Unspoken Signals
In Unspoken Signals, Yarona Boster examines parenting as a language of tone, timing, presence, absence, boundaries, and repair, arguing that children absorb far more than our spoken lessons. The book moves from inherited parenting patterns into developmental insight, then into practical frameworks such as the 3 C’s of connection, control, and competency, always returning to the same central concern: how parents can raise children who feel emotionally secure enough to become capable, resilient adults. What gives the book its shape is Boster’s willingness to braid professional guidance with intimate memory, from her father’s gentleness and trauma as a Holocaust survivor, to her mother’s volatility and pain, to her own moments with Connor, including the startling tenderness of him saying she would always be “You’ll always be here, in my heart.”
Boster is at her strongest when a small domestic scene opens into a larger emotional truth: her son echoing her impatient driving from the back seat, a four-year-old morning undone by lumpy farina and itchy clothing tags, Mateo’s joy when allowed to pour his own juice, Connor’s proud struggle to buckle his car seat, or the ridiculous sweetness of “testicles in my elbow.” These moments keep the ideas from floating into abstraction. They reminded me that parenting is rarely transformed in grand declarations. It changes in the pause before snapping, in the choice not to overhelp, in the repair after a rough exchange. I appreciated how the writing gives parents room to feel grief, shame, tenderness, and hope without turning any of those feelings into a verdict.
The ideas in the book are compassionate, but they aren’t soft in the sentimental sense. Boster’s insistence that children need both warmth and boundaries feels earned, especially because she writes from the ache of inconsistency rather than from clinical distance. I was particularly moved by the chapters on grief and legacy, where the book widens from parenting technique into a meditation on what remains after us. Her memory of wanting to call her dead mother from Arizona to talk about palm trees, and later seeing her mother’s hands in her own while holding her son, gives the book a quiet ache that lingers.
What stayed with me is the book’s humane conviction that parents don’t need to become flawless, only more awake. Unspoken Signals is a reflective, emotionally generous guide for parents who want to understand not just what their children do, but what their behavior may be asking for beneath the surface. It will be especially meaningful for parents trying to break inherited cycles, caregivers raising young children, and adults who want to parent with more steadiness than they received. I recommend it to readers who are willing to look inward while learning outward, because this is not only a book about raising children; it’s a book about becoming the kind of person whose love feels safe enough to carry forward.
Pages: 236 | ISBN : 978-1544551890
Unusual Demands
Pedaling East follows two suspended FBI agents on a cross-country bicycle journey who discover that a human-trafficking cartel and a white nationalist militia are following them coast to coast with unfinished business. Was the route planned first, or did the story shape the geography?
The route was roughly planned and had to be West Coast to East Coast, since the book was a follow-up to Pedaling West, published in 2023. Since the bike trip represented a reunion of sorts of the cast from Pedaling West, but still part of the Butnari and Hill Crime Thriller series, my challenge was to find a way that two FBI agents could afford the two months off from work required for a coast-to-coast bicycle excursion. The untimely suspension resulting from a territorial dispute between ICE and the FBI solved the dilemma.
Marina and Doug begin the story suspended by the FBI after confronting corruption connected to trafficking and militias. Were you interested in exploring the frustration of people trying to do the right thing inside compromised systems?
Not really. I was simply taking advantage of a plausible scenario for a dispute between two federal enforcement agencies based on current events. The enthusiasm for immigration control by the current administration has placed unusual demands on the agency charged with handling it. To quickly increase their ranks, ICE has resorted to programs like the 287(g) initiative described in Pedaling East, and critics have complained that the vetting process for admitting new agents has suffered. Whether the accusation is accurate or not, the publicity allows the scenario in my book to resonate.
Found-family stories work best when the bonds feel earned rather than assumed. How do you build that sense of chosen belonging across a fast-moving plot?
As one reviewer noted, I deliberately slowed the plot-action down in places to include short scenes where the six primary characters interact on a personal basis. Despite the different environments each character comes from and the groups’ unusual mix of race, gender, professional avocations, and even sexual preferences, they find common ground in the important areas that establish essential human bonds. Their shared perils on the journey strengthen those bonds and make the story as much about the importance of teamwork as a fight for survival.
I hope the series continues in other books. If so, where will the story take readers?
