A Beautiful Sunrise
A Beautiful Sunrise by Bernadette Gage is a historical coming-of-age novel about Abi, a girl from Ipole whose hunger for education pushes against a culture that expects girls to marry, bear children, and stay quiet. The story follows her from childhood through schooling, marriage, motherhood, teaching, and later study abroad, tracing how one girl’s chance at education becomes a wider argument for dignity, independence, and opportunity for women.
I found the book most moving when it stayed close to the everyday texture of Abi’s world: the farms, schoolrooms, family compounds, village meetings, boarding school routines, food, chores, and the constant weighing of duty against desire. Gage writes with a steady, patient style. She isn’t in a hurry. Sometimes that makes the novel feel almost oral in its pacing, like someone is sitting beside you and telling a family history piece by piece. At times, I wanted a little more sharpness or compression, because some scenes explain what the reader already understands. But there is also something generous about that fullness. The book wants us to see the whole village, not just Abi.
What stayed with me most was the author’s choice to make education feel both personal and political. Abi’s story isn’t only about school certificates or ambition. It’s about permission. Who gets it. Who withholds it. Who has to fight twice as hard for it. I appreciated that the novel doesn’t make Abi perfect. She is stubborn, sometimes impatient, and often forced to carry more than she should. That made her feel real to me. The strongest idea in the book is simple but powerful: when a girl is given room to grow, the effect does not stop with her. It moves through her children, her students, and her community.
As a work of historical fiction and inspirational women’s fiction, A Beautiful Sunrise will appeal most to readers who like character-driven stories about resilience, family, education, and social change. I would especially recommend it to readers who enjoy reflective, culturally grounded novels with a hopeful arc. The story is like a slow sunrise, fittingly, and its warmth builds over time.
Pages: 178 | ASIN: B0GWB2ZL8Z
Spell Roma Backwards
Spell Roma Backwards is Debbie Barrow Michael’s tender, grief-soaked continuation of her family’s story with Roma, the spirited Russian boy she adopted after what she describes as a direct call from God. The book follows Roma from his magnetic childhood into the turbulent years of young adulthood, through rebellion, rehab, radiant faith, reunion with his birth family, and finally his devastating death after a fall. What begins as an adoption memoir becomes something larger and stranger: a meditation on obedience, motherhood, divine mystery, and the way love keeps speaking after loss.
I was moved by how unwilling the book is to flatten Roma into either a miracle child or a cautionary tale. He’s charming, maddening, funny, impulsive, tender, and impossible to contain. I kept thinking about the boy who forgives Rocky again and again, inviting him to play baseball even after being bullied, and then the young man who can turn a punishment into “a nice adventure” after walking to practice in the rain. Those moments make the later darkness hurt more, because the reader has already fallen for him. Michael writes motherhood with an aching honesty I admired. She doesn’t pretend that faith made parenting simple. Her “tough love” is full of trembling. Her prayers are sometimes brave and sometimes desperate. That felt true to me.
The writing has the intimate, gathering quality of testimony, and at its best, it glows with lived-in detail: the lonely basketball hoop, the pink roses blooming where they shouldn’t, the eerie repetition of the number seven, the taxi in Georgia filling with Beatles songs while two families, divided by language and history, sing through tears. This is about a mother trying to make meaning without reducing pain, trying to keep hold of God and her son at the same time. The idea at the heart of the book, that Roma spelled backward becomes amor, lands not like a clever title but like a hard-won benediction.
By the end, I felt less as though I had read a neatly shaped memoir than as though I had been entrusted with a family’s sacred archive. Spell Roma Backwards is sorrowful, searching, and unexpectedly bright, a book about a son who could not be managed, explained, or forgotten. It closes with grief still breathing, but also with gratitude strong enough to stand beside it. I’d recommend it especially to readers drawn to Christian memoirs, adoption stories, testimonies of loss and faith, and books that treat grief not as something to solve, but as something love learns to carry.
Pages: 307 | ASIN : B0DPDX3Q4Y
ALEX’s SCUBA DIVING THRILLS: Discovering Fish Species
Alex’s Scuba Diving Thrills: Discovering Fish Species follows young Alex as he dives into a bright underwater world with Tony, his sea turtle companion, meeting jellyfish, blowfish, trumpetfish, tuna, lionfish, parrotfish, squid, lobsters, crabs, sharks, and a gentle seahorse before returning to shore. It’s part adventure, part ocean creature tour, and part reminder that wonder often comes with caution, curiosity, and respect for the world around us.
