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Foreword Reviews

We discover, curate, critique, and share new indie books in our bi-monthly print magazine and daily updated website. That's why we're here for you.

Identifying the right book for the right time is more difficult than ever. Foreword Reviews is a media company dedicated exclusively to covering independently published books. Whether you choose to read our award winning magazine, website, or enewsletter, the information you need to find the best books in indie publishing is at your fingertips. We're who booksellers, librarians, agents, publishing

professionals, and readers turn to for reviews of the best titles from small, alternative, and academic presses. Foreword affects the choices of booksellers and librarians across the country who tell millions what to read. Established in 1998, we share indie-only coverage with the widest possible audience through our award-winning print and digital magazine, our website, our annual IndieFab book awards, and at international tradeshows. We were also an industry pioneer with Clarion Reviews, the first and most trusted fee-for-review service for indie and self-publishers.

08/12/2025

Celebrate National Vinyl Record Day and explore the music books we've reviewed over the last few years. Choose from The Dad Rock that Made Me a Woman ("Niko Stratis’s scintillating personal essay collection"), Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall ("a literary masterpiece" - starred review), Playing the Changes: Jazz at an African University and on the Road ("a powerful work of music history about a couple who reached great artistic heights because of their mutual vision and tenacity.") and more here:

https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/genres/nonfiction/music/.

Also remember to support indie voices by promoting your books in Foreword Reviews ~ the magazine is 100% supported by ad dollars.

08/11/2025

A big congratulations to "One Boat" by Jonathan Buckley (Fitzcarraldo Editions) and "Misinterpretation" by Ledia Xhoga (Daunt Books Originals) for being longlisted for the Booker Prize. These indie titles are making an impressive impact and are a testament to the innovation and literary quality that independent publishing brings to the forefront. It’s exciting to see these exceptional books gaining the recognition they deserve.

08/08/2025

Gothic novelist Ronnie Turner has some pretty strong feelings about female beauty. In fact, the way beauty marks young women as targets for sexual abuse infuriates her. In the interview below, she cites the Pleiades myth—Orion stalks seven sisters so relentlessly the girls end up needing Zeus’s help to escape into the night sky as stars—as an example. “There the sisters are safe,” she says, but “shouldn’t the sisters have been safe anyway? Why did they have to be removed? Why did their beauty condemn them? It made me furious enough to explore this topic in the book. The many faces of beauty. How it can be advantageous, dangerous. How it can be coveted and even weaponised.”

That book is Small Fires, a “nightmarish yet beautiful” novel which earned all manner of adulation from Isabella Zhou in her starred review for Foreword. Needless to say, getting Ronnie and Isabella connected for a conversation made too much sense to pass up.

Read the full interview here:
https://www.forewordreviews.com/articles/article/reviewer-isabella-zhou-interviews-ronnie-turner-author-of-small-fires-1/

We’d be remiss if we also didn’t mention four more thrillers on our recommended shortlist from the 2024 INDIES Book of the Year awards: The Vixen Amber Holloway (gold); The Death of Clara Willenheim (silver); Releasing the Reins (bronze); and Bone Pendant Girls (honorable mention).

08/06/2025

Make your voice heard with LIBRARIANS THREATEN IGNORANCE gear. Whether you're sporting a t-shirt, hat, tote, or rocking a hoodie, you're sending a message: knowledge is power, and censorship has no place.

Plus, every purchase supports the fight against book bans, with part of the proceeds going to Unite Against Book Bans. Wear it loud, wear it proud—because librarians ROCK!

Get your gear here:
https://www.forewordreviews-merch.com/

08/05/2025

"With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be perfectly happy?" - Oscar Wilde

Ideas are in full bloom here at Foreword for our Sep/Oct Issue. We'd be delighted to share your backlist titles, new releases, or forthcoming books to our readers this fall. Don't let the reservation deadline this Friday, August 8th, slip by.

Learn more here:
https://www.forewordmagazine.com/advertising

08/04/2025

Discover the latest must-reads in our Book of the Day Roundup! Each week, we highlight standout books across various genres, bringing you fresh recommendations to add to your reading list. Whether you’re looking for gripping fiction or insightful non-fiction, our curated picks have something for every book lover.

See our most recent roundup!
https://www.forewordreviews.com/articles/article/book-of-the-day-roundup-july-28-august-1-2025/

08/01/2025

This week we’re joined by Chloe Michelle Howarth, an Irishwoman whose debut novel explores the forbidden love of teenagers Lucy and Susannah in rural Ireland during the early 1990s—a time when homosexuality was criminalized in that very Catholic place and “motherhood [was] the nearest thing to an inherited career.”

In her starred review of "Sunburn", Brooke Shannon calls the coming-of-age novel a “poignant, slow-burning portrait of q***r youth … fueled by intense, penetrating prose.” Captivated, Brooke jumped at the chance to connect with Chloe to talk writing and Irish storytelling.

