Even in 2030, young people who dream of becoming doctors want to help people in need. Hal believes that health care is about caring, and patients want their doctor to be knowledgeable, trustworthy and compassionate. However, medical training seems designed to whittle away at his convictions and reshape him to fit its own purposes. College, medical school and residency spend eleven years molding him into a cog that fits in the healthcare machine. Contending with A.I. Assistants, cybernetic implants and robots, Hal’s journey is an emotional roller coaster. His wife Sarah does everything humanly possible to save his last spark of passion and hope; she even follows him to Africa in search of his dreams. Can she rescue his humanity? A few years ago, this story would have been pure science fiction. But medical technology is advancing at breakneck speed; the doctor you visit tomorrow could be a RoboDoc.
Endurance
Award: Awesome Indies: APPROVED
Categories: Additions, Science Fiction
Tags: first contact, link
Publisher: Sealook Press
Author: A.C. Spahn
A disrespected ship, exiled to lonely patrol in the dark corners of the solar system. A crew of screw-ups, written off by the entire fleet. They're about to change everything. If they don't blow themselves up first. Join the Endurance's crew - a trigger-happy first officer, a hyperactive engineer, a shy covert operative, a conspiracy-spouting physicist, and a captain trying to earn his way back into his superiors' good graces - as they explore the galaxy by accident and trip their way into saving the world. This anthology includes all five Endurance novellas, as well as two bonus short stories.
The Endurance series is no longer available as separate volumes.
Volume 1: Enduring Endurance
Volume 2: Mightier than the Sword
Volume 3: Under Cover
Volume 4: Preferred Dead
each received Awesome Indies Approval.
The complete series of Endurance 1 to 5 is available as one book.
Priestess of Ishana
Award: Awesome Indies: APPROVED
Categories: Additions, Fantasy, Historical
Series: Tesha Series
Author: Judith Starkston
A malignant curse from the Underworld threatens Tesha’s city with fiery devastation. The young priestess of Ishana, goddess of love and war, must overcome this demonic darkness. Charred remains of an enemy of the Hitolian Empire reveal both treason and evil magic. Into this crisis, King Hattu, the younger brother of the Great King, arrives to make offerings to the goddess Ishana, but he conceals his true mission in the city. As a connection sparks between King Hattu and Tesha, the Grand Votary accuses Hattu of murderous sorcery and jails him under penalty of death. Isolated in prison, Hattu’s only hope lies in Tesha to uncover the conspiracy against him. Unfortunately, the Grand Votary is Tesha’s father, a rash, unyielding man, and now her worst enemy. To help Hattu, she must risk destroying her own father. In a whirlpool of magic, politics, family crisis and love, Tesha pursues justice.
Assessed for Awesome Indies Book Awards
A Broken Reality
Award: Awesome Indies: APPROVED
Categories: Additions, Adult, AIBA Approved, Psychological Thriller, Suspense
Tags: kidnapping, link
Author: Rob Kaufman
Ten-year-old, Danny Madsen, has been missing for four days when Jesse Carlton begins his own search for his godson on a frigid, snowy night. Driving along a deserted rural road, Jesse hits a stretch of black ice at the same time Danny appears from the thicket. Unable to control the car, Jesse slams into the boy and watches helplessly as Danny’s body flies back into the dark brush. When Jesse regains consciousness, he has no recollection of how he and his car wound up in a ditch. However, there’s a witness: Charles Hastings, the sociopathic kidnapper who chased Danny through the brush and into the path of Jesse’s car. Hastings takes this chance to set up Jesse so he’ll take the fall for both Danny’s fate. And so the mind games begin—an onslaught of psychological manipulation that devastates Jesse, his wife, Danny’s parents and the cops’ investigation. Inexplicably, the torment continues even after the primary suspect is killed and the rollercoaster of emotions and confusion seems never-ending, until the final and devastating truth is revealed.
Assessed for Awesome Indies Book Awards
The Butcher’s Block
Categories: Additions, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Thrillers and Suspense
Tag: link
Series: Dan Foster Mysteries
Publisher: SilverWood Books
Author: Lucienne Boyce
During a routine patrol, police arrest two men in possession of human body parts intended for sale to the dissecting rooms of a London teaching hospital. Bow Street Runner and amateur pugilist Dan Foster makes the grisly discovery that they are the remains of fellow officer George Kean. The arrested men are charged with Kean’s murder, but Dan is not convinced that they are the killers. In pursuit of the real murderer, he investigates the unhallowed activities of the resurrection men – bodysnatchers. The bodysnatching racket soon leads Dan to something bigger and much more dangerous. In a treacherous underworld of vicious pugilists, ruthless murderers, British spymasters and French agents, Dan must tread carefully…or meet the same terrible fate as Kean. 'The Butcher’s Block' is the second Dan Foster Mystery. 'Bloodie Bones', the first in the series, was joint winner of the Historical Novel Society Indie Award 2016.
