Category: Book Reviews

Book Reviews

A review of Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents

Jeff Herman’s iconic Guide to Book Publishers, Editors and Literary Agents is a well-respected industry standard, much like Writers Market. Now in its 28th Edition, the Guide enjoys continued acclaim and popularity—and there is a good reason for this. Flatly stated, it’s just the one of the best, if not the best, of many (many!) writers’ guides out there.

A Review of Little Reunions by Eileen Chang

Chang’s cool precise descriptions, reminiscent of her great American contemporary Jane Bowles, are spiked by preternatural attentiveness to light and colour, as in an early scene when Julie walks in the campus grounds where, ‘The sun had baked the red flowers in the blue ceramic flower pots, and had transformed them into little black fists, and had bleached the sea to a faded blue, like old blue linen drenched in sweat.‘

A review of Cedar Valley by Holly Throsby

The life of the town centres around the pub, and the way in which the death provides a source for gossip, intrigue and transformation, but also in some respect brings the town together to support one another is charming.  Cedar Valley is immensely readable and progresses in ways that are unpredictable but also smooth and natural.

A review of Atlas of Men by David Sklar

Inspired by these true events and the impact on his life, author David Sklar—an emergency physician, researcher, and professor—writes from the heart and the mind with a broad scope as he tells his story. The author states that he too was subjected to the nude photography and somatotyping as part of a so-called research project while a student at an elite New Hampshire prep school.

A review of Naming the Silence by Michael David Blanchard

Blanchard consistently displays an ease with poems in both short and long form and reveals a practiced command of nuanced phrasing, versification, and evocative imagery. While the works might be somewhat more formal in style than those of many of his contemporaries, there is no dominant or predetermined verse form here.

A review of The Northway by Lisa Bellamy

With its keen eye and impeccable phrasing, Lisa Bellamy’s The Northway gives us good-natured laughter, the kind of feeling you get from a Masterpiece Theater series…and it is ever so much more respectable and rewarding than a binge-watch.

A review of Crowd of One by Filip Severin

There is a great deal of talk about ‘the big picture’ in Crowd of One, a metaphor frequently used to make the ends justify the means and enable a megalomaniac’s vision to outweigh a world of suffering.

Great new giveaway!

We have 3 copies of In the Measuring by Carol Smallwood to giveaway.

To win, sign up for our Free Newsletter on the right hand side of the site and enter via the newsletter. Winner will be chosen by the first of January 2019 from subscribers who enter via the newsletter.