Category Archives: Book Reviews
Blame the Devil
Joe Colicchio’s Blame the Devil is a dark supernatural literary horror novel about evil, faith, revenge, and the strange burden of being chosen to answer cruelty when ordinary justice fails. Set largely in 1967 Jersey City, the story follows Donna Mahoney and Dennis Henry, two outsiders whose tentative friendship grows in the shadow of family grief, Catholic guilt, neighborhood violence, and the monstrous presence of Officer Victor Varde. As Donna begins to understand her identity as an Avenging Angel, the novel shifts from coming-of-age story into supernatural revenge tale, asking what justice looks like when evil is not just human but ancient.
What struck me first was the voice. This is not a quiet book. It has a big, restless, street-corner energy, moving from cosmic history to neighborhood gossip to brutal realism in a matter of pages. I liked how Colicchio makes Jersey City feel almost mythic without sanding off its rough edges. The Plateau is not just a setting. It feels like a pressure cooker, full of Catholic ritual, old grudges, kids trying to survive, and adults who should know better but often do worse. The supernatural pieces work because they grow out of that world instead of floating above it. Devils do not arrive in smoke and thunder here. They wear uniforms, sit in diners, tell ugly stories, and know how to make people feel small. That choice gives the horror genre a grounded, bitter charge.
I also found the book’s moral imagination both compelling and uncomfortable. Colicchio is not afraid to make the reader sit with pain, especially the damage done to Donna and Richie, and there were moments when the darkness felt almost punishing. But I think that is part of the book’s design. It wants to ask whether forgiveness is always noble, whether justice without mercy becomes its own kind of danger, and whether rage can be a calling rather than a flaw. Donna’s arc is especially interesting because she is not written as a simple victim or a simple hero. She is vulnerable, funny, wounded, curious, and increasingly dangerous. Dennis, with his odd precision and gentle devotion, gives the story some needed tenderness. Their bond keeps the novel from becoming only a catalog of harm.
As a work of supernatural horror, Blame the Devil is best suited for readers who like their genre fiction messy, ambitious, and morally thorny. It will appeal to those who enjoy literary horror, Catholic-inflected supernatural stories, revenge narratives, and character-driven novels that mix the cosmic with the grimly local. I would recommend it most to readers who do not mind disturbing material and who appreciate a book that argues with faith, justice, and evil rather than simply using them as decoration. It is rough-edged and strange, but it has a unique feel.
Amber Unscripted (The Scarlet’s Harlots Trilogy Book 3)
Amber Unscripted, by Kirsten Pursell, is a contemporary women’s fiction novel with a strong romantic thread, following Amber as she returns to Sullivan’s Island after divorce and begins sorting through the stories she has told herself about love, family, regret, and identity. As the third book in The Scarlet’s Harlots Trilogy, it centers on friendship, second chances, and the brave, messy work of choosing a life that actually feels like your own. Amber’s past includes reality TV fame, a painful marriage, family secrets, and a lost love named Christian, but the heart of the book is really about her learning to stop living by old scripts.
What I appreciated most was how the book balances humor with emotional weight. Amber could easily have been written as a glossy former television personality with a predictable comeback arc, but Pursell gives her more texture than that. She is funny, wounded, sometimes guarded, and often more self-aware than she gives herself credit for. I liked the way the women around her, especially the Harlots, create a kind of chosen family that lets the story breathe. Their conversations are sharp, warm, and occasionally ridiculous in the best way. The book understands that friendship between adult women can be both a lifeline and a mirror, and that sometimes the people who tease you the hardest are also the ones who will sit with you when the truth gets heavy.
The story moves between Amber’s personal reckoning, Audrey’s late-blooming romantic awakening, the group’s book club discussions, and the pull of old mysteries. At times, it feels packed. There are family secrets, past trauma, divorce, grief, fame, lost love, and a trip to Greece, all woven into one emotional arc. That could have become too much, but for me, the abundance fits the story. Women’s fiction often works best when it honors the full clutter of a life, and this novel leans into that. I especially liked how books within the book, from The Bridges of Madison County to the club’s other reads, become quiet pressure points for the characters. They are not just talking about stories. They are using stories to figure out what they still want.
I would recommend Amber Unscripted to readers who enjoy contemporary women’s fiction about reinvention, female friendship, and romance after heartbreak. It will especially appeal to anyone who likes emotionally reflective stories with humor, coastal settings, and characters who are old enough to know better but still brave enough to want more. This is a thoughtful, candid, and ultimately hopeful novel about stepping out of the role other people handed you and finally writing the next scene yourself.
