The Mephisto Swamp Mystery
Dorian Rockwood’s The Mephisto Swamp Mystery drops readers into a sun-struck 1940s world of soda fountains, boxing gyms, and canoe trips gone very wrong, then sends identical twin brothers Dan and Paul Case into the eerie wetlands of Mephisto Swamp, where a casual graduation adventure turns into the discovery of a hidden counterfeiting operation run out of an abandoned sawmill. What begins with a fake bill in town and some lively family-and-friends banter tightens into a chase story with kidnappings, improvised escapes, and a criminal ring whose reach is much larger than the boys first realize. Dan’s artistic eye, Paul’s physical confidence, and the novel’s swamp setting give the mystery a strong identity from the start.
What I liked most is the book’s temperament. It has the clean engine of a classic adventure mystery, but it is not bloodless or mechanical. The brothers are genuinely likable together; their teasing feels lived-in rather than manufactured, and the dialogue often has a nimble, unforced charm. I especially liked the way Rockwood gives Dan a perceptive, slightly inward sensibility without making him passive. The swamp itself is one of the book’s best achievements: not just spooky, but lush, damp, and faintly infernal, a place that feels painterly and rank at the same time. There is a pleasing old-school straightforwardness to the storytelling, yet it still has enough texture to avoid feeling like a museum piece.
I also found myself responding to the book’s moral grain. Beneath the cliffhangers and peril, there is a steadiness about decency, family, and second chances that gives the story more ballast than a routine caper. The counterfeit plot is exciting on its own, but the novel gets extra lift from the emotional material around the twins’ late father, their mother, and Steve Barton’s tentative place in the family circle. Even the resolution resists pure thumping triumph; it leaves room for mercy as well as victory, which I found unexpectedly affecting. Some beats arrive with serial-style obviousness, but the book’s sincerity works in its favor more often than not.
I would hand this to readers who enjoy mystery, adventure, historical mystery, YA mystery, and amateur sleuth fiction, especially anyone who likes capable teenage heroes, period atmosphere, and danger that stays thrilling rather than nihilistic. It feels closest in spirit to The Hardy Boys, though Rockwood gives the material a more humid, bruised, backwater mood than those books usually carry. I came away thinking this is a brisk, personable, swamp-dark mystery with a square jaw and a pulse.
Pages: 191 | ASIN : B0GDMX7FW2
The Wind Blows Sometimes Gently or Wildly
Away from the City follows the journey of a maple leaf, leaving the noise behind and finding calm in the wild, made even more moving by your real-life reflections on family, travel, and nature as comfort during ALS. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
There are so many inspirations for the story, and none of them are specific to any one order. Fall is my favorite season of the year, especially when it has just started. The green is still very present, but yellow and orange decide they want to be a part of the aesthetics. The wind blows sometimes gently or wildly, while that swoosh sound is all you hear. It’s peaceful. When I was younger, we would often go wood hauling to prepare for the Winter season. My mother grew up in the Chuska Mountains, and my dad grew up near Gallup, NM, where the Cibola National Forest and the Zuni Mountains are accessible. My family lived near large hills, so my sisters and I were always up in them for hours. My parents always took my sisters and me on nature drives, so some of my best memories are from those trips. If we stayed at home, we planted or gardened, but we were always outside, and there was nothing better. As my parents grew older, our trips lessened, but I ended up working in Yellowstone National Park for five seasons as a younger woman. It was the absolute best experience of my life. Later in life, my mom was diagnosed with ALS, which was very frightening for my family. Even at her weakest, my mom loved nature until the very end, even when all she could do sometimes was look out the window. There was comfort in knowing that nature still brought her inner joy.
How did you decide which “stops” the leaf would make, and did any scenes get cut along the way?
I have loved writing poetry for many years. I have many poems that no one has read before. I wrote “Away from the City” about a beautiful leaf envisioned. I have seen some beautiful waterfalls while living in Yellowstone National Park, and I have seen just beautiful scenery from where both my parents grew up. I used those memories as a stop for the leaf to visit because they are magical. Because the story started off as a poem, thankfully, I didn’t cut any scenes.
The artwork balances peaceful melancholy with warmth and light. What visual choices were most important to you in showing that seasonal transition?
