Readers Roost: literary fiction

Showing posts with label literary fiction. Show all posts

Thursday, September 4, 2025

Delivered Book Blitz #rabtbooktours

Literary Fiction

Date Published: May 15, 2025

Delivered is a moving, contemporary novel about Jean Valeur, a Haitian American NYU grad student whose life is derailed after he’s wrongly arrested during a party sting. After a harrowing stint at Rikers Island, Jean is released under a COVID-19 emergency order into a city unrecognizable from the one he once knew. Now a food delivery worker, he must rebuild a broken life, reconnect with estranged loved ones, and face the friend who betrayed him.

Told entirely in Jean’s raw, lyrical voice, Delivered is an unforgettable story of redemption, justice, and self-forgiveness.

“Freedom, it suggests, is not the absence of bars, but the hard-won choice to forgive not just others but also oneself.” — Publishers Weekly

About the Author

James Mondesir is a Haitian-American writer, educator and father. His work centers on themes of justice, race, and personal redemption. He lives in Jersey City with his wife and their dog. Delivered is his second novel.

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Tuesday, September 2, 2025

The Patron Saint of Lost Girls Teaser #rabtbooktours

Literary Fiction / Short Story Collection

Date Published: 09-16-2025

Publisher: Wayne State University Press

In 1970s and '80s Detroit, the city wrestles with an unending economic downturn, increasing violence, and white exodus to the suburbs. Amid all of this is twentysomething Mary who is just trying to grapple with her identity in a world filled with uncertainty.

In this collection of linked stories, we follow Mary as she seeks to cope with and withstand hardship and confront her fears of exploitation, abuse, and death. Along the way, she delves into the complex yet nurturing relationships with her family and friends who teach her to love better, live fuller, and question power. The Patron Saint of Lost Girls presents an unflinching tale of life in the late twentieth-century postindustrial Midwest.

Excerpt

“AUGUST, WHEN the cicadas burned and the lawnmowers sounded like industrial bees, we couldn’t stop. In the bedroom, on the couch, on the floor. Afterward we would lie there, reading the paper or letting the television taunt us like a car salesman. Paul would wiggle his toes against mine, and we’d look at one another for a long time. His face was like a catcher’s mitt, warm and beaten. He reminded me of one of those boys who had moved away when I was little, but Paul had returned a man.”

-“This is Art”

About the Author

Maureen Aitken’s short-story collection, The Patron Saint of Lost Girls, received a Kirkus star, the Nilsen Prize, and the Foreword Review INDIE Gold Prize for General Fiction. It will be reissued in September, 2025 by Wayne State University Press. Her stories have earned a Minnesota State Arts Board’s Artist Initiative Grant, a Loft Mentor Award, an award from Ireland’s Fish Short Story Prize, and two Pushcart Prize nominations. It was also nominated for a Minnesota Book Award. Her stories have been published in Prairie Schooner and New Letters, among others. This is her second story featured in The Missouri Review’s Blast section.

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Wednesday, August 20, 2025

The Smallest of Miracles Book Blitz #rabtbooktours

Literary Fiction

Date Published: March 6, 2025

Publisher: Seacoast Press

One choice. One moment. A ripple that changes everything.

In The Smallest of Miracles, Douglas Carpenter crafts a masterful literary debut that merges gripping storytelling with profound life lessons. The novel follows Ted Carrington, a wealthy, brilliant, and emotionally distant man on the autism spectrum, who returns to the private elementary school that shaped him—for better and worse. He intends to make a large donation, but what begins as a business transaction slowly becomes a reckoning with his past.

As the story transitions between Ted’s present and his childhood, readers meet the deeply flawed, often cruel boy he once was—especially to a vulnerable new classmate named Anna. But life, in its quiet way, begins to turn his world upside down.

What emerges is not only Ted’s transformation, but an invitation to the reader: to reflect, to slow down, and to reconsider how the smallest decisions—the ones we barely notice—can lead to the greatest changes.

This is not just a novel. It’s a call to awareness. A self-improvement guide disguised as a coming-of-age story.

📘 "Just like everything in life, meaning is found in the small details."