Pages: 254 | ASIN : B0GX2RYWQ9
Borrowed Child
Borrowed Child is an intimate and layered story about what happens when love crosses boundaries of culture, class, family, and expectation. Author Marguerite Welch builds the book around two voices: Helen, a grieving mother who becomes a tutor and mentor, and Mia, a girl pulled from her beloved grandmother in Mexico into a crowded, unstable life in the United States. Their relationship begins at Eileen’s Place, a tutoring program, but it slowly becomes much more complicated than homework help. Helen sees Mia’s intelligence, tenderness, and potential. Mia sees in Helen’s home a kind of safety she’s rarely known. The title fits because Mia is never simply “saved” or adopted into someone else’s life. She’s “a borrowed child,” loved deeply, but never fully belonging to the world Helen imagines for her.
What makes the book so engaging is the way it lets both women speak. Helen’s chapters are full of worry, hope, guilt, and the ache left by the death of her son Sammy. Mia’s chapters bring the reader inside a life shaped by displacement, responsibility, violence, young love, and the need to survive before she’s old enough to understand what survival is costing her. The alternating structure keeps the story from feeling one-sided. We see Helen’s good intentions, but we also see how those intentions can become pressure. We see Mia’s choices, but we also see the loneliness and fear behind them. That balance gives the book its emotional honesty.
Welch writes especially well about the small moments that reveal whole lives: a girl clutching keepsakes from her grandparents, a dinner table that feels strange because people actually talk to each other, a bedroom with the shades drawn despite an ocean view. The book is full of painful material, including migration trauma, domestic violence, gang control, teen motherhood, and grief, but it doesn’t flatten Mia into her hardships. She’s funny, stubborn, observant, and capable of deep love. One of the most moving threads is her connection to the little quetzal carved by her grandfather, a symbol of freedom that stays with her long after childhood is taken from her.
Helen’s side of the story is just as important because the book is also about the limits of helping. She wants to give Mia opportunity, structure, college visits, safety, and a future. But she slowly learns that love isn’t the same as understanding, and that parenting across cultures means listening to what a child actually needs, not only what an adult hopes for her. The book’s strongest insight is that care can be sincere and still incomplete. Helen’s grief over Sammy shapes her bond with Mia, and Mia’s absence forces Helen to confront how much of her mentoring was wrapped up in her own longing. That self-awareness keeps the story grounded.
By the end, Borrowed Child becomes a story not just of loss and separation, but of repair. Mia’s return, her motherhood, and her decision to help tell the story give the book a sense of earned healing. The closing reflection, “I’m starting to have faith that time and love work miracles,” doesn’t feel tidy or sentimental because the book has shown how hard-won that faith is. This is a compassionate, conversational, and emotionally candid book about mentorship, motherhood, immigration, and the fragile work of loving someone without owning their path.
Pages: 328 | ASIN : B0FXBGL9X2
One for the Tenant
J. Baptiste’s One for the Tenant is a short and practical guide for people who are preparing to rent a home or apartment. It walks readers through the process step by step, starting with the simple question of why someone might rent, then moving into money, roommates, credit scores, rental searches, inspections, leases, moving costs, and eventually vacating the property. The book says early on, “This book will outline some key factors that you should be aware of prior to deciding to rent,” and that’s exactly what it does.
The strongest part of the book is its workbook-like structure. Baptiste doesn’t just explain what tenants should think about; she gives them tasks, questions, and blank lines where they can calculate debt, income, available funds, deposits, and other costs. That makes the book feel less like something you read once and more like something you’d keep nearby while preparing to apply for a rental.
The tone is straightforward and encouraging, which works well for the subject. Renting can feel intimidating for first-time tenants, especially when leases, deposits, credit reports, insurance, and inspections all start piling up. Baptiste keeps the information approachable by breaking each topic into small sections and reminding readers to ask questions, keep records, and confirm details in writing.
The book also does a good job connecting renting with broader financial habits. The savings section is especially useful because it gives a concrete example of how small, repeated deposits can add up over time. Baptiste’s advice, “Remember to save, no matter how small the amount you put aside each time,” fits the book’s overall message: being a tenant isn’t just about finding a place to live; it’s about learning how to protect yourself and manage responsibilities.
One for the Tenant is a helpful beginner’s guide for renters who want a clear picture of what to expect before, during, and after a lease. It’s simple, direct, and focused on practical action. Readers who are new to renting will likely appreciate how the book turns a complicated process into a series of manageable steps.
