96 posts
Since the World Science Fiction Convention in New York City in 1939, when the first superhero costume was displayed and worn, cosplay has grown in participation and popularity, becoming more mainstrea...
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I love noodles, and I especially love soup noodles, so when I saw an opportunity to review Slurp by Dennis Yen, I had to try it. Slurp offers noodle lovers recipes that will elevate their noodles. I l...
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In the pursuit of building successful startups, entrepreneurs and founders often fixate on achieving the elusive product-market fit. However, Hanna's groundbreaking book, Pivoting as a Way of Life, sh...
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“This is the most comprehensive entrepreneur-focused book on the market today. Whether you’re starting a new business or refreshing an established one, The Start of All Things Good has ideas that will...
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The Magician’s Daughter is a delightful coming of age memoir that is as tender as it is entertaining. Lee Grabel, an aging former professional magician, has decided to come out of retirement. After le...
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Calling all manga fans! In this cute and charming book, you’ll learn the essentials of how to draw adorable manga characters. The book includes instructions on how to draw basic features such as hair,...
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Meet Sophie, a dog who wants to live a life where everything is all about her. However, her owner has two evil pet cats and a baby named Doug. And now there’s a new surprise! Sophie’s owner is now ado...
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Sharing a meal not only nourishes the body, it also builds bonds. This story is unique in that it highlights sharing an everyday meal can also build family and community bonds (independent of a celebr...
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Wei used to have a dream and passion for lion dancing. Ever since his father passed away, all of his hopes are slipping away, especially his best friend Hung. Years pass, and Wei decides to join a new...
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"The Fall by Brian Penn explores themes of identity, freedom, and resilience, set against a vividly depicted dystopian backdrop. With intricate character development and an immersive storyline, it dra...
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"Healing from trauma requires the resolve to face the tangled and tortuous roots of ancestral trauma. For Asian Americans and other racialized minorities, this requires the resolve to understand the h...
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Everyone's favorite nihilistic, alcoholic, mega-genius scientist and his grandson are back in Rick and Morty Presents Volume 6. This graphic novel features three new madcap adventures featuring Rick, ...
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"Equal parts chilling, haunting, and wistful. Sharon Mikeworth writes a different style of ghost story. And just like her haunted house, one doesn’t know whether to be at ease or afraid. This is a sto...
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“Funny, awkward, and ultimately realistic, Kissing Frogs is a memoir-like story that will have readers relating to it. As the main character, Annabelle, works her way through high school, college, and...
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An action-packed and intrigue-laden thriller, Marc Schiffman’s Hills of Cotabato offers a cerebral exploration of the burdens of duty, the limits of loyalty, and the socio-political machinations in a ...
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“An introverted cuttlefish scientist wonders where her life is going in Author Chelsea Britain’s Cuttle. Readers will love the animal facts strewn throughout the story that parallel the main character...
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Andrew King has the solemn and unenviable task of burying his daughter Olivia. His sorrow becomes anger once Olivia’s beau arrives and blames Olivia’s death on a rumored witch named Sadie Grace. Their...
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“Full of brilliant imagery and poetic prose, Oil & Water is intriguing and beautiful. It follows a young woman as she embarks on adventures across the globe, experiencing exotic creatures, rich cuisin...
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This is an extraordinary book since it features the poetry of enslaved people dating back to 1837. The poem “The Slave’s Complaint” is resonant with the suffering which was endured by them. It is more...
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“Young readers and listeners will love this story about finding your true self and loving that self. With bright, colorful illustrations, Cake, Lemonade, and Sprinkles will be sure to spark the imagin...
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From the moment they meet, Ginny and LeeLee are all but destined to become best friends. It isn’t simply the connection felt by so many teenage girls; it is intense but essentially intangible. The two...
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The collection of short stories titled My Father Called Us Monkeys is a touching and moving read. Amid the backdrop of the massive societal shifts in America punctuated by the Vietnam War, the Civil R...
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"Enlivening and perceptive, the works by Verna Hall Linzey collected in Pearls of Gold both gladden the heart and prompt reflection on what is truly important in life. From an evocative account of a y...
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Our Own Westside Love Story by Anthony R. Balista is a remarkable account of a wonderful love journey that transformed the lives of the people involved. Anthony looks back at the amazing years he shar...
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In Joanna Hardis' thought-provoking book, Just Do Nothing, readers are taken on a journey of self-discovery and introspection. With her unique perspective and insightful storytelling, Hardis challenge...
