Book Review: Splinter Effect

Smithsonian archaeologist Rabbit Ward travels through time on sponsored expeditions to the past to secure precious artifacts moments before they are lost to history. Although exceptional at his job, Rabbit is not without faults. In a spectacular failure twenty years ago, he lost both the menorah of the second temple and his hot-headed mentee, Aaron. So, when new evidence reveals the menorah’s reappearance in 6th century Constantinople, Rabbit seizes the chance for redemption.

But from the moment he arrives in the past, things start to go wrong. Rabbit quickly finds out that his prime competition, an unlicensed and annoyingly appealing “stringer” named Helen, is also in Constantinople hunting the menorah. And that’s only the beginning. The oppressed Jewish population of the city is primed for revolution, Constantinople’s leading gang seems to have it out for Rabbit personally, and someone local is interested enough in the menorah to kill for it.

Book Review: Dear Writer

Drawing from her twenty years of teaching experience and her bestselling Substack newsletter, For Dear Life, Maggie Smith breaks down creativity into ten essential elements: attention, wonder, vision, play, surprise, vulnerability, restlessness, tenacity, connection, and hope. Each element is explored through short, inspiring, and craft-focused essays, followed by generative writing prompts. Dear Writer provides tools that artists of all experience levels can apply to their own creative practices and carry with them into all genres and all areas of life.

Dear Writer: Pep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life by Maggie Smith will be published April 1, 2025. Atria Books provided an early galley for review.

Book Review: Murder by Cheesecake

Things are heating up, and not just because of Blanche’s hot flashes. Rose’s cousin is eloping to Miami, and Rose is playing host. If she can't balance the groom’s family’s snobbery against the traditional St. Olaf wedding week guidelines, her hometown may never accept her cousin again! Dorothy quickly realizes she needs a date with whom she can exchange wedding-related wisecracks. Turning to a newfangled VHS dating service, she believes she’s found the ideal conversationalist. Unfortunately, what looks good on TV can actually be a total jerk in real life. It seems she’ll just have to enjoy the company of Sophia, Blanche, and whomever Blanche has targeted for a hookup.

Book Review: The Permanent Holdout

Known for albums like Late for the Sky, The Pretender, and Running on Empty, Jackson Browne was a master of capturing the counterculture ethos of the 1960s. Cornel Bonca dives deeply into his music, his long fifty-year career, and activism—including environmentalism—within the context of American life, revealing a figure still fueled by certain American ideals like justice, freedom, and equality for all.

Browne grew up in Southern California in the early 1960s, greatly influenced by his mother’s progressive politics, the music of Bob Dylan and the speeches of Martin Luther King. Then, drawn to the Laurel Canyon rock scene, he moved to Los Angeles and established himself as a songwriter for The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, and many others, becoming a fixture of the singer-songwriter movement in the early 1970s. His music in the 1980s was largely political in scope, critiquing America’s conservative turn, its militarism in Central America, its nuclear brinksmanship with the Soviet Union, and its dismantling of Great Society social programs. He only returned to the personal music his fans treasured in 1993 with I’m Alive.

Book Review: Lying Next to Me

Adam and Sophie Warner and their three-year-old daughter are vacationing in Washington State’s Hood Canal for Memorial Day weekend. It’s the perfect getaway to relax—and to calm an uneasy marriage. But on Adam’s first day out on the water, he sees Sophie abducted by a stranger. A hundred yards from shore, Adam can’t save her. And Sophie disappears.

In a nearby cabin is another couple, Kristen and Connor Moss. Unfortunately, beyond what they’ve heard in the news, they’re in the dark when it comes to Sophie’s disappearance. For Adam, at least there’s comfort in knowing that Mason County detective Lee Husemann is an old friend of his. She’ll do everything she can to help. She must.

But as Adam’s paranoia about his missing wife escalates, Lee puts together the pieces of a puzzle. The lives of the two couples are converging in unpredictable ways, and the picture is unsettling. Lee suspects that not everyone is telling the truth about what they know—or they have yet to reveal all the lies they’ve hidden from the strangers they married.

Book Review: New Rock New Realm

Shortly after surviving, against overwhelming odds, their epic quest in first book, battlemage Daxx and his crew (dual-wielding sword-dancer Qrysta, heavily-armed Orc Grell and sneakthief Oller, with his mutt companion Little Guy) are off on their next adventure. A mysterious ghost ship arrives, carrying a cryptic message for them. Setting sail full of good intentions, they are soon embroiled in the eternal struggle between the forces of good and the forces of evil. If they are to find a way out of an impossible situation, each must complete a separate mission in a realm where nowhere is safe for them.

New Rock, New Realm by Richard Sparks is the sequel to New Rock, New Role. It was published on November 26, 2024 by CAEZIK SF and Fantasy.

Book Review: The Third Rule of Time Travel

Scientist Beth Darlow has discovered the unimaginable. She's built a machine that allows human consciousness to travel through time, to any point in the traveler's lifetime, and relive moments of their life. An impossible breakthrough, but it's not perfect: the traveler has no way to interact with the past. They can only observe.

After Beth's husband, Colson, the co-creator of the machine, dies in a tragic car accident, Beth is left to raise Isabella, their only daughter, and continue the work they started. Mired in grief and threatened by her ruthless CEO, Beth pushes herself to the limit to prove the value of her technology.

Then the impossible happens. Simply viewing personal history should not alter the present, but with each new observation she makes, her own timeline begins to warp. As her reality constantly shifts, Beth must solve the puzzles of her past, even if it means forsaking her future.