April Read of the Month: “Sewing Holes,” by Darlyn Finch Kuhn

Reviewed by Donna Meredith Like many Southern novels, Sewing Holes explores a somewhat dysfunctional family facing challenges and loss. Yet Darlyn Finch Kuhn’s refreshing approach to this material results in a novel more heartwarming than tragic, more uplifting than gloomy. Narrator Tupelo Honey Lee is known by her middle name—for obvious reasons. Set in 1975 […]

Allen Mendenhall Interviews Tom Turner, Author of “Palm Beach Nasty”

AM:  Hi, Tom.  Thanks for talking to us about your new novel, Palm Beach Nasty.  It’s a crime thriller, and we don’t have a chance to feature many crime thrillers—a genre that’s very popular.  What brought you to the genre? TT:  Thanks for interviewing me, Allen. In answer to your question: Honestly, when I started […]

“Heart of Palm,” by Laura Lee Smith

Reviewed by Phil Jason Reprinted, with permission, from Florida Weekly. This is the one I’ve been waiting for. The big surprise. A debut novel set in Florida that has it all: family, community, dreams, secrets, the best kind of local color, tragedy, humor, hatred, compassion, love, change. It’s 2008. Arla Bolton Bravo, of the fashionable […]

Word of the South Festival

Word of South, a festival of literature and music with its inaugural event scheduled for April 11-12, 2015, is a unique blend of writers and musicians and an exploration of the relationship between the two disciplines. The festival will feature authors who write about music, musicians who also are authors, authors and musicians appearing together, […]

Lynn Braxton

After retiring from Florida State University, award winning author and reviewer, Lynn Braxton, returned to her birthplace in the Panhandle of Florida with her two rescue dogs, Snuffy and Sadie. Raised an only child, her earliest companions were paper dolls cut from mail order catalogs. Today she pursues her passion for history, research, and writing. […]

“The Sheltering,” by Mark Powell

Reviewed by Sam Slaughter There is no need to fear the reaper here. In Mark Powell’s fourth novel, the author who has been called one of the best Appalachian writers of his generation proves that his home turf is not the only place he can write about. The Sheltering is a story of a drone […]