by Kathryn Amurra Rating: **** Val Nikolov was a skeptical nineteen-year-old when his Bulgarian grandmother gifted him an amulet, claiming it had magical properties. Seventeen years later, Val is wealthy and successful, thanks to the amulet, and about to oversee a lucrative acquisition of his company, Span Global. Temp contract attorney, Alex Weaver, is helping Span Global with the due diligence process. When an employee's departure places the acquisition at risk, she has to

by Chas Halpern Rating: **** The Physics of Relationships  is a lovely novel that I found a light, easy read although it explores subjects far from light or easy. Halpern examines issues including loss, relationship dynamics, and forgiveness through the reflections of Lexi, a recently widowed sixty-three-year-old. Using the immediacy of the first-person perspective, Lexi shares her thoughts, opinions, and internal conflicts as she navigates unexpected lodgers, strange proposa

by E. Denise Billups Rating: ***** Simone Doucet cannot believe her luck when cousin, Gisele, asks her to house-sit her beautifully lavish Queen Anne Victorian mansion, Ballard House, set within the Garden District of New Orleans and which, by a quirk of fate, she and her husband Theo had been gifted by way of inheritance. But Ballard House has ghoulish secrets concealed within its walls; dark, shameful secrets that begin to whisper themselves to Simone, and murderous secrets

by P. C. Darkcliff Rating: ***** The final battle is on the horizon for Baard Thon and Company but the magical battleax, Tarroth, which can only be used by the Archmage to summon every hero, past and present, to fight against the Dark Overlord has been stolen from the Magic Circle palace. In the wrong hands, Tarroth’s power can bring about the end of days, for everyone and everything.  And, it’s in the wrong hands…. Darkcliff’s Magic Circle  series just gets stronger * . The

by Mark N. Drake Rating: ***** Falls the Darkness  opens with Private Detective Jack Glennison and his assistant, Josine, keeping busy in their Manchester office with routine cases after the horrors they witnessed on Darkisle at the end of 1922. Their uneasy calm is soon disturbed when friend and Darkisle native, Lord Charles Deverby, requests their help to find missing man William Short, whom Deverby had hired to oversee land excavation to the north of the island in the hope

Edited by Donald K. Hartman Rating: **** The Hypnotic Tales of Rafael Sabatini , edited by Hartman, contains two stories originally published in the early 20th century by Rafael Sabatini, a writer who gained immense popularity in the 1920s and 30s for his swashbuckling romances. These earlier stories deal with hypnotism, a theme he did not revisit in his career although he introduces the character of Dr. Roger Galliphant, an eminent authority on hypnotism, to help solve the m

by George Veck Rating: ***** Conniving Wendy Billings gives a whole new layer of North Wales meaning to the syndrome of Munchausen by proxy  as, when not half-sloshed or nursing a killer hangover, she can be found dragging her fifteen-year-old son, Justin, to every benefits office within a three-mile radius of their Minffordd home to cheat the system by pretending Justin is so far along the autistic spectrum as to be “ chronically disabled ”   As Justin nears his sixteenth bi

by K. C. Fusaro Rating: ***** Fusaro brings the reader more of Joethan Wolfe’s derring-do and heroic exploits in this third outing * for the man also known as Captain Sedition. This time Wolfe’s role is that of envoy and observer, charged with discovering what exactly is delaying the American invasion of Canada and reporting back to General Washington.  But when has Joethan Wolfe ever been a mere bystander to action and intrigue?... The Fever of Conquest  opens in wonderfull

by Simone Pertuiset Rating: ***** When Simone Pertuiset chanced upon a painting by Edouard Manet, “ Monsieur Pertuiset, Chasseur de Lions ” in an Art History class, her curiosity was piqued given the relative rarity of her surname. Family investigation confirmed that the subject of the painting, Eugene Pertuiset, was an ancestor. Although interesting, Simone did not think much more about Eugene until fate intervened again when she happened upon a journalistic piece exploring