Kylie Grant reviews Emma Henderson’s debut novel, “Grace Williams Says It Loud”: “it is a brave book and one that plays with the reader as often as it wants to pass comment on the experiences of those forced into the fringes of society.”
When She Woke by Hillary Jordan
As a warning for a future in which women lose the right to control their bodies, When She Woke is a solid contribution to the cannon of literature that cautions us against allowing religion to become government, for government to be able and actively monitoring all citizens, and for a future in which our reactions to plagues or violence lead us to lose our rational minds and submit to irrational tactics to seemingly solve our inability to comprehend or live with ambiguity.
Solitaria by Genni Gunn
Val B. Russell reviews Solitaria, by Genni Gunn, a novel "with an earthy, lusty, almost ancient tone that lingers long after you close the book."
Sea Level by Nancy Kilgore
Laura Delaplain reviews Nancy Kilgore’s newly-released first novel, Sea Level, about the first female minister in a rural, coastal Virginia church of the 1980s: “Kilgore skillfully weaves theological diversity, lived spirituality, and indigenous belief into this tale of grace.” Read more from this review…
The Beautiful One Has Come: Stories by Suzanne Kamata
Wendy Jones Nakanishi reviews The Beautiful One Has Come, a collection of short stories by Suzanne Kamata: “Certain themes run through Kamata’s work like a refrain, or like the insistent pulse of life itself. These include the agonies and ecstasies of parenthood, with both its pleasures and its pains exacerbated for the fathers and mothers of disabled children. Kamata is also skilled at portraying the messy compromises entailed in personal relationships, especially those involving couples of different nationalities, and she is good at outlining the difficulties experienced by adventurous spirits who dare to venture from the familiar and the safe by settling in a country such as Japan that can seem profoundly foreign to its non-native inhabitants.” Read more of this review.
House Arrest by Ellen Meeropol
Melissa Corliss DeLorenzo reviews Ellen Meeropol’s debut novel, House Arrest. In the review, Corliss DeLorenzo writes: “Meeropol takes the reader deeply into the complexities of friendship and the blurred lines of right and wrong as the characters confront painful pasts and reach conclusions that allow them to move beyond the limitations of those histories.” Read more of this review.
boysgirls by Katie Farris
Val B Russell reviews Katie Farris’ boysgirls, her debut collection of stories. Russell writes in the review, “As the title suggests, the book is split into gender specific sections. “Girls” is Farris’ intelligent and pointed treatment of what it means to be a girl based on her own modern mythical creatures. “Mise en Abyme,” depicts a girl with a mirror for a face. (…) In the second half, “Boys,” we encounter the male characters. “The Boy With One Wing” is clearly a reference to the emotional neutering of boys by a patriarchal society. (…) Read more from this review.
You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siohban Fallon
Mayra David reviews Siohban Fallon’s debut novel, You Know When the Men Are Gone: “Among the plethora of truly touching impressions one takes away from these short stories, the title story actually conveys the essence of the strongest one: the sheer emptiness of Fort Hood when the men are deployed. Imagine: a town loses 20,000 of its people, mostly men, in one day—husbands and fathers assigned to distance and danger somewhere overseas. (…)” Read more from this review.
Annabel by Kathleen Winter
Val B Russell reviews Kathleen Winter’s Annabel: “We live in a world that is, at its very biological core, based on gender and the differences inherent within. From conception to birth our female or maleness is the central focus of how we will be defined by our parents, peers and ultimately society as a whole. Boxes are ticked on birth certificates and other government forms, names are chosen in accordance with male or female determinations and we are assigned gender specific roles based on our genitalia and outward appearance. But what if we were born with both genders equally evident physically? What if the atmosphere into which we arrived was fearful and unforgiving of the difference? In her novel Annabel (Grove Press, 2011), Kathleen Winter courageously tackles much more than the complexity of the hermaphrodite, she challenges our notion of what gender truly means at the fundamental level of our humanity and she does it with the deft care and sensibility of an artisan. (…)” Read more from this review.
Clara and Mr. Tiffany: A Novel by Susan Vreeland
Mayra David reviews Clara and Mr. Tiffany: A Novel by Susan Vreeland, and writes, “What is it about this time in New York that so fascinates people? This is a question I often ask myself—usually when I head to my shelf to grab something by Edith Wharton that I’ve read several times before. Reading this book, Clara and Mr. Tiffany, I feel I have an answer….”
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