No Car Chases Here: Silk Road Stories, a Talking Pebble, and a Pandemic Satire

by Xuemo

Eternal Love by Xuemo is really a reflective, spiritual read about women's awakening, forgiveness and healing from trauma, not an adventure story. One reviewer said it helped them let go of inner turmoil and stop fretting over gains and losses. It's sitting at 4.74 with 58 ratings, so readers who want something quiet and consoling are clearly finding it.

“This book helped me let go of much of my inner turmoil. We often dwell on trivial things, worry about gains and losses, and feel confused about the unknown, filling our ordinary days with restlessness. Yet in the face of life and death, all trivial troubles and regrets seem insignificant. The...”

by Tejas Desai

Bad Americans: Part I is book two in Tejas Desai's The Human Tragedy series and bills itself as the Great American Pandemic Novel, which is a big claim. Reviewers describe an ambitious mix of satire and short stories, so expect something experimental rather than a straight plot. It holds a 4.67 across 60 ratings, and I'd say it's for literary readers who like their fiction messy and opinionated.

“This book was entered in The Wishing Shelf Book Awards. This is what our readers thought: Title: Bad Americans: Part 1 Author: Tejas Desai Star Rating: 5 Stars Number of Readers: 15 Stats Editing: 10/10 Writing Style: 9/10 Content: 9/10 Cover: 5/5 Of the 15 readers: 15 would read another book by thi”

by Xuemo

Selected Stories by Xuemo is the closest thing to a sense of place this week, with stories of love, faith and hope set along the ancient Silk Road. The blurb leans on Howard Goldblatt's name and says The Guardian picked "Old Man Xinjiang" as one of the five finest short stories by a Chinese author. It has a 4.63 from 49 ratings but no written reviews yet, so you'd be going in a little blind. For a free download, that's an easy gamble.

by Daniel Martin Eckhart

Pebbles follows stonemason Henry Kibble and the talking pebble in his pocket, and it's gentle magical realism with historical sites scattered from prehistoric times to the present. One reader called it a good clean read about a boy who "hears" the stories of stones. It's at 4.6 with only 15 ratings, so the sample is small, but it's the coziest pick on the list.

“Pebbles is a gentle fantasy set in England, from prehistoric times to the present. Scattered throughout the story are historical sites and random historical figures, and somehow, it all feels perfectly normal, in the context of a boy who hears stories from stones. For any old bibliophiles out...”