Breathtaking WWII Military History by Jack Kruse

  

Cauldron
Jack Kruse
Sisyphus Triumphant Publishing, 2024
Military History Fiction, 300 pp
ISBN-13: ‎ 9798330374663
$3.99 ebook
$15.99 print
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About the book

The German attack to pinch off the Kursk Salient begins with a tremendous artillery assault.

Captain Alexei Demetrovsky’s unit of Lavochkin fighters defends the Soviet positions as Operation Citadel explodes across the Ukrainian Steppe, while he is investigated by the Soviet political officer of his squadron for disloyalty to the party.

On July 4, 1943, the largest tank and aircraft battle in history initiated a blistering fifteen-day period of intense combat.

My Review

Anyone who loves Russian history in particular, World War II stories and military history in general, will love this story and it’s companion, Crucible. The author has done his due diligence in portraying accurate and sometimes painfully honest detail about life in the trenches and the sky during this terrifying period of world unrest.

Told through the eyes of the principal players of Russian pilot Alexy Demetrovsky and German pilot Gerhard Schnell, readers are drawn in to the dogfights, the plotting, the betrayals, mistrust, and personal dramas of soldiers each believing their fight is just and right.

You’ll go on patrol, or engage the enemy, be drawn into the harsh realities of camp life, food, personal traumas of male and female soldiers on the war front. You’ll be drawn into their angst and regrets, their determination to survive, and dreams of the future.

This is a gritty challenging read, told with the type of detail that puts you right into the action, both sides drawing closer to that fateful battle. Well done.

  

Crucible

Jack Kruse
Sisyphus Triumphant Publishing, 2024
Military History Fiction, 354 pp
$15.99 print
$3.99 ebook
ISBN-13: ‎ 9798330374830
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About the Book

Katrina Safronova, along with a handful of other woman fighter pilots,
find themselves assigned to a squadron led by a Soviet Air Force commander who has rejected women pilots before. A veteran pilot, wounded at the battle of Stalingrad she must again prove her valor against relentless German forces. As Katrina leads her flight of women pilots on dangerous missions, she’s immersed in vicious aerial combat where no mercy is ever given. Set during the fall and winter of 1943 to 1944 above the Southwest Soviet Union, Katrina takes part in engagements from the Soviet retaking of Kharkov to the battle of the Korsun Pocket. When her senior officer professes his love for her she believes love amid combat must end tragically.

My review

Kruse bring to light and life the little-known squadron of female fighter pilots that were a matter of fact in Soviet World War II – the night witches.

In the dramatic companion piece and sequel to his blistering novel, Cauldron, set on the Russian front, Commander Katrina Safronova must face the toughest battle of them all – believing there is something to live for, after pledging her soul to save her country.

Both novels begin in the air to show their heroes know their jobs well. Combat pilots are a special breed of warriors, needing to be on alert for danger from any quarter, whether enemy or debris, outside, or aircraft malfunction, or mental state of the pilot and crew. It’s an exhausting job, and in war with continuous operations, they get little opportunity to rest. Sleep and provision deprivation, let alone lack of privacy, takes a toll. Katrina and her fellows arrive on the front after the Battle of Stalingrad, expecting to be harassed as female pilots. Katrina is surprised instead to meet Captain Pyotr Gorbumov who is instead respectful of their service and works to promote their much-needed service to the unit that’s taken heavy losses. As Pyotr and Katrina work more closely with each other, their mutual respect and relationship grows.

As with Cauldron, the author’s command of Soviet-era language and cultural detail is lovingly reproduced, as well as military and personnel historical records.

Lovers of military history, particularly of World War II and the Soviet front will love these breathtaking stories.

New poetry Aging in Place by Lynn Aprill

Aging in Place

Lynn Aprill
Water's Edge Press LLC (April 15, 2025)
Poetry‎40 pages

ISBN-13: ‎978-1-952526-25-1‎

Print $12

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Upon retirement, find them, become them

Those women who have time to go to the Y during the day, the poet says…those women are just finding their new place in life after age sixty, which feels like the new forty in Lynn Aprill’s latest book of clever, poignant, frank verse. It’s our job to jump in the deep end of aging and sink or swim.

