Fiction – Book Reader Magazine

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Asayi An Autistic’s Teen’s Journey to Topple a Shogun in Medieval Japan

About Asayi An Autistic’s Teen’s Journey to Topple a Shogun in Medieval Japan:

Set in fifteenth century Japan, Asayi, a nobly born autistic teenager, copies legal scrolls for her elderly father, Oktani, Shogun Ashikaga’s chief scribe. Asayi is autistic and presents as mute. No one knows of her disability except the Oktani household. The two travel then travel to the Shogun’s palace in Kyoto to deliver completed texts. Enroute Asayi sees smoke billowing from villages. Oktani tells her that this is the fate of the farmers who refuse to pay taxes. At court, Nabui, the Shogun’s next most valuable scribe, eyes Asayi and tells a diplomat that he cannot wait for the border wars to destroy the Oktanis. Oktani confesses health concerns to the Shogun. Yoshinori Ashikaga assures Oktani that his daughter has the full protection of his Shogunate.
Upon returning home, old Oktani collapses from heart failure and dies. Asayi is taken back to the palace where Yoshinori quickly marries her off to Nabui, as his third wife. Nabui finds the girl sexually inept then is outraged when he finds she is unable to speak. Nabui and family beat Asayi to get her to talk, have an exorcism performed, then finally call for a physician. The physician says she has a birth injury which leaves her “defective.” Furious, Nabui takes his family away for a few weeks and leaves Asayi behind. She sketches and paints with a few scribes in the workroom. The workroom guard, Senji, looks at Asayi’s drawings and sketches small elements from her work on paper scraps which he hands off to her secretly. Nabui’s cook sees this happen and tells Nabui. Nabui accuses Asayi of adultery and immediately takes Senji and Asayi to the palace.
Nabui presents Asayi’s “infidelity” to the Shogun who has Senji severely beaten. Asayi is branded (between her thighs) in view of the court. Her limp body is dumped in the countryside. The next day a tanner (an Eta) finds Asayi and notices she is still alive. The Tanner uses Asayi to perform back-breaking work until she collapses. The Tanner then sells Asayi to a blacksmith who has her chip metal from rock. A ronin-monk notices Asayi in the forge and asks the blacksmith if he may speak to her. The blacksmith permits the monk, Kanemura, to take Asayi to the home of a Buddhist nun, Suri. Here Asayi sketches for the two what has befallen her. Kanemura and Suri with their spy network identify who she is and who has harmed her. The palace believes that Asayi is dead.
Another ronin-monk, Hatano approaches Suri and Kanemura with a plan to use the Yurei (ghost of Asayi) to destroy Nabui and the Shogun. Kanemura uses this plan as cover for other ronin-monks who will infiltrate the farming community close to the palace to stage an uprising. Asayi’s Yurei successfully leads Nabui to a deadly fall. Asayi haunts the Shogun twice before he decides to ritually bury Asayi to vanquish her Yurei.
The next night the Shogun attends a performance at the manor of one of his vassals. Kanemura and Hatano hide Asayi in a rug and roll her out as the performance hits a peak. Just as Asayi approaches the Shogun in a menacing way, a masked juggler jumps on the Shogun and slits his throat. The crowd panics. The Shogun’s chief advisor, Tenochi, bursts in to get the Shogun’s body. Meanwhile the juggler runs to a secret passageway as Hatano, Kanemura, Senji, and Asayi do. The juggler follows the group to the home of another Buddhist nun, Akumani. Senji seizes the juggler, binds him and drags him into Akumani’s hut There Suri interrogates him.
After much scrutiny, Suri recognizes the eyes of the juggler and tears off his mask. The juggler is Lady Muira. Lady Muira reveals many truths: that Asayi is the Shogun’s daughter, from his rape of Lady Muira fourteen years ago, and that the Shogun had her husband, Lord Takei, ambushed and murdered. Lady Muira gave Asayi to her sister, Omari, and her husband, Oktani, to raise. However, the Shogun’s branding of Asayi and reports of her death finally led Lady Muira to the assassination. In the meantime, as the Chief Advisor, Tenochi, hauls the Shogun’s body through the palace gates, ronin monk warriors push through, battle the Shogun’s soldiers, and hold their ground. Kanemura watches the farmers’ uprising with pleasure.
Lady Muira reunites briefly with Asayi; the two women weep together then Lady Muira says she must return to the palace. Senji escorts Lady Muira but promises to return for Asayi. The drama concludes as Kanemura and Hatano watch the farmers win the revolt and Suri, Asayi, and Akumani light candles in Akumani’s hut and chant.

