SPR’s book reviews of new self-published books
Dismantling Evan by Venessa Kimball
Dismantling Evan is a moving and harrowing novel about coping with bipolar disorder – not just the disease itself, but how everyone reacts to those who suffer from mental illness. Evan Phillips is moved to a small town in Texas after suffering a nervous breakdown. Her parents hope that a new setting in a calmer environment will help her recover. All does not go as planned, as Evan’s family moves next to Gavin Ferguson, a teenager who has mental illness problems of his own. A group of gifted, but troubled, teenagers bond together, but become vicious targets as the town […]
Shades: The Gehenna Dilemma is the extraordinarily original and inventive science fiction/dystopian novel of a bleak future where the IRS bring back debtors from the dead as “Shades,” turning them into servants of the state. As the old saying goes, “The only thing certain in life are death and taxes.” Shades takes this literally and combines the two ideas.
“Pinterest Saved My Marriage” is the tender and amusing story about a dissolving marriage. Jack, obsessed with work but very successful, has been neglecting his wife and she decides to leave him. As a peace offering, he starts making stuff on her Pinterest boards (gourmet food, though he’s not a cook), which he hopes will mend their broken home. Though you may be guessing where this is going, the ending comes as a big surprise.
The Gertrude Threshold by Christopher Brooks is a moving and harrowing work of apocalyptic fiction that asks the question: what would you do if it was the last day on Earth? The Gertrude Threshold refers to a mathematical calculation that precisely determines the last day humans can survive after Global Warming. A family spanning several generations waits out the last day in a series of tubes underground, and the narrative switches between characters, giving this short novella an epic breadth and scope.
Lemat is living every writer’s nightmare: the starving artist, unknown and unheralded. He hits such rock bottom that he attempts suicide, splits up with a girlfriend and gets fired from his job. He then meets Guy, a talent agent who urges him to write something lurid and incendiary, which is more like doing a deal with the devil. Selling out his artistic soul works: he becomes famous and controversial, lands a 6-figure publishing contract, but comes to realize that compromising one’s integrity also comes at a great price.
Workman’s Complication by Rich Leder is the uproariously funny and engaging debut novel in the McCall & Company series. Off-Broadway actress, Kate McCall, reluctantly inherits her father’s private investigator business. Her first case is investigating a construction accident, which may or may not be a scam. Meanwhile, she’s also investigating her father’s murder with a strange assortment of eccentrics in her apartment building, all the while keeping up rehearsals in a vampire musical.
The Button Chronicles by Juniko Moody is the highly inventive dystopian novel about the very nature of human evolution. Replete with its own inventive language, The Button Chronicles is about a dark 22nd century where mysterious buttons appear from out of nowhere. When pressed, a person disappears, and soon there are buttons for every person on earth, with millions of people disappearing. No one knows where they came from or how the devices work. A suspenseful and thought-provoking read, The Button Chronicles asks serious questions about the nature of reality and how mankind can survive on its current dystopian path.[…]
Peter G Pollack’s new international political thriller centers around Courtney, a student who decides to join the Students for Palestinian Justice (SPJ) group on her university campus, and her retired CIA father Leonard’s reaction to her decision. But when Courtney becomes a target for a planned bombing assignment hitting Jewish organizations, it’s up to Leonard and her mother Allison to try and save her before it’s too late.