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 Andrew W. Pearson Rating: **** Forty-seven-year-old failed screenwriter Anthony Wilson leaves Hollywood behind to help run the Asian arm of his twin brother’s AI company. Once in Macau, Anthony’s client is a prominent and infamous casino operator, Cash Cheang. Cash wants Anthony to design a facial recognition software package for his casino and enlists him to help sell a new crypto coin. As the money piles up, so does the laundering, corruption, and betrayal. But is the bi

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 Gail Ward Olmsted Rating: **** Forty-two-year-old Miranda Quinn has bounced back with a late-night phone-in legal advice radio show broadcast from her home studio in Old Lyme, Connecticut. It’s proving popular and Miranda’s life has turned around significantly in the last two years, things could not be better. However, when her best friend’s son is arrested on seemingly watertight sexual offense charges and then a creepy caller to her radio show starts to escalate his thre

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 Connor Whiteley Rating: *** When Private Eye Bettie English receives a curious invitation that requires utmost discretion from an incredibly wealthy potential client, she is more than intrigued and takes her sister, Phryne along for the ride. The client, Ms. Willow Fisher, is incredibly keen to suppress some compromising material… Meanwhile, Bettie’s husband, Police Detective Graham Adams, is investigating a suspected drug deal when he is hit on the head by a rock. And, n

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

by Chet Nairene Rating: **** Beginning in 1968 and spanning just under four decades, Pacific Dash unfolds the adventures of Dashiell (“Dash”) Xavier Bonaventure II. When his father’s tractor company posts the family to Hong Kong from rural Illinois, fifteen-year-old Dash believes it will be a temporary move. However, he couldn’t be more wrong and despite a sojourn back in New Hampshire, he spends the next forty years making friends, enemies, and an awful lot of money as he