What I appreciated most was the book’s big-hearted sense of discovery. The story has a sweet, almost dreamlike rhythm, with Alex gliding from one sea creature to the next as if the ocean itself is opening little doors for him. I liked that the book doesn’t just make the sea look magical. It also quietly teaches boundaries. Don’t touch the jellyfish. Give the eagle rays room. Stay low when sharks pass overhead. Those moments gave the adventure a steadier, more thoughtful feeling, and I could see them sparking good conversations with a child who loves animals but is still learning that admiration and respect belong together.
The writing is enthusiastic and colorful. The language has a cheerful, eager quality, like someone telling a bedtime story with real affection in their voice. The artwork throughout the book is fantastic. The pages are saturated with the ocean’s deep blues and glowing corals, smiling turtles, and schools of fish that make the ocean feel inviting. Some scenes are almost too busy, but for a young reader, that abundance may be part of the fun. There’s always something to point at, name, count, or ask about.
Alex’s Scuba Diving Thrills is a tender and visually rich ocean adventure with an earnest educational heart. It has charm, momentum, and a genuine love for marine life. I’d recommend it for children who are fascinated by sea creatures, especially preschool and early elementary readers who enjoy bright illustrations, gentle adventure, and stories that make learning feel like play.
The Great Contagion: A Merliss Tale
The Great Contagion is a fantasy novel about Merliss, an ancient and sharp-witted cat with a human soul, who helps a cunning man and his apprentice face a deadly sickness spreading through the Westerlands. As the illness worsens, Merliss and Fendrel are pulled into a dangerous mix of plague, politics, old magic, monsters, and fear. At its heart, this is a fantasy adventure about healing, survival, and the strange loyalty that can grow between people and creatures who do not always understand each other.
What I enjoyed most was how grounded the fantasy feels. Jeff Chapman gives the world a lived-in texture, with herb jars, river paths, sickrooms, sheep farms, old grudges, and weather that seems to press against every scene. The magical elements are there, of course, with pookas, ley gates, goblins, and blood magic, but they don’t t float above the story. They feel rooted in the dirt. Merliss is the reason the book works as well as it does for me. She’s funny, proud, wounded, and practical, and seeing the world through her senses gives the story a fresh angle. A plague story could easily become grim in a flat way, but Merliss keeps it alert and alive.
I also appreciated the author’s choice to let the danger come from several directions at once. The contagion is frightening, but so are suspicion, class cruelty, political power, and ordinary selfishness. The Lord Sheriff’s harshness and the villagers’ fear make the sickness feel bigger than medicine alone. That said, the book asks for patience. It spends time on travel, observation, and small exchanges, and not every reader will want that slower, watchful pace. I did. There were moments when I wanted the plot to tighten, but I also understood the tradeoff. The story is built like a cat moving through tall grass, stopping, listening, circling, then suddenly striking.
I would recommend The Great Contagion to readers who enjoy character-driven fantasy with folklore, healing lore, animal perspectives, and a medieval atmosphere. It will especially appeal to those who like their fantasy thoughtful rather than flashy, with danger that feels physical and moral at the same time. Readers looking for nonstop action may find it measured, but readers who enjoy a strange and clever heroine and a world full of old magic will likely settle in and stay.
Pages: 347 | ASIN : B082F32BHF
Alex the Circus Clown: Learning Colors is Fun!
Alex the Circus Clown: Learning Colors is Fun! follows Alex through a lively circus world where each new clown friend introduces a pair of colors through balloons, toys, circus acts, and playful rhymes. The book moves from familiar shades like red, blue, yellow, and orange into more specific colors such as maroon, violet, copper, tan, aqua, rose, olive, and cream. By the end, Alex and his bright little troupe have turned color learning into a full circus performance, complete with a maze and word search for extra fun.
As a parent, I appreciated the book’s big-hearted enthusiasm. It has the feel of someone genuinely trying to make learning feel like celebration, not homework. The writing is simple, repetitive, and very direct, which works well for young children who like knowing what comes next. The rhymes are abundant. The book doesn’t whisper its lesson. It tosses confetti, blows up balloons, and says, “Look, you know this now!” I found that kind of encouragement warm, especially for kids who respond to praise and repetition.
The artwork is easily the book’s strongest pull. Every page is packed with glossy color, smiling faces, patterned costumes, balloons, circus lights, and cheerful motion. This is a book about color, after all, and the illustrations lean all the way into that promise. I liked how each clown has a distinct look and personality, even when the story itself stays focused on the learning pattern. The images give children plenty to point at, name, and talk about, which makes the book feel more interactive than the text alone.
