Literary Fiction

Thrillers

Claustrophobic Murder Mystery Swerves Between Truths and Lies

Reef Road by Deborah Goodrich Royce is a delicious and psychologically astute side-by-side story expertly teased out by a crafty writer. On one side, Royce introduces an eccentric writer obsessed with the unsolved 1948 murder of her mother’s girlhood best friend. She observes, “I grew up in the shadow of a…

Jessica McEnteeJanuary 10, 2023

Fiction

Taiwanese Author’s English Debut is a Musical Journey of Self-Discovery

“Anyone with enough experience can make up stories, but only those who truly understand the world have something meaningful to say.” That quote, from a Nobel literature laureate, is used by a nameless piano tuner to describe what defines for him a widower grieving for his young wife in The…

BookTribJanuary 3, 2023

Fiction

Tennis Champion Returns to Court to Reclaim Her World Record

Attention Tennis Lovers! So much to love in Carrie Soto is Back! I love how the former tennis champion decides to come out of retirement to defend her title; I love her relationship with Javier Soto, her handsome and proud father and coach; I love the developing romance with a fellow…

Jennifer BlankfeinDecember 20, 2022

Fiction

Novella Imagines Mussolini’s Role in Libyan Family’s Life

On the cusp of the Second World War, Mussolini held Libya in the grips of his fascist rule. His dictatorship aimed to colonize the country which sustained anti-capitalist and anti-fascist sentiments. Salah El Moncef’s Benghazi (Penelope Books) is a fictionalized version of this historical event, told from the perspective of…

Megan BeauregardDecember 13, 2022

Fiction Fiction - Featured Recommended

Resplendent Work of Literary Fiction is Feast for the Senses

One of the most notable characteristics of our modern age is our preference for — perhaps even reliance on — bite-sized and easy to digest content. This focus on simple content has bled into nearly every facet of our culture, some areas more obviously than others. While Instagram, Tiktok, feeds…

Wyatt SemenukNovember 2, 2022

Fiction Romance Romance - Featured

One Young Woman’s Rebellion Against a Society Divided by Race

The Great Peony: Safina Cameron (Pretty Publications) flips the script on racism and discrimination, imagining a world where dark-skinned people thrive in High Society, while light-skinned people make up the lower class with less access to resources and education. Jannah Bayyan has crafted a fascinating piece of speculative literary fiction…

Megan BeauregardSeptember 15, 2022

Fiction Romance

Breathtaking Icelandic Literary Romance Between Artists

Author Barbara Linn Probst enjoys an enriching life, digging deep with people and experiencing places, and it shows in her writing. The Color of Ice (She Writes Press), her latest novel, takes us to Iceland with Cathryn, a single mom who has put her needs aside to raise her children and…

Jennifer BlankfeinDecember 8, 2022

Fiction Listicles Listicles - Featured

United We Stand: 6 Stories of Americans in the Age of Protest

To summarize 1960s America with one event or novel would be a tremendous disservice to that era. The decade was shaped by the Vietnam War, political protests, the civil rights movement, second-wave feminism, hippie counterculture and a thriving music scene. But these major events weren’t the only factors in shaping…

Megan BeauregardAugust 29, 2022

Fiction Fiction - Featured

“The Last White Man” Speculates About Racism and Prejudice

The central theme of Mohsin Hamid’s The Last White Man (Riverhead Books) is straightforward: race is a construct. In this highly anticipated novel from the author of the bestselling Exit West, the main character Anders is distressed when his skin suddenly changes to a deep, unmistakable shade of brown. He…

Michael FerryAugust 9, 2022

Fiction Fiction - Featured

Long-Divorced Lucy Barton Finds Love During Pandemic

A LONG-DIVORCED COUPLE'S UNEXPECTED BOND IN THE EARLY LOCKDOWN DAYS In Elizabeth Strout’s latest novel Lucy By The Sea (Penguin Random House), Lucy Barton draws us right in with her first few words, understated, self-effacing and intimate: “Like many others, I did not see it coming. But William is a…

Anne Eliot FeldmanSeptember 19, 2022

Fiction Recommended

Literary Tale of Dark Forces, Genetic Manipulation and Culture Wars

These are just a few of the colorful characters and mirror plots populating Willard Thurston’s illustrated novel, Apsara. Like many of Thurston’s novels, Apsara defies ready summation. It’s a sprawling, interconnected web of hidden agendas, deceit, entrapment, alliances and sabotage, all amid a bevy of complex schemes that shift constantly…

Cynthia ConradNovember 28, 2022

Thrillers

Laurie Petrou’s Sibling Rivalry on Steroids

In Laurie Petrou’s Sister of Mine (Crooked Lane Books), the lives of two orphaned sisters, Hattie and Penny, begin to fray as longstanding resentments, sibling rivalry and unpaid debts overflow and the ties of sisterhood start to snap. It’s a fast-paced thriller by Petrou, a debut novelist who also is an…

BookTribJuly 30, 2018

Fiction Fiction - Featured

“My Name Is Edward”: A Novel of Homelessness, Heartbreak and Hope

My Name Is Edward by Annmarie Topel is a carefully crafted debut novel based on personal experience. “This is a story of fiction inspired, in part, by true events,” she writes. She dedicates her book to the homeless man, who in her book she names Edward: “You will always be in…

Joanna PoncavageJune 15, 2022

Fiction Fiction - Featured

A Thoroughbred’s Harrowing Tale Sparks a Mystery at the Smithsonian in “Horse”

Pulitzer prize winner, Geraldine Brooks, dashes out of the gate with a bittersweet antebellum tale of horse racing in her latest thrilling novel Horse (Viking). A mystery unfolds as a Nigerian-American graduate student, Theo Northam, is struggling to find the topic for his PhD dissertation in Art History. Theo, a…

Jodé MillmanJune 14, 2022

Fiction Thrillers Thrillers - Featured

Old Drive-In Theater Reels In “Misery”-Type Anti-Heroine and Frightful Supporting Cast

John Searles has written an intensely compelling book of suspense in his current novel Her Last Affair (Mariner Books). It begins in a light-hearted vein with laugh-out-loud humorous lines but as swiftly as the reader thinks “this looks fun,” a twisting slide down the funhouse chute pops open with a…

Linda HitchcockMarch 22, 2022

Fiction Thrillers Thrillers - Featured

An Eccentric, Jigsaw Spy Story with Rich Rewards for Language Lovers

Two half-sisters lose their way — and their identities — while working undercover in Willard Thurston’s Russian espionage novel, Anastasia: An Enduring Dream. It’s a densely packed tale full of facades of varying authenticity, bomb formulas, plastic surgery, sex changes, and even a supercomputer that can predict the future. It’s also…

BookTribFebruary 2, 2022

Resplendent Work of Literary Fiction is Feast for the Senses

One Young Woman’s Rebellion Against a Society Divided by Race

United We Stand: 6 Stories of Americans in the Age of Protest

“The Last White Man” Speculates About Racism and Prejudice

Literary Tale of Dark Forces, Genetic Manipulation and Culture Wars

Laurie Petrou’s Sibling Rivalry on Steroids

“My Name Is Edward”: A Novel of Homelessness, Heartbreak and Hope

A Thoroughbred’s Harrowing Tale Sparks a Mystery at the Smithsonian in “Horse”

Old Drive-In Theater Reels In “Misery”-Type Anti-Heroine and Frightful Supporting Cast

An Eccentric, Jigsaw Spy Story with Rich Rewards for Language Lovers

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