While BookTrib gives coverage to well-known authors every week, our charter is to celebrate debut and emerging authors — the many lesser-known talents out there who are master wordsmiths with great stories to tell. Many are self-published, while others have found a home on small, independent presses. But what they all have in common is that they must work harder than the literary household names to find an audience.
For our reviewers and our editorial team, one of the many gifts of BookTrib is the ability to discover and share with you some marvelous works you may not otherwise ever hear about. The list of 25 books we have compiled here represents some of the best we’ve reviewed over the course of the last year (out of hundreds). There were more we could have included, but we had to cut it off somewhere — before that list becomes a book in and of itself!
You likely haven’t heard of any of these authors, but someday, we hope you and the rest of the world will know them by name. Here they are in alphabetical order.
To Hover Over Waters by Jesse Banner (W. Brand Publishing)
Five children separately, suddenly and inexplicably become invisible to their loved ones and everyone else around the world. Thrust into their own strange existence, cut off in recognition and acknowledgment from mainstream society, they are forced to learn how to survive and cope emotionally. As they gradually discover each other in different places and in different ways, they must set their own rules, needs and values to function in a world without adult supervision or aid. But is their situation a blessing or a curse? Freedom or exile? Why did this happen? What is their purpose? Is there any crossover between the invisible childrens’ closed society and the real world? And can they ever return to the world of the visible?
“Savor this book, because discovering authors like Banner is what makes our business so exciting,” writes our reviewer. “Banner is a talented, innovative writer … [He] tinkers with this world he has created and strikes at our emotions along the way. He makes us think and consider every step along the journey.” Read the full review here.
Beyond Dark Waters by Des Birch
Nine-year-old Ben isn’t necessarily a bad kid. He just does things that aren’t very good. He torments his younger sister Sophie, has no regard for the property of others, and is otherwise willful and inconsiderate. While on an errand for his grandfather, Ben climbs an old oak tree by the river to carve his initials in its bark. He loses his grip, falls out of the tree and loses consciousness. When he opens his eyes, he is underwater looking up at a huge otter. Strangely, Ben is able to breathe in this new environment. So begins the boy’s transformation — both figuratively and literally. As the otter explains, he’s not just a boy, he’s a Quinling. He will live for a time as various forms of life populating the river into which he has fallen. What he experiences will force him to reckon with his previous misdeeds and change his perspective forever.
Our reviewer loves Ben’s voice as the point-of-view character: “His observations are often funny and are utterly believable coming as they do from a nine-year-old.” He also praises the book’s literary qualities, writing “it has all the trappings of a classic young adult book: imaginative situations, vivid descriptions, engaging characters, and a thought-provoking, well-developed theme.” Read the full review here.
This Distance We Call Love by Carol Dines (Orison Books)
Each of the stories in this collection is a powerful elbow to the gut, which leaves you eager for the next situation, the next cast of characters, the next elbow. Dines zeroes in on family, trust, marriage, fear, sex, loss, abandonment, and the strength and danger of a child’s imagination. Thirteen stories that are as different in focus as they are alike in emotional power. The hapless sister of a compassionate woman lives a life that strains the patience — the forbearance and the credulity — of everyone around her. A love triangleis juxtaposed against a family gathering. A little girl enrolled in a progressive school takes participation in her classes a little too far. A family buys a dog; a daughter is stalked; a husband misses the wife he resents; a child is killed; a marriage suffers.
Our reviewer calls this book “a magnificent sweep of fine writing and unforgettable characters,” writing: “Dines is masterful at dancing around emotions and commitment, teasing her readers with promises of happy endings and stopping just short of them. She mines the world around her for situations that seem ordinary on the surface but, once examined, provide stories that merge together, sometimes uncomfortably.” Read the full review here.
A Fool and a Whore by John Peter Fer
Trey Ciuri is constantly on the move — from stints in the Air Force (protecting nuclear missiles), to the Peace Corps, as a fireman (following in his former-POW father’s footsteps), then a teacher and in the Foreign Service. We learn a great deal about him through anecdotes about his escapades with his four closest friends: Wade, an Air Force Academy partner in crime; his high school best friend Tony; Reggie, and Slim. We also learn that Trey has attempted suicide several times — a topic that somehow eludes most of the storytelling until it doesn’t. This is the tale of one “Generation-Whatever-Letter” guy and his struggles, survival and redemption.
Our reviewer describes this novel as “a character study that unfolds through its many conversations” in “an engaging whirlwind of personalities, ideas and beliefs,” all of which paint “a unique and intriguing portrait of a decent young man with flaws that threaten his survival.” Read the full review here.
