Pure Light: Shadows That Wait for Me
Nicholas Acker’s Pure Light follows a young woman who wakes in a storm with no memory, a mysterious mark on her palm, and a floating light as her guide. It’s a fantasy adventure built around the unsettling business of discovering yourself while everyone else seems to understand the world you’ve landed in. Gem’s search takes her through a country divided by civil war, where magic shapes everyday life as well as the struggle for power. What caught my attention most was her discomfort with hurting people, even when she has good reason to defend herself. That concern gives the action an emotional consequence: every display of strength raises questions about how she wants to use it.
The friendships give the story its warmth. Nyla’s quick tongue, curiosity, and knack for enchantments make her an entertaining companion, and her exchanges with Gem bring out both characters’ vulnerabilities. Their relationship grows through meals, lessons, teasing, and the awkward work of trusting someone. Diamond is particularly memorable. Acker gives this little orb a surprisingly readable personality through changes in color, movement, and brightness. Its fascination with animals and habit of getting into things made me smile, while its quieter gestures of comfort carry real tenderness. The supporting cast adds further energy, especially when different personalities start rubbing against each other. I enjoyed how often companionship takes a practical form here: offering shelter, sharing knowledge, or noticing when someone’s struggling to breathe.
Acker also has a clear appetite for scenery. Forests, crowded taverns, a magnificent ship, and luminous stone architecture give the journey a strong visual character. Enchanted objects help make the setting feel authentic, and Gem’s amazement lets familiar fantasy details acquire a fresh appeal. As the story moves into darker territory, that same attention to sensation makes the danger feel physically close. The prose does get repetitive in places. Tightening chests, catching breaths, and warmth spreading through the body recur often enough that distinct feelings sometimes receive similar treatment. The frequent similes can also slow scenes that already have plenty of atmosphere. I found the writing most effective when a concrete gesture or a sharp exchange carried the emotion. Those moments give the characters space to feel individual.
The mixture of enchantment and creeping menace reminded me of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline. Both books make curiosity feel exciting and risky, and both bring their heroines into frightening situations where courage becomes a personal, immediate choice. Acker develops that tension through a broader fantasy journey, with traveling companions, religious conflict, and questions about the responsibilities that come with magical power. His voice is open and earnest, particularly around grief, belonging, and the fear that an unknown past might define a person’s future. Some of those ideas are stated repeatedly, but the care between the characters gives them substance. As an opening installment, Pure Light: Shadows That Wait for Me introduces places, relationships, and mysteries that invite further exploration. Its strongest reason to keep reading is Gem herself, whose wish to protect others remains compelling even as fear makes that wish harder to act on.
Pages: 284 | ASIN: B0FVMMM4C2
Brave New Game
Brave New Game is an engaging coming-of-age novel about a young basketball enthusiast whose ability to understand numbers exceeds his confidence in understanding people. Thirteen-year-old Charlie Gold is exceptionally tall and gifted enough to study college calculus, and he’s acutely conscious of the attention both qualities attract. In Duncan, New York, where the fortunes of St. Hildegarde’s University basketball help shape community life, he also carries the weight of his late father’s sporting reputation. Author S.K. Michalowski builds an appealing protagonist from these competing pressures. Charlie can analyze a player’s performance with extraordinary precision, yet his own place among classmates, college students, and adults feels much less certain. That gap gives the novel its emotional credibility and makes his ambitions worth following.
I think the relationship between Charlie and his older sister, Cecilia, is the book’s strongest achievement. As his guardian, she balances college, work, household expenses, and the effort of keeping their family memories alive. Her assurance, “You be the kid, I’ll be the adult,” expresses both her devotion and the difficulty of protecting him from burdens he already recognizes. Michalowski makes their financial circumstances tangible through cold rooms, unreliable transportation, cafeteria meals, and conversations that stop just short of complete honesty. Their teasing provides welcome warmth, especially Cecilia’s habit of dropping Shakespeare into everyday exchanges. Charlie’s friendships bring additional energy: Jalen’s enthusiasm and Zoey’s sharp humor offer distinct forms of companionship. These relationships give the story room for affection, irritation, jealousy, and the awkwardness of a first crush.
