Tag: Book Review Blog

Visiting by Polly Walker Blakemore

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Synopsis:

When Polly Walker Blakemore’s mother entered hospice with dementia and depression, Blakemore realized their time together would be dwindling. A lifelong diarist, Blakemore also understood she had a chance to record the small, ordinary moments that knit a family and a home together—just as she had when her mother’s mother approached the end of her life 30 years earlier.

Expecting only a few months with her mother, Blakemore visited her as often as she could. They watched The Pioneer Woman and vet shows, debated the best burgers in town, shuffled between the TV room and the sunroom, counted pills and changed diapers, and wondered whether being ready for God might be as simple as the Barefoot Contessa’s 1-2-3 recipe for roasted root vegetables. Nothing much—and yet everything—because presence was the point.

Those months stretched into two and a half years, and Visiting is Blakemore’s intimate, wry, and clear-eyed account of that time—a portrait of a mother, a daughter, and the cadre of caregivers who accompanied them through a slow but certain decline. Rich in domestic detail and emotional truth, Visiting captures the bewilderment, tedium, absurdity, poignancy, urgency, and unexpected grace notes of end-of-life care.

With vivid, keenly observed prose, Blakemore illuminates what it means to be present with someone whose light is fragmenting and fading—and why such days, small as they seem, become the ones we value most.

Favorite Lines:

“As the sun sets, so does Mom.”

“All that matters is where I am now, not how I got here.”

“One part of my world came to a close while the rest of it continued as if nothing had changed.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Visiting is one of those books that feels deceptively simple at first. The structure is diary-like, moving day by day through the Blakemore’s visits with her mother during hospice care in 2018, but the emotional weight sneaks up on you gradually. There is no dramatic attempt to manufacture sentimentality here. Instead, the book lives in tiny observations, routines, irritations, jokes, snacks, cigarettes, television shows, diaper changes, and conversations that loop between lucid and surreal. It ends up capturing something about caregiving and anticipatory grief that feels painfully honest.

What struck me most was how grounded the writing feels. Blakemore doesn’t romanticize dying, and she doesn’t turn her mother into a saintly figure. Her mother is sharp, funny, stubborn, demanding, critical, affectionate, exhausted, confused, and still deeply herself all at once. Some of the best moments come from the small exchanges between them. The mother complaining about “that voice,” obsessing over food, wanting cigarettes, talking about mashed potatoes “just heaven,” or proudly staying up all night eating carrot cake and ice cream with Rhonda somehow become both funny and heartbreaking at the same time.

I also appreciated how the book acknowledges the strange practical side of death that people often do not talk about openly. There are scenes about fixing loose door handles, worrying about smoke smells in jackets, sorting medications, considering who will inherit furniture, picking out a casket, and organizing hospice logistics. One paragraph in particular about mentally cataloging household items while sitting beside her dying mother felt brutally real because it captures the guilt and weirdness of thinking about ordinary material things while someone you love is fading away.

The shorter paragraph style works very well for this kind of memoir because it mirrors the fragmented rhythm of caregiving itself. Some days are repetitive, some days are chaotic, some days are unexpectedly peaceful. The entries slowly build emotional momentum without ever becoming melodramatic. The humor also helps enormously. There are genuinely funny moments scattered throughout the book, especially in the mother’s blunt observations and stubborn personality. The scenes involving fast food runs, lottery tickets, Judge Judy, and endless snacks give the book warmth and personality rather than making it feel overwhelmingly bleak.

What really stayed with me after finishing the book was its tenderness. Not perfect tenderness, but lived-in tenderness. Blakemore openly admits that there were years she did not want to be around her mother and that she cannot fully explain why. That honesty gives the relationship more depth because it never feels artificially polished. The caregiving here is tiring and repetitive and messy, but it is also full of intimacy. The repeated back rubs, helping her move room to room, listening to the same stories multiple times, or simply sitting together watching television become acts of love.

Summary:

Overall, Visiting is a quiet but emotionally powerful memoir about caregiving, family history, aging, and the slow process of saying goodbye. It does not rely on dramatic revelations or flashy writing styles. Instead, it succeeds through observation, honesty, humor, and accumulation of detail. Readers who have cared for aging parents or watched a loved one decline will probably recognize parts of themselves in these pages immediately.

Check out Visiting here!

