Reviewed by Justine Reyes for Readers' Favorite

It is not often that I stumble upon a book with a title such as Dolph the Unicorn Killer & Other Stories. It isn’t often that the covers of such books feature a man built like a bull, holding the freshly severed head of a unicorn in one hand and a sword in the other. It definitely stood out and immediately piqued my curiosity. Because why on earth would anybody kill unicorns? Martin Lastrapes, the author of this comical anthology, will bluntly lay it down for you. Of course, Dolph the Unicorn Killer isn’t the only story in this book and, despite being in the title, it is one of the last chapters. Dolph the Unicorn Killer & Other Stories can be interpreted as both a satire and a bit of an homage to Sin City and supernatural fiction anthologies. Yet be warned, there are vampires, profanity, and a whole lot of laughter.

I don’t think I’ve ever read anything like Dolph the Unicorn Killer& Other Stories in this sub genre of science fiction and fantasy, at least nothing as profoundly imaginative. Lastrapes does not let the conventional boundaries of fiction writing tie him down. The development of each story is thoughtful and humorous. The plots are ingenious. Figuratively speaking, Lastrapes is a madman with a pen. His word usage is tastefully vulgar and necessary, and although the violence and profanity may deter some people from reading, they will only end up sorely regretting not taking a glimpse at the whimsical tales within the pages of this book.

Reviewed by Romuald Dzemo for Readers' Favorite

Going Gone by Abraham Lopez is a unique novel, a single story with deep layers. A tragedy strikes, the assassination of one man in the Middle East, and the lives of different people go spiraling out of control. Readers encounter a CIA agent, the military, and a host of other characters, including seemingly ordinary people, as they struggle to reconnect the dots and get an understanding of events in a world spiraling out of control. But who is behind the assassination? The killing of Saiid will rouse the most powerful and resourceful anti-Western groups in the Persian Gulf region. And who is responsible for this tragedy? Can the retired CIA director, now living with a terminal condition, fathom it out?

Abraham Lopez has a style that is unique and the narrative features very insightful and compelling passages, great political, cultural, and social commentaries that readers will find interesting. The story is intelligently plotted and purpose-driven, showing readers how one reckless act of murder can affect the world and international politics. The author has a great sense of setting and the international setting of this novel comes out brilliantly, with strong cultural and political elements seamlessly woven into the fabric of the tale.

Characters are well handled and readers will enjoy following some of them, each crafted with a solid background and relationships that allow readers to see them in their society and clearly in the story. The theme of terrorism and espionage is well developed alongside murder, which is at the center of the narrative. There are exciting dialogues sprinkled throughout the book and they are so intelligently crafted. One of the insightful moments I have pondered on is: ‘“How do you catch a jewel thief?” a mentor of his had once asked him. Before he could attempt a guess, the mentor had answered with a smirk, “You hire a better jewel thief.”’ If you’re looking for crime with compelling characters and a twist, then Going Gone will offer a lot of entertainment. Abraham Lopez has a gift for character and plot.

Reviewed by Viga Boland for Readers' Favorite

When you read a review that describes a book as “riveting” and/or “one that you can't put it down”, you think of books like thrillers or mystery fiction. You don't think of books like A Second Less Capable Head and Other Rogue Stories by James Hanna. But this is a collection that you will indeed find you can't stop reading because you can’t wait to find out what will happen in the end. And the ending in just about every story will surprise you. So come to this collection with an open mind that expects the unexpected, and you will not be disappointed.

That second less capable head in the title belongs, in the first story, to Virgil and it’s growing at a rapid rate out of his neck…and the necks of hundreds of others across the US. Virgil wants it cut out, but according to the law, that would be murder. His girlfriend, who thinks the head is cute, names the second head Alf, but as soon as Virgil learns that he can now legally get the head removed and used by someone who needs a better head than they have, he goes for the operation. The only question left for the reader at the end of this story is which head is indeed the less capable! Bizarre? Yes. Humorous? To a degree. The same words might be used to describe the second story, about the tiny and beautiful human Thumbelinas that families can adopt. When you adopt one, as Henry Hokum does at his young daughter’s request, weeny Clarissa moves into their living room where she resides in her own fully-equipped doll house. What the reader sees via Henry Hokum through Clarissa is a side of themselves which many men ignore.

What? You’d be forgiven if you think right now that these stories sound ridiculous and ask is there any point to them other than to amuse? You bet there is and that’s why you have to read every story in this collection. After the first few unusual stories, which are not supernatural but beyond the natural, we enter the real world that James Hanna has encountered in his years as a probation officer: it’s an ugly, often heart-breaking world of criminals, stalkers, schizophrenics, prostitutes and murderers. By the time you finish reading each story, you truly begin to feel like you have suddenly grown a second, more capable head, a head more capable of understanding what makes bad people bad. You will find yourself questioning just how evil is Ryan O’Shaughnessy who has murdered over 40 people: he believes he’s doing a good thing for society, ridding it of the real vermin. Oddly enough, you might find yourself inclined to agree with him.

