marinadoramartino

A charming children’s book with a vivid scrapbook-style layout, The Things I Love by Christina M. Carroll and illustrated by Jenny Slife is a simple but expressive book about everyday joys. Listing things that he loved from the ages of 10 to 1, we find the young boy’s favorite activities – from camping in the wild at 10 to chewing his toe at 1. Most importantly, many of these activities involve the outside world and don’t involve video games or smartphones, encouraging kids to look beyond their screens – a message that is increasingly vital, and subtly presented here. An […]

Priscilla by Jenny Knipfer is an earnest and heartwarming historical novel set in early 20^th century rural America, part of the Apron Strings series of historical Christian fiction, with each installment written by a different author. Priscilla joins a cooking class as she dreams of being the perfect woman and wife like her mother used to be. However, she comes to realize that love, marriage, and family mean much more than a well-cooked meal. Written in an easy-going, intimate language, this is a romantic and tender story that will immerse the reader in the atmosphere of the time, even […]

Set in 19th-century Australia, Phelan’s Gold by Casey Walsh is a thrilling novella following the adventures of Eamon Phelan, a charming criminal, and his gang of cattle thieves. With a new gold rush on the horizon, Eamon and his companions start their journey north, where he hopes to find business amid the chaos, but on one of their stops Eamon finds love instead, and none of his later exploits can get Shelagh Cleary out of his mind. Witty, funny, and playful, Walsh’s novella is both romantic and full of historical detail, for a unique work of character-driven historical fiction that […]

Unsettling and evocatively written, The Quelling by C.L. Lauder is an affecting work of dystopian fantasy, and an enticing first installment of a new trilogy. The planet of Aurora Saura is overrun by two parasitic invaders: the monstrous Tarrohar and the insidious, body-possessing Rhemans, whose victims are known as “The Quelled.” 19-year-old Kyjta must form an alliance with the enemy – the rebel Rheman Kranik – to rescue her friend Calipsie and confront the Rheman leader head-on. With chapters alternating between the perspectives of its two compelling protagonists, The Quelling is an intricate and skillfully realized piece of imagination, unveiling […]