Goodwin debuts with a sleek political thriller that imagines the long-term consequences of legislative gridlock. In 2044 America, frustration about the impotence of the Democratic and Republican parties has led to the rapid growth of the SoMAD movement (“Somebody Make A Decision”). When a SoMAD rally in Washington, D.C., turns violent, one of the movement’s activists, law student Max Peller, ends up in a coma. His father, tech CEO Ethan Bessette, persuades Max’s mentor, former prosecutor Jack Sanborn, to run for president. Bessette’s offer to donate billions to Sanborn’s campaign convinces him to get in the race, but Sanborn faces formidable opposition from Clay Overton, the Republican Speaker of the House, who’s dreamed of winning the Oval Office for decades. Meanwhile, Sanborn’s sudden emergence as a public figure makes him the target for an aggrieved man who believes he botched an old case involving a teenage victim. Goodwin pulls strong suspense out of both the impending election and the question of whether Sanborn’s legal past will catch up with him, and he dodges a heap of near-future clichés with levelheaded worldbuilding. Admirers of Andrew Yang and Stephen Marche’s The Last Election will be entertained. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 06/06/2025 | Details & Permalink

Yearwood (Peyton and Isabelle) delivers a heartrending story of two women linked by a child custody battle in Philadelphia. University professor Rebecca, 40, has longed for children her entire life, but her husband, Will, has put off the question. Still, Rebecca holds out hope until their marriage finally cracks and Will leaves for a new job in New York. In a parallel narrative set across town, 22-year-old Brittney has two toddlers and is pregnant with her third child. Her conservative cop husband, Chris, encouraged her to be a stay-at-home mom, but after he’s fired, he abandons her, and she flounders. Neighbors complain she’s neglecting the children, and all three are taken by child protective services. Rebecca becomes their foster mother and attempts to adopt them, and initially the two women compete for custody. But after they meet during Brittney’s CPS-approved visit with the children, Rebecca sympathizes with her desire to get her kids back, while Brittney realizes Rebecca genuinely wants the best for the children, and the two work together to provide the best possible outcome. Yearwood tackles the complex issues of family planning, motherhood, and adoption head-on, and the story works as well as it does because she offers no easy answers. This is a winner. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 06/06/2025 | Details & Permalink

Idaho homesteader Thomas guides readers through freeze-drying food at home in this comprehensive manual. Initially skeptical about trying a freeze dryer, Thomas became a believer after processing a surplus of eggs from her 80 hens: “When I did a test run with these eggs and made a big pan of scrambled eggs for my family, no one could tell they were not fresh.” She lays out the benefits of freeze-drying, including its convenience as well as the fact that it saves space and cuts back on food waste. In her brief history of the method, she explains that people in South America used to expose food to freezing temperatures at high altitudes to make it last longer. Elsewhere, Thomas shares tips for shortening the process by pre-freezing food; explains how freeze-drying differs from dehydrating; outlines what to know before purchasing a freeze dryer; and offers a step-by-step guide to the process, starting with prepping food and ending with rehydration. Thomas doesn’t skimp on details, and she encourages readers to learn from her mistakes, admitting that “my path to learning to freeze-dry was not all rosy. I think I lost about 50% of those early jars of eggs.” This is essential reading for those looking to up their food preservation game. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

Webster’s gonzo second romp for L.A. PIs Stan Stein and Bud Randolph (after American Nonsensical) is a rewarding ride. Bud, envious of Stan’s engagement to the pair’s assistant, Melanie, decides to seek his own wife through a service called Russian Brides Unlimited. Meanwhile, their detective agency gets a pair of new clients. Emelia Clark, who works in a bank’s fraud department, wants photos taken of anyone entering or leaving a particular house between the hours of 8 a.m. and noon. She won’t explain, but the request appears to have some connection to a shadowy federal investigation. Then reverend Clem Dudas, a snake-handler, hires Stan and Bud to retrieve two of his beloved rattlesnakes, Dobie and Maynard, whom he believes were kidnapped by his wife. Dudas shares Bud’s devotion to Donald Trump, and he asks Bud to mail a letter to an unknown recipient once he’s in Russia to meet women. Webster manages to fit each of the story’s outlandish pieces together, largely thanks to his mischievous sense of humor (at one point, Bud states he was at the Capitol on January 6, identifying himself as “the one in the red cap”). Carl Hiaasen fans will hope to see more of Stan and Bud soon. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

Reed (Free Spirits) delivers a heartwarming tale of second chances, focused on two middle-aged brothers and lifelong rivals. Stone Hunnicutt, a litigator in Madison, Wis., receives a letter from Harmony, the partner of his younger brother Ted, asking for $10,000 to renovate a historic home in her rural community, a hippie commune called Peace and Joy. Stone visits Ted, whom he hasn’t seen for 10 years, to determine if he should donate to the cause. There, Stone discovers that Ted, a former professor who has published one well-received novel and was their father’s favorite, is now living in poverty. While Ted is momentarily away, Stone finds a cache of his unpublished novels and steals the manuscripts. Moved by love for his brother and a desire to improve Ted’s life, Stone sets out to get the books published, drawing ire from Ted for invading his privacy. The feud escalates until Stone’s wife and Harmony try to get the brothers to make peace. The writing is a bit rough (a cherry placed on a napkin “bled brightly like fresh blood”), but Reed offers appealing insights on the relationship between art and life and generally sidesteps sentimentality in her portrayal of the brothers’ conflict. This has plenty of charm. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 05/30/2025 | Details & Permalink

