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Apr 11 2012in Book Reviews, Features by lelamichael
Much of this collection, a trio of short stories and extra material to boot, features characters with previous appearances in the short fiction of Carolyn Moncel. Following the three stories there is an Epilogue, a Mini-Interview of the author, some handy Book Club questions, an excerpt from Carolyn’s forthcoming novel Geneva Nights, and blurbs for [...]
Apr 5 2012in Book Reviews, Features by lelamichael
Imagine being invited to lunch by your ex-husband and his wife to discuss what to do with the hard-to-manage teenager you all have in common. Imagine that, instead of actually going to lunch, they simply stay in the car, turn to you as you sit in the back seat, and accuse you of providing drugs [...]
Apr 3 2012in Book Reviews, Features by wanda carruthers
To enter the world in Promised Valley Rebellion is to experience a culture that is both familiar, with the emotions, fears, temptations and desires all humans possess, yet faraway and misty and almost like the Middle Ages, but not even exactly like that either. It’s definitely in another time – one that divides its days [...]
Apr 2 2012in Book Reviews, Features by tbmarkinsonTags: Fiction, Novella
“I just wanted to see what was simply hidden by their shame. I just wanted to see what they did when the forces of the social world weren’t constraining them.” Brendan Cox’s Left Unspoken is not your everyday novella. When Raymond “Ray” Cobley was six years old he learned that his parents agreed to have everything he says [...]
Tags: Fiction, Novella
Mar 19 2012in Book Reviews, Features by Elaine L. Orr
In Set Yourself Free Ellery, Ellery Roulet is an American with a career in Paris and she has made an emotionally crushing discovery. It threatens her marriage to Julien and the life she knows as a mother to twins Evie and Maddie. The story is told from Ellery’s point of view as well as that [...]
Mar 15 2012in Book Reviews, Features by lelamichael
Derek Thompson is a confident young man. “The reason I enjoy making lists so much,” he writes, “is that it is almost impossible to screw up. I mean it’s your list.” So it is with memoir: personal experience is something owned. Although this book is primarily made with blog posts, this is definitely a memoir. [...]
Mar 15 2012in Book Reviews, Features, Podcasts by Jane Kalmes
In this episode of The Indie Book Podcast, we review The Mill River Recluse, a literary novel that made a huge splash [...]
Mar 8 2012in Book Reviews, Features by lelamichael
I look for clues within the first paragraphs of a novel as to what particular kind of story the author wants to tell me and how she intends to go about it. The first two sentences of this novel irritated me: “I don’t want to be a writer. I want to be a painter.” That [...]
Mar 6 2012in Book Reviews, Features by Boudica Foster
Detective John Ressler is faced with a series of murders that defy logic. The serial killer has an artistic streak; setting his victims in some outlandish poses, painting them, photographing them, dressing them and creating works to enhance their death – and leaving the art at the scene. What is even more bizarre is that [...]
Mar 5 2012in Book Reviews, Features by lelamichael
No doubt the kick-ass reluctant-hero-with-a-tortured-soul in this debut novel will achieve rock star status with readers. But let’s not leave the author out of the limelight. In his debut crime thriller Mark Samojedny kills it with mechanical craft, weaving metaphor and mysticism into the action in a mean, lean style guaranteed to leave the audience [...]