 

Monthly Features – May 2026

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A Moment’s Surrender by John Burt

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: A Moment’s Surrender follows freshman writing instructor Paul Bishop in the aftermath of the murder of his former best friend, the renowned poet Tom Corbin. Haunted by guilt and bound by a devastating secret, Paul takes it upon himself to care for Tom’s terminally ill widow, Susan. But the truth he withholds — that Tom had planned to leave Susan for another woman, Paul’s own long-ago lover Rachel Lake — draws Paul into a painful triangle of loyalty, betrayal, and unresolved desire. Caught between the two women, Paul must navigate a web of grief and deception that threatens to undo them all.

Summary: Overall, I thought A Moment’s Surrender was ambitious, thoughtful literary fiction that trusts its readers to sit with discomfort instead of racing toward easy catharsis. It’s a novel about failed courage, unresolved longing, self-deception, and the stories people construct to make their lives bearable. More than the murder itself, what lingered with me afterward was the sadness of watching people recognize exactly what is broken inside themselves while still remaining unable to change. This will probably work best for readers who enjoy psychologically dense literary fiction, emotionally complicated relationship dynamics, and novels deeply interested in art, memory, morality, and the gap between who people want to be and who they actually are. 

See the full review here: A Moment’s Surrender
Purchase here

 

At Death’s Door by Allen Rebot

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: One wrong turn. Seven locked doors. No way out.

When Kayla wakes up in a silent, snow-covered forest void of all life, her only sanctuary is a mysterious, pristine manor nestled among the trees. Inside, the coffee is hot and the decor is lavish, but the inhabitant is nowhere to be found. The only thing more unsettling than the silence is the hallway of doors, each etched with the image of a different beast.

At the end of the hall stands the “Gnarled Door,” a mass of intertwined roots that refuses to budge.

When Kayla finds a silver skeleton key, she inadvertently begins a descent into a series of waking nightmares. Each door she unlocks transports her into a twisted reality born from her own deepest fears: a claustrophobic dollhouse guarded by a predatory jack-in-the-box, a schoolhouse haunted by shadows of her past, and a museum where history refuses to stay dead.

As the manor begins to rot around her, Kayla realizes she isn’t just a guest; she’s a participant in a trial for her soul. To escape the “Forest of Souls” and avoid becoming a shadow herself, she must collect every key and face the truth of how she arrived at Death’s door.

In this house, your nightmares aren’t just in your head-they’re right behind the next door.

Summary: Overall, if you like atmospheric horror with creepy objects, distorted reality, monstrous toy imagery, shifting environments, and relentless tension, there’s a good chance this will work for you. It feels like a haunted maze built by someone who grew up loving horror movies, escape rooms, creepy pasta, and nightmare-fueled video games.

See the full review here: At Death’s Door
Purchase here

 

 

 

Review: Talisman: A Time Travel Mystery by Tom Catalano

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Synopsis:

A time travel mystery. Prominent archaeologist Henri Rutherford and his young protégé discover an ancient skeleton clutching a mysterious device. They have no idea what it is or where it came from. When they start repeating the same day over and over again they know they have something that could change the world–for better or worse. Will they use the time travel device for the betterment of society–or their own gain? Can they keep it from being stolen? Can they avoid the government agent willing to do whatever is necessary to get it and rule the world? Their lives are in danger and the future is in jeopardy. The race is on, and time is running out.

Get ready to depart on an exciting time travel journey through mystery, suspense, greed, murder, treachery, paranoia, heartache, and love!

Favorite Lines:

“If luck wasn’t volunteered, it was your right to make it. Or take it.”

“Discoveries are not meant for the discoverer. They are meant for humanity. Nothing can be gained by keeping it a secret.”

“And the future? Well, the future would stay right where it belonged. Unknown and always ahead of them.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Talisman feels very much like an old-school science fiction adventure in the best possible way. From the opening archaeological dig on a remote Caribbean island, the novel immediately leans into mystery, danger, and curiosity. When Professor Rutherford and his student assistant John Shaw uncover a strange gold object clutched in the hand of a skeleton, the story quickly shifts from straightforward archaeological fiction into something much stranger involving time distortion, greed, murder, and alternate realities. The pacing moves fast right from the start, and unlike a lot of modern sci-fi that gets buried in technical explanations, this book keeps its focus on suspense and momentum.

