THE GRIFFIN MOONSTONE by VJ Garske
Genre: Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, Action & Adventure, Young Adult Fiction
Consumed by grief and revenge, apprentice wizard Noah Farmer can barely remember what a shower feels like—let alone what peace does. After his face lands on wanted posters issued by the Estonian Coven, he’s hidden deep within the enchanted Cromwell Forest by the mysterious Castle Dragon. But his refuge quickly turns into a riddle. Tricked into solving a ghost’s murder, Noah stumbles onto a quest involving the legendary Griffin Moonstone, a mystery that will force him to choose between vengeance and redemption.
When his friend Jesse arrives with a wild plan to enter the magical Winter Games—“a twisted wizard’s reality show”—Noah finds himself hiding in plain sight with a team of underdogs led by the gruff, rule-bound Ranger Rodrigues. Training in an Ice Castle with a mind of its own, Noah’s impulsive nature soon collides with a Fae court where perception outweighs truth—and the price of failure may be his life.
Garske’s world is vivid, immersive, and emotionally charged. From the haunting mosaics of the Osseous Treehouse to the wind-swept flight over Castle Dragon on the wings of Fell Ponies Orion and Altair, every scene breathes with lived-in texture. The author balances wonder and peril with precision, crafting a fantasy realm where magic feels both beautiful and dangerous.
The novel’s heart lies in Noah himself—a raw, restless hero haunted by the death of his friend Bandit. His grief shapes every reckless decision and sharpens the book’s emotional edge. Surrounding him is a memorable cast: the stoic Ranger, the mischievous enchanted journal, and a spectral monk who sets Noah’s reluctant investigation in motion. Even minor figures, like the fiery Rusty Newton or the ghostly Brother Patrick, contribute to a world that feels organically alive.
If the lush description occasionally slows the pace, it’s a small price for the depth of imagination Garske sustains. The prose glows with warmth and wit, the dialogue crackles, and the mythology feels earned rather than invented.
The Griffin Moonstone is a rare fantasy that combines humor, heart, and high-stakes magic with emotional honesty. Both timeless and fresh, it’s a tale that will delight younger readers and remind older ones why they first fell in love with fantasy.
THE BRICK IN THE HOLY DOOR by C.R. Owens
Genre: Religious/Spiritual Thriller, Political Thriller, Historical Fiction
C.R. Owens’s debut novel, The Brick in the Holy Door, is a bold work of fiction that fuses historical mystery, political suspense, and theological imagination into a narrative as provocative as it is profound. Set against the grandeur of the Vatican and the volatility of modern power, the story begins in 1983, when a hermit in Loreto, Italy, receives a divine vision: “Daniel Trace will lead America back to God.” At that moment, Trace is little more than a brash New York real estate mogul—but his name is sealed inside the Vatican’s Holy Door, where it will remain hidden until the Jubilee of 2025.
Decades later, Trace’s improbable rise to the presidency turns prophecy into spectacle. When an assassin’s bullet grazes his ear—just as another vision foretold—the boundaries between faith and fate blur in ways both haunting and believable. Owens crafts his fiction with striking realism, threading together politics, religion, and destiny in a way that feels startlingly relevant to the world we know.
Inspiring and unsettling in equal measure, The Brick in the Holy Door challenges readers to ask: what if the future was written centuries ago—and what if it’s unfolding now?
With elegant prose and an unflinching gaze, Owens explores humanity’s timeless search for meaning amid corruption, power, and divine mystery. The Brick in the Holy Door stands as a remarkable debut—one that dares readers to confront not just what they believe, but why.
GIRL GRIT by Alexandra Elinsky
Genre: Self-Help: Women’s Empowerment, Nonfiction: Women’s Issues, Inspirational Memoir
A fierce, unapologetic call to action for women determined to rise above societal conditioning.
In this bold first volume of her Human Empowerment trilogy, Dr. Alexandra Elinsky delivers a riveting blend of personal narrative and research-based insight. Girl Grit: Savage Not Average dismantles the “good girl” narrative and challenges women to claim their worth, strength, and fire without apology.
Elinsky structures the book in two parts: the first recounts her personal experiences growing up and navigating relationships with men—both supportive and toxic—while the second offers practical strategies for transformation. These tools, ranging from reparenting oneself to building relationships with uplifting people, are presented with warmth and candor. The author writes with the directness of an activist, the authority of a professional, and the intimacy of a trusted friend, creating a tone that is both empowering and accessible.
What distinguishes this work is Elinsky’s ability to include scholarly references into her impassioned narrative. Her critiques of patriarchal structures are anchored in research and connected to a broader conversation within empowerment literature, lending credibility and depth. She does not shy away from raw truths, at times using strong language, but the effect is more galvanizing than abrasive.
