Review: Driving in Circles by Rita D’Orazio
★★★★½ 
Driving in Circles, by Rita D’Orazio, is an intriguing story that revolves around one family and their secrets.
Henry and Cynthia Jones are celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary by going on a ten-day cruise. They decide to bring along their three daughters and one son-in-law. What could go wrong? Plenty.
After two days, the youngest daughter leaves mysteriously. Jat thinks she knows why Joyce has left, but does she know the whole truth?
The older sister Skye is seen by her husband and Jat meeting with a handsome stranger. Why?
In the midst of all this drama is […]
In the gated community of the financial elite that makes up the Commonwealth of Richford Isles, William Schoenhausen, a naïve teenage heir to the Bernhard Schoenhausen fortune and legacy, begins a new term at the prestigious Richtown University. Looking for a way to show himself as worthy, mostly through a cunning scheme of odds and academic adulation, his easy-street plans are quashed when the school’s most popular girl, Julia Rechstaadt, happens to enrol in the school’s least popular course, an enrollment chosen as key part of Will’s scheme of flattery.
Afterlife by Tim Gurung follows Enos Bronte as he travels through the hereafter meeting many challenges along the way. He battles loneliness, isolation, barren landscapes, trapped souls, and other dark and disturbing visions as he attempts to navigate this difficult wilderness. Ultimately, the journey is worth it. Enos hasn’t been trapped in hell, he must fight his way through this otherwordly landscape to reach safety and redemption.
Approaching Twi-Night by M. Thomas Apple is an eloquent and tender novel about the minor league baseball pitcher, John “Ditch” Klein, and his on-again off-again relationship with the sport of baseball. He’s got a critical manager, critical family members, and his heart’s not entirely into the game. He’s feeling the tug of being a writer as well. This is a quiet novel in terms of scope, but in terms of the power of its sentences, it’s dynamic and moving. Approaching Twi-Night is literary fiction at its best.
Swim a Crooked Line by Al X. Griz follows several people’s lives in Nebraska: a farmer and his family including Chad who’s enlisted in the army in Afghanistan, and Rico, a linebacker for the Cornhuskers. Each character is richly imagined and contends with major societal issues. Swim a Crooked Line is a quiet novel about big ideas.
