Amy’s Book Reviews

“Behind the Magic 8 Ball”
“Amy Laprade writes about contemporary life with a keen eye for gritty details in a way that nails the way we live in the 21st century. Readers can’t help but be captivated by this romp of a read that veers from madcap to maddening mayhem.”

~Hazel Dawkins,
Author of Eyes on the Past

“Behind the Magic 8 Ball is a comedy with serious undertones about two young social outcasts, Jesse and Faith, who get sucked into a quixotic plot to commit a crime for all the best reasons in a small Arizona town. One is reminded of early Jerry Lewis movies and Napoleon Dynamite.”

~Richard Wayne Horton,
Two-time Pushcart nominee and author of Artists In The Underworld and Sticks & Stones.

“Amy Laprade weaves unforgettable characters into a story that carves hairpin turns in our perception. She shares an imagination that is at once unpredictable and yet deeply logical.”

~Kathy Dunn,
Director - Main Street Writers

So Nice To Finally Meet You…
“So Nice to Finally Meet You…” is a bittersweet funhouse ride into the psyche of two women coexisting among circumstances not of their choosing, but with the spiritedness of wild flowers pushing their way through the cracks of life’s concrete. The absurdity of Gina’s daily orbit and the frailty behind Elaine’s strange logic will have you laughing or crying or both. Their lives may be ephemeral, but their story is enduring. It will haunt you. Amy Laprade breathes life into her characters with a gritty, bone-deep honesty. She masterfully weaves fragments and myths into a story about journey, identity and finding one’s tribe. “So Nice to Finally Meet You…” shines off the pages.”

~Kathy Dunn,
Director - Main Street Writers

“Amy Laprade tells her story with wit, honesty and compassion. I can’t wait for her next book.”

~Don Fisher
Straw Dog Writer’s Guild.

"Amazing! Hard to put down…hopefully there’s a sequel on the way!”

~Chris E.

"I love this book. Strikes a few chords, parallels, a past timeline I can relate to. Amy Laprade is a wiz at character development. Awesome"

~Melanie G.

"Great, gritty characters!"

~Richard M.

"An enjoyable read!"

~Joel K.

"A great read…keep on entertaining us!"

~Hazel D.

“Silence Is Premeditated: A Collection”
“Amy Laprade sets torch to a dark world of secrets. Her poetry exposes, clears and cuts like a machete.”

~Candice R. Curran
Author of Harness and Playing in Wrecks, and organizer of INTERFACE and Exploded View.

“Amy Laprade writes with courage. Her narrative voice and precise imagery reveal emotional truths of young pilgrims as they bravely encounter today’s baffling and often dark world.”

~ Tom Timmons
Author of Zom and The Night Window.

“Amy creates characters and situations both vivid and disturbing, familiar and strange. There’s a raw nature to her work that is sensual in the way that blood, freckled skin and semen mix as forbidden lust. There’s the urgency of a man hunting down his own devil with a hammer and bare hands. One must read these poems, and then go back and read them again for the full effect.”

~Tommy Twilite
Author of The True Lies of Love, executive editor of Silkworm, and co-founder of Florence Poets Society.