Heart of Swine by Freddy F. Fonseca is both strange and provocative, dealing with climate change and meat consumption. You’ll be both shocked and laughing throughout the entire novel.
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Lillian on Sunday is a collection of short stories by Lionel Walfish. These stories explore the nature of human existence from love stories, city fables, ghost stories, and character studies. Walfish’s stories pull the reader into a universe where anything can happen, and I especially love that, particularly in a collection of works.
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ALL KAAL NONE: Sac of Surpäs is a sci-fi romance novel, the first in a trilogy. The book goes through four different timelines, and the author PB Flower does a great job with imagery.
Flower does well in her exploration of human emotions, characterized in the current, dystopian, and advanced eon. I especially loved her exploration in darkness and the hidden passion of desire.
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The Scarring of the Roshanra by Kara S.B. Brown is a psychological fantasy novel with very dark elements. This book is not for all readers as it deals with torture, rape, and PTSD, which draws on experiences from the author’s life. This gives the book a very raw, real feeling for the intricately built world, and I think that really works for this heavily character-driven novel.
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Atonement Camp for Unrepentant Homophobes by Evan J. Corbin is what happens when a world, including unforgiving churches, must accept all types of love and ways of life.
Corbin gives us a fast-paced, quirky story about learning to accept others. There is gay romance, homophobes learning (successfully and unsuccessfully) how to accept people and be okay with one’s self.
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The Ringmaster’s Interview by Colin C. Martin is a wild ride of horrific terror.
I loved the enthusiasm Martin had for this book. He used different fonts to describe many aspects of his stories, he had new pictures for each chapter, and each character was new and unique. There never was a dull moment.
The book Jaws by Peter Benchley may carry the same name as Spielberg’s cult classic, the two couldn’t be any more different.
The book holds a darker and more disturbing message, one that ripples through the sea as a shark and through the house within a family. I know there are many out there who didn’t enjoy the book, and maybe I wouldn’t have enjoyed it so much had I not had such a low expectation of it going in, and due to that impression, it was moderately enjoyable.
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Donn’s Hill by Caryn Larrinaga is a psychic mystery with great writing and interesting characters.
Larrinaga did well crafting unique characters with their own voice and personality. In fact, I think the interpersonal relationships are the crux of this story and it’s how our main character, Mackenzie Clair, learns to accept and understand herself.
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George Orwell's novel 1984 tells of a world divided into three different States, all under sovereign and totalitarian rule: Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia. The novel focuses on one individual in Oceania (this included the United Kingdom) who goes against society's expectations. This man, Winston, believes there is a brotherhood, one that is the answer—the ultimate defender—to this world. In his process of discovery, he meets a woman named Julia and uncovers more of the world than he had ever thought he could, especially about Big Brother.
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The Moonlit Road: A Collection of Short Horror Stories by William Stuart is a horror anthology. Each story has a slow build and an impactful climax.
Each story weighs heavy on meaning, and all could be unpacked a thousand-fold with new avenues of thought and ideas, but they need time.
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