The captivating tales in Kim Bradley’s award-winning Spillway (Stephen F. Austin State University Press 2022) are stunning, well-crafted pieces that display the power of short stories at their finest. Bradley writes with compassion and insight about a class of people no doubt considered outcasts, and her empathy and understanding of her characters form the back-bone […]
“Magicicada and Other Marvels” by Kathleen Brewin Lewis
October 16, 2023 by Leave a Comment
The poems in Magicicada and other Marvels (Shanti Arts LLC 2022), a collection by Georgia poet Kathleen Brewin Lewis, are filled with the magic of Southern flora and fauna as the title suggests, yet they are much more than nature poems. Written with an abiding sense of grace and understated wisdom, these are poems meant […]
“The Plinko Bounce” by Martin Clark
October 3, 2023 by Leave a Comment
Author Martin Clark, a retired Virginia Circuit Court judge, writes an outstanding classic legal thriller with The Plinko Bounce (Rare Bird Books 2023). Like most classic legal thrillers, the hero is a lawyer and the odds are stacked against him and his client in a murder case. There is also a tense trial, and post-trial, […]
“Reaching the Shore of the Sea of Fertility” by Anna Laura Reeve
October 3, 2023 by Leave a Comment
Intimate, brave, frank, piercing, and wholly dazzling. Just a few initial words to describe Anna Laura Reeve’s debut collection of poems, Reaching the Shore of the Sea of Fertility (Belle Point Press 2023). Reeve writes with an unflinching honesty that all but hurts, and her words cut with a sharp and precise knife. Yet her phrasing […]
“Burning Eden” by Sarah Bewley
September 20, 2023 by 2 Comments
Burning Eden (Level Best Books 2023), by Gainesville, Florida, first-time novelist and award-winning playwright Sarah Bewley, is a skillfully plotted, character-driven police procedural with a surprisingly tender heart given the rising death toll. The novel also has an evocative gloss of Southern Gothic about it, adding to its impact and richness. After all, the story […]