In Milk Blood Heat (Grove Press, 2021) Dantiel W. Muniz serves up a savory, delicious stew of short stories in an outstanding debut collection. The stories are set in the steamy cities and suburbs of Florida centered on Black residents and their communities. Female voices and themes predominate. This collection is a rare gem in […]
November Read of the Month: “Milk Blood Heat” by Dantiel W. Muniz
November 3, 2022 by Leave a Comment
“Foote: A Mystery Novel” by Tom Bredehoft
November 2, 2022 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Meredith Sue Willis Foote: A Mystery Novel (West Virginia University Press, 2022), described as a cryptid murder mystery, shares some qualities with a cozy. But unlike a typical cozy with an amateur sleuth in an English village, the narrator here, Big Jim Foote, is a professional if somewhat desultory private investigator, whose real […]
Books in Brief
November 1, 2022 by Leave a Comment
Summer might be over—at least according to the calendar—but when there remain so many grand books to devour, the end of the season is no reason to stop your so-called summer reading. Here are some top choice books, ranging from the tender literary fiction of “Dear DeeDee” to the edge-of-your-seat thriller, “The Letter Keeper,” and […]
“how small, confronting morning” by Lola Haskins
October 19, 2022 by Leave a Comment
Poet Lola Haskins’s enthusiasm for her adopted state of Florida is expressed with grace, power, and beauty in how small, confronting morning (Jacar Press 2016; released as ebook 2021), a collection of thirty-five poems. The words and images captured in the book quietly yet passionately evoke a wild and natural Florida that is being lost […]
Oedipus, Jemima Puddle-Duck, and “Astonishing Primitives”
October 19, 2022 by Leave a Comment
“How to Read a Novel” by Caroline Gordon Cluny Media Edition, 2019; Originally published, 1953 “The Malefactors” by Caroline Gordon Cluny Media Edition, 2019; Originally published, 1956 Review Essay by Edwina Pendarvis Caroline Gordon’s How to Read a Novel is a little outdated, but still intriguing in its observations on the novel. Because her […]
“The Kingdoms of Savannah” by George Dawes Green
October 19, 2022 by 1 Comment
The Kingdoms of Savannah (Celadon Books, 2022) reads like a fine literary suspense novel, a top-tier mystery. But Kingdoms triumphs in extending the boundaries of the genre. George Dawes Green unearths so many long-buried layers of history with such drama, such flair, such artistic skill that readers may not even be aware they are reading […]