I envisioned all the colors of early fall. It’s so vibrant. The colors are prominent and pop. The green looks greener, and the leaves are in transition from green to yellow, orange, and brown. It’s just beautiful how that happens. The Earth lets you know it’s alive, and it changes just like people do. The sky has this wonderful way of somehow matching the fall hue. As for the photos in the book, my agent, Amanda Zillman, thought it would be a unique touch to add photos. She added beautiful notes to each of my photos, clarifying some of the memories that inspired my first story.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
I am a Native American from the Navajo tribe. My next children’s book is a hommage to my cultural roots. It’s called “The Hogan that Cheii Built.” I have many stories to share, and I hope the readers will love them.
Author Links: Amazon | Website
Away from the City is a short melodic story about appreciating Autumn’s vibrant colors in the fall season while giving credit to nature’s beauty.
Spreading Their Wings
Runaway Artist follows a young artist who witnesses a violent crime behind a Beverly Hills gallery where she is interning, and her sketches become the only evidence, putting her own life in danger. What inspired the idea of an artist who can reconstruct a crime scene through drawings?
The experts say, “write what you know.” Because I’ve been a professional artist for over 40 years, the subject made perfect sense to tackle. Brooke reacts to stimuli the way I might if faced with her predicament, and if I were her age. We artists see the world in color and details.
Brooke is both brave and uncertain at times. How did you approach writing her emotional journey?
I love writing about females in their early twenties who are on the cusp of spreading their wings. Brooke is old enough to know a lot, but young enough to make mistakes. And the average reader has been there at one point in their life, so they can relate…and, hopefully, even cheer on the heroine.
The book touches on courage, independence, and trusting your instincts. Were those themes intentional from the beginning?
Yes, totally intentional. I treated Brooke as if she’d just joined the military by pulling her away from the life she had previously known, then throwing her into a place far from her comfort zone. She would either fold up into a ball or have to dig deep to find that inner confidence we all need if we are to survive. Fortunately, she has a sister who is strong and capable, so she has an example to follow.
Could you imagine returning to Wildridge or these characters in future stories?
Possibly. I really like the setting, which is patterned after a mountain community near me. I can imagine Brooke and Conner marrying and eventually enjoying their HEA, but prior to that, I’d have to invent a villain. Brooke might even become a police sketch artist and… Who knows?
Author Links: GoodReads | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Days later, clues finally emerge, turning the alleged murder into a reality. Brooke must face a decision—risk the killer returning to silence her…or disappear into thin air. Can she remain hidden until an arrest is made? Or will evil find her first?
Spunky Spirit
Kali the Elephant Learns from Socrates the Philosopher follows a young elephant being teased at school who wishes she could change how she looks, until she meets a philosopher who helps her change her perspective. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The inspiration was hearing about my granddaughter and other kids getting teased, and being unhappy about the usual responses recommended in children’s books, as well as in real life. I wanted to show kids that they could stand up for themselves and use humor to get the teasers to back off. They didn’t need to take revenge or wait for adults to do something about it. And then I remembered how Socrates used humor to respond to his teasers and win a beauty contest! So that gave me a chance to introduce Socrates to my readers, and imagine how Kali would respond to her teasers.
What makes Kali relatable for children facing teasing or insecurity?
Children will be attracted to her spunky spirit and be inspired by the fact that she manages to solve her problem with good humor, win her classmates’ admiration, and thus solidify her friendship with them.
How did working with illustrator Ady Branzei shape the final book, and how important are illustrations in conveying emotional nuance in a story like this?
Ady Branzei’s illustrations do a marvelous job of conveying Kali’s varying states of mind: her eagerness to go to school, her feelings of hurt when her friends tease her, her decision to take matters into her own hands and “shrink” her features, and failing that, her decision to follow Socrates’ lead and prove to her friends how lucky she is to have the features she does.
Do you plan to explore more philosophy-inspired children’s stories?
Yes, I have already started exploring an idea based on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Kali the Elephant | Website | Amazon
Kali the Elephant is hurt when her elementary-school friends make fun of her big ears, long trunk, and too-big-for-an-elephant eyes. She tries everything to shrink her features, but sadly, nothing works. She then turns to her comic books and discovers that the ancient philosopher Socrates was also teased for his appearance. How did he respond to his friends? With a twinkle in his eye, Socrates used humor to turn the teasing around. Inspired by his wisdom, Kali finds the perfect words to reply to her friends, a reply that leaves everyone laughing and wishing they looked like her!
