After recovering from the shock of her parents perishing in a tragic accident, Grace Lindroth discovers clues in their attic that cause her to believe the people she called Mom and Dad her whole life may not have been her real parents. Certain clues to her real identity draw Grace to a boardinghouse once owned by Anna Vargas, and she becomes convinced that Anna was her real mother. But there’s more at stake than Grace’s identity, and a chance person in Grace’s life is determined to get a piece of it. The lies and secrets that Grace exposes in her quest for the truth are both shocking and life-changing—and not only for herself. Author's Website
Literary Fiction
The Hour of Parade
One violent act draws together three very different people in Alan Bray’s haunting debut The Hour of Parade. The year is 1806, and Russian cavalry officer Alexi Ruzhensky travels to Munich to kill the man responsible for murdering his brother in a duel, French officer Louis Valsin. Obsessed by the main character in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s novel Julie, Alexi delays his search and becomes romantically entangled with a young Bavarian woman. When he finally meets Valsin and his mistress Anne-Marie, Alexi hides his true identity and befriends them. As the three grow closer, tensions mount as Alexi and Anne-Marie desperately try to resist their growing attraction. But in the novel’s explosive conclusion, Alexi will learn that revenge cannot be forgotten so easily.
Assessed
The Ribs and Thigh Bones of Desire
Tags: Coming of Age, dating and relationships, family life, feminist fiction, humor, psychological fiction, rape fiction, sex and intimacy
Publisher: Sheer Hubris Press
Author: Sandra Hutchison
Will they or won’t they? Should they or shouldn’t they? It’s the summer of 1977 in a small college town, and physics professor David Asken has just lost his young family in a plane crash he somehow survived. Sixteen-year-old neighbor Molly Carmichael used to be the babysitter, but now will be keeping house for him while he recuperates. David’s quietly planning to end his life just as soon as he can drive again. Molly’s trying to cope with being known as Tampon Girl, thanks to a sculpture by her notorious artist mother, but she will have to deal with much worse after a drunken teenage party. In this engrossing coming-of-age novel by the author of The Awful Mess, both man and girl must grow up the hard way, and it’s their unexpectedly tender connection, fraught with potential scandal, that may just help them do it. This provocative novel asks: Is there ever a time when doing the wrong thing might be exactly right? Warning: Offers adult themes, bad language, violence, and a blistering feminist critique of how men always leave that crap in the bottom of the sink. May also keep you reading way too late into the night.
Assessed for
The Ghosts of Eden
Award: Awesome Indies: APPROVED
Categories: Coming of Age, Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction, Women's Fiction
Tags: africa, history, YA Romance
Publisher: Picnic Publishing Ltd
Author: Andrew JH Sharp
Zachye Katura, tending cattle in the grasslands of Kaaro Karungi, and Michael Lacey, the child of missionaries, are happy in their childhood idyll. But the world around them is changing, propelling them towards tragedy.
Assessed
Losing it All
Categories: Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction
Publisher: Hickory Flat Books
Author: Marsha Cornelius
Frank Barnes is content living on the streets of Atlanta. A soup kitchen and a makeshift shanty sure beat his days as a POW in Vietnam. But Chloe Roberts can’t handle the eviction that sends her into the hell of homelessness. With no family or friends to turn to, Chloe and her children are sucked into the traumatic world of night shelters, and dangerous predators. When they bump into each other at the soup kitchen, Frank offers Chloe a glimmer of hope that she can pull her life back together. She rekindles his lost sense of self-worth by taking his mind off his own problems. But they will not meet again until Frank is riding high as a working man, and Chloe has hit rock bottom. By helping Chloe rebuild her broken life, Frank banishes the demons from his own past. Unfortunately, the past comes strolling back into their lives, threatening to destroy the happiness they have finally found.
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A Funeral for an Owl
What kind of a boy would it take to convince two high school teachers to risk their careers? Times have changed since Jim Stevens chose to teach. Protocol designed to protect children now makes all pupil/teacher relationships taboo – even those that might benefit a student. What kind of boy would cause Jim to risk his career? A boy who can clothe a word in sarcasm; disguise disdain with respect. So what is it that Jim finds he has in common with 14-year-old Shamayal Thomas as they study the large framed photograph of an owl that hands above the fireplace? It is Aimee White’s owl, to be specific. At least, that’s how Jim thinks of it. A powerful exploration of the ache of loss, set in a landscape where broken people can find each other.
Assessed
To Do the Deal, A Novel in Stories
Award: Awesome Indies: APPROVED
Categories: Literary Fiction, Short Stories
Tags: career, commission sales, family, Fiction, humor, Literary Fiction, Short Stories
Author: Cathy Baker
This humorous career and family drama will captivate anyone who has ever held a job, lived in a family, or been on either side of a sales transaction. To Do the Deal, A Novel in Stories is about the quotidian — the challenges, minute dramas, and endearing moments that make up the every day. Set in a suburb of Washington, DC, To Do the Deal sets its focus not on the power brokers that dominate the nation’s capital but rather, on one family that is muddling along. Through ten stories, one each set in the years 1991 through 2000, we follow Kenneth Bodine on his quest to make a decent living in commission sales. We also follow his wife, Jodi, who tries hard as wife, worker, and mother and who often gets it right but just as often overthinks. To Do the Deal will appeal to readers who like witty stories, well told; who appreciate carefully plotted narratives; and who want to be entertained by an ensemble cast of deftly drawn characters. The language is literary yet light: readers who put check marks in the margins next to lines that resonate will mark a lot of pages. Beyond the appeal of its writing, To Do the Deal will captivate anyone who has ever held a job, lived in a family, or been on either side of a sales transaction.
Assessed for
Fortunate
Categories: Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction, Seal of Excellence Recipients, Thrillers and Suspense, Women's Fiction
Tags: africa, history, Rock art, YA Romance, Zimbabwe
Publisher: Matador
Author: Andrew JH Sharp
Locked into a lonely future by a cruel twist of fate, Beth reaches breaking point, leaves her husband, and flees to faraway Zimbabwe. But there she finds herself at the centre of a deadly struggle for the ownership of a farm. From a guest of honour at the President’s table to a disastrous decision that betrays a good man, her fresh start threatens to end in catastrophe. Does the land and its painted rocks hold clues to atonement and re-found love?
Assessed
Worlds Within Worlds
Categories: Literary Fiction, Magical Realism, Metaphysical & Visionary, Seal of Excellence Recipients, Thrillers and Suspense
Tags: Buddhist philosophy, bullying, cat, cyber-bullying, dealing with stress, reviewers, thriller, Tibetan Buddhism, YA Romance
Publisher: AIA Publishing
Author: Tahlia Newland
Imagine living in a multi-layered reality of separate but complimentary worlds—physical, mental, spiritual and technological—when a bully you thought safely tucked away in the cyberworld suddenly appears in your physical world looking suspiciously like your worst nightmare. Can you stuff him back into your computer? And if not, can the Magan Lord’s daughter from the fantasy book you’re editing, your dreams of a rabid beast, your visions of a Tibetan Yogi and your reawakened memories help you maintain your sanity and survive the darkest night of your life? Find out in the double award-winning metaphysical thriller Worlds Within Worlds when all this happens to author, editor and reviewer Prunella Smith. This inspirational, transrealist work—a mix of psychological thriller, fantasy and romance—has been awarded the Awesome Indies Seal of Excellence and a BRAG Medallion of Excellence in Independent Fiction. Worlds Within Worlds has a unique perspective on the nature of creativity. Its touch is light, its humour distinctive but it reaches deep into the nature of human experience.