Reviewed by Phyllis Wilson Moore Andrea Fekete’s first novel, Waters Run Wild (Guest Room Press, 2018) is a brutal story of the struggle for equity in the West Virginia coal fields in the industry’s early days. Before federal laws and unions intervened, workers were exploited in every imaginable way. Unions were prohibited, wages were low. […]
January Read of the Month: “Where the Crawdads Sing,” by Delia Owens
January 3, 2019 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Donna Meredith With gorgeous imagery and breathtaking detail, Delia Owens perfectly captures the exquisite song of the North Carolina coastal marsh and all its creatures in her debut novel, Where the Crawdads Sing. Not since Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides has there been a love song to the low country as poignant. And […]
August Read of the Month: “Hopscotch,” by Steve Cushman
August 10, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Claire Matturro Someone draws a hopscotch board on a sidewalk by a hospital in Greensboro, North Carolina. The hospital CEO with a Grinch persona orders it cleared off and a recently released felon, John Deaver, glad for his job as a janitor, erases it. But the chalk hopscotch board reappears on the sidewalk—again […]
March Read of the Month: “The Last Treasure,” by Erika Marks
March 8, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Donna Meredith Erika Marks’s latest novel, The Last Treasure, is a delicious romance, well-timed to capitalize on the current Hamilton frenzy. Hamilton assassin Aaron Burr’s daughter Theodosia is one of those lost aboard the Patriot, a schooner which disappeared without a trace in 1813 off the Carolina coast during a storm. The novel’s […]
December Read of the Month: “Wins and Losses,” by Peter Makuck
December 15, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Brendan Galvin Wins and Losses is Peter Makuck’s fourth collection of short stories, a dozen to be exact, and as in the earlier three books his settings are mostly blue collar towns and his characters are usually middle-class Americans, sometimes retired, sometimes trying to get by in questionable financial weather. Makuck was a […]
October Read of the Month: “Edge of the Wind,” by James E. Cherry
October 5, 2016 by 1 Comment
Reviewed by Ryan Guth I was watching an episode of The West Wing a few nights ago on Netflix. As a group of President Bartlet’s staffers walked into a blues club in DC, I suddenly found myself thinking that would have amused an acquaintance of mine … only I couldn’t quite recall his name. Then […]