Reviewed by Na’Yel Camper Mike Nemeth’s A Tissue of Lies (Historium Press 2025) is an exciting mystery set in 1966 about family secrets and the impact of lies. This story follows Eddie, a 15-year-old boy who finds himself caught in a web of deception that changes everything he thought he knew about his family. Fast-paced, […]
“Scorched” by Don Silver
May 4, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Noemi Martin Scorched (Holloway Press 2025) by Don Silver is set in 1974 in Lakeside, a little town near Philadelphia. The story revolves around fifteen-year-old Jonas Shore, who can be a little troublemaker when he needs to make some money. The novel teaches how letting go can bring peace instead of holding onto […]
Read of the Month: “The Bright Years” by Sarah Damoff
April 30, 2025 by Leave a Comment
The Bright Years (Simon & Schuster 2025) by Sarah Damoff shimmers as an exquisite, poignant portrait of a family crumbling as their painful pasts push their way into the present. It is a story of addiction and recovery. Of love and loss. Of forgiveness and redemption. Set in Texas, The Bright Years takes readers on […]
“Sickly Vapors: Disease and Doctoring in the Old South” by Thomas Helling, MD.
April 30, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Sickly Vapors: Disease and Doctoring in the Old South (UMiss Press 2024) by Thomas Helling, MD., is a carefully researched academic book examining illness, medicine, and medical training in the South from the 1600s to the late 1800s. Helling’s book includes a preface and thirteen chapters. Distinctive to Helling’s book, is his 1) careful attention […]
“Boomerang” by Robert Bailey
April 29, 2025 by 3 Comments
“[Do] you really believe that the US government has deliberately covered up the cure for cancer?” This question, asked by Eli James, the protagonist in Robert Bailey’s newest political thriller, The Boomerang (Thomas and Mercer May 2025), reflects the central conflict in a riveting, suspenseful, and gloriously bold novel. The author has faced cancer within […]
SLR editors converse with Robert Bailey, author of “The Boomerang”
April 29, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Introduction: Southern Literary Review is pleased to present this three-way exchange about Robert Bailey’s newest book, The Boomerang, which is his eleventh novel. Robert joins Editor Donna Meredith and Associate Editor Claire Hamner Matturro in discussing The Boomerang, a political thriller that had Donna and Claire both going “Wow” when they read it. Robert is […]