Reviews in Brief

A sleuthing team of siblings must bury their bitterness to find the father they’d both left behind in Yellow Tape by Alicia Ellis, the first installment of the Gray Girls Mysteries series. A brutal murder unites the odd couple of Ivy and Rose after nearly three decades, leading to a covert hunt through the charming but shadowy swirl of small-town life. Laced with acerbic wit and consistent palpable tension, this cleverly crafted procedural mystery is a tour de force of familial drama, highlighted by dual narration and the thematic minefields of abandonment, morality, and the undeniable bonds of family.

A tragic, empowering, and brutally honest work of autofiction, Broken Pieces by Natalie Monique Rich recounts the emotionally charged story of the author’s hopes, homes, and heartbreaks. Condensing decades of life into a compelling novella, Rich recalls the rise and fall of her marriage, hard lessons learned about motherhood, the unique grief of betrayal, and the disappointing realities of an unpredictable life. Every page is dense with detail, but the prose occasionally feels rushed, and the relentless flow of loss and struggle leaves little room for readers to process the emotional peaks and valleys. Nonetheless, this powerful and relatable story is a truly striking tale of resilience.

A mesmerizing piece of historical and legend-filled fantasy, The Heron Legacy by Leona Francombe is a complex and genre-blending work of literary suspense. Charles de la Fontaine inherits more than his family’s ancestral home upon the death of his noble father – he is also entranced by an enigmatic spirit of the forest, and a long-buried secret about the foundational lore of his land. This quick-moving read is a delightful burst of magical realism with the perfect blend of historical nuance, linguistic dexterity, and narrative twists. Francombe has a delicate pen and a flair for treasure-hunt energy in her prose, ensuring a wonderfully rich read in a superbly crafted world.

A sudden terminal diagnosis leads to one man’s inexplicable ability to embody another future in The Dreamer 4 by A.D. Plautz, a visionary work of contemporary fiction. When Bob Parker’s persistent headaches turn out to be symptoms of a brain tumor, he assumes the strange new dreams are too, but his nighttime life as Ron Pritchard only gets more intense, revealing tragic events that will befall his family. As the balance between Bob’s tragic reality and Ron’s heroic fantasy blurs, this dual story explores the challenging crossroads of faith, family, loyalty, and loss, for a genre-defying novel that deftly straddles the line of science fiction and character-driven drama.

A deeply researched yet accessible thesis, Christian Orthodoxy: A Closer Look by Joseph Grogan is an unflinching dive into questionable texts and misunderstood traditions within Christian denominations. Impartial and exhaustive in its historical examination of Christian foundations and tenets, this book places an unbiased lens over faith structures from multiple sects, resulting in an “objective and holistic” review for believers and historians alike. By measuring traditional scriptural guidance against contemporary and past practices, the author is able to critically assess contentious issues within the religion, and offer useful frameworks to ameliorate dogma-based paradoxes that have plagued the Church for millennia, resulting in a thought-provoking and eye-opening analysis of Christian doctrine.

A multi-generational family drama exploring the unexpected contractions and expansions in every life, Little Ships by Sandra Scofield is a stirring and heartrending work of literary fiction. Two sheltered sisters move in with their grandmothers after tragedy strikes, forcing them to navigate a suddenly widened world and the emotional collapse of their father in the shadow of overwhelming loss. Relationship reversals, heart-opening connections, and the wisdom of both experience and youth make this sensitively penned novel a powerful meditation on family and independence for readers of every age.