What worked best for me was how readable it all was. The writing style is simple and direct, but it keeps the story moving constantly. The early sections involving Rutherford were especially strong because he’s such a morally slippery character. He starts as a respected academic but slowly reveals himself to be selfish, manipulative, and increasingly paranoid once the artifact is discovered. The repeated scenes where reality itself begins shifting around him genuinely create a creepy atmosphere. There’s a strong The Twilight Zone influence throughout the novel, which Catalano openly acknowledges in the front matter, and honestly that comparison fits. A lot of the book reads like an expanded sci-fi mystery episode from that era, complete with moral consequences attached to human greed and ambition.

John ends up becoming a much more likable emotional anchor for the story than Rutherford. He has that classic earnest, intelligent protagonist energy that works well in adventure fiction like this. Hannah was another character I enjoyed because she balances out some of the more arrogant personalities around her and adds a grounded emotional presence to the story. The dialogue can occasionally feel a little theatrical or overly explanatory, but it also adds to the nostalgic feel of the novel. This doesn’t read like hyper-modern sci-fi trying to sound gritty or cynical. It feels intentionally sincere and pulpy in a way that reminded me of older speculative fiction paperbacks.

The biggest strength of the book is probably its imagination. Once the time travel elements fully emerge, the story becomes increasingly unpredictable and ambitious. There’s a genuine sense that anything could happen, and the novel clearly enjoys playing with paradoxes, altered timelines, and questions about fate.

Summary:

Overall, Talisman is a fun, fast-moving sci-fi mystery that feels written by someone who genuinely loves classic speculative fiction. It blends archaeology, suspense, murder, and time travel into an entertaining story that rarely slows down for long. Readers looking for hard science fiction packed with technical detail may want something deeper, but readers who enjoy imaginative, accessible time travel stories with strong mystery elements will probably have a good time with this one. It especially feels suited for people who miss the style of older science fiction where the mystery itself mattered more than realism. Happy reading!

Check out Talisman: A Time Travel Mystery here!

 

Review: A Moment’s Surrender by John Burt

~ likelystory18 ~ 2 Comments

Synopsis:

A Moment’s Surrender follows freshman writing instructor Paul Bishop in the aftermath of the murder of his former best friend, the renowned poet Tom Corbin. Haunted by guilt and bound by a devastating secret, Paul takes it upon himself to care for Tom’s terminally ill widow, Susan. But the truth he withholds — that Tom had planned to leave Susan for another woman, Paul’s own long-ago lover Rachel Lake — draws Paul into a painful triangle of loyalty, betrayal, and unresolved desire. Caught between the two women, Paul must navigate a web of grief and deception that threatens to undo them all.

Favorite Lines:

“In fact, they depended on each other and couldn’t quite be themselves without the challenge of the other.”

“Poetry was not just about feelings. It was not just a representation of something in the world, or an argument, or a short narrative told in heightened language, or a decorated moral proposition. It was an occasion to know something through the poem that you can’t know in any other way.”

“He did not want to want what he wanted, but he wanted it anyway, and every promise he made to himself divided him from himself, so that what he wanted to be and what he actually was faced off against each other.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

There’s a heaviness hanging over A Moment’s Surrender almost immediately, and not just because it opens with a murder investigation. The real weight of the novel comes from emotional paralysis, from the way people spend years avoiding truths they already know about themselves. The story follows Paul Bishop, an adjunct writing instructor whose former best friend, celebrated poet Tom Corbin, is found murdered after secretly planning to leave his wife Susan for Rachel Lake, Paul’s own former lover. Paul knows the truth about where Tom was headed before he died, but instead of exposing it, he starts lying almost instinctively, first to the police, then to Susan, and eventually to himself. What makes the novel work is that it understands lying not as villainy but as cowardice, hesitation, shame, and the desperate hope that maybe reality can somehow be delayed if nobody says it out loud.

What surprised me most about this book is how emotionally layered it is beneath all the literary and philosophical discussion. This is very much a novel about intellectual people trying to think their way out of grief, guilt, desire, and regret, only to discover that intelligence does not make anyone emotionally brave. Paul especially feels painfully real in that regard. He’s someone who once imagined a larger, more meaningful life for himself and now finds himself stuck grading freshman papers in Reno, circling old failures and unresolved relationships. The sections involving Rachel are some of the strongest in the novel because she represents both artistic intensity and emotional danger in a way that still unsettles Paul years later. Susan, though, quietly becomes the emotional center of the book. Her love for Tom, even knowing exactly who he is, gives the novel much of its sadness. There’s a recurring idea throughout the story that the deepest truth about a person may not be the worst thing they’ve done, but the struggle they can never fully overcome, and I think the book handles that idea with a surprising amount of compassion.