I found Alex the Circus Clown to be a bright, earnest, high-energy color book with a lot of affection behind it. For preschoolers who love clowns, balloons, movement, and bold pictures, it has real charm. I’d recommend it especially for parents, teachers, or caregivers looking for a cheerful read-aloud that reinforces color recognition in a playful, visually rich way.
Congaree: The Little Black Mustang From Arapaho Creek
Congaree follows a young wild Mustang as he moves from the open range of Wyoming’s Red Desert Complex into the confusing, frightening world of capture, training, trust, and adoption. At first, he’s simply “the little horse,” safe with his herd and unsure of people, but over time, he learns that gentleness can exist on the other side of fear. His journey becomes one of belonging, especially when he receives his name, Congaree, and finally understands adoption not as loss, but as love finding a place to land.
I liked the emotional patience of the story. I appreciated that it doesn’t rush the hard parts or pretend the little horse isn’t scared. The helicopter, the trailer, the pen, the new people, all of it feels big and bewildering through his eyes. The writing is plainspoken and tender, sometimes a little explanatory, but that actually fits the purpose of the book. It gives children room to understand what’s happening without being overwhelmed. I especially liked how the book connects the horse’s adoption to human adoption in a gentle, thoughtful way.
The artwork is one of the book’s strongest gifts. The watercolor textures, soft washes, ink-like lines, and splattered backgrounds give the pages a dreamlike quality. The desert scenes feel wide and sunlit, while the corral and training pages feel closer and more uncertain, which mirrors Congaree’s inner world beautifully. The ideas in this picture book are meaningful. Things like trust take time, fear can soften, animals can help people heal, and a “wild” spirit doesn’t have to be broken to be loved.
By the end, I felt genuinely fond of Congaree, not because the book asks me to admire him, but because it lets me watch him become brave in small, believable steps. This is a heartfelt, educational, and quietly moving children’s book with a deep respect for Mustangs and the people who care for them. I’d recommend it for horse-loving children, families interested in adoption stories, and parents who want a gentle way to talk about trust, change, healing, and finding your forever home.
Pages: 106 | ASIN : B0F21FKJ2T
This Epic Norse Saga
Dragonslayer’s Valkyrie follows a warrior destined to become a dragonslayer and king, and a divine-blessed shieldmaiden fated for the Valkyries, as their bond helps them confront prophecy, vengeance, and dragonfire. What drew you to retelling the legend of Sigurd and Brynhildr through the lens of romantic fantasy?
While writing my first Viking trilogy (the Valiant Vikings series set in 10th century Normandy), I delved into Norse mythology and discovered the legend of Sigurd and Brynhildr. I also learned how this epic Norse saga was interwoven with two other legends, including the captivating story of Ragnar Loðbrók and his völva queen Áslaug. Once I had finished writing Falcon of the Faroe Islands— the conclusion of the Valiant Vikings trilogy– I began to write Dragonslayer’s Valkyrie: The Legend of Sigurd and Brynhildr.
Since I had already researched many aspects of Norse mythology, including seiðr magic, Viking rituals, and reading runes, I decided to bring the legend of Sigurd and Brynhildr to life as a romantasy filled with passion and prophecy.
How did you balance honoring Norse saga traditions with creating your own emotional and sensual interpretation of the story?
Although I incorporated as much of the original Norse saga as possible into my novel, I found many unanswered questions and inconsistencies in the various versions of the legend as I delved into my research.
Not only did I need to bring the familiar characters to life, I had to create the immersive worldbuilding in Dragonslayer’s Valkyrie. For example, I envisioned the realm of the Valkyries and their training, explaining how and why they selected the slain for Valhalla. I created the various kingdoms and rulers in Norway, Sweden, and West Francia, weaving their royal politics and ploys for power into the intricately developed plot. I chose the French Alps for the location of Mount Hinterfjall, because the Norse legend tells how Odin cursed Brynhildr with the Thorn of Sleep, imprisoning her in a Ring of Fire atop an ice-peaked mountain. Since Sigurd meets the Burgundian royal family after freeing her, I decided that the French Alps would be the perfect location for the Ring of Fire, since it is near Burgundy and the Rhône River, which leads to the Danish port of Hedeby, where the Sea Wolves could await Sigurd’s return.
Brynhildr is portrayed as powerful, divinely blessed, and self-directed. What was most important to you in shaping her character?
