Cooper’s Revenge (First Coast Publishers), the first novel by Terrence L. Williams – a thirty-year decorated veteran of the CIA, is a gripping thriller that draws attention to the devastating toll improvised explosive devices (IED’s) have taken on our military men and women serving in the Middle East, and highlights Iran’s complicity in this tragedy through its training of proxies – the Taliban and Al Qaeda – to further their objectives. This became the inspiration for Williams’ book and is why he dedicated it to Wounded Warriors in honor of these brave soldiers.

Williams’ suspenseful novel pits recently retired Logan Alexander, a Navy Seal attempting to put his life back together following a career-ending injury in Afghanistan, against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp’s elite unit, the Qods Force, which is training terrorists at a secret facility in the Middle East. Logan learns that his younger brother Cooper has been killed by an IED in an ambush while on patrol with his Ranger unit in Iraq.

It doesn’t take much to destroy careers, pull families apart and ruin lives. As author Julian Earl Farris states: “A mix of ignorance and hatred, combined with an insatiable lust for power, will suffice. And in Florida, circa 1958, that unholy mix fermented in the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, a.k.a. the Johns Committee.”

Family bonds, created by blood and by choice, bring both acceptance and redemption in Julian Farris’s new novel, The Sin Warriors (Lethe Press), a drama that unfolds against a backdrop of bigotry and intolerance, and based on actual events that follow a McCarthy-era demagogue who uses the threat of Communism to persecute homosexuals and ruin the lives of Florida college students and employees.

While the author is not Jewish, City of Slaughter (Daniel and Daniel Publishers, Inc.) by Cynthia Drew is beautifully written from a Jewish perspective, with meticulous research that provides a powerful picture of the plight of women at the beginning of the 20th Century and the obstacles they were forced to overcome. Recipient of the Forward National Literature’s Silver Award in the category of Historical Fiction, City of Slaughter is an exceptional work of historical fiction that is both exciting and inspiring and takes readers back in time to see the world through the eyes of another culture. This profound historical tale has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, the most honored literary project in America.

When her parents are murdered by Cossacks during a raid on the shtetl, Carsie Akselrod flees with her younger sister Lilia, touching off a turbulent journey that ends eight months later on New York’s Lower East Side. Plunged into the immigrant chaos of the most crowded square mile on earth, the two girls take sweatshop jobs – Carsie as a milliner’s apprentice and Lilia at the ill-fated Triangle Waist Company. It never occurs to Carsie that in her haste to live the life she strives for in America she hasn’t stopped to lament her parents’ deaths.

Publishers Weekly: “Smoothly written…Stephens gives us a hero [Jordan Sandor] who is easy to root for, a fellow who doesn’t fret about morality or worry about much of anything beyond killing the bad guys.”

Booklist: “The novel reads like the early work of Robert Ludlum, especially during the intense action sequences…those who enjoy plots revolving around covert CIA action will stick with this one to the end.”

For readers who are seeking a book that will deliver the thrill of a James Bond movie, the suspense of a Jack Ryan scene, and the action of a Jason Bourne flick, look no more—Jeffrey S. Stephens’s Jordan Sandor delivers with Targets of Revenge (Gallery Books; February 19, 2013; $26.00). For fans of New York Times bestselling authors Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum, Jeffrey S. Stephens is a thriller writer not to be missed!

We don’t usually hear that an ex-con is bound and determined to save the lives of kids at risk – but that is exactly what Larry Lawton is doing – and he’s doing it well! Author of Gangster Redemption (LL Research & Consulting), the true story of his life as one of America’s most notorious jewel robbers, Larry’s mission since his release has been to help kids turn their life around by demonstrating what to expect by making bad choices.

Larry life got off to a bad start; sexually molested by a priest at an early age, he began his path to crime by making bad choices that included his being an ‘enforcer’ for the Gambino crime family, and later spending years on the East Coast outwitting both the police and the FBI, pulling off jewelry heists to the tune of $15 million.

Few of us will ever experience the devastating horror of living within a war zone. Yet all of us know what it means to form a life-long, sustaining connection with another human being. Together, they weave a spellbinding story ultimately affirming the possibility of peace and reconciliation. In Love and Terror in the Middle East, 3rd Edition (World Audience Publishers), readers walk the war-torn streets of Israel and the West Bank with peace activist Frank Romano, and struggle with the inevitable casualties within his personal life as it becomes caught up in his work.

Romano’s efforts to promote understanding, communication and cooperation in the region among Jews, Muslims, Christians and non-believers have spanned years of bitter conflict. Passing through a virtually endless maze of checkpoints and walls, he has faced hatred on every side.

“I’ve been harassed and arrested by the Palestinian police, harassed and arrested by Israeli police and Israeli soldiers and attacked by Israeli settlers,” he says. “A peace activist friend was recently murdered in the West Bank.”