Reviewed by Mamta Madhavan for Readers' Favorite

The Hangman's Replacement: Sprout of Disruption by Taona Dumisani Chiveneko is the story of a hangman. Zimbabwe's last hangman retired in 2004 and they now have to find a replacement for him. Not many come forward to apply because of the local belief that the murdered person's soul will come back to torment the hangman and his family. Abel Muranda is on his way to Harare to apply for the job. Abel needs the job desperately to feed his starving family. When he arrives, he realizes that there is much more to the job than just being a gallows operator.

The story is original and compelling. The reader sees a lot of twists in the plot. Abel finds himself surrounded by interesting and intriguing characters who indirectly and directly influence his life. The author has woven the various sub-plots into the main theme beautifully. All the characters in the sub-plots have their own story, but then the author's skillful handling of the subject makes the plot tight. The book will keep you absorbed till the end. Readers get to stretch their imaginations after reading the book, which has shades of sex, sorcery, violence, manipulation, and poverty. There are many complex scenes in the story.

It is an excellent read and readers will not be disappointed with the story. The book also exposes you to the African culture which is informative. I really enjoyed the story mainly, because of its originality and then because of the author's skillful handling of the subject.

Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

You and Me Against the World is the first volume of Raymond Esposito's Creepers Saga. When we first meet Dr. Russell Thorn, he's working at Gulf Memorial Hospital in Florida. He encounters a baffling virus that begins with below-normal body temperatures in the afflicted. The virus seems to be airborne but can also be transmitted through contact with black bile which the victims vomit in later stages. At this point, they also appear to be mindless and violent, grabbing at their victims and eating them alive. The hospital quickly becomes a shambles as the virus spreads throughout staff and patients alike. Thorn is the designated contact for the hospital for the Federal Center for Disease Control, and he's stunned to receive a rather cavalier response to his report. Realizing that things are out of control, he attempts to persuade the head of pediatrics to get the new parents and their infants to safety with very limited success. He does persuade Susan,a pediatric nurse, to leave and accept a ride home with him, but any relief at leaving the hospital is short-lived. The afflicted, called Creepers because of their strange one-legged gallop, are everywhere; they are hungry, and they are on the hunt.

This is not just another zombie novel. Thorn and Susan meet up with a band of young warriors who've rescued a number of children and seniors and go on rescue missions with blasting music and skills learned through video games. As the Creepers develop homing and hunting skills, the rescuers become the hunted and begin a journey to Wyoming where the scarcity of population should mean there are fewer Creepers to contend with. Devin, the leader, Annie, the knife dancer, and Golden, the traumatized girl are just a few of the compelling characters in this first book of Esposito's Creepers Saga. Watching them grow and interact as a strong and determined team against overwhelming odds is what makes You and Me Against the World tick. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in this series.

Reviewed by Faridah Nassozi for Readers' Favorite

Having missed out on all the fun while growing up due to his Jewish mother's smothering ways, Seth Miller finally got the independence he needed and escaped her constant presence and control. A confirmed bachelor, Seth was living the life and loving it, compensating for all the fun he had missed out on. That is until a call from his mother set in motions events that would bring an end to life as he knew it - apparently he was God's son. After the initial resistance and a phone call from his real father, Seth finally gave in to his new role. He enlisted the help of his disciples, who consisted of his best friend Bob and Maggie - a girl he had just met and was falling in love with - and sets out on a mission to fulfill his duties as the Messiah, a journey filled with confusion and challenges, including fresh doubts about his newly discovered paternity.

The Reluctant Jesus by Duncan Whitehead is a hilarious story and a definite page-turner. Imagine a world with a rambling God who answers to some sort of a committee and his worries include staff turnover in heaven and budget approvals, oh, and he makes phone calls to humans and forgets things. Now add in the fact that he had a son conceived through the Virgin Mary kind of situation, who he forgot about for over thirty years, but now needs that son to be the new messiah. Duncan Whitehead pulled off a brilliantly compelling plot and an amazing cast of characters to produce a comical tale that is full of humor, intrigue, and incredible twists and turns. The Reluctant Jesus is the work of a humorous genius.

Reviewed by Karen Pirnot for Readers' Favorite

Every so often, there are books that grab you at the beginning and hold you spellbound to the finish. The Legacy Letters by Carew Papritz is such a novel. A man and a woman have a misunderstanding and the man goes his separate way, uninformed about the pregnancy of the woman, his wife. He finds out he has a fatal illness and elects to isolate himself in order to find some meaning to his life. He finds out about his wife's pregnancy and chooses to remain in isolation, trying to delineate what he wishes to pass down to his children. The wife and twin children have no idea what has happened to the man and they go about their lives until the twins' tenth birthday, when a letter arrives informing the wife that her husband is dead and there are letters left for the children to read.

