Recent releases, award winners, and more!
Phoebe Douse: Secret Society for Special Abilities and Artefacts
By L. Samuels
“The author rounds out her tale with increasing suspense…. a delightful fantasy with a likable and powerful young heroine.” ~ Kirkus Reviews
“Samuels delivers a YA novel that expertly weaves themes of troubled friendships, identity, and family changes with an evocative paranormal mystery.” – Publishers Weekly, The BookLife Prize
Grandmother Naan’s superstitious stories seem too peculiar and childish to Phoebe Douse. But when surprising and unfortunate circumstances in Texas lead her to accept a timely invitation to attend a remote boarding school, thousands of miles away in Scotland, Phoebe finds that everything is not what she made herself believe. Unwittingly, Phoebe is thrown onto the stage of power and danger as events unfold that reveal the extent of her abilities and Naan’s connection to the school. There, Phoebe is introduced to the clandestine world of S3A2 and is forced to decide between her new friends and the promises of power and S3A2 status from the welcoming but strangely mysterious Headmaster Duff. In this first installment of a YA trilogy (for ages 12 and up), Phoebe Douse: S3A2 presents an adventure-filled, coming-of-age novel, with mystery and a touch of the paranormal. There are also themes of self- discovery, valuing culture and diversity, and building trust and friendship.
Where to Buy: Amazon | Authors Website
About the Author
L. Samuels is a Jamaican-American author and illustrator, born and raised in Texas. Along with writing, L. operates a global education company and loves to travel, spend time with her family, hike, and dance.
How the Deer Moon Hungers
By Susan Wingate
Winner Best Fiction In The 2020 Pacific Book Award
Mackenzie Fraser witnesses a drunk driver mow down her seven-year-old sister and her mother blames her. Then she ends up in juvie on a trumped-up drug charge. Now she’s in the fight of her life. And she’s losing. How the Deer Moon Hungers is a coming of age story about loss, grief, and the power of love.
“Adult and new adult readers will fall headlong into it. No one who picks up this heartrending story will emerge from it unchanged or unmoved. Great for fans of Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper, Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, Lois Lowry’s A Summer to Die.”
–BookLife Review
About the Author
Susan Wingate a #1 Amazon bestseller and award-winning author who writes unputdownable, surprising and twisty stories with crackling dialogue that exhibit a rare deftness in style offering up stories that are riveting, original and with a humanity rarely seen in contemporary fiction.
The Talking Drum
By Lisa Braxton
It is 1971. The fictional city of Bellport, Massachusetts, is in decline with an urban redevelopment project on the horizon expected to transform this dying factory town into a thriving economic center. This planned transformation has a profound effect on the residents who live in Bellport as their own personal transformations take place. Sydney Stallworth steps away from her fellowship and law studies at an elite university to support husband Malachi’s dream of opening a business in the heart of the black community of his hometown, Bellport. For Omar Bassari, an immigrant from Senegal, Bellport is where he will establish his drumming career and the launching pad from which he will spread African culture across the world, while trying to hold onto his marriage. Della Tolliver has built a fragile sanctuary in Bellport for herself, boyfriend Kwamé Rodriguez, and daughter Jasmine, a troubled child prone to nightmares and outbursts. Tensions rise as the demolition date moves closer, plans for gentrification are laid out, and the pace of suspicious fires picks up. The residents find themselves at odds with a political system manipulating their lives and question the future of their relationships.
About the Author
Lisa Braxton is an essayist, short story writer, and novelist. She earned her MFA in creative writing from Southern New Hampshire University, her Master of Science in Journalism Broadcasting from Northwestern University and her Bachelor of Arts in Mass Media from Hampton University. Her debut novel, The Talking Drum, was published by Inanna Publications in May 2020.
The World Looks Different Now
By Margaret Thomson
On a glorious, if blisteringly hot, Saturday in August 2010, Margaret Thomson’s world is suddenly shattered by the incomprehensible news that her twenty-two-year-old son, a medic in the army, has taken his life.
In a deep state of shock, Thomson and her husband immediately travel to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where their son Kieran was stationed, in an effort to assist their daughter-in-law. Upon their arrival, though, the couple find themselves plunged into a labyrinthine and, at times, seemingly bizarre world of military rules and regulations.
Eventually, after the funeral and the memorial services are over, an even more challenging journey–emotionally as well as geographically–ensues, especially for Margaret, who, as a former journalist, is determined to find out more about the circumstances surrounding her son’s death, no matter how high the cost.
About the Author
Margaret Thomson is a journalist and television producer who’s reported on a variety of subjects, from Middle East politics to the British royal family. As a radio correspondent for ABC News, she was the first American broadcast journalist to report the end of the Falklands War in May 1982; several years later she became the first radio correspondent to report on the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Upon returning to the United States in 1992, she taught journalism and television production at the University of Memphis.
Whisperwood: A Confederate Soldier’s Struggle
By Van Temple
My paternal great-grandfather, Anderson Flowers Temple, died more than two decades before I was born, but he whispered in my ear when I was twelve years old through a narrative of his life written by his youngest son. I was captivated by Anderson’s story of humble roots, struggle against adversity, and search for a true path. At the age of twenty-five, after four years in the Civil War, Anderson vowed that he would never again take up arms. For the rest of his life he helped quarreling neighbors talk through their differences and become friends. Whisperwood is a work of fiction based upon my great grandfather’s lived experiences, a rifleman’s view—not a general’s perspective—on the Civil War. The story focuses on the depravity and addiction of war and Anderson’s hard-earned wisdom about war and honor. The life lessons in Anderson’s story guided me during the Vietnam War when I faced the prospect of becoming a soldier.
About the Author
Van Temple was born and raised in Ruston, Louisiana, and graduated from Louisiana Tech University. After a forty-three year career in community development, non-profit management, and city government service in Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Delaware, Louisiana, and Indiana — he retired to Abita Springs, Louisiana to focus on his lifelong ambition to be a writer, an ambition originally inspired by learning and loving to read. He has written dozens of stories, poems, and published two books.
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Article originally Published in the October / November 2021 Issue: Read Global.