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 […]
“Wounded Boarders” by George Singleton
September 1, 2026 by Leave a Comment
South Carolina writer George Singleton’s new short story collection Wounded Boarders (Dzanc Books 2026) introduces us to a motley crew of distinctly Southern characters. Eclectic, vulnerable, and often not entirely likable, they find themselves working unusual and sporadic jobs, in strange and sometimes absurd settings, and dealing with equally unusual interlocutors. Opening story “Horace Poor, […]
“Whispers of Ink and Starlight” by Garett Curbow
June 29, 2026 by Leave a Comment
“Somewhere between the ages of twelve and twenty-one, he lost the superpower to make mundane things magical,” writes Garrett Curbow about protagonist James Finch, in Curbow’s debut novel Whispers of Ink and Starlight (Lake Union 2026) . This fantastical book aims at re-enlivening that magical capacity—for James, and for the reader. James is a student […]
Read of the Month: “The Walls Are Closing In On Us” by Joshua Trent Brown
June 3, 2026 by Leave a Comment
What would your life look like if it were played back for you in your final moments, watched from a lofty vantage like heaven, or the more oblique angle of purgatory? Would you see yourself being carried along, pinged from vertex to vertex as the polygon of your life develops? Could you name the forces […]
“Charlie-Man” by Thomas Cullen
May 4, 2026 by 2 Comments
Thomas Cullen’s debut novel Charlie-Man (Brandylane 2025) is a slow-burn of a coming-of-age story—a paced, environmental read that takes us into the world of an elite preparatory boys’ school in Richmond, Virginia, in the mid-1990s. We meet protagonist Charlie Stewart, a rising high school senior, as he is about to jump off a dam into […]