Kathleen Reidy – Engineering a Love Story
Kathleen Reidy’s debut draws its force from the accumulated experience that made it possible. Her protagonist must learn to distinguish a life that looks settled from one she has chosen.
J. Brian Turk – Boston Psychiatric
There are few places less impressed by a fallen pharmaceutical executive than a free clinic. For the disgraced psychiatrist at the center of J. Brian Turk’s “Boston Psychiatric,” this constitutes a thorough education.
Parker Garrett – Adverse Events
Parker Garrett’s debut thriller, Adverse Events, makes the distance between what an organization promises and what it can be persuaded to do a crime scene.
Babette Fraser Hale – Narcissi
In Texas, where distance can acquire the force of destiny, movement is easily mistaken for progress. Cole Burnett, the dangerously appealing center of Babette Fraser Hale’s novel-in-stories, Narcissi, is always going somewhere.
Steena Holmes – When You Tell
“You always know that there’s something behind what’s being shown,” Steena tells me, recalling her years in ministry. That instinct, the suspicion that every polished surface conceals a crack, powers her latest novel, When You Tell.
Jerome Loving – After the Good War
In 1966, Jerome Loving returned from Vietnam to a country that seemed scarcely to have noticed his absence. There had been no victory, and there would be no homecoming of the sort associated with the Second World War, which he calls “the good war.” America was carrying on.
Todd Brown – Anna So Knows ‘Ya
A crime reporter makes an awkward tenant for a haunted mind. His occupation requires the reassuring distinction between what happened and what somebody believes happened. But give him a suspicious sound and certainty may become a professional liability.
Susan L. Katz – Pole Dancers at the Red Barn
In Susan L. Katz’s Pole Dancers at the Red Barn, The Red Barn offers no quick cure for pain, inherited or otherwise. Its promise is smaller and more credible. It
Edward McDonald – Chasing Goodfellas
If you’ve seen Gooodfellas, you’ve seen Ed McDonald. How did the prosecutor become a movie star? We’ve got the story.
Andru Reeve – Turn Me On, Dead Man
Andru Reeve discusses the biggest rumor of the rock era. Did Paul McCartney die? Was he replaced by a double?
Julie Esther Fisher – A Pearl Is Just an Accident
Julie Esther Fisher’s journey -back- to writing mirrors a grain of sand’s journey towards becoming a pearl.
Ronan O’Connell – Hidden In Plain Sight
As Ronan O’Connell suggests in his quietly subversive new book, Hidden in Plain Sight, the deeper truth of our most familiar monuments is not what we see, but what we have failed to notice.