by Jim Bates Rating: **** When time-traveling healer Torak is sent to the realm of Anon to treat the victims of a plague, he hopes this task will help him overcome the profound crisis of confidence he is experiencing after failing to stem a pandemic in the 21st Century during his previous assignment. What and who he finds in Anon begin to set him on the path to redemption, but when he is called upon to heal the brutal, psychopathic despot King Zorandon, Torak finds himself no

by Emily Leung Rating: **** When Krone Airways Flight KA1530 from Copenhagen lands at Heathrow with all passengers and cabin crew dead, the finger of suspicion begins to point at flight attendant, Beatriz Sarmento. But why would such a dedicated member of the cabin crew commit such an atrocity, and what does the sigil written on the cockpit door mean?... Rewind six months. Beatriz can’t wait to take to the skies again and make her mother in Faro proud after being made redunda

by George Veck Rating: ***** Veck produces another blistering look at those who have fallen far down through the cracks in society and the broken wretchedness of the system that has failed them. Centred around the Morywelon homeless hostel in North Wales, 91-Day Sanction  follows a group of tragicomic figures as they stumble through days filled with futility, fatality, and desperation. 91-Day Sanction  is a Veck tour de force . Longer than his previous novels * , it rarely le

by P. C. Darkcliff Rating: ***** Living with his parents, Baard and Diara, in the peaceful village of New Thorstorm, eighteen-year-old Derrik Thon is tired of being treated like a child and dreams of becoming a warrior. When he has a chance to prove himself, together with friends Glen and Broose, at the village’s perilous coming-of-age task, known as the “Passage”, he grabs it despite his parents' fears. But the danger posed by the Passage pales into insignificance as the Dar

by Ken Steele Rating: ***** The Promise of Unbroken Straw  unfolds the rags-to-riches story of the Landrum family through the eyes of the younger son, Paul, using dual timelines, one set in the mid-1940s and the other in the mid-1980s. Motherless, living with his father, Jake, grandfather, Eli, and brother, Tim, Paul navigates an awkward adolescence marred by secrets, guilt, and Jake’s cold aloofness while the family scratches a living in the wheat fields of Oklahoma during W

by Jim Bates Rating: ***** Bates’s On Rainy Lake  is a collection of eleven short stories mainly set in and around the Hennepin County and Orchard Lake areas of Minnesota. They are broadly contemporary, although characters unburden themselves and reveal historical reasons for their current motivations or situations through flashbacks, memories, and conversations, both internal and with others. Nine tales are written from first-person perspectives, and all main protagonists ar

by Kathryn Amurra Rating: **** When Erin Dovetree’s grandmother, Rose, mentions her new landlord, Will Abbott, to Erin, she is clearly trying to matchmake. Amused but not interested, Erin dismisses the ploy. However, when she meets the handsome, enigmatic Will, their attraction to each other is immediate. Both fight against their growing feelings, but for different reasons. Erin has unresolved trust issues, and Will happens to be nearly one hundred and seventy years old, curs

by Erik Larson Rating: ***** The World’s Columbian Exposition, hosted by Chicago in 1893 and known as the Chicago World’s Fair, was a monumental feat of architecture, engineering, and design, showcasing not only art, antiquities, and cultural exhibits but also innovative, ground-breaking ideas and technologies of the late-Victorian age. However, the wonders of “The White City,” as the fair was additionally named due to the buildings being painted white, came at a tremendous m

by Wendy Waters Rating: ***** With her entrancing singing voice and heavenly face to match, fifteen-year-old serving girl Miriam Tilby would always be a target for Rathe Courteney, the Master of Radclyffe Hall, as her mother, Eirinn, feared. Six years later, in 1593, accused of bewitching him, poisoning his wife, and pregnant with their child, Miriam is sentenced to be burned at the stake in Smithfield, London. But the night before the pyre is due to be lit, a black-clad stra

by Adam Cosco Rating: **** Barbara and Teddy O’Brien desperately want to believe their daughter, Ava, an anxious, watchful eleven-year-old, when she breaks down and describes an alarming incident that occurred during the school day with her classmates.   With no proof and unreliable witnesses, Barbara, along with almost everyone else, is inclined to dismiss Ava’s bizarre account of rituals and masked figures as a product of her daughter’s overwrought, febrile imagination, but