Flip a coin and watch. No matter how it lands, it’s still the same coin but only half of it’s revealed. Front and back, in and out, there are always two sides to everything, though you may never see them both unless you look. You never experience both unless, as in “Healing” by Theresa Brown, RN, you have no other[Read More…]

It was just here a minute ago. You had it in your hand, you put it down for a sec, and it’s not where you left it. This constant search for things you’ve misplaced is ridiculous; just having to admit it is embarrassing. At least, as in the new novel, “The Recovery[Read More…]

A quarter of an inch. Roughly, that’s the thickness between your scalp and your brain: a tiny fraction of bone between the world and your history, beliefs, your thoughts, feelings, and ideas. It seems insignificant, but that space – about the same as four stacked pennies – is everything. What’s beneath it, as in the new book “ShadowMan” by Ron Franscell, well, it’s complicated.[Read More…]

Were you born in a barn? In other words, get in here and shut the door. Take your dirty shoes off before you walk on the clean floor. You might call your cat your “baby” and your dog is your “best friend” but really, were you born in a barn? In the new book “Funny Farm”[Read More…]

Cupid can just take a hike. He’s messed up your life enough by now, and you’re not taking it anymore. That fat little cherub can just go away, vamoose, get lost, never again darken your doorstep with a quiver full of love arrows. No thanks, you’re already heading for divorce and you don’t[Read More…]

You’d need that pin to get in. Put it on your chest and you’d get access to an exclusive club. The pin tells the world what you did, that you were elite, that you acted with honor. If you earned the pin, you’d wear it with pride. In “Immortal Valor” by Robert Child, it’s a beribboned thing that you’d definitely deserved. Almost since the birth of this country, soldiers who have exhibited[Read More…]

Heavy sigh.  You need to watch your weight. There it is, the blunt, unavoidable truth, now that the holidays are over and the parties are done. You need to have cookie-calories shed, poundcake pounds lost, flan flab melted. Or you need to hide the scale in a closet, find “Let’s Get Physical” by Danielle[Read More…]

And that’s the final word. Just a few lines, a handful of dates and names, an accomplishment or two, and then that’s it. You’ll be done, dead, end of story – or is it? Will you be remembered only by a few lines in a newspaper or online? Or as[Read More…]

You barely made a sound until the lights were up. And then you roared. Your favorite band was about to come onstage and you, plus 14,999 of your best friends, were makin’ some noise, ready to sing along and dance, ready to feel the bass. Read “Rock Concert” by Marc Myers, and you’ll remember the days… In the[Read More…]

The storm’s a-coming. You can smell it in the air: rain’s on the way, maybe thunder, maybe more, but the high winds are what you hate. They make you run for shelter and pray hard. The storm’s a-coming, and in “Lightning Down” by Tom Clavin, it’s never as mild as you hope[Read More…]