The latest indie book reviews from Self-Publishing Review
Review: Peer Through Time by David T. Pennington ★★★★
In 2079, technology has advanced enough that machines and mankind are becoming more and more indistinguishable from and indispensable to each other. It’s in Northern California where Carmela Akronfleck – a physicist working on the secrets of time travel – succeeds in surpassing one final gauntlet of science, and transports herself to the year 1936.
Taking refuge with a woman named Lasha, they eventually begin to share their secrets: they can both hear voices. When her cybernetic implants malfunction, Carmela receives a message through time of a string of murders, and her sister begins following the final footsteps of deceased […]
Sebastian is a young man living a thousand years in the future, in the remains of a destroyed world hit by a nuclear apocalypse way back when. Orphaned by disease, and trapped with a horrible aunt as his guardian, he is not able to continue his passions for a long-gone mechanical, steam-powered age he had been experiencing with a caring teacher. But when he finds an envelope hidden in a jewelbox he must fight for his life in a violent and raging adventure – this changes everything.
Workman’s Complication by Rich Leder is the immensely entertaining first book in his series McCall & Company, following the exploits of down-on-her-luck private investigator/struggling actress Kate McCall. In the first installment, McCall tries to balance starring in an Off-Broadway vampire musical, investigating her father’s death at the Monument Insurance building, inheriting his PI business, and trying to solve her first case: a workman’s comp case where a construction worker broke his back and might be taking a benevolent old businessman for all his money.
The Black Orchestra, by JJ Toner, is a mesmerizing spy thriller set in Nazi Germany during World War II.
This book contains brief scenes of rape and physical abuse.
Sex, Drugs & Islam is the provocative and controversial memoir by Pakistani author, Dari Ghaznavi. In a conversational style, Ghaznavi tells tale of his time in the military, running drugs and other criminal activity, traveling the world, and, especially, chasing women. Despite its dark topics, the narration is breezy and spirited. Dari Ghaznavi really has lived a life like no other.
Infinite Ending: Ten Stories by Frank Marcopolos is the resulting book of a challenge to write a story a month over ten months. The ten stories follow two hikers on a long journey, a college baseball player assessing his prospects, erotica writers ruminating about the publishing business, a wounded soldier, and other tales where characters assess their present and future condition. By his own declaration in the foreword, these are “postmodern literary fiction,” not stories with high-concept premises or tidy endings.