I enjoyed the freedom of writing a novel, while remaining true to the spirit of the activism that may have, at least temporarily, significantly slowed the spread of fracking in Michigan. Maryann Lesert – 18 April 2024 The Back Flap Once you’ve experienced the devastation of fracking, nothing but stopping it makes sense. After a year of well site visits and protests, four college student activists become determined to protect the people and the places they love. In the river-crossed northwoods of Michigan, Kate, Brett, Sonya, and Mark, mentored by their former professor Rebecca, keep watch as ..read more

I struggled to know what to include as I experienced and witnessed so much. We witnessed the best of humankind and the worst. Janet A. Wilson – 16 April 2024 The Back Flap Despite having everything she could ask for, Janet Wilson couldn’t shake a sense of emptiness in her life or her desire to return to the continent of her birth. After many arguments, she and her husband agreed to embark on a daring adventure, driving 25,000 miles alone across Africa. They couldn’t anticipate how this trip would challenge almost every belief, opinion, and value they held. They collided with the world and eac ..read more

I wondered, “What if suicide was illegal? What if it wasn’t just a moral issue, but a legal one, and you could be punished for taking your life?” Jacob Guy – 12 April 2024 The Back Flap Chester Aldair is a gay teenager who commits suicide, making him a severe criminal. In Galena, technology has advanced to the point where people no longer die from natural causes, and as a result, the government has instituted, “The Age of Volition,” which is a law requiring that everyone lives until they’re seventy-five years old. Once someone turns seventy-five, they can choose how much longer they live for ..read more

I want to write sci-fi and technothrillers for people that wouldn’t normally read sci-fi and technothrillers but have vivid imaginations and like imagining the future! And, as such, I want to make them accessible, action packed and combined with other genres they’d normally read, like crime thrillers and murder mystery.  Thomas R. Weaver – 5 April 2024 The Back Flap SALVATION HAS A PRICE. An enthralling murder mystery with a vividly realised future world, forcing readers to grapple hard hitting questions about the climate crisis, our relationship with Artificial Intelligence and the pric ..read more

My first close reading of David and Bathsheba left me with so many questions. The debate as to whether their coupling was consensual felt incredibly modern and #metoo. What was more striking to me, however, was that Bathsheba did not have a voice in the story. I was inspired to give her one. Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg – 2 April 2024 The Back Flap Days after graduation, Betsabé Ruiz’s life in New York is turning out to be nothing less than cinematic. Although her first job at a white-shoe, Wall Street investment bank is the opportunity of a lifetime, she is not prepared for the magnitude of w ..read more

I struggled with the excavation of many painful memories. Painful, but essential in order to resolve my trauma. Tracy Mayo – 30 March 2024 The Back Flap 1970, pre-Choice America. After their eighth move in her thirteen short years, the lonely only child of a high-ranking naval officer and a socially ambitious mother, Tracy Mayo longed for a normal adolescence – to have friends, to feel rooted. What she got was a pregnancy at fourteen and exile to a maternity home. There, she bore not only a child but also the weight of the culture’s shame. She was required to surrender her baby boy at birth a ..read more

As our tagline says, “A true story about a pretend world,” Closet of Dreams IS the make-believe world Mark and I invented and lived-out in that magical closet—years and years of adventures. Mark Ukra & Tara Mesalik MacMahon – 27 March 2024 The Back Flap A true story about a pretend world. Meet a nine-year-old boy named Child who has big dreams-so big, he’s actually got a Closet of Dreams in his home! But Child’s fears are really big too, and his path is lined with curve balls, especially those spun by class bully, Eddie. Follow along with Child’s adventures as he discovers the secret powe ..read more

I have a deep love for fantasy worlds, especially their lore. Creating universes from scratch, from the first spark of the cosmos that gave birth to dragons to the world’s end, fascinates me. I’m enthralled by the politics, language, and the diverse beings that inhabit different parts of these worlds. Erik Julkin – 24 March 2024 The Back Flap In a world devoid of magic, how does one sever a bond forged by its very essence? Like a raging storm, he swept into her life,tearing apart her home and taking away the only family she had. He went as far as attempting to suffocate her with his anger, gi ..read more

The spark was my high school chemistry teacher who taught our class about the orbital properties of large elements, and that superheavy elements might exist and have unique properties. Others have had this idea with the hope of superconductivity, but I went to time travel. From there I imagined scoops of the past naturally jumping forward hundreds or millions of years via lightning strikes, and why no one had noticed. Sean Ryan – 9 March 2024 The Back Flap Viviana Papadakis needs to tell you something. Dinosaurs are still alive. Don’t freak out. Sometimes extinct animals pop into the present ..read more

Since I was a little, I’ve been prone to escapism. I was perfectly happy being left alone to make up movies in my head. As I got older, the cast of characters grew with me and became more complex. They developed backstories. They could deal with the issues and traumas I sometimes confronted in reality. A.D. Metcalfe – 2 March 2024 The Back Flap 1970s New York City is borderline bankrupt. Police departments, public schools and other municipalities are struggling under massive layoffs, buildings are abandoned, and the streets are rife with crime and drugs. For Johnny Alvarez, a precocious young ..read more