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

Tour vans, Xeroxed demos, and a front-row seat to a vanishing scene

Dean Brownrout’s No Big Deal: Chasing the Indie Music Dream in the Last Days of the Record Business spans two decades of music industry upheaval, from the rise of punk to the messy birth of digital distribution. Told with dry wit and sharp recall, it’s a memoir that understands the music business is rarely fair but always fascinating.

This isn’t a story about one big break. It’s a story about near-misses, scrappy venues, fumbled deals, and what it’s like to be the guy behind the guy behind the guy who eventually wins a Grammy. Brownrout worked with everyone from Slayer and Megadeth to the Goo Goo Dolls and Anthrax, and while the spotlight often moves on without him, No Big Deal shows he never stopped noticing who else was in the room.

The stories are layered with a precise sense of place and timing—a teenage Metallica fan tossing homemade fanzines into the crowd long before the band had a label. A white stretch limo rolling up to a Slayer show in Brooklyn, where Brownrout cringed in the backseat—only to watch the crowd erupt when they realized Brian Slagel was inside.

Or the time he tour-managed Discharge, a van full of mohawked punks, slipping them across the Canadian border by flashing his briefcase and clean-cut grin. He makes you feel like you’re flipping through someone’s backstage laminate—smudged, worn, and always just enough to get you through the door.

But this isn’t just about the artists. Brownrout sketches the entire ecosystem: agents hungry for talent, managers who bulldozed their way into power, startup execs who promised half a million in stock options—then vanished. There’s a revolving door of characters, each one memorable, some a little unhinged, all of them deeply human.

Like the agent who refused to be interrupted on Thursday evenings—his standing date with Magnum, P.I. took precedence over everything.

What sets No Big Deal apart is that Brownrout doesn’t just recount the scene—he intimately understands it. He tracks the rise of thrash metal, the collapse of vinyl, and the early glimmers of the internet age with the insight of someone who read every trade mag, every fanzine, every spine of a poorly Xeroxed demo. He understands how success looked different in that era—when a few well-placed reviews or a college radio buzz could launch a tour, even without mainstream airplay.

It’s Brownrout’s attention to cultural memory. He doesn’t just name venues—he situates them. The Continental, once an S&M club guarded by German shepherds, becomes a landmark of Buffalo’s new wave scene. The Chelsea flea markets—where he spotted Seymour Stein rifling through collectibles at dawn—double as the backdrop to his side hustle selling cereal boxes and Charlie’s Angels lunchboxes. And Bandito, a Mexican dive bar where Diana Ross might drop in and someone’s roommate once booked Slayer, captures the strange collisions that made downtown New York feel electric. He doesn’t just recount a show—he explains what it meant to the neighborhood, the scene, the sound. He captures the texture of a disappearing world with the precision of someone who knows how easily it slips away.

Brownrout doesn’t simplify the past or turn it into a tidy narrative. After the venues close and the scenes fade, he follows the people who shaped them: the agents who quietly disappeared, the musicians who never broke out of van tours and dive bars, and the rare few whose names carry weight. He tracks not just the hits, but the unfinished stories—the side hustles, the friendships, the obsession with preserving ephemera that eventually led him to a Chelsea antique stall. It’s all part of the same impulse: saving what matters before it disappears.

No Big Deal isn’t just about the music—it’s about what lingers after the amps cool down: the flyers that faded, the credits that rolled on, the people who shaped it all from the wings. Brownrout isn’t trying to sell a comeback story. He’s offering something rarer: a clear-eyed tribute to the people, places, and instincts that shaped a generation. No Big Deal doesn’t shout to be remembered—it endures because it remembers for us.

Thank you for reading Lauren Hayataka’s book review of No Big Deal by Dean Brownrout! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Nikolas Mavreas

A spirited and affectionate call to meaningful living through empathy and attention to nature

Sonja Koch lives with her husband and their many animals on a heavenly piece of land in Southern Ontario, surrounded by calmness and nature. In Bookends of Life, she urges us to live in peace with ourselves and to connect meaningfully with the nature that surrounds each one of us.

