Reviewed by Donna Meredith Dreams of Falling showcases Karen White’s considerable talents in a moving multi-generational story of complicated friendships, closely-held secrets, a mysterious fire, and suspicious death. A New York Times best-selling author, White has penned over twenty novels beloved by her fans. Set in Georgetown, South Carolina, Dreams of Falling focuses on two […]
“Hints of Impermanence: Ghosts and Orphans in Gail Godwin’s Grief Cottage,” by Kerstin W. Shands
February 14, 2018 by Leave a Comment
Essay by Kerstin W. Shands Gail Godwin’s new novel Grief Cottage (2017) is set in coastal South Carolina, an area rich in history, legend, and tradition. Evoking a real place and a real environment, Pawleys Island and the Isle of Palms, this novel introduces us to Grief Cottage, a profoundly charged site, a metaphorical rendezvous […]
“Quail Hunting at Little Hobcaw as Inspiration for Robert Ruark’s ‘The Old Man and the Boy,'” by Richard Rankin
February 7, 2018 by 1 Comment
Essay by Richard Rankin Among Robert Ruark’s (1915-1965) complete body of work as a prolific, high-profile newspaper and magazine journalist and bestselling novelist, perhaps his most enduring literary accomplishments are his two sporting classics, The Old Man and the Boy (1957) and The Old Man’s Boy Grows Older (1961). Created from a series of highly […]
Allen Mendenhall Interviews Lorna Hollifield, Author of “Tobacco Sun”
August 14, 2017 by Leave a Comment
AM: Thanks, Lorna, for doing this interview. The title of your debut novel is Tobacco Sun. I want to ask you about that title, but first I want to quote from some opening lines of the book. “Tobacco,” you say, “a strangely fragile, yet willful crop, desperate for survivorship, proved it could somehow adapt to […]
Allen Mendenhall Interviews Bren McClain, Author of “One Good Mama Bone”
February 23, 2017 by Leave a Comment
AM: Thanks for the interview, Bren. Before we talk about your new book, One Good Mama Bone, I’d like to mention something we have in common: We both studied English at Furman University. Who were your professors there? BM: Dr. Stanley Crowe was my adviser. Also Dr. Pate, Gil Allen and Ann Sharp. Loved them. […]
“Long-Legged Rosie – Murder in Myrtle Beach,” by Troy D. Nooe
October 20, 2016 by 1 Comment
Reviewed by Betsy Randolph Troy D. Nooe’s mystery novel Long-Legged Rosie – Murder in Myrtle Beach transports us back to a simpler time in crime fiction, when gangsters wore pinstriped suits and had the decency to shoot each other face-to-face, often after a brief exchange of insults or perceived wrongs. It’s the 1940’s. Nooe’s protagonist, […]
“The Cigar Factory: A Novel of Charleston,” by Michele Moore
June 28, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl I recall my first visit to Charleston a year or so after Hurricane Hugo. Driving south to north along the coastal roads, I made side trips into the South Carolina Low Country where I found isolation and the remnants of the Gullah people. I had been unbeknownst driving along and […]
“The Gospel of the Twin,” by Ron Cooper
April 14, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Donna Meredith With his third novel, The Gospel of the Twin, Ron Cooper delves into very different and far more controversial territory than his earlier fiction, Hume’s Fork and Purple Jesus. Those were satirical in tone, peopled with wacky characters. In The Gospel of the Twin, Judas Didymos Thomas, now eighty years old, […]