The academic setting also feels authentic in a way a lot of literary fiction does not. Burt clearly understands the strange mixture of ego, insecurity, idealism, exhaustion, and performance that exists inside literary academia. The conversations about poetry, philosophy, religion, and aesthetics are not there just to sound smart. They genuinely reveal character and worldview. At times the novel almost reads like a long argument between competing ways of understanding art and morality. Paul wants poetry to mean something transcendent while Corbin increasingly sees art as tangled up in power, ambition, and self-interest. Rachel falls somewhere darker and more dangerous in between. These conversations can be dense, but they rarely felt empty to me because they are always tied back to emotional wounds the characters are carrying. Even the landscape descriptions, especially around Pyramid Lake and the desert highways, feel connected to the emotional isolation of the characters rather than existing purely for atmosphere.

This is definitely a slow, reflective novel. Readers looking for a fast-moving mystery may struggle because the murder becomes less important than the emotional wreckage surrounding it. There are sections where the philosophical discussions and internal reflections run long, and occasionally the book risks becoming too enamored with its own intelligence. But honestly, that excess also feels true to these characters. These are people who intellectualize because they do not know how else to survive themselves. The style fits the emotional world of the story.

Summary:

Overall, I thought A Moment’s Surrender was ambitious, thoughtful literary fiction that trusts its readers to sit with discomfort instead of racing toward easy catharsis. It’s a novel about failed courage, unresolved longing, self-deception, and the stories people construct to make their lives bearable. More than the murder itself, what lingered with me afterward was the sadness of watching people recognize exactly what is broken inside themselves while still remaining unable to change. This will probably work best for readers who enjoy psychologically dense literary fiction, emotionally complicated relationship dynamics, and novels deeply interested in art, memory, morality, and the gap between who people want to be and who they actually are. Happy reading!

Check out A Moment’s Surrender here!

 

Review: At Death’s Door by Allen Rebot

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

Synopsis:

One wrong turn. Seven locked doors. No way out.

When Kayla wakes up in a silent, snow-covered forest void of all life, her only sanctuary is a mysterious, pristine manor nestled among the trees. Inside, the coffee is hot and the decor is lavish, but the inhabitant is nowhere to be found. The only thing more unsettling than the silence is the hallway of doors, each etched with the image of a different beast.

At the end of the hall stands the “Gnarled Door,” a mass of intertwined roots that refuses to budge.

When Kayla finds a silver skeleton key, she inadvertently begins a descent into a series of waking nightmares. Each door she unlocks transports her into a twisted reality born from her own deepest fears: a claustrophobic dollhouse guarded by a predatory jack-in-the-box, a schoolhouse haunted by shadows of her past, and a museum where history refuses to stay dead.

As the manor begins to rot around her, Kayla realizes she isn’t just a guest; she’s a participant in a trial for her soul. To escape the “Forest of Souls” and avoid becoming a shadow herself, she must collect every key and face the truth of how she arrived at Death’s door.

In this house, your nightmares aren’t just in your head-they’re right behind the next door.

Favorite Lines:

“Trees, long since made barren by winter, stood around me like vultures waiting for their next meal to breathe their last”

“The owner of this place might be weird, but their drink-making skills are impeccable.”

“I refused to acknowledge the lantern-like eyes that watched us from behind the trees.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

There’s a very specific kind of horror book that feels like it was written by someone who genuinely loves being scared. Not in a polished, prestige horror way where everything is symbolic and emotionally restrained, but in the “what nightmare can I throw at the reader next?” kind of way. At Death’s Door absolutely falls into that category.

This book wastes almost no time dropping you into danger. Kayla wakes up stranded in a freezing forest with no memory of how she got there, finds an isolated house in the middle of nowhere, and things immediately begin spiraling into increasingly surreal nightmare logic. What starts as eerie haunted-house horror turns into something much stranger and meaner. The dollhouse section especially is where the book really hooked me. Once the scale starts changing and Kayla ends up trapped inside the dollhouse itself, the story goes from creepy to genuinely claustrophobic.

