Reviewed by Andrea Marks-Joseph

Teenage sisters unexpectedly upend everything they know to be true of their colonized homelands in this high fantasy political drama.

Sisters Effie and Vanna, three years apart, have been orphaned in the violent plundering of their village and consequential imperial rule from the Celestials. Claiming to protect them from piracy, the Celestials proclaim that their “lands are too rich to avoid unwanted attention, and your Gifts, however bountiful, will not be enough to deter those who would do you harm.”

The Celestials host an annual ceremony where villagers who have come of age and demonstrated proof of magical powers are tested for a particularly rare valuable skillset. Winners are honored with the duty to use their talents at the imperial army’s will. No one questions this or the Celestials’ intentions because the lore of the bloodshed they were saved from hangs heavy and haunting.

Ardent Wings on Jealous Skies spans years, venturing with Vanna and Effie into hidden, unfamiliar places, from alternating points of view: Effie and Vanna alone on their journeys. This is a politically intriguing and morally challenging story, a coming-of-age, a reckoning with colonialism and corruption—and it’s rooted in authentic sibling energy that anyone who grew up with a sibling just a few years apart in age will understand and feel deep to their core.

All Effie wants is to manifest powers and travel the world doing the duty she’s dreamed of for all her fifteen years of life. When Vanna manifests powers and joins the dragoons, Effie’s powers remain elusive, keeping her home. Their relationship becomes tense, especially with Effie sulking as she grows desperate to claim her destiny.

Alternating chapters provide insight into their strained sisterhood: We read Vanna’s pride in and protective heart for Effie, while we watch the sisters (both under increasing stress) verbally clash whenever they meet; Vanna’s duty takes her away for days on end, and we feel Effie’s tangled jealousy of Vanna colliding with the ache of realizing she misses her sister.

When Vanna is sent to stop rebels in another village who have “taken up arms to deny our host her tithe” she learns about the corruption and control used to enforce the Celestials’ power.

Back home, a conniving, entitled Effie lies, cheats, and demands her way into the audience of people with the power to grant her the job of her dreams. The determined sisters follow their hearts and sense of justice—Vanna’s aligned with duty to her country, army, and humanity; Effie’s led by her belief that the life granted to those with powers is her birthright.

Along the way, both teenagers are unexpectedly faced with an awakening about the reality behind the Celestial empire. Confronted with the patriarchy masquerading as servants to their Celestial queen, they begin to question their allegiance.

As an older sister, and someone who was nowhere near as bold (and frankly, daringly arrogant) a teenager as Effie, I related most to Vanna. I appreciated her compassion and capacity to recognize the enemy rebels as untrained, unskilled fighters not much older than Effie. She sees them for what they are: “children playing at soldier, armed with deadly weapons they didn’t understand.” I loved the strategic moves reflected in Vanna’s chapters and how her heart shone through even more than her very capable skills on the battlefield. Effie’s plans to claim her “rightful” place are twisted and so typical of a teenager willing to risk it all. I was thrilled and entertained by the lengths she was willing to go.

“To work the craft, you need to lie truthfully. You need to be honest and false, mysterious and bare. You need to bend in half without breaking. How many men do you know capable of containing so many contradictions?”

With a brilliantly evocative representation of imperialist tactics, Ardent Wings on Jealous Skies’ stunning setting serves as a background to the teenage girls’ feminist fueling, empowering understandings of their own power, and reckoning with the rewarding reality of rebellion. I read this book while following the proceedings at the UN General Assembly and was struck by the sharp, incisive clarity with which the author was able to mirror the struggle and strength of countless nations represented at the conference.

Author Z. Bennett Lorimer’s glittering high-fantasy world mirrors ours with remarkable emotional impact. Readers can’t help but be struck by the heartbreak and manipulation of a town left in ruins “as a reminder of all they had lost —all they might lose again without their host’s protection,” even as Effie and Vanna’s people live in peaceful gratitude to them.

“You’re balanced on a knife’s edge over bare sky…You’re going to spend the rest of your natural life falling through it. You’re going to fall and fall and fall—until your heart stops or your organs give out.” I frequently paused in awe of the author’s vivid descriptions of moments like a side character changing their beard’s style, a lavishly worded villainous threat, or an already-shocking-in-context scene turning into a truly astonishing sight, so gorgeous that anyone’s jaw would drop. Z. Bennett Lorimer has a gift for not only imagining spectacular, staggering drama, but writing these moments with searing emotion felt from each character’s specific desires.

I’d recommend this book for readers who love magical stories with real-world impact, listen to Paris Paloma songs, and prefer their revolutionary ideology served with a heaping dose of magnificent fantasy worldbuilding. More than anything, I’ll remember this book for its representation of siblinghood. I have not read so true and honest a reflection of the tangled emotions between similarly-aged siblings who aren’t on the best of terms but remain the one person on the planet who knows you deeply and (in their own complicated, questionable way) can’t help wanting the best for you.

