Reviews of young adult (YA) and middle grade (MG) books.
Emily Sanders, age 14, spends her summer vacation working at a bed and breakfast along the Appalachian Trail in Winton, North Carolina. Gigi Baird, an elderly woman dependent on her guests for sustenance, runs Baird’s Den. Emily was referred to the job by her best friend, Mary Carnell, Ms. Gigi’s granddaughter. From day one, Emily…
Bet you don’t know the meaning of fastard. In Darcy-speak it’s a boy that moves fast, tells a girl he loves her, takes her out on a date, and then, through the high school grapevine, she uncovers the boy has a steady on the sly. That’s a fastard. Darcy Walker, a fifteen-year old Cincinnati sophomore…
John Galloway is a middle-aged cop still walking his beat in a small Northeastern town. He is a beaten cop carrying emotional luggage of a failed marriage and a daughter lost to violence. Now it’s Halloween, the WORST day of the year to walk his beat, especially at night. Killing time before reporting for duty,…
Theresa Bordils, a teen orphaned at 12, lives within the safety of the Convent in Palma, Majorca. When the Office of the Inquisitor uncovers her activities in Magick, she is sentenced to burn at the stake, just like all the other witches. However, Theresa is not a normal human. She has been trained by Melchior,…
In 2014 tensions on the Korean Peninsula got out of hand resulting into World War III. Thirty years later, Global Government has evolved putting in place strategies to prevent another nuclear conflagration. Every two years, the government’s control reverts to the nation who wins the Tournament—a series of soccer games set up similar to the…
Quentin Jacobsen, his friends call him “Q”, is a senior at an Orlando, Florida high school. Since he can remember, he’s been in love with Margo Roth Spiegelman, his next-door neighbor. At a young age, while biking near a neighborhood park the children found the dead body of an apparent suicide—an event that created an…
Kyle Thorning is a brilliant young physicist working as a researcher at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research where scientists probe the fundamental structure of the universe. Kyle’s secret project is to create a time travel machine. Why the interest? Kyle’s dad, Max Thorning discovered a book, Account of Time Travel on Earth Using…
A 15-year old girl is psychologically abused by the constant bickering of her parents. When the fighting escalates into a full-blown war with glasses and china used as weapons, the girl, who isn’t given a name, retreats into her own world in a garden in her backyard. There she discovers an expanding black hole. With…
Max Rigdon is forced by his mom to spend summer vacation with his reclusive grandfather. All of his dreams of being the starting pitcher for his little league’s all-star team are now shattered. And why all of a sudden quality time with crazy Grandpa Joe? Max only met him once at his father’s funeral, and…
Extinction is Jan Domagala’s fifth Col Sec thriller. The 85 page sci-fi novella begins 25 years prior to the story’s action when General Sinclair, the head of the Colonial Security Intelligence Division (Col Sec), the security arm of the Confederation, was forced to deal with a military problem that went south, and naturally covered up….