Dactyli are elemental magicians who can access the “memories” of the Earth; as one character explains, “The earth is alive. It lives and breathes and hears and sees, just like you and me.” The group harnesses nature’s power and preserves its narrative as keepers of the sgeulachds, a compilation of objective truths. These mages have encoded and guarded...

As a business owner whose patented product has been sold to the Ford Motor Company, the United States Army, and the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, among others, the author is well aware of the difficulties confronting 21st-century manufacturing inside the U.S. Blending his personal success story with commentary on national economic policy, Gardner...

By June of 1803, 20-year-old Mary Mackenzie has had her fill of the island of Barbados. She and her family have been there for two years, ever since her father was appointed colonial governor of the island, the Crown’s Caribbean center of trade. (Barbados’ wealth is derived from its prodigious production of sugar cane, farmed by African slaves.) It...

The third book in Supplee’s fresh, well-crafted Winnie and the Wizard fantasy series  begins with the return of 14-year-old Winnie Harris, her 6-year-old stepbrother, Mikey, and teenage magician Kip to Winnie’s family beach house on Earth after a dangerous mission on an alternative “Frama” world known as Hutra. (The “Frama” worlds, introduced in Book...

In their different ways, Blakely Garner, Thera Grey, Grace Howard, and Meg Watson had all been misfits. They bonded at Camp Pendleton, a place for gifted children, with Blakely as their natural leader. Trouble arrived, or was revealed, in the form of tennis coach Jared Crosby, whose good looks made Blakely think she could use an apparently compromising...

Los Angeles teenager Maya is about to graduate from high school. She and her longtime girlfriend, Alana, set out on a hike to see the superbloom of brilliant wildflowers in Antelope Valley, just like they do every year. Maya, who struggles with anxiety, loves Alana fervently, even though she can be mean and cutting, dismissing Maya’s needs whenever...