The title page of Bookends of Life lists another author next to Koch, one Dalys Finzgar, who is the writer’s young granddaughter. The book was inspired by her, and many of the poems act as advice to the young lady. Some poems are written in the first person from the girl’s perspective, but when we read the warnings about talking to strangers and staying away from dubious websites, we can’t help but hear the voice of a worried grandmother. Most of the poems, however, are instructive not just to Dalys but to everyone.

Koch invites the reader to openness, compassion and adventure. Her encouragements are full of a conspicuous vigor, which is enhanced technically by her more than occasional use of the energetic quatrain:

“The love, the peace amidst the rush
And stress of daily living
Is there for all who choose to see
The loving and the giving.”

This kind of calling to empathy and relaxation characterizes the whole book. Not an idle relaxation but one made vibrant by creativity and focus on all the important things: kindnesses to others as well as to oneself and a connection to nature.

Koch writes about animals she has experience with, like alpacas and horses, and uses the age-old device of seeing and living things through their bodies. More interestingly, in the beautiful poem entitled “To My Sister, Nancy,” she wishes she could travel as a feather on a wing.

The author finds meaning in both fauna and flora, as she describes with gratitude the trees surrounding her, which she calls the skyline of her life. Comfort derives from constancy, and perhaps this is what indifferent nature provides. But as our species has changed the climate, one can’t help but feel uneasy at the author’s expression of her belief in the unbreakable cycle of the seasons.

This very sprightly book loses a bit of its energy in some poems lacking structure and rhythm, which are a minority. And as much as some readers will love Koch’s occasionally magical language, with cameos from sprites and fairies, others may not be used to it. It is not intrusive, however, and it will add color to the reading experience of even the staunchest skeptic. As per the title of a poem, it’s not so much witchcraft as it is wishcraft.

The book is at its most endearing whenever Koch refers to her granddaughter and herself as the maiden and the crone, and at its most effortlessly relatable with the tiny poem exalting the gift that is tea. Bookends of Life is written with an elfin feeling and uplifted spirit. It is a genial manifesto for creative, earthly non-conformity and attentiveness to all that is truly great in life.

Thank you for reading Nikolas Mavreas’s book review of Bookends of Life by Sonja Koch and Dalys Finzgar! 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 chaotic & gory quest to stop a cult from supernaturally resetting planet Earth is both an all-in adventure and a cheeky read.

In Izzy’s father’s suicide note, he admits to being the serial killer who went viral for the murder of six victims across the globe, seemingly unconnected but for the fact that all their femurs were taken as a souvenir. His letter describes these murders in detail and provides directions to find each person’s remains. When he’s found, his body had been “burned and blackened beyond recognition.”

In addition to the suicide note, Izzy’s father—though she prefers not to call him that; he’s Nathaniel now—left a puzzle box and a letter with his lawyer, who delivered it to Izzy in person at his funeral. When she was a child, Nathaniel made these sorts of puzzle boxes and designed interesting tricks for Izzy to discover, each box with its own opening method. Now, six months after his death (and six months of hell for Izzy), she learns that he set up a treasure hunt for her to follow, in hopes that she can “finish his work.”

Izzy—who enjoyed her life with her pet rat and her job as a cleaner for the “the local leader in crime scene cleanup”—wants no part of this mission. She immediately threw the first puzzle box away, recovered only because her friend Felix literally dumpster dived to salvage it. (Every time I see a dumpster from now on, I’ll be thinking of this line: “The dumpster seemed to be watching her approach, its plastic lids open like a beast eager for a treat.”) Author Morgan Mourne is so skilled in scene description in both mundane and horrifying ways I’ll never forget.

With each puzzle box, Nathaniel left a new letter for Izzy to decode, leading to clues about where she can find more femur bones and next steps. Each letter is less cryptic and more informative, sharing the truth behind why he did what he did. This still   doesn’t convince Izzy to follow the trail Nathaniel had set up for her. 

What really kickstarts Izzy’s dark, disturbing treasure hunt is the fact that creepy men keep following her around asking about items in her possession—one going so far as to show up at a blood-and-guts-soaked apartment she’s cleaning and forcing a femur into her hands. 

