About faith, family, and an informal investigation into carcinogenic toxins, Kathleen Dorothy Blackburn’s memoir "Loose of Earth" is wrenching. Blackburn grew up in Texas surrounded by cotton fields. Her family was religious; their... Read More

Mark Powell’s brooding Southern novel "The Late Rebellion" dives into the psychology of a multigenerational South Carolina family whose members rage against the future and cling to the past. Richard, a bank founder, receives a call... Read More

A kingdom’s fate rests on the shoulders of a princess who deals with dragons in Ellen McGinty’s novel "Saints and Monsters". Meera’s back brace and blue hair draw the unjust denigration of others who consider her cursed. She is... Read More

A charismatic band of wood nymphs, shapeshifters, and a gigantic humanoid mushroom protect their home from an ancient force in Christopher Mackie’s charming fantasy novel "Cloudlanders". The story begins “years from now, in a strange... Read More

Polly Atkin’s memoir "Some of Us Just Fall" reveals the concentric circles surrounding chronic illnesses, drawing on history, experience, science, and literature to explore life lived in a liminal space with nuance. From toddlerhood... Read More

In prose drenched with awe, Charlie J. Stephens’s tender novel "A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest" takes a child’s perspective on the pains of being poor in rural Oregon. For eight-year-old Smokey, poverty is part of the landscape, just... Read More

In Elaine McCluskey’s novel "The Gift Child", a former news photographer explores her genealogy following a mysterious disappearance. When her cousin, Graham, vanishes, Harriet is drawn back into the orbit of her narcissistic father,... Read More

Lithuanian-Canadian Antanas Sileika’s memoir "The Death of Tony" is about moving between two worlds. Sileika’s parents fled Lithuania following the Soviet takeover in 1944. Sileika grew up outside of Toronto, where he had jaunty... Read More