The book’s core message—that women can and must shed outdated expectations to become “fire women”—resonates throughout, offering both inspiration and actionable steps. Though the focus is squarely on women, Elinsky suggests that men, too, can benefit from engaging with her arguments, as understanding gender dynamics is key to fostering respect and empathy.
Elinsky’s voice is fierce, urgent, and, at times, confrontational, but always in service of empowering her readers. For women who have ever felt silenced, overlooked, or constrained by societal norms, Girl Grit is not just a book but a manifesto.
WHAT ONCE WAS PROMISED by Louis Trubiano
Genre: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Fiction-Crime, Friendship Drama
Trubiano delivers a moving historical debut that traces the immigrant experience through the intertwined fates of three young Italians in early 20th-century Boston.
The novel opens in 1914, as 16-year-old Domenic Bassini boards a ship bound for America, carrying little more than hope for a better future. On board, he encounters Francesca, a young woman whose ties to the Sicilian Mafia entwine love with danger, foreshadowing the sacrifices awaiting him in his adopted homeland. Upon arrival in Boston, Domenic forges an unlikely brotherhood with Ernesto, an orphaned stowaway, and Joe, the son of family friends. Their shared journey—from innocent rivalries to life-altering choices—forms the novel’s emotional core.
Trubiano excels at portraying the resilience of immigrants caught between old-world traditions and new-world challenges. His prose captures both the gritty realities of Boston’s underworld and the tender humanity of characters striving for connection. Domenic’s longing for love, Ernesto’s search for belonging, and Joe’s struggle with loyalty and identity reflect the broader struggles of an entire generation of newcomers.
Trubiano does an excellent job balancing historical authenticity and intimate storytelling. He paints the immigrant streets of Boston with vivid detail—crime, political unrest, and cultural tensions simmer beneath every interaction—yet never loses sight of the deeply personal stakes for his characters. Themes of loyalty, betrayal, and redemption echo throughout, lending the narrative both weight and universality.
Though occasionally expansive in scope, the story maintains a strong emotional through line, asking readers to reflect on the costs of survival and the bonds that endure despite time and tragedy. Like the best works of historical fiction, What Once Was Promised illuminates the past while resonating with timeless questions about justice and the pursuit of the American Dream.
A heartfelt, atmospheric debut that blends history and humanity with grace.
THE JOURNEY FROM KAMAKURA by Glen Allison
Genre: Fiction / Literary / Coming of Age / Visionary & Metaphysical
The Journey from Kamakura is a propulsive and emotionally candid novel about reinvention—about how a boy from a violent West Texas home claws his way toward art, love, and a hard-won sense of destiny. Framed by a Nichiren epigraph about seeing the journey through to its final day, the novel opens on a storm-lashed night in an old van, with a memory of a child shielding his mother from harm. It’s a gripping introduction that establishes the book’s fierce, survivor’s heartbeat.
From there, Grey Matheson bolts west to California, studies architecture at Berkeley, and stumbles into travel photography—all while flirting with death in a series of white-knuckle near-crashes across the desert highways. The prose is cinematic and unsentimental; every image feels earned, every risk embodied. The stakes are both physical and moral, and the novel’s pacing mirrors the reckless momentum of a man desperate to outrun his past.
Enter Angela: witty, luminous, and from a world far removed from Grey’s. Their romance—an intoxicating mix of desire, class tension, and creative ambition—propels the story into sharper relief. Scenes with Angela’s imperious father crackle with generational and economic friction, while the couple’s gamble on a freelance career gives the book its romantic and existential center. The Amsterdam–Paris stretch is a standout: broke, hungry, and running on fumes, they chase tulip fields and open-air markets in pursuit of beauty, culminating in a Keukenhof shoot that feels like a technicolor reprieve wrung from sheer willpower. The momentum pays off when their Holland work catches the eye of a Los Angeles editor—validation that feels like oxygen after near-suffocation.
But success, as the novel reminds us, is never a finish line. Harsh trials follow as Grey’s self-destruction nearly costs him everything. The story’s second act opens in Bangkok’s underbelly, where hash and despair have replaced ambition—until Mika Ishimura, a fearless photojournalist, drags him back from the brink. Their impulsive journey through Thailand, Bali, Vietnam, and the Himalayas becomes both a love story and a spiritual odyssey. When an avalanche on a Tibetan pass brings tragedy, Grey is forced to confront his deepest wound: whether to collapse under the weight of loss or rise transformed.
Allison blends a page-turning plot with a quietly spiritual backbone—choice versus fate, endurance versus surrender, and the discipline it takes to finish the twelfth day of a lifelong journey. The result is fiction with documentary grit: travel, work, and love as both crucible and cure.
Readers of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist will recognize the spiritual undertones; admirers of Andre Dubus III’s House of Sand and Fog will find similar class tensions; and those drawn to Cheryl Strayed’s Wild will feel the same pilgrim spirit of self-reclamation through suffering.
