Category Archives: Five Stars
Be Recognized: The AI Authority Engine for Experts Who Want to Be Known, Be Profitable, and Be Published
Be Recognized: The AI Authority Engine for Experts Who Want to Be Known, Be Profitable, and Be Published is a fast and bold guide that lays out a clear path for experts who want to build authority, grow a business, and embrace AI instead of fearing it. The authors walk through the changing landscape of visibility, the rise of AI content systems, and the steps entrepreneurs can take to position themselves as leaders. They explain why a book becomes the defining asset of your brand and how AI tools can turn that book into the engine that powers visibility, sales, and long-term authority. The chapters move from mindset to practical frameworks to future strategy, and the message stays consistent. If you want to be seen, you must publish, position yourself, and build systems that keep working even when you’re offline.
The writing is direct and friendly, and at times it feels like the authors are sitting across from you, reminding you to stop hiding and start owning your voice. I liked how many of the ideas blend personal stories with straightforward instruction. The concept that visibility is now the real currency really resonated with me. The book makes that point over and over again. The warnings about staying invisible stung me a little because they rang true to me. The energy of the writing kept pulling me forward, with short lines and a clear push to take action, not just learn.
What surprised me most was how emotional some of it felt. The authors challenge you to look at your habits, your excuses, and your fears about being seen. I appreciated how they fold AI into the story without making it cold or mechanical. Instead of painting AI as some giant force, they describe it as a partner that reinforces the voice you already have. I laughed a few times at the casual jokes and real-life examples because they made the ideas easier to absorb. The book doesn’t pretend the world hasn’t changed. It just says, “Here’s how you keep up and stay ahead.” That honesty gave the whole thing a stronger punch.
I walked away thinking this book would be great for any entrepreneur, consultant, coach, or leader who knows they have something meaningful to say but hasn’t put their message into the world in a strong way. It’s especially good for people who feel overwhelmed by AI or by the constant pressure to create content. The tone makes the process feel doable. The steps feel practical. And the push to publish a book as a core authority move really stands out. If you want a clear path to getting noticed and building a smarter business, this book is a solid choice.
Pages: 234 | ASIN : B0FS2C5MFH
BLOATER
BLOATER delivers a dark crime thriller built around a string of shocking murders that leave victims grotesquely inflated and displayed like macabre parade balloons. The investigation falls to FBI agents Camby and Lanquist, who slowly uncover a connection between the killings and the victims’ histories of cruelty and bigotry. Alongside this, the novel follows the psychological collapse of Dr. Jeremiah Nowak, a neurosurgeon devastated by his wife’s sudden death. These narrative threads pull together into a grim exploration of vengeance, morality, and the terrifying lengths a disturbed mind might go to when fixated on the idea of consequences for unkindness.
I found the story vivid and unsettling in a way that held my attention even when the scenes made me squirm. The writing moved quickly and often felt cinematic, especially during the forensic sequences. The author had a knack for describing grotesque details with a strange mix of matter-of-fact precision and emotional punch, which made the book feel alive and twitching under my hands. Sometimes the tone veers into almost playful banter between the agents, which gave me a moment to breathe, then the next chapter plunged me back into grisly territory. I liked that rhythm. It kept me alert. It kept me guessing whether I should laugh, grimace, or look away for a second.
The victims were not random. They were people who had spent their lives spreading cruelty, and the killer seemed obsessed with correcting what he saw as a moral imbalance. That idea rattled me. The story poked at the question of whether words can wound deeply enough to trigger monstrous retaliation, and I appreciated that the author let the ugliness of that question sit there without softening it. A few moments felt a bit on the nose, but the emotional force carried the story and made those moments feel raw rather than preachy.
BLOATER left me with a mix of shock, curiosity, and an odd sympathy for characters who were messy, flawed, and sometimes unbearable. I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy crime fiction that leans boldly into horror, to anyone who likes investigative banter paired with stomach-turning forensic scenes, and to those who are comfortable questioning the line between justice and obsession.
