Introduction: Carol Baldwin spent eighteen years researching and writing her latest book, Half-Truths (Monarch Educational Services 2025). I can’t even imagine. I spent about six years on my first novel, and that felt like an eternity. But Baldwin seems to love research, an important quality for someone taking on a historical fiction novel set at […]
“Sunrise on the Reaping” by Suzanne Collins
September 15, 2025 by Leave a Comment
In a dystopian North America, a boy is pulled into the competition of a lifetime. The winner is guaranteed to never go hungry again, but the losers never make it out alive. The 50th Hunger Games have arrived, and sixteen-year-old Haymitch Abernathy must go into the arena to fight for his life. Suzanne Collins takes […]
“She Had To Die” by Rebecca Barrett
September 14, 2025 by Leave a Comment
In Rebecca Barrett’s new novel She Had To Die (2025), murder in a small-town near Mobile Alabama sets off a riveting police procedural steeped in late-sixties atmosphere. A beautiful young woman, Ruby Stanton, is found shot dead in a shabby motel, and Mobile detectives Hugo August and his longtime friend Junior Knight are called in. […]
“The Curious Calling of Leonard Bush” by Susan Gilmore
September 10, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Susan Gilmore’s The Curious Calling of Leonard Bush (Blair, 2025) opens with a funeral—for an amputated leg. A “curious” beginning, to be sure, but not a gimmick. Instead, this unusual event launches a deeply meaningful, beautifully written story about grief, guilt, community, and healing in Sweetwater, Tennessee. Through rotating third-person perspectives, Gilmore delivers a tender, […]
“The Cross, The Candle & The Crown: A Narrative History of Morehouse College 1867-2021” by Marcellus Chandler Barksdale
September 9, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Few institutions in American life carry the symbolic weight of Morehouse College. It is the alma mater of Martin Luther King Jr., Maynard Jackson, Spike Lee, Raphael Warnock, and thousands of men whose lives have shaped communities across the country. In The Cross, the Candle, and the Crown: A Narrative History of Morehouse College, 1867–2021, […]
“Finding Angels” by Rhett DeVane
September 8, 2025 by 1 Comment
As sweet as the tea required at every Southern ladies’ luncheon, Finding Angels: A Heartfelt Collection of Love, Laughter, and Hope (2025) by Rhett DeVane is sure to bring a generous helping of light-hearted pleasure to your reading list. This collection of fifty short stories and poems is best savored slowly—like daily devotionals—but you may […]