Orphans of the Living (She Writes Press 2025) by Kathy Watson is a poignant, unflinching, and beautifully crafted novel rooted in the author’s family history. As Watson observes in her opening notes: “This book is a work of fiction. It’s also true.” Centered on the author’s maternal family, the Stovalls, the story, as Watson explains, […]
“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 […]
“These Blue Mountains” by Sarah Loudin Thomas
November 3, 2025 by Leave a Comment
If you have never visited Black Mountain, North Carolina, by the time you finish reading Sarah Loudin Thomas’s These Blue Mountains (Bethany House 2025) you will want to pack your bags and go. Fans of Kim Michele Richardson’s The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, Jayne Anne Phillips’s Night Watch, and Annette Clapsaddle’s Even As We […]
M. Lynne Squires
November 3, 2025 by Leave a Comment
M. Lynne Squires is an award-winning Urban Appalachian author. She is an essayist, fiction crafter, and occasional poet. Her books include the award-winning Letters to My Son – Reflections of Urban Appalachia at Mid-Century, Mid-Century Recipes from Cocktails to Comfort Food, and Looking Back at Charleston, vol.1 & 2. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies […]
“Measure of Devotion” by Nell Joslin
November 3, 2025 by Leave a Comment
In her novel Measure of Devotion (Regal House 2025) Nell Joslin takes readers on an intensely personal, first-person journey of rescue during the American Civil War. With blunt-force realism and eloquent descriptive prose, she brings to life the pervasive brutality and sporadic heroism, as well as deprivations, of the nation’s darkest time: “Their eyes crawled […]