Pages: 39 | ASIN : B0CJ95L98P
Loving, Caring, and Healing Yourself: Restoring Your Eternal Frequency
Loving, Caring, and Healing Yourself, by Isaiah A. Tisdale, is a gentle self-love guide built around six spiritual practices: intention, acceptance, care, affirmation, solace, and authenticity. Tisdale frames healing as a return to the true self, not a reinvention, and he keeps circling back to the same central idea: love is something we practice inwardly until it changes how we move through the world. The book blends reflection, affirmations, journaling prompts, breathwork, morning routines, self-care rituals, music, movement, solitude, prayer, and sensory awareness into a warm invitation to treat the mind, body, and spirit as one living, tender whole.
Tisdale writes from a place that feels deeply personal, especially when he talks about his Sunday self-care routine, leaving his phone alone in the morning, buying himself flowers, writing monthly love letters to himself, and using prayer throughout the day as a grounding practice. Those details give the book a lived-in texture. I believed him most when he moved away from abstract language and let me see the shape of his actual life. There’s something quietly moving about the way he insists that care isn’t selfish, that rest is not an indulgence, and that the love we pour into ourselves can become steadier love for others. I also appreciated how often he returns to childhood conditioning, ego, trauma, and shame without making the reader feel broken. His best idea, to me, is that self-acceptance and self-improvement don’t have to fight each other. That felt emotionally honest and useful.
The writing has a rhythmic, meditative quality, almost like a long spiritual breathing exercise. That repetition creates comfort. Phrases about light, frequency, the Universe, wholeness, and unconditional love build a kind of devotional atmosphere, and I can see readers finding real peace in that cadence. The strongest sections are the most concrete ones: the morning routine with qi gong and gratitude, the sticky note exercise for rewriting harsh body-talk, the chapter on solace with its emphasis on silence and heart wisdom, and the authenticity chapter’s invitation to speak aloud to yourself and rewrite your values and beliefs. Those moments make the ideas breathe. They turn self-love from a beautiful phrase into something with hands, time, texture, and daily effort.
By the end, I felt like Loving, Caring, and Healing Yourself was less a conventional self-help book than a soft-spoken companion for someone trying to come back to themselves after years of overextending, performing, or shrinking. It’s earnest and spiritually framed, but it’s also generous, calming, and genuinely rooted in care. I’d recommend it to readers who enjoy reflective, affirmation-centered books about self-love, especially those drawn to spirituality, journaling, intentional routines, and holistic healing practices. It would be especially good for someone who needs permission to rest, set boundaries, and begin treating their own life as something sacred.
Pages: 79 | ASIN : B09MRPR5JJ
SEVERANCE: Book 1 of The Last Regulator
Steven Nimocks’s Severance, Book 1 of The Last Regulator, drops readers into SoundCore, a future Puget Metroplex where emotional control is not a private discipline but the scaffolding of civilization. Elias Reynor, a near-perfect officer in the Neural Compliance Division, begins investigating a dead colleague, illegal emotion markets, sabotaged regulators, and a conspiracy threaded through the very institution he serves. What begins as a procedural investigation becomes a destabilizing journey into memory, obedience, and the dangerous possibility that feeling may be more human than hazardous.
I was drawn in by the book’s atmosphere immediately. SoundCore feels antiseptic and haunted at once, a city of clean corridors, monitored citizens, copper suppressants, and soft blue regulation lights. Nimocks gives the setting a polished menace; everything is orderly, but the order has a pulse under it, something coerced and febrile. Elias is a compelling guide through that world because his certainty erodes by degrees. His transformation is not a sudden rebellion but a slow internal weather change, and that makes the story’s philosophical tension more persuasive.
The novel is strongest when it lets suspicion accumulate like condensation. Juno’s too-perfect responses, Dr. Harven’s guarded knowledge, Alera’s unsettling calm, and the recurring evidence of institutional manipulation all build a pleasing sense of claustrophobia. The exposition and procedural language can feel heavy, but the density suits the book’s machinery-driven world. I appreciated how the action sequences are not merely spectacle; they expose the cruelty of systems that can weaponize protocol, compliance, and even a person’s own intellect against him.
Readers who enjoy dystopian science fiction, cyberpunk thrillers, speculative noir, and books about surveillance, emotional suppression, and institutional rebellion will find plenty to admire here. Severance should appeal to fans of Philip K. Dick’s paranoia and Blake Crouch’s high-concept momentum, though Nimocks gives the material a more procedural, compliance-state edge. This is a sharp opening act for a larger saga, and its best moments ask a question that will leave you thinking: what remains of order when it has severed us from ourselves?