Basketball supplies the novel’s rhythm and much of its intellectual interest. Michalowski writes games with close attention to spacing, rebounds, substitutions, and the changing possibilities within a possession. Charlie’s fascination with statistics makes the sport a convincing expression of his personality, while the transfer portal and the money surrounding college athletics introduce questions about loyalty, opportunity, and responsibility. His father’s advice, “No matter what, maintain your poise,” becomes a recurring point of reference as Charlie tries to navigate situations whose emotional demands exceed anything a spreadsheet can settle. The book is particularly perceptive about public judgment. Online images and comments can acquire an authority of their own, and Michalowski captures how intensely a young person may absorb them. Charlie’s physical responses to anxiety keep those pressures immediate and personal.
Brave New Game offers young readers a lively sports narrative with substantial emotional stakes, grounded in the everyday work of caring for people and learning to trust them. The supporting cast also includes adults whose generosity and availability give the novel a reassuring tone. I think its most persuasive passages are the quieter ones: siblings sharing memories, friends negotiating changing loyalties, and Charlie trying to reconcile his desire to help with his need for approval. Across these scenes, Michalowski gives talent a meaningful social context, showing how ability becomes entangled with family obligations and community expectations.
Pages: 285 | ASIN : B0HFT8XCC7
Talk Human to Me
Steven Asifo’s Talk Human to Me takes on a familiar workplace frustration: you’ve spotted a real problem, explained it carefully, and watched everyone carry on with their day. Asifo, a cybersecurity leader and stand-up comic, treats that gap between a good recommendation and actual follow-through as a central part of security work. His argument is that influence grows when you understand someone’s pressures and make the next step clear. The book brings together personal experience, communication advice, and short exercises, all delivered in a voice that sounds like a colleague talking through what he’s learned. It’s direct, energetic, and easy to settle into.
The strongest part of the book is how consistently it connects communication to the practical conditions of someone else’s working day. Deadlines, limited resources, uncertainty, and competing priorities all shape whether a security request gets anywhere. Asifo encourages readers to listen for those conditions, build messages around them, and invite people to help shape the solution. He also gives readers concrete ways to check their work: trim a message to its essential meaning, see whether someone can explain it back, and make the requested decision obvious. These exercises give the book a useful rhythm. You can read a chapter, open an email or presentation you’re working on, and try something immediately. That makes the advice feel manageable, especially for readers who’ve been told to improve their communication without much guidance about how.
Asifo’s comedy background gives the book a unique personality. He pays close attention to timing, audience, and the difference between getting a reaction and earning someone’s engagement. His discussion of humor is especially thoughtful about trust, including the importance of reading the moment and choosing jokes that bring people into the conversation. He’s also willing to examine his own missteps, which gives the advice credibility and keeps the tone approachable. The book does lean heavily on recurring phrases and familiar lessons, so its pace can feel repetitive once you’ve grasped the central idea. Its evidence comes mainly from Asifo’s experience, and some broad claims about fear, training, and behavior would benefit from more support. Still, the workplace detail makes his observations easy to recognize and gives readers plenty to think through against their own experience.
I recommend Talk Human to Me to cybersecurity professionals whose success depends on cooperation across teams: analysts, security program managers, people working in governance, risk, and compliance, and technical specialists who regularly present to business leaders. It should also appeal to managers helping those professionals develop, particularly when technically sound work keeps stalling at the point of adoption. Readers who enjoy an informal voice, personal stories, and exercises tied to real tasks will probably get the most from it. There’s useful material here for quieter readers, too, since Asifo treats communication as a skill you can practice through everyday choices. The book’s lasting value is the attention it asks you to give the person receiving your message. It leaves you with practical ways to make that person’s next decision easier.
Pages: 108 | ASIN: B0HM5NHP3H
The Seasonal Killer
The Seasonal Killer combines a coming-of-age adventure with a crime thriller, following five friends whose summer freedom draws them into an unsettling investigation. Set in New Valley, a wooded suburban town north of New York City, the story looks back on the summer of 1981 through Brett Dubois’s recollections. Brett and his friends, the self-named Subpar Squad, spend their days dodging bullies, arguing about music, and devising questionable entertainment. When an evening excursion raises suspicions about a local resident, their familiar games acquire serious consequences. Author Bernard Doucette gives the premise its appeal through the boys’ shared history, their resourcefulness, and their uneven understanding of danger.
