Rebecca Crunden's Blog

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The Narratess Indie August Sale is ongoing until the 25th! Dozens of indie fantasy, sci-fi and horror books are on sale or even free! Go check out this amazing sale! HERE.

LINK TO SHORT STORY/NOVELLA SALE

Rez Kid by Andrea Landry
Isabella Fassler

‘My moshum taught me to pray for those with hard hearts. He says there’s always a soft part.’

Oh my goodness, the art in this book is absolutely stunning. Each page is beyond jaw-dropping. I’m seriously so impressed by the illustrations! Lovely work!

The message of the book is absolutely heart-warming, too. A young girl who is being bullied and teased at school tells her family about how bad of a time she’s having on the bus. Each family memb...

Insatiable by Rhys Everly

MILD SPOILER WARNING

I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, I finished it in a single morning and found it overall pretty sweet and am definitely curious about other books the author’s written (and I want to check out the rest of this series for the other couples). It’s very much an easy rom-com type of tale. On the other hand, I really struggled with Brody as a character. He was rather hard to root for despite the fact that he’d been through a...

My Earth Journey by Evelyn Dean

I would never be alone as long as there were forests.

This was a really sweet, uplifting little story full of daydreams and escapism. The protagonist finds herself transported from the disappointments of fair-weather friends at school to the kind, playfulness of animals who bring her on a journey through the natural world. It’s almost reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland except the animals aren’t fantastical or speak, they’re simply taking her through thei...

Missed Steps by L. Sherleen

MILD SPOILER WARNING

This was very sweet and generally lighthearted other than a few scenes. I truly felt for Kyle and what he went through. (I didn’t get the initial ostracism from the other characters at all, though. Like we go in and out of contact with people? Being a bullying brat – as a group, no less – about it because of one summer without contact seems a bit bizarre to me.) Some plot points didn’t totally work for me or I didn’t find entirely plausi...

Ghost Says Meow!: A Halloween Story by Lauren Kukla

“You all sound great.
You really do! But
why not try out
something new?”

Oh gosh, this was absolutely adorable! The rhymes are super cute and well done, and the illustrations are just precious. I really appreciated the book’s message of being unafraid to be different and embracing being yourself even when others are telling you that it’s wrong to divert from the norm.

Definitely a fun, wholesome book for young kids!

Thank you Netga...

A Spoonful of the Sea by Hyewon Yum

Many mothers ago, a haenyeo with a big belly saw a mother whale eating seaweed after she gave birth.

This was such a lovely little read that explains the meaning and history behind making and serving miyeok-guk (seaweed soup) every year for a birthday meal. I love the idea of expectant mothers diving to get seaweed for soup to keep themselves and their babies healthy because whales do the same thing. The animal lover in me just adores that.

The il...

Just in Case: Saving Seeds in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault by Megan Clendenan
Illustrated by Brittany Cicchese

Only eight hundred miles from the North Pole, away from wars and weapons, safe from earthquakes, fire, and even an asteroid, buried deep in the Earth on an island in Norway, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault holds priceless treasure.

Oh, this made me cry. In a truly, wonderfully hopeful way. My conservationist/environmentalist book from childhood was The Wump World which truly s...