by Julie Carrick Dalton

4.1 stars – 452 reviews

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Named a Most Anticipated book by Newsweek * USA Today * CNN * Parade * Buzzfeed * Medium * GoodReads * PopSugar * Frolic Media * Betches * The Nerd Daily * SheReads and more

“Smart and searingly passionate…an illuminating snapshot of nature, betrayal, and sacrifices set in the evocative New Hampshire wilderness.”–Kim Michele Richardson, bestselling author of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

A startling and timely debut, Julie Carrick Dalton’s Waiting for the Night Song is a moving, brilliant novel about friendships forged in childhood magic and ruptured by the high price of secrets that leave you forever changed.

Cadie Kessler has spent decades trying to cover up one truth. One moment. But deep down, didn’t she always know her secret would surface?

An urgent message from her long-estranged best friend Daniela Garcia brings Cadie, now a forestry researcher, back to her childhood home. There, Cadie and Daniela are forced to face a dark secret that ended both their idyllic childhood bond and the magical summer that takes up more space in Cadie’s memory then all her other years combined.

Now grown up, bound by long-held oaths, and faced with truths she does not wish to see, Cadie must decide what she is willing to sacrifice to protect the people and the forest she loves, as drought, foreclosures, and wildfire spark tensions between displaced migrant farm workers and locals.

Waiting for the Night Song is a love song to the natural beauty around us, a call to fight for what we believe in, and a reminder that the truth will always rise.

At the Publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

by Bruce Blake

4.3 stars – 101 reviews

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The Kindle Book Review’s Best Indie Books of 2012 Semi-finalist

“The next book in this series cannot come out soon enough for this reader. Not just my favorite Kindle book of the year, but one of my favorite books ever.”

“I loved this book.”

“Bruce Blake’s On Unfaithful Wings is a great urban fantasy novel. I love good character development in a story’s protagonist and Blake nails it with Icarus Fell. I found myself rooting for him from the get go and laughing out loud at some of his observations.”

“On Unfaithful Wings was an impressive first novel. All of the characters were interesting and engaging, but in particular the main character and his struggle to reconcile with his new identity/job.
This is one of those stories that stays with me long after I read it and I’ll be on the lookout for more from this author.”

On Unfaithful Wings (An Icarus Fell Novel #1)

To some, death is the end; to others, a beginning. To Icarus Fell, it should have been a relief from a life gone seriously awry.

But death had other plans.

Icarus doesn’t believe that the man awaiting him when he wakes up in a cheap motel room is really the archangel Michael, or that God’s right hand wants him to help souls on their way to Heaven. Icarus doesn’t believe there’s a Heaven, so why should they want his help?

But the man claiming to be the archangel tempts him with an offer he can’t ignore–harvest enough souls and get back the life he wished he’d had.

It seems Icarus has nothing to lose, until he botches a harvest and the soul that went to Hell instead of Heaven comes back to make him pay by threatening to take away the life he hoped to win back.

To save the wife and son he already lost once, Icarus will have to become the man he never was. Somehow, he will have to learn to believe.

“This is just, simply, amazing. Icarus is one of the best characters I’ve ever “met”, chock full of virtues and faults and doubts and worries and a simple HUMANNESS that comes through so clearly, I almost expect to run into him around the next corner.”

“Icarus Fell is a flawed man but a wonderful character. From the moment I started reading On Unfaithful Wings I was pulled along by this interesting character and wanting to know what would happen next.”

by Don Barlow

4.7 stars – 65 reviews

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Have you lost sight of who you are as an individual?

If you find yourself questioning the healthiness of your relationships and struggle to stand up for what you want, you’re not alone.

Codependent behaviors are some of the most difficult relationship patterns to identify, yet it’s rarely discussed and often considered another form of “clinginess.”

This definition ignores the feelings of guilt and shame that arise from the best of intentions — it does nothing to recognize that even the best intentions can hurt.

As you put yourself on the line for the people you love, it can be difficult to tell when the boundaries between you and them have blurred to the point of toxicity.

