Elaine Chiew, Book Reviewer

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Book Review

Patterns of Orbit

by Elaine Chiew

"Patterns of Orbit" is Chloe N. Clark’s inimitable collection of short stories and flash fiction, in which mysterious events abound. Herein, lakeside waves churn and tear up docks; a food scientist creates fruit that tastes of another... Read More

Book Review

You Are Here

by Elaine Chiew

Cynthia Flood’s short story collection "You Are Here" seethes with political menace that’s seen through focused personal dramas. These stories defy categorization; they are wonderful, layered, powerful, and imbued with clear senses... Read More

Book Review

The Family Izquierdo

by Elaine Chiew

Rubén Degollado’s resonant novel "The Family Izquierdo" maps three generations within a Mexican family on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. A family tree orients the reader among the book’s large, mixed ensemble, whose members are... Read More

Book Review

Castles from Cobwebs

by Elaine Chiew

J. A. Mensah’s "Castles from Cobwebs" is a haunting coming-of-age tale. Imani is a Ghanaian orphan who was left on a castle incline in Northumbria. Picked up by the reverend mother of a convent, Imani is raised there, experiencing... Read More

Book Review

Boy Meets Girl

by Elaine Chiew

The intertwining of the personal and the political is at the heart of Christie Hodgen’s "Boy Meets Girl", a smart, funny novel. In 1992, rich Ben meets poor-ish Sam in a New Hampshire sandwich shop. Ben is working on a political... Read More

Book Review

The Sixteen Trees of the Somme

by Elaine Chiew

Lars Mytting’s "The Sixteen Trees of the Somme" is an intricate and evocative literary mystery about an orphaned Norwegian man whose family history is caught in between two world wars and the German Jewish sides of WWII. Growing up on... Read More

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