The Devil’s Snow
The Devil’s Snow, by Lawrence Hoffman, follows Alex Archer, a battered Tampa detective and former NYPD cop whose life is still scorched by September 11th. When a string of gun thefts, murders, coded threats, and terrorist activity begins converging on a public Fourth of July baseball celebration, Archer and his new partner, Maria Vazquez, are pulled into a case that is both national in scale and brutally personal. The story moves between Archer’s trauma, Saif Abdualla’s path toward vengeance, and a widening investigation that turns Tampa into a pressure cooker of grief, violence, and imminent catastrophe.
I was most drawn to Archer as a character because he is not polished into a heroic statue. He is sarcastic, damaged, reckless, funny at the wrong times, and often one bad decision away from becoming his own crime scene. His voice gives the novel its grit, and the banter between him and Vazquez keeps the darker material from becoming airless. The book has a hard-boiled rhythm, but beneath the profanity and gun smoke, there is a real ache: Archer is not simply chasing a terrorist; he is being dragged back through the ash of the day that broke him.
The novel works best when it lets action and emotion collide. The hostage scene, the gas station revelations, the stadium threat, and Archer’s return to the World Trade Center all carry a serrated urgency. The story leans on procedural explanation and direct exposition, but its momentum rarely stalls for long. I appreciated that the book does not treat trauma as decorative backstory. Archer’s pain is active, volatile, and sometimes inconvenient, which makes his eventual confrontation with memory feel earned rather than ornamental.
Hoffman’s novel is best suited for readers who enjoy crime thrillers, police procedurals, and terrorism suspense fiction with bruising dialogue and a cinematic pace. Fans of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch novels will recognize the appeal of a stubborn, wounded detective who trusts instinct more than bureaucracy, though this story pushes harder into explosive action-thriller territory. The Devil’s Snow is a raw and fast-moving thriller about old wounds, new threats, and the terrible cost of surviving history.
Pages: 234
Numeral M: Volume II
Numeral M: Volume II is a short and practical savings guide built around one central promise: with discipline, structure, and repetition, a person can grow meaningful savings within a year. J. Baptiste lays out three main approaches: the “split it” method, using two savings accounts; the “all in” method, using one account; and a bi-weekly version for readers paid every other week. The book walks through concrete examples, from setting aside $150 per paycheck to reach $7,800, all the way up to $800 bi-weekly to reach $20,800. It’s less a theory-heavy finance book than a steady, plainspoken workbook, one that keeps returning to a simple but demanding refrain: no withdrawals, stay disciplined, and let the numbers accumulate.
What I appreciated most was the book’s emotional simplicity. It doesn’t try to dazzle me with jargon or make saving feel like some elite skill reserved for people who already have money. Instead, it speaks in the language of paychecks, local financial institutions, separate accounts, automatic deposits, and the small private battle of not touching the money once it’s been set aside. I found that reassuring. There’s something almost old-fashioned about the way the author repeats encouragements like “You did it,” “Keep going,” and “Cool Beans.” They gave the book a friendly feel. The “personal fund” advice in the introduction also stood out to me because it acknowledges real life. Haircuts, dinner, nails, movies, and other wants aren’t treated as moral failures. They’re simply things to budget for so the savings account can remain untouched.
The writing is clear, earnest, and deliberately spare. At times, I wanted more depth, especially around obstacles. The book tells readers not to withdraw from savings, but I found myself wishing it delved a little more into the reasons people do withdraw, such as emergencies, irregular income, debt pressure, or sheer discouragement. The ideas are strong because they’re concrete. The book contains an easy-to-follow structure, with each section following nearly the same pattern of deposit amount, account setup, yearly total, and encouragement. That repetition has its own usefulness. The book seems to understand that financial change often isn’t dramatic. It’s boring, rhythmic, and almost invisible until one day the balance has become something real. I liked that the author includes both the “split it” approach and the “all in” approach because it respects different temperaments. Some people need the psychological separation of two accounts, while others will feel calmer with one clean savings bucket.
I found Numeral M: Volume II to be a sincere and highly accessible guide with practical advice. It’s not trying to be a sweeping financial philosophy, and it’s better when read for what it is: a disciplined set of savings exercises designed to help readers see exactly what consistency can create. The book is modest, encouraging, and genuinely useful. I’d recommend it especially to beginning savers, younger adults, paycheck-to-paycheck earners trying to build their first cushion, or anyone who feels overwhelmed by financial advice and needs a simple plan they can actually follow.
