Indie Scouting Report: January 2020
In this month's roundup of the best-reviewed self-published titles from BookLife authors, we highlight a campus thriller, a mythological fantasy, a Manhattan Mafia story, and others.★ Ivory Tower by Grant Matthew Jenkins
Synopsis: A professor
facing dismissal following an affair with a student stumbles onto a large and insidious network of corruption and vice.
PW’s Takeaway: An intriguing, smoothly written first novel from a professor at the University of Tulsa.
Comparable Title: Francine Prose’s Blue Angel
Sample Line: “Margolis is transported to the middle of a desolate field landscape in middle America. The overcast grey sky and leafless trees give a sense of endless winter cold.”
★ Jack of Thorns: (Inheritance #1) by A.K. Faulkner
Synopsis: A florist recovering from heroin addiction is visited by a manifestation of the Celtic fertility god Cernunnos.
PW’s Takeaway: Faulkner kicks off the Inheritance series with a captivating love story pulsing with complex Celtic mythology.
Comparable Title: Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince
Sample Line: “It was beautiful, there was no denying it, but beauty came with a price. Such was nature. The Moreton Bay Fig was a parasitic species with a highly aggressive root system.”
Hazel and Holly by Sara C. Snider
Synopsis: Two witch sisters seek to free their dead mother’s soul.
PW’S Takeaway: Moral ambiguity, humor, and heart combine in this fun, fulfilling romp.
Comparable Title: Melissa Albert’s The Hazel Wood
Murder in Black Tie by Sara Rosett
Synopsis: Olive Belgrave solves a new mystery in the fourth High Society Lady Detective series.
PW’s Takeway: Pacing is snappy, the plot is just complicated enough, and the period details are spot-on.
Comparable Title: M.A. Comley’s Murder at the Wedding
The Family Jewels by Vincent Graziano
Synopsis: Graziano takes a darkly humorous look at the Lower Manhattan Mafia milieu.
PW’s Takeaway: A picaresque account of the vicissitudes of a crime family.
Comparable Title: Tod Goldberg’s Gangsterland
