Charity Hawkins, 2012, Familyman Ministries, 229 pp, $12.99, 978-1937639068 Review by Patricia O’Sullivan. Julianne Miller, the protagonist of The Homeschool Experiment, a novel, homeschooled her three children last year with mixed results. This year she is determined to do better. With a little organization, lots of patience, and a network of supportive friends, Julianne learns how […]
“Ghosting” by Kirby Gann
April 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Review by Tina Egnoski In Kirby Gann’s new book, Ghosting, Kentucky is raw-edged, poverty-stricken and violent. It is also a place of physical beauty and, for some, of personal redemption. The protagonist James Cole Prather, known as Cole, is twenty-three and at loose ends. He lives with his mother Lyda, an addict. His half-brother Fleece […]
“Fielder’s Choice,” by J. Mark Hart
March 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Review by Matthew Simmons Years ago, after reading Richard Russo’s Mohawk, I decided I needed more flexibility in labeling fiction. Obviously, there was pulp, there was genre fiction, and there was the rarified air of “lit-tra-ture.” But what I’d found in Mohawk seemed to somehow occupy parts of all of those labels simultaneously and effortlessly. […]
February Read of the Month: “In the Time of the Feast of Flowers,” by Tina Egnoski
February 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Review by Bonnie Armstrong Tina Egnoski won the 2008 Black River Chapbook Contest with a collection of short stories, Perishables. Reviews of that work mention that she is a fine storyteller of the human condition whose fast-paced and dynamic prose generate an emotional intensity coupled with appropriate restraint. Egnoski continues this excellent writing with the publication of […]
“The Color of Lies,” by Donna Meredith
November 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Philip K. Jason In the season of Barack Obama’s successful presidential campaign, the stability of a small South Georgia town is threatened by racial stresses and strains. A racial slur is found on a school blackboard. A dynamic Afro-American minister threatens a law suit against the school system, challenging its treatment of Black […]
Meet Lynne Bryant, Author of Catfish Alley
July 15, 2011 by 1 Comment
At SLR, we like to cover both new releases and old. Every now and then, a good one slips through the cracks. This summer, we’ve spent a little time working our way through the Slush Pile..and look what we found! A can’t-miss read by debut novelist, Lynne Bryant. Recently, SLR contributor Rhett DeVane had the […]