AVA'S DREAM by Joseph Ridgway
Genre: Middle-Grade Fiction, Children’s Historical Fiction, Educational Fiction
In Ava’s Dream, Joseph J. Ridgway brings together history, heart, and civics in a way that feels refreshingly rare. The novel begins with an ordinary injustice: a girl and her service dog kept out of a playground. From that seed, Ridgway unfolds a story that gently guides readers through some of the most essential concepts of American democracy—laws, branches of government, and the promise of equal protection—without ever losing the thread of Ava’s friendship or her personal stake in the fight.
What works especially well is the intimacy of the telling. Ridgway resists the temptation to lecture; instead, he lets Ava and her grandfather, Pop-Pop, discover ideas together. Their conversations, often set against the simple backdrop of porches, cabins, and lemonade glasses, make civics strangely inviting. It’s not a dry civics lesson—it’s a family story. Children will find Ava’s mixture of indignation, confusion, and hope recognizable; adults will smile at the way wisdom passes from one generation to the next.
The prose is straightforward, almost old-fashioned, fitting for its 1953 setting. At times the narrative circles back on itself, repeating questions or drawing out lessons that might have landed more sharply with a lighter touch. Yet even these repetitions echo the rhythms of learning itself—trying, testing, asking again until an answer takes root.
Where the book truly shines is in its moral clarity. Ava’s refusal to accept exclusion, even under the cover of a “reasonable” law, transforms the abstract into the personal. By the time the Constitution and its amendments appear in the back matter, readers already feel why those documents matter.
Ridgway has written more than a story; he has written an invitation—to empathy, to persistence, to citizenship. If Ava’s Dream lingers in the reader’s mind, it is because it reminds us that justice often begins in the smallest acts of loyalty and courage, and that the law itself can—and must—be bent toward fairness when the world falls short.
AFTERNOON REBECCA by Mike J. Kizman
Genre: Romance/Romantasy
Mike J. Kizman’s Afternoon Rebecca is a sweet and faith-forward romantic novel that brings together two people in search of connection. Set in a fictional Central Indiana county, this story gracefully blends the innocence of modern Christian dating with the heartfelt narratives of a small-town community.
At the heart of the novel are Jeff Linn and Rebecca Firkins—two flawed but endearing characters brought together by the Church Chat Christian Dating app. Jeff, unlucky in love and socially awkward despite his good looks, lives a quiet life with his parrot, Sparrow. Rebecca, still nursing the wounds of a failed relationship, is encouraged by her vibrant roommate Max to step out of her comfort zone. When the app gives them only a 67% match, it’s not an obvious start—but both decide to meet for an upscale dinner anyway, setting the stage for a refreshing take on first-date storytelling.
The narrative unfolds gently, almost in real time, as readers experience Jeff and Rebecca’s awkward charm, sincere conversation, and subtle emotional shifts. Kizman adds an inventive twist by including the perspectives of the restaurant staff, whose brief yet meaningful stories form a mix of background lives that highlight the interconnectedness of strangers.
What stands out is the book’s understated humor and its grounding in faith. There’s no flashiness here—just honest, ordinary people hoping to find something extraordinary. Themes of vulnerability, redemption, and spiritual alignment are embedded throughout, giving the novel a moral core without being heavy-handed.
While the plot leans toward simplicity and some readers may crave more dramatic tension or complex development, Afternoon Rebecca succeeds in what it sets out to do: offer a wholesome, engaging tale of modern love through a Christian lens. It’s a quiet kind of romance—more about shared values and emotional honesty than grand gestures—and all the more meaningful for it.
Afternoon Rebecca is a gentle reminder that sometimes the best love stories begin with a leap of faith and a simple Tuesday dinner.
THE THIRD ACT by Kathleen Brehony
Genre: Contemporary Fiction / Women’s Fiction
Kathleen Brehony’s The Third Act arrives not with fanfare but with quiet conviction—like an old friend at your door, finally ready to share a long-held story. And what a story it is: layered, lived-in, and luminous with emotional truth.
This isn’t your typical tale of second chances. It’s a third act—explicitly and unapologetically so. With the precision of a psychologist and the tenderness of a poet, Brehony dives into the emotional complexity of life in one’s sixties. Aging isn’t a backdrop here; it’s the very landscape where the novel unfolds.
What impressed me most is Brehony’s command of voice. The novel alternates between two protagonists—Shannon O'Connell and Elizabeth Matthews—both rendered with startling realism. Their perspectives don’t just narrate the story; they build it, brick by emotional brick. Each chapter feels like the next piece of a conversation paused years ago. It’s intimate, confessional, and at times uncomfortably honest.