Pages: 414 | ASIN: B0GYHX6QWJ
Sanctuary (The Dark Days Series Book 2)
Sanctuary: The Dark Days Series Book Two continues Sonny’s journey after the collapse chronicled in Outbreak, carrying him and his found family toward Fort Gold Rush, a fortified city that seems to offer the protection they have been bleeding toward for so long. But safety is not simple here. Sonny is drawn into a new life of rules, military programs, surrogate family bonds, painful mistaken identity, and fresh violence beyond the walls, making this sequel less a story of escape than a story of uneasy arrival.
I liked how this book changes the pressure without softening the danger. Outbreak was about flight, immediate loss, and the shock of seeing the world die in real time; Sanctuary asks what happens after survivors finally reach a place that claims to be secure. The walls of Fort Gold Rush create a different kind of suspense. Zombies remain a threat, but bureaucracy, grief, loyalty, training, and moral compromise become just as sharp. The sequel understands that a sanctuary can protect the body while still unsettling the soul.
Sonny remains the emotional center, but he feels older here in a way that is both impressive and sad. His relationships with Ashley, Carrie, Will, Kayley, River, Ellen, Clara, Jonathan, Grim, and the others give the book its layered and unique feel, especially when the story explores what family means after biology, geography, and normal life have all been shattered. I was especially drawn to the tension between Sonny’s loyalty to the people who survived with him and the new roles others try to place on him. I had a great time with the battles as well as the quiet recognitions that healing can feel like betrayal, that belonging can be messy, and that a child can become dangerous without becoming cruel.
Sanctuary will appeal to readers drawn to post-apocalyptic survival fiction, zombie horror, young adult dystopian adventure, military science fiction, and found-family drama. While fans of The Walking Dead may come for the undead and the fortified settlements, the book’s emotional compass points closer to the wounded resilience found in The Last of Us. Sanctuary shows that survival is not the same as being saved, and that the hardest walls to rebuild are the ones inside the heart.
Pages: 390 | ASIN : B0G4F9854Y
GET THE F*CK OVER … IT: A Satirical Self-Help Manifesto for Left-Lane Rage Survivors
Peter Hobbes’s Get the F*ck Over … It is a gleefully unhinged satirical self-help book about one very specific wound: being trapped behind people who misuse the left lane. What begins as a road trip rage spiral between Baton Rouge and Houston turns into a full comic manifesto, with Hobbes parodying familiar self-help ideas through a parade of highway offenders: the Minimum Viable Speeder, the Speed Enforcer, the Left-Lane Squatter, the Space Cadet, the Highway Shadow, and more. The book keeps returning to one stubborn truth, that maybe peace is lovely in theory, but some people really do need to get over.
I had a lot of fun with this book because its anger has shape. It isn’t just ranting, though it wears ranting like a tuxedo. Hobbes understands the strange intimacy of traffic, that awful little theater where strangers become villains in our private mythology. I laughed hardest when he turns tiny driving behaviors into full psychological case files, especially the Left-Lane Squatter transforming the passing lane into “traffic reparations” and the Drafting Leech hiding behind another driver’s speed like a cowardly little parasite. The writing is loud, theatrical, and deeply caffeinated, but it’s also surprisingly precise. Hobbes has a knack for escalating a joke until it becomes absurd, then somehow escalating it again. The pop culture references come fast, from Office Space to Britney Spears to Gollum, and while a few moments feel almost overstuffed, the sheer momentum usually carries them through.
What surprised me most was that beneath all the profanity and comic combustion, the book is actually poking at something real. It’s about control, entitlement, obliviousness, and the way self-help advice can collapse when it meets ordinary human irritation. Hobbes keeps trying on these philosophies, let them, choose your f*cks, build better habits, embrace discomfort, only to discover that none of them quite survive contact with a beige Nissan camping in the passing lane. I liked that tension. It gives the book more bite than a simple joke collection. The recurring notes from the passenger seat, especially his wife’s calm, long-suffering presence, soften the edges beautifully. She becomes the quiet counterweight to his operatic outrage, and those moments give the book a relatable feel.
By the end, Get the F*ck Over … It feels less like advice and more like confession, the kind of funny, slightly shameful confession a person makes when they know they’re ridiculous but also knows they’re not entirely wrong. I admired the book’s comic nerve, its rhythm, and its willingness to treat a petty irritation as if it were a grand civic crisis. For anyone who has ever muttered murderously behind the wheel while trying to remain a decent person, this is a cathartic little joyride. I’d recommend it to readers who enjoy sharp satire, self-help takedowns, road rage comedy, and books that turn one obsessive grievance into a weirdly revealing mirror.
Pages: 131 | ASIN: B0H26PGZFY
