BookSpeak Network

The life of Andrew Paige Turner and his partner have ended, but Paige soon realizes his journey has only begun. In Steven R. James' debut novel, "A Soul's Final Journey: Everyone Calls Me Paige," the reader is taken back through a life Paige must view once more. The setting is a small college in Maine during the 1980s. We meet the usual suspects of campus life, Paige's roo...

Sometimes losing your children is the only way to save them... It is 2039, and Joan Bennett's sheltered world as a wife and mother has fallen apart. Her husband and sister have died of a mysterious illness, and Joan herself is infected. On the run from government hitmen, Joan must take her five children on a desperate road trip to reach Canada. As she travels, Joan and her kids must battle nu...

A collection of short works make up the Brown Posey release, "A Book of Plays," and highlights the talents of the Playwrights Alliance of Pennsylvania, also known as PAPA. Incorporated in 2008 and led by the late Marjorie Bicknell, the group provided a space for playwrights to read their works, and gain feedback and insights. Brown Posey Press Show host Tory Gates discusses the alliance...

The romanticized history of Old West desperados Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid cannot be examined without including the woman who figured prominently in their histories, Etta Place.  Author Douglas Brode examines a brief two-and-one-half weeks in the life of Butch, Sundance, and Etta--their trip to New York City, as they leave the West behind for a new life in South America. Brode reimagines f...

Author Robert John Andrews brings the 18th-century Susquehanna Valley to life in this Catamount Press novella, A Susquehanna Tale. This period of early American history is hard, where the rifle, tomahawk, and knife rule. It is a time of hope and loss, land-hungry settlers and the Iroquois; here, two men, frontier scout Alexander Tennant and pioneer Colonel William Montgomery discuss the stories of...

Horror author Stephen Paul Sayers comes to Hellbender Books with a new tale of suspense in The Carousel Man. Haunted by nightmares and visions, a desperate man returns to their source: a childhood carousel ride. There, he uncovers a shocking truth—and a long-forgotten promise that he is condemned to fulfill. Sayers is the author of the bestselling Caretakers horror trilogy, A Taker of Morrows, The...

"We are vessels...and sometimes we have to empty them."For years, Jhana has traveled the country as a National Public Radio reporter, looking for the stories of interesting people to tell. Now she has returned to her hometown of Sorel, to empty her vessel and tell listeners her own tale. As she navigates a hometown that has changed but still retains much of what it once was, Jhana reunit...

Elbridge Corvallis finds himself in an unenviable position. About to start his professional hockey career, "Elby" is called home to Lowland, Pennsylvania, due to his mother's death. A car accident then keeps him home, and Elby has to somehow heal, and figure out how to get out of a gritty, dying steel town. Elby must also contend with his father's slide into madness, a pervy la...

Arcane Assassin: Path of Annihilation is the first of the Raven Naelo series, now available on the Hellbender Books imprint of Sunbury Press. The daughter of an elven king and human mother, Raven is a would-be rogue seeking to follow her father's path and become a realm guardian. After proving her worth against a gang of half-orcs, her father sends Raven to a training camp, where she meets fe...

R. Kane Maurer brings his love of fantasy and adventure tales to a trilogy of his own design, The Forbidden Powers. After agreeing to explore a local cave, Jonny is thrust into another world of magic, trolls, dragons, and legendary heroes only read about. Jonny quickly finds this is all too real and must learn to not only save himself but to defend the world he knows from a sinister force who seek...

The Deceived Ones is a tale of displacement, a stranger in a strange land, music, and a tale most familiar to fans of a certain bard. In her debut novel, Judith Krummeck brings real places, war, music, and identity to life. Vira is a talented, but introverted Ukrainian woman who is forced to flee her homeland as Russia invades. She lands in Baltimore with help from the Uniting for Ukraine program,...

The Pittsburgh Pirates were the doormat of the National League for much of the 1950s but began to turn things around late in the decade. Through changes in the front office and management, the Bucs had their first winning season in a decade in 1958 but slipped to fourth place the following year. 1960: When the Pittsburgh Pirates Had Them All the Way is the story of that magical run, from spring tr...