Ardent Wings on Jealous Skies is worth recommending for Vanna and Effie’s sisterhood alone, but it’s also an expansive call for young women to follow their desires, and to listen carefully when older women impart their riotous feminist wisdom.

Plot-wise, I’m extremely stressed and enthralled about what will happen next. Luckily, the author has given us a wealth of thought-provoking, bewitching implications for each storyline Vanna and Effie find themselves in. I’ll be thinking about every possible angle—knowing that author Z. Bennett Lorimer will certainly continue to shock both his characters and his readers in unimaginable ways—while I wait for the urgently-needed, well-earned sequel.

Thank you for reading Andrea Marks-Joseph’s book review of Ardent Wings on Jealous Skies by Z. Bennett Lorimer! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Tomi Alo

A heart-pounding thriller about uncovering secrets behind a perfect facade

Abigail Lethican has always lived in the shadow of her family. With a grandfather and father entrenched in politics and three elder brothers ahead of her, Abby has never really felt the need, or the chance, to step into the spotlight, aside from the occasional duties every political family demands. She grew up learning to smile politely, keep disagreements behind closed doors, and constantly present the perfect image to anyone watching.

Come in Jim Hardy, the school’s star point guard. Confident, ambitious, and charismatic, Jim draws her in immediately. It doesn’t take long for her to fall in love with him and get caught up in the whirlwind of their relationship.

For six years, Abby convinces herself that she has found someone she can rely on, someone who complements the quiet life she’s always led, where she could be the caring, devoted wife she believed she was supposed to be. But when the cracks in her marriage begin to appear, the charm and confidence that once drew her in seem manipulative, controlling, and calculated.

It all shatters when Jim asks for a divorce. Just like that, the life Abby thought she had is gone, and everything she believed about him feels like a lie. The man she trusted, the guy she built years around, turns out to be far more self-serving than she ever imagined. Then, as if the heartbreak wasn’t enough, Jim ends up dead, and Abby becomes the prime suspect in his murder investigation.

As Abby digs deeper to clear her name, she is confronted with a long string of lies and betrayals carefully curated by her husband. Will she ever be able to prove her innocence before time runs out? And even if she does, will she ever find the courage to rebuild herself and trust again?

Falling On Southport is a satisfying blend of layered mystery and psychological drama. The novel throws readers right into the middle of the chaos, opening with Abby at the police station under investigation for her husband’s death. From there, author MJ Slater rewinds the story to the past, revealing Abby and Jim’s history, their marriage, and the subtle cracks that will eventually explode into catastrophe.

Jim and Abby’s relationship is fascinating precisely because of its flaws and cracks right from the start. There was no real spark, no electrifying chemistry or sweeping romance, only convenience, need, and ambition. For Jim, Abby was his ticket out of his humble background and his stepping stone to a better future; and for Abby, Jim served as a kind of shield, someone who made her feel needed and special. I loved how Slater captured this dynamic without putting too much judgment on either character, and allowing readers to quietly observe the psychological imbalance and the ways both characters unconsciously perpetuate it.

What stands out the most is the gradual unfolding of Jim’s true nature and Abby’s blindness to it all. It is both intriguing and frustrating to read. Abby’s denial and selective perception make sense psychologically, especially given her upbringing in a family where appearances and control were everything. Watching her slowly confront the reality of Jim’s manipulations adds a layer of tension that goes beyond the surface-level mystery. Her naivety and vulnerability is what makes her character arc compelling as she slowly discovers herself and grows into a strong, resilient person.

In the end, Falling On Southport is an absorbing thriller with psychological insight and some truly unexpected plot twists. And the suspense! Even after knowing it all—the killer, the secrets, the lies—there’s still that sense of danger that everything could go sideways. The media frenzy, courtroom trials, law enforcement scrutiny adds to the tension and pressure.

Fast-paced, emotionally charged, and actually twisty—Falling On Southport is quite the debut.

Thank you for reading Tomi Alo’s book review of Falling On Southport by M.J. Slater! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Lauren Hayataka

A moving transformation of silence into memory and art

“How can I make sense of my early life, a time of turmoil that I often feel but don’t clearly remember?”

So begins Debbi Flittner’s The Ten Thousand Things, a deeply felt memoir that traces the fissures of family, silence, and belonging across generations. It lingers in fragments—half-remembered moments, desert storms, the hush of a house where love was always just out of reach—and yet together, those fragments form something whole and unforgettable.

This memoir is Flittner’s lifelong attempt to understand her mother, a woman described as “elusive, unnerving,” who rarely spoke and never offered the certainty of affection her daughters craved. As a child, Flittner endured neglect, abuse from an older sister, and a father whose anger simmered over, all while her mother turned away.