After all, you’re motivated by wanting the best for others, even if it means you have to put aside your own values and opinions to do so.

However, when you come to rely on outside factors for validation and a sense of identity, these “do good” habits can do more harm than good.

You may suddenly feel obligated to stay in a constricting relationship that turns you into a victim and limits your capacity for intimacy. It can feel as though you have no one to turn to because everybody relies on you.

That doesn’t mean your life has to stay that way.

Codependency may be running your life, but you are the one in the driver’s seat. In fact, you’ve already taken the first step by realizing you need to change the path you’re on.

Don Barlow knows firsthand the transformational effects of recovering from codependency and has compiled the knowledge he gained over the years so others can experience the same freedom.

In The Codependency Recovery Blueprint, here is just a fraction of what you will discover:

• What codependency is and isn’t, as well as its historical background
• Exercises and practices to help break the pattern of enabling others while learning to assert yourself
• How childhood experiences contribute to dysfunctional relationships and determine the behaviors that follow you into adulthood
• The 5 patterns of codependent behavior, and how identifying them will help you understand the signs and symptoms manifesting in your life
• Techniques and advice on getting over your need for control, learning to accept people for who they are
• Identifying the 3 stages of codependency progression: how to begin the recovery process by reclaiming your sense of identity and self-worth
• Essential self-care practices that promote self-respect and compassion, even in difficult situations

And much more.

It isn’t selfish to put yourself first — it’s time to prioritize your own life and happiness and stop ignoring your personal needs.

Listen to your instincts and take this first step on your journey to finding independence and fulfilment.

by Robin Clifford  Wood

4.8 stars – 72 reviews

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Born of illustrious New England stock, Rachel Field was a National Book Award–winning novelist, a Newbery Medal–winning children’s writer, a poet, playwright, and rising Hollywood success in the early twentieth century. Her light was abruptly extinguished at the age of forty-seven, when she died at the pinnacle of her personal happiness and professional acclaim.

Fifty years later, Robin Clifford Wood stepped onto the sagging floorboards of Rachel’s long-neglected home on the rugged shores of an island in Maine and began dredging up Rachel’s history. She was determined to answer the questions that filled the house’s every crevice: Who was this vibrant, talented artist whose very name entrances those who still remember her work? Why is that work—so richly remunerated and widely celebrated in her lifetime—so largely forgotten today? The journey into Rachel’s world took Wood further than she ever dreamed possible, unveiling a life fraught with challenge, and buried by tragedy, and yet incandescent with joy.

The Field House is a book about beauty—beauty in Maine island landscapes, in friendship, love, and heartbreak; beauty hidden beneath a woman’s woefully unbeautiful exterior; beauty in a rare, delightful spirit that still whispers from the past. Just listen.

by Carly Schabowski

4.6 stars – 2,042 reviews

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An unforgettable novel of human kindness, inspired by an incredible true story.

Snow falls and a woman prepares for a funeral she has long expected, yet hoped would never come. As she pats her hair and straightens her skirt, she tells herself this isn’t the first time she’s lost someone. Lifting a delicate, battered wristwatch from a little box on her dresser, she presses it to her cheek. Suddenly, she’s lost in memory…

January 1945, Dachau, Germany. As the train rattles through the bright, snowy Bavarian countryside, the still beauty outside the window hides the terrible scenes inside the train, where men and women are packed together, cold and terrified. Jewish watchmaker Isaac Schüller can’t understand how he came to be here, and is certain he won’t be leaving alive.

When the prisoners arrive at Dachau concentration camp, Isaac is unexpectedly pulled from the crowd and installed in the nearby household of Senior Officer Becher and his young, pretty, spoiled wife. With his talent for watchmaking, Isaac can be of use to Becher, but he knows his life is only worth something here as long as Becher needs his skills.