The Feathery by Bill Flynn (BookSurge Publishing)
The first “real” golf ball was known as a “feathery,” a leather sack filled with boiled goose feathers, then stitched up and painted. The namesake novel, The Feathery, transports readers into the cutthroat world of golf antiques and paraphernalia, centering on a very specific old ball — the one used on the legendary Links of St. Andrews by feathery maker and golf champion Hugh McNair in 1849. The ball in question isn’t just any piece of memorabilia; it’s “the golf ball, the Holy Grail of golf balls.” When up-and-coming golfer Scott Beckman inherits the ball from his mentor, it doesn’t escape the notice of dangerous mobsters and greedy collectors, all conniving to make the ball theirs. In fact, it’s a prize they consider worth murdering for.
Our reviewer called this book “a fun ride” and “intriguing yarn” that “keeps readers guessing as to how the mystery will end” and features “believable, likable characters that readers will root for, in life and on the links.” Read the full review here.
Burning Ground by D.A. Galloway
The summer of 1970 finds Graham Davidson between semesters at Penn State, working in seasonal labor. A young man living under the shadow of survivor’s guilt after the death of three siblings, his direction is uncertain. Yet, he steadily becomes enthralled by the stories of the Indigenous Crow people as told by a fellow farm worker called Redfield. Redfield isn’t perfect, but he’s the catalyst in Graham’s transformative spirit journey across the American West. Little does he expect to lose consciousness and wake up in Yellowstone one hundred years in the past. Dazed and confused, he joins the Hayden expedition to investigate the wilderness destined to become the nation’s most famous park. And while he’s also on a mission to complete his vision quest and find his way home, there’s a complication: a half-Crow guide named Makawee who has stolen his heart.
Our reviewer describes this “multilayered” book as “a transfixing narrative” full of “meticulous detail” that weaves together “science, history, myth and storytelling.” And while there is adventure aplenty, our reviewer was also impressed by its subtleties, including the “eloquent descriptions of natural surroundings” and its “a gentle, mosaic way of meditating on time and memory.” Read the full review here.
Faults: Not All Are Forgiven by Orion Gregory
When tennis player Sydney Livingstone shows up for the Mainspring Mutual Open in Silverhill, OH, she hopes to advance past the qualifying round and draw a modest paycheck to help make ends meet. She comes to the MMO with decent creds and a respectable game but has never quite distinguished herself on the tour. As she goes about her routine, there are several odd occurrences: a strange delivery to her hotel room, a cryptic message scratched on the side of her rental car, and the unexplainable disappearance of her first-round opponent. It seems that someone believes he or she has a score to settle with Syd and is obsessed with exacting revenge. Trouble is, there are so many around her who could be the culprit that she doesn’t know who she can trust.
Our reviewer calls Faults a “literary spider’s web” of interrelated suspects and a mysterious secondary narrator who may or may not be any of these characters. It’s a “breezy, lively read that snatches readers from the outset and holds them to the ultimate reveal.” Read the full review here.
Into the Sky With Diamonds by Ronald Grelsamer (AuthorHouse)
“A historical, fictional autobiography,” set in the 1960s, Into the Sky With Diamonds is a wild ride of memories for readers who lived through the era — or a history lesson for those who are too young to remember. In it, we meet Robert “Dutch” Richtman, the man in charge of tracking U.S. rockets and satellites for NASA. Dutch loves his work; he’s immersed in it. It’s his whole world, crowding out everything else on this earth — except for music. He loves music. A chance meeting on a bus with a rock ‘n roll roadie named Mal Evans launches a long correspondence about one of Mal’s most famous clients — the Beatles. What follows is a fascinating juxtaposition of NASA’s space race and the Fab Four’s meteoric rise to fame. The book is also available as an award-winning audiobook.
“Grelsamer alternates the narrative between the intimate knowledge and details of the progress (and failures) of NASA’s scientists, engineers and Apollo astronauts — and the gossipy, bumpy stories of the music industry,” explains our reviewer. “The combination works.” Read the full review here.
Caroline and Mordecai the Gand by Jeff Gunhas (Seven Guns Press)
Thirteen-year-old Caroline and her mother are devastated by the death of Caroline’s father in a car accident, withdrawing from both the world and each other. But for Caroline, this grief is compounded by guilt; she believes it was her fault that her father died. On a walk to a nearby pond, Caroline notices a magic window opening in the water. With much trepidation, she slips through the window and enters a mysterious land where she meets her guide, a kind wanderer named Mordecai the Gand. He promises that he can lead her back home but not without obstacles, including unpredictable and hostile strangers, a witch and a dragon. But Mordecai bears a secret burden of his own. Can Caroline dig deep within herself to find the courage and heart to prevail — and help Mordecai gain his freedom in the process?
Our reviewer was deeply affected by this “raw, authentic and beautiful” tale: “I found myself reading faster and faster to get to the end. When I finished it, I burst into tears. … In showing both sides of grief — the immense darkness and the illuminating light — Gunhus reveals grief’s transformative power.” Read the full review here.
