Deborah-Zenha Adams is an award-winning author of novels, short fiction, CNF, and poetry. She served as executive editor of Oconee Spirit Press for ten years, and is currently a reader for Boomerlit. When not writing, sauntering, or practicing yoga, she partners with historical societies and yoga studios throughout the southern United States to conduct her signature […]
“A Rose in Little Five Points” by Deidre Ann DeLaughter
June 17, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Set in Atlanta, Deidre Ann DeLaughter’s engaging second novel, A Rose in Little Five Points, sprawls across the 70s and 80s, examining widely divergent themes like immigration, the AIDS epidemic, and women’s roles in both the family and the workplace. Protagonist Meredith Fields struggles with self-esteem issues, or what she calls “the three-headed FearGuiltShame self-recrimination […]
“Small Town Big Secrets” by Dee Harris
June 17, 2024 by Leave a Comment
While it might sound like Small Town Big Secrets (Atlantic Publishing 2022) is a breezy summer read, there’s a lot going on in Dee Harris’s novel. When Ora Collins misses church (“the first time in fourteen years”), everyone who has ever lived in a small town will know that something is greatly amiss. This time […]
“Fish Streets before Dawn: Poems” by Rick Campbell
June 15, 2024 by Leave a Comment
In a new collection by accomplished poet Rick Campbell, Fish Streets before Dawn: Poems (Press53 2024), evocative settings underscore themes of aging, the fragility of life, and inevitability of change and death. The first section is titled “Alligator Point” after the Florida gulf front community where Campbell lives. “The Wild Lament of Saint Teresa” describes […]
Read of the Month: “All We Were Promised” by Ashton Lattimore
June 5, 2024 by Leave a Comment
All We Were Promised (Ballentine Books 2024) by Ashton Lattimore is a literary historical novel set in 1837 in which the author accomplishes exactly what an excellent historical novel should—that is, she blends well-researched, accurate historical facts into a fictional plot to create a fascinating, eminently readable, and suspenseful story. Readers will learn true history […]
“To the Manor Born” by Matthew Speiser
June 4, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Like the TV series, The Man From High Castle, Matthew Speiser’s To the Manor Born (Black Rose Publishing 2023) is an alternate history. Instead of asking what the world would have looked like if Germany had won WWII, Speiser’s book asks what if the American Civil War had ended differently. The result is an imaginative, […]