Book Review: Blue Fire

Julianna has this glow about her, an iridescence in her blue eyes that shimmers, as if the ocean caught fire. Blue fire. Elijah cannot look away and finds himself drawn to her with an uncontrollable, and unreciprocated longing. He tries to forget her, but as if the universe is playing a cruel trick on him, Elijah keeps running into the love of his life. The only problem is, she belongs to someone else. As their paths become more and more intertwined, Elijah must fight to control his obsession, walking a fine line between stalker and friend. Fantasies morph into nightmares when Elijah realizes that the only thing more painful than simultaneously burning and drowning in blue fire is to extinguish the flame.

Book Review: Azygos

With two distinct paths, "Azygos" follows Marlowe's and Sloan's interweaving stories. Sloan and his family have been tracking his mother's killer for as long as he can remember. As time passes with no answers or closure, the resentment and hatred in his family grows to a breaking point. Marlowe and her family must return home to Portland after she recklessly commits a grave mistake while hunting. Her guilt and their judgment only intensify, but upon a chance meeting between the two, things begin to change. Finding comfort and warmth within each other, they forge a connection. But as people are murdered and secrets are told, their bond agonizingly twists towards its final challenge. With their lives colliding, the solace they find within each other may only be a disguise for their darkest nightmares.

Book Review: Silverskin

When Ellie Forth sets out to have a great Alaskan adventure with her remaining family members, she’s got something to prove—and not to them, but to herself. Four years after the unexpected death of her mother and sister, she’s ready to re-embrace her adventurous side.

Oliver Cole’s life, on the other hand, is very simple: go to work, catch fish, come home, and stash every penny earned into his bank account so he can afford to pay for college. But his life is turned upside down when Ellie and her brother—two nearly-forgotten acquaintances from his childhood—burst back into his life.

After a horrific encounter with the supernatural deep in the Kenai Peninsula, Ellie and Oliver must team up to discover the truth about what happened in Portlock, and how to fight a rising tide of evil that has the power to envelop not just Alaska, but the entire world.

Book Review: Well of Shadows

Alden Bramblethorn’s job at The Whispering Willow is wearing on him. But it’s not just that. His family is broken, and he has no living relatives. Lonely, he seeks answers from the GoldenRoot Ancestral Repository. It doesn’t take long for him to strike gold. There, he finds an ancient letter with a deed to Starshine Farm—a chance to leave everything behind, make real connections, and start over. And, besides, he’s a [Level 4] Chloromancer. Plants love him. Farming can’t be that difficult. Right? Well, turns out, it can. Especially when the property was abandoned one hundred years ago. Which begs the question: Why did his ancestor, Balthazar Wildewood, leave the farm behind and disappear? The people of Twilight Haven don’t know. Most are scared of the property, and don’t want anything to do with it. But all that changes when Alden grabs a shovel, and starts digging away.

Book Review: The Path of Celestial Thunder

In a world of power, Jasmine is the outcast.

No matter how long she meditates, breathing in the vital aura of the world, her soul refuses to cultivate. Her betters say the Heavens forbid it, but Jasmine isn’t so sure. She can’t be destined to live the quiet life of a nun. She is tired of being pushed around and watching others treat her friends like trash. She’ll do anything, even break the peace of the valley, to fix her condition and protect those she loves.

Meanwhile, Ti'Lee is trapped by tradition. His father expects him to become an imperial scholar, but his true passion lies in spiritsmithing—a career that would blacken his family’s name. As the entrance exam for the School of Rising Sun approaches, Ti'Lee must make a choice that will change his destiny forever.

Little do Jasmine and Ti'Lee know, their fates are intertwined, and the choices they make will alter the course of their ever-dying world—a world their Emperor spent centuries building. And he’s not about to let them ruin it.

Book Review: Moon & Shadow

Moon & Shadow is the first book in The Channeler Trilogy. A finalist in the 2021 Best Book Awards and a second place winner in the 2021 Purple Dragonfly Book Awards, J. Steven Lamperti’s Moon & Shadow is an enchanting fantasy with sweet romance, quirky characters, and engaging humor.

Book Review: Merchants of Knowledge and Magic

On one of the many planes of the Pentagonal Dominion, priestess Calinthe trades in information, collecting valuable secrets for her demonic employer. Calinthe has a secret of her own: she's intersex, making her a target for the matriarchal slavers of the Ophidian Plane whose territory she must cross in her search for hidden knowledge. But thanks to her friend Zakuro's illusions, Calinthe presents as a woman—a comfortable, if furtive, existence in a world determined to bring her to heel.

But when, instead of a mere secret, the priestess uncovers an incalculably powerful artifact, Calinthe finds herself in a high-stakes negotiation with the same matriarchs who sought to enslave her. On the table: Calinthe's discovery, a charm powerful enough to transform a mortal into a god… against a secret so deadly it could quell all life on every plane of the dominion. If Calinthe plays her cards perfectly, she and Zakuro could escape Ophidia wealthier than either of them ever dreamed possible.

But if she plays them wrong… she'll learn slavery in her pursuers' hands is a fate far worse than death.

Book Review: Bloody Spade

A girl full of heart
A thief touched by darkness
A hot-tempered golden boy
An unwitting servant of evil

The era of magic was once thought to be a myth, but after the Reemergence ushered forces both dark and light into the mundane world, it has since become a harsh reality. Now those affected by this strange power—a specialized group of Empowered called Jokers, known collectively as Cardplay—must protect their world from the darkness that threatens to consume it, all the while fighting for equality in a society clinging to normalcy.

But the Reemergence was only the beginning.

When another influx occurs on the seventh anniversary of that fateful event, an unfortunate encounter at ground zero lands Iori Ryone, a teenage boy in possession of a corrupt and legendary magic, in the care of recent Joker graduate Ellen Amelia Jane. From him, she learns the Reemergence may not have been the inevitable natural disaster it first seemed.

Someone is trying to tear down the barrier that separates the magical realms from the mundane. The question is why, and can Cardplay stop them before it’s too late?

Book Review: The Outlands

In the ruins of the world that was lies the city of Dios, a haven protected from the hostile environment known as The Outlands. Ruled by an oppressive Patriarch, the people of Dios are conditioned in fear. The smallest infraction could result in banishment to the Outlands, a fate worse than death. With his make-shift family of “Undesirables”, Jett Lasting struggles to find his place in a world where drawing attention to yourself can get you killed. His very existence is considered a crime. To survive, he must avoid guards, beggar gangs, and an ever-growing tension that could drag the whole city into chaos. Jett unwittingly becomes entwined in a plot to overthrow the government where his choices could lead to freedom or the death of everyone he’s ever known or cared about.

Book Review: What Was Your Name Downriver?

THE WITCHER MEETS TRUE GRIT

Evaline Cartwright, a world-weary bounty hunter, and runaway Trivan Esterhazy are newly-met on a riverboat while fleeing the violence of the gold fields, eager for a return to civilization. But the frontier isn't done with them yet.

Beset by the foul magicks of a rogue mage and the schemes of mutinous passengers, the women will have to navigate hostile country together, using wits and weaponry both, to have any chance of reaching their destination alive.