This beautifully illustrated picture book seamlessly weaves a classic philosophical story into a modern, relatable tale for children ages 3-8. It gently tackles themes of:
* Dealing with teasing and bullying
* Building self-esteem and resilience
* Using humor and emotional intelligence to solve problems
* Celebrating what makes you unique.
“Kali the Elephant Learns from Socrates the Philosopher” is more than just a story, it’s a conversation starter for parents and teachers about friendship, kindness, and critical thinking. It has received multiple 5-star editorial and customer reviews and is perfect for fans of books by Janna Levin and Kobi Yamada. Grab your copy today and join Kali on her journey of self-discovery!
Clarity
In Writing in the Wound, you share with readers what it means to be shaped by academia, gendered power, and migration, and how your reliance on music proved to be a method of rescue. Why was this an important book for you to write?
I began writing Writing in the Wound at a moment of profound emotional and political intensity in my life. After years of navigating the Canadian immigration system, I found myself confronting not only institutional barriers but also the deeper psychological and embodied impact of living within them.
Initially, I considered writing a more overtly critical, policy-driven book—one that directly addressed the failures and frustrations of the immigration system. But I realized that such a project would take me away from my core as an artist.
What felt more urgent was to write from within my own lived experience—through sound, memory, and relationship. This book became a way of tracing how I endured, and what allowed me to stay. In that sense, it is not only a story of struggle, but of artistic becoming.
In its early drafts, the manuscript was expansive and uncontained. Over time, it found its center—particularly through my relationship with my mentor, which offered a space of care, listening, and growth. That relational grounding became essential to shaping the narrative.
Ultimately, this book created a new path for me—a path where I was no longer masking who I am or what I am enduring within this system. It allowed me to situate myself clearly as an artist, while also naming the conditions I was navigating.
I wrote this book not just to document what happened, but to understand how one continues to create, even within systems that constrain and wound.
Music appears as discipline, refuge, and language—when did it become central to your survival?
Music became central to my survival during the uncertainty of the COVID-19 period. After serving as Music Faculty for Semester at Sea, I travelled to Karachi due to the pandemic and found myself unexpectedly unable to return to Canada for nearly two years, at a time when institutions were largely closed and opportunities had disappeared.
In that period of precarity, when academic institutions had stopped hiring faculty, and it was difficult to teach remotely from where I was situated, music shifted from being a practice of expression to a practice of sustenance. Earlier compositions, like Anticipating and Living with Purpose, had received recognition on international charts and in competitions, which gave me the confidence to continue applying for opportunities. Then, Perils of Heavy Rainfall received Second Prize in Listening during COVID contest (2020).
Gradually, commissions and invitations followed, including from organizations such as New Music Edmonton and New Music Calgary, as well as from the International Women’s Day festival and the Canadian Music Week platform. What began as a fragile thread of continuity became, over time, a means of survival—both materially and emotionally.
Was there a moment when you felt your voice shifting—from survival to assertion?
Yes—there was a moment when everything I had been experiencing condensed into a single, clear sentence: that after 17 years in Canada, I still did not have permanent residency, and that this was not incidental, but tied to the structural limitations of the immigration system.
This clarity came to me in July, during a later stage of working on Writing in the Wound. By that point, the writing had begun to settle, and I was able to see my experience not only as something I had lived through but as something I could name with precision.
Being able to name that so directly marked a shift for me. Until then, much of my writing had been about processing and surviving. But that sentence became a position—it allowed me to see my experience not as an individual struggle, but as part of a broader systemic pattern.
Around that time, I also began to explore new pathways within the immigration system, including applying on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. That process required me to articulate my story not only as narrative, but as a formal claim—something that could be recognized within institutional frameworks. In that sense, my voice was no longer only expressive; it became strategic and assertive.
This shift was also reflected in how my work moved into public space. My writing on the undervaluation of artistic labour was published in Canadian Dimension, and I began sharing my story in community settings, including an event with Action Dignity. Speaking in those spaces—where these issues are often not centered—felt like an important act of bringing lived experience into public discourse.
