The Southern Literary Review celebrates Southern authors and their contributions to American literature. We feature classic writers who have defined Southern literature, and we highlight emerging authors with interviews, profiles, and book reviews. We support independent bookstores. If you subscribe to our newsletter, please add southernliteraryreview@comcast.net to your email contacts list so that the newsletter doesn’t […]
“The Brunswick” by Callie Murray
November 2, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Debut novel The Brunswick (Revell 2026) by Georgia-based writer and entrepreneur Callie Murray is a celebration of the power of community, and of families grafted together not by blood, but by circumstance, choice, and adoption. Set in Murray’s hometown of Norcross, GA, at the dawn of World War II, the story centers around the sprawling, […]
“The Quarter Queen” by Kayla Hardy
November 1, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Kayla Hardy’s The Quarter Queen (Ballantine Books, 2026) is a gripping, cinematic tale honoring the complexity and strength of mother-daughter relationships, and the breadth and beauty of the religious practice of Voodoo in antebellum New Orleans. Readers are immersed in the perilous, vibrant quarters of the slave-owning city, where languages and cultures blend, and competing […]
“The House Built on Alligator Bones,” by Sophia Huneycutt
October 31, 2026 by Leave a Comment
The House Built on Alligator Bones (Dutton 2026) by Sophia Huneycutt is an endlessly fascinating, utterly riveting Southern Gothic tale with all the classic elements of the genre, but it has even more to offer thanks to its unique twist. With an atmospheric Florida setting and more than enough visceral horror, The House Built on […]
October Books of Note: “Choose What You Want to Regret,” “The Swan House,” “Divided Loyalty,” and “The Leaving Gene”
October 28, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Effective Leadership Choose What You Want to Regret by Jim Murdaugh. (Sept. 2026) This book by Tallahassee State College president Jim Murdaugh gives both aspiring and veteran leaders a blueprint on how to elevate their leadership impact. His experience includes previous leadership roles in local law enforcement, state government and the military. Murdaugh’s 134-page book […]
“Green Forest, Red Earth, Blue Sea” by Jim Gulledge
October 28, 2026 by Leave a Comment
An heirloom pocket watch loosely links three novellas together in Green Forest, Red Earth, Blue Sea by Jim Gulledge. Each story captures the distinctive beauty of a different North Carolina community—Saluda, Peachland, and Beaufort. The prologue presents a striking image: a hawk, a rabbit, and a rattlesnake, each “oblivious to all hungers but its own,” […]
Donna Meredith interviews Walker Abel, author of “Heart & Bone”
October 28, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Heart & Bone Summary: Deep in the Appalachian winter, a brutal ambush at a remote mountain shelter leaves two young hikers dead. For Emma Fisher and her friend Summer, surviving the attack is only the beginning. Somewhere in the whiteout, a man named Jedediah follows them—a man bound to Emma’s past by something she believed […]