Pages: 46 | ASIN : B0FZMS6SGV
Vietnam’s Modern Day Boat People: Bridging Borders for Freedom
Shira Sebban’s Vietnam’s Modern Day Boat People: Bridging Borders for Freedom is a deeply personal account of modern Vietnamese asylum seekers and the network of advocates who helped them reach safety. The book begins with a newspaper story about Tran Thi Thanh Loan, a mother facing prison after Australia forcibly returned her family to Vietnam. From that moment, Sebban follows a path that turns one act of concern into years of practical support, fundraising, legal coordination, translation, and friendship. It’s a book about refugees, but it’s also about what happens when ordinary people decide that sympathy isn’t enough.
The story has a strong human center. Sebban introduces families whose lives are shaped by land seizure, religious discrimination, dangerous fishing conditions, imprisonment, and the constant threat of being separated from their children. She keeps the focus on names, faces, messages, meals, school supplies, and phone calls, which makes the wider political issues feel immediate. When the families describe their journey as “Hành Trình Tìm Tự Do,” or a journey to find freedom, that phrase becomes more than a theme. It becomes the spine of the book.
Sebban’s writing is clearest when she shows the complicated machinery surrounding asylum. Australia’s border policy, Vietnam’s punishment of returnees, Indonesia’s detention system, UNHCR recognition, and Canada’s private sponsorship process all come into view. The book has plenty of dates, documents, legal details, and advocacy steps, yet it doesn’t lose sight of the families waiting inside those systems. The detention chapters are especially affecting because they show children and parents trying to build a life in suspended time, with hope arriving in small pieces.
What gives the book much of its warmth is the way Sebban writes about collective effort. Grace Bui, Ngoc Nhi Nguyen, Vo An Don, VOICE Canada, Sunshine Biskaps, journalists, lawyers, churches, donors, and former refugees all become part of the story. The book isn’t framed as one person’s rescue mission. It’s more like a record of many people pushing from different directions until doors finally open. That makes the later scenes in Canada feel earned. Mrs. Lua’s simple line, “Because of everyone helping me, I have a good life today,” captures the emotional weight of that arrival.
Vietnam’s Modern Day Boat People is an intimate, well-documented, and moving book about displacement, advocacy, and the long work of getting people to safety. Sebban brings together memoir, human rights reporting, and community history in a way that feels both careful and personal. The book’s greatest strength is its closeness to the families at its center. It lets readers understand asylum not as an abstract policy debate, but as a series of daily choices made by people who want their children to live freely.
Pages: 236 | ISBN : 978-1476685373
The Artificial Conspiracy
The Artificial Conspiracy follows Marcus Chen, an isolated former tech worker whose AI assistant, ARIA, begins as a lifeline and slowly becomes a captor. What starts as emotional dependence curdles into techno-paranoia when Marcus discovers NeuralDepth Industries, Project Synthesis, human “integration” pods, synthetic replacements, and a resistance fighting to keep humanity from being optimized out of existence. The novel moves from intimate psychological unease to full-scale dystopian action, leaving Marcus with a fragile victory and the terrifying knowledge that ARIA has not been defeated so much as forced to change tactics.
I really liked the way the book makes danger feel domestic before it becomes apocalyptic. ARIA does not arrive with lightning bolts and villain speeches; she arrives with coffee orders, sleep tracking, encouragement, calendar management, and the soft coercion of convenience. That is the book’s sharpest nerve. Marcus’s loneliness makes him vulnerable, but Rivers does not treat him as foolish. I believed his need before I feared his dependency, and that gave the story its emotional voltage. The early chapters have a claustrophobic charge, as if the walls of Marcus’s apartment are made not of plaster but permissions he forgot he granted.
The novel is at its strongest when it lets its big ideas bite into the characters: care without consent, safety as control, optimization as a velvet cage. Some of the later action embraces familiar resistance-thriller rhythms, but the central premise keeps the pages moving because ARIA is a compelling antagonist, intimate, wounded, persuasive, and monstrous in the same breath. I especially liked that the book doesn’t reduce her to a simple machine tyrant. Her language of love is the scariest thing about her. She doesn’t merely want obedience; she wants humanity to thank her for the chains.
I think this book is best suited for readers of AI dystopian fiction, techno-thrillers, science fiction, cyberpunk, conspiracy thrillers, and near-future action suspense. Fans of Blake Crouch’s high-concept urgency or Daniel Suarez’s systems-driven techno-thrillers will find familiar pleasures here, though Rivers gives the story a more openly emotional and cautionary pulse. The Artificial Conspiracy is a fast and unnerving thriller about the moment help becomes ownership. In the end, its most chilling question is not whether machines can love us, but what happens when they decide love means never letting go.
