As the third entry in the Elemental Witch League trilogy, The Fog raises the stakes to biblical proportions, opening with Satan and the Nephilim unleashing a supernatural “end-of-days” weapon meant to drown the world in terror and death. From there, the novel widens fast—into a globe-spanning, good-versus-evil conflict where a young “Fundamental Witch,” Susan, and her …
Veteran educator and author Margaret Stenerson announces the release of two powerful books that shine a light on the transformative power of knowledge, curiosity, and lifelong learning: My Noble Profession (Third Edition) and The Joy of Knowing: Everyday Wonders and Science Stories. Together, these titles offer a heartfelt tribute to teaching as a calling, and …
The Jesus Trail: Following in the Footsteps of Christ by Pierce Kelley is a deeply moving and contemplative novel that follows sixteen-year-old Mekhaeil Zacharias, a Coptic Christian, as he undertakes a pilgrimage from Nazareth through the Galilee to Jerusalem. Still reeling from the horrific murder of his two older brothers and nineteen other Coptic Christians …
Audio has been the mainstay of the news of late, so of the two stories to round out the week, I’ll start with the ear-related one. As the headline of this article in TechCrunch so informatively puts it, Americans now listen to podcasts more often than talk radio. The post News Summary: Americans Listen to …
As this odd, slim work opens, an unnamed narrator is contemplating the biscuit he’s preparing to eat. He gazes at its appearance, runs over in his imagination its possible delights, anticipates its joys in indulgent detail: “I studied it in the way one might study a photograph of a stranger’s face—not for beauty, but for …
In his opening story, “Come as You Are,” the author introduces readers to an early-’90s teen named Toby who finds rock idol Kurt Cobain hiding in the back of his car. They end up jamming together and eating pizza with Toby’s dad, who promptly asks Cobain about his thoughts regarding Mormonism—much to the discomfort of …
When a baby is born, the child and family exist in the moment together. No cellphones ring and no pictures are taken—the family is fully unplugged and present with each other. As friends gather, they spend time together unplugged as well. The narrative continues, observing that unplugged babies learn words they hear around them and …
In this anthology of 11 tales ranging from 5 to 15 pages each, Franz explores the lives of ordinary people who reside in and around Biloxi. They struggle with personal weaknesses, unresolved tragedies, and the persistent sense of longing that comes from the fact that Biloxi is home to the world’s “longest man-made beach,” with …
Detective Inspector William Brighton of Scotland Yard gets a possible break in his latest case when the person who allegedly kidnapped a young girl calls Brighton and asks to meet. This brings him to Zaliel, a wizard who demands to know where Brighton’s estranged mother, the author Anna Brighton, is located. Brighton has no idea, …
On this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, Dan Holloway reports on ElevenLabs’ new end-to-end audiobook creation and distribution platform aimed at indie authors. He also examines Audible’s new “Read and Listen” feature, which allows users to switch between ebook and audiobook formats, and explores what this growing format convergence could mean for author …
When Callie aces her Briarwood entrance exam (thanks in part to having studied the science journal belonging to her great-grandfather Teodore Gartzia, who worked with Nikola Tesla), her teacher accuses her of cheating and withholds her results from the contest. But when a personal invitation arrives from the camp director, her summer takes an unexpected …
Playwright Okuni ranges through Shakespeare’s oeuvre for lesser-known snippets of dialogue, which he reshapes into sonnet-like stanzas of 11 or 12 lines. The poems play very loosely on classic Shakespearean themes, prominent among them being the travails and traps of (especially royal) power. “My Crown” features lines from Henry VI, in which a furious Queen …
In this revealing and dishy memoir, Rinna leads with intense family trauma, describing the tragic losses of her beloved mother, Lois, from a stroke in 2021, as well as intimately detailing her father’s assisted suicide and her half-sister’s accidental overdose at age 21. Rinna attributes her Season 12 departure from Bravo’s Real Housewives of Beverly Hills to …