So Passes the Night by Cassidy McKay

August 3, 2026 By Leave a Comment


So Passes the Night by Cassidy McKay
Publisher: Changeling Press
Genre: Erotic Romance, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Paranormal, Historical
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

One wild night, two sexy seamen and a voluptuous woman — three broken souls seeking completion.

First Mate Cade Talbot disobeyed a direct order, sacrificing himself to save his best friend. Since then, Captain Grant Rowen rules his ship with an iron fist, demanding strict compliance from all aboard.

Coffers are low, and when a lone woman requests passage to St. Thomas, Captain Rowen accepts her payment. But the stormy sea crossing holds more than just nature’s surprises.

Aurora Journade reveals that she not only speaks to spirits, she makes love to them –and she doesn’t follow orders. With Aurora’s help, Cade has one last chance to reach out to his captain. Not even death can keep them from seeking passion’s redemption.

Healing comes in many different forms.

The setting was as unique as it was well-suited for this erotic tale. I wasn’t initially sure if it was supposed to be set in contemporary or historic times, so figuring that out was part of the fun of reading it. Other readers should discover for themselves exactly when this was set, of course, but do keep an eye out for clues along the way as they do influence how everything played out. It was also interesting to see how the characters dealt with such a violent storm when help could be so far away due to the technology of the time.

I would have liked to see more plot development in this piece, especially as it related to Grant’s relationships with Cade as well as with the mysterious woman who asked to board his ship on a stormy night. The bonds between them were incredibly important later on in the storyline, so it was a little disappointing for me as a reader to not have as much information about them as I would have preferred by that point.

The slightly ambiguous ending suited these characters well. While the most important conflicts were wrapped up, there was still plenty of space for readers to speculate about what might happen next and fill in the gaps about the things the narrator didn’t spell out directly. Yes, it would have been nice to have more resolution about them, but it also left room for a sequel if the author decides to write one!

So Passes the Night was a sexy romp.

Filed Under: Erotic Romance, Mystery/Suspense, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Kiki by Tommy B. Smith

July 31, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Kiki by Tommy B. Smith
Publisher: Black Diamond
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Action/Adventure, Historical
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

An unmarked plane crashes in the desert. A creature escapes from its burning wreckage, a byproduct of experiments in biological and chemical warfare—a cat.

As the multi-eyed feline mutant known as Kiki roams the Mojave Desert, terrorizing the crumbling town of Calpacia at its border, some seek to capture her. Gun-for-hire Salvadore Shaw, disgraced former Soviet Petrov and his group of mercenaries, and a professor and his chimpanzee assistant commence a vicious race to intercept Kiki’s rampage.

Who will survive the savagery of the Mojave Cat? Not many, if any.

Never underestimate your opponent.

A kitten is just about the last animal I’d imagine could pose a threat to mercenaries, so the premise of this tale appealed to me immediately. Mr. Smith has a creative imagination, and I enjoyed seeing how much he stretched it in order to come up with scenarios in which full grown adults could be terrorized by such a creature despite all of their weapons and history of engaging in dangerous activities as they lived outside the scope of mainstream society.

As intrigued as I was by the first chapter or two, the storyline wasn’t able to sustain that buildup of tension for me later on. Characters made decisions that didn’t always quite make sense given their backgrounds, and the plot began to feel a little too dramatic for my tastes as Kiki began testing the boundaries of their abilities and attempting to satiate their deep hunger. This is something I’m saying as someone who enjoys wild animal horror in general and was expecting to be a huge fan of this adventure in particular.

The final scene set this up nicely for a sequel if the author ever decides to write one. While I don’t know if that will actually occur, it’s always nice as a reader to see such possibilities on the horizon, especially in cases like this one where not every conflict was thoroughly resolved and there are plenty of ways to return to the setting to see what could happen in the future.

Kiki made me shudder.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Move Fast and Break Things by T. C. Weber

July 27, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Move Fast and Break Things by T. C. Weber
Publisher: Freedom Thorn Press
Genre: Horror, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Luis García is a suburban family man whose life is turned upside down when immigration officers bash down his door and arrest him, along with his wife and kids. They are taken to a detention camp, separated, and subjected to harsh and unsanitary conditions. But Luis’s nightmare is just beginning. He and his fellow prisoners are targets for an organ harvesting scheme. And Luis is chosen for an experimental brain procedure that could drive him to madness.

