“It Ends with Knight” by Yasmin Angoe

It Ends with Knight (Thomas & Mercer 2023) is the impressive conclusion to the Nena Knight thriller series by Yasmin Angoe. Although it can be read as a stand-alone, you won’t want to miss the first two Knight books, Her Name is Knight and They Come at Knight. The dazzling and deadly Nena Knight is […]

“Indigo Field” by Marjorie Hudson

Indigo Field (Regal House, 2023) by Marjorie Hudson contains many strong elements, rather than one. She pulls off this feat with a full panoply of writing skills on display. First, Hudson creates a compelling story with three fully developed sets of racially diverse characters whose lives intersect in both harmony and conflict. The most important […]

Donna Meredith interviews Mimi Herman, author of “The Kudzu Queen”

DM: Mimi, I fell in love with your coming-of-age novel, The Kudzu Queen. Writing any book is a big undertaking that takes many months if not years. How long did you work on this book? MH: I’ve recently discovered something that surprised me. For a long time, I was convinced that I’d spent sixteen years […]

“Dreams of Arcadia” by Brian Porter

In Dreams of Arcadia (Legacy Book Press 2023), Brian Porter transports readers inside the world of a rural veterinarian with spectacular descriptions of the Texas countryside and riveting details concerning the care of cattle and other animals. But the novel is also the story of Nate Holub’s family and the uncovering of long-held secrets. Think […]

October Read of the Month: “The Stockwell Letters” by Jacqueline Friedland 

Dramatic conflicts caused by the Fugitive Slave Act are central to Jacqueline Friedland’s excellent, thoroughly researched historical novel, The Stockwell Letters. The Fugitive Slave Act put all Black citizens at risk of kidnapping, even if they had been born free, causing many to exit the United States: “Nearly three thousand Negroes had crossed the border […]

Donna Meredith interviews Sheridan Brown, T. M. Brown, Charles M. Clemmons and Betsy Reeder about Civil War Era novels

Four new Civil War Era novels were released this year. Southern Literary Review Editor Donna Meredith interviewed  the authors to find out what similarities and differences there might be in their approaches to their subjects—and why they chose to write about them in the first place. Sheridan Brown’s novel, The Viola Factor, is based on […]