Changing History; Fractured Europe; Fractured Families; Coming Of Age In The Deep South

“Time Is Irreverent” by Marty Essen

(NAPSI)—What if you could change history and eliminate the Spanish Inquisition, American slavery, World War II, global warming, and an egomaniacal U.S. president who thinks he can drop nuclear bombs without negative consequences? What if that change also makes the U.S. and five billion people go poof? 

When alien time travelers, the Krichards, learn of President Handley’s plan, they race to Earth. They will only proceed to change history if the human they deem best qualified to represent Earth agrees to make the change: Marty Mann, a travel writer who doesn’t take life too seriously. What could possibly go wrong?

A hilarious, thought-provoking satire. First in a three-book series and intended for a liberal audience. Purchase at https://amzn.to/3beMjWZ.

“Fractus Europa” edited by Eric C. Anderson and Adam Dunn

Take a thrill ride into the day after tomorrow through a Europe fractured by seismic change. An American journalist in Moscow uncovers a startling twist in American/Russian relations. A health care administrator struggles to keep medical services afloat amid a crumbling NHS in post-Brexit England. A Ukrainian soldier struggles to reconcile his pre- and post-war identities.

This collection of short stories and beautifully rendered maps takes readers where academics and think tank philosophers dare not tread. Written by journalists and experts in regions with geopolitical unrest, who have witnessed periods of great upheaval and threats both foreign and domestic, these fictionalized accounts depict the all-too-real failings of ideology and idealism in a Eurozone dystopia that has already arrived. Purchase at https://amzn.to/2zc4per.

“I’m So Glad You’re Here” by Pamela Gay

A poignant exploration of the idea that while the wounds we carry from fractured families stay with us, they do not have to control us. The memoir opens with Gay, age 18, witnessing her father being bound in a straitjacket and carried out of the house on a stretcher. Her trauma escalates when, after he has electroshock treatments at a state mental hospital, her parents leave her in college and move to Florida without her.

Decades later, when Gay and her siblings attend their father’s funeral, she witnesses her family’s inability to gather together. Eventually, she is diagnosed with PTSD of abandonment and treated—and finally begins to heal. Purchase at https://amzn.to/2UGAseJ.

“Little Tea”  by Claire Fullerton

For three reflective days at a lake house in Arkansas, three childhood friends—Renny, Ava and Celia—reunite and examine life, love, marriage, and the ties that bind, even though Celia’s personal story has yet to be healed. When the past arrives in the form of her old boyfriend, Celia must revisit the life she’d tried to outrun.

As her idyllic coming of age unfolds alongside her best friend, Little Tea, on her family’s grounds in bucolic Mississippi, Celia realizes there is no better place to accept her own story than in this circle of friends. As the racial divide in the Deep South evolves, Celia wonders if friendship can triumph over history. Purchase at
https://amzn.to/2UGz9wn.

*BookBites is a continuing series bringing readers information and ideas for their next read. For more reading ideas, visit BookTrib.com and subscribe to the weekly newsletter.

“BookTrib helps introduce readers to such books as “Little Tea” about life, love and race; “Time Is Irreverent” about time travel; “Fractus Europa” which looks to the future; and “I’m So Glad You’re Here” about a fractured family.https://bit.ly/2zuF7cg”