Sixteen-year-old Reece Avery lives a risky life in the underbelly of South Florida, a desperate kind of life she wants to shake. She longs for stability, normalcy, and friends. Yet her life on the run has denied her these things. Abducted by her father when she was a young child, she was told her mother […]
“Margaret: The Rose of Goodwood” by Donna Meredith
July 3, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Without a doubt, writer Donna Meredith picked a winner when she chose to write a historical novel about Margaret Wilson Hodges Wood and her estate, Goodwood, in Tallahassee, Florida. In reality, the subject probably picked her. As she explains in an author’s note, a family member believed he had connections to Margaret’s second husband. Meredith […]
Read of the Month: “Getting to Know Death: A Meditation” by Gail Godwin
July 2, 2024 by Leave a Comment
On a hot afternoon in June 2021, Gail Godwin decides that a recently planted dogwood tree in her garden needs water. A near-fatal decision, as it turns out. In attempting to water the tree, in the month of her eighty-fifth birthday, she falls and breaks her neck. Getting to Know Death: A Meditation (Bloomsbury Publishing […]
“Through Any Window” by Deb Richardson-Moore
July 1, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Through Any Window (Red Adept Publishing 2024) is a robust, compelling mystery that checks all the right boxes—twisty, well-paced plot with not one, but three unsolved murders, complex characters, crisp prose, conflicts galore, and excellent world-building. The wickedly clever twists and turns in this engaging, character-driven novel will keep readers intrigued as the author quickly […]
“Dark Dive” by Andrew Mayne
July 1, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Although I’ve been a fan of Andrew Mayne thrillers for some time, I never reviewed his books for Southern Literary Review. His early novels, like the superb story in The Naturalist, aren’t set in the South, so I read them only for enjoyment, not for sharing with SLR readers. But after hurtling through title after […]
“Letters from My Sister” by Valerie Fraser Luesse
July 1, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Two families – one white, one black – both devoted to the land they’ve farmed together and to one another. Two brothers – one a loyal suitor, one a philanderer. Two sisters – one a refined Southern beauty, one a tree-climbing nonconformist. Stir into the mix a handsome stranger restoring a nearby farm to its […]