SPR’s book reviews of new self-published books
Texting Mia by Michael Jean DuBois
Michael Jean DuBois captures nearly two years of his life via phone messages with his sister in Texting Mia, an experimental memoir that grips the heartstrings with unvarnished honesty.
The vicissitudes of fate land the author and his sister, Mia, back in the home of their Haitian parents as they both try to find a new path forward. As expected, long-dormant wounds reopen and old family trauma bubbles to the surface. The author holds little back as he recounts the upbringing with his parents, and the brutality he and his sister experienced at their hands. As they did when […]
Author Michelle Felix pours out a lifetime of powerful confessions in her moving memoir Whole Heart: One Woman’s Incredible and Heartbreaking Journey from Africa to America.
Written by a father for his son, Reflections of an Anxious African American Dad by Eric L. Heard stands out as a contemporary gem. Having grown up in a time and place when segregation still reigned, the perspective of Heard is striking, particularly when overlaid with how race relations are playing out in the streets today, and how current events can still be triggering, for a moving and timely memoir.
A rough and rugged tumble through the Montana countryside, Broken Cowboy by Jamie Schulz is a romantic and unpredictable ride, weaving blushing eroticism with powerful bursts of action and adrenaline.
Author Chris Kanthan peels back the curtain on the next global leader in his deeply researched new book, China, China, Chyyna!: Greatest Disruption to American Century, an eye-opening exposé about the rise of an old empire.
Author Larry Center delivers a heartwrenching story of a father’s love for his son in Like No Other Boy.
A desperate mother is mysteriously drawn to a serene but sinister town to start a new life in Autumn Falls by A.R. Kingston, a richly written horror novel that blends familiar genre motifs into an original work of dark fiction.
Author Denise Bossarte offers sage advice and encouragement to those who, like herself, were sexually abused in childhood by a family member, in Thriving After Sexual Abuse: Break Your Bondage to the Past and Live a Life You Love.