The book’s most persuasive passages establish the texture of that summer: newspaper routes, arcade games, record shopping, backyard pools, and long evenings spent beyond parental supervision. These details make the boys’ independence tangible and explain why their friendships matter so much. Brett describes their gathering place plainly: “The fort was our haven, far from the prying eyes and ears of adults”. That refuge gives the group room to develop its own rules, loyalties, and rituals. Their conversations are profane, competitive, and frequently funny, especially when a debate about guitarists or comic-book heroes becomes an occasion for elaborate insults. Jason’s quick tongue and seemingly endless appetite provide a recognizable comic rhythm. Some explanations of games and popular culture slow the narrative, but the accumulated detail gives the setting a strong identity.
Jake supplies the group’s clearest sense of responsibility. Sensitive, inventive, and repeatedly underestimated, he gives the investigation a purpose that reaches beyond curiosity. His question, “If we don’t do anything, and it happens again, then isn’t it kind of our fault?”, expresses the pressure driving the boys’ choices. Doucette is attentive to the tension between wanting an enjoyable vacation and feeling accountable for someone else’s safety. The Squad’s reputation for poor grades and misbehavior also raises a useful question about how adults assess children’s credibility and potential. Parents, teachers, and police officers often appear through broad, hostile characterizations, which can make their responses feel predictable. The more reflective passages, including Brett’s recognition that cruelty can grow from private unhappiness, give the social conflicts greater depth.
Doucette builds suspense through the boys’ heightened awareness of ordinary surroundings. Summer heat, scraping branches, dark windows, and unfamiliar sounds turn familiar spaces into sources of apprehension. Brett’s conversational narration keeps that fear close to the reader while preserving the humor and self-consciousness of adolescence. The pacing sometimes becomes repetitive as the friends revisit their doubts and Brett explains feelings already evident in the action. Greater restraint in those passages would sharpen the tension. Even so, the combination of rough humor, physical adventure, and moral uncertainty gives The Seasonal Killer a distinctive character. It’s especially appealing for readers who enjoy stories about adolescent friendship under pressure. The novel’s lasting interest lies in how these boys understand one another, and in the effort required to act responsibly when confidence, good judgment, and adult support are all in short supply.
Pages: 210 | ASIN : B0F74PDWJN
Blood Moon Over Betonville
Bernard Doucette’s Blood Moon Over Betonville brings an FBI investigation into the territory of old curses, inherited grief, and a town with some very dangerous history. Its narrator, Tom Milner, is a gifted profiler whose ability to understand killers has made him professionally invaluable and personally isolated. When human remains turn up near the Pennsylvania town where he spent part of his childhood, the case pulls him back toward a terrifying encounter he’s spent decades trying to explain away. Doucette gives Betonville a convincing everyday life, with neighborhood diners, familiar storefronts, and mountains that invite exploration. Then he lets disturbing details seep into that comfort. Blood dripping from deer carcasses outside a hotel and an abandoned cemetery above a quarry make the place feel dangerous long before the investigation begins.
Tom’s voice gives the book much of its character. He’s observant, prickly, occasionally funny, and painfully aware of how often he gets in his own way. He can read another person’s motives with remarkable precision while struggling to accept kindness directed toward him. His drinking, his guilt over his mother’s murder, and his resentment toward his father shape both his work and his relationships. That makes his gradual willingness to trust people one of the book’s most satisfying developments. Ben Potter, his childhood friend and now the local sheriff, brings warmth through his loyalty and cheerfully mangled expressions. Fellow agent Hannah Renfroe earns her place through competence, humor, and the steady assurance that she’ll show up when things get difficult. Their company gives Tom something tangible to fight for.
The mystery develops through forensic reports, interviews, false leads, and patterns that become stranger as more victims are identified. There’s an unsettling cumulative effect to watching the usual investigative tools produce answers that make the larger picture harder to understand. Doucette uses that tension well: every discovery raises the stakes while tightening the connection between the town’s past and Tom’s own history. The folklore grows out of cruelty, concentrated power, and a desperate desire for justice, which gives the supernatural threat an emotional logic. Tom’s instinct to search for the person inside a killer becomes especially consequential here. Some explanations and reflections repeat points the reader has already absorbed, slowing the momentum in places, but the central questions remain compelling.
When the confrontation arrives, the book puts its earlier attention to firearms, martial arts, and physical vulnerability to work. The action is rough and urgent, and the characters’ loyalty matters as much as their preparation. What gives those scenes their force is the emotional groundwork beneath them: Tom has spent years treating his life as payment for a loss he couldn’t prevent, and facing the threat means confronting that belief too. The closing movement gives the story room to consider recovery, companionship, and the possibility of enjoying ordinary days again. That attention to life after terror makes Blood Moon Over Betonville a satisfying read for anyone who likes supernatural horror with an investigative backbone and a troubled, engaging narrator. Doucette makes the monster terrifying and the life beyond it worth fighting for.