Izzy’s friend Felix—a collector of occultish artifacts and the owner of a bookshop called Hex & the City—and their mutual friend Dr. Nakahara—a professor of occult studies—help Izzy by connecting the clues she decodes from the letters to supernatural theories they’ve researched, eventually coming to the conclusion that Nathaniel was gathering seven specific femur bones in an attempt to keep them away from a doomsday cult. 

This specific cult is on a mission to gather the bones to supernaturally reset planet Earth, erasing all evidence humans were ever here, and putting themselves in charge of all nature when it begins afresh. With each new puzzle box they find comes a letter less cryptic; every set of instructions leading to a more dangerous mystical bone. “Each [bone] harbors massive destructive potential. If all seven bones are not united during the Convergence, then each bone will activate its own curse.”

“It wasn’t because I was some kind of monster,” Nathaniel writes in one of his letters to Izzy. “I thought I was saving you, saving everyone from unimaginable terrors.” 

The Bone Collector’s Daughter begins as a story about a young woman trying to escape her father’s dark legacy, forever written into her surname, but along the way, it transforms into a story of friends fighting to stop the exponential damage this cult is trying to inflict on the world. 

The further Izzy gets into this quest and the more letters from her father she reads, the more the story transforms—next into the complicated emotional journey of a daughter working through the trauma of everything her father has put her through. Was he doing good, just in his own way? His death starts to become more painful the more she learns. 

A nostalgic, emotional ribbon threads itself through the journey of Izzy learning that her father may have had honorable intentions, while she relives positive memories of her childhood and remembers the man she believed her dad was then. More than that, this quest leads Izzy to realizing that her father saw her as capable, brilliant, talented, and creative. What first felt like a burden now feels like a responsibility, a legacy she wants to uphold. 

“All these damned letters with their cryptic clues, puzzles, and references, and he always trusted her to figure the shit out. How could he have so much trust in her?”

And there’s lots of action: Felix is beat up so many times by the henchmen trying to   rob them of the puzzle box and bones that it becomes almost a running joke between them. We enter a world of gadgets built for surveillance and self-defense, and later, in order to protect the bones they’ve found from the cult, the trio signs up for a super high-tech safekeeping company that uses their biometric data to personally safeguard their belongings. “So we’re basically turning into walking passwords?”

In terms of content that readers should be aware of in this novel, other than the blood, gore, and murderous cults, it’s only mentioned once in passing, but we learn that her motherkilled herself and Felix’s younger brother diedin a similar situation involving a group on the hunt for occult-related items.

The tone of this book feels so much like The CW show iZombie and the TV series Lucifer, both of which understand the seriousness of solving the murders they’re tasked with, but their lead characters are such unserious people that it never gets too dark. It’s the casual, upbeat, bright and cheerful let’s-get-on-with-it tone of a day out with your quirkiest, closest friends—even if that day out is an errand to secure trackers and weapons because you’re being stalked by a cult.

This book will be a hit with readers of cozy murder mysteries, not because it’s cozy exactly, but for the way it revolves around a small group of bookshop friends in a situation that pulls them out of their regular social circle and requires they use each of their interests, hobbies, and connections to complete the mission successfully. I loved the playful chapter titles (Chapter 14: “Yeah, I Had Visions;” Chapter 57: “Uh-oh” Chapter 34 “Aunt Joan’s Creepy Frigging Basement,”) and I’d recommend this book (from personal experience) for readers with ADHD or brain fog, because the short chapters each include one fast-paced, focused scene, which enables readers who struggle with focus to dive into this story effortlessly.

I was often struck by the brilliance of the prose while reading even the most shocking, gory scenes. On rainy days outdoors, I’ll forever think of Izzy standing at her father’s graveside, in thick mud “that sucked at her shoes.” I could hear the sickening squelch as the guts dropped out of the bodies in one of the most unsettling scenes of the book.

Author Morgan Mourne somehow keeps this subject matter dark and upbeat. There are many amusing moments in this fierce adventure, like when Izzy learns that the seven mystical bones would wake at any signs of human destruction to the earth and damage to the planet’s natural state, and she blurts out “Okay, so the bones are definitely awake.”