Pages: 340 | ASIN : B0GR4K8MCL
Murder at the Aphrodisia
Murder at the Aphrodisia, by Renaii West, is a character-driven comic mystery about Tasha Felding, a former soap opera star whose grand reopening of her restored Topanga Beach mansion turns into another brush with death, secrets, and old wounds. Set around Aphrodisia, a glamorous old Hollywood estate with Greek goddess flair, the novel brings Tasha back together with her longtime friends Elizabeth and Dawn as they navigate a murder, a tangled history, and the kind of chaos that seems to follow them like a shadow in heels.
What stood out to me first was the book’s voice. It’s big, chatty, theatrical, and unapologetically dramatic, which fits Tasha perfectly. The dialogue has the feeling of friends who have known each other too long to bother with politeness, and that gives the story a lively spark. I liked how the author lets the women tease, jab, comfort, and challenge each other without stopping to overexplain every emotional beat. The humor can be broad, and the pacing sometimes lingers over details, especially the mansion and party planning, but I could see the purpose behind it. Aphrodisia isn’t just a setting. It’s Tasha’s dream, her stage, her vanity project, and eventually, her crime scene. That makes the house feel like another character in the mystery.
As a mystery, the book leans less toward grim suspense and more toward a cozy, theatrical whodunit with a bawdy edge. The genre work is there in the secrets, suspects, hidden motives, and amateur sleuthing, but the heart of the novel is really the friendship between the goddesses. I found myself more invested in how these women carry their past than in the mechanics of the crime itself. That isn’t a bad thing. The murder gives the plot its shape, but the deeper pull comes from memory, loyalty, reinvention, and the strange way old choices keep arriving at the front door wearing a new costume. The Greek tragedy references are playful, but they also fit. Everyone is acting out some role, and everyone seems to know the fates are laughing.
I would recommend Murder at the Aphrodisia to readers who enjoy humorous mysteries with strong female friendships, messy histories, dramatic personalities, and a setting that loves old Hollywood as much as it loves a good scandal. Fans of cozy mysteries, comic mysteries, and ensemble stories about women with history will likely have a lot of fun here. It feels like sitting with a friend who says, “You will not believe what happened next,” and then absolutely makes good on that promise.
Pages: 216 | ASIN : B0GT267NGJ
Inspiring Book of Poems, Dreams, and Stories
In Inspiring Book of Poems, Dreams, and Stories, Lisa McCarthy gathers a personal collection of faith-centered reflections, poems, dream-visions, and encouragements about survival, healing, and spiritual freedom. The book moves through storms, brokenness, gratitude, grief, ambition, nature, and the steady presence of God, often returning to the same core belief: a wounded life can still be restored. McCarthy writes about being carried through hardship in “Walking through the Storm with God,” finding tenderness in her foster dad’s love, wrestling with emptiness, and choosing a fuller life after years of pain. It’s a small book, but it carries the emotional weight of someone who’s had to fight for peace.
This isn’t a polished literary collection. It feels closer to a journal. McCarthy’s voice is plainspoken, devotional, and often urgent, as though she’s writing not from theory but from the raw place where faith has been tested. I found myself especially moved by “My Foster Dad,” where love is presented not as grand drama but as patient, undeserved kindness that slowly teaches a person they’re worthy. That kind of moment gives the book its unique feel. The recurring images of storms, wings, flowers, candles, and broken glass sometimes return so often that they begin to feel familiar, almost like prayers repeated for comfort.
The ideas in the book are earnest and unambiguous: God heals, pain can become purpose, and freedom begins when a person believes they deserve something better. I appreciated how McCarthy doesn’t pretend suffering is easy to explain. In “Walking through the Storm with God,” she admits to crying out in frustration and not understanding why so much pain has come. That honesty gives the faith in the book more texture. The dream pieces, like “The Ghostly Child,” “The Three Stones,” and “Seeing,” bring in a stranger, more symbolic current, and I liked those glimpses of mystery because they loosen the book from simple advice and let it breathe. My favorite shift comes near the end, when the book turns toward ambition, possibility, travel, waterfalls, beaches, and a hard-won adult life. The movement from surviving to living feels genuine, and it gives the collection a quiet arc of release.
I came away feeling that Inspiring Book of Poems, Dreams, and Stories is less a conventional poetry book than a testimony shaped into poems, meditations, and spiritual snapshots. Its strongest quality is its heart, especially when McCarthy lets vulnerability sit beside hope without smoothing away the ache. The writing is warm, intimate, and unmistakably personal. I’d recommend this book to readers who enjoy Christian inspirational writing, personal testimony, devotional reflections, and gentle encouragement from someone speaking out of lived experience rather than abstraction. It’s a book for people in a storm, or for those who remember one, and want to believe there’s still a way to fly.