That momentum continued with invitations to speak at larger gatherings, including a Labour Day event, where my story was witnessed by a wide network of community organizations.
In that sense, assertion was not a single moment, but a series of acts—each one moving my voice from private endurance toward public articulation and advocacy.
What is one thing you hope readers take away from Writing in the Wound?
At its heart, the book asks: what happens when our scars begin to speak?
I hope readers come away with a deeper recognition that the wound is not only personal, but structural. Experiences of migration, racialization, and institutional struggle are not simply endured—they also carry strength, insight, and endurance. They shape ways of seeing, feeling, and creating that are often overlooked or undervalued.
For those navigating migration and racialization, these experiences are frequently internalized, fragmented, or rendered invisible. This book is an attempt to give them form—to show that what is carried in the body and in memory can become voice.
If there is one thing I hope readers take away, it is that these experiences are not only sites of injury, but also sites of knowledge. When scars begin to speak, they do more than tell a story—they begin to name the structures that produced them, and in doing so, open the possibility of shifting those systems—and one’s positionality within them.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Website | Amazon
For Dr. Shumaila Hemani, music began as a calling. It unfolded into a life path through a rare human connection with eminent ethnomusicologist Professor Regula Burckhardt Qureshi, whose faith in her awakened the courage to risk everything for the artist’s path.
Spanning nearly two decades — from 2006 to the present — across the academic corridors of Harvard and the University of Alberta to the soundscapes of London, Boston, Chicago, Edmonton, Mumbai, Karachi, Calgary, Banff, and Toronto, and a world odyssey aboard a floating campus, Writing in the Wound is a story of resilience and fragile belonging, of visibility and erasure, and of the power of art — in particular Sufi music — to transmute pain into wisdom.
It is an intimate testament to truth and vulnerability in the face of institutional silencing, immigration precarity, and the long endurance toward permanent belonging.
Freya the Deer
Freya the Deer is a literary coming-of-age novel with the strange shimmer of a fairy tale. It follows Freya Rubenstein, a young woman with autism who moves from Cambridge to a small college in the woods of Washington, carrying with her an intense love of animals, a restless curiosity about the soul, and a way of moving through the world that other people constantly misread. What unfolds is part campus novel, part moral reckoning, part dark fable: Freya falls into love, politics, and danger while trying to hold onto her own fierce sense of truth.
Author Meg Richman writes Freya with real conviction, and that matters because this book could have so easily turned her into a symbol, a lesson, or a bundle of quirks. Instead, she feels singular. Odd, funny, tender, literal, and sometimes almost severe in the way she sees things. I loved how the novel lets the world arrive through Freya’s mind rather than forcing her to translate herself into something more familiar for everyone else. The prose can be lush, but it is not showing off for the sake of it. It feels attached to the character. At its best, the book has that rare quality where the imagery actually deepens the person on the page instead of decorating her. The fairy-tale texture really worked for me. The woods, the red cloak, the animal imagery, the sense that menace and wonder are always standing close together. It gives the novel a charged atmosphere without floating away from real harm.
It was interesting, and at times unsettling, how the book handles morality. Freya is not written as innocent in a simple or sentimental way. She is perceptive, but her perceptions do not always line up with the social scripts everyone else is following, and that makes the novel ask harder questions than I expected. About consent. About ideology. About cruelty dressed up as righteousness. About whether love and truth can survive each other. The campus politics and arguments about justice, Israel, capitalism, race, and activism could have felt schematic, but Richman keeps dragging them back into lived experience, where ideas stop being neat. Some choices are messy on purpose. Some conversations feel jagged. I admired that, even when I was wincing. The book trusts the reader to sit in ambiguity, which I respect. It also made me think about how often people mistake clarity for coldness, especially in someone like Freya, when in fact her honesty may be the most morally serious thing in the room.
I’d recommend Freya the Deer most to readers who like literary fiction that takes risks, especially if they’re drawn to coming-of-age stories with a darker edge, socially engaged novels, or modern fairy tales that are more thorny than cozy. This is not a breezy read, but it is a memorable one. I think it will land best with readers who are willing to follow an unusual protagonist without needing her to become easier or more legible by the end. For me, that was the point. The book asks for patience, openness, and a little courage. I think the right reader will be grateful for all three.