One thing I appreciated was that the horror never really sits still. A lot of indie horror novels introduce one cool concept and stretch it thin for 250 pages. This one keeps escalating. Every room feels like its own contained nightmare with different rules and imagery. The toy room, the jack-in-the-box, the cardboard canyon, the doll family at the dinner table… it all feels very visual and cinematic. You can tell the author has a strong imagination for creature design and environmental horror. Some of the imagery honestly feels like it would translate perfectly into an indie horror game.

The jack-in-the-box scenes were probably the standout for me. There’s something deeply unsettling about the way childish things are described throughout the book. The toys don’t just become scary because they move. The descriptions linger on textures, sounds, proportions, weird smiles, and movement patterns in a way that feels intentionally uncomfortable. The scraping sound of the jester dragging its box around became one of those recurring horror details that instantly creates dread every time it comes back.

I also liked that Kayla reacts like an actual person most of the time. She panics, swears, bargains with herself, makes dumb choices, then adapts anyway. She doesn’t suddenly become hyper-competent just because the plot needs her to survive. There’s a messy, exhausted quality to her narration that helps the book feel grounded even when the story gets completely surreal.

The pacing is probably one of the book’s strongest qualities. Chapters move quickly and almost always end with either a reveal, a new threat, or a shift in environment. It makes the book very easy to binge. I kept telling myself “one more chapter” because the structure naturally pushes you forward.

The strongest thing the novel does is maintain this feeling that the world itself is hostile and wrong. Not just haunted. Wrong. The house doesn’t operate on normal logic, the toys feel malicious in an almost fairy-tale way, and the constant shifts in scale and reality make everything feel unstable. It reminded me a little of survival horror games where every new area introduces a completely different flavor of fear.

Summary:

Overall, if you like atmospheric horror with creepy objects, distorted reality, monstrous toy imagery, shifting environments, and relentless tension, there’s a good chance this will work for you. It feels like a haunted maze built by someone who grew up loving horror movies, escape rooms, creepy pasta, and nightmare-fueled video games. Happy reading!

Check out At Death’s Door here!

Review: Against All Odds by Richard A. Danzig

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Synopsis:

Chance Cormac faces a personal and professional crisis as he loses faith in the law and himself. He abandons his practice and life in Brooklyn to volunteer to represent illegally detained immigrants throughout the country. From the federal courts to the infamous CECOT prison in El Salvador, against all odds, Chance struggles to rescue a client who is imprisoned without any hope of escape. While Chance pursues justice, his former paralegal and first love Sally McConnell, is forced to confront her husband’s cancer and the cyberbullying of her daughter Melody by a student in her high school. Chance must regain his faith in order to save those who need him most and himself.

Favorite Lines:

“A cut can’t heal if you keep taking the bandage off.”

“It’s not magic, Chance, it’s diplomacy”

“The solitude and calmness have permitted me to look in, not out.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book feels like it’s juggling a lot. Legal drama, spiritual awakening, political commentary, personal redemption arc… and somehow it works.

At the center is Chance Cormac, who is not exactly subtle as a protagonist. He’s a lawyer, a bit of a crusader, a bit of a mess, and very clearly someone the story wants you to see as both flawed and morally grounded. You meet him already carrying a lot—loss, burnout, disillusionment with the legal system—and the book just keeps stacking things on top of that.

The plot moves in a way that feels almost episodic at times. One minute you’re in a courtroom dealing with immigration law and media chaos, the next you’re inside a prison that reads like something out of a dystopian novel, and then suddenly you’re on a pilgrimage walking through monasteries and reflecting on faith.

That shift shouldn’t work as well as it does, but there’s a through-line: Chance trying to figure out what any of it means. Not just justice in a legal sense, but justice in a human sense. And more than that, whether any of it actually matters in the long run.

The prison sections are where the book hits hardest. They’re not subtle, but they’re effective. The conditions are brutal, and the message is clear: systems fail people, and sometimes they do it in ways that feel almost impossible to fix. There’s a rawness there that cuts through the more philosophical parts of the story.

At the same time, the book doesn’t stay in that darkness for too long without pulling back into something more reflective. The spiritual elements aren’t just background noise—they’re baked into the story. Near-death experiences, questions of faith, purpose, second chances… it all leans pretty heavily into the idea that suffering is supposed to mean something.

Where the book really lands, though, is in its quieter moments. Conversations with Melody, the way grief shows up in small, ordinary interactions, the exhaustion that comes from trying to keep doing the “right thing” when it doesn’t seem to change anything.