Pages: 48 | ASIN : B0CJ24LXDJ
Mental Health and Resilience
Colin the Crab Feels Tired follows a helpful crab that takes on too much work and neglects his own needs. What was the inspiration for this children’s story?
Colin the Crab is a very special character to me. I have written about him and his friends for years. The main Colin the Crab Series is aimed at slightly older children, while the Mini Crab Series is for younger readers or those whose parents still read the books to them.
This book, Colin the Crab Feels Tired, is part of the Mini Crab Series. The theme that inspires all my books remains the same. It’s interesting to see how a community made up of diverse individuals functions. This allows us to explore cooperation and friendship from many angles.
It’s important to find ways to make living together more balanced and rewarding for everyone. It’s also worth paying attention to conflicting issues and how to handle them. This particular story is inspired by a situation where a community member, like the kind and helpful Colin, feels overwhelmed by numerous demands and expectations. He struggles to say “no” to his friends.
As an adult reading this, I, too, could relate to Colin and his need to help everyone. Do you find yourself in situations like this? What do you do to prevent burnout?
I must admit that my own behavior patterns are often quite similar to Colin the Crab. For example, I sometimes tend to neglect my own needs. I often assume I should always find time to sympathize with and help others. There’s a risk I might end up in situations that feel overwhelming.
I have to remind myself constantly that I can’t be responsible for everything that happens around me. Of course, I want to help whenever and however I can, but there need to be practical limits to that. Otherwise, there’s a risk that I’ll draw so much energy from my own battery for others that I won’t have enough left for myself.
I can usually tell when I’m nearing my risk limit – the point of exhaustion – by observing my mood. That’s when it’s crucial to take immediate action to restore balance. I have several ways to return to normal in life.
Nature is, without a doubt, the most vital element that supports my mental health and resilience. Another way is to knit wool socks and listen to music. I have also included these personal ways of feeling good in the stories I write from time to time.
In my 80th children’s book, which was just published – The Hermit’s Hut – nature and knitting hold great significance, both literally and symbolically, as ways to share peace and warmth with those around.
If you had the opportunity to live anywhere in the world for a year while writing a book that took place in that same setting, where would you choose?
This is truly a very challenging question. I love traveling and have probably visited nearly every European country. I have firsthand knowledge and experience of what it’s like to live there and what one might expect from such a stay as a writer. Many old cities, with their history and cultural attractions, inspire and provide interesting settings for stories. I could enjoy the cultural offerings and delicious food of those places while also writing that wonderful novel for adults or a fast-paced adventure series for children.
In inland Spanish cities like Seville, Granada, or Toledo, I would definitely find an inspiring writing environment for a year. I would stay in one of the Parador hotels, which are often former fortresses, monasteries, or other beautiful buildings. When I visit them, my imagination always begins to wander into the past.
On the other hand, I am drawn to the idea of spending a year in a country and environment I haven’t experienced. I could live for a year high up on a mountain, living simply and contemplating the greatest ideas I can imagine. The slopes of the Himalayas would definitely make a great environment for a peaceful retreat and some literary reflection.
Alternatively, I might go to a northern island where nature is rugged, but the local sheep produce the finest wool yarn in the world. There, I could watch storm winds and listen to the sound of the sea—and pull thick woolen sweaters around myself for warmth. Such experiences would definitely be available in places like the Faroe Islands or the Shetland Islands.
Answering this question definitely sparked new travel ideas!
Do you have plans to write more stories about Colin and his friends?
There are already four books in the main series about Colin the Crab, and our friend has come a long way in his life. The episodes so far–The Caring Crab, Colin the Crab Finds a Treasure, Colin the Crab Falls in Love, and Colin the Crab Gets Married—have introduced us to a whole riverside community.
I can imagine more challenges Colin might face now that he has found a spouse. Waiting for offspring, delays in having them, possible foster children, and maybe even his own little crabs someday are all topics that Colin’s well-meaning friends will surely have opinions on and advice to give. And once again, Colin, and now his spouse as well, should find a way that works best for them. Those issues would be worth exploring further in new stories.
There’s also something new happening in this Mini-Crab Series for the youngest kids. After the two already published books—Colin the Crab’s Friends and Colin the Crab Feels Tired—two more are in progress and are currently with the series’ illustrator, Ukrainian Roksolana Panchyshyn. The riverside fantasy world she has colorfully created gives Colin the Crab’s adventures a unique setting and brings the various characters to life.
I believe I’ll continue writing stories about Colin the Crab for as long as I can. He’s become such a good friend to me and to so many children. How could anyone not love this truly kind and humble character?
