Fiction
Browse our collection of fiction book reviews
Descending Darkness
Martyn Rhys Vaughan (Martyn Rhys Vaughan)
Martyn Rhys Vaughan’s Descending Darkness is a gorgeous collection that blends horror, black comedy, and science fiction. A captured fighter struggles to escape a cell while the ceiling slowly descends on him, armed only with desperation and bedsheets in “A Room with No View.” A smug con man plunges into a haunted manor overnight, wins his bet but loses his sanity in “Alone.” In “Dia de los Muertos,” a walking skeleton named Ralph comes after a h...
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Forgiveness: A Contemporary Women’s Fiction Novel
Susen Edwards (Susen Edwards)
Susen Edwards's Forgiveness opens on New Year's Eve 2020, as seventy-year-old artist Fiona Goldberg marks the fiftieth anniversary of the drunk-driving crash that killed her best friend Melissa, a tragedy punished with a mere two-hundred-dollar fine. Fiona realizes she has lived with undiagnosed PTSD for five decades. In 1969, she met Reuben Goldberg, an anti-war activist whose Vietnam draft notice led the couple to Toronto in 1971. There, Fiona...
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ADHD in D Minor: A Collection of Short Stories
Zoé Mahfouz (North Meridian Press)
Few books capture the chaos of a restless mind quite like ADHD in D Minor, Zoé Mahfouz's new and compelling collection of satirical short fiction. The book delivers forty-one short stories and skewers everything from literary elitism to Hollywood gatekeeping, TED Talks, wellness culture, and the endless noise that populates pop culture, to WhatsApp group chats. These are told through the enthralling voice of a neurodivergent narrator who refuses...
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Grunts, Gramps & Tanks: A Soldier’s Tales
Rick Bogdan (Bookbaby)
Rick Bogdan’s Grunts, Gramps & Tanks: A Soldier’s Tales follows the unpredictable journey of a disillusioned Chicago retail buyer, Tyler Gordon Willett, who impulsively enlists in the infantry in 1975 without telling his wife, Nancy. The teenage recruits at Fort Polk nickname him “Gramps” as he survives basic training, memorably marked by the “Private Dickhead” payday incident. He also endures the OSUT program, where a tank commander’s sweaty...
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Into the Eye
James Houston Turner (Regis Books (an imprint of Ruby Rock Films))
James Houston Turner’s Into the Eye is a geopolitical thriller that introduces former KGB colonel Aleksandr Talanov, who is thrust into the heart of a diabolical human-trafficking network in central Africa. Tasked with the covert KTAC team, Talanov must locate and rescue Dr. Shawni Juma, a virologist who has uncovered evidence linking the brutal warlord Ojo Mutebi to the wealthy communist ideologue Istvan Szabo. When a rescue helicopter is betray...
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Flash 100: New Quick Fiction
Don Tassone (Independently Published)
is a collection of one hundred ultra-short stories, organized into “Yesterday,” “Today,” and “Tomorrow,” that distills human experience into potent, bite-sized narratives. In “Whole,” a man amputates a dead branch from a cherished cherry tree to save it, then applies that lesson to his own life. “Changing Fortunes” finds a millionaire and a dishwasher swapping bodies through a ghost’s wish-grant, discovering that youth and wealth both carry hidde...
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The Omega Course
Paul Clark (Self-published (under the name Friston Books))
Seventeen-year-old Ross Collins accidentally kills another driver shortly after passing his driving test in Paul Clark’s The Omega Course, and his life changes in unexpected ways. He is unable to live with the guilt of killing a mother and leaving two children behind. Ross withdraws from his friends, consumed by guilt and self-loathing. When he enrolls in the Alpha Course, he hopes to reclaim his life and find Christian redemption, but he instead...
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Peg, Unhinged
Teri M Brown (Atmosphere Press)
In Peg, Unhinged, Teri M. Brown introduces Peg McMann, a fifty-year-old real estate agent whose perfectly curated life implodes spectacularly when her narcissistic husband, Stephan, leaves her for younger women. She loses her prestigious job after attacking a rival agent during the Agent of the Year announcement, and a DUI conviction forces her to complete community service at Seabreeze House, a domestic violence shelter. But there is far more go...
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Coal Dust on Purple Asters
Jeffrey L. Carrier ()
Jeffrey L. Carrier's Coal Dust on Purple Asters is a collection of three interconnected stories set in the coal fields of Eastern Kentucky. In ''Rain on Chinquapin Holler,'' Vergie Hicks endures her husband's infidelity until a devastating flood prompts a sacrifice that might save the children. “A Sprig of Purple Asters” follows May Owens during the Depression, who burns her cabin to escape her criminal brothers. But the outcome delivers the oppo...
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The Gift Of Misfortune
Joseph Policape (Joseph Policape)
The Gift of Misfortune by Joseph Policape tells the story of Armand Etienne, a Haitian immigrant, and his sister Deborah, who leaves behind the dictatorship of Duvalier only to face new trials in America. Initially filled with hope, Armand’s life spirals after he marries Monica, a union vehemently opposed by his family and spiritual advisors. The marriage quickly transforms into emotional and physical abuse, infidelity, and manipulation, leading...
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