Although I’ve been a fan of Andrew Mayne thrillers for some time, I never reviewed his books for Southern Literary Review. His early novels, like the superb story in The Naturalist, aren’t set in the South, so I read them only for enjoyment, not for sharing with SLR readers. But after hurtling through title after […]
“Apothecary 709” by Cristen E. Rose
June 19, 2024 by Leave a Comment
If you are seeking a delicious escape from disheartening news about elections and climate change, you won’t find a better one than the utterly enchanting novel Apothecary 709 (Happy Cat Press 2023). In her debut novel, Cristen E. Rose builds an amazingly detailed, gorgeous story world with fairies, shadows and changelings. This gaslamp fantasy opens […]
“A Rose in Little Five Points” by Deidre Ann DeLaughter
June 17, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Set in Atlanta, Deidre Ann DeLaughter’s engaging second novel, A Rose in Little Five Points, sprawls across the 70s and 80s, examining widely divergent themes like immigration, the AIDS epidemic, and women’s roles in both the family and the workplace. Protagonist Meredith Fields struggles with self-esteem issues, or what she calls “the three-headed FearGuiltShame self-recrimination […]
“Fish Streets before Dawn: Poems” by Rick Campbell
June 15, 2024 by Leave a Comment
In a new collection by accomplished poet Rick Campbell, Fish Streets before Dawn: Poems (Press53 2024), evocative settings underscore themes of aging, the fragility of life, and inevitability of change and death. The first section is titled “Alligator Point” after the Florida gulf front community where Campbell lives. “The Wild Lament of Saint Teresa” describes […]
“To the Manor Born” by Matthew Speiser
June 4, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Like the TV series, The Man From High Castle, Matthew Speiser’s To the Manor Born (Black Rose Publishing 2023) is an alternate history. Instead of asking what the world would have looked like if Germany had won WWII, Speiser’s book asks what if the American Civil War had ended differently. The result is an imaginative, […]
“Dirt Songs” by Kari Gunter-Seymour
May 15, 2024 by 1 Comment
In Dirt Songs (Eastover Press 2024), Kari Gunter-Seymour proves she is at the top of her game by evoking both the wild energy and lustful passion of youth and the regrets such indulgences oft engender later in life. Other poems in the collection beautifully capture the natural world of Appalachia through precise language and fresh […]