Editorial Reviews

A blunt and detailed account of survival after catastrophic brain trauma, Cerebral Eruption in Paradise by Fran Feavel Merkel is a harrowing memoir of healing and the myriad challenges of American healthcare. Just months after retiring in Arizona, Francine Merkel experienced a ruptured brain aneurysm, plunging her into a shocking spiral of emergency treatment and an arduous journey of recovery. Merkel’s book chronicles both the how and why of her life-altering condition, as well as the nuances of her essential day-to-day care in the months and years that followed, which makes for intense but sympathetic reading. Whether you are a […]

An ominous fantasy that summons ancient beliefs and tangles with indigenous traditions, Sad Evil by Shane Drift is a haunting thriller with epic stakes for the fate of the world. Sent through a portal from a far darker realm, Sad Evil descends upon the human world with a shadowy horde of dark spirits at his command. To defeat this looming storm of spiritual darkness, Darby must learn to harness her own ancestral powers, trust her ragtag companions, and embrace the hardest lessons of her past. Blurring the line between ancient folklore and contemporary fiction, the plot is a collision of […]

Sinister, snarky, and sexy, The Demon’s Deceit (Divine Evolution Book 1) by Andria Carver leers at humanity’s darkest corners through the eyes of would-be gods. Jeanie is a grieving wreck of a person, drinking and stumbling towards oblivion, when she’s propositioned and empowered by a sultry demon plotting an evolutionary leap of divine proportions. Suddenly finding herself with no fear, no pain, and nothing left to lose, she joins a slow-burning struggle for cosmic power, one that could stretch her body and soul to the breaking point. Sharply penned and laced with acerbic prose, this down-and-out urban fantasy shatters archetypes […]

A memory loss mystery with a sinister underbelly, Deceitful Intentions by Carlo Armenise is a dramatic thriller featuring a series of small-town twists. Raven Redman’s life was shattered by a car accident that resulted in the loss of her mother and the entirety of her memory. The details of that tragic day simply don’t add up, and when one of the key figures in the suspected cover-up is brazenly murdered, Raven becomes the next target of a killer with the perfect recipe for revenge. The layered complexity of covert affairs, emotional betrayals, and painful explorations of Raven’s past gives the […]

An intimate and tangled novel that delicately dissects grief and the difficulties of healing, Before We Arrived by Jodie Pine is a nuanced and emotionally charged character-driven drama. In a time-leaping web of interlinked memory, three people seek redemption after bearing more than their fair share of inherited hardship and systemic trauma. Rivka’s compulsive compassion, Henry’s quiet isolation, and Jayce’s haunted history are gradually unraveled as their unfiltered stories overlap across space and time. From radical empathy and epigenetics to internalized racism and mental health epidemics, this generation-spanning story explores a range of existential turning points and contemporary crises with […]

Introspective, exhilarating, and haunting in equal measure, Unleash The Fury: A Storm of Vengeance on Eastern Sands by Joseph Paul D’Aquisto is a Far East vigilante thriller with a layered and fast-paced storyline. A retired detective who never truly laid down the badge puts himself squarely in the midst of a mob war in Sri Lanka, where he nobly defends the oppressed women and common folk of a small struggling town. Wrestling with his own vicious ghosts and navigating the twisted ethics of survival and street justice, John’s story fearlessly gazes into the unswept corners of human nature. While the […]

A fourth-wall-breaking spree of vigilante action and international rabble-rousing, Saving Maria by Truant Memphis is a surreal tale of unsung heroes fighting fearlessly for the masses. When a priceless art collection is stolen in a daring daytime heist, the case is taken on by the Electric Medicine Men, a ragtag cabal of clandestine antiheroes, including Littlethumb Brooks, the monk-like artist in mourning who created the pilfered paintings. Laced with wry wit and off-kilter, unpredictable prose reminiscent of Tom Robbins, this farcical novel is both strange and sharp, touching on everything from grief, geopolitics, and societal oppression to kung-fu monkeys, Hitler’s […]