Aprill uses form with relish, a zuihitsu checklist of the things we all have forgotten at one time or another; often multiple times during the day. I thought I lost my passport the other day and spent a half hour cleaning out old files anyway. In a sijo, we inhale the aroma of new grandson; in villanelle, the gradual realization that the everywhere of another’s discomfort, of pain, is now ours. It hurts everywhere, our shared nightmare. Couplets, three-line and five-line stanzas, glorious freeform, the poems are uncompromising in their poke at life, hazy memories fragmenting, the thought of what we once enjoyed, the drama of what we’re becoming.

Written in two segments with an epilogue poem, Aprill gradually guides us toward reconciliation with dreams of the house we hold until we die, the habits of a lifetime of ordering a suit every year, of visiting familiar places; the ravages of stroke, dementia, rehab we always hope is temporary. A favorite is a Boomer Pitch for a popular television reality show in which the reality is not just growing food, but preparing, preserving, herding it…while taking care of yard and the prize spouse.

A final thought in For My Daughter is a pause for all of us—how will I age? What will I remember…and forget?

Aging in Place is a thoughtful, beautifully drawn picture of who we are, will be, and once were.
Poetry lovers will return to read these poems over and over.

In the Heart of the Linden Wood by Ekta Garg

 

In the Heart of the Linden Wood
Ekta Garg
Atmosphere Press, Feb, 2023
368 pp
 
Paper, $17.90, Ebook $9.99, Audio $12.99 
 
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About the Book:

Winner of the 2024 Kindle Book Awards for Best Cover!
How do you overcome a broken heart?

For generations, the magic trees have supported the kingdom of Linden. The wood is prized in kingdoms everywhere for its special properties. It's one of the few good things King Christopher inherited from his late father, the evil King Vincent.

Vincent also gifted Christopher a lack of confidence. The only person who believes in Christopher is Queen Lily. When he loses her and their only child, Christopher's grief threatens to undo him. The love of his life has returned to the fates, and now all he wants to do is spend his days mourning her.
Then word comes that the trees are dying, and no one knows why.

Despite the urge to hide in the castle forever, Christopher meets the mysterious Keeper of the Wood to find out what's killing the trees. The answer demands he go on a quest with old friends and new allies. Along the way, they'll try to save hostages and mend another broken heart by putting it back together piece by piece

.
Through it all, Christopher will fight to conquer his doubt and prove to his people, the memory of Lily, and himself that he deserves the crown.

My review: Ekta Garg’s fantasy questing venture has a lot to love for those who like castles and kingdoms and magic wood. Who wouldn’t appreciate a wood so pure that it refuses to be shaped into weapons?

That’s just one of the many secrets in this fairy tale of living…ever after; happily is a state of mind. The story kicks off after about the first fifty pages of mourning a queen we meet only through others; one who left a huge hole in a kingdom that’s barely crawling out of the chasm left by the young king Christopher’s wicked father.

When Christopher struggles over priorities, he chooses a road that leads him away from his own castle in crisis in an attempt to save the kingdom itself.

The Heart of the Linden Wood is a delightful story, full of twists and reckonings, self-examination, and an underlying quest for justice. Nicely done.

About the Author: Working in niche publishing since 2005, Ekta has written and edited about everything from healthcare to home improvement to Hindi films. A writing contest judge for the Florida Writers Association and the Saturday Writers chapter of the Missouri Writers Guild, Ekta conducts writing workshops and also hosts Biblio Breakdown where she examines books and offers writing exercises. She blogs original writing, book reviews, and all things writing and editing at The Write Edge. Her award-winning holiday novella, The Truth About Elves, and her fairy tale for grownups, In the Heart of the Linden Wood, are available from Atmosphere Press.

