by George Veck Rating: ***** Twenty-five-year-old cue hustler, Alfie “ Whack a Tenner on ” Fenner has exhausted the Gwynedd pool and snooker small-time money matches and tested the patience of a few old faces. It's time to aim big, Cardiff no less.  Wangling a place on a Sports psychology degree course and with his student loan tucked away, Alfie plans to set the City alight with his cueing prowess and take full advantage of the fame and fortune that will surely follow… Rough

by Mathias B. Freese Rating: ***** In the Throes  introduces the reader to “ Gruff ”, a colossal, grotesquely-rendered, primitive creature who exists in a dystopian toxic hellscape. Gruff develops awareness, linguistics, and the capability for artistic expression through an anomalous evolutionary quirk. He can communicate with humankind, who have always been his prey, and the relationships he forms with them have profound consequences for both species. In the Throes  was draf

by Gail Ward Olmsted Rating: ***** Olmsted’s delightful novel is inspired by Katharine Prescott Wormeley, an independent trailblazer of a woman born in 1830 who became a Civil War nurse and a highly sought-after translator of French literature among many other pursuits, the majority of which were pragmatic and philanthropic. She never married although she had meaningful relationships, one being with a distant relation of the author’s husband. Raised in England, her family emi

by John A. Heldt Rating: ***** Duties and Dreams , the last installment in Heldt’s Second Chance  series * finds the extended family of the Carpenters and Lees with new additions, aspirations, and ambitions. Life is good for the blended Carpenter-Lee clan, living together in Hermosa Beach, Southern California, 1918. But the three time-traveling siblings, Bill, Annie, and Paul, know the storm clouds of World War I are far from lifting and there is also the small matter of a S

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

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

by William McClain Rating: ***** Spring 1939, Weymouth, England, and fifty-eight-year-old Alice Standfield has just buried her husband, Edgar. Apprehensive at what the future might hold yet secretly excited to re-discover herself and her interests after being stifled under four decades of marriage, Alice has a few months alone to do just that before the gathering clouds of war grow darker over Weymouth and her two youngest grandchildren, Martin and Irene, are evacuated from L

by George Veck Rating: ***** Fifty-year-old Colin Tudur Parry has allowed himself to be walked all over for as long as he can remember. He only works as a bin-man to hand his wages over to his grasping, crafty wife Clare, and indolent twenty-year-old stepson Dale as they shamble around in his remote, dilapidated farmhouse in North Wales. Desperate and deluded, Colin decides to make a stand and turn his football refereeing hobby into a full-time job which doesn’t sit well with

by Sally Gardner Rating: ***** Set in Regency London, The Weather Woman unfolds the story of Neva Tarshin, orphaned at three years old and adopted by a skilled clockmaker, Victor Friezland, and his housekeeper, Elise. Neva is supremely intelligent and possesses a unique, and potentially lucrative talent, she can predict the weather. But, how can she share her remarkable gift and foresight as a woman?... Like its heroine, The Weather Woman is a beautifully imagined and uncon

by P.C. Darkcliff Rating: ***** The Traitor’s Spell is the third installment in Darkcliff’s epic fantasy series * . Baard Thon, the former logger of Icecreek, and his wonderfully engaging troop of loyal followers are back, battle-scarred and weary, yet determined to take down the remaining two Wrathlords. But they will need more than determination, especially if Baard is to fulfill his dream of studying silver-level magic with the Archmage in the mysterious Aganopean Empire

by John A. Heldt Rating: ***** Annie’s Apple opens six years after The Fountain * , the first installment in Heldt’s Second Chance Series that saw elderly siblings Bill, Paul, and Annie Carpenter materialize in early 1900s San Francisco as much younger versions of themselves. Annie’s Apple sees Bill, Cassie, and Annie in New York, 1911, while Paul and Andy, Cassie’s brother, are in Arizona embroiled in the military campaign against the Mexican revolution. While Bill and Ca

by Salustiano Berrios Rating: ***** When Jim Simple’s wife, Diane, dies in a freak accident, she leaves him behind with their young autistic son, Robin, and the plan of having three further children together shattered. Struggling and refusing to engage with Robin, Jim descends into a twilight world of alcoholism in which his only motivation is to father three healthy children, preferably with his deceased wife. Enter an illicit, underground scientist named “Passenger” who pr

by Lara Byrne Rating: ***** The Road to Canossa is the sequel to Lotharingia * and Byrne takes the reader back into early medieval Europe with a new Pope on the throne whose hatred for King Heinrich is all-consuming. Pope Gregorius (Ildebrando di Soana) looks to stop at nothing to defeat Heinrich and it’s up to Matilde to broker peace. But how can she negotiate with Heinrich, the man she loved so deeply, who hurt her so much, and Ildebrando whom she cannot trust? The nove

by Kristina Mänd-Lakhiani Rating: ***** Written by entrepreneur and co-founder of the personal transformation platform, MindValley, Becoming Flawesome offers candid and uncomplicated advice on accepting and embracing who you truly are, rather than constantly striving for an idealistic, unreal version of yourself. Mänd-Lakhiani has really considered her reading audience in Becoming Flawesome . It’s evident that this is no vanity project but an incredibly well-constructed and

by Simone Pertuiset Rating: ***** Beginning in 1895, this triumvirate of beautifully presented and interlinked stories explores just over three decades of societal, political, and life-changing events through the experiences of two working-class families. Pertuiset delves into the seismic impact of the motor car, votes for women, and World War I together with the harsh, everyday struggles of single-parenthood, poverty, and disease. The first tale, The Great Manure Crisis , in

by Lance Elliot Osborne Rating: ***** Set in the early nineteenth century, Bold Crossings unfurls the stories of two thirteen-year-olds from very different worlds but who are more similar than they realize, especially when those worlds collide. Malcolm (“Mal”) Hornsby leaves Mississippi to travel with his family hundreds of miles to the harsh, unknown of the Texas plains and Wukubuu, a girl from the Penatuka band of the Native American Comanche tribe, and for whom the unforg