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Ashes of the Living by John Cox

A roller-coaster ride… The twin specters of revenge and redemption drive this stunning debut by Cox which features Chicago PD Detective Tyler Morgan and his newly-appointed partner Annabelle Herrera. While Detective Tyler Morgan is on duty, his wife and young…
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Demented by Joe Clark

Intense, dark, and an absolute page-turner… As much social commentary as crime drama, Clark’s solid latest finds a rape victim trying to deal with her past trauma. Cindy Foster was gang raped fifteen years ago after her then-boyfriend, the handsome…
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A Bagful of Kittens Headed to the Lake: Selected Essays by Cathy Carlton Hews

Brutally honest, compulsively readable, and at times painful to read… In this intimate and gripping collection of essays, Hews shines a light on her own struggles of caring for her father who’s suffering from Alzheimer’s. Hews’s father’s deterioration by late-onset…
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In the Country Dark by Mike Mallow

A skillful twister… Set in rural Appalachia, Mallow’s excellent crime thriller sees two childhood friends entangled in a life or death situation after a murder-for-hire goes wrong. When Cabel Walsh, a disenchanted journalist, offered to drive his childhood friend Troy…
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A Light on Altered Land by Becky Bohan

An entrancing tale of love and renewal… In Bohan’s provocative, artfully woven romantic drama, two women in their 60s set on a journey of self-discovery. The chance encounter at a Minneapolis Starbuck sparks a friendship of renewal and awakening for…
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The Pystead Group by James Pryor

An intricate mix of hard SF and philosophy… Set in near-future in 2052, Pryor’s elaborate SF tale features a young cognitive scientist wrestling with superbly real moral, ethical, and political dilemmas. Hoping to escape the violent extremists and oppressive government…
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Unlikely Return: A Novel by Nina Atwood

  A finely constructed and meticulously researched, emotionally accurate tale of survival and soul-searching… Atwood’s enthralling latest is an engrossing account of four men’s harrowing journey-of-lifetime after a botched fishing trip leaves them stranded on a deserted island. What was…
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Escape from the Mad Man: For Your First Nights of Freedom by Valerie Elmhirst, Larry Lalonde

Deeply affecting and compelling… Evoking a great sense of people and place, Elmhirst and Lalonde convey a pair of siblings’ journey to freedom after their mother escapes their abusive father. Happy meal times, sleep overs, and playdates are the things,…
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The Conductor: Book Two of The Circle by Brenda Hardwick

A vivid tale of magic and self-discovery… Hardwick creates a first-rate blend of magic and grit in this second outing in The Circle series as her young protagonist faces a malevolent pair of enemies after the deaths of her mother…
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The Man Who Married Death by Amy Langevin

Gloriously dark… Langevin’s engrossing narrative poetry captures its depressive protagonist’s tortured reckoning with Death. Langevin uses the supernatural to take the reader through twenty-eight-year-old Zylen LaRocque’s descent into insanity as he pines for the fathomless love of Death. The darkness…