Book Review
The Remembered Soldier
by Karen Rigby
Amnesia and the complications of rebuilding a marriage inspire Anjet Daanje’s pensive historical novel "The Remembered Soldier", in which a Belgian veteran of the Great War grapples with fragile versions of the truth. After years...
Book Review
The Tiny Things Are Heavier
by Karen Rigby
An immigrant contends with alienation and love in Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo’s spirited novel "The Tiny Things Are Heavier". Nigerian Sommy is a graduate student in Iowa, though she’s ambivalent about the virtues of the American...
Book Review
The Gowkaran Tree in the Middle of Our Kitchen
by Karen Rigby
In Shokoofeh Azar’s intricate fabulistic novel "The Gowkaran Tree in the Middle of Our Kitchen", an Iranian girl comes of age in a time of war. When a gowkaran tree—likened to the Tree of Life, though no one seems certain about its...
Book Review
The Miniaturist's Assistant
by Karen Rigby
An art conservator, a scholar, and a portraitist embrace the mysteries of love and ancestry in Katherine Scott Crawford’s enchanting fantasy novel The Miniaturist’s Assistant. In 2004, Gamble works in a Charleston museum. Fascinated...
Book Review
North of Sunset
by Karen Rigby
An inventive, fabulistic novel, "North of Sunset" sets a dark scientific experiment against a background of glittering opulence. In Haley Ahern’s alluring futuristic novel "North of Sunset", a young man becomes involved with a tycoon...
Book Review
A Man Askew
by Karen Rigby
"A Man Askew" is an intriguing novel in which an everyman’s fortunes take unusual twists. A downtrodden copy editor investigates his detective father’s past in Joe Costanzo’s brooding novel "A Man Askew", about uncertainties in the...
Book Review
The Moth
by Karen Rigby
"The Moth" is a wry noir novel in which an everyman with a complicated past navigates criminality and its consequences in Los Angeles. A pawnbroker on the criminal fringes encounters trouble in Scott Archer Jones’s entertaining novel...
Book Review
Love in a Dark Place
by Karen Rigby
A man revisits an ill-fated love affair in the gritty, tragedy-infused Atlantic City novel "Love in a Dark Place". A former lover reflects on his lost partner in Geoffrey Douglas’s historical novel "Love in a Dark Place", about...