Silence becomes the refrain of her early years: a missing comfort, a missing response, a missing steadiness. And yet, in the vast, red rock desert of the Colorado Plateau, she found a kind of companionship. Lizards, sagebrush, and sandstone became her refuge, a parallel world where the rules were clear and she could be both wild and safe.

What elevates The Ten Thousand Things is the lyricism of its prose. Flittner writes with the precision of someone who has carried these memories for decades, shaping them into vivid, almost cinematic scenes: hiding beneath plastic during a sudden storm, watching rain blur the world into a secret cave; lying in the plastic-covered back seat of the family’s Buick as the desert slid past; screaming for help in a kitchen where no one came. Even as an adult, she recalls the “coyote trickster” who stole her courage every time she crossed her mother’s threshold, a terribly fitting metaphor for the silence that bound them.

As she grows older, Flittner both follows and resists the patterns of her family. She marries young and becomes a mother early, yet she also steps onto a different path—pursuing higher education, the first in her family to attend law school. She raises her daughter while balancing classes and work, determined to offer choices she herself never had. Later, her search takes her further still, into spiritual practice—studying Tibetan Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, traveling through Tibet and Nepal, discovering moments of Oneness that begin to soften the old ache.

Flittner writes movingly of her attempts to bridge that silence in adulthood. Visits to her mother’s home bring fleeting moments of warmth—a smile when the car pulls up, a brief embrace, a short-lived conversation—before the old patterns reassert themselves. Even in the final months of her mother’s life, when dementia strips away some of her defenses, Flittner remains suspended between longing and acceptance.

Yet, Flittner does not reduce her mother to a single role or judgment; instead, she allows space for contradiction. Her mother was both absent and proud, both neglectful and shaped by her own wounds—poverty, abandonment, disfigured feet from shoes too small in childhood, outstanding service in the Navy during World War II. Flittner doesn’t write to solve her mother but to live honestly within the myriad of questions she left behind.

In doing so, the book also becomes an exploration of inheritance. Pain, silence, and resilience are passed down through generations, shaping daughters as much as love or guidance might. Flittner acknowledges this with striking clarity: we transmit our fortunes and our misfortunes through what we say and through what we leave unsaid.

The Ten Thousand Things is not a memoir of despair but of transformation. Flittner’s voice is lyrical without ever losing its honesty, capable of holding both the beauty of desert light at dusk and the ache of unanswered questions. By the book’s end, what remains is not a single revelation about her mother but something larger: an understanding that silence, too, shapes us, and that even in absence, there can be meaning. It is a radiant, unforgettable memoir—one that transforms longing into art.

Thank you for reading Lauren Hayataka’s book review of The Ten Thousand Things by Debbi Flittner! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Eric Mayrhofer

A post-WWII story with a clear sense of history and some truly thrilling scenes

With Diane Wagner’s Byline Budapest, readers can relax, confident that they’re in the hands of a gifted storyteller. Wagner shows an authoritative knowledge of the time period without ever letting it get in the way of a pulse-pounding tale.

We follow Charlie Atkins, an American expat in Munich working for Radio Free Europe, a station broadcasting pro-democracy news stories to citizens in nearby countries who want democratic reform for their governments. In love with the organization (perhaps naively so), Charlie longs to be part of the new staff instead of a coffee girl, and when she gets an opportunity to prove herself with a story about blood donations making their way to a war-torn Hungary, she jumps at the opportunity.

While women in the newsroom may have been more uncommon in the post-WWII era, the book makes the adventure believable by couching it in a deep familiarity with the geopolitics of the time. Charlie can rattle off the current events as well as the reporters she wants to join, proving her worthiness early on (even if the editor Mr. Owens refuses to acknowledge it). The authoritativeness with which the narration handles explanations of history makes it easy to trust and emotionally invest in all the other characters and harrowing obstacles that fall in Charlie’s path.

The book also plays with format to give readers the sensory experience of a radio broadcast. Throughout the book, readers will see Charlie’s radio reporting chops in action, presented in a radio script format, and anyone who has ever heard an NPR story will immediately hear Charlie’s voice as the confident reporter turned storyteller spinning yarns around the fire. These passages evoke narration interspersed with interview soundbites. After one story, readers discover that “Charlie worked hard, learning to write for listeners rather than readers…She incorporated music and sound effects,” making the whole radio news experience complete.

Wagner does a great job of characterizing these people in short windows, vividly sketching in what readers need to know and then moving along with the plot. While learning about Charlie’s professional life and her journalistic aspirations, we meet her colleague Viktor, a man with a coveted news staff position who readers will quickly grow to loathe (and love it). We see him through Charlie’s eyes and he immediately sets readers on edge: “His blue eyes, as cold and hard as January ice, his cheekbones, as sharp as right angles, and his teeth, which were broken and jagged like rickrack.”