The Legacy Letters is a story of frustration, keenness of mind, and regrets common to everyday people. The soul-searching by the dying man is endearing and the reader learns gradually about a complex and learned man who chooses to face death alone rather than in the comfort of his family. Author Papritz skillfully crafts the letters so that they become the life of the man as a legacy to his twin children. He confesses he would rather live than die. He talks to his children about character and commitment, and how a marriage works and how a marriage dies. The language is folksy and believable and readers will relate to the feelings of the dying man. Love and appreciation of nature, as well as respect for humankind, leap from the pages so that each reader will ponder his or her own belief systems while wondering how anyone would choose to be alone at the moment of death. A powerful and poignant read for all.

Reviewed by Michelle Robertson for Readers' Favorite

Seth Jacobs grew up in a modest Jewish family that was one of many families to emigrate from Germany during the Nazi regime to the United States. Working hard to establish a successful life as entrepreneurs, Seth Jacob's mother and father opened up a deli underneath their small apartment. Seth wasn't spoiled with gifts and lavish things, but rather morals, education, and hard work. Seth began helping his father in the deli at a young age and soon found a passion for the culinary arts. Seth worked very hard, saving almost every penny he had to allow himself the privilege of paying for college himself, along with some help from his parents, a part time job, and an academic scholarship to Harvard University. Seth soon found himself enrolled in college, but falling in love with a beautiful Italian girl, Maria. Seth and Maria worked hard to pursue Seth's dream of becoming a restaurant owner and businessman, and soon their efforts and hard work paid off. Seth Jacobs was living the high life as a most successful entrepreneur. Seth had everything he could ever want. A beautiful wife, three children, and a multimillion-dollar business in the restaurant industry. He was living well. Seth did what he could to treat everyone with kindness and respect, but was it enough in the eyes of God? As the biblical quote goes, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away." Job 1:21. Read this modern day version of the biblical book of Job, and find out what happens to Seth Jacobs.

The Faithful One by Michele Chynoweth is an inspirational fictitious book based on a book of the Bible, Job. The book introduces readers to a modern day version of the Bible story of Job, which is often misunderstood because of its time period, and wording. The story plot, context, characters, and overall layout of the book itself are all simple and elegant. Readers wanting to gain more knowledge and understanding of the book of Job would do well reading this book. Readers who don't know the Biblical story will find, by reading this book, a story of rags to riches, and vice-versa. The book contains concepts of self-doubt, kindness, Catholic religion, Jewish religion, God, self-doubt, self-pity, anxiety, wealth, poverty and some others. This is a modern-day book filled with riches, mystery, scandal, and miracles.

Author Michele Chynoweth write in a clear and concise way to help readers comprehend the message behind the biblical story. There is not a dull moment throughout this book. It is filled with so many different emotions, leaving a reader angry, sad, joyful, fearful and not wanting to put it down.

Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

To Hold The Sun is an inspirational self-help novel written by Chas Watkins. The narrator is an investigative journalist who has been going through hard times professionally. His carefully laid plans of becoming a prominent journalist have not come to pass, and he'd been wondering how the bills would get paid if some commissions didn't come through soon. He's elated to be called into his editor's office and offered an assignment. The editor, long interested in self-help seminars and conferences, had met Paul Haletine, the subject of the assignment, at a conference. His theories and practices intrigued the editor and so the assignment was created. There would be no remuneration, something which causes the narrator to initially refuse the job, until he learns that Haletine lives on Roatan, an island in the Caribbean famous for its scuba diving.

Chas Watkins' inspirational novel is a marvelous story that may also change your life. The reader gets to absorb the narrator's explorations into Haletine's philosophy, and, somehow, learning third-hand as it were through the narrator's experience and responses makes the lessons that much more profound and impressive. I found myself considering each exercise and meditation as Paul coaches his visitor and I feel empowered to make some of those same changes. I also loved reading about Roatan and the accompanying pictures make the island's beauty come to life. I love swimming and snorkeling and will be seeing those clear waters and broad sandy beaches in my mind for some time to come. To Hold the Sun is a beautifully written and stirring inspirational novel, and I highly recommend it.

Reviewed by Tina Stanciu for Readers' Favorite

The Tale of a Lost Romantic in Seoul by Steve Justice is a novel as remarkable as its title that tells the story of a middle-aged English professor and his struggles to come to terms with his normal and nice but unhappy life. Trapped in a marriage that was never his desire, enslaved by a job that only brings routine and disillusion, living in a country with no excitement, he decides to abandon his perfectly fine life and move to South Korea with the hope of a new and stimulating life. Unfortunately, his new life will only bring the same meaningless routine and the same feelings of discontent; in fact, all that changed was the landscape. His life only begins to find its meaning when he encounters a younger woman, and realizes that could be the intellectual match he has been looking for all along. Intelligence and youth are powerful aphrodisiacs and the professor would soon find out how much darkness and hurt can be caused by an oppressed and tortured soul.