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About the Book: A decade ago, it had been unthinkable when Joe Turner's life-long friend, Owen Prescott, was charged with a grisly murder. Then Owen disappeared, leaving behind a brilliant career and ...
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It’s springtime in the Arctic, and the winter’s deep freeze is beginning to thaw. A mother polar bear and her still-young cubs set off for the arduous journey north. She is starved, eager for that fir...
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Erin Mylroie has brought us 101 Greatest Soups on the Planet. There are broths, stews, creamy soups, cold soups, and recipes from around the world. Most recipes contain a beautiful photo of the finish...
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The Piano Bench is the story of Josef Samson, a Jewish man born in Germany in the late 1800s who saw both world wars. During that time, he takes up relationships with three different women, abandoning...
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When you pick up a book published by Baen, you generally know that it is going to be a very hard science fiction tale, with a lot of action and description of various high-tech gear, and that is true ...
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War is coming. Ashdon LaGoryen has spent many centuries living out of public view and far from his violent past. He can no longer ignore the ancient prophecies. But his bloodline and his status as hea...
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It Rides a Pale Horse is a bizarre thrill ride from beginning to end. Captivatingly surreal and, at times, grotesquely descriptive, this book is not for readers averse to gore in their horror. Lark is...
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In 1924, the lives of three women intersect. Bea and Alice have known one another for years and come to New York from New Orleans to open a dress shop together, but their relationship will change dras...
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Briata Catullus, one of the infamous Golden Eagles, is fated to seize the crown from a sovereign. Or so says the notorious prophecy that has haunted her entire existence. Banished from the Western Cou...
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Priscilla Tempest, an attractive Canadian twenty-something, is head of the press office at The Savoy, London’s most prestigious hotel. Her penchant for landing in the bad books of the hotel’s snobbish...
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Author Sarah Strohmeyer spins a breezy tale with cinematic scenes of Vermont in Autumn. A local couple has been chosen for an online show, To the Manor Build (TMB), along with two other couples elsewh...
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An Astronomer in Love is a tale about Guillaume Le Gentil, an astronomer to King Louis XV, who set out from France in 1760 to see the transit of Venus across the world in Pondicherry, India. It’s inte...
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Lucius, a soldier in Rome, wonders why he is being reassigned to a troubled region of the empire since he thought Rome would be his final station because of his advanced age. Another reason he feels u...
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Hidden deep in the woods is a house, and in this house lives a family: Gio an inventor android, a sadistic nurse, a vacuum, and Victor a human. When Victor finds an android discarded and damaged, with...
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Some people shudder at the thought of an insect but this colorfully illustrated book introduces the young reader to the truly amazing world of the insect. Think about fireflies, butterflies, moths, be...
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Having heard so much about Brandon Sanderson’s previous works and being a huge fantasy nerd myself, I was really excited to read Tress of the Emerald Sea. While honestly not the worst fantasy novel I’...
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Epic Animal Journeys follows several different animals on their migration journeys across the Earth. This book covers air, land, and sea migrations, as well as the mysterious happenings of how animals...
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Sprout is a curious little houseplant that believes there has got to be more than just life on the front porch. Finally, when she decides to explore the world around her, it is nothing like she though...
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Have you ever thought about where your Easter egg comes from? The journey it made before you picked it up from the grocery store and brought it to your house to color for a hide and seek celebration. ...
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A team of CIA agents must go undercover in East Berlin to smuggle out a Soviet defector. Based on real events, Operation Blackbird is a fast-paced spy story, one that wouldn’t feel out of place in a m...
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Although the classic Pride and Prejudice has had many remakes throughout the last century, this novel is truly refreshing. This modern re-telling is clever, fun, and one of the best reads of the year....
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The Big Bundle opens with nonagenarian Nate Heller, setting down his account of one of the most infamous crimes of the 1950s. Nate, then in his hard-boiled, private-eye prime, was called in to help a ...
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In a critical and historical account of the formation and legacy of international labor movements, Nicolas Delalande explores the hard-fought struggle to strengthen labor movements across trades, lang...
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The North Star examines the complicated and often forgotten position Canada held during the American Civil War. It follows the story of some ordinary Canadians and Americans who found themselves on di...
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You Shouldn’t Have Come Here is what everyone keeps telling Grace Evans after checking into her Airbnb. Everyone except Calvin Wells, the owner of the ranch she’s staying at. There is an immediate con...