That ability to concisely distill a character’s essence is a powerful gift, but it occasionally threatens to go awry. When characters meet Andras Kovács, a native Hungarian in the employ of Russia’s Communist regime, we quickly learn he’s meant to be the book’s foil for Charlie. When thinking of the Communists’ deteriorating hold on Hungary, he wonders, “And what to tell Moscow? That the entire country had gone mad on his watch? Not that Kovács was surprised, of course. He sensed for months that trouble was coming, and although he warned Hungary’s deeply loathed General Secretary Mátyás Rákosi directly, no one wanted to hear that unrest was brewing.”

Kovács is just as frustrated and disregarded by his peers as Charlie; a lovely setup to propel readers ahead—will he achieve his goals and stand in her way? Will he fail? Readers don’t get the full picture as quickly and deeply with him as we do our heroine. Yes, we do come to understand that he is a survivor, always knowing where the political wind is blowing and flowing with its currents. However, it’s a little blurry where and how that deep survivalist instinct gels with his desire to be seen, respected, and included by his peers.

This never stops Byline Budapest from being a good read though. If the book ever seems like it’s entering enough of a lull for readers to ponder on these mild contradictions, it quickly and organically introduces a thrilling action scene that cements your hatred of Kovacs, makes readers re-evaluate how ready Charlie is for the challenges of a war zone, and wondering how she will get back to Munich alive, let alone into the Radio Free Europe news room. If future installments of this expected series can keep the same brisk pace and astonishing grasp on history, sign me up.

Thank you for reading Eric Mayrhofer’s book review of Byline Budapest by Diane Wagner! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Erin Britton

A heartfelt story about the need for empathy and understanding

Salty Tears, written by Jaime Testaiuti and illustrated by Nadia Ronquillo, is a meaningful story about recognizing the similarities among people rather than focusing solely on the differences.

Siblings Ari and Mo are looking forward to going on holiday with their parents. However, Ari is “feeling nervous because she would be sitting next to the new boy joining her class when they returned.” Despite the excitement, her nervousness seems to permeate the family’s trip, with both Ari and Mo being beset with concerns and fears about the new people they meet.

For example, when they decide to visit a museum, after having fun playing in a treehouse and making ice cream sundaes, Mo exclaims “Look at those scary people in sheets!” And Ari shares his fear: “You can only see their eyes!” Fortunately, their mother quells their fear by explaining that the women are wearing hijabs for religious and cultural reasons.

Yet later, when the family go to a pizzeria, Ari and Mo notice “a man next to them who looked very old but was as short as they were!” They wonder aloud what has caused the man to shrink and feel sad that he can barely reach the counter. This time, their mother explains that the man was born that way.

Ari and Mo have many such encounters during their holiday, including meeting a young girl with no legs, a boy who wears a medical device to monitor his diabetes, a woman with no hair, and a family wearing another kind of religious garb. Each time they question a person’s visible difference, their parents stress that the person is “just like us and cries salty tears.”

Salty Tears uses Ari and Mo’s experiences during their trip to educate young readers about the importance of acceptance and realizing that all people have differences and similarities. It would have been helpful if their parents had pointed out that it is rude to comment on a person’s appearance, but the message of the story is still thoughtful.

Ari and Mo have lived a rather sheltered life prior to their holiday—most young children will have met people with disabilities, differences, and religious affiliations before—but Jaime Testaiuti does a good job of explaining that their fears come from newness, not necessarily because they are scary. This is a useful lesson for youngsters in a story like this.

As their parents explain the likely reasons for their new friends’ visible differences, Ari and Mo gain a better understanding of the wide variety of people in the world, and Ari is able to apply this when she returns to school. Testaiuti highlights how everyone has fears and how it is important to learn and show kindness in order to overcome them.

Some of the explanations that the parents provide, particularly concerning chemotherapy and the treatment for diabetes, cause some pages of Salty Tears to feature a fair bit of text and more complex vocabulary than picture books generally do.

The accompanying illustrations help to ensure that youngsters’ attention does not wander, however, with Nadia Ronquillo’s bright and appealing art showing what Ari and Mo initially perceive and then how their perspective changes as they learn more about people. The vibrant pictures really capture the imagination and will likely prompt interesting discussions.

Salty Tears is a sincere and charmingly illustrated story about the dangers of pre-judgement and allowing fear to take hold before knowing the truth about a situation. As Ari and Mo learn more about the importance of diversity, equality, and inclusion, young readers will also learn the same valuable lessons.

Thank you for reading Erin Britton’s book review of Salty Tears by Jaime Testaiuti! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Jaylynn Korrell

A fun-filled and wacky graphic novel for imaginative and silly kids

The snoodles are back! The zoodles are back! The wackadoodle team of Steven Joseph and Andy Case are back with another funny, intergalactidoodle adventure.