While there are a few unanswered questions once you sit and think about it (and which I’m growing hopeful means a sequel), The Bone Collector’s Daughter is a thrilling, heartwarmingly horrifying tale that is gory and gruesome and a complete joy to read. An entertaining journey with genuine heart, unexpected friendships, disturbing darkness, shocking twists, and a cast of people you’d like to hang out with—if they weren’t officially on the radar of a vicious, murderous cult and the literal and hallucinated monsters they can unleash.

Thank you for reading Andrea Marks-Joseph’s book review of The Bone Collector’s Daughter by Morgan Mourne! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Toni Woodruff

Self-help meets musical motivation in this unconventional book set to a curated soundtrack.

No Short Cuts: Life Journeys Through Music and Film is a creative & quirkyself-help book to get you motivatedand more in touch with how media can help illuminate real life. 

A self-proclaimed audiophile, Fenton incorporates music, film, and other media to enhance the motivational side of things. QR codes are included to ensure access to the material and to make for a multi-layered reading experience. Whether it’s the music or the movie clips, Fenton explains how they relate to the topics at hand while interweaving personal experiences and stories to learn from. 

Fenton draws on real-life examples to highlight the challenges of various individuals and the specific ways they overcame them—and how you’re capable of overcoming obstacles too. Using friends and family, he tackles relatable topics—career shifts, relationship ups and downs, and health challenges—and keeps it on a smaller scale. 

After each chapter, Fenton also offers a concise summary of the key lessons, including reflections, actionable steps, and tips to enhance the reader’s understanding. This makes the book feel accessible rather than overwhelming the reader with an overabundance of examples. 

Fenton’s journey doesn’t follow a straightforward path. His backgrounds in finance and technology coincide with his life as a writer. He enjoys doing what is unexpected, and as readers, we do too. The theme of living life non-linearly sparks an interesting thought process for self-help readers used to the usual way of personal improvement books. He shares unconventional experiences that will help others navigate their own journeys, but it’s his positive outlook that bleeds through the pages and inspires the most. The book asks nuanced questions, like “Why do I feel like this?” and “Why can’t I see anything ahead of me?” It doesn’t provide tried and true answers to every situation because those don’t exist, but it does lay the groundwork for introspection and our own right answers. 

Fenton’s use of music and film creates a unique, powerful effect. He passionately demonstrates the importance of these mediums, and it’s a full-circle effect to experience the emotions guiding through the rhythms of the song choices. Sometimes the sheer volume of music and film references can be distracting and read as gimmicky, which can overshadow the message at hand, but overall, they’re welcome and help the book stand out.

What a refreshing approach to the motivational self-help genre! We’re not relying on cliches or quick fixes and platitudes to get across our potential for self-improvement, but instead, we’re journeying through the unexpected with an unexpected guy—his own preferences and styles shining through. Fenton’s voice is approachable and natural, a challenging feat that he handles well.

Thank you for reading Toni Woodruff’s book review of No Short Cuts by Randolph Fenton! 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

Poetic and inventive, Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s The Villain’s Dance sees—and mourns—the Angola that could have been.

There are times when the momentous occurs, when you see clear as day the before and the after, the exact moment that life irrevocably changed. For many, that might be a loved one’s death. For Tshiamuena, one of the central characters in Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s The Villain’s Dance, it is the missed opportunity for Angola to eschew the sway of White colonialism and achieve its own greatness.

In the novel’s opening pages, Tshiamuena reveals that after the revolution removing the country from foreign rule, Angola “was becoming a colander. Porous borders. A stampede in both directions. [Young Zairians] breezed in by the dozens, by the hundreds, carrying all sorts of goods. Angola was cut off from the world. And staples…were snapped up like you haven’t the slightest idea. We bartered gems for these products thousands of times.”

Throughout the novel, readers see her presiding over ambitious Angolan miners as a mix of spiritual prophet, memory keeper, governor, and mascot. She is a woman who builds her own myth by shrouding her very age in mystery—was she born in the twentieth century or the fifteenth?—and she is, as her would-be biographer Franz puts it, “a lady who’s a little too full of herself.” 

First and foremost, however, Tshiamuena is a mourner grieving a nation that could have been. She watches human chains of miners bring up diamonds from the Angolan dirt, gems that have no value until they leave the country and arrive in Belgium, where presumably White Europeans decide their worth.

