Great works of literature are being produced by wonderful independent authors who are breaking the mold in the literary world of fiction.

Too many literary sources completely omit or overlook Indie Books when compiling their lists of the 100 books you should read before you die. They showcase the legends, the classics.

Yet, we are fortunate to have a lot of outstanding books by outstanding indie authors in today’s literary marketplace. We are continuing our series featuring great indie books you should definitely read in your lifetime, knowing that the list will always change with the passing years and with the release of new books.

Here, in no particular order, are the five books we are featuring today.

The Beauty Shop

By Suzy Henderson

War changes everyone, inside and out. The remarkable true story of the Guinea Pig Club.

England, 1942. After three years of WWII, Britain is showing the scars. But in this darkest of days, three lives intertwine, changing their destinies and those of many more.

Dr. Archibald McIndoe, a New Zealand plastic surgeon with unorthodox methods, is on a mission to treat and rehabilitate badly burned airmen – their bodies and souls. With the camaraderie and support of the Guinea Pig Club, his boys battle to overcome disfigurement, pain, and prejudice to learn to live again.

John ‘Mac’ Mackenzie of the US Air Force is aware of the odds. He has one chance in five of surviving the war. Flying bombing missions through hell and back, he’s fighting more than the Luftwaffe. Fear and doubt stalk him on the ground and in the air, and he’s torn between his duty and his conscience.

Shy, decent and sensible Stella Charlton’s future seems certain until war breaks out. As a new recruit to the WAAF, she meets an American pilot on New Year’s Eve. After just one dance, she falls head over heels for the handsome airman. But when he survives a crash, she realises her own battle has only just begun.

Based on a true story, The Beauty Shop is a moving tale of love, compassion, and determination against a backdrop of wartime tragedy.

Stealing Time

By K J Waters

Stealing Time is a “Breathtakingly original” time travel adventure that will keep you on the edge of your seat. As Hurricane Charley churns a path of destruction towards Orlando, Florida, Ronnie Andrews scrambles to prepare for the storm. She seeks shelter at her boyfriend’s weather lab but what she finds there is more terrifying than the storm.

During the peak of the storm, Ronnie is hurtled back in time to eighteenth-century London where she is caught in a web of superstition, deception, and lies in a life and death struggle to return to her own time.

Her best friend Steph is thrust into the middle of the hurricane and it quickly turns into a living nightmare as she is faced with losing everything.

Lie Catchers

By Paul Bishop

With her special abilities, top LAPD Robbery-Homicide detective “Calamity” Jane Randall thought she knew all about interrogation until she met detective Ray Pagan. Wielding a suspect’s vocal intonations, emotions, and physical gestures like a scalpel, Pagan’s empathetic lie catching abilities are legendary.

Both detectives are scarred by past tragedies, but when paired together, they threaten to tear the city apart searching for a duo of missing children – a search where the right answer to the wrong question can mean sudden death.

Ripped from the experiences of thirty-five year veteran LAPD detective and nationally recognized interrogator, Paul Bishop, Lie Catchers takes the reader inside the dark and dangerous mind games of the men and women for whom truth is an obsession.

Finding Home

By Jackie Weger

Twenty-four-year-old Phoebe Hawley is on a quest to find her family a home. On the road with two siblings, twelve-year-old Maydean and five-year-old Willie-Boy, Phoebe is out of money, out of gas and out of patience.

Now the only things she owns in abundance are Hawley backbone and Hawley pride–neither of which she can trade for food or gas. A collision with Gage Morgan puts Phoebe’s mission in even worse jeopardy–until Phoebe discovers Gage Morgan owns the perfect place for the Hawley clan.

But! The man has a bruised ego, an iron fist on his heart and is the unlikeliest man in the universe to offer a helping hand. Phoebe wields all of the pride, backbone and country smarts she owns to worm her way into his heart. Nothing works.

With time running against her family, she plies one last inducement–her scarce feminine wiles. And those are not a sure thing.

