Zendar: A Tale of Blood and Sand – K.T. Munson

(Reviewed by Jeyran Main) Zendar is a fantasy romance novel written about a girl named Azel Undel. She is the youngest daughter of one of the seven bloodlines. She is arranged to be married for political gain. As she sails to meet her future husband, her ship sinks and she is captured by the enemy.…

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Hollywood Homicide (A Detective by Day Mystery) – Kellye Garrett

(Reviewed by JD Jung) Dayna Anderson lost her job as the girl on the Chubby’s Chicken commercial eighteen months ago and hasn’t heard from her agent in six months. So now she’s an out-of-work, dreaded size ten, former actress and dead broke. In fact, she sleeps in her friend’s closet, or “bloset” (bedroom/closet combo). She…

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Sex and Rage: A Novel – Eve Babitz

(Reviewed by JD Jung) "Years and years and years were pocked with holes of things Jacaranda simple didn’t remember, with people Jacaranda didn’t remember meeting, conversations she didn’t remember having, promises and parties and great ideas and projects Jacaranda didn’t remember hurling into….she accidentally found herself in the approximately right spot and the approximately right…

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She’s so Fine: A Samantha Block Novel- Jaimee Campbell

(Reviewed by Jeyran Main) She’s so Fine is a thriller  short story written  about Samantha. She is a mother of two children and appears to be leading a normal life with ordinary routine wifely chores. However, she is nothing but ordinary. Samantha has a past, which intertwines with her present life. The past is something…

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New People – Danzy Senna

(Reviewed by JD Jung) “The poet is not a New Person…He doesn’t have mud-toned dreadlocks or octoroon gray eyes or butterscotch skin. …He has the body, the skin, the face that cabdrivers pretend not to see, that jewelers in midtown refuse to buzz inside. His body is the very reason they got those buzzers installed…

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Love Is Rich In Both Honey And Venom – Axel Kruze

(Reviewed by Cathy Carey) Can a Premarital Agreement really justify murder? His father, Henry, hung himself at the senior prom. His mother, Martha, was raped. Both were painfully shy and bullied throughout high school. Martha's story of survival began after she moved away from home and started college at Hartford University in Connecticut. Hank was…

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The Hideout – Egon Hostovsky (Translated from the Czech by Fern Long)

(Reviewed by JD Jung)   “I keep having the feeling that a good half of the human race got drunk in a kind of gigantic space where the air is all breathed out. The born fighters and brawlers started to fight in their drunken orgy, and they were helped along and encouraged by the drunken…

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Dreams of Heaven – Elizabeth M. Herrera

(Reviewed by Pat Luboff)     Savannah waited to see if her sister would notice Jesus standing beside her, but Denise simply walked over and hugged her. However, she did notice the throng of doves covering the deck.                                   …

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The Butcher’s Daughter: A Memoir – Florence Grende

(Reviewed by Judy Deutsch) The Butcher’s Daughter is a personal story of a young girl in Poland during The Holocaust and how she and her family survived. The book reads like a diary and is filled with descriptions during the Nazi era and how her life changed when she got to America. As I started…

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The End – Fernanda Torres (Translated from the Portuguese by Alison Entrekin)

(Reviewed by JD Jung) “There’s something a bit queer in every male friendship. Fucking the same women is a roundabout way of fucking each other. And in the same physical space, it’s a fine line. But there’s no way---not joking, not off my face, not anything---I’d kiss Neto, Silvio, Ribeiro or Ciro. Well, maybe Ciro.…

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