Pages: 249 | ASIN : B0GMLCPFKK
Being The Black Sheep
The Bloodline Watchers: The Awakening follows a man branded the family black sheep who one day has mysterious symbols appear beneath his skin, leading him to uncover a deeply hidden family secret that has been buried for generations. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration was based on my own experience of growing up feeling like I was not in the right family. I felt different, and I questioned myself while the people raising me continued to push and pull me into a system of control and compliance. At the same time, I watched people judge others without acknowledging the differences and beauty in them.
A lot of Sam came from that experience. Many of his memories and flashbacks are my memories. That feeling of being the black sheep, of wondering why you see or feel things differently from the people around you, is something I understand personally.
The Bloodline Watchers was also a story that lived in my mind rent free for several years. I kept seeing pieces of it, the bloodline, the family secrets, the awakening, and this idea that maybe the things that make someone different are not necessarily the things that are wrong with them. Maybe there is a reason they never fit the mold everyone else created for them.
How did you develop Sam and his feeling that he has always been the black sheep of his family, and how does discovering the truth about his bloodline change the way Sam understands the qualities he once tried to hide?
I have always had this idea that we are more powerful than we understand. That there is something divine within us, but when we come into this world, we forget where we came from and what we are. Sam grew out of that idea.
As a kid, I loved comic books and superheroes. Even as an adult, if somebody asks me how I managed to do something, my standard response has always been, “Well, I’m a superhero.” That idea became part of Sam’s DNA too, but I wanted to approach it from a spiritual direction rather than the traditional superhero story.
Sam has spent most of his life believing that being different means something is wrong with him. As the story develops, he has to confront the possibility that some of the qualities he tried to suppress were never weaknesses. They were pieces of himself he did not yet understand.
That connects to the larger world of The Bloodline Watchers. In this universe, the spiritual and physical worlds are beginning to bleed into one another. Sam is not simply gaining powers. He is remembering, awakening, and discovering that his family lineage is connected to something much older than any of them realized.
A lot of that world came from years of daydreaming, sketching characters, building lineages, and writing down ideas whenever they came to me. I collected those notes for years because I believed that one day I would actually write the story.
When I finally did, I wrote one massive story. It was too much. A family member suggested I work with an editor, and she gave me some great advice, including breaking the larger story into sections instead of trying to tell everything at once. That changed the way I approached the series. It gave the characters room to breathe and allowed me to expand the mythology instead of rushing through it.
That is especially important with Sam. His understanding of himself has to change gradually. He spent a lifetime believing he was the black sheep. Discovering the truth about his bloodline does not suddenly answer everything. It changes the question. Instead of asking, “What is wrong with me?” Sam begins to ask, “What if there was always a reason I was different?”
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book? Why did you want family relationships to be at the center of such a large supernatural story, and what does the story suggest about the things families inherit beyond possessions or genetics?
Family, trauma, acceptance, memory, and what we pass from one generation to the next were all important themes for me. I wanted to explore the idea that families inherit much more than possessions or genetics. We inherit stories. We inherit beliefs, fears, traditions, expectations, secrets, and sometimes wounds that began long before we were born.
That is one of the reasons family had to be at the center of The Bloodline Watchers. You can have this enormous supernatural world with ancient beings, spiritual forces, hidden bloodlines, and a reality much larger than we understand, but at the center of it are still people trying to figure out who they are and where they belong.
Families can love each other and still hurt each other. They can protect one another while also passing down patterns that should have ended generations ago. Sometimes what one generation believes it is doing to protect the next becomes the very thing the next generation has to confront.
That became part of the bloodline mythology for me. What if memory itself could travel through a family? What if trauma could? What if strength could? What if something spiritual could be passed forward too, even after everyone had forgotten where it began?
I also wanted the members of Sam’s family to respond differently when their understanding of the world begins to fall apart. They do not all believe the same things. They do not all accept what is happening at the same time. Some embrace it, some question it, and some resist it. That was important to me because that is how families actually work. We can come from the same place and still see the world completely differently.
