Indigo Field (Regal House, 2023) by Marjorie Hudson contains many strong elements, rather than one. She pulls off this feat with a full panoply of writing skills on display. First, Hudson creates a compelling story with three fully developed sets of racially diverse characters whose lives intersect in both harmony and conflict. The most important […]
Donna Meredith interviews Mimi Herman, author of “The Kudzu Queen”
October 31, 2023 by Leave a Comment
DM: Mimi, I fell in love with your coming-of-age novel, The Kudzu Queen. Writing any book is a big undertaking that takes many months if not years. How long did you work on this book? MH: I’ve recently discovered something that surprised me. For a long time, I was convinced that I’d spent sixteen years […]
“Dreams of Arcadia” by Brian Porter
October 15, 2023 by Leave a Comment
In Dreams of Arcadia (Legacy Book Press 2023), Brian Porter transports readers inside the world of a rural veterinarian with spectacular descriptions of the Texas countryside and riveting details concerning the care of cattle and other animals. But the novel is also the story of Nate Holub’s family and the uncovering of long-held secrets. Think […]
October Read of the Month: “The Stockwell Letters” by Jacqueline Friedland
October 4, 2023 by Leave a Comment
Dramatic conflicts caused by the Fugitive Slave Act are central to Jacqueline Friedland’s excellent, thoroughly researched historical novel, The Stockwell Letters. The Fugitive Slave Act put all Black citizens at risk of kidnapping, even if they had been born free, causing many to exit the United States: “Nearly three thousand Negroes had crossed the border […]
Donna Meredith interviews Sheridan Brown, T. M. Brown, Charles M. Clemmons and Betsy Reeder about Civil War Era novels
September 19, 2023 by Leave a Comment
Four new Civil War Era novels were released this year. Southern Literary Review Editor Donna Meredith interviewed the authors to find out what similarities and differences there might be in their approaches to their subjects—and why they chose to write about them in the first place. Sheridan Brown’s novel, The Viola Factor, is based on […]
“Counting Souls” by Donald R. Buchanan
September 10, 2023 by 2 Comments
Tom Love, the protagonist of Donald R. Buchanan’s fine novel, Counting Souls, is a hardscrabble farmer in western North Carolina who is charged with collecting the 1830 Federal Census for Macon County. His job creates a situation like The Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek and The Giver of Stars, where packhorse librarians had cause to go […]