Anna Reznick waits table and washes linens for the Bechers, who dine and socialise and carry on as if they don’t constantly have death all around them. When she meets Isaac she knows she’s found a true friend, and maybe more. But Dachau is a dangerous place where you can never take love for granted, and when Isaac discovers a heartbreaking secret hidden in the depths of Becher’s workshop, it will put Anna and Issac in terrible danger…

A gorgeously emotional and tear-jerking read set during World War Two. Perfect for fans of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, We Were the Lucky Ones and The Alice Network.

by D. Eric Maikranz

4.2 stars – 329 reviews

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The Reincarnationist Papers is now the Paramount movie INFINITE starring Mark Wahlberg.

Oprah Magazine lists The Reincarnationist Papers as one of 28 books to read before they are 2021’s most popular movies

Discovered in an antique store in Rome at the turn of the millennium, The Reincarnationist Papers offers a tantalizing glimpse into the Cognomina, a secret society of people who possess total recall of their past lives.
Evan Michaels struggles with being different, with having the complete memories of two other people who lived sequentially before him. He fights loneliness and believes his ‘condition’ is unique until he meets Poppy. She recognizes his struggle because she has the same ‘condition’, except that she is much older, remembering back seven consecutive lives. But there is something else she must share with Evan – she is a member of a secret society of others like them. They are, in effect, near immortals – compiling experiences and skills over lifetimes into near superhuman abilities that they have used to drive history toward their own agenda on a longer timeline.
Through Poppy, Evan is invited into the Cognomina but he must decide if he can face their tests before entering this new mysterious society as their equal.

by Kevin Robert Martin

5.0 stars – 11 reviews

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Unconventional. Irreverent. Brutal. Entertaining. Unlike any book written about higher education, Surviving the College Admissions Madness is a complete takedown of a deeply flawed and thoroughly broken system. Kevin Robert Martin argues that elite universities do not care about their applicants.

He observes that college admissions is highly undemocratic and dehumanizing. University bureaucracies alienate applicants from their humanity and sense of self.

Reading essay advice books might help you get in, but they won’t help you stay sane. Surviving and even thriving depend on digging deep into your beliefs and understanding your behaviors within the broader context of society. This isn’t another Admissions 101 “how-to to write a killer essay” book or a promise of “six easy steps” for Ivy League acceptance.

Martin provides helpful advice for avoiding application mistakes, building a reasonable college list, minimizing debt, identifying cognitive errors and distortions, and helping applicants reframe their college applications. This book equips readers with the vocabulary, frameworks, and tools to make sense of America’s broken higher education system, starting with the admissions gatekeepers.

Admissions Madness is the first of its kind to integrate applicant psychology with the sociology and economics of higher education. Martin observes that a system of bad incentives in education and society wastes hundreds of millions of hours each admissions cycle. It produces profound suffering for tens of thousands of students each year. He writes for families and high school educators who want a deeper understanding of the truth.

Elite college admissions undermines students whether they’re privileged or marginalized, rich or poor, black or white, rural or urban, first-time freshman or transfer, and domestic or international.

Almost everyone loses, even those who get into their dream schools. Elite universities are neither accountable to nor transparent with the public. Early Decision policies and aggressive recruitment and questionable enrollment management practices monopolize universities’ leverage over families’ well-being. Power disparities between universities and families explain why the admissions process is so stressful and exasperating.

Waitlists, appeals, and deferrals keep students in limbo. Endless essay requirements, recommendations, and interviews benefit the university while wasting applicants’ time and making them lose sleep and their sanity. Holistic review corrupts students’ interests and high school learning environments. Students and families rarely realize that the system doesn’t have to be this way.

Application numbers skyrocket while first-year student class sizes remain the same despite COVID-19 virtual learning disruptions. Elite universities claim to care about diversity and college access, yet they are hypocrites. Admission by holistic review has noble origins in the civil rights movement, but nowadays, it serves as a tool for oppression. Holistic review is arbitrary, capricious, and prone to error and bias. Martin proposes admission by partial lottery as one reform among many.

American meritocracy is a myth. Rather than vehicles for upward mobility, elite universities squeeze out the middle class and contribute to wealth inequality. Universities prioritize generating revenue over a genuine commitment to diversity and access. Understanding these and other inconvenient truths will help students and families survive the college admissions madness.