Escape from Zoodletraz is the third book in the Snoodles in Space series, which follows members of the Noodleham community on Earth and the inhabitants of other worlds, like the aliens on planet Zoodle. Characters like Frimpy Frumpy Froodle and Whimpy Whiny Woodle have already saved the Earth once, but Zoodlemania isn’t done yet.

Croodle the Grand Roodle, another recurring character from the series, has been noticing the buzzing music scene down in Noodleham, and he’s decided to become a music star on Earth himself. But it turns out, it’s not so easy becoming as popular as mega-superstar Swifty Swoodle.

After Croodle is booed off stage, he comes up with a plan for revenge—which includes kidnapping notable animals on Earth and placing them in Zoodletraz, a high-security prison on an island. This is the story of the inhabitants of Noodleham trying to help those animals escape and to make sure Croodle never does something like this again.

Author Steven Joseph comes with another flurry of fun with this hilarious read-aloud adventure. This guy could throw a doodle into anything, it seems. His imagination, coupled with the perfectly fitting illustrations of Andy Case, make this a goofy wonder of a read. If you’ve got silly, creative kids at home who have graduated from picture books into the world of single-story graphic novels, Escape from Zoodletraz is here to bridge that gap for you. It’s filled with silly and zany vocabulary to make reading aloud a jumbly-wumbly bubble of fun for both you and them. Even when your children start being able to read themselves, they’ll have fun peeking at the little jokes sprinkled here and there, like on the spines of books or in the headlines of a news story.

Did you know that Frimpy Frumpy and Whimpy Whiny “helped remove griddle from the Earth’s oceans, even the wet ones?”

In addition to the silly fun to be had on the page, Escape from Zoodletraz comes with an album. And it rocks? With different singers and styles on nearly every song of the 10-song album, the one constant is that it’s a blast to dance to. The production quality really stands out—these are fully developed noodle-doodle pop hits. The end of the book features a game, a maze, and a coloring page too.

The thing that stands in the book’s way is just the sheer amount of information and characters coming at us from so many directions. It’s a lot to keep track of quickly. Luckily, the illustrations bring characters to life so they become clearer in our minds, but it could still require some flipping back and forth to remember how each character is related to the story. Occasionally, the noodle-doodle language takes precedent over the plot, so some pages are more dedicated to funny-sounding backstory than the escape itself.

This series is growing along with the reader—from picture books to juvenile graphic novels—without ever losing hold of its wacky sense of humor. Joseph and Case make for one hilarious team.

Thank you for reading Jaylynn Korrell’s book review of Escape from Zoodletraz by Steven Joseph! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Victoria Lilly

A multi-generational gothic saga set against the backdrop of 20th-century New England, blending psychological horror, supernatural intrigue, and family drama

The novel opens in 1946 with the harrowing story of Sofia Tarantino, a teenager impregnated under mysterious and disturbing circumstances—a harrowing episode among many in a generational curse involving a seductive, violent spirit named Daedrian. Fast forward to the present-day, 18-year-old Francesca “Fran” Tarantino is grappling with the recent death of her beloved great-aunt Aurora Ciccone, who has left her not just a considerable estate but a sprawling archive chronicling generations of women haunted by the same ghost.

As Fran begins to read Aurora’s journals and assorted historical documents—including letters, priest’s diaries, and legal testimony—she uncovers the dark legacy of the “blood witch” women in her lineage. Each was seduced and possessed by Daedrian, who seeks to perpetuate his influence by impregnating the next female heir. Fran must confront not only the supernatural presence that has haunted her since childhood but also the weight of her inheritance, her emerging identity, and the unspoken traumas of her family’s past. As she begins her new life in New York City, her autonomy, sanity, and survival hang in the balance. Can she survive his growing power without revealing her family’s secret—or will she become the next bride in his endless, blood-soaked history?

A Blood Witch is a dark and unflinching exploration of generational trauma as well as wider social evils such as domestic violence, sexism, and incest. Stone’s prose is polished and immersive, featuring historical epistolary fragments, contemporary narrative, and chilling confessions from multiple point-of-view characters. The novel is graphic in its treatment of themes and supernatural motifs and intentionally unsettling in explicit depiction of violence of varying sorts.

The strongest aspect of the novel is its ambitious structure and slowly-building suspense plot. Stone employs a patchwork of narrative techniques to weave a multi-generational story of spiritual possession and inherited suffering, organically nudging the reader to piece together its sinister history along with the protagonist Fran. The use of archival material echoes the epistolary horror tradition of Dracula or The Turn of the Screw.

Fran’s grief combined with her confusion and gradual unraveling tells a quite fascinating story. Her relations with her overbearing great-aunt Lily, darling cousin Mary Jane, and the spectral Daedrian are complex and often fraught. The supporting characters, especially Aurora and the earlier “brides” of Daedrian, are also given significant development. Aurora, in particular, is portrayed with nuance: she is at once a victim, a guardian, and an imperfect moral compass for Fran. Her letters are among the novel’s most haunting and eloquent passages.