Since Full Count, published in 2019, a consistent cast of my characters has intermingled across my seven published novels. Not all appear in all books, but they float in and out of the stories as the different plots for each story allow. Only Tom Burns has appeared in all seven novels, and I suspect that future books will feature the same characters. The “story” will determine where they (and the readers) go, and like life, we can’t predict what the next “story” might be.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website | Amazon
When the FBI unfairly suspends Special Agents Marina Butnari and Doug Hill, they plan an epic West Coast to East Coast bicycle journey with friends. In their profession, they’re accustomed to following trouble, but this time it follows them across the country as a dangerous human trafficking cartel teams with a white nationalist militia group to eliminate them.
Danger lurks around every bend in the road for the bikers in an adventure as explosive as Old Faithful and as intense as Niagara Falls. The trip, which starts in Oregon, will end in Boston, but how?
EVOLVED PUBLISHING PRESENTS a crime fiction adventure celebrating the strength of friendship, the resilience of partnership, and the power of teamwork in a novel featuring beloved characters from some of the other multiple award-winning books by E. A. Coe.
Sympathetic Characters
Moving Targets follows a private investigator as a stolen-artifacts case and a decades-old murder pull him into a web of corruption, grief, friendship, and the difficult work of rebuilding a life after loss. What inspired Miles Darien as a detective, especially his emotional depth and old-fashioned investigative instincts?
My love of detective stories started in the same familiar fashion as it did for so many others: Being intrigued by the exploits of Sherlock Holmes stories as a young person, I immediately began trying to figure out the cases before reading the outcome. It set me on a path of being a detective for a good detective story. As both my reading and my real experience base expanded, I became acutely aware of how the emotional elements of everyday life intersected everything we do and the people we become. The cases that a private investigator deals with come with heightened amounts of those same elements. I wanted Miles to experience those things as well, both empathetically and personally. That’s where dramas are born.
The novel balances multiple mysteries with Miles’s grief and personal healing. How did you decide how much space to give the cases versus his inner life?
I have always viewed the cases and Miles’s life to be inextricably linked. So, there was no conscious effort on my part to give a certain amount of space to one or the other. His cases were both a refuge and a challenge when mixed with what was happening in his non-work life. Whatever ended up on the page happened organically.
Miles’s circle of friends gives the book a strong sense of community. Were any of those relationships inspired by real friendships or places?
Friendships have always been extremely valuable commodities for me. The qualities I’ve admired in my friends play a big part in how I develop the sympathetic characters in my books. Conversely, negative behaviors I observe in people I encounter often develop into the less desirable characters. Taking bits and pieces of all of those people and molding them into a story appropriate character is key to creating a believable storyline. As for places, I’ve been fortunate to travel extensively in my life which gives me more diverse places and personalities to draw upon.
The ending offers hope without fully resolving Miles’s grief. Was it important to you to avoid a neat emotional conclusion?
Absolutely. I felt it was important to provide readers with some amount of a lift at the end but, at the same time, acknowledge that grief doesn’t just vanish. It finds an emotional refuge somewhere in a person’s mind, but it is always there lurking in the background. As Miles moves forward, he will deal with it less on a daily basis, but it can always be recalled, often at an inopportune time. Those times will come in handy as elements of his ongoing story.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Website | Instagram | Amazon
The investigation takes Miles and his life-partner FBI Agent Ken Caldwell, to Wisconsin’s Northwoods where the ongoing distrust between the indigenous and white populations is palpable. The case suddenly takes a deadly turn when its resolution leaves a new tragic trail of death. Miles is forced to decide whether he can continue his work while, at the same time, overcoming his guilt and paralyzing sadness. That dilemma drives him to make the biggest decision of his life.
Passion and Rage
Gaia’s Revolution follows a brutalized climate scientist, a fanatical deep ecologist, and two exploited orphans through the birth of a future Gaian order where the dream of saving Earth mutates into ecology, surveillance, and authoritarianism. What drew you to the idea of ecological devotion becoming a form of authoritarian power?
As an ecologist and environmental activist, I’m intrigued by the notion of what a caregiver and protector of the environment would do when pushed beyond their limits. Ecological devotion is a form of passion, borne and nurtured by strong and complex emotion; strong emotion—like love—can be subverted when threatened, and this can lead to a corruption of fair-mindedness, ultimately resulting in tyranny. Passion and rage are emotional cousins.
As climate change and habitat destruction foment chaos and uncertainty, our sense of democracy and fairness will erode even as protectionism and fanaticism increase—a result of our increasingly fractured and polarized societies. Fanatics prefer to see the world in binary form—black and white—often with marked boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. This “all or nothing” attitude can easily morph into an authoritarian approach that refuses to recognize compromise and leads to extremism. I wanted to explore that possibility by featuring actors deeply involved through their convictions in the big decisions that face humanity.
