The latest indie book reviews from Self-Publishing Review
Review: The Shoes Come First by Janet Leigh
★★★★½
The Shoes Come First: A Jennifer Cloud Novel, by Janet Leigh, is a lighthearted and laugh out loud historical fantasy and romance.
In Sunnyside, Texas, Jennifer Cloud has the perfect job as assistant purchasing manager for an upscale shoe store. When her boss is arrested, Jennifer’s world comes crashing down. She ends up working for her brother in his chiropractic office. Jennifer feels like she’s the only one in her life who doesn’t have ambition.
An unexpected birthday gift opens up a whole new world for Jennifer. This gift allows her to travel in time and during her […]

Afterlife by Tim Gurung follows Enos Bronte as he travels through the hereafter meeting many challenges along the way. He battles loneliness, isolation, barren landscapes, trapped souls, and other dark and disturbing visions as he attempts to navigate this difficult wilderness. Ultimately, the journey is worth it. Enos hasn’t been trapped in hell, he must fight his way through this otherwordly landscape to reach safety and redemption.
In a time somewhere after 1952, and a place often known as Dundee, a man concludes the search for his mother’s grave, failing to find any remnant of a true piece of her being in her headstone and final remains, and thus giving up on his life-long quest. Rather than being the final conclusion to a wider tale, this event is at best a mid-point.
Murder Over Kodiak, by Robin Barefield, is a clever Alaskan-set mystery that will keep readers guessing until the final pages.
Conversations and Adventures by Simone Diston is a spirited and engaging collection of true-to-life stories about meeting different people in a city and starting conversations out of the blue. Everyone she meets on her travels is asking big questions about life, with obstacles in their lives to overcome. Together they reach new insights into big questions about the human condition, such as equality or identity, and smaller issues as well, such as dating.
Beau Walker is a man of unusual interests. When he’s not teaching at his local college, he enjoys rowing, he takes part in meditation, and he sometimes reads the odd paper on morphic fields, biotelekinesis, and remote genetic reorganization, something he has yet to give up on from his glory days of private research and the Air Force Research Institute. He’s also – reluctantly – an empath, making things difficult when ethics clashes with a lucrative government-funded research position.