The unknown and serendipity get the last word in the tragicomic novel "Crossing Lake Pontchartrain", about a writer’s midlife crisis. In Arthur Byrd’s heartfelt novel "Crossing Lake Pontchartrain", a man pursues artistic liberation... Read More
A powerful wizard protects her right to self-determination in Patricia A. McKillip’s fantasy classic "The Forgotten Beasts of Eld". “Every time I read "The Forgotten Beasts of Eld", I am filled with love,” writes Marjorie Liu in... Read More
An aspiring comic book artist tries to preserve his dream in the graphic novel "Left Turns". David is twenty-five and working in a comic book shop; he’s looking for an opportunity to break into the comics industry. He maintains a close... Read More
Galya Gerstman’s novel "Daughters of Jerusalem" follows three generations of Jewish women in early twentieth-century Palestine. In 1900 in Serbia, Lili and her husband, Joseph, struggle to have a child; Lili lost seventeen babies soon... Read More
Laura Pritchett’s "Playing with Wildfire" is a rare climate novel of now. It begins in late August, as a megafire started by a visiting hiker sweeps through Colorado along with COVID-19. Prose, poetry, plays, government grant... Read More
Gregg Olsen combines the action and mystery of a thriller with an added layer of memoir in his coverage of the murder of Ida, an Amish woman. On July 12, 1977, a mother in Ohio, Ida Stutzman, perished in a barn fire. Olsen first... Read More
Modest generosity is used to combat multigenerational poverty and racial prejudice in the rural South in Jeffrey Blount’s novel "Mr. Jimmy from Around the Way". “No good deed goes unpunished,” thinks Jimmy, a disgraced billionaire... Read More
In Stefan Mattessich’s fantastical novel "The Riverbed", an isolated teenager encounters a troubled friend’s fantasy world and learns to accept his own strangeness. After a move to Orange, California, Fox is feeling solitary, knowing... Read More