Pages: 322 | ASIN : B0G1BJNDM3
Comfrey, Wyoming Book 4: Black Sheep, Black Sheep
Black Sheep, Black Sheep, the fourth book in the Comfrey, Wyoming series by Daphne Birkmyer, is a layered family novel that follows intertwined lives shaped by love, secrecy, disability, and belonging. The story moves between past and present, with a strong focus on Melissa McNabb and the people orbiting her world, from siblings and parents to lovers, friends, and the quiet town that absorbs them all. It explores what family really means, how truth surfaces whether invited or not, and how difference can be both a burden and a gift.
What struck me first was the writing itself. It feels intimate and patient. The prose slows down when it needs to. It lingers on small moments. A look, a gesture, a habit. I felt close to these characters very quickly. Melissa especially stayed with me. Her inner world is rendered with care and respect, and I felt protective of her almost right away. The author never rushes her. That choice made me emotional more than once. I found myself smiling at her sharp humor and aching during her quieter struggles.
The ideas in this book landed hard for me. It takes on autism, family secrets, chosen family, and loyalty without preaching. It trusts the reader. I liked that nothing was neat. People mess up. They love fiercely and badly at the same time. I felt anger toward some choices and deep empathy for others. The theme of being the odd one out hit close to home. The black sheep idea is not just symbolic. It feels lived in.
Like Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, this book feels quieter and more grounded. Where Eleanor Oliphant uses sharp humor and big emotional swings, Black Sheep, Black Sheep slowly reveals its heart in smaller, steadier moments. I would recommend Black Sheep to readers who love character-driven stories and emotional realism. It is a good fit for people who enjoy family sagas, small-town settings, and emotional books that make you think. It is especially meaningful for readers interested in neurodivergent characters written with warmth and depth.
Pages: 450 | ASIN : B0FY8W9LGM
Forbidden Runes: The Caster Chronicles – Book 1
Brandi Mendenhall’s Forbidden Runes follows Anna, a girl stolen from her royal past and raised in hiding, who grows into a bold young woman using forbidden rune magic to save others while unknowingly stepping straight back into the path of the man she once loved and now fears. The story blends court intrigue, dangerous magic, childhood bonds, betrayal, and simmering romance. It begins with tragic loss, grows into a tale of resilience, and lands squarely in the middle of a kingdom at war with itself.
I found myself pulled into the writing right away. The pacing swings fast, then slows without warning, and I actually liked that. It made me feel a little off balance in the same way Anna is always off balance. The scenes are vivid and sometimes wild, full of strong emotion and desperate choices, and the style leans into the drama with gusto. The author writes with heart. Sometimes the prose gets indulgent or leans heavily on descriptive beats, but the feelings behind it are real, and that kept me turning the pages. I cared about Anna. I cared about the danger. I cared about the mess her memories kept making for her.
The way the story looks at power and who gets to hold it felt clever and surprisingly raw. I loved the tension between personal freedom and the weight of duty. I loved how the book toys with the idea that love can both steady a person and ruin them. Ben and Anna’s connection made me want to root for them. Their chemistry is thick, and their misunderstandings made me want to yell at them. The magic system is fun and spooky and sometimes a little chaotic, and I enjoyed that too. It feels dangerous. It feels alive. It feels like something that can save a life or tear one apart.
By the end, I felt satisfied and also itching for the next book. Forbidden Runes reminded me of Throne of Glass mixed with a touch of Shadow and Bone, only sharper in emotion and bolder in its magic. If you like fast emotional swings, big romantic tension, magic that bites, royalty behaving badly, and heroines who dig deep even when the world is stacked against them, this one will hit the spot.
Pages: 214 | ASIN : B0BBH2GSD1
Angel of Death
Angel of Death spins together a murder mystery, an Irish family drama, and a dark plunge into corruption that stretches from quiet boglands to a billionaire’s island fortress. The story follows Detective Trey O’Driscoll as a skeleton turns up in a Kerry bog and the death of his brother-in-law shatters his home life. One discovery leads to another. Drugs hiding inside sports supplements. A charming but monstrous tycoon who toys with lives. A journalist pulled into danger. And a trail that runs all the way to a final confrontation where everything breaks apart. The book moves with steady tension as it threads family, grief, crime, and obsession into one long tightening knot.