Underneath the supernatural story, I think there is a question about what we choose to carry forward. We cannot control everything that was handed to us by the people who came before us, but we can decide what we do with it. Some things deserve to be remembered. Some things deserve to be healed. And some cycles deserve to end with us. The story overall is the type of family that I had in my mind where there is caring and love that is unconditional instead of transactional. Audry is what I am used to from the family overall except for Grandparents. That was the love and caring that I valued and miss after they passed away.
As the first book in a larger series, what foundations did you most want The Awakening to establish for the story ahead?
The biggest foundation I wanted to establish was that awakening is only the beginning. The Awakening is not about Sam suddenly understanding who he is or gaining powers and knowing how to use them. It is about realizing that the world he thought he understood is much larger, much older, and much stranger than he ever imagined.
I wanted to introduce the idea that the spiritual world and the physical world are not necessarily separate. There is a Veil between them, and that Veil is beginning to thin. Things humanity has called myths, religions, legends, gods, angels, demons, or something else entirely may be different interpretations of pieces of the same much larger reality.
The bloodline is another important foundation. Sam’s awakening is personal, but it is not only about Sam. His family is part of something that has been moving through generations, and as that begins to surface, they realize there are forces that have known about it much longer than they have.
I also wanted to establish that power in this world has consequences. Awakening does not automatically mean enlightenment, and discovering that you are capable of something extraordinary does not mean you are prepared for it. Sometimes becoming aware of something also makes it aware of you.
Most of all, I wanted The Awakening to leave the reader with the feeling that they have only seen the edge of something enormous. There are clues and pieces of mythology throughout the first book that may seem small at first, but this is a larger story, and some of those pieces will take on entirely different meanings as the series continues.
The Awakening opens the door. What comes next is about the consequences of opening it.
Sam Howardson has spent his life believing the parts of himself that made him different were something to hide. Branded the black sheep of his family, he buried the questions he couldn’t answer and the instincts he couldn’t explain.
Then impossible symbols burn beneath his skin.
As forgotten bloodlines awaken and hidden history resurfaces, Sam is drawn into an ancient conflict that has shaped humanity for thousands of years. Every answer tears away another layer of the world he thought he knew. Every revelation brings him closer to the truth about who he is, and why he has been hunted his entire life.
Across Oklahoma and the haunted streets of New Orleans, ancient orders move in the shadows as the world Sam trusted begins to unravel.
Humanity has never been alone.
The battle for its future has been unfolding in secret for centuries.
The Bloodline Watchers: The Awakening is the first novel in an epic supernatural thriller series blending hidden history, ancient mythology, forgotten bloodlines, and relentless suspense.
Perfect for readers who enjoy The Da Vinci Code, Fringe, and Supernatural.
Young Men In Harm’s Way: A Chronicle of Service and Survival
Arnold W. Krause’s Young Men in Harm’s Way follows a young Californian from civilian life into the daily demands of infantry service in Vietnam. Drafted in 1967, Krause served with Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, during 1968 and 1969, taking on increasing responsibility as his tour progressed. The book combines his personal story with a detailed record of his unit’s operations, drawing on military journals, letters, and fellow veterans’ recollections. That combination gives it the feel of someone talking you through his memories while spreading maps and photographs across the table.
What makes the account especially engaging is its attention to the practical business of getting through each day. Krause describes soaked fatigues, interrupted sleep, troublesome feet, meals assembled from C-rations, and the constant effort to stay alert. Radio procedures and helicopter movements become part of the rhythm of life, alongside jokes, care packages, and music drifting from a radio. His mother’s small artificial Christmas tree is a lovely detail, especially against the losses the company has just endured. These moments help you picture the young men behind the ranks and surnames, with their habits, friendships, and hopes of getting home.
The combat passages are most affecting when Krause connects an event to a person he knew. His account of David Schultz’s death during his first firefight stays with you because he returns to his own decisions and the consequences he’s spent years considering. December’s mounting casualties bring a different kind of strain, as familiar faces disappear and surviving soldiers have to keep working. His growing responsibility for other men makes each decision more consequential. You can feel how much leadership depends on experience, clear communication, and trust. His admissions about mistakes and gaps in memory make these sections especially compelling.
The book’s thoroughness also shapes its pacing. Long sequences of dates, unit movements, map coordinates, and weapons descriptions require concentration, and repeated explanations sometimes slow the narrative. Readers who enjoy following military operations closely will find plenty to work with, while others may feel most engaged when Krause returns to a conversation or a remembered scene. His strong political opinions and judgments about the war give the narration a distinctly personal stamp, although some sweeping claims would benefit from fuller support. The photographs, maps, glossary, and company roster strengthen the book’s value as a record of the people and places he wants remembered.