This situation could have been avoided, but as Tshiamuena sees repeatedly, her people miss the bigger picture, the true wealth. They trade their diamonds away for more worthless things that are more immediately attainable. Why? Because fulfilling desires, even if you fulfill them with worthless things, can bring the illusion of wealth.

Readers see that dynamic over and over again in The Villain’s Dance as the novel flits from Tshiamuena to both Franz and two other boys: Molakisi, who runs away from home to realize his (wholly unoriginal) dreams of being rich, and Sanza, who begins the story homeless as a direct result of Molakisi’s actions. 

While the story itself is somber, following these characters through their hardships is a delight. Mujila’s voice is commanding without being obvious, drawing readers in with an inviting, conversational tone that feels like someone talking to you. Readers will be dozens of pages in before realizing how far and fast they’ve been swept along. 

The prose is inventive as well. The book opens with vivid, tall tale description of Tshiamuena, for instance. “Tshiamuena this, Tshiamuena that. Tshiamuena’s got wings, big wings, and as soon as night falls, this witch takes off and flits about for miles and miles,” the gossiping hordes say, but this larger-than-life portrait is a gateway into learning about the setting—Angola after rebellion.

By the same token, readers learn that Franz, a character seemingly disconnected from everything in Angola if it weren’t for his fascination with Tshiamuena, is plagued by “insane perfectionism. For him, the sentence was what really counted in a novel. He gauged each one in the manner of an ophthalmologist examining his patients’ eyes.” At every turn, Mujila chooses an oblique or character-driven angle to explore the novel’s larger themes, and The Villain’s Dance is more breathtaking for the choice.

That approach also ensures that The Villain’s Dance always circles back to its main questions: What is true wealth? Is giving over to your base desires ever truly fulfilling? And is it better overall to live in reality, to see a humbled self and a broken world for what they are, or to live in the beautiful legends we build for ourselves? Tshiamuena may grieve discovering the answers, but readers will revel in exploring these ideas—and this story—for themselves. 

Thank you for reading Eric Mayrhofer’s book review of The Villain’s Dance by Fiston Mwanza Mujila! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Timothy Thomas

A unique addition to the post-apocalyptic genre, thoughtfully exploring religious complacency, coercion, and corruption

The Goddess in the Mountain is book two of the Millennium Man series, following Thomas the Vitruvian, one of an untold number of individuals with projected thousand-year lifespans, each with a particular expertise that they consider to be of greater value than the others. 

The series is non-linear, intending to jump around to various points of significance in Thomas’s life to tell a larger story that revolves around the collapse and subsequent rebirth of society, so do not be surprised if you find yourself lost in time, regardless of whether you’ve read the first installment. You can still enjoy it no matter when you are.

In this entry, Thomas is approximately 310 years old. Having lived to see the cataclysm caused by the asteroid Apep’s collision with Earth and its subsequent chaos, Thomas now wanders the planet looking for other Vitruvians, and he’s found one. Entombed in an iron cage within a mountain where her devotees work tirelessly to free her from its clutches lays Atah, a goddess regaining her strength. 

This convenient mythology, crafted by the Vitruvian Magdalena Ordonez (Maggie, for short) to keep the people complacent and submissive, feeds her vanity and keeps her insulated from the outside world, sparing her from having to share her gift with humanity to rebuild civilization. Can Thomas convince her otherwise, or will the realization that her society is more a prison than a shield come too late to avoid his own entombment in the mountain of Atah?

The Goddess in the Mountain is a quick, enjoyable read packed with commentary on the nature of manipulation and religious fanaticism. Its portrayal of a post-apocalyptic society in which the religious imagination of a populace is being manipulated and controlled for the personal gain of the few feels honest, and the sentiments expressed through Thomas’s perspective in response to it is relatable. This gives the story some grounding which, in combination with the lack of fantastical elements, helps make it feel realistic.

One downside of the short length of the book is that the characters lack some depth. I would have liked to understand Thomas and Maggie’s motivations and history more, to gain greater insight into their dynamic. With the series set to explore more of Thomas’s life, I’m hopeful and certain that if this has not already been addressed in the first book, it will be addressed in a later installment. 