I found myself pulled in by the rawness of its emotion. The writing has a rough edge that hits hard. Scenes jump from tender to brutal so fast that it left me blinking, which I actually liked. The everyday details of Ireland feel lived in. The bogs, the farms, the crowded roads, the pubs, the families that love each other and fight each other. It all rang true. I kept feeling a strange mix of calm and dread because the book sits with grief in such a natural way. Trey’s inner life, shaped by past mistakes and a sense of fate, hooked me more than the plot twists did. The man hurts, and that hurt pulses through the pages.
The story goes big with its villain. Charlie Teeman is wild. Cold and flashy and cruel. His scenes shocked me, partly because he is written with such quiet confidence in his own power. I felt a jolt each time he appeared. It is outrageous and almost unbelievable, yet the book commits to him so fully that I went along for the ride. The mix of intimate Irish realism and high-voltage crime thriller sometimes felt like two different worlds stitched together. It worked for me, though. I found myself flipping pages fast, curious to see which world would take over next.
Angel of Death is full of tragedy and violence, but it also carries a stubborn hope for justice and love. I would recommend Angel of Death to readers who enjoy crime fiction with heart, people who like Irish settings, and anyone who wants a story that swings between gritty truth and dramatic flair. If you like mysteries that carry emotional weight along with danger, this one will suit you well.
Pages: 253 | ASIN: B0B9T3CQPY
The Art and Science of Aviation Instruction
The Art and Science of Aviation Instruction lays out a clear and urgent argument for reinventing how flight instructors teach. The book moves through research, case law, human behavior, assessment strategies, and curriculum design. It blends aviation with lessons from healthcare and other high-risk fields. It also pushes instructors to move away from time-based teaching and toward structured, competency-driven training. Throughout the text, the author ties pilot error, instructional gaps, and weak training standards together into one central message. Safety improves only when instructional quality improves.
While reading, I felt a steady mix of respect and frustration. Respect for the clarity of the author’s thinking. Frustration because so many of the issues he raises feel preventable. The writing is direct, almost clinical at times, yet the message carries a sense of personal urgency. I liked how the author admits that aviation has borrowed too little from other high-stakes industries. His comparisons to surgical education hit hard. They made me think about how casually we sometimes treat pilot training. I also appreciated the blunt stories about CFI turnover and weak instructional habits. They feel honest, and they sting a little, and that is what makes them effective.
The ideas on assessment struck me the most. The book keeps coming back to planning, documenting, and diagnosing learning like an educator rather than just a pilot. The tone gets a bit heavy with academic framing, but the purpose behind it is sound. I found myself nodding when the author described how poor remediation leads to bad habits that follow a pilot into every flight. The discussion of legal cases also stirred something in me. It felt like a wake-up call. Instructors are not just mentors. They are accountable professionals, and the courts treat them that way. Reading those sections made me reflect on how much responsibility sits on a CFI’s shoulders, sometimes without them realizing it.
In the end, I walked away feeling motivated. The book challenges you and asks you to rebuild how you teach. I came out of it believing the aviation community needs more books exactly like this. I would recommend it to CFIs, flight school leaders, and even advanced student pilots who want to understand the deeper purpose of training. Anyone serious about shaping safer pilots will get a lot out of this work.
Pages: 256 | ASIN : B0G32882YT
The Secret of Spirit Lake
In The Secret of Spirit Lake, a young adult mystery with a gentle paranormal twist, we follow fourteen-year-old Amy, yanked away from her old life and dropped into a big yellow Victorian on a quiet Virginia lake. She ends up in the tower bedroom, where strange things start happening that point to a girl named Sally who used to live there. The story moves back and forth between Amy’s present-day summer of swim practices, new friends, and family tension, and the late 1930s life of a farm girl named Penny whose path slowly, uneasily, begins to overlap with the lake and the house Amy now calls home. The mystery sits in the space between those timelines, asking what really happened at Spirit Lake and what it means for the people still living there.
