michellehogmire

A timely fantasy about castaways fleeing their dying land to seek refuge on a cryptic island, The Last Families by Carla Doria is an epic tale about first contact with brutal worlds and rivalrous clans. Four remaining families with different magical powers must put aside their bitter prejudices if they want to survive in their new hostile environment. While Doria’s plot about the cycles of perishing civilizations can be bleak, the book’s message about finding love and working together is ultimately uplifting, for a visionary and wholly original work of post-apocalyptic fantasy.

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In Jacob Lightman’s inventive A Buzz, a young commander named Jaway leads his team on an assignment to unite the rest of the country under an advanced nation called The Land, for an innovative work of science fiction set in South America. Lightman’s narrative largely focuses on episodic adventures, as opposed to wider plot arcs or conflicts, but the innovative world he’s created is thoroughly enveloping. Readers looking for elaborately detailed world-building, intriguing futuristic tech, and sci-fi universes with a more upbeat tone will be quickly drawn into this creative work of speculative fiction.

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A spirited and thoughtful compendium of 365 American-style rhyming haikus, Barton Johnson’s Five Seven Five is a poetry collection that can also double as a daily devotional throughout the year. Johnson’s subjects vary widely, from pieces about love and marriage, to ruminations about death, to thought-provoking observations and witty advice. Much of Five Seven Five focuses thematically on Christian themes, so the compilation would intrigue and engage a more religious readership, but he also touches on universal issues with clever wordplay and charming humor, giving the collection a broad appeal.

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An earnest and moving novel about one man’s mission to save his spouse before time runs out, Chasing Time by Thomas Reilly is an emotive mixture of contemporary fiction and fantasy, for a story that reads like a potential film. Anthony “Tony” Lucas has always been talented with predictions, but he could never anticipate how a lost key from his youth that forecasts the future would impact his wife’s eventual ALS diagnosis. Thomas Reilly’s dialogue and storylines are sometimes implausible, but it’s easy to suspend disbelief in this touching story, and the novel’s emotional resonance is engrossing and impressive.

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