Bless Your Heart (Crooked Lane Books 2025) by Leigh Dunlap is a luscious, wickedly entertaining novel set in Atlanta’s rich Buckhead enclave that leads its readers on a merry chase to the finish. And what a finish: the book has one of the most satisfying resolutions of any murder-mystery novel readers are likely to have […]
“Devil’s Hand” by Lori B. Duff
October 7, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Lawyer Jessica Fischer returns in Devil’s Hand (She Writes Press 2025), the second installment in Lori B. Duff’s legal thriller series following Devil’s Defense (reviewed here). This time, Jessica represents Susan Wolan in what initially appears to be a straightforward divorce case. Compared to defending a coach who didn’t want to meet the daughter he […]
Read of the Month: “Resurrected Body” by Elizabeth C. Garcia
August 6, 2025 by Leave a Comment
The opening poem, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” sets the soul-baring tone for Elizabeth C. Garcia’s stunning collection, Resurrected Body (Cider Press Review 2024). No wonder this book won Cider Press Review’s 2023 Editor’s Prize! The phrasing of Garcia’s first poem will cause most mothers to recall those scary, cringeworthy moments in the delivery […]
“What’s Yours Is Mine” by Jennifer Jabaley
August 5, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Most readers have heard of tiger moms and “daddyballs”—those hyper-competitive parents who live vicariously through their children’s achievements. In What’s Yours Is Mine (Lake Union, 2025), Jennifer Jabaley dives into the intense world of Atlanta’s pre-professional ballet, where one mother takes that rivalry to a chilling—and dangerous—extreme. Fans of Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere and […]
The World That I Know: Stephen Corey’s “As My Age Then Was, So I Understood Them: New & Selected Poems, 1981-2020”
March 17, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Essay by Steven Croft The poet, a “poet,” is a crafter of words, and if very successful, maybe a magician of words. A philosopher, if wise, gives great thought to fundamental ideas and questions, even if wisdom knows final answers will remain elusive. Stephen Corey’s volume, As My Age Then Was, So I Understood Them: New […]
Books of Note: “Can’t Shake the Dust”; “Faulkner, Welty, Wright”; and “Before We Left the Land”
February 3, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Can’t Shake the Dust Can’t Shake the Dust (Regal House Publishing 2024) by C.H. Hooks employs three points of view to paint a full picture of a dysfunctional family in South Georgia. The alcoholic father and son are obsessed with racing—even though the father lost a leg in a racetrack accident. The recovering addict mother […]