With The Goddess in the Mountain, DeLauder has succeeded in writing a compelling, self-contained story that fulfills the promise laid out by the intriguing larger narrative. It’s easy to read and quite exciting to explore this world through Thomas’s adventures.

Thank you for reading Timothy Thomas’s book review of The Goddess In the Mountain by Sean DeLauder! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Elizabeth Reiser

An emotive memoir about the concept of home and how it relates to faith and family

Eileen Bader Williams starts her second memoir, The Builder’s Wife, with the fascinating fact that she and her husband were one of 2000 couples married at Madison Square Garden through a religious movement known as the Unification Church. This anecdote cleverly pulls the audience into her story about love, faith, and home from the jump. 

Williams then fast-forwards her audience to 2020 and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this is not a story about the pandemic. Instead, we are immersed in the highs and lows of her marriage. Her husband uproots them—a frequent event throughout their marriage—and moves them to Vermont. 

As her frustration with her husband’s lack of consultation on important matters grows, Williams reflects on the other challenges they have faced throughout their marriage, alternating between past and present. Much of the focus falls on their time living in Washington state near her husband’s family.

While her husband immediately feels at home in Washington and has a full and busy life, Williams is lonely and isolated. From soda being called pop to a father-in-law consistently annoyed by her, the author struggles to fit in. The reader witnesses her battle with depression as she struggles to connect with others and longs for the East Coast. Anyone who has dealt with similar will feel the pangs of heartbreak here. 

As Williams copes, her attention shifts to the difficult relationships she has with her spouse, mother, and father-in-law. This provides a personal and refreshingly honest look at the author, as she doesn’t try to hide her flaws. Pessimism and poor communication skills may frustrate some readers, but when Williams decides to find herself outside of her marriage by returning to school, the audience starts to see positive changes in how she approaches life and her family, and the story gains momentum. 

Religion is deeply important in this personal story. Readers with a strong sense of faith will feel great kinship with Williams and feel for the dilemmas in her marriage mixed with what she has been taught in the church. 

Williams has penned a touching memoir with The Builder’s Wife, suitable for readers facing similar struggles and valuing faith as a guiding force in life. Mothers and wives who have struggled to find themselves outside of their role in the home will also find it supportive to know that they’re not in the journey alone.

Thank you for reading Elizabeth Reiser’s book review of The Builder’s Wife by Eileen Bader Williams! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Toni Woodruff

An all-encompassing guide on how to pivot product-based businesses

Heraclites said it best: “The only constant in life is change.” To teach the concept of product-market fit makes sense—a sort of introductory goal for entrepreneurs to chase—but it’s a unicorn they’re chasing. A myth. They should strive to create the perfect product for the right market, yes, but that’s only attainable if they continue to pivot.

Joseph Hanna is the creator of the Pivoting Life Operating Model (PLOM), a framework that can be incorporated into product-based business structures which focuses on consistently adapting with a specificity as precise as Billy Beane with the Oakland Athletics. Pivoting As a Way of Life even presents this framework with movie & tv references like Moneyball and Schitt’s Creek. 

Hanna has spent over 30 years in the technology field.He has held executive positions at various companies and continues to encourage AI use in business. He’s a brilliant man with enough answers to enough problems that you’ve probably already faced or are about to face. With his expertise comes an array of advanced topics. This isn’t a how-to book for product-based business beginners but more so for knowledgable execs with schooling and work experience. It is a difficult book—but a rich one jam-packed with resources and applicable strategies. 

Copycat methods, Agile, success measurements, and acronyms—this is a business-pro’s favorite manual. It saves you time—time enough for actual business practice—by withholding beginner explanations and moving forward with a presentation you could envision on your white board at a game-changing business meeting. With a framework as earnest and true as this one, this book serves as the type of meeting you’ll be glad you took. It could send you out of the conference room and straight over to your shredder—to rid yourself of the myth of product-market fit and to embrace change and adaptation. Get on it before everyone else does. But if you’re late, adapt: learn from others and use those innovations for your own product. 

