Penalties of June (McSweeney’s 2024) by John Brandon is a well-crafted, invitingly atmospheric tale of a motley group of anti-heroes and a lovely, hard-working young woman in 1998 Florida. These characters cross fortunes and fates as their lives interlace again—and again—in a tale that carries a hint of the Southern Gothic within its absorbing pages. Kirkus […]
“Gothictown” by Emily Carpenter
January 15, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Most times in life when things seem too good to be true, they are. Such is the case in Emily Carpenter’s latest novel, Gothictown (Kensington, 2025). If you liked Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery,” you are bound to enjoy the mysteries hidden behind the innocent façade of Gothictown. Carpenter begins the novel with brief […]
The Professor’s Bayonet Podcast of “Leonor: The Story of a Lost Childhood” by Paula Delgado-Kling
January 15, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Dr. Jason Dew has released a podcast of Paula Delgado-Kling’s Leonor: The Story of a Lost Childhood, which Dew previously reviewed for SLR. Check out his podcast.
“Leonor: The Story of a Lost Childhood” by Paula Delgado-Kling
January 13, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Paula Delgado-Kling’s aptly named book, Leonor: The Story of a Lost Childhood (OR Books 2024), details in vivid and sticky language the plight of a poor Columbian girl whose destiny could never be anything else but what it was: a tangled, complicated, and, ultimately, violent relationship with the only authority that even pretended to care about […]
“Devil’s Defense” by Lori Duff
January 13, 2025 by Leave a Comment
A large dollop of romance sweetens the serious ethical concerns and women’s issues highlighted in Devil’s Defense (She Writes Press 2024), an entertaining legal novel penned by Lori B. Duff. Duff is a Georgia resident who has been a judge and lawyer for over thirty years. Frustrated by the unrealistic courtroom depictions and misrepresentations of […]
January Read of the Month: “Queen of Memphis” by Martin Hegwood
January 1, 2025 by Leave a Comment
By mixing dark secrets reminiscent of Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! with the strong sense of place Conroy created in South of Broad and the class distinctions depicted in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Martin Hegwood has crafted a truly iconic multi-generational novel, Queen of Memphis (Spanish Moss Publishing LLC 2024). The manuscript deservedly won the first-place award in […]