reviews

Love and isolation... Author:  Michael Ward Terror inevitably fades with time.  While HIV is still a scary virus that seriously impacts ones health, it’s no longer the certain death sentence that it once was.  But in the early ‘80s, if you were a gay man, particularly in big cities like New York, Boston or San Francisco, the terror was very real.  Healthy young men were taking ill and dying quite suddenly – sometimes in just a matter of months – and even the best doctors didn’t really know what to do.  In The Sea is Quiet Tonight, retired psychotherapist Michael [...]

The Sound of Silence Author: Jessica Strawser The tinny hum of sleeping infants drifts over baby monitors as wine and conversation flow. The local women of the Yellow Spring suburb are enjoying a girls’ night around neighbor Clara’s fire pit, little suspecting that the next day will shatter this peaceful memory. In the flickers of dancing flames and the drowsy innocence of motherhood rested with wine, a dark secret is lurking. When the sun rises on hangovers and normal life again, one of the mothers is missing, as are her two children. Are they dead? Runaways? Is the ex-husband a [...]

Adolescent Afterlife Author: Angelina Allsop I really enjoy dipping a toe into YA fiction once in a while. It’s a nice change of pace and there are some great storytellers out there writing books for young people. Though I’m obviously not in the target demographic, I was happy to get a chance to read first time author Angelina Allsop’s Peter Green and the Unliving Academy. The book opens with young Peter (he is 14 years old) awaking to the realization that not only is he sleeping in the middle of a busy station, he’s also dead. He doesn’t know how [...]