By the end, it leans hard into redemption. Not in a clean, tied-up way, but in a “keep going anyway” kind of way. There’s loss, there’s some resolution, and there’s this underlying suggestion that maybe the point isn’t winning—it’s continuing to show up.

Summary:

Overall, this is a layered, sometimes messy mix of legal drama, social commentary, and spiritual reflection centered on a burned-out lawyer trying to do the right thing in a system that often doesn’t reward it. Readers who enjoy character-driven legal fictions may enjoy this book. Happy reading!

Check out Against All Odds here!

Monthly Features – April 2026

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

SETTUP by TK Thoits

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: Respected neurologist and researcher Stella Murray was confident the FDA would approve the experimental medication based on its demonstrated superior efficacy. Knowing a serious side effect would not derail the approval process, she reports that a patient had a significant reaction to the investigational drug.

Shortly thereafter, Grand Rapids Detective Troy Evans is called to investigate the suspicious death of a Site Monitor who, he learns, worked with Murray. Evans asks Murray to educate him on the unfamiliar world of medical research. She discloses that conducting investigational drug studies has become a multibillion-dollar industry, with power brokers providing more oversight than the government.

When Murray informs Evans that a second Site Monitor has been killed, they team up to take down the corruption that is mercilessly burying unwelcome researchers and results of a promising drug trial.

Summary: Overall,  SETTUP is a fast, detail-heavy medical thriller that starts in the ER and expands into a layered story involving clinical trials, corporate pressure, and a criminal subplot. The medical realism is strong, and the tension builds as the threads begin to connect. The tone can shift a bit—especially with the assassin storyline—but it adds a darker, more unsettling edge. Best for readers who like medical dramas with conspiracy elements and multiple POVs rather than a single, straightforward narrative. 

See the full review here: SETTUP
Purchase here

The Knight’s Last Stand by Bear Pardun

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: In a world where gods walk among mortals and divine tyranny crushes the innocent, one knight’s investigation into ritual murders uncovers a conspiracy that threatens to consume an entire city. Commander Victus Andreas discovers that the seemingly random cult killings in Lindly are part of a far darker plan—the dark elven goddess Lestar seeks to harvest the souls of every citizen to feed her master’s insatiable hunger for power.
When Victus returns from his annual pilgrimage to find his city overrun by disguised dark elves posing as holy inquisitors, he must rally a small band of loyal soldiers, his adopted son Aris, and unlikely allies to stand against overwhelming odds. As ancient magic tears through the city and divine politics threaten to destroy everything he’s sworn to protect, Victus faces an impossible choice: save his people or preserve his own soul.
With breathtaking battles, complex characters wrestling with duty and honor, and a magic system that explores the cost of power, Battle of Lindly launches an epic fantasy series that challenges the very nature of divine authority. In Bear Pardun’s richly imagined world, heroes are forged not by destiny, but by the courage to defy gods themselves.

Summary:  Overall, I found this book to be a gritty, sincere fantasy that leans hard into classic themes of honor, sacrifice, and legacy. The writing had an emotional core — especially the father-son relationship and the relentless sense of duty.  If you like fantasy that is sincere about honor, duty, and sacrifice, then this book could be for you. 

See the full review here: The Knight’s Last Stand
Purchase here

Review: Silence Beneath Fire by Magda Mizzi

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Synopsis:

Silence can heal. Or it can be where danger learns your name.

Annie thought she had saved Jude from his past. But the world around them has fallen into a quiet that feels wrong—too still, too watchful. As she tries to protect what remains of him, guilt follows her for everything he’s endured, and every choice she makes could cost them both.

Moving through hostile territory, they uncover secrets, betrayals, and a threat years in the making. From the ruins of Kooragang to experiments gone terribly wrong, survival will demand more than courage. It will demand trust.

But trust has a price.

As danger closes in, Annie and Jude must rely on each other in ways that strip away fear, pretence, and the distance they’ve kept between them. What begins as a fight to survive becomes something deeper—a reckoning that will redefine loyalty, love, and what it truly means to be human.

Favorite Lines:

“You don’t have to apologize…Not for being alive.”

“That kind of love didn’t flinch. It held on through silence, through fear, through ever kind of ruin. She remembered thinking, even back then, that maybe she wanted something like that—not the drama, not the war-torn madness, but the truth of it. The knowing. Someone who saw her, really saw her, and didn’t look away.”

