Thirteen-year-old Poppy Wainwright’s mother is a drug addict and drunk who roams the United States, leaving Poppy to be raised by her Grandma Lainey in Arkansas. When Lainey dies, Poppy is sent to live with her grandmother’s sister in Savannah. Aunt Sookie is an abrasive...

After d Dark by Aderonke Moyinlorun is a powerful novel with great psychological undertones, a story of abuse, revenge, and murder. Miki Daniels has suffered a lot from her childhood, including rape. After experiencing an abusive childhood and surviving the worst imaginable form of sexual...

A Matter of Issue by Carollyne Haynes takes a closer look at family relationships, elder abuse, and the problems that can occur when children allow greed and avarice to cloud their judgment of their family, once money becomes involved. It asks important questions such as...

In times like ours, when the spirit of consumerism is rank and rife, and when people tend to seek personal profit without caring about what happens to others or to the environment, An Extraordinary Year by Theresa Konwinski comes across as a powerful reminder of...

‘Some birds cannot be caged, and I’m one of them,’ says the title character in Ameerah by Rebekkah Ford. Ameerah is an eighteen-year-old young woman living in the heyday of Prohibition, living her life by her rules instead of those of her upper class, snobbish...

Asylum by Isobel Blackthorn is a work of women’s fiction. Although set in Australia, it’s a book that’s sure to speak to women everywhere. Twenty-nine-year-old Yvette Grimm reluctantly returns to the family farm in rural Australia after a ten-year absence, needing a place to regroup...

What a joy to pick up a book by a writer who really knows his craft! Daniel Side is that writer, and A Lesson in Revenge is a perfect example of the art of writing. While the genre of A Lesson in Revenge is thriller...

Suzanna Ricci’s marriage is on the rocks, leaving her feeling a failure. In Acqua Sacra by Keith Henderson, she is charged by her mother with the renovation of the old family house in Acqua Sacra, a small village in the Abruzzo region of Italy. She...

A Faithful Son by Michael Scott Garvin is the coming of age story of a young man who is trying to find his place in the world. Zach Nance is struggling to decide where he belongs in the world while it changes ever faster. Durango,...

An Air that Kills by Morgana Somerville is told from Emma Hendry, a lowly chamber maid’s point of view. The story initially shows the class divide between Emma and her young Edwardian mistress, Miss Alicia, and accurately portrays each in their given roles. However, this...