Reviewed by Claire Hamner Matturro On one hand, The Summer House (Thomas Nelson, June 2020) has a simple plot—an unlikely friendship between two women sparks a second chance at happiness for both. On the other the hand, the plot is as complex as human emotions. And that is where the richness of The Summer House […]
“A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen,” by Kari Gunter-Seymour
October 6, 2020 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Donna Meredith One minute it soars. The next it dives. It drives tacks into your heart and then warms your feet like a cozy pair of socks. The language and imagery in Kari Gunter-Seymour’s poetry collection, A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen, is all that we expect from a […]
October Read of the Month: “Second Blooming,” edited by Susan Cushman
October 1, 2020 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Robert Kostuck “I was given a second chance, as were others in this anthology. Some of their lives were changed by trauma, some by incarceration, some by the loss of a loved one, some by marriages gone wrong or by new careers gone right.” —Susan Cushman “The explorer who will not come back […]
September Read of the Month: “The Smuggler’s Daughter,” by Claire Hamner Matturro
September 3, 2020 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Marina Brown A really superb writer can gather all of the ravelings, the dozens of characters, the seemingly impossible happenstances of a novel and, in a few deftly written pages, offer us a revelatory and thoroughly satisfying denouement. And it’s not easy. Claire Matturro has, in The Smuggler’s Daughter, accomplished all of those, […]
“Buena Suerte in Red Glitter,” by Bruce Craven
August 25, 2020 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Lei Lei In Buena Suerte in Red Glitter, Bruce Craven brings his keenly lyrical sensibility to shed new light on the modern person’s existence in a capitalist society. When the poet exclaims that “a poem is an organization. Of moments, a strategy for memory. A hope to be captured, not managed like a […]
“Scratched,” by Elizabeth Tallent
August 18, 2020 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by J.R. Davidson Elizabeth Tallent’s mother refused to hold her when she was born. This rejection was a triggering point, subconsciously stored until years later, sending Tallent on a lifelong quest to make herself lovable. By her mid-thirties, having written four novels and several short stories, Tallent collapsed into a “perfectionist seizure.” She couldn’t […]