Indie Scouting Report: June 2018
Our recap of the best-reviewed self-published titles from BookLife authors.
In this month’s roundup of the best-reviewed BookLife titles, we highlight a romance about starting over, a family saga about childhood trauma, and a visual homage to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
All This Time by Melissa Tagg
Synopsis: Tagg crafts a beautiful romance—about a convicted felon looking for a new life and finding love—that is filled with humor, mystery, and heartfelt emotion.
PW’s Takeaway: Tagg’s moving story beautifully explores themes of redemption and the nature of home.
Comparable Title: Karen Kingsbury’s To the Moon and Back
Sample Line: “By inviting Bear to join them in Brazil, Annie’s parents had given his life meaning, made it possible to believe a man really could erase all that was behind him.”
Secrets and Shadows by Roberta Silman
Synopsis: This family saga delves into the reverberations of childhood trauma.
PW’s Takeaway: Readers looking for the intersection of the historical and the personal will be rewarded.
Comparable Title: Julian Barnes’s The Noise of Time
Sample Line: “So many years, so many daily habits, and then they are adults and gone. Sometimes she can hardly remember all the books before bed, the sore throats, the childhood diseases; often it is a shadowy mist, then a dream, or a moment like this when it will spring to life, as vivid as it once was.”
Pride and Prejudice by Ellie Fabe
Synopsis: Collagist Fabe adds flair to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice with 39 original illustrations that accompany the text.
PW’s Takeaway: Tinged with irony and social commentary... A sweet and visually appealing homage...
Comparable Titles: The Candlewick Illustrated Classics series
Retreads by Steve Hobbs
Synopsis: Adventurers in a parallel universe must find their way back to Earth.
PW’s Takeaway: Fans of love everlasting combined with fights for survival will be completely captivated by Hobbs’s twisty narrative.
Comparable Title: Jack Finney’s Time and Again
One More Night by Rebecca Hunter
Synopsis: Hunter takes readers from Stockholm to Paris on a sensual journey in this scrumptious contemporary romance.
PW’s Takeaway: A page-turner filled with vivid sex scenes and intense emotion.
Comparable Titles: Simona Ahrnstedt’s High Stakes series
