AMY'S BOOKSHELF REVIEWS & PODCAST Professional Book Reviewer. Podcast Host

“Care work is climate work.” 

Jennifer Case first encountered this message during the pandemic, while monitoring her daughter’s attempts at virtual learning and trying to keep her toddler from running naked into faculty Zoom meetings. The phrase appeared online beside photos of backyard gardens and essential workers in masks, offering an unexpected validation: caring for others—whether children, the ill, or the earth—is vital work. Intrigued, Case began exploring the connections between personal, domestic, and ecological care. What started as research through the lenses of feminism and economics grew into a larger investigation that touched on environmental thought, Indigenous teachings, disability studies, and the psychology of empathy. Along the way, Case developed a broader spiritual and ecological awareness that changed how she viewed the act of caring itself.

Part memoir and part cultural reflection, The Carework Project combines intimate storytelling with research, interviews, and visual art to explore what care means in a time of climate crisis. Case shows how caregiving, often invisible, gendered, or undervalued, is central to our survival. She examines how trauma and burnout affect our ability to connect, and how healing can start with the smallest gestures of attention. The book invites readers to envision a world where care is not a burden but a source of mutual renewal and belonging.

Visually striking collage postcards enhance the text. The result is a hybrid work that feels both timely and timeless, honoring the messy, creative, and transformative act of caring for one another and the living world.

It’s 1921, the European continent is suffering the upheaval and consequences of World War I. The post war climate was especially dangerous for minority populations, who were blamed for the excesses of those in power whose greed and lust were responsible for the devastation they had wrought.

In this chaos, two fifteen-year-old boys, one emigrating from Berlin with his family, and the other making the journey on his own from a shtetl in the Russian Pale, meet while boarding the boat to America. The only thing they have in common is their Jewish religion and their hope for a better life for themselves and their families.

This is the story of Israel Shapiro and David Goodman, neither of whom spoke a word of English when they stepped off the boat at Ellis Island, and how, with determination, hard work, intelligence, and chutzpa, and the help of a black man who shined shoes, built a multi-million dollar enterprise in the span of their lifetimes.

‘The Lantzmen’ is really about the American dream. A place where immigrants and a marginalized minority population were given the opportunity and freedom to overcome the obstacles of prejudice and ignorance and make their mark. Once upon a time in America, this was possible, and we hope it will be again.

A girl without a past.

A prince with wings.

Lina doesn’t know why she prefers the rainforest to the village, why the trees seem to call her name, why the birdsong has words. Her human village bullies her for speaking with animals, but a strange toad in the forest insists that he can show her where she belongs—for a price. When a swallow turns into a prince, she’ll have to redefine who she is and who deserves her gifts.

The Spectra Crown Tales can stand alone, but together they share the story of a fantasy world where humans and Spectra must learn to live side by side. The Tiny Wings retells the fairytale of Thumbelina.

Hao C. Tran left Vietnam as a young man to go to college in Australia and later settled in the United States. Shortly after he left Saigon, the war ended and he couldn't return for 20 years. Since 1994, he has gone back to his homeland a dozen times, and many of his short stories are based on these journeys. Hao's stories are from the perspective of a Việt Kiều, a Vietnamese living overseas. He writes about his own experience as an immigrant, his family, the people he encountered in his travels, and the heart-breaking changes in a post-war Vietnam.

Nissa and Raisa pay a heavy price when their older brother Heli makes a unholy deal with the pagan god Moloch.

He wanted solitude. She gave him a song worth singing.

Burned-out rock star Devon Dixson rents a lake house in sleepy Sunny Rock Harbor, a quiet Michigan beach town, to escape the chaos of fame and find his muse again. Devon hopes the change of scenery will re-ignite his creative spark and banish the persistent cloud of depression that clings to him. But the picturesque landscapes of the Upper Peninsula prove to be no match for his inner turmoil. He's still just as lost, just as uninspired, and just as profoundly sad.

Paige Purdy, the spirited co-owner of a quirky souvenir shop, is determined to escape her past and define her own happiness. The small-town gossip mill, however, is relentless, and half the town seems convinced she should reconcile with her ex-boyfriend.

A chance meeting on the beach leads to a comical, albeit disastrous, clash of personalities. Devon, brooding and cynical, clashes with Paige's down-to-earth, upbeat nature. Yet, beneath the initial friction, an undeniable spark ignites. Despite their differences, they find themselves drawn to each other, intrigued by the hidden depths beneath the surface.

Will summer change the course of their lives forever?

Set against the breathtaking shores of Lake Superior, Sunny Rock Harbor is a steamy, emotional rock star romance that proves that sometimes, love shows up when — and where — you least expect it.