Reviews
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EXIT TICKETS: A NOVEL
Kenneth Chanko (Luminare Press)
Exit Tickets by Kenneth Chanko offers a raw, multi-perspective portrait of a tumultuous year at P.S. 961, a District 75 special education school on Manhattan's Upper East Side during 2007-2008. The story of Martin “Mr. J” Jordanowski, a first-year white teacher from Indiana who joins NYC's Teaching Fellows program following his sister Cassie's overdose death. His well-intentioned but boundary-crossing relationship with Kandra, a vulnerable 15-year-old student processing maternal loss and family instability, spirals when she writes a disturbing...
DOUBLE
Gerry Burke (iUniverse)
Gerry Burke’s Double is a tongue-in-cheek espionage thriller that combines two novellas to deliver a rollicking ride for fans of the genre. Sunbeams from Siberia begins with the brutal murder of Delia Deschamps in the quaint English village of Omelette. What appears to be a simple countryside homicide unravels into an elaborate Russian plot to detonate a dirty bomb at Oxford University. Delia, it turns out, was an MI5 operative planted in the village post office to monitor suspicious mail. Her murder connects to a conspiracy involving smuggled...
Mind Odyssey: A Doctor's Guide to Training Your Brain for Purpose, Balance, and Fulfillment
Spyros Papapetropoulos (Advantage Books)
Mind Odyssey by neurologist and biopharmaceutical executive Spyros Papapetropoulos presents a neuroscience-grounded framework for navigating professional life through three interconnected principles: purpose, balance, and fulfillment. Drawing on Homer’s Odyssey as an extended metaphor, Papapetropoulos argues that like Odysseus sailing toward Ithaca, professionals need a clear “why,” understood as purpose, the emotional equilibrium to weather storms (balance), and a sustainable sense of contentment (fulfillment) rather than chasing fleeting happ...
Curiosity Redefines the Limits Advantages Gained from Life, the Workplace, and the Boardroom
Rodney C. Adkins (Forbes Books)
In Curiosity Redefines the Limits, Rodney C. Adkins chronicles his remarkable journey from a premature birth in 1950s Miami to becoming IBM's senior vice president overseeing global systems and technology. Structured in six thematic sections, the memoir traces his evolution through childhood curiosity and martial arts discipline, his formative college years at Rollins and Georgia Tech, including founding a Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity chapter, his thirty-three-year IBM career navigating PCs, UNIX systems, and corporate transformation, and his int...
The Fearless Socialpreneur: Making It Your Business to Serve a World in Need
Rob Douk (Forbes Books)
Dr. Rob Douk's The Fearless Socialpreneur tells the story of his remarkable journey from being born in a Cambodian labor camp during the Khmer Rouge genocide to becoming a successful entrepreneur who builds businesses with social purpose as the driving force. The book presents a dual framework for meaningful success: five foundational “F’s” for balanced living (Faith, Family, Firm Commitment, Fitness, and Fellowship) followed by five business “P’s” (Passion, Purpose, Plan of Action, PRIME status, and Paying it Forward). Douk writes about his fa...
Rapid City Summer
Connie Richardson (Black Rose Writing)
In Rapid City Summer by Connie Richardson, fifteen-year-old Natalie reluctantly leaves her life in a Chicago suburb behind when her mother accepts a dream job in Rapid City, South Dakota. Uprooted from her cross-country team and best friend, Syd, just after freshman year, Natalie dreads the move. That is, until she meets Adam, her fly-fishing-obsessed neighbor, who introduces her to South Dakota's natural beauty. As Natalie learns to cast a fly rod on Rapid Creek and to hike rugged trails in the Black Hills, she also learns to deal with family...
Field of Memories: A Tapestry of Heartwarming Short Stories
D. L. Norris (Spring River Press)
Field of Memories: A Tapestry of Heartwarming Short Stories by D. L. Norris is a tender autobiographical collection that unfolds as a mosaic of the author's life, spanning childhood innocence to mature reflections. D. L. Norris structures her memoir not as a linear chronicle but as vignettes—each a self-contained memory that captures formative moments, family rituals, and encounters with historical currents that shape her worldview. From early recollections of kitchen-table conversations to coming-of-age milestones punctuated by loss, the narra...
The House on Chestnut Circle
Sharon Mikeworth (River Nation Publishing)
The House on Chestnut Circle by Sharon Mikeworth is a haunting story that follows Trent Cooper, a former graphic designer seeking a fresh start in a small, aging neighborhood after leaving his tumultuous marriage. The move will allow him to be near his son, but moving into the fifty-year-old Lance Harrington’s house comes with surprises Trent never imagined. Trent becomes intrigued by the house’s dark history, particularly the mysterious disappearance of Lance’s girlfriend, Valerie Summers, who vanished without a trace twenty-five years earlier...
The Lifer and the Lawyer: A Story of Punishment, Penitence, and Privilege
George Critchlow & Michael Anderson (Cascade Books)
Michael Anderson is a broken man; a man broken by his felonies and a justice system that is equally flawed, but will he accept staying broken or undertake the journey to healing and redemption? This is the question cleverly answered in The Lifer and the Lawyer by George Critchlow and Michael Anderson, which chronicles Anderson’s harrowing childhood on Chicago’s South Side, his violent crimes, and his remarkable spiritual transformation over nearly four decades in Washington state prisons. The book explores the evolving friendship between Anders...
The Cobalt Conspiracy
Richard D. Ross (Steel Door Publishing)
The Cobalt Conspiracy by Richard D. Ross is a fast-paced, tangled thriller with an irresistible appeal to fans of well-crafted sleuthing and explosive plot points. Reyna Rushmore is an ambitious journalist whose exploration of the centuries-old mining sites in the town of Cobalt, Ontario, should be routine, but then she unearths secrets hidden beneath abandoned shafts. A cryptic trail links the town’s dark past to a billion-dollar EV battery plant. As she investigates the financial and political aspects of the project, she discovers troubling e...