It Ends with Knight (Thomas & Mercer 2023) is the impressive conclusion to the Nena Knight thriller series by Yasmin Angoe. Although it can be read as a stand-alone, you won’t want to miss the first two Knight books, Her Name is Knight and They Come at Knight. The dazzling and deadly Nena Knight is a Black assassin working for the African Tribal Council. Their mission is to unite Africa and make life better for all of its citizens. Sometimes, that means removing obstacles—which is Nena’s role. Deliverer of vigilante justice. There are plenty of assassin thrillers out there, but this one is ..read more

At What Cost, Silence: The Texian Trilogy, Book 1 is the brilliant debut from author Karen Lynne Klink. The dramatic turns that affect the Villere family household over the course of more than a decade form the essence of the narrative while each chapter is seen through various characters’ perspectives. The accounts of Adrien and Bernadette are often the most poignant as the progression from youth to early adulthood comes with both triumphs and heartache. The Villere family is a medium sized clan living in East Texas. The family’s patriarch, Paien, makes a fairly profitable living farming toba ..read more

Karen Klink’s debut novel, At What Cost, Silence? is set in antebellum East Texas just prior to the Civil War. Karen’s main character, young Adrien Villere, while fearing “unnatural” proclivities, yearns for the love and acceptance of his father. When I spoke with Karen, she was open and willing to answer any questions concerning connections with herself, the story, and its characters. SB: What drove you to write a story about a young bisexual man who lived in 1849?  KK: Because of my father, I grew up in a dysfunctional family and know what it’s like not to feel accepted at home and ..read more

The captivating tales in Kim Bradley’s award-winning Spillway (Stephen F. Austin State University Press 2022) are stunning, well-crafted pieces that display the power of short stories at their finest. Bradley writes with compassion and insight about a class of people no doubt considered outcasts, and her empathy and understanding of her characters form the back-bone of the appeal in these tales. Another component of that appeal is her careful use of poetic devices to enrich the stories and make reading them a sheer delight. There are no wasted words in Spillway’s tales with their sharp focus a ..read more

  Stephanie Barko, Literary Publicist Stephanie Barko is a literary publicist specializing in pre-pub adult historical novels and nonfiction.     The post Stephanie Barko appeared first on Southern Literary Review ..read more

There are unwritten rules one must at least consider when attempting to mention an author’s place among the masters of the Southern literary canon. One of those is to include no less than two quotes from William Faulkner. So, let us begin. “A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.” – William Faulkner (probably) George Singleton is a remarkably unique commentator and gifted observer of American culture in general and the weirdness of the Southern ethos in particular. Over the course o ..read more

Indigo Field (Regal House, 2023) by Marjorie Hudson contains many strong elements, rather than one. She pulls off this feat with a full panoply of writing skills on display. First, Hudson creates a compelling story with three fully developed sets of racially diverse characters whose lives intersect in both harmony and conflict. The most important character, however, might just be the tangled and wild Indian Field in North Carolina around which the novel’s action takes place. Also, a touch of magical realism underpins the story in two ways. It shows up in the history of the Tuscarora culture th ..read more

DM: Mimi, I fell in love with your coming-of-age novel, The Kudzu Queen. Writing any book is a big undertaking that takes many months if not years. How long did you work on this book? MH: I’ve recently discovered something that surprised me. For a long time, I was convinced that I’d spent sixteen years writing The Kudzu Queen, but as I was going through some old boxes I came across the very beginnings of this book—over sixty pages, handwritten on yellow legal pads—that I wrote in 1994-95. By the time I’d finished my first two days of writing this book, I’d already developed the main characters ..read more

Award-winning author, James McBride, said to new writers, “The simple story is the best story,” and that is exactly what Chika Unigwe’s novel authored with her latest novel, The Middle Daughter. But Unigwe is not new to writing by any means. She writes essays, poetry, novels, and short stories. She has been published in numerous anthologies, journals, and magazines and has been awarded multiple fellowships. Her novel, On Black Sister’s Street, won the very prestigious 2012 Nigerian Prize for Literature. In 2003, she won the BBC Short Story Competition. Unigwe’s writing awards, bibliography, an ..read more

The poems in Magicicada and other Marvels (Shanti Arts LLC 2022), a collection by Georgia poet Kathleen Brewin Lewis, are filled with the magic of Southern flora and fauna as the title suggests, yet they are much more than nature poems. Written with an abiding sense of grace and understated wisdom, these are poems meant to be savored, even studied. Warm and relatable, these are resoundingly well written works where rivers, hiking, children, family, and friends take center stage. A Magicicada is a genus of the periodical cicadas of the Eastern United States. In the poem bearing that word as its ..read more