Valediction: Poems and Prose (Madville Publishing 2023) by Linda Parsons is an achingly lovely collection in which the poet treks through ordinary facets of life weighing marvel against damage. Parsons’ poems and her micro-essays, which she calls visitations, are eminently relatable—the death of a beloved dog, a complicated father-daughter relationship, loving support from older women […]
“Louise and Vincent” by Diane Byington
March 19, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Louise and Vincent (Red Adept Publishing LLC 2023) by Diane Byington is a moving, well-written novel which should captivate readers, especially those who like history and stories of strong women. The book blends well-researched history with the author’s rich imagination and her talent to create a story about star-crossed lovers, domestic abuse, and the power […]
March Read of the Month: “A Glooming Peace This Morning” by Allen Mendenhall
March 6, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Allen Mendenhall’s debut novel, A Glooming Peace This Morning (Livingston Press 2023), is an achingly lovely, stirring novel about confused youth, a tragically mismatched relationship, legal ethics, and small-town Deep South in the 1970s. The story is told in the voice of a mature man looking back forty years to events in his youth, and […]
“Everybody Here is Kin” by BettyJoyce Nash
January 30, 2024 by 1 Comment
Everybody Here is Kin (Madville Publishing 2023) by BettyJoyce Nash is a moving, well-written literary story about family—the ones we are born into and the ones we create. It is also a finely tuned tale of a tight-knit community living on a small barrier island off the coast of Georgia—a place where the year-round islanders […]
“The Bullet Swallower” by Elizabeth Gonzalez James
January 29, 2024 by Leave a Comment
The Bullet Swallower (Simon & Schuster 2024) by Elizabeth Gonzalez James is a wild yarn of a story with elements of a classic western adventure invigorated with mystical realism and more than a gloss of karmic turbulence. In short, it’s fascinating. Literary historical fiction at its finest, this is an ambitious novel which more than […]
“The Halo of Bees: New & Selected Poems 1990-2023” by Michael Hettich
January 1, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Award-winning poet Michael Hettich, a former Florida resident and professor who now lives in North Carolina, has an avid appreciation for nature, domestic life, language, trust in the simple things, and in the often-elusive connections between entities. With intelligence, insight, and occasional wit, Hettich writes superbly on these subjects, and others, in his new 233-page […]