Nothing in life is guaranteed.

Luis was a gentle and quiet man who assumed the best of everyone around him. He was honestly just about the last person I’d ever expect to find in such a scary story, and that made his experience all the more attention grabbing. What I found most interesting about him was how his trusting approach to the world affected everything he did, from small things like his use to technology to huge decisions he needed to make in the last few scenes.

It would have been helpful to have stronger plot development, especially as it pertained to the experimental brain procedure. There were times when my credulity was strained during the passages that explained what the doctors were doing to Luis and how his body reacted to those procedures. This is something I’m saying a reader who loved the premise overall and would have happily given it a higher rating if those scenes were given more time to shine.

The ending was as horrifying as it was memorable, and I mean that in the best possible way. I liked seeing how the author incorporated real-world events, including the development of AI, into his storytelling while stretching the possibilities out to root this firmly in the horror genre. Those last few sentences in particular are going to live on in my imagination for a long time as I explore all of the possible directions the plot could have gone from there.

Move Fast and Break Things was a wild ride.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

The Academy of Unusual Skills by Matt Baker

July 24, 2026 By Leave a Comment


The Academy of Unusual Skills by Matt Baker
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Non-Fiction, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Welcome to The Academy of Unusual Skills, the only school where balancing a broom on your face, flipping an oven mitt, and turning a towel into a chicken can land you on the honor roll.

Part comedy book, part hands-on training manual, The Academy of Unusual Skills teaches readers more than 100 strange, silly, oddly impressive tricks using everyday objects. From coin snatching and card throwing to hat tricks, snack-based stunts, minor miracles, science illusions, juggling, balancing, and other strangely cool life skills. This book is your official guide to becoming unusually impressive.

Written by professional comedian, stunt performer, and three-time Guinness World Record holder Matt Baker, this book combines step-by-step instructions, hilarious faux-academic nonsense, and over 350 illustrations. Each skill is designed to build coordination, confidence, creativity, and showmanship, or at the very least, give you something weird to do at parties.

Whether you’re a curious kid, a bored adult, a future variety performer, a teacher looking for fun activities, or someone who simply believes life should contain more silliness, The Academy of Unusual Skills is your ticket to a world where useless is useful, silly is serious, and being bad at boring is practically required.

Classes are now in session.

Being called weird is a compliment at this academy.

There were such a wide variety of tricks included here that I suspect there will be something for everyone. Some of them looked like they’d require a good deal of practice given how many different steps were required to make them work, while other ones could probably be mastered in a single afternoon or even sooner than that. I appreciated that and thought it made this a better read.

Some of the entries made me a little nervous due to the risk of injury associated with them. For example, throwing food up into the air and then attempting to catch it with one’s mouth can be incredibly fun, but it can also be a choking hazard when the edible item in question is the same size and shape as a person’s windpipe. As much as I loved the concept of a school for learning unusual things in general, I do wish there had been a few safety warnings included before those ideas as this is a topic that could easily appeal to kids or young teens who might not yet have the life experience to realize the dangers of certain actions.

Mr. Baker has a playful sense of humor that works well with the themes of this book. I especially enjoyed the sections that sent readers off for breaks that were included in a few different spots. For spoiler reasons, I won’t share the exact natures of these pauses as they’re best left as surprises, but they showcased his creativity and made me chuckle as I took note of which tricks I might want to learn in the future.

The Academy of Unusual Skills was an amusing book for adults who want to learn a few party tricks.

Filed Under: Non-Fiction, Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

the darkest of times, the darkest of thoughts by Megan Diedericks

July 13, 2026 By Leave a Comment


the darkest of times, the darkest of thoughts by Megan Diedericks
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Non-Fiction, Poetry, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

gray, empty
but i let the words grow
and my heart, i let show
but with separation came
the anxiety, the pain, the journey
within confinement.
i wasn’t ever my own
and my many faces had me so alone,
i thought i might drown.
it started before i even knew what puberty meant:
at twelve, i wrote my first lines.
now, at twenty, i want you to read my warning signs.

Sectioned off by chapters with original photography, the darkest of times, the darkest of thoughts is Megan Diedericks’ debut poetry collection which delves deep into mental health and self-reflection; encapsulating her journey with heartache, loss, grief, and self-perception. This collection begs the reader to wonder whether or not any of us will ever truly be free, and fully alive.

