John Staughton, Senior Reviewer

Author L.D. Morrow serves up a refreshing collection of vignettes and clever lessons in Think Like a Bartender: Recipes for Life. Drawing on her many insightful years in the service industry, this is a tongue-in-cheek read that balances self-help and experiential knowledge with wild anecdotes and sharp, funny writing throughout. Blending authentic language and a healthy pour of brutal honesty, this is a poignant guide to finding your strengths and knowing your value, regardless of how you make a living. While the prose is sometimes raw and unpolished, Morrow has a natural gift for storytelling as she unveils repeated moments […]

Author Miriam Cumming casts a charming and thought-provoking spell with Namesakes, the first book in her Wicce Novel series. In this clever repurposing of a classic myth, Medusa is a young girl just coming into her stone-turning powers, who must find her place among other legendary outcasts and misfits in a magical academy. Channeling a bit of Harry Potter, there is a familiarity to the plot, but also harder-hitting themes of tolerance, bullying, and using one’s powers for good. Cumming lays an entertaining and flexible foundation for an original series with a cast of immediately engaging characters.

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Prepare yourself for a rollicking, shocking, and inspiring story of life’s lowest lows and greatest heights in Get Off: The Sordid Youth and Unlikely Survival of a Queer Junkie Wonder Boy by Scott Alderman. This tell-all read is graphic and unabashed, detailing a life of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll from both extremes: the ecstatic and the tragic. Unsentimental but sincere, Alderman is able to get past the romance of his own tall tales to pry out wisdom and meaning, as well as difficult lessons that ring timeless for youth of any generation.

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