I needed to portray her as a powerful shieldmaiden whom Odin selects to rise as a Valkyrie. I therefore developed her training with Ulric Ironshield, the merciless weapons master who molds her into the Sun Falcon Shieldmaiden. Since Brynhildr is also gifted with seiðr sight, I developed her training as a seeress with the völva Yrsa. When Brynhildr triumphs in battle, she becomes a Valkyrie, the goal she has longed to achieve her entire life.
Yet in the Norse legend, Brynhildr defies Odin and selects King Agnar to triumph over King Hjálmgunnar in a decisive Viking battle. I needed a plausible reason why she, newly chosen as a Valkyrie, would dare risk her prestigious and coveted position by defying the Allfather and incurring his wrath. None of my research gave credible reasons for her defiance, so I created the interwoven plot of the bloodsworn oath between Sigurd and Agnar, her seiðr vision of Sigurd’s fate, and her love for him– her soulbound mate–as the reasons why she defied Odin and guided Sigurd to his destiny as a dragonslayer.
What do you hope readers take away from Sigurd and Brynhildr’s relationship, especially the idea that love can help fulfill destiny rather than distract from it?
The transcendent love between Sigurd and Brynhildr strengthened them both and empowered them to fulfill their destinies and triumph over evil. I hope my readers will love Dragonslayer’s Valkyrie: The Legend of Sigurd and Brynhildr, the romantasy in which I brought the epic Norse saga to life!
It is book 1 of my new Viking Dragonslayers trilogy, incorporating three interwoven Norse legends. Book 2 is Dragonslayer’s Daughter: The Legend of the Viking Witch Kráka, and book 3, the conclusion of the trilogy, is Dragonslayer’s Queen: The Legend of Ragnar Loðbrók and Áslaug, both to be published in the near future by Green Mermaid Publications!
Author Links: GoodReads | BlueSky | Facebook | Website | Instagram
Brynhildr, daughter of the Raven King, is the Sun Falcon shieldmaiden and gifted seeress who has glimpsed her fate as a Valkyrie in a seiðr vision. When her father decrees she must wed the tournament’s champion, she summons Freyja for guidance—only to learn her future is bound to Sigurd.
As the Norns tighten the intricate threads of fate, Brynhildr must guide Sigurd toward his destiny as a dragonslayer—by defying the web of wyrd and incurring the wrath of Odin.
Into the Fire
Into the Fire, by K. Browning, is a character-driven fantasy about power, fear, and the hard work of choosing hope when resentment feels easier. The story begins with Sigrun, a princess locked away in the Haven because she can wield both Fire and Water Einn, a rare ability called Tvier. Her escape sets the plot in motion, but the book isn’t just about breaking out of a prison. It’s about what happens after freedom, when Sigrun has to decide who she wants to become.
The world of Huldar has a strong mythic feel, with rival kingdoms, secret codes, elemental magic, masked warriors, ancient wrongs, and a hidden third power called Joro. Browning builds the story around the tension between the Ljos and Dokkur Kingdoms, but the heart of the book is more personal than political. Sigrun and Aron, also known as Hrafn, are both shaped by loneliness, family wounds, and the heavy expectations placed on them. Their connection gives the story its warmth, especially because Aron keeps meeting fear with compassion instead of control.
One of the strongest ideas in the book is stated early: “There’s only one way to ascend and that’s with someone else.” That line carries through the entire story. Sigrun’s power is frightening, but the book is much more interested in whether she can trust anyone enough to stop surviving alone. Aron’s role in the story works because he isn’t there to overpower her or fix her. He gives her another way to see herself, and that makes their bond feel meaningful.
The book moves with a lot of urgency, especially once the escape widens into a conflict involving kings, warriors, old betrayals, and the truth behind the Fallen Kingdom. The magic system has a dramatic physical cost, which gives the battles more weight: Fire affects the heart, Water affects the eyes, and Joro affects the breath. That connection between body, emotion, and power fits the book’s bigger focus on discipline, endurance, forgiveness, and the danger of letting fear rule every choice.
Into the Fire becomes a story about ascension in the emotional and spiritual sense, not just the magical one. Sigrun’s journey from anger to trust gives the title real meaning, and Aron’s final promise, “I’ll be there to catch you when you fall,” lands as a fitting close to everything the book has been building toward. It’s a fantasy full of big feelings, high stakes, and sincere belief in redemption, with a cast that keeps pushing toward unity even when the world around them keeps choosing division.
Pages: 208 | ASIN : B0DLX15FR9
