Southern

May 24

Review of Dimestore: A Writer's Life by Lee Smith

ICYMI: Smith evokes a vivid sense of the regional South in her fiction, and in this memoir she traces her Appalachian youth, offering...

Mar 23

Review of The Levee by William Kent Krueger

William Kent Krueger's writing is beautiful, and J.D. Jackson reads the audiobook wonderfully, but I felt impatient with the focus on...

Jan 6

Review of Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Kingsolver offers an epic story of a faulted, unlikely hero in danger of being crushed by exceptionally difficult circumstances. His...

Nov 2, 2022

Review of Horse by Geraldine Brooks

Geraldine Brooks's Horse digs into issues of race across three timelines, linked by a special bond between an enslaved man and a horse in...

Jul 21, 2022

Review of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson

Kim Michele Richardson's historical fiction offers a 1936 Appalachian setting, the magic and unassuming power of a rural librarian, and...

Jun 23, 2022

Review of All Her Little Secrets by Wanda M. Morris

All Her Little Secrets shines when Ellice Littlejohn wrests control of her increasingly dangerous circumstances and when racial issues...

Jun 2, 2022

Review of The Impossible Destiny of Cutie Grackle by Shawn K. Stout

Stout's recently published middle-grade story is irresistibly strange, full of difficulties and a tough young heroine's gritty...

May 5, 2022

Review of Wingwalkers by Taylor Brown

Brown's signature immersive details and wonderfully imagined, rich characters bring Depression-era scenes to life against an irresistible...

Apr 12, 2022

Review of The Gods of Howl Mountain by Taylor Brown

ICYMI: Taylor Brown's five-star, 1950s North Carolina-set novel offers mountain clans, whiskey runners, folk healers, family conflict,...

Feb 23, 2022

Review of The Saints of Swallow Hill by Donna Everhart

This Depression-era-set historical fiction story tracks characters in intensely difficult situations as they successfully fight for...

Feb 17, 2022

Review of One Foot in Eden by Ron Rash

ICYMI: North Carolina author Rash offers a fascinating, Appalachian-set mystery told from various points of view with a Southern gothic...

Jan 19, 2022

Review of Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics by Dolly Parton

Parton shares the background and context for 175 of her songs, frankly discussing her inspiration, life, and the formerly untouchable...

Oct 1, 2021

Review of The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash

ICYMI: Wiley Cash's The Last Ballad explores race relations and the fight for dignity in a 1929 North Carolina mill camp community....

Sep 29, 2021

Review of When Ghosts Come Home by Wiley Cash

I loved Cash's Eastern North Carolina setting, the character of Sherriff Winston Barnes, and the pulsing racial, class-based, and family...

Sep 15, 2021

Three Books I'm Reading Now, 9/15/21 Edition

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Wiley Cash's upcoming Southern mystery, When Ghosts Come Home; A Thousand Ships, Natalie Haynes's...

Aug 12, 2021

Review of The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

The Invention of Wings is historical fiction that tracks the characters of (the real-life) Sarah Grimke and her enslaved maid Handful...

Aug 11, 2021

Three Books I'm Reading Now, 8/11/21 Edition

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Paper & Blood, Kevin Hearne's second and final book in his quirky Ink & Sigil fantasy duology; The...

Aug 4, 2021

Three Books I'm Reading Now, 8/4/21 Edition

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading People We Meet on Vacation, Emily Henry's newest light fiction novel about best friends and polar...

May 14, 2021

Six Great Historical Fiction Stories about the Civil War

The Civil War Books This painful, terrible time in our nation's history makes for some poignant, brutal, often beautiful storytelling....

May 13, 2021

Review of The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Coates took his time building the story, and I felt as though he deliberately kept us in a plodding pace to emphasize the unwavering,...

Bossy Bookworm

Posts by Category

Post Archive

Join The Bossy Bookworm mailing list!

Bossy Bookworm

Posts by Category

​Post Archive

Join The Bossy Bookworm mailing list!

Post Archive