Percy’s skill as a novelist shines throughout The Dark Net. Each of his quirky, yet believable, characters are given interesting backgrounds and compelling motivations. The story is fast-paced, action-packed, and—at more junctures than I could count—intense to a delightfully uncomfortable degree.
A review of A Miscellany of Diverse Things by Philip Kobylarz
Many of the poems in the collection challenge the identity of the object in question. A loaf of bread becomes spies wearing raincoats, soap becomes dirty, and maps become the very cause of being lost. The dichotomous nature of the writing allows one to ponder about how the identity of something changes as it finishes its assigned purpose.
Gerry Orz talks about Lucky or Not Here I Come
Gerry Orz is an award winning actor, director, producer, youth activist, and author of the book Lucky or Not, Here I come, released this month. He drops by to read from Lucky or Not Here I Come and to discuss his inspiration…
A review of Z213: EXIT by Dimitris Lyacos
Dimitris Lyacos’ Z213: EXIT is a revelation. A masterpiece. Distinctly postmodern yet entirely unclassifiable, it is everything and nothing all at once. Despite the myriad references to literature, it is entirely new – I have never read anything like it, and this stunning translation is truly head-spinning.
An interview with Tess Gerritsen
Internationally bestselling author Tess Gerritsen drops by to talk about her new book I Know a Secret including her inspiration and characters, about writing a series, about writing autopsy and crime scenes, about working in multiple genres, her influences, work-in-progress, and lots more.
A review of Datsunland by Stephen Orr
This selection of short stories concluding with the major work “Datsunland” is beautifully written by a literary craftsman. They take the reader through and within the landscape of South Australia’s unique ecosystem, into places tinged and contaminated with saturnine and fateful conclusions. As I searched through the pages I found myself trapped within a boiled down distillation of this state’s home-style miseries and heartbreaks.
A review of The Bookshop at Water’s End by Patti Callahan Henry
Novels about girlhood friends reuniting as adults and reinventing their relationship are always popular. In The Book Shop at Water’s End by Patti Callahan Henry, the “summer sisters” are Bonny and Lainey, now in their fifties, who have kept in touch since their three pre-teen summers at Watersend, South Carolina, in the 1970s. As the story opens, Bonny is about to leave her domineering husband and her job as an Emergency Room doctor in Charleston, SC for a better position in Atlanta, GA.
A review of Prisms, Particles, and Refractions by Carol Smallwood
Carol Smallwood has the talent of making scientific concepts artistic. Her previously published poetry collection In Hubble’s Shadow also deals with science and the mysteries of the universe. Her writing includes a unique combination of traditional poems along with contemporary creations.
An interview with Edward Carlson
The author of All the Beautiful People We Once knew talks about his new novel, about his inspiration for fictionalising his experiences as a lawyer in a NYC law firm defending big insurance companies being sued by soldiers returning from contracting jobs in Iraq and Afghanistan, his characters, some of the insights about US politics and its dysfunction that underpinned his novel, the intersection of mental illness, war, and profit, and much more.
A review of Kylie’s Ark by Rita Welty Bourke
It’s invariably true that Herriot’s animal stories ended happily, as she notes. Her stories, well, invariably do not. They resist a chipper ending and, indeed, conspire to break her heart. Being a veterinary student certainly is no picnic for her, but when she’s finally graduated and chosen to set up her practice, the life still is no picnic. Not that Wheeler wishes it was! Her last words confess that she’ll look for another line of work if she ever stops struggling to save suffering animals in her care.