📘 "A golfer knows a 2-inch putt counts the same as a 200-yard drive. Life is very similar..."
📘 "Change is the fertilizer of life. It often stinks, but it is necessary for growth."

🔹 Perfect for fans of literary fiction with depth

🔹 A powerful read for young adults and up

🔹 Ideal for classrooms and book clubs seeking discussion-worthy themes

Read it once for the story. Read it again for the insight.

About the Author

Douglas Carpenter is not your typical author. A Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), Douglas became the youngest stockbroker in the U.S. at just 17 and currently owns two accounting firms and an asset management company in New York. Despite a thriving career in finance, his true passion lies in storytelling.

His debut novel, The Smallest of Miracles, took ten years to write—a deeply personal and intricately crafted journey of self-discovery and transformation. Drawing on his keen eye for detail and analysis, Douglas poured over every word, shaping a literary fiction novel that functions as both an engaging story and a guide to personal growth.

The book explores how tiny, seemingly insignificant choices shape our lives far more than major events. Readers are invited to slow down, reflect, and discover truths hidden in the smallest details—just as Douglas has done through his writing.

Douglas hopes his novel will find a place in high school curricula and on the bookshelves of thoughtful readers young and old. His message is clear: "The truth is always hidden behind things that are out of place."

Connect with Douglas Carpenter to discover a new perspective on life, character, and the miraculous power of small decisions.

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Monday, May 19, 2025

To Sing Like A Mockingbird Book Blitz #rabtbooktours

Literary Fiction

Date Published: 01-13-2025

In a school/reformatory, a teacher fights his own loss of faith in the power of education and the twin assaults of drug cartels, their hired assassins among his students. and the blind idealism of his principal.

About the Author

Jan Notzon is a novelist and playwright in Charlotte, NC.

His first novel, The Dogs Barking, is a coming-of-age story set in a sleepy backwater Texas border town in the 1950s. And Ye Shall Be As Gods, recounts a brother’s fight to rescue his sister from the clutches of despair and his lost love from catatonia. The Id Paradox, is the story of three friends, assumed betrayal, rescue and healing from the horrors of spiritual annihilation. Song for The Forsaken chronicles the tale of two sisters and the loss of faith that tests the bond between them. Suffer Not the Mole People, is the story of a family's travails as they make their way from Poland to the United States in 1866. ONLY THE DEAD tells the personal stories of three families, one Anglo and two Mexican as they participate in the establishment of the Mexican and Texas Republics. His seventh novel To Sing Like a Mockingbird is now available on Amazon.

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Monday, May 12, 2025

The Belmont Book Blitz #rabtbooktours

Fiction

Date Published: February 28, 2025

Publisher: MindStir Media

The Belmont is a tale of a young man's struggles with a heartbreak he cannot get past, set against the backdrop of a bacchanalia-filled weekend centered around the 1998 Belmont Stakes horse race, which ended with a Triple Crown bid thwarted by a photo finish. During a long "weekend" spread out over six days and in three different states, a weekend fueled by alcohol and sexual tension, but also filled with reflective, heartbreaking, exhilarating, hilarious, and heartwarming moments, Tommy Cippolini embarks on a journey of self-discovery, experiencing just about every single human emotion along the way. In between episodes filled with anger and frustration, anticipation, anxiety, disappointment, sexual arousal and temptation, binge drinking, daringness and trepidation, hilarity and debauchery, and longing and sadness, Tommy confides in good friends, casual friends, strangers, and family members about his feelings and past trials and tribulations.

About the Author

My name is Anthony Cocco. I’m 59 years old and a native of Malden, Massachusetts, but I’ve spent most of the last 21 years living about 20 miles north of Boston. Since 1997, I’ve worked in the financial services industry (some asset managers and some retirement services providers), in various roles, and recently started my fifth different job in that industry in February of 2025. Prior to that, I worked (out of college) in the health insurance field, mainly in customer and provider relations (three different companies in two different states—Massachusetts and Florida).

I am the fourth (and final) child born to the late Morris and Dorothy Cocco. I have two living (and one recently deceased) siblings, one brother and one sister (my eldest sister passed away suddenly in July 2024 at age 72).