“She wanted a love that endured fire—and came back whole.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

From the first few pages, you’re dealing with a world where things have gone very, very wrong—corporate experimentation, engineered children, a virus that’s reshaped humanity into something violent and unrecognizable. And instead of slowly explaining it all, the story just trusts you to catch up. It works more often than not.

At the center is Jude, though it takes a minute to fully understand what that means. He’s not just a survivor. He’s something altered. Enhanced, maybe. Damaged, definitely. The book slowly pulls that apart instead of dumping it on you all at once, which keeps him interesting even when the plot starts moving fast.

Annie, on the other hand, is the anchor. She’s practical, sharp, and just grounded enough to keep the story from drifting too far into the sci-fi side of things. The dynamic between them is probably the strongest part of the book. There’s history there, but also a lot unsaid. You feel it more in what they avoid than what they actually talk about.

The pacing is quick, but not careless. There’s a constant sense of movement—walking, hiding, running, surviving—and it gives the book this restless energy. Even the quieter scenes, like the campsite conversations, don’t really feel safe. They feel temporary. Like something is always about to go wrong. And usually it does.

The infected—VFPs—aren’t exactly reinventing the genre, but they don’t need to. They’re effective because the story doesn’t overcomplicate them. They’re fast, violent, and unpredictable. That’s enough. The real tension comes from everything around them: the collapsing infrastructure, the isolation, and especially the people who are still trying to control what’s left of the world.

That’s where the book starts to open up.

The “Chimera” concept adds another layer that pushes this beyond a straightforward survival story. Jude isn’t just surviving the virus—he’s tied to its origin in a way that feels personal and unsettling. The reveal isn’t subtle, but it lands because of how it reframes everything you’ve already seen.

There’s also a noticeable shift once they reach the island. Up until then, it feels like a survival story with emotional undercurrents. After that, it becomes something heavier. Trust, fear, community, and how quickly all of that can collapse. The sequence there is chaotic in a way that feels intentional. You don’t get clean resolutions. You get panic, mistakes, and consequences.

Ultimately, it is very clear that this is a world where no one really gets to rest.

Summary:

Overall, this is a fast-moving post-apocalyptic survival story with strong character dynamics and a sci-fi edge, following two survivors navigating a virus-ravaged world while uncovering a deeper conspiracy tied to one of them. Happy reading!

Check out Silence Beneath Fire here!

Review: The Brighter the Light, The Darker the Shadow by Verlin Darrow

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Synopsis:

Kade Tobin needs every bit of his wisdom as the leader of a rural spiritual community to remain true to his core values as murders pile up around him. Drawn into helping to solve the mystery by a sheriff’s detective, Kade sorts through the array of quirky seekers on the community’s land, only to end up as the defendant in a suspense-filled trial. He struggles to maintain a stance of kindness while he endures bullies in the jail, a vengeful DA, and the pending judgment of twelve strangers. As the prosecution parades witness after witness, the mounting evidence against Kade becomes alarmingly damning. If he were a juror, Kade believes he might vote to convict himself at this stage of his trial. But he also trusts the universe. Kade remains confident that a force greater than himself–and the justice system–has other plans for him. Or does it?

Favorite Lines:

“Most of us humans are burdened by the tyranny of continuity—the ongoing, sequential storylines we feel compelled to construct. What about directly experiencing life—letting it tell us about itself?”

“The world isn’t going to adapt to suit us. We need to transform ourselves to match it as best as we can in order to step away from an adversarial relationship with it.”

“The truth is what matters…If telling it brings up feelings for me, it’s my job to manage those internally. I’ve found that when I avoid something uncomfortable, it just sets up a day of reckoning. It usually ends up worse than whatever the original experience would’ve been.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

This one opens in a way that feels deceptively calm. A man, his dog, a quiet morning in a spiritual community tucked into the Santa Cruz mountains. Then there’s a body. And just like that, whatever sense of peace existed gets pulled apart.

What makes this book interesting isn’t really the murder itself. It’s the lens we’re forced to look through. Kade Tobin isn’t your typical protagonist. He’s not scrambling, panicking, or even especially reactive. He’s… observing. Processing. Filtering everything through this spiritual framework that’s supposed to keep him grounded, even when something objectively horrific is sitting a few feet away.