It was easy to come up with characters like Eric Vogel and Monica Schlange, who both exercise authoritarian power over humanity on behalf of an oppressed and silent environment. Eric escaped the shadows of an oppressive Stasi mother and restless regime to witness the inaction of North America’s oligarchs. Monica had grown up on a small farm in Ontario with a strong tie to the land when she was orphaned and ‘betrayed’ by an exploitive and deceitful government. She found and rekindled her power when she became the environment’s fierce champion.
Monica Schlange is both visionary and monstrous. How did you approach writing a character who believes so completely in her own necessity?
Monica’s personal history created motives for her extremism, fanatical directive, and warrior spirit. Seeing herself as a hero and champion for all who were silenced and ‘othered’ gave Monica a righteous strength and a conviction that she was an important arm of the “right side” in an environmental war. Ripped from her peaceful life on her father’s farm by loss and treachery beyond her control, Monica witnessed how selfish and unconnected humanity could be. Her passion for life, family, and the environment armed her with an incredible conviction to make a difference as she vowed to rise out of the oppression and doom that befell her feckless parents. She became a warrior and championed the ‘other’: those without a voice—the environment and the orphaned children who—like her—lost their innocence far too young. She never stopped believing that she was right. This belief gave her both incredible vision and clarity to act, but also gave her a blind arrogance in her faith that she was always right.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
The main theme of the novel is the loss of our innocence in a world in which humanity becomes increasingly separated from Nature—with devastating consequences. Gaia’s Revolution is foremost a cautionary tale that explores possible scenarios of our lack of connection and respect for the environment. The book is the first of a trilogy that explores many themes within this larger one: themes that investigate our use and abuse of various technologies such as artificial intelligence, genetics & cloning, bioengineering, and behaviour modification—all overseen by catastrophic climate change.
Gaia’s Revolution feels part thriller, part manifesto, and part warning. How did you balance storytelling with the book’s scientific, philosophical, and political ideas?
Gaia’s Revolution is essentially a climate thriller and a story with a large scope—invoking large societal considerations, from science to politics. The novel covers upheaval, change, war, and great struggle on an epic scale. I balanced the large scope with compelling storytelling by focusing on the personal experiences of both main and minor characters. Each character experienced the revolution and its aftermath differently, each according to their own place, personal history, and character—and ultimately their relationship with the natural world. Given the circumstances, virtually all the characters had to transform in some way to simply survive.
The effects of climate change, societal upheaval, revolution, and war all created a world that was itself a strong character. Much like Thomas Hardy’s Egdon Heath in The Return of the Native, the world of Gaia’s Revolution is an imposing character, exerting great influence on virtually all the characters of the novel. And in a world torn apart by environmental calamity and war, innocence is the first casualty. The true—and only innocent—protagonists in this story are the three orphans, who must navigate the harsh environment their elders have created for them. In some ways they—and the loss of their innocence—are at the heart of the story.
Author Links: GoodReads | Gaia’s Revolution | X (Twitter) | Bluesky | LinkedIn | Website | The Meaning of Water | Nina Munteanu | Amazon
The Icarian Trilogy opens in Berlin, 2022, and hurtles into a near future on the brink of collapse, where twin brothers Eric and Damien ignite a revolution that could save the planet—or erase humanity altogether.
The population is expendable.
As climate catastrophe scorches the Earth, Eric makes a ruthless, Machiavellian choice to “save” the world at any cost. He unleashes a DNA-targeted plague to cull the human population, then tightens his grip on the survivors through behavior engineering, genetic manipulation, and Techno-clones—man-machine enforcers that herd humanity into sealed megacities known as Icarias.
The war is inevitable.
Horrified by his brother’s genocide and technocratic tyranny, Damien strikes back. He forms the Gaians, a radical eco-terrorist movement, and sparks a brutal uprising against both the regime and the blood that binds them. His weapon is a sentient symbiotic virus designed to enhance human cognition and help humanity thrive in a post–climate change world. Instead, it fractures reality—killing some hosts outright, while allowing others to communicate directly with artificial intelligence.
As the brothers spiral into all-out war for the fate of the planet, a far more dangerous player emerges. Monica Schlange, a ruthless eco-extremist, manipulates both men like chess pieces in her own endgame: saving Earth from humanity and ruling the enclosed world of Icaria. To achieve it, she exploits three orphaned children who hold the secret to an intelligent virus—and the blueprint for an entirely new humanity.
