Book Review
The Missing Morningstar
The artful stories of Stacie Shannon Denetsosie’s unflinching collection "The Missing Morningstar" are set in the Navajo Nation, where people who struggle to overcome adversity often derive comfort from their community’s traditions....
Book Review
The Formation of Calcium
M. S. Coe’s experimental novel "The Formation of Calcium" is presented as the transcripts of tapes made by a middle-aged woman who is stuck in upstate New York with her depressed and abusive husband. Mary Ellen is quirky and...
Book Review
Bad Mothers, Bad Daughters
Several of the stories in Maya Sonenberg’s collection "Bad Mothers, Bad Daughters" are fairy tales. Although populated with kings and princesses and dragons and giants, these fairy tales also contain a dash of the modern. There’s a...
Book Review
The Precarious Walk
Phyllis Barber is, more than anything else, an explorer. In "The Precarious Walk", she explores the physical and mental landscapes that make up her world. Her settings include places as diverse as the Mojave Desert, Ecuador, and...
Book Review
The Honeybee Emeralds
What young woman wouldn’t want to discover a secret basement room filled with sequined gowns, feather boas, and wigs? In Amy Tector’s novel "The Honeybee Emeralds", Alice Ahmadi is that lucky woman. And then she puts her hands in the...
Book Review
My Annihilation
“Turn the page, and you may give up your entire life” begins "My Annihilation", Fuminori Nakamura’s jigsaw puzzle of a novel exploring themes of connection and consequence through personal identity and responsibility. In a remote...
Book Review
Dangerous Waters
In Susan Hunter’s thriller Dangerous Waters, a newspaperwoman undertakes a murder investigation while navigating the difficulties of her romantic life. Leah returns to her dilapidated hometown after a failure in the big city. Leah’s...
Book Review
The White Angel
A Scottish nanny is shot and dies in the home of her wealthy employers, initiating the scandal that inspired John MacLachlan Gray’s novel "The White Angel". It takes a sweeping view of life in Vancouver in 1924. Labor unrest, enormous...