And honestly, that tension is the most compelling part of the book. There’s this constant push and pull between detachment and reality. Kade wants to “experience everything fully,” but when faced with something truly brutal, he flinches like anyone else. That contradiction feels very human, even if the surrounding philosophy sometimes drifts into abstract territory.

The community itself is where things really start to take shape. The Brethren of Congruence is filled with people who are, for lack of a better word, messy. Not in a dramatic, over-the-top way, but in a very believable one. You’ve got people running from past lives, people trying to fix themselves, people who probably shouldn’t be living in a secluded group dynamic at all. The interviews with each member are where the book slows down, but also where it gains texture.

Some of those conversations feel intentionally frustrating. Characters dodge questions, spiral into philosophy, or fixate on things that seem completely irrelevant to a murder investigation. At first it reads like distraction, but over time it starts to feel more like a point. These people don’t operate on the same wavelength as the detective, and that disconnect creates a kind of quiet friction throughout the story.

Detective Cullen is a solid counterbalance. He’s grounded, practical, and increasingly irritated by everything he’s dealing with. His skepticism gives the story structure when it threatens to drift too far into introspection. The dynamic between him and Kade works because neither fully respects the other’s worldview, but they still need each other to move forward.

This is not a traditional mystery. If you’re expecting tight plotting and constant forward momentum, this might feel slow. The narrative is more interested in ideas, personalities, and internal dialogue than in building suspense in a conventional way.

That said, there’s something quietly effective about how it all unfolds. The sense that something is off, not just with the crime but with the people around it, lingers in the background. And the deeper you get into the community, the less certain everything feels.

It’s less about solving a murder and more about understanding the environment it happened in.

Summary:

Overall, this is a slow-burn, character-driven mystery set inside a secluded spiritual community. The story leans heavily into philosophy, interpersonal dynamics, and psychological nuance rather than fast-paced plot. Readers who enjoy introspective or philosophical fiction that feature more character studies than action may enjoy this book. Happy reading!

Check out The Brighter the Light, The Darker the Shadow here!

Review: A Friend for Hope by Amie White with Illustrations by Olena Oprich

~ likelystory18 ~ Leave a comment

Synopsis:

Nine-year-old Zoe Meadows is the new kid in Ivy Creek. For homeschooled Zoe, every day starts the same: breakfast, then to the living room where Miss Ellis awaits. Only today, Zoe can’t focus—not when she notices neighborhood children playing outside, children she’s yet to meet. Watching all this unfold, Zoe’s parents decide it’s time for a companion—the furry kind, to be precise.

Everything changes when Zoe meets Hope at the dog shelter for the first time. The two girls form an inseparable bond over the following months and find in each other the one thing they both craved for a long, long time: a forever friend.

Favorite Lines:

“Zoe gazed into the dog’s warm, glossy eyes. Two quiet hearts beating the same.”

“She’s a senior, but she still has plenty of love to give.”

“At last, they’d found what they both needed most: a forever friend.”

My Opinion:

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion.

At its core, A Friend for Hope is about loneliness and connection.  The story follows Zoe in a way that feels soft and a little introspective for a picture book. There’s a quietness to it that stands out, especially compared to more high-energy, plot-heavy kids’ books.

What I liked is that it doesn’t rush the emotional shift.  For a younger audience, the pacing could actually be really effective, especially for kids who might be dealing with similar feelings but don’t have the words for them yet.

The illustrations are really where the book finds its personality.

They lean soft and expressive, with a clear focus on emotion over detail-heavy worldbuilding. The color palette does a lot of the storytelling work. You can feel the difference between the quieter, lonelier moments and the warmer, more connected ones just through the tones and lighting. That shift is subtle, but it’s doing a lot behind the scenes.

The characters comes through well visually. The expressions are readable without being exaggerated, which will make it easier for kids to connect without it feeling cartoonish. There are also small details in the backgrounds that give you a little more to look at on repeat reads. I can absolutely picture kids pointing out the same tiny thing five nights in a row.

This book is not trying to be flashy. It’s not trying to be the next big “message book.” It’s just a soft, steady story about finding connection when you feel alone, and it handles that with a kind of quiet confidence.

Summary:

Overall, this is a gentle, emotionally focused picture book about loneliness and friendship, supported by soft, expressive illustrations that help carry the story. Best suited for younger children who enjoy quieter, reflective stories and for caregivers looking for a calming, connection-centered read. Happy reading!

Check out A Friend for Hope here!