Massachusetts was one of the states on the front line when it came to the Abolitionist Movement, but it also served as an early hub for the slave trade in New England. In his new book on Local History Press, Slavery and Abolitionism on Cape Cod, Dr. Michael Pregot looks into how both the pro and anti-slavery factions took hold. To understand the shift away from slavery, Dr. Pregot looks into the f...

Justin Moore, the protagonist of Dennis Clausen's works, The Accountant's Apprentice and The Return of the Fifth Horseman is back with Apocalypse in Our Time. In Justin's time as the director of a homeless shelter, he's seen an awful lot. The latest residents of the shelter include Young Angelina, an artistic savant with an obsession with Shakespeare's plays and the painti...

Altoona, Pennsylvania, 1966. Nineteen-year-old Frank Davis stands on the edge of adulthood in a tumultuous time of American history, brought to life in Fred J. Lauver's new novel, Heart in the Jungle - Mountain City. Frank's middle-class neighborhood has streets named after poets, in contrast to the reality of the city's industrial lands, the remains of the coal and railroad industr...

A small-town murder in rural Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania is examined by author Taj Magruder in his Milford House Press debut, In the Day of Trouble. On March 17, 1934, a woman named Susan Mummey was shot and killed by a known assailant. Her murder was due to her being known as the Witch of Ringtown Valley, which Magruder covers in detail for the first time. For years Mummey was rumored to prac...

Rita Wilson's debut novel, When the Only Light is the Moon tells the tale of four women, each with their own story, and a chance encounter in a foreign land that changes everything. Demi is a Greek-American banquet manager who is still recovering from a breakup. She joins her mother, aunt, and cousin for a trip to Greece. The plan for a relaxing holiday does not begin well as their rental car...

Brian George has drawn on his experiences (both in and out of body) for his poetry and essays. A collection of the latter form his book, Masks of Origin: Regression in the Service of Omnipotence, on Untimely Books. Stories, examinations of faith and spirituality, philosophy, and visual works show a unique take on our world. George discusses the pushing of boundaries, including time and space, and...

The Young Frontiersman Series follows Barnabus Locke as he lives through a formative period in America. The son of a fur trader, Locke's odyssey from the Revolutionary Period through the time of the Louisiana Purchase. The volumes of his adventures, "Fidelity," "Allegiance," and "Alliance" are now joined by the latest in the series, "Identity." All come...

The Holly Garner and Stephanie Miller team return to the Sunbury Press Books Show to discuss their new series of children's books, designed to help kids navigate difficult times. Best known for the engaging books "Letters to Leo" and "More Letters to Leo," they return with the Emotional Monster series on Speckled Egg Press. The first two of these, "Why is Frustrated s...

The fourth and final volume of the Anthems of al-Andalus series, John D. Cressler takes the reader to Spain and tells the tale of forbidden love during a bloody war that heralds the end of a golden age. As much a tale of fiction, it is also one of history, which most never learn about in the west. Most of modern Spain was under Muslim control from 711 to 1492 C.E. This time was one of deep influen...

Murial Robertson is a rebellious woman of the late 19th century but has to keep a fair amount of that under wraps. Attached to the security detail of her Senator father, Murial longs to break from his grip, yet must also protect him. When her father is threatened by an unknown stalker known as "The Serpent," it is up to Murial to discover his identity. Aided by her cousin Walter and a la...

Baseball cards were collected, traded, and used in games we made up as kids. In recent decades, however, the collectibles market has turned these into a multi-million-dollar business. They are the stuff of memories, the object of historians, and an addition to some people's portfolios. A recent discovery of a rare set of T206 cards sold in cigarette packs in the early 20th century has become...

"Promised Rewards" is a tale that takes the reader through 9th Century England, and follows an aspiring Bard, who tells the tales of the axe-wielding hero Sigurd. They don't quite start out that way, but seeking adventure means conflict, friendship, and perhaps even love as the two make their way through uncertain times. The story is one of many from Clif Flynt, who joins the Brown...

The full, eventful, and rich life of Lew Wallace is examined in detail in "Lew: The Life and Times of the Author of Ben Hur." Biographer Michael E. Fox appears on the Sunbury Press Books Show to discuss Wallace's career, and how one of the most popular novels of the 19th century was not religious, but a semi-autobiographical account of his own times. Fox traces Wallace's early...