I really liked how the book uses that alternating structure. At first I was more invested in Amy, mostly because her voice feels so familiar: grumpy about her parents, irritated by younger siblings, convinced no one understands her, then slowly softening as she gets pulled into swim team life and real friendship. But Penny’s chapters crept up on me. Her world is harder and narrower, full of chores and exhaustion, and then that terrible fire that takes her parents hits with real emotional weight. The mystery works because those two stories start to rhyme. Amy is lonely and displaced; Penny is lonely and trapped. Sally is caught between them as a literal ghost, but also as this symbol of what happens when adults fail kids. The writing itself is clean and straightforward, the kind of YA prose that trusts younger readers to keep up while still feeling approachable. Short chapters keep things moving, and the ghost scenes are eerie without ever turning into nightmare fuel. There is a soft, almost cozy feel to a lot of the pages, even when the subject matter is dark.
What stood out to me most was the way the author chose to center safety and care instead of just creepiness. The ghost is sad more than scary, and the book keeps circling back to the question of who looks out for children when their parents can’t or won’t. You see it in Penny’s encounters with the state worker at the hospital, who is doing her best inside a rigid system, and in how Lucy and Henry neglect and emotionally abuse Hal and Millie behind the façade of a beautiful lake house. You see it again in Amy’s realization that her “annoying” little siblings are actually kind of adorable when she lets herself pay attention, and that her parents, while imperfect, are trying very hard to give their family a better life. As a YA mystery, the book leans more emotional than plot-twist-heavy, and sometimes the coincidences that help the girls solve the decades-old case feel a little convenient, but the emotional payoffs mostly earned my trust. I cared more about Millie hugging her long-lost brother on a sunny balcony than about every logistical detail lining up perfectly.
By the end, I felt like I’d spent a summer at the lake myself, watching Amy grow into her own skin, cheering through swim meets, and then sitting up way too late trying to fit together scraps of diaries and old letters with her and her friends. The paranormal element stays light, but the feelings underneath are not. The Secret of Spirit Lake is the kind of YA mystery I’d hand to a thoughtful middle schooler or young teen who likes ghost stories that are more about healing than horror, or to adults who enjoy warm, character-driven young adult fiction with a bit of intrigue. It would fit well in school and library book clubs, especially with readers who are ready to talk about grief, neglect, and found family in a safe way.
Pages: 335 | ASIN : B0FLM38VSC
9 Habits of Happy Retirees: Discover the Secrets to a Fulfilling Retirement
9 Habits of Happy Retirees offers a warm, upbeat, and very accessible guide to reimagining life after work. The book walks through the emotional phases of retirement, the mindset shifts needed to stay grounded, and the habits that build a joyful and meaningful post-career life. It blends practical advice with simple explanations about mental health, purpose, relationships, physical well-being, and the importance of staying curious and socially connected. The chapters move from preparation to mindset to hobbies to health, then social ties, learning, giving back, and travel. The whole arc forms a picture of retirement as a chance to grow instead of slow down.
This book felt surprisingly personal. I went in expecting a very standard self-help outline, but the writing has a friendly tone that made the ideas easy to absorb. The author speaks plainly, almost like a coach who wants you to feel excited about what’s ahead, and that energy made me lean in. I especially appreciated the focus on emotional transitions. Retirement is usually described as a reward and nothing more, yet the book spends time acknowledging loneliness, identity loss, and boredom. That honesty felt refreshing.
I also found myself reacting strongly to the sections about meaning and purpose. The reminders to try new things, build community, and stay flexible struck a chord. The book made me think about how often people assume retirement should mirror a fantasy rather than a real life with ups and downs. I liked the push to experiment, make mistakes, and adjust. I did wish for more storytelling or real-world examples in some chapters, but the spirit of the message carried the reading experience. The tone is upbeat without feeling sugary, and the steady encouragement made me feel motivated.
9 Habits of Happy Retirees is a strong fit for readers who want a straightforward, positive, and compassionate guide to the emotional and practical sides of retirement. It’s especially helpful for people who feel unsure about what comes next or who want gentle direction rather than technical advice. If you like clear language, simple steps, and a friendly voice that nudges you toward growth, this book will feel like a welcome companion.
Page: 136 | ASIN : B0D78Q1NWD
LITERARY TITAN 