Jen Marie Wiggins’ debut novel The Good Bride (Crooked Lane 2024) recalls a line from a famous Robert Burns’s poem, usually translated as “the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.” Despite meticulous planning, everything imaginable goes wrong with Ruth Bancroft’s wedding. The lead-up to the event is complicated by stormy weather, […]
“Lake County” by Lori Roy
October 21, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Lake County by Edgar Award–winning author Lori Roy (Thomas & Mercer 2024) is a treasure of a historical mystery/thriller suspense novel. The story is well imagined, and charming, even with its violence. Exuberantly paced, it is a complicated work with a dash of noir and a righteous dose of historical Tampa, Florida. Many smaller stories […]
“Florida,” by Lauren Groff
December 2, 2021 by 1 Comment
Reviewed by Bonnie Armstrong Groff’s only short story collection, Florida, is an example of her exploration of individuals pitted against not only society but also their own conflicted and, often, unarticulated desires. These stories present themes of domesticity versus wildness; nature as uncaring and uncontrollable; claustrophobic security versus unmoored rootlessness; and Florida as both a […]
Allen Mendenhall Interviews Douglas Dell, Author of “Deep and Dirty”
January 15, 2020 by Leave a Comment
AM: “The funny thing about The South,” says the narrator in the prologue to your debut novel, Deep and Dirty, “is that it’s pretty, an odd choice of word but highly practical, take away the disasters sitting on almost every other corner and you’ll notice nature has this way of battling human influence by blotting out […]
“Key West—A Lush and Magical place for Cozy Mysteries,” by Claire Hamner Matturro
November 8, 2018 by 3 Comments
Review essay by Claire Hamner Matturro Key West. Ah, just read the words in a mystery novel and a certain whirl and whoosh of coconut-scented, warm, moist air seems to fly off the pages. From the lush tropical landscape and the complex history to the raucous party atmosphere, from the old-world elegance of the Hemingway […]
April Read of the Month: “Oh, Florida: How America’s Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country,” by Craig Pittman
April 19, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Claire Hamner Matturro With Oh, Florida, a book that defies easy categorization, award-winning journalist Craig Pittman has penned a definite winner. Oh, Florida is nonfiction, though its legends and lore add a devilish charm and a wicked-fast pace more commonly associated with Florida thrillers and their motifs of death, crime and gore; their […]