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 […]
“You Know Why” by J.T. Ellison
November 3, 2026 by Leave a Comment
A masterful storyteller who creates layered characters and murder plots, J.T. Ellison sends the reader on a thrilling, suspenseful ride in, You Know Why. Somehow you grow to love some of these twisted, complex characters because they seem like family. To each other, some are connected by marriage and family – except for the boogey-man […]
Claire Hamner Matturro interviews Tara Lynn Masih, author of “The Silent Women”
November 3, 2026 by Leave a Comment
Summary: The Silent Women is an extraordinary novel inspired by the real women of Oak Ridge, Tennessee—the Manhattan Project’s “Secret City”—where thousands kept the deadliest secret of World War II. Oklahoma, 1935. Black Sunday. From the moment a wall of black dust devours the plains and buries her world, Song Holloway’s life is marked by […]
“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 […]