Book Reviews | Self-Publishing Review

Review: Santa’s Rescue Dog (Super Speed Sam Book 5) by Monty J. McClaine

★★★★

Books have always had the power to bring families together, allowing parents to share powerful, memorable stories with their children. In Santa’s Rescue Dog, Monty J. McClaine adds on to his popular series of children’s book about Super Speed Sam, his family’s loyal basset hound. In the first four installments of the series, readers were introduced to Sam and saw his amazing super-speed abilities in action. No one in the family knows about these powers except for the youngest of the McClaine clan, Molly the baby, but these books actually function as a portrait of the author’s family, […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2019-02-11T08:36:27+02:00November 8th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Children's Books|

Review: Skunks Dance by St. John Karp

★★★★

Spivey Spillane is an honest guy. He loves his grandmammy, he loves his home, and he would bring ruin to any man who would rob him of his simple happiness. It’s the American way, and it’s God’s too. Unfortunately for the Spillane family name, there is such a man, and he’s running loose across the state of California, tipping cattle and penning indecent plays under the guise of Spillane himself. Oh, and there’s the fortune that only he knows the location of, too. Just one more reason to find Alabama Sam and fill him with lead, really.

Meanwhile, several […]

James Grimsby2020-02-21T06:29:35+02:00November 7th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Contemporary Fiction, Humor, Western|

Review: Why Leadership Sucks™ Vol. 2 by Miles Anthony Smith

★★★★★

While there are countless books on the subject of smart leadership, and how to improve your abilities as the head of a company, team, community or family, many of these texts seem incomplete, lacking in the more compassionate side of being a role model for others. Perhaps author Miles Anthony Smith recognized this gap, which left room for Why Leadership Sucks™ Vol. 2: The Pain, Pitfalls and Challenges of Servant Leadership Fundamentals.

Following on his successful first installation of this series, Smith delves deeper into the subject of leadership, focusing less on the classic elements of delegation, selflessness, […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2016-11-28T09:15:08+02:00November 7th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Business, Leadership|

Review: Blowback ’07 by Brian Meehl

★★★★½

Blowback ’07 by Brian Meehl is a stunning start to an exciting new series.

Time travel is a popular theme in fiction – YA and otherwise – and Blowback ’07 stands out immediately within the sub-genre for its original plot and charismatic heroes, Arky and Iris. The context of the story is revealed rather quickly, and we soon learn that Iris is in possession of a family heirloom – the Jongler cor anglais – a musical instrument with unknown powers that their mother left to the twins before she disappeared.

Arky and Iris don’t always get along very well, […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2020-03-02T09:39:48+02:00November 6th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Brian Meehl, Science Fiction, Time Travel, Young Adult|

Review: 5 Days to Landfall by Robert Roy Britt

Mother Nature takes center stage, with a bit of help from mankind’s baser instincts, in 5 Days to Landfall, a thrilling novel by Robert Roy Britt. With all of the recent surges in extreme weather around the world, a story like this is not only timely, but should also act as a dire warning for weather experts and governments of the planet. Obviously, disaster movies and television shows fill popular media, but this book hits a bit too close to home to ignore. It’s a tense thrill-ride from start to finish.

Amanda Cole – the single-most qualified person to […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2019-02-11T07:00:50+02:00November 4th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Apocalyptic Fiction, Thriller|

Review: The Speaking Ghost of Rajpur by Priyonkar Dasgupta

★★★★

Depending on where a person is born and raised creates a unique perspective of childhood. Therefore, seeing an intimate and vivid depiction of childhood from someone in another part of the world can be a truly eye-opening experience. That is the world inhabited in The Speaking Ghost of Rajpur, a whimsical and memorable novel by Priyonkar Dasgupta. It is a bright and revelatory tale of growing up in a mysterious world, softened at the harder edges by the innocent lens of youth.

Readers who have forgotten the joys of childhood will be thrown back into an age of endless […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2020-02-21T05:46:38+02:00November 4th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: International Fiction|

Review: To Never Know by Thomas Duffy

★★★★

It is a curse of memory and recollection that human beings are able to ask themselves, “What If?” For some, this question can be a harmless gateway to nostalgia, while for others, this perfectly natural musing is paralyzing, haunting and life-changing. In To Never Know, author Thomas Duffy initially presents the bleak portrait of a life never fully lived, due to the perennial longing of the main character, Steven. This isn’t a story about the “one who got away,” but rather the “one who he never even took a shot with,” which overwhelms him with uncertainty and the […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2020-02-12T10:01:46+02:00November 3rd, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Contemporary Fiction, Thomas Duffy|

Review: Goodbye, Rudy Kazoody by A.A. Freda

★★★★½

Growing up as a teenager in a big city is hard for the youth of any generation, but being an immigrant from Italy growing up on the mean streets of New York City in the 1960s was a bigger challenge than most. In Goodbye, Rudy Kazoody, author A.A. Freda gives us a picture of his own life as an immigrant in the Bronx from that historic time period. This semi-autobiographical tale is strikingly heartfelt and has the ring of deep truth, which makes it difficult to put down.

Joey is an innocent kid trying to make his way […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2019-01-22T04:36:41+02:00November 2nd, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Coming Of Age, Men's Fiction, Young Adult|