First, you’re entranced by the title: Leta Pearl’s Love Biscuits (Koehler Books 2025). Then, buckle up. You’re about to enter three-hundred mischievous pages of 1982 small-town Alabama in this wildly entertaining romp by Arlon Jay Staggs. The protagonist, Trudy Abernathy, is a young woman with a past that continues to haunt her, largely because of […]
Read of the Month: “Leta Pearl’s Love Biscuits” by Arlon Jay Staggs
December 31, 2025 by Leave a Comment
December Read of the Month: “The Miniaturist’s Assistant” by Katherine Scott Crawford
December 2, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Editor’s note: SLR has two Reads of the Month for December. We think you will love both books. In The Miniaturist’s Assistant, Katherine Scott Crawford would, for a moment, like you to believe that Charleston, South Carolina, is a town like any other town. If you’ve ever been to Charleston, you know that is simply […]
December Read of the Month: “Junah at the End of the World” by Dan Leach
December 2, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Editor’s note: SLR has two Reads of the Month for December. We think you will love both books. You won’t find a more huggable narrator than twelve-year-old Junah, the unforgettable protagonist of Junah at the End of the World by Dan Leach. His voice—funny, irreverent, and deeply original—calls to mind Holden Caulfield from The Catcher […]
“Where the Rivers Merge” by Mary Alice Monroe
November 5, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times best selling author of thirty books, has taken a divergent path with her new historical novel. In Where the Rivers Merge (William Morrow 2025) we follow a journey that transports us in time and place between the grand city of Charleston, South Carolina, and a lush Lowcountry plantation to […]
Read of the Month: “The Summer We Ate Off the China” by Devin Jacobsen
October 1, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Introduction: When Devin Jacobsen, author of the novel, Breath Like the Wind at Dawn, reached out to me in the of Fall 2024 requesting a review of his short story collection, The Summer We Ate Off the China, it was the year-end— never a good time—so I read a sample of his work and added […]
Read of the Month: “The Wretched and Undone” by J. E. Weiner
September 3, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Author J. E. Weiner kicks off her debut novel, The Wretched and Undone (HTF Publishing 2025) with a rattlesnake falling from the rafters of a church onto the congregation below. That’s a tough scene to follow, but Weiner keeps ramping up tension and introducing unexpected events, each scene propelling the story forward as we follow […]