The Sun at Twilight by N.L. Holmes
The Hittite Empire, 1230s BCE. Hattushili III has died, leaving his heir and first-rank son, Tashmi-sharrumma, to take his place as “emperor of all the lands that called Hatti their master.” Tash’s transition from tuhkanti (crown prince) to the Great King Tudhaliya IV, however, doesn’t come without challenges, whether they stem from other family members or the desires of his own heart. Try as he might to be the virtuous and just king he believes Hatti Land deserves, there are plots at work that threaten his rule — some newly brewed and others concocted decades ago that are only just reaching their boiling point.
Our reviewer says, “Leave it to an actual archeologist to unearth an ancient story so epic and mystifying the reader might mistake it for fantasy. … Holmes’ writing is lush and, at times, lyrical. … This book has something for everyone: action, political intrigue, military and diplomatic strategy, romance, secrets and schemes, betrayal.” Read the full review here.
Franklin Rock by Mark E. Klein (Greenbriar Publishing)
College student Franklin Rock searches for the answers behind the “spells” that incapacitate him at the oddest times. These episodes include flashes of memory so vivid he feels as though he is actually there. To observers, it appears he is having some sort of neurological episode. After a lifetime of coping and diagnoses, that explanation seems wrong. Unexpected support is offered by his advisor, Professor Charles Niemeyer, who confirms that the dreams Franklin has had since childhood are proof that he can move through time. Franklin is excited to finally have answers and a guide — when his mentor suddenly dies, leaving behind a strange book. On the cover is the printed title, Franklin Rock: The Man Who Saved the World. The inside is entirely blank. What could it possibly mean?
Our reviewer praised Klein’s “smooth blending of fantasy, science fiction and the Hero’s Journey, coupled with the spiritual underpinnings of books like Siddhartha and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” It’s a story that rewards readers with “illumination about the world, our lives and the meaning of time.” Read the full review here.
You Might Feel a Little Prick by Reuben Leder (FriesenPress)
Nick Glass, a former local baseball hero and current employee for a medical equipment provider, undergoes a spinal fusion. The procedure does not get the intended result — he remains in great pain. In fact, there are questions from a variety of corners whether the surgery was even necessary. Some wonder if doctors and administrators were seeking personal notoriety and fatter financial compensation. As Nick and his girlfriend, Dr. Julie Toffoli, seek answers to what went wrong, they are confronted with the typical gobbledygook responses that some medical professionals provide. As they go about their search, their interests shift as much to solving Nick’s physical issues as it does to finding the people responsible — and getting even.
Our reviewer calls Leder “a very funny and talented author” who has put “the medical profession and the insurance business … directly in his line of fire. … You want to laugh — and you do — at the seemingly bumbling capers of the medical team at the fictional Cleveland Mercy Hospital.” Read the full review here.
Shadow Music by Helaine Mario (Oceanview)
1985, the border between Austria and Hungary. Two women are on the run: aspiring nun Donata and her best friend Tereza. Tereza clutches her baby daughter and her father’s two greatest treasures, his beloved violin and a painted canvas. But Tereza is being hunted by the dangerous father of her newborn child, and just as the women are about to cross the border, gunshots ring out. With her dying breath, Tereza entrusts her infant daughter to Donata. Present-day Boston: After the shocking death of her husband Johnny and a year of mourning, renowned classical pianist Maggie O’Shea has just finished her comeback performance when she meets a foreign stranger who claims to have known her late husband Johnny. Meanwhile, Maggie’s new lover Michael is asked to investigate the murder of a young woman entangled with the Russian mob and to track down her missing son, currently on the run in New York.
The two storylines eventually “come together like the instruments of an orchestra to produce an intricate, surprising, inspiring symphony,” says our reviewer. Also harmonious is the cross-genre nature of this novel that “weaves together music, art, history, romance and crime.” Read the full review here.
The Curse of Cortes by Guy Morris
A minor earthquake off the coast of Honduras destroys the family home of a local tour guide, Sophia Martinez. After the quake, Sophia discovers several strange items hidden in the walls of her crumbling home: a strange book written in an ancient language with blood-red ink, an engraved tortoise shell, and a ceremonial dagger with a green obsidian blade. Looking for answers from experts, Sophia finds herself the target of powerful men who know the true value and power of these ancient relics and will do anything to obtain them. She joins a crew of explorers searching for an immense treasure rumored to be hidden on the coast of Central America. But there is a horrible truth behind the treasure they are seeking, and the leaders of a dangerous drug cartel are at their heels.
Our reviewer compared this book to Indiana Jones and The Da Vinci Code, writing, “In addition to a fantastic cast of characters and an electrifying plot, the top-tier literary talent of Morris makes The Curse of Cortés a spectacular read. … The tension of the plot is ratcheted higher with each scene, strategically and thoughtfully creating
