There’s much to cry about for Dorothy Brainerd Rutherford, the heroine of Mona Figure’s novel, but laughs? Not many. Readers, on the other hand, will be entertained. After her husband vanishes with their life savings, Dorothy spends... Read More

Genre is mostly the creation of publishing houses and book distributors; it makes easier the job of marketing and selling books that are similar in content. It’s also useful to book reviewers as a way to identify books that readers may... Read More

The title play, a semi-finalist for the 2006 Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference Competition, traces the evolution of Sophonisba, a political pawn in the Second Punic War. While the premise may be obscure, the inherent tension makes... Read More

Imagine yourself a Jew in Auschwitz. Such is the horror facing Shmuel Myritz, who turns away from family and culture to become Karol Marik in pre-war Warsaw. “The war ended but not the memories,” writes Benjamin Ordover in “The... Read More

Kenneth Fenter’s "The Ruin" is part coming-of-age novel, part Robinson Crusoe, part history lesson, and wholly deserving of an audience of both adults and teenagers. The novel follows Clifton Kelly, as an eighth-grade farm boy living... Read More

Fiesty, secretive widow Nell Hannon, jumps off the pages of Lyn Stanley’s delightfully intriguing new novel about Mrs. Hannon’s rapport with the other inhabitants of her small Midwestern village. Although the book is called "Nell",... Read More

A scary story can be exhilarating. A rapidly beating heart, a shiver up the spine, and a burst of adrenaline are all great fun. There can be nothing better than curling up with a scary book on a cool dark night. A good horror story is... Read More

Mike Smith’s first novel, "Backazimuth", is a tidy thriller set in the Arabian Desert. Bill Slade, West Point graduate and combat engineer, is a reformed drunk, with bottle-fueled misadventures scattered along the tracks of a nearly... Read More