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Stirring the Stillness Part 1, Voices of Quest

About Stirring the Stillness Part 1, Voices of Quest:

The replacement of humans has begun. It starts with the voices . . .
It is war-ravaged China in the 1930’s. John Powers and his fellow group of pilgrims are trying to evade Nationalist forces, communist rebels and the invading Japanese army, all while carrying a strange golden statue and searching for a mysterious woman known as Her. At the same time, John begins hearing voices insisting that he conceive a son with another of the travelers.

Who is Her? Why do the voices want John to have a son? Are the voices evidence that John has schizophrenia, as he fears? Or are they something else altogether?

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EDITORIAL LICENSE by E.W. Johnson M.D.

EDITORIAL LICENSE by E.W. Johnson M.D.

Flying home from a book tour to be with his wife and daughter over the holidays, Kian Atwood’s life seems perfect. With his third novel on top of the New York Times best-seller list, his future has never been brighter.
In a few hours his family will be gone, most of his memories will be erased, and he will wake to a world only defined by what others tell him. The long journey back from tragedy will take him through a vast wilderness, the road between sanity and madness not always clear. Along the way two questions will plague him: How can a build a new life, and is there really any reason to try?

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Where Snow Doesn’t Fall by Elli O’Neil

Where Snow Doesn’t Fall by Elli O'Neil

Where Snow Doesn’t Fall: Part 1 is a witty, fast-paced sci-fi adventure that follows four teens—the Escapists—across two bizarre, parallel universes: the polished world of Edyn and the chaotic streets of Idyll. Kyle, Krow, Eric, and Yin aren’t rebels or heroes; they’re just misfits trying to pull off the perfect prank in a society packed with surveillance drones, teleportation tech, and aggressively unhelpful vending machines. Their pranks spiral into increasingly absurd chaos, catching the attention of Sol Esther, the prim-and-proper son of Idyll’s Prime Minister, who just wants a peaceful speech without glitter bombs. What starts as harmless mischief turns into an interdimensional mess filled with awkward fame, tech malfunctions, and unexpected friendship. Blending humor, heart, and offbeat world-building, this slice-of-life, character-driven story celebrates failure, resilience, and the reckless joy of disrupting the status quo—because when snow doesn’t fall, something else has to shake the world up.

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Winter’s Blush by Cricket Rohman

Winter’s Blush by Cricket Rohman

Romance, intrigue, dogs, and horses. Who could ask for more? Winn Wahlberg. She must get home for Christmas, but fate often intervenes.

Clay’s task? To escort a young woman around Denver for five days. What’s the catch? He must pretend to be someone he’s not.

Winn and Clay fall in love, adopt a dog, and invent survival skills near a ranch for rescued horses.

Their adventure is soon eclipsed by danger. Is their enemy Mother Nature or something evil? Either way, they need a Christmas miracle.

Celebrate Christmas in July and read WINTER’S BLUSH, a unique, holiday, romantic adventure.

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The Wolves the Wolves by M Novak

The Wolves the Wolves by M Novak

UK in the ‘90s and five vulnerable girls go on tour to promote a mystery product with a sinister manager in charge. Are they paranoid or is there more going on beneath the surface?

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Southpaw by Dennis Gilfeather

About Featured Book: Dennis Gilfeather, Southpaw by Dennis Gilfeather

Dennis Gilfeather a young Scottish pugilist who practices the noble art of boxing….
“There seemed to be a huge gaping hole inside of me. I wanted some answers but didn’t know where to look. I felt like there was a huge worldwide conspiracy afoot to keep me in a state of utter confusion, making me so numb that I had no choice but to give up and let the experts get on with it. What a wonderful thing democracy is. You can say what you want as long as you do as you’re told. It all seemed so superficial, so inadequate. Where would it all lead? Lying in some hospital bed in thirty years’ time, dying of some ‘disease of civilization’; up to my neck in debt, alcoholism, depression, loneliness and insanity. There had to be more to life than this.I am talking about liberation here. Freedom from the bondage of self. Freedom from our blinkered, prejudiced, opinionated thoughts. If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got. The more stoned I got, the more abstract yet somehow meaningful it all became. We were one and the same. I was he. He was me. That bald little Chinese monk on TV was beckoning me to follow the path, the way of the warrior, the way of the Grasshopper. The monk was right; change was the natural way of the universe. Things were not always as they appeared to be”. A young Scottish boxer breaks away from the shackles of his environment, only to find himself mixed up with heroin smuggling in Asia. A story of violence, prison, fear and desperation, which leads to inner reflection and finally redemption.

