Domesteaders: Cloud 8.5

Curtis Palmer (FriesenPress)

Reviewed by Elena Enger

Curtis Palmer's Domesteaders: Cloud 8.5 is a gleefully eccentric Canadian epic that opens in 1967 and follows teenage BB (Beavan Broderick) as he cycles from Edmonton to Vancouver on a solo “rideabout” into manhood. Robbed and broke, he is taken in by Sam, an Auschwitz survivor and pawn-shop owner who offers unique lessons on the value of objects and their stories. This launches BB into beaver ethology, economics, and a lifelong hunt for his abse...

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Parallel Heartbeats

Ashritta Saran (Notion Press)

Reviewed by Meg McKinnon

Ash, a self-reliant army daughter already used to constant relocation, transfers to Lucknow's St. Xavier's expecting another temporary stop, but a corridor collision with Aaryan, the school's effortlessly charming guitarist, scatters her biochemistry notes and her careful plans in Ashritta Saran’s Parallel Heartbeats. Their chemistry deepens through café study sessions, music room rehearsals, and a sunflower confession, as they survive Shreya’s j...

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Voyagers: Homeland to Heartland

D. L. Norris (Outskirts Press)

Reviewed by Mitchell Grumby

Every immigrant story begins with a goodbye, and D. L. Norris turns that goodbye into an unforgettable hymn of hope in her latest book, Voyagers: Homeland to Heartland. The tender, multi-generational saga is inspired by the author’s family history and follows Kittil and Marte Dyrebu, who leave the picturesque community of Svene, nestled within Buskerud County, Norway, in the late 1860s to chase the promise of land and freedom in America. After a...

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Descending Darkness

Martyn Rhys Vaughan (Martyn Rhys Vaughan)

Reviewed by Lisa Schwartz

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)

Reviewed by Meg McKinnon

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)

Reviewed by Jeff Klune

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)

Reviewed by Cristina Prescott

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))

Reviewed by Jeff Klune

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)

Reviewed by Sarah Harkness

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))

Reviewed by Eugene Lasha

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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