I have no children of my own and have never been married, but I do have five nieces and nephews (3 of the former and 2 of the latter), two of which are the daughters of my late sister. Since I’m the only one of our parents’ kids to have remained living (for the most part) in Massachusetts, the rest of my family (except for some cousins) is somewhat spread out across the country.

I attended the State University of New York at New Paltz from 1984-88, where I earned a (largely unused) degree in Journalism (I wanted to be a sports broadcaster but got sidetracked when someone convinced me I needed to be a sportswriter instead). It wasn’t long before I realized that vocation wasn’t a good match for me, but my years at New Paltz weren’t entirely wasted because it was during that time when I met one of my lifelong friends, the guy who introduced me to the “Belmont Stakes crew”—his friends from his youth and from his undergrad college years. One of the main characters in my book is based on him, and all of the characters that make up the entire Belmont “tribe”, as I call it in the book, are based on his friends and other acquaintances.

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Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Love Before Covid Book Blitz #rabtbooktours

Dark / Drama / Thriller

Date Published: July 28, 2023

Publisher: Troubadour Books

“Love before Covid - A raw, philosophical dive into love’s messy reality—unflinching, dark, and unapologetically human. Unlike typical romance novels, LOVE BEFORE COVID is a dialogue-driven exploration of human flaws and ideologies, blending fiction with metaphysical inquiry. It’s not about comfort; it’s about confrontation and insight.”

Laced with dark humour, it is best described as traumatic (sur)realism. Love Before Covid takes the reader on a journey through the mind of Joe Pastorius - jazz fan, poet, and victim of horrendous sexual and emotional abuse at the hands of his mother.

The real-time dialogues between the characters that emerge from Joe’s unconscious come via arguably corrupted memories and dystopian dreams. They tell us more about Joe than he could ever know, and perhaps more about our world than you could ever imagine.

Dialogues entail an exploration of clashing perspectives and opinions, that cause reflection. Today though, our world has been infiltrated by online dialogues that tend to feel like wild unfiltered streams of human thought, raw, chaotic and often polarising and devoid of much reflection. Arguably that attitude, and lack of reflection is mirrored by the characters you will encounter. The reflection comes from the reader as the situations unfold. Your moral boundaries will without doubt be pushed to the limit.

You will meet an altruist who can’t stand up for himself, a charming but violent public intellectual, a beautiful dancer who hates fat people, a flirty and gregarious bartender who will do anything to get pregnant, a traumatised art historian who never wants to be a mother, a successful intellectual Mexican writer who is secretly disapproving of her childhood friend’s career as a pornstar, the teenage genius son of that pornstar who has sexual fantasises about his mother, a woman who is pressured into cutting off her penis and a successful therapist who has a habit of ruining people’s lives.

And yes, before you ask, some of the characters in this book eventually catch Covid 19. However, there is always hope. For Joe Pastorious, that comes in the form of the psychopath named Janet Waverley.

About the Author

During the pandemic Dr Greg Scorzo completed his first novel ‘LOVE BEFORE COVID’ as well as producing an innovative radio play based on 6 chapters from that book, also called – LOVE BEFORE COVID. available on our YouTube Channel. and via Audioboom with links to all major podcast platforms.

Greg says, “I was interested in the challenge of writing a novel that was formally experimental, while still being easy for a mass audience to read and understand. I love the idea of a piece of philosophy that is simultaneously a work of fiction, and a philosophical thought experiment which can function like a great, twisty roller coaster of a story that asks the reader many questions. Unlike traditional philosophy and many fashionable works of literature, this book purposefully asks questions without giving answers, encouraging readers to think (and emote) for themselves.”

Since gaining his PhD in Philosophy in 2011, Greg Scorzo has aimed to find creative and original ways to take philosophical thinking outside of academia. By using modern accessible philosophical dialogue inpublic talks, podcasts and his novel Love Before Covid, Greg explores clashing perspectives and opinions that cause reflection. Based in Leicester, he was a founding member of Culture on the Offensive and runs the podcast The ‘Art of Thinking’.

