Set over five days in the life of a death-obsessed teenager, "Jacked Up" is snappy and clever, wrapping Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and spiritual beliefs around a coming-of-age story with themes of friendship, acceptance, and mourning.... Read More

In Lynn Waltz’s Hog Wild: The Battle for Workers’ Rights at the World’s Largest Slaughterhouse, the dangerous and exploitative meat-packing industry receives fresh focus through a fourteen-year campaign to unionize the Smithfield... Read More

Outstanding dialogue and realistic characters illuminate a convincing mystery in Edward J. Delaney’s "Follow the Sun". In coastal New England, tradition-hardened men are up against the sea, a dwindling supply of lobster, and the... Read More

Diane Pomerantz’s memoir "Lost in the Reflecting Pool" is an emotionally taxing read that captures the reality of living in an abusive relationship. Diane Pomerantz’s "Lost in the Reflecting Pool" is a searing memoir of a marriage... Read More

"Through the Bookstore Window" is a bold exploration of lives joined by history. The story features Gina Perini, an exile in San Francisco, whose life as a bookstore manager covers a troubling past in Bosnia, and Alexi Wilder, an abused... Read More

Melanie S. Morrison’s gripping, revealing, and tragic "Murder on Shades Mountain" returns to 1931 and the Jim Crow South to cover the trial of Willie Peterson, blamed for the murders of Augusta Williams and her friend, Jennie Wood.... Read More

"If I Let You Go" uses chilling descriptions to paint a frightening picture of a postapocalyptic future. Ashley Dufault’s "If I Let You Go" addresses classism and revolution in a postapocalyptic world full of secrets, hidden loyalties,... Read More

Sam McManis, an award-winning writer and former columnist for the Sacramento Bee, traveled the length and breadth of his state for five years, seeking the real California. No matter which direction he headed, he found California to be a... Read More