Healing isn’t always a straightforward process.

Mental health is one of those topics that piques my interest immediately. Not only are there many different diagnoses to choose from, but each person’s individual experiences with their own mental health can vary based on a variety of factors including age, culture, and personality. This means that a reader can pick up six books on the same disorder and potentially have a wildly different experience with each of them. Learning more about Ms. Diedericks experiences was rewarding, and I thought she did a nice job of explaining why some days can feel overwhelming when one is in the thick of things.

The repetition in this collection made it tricky for me to maintain a high interest level in it from beginning to end. Obviously, one would expect the same themes to be repeated over and over again, but the wording used in many of the poems was a little too similar for my tastes. With more development, I think this could have been a stronger body of work that dug even more deeply into all of the nuances of experiencing heartbreak.

My favorite poem, “Amusement Park,” also happened to be one of the final ones. It was the best example of the author’s creativity in my opinion, especially once the amusement park metaphor in it was explained in more detail. I enjoyed the dark sense of humor woven into it and thought this could have easily been expanded into an entire poetry collection in and of itself.

the darkest of times, the darkest of thoughts was thought provoking.

Filed Under: Non-Fiction, Poetry, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

Cherry Creek by Linda Griffin

July 6, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Cherry Creek by Linda Griffin
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Genre: Romance, Historical
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

When her fiancé died, Eileen said, “Then I’m free,” words that her younger sister Molly didn’t understand and never forgot. In 1850s Ohio, a girl doesn’t have that many options, and marrying Andrew MacLeith may be the best she can hope for. He promises to cherish her, but they have to live with his parents, and he can’t even protect her from his mother’s sharp tongue. After a quarrel, Molly impulsively joins his gambler brother Hugh on a journey to the Pike’s Peak gold region. Perhaps the romance and freedom she longs for lie elsewhere. Or were they right under her nose all along?

Freedom always comes with a cost.

I loved Molly’s assertive personality and willingness to do anything necessary in order to improve her life. Her strained relationship with her judgmental and mean-spirited mother-in-law could have intimidated a less self-assured protagonist, so it was refreshing to see how she stood up for herself in that situation as a new bride. Marriage is a big enough adjustment to make on its own, after all, even for someone who knew what she wanted as clearly as Molly did.

There were some plot holes in this story that I wish had been explained in more detail. For example, Hugh’s fate was not clearly explained, and neither was Andrew’s reaction when Molly decided to run away from home soon after he married her. These were both important aspects of the storyline, so I was surprised by how quickly they were glossed over later on. A few more chapters developing this would have encouraged me to choose a higher rating.

It was also interesting to see how Molly’s dreams about what life would be like elsewhere were tempered by her actual experiences. Nobody has everything they want or even necessarily knows what all of their other options are, and sometimes fantasizing about a change can be quite different from actually experiencing it. The strongest passages in this tale in my opinion were the ones that explored the gap between the two and showed some examples of how to try to build a better future for oneself.

Cherry Creek made me smile.

Filed Under: Reviews, Romance Tagged With: , , , , ,

Movie Review: Dragon Striker

July 6, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Dragon Striker
Writer: Paul McKeown
Directed by: Charles Lefebvre
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Rebecca LaChance, Waylon Jacobs, Evanna Lynch
Distributed by: Disney
Genre: Action/Adventure, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Children’s (0 – 6 y.o.), Middle Grade (8 – 12 y.o.)
Rating: 3 Stars (6 stars on IMDB)
Reviewed by Dicentra

Follows Key, a twelve-year-old farm boy who discovers he may be the legendary “Dragon Striker” and joins a team of underdogs to take on the school champions, while fighting to prevent an ancient evil from resurfacing.

Disney’s Dragon Striker was such a fun release, coinciding with the start of the World Cup in North America this year and combining fantasy and sports into one cartoon. The show did a great job highlighting the sport of Gorotama and the powers of the different players, but suffered from plot holes and the length of the show not allowing enough time to go in depth.

Gorotama is such a cool sport, very reminiscent of a more fantastical version of Shaolin Soccer. I loved the different powers that the players had, and I think the writers did an excellent job providing unique ways for some of them to ‘level up’ over the course of the show. It was also cool to see how some of the powers, or Tamas, were able to make use of the arenas to their advantage (i.e. twins with magnetic tamas being able to run on the ceiling). It was unclear how Key’s powers were so unique when it seemed like Ragno had very similar ones, but that leads more into some of the plot holes issues the show faced.

