There is the feel and spirit of epic family saga in Diamond Head (Harper Perennial), Cecily Wong’s debut novel, yet the book is not a doorstop. Wong’s style is spare and lean and she manages to impart a feeling of… Continue Reading
The recent success of several novels based on the lives of some of history’s remarkable women has seen a rash of girl power-type novels go to press, bringing us glimpses into the possible lives of a bunch of women we… Continue Reading
There’s always an element of magic in Menna van Praag’s writing. The Witches of Cambridge (Ballantine) is Van Praag’s third novel after 2013’s The House at the End of Hope Street and 2015’s The Dress Shop of Dreams and here she… Continue Reading
(Editor’s note: This review comes from Steven Nester, host of Poets of the Tabloid Murder, a weekly Internet radio show heard on the Public Radio Exchange [PRX]. Nester is also a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Rap… Continue Reading
The Crooked Heart of Mercy will be out January 5 from Random House Canada and in the US it will be available in March from HarperCollins. It’s a very special book. Author Billie Livingston is a long-time friend of January… Continue Reading
The word “decade” starts the word “decadence,” and while that’s only a twist of linguistic fate, at no time was that more apt a pairing of words than the 1980s, a period when excess was the way of the day,… Continue Reading
It’s possible that the cover gives too much away. Stark and pink, a single fork takes center stage, the tines delicate, carefully made… and laced with blood. This is the paperback cover of David Cronenberg’s Consumed (Scribner) a book which… Continue Reading
Crisp, sharp and sometimes wickedly funny, readers might find themselves tuning in for the potential hotness in Married Sex (Open Road), but this isn’t Fifty Shades of Grey. Not but any stretch. Though Married Sex is Kornbluth’s debut, he’s proved… Continue Reading
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jane Smiley’s quietly brilliant Some Luck was nominated for the National Book Award upon first publication in 2014. Newly out in paperback from Anchor Books, this first book in Smiley’s planned trilogy is stunning. It manages to be… Continue Reading
Irvine Welsh is not an acquired taste. But no matter what he’s writing about, he is consistent. He draws his images and ideas with big, bold lines liberally lubricated with profanity. If you liked or loved Welsh’s previous dozen novels… Continue Reading