Indie Spotlight: General Fiction and Poetry Part Two

 

Meredith Walters

ISBN 978-1-68463-242-8

 

Author statement: “In This Animal Body, a neuroscience student encounters mysterious talking animals who say they have an urgent message for her. All too often, we humans think of ourselves as different and separate from all other living creatures. In my case, disconnection led to almost 30 years of struggle with anxiety and depression. This Animal Body brings to light the powerful ties between humans, wild animals, and nature, inviting readers to rediscover them and heal.”

 

Sarah Angleton

ISBN 978-0-9987853-0-1

 

Author statement: “Following the sudden death of his father, German immigrant Max Eyer relocates to America with his mother and is employed at Hagenbeck’s Zoological Paradise and Trained Animal Circus on the grounds of the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. Amid the ivory palaces, shining lights, and industrial dreams of the fair, Max finds an undercurrent of exploitation as he comes to admire a beautiful Sinhalese dancer performing alongside the exotic animals.”

 

Ann Hassler

ASIN B0CG7VG5XS

 

Author statement: “A young filly sets out to prove she’s as good as the colts on horse racing’s biggest stage. But she has to beat her archrival and overcome one challenging obstacle after another. As a lifelong fan of horse racing, the story felt very natural to me as a hero’s journey, culminating in the longest race in horse racing, dubbed ‘the test of the champion.’ ”

 

 

Natacha Pavlov 

ISBN 978-0-9966928-3-0

 

Author statement: “As a person with Christian Middle Eastern heritage, I’ve long been aware that the pre-Islamic Middle East is often underrepresented in history and in fiction. As such, Jayida was partially born from the wish to fill some of that gap in historical fiction. The fruit of years of research, Jayida offers a rare view into 6th-century pre-Islamic Arabia and the Middle East through three tenacious characters.”

 

Afarin Bellisario

ASIN B0CWYL7HT7

 

Author statement: “Silenced Whispers is the story of an Iranian woman’s battle for freedom—hers and her country’s—and love amid profound social change and the imperial power grabs of the first two decades of the 20th century. It is inspired by my upbringing in an Azeri family in Tehran and my Russian great-grandfather, as well as the courage of Iranian women at that time and today.”

 

 

Angela Ellen Grey

ISBN 978-1-961841-01-7

 

Author statement: “This Indigenous historical fiction verse novel spans from present-day Minneapolis with Evangeline to 1862 Bdóte, where we meet Lily. Both 13-year-old Dakota Sioux girls find friendship despite the pain, anguish, and danger of the internment camp for surviving Dakota women and children following the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862. Bdóte, or ‘where the two waters come together,’ is culturally significant to the Dakota people. It is located at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers. I wrote these poems while taking a class about my Dakota culture.”

 

John Kolchak

ISBN 978-0-9840130-9-8

 

Author statement: “After a jobless, loveless, and friendless decade in California, failed writer Lucky returns to New York in an attempt to finish the novel he has been pretending to work on for years. His plans are interrupted when he befriends an uncanny woman named Betty who progressively starts to resemble the heroine in his unfinished novel. The Eternal Return is a fictional memoir. It is also a prosimetrum, as it includes several sections in verse.”

 

J.V. Sadler

ASIN B0D6PTTJCH

 

Author statement: “From My Eye to the Sky is a vulnerable piece of work that came out of anger, frustration, and sadness concerning the current state of the world. Writing these poems was a process of personal freedom and self-expression. This work is much needed during this time of introspection and evolution. From My Eye to the Sky is a reminder of revolutionary love.”

 

 

Janet R. Macreery

ISBN 978-1-977274-13-7

 

Author statement: “In the summer of 1953, 11-year-old Monty travels with her widowed father to the edge of the Alaskan wilderness, where she’ll journey through through rugged terrain, dangerous wildlife, and unlikely friendships to the wonder and mystery beyond the falls. My husband and I visited Brooks Camp at Katmai National Park and Preserve a couple of years ago. I didn’t go to the area intending to write a story, but I could not stop thinking about it when we returned home.”

 

D. Liebhart

ASIN B0C12D78W5

 

Author statement: “Bernadette Rogers swore she’d never put her father in a nursing home. Does that include euthanizing him to keep her word? As an ICU nurse she’s no stranger to the blunt realities of death, but her mother’s request to help her father—who’s disappearing into the abyss of dementia—go ‘peacefully’ blindsides her. My father had vascular dementia for 10 years. The central question of this book is how far people will go to keep the promise never to put someone in a home.”

 

Janna Brooke Wallack

ASIN B0CWKWK2ZX

 

Author statement: “Sienna and Siddhartha Jones are siblings coming of age in 1980s Miami Beach in the shadow of their narcissistic father’s utopian love cult. I grew up in Miami Beach with divorced parents, split between my mom’s conventional home and my father’s hippie communal home, and my parents’ dichotomous lifestyles gave me the idea to turn the volume way up on my own experiences and explore them in fiction.”

 

Paul Westmoreland

ISBN 978-1-0358224-0-9

 

Author statement: “Guy Tynan travels to Canada to see distant relatives and to manage what his grandfather never did. His meeting with Nicola Stainer while there will lead him to unlock some of her life’s mysteries with a key she is eager to protect. Shaped by Memory is not simply about the power of what would be so much better forgotten. It is also about how much more can be lost by a failure to see clearly.”

 

 

Jan M. Walton

ISBN 978-1-73700-222-2

 

Author statement: “In 1946, the war is over, her friends are getting married, and 18-year-old Addie heads for a different life in Detroit with her sister Ruth. Addie walks into the complications of the secrets her sister has kept and lingering tensions from their childhood. I was born and raised in the Detroit area. In my writing, I have gone back to discover Detroit and its people, locating my characters in the challenges and controversies of the post-WWII years.”

 

Tim Swink

ISBN 978-1-956851-38-0

 

Author statement: “As the war in Southeast Asia rages on, Jack Tagger seeks refuge on a coastal barrier island in North Carolina, where he finds himself caught in another deadly land war between two powerful men. I came to know Sunset Beach some 50 years ago. My experience there is, somewhat, the backstory to Madd Inlet.”

 

Patricia P. Goodin

ISBN 978-0-578-77636-1

 

Author statement: “As a journalist, I was intrigued by the famed ‘Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus’ editorial, and wanted to learn more about Virginia. What happened to her? The research on which this novel is based revealed her remarkable journey to become an educator. Her career spanned both world wars, the Great Depression, and the polio epidemics."

 

Mark David Gerson

ASIN B0C12D78W5

 

Author statement: “Esther and Sarah share a single passion: to be the best they can be—on an epic scale. That’s easier dreamed than done in Jewish Montreal on the eve of World War II. Fifty years later, when death takes Esther, her son and her oldest friend must each decide whether Esther’s abandoned dreams will defeat them or spur them on to triumphs. When I found myself in the midst of a health scare some years back, one of the questions I had to ask was, ‘If I’m going to die sooner rather than later, what do I want to be sure to do before I go?’ To my surprise, the answer was ‘write another novel.’ ”