New poetry The Worried Well

 

The Worried Well by Anthony Immergluck

Autumn House, April 8, 2025
Poetry
120 pp
Paperback, ebook, $16.95
Buy on Bookshop.org

About the book:

The Worried Well, selected by Eduardo C. Corral as the winner of the 2024 Autumn House Rising Writer Prize, is a tragicomic collection that explores the intersection of anxiety and safety in a chaotic world.

Anthony Immergluck balances the thin lines between healing and ailing, between humor and tragedy throughout this exceptional debut poetry collection. Reveling at precipices of imminent disaster while grieving at thresholds of relief, The Worried Well asks, how do we live loving and full lives while being confronted with our mortality? How does language carry us between liminal spaces?

The "worried well" is a term often used pejoratively by medical professionals to describe a group of patients who may be lacking visible symptoms but opt for testing and preventative interventions, who seek treatments for ailments that don't manifest readily in medical diagnostics. Immergluck unpacks the term by writing in the spaces where worry and wellness meet.

Despite the profound subjects explored, the collection carries us with a keen sense of humor, grounds us in the everyday, and rises to meet us with unexpected ruptures or sutures of language on each page. Summoning the restless dybbuk of Jewish mythology as well as David and Goliath, navigating hospital rooms, and surviving economic precarity, Immergluck creates a voice that is utterly new and needed in the literary landscape, a voice that reflects, "I don't / know why I told a worry / child not to worry when / surely the trick is to give / the worry a name and then / to call it again and again."

My review:

Immergluck’s collection in The Worried Well consists of 48 poems in two sections, The Worry, The Well. The first section is made of poems of zealous melodrama, some wry and self-aggrandizing, such as Narcissus at the Pharmacy in which the author is concerned about his legacy. The opening piece, “Worry (the Dybbuk),” is a tribute to life today, focusing on worry, worry, worry: I worry that were we to / land on an island without / worry our worries would / starve or worse, survive… In “Deadsong” the author poses 17 short segments of verse about manners of death that range from drastic to fantastic, poignant to manic: crashes, drugs, old and famous, martyrdom, skateboarding…lots of fun with asides; I can hear the stanzas in the voice of Gene Wilder. Likewise, the droll wit of “Social Studies”: “In the end we all become whoever was nice to us when we were fifteen,” I hear in the voice of Billy Collins.

Yet there is a glimmer of hope in these tributes to concern, such as in “Burden of Care” in which the author finds some reversal of dread: But I don’t want to think / about my body anymore. / I want to learn Spanish / for real and for good. / I want to watch all day / for waterbirds / and run to tell my wife.

Included are poems of illness, about surgeons dropping lines, about Hospital Art: And I have learned to love the textiles / donated by the synagogue. I have / made peace with the tulips. Who doesn’t love a poem that combines palliative care, Rachel Maddow, Polaroid, Jello-O, and isthmus in contemplation? Intermingled are poem memories of grandparents – patience with Grandpa at the end of his life as they attempt to navigate the Lord of the Rings, and finding courageous Grandma taking back the life of her son who thought he should enlist in the army at age thirteen; another found letter from an earlier generation.

In the second part, the Well, a collection of memories such as a childhood home, dumpster-diving for a memorable sofa (And you should hear the song it sings / when both our weights are lain upon it.), margaritas in a Nalgene in a tent in the rain…the reader engages with more lyric and rhythmic language; even forgiveness in “Mise En Place”: Because she loves me, / we do not address the / rawness in the center. / She eats it all / and so do I.

Self-reflection is also a major theme of the poetry in this section. The authors shares the raw emotional distress of fatherhood in “Bus Stop”; the worry of being enough, of being able to love a baby.

The Worried Well is a beautiful collection of frayed humanity, of culture, memories, loss and living for the future which will enchant poetry lovers. One of my favorite parts is the dedication, which you’ll have to read for yourself.