Hanna’s use of pop culture references engage the reader with forms of storytelling, but it never spends too much time on them. The thing that’s most important here is the strategies, metrics, and measurements. Because of this, the reading can feel dense, but for those with their pens and business dictionaries handy, this could very well be the book that changes everything for them.

Pivoting As a Way of Life is a tome of valuable resources for product-based businesses and an honest perspective that’ll get you prepared for the tornado of change incoming.

Thank you for reading Toni Woodruff’s book review of Pivoting As a Way of Life by Joseph Hanna! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Kathy L. Brown

An epic, high-stakes fantasy, ShadowBane delivers nuanced characters and gripping action.

In a feudal-Japan-like setting, ShadowBane, the first book of the Schism of Souls series, introduces demon-slaying twins Shura and Jin. Demons are a rampant menace, especially in the poor rural regions. And the squabbling kings of the land are more interested in gaining power and territory through politics and alliances than protecting their people. 

Jin and Shura carry the disgrace of their divine father’s poor decisions as well as their special demon-fighting abilities. They are the last of the Shikoken. The twins have witnessed firsthand how close the kingdoms are to being totally overrun by the demon overlord Sutoku Tenno and his army of human cultists and demons. 

But Shura and Jin can’t fight without army support, even with a trusty white tiger companion, Feng, and a foreigner from a distant, Britain-like place. Wallace is a soft-hearted teen, but an excellent archer. They must travel the countryside to hold the line against the demons while at the same time wheeling and dealing to gain much needed armed support. Massaging the egos of kings is never easy.

If that’s not problem enough, the twins are growing apart. Childhood trauma has linked them together as closely as the womb they once shared, but increasing conflicts fray their alliance. Early in the story, Jin’s life philosophy is simple, “The only reliable things in this world were the bonds of blood and good, hard steel.” What will become of someone like him if the bonds of blood are called into question? Yet Jin and Shura increasingly undermine and hurt each other as they disagree on everything from the best tactic to defeat the demon menace to whom, if anyone, their sibling should be dating.

Character development is top-notch in ShadowBane. All the story people are convincing and authentic both in their overt goals and their inner needs. The decisions and actions of Shura and Jin grow organically out of their backstory trauma and make total sense given what they each imagine their victory over the demons will provide them. 

Jin wants a quiet life with his lady love, free from the burden of supporting his sister’s goal: redeeming the family name from their father’s disgrace. He fights demons almost compulsively—it has become his self-image. But he finds a different version of himself in the eyes of his lover, Aiko, and he likes that version. He wants safety for the two of them, so that he can get to know himself better.

Shura wants to belong somewhere with someone special. And to be restored to her proper place in society. She sees a chance to fulfill all these needs with King Oda Ujikatsu. But is that deep need affecting her practical judgment regarding the fight against the demons? Jin thinks so, and his concerns become an ever-growing source of tension between the twins. 

Stakes are high, and the constant conflict yields real tension in the reader as they get to know the characters. We root for their successes, which are few and far between. 

The story is a complicated one. Much has transpired in the past to inform the current situation: according to ancient prophecy, in just one more year the demons will complete their victory. The narrative skillfully interweaves the forward momentum with just enough glimpses of backstory to make the situation’s stakes clear. 

The book moves back and forth between Shura and Jin’s perspectives. Thus, the reader is privy to the strong emotions they mask from each other. Resentments come out as increasingly cruel jibs and barbs. The story question becomes how will Jin and Shura, after growing so far apart, fight effectively as a team when they need to?

The worldbuilding is stellar—the story accounts for every small detail of the culture and environment to create an immersive and convincing experience. 

ShadowBane is an action-adventure fantasy about fighting demons as well as military operations in a time and as part of a culture very different from our own. For the more squeamish reader, be aware that graphic depictions of violence and death of people and animals are part of that story and the narrative includes some grisly torture. 

The story is a big one with many characters and locations. There are a wide variety of interesting species, too, each with its own skills and quirks. Readers who enjoy character-driven fantasy fiction, especially in a non-European-centric setting, will enjoy this first book in a promising series.

Thank you for reading Kathy L. Brown’s book review of ShadowBane by Cal Logan! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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