This Fiction book is available in these Formats: eBook, Print, Audiobook

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The Delilah Enigma by Donald de Brier

The Delilah Enigma by Donald de Brier

THE DELILAH ENIGMA, Book 2 in the Delilah Series, rejoins Lt. Sarah Leach, an MI6 British officer, and Robert Johnston, her OSS counterpart, in London where CODE NAME DELILAH leaves off, in the midst of their love affair and joint operation to gather intelligence on the German resistance movement. When Sarah is sent on a side mission to France and an SS patrol captures her working with the French Resistance, Robert scrambles to find her, gathering intel from friends at Bletchley Park. He assembles a team, including their friend Hannah, a German Jewish refugee, to rescue her. Bruised and weary, Sarah is recovered but on return to London learns her old boyfriend has been badly wounded and is coming home. Choosing between a future with her longtime beau and a budding love with Robert, Sarah waffles. Her family expects her to marry James, but Robert has been her closest confidante since the war began. Then a family tragedy hits the Johnstons, bringing Robert’s long-separated wife back to London. She is looking to restart their marriage and has heard about “Delilah.” As the war ends, Robert and Sarah must face their past–which relationships will survive? A sweeping cast of real and fictitious characters round out this “terrific read.”

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Talmadge Farms

About Talmadge Farms:

Talmadge Farm is a sweeping drama that follows three unforgettable families navigating the changing culture of North Carolina at a pivotal moment in history. A love letter to the American South, the novel is a story of resilience, hope, and family – both lost and found.

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Code Name Delilah by Donald de Brier

Code Name Delilah by Donald de Brier

CODE NAME DELILAH begins in the early days of World War II with an intelligence meeting between Sarah Leach, a British navy lieutenant whose allure and uncanny ability to read people make her a natural fit for MI6, and Robert Johnston, a handsome, newly separated New York lawyer based in London who answered the call to join the OSS. They quickly find they have mutual interests and unmistakable chemistry. When their briefings adjourn to the Old Bell Tavern over a bottle of wine, their attraction is undeniable. Their personal and professional lives merge when they are sent to Margate to rendezvous with a notorious double agent who has information on a counterplot by high-ranking German officers to end the war. But they come away with more questions than answers and only take comfort in each other. From the White Cliffs of Dover to the deserts of North Africa, Sarah, Robert and a sweeping cast of real and fictional characters defend against the escalating brutality and inhumanity of the Axis powers despite insurmountable odds.

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Stanhope Legacy by Wes Davis

Stanhope Legacy by Wes Davis

Embark on a thrilling journey with the Stanhope Clan as they leave Edinburgh, Scotland, for the promise of a new life in America. But their voyage is just the beginning as they face challenges and evil lurking in their new country. From New Jersey to Idaho, to the bustling city of New York and even the grandeur of the court of St. James in England, three generations of the Stanhope family will navigate a changing world while fighting for their survival and legacy. Spanning 60 years, this first book in the series sets the standard for the Stanhope Family as they rise to new heights of power and fortune.
If you enjoyed “The Thorn Birds” by Colleen McCullough, you will love the epic saga of the Stanhope Legacy. Don’t miss out – buy now before the price changes!

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The Man With No Face by Wataru Lennard

The Man With No Face by Wataru Lennard

Born with a face the world couldn’t look past, “G” spent years hiding in the background. But when a life-changing surgery gives him a new face, he doesn’t stop there—he reshapes his entire body, forging himself into the man he’s always wanted to be.

Along the way, he falls for an online acquaintance—a brilliant, compassionate woman with a disability. As their connection deepens, G discovers that love isn’t about perfection but about seeing and being seen for who you truly are.

When his artistic laptop designs catch the attention of a powerful Silicon Valley executive, G is thrust into a world of innovation and ambition. Climbing the corporate ladder with a mind as sharp as his designs, he becomes indispensable to the company—and to the CEO, who sees in him the potential for something even greater.

With the chance to change the world one invention at a time, G must navigate success, love, and the weight of expectation. But as he rises to new heights, will he stay true to himself, or will the pressures of power reshape him once more?

A story of transformation, love, and ambition, The Man With No Face is a journey of self-discovery and the pursuit of something greater than oneself.