To say that The Tale of a Lost Romantic in Seoul is a beautifully written psychological thriller with an unforeseen outcome is an understatement. Resembling Nabokov’s Lolita, Steve Justice’s novel has a way of making you get into the protagonist’s mind, and even if there may be time when you guess the outcome, the professor comes along and pushes you back into his world of disillusion and false hope. The slow pace of the story complements the psychological profiles of the characters and keeps readers from anticipating the ending. Even if in the beginning you would find it hard to empathize with the professor, by the time you read more than half way you find yourself so deep into his head that you would not have it any other way.

The professor sees himself as a lost romantic, a hero on a mission to find the one he loves and to offer her eternal happiness; all that gets in the way is a string of obstacles that he has to overcome in order to have his happy-ever-after, no matter who he ends up hurting in the process. This book was a pleasure from cover to cover, and even though it is not a story with a happy ending, it offers everything a good psychological thriller should.

Reviewed by Samantha Rivera for Readers' Favorite

In The Gomorrah Principle by Rick DeStefanis, Brady is a man on a mission, a mission to discover what happened to his best friend, the brother of the woman he loves. In order to accomplish his mission he’ll have to go to the last place his friend is known to have been, Vietnam. But traveling to Vietnam during the war is harder than it might seem, unless you’re part of the military. Lacey is certain that if Brady joins the military he’ll die just like her brother, but that doesn’t stop him from signing up. It’s going to take all his skill to discover what happened to Duff without ending up the same way he did.

This book really opened my eyes to what happened during the Vietnam War and what the men who fought in it really went through. Brady was a very interesting character and seeing the way he changed throughout the course of this book made it more realistic; after all, no one can go through an entire war completely unscathed. Lacey is also a fun character who is trying to become someone new. She’s really trying to grow and develop as a person but doesn’t know how to do it. Throughout this book she definitely shows how women tend to become less naïve as they grow older. The Gomorrah Principle works for both of them and it’s something that they will not forget any time soon. I know it’s something I’ll remember (and I’ve never been a hunter).

Reviewed by Faridah Nassozi for Readers' Favorite

Samantha Church had every aspect of her life going wrong; she had lost a good job, lost her daughter to her ex-husband, and was drinking more and more every day. She thought she had hit rock bottom and things could not get any worse until her ex-husband Jonathan banged on her door on Christmas morning with the worst news of her life - her sister Robin was dead. The death was ruled a drunken suicide but Samantha knew that her sister could not have committed suicide, especially not on Christmas morning as that brought back so many dreadful childhood memories. Samantha swore to get to the bottom of her sister's death, but she cannot do it alone and yet does not know whom to trust. She is up against enemies so powerful and devious, and they will stop at nothing to cover their evil deeds.

The Friday Edition: A Samantha Church Mystery by Betta Ferrendelli is a detective thriller about the corruption, deceit, and ultimate betrayal that surrounded Samantha Church's life. Betta Ferrendelli created a unique main character in the form of a brave woman who has to fight her personal demons and stay strong enough to fight the ultimate fight. She has you holding your breath, hoping that Samantha can hang in there long enough to get through the ordeal. The Friday Edition is a definite page-turner that had me reading nonstop from start to end, with fingers crossed. The story has unbelievable twists and turns and just the right dose of crime and mystery to give any fan of the detective fiction genre a thrilling reading experience.

Reviewed by Kayti Nika Raet for Readers' Favorite

In The Six Train to Wisconsin by Kourtney Heintz, Oliver and Kai seem like your average couple living in New York City; he is a financial adviser and she helps at risk children. But there's more to the two of them than what first meets the eye. Kai is a telepathic and the pressures of blocking out eight million voices is beginning to get to her. After a particularly bad night, Oliver takes her away from the city and to his childhood home in Butternut, Wisconsin, but there is more to that small town than you think.

The Six Train to Wisconsin is one of those novels that has blurbs all over the back saying things like 'evocative', and 'brilliant', and 'I couldn't put it down' - praise that is well deserved. A richly layered novel, The Six Train to Wisconsin gently pushes at the reader's expectations, then exceeds them, turning what could almost become kitschy in more inexperienced hands to something with an almost literary bent (if the literary genre ever decided to dabble in the paranormal).

It was an enjoyable read, and I can see why The Six Train to Wisconsin was the 2012 semifinalist for Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. My only complaint is that I wish the ending had stretched on a little longer. I was dying to know how everything was resolved with the characters but who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky and Ms. Heintz will pen a sequel (both fingers crossed).