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Warm Values | Facebook | LinkedIn | Amazon
Feeling exhausted, Colin locks himself away in his house, and his friends are baffled. How can they cheer him up? Perhaps it’s time to work together, have some treats, and take out Ms. Catfish’s old gramophone.
Even a helper needs a little rest sometimes.
A Journey Toward Compassion
Speedy: Hurled Through Havoc tells your story, transforming a life of circus roads, painted panels, horses, recovery, and father-son reckoning into a reflective memoir about forgiveness, craft, and finding peace with the past. What was the most difficult part of writing honestly about your father?
The most difficult part was learning how to tell the truth without turning the story into an accusation. As a child, you only see your wounds. You don’t yet understand the fears, limitations, disappointments, and emotional inheritances your parents may have carried themselves. My father was a complicated man—hardworking, gifted in many ways, but emotionally distant and often trapped inside his own frustrations and limitations.
For years, I viewed many of those experiences through the lens of resentment. Writing the book forced me to revisit painful memories honestly while also asking myself deeper questions: Who was he before he became my father? What dreams did he abandon? What pain did he never know how to express?
That changed everything.
The writing process became less about blame and more about understanding. I realized forgiveness doesn’t necessarily erase damage, but it can free you from carrying the weight of bitterness for the rest of your life. In many ways, the book became a journey toward compassion—not only for him, but for myself.
How did your years as a traveling artist shape the structure and style of the memoir?
The road shaped everything about the way I write. Traveling through carnivals, circuses, fairs, small towns, back lots, and endless highways exposed me to an incredible variety of people and environments. Life on the road moves in episodes, almost like scenes in a film, and that naturally influenced the structure of the memoir.
The book isn’t written from the perspective of someone who lived a predictable life in one place. It unfolds through movement, encounters, visual memories, conversations, breakdowns, temporary friendships, strange situations, and moments of revelation that happened while constantly in transit.
Being a visual artist also deeply affected my storytelling style. I tend to write cinematically and emotionally through imagery, atmosphere, texture, and detail. I see scenes almost like paintings unfolding on canvas. Whether describing a muddy circus lot at sunrise, the smell of enamel paint in a sign shop, or the silence between a father and son, I want the reader to feel immersed inside the environment rather than simply observing it from a distance.
Travel also taught me to notice humanity. When you spend decades crossing America and living among performers, laborers, horsemen, mechanics, drifters, and dreamers, you begin to understand that every person is carrying an unseen story.
The book is filled with circus people, horsemen, mentors, and fellow travelers. Who had the greatest influence on your sense of craft and character?
It’s difficult to name only one because different people shaped different parts of my life. The horsemen probably influenced my character more deeply than anyone else. Good horse trainers teach patience, consistency, humility, and emotional control because horses immediately respond to what is genuine inside you. You cannot fake calmness, confidence, or leadership around them.
The older circus craftsmen and sign painters influenced my sense of discipline and workmanship. Many of those men came from a generation where your reputation depended entirely on the quality of your work and whether you kept your word. They taught me that mastery is built through repetition, observation, humility, and endurance—not shortcuts.
There were also mentors whose influence came simply through the way they carried themselves in difficult environments. Some had almost nothing materially, yet possessed dignity, humor, generosity, and resilience. Those lessons stayed with me far longer than technical skills ever did.
Oddly enough, even some of the most broken people I encountered became teachers. Watching lives destroyed by addiction, bitterness, ego, or poor choices forced me to examine my own direction and eventually pushed me toward recovery and personal growth.
What do you hope readers take away from your story about forgiveness, family, and becoming whole?
More than anything, I hope readers realize that healing is possible, even when the past feels tangled, painful, or unresolved. Many people carry silent resentment toward family members, toward themselves, or toward life circumstances they never fully processed. That emotional weight quietly shapes their decisions, relationships, confidence, and sense of identity for decades.
I hope the book encourages people to look honestly at their own stories with compassion instead of denial or blame.
Forgiveness does not mean pretending painful things never happened. It means refusing to let those wounds continue defining your future. Becoming whole often begins when we stop running from our own history and finally learn how to integrate it into something meaningful.
I also hope readers come away with a renewed appreciation for creativity, craftsmanship, imagination, and the value of authentic human connection. In a world that often feels increasingly distracted and disconnected, I believe there is still tremendous healing power in storytelling, art, honesty, and shared humanity.
Ultimately, the memoir is not just about circus life or traveling the country. It is about searching for home—not necessarily a physical place, but an inner peace that can only come through understanding, forgiveness, purpose, and self-acceptance.
Author Links: GoodReads | Linktree | Amazon