The supernatural elements are handled with restraint, keeping the fantastical to the minimum. Daedrian is less a demonic presence or a monster like Dracula and primarily an allegory for intergenerational abuse and female disempowerment. He is seductive, manipulative, and, most terrifyingly, patient. The terror lies not in jump scares or gore but in the insidious way he violates boundaries—familial, physical, and spiritual.

Transitions between past records and present events are occasionally abrupt, and some sections—especially historical documents—can slow the momentum. Daedrian’s psychological profile, while fascinating at first glance, remains frustratingly static. Readers may wish for more from his origin and motivations.

A Blood Witch is a chilling, layered, and intelligent gothic piece that tackles the genre from a distinctly feminist angle. It interrogates themes of bodily autonomy, inherited trauma, and the haunting persistence of misogyny with a significant degree of literary sophistication. Though its graphic content and nonlinear structure can be challenging, the novel offers sophisticated explorations of themes interweaved with a suspenseful and gripping plot. This is not a comforting read—but it is a valuable one.

Thank you for reading Victoria Lilly’s book review of A Blood Witch by Joseph Stone! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Addison Ciuchta

A fun and hopeful read about friendship, loyalty, and love

Turn Around is set in Stadium, Texas, a small football-centric town. Heather Ramsay is up for a promotion to principal of Stadium High, her marriage is strained, and her daughter keeps changing her college major, causing the family financial hardship to cover her tuition.

Luckily, she has a tight-knit group of friends who are part of a running club who lend her clothes to wear for her confirmation as new principal and offer emotional support when, out of nowhere, the school board gives the principal job to a newcomer instead. Now she’s not only faced with being passed over by the board, but also Heather’s financial situation is floundering without the promotion, and she must deal with the demands of the new principal who doesn’t seem to understand Stadium’s culture. Will Heather, her marriage, and her friendships make it in the face of rising tensions as the principal makes decisions that send shockwaves throughout their small community?

Turn Around is great at tugging on emotional heartstrings for Heather as the downfalls she face just keep piling up on her. Each time she seems to find some stable ground, yet another thing happens to set her back in a new way. Not only is she passed up for the principal job, but she’s also dealing with her marriage problems, tuition money, a critical mother, a difficult new boss, and an outraged community as she carries out the new principal’s rules despite how wrong they seem for her school. Rules like a strict attendance policy which, in their small town where many of the students work on their parents’ farms or miss class for football, is a difficult standard for many to meet causing some players to be unable to play, resulting in backlash from the community.

In the face of it all, though, she’s determined to find a solution, sacrificing even her most favorite things to make ends meet. She does it for her daughter. She reaches out to her husband even when it often ends in arguments. She shows up for work every day and does more than she’s asked for the students she loves. Her passion is what makes her a character who is easy to connect to and root for, putting all her efforts into a job that often has little to no acknowledgement but finding purpose in the job anyway. I also adored her love for raising chickens, her fancy chicken coop and all. The chickens really showcase her personality and even in her friends’ personalities.

The pacing does seem slightly off. The vast majority of this relatively short book is rising tension with new and added stakes stacking on top of each other from maybe too many directions. Then the resolution feels a little short and storylines wrap up too abruptly, like those involving her mother and the football coach.

While there might be slightly too many of them, the sources of tension in the book all touch on the troubles of everyday life. They make perfect sense for Heather and the parameters of her life. These aren’t the grandiose tensions of an action-packed thriller, but the tensions of daily life in the form of financial stress, relationship problems, workplace disappointment, and sacrificing what she loves for the sake of her family. These are things almost everyone has experienced, and the author does a great job of scaling the story to the characters and the setting.

The friend group is where the heart of this book truly lives, as Heather and her friends support, push, and take care of each other in their times of need. Based on the epilogue, the next book in the series will focus on one of Heather’s friends, with hopefully more to follow. I look forward to reading more about their dynamics, history, and their quirky small town from the others’ points of view in the future.

Turn Around is a sweet, heartwarming story of friendship, strength, and perseverance in the face of daily struggles. It’s not a grand adventure of a novel but a quiet peek into the lives of Heather and the residents of Stadium, Texas. I’d recommend Turn Around as a book club pick or for those looking for something hopeful and realistic.

Thank you for reading Addison Ciuchta’s book review of Turn Around by Carole Wolfe! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Erin Britton

The battle for Earth continues to rage in this third installment of the imaginative Wings series.

M.A. Arana’s Wing Rebel is built on richly detailed lore and populated by an eclectic cast of fantastical heroes and villains—including a few inscrutable characters who fall somewhere between the two.

With the threat posed by King Waqar and his Garghon horde still looming, the winged Avan warriors led by King Mabon seek to rebuild their kingdom in the clouds and ensure that the Earth below remains safe. However, King Mabon still suffers from physical wounds inflicted during previous battles as well as deep-seated doubts that could be manipulated to draw the Avans into a trap.

