Author With A Day Job

Mild mannered working stiff by day, author at night.

Young Adult

  • The uncertainty of fire. It really can go up in smoke.

    I picked up this hidden gem of a novel in an independent bookstore.  It is written by Stephanie Daniels, a self-published author. Most people would never know about this beautifully-written story except for blogs like this one bringing it to their attention.  Sixteen-year-old Whimsey Greatheart, the daughter of a wealthy Chicago banker, thinks her biggest worry is what the society page in the local newspaper… Read more

  • Screams In The Night: another good YA World War Two Novel

    I happened to pick this book up in a used bookstore because the combination of young adult and WW2 historical literature interests me. It’s Brian Crawford’s story of Julia, a teenage farm girl growing up in Nazi-occupied Poland during the second world war. In addition to the struggles of living under the Nazis, she must keep the farm functioning despite her stepfather’s alcoholism.   She thinks her life is complicated enough, until… Read more

  • Resistance – great ya ww2 story

    Jennifer Nielsen may be known for her fantasy novels like The Once and Future Prince, but she has a number of young adult historical novels, and Resistance is one of them. The heroine of the story is Chaya Lindner, a Jewish teenage resistance fighter in the midst of the Holocaust. Because she can pass as… Read more

  • between shades of gray

    A Novel You Simply Must Read! A fellow writer acquaintance recommended I read Between Shades of Gray and it’s one of the best pieces of advice I have ever followed.   When Ruta Sepetys published Between Shades of Gray she immediately had a problem in that the title was similar to that horribly written novel… Read more