Reviews of young adult (YA) and middle grade (MG) books.
On May 17, 1954 the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously stated in the case of Brown vs the Board of Education, Topeka, that facilities segregating white and black children were unequal and therefore violated the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The justices also ordered the states to integrate. How did…
When my daughter Koren was five years old, I took her to the Los Angeles Zoo with her sister, Channie (10). We were strolling through the monkey area when I noticed Koren missing. Channie and I hunted the area in a panic. I never felt so frightened in my life. Fortunately, five minutes later, we…
Amelia Montgomery returns to her childhood home in Shady Knolls, New Jersey over Christmas to escape the stresses of her lucrative life as a New York City commercial real estate broker. She also needs to dodge Jake Grayson, her domineering ex-fiancé who won’t accept her desired break-up. Amelia takes refuge in her family home with…
Magz, a senior at Saint Christopher’s High School, can’t wait to graduate and leave Santolsa, a sleepy desert town in the middle of nowhere. Her parents are never around, busy running from one business trip to another. Her best friend Jack is like a brother to her as they fend off bullies and a boring…
Kendra Falstaff has big plans to leave Middleton, a small town three hours from Toronto, to attend the university and become a lawyer. Employed by her Aunt Irene at a small restaurant in town, Kendra and brother Jimmy were also raised by their aunt after their mother’s untimely death. Unfortunately, Kendra’s plans seem washed away…
It’s a shame how petulant the Wrensdale Police Department treats Talia Marby. In the character’s debut in Linda Reilly’s A Deep Fried Mystery series, she confronts a man who has been harassing her boss only to find him slumped over his desk, dead. Talia eventually solves that murder mystery. In book two of the…
Titanium Flow is a collection of ten science fiction stories created by author Elyse Salpeter. The first story set a high bar of excellence for the others. “The Kaldonian Addiction” takes place far into humanity’s future on a science vessel led by Captain Maya Raker. Her ship is boarded by the dreaded Kaldonians who abduct human…
Out of the Dying Pan is book 2 of Linda Reilly’s A Deep Fried Mystery Series. Talia Marby is back again to solve her second murder. She’s not a police detective for her hometown of Wrensdale, but the owner of Fry Me a Sliver, a fish and chips fast food restaurant in Wrensdale Arcade, a…
Frannie James and twin brother Jeff have been uprooted from their Iowa home to a farmhouse in rural Oregon. Their father, a bank executive has been transferred to a more lucrative job, and their mother ran away when the twins were very young. One night, a gray veiled ghost appears to Frannie in her bedroom….
Talia Marby is between jobs. She endured a position at a Boston commercial real estate firm for a better part of a year, but resigned because she hated the job. Her boyfriend, Chet, refused to support her decision, so Talia returned to Wrensdale, Massachusetts, the small New England town where she grew up. Talia moved…