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A Kind of Love by Ida Subaran

A Kind of Love by Ida Subaran

A Kind of Love by Ida Subaran is a powerful exploration of love, resilience, and survival set in a vibrant but unforgiving tropical village. The story centers on Doris, a mother fighting to raise her children, Sarah and Kanut, amid poverty and societal pressures. Through richly drawn scenes of daily life, the novel reveals the emotional depths of maternal sacrifice and the trials of growing up female in a patriarchal society. Doris navigates moral dilemmas and economic hardship with strength, while Sarah embarks on her own journey of self-discovery and dreams. Subaran captures the textures of Caribbean life and the emotional complexity of family bonds, offering readers a poignant, authentic portrait of enduring love under pressure. It’s a deeply human novel that resonates with themes of hope, identity, and what it means to care, despite the odds.

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A Touch of Promise by Marie Gage

A Touch of Promise by Marie Gage

Young, newly married, and far from the familiar. Can this WWII war bride find her place in a foreign land?

April, 1947. Pearl Griffith fears she’s made a mistake. Leaving England after falling in love with a Canadian stationed in her homeland, she can’t imagine life without the handsome soldier. But cut off from her supportive family, the twenty-one-year-old’s usual confidence falters into misery under her mother-in-law’s unrelenting emotional abuse.

Aching from the harsh attacks on her dignity, the lonesome transplant bonds with an eclectic group of ladies. And discovering echoes of wartime suffering in their husbands’ battle fatigue, she volunteers at the psychiatric institute—even as changes at home bring new hope and looming heartache.

Can Pearl renew her inner strength and prevail in proving her worth?

In this touching tribute to the vital role women play in each other’s lives, Marie Gage delves into the heartbreak, culture shock, and fight for normalcy that confronted the post-WWII generation. And as readers explore her tender saga of ordinary moments in the aftermath of a world-shaking war, they will discover a beautiful tapestry of joy, sorrow, and triumph.

A Touch of Promise is the uplifting third standalone story in the Promise women’s fiction series. If you like big-hearted heroines, the power of sisterhood, and a splash of humor, then you’ll adore Marie Gage’s dramatic breath of fresh air.

Buy A Touch of Promise to chase a new beginning today!

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Everything Comes to Light by Liz Collard & Wendi Agness

About Everything Comes to Light by Liz Collard & Wendi Agness:

Looking for ‘feel good’ stories that address real issues in a positive, uplifting way? For fans of small town fiction, welcome to “Everything Comes to Light,” the award-winning first novel in the grace-based series The Renovation of Birch Point…

The little town of Birch Point in the north woods of Minnesota is in danger of dying off—until the town council holds a contest awarding a free building to applicants who can successfully run their business for a year.

Single mother Grace Russell arrives in town hoping for a job and a fresh start. When she is mistaken for the new bookstore owner, she finds herself playing the part, all the while fearing the truth will come out. She doesn’t belong, but somehow Birch Point feels more like home to her and her daughter every day.

Dr. Daniel Larson leaves a prestigious career in Minneapolis to reopen a family clinic in a turn-of-the-century hospital building. Could this be the first time he fails at something? And what is he burying by the back parking lot?

The unintentional bookstore lady and the disenchanted young doctor soon find themselves caught up in the adventures and misadventures of small town life. As the renovation of Birch Point begins, hearts will be changed, joys and sorrows will be shared, and everything that is hidden will come to light.

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The Weasel by Ana Aria

The Weasel by Ana Aria

Anna lives a picture-perfect life as a school principal, wife, and mother—until a strange animal repeatedly crosses her path, sparking an eerie obsession. For a year, the furry creature appears like clockwork… then vanishes on her 40th birthday, only to seemingly reappear as a new teacher at her school. When tragedy strikes Anna’s friends and family in increasingly bizarre and devastating ways, she becomes convinced the mysterious woman is behind it all. As her reality fractures, Anna uncovers a disturbing link to a forgotten childhood act: a stone, a weasel, and unborn lives lost. Driven by guilt and fear, Anna confronts the woman in a shocking climax that ends in murder. But the next day, no one remembers her, or the teacher. Was it vengeance, delusion, or something darker still?

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The 4S Project: Floor One – A futuristic drama by Marshall Armstrong

The 4S Project: Floor One – A futuristic drama by Marshall Armstrong

In the year 2150, Armachez Inc. created a widely accepted, and highly encouraged, process of matching up individuals into pairs for propagation, work, and family lineage. This is commonly referred to as “The Whole Seven Floors.” Individuals must be DNA matched with at least one other ‘participant’ to be accepted into the program. The process is completed through a seven-floor interactive program where individuals have the opportunity to interact with others hoping to find a match. This program takes place at one of the many 4S compounds around the world.

Can an insecure guy full of self-doubt find a match in this program? Follow this group of participants as they navigate friendships, controversy, morality and love while trying to complete The Whole Seven Floors.

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