At the same time, the danger caused by the specter of Ibis, King Mabon’s former bride—and the mother of his eldest child, Sada—continues to grow. Although Ibis’s corpse has long been trapped in a tomb of ice, “Magic had kept her alive [as] a spirit who could take physical form. Yet, without a heart, she was doomed.” The chill of her burial has done nothing to quench her burning desire for both vengeance and the throne of Ava.

King Mabon will have to rely on the power of his extraordinary offspring to defeat dangers on several fronts. Sada has the gift of foresight, allowing her disturbing insight into the machinations of her mother’s ghost, while her twin brothers, Xander and Xio, are skilled in both magic and combat, although Xio continues to battle the darkness that entered his psyche after he was kidnapped by the Garghons.

Down on Earth, Gabriel Rosales tries to blend in while working at a market, anxious to remain incognito despite being “a secret keeper and the sole connection to the magic.” He and Edouard are the first to notice the Garghon incursion, but they little suspect what its real purpose is. As various fates converge, the true horror of what faces Ava and Earth slowly emerges and sundry characters must confront their role in it.

As the third book in an epic speculative series, Wing Rebel is built on a lot of backstory and a great number of trials and tribulations on the part of the central characters. While M.A. Arana does provide explanations for most things through either dialogue or exposition, to properly enjoy and appreciate the full breadth of the story, it is recommended to read Wing Clipped and Wing Stroke first.

Of course, all the detail that has gone into the character- and world-building means that Wing Rebel is rich and immersive. From the overarching lore to the petty squabbles between minor characters to the potentially devastating schemes of the myriad villains, Arana has clearly put a great deal of thought into the plotting and ensuring that all the strands of the story hang together.

One of the main connections between those strands is the theme of family. King Mabon certainly has a very complicated home life, with both a homicidal phantom ex-wife and a conciliatory human current wife, as well as children who are battling more than their fair share of demons. However, they all draw strength from their familial bonds, even during times of conflict, which unites them when dark forces threaten to tear them apart.

By contrast, King Waqar has little time for the idea of family and views his Garghon subjects are little more than cannon fodder. For instance, following losses in the last battle against the Avans, he has instituted a decidedly unemotional breeding project to replenish his forces. “He didn’t want familial ties that bound his Garghons to another instead of to him. He didn’t want complications in an age where Garghons would think of defending their kin.”

And while King Mabon being pursued by the ghost of his former spouse is hard to beat, he is far from the only character with a complex romantic history—Sada and Gabriel have an entanglement too. “Sada had come to help Declan heal him, but she remained distant, claiming her role took much of her time. He should be grateful. But his heart had broken into pieces long before.”

The romantic aspects of Wing Rebel add further depth to the story, as well as some much-appreciated humor and humanity. As the dialogue doesn’t always flow naturally, such aspects help to ensure a connection is maintained to the characters. What’s more, while romance can provide a nice break from brutal combat, Arana makes sure that the tangled relationships reflect the overall tone and atmosphere of the story.

In other words, true love never does run smoothly, and neither does a kingdom in which mythical creatures and magic exist. Arana does a great job of realistically integrating the magical aspects into daily life for the winged inhabitants of Ava. For example, Xander and Xio are not permitted to use magic to change their clothes when they get soaked during combat training.

“Magic comes at a cost, my sons. Many have suffered for it.”

Wing Rebel makes for an exciting continuation of The Wings series, posing questions for the future of both Ava and Earth and placing great danger between characters and their goals. Given the threat offered by magic and standard combat, there is a real sense of peril and a distinct possibility that the forces of good will not emerge unscathed.

Thank you for reading Erin Britton’s book review of Wing Rebel (The Wings, 3) by M.A. Arana! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Andrea Marks-Joseph

This satirical workplace guidebook is a laugh-out-loud group therapy session that offers technical and emotional support by decoding corporate-speak.

Whether you’re sitting down to start a specific chapter or flipping through IT Dictionary randomly as you wait for a software update, this book is an absolute blast. Author Adam Korga hilariously explains the dizzying industry terms you’ve heard in feedback from Finance, Legal, and Human Resources representatives.

This is a book to corrupt any semblance of workplace sanctity and protect your sanity as a result. The author has come up with some pretty genius phrases to describe the sheer stupidity of corporate-speak—delightfully eviscerating modern workplace norms with terms that feel impossible not to adopt into your lexicon, whether you work in IT or not.

Korga’s guide to decoding buzzwords comes with a link to an exceptional, drinking-game-worthy, buzzword bingo-board website to inject fun into your work life. This game has real trend potential and would be fun and quite thrilling for trusted work companions to secretly compete in.