A maiden falls in love with her captor in this sizzling romantasy from Hewitt (the Mage series). Fenna Terrigan believes that her brother, Dasos, died when his ship, the Polperro, sank. So when he appears unexpectedly in the middle of the night, she’s shocked—and even more so when she learns he’s being pursued by The Specter, aka Captain Devlin Cato, who’s cursed to helm the ghost ship Phantom Night and can only be freed by offering 50 souls to the sea god, Liddros. Dasos admits he’s in hot water: he owes Devlin 25 years of his life. Noble Fenna offers to take on his debt in exchange for his freedom. Aboard the ship, things heat up fast between Fenna and Devlin, who enter into a steamy affair almost immediately. Fenna finds herself increasingly drawn to Devlin as she learns the supernatural secrets that have kept him sailing the seas for over a century. The fairy tale–esque worldbuilding feels somewhat cramped, with many intriguing concepts mentioned but few fully fleshed out. Far more successful is the romance, which delivers both heat and heart. Readers who like their romantasies extra spicy will want to check this out. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

This smart debut guide from Bovee, a professor of information systems at California Baptist University, challenges Christians to swap the “superficial satisfaction” of a tech-obsessed life for a more fulfilling relationship with God and themselves. Unpacking the factors that fracture attention, he explains how the attention economy is dominated by platforms that utilize algorithms and addictive scroll features to maximize time spent on their sites, conditioning users to seek instant gratification and leaving them perpetually distracted and unfulfilled. To disconnect, the author writes, one should identify goals “that align with your passions and allow you to further the kingdom of God” and get into the habit of pursuing them via a deeply focused “flow state” (examples include writing, serving others, and worshiping). By practicing “monotasking,” one can cultivate a more sustained ability to focus and direct that renewed attention to practices like prayer. Drawing from research on the psychology of attention, his experience working in the tech world, and interviews with industry insiders, the author builds a lucid, evidence-based case for how technology is impacting faith, and cogently explains why willpower alone isn’t enough to cure the distracted mind. It’s a valuable resource. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Shay debuts with a spine-tingling techno-thriller. When Lacey Green was a child, her nanny, Mia Liao, suggested she harness her intense curiosity to help others as a detective. As an adult, Lacey has become a popular TikTok PI with assistance from Mia, who helps design her elaborate disguises. Lacey draws on those skills when her father, Shawn, dies of a suspected suicide in Hong Kong, soon after sending Lacey a cryptic message warning her not to travel to his hometown because “there are demons here lurking in the shadows. And if they catch you, they’ll never let you go.” After a little digging, she comes to suspect that Shawn’s death is connected to a bizarre disease outbreak that causes those infected to devour their own body parts. The outbreak itself may be tied to technology Shawn was developing to treat severe mental illness, and the more Lacey investigates, the more she becomes convinced that Shawn’s work could spell doom for the entire world. Shay smoothly combines a chilling premise, exciting action, and a consistently captivating mystery. It’s an auspicious first outing. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 05/16/2025 | Details & Permalink

Former physician Rubin (the Liza Larkin series) impresses with this disquieting thriller about an unusual vigilante. Boston internist Hope Sullivan is jogging past an alley when she spots one of her elderly patients being mugged. She intervenes and sends the attacker fleeing, but the encounter convinces her that too many violent criminals walk free. Two years later, Hope is far from over the incident: despite insisting that “as a doctor, I don’t enjoy deliberately inflicting pain,” she’s become a self-appointed (and violent) guardian angel, even going so far as to kidnap and torture a patient’s abusive husband. Hope’s new “macabre pastime,” as she calls it, gets disrupted when she receives an anonymous email that insists “I know what ur doing.” That message is followed by several others, each with escalating threats. Hope realizes she’s met her match when another vigilante drugs and kidnaps her, seeking revenge on behalf of one of her victims. Rubin manages to make Hope an empathetic figure, despite her transgressions, and maintains taut suspense straight through to the devilish climax. This is a winner. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 05/09/2025 | Details & Permalink

Pryka debuts with a tart if uneven satire of Hollywood ambition and the craze for self-improvement. Nerdy and obese Craig Bunny, 34, lives with his mom outside Los Angeles and can only find acting work in commercials for an IBS treatment. He’s certain that he’s destined for more and hopes his increasingly complex plans for a film adaptation of a classic comic strip called Garfy (a thinly veiled Garfield) will be his big break. When Natasha, an attractive newcomer to his writing group, announces that she’s secured the rights for a film about Prince Michael of Sealand, Craig decides it’s time to make some changes. He hires a life coach named Chad, who puts him on an extreme diet and exercise regimen and encourages him to affect a husky voice. Under Chad’s guidance, Craig grows more confident, even as he goes broke from the coach’s exorbitant fees. He pressures his agent, Denise, into getting his script in front of industry folks, but as his behavior becomes erratic, he risks blowing his chances. Much of the novel’s intended humor is scatological, and it wears thin. Better are the caustic showbiz jokes, as when Denise, who told Craig she specializes in scouting for “normal people,” tells others that she’s actually in the business of “freak hunting.” This has its moments. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 05/09/2025 | Details & Permalink