Dragon Striker was composed of multiple episodes that were about 20 minutes in length, but there was defniitely potential for them to go much longer. For example, Kal Asterock is supposed to be an academy of sorts but we never really see any of the students in classes (it is unclear if all they do is learn to control their Tamas for the sake of playing Gorotama). It is also a little weird that for a school that big, there seems to be only four professors (or Goyen) that ever make an appearance. I was kind of hoping that with the start of the team of Underdogs (the Knights), there would be some kooky professor coming out of nowhere to be their coach but it never happened. There’s also a scene towards the end of the show where one of the players on another team gets attacked, but they never really go deeper into what attacked him (it’s limited to three out of four of the Goyen complaining that Key coming to the school is bad news, as though he’s somehow related to the issue). I recognize though that I’m likely older than the target audience for this show, and expecting more complex shows as a result might be related to most of my complaints.

Overall, this was an entertaining cartoon and I’m glad I took the time to watch it. The show has a lot of potential, especially if they go into more of the history of the school and what happened with Key’s mom (we really only get told that she was a former Dragon Striker, and bits and pieces of what happened when she died). I really hope Disney gives this show another season, as there’s so much more to explore (and many more games of Gorotama to be played).

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Musings, Movie Review, Television Show Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Bot Camp by Paul Clarke

June 29, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Bot Camp by Paul Clarke
The Bot Books #1
Publisher: Green Hill Publishing
Genre: Middle Grade (8 – 12 y.o.), Action/Adventure, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Twelve-year-old Daniel is obsessed with combat robotics — because duh, who isn’t? So when his plucky lifter-bot snags him a spot at Bernard Barker’s legendary Bot Camp, Daniel short-circuits with excitement. Meeting his tech-innovator hero will be a dream come true!

His mom says he should try to make friends, but Daniel won’t have time for that. Bot Camp is a high-voltage competition and only one kid will win the ultimate prize: becoming Bernard’s apprentice.

Unfortunately, from the moment Daniel steps into the fully automated, AI-powered training complex, nothing goes to plan. The other participants are brilliant, but Daniel’s teammates are totally useless. He’ll never impress Bernard at this rate.

So while the others relax for the night, Daniel convinces his team to sneak into the workshop to fix their bot. But when the labyrinth-like facility mysteriously goes into lockdown, Daniel finds himself in real danger and only his teammates can help.

Summer camp is a rite of passage for many kids and, in this case, maybe a few robots as well.

The plot was fast-paced and exciting. There was never a time when it felt easy to set this down and stop reading for a while because every chapter was filled with adventure and twelve-year-olds aren’t always known for thinking about the consequences of their actions ahead of time. This is something I’d especially recommend to reluctant readers or kids who need a lot of action in their stories.

I would have liked to see more character development. Despite spending over two hundred pages with the characters, particularly Daniel, I’d struggle to describe his or their personalities or interests other than their love of combat robotics. Yes, this was a plot-centered book, so I wasn’t expecting pages of development for every single character or anything, but that was something that felt missing from the storyline.

Combat robotics was a topic I knew little about when I began reading chapter one, so I appreciated the detailed descriptions of how these battles work and what sorts of techniques players use to create robots that are good at both defending themselves and causing damage to their competitors. While I’ll leave it up to other readers who know more about this type of competition to share their thoughts on how well it represented what actually occurs in those battles, I certainly thought this made it sound exciting and educational.

Bot Camp kept me on my toes from the first paragraph to the last on.

Filed Under: Reviews, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Imago Nine – The Popstar Apocalypse by A.D. Shaddox

June 3, 2026 By 2 Comments


Imago Nine – The Popstar Apocalypse by A.D. Shaddox
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Young Adult (14 – 18 y.o.), Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Action/Adventure, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Amaya Reed never asked to become an Active.

One day, she’s a normal high school junior. The next, she’s cycling through eight unpredictable powers—mind-reading, gravity control, phasing, speed—each one replacing the last, each one harder to control than the one before.

There’s just one problem: once she uses a power, she can’t use it again until she’s burned through all eight.

