Indie Book Reviews and Recommendations
Every new romance has its ups and downs... Its bumps in the road... Its blackmail notes... A misunderstanding ties the fates of three men together in this heartfelt, sensual, and uproarious romantic puzzle. Blackmailer's Delight is a tale of lives tossed into the air, then reassembled in some rather unexpected ways.
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.
Arguing that we have become culturally obsessed with healing trauma, Sexuality Beyond Consent calls attention to what traumatized subjects do with their pain. The erotics of racism offers a paradigmatic example of how what is proximal to violation may become an unexpected site of flourishing. Central to the transformational possibilities of trauma is a queer form of consent, limit consent, that is not about guarding the self but about risking experience. Saketopoulou thereby shows why sexualities beyond consent may be worth risking-and how risk can solicit the future. Moving between clinical and cultural case studies, Saketopoulou takes up theatrical and cinematic works such as Slave Play and The Night Porter, to chart how trauma and sexuality join forces to surge through the aesthetic domain. Putting the psychoanalytic theory of Jean Laplanche in conversation with queer of color critique, performance studies, and philosophy, Sexuality Beyond Consent proposes that enduring the strange in ourselves, not to master trauma but to rub up against it, can open us up to encounters with opacity. The book concludes by theorizing currents of sadism that, when pursued ethically, can animate unique forms of interpersonal and social care.
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.
It’s the summer of 1977 and a suffocating heatwave has enveloped New York City. On the brink of financial ruin due to an ongoing fiscal crisis, and with a crumbling infrastructure stretching public resources to their breaking point, the city is on the precipice of catastrophe. Organized crime syndicates, gangs, and outlaws rule a city overrun by crime, poverty, and violence.
Socialite Carolina Lynch has been kidnapped by one of these gangs and is being held for ransom in one of the five boroughs. Former Force Recon Marine and Vietnam War veteran Vicente “Vic” Espada is working as a Fugitive Apprehension Agent for a failing bail bonds company and living check to check without very many options. But when Vic’s friend and former Force Recon sergeant Oran Burke approaches him with a job offer to find Carolina and lead Oran’s team of highly trained operatives to her location, Vic thinks his luck is changing for the better.
But things don’t go as planned and with New York City plunged into darkness by a citywide blackout, Vic and Carolina find themselves alone and on the run from her violent kidnappers and their homicidal leader. Through an urban nightmare filled with marauders and psychopaths, Vic and Carolina must make their way to safety while trying to survive one night in Fear City.
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.
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.
The past can be a difficult thing to escape... Decommissioner Thirty-Seven is not the most conventional decommissioner at the Ministry of Divinities, but she takes her role of helping fading gods to retire seriously-and feels bad when things go wrong. Take the decommissioning of Laloran-morna, former god of warm ocean waves: she botched that, somehow, and now he spurts saltwater when upset. When seawater invades a development project in Laloran-morna's old haunts, suspicion naturally falls on him. But is the retired god the source of the problem? Or is it the work of a mortal saboteur? Searching for the answer to these questions brings Thirty-Seven face-to-face with a past she'd rather forget.
The Swan is not as innocent as she appears...
Doubts and fears of her own making have kept April a prisoner of her mind for far too long. Her promising ballet career was halted after a violent attack, forcing her into a rehabilitation facility to cope with her crushing emotional pain. Now, eager for a fresh start, she battles to hide her daily struggles under an ill-fitting mask of control.
Until she meets William.
Older.
Mysterious.
Dangerous.
Underneath his intoxicating guidance, April explores exquisite freedoms that unlock a powerful side of herself she never knew existed. But the handsome billionaire has a dark side of his own, and may not be the modern-day prince the world believes him to be. Plagued by labels of both good and evil, will he be her salvation?
Or her ultimate undoing?
Welcome to the Enlightened States of America. WARNING! All illegals, outcasts and mutts will be turned away. Any who attempt to illegally cross our border, whether entering or exiting, will be shot on sight. The United States is gone, overthrown by a corporation known only as “the Orange.” Candor is an outcast, surviving on the outskirts of a society that has devolved into corporate tyranny. When an unexplainable entity assassinates all of the high-ranking federal officials, the struggling country is thrown deeper into a fervor of chaos. Candor comes forward to help and during the course of a government interview, he tells his story about his relationship with Banshee, an outcast like himself with some serious rage issues and some seriously strange abilities. While it is clear that Candor loves Banshee it becomes apparent that his love will never be enough to contain her.
The Book Dragon 
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