Tides by Philip J. Moss

Much of Tides by Philip J. Moss reads […]

Much of Tides by Philip J. Moss reads […]
Mr. Wonderful by Daniel Blake Smith delves into the life of an academic, juggling family and his teaching career. Concerned about his aging father who is dealing with medical issues, Brian is faced with an adopted adult son who just can’t seem to find his way in life and inevitably ends up returning home while on the run from a dangerous situation. The sudden arrival of his son adds to the upheaval and adds further strain to what seems like an already threadbare marriage.
Between the phone calls from his younger brother about their father, the wishes of his father’s […]
★★★★ 
Our adult lives are largely influenced by the uncharted events of our youth and nowhere is this more evident than in Carpenter’s Bluff, James Sanders’ moving literary tale of youthful indiscretions and dark secrets.
Henry “Hank” Anawatty is a young attorney with some serious problems in his life, the most pressing one being that the woman he’s been seeing has disappeared. In desperation, he goes to see a shrink and little by little, her pointed questions chink away at Hank’s armor, revealing a less-than-idyllic childhood spent dodging an abusive father, not to mention harboring lingering guilt over his […]
★★★★
In The Gods Wait by John von Dorf, you’ll find pessimists fighting to be optimistic about romance, a waitress’s vivid inner world, an internet troll’s thoughts on philosophy, and many other slices from diverse, scattered lives.
A collection of well-drawn characters seek fulfillment and meaning through various mediums, including film, insults, and food. Each obsession demonstrates the individual’s need and desire for grander meaning than their obsession actually delivers. The only voices with new ideas are shut down by the intentional defamation or self-congratulatory ignorance of other would-be intellectuals. Each character is defined as much by their hates as […]
★★★½
In Love Letters by Shaun Locke, the narrator is one of the wordiest protagonists in English literature, and he’s supposed to be. After introducing himself through an archaic tide of words, the narrator’s strange and sordid tale begins.
The narrator’s words continue to stretch the mundane into obscenely long sentences as the story unfolds. He finds his daughter has beautifully mastered the art of curse words. He hits a cat on the way to see the mother of his child, but he can’t see the mother of his child because she is locked away in an asylum for women. […]

Villoth’s ability to imitate an archaic writing style is quite remarkable, and it’s easy to be fooled in believing The Inconsistencies could have been written over a hundred years ago. The biggest “inconsistency’ here, perhaps, is the fleeting sense that one is actually reading Moby Dick or A Confession[…]
★★★★½
For readers who are eager to have their imaginations shattered into a thousand pieces, this bizarre and fascinating novel by Michael Sussman is sure to please. Incognolio, both the title of this novel and the ultimate goal of anyone trying to shed their conscious mind, is a strange journey with unreliable narrators who seem to be having a perpetual identity crisis.
From the very first page of this novel, you can tell that the read will be an unusual one to say the least. The subtle style of writing in surreal details, or breaking the fourth wall of […]
★★★★
Joseph Barone’s existential novel, Bebette, tells the story of Lily, a 12-year-old girl with a rare form of blood cancer, as she grapples with her own mortality. After her family’s move from the allegorically named town of Reverie to the equally metaphorical town of Salvation, Lily develops a relationship with an imaginary friend named Bebette.
Bebette is a 5-year old child who looks like Alice in Wonderland but who speaks with the knowledge, insight, and wisdom of a much older person. The conversations held between Bebette and Lily are not those you would expect to encounter between two […]