When a disastrous rescue attempt goes viral, Amaya is branded a danger instead of a hero. But before she can even figure out how to live with her abilities, the mysterious Agency comes calling with an offer she can’t ignore:

Go undercover on the biggest show in America—The Next American Popstar—and stop a killer who plans to strike during the live finale.

Now, Amaya has to survive high school, master a volatile cycle of powers, and compete on a national stage where one mistake could cost her everything.

Because this time, failure won’t just go viral.

It’ll be deadly.

Being a teenager is complicated enough even before magical abilities start developing.

The descriptions of Amaya’s eight powers and how she learned to use them were detailed and memorable. I liked the fact that each ability was not only associated with a color but also had a special name. Once the characters explained them all, it was easy for me as a reader to know what to expect next based on what she’d done recently and which power was next on her rotating list. I should note that it did take a little while for this to be fully explored, but I didn’t mind the wait and thought it felt very natural to learn the last few bits of information when I did. Sometimes life does get in the way of lengthy conversations about important matters, after all!

It would have been helpful to have stronger character development, especially for Amaya. As much as I enjoyed learning about the incredible things she could do, I found myself wishing that I knew more about her personality and the interests she had that were unrelated to her role as an Active. Her relationship with her younger brother, for example, could have been explored more deeply in order to round out her character and give the audience a glimpse of what she was like when she was doing typical teenage things.

Many of the young adult books I read tend to shy away from including social media or reality television in their storylines, so I found it refreshing to see how the characters used and were affected by both the Internet and this style of programming. There are some key differences between teens who grew up in previous generations where these things either didn’t exist at all or were much more niche and people in that age group today who know that anything they say or do could be immediately shared and dissected online.

I was intrigued by Imago Nine – The Popstar Apocalypse.

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Two Lives With You by Lauren Ho

June 2, 2026 By Leave a Comment


Two Lives With You by Lauren Ho
Publisher: Mindy’s Book Studio
Genre: Romance, Paranormal, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

What if they never married? For an overwhelmed husband and wife, that what-if wish comes true in an emotional and bittersweet novel about choices, sacrifice, and the love that they might lose forever.

When Dana and Nigel got married, they had such promise. After sixteen years, the cracks are showing.

Dana is a burned-out ER nurse, and Nigel is a recently unemployed stay-at-home dad whose professional identity is disappearing. Questioning the directions their lives have taken, Dana and Nigel are each granted a wish from a mysterious stranger. For one week they can escape the pressure of their lives in favor of ones in which they never married.

Waking up in an alternate reality where their youthful, individual dreams have come true is, at first, a marvel. When they meet by chance in Bali, Dana recognizes Nigel instantly, but he feels only an inexplicable connection to this stranger. And they discover there’s a catch to their wishes.

Returning to normal—and to the long-haul love they vowed would be forever—won’t be as easy as they thought. As the clock ticks down, Dana and Nigel face an impossible choice that will test the very foundation of their relationship and alter their lives forever.

Perfection is a myth.

Romantic relationships evolve over time, especially when a couple decides to have kids, encounters health problems, or struggles to find work among many other potential stressors in life. There simply aren’t enough romance novels about characters in these busy and sometimes difficult stages of life for my tastes, so I was thrilled to read something about a relationship that has weathered multiple storms and no longer feels quite the same as it used to. While I don’t want to give away any spoilers, I can say that this realistic approach to romance for people who are no longer college aged was refreshing and I loved seeing how Nigel and Dana explored their past together as they contemplated their possible futures as well.

I would have preferred to see more attention paid to character development. While I could easily describe Dana and Nigel’s professions and what they thought of their work on their best days as well as their worst ones, explaining what their personalities were like or how they grew and changed as a result of their magical experiences would be trickier. There were moments that briefly focused on this topics, but not to the extent I’d hope to find in a full-length novel. As much as I enjoyed the storyline itself, I needed a deeper understanding of who these two characters were as individuals in order to select a higher rating.

With that being said, I loved the fantasy and paranormal subplots of this tale. They were well developed and blended beautifully into the main romantic storyline due to how reliant the two protagonists were on figuring out the spell that bound them in order to repair their marriage and hopefully return to their original reality. This was a great example of how to blend these genres together in ways that honor all of them equally.

Two Lives with You was romantic and heartwarming.

Filed Under: Reviews, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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