Dialogues entail an exploration of clashing perspectives and opinions that cause reflection. Statements and declarations can close minds.

The ‘Art of Thinking’ with Greg Scorzo podcast is available on YouTube where he does friendly philosophical interrogation of ideas with many interesting thinkers. Also available via Audioboom linking to all major podcast platforms.

His extended essays on Arts and Culture as well as Cultural Issues are available on this platform www.gregscorzo.com

He has a passion and extensive knowledge of film and music.

From 2017 – 2020 Greg Scorzo was active in running over 60 engaging voluntary community sessions, centred around ‘The Art of Thinking’ The focussed on universal philosophical themes, arts and culture and cultural issues. The ethos behind these events was to encourage the use of EMPATHY, CLARITY and COURAGE in ensuing dialogues with the audience. These were organised by COTO.

He also took up invitations to partner and run sessions at other events, including the Battle of Ideas Festival at the Barbican London, the Philosophy Now conference, Leicester Comedy Festival and DeMontfort University’s Cultural Exchanges festival. He is always interested to partner up with other like minded people.

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https://mybook.to/LoveBeforeCovid

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Tuesday, December 10, 2024

The Algorithm Book Blitz #rabtbooktours

Philosophical Speculative Literary Fiction

Date Published: November 13, 2024

For readers of George Orwell’s "1984" and Kazuo Ishiguro’s "Klara and the Sun," Julian Mercer’s "The Algorithm" is a deeply philosophical speculative novel that explores the boundaries of truth, morality, and societal control. With a world teetering between progress and tradition, this story invites readers to question the systems they trust, their values, and the fragile balance between harmony and freedom—a profound and thought-provoking work for those seeking more than just a story.

About the Author

Julian Mercer has written extensively under another name and lives in the mountains of Colorado. His novel The Algorithm, 15 years in the making, represents his most ambitious work yet, blending deep philosophical inquiry with speculative storytelling. With a career steeped in exploring the intersection of technology and society, Mercer invites readers into a world where truth and harmony collide.

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Friday, October 25, 2024

Hard White Book Blitz #rabtbooktours

Literary / Historical Fiction

Date Published: 09-25-2202

Publisher: Woodpecker Lane Press

In this vividly-rendered novel, Melanie Dugan reimagines the life of Alice Neel, a groundbreaking American painter who revolutionized the art of the portrait in the twentieth century. Born in 1900 into a straitlaced middle-class family, Neel charted her own unconventional path. Her lifetime spanned World War I, the 1918 flu pandemic, women winning the right to vote, the Great Depression, World War II, the McCarthy Era, the Civil Rights Era, and second-wave feminism. She worked for decades in obscurity, wrestling with depression, poverty, and misogyny, loving the wrong men, fighting to live life on her own terms, and above all to paint.

About the Author

Melanie Dugan is the author of Bee Summers (“a carefully wrought portrayal of the way we carry trauma with us through life.” Brenda Schmidt, Quill & Quire), Dead Beautiful (“the writing is gorgeous,” A Soul Unsung), Revising Romance (“heartwarming, amusing and…downright sexy,” Midwest Book Review), and Sometime Daughter (“Stunning debut,” Kingston Whig-Standard). Her short stories have been shortlisted for several awards, including the CBC Literary award. She lives in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

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Purchase

Author Website

Novel Idea bookstore, Kingston, Ontario

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Friday, September 20, 2024

Friday Book Blogger Special: Beasts and Super-Beasts

Genre:

Literary Fiction, Short Stories

Buy Link:

Listen:

https://odysee.com/@LibriVox:e/librivox-BZc1tsXTx_g:6?r=GTwnGJ4fFBQfzuJgpHVpfKBKaC9b8B16

Read:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/269

Publication Date:

First publication 1914

Price:

Free

Book Blurb:

Beasts and Super-Beasts by SAKI (1870 - 1916)

Genre(s): Short Stories

Read by: Justin Brett, Justin S Barrett, Al Gelman, Andrew Coleman, Joelle Peebles, Miriam Esther Goldman, Lucy Perry in English

Chapters: