Fiction
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In An Indian Legacy, J.W. Dragstra’s debut novel, computer specialist Grant Somerset, retired from the US Navy, confronts his Indian heritage. Grant has long ignored this part of his past, but when a doctor diagnoses him with cancer and gives him six months to live, Grant’s soul searching begins.
In his attic, he finds the artifacts left to him by an ancestor: a peace pipe, a few small bones, a stone tomahawk, and some feathers. These pieces of his history now seem important....
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There is a lot of buzz lately about December 21, 2012. This is the date the ancient Mayan calendar ends—and to some observers, it portends the possibility of the literal end of time and, with it, the destruction of the world.
In The Aquarians, Eric Rankin puts aside this doomsday scenario and instead interprets the date in question as the beginning of a new era. Rankin goes quite a bit further, suggesting that the relationship between humans and dolphins will play a large...
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Everyone is forced to deal with some problems during the course of their lifetime. But when one misfortune leads to another, the accumulated challenges can seriously erode a person’s ability to cope with adversity. In the face of hard luck, harsh weather, poverty, and cruel people, pulling out of a downward spiral requires determination and courage.
Evvie Mallow finds herself in just such a situation at the beginning of Betsy Connor Bowen’s lyrical novella, Spring Bear. Evvie’...
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In his third Donovan Creed novel, crime novelist John Locke once again reveals his skill at creating likeable assassins and fast-moving plots that are neatly wrapped up by the end. Lethal Experiment’s “hero,” Donovan Creed, is a former CIA assassin, now working for Homeland Security, and a freelancer who offers his murderous abilities to anyone with enough money to buy him. Creed also plans executions of those who would harm his family and friends —and even longtime friends who...
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In The Tibetan Book of the Dead by Cyrus K. Hui, a stolen treasure is being taken by force toward Switzerland and a secret Nazi hideout. From Beijing, Dr. Nima Ganpa leads an expedition into Tibet to find ancient clay tablets written in cuneiform that contain the words of Tonpa Shenrab Miwo, the Enlightened Savior. The tablets describe how to find Nirvana.
In a parallel plot that provides historical background for the story, Yeshe, a Buddhist disciple in the year 750 CE,...
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De Oppresso Liber opens on Gabe McCarthy, a junior medic serving in southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Because of his training and natural abilities, he has been selected to be part of a Special Forces group, an A-Team. In the book’s bloody battle scenes, readers see Gabe, the Bac-Si, as a natural healer and a man of great compassion under fire. C.C. Southerland, Jr., a physician and former Special Forces medic, tells the story of Gabe and his company’s journey through one...
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In 2003, the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia was bombed, killing twelve people and wounding 150. In 2009, the Marriott was bombed again, but this time Jakarta’s Ritz-Carlton was also attacked. Nine people lost their lives and more than fifty were injured. These events, as well as other assaults and uprisings, led Ali Myers to devote her debut novel to a fictionalized version of terrorism in her native land.
The novel features a highly trained, counter-terrorist unit, the FBI Fly...
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This novel has all the elements of a thrilling beach read: an attractive, competent executive; her manly but sensitive love interest; a series of suspicious deaths; a CIA-trained assassin with a personal agenda and astonishing abilities; a corporate conspiracy; and exotic settings.
Madison McKean is the book’s intrepid heroine. Her adventure begins after an alarming phone call from her father, the head of a huge advertising company, who’s been accused of misappropriating millions....
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Sometimes a novel reaches out and grabs readers by the throat, riveting them to the action, despite the discomfort caused by the subject matter. Alex Markman almost pulls this off with his third novel. Set in Canada during the mid 1990s, Messenger of Death is about the violent rivalry between two motorcycle gangs (or clubs), the well-established and widely feared Devil’s Knights, and the young upstarts, the Iron Ghosts.
Prostitution, gun-running, drug trade, stolen cars...
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Darkly flavored by family traumas and World War II, Shadows in Summer is written as a response to a series of actual events in the author’s life. Crescent Varrone, a longtime resident of Scandinavia and the winner of a Fulbright Scholarship in 1985, explores the idea of a haunting by writing his novel from all the possible approaches to the experience—psychological, metaphysical, religious, skeptical, analytical, and agnostic. Each perspective is voiced by one of the novel’s six...
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In The Terrorist, author Harun explores the timely topic of Islamic jihad and terrorism from the viewpoint of young Middle Eastern men who have been approached to join a terrorist sleeper cell. The author, Harun (not to be confused with the prolific Harun Yahya) begins his story as the two young friends, students at King Abdullah University, are on holiday. They decide to check out a secret training camp that recruits boys from the nearby refugee camp. Their curiosity turns their...
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The terms “Buddhist” and “thriller” may not seem like they go together, but author Dennis Frank Macek attaches them to one another in A Rose from Charlie and Marie. As his main characters unravel an international terror plot, the principles of synchronicity and living life to the fullest guide them in their adventures.
A Rose is the first novel for Macek, who has homes in Nevada and Texas. He holds a master’s degree in American literature with a creative writing focus,...
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Some time after the storied California Gold Rush of the early 1850s, a similar excitement occurred when precious metal was found in the Black Hills of what is now South Dakota. As European-American miners flocked to the region, they clashed with the Lakota Sioux tribe of Native Americans, who had settled there after conquering the Cheyenne in the 1770s. Bloody conflict escalated, and after the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, where the Lakota killed over 250 U.S. soldiers, the Lakota were...
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Most movies and books that feature aliens depict them as evil creatures that either want to destroy humans or take over Earth. Islands Across the Universe provides a fresh perspective on space aliens. The creatures here are benevolent goodwill ambassadors with no evil ulterior motives, despite their advanced technology. Their only goal is to collect plant seeds, animals, and fish to make other Earth-like planets in the universe inhabitable. The novel describes the aliens’ experiences...
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“The old world was ripe with raw power. Energy and magic, unbridled, flowed through everyday events and objects, fuels for the tales so easily dismissed as mere legend from the comfort of safe, predictable contemporary lives,” Paul Harrington writes. Magic, power, and the gods had ruled the world, but now times were changing. In Epiphany, Harrington spins a tale of magic, intrigue, and battle around the biblical outline of the Magi’s visit to the baby Jesus.
The three Magi,...
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The current economic situation will likely generate dozens of stories about failure, dreams denied, and expectations dashed. Because of this, it is somewhat curious that author Diana Sheets decided to set her novel about a business on the rocks in the early 1990s.
Sheets worked in sales and sales management before turning to writing full-time, and readers might safely assume that her characters are based on people she has encountered over the years.
Sue, the novel’s “heroine...
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In a story that has many of the familiar hallmarks we have come to expect from fantasy novels —a brave teenage boy unaware of his destiny, an evil witch, orphans who have yet to realize their potential, a helpful wizard, and an enchanted object —three sister dragons are orphaned when their parents die fighting the evil witch, Twistcurse.
Although the three dragons know a lot of things instinctively, they will still need a guardian. For this task, the sisters choose Cadve,...
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The Friday Night Club can’t quite be called a coming-of-age story, as the characters are half a dozen years beyond college, but it is certainly a tale about confronting maturity. Davis Robertson must face his fears of children, responsibility, and monogamy if he is to settle down with his fiancée Pamela. It’s three days before his wedding, and he is still contemplating running away with the stripper he’s been cheating on Pamela with. Davis explains, “You know how some engaged couples...
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A mother’s dying request rips her family apart in Linda Spear’s debut novel. “Find David!” orders the mother of Sarah, narrator of I Know You by Heart. Naturally, Sarah, her dad, her husband, her sister Tessa, and her sister’s husband are puzzled. In the time they have spent by Andrea’s bedside, caring for her as she dies of cancer, the matriarch has never mentioned this person who is now seemingly so important. But Sarah takes the lead, and in investigating her mother’s e-mail...
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M.A. Walker’s protagonist, Liz Sulis, narrates her life’s story in this disjointed and chaotic melodrama that begins with regret and ends with a testimony to God’s love. In between is an unfolding of sexual conflict, encounters, and near misses. What seems to tie most of the novel together is a true love that Liz threw away because she didn’t feel that she deserved to be loved.
Most of the book can be deciphered, but it takes effort. The preface begins by explaining, “I had an ideal...