Guest Review: Touch Screen by L.B Dunbar Reviewed by Karen Fischer

Blurb:
The prodigal son. A second chance. The long kept secret.

Home?

I had returned. I hadn’t been here for seven years. I was angry that last summer, and once I got away, I didn’t want to come back. The irony was the career I sought to escape this small town was the very reason I was here. My first movie was a featured film at the Traverse City Film Festival. As an independent film director, my premiere brought me back home. Home. A place I didn’t recognize.

Or maybe home didn’t recognize me?

I had it all in California: a girlfriend who was the daughter of a movie financier, a job that led to connections in the film industry, and a condo overlooking the ocean in Malibu. What I didn’t have was family. I had left them all behind. I was the prodigal son.
The last person I expected to see was her. Britton McKay. She had been my summer love as a teenager. Not just once, but over several summers; until the last one. That was seven years ago. Now, she looked more beautiful than I remembered. Seeing her again flooded me with memories long suppressed. She reminded me of everything I once had and left behind.

Now, she had returned too.

Guest Review by Karen Fischer

 Gavin Scott left for California to follow his dream of making movies and to escape his small town home. He returned home after 7 years for the premiere of his first indie movie at the film festival in a nearby town. Gavin is also reunited with the woman who was his teenage summertime sweetheart, Britton McKay.

Gavin remains in town to attend a friend's wedding and has his world is turned upside down when a secret is finally revealed.

This is an amazing story. The characters are wonderful and are vividly described so that you really feel like you know them, faults and all. The story is well written and captivating with some amusing moments as well as a few teary eyed ones. I especially enjoyed how the flashbacks were done, keeping with the movie theme. This is definitely one of those must read books!   

 

Guest Review: The Summer Remains by Seth King reviewed by Fede Crasta

Synopsis:
Twenty-four-year-old Summer Johnson knows two things. The first is that due to a quickly worsening medical condition, she faces a risky surgery in three months’ time that may very well end in her death. The second is that she would like to fall in love before then.
 
As spring sinks into her namesake season on the Florida coastline, Summer plays the odds and downloads a new dating app - and after one intriguing message from a beautiful surfer named Cooper Nichols, it becomes clear that the story of what may be her last few months under the sun is about to be completely revised. All she has to do now is write something worth reading.
 
Tender, honest, devastating and triumphant, The Summer Remains explores a very human battle being waged in a very digital age: the search for a love that will outlast this temporary borrowing of bones. In an era when many feel compelled to share and re-share anything about everything, prepare to feel a love so special, you will want to hug it close and make it yours forever. 

 Reveiw by: Fede Crasta
This wasn't a quick read for me.I did need to savour this most awaited story,to feel it through my soul and bones.
My favorite books make me think of them also months,years after I have turned their last pages.And this book is one of them.This story makes the readers stop and think about disability,disease,God,death,life and LOVE and thanks to the author's great talent to put all these pretty huge and heavy concepts in a simply and more real way they can relate with the characters thoughts, feeling empathy for them.

"Although we met on a dating application that has basically transferred the human mating experience onto a plasma screen that you hold in your hand,that fact does not make us desperate,lonely,or insufficient in any way.We are just two normal twenty- something utilizing the unusual means of our times to reach out and connect with others in a world suddenly made lonely by hyper-connectibity."

I like Summer and Cooper so much.They are both scarred,the first mostly on the outside and the other on the inside.They are each others heroes and saviors.Cooper made Summer believe in her beauty and glow,and Summer made Cooper understand that he has to love in order to feel a Live.

"And if you ever feel yourself losing your way again,Cooper,and find that you just can't get your shit together,just reach out and love someone.Love is the most adult action anyone can ever carry out in this emotionally-stunted world,and once you love,the rest will fall into place.It has to."

Thank you Seth to be brave enough to put your feelings on paper and send them out there in the world.