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Kate is drawn to Yorkshire by a letter sent to her by a stranger named Ronnie that requests her visit a rumored cursed mansion. She doesn’t believe in curses but what she finds when she arrives threat...
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Matt Potter was given unauthorized access to NATO’s involvement in the unrest in Kosovo. The information he received provided a counterpoint to the mainstream narrative about NATO’s objectives and act...
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Two As One Forever: A Better You, A Better Marriage is a compilation of marriage tips and advice from a Christian perspective. With words of wisdom, certified marriage coach Beverly V. Thomas offers e...
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Tyis is astonished to find the homeless man who advised her to come to the US in the US, especially since the concept of a poor man affording a plane ticket seems strange. Back in Brazil, the same man...
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Extreme Vetting by Roxana Arama was a fantastic thriller. Its main character, Laura Holban, is a strong, single mother and immigration attorney. To say Holban is busy would be an understatement. Juggl...
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The body of horse owner Johnny O’Reilly is found on a beach in County Derry. There are no tracks around the body, only a vial that once contained euthanasia medication used by veterinarians and sixty-...
Read more →Story Summary: She is a rebel. Lilla is fighting for the refugees's freedom from oppression. The king, her father, lost touch with reality ever since Lilla's mother died. Now everyone else is paying t...
Read more →Book Summary: In The Parlay Effect: How Female Connection Can Change the World, Anne Devereux-Mills uses her insights as Founder of Parlay House to show how small actions can create a cascade of posit...
Read more →Book Summary: A Monster Escapes is a character driven horror story that explores all the shades of gray in life. When a demon strikes the small town of Brettville there is only one woman to call. Jane...
Read more →Book Summary: In WHEN WE WERE BRAVE, we find a conflicted SS officer, Wilhelm Falk, who risks everything to escape the Wehrmacht and get out the message about the death camps. Izaak is a young Jewish ...
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Gift Guide Book Suggestion #6 Book Summary: Join endangered and misunderstood AYE-AYE on his quest to win back the hearts of the people of Madagascar after his mischievous pranks get him banned from h...
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Gift Guide Book Suggestion #5 Book Summary: By turns thoughtful and hilarious (even, inexplicably, both at the same time), this deeply Midwestern book quietly unfolds a vision for how to navigate in a...
Read more →Gift Guide Book Suggestion #4 Book Summary: Success is not reserved for the smartest or most talented—it’s earned by those who want it the most. Heart conquers all and the triumphant always go all in,...
Read more →Gift Guide Book Suggestion #4 Book Summary “There were little sins and big sins, and if you committed too many little sins you were more likely to go on to the big ones. Some sins you did in your mind...
Read more →Gift Guide Book Suggestion #2 Book Summary: Gravedigger Volke Savan wants nothing more than to be like his hero, the legendary magical swashbuckler, Gregory Ruma. First he needs to become an arcanist,...
Read more →Gift Guide Book Suggestion #1 Know a baseball or sports fan in your life? The Baseball by James Flerlage might be the perfect gift. Book Summary: Landon Myers is a retired pediatric oncologist who spe...
Read more →Book Summary: A book of 366 mantras or affirmations to raise and encourage the self-esteem and self-belief of children (plus adults), told through the eyes of young siblings Hao Finley Lee and Sabine ...
Read more →Book Summary: After immersing themselves in mantras in I AM Manifesto, young siblings Hao Finley and Sabine Yi Lee are on their journey of seeking knowledge from around the world. In Humongous (& Cool...
Read more →Book Summary: With the snow falling fast on a New Hampshire mansion, seven 20-somethings gather for a weekend that will change their lives irrevocably. The extravagant trip to celebrate Will and Jessi...
Read more →Book Summary: Amateur journalist Greg travels to a remote mountain area to investigate rumors of a sinister building only to find himself imprisoned there. As he tries to escape, he evinces symptoms o...
Read more →Book Summary: In 1947 racially-charged Mills Hollow, South Carolina, Chloe Mason knows not to go near the Negroes who live in the river shacks, especially sixteen-year-old Big Jim. He’s something of a...
Read more →Book Summary: Moonlighting as Death’s earth-bound envoy, P.I. Bellamy Vale specializes in the weird, wacky, and slightly unhinged. When a mysterious beast savagely mauls random residents of Cold City,...
Read more →Readers enamored with the Salem witch trials or novels of women forging their own way against all odds will love the latest offering from Hester Fox. The Witch of Willow Hall is equal parts ghost, lov...
