First-time author writes with aplomb, possesses a keen perception of how love undoes a human heart. “I get it. Broken hearts mend and in six months I’ll see that we were never right for each other anyway. But this middle distance... Read More

Growing up is hard. Growing up in a cult is harder, and this is the coming-of-age process that Jane endures in Lenore Zion’s "Stupid Children". After her father unsuccessfully attempts suicide, Jane is placed with foster parents who... Read More

In the conclusion to My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop, Emily St. John Mandel says, “Things happen in independent bookstores that don’t happen in the other places where we buy books.”... Read More

“Ships destroyed lives,” says Brian David Bruns, author and narrator of Unsinkable Mister Brown, and yet, he’s attempting the opposite: creating a life at sea for himself and his girlfriend, Bianca. What begins as a whirlwind... Read More

Esther Kohler has no fallback plan: She says, “I had, somehow, managed to graduate with a theater degree from Northwestern, but without a job or a trust fund I had to choose between moving home and suffering the rancid fate of a... Read More

“You have to know where you’re from to know where you’re at and where you’re going,” says Wade Salem, the narrator’s erstwhile father figure in Dylan Hicks’ novel "Boarded Windows". But these essentials are precisely what... Read More

In Sarah Shun-lien Bynum’s “The Young Wife’s Tale,” the narrator asks, “But why should Eva think of those old stories? … Could enchantment take hold among the recycling bins, the sickly houseplants, the student-loan... Read More

“The Stark River flowed around the oxbow at Murrayville the way blood flowed through Margo Crane’s heart.” These lines begin Bonnie Jo Campbell’s stunning new novel, Once Upon a River, a story whose seemingly simple rhythm is as... Read More