Chloe’s prose leans literary, which got us thinking about the INDIES winners in the 2024 Literary Fiction category—all of them fantastic— "Beautiful Dreamers" (gold); "Country of Under" (silver); "Sleepaway" (bronze); "Inside the Mirror" (honorable mention).

Read the full interview here:
https://www.forewordreviews.com/articles/article/reviewer-brooke-shannon-interviews-chloe-michelle-howarth-author-of-sunburn/

07/30/2025

Submit your book to the INDIES Book of the Year Awards and let it be seen by the right people. Our panel of bookseller and librarian judges will assess your work, giving winners a valuable platform to showcase their books to those who matter most—curators. It’s an opportunity to increase visibility, boost credibility, and open doors within the industry.

Make your move today and submit your book!

https://publishers.forewordreviews.com/awards/

07/29/2025

Calling all university presses and university press authors! Our University Press Spotlight, an annual tribute to the wonderful projects that university presses around the world are publishing, is in the works. 12 outstanding books will be reviewed, and fall titles in all genres will shine brightly in the advertising section. AUPresses members receive discounts and there will be a couple of pages devoted to member titles.

Contact Stacy to book space in this once-a-year special section: [email protected]

07/28/2025

Explore the latest picks in our Book of the Day Roundup!
From thought-provoking fiction to insightful non-fiction, this week’s selection offers something for every reader.

Check out our curated list and discover your next great read!
https://www.forewordreviews.com/articles/article/book-of-the-day-roundup-july-21-25-2025/

07/25/2025

Today’s discussion of ritual and superstition got us thinking about human eccentricity. Why, for example, are we so prone to believe silly notions about crossing fingers, stepping on cracks, broken mirrors, knocking on wood, walking under ladders, and so many others?

And then an unexpected brain trigger spurred us to remember that Kurt Vonnegut explained all of this in Galapagos, his wonderful work of science fiction, published exactly forty years ago. In the novel, Vonnegut lays out a future where humans have evolved to be seal-like creatures with much smaller brains—which is all the better, according to Galapagos‘s narrator, because with their huge “three kilogram” brains from a million years earlier, humans had long moved beyond the basic life skills of survival and procreation to becoming experts in war, slavery, genocide, and all manner of evil. In a nutshell of a review, Vonnegut’s realization that our brains are simply too big for our own good is at the heart of Galapagos. Big brains are restless. Big brains invent nuclear weapons. Big brains need constant amusement. Big brains create theories about black cats and bad luck.

Arie Kaplan’s Encyclopedia of Curious Rituals and Superstitions provided too tempting of an interview opportunity to pass up, so we connected reviewer pine breaks with Arie for a can-you-believe-it conversation.

Read the full Foreword This Week interview here:
https://www.forewordreviews.com/articles/article/reviewer-pine-breaks-interviews-arie-kaplan-author-of-the-encyclopedia-of-curious-rituals-and-superstitions/

For the past few weeks, we’ve been having fun referencing 2024 INDIES Book of the Year winners. And seeing how Arie’s Encyclopedia is a reference book, let’s check out INDIES winners in the Reference category:

"At Ease: The Guide to a Smooth & Successful Military Transition" (gold)
"Murder in the West End: The Plays of Agatha Christie and Her Disciples" (silver)
"Scams, Hacking, and Cybersecurity: The Ultimate Guide to Online Safety and Privacy" (bronze)
"The New Testament in Color: A Multiethnic Bible Commentary" (honorable mention)

07/24/2025

Show your support for intellectual freedom with LIBRARIANS THREATEN IGNORANCE merchandise! From bold t-shirts to cozy hoodies and stylish totes, these items let you proudly advocate for libraries and the right to read. Plus, part of the proceeds will be donated to Unite Against Book Bans, supporting their efforts to defend the freedom to read for all Americans.

Get yours today and help spread the message while making a difference!
https://www.forewordreviews-merch.com/

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Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

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https://www.forewordreviews.com/

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Our Story

Foreword Reviews is dedicated to the “art” of book reviewing. With a review team of talented writers who are experts in their fields, our journal is designed for a discerning librarian—in recognition of the fact that quality paper, generous use of white space, and creative design encourages a time investment by readers. Foreword’s reviews are insightful critiques, robust in length and thoughtful. That is why our readership loves us so much. And why our reviews are licensed to wholesalers like Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Bowker, Cengage, Ebsco, and others. Established in 1998, we share indie-only coverage with the widest possible audience through our award-winning print and digital magazine, our website, our annual Indies book of the year awards, and at international tradeshows. We were also an industry pioneer with Clarion Reviews, the first and most trusted fee-for-review service for indie and self-publishers.