Book Reviews | Self-Publishing Review

Review: Corkscrew by Peter Stafford-Bow

★★★★½

Boasting casual storytelling mastery and the sharp-tongued wit of Tom Robbins, Peter Stafford-Bow presents an incredibly amusing and unpredictable tale in Corkscrew. For wine lovers or those who simply love a great story, this is a mad ramble through the tangled world of wine, taking readers across two continents and countless adventures of one exceptional character, Felix Hart.

The ability of Stafford-Bow to create memorable and visceral characters is notable, and along Felix Hart’s climb to the highest echelons of international wine retailing, there are plenty of other eccentric and unique foils that keep the plot moving along. […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2016-11-09T02:35:09+02:00October 3rd, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Memoir|

Review: First Kill: An Eli Quinn Mystery by Robert Roy Britt

★★★★★

Most private eye mysteries have a tendency to fall into common tropes and expected stylization, and there is rarely a reboot within the genre. Robert Roy Britt, the author of First Kill, works against that common grain and has created a believable and likable private eye in Eli Quinn that doesn’t seem like a cliché stepping out of a film noir classic. With two books about Quinn firmly under his belt, the author has settled into a comfortable writing style, seemingly effortless, which drives this book’s unpredictable plot forward at a perfect pace.

When a woman named Madison […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2019-01-24T19:43:01+02:00October 3rd, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Detective Fiction, Mystery|

Review: The Prouds by Laith Taher

★★★½

Fantasy literature is in a Renaissance at the moment, and many new authors from around the world are doing their best to tap into this resurgent realm and engage that readership. In The Prouds by Laith Taher, readers are welcomed into a vaguely recognizable world of power struggles and royal conflicts that we see so often in fantasy sagas. The plot is about as straightforward as it can get in the fantasy realm, possibly revealing the fact that the author is making more of a philosophical statement than a literary one.

Following an epic battle between Jarvis and King […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2016-11-03T09:47:33+02:00September 30th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Fantasy|

Review: Death of a Temptress (A Dave Slater Mystery Book 1) by P.F. Ford

★★★★

In what could have easily been a gritty crime drama surrounding a rugged detective with a chip on his shoulder, author P.F. Ford instead delivers an amusing and engaging thriller with a buddy-cop feel in Death of a Temptress. The author writes with a savage passion and an attention to detail that keeps the suspense boiling up and the action bursting.

DS Slater comes on the scene as a rough around the edges cop that has been recently dealt a blow to his ego and reputation. When he tries to edge his way back into some good graces […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2016-11-03T09:41:02+02:00September 29th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Mystery, Thriller|

Review: The Bulls of War (Chronicles of the Andervold Thrones Book 1) by E.M. Thomas

★★★★½

The Bulls of War, the first installment of E.M. Thomas’s sword-wielding epic Chronicles of the Andervold Thrones, follows friends Tyghus and Kyrus The Younger, as they find themselves falling onto the bloody blade of a war of empires and emotions. Vast in its conception, saga-like in its imagining, the dramatic realization of the battle will pull readers into its dense, murderous clutches as the two leaders must face a feat of endurance to test even the strongest of men.

While the genre of epic historical fiction serves somewhat to describe author Thomas’s writing, the description of this book as […]

Cate Baum2016-09-23T03:51:03+02:00September 22nd, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy|

Review: CBT Worksheets for Teenage Social Anxiety by Dr. James Manning & Dr. Nicola Ridgeway

“CBT” or “cognitive-behavioral therapy” is an action-oriented psychological therapeutic approach that is commonly used in combating anxiety and depression, as well as its many other forms, by slowly working with the individual to learn better coping techniques and to overcome unhealthy or unproductive habits. It is considered highly effective in most cases and has since become one of the most standard and prescribed methods of coping with those issues.

This book is a guide and a set of worksheets that tackle the particular area of teenage social anxiety using this approach, and is one of a series produced by Dr. […]

James Grimsby2019-02-11T09:39:39+02:00September 22nd, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Psychology|

Review: The Secret of Excalibur (The Excalibur Saga Book 1) by Sahara Foley

★★★★

It’s the 1980s. His name is Arthur Merlin, and he’s on a quest for Excalibur.

When an accident goes very, very awry, one young man walks away better than ever before. He can control things with his mind, teleport, and more. When the US government wants this young man found, he makes his way to London to find out more, with the assistance of a secret branch of the MIs. But what exactly is Excalibur, and how dangerous is it in the wrong hands? Find out in The Secret of Excalibur by Sahara Foley.

The legend of King Arthur […]

James Grimsby2016-10-27T07:02:38+02:00September 21st, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy|

Review: How To Reverse World Recession by Dr. Niaz Ahmed Khan

★★★

How To Reverse World Recession by Dr. Niaz Ahmed Khan is an ambitious and unique vision of the future.

For readers who are experienced or interested in tax law, banking, governmental activities, economics, poverty conditions, and a dozen other major issues affecting the world today, this bold new book from Dr. Niaz Ahmed Khan will be nothing short of fascinating. It is a comprehensive outline of where the world currently stands, and an unexpectedly radical proposal of where our global society could be.

The proposed plan for a new economic system would revolutionize everything that we currently accept in […]