Many of the stories will touch your heart. They go deep, way deeper than simple, sad love stories. Many grab you as no thriller can. Others, like the one about the woman who finds love online with a husband whose farm grows plants beyond imagination, have political and cultural implications. Still others take you across the lonely, dry lands of Australia, or down the alleyways of the Kings Cross section of Sydney, as famous for its prostitutes, trans and gay population as for its delicious Aussie meat pies. This collection will make you sit back as both a reader, and a writer, if you are one, and wonder about the endless limits of a writer’s imagination. The world in this collection is often bizarre, but so realistic that it’s frightening!

Reviewed by Joel R. Dennstedt for Readers' Favorite

One perfect word quickly comes to mind when trying to distill the effect of Theodore Jerome Cohen’s collection of short (truly short) stories in The Road Less Taken. The word is: Gripping. And I do not use that word lightly. I mean, utterly, sometimes devastatingly, gripping. Almost in the literal sense that these narratives – some more like vignettes - reach out to grasp your attention and your mind and threaten to pull your body deep inside their imaginative but all too physical reality. The brief nature of each story works to its advantage, as if one is given a tantalizing but gripping – there’s that inevitable adjective again – glimpse into a moment so intense and so fraught with consequence and pregnant with meaning, usually historical, one wants (but also fears) to hang around just to see the future outcome.

In The Road Less Taken, Theodore Jerome Cohen gives fair warning that truth and fiction are woven together closely, too closely for one to pick apart. Although this in large part explains the potency of these momentary glimpses into the past, it is Dr. Cohen’s impeccable writing skills that give to them such a ... you know the word by now ... quality. One might be sharing an old friend’s revelation of meeting secretly at night, on a ship, with the three allied leaders of WWII where the presumably well-known friend startlingly turns out to offer the sole solution to the travesties caused by German U-boats, or one might be witnessing purely through a diary’s late-to-come translation the dissolution of a young girl’s mind. The feeling throughout this profound book is one of extremely personal secrets, with major historical importance much too long withheld, suddenly exposed. Reading Dr. Cohen’s stories is a heady experience. And utterly, you know, gripping.

Reviewed by Benjamin Ookami for Readers' Favorite

Whether it is the many years that Roland Allnach has spent working hospital night shifts or just an overly imaginative mind capable of shaping one of a kind horrors, the reason why he has won so many literary awards screams out in every dose of flat out weirdness that can be found in Oddities & Entities 2: Vessels. In the short story Defaeco, a man who goes by the alias of John uses the services of a woman named Eve to, shall we say, go on a journey. For fans of dystopian fiction, the short story Parts with Hearts forces a father and son to make tough decisions for the benefit of the military. Six short stories, one poem, one novelette, and one novella are the pieces of this collection.

This is one journey into the weird I'll never forget. Our bodies are things that we will only escape through death. We die and we leave our vessels. For the characters in some of these stories, escaping their vessels are not that simple and I don't exactly know how to put into words the weirdness of some of the creatures I've read about throughout the course of this book. I've never encountered Allnach's oddities anywhere else. The novella Overlay revolves around two shape shifters, but the oddness and horror of it all comes with Allnach's own unique twists. His originality coupled with his well developed characters and amazing story telling capabilities fuse together to become an unforgettable book in the horror genre.

Reviewed by Hilary Hawkes for Readers' Favorite

Rachel McGrath's Dark & Twisty: A Twisted Anthology is a collection of sixteen short stories. Each story relates to the theme chosen for its title - for example, Torment, Obsession, Hunted, Fear, Retribution. The stories deal with relationships, human emotions, and situations people may encounter in life. They all have rather clever surprise twists of an ending, and are not what the reader initially thinks they are about. A murder is about to be committed, a man is about to jump to his death, a plane is about to crash...or is something else really going on?

Rachel McGrath is a good short story teller and her collection makes delightful light reading. I love the brilliant endings in each one. The author builds tension and apprehension at the start of the stories, leaving the reader in expectation of a traumatic conclusion. The stories are then cleverly twisted around into alternative and equally satisfying conclusions. This makes each story in the Dark & Twisty collection wonderfully unpredictable.

My two favorites are Obsession and Malice - both great examples of this author's ability to keep the reader hooked to the very end. I liked the assortment of characters and the chosen themes, and the fact that while the stories are entertaining, many do touch on some of life's more serious situations. The author has written the book to raise funds for a charity she supports: Worldwide Cancer Research. This little book is ideal for that purpose, as well as being a worthy addition to any short story lover's collection.