Paired with the advice that “If you hear four of these [buzzwords] in a single meeting, your project is already doomed—but the slide deck will look amazing,” it’s clear that this book is not for the LinkedIn rise and grind, growth mindset crew, but for the people working with and under them, doing the actual work. IT Dictionary translates nonsensical workplace productivity fantasies and tells you how to work around them. “Rename ‘bugs’ to ‘user feedback incidents’… Color everything green by default; don’t show raw numbers. Use emojis instead; call any flat line a ‘plateau before the next phase of growth.'”

IT Dictionary is a genuine guide that offers the reader valuable “battle-tested” insights, tips on phrasing your Slack replies, and tactical responses to prioritize your wellbeing in a way that will make it seem like you care about maximizing your employer’s profit. The diplomatic language table converting what you want to say (“One team member left already… The founders are fighting”) to what you should write in the pitch deck (“Lean, focused founding team… Passionate, committed leadership”) is invaluable.

If you’ve ever spent an entire weekend eating pretzels while bent over a PowerPoint presentation, only for someone higher-up to come over to your desk on Monday morning and say they realized (over Michelin star meals and cocktails at a private beach with friends this weekend) that this brand new, big angle would work better and can we please rush to update the pitch deck in light of this, you’ll appreciate IT Dictionary‘s satirical game packaging for the “Expansion Pack – Executive Disruption Edition” which features “The New Stakeholder Who Knows Everything, Surprise CEO Drop-In, [and] Mandatory Reprioritization with Zero Context.”

So many of the translation tables in this book would be funny to share in group chats, in a lasting “I need to screenshot that for future use” way, and in an immediate “use the office printer and laminator to get this pinned up on my open-plan cubicle wall” way. IT Dictionary is worth reading for the sense of camaraderie alone. Feeling seen and heard by a book eviscerating buzzwords is something that can be so special, so personal, and yet so universal.

I’ve worked with Public Relations agencies and social media teams who would have loved using Korga’s terms to describe their clients—beauty brands and bank executives alike. You could create team-building exercises around this book, helping your staff bond by creating insider jokes to let off steam and feel understood during the worst moments of their workday. If you have IT guys available to you whenever your laptop starts “doing that weird thing again,” you might want to buy them this book. I’m being so serious; you go on your merry way once the IT ticket is resolved, but they’ll need this emotional release to gain the strength to survive until your next call.

As a millennial who has worked at global Public Relations agencies, tech startups, and international nonprofits where “the Founder’s word is both supreme law and fluid reality,” this book was actual laugh-out-loud funny to me. When I read some of the jokes to my dad (whose early career was spent training tech support staff), my mom (who has her IT team’s personal numbers saved in her phone) and my younger brother (whose accounting career has so far been spent at tech startups for whom LinkedIn “corpo-speak” is the Bible), they found it just as entertaining as I did.

IT Dictionary may be written for tech support teams, but anyone who has ever made extensive calls to IT or lost hours of their life making urgent edits to a pitch deck on presentation day will find value in laughing about this unfortunate universal experience.

If you loved and miss British broadcast satire W1A or NBC’s corporate comedy American Auto, this book is for you. If you’re sick of investor pitches, optimization, and over-valued C-suite input, this book is for you. It’s for all who need to be warned (and all who learned the hard way) that in the corporate world, a rockstar developer is really just a “Poor soul expected to do backend, frontend, UX, infra, IT ops—and support tickets in between sprints.”

IT Dictionary directly addresses the soul-crushing minutiae within an enraging experience that most workers of the modern world know intimately. No one has created a way for us to decompress (that isn’t ranting to your coworkers or partner) from this corporate chokehold until Adam Korga, until right now.

This would be a hilarious gift to congratulate someone on their first job in software development or IT support. It’s something they’ll smile politely and thank you for upon receiving it, but cling to like a lifeline of real-talk advice and sanity in a sea of frantic requests after a few weeks on the job.

Readers who, like me, have been praying for the downfall of generative AI will enjoy this book’s honest exploration of the topic (Part V covers AI’s increasingly inescapable positioning in consumer tech and our workplaces). Author Adam Korga provides a rare honest view from someone in the industry, acknowledging the greed-powered willful blindness that executives engage in in favor of a computer that cannot yet but will hopefully-someday replace their human employees who inconveniently require time off for bathroom breaks and sleep. This chapter includes admitting the truth of LLMs hallucinating information and being hilariously worse at its job than a human could ever be.

With his highly entertaining, sharp humor, Adam Korga critiques bureaucracy, stakeholder control, the hell of HR’s tactically-worded performance reviews, corporate-enforced remote work protocols that slow down your computer and make you doubt the quality of your home wifi (which works perfectly on every other device), and the many hours of your precious life lost to fulfilling your millionaire founder’s whims. IT Dictionary is a gift to all who have suffered through corporate systems and a guide to making it through your workday without truly going insane.

Thank you for reading Andrea Marks-Joseph’s book review of IT Dictionary by Adam Korga! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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