Shannon is the first voice we meet. She arrives not with a bang, but with the quiet weight of accumulating loss: a long-term relationship ends, her mother fades into dementia, and her closest friend dies of cancer. Yet Brehony resists melodrama. Shannon’s grief is etched in small, sharp details—a cold mug of tea, a saved voicemail, the silence after laughter.
Then comes Elizabeth, and the emotional pitch shifts. Her life is a balancing act between self-protection and vulnerability, between the legacy of a high-powered career and the uncertainty of reconnecting with Shannon. Her chapters don’t just complement Shannon’s—they counterbalance them. If Shannon is memory and ache, Elizabeth is tension and possibility.
The novel’s structure—alternating chapters, Shannon on the odds, Elizabeth on the evens—gives the story a quiet rhythm, like call and response. And what emerges is not just a rekindled romance, but a reflection on how we forgive, remember, and dare to feel again.
It’s rare to find a novel that allows its characters to age without apology, to desire without shame, and to grow without drama. The Third Act does all three. Brehony avoids neat endings and sentimentality, instead offering characters who are flawed, evolving, and deeply human.
Above all, The Third Act reminds us that reinvention isn’t just for the young. Every season holds the promise of a new beginning—if we’re brave enough to embrace it. The novel earns its title with grace, offering a final act that feels like a true beginning.
NAKED ULTRA by Craig Ohlau
Genre: Adventure Nonfiction / Memoir / Humor / Inspirational
If you’ve ever wondered what might happen when two first-time authors say “yes” to both a book launch and a grueling ultramarathon in the same breath, Craig Ohlau’s Naked Ultra has the answer—and it’s a riotous, heartfelt, and surprisingly moving ride.
This compact narrative punches far above its weight. What begins as a quirky road trip quickly morphs into a soul-searching endurance saga, driven by Ohlau’s crisp, clever prose and an uncanny ability to balance absurdity with introspection. His voice is both self-aware and sincere, inviting readers to laugh at the madness while quietly reflecting on what drives us to push beyond comfort zones.
The watercolor illustrations scattered throughout are more than decorative—they serve as emotional landmarks, grounding the narrative in moments of quiet beauty and stark struggle. Chapters like Breaking Point and The Final Descent immerse readers in the brutal honesty of physical and psychological fatigue, while episodes such as The Gospel According to Brisket offer an irresistible helping of Texas flavor and levity.
What sets this story apart is its genuine heart. Ohlau doesn’t write heroes—he writes humans. Flawed, funny, determined humans who chase big dreams, stumble spectacularly, and come out stronger (and sweatier) on the other side. It’s a celebration of grit, friendship, and the unpredictable poetry of saying “why not?” when everyone else would say “you’re crazy.”
At just over 150 short pages, Naked Ultra is a one-sitting kind of book. For readers who love adventure with a side of vulnerability—and for anyone who’s ever dared to do something utterly ridiculous in the name of passion—this book is a must.
WHEN THE FIELDS WERE WILD by Craig Ohlau
Genre: Fiction / Historical / Outdoor / Parenting and Family
“A cinematic and deeply felt tribute to the land, the hunt, and the generations bound by both.” That’s the enduring impression left by Craig Ohlau’s When the Fields Were Wild, a remarkable blend of memoir, oral history, and literary craft. On the surface, it tells the story of a steady, unassuming bird dog man from rural Illinois and the son who inherits not only his love of the hunt, but also his patience, discipline, and reverence for the land. Beneath that, it is a quiet meditation on legacy—one passed down not in speeches, but in gestures, routines, and the long silences between whistle commands.
Ohlau’s prose is crisp and cinematic, capable of placing the reader in a frostbitten pasture with a single sentence. The book opens with a seasoned hunter drifting into memory, returning to the moment of a covey rise decades past—a scene that sets the understated, lingering tone of the work. His details are lived-in and authentic: the brass jingle of a dog’s bell, the scent of switchgrass, the steady heft of a shotgun. The training of a pointer is rendered honestly—not as a romanticized instant of perfection, but as a slow accumulation of small victories, missteps, and trust earned step by step.
The early chapters carry a richness familiar to bird hunters and rural readers alike: patchwork fields and cover, neighbors who measure you by your dogs, and the gradual growth of a partnership between handler and dog. Ohlau captures both the exhilaration of the hunt and the quiet dignity of those who live it, never losing sight of the truth that the dogs remain the heartbeat of the story.
While deeply rooted in the hunting tradition, When the Fields Were Wild reaches beyond the blinds and pastures. It’s a universal story of learning by watching, of inheriting without fanfare, of carrying a torch—whether that means guiding a baseball team from the dugout or following a dog’s point toward the last covey of the day. By the time the final page turns, readers will not just remember the story—they’ll hear the echo of boots in the grass and feel the pull of a tail, straight as a compass needle, waiting for them to catch up.