Read more →Book Summary: A psychopath with mother issues. A policeman with his career on the line. A beautiful agent with unclear allegiances. And an ancient organisation guarding a secret that could get them al...
Read more →Book Summary Anna is a striking and spirited young girl living in ancient Palestine where being a daughter is a disappointment. While her father excitedly anticipates the birth of his first son, the i...
Read more →Story Summary LAST SONG AND DANCE is an illustrated novel which tells the grim story of Cy Sullivan, failed alcoholic author who has returned to his hometown after years of scandal and disgrace, not i...
Read more →Book Summary What does it take to win a Nobel Prize? Deceit, fraud, even murder? Set in the competitive world of cutting-edge medical research, The Prize is a science thriller in which jealousy over t...
Read more →Summary: A Police Action is a gripping coming-of-age Vietnam War-era romantic novel. It is the story of two lost and confused young adults. It is love at first sight when nineteen-year-old Samantha Po...
Read more →Story Summary: The essence and meaning of transcendent love between two people—the kernel of human existence—is often found in the crucible of war. Such was the love between Bosko, a Serbian boy, and ...
Read more →Becoming by Fouad Azim Story Summary This is a story of blooming love and betrayal, about children coming of age, of conscience and the sociopaths who lack it; it is a story about trust and how true l...
Read more →Sonnets Walking the Great Divide by Cecil Welles Book Summary This book represents a sample of the author's thought clarification. Somber, crazy, joyful, or eclectic in subjects, the sonnet format pro...
Read more →Book Summary In 2005, I was arrested by agents from both the US Postal Service and the Food and Drug Administration for the importation of illegal human growth hormone and botulinum toxin (Botox) from...
Read more →Clockwork Strange: Into The Whirlwind by Dale McInnes Story Summary: A North American novel inspired by Karel Zeman's 1955 children's classic tale Cesta Do Praveku Our first novel begins in 1943 with ...
Read more →Story summary: Lucia Zárate is based on the poignant, real-life odyssey of the world's smallest woman. Pretty and gregarious, Lucia Zárate was just twenty inches tall. A celebrity after her 'display' ...
Read more →Story Summary: Unsung heroes and murderous villains, hidden forever in ancient shadows, now leap to life - blazing onto the pages of revelation. Gideon, a lowly woodcutter, is blessed by an angel to b...
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Story Summary: What happens when a troubled young woman dares to follow the stirrings of her soul in turbulent times? Elmina begins life with a troubled childhood in a medieval French town-a childhood...
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5 Stars From San Francisco Book Review - https://sanfranciscobookreview.com/product/she-came-from-afar/ Each family is different, and this is especially true for families who have adopted children. No...
Read more →Story Summary: We all know a Paul. A person who seems to see stuff that isn’t there. The type the polite call quirky and the blunt call nuts. Conspiracies? He’s got a few. He’s got his finger on how t...
Read more →Book Summary Do you think of yourself as a leader? Leadership starts with a mindset, not a title. Leaders influence. They share keen insight. They command respect without demanding it. Leaders inspire...
Read more →Story Summary: Dan "Tito" Davis comes from a town in South Dakota that's so small everyone knows their neighbor's cat's name. But once he got out, he made some noise. While at the University of Nevada...
Read more →Harold Hardscrabble, by G. D. Dess, captures the feelings of frustration and helplessness that many of us experience in our daily lives. These sentiments are embodied in the contemplative, quietly cha...
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Story Summary: The Hunter: Awakening, is the first of a series of novels that will explore the nature of good and evil and the question of redemption: Is it available to those who have perpetrated gre...
Read more →Story Summary "This thrilling book delivers a violent tale that is ultimately as surprising as it is gruesome." Kirkus Review Sayer didn't expect his life to go any further than wherever his wealthy c...
Read more →Reviewed by the San Francisco Book Review, getting 5 stars From the review: The story of Alfonso “Fonso” Gravanese has all the elements needed to be a classic tale of American crime, and it spins out ...
Read more →Hunger Saint is about Ntoni, a twelve-year-old boy forced to labor in Sicily's sulfur mines to support his family after his father's untimely death. These child laborers were called carusu or "mine-bo...
Read more →The Device Trial got a 5 star review from San Francisco Book Review here - http://sanfranciscobookreview.com/product/the-device-trial/ From the review: The Device Trial, by Tom Breen, takes readers in...
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