Julie’s Review of : Something about this book really got under my skin. The emotions and angst I felt, right alongside our main character! Going into it I knew it was a Hades and Persephone retelling, the blurb gives away a lot, and the tropes shared by the author give away more. Except… that’s not […]
A Cold War Adventure Historical Fiction/Cold War Fiction w/romance subplots Date Published: 03-01-2026 Publisher: Bim Bom Books “There are no accidents in life, only opportunities wearing different clothes.” When the first privately owned Soviet circus arrived in 1990 America as the Soviet Empire unraveled, its elite performers expected to build cultural bridges […]
Julie’s Review of Curse of the Tiger Prince: A Twisted Spicy Fairytale Retelling/easyazon_link]: In this fairytale reimagining, we follow a princess in the modern world – she has a cell phone! – and there’s magic, too! The story kicks off with the King announcing the betrothal that princess Aisling is unhappy about, but of course […]
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 […]