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The Devil Pulls the Strings
The Devil Pulls the Strings is a dark fantasy novel with the pulse of a supernatural thriller and the sweep of an adventure story. It follows Boone Daniels, a Missouri musician and Ren Faire jouster who has spent twelve years trying to prove that his parents did not simply vanish, but were taken by something monstrous and tied to cursed Paganini music. When Boone is pulled from his small-town life into New York, secret societies, occult history, Slavic myth, and a dangerous search involving three pieces of forbidden music, the book turns into a chase through music, memory, grief, and fate.
The author writes like he wants every chapter to move, and they do. Boone’s voice has an authentic roughness that makes the story feel immediate, especially because the novel leans into his synesthesia, eidetic memory, panic, and stubborn need to be believed. That choice gives the book its identity. Music isn’t just background here. It becomes texture, pressure, color, taste, and threat. I liked that a lot. It makes the fantasy feel embodied instead of decorative. At times, the novel throws a huge amount at the reader, with lore, organizations, artifacts, and side characters arriving fast, but I also think that abundance is part of its charm. It feels like opening a big old trunk and finding it packed with strange objects, scraps of legend, and one more story than you expected.
The mix of themes is bold. Slavic mythology, Paganini lore, fairy tale logic, secret archives, vampire assassins, Renaissance fairs, and a hero from a trailer park should not fit together this smoothly, and yet a surprising amount of it does because Boone is such a sincere center of gravity. He’s bruised, funny, desperate, and often overwhelmed, which gives the story heart. The romance thread with Sapphire and the idea of cursed music could have tipped into melodrama, but the book usually keeps itself grounded by returning to Boone’s grief and his need to make sense of what happened when he was six. That gave the bigger fantasy machinery some emotional weight. I was especially interested in how the novel treats talent as both a gift and a burden. Music opens doors here, but it also asks for blood.
I would recommend this most to readers who enjoy genre fiction that is earnest, busy, imaginative, and unafraid to go big. If you like dark fantasy, occult thrillers, myth-soaked adventures, or stories where music itself becomes dangerous, there is a lot here to enjoy. I think readers who want ultra-minimal prose or a very restrained plot may not click with it in the same way. But readers who are happy to follow a wounded, sharp-edged hero into a world of cursed art, hidden histories, and supernatural conflict will probably have a very good time with this one. It feels like a book written by someone who loves stories enough to pack in everything that fascinates him.
Pages: 252 | ISBN : 978-1736401309
The Original Human Beings
The Original Human Beings doesn’t introduce pain politely. It slams the door open and says: look. The early chapters carry the stench of the Tegucigalpa dump and the constant calculus of threat, who can be trusted, who can be bought, who will vanish. When music appears, it isn’t decorative; it’s defiance made audible, played on a soccer field that no safe child would touch.
The tenderness that surprised me most is how the novel treats naming, not as branding, but as breath. Sister Rosa’s speech about names carrying “history, hope, and resilience” is one of those scenes that feels personal. “Never” lands not as a gimmick but as a vow with splinters in it.
I also didn’t expect the book to be funny in its own way. It has moments where absurdity slips in, people being people even while the plot keeps sharpening its knives, and that contrast makes the grief hit harder. Later, when the story pivots toward chosen family and the messy work of becoming “something new,” it doesn’t pretend restoration is clean. It shows care arriving through awkward neighbors, unlikely protectors, and the weird grace of second chances.
And then there’s the part where a father figure tells Never, plainly, to stop hunting for a rescuer: “You are already enough.” It’s not self-help; it’s a hard-earned verdict delivered without sentimentality. I’ll remember this novel less for plot twists than for the way it insists, again and again, that love isn’t a soft thing. It’s a muscle. It’s practice.
If you like novels where survival isn’t just plot but a pressure that shapes every sentence, and where music becomes a second language for what can’t be said, The Original Human Beings is for you. It’s especially good for readers drawn to immigration stories that refuse tidy uplift, and for anyone curious about how Indigenous cosmology can widen a personal narrative into something elemental. Expect grit, grace, and a kind of hard-won beauty that doesn’t ask permission.
