For all its courtly manners and Renaissance intrigue, "Love That Moves the Sun" distills into a delicate portrayal of one woman’s search for depth. Linda Cardillo’s "Love That Moves the Sun" centers on Vittoria Colonna and... Read More

"Darling Girl" is an often engrossing and heartbreaking story of neglect. Terry H. Watkins’s novel "Darling Girl" follows a girl through her dysfunctional childhood and toward escape. The novel opens when DG is five. Her mother has a... Read More

"Better Days" is a bighearted, wry, and tender novel that focuses on love and loyalty. Len Joy’s "Better Days" is an attention-grabbing crime story in which unexpected upheavals result in welcome second chances. What’s the penalty... Read More

Graceful and emotionally evocative, "The Latter Half of Inglorious Years" is an thought-provoking work of literary fiction. Kirk Ward Robinson’s "The Latter Half of Inglorious Years" not only wraps a story within a story but also adds... Read More

In poignant and lyrical prose, Ksenia Buksha’s "The Freedom Factory" renders the history of a real military factory in St. Petersburg. This collection of vignettes blurs the line between realism and poetry. Separate personal histories... Read More

In an early piece in this book of short, connected stories, Caroline Bock establishes a daughter’s reverence for her father: “let me recall the days when I picked tomatoes beside my Pop, and ate one or two directly from the vine at... Read More

Maureen Aitken’s "The Patron Saint of Lost Girls" pretends to be a collection of short stories but is not. Instead, advantages of both short-story and novel formats are fused into a mutation which is neither. By the time this... Read More

Drawing inspiration from the most existentially bored quarters of the sweater-set crowd, the short stories of Virginia Pye’s "Shelf Life of Happiness" are unsettling, sighing laments. They organize church fundraisers and clean their... Read More