Everyone Burns

By John Dolan

‘He opens a drawer of his desk, casually takes out a pistol, flicks off the safety catch and points it at my head.

He says almost sorrowfully, “Do you imagine me to be a gangster, Mr. Braddock?”‘

It is January 2005, and the charred remains of two Europeans have been discovered on the Thai island of Samui.
Local Police Chief Charoenkul, sidelined by his superiors, enlists the reluctant David Braddock, a burnt-out private detective, to assist in an ‘unofficial’ investigation.

But Braddock has problems of his own, including an affair with the same Police Chief’s wife …

Peppered with irreverent humour and some pithy comments on everyday life in the Land of Smiles, Everyone Burns is much more than a crime novel. It is also a carefully-crafted psychological study of an anti-hero for our time.

Previous Books Selected:

Sleeping Tigers by Holly Robinson, Wings of Mayhem by Sue Coletta, Blood Orchids by Toby Neal, The Girl Who Watched Over Dreams by Jeff Russell, Blood Land by R. S. Guthrie, Deadly Chocolate Addiction by Sally Berneathy, Circle of Hurt by Jim H. Ainsworth, Dancing on Air by Uvi Poznansky, Army of Worn Soles by Scott Bury, Trouble in Glamour Town by S. R. Mallery, Mateguas Island by Linda Watkins, Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die by Kelly Marshall, The Compost Pile by Stephen Woodfin, The Hollow Man by Paul Hollis, Avengers of Blood by Gae-Lynn Woods, Tabula Rasa by Gordon Bickerstaff, A Silver Medallion by James R. Callan, The Girl in the Window by Jake Needham.

Dead Storm by Helen Hanson, Remains by Marjorie Swift Doering, The Last Victim by Jordan Dane, Vigilante by Claude Bouchard, Ludwika by Christoph Fischer, Stranger at Sunset by Eden Baylee, Stutter Creek by Ann Swann, A Change of Hate by Joe Broadmeadow, When the Sun Was Mine by Darlene Jones, Nobody’s Child by Libby Fischer Hellmann, The Zen Detective by Devorah Fox, That One Moment by Patty Wiseman, Mail Order Groom by Dana Wayne, The House of Lies by Debra Burroughs, Redemption Lake by Susan Clayton-Goldner, Pride’s Children: Purgatory by Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt, Cold Justice by Rick Polad, Each Day I Wake by Seb Kirby, The Bridge to Caracas by Stephen Douglass, No Sweat Pants Allowed by Jan Romes, In the Attic by Garry Rodgers, A Fine Year for Murder by Lauren Carr, My Brother’s Keeper by S. S. Bazinet, The Undernet by J. S. Frankel, Pearseus: Rise of the Prince by Nicholas C. Rossis.

The Ninth District by Douglas Dorow, The Dead Game by Susanne Leist, Deadly Dominoes by Linda Pirtle, The Desolate Garden by Daniel Kemp, The Promise of Provence by Patricia Sands, Mai Lin: Another New Beginningby Gay Ingram, Murder a la Christie by Marilyn Levinson, The Long Shooters by Daniel C. Chamberlain, The Back Road by Rachel Abbott, Broken Wings by D. G Torrens, Scalp Mountain by Julia Robb, Heaven to Betsy by Pamela Fagan Hutchins, Flawed Gods by Angela B. Mortimer, Moment by Moment by Laura Taylor, Deadly Secrets by Angel Sefer, The Girl in the Dark by Susan Willis, Give the Lady a Ride by Linda Yezak, The Girl in the Time Machine by Debra Chapoton, Closed Hearts by Regina Puckett, Letters to Gabriella by Patricia Paris.

Cassidy Jones and the Eternal Flame by Elise Stokes, The Crazy Girl’s Handbook by DelSheree Gladden, In Sheep’s Clothing by Emily Kimelman, Touching the Wire by Rebecca Bryn, The Luminary by Elle J Rossi.