Saving the world was never meant to save everyone.
So You Want To Be A Professional Athlete
So You Want To Be A Professional Athlete, by Linda Soules, is a smart and encouraging nonfiction guide for kids who dream about playing sports at the highest level. Instead of focusing only on fame, trophies, and big game moments, this book shows what being a professional athlete really looks like behind the scenes. Soules makes it clear that talent matters, but it is only the beginning. The real work comes through practice, discipline, training, recovery, and learning how to handle pressure.
One of the best parts of this children’s book is how honest it is without being discouraging. Young readers learn about strength training, nutrition, sleep, film study, mental toughness, and the team of coaches, trainers, nutritionists, and sports psychologists who help athletes perform their best. The book also explains the less glamorous parts of the job, like injuries, early mornings, strict routines, public failure, and the fact that an athletic career does not last forever. That honesty makes the book feel useful, especially for kids who may think professional athletes mostly just show up and play.
The writing is clear, casual, and easy for kids to follow, while still treating them like serious readers. Soules doesn’t talk down to her audience, and she gives enough detail to make the world of elite sports feel real. The colorful illustrations, fun facts, real athlete stories, glossary, and “day in the life” sections help keep the book engaging. Some parts are packed with information, so it may appeal most to curious readers who enjoy learning how things work, but sports-loving kids will find plenty here to keep their attention. I also liked how it mentions that “The mental dimension is as demanding as the physical.” I don’t think many children’s book go into this aspect enough, and I was happy to see this book tackle that side of sports.
So You Want To Be A Professional Athlete is a great choice for young athletes, sports fans, families, teachers, and coaches. It gives kids a realistic look at the hard work behind greatness while still encouraging them to dream big. More than anything, it shows that being “professional” starts long before the crowd cheers your name, it starts with the choices you make when no one is watching.
Pages: 38 | ISBN : 978-1972766200
A Light Had Gone Out
In Jake’s Shoes follows a grieving father who discovers his late son through a hidden notebook of childhood letters, uncovering the life, pain, and love he failed to see while his son was still alive. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
For a number of years I’d been writing picture books, middle-grade novels, and songs about, with, and for children.
In the early 1980’s, my mother died, rather suddenly from cancer. I felt like a light had gone out.
At the time, my wife, Judy, and I were team-teaching in early childhood, multi-age classrooms. I was seeing and working with young children…plus my own daughters, every day. As I watched them and spent time with them, I found myself wondering how they might cope with the same kind of struggle I was going through.
As I struggled to cope with the loss of my mother, and how to keep her light on, I needed some way to bring meaning to her death…something that would honor the “light inside” that made her such a special person in my life.
I decided I wanted to write about it. But didn’t feel like a personal journal or a memoir was my route. I decided I’d write about a young boy, who had just lost his grandmother, with whom he had developed a very special bond. Writing as a young boy (I named him Jake), he writes letters to her telling her how much he misses her, shares both his sad and happy days, his struggles at home and at a new school…letters that honor her by acknowledging the positive impact she had on his life. I decided the time frame would revolve around a difficult year in his life, as an eleven-year-old, whose family moved to a new town, new school, and new friends. Over the course of several years, I used these letters in several presentations I made to parent groups. It was only later, that I felt these simple letters might serve as a springboard for a story, which eventually became, IN JAKE’S SHOES.
Marshall is flawed but not villainized. Why was it important to write him with that complexity?
In Jake’s Shoes is a story about a normal family going through the normal struggles of learning to live each day together. I want readers to identify with Marshall, not vilify him and think about how their personal complexities project their own humanity…in how they deal with others, see the world…see themselves in it. The story should serve as a laboratory for reflection as the reader travels along on Marshall’s journey through loss, grief and the possibility for redemption.
The book explores emotional restraint, especially in men. Was that a conscious thematic focus from the beginning?
That theme, naturally, does weave itself throughout. I recall, when I began my career as a young teacher and as a parent, I would find myself responding to what I perceived as “misbehavior” as if it were a personal affront. But I found my response most effective when I could “take a breath,” and choose how I reacted to situations instead of, in essence, being at the mercy of impulse. I hope readers will consider how this theme might be reflected in their own lives as they ponder Marshall’s responses to his son, his wife, his other children.
The book leans into sincerity rather than irony. What do you hope readers feel when they finish the final pages?