Assessed for
Disappear Our Dead
Award: Awesome Indies: APPROVED
Category: Mystery
Tag: link
Publisher: Pink Granite Press
Author: Gin Mackey
When the worst happens, would you rise or fall… On the coast of Maine, a devastating death, a widow grappling with grief. Then, a second chance at life. This is Abby Tiernan’s story, a story of the heart. But in order to learn to live again, Abby must solve a troubling mystery. After the death of her beloved husband, Abby hits bottom—hard. Her flickering will to live reignites when she becomes a home funeral guide, teaching the bereaved the age-old tradition of after-death care for loved ones at home. But troublesome questions arise over the death of a woman whose home funeral Abby guided. Was the death really natural? The police chief refuses to investigate what appear to be unfounded concerns of a distraught relative. But members of the community mystified by home funerals target Abby as a suspect, and swirling rumors threaten to destroy her fledgling business and fragile spirit. Abby discovers a funeral home director and a caterer who bleed red ink when people choose home funerals, money-hungry motivation to set up Abby as a murderer. And what about the long-suffering husband? Was he ready to move on with his life before his wife was ready to die? To save her failing business, Abby—with the help of a widower detective she feels guiltily drawn to—must uncover the truth. As Abby unmasks the murderer, and the killer sets sights on her, Abby realizes there’s one thing she wants more than anything she’s ever wanted—to live.
Assessed for
Rosette: A Novel of Pioneer Michigan
We meet Rosette in 1888 as she revises the wedding-day page of her journal. In lush detail, in the voices of Rosette and others, the novel traces how we both choose and suffer our destiny, how hopes come to naught and sometimes rise from the wreckage. Why did she edit her wedding-day journal? Almost-spinster schoolteacher Rosette Cordelia Ramsdell married Otis Churchill on a Michigan farm in 1857. Her real-life journal recounts two years of homesteading, history hints at the next six decades, and the novel explores the truth. We meet Rosette in 1888 as she revises the wedding-day page of her journal. In lush detail, in the voices of Rosette and others, the novel traces how we both choose and suffer our destiny, how hopes come to naught and sometimes rise from the wreckage.
Assessed for
The English Heart
Award: Awesome Indies: APPROVED
Categories: Contemporary Fiction, Romance, Women's Fiction
Tags: 00-aa Update card with SN, 1980’s books, Cold War submarines, Finnish language, Long Distance Relationships, Nordic Love, Royal Navy romance, True story
Series: The Nordic Heart Series
Publisher: Newhurst Press;
Author: Helena Halme
A stylish 1980’s Cold War love story based on true events. Young Finnish student Kaisa falls head over heals in love with Peter, a dashing newly qualified naval officer. Kaisa realised she’d never felt like this before. This was love. The stuff she’d read about in books since she was a teenager; the films she’d watched. This was how Ryan O’Neal felt about Ali MacGraw in Love Story, and Barbra Streisand about Robert Redford in The Way We Were. Kaisa grinned. She’d wanted to pose the same question to the Englishman that Katie had to Hubbell, ‘Do you smile ALL the time?’ ” When a young Finnish student, Kaisa, is invited to the British Embassy cocktail party in Helsinki to celebrate a Royal Navy visit to Finland, she’s not looking for romance. After all, her future has been carefully planned: she’s to complete her degree, marry her respectable, well-to-do Finnish fiancé Matti, and live happily ever after. Enter the dashing Peter, a newly qualified naval officer. Like a moth to a flame, Kaisa falls head over heels in love. Kaisa and Peter embark on a long-distance relationship, but at the height of the Cold War, while the Englishman chases Russian submarines, Kaisa is stuck in Finland, a country friendly with the Soviet Union. Can they trust each other? Can their love go the distance? A stylish 1980s Nordic love story based on true events.
Assessed for Awesome Indies (Previous title: The Englishman)
The Darkness
Award: Awesome Indies: APPROVED
Category: Mystery
Tags: 00-aa Update card with SN, mystery
Series: The Jack Carston Mysteries
Author: Bill Kirton
For Andrew Davidson, tragedy marks a turning point… He’s a respected G.P. but when his brother is found with his throat cut, his thoughts turn to anger and revenge. Known villains, who have evaded justice thanks to the efforts of Cairnburgh’s cleverest lawyer, begin to disappear. For rape victim Rhona Kirk, getting on with her life means taking control… She starts a new life in Dundee but haking off her past is difficult, and the men she’s connected with also go missing. When the threats start, she accepts help against her better judgment. For DCI Jack Carston, solving the puzzle is a race against time… He searches for the links between these vanished persons, aware all the time of his own darker impulses and sensing the bond between himself and the vigilante. What he finds is beyond his worst imaginings.