About the author: Anthony Immergluck is a poet and publishing professional with an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from NYU-Paris. His work has been widely published in journals including Copper Nickel, Pleiades, Beloit Poetry Review, and TriQuarterly. In his free time, Anthony is a passionate traveler and hiker. He’s also a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter when no one is watching. Originally from the Chicago area, he now lives with his wife and pit bull in Madison, WI. The author states on his website that 50% proceeds to the ACLU. https://www.immergluckpoetry.com/

 

New YA Dystopian literature

 

The Way of the Cicadas

Audrey Henley

ISBN: 9798986187907
Paperback, $15.99
Ebook, $9.99
April, 2023, 358 pp, Monodon Books
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About the Book:

An amnesiac survivor proves the outside's habitability and spurs a group of bunker-borns on a gritty journey through an irradiated wasteland in this tense and poignant post-apocalyptic-perfect for fans of The 100 and Station Eleven.

Ten years after nuclear war devastated the United States, Hayden is bored of the meager rations, recycled air, and sterile light of the bunker he's called home since childhood.

But when Brita, a mysterious woman with no long-term memory, becomes the first outsider to stumble upon the bunker, she proves to the underground city that the surface isn't as hostile as those in power let on. Her arrival sets off a chain reaction that causes Hayden, Brita, and a handful of other residents to emerge.

The outside world is teeming with life, but also with danger they never anticipated. After an outside survivor betrays the group, they're imprisoned by a military faction with the key to Brita's identity. For Hayden to save his friends, he must uncover a past Brita would rather never remember-along with secrets the bunker sheltered them from all these years.

My Review:

Wonderfully imaginative and slightly too-real addition to dystopian fiction. In the near future the worst has come to pass with nuclear war across the planet. Those who planned for it ahead of time include researchers and government agencies who built underground bunkers. The less fortunate took their chances above ground. Ten years pass and one of the underground colonies is reaching the supply limit. Severe rationing doesn't sound appealing to most of the colonists, and for one brave group of teens, it's time to go out scouting...especially when an amnesiac young stranger knocks on the door, lost, proving that some life still exists out there. When the group of brave young people set off for their former home to gather anything useful, they run into a society of devastation, lies, and the depths of depravity in their strange new world. First of a planned series. Excellent world building and characters that will stay with you. Recommended for high school-age and up due to potentially frightening situations, mild sex, violence, and language. Caution for an intense murder. The author includes trigger warnings in the back of the book. Well-written and designed book.

About the Author:

Audrey Henley is an infamous hobby collector, but her favorite has always been writing. A former production assistant at a university press, she now works as a project manager and freelance copywriter and copy editor.

The Grief Support Book

 

The Grief Support Book

Lindsey Bussie
 
52 pp
9.99 print
ebook
 
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About the Book
During a time of loss, the bereaved are trying to cope with their loved one being gone, making arrangements for services, the loved one’s possessions, paperwork, and more– all while trying to do their day-to-day. Dishes, yard work, caring for animals, whatever it may be, these day-to-day tasks may seem insurmountable under the weight of grief.
We can’t stop the pain, or fill the void. But we can help out. The Grief Support Book is a practical way to help those who have lost someone. In this book you’ll
Printable lists of chores, tasks, and ways to help.
Explanations of situations that the bereaved may come across and how you can help.
Personal accounts from people who have lost someone, how they felt and what helped them out.
Checklist of paperwork that needs to be done when someone passes away.
And more…
 
My review
Excellent short guide for practical and emotional dealing with those who've experienced death of a close person; especially if you are called upon to help with estate and physically dealing with the personal arrangements. To the point, filled with quotes and advice. Printable, usable checklist.
 
About the Author
Lindsey loves people and pets, having a small collection of children, dogs, cats, chickens and one husband at home. Born and raised in Wisconsin, she spent her childhood running around the forests and fields of her childhood home. If she wasn’t outside, she was buried in a book. Her adolescent love for playing outdoors turned into a passion for natural health and sustainable living. When she’s not parenting or writing, you’ll probably find her reading, crocheting, or elbows deep in her garden.

