historical fiction

What Once Was Promised by Louis Trubiano

What One Was Promised is a multi-generational family saga that chronicles the diverse paths taken by three young Italian immigrants and one American-born Italian as they navigate the challenges presented them in early 20th century Boston. Love, friendship, treachery and betrayal are intertwined against a backdrop of political intrigue and decades long personal vendettas. In the end, the four old friends must come together to right a wrong visited upon them by those who have spent a lifetime fighting against them.

Sons of the Sphinx by Cheryl Carpinello

By Book Lovers Magazine

Sons of the Sphinx by Cheryl Carpinello

He has been given back his human form. Allowed to return one last time to restore honor to his family. One last time to find his true love.
Rosa, who hears the dead, is summoned to solve a mystery in 1330 BC Egypt. To discover the truth. To stay alive.
Thrilling time travel. Gripping action. Unforgettable characters.
Edge of your seat story of battling good and evil in an ancient world.

Abroad: A Novel of Cross-Cultural Encounters by Greyson Bryan

By Book Lovers Magazine

Abroad: A Novel of Cross-Cultural Encounters by Greyson Bryan

Come along for the ride with this “supremely readable” coming-of-age story about clashing cultures and complicated relationships. ABROAD follows Skip, Maddie, and Rex as they travel overseas and navigate romantic loves and friendships during the cultural upheaval and sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s.

Booklife praises ABROAD saying, “In this literary novel centered on travel and the lessons we can learn from crossing borders with an open heart, Bryan, author of the Big thriller series, weaves an ambitious, globe-crossing narrative of interconnected lives and loves.”

Travel to Mexico and Paris, take a steamship to Europe, crisscross Japan, Taiwan and Indonesia all in one story. Read ABROAD and bring adventure with you wherever you go.

The Oldest Word by Johnny Firic

By Book Lovers Magazine

The Oldest Word by Johnny Firic

The story opens with the discovery of a mysterious box from the distant past. Its makers are five orphaned friends who hope to help civilizational knowledge survive disruptive climate change centuries in the future: the ending of the Ice Age. The bar is continuously raised as the box traverses more than a dozen settings to the present day. Readers are tacitly encouraged to partner with the author and fill in the blanks by considering their metaphorical boxes, lessons for the future from their past.

Exchanges between cultures and generations highlight human transience. Adoption is the preeminent motif, many characters being orphaned, or having adopted, or both. Nature’s agency is felt throughout the story, with animals, plants and landscapes presented as respected partners rather than resources to be exploited. Nothing can fully reconcile human contradictions, and true equilibrium must come from a transcendent perspective. Plural identity followed by association with all humans, past, present and future, is only a good start. Can we progress beyond all life forms? The book ends on the question: what can you do but hope?

The Oldest Word by Johnny Firic

By Book Lovers Magazine

The Oldest Word by Johnny Firic

“Plural identity is where respectful practice begins.”
Who are you? Just the one body and mind? Does your story begin with your birth? Or how far back would you go?

The Oldest Word spans ten thousand years and more than a dozen settings. Human contradictions are reconciled time and again, with tragedy and humor feeding off each other. From the twin mirror mazes of history and psychology, amid ever-shifting social and natural landscapes, enduring patterns emerge.

The story opens with the discovery of a mysterious box from the distant past. Its makers are five orphaned friends who hope to help civilizational knowledge survive disruptive climate change centuries in the future: the ending of the Ice Age. The bar is continuously raised as the box travels through space and time to the present day. Readers are tacitly encouraged to partner with the author and fill in the blanks by considering their metaphorical boxes, lessons for the future from their past.