Jayran Main

F. Michele Ramsey’s The Double-Edged Sword is an ambitious historical novel that places personal relationships and an emotionally charged love story against one of the most complicated political landscapes in modern history. Spanning three continents and nine turbulent years, the novel moves between intimate human experiences and the larger forces of history, exploring what happens when love, identity, loyalty, and ideals collide with political conflict.

Grief changes the meaning of ordinary things. A football match, a family photograph, a familiar joke, or a favorite motorbike can suddenly become connected to someone who is no longer there. In Our Alex, David Birnie writes about the devastating loss of his twenty-one-year-old son, but more importantly, he writes about the young man who existed before that loss and the family determined to remember him as more than the circumstances of his death.

Some investigations are complicated. Others involve a potentially kidnapped demigod, a stolen dragon egg, a celestial conflict, an irritated goddess, and creatures that are considerably more dangerous than the average interview subject. In Dan Ehl’s Jak Barley, Private Inquisitor and the Case of the Errant Demigod and Other Misadventures, chaos is very much part of the job description.