (Nannion, the cat’s namesake, was in fact a prostitute in Ancient Greece) there is a childlike quality to the narration that makes the cat’s relationship with Claire, a lonely and dying marine biologist working in the Aegean Sea around Athens and the island of Dioptra, cozy reading.

As the book goes on, other characters working in marine sciences come into the story. The team learns about […]

Cate Baum2019-02-11T08:52:05+02:00June 6th, 2017|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: International Fiction, Science Fiction|

Review: Something Olde (The Divel Series Book One) by Denis Jay Klein

When heiress Sandy Waters decides she’s getting married in Bermuda, she wants to wear Something Olde – the cursed family heirloom, The Divel Necklace, once lost overboard from the ship Sea Venture in 1609, into the Atlantic ocean’s churning seas surrounding the island in a hurricane so awful that it inspired Shakespeare’s The Tempest – and worn ever since its recovery at Waters’ family weddings.

The only problem is, it’s locked in a vault, and the only man that can open it, Clark Dearborne, is having second thoughts about turning up with it. He’s got a choice – deliver the […]

Lysa Grant2019-04-29T12:16:45+02:00May 30th, 2017|Categories: Lead Story|Tags: Humor, International Fiction|

Review: Bless the Skies by Julie Elise Landry

★★★★½

Bless the Skies by Julie Elise Landry is a riveting and provocative work of dark fantasy, which follows the lives of three girls, Laeli, Sophia, and Elaina, who must navigate a bleak and desperate world. When Elaina is kidnapped and enslaved by the twisted High Lord Lawrence Anderton, Laeli and Sophia risk their lives to save her, through a dangerous and unforgiving landscape.

Although the journey narrative of the novel might suggest Lord of the Rings fare, Landry takes her characters to much darker depths than Tolkien, or even Game of Thrones. So much of fantasy fiction […]

Lysa Grant2017-05-10T08:25:22+02:00May 4th, 2017|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Fantasy|

Review: Ravenwood Risen by W.C. Maher

★★★★

Being wrenched from a life of pastoral normalcy and forced into a destiny fraught with sacrifice and struggle is a common foundation for many fantasy novels, but in Ravenwood Risen, author W. C. Maher takes a new angle on this classic theme. Although the rumors swirl and dangers appear to be creeping in at the edges of Aman, the small region of Colore seems relatively untouched. Ephraim and Jules Ravenwood unwittingly go about their daily lives, ignorant – but not unprepared – for what the world will soon demand of them.

In the same vein as the Shannara […]