Emotionally riveting memoir from Jennifer Flatt

 

Ungrieving, a memoir of emotional abuse, loss, and relief
Jennifer Stolpa Flatt
Memoir, 281 pp.
2024, Mission Point Press
 
Buy the Book
$.7.95 ebook
$16.95 print
 
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About the Book
In Ungrieving, a memoir about family dysfunction and estrangement, religious doubt, and complex relationships, Jennifer Stolpa Flatt provides others with the book she needed but couldn’t find. The insights will resonate with those who have experienced family divisions or who support those who do, and those who struggle to let go of the relationships they wanted but never had.

After a lifetime of emotional abuse, verbal attacks, and controlling behaviors, including a four-year estrangement from a man she called “Daddy,” despite not feeling the warmth the nickname implies, her father’s death left her struggling to make sense of their fractured relationship.

She felt both a sense of relief and a profound sadness: "I don’t miss him and I feel guilty admitting that. Sometimes I do miss him. And that confuses me."
 
My Review
Ungrieving is a memoir as much as a journey to healing. Told early on in past and present events that set off her father’s instability during the author’s childhood and post-funeral reminiscences as an adult, Jennifer Flatt tells her story of growing up in an abusive environment. I lost my father a couple of years ago and can’t help comparing my own journey through emotional abuse, loss, and relief, although maybe not exactly in that order. You put yourself in a peculiarly vulnerable position when you share memories, your truth as you know it. Flatt’s relationship with her sister Karen and friends who support her story make her story relevant. Flatt shares that her father had mental health issues that were mostly untreated. Her childhood memories of Dad and Mom fighting in front of and sometimes with the kids are carefully couched within her belief that he wanted to protect and nurture his children and family but couldn’t separate his inner child. Later in his adult life he did try therapy and medication, but it didn’t last. He couldn’t move past his personal feeling and accused others of being considering him a failure, or “dumb”; words he might have had ingrained from a childhood he never chose to share.
 
Jennifer and Karen grew up trying to keep peace at all costs. Particularly memorable for me is an afternoon when Jennifer is eight years old and Dad insists on having family game afternoon…but with games that are long and difficult to play in which he tends to defeat everyone. When the girls would rather play after one such game, Dad melts down with grievances about everything. While Mom and Karen take turns standing up to him and apologizing and attempting to appease, the whole thing ends in all the girls crying and Dad demanding a group hug stating that the family who fights together makes them stronger and more blessed. It’s hard not to be horrified. On the flipside Flatt shares many moments of empathy when Dad practiced as a lay minister and supported Flatt’s questioning church doctrine. She is able to express resentment when others knew her dad as a helpful and positive influence, without being aware of his damaging side. She realizes his problems were only one aspect of his personality and recognizes her father was in between a hero and a villain.
 
“One of my talents is post-conversational paranoia,” she says. As a child she developed fears of encroaching on her father’s space, fear of revealing a medical condition due to financial issues, fear for her mother’s health, fear of the future, struggling to be a better person, falling into the darkness of the soul. A diagnosis of clinical depression and treatment made a difference but it took decades. Flatt entertained wishes her mom would have taken the girls and left. Later, her mother admits the same, though the marriage was not a total failure or complete nightmare. The passing of Flatt’s father to cancer also sparked an interest in getting to know her mother in a different way.
 
Ungrieving is a great, helpful memoir especially for those who need to work through the trauma of being parented by people who tried, couldn’t help themselves, didn’t know better, were damaged themselves, and loved us even while hurting us. When Flatt finds her father’s words of relief at his own father’s death, she says, “I can’t help but think how alike we are, how similar our paths. I understand this ungrieving of a parent. He understands mine for him. My inheritance includes this understanding of grief that isn’t.” And it’s okay. Highly recommended.
 
 About the Author
Jennifer Stolpa Flatt is an educator, writer, and church singer and musician with decades of experience playing the organ, piano, and trumpet. Although baptized and confirmed as a Catholic, Jennifer has been a practicing member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) since 2004. Previously a professor of English and Spanish, Jennifer currently serves as the vice president of student services for a technical college in Wisconsin. Jennifer is also a reader, baseball fan, and mom to two boys, Anton and Edward. She lives in Marinette, Wisconsin, with her husband, Jason, in the Victorian home they are restoring.