Plant medicine has moved from the fringes into mainstream conversations, featured now on everything from celebrity websites to wellness podcasts. Shannon Nering’s new memoir, The Mother Vine: How I Healed My Heart With Ayuhuasca (4/21/26, She Writes Press, distributed by Simon & Schuster) is a soulful, oftentimes hilarious, journey from a harried mother’s rat race in the TV […]
For this discussion post, we are joining the Fantasy With Friends discussion with Pages Unbound. This week’s prompt: Do you have any favorite subgenres of fantasy such as urban fantasy, historical fantasy, etc.? Julie: I have some thoughts on fantasy. The OG fantasy that was high or epic fantasy is not for me. […]
New Picture Book Through the Garden Gate Invites Children Into a World Where Imagination and Nature Thrive By Sharon Rose | Illustrated by Erin Brown On Sale: April 7, 2026 Publisher: The Collective Book Studio Kids Blurb: Through the Garden Gate (The Collective Book Studio, April 7, 2026) is a lushly illustrated picture book […]
Cozy Mystery Date Published: 01-28-2026 Publisher: Secret Staircase Books, an imprint of Columbine Publishing Group, LLC School’s out for the summer and math teacher Katie Wilk needs something to occupy her time, something beyond helping to plan Jane Mackey’s upcoming wedding. So, when Jane suggests golf lessons and Katie secures a part-time job at […]
Julie’s Review of This book throws you directly into the story; an itty bitty recap would have been nice. I tend to forget things, though the first book ended quite epically. I devoured this book in a couple of days, starting with reading during a beach camping trip. I read the first book at the […]
We’re chatting about covers on Chapter Break. ‘Cause you know we all judge books by covers, whether we admit it or not. We judge the style, the color and font choices, and just the overall look. That might not keep us from reading the book, but we do still judge. This is kind of […]
Life is built on the assumption that what we experience is shared and understood. For Aubrey Shallcross, that assumption has never fully held. The voices he hears have always been part of how he moves through the world in The Hearing Voices Series by Charles Porter. Aubrey Shallcross finds himself moving between two paths, one […]
Julie’s Review of I really enjoyed (devoured) the first book in this world, yet it took me a longer time to complete this second book. It was much longer, yes, but also I felt the pacing was slower and more contemplative. In book 2 our characters are faced with war and battles, total chaos and […]
For this discussion post, we are joining the Book Blogger Hop topic hosted by Coffee-Addicted Writer. Here’s the topic for this week. Do you have any bookish habits or quirks you catch yourself doing again and again? Julie: Does hoarding books like air count as a bookish habit? Because I have a problem. I need […]
When belief hardens into certainty, it can push people toward decisions that reshape far more than their own lives. Two men, shaped by completely different experiences, begin moving toward the same moment without fully understanding how deeply their choices will intersect. In Body Man by Al Pessin, that convergence drives the story forward. […]