Pages: 206 | ISBN : 978-1578692156
The Original Human Beings
Most novels that revolve around music treat performance like a spotlight and leave it at that. The Original Human Beings treats music like a tool you can use to pry open a sealed life. The cello is described not only as an instrument but as a surrogate voice, capable of “cries” and “whispers of pain and joy,” and the book keeps faith with that idea even when the plot lunges into danger. When a professor says human beings dance because we’re sad and happy, it’s not a cute line; it’s a thesis about embodiment, about refusing to go numb.
I loved the sections that show craft, not just talent: technique sharpening, fingers blistering, the social machinery of being “discovered.” The glamour arrives with a shadow attached, expectation, scrutiny, panic, until the book captures that brittle feeling of being pulled too tight, “like the strings of my cello,” ready to snap. It’s one of the more accurate depictions I’ve read of what acclaim can do to a nervous system.
Then the New York sequence: immigration memory colliding with the Statue of Liberty, grief and hope walking together, and the private terror of possibly failing in a place that pretends it’s neutral but isn’t. The book refuses the lazy “America saved her” arc; it keeps the cost on the page, including the kind of quiet hate that “wants you to disappear.”
By the time Never reaches Carnegie Hall, the triumph isn’t written as a fairytale. It’s written as a claim, late, battered, and absolutely intentional. When she tells a reporter, “Music is our humanity… Without art, we are merely flesh and blood,” the line feels like a blade made of sound. This is a novel for readers who believe art doesn’t just reflect life, it metabolizes it, turns the unbearable into something you can carry without collapsing.
If you loved a novel where music isn’t garnish but a force that rearranges lives, you might feel an echo of Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, with the key difference that here the instrument becomes a lifeline threaded through immigration, violence, and reinvention rather than an enclosed social experiment. In emotional voltage and the way childhood catastrophe ripples into adulthood, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is a good comparison, though The Original Human Beings is more overtly braided with myth and spiritual argument than Hosseini’s comparatively realist frame.
Pages: 356 | ASIN : B0G42BPC2T
Lion’s Den
Lion’s Den is a work of dystopian political fiction with a strong coming-of-age thread, and it follows Johnny and Benny Salter after a brutal attack on their family dojo leaves their father dead and their lives split open. Set in a fractured Southern California shaped by earthquakes, tsunamis, secession politics, and street-level ideological conflict, the novel tracks grief, loyalty, revenge, and the question of what it means to inherit a legacy before you are ready for it. At its core, this is a story about two brothers trying to stay upright while the ground under them keeps shifting, both literally and emotionally.
Author Neil Citrin writes with real conviction about family, discipline, and belief, and that conviction gives the novel its engine. The dialogue can be direct, sometimes almost purposefully plain, but in a book like this that straightforwardness often works because the characters are living in survival mode. They do not have the luxury of being vague. I also liked how the novel keeps returning to Johnny’s interior balance, his breathing, his restraint, the way he tries to think while Benny burns hotter beside him. That contrast gives the story a human center. You feel the ache of grief in the pauses, in the small practical decisions, in the way these boys have to talk about trusts, schools, and housing while still reeling from loss.
I was also struck by the author’s choice to build the novel as both a personal drama and a broader political thought experiment. The alternate California, with its damaged infrastructure, breakaway pressures, and ideological camps, gives the book a tense backdrop that is more than decoration. It shapes how people talk, where they can travel, whom they trust, and what danger looks like day to day. I wanted the political material to breathe a little more and let the characters step out from under it, but I also understood why Citrin kept it so close. For him, it clearly is the weather of the book. Everything happens inside it. The martial arts thread helps too. It gives the novel a code, not just action. Discipline matters. Legacy matters. Control matters. Even revenge is treated less like a thrill and more like a test of character, which I appreciated.
Lion’s Den will speak most strongly to readers who enjoy character-driven speculative fiction, especially stories that blend family loyalty, civic conflict, and martial arts into one narrative line. It’s earnest, steady, and deeply invested in the moral choices its characters face. I would recommend it most to readers who like dystopian fiction that stays close to the heart, as well as to anyone interested in stories about brothers, inheritance, and the hard work of deciding what kind of person to be after loss.
Pages: 239 | ASIN : B0GKHF8NFK