Reviewed by Rachel McGrath for Readers' Favorite

Fabiana Elisa Martinez's 12 Random Words/12 Palabras al Azar: A Bilingual Collection is a wonderful collection of short stories. The author cleverly takes twelve random words and, from this, she builds a story around them. It is the concept of this book that appealed to me initially, but upon finishing the collection, it is the writing that completely drew me in. Every story is built with very strong characters, descriptive surroundings, and a storyline that is unique and appealing. Very quickly, I found comfort and poise in the author’s style of writing, the way she brings you into the stories and keeps you turning pages with every twist of the plot. The author also writes all the stories in both English and Spanish so the collection will certainly engage and reach a much broader audience.

What I enjoyed most about 12 Random Words/12 Palabras al Azar: A Bilingual Collection is that it can be read in one sitting, or you can pick it up and read a story, and put it down. The stories each have their own uniqueness, and some I found that I was tagging as a favourite. The complex human emotions and the intrigue of each story will keep readers wanting to turn to the next story, and wanting more. Fabiana Elisa Martinez has a gift for storytelling, and I highly recommend this interesting and unique collection of short stories that are structured in a bilingual format to give this book a unique edge.

Reviewed by Joel R. Dennstedt for Readers' Favorite

I had the great privilege to review Theodore Jerome Cohen’s Book 2 of The Road Less Taken, and I mentioned there the primary descriptive word for his great skill at short story writing: Gripping. Actually, I may have said: Utterly Gripping. Having the honor then to read Book 1 of this duo, I noticed something quite subtle about Dr. Cohen’s skills, which are nothing short of wonderful. The subtlety lies in his ability to create a fascinating story within the folds of what appears to be another mundane story about everyday life, but which turns out to be just as fascinating as the first. Maybe more so, in a very … subtle … way.

Take the second story in The Road Less Taken, for example. Requiem for Solly begins with two elderly people, a husband and his lifetime love and wife, as it turns out, having themselves a normal if surprisingly affectionate chat about his retirement. This leads to a fascinating remembrance about playing the violin to please his father. But what I noticed halfway through this tale was how perfectly Theodore Cohen was telling the story of the husband and the wife, simply through the image of him engaged in reminiscing - including a little banter between the two - with a thoroughly curious and devoted woman egging him on with such genuine interest after all these years. My point is this: the reader becomes just as engaged by the couple’s life story as revealed subtly through their smallest words and gestures as one does by the more dramatic story told by the husband. That, my friends, is writing skill in a nutshell.

Reviewed by Divine Zape for Readers' Favorite

Time is for Dragonflies and Angels by J.M. Erickson is a beautiful offering for fans of sci-fi and fantasy who are also into short stories and novellas. The collection features powerful themes, including parallel universes, man’s struggle to come to grips with his human predicament, racial discrimination, and many more. This collection has a lot to offer readers with diverse tastes. Those who enjoy dystopian themes will feel very comfortable with Rogue Event, featuring the game that many people are familiar with, the struggle for control where a select group wants to control the workings of the lives of others. Read about a widower and an autistic young man in a one-of-a-kind adventure to find meaning in Recount Our Dreams. The Gray is a moving tale that features the mechanics of bias, of racism, and beautifully portrays how a group can elect itself as the judge of others based on what makes them look different. And there is more!

J.M. Erickson shows great mastery in the art of the short story and scores great success when it comes to purposeful writing, for besides the entertainment the stories offer, there are lessons and values that can benefit readers enormously. The writing is beautiful and engaging, and the stories are fast-paced. These stories are well structured to keep the reader’s interest constant, exciting and arousing the desire to know what happens next. The characters are well developed and some will linger in the minds of readers for a long time after they have finished reading. Time is for Dragonflies and Angels is a gorgeous collection that I’d gladly recommend to anyone who loves short stories.

Reviewed by Divine Zape for Readers' Favorite

SoWest: So Deadly is the sixth short story anthology from the Crime Desert Sleuths, a sizzling collection of stories that are a sumptuous treat for fans of crime stories and mystery. In this collection readers are introduced to diversity and the very beauty of the art of the short story. Some of the stories, like The Short Happy Life of Francine M by Katherine Atwell Herbert, are brutally real and executed to a satisfying end. Then there is The Dancer on the Mesa by Mary Ball, which comes across as an exotic treat. Readers get a mix of everything in this collection, from gruesome crimes and stabbings-in-the-back, to intrigue, to biting suspense, and everything in between. Most of the characters are compelling and susceptible to keep the reader interested in the stories. The variations in setting add color to the exciting stories.

SoWest: So Deadly showcases some of the best talent in the short story category. This collection was a treasure for me and it will be very entertaining for any reader who wants a quick, breezy read. I found myself reading a story from the collection while on the bus, going to work, or while waiting between one activity and the next big thing. If you’re looking for a gripping story or quick entertainment, then you have many options to choose from with this collection. The writing is impeccable and well-edited. You are immersed in a world with a lot of surprises, well thought out plots, and great conflict. I won’t hesitate in recommending this priceless collection. It is enjoyable, exciting, and satisfying.