Pages: 356 | ASIN : B0G42BPC2T
Daughter of Ash and Bone
Daughter of Ash and Bone is a mythological fantasy with a strong romantic thread, the kind of book that drops a modern woman into an old war and then asks what survives when buried history starts breathing again. Alice Reed begins as a chemist trying to hold together a quiet, carefully built life, then inherits a strange Norse pendant from a relative she never knew and gets pulled into a world of tokens, gods, dreams, and old violence that never really ended. What starts as an eerie inheritance mystery widens into a story about identity, legacy, and the dangerous pull between the mortal present and mythic past.
I liked how grounded the book tries to keep Alice, even when the story gets bigger and stranger. I liked that she isn’t introduced as some already fearless chosen one. She’s tired, wary, practical, and a little stubborn, which makes her easier to believe in. The early scenes with the package, the apartment, the cat, the office, and the slow creep of dread do a lot of work. They give the fantasy something solid to push against. I also think the author has a real feel for momentum. The book keeps feeding you just enough mystery to make you keep going, whether that is the changing pendant, the dreams, or the shifting loyalties around Alice. Sometimes the dialogue and emotional beats feel a bit heightened, but in this kind of fantasy romance, that intensity is part of the engine, and it works.
I was especially interested in the author’s choice to build the story around Norse mythology without making it feel like a cold mythology lesson. The gods and their history arrive through conflict, family damage, and personal cost, which makes the lore feel lived in instead of pinned to a board. Beckett and Alice’s connection gives the book warmth, and I appreciated that the romance grows beside danger rather than replacing it. Tia, Freya, Campbell Graves, and Loki also help widen the emotional field of the novel. Loki, in particular, comes across less like a flat villain and more like an old wound that learned how to speak.
Daughter of Ash and Bone is easy to sink into and easier than I expected to care about. It feels like an urban fantasy and mythic fantasy blend with romance at its center, written for readers who want magic, emotional stakes, ancient grudges, and a heroine who has to piece herself together while everything around her is coming apart. I would recommend it most to readers who enjoy modern settings crossed with old gods, character-driven fantasy, and stories where attraction, danger, and destiny all arrive at the door together.
Pages: 352 | ASIN : B0GTFG3C9D
Nurse Dorothea® Presents Depression and Accepting Resources to Help
Depression and Accepting Resources to Help is a children’s informational picture book about a girl named Amisha who visits her school nurse, Nurse Dorothea, because she thinks she may be dealing with depression. From there, the book walks through symptoms, risks, causes, treatment options, warning signs, and ways to ask for help, and it ends with Amisha telling her dad what she learned so they can make a doctor’s appointment before things get worse. It’s very much a health-focused educational story more than a traditional plot-driven tale, and that feels true to what the book wants to be.
I think readers will like how direct the writing is. Author Michael Dow doesn’t circle around the subject or soften it into something vague. He lets Nurse Dorothea speak clearly about sadness, hopelessness, suicidal thinking, medication, therapy, and emergency help, which makes the book feel serious in a way I respected. I kept noticing that the book carries a huge amount of information. Sometimes it reads less like a story and more like a guided lesson inside a picture book. It is worth noting that the emotional arc is a bit thinner than the educational one. Amisha gives the book a human center, but the real engine here is explanation.
I also found myself thinking about the author’s choice to frame all of this through a trusted school nurse. That was smart. It gives kids a clear model for what asking for help can look like, and it makes the book feel steady instead of scary. The illustrations help with that too, almost like the book is saying, sit down, breathe, let’s talk this through. I appreciated that the ideas stay practical. The message isn’t that one brave conversation magically fixes everything. The message is that support matters, treatment can take different forms, and learning the signs early matters. That grounded approach felt honest to me.
I would recommend this genre blend of children’s picture book and mental health education resource most for adults reading with kids, school counselors, nurses, teachers, and families who want a structured way to open a hard conversation. It’s especially useful for children who may be starting to notice sadness, worry, or changes in themselves or someone they love. Kids looking for a playful storybook may not connect with it in the same way, because this book is really built to inform first. But for readers who need clarity, reassurance, and a calm entry point into a difficult topic, I think it has real value.
Pages: 95
