Reviewed by Donna Meredith In L.C. Fiore’s short story, “The Trench Garden,” which appears in the new Ploughshare’s Solos series, four men come together to restore a ravine in Tennessee while World War II rages on the other side of the ocean. With his clear prose, Fiore crafts a story that meets Poe’s primary directive: it strives […]
“Reparation,” by Ruth Rodgers
February 20, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Donna Meredith Ruth Rodgers’s debut novel, Reparations, tells the poignant story of a friendship in the 1940s between two girls—one black, one white. Yes, it’s another story with race relations at its center, a story the South must tell and retell because each iteration takes us one step further toward understanding and healing […]
“Hell and High Water,” by Rebecca Theim
January 22, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Donna Meredith If you aren’t from New Orleans, why would you read a book about the city’s battle to keep a daily newspaper? Because the problems faced by the Times-Picayune plague newspapers across the country. Hell and High Water: The Battle to Save the Daily New Orleans Times-Picayune, by Rebecca Theim, is more […]
The Honorable Terry Lewis, A Literary Judge
December 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment
By Donna Meredith What surprises most people about Terry Lewis is not that he can only carve out five hours a week for writing legal thrillers. It’s that he can find any time at all. Lewis has been a circuit court judge in the Second Judicial Circuit of Florida since 1998 and was a county […]
“Delusional,” by Terry Lewis
December 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Donna Meredith Ted Stevens, still sporting a host of flaws, returns as a criminal defense lawyer in another gripping courtroom mystery by Terry Lewis. Delusional, the third in the Ted Stevens series, follows Conflict of Interest and Privileged Information. It is Lewis’s most compelling book yet. In Delusional Ted is appointed by the […]
November Read of the Month: “Moonrise,” by Cassandra King
November 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Donna Meredith Remember reading Daphne DuMarier’s Rebecca when you were younger and loving it? So did acclaimed novelist Cassandra King, and now she has written her own gothic tale of a new bride whose curiosity about a first wife might uncover more than she wants to know. The release of Moonrise on September […]