I wanted to project Marshall as a normal father, whose internal conversations are genuine and real, as he struggles to understand his child. As I believe all of us do as parents, understanding what it means to be a parent while pursuing your own personal goals and identity is not a simple task.
I want the readers to feel that the story has taken them on a journey into their memories. That it has helped them to appreciate the complexity of family relationships, loss, grief, communication, and understanding.
An Army officer knocks on the door only a few days before Christmas-and a family’s world quietly unravels.
When Marshall Gatlin retreats to his dusty attic in search of solace, he stumbles upon an old notebook tucked inside a forgotten box. Written by his son Jake at the age of eleven, the letters inside are addressed to a deceased grandmother…but their words are very much alive.
As Marshall turns each fragile page, he’s drawn into the tender, whimsical, and often rebellious world of a boy wrestling with friendship, grief, and the quiet mysteries of growing up. With every letter, Marshall begins to uncover a side of Jake he never knew.
Both heartbreaking and inspirational, In Jake’s Shoes is a tale of discovery, loss, and the strange, mysterious ways that love leaves its mark. Prompting readers to reflect on their own family dynamics, it will spark conversations about love, loss, and the words left unspoken.
The World As It Is
Donald Levin’s The World As It Is is a historical crime novel set in Detroit in 1963, where the police killing of Cynthia Scott, the murder of a con man, and whispers of a mob contract pull several lives into the same dangerous current. At the center are Amp Hamilton, a young Black musician who witnesses police violence; Hannah Posner, a civil rights lawyer fighting her own body as multiple sclerosis worsens; David Buchalter, a wounded and stalled warehouse manager; and Denny Rankin, an investigator chasing old guilt through a new case. The book works as both a mystery and a portrait of a city under pressure, with civil rights, organized crime, Motown, Black nationalism, and the Kennedy assassination all pressing in on the story.
Levin doesn’t soften the ugliness of the period, and he doesn’t make the characters into symbols only. Amp’s anger feels earned, Hannah’s sharpness feels like armor, and David’s drift has the sad weight of a man who has mistaken endurance for living. What I appreciated most was the way the novel lets people contradict themselves. They can be brave and petty, loving and afraid, principled and exhausted. That feels relatable. The book has a wide cast, and at times I had to slow down to keep everyone straight, but the sprawl also gives the novel its texture. Detroit feels crowded, tense, alive.
The World As It Is is less interested in a neat puzzle than in the systems around the crime. That choice worked for me. The murders matter, but so do the cover-ups, the silence, the fear, and the casual way power protects itself. Levin also makes smart use of real history without letting the book become a lecture. Motown sessions, civil rights protests, police corruption, Jewish Detroit, and rising Black political consciousness all move through the novel like weather. Sometimes the historical references come quickly, almost densely, but I liked the ambition behind that. It gives the story a lived-in feeling, as if the characters are not just solving a case, but trying to breathe inside history while it’s still happening.
I would recommend The World As It Is to readers who like thoughtful historical fiction with a strong crime thread, especially those drawn to mid-century Detroit, civil rights history, morally complicated characters, and mysteries that care as much about why a city breaks as who pulled the trigger. It’s not a light read, but it’s absorbing, angry, compassionate, and grounded in a way that stayed with me after the final page.
The Tattered Unicorn Is Me
The Tattered Unicorn follows a curious unicorn whose painful journey beyond the forest becomes a heartfelt lesson in identity, healing, friendship, and self-acceptance. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The Tattered Unicorn is me. My chosen lifestyle has left me isolated because it is so different, even if it brings me happiness and joy. I tried to live like family and friends wanted me to, but it made me physically ill and emotionally bereft and sad.
How did you approach writing about scars and healing in a way that young children could understand?
Children understand pictures better than words, and the beautiful unicorn comes across to be as Good Conscience and healthy living. His scars become a beautiful rainbow pattern on his fur that he wears always with pride. It makes him unique and still beautiful in his crowd of friends.
Why was it important to present the story in five languages?
Different languages are as beautiful as the Different cultures that use them. Sure, I wanted to reach more readers, but also wished for multi lingual readers to find more meaning in the passages as you read from one to another language. And also to encourage young readers to learn other languages using parallel text such as this.
What do you hope children and parents take away from Frost’s transformation by the end of the book?
I hope readers, young and mature, sharing this story together, can feel encouraged to be brave and explore, but to also turn away from things that don’t suit you. And to remember, if you feel damaged by an experience, those scars have taught you something important and has made you more unique and beautiful.
Author Links: Website | Amazon