The closing material follows Krause’s return to civilian life, his search for old comrades, and the reunions that helped them reconnect. His later visit to Vietnam, including placing flowers for fallen friends, shows how those relationships stayed with him across decades. I’d recommend this book most strongly to Vietnam veterans, their families, and readers interested in the everyday workings of an infantry company, especially those with a connection to the 25th Infantry Division or the 12th Infantry Regiment. They’ll appreciate its patience with detail and its commitment to preserving individual names and experiences. Krause’s affection for the men he served beside is what makes the book worth spending time with.
Pages: 468 | ASIN : B0HCS4TR49
Struggles, Successes, and Failures
Before the Revolution reveals the forgotten century of exchange between Cuba and the U.S. through the businesses, ballfields, music, science, and family memories that connected two neighboring cultures. Why was this an important book for you to write?
During the last 67 years, the history of the Republic of Cuba’s era of progress has never been taught in US and Cuban classrooms. The Cuban regime does not want to acknowledge the 100 years of friendship with the United States—a country and people they refer to as Imperialist. It is not taught in the United States either. The story of a troublesome communist island which once hosted Soviet missiles aimed at the US is not part of the standard American history curriculum, either. I sought to eliminate this vacuum of knowledge by spending a year researching 100 years of documents between Cuba and the United States stored within the US Library of Congress and then writing a book about it.
Understanding our forefathers’ struggles, successes, and failures can help move history from lifeless texts onto richer human perspectives. I seek to provide the people of both nations with an enlightenment capable of advancing a dialogue that can reset relationships between nations.
Of all the places you researched, which most changed your understanding of pre-revolutionary Cuba?
The most unexpected history lesson I discovered during my year-long research in the US Library of Congress was Thomas Jefferson’s role in the birth of the sovereign and independent Republic of Cuba.
In 1823, US Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams sent a letter to Thomas Jefferson in which he wrote about Cuba’s preparation for a War of Independence from Spain. He writes that the war would lead to a destabilization of Cuba and a weakened Spanish army. This, he worried, might create an opportunity for England to take over the island of Cuba and continue north through Spanish-controlled Florida—forcing the United States to eventually have to fight a second War of Independence with England. Adams asked Jefferson’s support in annexing Cuba.
Thomas Jefferson responded with his own letter in which he disagreed with the American annexation of the island. People of a small island brave enough to fight the greatest colonial power of its time, he mussed, would make them fiercely independent people that could never be governed. The US would be better off partnering with a nascent Cuba than attempting to control those who won’t be controlled. Jefferson’s letter would become US policy towards Cuba during the next 137 years.
Can it be argued that as a result of his letter, Thomas Jefferson was in fact the father of two countries?
Your own childhood memories and family history gradually become part of the larger story. How did you decide where to place yourself in the book and where to step back?
I decided that my role in the book would be best in cameo appearances in order to introduce human context to the storytelling of a history book. Born in 1951, I was a child witness to the final years of the US and Cuba’s era of friendship and progress. I am in fact a part of the story.
Baseball is one of the book’s most personal and lively threads. What do you think the history of Cuban and American players reveals that conventional diplomatic history misses?
Baseball is more than just a game, it is about family moments, memories made, allegiances formed, loyalty, and life lessons learned. It bonds families with friends and strangers. Heals nations and opens doorways to understanding and acceptance. As such, baseball in Cuba was a part of the Cuban family conscience, an opportunity for American black players to play with Cubans and white American Major Leaguers in a tropical climate, and a bridge to future integrated Major League Baseball teams.
During the US-Cuba era of progress, the friendship between these two countries was strong, and their differences were few. It was an era of common goals and hope. The future had never seemed brighter. Today, the story of the US-Cuba years of progress lives on in the structures it left behind on the island. They stand as silent witnesses to this beautiful and rewarding time.
Journey with author Mario Cartaya into the history of this era, documented in the historical records of the time—catalogued in the US Library of Congress, US National Archives, US Department of State, US Naval Mission, various academic and museum archives, as well as in concurrent national/international newspapers and journals. Discover the documents, persons, and buildings that attest to the US-Cuba story of friendship rooted in shared human values, cultures, needs, assistance, and goodwill.
Before the Revolution offers a richer human perspective that can advance dialogues aimed at resetting the relationship between these two nations. For the US and Cuba, the time for this conversation has come.
